Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 03, 2023

Why is there a "refugee camp" in Jenin to begin with, anyway?

Today's raid by the IDF on terror targets in Jenin is revealing a huge terrorist infrastructure, with large arms caches and command and control centers, in the heart of the Jenin "refugee camp."

Why is there a "refugee camp" in Jenin?

The city has been under Palestinian Authority control for nearly three decades. The residents live in "Palestine, so they aren't refugees or even the grandchildren of refugees. They live in the land they claim as their own, under Palestinian rule. There is no definition of "refugee" in the world that would call these people refugees.

Yet they live, rent free, in a cramped "refugee camp" and the world pays for their housing, as well as their schooling and their medical care - all services way beyond what real refugees receive.

One can see from a satellite image the clear outlines of the Jenin camp. The structures are much smaller than in the surrounding town and the roads, such as they are, are narrow.

In 2002, after the IDF went into Jenin and destroyed the terrorist infrastructure in fierce fighting with heavy casualties on both sides, the Israeli housing minister offered to rebuild the camp elsewhere where residents could have larger houses and wider roads - to live like normal people in their land.

The idea was vehemently rejected.

One of the self-appointed leaders of the camp said that the Israeli offer to rebuild everything better was really a plot "to erase the camps from existence, because these camps as a political reality constitute living testaments to the Nakba of the Palestinian people." (source, page 128)

That's exactly it. The camps are considered an important symbol of "resistance," not a place where human beings actually live. When UNRWA wanted to rebuild the camps and widen the roads, the same self-appointed leaders again opposed the plan, because wider roads meant the IDF could more easily enter. UNRWA and the committee remained at an impasse for months before the actual camp residents got their own committee together and said they wanted the UNRWA plan. The residents committee head said:

If we left it to debate we would have needed another five years. We agreed with the UNRWA plan. The families I meet now are happier and they are happy with the roads. If the Israeli army uses the road once (a day), we use it 100 times a day.

This is the way things have been since 1948. Ordinary Palestinians are stuck with leaders who actively want to use them as "symbols" of misery - by keeping them miserable.

These leaders choose to keep hundreds of thousands of people in "camps" - places that are ideal for terrorists to flourish, where the leaders can cry to the TV cameras about how Israel is bombing these densely populated areas and where they really, really hope that civilians die.

Real leaders would have demolished these camps decades ago and told UNRWA that their services are no longer needed because Palestinians are a proud people who take care of their own. Leaders whose main goal is the end of Israel would grasp any opportunity to make Israel look bad - and therefore they keep so many residents miserable in camps where terrorists build huge caches of explosives near children's bedrooms.

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07/03 Links Pt1: Inside the Jenin Refugee Camp, the Palestinian ‘Martyr’s Capital’; Fatah announces it is fighting with the terrorists against Israel; Reform opponents try to blockade airport, grind Israel to halt

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The limited potential of the operation in Jenin

What can we expect from the IDF’s current operation in Jenin?

According to the IDF, the goal of the operation is to disable the massive terror infrastructure that Palestinian groups have built in the Jenin refugee camp.

Over the past year and a half, due to the policies of the previous government and to IDF support for those policies, the area has become a mini-Gaza. In September 2021, in conjunction with then-Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Central Command head Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs ordered a five-month moratorium on IDF operations in Jenin, in the interest of “strengthening the Palestinian Authority.”

The current operation then is geared towards repairing the damage caused by the policies of the previous government and Central Command. As IDF Spokesman R. Adm. Daniel Hagari explained Monday morning in a spate of television and radio interviews, the purpose of the operation is not to seize control over Jenin or parts of the city. It is not directed against the P.A. It is meant simply to regain the tactical advantage and degrade the capabilities of the terror groups operating in the refugee camp.

As a limited, tactical engagement, the operation has limited, but important, potential. Over the past several weeks, the Palestinians have shot four rudimentary rockets at Israeli communities from Jenin. Although military experts insist these were mere pop guns, the missile industry in Gaza began the same way in 2000. Today, missiles from Gaza have ranges that cover most of the country. The operation in Jenin can destroy all the rocket workshops and kill or arrest all of the terrorist operatives engaged in the development of the rocket program.

The operation in Jenin can also disrupt and degrade the Palestinian terror capacity by killing and capturing the terror commanders and foot soldiers who together have been carrying out shooting, stoning, roadside bomb and pipe bomb attacks against Israelis throughout the region. These attacks have made life a crap shoot for tens of thousands of Israeli citizens who live and work in the communities in northern Samaria and the Binyamin region.

In the hours before the operation in Jenin began, Palestinian terrorists carried out four shooting attacks against Israeli vehicles, communities and IDF personnel in the area around the city. To get a sense of the magnitude of the problem, every day Palestinians from Jenin and the wider area carry out hundreds of stoning attacks against Israeli vehicles on the roads. And according to the Shin Bet, in May alone, Palestinians attacked Israeli vehicles with Molotov cocktails 139 times. They carried out 51 pipe bomb attacks and 11 shooting attacks.

While some of the terror infrastructure behind these attacks is located in Nablus, and in villages like Huwara and Umm Tzafa, because of the free rein terror groups enjoy in Jenin, the bulk of the operational infrastructure is located in Jenin.

Inside the Jenin Refugee Camp, the Palestinian ‘Martyr’s Capital’

Since Monday’s predawn hours, the Jenin refugee camp has been the epicenter of intense fighting between Palestinian terror groups and the Israel Defense Forces.

The camp is home to 18,000 Palestinians densely packed in an area about half a square kilometer (0.2 square miles) in size. Established in 1953, the U.N.-administered camp is often referred to by Palestinians as the “Martyr’s Capital.” Between 2000 and 2003, during the Second Intifada, at least 28 Palestinian suicide bombers came from the Jenin camp.

The refugee camp became a stronghold of terror, particularly for those aligned with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a number of smaller local factions. PIJ receives direct support from Iran while other factions often receive indirect assistance. Tehran’s relations with Palestinian terror groups, like its other regional proxy militias, are overseen by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared in 2014, “I believe the West Bank should be armed just like Gaza.”

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have transferred tens of millions of shekels to terror groups in the camp in 2023 alone.

The results speak for themselves. In 2023, 50 attacks against Israelis came from the Jenin Camp. Since September, 19 terrorists have fled to the camp after carrying out attacks. Ten homes inside the camp have been demolished by Israeli authorities so far in 2023.

One PIJ terrorist killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza in May had worked to establish rocket capabilities for the terror group in Jenin. Israeli intelligence has also detected an increase in the quality of explosive charges being used in the camp. Soldiers operating in the camp on Monday discovered a weapons laboratory and an improvised rocket launcher.

A major security operation by the Palestinian Authority seeking to crack down on the terror groups in 2022 failed as soon as it started because the terror groups had far higher morale. The operation’s leader was subsequently dismissed by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.

When Israel raided the camp in 2002, it met fierce, well-armed resistance.

(Guest post from an anonymous author)

The US State Department has restored full funding to UNRWA schools since the Biden administration took office. Now they are eliminating research funding to Israeli schools in Judea and Samaria. US State Department Matt Miller has confirmed the new policy in a recent press briefing. He explained that it is consistent with long-standing policies, despite the significant change in policy.

Does this policy violate current US civil rights laws?

Two specific statutes are relevant: Title VI and Title VII of The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both statutes prohibit discrimination based on, among other things, national origin. Title VI applies to any recipient of federal funding, and Title VII applies to any US employer (typically those larger than 15 employees).

The US government is not only the largest employer in America, but also in the entire world. The US government employs many sub-contractors, which includes federal grant recipients. As an employer, the US government is beholden to the same civil rights laws as anyone else.

Title VII should apply to the territories, based upon a straightforward reading of the text. The definition of terms section clearly states that the law applies to commerce between a State and any place outside the state.

"The term 'commerce' means trade, traffic, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States; or between a State and any place outside thereof; ..."

Therefore, if the US disburses funds to foreign researchers, they in effect become sub-contractors of the US government, regardless of their physical location.

According to the US Office of Civil Rights (OCR), Title VI applies to all federal educational grant recipients. The OCR expects all recipients to conform to applicable civil rights laws regarding discrimination, or they risk losing further federal funding.

For example, if Ariel University received a US grant funding research, in order to continue receiving funding, Ariel University could not engage in discriminatory practices against its Palestinian Arab students. No one argues against such civil rights laws. They are based upon widely held principles and should be embraced.

No one claims Ariel University violates any such laws. It has a large contingent of Arab students who are treated equally with everyone else.

The State Department has claimed that the disputed territories should be kept separate from Israel until the final status is determined through mutually agreed upon negotiations between the interested parties. They claim that establishing "facts on the ground" in disputed territories creates tensions, exacerbates violence, prejudices negotiations, deprives Palestinian Arabs of their land, and is an "obstacle to peace." We have heard such arguments for years, without having a real opportunity to properly address them. In the latest policy shift, the State Department implies that promoting Israeli educational institutions in disputed territories is somehow bad for Palestinian Arabs living there. The many Arab students of Ariel University would disagree with that claim.

If the recipient of federal educational grants is prohibited from specific forms of discrimination, the granter of such funding should also be held to the same standards. Therefore, OCR should emphasize adherence to Title VII just as much as it does Title VI.

Now consider the Palestinian recipients of US federal funding. UNRWA has 96 schools, 2 of which are in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited an UNRWA girls school in Ramallah in 2021.

Today, I met with educators and students at Jalazone @UNRWA Girls School in Ramallah. I was inspired by their stories and dreams for the future, and I spoke to UNRWA officials about how to make their work stronger, more efficient, and more accountable. pic.twitter.com/MREcnTnSzb

— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) November 17, 2021

Ms. Thomas-Greenfield made no mention of UNRWA textbooks inciting intolerance of Israeli Jews.

She also ignored the fact that single-gender schools are a violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.

Since UNRWAA receives US federal funding, UNRWA is required to abide by US civil rights laws, the same as any other recipient. UNRWA may not discriminate based on national origin. However, UNRWA's very existence is a violation of Title VI since it only provides services to people who claim Palestinian nationality.

Furthermore, UNRWA as a rule does not employ Israelis, which is also a violation of Title VII. Moreover, the UNRWA school textbooks have violated OCR guidelines regarding diversity and inclusion for decades, which is yet another reason to halt US funding of UNRWA.

While the US State Department may argue the geographic location of certain funding recipients is the distinguishing criterion for their policy, that argument is contradicted by facts. The State Department continues to fund Palestinian Arab institutions in the disputed territories, which may be a violation of existing civil rights laws. Meanwhile they restrict funding to Israeli institutions in the very same geographic area in the absence of any laws that could justify such discrimination.

Title VII of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from discrimination based on national origin. The law focuses on the behavior of the employer, which in this case is the US Government. Title VII makes no mention of disputed territories.

It isn't only UNRWA. The US Office of Palestinian Affairs offers grants to create "partnership between American and Palestinian institutions" in the West Bank and east Jerusalem under the Sustainable U.S.-Palestinian Higher Education Partnerships program. Those grants are not available to Israeli institutions in the same geographic locations. And clearly Israeli Jews are not allowed to become students at these institutions that can receive these funds.

This sure sounds like discrimination based on national origin by the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, and their grants to Palestinian institutions that discriminate against Jews violates Title VI.

In summary, the US State Department policy in the West Bank is problematic on many levels. It is a double standard that could conceivably be analyzed in the context of the IHRA definition. It is also a double standard that demeans Palestinian academics by holding them to a lower standard than those applied to Israeli institutions. The US State Department policy may also be illegal according to US law. I have yet to see any widely published analysis of this subject. I hope that this can be an impetus for further research.

(My appreciation to EoZ for publishing this essay.)

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Some Leftists and Arabs are upset at promoting mutual respect and equality between Israeli Jews and Arabs

Atidna describes itself this way:

Atidna is a coalition of educators and social entrepreneurs, Arab citizens of Israel together with Jews from the State-Zionist Camp in Israel.

We, Israeli educators, society and entrepreneurship, believe that true integration will only begin when all of us, Arabs and Jews alike, will see the Arab Israeli public as an equal partner in a Jewish and democratic state.

The vision:
An Arab-Jewish partnership based on mutual respect and full civil equality in the State of Israel as a Jewish-democratic state. A strong Arab community, proud of its culture and heritage, which is integrated into Israeli society.

Atidna's mission:
Building a young and courageous leadership of Arabs and Jews, who have equal rights and duties, and who are proud of their identity and culture and are committed to the challenge of the successful integration of the Arab minority in the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The movement works to create a critical human mass connected to Atidna values by developing and leading child, youth and student empowerment programs. Atidna is committed to supporting the building of a trusting, optimistic, independent and integrated Arab-Jewish community at the decision-making centers and throughout Israeli society. Atidna is committed to building a young Arab leadership avenue, which has an optimistic but practical outlook on life, which recognizes the challenge and the importance of the task and is ready to mobilize them into action in the spirit of Atidna’s values.

What makes Atidna special?
Atidna is a coalition of educators and social entrepreneurs, Arab citizens of Israel together with Jews from the State-Zionist Camp who joined together to work for successful integration in the State of Israel.
Atidna builds a community! All of Atidna’s programs are interconnected and create a multi-generational leadership community that creates change.

Addressing a diverse target audience from elementary school, students and adults.

Building a critical mass to create social change.

In short, Atidna wants to build a proud Arab society in Israel that embraces Zionist values and which will benefit everyone.

And therefore, the anti-Zionists are screaming bloody murder.

Haaretz is hysterical that the initiative is trying to create Arab Zionists.

We may be at a pivotal moment. If we wake up in a few years and discover that a right-wing Zionist youth movement is flourishing in Arab society and is slowly crowding out the old movements, we will not be able to say that we did not know. You don't have to go far to identify the long-term vision: the realization of the dream of Netanyahu and his friends on the deep right: the emergence of a significant right-wing Arab current in Israeli society.

In fact, Atidna admits it themselves. "In the long run, we hope that the social movement will become a political movement and be part of the coalition and part of the government," said Dr. Dalia Padilla, a co-director of the movement, in an interview with the "Jerusalem Post". A source in Atidna who left the movement with a slammed door was impressed that the targets are more focused. "The talk was about a Jewish-Arab party that would cut off from the territory the existing leaders of the Arab public in the Knesset," said the source, "a party that would weaken the left."

Al Quds al Arabi summarizes the Haaretz piece::

A new journalistic investigation, this time published by Hebrew-language Haaretz, revealed a project to obliterate the identity of the rising generations of the Palestinians of the interior in cunning ways and by building Zionist Arab youth movements. The talk is not only about an Israeli initiative aimed at corruption, but rather an unprecedented strategic right-wing governmental project whose malicious goal is to produce a “new Arab citizen” in Israel, i.e. a “good Arab” whose identity is a hybrid without a backbone and who has no demands inconsistent with a long-term vision sponsored by the Zionist right.

The Hebrew newspaper, which published an extensive investigation on the matter last Friday, confirms that this project will explode in the face of its sponsors as soon as the Arab youth discover that the Jews only intend to use them as "Shabbos goys," i.e. a mere means to Judaize the country.

I have no idea how much traction Atidna has made in the Israeli Arab community, but the anger from the Left on an initiative from the Right to tackle systemic inequalities between Jews and Arabs in Israel feels so much like the reaction from "progressives" in the US to hearing an intelligent Black conservative. They feel betrayed that members of their pet causes might disagree with their own philosophy - which proves that their own pretense as being the only champions of minority rights is a sham.

A Zionist Arab, like a Black conservative, indicates that some minorities do not want to be treated as if they cannot think on their own. And the "progressives" cannot handle that.

Haaretz' article is, to put it bluntly, racist. Arabs are free to go shopping in the marketplace of ideas; if some of them choose to become Zionist, that is their right. If the Israeli Left is so convinced that Atidna holds no benefit for Arabs then Atidna is not a threat to them and they can make jokes about it, not panicked articles about waking up in a world where an Arab party is part of a right-wing government.

The fear permeating this article is that a significant number of Arabs just might become Zionists if given a chance to learn what Zionism really is. This is a community that the Left felt that they have in their pockets and they are alarmed at even the possibility that many Arabs might be more attracted to the Right than the Left when they are exposed to real Zionism, not the racist caricature of Zionism that fills Haaretz articles.

If some Arabs want to embrace Zionism - and certainly some do - then no one should infantilize them and tell them that they cannot.

Because that is racist.

(h/t YMedad)

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Interesting analysis of the evolution of Palestinian identity by an anti-Zionist

Zachary Foster has become a popular anti-Zionist tweeter in recent months, to the point of becoming essentially a troll more interested in scoring points than in facts. (Before he blocked the terrific Adin Haykin, they had a number of entertaining exchanges.)

Yet in the past, I have found his scholarly papers to be very interesting and illuminating, and they tell a story that does not at all support the current Palestinian lies about their history. Sadly, he seems now to be more addicted to "Likes" than to the truth.

A 2011 unpublished master's thesis by Foster also upends current Palestinian lies, especially from Rashid Khalidi.

The period 1914-1923 is what, the most influential of these writers, Rashid Khalidi, has called the “critical years,” in his widely-praised award-winning work on the subject, Palestinian Identity. He argues that as a result of the “rapid, momentous, and unsettling changes” from the outset of World War I in 1914 to roughly 1922 or 1923, “the sense of political and national identification of most politically conscious, literate and urban Palestinians underwent a sequence of major transformations. The end result was a strong and growing national identification with Palestine.” Importantly, Khalidi writes, this full-fledged national loyalty was felt by a “significant proportion of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine”and by 1922, “important elements of the country’s Arab population had already come to identify primarily with Palestine” (my emphasis). He adds that the “most common self-description of political groupings during the mandate was as Palestinian Arab.”....Although Khalidi might like to think that “no one” could possibly dispute the widespread existence of a Palestinian identity during this thirty year period, with careful attention to evidence rather than hyperbole and polemic, I believe we can gain a much more accurate understanding of precisely when, how and why a unique Palestinian identity became widespread.

Foster then demolishes Khalidi, showing that he primary identification of Palestinian Arabs before the 1936 revolt were with their cities, or with Syrians/Egyptians or Arabs in general.

Foster uses interesting analysis methods to come to this conclusion. For example, "not a single book was written on the history of Palestine out of sheer passion and love for Palestine until the 1930s. As we stated previously, this is in complete contrast to the city histories – all of which seem to have been written out of the authors devotion and love for the hometown." And then, "In 1936 and 1937, alone, eight books were published on the Palestine issue, more books than had been published in the preceding sixteen years combined. If the historical works are a guide to identity in Palestine, then, it seems that the major shift from city to Palestine did not obtain until the mid-late 1930s."

This is also fascinating (I put footnote text in parentheses):

The other major work on Palestine in the pre-1936 period is al-Barghouthi and Totah’s Tarikh Filastin, but, as previously mentioned, this was written at the behest of the British authorities to be used in the Mandatory education system. To be sure, this does not make the book irrelevant for the study of Palestinian identity. It does, however, suggest that it was not necessarily a natural idea for an Arab intellectual to pen a book on “the History of Palestine” in 1923.(Indeed, Totah wrote his Ph.D dissertation on the history of Arab education. Palestine is a totally irrelevant analytical category in his dissertation, as discussed above.) And, indeed, this point is reinforced throughout the text, such as in their etymological discussion of this place we now call Palestine. Four names are offered which have historically been used to describe the region, Filastin being merely one of them. (The other three are ‘ard kana’an, ‘ard al-mi‘ad, and al-‘ard al-muqqadisa.)

Those translate to the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land and the Holy Land. Foster doesn't mention that Khalil Totah was a Christian Quaker; while he was born in Ramallah his view of Palestine was through the lens of the Bible rather than as an Arab. It is curious that Foster doesn't spend more time talking about how religion was a more important marker of identity than being a citizen of "Palestine" as well.

As far as identifying as Palestinian, Foster notes,

While Filastin emerged as a geographical, social and political space by the 1920s, it seems that “al-‘Arab” (the Arabs) or “al-Muslimin” and “al-Masihiyyin” (the Christians) were still preferred over “al-filastiniyyin” (the Palestinians) throughout the Mandate period to describe the region’s inhabitants. Very rarely is the word Palestinian used to describe the people of the region, who instead preferred to describe themselves, their culture, their land and their people as Arab.

One reason that Foster doesn't mention is that Jews at the time enthusiastically identified as Palestinian, and Palestinian Arabs - especially the literate ones who were espousing nationalism - didn't want to be identified with the Jews.

Foster, quite reasonably, uses "loyalty" as a metric to see whether nationalism was more important to Palestinians than their hometowns or Arabness (he also seems to ignore clans, which were much more important in how Palestinian Arabs self-identified.) I'm still not convinced that most Palestinian Arabs identified as being loyal to Arab Palestine even into the 1940s. Here's why.

Foster is only looking at written texts of the time for evidence of loyalty. While literacy soared in Palestine between 1900-1948, a significant number of Palestinians, especially in rural areas and villages, were still illiterate in 1948, and there is no evidence that they identified with "Palestine." Moreover, Arab actions during the 1948 war speak louder than the printed word that Foster relies on. While many defended their own towns, practically none defended anyone else's town - they fled along with their own community members. There was no loyalty to, or sacrificing for, an Arab Palestine. The loyalty Foster sees is the written loyalty of intellectuals, a theoretical loyalty that they were trying to instill in their readers, not a reflection of actual loyalty that would make one fight for and die for one's country.

Indeed, it was the Arab intellectuals who fled the fastest in 1947-48. While the Jewish Palestine Post took heroic measures to ensure that it would put out a paper every day even during the worst fighting and when its own building was bombed, the Arab newspapers in Jaffa and elsewhere simply stopped publishing when the war reached them.

Last issue of "Falastin", blaming the British for Arabs fleeing Jaffa

So while Foster proves that loyalty to Arab Palestine was close to nonexistent before 1936, he doesn't go far enough because of his reliance on written materials as evidence of "loyalty" without keeping in mind that the loyalty espoused was more theoretical and prescriptive than real. It ignores the larger context that includes the people whose mindset hadn't changed for centuries. These were Arabs who easily moved from one part to another of the Arab world for economic reasons or because of wars, who did not accept the Western division of the region with arbitrary borders as relevant to their lives, and who thought that they could migrate to other Arab areas in 1948 as many of their ancestors migrated to Palestine - never dreaming that their fellow Arabs would refuse to accept them and treat them as brothers upon their arrival.

Their identity as Palestinians was forged largely because of their mistreatment by the rest of the Arab world and its refusal to integrate them in their own societies in the 1950s, not from the Arab intellectuals of the 1910s or 1930s who created a new nationalism as a response to Zionism. The shame of their being so badly mistreated by their own people is what fuels the desire to create theories after the fact of a pre-1948 Palestinian identity, an identity that was extraordinarily weak.

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Palestinians again falsely blaming Israel for delays at Allenby Bridge returning from Hajj

Palestinian media is reporting:

Pilgrims stuck in the Jordanian city of pilgrims said that hundreds of pilgrims are still stuck on the Jordanian side since 3 am.

The pilgrims told Safa news agency on Sunday that hundreds are still stranded due to the departure of 140 buses from Saudi Arabia yesterday, which caused overcrowding and a major crisis in the Jordanian city of pilgrims.

They indicated that the reason for the crisis was the occupation's closure of the crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan due to the Saturday holiday for the occupation, and this coincided with the arrival of pilgrims' buses.

They pointed out that the occupation's procedures in the inspection and audit process cause obstacles and a slow entry process for pilgrims to the Palestinian territories.

Last year they falsely blamed Israel for delays in returning from Jordan during the summer. They lied then and they seem to be lying now.

The Israeli side is open on Saturdays from 8:30 AM to 6:30 PM. It appears that the buses arrived to the Jordanian terminal in the middle of the night. I doubt that the Jordanian terminal was even open then.

At any rate, the Israeli side is certainly open today from 7:00 AM, and won't close until 10:30 PM, yet the photos of the crowds in Jordan are being published within the past couple of hours (I'm writing this at 7:30 PM Israel time.) So it certainly isn't the Israeli side that is causing the delays. (Reportedly, from Sunday through Thursday the Israeli side is now open 24 hours but the Israeli borders webpage does not reflect that.)

The Arabic Facebook page covering the crossing does not say a word about problems on the Israeli side, which is recognized by travelers as being far more professional than the Jordanian side.

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07/02 Links: Terrorists, not Jewish homes, cause violence in the West Bank; The centrality of Antisemitism to PA ideology; Netanyahu condemns antisemitic attacks in France riots

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Terrorists, not Jewish homes, cause violence in the West Bank

Palestinian terrorists have never wanted for pretexts to attack Jews.

In 1929, it was the presence of Jews at the Western Wall – the retaining wall of the Temple Mount complex, Judaism’s most sacred site – that was used as a rallying cry by the antisemitic mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, to incite the mobs that murdered dozens of Jews in Hebron and throughout the land.

In 1936, as former Jerusalem Post reporter Oren Kessler documents in his book, Palestine 1936, it was the immigration of Jews to Palestine and their purchase of local land that was exploited by the leaders of the Arab revolt that claimed the lives of hundreds of Jews.

In 1947 and 1948, it was the formation of the Jewish national home that served the commanders of the Arab irregular forces that attacked Jews and destroyed Jewish property in an effort to prevent the State of Israel from coming into being.

And today it is the construction of homes for Israeli families in the Jewish heartland that Palestinian terrorist groups use as an excuse to murder Jews in their homes, on the roads, in their synagogues, and elsewhere.

If it were true that the construction of homes causes violence, it would follow logically that the absence of such construction should bring about a lull in that violence. But the 10-month settlement freeze declared by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government in November 2009 did no such thing.

Numerous Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, were murdered by Palestinian terrorists during that period, and the Palestinian leadership came up with one excuse after another to refuse to come to the negotiating table.

What drives Palestinian terrorism is the persistent refusal to countenance any sovereign Jewish presence in this land, the hatred and dehumanization of Jews, the ongoing incitement to violence in Palestinian schools and mosques, and the Palestinian Authority’s incentivization of terrorism by means of financial inducements and rewards.

So, no, Mr. Secretary-General. Jewish homes do not cause violence. Terrorists cause violence. And to compare the construction of homes to the wanton murder of innocent civilians is to engage in a stunning perversion of basic morality that brings shame to the UN and to your office.

Jonathan Pollard: Vigilante actions are a result of absence of government counter terror policy

The problem, as I see it, is that the settlers feel that they are considered “hefker - abandoned - by the Left, the army, the current government, and the Americans. Nobody seems to understand that the presence of their communities is the only thing standing in the way of another Gaza being created, this time hard upon the vital center of our country. So, in what they see as the absence of an army policy that will act decisively to prevent this, what are the settlers expected to do? Wait to be murdered?

Personally, I am opposed to vigilante actions of any kind. However, in this particular situation, I understand that such behavior is being undertaken by those who have lost hope of any effective government counter terror policy. This is why I will not follow Rabbi Lichtenstein in blanket condemnation of the frustration and fear of those giving it back to the Arabs in their own coin, but call out to the government to make it unnecessary.

As far as I’m concerned, the Arabs occupying our G-d given Land in Judea and Samaria are our enemies. You can see it when they openly celebrate the murder of our people and none of them, including their leaders, criticize it. You can see it in all the polling that’s done by reputable organizations, that clearly shows they will never accept our presence. Basically, they constitute a clear and present threat to our survival and should be treated as such.

If rabbinic figures, such as Rabbi Lichtenstein, who encourage settling Judea and Samaria, consider the vigilante action conducted by a small number of the settlers and others contrary to Torah, I suggest they should also devote their commentary to pushing for a more robust government counter terror policy.

PMW: The centrality of Antisemitism to PA ideology - PMW Director Marcus explains PA political and religious Antisemitism

Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus spoke about PA Antisemitism at several events last month. One was a panel discussion “From East to West: The Export of Antisemitism from Arabic Media,” hosted by PMW and CAMERA Arabic at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. Marcus also spoke at a live-streamed conference organised by Pulse of Israel called “Unmasking Jew-hatred within the Palestinian national movement.”

The following are excerpts of two articles summarizing Marcus’ talks and his and PMW’s findings on PA Antisemitism:

Palestinian antisemitism is systemic and should be exposed By Steven Gruzd
“The image that Palestinians portray in the English media is very different from the messages they send to their own people in Arabic,” Itamar Marcus said. “Incidents of Palestinian antisemitism aren’t isolated examples; they are systematically disseminated by the Palestinian Authority (PA).” Jewish leaders have been criticised for not bringing enough attention to this reality, and Western governments have been castigated for continued support for the Palestinians in spite of their Jew-hating racism.

Marcus is the founder of Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli non-governmental organisation that monitors incitement and extremism – usually in Arabic – in Palestinian media and schoolbooks. He was speaking at “Unmasking Jew-hatred within the Palestinian national movement”, a live-streamed conference organised by Pulse of Israel on 25 June.

Marcus showed several examples, including from PA President Mahmoud Abbas, of Palestinian political antisemitism that propagates the myth that Jews are evil, threaten humanity, and have brought hatred on themselves by their actions and character. The PA also posits that Israel is an illegal, alien, settler-colonial implant in “Palestine” with no right to exist, created by Europeans who wanted to solve their own “Jewish problem”. Abbas has claimed that Zionists fabricated the Holocaust, and were in cahoots with the Nazis.

Marcus also gave examples of Palestinian religious antisemitism. Leading Palestinian Muslim clerics have declared on television that Jews are apes and pigs, cursed, and subhuman. Those who murder Jews are celebrated as heroes, martyrs, and role models.
[The South African Jewish Report, June 29, 2023]

Stephen Flatow makes a good point:

Israel’s pursuit of terrorists into the Palestinian Authority city of Jenin this week echoes the Biden administration’s ongoing policy of sending US troops into other countries in pursuit of terrorists.

Israel’s leaders know that US forces killed Bilal al-Sudani and 10 other ISIS terrorists in Somalia on January 25. “This action leaves the United States and its partners safer and more secure,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

Secretary Austin was absolutely right. Whether terrorists are in Jenin, three miles from Israel’s border; or Somalia, 7,000 miles from America, they must be pursued.

Israel was watching when the US carried out airstrikes on Iran-backed terrorists in Syria on March 23, killing 11 of them. US President Joe Biden said the airstrikes demonstrated his commitment to the principle that the US government must be “prepared to act forcefully to protect our people.”

Biden was right. Whether the terrorists are in Syria, 6,000 miles from the US; or in Jenin, 10 miles from the Israeli city of Afula, every government must act forcefully to protect its people.

Israel surely was paying attention when a US drone strike in northwestern Syria killed ISIS terrorist Khalid Ayyd Ahmad Al-Jabouri on April 3. A Pentagon statement said the killing was justified because it “will temporarily disrupt the organization’s ability to plot external attacks.”

Which, of course, is exactly what Israel is doing when it sends its troops into PA cities such as Jenin. Disrupting enemy attacks saves lives.

Flatow notes that US Centcom counted 38 anti-terror operations in May - more than one a day.

What Flatow doesn't mention is that sometimes, US forces kill civilians as well.

In May, the US announced the assassination of a major Al Qaeda leader - but they had actually killed a 56-year old sheep-herder and father of 10. As far as I can tell, the US has not yet admitted that they made a mistake, claiming that the man was also Al Qaeda without providing a name and any evidence.

Another civilian was killed in a US-led coalition airstrike in February of this year. And in the past, the US has been involved in massacres - 10 civilians including 7 children in Afghanistan in a single airstrike in 2021, to give one example of many.

Like the US, Israel is targeting terrorists. Like the US, sometimes innocent people are killed. Like the US, Israel tries very hard to minimize civilian casualties.

Unlike the US, Israel is dealing with terrorists on its very doorstep. Unlike the US, ordinary Israeli civilians are in clear and present danger from these terrorists, who would attack Israeli civilians within days if Israel wouldn't stay on the offensive. And unlike the US and UK, Israel is far more transparent in its investigations and admitting mistakes.

And Israel is subjected to far more scrutiny and media attention for civilian deaths than the US and UK are - by US and UK media!

No one wants civilian casualties except for the terrorists themselves. No one works harder to avoid those civilian casualties while balancing them against real, imminent danger of terror attacks than Israel does.

The US and UK should spend at least as much time criticizing their own actions as they do Israel's.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The secretary general of the Islamic Jihad terror group, Ziyad Al-Nakhala, gave an extensive interview to an Iranian newspaper, and he mentioned a few things that the Western media rarely reports.

While most people understand that Iran funds most of Islamic Jihad's operations, Al-Nakhala admits that Islamic Jihad essentially is part of Iran's military, and that its decisions originate in Iran.

First he praises the Iranian regime for providing the technical expertise to build weapons:

We gained from the Islamic Revolution other expertise in the level of manufacturing and arming. Today, we see the action of the resistance taking different roles from the past, and the Palestinian has more experience than before, and today the Palestinian manufactures many weapons with which he confronts the occupation and manufactures them locally, with the exception of machine guns. Missiles, anti-tank weapons, and explosives are manufactured locally. An important part of this expertise was gained by the Palestinian people from our brothers in the Islamic Republic, and this has a great impact, and what we are witnessing today of resistance action in which missiles are used to strike the occupied cities, and in particular Tel Aviv, and all the central cities of Israel. These experiences from the Islamic Republic benefited the resistance and the Palestinian people , in addition to the expertise of mortars and explosives.

But then he says that it was Iran's leader who called for local armed groups in West Bank towns like Jenin:

When His Eminence [Ayatollah Khamenei] called for the arming of the West Bank, ...everyone cooperated in order to bring about change and a qualitative shift in the Palestinian situation, and programs were developed for this, whether through smuggling of weapons or by purchasing weapons from the Israelis themselves. The important thing is that there was a lot of focus in order for the West Bank to move from a state of coexistence and calm to a state of resistance that we see today, and this, of course, was completely consistent with the directives of His Eminence the Leader on the possibility of arming the West Bank. During our visit to Iran and during the meeting with His Eminence the Leader, His Eminence confirmed once again to develop the armament of the West Bank, and the development of resistance work in the West Bank.

Interestingly, Nakhala also downplays the amount of money Iran provides for terror operations and "martyr" families, because he is aware that there is a backlash in Iran of how much it provides to Palestinians while Iranians are in severe financial straits. "I say this so that people can be reassured, because it is possible for them to think that the Palestinian people took all the money of the Islamic Republic," he says, which means that this is a very sore point and Iranian citizen anger is a threat to terror groups like Islamic Jihad.

Al-Nakhala then emphasized that the targets of terrorists are specifically Jews, and the purpose of terror attacks is to frighten Jews into fleeing:

We are optimistic and we will win even if 10 or 15 years pass. years, but we are optimistic that if we exert more effort, the Zionist project will disintegrate, because the reality of the Jews in Palestine is that they came to this country in order to live in peace, stability and an opportunity for life, but when the opportunity for life and peace is not available and when the Jew finds only the place where he is killed is Palestine, he will inevitably leave. He came to Palestine to live in safety and stability. When he does not find this stability and peace, so he returns to where he came from, because there is no Jew in the world today whose life is threatened like the Jews in Palestine. Jews in other countries live and prosper. The only Jew who is killed is in Palestine. We must work to change the conviction of the Israeli that the chance of life here is non-existent and that the only place in which the Jew is killed is Palestine, and therefore he must leave this country.

So while these terror groups claim in English that they have nothing against Jews, they freely admit that their targets are specifically Jews and the only people they want to terrorize are Jews.

Notice also that Al-Nakhala admits that the purpose of Zionism is for Jews to live in peace and security - not to steal land, as they usually tell the West and each other. (h/t kweansmom)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

BDS is AGAINST Palestinian and Israeli Arab high tech success

Egypt's Al Ahram has an op-ed about how high tech companies in Israel are supposedly trying to marginalize Arabs.

The author, Asim Abdel Khalek, says, "In the Negev desert, the giant Cisco company operates and has two outlets in the two Palestinian towns of Hurra and Ar'arat, working with IBM as part of Israel's plan to settle Jews and deport the Palestinian Bedouins. "

Cisco (and IBM) are cooperating with Israel to deport Arabs from the Negev? Where did it get this information from?

From the "Who Profits?" BDS organization. And their description of Cisco's activities in Israel and in Palestinian areas shows that every fact - even heavy investment in training and hiring Israeli Arabs and Palestinians - can be twisted to fit the BDS agenda.

"Who Profits" writes about Cisco:

In the Naqab, where ten Cisco technology equipped hubs are planned, two are located in Palestinian towns – one in Hura and the other in Ar’arat al-Naqab (two out of seven Palestinian Bedouin towns in the Naqab).[10] These hubs form part of the Israeli government’s industrialisation and resettlement plan which strives to create jobs in the Naqab, in the hope of drawing Jewish Israelis to settle in the region, while concentrating its Palestinian communities into ghettoized residential areas.

First of all these aren't Cisco centers, but Israeli tech hubs that use Cisco equipment.

And where do they get the idea that these hubs are ways to expel the Bedouin from the Negev?

They just made that up.

After all, Israel isn't trying to kick the Bedouin out of the Negev. They want them to live in communities that have infrastructure, unlike the slapdash and illegal communities that Arabs build all over the Negev, but Israel does not want unemployed Negev Arabs - on the contrary, Israel invests huge sums in their welfare.

This other section of the Who Profits site shows how insane their hate is, and how eager the BDSers are to throw Palestinians under the bus for their own goals:

In 2008, Cisco signed a collaborative deal with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, for the investment of 10 million USD for the development of the Palestinian hi-tech sector. The investment was managed by Gay Hetzroni, then the manager of the software development department at Cisco-Israel.

The deal involved outsourcing work to Palestinian engineers and technicians, led by Cisco-Israel. This Cisco project was a milestone in setting a trend in the outsourcing of work to a skilled, yet comparatively cheap Palestinian workforce by Israeli and Israeli intermediaries of international companies. Palestinian workers are paid well below the wages of an Israeli hi-tech worker (2500 and 4000 USD respectively). Since Cisco’s deal in 2008, the Israeli subsidiaries of Intel, Microsoft and Mellanox, have also outsourced work to Palestinian technicians. This outsourcing process reduces production costs through exploitation, and entrenches the dependency of Palestinian economic development on the economic and political interests of the occupying power.

According to the BDSers, any investment in Palestinian high tech is bad, because they get paid less than Israelis do, so it is exploitation.

Which means that every high tech company on Earth that outsources jobs to India or Indonesia or China is exploiting their workers - even though those jobs pay far higher than the average salary in those places.

Cisco invested tens of millions into training and growing the Palestinian high tech sector, and that investment helped bring other companies into the West Bank, along with thousands of jobs. As Forbes wrote in 2013:

Buoyed by training, investment or partnerships from Israelis or Israeli subsidiaries of American companies, more than 300 Palestinian technology firms now employ 4,500 people, FORBES estimates, up from just 23 firms in the six-year period leading up to 2000. More are on the way: There's at least $100 million in venture cash from Israeli or Western sources either looking for deals or recently put to work in Palestinian or Israeli Arab startups (with the latter community, representing one-fifth of the country's citizenry, increasingly agitating to get in on the action). Meanwhile, Chambers and his peers at U.S. technology giants have pushed their Israeli subsidiaries to outsource research and development projects to Palestinian startups or to hire local Arabs.

... a $50 million fund called Al Bawader (Arabic for "early signs") [is] earmarked solely for investments in Israel's Arab community. The funding is unlike anything before seen in the Middle East. The Israeli government has put money into Al Bawader, as have individual Israeli Jews, Israeli-Arabs--and Palestinians.

More Palestinians, and more Israeli Arabs, are getting more jobs that pay more money.

But BDS is against this.

This shows again that the BDS movement does not give a damn about Palestinians.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

07/01 Links: French lawmaker: 'Intifada in heart of France' comes from antisemitic areas; Biden Will Fund Research in China, Not Israel

From Ian:

French lawmaker: 'Intifada in heart of France' comes from antisemitic areas

The roots of the ongoing riots in France are in areas where antisemitism, among other hatreds, are rampant, French-Israeli lawmaker Meyer Habib warned on Saturday.

“This looks like an Intifada in the heart of France,” Habib said. “France is on fire, with 249 police officers injured. Nothing, not even the dramatic death of a young man justifies this chaos.”

According to Habib, “in these lost areas of the republic, for years there has been an undisturbed growth of hatred of France, white people and Jews.”

Habib contrasted the response to the killing of a 17-year-old by a police officer, which sparked the riots, to the murder of 65-year-old Jewish woman Sarah Halimi, who was murdered in her home in 2017 by a man who shouted “Allahu Akbar” while attacking her.

“Sarah Halimi was beaten for 20 minutes in front of 20 police officers. Her murderer is practically free and no one rioted or burned anything,” said Habib, who holds a seat in parliament representing French expats living in the Eastern Mediterranean region, including Israel.

Holocaust memorial in Paris vandalized by rioters
The Holocaust memorial site in Paris, known as The Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation, was vandalized by rioters on Friday amid the large wave of anti-police protests, according to reports by The Jewish Chronicle and Algemeiner.

“The Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation in Nanterre honors the 200,000 people who were sent from Vichy France to German concentration camps during WWII,” tweeted the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

Video footage of the incident shows rioters shouting and writing anti-police slogans on the wall of the site.

World shrugs despite Mossad's impressive action on Iran

The recent thwarting of the Iranian attack in Cyprus has several takeaways, some of which should fill us with joy; others should have us very much concerned.

First, it has been proved once again that the Mossad has exceptional intelligence reach when it comes to Iran, from the operational apparatuses and characters running the show to the smuggling routes and modus operandi and the ability to conduct real-time surveillance. Such rare capabilities, which are shared by other intelligence agencies in some cases, are rare – and can have a major impact in terms of saving lives.

The second takeaway – knock on wood – is that Iran has repeatedly failed at carrying out deadly attacks against Israelis abroad since the 2012 bombing in Bulgaria. Dozens of such plots have been foiled, often in the nick of time or using hair-raising counterterrorism operations, as was demonstrated in Istanbul last summer.

The third takeaway is that the Mossad has close collaborative endeavors with other intelligence agencies around the world, especially in the region. This helped in frustrating the terrorist plots in Istanbul and Georgia earlier this year and was helpful in the Cyprus operation as well. Such cooperation is a strategic asset of paramount importance that must be nurtured; it often runs along a parallel track to official ties with Israel.

The fourth takeaway is that the Mossad has impressive capabilities on Iranian soil. This has been evident multiple times in the past with various explosions, assassinations, and other mysterious events – but the arrest and interrogation of a key would-be perpetrator almost in real-time and the extraction of an incriminating confession that includes names of collaborators are a major feat. Let's hope that this accomplishment will also lead to a significant boost in the deterrence of Iranian officials and other activists, who will hopefully scale back their operations for fear of being targeted by Israel.

The fifth takeaway is that Iran is hell-bent on killing Israelis. Last year the head of the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence apparatus lost his job after his plot to kill Israelis was thwarted in Istanbul; he was replaced by another one who now saw a similar outcome to his plot. The commanders get replaced but that Iranian motivation remains just the same, in part because Iran has not been forced to pay a price for its attempted murder of Israelis.

The final takeaway is that this intense Iranian effort has failed to cause any outrage around the world. The Mossad exposes plots, shows incriminating evidence and intelligence in practically every language, and shares it with key decision-makers and security chiefs in friendly and not-so-friendly countries, only to get a collective shrug in return. The conclusion is that Iran will continue to try to hurt Israelis and that difference between success and failure ultimately boils down to just how good the Mossad is.

Israel's Spy Agency Mossad Uncovers Pak ISI's Involvement In Killing Rich Jews

Israel's spy agency, Mossad, has announced that it has thwarted an Iranian plot to attack Israeli business people in Cyprus with a detailed probe hinting at Pakistan's involvement in the assassination bid.

In a counter-terrorist operation on Iranian soil, the Mossad apprehended the head of the cell, Yusef Shahabazi Abbasalilu, who gave his investigators a detailed confession bringing about the dismantling of the attack cell in Cyprus.

Abbasalilu received detailed instructions and weapons from senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards personnel in Iran. During questioning, parts of which were shared with the media, he admitted to his involvement in an attempted attack and described how he tried to carry it out.

In the wake of the information that he gave to the Mossad investigators, the cell was dismantled in an operation by the Cypriot security services, the announcement said.

In the video footage released by the spy agency, the Iranian also reveals Pakistani spy agency ISI's involvement in the plot to kill Jews and Israelis. Pakistani nationals have been caught recently in several other such plots targeting Israelis.

Abbasalilo names his handler as Hassan Shoushtari Zadeh, a known senior figure in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Foreign Intelligence Branch, who he said "trusted Pakistanis" who had carried out "very important activity for me".

In the video, Abbasalilo said Shoushtari Zadeh "discussed with me what he was planning to do in Cyprus. He told me you need to enter northern Cyprus, where we have certain people who can send you from there to southern Cyprus".

"He told me himself, 'I trust [The Pakistanis] and their group, they have carried out very important activity for me'", Abbasalilo says in the released video.

"I replied: 'If it is possible, I will carry out this mission immediately.' He replied: 'Wait, it is not possible yet, as there are policemen searching for you'", the English translation of his confession in Persian released says.

Biden Will Fund Research in China, Not Israel

The United States obviously isn’t obligated to conduct any kind of cooperative research with foreign countries, and yet choosing China over Israel is highly revealing of the real agenda.

The Biden administration has refused to ban funding for research in the People’s Republic of China, but has chosen to ban it, no matter how benevolent, in parts of the Jewish State. Democrat administrations are willing to fund dangerous viral research in China, but not explore ways to teach autistic children to cope with the challenges of their environment in Israel.

Gain of function research that creates deadly viruses in one of the world’s most ruthless nations was fine, but bonding hip implants to bones in one of our closest allies is beyond the pale.

Even the Department of Defense has funded research in Hong Kong which is under the control of Communist China. The CDC and NIH have funded research at Chinese universities in Beijing, Shanghai, and Najiing with no interest in the legitimacy of the Communist regime’s control over these territories or the legitimacy of the regime. But when it comes to Israel, Democrat administrations scruple over who has the right to the land that the university is on.

The Communist regime’s right to rule China is not contestable, but Israel’s right to its country is.

Unlike Communist China, Israel is run by a democratically elected government. Ariel University is located in the city of Ariel and has a student body of over 10,000. The city of Ariel, also known as the capital of Samaria, is built near the ruins of an ancient 3,000 year old Israelite city. No Arab Islamic colony had ever existed on the site. The graves of Joshua, the leader of the original Jewish return to Israel, and of Caleb, the other righteous biblical scout, lie near Ariel.

And yet the Biden administration considers the Communist Chinese regime to be more legitimate than the scientific researchers living and working in Ariel.

“The State Department is telling the entire U.S. government not to cooperate with Jews in Judea and Samaria. And of course it was sent to Congress in secret, and only revealed because reporters found out. “The Biden administration defends funding scientific research in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party, but they’re discriminating against and banning cooperation with Jews based on where they live,” Senator Ted Cruz said.

“The ZOA condemns the Biden administration’s reinstatement of a discriminatory, antisemitic boycott of research, development, science and technology cooperation and joint projects with Israel, in lawful Jewish areas that invading Arab nations seized from the Jewish people in 1948-1949, which Israel recaptured and liberated in the defensive 1967 war,” Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein stated.

The Biden administration has made it clear that it is more open to scientific cooperation with the ruthless regime of Communist China than the Jews of Ariel.

06/30 Links Pt2: The United States: An example of how to not combat antisemitism; Russia’s remaining Jews must leave; Ben-Gurion Airport expected to break records this summer

From Ian:

Kuntzel questions myth of ‘antisemitic backlash’ in the Arab world

It is commonly assumed – in fact it has become dogma in academic and political circles – that antisemitism in Arab countries was a backlash to the creation of Israel. Now in his new book Nazis, Islamic antisemitism and the Middle East, the German political scientist Matthias Kuntzel produces new evidence that the 1948 war against Israel was a consequence of widespread Nazi propaganda in the Arab world. For the first time, the 1937 pamphlet Islam and Judaism constructed a link between Muhammed’s confrontation with the Jews of Medina and the conflict in Palestine. This, coupled with six years of poisonous anti-Jewish Nazi radio propaganda beamed to the Arab world, and the rising influence of the Nazi-inspired Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, created a continuity between the Nazi war against the Jews and the Arab war against Israel. See his article in Fathom: Mattthias Kuntzel

Why then is the role of Nazi propaganda and Nazi policies largely ignored in debates on the roots of antisemitism in the Middle East? A plausible hypothesis is that this pattern of omission reflects a desire to protect a proposition that is accepted as dogma in many academic circles: the idea that Israel, i.e. Jews, bears sole responsibility not only for the war in 1948, but also the antisemitism in the region. Claims such as ‘The spread of antisemitism in the Arab-Islamic world is the consequence of the Palestine conflict’ are widespread.

From this paradigm, numerous Middle East experts derive mitigating circumstances for Arab antisemitism. ‘Is the fantasy-based hatred of the Jews that was and still is typical of European racists … the equivalent of the hatred felt by Arabs enraged by the occupation and/or destruction of Arab lands?’, is the rhetorical question of the British-Lebanese anti-Zionist Gilbert Achcar. ‘Arab antisemitism, in contrast to European anti-Semitism, is at least based on a real problem, namely the marginalization of the Palestinians,’ insists German Islam researcher Jochen Müller.

This paradigm, which distinguishes between a Nazi-like European antisemitism and an ‘at least’ understandable hatred of Jews in the Middle East, hides the Nazi influence on the image of Jews held by many Muslims in the Middle East. And it has political consequences: the basic assumption that antisemitism in the Arab-Islamic world is merely a response to Israel and can therefore be downplayed as a kind of local custom is one of the foundations of German and European Middle East policy and may be one of the reasons why the latter refuses to decisively combat the Jew-hatred of, for example, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime.

It is, however, necessary to understand how strongly modern Middle East history is shaped by the aftermath of National Socialism. Only then will we be able to properly understand and adequately counter the antisemitism in this region and its echo among Muslims in Europe and address the political realities of the Middle East realistically and effectively.

The United States: An example of how to not combat antisemitism - opinion

BREAKING DOWN the report points to several underlying flaws.

First, as British columnist Melanie Phillip pointed out several years ago, even when condemning antisemitism, politicians and intellectuals feel the compunction to condemn “Islamophobia” and “all forms of racism” at the same time and in the same sentence.

This politically correct refusal to acknowledge the uniqueness of antisemitism (and the overwhelming preponderance of antisemitism, above and beyond all other hatreds including anti-Muslim hatred) demonstrates precisely that Jew-hatred. “People can’t stand the uniqueness of antisemitism because they can’t stand the uniqueness of the Jewish people,” says Phillip.

Second, the issue of antisemitism manifesting as mere anti-Zionism remains a flash point. As Prof. Eugene Kontorovich pointed out in rigorously erudite testimony given last week to the subcommittee on global health, global human rights, and international organization of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, referencing the Nexus document is an outrage. That document justifies double standards against Israel, while purveying the illusion that antisemitism is only such when it presents as pure unreasoned Jew-hatred or as stereotypes and “tropes.”

But this is demonstrably not true. Accusations leveled against Israel often resemble those made by antisemites throughout history. Kontorovich: “Instead of the Jews being accused of killing Gentile children, Israel is accused of deliberately killing Palestinian children; instead of Jews being accused of causing plague among Gentiles, Israel is accused of causing disease among Palestinians.

“And the accusation of ‘apartheid’ is a modern blood libel – an absurd ‘Big Lie,’ but inciteful in ways that cannot be rectified by mere refutation. Just as the classic blood libel resonated with the theological preoccupations of earlier ages, today’s claims resonate with the ethnic justice concerns of our times. That in our times several members of Congress can level such libels against the Jewish State without facing sanctions from their party demonstrates how dangerous ‘polite’ antisemitism is.”

The writer Peter Savodnik delves even deeper into this: “The American left has stumbled into the bottomless rage of identity politics,” he says. “They have embraced the new racial-gender taxonomy, which reimagines thousands of years of Jewish history into a wokified diorama. Today, the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be seen through this flattening prism, with Israel playing the role of the white, colonial settler and the Palestinian that of the settler’s dark-skinned, indigenous victim.”

“By squeezing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the Procrustean Bed of left-wing identitarianism, the new progressives have alienated the Jew, who for the most part remains attached to the Jewish State, from the American body politic. By transforming the Jewish State into a force for evil, they have forced the Jew to defend that attachment. They have created a space separating the Jew from America, and, in that space, they have legitimized violence against the Jew for defending the indefensible: Israel’s supposed apartheid, colonialism, white supremacy, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.”

IN SHORT, by dancing around this core issue, namely that Israel is the focal point for much contemporary antisemitism from the Left and its intersectional allies, the Biden administration’s strategy is far less than it seems.

Third, because of the above problematics, one must wonder whether government-led programs help or hinder the fight against antisemitism. US presidential historian Tevi Troy details (in an enlightening essay in National Affairs magazine) Bush W., Trump, and Biden administration initiatives in this regard, reaching the conclusion that caution is warranted. These initiatives tend to create unwanted and unintended consequences.

“Sometimes an organization designed to address the problem ends up exacerbating it. The UN Human Rights Council, in which human rights abusers routinely condemn democratic nations, is a paradigmatic example of his phenomenon.”

The Biden administration strategy relies heavily on existing government-enabled diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to address root causes and promote anti-hate education. This is a worrisome development given that some DEI offices are more likely to house antisemitism than to combat it. A Heritage Foundation study of the social media patterns of 800 campus DEI officers found that they tended to reflect a level of hostility toward Israel that went far beyond policy disagreement and often descended into antisemitism.

Russia’s remaining Jews must leave

Enter (of course!) the Jews. Prior to the advent of the Nazis in Germany, Russia had the entirely justified reputation as the most antisemitic country on earth, subjecting its segregated Jewish population to gruesome pogroms and vile, demonizing propaganda. The hatred ran so deep that it even impacted Imperial Russia’s relations with the United States, when, in 1911, President William H. Taft abrogated a long-standing friendship treaty after the Russians announced that American citizens belonging to the Jewish faith were banned from entering their country.

A painful collapse of Putin’s regime could yet revive and unleash these historic forces. In the last week, the two Jewish clerics carrying the title of “Chief Rabbi of Ukraine” (the fruit of an unresolved 2005 intra-communal dispute) have warned that “pogroms” and violence could yet be the lot of Russia’s remaining Jews, urging them to get out as soon as possible.

The message of both rabbis to their Russian brethren was simply this: Whichever way this situation plays out, it’s going to be very bad for you. “I didn’t have a platform for this, I just tried to tell them through social networks: get out of there, because it might be too late,” Rabbi Moshe Azman reflected on his efforts to reach the Jews of Russia in an interview with a Ukrainian outlet. Separately, Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich opined that Putin’s much-vaunted philosemitism may be a phantom. “Putin has been president or prime minister in Russia for 23 years. Over the years, he expelled 16 rabbis from Russia,” Rabbi Bleich observed in his interview. “As Putin says that he loves Jews so much, I have a question: If you love Jews, why have this attitude towards rabbis and towards the community? Why is there often such antisemitism from the Russian authorities?”

In Israel, the discussion about whether to ferry Russia’s remaining Jews to their ancient homeland has picked up steam following Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny. Last week, Israel’s Channel 13 reported on a leaked document that discussed the possibility of a “large wave of immigration from Russia,” along with the need to “prepare for it while guaranteeing the proper functioning of Jewish and Israeli institutions in Russia.”

Meanwhile, in Israel’s parliament, opposition Knesset member Oded Forer, chairman of its Absorption and Diaspora Affairs committee, called on the Jewish Agency, which is confronting a legal effort by the Russian authorities to shutter its operations in their country, “to prepare an array of dedicated airplanes” to bring Russian Jews to Israel “before it’s too late.”

The coming weeks and months will be a test of the Israeli government’s commitment in this regard. It should be mindful of Israel’s rich history of advocating for and rescuing beleaguered Jewish communities in Yemen, Ethiopia, and, of course, the Soviet Union. Because the time for the Jews to leave Russia is finally upon us.