Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 04, 2022

Andy Levin's Views On Israel Matched The Israel-Haters He Looked To For Support (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Representative Andy Levin's defeat in the Democratic primaries has brought out his defenders, who staunchly defend his Jewish bonafides.

Like Mehdi Hassan, for example:

Because nothing establishes the unassailability of your position on Israel like being a synagogue president.

Sheesh, indeed.

If you do a search on Twitter, it seems that everyone knows that Levin was a synagogue president, and thinks it actually means something. Twitter doesn't track how many tweets come up, but in a Google search, over 9,500 hits come up.

More dishonest is Hassan's deft little twist that the opposition to Levin must be based on his support for Palestinian human rights -- a nice touch.

Peter Beinart certainly agrees:

Left unsaid is the fact that Jewish opposition to Levin was not about his support for Palestinian human rights.

Israel-supporters were more concerned with backing for the rights of Israelis in their homeland.

After all, Levin is the one who introduced the H.R.5344 - Two-State Solution Act, which if passed would have established (among other things):

o It is the policy of the United States that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza are occupied territories and should be referred to as such consistently in official United States policies, communications, and documents.
o...the United States should maintain diplomatic relations with the Palestinians, including by reopening a United States consulate in Jerusalem and allowing for the reopening of the Palestine Liberation Organization foreign mission in the District of Columbia. [emphasis added]

So according to Andy Levin -- the Congressman and former synagogue president -- Jerusalem should once again be a divided city.

And according to Levin's bill, the Western Wall belongs to the Palestinian Arabs.

But the problem with Levin's stand goes beyond his wanting to undo Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem.

On November 18, 2019, Secretary of State Pompeo announced a change in US policy on Israeli settlements:

After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan: the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law.

On November 21, Levin responded with a letter he initiated, signed by such Israel-haters as Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar, Mark Pocan, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, Henry Johnson, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others.

A copy of Levin's letter, with the signatures, is available online.

Pompeo wasted no time in responding and rebutting Levin's claims, writing:

I am in receipt of your letter of November 21 in which you criticize the State Department’s determination that the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not categorically inconsistent with international law - a decision which you contend reverses “decades of bipartisan US policy on Israeli settlements.” You further argue. in conclusory fashion, that this determination “blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

While I appreciate your interest in this important issue, I could not disagree more with those two foolish positions. [emphasis added]

In response to Levin's claim that "the State Department's decision to reverse decades of bipartisan U.S. policy on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank," Pompeo wrote:

First, the State Department’s determination did not reverse any policy with regard to Israeli settlements. Rather, the State Department reversed a legal determination by Secretary Kerry made during the waning days of the Obama Administration, that the establishment of settlements was categorically inconsistent with international law. That determination was made in a failed attempt to justify the Obama Administration’s betrayal of Israel in allowing UNSCR 2334 — whose foundation was the purported illegality of the settlements and which referred to them as “a flagrant violation” of international law — to pass the Security Council on December 23, 2016. [emphasis added]

In response to Levin's claim that the US policy on settlements, as reflected in UN Resolution 2334 had bipartisan support, Pompeo reminded him:

Secretary Kerry’s determination did not enjoy bipartisan consensus. Rather, it received bipartisan condemnation, including from leading Democrats in both chambers of Congress. Indeed, an overwhelming number of Senators and House Members, on both sides of the aisle, supported resolutions objecting to the passage of UNSCR 2334.

...No less a Democratic spokesman than the Senate Minority Leader [Schumer] publicly stated at his AIPAC address on March 5, 2018, that “it’s sure not the settlements that are the blockage to peace.” [emphasis added]

Levin goes so far as to challenge Pompeo on The Geneva Convention, "This State Department decision blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which affirms that any occupying power shall not 'deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.'" -- which Levin apparently is taking literally, as if the Israeli government was actually transferring Israelis to these areas, a claim Pompeo rebuts with a reference to Eugene Rostow, former Dean of the Yale Law School and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs during the Johnson Administration. He was responsible for the draft of UNSCR 242, a foundation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Pompeo quotes Rostow, who stated in 1983 that “Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank.”

Former Ambassador David Friedman writes in his book, Sledgehammer:

I was deeply grateful that 106 members of the House, led by Congressman Andy Levin of Michigan, wrote to Pompeo to condemn his decision. Without that letter, the record supporting the decision might have been incomplete insofar as some members of the Legal Department at State were reluctant participants.. But the letter created a platform for a more fulsome response. [p. 165]

Hassan, Beinart and other defenders of Levin will of course continue to attempt to muddy the waters on the reaction against Levin's attempt to impose his leftwing politics on Israel.

But the fact remains that Andy Levin no more represented support of the Democratic Party for Israel than did the Israel-haters he found it convenient to ally himself with.

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!

Before 1948, Jews could cool down at hotels in Ramallah

Yisrael Medad found this ad in Haaretz from 1935:

It says that Ramallah is the nicest place in Eretz Yisrael, and invites people who want to escape the heat and enjoy the clean air to visit the Grand Hotel Ramallah. The hotel featured dances and tennis as well as running water.

I found the equivalent ad in English in the Palestine Post:

It turns out that hotels in Ramallah before 1948 enjoyed holding dance contests on weekends. Here's an ad for the Harb Hotel Kit-Kat Casino from 1933:

The interesting thing is that while these ads attempted to attract Jews to the hotels, the main clientele for the dances was Arab.

Just as in Egypt, the social scene for Arabs in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s was far more liberal than today.

The Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah today has a pool, but there are restrictions on who can go, as this 2019 poster (the most recent one I could find) states in the small print:

A woman visiting the hotel alone who wants to swim is out of luck. And you simply cannot find photos of people swimming in that pool because photos of women swimming would cause an uproar.

A mixed-couples dance is severely restricted under Palestinian rule today - in fact, the rare times it happens, trouble follows, and the dance scene there is mostly under the radar.

It is ironic that the more conservative Palestinian society becomes, the more "progressive" its supporters are.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Andy Levin's synagogue celebrates Tisha B'Av with a yoga class

In response to a tweet about Andy Levin, who touted himself during his campaign as a former synagogue president, Melissa Braunstein asked, "Why hasn’t an article been written about that synagogue? Are the members all like Levin politically speaking?"

The answer is that his synagogue is as fringe about Judaism as Levin is about Israel.

His synagogue is Congregation T'chiyah, a Reconstructionist synagogue. According to the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey, only 1% of Jews identified as Reconstructionist at the time. Since then, the survey has lumped them in with "others" which are at 4% total. About 2.5% of American synagogues in 2002 identified as Reconstructionist.

Either way, they represent a tiny slice of American Judaism.

The founder of Reconstructionist Judaism does not believe in a personal God. He defined God as "the sum of all natural processes that allow people to become self-fulfilled." This is not mainstream Judaism, or mainstream religion.

Levin's congregation describes itself in progressive word-salad style.

At this time, services - when they are held - are in a rented room of a Methodist church that is also considered progressive.

Their calendar does not mention Tisha B'Av this coming Sunday. Instead, they are having a yoga class.

My point isn't to slam Reconstructionist Judaism, although I strongly disagree with everything about it. I'm just saying that all the people who pretended that Levin was some sort of SuperJew for being the president of a synagogue are gaslighting the Jewish community, because a synagogue like this - that says nothing about Israel on its webpage and in its programming - is not at all mainstream.

Just like Andy Levin's political views are not at all mainstream among American Jews.

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!

08/03 Links Pt2: Missouri AG Investigates Morningstar Over ESG, Compliance With Anti-BDS Law; How the ‘awokening’ of the media erased the working class and the Jews

From Ian:

Missouri Attorney General Investigates Morningstar Over ESG, Compliance With Anti-BDS Law

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has launched an investigation into whether Morningstar Inc violated a state consumer-protection law through its evaluations of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, his office told Reuters.

The review is two-pronged, covering ESG matters as well as whether the financial research firm violated a separate Missouri law aimed at protecting Israel from a campaign to isolate the Jewish state over its policies towards Palestinians.

Staff for Schmitt said it is the first instance of a state looking into ESG ratings products potentially breaching such laws, on the books in more than 30 US states.

“Missouri has been a leader in pushing back against woke ESG investing, and my office will continue to look out for consumers,” Schmitt — a Republican who on Tuesday won his party’s nomination for a US Senate seat — said in a statement.

Morningstar Chief Executive Kunal Kapoor said the company was evaluating Schmitt’s action.

“Sustainability introduces new choices for investors; Morningstar provides the data and insights to help investors of all types weigh those choices in their decision making,” Kapoor said in a statement.

In a pair of July 26 civil investigative demands to Morningstar and to its Sustainalytics ESG-ratings unit, Schmitt said they may have violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act such as by misrepresenting or omitting facts.

Jonathan Tobin: How the ‘awokening’ of the media erased the working class and the Jews

This was also made possible because most journalists themselves were different from their predecessors. Up until fairly recently, most members of the press came from working-class backgrounds, not elite universities. But by the 21st century, those joining top mainstream journalism outlets became almost exclusively filled with such graduates, more likely than not coming from upper-middle-class and wealthy families.

The focus on race and the acceptance of woke ideological constructs like critical race theory and intersectionality that young journalists have embraced was exemplified by the Times’ “1619 Project,” which falsified American history in order to present a view of the United States as not merely having a flawed past but as irredeemably racist. These theories aren’t motivated by a desire for greater equality as those 19th-century papers that reflected their working-class readers’ views did. CRT and intersectionality oppose equality since they see race as a permanent and insuperable barrier between people.

What Ungar-Sargon points out is that this allows elites to ignore economic inequality and “transforms economic guilt into racial guilt.” Obsessing over a problem that can’t be solved also allows the affluent to keep their status and to think it is a function of their own “superior virtue.” One of the great ironies of our age is the way that the left perpetuates inequality and undermines democracy all the while claiming to be defending these values.

In this way, the working class, which liked Trump, was erased by the racial moral panic. But as she also writes, it also accounts for the way the same liberal elites in journalism are willing to mainstream critical race theory that grants a permission slip for hatred of Jews as beneficiaries of alleged “white privilege.” In this manner, the great “awokening” in the press has also mainstreamed anti-Semitism while elite liberal Jews look the other way or ignore this tragic development.

The picture she paints of a smug mainstream press staffed by well-off members of the educated classes is a disturbing one that explains a great deal about what’s wrong with journalism and America in the 21st century. She hopes that this can be corrected by consumers of the news choosing to “starve the people making money off your emotions” and rage, and seek to understand those with different points of view and carve nonpolitical spaces in people’s lives. But as long as major media outlets are not only exacerbating our divisions but profiting from them, it’s difficult to see a path out of this abyss of wokeness.

ADL must listen to its critics

It is ADL policy then, expressed by Hershenov herself, that Muslims are "vulnerable" and "marginalized," that they need to call out Jew-hatred in their community on their own, there's nothing for the ADL to do about it, and that Jewish "Islamophobia" is a parallel phenomenon. She then cites rises in hate crimes against Muslims (third highest year) but not the much greater rise of hate crimes against Jews (68% of all religious hate crimes), many committed by Muslims.

The ADL has been fixated on threats from the right because they are clinging to an outdated paradigm that supposes victim groups with a leftist orientation welcome Jews as allies, and they do not want to alienate those groups by criticizing them. The ADL seems paralyzed by the left's shift to woke-think, which casts Jews as undeservedly privileged and "white adjacent" oppressors who support "racism and genocide" against the "darker skinned" Palestinians. Indeed, it signed a petition supporting the "Black Lives Matter Movement" (which accuses Israel of genocide in its platform), a petition signed by violently anti-Israel (and hence anti-Semitic) groups like JVP and Anti-Zionist Shabbat.

Generals tend to fight the last war. Here the ADL has shown an adamant reluctance to analyze leftist Jew-hatred like they do, should do and have always done with white supremacist bigotry. Recently, Greenblatt has announced some dramatic changes in the ADL's attitude towards left anti-Semitism, but will he walk the walk?

We need to see that the ADL is developing a genuine strategy to combat modern anti-Semitism in all its forms, not just creating some catchy buzzwords. Will Greenblatt re-educate ADL staff about leftist, Islamist and black supremacist anti-Semitism? Will he revamp ADL workshops to include these forms of Jew-hatred, instead of focusing almost exclusively on the threat from white supremacists? Will he take action based on his newer understanding about the left? Will the ADL, for example, seek to have frank discussions with black pastors about black anti-Semitism and urge them to educate their congregations? There is so much to do, and so much ADL can do.

But until the ADL alters its strategy and begins to educate the Jewish community, and the black, gay, trans, feminist, Muslim and Hispanic communities, about the rise and dangerous nature of modern-day Jew-hatred, they deserve all the criticism they are getting, and more.

Caroline Glick: ‘Jewish leaders have betrayed, failed our community’

834 views Premiered 23 hours ago Jewish community leaders have “betrayed and failed” their constituents, according to Avi Goldwasser of the Jewish Leadership Project. He says they are either “cowards or delusional or both.”

In a conversation with his colleague, Charles Jacobs, and Caroline Glick on this week’s “Mideast News Hour,” Goldwasser stresses the leadership’s unwillingness to confront the problems facing the Jewish people.

They also talk about the challenges leaders face - their fears of both losing their jobs, harming relations with donors and simply not knowing what to do.

Jacobs says that when anti-Semitism rises, a lot of people run away - including Jewish leaders.

“They're paralyzed,” according to Jacobs. “They're like deer in the headlights. The train is coming, and they are stuck.”

Whoopi Goldberg really needs to stop talking. Preferably altogether, but certainly when it comes to talking about Nazis and the Holocaust.

via GIPHY

First she said Nazis were white people attacking other whitepeople. That was in February.

Now, only six months later, Goldberg has lumped the members of a conservative student association with neo-Nazis after the latter protested outside a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) summit last week. Goldberg falsely asserted that TPUSA allowed the protesters into their event, and was therefore “complicit.” “You let them in and you knew what they were, so you are complicit,” she said.

Except that never happened. TPUSA never let these horrible people into their summit. TPUSA security, in fact, made every effort to disperse the neo-Nazi protesters. Since the protest took place on a public sidewalk, however, security was unable to remove them.

Horrifying to see swastika flags and antisemitic signs being displayed earlier today at the Tampa Convention Center outside of Turning Point USA’s #SAS2022 conference. pic.twitter.com/alypSZRgsB
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 24, 2022

TPUSA participants themselves went out and confronted the demonstrators, but could not persuade them to leave. Only after the TPUSA students gave up and entered the building for their event, did the protesters at last quit the scene.

This was all easily verifiable. Today, everything is verifiable. Because everyone has a phone, duh.

TPUSA students confronted and argued with these individuals. Our security attempted to remove the "nazis" but were unable to intervene because they were standing on the public sidewalk. TPUSA students ultimately left the scene, at which point these individuals dispersed. pic.twitter.com/K5uNuIxAku
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) July 26, 2022

But Whoopi, of course, has absolutely no interest in verifying what happened or in learning the truth. Her only interest is to demonize those who are different from her, in this case, conservatives. Goldberg took one small piece of information—the fact that neo-Nazis protested outside the event—and embroidered it to suit her narrative, claiming that TPUSA welcomed the protesters, something that never occurred. Then Goldberg broadcast the slanderous falsehoods to the world, leading her audience to believe that conservatives in general, and Republicans in particular, are in fact, neo-Nazis, and share the same Nazi beliefs.

Even if we are to give Goldberg the benefit of the doubt that she received bad information—that someone did, in fact tell Goldberg that TPUSA let the neo-Nazis into their event, it was Goldberg’s job to verify the story before blabbing it to the world. But Goldberg—or rather Caryn Elaine Johnson, Goldberg’s real name—already knows that she can libel anyone she likes: Jews, conservatives, Republicans, and whites, and nothing much will happen to her. At most, she’ll eventually be forced to give a lackluster apology and perhaps receive a short suspension. All worth it for the ability to continue spreading her toxic and xenophobic views to her idiot audience of millions.

After Goldberg’s obnoxious comments of last January, in which she described the Holocaust as white people fighting each other, “This is white people doing it to white people, so y'all going to fight amongst yourselves,” she apologized the next day, and received a two-week suspension.

This time, Goldberg qualified her comments later in the same show, saying “My point was metaphorical.”

It was only after TPUSA issued a cease and desist letter to ABC, threatening legal action, that anyone bothered to apologize for all the vicious lies spread not just by Whoopi but other cast members of The View, for example Joy Behar, who told the audience that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis “did nothing” to stop the protesters. DeSantis had attended the event a day earlier, when no demonstrations were taking place. But what does The View care about the truth?

But back to the apology, because it was too slow to come and even when it did, it didn’t begin to address the malignant nature of the on-air defamation. The slander took place on a Monday. The apology, which was not really an apology and didn’t come from Whoopi, came only on the following Wednesday, in the form of a legal note read on air by The View co-host Sarah Haines:

“On Monday we talked about the fact that there were openly neo-Nazi demonstrators outside the Florida Student Action Summit of the Turning Point USA group,” read Haines. “We want to make clear that these demonstrators were gathered outside the event and that they were not invited or endorsed by Turning Point USA.

“A Turning Point USA spokesman said the group ‘100 percent condemns those ideologies’ and said Turning Point USA security tried to remove the neo-Nazis from the area but could not because they were on public property. Also, Turning Point USA wanted us to clarify that this was a Turning Point USA Summit, and not a Republican Party event. So, we apologize for anything we said that may have been unclear on these points.”

The View apologizes for wrongly linking neo-Nazi protestors to Turning Point USA. pic.twitter.com/uVUo7Cfykr
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 27, 2022

UPDATE: The View has issued yet another formal correction to TPUSA and its students LIVE on air. The apology was issued by Sara Haines. Whoopi remained silent and has not retracted her comments that TPUSA “metaphorically” embraced “Nazis." https://t.co/rcTawUTbpX pic.twitter.com/rANUlmXZwO
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) July 27, 2022

In other words, The View doesn’t apologize for its assertions, only that said assertions should have been clearer.

TPUSA was not at all satisfied with the on-air reading of a legal letter by Haines, nor should it have been. According to Fox News, “A TP spokesperson balked at Haines, not Goldberg, making the apology.”

The lame, forced apology from Goldberg, such as it was, came only one day later, a full three days after she broadcast her libelous claims. “You know, in Monday’s conversation about Turning Point USA, I put the young people at the conference in the same category as the protesters outside,” said Goldberg. “I don’t like it when people make assumptions about me, and it’s not any better when I make assumptions about other people, which I did. So my bad. I’m sorry.”

WATCH: @TheView's Whoopi Goldberg apologizes for lumping in @TPUSA attendees with the neo-Nazis that protested outside TPUSA's summit pic.twitter.com/PJeGsx4uWp
— Jackson Richman (@jacksonrichman) July 28, 2022

Even now, Goldberg-really-Johnson apologizes not for her calumny, as she should, but for mistaken assumptions. In so doing, Goldberg/Johnson has minimized her vilification of a student organization as some minor error in understanding, rather than a wholesale effort at character assassination. In such an apology, there is no mistaking the insincerity of the supplicant. This is not ignorance, but hate.

Not that it matters. Caryn Elaine Johnson’s audience laps up every lie she feeds them, even begging for more. And anyway, she can always apologize some more or take a two-week vacation.

Exploiting the Holocaust and Nazi ideology to serve her own egocentric interests? Why not? What does she care about a mess of "white" people, fighting?

And anyway, nothing really happens to her when she says these things. People like her, and listen to her. So she stays.

For her, it’s a win-win situation. Johnson/Goldberg can say what she likes with impunity. And cry all the way to the bank.

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!

Cults of personality are funny

Here is a screenshot of part of the English edition of Lebanon's Al Manar newspaper:

That's five photos of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on five separate stories.

All of them fawn over him.

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

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08/03 Links Pt1: Palestinians Commit Suicide as Their Leaders Live in Hotels and Villas; U.N. body determines Palestinian Authority condones torture and ill-treatment against civilians

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians Commit Suicide as Their Leaders Live in Hotels and Villas

Many residents of the Gaza Strip undoubtedly regret the day they voted for Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election.

The last protest, which took place in 2017 under the slogan "We Want to Live!", was brutally crushed by Hamas's security forces and armed militias.

"In all countries of the world, you pay taxes for the services that the state provides you, except for us. In return, there are no hospitals, no education, no electricity, no water, no public utilities, not even rodent control." — Khalil Talmas, Gaza Strip resident, Facebook, July 27, 2022.

"'We Want to Live!'... is a cry of pain from the depths of a crushed and exhausted Palestinian people. It is a cry against taxes, extortion, repression and corruption." — Anas Al-Jazzar, Twitter, July 28, 2022.

Other Palestinians said that the current protest was directed not only against Hamas, but also against the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank....

These Palestinians pointed out the corrupt leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and their family members are leading comfortable lives in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and in five-star hotels and big villas in Qatar and Turkey, while most people were living in poverty and unemployment and misery.

U.N. body determines Palestinian Authority condones torture and ill-treatment against civilians

Last week, the United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) — a subsidiary of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) — convened in Geneva to investigate, for the first time, instances of torture and ill-treatment carried out or condoned by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

After the completion of the hearings, CAT released its findings on Friday in a 15-page set of concluding observations, in which the committee determined that the PA is liable for the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian civilians, and set forth recommendations as to how the PA can better ensure their well-being.

The committee’s recommendations include: categorizing torture — which is currently considered a misdemeanor — as a felony; banning unlawful and torturous detentions; and creating a domestic commission to investigate any allegations of torture and ill-treatment. CAT also recommended the PA implement policies to democratize the Palestinian system of government, including safeguarding free speech.

In preparation for the hearings, CAT, which holds broad powers to probe incidents of torture and cruel treatment, reviewed a report submitted by the PA, as well as alternative reports submitted by a dozen American, Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, the Palestinian Coalition Against Torture, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Clinic on International Human Rights and others.

Felice Gaer, former vice-chair of CAT and director of the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, told Jewish Insider, “One of the most important things a review can do is to raise cases because it clarifies government policy, and also causes the state to pay special attention to those cases thereafter.”

David May, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, suggested to Jewish Insider that the PA has used the international body as a way to put more pressure on Israel. “When the Palestinians joined all the various [human rights] bodies […] starting in 2014, the goal was twofold,” he said. “One, to establish themselves as a state to try to gain international recognition without having the instruments of statehood — so, to essentially be granted statehood by the U.N., even though it doesn’t really exist on the ground — and the second part was to put the screws on Israel.”

Baha'i family in Iran whose home was burned down

From Iran International:

Security forces laid siege to a village in northern Iran Tuesday and started demolishing houses and farms belonging to members of the persecuted Baha’i faith.

Simin Fahandej, a spokeswoman for the Baha’i International Community, told Iran International Tuesday that over 200 security forces were deployed to block the roads leading to Roshankouh, a village in Mazandaran Province, and begin demolition of the houses and farms belonging to Bahai’s.

According to Fahandej, security forces arrested some Bahai’s who tried to stop the operations, confiscated mobile phones of some villagers to prevent them from recording videos and publishing them on social media, and warned locals not to take any photos or videos of their operations.

A video posted on social media by the Baha'i International Community Tuesday shows security forces using heavy construction machinery to demolish buildings in Roshankouh.

Since early June security forces and the judiciary of the Islamic have intensified pressure on the followers of the Baha’i faith, raiding over a dozen households, arresting tens including three of the former leaders of the community, and shutting down businesses.

Iran's persecution of Baha'i fits Human Rights Watch and Amnesty's definitions of apartheid far better than Israel's treatment of Palestinians. This was pointed out in an article by South African Winston Nagan for PBS back in 2012: "Having grown up with the indignities of the apartheid system in South Africa, I bristle whenever I hear anyone equate a government's treatment of a portion of its citizenry to apartheid. Usually, the claims are exaggerated. But in Iran today, the government's treatment of the Baha'i community bears striking similarities."

He pointed out:

Both Blacks in South Africa and Baha'is in Iran have been excluded from being legislators.

Both have been excluded from universities.

Both have been limited under the law from building their own educational institutions.

Both have been excluded from certain jobs.

Both have had their property confiscated for no reason.

Hundreds of members of both groups have been executed for their political beliefs.

Iran has even banned Baha'i from burying their dead according to their laws. It has demolished Baha'i cemeteries and built parks and cultural centers on top of them.

Since that article, things have only gotten worse:

Under Iranian law, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians are the only religious minorities accepted. Baha'is are considered to be "unprotected infidels," according to a July 2019 report by the UN special rapporteur to Iran, Javaid Rehman.

Despite facing persecution, Bahai's are forbidden by their faith to lie about their religion. This means that the new identity card application prevents them from applying for and obtaining official identification, as they cannot claim affiliation to one of the three legally recognized minority religions.

Iran's policy towards the Baha'i is arguably worse than that of apartheid-era South Africa towards Blacks, because it is meant to ultimately ethnically cleanse them from the country altogether - something that is nearly complete in Yemen.

Even though Israel has none of the discriminatory laws against Arabs that Iran has towards the Baha'i, major human rights NGOs have decided to declare only Israel guilty of apartheid. This hurts the Baha'i because these NGOs resist using the term anywhere else for their own anti-Israel propaganda purposes. This means that the Baha'i are not able to easily use that appellation to pressure Iran to treat them better.

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!

From KUNA, the Kuwait News Agency, July 31:

The Arab League called on the Arab States on Sunday to reactivate the boycott of Israel, describing it as a peaceful resistance to press Israel to abide by international resolutions.
The League Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Affairs Saed Abu Ali made the remarks at the 95th meeting of the Arab boycott offices in Cairo.
He said Israel's international boycott had achieved success at both popular and official levels.

Compare with an Arab League press release from October 24, 2017:

The Arab League (AL) called on Arab States on Monday to reactivate boycott of Israel, describing it as a peaceful resistance to press Israel to abide by international resolutions.
AL Assistant Secretary General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Affairs Saed Abu Ali made the remarks at the 91st meeting of the Arab boycott offices in Cairo.
He said that the international boycott of Israel had achieved success at both popular and official levels.

Yes, they are practically word for word the same.

And the idea of an Arab League boycott is now a joke with direct trade relations between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE, and indirect relations with who knows how many others.

But the Arab League Boycott Office continues with its annual or semi-annual meetings, and they have to justify their existence, so they call the reactivate the boycott. Again and again.

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!

Tuesday's primary is over, and in the closely watched Michigan congressional race between two incumbents, moderate Haley Stevens and "progressive" Andy Levin, Stevens trounded Levin by 20 percentage points.

The result is being painted by the far-Left crowd as AIPAC stealing the election by spending millions of dollars through their PAC, UDP, to pay for ads for Stevens. While AIPAC did spend the money, the margin of victory is not because of them - it is because Stevens was heavily backed by moderate Democrats.

One byproduct of the race, though, is that is exposed J-Street's hypocrisy.

J-Street went all out for Levin, no less than AIPAC did for Stevens. They falsely painted Levin as having mainstream positions in the American Jewish community.

The truth is quite the opposite, and it shows J-Street's extremism.

In their message after the race, J-Street wrote:

It is alarming that this race, like many other Democratic primaries this cycle, was heavily impacted by the aggressive outside spending of AIPAC and its SuperPAC, the United Democracy Project. They spent nearly $5 million to target and defeat Levin, far more than was spent by any other group. While Rep. Levin is a proudly pro-Israel Jewish-American, AIPAC smeared him as “anti-Israel,” “fringe” and “hostile.” They targeted him for holding principled, mainstream views about US diplomatic leadership in the Middle East, and for proposing legislation to help uphold Palestinian rights and secure Israel’s future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people.
...

With their overwhelming spending, AIPAC hopes to send an intimidating message to others: Cross our red lines, and you could be next. While political space for open and healthy debate over US foreign policy has opened up considerably in recent years, they appear determined to close it down. Instead of building sustainable bipartisan support for Israel, AIPAC has harmfully turned Israel into one of the sharpest wedge issues in American politics.

To respond to this new challenge, Democratic Party leaders should make absolutely clear just how harmful and unwelcome AIPAC’s interventions in its primary contests are. Candidates in future primaries should disavow and decline the support of AIPAC and its SuperPAC – which have come as a surprise to at least some of them.

J Street remains committed to doing all that we can to represent the views of the majority of Jewish Americans and American voters. We will keep up our work to ensure that our national political and policy debate about foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rooted in honest fact, shared democratic values, and a commitment to lasting peace.

The hypocrisy shown here is off the charts.

Levin's positions are not mainstream in the Jewish community. His centerpiece "Two State Solution Act" has no traction and zero co-sponsors because it is abhorrent to pro-Israel Americans. It makes demands on Israel and none on Palestinians. It defines the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall as "occupied territory." It also defines Gaza as "occupied" even though no Jews have lived there in nearly two decades.

J-Street's hand wringing over AIPAC's spending is also hypocritical because before AIPAC created their superPAC, the largest Jewish political PAC was JStreetPAC - by far.

But far more telling is what Haley Stevens positions on Israel are that J-Street opposes. From her campaign website section on Israel:

Chief among my priorities are safety and security, both here in the U.S. and abroad, and I believe that our strong and enduring partnership with the State of Israel is a cornerstone of maintaining these goals. The United States and Israel have maintained a steadfast partnership for over seven decades, bound by our shared commitment to common values. The U.S.-Israel partnership is one that must continue to thrive – and importantly, cannot become a partisan issue. I stand firm in my commitment to the U.S.-Israel alliance and will continue working in Congress to support policies that strengthen our strategic alliance.

I had the opportunity to visit Israel for the first time in 2019, where I experienced its deep history, cultures, and natural beauty. I was also able to learn more about the innovative technologies Israel has created that Americans depend upon for agriculture, energy, healthcare, commerce, transportation, and national security, among many others. I look forward to finding new ways to develop strategic plans to build on these technological successes.

I stand alongside Israel against the BDS movement, which seeks to undermine Israel’s economy and legitimacy. Its main goal is to delegitimize Israel’s existence and inflame tensions in communities and on college campuses, which undermines the prospects for peace. At a time when anti-Israel boycotts are prevalent around the country and globe, and the Anti-Defamation League is reporting a dramatic uptick in anti-Semitic hate crimes, it is now more important than ever to stand beside Israel and oppose state-sponsored BDS.

I believe in Israel’s fundamental right to self-defense. As the only democracy in the Middle East and our strongest ally in the region, Israel’s safety is paramount to our interests at home and abroad. Congress must continue to unconditionally support critical programs that help Israel upgrade its fleets in air, land, and sea, enhance the mobility of its ground forces, and continue to strengthen its missile defense capabilities. The landmark Memorandum of Understanding reached under the Obama Administration provided Israel with robust funding to accomplish these goals, and I will continue to support funding from this historic agreement, as I have each year. We must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and further destabilizing the region. Diplomacy must be the first option and is the best solution but all options must remain on the table.

I believe in the worth and value of every Palestinian and every Israeli and will work to support a negotiated solution resulting in two states—a democratic Jewish State of Israel, and a viable, democratic Palestinian state—living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual recognition. This peace process should be settled by the parties directly.

Our countries share a commitment to justice and equality for all. From standing up for women’s rights to affirming our support for the worldwide LGBT community, our common values are what unite us. That deep sense of justice – born out of a shared commitment to repairing the world – is why we can always count on each other.

This statement says more positive things about Israel than J-Street has during its entire existence. Moreover, it is clearly within the mainstream of the American Jewish community - supporting a two state solution, supporting a strong US-Israel relationship, supporting Israel's right to self-defense, supporting Israel's liberal values, and opposing BDS.

These position are what J-Street opposes. Which makes J-Street an extremist group, not a moderate pro-Israel group.

One other Stevens statement:

I am deeply concerned by the persistent and growing effort to demonize Israel, the world's only Jewish state and a close American ally, on the international stage. Whether through the chronic bias displayed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) or accusations put out by groups like Amnesty International, I stand opposed to efforts to unjustifiably brand Israel as an "apartheid state," and I will always work to mitigate the threat of delegitimization against our closest friends in the Middle East. Since its inception in 2006, the UNHRC has created 33 Commissions of Inquiry, out of which nine have dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There have been no UNHRC commissions of inquiry into Iranian or Chinese human rights violations. Israeli Arabs are represented in the Israeli Knesset, Supreme Court, Governing Coalition, and Defense Forces, in short. Instead of holding the world’s only Jewish state to a double standard, we should investigate why its adversaries are so keen on finding new methods to undercut its legitimacy as a vibrant, multi-ethnic democracy. This disastrous characterization of Israel will not serve to end the conflict and suffering in the region but will rather serve to incite violence and hatred toward the world's largest hub of Jewish life amid a time of overwhelming concern for the international Jewish community. I support good faith efforts to address the underlying causes of recurrent tensions and instability in the region in pursuit of peace, but I fervently condemn this campaign to vilify our close American ally with these displays of hateful discrimination.”

This is mainstream American Zionist and Jewish opinion. But I cannot find a single J-Street statement opposing the UN Commission of Inquiry.They issued no condemnation of the antisemitic statements of its member Miloon Kothari that the "Jewish lobby" controls social media.

J-Street's opposition to Stevens proves that they are not pro-Israel at all.

Moreover, I cannot find a single statement from Andy Levin decrying those who call Israel an "apartheid state." His silence is tacit support. J-Street says it is against that specific term - but they fully support the anti-Israel reports from HRW and Amnesty that make that accusation.

There is a further hypocrisy from J-Street in their letter. They pretend to be upset that AIPAC is turning Israel into a wedge issue - yet that is J-Street's entire purpose, to divide the American Jewish community and to promote the ideas and candidates whose opinions are anathema to most American Jews.

And their self-righteous posturing that billionaire money corrupts democracy is even more hypocritical. J-Street was formed with the early support (within six months of its founding) of billionaire George Soros, a fact that they tried to hide.

All you need to know about J-Street can be seen in this one campaign. And it proves that J-Street holds fringe opinions on Israel that they try to obscure behind their mantras of "pro-Israel, pro-peace, two states."

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!

08/02 Links Pt2: Col. Kemp: Teens Stand Against Jew Haters; How the Stasi and KGB Fostered Germany’s Neo-Nazi Movement; There are no losers in sport - except BDS

From Ian:

Richard Kemp: 'Here I Am; Send Me': Teens Stand Against Jew Haters

As every commander knows, you do not train a soldier to fight when he is in the middle of a battle, you do it before he gets anywhere near the combat zone.

Victimhood culture, too often the corrosive first resort of those who face injustice or feel wronged, is not in Club Z's creed. Students are taught that an individual's character is defined not by what obstacles are thrown in their path but by how they have overcome those obstacles and turned them to advantage.

Club Z teens are not aggrieved victims but active and proud defenders. They know that weakness incites while strength deters, that keeping quiet about antisemitism, meeting the bullies half way or compromising with calumnies does not protect them, does not make the problem go away and does not diminish the diatribe against them.

Courage cannot be taught but it can be fortified, and that is fundamentally what Club Z does. It is what empowers these teens to say, as the finest soldiers say when there's a perilous task to be done: "Here I am; send me".

How the Stasi and KGB Fostered Germany’s Neo-Nazi Movement

Born in the East German city of Dresden in 1955, Rainer Sonntag spent most of his early adulthood in and out of prison until, in 1986, he received permission to leave for West Germany. Two years later, he entered the inner circle of Michael Kühnen, the country’s leading neo-Nazi, and succeeded Kühnen after the latter’s death in April 1991—only to die in a violent confrontation a month later. Leigh Baldwin and Sean Williams delve into Sonntag’s bizarre backstory, and the “dark secret” his comrades didn’t know when he joined their organization:

The Stasi had a rich history of exploiting the far right for its own ends. When Adolf Eichmann stood trial in Jerusalem, the Stasi funneled cash to a campaign to defend the captured war criminal and forged letters from “veterans of the Waffen-SS” urging comrades to join the “struggle against Jewish Bolshevism,” all in an effort to humiliate the West German government. With the same goal in mind, in the late fifties and early sixties, Stasi agents smeared swastikas on Jewish graves across the country. Later, in the 1980s, the Stasi recruited Odfried Hepp, one of West Germany’s most wanted neo-Nazi terrorists, to report on far-right activity on his side of the Berlin Wall. When it appeared that Hepp’s arrest was imminent, he fled to East Germany and was smuggled to Syria under a new identity.

Author Regine Igel, who has studied extremism in modern Germany, believes that the East German intelligence apparatus was engaged in “massive and long-term support and direction of German and international terrorism,” exploiting extremists on both right and left to destabilize the West. By Sonntag’s time, however, the authorities’ approach to the far right may have become more pragmatic, concerned with heading off neo-Nazi attacks against border installations and countering the spread of the ideology in East Germany. “Following the logic of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend,’ there was a basis for cooperation,” historian Bernhard Blumenau said. “This was realpolitik at its best.”

Unleashing Sonntag in West Germany was a gamble. He was a loner, with few personal relationships to ground him. There was a good chance that, once free, he would simply vanish. But he was about to surprise his handlers.

New podcast spotlights the exodus stories of Middle Eastern Jews

Soon after the establishment of the State of Israel, author André Aciman’s family made a desperate flight from Egypt, where they lived under the threat of growing antisemitism worsened by the Nasser regime. For the family of memoirist Carol Isaacs, it was antisemitism demonstrated in the 1941 Farhud, or pogrom, that eventually uprooted them from their Iraqi homeland. And two generations after his family was spirited out of Yemen in Operation Magic Carpet in 1949, Israeli windsurfer Shahar Tzubari took home a bronze medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Stories like these, which document the little-known plight of some of the 800,000 Jews who were forced out of their long-thriving communities in Middle Eastern capitals such as Cairo, Baghdad and Sana’a shortly before and after Israel’s creation, are part of a new limited podcast series by American Jewish Committee titled “The Forgotten Exodus,” which premieres today.

“We often view the Jewish world through an Ashkenazi lens; we talk about the Holocaust but not the Farhud in Iraq,” Manya Brachear Pashman, a religion writer and the host of AJC’s podcasts, told eJewishPhilanthorpy. “When we talk about Jews in the Middle East, we often talk about Israel. But for thousands of years Jews lived all over the Middle East with rich vibrant cultures.”

The six-part series, which opens with a segment on Isaacs, deliberately focuses on the stories of acclaimed writers, athletes and others whose stories, organizers believe, will resonate with the wider Jewish community. “I wanted to illustrate that these people are making contributions to art, culture, diplomacy and athletics, among many fields,” Brachear Pashman said. “They yielded these wonderful contributions to society.”

Aciman detailed his family’s perilous escape from the growing antisemitism during Gamal Abdel Nasser’s presidency in his 1995 book Out of Egypt: A Memoir. “In Egypt you had a group of Jews who were native and were made stateless when Nasser came to power,” said Brachear Pashman, describing the situation for some Jewish communities in Egypt at the time. “They didn’t see the value of citizenship until it was too late. When they finally applied they were denied. Thankfully Israel existed by then; it was a haven for people who were stateless and had nowhere else to go.”

From Yemen's Saba news site:

The Council of Ministers approves its plan for the [Islamic] year 1444 AH and renews its condemnation of the desecration of the Holy Land by Jews

But it turns out they are really condemning Saudi Arabia, and Jews are an excuse:

The Council of Ministers renewed its condemnation of the Zionist Jews’ violation and desecration of sacred lands and feelings in light of the Saudi regime’s complicity and neglect of sacred things, as part of its continuous approach of neglecting Palestine and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the founder’s approval to give it to the Jews, as stated in the historical document that was widely circulated in various media.

I haven't seen this but there must have been some rumor in Yemeni media that Saudi Arabia agreed that Israel should control Al Aqsa.

He pointed out that compromising Islamic sanctities confirms that the Saudi regime is dishonest in managing the holy sites in Makkah and Madinah.. He called on the entire Islamic nation to confront the practices of normalization with the Jews, and allow them to enter the holy lands and sites in Makkah and Madinah, and to roam in such a way that provokes feelings of Muslims.

The Council pointed out that this condemned act by all the sons of the Islamic nation confirms the existence of an aggressive scheme targeting religious sanctities and feelings in Mecca and Medina.

This is about the Israeli reporter who sneaked into Mecca. The consporacy-theory addicted Yemenis are convinced that it was done in collusio with the evilSudis, just to upset Muslims.

It doesn't have to make sense.

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!

ISGAP, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, held its conference this week in Cambridge, England. The theme of the conference is "Global Antisemitism, ‎A Crisis of Modernity Revisited."

I gave a short talk (virtually) on the topic of "A modest proposal for a new definition of antisemitism" based on the definition I came up with last year.

Here it is.

I didn't capture the Q&A, hopefully ISGAP will make those available soon.

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!

08/02 Links Pt1: U.S. kills Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri in drone strike; A New Low for Antisemitism at the UN; Iran Is About to Murder Another Journalist

From Ian:

U.S. kills Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri in drone strike

Just weeks before Zawahiri’s demise, the United Nations stated that Al Qaeda’s “leadership reportedly plays an advisory role with the Taliban, and the groups remain close.” Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul’s posh Sherpur neighborhood, where an explosion was reported to have taken place on July 31, would have allowed him to be in close contact with top Taliban leaders.

Previous news of Zawahiri’s demise had been greatly exaggerated. As recently as 2020, Zawahiri was reported to be killed. That has given Al Qaeda plenty of time to consider Zawahiri’s successor.

Who will it be? Last month’s UN report provided insight on Al Qaeda’s line of succession. Saif al Adel, the longtime Al Qaeda leader and veteran, is second behind Zawahiri. Next in line are Abdal-Rahman al-Maghrebi, a top Al Qaeda leader, Yazid Mebrak, the emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and Ahmed Diriye, the leader of Shabaab, which is Al Qaeda’s branch in East Africa.

Al Adel has long been a top leader in Al Qaeda, and he is known to have sheltered in Iran along with other key terrorist leaders. He is now also believed to be inside Afghanistan.

Maghrebi, a native Moroccan, is Zawahiri’s son-in-law, and has served in a number of senior roles within Al Qaeda. The State Department has described him as the “longtime director” of As Sahab, Al Qaeda’s central media arm and the “head” of the group’s “External Communications Office,” where he “coordinates activities with” Al Qaeda’s “affiliates.” Maghrebi has also been Al Qaeda’s “general manager in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2012,” a key role as top Al Qaeda leaders shelter in the region.

The presence of Mebrak and Diriye in the chain of succession should come as no surprise. Al Qaeda began diversifying its leadership and giving key leadership roles to its branch leaders as the U.S. stepped up its targeted killing of top Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan beginning in the mid-2000s. For instance, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula emir Nasir al Wuhayshi served as Al Qaeda’s general manager before he was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2015. Nasser bin Ali al Ansi, another key AQAP leader, served as Al Qaeda’s deputy general manager before he was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2015. And Mebrak’s predecessor, Abdelmalek Droukdel, was Al Qaeda’s third in command before he was killed in a French raid in Mali in 2020.

Seth Frantzman: The killing of Zawahiri: Twenty years too late

It’s worth recalling that many Al Qaeda planners had this same jet-set access in the 1990s. With the Cold War over, the US was a global hegemon, it didn’t concern itself with these smaller pesky terrorists. Therefore they could easily transit via countries like Pakistan, which backed Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They also had support in the Gulf, and key writers in Saudi Arabia and the West found them to be romantic. Reports from May 1988 say that Jamal Khashoggi went to Afghanistan and met with members of Al Qaeda. In 1993 a headline in the Independent described Bin Laden as an “anti-Soviet warrior [who] puts his army on the road to peace.”

But these were not peaceful men. These were murderers who were antisemitic and sought to massacre innocent people all over the world. This Al Qaeda was a far-right organization, with an ideology no different from fascism and Nazism. Yet in the 1990s it was still being coddled even as it planned the bombing of US embassies in 1998 and then the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

At the time, the US saw the terror group as a law enforcement problem. Although there were some efforts to go after Al Qaeda, any real attempts to neutralize it before 9/11 came to naught. As such, these men enjoyed their privileges and jet-set life planning wars all over the world, up until the attacks on New York and Washington.

In the end, Zawahiri and his brand of terror changed in the 2000s. After 9/11 he became hunted, to some extent. The crown of terror extremism moved to new groups, such as ISIS and younger Al Qaeda cadres in Iraq. This new generation of killers didn’t care as much about large symbolic attacks, such as targeting embassies or tourist sites in Egypt, or world leaders.

Indeed, Zawahiri was believed to have been behind plots against Egyptian leaders as well as the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The new generation of terrorists were more sectarian than Al Qaeda and more interested in the total ethnic cleansing of minorities in places like Iraq. The Gulf countries also shifted from giving some succor to the extremists to turning against the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.

Without cash from the Gulf and with extremism drying up in the Middle East, the new generation of extremists are more likely to come from Europe, Africa or Asia. The fraternity that former Al Qaeda would likely not exist today because the world has changed. Unfortunately, many people paid the price for that change, especially minorities such as the Yazidis in Iraq.

The lesson of people like Zawahiri is that we should confront extremists early in their careers. Zawahiri enjoyed immense privileges most of his life. He was a globetrotter, and even as people were saying “never again” about the Holocaust, they were willing to romanticize or excuse the Al Qaeda “war on the Jews and Crusaders.”

Two decades too late
Zawahiri was killed two decades too late, he should have been neutralized long ago, but he kept getting away with his deeds; whether it was leaving prison in Egypt in the 1980s, or getting away from Russia in the 1990s; he evaded capture and containment.

He was hoping to live out the life of an honored terrorist Emeritus with his friends in Afghanistan, marveling at how the Taliban had returned to power with even more international backing than in the 1990s. Indeed the Taliban live the high life in Doha, and they likely are backed by Iran, Russia, Pakistan and several other states today.

Zawahiri must have found it all a bit comical, a most wanted man living near the embassies of foreign countries in Kabul, having seen his friends return to power after 20 years of fighting the Americans and others. He met his end without really facing justice; it was easier to kill him quickly than have him answer for his crimes, to quickly sweep a part of history under the carpet so we can have closure to that era.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed in a US drone strike.

Ex British Forces commander in Afghanistan Colonel Richard Kemp: "It's extremely good news. It's time he met justice."

"There will be handwringing. But it was a lawful killing"@JuliaHB1 | @colrichardkemp pic.twitter.com/d5qUVyLSO6
— TalkTV (@TalkTV) August 2, 2022

The US attack on #alZawahiri was both just and legal (he was in leadership role of terror group that presented direct security threat to US).

Same principle applies when #Israel goes after terror leaders in Hamas, PIJ or if need, Hezbollah. https://t.co/ZltbL684Ro
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) August 2, 2022

I have a personal account to close with al-Qaeda, more so with al-Zawahiri the "ideologist", than with bin-Laden or Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the executioners of our son, Daniel. Today I feel an inch closer to closure. Angels in heaven tell me they feel that way too. https://t.co/yIyLWH7BN5
— Judea Pearl (@yudapearl) August 2, 2022

“Blinken says Taliban 'grossly' violated Doha agreement by sheltering al Qaeda's Zawahiri.” Yes, they’re terrorists, dishonesty is the least of their negative traits. https://t.co/TocxAI2dIG
— R?????? K??? ? (@COLRICHARDKEMP) August 2, 2022

US Jewish leaders commend killing of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri

American Jewish leaders on Monday praised U.S. President Joe Biden for authorizing the drone strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri a day earlier.

In a statement posted on social media, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations commends the president for green-lighting the “decisive” strike, and “salutes the troops who brought to justice one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, responsible for the death of many American soldiers, civilians, and those of our allies.”

Biden announced al-Zawahiri’s death on Monday evening during a live television broadcast.

“Al-Zawahri’s death is a serious blow to al-Qaeda and its malevolent ambitions. His death will inevitably save lives, prevent future suffering, and sends an unmistakable message of American resolve to protect its citizens and the world from terrorism,” the Conference statement continued.

“We hope this brings some comfort to the families of victims of terrorism, particularly those who perished in the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the fallen members of our military, and their families. We remind Jewish communal leaders and institutions to remain vigilant against the ever-present threat of new acts of terrorist violence inspired by his death,” it added.