Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 10, 2023

The Mufti tried to establish an anti-Jewish university in Jerusalem

World Islamic Congress in Jerusalem, 1931

In the Winter 2022 edition of the Institute of Palestine Studies journal, pseudo-historian Ilan Pappe puts forth a theory:

This article asks, why was there no Arab university in Mandatory Palestine (while there were two Jewish universities). Apparently, the colonial mentality of the British authorities who deemed the Palestinians yet another colonized people who had to be oppressed, while regarding the Zionist settlers as fellow colonialists, feared that such a university would enhance the Palestinian national movement. At the same time, Zionist pressure, British anti-Arab racism, and lack of resources also combined to undermine the emergence of a proper Palestinian higher education system.

According to Pappe's abstract, the main reason an Arab university was not established was British racism. Yet even he admits that the British allowed other Arab institutions of higher learning to be established in Palestine.

The truth is only partially mentioned in the article:

After the Buraq disturbances, some members of the Palestinian political leadership and most notably Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husayni attempted a different path. It was in the wake of the All-Islamic Congress convened in Jerusalem in 1931 that the real efforts to open such a university began in earnest in 1932. The coordinating committee of the All-Islamic Congress sent delegations to Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and India for fundraising for an Islamic University in Jerusalem.

... [British] opposition was not the only reason that the idea of the Islamic university in Jerusalem petered out. Unfortunately, these fundraising missions, particularly the mufti’s long fundraising trip to Iraq and India in 1933, were not successful in raising the funds necessary to establish a university in Jerusalem. Nor was there enough interest among activists in convening a second congress in the city, and that led to the collapse of the organizational capacity of the World Islamic Congress by the end of 1934.48 Although the local press constantly mentioned the idea of reviving the university project and holding another congress in Jerusalem in the years that followed, those plans came to nothing and were soon forgotten. As mentioned, even after the mufti’s escape from Palestine in 1937, he was still involved in the efforts until 1940; soon after he also lost interest in the project.

The antisemitic Mufti of Jerusalem couldn't galvanize nearly enough interest in the Arab world to build the "Islamic University in Jerusalem." He couldn't raise the funds and he lost interest himself. It doesn't appear that British opposition had much if anything to do with this - the Mufti certainly didn't consider that an obstacle.

Which means that Pappe is not telling the truth.

Other sources fill in more gaps. Pappe touches on this, but this article notes Egyptian opposition to the university:

The news that the [Islamic] conference would support the creation of an Islamic university in Jerusalem was seen as a direct threat to the dominating status of al-Azhar as the most prestigious university in the Islamic world. Thus, for example, Muhammad Bakhit, former Mufti of Egypt, in his public statement against the conference, also criticised the 'dreams' of those who pretended to establish a new university which would become the new scientific centre of the Muslim world. The loud opposition of al-Azhar to the conference must have also affected the cautious reaction of the opposition parties in Egypt. Although they might have been eager to use it as a stage to attack Sidqi's regime, Wafdist and Liberal leaders, being Egyptian nationalists, could not accept the eventuality that a non-Egyptian caliph would be nominated at the conference. Similarly, these leaders opposed any alleged attempt to erode the prestige of al-Azhar as the most respected centre of Islamic teaching. Even Egyptian advocates of the Palestinian Arab cause, such as Muhammad Ali Alluba and Ahmad Zaki, called for its postponement.

The entire purpose of the university was to help the Mufti's power base as well as to oppose the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which had attracted prestige very quickly. But it was also a means to make land unavailable for Jews to buy, as Pappe notes:

Some funding did come through. The nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad donated one million rupees. ...That sum of money was used to buy land in the Tulkarm district that was endowed as a waqf for the future university. At least in this respect, the mufti could have been satisfied; he prevented the sale of the land coveted by the Zionist movement and ensured a future investment for the university. Alas, it was a short-lived victory as the village (Raml Zayta/Khirbat Qazaza) was destroyed in 1948 and on its ruins Jewish settlements were built and the university was not established.

This nexus between endowment, struggling against Zionist purchase of land, and the university enthused also Christian activists in the national movement. Members of the Christian Orthodox community were prepared to do more than send words of congratulations. Most notable in this respect was ‘Isa al-‘Isa, the editor of Filastin, who sent the World Islamic Congress a proposal outlining a scheme for saving Palestinian lands from the Zionists by creating endowments on the coveted land...

The proposed Islamic University of Jerusalem was not conceived as a positive way for Palestinian Arab youth to improve themselves, but as a way to counter Jewish progress.

As with Palestinian nationalism itself, it wasn't pro-Palestinian. It was anti-Jew.

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Some TikTok guy makes Arabic anti-Israel videos as "General Moshe", and Arabs believe he's a real Israeli general

Some Arab got a black yarmulka and a mail order IDF uniform and set himself up on TikTok pretending to be "General Moshe," a dissident Israeli general who for some reason only sends his disparaging messages to the Israeli government in Arabic.

Some of his rants have over a million views!

Many Arabs actually believe this is a real Israeli general, including Jordan's Al Ghad news site.

This account claims that he is a Palestinian actor and "it is part of the media war with which we are fighting this usurping occupation!"

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04/09 Links: How Will Israel Confront the Iranian Regime’s Multi-Front Assault?; Iran plans to attack Israeli-owned vessels to avenge advisers killed in Syria

From Ian:

Cary Nelson: Lara Sheehi’s Joyous Rage: Antisemitic Anti-Zionism, Advocacy Academia and Jewish Students’ Nightmares at GWU

Fathom Editor’s Introductory Note. Sometimes it is hard to know what is the more alarming: the state of the humanities and social sciences in US higher education or the failure of mainstream America, including its foundations and donors, to do anything about it. Perhaps this will wake some people up. Cary Nelson is a former president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). His exhaustively detailed case study of the tweeting, teaching and scholarship of GWU’s Lara Sheehi documents the impact of faculty anti-Zionist, and arguably antisemitic, social media, publication, and classroom practice on Jewish and other Zionist students. The issues at stake are relevant to the increasing antisemitic anti-Zionism found at universities worldwide. The astonishing material evidence presented here, plus the fact of documented student complaints, mean the case is exemplary, not least regarding the shameful victim-blaming of the GWU administration and of some professional bodies. Nelson’s argument should be studied throughout Higher Education, and not just in the USA. Finally, perhaps the case forces a question many of us have been avoiding: without fundamental change, is an alternative network of educational institutions now needed? How much longer can academics with intellectual integrity, students with independence and curiosity, parents who care for the quality of their children’s educational experience and donors who do not want their money to be spent on political indoctrination and antisemitic anti-Zionist pedagogy continue to support what many universities are becoming? (Alan Johnson, Editor of Fathom)
And that’s why I open the first class of the first semester reminding my doctoral clinical students that psychology and psychiatry are white supremacist fields that works alongside capitalism to *create* debility and we’re implicated if this is disavowed (4/6/2021, 8:41:34 PM) Lara Sheehi

The militant revolutionary struggle not only disrupts, but also has the potential to overturn coloniality entirely—when the struggle is an individualistic practice, the structure is not disrupted; when it becomes a social program, a militant struggle for a new social order, all forms of oppression are intimately implicated. DISRUPT

Lara Sheehi, ‘Writing on the Wall’ (261)
Even before Lara Sheehi’s Fall 2022 required first-year graduate course in the George Washington University Professional Psychology Program began, some students had a hint of what might be in store for them.[1] They had watched several of the YouTube videos she made with her husband Stephen that summarise their shared goals as professionals and their dedication to unqualified condemnation of the Jewish state. The Sheehis had coauthored a 2022 book, Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine, and had given a number of recorded interviews summarising and introducing the book upon its publication. The book presents case histories to demonstrate Israel’s destructive impact on Palestinian psychology, mounts a fierce attack on the Jewish state, and urges that psychoanalytic practice worldwide devote itself to political liberation.

For Lara Sheehi, that commitment encompasses not only substantial revisions of psychoanalytic theory but also a revolution in both how therapists are trained and how patients are treated. That is a large step from recognising the distinctive impact of social and political conditions on individual patients’ lives, a responsibility that much therapeutic training now endorses. As she urges in a book review, we must resist ‘the centrifugal force of normativity, of white supremacy, and of liberal humanism that works to shore up the individual at the expense of the collective’ (1392). As she declares in their joint ‘Against Alienation’ interview, you ‘cannot be objective’ as a clinician; you should ‘join the motherfucking struggle.’

Once the course was under way, students also accessed some of Lara Sheehi’s Instagram messages and her numerous tweets (her tag line was @blackflaghag). Uneasiness about the course began to spread. But even the Jewish students maintained an open mind and a positive attitude, hoping that Sheehi’s politics and prejudices would prove irrelevant and that their first experiences of the program would be beneficial. Unfortunately, the very first class session included an unsettling incident. Following widespread practice, the students took turns offering capsule biographies, with Sheehi making brief supportive comments on each. When it came to the student from Israel, she identified her country, and Sheehi responded ‘It’s not your fault you were born in Israel.’ From Sheehi’s perspective, this was both an instinctive rejection of the Jewish state and a humiliating form of kindness: the student would not be held personally responsible for her citizenship.

Elliott Abrams: Israeli sovereignty and American intervention

Finally, it must be said that American intervention has been invited by many Israelis fighting against the judicial reform. They’ve invited it through their rhetoric, by saying that this American friend and ally was on the verge of fascism.

When President Isaac Herzog proposed a compromise, Ehud Barak infamously tweeted the old photo of Hitler and Neville Chamberlain with Herzog’s face substituted for Chamberlain’s. Ehud Olmert and a thousand other commentators used the word “coup” while yet more spoke of a “blitzkrieg.” Opposition leader Yair Lapid spoke of a “journey towards destroying Israeli democracy.” All of them spoke in English to U.S. audiences, and in the demonstrations in Israel many signs were in English as well—all to appeal for the intervention of American Jews and the United States government. In private, numerous Israeli leaders and commentators explicitly asked for American intervention, arguing that Israelis had reached a dead end and had to be saved from themselves. Such conversations, and the picture of an Israel about to collapse into a dark tyranny, no doubt had their effect on Biden and his administration.

And those invitations fell on fertile American ground for all the reasons mentioned previously. Take for example the words of Rabbi Eric Yoffie, long-time leader of the Reform movement. Writing in Haaretz on March 2, he said “I have never once lobbied against an Israeli government. But Netanyahu’s judicial coup, his offensive against democracy, must be stopped. That means U.S. Jews must do the unthinkable, and urge a strong American hand with Israel.”

This is a dangerous precedent. When Clinton intervened (twice) in Israeli elections he tried to hide his actions; he knew they were indefensible if exposed. Now there’s a new model that justifies and indeed idealizes foreign interference—demanding that the United States intervene in domestic matters in Israel in a way that never happens with respect to any other democracy.

Those on the left—whether Israelis opposing the judicial reforms or Americans wanting to throw Washington’s weight around because their side didn’t win Israel’s most recent elections—should realize first that two can play the same game. It isn’t hard to imagine a conservative Republican president in the United States and a left-of-center prime minister in Israel serving at the same time. Will conservative Americans henceforth demand intervention in Knesset votes, or in Israeli elections, because some proposed policies are strongly opposed on the right?

Judicial reform is about the most “domestic” or “internal” issue one can imagine. If outside interference is legitimate on that issue, are there any issues where foreign intervention, whether by diaspora communities or foreign governments, should be considered illegitimate?

As Israel approaches its 75th birthday in just a few weeks, one must wonder what those who cultivate American interference think of the Zionist project. Are Israelis to be “masters of their own fate” (in Ben Gurion’s words) except when election losers can coax the United States government to jump into the fray? Is Israel to have a kind of compromised sovereignty that is subject to American whims?

The current struggle over judicial reform has many aspects. The decision of those who oppose reform to invite, indeed to plead for, American intervention in this complex and fateful internal contest damages Israeli sovereignty and self-government. One can only hope that when the dust has settled, Israelis will—whatever their views on the Supreme Court—come to agree that the appeal to foreign intervention over the Jewish State’s internal political structures was a damaging mistake and a dangerous precedent.

Elliott Abrams: Progress and Pain in the Promised Land

As Israel reaches its 75th anniversary on May 14, a spate of books is appearing to celebrate—or at least commemorate—the occasion. Daniel Gordis, a professor and prolific author born and raised in the United States, made aliyah to Israel in 1998 and has been teaching and writing there ever since. His new book Impossible Takes Longer asks how Israel is doing: "Has Israel fulfilled its founders’ dreams?"

Pretty well, Gordis answers in a well-written and thoughtful examination of the challenges Israel has overcome and those it still faces. One way of measuring is the simple concept of happiness: How do Israelis feel? The "World Happiness Report," which rates every country, finds that Israel comes in 4th out of 146 countries, behind a few northern Europeans but ahead of Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland—and the United States. And Israel now has the highest birth rate of any OECD country, another measure of its people’s confidence in their society and its future.

But the goal of Zionism wasn’t happiness; it was survival. Israel’s Declaration of Independence states that it is "the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state." As Gordis writes, "we begin with an extraordinary fact—extraordinary in part because it now seems entirely natural—that the Jewish people can defend itself." This is a complete inversion of the historic reality Jews had faced for 2,000 years. As Gordis says, "Power has done what it was meant to do: Jews are no longer victims on call."

Beyond survival, the list of Israeli achievements is long, and Gordis takes us through it. The revival of Hebrew is itself a sort of miracle. Turning a poor foreign aid recipient into the "start-up nation" has spawned innumerable articles and books, and Israelis now enjoy European levels of GDP per capita. Maintaining democracy through a series of brutal wars is remarkable enough, but as Gordis writes, the Israeli case is unique—Golda Meir was the only founder of Israel who had grown up in a democratic country.

Jordan's Foreign Ministry reiterates that the Temple Mount - and the Kotel - must be Judenrein

The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement today saying that the holiest site in Judaism must never have Jews.

The Ministry condemned the "storming of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque / Al-Haram Al-Sharif." which it says "constitutes a violation of the historical and legal status quo existing in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and a violation of the sanctity of the holy places."

The official spokesman for the ministry, Ambassador Sinan Al-Majali, stressed that Al-Aqsa Mosque, with its entire area of 144 dunums, is "a place of worship for Muslims only."

Majali added "the Israeli government bears responsibility for the escalation in Jerusalem and in all the occupied Palestinian territories, and for the deterioration that will worsen, if it does not stop these incursions into Al-Aqsa."

What are the boundaries of Al Aqsa? Well, they include the Kotel. The Jordanian government considers the Kotel to be a part of Al Aqsa Mosque, and therefore they are saying that Jews have no right to be there, either, except perhaps for very limited times that the Ottoman Empire allowed Jews to visit since 1852, which they consider the beginning of the "status quo."

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UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese justifies the murder of the Dee sisters. In fact, @FrancesKAlbs justifies ALL Palestinian murders of Jews worldwide.

EU High Representative Josep Borrell issued a press release about the latest escalations of violence in Israel:

The EU is deeply concerned by the grave escalation of violence in recent days in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Lebanon.

Last night again, deadly terrorist attacks have occurred in Tel Aviv, one of them killing an Italian tourist. The EU expresses its total condemnation of these acts of violence. This must cease.

This upsurge in violence follows days of tension and clashes at the Holy Sites, including the intervention and the use of force by Israeli police inside the compound of the Al Aqsa mosque.

The EU condemns the violent incidents which have happened in the Holy Sites and reminds that the status quo of all the Holy Sites must be preserved.

We also condemn the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza and the territory of Lebanon. We condemn unreservedly the terrorist attack which killed two Israelis and left one seriously injured.

Israel has the right to defend itself. At the same time, any response must be proportionate.

The EU calls for an immediate end to the ongoing violence. Everything must be done to prevent the conflict from spreading.

We urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint, to avoid further escalation and promote calm for the ongoing religious holidays.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the "occupied Palestinian territories," tweeted a link to this statement but then added caveats on where and how Israel has the right to defend itself:

The loss of life in the oPt & Israel is devastating, especially at a time that should be of peace for all, Christians, Jews, Muslims. Israel has a right to defend itself, but can't claim it when it comes to the people it oppresses/whose lands it colonizes.

A later tweet makes it clear that her statement limiting Israel's right to defend itself refers to doing anything to defend Jews outside the 1949 armistice lines.

Which means that she considers Maya and Rina Dee, two sisters who were murdered while they were traveling with their mother, to have been legitimate targets of Palestinian terrorists, since they were killed by Palestinians - who have every right to massacre any Jews they can find.

It also means that even when Palestinian terrorists murder Jews in Israel, they are justified - and Israel has no right to defend itself in that case. This includes defending Jewish children.

This makes her statement that "Israel has the right to defend itself" meaningless - because as long as its attackers call themselves "oppressed" by Israel then that "right" goes out the window. Palestinian rockets from Gaza? Gazans are oppressed by Israel! Rockets from Lebanon and Syria? They are shot by Palestinians who are not allowed to "return" to Israel! Suicide bombs in Tel Aviv? Perfectly justified!

And Palestinians attacking Jewish targets outside Israel is likewise justified.

In short, Israel does not have the right to defend itself from terrorism, anywhere in the world.

According to Albanese, Jews worldwide must allow themselves to be slaughtered as long as their murderers define themselves as "oppressed."

It is a curious position for a supposed defender of human rights to take. But it makes perfect sense if she does not consider Jews to be human.

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It hasn't been a big story in Israeli media, but Hamas has been firing relatively primitive anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli aircraft that have been retaliating for rocket fire.

In Palestinian media, this has been a much bigger story - even though the missiles have not succeeded in causing any damage.

Palestinian media has noted and shown videos that Israeli aircraft have been releasing flares to confuse the heat-seeking missiles.

To the terrorists, Israel taking countermeasures to the shoulder-mounted missiles is itself a victory.

While Hamas encourages clashes every Ramadan, this time it is possible that their Al Aqsa provocations have a dual purpose. One is to capture videos of Israeli forces using violence against "peaceful worshipers," but the other may be to have an excuse to fire rockets at Israel - rockets that Israel is sure to respond to with relatively minor airstrikes, allowing Hamas to show off their anti-aircraft weapons and look powerful to Palestinians and the Arab world.

I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't an Iranian initiative.

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04/08 Links: Israel on the Brink: Rockets Fired From Gaza and Lebanon, Riots on Temple Mount & Israeli Sisters Murdered in Terror Attack; No Worse Friend: The West’s Treatment of Israel

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: How has Netanyahu confronted Iran in the first 100 days of his post?

In this context Iran’s current position in the region is important. Iran recently agreed to a China-brokered deal with Saudi Arabia. It wouldn’t be logical for Tehran to build a bomb that threatens the region, after just agreeing to tone down tensions with Riyadh. This means that Iran’s enrichment may be reaching a dead end. It will have a lot of enriched uranium and be close to breaking out for a weapon, but it may be held back by Russia, China and other countries.

On March 6 the US and Israel issued a joint statement on the meeting of the US-Israel Strategic Consultative Group. This came in the wake of a meeting between Assistant to the US President for National Security Affairs Jake Sullivan and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and a senior Israeli interagency delegation at the White House on March 6. The statement said that “the officials reviewed with significant concern advances in Iran’s nuclear program, and affirmed their mutual objective of further enhancing the long-standing security partnership between Israel and the United States. In this regard, officials pledged to enhance coordination on measures to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and to further deter Iran’s hostile regional activities.”

The question is whether Iran is actually deterred. Considering Iran’s continued attempts to move weapons to Syria and also its work with Russia and China, it does not seem deterred. It may be deterring itself temporarily by keeping enrichment at around 84%.

Another issue that has plagued Israel is Iran’s precision-guided munitions. These are weapons that can maneuver or carry out precise attacks on Israeli strategic infrastructure. Unlike “dumb” rockets, these weapons can be a game changer in the hands of Israel’s enemies. Iran has moved these systems to Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is making its own PGMs. This was once considered an issue of major concern for Israel. However, Israel now has a maritime deal with Lebanon that relates to sensitive energy exploration off the coast. Israel would be concerned about any strike on Hezbollah’s PGMs, because of that deal.

Hezbollah was allegedly behind infiltrating a man into Israel in March. The man then placed an IED near Metulla junction. Israel is concerned about this threat. Hezbollah may also have been behind moving a UAV capability to Dabaa airbase near Qusair in Syria. That UAV capability was hit by an airstrike on April 1, according to foreign reports.

Netanyahu has been relatively modest in his recent condemnations of Iran. He blamed Iran for an attack on an oil tanker in February. Israel also blamed Iran for being behind a plot in Greece. In both cases Iran was trying to strike at “soft” targets far from Israel. Iran has been targeting ships and tankers off the coast of Oman for many years. It has increasingly targeted ships it thinks are linked to Israel. Iran uses drones flown from Chabahar to carry out those attacks.

The first 100 days of Netanyahu’s administration illustrate how Israel can walk softly and carry a big stick, in the sense that one doesn’t need to peddle fear about Iran’s nuclear ambitions in order to continue to confront Iran in the region.

Seth Frantzman: Did Israel walk into another Tehran trap with recent tensions?

THE ROUND of fighting that began on Thursday, or the day before, depending on how one defines it, clearly had aspects similar to what happened in 2021. It involved tensions over “al-Aqsa” and then plans by Hamas and other terror groups to threaten Israel from Gaza and Lebanon. This not only presented the threat of a multi-front conflict, but it also led to rioting in several Arab communities in Israel. This is similar to the communal clashes of May 2021.

It’s unclear if Israel walked into the conflict and into a kind of “trap” that Iran had put in place. However, what is clear is that the tensions in 2021 and now are similar and that Iran seeks to benefit from them. For example, Iranian media is bragging about the “resistance” targeting Israel.

The fact that Iranian-backed groups such as Hamas and PIJ are openly saying they are ready to confront the Jewish state is part of the rhetoric amplified by Iranian media. Hezbollah’s involvement is clear, because the Lebanese terrorist organization hosted the Hamas leader as the rockets were being prepared to be fired at Israel and also because the rockets were shot from an area Hezbollah controls. It killed an Irish UN peacekeeper last year in the same area.

Iran appears to be trying to increasingly threaten Israel from multiple fronts. Iran may want to increase Hamas’s strength in Lebanon so it can use the terrorist group as a proxy from Lebanon, rather than Hezbollah, to create plausible deniability for the latter.

The fact that the Hamas leader openly arrived in Beirut before the rocket fire indicates Iran’s advanced planning.

It’s unclear if Iran also planned the al-Aqsa tensions and also put out messaging for riots on Thursday, but it appears that Tehran did seek to heat up the region for a conflict on the eve of Passover.

This is not a coincidence. The timing is clear. Leaders of groups like Hamas don’t just show up in Beirut by mistake while their armed units are moving rockets into position to be fired.

No Worse Friend: The West’s Treatment of Israel

And the pretexts have worked: as Ronald Reagan’s UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick once said, “The long march through the UN has produced many benefits for the PLO. It has created a people where there was none; a claim where there was none. Now the PLO is seeking to create a state where there already is one.” Our collusion over the years in this assault on an ally, this mistreatment of a “friend,” has been a stain on the West, one particularly outrageous given our incessant preaching and preening about the “rules-based international order.”

Finally, the biggest lie in the anti-Israel catalogue of slanders was referenced in Kirkpatrick’s statement. Just recently, the Biden administration has publicly condemned an Israeli minister for saying that “there is no such thing as Palestine because there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” Of course that statement is historically true.

In fact, as Sha’i ben-Tekoa documents in his three-volume study Phantom Nation, the first UN resolution referencing “Palestinians” instead of “Arabs” occurred three years after the Six Day War, marking the international recognition of a “Palestinian people” and nation as yet another Arab tactic in gaining support in the West by exploiting an idea––nationalism––alien to traditional Islam. Before then “Palestinian” was a geographical term, more typically applied to Jews. Numerous quotations from Arab leaders reveal not a single reference to a Palestinian people, but numerous ones identifying the inhabitants of the geographical territory Palestine as “Arabs.”

For example, in 1937, Arab Higher Committee Secretary Auni Abdel Hadi said, “There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a country the Zionists invented. ‘Palestine’ is alien to us.” The Christian Arab George Antonius, author of the influential The Arab Awakening, told David Ben-Gurion, “There was no natural barrier between Palestine and Syria and there was no difference between their inhabitants.” Later in his book he defined Syria as including Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan. In testimony to the UN in 1947, the Arab Higher Committee said, “Politically the Arabs of Palestine are not independent in the sense of forming a separate political identity.”

Thirty years later Farouk Kaddoumi, then head of the PLO Political Department, told Newsweek, “Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people.” A few years, after the Six-Day War a member of the Executive Council of the PLO, Zouhair Muhsin, had been even more explicit: “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity . . . Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.”

Clearly, the continuing statements about a Palestinian people as a distinct nation that deserves its own borders and sovereign territory have been a tactic for pursuing the eradication of Israel by casting the struggle in Western terms of “national self-determination” and the struggle against neo-imperialism.

That the West has endorsed and legitimized this lie for nearly 80 years is perhaps its worst mistreatment of Israel and its people. At a time when Israel is facing internal division, riots, terrorist attacks, an enemy on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons, and one American political party that sympathizes with Palestinian Arabs more than with Israelis, Biden’s meddling in Israel’s domestic policies, and harping on “settlers” living in their ancestral homeland, are despicable. And that’s no way for a great nation to treat a friend and ally.

04/05 Links Pt2: Caroline Glick: The Challenges of Freedom on the Eve of Passover; HRW Leads NGO Campaign against Consensus IHRA Definition of Antisemitism

From Ian:

How Court Reform Will Strengthen Israeli Democracy

Opponents turn every accepted concept of democratic and liberal government on its head in order to claim that Israel must retain the Barak-era judicial aristocracy. They argue, for instance, that there can be no liberty if any organ of the state has unlimited power, and, therefore, the Israeli judiciary must continue to enjoy unlimited power. Likewise, they argue that Israel needs checks and balances among its institutions, and therefore the Knesset must be deprived of all power to check the courts.

But to a much greater degree than arguments of substance, the opposition to judicial reform must be seen as an artifact of Israeli democracy. The opposition opposes judicial reform because it is a centerpiece policy of the current government, no matter what its content. Israeli politics have always been hyperbolic, and the opponents’ rhetoric upholds this dubious tradition. Thus, opponents describe judicial reform not simply as a policy to be opposed, but rather as the transformation of Israel into a fascist dictatorship, a theocratic autocracy, and an exit from the family of democratic states. To a large degree, the debate has been ad hominem, with opponents rejecting reform on the grounds that reform politicians’ motives are largely political, although, naturally, opponent politicians’ motives are also largely political. None of these arguments affects the merits of the proposal.

There is an irony to the opposition to judicial reform – its existence and character demonstrate in practice exactly why the opponents’ claims of incipient dictatorship are nonsensical. Even in the era before Barak’s “constitutional revolution,” constitutional scholars agreed that Israeli governments and parliaments are exceptionally weak when compared to other democracies. All governments in Israel are unstable and subject to be undone in minutes by political bargains. The political logic of the opposition is to create chaos to destabilize the government and bring about new elections. It is, the opposition believes, exactly how the 1999 opposition toppled Prime Minister Netanyahu’s then-government, and, in their opinion, how the 2022 opposition toppled then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennet’s government.

Chaos works as an opposition strategy precisely because the opposition’s claims of unlimited government power (absent the court) is a lie. Governments in Israel last only as long as they enjoy the confidence of parliament, and governments have never lasted to term, even in the pre-Barak era. There have been 37 governments for 25 parliaments, meaning one half of all governments fail to last even the term of the Knesset. Knessets typically fall to early elections, and no party has ever won a majority of seats in the Knesset. The idea that judicial reform could lead to all-powerful Israeli governments is risible.

One of the central reasons for Israel’s electoral instability is proportional representation. Israeli elections are not conducted by district, but at-large, with even small minority parties winning representation in the Knesset. John Stuart Mill identified proportional representation as a democratic technique for protecting minorities centuries ago, and constitutional scholars of Israel have often complained that minority interests are too powerful (for instance, that ultra-Orthodox Jews are able to win draft exemptions and generous welfare payments by trading their minority votes). When opponents claim that Israeli minorities will be left unprotected if judicial aristocracy is curbed, they are arguing that Israelis should reject the wisdom of their experience in favor of a hollow cliche.

The battle for judicial reform will continue in Israel with the characteristic amounts of noise, demagoguery and anger, but in the end, the democratic process will win out. And lovers of liberal democracies should be all the happier if judicial reform prevails.

Gil Troy: Was the massive Israeli protest historic? The people decide - opinion

TOO MANY Israelis, including our prime minister, have sacrificed too much personally to sabotage this state so easily. Admittedly, that reassures us while feeding the mystery of why this bug-riddled version of Bibi 3.0 in his third go-round as premier has behaved so self-destructively.

Apparently, Netanyahu will not fire Gallant if he apologizes. Gallant should apologize for dithering so long before standing up. Gallant could also apologize for his cowardly Likudnik colleagues, still quaking before this half-Bibi, this ever-shriveling Netanyahu.

Israel’s ethos of self-sacrifice explains our patriotic protesters’ addiction to Israeli flags. The many values, aspirations, stories and enemies uniting us explain why it is reprehensible to dismiss the protesters as anarchists and the government’s supporters as fascists.

That Israeli interconnectedness is why Israeli neighbors are so intrusive, why many of us, led by President Isaac Herzog, speak respectfully about both sides, why we still rock on the happiness index and yes, why our politics so often spirals wildly but stops short of self-destruction.

Beyond Monday’s mutual de-escalation, note Bnei Brak’s CDF – Cholent Defense Force. Two weeks ago, protesters swarmed that ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. They were greeted with dollops of cholent and rousing Jewish songs. This power move – saying you don’t rattle us – was also a patriotic gesture, citizen to citizen, crossing one of Israel’s widest divides. “When dialog doesn’t take place, insults do,” a haredi Likudnik City Councilor, Yaakov Vider, explained.

Similarly, Adina Bar-Shalom recalls how her late father, Rav Ovadia Yosef, liked living in secular neighborhoods. Once, Tel Aviv’s mayor offered to block his street on Shabbat to silence the traffic noise. “What noise,” Ovadia asked, modeling the discipline and love our patchwork-quilt society requires, with so many who use our shared gift of freedom choosing to live differently than we do.

The future remains in our hands. The silent majority must act uncharacteristically by raising their voices for compromise. There’s not much public pressure pushing the polls to compromise or boost our president’s mediation efforts. Why Not? Where’s our Million Moderates’ March?

It will be easiest if our politicians ease the process by making some judicial reforms so the government can declare victory but shelving the most radical proposals, especially the override clause, so the protesters can declare victory, too.

The divisions run deep. We all must lower the tension, control the hysteria and respect our political rivals. Rather than yelling at one another, let’s talk to one another and even better, listen to one another.

As always, in healthy democracies, we the people can be the history-makers; we can be the change. We will determine whether last week really was historic, defusing the tensions or just another chapter in this saga that must end yesterday.

New Israel Fund reveals donations to anti-reform protest groups

The U.S.-based New Israel Fund, which provides financial support to progressive and anti-Israel groups, on Monday posted to its Hebrew website a list of its donations to groups involved in the protests against judicial reform.

Demonstrations, sometimes turning violent, have roiled Israel for the past three months and, at least temporarily, derailed the government’s legislative plans.

The total amount spent, spread across 26 groups, comes to about 2 million shekels, or $660,000. Indeed, NIF money helped to ignite the protests, funding the first major demonstration on Jan. 7 in Tel Aviv.

“They’re not exaggerating their role,” Gadi Taub, a senior lecturer at the Federmann School of Public Policy at Hebrew University, told JNS. “They’re taking pride because they think they might have succeeded in stopping the reform. And they might have.”

Taub added, however, that the protesters (whose numbers he said the left has in any case exaggerated) were only indirectly responsible for the government’s decision to impose its legislative freeze. The direct cause was “a near mutiny in the army.”

“When you have the Supreme Court president, Esther Hayut, maneuvering for a constitutional crisis, and then the chief of staff of the army saying that a constitutional crisis is a red line for the army, what you have is a threat of a coup. This is what forced the government to bend,” Taub said, acknowledging at the same time that the protests did play an important role by “emboldening” anti-reformists, including army reservists who refused to report to duty.

Chag sameach!

Wishing my readers a chag kosher v'sameach! Have a wonderful Passover!

I will not be back online until Saturday night/Sunday morning.

(Which is as good a reason for aliyah as any!)

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As I have been reporting (and has been ignored by the mainstream media), the Jerusalem Waqf had - at Jordan's direction - written a memo saying that Muslims are not to stay overnight for the "i'tikaaf" custom at Al Aqsa Mosque. This was agreed during the Aqaba and Sharm el Sheikh summits between Israel and various Arab countries to tamp down tensions at the holy spot.

There was much Palestinian anger over this revelation. The "shabab," the youth who prefer violence to calm, said that the Waqf had no right to do that. The Waqf responded to the criticism earlier this week:

Local reports quoted the director of the Jerusalem Waqf Department, Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, as saying that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is run by a “responsible institution.” He notes that there are 22 members of the Endowment Council, and says that these members are all scholars and Jerusalemite personalities, and they appreciate the conditions in the city of Jerusalem and the circumstances of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, knowing that some of them have services for more than 50 years in Jerusalem.

He explained that the Waqf appreciates every movement in Jerusalem and in all aspects, and that since 1967, there has been i'tikaaf in the last ten days of Ramadan, in addition to Thursdays and Fridays, because the worshipers come from outside Jerusalem, and from Jordan, Gaza and some Arab and Islamic countries.

He points out that these decisions are not new to the Islamic waqf, and explains that this was the decision of the Waqf Council, and he said that it was “the right decision.”

And when al-Khatib talked about not opening the mosque for i'tikaaf on the rest of the week as well, he said: “This is a political issue that I cannot talk about. There are some things that are beyond our capacity, no more, no less.”

The shabab youth never made any secret about their intentions for i'tikaaf. It was never for quiet reflection and prayer. It was always to attempt to prevent Jews from ascending to the Temple Mount. Arabic media have made that clear from the start.

In the wake of popular anger at Israel enforcing the rules that the Waqf agreed to, the Waqf has now changed its tune.

It is now encouraging Palestinian Muslims to violate its own memorandum.

From Ammon News:

The Council of Islamic Endowments, Affairs and Holy Sites in Al-Quds Al-Sharif called on all Muslims, and those who can from the cities and villages of Palestine, to support the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque / Al-Qudsi Al-Sharif, by praying, worshiping, reading the Qur’an, and obtaining the double reward at the first two qiblahs, especially before the end of the blessed month of Ramadan.
In a statement issued today, Wednesday, the council affirmed that Al-Aqsa Mosque has not and will not be closed to those in i'tikaaf, each according to his ability, program and intention, throughout the days and nights of the holy month of Ramadan.
The Council affirms that the protection of Al-Aqsa Mosque is the duty of every Muslim.

Muslims always refer to Jews as people who cannot be trusted because they break any covenant they agree to.

Look who just broke an agreement they signed.

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04/05 Links Pt1: Over 350 Arrests in Temple Mount After Clashes with Israel Police; Hackers attack Israeli media sites including Jerusalem Post; Netanyahu: ‘Iran responsible for 95% of security threats against us’

From Ian:

Shin Bet chief: Over 200 ‘significant’ terror attacks foiled so far this year

Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar on Tuesday said that security forces have foiled more than 200 terror attacks since the start of 2023.

Speaking at a pre-Passover toast alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bar said that “only three months have passed, and this year more than 200 significant attacks have been thwarted, including about 150 shooting attacks, 20 bomb attacks, rammings, kidnappings and others.”

According to Bar, an elite unit that he described as “the last answer” to preventing impending attacks has been called up 14 times so far in 2023.

Bar also said that Israel is facing “a challenging time, both at home and abroad,” in a possible reference to the highly contentious debate surrounding the judicial overhaul.

Netanyahu vowed that “eventually we will get to every terrorist” and said “Iran is responsible for 95% of the security threats against us.”

“Those who come to harm us should know they will have their blood on their own head,” the premier said.

Tensions have spiked in the region over the past year as Israeli forces have ratcheted up arrest raids and other counterterror efforts in the West Bank following a series of terror attacks.

Palestinian terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank in recent months have left 15 Israelis dead and several more seriously hurt.

Over 350 Arrests in Temple Mount After Clashes with Israel Police

The Israel Police said on Wednesday that it had arrested more than 350 individuals who “violently barricaded” themselves in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount compound overnight.

Those detained that had locked themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque included “masked individuals, stone and firework throwers, and individuals suspected of desecrating the mosque,” the police spokesperson said. The clashes come nearly halfway through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and as Jews prepare to celebrate Passover starting Wednesday evening.

“Overnight, many dozens of law-breaking and masked juveniles smuggled fireworks, clubs and stones into the mosque and violently barricaded themselves inside of it using iron rods, closets and other objects from the mosque, which they vandalized, aiming to disrupt the order while desecrating the mosque,” the police statement said.

In addition, they began to “chant incitement and riot inside the mosque, and locked its doors from the inside with obstacles and fortifications, blocking the doorways.” After repeated attempts to convince the rioters to leave the mosque failed, police “were forced to enter the compound in order to remove the individuals, allow the Fajr prayer to take place as planned and prevent a violent riot.”

The rioters attacked police forces with stones and fireworks, which led to two policemen receiving leg wounds. The rioters also caused damage to the mosque and desecrated it.

“In recent hours, all of the barricading individuals arrested tonight were transferred for questioning at the Jerusalem Precinct Operational investigation center. Following the removal of the violent rioters, Israel Police forces left the Temple Mount, and the mosque was cleaned after the rioters vandalized, defiled, and desecrated it,” the police spokesperson specified.

Following the arrests, the Fajr prayer was held at the Temple Mount as planned and a significant number of Muslim worshippers were able to attend it. However, more disturbances occurred after the prayer.

IDF Soldier Wounded by Gunfire in Beit Ummar Attack

An Israel Defense Forces soldier was wounded by gunfire early on Wednesday morning during an operation in Beit Ummar, located near Hebron in Judea.

According to the military, the soldier received medical treatment on the scene and was evacuated to the hospital.

Forces were searching the area for suspects, said the IDF.

During the mission, a violent disturbance erupted in which Palestinian burned tires and threw rocks and explosives at troops. At one point, terrorists opened fire on the soldiers, who returned fire, according to the military.

The incident comes after three Israeli soldiers were injured after being run over by terrorists on Saturday night near Beit Ummar.

On Tuesday morning, two Israeli soldiers were wounded in a terrorist stabbing near Rishon LeZion in central Israel.

Civilians on the scene subdued the Palestinian attacker from Hebron, who has since been transferred to authorities for questioning, according to police.

This video of Israeli police pushing worshipers away from the front of Al Aqsa Mosque this morning makes Israel look really bad, doesn't it?

The worshippers aren't acting aggressively. What could possibly justify this?

Here's why.

Have you ever seen Muslims worship at that place before? The mosque has been reopened since the events of this morning, there are people inside. So why are they worshipping and setting up their prayer rugs outside at that specific spot?

Because they aren't interested in prayer. They want to be human roadblocks.

Religious Jews who visit the Temple Mount must circumnavigate the entire area. They can only walk in areas where they are certain that the holiest parts of the Temple could not have been, according to Jewish law.

There is no way for them to visit the site without passing in front of the Al Aqsa mosque. And if there are people in the way, they cannot walk around them without coming unacceptably close to the place of the actual Temples.

These aren't worshippers. They are "Mourabitoun," meaning "sentinels," whose entire job is to stop Jews from visiting the site. They are paid by Islamist groups, including Hamas, to do what they can to frustrate any Jewish visitors.

In the past they would scream at and try to intimidate Jewish tourists that they saw. Now they are trying to physically block the Jews from being able to visit the site.

The Israel police are not violating the status quo - they are trying to enforce it, to allow all people to have access to the holy site, not only Muslims.

But the Mourabitoun know that videos create reality, so they positioned themselves where they knew that they would be forcibly removed, and they had the cameras ready.

To them, prayer is not an act of worship but ammunition in a weapon to remove human rights from Jews.

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The @NYTimes twists the facts about Al Aqsa this morning - and omits the most important one

This morning's New York Times article about the clashes at Al Aqsa mosque, written by Raja Abdulrahim and Patrick Kingsley, is filled with anti-Israel bias.

And it does not mention the single most important fact that would change the entire complexion of the article.

The Israeli police raided the most prominent holy site in Jerusalem early on Wednesday to detain scores of Palestinians who had barricaded themselves inside, prompting armed groups in Gaza to fire rockets into Israeli airspace and the Israeli Air Force to respond with strikes on military sites in Gaza.

The phrase "prompting armed groups in Gaza to fire rockets into Israeli airspace" is incredible.

Israel doesn't "prompt" deadly rocket fire. That decision is made solely by terror groups, and they will always have an excuse. But the "Newspaper of Record" shares the logic of terror groups that shooting rockets into the south of Israel is a "natural response" to events in Jerusalem.

And note the wording, "into Israeli airspace." Were they firing balloons? While some of the rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome, others hit the ground (a factory was damaged and others fell harmlessly in unpopulated areas.)

Why couldn't the NYT say that rockets were fired into Israel or towards Israeli residential areas - phrases which would be far more straightforward and accurate? Because that might make readers a little sympathetic to the victims of the rockets! Rockets that are fired into "airspace" aren't dangerous. If it wasn't for gravity, they wouldn't have hit anything at all!

The police forced their way into one of the two main prayer halls at the contested holy site, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. In the ensuing confrontations, police officers struck Palestinians with batons and Palestinians fired fireworks. Palestinian news outlets said the police had fired tear gas and sponge-tipped bullets.

Now, which came first - the batons or the fireworks? The Times implies that the fireworks were shot to defend against batons, which is clearly the opposite of the truth..

Here are some of the spent fireworks casings.

Clashes often occur at the Aqsa Mosque compound, which Jews call the Temple Mount, during periods of tension in the region. Officials and diplomats have been warning that the overlap of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins on Wednesday evening, could make such clashes more likely.

The police said the Palestinians had locked the doors of the prayer hall, the Qibli Mosque, from the inside and barricaded the entrances, hours after the taraweeh prayers, which are held nightly during Ramadan. The police said they had raided the mosque after prolonged attempts to persuade the worshipers to leave.

...Some Palestinians had called for worshipers to go to Aqsa for itikaf, a tradition of staying overnight in a mosque for worship, which is practiced especially during Ramadan. They expressed concern that with Passover beginning, more Jewish worshipers would come to the site.

This is a gross perversion of the truth. And there is no doubt that Raja Abdulrahim is knowingly deceiving the readers.

Israel made an agreement with the Jordanian government, which controls the Waqf at Al Aqsa, that there would be no i'tikaaf at Al Aqsa on weeknights. The reason is because Palestinian and Islamist groups have urged Muslim youth to stay overnight in order to attack Jewish visitors the next morning.

Israel arranged that other nearby Jerusalem mosques would be able to accommodate any Muslims who want to adhere to the custom. In previous years, Al Aqsa did not allow i'tikaaf either.

The Waqf issued a memo confirming that no one was to stay overnight outside of Thursday and Friday nights, and the last ten days of Ramadan.

Israeli forces have been enforcing the agreement. Up until this morning, the worshipers have left peacefully. This frustrated the Islamists who have been trying to incite violence since Ramadan started. There were plenty of articles in Arabic claiming Israeli forces violently removed the worshippers, but there was no video that could incite the public.

The Islamists needed that video.

So last night, Palestinian youth barricaded themselves in the prayer hall hours after the last prayer of the night. They had already stockpiled fireworks and stones. And when they refused to leave, Israeli forces entered to enforce the Waqf agreement.

Now they had the video they wanted, as they shot fireworks and threw stones from within the holy site.

The New York Times purposefully omits anything about the agreement with the Waqf, and gives credence to the idea that Jews are the ones who are the aggressors here and Muslims have the right to block Jews from quietly praying on Judaism's holiest site:

For decades after capturing the site from Jordan in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, Israel prevented Jews from praying at the compound. But they have been tacitly allowed to do so in recent years, which has angered many Palestinians and Muslim states in the region.

And the Times further justifies the violence:

Some Jewish activists recently called for sacrificing a goat at the compound to observe Passover, something that the Israeli police have repeatedly said they would prevent.

The NYT desire to hide the fact about the agreement with Jordan to avoid events like that of this morning is clear here:

Since Ramadan began two weeks ago, the police have been forcing Muslims to leave the Aqsa compound after the nightly taraweeh prayers to ensure that they do not stay overnight. The police have also prevented many young Palestinian men from entering the mosque compound for morning prayers, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Without mentioning the Waqf memo, the reader is left with the impression that Israeli police want to disrupt an important and sacred Muslim tradition for no discernible reason.

This article may adhere to the New York Times' objectivity guidelines, but it is not objective. Every phrase is slanted to damn Israel, and the most crucial information that exonerates Israeli police actions is simply missing.

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An 1882 matzoh blood libel in Hungary

Here is the text of an 1883 newspaper article about a blood libel in Hungary at the time

THE PASSOVER MURDER.

Vienna, Austria, Aug. 13.—On the 3d day of August the Hungarian Jews who had been under trial on the charge of having killed a young Christian girl for the purpose of mixing her blood with the Passover bread were acquitted. The full text of the conclusion of the trial and of the judgment rendered by the public prosecution is now before me. The prosecutor frankly admitted that the prosecution had never any foundation for their charges, outside of prejudice and ignorant superstition.

T'he circumstances of this case may be summarized as follows: Early in the month of March, lt042, a young girl named Esther Solymosi, in the service of a woman living near Tisza Eslaz, in Hungary, was sent by her mistress to the town to make some purchases, and went, but never returned. As excitement and inquiry grew concerning her dis-appearance, the story began to be circulated that the JEWS HAD KILLED THE GIRL to use her blood for ritual purposes. Samuel Scharf, a child of 5 years old, the son of the Jewish butcher, was induced by liberal gifts of candy to say that his father had called the girl into the synagogue and cut her throat. The child stated that his elder brother, Moritz, a boy of 15, had held the girls' hand while his father killed her. Moritz, however, denied all knowledge of the murder, but the next day, being examined by the police, said that his father and some other Jews killed the girl, and that he had seen the whole affair through the key-hole. Thereupon, the elder Scharf, and ten or twelve other Jews, were seized and thrown into prison.

In June, 1882, a body was found in the River Thetas, dressed in the lost girl's clothes. No marks of violence were visible upon It, and this should have settled the matter and released the Jews, but public feeling was. very strong against them, and few would believe that it was the missing Esther. The body was much disfigured from long immersion in the water, the girl 'a mother refused to recognize it, the village doctor declared it to be the body of a woman of 20, and the story was circulated that the Jews had dressed another body in Esther's clothes, to turn aside suspicion from themselves.

The suspected Jews were kept in prison, and subjected to every species of indignity until June 20, l883, when their trial began, at Nyireghyaza, Hungary. It ended, as has been stated Aug. 3, in the acquittal of the accused parties. Not that there was no evidence against them, there was, on the contrary, an enormous mass of it, but it was almost wholly unworthy of belief. The only motive for the alleged crime was that the blood was wanted to mix with the Passover bread., but as no evidence whatever could be given to show this to be a custom of the Jews, it was soon dropped by the court, and the public prosecutor dismissed it with a mere allusion from his final charge.

The story of the boy Moritz, completely broke down under cross-examination, although he had evidently learned it well, and repeated it as accurately as a parrot. In more than one detail the boy contradicted himself, and by actual test it was found that through the keyhole he could not have seen nearly all the movements that he described, even had they been going on within. Moreover, the Judge would not admit the boy to oath, not merely on account of his youth, but also because of his evident LACK OF MORAL PRINCIPLE, as shown in his abjuring his religion, and the hatred be manifested toward his parents The magistrate who conducted the preliminary Inquiry last year, who seemed to have been the principal agency in giving currency to the charge, and who no doubt instructed the boy Moritz to in the lesson he repeated in court, was found to have been a convict, and to have spent twelve years In an Austrian prison for a murder. His evidence, which was brought forward to strengthen that of Moritz, was thrown out by the court. The raftsmen who had testified that they had taken another body in Esther's clothes from a Jewish woman, and sunk it in the river, afterward confessed that it was false, and they were indicted for perjury. .

Indeed the amount of false swearing and lying by witnesses un both sides, was one of the most remarkable features of the trial, and raises the question whether men and women, in a certain stage of superstition, know when they are telling the truth. As the prosecution was forced to the admission that it had literally no reliable evidence, it had nothing to do but to let the prisoners go. So they were fully acquitted, and after being kept in prison over a year, on a base and groundless charge, and while there subjected to cruelties and insults without number, and kept under trial for thirty-three days, were dismissed with the kind injunction to harbor no bitter feeling against it Christian fellow subjects. If they can obey this injunction they will prove themselves far better followers of the meek-Nazarene than those who bear his name.

Tablet magazine published a horrendous postscript to this affair in 2012:

Last Thursday, Jobbik MP Zsolt Baráth delivered a five-minute speech from the floor of parliament commemorating a blood libel that took place 130 years ago. Several days before Passover in 1882, a young girl was murdered in the Hungarian village of Tiszaeszlár, and the local Jewish community was blamed. A group of 15 accused Jews were eventually acquitted in a court trial, but the murder victim, Eszter Solymosi, has since become a martyr figure for the Hungarian right. A memorial constructed in her honor several years ago is a pilgrimage spot for Jobbik members and other far-right activists. “As we can see, there is no clear explanation, we do not know what happened to Eszter,” Baráth said. “Nevertheless, there is one point common to the known variants: The Jewry and the leadership of the country were severely implicated in the case.”

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04/04 Links Pt2: Dara Horn: Is Holocaust Education Making Anti-Semitism Worse?; Howard Jacobson: Dayenu? Enough Already; A Celebration of Overlapping Faiths; The PA against FIFA

From Ian:

Dara Horn: Is Holocaust Education Making Anti-Semitism Worse?

I was stunned. Rarely in my journey through American Holocaust education did I hear anyone mention a Jewish belief.

“The Jews worship one God, and that’s their moral structure. Egyptian society has multiple gods whose authority goes to the pharaoh. When things go wrong, you can see how Jews as outsiders were perceived by the pharaoh as the threat.”

This unexpected understanding of Jewish belief revealed a profound insight about Judaism: Its rejection of idolatry is identical to its rejection of tyranny. I could see how that might make people uncomfortable.

Decoster moved on to a snazzy infographic of a wheel divided in thirds, each explaining a component of anti-Semitism: “Racial Antisemitism = False belief that Jews are a race and a threat to other races,” then “Anti-Judaism = Hatred of Jews as a religious group,” and then “Anti-Jewish Conspiracy Theory = False belief that Jews want to control and overtake the world.” The third part, the conspiracy theory, was what distinguished anti-Semitism from other bigotries. It allowed closed-minded people to congratulate themselves for being open-minded—for “doing their own research,” for “punching up,” for “speaking truth to power,” while actually just spreading lies.

This, she announced, “aligns with the TEKS.”

The teachers wrote down the information.

The next day, the teachers listened in silence to J. E. Wolfson of the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission as he walked them through a history of anti-Semitism in excruciating detail, sharing medieval propaganda images of Jews eating pig feces and draining blood from Christian children. Wolfson clarified for his audience what this centuries-long demonization of Jews actually means, citing the scholar David Patterson, who has written: “In the end, the antisemite’s claim is not that all Jews are evil, but rather that all evil is Jewish.”

Wolfson told the teachers that it was important that “anti-Semitism should not be your students’ first introduction to Jews and Judaism.” He said this almost as an aside, just before presenting the pig-excrement image. “If you’re teaching about anti-Semitism before you teach about the content of Jewish identity, you’re doing it wrong.”

I thought about the caring, devoted educators in the room, all committed to stamping out bigotry, and knew from my conversations with them that this—introducing students to Judaism by way of anti-Semitism—was exactly what they were doing. The same could be said, I realized, for nearly all of American Holocaust education.

The Holocaust educators I met across America were all obsessed with building empathy, a quality that relies on finding commonalities between ourselves and others. But I wondered if a more effective way to address anti-Semitism might lie in cultivating a completely different quality, one that happens to be the key to education itself: curiosity. Why use Jews as a means to teach people that we’re all the same, when the demand that Jews be just like their neighbors is exactly what embedded the mental virus of anti-Semitism in the Western mind in the first place? Why not instead encourage inquiry about the diversity, to borrow a de rigueur word, of the human experience?

Back at home, I thought again about the Holocaust holograms and the Auschwitz VR, and realized what I wanted. I want a VR experience of the Strashun Library in Vilna, the now-destroyed research center full of Yiddish writers and historians documenting centuries of Jewish life. I want a VR of a night at the Yiddish theater in Warsaw—and a VR of a Yiddish theater in New York. I want holograms of the modern writers and scholars who revived the Hebrew language from the dead—and I definitely want an AI component, so I can ask them how they did it. I want a VR of the writing of a Torah scroll in 2023, and then of people chanting aloud from it through the year, until the year is out and it’s read all over again—because the book never changes, but its readers do. I want a VR about Jewish literacy: the letters, the languages, the paradoxical stories, the methods of education, the encouragement of questions. I want a VR tour of Jerusalem, and another of Tel Aviv. I want holograms of Hebrew poets and Ladino singers and Israeli artists and American Jewish chefs. I want a VR for the conclusion of Daf Yomi, the massive worldwide celebration for those who study a page a day of the Talmud and finally finish it after seven and a half years. I want a VR of Sabbath dinners. I want a VR of bar mitzvah kids in synagogues being showered with candy, and a VR of weddings with flying circles of dancers, and a VR of mourning rituals for Jews who died natural deaths—the washing and guarding of the dead, the requisite comforting of the living. I want a hologram of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks telling people about what he called “the dignity of difference.”

I want to mandate this for every student in this fractured and siloed America, even if it makes them much, much more uncomfortable than seeing piles of dead Jews does. There is no empathy without curiosity, no respect without knowledge, no other way to learn what Jews first taught the world: love your neighbor. Until then, we will remain trapped in our sealed virtual boxcars, following unseen tracks into the future.

Howard Jacobson: Dayenu? Enough Already

One of the most enjoyable parts of the Passover ceremony is the singing, invariably full-throated in my experience, of all 15 verses of “Dayenu”:

Had he brought us out from Egypt, and not carried out judgments against them—Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! Had he carried out judgments against them, and not against their idols—Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! Had he destroyed their idols, and not smitten their first born, Dayenu …

… Enough already!

That, of course, though we thought our comical uncles blasphemous when they said it at the Seder table—“Enough already, when do we eat?”—is what the word Dayenu means. “It would have sufficed”; “it would have been enough”; “we can imagine a point at which we would have been satisfied”—except that as a people we are never satisfied.

In the midst of gratitude there is always a little something else we feel we have to ask for. Isn’t this what the Dayenu means? Hence the number of rogue, shopping-list Dayenus that spring up every day: feminist Dayenus, gay Dayenus, Zionist and anti-Zionist Dayenus, even, I recall reading, a Dayenu praising the invasion of Iraq—“If He had destroyed the Ba’ath party idols, and not smitten Uday and Qusay—Dayenu, it would have been enough for us.” The Dayenu is a please masquerading as a thank-you. We give thanks in order to ask for more.

We sing Dayenu at a solemn moment in the Seder service, soon after we have spilled a drop of wine from our glasses, one drop for each plague. It is a song of praise to the Almighty, thanking Him for our deliverance from slavery in Egypt and for the many gifts, including the Sabbath and the Torah, He bestowed upon us thereafter. As such, it is a spiritual high point of the service. Yet we sing it with immense gusto and, at many a Seder I’ve attended, mirth. A mirth that is over and above the pleasure we take in the inordinacy of God’s munificence. Why? Because we know that we are making a great joke at our own expense.

Without doubt it is owing to God’s bounty and protection that we are in a position to be making jokes at all. But, as with all good jokes, there is a whiff of terror in this one, too. How funny would it have been had God left the job half-done—and each verse pivots around a job half-done—how funny will it be when the things He doesn’t do outweigh the things He does?

Could we say that this dread is no less psychological than historical? We fear abandonment. What happens when the giving stops?

A Celebration of Overlapping Faiths

We have done the best we can to make this world not only bearable, but beautiful for our children, with Jewishness and Muslimness not only familiar, but an unwavering home for them and also, with them, an unwavering home—built by Noah and Yusuf, so many other prophets, so many surviving texts—for ourselves. Their both-ness has given us a shelter from the questions, the audacity of those who call my children, who are my everything, nothing, those small and painful daily storms.

And they, our children, have already made me, as a Jew, far more whole: connecting with my traditions, from the baking of hamantaschen to the recitation of Torah, in order to pass them on. They are the reasons that I joined a synagogue for the first time, and why I have crafted a life in Germany centered on the redemption of Jewish life.

On Passover, we conclude with the words “next year, in Jerusalem,” to describe longing for the Jewish homeland. Today’s Jerusalem is a place of conflict, but also one imbued with the cultures, the heritage, and the hopes of all three Abrahamic religions, together and apart. This year in Italy, we will celebrate Passover with an iftar on Easter, with the Four Questions of the youngest child, who will now be Sami, reading the Haggadah for the first time. My husband will break his fast not with bread but with matzo.

This day will be one of the only days on which we are not asked to choose: a day on which I, a Jewish mother, can celebrate with my Muslim husband, while remembering my Christian father. And if I hold this moment close, perhaps it will give me strength, so that the next time someone asks what we have chosen for our children, I can confront their uncertainty with stories of this Passover, this iftar on Easter in Italy. I may tell them that our Jewish-Muslim children are living, breathing proof that we are not all the same, but that we spring from the very same source. But I will also warn them that this does not make them nothing. Nor are we, my family, everything. We are simply at home in the intersections and overlaps of our traditions, not in-between, but knee-deep in the plurality that makes our world beautiful and also whole.

There is so much that we, in this simple togetherness, have and can overcome.