Today, 2-year old Hadar Noga Lavi was laid to rest less than a week after being critically wounded in a head-on collision as her mother was returning her from a medical appointment.
Her mother, Idit Lavi of Shiloh, is convinced that her daughter was the victim of a suicide terror attack.
The mother said that Hadar had hurt her back and she took her to Shaarei Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem on Saturday night. She was returning, driving on Route 60 in Samaria, when she saw a car approaching her in the wrong lane. She swerved to the opposite lane, he followed her, and she zig-zagged back to the right lane and he again followed her and crashed into her car head-on.
While Idit Lavi is certain that it was an intentional attack, Israeli police and the Binyamin council are treating this as a simple car accident, complaining about the road conditions that contributed to the crash and about wild Arab drivers on that road.
Arabic media reports from the time do seem to indicate that it was a multi-vehicle accident. Three Arabs were killed and others injured in other cars.
Perhaps the Palestinian driver, with two other young men in the car, was playing "chicken."
But since Hadar's death today, Arab media prefer the narrative that this was a terror operation, calling Hadar a "female settler." Palestinians would rather than their own heroically die by trying to kill a young mother and small daughter than think that they died in an accident.
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Seventeen years ago, a Parisian gang calling itself “the Barbarians” lured a twenty-three-year-old cell-phone salesman named Ilan Halimi onto its turf, tortured him for three weeks while reciting Quranic verses, and then left him to die by the roadside. Halimi’s murder is often seen as the beginning of the current era of anti-Semitic violence in France. Eleanor Krasne comments on the repeated failure of the French government, and even of Jewish leaders, to confront the sources of such violence:
The French authorities initially neglected to explore the anti-Semitic nature of the crime, but after a three-week search, they finally caught the gang’s leader, Youssef Fofana. When the case went to trial, Fofana wore a t-shirt that said “Allahu Akbar,” and when asked to state his identity said, “My name is Arab, armed African rebellion Salafist barbarian army, and I was born on February 13, 2006 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.” In other words, Fofana boasted of his allegiance to Salafism, a political-religious movement within Islam that seeks to establish a global caliphate. . . . Fofana was also saying that he was “born” the moment Ilan Halimi died.
Muslims are not solely responsible for French anti-Semitism, nor is every Muslim an anti-Semite. However, radical Islam’s role in French anti-Semitism must not be overlooked. Yet . . . French and American organizations that . . . advocate for Jews seem to shy away from confronting the radical Islamic theology behind these attacks, particularly when commemorating Ilan Halimi’s murder.
Confronting modern-day anti-Semitism in France means confronting the ideology behind it. France is home to 450,000 Jews and a growing community of over three million Muslims. Simone Rodan Benzaquen, the American Jewish Committee’s director in France, wrote in 2017 that Islamic anti-Semitism in France is a result of a variety of factors, “including manipulation of the Palestinian cause, failure of integration into French society, radical preachers and the funding of mosques, and satellite television stations broadcasting a steady stream of anti-Semitic discourse.”
Unfortunately, Benzaquen is correct, and other organizations must join her in facing the reality of Islamic anti-Semitism in France.
In its statement promoted by CAIR's national office, CAIR-New York Executive Director Afaf Nasher also noted "the disturbing rise in anti-Asian bigotry nationwide."
"All Americans, regardless of their background," he said, must be able to walk down the street without fear of a racist attack."
This is true. Correspondingly, there has been a disturbing rise in antisemitic bigotry in New York city and nationwide. A Times of Israel analysis of NYPD data found an anti-Jewish attack every 33 hours in New York. Masoud presents a clear example of the danger such blind hate about Jews and the Jewish state can pose.
But CAIR cannot bring itself to acknowledge, let alone condemn him. This is an organization with a decades-long record of antisemitism, including co-founder and Executive Director Nihad Awad's repeated insinuations that Jews are "pushing the United States" to advance policies "at the expense of American interests."
In 2014, as ISIS rampaged and Hamas terrorism instigated war in Gaza, Awad called Israel "the biggest threat to world peace and security." Awad also believes Tel Aviv is "occupied" territory. His San Francisco director Zahra Billoo believes pro-Israel Jews are out to hurt Muslims and should be shunned entirely. CAIR stands behind her.
CAIR claims it merely criticizes Israeli policy, as if the question whether a country should exist is a policy up for debate.
Was Masoud merely criticizing Zionists? His "veil of 'anti-Zionism' is pathetically thin in this case," prosecutors wrote. "As an initial matter, the defendant is not an equal opportunity anti-Zionist. He did not attack 'Evangelical Christians . . . who identify with the State of Israel' ... Instead, he repeatedly attacked Jewish men."
In October, CAIR condemned antisemitic material left outside homes in Wyoming.
"Those targeting the Jewish community with antisemitic hate must be repudiated by all Americans," CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said. "The mainstreaming of bigotry in any form must never be tolerated or excused."
But CAIR mainstreams antisemitism when it stands by frothing haters like Billoo, and when it cannot muster the nerve to condemn an ideological ally like Sadaah Masoud. Antisemitism can't be viewed conditionally. If you can't even bring yourself to condemn premeditated beatings of random Jews, you can't expect to be believed when say you oppose antisemitism by condemning leaflets.
In 1975, President Gerald Ford called for regulations prohibiting U.S. companies from "complying in any way with [the Arab] boycott," and declared emphatically that the United States would not "countenance the translation of any foreign prejudice into domestic discrimination against American citizens." Congress quickly heeded the call, passing not one but two pieces of critical bipartisan legislation: the Ribicoff Amendment assessed steep tax penalties against U.S. companies that participate in the Arab Boycott, and the Export Administration Amendments of 1977 directed the president to prohibit American companies from joining the Arab boycott. In signing that law, President Jimmy Carter acknowledged that the Arab Boycott, though nominally focused on Israel, was in fact "aimed at Jewish members of our society." The U.S. Office of Antiboycott Compliance has been enforcing this regime ever since, on the bipartisan understanding that the boycott of Israel constitutes a tool of discrimination, not protected expression.
And the federal government was not alone in its anti-boycott effort. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, at least 13 states—red and blue—took aggressive legislative steps to prevent U.S. companies from joining the Arab boycott. New York's rule was strikingly similar to the anti-BDS laws of today. In fact, it went further, prohibiting "discrimination," "boycotting," or "blacklisting" based on "national origin" or because a person has done business with Israeli firms. When Gov. Michael Dukakis signed the Massachusetts bill into law, he explained that he wished to send an "unequivocal message" that Massachusetts would "not stand for this type of blatant discrimination" against its Jewish residents.
Today's anti-BDS laws spring from the same pair of political judgments that animate this 50-year tradition of anti-boycott legislation. The first is that the boycott isn't speech, but instead economic conduct that can be freely regulated, consistent with the First Amendment. And the second is that, in the case of Israel, the boycott constitutes discrimination, and not desirable social action.
The tradition of anti-boycott legislation lives on because its historical foundations are fundamentally true. The first boycott against the Jews of Israel took place in the 1890s, and its organizers—the Arab political associations of Mandatory Palestine—could not have been clearer about their anti-Jewish objectives: "Don't buy from the Jews," they declared, "come and bargain with the Arab merchant... We must completely boycott the Jews." And in 1933, as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem grew in political prominence, he called for systematic boycotts against the Jews of Palestine and urged Nazi Germany to do the same.
BDS's appeal to "history and tradition" should ring hollow. For 50 years, state and federal law makers have regulated Israel boycotts, on the understanding that they were conceived in antisemitism and cannot escape its taint. In the court of history, it's the state lawmakers, and not the activists, who enjoy the upper hand.
During the funeral of Abdel Fattah Kharousheh, who murdered the Yaniv brothers, Palestinian police fired tear gas and tried to take away Hamas flags. This resulted in Kharousheh's body falling to the ground.
A gang of 11 people were arrested in Jenin for threatening other people with sharp objects, and one tried to run over others with his car. A number of victims were hospitalized.
The Palestinian Supreme Fatwa Council said "our Palestinian people are facing a war of extermination, which is being carried out by the occupation authorities and herds of settlers."
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Jerusalem, March 12 - What becomes of the racks and racks of masks, wigs, cloaks, and other mass-produced paraphernalia that no one bought, but occupies valuable display space in the stores? More and more in recent years, the all-plastic products wind up bleached, shredded, dyed, and marketed again, this time as kosher-for-Passover breakfast cereal, according to several store proprietors.
Sunday morning saw employees at MaxStock in downtown Jerusalem continuing to remove hundreds of Purim costumes and costume pieces from the shelves and racks of the discount retail chain, now that the festival of Purim has concluded and the market for such items will wane until late winter next year. But rather than stow the products in storage until then, dispose of them, or attempt to return them to suppliers in China, several years ago a group of vendors realized that some people become so obsessed with finding Passover-compatible equivalents to their everyday foods that they will buy anything, no matter how repulsive, marketed in the appropriate niche - leading those vendors to a joint venture that processes the unsold costumes into colored flakes that they can sell as "Passover Flakes" that enough desperate consumers will buy.
"I don't know why it took us so many years to have that epiphany," recalled one manager. "I don't know if it's a function of our society just getting wealthier or what, but folks are willing to spend good money so on Passover they can badly replicate the food experiences they have during the rest of the year. Heaven forfend they adapt their cuisine for a week! But hey, if they're willing to pay for products of questionable edibility, I'm willing to provide those products. Sometimes all we have to do is add sugar."
The products in question obtain certification as kosher-for-Passover with relative ease. The restrictions for the festival require that products contain no grain component, lest it came into contact with water and became "leavened" under Jewish law. Various communities have adopted further stringencies involving other ingredients similar in appearance or use to those grains as a safety measure. The complete lack of food ingredients makes Rabbinate certification as kosher-for-Passover a formality.
Industry sources indicated that so far, Purim costumes have become breakfast cereal, snack crackers, imitation pretzels, and croutons for soup or salad. A small team of retailers has also formed a task force to explore other products stupid consumers will pay to acquire as substitutes for things they could simply go without for a few days, such as popcorn and chocolate-coated wafers.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
While the Biden administration has been busy encouraging and funding the Israeli protest movement against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms, it has also launched a far more potentially dangerous and lethal attempt to destabilize the leading military power in the Middle East. The wave of domestic protests in Israel comes on the heels of the most deadly series of Palestinian terror attacks since the end of the Second Intifada. Incredibly, the U.S. is now proposing to take advantage of its ally’s political weakness by standing up a potential 5,000-man Palestinian terror army that would ostensibly fight terrorism in the West Bank in place of the IDF.
Washington, D.C.’s latest bout of Mideast pyromania began with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Ramallah at the end of January, right after a Palestinian terrorist shot dead seven Israelis outside a synagogue in Neve Yaakov. Naturally, the secretary of state came bearing condolence gifts: a lot more money for the Palestinian Authority, an agreement to provide 4G communications in the West Bank—an initiative from U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides, which he “pounded the table” in order to get rolling, even as there are concerns that advanced ICT infrastructure might complicate efforts by Israeli security to monitor terrorist communications—and a commitment to reopen the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem.
In addition to those goodies, which in no way constituted a reward for terror, or an incentive for PA-rewarded terrorists to commit further acts of terror targeting Jewish worshippers and other innocent civilians, Blinken also carried with him a new security plan for the West Bank, which the Biden administration has spent the past month putting in play.
The U.S. plan, said to have been drafted by the U.S. security coordinator Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel, was reportedly presented to the Israeli government and the PA in weeks prior. It envisions the creation of a special Palestinian force that would supposedly go after militias in Jenin and Nablus. Unnamed U.S. officials told Israeli media surrogates that during his visit the secretary of state pressed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to accept the U.S. plan. He then did the same to Israel, which has been repeatedly victimized by mounting waves of Palestinian terror, incentivized by the PA’s “pay for slay” policy.
At his press briefing in Jerusalem, Blinken relayed the administration’s demand that the Israelis stop “any unilateral actions” that “would add fuel to a fire,” echoing a Palestinian condition that Abbas delivered in his joint presser with Blinken—the message being that Team Biden disapproves of Israeli counterterrorism operations. Blinken implicitly blamed Palestinian terrorism on Israel’s actions, painting the Palestinians themselves as an equally injured party in the recent wave of Palestinian attacks.
The beginning of the new century produced a similar phenomenon. At the July 2000 Camp David peace summit, prime minister Ehud Barak, a self-declared Rabin disciple, agreed to a Palestinian state on over 90% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with Jerusalem being redivided and serving as the Palestinian capital.
Yet Barak’s concessions and president Bill Clinton’s hands-on involvement in the talks did not prevent the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000. Forty Israelis were to be killed before the end of the year, and an additional 25 would die in early 2001 up until 7 March, when Ariel Sharon’s government was sworn in.
Ongoing violence notwithstanding, the final months of Barak’s premiership saw intensive peace talks: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Washington in December, and thereafter Clinton presented a set of parameters designed to be the basis for a future agreement.
Clinton’s proposal called for a Palestinian state on between 94-96% of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip, with Israel ceding 1-3% of its pre-1967 territory in land swaps to compensate for annexations. Jerusalem would become the capital of two independent states.
When Clinton left office in January 2001 Israeli-Palestinian talks moved to Taba, Egypt. There, Barak’s negotiators offered even greater flexibility in a last-ditch effort to secure an agreement.
But for the second time in five years, Israeli voters became contemptuous of peace talks in the shadow of escalating terrorism. Sharon was elected to restore security and the new prime minister refused to continue with negotiations while daily attacks continued – placing any political horizon on hold.
Surprisingly for some, vindication for Sharon’s approach could be found in a Palestinian commitment. On September 9, 1993, as a core precondition for the signing of the Oslo Accords, Arafat sent a letter to Rabin in which the Palestinian leader pledged “that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations” and stressed his renouncement of “terrorism and other acts of violence.”
Today, when Palestinians contend that terrorism stems from the absence of a political horizon, they assume (perhaps correctly) that the world will blame Israel for the failures of the peace process. Conveniently forgotten is that it was the Palestinians who said “no” at Camp David; torpedoed Clinton’s parameters; dismissed Ehud Olmert’s 2008 peace plan; and refused to sign up to John Kerry’s 2014 framework.
Israel’s famed dovish foreign minister Abba Eban penned the truism “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
Palestinians have multiple legitimate grievances. But if the lack of a political horizon is cited to justify terrorism, they should recall the story of the boy who murders his parents only to demand mercy for being an orphan.
Postscript: At the time of the post-Oslo Palestinian terror attacks, Israelis were told that those trying to kill them were enemies of peace. Today, it is repeated ad infinitum that terrorists kill because hopes for peace have disappeared. Catch-22?
During a televised Friday sermon, PA Chairman Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, stressed that the PA still adheres to the “stages plan” for taking Israel's land. According to this long-term strategy, which was coined by the PLO in 1974, all of Israel – which Palestinians refer to as historic “Palestine” - would be “liberated” in stages and Israel thereby destroyed. The “stages” meant that the “liberation” would happen gradually and that the PLO could enter agreements with Israel that would make Israel more vulnerable and which the PLO did not see as binding.
In this recent sermon, Abbas’ advisor, who also serves as PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge, focused on the nature of any compromise that the PA makes regarding Jerusalem and the Western Wall – as temporary: PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “Islam is truth that is indivisible… The rights are indivisible. Give me 60% or 70% of my rights, and tell me: ‘That’s it, that’s yours, take it.’ Perhaps temporarily, yes. [But] strategically, no! … Our rights are non-negotiable. They want to negotiate over Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque – then by Allah, it is better [to be dead] in the belly of the earth than to be on its surface... There is no negotiation on even one millimeter of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, including the Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall of the Temple Mount), which is an exclusive permanent Islamic waqf (i.e., an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law; see note below) according to Allah's decree …This is our right, and whoever fights us over our right is an oppressor, and it is a duty to resist (i.e., fight) the oppressors.”
[Official PA TV, Jan. 20, 2023]
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Al-Habbash has made it clear that according to Palestinian Islam all of Israel is an Islamic waqf that must eventually return to Islamic rule: "The entire land of Palestine is [Islamic] waqf andis blessed land... it is prohibited to sell, bestow ownership or facilitate the occupation of even a millimeter of it."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 22, 2014]
Al-Habbash has also stressed that PA agreements with Israel are temporary and that Israel will eventually be conquered: "The Palestinian leadership's sense of responsibility towards its nation made it take political steps [the Oslo Accords] about 20 years ago [1993]...exactly like the Prophet [Muhammad] did in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah... [He signed a peace treaty but] in less than two years, the Prophet returned and based on this treaty, he conquered Mecca. This is the example, this is the model."
In December, the Biden Administration declared it would confront antisemitism. Just last month several antisemitism envoys from Europe came to the US to meet with the White House to advise it and a special panel on how to combat Jew-hatred.
Rabbi Andrew Baker, the director of international Jewish affairs at the AJC, saw this as something of a twist, seeing how Europe has been slow to recognize that it had a problem:
Europe has stepped forward. I don’t want to say we became smug in America, but now we find ourselves seeking their help.
And what kind of advice is Europe offering?
Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life said in an interview that her recommendations to the US focused on “the whole range of antisemitism—online education, Holocaust remembrance, security.”
And then she said something odd:
Fostering Jewish life is central, she said, “to make sure that Jews in Europe can go about their lives in line with their religious and cultural traditions, and also free from fear.” [emphasis added]
Oystein Lyngroth said something similar.
Lyngroth is Norway’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief and is also the head of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) delegation in Norway. She said:
There needs to be a promotion of the visibility of Jewish life. [emphasis added]
John Mann, UK government advisor on antisemitism, echoed those remarks:
“Let every Jewish person, every Jewish student, be themselves, including those who identify as Zionist as a crucial part of their identity. With no negatives,” he said. “It’s a simple ask, and that’s what we’re building. That’s what I’d recommend to every American university.”
Mann, a panelist, said it’s not his prerogative, nor anyone’s, to try and define for Jewish students how they identify.
The odd thing is that based on these 3 quotes, one would assume that a key component of the European approach in addressing antisemitism is to protect and foster Jewish identity.
That sounds like a great idea, but the problem is how can they claim to be so supportive of Jewish identity, when Europe is working so hard to undermine Jewish identity?
While von Shnurbein stated that hand-in-hand with Jews being able to follow their religious and cultural traditions was their ability to live free from fear -- the current limitations being imposed or threatening Jewish communities in Europe cause exactly that. In Belgium for example:
When the Belgian laws came in, Muslim and Jewish groups feared they were being used by nationalists to whip up anti-immigrant sentiment.
And shechita is not the only practice that Europe has taken upon itself to regulate for Jews. European countries are targeting brit milah as well.
In Iceland, a 2018 bill outlawed circumcision, unless done for medical reasons, because it violates the child's rights, and should not be done until the boys have reached an age where they can make their own decision.
In addition, the bill claimed that circumcision:
o Is comparable with female genital mutilation o Is often done in homes that are not sterile o Is performed by religious leaders instead of doctors o Is a danger of "a high risk of infections under such conditions that may lead to death."
Andrew Baker, who welcomes Europe's advice on combatting antisemtism, has himself written that the European attempt to ban bris milah is "threat to Jewish life, though barely mentioned." Hopefully, he mentioned it when he met with the European representatives.
Can this happen in the US? Circumcision is currently more accepted in the US than it is in Europe.
It certainly makes sense that in the face of the threat of antisemitism to Jewish identity, there is a need to foster and encourage Jewish identity. But just who are our allies in combatting this threat?
Europe is portrayed as a major partner -- but as we have seen, it has threatened elements that are critical to Jewish identity.
In Europe, Muslims appear to be a natural ally in fighting for shechitah and circumcision -- but according to The Law Library of Congress, halal slaughtering is performed by Muslims after being pre-stunned in a number of European countries, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. In 2014, approximately 85% of halal meat in the Muslim community in Great Britain was pre-stunned, according to a BBC program. (at 3:37. Warning: The video has explicit images of animals being slaughtered). The following year, in response to the controversy, there was a 60% increase in the number of un-stunned slaughtering in the Muslim community. It's not clear if this reversal has taken place across Europe and to what extent.
It seems that Jews in general -- like Israel in particular -- just cannot be too reliant on others to fight their battles.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
This morning, Israeli forces killed three Islamic Jihad terrorists responding to gunshots from their car. Pistols, rifles, explosives and IEDs were found in the car.
Islamic Jihad openly admits that its militants fired first at the IDF forces.
However, as with every other case this year of Israeli forces killing Palestinian terrorists, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency doesn't say a word about their affiliation or the circumstances. It reports that the "young men" were "executed" at point blank range.
Every single time, while the Palestinian terror groups praise the "pure blood" of their "martyrs" watering the gardens of resistance, Wafa frames their deaths as if they are innocent civilians - which is the message that organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace gladly spread to the West.
Everyone who follows the news closely knows the truth. But Western media consistently downplays the fact that nearly every single "innocent victim" of "Israeli aggression" looks like these six dead jihadists from the recent operation in Jenin:
The Palestinian prime minister, Mohamed Shtayyeh, is regarded by the West as a moderate, with no affiliation to terror groups, and Western politicians and NGOs eagerly flock to meet with him as a personification of the fictional Palestine they pretend exists, where men with suits only support "popular resistance" but not terror.
Shtayyeh certainly knows that the people killed this year (and last year) are nearly all terrorists. Which is why his descriptions of the jihadists on his Facebook page is newsworthy.
For the Jenin terrorists, Shtayyeh carefully chose photos that did not show the jihadists with any weapons or uniforms, and he wrote yesterday (Arabic):
Glory and eternity to the pious martyrs and shame to the criminal occupation, whose army committed a horrific massacre in Jenin camp this evening, six martyrs were martyred.
The Palestinian people have the right to continue their struggle to end the occupation and gain their freedom and establish their independent state and its capital Jerusalem, and the world to condemn the terrorism of the occupation and punish it for its continuous crimes against our people.
Since his audience is Palestinians, and every one of those reading his page knows that these six people were all terrorists, his message clearly supports jihadi terrorism.
Today, after the three Islamic Jihad terrorists were killed, Shtayyeh similarly referred to the Islamic Jihad terrorists as "righteous martyrs."
Western leaders who meet with Shtayyeh should ask him about these statements of support for terror. They won't, though - because they are afraid of getting an honest answer.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
They could pay Egypt $250,000 of foreign currency. which would never be returned.
They could put a million dollars into the Central Bank of Egypt for 3 years, and then withdraw it after 3 years in Egyptian pounds with no interest. In the event the dollar has lost value against the pound, the depositor would get the lower amount.
They could do something similar with $750,000 for five years.
They could invest $400,000 in an official Egyptian investment project.
Or they could purchase Egyptian state-owned real estate worth $500,000.
Now, as Egypt desires more foreign currency reserves, they have loosened these price tags. The cash deposit of $250,000 still stands, but it can be paid in installments.
The real estate investment amount was reduced to $300,000 and the three year deposit was reduced from a million dollars to only $350,000. (It might have been a half million between 2020 and now.)
Egyptians are very upset, but not worried about lots of Palestinians coming.
They are worrying that Jews (and rich Gulf Arabs) will buy property in Egypt and take over the country that way!
There are a handful of Palestinians who attempt to become Egyptian citizens every month, but they usually claim to have had an Egyptian parent. Their applications are usually denied, based on them committing fraud. I am wondering if these new rules will prompt rich Palestinians to seek citizenship in Egypt, since many Palestinians want to become citizens of a real country.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
March 17 this year will mark 69 years since one of the worst terrorist attacks on Israelis since the establishment of the State in 1948. Although I was only nine years old, this episode, called the Scorpion Pass Massacre, has a prominent place in my memory, perhaps because of the intense discussions it aroused in the Jewish community of Montreal that I was a part of, or perhaps because I was the same age as the Israeli boy who was severely injured. Or, perhaps it was the exotic name of the site of the attack, Scorpion Pass (Maale Akrabim).
The name obviously comes from the common appearance of scorpions (akrabim in Hebrew), venomous animals with two pincer claws and an articulated tail and stinger. Scorpions resemble crustaceans such as lobsters or crayfish, but are in fact related to spiders, mites and ticks. With an evolutionary history going back hundreds of millions of years, they were certainly around in biblical times. Maale Akrabim appears three times in the Tanakh (Numbers 34:3, Joshua 15:3 and Judges 1:36), as an indicator of the southern boundary of the Land of Israel.
The attack took place in 1954, when the population of Israel was 1.6 million and the southern port of Eilat, Israel’s only connection to the Red Sea, was a small development town with 500 inhabitants. As is true today, travellers from Eilat to central Israel could either fly (Arkia began flying from Eilat to Lod Airport, now Ben Gurion Airport, in 1950), or drive the 150 miles to Beersheba. In 1954 the drive to Beersheba was a lonely one that included a long and narrow grade with 18 hairpin turns, known as Ma’ale Akrabim. The ascent, about 60 miles south of Beersheba, is a 1000 foot escarpment that connects the Arava Valley of the south-eastern Negev to the central Negev plateau.
The attack was carried out in the middle of the day on an Egged bus (Israel’s largest bus company) containing 14 passengers plus a driver. The attackers shot at the bus as it was travelling very slowly around one of the hairpin bends, killing the driver. They then boarded the bus and shot most of the passengers. Eleven riders (ten passengers and the driver) were killed and three passengers were injured. One of the injured a nine year-old boy, Chaim Fuerstenberg, survived in a semi-conscious and paralysed state for 32 years, dying in 1986.
(This article has been taken down by the Jerusalem Post, apparently for inaccuracies.)
The Jerusalem Post has learned that Morningstar, a financial services firm that rates companies’ investment potential, has reduced the ratings of 28 Israeli companies due to their operations in what the firm’s ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) rating subsidiary Sustainalytics considers to be Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Of the 28 companies, 15 have been given a human rights score of “category 3” (significant controversy) or higher. The list includes several leading companies such as Elbit Systems and Caterpillar, as well as Israel-operating banks and telecommunications companies including PayPal Holdings and Motorola Solutions, which have been given their high controversy ratings due to their operations within East Jerusalem, the West Bank and/or the Golan heights — which Sustainalytics considers to be a human rights abuse.
Considering Morningstar’s significance within the financial ratings market, its negative rating of these companies is cause for concern to those who consider such actions to be in-line with BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) activity.
As well, over 30 American states have laws that prohibit investment or contracts with companies that cause economic harm to those based in Israel. As such, even if just one Israeli company is unfairly targeted on a Morningstar watchlist, it could potentially violate state laws.
Morningstar is now in the process of consulting with human rights experts in order to determine how to proceed with its assessment of these companies.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) last fall trained their fire on Ticketmaster after bungled sales for Taylor Swift's concert tour led to price-gouging and automated scalping, calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the ticketing giant. But when the company doled out tickets to Louis Farrakhan's rally—in which the Nation of Islam leader defended Adolf Hitler and predicted another Holocaust against Jews—the Democratic duo had nothing to say.
Blumenthal went on a crusade against Ticketmaster in November, saying "consumers deserve better than this anti-hero behavior." Klobuchar said she had "serious concerns" about Ticketmaster's failure to get the so-called Swifties tickets efficiently and wrote to the company's chief executive officer demanding answers.
Neither Blumenthal, who has warned that the "horrors of the Holocaust" could happen again if Americans don't fight anti-Semitism, nor Klobuchar, who has pledged "to confront anti-Semitism," have criticized Ticketmaster for profiting off of the Farrakhan ticketing sales. The two senators, who sit on the Senate's Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism, did not respond to requests for comment.
Farrakhan during his speech claimed that Jews control the levers of power in Washington, Hollywood, and global finance and are using these powers to corrupt the world. "Somebody has to take on the synagogue of Satan," he said. "We cannot let them take the country." Critics had urged Ticketmaster, which charges service fees on each ticket it sells, to drop the Farrakhan event from its sales platform, but the ticket giant did not budge.
Among House Democrats, there has also been silence from lawmakers who criticized Ticketmaster in the past. Last November, more than two dozen House Democrats sent a letter to Ticketmaster, saying it "strangled competition for ticketing in the live entertainment marketplace." The Washington Free Beacon reached out to 28 members who signed the letter and are still in Congress to get their thoughts on Ticketmaster’s decision to sell seats at the Farrakhan event. None of them responded.
Democrats who signed the letter included Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.).
One day after the Netanyahu government issued a statement
claiming that Israel and Poland had reached an agreement over the resumption of
Israeli youth trips to Poland, Poland denied that any such agreement had been
reached. The trips were suspended a year ago due to a dispute
over security arrangements. Israeli students are accompanied on these trips
by armed security guards from the Shin Bet. Poland, however, says
that Israel’s insistence on providing its own Israeli security for the students
is a slap in the face to Poland, making it look like a hateful, antisemitic
country.
Here is the Israeli press release on the supposed agreement
between Israel and Poland:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Comments on Resumption of
Youth Trips to Poland
After a prolonged stalemate in Israeli-Polish relations, and
pursuant to contacts and a round of talks led by Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, together with Minister of Foreign Affairs Eli Cohen and Education
Minister Yoav Kisch, a solution was found today (Tuesday, 7 March 2023), to the
crisis that prevented the arrival of youth trips to Poland.
Prime Minister Netanyahu:
"After a wasted year, we are returning the youth trips
to Poland. There are many ways to study the lessons of the Holocaust but the
best is with one's own eyes. I welcome our success in the resumption of our
pupils' trips to Poland in order to study the horrors of the Holocaust from up
close.
I thank Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Education Minister
Yoav Kisch for their contributions to the effort. 'Know from whence you came
and where you are going.’"
Three years after the halt to the arrival of youth trips to
Poland, and pursuant to the contacts led by Prime Minister Netanyahu with the
Polish government, the almost to-year stalemate in bilateral relations has
ended; the sides have agreed on the resumption of Israeli youth trips.
Pursuant to the round of talks between the two countries led
by Prime Minister Netanyahu with his Polish counterpart, and to the talks held
by Minister of Foreign Affairs Cohen with the Polish Foreign Minister
approximately one month ago, in the framework of which he sought to move
forward on a solution for the resumption of the trips to Poland, a
representative of the Polish Foreign Ministry announced today that Poland views
positively the resumption in the arrival of youth trips to Poland and
recognizes their importance to continued progress in bilateral ties.
This morning, however, Tovah Lazaroff, who is no fan of the
Netanyahu government wrote:
“Poland denied that Israeli high school trips to visit the
concentration camps in Poland are set to resume after a one-year suspension,
one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office announced the return
of the trips.”
Lazaroff offers no source for her assertion of Polish
denial. What is the truth of the matter? Did
Israel and Poland reach an agreement regarding the Israeli student trips? And
what is the real reason for what still looks like a stalemate? Is it really
about security? Or something else.
Łukasz Jasina, spokesperson for the Polish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, tweeted a link to the MFA statement on the affair, an
embarrassing slap in the face to Israel/Netanyahu, and likely the source for
Lazaroff’s claim.
Statement on the state of arrangements regarding the return of trips of organized groups of Israeli youth to Poland https://t.co/uZl5ShHffY
Although a final agreement has not been reached yet, during
talks held in recent days through diplomatic channels we have been observing a
convergence of positions, giving hope that a comprehensive agreement on the
visits of organized groups of Israeli youth to Poland can be signed between
Poland and Israel in the near future.
Poland is sensitive to accusations of
antisemitism, hence the passing of a 2018 Polish law penalizing public speech
attributing responsibility for the Holocaust to Poland or the Polish nation. The
passing of the law appears however to only underscore the idea that Poland is
antisemitic, but doesn’t want to be seen as such. Why else shut down free
speech on the subject of where blame for the Holocaust rightly lies? To
paraphrase Hamlet, Poland “doth protest too much, methinks.”
Back when the Polish law denying complicity in the Holocaust
was passed, I argued that parents
of Israeli teens should not be sending their children to that country to visit.
Not because of the security issue, though I agree that Israel should be allowed
to use its own people for this purpose, but because I don’t believe in supporting
the economy of a country I see as absolutely antisemitic, law or no law:
This year, when it came time for my son, the youngest of 12
children, to register for the class trip for Poland, I was ready. I sat Asher
down for a talk and explained that he wasn’t going, that even if we had the
money for such a trip, even if the school were to give him a full scholarship,
he wasn’t going. I wasn’t going to allow
my son to become a source of income for a country of antisemites . . . why,
of all countries, should the Jewish State be propping up Poland’s economy with
these trips that have become a rite of passage for Israeli high school
students? We’re talking some 30,000 children, spending at the very least, a few
thousand shekels each for this “privilege.”
At the same time, I acknowledged the fact that many see the
trip as a valuable tool for teaching the Holocaust:
What of the people who say the experience of visiting Poland
is moving, and a good way to teach the Holocaust?
I say hogwash. I never traveled there and I have an acute
understanding of the Holocaust and so do my children. In fact, I’d say that
boycotting the place is every bit as powerful a teacher as going there.
I still believe today that we don’t need to send kids to Poland to
make them “feel” the horrors of the Holocaust. And I still believe that Poland
is antisemitic to the bone. In fact, the very day that Netanyahu claimed an
agreement with Poland had been reached, the Algemeiner
reported that the National Bank of Poland will be issuing a special
commemorative coin honoring a Polish antisemite:
Poland’s National Bank has announced that it will issue a
special silver coin commemorating a leading figure in the post-war
anti-communist underground who was accused of murdering Jews in the country’s
Podhale region . . .
. . . Several historians have charged that Kuraś was
responsible for the murder of dozens of Jews in the Podhale region during his
struggle against the communists. In his book “Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland
after Auschwitz,” Prof. Jan Gross of Princeton University described Kuraś as as
“legendary outlaw in the mountainous region of Podhale, where he battled the
regime by killing Jews who were fleeing Poland by one of the Brikha exit
routes.”
Gross specified that Kuraś had recorded the murder of Jews
in his diary, citing the killing of twelve Jews near the village of Kroscienko
on May 6, 1944.
A separate article by Karolina Panz — a Polish historian
based in the town of Nowy Targ, where Kuraś was active — concluded that during
1945-47, “the number of Jewish victims exceeded thirty, including children from
Jewish orphanages. Among the perpetrators of those acts of terror were
partisans from the group commanded by Józef Kuraś ‘Ogień’ – one of the most
important symbols of anti-communist resistance.”
Poland’s leading anti-racist organization condemned the
coin’s issuance as another example of the Polish state lionizing wartime
figures with established records of antisemitism.
The Algemeiner
quotes a response from Rafal Pankowski, executive director of the “Never Again”
Association:
“Since the publication of Jan Gross’s groundbreaking books
in the 2000s, Poland made a lot of progress as a democratic nation in dealing
with the legacy of antisemitism – but over the last years much of that progress
has been reversed and a far-right nationalist outlook on Polish history has prevailed
in many institutions . . . This is one more instance of a glorification of a
notorious antisemitic figure by an important state institution.”
It is obvious that Polish antisemitism is alive and well. Why
then does Israel seem so desperate to reach an agreement to prop up the Polish
economy with high school trips? Why does Israel want its children to think of
Poland as a hospitable country that has learned its lesson, when quite clearly,
it has not.
One might argue that Netanyahu has failed to see the true
meaning of the quote he used in his statement to the press: “Know from whence
you came and where you are going.”
That quote, from Ethics of the Fathers,
was used by Netanyahu to suggest that high school trips to Poland are a form of
experiential learning: that only by traveling to the land of Auschwitz can one
come to understand what happened there. But one could just as easily interpret
that quote as a cautionary tale or warning: Know when you go there that Poland
was and still is an antisemitic
country, even as it makes it illegal to discuss that fact. Know that Poland is
a place where the soil is soaked with Jewish blood. Know that Poland, even now,
issues commemorative coins honoring as heroes those who murdered Jews. Know
that if you go and spend your hard-earned shekels to support Poland and the
Polish people, you betray the memory of the millions of Jews who were sent there,
not by choice for a learning experience, but to be gassed and burned, their
generations to come, ended forever.
UPDATE: After I contacted her on Twitter, Tovah Lazaroff commendably updated her piece to reflect that her source is the Polish Foreign Ministry.
Hamas confirms that the Palestinian man who shot two Israeli brothers last month (& was just killed by Israeli forces) "had been a member of its military wing." That may transform what had been a common crime (not a human rights concern) into a war crime.
Notice how the Hamas terrorist merely "shot two Israeli brothers." Roth doesn't want to mention that they were killed, unlike the murderer himself that he says was killed by Israeli forces.
Beyond that, Roth claims, incredibly, that the execution style murder of Hallel and Yagel Yaniv as they were driving was not considered a war crime and was not even a "human rights concern" until yesterday, when Hamas proudly said that he was a member of that group.
Indeed, as far as I could tell, Roth never tweeted about their murder.
Human rights, by definition, is concerned with protecting the lives and welfare of humans. But when the human victims are Jews, then - according to Roth - we have an additional prerequisite for something to be a human rights concern: the attacker must belong to a known militant group. Otherwise, they don't care.
He apparently is assuming that until a group like Hamas takes responsibility, Israelis who are murdered by Arabs might just be victims of a drug deal gone bad, or a misfired bunch of shots at their heads and bodies.
Does this new international law work the other way around? Of course not. Jewish settler actions are definitely of concern to human rights activists even though they are not members of any organized groups or militias. In those cases, the fact that the attackers or alleged attackers are Jews is quite enough evidence for Roth and the human rights community.
But Arabs killing Jews? Those situations have to clear a much higher bar before "experts" and defenders of "human rights" will deign to give them any attention.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul plans was set to conduct a second major campaign to disrupt daily life in Israel on Thursday, in what activists are calling a “day of resistance.”
The day notably includes plans to block roads around Ben Gurion Airport in an attempt to make it difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get there for his flight on an official visit to Italy. This in addition to marches, temporary workplace strikes, the blocking of main thoroughfares, disruption of train services and rallies outside the homes of top government officials.
The protest events were laid out in detail on a dedicated website and map (Hebrew), with organizers promising “many surprises,” indicating there were more planned actions that had not been announced publicly.
“It is a civic duty to resist the dictatorship and this is the only way to return Israel to the path of democracy. This is a great battle for the independence of Israeli citizens against the tyranny that will destroy what we have built here for over 70 years. We call on the entire public to participate in protests,” the organizers said in a statement.
Protest heads have specifically called for demonstrators to block roads around Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu and his wife are scheduled to depart on their flight to Italy. The trip previously faced setbacks when national carrier El Al was unable to find a crew to man the prime minister’s flight — an issue blamed on crew shortages but which may have also been affected by growing public anger at the government as it pushed forward with efforts to weaken the justice system.
Some media reports indicated Netanyahu was looking at possibly taking a helicopter to the airport to avoid the expected road disruptions.
A major rally in Tel Aviv was to set off from the city’s Habima Square. In addition, protests by workers from the tech sector were planned at 15 locations around the country.
Police said they too were preparing for the demonstrations, with 3,000 cops set to be deployed across the country.
Those who defended Bar’s remarks (delivered several weeks before the Knesset election) did so on the grounds that terrorists apprehended by the Shin Bet told their interrogators that internecine strife in the Jewish state was bolstering their confidence and resolve. In other words, since perception influences enemy actions, security bigwigs have a responsibility to monitor and caution about pitfalls in this realm.
It’s a logical position, particularly in view of the gleeful way in which the international Arab and Iranian media outlets are depicting the present crisis in the country. That they’re being given a serious boost by the Israeli press may be extremely disconcerting, but it’s the price—and privilege—of free speech.
Soldiers don’t enjoy this luxury, however. On the contrary, their individual ideologies are irrelevant to the assignments they are charged to execute. Halevi has the duty to remind them of this in no uncertain terms. His failure on this score only encourages the very foes that the IDF, thankfully, is still fighting on more than one front.
“When we are on the battlefield, we don’t look to the right and left to discern the political views of our brothers and sisters,” said Netanyahu on Monday, after attending a Purim megillah reading at a Border Police base in the Jewish community of Beit Horon. “We [do it] with the knowledge that together, shoulder-to-shoulder, we are storming our enemies, in order to safeguard our security and future.”
This, he stressed, “is the first and most important foundation of our existence in our land. It rests on the deep understanding that whatever the controversies among us, we are always united against those out to kill us. This is how it was during all of Israel’s wars.”
He went on: “Refusal to serve threatens this existential foundation, and thus has no place in our ranks. Israeli society always condemned the refusal to serve.… We never allowed it a foothold—neither in the regular army nor in the reserves; neither in the security forces nor anywhere else. It had no place in the War of Independence, the Oslo Accords or in the disengagement [from Gaza]. There is no room for it now, nor should there be in the future…. because the minute that we give this illness legitimacy, it will spread and become systemic…in controversies to come.”
Netanyahu concluded with a Purim analogy.
“When Haman sought to find the Jews’ weak spot, he said, ‘There is one people that is scattered and divided.’ But…we rose as one; we banded together and achieved victory for generations. We will do it again this time, as well.”
It’s a message that Halevi would do well to hear, heed and repeat.
This is one of the most legitimate protests in Israel's history.
Some have tried to quash it by pointing out a handful of Palestinian flags flown at rallies, but for every such flag, a thousand Israeli flags were raised, so that fell flat.
Others claimed the protest wasn't about the judicial overhaul at all but rather an attempt to overrule the will of the voter, but that too missed the mark. This protest's success lies in its expansion to more and more audiences, it's not merely a left-wing protest.
Prominent religious and right-wing figures have also joined in, and while most of them don't take the streets, they make their voices heard by appealing for dialogue and broad consensus.
Are they too anarchists? Who are you trying to fool?
As for those screeching voices on the margins flying the BDS flag, let them, they clearly do not represent anything.
But the protest also brings the pain. The fissure is here. And 37 out of 40 pilots of the Israeli Air Force's elite 69 Squadron declaring they won't report for training is the closest thing to mutiny.
We must not allow this terrible scourge to become the face of the protest for there is a fine line where a protest shifts from an opposition to the government to an opposition to the state. There are too many elements on the left that had done so, there's no need for the protest to tread the same line.
Crossing that red line would only harm the protest since it draws its success from the fact that it has become a consensus in and of itself, and public opinion polls show as much.
As soon as the protest crosses these red lines, it will become a sectoral protest of the extreme left. This was not the intention of the pilots who declared that they won't report for reserve duty, but this may be the result. So yes, we must apply pressure to prevent harm to democracy. But there is no need for the protest to exacerbate that harm.
The Caroline Glick Show: Politics is poisoning the IDF
Mob violence against Sara Netanyahu; 37 out of 40 elite Air Force reservist pilots refusing to show up to duty. These are, but two of the most recent examples of the protests against the judicial reform proposed by the Netanyahu government.
To discuss the shocking turn of events and the leading role that retired leftist generals are playing in the left’s efforts to coerce the government to shelve its efforts to restore Israeli democracy, the guest on this week’s show is Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi.
Avivi is the founder and CEO of the Israel Security and Defense Forum (Habithonistim), a social movement and think tank comprised of retired senior officers, soldiers and concerned citizens working to reinstate the Zionist ethos in the IDF. Glick and Avivi also discuss at length the issue of Iran, which the United States now acknowledges had become a threshold nuclear state..
In addition, Glick devotes her opening remarks to an analysis of the central (hostile) role the Biden administration is playing in the events on the ground in Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
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