Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 08, 2022

Storming Jews - The Next Generation

We've seen so many stories in Arab and Muslim media about "fanatic settlers storming and desecrating the Al Aqsa Mosque" (accompanied by photos showing Jews walking quietly on the Temple Mount).

But the same story every Sunday through Thursday gets a little boring. It needs a little extra - something, something to make the Jews look even more monstrous.

From Iran's Mehr News (English):

Zionist settlers brutally raid Al-Aqsa mosque

TEHRAN, Feb. 07 (MNA) – Zionist settlers launched a large-scale raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque and chanted anti-Islamic slogans in the holy place.

The Zionist settlers are continuing their hostile actions against the Palestinian sanctities, Palestine Al-Youm reported.

According to the report, the Zionists heavily raided the Al-Aqsa mosque on Monday and chanted anti-Islamic slogans.

A fierce clash took place between the Zionists and Palestinian citizens following their attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Look at how they are brutally raiding!

The parts about the clashes are fiction. There were none reported - if there were, Palestinian media and Haaretz would have headlined it.

When Muslims play soccer and volleyball on the sacred site, they are "worshippers." When Christins visit, they are ignored. When Jews visit and act respectfully, they are "brutal raiders."

Yeah, that might be a little antisemitic.

Here's an article that is utterly unremarkable - yet it is a message that is very rarely written in Arabic language media.

Elaph is considered a liberal Arab newspaper published in London. Today, Fadel Al-Mansafa wrote that Israel needs to make concessions for peace - and so do Palestinians.

His specific ideas are not as important as the possibility of Arabs reading this message that is commonplace in English and Hebrew, and incredibly rare in Arabic media:

Should hundreds of Palestinians die and starve in order for the idea of Hamas to live, which sees no place for Jews in Palestine? Should hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in fear of rocket attacks from Gaza?

Where is the humanity in all that is going on!? And for how long will we continue with the same methods that lead to the same results. Until the end of the world?

Peace and coexistence is the solution and the only option for resolving the Middle East issue. Otherwise, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will succeed in imposing the logic of force, violence and racism. Although I went on to talk that may be ridiculous to some, but it is the closest to the truth.

The moment when the establishment of the State of Palestine will not come without serious Israeli concessions. On the other hand, Israeli concessions will not come without an explicit recognition of the right of the Jews to live next to the Palestinians. Without excluding or denying the right to be on holy land.

The part that stands out, and that I honestly don't ever recall seeing in Arabic media, is an element of empathy. I have never seen an Arab writer even attempt to look at things from the perspective of Israelis. Empathy requires looking at the other side as humans. I've seen articles that insulted Palestinians, but none I can recall that expressed any empathy for Israeli Jews from any perspective.

It's s start.

02/08 Links Pt1: Amnesty hops on the UN Antisemitism bandwagon; Tlaib has paid out $170,000 to firm of anti-Israel activist; Biden’s BDS Activist’s Nomination ‘in Limbo,’

From Ian:

David Singer: Amnesty hops on the UN Antisemitism bandwagon

Only one statement in the Report makes any reference to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1920-1948) that governed Palestine for the first 28 years of that conflict:

“… subsequent to 1967, Israel has exercised effective control over the whole territory of British mandate Palestine.”

Totally false.

Jordan – in fact - exercises effective control over 78% of the territory of British mandate Palestine. The Arab residents of former Palestine attained their right to self-determination there when Britain granted it independence in 1946. Not one Jew lives there. Selling land to Jews is punishable by death.

The Jews were left to exercise their right of self-determination in the remaining 22% of the territory of British mandate Palestine.

Since 1967 the PLO has demanded an additional area from this Jewish-reserved 22% - known as Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza - to create a second Arab state in former Palestine - in addition to Jordan.

Every Jew living in these areas had been expelled in 1947 after Jordan and Egypt conquered and occupied these territories.

Arabs living in Judea and Samaria 'West Bank') and East Jerusalem were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988.

The UN has falsely alleged that Jews have no right to live in Judea and Samaria ('West Bank'), East Jerusalem and Gaza and where so doing now - are acting illegally in flagrant violation of international law and are the major obstacle to peace

Articles 6 and 25 of the Mandate encourages close Jewish settlement in these areas and rebuts such claims. This internationally- sanctioned right of Jewish settlement still exists today by virtue of Article 80 of the UN Charter.

Amnesty International has acted with deliberate malice and put at extreme risk the lives and well being of Jews – and innocent bystanders - worldwide.

The UN-Amnesty International bandwagon is on a journey to hell as a result of their dishonest machinations against the Jewish People.

Jewish Groups Urge UN Not to Use ‘False Claims’ of Amnesty Report Against Israel

The blowback over a biased report by Amnesty International on Israel continues nearly a week after its release as 469 organizations and more than 4,000 individuals signed a strongly-worded letter on Monday urging UN Secretary-General António Guterres to make sure the report is not used to attack Israel within the United Nations.

Besides the 4,000 individual signees, the letter was signed by 172 Jewish federations and Jewish Community Relations Councils.

“The Amnesty report traffics in false claims against the sole Jewish state, distorts international law, questions the very existence of Israel, and ignores the violence and terrorist assaults on Israeli civilians—Jewish, Muslim and Christian,” the letter stated.

Released on Feb. 1, the report called Israel an “apartheid state” and even questioned the founding of Israel. It also urged the UN Security Council to impose a military embargo on Israel.

An overarching concern of the organizations was that the report would be used by the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry (COI) into Israel, which the organizations vehemently oppose. That could lead to yet another review of Israel—a “democratic country in which multiple faith communities live under the rule of law, participate in civic life, contribute to the economy and serve in the highest levels of government”—by the International Criminal Court.

The groups further urged Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, who was also sent the letter, to terminate the COI.

Learn the facts: Countering the sham Amnesty Report with truth

In fewer pages than Amnesty International took to smear Israel in a “report” they rooted in distortion and omission, Robert Spencer had preemptively set the record straight in The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process.

Spencer takes readers through an easy to digest, academic journey that stretches from before the reestablishment of the modern state of Israel, through today. The Palestinian Delusion shines light on the aggressive forces, and the appeasers of such aggressive forces, that have tried to inhibit Israel's success and devastate its people.

Amnesty International has joined in on an already established off-tune chorus in which slandering the Israeli state has become an increasing trend. They released their hit job months after Human Rights Watch released theirs. Neither report mentions that Islamic terrorists regularly target Jewish citizens with violent attacks that have killed more than a thousand people and injured thousands more in just the past couple of decades, or that Israelis have been prompted to tighten security to discourage such attacks.

Spencer provides the context that these sham human rights groups take pains to conceal. He details the harsh reality inflicted on the people of the only democracy of the Middle East and how the single-minded goal to destroy them, also harms Palestinian Arabs. “Mahmoud Abbas and his two sons control a business empire worth four hundred million dollars . . . the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Khaled Mashaal, is also a billionaire.”

Mashaal isn’t the only Hamas terrorist with a fortune, largely skimmed from United States and European aid money, funds that were meant to help improve the lives of the people, but instead, have gone into harming them. In addition to hoarding money to indulge in a lavish lifestyle that they deny their people, Hamas (acronym for their Arabic name, The Islamic Resistance Movement) leaders pay Palestinian Arabs to deliberately get in harm’s way.

Spencer details the Hamas injury reward system they implemented during the 2018 riots, riots that were erroneously reported as simply, protests. Hamas’s goal was to boost global anger toward Israel when the terror group tried to breach Israel’s border: $500 to any Palestinian who would get shot and $3000 to the family of a Palestinian who would get killed. Said “human rights organizations” didn’t condemn that, nor mention it in their “reports.” Spencer also included several stories in which Hamas got unharmed Palestinian Arabs to act injured or to get family members to lie about causes of death to direct erroneous blame at Israel.

Fabrications used to smear Israel have long been enough to turn public opinion against Israel. Spencer eloquently articulates that legend far outruns facts.

This is false. It is a blatant blood libel. @amnesty is just peddling in Jew hatred of the vilest kind. Next they’ll be promoting ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ https://t.co/ek9w4gA3pE
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) February 8, 2022

We Need Justice International to Investigate Amnesty International

The outrage against this latest international assault on Israel has been widespread. Elliot Abrams called it “a shockingly dishonest document whose biases against the Jewish state leap off each of its 280 pages.” The ADL called the report “an effort to demonize Israel and undermine its legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state. In an environment of rising anti-Jewish hate, this type of report is not only inaccurate but also irresponsible and likely will lead to intensified antisemitism around the world.”

We’ve gotten so used to these brazen and discriminatory attacks against Israel it just feels like Groundhog Day. But we can’t allow ourselves to slip into outrage fatigue. We should instead increase the level of our response.

Condemnations are no longer enough. The world needs an organization, call it “Justice International,” to investigate so-called human rights groups that consistently single out and discriminate against the world’s only Jewish state.

We must investigate the investigators.

I assure you they will be very busy, not only with this latest insult from Amnesty International but with the recent insult from the UN Human Rights Council, which made Israel the first-ever country to be under permanent investigation.

The best way to defend is to go on the offense. These vicious attacks poison Israel, fuel antisemitism around the world and endanger the lives of Jews everywhere.

These international groups that have a pathological obsession with Israel have knowingly treated the Jewish state a lot worse than they’ve treated the world’s greatest human rights violators. That is pure antisemitism. The only way they’ll stop is if they know there is a price to pay for such blatant discrimination.

If this means Amnesty International will spend more time going after the world’s most evil regimes, then Justice International will mean justice for Jews and justice for the world.

From Reuters:

Two potential successors to 86-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were named on Monday to top posts in the Palestine Liberation Organization at a meeting boycotted by his Islamist rivals.

Official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the PLO's 141-member Central Council appointed Hussein Al-Sheikh, 61, an Abbas confidant who serves as key liaison with Israel and the United States, to the PLO's Executive Committee.

He is likely to replace the late Saeb Erekat as the committee's secretary-general.

Al Sheikh is widely known in Palestinian circles as a serial sexual harasser and molester.

The Palestinian Kawther site says:

Mr. Hussein Al-Sheikh is the so-called “Minister of Civil Affairs” of the Palestinian Authority, a senior Fatah member and the man charged with keeping the coordination between the colonial israeli military administration in Beit Il and the PA. Using his lucky position, Mr. Al-Sheikh commits crimes of sexual molestation and abuse against women, often employees of the PNA.
Mr. Al-Sheikh could until now count on complete impunity for his crimes against women, as he perpetrates them with knowledge of “President” Mahmoud Abbas, who in turn is fully supported and financed by the USA, the EU and other western countries.
As has already happened in the past, it became known that Mr. Al-Sheikh again used the prerogatives of his position to sexually harass a woman. It is not the first time that such a thing happens, and it is not the first time that the PA keeps silence over criminal complaints lodged against him.
Mr. Al-Sheikh is considered by president Abbas as the most important minister due to his work with Israel, which involves issuing VIP Cards and travel permits of Abbas, PA elements, students, workers, sick people, marrying couples, burial permissions etc, so a few rapes here and a few abuses against women there are of no consequence.
The first time that his pastime became known to a wider audience was when minister Al-Sheikh molested the wife of a political prisoner who continues behind bars Israeli jails.
The second time around, he raped a girl in Tel Aviv. This victim was a friend of his daughter and the good minister convinced her family to join him in a picnic in Tal Aviv, a trip which lecherous Al-Sheikh then used to rape the girl.
The third time his lewd pastime became known, some weeks ago in September 2012, “Minister” Al-Sheikh tried to molest one of his female employees at the ministry. The woman is married to Ahmad Abu Al-Am, a former leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades and a former Israeli political prisoner and a friend of Al-Sheikh.

The site mentions reports of other rapes and implies that Al Sheikh would trade highly sought travel permits, which he was in charge of, for sexual favors.

Haaretz verified the third incident and mentioned the others obliquely. It also detailed how Al Sheikh's family and PA security forces threatened the victim's family.

Al Sheikh remains one of Abbas' favored advisors and is the main liaison with Israel.

Who is a civilian?

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, members of armed terror groups fit that definition.

Palestinian media reported that the terrorists killed were civilians while also reporting that they were members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades:

Three Palestinian youths were killed on Tuesday evening by the Israeli occupation forces' bullets in the Makhfeya area in the center of Nablus city.

In turn, the Palestinian Health announced the death of 3 civilians, who were shot by the occupation in Nablus.

For its part, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fatah movement, mourned on Tuesday its three martyrs after their assassination by the occupation forces in Nablus.

In its statement, Al-Aqsa Martyrs said: "We mourn our heroic martyrs Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi, Adham Mabrouk and Muhammad Al-Dakhil, after a cowardly assassination carried out by a Zionist special force in the city of Nablus, Jabal Al-Nar."

The battalions affirm that the blood of their martyrs will not be in vain, and that the response will come and blood will be met with blood."

Israeli media reports that the group had been responsible for multiple recent shooting attacks, and were planning more.

Keep in mind that these terrorists were not Hamas or Islamic Jihad. They were from Fatah, the organization headed by Palestinian president Abbas, who claimed fourteen years ago that the "military wing" had been dismantled.

He might not have been telling the truth.

And make no mistake: if the Al Aqsa Brigades were not doing what Abas wanted, they really would have been dismantled. Yet they openly parade in the West Bank, showing their weapons, with no hint that they are not doing exactly what Abbas wants.

And that includes attacking Jews.

A random example of the Amnesty report's dishonesty

I decided to choose a random page of the Amnesty International's "Israel's Apartheid Against Palestinians" report, just to see if I can find dishonesty on every page.

Pretty much.

On page 73, Amnesty says:

Palestinians on the other hand are treated by the Israeli state differently based on its consideration of them as having a racialized non-Jewish, Arab status and, beyond that, as being part of a group with particular attributes that are different from other non-Jewish groups. With respect to Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially classifies them as being “Arab citizens of Israel”, an inclusive term that describes a number of different and primarily Arabic-speaking groups, including Muslim Arabs (this classification includes Bedouins), Christian Arabs, Druze and Circassians. However, in public discourse, Israeli authorities and media generally refer only to Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs – those who generally self-identify as Palestinians – as Israeli Arabs and associate them with Palestinians living in the OPT and beyond, using the specific terms Druze and Circassians for those other non-Jewish groups. The authorities also clearly consider Palestinian citizens of Israel as a single group different from Druze and Circassians since they exempt this group alone from military service in “consideration for their family, religious, and cultural affiliations with the Arab world (which has subjected Israel to frequent attacks), as well as concern over possible dual loyalties.”[206]

First of all, most Israeli Arabs do not call themselves Palestinian. A 2020 JPPI survey showed that 51% of Israeli Arabs identify as "Arab-Israeli" and another 23% simply call themselves "Israeli." Only 7% call themselves Palestinians.

In this world of wokeness where people are supposed to respect how others refer to themselves, Amnesty is decidedly barbaric.

Footnote 206 is from the Israel's Foreign Ministry. Amnesty is implying that Israel purposefully keeps a separate policy for Israeli Arabs and the Druze/Circassian communities because of fears of dual loyalty, and that this distinction proves Israel is discriminating against Israeli Arabs because they are "Palestinians."

Here is the bolded quote in context:

Since Israel's establishment (1948), Arab citizens have been exempted from compulsory service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) out of consideration for their family, religious, and cultural affiliations with the Arab world (which has subjected Israel to frequent attacks), as well as concern over possible dual loyalties. At the same time, volunteer military service is encouraged, with some choosing this option every year. Since 1957, at the request of their community leaders, IDF service has been mandatory for Druze and Circassian men, while the number of Bedouin joining the career army voluntarily increases steadily.

Amnesty is trying to paint this as proof of official Israeli discrimination. The actual quote shows that Israel's treatment of different groups aligns with how they want to be treated. And Arabs who want to take advantage of the social benefits of army service are perfectly free to do so.

The truth is the exact opposite of how Amnesty is trying to paint it.

The MFA article is worth reading. It is far more accurate than Amnesty's description of Israel. It honestly notes the problems that Arabs have in a majority Jewish society, and it emphasizes how Israel is trying to improve things - details that Amnesty doesn't want its readers to know.

Here is the truth, and Israel doesn't lie about the real issues about full equality:

Arab citizens, who constitute more than one-sixth of Israel's population, exist on the margins of the conflicting worlds of Jews and Palestinians. However, while remaining a segment of the Arab people in culture and identity and disputing Israel's identification as a Jewish state, they see their future tied to Israel. In the process, they have adopted Hebrew as a second language and Israeli culture as an extra layer in their lives. At the same time, they strive to attain a higher degree of participation in national life, greater integration into the economy and more benefits for their own towns and villages.

Development of inter-group relations between Israel's Arabs and Jews has been hindered by deeply-rooted differences in religion, values, and political beliefs. However, though coexisting as two self-segregated communities, over the years they have come to accept each other, acknowledging the uniqueness and aspirations of each community.

Pluralism and Segregation:

As a multi-ethnic, multicultural, multi-religious, and multi-lingual society, Israel has a high level of informal segregation patterns. While groups are not separated by official policy, a number of different sectors within the society are somewhat segregated and maintain their strong cultural, religious, ideological, and/or ethnic identity.

However, despite a fairly high degree of social cleavage, some economic disparities and an often overheated political life, the society is relatively balanced and stable. The low level of social conflict between the different groups, notwithstanding an inherent potential for social unrest, can be attributed to the country's judicial and political systems, which represent strict legal and civic equality.

Thus, Israel is not a melting-pot society, but rather more of a mosaic made up of different population groups coexisting in the framework of a democratic state.

Amnesty justifies their disrespect for Arab Israelis with their hate for Jewish Israelis.

Israel's strength is in respecting each ethnic and religious group and treating them as they themselves want to be treated, with an underlying framework of legal equality to protect them from the very thing that Amnesty is claiming Israel is guilty of.

Israel's "mosaic" is more respectful of human rights than most Western societies are, who insist on homogenization. Obviously being a citizen brings with it responsibilities, but as I've noted, Israel's tolerance for Muslims far exceeds that of most Western European countries.

This one page, when read honestly, proves not only Israel's liberalism, but also Amnesty's illiberalism.

Funny how the most "progressive" people are also the most intolerant.

02/07 Links Pt2: The Palestinian myth explained and analyzed; Israeli Scientists Engineer 3D Human Spinal Cord Implants to Help Paralyzed Patients Walk; USA Today explores best things to do in Tel Aviv

From Ian:

The Palestinian myth explained and analyzed

Even more imbecilic, why call themselves a name they cannot pronounce in their mother tongue? An English word derived from Hebrew, describing Greeks, then translated into Latin without any Arabic derivation and with such offensive definitions to their, albeit false history and culture.

No, no, shout the offended Palestinians, we are called Filastinians, that is the Arabic word for us. Oh really, this disciplined researcher retorts in astonishment. But ‘Filastine’ is simply the Arab pronunciation of Philistine and therefore apart from one letter to conform with Arabic vocalization the Filastinians are still naming themselves after extinct Greek sailors or uncouth, uncultured heathens – and in Queen’s English. You really couldn’t make it up, it’s Monty Pythonesque – that was a British comedy mocking absurd situations which were themselves exaggerated.

Further investigation is surely necessary as it is patently imbecilic that supposedly, indigenous peoples should be satisfied with such negative and offensive definitions debunking all claims of indigenous ethnicity. So we research into the Filastinian historical archives in the expectation of discovering a people or persons who identified as indigenous Filastinian leaders or a war, battle or conflict fought by indigenous Filastinians against any domestic or foreign invaders throughput the centuries of warfare in their apparent homeland in an attempt to recapture their cherished Jerusalem.

Maybe we will find archaeological evidence of a Filastinian currency, town or city; maybe an historical construct originated and built by indigenous Filastinians and the name of the Filastinian architect. If the Filastinians are indigenous then history and evidence must surely reveal the name of any one, just one historical Filastinian King, Queen, Prince, Princess, President, Imam, Leader, Warrior, Apothecary, Writer, Poet, Scribe, Soldier, Sailor, Tinker, Tailor, Butcher, Baker or Candlestick maker.

Alas, there is no such evidence to be found of any race, culture, or people. Other noted travelers to the area , listed here such as Edward Webbe, 1553 – 1590 , Adrian Reland 1676 – 1718 , Count Constantine Francois Volney 1757 – 1820 , William Thackeray, 1811 – 1863 , Gustav Flaubert , 1821 – 1880 , James Finn 1806 – 1872 , Mark Twain , 1835 – 1910 , and B.W. Johnson, 1833 – 1894 , never recorded , discovered nor wrote of the indigenous Palestinians or Filastinians. These itinerant scribes did not write about them nor the villages they supposedly inhabited because they never existed.

And there is a reason for their nonexistence and it is simply because they are a recent construct invented by those political organizations and Arab countries who sought to eliminate the Jewish State of Israel and deconstruct the geographical area after 1948. And what is equally astounding is that the fiction has morphed into fact. The anthropological miracle we know today as Palestinians have revised history so that a non-existent people have existed apparently since time immemorial.

My silent departure from Algeria

This year is the 60th anniversary of the mass exodus of some 130,000 Jews from Algeria. Morial, the Association of Algerian Jews in France, is collecting testimonies from those who left. Here is an extract of an account by Jacqueline Kadji, nee Chichportich, who was nine years old when she left (with thanks: Leon):

The town of Bou Saada was known as the city of happiness. Life moved to the rhythm of the Jewish festivals – until September 1956, when my uncle was murdered on the eve of Rosh Hashana. He was shot at point blank range in his shop selling bolts of fabric. The whole community was in shock. Two months earlier, one M. Touboul had been murdered in a settling of scores. My father also received death threats. That’s when he resolved to leave for Paris where his two sisters and family were living. That meant dropping everything and leaving my mother in charge of us. There were more and more murders and ambushes in the area. Fear gripped us. Families got ready to leave.

My mother planned our departure. She closed the shop and took all the stock into our house. It was a fun time, I played shops at home – a child’s dream. The days went by as we worried about our future. My mother had decided to put us three older children on a coach to Algiers – my older sister, 29, my brother, 16, and me, nine.

On the day we left my mother told us something chilling: we had to go our separate ways as there was an ambush en route, ‘so we don’t all die at once’ . Those words carved themselves into my young memory. Was I every going to see my mother again? A tsunami of emotions engulfed me. I was cut adrift, separated for the first time. No tears, no expressions of fear – I did not want to upset my mum. without being capable of further explanations, I was already catapulted into the adult world, aged nine.

In wake of Whoopi Goldberg’s race comments, US Jewry reflects on identity in America

Schneider and others expressed hope that the episode reminds people that Jews have historically experienced extensive discrimination in America, such as being barred from purchasing homes in certain areas, excluded from country clubs and denied admission to some universities.

In the past, there even were travel guides for Jews with tips on how to avoid discrimination on the road, guidebooks that preceded the 1936 debut of “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” which provided similar advice for African Americans.

Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, recalled growing up in Plano, Texas, where the handful of Jewish families, including his own, sometimes experienced antisemitism.

“We never saw ourselves in the same category as any of the white Anglo Southern Baptists,” he said. “Although we had white skin, we didn’t consider ourselves part of the white culture.”

The racial equation has only grown more complex as Jews of color — including African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans — account for a growing percentage of the overall Jewish population.

“Jews are multiethnic, multiracial,” Farkas said. “We don’t consider ourselves just a community of faith.”

Farkas said systemic discrimination against Jews in the US has largely faded over the decades, but antisemitism persists and antisemitic violence over the past five years has been at its highest level in decades.

The deadliest incident was the mass shooting in 2018 at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 worshippers from three different congregations were killed by a gunman who railed against Jews and immigrants they helped, according to prosecutors in his pending hate-crimes trial.

Critics of Whoopi Goldberg suspension for Holocaust remarks see missed chance by ABC

Goldberg explained to talk show host Stephen Colbert in an episode that aired Monday night that her perception of race is based on skin color but that she was wrong.

She apologized again Tuesday morning on “The View” and invited Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, on to that day’s episode to talk about the Holocaust. He said in a tweet he deeply appreciated her invitation and that “her apology is very much welcome.”

But ABC News President Kim Godwin announced her suspension later on Tuesday. On Wednesday, former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer sat in as guest co-host and nobody said anything about Jews or the Holocaust.

In announcing the suspension, ABC said it was asking Goldberg “to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments.” The network did not respond to requests for comment Friday about the public reaction to the suspension.

What people seem to be forgetting is that Goldberg made her remarks during a segment about a Tennessee school board’s banning of “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Nazi death camps during World War II, said author Frederick Joseph.

Conservative officials across the country are trying to ban access to books such as “Maus” and the “The 1619 Project,” which puts Black slavery and Black Americans at the center of US history. His own book, “The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person,” is being protested by some parents, he said, because they say it’s indoctrination.

Joseph said Goldberg was seeing the issue of race through the lens of a Black woman in America and the lens lacked historical knowledge of what the Holocaust was actually about.

The Nazi precedent for Arab bans of Israeli films

From a tweet I made yesterday:

02/07 Links Pt1: ‘Apartheid’ accusation against Israel puts NGOs on road to irrelevance; Amnesty's map that lies; Israeli-Palestinian confederation plan to be presented to UN, US by Beilin

From Ian:

Amnesty International's Moral Turpitude

Six years before British-Indian author Salman Rushdie had a $6,000,000 bounty on his head as a result of a fatwa (Islamic decree) for his “blasphemous” 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, he stated in 2010 that the NGO Amnesty International was in a state of “moral bankruptcy.”

He was referring to the organization’s blatant surrender to the regimes and gangs practicing violent Islamism, as well as to its anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment. He could say the same today, in light of the report that it released on Tuesday.

The 211-page report, issued by Amnesty’s U.K. branch, is an indictment of the Jewish state. It’s a document that deems Israel’s existence, not merely its policies, as an illegitimate, colonialist and racist entity.

Indeed, for Amnesty, the Jewish state wasn’t based on the self-determination of a population returning to its ancestral homeland—necessary for the Jewish people’s very survival—nor even for defending itself, tooth and nail, against a bloody stream of terror perpetrated by armed movements seeking its destruction.

Indeed, the document is a disgrace to an organization with a record of battling on behalf of communist dissidents or apartheid—the real one, in South Africa. Along with its systematic failure to denounce human-rights abuses in Syria, Iran and Turkey, and repeated calls to take action against the United States and Europe, the report demonstrates that the NGO has been overtaken by politics.

It exposes Amnesty’s ideological approach that confuses the attacked with the aggressor; justifies Hamas terrorism; criminalizes countries concerned with an influx of potentially dangerous immigrants; and extols a sea of hatred against the Jewish state.

Amnesty’s delegitimization efforts have and will continue to backfire - opinion

If prominent international organizations like Amnesty International and others engage in such demonization, convincing other Israelis that their goal is merely to end the conflict with the Palestinians becomes a great deal harder.

Indeed, polling data from the beginning of this century demonstrates that Israeli popular support for a two-state solution was much higher before the international campaign waged by Amnesty and others got underway.

If Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and the myriad other groups and agencies which have taken part in this campaign over the last two decades truly wish to have a positive impact on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, they must abandon this pernicious strategy of demonization and delegitimization.

Trying to convince Israelis of the importance of separating from the Palestinians is ill-served by falsely accusing them of being racist white supremacists.

Advocating for the destruction of Israel’s Jewish character and national identity will not persuade Israelis that the true goal of these organizations is the fulfillment of the two-state vision.

As a member of the Labor party and a long-time advocate for such a resolution, I will continue to work toward the goal of two states living alongside each other in peace.

What I ask from Amnesty and others is not to harm this objective with their extremist, manipulative and hateful propaganda.

‘Apartheid’ accusation against Israel puts NGOs on road to irrelevance

The apartheid smear against Israel is absurd, but before explaining why, it’s important to recognise how beating the apartheid drum cynically serves the political ends of the NGOs and the boycotters, like two sides of the same coin.

To a great extent, core supporters for both groups share the same ahistorical worldview: Namely that Jews are not native to Israel, but Palestinians are, making Israel in their minds a settler-colonial project and every Palestinian allegation and grievance gospel that should never be questioned.

Further, these beliefs are today strongly linked to the fashionable idea of intersectionality and the far-fetched attempt by some to apply critical race theory to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This has seen groups like Black Lives Matter join in the apartheid canard despite the fact that over half the Jews in Israel are people of colour and the story of European Jewry is one of relentless exclusion and persecution.

The fact is, we have seen extreme criticism of Israel become the primary litmus test for acceptance into progressive circles and the non-government organisations they support.

While this has been true to some extent for decades, the cost of admission has risen like inflation.

Once, it was enough to criticise Israel for the sins of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 and settlements. Never mind that the capture of the territories was the outcome of a defensive war, and that Israel immediately offered to return land for peace and was rejected.

Never mind that under the 1993 Oslo Accords, well over 90% of Palestinians live in self-rule areas governed by the Palestinian Authority (today in Gaza, by the terror group Hamas).

Never mind that Israel offered the Palestinians statehood opportunities on the equivalent of virtually 100% of the territory after land swaps, plus the removal of isolated settlements, on at least three occasions since 2000 and has been knocked back each time by Palestinian leaders without so much as a counter-offer.

But mere criticism of Israel is passé. Today, that same “woke” groupthink demands Israel is branded with the crime of apartheid. Not just apartheid, but like an arrow with a bullseye painted around it after it lands, a unique apartheid definition has been invented by NGOs like Amnesty to conform with their distorted perception of Israeli transgressions.

If Amnesty cares so much about occupation, why is it silent on Northern Cyprus?

One can read the interview of Amnesty's Philip Luther at Times of Israel over and over and keep seeing new levels of hypocrisy from the organization.

TOI: I still can’t understand why Israel gets the apartheid investigation, and you haven’t found any other country besides Myanmar within four years that deserves it. It seems not to bother you – maybe it does bother you – that the UN, which is not your organization, that every year there are permanent and recurring condemnations automatically, and not [against] other countries in the same way, not even close. That would seem to me to be…

Luther: How many other countries have a fifty-year occupation?

TOI: Is that the only human rights violation?

Luther: No, I’m saying that it’s a metric. You’re saying, is there not something very specific about the Israeli and Palestinian situation? If people ask about the singularity of the situation, that is singular.

This year will mark 48 years of Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus. True, it is not quite fifty, but if occupation is a metric that merits Israel being singled out for opprobrium, certainly we should be seeing Amnesty take at least a passing interest in Turkey's occupation of Northern Cyprus?

All the horrible things that Amnesty and other "human rights" groups are warning will happen with Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank - that hasn't happened over 54 years - already happened under Turkish occupation in Cyprus.

Here's a summary from Cyprus' Foreign Ministry:

On July 20, 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus, violating all rules of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations. Turkey ... illegally occupies over 36% of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus ever since.

As a result of the Turkish military invasion and occupation, 162,000 Greek-Cypriots fled their homes becoming refugees in their own country. To this day the occupying forces impede the return of refugees to their homes and property. By the end of 1975, the vast majority of Turkish-Cypriots living in areas controlled by the legitimate government were forced to leave their homes and move, owing to Turkey's coercive policy, to the Turkish-occupied territory of the Republic of Cyprus.

20,000 Greek-Cypriots and Maronites chose not to leave their homes despite the Turkish occupation. Most of those who remained, mainly on the Karpasia Peninsula, were gradually forced to abandon the area. The number of Greek-Cypriots and Maronites currently living in the area has plummeted to 300 persons. This dramatic decrease in the number of enclaved people is striking considering that based on the agreement reached in Vienna on 2 August 1975, the Turkish side would have to provide the enclaved population with "every help to lead a normal life, including facilities for education and the practice of their religion, as well as medical care by their doctors of preference and freedom of movement in the North". In breach of this agreement, on a practical level, the Turkish side subjected the enclaved to constant harassment, restrictions on movement, denial of access to adequate medical care, denial of adequate facilities for education, especially beyond elementary education, restrictions on the right to use their property and the free exercise of their religious rights. It was, thus, a deliberate policy of national cleansing, forcing the enclaved to flee their homes.

At the same time, Turkey has implemented a systematic policy of settlement of the occupied part of Cyprus since 1974 with the mass transfer of more than 160,000 Turks from Turkey in order to change the demographic profile and alter the population balance on the island. This policy, together with driving the Greek -Cypriot inhabitants out of the region, the destruction of the cultural heritage, and the illegal change of geographical place names in the occupied part of Cyprus, aims at the elimination of every single, centuries-old Greek and Christian element, and eventually the "turkification" of the region. It also aims to change the balance of power and the social fabric in the occupied part of Cyprus, to ensure that the Turkish-Cypriot leadership conforms to the policies of the Turkish government. With the mass migration of Turkish-Cypriots from the occupied territories, the total number of Turkish soldiers and settlers is now greater than the remaining Turkish-Cypriots.

What does Amnesty have to say about this?

Essentially, nothing.

Amnesty's annual report on Turkey does not mention Cyprus or Northern Cyprus once! The term "Northern Cyprus" is barely mentioned in the entire Amnesty site. No calls to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees to return to their homes. Not a word about ethnic cleansing. Nothing about Turkey's current destruction of Christian and Greek cultural heritage in the area.

In 2020 and 2021, Turkey essentially stole the resort town of Varosha, while not allowing its actual residents to return to live there. There is not one word about Varosha on the Amnesty and HRW sites.

Everything Israel is accused of doing in the West Bank and Gaza actually happened in Northern Cyprus.

In two years, when the Turkish occupation reaches the five decade mark, Philip Luther will undoubtedly say that Israel is singular, because, "How many other countries have a fifty-five year occupation?"

The Encyclopedia of Human Rights says that settlers have human rights. But it isn't talking about Jewish settlers, whom everyone agrees would have to be forcibly removed from their homes. It is talking about the Turkish settlers in Northern Cyprus.

The singling out of Israel has nothing to do with Israel's policies. It has everything to do with Israel being a Jewish state. All the other excuses (billions in US aid! Israel's claims to be a democracy!) are nothing but smokescreens for the truth: it is all about the desire by modern antisemites to say that Jews are the worst human rights violators on the planet.

Yes, Israel is singular - in the double standards applied to it.

From Iran's ABNA news agency:

The head of Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement’s Executive Council ruled out any possibility for Lebanon to normalize ties with the Zionist regime of Israel.

Referring to some media speculations about the issue as fake and misleading, Syed Hashim Safi Al Dinsaid (Safieddine) said. “We will never accept Lebanon’s move on that path,” Al-Ahed News reported.

He said those talking about normalization seek to stop the activities of the resistance in the name of saving the country.

That's a hell of a statement. He's saying that the survival of an extra-governmental terrorist army is more important than the very survival of Lebanon!

He also claimed that "orders came from the kings and princes that everyone must follow the path of normalization" but the proud Lebanese people would never do it: "How could they want the resistance front’s fighters, families of martyrs and Lebanon’s noble people to join those who shamefully normalized relations with the Israeli regime?"

Then comes the real punchline:

Safieddine also said that those who try to portray the resistance as the one responsible for Lebanon’s woes are ill-wishers and serve the enemies.

Lebanon ought to rely on itself and its strong army and its economy should be independent, he went on to say.

The movement that does everything it can to make Lebanon an Iranian satellite claims it wants Lebanon to be independent!

Another Hezbollah leader spoke yesterday:

Hizbullah central council member Sheikh Nabil Qaouq on Sunday lashed out at what he called “the Arabism that is allied with the Israeli enemy.”

“The Arabism that is allied with the Israeli enemy is an American Arabism that doesn’t belong to us and we don’t belong to,” Qaouq said during a memorial service in the southern town of Kfar Tebnit.

The cynical commenters on Naharnet were quick to respond: "and who the .... are you to define and classify Arabism?! An Iranian terrorist!"

Two rival clans, the Al-Owaiwi and Al-Jabari families, have been openly fighting in Hebron and the police are nowhere to be found.

Videos show automatic machine gun fire aimed at the opposing family's shops, and one scene appears to be inside a mall.

Three civilians were injured by gunfire on Sunday, including an 11 year old boy shot in the chest.

The feud between the clans was re-ignited last year when one member of the Al-Owaiwi family killed a member of Al-Jaabari family in a revenge act for the murder of a relative more than 15 years ago.

A mass rally in Hebron called for a solution to the security chaos as well as an end to high prices.

The PA's hold on things is fraying badly. And when Abbas dies, things are going to get very ugly.

A boy dies in a well in Morocco. Palestinians want the story to be about them!

Palestinians really hate when there are any news stories that don't put them at the center.

For the past five days, the Arab world and then the world at large held its breath, hoping that a five year old boy named Rayan would be rescued from the well that he had fallen down last Tuesday.

Unfortunately, today we found out that he did not survive.

The official Palestinian newspaper Al Hayat published an op-ed by Dr. Jamal Abdel Nasser Mohammed Abdullah Abu Nahl, President of the National Center for Palestinian Scholars, on the story.

After perfunctorily saying that Rayan's death was a tragedy and he's really sorry, he said that famous "but..." that Palestinians and their supporters love to add. Rayan suffered...but what about Palestinians?

Palestinians have people in Israeli prisons - and they did nothing wrong, only killing Jews for defending their dignity! Rayan's mother may be mourning, but what about Palestinian mothers of martyrs?

Thousands like Rayan were martyred, he says, and their pure blood remains a living witness to the crimes, fascism, Nazism, barbarism, racism and sadism of the usurping occupation gang of Palestine; the usurping Jews who do not want peace or harmony! And even as Jews are killing thousands of Rayans, Arab nations like Morocco are normalizing relations with the hated Zionist entity!

It is because of articles like this that the Arab world recognizes that Palestinians have no empathy, no concern for the rest of the Arab world. They demand the Arab and Muslim worlds keep their issue at the top of every agenda, and even a child who is tragically lost is simply another story to twist into ensuring that no suffering is considered as bad as Palestinian suffering.

This is while Palestinians have a standard of living and health that is on par with most Arab nations and better than many.

Palestinians are the most self-absorbed people on Earth. And Arabs are getting mighty disgusted with it.

02/06 Links: Amnesty International Tries to Put Israel on Trial; After Israel, Ben & Jerry's attacks US Ukraine policy; Kuwait bans ‘Death on the Nile’ film over Israeli actress Gal Gadot

From Ian:

Elliot Kaufman (WSJ$): Amnesty International Tries to Put Israel on Trial

Boycott, marginalization and even violent resistance follow from the apartheid label. In 1975, a year after South Africa’s diplomatic credentials were rejected, the Organization of the Islamic Conference sought to expel Israel from the U.N. as well. This failed, but as a consolation prize, the U.N. passed the “Zionism Is Racism” resolution. This diplomatic offensive was the new stage in the Arab war against the Jews, after military force had failed for the last time in 1973. In 1982 the General Assembly recommended “all Member States to cease forthwith . . . all dealings with Israel in order to totally isolate it in all fields.” In Resolution 37/43, also passed in 1982, the General Assembly grouped Israel with South Africa and affirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle . . . by all available means, including armed struggle.”

Who today would deny that the African National Congress had a right to fight Pretoria? The same was meant to apply to Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorism against Jerusalem. The U.N. reaffirmed this right to armed struggle many times, thwarting general treaties against terrorism. The OIC insisted that “anti-Israel militants be exempted,” reported the Washington Post in November 2001.

Whereas the sponsors of Resolution 37/43 had their eyes open, Amnesty International’s leaders doubtless have their eyes shut. But by invoking apartheid to single out Israel as an enemy of mankind, Amnesty implicitly rejects Israel’s right to exist and authorizes violent resistance to destroy it.

With an idea of the stakes, supporters of Israel rush to defend it from the apartheid charge. But in this strange game, the only winning move is not to play. Forget “WarGames” (1983); this is the lesson of Kafka’s “The Trial” (1925). Josef K., standing in for the Jews, is told that he is on trial, though for what, he can’t comprehend. His mistake is to mount a defense. An accusation that isn’t the product of disinterested reason won’t be refuted by recourse to it, and to defend oneself is to acknowledge the legitimacy of the court. The beauty of Zionism is that Jews can finally have their own court and no longer be made to stand before the biased judges of centuries past, protesting their innocence of imagined crimes when all parties know a guilty verdict is assured in advance.

Amnesty International and a dozen U.N. bodies would love nothing more than to preside as arbiters in this latest trial of the Jews. We are lucky that they have no power to compel Israel’s participation. But if the apartheid charge were to stick, rallying an international boycott and authorizing renewed armed resistance, who’s to say the Jews couldn’t be paraded into court one more time?

NGO Monitor: Amnesty’s “Apartheid” Report: Recycled Tropes in the Guise of Research

On February 1, Amnesty International posted a 200+ page publication singling-out out and targeting Israel as an “apartheid” state, in the NGO-led campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel, based on the action plan of the 2001 Durban NGO Forum. Although Amnesty officials repeatedly referred to the document as “original research” extending over 4 years (or 3 in other cases), an examination of the contents reveals this to be a collection and repetition of the verbal contortions and discredited claims largely copied from other NGOs with the same agenda.

In particular, the Amnesty text (Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System Of Domination And Crime Against Humanity) recycles the accusations, distortions, tropes and specific language from the Human Rights Watch version, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution published in April 2021, and analyzed by NGO Monitor. The overwhelming similarity between the two documents highlights the symbiotic and self-affirming relationship between the members of the anti-Israel NGO network, and their methodology of recycling discredited tropes and misinformation.

Both publications consist primarily of the following themes:
- Antisemitic tropes such as Jewish “supremacy” or “domination”
- An artificially constructed and incoherent definition of the term “apartheid”
- Exploiting the apartheid framework while falsely claiming not to be comparing Israel to the South African system
- Singling-out Israel uniquely and without comparison to other countries (an example of antisemitism according to the consensus IHRA working definition)
- Deleting the history and the context of the conflict, including Palestinian terror and war crimes
- Recommendations of sanctions and other punitive measures to isolate and delegitimize Israel, in accordance with the 2001 Durban NGO plan of action
- Rejection of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state and the denial of the Jewish people of the right to sovereign equality and self-determination (an example of antisemitism according to the consensus IHRA working definition)