Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 04, 2022

Palestinian media mistranslating police statement of "Israelis touring Temple Mount" as "Jewish settlers storming Al Aqsa"

As Palestinian officials have been threatening a religious war if Jews go to the Temple Mount on Thursday and unfurl and Israeli flag while singing songs, Israeli police issued a statement that no such thing will happen.

Most Palestinian media are not publishing the denial, instead concentrating on the incitement and urging Arabs to come en masse and "defend al Aqsa." But some Palestinian arabic news media are reporting the Israeli police denial that any provocative actions will happen.

The articles put quote marks around the statement, but it is not even close to what the police statement said.

The police statement:

We call on the public not to listen to fake news and this wild incitement, which is mostly spread on social media by hostile parties with a foreign interest. It will be clarified that there is no change and no change is planned in the status quo that has existed for many years on the Temple Mount and the holy places in general, both in the context of Muslim prayers there or of tourist visits from abroad and Israelis according to accepted visiting hours. Anyone who upsets the order, incites violence, riots and acts of violence of any kind - will be treated harshly and with zero tolerance. Any support, identification or activity within the framework of terrorist organizations will be handled by the security forces with determination and with all the forces and means at our disposal.

The "quote" from Palestinian media:

"No change will be made in the arrangements for the Jews to storm Al-Aqsa tomorrow,. These procedures have been followed for years. There will be no change in the settlers' behavior in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa tomorrow, and there is no change to the status quo, and that the settlers' incursions are part of the procedures followed for years and at specific hours."

They even lie with quotes!

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05/04 Links Pt2: Israel kicks off 74th Independence Day; Why Russia thought its 'Nazi' claims would be convincing; Amnesty Lies & Hides; Leonard Cohen’s Songs of the Yom Kippur War

From Ian:

With ‘quiet’ fireworks and calls for kinship, Israel kicks off 74th Independence Day

Israel slid from grave heartache to celebratory joy Wednesday evening, as the nation ushered in its 74th Independence Day, with calls for unity attempting to cut through political disputes that marred solemn events earlier during Memorial Day.

“Right now, between these two days, with the transition that is so tough and so Israeli, we manage but for a moment to truly be one,” Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy said in a keynote address at the main state ceremony marking the start of Independence Day at Mount Herzl.

“We manage for a moment to not let any division get between us. And if we could do it yesterday, and we can do it tomorrow, I believe we can manage to do it every day; to choose to see the good in each other, to choose to brighten people’s faces, to choose partnership over division, to be together in this home for us all.”

The comments echoed similar calls for unity that have marked the holiday period, including from President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Bennett, who was heckled by antigovernmental protesters during the state’s main Memorial Day remembrance event for terror victims, said that while Israel is well-equipped to handle outside threats, it is still menaced by internal polarization.

“We cannot let hate trap us, rule over us. We need to see each other in the best light, to believe that others also want what is good for the nation, even if their ideology is totally different,” he said in a statement released by his office. Guests at the 74th Independence Day ceremony, held at Mount Herzl, Jerusalem on May 4, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)

Maskless and crowded together with few coronavirus restrictions for the first time in two years, Bennett and thousands of others gathered at Mount Herzl for the ceremony, including recent arrivals fleeing Ukraine and Russia, as well as government leaders and other dignitaries.

She helped get hundreds to safety in Ukraine; now she’ll light a torch in Jerusalem

On March 8, after nearly two weeks of intense Russian bombing, a humanitarian “green corridor” was established in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, allowing the civilians trapped inside to flee to safety. But within just a few short hours, Russian forces violated the negotiated ceasefire, halting the evacuation.

Undeterred, Elizaveta Sherstuk, the head of Sumy’s Jewish community center, set to work to get the most vulnerable members of her community out.

“We managed to evacuate 150 people, mostly the elderly, women, and children. The distance would normally take us three-four hours. It took us seven hours because there was so much traffic. We were lucky that there was a Red Cross column that accompanied it and we managed to join them and security helped us leave the town,” Sherstuk told The Times of Israel through a translator.

Dozens more were subsequently evacuated from Sumy and the surrounding area via buses organized by Sherstuk, who has been involved in Jewish communal life in her hometown since 1999 through the Chessed Chaim aid center, which is funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Two weeks ago, she was chosen to be one of the 12 people to light a torch at the national ceremony making the start of Israel’s Independence Day. Sherstuk will represent the Jewish Diaspora. She was nominated by Diaspora Minister Nachman Shai and approved by Culture Minister Chili Tropper.

“We decided to recommend Elizaveta, not only because of her work as an individual but also because she represents the JDC and the many Jewish and Israeli organizations which have worked to help the Ukrainian people and the Jewish community in Ukraine during this war,” Shai said.

Sherstuk spoke to The Times of Israel shortly after landing in Israel, where she will spend the next two weeks. In addition to participating in the official state Independence Day ceremony, Sherstuk will visit her daughter and granddaughter as well as her sister, who all live in Israel. She’ll also meet with local organizations and donors before heading back to Ukraine.

Matti Friedman: Leonard Cohen’s Songs of the Yom Kippur War

There was always something cryptic about “Lover Lover Lover,” the 1974 classic by the Canadian music icon Leonard Cohen, the “poet of rock.” The song might not be as famous as Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” but it was beloved by fans and important to the singer, who was still playing it in concert four decades later. But what did it mean? Why, in the song’s first line, did he cry “Father, change my name”? That didn’t sound like a love song. Neither did the observation that a body could serve as a “weapon,” or the hope that the song itself would serve as a “shield against the enemy”? Who was this enemy? And who was the audience?

In 2009, Cohen ended a world tour with a show in Israel, where I live. At 75, he put on one of the greatest last acts in music history. This came after he’d emerged from a Buddhist monastery in California to find that a former manager had cleaned out his bank account, went back on the road, and discovered that he’d ascended to the pantheon of popular music. Maybe you were lucky enough to catch one of those concerts. I grew up in Canada, where Cohen has always been considered a national treasure, but until then I hadn’t quite appreciated that his status in Israel was the same. When tickets went on sale here the phone lines crashed within minutes. Fifty thousand people showed up in Tel Aviv.

I didn’t know the reason for the intense connection until an article in a local paper suggested one explanation. It had to do with an experience Cohen had shared with Israelis long before, in the fall of 1973. My attempt to figure out what happened turned into years of research and interviews, and eventually into a book called Who By Fire, which is about how a war and a singer collided to create an extraordinary moment in music. One strand of this story turned out to be linked to “Lover Lover Lover,” and to the struggle of a great artist, or of any of us, to reconcile the pull of the universal with the magnetism of our own particular tribe and past.

The second week of October, 1973, was one of the worst in Israel’s history. At 2 p.m. on October 6, which was the Jewish fast day of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks. Sirens sounded across Israel, an Egyptian bomber fired a guided missile at Tel Aviv, the border defenses crumbled, the air force began hemorrhaging planes and pilots, army fatalities climbed from the hundreds into the thousands, and Israelis were struck with despair. At that moment, out of the smoke of battle in the Sinai Desert, on some quest of his own devising, strode a wry bard from Montreal.

Leonard Cohen’s appearance seemed as strange then as it does now, and has never really been explained, although in Israel this has become one of the stories everyone knows about the Yom Kippur War, just like the famous battles. Cohen was already an international star. Three years earlier he’d played for a half-million people at the Isle of Wight festival, which was bigger than Woodstock, and where wild fans heckled Joan Baez, threw bottles at Kris Kristofferson, and burned the stage with Jimi Hendrix on it, but settled down when Cohen came onstage after midnight and hypnotized them. He was one of the biggest names of the Sixties. And now here he was in the Middle East, at the edge of a desert strewn with blackened tanks and corpses in charred fatigues, playing for small groups of soldiers without an amplifier and with an ammo crate for a stage. Some soldiers didn’t know who he was. Others did and couldn’t understand what on earth he was doing here.

??LIVE NOW: @CarolineGlick in an interview with Israeli Nobel Laureate Robert Aumann:
· Is it rational to serve in the @IDF?
· Is Israel occupying the West Bank?
· Who is responsible for the cleavages on the political right?

In honor of #YomHaZikaron https://t.co/2N08mhpMyC
— Jewish News Syndicate (@JNS_org) May 4, 2022

1.       No matter where you walk in the Old City of Jerusalem, you can be sure that your footsteps land where characters straight out of the Bible once walked, kings and prophets and priests. You even think to yourself, “I am walking where David walked. Where Solomon walked,” and you give a little shiver, though you walk there every day.
2.       In 2001, in response to terror, grief, and the loss of one of their own, a group of women founded a musical theater troupe called Raise Your Spirits that, until today, puts on shows written, produced, and performed by and for women. The actors will not let the terrorists win. It is a statement: “You cannot keep us down. We will rise up and live our lives, and bolster the spirits of our sisters, no matter what you do.”
Raise Your Spirits (author at center)

3.       Traveling to pre-State Israel once meant an arduous trip by boat with no assurance that as a Jew, you’d be allowed to enter the country. Today, Israel is only a plane ride away and not only can Jews enter the country, but they can have citizenship and vote, because Israel is today, the Jewish State.
4.       In an Israeli hospital, a Jew may be the recipient of care and kindness from Arab doctors and nurses and vice versa, on some level, a proof of de facto coexistence that gives lie to the Apartheid smear.
Hadassah ICU, courtesy Barbara Sofer

5.       On a crowded Israeli bus or train, if you are pregnant, elderly, or infirm, someone will inevitably stand to give you their seat.
6.       During a terror attack anywhere else in the world, those in the vicinity will flee. In Israel, rather than keep away, civilians will come running toward the scene of the attack from blocks away to offer assistance.
7.       It was a long walk from the car to the cemetery in Kfar Etzion, where Ari Fuld was buried, but residents of the Kibbutz set out a table with water, soft drinks, and cups for those on the sad trek to the funeral, an expression of loving kindness during a time of shared grief for one of our own.
On the way to Ari Fuld's funeral.

8.       When you open your eyes in the morning and pinch yourself because you’ve just woken up in Israel.
9.       Visiting the Cave of the Patriarchs or Rachel’s Tomb, it comes on you that you are literally in the place where the Jewish matriarchs and patriarchs are buried, and you get goosebumps, even if you’ve been there a dozen times before.
10.   Landing in Israel for the first time, you are seized by the desire to bend down and kiss the earth, but discover that tarmac doesn’t taste—or smell—very good. Still, your heart is full and your eyes are wet.
11.   Touching the stones of the Western Wall, you suddenly understand that history is real. That this retaining wall was built by Herod—that history really happened.
12.   Watching a bridal couple under a canopy on a starlit night in Jerusalem or watching a son’s bar mitzvah at the Wall is invested with so much more meaning than could possibly be realized anywhere else in the world.
13.   At the conclusion of a son’s college graduation ceremony, everyone rises to sing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and you are so moved, thinking what a miracle it is that Israel has such fine academic institutions and that your Jewish son has had the benefit of a college education in the Jewish State.

14.   When you marvel at hearing your children and grandchildren converse with each other and with their friends in Hebrew, even after 43 years of life in Israel.
15.   The happiness one feels at seeing your Jewish children marry Jewish spouses and have their own Jewish children, knowing that this outcome would not at all have been assured had you stayed in the States.
16.   Watching your grandchildren playing under the Israeli sun, and think how they are growing up free and proud to be Jews, and your heart swells with joy. It’s how you know you made the right decision: Aliyah.
17.   You study your family tree only to discover realize your ancestors lived and died in Jerusalem, and you no longer feel like an outsider. You walk on Jaffa Rd. with your head held just a little bit higher, knowing that your roots are just as strong as anyone else’s, despite your awkward grasp of Hebrew.
18.   When you buy a burekas and a cup of lemonade from Burekas Ramle in the Machane Yehuda market, and ask how much it costs, the shopkeeper will give you a meaningful look and say, “Chai Shkalim” (18 shekels), 18 being the numerical value of the Hebrew Chai, or LIVE! The price never seems to change.

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Arabs enthusiastically jump on Lavrov's "Jews support Nazis" lie

A Jordanian academic and "futurist" named Dr. Walid Abdel Hai says that Russian foreign minister Lavrov's claims that Hitler had Jewish blood are legitimate according to "science."

His first "proof" is a paper by Leonard Sachs in the Journal of European Studies that cast doubt on a detail that had been used to debunk the "Hitler's grandfather was Jewish" theory:

Hans Frank was Adolf Hitler’s personal attorney. In Frank’s memoir, published seven years after his execution in 1946 at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Frank claimed to have uncovered evidence in 1930 that Hitler’s paternal grandfather was a Jewish man living in Graz, Austria, in the household where Hitler’s grandmother was employed. Contemporary historians have largely dismissed Frank’s claim, primarily on the grounds that there were purportedly no Jews living in Graz in 1836, when Hitler’s father Alois Schicklgruber was conceived. This consensus can be traced to a single historian, Nikolaus von Preradovich, who claimed that ‘not a single Jew’ (kein einziger Jude) was living in Graz prior to 1856. No independent scholarship has confirmed Preradovich’s conjecture. In this paper, evidence is presented that there was in fact eine kleine, nun angesiedelte Gemeinde – ‘a small, now settled community’ – of Jews living in Graz before 1850. The contemporary consensus regarding Hitler’s paternal grandfather does not have a strong evidentiary basis. Other evidence, deriving from earlier sources, suggests that the contemporary consensus may be incorrect. Avenues for further research which might help to clarify the question are suggested.

Sachs in no way says that Hitler's grandfather was Jewish, he just suggests that one of the counterproofs is incorrect. Walid Abdel Hai pretends that this is the "scientific proof" of Hitler's Jewish origins.

His second "proof" is also a purposeful misreading of a non-scientific study that examined the DNA of Hitler's living relatives - some grabbed under less than scientific conditions - and found that he belonged to the E1b1b haplogroup, which is from an ancestor 20,000 years ago and which a percentage of Ashkenaz Jews also belong. So does much of northern Africa and non-Jewish Europe. It is an absurd story, misunderstood by the Daily Mail, and eagerly grabbed by this Jordanian academic fraud.

Hai is an award winning and respected Jordanian academic. Which says a lot about the state of Jordanian academia.

Meanwhile, the excuse for gleeful Palestinian and Jordanian antisemitism is being used by others. Rai al Youm repeats the lie about Zionist collaboration with Hitler, saying, "the Zionist movement is the beneficiary of what was called the Holocaust, and it greatly inflated the number of those killed...Hitler rendered a great service to the Zionist movement." The writer then goes on to the debunked Khazar theory, and throws in the lie that Zionists terrorized Jews of Arab lands to leave even though they were perfectly happy where they were.

Arab antisemites really come out of the woodwork when stories like this surface.

The irony, of course, is that Palestinians (and other Arabs at the time) were definitely on Hitler's side.

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05/04 Links Pt1: Gantz to Bereaved Families: ‘You Paid the Price for Our Existence’; The UN Is Living in a Fantasy World; Palestinian Zero-Sum Mentality

From Ian:

Amb. Danny Danon: Remembering Israel's Fallen Soldiers

On Remembrance Day for Israel's Fallen Soldiers on May 3-4, the country unites. The nation stands together to cherish the memory of the brave men and women who gave their lives to fight for and secure their nation's future. Every loss of a soldier tears a hole in the hearts of all the people of Israel. Each one is publicly reported with an extensive description of the circumstances. In addition to these fallen servicemen and women, each year dozens of wounded fighters pass away as a result of their injuries.

While serving as a reservist, my late father, Joseph Danon, was badly wounded in a battle with terrorists in the Jordan Valley when he was just 29. After a lengthy hospitalization and numerous complex surgeries, the start of his never-ending rehabilitation process began.

I was privileged to know a large number of severely injured IDF fighters. I will always remember that, despite the heavy price they paid as a result of their horrific injuries, their love for the State of Israel only grew and their belief in the righteousness of our nation's path was never undermined. May their memories be a blessing.

Gantz to Bereaved Families: ‘You Paid the Price for Our Existence’

On Wednesday morning, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz held a speech at the name reading ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, commemorating Israel’s fallen soldiers.

Gantz commenced the ceremony by mentioning all IDF soldiers killed this year.

“As public leaders, we have a responsibility to set aside disputes related to bereavement and Yom Hazikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day), and simply embrace and remember the fallen. Israeli society deserves one issue that we will all treat reverently,” he stated.

He added that the “massive” price paid by those left behind and the Israeli society is also “our driving force to continue to live, to do good, to repair, to come together, to preserve camaraderie and mutual responsibility,” he said, ending his speech by thanking the bereaved families.

“[You] are the ones who paid the price for our resistance and existence. We will embrace them in our hearts, and thus we will protect Israeli society, heritage, memory, and unity.”

Israel’s Memorial Day officially began at 8 pm Tuesday night with the sound of the siren for one minute, followed by a ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Israel’s Memorial Day Starts With Moment of Silence, Western Wall Ceremony

Israel’s Memorial Day, Yom HaZikaron, officially began at 8 pm Tuesday night with the sound of the siren for one minute followed by a ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The national holiday honors fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism a day before celebrating Independence Day, which this year is the Jewish state’s 74th.

President Isaac Herzog in a speech at the Western Wall Plaza echoed remarks made earlier in the day by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, with both leaders calling for unity.

“Our sons and daughters, who fell in defense of our state, fought together and fell together,” Herzog said.

“They did not ask, nor did anyone ask them, who was right-wing and who was left-wing. Who was religious. Who was secular. Who was Jewish and who was not Jewish. Nor did grief pose these questions, to them or to you. They fell as Israelis, defending Israel.”

“In cemeteries, arguments fall silent,” Herzog continued. “Between the headstones, not a sound. A silence that demands that we fulfill, together, their single dying wish: the resurrection of Israel. The building of Israel. United, consolidated, responsible for each other.”

A nation pauses to remember our fallen!#Israel #YomHaZikaron #MemorialDay pic.twitter.com/mmlYGjxZnW
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) May 4, 2022

Palestinians rewriting history, again: The Temple Mount has transformed from "Haram al-Sharif" into "Al Aqsa Mosque" (UPDATE)

The JCPA published an interesting article about how the status quo has changed on the Temple Mount since 1967 - mostly towards Muslim control.

One point made in the article struck me:

The expansion of the Muslims’ prayer areas and the establishment of additional mosques on the mount stemmed from a new definition of the Temple Mount compound by the Muslims, who began to refer to all of the all of it as “Al-Aqsa” and to regard the entire mount as one great mosque. They began to call the Al-Aqsa Mosque itself, which is on the mount’s southern edge, “Al-Jamia al-Kibli”—the Mosque of the Direction of Prayer (in the direction of Mecca, signifying Jerusalem was Muslims’ first direction of prayer).

Until the Six-Day War the southern mosque was defined differently from the other parts of the compound and was called by its real name, Al-Aqsa; the compound as a whole was called “Al-Haram al-Sharif” (the Holy and Noble Place). But after the Six-Day War—as the Jewish-Muslim dispute over the mount intensified—the situation gradually changed and the Muslims applied the name “Al-Aqsa” to the whole compound, with all its buildings, streets, and walls.

This is absolutely true. Here is how the Waqf guidebook for the Temple Mount looked until 1967:

And here it is now:

In the new guide, it says - contrary to the previous editions - that the entire complex is Al Aqsa and the building that has been called the Al Aqsa Mosque by Muslims themselves has always been called "al-Qibly."

Either they are lying now, or the Waqf had no idea what they were talking about for the past hundred years in the previous editions, like 1925 and 1961, when the Al Aqsa Mosque was a building, not the entire Haram:

I just noticed that the 1961 version is a photo manipulation of the 1925 version, the trees are exactly the same! But it is called the "al-Aqsa Mosque," not the "al-Qibli Mosque."

The 1925 edition is explicit that the entire compound is the Haram al Sharif and only the mosque is Al Aqsa:

There is not a word about the "al-Qibli mosque" in either the 1925 or 1961 editions.

The current guidebook completely contradicts those of the previous generations.

The 1925 edition famously asserted that the Dome of the Rock was definitely on the spot of Solomon's Temple, and this was excised from the Jordanian editions after 1948.

It is pretty clear that the new editions are written to change history. The claim that the entire Mount is a mosque is brand new - and meant to give a religious excuse to ban Jews from visiting.

UPDATE: Even the Waqf/Passia know that the entire Mount isn't the "Al Aqsa Mosque." Because if it was a mosque, no one would be allowed to wear shoes!

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According to report, Israel is planning to allow Jews to return to the Temple Mount on Thursday, Yom Haatzmaut, after banning them for the last week of Ramadan and for Eid al-Fitr.

And naturally the Palestinians are calling to block that from happening.

Felesteen says:

The National Commission for the Support and Support of Our Palestinian People in the Occupied Interior called upon the masses of the 1948-occupied lands, and everyone who could reach Jerusalem, to mobilize and march Thursday to the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque to protect it from the crimes of the Zionists and prevent them from entering and desecrating it.

A spokesman for the Islamic Jihad Movement in the West Bank, Tariq Ezzedine, said, "We will not allow settlers to violate Al-Aqsa and impose a fait accompli."

Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou said, "The occupation's allowing settlers to storm Al-Aqsa next Thursday is a detonator for a new confrontation with the occupation....We call upon the Palestinian people in Jerusalem to confront the settlers' mobs, and to thwart the storming attempts to be carried out Thursday."

And Hamas issued an official statement saying that allowing Jews to visit the site is “playing with fire for which the occupation government bears the responsibility.”

Maher Mezher, a member of the Central Committee of the PFLP, said that Palestinian militant groups will not stand idly by, saying, "They will defend the sanctities at all costs."

Hussein Al-Sheikh, a member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, said that if Jews raise the Israeli flag and sing songs in the Haram al-Sharif - something the police would not allow - it could ignite a religious war in the region.

The incitement is constant.

And it can easily cause Arab violence.

And when it does - the world blames the Jews.

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In June, 1931, a young couple went for a walk near Tel Aviv.

Yohanan Stahl, 23, was a new immigrant from Germany. His companion was Salia Zohar, 22. They seem to have wanted to hike the Sharon plain and visit an orange field.

The couple disappeared.

Their bodies were found in September, buried in the sand.

Police later determined that a group of five Bedouin encountered the couple. Yohanan was stabbed and apparently beheaded. (One account says he was stabbed and buried alive.)

Salia was repeatedly raped by all five Arabs before she was murdered.

Three of the Arabs were released without charge. One was a minor and it is unclear if anything happened to him. Only one of the murderers, Rashid Osman, stood trial and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

May the memories of Yohanan and Salia be a blessing.

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!

05/03 Links Pt2: Remembering Israel's fallen: Hero after hero; Jews Who Hate Israel Are Teaching Your Children About the Jewish State; BDS Isn’t the Problem, Harvard Is

From Ian:

‘Arguments fall silent in cemeteries’: Herzog calls for unity at Memorial Day speech

Israel on Tuesday evening mourned the country’s fallen soldiers and terror victims as sirens sounded nationwide at 8 p.m. to mark the start of Memorial Day

The sirens brought Israel to a halt for a full minute, as people stood in somber silence on the streets, inside homes and on balconies. Traffic too came to an abrupt halt, as vehicle occupants exited their vehicles to stand beside them.

The day’s official opening ceremony was held at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, with President Isaac Herzog giving an address in which he urged Israelis to continue developing the country in a spirit of unity.

“Our sons and daughters, who fell in defense of our state, fought together and fell together. They did not ask, nor did anyone ask them, who was right-wing and who was left-wing. Who was religious. Who was secular. Who was Jewish and who was not Jewish,” he said.

“They fell as Israelis, defending Israel. In cemeteries, arguments fall silent. Between the headstones, not a sound. A silence that demands that we fulfill, together, their single dying wish: the resurrection of Israel. The building of Israel. United, consolidated, responsible for each other. For we are all sisters and brothers,”

Herzog acknowledged a recent series of terror attacks that have left 16 people dead, bringing violence and death to city streets.

“Even today, our enemies rise up against us with hateful terror, and as always they find us ready and determined, with one hand holding a weapon and the other extended in dialogue and peace,” he said.

“It is precisely in these heart-breaking moments, escorting our heroes and heroines on their final journeys, together with their beloved families, whose pain instantly becomes our own — precisely in these moments, we discover the sheer power of our wonderful and marvelous nation, a nation that knows how to overcome any obstacle.”

Herzog called on the bereaved to not forget the continued goal of building the State of Israel and urged future generations to persevere in the duty of building a cohesive nation.

“This is our duty to the fallen, our duty to you, and our duty to future generations: to sustain a strong and prosperous Jewish and democratic state, a state built of a dazzling mosaic of communities,” he said.

Remembering Israel's fallen: Hero after hero

Growing up in America, I never experienced a personal connection to any soldier killed in Vietnam, didn’t know anyone who fell in action, didn’t even know anyone who did, as does every Israeli who grows up here. But after living in Israel for 30 years and experiencing too many wars and military actions, the stories of the soldiers who fell in those operations have become personal. And they are everywhere.

Last week I went to Mount Herzl for the memorial service of Shmuel Weiss, the 20th anniversary of his death in combat during Operation Defensive Shield.

The deadliest battle of that operation took place April 9, 2002, in a refugee camp in Jenin. An IDF reservist force that entered the narrow streets and alleys was hit by explosives, and the soldiers sent in to extract the wounded met an ambush with heavy crossfire. Thirteen soldiers died.

Some call it the hardest day of the war. For Zipporah and Arye Weiss, the hardest day was the day before. Their 19-year-old son, Shmuel, was also in Jenin, serving as a medic with the Third Platoon, 51st Battalion, of the Golani Brigade. When platoon-mate Matanya Robinson got hit in an ambush in the refugee camp, Shmuel rushed to attend his wounds. Shmuel got hit. Robinson and Weiss both died.

Shmuel Weiss is not a famous soldier, except to his family, their friends, the soldiers with whom he served, and the soldiers who currently serve in that same platoon who come to the yahrzeit service every year. To all of them, he is their hero.

He’s mine, too. Shmuel Weiss became my hero because his father has been a close friend for 55 years, since we were classmates in high school in Skokie, Illinois. I had known Shmuel since I made aliyah, when he was nine. His death was personal.

Weiss is buried in Area D, Section Six, a plot of land no different than in any of the country’s 52 military cemeteries: row after row of hero after hero.

Over the years, when I would go to Shmuel's yahrzeit ceremony, I started looking around at the other plots surrounding where he is buried, and discovered that I knew more soldiers.

Israel to usher in Memorial Day for soldiers, terror victims with 8 p.m. siren

Israelis will bow their heads at 8 p.m. Tuesday for a minute of silence as sirens sound throughout the country in remembrance of the country’s fallen soldiers and terror victims.

Fifty-six soldiers died during their military service since Israel’s last Memorial Day. Another 84 disabled veterans died due to complications from injuries sustained during their service.

The numbers brought the total of those who have died during service to the country since 1860 to 24,068.

The nationwide ceremonies for Israel’s Memorial Day, which begins at sundown, started in the afternoon with a commemoration event at the Yad Lebanim memorial for fallen soldiers in Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy took part in the ceremony, as well as top army brass and families of fallen soldiers.

In his speech, Bennett recalled his time serving as a commando in southern Lebanon during the 1990s and mentioned several soldiers he knew who were killed while fighting there.

“We were there in Lebanon, all of us together. Kibbutzniks and city kids, secular and religious, from Beersheba and Haifa, right-wing and left-wing, Jews with non-Jews,” he said in an appeal for unity, as his disparate coalition fights to stay afloat after losing its parliamentary majority last month.

“There, in the bases of southern Lebanon, I fell in love with our wonderful nation,” the premier continued. “Many friends remain there… They were 19 or 20 years old and didn’t return.

“I can’t speak in their name, but I believe if they could, they would ask of us: Keep living together. Don’t allow disagreements to tear you apart from within.”

He warned that internal divides could threaten Israel’s security, saying: “If we allow anger and hatred to grip us, our enemies will take advantage of this to harm us.”

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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Tiferes Yisrael on the left, Hurva on the right, ;ate 1930s

The Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs of Jordan was created by the late King Hussein in 1971 and reconstituted in 1994. Its mission:

The Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs is working to raise awareness of the importance of the issue of Jerusalem and not to separate it from its Arab and Islamic dimension, expose the Judaization and daily Israeli violations it is subjected to, and increase efforts working to stabilize Jerusalemites, support their steadfastness and publicize their suffering.

Its website is filled with antisemitic invective, calling every Jew in Jerusalem a "colonialist."

Here is a typical article that exposes how thoroughly antisemitic the Committee is - as well as the government that funds it. It rails against the Israeli plans to rebuild the Tireres Yisrael synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, which was destroyed along with every single other synagogue in the Old City in 1948 by Jordanian forces.

[Israel's] plans to start building a synagogue allegedly called Tiferes Israel, on an endowment land in which there is an Islamic historical building, about 200 meters from the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque from its western side, at a cost of $13 million, and with a construction area of 387 square meters, consisting of six floors, four of them underground and two above the ground, 23 meters high. It includes a synagogue, facilities for holding Talmudic prayers, a false Talmudic museum and public services, to be one of the largest synagogues in the world.This comes after the building of the Hurva synagogue, which was also erected on confiscated Jerusalem land and property, in implementation of an Israeli rabbi’s proposal claiming that it speeds up salvation and the coming of the Messiah and building the temple, according to their claim.

The Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs stresses the danger of this alleged synagogue, as well as other Jewish centers, which are trying to obliterate the Arab identity of Jerusalem and its authentic Arab (Islamic and Christian) identity, and aims to change the space of the Arab city of Jerusalem in preparation for the expulsion of its Arab residents and the settlement of settlers, and an attempt to create an alleged Jewish climate by creating Talmudic paths and stations and building synagogues and biblical gardens in the vicinity of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the city of Jerusalem, which destroys peace and security in the region and ends the chance of the two-state solution to establish a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the 1967 borders, which was adopted by international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.

The Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs affirms that the firm position of Jordan under its historical Hashemite leadership, which has historical guardianship over the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, will remain the defender of Palestine and Jerusalem, regardless of the cost and sacrifices as a national and national cause. The unanimous agreement that includes deterring Israel (the occupying power) to stop its crimes and violations, including hundreds of international resolutions issued by the United Nations and its affiliated organizations, including UNESCO, which affirmed the exclusive Arab identity of Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites, and international organizations must protect human rights and humanitarian organizations ....[and expose] Israel's racist crimes.

Tiferes Yisrael was built on land legally purchased, at a huge cost, by the city's Chassidic Jews in the 1840s. But besides the lies in the history is the seething hatred of Jews throughout the article - its emphasis on how Jerusalem has no Jewish history, using the word "Talmudic" as an epithet, calling Jews liars.

This is Jordan, today.

(h/t Irene)

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05/03 Links Pt1: Revealing the truth behind al-Aqsa and 100 years of lies; How Arab Rulers Undermined a Palestinian State; Biden Won’t Block $10 Bil for Russian Nuclear Work in Iran,

From Ian:

Emily Schrader: Revealing the truth behind al-Aqsa and 100 years of lies

THIS YEAR, Palestinian leaders and terrorist organization Hamas are once again using Ramadan to spread rumors that Israelis are “desecrating” al-Aqsa, which has led to massive riots and violence at al-Aqsa Compound throughout the month. They claim Jews are “storming” the Temple Mount, yet video footage shared by Palestinians showed Palestinians using the mosque to prepare for violent confrontation before any non-Muslims entered the premises. During Passover, Israel explicitly banned any Jews from visiting the holy site, so as to avoid an increase in tensions. Despite that, the campaign of incitement surrounding al-Aqsa being “in danger” continued.

Camping out in the mosque with their shoes on for days, Palestinian rioters used the holy site to throw rocks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at Israeli police and non-Muslims, even damaging the mosque itself. This occurred even when police were outside the compound entirely.

The rioters prevented the vast majority of peaceful Muslim worshippers from being able to pray during Ramadan. Yet how was this reported on social media and in the international press? That the Israeli police were preventing Muslims from worshipping at al-Aqsa Mosque. This is the definition of disinformation, fake news, or just plain old lies – not to mention outrageously lazy and irresponsible journalism on the part of the press. Last Friday, a quarter of a million Muslims prayed at al-Aqsa Mosque; this did not make the headlines. Yet again, the status quo has not changed at the al-Aqsa Compound.

It should go without saying that no one has a right to violently assault someone visiting a holy site. Muslims do not have a religious monopoly on al-Aqsa, nor should they. This is a site that is holy to more than one faith, and freedom of religion should be respected. Ironically, it is extremist Muslims attacking others for visiting, then claiming those visitors are threatening the sanctity of the mosque itself, which these extremists are desecrating by wearing shoes and engaging in violence on-site.

The hypocrisy is blatant and shameful, and prevents Muslims and non-Muslims alike from practicing their religion.

The media need to step up and do their job. The truth must be told; otherwise, the violence will continue. Palestinian extremists must not be allowed to dictate the narrative at al-Aqsa as they have for nearly 100 years. Enough.

If Israel does not assert sovereignty, it will lose it

While Israel has never been militarily, technologically or economically stronger, it is suffering from a crisis of conviction.

Our ancestors were Jews in the Diaspora who excelled and achieved great things in their host countries, yet they sought in vain the approval of their non-benign gentile neighbors. Just like them, Israel’s current leaders are chasing the not-to-be-had support and affinity of leading Western countries.

In the name of that unrequited love search, they have been willing to send highly dangerous signals to our Palestinian enemies that Israel is willing to relent, to look the other way and to accommodate Palestinian aspirations and inclinations. Our leaders will cloak all of this in the guise of a quest for accommodation and reasonableness. The goal is to show the Palestinians that Israel is prepared to respect Palestinian sensibilities by neither provoking nor providing the grounds for insult and resentment.

All of this sounds appropriate and wise, except that it is all completely misplaced and dangerously counterproductive.

In one of the great historical misreads of the goals and intentions of the opposing side, Israel’s leaders have made the great mistake of Western geopolitics, which is to assume that the other guys basically want the same thing as they themselves do. We all want peace, prosperity, good relations with neighbors, and ideally economic cross-pollination among us. Right?

How Arab Rulers Undermined a Palestinian State

Conclusion The 1967 Six-Day War placed the "Palestine question" at the forefront of international attention with the PLO gaining worldwide prominence as "the sole representative of the Palestinian people" while maintaining its terrorist ways. But, the Arab states have shown no real interest in Palestinian statehood beyond the customary lip service.

Despite Jordan's 1988 renunciation of claims to the West Bank, the Hashemite monarchy has neither shown any desire for the establishment of a Palestinian state, which it fears might subvert its rule, nor shied away from making peace and closely collaborating with Israel with the kingdom's possible return to the West Bank occasionally mooted by both sides. Similarly, while Anwar Sadat went to great lengths to attach the Palestinian issue to the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations, the agreed formulation spoke about a transient autonomy without specifying statehood as the end result, let alone insisting on its attainment. Nor was Sadat deterred from opting for a separate Egyptian-Israeli peace once Arafat rejected his overture. Add to this the Assad regime's adamant subscription to its perception of Palestine as Syria's southern province and its outright rejection of "peace" that did not entail Israel's destruction.

This half-hearted approach toward Palestinian nationalism notwithstanding, decades of staunch anti-Zionist propaganda have entrenched the "Palestine question" in the collective regional psyche to the extent of making it exceedingly difficult for the Arab states to conclude functional peace treaties with Israel without a pro forma Palestinian-Israeli agreement. Yet while this state of affairs gives the Palestinians some veto power over inter-Arab politics, it is unlikely to derail the intensifying, multifaceted, and increasingly overt Arab-Israeli collaboration even in the event of severe deterioration in Israeli-Palestinian relations, as the 2020 normalization agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco show.

Jordan is Palestine. Jordanians are Palestinian

The San Remo Resolution is the subject of research of international law scholar and lawyer, Jacques Gauthier, Ph.D. The Toronto-based Gauthier, who is Christian, spent a quarter-century researching and writing a 1,300-page thesis to investigate legal ownership rights of the ancient-modern capital city.

Through San Remo, a legal document, “The Jewish people have been given the right to establish a home, based on the recognition of their historical connection and the grounds for reconstituting this national home,” Gauthier explained..

The Palestine Mandate included both sides of the Jordan River and was passed in 1922 by the League of Nations. It should be noted that the Mandate as passed violated the rights given to the Jews at San Remo in that it restricted their homeland to the lands west off the river. But all of the land was managed under the same Mandate, It was intended in 1922 that Jordan would be the Arab state and Israel would be the Jewish state

The Mandate included this recital. “Whereas recognition has thereby [i.e. by the Treaty of Sèvres] been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine, and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”

Jordan declared independence in 1946 and Israel did in 1948.

Thus the Jewish state includes all of the lands west of the Jordan River.

And thus Jordan is Palestine. And most people living in Jordan are Palestinians.

In order to make this a reality the King Abdullah II must abdicate and the Palestinians must take control of their country..

By Daled Amos

Antisemitism is on the rise.
We see it not only getting worse on college campuses, but also in the cities.

The reactions by university officials seem tepid at best.
Local government officials are not doing any better.

And on the international stage, calls for the genocide of Jews are ignored --

Last week, Palestinian Media Watch reported an Imam calling for the extermination of Jews -- not the defeat of Israelis, but rather the murder of Jews:

...a Palestinian imam led a prayer in a mosque that was broadcast on PA TV, calling for the extermination of Jews:

“Allah delight us with the extermination of the evil Jews”
In addition, he called for extermination of those he called “their hypocritical supporters who have evil and their hearts.”

Significantly, this imam presented the extermination of Jews in his Ramadan prayer in the Al-Ain Mosque in El-Bireh, near Ramallah, as something that will bring pleasure and “delight” to Palestinians.

This public call for genocide was brought to you by Abbas's Palestinian Authority, the good people who are consistently referred to as Israel's peace partners.

Meanwhile, that same week, Hamas joined in the hatefest, proudly proclaiming that they do in fact target women and children

There is a big show by self-described human rights groups, cobbling together arguments that Israel is guilty of apartheid, but calls for the genocide of Jews don't seem to interest them.

An automatic reaction we often have to these kinds of displays of Jew-hatred is to point out that if any other group was singled out for violence in this way, there would be a public reaction, a pushback.

Today...not so much.

But while today the West will not come out in force to repudiate these threats against Jews, this was not always the case.

Remember when Iranian president Ahmadinejad called for wiping Israel off the face of the earth?

Back in 2005, when Ahmadinejad talked about erasing Israel, both Europe and Russia condemned the statement:

Governments around the world expressed shock and scorn Thursday at the Iranian president's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map," and several summoned Tehran's envoys in their capitals for a reprimand.

...Israel's deputy ambassador to Britain, Zvi Rav-Ner, said it was unheard of for a U.N. member state to call "for genocide and wiping off of another member state of the U.N."

..."I have never come across a situation of the president of a country saying they want to ... wipe out another country," Blair said.

"Their attitude towards Israel, their attitude towards terrorism, their attitude on the nuclear weapons issue, it isn't acceptable....Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having a nuclear weapon?" he said.
"Calls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community," the EU leaders said in a statement.

...France, Russia, Spain and The Netherlands summoned the Iranian ambassadors in their capitals to explain the remarks.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said the ambassador "was reminded that the right of Israel to exist cannot be contested."

...Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, on a visit to Israel, criticized the Iranian leader. "I don't agree that anyone should challenge the right of any U.N. member to exist, this is indeed inadmissible," Lavrov said.

The condemnations against Iran were public, unequivocal and widespread.

Today, almost 2 decades later, we live in different times:

o Abbas pushes ahead with the pay for slay program, incentivizing terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians -- but today, no one suggests that the observer status at the UN should be made conditional on his eliminating that program.

o Hamas has pushed the concept 'human shields' to the point that the the terrorist group can hide behind the entire population of Gaza, putting other countries in the situation of offering to rebuild Gaza after each war it instigates, while the Hamas terrorists avoid respnsibility -- and who knows how much of the offered aid ends up in their pockets?

o  Contrary to what Blair said at the time, today, it is not hard at all to "imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having a nuclear weapon"

o  Calls for violence against and the destruction of Israel don't seem to bother the EU all that much anymore. Instead, there are condemnations for "the cycle of violence" and Israel is called upon to exercise restraint.

o  And when is the last time we heard about Russia criticizing Iran?

Are things different now because the West sees that words of condemnation are not enough, and they just do not have the stomach to do anything more? Do terrorist states like Iran know this and so not only do not fear the West, but do not hesitate to kidnap citizens of other countries for exorbitant ransoms?

And does the West really believe that the threat is limited to Israel's backyard?

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!