Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Egyptian Salafist leader complains that Muslims love "Jew" Lionel Messi

Egyptian Salafi preacher Hatem Al-Howaini, who has 229,000 Twitter followers, tweeted his displeasure at Muslims supporting soccer star Lionel Messi.

Tweeting photos of Messi when he visited the Kotel in Jerusalem, Al-Howaini complained, "Unfortunately, most of the Muslim youth (except for those who have mercy on God) love this Jew Messi!!"

He continued, "Pay attention guys; This love strikes the doctrine of loyalty to Muslims and disavowal of polytheism and its people in killing, and one is with the one he loves; as the Prophet, peace be upon him,"

"May we not forget; Your love for him betrays the purity of your faith," Al Howaini followed up.

His followers tried to politely tell him that Messi is a Christian, and some said that they liked him as a player, not as a human, comparing Messi to admiring a non-Muslim military commander's strategy.

One explained that Messi, like all visitors, put on a kipah as a sign of respect to visit the Kotel, and that "Football, like every other thing in the world, is managed by the Jews, unfortunately."

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!

12/11 Links: Did Thomas Friedman miss his chance in Hevron?; Kanye West named 2022 Antisemite of the Year; Saudi FM: 'All bets off' if Iran gets nuclear weapon

From Ian:

The Biden Administration's Hostility to Israel

The January 28, 2021 appointment as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs of Hady Amr, a man who wrote "I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada" and who falsely accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing," was a significant step that promised the worst.

Two days before that, the Biden administration not only restored relations with the Palestinian Authority, but resumed most of the financial aid that had been suspended by the Trump administration -- but they failed to ask the Palestinian leaders to stop financing and supporting terrorism.

The Biden administration also announced its willingness to return to a basically fictitious "two-state solution."

A speech by Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills, announcing these decisions, defined the "settlements" as "an obstacle to peace". He left out that many Palestinians regard the entire state of Israel as one big settlement to be dismantled.

Since then, any construction of homes in the existing Israeli suburbs has been condemned by the State Department in the strongest terms. By contrast, the Biden administration has never made the slightest remark concerning the massive illegal Palestinian construction intended to create "facts on the ground" or "land grabs" in both the West Bank and Israel's Negev desert.

On a more deadly front, on July 14, 2022, Biden signed a Joint Declaration on the US-Israel Strategic Partnership, and promised he would "never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon". Since the first days of coming to power, however, on January 29, 2021, the Biden administration has done its utmost to reach a new "nuclear deal" with Iran's mullahs that would enable them to have not only nuclear weapons, but up to $1 trillion dollars, which would quite certainly not be used for human rights.

America's negotiators -- led by Robert Malley and Russia, mediating supposedly on behalf of the US, as the Americans are not even allowed in the room -- have not stopped making concessions.

Seth Frantzman: Why the Twitter files revelations are important

It is at this point that the public and elected officials need to scrutinize these companies more. While social media giants might think they are serving the public good by clamping down on “misinformation,” what happens when they make mistakes? What happens if authoritarian regimes are able to find a way into the data?

This is an important question in a world of rising authoritarianism. Social media giants were told after the 2016 US election that they could be victims of foreign governments meddling in future elections. It was under that guise that these tech giants prevented the sharing of a controversial story about a laptop in 2020.

The problem for the public is that it’s very difficult to get any information on what these tech giants are doing, and to challenge their decisions.

The files hint at how some decisions that were made were arbitrary. It will take time to know what other kinds of decisions were made.

This matters when it comes to controversial subjects discussed on social media as well as things like incitement and antisemitism.

Regardless of a person’s political stance, people should want to know how those companies that sit astride most of the information that exists in the world today are operating and whether users will ever get the transparency they deserve.

David Singer: Did Thomas Friedman miss his chance in Hevron?

Friedman was surprised when he dared mention his idea to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de facto ruler – Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - at a dinner a few days later

“After I laid out this idea, the crown prince looked at me with mock astonishment and said, ''Have you broken into my desk?''

''No,'' I said, wondering what he was talking about...

''... I have drafted a speech along those lines. My thinking was to deliver it before the Arab summit and try to mobilize the entire Arab world behind it. The speech is written, and it is in my desk.”

Friedman then proffered this advice to the Crown Prince:
“I suggested to the crown Prince that if he felt so strongly about this idea, even in draft form, why not put it on the record -- only then would anyone take it seriously. He said he would think about it. The next day his office called, reviewed the crown prince's quotations and said, Go ahead, put them on the record. So here they are.”

Thus was born the Friedman-inspired 2002 Arab Peace Initiative - which has gone nowhere in the last 20 years.

The 2022 Saudi Plan - authored by Ali Shihabi - a close confidant of Saudi Arabia’s current Crown Prince and de facto ruler – Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) – shreds Friedman’s 2002 idea – offering in its place a drastically different solution to end the 100 years-old Jewish-Arab conflict - if negotiations to implement it are successfully completed.

Yet Friedman has not written one word about Shihabi’s proposal in the six months since its publication – despite my personal request to him to do so. Sour grapes perhaps?

However why has the NYT not informed its readers of this Saudi Plan - that also offers Israel sole sovereignty in Jerusalem and in part of Judea and Samaria ('West Bank')? If that’s not front page news – what is?

Could a well-resourced NYT investigative journalist with Saudi contacts find out whether a plan similar to Shihabi’s is in MBS’s desk or ask MBS directly whether he endorses Shihabi’s plan?

Thomas Friedman and Kathleen Kingsbury – some answers and an op-ed please.

While the Arab world is trying to claim Morocco's success at the World Cup is a victory for Palestinians, Moroccan media itself has remained pro-Israel, as it has been since the normalization agreement was signed.

Hespress, the most popular Moroccan news site, published an article today about Miss Morocco 2021 and her visit to Israel for the 2021 Miss Universe pageant.

Kawthar Benhalima, Miss Morocco 2021, discussed how there was a lot of criticism towards having the pageant in Israel on social media, and in Algerian media. Her grandmother came from Algeria.

Benhalima discussed her walking through Jerusalem, which she described as the city of peace despite the conflict, noting that there are houses of worship for all religions there, and expressing her hopes that only peace will prevail.

She explained that Moroccan Jews in Israel express their pride in their origins, and she received a special welcome from them, noting that this feeling prompted her to read about the history of Moroccan Jews.

Benhalima related that she was invited to a dinner party along with Miss Universe 2020, Miss USA, and Miss Israel, at the house of the mayor of Eilat, where the pageant was held. The mayor's wife was born in Morocco and she prepared a selection of Moroccan dishes for the meal as she discussed her childhood.

An article like this would have been unfathomable before the Abraham Accords.

While there are many anti-Israel comments on the article, we also see this:

I remember two years ago, when the name Israel was mentioned on this newspaper, commentators would come out insulting and cursing.
Glory be to God, the changer of conditions and the prank of hearts, the Moroccan has become a day that does not shy away from praising and enlarging the Zionist state.

Bravo, these are the Moroccan women, the beautiful movements, who do not pay any attention to the hatred of the racist Arabists and the extremist Islamists. I, in turn, and most Moroccans dream of visiting this brotherly country, and there is no consolation for the haters.

Bravo to you, you have honored your dear country, Morocco, despite the nose of envious people, haters and enemies. The proud Moroccan people know the friend from the enemy.

Hespress is not associated with the Moroccan government, so this is an independent news site that chooses to publish articles that praise Israel and 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!

Al Quds reports that Palestinian terror groups who depend mainly on funding from Iran are suffering from a financial crisis, which is affecting their ability to pay their salaries and operations.

According to the report, the cash from Iran dried up about three months ago - the same time that the current Iranian protests erupted.

The financial crisis affects Palestinian groups in the West Bank and even abroad, but especially factions in Gaza where there has been a clear inability to meet operational budgets, even at the minimum level, to meet the needs of these groups, including their media.

The article specifically calls out Fatah-linked groups and organizations in Gaza as being affected; for some reason it doesn't mention Hamas and Islamic Jihad which are known to receive large amounts of funding from Iran.

The US and Canada announced additional sanctions on Iran on Friday. Iranian currency hit a new low today vs. the US dollar.

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!

75 years ago: Jews in Arab countries in grave danger

Continuing looking at the newspapers from 75 years ago in the wake of the UN Partition vote.

From the Manchester Guardian, December 10, 1947:

From the Palestine Post, December 11, 1947:

Commentary magazine summarized the pogrom in Aden a few months later:

In the riots that broke out suddenly last December 2 after the decision of the United Nations in favor of partition in Palestine, and following an appeal of the Arab League for a three-day strike of protest in all Arab countries, over eighty Jews were killed and as many seriously wounded. Fourteen Jewish houses were burnt to the ground, and many more were looted. Of one hundred and seventy Jewish shops and stores, over a hundred were burnt or looted and the two Jewish schools were burnt out.

It is alleged that the greatest part of the casualties was caused by the military force, the Aden Protectorate Levies, which were called in by the civil authority when the police were unable to deal with the mob. The Aden Levies are composed of Arab tribesmen with British and Arab officers. It was apparently asking too much for them to take firm action against Arab looters attacking Jewish houses and shops. They soon turned to take an active part themselves in the looting and shooting of 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!

12/10 Links: Eighty years since Tunisian Jews were rounded up by the Nazis; Vigil honors victims of 2019 antisemitic shooting in Jersey City

From Ian:

Eighty years since Tunisian Jews were rounded up by the Nazis

December 9 1942 marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Jews of Tunisia. The Germans occupied the country the previous month, and 5,000 Jewish males were marched off to forced labour camps. There was little that the Jewish community could do to resist this colossal force. France 24 commemorates 80 years since the first round-up:

Moncef Bey: signed every antisemitic decree
On December 9, 1942, when Tunisia had been occupied for a month by the Germans, 3,000 Jewish men over the age of 18 were ordered to do forced labour, but only 120 men showed up. The occupier then ordered a round-up. Nearly 5,000 Jews were sent to forced labor in camps where they suffered ill-treatment.

“While the chief of SS rants, I mentally take stock of the situation, ” recalled community leader Paul Ghez.” We feel very small before the colossal force which has been unleashed. I look to my right at the pitiful group of gloomy and silent prisoners. I can make out the beard of the rabbi, I see a child shivering with fear.” On December 9, 1942, Paul Guez, head of the Jewish community in Tunis, turned out to be quite powerless. While the German occupier conducted the round-up in the Tunisian capital, the Jews could not put up any resistance. Nearly 5,000 Jews were sent to forced labor camps.

This date marks a turning point. Until then, the Jews of Tunisia, about 90,000 people, had not suffered such persecution. Since the establishment of the Vichy regime, however, they were the object of anti-Semitic measures, according to the Statut des juifs promulgated in France in October 1940. “In this statute, article 9 stipulates that it is applicable in the countries of the protectorate”, explains the historian Claude Nataf, president of the Society for the History of the Jews of Tunisia (SHJT). “But for a draft law to be applicable in Tunisia, it must have the seal of the bey (the Tunisian sovereign)”, he says.

At the time, Ahmed II Bey ruled the country. “He is an old man who will die two years later. He is more concerned about his legacy and what he will bequeath to his children. He does not want to come into conflict with the Resident General of France, especially on the Jewish question”, says Claude Nataf. The statute was therefore introduced on November 30, 1940 and excluded Jews in public service and in the press, radio, theater and cinema. However, it turned out to be “more moderate” than in mainland France, according to the historian, since a second statue exempting certain professions was promulgated in June 1941.

The Adas Affair

The life and death of the richest Jew in Iraq

A woman makes a frantic journey from the southern city of Basra to the Royal Palace in Baghdad. Her name is Aliza (Alice) Adas. She is Shafiq Adas’s wife and will soon be his widow. Waiting for her inside the palace is the Hashemite prince Emir ‘Abd al-Ilah, the head of the Iraqi Royal Family. She genuflects before him, falling to the ground and kissing his feet. Little does she know in this moment that hanging in the balance is not only her husband’s life, but also the fate of the whole Jewish community.

It was September 1948. Together with her husband Shafiq, 40-year-old Aliza had brought into the world three sons (Zaki, Victor, and Sabah) and three daughters (Dolly, Vicky, and Stella). In this couple, Aliza was the local one, the daughter of a wealthy family engaged in the tea and sugar trades. Shafiq was born in Aleppo, Syria, and had followed his eldest brother Avraham to Iraq to try his luck in business after the First World War, in which Iraq was conquered by the empire on which the sun had not yet set. Iraq was a whole new world for them, a place of boundless business opportunities. Aliza had a broad face and sharp features, and her posture hinted at her hands-on disposition. Despite having been born and raised in Baghdad and speaking flawless Arabic, she was entirely illiterate in the language. Nevertheless, she had a masterful grasp of English and French, as expected among the Jewish elite in Iraq in that era.

The Emir, for his part, was much weaker than he appeared. Perhaps the most eccentric figure in the Iraqi Royal Family, ‘Abd al-Ilah knew that the opportunities facing him were extremely limited. Ever since his brother-in-law, King Ghazi, had been killed in a gruesome car accident at the entrance of the Royal Palace in Bagdad nine years earlier—a telegraph pole had fallen on his race car and sliced his head in two—the Emir had served as the formal head of the Iraqi state, since the legal heir, Ghazi’s son Faisal, was only four years old. As Queen Aliya’s brother, living with her in the palace, ‘Abd al-Ilah also became the interim head of the royal household, with the title of regent.

This regent had never managed to endear himself to the Iraqi people, most of whom saw him as a pro-British collaborator. He was a gazelle-like figure, wrote a British diplomat, with large eyes, a prominent forehead, and an oval face. His choice to fill his guestroom with photographs of the British Royal Family, and the fact that his main hobby was horseback riding, added nothing to his popularity. He once questioned how Arab he truly was at all. The rumors about his suspected homosexual tendencies did little to help him, either.

Vigil honors victims of 2019 antisemitic shooting in Jersey City

A vigil was held in Jersey City Thursday night to remember the victims of a 2019 antisemitic shooting.

At the vigil commemorating the three years since the deadly shooting at a local kosher grocery store, NJ First Lady Tammy Murphy said, "Detective Joseph Seals, Mindy Ferentz, Moshe Deutsh, Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, and Michael Rumberger. They were spouses, parents, children, neighbors and friends."

Investigators say two gunmen, 47-year-old David Anderson and 50-year-old Francine Graham, killed 13-year veteran Detective Joseph Seals.

They then targeted the Jewish deli and killed three people inside the store including 24-year-old Moshe Deutsch, 49-year-old Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, and 31-year-old Mindy Ferencz.

Later, investigators determined the pair had killed a fifth victim, who was their Uber driver, Michael Rumberger.

Police shot and killed both of the suspects.

Everyone who saw the scene that night or that next day will never forget how much worse it could have been.

As horrifying as the attack was three years ago, it was far from an isolated event. In fact, the experts say it was just a drop from of their hatred.

In early 2020, officials said there was evidence that the suspects had been planning the attack for months.

The gunman allegedly checked out the JC Kosher Market on Martin Luther King Drive on at least two occasions and entered the store during one of them, even driving by the business twice on the day of the shootings.

In the years since these lives were lost, antisemitism has been on the rise.

12/09 Links Pt2: The Toxic Stew of Anti-Semitism; Can J Street still get away with pretending to be ‘pro-Israel’?; Rep. Ritchie Torres: ‘Holocaust deniers are the scum of the Earth’

From Ian:

The Toxic Stew of Anti-Semitism

Jew haters use the code words of "Zionists" and "Zionism" to condemn Israel, when what they're really voicing is their hatred of Jews and Judaism. Thinly-disguised hatred of Israel has helped to fuel anti-Semitism, to the point where many synagogues now arrange to have police officers on duty outside their places of worship during the high holidays.

It's become a necessary precaution, given that Jews were once again the most targeted religious group for hate crimes in Canada last year, according to Statistics Canada data. To pretend that hatred of Jews isn't linked to hatred of Israel is absurd. As the late British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, head of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, wrote, this is just the latest example of how anti-Semitism survives by mutating over time.

Today, with human rights the paradigm, Israel is falsely accused of being the world's worst human rights violator - including at the UN General Assembly - which every year passes more resolutions condemning Israel than all other nations on earth, combined. Selectively holding Israel to a higher standard of moral behavior than any other country is anti-Semitism.

Jonathan Tobin: Can J Street still get away with pretending to be ‘pro-Israel’?

In order to be pro-Israel, you don’t have to support Netanyahu, the Likud Party or his new government. You can hope for Israel’s defeated left-wing factions eventually to prevail.

You can dream of a two-state solution with a peaceful, progressive and democratic Palestinian-Arab state living in harmony beside Israel (even though, in order to harbor the fantasy, you have to ignore the workings of Palestinian politics and a culture that glorifies the shedding of Jewish blood, and war to the death against Zionism).

But you can’t really be really be considered pro-Israel if, like J Street, you declare that Israel’s voters, the vast majority of whom have long since rejected the land-for-peace myth for the foreseeable future, don’t have the right to decide their country’s future.

You can’t be considered pro-Israel if, like J Street, your purpose is to promote policies that Israelis oppose, and back the use of brutal pressure and the threat of aid cutbacks to get your way.

You can’t be considered pro-Israel if, like J Street, your goal is to promote appeasement of despotic, terrorist-supporting Iranian regime that has as its stated goal the elimination of Israel.

You can’t be considered pro-Israel if, like J Street, your campus groups and many of your activists make common cause with antisemitic BDS groups whose goal is Israel’s destruction.

You can’t be considered pro-Israel if, like J Street, you support intersectional ideology, which gives a permission slip to antisemitism and depicts Israel as a “white” country that is an “apartheid state.”

Strip away the thin veneer of liberal Zionism that it still seeks to maintain, and all you have is a group that exists to wage political war on Israel’s democratic leadership, to force it to bend to policies imposed by Democrats. Ultimately, this makes it too radical an organization to be supportive of a relative moderate like Blinken, in an administration whose lower echelons are composed of doctrinaire leftists far more hostile to Israel than those at the top. It’s nevertheless a dangerous foe that’s in sync with the intersectional progressives who view Netanyahu as the head of an illegitimate red-state nation.

J Street is irrelevant to what is happening in Jerusalem. But with the far-Left on the rise among Democrats, those who are interested in building support for the Jewish state need to regard the organization as a malevolent and treacherous enemy, whose malign influence is a genuine threat to the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Congressman Ritchie Torres: ‘Holocaust deniers are the scum of the Earth’

You are known for your love of Israel, and you have been noted for not joining other progressives such as ‘the squad,’ why?

I'm independent and I call myself a pragmatic, pro-Israel progressive; I come to my own conclusions. You know, my view is people should be careful not to rush to judgment against Israel, that before rushing to judgment you should actually go to Israel and speak to both Israelis and Palestinians, and within Israel speak to both Jews and Arabs and listen to a variety of perspectives and then come to your own conclusions.

But what I often find is that people who know nothing about Israel, who know nothing about the region, have some of the strongest opinions and are quick to demonize Israel as a Jewish state, and so much of the criticism comes not only from malice but also from just sheer ignorance.

A few years ago, the New York City Democratic Socialists of America circulated a questionnaire to city council candidates, and it was about 14 pages and on the final page it was a foreign policy section. And the foreign policy section only had two questions. Question number one: Do you pledge never to visit Israel if elected to the city council? And question number two: Do you pledge to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement? And I found that question to be blatantly antisemitic, but it also was telling because there's nothing that the BDS Movement fears more than people actually going to Israel and seeing the truth with their own eyes, rather than allowing themselves to be brainwashed by the propaganda that is amplified on social media.

Speaking of propaganda, what do you say to Holocaust deniers?

To Holocaust deniers? Holocaust deniers are the scum of the earth. I think the Holocaust is one of the greatest atrocities ever perpetrated in humankind. It has left deep scars, not only in the Jewish community but on humanity. Anyone who denies it is engaged in a profound evil. I have no patience, no tolerance for Holocaust denial – it's the worst form of conspiracy theory.

Nazih Khatatba, general director and editor of Ontario-based Arabic newspaper Meshwar, writes in Wattan.net:

I am a Palestinian Canadian journalist. Our newspaper, Mishwar, is published in Arabic and distributed in the Ontario region, especially Toronto. We have the right to attend any event, especially if it is related to Palestine and the Middle East. We are not anti-Semitic, and we have not spoken badly about Jews in Canada or other countries. Rather, we criticize the Israeli occupation policy and stand with the Palestinian people. Those who accuse us of “anti-Semitism” without evidence are themselves supporting and protecting the Israeli occupation that commits daily murders against Palestinians.

He is especially upset at Honest Reporting Canada, which has exposed his and his newspaper's words publicly.

So here are some of their highlights:

Accusing Jews of dual loyalty:

The vast majority of ambassadors and mediators the US administration sends to the Middle East are Zionists and hold Israeli citizenship, and they owe more loyalty to this entity [Israel] than the US itself, including the US envoy Amos Hochstein [who was assigned] to negotiate with Lebanon on the demarcation of the region’s maritime borders and gas resources. He is not considered a mediator but rather a negotiator for the occupation entity more than his leaders. He is trying to play on the factor of time and procrastination, buying the debts of some loyal Lebanese leaders and activating the role of pawns to pressure Hizbollah. Still, this game that succeeded with the Palestinian Authority will not gain success with [Hassan] Nasrallah [leader of Hezbollah].

(Hochstein is not a dual national.)

Casting doubt on the Holocaust:

Why are the Zionist organizations afraid of opening the Holocaust file, preventing researchers from approaching it, and protecting it with strict laws that threaten those who come near it with imprisonment, prosecution, and even dismissal from work? Is it possible that they are hiding something, and we do not know?

Crazy antisemitic conspiracy theories:

Some world leaders in the West, who belong to the Zionist-Masonic movement, have already long ago drawn their plans to divide the Arab homeland in order that the Zionist-Masonic generations will inherit it generation after generation.

All aforementioned details confirm without a doubt that there is today an actual track to implement the Zionist -American enterprise, which is aiming at weakening Iraq and Syria, to tear them apart and to fragment them as a basis to tear apart and fragment the entire Arab region. This also confirms without a doubt that the goal of the attack, which the entire Arab region and areas are subject to, is basically to tear apart this region in order to serve the colonial Zionist -American enterprise.

And in 2015, it published an article that said that killing is ingrained in the Jewish faith.

Sounds pretty antisemitic to me!

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!

12/09 Links Pt1: A tale of two narratives; Melanie Phillips: The Good Jew/Bad Jew demonization strategy; Are Israeli-Australian ties in danger?; Bibi: What Rashida Tlaib Doesn't Seem to Know

From Ian:

A tale of two narratives

At the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies a clash of two narratives.

On the one hand the stirring, fact-based Zionist narrative, on the other, the openly conceded fabricated “Palestinian” narrative—which as one senior PLO official openly admitted “serves only tactical purposes”, and whose sole purpose is to function as “a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.”

Although enormous international efforts have been invested in futile endeavors to portray these two narratives as reconcilable, the truth is that they are inherently and incontrovertibly mutually exclusive. Either one of them will prevail, absolutely and exclusively, or the other will.

The reason for this unfortunate impasse is—as is becoming ever clearer with the passage of time--that Palestinian-Arab enmity toward a Jewish state does not arise from anything the Jews, do, but from what the Jews are.

This enmity, therefore, can only be dissipated if the Jews cease to be.

Successive Israeli governments, cowered by left-leaning civil society elites, have refused to articulate this "inconvenient truth", and refrained from formulating policy that takes it adequately into account.

Accordingly, they have perpetuated the myth that there is some fictional "middle ground", which, if found, would leave both sides not totally un-aggrieved ", but still tolerably satisfied enough to eschew violence.

Melanie Phillips: The Good Jew/Bad Jew demonization strategy

One of the favorite strategies deployed by Jew-baiters is to divide the community into Good Jews and Bad Jews.

Good Jews have politically correct, progressive opinions. Jews who don’t hold with those opinions are Bad Jews.

This distinction is helpful to Israel-bashers, who can use it to claim that they can’t possibly hate the Jews because there are Jews who support their hostility to Israel.

The White House this week hosted a round table on antisemitism to discuss the alarming escalation in attacks on American Jews. Yet the Biden administration conspicuously failed to invite to this discussion the Zionist Organization of America, the Coalition for Jewish Values and the Jewish Leadership Project.

These organizations defend Israel and the Jewish people against left-wing ideologies. They are therefore Bad Jews.

Sadly, this odious Good Jew/Bad Jew trope is now being promoted within the Jewish world itself.

Both in Israel and the Diaspora, progressive Jews have been convulsed over the composition of the new government being assembled by Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is because he is handing out government positions to three highly controversial lawmakers.

The rabble-rouser Itamar Ben-Gvir is set to become minister of national security.

Bezalel Smotrich, who hankers after an Israeli theocracy, will reportedly be a junior defense minister with certain powers over the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria.

Avi Maoz, whose party opposes LGBTQ rights and other progressive causes, is apparently being given control over outside input into the school curriculum and a new office devoted to “Jewish identity.”

This has produced epic pearl-clutching by Diaspora Jews, who are falling over themselves to announce that they might now withhold their support from Israel. Such hysteria also promotes the Good Jew/Bad Jew agenda.

Caroline Glick: Lapid and friends use demonization to incite a civil war

Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid has never been a high-minded politician. During his five months in power as caretaker prime minister, he tried to get the only non-leftist television station in the country thrown off the air. He called his political opponents and their voters “s**ts,” and “forces of darkness,” who have no right to exercise their legal right to oversee the actions of his lame duck government.

In the leadup to the elections, he accused Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu of being anti-democratic and warned that Netanyahu would not accept the election results if he lost.

As is invariably the case with progressive elitists like Lapid and his colleagues, it turns out that it is they who reject the basic rules of democracy and refuse to accept the results of the elections. Rather than accept that they received a drubbing at the polls and will spend the next four-and-a-half years in the opposition, Lapid and his comrades have doubled down on their demonization. They use their slanders of Netanyahu and his colleagues to raise the barricades and call for civil war.

Lapid’s opening volley came last Wednesday during the official annual memorial ceremony for Israel’s first premier, David Ben-Gurion. In his speech, Lapid used Ben-Gurion as a means to justify the statements and actions he took in the days that followed. Lapid did two things in his address: First, he totally distorted Ben-Gurion and what he stood for, and then he used his imaginary Ben-Gurion as a foil to demonize Netanyahu and his coalition partners.

Ben-Gurion, of course was the leader of the Zionist revolution. He was a Jewish nationalist. He led the settlement of the Land of Israel before and after the establishment of the state. He built and led the IDF in two wars. He defied the American Jewish leadership and transformed Israel into the voice of the Jewish people and the center of Jewish life worldwide.

From Algemeiner:

More than 200 artists have signed a statement pledging to boycott Finland’s leading gallery of contemporary art because of its links with a Finnish-Israeli philanthropist, in a move denounced as “antisemitic” by the Bishop of Helsinki and other public figures.

In the statement, the signatories pledged to “refuse to sell our labor and art” to the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki as long as it maintained links with the Zabludowicz Art Trust, an initiative of Chaim “Poju” Zabludowicz, a London-based billionaire who holds dual Finnish and Israeli citizenship.

Responding to the statement on Thursday, Helsinki’s Lutheran Bishop charged the artists with having adopted an antisemitic stance.

“If an individual Jew is held responsible for the actions of the state of Israel, or if an individual Jew is prohibited from supporting Israel, or if Israel as a state is required to do something more than other democratic states, we are guilty of antisemitism,” Bishop Teemu Laajasalo told Finland’s Helsingin Sanomat news outlet.

In a separate tweet, Laajasalo commented that “antisemitism has many faces. A neo-Nazi or an Islamist is identifiable. It is more difficult to recognize the Jew-hatred of the Academy or [among] culture workers.”

What, exactly, are the boycotters accusing Zabludowicz of?

Artforum writes:

Citing Zabludoiwcz Art Trust cofounder Chaim (Poju) Zabludowicz’s position as CEO of the private investment organization Tamares Group—a company founded by his father that indirectly supports the Israeli state via its stake in Knafaim, a provider of maintenance services to the Israeli Air Force—BDZ accuses the art trust and its subsidiaries (including the Zabludowicz Collection, Zabludowicz Art Projects in London, and Daata Editions) of “artwashing” what it describes as Israeli state policies of racism and apartheid by using “art and cultural activities in the UK to enhance the image of Israel.”

There is no doubt that Zabludowicz is a Zionist. But the boycotters need to exaggerate links between the museum and the IDF to justify boycotting the entire museum, so here is how they inflate it.

The Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art has eleven board members. One is Zabludoiwcz.

He is the head of many institutions, including owning a hockey team. He has given millions to art initiatives as well as medical research. He is also head of the Tamares holding company, which mostly invests in real estate (it owns 40% of downtown Las Vegas.)

Tamares has equity stakes in at least 25 companies covering a wide range of interests, including entertainment and technology. One of them is Kanafaim, which is in turn another holding company that has four business units, including El Al Airlines and Maintenance Wings. The latter provides maintenance services for the Israel Air Force.

This is a minuscule part of his holdings and the relationship between the museum, Zabludowicz's art ventures and Maintenance Wings is nonexistent.

Boycotting the museum because of this tenuous link makes as much sense as boycotting every company that includes Vanguard Funds as one of its major investors because Vanguard also invests in defense contractors.

Anyone can find an excuse to boycott any Jew they want if they look hard enough for a reason. And that is exactly what the boycotters here are doing - including every one of the 200 artists.

Every major art gallery and museum can find a patron that also invests in companies that are involved with ventures that some will consider unethical - if one is willing to dig for them.

But the interest in finding such links begins and ends with rich Jews.

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This week, Chinese president Xi Jinping is in Saudi Arabia for a Saudi-Chinese summit, a China-Arab summit and a China-GCC summit.

He met with 14 Arab leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas.

I've seen some Western media urge the Arab leaders to bring up the persecution of Muslim Uyghurs with Xi. But the topic has been completely missing from Arabic language media (outside of Arabic language services of Western media.)

And, of course, there is no indication that any Arab Muslim leader has said a word to Xi about the topic.

This is causing no end of frustration to Uyghur human rights advocates.

Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich, Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, or WUC, said China is not only committing genocide against the Uyghur Muslims, but also has declared war on Islam.

“It is completely unacceptable that the leaders of the Muslim world will sit with China’s dictator on the same stage and just talk about business and cooperation by turning a blind eye to China’s attack on Islam,” he told Radio Free Asia.

Gheyyur Qurban, office director of WUC’s Berlin office said countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran not only have remained silent on the Uyghur genocide, but also have supported the Chinese government’s position, even at the U.N. at the expense of their fellow Uyghur Muslims.

“It is extremely disappointing to see Saudi leaders who claim to be the Protector of the Two Holy Cities receive Xi Jinping, the main culprit of Uyghur genocide, with pompous ceremonies and allow him to hold summits with Mideast leaders to expand China’s infiltration and influence in the heart of Islamic world,” he told RFA.

China is Saudi Arabia's top trading partner, and the kingdom serves as a vital source of crude oil for China.

I could find only a handful of news articles that mention the Uyghur issue in Arabic over the past year - and not one headline. I could not find a single Arabic op-ed that was even mildly critical of China before or during these summits.

The contrast between how the Arab world covers the Palestinian issue - with front page articles every day about Jews quietly visiting the Temple Mount - couldn't be any starker. There have been hundreds of articles about pro-Palestinian fans in Qatar for the World Cup, and practically nothing about the UN releasing a (late, relatively short and subdued) report in September saying China may be committing crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.

Clearly, the Arab world's fixation on the Palestinians is not about concern over their fellow Muslims. A million Muslims in detention camps is simply a non-issue, and China is not considered a persecutor of Muslims, but an ally.

The fixation of Arab media and the Arab public on Israel has nothing to do with support for Palestinians. It has everything to do with hate for Jews.

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Al Jazeera writes about a project funded by the British Library and the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library to restore a volume of fatwas by Sheikh Othman al-Tabbaa, of Gaza, written in 1904.

The article features this fatwa by the sheikh not to sell land to Jews:

About 118 years ago, Sheikh Othman al-Tabbaa, one of the notables of the city of Gaza, issued a fatwa prohibiting “selling lands to Jews directly or through traitorous brokers, because it weakens the physical and moral strength of Muslims and strengthens the enemies of the nation and the homeland, (especially) when it appears that their intention is to exterminate patriots as a whole, and to take over their countries and homelands by various means, just as it is not permissible to support or support them.”

And the Jews referred to, according to the fatwa of Sheikh al-Tabbaa, “were not people of dhimma, security, and they had no covenant from the caliph of the Muslims, but rather they were deviants and vagabonds from the horizons, so it is not permissible to empower them from the homes of Muslims and sell them lands whose price was the blood of the mujahideen heroes, as well as the prohibition of brokering and mediating in selling to them, Rather, it appeared that the harm of the brokers is more severe than the harm of the Jews themselves, because they guide them to every path that will help them reach their goals and facilitate obstacles for them.

Al-Tabbaa supported his fatwa with what was established in the books of the four schools of thought that “it is forbidden to sell to the people of war and sedition that which strengthens them in war, such as weapons and horses, and it is not carried to them even after reconciliation, and selling land and mediating in it to them is more severe and harmful than selling weapons and horses, and whoever does not adhere to his religion and act according to his orders. He avoids his prohibitions and pretends to commit what is prohibited by Sharia, so he is an avowed immoral person who must be insulted and boycotted.”

Al Jazeera is positioning this sheikh as a hero, who saw the danger of the Jews early and sounded the alarm not to sell land to the "deviants and vagabonds" who were Jews.

The manuscript should be preserved, because it is a very nice example of Muslim Jew-hatred from the early 20th century. I'm not so certain that this is what the British Library and HMMI have in mind, though, when they spend money to preserve it. I think they just think that this was an important scholar whose words should continue to be studied.

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12/08 Links Pt2: Does Europe Support This? Al-Haq Tells the World to Dismantle Israel; BBC faces parliamentary probe over its coverage of Jews and Israel

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Does Europe Support This? Al-Haq Tells the World to Dismantle Israel

On November 29, 2022, the Palestinian NGO Al-Haq published yet another antisemitic screed dedicated to denying the Jewish people sovereign equality, by defining Zionism and the State of Israel as inherently illegitimate. For 200 pages, the Palestinian NGO – designated as a terrorist entity by Israel in October 2021 over its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization – extorts the international community to dismantle the Jewish State. To achieve this goal, Al-Haq absurdly distorts Israeli policy and practice beyond recognition, and misrepresents international legal standards.

Central to Al-Haq’s publication is the repetition of the claim that Israel’s existence as a Jewish State represents “apartheid.” This assertion was debunked in NGO Monitor’s 2021 and 2022 analyses: “False Knowledge as Power: Deconstructing Definitions of Apartheid that Delegitimise the Jewish State” and “Neo-Orientalism: Deconstructing claims of apartheid in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

Al-Haq’s publication is intended to influence the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent Commission of Inquiry’s (the “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel,”) plan to formally declare Israel to be committing “apartheid”; to pressure the International Criminal Court to indict Israeli officials for crimes against humanity; and for third states to apply a wide variety of sanctions against Israel, associated institutions, companies, and individuals.

While broader in scope, this publication echoes the same ideological position expressed by Al-Haq in a formal submission to the COI in May 2022. (For more information, see “Al-Haq’s Antisemitic Submission to the UN’s Permanent COI”)

EU and member states support for Al-Haq
If not for the millions of Euros in support from the EU and its member states Al-Haq has received over several years, the Palestinian NGO would not enjoy nearly the same level of influence and access as it currently does. Despite the organization’s reported ties to the PFLP, and its campaigning to dismantle Israel, Europe has yet to denounce and reject its longtime partner.

While the EU froze financial support to Al-Haq in May 2021 as a result of its links to the PFLP, in June 2022, the organization claimed that this freeze had been lifted – and as yet uncorroborated assertion.

Notably, in May 2022, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra, met with Al-Haq officials in the West Bank – despite the Israeli designation.

Moreover, Al-Haq is listed as an implementing partner on multi-grantee projects funded by the French (€900,000 for the entire project) and Swedish (Al-Haq receives over $2.5 million of the over $8 million project) governments.

John-Paul Pagano: What Is a Conspiracy Theory?

When I began studying Antisemitism two decades ago, one of the first things that occurred to me was its essential nature as a conspiracy theory. While mundane anti-Jewish bigotry is always found, the form of Jew-hatred that is historically salient identifies “the Jews” as a preternaturally powerful, secretive, evil elite which enslaves and exploits humankind. Even a surface examination of conspiracy theories shows that while the identity of the elite changes, this narrative outline is common to all of them. Alternately—and with good reason we will explore later—Antisemitism is sometimes singled out as the ultimate conspiracy theory.

So we can better understand conspiracy theories if we widen our scope to include insights from the much larger literature on Antisemitism. The history of the “Longest Hatred” is an opportunity to examine more than a thousand years of the consistent social practice of a single conspiracy theory. In this vast and detailed record, we will detect patterns and peculiarities that expose the essence of the thing.

The definition I propose hence will leverage scholarship on conspiracy theories and conspiracism, but be situated in the living context of Antisemitism—the up-punching form of racism that is centrally rooted in the cultural heritage of the West and has done so much to shape its social and physical reality. This approach yields a dense definition, but one that is also—after some clarification of terms—comprehensive and empirically legible.

It is, as follows:
A conspiracy theory is a belief that a circumstance or event is a deliberate, connected, and occulted product of the timeless struggle between the forces of Good and Evil, attributable to the malign influence of a secret elite that supernaturally coordinates to enslave and exploit humankind, fabricates false consciousness to hide its activities, and indulges in pleasures and rites of extreme misanthropy.

In upcoming (though not necessarily contiguous) posts, I will clarify the terms I highlighted above and will also discuss three conceptual domains—Manichean, Epistemic, and Magical—in which many of the features and themes of conspiracy theories should be evaluated. I will explain and justify my definition over posts that I will specially mark for this purpose, so they become a series that readers can revisit and reference.

As a variety of racism, the historian Paul Johnson viewed Antisemitism as “so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category.” Defining that peculiarity also helps to reveal what is a conspiracy theory—a mode of thought that is in some ways more corrosive than caste-based racism, but against which we’ve mustered no social movement to stigmatize and diminish it.

An open letter to progressives: It’s time to speak out

I wanted to believe perhaps I’d simply missed something. After all, I have always worked in progressive spaces myself. I know how much this movement cares about the safety, dignity, and flourishing of all communities in this country.

But diving into various digital channels and searching through recent public statements yielded nothing. I saw plenty of commendable statements of solidarity aimed at other groups. Perhaps I wasn’t searching hard enough.

It shouldn’t take this much effort to uncover sentiments of support in a time of need.

The progressive movement should be a seamless, natural ally to the Jewish community. But despite the fact that so many Jews in this country find themselves ideologically aligned with the progressive left, for a long time now that movement has behaved as if we are either inevitable supporters – no matter their approach to our oppression – or unimportant ones.

Throughout my tenure in progressive environments, I encountered deafening silence through the violence in Pittsburgh, Poway, and Colleyville. I was told my identity didn’t qualify me to join workgroups focusing on diversity, solidarity, and inclusion. I was called a Zionist (I am one – they meant it as a slur). Assumptions were freely and unapologetically made about my political leanings, my perspectives, and my general pleasantness based on the fact that I was born in Israel and that I am a Jew. Throughout it all, I was expected to continue supporting the causes that have always meant so much to me – and I still do. (h/t jzaik)

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"I Get To Reclaim My Ancestors' Home Because They Sided With A Failed Genocide" (PreOccupied Territory)

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I Get To Reclaim My Ancestors' Home Because They Sided With A Failed Genocide

by Issa Awad, Palestine Refugee

Haifa house Tulkarm, December 8 - The morality is of the situation is clear: my forebears fled Haifa in anticipation of Arab liberators slaughtering the Jews of the city and making ample plunder available, but when that didn't happen, and the Jews actually won and took over the place, my great-grandparents set up here among the Iraqi soldiers who failed to push further west and the Jews into the sea as promised. Had the promised massacres of Jews taken place, my family would probably be running a fishing operation, while enjoying some swag looted from the Jews. But it didn't, and now the only fair thing is for their descendants to return to Haifa as if nothing had happened.

Why else would UNRWA exist? All refugees other than "Palestine Refugees" as defined by UNRWA follow a simple, if challenging, path: the UN Commissioner for Refugees cares for people fleeing conflict or persecution, and arranges for their permanent resettlement in some other country. Tens of millions of refugees have followed that route, but Palestine Refugees are special. We get to remain in perpetual statelessness until the war our people lost can be fought again and again, and maybe one day the result will be different. Until then, we live in dependence and squalor, because... I guess because pride and honor? That sounded better in my head.

In any case the legal and moral issue demands that my family and I get to go where my great-grandparents left so they could avoid all the unpleasantness of seeing Jewish body parts strewn about the place. It's somehow different from every other refugee story in history. Those other refugees were forced out, living in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in an unfortunate situation. My family, on the other hand, maybe was, maybe wasn't forced out, and really wanted to come back, unlike all those other refugees who had no attachment to where they'd been living. It's a Palestinian thing? Even though the only people who identified as "Palestinian" at the time were Jews? I'm unclear on that part, but not on the morality.

The point is we get to flood Israel with "refugees" and win by demographics what we failed to do with bullets, because they had no right to defend themselves from the manifestly just pillaging we wanted to enjoy at their expense. It's about justice. Yes. That's what I meant to say.

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