Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Lebanese Islamists blaming Israel for Palestinian infighting in Ein al-Hilweh - and prove they hate Palestinians themselves

The head of Hezbollah’s Sharia Committee, Sheikh Muhammad Yazbek, came up with a convoluted logic to explain how Palestinians fighting other Palestinians in the Ein al-Hilweh camp in Lebanon is really Israel's fault.

Al-Ahed News reports that "He said the only beneficiary of the Palestinian fighting, in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, is the Zionist enemy, which is working in various ways to end the Palestinian issue and eliminate the right of the Palestinians to return to their lands and Islamic and Christian sanctities, pointing out that what is happening inside the camp and in Syria in terms of fighting, siege, security threats and displacement is an American-Israeli decision, implemented with local tools aimed at weakening the axis of resistance and confusing it security-wise and economically to discourage it from confronting the American-Zionist project."

I think he is saying that the Fatah faction in Lebanon is a tool of Israel and the US.

But the Association of Muslim Scholars had a much better conspiracy theory blaming Israel for the infighting - one that they don't even realize shows how little they care about Palestinians.

VDLNews reports this insanity that the group issued a statement saying that what the Zionists want for the Ein al-Hilweh camp "is to destroy this camp as a prelude to displacing its people and then settling them either in Lebanon or in a country to which they emigrate, through enticement and intimidation, which leads to the complete cancellation of the right of return, which necessarily means an end to the Palestinian issue."

What this Islamic group is saying is that the worst thing for Palestinians is to become normal citizens of Arab countries. The best thing for them is to remain stuck in an overcrowded, dangerous tinderbox surrounded by a huge wall where they are not allowed to build, not allowed many jobs, not allowed to own land and at the mercy of terrorists who are trying to take over the camp.

And while the "right of return" is fiction, Palestinians in Jordan are citizens and still claim that right. Why can't Lebanese Palestinians?

No one hates Palestinians more than the Lebanese. Not the Israelis, not the Saudis...no one. And no one treats them as badly as the Lebanese do. But where the Lebanese really outdo themselves is in insisting that their maltreatment of Palestinians is for their own good. And the Palestinians themselves cannot publicly complain about their being treated like dirt, because they are at the mercy of those same Lebanese.

This is why about two thirds of all of Lebanon's "registered Palestine refugees" have left Lebanon and gone anywhere else they could.

Yet the media and human rights organizations remain largely silent. Funny how that works.

It's almost like they don't really care 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!

09/11 Links Pt2: The Perennial Power of the Nakba; 9/11 and the New Antisemitism; Antisemitism is the ideology that has defined Abbas's life

From Ian:

The Perennial Power of the Nakba

With every rekindling of hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups, world news is flooded with stories about refugee camps, statelessness, and the Nakba—the now-settled term for the Palestinian narrative of the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The term is usually explained as the word for the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948, in which the establishment of the state of Israel caused the destruction of traditional Palestinian society, the loss of Palestinian lands, and the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. The term has become a reservoir of historical memory, structural guilt, and calls for justice.

Indeed, there is little doubt that the term is one of the foremost successes of Palestinian activism. Not only has it managed to enter most European languages, it has managed to establish itself as a sign of the destructiveness of not just Israel but of capitalism, colonialism, and racism too. Its mention sometimes brings with it a pantheon of associations and allusions, among them crimes against the environment, women, and indigenous people, committed by Western men, in which category Zionist Jews are subsumed.

Yet at one point the Nakba, as both word and concept, existed before these wider connotations. In fact, before the Nakba became the founding myth of Palestinian nationalism, and before it became a progressive call for human rights, justice, and equality, it was meant for something very different. It was meant neither to refer to Palestine as a lost territory nor to the Palestinians as a displaced population in need of basic human rights. It was meant for nothing less than the formation of the vanguard of Arab revolution—and then world revolution too.

This essay aims to trace the history of that idea, of how Arab thinkers and leaders settled on the Nakba and on opposition to Zionism as a way of mobilizing a post-Ottoman, post-colonial Middle East to construct new, independent, industrial societies. It aims to demonstrate how the Palestinian cause became the great rallying cry of Arab revolutionaries in the wake of 1948, how that cry echoed on long after the revolutionaries’ ideology faltered, how it developed in time into one of the most catastrophic forces in the Middle East—not so much for Israel but for the Arabs themselves—and why it might finally be losing its centrality. There have been four revolutionary waves in the Middle East over the 75 years, and all but the last have made Palestine their motivating engine. So great is the totemic power of Palestine that the history of Arab political thought since World War II can only be understood through its lens.

I. Constantin Zureiq and The Meaning of the Nakba
This history begins in August 1948, with a book called The Meaning of the Nakba by Constantin Zureiq, the most important Arab nationalist intellectual at the time. The Meaning of the Nakba was a polemic condemning the technological inferiority, social backwardness, and economic immobility that, in Zureiq’s view, were preventing the Arabs from historical self-realization. In it, he made one of the earliest and loudest calls to use the struggle against Zionism as a tool for Arab self-transformation, as a springboard into a new and brighter future.

As Zureiq employed the term, the Nakba referred to the shocking defeat—still in progress as he wrote and published the book—of seven Arab militaries at the hands of the army of the newly established state of Israel. He opened The Meaning of the Nakba with a statement of mourning. “The defeat of the Arabs in Palestine is not a small setback or a transient evil, but it is an unequivocal catastrophe,” he wrote. “Seven Arab states declared war on Zionism in Palestine, yet they stood impotent!” For Zureiq, the Arab defeat was the truest revelation of the backward and inferior conditions of modern Arabs, a revelation that called for a “fundamental transformation in the Arab conditions, and a total revolution in our thought, our action, and the totality of our life.”

To understand how Zureiq ended up at this point, and the ways subsequent Arab thinkers and politicians used his ideas, it’s helpful to take a wider look at the historical conditions from which he emerged.

Stephen Pollard: Antisemitism is the ideology that has defined Mahmoud Abbas's life

His latest Ramallah speech is a regurgitation of an earlier 2018 speech to the Palestinian National Council in Ramallah, in which he said that the pogroms and massacres which have been the fate of European Jews since from 11th century to the Holocaust were “because of their function in society, which had to do with usury, banks, and so on”. Israel, he continued, is a “colonialist project that had nothing to do with Judaism” and that Jews chose to remain in their home countries during the Holocaust rather than emigrate: “The Jews did not want to emigrate even with murder and slaughter. Even during the Holocaust, they did not emigrate. By 1948, Jews in Palestine were no more than 640,000, most of them from Europe”. He then turned the de facto expulsion of 850,000 Jews from Arab lands after Israel’s birth in 1948 into a colonialist drive: “Ben-Gurion did not want Middle Eastern Jews to come [to Israel]…but when he saw the vast land, he was forced to bring Middle Eastern Jews… that didn’t want to come. From Yemen they flew 50,000 Jews…They didn’t suffice with 50,000 Jews.

"Then they went to Iraq, which had large reserves of Jews”. He asserted that Israel agreed with Iraq “to take away the citizenship of Jews and force them to emigrate…They did not suffice with this and gathered all the Jews in Arab countries, from Morocco to Algeria and Tunis, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon”.

What was the reaction? Almost total silence.

But none of this should surprise anyone, because Abbas’s antisemitism has been the leitmotif of his adult life. In 1982 he was awarded a doctorate by the Patrice Lumumba University” in Moscow for his thesis, “The Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement, 1933-45”.

The thesis itself has never been published or made available, but a form of executive summary of it, written by Abbas, is. In this, he writes that “The Zionist movement led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule, in order to arouse the government’s hatred of them, to fuel vengeance against them and to expand the mass extermination.” Zionists, he continues, were the Third Reich’s “basic partner in crime”. In other words, the Zionists pushed for the Holocaust to facilitate the creation of Israel.

Jews are in any case doomed, along with Israel. “The vast majority” of Jews around the world reject Zionist dogmas.” Moreover, “The natural and objective process of Jewish assimilation” means not just the end of Jews as a distinct people but the end of Jewish emigration means the end of Israel.

In 1984, in the introduction to his book The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism (based on his thesis) Abbas writes that “the number of Jewish [Holocaust] victims could be six million but could [also] be far smaller, even less than a million” - and cites Robert Faurisson (a notorious Holocaust denier) in questioning whether gas chambers were used to kill Jews. The Zionists, you see, made up the bigger figure in order to win sympathy for their nefarious project. And they only captured and tried Eichmann to stop him from revealing their role in the Holocaust.

But, this is just the tip of the antisemitic iceberg. For a full – and riveting - analysis of Abbas’ doctoral thesis I recommend this piece by Izabella Tabarovsky in Tablet (Mahmoud Abbas’ Dissertation) which superbly places it in the context of Soviet ideology, distortions, lies and KGB propaganda.

None of the above is new information. It has all been publicly available for decades. None of Abbas’s various outrageous remarks are new or surprising. They are all based on his thesis and a worldview he has spent decades acting on. And yet every time he opens his mouth the same pattern is followed. First, it is as if it is all a terrible shock to discover some of his best friends may not be Jews. Second come the ritual condemnations. And third comes the return to square one, as if nothing untoward had ever happened.

Phyllis Chesler: 9/11 and the New Antisemitism

On September 11, 2001, at about 11am, I walked over to my computer and typed the sentence: “Now we are all Israelis.”

Always, it begins with the Jews. Afterwards, Osama bin Laden called the assault on America “blessed attacks” against the infidel…the new Christian-Jewish crusade.” He explained that the Twin Towers had fallen because of American support for Israel.

War and a new kind of antisemitism had been declared. I had no choice but to write a book about it. I titled it “The New Antisemitism” and I wrote it in 2002 and published it in book form in 2003, part of which is excerpted and paraphrased here..
**********
I was not a direct victim on 9/11. I did not personally know anyone who was killed that day in the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. I was at home, in Brooklyn, transfixed before the TV set, watching it live as it continued to happen, and I did not move from my spot. I knew that when I got up, nothing would ever be the same again; I would no longer feel safe in my native city or country or in the world; I would not longer be able to assume that life as I’d known it—with all its illusions—would continue. How could it?

At 8:45 A.M. and 9:03 A.M.two planes (American Airlines flight 11 and United Airlines flight 175) hijacked by Islamic terrorists, crashed into the World Trade Center. At 9:17 A.M. the Federal Aviation Administration shut down all New York City airports, and for the first time in history, all American airports. At 9:30 A.M. President Bush announced that the country had been attacked by terrorists. At 9:43 A.M. a third hijacked plane (American Airlines flight 77) crashed into the Pentagon. At 9:45 A.M. the White House was evacuated. At 10:05 A.M. the south tower collapsed. At 10:00 A.M. a center of the Pentagon collapsed and a fourth hijacked plane (American Airlines flight 93) crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. At 10:13 A.M. the United Nations was evacuated. At 10:28 A.M. At 10:54 A.M. Israel evacuated all Israeli diplomatic missions to the United States. At 12:04 P.M. the Los Angeles airport was evacuated and closed. And at 1:27 P.M. the city of Washington declared a state of emergency.

An article in Raia al-Youm by Palestinian writer Nawaf Al-Zaro goes over the usual Jew-hating tropes, saying, "The tendency toward violence and racist terrorism is a tendency rooted in the Zionist political ideology and the Jewish Bible. "

But he starts with three supposed quotes from prominent Zionists, all obviously fake:

Herzl: "We must form a great hunting expedition, gather all the animals together, and drop deadly bombs among them."

Jabotinsky: “The Torah and the sword were sent down to us from heaven, and Zionist colonization will be achieved despite the will of the indigenous people, and the iron wall policy is our comprehensive policy towards the Arabs.”

Begin stresses the importance of violence in shaping history and existence: "The power of progress in world history is not peace, but the sword. I fight as long as I exist."

I had never seen any of these quotes even on Arabic sites, so I looked for where they came from.

Not only are all of these quotes fake, but I cannot even find an earlier Arabic source for them.

Nawaf al-Zaro made all three of them up from whole cloth!

I've seen outrageous lies in Arab media before, but usually they are based on some tenuous thread to something that is true. This must be some sort of record for sheer chutzpah.

But al-Zaro is not a random guy. He is an award-winning journalist and author, having written many books. (At least he claims to have!)

And today, writing for the Al Natour Center for Studies and Research, he claim the Jews were behind 9/11. One of the "experts" he quotes is David Duke.

For Palestinian thinkers and writers, there is no contradiction between being a respected researcher and making up lies.

UPDATE: The incredible GnasherJew actually found the fake Herzl quote from various Arabic sources in the 2000s.

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!

Palestinian media warn about dangers of upcoming Jewish holidays - including some you've never heard of

Palestine Today published this poster warning about all the upcoming Jewish holidays and how Jews use them as excuses to defile Al Aqsa Mosque.

And when they say "Al Aqsa Mosque," it is obvious that they are referring to the Kotel (Western Wall) as part of it.

The photo is a Photoshop, showing the twin threats that Palestinians see: Zionists and religious Jews.

The poster gives a description of how Jews supposedly celebrate their holidays, some of which are mysteries to me. They know some amazing things about Judaism.

Jewish holidays
An imminent danger that violates the sanctity of Al-Aqsa

Hebrew New Year's Day
From September 15-17, includes major raids with the participation of occupation leaders, during which the trumpet is blown.

Yom Kippur
From September 24 - 25, it includes massive raids into the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, during which bird sacrifices are offered.

Throne Festival
From September 30 to October 5, massive raids take place, plant sacrifices are made, and a canopy of palm trees is set up.

Eid Simchat Torah
On October 7, the Torah scrolls are brought into the courtyards of Al-Aqsa and circulated around them

Feast of Isru Hag
On October 8, its most prominent pillar was the dining table, which is a Talmudic ritual performed by settlers in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa.

The feast of Hosea, our Lord
On October 10, the settlers hold a Talmudic ritual in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa

The Feast of Prostration
is on November 13, during which Al-Aqsa is stormed and Talmudic prayers are performed

Hanukkah
From 8 to 12 December, Al-Aqsa is stormed in large numbers, and lit by candles with huge candlesticks

Interestingly, they do not mention the tens of thousands of Jews who have gone to the Kotel every day this Hebrew month to say Selichot prayers.

It is clear that to Palestinian Muslims, a Jew worshiping at the Kotel is just as offensive as one worshiping on the Temple Mount.

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!

09/11 Links Pt1: Morocco earthquake: Israel is ready to help in their hour of need; Iran set up Lebanese terror airport only 20 kilometers from Israel

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Morocco earthquake: Israel is ready to help in their hour of need

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen instructed his ministry and the Israeli embassy in Rabat to contact Moroccan authorities to see how Israel could be of assistance. The Foreign Ministry dispatched a team to Rabat to help some 500 Israelis in need of assistance. The ministry also said Israel’s consul in Rabat was heading to the Marrakech area to assess needs there.

The Health Ministry said it was planning to join the aid efforts, dispatching a delegation of doctors and nurses, together with medical equipment.

IsraAID said it would dispatch a delegation with aid to Marrakesh and the surrounding area, while Magen David Adom said it was preparing to send two rescue teams to the country – one to operate a field hospital and the other to carry out search-and-rescue operations.

Relations between Israel and Morocco have warmed significantly since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020 and Morocco’s decision on December 10 that year to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Then-IDF chief of staff Aviv Kohavi made the first official visit to Morocco in July last year, and in June this year, Israel participated for the first time in the African Lion military maneuvers in Morocco. The Jerusalem Post hosted a Global Investment Forum in Marrakech last November.

Moroccan House of Councillors President Enaam Mayara’s visit to the Knesset last week was unfortunately postponed after he was hospitalized in Jordan; it would have been the first visit by a Moroccan leader to the Knesset since the signing of the Abraham Accords and following Israel’s recent recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara. Mayara had been invited to Israel by Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, who visited Morocco in June.

Jews have been living in Morocco for over 2,000 years, and although the Jewish community numbers only 2,500 today, it remains significant, as it is one of the few remaining Jewish communities in an Arab country. Perhaps the most prominent member of the community is André Azoulay, an adviser to King Mohammed VI, who last week was presented with Israel’s Presidential Medal of Honor and the Torch of Abraham Award by Rabbi Marvin Hier at the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem.

“André has made an extraordinary contribution to Moroccan Jewry, the Jewish world, and the State of Israel in cultivating and preserving relations with Morocco over the years, preserving Jewish heritage in Morocco, and providing support and advice to Israeli leaders in their quest for peace in the Middle East,” Herzog said.

Azoulay cited King Mohammed V’s rescue of Jews during the Holocaust and said, “Thousands of Jews were saved by my country, my king, my people.”

As Morocco mourns, we extend our condolences to the families of all the victims and send wishes for the speedy recovery of the injured. We are proud that the Jewish state is supporting Morocco in its hour of need.

United Hatzalah on the ground in quake-stricken Morocco

United Hatzalah President and Founder Eli Beer said that the NGO was “assisting as quickly as possible both with emergency response and humanitarian aid” as the organization has done at previous disaster sites around the world.

Meanwhile, the State of Israel has offered to send search and rescue personnel and humanitarian aid to its Abraham Accords ally but has yet to receive a response from Moroccan officials.

“There is a long list of countries that offered aid as Israel did, but they are still waiting for an answer. The authorities there are making their calculations and will reach out as soon as they see fit,” David Saranga, director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry Digital Diplomacy Bureau and a member of the Israeli delegation to Morocco, told Army Radio on Monday morning.

On Sunday night, Jerusalem’s landmark Chords Bridge was lit with the colors of the Moroccan flag in a display of solidarity.

“Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, sends its condolences and prayers to the families of those affected by the earthquake, as well as wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured,” read a statement by the municipality.

“Morocco is a true friend of the State of Israel, the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem. We will assist as much as is necessary in whatever way we can to the Moroccan people and their government.”

The aftermath of 6.8 Marrakesh earthquake

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Marrakesh region of Morocco Saturday, resulting in the death up over 2,000 people. With rescue missions till ongoing, i24NEWS Correspondent Hamdah Salhut is live in on the scene of where the earthquake took place.

Ethan Schwartz spoke with @cnni about IsraAID's initial response to the earthquake in #Morocco. "Everything we do is being led by community groups. We're following their lead and they're taking us where the needs are greatest." https://t.co/5kzTZCgZlS pic.twitter.com/41Yh2V5K8J
— IsraAID (@IsraAID) September 11, 2023

Our team in Morocco left Marrakech earlier today and headed up to the mountain villages in the region of Tizi Ouaddou where rescue teams haven't reached yet. They found devastation but also a lot of resilient and strong people. #MoroccoEarthquake #UnityInAction #AngelsinOrange pic.twitter.com/B9Y4zstEG9
— United Hatzalah (@UnitedHatzalah) September 10, 2023

Foreign Ministry representatives are on the ground in Morocco to help Israelis who want to return to Israel in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake.

Representatives in Marakkesh who are working alongside our embassy staff met with Israelis, toured the local synagogue and heard… pic.twitter.com/oQ6njqY0HV
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) September 11, 2023

Jerusalem stands with Morocco 🇮🇱🇲🇦

Our capital’s Chords Bridge is lit up tonight in solidarity with the people of Morocco.

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion: We send from our capital Jerusalem our condolences and prayers for those affected by the earthquake and our wishes for a speedy… pic.twitter.com/YyKHkHLUie
— Israel ישראל 🇮🇱 (@Israel) September 10, 2023

Arab antisemitism, 1956

It is always interesting to trace the history of Palestinian "anti-Zionism" from the beginnings of Zionism, when its antisemitism was explicit, to today, when it is hidden behind multiple layers of pretense of not having any problem with Jews at all.

So this from an article in June 1956, by syndicated columnist John B. Crane, before the Suez campaign, is instructive.

He interviewed Palestinian refugees in Lebanon:

ACTING as spokesman, 28-year- old camp leader Mahmoud Rashid, a former railway employee in Palestine, told us with an intensity often found among inmates of concentration and refugee camps: "

If things keep on as at present and war should break out, the Arabs will fight on the side of Russians.

"You Americans are not neutral, as your government claims, but you are pro-Israel and are giving more aid to tiny Israel than all Arab countries combined.

"Do you think it wise for America to lose the friendship of 70 million Arabs and 400,000,000 Moslems to secure the friendship of 10 million Jews scattered all over the world?"

Another Palestinian refugee at the same briefing session, a former commando leader in Israel- Arab war, declared:

"The fight against Israel is not just a fight of the Moslem Arabs against the Israeli. I am a Christian Arab and I say it is the of all Christians everywhere to drive the Jews from the Holy Land, for we must not forget that it the Jews who crucified Christ.".

At the end of the article, we read:

HERE ARE some popular beliefs among the Arabs and it is these beliefs which are likely to determine future Arab behavior, whether the beliefs have any basis in fact or not:

Israel Is out to build a modern Jewish empire stretching from Baghdad to Alexandria. This is the reason for their subsidizing thousands of Jews from all over the world to come to Israel when the country is already too small to support the Jews already there.

America is determined to see that Israel survives and prospers because the millions of Jews in America--(1) control the press, (2) control the radio, (3) control the movies, (4) control the government, and (5) control the United Nations.

Most Arabs believe the above they cite these convictions to explain why their side of the Arab- Israel conflict is not given more publicity in the American press and over the American radio and why America gives far more aid to Israel than to the Arab countries. The anti-Zionism of the Arabs is as intense as the earlier anti-semitism of the Nazis.

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!

BBC Arabic compares Al Qaeda of 9/11 to Jewish rebels against the Romans at Masada

On the anniversary of 9/11, BBC Arabic published a list of other people who committed suicide while attacking their enemies - and naturally, Jews are the top of the list: (Google Translate)

The Sicarii, while no saints (they killed hundreds of Jews as well), did not intend to die when they attacked their occupiers, and Masada (if the mass suicide really happened) was not a suicide attack on the Romans either. There are also differing accounts as to whether the Sicarii were at Masada or another group of rebels.

Either way, this is an obscene comparison, intended to make it look like Al Qaeda terrorist are just following the footsteps of fanatic Jews of two millennia ago.

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!

Abbas' antisemitism gives free rein for Palestinian thinkers to justify their own Jew-hatred

It took a little longer than I expected, but Arab media is coming to the defense of Mahmoud Abbas' blaming the Holocaust on Jewish actions and his other antisemitic statements publicized last week.

Mahmoud al-Tamimi, a Palestinian writing in Oman Daily, claims that Theodor Herzl agrees that Jews bring the world's contempt on themselves with their actions. He purposefully misinterprets Herzl's words:

[T]he sins of the Middle Ages are now being visited on the nations of Europe. We are what the Ghetto made us. We have attained pre-eminence in finance, because mediaeval conditions drove us to it. The same process is now being repeated. We are again being forced into finance, now it is the stock exchange, by being kept out of other branches of economic activity. Being on the stock exchange, we are consequently exposed afresh to contempt.

Herzl is saying, correctly, that Jews were pushed into financial positions because of antisemitism not allowing them throughout history to do anything else. Tamimi changes the meaning into saying that Herzl admits that non-Jews hated Jews because of their social position, without saying that this is a damned if you do, damned if you don't position set up by antisemites.

Another Palestinian writer, Saleh Al-Shaqbawi, writes in Raia al-Youm that indeed the world hates Jews because of their usurious practices, and then implies that Jews worship money rather than God, his "evidence" that Jews ignored Jerusalem and Zion for 1400 years and instead became wealthy.

Abdel Bari Atwan, Palestinian-British former editor of Al Quds al Arabi who used to be a fixture on the BBC, says Abbas has nothing to apologize for. He simply states that Abbas was right, that Jews are really Khazars, and that criticism of Abbas shows there is no freedom of speech. He claims in his crazed rant that no one complained about Shakespeare's characterization of Jews in The Merchant of Venice, and Jews were silent when Vladimir Putin accused the West of using "the Jew Zelensky to cover up neo-Nazism in Ukraine."

I have not found a single Palestinian pundit or op-ed writer saying a word in Arabic against Mahmoud Abbas' antisemitic statements. A number of Palestinians, mostly Western-based academics, did sign such a letter in English. That letter is not even translated to Arabic, indicating it is a whitewash for the benefit of the West and not a message for Palestinians to read and consider. (Also note that most or all of the signatories appear to hate Abbas and lean more towards Hamas, whose explicitly antisemitic charter remains in force.)

In the Arabic media that the vast majority of Palestinians read, there isn't even a debate going on: Abbas is obviously right, no matter whether you support or oppose Fatah and the PA.

The West still refuses to believe that the Palestinians are taught and spread antisemitism from childhood It still refuses to note that 93% of Palestinians are antisemitic according to the ADL and 97% of Palestinians have negative opinions of Jews according to Pew. And when those inconvenient facts get mentioned, the oh-so-liberal "progressives" and "academics" justify Palestinian hate for Jews as being an outcome of their hate for Israel, instead of the other way around, even though everyone can easily see that their antisemitism pre-dates the State and Zionism.

Why is it so hard to admit that Palestinians are among the most antisemitic people in the world? Because that would upset the sacred narrative that Israel (and Jews) are at fault for the problems in the Middle East.

Palestinians' supportive reaction to Abbas' speech proves otherwise. Their hate for Jews is the obstacle to peace.

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!

Latest EoZ memes and cartoons

Mostly cartoons this time around.

Israel has allowed exports from Gaza to resume. Good luck trying to find that news.

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!

09/10 Links: Jewish Heart of Marrakesh in Ruins; The Palestinians Set Israel's Own System Against Itself; Israeli officials in Saudi Arabia for UNESCO conference

From Ian:

As crucial hours pass, Morocco yet to accept most aid offers following quake

Nearly two days after a devastating earthquake hit Morocco, killing thousands in the Marrakesh region and overwhelming the country’s rescuers, Rabat had yet to accept on Sunday afternoon most of the offers of assistance pouring in from around the world.

There were sporadic reports of teams arriving in the country: Spain said it sent 56 rescuers and four search dogs after receiving a formal request for help. Qatar also had a team on the way with specialized equipment. Tunisia also said it had dispatched a delegation of over 50 rescue experts.

But many countries were still waiting for authorization from Moroccan authorities amid growing bewilderment by some that with the hours ticking by and the chances of finding survivors dwindling, the nation did not seem to be in a hurry to accept aid.

Arnaud Fraisse, founder of French aid organization Rescuers Without Borders, told Radio France Sunday that he had a team stuck in Paris waiting for the green light, but the Moroccan government was “blocking all rescue teams.” He said he could not explain Rabat’s conduct.

“We know there is a great urgency to save people and dig under the remains of buildings,” said Fraisse. “There are people dying under the rubble, and we cannot do anything to save them.”

Aid offers have poured in from around the world. Among the many countries that have pledged assistance but have not been given the go-ahead were Israel, the US, France, the UK, Turkey, Algeria and Taiwan.

The UN said it had a team in Morocco coordinating with authorities about how international partners can provide support. About 100 teams made up of a total of 3,500 rescuers from around the world are registered with a UN platform and ready to deploy in Morocco when asked, Rescuers Without Borders said.

The United Nations estimated that 300,000 people were affected by the quake and some Moroccans complained on social networks that the government wasn’t allowing more help from outside.

Jewish Heart of Marrakesh in Ruins

Morocco’s ancient Jewish quarter was severely damaged by Friday’s earthquake.

The horrific 6.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Morocco on Friday night killed thousands of people; many more are injured or missing. International rescuers have been pouring into Morocco to help. Israel’s highly trained disaster relief experts are on stand-by, waiting for permission from Morocco to enter the country and help.

The epicenter of the earthquake was in the High Atlas mountain region, about 45 miles southwest of Marrakesh (also known as Marrakech), Morocco’s fourth-largest city. Much of Marrakesh has been damaged, including the city’s historic “Mellah,” or Jewish quarter. “It’s as if it was hit by a bomb,” explained Hafida Sahaouia, a resident of the quarter, whose own home was utterly destroyed. “We were preparing dinner when we heard something like explosions. Panicked, I quickly went outside with our children. Unfortunately, our house collapsed. We lost everything.”

Much of the Mellah is currently impassable. Once home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Arab world, today it seems that this centuries-old Jewish quarter has been reduced to rubble.

While rescuers race against the clock to save survivors, Morocco’s Jewish community is coming to terms with incredible loss of life, as well, and the destruction of what was one of the world’s most-visited and unique Jewish quarters. Here is a brief Jewish history of the Mellah.

Ancient Origins
Moroccan Jews have long traced their history back to refugees who fled west after Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzer destroyed the first Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Legends also abound about Jews visiting Morocco from the Land of Israel in Biblical times to purchase gold to bring back to Israel, or to fight the Philistines who’d been driven out of the Land of Israel. The oldest archaeological evidence of Jews in Morocco is ancient Hebrew-language tombstones in the ruins of the Roman town of Volubilis in Morocco.

The Miara Jewish Cemetery.

One Medieval Islamic scholar, Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) wrote that Jews became so numerous and influential in the area that Berber tribes converted en masse to Judaism. For generations, Khaldun’s assertion was taken as fact, and it was widely assumed that many Moroccan Jews had origins in local tribes. In recent years historians have largely debunked this claim, noting that Morocco’s Jews almost certainly descend directly from visitors from the Land of Israel.

Muslim Coexistence – and Pogroms
Morocco’s territory was largely conquered in the Seventh century CE by the fearsome Muslim warlord Abu al-Muhajir Dinar al-Ansari. He and his troops pressured local Berber leaders to convert to Islam, along with their tribes. Within a generation, the area of present-day Morocco became nearly entirely Muslim. The land’s substantial Christian community largely disappeared. Morocco’s Jews, however, resisted calls to convert, maintaining their distinct beliefs and lifestyles.

Muslim leaders largely tolerated Jews, imposing a “dhimmi” status on them. So long as Jews paid special dhimmi taxes and avoided prestigious professions, they were allowed to remain in Moroccan lands. The conditions Moroccan Jews faced varied. At times, they were allowed to live in Moroccan cities; at other times they were forced to relocate. Under the leadership of Yusuf Ibn Tashfin (c1061-1106) any Jew found to have stayed in Marrakesh overnight was put to death.

For Moroccan Jews, periods of relatively peaceful coexistence alternated with horrific anti-Jewish violence as anti-Jewish pogroms broke out during times of political and social tension. One pogrom in Fez in 1033 is thought to have killed over 6,000 Jews. A major pogrom broke out in Marrakesh in 1232. Some historians believe that another pogrom in Fez in 1465 killed nearly all of the city’s Jews.

In the 1400s, the Sultan took steps to protect Fez’s Jews, inviting them to live in a royal property called the Mellah. “Mellah” means salt in Arabic, and the land he allowed Jews to settle on is thought to have once been either a storehouse for salt or a place where saltwater was stored. Soon, other Moroccan cities established “Mellahs” of their own, including Marrakesh.

Morocco earthquake damages two historic synagogues

Two synagogues in Marrakech's old city sustained damage in the recent earthquake, reports Israeli Rabbi Doron Danino, who was in the city over the weekend. He recounted his experience during Shabbat in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.

Rabbi Danino stayed at a quaint hotel in the Mellah, Marrakech's Jewish quarter. On Friday night, he worshiped at the Al Fassayn Synagogue, which he described as having suffered "significant damage". The following morning, he attended services at the Slat al-Azama Synagogue, which was "partially damaged". This historic synagogue, believed to be founded by Sephardic Jews who fled Spain in 1492, also encompasses the Jewish Museum and Jewish Center. Its architectural beauty merges a traditional Moroccan riad with elegant zellij decorations. Notably, in the 1950s, it was renovated to incorporate a distinct section for women.

Recounting the terrifying moments of the earthquake, Rabbi Danino said, "Post my dinner with the Haliva family in the Jewish quarter, as I settled in my hotel past 10:30 pm, it felt as though a speeding train was passing. Given there's no railway nearby, the sensation was bewildering. It was akin to the relentless vibrations of a washing machine in spin mode. Inside my room, furniture tumbled and cracks snaked across the walls. Peering outside, I saw debris cascading within the hotel compound. Opting for safety, I stayed put in my room. When the tremors subsided, the grim sight of crumbled structures, including the Haliva's residence where I had dined, greeted me." Damage to historic buildings

Overwhelmed by the ordeal, Danino expressed, "The buildings around me are in ruins. The quake's ferocity was unparalleled, and its duration felt interminable." He added, "Interestingly, the newer districts seemed to have weathered the quake better."

Eritrea Immigrants Bring Israel Into Conflict With Its Supreme Court And The UN

By Daled Amos

Amid increased Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians and reports of Arab-on-Arab clashes, Israelis now face another source of violence.

A week ago, there were confrontations within the Eritrean community in Tel Aviv:

Hundreds of Eritrean government supporters and opponents clashed with each other and with Israeli police Saturday, leaving dozens injured in one of the most violent street confrontations among African asylum seekers and migrants in Tel Aviv in recent memory.

Among those hurt were 30 police officers and three protesters hit by police fire.

Eritreans from both sides faced off with construction lumber, pieces of metal, rocks and at least one axe, tearing through a neighborhood of south Tel Aviv where many asylum seekers live. Protesters smashed shop windows and police cars, and blood spatter was seen on sidewalks. One government supporter was lying in a puddle of blood in a children’s playground. [emphasis added]

This is not something new. Back in June 2018 :

A violent confrontation between infiltrators from Eritrea broke out this afternoon in the south Tel Aviv old bus station compound.

...In the past few days, videos of brutal fights have been circulated on social networks as part of a civil war between supporters of the regime in Eritrea and its opponents [emphasis added].

According to one estimate, Eritreans make up about 18,000 of the over 30,000 Africans seeking asylum in Israel. Most arrived in the country illegally years ago when they crossed over via the Sinai, claiming they faced persecution and compulsory conscription. The majority are Christian and many are Muslim.

It is an immigration problem reminiscent -- though not identical -- to the problem France faces with its Muslim immigrants. The violence in France is not a clash among the immigrants themselves. They like the economic opportunities available in France while at the same time resisting attempts to integrate them into French society and Western values. Legal Insurrection goes even further, noting that "such occurrences are commonplace in European countries with large African and Middle Eastern populations, such as France, Germany, and Italy." These governments find that deporting these immigrants is not an option.

But that is exactly the option that Netanyahu wants to use. He held a special meeting to explore options on how to deal with the riots and emphasized the nature of the violence:

We are seeking strong steps against the rioters, including the immediate expulsion of those who took part. It is hard for me to understand why we would have a problem with those who declare that they support the regime; they certainly cannot claim refugee status.

I would also like this forum to prepare a complete and updated plan to repatriate all of the remaining illegal infiltrators from the State of Israel; this is the purpose of our meeting today. [emphasis added]

The very nature of the riots undercuts the reason for their presence in the country. Those who participated in the riots in support of the Eritrean government cannot at the same time claim the right of asylum. And if the reason they are in Israel is to seek financial opportunity, the threat they pose to the country justifies their ouster.

In 2018, Naftali Bennett made the same point:

“Would refugees escaping the regime’s horrors attend a party of that regime? People, these are illegal immigrants, not refugees,” Bennett wrote about a picture showing hundreds of Eritreans attending an earlier cultural event organized by their country’s embassy in Israel.

And a year before that, Netanyahu was already saying Eritreans were not refugees: "They aren’t refugees. Or at least most of them aren’t. Most of them are looking for jobs."

But the article makes another point that is especially relevant considering the current mood in the country:

Government and Knesset efforts to force migrants out have been repeatedly struck down or limited by the High Court of Justice, which has said a solution in line with international norms must be found.

And this is setting the stage for another volley in the fight for judicial reform. Arlene Kushner writes:

There were plans to move the infiltrators out back in 2018. But what the Knesset had laid out, the High Court overturned. Now there is determination to move beyond this stalemate:

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (RZ) declared:
“In the Saturday riots, which were only the promo for what awaits us if we do not return the infiltrators to their countries of origin, there is only one responsible: the High Court. For years we have been warning, for years the High Court has prevented any action that would allow the infiltrators to be returned to their homes. That is precisely why we are leading the reforms in the judicial system that will allow elected officials to make decisions and carry them out for the citizens of Israel, their safety and security.” [emphasis added]
It all circles around and should be duly noted here. Interference of the Court in Knesset decisions is part of the story. Inappropriate Court interference is THE key issue of the day.

“I am about to propose a bill to eliminate illegal migrants. The proposal will include a clause against High Court intervention,” said Likud MK Boaz Bismuth.

Kushner concludes:

As attempts to move out the illegals proceeds, I anticipate a furor from various countries and agencies declaring that Israel is a heartless nation denying innocent refugees their rights. That would be about par for the course.

And sure enough:

the United Nations cautioned Israel against mass deportations of Eritreans following the riots, saying it would “contravene international law.”

“UNHCR calls for calm and restraint, and on all parties to refrain from taking any steps that could aggravate the situation further,” William Spindler, spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

Spindler said that it was “important to establish accountability” for the event but warned that “any decision impacting all Eritrean asylum-seekers … would contravene international law.”

In other words, the concern for Israel's ability to continue as a democracy and a Jewish state can be used to justify the creation of a Palestinian state regardless of its antagonism towards Israel, but when it comes to illegal immigrants -- many of whom openly identify with the current Eritrean government -- Israel is told it is responsible for them.

(It has to be noted that in 2018, an agreement was reached with UNHCR that would have resettled 16,250 immigrants in Canada, Germany and Italy. Ironically, as noted above, Germany and Italy are countries that themselves have had problems dealing with their African and Middle Eastern migrant populations. Netanyahu soon canceled the deal, under pressure from his coalition with concerns of a threat to Israel's Jewish character.)

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Effort to save Palestinian American lives spun as Israeli racism

Over the weekend, 15 US senators - all of them Democrats, many of them, shamefully, Jewish - signed a letter to Secretary of State Blinken demanding that the US not add Israel to its visa waiver program.

One of the reasons given:

We are also very concerned that the Government of Israel insisted that the MOU explicitly indicate that equal treatment requirements would not extend beyond the strict confines of the visa waiver process. Specifically, the MOU includes a provision that “Nothing in this Memorandum is intended to apply to principles and commitments not otherwise addressed in this Memorandum, to include… regulations applicable to use of Israeli vehicles and vehicle transit. ” While we understand that ground transportation is not directly a part of the Visa Waiver Program, the inclusion of that provision indicates that the Government of Israel reserves the right to provide unequal treatment to certain groups of U.S. citizens once they enter the country. Indeed, we have already received reports that U.S. citizens with Palestinian ID cards who land at Ben Gurion Airport cannot then rent cars to travel within Israel. We have also received reports of U.S. citizens with Palestinian ID cards being stopped at checkpoints, as Palestinians are not permitted to drive across certain checkpoints within Israel.

OK, let's picture the scene.

A Palestinian American wants to visit her relatives in Nablus or Jenin. She rents a car at ben Gurion, gets through all checkpoints with no issues because she is an American, and then drives her car into Jenin.

With Israeli license plates.

There is a greater than 50% chance the car will be pelted with rocks. There is a very good chance that she will be shot at or lynched.

These US senators are demanding that these Americans be given the chance to be treated the same as American Jews would be in Israel and the territories. But most of them would be visiting their Palestinian relatives across the Green Line and across the security barrier. To put it mildly, this is very dangerous when driving a car with Israeli plates.

Not to mention that no Israeli rental car company would be willing to risk the damage to their vehicles, and no insurance companies would cover this risk.

The senators, in their anti-Israel zeal, don't even consider the consequences of their demands - to put Americans at risk in the name of "equality."

As mentioned, 15 senators signed the letter. Out of the 15 who are clearly anti-Israel, 13 of them are endorsed by J-Street PAC.

So not only is J-Street supporting senators who are anti-Israel, they are supporting senators who want to risk the lives of Palestinian Americans.

(Amusingly, these anti-Israel politicians have something in common with the "right wing Israeli settlers" they loathe. They both consider the territories to be "within Israel." )

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Palestinian "leaders" in Lebanon tell besieged Ein al Hilweh residents NOT to stay in Red Cross shelters

Over the past two days, major fighting has again broken out in the Ein al-Hilweh UNRWA camp in Lebanon, with bullets and shells being shot between Islamist and Fatah forces in the camp and innocent residents caught in the crossfire. Four have been killed as of this writing.

#فيديو | تجدد الاشتباكات المسلحة في مخيم عين الحلوة جنوبي #لبنان. pic.twitter.com/eoEHrQFtFv
— قناة الأقصى الفضائية (@SerajSat) September 8, 2023

Many residents are seeking shelter elsewhere

The International Committee of the Red Cross worked with the Sidon government to set up tents in the municipal stadium in order to accommodate hundreds of residents seeking a safe place for their families until the situation stabilizes.

And then something happened that has happened to the Palestinians in Lebanon for 75 years. Their "leaders" decided what was best for them, and rejected the tent shelters.

The Director General of the 302nd Committee for Defending Refugee Rights (an independent organization based in Beirut), Ali Huwaidi, rejected the decision of the Red Cross in Lebanon to set up tents in the municipal stadium square, in the city of Sidon, to shelter Palestinian refugees displaced from the “Ain al-Hilweh” camp.

Huwaidi said, in a special statement to Quds Press on Saturday evening, that the refusal is because the sight of the tents brings back to the memory of the Nakba for Palestinians, the suffering they went through in 1948, when they lived in tents for years.

The residents aren't even given a choice of whether they would rather have their own spaces to live in, or crowd into mosques and schools with hundreds of others.

Certainly the residents who prefer not to live in tents can choose to crowd into UNRWA schools, but their supposed "leaders" don't even want them to have that choice.

As it stands, residents stuck in mosques and schools who heard about the tent camps on WhatsApp rushed to take shelter there, but the ICRC stopped them, saying that UNRWA needs to choose who gets to use the tents in an orderly fashion.

This violence and chaos is what a Palestinian state would look like.

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09/09 Links: Oslo is dead: A Palestinian state will never exist; Rashida Tlaib to speak at major anti-Israel conference; Morocco earthquake: 1,300 dead, 56 Israelis missing

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: The cruel lessons of the Oslo debacle remain unlearned

The consequences of Oslo and the Gaza withdrawal, which allowed the strip to be transformed into a terror fortress as well as an independent Palestinian state in all but name, have been calamitous for Israelis. Time and again, they are forced to grab children and herd the elderly, and run full-speed to bomb shelters during rocket and missile barrages launched from the Strip. That’s a steep price to pay for a debating point.

But both Oslo and the Gaza withdrawal are held up by some as necessary, despite the horror they produced, because anything must be tried in the pursuit of peace, even if lives are lost in the process.

As much as supporters of Israel should have learned that the willingness of the Palestinians to end the conflict was misjudged, they should also have absorbed that the international community, mainstream press and foreign-policy leaders aren’t any more sympathetic to Israel as a result of the risks it ran and sacrifices it made than they were before 1993.

Indeed, it is entirely possible that they are less sympathetic to an Israel that was willing to gamble with the likes of a veteran terrorist like Arafat. Instead of saluting their courage for opening themselves up to the perils of empowering terrorists for the sake of peace, the world interpreted Oslo very differently. Rather than a generous gesture in which tangible assets and territory to which Israel had at least as good a claim as the Arabs were given up in exchange for the hope of some quietude, the international community viewed it as an Israeli admission of guilt for holding onto stolen goods.

To a large extent, most Israelis have absorbed these lessons as the election results that repeatedly put Oslo opponent Benjamin Netanyahu in the prime minister’s office have proved. But the success of the movement against judicial reform to some extent illustrates that the Israeli left is far from dead or understands how wrong they were 30 years ago when they were in charge of the country’s fate.

And as long as the United Nations still pushes the lying Palestinian narrative about Israel’s illegitimacy and its being an “apartheid state,” the international community still acts as if Oslo hadn’t demonstrated the Palestinians’ unwillingness to make peace no matter what they were offered.

That’s also true with respect to the United States where the Biden foreign-policy team remains undeterred by Abbas’s expressions of hate. They are still financially supporting a Palestinian government led by a Holocaust denier and antisemite, and trying to undermine Netanyahu in the vain hope that Abbas or a successor will finally vindicate their policy of pressuring Israel to weaken its security and give up its rights to parts of the ancient Jewish homeland.

Three decades of proof of Palestinian rejectionism hasn’t lessened the clamor for more land for peace trades that will lead to even more harm for Israel.

Thinking back 30 years ago, one can’t blame those who celebrated what they were told was a deal that would end the conflict. But we can fault those who refuse to draw conclusions from what followed. The pursuit of peace is an honorable calling, but when such efforts lead to more violence rather than conflict resolution and empower antisemites—as was the case with Oslo—then honoring the good intentions of those involved isn’t justified. In a world in which antisemitism is on the rise specifically because of the hatred for Israel that Abbas helps incite, actions that strengthen antisemites who are responsible for the murder of Jews shouldn’t be seen as noble or worthwhile. Much as we might want to still honor those who were prepared to gamble on peace, Sept. 13, 1993 should be remembered as a day of infamy for Israel and the Jewish people.

Oslo is dead: A Palestinian state will never exist

BY ANY measure, the Oslo experiment was the diplomatic equivalent of the Titanic, a grandiose exercise in hubris that crashed and sank, sending countless innocents to an early grave.

Nevertheless, until today Israel continues to suffer from Oslo, as various American and international leaders persist in their prattle about the necessity of a “two-state solution” and the need to create an independent Palestinian state.

With cult-like certainty, these fantasists continue to preach that conferring statehood on the Palestinians would put an end to the conflict with Israel.

Needless to say, they ignore the Palestinian track record of scuttling negotiations, effectively torpedoing attempts by premiers such as Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert to give them virtually everything they wanted on a silver platter.

Those who continue to mouth the mantra of a “two-state solution” are simply overlooking the obvious lesson that Oslo embodies: Israel must never again give up territory under any circumstances, and most certainly not in exchange for false promises of peace.

We cannot place our security in the hands of others and, no matter what, we must never allow a hostile Palestinian terrorist state to be established in Judea and Samaria, as it would pose a direct threat to the future of the country.

Oslo and its underlying principle of “land for peace” was an illusion founded upon the delusion that appeasing terror, rather than opposing it, was the answer.

But this is not a battle over borders, and it never has been. It is a clash of civilizations, a struggle between the Jewish people, who are reclaiming their ancestral homeland, and our numerous foes.

The fact is that there has never been a Palestinian state in all of history, and there isn’t one now.

And Israel should make clear, once and for all, that there never will be.

Thirty years on, we can say with confidence that Oslo and everything that it stood for is dead. Rather than trying to revive it, we would do well to offer it a fitting eulogy.

House Democrat Rashida Tlaib to speak at major anti-Israel conference: 'Treasonous'

"Squad" Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is slated to be a speaker at a conference headed by an anti-Israel coalition that has come under fire for being linked to Palestinian terror groups, a flyer shows.

Tlaib will appear between Oct. 27-29 in Houston, Texas, at the national conference for the United States Campaign for Palestinian Rights, which has reportedly fiscally sponsored the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee and accused Israel of "apartheid," "ethnic cleansing," and "genocide," according to the campaign's website.

"It is anti-American and even treasonous for Tlaib to speak at a USCPR conference that falsely condemns America as an 'imperialist,' and aims to 'mobilize action' against America, Israel, Jews, and Jews on American college campuses," President Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, the oldest pro-Israel American nonprofit group, told the Washington Examiner. "The leadership of the Democratic Party should publicly condemn Rashida Tlaib and demand she not speak at this anti-American, anti-semitic conference."

News of Tlaib's forthcoming appearance at the USCPR event comes as she continues to face heightened criticism from Republicans and her Democratic colleagues over her anti-Israel positions. In May, Permanent Israel Representative to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said the congresswoman's "ignorance and hatred toward the Jewish people and the state of Israel know no bounds," following Tlaib posting on social media that "the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians."

Many House Democrats, including Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Elaine Luria (D-VA), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and Ritchie Torres (D-NY), notably condemned Tlaib last September upon her alleging that “Israel’s apartheid government” does not align with “progressive values.” Tlaib joined other left-leaning Democrats in July to boycott Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s joint address to Congress, releasing a joint statement with Rep. Cori Bush (R-MO) that dubbed Israel "an apartheid state."

USCPR, which fundraises through its U.S. charity called Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, has routinely slammed efforts by Israel's government to thwart terrorism. This includes its signing of a statement in August 2022 that took issue with its move to designate six Palestinian groups as proxies for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — a U.S.-designated terror organization.

The BDS National Committee, which Tablet revealed in 2018 was sponsored by USCPR, includes the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine, according to its website. The council's members have, in turn, included U.S.-designated terror groups, such as the Popular Front, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Palestinian Liberation Front, and others, according to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the BDS coalition website, and the U.S. State Department.

Jeffrey Berk, head of the pro-Israel advocacy group TruthTells, said it's "incomprehensible" Tlaib would choose to be affiliated with USCPR — calling for her to be censured.