Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

My Ancestor Played Dead in a Coffin to Make Aliyah (Judean Rose)

The story goes that my two times great grandfather, Mordechai Shmuel Yanovsky, entered Yaffa port playing dead in a coffin, his wife, my two times great grandmother, Taibe Leah, playing the part of the grieving widow. According to my now 96-year-old 2^nd cousin one time removed, who is Israeli through and through, our ancestor came into the Holy Land in a coffin because the Turks did not allow Jewish males to enter Palestine. I mentioned this to an Israeli contemporary who scoffed, “Never heard about such a thing. Many Jewish men openly came to Israel during the 19th century, while our land was occupied by the Ottoman Turks.

“Either the story is inaccurate - or there must be another reason for that, which I'm not aware of.”

I was quite ready to just accept what she said and move on. So many of the stories one or another relative has relayed about our family have turned out to be embroidered or difficult to verify. When I tell people about Mordechai Shmuel playing dead to enter Israel, they inevitably laugh, picturing him like some kind of jack-in-the-box peeking out to see if the coast was clear. That makes me think the story is probably made up. Because it really does seem ridiculous. Still, it would be nice to find a grain of truth in there somewhere—and maybe I did.

In Old Yishuv: Palestine at the End of the Ottoman Period, historian Margalit Shilo writes about the preponderance of women, specifically widows, in Palestine at that time:

Censuses of Jews in Palestine at the end of the Ottoman period reveal that the majority of the Jewish population was female. Demographer and statistician Uziel Schmelz summarized the information gleaned from various nineteenth-century censuses: “Forty-nine percent of all Jewish [adult] women [in Jerusalem] in 1839 and thirty-six percent in 1866 were widows. … There was a considerable excess of women over men in the adult population [of Jerusalem].” According to Schmelz’s calculations, based on a 1905 estimate, the number of Jewish women aged sixty and over was twice that of the parallel age group in men. Schmelz attributes this to two factors: a. widowhood, which enabled Jewish women for the first time to decide what to do with their lives, and b. male mortality, owing to the higher age of husbands compared with their wives and women’s longer life expectancy. Towards the end of the nineteenth century there was a decline in the number of widows.

Keeping my great great grandfather’s manner of entry into the country in mind, I wondered if all those women in the censuses were really widows. Could it be they were registered as widows, but really all had secret husbands who had played dead to get into the Land of Israel so the Turks wouldn’t know? It does seem improbable.

At the same time, the friend I consulted who said my family story is “inaccurate” seems unaware of the fact that the Turks decided to oppose Jewish immigration in 1881, with the assassination of the Czar, Alexander II. In Ottoman Policy and Restrictions on Jewish Settlement in Palestine: 1881-1908: Part I, author Neville J. Mandel, writes (emphasis added):

Periodisation in history is arbitrary, but for the Jews of Imperial Russia, already an unhappy community, the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 ushered in a painful new era. The pogroms after his death were followed by the notorious 'May Laws' of 1882 which stepped up economic discrimination against the Jews. The stirring among the Jewish community, both physical and intellectual, was heightened. Many more of them started to leave, mainly for America, and not a few began to think seriously about Jewish nationalism, with the result that the 'Lovers of Zion' Movement gained momentum. Some of them, whether for reasons of sheer physical safety or nationalism or a combination of both, thought of finding a home in the Ottoman Empire. The Sublime Porte was well-informed of these trends and of their contagious effects on other Jews, especially in AustroHungary, from the start. What is more, the Porte decided to oppose Jewish settlement in Palestine in autumn 1881, some months before the increased flow of Jews in that direction got under way . . .

On examination, the Porte's awareness of trends among the Jews of Eastern Europe was not as surprising as it may seem at first sight. Given the aggressive intentions throughout the nineteenth century of Russia and Austro-Hungary on the Ottoman Empire, the Porte had good reason to try to keep abreast of events in those rival empires. Thus, inter alia, its diplomatic representatives in St. Petersburg and Vienna reported regularly on Jewish affairs, and there is even a file in the catalogues of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry, listed under Russia, entitled 'Situation [of] the Jews; Question of their Immigration into Turkey: 1881'.

Moreover, there had been some direct approaches to the Sublime Porte on this matter. In 1879 Laurence Oliphant, an English writer, traveller and mystic, had submitted a scheme to settle Jews on the east bank of the River Jordan. In 1881 a group of English and German businessmen sent a representative to negotiate with the Government for a concession to build a railway from Smyrna to Baghdad, along the length of which they proposed to settle Jews. Their representative saw the Foreign Minister who, according to Reuter's reports, was in favour of Jewish immigration into the Empire. The Council of Ministers considered the question and in November 1881 it was announced that:

[Jewish] immigrants will be able to settle as scattered groups throughout Turkey, excluding Palestine. They must submit to all the laws of the Empire and become Ottoman subjects. With growing numbers of Russian Jews applying to the Ottoman Consul-General at Odessa for visas to enter Palestine, the following notice was posted outside his office a few months later, on April 28, 1882:

The Ottoman Government informs all [Jews] wishing to immigrate into Turkey that they are not permitted to settle in Palestine. They may immigrate into the other provinces of [the Empire] and settle as they wish, provided only that they become Ottoman subjects and accept the obligation to fulfil the laws of the Empire.

The specific exclusion of Palestine had not been expected by the Jews. To them it seemed hard to believe that the Ottoman Government, with its record of hospitality to the Jews since their expulsion from Spain in the fifteenth century, should now forbid Jews to settle in Palestine. When the announcement was made in Odessa, Laurance Oliphant was in Eastern Europe on behalf of the Mansion House Committee, a British organization concerned with the relief of persecuted Jews from Russia and Rumania. The Jews whom he met persuaded him to go to Constantinople in order to find out more about the Porte's policy and also, if possible, to gain permission for numbers of Jews to settle in Palestine. At the same time, though independently of Oliphant, the Central Office of one of the first

'Lovers of Zion' groups was transferred from Odessa to Constantinople in the hope of obtaining a grant of land in Palestine for three hundred settlers. Then, at the beginning of June, Jacob Rosenfeld, the editor of Razsvet (a Jewish paper in St. Petersburg which sympathised with the 'Lovers of Zion') came to Constantinople to investigate the situation as well.

In Constantinople, Oliphant found about two hundred Jewish refugees. He also discovered that on entry to the Empire they were required to adopt Ottoman nationality and declare not only that they accepted the laws of the Empire without reserve, but also that they would not settle in Palestine. Oliphant approached the American Minister at the Porte to see if he would be prepared to try and clarify the position. When General Wallace said that he could only do so if a request came from the Jews themselves, Oliphant sent a telegram to Jews he had met in Bucharest and thus another delegation seeking permission for Jews to settle in Palestine hurried to Constantinople.

General Wallace met this delegation on June 6 and a few days later he spoke to the Ottoman Foreign Minister who confirmed what was known already. It all boiled down to the same thing. Immigrant Jews were welcome in the Empire, but not in Palestine; they could settle in small groups, provided that (a) they relinquished their foreign nationality and became Ottoman subjects, and (b) they did not seek any special privileges, but were content to remain bound by the existing laws.

Enter Herzl:

Ottoman policy remained constant throughout the 1880's and the first half of the 1890s, and it probably was not subjected to any fundamental review until Theodor Herzl's famous pamphlet, Der Judenstaat, was published in February 1896. In this pamphlet, Herzl gave more concrete expression to Jewish national aspirations, arguing (as suggested in the title) that the 'Jewish problem' could only be solved by establishing a Jewish state, possibly in Palestine but possibly elsewhere, in which persecuted Jews could live in freedom and dignity. This pamphlet led directly to the formation of the Zionist Movement in 1897 with Herzl at its head.

It is not generally appreciated that Herzl brought himself and his ideas to the Porte's attention one year before the first Zionist Congress was held. He did so by travelling to Constantinople in June 1896 and making contact not only with several senior officials in person but also with the Sultan through an intermediary. Displaying impressive ignorance of Ottoman sensitivities, Herzl's ideas were not calculated to appeal to the Porte. At a time when the Government's grip over its remaining territories in the Balkans was far from secure, and when the Sultan was under attack from Young Turks abroad for the 'dismemberment' of the Empire, Herzl asked that Palestine should be granted to the Jews with official blessing in the form of what he called a 'Charter'. And at a time when the Government had had more than enough of heavy European interference in its internal affairs, including control of its Public Debt since 1881, Herzl hoped that his Jewish State would enjoy Great Power protection. In exchange for Palestine, he nebulously offered 'to regulate the whole finances of Turkey' for 'His Majesty the Sultan'.

'His Majesty the Sultan' was that enigmatic figure, Abdulhamid II, who came to power in 1876. His presence and personality cannot be ignored because, although the Council of Ministers dealt with the question of Jewish settlement in Palestine from 1881, power and politics in the Ottoman Empire were more and more influenced, and later wholly controlled, by Abdulhamid until the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. Abdulhamid probably knew of the increased flow of Jewish immigrants towards Palestine from very early on. In keeping with his character, his attitude seems to have been one of suspicion and ambivalence. In 1881 he was reported to favour the Anglo-German proposal to settle Jews along the proposed railway from Smyrna to Baghdad; and he was said to have received the Rumanian delegation, which came to Constantinople the following summer (although the evidence for this is weak).

However, in 1891 he told the Military Supervisory Commission at the Yildiz Palace:

Granting the status of [Ottoman] subjects to these Jews and settling them is most harmful; and since it may in the future raise the issue of a Jewish government, it is imperative not to accept them.

And in 1892 the Ottoman High Commissioner in Egypt told Sir Evelyn Baring, the British Consul-General, that the Sultan was disturbed by an attempt to settle Jews on the east coast of the Gulf of Aqaba. But by the following year Abdulhamid appears to have considered the possibility of allowing Jews to settle elsewhere, for he told the Haham Bashi (the Chief Rabbi of the Empire) that he was willing to offer Russian and other oppressed Jews refuge in the Empire, particularly in Eastern Anatolia, so that they together with Ottoman Jews might furnish him with a force of 100,000 soldiers, to be attached to the Fourth Army. This proposal was welcomed by the Haham Bashi and his Rabbinical Council, but nothing came of it because, according to the Turkish (Jewish) historian, Abraham Galante, the Council of Ministers considered it ill-advised – presumably for the reasons outlined above.

In 1896 Theodor Herzl met Philipp Michael de Newlinski, a Polish aristocrat who had once worked in the Austro-Hungarian Embassy at Constantinople and was employed by Abdulhamid for special diplomatic missions. In June Herzl travelled with de Newlinski to Constantinople. On the train there, de Newlinski introduced Herzl to Tevflk Pasa (the Ottoman Ambassador at Belgrade), Karatodori Pasa and Ziya Pasa (both described as 'elder statesmen'), who were returning to Constantinople after the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. Herzl explained his project to Ziya Pasa, who agreed that 'the benefits in money and press support which you promise us are very great'. But, he warned, 'no one is even likely to have pourparlers with you if you demand an independent Palestine'.

A day after Herzl and de Newlinski arrived in Constantinople, Abdulhamid told the latter that:

If Mr Herzl is as much your friend as you are mine, then advise him not to take another step in this matter. I cannot sell even a foot of land, for it does not belong to me, but to my people. My people have won this empire by fighting for it with their blood and have fertilized it with their blood. We will again cover it with our blood before we allow it to be wrested away from us. The men of two of my regiments from Syria and Palestine let themselves be killed one by one at Plevna. Not one of them yielded; they all gave their lives on that battlefield. The Turkish Empire belongs not to me, but to the Turkish people. I cannot give away any part of it. Let the Jews save their billions. When my Empire is partitioned, they may get Palestine for nothing. But only our corpse will be divided. I will not agree to vivisection.

On June 29, 1882, the first tiny group of 'Lovers of Zion', numbering all of 14 souls, sailed from Constantinople for Jaffa. On the very same day, the Porte cabled the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem, ordering him not to let any Russian, Rumanian or Bulgarian Jews to disembark at Jaffa or Haifa; such Jews were not to set foot in any of the four so-called 'Holy Cities' of Palestine (Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias) and were to proceed to some other Ottoman port aboard the ship they came on.

This prohibition was contrary to one of the Capitulations with Russia which assured her subjects of unrestricted travel throughout the Ottoman Empire (except Arabia). When the Mutasarrif sought clarification from Constantinople, he was ordered to expel all Jews who had settled in the Mutasarriflik within the last four months; only to permit Jewish pilgrims and businessmen to remain for a brief period; and to prevent other Jews (i.e. prospective settlers) from landing. Similar instructions were soon received and enforced in the Vilayet of Sam (embracing the northern part of Palestine). The terms of these and subsequent instructions made it clear that the Porte was primarily concerned to prevent Russian Jews from settling in Palestine. Jews from other countries were arriving in much smaller numbers, and were of correspondingly less concern.

Irregularities were not long in arising. Some Russian Jews applied for visas to Constantinople, where they obtained permits to travel within the Ottoman Empire. Thus they would arrive at Palestine with valid papers, but as prospective settlers they were refused entry. This led to complaints, and at the end of 1882 the Ministry of Police in Constantinople was ordered by the Council of Ministers to stop issuing internal travel permits to Russian Jews until the Government took a decision on the matter. The reason given for this order was that the Jewish immigrants were not fulfilling the first obligation required of them, i.e. to become Ottoman subjects. In spring 1883 it was reported that a complete bar was being imposed on the entry of all Jews at Beirut and Haifa. Against this, it was still possible for Jews from countries other than Russia and Rumania to disembark at Jaffa. And even in the case of Russian and Rumanian Jews, pilgrims and businessmen were allowed to land.

But the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem appears to have recognized that it did not accord with the Porte's real purpose to admit these Jews who claimed that they came for prayer or business, but in fact came to settle. He therefore turned to Constantinople for advice. A correspondence ensued; the Ministries of Internal and Foreign Affairs conferred; the opinions of the Porte's legal advisers were sought; and the Council of State considered the question in March, 1884. After a further exchange with Jerusalem, it was decided to close Palestine to all Jewish business men, on the grounds that the Capitulations, which permitted Europeans to trade freely within the Ottoman Empire, applied exclusively to areas 'appropriate for trade'- the Council of State did not consider that Palestine was such an area.

Henceforth, only Jewish pilgrims could enter Palestine. Their passports were to be properly visaed by Ottoman Consuls abroad; on arrival they were to hand over a deposit guaranteeing their departure, and they were to leave after thirty days.

In all this, the role of the Powers was crucial. If the entry restrictions were to be effective, they had to be accepted by the Powers, on whose nationals they fell. And, broadly speaking, the Powers did not accept them, since they were bent on preserving their privileges granted under the Capitulations (which, as already mentioned, the Porte was trying to curtail).

There were of course certain differences in the positions taken by the various Powers, depending to some extent on the state of their relations with the Ottoman Empire. For example, from the 1880's onwards, Germany was trying to befriend the Ottoman Empire and on occasion seemed inclined to fall in with the entry restrictions. But in general the Powers refused to acquiesce in them, and so in 1888, after adopting a strong stand, they were able to extract a concession from the Porte permitting Jews to settle in Palestine, provided that they arrived singly, and not en masse.

There is much more to this fascinating history as set forth by Mandel, but halfway through his recitation of the facts, I believe I’d found the answer to my family riddle. Mordechai Shmuel and Taibe Leah left Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, for Palestine. Mordechai Shmuel was merchant class, which means he was considered well-off. But he was not entering Palestine as a businessman. The intention of the two, who had arrived with several children, was to make Aliyah: to permanently settle in Eretz Yisrael.

Had he declared himself to be in Palestine on business, after 30 days, Mordechai Shmuel Yanovsky, my ancestor, would have been hunted down and expelled. Arriving in the country for burial, on the other hand, would probably not be seen as “settlement.” As such, the ploy of playing dead, with his wife playing the grieving widow, makes sense.

I have not found any record of other Jewish men playing dead to get into what is today the State of Israel. It does, however, pique my interest that there were so many widows in the Old Yishuv. Is it possible that the women may have been hiding the existence of their men in order to prevent them from being expelled?

Ultimately, my two-times-great-grandparents failed at Aliyah. Mordechai Shmuel and Taibe Leah stayed with relatives in Jerusalem while their farmhouse was being built on land in the newish town of Petach Tikva. That town, founded in 1878, was the first modern Jewish agricultural center located in Ottoman “Southern Syria.”

One day, Mordechai Shmuel set out from Jerusalem to check on the progress of the building in Petach Tikva. During the journey, my ancestor was attacked by three Arab ruffians, beaten unconscious, and left for dead. They were disappointed to see he had only a pair of phylacteries and little cash. My great great grandfather had not seen the need for further provisions for a simple overnight trip.

When Mordechai Shmuel awoke three days later in a hospital in Jaffa, he thought to himself, “This is a crazy place. I’m taking the family back to Lithuania.”

My Israeli cousin relates that his grandfather Nachum Shlomo, who was known to all the cousins as the “Saba from Jerusalem” refused to return with the family and his father, hoping to change his mind, threatened to sit shiva on him. But Shlomo (as he was called) wouldn’t leave, and Mordechai Shmuel did in fact sit shiva for him. They reconciled and eventually, in their old age, Mordechai Shmuel and Taibe Leah returned, living with Shlomo’s family so that they could be buried on the Mount of Olives when they died. And so it was. This time, Mordechai Shmuel stayed dead.

The graves of my great great grandparents on the Mount of Olives, restored after 1967

But here I am today, his great great granddaughter, living in a bustling Jewish State, a grandmother myself now, with deep roots in Israel. I never had to play dead, hide in a coffin, or resort to subterfuge in order to make Aliyah. There were no Turks to stop me.

Today, the Ottomans are no more. The Jews, however, are now firmly ensconced in the Land. This in spite of all the bad people who’d like to push us into the sea and steal our land. It’s fun to watch them froth at the mouth when they see they can’t get their way and make Israel Judenrein once more, as it was for all intents and purposes under the Turks.

In other words, you won’t catch me playing dead in a coffin. I’m here in Israel out loud and proud.

Mordechai Shmuel and Taibe Leah Yanovsky are no doubt amazed at my great good luck. One of their blood in Eretz Yisroel, not here to fake death or to come in my old age to die, but to live and raise more generations in the Holy Land, now a sovereign Jewish state.

Updated for accuracy July 23, 2023

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PCHR reported on July 3 that Israeli forces shot Ali Hani Al-Ghoul in the chest, killing him. It admitted that he was a member of an armed group and said he was 20 years old.

Later, the Israel/Palestine Timeline site said that al-Ghoul was shot in the head, and that he was 17 years old.

His mother was interviewed:

His mother brought back some of her memories with her little Ali, which she will never forget; She says, "About two years ago, Ali used to come home at night, with his clothes dusty and his eyes red, and he was suffering from severe pain, which was caused by the explosive materials he was using."

"Ali was one of the resistance fighters who made explosive devices in the Jenin camp from primitive materials, but their impact was great and effective by damaging many Israeli military vehicles," according to his mother, who expressed her pride in what her son did and what his friends say about his actions that are beyond his age.

That means that Ali al-Ghoul had been building bombs since he was 15 years old.

Now, the Jenin Brigades division of Islamic Jihad have issued a video celebrating Al-Ghoul's "martyrdom" - showing him building IEDs together with other children.

It doesn't show anyone else's faces, but you can see that the hands that are stuffing explosive powder into IEDs are not those of full grown adults.

Jenin's bomb-makers are children.

Ali's mother continues: “Before Ali left the house, he carried a sack full of explosive devices on his shoulder, and later he planted them in the streets and alleys of Jenin camp with the help of his friends, who confirmed that Ali participated with them in a confrontation with the occupation from zero distance."

Palestinian terror groups recruit children to build bombs.

They encourage kids to turn their homes into bomb depots.

They instruct children to plant these bombs in the roads of Jenin where they can kill not only the children but anyone who happens to come by.

And they freely and proudly admit this.

This is not just child abuse: this is systemic and widespread child abuse that is a source of pride to Palestinians.

Now listen to the silence from UNICEF, the UN Human Rights Council, Defense for Children-International, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

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07/12 Links Pt1: Iran’s shadow war; Republicans threaten Biden nominees over ‘antisemitic' boycott of Israel; NYT's Friedman: US reassessment of ties with Israel inevitable

From Ian:

What are the latest Israeli government protests about? The 'reasonableness standard' explained

For the last six months, the sight of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets has become part of daily life in the country. Since the election of Netanyahu's controversial coalition, protests and counter-protests over his planned judicial reforms have been taking place week in and week out.

This week saw a ‘Day of Disruption’, which was called in response to the Knesset passing the first reading of the Reasonableness Standard Bill on Monday evening. This bill is the latest chapter in the saga of Prime Minister Netanyahu's attempts to overrule the legal system in the country while himself facing corruption charges.

The bill, which passed by a vote of 64 to 56, would block Israel’s courts from applying the doctrine of “reasonableness” to government decisions. This permits the judiciary to overrule government decisions that are considered beyond the scope of reasonable authority.

The doctrine defines unreasonable action as a situation in which the administrative authority fails to give proper weight to all relevant considerations, and does not properly balance between all situations according to their weight.

Justice Minister Yari Levin argues that the reform is “long overdue”. He said that it was aimed at “strengthening democracy, rehabilitating governance, restoring faith in the judicial system, and rebalancing the three branches of government”.

The three branches of Israeli parliamentary democracy are the legislative (the Knesset) the executive (the government), and the judicial. Levin has argued that the reform would “restore the decision-making capability of the elected government,” and return power to elected branches of governance (the legislative and executive).

Former Supreme Court justice Moshe Landau has also supported the reforms. He argued that the reasonableness principle allows elected officials to be subverted by appointed judges – an undemocratic process. The formulation of the principle is subjective, which allows an activist court to set the terms of governance.

Those on the political left have opposed the bill. They argue that reasonableness is rarely used, except in extreme cases in which there is no other recourse to protect impacted citizens, who cannot wait until the next election for the issue to be resolved. To avoid human rights abuses, they argue that the doctrine of reasonableness must remain intact.

Protest movement fails Netanyahu’s ‘reasonableness’ test

Insincere negotiations
Netanyahu agreed, at the behest of President Isaac Herzog, to engage in negotiations with the opposition toward reaching a broad consensus on a more moderate reform package. Since then, he has repeatedly called for a compromise, and openly stated along with other judicial reform proponents that the controversial override clause would be completely removed from the agenda.

Negotiations began, with media reports that the coalition was willing to give up on many of its proposed reforms in favor of a compromise, and opposition leaders willing to acknowledge that certain reforms were warranted.

The concept of judicial reform is not foreign to the opposition. Many opposition leaders, including Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz, Gideon Sa’ar and Avigdor Liberman, have all previously called for reigning in the court’s overreaching authority. Herzog believed that a compromise could be reached whereby the coalition would get some meaningful degree of judicial reform, while the opposition could prevent some of the more controversial aspects.

It is now clear, however, that the opposition leaders are not interested in any form of consensus or compromise. Hell-bent on crashing Netanyahu’s stable right-wing government, the opposition has little interest in handing Netanyahu even the most minor of political victories. Nor is the opposition any longer interested in weakening a court with the power to overturn policies with which it disagrees.

As such, it was the opposition that broke off negotiations on the very day on which their own candidate was voted onto the judicial selection committee. For close to a month, Netanyahu has called for negotiations to resume. Without negotiations, Netanyahu has decided to advance a singular component—restricting the court’s ability to rule on “reasonableness.”

This component was selected precisely because its passage appears reasonable to a plurality of Israelis. As such, the overwhelming majority of Israelis who protested in March have stayed home since.

JPost Editorial: Refusing IDF service over judicial reform isn't reasonable

These calls to shirk reserve duty are highly dangerous and potentially destructive for Israel, which is under constant threat on all sides. We have seen examples of this from the beginning of 2023, with rockets from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, attempts by terrorists in Jenin to emulate their Gazan counterparts, and a quiet Hezbollah invasion in the form of tents on Israel’s side of the Lebanese border, plus an Iran that keeps plugging away at its nuclear program while sponsoring the aforementioned groups threatening Israel.

Someone fully aware of all of these challenges who can also relate to the protesters is National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi.

In the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee this week, Hanegbi recounted that he was once the leader of a protest movement that used extreme tactics. For 23 days in 1982, he and his allies barricaded themselves in a memorial in Yamit, an Israeli town in the Sinai Desert, in an attempt to stop Israel from giving the peninsula to Egypt.

Hanegbi told MKs that he had been “convinced that the peace agreement with Egypt would mean the end of Israel because we would be returning to indefensible borders.” When the protests failed, he felt “distress and concern.”

Weeks later, “when the order came to report for reserve duty for the First Lebanon War, I did not think for a moment that I would not go,” Hanegbi said.

The protesters abhor this government’s attempts to change the judicial status quo, and their demonstrations, as long as they’re within the limits of the law, must be allowed, as befits any strong democracy. However, they should take a cue from Hanegbi, who felt deeply betrayed by the government but still saw the State and people of Israel as worthy of defending from their enemies.

Hopefully, despite the massive media attention that calls to refuse orders receive, the reality will be similar to last time these threats cropped up. Reservists must realize, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s King Lear, that that way madness lies.

Protests shake Israel as government moves ahead with judicial reform

Gilad Katz, Ben-Dror Yemini and Yoav Keren debate the state of Israel as protesters hit the streets, opposing the judicial reform legislation.

The Palestinian Authority has been trying to walk a tightrope between publicly supporting terror to its people and quietly doing a small part to retake police control over the parts of the West Bank that have become fully subjugated to terror groups.

The local terror groups complained loudly after Israel's Jenin operation last week that the PA had reportedly intercepted terrorists en route to the camp to fight Israeli forces.

Abbas was humiliated when one of his senior Fatah officials, Mahmoud Aloul, was expelled from Jenin while attending a funeral for some of the terrorists killed during the operation.

Today, the PA arrested a member of Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, a 17 year old who was transporting bombs in his car in Nablus.

The "Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - Youth for Revenge and Liberation" group called on the PA to release their member, stating, "We direct our words to the security personnel and whoever may be concerned, that what was seized is an honorable weapon, and it is on its way to our soldiers in the camp."

And they warned the PA, "Do not deviate from the proper direction, and do not be a helping hand for those who want to kill us and want to arrest us. Do not be like our enemies, we are one people, do not sow the fuse of sedition."

The statement concluded, "We still speak the language of dialogue, and we do not want to start to use methods that we do not want to reach."

Sources said that the PA police seized five homemade explosives, along with wires, a battery and switch for detonation inside the vehicle driven by a child.

Protesters against the arrest closed Al-Quds Street, adjacent to Balata refugee camp, with burning rubber tires.

At this point it is unclear how much of the PA's arrest spree is due to pressure from Israel, or pressure from the US and Arab countries, and how much is just because it does not want to lose what power it has left in the face of the proliferation of terror groups in the West Bank.

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On Monday, Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, presented her latest anti-Israel report to the UN Human Rights Council.

In the entire report, not one word was mentioned about Palestinian terror attacks. Not one word about incitement or glorification of terror in Palestinian media and schools. In fact, in a two year period when more Israeli civilians are being murdered than at any time since 2008, their deaths are utterly absent from Albanese's report.

There is not even a pretense of impartiality - no paragraph buried inside the report sayin, oh by the way, armed militias are popping up in Jenin and Nablus and Hebron, or a pro-forma declaration that Israel has the right to defend itself. Nothing,

Jews are simply not human to the UN Human Rights Council.

So naturally, Hamas has heartily endorsed this report.

Hamas issued a press release:

We hail the speech of Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories at the UN Human Rights Council.

In her speech, Albanese shed light on the Israeli crimes and violations against the Palestinian people that have turned the occupied Palestinian territories into an open-air prison where all forms of discrimination and apartheid are exercised against the Palestinian people.

Yes, an internationally recognized terror group fully supports the work of the UN Human Rights Council and its Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. And why not? She has nothing negative to say about Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, or the Lion's Den. On the contrary, she says they have the "right" to "resist." All of her criticism is towards the only state in the region that actually prioritizes human rights.

The phrase "human rights" has become self-parody.

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From Offshore Energy:

Israel’s Energy and Infrastructure Ministry is planning to construct a 150-kilometer submarine cable along the country’s Mediterranean coast that will connect to Europe with the possibility to connect to Gulf countries.

Israeli State Council for Planning and Construction announced on 4 July it will promote the planning and establishment of the submarine power cable initiated by Minister of Energy Israel Katz after the matter was examined by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure.

The cable will run from the southern city of Ashkelon to the northern city of Haifa to mostly transmit electricity generated through renewable energy sources in the south to cities in the center and north.

It is planned to connect the Israeli power grid to Europe through Cyprus, with an option to connect to the Gulf countries through Jordan and to Egypt, along the planned Peace Railroad route, in order to receive backup for the local grid and export green energy produced in Israel.

The plan envisages the project to connect the Israeli electricity grid to Europe and Asia through the EuroAsia Interconnector which will connect Israel, Cyprus and Greece.

It sounds like there will be large solar energy farms in the Negev that will be able to supply electric power to the north of Israel.

The EuroAsia Interconnector is a major EU initiative meant to connect EU-member Cyprus to the rest of the European grid, provide an alternative path for European electricity and

Its webpage also says that it "creates an electricity highway from Israel-Cyprus, Greece (Europe) through which the European Union can securely be supplied with electricity produced by the gas reserves of Cyprus and Israel, as well as from the available Renewable Energy Sources (RES), contributing at the same time to the completion of the European Internal Market."

The more that Israel is embedded in the infrastructure of Europe and the Middle East, the more difficult it would be for anti-Israel forces to isolate it - a key strategy that they've been following since before Israel was reborn.

(h/t Yoel)

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07/11 Links Pt2: Gove: 'There is significant overlap between antisemitism and conspiracy theories'; Tree of Life Murderer: ‘They Can Kill Me If They Want, But The Score Was 11-1:’

From Ian:

Michael Gove: 'There is significant overlap between antisemitism and conspiracy theories'

There is a "significant" overlap between antisemitism and conspiracy theories, Michael Gove has said.

The Communities Secretary made the point after King's College London undertook a study to find out if antisemitism was more common among those on the political left, or on the right.

The study concluded that “antisemitism may be less closely linked to political beliefs than has previously been implied, and more closely linked to opinions and views on other topics such as religion, ethnic nationalism, and conspiracy theories.”

The study also found those with a susceptibility to conspiracy theories were most likely to be antisemites.

Responding to a question from Labour MP Alex Sobel, Gove replied: "He is absolutely right. There is a significant overlap between antisemitism and conspiracy theories.

"And it is the case that many of the tricks that conspiracists use are drawn from the antisemitic library, but it is important with the Online Safety Bill to balance the right to free speech with vigilance in dealing with hate and this Government is absolutely committed to combating antisemitism wherever it rears its head."

The Leeds North West MP had asked him in the Commons: "Did the Secretary of State see the research from King's College showing that those who believe in conspiracies are most likely to be antisemitic.

“Much of this antisemitism takes place online, but is legal but harmful.

"What is the Secretary of State doing to tackle conspiracism, misinformation and fake news and why are the measures in the Online Safety Bill so weak and why have the Government removed the legal but harmful provision which protects so much of the Jewish community?"

‘Tragic error,’ 11 groups say of only partial White House IHRA embrace

Eleven U.S. Jewish organizations sent a letter on July 7 to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, urging her to publicly embrace the leading definition of antisemitism.

The missive to Linda Thomas-Greenfield sought to counter a letter addressed to her in late June by left-wing Democrats which applauded the Biden administration for failing to codify the application of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism across the whole of government.

The White House “embraced” the IHRA definition in its national plan to fight antisemitism released last month, but did not fully endorse it to the exclusion of other definitions preferred by those who wish to be freer in singling Israel out for criticism and applying double standards.

Last week’s letter to Thomas-Greenfield calls the decision “a tragic error,” adding that “Jewish members of Congress should know better.”

Representatives of CASEPAC, StopAntisemitism, Israel Heritage Foundation, Club Z, The Endowment for Middle East Truth, Baltimore Zionist District, Coalition for Jewish Values, Republican Jewish Coalition, Students Supporting Israel, Jewish Policy Center and Jewish Leadership Project signed the letter.

It urges Thomas-Greenfield to publicly embrace the IHRA definition “as part of your previous commitments to combat the scourge of antisemitism at the United Nations and beyond.”

Thomas-Greenfield’s boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claimed at the outset of the Biden administration that it “enthusiastically” embraced IHRA, and the United States is one of 36 IHRA member countries.

Thomas-Greenfield has largely lived up to promises to support Israel at the United Nations, leveraging Washington’s veto power on the U.N. Security Council and its influence in the General Assembly on a number of matters.

‘They Can Kill Me If They Want, But The Score Was 11-1:’ Pittsburgh Synagogue Killer’s Chilling Message to Psychiatrist

The neo-Nazi gunman who murdered 11 people and wounded six more in an attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh in Oct. 2018 boasted that the death toll guarantees him a victory even if he is executed for his crime, a leading psychiatrist told a Pittsburgh jury on Monday.

“They can kill me if they want, but the score was 11-1,” the gunman, Robert Bowers, stated during an interview with the psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, according to testimony given by Dietz at Bowers’ ongoing trial.

A forensic psychiatrist who has examined and testified about many high-profile defendants, including serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Dietz interviewed Bowers at Butler County Prison over the course of three days.

While Bowers’ guilt for the atrocity — the worst antisemitic outrage in American history — is not in dispute, the jury is deliberating over his eligibility for the death penalty. Whether his action was driven by mental instability or ideological belief is a key consideration for the jurors in this regard.

Dietz was in no doubt that “Bowers had the capacity to form the intent to kill.” Dietz cited Bowers’ “organized, goal-directed thoughts and behavior before, during and after the attack,” local broadcaster WTAE reported. Asked by a prosecuting attorney whether Bowers believed his murder of Jews was justified, Dietz replied in the affirmative, arguing that the atrocity was the consequence of a “cultural white supremacist belief system he shares with others.”

According to Dietz’s diagnosis, Bowers does not suffer from psychosis, schizophrenia or any form of mental delusion. He noted that Bowers started planning the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting six months in advance and quoted the killer’s regret that “there wasn’t dozens and dozens more” potential victims at the synagogue. He testified that Bowers told him he had aimed at “the best target I had available” and that he had selected the Tree of Life Synagogue to “get the most bang for his buck.”

Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh spoke at an investment conference he set up, with about 45 Jordanian potential investors in attendance. It was at the Fourth Economic Empowerment Conference in Hebron.

His pitch was a little unconventional.

Usually, when speaking to foreign audiences, he emphasizes how difficult things are and how all of the Palestinian Authority problems are coming from Israel. He says how helpless they are and how they need more foreign aid because all of their money is being stolen by Israel. In other words, his usual message is one of pure victimhood and helplessness.

But to this audience, suddenly the Palestinian territories are a fertile ground for investment and a sure thing to make money.

"Despite the occupation and the challenges it poses, Palestine is full of promising investment opportunities in various commercial and industrial sectors, and it deserves a visit, solidarity and strengthening the steadfastness of its people, and it is an appropriate and feasible place for investment because it achieves a meaningful return for investors."

See? Things are great economically! It just depends on the audience!

The "moderate" PM then spoke about the supreme importance of "resistance." He continued, "For us, the government's strategy is based on several components, on top of which is strengthening the steadfastness of the resistance. This occupation cannot disappear unless it becomes costly, and when we succeed in the economy and promote it, the occupation becomes costly, and when the Arab countries embrace Palestine, the occupation becomes costly."

Just yesterday, the PA government rejected Israel's offer to help them out economically, if they would just reject funding terrorist families and stop inciting violence against Jews. That was not a good enough deal for the PA.

I wonder what the investors think about investing in a government that prefers antisemitism and terror to helping its own people.

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Call the police!

Last week, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk condemned the Jenin operation, saying that some of the methods and weapons used “are more generally associated with the conduct of hostilities in armed conflict, rather than law enforcement."

“The use of airstrikes is inconsistent with rules applicable to the conduct of law enforcement operations. In a context of occupation, the deaths resulting from such airstrikes may also amount to willful killings,” he said.

What Turk is saying, and what many "human rights" NGOs believe, is that an belligerent occupier must adhere strictly to human rights law which means that any activity done must be police-type law enforcement operations.

Nations at war, on the other hand, must adhere to international humanitarian law (IHL), which govern wars. The Geneva Conventions are the source for much of IHL.

Turk is wrong. When Israel faces an armed militant group, it not only can but should apply the laws of war. It is absurd to pretend that police actions are adequate to maintain the peace when an armed group has taken over a town. When there are civilians protesting, that calls for law enforcement; when there are heavily armed militants with machine guns and IEDs, that calls for the army and the laws of armed conflict.

The line between the two is not so clear. This was recognized in a 45-page article published in the International Review of the Red Cross in 2012, "Use of force during occupation: law enforcement and conduct of hostilities."

Once it becomes evident that the threat is emanating from a member of an organized armed group or a civilian taking a direct part in hostilities, such as by means of a vehicle-borne IED, then the conduct of hostilities framework would apply at law. In that situation, the use of force is not limited by law enforcement, although such norms would continue to govern the use of force against civilians who are not direct participants in hostilities. ... [T]he force permitted, at law, to counter an IED or suicide bomb by members of organized armed groups or a civilian taking a direct part in hostilities is governed by conduct of hostilities norms. For example, the soldier may be aware from information provided by aerial surveillance, human intelligence, other observation posts and checkpoints, or perhaps even the observation of certain tactics and procedures, that an attack is about to take place. That soldier does not have to wait until the attack is imminent, or the attacker is physically in close proximity and ready to set off explosives, before taking action to remove the threat. In addressing that threat, the soldier can use force governed by conduct of hostilities norms.

In reality, the situation in Jenin is even more tilted towards actual warfare because there is a law enforcement vacuum there. The PA police aren't going into Jenin. If Israel is the legal occupier, then it would be obligated to have forces in Jenin 24/7 - because law enforcement is the responsibility of the occupier!

Obviously, none of the people who insist that Israel is occupying Jenin want to see Israeli police or soldiers opening up police stations there and maintaining order for the civilian citizens. But if Israel is the occupier, that is exactly what Israel is obligated to do!

Which proves that Jenin, and Area A altogether, is not occupied under international law. It is a town with a law enforcement vacuum. By the time Israeli forces must enter, it has turned into a full blown military conflict with armed militias "defending" no one but themselves.

Even with this, Israel attempts to apply law enforcement paradigms as much as possible when going into towns are trying to arrest militants. This puts Israeli troops and police at extra risk.

I wrote a satirical thread, somewhat exaggerating the position of "human rights" groups that try to apply a strict law enforcement paradigm to Israel in the territories:

Here is how Amnesty and HRW insist that Israel go after terrorists:

1. Best to not do anything. They are probably innocent and it should be handled by the PA.

2. If absolutely necessary to stop an imminent act of resistance that will definitely kill Israeli civilians, do not enter the town with force. This scares some children and could damage roads or houses. Just send one policeman to arrest the suspect.

3. Give the suspect, and the entire town, advanced notice that Israel plans to arrest them. That way there are no surprises.

4. In the unlikely event that the suspect or other people decide to shoot or blow up the policeman, only then is he or she allowed to respond with gunfire.

5. When the suspect gives himself up voluntarily, do not frisk or handcuff him. These are painful procedures, and if the suspect is trans, it could be embarrassing, and it is a terrible thing to shame a Palestinian.

6. In the unlikely event that an entire battalion of heavily armed militants respond to the arrest by killing the Israeli policeman and dismembering him or her, send in another and try again. Use more polite words when requesting his surrender.

7. After several rounds of this with many Israeli policemen dead, then the IDF may enter with a single unarmed Jeep. Soldiers may wear helmets. Try again until successful.

8. Under no circumstances may a bulldozer be used. Under no circumstances may drones be used. Under no circumstances may anything beyond a pistol be used. These are all prohibited as potentially hurting innocent civilians.

9. Under no circumstances may the suspect be injured or killed. He is by definition a civilian since he is not wearing a uniform. Being aggressive is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and a bunch of other international laws that Amnesty has not read.

10. The assumption that a suspect is a civilian also applies to anyone who allegedly attacks Israelis in Israel itself. They must be peacefully arrested.

I hope this clears up the NGO ruling on how Israelis may defend themselves. In short - they may not.

Luckily, real international law is not as restrictive as the fairy tale versions pushed by Amnesty, HRW and the UN.

(Made a correction thanks to Irene)

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07/11 Links Pt1: The UN and EU’s hostility and double standards toward Israel; UK refuses to release documents on aid to Palestinians; State Department rejects analogy of Russian war, Israeli ‘occupation’

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: The UN and EU’s hostility and double standards toward Israel

Aliens landing on Earth from the moon would be struck by amazement and disbelief upon hearing the latest official statements condemning Israel by the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, and the so-called High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, regarding Israel’s recent military action against the terror infrastructure in Jenin.

They would immediately imagine in their mind’s-eye Israel’s forces, one sunny July morning, deciding out of the blue to willfully, cruelly, and disproportionately attack a sleepy refugee camp in the town of Jenin, for no apparent reason, while the camp’s innocent and peace-loving residents rest in their tents.

They would not fathom why anyone would want to attack such a sleepy refugee camp.

This, indeed, is the way in which the UN and the EU, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross and others such as US Congresswoman for Minnesota Ilhan Omar, have, lock stock, and barrel, so willingly, completely and utterly bought-into and openly repeat deliberately false and misleading Palestinian propaganda.

As UN Secretary-General Guterres stated: “Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in a crowded refugee camp were the worst violence in the West Bank in many years, with a significant impact on civilians,” calling on Israel to abide by its obligations under international law, including the duty to exercise restraint and use only proportional force.

Our alien visitors from the moon would obviously not have any idea of the fact that Palestinian terrorists have turned what they have been given to perceive as such a sleepy refugee camp, into an armed, aggressive, and fanatic fortress.

They would not imagine a scenario in which explosives are implanted under the roads, where weapons and ammunition are stored in hospitals, clinics, mosques, civilian infrastructure, and in almost all private residences.

They would not understand how, in such an apparently peaceful and calm ambiance, terrorists would have burrowed and built a 300-meter tunnel under the local mosque in order to store weapons and produce thousands of lethal weapons in laboratories.

By the same token, they would not imagine that such a quiet and peaceful refugee camp could serve as the center, shelter, refuge, and exit-point for countless cruel acts of terror committed by residents of the camp against Israelis over the years.

Azerbaijan arrests Afghan man for planning attack on Israel’s embassy

Azerbaijani security forces arrested a 23-year-old Afghan national on suspicion of planning an attack on Israel’s embassy in Baku, the State Security Service announced Monday.

The statement did not specify that he was suspected of targeting Israel’s mission, but The Times of Israel has learned that he was observed near the embassy in the Hyatt Regency hotel and is currently being questioned by Azerbaijani officials.

“Fawzan Mosa Khan, a citizen of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, born in 1990, in conspiration with other individuals has been planning to commit terrorist act accompanied by explosion, fire or other similar events resulting in the death of people, health injuries, property damage and other socially dangerous incidents in order to create panic among the population, influence decision-making by state authorities and international organizations,” the State Security Service said in a statement.

Azerbaijan said that Khan came from “a foreign country” in order to surveil “a third country embassy,” recruit a cell, and obtain weapons and funding.

The SSS is working to find other members of Khan’s cell.

Though the statement did not identify the country from which Khan arrived in Azerbaijan, neighboring Iran has been using third-party nationals to plan terror attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets.

UK refuses to release documents on aid to Palestinians

The U.K. Foreign Office has declined to disclose how British development aid to the Palestinian Authority is audited, claiming it would “not be in the public interest” to do so, Jewish groups claimed on Monday.

In a statement first reported by the Jewish News website, We Believe in Israel and B’nai B’rith U.K. accused London’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) of attempting to dodge a May 2023 freedom of information request that sought to make public audit reports related to the so-called “Palestinian Recovery and Development Program.”

Established in 2008 by the World Bank, the donor scheme seeks to combine donations from multiple countries, including the United Kingdom, to provide a persistent cash flow to the P.A. Notably, as pointed out by Palestinian Media Watch in 2019, funds are provided to the P.A. “untied and unearmarked.”

Accordingly, following the April 7, 2023 terror attack that killed three members of the British-Israeli Dee family, We Believe in Israel and B’nai B’rith demanded to know whether U.K. taxpayers are contributing to Ramallah’s “pay-for-slay” policy, under which it pays monthly stipends to terrorists and to the families of slain terrorists.

The two organizations said that Foreign Office initially ignored the request, in breach of the law, leading the Information Commissioner’s Office, the authority which enforces the Freedom of Information Act, to order a response.

“The disclosure of information detailing the audit reports of the Palestinian Recovery and Development Programme could potentially damage the bilateral relationship between the U.K. and Palestine,” the FCDO subsequently replied, adding that this would harm the government’s ability to “protect and promote” U.K. interests through its relations with “Palestine.”

Most of the coverage of the IDF drone strike on June 21 says that one of the victims, from Islamic Jihad, was 17-year old Ashraf Murad Saadi. Islamic Jihad's own press release for the attack said that their heroic martyr Saadi was 17, and most of the world's media accepted that as his real age.

But Saadi wasn't 17. He was 15.

Electronic Intifada mentioned his real age. And so did an article in Al Ayyam a week after his death, where it was clear that his mother knew that Saadi was a member of a terror organization.

She said, "When Ashraf went out of the house in the evening hours, I felt a lump in my heart, and I watched him until he passed out of my sight, and I said to myself that I would not see him again."

But, of course, she is proud of him. She doesn't say a word about trying to seriously stop him or forbid him from getting mixed up with militants, the way a normal, caring parent would.

Both that article, and a newer obituary in the Al Quds Brigades website, say that his birthday was April 14, 2008. That means that Saadi turned 15 only two months before.

If you ever had any doubt that Islamic Jihad recruits children barely out of puberty, this is proof positive.

But it turns darker than that.

Saadi was killed in a car along with two much older terrorists. They were 27 and 28.

Why would any older terrorists want to plan activities with a 15 year old? Why would they be hanging out together at nighttime?

Being a child soldier might not be the only child abuse that Ashraf Murad Saadi was subjected to.

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How many ways can one minimize and then legitimize terror attacks against Jews?

Tareq Baconi, former senior analyst for Israel/Palestine at the International Crisis Group and the author of “Hamas Contained” who is now president of the board of al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, displays a lot of them in New York Times guest essay.

Purportedly an analysis of Jenin, he breaks new ground in first obfuscating, and ultimately justifying, Palestinian attacks on civilians.

At a Fourth of July event in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli Army had attacked “the most legitimate target on the planet — people who would annihilate our country.” He was referring to months of armed resistance against Israeli settlers by young men in the Jenin refugee camp.

To Baconi, people like brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, shot to death by a Hamas resident of Jenin while doing the crime of driving, are mere "settlers," and their murder was "resistance."

He conveniently doesn't mention that the terror wave that gripped Israel even within the invisible line that somehow differentiates between human beings and "settlers" also came from Jenin. Three civilians in Tel Aviv were murdered in April 2022 by a terrorist from Jenin - either they don't exist or are also "settlers." The terrorist who killed five Israelis in Bnei Brak shortly beforehand was from the Jenin area, and the murders were celebrated in Jenin. The murderers of four Israelis on Yom Haatzmaut 2022 in Elad were also from the Jenin area.

They don't count. Or, as we will see, perhaps they are "settlers" as well.

More than 20 years ago, another right-wing prime minister, Ariel Sharon, led an extensive military campaign against the same refugee camp. It was two years into the second Palestinian uprising. Palestinian suicide bombers, some of whom hailed from Jenin, had rocked Israeli streets. In response, the Israeli Army invaded the West Bank and ravaged the Jenin refugee camp, then, as now, a center of Palestinian resistance.

Scores of Palestinians who detonated bomb belts in the midst of crowds of Jews didn't kill anyone, you see. They merely "rocked Israeli streets." It was practically a music festival! But Israel's response "ravaged" a camp that was merely a "center of Palestinian resistance" - not a terrorist hotbed.

With the absence of any hope for statehood, and with no viable political leadership to lead the struggle, some take matters into their own hands through armed and unarmed forms of resistance,

Amazingly, in this entire essay, Palestinians simply never kill anyone. They just engage in "armed and unarmed forms of resistance." Murdering Jews with axes and bombs are simply a form of protest, and a quite understandable one.

Like Jenin, the Gaza Strip also has a history of resistance against Israeli occupation.

Shooting tens of thousands of rockets towards Israeli civilian targets, killing many, is again merely "resistance against Israeli occupation." To Baconi, and the New York Times editors who approved this essay, there is no distinction between the two sides of the Green Line - all of Israel is "occupied."

Beneath this evolving context is a singular constant: Israel’s ability to sustain its settlement of Palestinian territory without accountability, while equating Palestinian resistance to terrorism. That this framing has long been accepted among the major Western powers is particularly galling for Palestinians in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where resistance to illegal occupation is hailed as heroic and supported by Western weapons and military training.

Here the sheer immorality of Baconi and the New York Times comes into sharper focus. Not only do they dehumanize all Israelis as mere "settlers," which is sickening enough - they show no differentiation between attacking an army and targeting civilians. That principle of distinction is the entire basis of the Fourth Geneva Convention, but to apologists for murder like Baconi, Palestinians butchering rabbis while praying are equivalent to Ukrainians defending themselves from Russian soldiers and mercenaries.

Residents of the Jenin camp, some of whom had fled from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948, are refugees once again. And some of the toddlers who were in the camp in 2002 are now the young men of the Palestinian resistance. As the history of other struggles against apartheid and colonial violence have taught us, today’s children will no doubt take up arms to resist such domination in the future, until these structures of control are dismantled.

This essay is the intellectual equivalent to handing out sweets after a terror attack.

Baconi is not only justifying but actively cheering terrorism against Jews. He portrays the most despicable and disgusting murderers as heroic "resistance" - and he is doing it under the pretense of caring about human rights.

Any real human rights activist should be horrified at this paean to murdering civilians. But instead of condemning the twisted, immoral essay of Baconi, the "human rights" community is tweeting it.

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55 years ago: Polish communist leader admits that "anti-Zionism" is antisemitism

From the Daily Telegraph, July 10, 1968:

The Guardian adds more detail:

Today's left-wing anti-Zionism is rooted in communist "anti-Zionism" which was obviously thinly-disguised antisemitism from the post-war years. The number of stories of Soviet and other communist country repression of Jews are well known. Here's an account from 1949 that was originally published in the New York Herald Tribune:

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UNRWA spreads bogus statistics to other NGOs

This is a strange one.

The Development Initiatives website used to have very extensive statistics on aid given, both from donors and to which recipients. But its latest report only discusses the top ten recipients, and this year the Palestinians are not listed among the top ten - they had been at or near the top from the early 2000s to at least 2015.

But it does mention the Palestinians in a different context.

In "Figure 2.6: The numbers of forcibly displaced people across the globe increased by almost 20% between 2021 and 2022, to more than 100 million people," it gives numbers of "forcibly displaced" people in "Palestine" for 2021 and 2022:

It says that the number of "forcibly displaced" Palestinians in the territories increased from 2.4 million to 2.9 million in only one year.

The footnotes say that it got these statistics from UNRWA: "Data is organised according to UNHCR's definitions of country/territory of asylum. According to data provided by UNRWA, registered Palestine refugees are included as refugees for Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. UNHCR data represents 2022 mid-year figures, and UNRWA data for 2022 is based on internal estimates."

First of all, it is absurd to say that the number of UNRWA registered refugees in the West Bank and Gaza increased by 21% in one year. There was no new influx of refugees to the territories and natural growth increase is nowhere near that number.

Secondly, to call people who pretend to be "refugees from Palestine" but who live in Palestine "refugees," and not even "internally displaced persons." is equally absurd.

Thirdly, UNRWA themselves publishes these statistics, so there was no reason for UNRWA to provide an "estimate" for 2022. According to them, in the fourth quarter of 2021 there were 2,400,208 "registered refugees" in the territories, in the fourth quarter of 2022 there were 2,454,903. That is an increase of 2%, not 20%.

It is possible that someone made a mistake - if a decimal point moved from an increase of 50,000 to 500,000, that would explain this discrepancy. But still, this is something that should have been checked.

One other interesting anomaly: according to this chart, a small but not insignificant number of "refugees" are seeking asylum in the Palestinian territories themselves. Where are they from? They couldn't be Palestinian - are they Africans who managed to make it to Gaza or the West Bank? The Palestinian Basic Law does not have any section about asylum seekers, and gives only a general statement about citizenship being regulated by law.

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07/10 Links Pt2: David Collier: The BBC blood libel and the shame of a biased media; The Biden Administration's Anti-Semitism Blindspot; Ben & Jerry’s: Two Scoops of Hypocrisy

From Ian:

David Collier: The BBC blood libel and the shame of a biased media

The terrorist recruitment of minors
For decades intelligence services and governments in the west have been fully aware that radical Islamic terror groups recruit children (under 18 years of age). From Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan to the Afghani Shia Fatemiyoun Brigade, hundreds of Islamic forces across the globe bolster their numbers and capabilities by using children.

The recruitment can have devastating results, especially as potential victims may be less suspicious when a child approaches. Here are some recent attacks carried out by young terrorists against Israelis:
March 2023 – Muhammad Bassel Fathi Zalbani, 13 years old. Killed a security guard.
February 2023 – Jaffar Matour, 14 years old. Stabbed 17-year-old Israeli child.
January 2023 – Mahmoud Muhammad Aliwat, 13 yearsold. Shot and wounded two Israelis in Jerusalem.

The list above contains just a few recent examples. In 2015/6 many of the attackers in the ‘Knife Intifada’ were minors, and minors-as suicide-bombers were used dozens of times during the second Intifada. For example, on 1 November 2004, a 16-year-old terrorist killed three Israelis and wounded 30 when in the middle of the crowded Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, he detonated the suicide vest he was wearing underneath his clothes.

BBC and the skewing of news
The BBC, like all western media, is fully aware of the truth. Yet what we witness when it comes to reporting on Israel is a reversal of causality. When children die waving the flag of ISIS, Al Qaeda or Boko Haram, the BBC always points the finger of blame at the recruiting terrorist groups. When a Palestinian terrorist is a minor, the BBC points the finger of blame at Israel. Instead of blaming the terrorist groups for the recruitment and indoctrination of children, the BBC ask the question ‘what has Israel done to make this child so desperate’? And ONLY when it comes to Israel, do the media organisations (the BBC is far from alone in this) use this line.

This is part of a 2015 report from the BBC that discusses an attack on ISIL by the French which killed 12 children. Nowhere in the article is there any criticism of the French forces at all. Rather the opposite is true. The entire article focuses on how awful ISIS is for indoctrinating children.

This next BBC report is about a recent attack by US forces against Al Shabab terrorists that killed 30 terrorists. It does not mention the issue of age anywhere. Yet we know that Al-Shabab’s recruitment campaign is dependent on the indoctrination of children – even opening their own schools to maintain a steady supply. 10,000s of children have been recruited – which makes it highly likely that terrorists under the age of 18 were killed in the attack. It seems the BBC journalist did not care about this issue at all when writing this report:

And in a 2017 BBC article that reports on 1300 ‘militants’ killed by UK forces in just 12 months, there is also no mention at all by the journalist of the fact that children were undoubtedly some of the many victims.

There seems to be a simple rule. If child terrorists die in attacks carried out by US, UK or French forces, it is the fault of the terrorist groups that recruited them. If Israel is involved – then it is not just Israel’s fault, but it is also in some way ‘deliberate’.

The BBC mindset
On November 29 2021, a group of Jewish youth were celebrating the first night of Chanukah on Oxford Street in London, when they were attacked by a group of Muslim antisemites. The BBC report on the incident invented an ‘anti-Muslim slur’ in order to blame the Jewish victims.

These two incidents, the invented Muslim slur, and the more recent ‘happy to kill children’ comment are not accidents. They emerge from a mindset within the BBC that sees the conflict in a very skewed way. On the ground, BBC News and BBC Arabic share the same offices in Jerusalem. The BBC Journalists – like most journalists in Israel, become entirely reliant on Arab runners and fixers – who are in turn an embedded part of the Palestinian propaganda machine. Instead of impartial reporting, over time these correspondents become little more than mouthpieces for Palestinian lies.

Today we seem to be in an unacceptable position of accepting the bias as ‘the norm’ and only complaining when it crosses the line in to blatant antisemitism. At no point has the British Jewish community signalled to our communal bodies that this is an acceptable approach.

The Biden Administration's Anti-Semitism Blindspot

Reproach of Israel is not criticism but blame—blame for the aggression against it. Anti-Semitism is the strategy of the pointing finger that keeps negative attention focused on the misdeeds of the Jews and their homeland. Jewish apologetics in the face of such assaults have always been reprehensible, but these American Jews are not asking to be kicked themselves: they are inviting Americans to join them in condemning the Jews of Israel. “Please go on pointing the finger away from us and at the Jews over there and we will excuse you, defend you, lend you support.” The corruptions of exile have reach new heights when this happens in the freest society the Jewish Diaspora has ever known.

With anti-Zionism now receding in some of its places of origin while rising in Western democracies, it is good that the White House has outlined a counter-strategy. However, the NSCA does not address the obvious sources, political agents, financial supporters, and ideological carriers of anti-Zionism. Indeed, rather than calling out organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for fomenting anti-Zionism, it includes them among those expected to implement the strategy, and it supports initiatives that create “a sense of community” among the diversity-equity-inclusion coalitions that have joined together in the past to assail the Jews. The inclusion of CAIR in particular, known as a group with ties to Hamas, systematically engaged in promoting anti-Israel politics, shows how far the administration had to go to accommodate the anti-Jewish elements among its supporters. Whereas President Roosevelt faced the opposition of both parties, today’s anti-Zionism is ideologically centered on the left. The Biden team faces headwinds because, as British author Melanie Phillips observes, “the progressive world to which they belong are themselves the problem.”

Defenders of the administration will no doubt point out that the strategy mentions Israel ten times, that it makes clear that “efforts to delegitimize the state of Israel” should be considered anti-Semitism, that it states bluntly that “the United States has embraced” the IHRA definition, and that American Jews should be grateful we have a government willing to take any steps at all. I have already made clear that the “embrace” of the IHRA definition is effectively undone by the “appreciation” of the Nexus document. So far as the administration’s consideration of anti-Israelism is concerned, it does, to its credit, acknowledge forthrightly that Jews are persecuted “often because of real or perceived views about the state of Israel.” But a closer look at the two key passages shows us something more worrisome:

Although anti-Semitism remains a pernicious global problem, the scope of this national strategy is domestic. The strategy is focused on countering the threat and manifestations of anti-Semitism in the United States of America. The U.S. government, led by the Department of State, will continue to combat anti-Semitism abroad and in international fora—including efforts to delegitimize the state of Israel.

All this is well and good, except that nowhere does the text make any suggestion that the government will take any steps to combat delegitimization of Israel domestically. In effect, it farms out the fight against the greatest source of contemporary anti-Semitism to the State Department, while tacitly committing not to do anything about it domestically.

Worse still is the following: “when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is anti-Semitism.” This clause was tellingly cited by both Kamala Harris and an unnamed administration official (interviewed by Jewish Insider) when asked if the White House strategy pays sufficient attention to the issue of Israel. Read carefully: singling out Israel only amounts to anti-Semitism when it is motivated by hatred of Jews. But it is usually impossible to determine anyone’s motivation, especially when discussing irrational animus. According to this logic, a person can speak and write obsessively about the Jewish state’s imagined evils, accuse it of the most fantastical crimes, and argue that it is the demonic source of all the world’s ills—but, so long as he doesn’t slip and admit that he possesses a general hatred of Jews, he is in the clear. As with the Nexus Document, the White House strategy provides pre-approved excuses for the Jews’ most pernicious enemies.

Most ominously, one fears that the NSCA may be a cover for actions that endanger Israel. One of the simplest ways the Biden White House could combat anti-Semitism would be to invite Benjamin Netanyahu as the newly elected and longest-serving prime minister of Israel for an official visit—without punitive conditions. The democratic leader of the Jewish state is the political protector of the Jewish people and Israel is the most reliable American ally in the Middle East. Such a visit could have been the cornerstone of any genuine attempt to stem the war against the Jews, a message that America gives no sanction or assistance to anti-Zionism, and the president’s failure to arrange it speaks much louder than ten pages of national strategy.

Iran declares its unambiguous intention of creating a nuclear bomb to eliminate Israel and to add its menace to those of China, Russia, and North Korea. Yet the Biden administration is once again eagerly approaching Tehran, and is said to be about to unfreeze billions in Iranian assets in hopes of making a deal. Its attempt to circumvent the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act that requires prior submission to Congress for any such negotiation is already facing opposition from Republicans and parts of the media. Buying off the Jews with the NSCA is a cheap way of preventing their opposition to a deal with today’s genocidal schemers.

Without questioning the good intentions of many who crafted the counter-anti-Semitism plan, they do more harm than good if they do not honestly confront the evil strategies of those ranged against the Jews. This initiative advertises its strenuous effort while giving the aggressors every sign of acquiescence. The Evian precedent warns that appeasement is transparent to all but those willing to be deceived.

America and the Jews face myriad challenges. There are white supremacist groups and lone shooters who go after Jews and other minorities. Racism, homelessness, poverty, the “breakdown” of society, all call for redress. But those who organize grievance against the Jews are usually after a larger political conquest, using Jews as the pretext to bring down democracy. This is what the National Strategy should be marshaling federal power to prevent; but instead, it does nothing to deter these enemies of America and its Jewish citizens. Roosevelt’s America missed the danger signs. Biden’s America risks the same threat—to itself.

The Egyptian story reminds us how quickly things can change

It’s an all-too-familiar story for Jews, that a community of 100,000 mostly fled within a 10-year period, and can today be counted on one hand.

My parents considered themselves fully Egyptian growing up. They spoke Arabic natively and had generations of ancestors buried there. Jews were accepted and even embraced. My mother’s father led the design and construction of Egypt’s power grid. My father’s father was a top statistician for the census bureau. Both worked in an office building, still there, on Cairo’s famous Tahrir Square.

Zionism and Israel’s birth created some tensions but it did not alter the fundamental acceptance of Jews as Egyptians. But when Gamal Nasser came to power in 1952, via a coup, everything changed. To him, Jews were foreigners. Businesses were confiscated, Jews were barred from many jobs and schools. After the 1956 war with Israel, many were jailed, accused of treason or spying, and expelled. My uncle was a medical student in France, and received a letter one day that his Egyptian passport and citizenship were invalidated.

With no future, Jews started leaving en masse. During the 1967 Six-Day war, the few remaining Jews were arrested, thrown in prison camps and mistreated, sealing the fate of a 2000-year- old community. By the time a peace treaty with Israel was signed, promising to improve treatment of Jews, it was too late.

The Egyptian Jewish community was incredibly diverse and historic. It included the most prominent community of Karaites, a once numerous sect that despite some theological disagreement with “Rabbanite” Judaism, has a rich and fascinating scholarly history.

My parents thought they would never come back, but I was proud to be there with them, along with my two brothers and one niece, for this restoration and dedication of the Karaite synagogue and cemetery. No one has any illusion about a revival of Jewish life here, at least anytime soon. But still, this was a chance for them to preserve a small piece for the future. A chance to tell part of the story of Jews living in Egypt for 2,000 years.

As an American Jew I am incredibly lucky to live in a place that by-and-large accepts me. But the Egyptian Jewish story is yet another reminder of how quickly that can change. And with anti-semitism rising, it’s a reminder that we should not dismiss it, because our Jewish acceptance in the US can disappear far more quickly than we’d like to believe.