Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 18, 2023

09/18 Links Pt2: Mahmoud Abbas's antisemitism should make him a global pariah; Academic freedom isn’t an excuse for antisemitism; Apple News, Where Antisemites Are Always Welcome

From Ian:

Mahmoud Abbas's antisemitism should make him a global pariah

Making Abbas an international pariah would send this message clearly and bolster these voices who condemn antisemitism.

It would deprive parts of the Palestinian national movement that soak their struggle in religious, racial, and historic hatred the oxygen to spread and legitimize their antisemitism.

It would thus make the conflict easier to solve, much like other national or political conflicts.

Finally, it would send the important message that hatred against Jews is equal to that of other communities and peoples.

If a politician denied the suffering of other peoples or claimed they were a result of their own actions, they would justifiably be ostracized. However, as some, like British comedian and TV personality David Baddiel, have pointed out recently, with a huge amount of justification, “Jews don’t count,” and antisemitism is treated differently from other forms of racism, creating double standards and discrimination against Jews.

For these, and a myriad of other reasons, it is time that Mahmoud Abbas become an international pariah.

No more justifications, No more excuses. No more distractions.

Abbas is a rabid antisemite, and his ongoing hatred of Jews should rule him out as a partner for peace, a global diplomat, or even a person worthy of a decision-making role.

PreOccupiedTerritory: A Guy Just Can’t Call The Jewish State A Genocidal Apartheid Fourth Reich Without Being Called Antisemitic by Zach Foster (satire)

Princeton, September 18 – Zionists and their defenders love to claim that “criticism similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be considered antisemitism” (IHRA definition), but when my colleagues and I in the pro-Palestine movement begin pointing out that Israel ethnically cleanses Palestinians by the millions, harvests their organs, controls the banks, the media, and Western governments, suddenly that doesn’t matter anymore, and the “antisemite!” card quickly enters play.

A guy just can’t call the Jewish State a genocidal apartheid Fourth Reich without being called antisemitic. Certainly not anymore.

It’s quite the coup by those narrative-shaping, Hasbara-pushing Zionazis. As soon as you suggest the movement for Jewish self-determination, alone among all other movements for ethnic self-determination, is a racist endeavor, those AIPAC stooges will mob you and smother you with accusations of Nazism. Listen, just because the Mufti of Jerusalem allied with Hitler, agreed to facilitate a Final Solution to the Jews if the Wehrmacht ever made it to the British Mandate of Palestine, and fomented anti-Jewish violence wherever he trod, doesn’t mean I can’t engage in a little bit of Holocaust inversion. Then when I do, I’m the bad guy all of a sudden. Not the people I’m accusing of a new Holocaust with no evidence.

I have a PhD from Princeton – that should mean I carry credibility. But noooo, look who controls the media and makes self-righteous noises when I offer my tendentious take on things. Every time I deny Arabs any moral agency, or suggest that history begins with the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land in the eighth century, the usual suspects come tweeting, calling me all sorts of names. Jews were protected under Muslim rule! Protected from whom or what, I’m not certain, because obviously Islamic rule is peaceful, tolerant, and would never promote anti-Jewish sentiment as a way to divide and rule potentially restive populace. From whom could Jews possibly need protection? Yet the Muslim rulers offered it. It’s those ungrateful Jews for whom that was insufficient.

Call Me Back Podcast: Unprecedented polarization, or has Israel been here before? With Meir Soloveichik

Items discussed in this episode
“The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent“ World
“Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship“
“Not Everything is Tisha B’Av”

Good news! The Palestinian Authority and UN agree that Israel doesn't occupy Palestinian controlled areas!

Eugene Kontorovich found this while researching the latest UNESCO fiasco:

At least in Jericho, and presumably Area A at the very least, the Palestinian Authority government admits that "occupation" ended in 1994!

I didn't see this document online but I found a similar formulation in a United Nations Development Programme document about tax policy in the territories, saying,

6.1 Taxes in the occupied Palestinian territory _ Israeli Occupation (1967-1994)
6.2. The Palestinian Era

Earlier today we solved the "siege of Gaza" and now we've solved "occupation." Not a bad day!

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!

A video has spread through many Arabic websites today concerning an interview with the daughter of the 20th century's most famous Quran reciter, Mahmoud Khalil Al-Hussary of Egypt.

Yasmin al-Hussary was interviewed on the Al-Nas satellite channel on Sunday and she described her memories of her father.

The elder al-Hussary was known for his accurate renditions of the Quran.

During the interview Yasmin claimed that in his travels, her father came across Qurans written and distorted by Jews. He therefore fought these distortions by reciting it correctly.

Why would Jews bother rewriting the Quran and distort it? One does not need to ask such questions. Obviously, because they are Jews and they want to destroy Islam.

It is important to note that every year, printed Qurans are discovered that have mistakes in them, and they are destroyed and the incidents widely reported in Muslim media. I guess it was only a matter of time before the Jews were blamed for Quranic errors.

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!

09/18 Links Pt1: Instead of protests outside the UN, let's unite Israelis with a ceremony; PA doubles ‘pay-for-slay’ stipend to Ari Fuld’s killer

From Ian:

Jason D. Greenblatt: No Matter Our Religion, We All Want Peace

Over the past seven years, I have been privileged and humbled to have had a front-row seat to a dramatically changing Middle East. On a recent trip to Riyadh, a post of me and my daughter in a Riyadh mall on social media garnered more than 1.8 million views. Most of the comments were welcoming. The only real controversy was from commenters who chided the person who posted the photo for doing so without my permission.

I have been fortunate to have had countless powerful experiences with Arabs, Christians and Muslims throughout the Middle East. In all conversations, even when we disagree on Israel (a not uncommon occurrence), the conversations have been respectful and typically end with a polite goodbye, perhaps a handshake, and sometimes even a hug. I am deeply inspired by the changes that I see in the tone and tenor of the conversations. Reactions to my op-eds in the Arab press are often quite positive, pragmatic and hopeful, even if my views are contrary to the beliefs of many.

A very pro-Palestinian friend of mine in one of the Gulf countries wrote: "The thoughts you express are becoming more and more common in the region. I believe the major Gulf states and a lot of the Arab states have recognized that the Palestinian question will not be resolved given the current status quo and while the internal divisions within the Palestinians themselves are not resolved." I hear these sentiments more and more these days.

I firmly believe that, while most of the region would love to see an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they also know that, for the time being and for so many reasons, that is not achievable. But more and more they are recognizing that we cannot get so caught up in making things perfect and, as a result, never get anything done. In more and more conversations, people tell me that Israel must be integrated into the region, all while not giving up hope that, one day, a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will present itself.

During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jews all over the world will pray for many things. To my dear cousins in Arab lands, I hope you will join us in our prayers for peace. Let us walk down the path of Abraham together, as descendants of Abraham, and work together to build a beautiful, prosperous and peaceful future for the next generation.

'The Heist': How Israel, Mossad are combatting Iran's nuclear program

On the night of January 31, 2018, the spies, the analysts, the technicians, and the operations chiefs of the Mossad, the State of Israel’s fabled intelligence arm, were gathered inside the agency’s state-of-the-art situation room on the outskirts of Tel Aviv to oversee an operation that they all knew could turn out to be momentous for their country—or, if things went awry, disastrous.

Yossi Cohen, the dapper chief of the agency, dressed in his usual crisply ironed white shirt, sat at a desk, keeping his eye on the time, while the whole room was in a state of tense expectation, waiting for him to give the order for one of the Mossad’s most audacious operations to begin. On the surrounding walls, an array of plasma screens glimmered, as if waiting for the satellite video feed of the operation to appear on them, providing a real-time view of what was taking place on the ground hundreds of miles away. The Mossad's sleepless nights

Cohen and dozens of Mossad agents had been working for days, almost without sleep. The moment had arrived. At exactly 10:31 p.m., Cohen said, “Execute,” carefully enunciating each of the syllables of the command, which set in motion a Mossad team poised for action in Iran, specifically in the Shirobad industrial neighborhood on the southern outskirts of Iran’s capital, Tehran. Shirobad wasn’t the kind of place you would imagine as the scene of a spy drama with international consequences.

It was just a drab zone of corrugated-iron-roofed warehouses stretching as far as the eye could see. But on that night, two dozen selected Mossad operatives—most likely a mix of Israeli agents and Iranians opposed to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic regime—were propelled into a swift, well-rehearsed motion.

While Cohen watched the clock back in Israel, they broke into one of the warehouses, used high-temperature blow torches to penetrate a series of steel vaults, and began to remove files, physical and electronic, that contained the entire record of Iran’s strenuous effort to become a nuclear-armed power going back to its beginnings nearly thirty years before.

Cohen watched the clock because time was of the essence. The team in Iran had exactly six and a half hours to find the vast amount of material they needed, load it onto trucks, and make their escape, or they would be discovered, and the mission, with all its months of meticulous planning—data analysis, risky intelligence gathering by agents infiltrated into Iran, and more—would come to naught, and two dozen lives could be lost to the tender mercies of Iranian justice.

David Singer: Instead of protests outside the UN, let's unite Israelis with a ceremony

The introduction by Israel of a Welcome to Country ceremony – similar to that which has existed in Australia since 1973 – could be just the circuit-breaker needed to reunite a bitterly divided Israeli society - even the protesters and the 15 judges of Israel’s Supreme Court who sat on the issue of basic laws on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.

Such a ceremony would serve to bring the Jewish people together to publicly honor, recognise and acknowledge their forefathers as the traditional owners of the land on which the State of Israel has been established and to which Israel is entitled to lay claim in Judea and Samaria under articles 6 and 25 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

It would also unite Israelis in their fight against attempts by the UN and UNESCO to create political facts on the ground by erasing Jewish ownership of historic Jewish archaeological sites instead of those Kaplan Street protesters fighting Netanyahu.at the UN.

The UN and UNESCO's latest despicable effort is Jericho – containing Jewish heritage sites including the Hasmonean Winter Palaces, King Herod’s Third Palace, a Byzantine-era synagogue dating back to the 6th Century CE, ritual baths, and nearby burial caves used by priests of the Second Temple.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica faithfully records the history of the Jewish people’s arrival in Canaan as detailed in the Old Testament:
“Twelve Tribes of Israel, in the Bible, the Hebrew people who, after the death of Moses, took possession of the Promised Land of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. Because the tribes were named after sons or grandsons of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel after he wrestled an angel of the Lord, the Hebrew people became known as Israelites.

Today's Arab antisemitism part 1: A crazed history of how Jews control America

Al-Khanadeq, a Lebanese pro-Iranian Shiite news site, describes how Jews control the United States. It was written by Nasib Shams, who has had bylines in other popular Arabic media.

There has always been talk about the Jews in the United States , their power and influence in decision-making, and there has also been talk about the power of the Israeli lobby. But how did the Jews get to the United States? What is their history in this country?

The history of Jews in America begins with the beginning of Christopher Columbus, when more than 300,000 Jews were expelled from Spain on August 2, 1492, and Columbus sailed, carrying a number of Jews with him. His first letter explaining his discoveries was addressed to a Jew. Columbus's supporters were rewarded with a number of privileges. As for him, he became the victim of the conspiracy hatched by the ship's Jewish doctor.

Since that time, Jews began to look to America and began to immigrate there, and more and more to South America, especially Brazil . When the conflict occurred between the Dutch and the Brazilians, they were forced to immigrate again to the Dutch colony, which is today called “New York.”

The Jews controlled the cinema, sugar and tobacco industries, half of the canned meat industry, the shoe industry, etc., and trade in particular. Which made the American people dissatisfied with the global Jewish plan to transfer financial markets to the United States.

The Jews enjoy a strong and absolute influence in America, and they do not hide it. They claim that “the essence of American life is Jewish, not Christian,” and that “American history must be rewritten to recognize the glories of Judas and the virtue of the Jews.” Also, the problem is not a problem of the Jewish people, but rather a problem of Jewish thought and the use of the people as a tool to harness the idea. One of its primary goals is to destroy the true values of workers. The influence of the Jews on the thinking of the workers was very bad. The other area of the Jewish idea focused on the churches. They invaded hundreds of Christian churches. They controlled the church in its doctrines.

Jewish ideas have invaded the minds of university students, as Jews led all revolutionary or anarchist movements in the student field. They worked to secularize public schools, and to keep children in their early stages of education away from any word that might help the American child learn about the “Jewish element.” Through the secularization of schools, it became possible to “Judaize universities.”

The Jews are mostly men without religion, and they use the slogan "religious persecution" to arouse people's feelings, but the issue is a matter of race and nationality, not a religious issue. No president of the United States dares to include in his first presidential speech any excerpts from the New Testament for fear of being exposed to the wrath and denunciation of the Jews. No man in the public service in America can say that the Christian religion is the one he believes in, because in this case he would be exposed to blame and classification of the Jews. Because the Jews' hopes were in the Jewish prophecy (the elimination of Christianity).

The number of Jews in America is not really known by non-Jews, as the numbers are the property of the Jewish authorities alone, and whenever US circles try to find out, Jewish influence is on the lookout to prevent that.

The increase in Jewish immigration to the United States made the Jews call it “the Land of the Jews,” where the Jew does these:

He opposes any legislation restricting his entry into the country.
He opposes any racial classification of his group after they enter the country.
He claims in front of others that he represents a religion, not a race.
He has two opinions: he confronts non-Jews with one of them, and keeps the second for himself and does not express it publicly except in front of Jews.
Therefore, there will be no census of Jews in the United States.

If we want to talk about the nationality or religion of the Jew... then “every Jew, whether he wishes to or not, is closely linked to all Jewish nationalism.” And that "the Jewish religion above all else...is Jewish patriotism." The United States Supreme Court justice said, “Our instincts and actions have determined for us the meaning of the word Jew.”

What is noteworthy is that the opening ceremony of the “American Jewish Committee” in 1906 was attended by delegates representing 222 Jewish associations, religious, political, industrial, and sectarian. A year later, the organizations subject to this committee became 688 organizations, and then the number rose in 1921 to more than 1,000. After that, the statistics are no longer known.

The Jews also tried to make New York a Jewish city, and thus the United States, a Jewish country. The conservative Jews were terrified as they expected that the American people would not tolerate this. In the beginning, it was the committee called Kehilla New York, then it expanded its work and became called the World Jewish Congress. The Jews of New York constituted the driving force of the international Jewish apparatus.

This is the tip of the iceberg about the history of the Jews in the United States, and this is how they began in the United States.

The article is illustrated this way:

Because that's what the Jews who control the US look like.

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

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Gazans now receive MORE goods than they imported before the "blockade"

The latest report from the UN's office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Gaza includes this little fact:

In August, 12,076 truckloads of authorized goods entered Gaza through the Israeli and Egyptian-controlled crossings. This is 18 per cent more than the volume of goods entering in July, 36 per cent more than the monthly average in 2022, and 8 per cent more than the monthly average just before the blockade in 2007.

Yes, Gazans now get more good than they did before the closure.

The UN tries to ensure that this isn't a big deal, by adding, "However, Gaza's population has grown by 60 per cent since 2007, and so have their needs."

However, its chart of imports to Gaza (from both Israel and Egypt) show that the number of truckloads of goods to Gaza in August is more than double the number in 2006, the last full year before the restrictions, and about 30% higher than in 2005. It appears that in the months before the Hamas coup, Gaza was receiving record levels of imports, anomalously so - but those are the numbers the UN always uses to compare with today.

The chart itself shows that in terms of amount of goods imported into Gaza, there has not been a significant decrease from 2006 levels since 2015!

This chart shows that the "closure" is largely a myth spread by NGOs to maintain their funding sources. Israel restricts (some) products that can be turned into weapons, and nothing else.

Good luck finding this little fact reported in the media.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The Global Counter-Terrorism Forum reluctant to name either terror groups or their targets

On Wednesday, September20, EU High Representative Josep Borrell will co-chair the 13th Ministerial meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum, co-hosted by the European Union and Egypt.

According to its webpage,

The Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) is an informal, apolitical, multilateral counterterrorism platform. It is small, nimble, inclusive, and consensus-based. Its overarching mission is to reduce the vulnerability of people worldwide to terrorism by mobilizing expertise and resources to prevent, combat, and prosecute terrorist acts and counter incitement and recruitment to terrorism.

The Forum brings together policymakers and practitioners from around the world to share experiences and expertise, and to develop practical, publicly available tools and strategies on how to prevent and counter the evolving terrorist threat. The GCTF is currently co-chaired by Egypt and the European Union.

The words "consensus-based" is the problem.

Looking at the site, one sees nothing specific about who terrorists are or who the victims are. The group cares more about not offending people (read: Muslims) that actually fighting Islamist terror. It describes terrorism on such an abstract level that it becomes meaningless.

A search on the website for "jihad" turns up...nothing.

Same with "Palestinian." Or "Hamas." Or "Jews." "Islamist" gets a couple of matches in referring to specific country anti-terror initiatives, not GCTF's own materials, but there is nothing on the site itself describing fighting Islamic extremism - or indeed any kind of named violent terrorists.

A recent GCTF report discusses "Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE)." REMVE appears to be a non-judgmental term for white supremacist or nationalism-based violence. But the report only mentions "white supremacism" in the footnotes - the entire paper cannot does not say "black" or "white" once.

Here is one of its recommendations:

Recommendation 6: Regular (re-)evaluation of national P/CVE strategies. Online and offline strategies to prevent, detect, and disrupt REMVE as well as to rehabilitate and reintegrate REMVE actors and to support their victims continue to develop. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) mechanisms are also necessary to ensure the efficiency of such P/CVE strategies in accordance with this development. Effective M&E needs to be comprehensive and consistently applied and should include all the relevant stakeholders who were involved in the creation and implementation of P/CVE strategies. Successful assessment strategies are those developed in the earliest stages of an evaluation. The M&E process could involve a multi-stakeholder feedback loop involving criminal justice, intelligence, social and welfare services, educational and private bodies, as well as local community leaders and civil society actors, which facilitates systematic whole-of-society substantive contributions. The feedback loop could focus on assessing the efficacy and sustainability of all strategies for the prevention of REMVE, intervention, rehabilitation, and reintegration of REMVE actors, including legislative and policy measures, online or offline financial measures, and local or community-led measures, with a view to identifying gaps. Aside from assisting in revising or refining existing strategies, the feedback loop could also assist in determining future areas where novel national strategies for the prevention and countering of violent extremism could be created. Regular (re-)evaluation of national strategies for the prevention and countering of violent extremism could also assist States in ensuring compliance with international and domestic law.

This is so abstract as to be meaningless. White supremacist group members are not at all afraid of this strategy - because it doesn't even mention them. Similarly, the victims of right-wing violence - Jews, people of color, LGBTQ - don't feel protected by initiatives like this where groups ignore the specific attacks and justifications used against them.

You can't fight something that you can't define. This forum may have been well-intentioned, but I cannot see how it will stop a single act of violence or terror. It appears to be more to make politicians pretend to be doing something than actually....doing something.

(h/t Irene)

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!

09/17 Links: Israel Slams UNESCO Decision to Label Tel Jericho as ‘Palestinian Heritage Site’; Palestinian professor who took students to Auschwitz: Holocaust denial imperils peace

From Ian:

Palestinian professor who took students to Auschwitz: Holocaust denial imperils peace

Palestinian peace activist Mohammed Dajani saw his academic career brought to a halt after he taught Palestinian students about the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective.

In March 2014, he led a delegation of 30 students to the Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Auschwitz, guided by two Jewish Holocaust survivors, on a trip he said was aimed at teaching “empathy and tolerance.”

Recalling the impact of his educational trip to the Nazi death camp, Dajani tells The Times of Israel: “The views of Palestinian students changed after they visited Auschwitz. They realized they had nothing to fear from opening their eyes to these chapters of tragic human history.

“At school, Palestinians learn, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’; at Auschwitz, they learned, ‘The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.’ They learned that psychopaths and criminal minds did not commit the Nazi cruelties and atrocities. The perpetrators were just ordinary people who celebrated Christmas and Easter with their families and loved their dogs.”

But following the trip, the professor of political science was forced to resign from his teaching position at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, where he was the founding director of the American Studies Institute and one of the very few Palestinian educators to teach about the Shoah. He did so after pressure and threats from his university.

“There was strong opposition to taking students to Auschwitz since the knowledge they may acquire would contradict the collective narrative. Some thought the Holocaust was a Zionist narrative to gain international support for Israel,” Dajani recollects.

“Breaking taboos and walking away from the crowd is usually vehemently opposed by the community. In hoping to break this taboo, I wanted to leave the door open for social change, reconciliation and peace.”

Abbas has lost his mind, the world must see him as irrelevant - Erdan

Next week, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu steps off his special flight to New York – his first time in the US since he was elected nine months ago – he will be greeted by his ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, a veteran senior politician and Likud member appointed by the prime minister in 2020. The backdrop of this visit is the fact that US President Joe Biden hasn’t yet agreed to meet with Netanyahu because of what he sees as a problematic extreme right-wing government – promoting judicial reforms and building in Judea and Samaria.

Erdan has been serving as Israel’s ambassador to the UN since August 2020, a role he briefly held concurrently with that of ambassador to the US in 2021. This dual responsibility is a rare occurrence; Abba Eban was the last person to hold both positions simultaneously in the 1950s. Prior to his diplomatic career, Erdan had a distinguished run in Israeli politics, serving as an MK from 2003-2020 and occupying various ministerial positions.

His time at the UN has been marked by notable achievements, such as the initiation and passage of a critical resolution in the UN General Assembly aimed at combating Holocaust denial, a feat for an Israeli-led resolution at the UN. He was also elected vice president of the General Assembly in 2022.

During his five-year stint as Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Erdan played a central role in countering efforts to delegitimize and boycott Israel, exposing the antisemitic nature and terrorist connections of the BDS campaign.

As national security minister, he prioritized the safety of Israeli citizens during lone-wolf terrorist attacks through innovative strategies, including combating online radicalization and utilizing advanced technologies for threat identification. He is a married father of four, originally hailing from Ashkelon.

Erdan agreed to provide a behind-the-scenes glance at the important work of the Israeli mission to the UN; commented on the toxicity in Israeli society; and shared his personal aspirations.

Another Official Disillusioned

A former State Department official who was deeply involved in U.S. Mideast policy for decades is feeling a little unsettled over a recent speech in which Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas justified the Holocaust.

“I have been despairing about how to respond to [Abbas’s] profoundly antisemitic diatribe,” Martin Indyk, a former assistant secretary of state and ex-ambassador to Israel, wrote on X. “How could someone who has treated me as a personal friend for three decades at the same time harbor such hateful views of my people?”

Jewish disillusionment over the behavior of Palestinian Arab leaders is not a new phenomenon. A notable example was the wave of mea culpas in the American Jewish community in late 2000 and early 2001 after Yasser Arafat launched the terror campaign known as the Second Intifada.

On the op-ed page of The Washington Post, Labor Zionist Alliance president Menachem Z. Rosensaft confessed: “I was wrong, so many of us were wrong … for allowing ourselves to be convinced that Yasser Arafat ever actually wanted peace with Israel.”

Likewise, Leonard Fein, founder of Americans for Peace Now, wrote in The Forward: “Our mistake was to allow ourselves to be so carried away by the prospect of peace that we chose to close our eyes to the persistent Palestinian violations of the Oslo Accords—and to what those violations implied about Palestinian intentions.”

The American Jewish Congress, for its part, placed a full-page ad in The New York Times under the headline: “It Takes a Big Organization to Admit it Was Wrong. We Think We Were Wrong About You, Chairman Arafat.”

Going further back in history, Martin Indyk’s tweet brings to mind the disillusionment that a few American Jewish leaders expressed after World War II regarding President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s abandonment of European Jewry.

09/15 Links Pt2: The Palm Frond and the Sword; Caroline Glick: A prayer for 5784; John Steinbeck and the Fall and Rise of Israel’s ‘Mount Hope’

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Palm Frond and the Sword

In the midst of war against the mightiest empire on earth, Bar Kochba desperately sought for his army to observe the rituals of Sukkot. The date palm was a supreme agricultural symbol of Judea. That is why it is wielded on the biblical harvest holiday and why Vespasian had minted coins with the same tree and the triumphant words Judea Capta (“Judea has been captured”). The request for lulavim is made more poignant when we realize that in rabbinic thought, the ramrod palm branch represents the spine. Above all, it reminds us, as Rabbi Norman Lamm reflected, that “to be a Jew, to be possessed of this sublime historic faith…requires, above all else, the power, the moral strength, the ethical might, and the undaunted conviction that are symbolized by the unbending backbone, the lulav.”

Today, if one were to visit Jerusalem during the Sukkot, one would see a city with Jews holding lulavim aloft, reciting the very same psalms that were once uttered by Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kochba’s men, seamlessly linking past and present. The lulav letter thus reflects the unique nature of Jewish life. The Israeli scholar and diplomat Yaakov Herzog once conjectured that were most peoples to meet figures from their ancient past, they would find that their faith and culture had so profoundly changed that they would have little in common with the individuals from antiquity; these ancients would be seen as “great historical figures, but not necessarily part of the daily experience of the people among whom they had lived.” Yet were Rabbi Akiva to return, “Jews would speak to him, question him about his attitude towards the Bar Kokhba war, and what he thought about the destruction of the Temple. They would talk to him about the nature of the Jewish people, its dialogue with the God of Israel, and with the nations of the world, the historical experience, continuity and the future—as though he had never been away.”

Yadin reports that in standing among the skeletons of the Jewish soldiers, and finding the letter of Bar Kochba, awe settled over his cohort:
As we searched amid the ruins of the Roman camp, it occurred to us that we, who were unearthing the remains of the warriors of the cave in the cliffside below, were operating from a camp which had been set up by members of the Israel Defense Forces near the site of the old Roman camp. Israel’s soldiers of today were helping to restore to life, as it were, their comrades-at-arms of eighteen hundred years ago. The symbolism of it all was something which not even the most hardened cynic could gainsay.

With us in the Roman camp ruins then was a Jewish visitor from abroad. As he stood on the precipice, observing the scene, he blurted the old Hebrew formula: “Am Yisrael hai!” (“The Jewish people lives!”) He expressed what all of us felt.

They were right to be in awe, as it is indeed awe-inspiring to hold a Roman sword once wielded by fighters for Judean freedom. But it’s even more inspiring to ponder the fact that these weapons, once wielded by Hadrianic legions thought to be all but invincible, now remind us of an empire long gone, even as the world still has plenty of ideological heirs of Hadrians, who despise the Jewishness of Jerusalem. Yet the ultimate vindication of Rabbi Akiva is to be found in the countless lulavim that will adorn Jerusalem this year, embodying a living, vibrant Judaism that holds aloft the spiritual symbol of the Jewish spine, and therefore of Jewish endurance. Thus does this new archeological discovery, several weeks before Sukkot, remind us of the wonder of our age: The lulav has outlasted the Roman sword.

Phyllis Chesler: Jews, never give up!

It is not the best of times. It may actually be the worst of times.

While half of Israel continues to demonstrate in the streets against their own government, Iran is building an airport in Lebanon that is only 13 miles away from Israel’s northern border.

President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama’s hirelings have tied Israel’s hands so it cannot preempt the construction of such a dangerous, Hezbollah-controlled airport.

At the same time, the Biden administration has just given Iran $6 billion in exchange for hostages.

This is sold as a merciful decision, but it is also a craven and strategically disastrous one.

At the same time, the propaganda war against Israel is now breaking through the front doors and windows of every Western university.

More and more academics and public intellectuals are signing letters against “apartheid” Israel.

Professional associations are sponsoring panels with speakers who specialize in the most deranged lies about the Jewish state. Jewish students are being harassed.

Visible Jews around the world, including in North America and Europe, are being physically attacked and even murdered.

Cemeteries and synagogues are being defaced.

Psychoanalysts, or at least one division of the American Psychological Association, have hijacked the “Jewish science” founded by Freud and seek to pervert it into pro-Palestinian Arab indoctrination.

As I’ve written before, we have lost this round of the cognitive war.

But when faced with the prospect of joining World II on Britain’s side, despite Britain’s “White Paper” restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine, Ben Gurion famously said, “We shall fight the war as if there was no White Paper and the White Paper as if there was no war.”

Caroline Glick: A prayer for 5784

Some 3,500 years of Jewish history and 75 years of Israeli Jewish history expose the fraud of Oslo’s assertion of Israeli immorality. And 30 years of Palestinian terror and anti-Semitism exposed as a fraud the claim that the PLO is a moral actor. Just so, the Supreme Court’s effort this month to crown itself Israel’s sovereign with unlimited powers, including the power to overturn the results of elections, puts paid the notion that Barak and his followers are guardians of Israeli democracy.

They are its executioners.

The convergence of the Oslo revolution with the judicial revolution in the court and on the streets makes clear that the only way for Israel to remain a democracy is for it to remain a Jewish state.

Ehud Barak’s crony, leftist billionaire Kobi Richter, is one of the financiers of the left’s political war. In recent weeks he’s also been a wellspring of information about its worldview. Last month, he told Israel Radio that the leftist elites will win because they are more powerful than the government. “We are the military power. The economic power is ours!” he proclaimed.

This week, Richter explained that the problem with Israel’s Jews is that most of them are “nationalist.” The left, he said, will solve the problem of Jewish nationalism by joining forces with the Arab parties, who reject Israel’s right to exist and support terrorism.

The majority of the Zionist left opposed the hare-brained scheme of withdrawing from Gaza in 2003. But the incitement campaigns of 2004-05 gave the Oslo left a significant boost. Likewise, until recently, the overwhelming majority of leftists never questioned the basic premise of Zionism.

Aharon Barak and Ehud Barak are right about one thing: The Declaration of Independence is the most important document in Israel’s political history. But as David Ben-Gurion made clear in a 1950 speech before the Knesset, their claim that the declaration justifies their effort to transform Israel into a post-Zionist oligarchy is utterly false.

Ben-Gurion said that the declaration didn’t seek unity of values. It sought broad consensus. That is why the term “Jewish state” appears in the text repeatedly, but the “God of Israel” is replaced by the more inclusive “Rock of Israel.”

Ben-Gurion said: “All the parties sitting in this house signed the declaration—from the Communists to Agudat Israel. Unity that binds like this doesn’t happen every day, and it shouldn’t be minimized.”

It is my prayer for the coming year that in the weeks and months before us, the Zionist left remembers the message of that declaration. There is no contradiction between Jewish and democratic. It is post-Zionism—not Zionism—that guarantees tyranny.

May they also remember that their brothers and sisters on the right are not their enemies but their partners in a common destiny.

Shana Tova u'Metuka שנה טובה ומתוקה!

(Posting early for my Israeli readers)

I want to wish all of my readers a Shana Tova u'Metuka, a happy and sweet year 5784.

May this be a year of good health, prosperity, unity, brotherhood, joy and 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!

09/15 Links Pt1: Abbas voices his monstrous antisemitism, again; Recalling black September; What’s next for Palestinian leadership?; 3 years in, Abraham Accords yield warm peace

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Abbas voices his monstrous antisemitism, again

Abbas made his Khazar claim in order to delegitimize Israel by pretending not just that the Jews were never previously in the land but that they aren’t even Jews at all. Not content with erasing the Jews from their own history, he is trying to erase their identity altogether.

This time, however, he shot his mouth off at a sensitive moment. With much of the Arab world washing its hands of the Palestinian Arabs, the West’s support for their cause is the Palestinian Arabs’ last remaining hope of defeating Israel. Suddenly, therefore, Abbas’s profound Jew-hatred has become a hazard that must be neutralized.

Hence the open letter signed by Palestinian Arab intellectuals that said they “unequivocally condemn the morally and politically reprehensible comments” made by Abbas, and that they “adamantly reject any attempt to diminish, misrepresent or justify antisemitism, Nazi crimes against humanity or historical revisionism vis-a-vis the Holocaust.”

However, they went on to say, “The Palestinian people are sufficiently burdened by Israeli settler-colonialism, dispossession, occupation and oppression without having to bear the negative effect of such ignorant and profoundly antisemitic narratives perpetuated by those who claim to speak in our name.”

In fact, “settler-colonialism, dispossession, occupation and oppression” are lies put out by people who think Israel shouldn’t exist.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the signatories included a large number of antisemites and terror supporters. For example, Refaat Alareer tweeted in 2012: “Are the Jews evil? Of course, they are.” Huwaida Arraf has equated Israel with Nazi Germany, defended Hamas and said, “Israel does not have the right to a Jewish state.”

Noura Erakat, according to a 2019 complaint against Columbia University, “equated Zionism with racism, demonized Jews as having a congenital tendency toward domination, advocated for the annihilation of the Jewish state and denied the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.”

The Elder of Ziyyon website has revealed that another signatory, Khalil al-Shakaki, who heads the Palestinian Centre for Political and Survey Research, admitted to a Palestinian newspaper that the real purpose of the letter was to repair the damage done to the Palestinian Arab cause by the revelation of Palestinian Arab Jew-hatred.

Shakaki said, “There is respect and support for us in the world, and if the world feels and sees that the Palestinian people support what [Abbas] said, this will mean to them that the Palestinian people are racist, and this means to them that there is racist settler-colonialism, and also racist Palestinians, and therefore they will put us and Israelis in the same dark trench.”

This concern is also what lies behind much Western reaction to Abbas’s comments. The E.U. said the comments “play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated for.” As an afterthought, it added, “Moreover, they trivialize Holocaust [sic] and thereby fuel antisemitism and are an insult to the millions of victims of the Holocaust and their families.”

Even now, such people fail to acknowledge the true enormity of antisemitism. Even now, they cannot grasp that Palestinian Arab Jew-hatred doesn’t just get in the way of a “two-state solution.” It’s the reason that solution has never happened.

Abbas’s bigotry really does get in the way of the West’s fantasy that a Palestine Arab state will somehow end the conflict between Palestinian Arab Jew-eradicators and their Israeli victims. It gets in the way of the West’s ironclad belief that hating Israel is not the same thing as hating the Jews.

The result is that the West’s Palestinian Arab cause of causes promotes, incentivizes and funds dyed-in-the-wool Jew-haters whose agenda is to erase Jewish history and identity.

So the professed horror of people in the West at Mahmoud Abbas’s antisemitism is their usual humbug that ensures the Palestinian Arab war against Israel never ends.

Mark Regev: Recalling black September: The forgotten Palestinian defeat

Black September will forever be associated with the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

But the name of the terrorist group responsible for that atrocity stems from a Palestinian defeat two years earlier, one that impacted Israel and the Middle East, and even elevated Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Munich Olympics were planned to showcase the new postwar democratic West Germany (the previous games on German soil – the 1936 Berlin Olympics – had been hosted by Adolf Hitler). But the Bonn government’s hopes to present to the world a very different Germany were to be stymied.

Before dawn on September 5, eight Palestinians from the Black September organization, established in 1971 as the elite strike force of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, scaled the fence surrounding the Olympic Village. Disguised as athletes and using stolen keys, they forced their way into the quarters of Israel’s Olympic team, initiating a 20-hour hostage saga that ended with a botched German attempt to free the hostages and 11 Israeli athletes dead – nine of them murdered while bound and gagged.

The “Munich Massacre” played out in full view of the assembled international media. Even though the coverage depicted the terrorists’ bloodthirsty behavior, it nonetheless helped propel the Palestinian issue to the forefront of the global agenda.

Ironically, the name “Black September” did not originate from an event associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but rather from the intra-Arab confrontation that erupted in Jordan in September 1970.

In the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, Jordan – now smaller in size with the loss of Jerusalem’s Old City and the West Bank – became the primary base from which Palestinian fedayeen struck against “the Zionist entity.” Israeli communities along the border lived in constant fear of a terrorist infiltration or Katyusha rocket fire.

My wife grew up in one such frontier community – Kibbutz Tel Katzir in the Jordan Valley. As a baby, she was continually rushed by her mother to the children’s bomb shelter whenever the security situation demanded.

These fedayeen attacks generated IDF reprisal raids, which in turn heightened the risk of a larger Israel-Jordan confrontation.

BUT IT wasn’t just Israelis whom the armed Palestinian groups were threatening. The fedayeen acted in Jordan as a state within a state, independent from the Hashemite government and challenging its authority.

Radical Palestinians called for the overthrow of the “reactionary” Jordanian monarchy, declaring the kingdom an illegitimate creation of British imperialism in what was part of historic Palestine. Amid the soaring violence, there were two separate assassination attempts against Jordan’s King Hussein.

Matters were to spiral out of control when, on September 6, 1970, the Marxist “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” (PFLP) hijacked Western airliners to the Dawson’s Field airstrip near the city of Zarqa. Ultimately, a TWA Boeing 707, a BOAC VC10, and a Swissair DC-8 were all forced to land at the PFLP’s self-proclaimed “Revolutionary Airport.”

JPost Editorial: Israel will be torn apart without a judicial reform compromise

Levin’s partner in the judicial overhaul, Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee chairman Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party), argued that every time the court interfered in the legislation and decisions of the Knesset, it crossed into the auspices of governance and expanded its own power. He said the court doesn’t have the authority to strike down Basic Laws because it overrides the will of the people

Ilan Bombach, the attorney representing the government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the justice minister, went even further, saying that the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were not representative of the populace, so they had no authority to establish something that would be a constitution. The court’s own authority came from the constituent authority’s Basic Laws, which it shouldn’t be able to review, he said.

The justices challenged Rothman and Bombach, asking what prevented the parliament from passing undemocratic laws, such as those limiting the voting power of the people. “Democracy dies in small steps”

Warning that an undemocratic movement may not be immediately recognized, Justice Yitzhak Amit said democracy doesn’t usually die all at once, but rather, “democracy dies in small steps.”

That is the crux of the matter. At one time in Israel’s history, perhaps it would have been unthinkable that the Knesset would pass draconian legislation that would take away, for example, the rights of certain citizens to vote.

However, we’ve witnessed Israel’s government being invaded by parties and ministers who, without the checks and balances safeguarded by the court, could very well enact such odious legislation. That’s the reason why hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets every Saturday night for 36 weeks.

It could take weeks or months for the justices to arrive at a ruling. And when that eventually arrives, one thing is sure – half of Israel will not be satisfied.

Members of the coalition have already said they will not honor a court ruling that strikes down the judicial reform’s reasonableness standard law, which would launch Israel into an unprecedented constitutional crisis. Likewise, if the court upholds the law, the protests could intensify, and events on the ground could spin out of control.

Now is the time, before either of those scenarios rears its ugly head, for the political parties to reach a compromise on the judicial reform debate and enable the country to start healing. We urge them to do so without delay.

Despite Western Condemnations of Abbas, They Leave Him With A Partial Victory (Daled Amos)

Israel would like to have a peace partner.

Instead, they got stuck with Mahmoud Abbas, whose corruption and incompetence is matched only by his antisemitism.

The Jewish Journal lists multiple times over the years during which the West's favorite moderate pragmatist made derogatory statements about Israel and Jews:

o In his 1984 book, The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, Abbas wrote
We find that Zionists believe in the purity of the Jewish race, as Hitler believed in the purity of the Aryan race. Zionism calls to find a fundamental final solution to the Jewish question in Europe by immigration to Palestine. Hitler also called for this and implemented it… Anti-Semitism is persecution and oppression, and this is definitely something desirable to the Zionist movement.
o  In 2009 and 2010, Abbas rejected the idea of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. First, he declared his refusal to the Palestinian Youth Parliament, “Call yourselves what you want, but I will not accept it… The ‘Jewish State’… I will not accept it.” The following year he told the Hadash party recognizing Israel as a Jewish state was an “unacceptable demand.”

o  In August 2015, Abbas told Polish journalists, “If they [Jews] say that they made sacrifices in World War II, and we respect what they say, they should not treat us the way they were treated. We must not be a victim of the victim.” According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)’s Itamar Marcus, Abbas told Polish journalists this in August 2015. Abbas denies the fact of the Holocaust and reduces it to something Jews say that he is willing to "respect."

o  In a speech he made on Palestinian TV in September 2015 during a wave of violence at the Temple Mount, Abbas said, “The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours, and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow themT to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem.” This further inflamed the violence.

o  During a speech to the EU in 2016, Abbas claimed, “Certain rabbis in Israel have said very clearly to their government that our water should be poisoned in order to have Palestinians killed.” Because of criticism of his speech, Abbas said such blood libels were “baseless” and that “he didn’t intend to do harm to Judaism.”

Two years later, on April 30, 2018, Abbas spoke before the Palestinian National Council and made a whole slew of antisemitic claims, belittling the Holocaust and denying the Jewish connection to the land.

In response to condemnations, Abbas graciously apologized “if people were offended."

That brings us to 2023 and last month. Abbas is at it again, demeaning Jews and defending Hitler in a speech he gave to senior members of Fatah:

o  The Holocaust was the fault of the Jews
o  European Jews are descended from the Khazars and so are not Semites
o  Jews lived peacefully in Arab countries for centuries, until Ben-Gurion used "pressure, coercion and murder" to force them to flee to Israel.
o  Israel is an invention of both Great Britain and the US

The reaction from the West was outrage.

From the EU:

In rare censure, the EU strongly opposes the words of Palestinian Authority president, who told his Fatah Party's Revolutionary Council that Hitler fought the Jews because they were money lenders: 'Such historical distortions can only worsen tensions in the region'

From Great Britain:

"The UK condemns the recent antisemitic remarks made by President Abbas," a foreign office spokesperson said in a statement.

"The UK stands firmly against all attempts to distort the Holocaust. Such statements do not advance efforts towards reconciliation."

From France:

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Thursday revoked the prestigious Medal of the City of Paris awarded to Mahmoud Abbas in 2015, according to an open letter she wrote to the Palestinian Authority president on Thursday evening.

In the letter, obtained by Israeli and French media, Hidalgo wrote that she is revoking Abbas' medal, known in French as La médaille Grand Vermeil de Paris, due to his recent comments in which he expressed a "clear desire to deny the genocide to which the Jewish populations of Europe were victims at the hands of the Nazi regime."

From the US:

Deborah Lipstadt, the US special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, blasts Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, saying his comments distorting the Holocaust are “overtly antisemitic.”

Seriously, did these leaders not hear the antisemitic comments that Abbas has made over the years? Don't they see that this is who Abbas is and this is the reason that any possibility of a two-state solution is far off in the future, if ever?

But looking at these condemnations, they share something in common. Abbas's comments fall into 2 categories: Holocaust denial and denying Israel's legitimacy.

In each condemnation of Abbas's remarks, these political leaders clearly denounce the Holocaust denial, but are silent on Abbas's repudiation of Jewish ties to the state of Israel and renunciation of Israel's legitimacy.

This is what we see from anti-Israel activists: they disavow examples of blatant classic antisemitism -- such as the Holocaust -- and reframe their hate as mere political disagreement with Israel's policies. This division allows Israel critics to deny Israel's right to exist, while still claiming they are not anti-Jewish. A claim that is undercut by the IHRA definition.
[H/T Nevet]

Even countries in the West go only so far in standing up for Israel, which is why Israel is the only country that has to defend its right to exist.

Which gives Abbas, even now, a partial victory.

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!

Another poll shows that Palestinians prefer terror to anything else - and media ignore it, again

The latest PCPSR poll shows, once again, that most Palestinians are pro-terror.

Which is the least-reported story of every year.

When asked about the best way to establish an independent Palestinian state, a majority of 53% said "armed struggle" (terror), 20% said negotiations; and 24% said non-violent resistance.

The percentage that support terror increased since last year from 41% to 53%.

And how about all those pundits who insist that Palestinians overwhelmingly prefer a two state solution? They're still wrong. The number of Palestinians who oppose the idea of a two-state solution is more than double the number who support it.

Where is the media? The poll was released on Wednesday, and no one reported on it - because it is not the story the media wants its consumers to know.

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!

This week, UNRWA in Gaza (and maybe elsewhere) demanded that employees sign a Code of Conduct. It was several ages long. One section said:

UNRWA views gender equality in accordance with the views of the United Nations and as a result describes gender equality as including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender colleagues (UNRWA employees) and beneficiaries (service recipients - the refugee population).

It simply says that UNRWA employees must treat all people equally and with respect, in accordance to UN policies.

The reaction in Gaza was, predictably, fierce. And every single organization that commented argued that UNRWA should discriminate against gays.

The Joint Committee for Refugees in the Gaza Strip issued a statement saying, “This code violates the moral system of our Palestinian people.... blatantly violates the feelings of refugees and employees, calls for vice, and disdains all the customs, traditions, struggle, and history of our Palestinian people, and is in violation of to the laws of the host country....So-called gay rights are completely rejected and have no place in our Palestinian society, and the claim that they are among human rights are false claims."

The Joint Committee of the Employees’ Unions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at UNRWA denounced the code, saying, "We call on UNRWA management to respect our values, our common sense, and our Islamic morals, and not to spread such ideas." They told union members to return the booklet unsigned.

The head of the Hamas government media office, Salama Maarouf, said, "We clearly declare that this matter is unacceptable to us, and we see it as a clear violation by the agency's management of its internal regulations and its founding work protocol, which requires it to adhere to the values, customs, and laws of the communities to which it provides services."

The Democratic Assembly of UNRWA Workers "called on the UNRWA administration to retract the bulletins and immediately investigate who placed them in the bulletins, and to apologize to the great Palestinian people for this incident, which is considered a dagger in the side of the Palestinian refugee." It also said that the Code "calls for immorality."

The Association of Palestine Scholars said that UNRWA was "glorifying obscenity and vice, and targeting the moral and humanitarian values of Palestinian society.”

You know, the moral and humanitarian values that celebrates murdering Jews.

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!

09/14 Links Pt2: Missionaries in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem; SJP Neglects the Plight of Palestinians in Lebanon; Bayard Rustin Was a Man of Courage and Principle

From Ian:

'Because it's just and right'

The compelling story behind US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocating its Embassy in a remarkable book. Review.

Using the words "because it's just and right" when referring to the reasons for a governmental or political decision seems like a hallucinatory phrase or something from outer space. We, sadly, have come to expect the motivations of those making decisions or opposing them to be petty and paltry, selfish and grasping, political party fueled, power hungry, expedient, media-aimed, and often corrupt (I am sure there are more modifiers that I have forgotten) – but who even talks about "just and right?" Are there still statesmen who ponder what is just, ask themselves what is the right thing to do, and put other considerations aside?

Leonard Grunstein and Farley Weiss engaged in an astounding amount of research to write an absorbing and detailed book describing a process led by leaders who did exactly that, who were guided by their unwavering understanding that this was the "just and right" thing to do. And while I can only praise the authors' prodigious accomplishment in thoroughly and clearly describing the "Untold Back-Story of the US Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem" (the subtitle of the book), and while there is an enormous amount of knowledge and understanding to be gained from reading it, I was mesmerized reading the words of those men who dedicated themselves to doing what is "just and right."

The authors, whose contribution to our knowledge of the long term process and politics involved in reaching the decision to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is immense, make sure to give these principled leaders their due, awakening hope that right can one day triumph. Liberally peppering their introductory words with wisdom from Ethics of the Fathers, they conclude that "sometimes, things do work out." And that is because the figures involved were not naïve novices trying to do the right thing, but political pros who knew how to get the right things done.

Chapter IV, which elucidates the fascinating dynamics of the Embassy Act's passing, quotes some of these special lawmakers at length. Read how US Senator John Kyl of Arizona, who originated the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act and chose to talk of Jerusalem in his first major foreign policy speech in Congress, later declared in a letter to Sec. of State Warren Christopher: "The United States is not neutral about Jewish rights in the ancient Jewish homeland or in Jerusalem. I believe the key to our diplomatic effectiveness is...our power and loyalty to our friends and principles." Words that should be etched in stone.

Bassem Eid: SJP Neglects the Plight of Palestinians in Lebanon

As a Palestinian human rights activist, I am often disappointed by how many purported proponents of our cause are, in fact, so blinded by animus against one of our neighbors – Israel – that they ignore the suffering our people have endured for decades elsewhere. Why do organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) blacken our cause by indulging in rank antisemitism and yet have absolutely nothing to say about the real suffering that stateless Palestinians undergo in countries like Lebanon?

This concern, which was recently in the news again, is the large Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon that cannot even be called second-class citizens because they have been totally excluded from Lebanese society. The estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon, many in permanent ‘refugee’ camps that have been kept in place since 1948, face “restrictions on their right to work, own property, or obtain Lebanese citizenship.”

The Ain el-Hilweh camp in Southern Lebanon, on the outskirts of the ancient Phoenician city of Sidon, has since July been rocked by violence between secular and Islamist factions, which led in that month to “at least 13 dead and dozens wounded, and forced hundreds to flee from their homes.” The latest round of clashes on September 11, 2023, led to the deaths of ten people and wounded dozens more, including five Lebanese Army soldiers trying to restore order. The largest Palestinian Islamist terror faction, which has not officially taken part in the fighting, has reportedly sent representatives to Beirut to try to resolve the struggles – or, more cynically, to take advantage of them.

In contrast, many Palestinians are full citizens and members of Israeli society, which leads one to question the motives of groups like SJP, which is so removed from genuine pro-Palestinian advocacy that it has gone so far as to call for the expulsion of the Jewish student group Hillel from campus. Perhaps this is because SJP is, in many ways, a front group for an antisemitic and rabidly anti-Israel organization called American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), with which it shares personnel and resources.

Bayard Rustin Was a Man of Courage and Principle, Not a Hero of Intersectionality

A close confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin was the chief organizer of the march on Washington where King gave his “I have a dream” speech. Because he was a black leftist as well as an open homosexual, he is today often hailed from the perspective of “intersectionality”—a school of thought fixated on hierarchies of victimhood, and one that inevitably turns its adherents against the Jews. Such a tendentious use of Rustin’s legacy does little justice to his own thinking, writes James Kirchick. Instead, Kirchick focuses on Rustin’s “intellectual fearlessness” and “resistance to party dogma,” which led him to become fiercely anti-Communist while remaining a socialist, break with his youthful pacificism, perceptively criticize black radicals, and maintain a staunch commitment to Zionism:

Mr. Rustin repeatedly said that if he had been aware of the Holocaust during World War II, he most likely would not have become a conscientious objector. . . . Yet another source of antagonism between Mr. Rustin and the left was his outspoken opposition to anti-Semitism within the Black community and fervent support for the state of Israel. “So far as Negroes are concerned,” he wrote in 1967, responding to an eruption of anti-Semitic statements by radical Black activists, “one of the more unprofitable strategies we could ever adopt is now to join in history’s oldest and most shameful witch hunt, anti-Semitism.” The following year, in an address to the Anti-Defamation League, Mr. Rustin condemned “young Negroes spouting material directly from Mein Kampf.”

In 1975, as the United Nations General Assembly was preparing its infamous resolution condemning Zionism as a “form of racism,” Mr. Rustin assembled a group of African American luminaries including A. Philip Randolph, Arthur Ashe, and Ralph Ellison into the Black Americans to Support Israel Committee (BASIC). “Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel’s existence,” he declared.

A descendant of slaves who was himself a victim of brutally violent racism, Mr. Rustin never let his country’s many sins overshadow his belief in its capacity for positive change. His patriotism was unfashionable among progressives while he was alive and is even more exceptional today. “I have seen much suffering in this country,” he said. “Yet despite all this, I can confidently assert that I would prefer to be a black in America than a Jew in Moscow, a Chinese in Peking, or a black in Uganda, yesterday or today.”

Asked to contribute to an anthology of Black gay men the year before his death, Mr. Rustin respectfully declined. “My activism did not spring from my being gay, or for that matter, from my being black,” he wrote. “Rather it is rooted, fundamentally, in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me. Those values are based on the concept of a single human family and the belief that all members of that family are equal.”