Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 03, 2022

It's not only the State Department that says "Don't be so Jewish"

Breitbart publishes an excerpt from former US ambassador to Israel's David Friedman's upcoming book, Sledgehammer: How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East.

Word of my stubborn insistence on standing with our ally Israel had now circulated widely within the State Department. Another senior staffer decided to call me and offer the following advice: “Mr. Ambassador, don’t be so Jewish.”
“What?”
“Don’t be so Jewish. You represent the United States of America. Tone down the Judaism in your work.”
Don’t be so Jewish.
I was furious. “Do you think I am under any disillusion as to who I represent? I’m not a politically correct person but I have to ask you, why do the laws of political correctness not apply to Jews?”
“Just a free word of advice.” Worth the price.

This is a shocking anecdote, but only because the State Department staffer said out loud what so many believe.

The US State Department's Middle East history has been predominantly pro-Arab and antisemitic/anti-Zionist since the mid-19th century. A generation of diplomats came from the children of American missionaries to the Arab world who grew up with the endemic antisemitism of both Christianity and the Arab world.

Perhaps the best example of the State Department's embedded antisemitism came after the Balfour Declaration. Secretary of State Robert Lansing wrote to President Woodrow Wilson his opposition to the idea, claiming realpolitik reasons: "Many Christian sects and individuals would undoubtedly resent turning the Holy Land over to the absolute control of the race credited with the death of Christ." Wilson ignored him.

Similarly, Harry Truman overrode the State Department's objections to recognizing Israel in 1948.

As offensive as this statement was, we see that level of low-grade antisemitism all the time, everywhere. Antisemitic attacks in the United States in recent years only prompt broad outrage when the victims look like "normal" Americans. People love to write articles about how awful the Pittsburgh or Colleyville attacks were, but Jersey City and Monsey and daily attacks in Brooklyn do not get anywhere near the coverage.

Because the victims are too Jewish.

The same people - often Jews themselves - who are up in arms about attacks on Asians and Muslims generally ignore attacks on identifiably religious Jews, even though they happen more often. I just listed a number of such attacks in New Jersey, New York, Chicago and London only in the past week - and the left-wing Jews are all but silent. Because while they care so much about attacks on most people who don't look like themselves, when it comes to Jews, they only care when they can picture themselves as potential victims.

They can walk in Williamsburg or Boro Park and not worry about someone randomly attacking them.

In the first months of Covid-19, religious Jews were the scapegoats in the media and in New York City. They were singled out for insults and rules were made for religious Jewish gatherings that did not apply to secular gatherings.

The most egregious example of anti-religious antisemitism happened during the Crown Heights pogroms in 1991, when days of Blacks attacking Jews was reported as "clashes between two groups" because no one wants to appear racist - and no one cares about Jews being attacked when they insist on dressing in identifiably Jewish clothing.

The same thing applies to Israel. How many times have we heard insults about "religious settlers" and "ultra-Orthodox fanatics" in Israel? It is part of the normal discourse, and no one is even embarrassed to say such phrases.

People want a secular Israel, they want kibbutzim and Ben Gurion and Tel Aviv. They don't want Jews who assert their religious rights. They demand Jews cede the Temple Mount and Tomb of the Patriarchs to the Muslims, who insist that no Jews step foot into areas they built on top of Jewish holy places.

It isn't only the State Department. It is the media, it is academia, it is members of think-tanks. The attitude of "don't be so Jewish" is entrenched, and people who aren't religious are rarely tuned into how offensive and entrenched this attitude is. Jews are wonderful - as long as they aren't too Jewy.

In the end, Friedman was vindicated. His unabashed Judaism did not hurt peace - it helped. Arab leaders respect religious Jews more than secular Jews because they can relate better to them.

It was the yarmulka-wearing Jews who brokered peace with Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE. It is a yarmulka-wearing Jew who is negotiating Lebanese maritime border disputes with Israel. People who study how Jacob prepared for his meeting with Esau seem to be better negotiators than those who take graduate courses in political science and work as diplomats for decades.

The attitude of "don't be so Jewish" is everywhere, and it is pure antisemitism.

I don't use the word "antisemitic" loosely, but in the case of Amnesty International, it really fits.

Amnesty USA has spent the past two days posting a huge number of tweets to justify the "apartheid" report, which did not get a wonderful reception in the US.

In one thread, AmnestyUSA claimed that the organization treats all countries equally:

Amnesty International is committed to researching and documenting human rights abuses wherever they occur. We have issued reports on crimes against humanity committed by authorities in countries around the world, from China to Sudan to Saudi Arabia.

In 2017, Amnesty International released conclusive evidence that authorities in Myanmar are committing apartheid against the Rohingya.

Our sole mandate is to document and expose human rights violations wherever we find them and to issue recommendations that will remedy and end them.

As someone who has followed Amnesty's antisemitism for years, I sort of lost it.

Here is my response, fixing typos because I was so angry:

Why you are full of crap:
1. Oh, great, you also accused Myanmar of apartheid. So you are comparing Israel with a country that engaged in mass rapes and genocide. AND NO ONE ELSE is given the title "apartheid.". Not even China with Uighurs. Not Darfuris in Sudan. You are comparing Jews with the worst abusers ever. Drop dead.

2. You have OBSESSED over Israel. You spent untold time and money just to attack travel companies who don't discriminate against Jews in Judea and Samaria. Your priorities are all screwed up,@amnesty, and it happens to be against Jews. There's a word for that.

3. Remember your Gaza Platform? It's still there today. It was based on complete garbage input. I showed scores of photos of terrorists that you called "civilian" or even CHILDREN. I pointed it out. You never corrected it. Still online today. You KNOWINGLY lie about Israel.

4. But that wasn't the only dedicated website you set up to demonize Israel. You also have "Black Friday," paying web designers who knows how much to meticulously demonize Israel. You NEVER do anything remotely similar against anyone else. Not Myanmar, not China. NO ONE.

5. Do you spend so much time on Israel because you care about Palestinians? Of course not. Palestinians in Lebanon REALLY DO live under apartheid - special laws just against them, limits on where they can live. But your last report on them was in 2007! Why? NO JEWS.

6. Amnesty-UK has hosted antisemites in its space. But it refused to host a Jewish group! Why? Because you support f-king antisemites. elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2018/01/amnest…

7. You accept as credible the most absurd Palestinian lies, and you suspect anything a Jew says. Only one example: elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/10/outrag…

8. Remember back in 2013 when you accused Israel of limiting fuel into Gaza? It was a lie. Hamas was limiting fuel. You never corrected it. Why? Because you have a problem with Jews, you antisemitic jerks.
elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/12/amnest…

9. You try REALLY HARD to find things to blame on Jews, but when Hamas is caught on film using ambulances and hospitals for fighting - you claim you "can't find evidence" of the charges. Yes, you excuse Hamas war crimes - and Gaza civilians lose because of your unrestrained hate of the Jewish state. elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/08/amnest…

10. You have articles where you are against incitement to violence. Yet when Israel arrests an Israeli Muslim who has a long history of direct incitement to kill Jews, you support the threats. Because - Jews. elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/11/amnest…

11. Saleh Hijazi, Deputy Director for MENA at International, SUPPORTS TERRORISTS. His Facebook page includes tributes to senior Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan (who openly advocates blowing up Jews) and to airplane hijacker Leila Khaled.
Human rights. Yeah, right.

12. In 2015, Amnesty International rejected a motion to tackle the rise in antisemitic attacks in Britain at its annual conference.

You guys NEVER reject resolutions at your conferences - unless it is against antisemitism.

Now you claim to be against antisemitism. Sure.

13. Besides Gaza and Black Friday, you have a THIRD dedicated subdomain/website against Israel, about the "Nakba." Name one other country that has 2. I think you have 1 about Syria.
Don't tell us that you treat all issues equally. You HATE the only Jewish state.

I could do this all day. How you praise organizations that support terror and post antisemitism (YAS.) How you claim IDF soldiers can't be hurt by firebombs and boulders dropped on them. How you deny Hamas uses human shields - defending human rights violations.

ENOUGH.

Feel free to look at my MANY articles proving 's lies, bias, duplicity and false interpretations of international law. elderofziyon.blogspot.com/search/label/A…

And then AmnestyUSA made me even angrier with this thread which has nothing to do with their report:

On 1 June 2018, 21-year-old paramedic Razan al-Najjar was killed by Israeli sniper fire while she was treating injured protesters during the Great March of Return. Razan was wearing her white coat, clearly identifying her as a medic. According to an investigation by the New York Times, the sniper fired one round of live ammunition into the crowd.Moments earlier, Razan and three other Palestinian paramedics had moved closer to the fence to provide assistance to the injured protesters, holding up their hands to show they meant no harm. Razan was shot in the chest and died in hospital.Neither Razan nor her colleagues posed any threat to Israeli forces. Amnesty International believes that Razan Al-Najjar was wilfully killed - a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime.

Up until the last sentence, Amnesty was relying on the New York Times reporting of the incident, using hundreds of photos and videos to track the path of the bullet, something that only ever happens in Israel. But al-Najjar was indeed killed by an Israeli bullet, that part is accurate.

However, the New York Times didn't say that the sniper targeted the nurse. On the contrary, the investigation showed that the bullet fragmented and ricocheted off the ground, breaking into three pieces that hit three different people.

Amnesty takes the NYT investigation, and without adding any new information, decides that the NYT is wrong and the sniper aimed at the nurse. This is a figment of Amnesty's imagination and there is no evidence of it. One can claim the sniper was reckless or made a mistake, but one cannot say that it was a murder given the evidence.

Clearly, Amnesty is more interested in crucifying Israel than telling the truth. And that is a consistent pattern, as I have shown scores of times over the years.

Why did Amnesty USA decide to bring up this story from three years ago now? Because they want to deflect from the clear evidence that their "apartheid" report is biased and has no basis in international law. So they do what Twitter trollers do - ignore the evidence against their position and try to go on the offensive on an unrelated topic.Calling them trolls is generous. Because their only obsession centers on Jews.

02/02 Links Pt2: Twenty years after Daniel Pearl's death, the fight for justice continues; Whoopi Goldberg isn’t the only one who doesn’t understand antisemitism

From Ian:

Twenty years after Daniel Pearl's death, the fight for justice continues

Twenty years after his death at the hands of terrorists, the fight for justice for journalist Daniel Pearl continues, with the United States urging Pakistan to keep his kidnappers behind bars while his killer awaits a 9/11 trial at Guantanamo Bay .

Pearl, a 38-year-old Jewish American known as “Danny” to friends and family, was in Karachi after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, investigating Pakistani terrorist groups on behalf of the Wall Street Journal. He was following leads on al Qaeda and Richard Reid, the British-born “Shoe Bomber” accused of trying to blow up an American Airlines flight in December 2001 when he was abducted. Just over a week later, Pearl was beheaded on video by al Qaeda operatives on Feb. 1, 2002.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the terrorist found guilty in Pakistan for the kidnapping-for-ransom and murder of Pearl, had his conviction overturned in 2020 by a Pakistani court, though he has remained imprisoned as legal proceedings continue.

“The United States remains deeply concerned by the developments in the case of those involved in Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping and murder,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “We continue to expect the Pakistani government to ensure that justice is served and that Sheikh and his accomplices remain in government custody without relaxing current security restrictions.”

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, dubbed “KSM" and described as “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” in the 9/11 Commission Report, was a close ally of Osama bin Laden and was repeatedly waterboarded while in U.S. custody. He confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks and to being Pearl’s killer, and many experts agree he was the masked figure who beheaded the journalist in a horrifying video. Mohammed was charged in a death penalty case for 9/11 alongside four co-defendants, but that trial still hasn’t begun.

"We often wonder what Danny would say about the world in which we find ourselves today. We are still confronting the destructive ideologies of extremism and antisemitism that took his life,” Dr. Judea Pearl, Daniel’s father, told the Washington Examiner. “One thing we know for sure is that Danny lived and loved life to the fullest and would want us to do all in our power to ensure free press and meaningful steps towards a hate-free world."

Bernard-Henri Levy: A Plea to My German Friends

Given this confusion, German allies and friends, there’s only one solution.

Rekindle the spirit of Konrad Adenauer, Walter Hallstein, Wilhelm Roepke, the anti-Nazi and anti-Stalin founding fathers of the European Union.

Remind yourselves of that wall of shame, crossed under machine-gun fire, and brought down by Rostropovitch’s bow like the walls of Jericho by Joshua’s trumpets—and then remember how you grandly consecrated those lost in the Shoah with ash-colored stelae in the heart of Berlin.

Do not forget that you are the country of Kant’s categorical imperative, of Habermas’ constitutional patriotism, and also, before that, of a light Nietzschean wisdom that rejected the weight of a certain German spirit sick with power, hopeless prosperity, and satisfied conscience.

And hear those who, as I do, permit themselves to urge you: friends of science and philology, disciples of Hoelderlin and Novalis, heirs to Thomas Mann, Adorno, and the Countess Doenhoff, inhabitants of that Lorelei of thought and beauty which, as French poet Guillaume Apollinaire would have it, made all Europeans around her swoon—you deserve better than to serve as Putin’s doormat.

The Israelization of Judaism or the Judaization of Israel?

The limitation in the argument that Judaism is being Israelized is the fact that Israel itself is becoming more and more Jewish. And the Judaism of Israel is not simply a Bible and Hebraic culture-centric Judaism sought, at various moments, by David Ben-Gurion and other founders of Israel. Diaspora Judaism has struck back.

Yossi Shain is of course aware of this fact, and he is not exactly happy about it. In fact, beyond the obvious political dilemmas the country faces, one thing that could sabotage the continued development of The Israeli Century, according to Shain, would be if ever larger numbers of ever more religious Israelis decline to work.

It is easy to understand why some Israelis have been angry about welfare-receiving Haredis who do not serve in the military and who are paid to study while others risk their lives on the front lines and are called to service in thousands of other ways through their lives. But, beyond arguments about the need for the perpetuation of traditions of learning, this idea no longer captures the quickly shifting religious landscape in Israel.

One little-noticed reform (outside of Israel) during the early 2010s was a modest but noticeable cut in stipends for those Haredi students who opt to learn full time. And, as a result of this and other trends, many more Haredis have been joining the workforce. Along with this, there has been the continued rise of Israelis who define themselves as Hardal—a blend of Haredi and modern Orthodox who fully participate in the public life of the state.

The Judaization of Israel is, however, somewhat hard to see because very much of it is in flux. Traditions and observance are growing across the Israeli public sphere. But what forms will Jewish belief and practice take in the years ahead? Will mysticism grow still stronger? Will a more rationalistic Orthodoxy, compatible with both patriotism and liberalism, continue to grow? Will the older and newer diaspora religious movements (Conservative, Reconstructionist, etc.) finally take off in Israel even as they fade in North America? Judaism may be transformed in Israel but it will not escape the forms and practices developed in the diaspora. It may well be that the greatest role diaspora Jews can play in an Israeli century to come is to help Israelis think through the politics of religion.

The Slabodka Yeshiva in Hebron, circa 1929

This submission in itself should not be understood as an endorsement of the "Commission of Inquiry," including its mandate. I would like to offer information regarding the “underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict in and between the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel; as well as systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity."

My name is Varda Meyers Epstein and I would like to tell you about my husband’s cousin, Jacob (Yaacov) Wexler, who was murdered in the 1929 Hebron Massacre because of his religious identity as a Jew.

Jacob (Yaacov) Wexler circa 1929

Jackie, as he was known, grew up in Chicago, where he was a promising student at the Hebrew Theological College. During a family visit to British Mandate Palestine, 16-year-old Jackie begged to stay in order to study at the famed Slabodka Yeshiva (seminary) in Hebron. Jackie’s father Richard, after being reassured by American students already at the seminary that Jackie would be safe and well taken care of, consented to allow his son to stay and fully immerse himself in his Torah studies.

During his time at the yeshiva, Jackie was happy. In a letter to his parents he praised the yeshiva and his life in the Land of Israel. "I've never experienced happiness my whole life as in Simchat Torah* in Hebron," he wrote.
In August of 1929, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El Husseini, preached from the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that the Jews planned to take control of the site. The Jews had no such plans and in any event, had no power. The British were in charge and they favored the Arabs. But the rumor that the Jews planned to take over the Mount was all that was needed to incite the Arab masses to violence.

The Mufti’s words unleashed a wave of pogroms beginning in Jerusalem and spreading to other cities. Angry Arab mobs stormed Safed and Hebron, massacring more than 100 Jews. Jackie Wexler, of Chicago, now 17, was one of the 67 Jews murdered in Hebron. Like the others, Jackie was murdered because he was a Jew.

There is documentation of what happened in Hebron. There were decapitations, gouged-out eyes, rapes, members cut off and stuffed into body cavities, limbs and digits sliced off, the heads of babies bashed against ancient walls. Women, babies, young children, and the elderly were all murdered. Jackie died from an axe blow to the head. All of these people were murdered because of their religious identity. They were murdered because they were Jews.

No one should be murdered because of their religious identity, no matter where they live. No young person should be murdered because of their religious identity while studying abroad at a seminary, no matter where that seminary is located. Jackie Wexler’s story is just one of many. Jews were killed because they were Jews before there was a state called “Israel.” Jews continue to be targeted in their own state in Arab terror attacks, only because they are Jews.

This is tragic. It is systematic discrimination based on religious identity—worse yet, it is murder, every time it happens—and it is plainly wrong.

In sharing this true story of a family member who was targeted and murdered in the city of Hebron because of his religious identity, I hope to add to the body of information examined by your “Commission of Inquiry.”
Further information and sources are listed below my signature.

Sincerely,

Varda Meyers Epstein

A Western Union telegram telling Jackie’s parents that they should prepare themselves “for the worst,” can be seen here: https://www.kedem-auctions.com/en/content/letters-yaacov-wexler-%E2%80%93-murdered-1929-massacre-yeshivat-hebron

A list of the 67 murdered Jews of Hebron can be seen here: http://en.hebron.org.il/history/520

Eyewitness testimonies from survivors regarding the Hebron Massacre can be seen here: http://hebron1929.info/Hebronletter.html

*Simchat Torah is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the yearly completion of the Torah as the new cycle is begun. The name of the holiday translates to “Rejoicing of the Torah.” See: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Simchat-Torah

***
Now that you've read my submission, I have to tell you that I am not sure it was the right thing to do. Will such submissions help? Does the submissions campaign give too much recognition and validity to the "Commission of Inquiry" witch hunt?

I honestly don't know. I procrastinated about sending them something. I went ahead only after two friends made sure I knew about the effort. They seemed to think this was a good idea. Or perhaps they only thought it was something I might want to do.

In the end, going ahead with this project made me uncomfortable. These people hate us. They're a malign presence in the world. And here I was, exposing my tragedy to them: submitting to them.

In light of these mixed feelings, I am not going to urge you to follow suit with your own submissions. I do however request that you take a look at the submissions campaign webpage and see what you think. While there, you can also learn how to submit your own testimony should you decide it's something you want to do: Pillay's Pogrom: The UN's "Commission of Inquiry" Targeting Israel.

[EoZ: I don't think that submitting testimony to this commission is helpful and it may give it legitimacy it does not deserve, since the entire point is to have the UN declare Israel to be an apartheid state and use this "evidence" before the ICC. But some people think that flooding it with pro-Israel testimony and have it ignored would make the point that it was never meant to be an objective commission.]

Standing Together (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

I still follow the rabbi of the largest (Reform) synagogue in the small California city where I lived before returning to Israel some 8 years ago. Yesterday, I saw that he wrote on his Facebook page that he and his institution, and I presume others of good will, “stand together,” against racial, religious, and anti-LGBTQ+ hatred, and “against all those who seek to divide us...all those who make people into 'others.'”

He wrote this in response to a news report that several historically black colleges had received bomb threats for the past two days.

I don’t mean to suggest that he is insincere about deploring various forms of prejudice, but could there be an emptier gesture? I was tempted to suggest that if he really wanted to take action, he should send a busload of congregants to the nearest historically black college where they could spend the day checking dumpsters and bus shelters for bombs, as I recall doing during my army reserve duty.

Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), in a perversion of its name and mandate, has established what Amb. Alan Baker calls “a permanent inquisition” against the State of Israel. With a large staff and budget, this “Commission of Inquiry” will proceed to demonize and delegitimize the one Jewish state. Even for the UN, such a one-sided “inquiry” is unprecedented, and its outcome will be used to justify prosecutions, sanctions and perhaps even expulsion from the international body for the Jew Among Nations.

I did not see that the rabbi mentioned this on his Facebook page. Again I was tempted to ask what he thought about it, since almost one of the first acts of the Biden Administration, for which at least 80% of his congregation voted, was to rejoin the UNHRC.

I also did not see any mention of Amnesty International’s vicious, antisemitic smear of Israel as an apartheid state, which will certainly be used as “evidence” by the UNHRC in its indictment of Israel. Amnesty’s report calls for the arrest and prosecution of Israel’s leaders whom it deems guilty of “crimes against humanity” [!] and sanctions against the country and any other countries that support it. It manages to almost entirely leave out the hundred-year long war against the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel that has been waged by Palestinian and other Arabs and their supporters (with the help of the Nazis, the Soviet KGB, and other interested parties). Even the Union for Reform Judaism, to my surprise, found the Amnesty report scandalous.

If there were ever a group that suffered from being made “others,” it would be the Jewish people. In addition to Israel’s confrontational enemies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, and the grass-roots antisemitism that appears to be popping up everywhere lately, there is also an organized and heavily funded international campaign against the Jewish state. Participants include the UN, the EU, and their allies in the so-called human rights industry, like Amnesty. If you read the Amnesty report, you will see that they will not be satisfied with anything less than the replacement of Israel with an Arab state. Anything else would deny the “human rights” of the millions of descendants of 1948 refugees. What would happen then to the Jewish people, inside and outside of Israel?

American Jews, some 90% of whom are non-Orthodox, make up the second largest Jewish community in the world (Israel recently surpassed it for the top spot). If they would “stand together” as the rabbi suggests, and present a unified political front to defend the Jewish state, it would be a powerful counterforce to the international conspiracy – there is no other word – against the State of Israel.

But unfortunately, they seem to care much more about every other identifiable group – blacks, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, and even Palestinian Arabs. When will we see the liberal Jewish establishment demand that its constituency “stand together” … for Israel?

02/02 Links Pt1: Amnesty International Wants to End the Jewish State; Amnesty report affirms PLO's 'apartheid' strategy; UAE proceeding with planned $10b. Israel investments

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Amnesty International hate group

Amnesty International has produced a report that claims Israel is an “apartheid” state. This follows similar diatribes by other NGOs obsessively promoting the delegitimisation and destruction of Israel.

Their strategy is to shift from their usual fare of false allegations about Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian Arabs in the disputed territories to false allegations about Israel’s oppression of Israel’s Arab citizens.

Libelling Israel as an “apartheid state” is the unconscionable agenda of the UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry, about which I wrote here, which is working hand-in-glove with NGOs in a veritable axis of evil determined to bring about Israel’s destruction.

The accusation of Israeli apartheid is risible, and anyone with a functioning brain can see at a glance that Amnesty has produced a report as ludicrous as it is malevolent.

It’s ludicrous to claim apartheid is enforced against the Palestinian Arabs living in the disputed territories of the “West Bank” — because they aren’t even citizens of Israel.

It’s ludicrous to claim apartheid is enforced against Israel’s Arab citizens because they have full civil and religious rights. An Arab Islamist party, for heaven’s sake, holds the balance of power in Israel’s ruling coalition. An Arab judge sent a previous Israeli president to jail. Amnesty falsely claims:
Israel maintains Jewish domination over the Palestinian economy through the exclusion and intentional neglect of Palestinian communities inside Israel.

But as Elder of Zyon points out:
Yet Israel's largest Arab-majority city, Nazareth, is a high tech hub, hosting R&D centres from Amdocs, Microsoft, Broadcom and Salesforce. Nazareth hosts over 70 startups. Thousands of Arabs work in technology and the number is skyrocketing.

If Israel intends to have Jewish dominance over the Arab economy by neglecting Arab communities, then why does it allow so many major companies to open up in Nazareth?

Why indeed. And as this report observes, Arab Israeli superstars are making strides in culture, sports, medicine, environment, fashion, diplomacy, education and technology.

Richard Kemp: Amnesty International Wants to End the Jewish State

Unfortunately for the inveterate peace-processors and their followers, the Arab world has moved on from their own opposition to Israel. They see the country for what it is: a source of stability and prosperity in the region. They understand the dangers of continuing Palestinian intransigence and animosity and have denied them a veto on progress — a veto that Amnesty and its fellow Israel rejectionists want to see reinstated.

This report will also provoke increased violence, abuse and boycotts against Jews in Israel and Jews who support Israel in the diaspora, in an era where antisemitic attacks are already at a high point and on the rise. That may not be Amnesty's aim in producing this twisted document, but they cannot be so blind as to fail to see its bloody consequences, which have played out over decades following similar distorted reports, debates, resolutions and media fabrications.

The definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) includes: "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor". The British government has signed up to the IHRA definition. Amnesty is based in the UK and the UK police should now investigate it for spreading these grievous antisemitic lies.

47 years ago, Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog addressed the UN to refute the terrible lie—sponsored by Soviet & Arab tyrannies—that the idea of Israel's creation was "a form of racism." Today a new generation of Ambassador Herzog must refute the same lie, now revived by Amnesty. https://t.co/x65IbtU7ug
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 1, 2022

Amnesty's Fall: Understanding the NGO's True Agenda

Amnesty International has suffered the same fall. In April 2018, Amnesty's Secretary-General called Israel's democratically-elected government "rogue." In 2010, the head of its Finland branch called Israel a "scum state." Amnesty's UK Campaign Manager has likened Israel to ISIS and been condemned for his attacks on Jewish Members of Parliament.

In 2015, Amnesty UK voted down a motion to campaign against antisemitism amid deadly acts against Jews in Europe. The organization claimed it did not support campaigns with "a single focus," dubious indeed given its anti-Islamophobia campaigns and obsessive pursuit of Israel.

The former head of Amnesty's gender unit, Gita Sahgal, was suspended from the organization and eventually forced out after she criticized Amnesty's partnership with the controversial British group, CAGE, which campaigns for the release of those detained in the war on terror. Moazzam Begg, CAGE's director of outreach has said that British, American and Australian troops were "the bad guys" and that the Taliban "should be given the right to celebrate" its conquest of Afghanistan.

Then there's the researchers Amnesty hires to write its reports. Amnesty hired Deborah Hyams as its "Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territories" researcher despite Hyams' earlier record of participating in protests alongside local activists and acting as a "human shield" against Israeli soldiers. Another senior Amnesty hire, Saleh Hijazi, previously worked for the Palestinian Authority and was the listed contact for a local NGO whose slogan is "We are Intifada!" Amnesty's research consultant, Hind Khoudary publicly declared she wanted Israel "gone."

Any of these associations should have disqualified these individuals from ever touching anything concerning Israel. Instead, Amnesty prizes and defends them as assets.

The former U.S. diplomat Daniel Moynihan once observed that the most democratic states suffer the worst accusations of human rights abuses because their transparency makes them so easy to see, report and exploit. They pay for their openness. To defer to Robert Bernstein's wisdom once more, only by returning to their "founding mission and the spirit of humility" can these organizations again serve as a moral force.

Until then, they have no moral authority to comment.

Why does @amnesty attract antisemites? Apsana is a well known antisemite who had to close her FB account after we exposed her disgusting views. #SHAMnesty https://t.co/sMcwDRuQcD pic.twitter.com/VWnyRTN7tw
— GnasherJew®????? (@GnasherJew) February 2, 2022

Daoud Omar Daoud writes in Ammon News (Amman, Jordan) about how the apartheid accusation has been going.

One side comment reveals the actual hope of many in the Arab world:

Describing Israel as an "apartheid regime" carries within it political connotations and a project for solving the Palestinian issue. And if this system is dismantled, the rule will pass to the people of Palestine. Yet the Jewish settlers will remain where they are, which will be a disappointment for everyone who longs to see Palestine return completely to its owners.

They don't hate Jews because of Israel. They hate Israel because of Jews.

When the announcement about normalization between Israel and the UAE went public in 2020, some prominent Arab commentators in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere started to publicly denounce the Palestinian leadership with the slogan "Palestine is not my cause."

It became a popular hashtag. The phrase keeps popping up in op-eds, such as this one during the May Gaza war.

Today, there is an op-ed by Dr. Mustafa Youssef Al-Ledawi in Palestine Today who claims that the phrase represents only a tiny minority, but it must be fought against. It clearly has made serious inroads in Arab thinking.

Al-Ledawi summarizes how things have changed in the Arab world and their complaints against Palestinians:

We must admit that the climate has changed, and that the policies that prevailed in the past have changed, and the Palestinian issue has become for most Arab and Islamic regimes their last concern, and least concern. Some Arab regimes have portrayed the Palestinians saying that they are the danger [to the Arab world], and that it is their actions that have harmed them and caused them to perish, and that it drained their resources and hindered their abilities, and describes them as rogues, corrupt, liars, hypocrites, unfaithful stalkers, turning against those who stood with them, biting the hand that fed them, and denying those who supported them, and thus they do not deserve sympathy.

Ledawi contradicts himself several times, claiming both that these are fringe opinions but then saying that Arab media is controlled by those who hold them, which is absurd. He also doesn't even attempt to answer the Arab criticisms of the Palestinians - that they side with Iran, that they remain divided, that the money that has poured into them from the Arab world has been wasted on corruption and infighting, that they have spurned peace offer after peace offer.

Despite his trying to downplay the issue, it is clearly a major concern for Palestinian leadership who have seen donations from Arab states dry up in recent years.

Terror groups ❤️ Amnesty International, as they follow the Durban blueprint for destroying Israel

The biggest violators of human rights in the world, and the biggest antisemites in the world, welcomed Amnesty International's report falsely claiming that Israel is guilty of apartheid.

Hamas, whose original antisemitic and genocidal charter is still in effect, hailed Amnesty on its English language webpage:

In its statement, Hamas considers Amnesty its partner in destroying the Jewish state:

Hamas considers the current Amnesty International report an essential and detailed part of the international and legal efforts that seek justice for our Palestinian people, who are facing the last barbaric racist occupation on earth, in legal efforts to end the Israeli occupation's injustice.

The word "justice" is a dog-whistle that both Hamas and Amnesty understands to mean the dissolution of the Jewish state. Amnesty's draft report said that Israel was born in sin, it modified that slightly in the released report, but it obviously believes it.

Islamic Jihad, even more radical than Hamas, also praised the report. So did Fatah and the Palestinian foreign ministry.

Perhaps the most important praise came from the PFLP. Remember, the PFLP is linked to major Palestinian NGOs, and Amnesty supports them despite of (or because of) those links with a terror group whose political platform supports murdering Jews. Amnesty considers the PFLP-linked groups to be allies and it has nothing negative to say about the PFLP members who lead some of these groups.

The PFLP, which is on the record saying that killing Jews in Israel is a human right, also embraces Amnesty International's report. Remarkably, it described the exact game plan for the anti-Israel organizations to destroy Israel:

The Popular Front demanded the necessity of accumulating this event and exposing all the violations and crimes committed by the enemy against our defenseless people, leading to the trial of the occupation and the recognition of the crime of ethnic cleansing that took place against our people in 1948, on the way to ending its presence on our entire Arab Palestinian land.

The Amnesty report is part of a concerted, organized effort to give backing to the UN commission that will also declare Israel to be an apartheid state later in 2022, and that in turn is a precursor to putting Israel on trial at the ICC, with the aim of pressuring the world to withdraw recognition of Israel. Amnesty, HRW and the PFLP with its own NGOs are all part of the same Global Left.

And we are now seeing the fruits of the 2001 Durban Conference - an antisemitic conference that Amnesty participated in and bragged about years later.

Recall that in 2001, the NGO forum of the infamous Durban conference included this call in its final statement which was submitted to the UN:

We also call upon the UN to ensure the implementation of the various UN resolutions on the OPT including the withdrawal of the Israeli colonial military occupation, the right of return for refugees, and for the protection for refugees of the UN High Commission for Refugees until such time as they may be able to exercise their right to return and in accordance with UN resolution 194.

We also call for the repeal of all discriminatory laws within the state of Israel, including those of return and citizenship, which are part of the institutionalized racism and Apartheid regime in Israel.

We Call for the establishment of a war crimes tribunal to investigate and bring to justice those who may be guilty of war crimes including the crime of Apartheid which amount to a crime against humanity.

We also call for the establishment of a UN Special Committee on Apartheid and Other Racist Crimes Against Humanity perpetrated by the Israeli Apartheid regime to monitor and to report Apartheid and other racist crimes.

Finally we call upon the international community to impose a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state as in the case of South Africa which means the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargo and the full cessation of all links between all states and Israel.

This has been the blueprint of the Global Left for over twenty years. Amnesty's report is only one small part of the entire strategy, and its recommendations in this report are remarkably similar to the recommendations of members of a conference where

This same conference saw people distributing this flyer, without a word of objection from Amnesty or the other "respected" human rights groups.

The antisemitic Left and antisemitic Right were all on the same page in Durban.

The antisemitic "human rights groups" and the antisemitic terror groups are on the same page today with the Amnesty report. Terror groups are in perfect sync with Amnesty and the UN in the desire to destroy Israel.

Amnesty didn't decide to write this "apartheid" report now - it has been waiting 20 years to do it. And today's Nazis are just as happy as the terrorist groups are.

02/01 Links Pt2: Ben Shapiro Tears Down Whoopi's Anti-Semitic, Left-Wing Philosophy; What Ukraine can learn from Israel; The ADL’s new Jewish outreach director hates Jews

From Ian:

The EU's basic error

International law expert Dr. Jacques P. Gauthier of Canada wrote his doctoral thesis on the legal status of Jerusalem. His conclusion, after 1,300 pages and 3,200 footnotes is that the world community of nations granted the Jewish People irrevocable legal rights to Jerusalem, and to the entire area west of the Jordan River, in a non-broken series of treaties and resolutions beginning with the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo Conference, as well as affirmations by the League of Nations and the UN.

As such, all claims that the Arabs deserve a state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are groundless. For, as Dr. Gauthier often repeats, the legal principle of "la chose jugée" (judged issue) means that once the issue was decided, as it was in the above councils, it becomes irreversible and forever binding in a "sacred trust."

After the UN was formed, seven Arab armies invaded the land, seeking not only to wipe out the Jewish presence there, but also to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, in opposition to the UN's stated intention. "Israel's War of Independence in 1948 was considered lawful and in self-defense," writes Hertz, "as may be reflected in UN resolutions naming Israel a 'peace-loving State' when it applied for membership at the United Nations," by both the UN Security Council and General Assembly.

No changes in the legal status of the land were made by the time, less than 20 years later, that Arab armies tried again to destroy Israel. This became the Six Day War, which finally left Israel in control of, inter alia, Judea and Samaria – and able to implement its aforementioned rights to settle it.

Even if San Remo and the UN are ignored, Prof. Hon. Stephen M. Schwebel, former President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), makes very clear that Israel's military activity during this war was purely defensive, and that "a state acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory, as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self-defense."

Judea and Samaria was administered by Jordan (recognized as sovereign there only by Great Britain and possibly Pakistan) between 1948 and 1967, during which period it was populated by Arabs with no recognized national entity [nor could there have been, as their national rights to the area were purposely left unrecognized by Jordan]. In light of all the above, Schwebel and other experts agree: Israel has the best legal title and claim to Judea and Samaria.

Perhaps the European Union would like to consider no longer repeating the canard that Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel is illegal under international law. One hundred years of history say the EU is wrong.

What Ukraine can learn from Israel

During 1948 War of Independence, the Israelis desperately needed arms; the world said no (and indeed doled out lectures on international law). So they went out and illegally bought a load of Czech arms. They refused to take lectures when facing the literal extinction of the nascent Jewish state. I’m not saying Ukraine should start scouting the black market, but the broader principle should be internalised.

And widely. These sentiments are not just confined to Ukraine. When I reported from Greece just before the pandemic, I noticed that Israel, for so long a bogeyman for a country steeped in leftist ideology of the most reductive kind — “Free, Free Palestine!” roar the protestors who march each November in remembrance of the 1973 student uprising against the Greek Junta — had become a friend to be courted. The culmination was an April 2021 defence deal worth around £1.2 billion between the two. And why not? After all, what is Greece if not a small country perpetually menaced by Turkey, a much larger enemy on its border?

As my friend Constantine Lerounis, once an adviser to the former President of Greece, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, told me recently: “Both Greece and Israel are facing states or potential coalitions of states with far greater resources and larger military forces. When Greece looks to Israel now, it sees not a colonial oppressor but a state that has little choice but to maintain a disproportionately large military and a high state of readiness. And it understands why. The Greek-Israeli rapprochement has been in the making for some time now. What was unfathomable a decade ago is now merely common sense.”

Over the years, I’ve listened to people in Moldova and Belarus and in the Baltic States tell me more or less the same thing: Israel is a model for small countries in an increasingly unforgiving world. And it’s not just about an accretion of individual beefs between neighbours, either. Something has changed.

Report: Israel mulls possible airlift of Ukrainian Jews if Russia attacks

Top Israeli government officials and leaders of Jewish organizations held a meeting on Sunday to discuss the possibility of evacuating Jews from Ukraine if Russia invades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been amassing troops at the two countries' borders since the fall, reportedly including the placement of weapons such as ballistic missiles, with some estimates of an impending crossing or invasion early this year.

According to a report in Israeli media, the meeting was held with members of the National Security Council, the Prime Minister's Office, and the Foreign, Defense, Diaspora Affairs, and Transportation ministries.

It also included representatives from the Jewish Agency and Nativ, which maintains connections with Jews in former Soviet countries.

Jewish organizations estimate that some 75,000 Ukrainians living in the eastern part of the country, many of them elderly, are eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return, which allows immigration to those who have one Jewish grandparent.

A possibly imminent invasion by Russian troops into Ukrainian territory has the world on edge as leaders and experts try to guess Putin's next steps and prevent what could become the largest military action in Europe since World War II. For Israel, the focus and concern lies with Ukraine's Jewish community in its Donbas region, where Jews have lived relatively free and safe. Now, their lives could be in mortal danger as they will be caught in the crossfire if war breaks out between Ukraine and Russia.

It's been a while since we've seen Zionist cows attacking innocent Arabs. The last time was in Lebanon when they drank water.

But now:

Settlers continue to graze their cows and sabotage citizens' crops in Khirbet Samra in the northern Jordan Valley.

Over the past two weeks, the settlers have relied on releasing their cows to the citizens' rain-fed crops in several areas of the northern Jordan Valley, especially Al Hadidiya, Makhoul and Samra.

These practices cause great losses to the citizens in the Jordan Valley, who depend on rain-fed crops, and these violations come within the policy of pastoral settlement in the Jordan Valley, with the aim of preventing citizens from benefiting from their crops to displace them from their lands and facilitate their seizure.

These aren't just Zionist cows - they are settler cows, hellbent on ethnically cleansing Arabs!

02/01 Links Pt1: Why Amnesty’s “Apartheid” slander makes peace and two-states harder; Beyond Crooked. Meet the Amnesty judges and jury; US bans ‘Death to America” Iranian wrestler

From Ian:

Amnesty report is part of a coordinated diplomatic lynching against Israel, says EJC President Kantor

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) has attacked a new Amnesty International UK report which accuses the State of Israel of being an “apartheid state” as unprofessional, inaccurate and malicious.

The report, titled: “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity”, was to be released for publication on Tuesday, 1st February.

“There is nothing new in Amnesty’s sudden discovery of the word ‘apartheid’, in relation to Israel,” EJC President Dr. Moshe Kantor said. “They are in lock step with anti-Israel and antisemitic activists in a coordinated diplomatic lynching against the Jewish State, and the mere concept of Jewish self-determination and collectivity.”

“It is clear from the tone and language used that they are seeking the end of Israel, and are using all of their supposed good name and diplomatic capital to launch a full-frontal attack against the Jewish State. That they use the terminology of ‘apartheid’ while Israel’s Arab citizens sit in the Knesset, are ministers in Israel’s current government and sit as judges on the country’s Supreme Court, shows just how disingenuous and twisted this imagery is. These are extremist political activists disguised as human-rights advocates, and their obsessive focus on Israel should dispel any notion of objectivity, neutrality or accuracy.”

“This report will become a weapon used against Jews around the world,” Dr. Kantor continued. “We have seen that every time that there are high-profile attacks against Israel with these types of scurrilous lies, people think Jews everywhere should be made responsible for it. As a result, Jewish students and members of the academia will be forced to express fealty to these distortions, and attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions will increase. None of the authors of the report will be able to ignore the direct line from their work with a rise in antisemitism.”

WSJ Editorial: The ‘Apartheid’ Libel of Israel

The report treats Israel’s founding as the original sin from which all other offenses flow. In the 27-page executive summary alone, we counted at least 26 references to 1948 or 1947-1949. Amnesty’s message is that Israel was created as an apartheid state and continues as such today.

This is a libel that distorts history. Israel was founded in the wake of the Holocaust with broad international support. The Jews who settled in historic Palestine had to fight to survive against Arab militias and national armies that wanted to push them into the sea.

Amnesty makes no attempt to explain Israel’s laws and practices in the context of the many wars Israel has had to fight since 1948. It mentions in passing that Hamas sends missiles into Israel from Gaza with no regard to its targets. But then it quickly moves on to denounce how Israel defends itself against these indiscriminate attacks.

The report glides over the Oslo accords of the 1990s as if they were merely one more opening to subjugate Palestinians. The accords were an historic concession by Israel to recognize a Palestinian state if peace could be negotiated. The report ignores that Hamas, which controls Gaza, is sworn to destroy Israel and that Israel has no choice but to impose security measures to protect against terror attacks.

Above all, the report all but ignores that Israel is a democracy that accords more rights to Arabs and Palestinians than does any other state in the region. Arabs participate in elections, hold seats in the Knesset, and one Arab is now a cabinet minister. The Palestinians in the West Bank could have their own state with comparable rights if they had accepted the concessions that Israel offered, under U.S. auspices, in the 1990s and again in 2000. Their leaders refused and the ugly stalemate continues.

The Amnesty report is especially ill-timed in an era when Israel and Arab states are negotiating new deals for commerce and travel since the Abraham Accords. A fair assumption is that Amnesty’s drafters hope to block such progress by inflaming world opinion with the “apartheid” slander. Amnesty also calls on the United Nations to sanction Israel, and the International Criminal Court to investigate and hold Israelis criminally responsible.

We assume the Biden Administration will denounce this calumny and oppose all efforts to use it as a cudgel against America’s best friend in the Middle East.

NY Post Editorial: Amnesty International’s latest Israel smear

Amnesty International UK waited until after Holocaust Remembrance Day to publish its latest report on Israel — which depends on ignoring that history and Palestinian efforts to repeat it.

Expect the media to be all over it, since Amnesty is, for the first time, officially accusing Israel of “apartheid” (joining Human Rights Watch, which made the same obscene jump last year).

Anti-Zionist activists and politicians love using the word to smear Israel’s citizenship laws and national-security policies — to delegitimize the Jewish state by equating it with South Africa’s old racist regime.

Amnesty has only accused one other country of current apartheid policies, by the way: Myanmar, which is regularly genocidal against the Rohingya minority. Not China, Iran or Syria, which also seek to wipe out minority populations.

Anti-Zionist activists and politicians often use the word “apartheid” to demean Israel’s citizenship laws and national-security policies.

The report reviews Israel’s history since independence, pointing to a skein of examples that supposedly prove the “apartheid state” canard.

But what a lot of history Amnesty ignores. The Holocaust appears only in discussing Israel’s 1952 proffer of citizenship to any Jew who wanted it. It mentions “expulsion” — without noting, for example, Jews getting the boot from Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt.

Yasser Arafat does not appear. It mentions Hamas 25 times but no specifics of its political and military programs that openly aim at Israel’s annihilation. References to Egypt’s “tight” restrictions on the Rafah border crossing don’t explain the “why” — namely, that nation’s desire to prevent terror attacks on both sides of that border. It describes the unprovoked May 2021 indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli citizens as just “armed hostilities [breaking] out.”