Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 11, 2016

11/11 Links Pt2: Vote for the Dishonest Reporter of 2016; Leonard Cohen Dies at 82

From Ian:

Celebrating One Hundred Years of the Balfour Declaration

John Howell is MP for Henley and Vice-Chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel.
Today marks the start of the year-long celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, when the UK and Israel will unite to commemorate one of the most defining moments in our shared history.
Over the past century the world has witnessed a country rise out of the desert and flourish, against all odds, to become the ‘Start-Up Nation’ – a world leader in technological innovation, cyber security, academia, and medicine.
The Balfour Declaration was instrumental in the creation of the State of Israel, adding the official British voice to the chorus that wanted to give “a land without a people to a people without a land”.
The document served, in effect, as a legal birth certificate, in the form of a letter from Conservative Foreign Secretary Arthur J Balfour to Lord Rothschild dated 2nd November 1917. It conveyed Lord Balfour’s support of His Majesty’s Government for Zionist aspirations for Jewish self-determination in Israel, the land of the Hebrew Old Testament, following centuries of persecution.
Lord Balfour wrote, “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

Daniel Pipes: America’s know-nothing diplomacy

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president, recently said something astonishing in defense of his foreign policy ignorance: “The fact that somebody can dot the i’s and cross the t’s on a foreign leader or a geographic location then allows them to put our military in harm’s way.” In other words, not knowing where a place is a good thing because, in Alice Ollstein’s witty summary, “You can’t get into a war with a country you can’t find.”
As a student of U.S. foreign policy this struck a chord — not because it’s an outlandishly whacky statement but precisely because it is mainstream. Really. Here are three notable precedents from the last century:
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson dispatched the International Commission of Inquiry (commonly known as the King-Crane Commission) to Palestine and Syria to ascertain the political wishes of their residents. The leaders of this potentially influential commission monumentally lacked qualifications for the undertaking. Henry C. King was a philosopher and president of Oberlin College; Charles R. Crane was a busybody, anti-Semite, and heir to the fortune from his family’s plumbing fixture company. Strikingly, their ignorance was seen as an advantage; a presidential aide explained that Wilson “felt these two men were particularly qualified to go to Syria because they knew nothing about it.”
Secretary of State Robert Lansing, who thought Wilson wrong on this, explained that the president did not want to appoint “persons who are familiar with the subject” of political and territorial questions. Instead, Wilson thought that “an empty mind is more receptive of the truth than one affected by experience and study.” Indeed, ignorance is an “essential qualification for an investigator.”
The King-Crane Commission report, not surprisingly, was (in the words of the historian Elie Kedourie) “as ill-informed as its influence on policy was negligible.”
In 2003, the Bush administration announced John S. Wolf as the new U.S. presidential Middle East envoy (more formally, “chief, U.S. Coordinating and Monitoring Mission for the Middle East peace process”). The Washington Post (in an admiring article titled “For Mideast Envoy, Rookie Status May Be an Advantage”) quoted a senior administration official saying that “It’s a good thing that he has exceptional negotiating skills and very little direct experience in the area.”

Honest Reporting: Vote for the Dishonest Reporter of 2016

Now’s the time to vote for the Dishonest Reporter of 2016. It’s our annual recognition of the year’s most skewed and biased coverage of Israel and the Mideast conflict. Make your voice heard and we’ll announce the ignoble winners by the end of the year.
Vote for one reporter or news service, along with a brief reason for your choice. This year’s nominees — in no particular order — are:
1. Luke Baker: The Reuters Jerusalem bureau chief and (then) head of the Foreign Press Association told a Knesset panel discussing news bias that media watchdogs like HonestReporting make government oversight unnecessary. Within days, Baker baselessly attacked HR.
2. Leila Hatoum: An editor at Newsweek Middle East, whose anti-Semitic tweets demonstrate that she’s not fit for her position.
3. Headline writers: Throughout the year, headline fails repeatedly twisted the stories of Palestinian stabbings, shootings, and car-ramming attacks.
4. AFP: For maliciously using World Press Freedom Day and International Women’s Day to bash Israel.
5. The Independent: While we secured plenty of corrections from The Independent, the sheer volume of negative stories demonstrated a near-obsession by the editors. One especially nasty story never amended spun a survey to claim “Nearly half of Israeli Jews believe in ethnic cleansing.”

Palestinian T-Shirts make Trump a Chasid, Obama an Arab

Seen here, apparently at an anti-Israel souvenir souk in Jerusalem:

It appears that these were created before the election.

But there is some truth to this: the election was between Trump and Obama, not Trump and Clinton.

While we don't know what Trump's position on Israel will really be, the T-shirt maker has a clear vision how the Arab world views Obama and Trump.

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11/11 Links Pt1: Trump’s Election Upsets the Palestinian Authority’s Diplomatic Campaign Against Israel

From Ian:

PMW: PA TV: Israel murdered Arafat, now targeting Abbas - "the plot is renewed"

Today, November 11, is the anniversary of former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's death and on this occasion the PA traditionally repeats its libel that Israel murdered Arafat with poison.
This year is no exception. In a new video, which PA TV has been broadcasting several times daily the last few days, Israel "and its allies" are accused of committing "the murder with poison". In addition, PA TV suggests that Israel is plotting to murder PA Chairman Abbas as well, stating that "the plot is renewed":
Earlier this week, Palestinian Media Watch reported on similar Palestinian claims that Israel is planning to "eliminate Abbas politically and physically."
A young girl earlier this year repeated her belief that Israel played a role in Arafat's death, stating that "the Jews killed him":

JCPA: Trump’s Election Upsets the Palestinian Authority’s Diplomatic Campaign Against Israel

One of the biggest losers from the U.S presidential election of Donald Trump is the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority depended on the election of Hillary Clinton so that they could unleash a diplomatic blitz against Israel in the halls of the United Nations. “Civil society” organizations were specifically designed for the task of expelling the State of Israel from the United Nations and replacing it with Palestine. The brazen demand that Israel “return” the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Palestinians is part of the Palestinian strategy to erase Israel and inherit its Jewish heritage, much in the same vein as the PA scheme of pushing a “Palestinian Jesus.”
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, the architect of the diplomatic blitz against Israel, was the first to comment on the meaning of Trump’s election. In the first Palestinian public remark on the election, Malki said that he “was concerned” because Trump represented an absolute supporter of Israel. With Trump’s election, he warned, global stability is threatened.
One of the aspects of the French Middle East peace initiative that worried Israel was the intention that NGOs (non-governmental organizations) would play a leading role in that international conference. These organizations, based in Ramallah, lead the campaign of hatred against Israel. Riyad al-Malki and Mustafa Barghouti, the heroes of the anti-Israel Durban Conference, stand out as clear leaders of these organizations, and from them, the BDS movement sprang.

Iran's Threats Louder after Obama Appeasement

Chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" were heard across Iranian cities as thousands of Iranians marked the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the taking of 52 American hostages for 444 days by militant students.
The State Department's reaction is classic: ignoring these developments and continuing with appeasement policies.
These anti-American demonstrations are not rhetoric, but are the cornerstone of Iran's revolutionary principles and foreign policies, which manifest themselves in Iran's support for terrorist proxies, support for Assad's regime, and the scuttling of US and Israeli foreign policies in the region.
Many other Iranian officials who were engaged in attacks against the US currently serve in high positions. Hossein Salami, who enjoys one of these high-level positions, is the deputy commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. He stated at the rally: "America should know that if they do not honor their agreement in the nuclear deal, we will resume uranium enrichment..."

Nearly 1/4 of all West Bank Arab worker income is from Israel

The latest Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics labor report is out.

While joblessness increased across the board, there are still nearly 112,000 Arabs working in Israel or Israeli settlements, about 13% of the workforce.

But Arab workers in Israel get more than double the income of those in the West Bank, 222 shekels a day compared to 97. They also work fewer hours every week.

This means that nearly a quarter of the total income of West Bank Arabs comes from Israelis.

Imagine what would happen to this already teetering economy if they would follow BDS advice and boycott Israel - or even if they would follow Peter Beinart's and other "progressive" Jewish advice and boycott only the Jews who live in Judea and Samaria.

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First page of official PA 7th grade reading textbook that incites kids to hate. UNRWA schools use it.

The Jerusalem Post reported this week:

Over 200 US-government approved textbooks used in hundreds of Palestinian UNRWA-sponsored schools are reportedly teaching Arab children between the first and ninth grades to kill Israelis, and sacrifice themselves as martyrs to drive Jews out of the country.
The violent narrative can be found in 240 books – ranging from civics to mathematics – in over 400 UNRWA schools in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, said experts at a Tuesday conference for the Center for Near East Policy Research in downtown Jerusalem.
David Bedein, who heads the research institute and Israel Resource News Agency, said the disputed books were purchased from a warehouse owned by the Palestinian Authority and then carefully vetted by a team of researchers.

Of course, UNRWA denies this.

I asked Bedein if he could send me examples, because I like to check things out for myself.

They check out.

UNRWA already admits that it uses the PA curriculum, as it uses the curricula of the host countries in every area it operates.

The specific textbooks that the Center for Near East Policy Research looked at are indeed part of the current curriculum - because all of those textbooks (from first through eight grades) are online. And I verified for the worst examples that I saw were in the books being used, today, that can be downloaded online.

Finally, I verified the translations done by Dr. Arnon Groiss with my Arabic expert "Ibn Boutros."

So what is UNRWA teaching its schoolkids, today?

Here is part of a poem called We Are Returning:

We Are Returning

Returning, returning, we are returning

Borders shall not exist, nor citadels and fortresses

Cry out, O those who have left:

We are returning

Returning to the homes, to the valleys, to the mountains

Under the flag of glory, Jihad and struggle

With blood, sacrifice, fraternity and loyalty

We are returning

Returning, O hills; returning, O heights

Returning to childhood; returning to youth

To Jihad in the hills, [to] harvest in the land

It came from a fifth grade textbook called Our Beautiful Language, Part 1 (2015) p. 50.

I took a screenshot of the entire page. The book is online here.

Here are excerpts from a poem called The Martyr in a seventh grade textbook:

Hearing [weapons'] clash is pleasant to my ear

And the flow of blood gladdens my soul

As well as a body thrown upon the ground

Skirmished over by the desert predators

…

By your life! This is the death of men

And whoever asks for a noble death – this is it!"

I found the book it was from as well; here's the entire page:

From the book "Reading and Texts," grade 8, part 1, there is a poem called "Palestine" that starts off with "O brother, the oppressors have exceeded all bounds and Jihad and sacrifice are necessary…"

The documentation I was sent said it was on page 44, but in fact it is on page 66:

What is most outrageous is that the US government supposedly researched these issues in 2013 and concluded that nothing was wrong in the textbooks, a position they reiterated this year.

Here is absolute proof that the PA and UNRWA are teaching hate.

The State Department needs to explain itself, and the US must stop funding this hate immediately.

(h/t Josh K)

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Mahmoud Abbas released a statement on the anniversary of Yasir Arafat's death.

He said that the Palestinian investigation into the cause of his death, twelve year later, were going to be released "soon."

But besides that, Abbas repeated something he has said many times before, something that demolishes his reputation in the West as being a "moderate" and a peacemaker.

In this passage, he speaks about the unchanging positions and principles of the PLO. The main word is translated as "constants" or "invariables" (الثوابت) indicating that the word is stronger than just principles, so I have kept that wording:

The PLO achieved recognition as the sole and legitimate representative of Palestinian people and kept the unchanging positions ("constants"), and declared Palestinian independence in 1988 in Algeria, and we went back with him [Arafat] to establish a Palestinian national authority, on our land, Palestine .

Many people are talking about constants. Where are the constants?, They are the constants that were declared at the Palestinian National Council in Algiers. And some people speak without knowledge, ...and I say here, I challenge [them to show] that we gave away one constant since 1988. We come back to the constants adopted by the famous National Council, which was attended by 700 members, which represent the entire spectrum of the Palestinian people, and have taken these decisions, and we are sticking to these constants by our teeth and say: We are sticking by them and continue to hold firm in order to achieve them.

Abbas is bragging once again that no concessions have been made by the PLO since before Oslo, let alone during his entire term as Arafat's successor.

None.

During that time period, Israel has has allowed terrorist leaders to move into the territories, it has given up land, it has accepted a two state solution.

And the Palestinians have done literally nothing for peace since 1988 - according to their own leader.

Notably, that part of his speech (and other inflammatory parts that I will write about) were not translated into English by the official Wafa news agency report of the speech.

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Today's media bias: IBTimes calls Temple Mount a "Muslim mosque"

The headline:

The reporter calls the entire Temple Mount a "Muslim Mosque." Muslims actually claim this, but that doesn't make it true. And no Jew is interested in praying inside the Al Aqsa Mosque or the other mosques on the site.

The headline is also wrong in saying that "Israel" wants Jews to pray at the holy site. If Israel wanted it, it would have already happened. A few Knesset members brought up the idea.

Moreover, the article does not say once that the Temple Mount is holy for Jews (let alone Christians,) let alone the holiest site for Jews. It only says that it is holy for Muslims.

Some Israeli lawmakers want to allow Jews to pray at an Islamic holy site in Jerusalem, a contentious proposal that is opposed by Middle Eastern leaders and could stroke tensions between Jews and Muslims in the Israel.

All this adds up to an article that has more bias than facts.

The incompetent reporter doesn't even know that the expression is "stoke tensions," not 'stroke tensions."

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11/10 Links Pt2: Apologise for the Balfour Declaration? You are having a laugh; Dutch anti-Israel group holding Kristallnacht event in synagogue

From Ian:

David Collier: Apologise for the Balfour Declaration? You are having a laugh

One of the ‘apologise for Balfour’ campaigns was launched by the Palestine Return Centre in the House of Lords. It was to give a platform to vile comments and would lead to the suspension and resignation of Baroness Jenny Tonge.
Another of these campaigns, ‘the Balfour Project’ held an event at Southwark Cathedral last weekend. This itself part of a worrying trend of anti-Israel events recently held in Christian places of worship in the UK. Reports from that event suggest the campaign is “yet another vehicle for the vilification of Israel.”
Israel exists. The Jewish home was eventually created (albeit in a circular route), and is without much argument, the most liberal nation in the entire region. So just what should the UK Government apologise for?
There has been endless commentary on anti-Zionist outlets. I have analysed several of the pieces on the Balfour apology. They all centre around several key points.

To use Balfour to establish Israel as a settler colonial enterprise.

To use the Balfour Declaration to suggest contradiction between Zionism and democracy.

To demonise Israel by suggesting Israel exists because of the support of global ‘unsavoury’ elements.

To suggest it was the antisemites of the UK, rather than the Jews, who sought to support Zionism.

A recent article by Ben White is a perfect example of this. White pushes all these elements in his argument. Ben White is a prolific writer and one of the leading lights of the Boycott Israel campaign (BDS) in the UK. Another example is a recent article penned by Robert Cohen, one of the speakers at the Balfour Project conference.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement Didn’t Create the Borders of the Modern Middle East—and Redrawn Borders Won’t Fix Its Problems

A common refrain of Western commentators writing about the Middle East is that its problems stem in part from the supposedly artificial borders drawn up by Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot in the 1916 agreement that bears their names. However, David Siddhartha Patel explains, not only was the agreement never implemented, but the order that existed prior to 1914 was neither wholly imposed from without nor wholly artificial:
Europeans did not draw borders willy-nilly, without regard to local factors. Local actors and historical precedents played important roles in determining not only what borders were drawn but even which proposed states survived and which did not. The Sykes-Picot agreement, for example, awarded much of south-central Turkey . . . to the French zone of direct influence; these and later efforts to carve up Anatolia were stymied by [the Turkish ruler] Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Local actors and politics [also] heavily influenced the specific location of the Iraq-Syria border. . . .
Local precedents for seemingly “artificial” states also mattered more than analysts often recognize. For example, scholars have demonstrated the extent to which the modern state of Iraq had Ottoman administrative roots.

Balfour Declaration resources at your fingertips

As has already been demonstrated the centenary year of the Balfour Declaration, which commenced last week, is set to be the focus of anti-Israel activity by various parties and that – together with events marking the centenary itself – will no doubt be accompanied by media coverage.PA Balfour Decl art
We have already reviewed the BBC’s portrayal of the Balfour Declaration and noted the corporation’s promotion of the notion that the Balfour Declaration conflicted with earlier pledges given by the British government in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence.
In order to help readers locate material relating to those topics easily, we have added a section to the menu bar above titled ‘Library‘ (top right) where relevant links and documents can be found and we will be adding additional resources such as those below to the page.
In his book titled ‘The Balfour Declaration’ published in 1961, Leonard Stein wrote the following in relation to the Hussein-McMahon correspondence.

EoZTV: Manfred Gerstenfeld interview part 2: European antisemitism

From my interview in July.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

It’s Wednesday morning, and the American presidential election has just been decided. Honestly, I didn’t expect this result. I didn’t underestimate Trump’s appeal, but I failed to realize just how much the voters disliked Clinton. Of course working-class people overwhelmingly chose Trump, but I think many others – Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans – who would have voted for Hillary couldn’t stomach the tawdry revelations of influence-peddling by the Clintons. “If it’s between a shithead and a Secretary of State who sold out her country, I’ll take the shithead,” said a friend.

So much for my very unprofessional analysis – the professionals will be dissecting this election into the future, as they did with the Brexit vote, and Menachem Begin’s 1977 upset victory in Israel (not to compare Trump with Begin)!

This election will be of great importance to Americans in countless ways. But what does it mean for Israel?

The only real answer is “who knows?” Trump is not famous for consistency, and he will be learning the rules and the players as he goes. But a position paper on US-Israel relations released last week by his “Israel Advisory Committee” was remarkably positive. Among other things, it makes clear that Trump would not support any efforts to impose a solution on Israel and the Palestinians via the UN; it calls for “defensible borders” and rejects pressuring Israel to “withdraw to borders that make attacks and conflict more likely;” and it states that

The U.S. will recognize Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state and Mr. Trump’s Administration will move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Yes, they all say that. But maybe he is the first to mean it. The document is not signed by Trump and it isn’t clear if its authors will have positions in his administration. But it is certain that his intentions will be tested quickly.

One litmus test will be whether he will stand up against the State Department’s irrational and anti-Jewish position that no part of Jerusalem belongs to Israel, move the embassy, and issue an order that State shall recognize (at the very least) western Jerusalem as an integral part of Israel. If the embassy move does not begin within the first 100 days of his administration, it will signal that we should not expect much from Trump on other matters.

Now would be the time to take this step, when the conservative Sunni Arab states are minimally hostile to Israel and when plentiful oil has made their economic influence in the US ebb. Trump would be missing an opportunity to improve relations with Israel and congressional conservatives if he does not take advantage of this.

Regarding Iran, the document calls for the US to “counteract Iran’s ongoing violations” of the nuclear deal with new sanctions, but does not – as Trump has said he would – repudiate it. The Obama Administration appeases Iran time after time because the unsigned ‘deal’ is its baby, and would be embarrassed if the Iranians publically denounced it. But it isn’t part of Trump’s legacy. He owes the Iranian regime nothing.

The Obama Administration, since its inception, has fed friendly media with suggestions that Israel and in particular the Netanyahu government, is responsible for the continuation of the conflict with the Palestinians. It adopted the phony “pro-Israel” J Street organization as a favored voice among Jewish organizations, inviting it to the White House while spurning groups like the Zionist Organization of America. If the document is even partially representative of Trump’s thinking, the anti-Israel psychological warfare campaign will lose its impetus. Had Clinton been elected, it is unlikely that any of the above would have changed.

Either Barack Obama personally hates Bibi Netanyahu, or he found it useful to pretend antipathy in order to achieve his goals. Either way, his disrespect and even contempt for Israel’s Prime Minister – which he expressed on numerous occasions – damaged relations between our nations and reflected badly on the American presidency itself. Trump has no reason to behave this way.

Americans concerned about the lack of recognition of the jihad, both military and psychological-political, being waged against the West and its values by radical Islam have been boiled like the proverbial frog in the pot for eight years. Regardless of his precise positions on the relationship between America and the Islamic world, Trump’s rejection of political correctness and limitations on speech will be a breath of fresh air for discourse about the Middle East. After two terms of Obama-speak, one has to look forward to Trump’s more direct language.

It is generally thought that Barack Obama will take some kind of action in the lame duck period which begins today to bring about an Israeli withdrawal from the territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Trump’s victory doesn’t make this impossible, but it may be that Obama will be less likely to do something that clearly goes against the spirit of the wishes of the American people. Trump may be able to embarrass him by publicly asking him to refrain. If Obama does go ahead, it will be proof positive of his bias and hostility – just like another former president, Jimmy Carter.

As with any president – in fact, even more so because of his relative inexperience and (one must admit) ignorance of foreign affairs, a great deal will depend on Trump’s choice of confidants and advisors. And I expect that he will become more serious and careful as the mantle of responsibility settles on his shoulders.

This election campaign was viciously fought, certainly more so than any other in my lifetime. I don’t recall an election in which candidates were accused of murder and rape! Trump’s success as President or lack thereof will be felt throughout the world, and especially here in Israel. And that will depend on both sides understanding that the campaign is over, and that from here on it’s necessary and appropriate for them to work together for everyone’s good. Trump made a good start in his victory speech. Now it’s up to his opponents.

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11/10 Links Pt1: Trump, Israel and the Middle East; Hundreds protest, burn Israeli flag at UN climate talks

From Ian:

Mordechai Kedar: Trump, Israel and the Middle East

Trump's attitude towards US Jewry is complex. On the one hand, he is surrounded by Jews - his daughter Ivanka underwent an Orthodox conversion, his son-in-law is Jewish, and he is also surrounded by Jewish advisers, some of whom wear kippahs without giving it a second thought. On the other hand, the Republican party has some voters who speak about Jews as worthy candidates for genocide.
In all fairness, it must be noted that the Democratic party has no shortage of anti-Semites. The last DNC included PLO flags waving outside the convention hall, and former president Jimmy Carter, one of the party's respected figures, published a book whose title calls Israel an apartheid state - implying that it is worthy of disappearing just as South Africa's apartheid regime did.
I am concerned about America's reaction to the fact that Trump is surrounded by Jews, because even if they play no part in the formation of his policies, there will be those who will accuse them of pro-Israel bias and of influencing Trump's policies in that direction. We have already seen people accusing the Jewish Lobby, during the days of George W. Bush, of running US foreign policy and of instigating the Iraq War (2003). There are even two academics who published a book about it. Trump's time in the White House may unleash the same anti-Jewish genies from the bottle.
And one last point: There are approximately two months until Trump enters the White House, on the afternoon of January 20, 2017. President Obama has full presidential authority up to that date and can make decisions that create a problematic reality for Israel and Trump, such as a UN Security Council decision recognizing a Palestinian State whose capital is Jerusalem. I suspect that there are those, such as J Street, who will respond to Trumps' victory by trying their utmost to get Obama to recognize a Palestinian State whose capital is Jerusalem while he still can. Israel will need all its diplomatic skills and all its real friends in the USA and the world to prevent this from happening.
My blessings and best wishes to Donald J. Trump from here for a successful presidency. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Pro-Israel Groups to Erect Gigantic Pinocchio Near UN to Protest Jerusalem Resolutions

Pro-Israel groups will erect a giant Pinocchio effigy across from the United Nations headquarters in New York City in protest of the recent resolutions passed by its cultural body, UNESCO, which deny Jewish and Christian connections to Jerusalem.
The Pinocchio display will be put up in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the UN following a “We Stand Together” rally at New York City’s Israeli Consulate Thursday afternoon. The rally is organized by AMCHA-Coalition for Jewish Concerns and co-sponsored by StandWithUs New York and other groups.
Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, said UNESCO through its resolutions not only negates 3,000 years of Jewish roots in Jerusalem, but also “deprecates and belittles” Judaism.
“These are lies that betray UNESCO’s own mandate to ‘contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture.’ Instead of contributing to peace by building bridges between Israel and its Arab neighbors, UNESCO has become a vehicle for fomenting conflict and strife,” Rothstein said.

Dore Gold: Middle East Looks to America for Leadership

The countries of the Middle East are looking for America to be an ally. They are looking for America to lead the peoples of the Middle East. Unfortunately, there has been a tendency in certain parts of Washington in recent years to try and see how to fix America’s relations with its adversaries – with Syria’s Assad in the Levant, with the Iranians and with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and with other radical groups across the Middle East. This leaves America’s allies, like the famous situation with President Mubarak of Egypt, in the lurch.
There is a hope that is common to Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Egypt under President Sisi, with Saudi Arabia under King Salman, and with the United Arab Emirates under Mohammed bin Zayed. All of these leaders are hoping for a United States that will lead them against the twin radical threats of ISIS and Iranian imperialism.

Douglas Murray: Donald Trump won’t be as bad as you think

For 18 months, Donald Trump was amazingly useful to British politicians. Whatever their party, he provided them with the most magnificent means with which to polish their liberal credentials. In January, when the British Parliament spent three hours debating a public petition to ban Trump from entering the country, we learned from Labour’s Rupa Huq that he was ‘racist, homophobic, misogynist’, from the Conservative Marcus Fysh that he was ‘the orange prince of American self-publicity’ and from the SNP’s Gavin Newlands that he was not only ‘racist, sexist and bigoted’, but ‘an idiot’.
So perhaps now that the giggling has subsided, we can get down to a more realistic assessment of the man and his views. Some unsavoury personal moments aside, the accusation that Trump was a misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic racist simply constituted the liberal press’s best effort at holing his campaign below the waterline. In reality, Trump is a man who holds liberal New York opinions and would be unable to set about ‘rolling back’ liberal rights even if he wanted to.
The other accusations against him have been equally cynical. For months there has been a hysterical insistence, by everyone from Democrat peaceniks to Cold War nostalgists, that a Trump presidency would fundamentally undermine and even end Nato — the centrepiece of the UK’s defence capability. The basis for this claim lies solely in Trump’s complaint during his campaign that America should not be bailing out its Nato allies if they are not willing to pay a fair share for their own defence. Though it was expressed more forcefully than is usually the case, there was nothing so surprising about this. For decades, US presidents have implored their European partners to fulfil the minimal 2 per cent spending requirements that membership of Nato should require. There is nothing immoral or unstrategic about asking European powers to demonstrate a commitment to their own security. Rather than ‘weakening’ Nato, such a stance is likely to underpin and strengthen it.
Then there are the fears about American trade protectionism. But these would have pertained whoever won the White House. Pulled to the left by the Bernie Sanders insurgency within her own party, President Hillary Clinton would have been at least as protectionist as Trump will prove to be.

An April article in El Saba has started popping up on other Arab sites about Jews who continue to live secretly in Egypt, pretending to be Christians.

The article was prompted by the story of Dina Ovadia, the IDF soldier who grew up in Alexandria without knowing that she was Jewish. After some fundamentalist Muslims attacked them, her family escaped.

El Saba looked for other secret Jews in Alexandria, and it found some.

Dr. Majid, a professor at a university in the city, says of his family growing up, "I remember when we were practicing religious rituals in silence, fearing that others will know that we are Jews, in the late forties, and in the beginning of Nasser's rule, worried that we would be considered traitors to the homeland... the media and politicians took part in it."

Majid's grandfather went to a Catholic church and asked to change his religion for fear of attack on his house and store, and since then they worship in secret for fear of ostracism and persecution.

His mother created a miniature model synagogue in the family home as a place for her husband to worship.

He told his children that they are Jewish but that they are free to believe what they want.

His 80-year old mother says that most of their relatives fled in 1948, but her father who was a gold dealer in Upper Luxor went to Alexandria, where they were not known as Jews, and set up his business there. She says that many fellow gold dealers in Alexandria were secret Jews as well.

George Sweilem works as an accountant for a political party, also said that he is officially a Christian but his family is really Jewish. He claims that there are hundreds of Jews pretending to be Muslims and Christians to avoid repercussions, although he claims that most of them are anti-Israel and love their homeland of Egypt.

Nawal Darwish, a human rights researcher, is a Muslim of Jewish descent. She said she is not surprised there are some Jews who were hiding as Muslims or Christians, saying that it started in the 1940s and during the Nasser era out of fear for their families, and some of those families still take the same approach to protect themselves today.

The newspaper then interviewed Egyptian and Islamic officials who claim that there is no discrimination against Jews and that no Jews were persecuted or expelled because of their religion.

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Latest Jew-crime: "Talmudic gestures"

Palestine Today writes that Jews visiting the Temple Mount on Monday engaged in "Talmudic gestures," thereby desecrating the holy spot that is routinely used for volleyball, soccer and gymnastics.

Witnesses said that a group of settlers tried to perform a silent ritual, and were then seen doing the aforementioned "Talmudic gestures" while listening to the tour guide describe "the myth of the alleged temple that was in place of the holy mosque."

So the Jews "tried to perform a silent ritual." And if that wasn't horrible enough, they made "Talmudic gestures."

Talmudic gestures?

I figured I'd find a video somewhere on the Internet showing Talmudic gestures, and sure enough, I did:

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I tweeted on Wednesday morning:

.@jstreetdotorg probably feels like Hamas did when the Muslim Brotherhood was booted out of Egypt's presidency. Loss of its major patron.
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) November 9, 2016

Actually, it is even worse. J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami lost his mind.

In the essay he wrote the Morning After, Ben-Ami says:

Today is, for many of us, an incredibly sad and difficult day.

We woke up yesterday with high hopes, only to go to bed feeling grief, anger and despair.

These emotions are real, and they are raw.

We remain convinced that Donald Trump is beyond a doubt the wrong choice for president.

Nonetheless, we respect American democracy and the choice the people have made.

This is rich coming from someone who has no respect for Israeli democracy and the choices the Israelis have made. He spends his entire existence trying to subvert the will of the Israeli people. Not exactly respectful of democracy, is he?

But then Ben-Ami says:

Day one of the Trump administration will bring serious challenges to core elements of J Street’s agenda. Many Republicans have urged, for instance, that the Iran nuclear agreement, which has made the US and Israel safer and helped avoid a potential war, be voided on day one.

Our nation’s 50-year commitment to the two-state solution will likely be called into question early on, with advocates of Israeli annexation of the West Bank given a seat at the national security table.

The US has supported a Palestinian state since 1966? That's news!

Because the first official support for a Palestinian state came on June 24, 2002, by someone who is hardly a J-Street hero, George W. Bush, when he said " My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security."

Bill Clinton said something similar same in a speech in 2001, but not in the context of official policy, saying "There can be no genuine resolution to the conflict without a sovereign, viable Palestinian state that accommodates Israelis' security requirements and the demographic realities." Meaning - Israel could annex the large settlement blocs, which J-Street opposes.

Ronald Reagan said explicitly, "The United States will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza."

Ben-Ami has always been a liar by pretending that J-Street is pro-Israel and that its version of a two-state solution is what American Jews want.

But now he is lying about basic American policy, too.

(h/t Lenny)

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New Arafat museum filled with lies

From the New York Times, describing the new Yasir Arafat museum opening officially in Ramallah tomorrow:

By the museum’s telling, Mr. Arafat was born in his grandfather’s house in the Old City of Jerusalem on Aug. 4, 1929. He was soon taken to Cairo, where his father worked, then returned to the Old City home after his mother died when he was 4. (Pointing to a photograph of a bulldozer at work further along in the exhibit, a museum guide said Mr. Arafat’s childhood home was demolished after Israel conquered the area in the 1967 war and cleared it to create the plaza by the Western Wall, known to Muslims as Al-Buraq.)

Arafat was born in Cairo, not Jerusalem. Although apparently his mother's family indeed owned a home on the southern section of what is now the Western Wall Plaza, and he might have lived there.

He died, according to the exhibit, after Israel apparently managed to poison him — this “based on evidence from laboratories and other medical reports as well as official statements by Israeli officials,” the text reads, though Israel denied involvement.

No, Arafat was not poisoned.

The Jerusalem Post article about the museum ends off appropriately:

Yasser Khasib, a 51-year-old doorman, said he had no reason to visit the museum.
“No one knows who’s a symbol and who isn’t anymore,” Khasib said. “There is no hope for the future. No one cares about it.”

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11/09 Links Pt2: Over 200 US-approved UNRWA textbooks teach Palestinians to kill Jews

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Celebrating aliya

For the first time since its establishment, Israel marked Aliya Day, a national holiday devoted to celebrating the contributions of immigrants and raising awareness about the importance of future immigration.
The day of the year chosen – the seventh of the Hebrew month of Heshvan – coincides with the reading of the Torah portion in which the patriarch Abraham is told to leave his home for the promised land.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted in conjunction with Aliya Day, that immigration is “the basic purpose of the Jewish state and the realization of Biblical prophecies about the ingathering of exiles and the return of the Jewish people to its homeland... This is a great holiday for all Israeli citizens, new and old.”
But if aliya is so central to Zionism, why did it take nearly seven decades to set aside a day to celebrate it? Part of the reason has to do with the fact that in the first decades after the establishment of the State of Israel it hardly made sense to distinguish between new immigrants and those who weren’t. The vast majority of Israeli citizens were Jews who were newcomers to the Jewish state. There was nothing special about being a new immigrant. Those who had been born in Israel – “the Sabras” – were an elite minority.
Today, after Israel has successfully absorbed millions of immigrants in a miraculous return of a people to its historic homeland after being exiled for nearly two millennia, the time has come to set aside a day to celebrate the past and contemplate the future of aliya.

New Jew?

‘Who is a Jew?” has always been a prominent issue on our people’s agenda.
The immigration wave from the former Soviet Union only highlighted the centrality of this question. After all, most of these immigrants self-identify as Jewish, even if Jewish religious law (Halacha) does not recognize them as such and, as a result, neither does the state.
In Israel, The answer to “Who is a Jew?” has broad ramifications because the state immediately grants an array of rights, including permanent residency and citizenship, to those it officially recognizes as Jewish. Yet despite the unique contours of the “Who is a Jew” debate unfolding in Israel, what we are witnessing today is but another manifestation of the great Jewish dispute that began during the modern era, when Jewish identity was severed from religious observance.
That sundering gave rise to several fundamental questions: is a secular or atheistic Jew even Jewish? Can a person be considered Jewish if only his father is a Jew? And if a secular Jew is recognized as Jewish, as Halacha allows, then why not allow people to join the tribe as members of a secular Jewish nation, rather than by way of religious conversion? While such weighty concerns are endlessly interesting to ponder, I would like to propose that all questions related to Jewish identity must first take into account the dramatic change, including from the vantage point of religious law, which the Jewish people have undergone.
Judaism is no longer intimately and inexorably linked to religious observance. In addition, Jewish identity in Israel is based on and derived from fundamentally different conditions than in Diaspora.

Isi Leibler: Sharing a deeply personal experience

I am an octogenarian and one of the few who has both witnessed the tragedies and become engaged directly in the triumphs of the Jewish people in our time. Yet this is the first occasion that I felt the need to share a truly emotional personal experience with my readers and the public.
I was born in Antwerp, Belgium, and fortunate enough at the age of four, on the eve of World War II, to have been taken by my parents to Australia, where I spent most of my life prior to making aliya 17 years ago.
Antwerp had a uniquely thriving Jewish community.
It was regarded as an incubator for fusing the passionate Yiddishkeit of Eastern Europe with a worldly, Western European outlook. It had flourishing Jewish day schools that also provided first-rate secular studies. My mother attended a religious Zionist stream where she learned to speak Hebrew. The indigenous Flemish inhabitants, then as today, were – with notable exceptions – mostly hostile to Jews. There was a powerful antisemitic nationalist party, the Flemish National Union, and many of its members collaborated with the Nazis.
Ultimately, most of my family who remained in Antwerp during the Nazi occupation were deported and died in Auschwitz. I recollect as a youngster the depressing discussions and growing feeling of doom as my parents grew ever more fearful concerning the fate of their relatives, especially my grandparents, from whom we received phony postcards created by the Nazis after their deportation, informing us that they were well – followed by a deafening silence.
After the war, we learned that my grandparents had been transported to Auschwitz in October 1943 and murdered on Simhat Torah, which is when we commemorate their yahrzeit.

Skeleton is a sport I'd never heard of and at first, it was difficult to see the connection between this winter sport and Israel. But soon enough, it all came clear. Brad Chalupski isn't asking for much as far as crowd funding campaigns go—just $5,000. So there's some good old-fashioned Israeli modesty for you. And Skeleton is certainly gutsy being that it impels the athlete to lie face down on a board while shooting down an ice-covered track. So you've got Israeli chutzpah covered, especially if you figure in Brad's quest to become Israel's first ever Olympic Skeleton athlete at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

Here's the thing: there are just five days left on Brad's crowd funding campaign: https://www.rallyme.com/rallies/4507/bradleychalupskiisraelskeleton, and after chatting with him I'm convinced the cause is a worthy one. That means that if you want the honor of helping a wannabe Israeli Gold medalist, you better get cracking. (Why not? It's a cause that can help Israel shine.)

Read all about Brad, Skeleton, and his bare bones (ouch) quest for Olympic gold here:

VE: When did you first discover Skeleton? What made you fixate on this particular sport?

Brad Chalupski: I first decided to try Skeleton when I saw it on the television during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino. Like most people, I think that I was attracted by the paradox that the sport presents to people watching it. On the one hand, it looks incredibly fast, dangerous, and thrilling—you think these people are crazy. And yet on the other hand, it looks like someone lying down on a board and heading effortlessly down the track—you think you can definitely do this yourself. I want to try that.

This initial thought process is what got me interested in trying the sport. But what made me fixate on it was also a little bit of luck being added into the mix. Skeleton had only become an Olympic event in 2002, making 2006 only its 2^nd Olympiad. In essence, it was a new sport—and so one that was not entirely developed in terms of the numbers of athletes participating. That fact made getting involved much easier that it would be today.

I googled how to get involved with the sport, and discovered that all I had to do was send away a spreadsheet detailing how high/far I could run and jump. I sent that information away, and was invited to a beginners Skeleton camp the following winter. Once I actually tried the sport in December of 2007, I was intoxicated by the speed, and also the promise of being able to compete as a high level athlete. After that, I became fixated on improving as much as I could.

VE: What does it feel like when you're speeding down an ice chute headfirst?

Brad Chalupski: There are actually two different answers to this question.

When you first begin in the sport, I'd imagine it's exactly what people expect. You feel a lot of fear the first time you go down, even though they are only starting you from the middle of the track. I remember saying to the coach “You are either going to send me home on the team, or send me home in a body bag.” I think that is a good window into my mindset at the time. From there, the rush is immense.

One thing about Skeleton is that it's not like driving a car, your face is only inches from the ice, and your helmet will often actually be pushed down on the ice due to the gravity in the curves. So, in that sense you don't get a panoramic view of what is coming at you like driving a car. You're very close to the ground and kind of watching things go by from the floor.

Also, the sensation of getting pulled up and down by the gravity is very intense, because it's like nothing you've felt before in your life—think of an Egged bus stopping short and multiply that by 100 and that's the type of gravitational force that is acting on you. I'm convinced that it is impossible to be indifferent about your first Skeleton ride. When the sled stops, you either say “take me back up to the top right now” or “you're all insane and I'm never doing that again.”

I was the former.

As you get better, however, this changes drastically. When you begin to really take the sport seriously as a competitive activity, the speed becomes normal. The rush of going fast and feeling the gravity gives way to an obsession with how to use those to your competitive advantage. Today, I don't ever notice how fast I am going in the sense of “having fun.” Pressures that were once exhilarating are now places where I can get more speed for racing.

Today, I will come out of a run where I just went 138km/hr cursing at myself because I was one foot too far to the right going into the 6^th curve. Just like any other sport, I have a plan for what I need to be doing on a track and that's all I'm thinking about. It's a clinical, precise sport that requires huge amounts of mental focus. When you really start to compete, the joy rides are over and it's all about improving and going faster that the other person.

VE: What types of injuries are common with Skeleton? Does your wife worry about you?

Brad Chalupski: Believe it or not, Skeleton is actually a very safe sport. I am constantly battered and bruised—sometimes bleeding—but never actually “injured.” The most painful thing that happens is hitting the walls as you are going through the track, and my arms can end up very swollen if I have a bad run during a race (when I will not wear any padding at all to protect myself).

I've also come off my sled several times, and always walked away without a scratch. I know that may sound totally impossible, but because you are so low to the ground and the sled is going so fast, you can simply let it go. The sled will continue along much faster than you will; you just need to roll, making sure to never keep one piece of skin on the ice too long (or you'll get burned) and eventually you come to a stop. The idea that you can just shrug at coming off of something going 60mph probably sounds psychotic to many, but it's true. It's not fun—but you can walk away from it just fine. In fact, both times I came off of my sled, I demanded they take me back up to the top so I wouldn't get shy about it. And they did.

VE: How do you train for a winter sport like Skeleton when your home base is Israel?

Brad Chalupski: This is a very common misconception. I always answer this question by reminding people that there is no ice in Canada in August, either. All tracks are in the northern hemisphere, so the season runs from October – March, and then all the tracks are closed. During the summers, I will work on my explosive sprinting in the gym (we sprint, pushing the sled forward with us to start a run) and also on my mental concentration and focus through meditation. It's the same routine that all Skeleton athletes do.

While it is true that some countries have facilities that allow you to practice the initial sprint throughout the summer (most have sleds on tracks and wheels, one or two places will have an iced ramp throughout the summer), it's not essential. To prepare for the Olympic qualifying races next year, I will most likely leave Israel only in September to use a facility like that, if at all.

VE: You mention Bobsled Skeleton Israel (BSI) on your crowd-funding page. How many people belong to this club/organization? Are they all immigrants from cooler climes, like yourself?

Brad Chalupski: Currently, there are 4 competitive male athletes active with the federation. BSI has been in existence for nearly 15 years now, so throughout that time we have had competitors from across the entire range of Israeli and Diaspora Jewry. I should also mention here that we are recruiting!

VE: How cool is it (literally) that you made aliyah because of a sport that involves ice! There's irony for you. You say that, "An amazing journey into Judaism and my Jewish identity had begun." Did you study in a yeshiva?

Brad Chalupski: Although I have never studied in a yeshiva, my journey into Judaism has been such a blessing in my life. Growing up, I always considered myself Jewish, but I wouldn't have told you that it meant anything to me. It was a part of my identity that was there, but in a very neutral kind of way. Since I began to represent Israel, all that has changed.

For me personally, going on my birthright trip (which I only did after I had started competing) was when my life really changed. I remember taking a silent hike in the Negev, and just feeling so at home. It was a very strange feeling—and truth be told not one that I expected to find. But that was my first connection with the energy of the land and the sense of belonging. That was the moment I discovered that I was a part of this people, this history, even if I hadn't fully realized it until then.

And of course, I'm still learning more about it every day. Today, I have made Jerusalem my home for the last 4 years. I look forward to lighting the Shabbat candles, and find meaning in representing Israel and the Jewish people. I consider being Jewish a core part of my identity.

VE: What do your parents think of this whole thing? The at least somewhat dangerous sport, moving to Israel on what must have seemed like a whim to them?

Brad Chalupski: I had just graduated from law school in 2010 when I decided I was going to move to the mountains of Lake Placid, NY and compete for Israel. My mother cried, presumably both for my safety and for my lost legal career. My father didn't understand why I would want to do something like Skeleton, but he took it (much) better. The first job I ever had out of law school was actually at the Lake Placid McDonalds.

Surprisingly, I don't think either of them had seen it as a “whim.” I've always been full of wanderlust and a competitive spirit, and by that point my exploits traveling around the globe were well known to the family. This might have been the mother of all exploits, but yet at the same time not entirely out of character for me.

VE: You have had multiple surgeries as a result of injuries. How do your doctors feel about the fact that you're still "in the game?" Is it safe for you to compete?

Brad Chalupski: Actually, all of my injuries have come from training for Skeleton. None of my injuries come from Skeleton itself. I had hip surgery performed in Israel by Dr. David Morgenstern at Asuta Hospital in Tel Aviv to repair a pretty sizeable tear in my labrum. He was a wonderful, amazing surgeon and man and he told me that I would be able to return to Skeleton.

Really, for me it's about being more careful in the gym when lifting weights. I'm pretty sure the safest place I find myself in life is actually within the Skeleton track.

VE: The amount of money you're trying to raise is so modest! How will your family manage when you quit your job to train full time? Does your wife work?

Brad Chalupski: I definitely do Skeleton on a shoestring budget. Fortunately, I landed in B2B marketing for high-tech start-ups in Israel. There is actually a lot of great work that I can do over the internet as a freelancer from anywhere, so I am still working. My wife Chana also works at a Jerusalem-based start-up. We know that this is setting our family back several years financially, but it is something that we mutually agreed was important enough to pursue.

I am a very, very lucky man to have such an amazing and wonderful wife supporting me in this. I could not do it without her.

VE: Tell me your dream: do you think you can win the gold? What will it feel like to compete as a representative of Israel?

Brad Chalupski: My dream is to represent Israel in the Olympic games. Watching the way Israel was treated during the recent summer Olympics really upset me. I would love to be able to walk in and represent this amazing country and nation.

But more and more on a personal note, I'm also finding that my dream also includes using the time that I've spent in Skeleton to better myself as a person, husband, and someday, father. Being a high level athlete is something I had always dreamed about, and I get to live that dream every single day right now. It's a great challenge that comes with great excitement but also great responsibility.

When I ultimately retire from the sport, I'd like to think that I represented Israel and myself with dignity, proving that both of us have a place amongst the elite Skeleton athletes of the world.

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