Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 08, 2022

12/08 Links Pt1: Lies, libels and the justification of terror; 12% of Gazans Have Fled Gaza Since Hamas Took Over; The UN envoy to Hamas; Far-Left Groups Accused of Campaign to Delegitimize IDF Soldiers

From Ian:

Lies, libels and the justification of terror

Nov. 29 marked the 75th anniversary of United Nations Resolution 181, which called for the creation of two states, a Jewish state of Israel and an Arab state of Palestine. The Jewish community accepted those terms, and declared the State of Israel, while the Arab community refused, and launched a war that they then lost. Over time, however, Palestinians developed their own version of the “big lie” in the form of the “nakba” myth, a retelling of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war in which the would-be genocidal Arab armies that failed in their mission to eliminate the Jewish state are reimagined as the helpless victims of a horrible catastrophe (or “nakba,” in Arabic) of destruction and displacement. The legend of the nakba is at the heart of much of modern anti-Zionism.

Right on cue, on Nov. 30 the United Nations General Assembly voted to officially commemorate the founding of the State of Israel as a nakba. U.N. resolutions are not legally or morally binding, and they obviously cannot create truths. But they do lend a sheen of credibility to an otherwise ridiculous claim. Such a resolution makes it easier for the big lie to spread, because people can rely on and appeal to the GA’s “authority” on the matter without having to defend or even care about the details of such a heinous accusation. And once a lie has become officially acceptable to speak in the halls of power, it is only a matter of time before it gets picked up and amplified by popular culture. This one certainly did not take long.

On Thursday, Netflix began streaming the Jordanian film “Farha,” which purports to focus on the experiences of a young girl during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The hero watches as Israeli soldiers, portrayed as inhumanly cruel, brutally and graphically murder innocent Palestinian families, including children. While the film claims to be “based on” true events, the director has admitted that it is not factual, and that these scenes did not actually occur. But that does not mean they will not have a very real-world effect on anti-Jewish hate and violence, because many will watch the movie, and few will read the disclaimer.

There are two reasons to publicly correct the record on the nakba. First, it is simply not true. There are primary sources, from the Jordanian side, attesting to the fact that the vast majority of Arabs who left their homes did so voluntarily, or under orders from the invading Arab armies, not the invaded Israelis. Many left confident that the combined armies of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt would quickly overwhelm the tiny Jewish state. As the Jordanian newspaper Filastin reported, “The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.” But as another refugee quoted in another Jordanian newspaper, Ad Difaa, explained that “The Arab government told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in.”

Second, it is incredibly dangerous. In 1976, Mahmoud Abbas said that “The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live” (emphasis added).

Israeli Ambassador to Ireland Lironne Bar Sadeh (Irish Times): Israel Is Not an "Apartheid" State

The letter in the Irish Times, "Israel and the Palestinian people" (Nov. 30), signed by various Irish luminaries, repeats the usual canard that Israel is an "apartheid" state.

This is an outrageous falsehood. Israel is in fact the only long-lasting liberal democracy in the entire Middle East. It is the only country in the region with freedom of speech, party, press, and association and judicial transparency.

It has equality under the law for all its citizens, a fifth of whom by the way are Israeli Arabs, both Muslim and Christian. It is also the only country in the region with rights and equality for the LGBTQ+ community. In terms of its legal and political systems, its vibrant press and rich civil society, Israel is remarkably similar to Ireland.

Those who signed the letter think they are helping in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but in fact they are not. By constantly demonizing Israel and ignoring the deep flaws on the Palestinian side, such as the Islamic fundamentalism of Hamas, and the squalid corruption of the Palestinian Authority, they make themselves morally and intellectually bankrupt.

People who genuinely want to help the Palestinians should encourage democratic, moderate forces within Palestinian society and those who will eventually realize that peace with Israel can only come about through dialogue and mutual compromise, not by demonization and intransigence. It is tragic that some people in Ireland, instead of supporting Israel and the moderate Arab forces in the region, prefer to demonize Israel as much as possible and fail to condemn Iran and the forces of extremism which blight the region.

12% of Gazans Have Fled Gaza Since Hamas Took Over

In the 15 years since Hamas seized control of Gaza, 12 percent of the Strip’s population has fled, according to a study released by an organization associated with the terror group. The report appears to mark the first time Hamas is acknowledging — indirectly — widespread Gazan emigration since it violently seized control of the Strip in 2007.

The report, written by the Hamas-affiliated Council on International Relations, was published in September and recently seen by the Tazpit Press Service. It claims that over 60,000 Gazan residents have migrated from the Gaza Strip in recent years to escape poverty and war.

The CIR report blamed Israel’s blockade of Gaza for the Strip’s poverty driving Gazans to flee. Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2007 to prevent weapons smuggling.

The Strip has seen several waves of immigration due to dire unemployment rates, growing poverty, sanctions imposed by the Palestinian Authority, and rounds of conflict with Israel. The CIR did not acknowledge Hamas’s authoritarian rule as a contributing factor.

“Gaza is being emptied of its residents,” the authors of the report said.

The Palestinian Authority has no data on the scope of migration from the Gaza under Hamas rule. Till now, Hamas hid the data, making accurate numbers difficult for human rights organizations to gather. The CIR’s chairman of the board is Basem Naim, who is also a senior figure in Hamas.

Various estimates in the past year shed some light on the Gaza exodus.

Between 2007-2021, approximately 236,000 Gazans left the Strip, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, WAFA, reported during the summer. That number is also about 12 percent of the total residents of the Strip.

Based on those numbers, it appears that an average of around 17,000 Palestinians have left Gaza every year since 2007.

On the occasion of its 35th anniversary, Hamas has announced that it will give out $2 million in aid to needy Gazans.

Aid will include repairs to 100 homes of the poor at a value of $5,000 each, and changing the roofs of 200 homes of needy families at a value of $300 per family. Also they are giving money to older groomd to pay for weddings.

Hey, if they can replace roofs for $300, they can make a fortune in the US.

A Hamas spokesman said that these projects are a "thanks from Hamas for the steadfastness of our people and their preservation of the resistance project."

They said that the recipients were chosen based on need. From past experience, one can be sure that they are all also members of Hamas. (The spokesman denied this.)

Hamas and other terror groups often also engage in "charitable works" in order to help their public relations and to help recruit more members.

Sometimes it pays off, as the PFLP has graduated from being a terror group to being just a political movement and a founder of human rights NGOs, according to Human Rights Watch, despite still being very involved in terror.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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80 years ago: The State Department says paying ransom for Jews is a crime

A small item on page 4 of the Los Angeles Times, November 25, 1942:

This came in response to a report out of the Netherlands that the Nazis were extorting huge sums for exit permits.

There is, unfortunately, a large body of literature on ransoming captives under Jewish law. A summary from Din Online:

The Rambam (Matmos Aniim 8:10, based on the Gemara in Bava Basra 8b) states in the context of charity donations: “There is no greater mitzvah (i.e. use of charity funds) than redeeming captives.” Based on its special importance, redemption of captives is the first priority for allocating charity funds. Echoing the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De’ah 252:1) likewise states: “No mitzvah is as great as redeeming captives.”

The Gemara (Bava Basra 8b) highlights the plight of the captive in the hands of his captors. The latter can torture him, pass him through great suffering, and even kill him. He is entirely at their mercy. The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De’ah 252:3) thus writes that one who can redeem a captive yet fails to do so is considered to be murdering at each moment.

Nevertheless, the Mishnah (Gittin 45a) teaches that captives should not be redeemed for any price: “Captives are not redeemed for more than their value.”

The reason for this is discussed by the Gemara, which mentions two possible reasons, without deciding which of them is the true reason. One reason is that it is too weighty a burden on the community. According to this reason, Rashi writes that a private individual is permitted to redeem his own family or loved ones, even for great sums of money.

Another suggested reason is that payment of large ransoms encourages captors to continue in their evil ways, taking further captives to make money. Based on this rationale, a private individual may not pay exorbitant sums for the release of his family, since this encourages kidnappings and places the community at risk.

It seems to me that both those reasons for not paying ransom would not apply in this case. The first reason, as stated, would not apply to the family of the relative being held hostage. The second reason, that it encourages the captors to take more prisoners, doesn't seem to apply because all the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were already effectively captive and already in great danger.

Indeed, there have been halachic rulings that if the captive's life is in danger without being ransomed, there is no price too high to pay.

The State Department's reason - that paying ransom will add money to the enemies' coffers - is not at all a consideration in Jewish law.

Yet as far as I can tell, this was not even a subject of debate in 1942. The fate of the Jews was well known at this point in time, and there was plenty of pretend outrage in the West, but it didn't extend to actually trying to save their lives.

Jews who wanted to save their friends and family were to be considered criminals.

For context, here is the entire Los Angeles Times page 4 where these two articles were. The main two articles on the page were about the Nazis wiping out the Jews of Europe by the millions:

At the very same time the readers were being given the details of the horrors of the Holocaust, they were also informed that saving some of those Jewish lives is a crime.

Here is an editorial from a British newspaper, the Dumfries and Galloway Standard and Advertiser (December 12, 1942), that goes on at length and detail about how terrible the Nazi persecution of Jews is and how there is no longer doubt about the Final Solution:

Yet when it comes to whether something can be done to save these unfortunate Jews, suddenly the tone changes:

"The humanitarian feelings of humanity must not be traded on for the purpose of financing the Nazis."

Sure, Jewish lives matter - but not to the point of actually paying money to save them. Better to write op-eds about how terrible it is that we have no choice but to let them all die, as long as we know the Nazis will eventually be "brought to justice."

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!

Moroccan education unions against coexistence and tolerance (of Jews)

This week, the Atlantic Council held the N7 Conference on Education and Coexistence in Rabat, Morocco.

Oren Eisner, President of the Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation, explained the purpose of the conference: “It is critical to the future of normalization that the region’s younger generations engage with each other and learn from each other. Our Conference on Education and Coexistence is designed to produce actionable policy recommendations for the region’s governments that will increase cooperation and foster tolerance in education.” Eisner added, “We are thrilled to bring the N7 nations together to the conference and are grateful to the participating governments for working together to develop stronger and lasting friendships in the Middle East.”

The Kingdom of Morocco supported the conference, which included participants from Sudan, Jordan, Bahrain, the UAE, the United States and Israel.

Two Morocco education unions wrote a letter denouncing the conference, and the idea of coexistence altogether. The letter is a crazed combination of paranoia, lies and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

For example, it says, "They consider normalization to facilitate the future control of the Zionist entity over the wealth of the region and its people, and in an effort to complete its expansionist colonial project, and the ensuing dangers to future generations."

In a classic case of projection, the education union "considers the process of normalization in the school curricula as part of many manifestations of the attempt to normalize under the justification of spreading a culture of tolerance and coexistence..., while the Zionist educational curricula perpetuate absolute hatred of the Arabs."

And these open-minded educators also recommend that a "blacklist of shame" be created with the names of anyone who supports coexistence with Israel and Zionists.

It's hard to tell how widespread these opinions are in Morocco. There is a very noisy and active anti-normalization contingent, but mainstream media in Morocco has been treating Israel relatively fairly, and there have been lots of articles about the Jewish community and history there. There are more articles about the Moroccan anti-normalization movement in Algerian media than in Moroccan media.

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!

Abbas says that the PA might officially return to terror

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told Al Arabiya that there is a chance the Palestinian Authority will return to an official policy of terror in the near future.

Palestinian news sites quoted the interview, where Abbas renewed his threat to cancel security agreements with Israel. “If Israel continues with its actions, I will cancel the security agreement with it. Why continue? Why am I committed to security coordination? And we can breathe without security coordination. Before that, we were breathing, and our people were fighting the occupation,” he said, referring to the second intifada terror spree.

Abbas went on to say that terrorism is still on the table: "I do not endorse armed resistance at the moment, but I may change my mind later."

He then elaborated, "I do not adopt military resistance at this time, but it is possible that I change my mind tomorrow or after tomorrow, or any time.

"We grew up in the armed resistance, until we reached the international club,” Abbas added, apparently pining for the days in the 1970s when Palestinian international terrorism resulted in Europe and the UN rewarding the PLO with increased prestige.

We recently noted that both the PLO Executive Committee and the Fatah Revolutionary Council, both led by Abbas, supported terrorism as a right under international law in meetings this month. Here he is saying that the Palestinian Authority, also under his control, might follow suit.

And this interview, where Abbas says that terror is an option - meaning he has no moral problem with it, just it is not a smart tactic at this time - will likewise be ignored by the media.

Because they already spent their entire capital on the lie that Abbas is a man of peace, and the truth takes a back seat to the narrative and admitting they have been wrong since he took over from Arafat.

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!

12/07 Links Pt2: Every Time You Wish Someone ‘Happy Hanukkah’ You Acknowledge The Historic Jewish Claim On Jerusalem; Israel is 5th safest country in the world for tourists

From Ian:

'Herzl is our George Washington and Thomas Jefferson all wrapped in one'

"Today, Theodor Herzl is best known for his beard, not his books," laments Gil Troy, editor of "The Zionist Writings of Theodor Herzl," in his introductory essay to a new edition of Herzl's diaries.

Troy, a professor of history at Canada's McGill University now living in Israel, wants to make Zionism's founders come alive for the next generation. His latest effort is a three-volume collection of Herzl's writings.

The brainchild behind the series is Matthew Miller, owner of Koren Publishers, a Jerusalem publishing house producing mainly religious texts. Drawing inspiration from the Library of America, a publisher of notable American classics and historical works, Miller decided to create a Library of the Jewish People to bring together the best writings from Jewish history in the fields of religion, the arts and politics.

"The Zionist Writings" are the first titles in that ambitious effort. They include a fairly comprehensive collection of Herzl's diaries and other works, including his play "The New Ghetto" (1894), of which Herzl biographer Alex Bein said, "Herzl completed his inner return to his people"; Herzl's 1896 manifesto "The Jewish State"; and important essays, like "The Menorah" (1897), showing how, through Zionism, Herzl reconnected with his Judaism.

The series uses translations from the original German made by historian Harry Zohn in the 1960s. Other works, like "The New Ghetto," are newly translated by Uri Bollag.

Troy, who spoke to JNS the day after the book launch at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, said the Herzl series is his fourteenth book project and the first where he stood before an audience and said "Shehecheyanu" – a Jewish prayer to give thanks for special occasions – both to mark the 75th anniversary of the date the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a Jewish state (Nov. 29, 1947) and to celebrate the launch of Library of the Jewish People.

"It's an attempt to invite the Jewish people to build a bookshelf, because we've been building a bookshelf for thousands of years, but most of us don't know the Jewish texts, the Jewish canon," he said.

Troy sees no better place to start than Herzl. "He's our George Washington and our Thomas Jefferson all wrapped in one," said Troy. "Washington's diaries are interesting, but they're not ideological. That's why, when talking about Herzl in American terms, we say he's a cross between Washington and Jefferson, because he's also a conceptualizer."

Troy, who pored through 2,700 pages of Herzl's diaries, described them as "a political-science version of an artist's sketchbook."

"Herzl draws in the contours of the Jewish state. He plans different dimensions from a flag to the architectural aesthetic, from labor-capital relations to the dynamics between rabbis and politicians," Troy writes in one essay.

Every Time You Wish Someone ‘Happy Hanukkah’ You Acknowledge The Historic Jewish Claim On Jerusalem

On Hanukkah eve, I tweeted out a somewhat reductionist thought commemorating the bloody Maccabean rebellion against the Seleucid Empire and their traitorous Hellenized Jewish accomplices. It seemed to upset some of my followers.

Every time you wish someone a Happy Hanukkah you are acknowledging the historic Jewish claim on Jerusalem. — David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) December 12, 2017

Why are you politicizing such a pleasant holiday? Does wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” now mean that you accept Jesus as your lord and savior?

Well, first of all, the story of Hanukkah isn’t pleasant. Violent, brutal, and passionate, maybe. But not pleasant. And of course wishing someone a “Happy Hanukkah” isn’t an endorsement of any theological position, any more than wishing someone Merry Christmas is (although we appreciate the recognition of the Jewish presence in ancient Bethlehem). Mostly it’s convention and good manners. Thank you.

Fact is, there isn’t a ton of theology to worry about. Hanukkah is not a Jewish “yom tov,” which in the literal translation means “good day” but in religious terms means the holiday was not handed to the Jewish people through the Torah. Unlike Passover or Yom Kippur, there are no restrictions on work. The two books that deal with the Maccabees aren’t Jewish canon. The “miracle of the lights” — which you might be led to believe is the entire story of the holiday — is apocryphal and was added hundreds of years later in the Talmud. (To be fair, the story of miraculous oil is far more conducive to the holiday gift-giving spirit than, say, the story of the Jewish woman who watched her seven sons being tortured and slaughtered by Antiochus because she refused to eat pork.)

But whatever reasons you have for offering good wishes, Hanukkah itself is a reminder that Jews have a singular, millennia-long historic relationship with Jerusalem. By the time Mattathias rebelled against Hellenistic Syrian king Antiochus, who had not only ordered a statue of Zeus to be erected in the Holy Temple but that swine be sacrificed to him, Jerusalem had likely been a Jewish city for more than 1,000 years. As some readers have suggested, Hanukkah might be the only Jewish holiday that celebrates events confirmed by the historical record. The Hasmonean dynasty, founded by Mattathias’ son Simon, is a fact.

Haym Salomon may not be the only Jew who helped to fund the American Revolution, but his name is the one that is most likely to be familiar to you. Honored with a commemorative stamp in 1975 for his contributions to American independence, Salomon gave without limits to his country.

Wars, as everyone knows, are expensive, and when provisions are lacking and salaries aren’t paid, soldiers can easily be stirred to mutiny. Haym Salomon came through time and again with “loans” for the army to cover salaries for officials, and to pay for countless essentials. All told, Salomon contributed some $640,000 to the Revolution, an astronomical sum for those days. He never accepted repayment.

Haym Salomon

Born in Lissa (Leszno), Poland in 1740, Haym Salomon came to New York in 1775 and quickly established himself as a successful broker. New York, in those days, was the British seat of government in the colonies. Salomon joined the Sons of Liberty, a paramilitary organization much like the Etzel. It was the Sons of Liberty who were responsible for the Boston Tea Party. They also popularized the use of tar and feathers to shame and punish British government officials and loyalists. The Sons were also not unknown to burn down a building (or two).

In a story reminiscent of Joseph, the prisoner who interpreted dreams, Haym Salomon was arrested by the British in 1776 and imprisoned as a spy. Recognizing Salomon’s talent for languages (he spoke ten), the Brits set him to work as an interpreter. After his release, Salomon went back to work as a broker. His fortune grew and he gave generous aid to the colonists all the while.

The Polish immigrant remained within the sights of the British, and was once more arrested for his activities on behalf of the revolution. This time, Salomon was tortured and sentenced to be hanged, but friends helped him to escape. Salomon managed to make his way to Philadelphia. With no money left, Haym was forced to restart his business from the ground up. With whatever profits he made, he purchased food for the starving soldiers of the Continental Army. Among those who sought Salomon’s aid were such luminaries as Washington, Lafayette, and Von Steuben.

In the colonies, it was common knowledge that if you needed money, you went to “the little Jew.” The diaries of Revolutionary leaders attest to this. “When any member of the Revolutionary Congress was in need,” wrote James Madison, “all that was necessary was to call on Salomon.”

Along those lines, in a letter to Edmond Randolph, who was to become the nation’s first attorney general, Madison wrote:

I cannot in any way make you more sensible of the importance of your kind attention in making pecuniary remittance for me than by informing you that I have for some time been a pensioner on the favor of Haym Salomon, a Jew broker. I am almost ashamed to acknowledge my wants so incessantly to you, but they begin to be so urgent that it is impossible to suppress. The kindness of our little friend in S. Front Street near the coffee house, is a fund that will preserve me from extremities, but I never resort to it without great mortification as he obstinately rejects all recompense. The price of money is so usurious that he thinks it ought to be [extorted] from none but those who aim at profitable speculation. To a necessitous delegate he gratuitously spares a supply out of his private stock.

Eventually, colonial Secretary of the Treasury Robert Morris appointed Haym Salomon as broker to the Office of Finance. Salomon was also paymaster to the French troops in America. Beyond his own substantial “loans” to the colonists—which were really gifts—Salomon negotiated numerous real loans for the colonies from Holland and France, taking no commission for himself.

There’s an anecdote that one time, General Washington appealed to Haym Salomon for funds to help sustain his tattered troops. This would not have been unusual except that it happened to be Yom Kippur that day. Though Salomon was devout, service to his country was for him, an integral part of his religion. Turning to his fellow congregants for their help, Salomon interrupted services long enough to secure pledges to cover the requested funds. Only then were the Yom Kippur prayers resumed.

Haym Salomon died at the age of forty-five, penniless, his boundless patriotism limited at the last by the final obstacle, death.

(This piece is drawn from Jews in American Wars.)

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 Arab News:

UNESCO has included mansaf, the national dish of Jordan, on its list of intangible cultural heritage.

A file was submitted to the organization, “Mansaf in Jordan: A Ceremonial Feast and Its Social and Cultural Connotations,” in March 2021, in a bid to include the dish on the list, the Jordan News Agency reported.

Makram Qaisi, Jordan’s permanent representative to UNESCO, said that the addition was announced during the 17th session of the intergovernmental committee for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, being held in Rabat, Morocco, from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3.

Jordanian media has been celebrating UNESCO's honoring of mansaf.

Arabic media, though, adds a little bit of color about the legendary origins of the dish. From Al Jazeera:

The history of Mansaf dates back more than 3,000 years, according to historians, when the Moabite king Mesha asked his people in the 19th century BC (sic) to cook meat with milk, contrary to the Jews who forbid cooking meat with milk or milk, and so that he could distinguish the sons of his people for the Jews.

This is a whitewash of the real story, which I discussed in 2014 based on an article in Jordan's Ammon News:

According to the article, some historians say that the name of the dish comes from the root NSF which means "blowing up", "blasting", "destroying." A legend is told of an ancient "Arab" Moabite king from 885 BCE, Mesha, who asked that this dish be created as a way of expressing his animosity towards the Jews, whom he knew were planning to betray him.

Mansaf is made of lamb cooked in a yogurt-based sauce and is not kosher because of the Jewish prohibition of eating meat cooked in milk. Therefore, the article claims, the dish was originally created to insult Jews.

The article says that the king of Moab created the dish as a "declaration of his people's hostility to the Jews since 885 BC. " His people enthusiastically responded, "knowing that this is nothing but a declaration of hostility against the treacherous Jews."

The article ends saying, "Jordanians enjoyed this food and continued to cook it to this day with optimism about victory, and everyone who inhabited the land of Jordan took Mansaf as their favorite food, in which they obligated their guests, feasted on them, acknowledged them and determined to do so, declaring their enmity towards the Jews until the Day of Judgment.

One commenter said, "If this is true, then eating mansaf is a sort of jihad against the Jews."

The origin legend is nonsense, but that isn't the point. The national dish of Jordan is meant to symbolize hate for Jews - forever.

It is not at all possible that the Jordanians who submitted this dish to UNESCO didn't know this; in fact is is highly unlikely that UNESCO itself doesn't know this. There are scores of articles that emphasize that mansaf was meant to insult Jews.

And they see nothing wrong with honoring a dish that is literally a symbol for everlasting hate for 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!

12/07 Links Pt1: When Antisemites Sue the Jews; Will Bibi Make the Left’s Nightmares Come True? It’s Never Happened Before; Terrorist Killed After Shooting at Military Post Near Ofra

From Ian:

Two former diplomats display their inveterate animus towards Israel

We must ask: Why are Miller and Kurtzer not calling on the Biden administration to simply uphold U.S. law—namely, the Taylor Force Act—which stipulates that American financial aid misappropriated by the P.A. in order to reward terrorism must be withheld? Why do the authors not criticize the administration’s decision to continue funding the P.A.— $816 million this year from American taxpayers—despite the law?

In contrast to the kind words for the P.A., Miller and Kurtzer refer to the incoming Israeli government in the most vitriolic terms: “Radical, racist, misogynistic and homophobic.” Yet Israel’s next Gay Pride Week and Parade are scheduled for June 2023. There is no such celebration scheduled in any territory controlled by the P.A. or Hamas. In fact, gays are routinely murdered—often thrown off buildings head first—in Hamas-controlled Gaza. As for misogyny, do Miller and Kurtzer really believe that women in Palestinian-controlled territories are living as equals to men and enjoy greater rights than women in Israel?

It is telling, moreover, that Miller and Kurtzer do not even mention the issue of religious tolerance. Christians live in peace and freedom in Israel. This is most definitely not the case in P.A.- or Hamas-controlled territory. Seventy years ago, Bethlehem was 86% Christian; in 2022, it is 12% Christian. Of course, Israel is routinely blamed for this, but Christians who dare to speak the truth are unequivocal: Islamists are the cause of this mass exodus, as has occurred in Christian communities in Muslim-majority states such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt.

Miller and Kurtzer do not confine their vitriol to Israel. Their contempt for Muslims—especially those from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, which have normalized relations with Israel—is palpable. The authors believe that the United States should coerce those Arab states into adopting the policies preferred by Miller and Kurtzer themselves.

It is shocking and sad that, after decades of work persuading Arab governments to adopt non-ideological and pragmatic foreign policies that could stabilize the Middle East, there are spiteful Americans like Miller and Kurtzer who want to bully those governments into prioritizing the Palestinians over the needs of their own people. It is remarkable that former diplomats, allegedly dedicated to peace, have taken positions that are inherently anti-Israel, anti-Arab and anti-peace.

Miller and Kurtzer also have unabashed contempt for their own countrymen. They fulminate, for example, over the “blindly pro-Israel Republican majority soon to control the House.” Yet Miller and Kurtzer have never had a harsh word to say about the current Democrat-controlled House, which has “blindly” tolerated antisemitic and anti-Zionist members like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Under Democratic control, the House has summarily ignored the proposed Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (2019) and the Israel Relations Normalization Act (2021). Miller and Kurtzer, so far as I know, have never referred to the “blindly anti-Israel and antisemitic Democrat majority that controls the House.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by the State Department, recognizes that criticism of Israel that is not leveled against any other country constitutes antisemitism. What Miller and Kurtzer have done in their screed is to judge Israel by one standard and its enemies by quite another, more generous, standard. I leave it to the reader to ponder the implications.

Nearly 50 lawmakers urge Thomas-Greenfield to work to defund U.N.’s Israel inquiry

House lawmakers are urging the U.S. delegation to the United Nations to work through the body’s upcoming budgeting process to limit funding to, and ultimately shut down, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s dedicated Commission of Inquiry investigating Israel — a new push in ongoing congressional efforts to scrap the open-ended probe.

A bipartisan group of 49 lawmakers wrote a letter, obtained by Jewish Insider, to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Tuesday, in which they encouraged “the United States delegation to strongly advocate to restrict this biased commission’s funding from within the UN system, and take steps to eliminate the commission completely.”

The commission was launched in the wake of the May 2021 conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The letter was organized by Reps. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).

The lawmakers note that the U.S. led efforts in 2021 to cut the commission’s budget for 2022 by nearly 25%, and argue that the U.S. delegation should “assemble a coalition of like-minded allies and partners to ensure a timely end to the operations of this commission through the restriction and ultimate elimination of its funding from within the UN system.”

The letter highlights a string of concerns about the commission, referring to its “profoundly problematic” and “incomplete and biased reports,” “numerous antisemitic comments” by commission staffers and the body’s ongoing mandate.

“Respect for human rights is a core American value, and an ideal to which all international actors must be held accountable. That accounting must be done in a balanced manner consistent with international norms, and the U.N. Commission of Inquiry abjectly fails to meet these standards,” the letter continues. “The coming weeks will require the administration to redouble its diplomatic efforts to ensure that funding to this discriminatory investigation ultimately ceases. We stand ready to assist you in any way in defending our democratic ally, Israel.”

US State Department spokesman mute on Israeli ‘war crimes’ accusation

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price on Tuesday failed to push back on a reporter’s accusation that Israel was perpetrating “war crimes” against the Palestinians.

“I mean, what we have seen in the past couple weeks is really an uptick of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians. We see war crimes being committed on—in front of everybody. So that would not bother the United States of America, despite the fact that these guys [Religious Zionism Party head Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir] have such a long rap sheet?” a reporter asked Price during the daily press briefing.

Answered Price: “Said, whether it—whether the question is government formation or any other hypothetical, we just don’t entertain those types of questions. It doesn’t do us any good to comment on something that may or may not come to pass. When it comes to governments that haven’t been formed, I’ve been asked this question from this podium for any number of democratic countries around the world—how, whether, will we work with various individuals around the world—and our answer’s always the same. We are going to judge a government on how it governs, once it is in place—on the policies that it pursues.”

Price also failed to correct the reporter’s assertion in a follow-up question that an Israeli policeman had shot “at point blank an unarmed Palestinian,” when in fact the officer in question had fired on a terrorist in the process of attacking him.

Palestinian refugee: We were told in 1948 to “leave and go to Jordan. It's just for a few weeks”

Would Netflix allow a drama about the 1929 Hebron massacre? (UPDATE)

There has been a lot of coverage of the Jordanian film Farha, now available on Netflix, which includes a scene of Israeli soldiers execute a family with a baby for sheer pleasure.

Israellycool excerpts some scenes.

His characterization of the film as a blood libel is accurate. People assume that a historic drama is based on reality, and while there were scattered instances of Israeli outrages in 1948 as in any war, they were most definitely the exception and were generally punished. Farha says that this was - and is - the norm for Israel, and as such it is outrageous.

But let's do a thought experiment.

Let's pretend that someone made an accurate drama about the massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929.

The reality is that the Arabs did do atrocities then. As survivors testified, these included "widespread rape. The castration of seven men, including rabbis in their 60s and 70s. A seventy year old tied to a door and tortured until he died. A two-year-old with his head torn off. A rabbi set on fire. An elderly disabled pharmacist tortured to death, his wife mutilated, his daughter raped and murdered."

It would be a compelling story, with real drama and real facts. And it would never be shown on Netflix.

Movies about Nazis massacring Jews are fine, and the more detail, the better. But movies about Arabs abusing Jews? No, that would be considered Islamophobic, and wouldn't be touched by any mainstream streaming service or distributor. Imagine the outcry that would accompany such a film - it would make the Jewish reaction to Farha look like nothing.

Furthermore, imagine what such a film would include. Even if made by a fervent Zionist, it would feature subplots of Arabs saving Jews - which some did - to humanize the Arab side and ensure that the film is not incitement against Arabs as a whole.

Now, can you imagine a Jordanian or Palestinian film about the Nakba that would humanize Jews?

A documentary was once made about Hebron, in 1999, where survivors told about what they witnessed. It had decent reviews.

And you essentially cannot find it nowadays. It isn't streamed anywhere, and the only place I can find to buy a DVD is here at the National Center for Jewish Film.

Why is such a seminal event in Zionist history virtually ignored in film?

We know the answer.

UPDATE: The Hebron documentary is (unlisted) on YouTube with the English subtitles. You can watch it here:

(h/t GnasherJew)

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From The Hill:

More than a hundred lawmakers sent a letter Tuesday asking President Biden for a national strategy to combat antisemitism and a “whole-of-government” approach to threats and violence against Jewish communities.

“As members of the House and Senate Bipartisan Task Forces for Combating Antisemitism, we write to urge you to ensure leaders working within your Administration are working together to execute a unified national strategy to monitor and combat antisemitism,” the lawmakers said in the letter.

“With Jewish communities worldwide facing increasing discrimination, as well as threats and acts violence, we believe a whole-of-government approach is needed to effectively address the scourge of antisemitism,” they added.

Leaders of the Senate and House Bipartisan Task Forces for Combating Antisemitism put forth the letter with 126 lawmaker signatures from both parties to ask Biden for increased interagency coordination and collaboration.

Strategic coordination would help agencies “share best practices, data, and intelligence; identify gaps in efforts; streamline overlapping activities and roles; and execute a unified national strategy,” the lawmakers said.

Why on Earth are there only 126 signatures on a letter asking the President for a strategy to fight antisemitism? That's less than 25% of all lawmakers.

Moreover, you will be hard pressed to find any of the "critics of Israel" who are "against antisemitism" to have signed this letter.

As FirstOneThrough notes, in general, members of Congress who have voted against Israel have not signed this letter to combat antisemitism.

People who didn't sign this letter include the nine members of Congress who voted against funding Iron Dome: Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Chuy Garcia, Raúl Grijalva, Thomas Massie, Marie Newman, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib.

None of the co-sponsors of a bill against supplying weapons to Israel, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan, Betty McCollum and Pramila Jayapal in addition to Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar signed the call to combat anti-Semitism letter.

Nearly all signatories of a letter to send money to Hamas didn't sign this letter: Don Beyer, Earl Blumenauer, André Carson, Judy Chu, Danny K. Davis, Peter A. Defazio, Mark DeSaulnier, Ruben Gallego, Jesús G. “Chuy” García, Raúl Grijalva, Deb Haaland, Jared Huffman, Pramila Jayapal, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr., Dan Kildee, Betty McCollum, James P. McGovern, Gwen S. Moore, Ilhan Omar, Chellie Pingree, Donald M. Payne Jr., David E. Price, Bobby L. Rush, Jackie Speier, Rashida Tlaib, Paul Tonko, and Peter Welch.

The vast majority of J-Street endorsees did not sign this letter, including Andy Levin, Tom Malinowski and Josh Harder. Also Jamaal Bowman and new House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries did not sign.

It sure sounds like antisemitism and anti-Zionism are congruent.

The probable reason for so much opposition to the letter is that it says this: "Interagency coordination also could benefit from considering a broadly understood definition of antisemitism, as several agencies have adopted or recognized individually." This could be interpreted as support for the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which Israel haters are so against.

But that proves the point that anti-Zionism is akin to antisemitism: either these lawmakers haven't read the IHRA definition ("criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic") or they firmly believe that Israel must be treated with different standards compared to every other nation.

It shows that they know that their own criticisms of Israel go beyond normal criticism of other countries.

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An innocent Arab baker in English - and a proud terrorist martyr in Arabic

Maha Hussaini, who works for the EuroMed Human Rights Monitor, is upset that the IDF killed - a baker.

"Omar Mannaa, 22, a Palestinian baker, killed earlier this morning by Israeli troops during a military raid in the Deheishe refugee camp in the occupied West Bank," she tweeted.

She continued, "Another Palestinian killed, another Israeli soldier will go unpunished," and posted a video of him making bread.

The tweet has (as of this writing) over 21,000 Likes.

This "human rights activist" knows the truth, though. She tweets in English to ensure that Palestinians are viewed as innocent victims - but in Arabic media, everyone knows that he was a member of the PFLP. Not only because the PFLP controlled his funeral:

But the PFLP news site explicitly said that he was killed while fighting Israeli troops!

It said, "he died during an armed clash he fought with the occupation army forces on the grounds of the revolutionary camp in Bethlehem." And "the PFLP confirmed that Comrade Manna was one of the comrades who always advanced the ranks to confront the occupation’s crimes against the Dheisheh camp, where he rose today alongside the arrest of a number of comrades."

Interestingly enough, the PFLP doesn't mention his career as a baker.

Is Hussaini a human rights activist or a propagandist?

Is there any difference nowadays?

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12/06 Links Pt2: Jewish Life Is Cheap; How academia omits facts to make Palestinians the perpetual victim; It sucks to be a Jew on the left; Glick: The US liberal Jewish establishment is failing at fighting antisemitism

From Ian:

Jewish Life Is Cheap

For the past five years, the dominant media narrative about race—perhaps the dominant media narrative, period—has built up a hierarchy of racial justice. At the top are the perennially marginalized “BIPOCs,” victim to the lash of the ever-present colonial whip. At the bottom lurks the “white male,” inherently and ineluctably racist, even when (or perhaps especially when) they’re trying hard not to be.

In a manner true to our history, Jews have been sucked into this Manichean whirlpool, cast by radical academics and their media acolytes as an essential, almost distilled element of the global system of racial oppression. We are not just white; we are the plotters and financiers of the entire sysyetm of white supremacy.

Worse still, if Jews are white then they are not, well, Jews. The largely successful effort to assign Jews to the white race means Jews do not have the moral privilege of determining our own identity. The perverse result of dispossessing Jews of their own history is that it grants the mantle of Jewishness to our enemies. Thus Ye, in the same Twitter thread where he threatened to go “death con 3” on Jews, also claimed: “I actually can’t be antisemitic because Black people are actually Jew also.”

When Whoopi Goldberg asserted on The View that the “Holocaust was not about race,” she was advancing a version of the same arguments made by virulent Black Hebrew Israelite hate preachers, professors who insist on the indelible whiteness of Jews, and anti-Zionists who deny the legitimacy of Jewish historical identity. It’s true that only the last two groups tend to have their ideas promoted by the media, but all three share the idea that “Jew” is not a meaningful or legitimate category. Palestinians can be Jews—thus the Democratic political activist and Louis Farrakhan fan Linda Sarsour is invited to participate as an expert in a prominent panel on antisemitism. And by the same logic, Black Hebrews can be Jews. Ye can be a Jew. Only Jews are not allowed to be Jews.

Over and over, Jews have watched this trend play out, and largely we’ve been silent.

In a key scene in the 2014 Oscar-nominated Selma, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads a group of activists and protesters across a bridge alongside Black civil rights leaders. Not pictured in the scene was a man who walked in that front line of protesters, fighting for civil rights: the great American Jewish rabbi and leader Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Why would Ava Duvernay, the film’s director, compromise the film’s historical integrity to erase one of America’s most prominent Jewish spiritual figures out of the image? The answer is that over the past decade, the anti-racist movement that has been the media’s single most championed social cause has turned a syllogism into a truism: Whites are by definition white supremacists; Jews are the whitest of whites because they falsely hide behind their fake ethnicity; Jews, therefore, are at the top of the white supremacy totem.

The media has actively spread these ideas by turning woke racialism into the defining moral cause of our time, while at the same time ignoring the consequences of this campaign. While Ye was “canceled” for making open threats and affirming his love for Hitler, little more than a week earlier hundreds of Black Hebrew Israelites marched through central Brooklyn, uniformed and in formation, chanting “we are the real Jews.” Save for some coverage in the New York Post and in Tablet’s daily newsletter, The Scroll, the rest of the media was virtually silent. The media is still talking about the alt-right’s 2017 hate march in Charlottesville, treating it as one of the defining events of the modern era, but when hundreds of virulent antisemites march in Brooklyn—the mecca of America’s media establishment—it was crickets. The silence was appalling but also unsurprising given that the same media has largely ignored the routine violent attacks against religious Jews in New York.

Ben-Dror Yemini: How academia omits facts to make Palestinians the perpetual victim

Recently, Prof. Shay Hezkani claimed in an article he wrote for “Haaretz” newspaper that I misled my readers when I wrote that the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine faced an existential threat in 1947 and 1948.

I challenge Hezkani to an intellectual debate. I am even willing to provide him here with some of the arguments at my disposal - shall he answer my call.

“Every week Ben-Dror Yemini tells readers of ‘Yedioth Ahronoth’ about Arab leaders in 1947 who called to throw the Jews into the sea, planning to systematically murder them,” Hezkani wrote in his Haaretz column last week.

“Throughout 15 years of my research, looking into hundreds of propaganda pieces from 1947-1949, I ran into only one case in which Hassan al-Banna - founder of the Muslim Brotherhood – mentions the ‘sea’ and ‘Jews’ in the same sentence - while calling to expel the Jews from Egypt,” Hezkani wrote.

“The quote [used by Yemini and attributed to ex-Secretary General of the Arab League in Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam] is not backed by credible sources in Arabic, and it’s unclear whether or not it was actually ever said.”

I read the Haaretz article and could not believe my eyes. In the book I published titled “Industry of Lies,” I presented a more detailed list of threats made against the Jews, with credible sources, during that time period.

But, Hezkani looked into hundreds of documents and somehow found nothing. It’s a little weird that I did not spent 15 years researching this topic in an academic setting, yet found so much more information. To clear all doubts, prior to publishing the research-backed chapters of my book, they were reviewed by three prominent academics.

It could be that Hezkani has difficulty reading books. So, let’s start with the leader of the Palestinian Arabs, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who in 1941 arrived at Nazi Germany and called to kill every Jew, before returning to lead the Palestinians.

If Hezkani believes that al-Husseini had changed his mind later on, he should refer us to the relevant sources. In an interview to the “Al Sarih” newspaper, al-Husseini said the Arab goal during the 1948 War of Independence wasn’t to undo the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, but to “continue to fight until the Zionists are dead.”

Hadley Freeman: It sucks to be a Jew on the left

As Hadley Freeman leaves the Guardian for the Sunday Times, she opens up about her Jewish experience

Honestly, what a dumpster fire that whole period was, to the point that it’s almost hard to remember what actually happened. But just off the top of my head, here is a list of things I remember lefty non-Jews saying to me back then:
1. “I don’t think you should write about antisemitism because you obviously feel very passionately about it.”
2. “What, exactly, are Jews afraid of here? It’s not like Corbyn is going to bring back pogroms.”
3. “Jews have always voted right so of course, they don’t like Corbyn.”
4. “It’s not that I don’t believe that you think he’s antisemitic. It’s just I think you’re being manipulated by bad-faith actors. So let me explain why you’re wrong…”
5. “Come on, you don’t really think he really hates Jews.”

All of the above were said to me by progressive people, people who would proudly describe themselves as anti-racism campaigners. And yet. When Jews expressed distress at, say, Corbyn describing Hamas as “friends”, or attending a wreath-laying ceremony for the killers at the Munich Olympics, or bemoaning the lack of English irony among Zionists, we were fobbed off with snarky tweets and shrugged shoulders.

What we were seeing, they said, we were not actually seeing. You could not design an exercise more perfectly structured to cause madness. It was, to be blunt, gaslighting.

Anyway, that’s all in the past now, right? Well it is for me, because I’m walking away. A lot of illusions were broken, and I lost a lot of respect for a lot of people I thought I knew, but it turned out I didn’t. Not really. Not at all. So I have left the garden. And it feels bloody great. (h/t messy57)

A rock star channels Jewish outrage at antisemitism

The antisemitic utterances of Kyrie Irving and Ye (formerly Kanye West) prompted condemnations from many celebrities, both those with Jewish backgrounds and those who weren’t Jewish but who issued solemn pledges of support for their Jewish friends and colleagues. Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon went as far as to tweet, “This is a very scary time,” to which one follower chimed in with an anti-Israel rejoinder.

Solemnity, however, unexpectedly yielded to outrage at the annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Los Angeles. What was no doubt expected to be one of the evening’s least momentous junctures, the honoring of lawyer-agent Allen Grubman, turned into a consciousness-raising session when rock star John Mellencamp took the stage for a profanity-laden introduction speech.

“Allen is Jewish, and I bring that up for one reason,” Mellencamp said. “I’m a gentile, and my life has been enriched by countless Jewish people.”

Mellencamp then turned it up a notch. “I cannot tell you how f***ing important it is to speak out if you’re an artist against antisemitism,” he continued. “Here’s the trick: Silence is complicity. I’m standing here tonight loudly and proudly with Allen, his family and all of my Jewish friends and all of the Jewish people of the world. F*** antisemitism!”

Whoa.

What was surprising about Mellencamp’s speech was not his principled stance, but the sheer indignation and the unbottled emotion that gave voice to it. For millions of Jews who have fearfully observed the growing normalization of antisemitic motifs in today’s popular culture, such a righteous outburst was surely a welcome surprise, but it begged a question for the entertainment industry: “Where have you been until now?”

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Various Moroccan media report:

On Saturday, the Moroccan Jewish community held prayers for rain in all synagogues in the Kingdom, praying to the Almighty to bestow rain on the country.

A communiqué of the Council of Jewish Communities in Morocco stated that holding the rain prayer comes in implementation of the lofty instructions of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, may God grant him victory.

In its communiqué, the Council stated that, in implementation of the high instructions of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, the rain prayer was held on Saturday, December 3, 2022, in all temples in the Kingdom, as a request from the Almighty to grant relief to all parts of the Kingdom.

It is noteworthy that on November 29, the prayer for rain was held in chapels and mosques in the various regions and regions of the Kingdom, in implementation of the Royal Mawlawi order of the Commander of the Faithful, His Majesty King Mohammed VI, in accordance with the Sunnah of his grandfather, the Chosen One, may God bless him and grant him peace, in praying for rain whenever the rain withheld.

Rain was forecast this week, so maybe the Jewish prayers are more effective than the Muslim ones.

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

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