Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, July 07, 2022

The Mufti of Jerusalem threatened to murder Jews within 48 hours of promising the British he was peaceful

In April 1921, British High Commissioner of Palestine Herbert Samuel met with Amin al-Husseini who assured him that he was supportive of British rule and would work hard to keep things peaceful. Samuel said:

I saw Haj Amin Husseini on Friday [April 8] and discussed with him at considerable length the political situation and the question of his appointment to the office of grand Mufti. Mr. Storrs was also present, and in the course of conversation, he declared his earnest desire to cooperate with the government and his belief in the good intentions of the British Government towards the Arabs. He (e.g. Haj Amin al-Husseini) gave assurance that the influence of his family and himself would be devoted to maintaining tranquility in Jerusalem and he felt sure that no disturbances need be feared this year. He said that the riots of last year were spontaneous and unpremeditated. If the government took reasonable precautions, he felt sure they would not be repeated.

He was referring to the 1920 Nebi Musa riots which killed 5 Jews - and which Husseini had himself provoked.

Nevertheless, Samuel accepted Husseini's assurances and supported his appointment to the position of Mufti of Jerusalem.

Here is an account of the new Mufti's appearance at the Nebi Musa festival procession only two days later, on Easter Sunday, April 10:

Although we were less than a mile away from the place where the procession first came into sight several hours elapsed before they passed the place where we stood. The procession of which the mufti of Jerusalem, who had but recently been inducted into office, and other Moslem dignitaries made up the rear, moved so slowly because dozens of circles composed of dervishes moved forward ahead of the mufti only as the dancing circle advanced. Terrible fanaticism was discernible in their distorted faces as they danced. In the characteristically Oriental rhythmic song, or call, repeated in chorus after their leader, they called out sentences that they were interpreted to me as follows: "This place has been conquered by the sword. Jerusalem is the city of Allah. Our banner enters into it. Get out, you dogs, you Jews, you Zionists. Our banner enters Medina. We will draw the sword against any one that opposes us."

While they spoke these threatening words a dervish who as lifted on the shoulders of others frantically brandished two swords over his head. Last year a number of Jews were killed at this festival. (The Evening Kansan-Republican, July 5, 1921)

Samuel's quote above was made on the following day. It is unclear if he was aware of the blatant incitement that the Mufti was provoking.

What is clear is that this appointment resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews at the hands of the Mufti's own people as well as his followers during the 101 years since. The Jew-hating Mufti is still considered an "icon" of Palestinian history and is universally venerated by all Palestinians.

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There have been some shocking murders of women in the Arab world recently, such as that of Nayera Ashraf, 21, stabbed to death in broad daylight in Egypt by a man whose marriage proposal she rejected, and Iman Arsheed, a Jordanian nursing student shot multiple times for similar reasons.

In response, women throughout the Arab world called a general strike for two hours on Wednesday to protest these and similar murders by a patriarchal Arab society.

In Gaza, dozens of women joined in the strike as well. But the rules are different in Palestinian ruled areas.

They had to add an anti-Israel angle.

Gaza's AISHA Association for Woman and Child Protection sponsored the protest. A speaker from that group said, "We in feminist organizations, women's rights organizations, and our allies announce our support for the cross-border women's strike campaign, to demand an end to the systematic violence and oppression of women in the Arab region. We are appalled that women are still being deprived of their basic rights, including the right to life, and we are outraged by the escalation of brutal murders of women in various countries in the region."

But AISHA spokesperson Heba Al-Danaf took pains to say that this is not only a protest against femicide throughout the Arab world, but also against Israel, saying that "the Israeli occupation is one of the reasons that contribute to the continuation of murders against Palestinian women."

By adding this gratuitous and absurd anti-Israel message, the group completely undermines its goals. Suddenly, it is not Arab men who are at fault for killing Arab women - but Israel. Arab women are murdered throughout the Middle East - but in Gaza, it is Israel's fault.

This takes Arab men off the hook. It isn't the patriarchy or misogyny or male supremacy that makes them treat women like garbage - it is the "occupation."

Palestinian Arabs grow up with the unshakeable belief that everything bad about their situation is Israel's fault, and anything that takes away from that message must be muted. This pervasive antisemitism hurts the Palestinian themselves by diluting and misdirecting the issues towards an enemy that they cannot control.

Gaza men beat and murder women, and Israel is blamed.

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Iran's Ahl al-Bayt News Agency (ABNA), a Shiite news site whose views mimic that of Iran's leadership, reports that Saudi authorities designated Muhammad bin Abdul-Karim al-Issa, Secretary-General of the Muslim World League, to perform the sermon and prayer on the Day of Arafa at the Namirah Mosque in Mecca for Hajj this year.

This is upsetting to the Iranians.

Why?

It is noteworthy that Al-Issa visited the so-called "Jewish genocide camp" in Poland, "Auschwitz", in conjunction with the commemoration of the "Holocaust".

The “Israel in Arabic” account, affiliated with the Israeli enemy’s Foreign Ministry, had published a video clip of Al-Issa as he “leads a delegation, to pray in Auschwitz, in sympathy for the dead Jews. ”

The photo accompanying the article shows Al-Issa accepting a plaque from a Jew.

The word Israel or Zionist does not appear in this article. Iran's problem with al-Issa is that he showed sympathy for millions of dead Jews.

Remember that next time Iran and its useful idiot supporters claim that Iran isn't antisemitic, merely anti-Israel. It is pretty obvious that to Iran, there is no difference between the two.

UPDATE: It isn't only Iran. A fatwa against al-Issa has been re-circulated, calling him a Muslim apostate - because he once referred to Christians and Jews as "brothers." The fatwa, by an 87-year old Saudi scholar, says that Jews and Christians are infidels and enemies of Allah and it is sacrilegious to refer to them as "brothers."

Similarly, Al-Hassan bin Ali Al-Kettani , president of the League of Maghreb Scholars and a member of the League of Muslim Scholars has also denounced the appointment.

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

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07/06 Links Pt2: Kontorovich: Boycotting Israel Isn’t Free Speech; The Nazi Roots of Islamist Hate; Judge Denies B&J’s Bid for Restraining Order Preventing Sale of Its Israeli Business

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Boycotting Israel Isn’t Free Speech

The idea that anti-BDS laws violate free speech has been embraced by progressives, and by Democratic lawmakers wary of anti-Israel primary challengers, as a way of fighting for BDS while claiming not to support it. Meanwhile, Axios reported last October that Ben & Jerry’s founders were stumped when asked why they were boycotting Israel alone.

The company broadly condemns what it views as injustices around the world, including “systemic racism” in America. Axios’s Alexi McCammond asked Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield: “You guys are big proponents of voting rights. Why do you still sell ice cream in Georgia? Texas—abortion bans. Why are you still selling there?”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Cohen replied. “It’s an interesting question. I don’t know what that would accomplish. We’re working on those issues, of voting rights. . . . I think you ask a really good question. And I think I’d have to sit down and think about it for a bit.” She pressed him on the abortion question and he said: “By that reasoning, we should not sell any ice cream anywhere. I’ve got issues with what’s being done in almost every state and country.” Which leaves the question: Why boycott only Israel?

Unilever is the second major company in recent years to walk back an Israel boycott. The first was Airbnb. Human Rights Watch goaded the company to adopt a boycott on West Bank rental listings. States terminated contracts and investment with Airbnb pursuant to anti-BDS laws, and the company agreed to drop the boycott to settle lawsuits brought by Israelis who were harmed by its policy.

Efforts to push companies to boycott Israel won’t fade away soon. The primary goal isn’t economic harm, but making it culturally and politically acceptable to shun the Jewish state. What is most important about both the vindication of the state anti-BDS laws and the repudiation of the ice-cream embargo is their underlying message: The moralistic rhetoric of Israel boycotts can’t disguise their bigotry.

Jeffrey Herf: The Nazi Roots of Islamist Hate

Husseini’s hatred, which Küntzel calls “Islamic antisemitism,” was the result of the fusion of Husseini’s indigenous, autonomous interpretation of Islam with the modern conspiracy theories of Nazism. Küntzel argues that the decision of the Arab Higher Committee and then of the Arab League to go to war in 1947-1948 should be understood as a continuation of a decade-long anti-Jewish war that Husseini and his followers and associates in the Muslim Brotherhood had been waging since 1937—that is, before, during, and after his presence in Nazi Berlin. Küntzel presents the fateful decisions to reject partition and invade the new state of Israel to be direct consequences of the Islamic antisemitism that emerged in the previous decade.

The non-indictment of Husseini and his return to the Middle East was understood at the time by American liberals and leftists to be one of the bitter fruits of an anticommunist consensus that diminished, if not displaced, the passions of wartime antifascism and anti-Nazism. Though in the crucial years of 1945 to 1949, the State Department was well aware of the extremism of the Muslim Brotherhood, it declined to bring that evidence to the public or to incorporate it into the public themes of American diplomacy.

The actions of the Soviet Union at first differed sharply from the Western desire to sweep Islamist Nazism under the rug. From May 1947 to May 1949, the Soviet Union and the Communist regimes in Poland and Czechoslovakia offered consequential diplomatic and, in the case of Czechoslovakia, military support for the Zionists and then the new state of Israel. They did so at a time when the British government was doing all it could to prevent Jewish emigration to Palestine, and when the United States supported an embargo on arms to the Middle East. The arms that the Jews needed in 1948 came, in violation of the UN arms embargo, from Communist Czechoslovakia. But when Israeli Communists received only 3.5% in the first Israeli elections in 1949, and Ben-Gurion was able to form a coalition government without including the pro-Soviet Mapam party, Stalin realized that the new Jewish state was not going to be a pro-Soviet bastion and reversed course, launching antisemitic purges in Europe, and shifting Soviet foreign policy in favor of the Arabs and against Israel.

From 1949 to 1989, the Soviet Union engaged in a depressingly successful propaganda campaign that suppressed public memory of the brief era of Soviet-bloc support for the Zionist project, the UN Partition Plan, and Israel, as well as abundant evidence of the Arab Higher Committee’s Nazi collaborationist era. In place of the actual linkages between leaders of the Palestinian Arabs and the Nazi regime, the Soviet Union and the PLO claimed that the real Nazis and racists in the Middle East were the Jews and the Israelis. This campaign of lies has proven to be among the most successful in world politics.

It was only in the aftermath of the Islamist attacks of 9/11 that historians drew renewed and necessary attention to the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and the ideological fusion of Nazism and Islamism in the 1940s. As Hassan al-Banna hoped in June 1946, Haj Amin el-Husseini and the Arab Higher Committee did indeed “continue the struggle” waged by Hitler against Judaism, Jews, and the Zionist project. Whether the scholarship about these issues receives the attention it deserves, and whether it has any impact on changing political attitudes toward Israel and its adversaries, remains to be seen. But it is getting harder to ignore.

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies: a danger to Jews and all Americans

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices, officers, policies, and programming are being increasingly embraced in American institutions, from government to the corporate workplace. This is particularly true in education, from leading American universities to elite prep schools. In fact, one sampling of leading American universities found DEI staff making up an average of 3.4 positions for every 100 tenured or tenure-track faculty members and outnumbering by a factor of at least four the staff dedicated to helping students with disabilities.

The ostensible goals of DEI are positive: to promote the representation, participation, and fair treatment of historically marginalized groups. In practice, though, DEI, which is closely linked to critical race theory (CRT), has been deployed to advance a radical agenda that undermines fundamental American values by promoting equality of outcome over equality of opportunity, collective identity (race, gender, etc.) over individual character, censorship of opposing viewpoints over freedom of speech, and a victim culture that crudely bifurcates society into oppressors and oppressed.

Along with embracing other favored radical causes, DEI is also being weaponized against Jewish students, maliciously portraying them and the Jewish State as wanton oppressors. Thus, with the expanding number and power of amply funded and staffed DEI offices that, rather than thwarting the rise of anti-Israel sentiment and restraining hostility toward Jews, actually contributing to it, American universities are becoming hotbeds of antisemitism.

The rise of antisemitism on college campuses is continuing and has already been well documented. A 2021 survey by Hillel and the ADL found that one in three Jewish college students personally experienced antisemitic hate in the previous academic year. Jewish students regularly have to contend with the demonization of Israel and its supporters, obscene Holocaust comparisons and minimization, negative stereotyping, and other common antisemitic tropes.

According to a December 2021 Heritage Foundation report, “Inclusion Delusion: The Antisemitism of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Staff at Universities,” which analyzed the Twitter feeds of hundreds of DEI university personnel, there is a disproportionate hostility toward Israel among university DEI staff. Malicious charges they have levied against Israel on Twitter include describing the Jewish State as an “apartheid” or “colonial” state and accusing Israel of engaging in “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing.”

What is it about Jews building homes that gets under peoples’ skin? We know what they claim. They say that building homes for Jews in disputed territory is an “obstacle to peace.” That, however, is an obvious lie. The real reason the world does not want Jews to build homes in Israel is Jew-hatred: antisemitism.

How do we know that the “obstacle to peace” mantra is a lie providing cover for hate? We know this because of history and precedent. The 600 homes of the Jews of Yamit proved no obstacle to peace with Egypt. The 2,530 homes in Gush Katif and the 270 residences in Samaria did not stand in the way of the great Gaza giveaway. And the 450,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria did not stop Oslo and local Arab autonomy.

Despite the thousands of homes built to shelter Jews in their holy, indigenous territory, Egypt still received the gift of Sinai, while the UNRWA “refugees” were given de facto states in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

Construction, even of Jewish homes in ancient Jewish land, did not prevent any of this from happening. Where Jewish homes once stood, today there are no Jews. These areas have been ethnically cleansed of any Jewish presence, with the exception of a handful of captives held by Gaza in the years since 2005, two of them almost certainly dead.

Jewish homes don’t get in the way of peace negotiations or Israeli concessions because Israel doesn’t let them. Instead, the Jewish State simply expels thousands of its own people, Jews themselves, and flattens their homes with bulldozers.

It really is that straightforward. Thousands of Jewish homes go up and come down. Sinai gets Egypt. The rest get autonomy and Gaza.

None of this truth is reflected in the July 1^st letter sent by 29 Democratic Congressmen to Anthony Blinken, on the eve of Biden's trip to Israel. The letter writers do not care that Israel anyway destroys the homes before handing over the land. They demand that the President pressure Israel to STOP BUILDING HOMES FOR JEWS!

We write to express our alarm over the Israeli government’s renewed effort to build settlements in the West Bank area known as E-1.

The writers, in their own words, write to express their “alarm” over Israel’s “renewed effort to build settlements” in parts of the Jewish homeland they don’t want us to have.

Note the EU symbol on this illegal Arab structure in "disputed" Israeli territory. The EU finances these illegal homes for Arabs while, like the 29 Democratic congressmen, it condemns legal Jewish construction. If that's not an overt expression of antisemitism, what is? (photo courtesy of Regavim)

As legislators committed to the goal of a just and secure peace between Israel and the Palestinians, we are grateful to this administration for its previous work to prevent harmful actions that move us further from this goal, including the successful prevention of E-1 settlement plans that were under consideration last year.

The 29 legislators call the building of Jewish homes, “harmful actions” and laud the President for preventing such construction in the past. They say these things, they claim, because they are committed to a “just and secure peace." This is a demonstrable lie. If they were committed to a just and secure peace, they would speak out not about Jewish homes, but Arab terror. Especially considering that according to a 2015 article by Batya Medad, 15 percent of the home-building Jews are American citizens, with all the right to the protections that citizenship affords.

Note the EU stickers on the solar collectors and homes of this illegal Arab shanty town. The world is happy to finance ARABS building (illegal) homes. (Photo courtesy of Regavim)

(Photo courtesy of Regavim)

Everywhere you find illegal Arab building on Jewish land, you will find evidence of world support. (Photo courtesy of Regavim)

We ask that you continue holding firm on this issue, especially as you prepare for President Biden’s forthcoming visit to the region.

The letter is by way of reminding Blinken that his job, as a court Jew, is to continue to hold firm against Jews building any more homes on their land.

As 26 Members of Congress wrote in a letter from November 2021, efforts to advance settlement construction in E-1 “pose an irreconcilable challenge to a lasting peace solution between Israel and the Palestinians… [and] have been referred to as ‘doomsday settlements’ because they would threaten the territorial contiguity necessary for a viable independent Palestinian state by dividing the north of the West Bank from the south, as well as the West Bank from East Jerusalem.”

The writers, from the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, point us to the fact that their numbers are growing. In November there were 26. Now there are 29 of them, all demanding that Jews stop building houses. This letter, write the congressmen, echoes the November letter which states that Jewish homes “pose an irreconcilable challenge to a lasting peace solution.”

The homes themselves, are referred to as “doomsday settlements” without a hint of irony or any recognition that it is antisemitic to characterize a Jewish town in this manner. The 29 are quite frank in stating that there will be no peace if a Jew builds a home anywhere in Judea, Samaria, or Jerusalem. Which means that should Jews build homes, as far as these members of congress are concerned, they can be murdered by Arab terrorists with impunity and it will be the Jews' own damned fault.

Preserving this territorial contiguity is vital to the prospects for peace and a two-state solution, and we remain strongly opposed to any such effort to entrench the occupation of Palestinian territory.

The antisemitic letter signed by the 29 Democrats uses all the familiar catchwords to cover their hate. Peace, blah blah blah, Two-state solution, blah blah blah, Occupation, blah blah blah. But the end game remains the same, the goal is no Jewish presence. And no building homes in the meantime. They don’t want the Jews to be comfortable.

How do we know the shibboleths of peace, two-state solution, and occupation are meaningless doublespeak? We know it because neither Jew nor Arab wants two states for two peoples. There are a million polls to attest to this fact. And here's another, quite salient fact: Jewish homes are always destroyed by Israel when the Jewish State cedes Jewish territory to Muslims.

We were heartened that the Biden administration shared Congress’s concerns and upheld the strong stance held by previous administrations of both parties in opposing settlement construction in E-1. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides has called the proposed settlements a “disaster” and has described the Biden administration’s efforts to prevent it as going “full bore.”

The congressmen were “heartened” to hear that Biden also wants Jews to stop building homes. They want to remind Blinken that even Nides, also a Jew, fell into line, calling Jews building homes a “disaster.” They are saying they want Biden to come down on the Jews “full bore” to make them stop. building. homes.

This administration has demonstrated the progress that serious diplomatic engagement on these sensitive issues can lead to, and we are looking forward to the President’s first visit to Israel this month. Despite this administration’s clear commitment to preventing settlement construction in E-1, the Israeli government has recently reversed its position and announced plans to move ahead with E-1 settlements once again, scheduling the final hearing on the objections to the project within days of the President’s planned visit. United States intervention at this pivotal moment is critical. In recent months, there has been an increase in violent clashes, and we are hopeful that the President’s visit will help ease tensions and reassure both parties of the United States’ commitment to a negotiated peace.

They are so looking forward, say the letter-writing Dems, to the President giving Israel a good diplomatic thrashing over Jews building homes. The Jews know that Biden doesn’t like Jews to build homes, yet the Israeli government has announced brazen plans to even build MORE Jewish homes. The Democrats speak of the causal effect of Jews building homes to “an increase in violent clashes” AKA Arab terror.

We are encouraged by reports that the Biden administration has pushed the Israeli government not to move forward with the planned hearing on E-1 settlement construction, and we hope you will continue to prioritize this issue with the current interim Israeli government and any future coalitions.

The 29 Democrats say they are encouraged by the fact that Biden is pushing Israel to stop all these conniving Israeli plans of building more homes for Jews. They hope, as well, that Jews building homes will be treated as a major issue on Biden’s agenda for his Israel visit.

We urge you to continue emphasizing in the lead-up to this visit that settlement construction in E-1 remains a red line for the United States, and to use every diplomatic tool at your disposal to ensure that Israel does not further advance these devastating plans.

In conclusion, the signees “urge” the President to keep “emphasizing” that when Jews build homes, it crosses a “red line," and suggest he should use “every diplomatic tool at your disposal” to ensure this building of Jewish homes, comes to a stop. Their message to Biden is that the very thought of Jews taking shelter in their historic homeland--actually LIVING there--is in their opinion, a “devastating” thing.

Sincerely

They mean all this. Sincerely.

We know it to be true: antisemites and antisemitic congressmen come and go. They each in turn, get the chance to lend authority to the antisemitic hate they spew. They will say, for example, that no Jew has the right to build a home on his land, and that no wonder the Arabs get violent at the very thought of it. The truth does not matter to them. If the truth mattered a damn to them, they'd realize that violence derives not from building homes, but from hatred for those who seek shelter therein.

A Jew building a home is a harmless thing. Bricks and mortar, red tiles and heavy machinery, they matter not. There is no natural relationship between construction and violence. Violence comes from hate. The building of homes for Jews no more invites Arab terror than the rape victim's choice of clothing provokes sexual violence.

The 29 congressmen should be ashamed of blaming Jewish victims for being attacked and murdered by vicious Arab terrorists. But the 29 are not ashamed. They are proud to reveal their naked antisemitic hatred, before the entire world.

Here are their names:

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Mounir Chafiq (born 1936) is a Palestinian politician and is described as an intellectual. His books include Islam in Struggle for Civilization (1992) and Islam and the Challenges of the Contemporary World (1995.) He is coordinator of the Islamic Nationalist Congress.

He writes in Al-Binaa what Israel's goals are:

Anyone who does not reach an absolute conviction that this entity [Israel] represents absolute hostility to Palestine and its people is mistaken, as he considers Palestine "the land of Israel", and its people, all its people, must be uprooted from it and completely Judaize it. Anyone who does not reach a certain conviction that this entity wants to tighten the Zionist control over all the Arab countries, based on the overwhelming military superiority over them, collectively and individually, is mistaken. Anyone who does not reach an absolute conviction that this entity wants to demolish the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged temple in its place, and denies any religious right of the Muslims of the world in Jerusalem and Palestine, because it is the “Land of Israel” and that the non-Jews on it are “strangers” and what is considered sacred Islamic mentioned in the Qur’an, or in Islamic history, is not sacred. Some of them are considered Jewish holy places, as they claim.

It is not right for a member of the Third World, or the global left, or the free people of the world, not to consider the Zionist entity an industry of colonialism, and global racism that was practiced against the Palestinian people, as it was not limited to the military invasion to seize Palestine, but rather uprooted its people, And he is practicing a policy of extermination and displacement against him, to be replaced by racist settlers, who were brought in from all parts of the earth.

That is why it is not right for those who do not acknowledge all these facts, old and new, and those who come from its nature after it, to deal with the issue of the Zionist entity in any way that contradicts, or ignores, this hostile nature as an absolute hostility to Palestine and its people....

For this reason, it is absurd for anyone to imagine the possibility of coexistence with the Zionist entity, far from its conditions and nature.

As always, there is no Palestinian who publicly disagrees.

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

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07/06 Links Pt1: In Highland Park’s Jewish Community, Few Are Untouched by Deadly Mass Shooting; The bullet that doesn't matter; Iranian Pulls Out of Jiu-Jitsu Competition After Refusing to Play Against Israeli Opponent

From Ian:

In Highland Park’s Jewish Community, Few Are Untouched by Deadly Mass Shooting

Bright Bowls was open for July 4 in Highland Park’s main commercial district, and its owners, Lindsay and Matt Meltzer, were prepared for a busy day.

Lindsay had left her job at the Jewish United Fund of Chicago to open her dream business, a vegetarian smoothie shop and wellness studio, in June 2020. This would be the first year since the pandemic began that her suburb would hold its annual Independence Day festivities, including a parade, and the Meltzers were eagerly anticipating lots of foot traffic.

The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band began playing in the parade lineup, performing the joyful Jewish standard “Freylekhs fun der Khupe” (Happiness under the Chuppah). A parade observer, local Jewish entrepreneur Candice Crane, laughed and took pictures with her husband and two of her young children.

“We were joking, ‘Only in Highland Park does the Klezmer band come,’” Crane said.

Then everything changed.

“I was standing at the register, and all of a sudden, I see the Highland Park High School band running up the street,” Lindsay Meltzer said. “The first thought I had was that there was an active shooter.”

Moments later, a police officer rode up on his bicycle and told everyone to get off the street.

“We just opened our door,” Lindsay said. “We have a basement that’s about the size of our entire store, and we were able to house over a hundred people safely, away from windows.”

Her husband stood at the front door, keeping watch, while Lindsay guided everyone else, mostly families with young children, to hide downstairs. A teacher with some active shooter training, herself Jewish, played games with the children and helped keep everyone calm.

Meanwhile, Howard Prager, a tuba player in the band, said he thought he saw the shooter flee the scene. “We saw a lot of people running,” he said. “We saw the panic and terror in their eyes.”

Jewish toddler orphaned at Highland Park Fourth of July parade massacre

A deadly massacre at a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb has left a Jewish toddler an orphan. The parents of a two-year-old found wandering alone after Monday's attack were among the victims of the latest US mass shooting.

At least two Jewish community members, including the boy's mother, were among the seven fatalities in the mass shooting that took place in Highland Park, Illinois.

Irina McCarthy (Levberg), 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37, were killed when a rooftop shooter fired on the July Fourth parade on Monday. About 50 people also suffered gunshot wounds and related injuries, police and hospital officials said.

The toddler, Aiden, survived because his father shielded him with his body, local media reported. He was eventually separated from his parents in the ensuing chaos and was later returned to grandparents by police, according to a fundraising page.

"He will have a long road ahead to heal," said Irina Colon, who organized the GoFundMe page with the family's permission, adding that Aiden's grandparents Misha and Nina Levberg will raise the boy.

The Levbergs are immigrants from Russia who raised Irina, their only child, in the Chicago area, the Chicago Sun Times reported.

Misha told the Times that Irina met her husband Kevin – who worked for a gene therapy startup – through her job in pharmaceuticals. He said that he picked Aiden up at the police station after a neighbor showed him a photo of a lost boy.

The fund has raised over $827,000 by Tuesday night.

Along with Irina, the other Jewish victim identified in Monday's attack was Jacki Sundheim, 63, the events and b’nei mitzvah coordinator at a nearby Reform synagogue, North Shore Congregation Israel. She had attended the synagogue and worked there for decades.

Dalia Hatuqa is a well-regarded and award-winning Palestinian journalist, who has published in Time, the Washington Post, The Economist and elsewhere.

She wrote a Twitter thread yesterday about her frustrations at the delay of crossing the border between Jordan and Israel - blaming Israel for the delay.

There is currently a three hour wait at the Jordanian side of Allenby Bridge. Many of the people here are American citizens. Now tell me why the US is busy working on a visa waiver for Israel while we rot in literal hell at the border crossing

Still waiting. Been here since 11. Just been told by the Jordanian side that the number system they have doesn’t apply to people whose names are put on the list by a “minister” or someone “high up”. Some guy just told me he didn’t get a number and he already left for the Israeli side.

Everyone is feeding off Palestinian misery and desperation. We pay $110 a person just to get on a shared bus to go through the bridge. And wait for three hours just so the Israelis can fuck with you. This is the quintessential Palestinian travel experience.

To anyone following my bridge drama— I’ve finally made it home. What’s supposed to take 3 hours max took me 7 hours. That’s basically half way from Amman to Washington DC. I’m tired, hungry, thirsty but mostly angry and sad that this is what it takes to come home.

I haven’t tasted this kind of humiliation since the second intifada. I am so emotionally and physically exhausted I slept from 9pm last night and woke up at noon today. Friends are on the bridge as we speak and they waited 5 hrs at the Jordanian side. The whole thing breaks you.

You see, the evil Israelis are intent on humiliating Palestinians, and that's the reason for the delay, according to this award-winning journalist.

When someone commented to her, "Chill lady. I queued 3 hours at Heathrow yesterday." she responded, "Shut up. Queuing at Heathrow is a whole other ball game. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t usually respond to nobodys but it’s obvious you’re privileged and have never tasted humiliation like this."

For Palestinians, every slight is a "humiliation" that is directed at them. No one else has problems, no one else suffers, and every Palestinian who is inconvenienced is a victim of a direct attack on their Palestinianism.

The problems at the Allenby Bridge crossing have nothing to do with "humiliation." It is very simple: the number of travelers is too high for the facilities to handle at peak times. (Ironically, Arabs call the crossing "Karama" - which means "dignity.")

UltraPal has an article about the delays at the crossing. It mentions that this is an issue every year during summer vacation - a crossing that normally takes one hour now take more than 8 (more than Hatuqa's journey.) It is worse this year as people want to be with their families for the upcoming Eid al Adha holiday.

The article highlights something that Hatuqa only alludes to: the delays prompt people to bribe Jordanian officials, who let some people go through first, and this exacerbates the problem for the rest.

UltraPal is not a pro-Israel publication but at no point does it claim that Israel is the reason for the delays. It does mention that Palestinian officials who are also at the crossing add to the delays themselves by searching travelers for smuggled cigarettes before they go on buses to the PA-controlled areas.

To Palestinians, Israel is the yin and yang of all evil, therefore all their troubles are Israel's fault. This has the benefit of not allowing them to take responsibility for their own problems.

Hatuqa could use her platforms to publicize the bribery and favoritism on the Jordanian side of the crossing. She could mention how inadequate the facilities are. That could shame Jordan into cracking down on the problem. But instead she does what Palestinians are conditioned to do: blame Israel, which can do little to solve the problem on its own, and therefore ensure that Palestinians will be perpetual victims.

That is the role they have chosen, and it is a role that they relish.

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!

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency writes:

Israel is using withheld corpses of Palestinians for use in laboratories of medical schools in flagrant violation of human rights, today said Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

“The (Israeli) occupation authorities are augmenting the pain of the families bereaved at the loss of their children by withholding the corpses of their children and using them in the laboratories of medical schools in Israeli universities in flagrant violation of human rights, values, principles and scientific ethics,” said Shtayyeh in remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting held in Ramallah.

He called on universities around the world to boycott those Israeli universities involved in the withholding and the exploitation of the corpses of Palestinians killed by Israeli army gunfire in order to put pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities to show respect for the dead Palestinians and to immediately release the dozens of withheld corpses so that their families can bid them farewell in a manner that befits them and respect their feelings.

This is fiction. And it is being repeated in media worldwide.

Usually, Palestinian fantasies about Israel are based on a wild misreading of a tiny kernel of truth, and this is no exception.

Israel withholds the bodies of Palestinian terrorists for various reasons, often to prevent violent riots at their funerals. The main site that the bodies are held is the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute,whose official name is the L. Greenberg National Institute of Forensic Medicine.

The institute is a department of the Israeli Health Ministry and affiliated with the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tel Aviv.

That affiliation is probably the source of Shtayyeh's blood libel, as there have been previous calls to boycott Tel Aviv University for its affiliation with the forensics institute. Shtayyeh has added the idea that the university uses the corpses in its laboratories, and from there it is easy to expand the lie to all Israeli medical schools.

Normally, when a prime minister is caught in such an obvious lie, the media would be merciless in calling it out. The leader would be chastened and would be more careful in future statements to avoid embarrassment.

But Palestinian leaders have no such fear. Even though Israel has more foreign journalists per capita than any other country, and even though this story was reported in English in the official Palestinian news site, there is no media interest in a top public official spouting antisemitic lies.

The Israeli government rarely comments on these fabrications, because they know how the media would handle it. Instead of emphasizing that a Palestinian leader is blatantly lying, the media would detail stories from the 1990s when Israel did remove corneas and other tissues from a small number of bodies of Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers, a practice that ended decades ago. Readers would end up with the impression that there is something to the story, and probably Israel is doing really bad things to these bodies today, and how awful it is to withhold bodies of terrorists anyway.

This underlying hate for Israel is the reason that Palestinian leaders can lie with impunity.

UPDATE: A Palestinian medical examiner refuted the allegation on PA TV - not that it matters.

Acting Director-General of the PA Ministry of Justice’s Forensic Medicine Administration Dr. Ashraf Al-Qadi: “Of course, all the Martyrs we have checked and seen, none of them had any theft of their organs. I don’t know about the Martyrs from before, whom we did not check as a Palestinian side or authority.”

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!

Ben and Jerry's sells to lots of countries that commit human rights abuses

Ben and Jerry's is suing its own parent company Unilever for selling rights to manufacture its products to an Israeli company.

When the Unilever announced the deal, Ben and Jerry's said that "We continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry's values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. "

Here is a list of countries that Ben and Jerry's happily sells its products to up until last year:

I did a quick survey of the human rights records of some of these countries, based on NGO reports and the US State Department. Here are some results, and the list of human rights abuses is far from complete.

Australia	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprise 29 percent of Australia’s adult prison population, but just 3 percent of the national population.
Austria	Excessive use of force by police; asylum seekers deported
Bahamas	Death penalty, mistreatment of migrants, discrimination against LGBTQ+
Belgium	Racial profiling by the police, inhumane prisons
Brazil	In 2020, police killed 6,416 people. More than half of the victims were young Black men.
Czech Republic	Roma children experience discriminatory segregation in schools
Dominican Republic	Unlawful or arbitrary killings by government security forces; criminalization of abortion
Estonia	Highest gender pay gap in the EU
France	Violent police attacks on peaceful protesters. Anti-Muslim speech by officials.
Jamaica	Unlawful and arbitrary killings by government security forces; life-threatening conditions in prisons; law against homosexuality
Mexico	Police, prosecutors and the military regularly commit human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial killings.
New Zealand	Asylum seekers are placed in prison and mistreated by criminals while being processed.
Philippines	ICC investigating crimes against humanity in "war on drugs"
Poland	Laws banning abortions
Singapore	Death penalty, government goes after freedom of speech and assembly
Thailand	Torture, no freedom of assembly or speech
Trinidad &Tobago	Death penalty, unlawful or arbitrary killings by police

Even the countries universally considered the leaders in human rights - Finland, Sweden and Norway - have been accused of discriminating against the Sámi people in various ways, such as attacking their culture and limiting their land rights.

Not to mention Ben and Jerry's home country of the United States, which according to Amnesty has the death penalty, excessive police brutality, armed forces throughout the world that often kills civilians, and limited access to abortions in some states.

Is Ben and Jerry's OK selling to countries where homosexuality is illegal? Where abortions are illegal? Where the government security forces torture detainees, and violently break up public peaceful demonstrations? Where minorities are not protected and actively discriminated against? Where incarceration of minorities is way out of proportion to their population?

It sure sounds like this is not a problem for them.

No, the only country that Ben and Jerry's publicly says is so reprehensible that it won't sell there without it changing its own laws is Israel, where the crime that is so reprehensible to justify this singular treatment is that Jews build houses in their ancestral homeland, nearly all of it on land that no human being ever lived before.

Anyone can dissect any country's human rights record, in order to find excuses to be prejudiced against that country - while pretending that it is really a righteous position.

If people decided that they want to cancel, say, Trinidad and Tobago, they could find lots of human rights abuses to justify their decision. But the hate comes first, the justification comes later.

Which is exactly the case with Israel. The hate, which is by definition modern antisemitism, comes first; the justification comes later. This is why Israel is accused of such a huge variety of human rights abuses in so many areas - not because Israel is guilty of them, but because there is such an intense desire to demonize Israel that literally thousands of people are paid full time to scrutinize Israel from every angle to justify animosity towards the Jewish state. And when they run out of things to accuse Israel of, there is an academic cottage industry to create new ones.

The many real human rights abuses listed above do not get the publicity that the mostly imaginary abuses attributed to Israel get.

When you look hard enough, you can find a reason to justify hating any country. And when the bulk of that effort goes towards the only country that has a Jewish majority, it is pretty obvious that human rights is not the real reason for the scrutiny.

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!

07/05 Links Pt2: Antisemitism envoy Lipstadt sees Jew-hatred declining in Mideast, rising in US; Lessons of Ben & Jerry's: Boycotting Israel isn't low-risk

From Ian:

Antisemitism envoy Lipstadt sees Jew-hatred declining in Mideast, rising in US

On the heels of a landmark trip to Saudi Arabia, the newly sworn-in United States special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, said Tuesday at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University that “there is a change afoot in this region.”

She made her comments at the forum “New Tools in Combating Contemporary Antisemitism,” which was jointly held by the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Diaspora Ministry.

“For too many decades, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was a great exporter of Jew-hatred, but what I found is something quite different, something that has changed there dramatically in the last few years,” Lipstadt said, noting that the kingdom has also begun to implement changes in religious laws and the position of women in the country.

“I met with the heads and staffs of embassies focused on combating violent extremism, focused on interfaith dialogue, including the Muslim World League, whose secretary-general visited Auschwitz in 2020,” Lipstadt said. “We heard from a number of people who seemed willing to divide between the geopolitical crisis as it stands here in Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the fact that antisemitism is something separate and apart.

“These are important first steps. There was a clear willingness to continue this conversation. There is room to move things forward.”

Among the panelists at the forum were US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, and CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt. The forum was moderated by Hebrew University vice president and former Israeli ambassador Yossi Gal.

Lipstadt spoke about the qualities of antisemitism that set it apart from other forms of racism and prejudice. She cited antisemitism’s ubiquity, its appearance on both the right and the left, and the conspiracy theory that Jews are using their wealth and knowledge to control the world.

“In 2021, 84% of online antisemitism was anti-Israel.”@NoaTishby, Israel’s Special Envoy on Combating Antisemitism and Delegitmization, explains why it’s so important that the official title of her position recognizes these connected phenomena. https://t.co/lQI0Rg3eYC pic.twitter.com/mNrvWyibua
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 5, 2022

Anti-Israel Academics Attack the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism in Hate-Filled Webinar

On May 8, 2022, the Institute for Holocaust Studies, Genocide and Remembrance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, posted a discussion on their official YouTube channel that contained unfounded allegations about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.

Hosted and moderated by Alon Confino, chair of the Institute for Holocaust Studies and a history professor at Amherst, the webinar also featured Amos Goldberg and Raef Zreik, professors at Hebrew University and Ono Academic College, respectively. The three academics boasted about their anti-Zionist activism, and promoted their campaign against adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Professors Confino and Goldberg spent much of their time on the webinar denouncing the IHRA definition, and echoing the sentiment of an article where they jointly argue that, “The IHRA definition is nothing but a document used by Israeli propagandists to protect Israel against any harsh criticism regarding its attitude toward the Palestinians.”

In December 2020, Professor Zreik signed a petition that claimed: “The IHRA is used to delegitimize the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights,” a bald-faced lie that he reiterated throughout the webinar.

Zreik also complains about the semantics of the term “antisemitism,” but fails to acknowledge the history of the world’s oldest hatred.

Zreik’s attempt to redefine antisemitism is an age-old attempt to trivialize the Jewish experience. For thousands of years, Jews have remained the target of systemic discrimination and intense pressure to erase their culture, language, and identity. These experiences have come to be known as antisemitism. It is disrespectful and intellectually dishonest to appropriate this term to describe something completely unrelated.

Contrary to Confino, Golberg, and Zreik’s mischaracterization, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is an intergovernmental organization that makes it clear in its working definition that criticism of Israel, in and of itself, is not antisemitic.