Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 03, 2022

04/03 Links: Ruthie Blum: Jihad by Any Other Name; David Collier: Shaima Dallali and the National Union of Shame; UNHRC approves 4 anti-Israel resolutions, calls for limited arms embargo

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Jihad by Any Other Name

In his column in Haaretz on Thursday, Gideon Levy bemoaned that terrorism “is the only way open to the Palestinians to fight for their future … the only way for them to remind Israel, the Arab states and the world of their existence. If they don’t use violence, everyone will forget about them.”

Levy was reacting to the killing spree in Israel that claimed the lives last week of 11 innocent people and left many others either physically wounded or psychologically traumatized. He failed to point out that two of the deadly attacks were committed by Arab citizens of Israel, not Palestinians, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Though Levy has an extremely dim view of the Jewish state, he is well-versed in its history and current events. His failure to make the above distinction, then, was not due to ignorance or oversight.

No, the reason that he left out the identity of the perpetrators of the attacks in Beersheva and Hadera was that neither could serve as an example of the so-called ills of Israeli “occupation.” And he certainly wasn’t going to rethink his position on the Islamist angle to the story.

Instead, he was able to imply a natural affinity of Arab Israelis to their Palestinian brethren. And while at it, he — like his left-wing colleagues — could allude that Israel is at fault not only for a lack of a Palestinian state, but for abuse of its Arab citizens.

In this case, however, he also blamed the international community.

“When [the Palestinians] are quiet,” he wrote, “interest in their cause evaporates and fades from the agenda of Israel and the rest of the world.”

He went on to slam the Israel-initiated summit in the Negev, where the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt gathered early last week to strengthen the Abraham Accords. The way Levy saw it, those diplomats were sending a message of indifference to the Palestinians: that their plight was of no concern; that there were “more urgent matters and more important interests” on the agenda.

Jonathan Tobin: Violence Against Diaspora Jews Is Not Israel’s Fault

After three Arab terror attacks in a week that cost 11 lives, Israel’s government and citizens are in a heightened state of alert and worrying about the possibility of a series of individual attacks turning into a third intifada. But security officials spared a moment amid their mobilization to ramp up efforts to combat terror on the streets of Israel’s cities with another concern. According to Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the country’s leaders were also considering the possibility that Diaspora Jews might also be targeted by Palestinian radicals and/or their foreign sympathizers.

Kochavi was quoted by Israel’s Channel 13 television saying, “There is a real concern that the copycat effect could lead to efforts to hit Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.” He didn’t elaborate on this potential threat, though the report said that Israeli security agencies, including the Mossad, were going to need to step up attempts to combat such terror outside of the Jewish state.

If Kochavi is right, it will likely set off a renewed debate among some on the Jewish left about who will really be to blame for attacks on American Jews. Inevitably, some will say the fault lies with Israel for policies that its critics often claim make a terrorist response from oppressed Palestinians inevitable.

That’s the line we’ll likely hear from anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, who themselves often traffic in antisemitism. After all, they already think that Israel is to blame for everything that’s wrong in the Middle East and elsewhere. Such fallacies will also likely be echoed to some degree by liberal Zionists who ignore Palestinian intransigence and believe that Israel must be saved from itself. Such people think the refusal of Israelis to adopt suicidal policies that American Jews recommend will lead to disaster for everyone.

This is deeply wrong for a number of reasons.

The first is that it reflects the internalization of antisemitism by Jews, many of whom have always reacted to hatred against them by seeing it as a product of their own behavior or mistakes. The truth is that antisemitism is always about the antisemites, not what the Jews think or do. Jews are hated for a variety of often-contradictory reasons, and those who seek to find the cure for it within themselves are always looking in the wrong place.

62% of Israelis say Jerusalem morally obligated to help Jews worldwide

A majority of Israelis, 62%, believe the country has a moral obligation to help Jews around the world facing financial difficulty or natural disasters. By contrast, just 37% of Israelis feel a sense of personal responsibility toward Diaspora Jews who have chosen not to immigrate to Israel. This according to new data published by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry Sunday in honor of Diaspora Week.

The Diaspora Index, which Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai was set to present to President Isaac Herzog, Sunday, reflects Israeli Jews' knowledge of Diaspora Jewry and Israeli views on Diaspora Jews, assimilation, and Israel-Diaspora ties. The index is the result of a survey carried out in February 2022 of 1,001 Israelis aged 17 to 70 and over representing a sample of the Jewish population with a margin of error of 3.2%.

Forty-nine percent of Israelis surveyed believe Israeli society needs to take the opinions and interests of Diaspora Jews into account on matters of religion and state. In addition, a majority of Israelis, 57%, believe Israel should take Jewish communities in the Diaspora into account when making decisions on foreign and defense policy that could impact Jews overseas.

The vast majority of Israelis surveyed, 85%, said Israel should take significant action to eradicate antisemitic and anti-Israel discourse on social media. Furthermore, 73% of Israelis said their Jewishness was very significant to them, a 4% decrease seen largely among secular and traditional Jews over the last year.

"In recent years, we are witness to a lively discussion on the nature of the relationship between world Jewry and Israeli Jews and the State of Israel and between world Jewry and itself. In a world in which anyone can abandon their identity and become a citizen of the world, and the culture emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual at the expense of society, the family, and the people as a Jew, many Jews ask themselves, 'what is the significance of my existence as a Jew?'" Herzog said.

Qantara, a German site meant to act as a bridge between the Western and Muslim worlds, interviews Hamburg lawyer Eugen Balin who visited the UAE as a member of the World Jewish Congress' Jewish Diplomatic Corps late last year.

I returned from this delegation trip transformed. For the first time ever I was in a country outside of Israel where I could move around completely freely with a World Jewish Congress delegation, without any security precautions. Over the past twelve years this has never happened to us in any other country in the world. There we were in the market in Dubai, wearing our kippahs, recognisable as Jews and not in any danger at all. We spoke Hebrew, were cheerful and sometimes even loud. And we were greeted by vendors in a friendly manner and sometimes with "shalom". Israelis are not used to anything like that.
In Germany, France and other countries, it is not possible to travel openly as a Jew without putting yourself at risk. All over Europe, Jews are at risk.
In the United Arab Emirates, on Shabbat, Friday evening and Saturday morning, we walked from our hotel to the synagogue for prayer. Wearing kippahs, some even wore their prayer shawls openly through the streets of Dubai, without security. In the mall, prayer in the synagogue was signposted, the doors were open. To experience this in an Arab country.... our preconceptions are at odds with reality. None of us expected anything like this.

In the interview, Balin admits that UAE is not a democracy and it has a long way to go to be truly free. This is a point that anti-Zionists love to bring up about the Abraham Accords. But, Balin notes, the UAE is encouraging dialogue with not only Jews but Christians, Baha'i and others.

Ideas spread with dialogue. Change happens as people are exposed to other people.

This is why the Israel haters are so much against any communication whatsoever with Israelis or Zionists. They know that in the marketplace of ideas, they are bound to lose. So they want to close down that marketplace - boycott Israeli universities, shout down Zionist speakers, demonize everything about Israel so that people will feel guilty even considering that Israel is more liberal and open and interested in peace than the haters are.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Yair Rosenberg writes in his Atlantic "Deep Shtetel" column that a Tablet magazine piece he wrote in 2018 about how writer Alice Walker spouts crazed antisemitic conspiracy theories went viral and ended up, to some extent, "canceling" her.

Now she is about to release her last 50 years of journals, and Rosenberg is ambivalent about his role on sort-of but not really "canceling" Walker:

In essence, the public has responded to her prejudice by either completely sidelining her over her bigotry or completely ignoring that bigotry. I don’t think either of these approaches is constructive, and not just in this case.
What would a better response look like?
It would start by recognizing two principles. First: Human beings are complex and broken, and can rarely be reduced to their best or worst attributes. This means that great wisdom can coexist with great ignorance, and we should try to access the former while discarding the latter. Second: Accountability requires actually confronting the offense, rather than avoiding it.
In practice, this means that organizations and outlets should not deplatform Walker. Instead, they should refuse to give her an uncritical platform. Every time she appears at a public event or is interviewed by a publication, she should be asked at the outset to account for her anti-Semitic utterances. These questions should be posed in specific and concrete terms, making explicit reference to the ugly ideas she has written and recommended. If she is unwilling to submit to this line of questioning, she can withdraw from the engagement herself. If she is willing, audiences will be made aware of her profound flaws and be able to take them into account when consuming her other output. They will be better equipped to tap into the good in Walker’s work while rejecting the bad.
... If a person is never pushed to answer for their prejudice, they are unlikely to reconsider it. This is not just true for Walker, but for many analogous cases. Forgiveness requires accountability and genuine contrition. But while our society today is very adept at imposing punishment, it is very poor at providing a path to rehabilitation.

I am not a fan of cancellation, but this strikes me as naive, something one rarely sees from Rosenberg.

Let's see what his plan would look like in the real world, knowing what Walker has written about Jews over the years:

"Welcome, Ms. Walker. It is a real honor to have you on my show."

"Glad to be here, Clive."

"Tell me about your new book...."

"I'd love to...."

(adoring conversation follows)

"Now, you have written some controversial views about Jews and Israel that has been criticized by the Jewish community. You have been accused of antisemitism."

"No, Clive, I am not against Jews at all. I am being criticized because I am pro-Palestinian. Lots of people who criticize Israel are accused of antisemitism. It isn't true! I am only against Zionist Nazis, not Jews."

"But you have written things like the Jewish Talmud says that gentiles should be killed and young boys may be raped. Don't you see how that is offensive?"

"No, Clive, I am simply asking questions about the Talmud. I have seen evidence that the Talmud says all those things and worse. Rabbi Brant Rosen has verified my quotes. No one has refuted them. Why can't I ask questions? Do you know the Talmud better than Rabbi Rosen?"

And poor Clive will be left stuttering, and the audience adoring Walker for her bravery.

In short, allowing Walker to have a platform allows her to spew her lies, and unless a rabbi is invited to each of her talks, any challenge to her views will be turned around with the audience not knowing whom to believe.

To think that Walker can become contrite over her views, when she has been unrepentant about them even as they have been refuted, is dizzyingly optimistic. The person who proudly says that her knowledge of the Talmud somes from watching YouTube videos of antisemites is not about to start caring about facts.

Walker is an antisemite. There is no reason to sugar-coat it or excuse it because of her writings or skin color or political views. She should be treated exactly as a unrepentant racist would be treated on a book tour - and nowadays, that means that her hosts would want to be very careful not to be associated with someone whose views are so repugnant.

If that is cancellation, so be it.

Walker has had years to revisit her views. Her slanderous, patently false poem on the Talmud remains on her website, today. Even beyond the fake Talmud quotes, her poem considers all Jews the enemies of "us":

Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not only
That, but to enjoy it?
Are three year old (and a day) girls eligible for marriage and intercourse?
Are young boys fair game for rape?
Must even the best of the Goyim (us, again) be killed?
Pause a moment and think what this could mean
Or already has meant
In our own lifetime.

You may find that as the cattle
We have begun to feel we are
We have an ancient history of oppression
Of which most of us have not been even vaguely
Aware. You will find that we, Goyim, sub-humans, animals
-The Palestinians of Gaza
The most obvious representatives of us
At the present time – are a cruel example of what may be done
With impunity, and without conscience,
By a Chosen people,
To the vast majority of the people
On the planet
Who were not Chosen.

The only person she listened to was an anti-Zionist Israeli whose knowledge of the Talmud is nearly as poor as Walker's. And Walker's response was...more antisemitism.

This has nothing to do with Israel. This is a seething hatred of Jews. Perhaps it is because of Walker's hate of her first husband, who was Jewish. Who knows? It isn't important.

What is important is that this noxious, hateful person is about to be celebrated for her "journals." Her publisher will call her a genius who must be read. She will do the talk show circuit. And even well-meaning interviewers will not know enough to confront her intelligently without ending up legitimizing her and her hate.

The proper response to antisemitism and racism is not always so clear. Some people who spout offensive opinions can be educated. Alice Walker is not one of them.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Tiny, obscure Egyptian literary conference recommends against normalizing with Israel

Last week was the twenty-second literary conference for the West and Central Delta Cultural Region of Egypt.

This year, the conference was entitled “Soft Forces in Literary Discourse and Literature in the Region as a Model.”

About 25 people attended this tiny, regional conference.

But at the end of the conference, the world was treated to the official statement and recommendations of the literati in the West and Central Delta Cultural Region of Egypt.

As the news items breathlessly noted:

The most important recommendations, which were delivered by the poet Ahmed Shalabi, Secretary-General of the Conference, in the presence of the great poet Masoud Shoman and Ahmed Darwish, President of the Territory, were as follows: not to normalize with the Zionist entity in form and content...

Yes, that was the number one recommendation, among about five given.

Even with Israel becoming more and more accepted in the region, and even with more public acceptance by Egypt in recent years, being anti-Israel is still the top priority in brainwashed Egyptians' heads.

Including, or especially, the intellectuals.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/02 Links: PA slammed by EU Committee for producing new antisemitic textbooks; European blood libels continue, but now there's a solution; Three terrorists dead in firefight with Counterterrorism Unit

From Ian:

PA slammed by EU Committee for producing new antisemitic textbooks

The European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee passed a motion condemning the Palestinian Authority for creating new school textbooks containing violent and hateful material using funding provided by the EU.

The motion is part of the union's annual budgetary procedure that examines exactly how European taxpayer funds have been spent on projects it carries out.

This motion has effectively frozen EU funding to the PA during its deliberation, while funding conditionality is being examined.

The motion was proposed by the left-leaning Renew Europe Party and supported by the centrist European People's Party. It demands that the Palestinian Authority be “closely scrutinized” and that the curriculum be modified “expeditiously.”

The EU “deplores that problematic and hateful material in Palestinian school textbooks has still not been removed and is concerned about the continued failure to act effectively against hate speech and violence in school textbooks and especially in the newly created study cards,” the motion reads.

The EU "requests, therefore, the Commission to closely scrutinize that the Palestinian Authority and relevant experts modify the curriculum expeditiously,” it says.

European blood libels continue, but now there's a solution

Once again, the psychological warfare is directed toward the area of Judaism that is most offensive to the Jews. As Jewish religiosity and insularity dramatically receded over the last century, the core Jewish value of Tikun Olam has been taking an increasingly central role: Repairing the world, being a light unto the nations and protecting human rights.

Not surprisingly, this is where the assault on Judaism is now taking place. In the last few months alone, the Jewish state has been accused of engaging in genocide, ethnic cleanings, apartheid, war crimes, crimes against humanity and even committing a holocaust.

This is not just coming from a few “rotten apples.” It is coming from mainstream media outlets and credible organizations, such as the United Nations and Amnesty International.

As the organizing principle of the Jewish nation-religion has shifted from its religious aspect (Rabbinic Judaism – Judaism 2.0) to its national aspect (Zionism – Judaism 3.0), so has the currency of age-old opposition to Judaism.

Just as it was pointless back then for a Jew to try to convince a European murdered at his doorstep that Jews do not use the blood of Christian children to prepare matzos, it is pointless today to convince some Europeans and others who are infected with the cancerous Israel-bashing epidemic that the Jewish state does not engage in crimes against humanity.

Similarly, just like back then there was nothing the Jew could do to self-correct his “bad behavior” short of self-annihilation, there is nothing the Jewish state can do to alleviate the attacks against it: It cannot stop assaulting Palestinian women in roadblocks, because it does not assault them; it cannot stop the genocide of Palestinians, because it does not do that either. Once again, the attackers left no path for the Jews to appease them. The only available option of redemption once again, as Wagner put it, is “self-annihilation.”

Addressing the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said: “when Amnesty publishes their outrageous apartheid report, houses of prayers in California are targeted.” In Herzl’s time, during the early days of the antisemitism movement, it was “only” houses of worship and individual Jews that were being targeted. Soon, it was a well-organized onslaught on all of Judaism. This is precisely the trajectory of the Israel-bashing movement today.

If the Palestinian Authority regards Islamic Jihad terrorists killed in a gun battle as innocent victims, what chance is there for peace?

From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh condemned the assassination of the three young men, Saeb Abhara, Khalil Tawalbeh, and Saif Abu Libda, at dawn today, Saturday, the first of the holy month of Ramadan, in Jenin.
Shtayyeh described that crime and the previous killings that were committed outside the law as horrific crimes, the perpetrators of which must be held accountable before the International Criminal Court .

Times of Israel describes the incident this way:

Three members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group were killed and four Israeli troops injured during an arrest operation in the West Bank in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning.
The gunfight broke out when terror suspects opened fire on an Israeli team from the Border Police’s elite Yamam counter-terror unit that attempted to arrest them.
The suspects appeared to have been on their way to carrying out an attack, Israeli authorities said.
“Information was received of a terror squad on its way to commit an attack,” police said, adding that the group was also involved in recent terror activities against Israeli security forces.
The suspects had been under Shin Bet surveillance for several hours ahead of the shootout, and Israeli troops found firearms and grenades in their vehicle.

Who's telling the truth?

Well, here's Islamic Jihad's "martyr poster" for the three:

Islamic Jihad doesn't deny that they were terrorists, or that they were on the way to an attack. In fact, the head of Islamic Jihad bragged that the three managed to injured Israeli soldiers, so he admits there was a gunbattle that his side most certainly lost.

So this means that the Palestinian Authority chooses the side of the terrorists over Israel.

Which tells you everything you need to know about the "moderate" PA.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/01 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism is alive and well in Britain’s schools; WaPo Publishes Op-Ed by Mariam Barghouti, Who Compared Israel to Nazi Germany

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: Anti-Semitism is alive and well in Britain’s schools

Latest figures reveal that anti-Semitism is soaring in Britain. February’s Community Security Trust (CST) report shows that anti-Jewish hate crime hit an all-time high last year. The total level of incidents rose by 34 per cent to 2,255, the highest ever recorded. Jew-hate incidents were reported to every single police force bar one.

The problem is particularly bad in education. Perhaps it is the dominance of 'woke' ideology, which seems to carry a dim view of Jews. Latest statistics from the CST disclose that anti-Semitism on campus rose by 59 per cent last year, reaching record levels.

Like many Jewish people, at times like these, I find myself daydreaming about moving to Israel (I did it quite a lot before Jeremy Corbyn was dumped by the electorate). In Israel, ironically enough, daily anti-Semitism plays little part in most people’s lives. Synagogues often have no security, even in Judea and Samaria. Yet in the last two weeks, a sudden spate of stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks has claimed multiple lives in the country.

It is too early to establish whether this is a wave of Isis-inspired violence or if it has been orchestrated by Iran over social media. There is evidence of both, but the trend has yet to become clear. Either way, Jew-hatred in Israel – as in France and other European countries – often turns deadly. In Britain, thank God, we have seen much less of that.

Thinking back, I faced quite a lot of hassle as a kid. I grew up in an Orthodox community, so I was walking around the streets visibly Jewish, which made me a target. I got into the habit of removing my kippah when I went past pubs. I was attacked quite disturbingly once, and taunted and mocked regularly. The school I attended faced frequent bomb threats, meaning that evacuation was a familiar occurrence. On one occasion, the letter bomb was real.

I’d never dreamed that my children – living in Winchester rather than London, in the third decade of the 21st century, without being outwardly Jewish or observant – would face anything remotely similar. It was the Eighties back then, I told myself. Standards were lower. More fool me.

Some things have changed, I suppose. When speaking to my son, I asked him if the kids behaved this way towards other minorities at school. Black children, for example. His eyes widened. 'Of course not,' he said, a note of irony in his voice. 'That would be racist.'

Washington Post Publishes Op-Ed by Mariam Barghouti, Who Compared Israel to Nazi Germany

It would appear that having a documented history that has included comparing Israel to Nazi Germany does not preclude one from offering their opinions on the editorial webpages of The Washington Post, a publication that prides itself on a self-stated commitment to fairness.

Mariam Barghouti, who describes herself as a “writer and researcher based in Palestine,” was recently invited to share her views with Post readers, in a piece titled, “Another group recognized Israel’s Palestinian apartheid. How will the world react?”

Barghouti, who has also previously written for and contributed to outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Newsweek, came to HonestReporting’s attention last year after we uncovered a series of now-deleted tweets, such as one in which she asserted that “Israel has been beating Hitler at his own game since 1948,” and another that referred to former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as being “nothing more than a war criminal and a Nazi.”

Such remarks are evidence of anti-Jewish bigotry, and are a breach of the IHRA’s internationally-recognized working definition of antisemitism, specifically making comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis and claiming that Israel’s very existence is in itself a racist endeavor.

The IHRA definition has been either adopted or endorsed by dozens of countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Spain, and Germany.

In her latest piece, Barghouti accuses the Jewish state of maintaining a “deep essence of apartheid;” suggests that Jerusalem’s decision to designate six Palestinian NGOs is part of a campaign to “discredit and vilify” critics; and claims that Israel “weaponizes charges of antisemitism to manipulate and gaslight.”

There are a number of points that deserve to be noted in response to such allegations.

Christian Congressman: Funding PA will lead to more terror

With the Passover, Easter and Ramadan holidays fast approaching, Palestinian terrorism is suddenly spiking.

Thousands of Israelis police officers, border guards and military commandos have been deployed to secure the peace.

But an American congressman, who is a leading expert on US-Israeli relations and how to combat Palestinian terrorism, warns that may not be enough.

He said that the Palestinian Authority (PA) financially rewards those who commit terrorist acts against Israelis, and that the Biden administration is turning a blind eye to this policy. Unless these two things change, according to Rep. Doug Lamborn, we’re going to see more terror ahead.

Lamborn is a Republican and a devout Evangelical Christian who represents Colorado Springs, a heavily Evangelical community in central Colorado, south of Denver. He serves on the House Armed Services Committee and is a member of the Israel Allies Caucus in Congress.

He is also the author of the Taylor Force Act.

Signed into law in 2018, the act requires the US government to deduct from any funding of the PA the amount of money that it pays to prisoners who have committed terrorist attacks against Israelis or to their families.

Given that the PA budgets upwards of $200 million towards such payments, this is a significant incentive for Palestinians to attack Israelis.

Lamborn denounces what he calls PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ “pay for slay” policy as “so sick” and “so wrong.”

But in an exclusive interview with ALL ISRAEL NEWS at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Lamborn said that the Biden administration is ignoring the law and trying to increase funding to the PA.

The Tikvah Podcast: David Friedman on What He Learned as U.S. Ambassador to Israel

When Donald Trump improbably became president in 2016, few knew what his foreign-policy agenda would look like. Having spent little time on such issues during his campaign and having no previous electoral experience, Trump’s inclinations were mysterious. But despite this, it’s clear now, looking back, that some of his administration’s greatest successes were in the Middle East.

This week’s podcast guest, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman, was at the center of it all, a story that he tells in a new memoir. In this conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, Friedman brings listeners inside his tenure, which included the Abraham Accords, the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and America’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Friedman also reflects on his Jewish formation, and his assessment of American Jewry today.

Erdogan condemns terror attacks; but will it impact Turkey's relations with Hamas?

Times of Israel reports:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called President Isaac Herzog on Friday and “sharply condemned” the terror attacks that killed 11 Israelis over the last two weeks.
“President Erdogan asked to send his condolences to the bereaved families who have lost their loved ones and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,” a statement from Herzog’s office quoted him as saying.
“Both presidents emphasized that on the eve of the holidays of Ramadan, Passover and Easter there is a need for action to maintain calm in the whole region,” the statement said.

Hamas leadership has been, outside Gaza, concentrated in Qatar and Turkey. It is a major base of operations for the terror group. Funding and logistics of terror attacks have come from Hamas in Turkey.

Is Turkey going to distance itself from Hamas, or it is trying to play both sides? Hamas was alarmed at President Herzog's visit, but I have not seen anything concrete that Turkey has done to weaken Hamas in that country.

It would be a mistake to trust Erdogan. His desire to patch up relations with Israel is not based on liking Israel or disliking Hamas. Israel needs to keep its eyes wide open - and push Turkey to get rid of Hamas if it wants closer ties with the Jewish state.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

04/01 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: The Negev Two-State Summit; Melanie Phillips: Blinken’s obscene "progressive" agenda; Israel and UAE Finalize ‘Milestone’ Free Trade Deal

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Negev Two-State Summit

To block criticism of the nuclear deal the US is now concluding with the Iranians, Blinken's challenge this week was to neutralize the Israeli-Arab anti-Iran strategic alliance. And he used the two-state solution to achieve this goal.

Before Blinken arrived at the Negev Summit Monday night, he held another summit in Ramallah with PLO chief and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. When he arrived in Sde Boker, Blinken used his meeting in Ramallah to make the Palestinians the main subject of conversation.

Given the existential threat that Iran poses to the nations of the region, Blinken's efforts wouldn't have had a chance of success without Israeli support.

Without a doubt, Blinken's greatest Israeli supporter is Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Gantz has been carrying out an independent foreign policy aligned completely with the administration's anti-Israel positions. Gantz's independent diplomatic forays have included meetings with Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan. Media reports last week indicated Gantz was working to bring both men to the Negev Summit, a move that would have ended all talk of Iran.

Gantz is not the only Israeli leader who has been ably assisting Blinken. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid also helped Blinken when they failed to defend Israel against Blinken's libelous statements about "settler violence," which is all but non-existent.

In the face of Israeli Arab terror in Beersheba and Hadera, putting Blinken in his place and ending talk of a two-state solution would have been easy. The Israeli Arab terror shows that the two-state solution's first premise – that there is an upper limit to Arab demands is false. If Israel surrenders Judea, Samaria and large parts of Jerusalem the move won't bring peace. It will move the war to the Galilee, the Negev, and the rest of what will be left of Israel. Indeed, it is already there.

But Lapid and Bennett said nothing as Blinken accused their country of imaginary crimes in furtherance of the two-state solution.

Blinken's two-state solution offensive enabled him to ignore whatever protests Lapid and the Arab foreign ministers expressed at the Negev Summit. It also allowed him to change the subject. In their final statements at the end of the summit on Tuesday, the Arab foreign ministers ignored Iran and joined Blinken in voicing their support for the two-state solution.

In truth, the main reason the fake policy of "two-state solution" keeps going is that some Jews of Israel have yet to accept the truth about the Palestinian Arab conflict with Israel and what that means. The two-state solution is inherently, and necessarily anti-Israel. In a situation where the majority of Arabs living west of the Jordan River, (whether in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, the Negev, the Galilee, the Dan Region, or the Sharon) are unwilling to accept the Jewish state's right to exist in any borders, you can't be pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. You have to choose.

The proper and indeed only adequate response to the anti-Israel two-state solution is Zionism. To contend with the Palestinians, the Iranians, the Americans, and everything in between, Israel must adopt and maintain Zionist policies across the board, whether in military policy, foreign affairs and public diplomacy, in the legal system, in economics or in social affairs. Without Zionism, Israel will be incapable of defeating the new terror onslaught. It will be unable to block Iran's path to nuclear-armed regional hegemony. And it will be unable to contend with the Biden administration, which is facilitating both.

Melanie Phillips: Blinken’s obscene "progressive" agenda

Even more significant is their belief that final victory over the Jews is now within their grasp. These attacks are being fuelled by an exultant fervour that the United States is in retreat and, by its craven submission to Iran, is surrendering to Islam.

This plays into the strand of apocalyptic Islamic messianism promoted by Islamic preachers whipping up expectations that the weakness of America and the resulting likely victory over the Jews means that the end of days is imminent.

Blinken assumes that the “Palestinian” cause is one that needs addressing in order to achieve progress towards peace. On the contrary — since the “Palestinian” cause is nothing other than the extermination of Israel, the only way to achieve peace is to sideline that cause altogether. Insisting on making “progress” with it is tantamount to insisting upon progress in achieving the destruction of Israel.

Contrary to Blinken’s words, the Abraham Accords were indeed a crucial substitute for that cause. The alliance makes true progress in ending the war against Israel’s existence by abandoning the people who continue to wage that war.

Yet the Biden administration regards the alliance between Israel and its new Arab allies as an impediment to the actual progress it so incomprehensibly desires — to empower Iran.

While Israel and its Arab allies understand that the Iranian regime poses a mortal threat to themselves that must be defeated, Blinken and the rest of the Biden team are desperate for an agreement which will enable Tehran to develop nuclear weapons within a short space of time and which will funnel into its coffers tens of billions of dollars to fund its infernal activities.

What Blinken demonstrated in the Negev was what it currently means to be a western progressive. It means supporting people who murder Israelis and empowering others who want to wipe out Israel — while spouting liberal pieties out of the other side of their mouths.

Ruthie Blum: 'Pay-for-slay' Abbas takes his cue from 'Iran-Deal' Blinken - opinion

It’s not surprising, then, that Abbas was denounced as a traitor by an already disgruntled Palestinian public for daring to suggest that the killing of Israeli civilians is detrimental. His critics in the PA don’t care about his glorification and financial backing of terrorists – as long as he continues to collaborate in some fashion with Israel and suck up to the US.

BLINKEN HAD nothing to say about any of that. Instead, he took to Twitter to “condemn the horrific terrorist attack… in Bnei Brak, the third… in Israel in a week,” and extended “condolences to the families of the victims… May their memories be a blessing.”

His sympathies were as pointless as Abbas’s contorted statement. Far more significant was his equating of Arab terrorism with “settler violence,” emphasizing the latter over the former.

If rhetoric were the only problem with Blinken’s behavior, the situation would be less dire. But, as he himself boasted, with Bennett at his side: “Our administration is… rebuilding America’s relationship with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, something I’ll continue to do… in Ramallah with President Abbas, and in east Jerusalem with leaders of that community’s vibrant and diverse civil society.”

Any Israeli who managed not to laugh at this description was weeping by the time the secretary of state got to the part about the US “increasing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, totaling half a billion dollars since April 2021.” After all, as Bennett well knows, the only “Palestinian people” who benefit from such an influx of cash are Abbas, his henchmen and the terrorists they fund.

The money in question is chump change, however, compared to the billions that Team Biden is anxious to hand over to the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism, whose threats to annihilate Israel are no emptier than its arsenals. Just ask the Arab signatories to and supporters of the Abraham Accords.

Projection of the day: "Jews hate Arabs. Here's why Jews are all racist pigs hell-bent on ruling the world."

The Nasserist Egyptian site Al Majd has a great example of psychological projection from Firas Hajj Muhammad, in an article named "Only Israel is responsible for the violence in Palestine."

The ugliness of the Zionist occupation lies in the systematic hatred of the Arab and the Palestinians. The occupation policy and thinking is based on disrespect for everything that is non-Zionist and non-Jewish, Arab and non-Arab. A thought is based on human hatred and only recognizes them alone, and everyone is harnessed to serve them. It is a “neo-Nazi.”
Whoever contemplates the two, “Jewish Zionism” and Nazism, will find that they are very close in view of the other, so they are inhumane experiences, and as history cursed the Nazi experiment, it will curse the Zionist-Jewish experience, as it is a curse on the world and an uncontrollable evil. The real solution lies in removing this illegal and inhuman entity that is based only on enslaving and controlling the world.
The problem with this occupation is that its leaders are devoid of all human responsibility and do not share with others and do not intersect with human beings in any of the general values, so they created for themselves values and standards that differ from the rest of the world. So, they are on one side and the world on the other, so they do not recognize truth, goodness and beauty as general human values, but rather they have their right, goodness and beauty, those values that mean nothing but evil in the consequences of the living reality. They practiced this with everyone, with us Palestinians, with Arab princes and poor politicians, with Iranians, and with other leaders in the world, so what evil is this upon which the Zionist movement is based while it is destroying the world politically and morally, to sit on the throne of the leadership of evil. This is neither a construction nor an exaggeration, it is the reality of the Zionist criminality that polluted Judaism with it, to rise on its shoulders.
The whole world should warn against this evil and resist it with all it can. Eliminating evil is a human value necessity and an end in itself, and this is not the task of the Palestinians alone, but the task of the whole world. So let us take the initiative to end and eliminate this evil. Is the world’s affliction not enough as a result of its care for this evil thought for a century and more? Let the world return to its senses, to international politics its wisdom, and to the people's respect for their values!

The site that cares so much about morality supports Russia against Ukraine.

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Whistleblower Khaled Hassan

This is a bombshell report from TheJC (which does perhaps the best reporting of any Jewish newspaper):

YouTube routinely ignored warnings from its own moderators to take down antisemitic videos, including some that inspired the Texas synagogue gunman, a whistleblower has told the JC.
The refusal to delete the incendiary footage, which glorifies terrorism and brands Jews “agents of Satan”, makes a mockery of the web giant’s supposed commitment to safeguarding users, the whistleblower said.
Former moderator Khaled Hassan, 31, who was employed to identify extremism in Arabic language videos until two months ago, accuses YouTube of “shirking its legal and moral responsibilities”.
In shocking testimony, the whistleblower reveals:
- YouTube ignored warnings that specific videos would incite violence against Jews, just weeks before British terrorist Malik Faisal Akram watched the same clips and took four hostages at Beth Israel synagogue in Texas.
- YouTube ignored requests to remove videos by Wagdy Ghoneim, a leading Egyptian jihadist who is banned in the UK, on the grounds that he was not on an internal watchlist of just 29 names.
- Mr Hassan was told that when he wished to “flag” any video about the Middle East conflict, he should seek approval from a Palestinian colleague.
- The whistleblower was moved to a more menial job because, he claimed, he highlighted videos that YouTube did not want to remove.
- The social media giant refused to delete clips celebrating the November murder of Jerusalem tour guide Eli Kay because they did not display the logo of a terrorist organisation.

...Mr Hassan, 31, a counter-terrorism expert who spent years fighting extremism in Egypt before achieving a master’s degree in security policy at Leicester University, told the JC: “YouTube’s policy is a sham. They claim they will remove content that glorifies terrorism and contains racist hate speech, but what they do behind the veil of company secrecy is very different.
“They are shirking their legal and moral responsibilities. They tell users that their platform is safe. In fact, they are allowing people to be radicalised and reinforcing claims that Jews are evil and rule the world.”

This is more than just being irresponsible. YouTube, and Google, are arguably accessories to terrorism.

The part where Google told Hassan that Palestinians must approve removing any jihadist video about Israel is especially insane. Terrorism enjoys wide popular support among Palestinians.

In other words, they allow people who overwhelmingly hate Jews to decide what is antisemitic incitement.

This means that the Palestinian propaganda that "Zionists" are silencing them has real-world consequences. It causes Google and other social media to err on the side of the terrorists and wannabe jihadists when dealing with antisemitic propaganda, rather than prioritize the lives of Jews.

(h/t Brad)

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The official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa writes:

Occupation MK Itamar Ben Gvir, at the head of 202 settlers, stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, where they carried out provocative tours and performed racist Talmudic rituals under the protection of dozens of Israeli policemen .

Both the Israeli Left and the Palestinian Arabs predicted that violence would result from Ben Gvir's visit, but he quietly walked around for 15 minutes and left.

But here we see that the Palestinian Authority is calling Jewish prayer not only "Talmudic rituals," but "racist Talmudic rituals."

This is new. I cannot find the phrase "racist Talmudic rituals" before February 22 of this year.

This isn't just antisemitic - it is official antisemitism from the Palestinian Authority, and the formulation of "racist Talmudic rituals" was copied slavishly in many other Arab sites, including in Egypt.

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03/31 Links Pt2: Biden Admin Failing to Reform UNRWA; How EU Funding of West Bank Activities Breaches Int’l Law & Undermines Peace; Hillel Neuer: The Jew Among the Nations -- Israel and the UN

From Ian:

Biden Administration Failing to Reform U.N.’s Palestinian Refugee Agency

The Trump administration cut off all U.S. funding for UNRWA in 2018, concluding that UNRWA needed to be reformed completely, if not dismantled. With a mandate to care for refugees, providing basic services like health care and education, but not resettle them, UNRWA has perpetuated the problem it exists to deal with. By conferring refugee status on multiple generations of Palestinians—a departure from U.N. practice in other conflicts—an initial refugee population of approximately 750,000 in 1948 has ballooned to 5.7 million. This expansive definition of who is a refugee, coupled with UNRWA’s support for the “right of return,” the Palestinian claim that all these millions of Palestinians have a right to resettle inside Israel, makes the agency a vehicle for prolonging the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To boot, UNRWA has also had serious issues of waste, fraud, and abuse.

When the Trump administration zeroed out aid to the U.N. agency in August 2018 after it resisted making changes, a State Department spokesperson announced, “The United States will no longer commit further funding to this irredeemably flawed operation.”

The Biden administration opted to restore funding to the agency before securing structural changes in UNRWA’s mandate or operations—all but ensuring no change would occur. When announcing the decision last April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed U.S. taxpayer money would promote “neutrality, accountability, and transparency.” Since then, the United States has donated or pledged some $416.8 million to UNRWA, including more than $32 million contributed in the wake of the May 2021 Hamas-Israel war.

The Biden administration would likely defend its decision by pointing to the framework for cooperation with the State Department that UNRWA signed on July 14, 2021, in which it committed to stopping incitement against Jews and Israel in its education system and ensuring it does not support or provide assistance to terrorist groups. Days later, the United States announced another $135.8 million for the cash-strapped agency. On December 30, 2021, the State Department pledged an additional $99 million, again stressing the need for UNRWA to focus on “accountability, transparency, neutrality, and stability.”

But America’s return on investment appears to be negative. A report published in January 2022 by the Jerusalem- and London-based watchdog group IMPACT-se shows that UNRWA has continued to distribute teaching materials that glorify and promote violence. (Previous reports from the group, which pre-date the agreement with the Biden State Department, showed the same thing, as did an EU-funded report released in June 2021. Even the UNRWA commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, admitted last September that textbooks distributed by his agency promote anti-Semitism, hatred, and violence.)

UNRWA has frequently hidden behind a claim that it merely uses the curriculum of its “host country.” With this approach, UNRWA has deflected accusations that the Palestinian Authority textbooks it uses in the West Bank and Gaza incite Palestinians to violence, even though UNRWA is under no obligation to use these materials.

Honest Reporting: EXCLUSIVE: How European Union Funding of West Bank Activities Breaches Int’l Law & Undermines Peace

The ongoing relevance of the Oslo Accords was more recently reiterated by longtime diplomat Dennis Ross, who served as former US president Bill Clinton’s Middle East envoy when the deals were signed. “These agreements, endorsed by the international community, form the cornerstone of the bilateral peace process until this day and continue to govern the relations between the parties,” Ross wrote in a submission to the International Criminal Court in 2020 [emphasis added].

But the illegal PA-EU land seizure effort taking place in Area C is, by contrast, making the actualization of the Oslo Accords more difficult as the subversive initiative seeks to, according to the Israeli intelligence report, establish “irreversible facts […] on the ground which have far-reaching implications on a future political agreement.”

The report also stresses that the land takeover is already endangering the lives of Israelis and Palestinians alike:
[…] This Palestinian activity has created a significant constraint on the freedom of movement along the main traffic arteries in the region, while transforming ‘traffic corridors’ from the Oslo era into ‘lanes,’ which are overseen and have come under threat, which might impact the security of the traffic along sections of some of the most important routes […]

For nearly three decades, the European Union has championed a “two-state solution based on the Oslo Accords and on international law,” often warning against perceived Israeli “unilateral departure[s] from the Oslo Accords.” As recently as last year, the European envoy to the United Nations Security Council explicitly invoked the agreements in an attack against alleged unilateral Israeli moves in the West Bank.

And while Europe has paid lip service to the need for direct talks between the two parties based on past agreements, with then-German foreign minister Heiko Maas in May 2021 saying that there is “no alternative to direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians,” Brussels is clearly abetting unilateral steps by the Palestinian Authority.

This, as part of an illegal campaign in Area C of the West Bank that is being funded by European taxpayers and effectively reducing the prospects for a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel: A Tale of 2 Parallel Universes

UNFORTUNATELY, Israel seems to exist in two parallel, contradictory worlds.

One universe has been constructed – a false, hackneyed, out-of-date, and threatening universe – that extends from Ramallah to New York, Geneva, and other unfriendly places.

This universe, dominated by so-called Western “progressives” in cahoots with Arab/Islamic radicals, disses rather than embraces the Abraham Accords and is stuck in a time warp where Israel is an evil actor. It is a malign universe where recalcitrant and violent Palestinian leaders are venerated, and admirable Israeli leaders are criminalized. It is a tragic, forlorn universe.

The other universe – real, promising, forward-looking, and stabilizing! – is marked by a peace dynamic that runs from Jerusalem to Dubai, Manama, Rabat, Cairo, and Amman; and from Jerusalem to the most important leaders in the world.

In short, the discourse about Israel in corrupt international institutions and in some aspersive Western campuses and capitals couldn’t be more different than the discourse in Arab capitals and other calm and considered decision-making centers. It’s confrontation versus cooperation, demonization versus solidarity.

It is time for more Western leaders and democratic activists to discover the true, new Middle East, and the real Israel: a force for peace, progress, security, and stability.

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My Supreme Leader, We Can Attack The US And Biden Will Still Cave To All Our Demands (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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My Supreme Leader, We Can Attack The US And Biden Will Still Cave To All Our Demands

by Ali Mossadegh, advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Alemi Tehran, March 31- Your Holiness, I must express my admiration for your wisdom and insight regarding the Great Satan and the naivety of their political leadership. Not only did you tell us not to compromise, but to harden our demands and even extend them; you predicted that we could actively hurt American interests and Washington will still grovel to reach some sort of agreement over our nuclear program, regardless of how triumphant it makes us and how humiliated it makes them. It now appears we could conduct actual, direct terrorist operations on their soil and they will continue to grant us everything we ask for and more! A remarkable diplomatic achievement.

I suggest we do so, but defer to your greater experience and wisdom as to the timing, location - or locations - and extent of the operations. It is one thing to keep pushing Biden and the craven Democrats further and further back from their original negotiating position; it would be another entirely to risk alienating enough of the US voting public that the leadership, no matter how accommodating they wish to be to us, must take into account the animosity our actions may produce. We certainly need not take heed of domestic dissent from official policy - the perks of knowing we are right and Godly, and those who disagree are Satanic and worthy only of repression and abuse - but sadly, the Western countries adhere to benighted notions of "consent of the governed" and "accountability to the citizens." As such, we must not overreach.

I might suggest a series of coordinated attacks on strategic or important institutions with powerful symbolism, but not so powerful as to force Biden's hand against us. That means the Statue of Liberty is out, as are any number of prominent buildings in the Washington, DC area. Striking a blow against American tyranny, tempting and righteous as it may be, requires judicious restraint. Our friend Osama learned that the hard way.

Perhaps a chemical attack against a large city is in order. Not a city with the political and cultural valence of New York or Washington, however. We cannot risk the backlash. No, I suggest a city with significant population and some national renown, which probably indicates at least two major sports teams. Places such as Cleveland, for example: locales with no shortage of infidels we can murder and make suffer, but with no lasting contribution to America's sense of itself. San Diego. Seattle. Las Vegas.

I await your decision, Your Holiness.

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