Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, August 25, 2018

08/25 Links: Caroline Glick: A conversation with John Bolton; NYTs Publishes a Rejection of Yossi Klein Halevi’s Plea for Reconciliation; Why Jeremy Corbyn's 'Zionist' comments were racist

From Ian:

US set to announce it rejects Palestinian ‘right of return’ — TV report

The Trump Administration will announce in the next few days that it rejects the long-standing Palestinian demand for a “right of return” for million of refugees and their descendants to Israel, an Israeli television report said Saturday night. The US will announce a policy that, “from its point of view, essentially cancels the ‘right of return,'” the report said.

The “right of return” is one of the key core issues of dispute in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians claim that five million people — tens of thousands of original refugees from what is today’s Israel, and their millions of descendants — have a “right of return.” Israel rejects the demand, saying that it represents a bid by the Palestinians to destroy Israel by weight of numbers. Israel’s population is almost nine million, some three-quarters of whom are Jewish. An influx of millions would mean Israel could no longer be a Jewish-majority state.

According to the Hadashot TV report Saturday, the US in early September will set out its policy on the issue. It will produce a report that says there are actually only some half-a-million Palestinians who should be legitimately considered refugees, and make plain that it rejects the UN designation under which the millions of descendants of the original refugees are also considered refugees. The definition is the basis for the activities of UNRWA, the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

The US — which on Friday announced that it had decided to cut more than $200 million in aid to the Palestinians — and has also cut back its funding for UNRWA — will also ask Israel to “reconsider” the mandate that Israel gives to UNRWA to operate in the West Bank. The goal of such a change, the TV report said, would be to prevent Arab nations from legitimately channeling aid to UNRWA in the West Bank.

JPost Editorial: Bolton’s message

One theory about this week’s visit to Israel by US National Security Adviser John Bolton is that he was dispatched by President Donald Trump to suss out the chances of a resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The visit came after Trump pointedly said at a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, that since he had taken the issue of Jerusalem off the table, “Israel will have to pay a higher price because they won a very big thing” – referring to the US decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14.

At a news conference at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Wednesday, Bolton explained that Trump, whom he called “a deal-maker,” expected the Palestinians to say after the embassy move, “So we didn’t get that one, we’ll get something else.” But, he added, the parties will have to “talk about it between themselves and see what, if anything, the price of that was.”

The responses from both Israel and the Palestinians were predictable. On the Israeli side, Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi – who is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – assured Israelis that Trump has a warm spot for Israel and “will not turn on us.” Hanegbi stressed that he had constant contact with the White House and said that Trump was trying to find a way into the hearts of the Palestinians in order to regain their confidence in the US as an “honest broker.”

On the Israeli Left, Zionist Union MK Amir Peretz said it had been clear that the US would ask for a payback for the US Embassy move, adding, “No one can claim that this is a hostile president with demands that are not legitimate. Netanyahu cannot deny the need to make courageous decisions.”

Palestinian officials were more skeptical. Senior PLO official Ahmad al-Tamimi said Trump’s remarks reflected the “continued American policy that is biased in favor of Israel,” and he reaffirmed the PA’s “categoric rejection” of the peace plan expected to be announced soon by the US president.

Where does this leave us? Well, Bolton sounded upbeat as he voiced the hope that there are “a lot of prospects” to find ways to resolve the problems facing the Palestinian people, but added that it was “a sad outcome” for the Palestinian people that “all they got now is a choice between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.” On the last of his three days of talks in the region, Bolton concluded that the aim of the long-awaited US peace plan is overseeing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and he hoped this would become evident when Washington unveiled the plan.

Herein lies the problem and the challenge. As former Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky told The Jerusalem Post, “Whatever the US peace plan is, Israelis will probably accept it and the Palestinians will reject it.”

Caroline Glick: A conversation with John Bolton

President Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Ambassador John Bolton to serve as his National Security Advisor indicated clearly that Trump is advancing a national security strategy far different from those of his predecessors.

On and off for decades, Bolton has held some of the most senior foreign policy positions in the US government. And throughout his long career in foreign policy, Bolton has been the bane of the foreign policy elites. In part this owes to his extraordinary successes. After 15 years of fruitless and often half-hearted US efforts to repeal UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 from 1975 that branded Zionism as racism, as assistant secretary of state, Bolton got the job done in 1991.

As Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs in the George W. Bush administration, Bolton created and implemented the Proliferation Security Initiative. The PSI was the most successful counter-proliferation program the US has undertaken in recent years.

As UN Ambassador in 2005 and 2006, Bolton dismantled the corrupt UN Human Rights Commission. He opposed the formation of its successor, the equally corrupt Human Rights Committee, saying, “We want a butterfly. We don’t intend to put lipstick on a caterpillar and call it a success.”

Bolton’s record of success engendered jealousy among many members of the Washington establishment. But they were more irked by his refusal to go along to get along. Bolton’s stubborn insistence on basing US policies on reality, rather than ideology or fashion has made him the bête noire of the foreign policy establishment.

08/24 Links Pt2: Wave the national flag, for Zion; Labour’s New Anti-Semitism Has Disturbingly Old Roots; Who Is Julia Salazar?; US cuts aid to Palestinians by more than $200 million

From Ian:

Dr. Miriam Adelson: Wave the national flag, for Zion

This column proudly displays Israel's national flag. The same flag will appear in the same place on every edition of Israel Hayom from this day forward. That will be our way of saluting the nation-state law, which, among other things, confirms this flag's central and important role in the State of Israel.

Since you, our readers, naturally do not have a problem reading a newspaper that is openly patriotic, you should wonder about the controversy and antagonism that this law has generated within the Israeli public and among its politicians.

The State of Israel gave itself a very nice gift for its 70th birthday: the nation-state law – a law that defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Israel is proud of this important Zionist legislation, despite the many futile attempts to make it appear hurtful, racist or discriminatory. The law is a true source of pride for the state. I am still waiting for someone, anyone, to point to a single clause in this law that contradicts in any way the values of democracy and equality.

I would like to ask the opponents of this law: What about it upsets you? Is it the clause that talks about Israel being the historical homeland of the Jewish people, where the State of Israel was established? Or perhaps is it the clause that decisively concludes that unified Jerusalem is the capital of Israel? Could it be the one that burns into our psyche that Hebrew is the official language of this state, and the Hatikvah is its national anthem?

Who Is Julia Salazar?

Salazar’s campaign reflects the New York branch of the Democratic Socialists of America’s organizing strength. DSA activists served as Ocasio-Cortez’s ground force in her stunning primary upset over House Democratic Caucus chair Joe Crowley this past July. A win for Salazar, who has been active in the DSA since 2016, would prove that Ocasio-Cortez’s triumph wasn’t a one-off and establish the group as a very real threat to New York’s standing political elite. The citywide DSA has made Salazar’s election one of its top priorities: A July 23 open letter arguing against the New York City DSA’s prospective endorsement of Cynthia Nixon’s gubernatorial bid noted that the organization has “already endorsed three resource-intensive campaigns in New York City, including … our endorsement and field operation for DSA member Julia Salazar’s run for state Senate.” One of their own activists stands a better-than-decent chance of becoming one of 63 New York state senators, so it’s fair to say the NYC-DSA’s investment has paid off.

As with Ocasio-Cortez, who had worked as a bartender in Manhattan less than a year before her primary victory, the value proposition behind a state senator Julia Salazar is only tangentially related to her past accomplishments: Supporters hope she will be a radical departure from the existing political order and expand the public’s self-defeatingly narrow vision of who should represent them.

But Salazar differs from Ocasio-Cortez, Nixon, and the rest of her cohort in one interesting respect: the state Senate candidate is the only one to have emerged from a specifically Jewish corner of leftism. She “comes from a unique Jewish background,” as The Forward put it. “She was born in Colombia, and her father was Jewish, descended from the community expelled from medieval Spain. When her family immigrated to the United States, they had little contact with the American Jewish community, struggling to establish themselves financially.” From early 2016 through May of 2017 she was a Grace Paley Organizing Fellow with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). Her fellowship biography identified her as senior editor of Unruly, the “intersectional blog” of the anti-Zionist and pro-BDS Jewish Voice for Peace’s Jews of Color and Sephardic/Mizrahi Caucus. Her last publicly listed job before running for office was as a staff organizer for JFREJ, which is a New York-based left-wing social and activist organization—Salazar was working with the group when it decided to honor the controversial activist Linda Sarsour with one of their annual Risk-Taker Awards.

Going in reverse chronological order, Salazar has also been a contributor to Mondoweiss, an IfNotNow demonstrator, a Bridging the Gap fellow through Brooklyn College Hillel, a World Zionist Organization campus fellow, a co-founder of the Columbia University chapter of J Street, an AIPAC Policy Conference student attendee, and founder of the university’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI) chapter. For much of the five years leading up to her campaign, Salazar dedicated herself to explicitly Jewish causes, often in a professional capacity. If she wins, her identity as a politically radical working-class Jewish immigrant will have helped take her to a position of formal power and authority. Based on interviews with former acquaintances and an examination of her writings, social media postings, and publicly available documents, it is an identity that is no less convincing for having been largely self-created.

IsraellyCool: Will the Real Julia Salazar Please Stand Up?

Note: I have sat on this draft for 5 weeks, awaiting confirmation everything was accurate. In the meantime, Tablet has just published their own expose, which not only confirms my information but also brings in more information. Nevertheless, I am posting this because the Tablet piece is very long. Having said that, read the Tablet piece if you can – it demonstrates excellent journalism.

Julia Salazar, a state Senate candidate in Brooklyn, is fast becoming a big deal. Cynthia Nixon has endorsed her, as has Linda Sarsour. And according to many like the New York Daily News and The Forward, she might just be the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic primary winner in New York’s 14th congressional district who I posted about here.

And there are a number of similarities. One they don’t mention is the fact Salazar is also an Israel hater.

But she never used to be. In fact, she used to be very pro-Israel, information she seems to have tried to flush down the memory hole. Likewise, while she claims to be Jewish, there is evidence she may be lying about this. In fact, Salazar seems to have a real aversion to the truth.

Major rock act to play in a country that treats Palestinians like dirt. BDS silent.

From the webpage of The Scorpions:

Here is a major rock act that is going to Lebanon, a country that forbids Palestinians from owning land, from becoming citizens, from building new houses, and from many kinds of jobs. By law.

Palestinians are stuck in UNRWA camps where various terror groups fight each other, and sometimes the Lebanese army, in an atmosphere of lawlessness.

Lebanon is, by any definition, an apartheid state. Palestinians know this well and the ones who can escape to Europe, do - over 200,000 of them so far.

But I have never seen any "pro-Palestinian" group say that Lebanon should be boycotted, or punished in any way, because of how they treat Palestinians.

This is pretty good proof that when people say they are "pro-Palestinian" they really mean that they are anti-Israel.

Everyone knows this but no one likes to say it out loud.

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08/24 Links Pt1: FIFA bans Palestinian soccer chief for inciting violence against Messi; Israel hails US for halting UNHRC funding; Saudi Official Praises Israel For Allowing Muslim Citizens To Perform Hajj

From Ian:

FIFA bans Palestinian soccer chief for inciting violence against Messi

The international soccer body FIFA on Friday banned the head of the Palestinian Football Association from attending soccer games for a year for inciting hatred and violence toward star player Lionel Messi.

Jibril Rajoub called on Arab soccer fans to burn Messi posters and shirts if he participated in an Argentina game in Jerusalem in June. His campaign led to Argentina canceling the World Cup warm-up match.

In its decision, FIFA’s disciplinary committee cited comments by the Palestinian FA president “calling on football fans to target the Argentinian Football Association and burn jerseys and pictures of Lionel Messi.”

Rajoub was banned from attending any soccer matches in an official capacity for 12 months starting Friday.

FIFA decided to begin the disciplinary proceedings against Rajoub in June, after Israel lodged a complaint with the organization over his calls for posters and jerseys of Messi to be burned, as well as his threat to thwart Argentina’s bid to host the World Cup in 2030.

At the same time, FIFA member federations also rejected a Palestinian proposal to amend world soccer’s statutes with a stronger stance against human rights abuses. FIFA members voted 156 to 35 against the motion, which was formally supported by the Iraq and Algeria soccer bodies.

"There is no place for terror in the world of sport!"

Culture Minister Miri Regev expressed her satisfaction Friday with soccer federation FIFA's decision to suspend PA soccer federation head Jibril Rajoub for 12 months. The move came as punishment for Rajoub's calls to burn Lionel Messi shirts and photos, in order to pressure the soccer megastar to cancel a planned friendly match with Israel in June.

"FIFA's management did what was expected of it and what was required of it and ruled that there is no room for terrorists who incite and call for violence in the soccer world," said Regev.

She added that with its decision, "FIFA has torn off the mask of the terrorist Rajoub, and proven what many here refused to recognize: the reason for the cancellation of the friendly game between Israel and Argentina was the well-timed scare campaign mounted by Rajoub and his men, who threatened the lives of Messi and the rest of the Argentinian team – and not the decision to hold the game in Jerusalem."

"There is no room for politics in the world of sport!", Regev stated. "There is no place for terror in the world of sport! Rajoub's place is behind bars and not in the seats of honor in the soccer stadiums and the halls of FIFA."

UAE FM Dr. Anwar Gargash

Al Jazeera has been publishing articles about increasing ties between Israel and Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and apparently this is now irking officials there.

Dr. Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs, tweeted "Strange Qatar: its media and its friends publish and promote rumors about its neighbors normalizing relations with Israel while its own contacts [with Israel] are documented and ongoing, most recently a series of contacts with Tel Aviv on Gaza. Fake news and partisan blindness are exposed."

The funny thing is that they are both right. Qatar is the only Arab country that seems to actually want to help Gaza and they have not been bashful about cooperating with Israel to bring in aid to the sector, something Israel welcomes but other Arab states have avoided because they don't want to be seen as cooperating with the hated Zionist entity.

And there have been increasing, albeit unofficial, talks between Israel and the other Arab Gulf states, with Iran being often the focus. Qatar, which wants to maintain ties with Iran, has been the target of other Arab attacks, and that is what is behind this kerfuffle over which Arab country is more cooperative with Israel.

This Qatari responded to Gargash's tweet with a video showing supposed cooperation between Israel and the UAE:

#الإمارات و #السعودية #إسرائيل
علاقات تجارية مشتركة
تدريبات عسكرية مشتركة
زيارات اخوية متبادلة
وكلاء المشروع الصهيوني بالمنطقة pic.twitter.com/kk6i2tNS6H
— امل آل قطر (@amalqaqq) August 23, 2018

A Kuwaiti responded with rumors that Qatar is the #3 investor in Israel behind the US and Britain, and that Qatar helped Israel assassinate some Hamas leaders.

The thread goes on from there with each side accusing the other of being more Zionist.

It is quite amusing.

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Democratic congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar is suddenly receiving media attention because his Republican opponent has been indicted on corruption charges.

From AP:

Campa-Najjar said he is proud of his heritage but is American first. He has made clear that he has no personal connection to his grandfather, Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar who was a mastermind of the terrorist murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. Al-Najjar was assassinated a year later by Israeli commandos.
“I’m happy to take responsibility for my own choices and my own decisions,” he said. “I think other men are responsible for their own crimes, whether it’s somebody who I share a lineage with and nothing else, or a sitting congressman who’s being indicted and could be facing serious charges in the future. ”

Campa-Najjar was not so forthcoming in his description of his grandfather in two very similar articles he wrote for the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Washington Post about his family history:

My father, Yasser Najjar, saw both his parents gunned down right in front of him when he was only 11 years old.

Not a word about why that might have happened.

Campa-Najjar's grandfather was one of the founders of Fatah in the 1950s along with Yasir Arafat. He formed a number of terror cells. His nom de guerre was Abu Youssef - was the number 3 PLO leader and the leader of Black September terror group. He was assassinated in Beirut in 1973 for his role in the Olympics massacre.

Campa-Najjar's article in the Washington Post also seems problematic in another way, saying that he was in Gaza when Israel "carpet-bombed" his neighborhood.

I didn’t cry the night they cut off the electricity to all of Gaza City, and I, my mom, stepmom, dad and younger brothers hid in the dark corner of a cold kitchen floor as they carpet bombed our neighborhood. I didn’t cry when we had to leave baba behind and finally return to the United States in August 2001.

This was during the second intifada, and while Israel did target terrorists from the air, nothing it did in Gaza at the time could remotely be called "carpet bombing," certainly not in 2001 when his family returned from Gaza to America. (Israel didn't use bombers in Gaza until 2003, and all its air operations were from helicopter gunships.)

Campa-Najjar also says "After not being considered Arab enough in Gaza, Latino enough for the barrio, or American enough in my own country, after so many shut doors, the door to all others finally opened."

It may be possible that he wasn't considered "Arab enough for Gaza," but his terrorist grandfather has a hospital named after him in Rafah. It seems his family was quite prominent and honored. His father was a top PLO official as well, although Campa-Najjar characterizes him only as a peacemaker during the Oslo process.

Since his paternal grandfather was considered a refugee in 1948 and lived in an UNRWA camp in Rafah, that means that according to UNRWA's rules, Ammar Campa-Najjar is himself a "Palestine refugee," as his American children and grandchildren will be. (Even if he adopts children, they would be considered "refugees.")

I agree with Ammar Campa-Najjar that he shouldn't be judged by the actions of his grandfather. But he shouldn't lie about his family history either, and he should properly castigate UNRWA for considering him a "refugee" as well since he has been a proud American citizen from birth.

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08/23 Links Pt2: IDF: Gaza terrorist worked for Doctors Without Borders; The grave danger of media bias; Dershowitz: 'Corbyn Is A Virulent Anti-Semite'

From Ian:

The grave danger of media bias

This past May, the Los Angeles Times ran the headline “A Baby Girl Dies in the Haze of Gaza,” which told a story about eight-month-old Palestinian Layla Ghandour, who was allegedly killed by inhaling tear gas used by Israeli defense forces. This story was tragic and upsetting. It was also untrue. The New York Times and other major outlets published similar stories, framing Israel and Israeli soldiers as child-killing villains, amplifying Hamas’s false narrative about Layla’s death.

Following this wave of coverage, Layla’s cousin admitted that Hamas paid his relatives to lie to the media about Layla’s cause of death. In reality, Layla died from a preexisting blood condition. Of course, the family of a deceased baby deserves any rational person’s sympathy, but when the media falls prey to Hamas propaganda that uses the death of an innocent baby to degrade Israel, no one, except for Hamas, wins. Even today, this story continues to be available for a wide audience to read and reference, without any disclaimer that it is based on falsified information.

Then, amid this summer’s Great March of Return protests, each one a violent attempts to cross into Israel’s borders and kill civilians, the LA Times reported on June 18 that “about 130 protesters have been killed by Israeli troops.” In fact, the group of “protesters” consisted of a significant number of armed and active Hamas combatants. The Times ignored this fact and the intent of this march, as prior to this coverage, a senior Hamas official had admitted that most of the Gazans who died in the protests were Hamas members, terrorist operatives with the intention of killing innocent Israeli men, women and children.

This misinformation matters because media outlets have great power. They shape the way we understand the world and, ultimately, drive our behavior. It is no exaggeration to say that their activity can have life-and-death implications. The pattern in coverage of the New York Times and LA Times is a case study that drives home a critical point for society.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the New York Times, Washington Post and other media outlets neglected their obligation to disseminate truth and remained virtually silent as Nazi Germany carried out the mass murder of Jews in Europe, relegating stories about Jewish genocide to short briefs on their back pages. While Jews starved in ghettos and concentration camps, watched their family members perish and were stripped of their humanity, they wondered where the world was. The press remained largely indifferent and the reluctance of editors of major outlets to report widely and consistently on these horrors contributed to consequences that the world will never forget. Newspapers and radio news broadcasts failed to fulfill their part in educating the American public about the horrific crimes committed by the Germans.

IDF: Gaza terrorist worked for Doctors Without Borders

Israel said on Thursday that a Palestinian gunman killed by its forces on the Gaza Strip border this week was a nurse working for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and that it was seeking an explanation from the international aid group.

Israel's liaison office for Gaza, Cogat, named the Palestinian as Hani Majdalawi and said he was shot dead on Monday after shooting and throwing a grenade at soldiers.

"We have reached out to Doctors without Borders for clarification regarding the matter," a Cogat spokesman said.

The organization did not immediately reply to phone and email queries by Reuters. Its website says that the group runs three burns and trauma centers in Gaza, whose Islamist Hamas rulers have fought three wars against Israel in the last decade.

Gaza authorities did not confirm Majdalawi's death, saying that would require having his body, which they believed was being held by Israel. The Israeli military said they could not immediately confirm this.

No armed Palestinian factions claimed Majdalawi as a member.

Responding to Israeli media reports on Majdalawi's killing, his brother, Osama, described the married 28-year-old on Facebook as a "martyr" who had "bought the weapon with his own money" and acted "completely independently".

The Facebook post said Hani Majdalawi had worked for Doctors Without Borders and that he had been "the most socially, psychologically and economically stable among his brothers". (h/t Yenta Press)

'Corbyn Is A Virulent Anti-Semite'

Last night’s Channel 4 News didn’t exactly go to plan. First they wrongly introduced Hillary supporting, Democrat voting, Harvard Law School Emeritus Professor Alan Dershowitz as an ‘adviser to Donald Trump’, before he demolished their holier than thou attitude towards the state of U.S. politics.

“Where is the moral backbone of Great Britain to have as the head of the Labour Party a virulent anti-Semite, a virulent hater of Jews and the nation state of the Jewish people.

Don’t lecture us about our political system as long as you have Jeremy Corbyn who may potentially become the next Prime Minister of England. Shame on Great Britain for allowing that to come to pass.”

You’ll want to watch this…

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri launched an attack on Hamas because of their attempts at reconciliation and dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

In a voice message, al-Zawahri criticized Hamas's declaration of principles and policies, in which it affirmed its commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state on the "1967 borders."

Hamas has made clear that it considers any such Palestinian state to be a stage to the total destruction of Israel.

The Sahab Foundation, one of al-Qaeda's media outlets, broadcast Zawahri's speech which was titled "Palestine does not support traitors."

He said Hamas tried to use two contradictory policies, one for the Muslims where it says, "We are against Oslo," and others to the West, where they say, "We are participants in the Oslo agreement." (As far as I know, Hamas has never said that, although when it was in the government with Fatah it said it would respect existing agreements. This is a long time ago.)

The last time Al Qaeda attacked Hamas, in 2008, it was for it attacking civilians!

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

There are 7.6 billion humans on this earth. 2.23 billion of them logged on to Facebook (the number counts “monthly active users”) during the second quarter of 2018.

I don’t know about you, but I found this astounding, considering that Facebook did not exist prior to 2004, and was not open to the general public until 2006. This single “platform” has arguably had a greater influence on human social and political behavior than anything since the invention of radio and television. It may turn out to be as disruptive of the social order as the widespread introduction of movable type in the 15^th century.

The sheer speed at which Facebook has spread through world cultures along with its constantly changing, hidden, proprietary algorithms mean that its effects are difficult to study. Unlike the decentralized publishing industry that grew out of the advances in printing technology, Facebook is tightly controlled by a single private company.

Yesterday Facebook announced that it had deleted some 652 accounts for “coordinate inauthentic behavior” – that is, they were “sock puppets” associated with Russia and Iran, accounts that pretended to belong to real people or legitimate news agencies, which posted “political content focused on the Middle East, as well as the UK, US, and Latin America” primarily in English and Arabic. Information on exactly what content was posted is sketchy, but it seems that it included the usual anti-Israel material, as well as propaganda intended to create internal division to destabilize the US and UK.

One of the well-known characteristics of Facebook is its encouragement of ideological bubbles. This is by design. The designers understand that the amount of time one spends on Facebook – and therefore the number of ads one sees – depends on the psychic gratification one receives from the content. It’s well-known that such gratification increases when the content includes ideas with which one agrees, while exposure to ideas that challenge one’s beliefs produces discomfort. So the algorithm that decides which posts a user will see chooses those which – according to an elaborate profile created by the user’s own posts and “likes” – it estimates that the user will find congenial.

This is benign in some ways – for example, it “knows” that I am interested in motorcycles, so I will see posts about motorcycles – but it also works as a political censor. In a triumph of artificial intelligence, it has learned to (most of the time) distinguish between pro- and anti-Israel posts, and show me the former and not the latter. If you have ever tried to program a computer to perform a similar task, you know that this is an order of magnitude harder than simply looking for texts that are about a particular subject, as it does for motorcycles.

The platform itself is structured to encourage its users to behave in ways which support its objective of providing a gratifying experience. For example, a user who posts a “status,” photo, or link, has control of the comments that other users can make about it. If another user posts a comment that the “owner” of the initial post disagrees with, the owner can delete it. As a result, Facebook etiquette has developed in which it is considered inappropriate to post a disagreement. “This is my page, and I won’t allow racism (or fascism, transphobia, etc.) on it,” a user will write, and delete the offending comment.

There is also the way Facebook users get “friends.” Friend suggestions are generated in various ways, such as number of common friends, but also by the platform’s evaluation of common interests, which also means ideological agreement. My personal experience illustrates this. I have been a member of Facebook since 2010, and by now have collected several hundred “friends.” After an initial period in which I befriended relatives and real-life friends, I almost never initiated a friend request. But on a regular basis I receive such requests. Some of them are people with whom I share non-political interests or who were my real-life friends in the past. A few are people that I have interacted with in the comments section. But the majority are people with whom I am not acquainted, but who appear (to Facebook) to have a similar ideological profile. In addition, over the years, many of my more liberal friends have unfriended me, mostly as a result of my posts about Barack Obama’s anti-Israel policies. So I am left in a bubble of pro-Israel, generally conservative folks with a few old friends and family members thrown in. I also get regular requests to join groups which are ideologically congenial.

So why is this bad? Of course it means that I won’t be exposed to ideas that I disagree with. That’s bad enough. But there is an even worse problem. It is that in an ideologically homogeneous group, a participant gets respect by reinforcing the ideology of the group. I can become a hero to my group of hawkish conservatives by being even more hawkish. Because there are no doves in my group, thanks to Facebook’s algorithm and natural selection, there is nothing to stop me from moving farther to the right. And the next person that wants to make his mark in the group will attack me from the right, moving the discourse as a whole along with him.

As a result, ideological groups develop which then move more and more away from the center. They emphasize different facts and even develop their own facts. They create their own dialects, with each side using words that the other side never uses. What we call “Judea and Samaria,” they call “occupied Palestinian territories.” Members of opposing groups would think each other’s ideas are crazy, but they will rarely see them.

Now, I admit that I like right-wing discourse, up to a point. But think about what is happening in a similar group of Palestinian Arabs who are inclined in a nationalist or Islamist direction. Their discourse, too, is moving, in the direction of hatred and confrontation. And while my right-wing friends may be (thanks to the algorithm) close to my age and therefore relatively harmless, that couldn’t have been said about Palestinian college student Omar al-Abed, who told his Facebook friends that his knife “answers the call of al-Aqsa,” hours before he walked into a Jewish home and murdered three members of a family with it.

Facebook often announces programs to try to distinguish real and fake news, and to remove posts that “violate its community standards,” whatever they are. It certainly does not want to provide a platform for incitement to murder, genocide, sexual violence, racism, or many other undesirable things. But it will never do anything that will significantly impact its primary objective, which is to get people to spend more time scrolling through it and encountering ads.

In short, the platform itself, which is designed to increase ad revenues for Facebook’s shareholders, has the undesired side effect of nurturing and amplifying extremism. Rather than bringing people together, it drives them apart and polarizes them. Unfortunately, this is built into the structure of the platform, and is essential to the attainment of its business objectives. It can’t be fixed with anything other than a wholesale change that would make it unrecognizable, and possibly destroy its ability to make a profit.

Some countries have blocked Facebook. They are generally totalitarian states that want to prevent their citizens from learning about the outside world. Israel is not that kind of state and will not ban Facebook; but we should understand that its pleasant diversions come at a price.

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08/23 Links Pt1: PA Leaders Have Lost Interest in Institution-Building; ‘Fauda’ and the Two-State Solution; Hamas, Israel, And The Fantasy of the War of Attrition

From Ian:

PA Leaders Have Lost Interest in Institution-Building

The centrality of institution-building to the Palestinian leadership's approach toward Palestinian state-building has declined, aggravating serious political decay in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Oslo process led to the founding of the Palestinian Authority that built structures to administer Palestinian affairs. The PA ran everything from education, healthcare, and traffic, to the licensing of NGOs, even as it created the institutions of an eventual state, from police forces to a parliament. After Hamas took over control of Gaza in 2007, PA institution-building in the West Bank became the centerpiece of efforts by Palestinian leaders and their international backers to achieve statehood.

However, today, a quarter of a century since the first Oslo agreement made the PA possible, PA leaders no longer behave as if domestic institution-building is a critical part of the search for statehood. This is reflected in the greater emphasis on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas personally, with his photo prominently displayed throughout the PA. Official rhetoric stresses the PLO, the Palestinian National Council, Fatah, and the Palestinian "revolution" more than the PA.

PA structures actually serve as administrative afterthoughts that are no longer viewed as kernels of a statehood effort. Leading Palestinian institutions are sometimes bent to serve the interests of senior officials and repress opposition. Creeping authoritarianism, the personalization of authority, and disregard for legal and professional norms are all unmistakable signs of a leadership that has lost interest in good governance.

‘Fauda’ and the Two-State Solution

In the international hit Israeli TV series Fauda, the head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) security service is a fictional character named Abu Maher. Played by Qader Harini, an Arab actor from eastern Jerusalem, Abu Maher is reconciled to peace and co-existence, and therefore willing to cooperate with the Israelis to combat Islamist terror.

In an episode of the show’s second season (this is not a spoiler for the main plot line, so you can keep reading even if you haven’t watched the series), Abu Maher takes his son — a student who sympathizes with Hamas — to lunch on the Jaffa beach inside Israel. He tells the youngster to look at the skyscrapers of neighboring Tel Aviv. Those mighty buildings and the industry, creativity, power, and wealth they represent, he says, show the permanence of Israel. The Jews are interested in life rather than death, and since they can’t be defeated, Abu Maher believes that the Palestinians must choose peace.

I’m sure I’m far from the only audience member who saw that scene and pondered what life would be like if the actual head of the PA was someone like the fictional Abu Maher, instead of Mahmoud Abbas or the other real-life Fatah functionaries who are still fixated on the century-old war against Zionism, in which they have yet to admit defeat. With such a person leading the Palestinians, a two-state solution might indeed be possible.

Two Bombs in Yemen

On August 9, an airplane belonging to the Saudi-led coalition appears to have hit a school bus in Yemen, killing 40 boys between the ages of six and eleven. According to investigators, the bomb was American-made—not a surprise, as the U.S. has been supporting Saudi Arabia and its allies in their efforts to drive the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and al-Qaeda from Yemen. The civilian deaths again brought to the fore concerns about Washington’s role in this bloody civil war, which has dragged on for almost four years and precipitated a humanitarian crisis. Noah Rothman comments:

Elsewhere in Yemen, another American bomb is making headlines of a different sort. On Tuesday, American and Yemeni officials revealed that they have high confidence that a U.S. drone strike killed Ibrahim al-Asiri, who was described by Barack Obama’s former acting CIA director Michael Morell as “probably the most sophisticated bomb maker on the planet.” . . . Asiri is one of many al-Qaeda leaders and mid-level commanders dispatched by U.S. drone patrols in Yemen, and Americans are safer because of those operations. Those American bombs get less attention than the munitions the United States provides to Saudi Arabia and its allies around the world, but they are all part of the same campaign.

The bomb that killed 40 young boys on August 9 was part of a shipment to Saudi Arabia that was approved by the State Department in 2015, under President Barack Obama. That was not a particularly controversial move at the time. . . . The possible disruption of America’s anti-terror operations [against al-Qaeda] in this theater wasn’t the only peril posed by this new conflict.

After taking [the capital city of] Sana’a, the Houthis descended on the strategic port of Aden, which is situated on the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait. That tiny, two-mile-wide northbound shipping lane leads directly into the Suez Canal and provides every port on the Indian Ocean with access to the Mediterranean and Europe. If the Houthis captured it, Iran would be free to shut the strait by deploying mines or harassing shipping vessels. No American administration, Republican or Democratic, would tolerate such a threat to international trade and global security.

Here is an abstract of a paper given at the European Association of Social Anthropologists meeting in Stockholm last week, with my fact checks.

Shifting populations, permanent instability, suspended stay: contemporary mobilities in Palestine and Israel
Caitlin Procter (University of Oxford)
Nayrouz Abu Hatoum (Columbia University )
Branwen Spector (London School of Economics)

Contemporary Palestine and Israel are populated and shaped by groups with different mobilities and border realities. Restricted by continuing Israeli settler colonial expansion and military occupation, Palestinians are confined to small geographies.

There is very little actual settlement expansion, practically no new settlements, and the areas taken up by Jewish communities has remained virtually the same since the 1990s.

Palestinian refugees, resident in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), are unable to return to their own lands but forced to remain in camps often mere kilometres from their places of origin.

No one is forcing them to remain in camps. They are allowed to buy and build land in Areas A and B. They choose to remain in camps because they get free housing, paid for by the world. This is a lie.

Also, they aren't "mere kilometres" from their place of "origin." The ones who lived in the West Bank in the 1940s aren't considered refugees. And most Palestinians do not originate in the boundaries of British Mandate ("historic") Palestine but moved there from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt in response to Jewish economic growth in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The Arab population of Palestine remained pretty small and steady for centuries before Zionism.

The idea that Palestinians must be able to return to specific "lands" in Israel that their ancestors lives in for a time and cannot be permanent residents in other areas of Palestine is a completely fictional construct, and actually discriminatory against them, implying that they are somehow less "Palestinian" than others and don't belong in areas under Palestinian rule.

Israelis, are, however able to mobilise and settle the remaining of the West Bank.

No, they can't. Virtually no new settlements have been approved. Any new building must be on public land, not on land privately owned by Arabs. Obviously all of Areas A and B are completely off limits, but at least 95% of Area C is also not allowed for Jewish settlement either. This is a complete lie.

Settlements offer upward mobility for Jewish Israelis, impacting a catastrophic downturn in social mobility in the surrounding Palestinian spaces.

Virtually no Israelis move to the territories for "upward mobility" except for the haredim who live in border communities. Most of the growth in population comes from natural growth and ideological immigrants.

The Palestinian landscape is continuously being militarized, walled, and destroyed by a colonizing state, resulting in gross land loss and displacement.

Again, the amount of new displacement is vanishingly small, mostly for illegal structures in Area C where only about 2-3% of Palestinians live. There is no "gross land loss." And Israel reimburses those who are displaced.

The Wall and the military checkpoint matrix in the oPt render Palestinian bodies as incarcerated.

This is hyperbole, and not suitable for a paper that is supposedly based on an academic field. It is also completely false. Palestinians can travel, a hundred thousand of them voluntarily go to Israel every day to work.

This panel examines how, in Palestine and Israel, populations and spaces simultaneously and differently stay, move, and settle and the effect these dynamics have on their lives, bodies, environments and nationalist political imaginations. It asks the following: What does it mean to fight for staying put, and steadfast on the land resisting government displacement, relocation or land confiscation? What are the dwelling practices utilized by those who are forced to relocate, or those who choose to move? What are the processes of meaning-making that people generate to speak of the transforming landscape (urban, village, border, historical, visual)? Finally, how do changing mobilities speak to a shift away from (historical) nationalist narratives and a discourse of state formation?

When the assumptions are false, the paper is worthless.

(h/t Irene)

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Did the UN just say that a Jew cannot kill the 17 year old who is stabbing him?

Acheadline and lede for an AP article :

The UN political chief called on Israel Wednesday to ensure that urgently needed humanitarian supplies for the Gaza Strip are not “held hostage to political and security developments.”
Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council its meeting was taking place “in the wake of yet another series of violent escalations that threatened to plunge Gaza into war.”

In her actual speech, DiCarlo is careful to say that Israel has a right to defend itself:

While Israel has a duty to protect its citizens, it must exercise maximum restraint in the use of live fire, and refrain from using lethal force, except as a last resort.

So what can Israel do? It cannot use live fire against violent people, it cannot pressure them by closing a crossing.

Apparently, it cannot even kill a 17 year old in self defense:

Children should never be targeted or instrumentalized in any way.
On 26 July, in the West Bank settlement of Adam, a 17-year-old Palestinian stabbed an Israeli civilian to death and injured two others. He was shot and killed by one of the victims.

The terrorists that sent the teen to kill Jews were wrong - but it seems so was the guy being stabbed for shooting him!

Once again, the all-wise UN is very keen on saying that Israel can defend itself, but it denounces every single thing Israel can possibly do to defend itself.

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Ahed Tamimi, who spent 8 months in Israeli prison for slapping a soldier and espousing violence, has sent a message to Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah on Lebanese TV.

Al Jadeed TV broadcast a fawning video, complete with romantic footage of Tamimi's shouting at amused soldiers when she was younger.

In the video, Tamimi thanks Nasrallah for his support of her while in prison, and says that his support of the Palestinian cause raises the morale of many Palestinians.

Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy that has obtained hundreds of thousands of missiles and other weapons specifically to destroy Israel altogether, not to "fight the occupation."

Tamimi is saying that she shares that goal, as do many of her fellow Palestinian Arabs.

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08/22 Links Pt2: When a Nazi comparison makes sense: The BDS movement against Israel; Democratic Assemblyman: Thank you, President Trump; What if Jeremy Corbyn became prime minister?

From Ian:

When a Nazi comparison makes sense: The BDS movement against Israel

In a remarkable finding in their May report, intelligence officials of the German state of Baden Württemberg wrote that propaganda from the neo-Nazi party Der Dritte Weg (The Third Way) calling to boycott Israeli products “roughly recalls similar measures against German Jews by the National Socialists, for example, on April 1, 1933 (the slogan: 'Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!')"

The historical significance of the parallel between contemporary calls to boycott Israeli products and the Hitler movement’s economic warfare against German Jewish businesses should not be ignored.

The Nazi efforts to strangle Jewish companies in order to isolate and dehumanize German Jews was a nascent phase of the Holocaust. Hence the boycott campaign against Israel is just another dangerous recurrence of history in a new form.

Fast forward to 2005: According to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s declaration targeting the Jewish state, a key demand is the return of all “Palestinian refugees” to Israel. The “return” of the alleged millions of Palestinians refugees—based on a bogus definition of refugee status—would spell dissolution of the Jewish state. Anti-Semitism at its core is about discrimination against Jews.

The proliferation of pro-BDS activities in Germany prompted Felix Klein, the German government commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, to write in the daily Die Welt in August that “the BDS movement is antisemitic in its methods and goals.” He added that BDS’s “Don’t buy!” stickers on products from the Jewish state are “methods from the Nazi period.”

Daily News Editorial Board: Thanks, Mr. President: A Queens Nazi is being deported thanks to the persistence of Donald Trump and Ambassador Ric Grenell

Thank you, President Trump, for doing what Democrats and Republicans before have failed to do for years: Deport a Nazi war criminal from Queens back to Europe. And thank you, Ric Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, for faithfully carrying out the President’s directive to get Jakiw Palij the hell out of this country.

Palij, who turned 95 last Thursday, is not just an old man. He is an old Nazi death camp guard, a volunteer in the SS who aided the Holocaust in occupied Poland, where millions of Jews were killed, and then who lied about his SS service to gain entry to this country after the war.

Discovered by the Department of Justice, he was stripped of his ill-gotten U.S. citizenship in 2003 and ordered deported the next year.

But the Bush administration failed to get Germany to take him. So did the Obama administration, for all eight years. Berlin objected, and the U.S. State Department didn’t want to push too hard, and that was that. As former Department of Justice Nazi hunter Neal Sher wrote in these pages in April, cowardice carried the day.

But not Trump. In office only a few months and alerted by this newspaper to a Nazi living in his home borough in spring 2017, he told Grenell, his choice for envoy to Berlin, to get the Nazi out.

Grenell did it. From the time he took up his post this May, he made it a priority. Finally, after more than a decade of dilly-dallying, the Germans got the message.

Great credit must go to Rabbi Zev Friedman, head of Rambam Mesivta, a boys’ yeshiva high school on Long Island. He and his students for years protested Palij’s presence.

Democratic Assemblyman: Thank you, President Trump

New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind thanked US President Donald Trump for deporting Jakiw Palij, a former SS guard at the Nazis’ Trawnicki concentration camp in Poland.

"You can talk, and talk is cheap," Hikind said in an interview with Fox News. "Getting things done is what President Trump just did."

He called on his fellow Democrats not to make a political issue out of the deportation of a Nazi.

"When the president does something huge like getting rid of the last Nazi from Queens, New York, say 'thank you, Mr. President, for doing an amazing thing."

President Trump noted the rare praise he received from a Democratic politician.

"Thank you to Democrat Assemblyman Dov Hikind of New York for your very gracious remarks on @foxandfriends for our deporting a longtime resident Nazi back to Germany! Others worked on this for decades," Trump tweeted.

.@HikindDov: “When the president does something huge, like getting rid of the last Nazi from Queens, New York, say ‘thank you Mr. President.’” pic.twitter.com/NvbLD3um1l
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 22, 2018

14 years of promises from others... But was delighted to wake up to a call from DOJ with great news... Ambassador @RichardGrenell at the direction of President @RealDonaldTrump DELIVERED JUSTICE!

THANK YOU FOR MAKING AMERICA NAZI-FREE AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/56Dl2rxVgk
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) August 22, 2018

Holocaust survivors join together to thank @potus @realdonaldtrump for ridding America of its last Nazi. pic.twitter.com/JL38qXkeBR
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) August 22, 2018

Is there such a thing as “legitimate criticism” of Israel? Should the identity of the critic have an impact on how we view the criticism? Or is criticizing Israel always, inevitably, antisemitic?

Let’s examine the phrase “legitimate criticism.” Those who engage in criticism of Israel often affix the label of “legitimate criticism” as a fig leaf. A good example is this excerpt from an April 2018 letter to the Guardian signed by several members of the British Labour Party:

We are dismayed by unbalanced media reporting ahead of the local elections of allegations of antisemitism against Jeremy. We believe this partly results from his legitimate criticism of Israel’s cruel and racist treatment towards its Palestinian and Bedouin populations. This is because one definition of antisemitism includes criticism of the Israeli state as racist. We reject that definition. Indeed, many Israelis criticise actions of their state.

By now, revelations regarding Corbyn consorting with terrorists and the Labour Party’s connections to antisemitism in general, are numerous and legendary. They are the last people in the world who might credibly bring “legitimate criticism” of Israel. The letter, in fact, cites no factual evidence of Israel’s “cruel and racist” behavior because none exists.

Here's what these letter writers did: they expressed hatred, labeled it “legitimate” and used their party affiliations to make it all sound authoritative. You either believe them or you don’t. (If you repeat the lies and are challenged, you can always say, “Well, several member of the Labour Party said it! They wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t true.”)

The label “legitimate," in this case is just cover for hatred—something that cannot be freely expressed, because all humans know that hatred is wrong. The prime task of haters then, is to persuade themselves and others of the moral rightness of their hate. This is accomplished by making the sort of ugly and baseless assertions seen in the Guardian letter. Because if Israel is “cruel and racist,” it becomes not only acceptable to hate Israel but a moral imperative.

By combining groundless accusations that Israel is “cruel and racist” with the phrase “legitimate criticism” the haters achieve dispensation for their hate. The word “legitimate” lends the illusion that the criticism is both proper and correct. The resultant false veil of legitimacy erases the stench of antisemitic hatred, allowing the haters to say whatever it is they want to say. (Which is nothing good and everything bad.)

Not everyone who engages in "legitimate" criticism of Israel is an antisemite. There are those who love Israel but believe it is important to raise awareness of and address genuine issues within the Jewish State. These critics have good intentions. But are they right to speak out?

It's debatable.

For some of us, criticizing Israel is like criticizing a family member. It’s okay for you to criticize your Mom, but woe to anyone outside the family who does so. It’s just wrong.

But when it comes to criticizing Israel, it gets a little tricky. Who exactly is a family member? Who is the one who gets to criticize Mom, or in this case, Israel??

Some feel that only Jews can criticize the Jewish State. Others say that only Jews who live in Israel can criticize the Jewish State. A third group believes that only Jews who have lived in Israel for a significant period of time have the right to criticize the state, no newbies allowed.

No matter your personal definition of what constitutes family—a person who gets to criticize Israel—you’re going to bristle when the wrong person does it.

And of course, audience matters, too. It’s one thing to trash talk Mom to Sis, quite another to tell all to a neighbor. Are you criticizing the State of Israel to other Israelis or to a mixed audience on social media? (Some things are private.)

Then again, even if you have all the right in the world to “legitimately” criticize Israel, and the right audience, too, it’s bound to be viewed with suspicion if you rarely (or never) say anything nice about the Jewish State. One might even use how often a person speaks well of Israel as a sort of litmus test for that person's credibility. The person may even have valid criticisms of Israel, but his/her motives will always be suspicious. Why only say bad things about Israel? Or only find meaningless fluff to say when relating the good (tasty falafel!)

It suggests you have an agenda.

No matter this critic's protestations that s/he does it—criticizes Israel—for love of country, or to be true to Jewish ethics, you just know there’s something else going on. And that something isn't nice, no matter how much s/he protests.

Because Israel can't be all bad (and there's so much good to see and share).

In many ways, this is a problem of perspective. Rabbi Yissocher Frand citing Rabbi Nisson Alpert Ohev yamim lirot tov (Loving days; seeing the good.) Living a long life means seeing the good and maintaining a positive attitude. If you have a positive outlook on life, you'll be less inclined to err with your tongue and lips. You’ll never speak deceit.

Rav Nisson Alpert, ZT"L

says that the answer to the question of “Who desires life?” begins with the phrase,

It’s about trying to see the good in everything, which would include the Jewish State.

It's human to think that refraining from gossip is about the mouth. What we don't realize is that it’s every bit as much about the eyes. It’s how we see and perceive people and things and the world around us. And there are so many different ways to see.

Look at the world with a jaundiced eye and you'll inevitably fall into slander. But see the world in a positive light—Ohev yamim lirot tov—and you'll never have anything bad to say.

The spies were sentenced to 40 years of wandering in the wilderness after giving over a negative report on the Land of Israel. It’s a shocking sentence, a 40-year punishment for failing a 40-day mission: a year for each day. [Numbers 14:34]. One might reasonably question the fairness of the sentence. After all, if the bad behavior occurred over days, why is the punishment extended over a time period of years?

But it’s not about the few hours the spies presenting their evil report. The issue is that the spies perceived Eretz Yisrael in a negative light for the entire 40 days of their mission. And that was due to their negative attitude. They failed to be positive people, Ohev yamim lirot tov.

They failed to see the good.

James Tissot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Rabbi Frand explains that interpretation is everything. The Jewish sages tell us that the spies called Eretz Yisrael, as a “land which consumes its inhabitants” because wherever they went, they saw funerals; people burying their dead. If you have a negative view of the world, you might conclude from this that Israel is a terrible land, with people dropping like flies.

But if the spies had been positive people they might have instead thought, "Everyone is too busy with their burials to distract us from our mission. God did us a great favor in easing our path so that we might accomplish what we set out to do without disruptions. Such Divine Intervention!”

The same facts, but two vastly different ways of looking at things. Which proves that slander is about the eyes, about our perception of things, and not about the mouth, tongue, and lips.

If you have a positive outlook, you will see the good in Israel, and this is what you will speak about.

And there is so much good to be said about Israel: the way we begged the Arabs to stay in ’48; the olive branch of autonomy to Arab villages in Judea and Samaria; the equality of our society and the way we offer freedom of religion to all; the warmth of the people and the sun; the aura of holiness that abounds throughout the land; the good food; the high moral standards of the IDF; the aid we give to the Arab people in Gaza and Syria; the field hospitals we set up in foreign hospitals after a disaster; our technological innovations. The list goes on and on.

But can you really live like that, seeing only the good? Does that mean we can’t, for example, complain about Israeli bus service, or the heat in summer?

It would seem so.

Rabbi Mordechai Elyahu once wrote that a Jew is forbidden to complain about the heat of Eretz

Rav Mordechai Elyahu, ZT"L

Yisrael, citing Ketubot 112b, in which R. Ami and R. Assi made sure they’d always be in shade in summer, and sun in winter. Rashi explains they did so to avoid complaining about the living conditions in Eretz Yisrael. Rabbi Chanina (112a) used to smooth out bumpy roads so no one would speak badly about the quality of the roads of Eretz Yisrael.

Yes, these are sages, not everyday people. But it is from the sages that we learn how to live; how to comport ourselves as we navigate this world. And the sages did the utmost to see and represent the Land in a positive light.

From a personal standpoint, it just feels wrong to criticize Israel in public for any reason whatsoever when there is so much good one can say. Israel has many detractors and few defenders. Why should I help those who malign the Jewish State? Why would I offer them grist for their hate mill?

In private conversations at home with family, it may be okay to get into the nitty gritty of Israeli politicians, parties, and policies. Especially if this helps us understand how we might better society. But in public, we must think of ourselves as lawyers, hired to believe in and defend our client Israel, no matter what.

What can we do when we see strong voices engaging in constant Israel-bashing under the guise of "legitimate" criticism? We can counter with blogs and social media posts. A petition that is fair, but not inflammatory, could also be an acceptable response, provided it addresses the issue with accurate and credible information.

In the murky waters of Israeli advocacy, here is one truth on which we can all depend: a true Israel advocate will always speak well of the Jewish State, showing the Land in its best possible light.

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