Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

11/23 Links Pt1: Israeli-Canadian teen killed as terror bombings target 2 Jerusalem bus stops; Palestinian gunmen steal body of Israeli from hospital; U.S. creates special representative for Palestinian affairs

From Ian:

Israeli teen killed as terror bombings target 2 bus stops at entrances to Jerusalem

Two explosions at two bus stops near entrances to Jerusalem on Wednesday morning killed one person and left another 22 people injured, police and medics said.

Police described the explosions as a terror bombing attack.

The first explosion occurred close to the main entrance of Jerusalem in Givat Shaul, shortly after 7 a.m., peak commuter hour.

Eighteen people at the bus stop were injured in the blast, including two critically and two seriously, medical officials said. The victims were taken to two hospitals in Jerusalem.

One of the victims injured in the first blast later died at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, hospital officials said. He was named as 16-year-old Aryeh Schupak, a yeshiva student from Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood, and a dual Israeli-Canadian national.

A second blast occurred shortly after 7:30 a.m., at Ramot junction, another entrance to Jerusalem.

Five people lightly hurt by shrapnel or suffered from anxiety in the second explosion were taken to the Hadassah Mount Scopus Medical Center, hospital officials said.

A bus at the station was damaged by the explosion. It was unclear if the victims were at the station or on the bus itself.

Deadly ‘high quality’ Jerusalem bombs planted by organized terror cell, police say

A senior officer said police were hunting for an organized terror cell that detonated two “high quality” explosive devices at two bus stops near entrances to Jerusalem on Wednesday morning, killing one and wounding more than 20 others.

Speaking to reporters, the head of the police operations division said the “two high-quality, powerful explosive devices with a high level of damage” were hidden behind the bus stop and in a bush.

The first explosion occurred close to the main entrance of Jerusalem in Givat Shaul, shortly after 7 a.m., peak commuter hour. The second blast occurred shortly after 7:30 a.m., at Ramot junction, another entrance to Jerusalem.

A 16-year-old yeshiva student, Aryeh Schupak, was killed and 22 people were hurt in the two attacks, including one listed as critical and another three in serious-moderate condition, according to medical officials.

Schupak, who was killed in the first bombing, was a Canadian national as well as an Israeli citizen, according to Canada’s ambassador to Israel.

The remotely detonated devices were packed with nails to maximize casualties, according to police officials.

Due to the nature of the attack with two near-identical bombs exploding within half an hour of each other at two bus stops, Deputy Commissioner Sigal Bar Zvi said police suspected an organized cell was behind it, rather than just one person.

“I believe we will capture the terror cell,” she said.

‘We saw people running, children crying’: Witnesses describe J’lem attack aftermath

Victims and witnesses described the terrifying moment they were caught up in the twin bomb attacks at Jerusalem bus stops on Wednesday morning.

Aryeh Schupak, 16, was killed, and at least 20 injured in the two blasts at entrances to the city.

Many of those caught up in the terror were children and teens on their way to school.

The first explosion hit a bus stop at the entrance to the city at around 7:05 a.m., and barely half an hour later another bomb went off at another stop near the Ramot neighborhood in the northwest of the capital.

Shahar Sorkis and Neta Varshavski, both 14-year-olds who attend a school in Ramot, saw the second explosion as they traveled with other schoolkids on a nearby bus.

“We saw loads of shrapnel flying off the bus… it was a mess,” Varshavski told the Ynet news site. “We heard a noise and then we saw a lot of people running, a lot of children crying.”

“When we saw the explosion a lot of the girls began to cry. There was a lot of stress,” Sorkis added. Police and security personnel at the scene of a terror attack in Jerusalem, on November 23, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussil/Flash90)

The explosion damaged a No. 67 bus that was passing at the time. The driver, Motti Gabay, told Ynet that he quickly realized it was a terror attack.

“There was panic,” he said.

Gabay, who has been a bus driver for 23 years, including the period of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s when Palestinian terrorists frequently targeted buses with bombs, said he had expected that such attacks would one day return.

“First of all, I opened the doors and people got off,” he said, noting that Israelis “are used to this already.”

From the UN:

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) held closed consultations with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), titled “Advocating for Accountability in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, on 8 November 2022, as a virtual meeting under the Chatham House Rule. Participants included CSO representatives from Palestine, Israel and the United States, as well as from members and observers of the Committee.

When a meeting is held under the Chatham House Rule, neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speakers or participants may be revealed. The purpose of the rule is to encourage open discussion since anything said is "off the record".

So we do not know the names of the "civil society organizations" who participated. They could include organizations linked with Islamic Jihad, the PFLP or other terror groups. The speakers could include convicted terrorists. There is no transparency.

The normal reason for Chatham House rules is to encourage discussion. In this case, though, the reason seems to be that the UN knows that some of the speakers and organizations have explicitly supported antisemitism, and they don't want that fact to be publicized which would distract from their higher calling of coming up with new ideas on how to destroy Israel.

One thing is certain, though: not a single pro-Israel CSO was invited.

The CSOs essentially set the agenda for the UN, rather than acting as consultants:

During the questions and answers session, one participating CSOs formulated several recommendations to the Committee, including the continuation of its advocacy to expose the abuses committed in the OPT. Participants stressed that additional suggestions for the Committee action could be drawn from the fight against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Seeking an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice was also mentioned, as a first step. Member States could take further action in the meantime. Furthermore, the international community needed to increase attention towards corporate responsibility as only a general backlash by Member States would have an impact. Among other measures, making public corporate lists available would provide tools for future advocacy against Israeli abuses. Speakers therefore called for an update of the OHCHR database of all enterprises making business in Israeli settlements in the OPT.
Committee members stressed the crucial role of the ongoing partnership with CSOs and mentioned how their inputs and recommendations added value to the work of the Committee.

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!

Columbia professor Joseph Massad is very upset that Jews are claiming the right to self-determination. If Jews indeed have the right to self-determination, then opposing that really is a form of antisemitism, and antisemites like Massad cannot admit to that.

His normal method is to claim that Jews aren't a people, and that most Jews do not originate in the Middle East. If they aren't a people, then they have no right to self-determination.

But Massad knows that everyone knows that is a lie besides dyed in the wool antisemites who call Jews "Khazars."

So he has come up with a new argument: that the self-determination argument was never a Zionist tenet, rather it was a Palestinian Arab one.

Since the inception of their war against the Palestinian people, Zionist ideologues did not argue for Jewish self-determination but rather sought to delegitimise the indigenous Palestinians’ right to it. In the tradition of all colonial powers which denied that the colonised were a nation, the Zionists began by denying the nationness of the Palestinians.

Actually, the Zionists didn't even address the "nationness" of the Palestinian Arabs, who themselves didn't assert such a status (except for a tiny number of intellectuals) until decades after Zionism was established.

At the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I, the Zionist Organisation (ZO) did not invoke any "Jewish" right to self-determination, even though self-determination was all the rage at the conference, with colonised peoples from around the world affirming this right to liberate themselves from the colonial yoke.
The ZO instead argued that Palestine "is the historic home of the Jews…and through the ages they have never ceased to cherish the longing and the hope of a return".

Massad takes this statement out of context. The ZO's proposals were not meant to be a definition of Zionism, rather recommendations to the allies with an eye to what was politically possible. Even so, they did use the language of rights in their suggested conference statement: "The High Contracting Parties recognize the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and the right of Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their National Home. "

Massad then makes an astoundingly incorrect assertion:

It is most important to note in this regard that, unlike the more recent and increased use by Zionists of the notion of Jewish self-determination, neither Herzl’s writings, the 1897 first Zionist Congress, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, nor the 1922 Palestine Mandate employed the language of "rights", let alone the right of self-determination.

Herzl's definition was "Zionism has for its object the creation of a home, secured by public rights, for those Jews who either cannot or will not be assimilated in the country of their adoption."

The phrase "public rights" was coined by Italian jurist Pellegrino Rossi in the 1830s. It meant universal rights for people - what it now called human rights. Herzl's definition of Zionism was based on the idea that Jews have the same rights as any other people, which would by implication include self-determination, a phrase that didn't gain popularity until the 1910s.

Massad cherry picks specific documents and statements and says that because they don't invoke "rights' or "self-determination,"then Zionists as a whole didn't use that language until recently. That is laughable.

A book on Zionism and the Jewish question by famed juror Louis Brandeis in 1915 says, "Jews collectively should enjoy the same right and opportunity to live and develop as do other groups of people."

Similarly, Jessie Ethel Sampter published "A Course in Zionism "in 1915, and wrote, "The Jew is always foremost in every modem movement towards justice. In the 18th century he fought for individual human rights, as his rights. In the 20th century he fights for the rights of the small nations to life and autonomy, also as his right. It is the democracy of nations, internationalism. "

Massad is even wrong in his assertion that self-determination is a new claim by Zionists. "A Jewish State in Palestine" by David Werner Amram (1918) says that the Zionist movement was partially a result of the "consciousness of the right of self-expression and self-determination of the Jewish people." The phrase did not have to be said explicitly by the early Zionists; it was well understood as one of many national rights that Jews should have as a people.

Similarly, the preface to a book written by the Zionist Organization in London in 1918 says, "Only by their resettlement in their ancestral land of Palestine...will the Jews be able to exercise the right of self-determination."

Early Zionists always asserted their national rights as the Jewish nation as well as the right of self-determination. It is not a new phenomenon. Massad's pretense that this is a new definition of Zionism is yet another failed attempt to delegitimize Zionism - and to push his brand of modern antisemitism.

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!

PFLP, founder and supporter of "human rights groups," praises deadly terror attack

As Palestinian terror groups fall over themselves to praise the twin bombings in Jerusalem this morning, one of them is more notable than others.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine issued a statement:

Today, Wednesday, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine praised the heroic operation in the occupied city of Jerusalem, during which a number of settlers were injured.

The people confirmed that this qualitative heroic operation that took place at the central bus station comes within the framework of the continuous response to the crimes of the occupation and its terrorist settlers against our people.

It was only a year ago that every major human rights group was up in arms over Israel closing down six NGOs that have links, or were originally founded, by the same PFLP terror group that praises terror attacks today.

Given the ties between these NGOs and PFLP terrorists, it is not surprising that one cannot find a single condemnation of PFLP terror attacks from any of these "civil service organizations."

And the major human rights groups Amnesty, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch regard the PFLP not as a terror group but merely a "political organization."

We still do not know the group that planted these bombs, but it could just as easily been the Leftist Palestinian groups like the PFLP and DFLP as the Islamist terror groups Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

Palestinians don't make such petty distinctions between the political Right and Left - as long as they unite in their desire to murder 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!

11/22 Links Pt2: Bari Weiss: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Kanye, Kyrie, and Antisemitism; The Black Hebrew Israelites are a real problem for the left; Why Is Jon Stewart Ignoring and Excusing Antisemitism?

From Ian:

Bari Weiss: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Kanye, Kyrie, and Antisemitism

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired from the NBA in 1989, but he remains one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Many argue he is simply the greatest.

He is still—even with Michael Jordan and Steph Curry and Lebron and Shaq and Kobe—the NBA’s all-time leading scorer (38,387 points) and the league’s only six-time MVP. In March, the basketball news site HoopsHype included Abdul-Jabbar in its list of the top ten most influential players of all time. ESPN called him the greatest center in NBA history.

As Jews say every Passover: It would have been enough.

But there’s so much more that makes the 7-foot-2-inch Abdul-Jabbar a true giant. His religious conviction, his integrity, his wide-ranging intellectual proclivities, his outstanding performance in the 1981 movie Airplane!—and the unusual fact that this black, Muslim basketball star has been a consistent and outspoken voice against antisemitism.

For all those reasons, I wanted to speak with Abdul-Jabbar about the various firestorms of late: Kanye and his antisemitic rants; Kyrie Irving’s promotion of an antisemitic movie that denies the Holocaust; and the alarming rash of anti-Jewish hate crimes seemingly inspired by their worldview. A few weeks ago, a banner declaring “Kanye was right” hung over the 405 in Los Angeles as people gave Nazi salutes. On Halloween, the side of a townhouse in an Atlanta neighborhood was sprayed with graffiti: “Jews kill Blacks.” On the stop sign around the corner: “Jews enslave Black lives.” Last week, headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Chicago were vandalized with swastikas and the phrase “Kanye was rite.” And in Brooklyn, physical attacks against Orthodox Jews have become routine.

I asked Abdul-Jabbar about all of that and more in the Q and A below. And if you’re looking for more from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, check out his Substack, where he writes and talks about everything from basketball to pop culture to politics. — BW

BW: I want to focus on Farrakhan’s influence. He believes that Jews are parasitic, that Jews are behind a plot to exploit black Americans, and that blacks are the real Jews from the Bible. We’re hearing these ideas come out of the mouths of musicians like Kanye West (“Jewish people have owned the black voice”) and athletes like Kyrie Irving (“I cannot be antisemitic if I know where I come from”). For many Jews, hearing this kind of rhetoric is shocking, but many black Americans have noted that these views are more commonplace than we’d like to admit. So what I think a lot of people are afraid to ask is: How mainstream are these beliefs among black Americans? Are Kanye and Kyrie unique? Or has the influence of people like Farrakhan made this strain of antisemitism somehow more normal than many want to believe?

KAJ: Certain black leaders do exactly what certain white leaders do who want to gather followers, money, and power: They find a scapegoat they can blame. They can’t blame others who are marginalized because of the color of their skin, like Latinx or Asian-Americans, so they go for the default villain of fascists and racists: Jews.

What astounds me is not just the irrationality of it, but how self-destructive it is. Black people have to know that when they mouth antisemitism, they are using the exact same kind of reasoning that white supremacists use against blacks. They are enabling racism. Now they’ve aligned themselves with the very people who would choke out black people, drag them behind a truck, keep them from voting, and maintain systemic racism for another hundred years. They are literally making not only their lives worse, but their children’s lives. The fact that they can’t see that means the racists have won.

British Comedian David Baddiel Takes His ‘Jews Don’t Count’ Argument to TV

David Baddiel, a comedian-turned-activist against antisemitism who calls himself “one of the U.K.’s very few famous Jews,” was holding court in the basement of one of Britain’s best-known TV studios.

As a reporter headed hurriedly for the exit, Baddiel slouched into his chair, seemingly exhausted by the interview he had just completed about the forthcoming documentary based on his 2021 bestseller, “Jews Don’t Count.”

“I am speaking to many people like the last journalist who had not thought about any of this in their life,” he said.

The “this” Baddiel was referring to was to the idea, outlined in his book, that progressive anti-racists are guilty of hypocrisy towards Jews by not viewing them as worthy of similar protection or championing as other minorities because they are seen as white, privileged and wealthy.

When the book came out last year, it received rave reviews, and Baddiel has since become seen by some as a “voice for Britain’s Jews.” He often litigates the finer points of contemporary antisemitism as a guest on radio and television, and he has been quick to square off with trolls and critics on Twitter.

Now, with the premiere of an hour-long documentary also called “Jews Don’t Count” on Britain’s public Channel 4 network, Baddiel gets a primetime slot to make his case to a bigger audience. Featuring Baddiel’s interviews with Jewish stars of pop culture in both Britain and the United States — ranging from comedian Sarah Silverman to novelist Jonathan Safran Foer to actor Stephen Fry — the film argues that “in a culture where all forms of racism are being monitored, called out and held accountable, one form is apparently invisible.”

Can we fight antisemitism without losing our sense of humor?

If a comic with a huge following like Dave Chappelle goes over the line, he will immediately be put under a societal microscope that will analyze and respond from every possible angle, as I’m doing now.

If you run an organization that fights antisemitism, or simply cares for the welfare of the Jewish community, it’s almost certain that you will feel obligated to respond. Many of those responses follow the usual dance of “expose, condemn and ask for an apology.”

Chappelle himself poked fun at that dance at the start of his monologue: “Before I start tonight, I just wanted to read a brief statement that I prepared. I denounce antisemitism in all its forms and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community. And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”

Chappelle exposed the uneasy truth of celebrities getting caught saying something offensive and then releasing a statement that everyone knows was written by a PR handler. By revealing the goal of “buying yourself some time,” he captured the phoniness of the whole exercise.

That was cutting and funny. It’s when he played up antisemitic tropes around the “all powerful” Jew that he entered dicey territory.

“I’ve been to Hollywood,” he said. “And I don’t want y’all to get mad at me, I’m just telling you this is just what I saw. It’s a lot of Jews. Like a lot.”

Perhaps realizing he was on sensitive ground, he called the idea that Jews run show business a “delusion,” but then added: “It’s not a crazy thing to think. But it’s a crazy thing to say out loud in a climate like this.”

In other words, it’s not crazy to think that Jews run the show; just don’t say it out loud.

Whether he intended it or not, that “hush hush” vibe suggests mystery and conspiracy, precisely the ancient trope that fuels Jew-hatred and makes so many Jews nervous.

Which brings us back to the “Chappelle trap.” It’s one thing to fight antisemitism when it comes from places like a neo-Nazi march or a BDS group or even celebrity musicians or athletes. None of those people make a living by making us laugh.

Chappelle does.

Because Chappelle plays in the very Jewish playground of comedy, it makes it that much harder to calibrate our response. How do we fight a comic without losing our sense of humor, without losing what made America love us in the first place? At what point do we say, “We can’t take this joke because it goes too far?”

If the ritual of “expose, condemn and ask for an apology” is phony anyhow, is it worth losing our sense of humor? And does complaining so loudly, as much as it makes us feel good, make things better or worse?

In the classic Jewish tradition, I have more questions than answers.

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!

Serban Flondor, a Holocaust "righteous gentile" you never heard of

I stumbled upon this JTA story from 1944:

I wanted to learn more about this, but couldn't find anything online about "Staroshentzi" or the people named here.

So I crowdsourced the research on Twitter.

I was pointed by Aviva Hadara to the town of Storozhynets, Ukraine, sometimes spelled Storozhynets' [Ukr], Storozhinets [Rus], Storojineţ [Rom], Storojinet [Ger], Shtrozshnitz [Yid], Stordjinet [Yid], Storojineti [Hun], Storozynetz, Strizinitz, Strozynetz, or Sorojinet.

Then SD Homnick pointed me to another person who saved Jews from Storozhynets, also an agronomist, so chances are he was the real hero.

From "Solidarity and Rescue in Romania" written by the Elie Wiesel Commission:

Attempts to save Transnistria deportees were severely punished by the regime; therefore, rescue efforts—and they were not few—deserve great respect. Unfortunately, no systematic research has been done on this topic. However, several individual cases are highly relevant. .... Serban Flondor, a doctor of agronomics and renowned specialist in heraldry and geneology and son of Iancu Flondor (who played an important role in uniting Bukovina with Romania), supplied the Jews in the Storojinet camp with food. Additionally, with the assistance of railway managers, he sent Jews to Bucharest by locking them in unoccupied sleeping car compartments. While serving as councilor for the Chamber of Agriculture, he used his train car to take Jews from Bukovina to Bucharest, where they could hide more easily.

This website calls him the "Schindler from Bucovina:"

Serban Flondor, center

Agronomist engineer, deputy in the interwar Romanian Parliament, a well-known genealogist and mayor of his hometown, Storojinet, Serban Flondor was truly a character-hero, of a refinement and intelligence that all the Bucharest aristocrats of the interwar period and who would measure his own humanity in terrible times.

A few years after this photograph, Serban Flondor would fight to save the lives of dear Jewish friends, simple acquaintances or people he had never seen: Rubi Klein (whom he hid in the house in the yard of which the photograph was taken, at Storojinet), students Zalman Leon, Elias Corneliu or Iancu Moscovici from "Cultura" and "Ciocanul" high schools (he got involved and obtained their pardon), whole families from a death train heading towards Transnistria and which he managed to stop en route.

The chief rabbi of Storojinet, Benzion Katz, knew the exceptional merits of Serban Flondor and, years later, gave him a distinction from the heart, a gold plaque on which a wish for long life was engraved in Hebrew. The count from Bucovina wore this gold plate until his death (1971), saying that this is the only treasure he would like to take with him.

Sam Gold found the original report from the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Russian, where JTA got the story from. Not sure about the accuracy but it adds details not in the original story:

Before the war, more than three hundred Jewish families lived in Starozhenets, Chernivtsi region: they were mostly craftsmen, workers and employees of local enterprises. Having captured the city, the German-Romanian fascists began to deport Jews to Transnistria, where special ghettos were created.
In the third week of their rule, the invaders issued an order ordering the entire Jewish population to appear at Vokzalnaya Square at a certain time, taking only the most necessary with them. Death was threatened for violating the order.
By this time, many refugees from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria and other places had accumulated in Bukovina. They knew what these "special ghettos" meant. The Bukovinian Jews also knew about this, but there was no way out. The Romanian “siguranza” (okhrana), under the leadership of Gestapo instructors, cordoned off the Jewish quarters and expelled all Jewish residents from their apartments. All the janitors were called to the Gestapo. They were warned that if a hiding Jew was found in any house, the janitor would be shot along with him.
Jews filled Vokzalnaya Square. For three weeks they were kept here in the open air, waiting for the train. One and a half thousand souls - women with babies, old people, children were lying on the damp earth. Many of the cold, dampness and hunger died right there on the square. Some managed to escape and went into the forest.
The forest watchman Stepan Burlecu and his two daughters-in-law, who lived near the railway station, with the assistance of the agronomist Paskaranu, rescued a large group of Jews. They hid them for some time in the forest and finally, dressing them in peasant clothes, they sent them to work - in the forest, in the field.
Burleca and Pascarana rescued music teacher Hecht with his wife and child; tailor Gaiser with his wife and two daughters; soap factory master Gottlieb with a young daughter (his wife died on Vokzalnaya Square); engineer Behler, whose wife was shot for trying to escape from Vokzalnaya Square; Finder's teacher and his two boys, tannery and soap factory workers Solomon Neumann, David Rubinger, Moses Rosner, Yakov Singer and Ariel Kurtzman.
In addition to all these, some Jewish families survived, who dared, despite the threat of the death penalty, not to appear on Vokzalnaya Square and hid with their Moldavian neighbors.
Janitors Geku Lupescu, Nicolai Peranu and Jan Bruzha rescued the lawyer Bislinger and his family, the director of the real school Dr. Welt, the pharmacist Ribaizen and the accountant of the city bank Kantarovich.

The town was still the site of horrific massacres. Even though some Jews were saved, compared to the entire population, it was still a tiny percentage.

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!

11/22 Links Pt1: Hold Abbas accountable; NYTs demonstrates why Israelis have turned right; Mossad was behind intelligence tip to UK’s MI5 over Iranian terror threats

From Ian:

Hold Abbas accountable

We should recall here that last March, then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced the launch of an investigation into suspected crimes committed in the territories of Judea and Samaria, in east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since June 13th, 2014. Her announcement followed a preliminary investigation in the wake of a Palestinian complaint that determined – contrary to Israel's position – that the court has the jurisdiction to deliberate on such complaints. Israel called this decision a moral and legal disgrace and officially informed the court that it would not cooperate with it.

It should be noted here that ICC investigations enable arrest warrants to be issued against suspects without any public notification. The court's signatories are required to cooperate with the investigation, honor arrest warrants, and hand over suspects located in their territory to the court. Beyond immediate harm to such persons, the opening of processes against could impact its comportment in the international arena and severely damage its international standing. In any event, in practical terms the investigation against Israel has yet to commence and this is also something that the Palestinians wish to advance through the move at the ICJ.

In fact, what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his people are trying to achieve is a decision that the "occupation" is permanent and that it is in its entirety (not just measures within its framework) is illegal and therefore Israel should be subjected to pressures and a price should be exacted for its continued presence in Judea and Samaria. The ICC will find it hard to ignore an advisory by the ICJ that adopts these conclusions in their entirety or in part.

At present the ICJ should be busy dealing with the war in Ukraine and events in Georgia, Afghanistan, Africa, and elsewhere. But Israel should not count on the court being too busy to deal with it.The ICJ (once the UN General Assembly officially turns to it) will approach Israel, which will be required to answer the question of whether it is willing to cooperate. It would seem that the considerations that in the past led to a decision to turn down any such request, still hold.

Without any connection to all of the above, Israel will have to consider changes to its approach to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. It should weigh measures that will make it clear to Abbas and the PA that there will be consequences to the incessant campaign to negate Israel's legitimacy. The means at Israel's disposal are not meagre. If they don't deter Abbas, they should at the very least encourage a rethink of his approach among leaders who support it.

The history of apartheid proves Israel is not an apartheid state

By contrast, in Israel, there is an official policy of affirmative action administered by the Israeli government aimed at including minority Israelis in all aspects of public life. The Arabs who chose to stay in Israel during and following the 1948 war are Israeli citizens and are entitled to the rights granted to all citizens under the law. Arab Israelis serve in public institutions as ministers, Supreme Court judges, parliament members and governmental clerks. Furthermore, the former parties of the Joint List, an Arab-Israeli political bloc, hold seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. For the first time, in 2019, the Joint List endorsed a candidate to become prime minister of Israel.

It is also common to find many Arab Israelis holding only Israeli citizenship. Between 2011 and 2013, Professor Sammy Smooha, a researcher from Haifa University, conducted a poll among Arab Israelis, asking if they identify as Israeli or Palestinian. More than 20% responded “Israeli” or “Israeli-Palestinian.” Furthermore, according to his findings, when Arab-Israeli participants were asked if they would move to a Palestinian state if it is formed, 65– 77% percent of them replied that they would not.

A walk through the streets, shopping malls and hospitals of Israel will permit one to see and appreciate the integrated society that exists within all of Israel. People of all religions, all races and all beliefs are treated with respect in all public places; have access to all religious places; are protected in their right of prayer and assembly; have full access to healthcare treatment without regard to their race, religion, sexual orientation or beliefs; and enjoy freedoms not known anywhere else in the Middle East.

Where South Africa intended to and did impose a segregationist regime and called it apartheid, the allegation that Israel is similarly an apartheid state originated not from fact or from governmental policy but from Israel’s enemies as an intentional distortion of her commitment to building a wholesome society where diversity is cherished and rights are protected by the rule of law. Applying the moniker of apartheid to Israel today is another example of an antisemitic double standard applied exclusively to the Jewish state and ignores much greater injustices suffered by minority ethnic and religious groups around the world.

To put it bluntly, the attempt to equate Israel with South Africa is defamatory and disingenuous. Moreover, calling Israel an apartheid state under these circumstances does great injustice to Israel’s vibrant democracy and further disrespects the real and genuine struggle against the racism of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Moreover, the accusers against Israel who are in the Palestinian territories are obligated to look at their own leadership, and to look inward, as they essentially call for the future Palestinian state to be judenrein—free of Jews.

Who is it that is practicing apartheid?

'The New York Times’ demonstrates why Israelis have turned right

From Abdulrahim’s previous dispatches for the Times, it is clear that she has visited Gaza. That means either she is suffering from hallucinations that Israel is “controlling” things there, or she is fully aware that it is not, but wants to give the impression that it is in order to blame Israel for the Gaza fire.

Either of those two possibilities should be grounds for immediately firing her.

Not that Ms. Abdulrahim’s journalistic misbehavior relieves her editors of any responsibility. After all, they knew what they were getting when they hired her earlier this year. She had previously received awards from the anti-Israel organization CAIR after she wrote a letter denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations.

A staff reporter for one of the world’s most influential newspapers maliciously smears Israel with a blatant falsehood, and her editors look the other way.

This is one reason Israelis have been turning more hawkish in their voting preferences. No matter how many concessions they make, no matter how many risks they take, no matter how many territories they withdraw from—they still get blamed for anything and everything.

You can’t blame Israelis for feeling like, no matter what they do, they just can’t win. Israel’s critics will never play by the rules. They will lie and smear in order to turn public opinion against the Jewish state. They want to see Israel isolated, hated and harangued. And when Israel is threatened, they want the international community to stand idly by.

That leaves Israelis to conclude that their only hope for survival is to strengthen their military resolve and fortify their security policies—in other words, to vote for parties on the political right.

Israel’s critics complain that such thinking represents a “siege mentality.” Maybe that’s because Israel really is under siege—including in the information war, where combatants such as Raja Abdulrahim, pretending to be journalists, hurl dart after dart at the Jewish state without the slightest regard for the facts.

Egyptian Writers' Union expels three members for "normalization," warns of Zionist "penetration of Arab culture"

Cairo24 reports that Dr. Alaa Abdel-Hadi, head of the Egyptian Writers Union, stressed the union's firm position rejecting normalization with Israel, warning of the danger of this entity penetrating Arab culture.

What exactly does that mean? How can Israel "penetrate Arab culture?"

Perhaps we can get a hint of what this means from the steps being taken to expel three members of the union for the heinous crime of "normalization" with the "Zionist entity."

Alaa Al-Aswany, a prominent Egyptian writer, gave an interview to an Israeli radio station.

Youssef Ziedan, a scholar and writer of over 50 books, had said that he would like to visit Israel and lecture there.

Mona Prince, a lecturer in English literature at Suez University, had a photo taken with Israel's ambassador to Egypt.

All of these are bizarrely seen as threats to Arab culture.

If mere speaking to Israelis is a danger to Arab culture, then it sounds like Arab culture is not very strong.

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!

Al Jazeera has become considered a trustworthy news source in the West - but in Arabic, it is just as disgusting and supportive of terror as it was in the years after 9/11.

It published an article about the terrorist attack in Ariel last week where it describes his bloody spree in terms of sports, saying that Muhammed Souf "scored goals" with his stabbings and car rammings. Describing his murderous attack in poetic terms, the article says, "he decided alone, like a falcon flying in the expanses of pride, to play his match solo."

Written by Palestinian Muhammad Khair Musa, the article praises the murderer:

History will record for a long time that on Tuesday the fifteenth of November of the year 2022 AD, a young man named Muhammad Souf, at the age of eighteen, ... executed an epic triple in the face of a heavily armed army, and he had nothing but a knife in his hand and a heart in his chest that did not fear death.

Even worse, the article explicitly calls on other Palestinian youth to follow in his footsteps and attack Jews. It compares Souf with Mohammed's young companions, and urges Palestinians to use Souf as a model.

This is Al Jazeera - not the airbrushed, carefully edited Western version of Al Jazeera English, but the real, terrorist supporting media empire from Qatar.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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A short history of "Arabs Threaten Jews" (not "Zionists")

I decided to do a quick search of headlines that said that Arabs threatened Jews.

April 17, 1920: Arabs threaten to massacre all Jews of Palestine (which included many non-Zionists at the time.)

March 14, 1925: Arabs threaten to attack Jews if they honor Balfour when he visits.

August 11, 1925: Arabs threaten to massacre all Jews in Palestine again (even though the headline says "of Zion movement."

November 23, 1929: Arabs threaten force if Jews continue to worship at the Western Wall.

May 13, 1936: Arabs threaten Jews in Arab countries if they don't get their demands met in Palestine.

June 26, 1936: Bedouin in Transjordan threaten to march across the river to aid their brethren in the "great Arab revolt."

June 30, 1936: Algerian Arabs threaten Algerian Jews.

October 10, 1938: Arab leaders send a telegram to Chaim Weizmann threatening the lives of all Jews in the "East" if Zionists don't accede to their demands, saying it would be the worst calamity in Jewish history.

May 30, 1946: Rulers of Arab states warn Palestinian Jews of plans to have Jews immigrate from DP camps to Palestine. One leader says that if 100,000 Jews enter Palestine after almost being slaughtered in Europe, then the Arabs would slaughter all 100,000 of them.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/21 Links Pt2: Why is the religious left taking sides against Israel?; 1,000 Israeli Students Call on Harvard Crimson to Move Office from "Stolen Lands"

From Ian:

Why is the religious left taking sides against Israel?

For the old religious and evangelical left, Israel often represents Western Civilization, colonialism, and imperialism. For aging denizens of Liberation Theology, the Palestinian cause offers the narrative of a Third World people oppressed by First World wealth, technology, and cultural superiority. Israel is an ally of the United States, and from the religious left’s perspective, is an unwelcome extension of American (and British) power into the Mideast. The Palestinians, from that view, are victims of the American imperium, meriting special advocacy by concerned justice-minded American Christians.

The religious left’s animus towards Israel leads to often absurd contradictions and double standards.

Evangelical leftists relate to this narrative, often informed by their own neo-Anabaptist perspective, which is pacifist and anti-empire. Israel of course has by necessity a significant military force, much of it made possible through American aid. This rankles neo-Anabaptists who think anti-violence is the gospel’s chief theme. There is another sometimes-underlying concern for neo-Anabaptists. They are discomfited by ancient biblical Israel, with its divinely ordained kings, warrior heroes, armies, and military victories, all of which defy the neo-Anabaptist stress on God as supremely peaceful. If only unconsciously, they are inclined towards a form of Marcionism, the early church heresy that minimized the canonical authority of the Old Testament. This discomfort with the Hebrew scriptures facilitates unease with modern Israel.

The religious left’s animus towards Israel leads to often absurd contradictions and double standards, especially for a denomination like the PCUSA. It and the other mainline Protestant bodies have countless statements condemning Israel for ostensibly oppressing the Palestinians among other depredations. But they are largely silent about human rights abuses so prevalent among Israel’s Arab neighbors, including the Palestinian Authority, not to mention countless repressive regimes around the world. They ignored Hamas’s July rocket attacks on Israel. A 2011 PCUSA report affirmed calls for democracy during the Arab Spring, but such calls are rare, and it naturally focused on criticizing U.S. Mideast policy.

The PCUSA General Assembly in July did condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But it devoted more verbiage to the United States and NATO having “flooded Ukraine with lethal weapons,” enriching “war profiteers—at the expense of the taxpayers, the poor and the planet,” guided by “powerful geopolitical and financial interests.” It also derided sanctions against Russia and lamented the cost to “planetary survival and social justice.”

The Religious Left descends from the Social Gospel, later radicalized by Liberation Theology. It disdains capitalism, bourgeois democracy, America, Western Civilization, and human rights regarding speech, religion, and property. But its hostility to Israel is especially pernicious, not just for its double standards, but also for its underlying disregard for a people who have been among the world’s most tormented.

Modern Israel arose from the ashes of the Holocaust. From the beginning, Israel has had to fight for its very existence. Christians should understand that opposition to Israel as a Jewish state is opposition to Israel as a nation.

John-Paul Pagano: First Principles

Antisemitism is different from most other forms of racism. In order to combat it, we need to understand what is a conspiracy theory.

It's customary to hear well-meaning people intone something along these lines: "Antisemitism and anti-black racism are part of the same fight.” In a basic sense, this is true: they are both odious forms of hatred that endanger people and corrode society. Diminishing them as much as possible is part of the same overarching defense of our civic health.

But it’s a platitude that papers over essential differences between two opposite forms of racism. Few human phenomena can be described with an algorithm. There are always ambiguities and exceptions. Nevertheless, it’s heuristically valid to arrange racism into two categories: a caste-oriented, “down-punching” form and a conspiracist, “up-punching” form.

By and large, anti-black racism constructs an underclass that the racist regards as inferior, to be segregated, plundered, and exploited. In the main, Antisemitism views the Jews as a preternaturally powerful, evil elite that plunders and exploits the Antisemite—and the broader society he seeks to awaken to the struggle. In the ugliest of ironies, however much he rails about Jewish degeneracy, the Antisemite invests the Jews with traits and abilities that make them seem diabolically superior.

Jonathan Tobin: The ADL is waging war on free speech, not on Trump or Twitter

Yet the ADL has shown a dangerous propensity for Internet censorship—an authoritarian impulse that it usually veils behind a desire to quell the rising tide of antisemitism. Its consultations with the PayPal online payment system, for instance, were geared toward demonetizing anyone, not just far-right extremists, whose opinions were out of favor with the left.

The attempt to sink Twitter by persuading advertisers and users to exit it goes beyond those efforts to harness Big Tech clout to enforce woke orthodoxy on the Web.

What the ADL is now demanding is to set a standard by which no social-media platform or Internet service can survive if it enables conservatives to participate on an equal footing with liberals.

Censored or uncensored, Twitter—or any similar company—will always be something of a sewer, as it prizes angry discourse and discourages thoughtful exchanges. But if the ADL and others succeed, a precedent will be set to ensure that no platform encouraging debate from both ends of the spectrum can survive.

The consequence of the above—such as the Biden administration’s use of social- media companies to squelch COVID-19 debate—will be an even more divided country and greater civil strife.

Just as important, it will create an atmosphere in which free speech is not merely under assault, as it is on college campuses and other places that have been completely captured by the left. It will mean we are moving closer to a society where the norm will be to silence dissent on all important topics.

It is already a disgrace that the ADL treats partisan advocacy as more important than its core mission of fighting antisemitism. But its effort to sink Twitter makes clear that its real goal is to shut up those who don’t toe its political line.

Think what you like about Trump or Musk. But this latest stand shows that there is no greater foe of democracy than the ADL under Greenblatt.

The Al Aqsa Gym and Circus

A couple of videos of Muslims showing their respect for the "third holiest spot in Islam."

Here are some Palestinians recently practicing their boxing.

And, this past summer, some sacred circus moves.

They aren't "storming," though. So all is good.

(h/t Imshin via Irene)

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!

John Glubb and Leila Khaled (guest post)

Guest post from Paul M.

John and Leila

The most effective army Israel faced in its 1948 war of independence was the Arab Legion of Transjordan. There’s a reason for that: It was not just armed and trained by Britain, it was led by British officers as well, commanded by Lt. General Sir John Bagot Glubb, affectionately known by the Ottoman honorific Glubb Pasha.

Glubb was a career soldier, a much-decorated British officer from 1915 until 1956, through two world wars and the assault on the new Jewish state. He was much-honored too, with an alphabet behind his name: KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ & KPM.

If, in the fighting world, you wanted to find Lt. General Sir John Bagot Glubb’s diametric opposite, you might be tempted to choose Leila Khaled, member of the Marxist-Leninist PFLP, serial airplane hijacker, pin-up for terrorism groupies everywhere.

And, surprisingly, you might be wrong. They’re less different than you would imagine.

In 1973 Leila Khaled wrote her autobiography, called “My People Shall Live.” (I expect there will be a second volume someday, “Your People Should Die,” but I digress.) Who supplied the foreword? John Bagot Glubb. I had always assumed Lt. General Glubb was simply a good soldier, following orders to serve his country by serving his country’s client, but it seems it was more personal than that.

The first thing to strike you about Glubb’s foreword is how naive it is. He simply takes her words at face value. Everything else written on Palestine is “prejudiced, if not pure propaganda,” full of “half-truths,” “distortions” and “intentional deception.” Khaled, by contrast, is “refreshing” because her position is so clear. The things she has to say are “simple facts.” Perhaps we should give him credit for at least acknowledging that she’s not impartial but there’s almost nothing to show that he has any opinion of his own on the morality of her refreshingly clear position or its consequences.

He does, though, eventually find a flaw. Her politics are “oversimplified” to the point of paranoia and her rejection of anyone who doesn’t embrace violence makes it hard for her sympathizers to help her. As you read this, you can’t help but feel his personal sense of unfair treatment. Perhaps it pulled at the quarter-century-old scar of his dismissal by King Abdullah.

What begins by seeming like amorality, a disinterest in Khaled’s choices, veers into something else soon enough. Before the end of the first page Glubb presents the conclusion of his moral thinking. Violence begets violence, but Palestinian violence is their “only means of recovering their country and their freedom.” Wait, wasn’t that what the Jews were doing?. He quotes Khaled,”As a Palestinian, I had to believe in the gun as an embodiment of my humanity,”without comment except to note that she’s a bit down on anyone who thinks otherwise. Even so, he wants us to know that she cried when John Kennedy was shot. When he turns to the Jews, it’s different: Jewish violence is inherited from the Nazis.

Now we know where to place him. We’ve heard that one before.

Her contempt for non-violence and political difference notwithstanding, Glubb simply takes Khaled at her word when she says Jews and Arabs will be equals in the democratic Palestinian state she and her friends are going to create. The real problem is the Jews won’t allow it. They “desire to have an all-Jewish state.” Like the one we see today, presumably.

Glubb ends by solemnly informing us that “It is easy for us, who have never been the victims of foreign conquest ... to denounce with vehemence the crimes of the evicted Palestinians.” That’s some chutzpah from a son and servant of the empire on which the sun never set. It’s world-class chutzpah when we remember that Transjordan’s purpose in invading on May 15th 1948 was not to free the Palestinian Arabs—who could have had their freedom for the asking but chose war instead—but to annex the land to itself. Abdullah had said as much to Jews and Arabs alike(1).

In his own memoirs, Glubb wrote that he came to love the Arabs(2). That must have been British understatement, because what shines through this foreword is not just love but infatuation. This is the Glubb Pasha who led his army into the Old City of Jerusalem and who had ultimate responsibility for the emptying, looting & burning of the Jewish Quarter. Some people (not me, obviously) can say much in a few words. Glubb was accidentally one of those. It’s hard not to wonder how many others among the British military and functionaries, in Mandatory Palestine and back in London, felt the way he did.

1) Howard Sachar, “A History of Israel” 2007, p.321–322

2) John Bagot Glubb, “A Soldier with the Arabs” 1957, p.5

11/21 Links Pt1: Qatar’s farcical World Cup begins; Time for the UN to Stop Funding Hate Groups; Hezbollah transporting hundreds of chemical weapons to Lebanon

From Ian:

Qatar’s farcical World Cup begins

Even before the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar kicked off, the tournament already had a hero: the former captain of the Iranian national team, Ali Daei.

Now retired and working as a coach, Daei is without question the greatest footballer Iran has ever produced, playing at senior level both in his home country and in Germany. Daei was even the world’s top international goal scorer until last year, when his haul of 109 goals was pipped by a certain Cristiano Ronaldo. Adored in Iran, he made 149 appearances for the men’s national team, including the World Cup tournaments of 1998 and 2006.

Daei is also a devout Muslim who once turned down a lucrative offer to appear in a beer ad in Germany on the grounds that the consumption of alcohol is proscribed by his faith. But as with many Iranians, in Daei’s case, belief in the religious tenets of Islam does not necessarily translate into support for the Islamic Republic that has ruled with an iron fist since 1979.

Last week, circumventing the restrictions imposed on internet access by the Iranian regime amid historic protests against its continued rule, Daei told his 10.6 million followers on Instagram that he had turned down an invitation to attend the competition from its Qatari hosts and FIFA, world soccer’s governing body.

Daei cited the protests that have convulsed Iran as the reason for his staying away from Qatar. He wanted, he told his followers, to “be by your side in my homeland and express my sympathy with all the families who have lost loved ones these days.” This was in keeping with Daei’s previous statements, such as his message to the regime declaring, “instead of suppression, violence, arrests and accusing the people of Iran of being rioters, solve their problems.” Daei also put his neck on the line last month when he publicly challenged the regime’s claim that a young female protestor in his hometown of Ardabil had died of a pre-existing medical condition, and not at the hands of police officers.

Daei’s announcement might be taken as evidence of the old observation that there are things in life more important than soccer. But in soccer-mad Iran, what happens with the national team both on and off the field frequently takes on a political significance unknown among those teams coming from democratic countries.

Iran’s World Cup appearances are invariably an opportunity for Iranians living outside their homeland to express their patriotism while loudly opposing the ayatollahs. In Qatar, they may even be joined in those protests by the players, who have been told by coach Carlos Queiroz that they are “free to protest as they would if they were from any other country as long as it conforms with the World Cup regulations and is in the spirit of the game.”

Certainly, that is a prospect which worries the Iranian regime. Speaking to the players as they were paraded in front of him before departing for Qatar, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told them, “Some don’t want to see the success and victory of Iranian youth and wish to disturb your focus. Be very vigilant on this.” As much as that might sound like advice, it is in fact a threat – and given that the regime has murdered nearly 400 people and arrested more than 15,000 since the protests began in September, it is a threat that should be taken seriously.

The regime is taking all the measures it can to ensure that mass sessions of soccer watching don’t become the occasion for additional protests. To that end, they can count on their allies in Qatar, an obscenely wealthy Gulf emirate that thumbed its nose at the Abraham Accords with Israel some of its neighbors signed up to, and which continues to back the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Qatar's Double Game: Funding Islamists While Pretending to Be America's Ally

Hamas leaders [who have relocated to Doha]... are using Qatar as a base for calling for the destruction of Israel. Yet this does not seem to bother the rulers of Qatar or its allies in the West, including the US.

This is the same Qatar whose leaders claim that they condemn all acts of terrorism and violent extremism.

It is disquieting, to say the least, that a county that hosts the leadership of a Palestinian group that carried out thousands of terror attacks against Israel is talking about Qatar's desire to help eliminate terrorism and extremism.

It is also disquieting that Qatar... continues to pour millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip, thereby emboldening Hamas, whose leaders and charter champion violence and call for the destruction of Israel.

Haniyeh is not the only Hamas leader living under the patronage of Qatar. Several other Hamas leaders, including Khaled Mashaal, Hussam Badran, Izzat al-Risheq and Sami Khater, have also been welcomed to move their offices and homes to the Gulf state.

In addition to hosting the Hamas leaders and their families, Qatar has been providing millions of dollars to Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.... [T]he Qatari aid indirectly helps Hamas to hold on to power. Qatar's beneficence exempts Hamas from its responsibilities towards the Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip and allows the terror group instead to direct its resources and energies towards building tunnels to attack Israel and manufacturing weapons, including rockets, in preparation for their next war to try to destroy Israel.

The Hamas leaders have often been criticized by Palestinians and other Arabs for leading comfortable lives in Qatar while calling on their people in the Gaza Strip to continue the jihad (holy war) against Israel.

Qatar, however, evidently cares nothing about the interests of ordinary Palestinians, such as boosting their economy and improving their living conditions. What it cares about is embracing the leaders of Hamas to make Qatar appear to the Arabs and Muslims as the main supporter of the Palestinian "resistance" – a euphemism for the "armed struggle" against Israel.

JPost Editorial: International scrutiny toward Qatar hosting World Cup

These games are as much about Qatar’s standing as an influential player in the Arab world and global affairs as they are about international football. Qatar has already put a great amount of money into foreign clubs and interests. Furthermore, the state-owned Al Jazeera has a tremendous impact on the Arab world and beyond. There are also questions regarding Al Jazeera’s role in Qatar winning the bid to host the tournament having reportedly offered FIFA vast sums of money ahead of the vote.

Al Jazeera’s broadcasts and stance are particularly pertinent in Israel’s case following the death of American-Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in May, as Palestinian terrorists clashed with IDF forces. The FBI last week said it would begin its own probes into the incident even though thorough Israeli investigations had concluded that she was likely killed accidentally by an IDF soldier during the exchange of fire.

From Israel’s viewpoint there are also heightened sensitivities due to Qatar’s financial support of Hamas’s regime in Gaza (although Israel has permitted the influx of funds as humanitarian aid.) In addition, Qatar maintains cordial relations with Iran, whose support of terrorism and human rights abuses are evident.

The slogan of this year’s World Cup is “Now is all.” The mantra seems to be an attempt to focus on the moment and put the criticisms to one side.

We respectfully suggest going beyond the “here and now.” It would be wrong to ignore the human rights issues and Qatar’s double game when it comes to support for terrorists.

Yet, the World Cup in Qatar could also be an opportunity for the small state to prove that this international mega-event was not simply “sportswashing.” It can significantly improve its treatment of migrant workers and gays, for example, without compromising its Muslim religious values.

Especially when it comes to the relationship with Israel, having hosted Israeli fans and media and permitted direct flights from Tel Aviv, Qatar could put its best foot forward and go a stage further.

Israel’s role in the Middle East has changed significantly since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020. Israel has had quiet ties with Qatar and even established an economic interest office in Doha in 1996 but it was closed during the Second Intifada in 2000.

Moving beyond the “Now is all” to official ties between Qatar and Israel would be a win-win situation and a fitting step to take when the World Cup is over.