Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 06, 2018

12/06 Links Pt2: Leftist Jewish Paper Suggests Blacks' Attacks On Brooklyn's Jews Are Because Of Gentrification; A Dangerous Future for J Street; Irish Senate approves bill criminalizing WB settlement activity

From Ian:

Leftist Jewish Paper Suggests Blacks' Attacks On Brooklyn's Jews Are Because Of Gentrification

On Wednesday, The Forward, a leftist paper that centers on Jewish issues, published an article revolving around recent attacks on Jews living in Brooklyn, suggesting that recent attacks on Jews by blacks arise from gentrification, and quotes a local black leader saying that attacks from blacks on Jews are precipitated not by anti-Semitism per se, but because blacks see Judaism as “a form of almost hyper-whiteness."

That statement came from Mark Winston Griffith, executive director of the Black Movement Center, who argued that blacks resented the gentrification of their neighborhoods driven by whites.

The Forward stated, "Jews are being targeted, say residents of these communities, by members of non-white ethnic groups who see Jews as symbols of gentrification in their neighborhoods." The Forward noted that of the six attacks on Jews in Brooklyn in the last six weeks, three have occurred in Crown Heights: “On Oct. 15, a teenager beat a Jewish man with a stick. On Nov. 19, a high school-age yeshiva student was 'sucker-punched' by an assailant. On Saturday, a man was punched without provocation on his way to synagogue. The last incident came amid four attacks on Jewish people — two of them on children — that occurred on the same weekend.”

In addition, a group of black teenagers loitering near a Brooklyn synagogue hurled a metal pole through the synagogue window on November 10; one congregant told The New York Post, “People were praying inside at the time. Everyone is upset already. So, this we don’t need this now.”

Last April, a black man attacked a 52-year-old Jewish man near the Kingsbrook Medical Center in Crown Heights. After that attack, State Senator Jesse Hamilton stated, “As a community, we must stand united in speaking out against these hateful, anti-Semitic crimes. These attacks are an assault on decency and an assault on our values; they are crimes that are especially cruel for violating the sanctity of a time for worship, peace, and reflection.”

Suspect in Brooklyn attack on Orthodox Jew arrested, charged with hate crime

New York police have arrested a man alleged to have punched an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man in the head and charged him with a hate crime.

In addition to the hate crime charge, Eric Gerena, 32, who was arrested on Tuesday, was charged with assault in the third degree.

The attack on Friday night targeted a Hasidic man who was wearing a streimel, a traditional fur hat, and talking with a group of similarly dressed men outside of a synagogue in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Gerena has a rap sheet, but it includes no prior hate crimes, police told the New York Post.

The man did not use any anti-Semitic slurs or racial epithets during the attack, which was captured on surveillance video.

Jewish Community Leaders in Brooklyn Thank NYPD for Swift Arrest of Antisemitic Hate Crime Suspect

Leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn on Wednesday welcomed the arrest by New York City police of a 32-year-old man who violently assaulted a Hasidic Jew in the borough’s Williamsburg district on Friday night.

The United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn issued a statement thanking the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force “for their prompt and appropriate response leading to the arrest of the individual suspected of carrying out the unprovoked hate-crime attack.”

Details of the arrest of the assailant — local resident Enrique Gerena — were released at a meeting on Tuesday between Jewish community leaders and top New York police officers and politicians. The group included the NYPD’s 90th Precinct Commanding Officer Capt. Timothy Skretch, NYPD Hate Crime Unit Commanding Officer Deputy Inspector Mark C. Molinari, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, NYC Jewish Caucus Chair Councilman Chaim Deutsch and Pinny Ringel from NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Community Assistance Unit.

Friday night’s incident occurred as the victim was walking home from Shabbat services with his young son. When he stopped to greet a friend on Throop Avenue, Gerena allegedly ran up behind the victim, landing a brutal punch to the back of the head and instantly flooring him. The victim has since made a recovery.

Chanukah video night 5: The Maccabeats - I Have a Little Dreidel

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

“Ahed Tamimi is the Palestinian Rosa Parks” – Aljazeera headline for an article by David A. Love

One of the most illogical – indeed, embarrassingly stupid – ways to criticize Israel is to make an analogy between the “plight of the Palestinians” and the condition of blacks in America, to equate the “Palestinian struggle” to the US movement for civil rights.

And yet it has been highly effective among minorities and on college campuses. It has been used by intelligent and (sometimes) well-informed individuals like Condoleezza Rice, by dog-whistlers like Barack Obama, and by rabble-rousers like Jeremiah Wright. In the age of intersectionality, it is taken as a given that racism against blacks in the US and “oppression” of Palestinians by Israel are similar phenomena, and that opposition to one kind of oppression demands opposition to all.

Progressive ideology insists that racial strife in the US and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have similar root causes, like capitalism (somehow), colonialism, and racism (defined as racial animosity plus power). Progressives like to put the conflict under a microscope with a very narrow field of view, but by doing that they exclude the broader context in which the narrower struggle takes place. The Palestinian struggle is just a subset of the much larger Arab and Muslim struggle to rid the region of Jews and extinguish Jewish sovereignty. Israel has a degree of military power that has so far enabled her to defend herself, but the balance of power – in terms of numbers, financial clout, and even international support – clearly rests with the anti-Israel side.

There is certainly racial/ethnic animosity on both sides, but the hatred that drives Arabs to stab or run down random Jews is only rarely seen among Jews. Colonialism? Who is indigenous, the Jew whose ancestral culture, language, and religion developed thousands of years ago here in the Land of Israel, or the Palestinian whose ancestors most likely came to the land in the late 19^th or early 20^th century (even as late as 1946), who speaks Arabic like an Egyptian or Syrian, whose religion is the Islam brought to the region by Muslim colonialists from Arabia, and who didn’t even call themselves “Palestinians” until the late 1960s? If there is a “root cause” of the conflict, it is Arab rejectionism, deeply embedded in ideology and religion, and amplified by every input they receive from their media and educational system.

So now consider the black Americans, who were brought to the country as slaves in the most horrible fashion imaginable, and then when slavery was finally abolished, faced systematic oppression ranging from legal apartheid in the segregated South to multifaceted informal discrimination elsewhere. Unlike Palestinians, they are not part of a coordinated effort to ethnically cleanse white Americans from their homeland. Most of their families have been in America longer than many (most?) other Americans. Their struggle against discrimination has been mostly nonviolent.

Both struggles ostensibly aim to obtain human and civil rights for a particular minority group, and both struggles have been adopted by progressives as part of the intersectional framework that they live and breathe. That is the entirety of what they have in common. In reality, the aim of the Palestinian movement is the replacement of the Jewish state with an Arab state, and the ethnic cleansing of its Jewish population. And to a great extent progressive activists understand this, although many would not admit it even to themselves, and prefer to try to maintain the fiction that it is about rights.

The proposition that “all forms of oppression are interrelated” is on the face of it ridiculous, so the effort to convince people that it is true takes interesting forms. One of the most ugly arguments they present is that disproportionate police violence against black people is encouraged by exchange programs for American police officers to learn counterterrorism techniques from Israeli security agencies. Jonathan Tobin called it “an updated version of medieval blood libels.”

There is presently a campaign led by the anti-Israel group “Jewish Voice for Peace” called “Deadly Exchange” which has succeeded in getting several American police departments to cancel cooperative training in Israel. Tobin writes,

The conceit of Deadly Exchange is that such training is both inappropriate for Americans as well as indirectly responsible for outrages like “police murders,” “shoot to kill policies,” “extrajudicial executions” as well as “spying” and “deportation and detention.” The claim here is that Israeli police are a force that is primarily interested in repression and violence and those U.S. personnel that learn from them are more likely to kill Americans…

Treating Israel as a pariah state is both unjust and counter-productive to peace efforts. But by linking Israel and its supporters to disputes about American law enforcement, JVP is seeking to smear them as being ultimately responsible for the murders of African Americans. As crazy as that sounds, it should be eerily familiar to students of history. Blaming Jews for crimes, especially the murder of innocents, even though they had nothing to do with them, is a classic trope of anti-Semitism. In that sense, even though JVP presents itself as defending Jewish values, its campaign is merely an updated version of medieval blood libels, where Jews became the scapegoats for problems that were not of their making.

Blaming the Jews for everything has been a popular pastime since the days of the Black Death, when it was assumed that since no other explanation was forthcoming, the Jews must have been poisoning wells. In 2004, several politicians, retired military officers, and journalists asserted that Jews and Israel were responsible for pushing the Bush Administration into the Iraq War (although it is true that some of the Jewish so-called “neoconservative” officials and journalists supported the war, the primary responsibility has to fall on President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, none of whom are Jewish).

Even some politicians who are generally pro-Israel in their actions find it useful to attribute possibly unpopular decisions to considerations related to Israel. For example, President Trump said last week that “one reason [to keep US troops in the Middle East] is Israel.” Defending his decision not to punish Saudi Arabia for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, he said that “Israel would be in big trouble without Saudi Arabia.”

As I’m sure you know, Israel does not expect or want Americans to fight for her, although she is very happy to have an uninterrupted supply of weapons, and appreciates US diplomatic support in the UN. And Israel has no connection to the Khashoggi affair and wants none. President Trump’s decisions are made in line with American interests, not Israel’s. To say otherwise is “not helpful,” in diplomat-speak.

In case anyone needs a refresher, the Jews didn’t kill Jesus, we didn’t poison wells, we didn’t start all the wars of the 19^th century, we didn’t stab Germany in the back, we didn’t cause the Bolshevik Revolution, we didn’t poison Arafat, we didn’t knock down the Twin Towers, we didn’t make Bush invade Iraq, we didn’t create ISIS, the PLO is not the NAACP, we aren’t responsible for the actions of American police – and certainly not for the choices made by Donald Trump.

And Ahed Tamimi, who has publicly called for stabbings and suicide bombings (video), is decidedly no Rosa Parks.

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12/06 Links Pt1: Fatah: If Hamas is a terrorist organization, so are we; IDF finds 2nd Hezbollah tunnel inside Israel; calls on UN, Lebanon to destroy it; Oren: Thank you, Mr. President

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah: If Hamas is a terrorist organization, so are we

Today the UN General Assembly will be voting on a US-proposed resolution to condemn Hamas for firing rockets into Israel and inciting violence. The resolution demands that Hamas and other terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad cease their "militant" activities, including the use of airborne incendiaries.

Despite the rift between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah, Fatah has come to the defense of Hamas. - In fact it has come to the defense of all Palestinian terrorists!

The resolution prompted one Fatah official to declare that if Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, then the entire Palestinian people is "involved in terrorism." Rather, he claimed, all the Palestinian factions are "national liberation movements":

Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki: "If Hamas, which is involved in resistance, is considered a terrorist movement, this means that all groups of the Palestinian people are involved in terrorism. This contradicts reality, as Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian factions are national liberation movements that are involved in resisting an Israeli occupation that is implementing terrorism against the members of our people... Hamas is part of us and we are part of it if a resolution is passed against it that defines its resistance as a crime. This is because Hamas - regardless of the internal and political differences of opinion - constitutes a state of resistance, whether we want it or not. It has a broad Palestinian presence, and we cannot abandon it to fight alone on the battlefield."
[Palestine Today, independent Palestinian news agency, Dec. 2, 2018]

Similarly reacting to the proposed UN resolution, Fatah Central Committee member Muhammad Shtayyeh denied all Palestinian terrorism. He stated that Abbas' Fatah Movement will not accept that "any Palestinian organization" be declared a terrorist organization:

Senior Fatah official: 'If Hamas... is considered a terrorist movement, this means that all groups of the Palestinian people are involved in terrorism."
Read more here: https://t.co/uyqvFniYgT pic.twitter.com/I0NBOxsB5R
— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) December 6, 2018

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: No Difference Between Hamas and Fatah

It is supposedly fine for Abbas and his officials to condemn Hamas on a daily basis. It is supposedly not fine, however, for the US administration to condemn Hamas for its terrorist attacks against Israel. This is the logic of the Palestinian Authority, which has also been imposing financial and economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip in the past year. The sanctions include, among other things, the suspension of salaries to thousands of civil servants, cutting financial aid to needy families in the Gaza Strip, and refusing to pay for fuel and electricity supplied by Israel to the residents living under Hamas.

Abbas and Hamas have been working separately to thwart the US draft resolution at the UN General Assembly. Abbas has instructed his envoy to the UN to make an effort to foil the anti-Hamas resolution, while Hamas leaders have been urging Arab and Muslim leaders and governments to help thwart the US initiative.

"Despite all our differences with Hamas, we are categorically opposed to the American and Israeli attempt to label Hamas a terrorist group," explained Osama Qawassmeh, a senior Fatah official. We will fight to thwart the US resolution."

Another senior Fatah official, Abbas Zaki, was even more adamant in his defense of Hamas. "Hamas belongs to us and we belong to Hamas," he said. "If Hamas, which is practicing resistance, is considered a terrorist organization, this would mean that all Palestinians are practicing terrorism. Hamas, like all Palestinian factions, is a national liberation movement."

Abbas and Fatah are defending Hamas not out of love for Hamas, but because they despise the Trump administration to the extent that they are willing to go to bat for their arch-rivals in Hamas. Judging from the statements of some of Abbas's top officials, it is nevertheless clear that they fear that a condemnation of Hamas would pave the way for similar moves against other Palestinian factions, including the Palestinian president's own Fatah.

As Palestinian political analyst Emad Omar put it, "The proposed US resolution is harmful to the Palestinians' right of resistance. As president of the Palestinians, Abbas is forced to defend Hamas and any other Palestinian faction."

Hamas, for its part, has expressed gratitude to Abbas and Fatah for their strong opposition to the US-sponsored draft resolution.

Does all this mean that Fatah and Hamas have agreed to patch up their differences and open a new page in their relations? The answer, of course, is no. This is obviously a short-lived honeymoon that will end the day after the UN General Assembly vote on the anti-Hamas resolution. Abbas wants to score points on the Palestinian street by showing that he is capable of challenging the US administration at the UN. For now, Abbas is prepared to swallow the bitter pill of defending Hamas. The morning after the vote, Abbas will wake up to the realization that Hamas was a strange bedfellow indeed.

IDF finds 2nd Hezbollah tunnel inside Israel; calls on UN, Lebanon to destroy it

The Israeli military on Thursday located a second Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel today in the western Galilee, after uncovering an underground passage two days earlier in the eastern part of the region, the army said.

The tunnel originated in the Lebanese village of Ramyeh underneath a number of homes and crossed into Israeli territory near the village of Zarit, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel launched its operation to find and destroy Hezbollah tunnels — called Northern Shield — late Monday night, announcing it publicly the next morning.

The first tunnel was discovered south of the Israeli village of Metulla in the northern tip of the Galilee panhandle.

The Israeli military said it believes the tunnels were meant to be used by Hezbollah as a surprise component of an opening salvo in a future war, alongside the mass infiltration of operatives above ground and the launching of rockets, missiles and mortar shells at northern Israel.

A senior Israeli official on Thursday said the tunnels discovered inside Israel were large enough to be used by “entire battalions” to enter Israeli territory in order to “carry out killing sprees and kidnappings and to capture Israeli towns and villages.”

Former Jordanian prime minister says that Jews are working to prepare for the dreaded "Yellow Cow"

Former Jordanian prime minister Taher al-Masri claimed in a speech this week that Israeli plans to dominate the region all started in a conference in 1879.

The First Zionist Congress occurred in 1897, but in this fictional conference that al-Masri is discussing, the "Zionists" set out their goals: "The goal is to create a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital, and to build the Temple to be a symbol of the Jewish state. They are now roaming around and under Al Aqsa to prepare the temple for what they call the Yellow Cow."

It turns out that there is an Islamic legend about Moses and a yellow cow - not the red heifer that is part of the Temple service. In this legend Moses requires a yellow cow to slaughter and put its tongue on a dead man to solve a murder case, and the only yellow cow available is from a righteous family who finally agree to sell it for the price of its size in gold.

Al Masri is not too bright.

He went on to say, "The Zionists also decided the Jewish state law, which means that the historic land of Palestine is a state of Jews and its inhabitants are Jews only, and others are strangers and can be deported by the Minister of Interior of Israel at any time. All the Palestinians on the historic land of Palestine, numbering about 6 million people, can be deported. According to the Israelis, the program of deporting Palestinians from the historic land of Palestine is a matter of 100 years, and they think and plan for it and they will get there but when no one knows."

Al Masri went on to claim that the Israelis use several tools to complete their plans, including creating difficult economic and social conditions in the region, especially in Palestine and Jordan, and then offering solutions to impose their will on the region.

The former prime minister also complained that during his travels in Muslim and Western capitals, no one is following up on the Palestinian issue and Jerusalem besides King Abdullah II .

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Forget intersectionality - being anti-Israel is a litmus test for true "progressives". Liberal Zionists seem lost.

A recent Intercept article about Rashida Tlaib included some interesting quotes from Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Palestinian rights advocates also say that Tlaib’s willingness to buck the party line on Israel reflects a restive Democratic base that supports tougher action against Israeli settlements and its military occupation. A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only a quarter of American liberals think of Israel as an ally — a number down from the 36 percent of liberals who viewed Israel as an ally in 2017.

“Palestinian rights are being integrated into the broader progressive agenda. It’s becoming almost standard that if you support single-payer health care and climate justice, you’ll support Palestinian rights,” said Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace.

“The base has shifted and the leadership is going to have to shift sooner than they think,” said Vilkomerson. “The fight isn’t over yet. But that era of bipartisan unity in support of Israel really seems to be over.”

JVP isn't saying merely that Palestinians are one of the oppressed peoples who must be lumped in with gays, women, people of color and other categories of intersectional thinking.

Vilkomerson, who clearly equates being pro-Palestinian with being anti-Israel (see last paragraph,) is saying that hating Israel is quickly becoming a litmus test for those who want to truly be considered "progressive." As we've seen in other contexts, if you are openly Zionist, you are not welcome to participate in other "progressive" events and venues, and your ability to be considered progressive altogether is questioned.

The irony is that "progressives" want to support the creation of a Palestinian state that would be misogynist, anti-abortion, anti-gay, antisemitic, with laws based on a religion, and indifferent or hostile to every other liberal cause. Furthermore, they want this state to replace an Israel where women and minorities reach the highest levels of government, where gay rights and abortion policies are as liberal as most Western European nations, where there is universal health care, a state that does more to help the environment especially in terms of water management than any other nation you can name.

What, exactly, makes being pro-Palestinian a progressive position?

Liberal Zionists need to get rid of their ambivalence about some Israeli policies and point out that the only consistent position for true progressives is to embrace Israel and to reject yet another Arab state where women and minorities and LGBTs are frightened of their own leaders.

Yet even prominent pro-Israel liberals have no idea how to push Zionism as a liberal ideal - an oppressed people throwing off millennia of their land being controlled by a series of colonialists.

Enthusiasm for U.S. support for Israel is dying out among young Americans and the two countries must gin up a high-powered educational campaign to restore it, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer told a crowd of Israel supporters Sunday.

“We need a campaign aimed particularly at the young, using the media they care about and the language they use,” Schumer said, to convince them that “Israel’s very existence is still precarious.”

Why would that be the focus of a pro-Israel campaign? It wouldn't resonate with anyone. When the other side says "from the river to the sea" why should young liberals care?

What needs to be done is to show, in black and white, how Israel embraces progressive ideals at least as much as most Western nations do, and how a Palestinian state is opposed to every single major liberal cause.

Those are literally the only facts that should matter to those who profess to be progressive. And their decision to spurn progressive ideals for a regressive state indicates that liberal positions is not what makes them anti-Israel - but it is old fashioned antisemitism.

Also, liberal Jews need to stop apologizing for the parts of Israel that they don't like. There are plenty of Zionists in Israel who are liberal and disagree strongly with some Israeli policies, and yet they manage to get their points across about the fundamental justice of Zionism. One of the awardees at this year's Hasby Awards in Israel was Nurit Baytch, who does an amazing job defending Israel on Twitter - and until she gave her speech accepting the award, I had no idea she was a member of Israel's far-left Meretz!

American and European liberals need people who can unflinchingly defend Israel from a progressive, liberal viewpoint like Nurit does.

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Mohammed Younis Al -Abbadi writes in Ammon News about the upcoming centennial of the founding of Jordan (Transjordan) in 1921:

On the eve of the celebration of the centennial of the state that the Jordanians built with loyalty, work and blood, we need to highlight the documents of pride that accompanied this extended sacrifice and a fulfillment of the ideals we have secured.

The entire article discusses only a single historic Jordanian document, apparently the most important document in Jordanian history:

The document of the surrender of the Haganah to the Arab Army, which recounts part of our army's victories, is a document that dates back to the 1948 war.

The article says:

"Upon the request of the Jews of Old Jerusalem to surrender, the first group (ie the Arab army ) presented the conditions, and the second group accepted them."

The Arab army imposed five conditions on the Haganah gang in Jerusalem: surrendering weapons and handing them over, and taking all male combatants prisoner of war.

Elderly men, women and children and those with serious wounds can exit to the Jewish neighborhoods of New Jerusalem via the Red Cross. The Arab Army pledged to protect the lives of all surrendering Jews.

The fifth point in the document stated: "The Arab army occupies the Jewish neighborhoods in Old Jerusalem."

The conditions of the document, especially those relating to the humanitarian aspects, where the elderly men, women and children are allowed to leave via the Red Cross show us to have a high moral and humanitarian character.

Yes, so moral that they eagerly destroyed over 50 synagogues within a few weeks of the surrender.

Obviously this is only one person's opinion, but the idea that the surrender of Jews who were cut off from the rest of Israel in 1948 represents the most important moment in Jordanian history betrays a bit of an obsession. Jordan's victory over a few hundred Jews - which was reversed 19 years later - is considered, today, the perhaps biggest event in Jordanian history.

Palestinians have always defined themselves in terms of Israel. Apparently, some Jordanians do as well.

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12/05 Links Pt2: What PBS got right — and so wrong — about the Jews of Iran; France gives human rights award to BDS organization with terror ties; Dubai’s Jewish community steps hesitantly out of the shadows

From Ian:

From Jerusalem, Marc Lamont Hill’s ‘river to the sea’ comments hit too close to home

Unfortunately, if you were to base your understanding of why CNN fired Hill on the international media coverage of the row, and tweets by Hill’s defenders, you’d come away with the false impression that he was let go merely for criticising Israel and calling for a “free Palestine.”

In fact, he was fired because his speech included a call for a future Palestinian state “from the river to the sea,” and a thinly veiled justification for Palestinian terror.

Regarding the "river to the sea" comments, Hill denied that it was a call for Israel's destruction.

However, there is simply no question that, among Western pro-Palestinian activists and -- especially -- terror groups like Hamas, calling for a future Palestine “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea” is code for the rejection of the continued existence of a Jewish state within any borders. In fact, Hill himself, in a recent tweet, acknowledged that he holds this view.

Hill’s support for the Palestinian right to engage in terrorism seems clear in several passages from his speech, including his evocation of the American slave revolts, which he described as equally important to attaining freedom as non-violent methods, adding that “true solidarity” with the Palestinians “must allow them the same range of opportunity.” He also spoke of the alleged “right of an occupied people to defend themselves,” and rejected what he termed the “narrow politics that shames Palestinians” for engaging in this kind of “resistance.”

Moreover, it’s important to note that Hill’s apparent support for violence isn’t a one-off. He has previously advocated on behalf of convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, appeared to justify the kidnapping and murder in 2014 of three Israeli teens by Palestinian terrorists, and, in 2017, labeled the call for Palestinians to reject hatred and terrorism “offensive and counterproductive.”

Temple University Reviewing Whether Marc Lamont Hill Can Be Reprimanded After Israel Remarks, Board Chair Says

Temple University is determining whether it can reprimand Marc Lamont Hill, a faculty member whose contract as a CNN commentator ended after he made comments denounced as antisemitic.

Hill, a tenured professor of media studies and production, came under fire from Jewish groups after speaking at the United Nations last Wednesday, where he endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel in pursuit of “a free Palestine from the river to the sea” — a call typically used by Arab nationalist and Islamist groups to advocate for the establishment of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, in place of Israel. The BDS campaign itself is often criticized for rejecting the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and denying Jewish indigenity to the Levant.

In his speech, Hill also did not rule out violence as a means of Palestinian “resistance,” suggesting that as “black resistance to American apartheid did not come purely through Gandi and nonviolence … we must allow the Palestinian people the same range of opportunity and political possibility.”

His comments were quickly condemned by local and national Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Zionist Organization of America, National Council of Young Israel and Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, with the latter rebuking Hill’s remarks as “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.”

Jews from Islamic countries are migrants of the clash of civilizations

Islam decolonized itself with an anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing whose very existence has been denied by the West. These Jews had been confiscated of everything: wealth totalling hundreds of billions of dollars. they were prevented from practicing religion, they were kicked out of their homes, they were massacred in the streets, they were robbed also of their own history.

And they became invisible.

But their sufferings didn't come to an end with their flight. In France it continues today. Most French Jews, in fact, are the sons and the grandsons of those who fled the Arab world: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt. And these Jews are targeted again by the Islamists.

“I'm scared for the future of my baby here”, say the French Jews in a chilling series that appeared on CNN. Nathaniel Azoulay, a boy from Paris attacked with a saw, tells his story: “He saw the kippah”. Azoulay and his brother started running as fast as possible. “He started to launch anti-Semitic insults, 'f*** Jew, you will die on this street'. He hit my brother with the saw. He shouted to the others: 'Let's beat the Jews, come, let's hit them'. I cut my fingers with the saw”.

Yonatan Arfi, vice president of Jewish communities, speaks of “hundreds of attacks” like this from 2000 to today.

Islamicized France, outside the Macrononian bubble, can become a war zone for the Jews, exactly as it was in Cairo, Marrakesh, Baghdad, Damascus, Aleppo and Beirut at the time of the Jewish Nakba, the real one.

What PBS got right — and so wrong — about the Jews of Iran

In fact, the discrimination goes considerably beyond this. Under Iran’s sharia law code, different penalties are laid out for Muslims and non-Muslims for a variety of violations, almost always disfavoring the non-Muslims. The government also insists that each of the Tehran Jewish community’s five schools must be run by a Muslim principal — a requirement that the head of the Jewish community bluntly, and courageously, condemned on the record as “insulting” in my 2015 interview with him. If a Jew murders a Muslim, the proscribed penalty is death. If a Muslim murders a Jew, the payment of blood money is an option.

To be sure Jews, along with Christians and Zoroastrians, are recognized as “people of the book” in the Islamic Republic, with a legitimate place as tolerated minorities in Muslim society. The physical security of Jews as a community in Iran is even buttressed by a religious fatwa forbidding harm to the community that was issued by the Islamic Republic’s founding leader, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, soon after he took power. But taken in total, the legal and social discrimination under which Iran’s Jews (and Christians and Zoroastrians) live leave them as basically well protected second-class citizens.

For Jews, the impact of these conditions is reflected in a basic statistic found nowhere in the PBS report. Before the 1979 revolution, 80,000 to 100,000 Jews lived in Iran. Today, only 9,000 Jews live there, according to census figures, where Iranians are obliged to list their religion. Those numbers make a big statement about what most Iranian Jews think about living under the conditions “News Hour” describes more or less accurately, if incompletely.

Much of the emigration took place in the years immediately after the revolution, when the ability of Jews to make reasonable lives for themselves was far less clear. Just months after the installation of Khomeini’s first post-revolution government, Iran’s execution of one of the community’s major leaders and leading businessmen, Habib Elghanian, for “contacts with Israel and Zionism” shocked many Jews into flight. The charge was one that could be applied easily to many Iranian Jews. To this day Iranian Jews, many of whom have family in Israel, must be discreet about those ties. But today, the government often looks the other way when Iranian Jews quietly visit Israel via third countries. (h/t Zvi)

Chanukah video night 4 - 30 Chanukah puns in 60 seconds + Old City Chanukah lightshow

And this is VERY cool:

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Love him or hate him, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is just a ball of charisma. The force of his personality, when you share a space with him, is like a full frontal assault. It hits you like that.

At last week’s Jewish Media Summit, I had the honor of what was my second audience with Netanyahu. The first was also during a Jewish Media Summit, the first ever held in Israel. That was some years ago, yet I still remember sitting in the front row and feeling as though he were speaking only to me, a private audience. He seemed to gaze into my eyes as he spoke, though I knew it wasn’t possible. Apparently, he’s just that good.

And then there was the phone call.

It was an election year and Netanyahu was calling random voters to chat them up and persuade them to give him the vote. But he did it for a couple of days before it made it into the news, so that I was clueless when my landline rang. I went to the phone, expecting it to be a charity asking for a donation or perhaps a survey. Actual humans don’t use landlines anymore. If it’s someone I know, they call my cell.

So anyway, I pick up only to hear Bibi say, “Hello.”
“Goodbye,” I said, hanging up, thinking: Election. Robocall.

And then, of course, the next day I find out it probably really WAS Bibi and I’d had the chance to kvetch to my heart’s content and hash it out with him. Only I’d blown it.

Bummer.

So there I was at the Knesset last week when the head of the Government Press Office, Nitzan Chen, told us that Bibi would try to answer as many questions as we had, as soon as he arrived, and he was due to arrive any minute. I wasn’t going to squander another opportunity, so I began to think what I would ask him. I wrote it all down on my yellow lined notepad to get my questions into tip-top form. I wasn’t going to hem and haw, or make a speech. I was going to articulate the perfect question.

The problem was that I came up with three questions and couldn’t decide between them. Which one should I choose, I agonized. Most controversial? Least controversial?

As it turns out, my need to choose was soon moot. All of us in that room were the media, in one form or another. So we all had our hands shooting up the minute Bibi paused to take a breath. But rather than let Bibi choose whom he’d call on to ask a question, Chen handpicked those he favored, which meant: foreign media.

After all, this whole summit was really about impressing the foreign media, wooing them, wining and dining them and making them think that Israel’s a wonderful place. I was there almost by accident, a token Israeli.

It had been a wonderful week and this was the final day. I’d made amazing contacts. And met Daled Amos, for instance.

When Daled Amos met Judean Rose

But it seems that Bibi and I are destined to be like two ships passing in the night. I would not be chosen to ask any of my questions that afternoon. Not that it matters. It’s easy enough to guess how he would have answered them.

Which is why I decided I’d share my carefully crafted questions here (they should go to waste?) and tell you how I think Bibi would have responded.

1) How can you have transparency when so much is unknown to the public? How can we be informed citizens and voters? We are being asked to “trust.” How can we even claim to be a democracy?

What Bibi would have said: Israel has a robust democracy. But of course, every country’s leadership has access to important intelligence that the average joe does not have and uses it to protect its citizens. The voters put their trust in my leadership and this is well warranted by dint of my experience in office and by my actions at the helm of this great country which have kept the people both safe and prosperous.

2) Who can replace you when your time is over? Are you grooming/mentoring younger MKs for this purpose?

What Bibi would have said: Apparently you’ve come to bury, not to praise me! But don’t kill me off just yet (pause for laughter). (Turns serious) We have several good and capable people in the Likud party any number of whom could be depended upon for leadership should the need arise. The people of Israel are in good hands.

3) “Annexation.” Isn’t it unnecessary? Can’t we, in theory, declare sovereignty and end the state of martial law in Judea and Samaria? We settlers feel marginalized, even demonized. This lack of support by the Likud, which is supposed to be the Greater Israel party, leaves us feeling abandoned. There is total lawlessness on our roads, because traffic laws are not enforced. We pay taxes, but it’s taxation without representation. Our sons serve in the Israeli army, but we are not even “in Israel.”

What Bibi would have said: No one has a greater affection for and understanding of the settlers and their sacrifice for all of us by securing our inheritance, our ancestral lands. But the situation is complex and tensions must be taken into account both with local actors and those abroad. Relations with Europe, the UN, and the U.S. are just some of the factors we must take into account in determining our policy in Judea and Samaria, and so we must tread carefully and not make any hasty decisions.

While I didn’t get to ask my questions—once again having missed out on an opportunity to confront Bibi, when I thought about it after the fact, I realized I hadn’t missed out on anything at all. As you can see from the little exercise above, it’s easy to figure out what Bibi, the slick and accomplished politician, might have answered. There would have been no great revelations on this or any other day.

And at least I didn’t embarrass myself, which is more than I can say for the female blogger who chased after the prime minister’s entourage as he left the room, crying, “Bibi, I LOVE YOU. I am behind you always! AM YISRAEL CHAI!”

So. Embarrassing.

But like I said, he’s got this magnetic charm. And some of us are more susceptible than others.

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Netanyahu Critics Say New Corruption Probe Just To Distract From Old Corruption Probes (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, December 5 - Political opponents and rivals of Israel's prime minister accused him today of orchestrating the latest round of bribery and breach of trust allegations against himself and his wife in order to divert attention from the previous episodes in which the prime minister or his wife stand accused of bribery, breach of trust, and other abuses of power.

Police officials recommended indictment of Binyamin and Sara Netanyahu this week on bribery charges stemming from a multi-year investigation, alongside several other ongoing probes. Senior figures in the political Opposition, and some right-wing rivals of the premier, called attention today to what they termed suspicious timing of the announcement, coming as it does on the heels of other news involving alleged Netanyahu corruption, and suggesting the possibility that the police recommendation plays a part in a longtime Netanyahu strategy to distract from his corruption with other charges of corruption.

The decision whether to indict the prime minister rests with the Attorney General, who is expected to issue a decision in the next several months.

"I urge the public and the media not be taken in by this subterfuge," admonished MK Avi Gabbay, current head of Labor, the largest Opposition party. "We must not lose focus on Bibi's unsuitability for the office of prime minister, as demonstrated by his constant involvement in unsavory, and apparently illegal, activities, which he is attempting to obscure with other stories demonstrating his unsuitability for the office of prime minister." Gabbay called for Netanyahu's immediate resignation.

Gabbay's ally MK Tzipi Livni, chief of the HaTnuah Party and Gabbay's partner at the head of the Zionist Union faction in the Knesset, laid some blame at the media's feet. "It's irresponsible to cover these new corruption developments so intensively when there are so many older ones we haven't milked for all their political worth yet," she stated. "Netanyahu is basically exploiting the press's tendency to glom onto the most recent thing, which sometimes has its benefits, but in this case doesn't allow the public to really absorb to the fullest extent how corrupt Bibi is before getting sidetracked by other evidence of how corrupt Bibi is. A little journalistic responsibility, please."

Sources close to Netanyahu Likud rival Gidon Saar, who declined to be identified by name, voiced a different concern. "This is all Bibi getting attention, when you come down do it," warned one. "I think it's time we impose some socialism on the system, namely by assigning a certain level of coverage to which every aspiring elected official is entitled, and that way you don't have one guy hogging it all - at least until our guy gets into power and does the hogging, which would be ok because it's not Bibi."

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12/05 Links Pt1: The mole inside the Hezbollah tunnel; PA TV poem: "The Dark-Eyed [Virgins] yearn for me"; Stop Iran's violations of UNSC resolution 2231

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel and the U.S. Have Common Interests in the Middle East

The root of Israel’s enduring significance to the U.S. is found in the fact that the Jewish state shares all of America’s core interests in relation to the region.

The first U.S. core interest in the Middle East is to prevent any competing superpower from taking over. The U.S. does not want China or Russia to supplant it as the preeminent superpower in the region, both because such an event would harm the U.S. economically, and because it would make America’s rivals significantly stronger and the U.S. significantly weaker.

Israel shares this U.S. interest. Israel can develop close ties with both Russia and China on a transactional level based on episodic common interests. But unlike the U.S., Russia and China do not share Israel’s permanent perception of its interests the way the U.S. does.

Along these lines, the second permanent U.S. interest in the Middle East is to prevent local powers from dominating the region, proliferating weapons of mass destruction, or acquiring intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Israel’s acute concern with all of these issues has caused it to develop intelligence agencies second to none in gathering and acting on intelligence relating to all of these issues — not only in Israel, but worldwide. Israel’s Mossad’s seizure of Iran’s nuclear archive in Tehran this past January is a testament to Israel’s capabilities.

The Middle East remains the world’s largest incubator for terrorism and the largest exporter of terrorists. Israel’s unhappy distinction is that it has been fighting these forces since before it was established. The U.S. and Israel share a key interest in destroying terror groups operating in the Middle East to prevent them from attacking in the region and throughout the world.

Israel’s intelligence capabilities have foiled Iranian terror attacks around the world and have exposed Iranian agents engaged in purchasing dual-use technologies to advance Iran’s nuclear work.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: The mole inside the Hezbollah tunnel

This week, for the first time, Israel made public its discovery of the tunnel constructed by Hezbollah and reaching into Israel's sovereign territory. This brought to an end a long period during which a large number of Israelis living in communities adjacent to the Lebanese border reported hearing sounds of digging as well as feeling tremors in the walls of their homes.

Attack tunnels are intended to allow for significant numbers of armed infantry bearing weapons, artillery and supplies, to traverse them within a minimal time span, avoiding Israeli lookouts and thereby gaining the element of surprise. An underground passage grants attackers protection from Israeli bombs, while it also means that the war begins on the Israeli side of the border, in the midst of areas populated by civilians. That fact allows for sudden forays and kidnapping.

However, the discovery and neutralization of the tunnel that Hezbollah dug into Israel's sovereign territory is a technological, operational and intelligence network accomplishment, for additional reasons:

1. Hezbollah based its plans for future wars on these tunnels. Nasrallah has not made a secret of his plans to take over the Galilee in the next war, but because Hezbollah has no means of air transport, it cannot land sufficient numbers of armed forces in Israeli territory, and the tunnels were intended as the substitute for an airlift. By discovering the first tunnel, Israel has eliminated the immediate use of this strategic method, but the IDF believes there are additional tunnels.

An underground passage grants attackers protection from Israeli bombs, while it also means that the war begins on the Israeli side of the border, in the midst of areas populated by civilians.

2. The discovery of the tunnel has proven to the entire world that Hezbollah is acting in flagrant violation of the Security Council Resolution 1701 which brought the 2006 Second Lebanon War to an end. This resolution forbids Hezbollah any presence in southern Lebanon, but now it has become clear that not only is the terrorist organization in that region, it is also violating Israeli sovereignty. It is obvious once again that UNIFIL has neither the ability nor the interest to carry out the mission it was given by the Security Council and Israel has no reason to assume that the international community will act to ensure its security. This violation of a Security Council decision provides Israel with justification, vis a vis the Israeli public and the world, to attack Hezbollah.

PMW: "The Dark-Eyed [Virgins] yearn for me" - poem on official PA TV

The ideal of dying as a "Martyr" continues to be promoted regularly by the Palestinian Authority and Abbas' Fatah party. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that "Martyrs" have cult-like status in the PA.

Following a recent terror attack in which the terrorist stabbed and wounded 4 Israeli policemen, a host on official PA TV read a poem in the terrorist's honor. The poem glorifies Martyrdom-death in battle and states that the 72 "Dark-Eyed" Virgins in Paradise who the Martyr marries according to Islamic tradition, are "yearning" for the Palestinian Martyr:

Official PA TV host: "About the Jerusalem Martyr Abd Al-Rahman Abu Jamal (terrorist, wounded 4 -Ed.) we say:
I am the Palestinian lion cub
I was planted in my land, like the olive and fig tree
My roots reach Canaan
The blood of the Martyrs flows in my veins,
I am like a lion in the fields [of battle]
If the drums of war call
I harvest the souls in the fields
I guard the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] and the [Dome of the] Rock
My eyes will not close, and my head will not bow
I am the Palestinian lion cub
The armies of treachery fear me
The Dark-Eyed [Virgins] yearn for me
I have not sold my homelands, and have not given up my assault rifle
Today I carry my shrouds, and in my heart my faith strengthens
Because victory and liberation are coming at the hands of the lion cubs
[Official PA TV, Good Morning Jerusalem, Nov. 23, 2018]

It should be noted that the terrorist was 17 years old and that the term "lion cub" repeated in the poem is the name for boys in Fatah's youth club, which is named "Lion Cubs and Flowers." The "lion cubs" - children of similar age or younger than the 17-year-old terrorist who is being honored in the poem and who the Dark-Eyed virgins yearn for - are being urged to kill - to "harvest souls" in the battle field.

A host on official PA TV read a poem which glorifies Martyrdom-death and states that the 72 "Dark-Eyed" Virgins in Paradise who the Martyr marries according to Islamic tradition, are "yearning" for the Palestinian Martyr.
Read more here: https://t.co/hGFoGvPetV pic.twitter.com/xd2AJSefxu
— Pal Media Watch (@palwatch) December 5, 2018

Where Was UNIFIL While Hezbollah Was Digging Its Terror Tunnel? (Daled Amos)

by Daled Amos

The IDF provides an aerial photo showing the path of the tunnel that necessitated Israel's Operation Northern Shield:

And where was UNIFIL all this time?
In the image below, the UNIFIL watchtower is indicated by the white circle, just hundreds of meters from where the tunnel ended.

Clearly, Hezbollah is not afraid of UNIFIL.
And why should they be?

On August 30, 2018 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2433 extending the mandate of UNIFIL in southern Lebanon:

Reaffirming its commitment to the full implementation of all provisions of resolution 1701 (2006), and aware of its responsibilities to help secure a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution as envisioned in the resolution

And it goes further, explicitly calling on Israel to support the ceasefire:

4. Reiterates its call for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the principles and elements set out in paragraph 8 of resolution 1701 (2006);

Oddly enough, though, Resolution 2433 which renews the mandate does name Lebanon, but does not mention Hizbollah (UN's spelling).
At all.
Not this year, nor last.

That might seem a bit odd, considering the fact that the Hezbollah attack in 2006 is what made this expanded mandate for the already existing UNIFIL necessary.

Thankfully, Hizbollah is mentioned in Resolution 1701 which created this mandate:

Expressing its utmost concern at the continuing escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and in Israel since Hizbollah’s attack on Israel on 12 July 2006, which has already caused hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides, extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, [emphasis added]

In his article, Hezbollah Ritually Humiliates the UN, Tony Badran describes just how little Hezbollah terrorists think of UNIFIL, and the UN:

On August 4, following a well-established modus operandi, Hezbollah orchestrated an attack on a UNIFIL patrol in the town of Majdal Zoun, north of Naqoura. “The locals”—a Hezbollah tongue-in-cheek euphemism—spotted the Slovak unit taking pictures and surrounded it and obstructed its path. When the patrol tried to escape, the Hezbollah “locals” attacked it, damaging its vehicles. As the patrol moved on, Hezbollah operatives in nearby villages cut it off again, attacked it, confiscated some of its weapons, its cameras and equipment and set fire to their vehicle near the headquarters of the Italian contingent. Later on, Hezbollah “negotiated” the return of the equipment through the LAF, clarifying precisely the role the LAF plays in Lebanon, that of Hezbollah errand boys.

Still, you would have thought that Hezbollah would have had more respect for UNIFIL.
After all, in the past UNIFIL has a history of being helpful to Hezbollah in their fight against Israel.

During that war in 2006, the "neutral" UNIFIL played a decidedly one-sided game

throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.

The cooperation of the UN and UNIFIL with Hezbollah goes even further back:

On October 7, 2000, Hezbollah forces illegally crossed the Israeli border with Lebanon through a UN patrolled area and kidnapped three Israel Defense Force soldiers, Adi Avitan, Binyamin Avraham, and Omar Souad. UNIFIL peacekeepers videotaped the incident; however, the United Nations denied possessing any such videotape for almost nine months. On July 6, 2001, The UN admitted, contrary to their earlier denials, that they had possession of the tape as of 18 hours after the incident occurred.

At the time, David Kopel of The Volokh Conspiracy noted how the UN coverup of the gross negligence by UNIFIL went a long way:

One soldiers (sic) said that the brigade should arrest the Hezbollah, but the brigade did nothing.

According to the Indian soldier, the UNFIL brigade in the area "could have prevented the kidnapping."

"I'm very sorry about what happened, because we saw what happened," he said. Hezbollah "were wearing our uniforms and it was too bad we didnâ€™t stop them."

It appears that at least four of the UNIFIL "peacekeepers," all from India, has received bribes from Hezbollah in order to assist the kidnapping by helping them get to the kidnapping spot and find the Israeli soldiers. Some of the bribery involved alcohol and Lebanese women.

The Indian brigade later had a bitter internal argument, as some members complained that the brigade had betrayed its peacekeeping mandate. An Indian government investigation sternly criticized the brigade's conduct.

There is evidence of far greater payments by Hezbollah to the UNIFIL Indian brigade, including hundreds of thousands of dollars for assistance in the kidnapping and cover-up.

The UN cover-up began almost immediately.

Kopel continues with a full description of how the UN not only withheld evidence from Israel, it also destroyed evidence as well.

And it's not as if fear of Hezbollah is the only motivator for UNIFIL to betray their neutrality. Wikipedia reports on an incident in 1992 based on an article in YNet News how UNIFIL helped 2 Lebanese terrorists who escaped from an Israeli prison:

A 2010 book published by Norwegian journalist Odd Karsten Tveit revealed that the Norwegian Army was complicit in the escape of two Lebanese men who were arrested by the Israeli Army and being held in Khiam prison. According to the book, in 1992, two detained Lebanese men escaped from Khiam prison [in Southern Lebanon]. Fearing that they would face torture or execution if caught by the Israel Defense Forces or South Lebanon Army, the soldiers dressed the detainees in UN uniforms, and placed them in a UNIFIL convoy which left Southern Lebanon through Israeli roadblocks. Shortly afterward, Israeli Army commander Moshe Tamir visited the Norwegian battalion's camp, and accused Norwegian commander Hagrup Haukland of "sheltering terrorists". Immediately after the confrontation, the Lebanese men were smuggled onto a bus used by Norwegian peacekeepers on leave, which took them to Beirut.

The long history of UNIFIL incompetence in enforcing its mandate to keep southern Lebanon clear of weapons and Hezbollah terrorists is not surprising, considering its lack of the most basic integrity and failure to fulfill its obligations and neutrality.

The fact that Hezbollah was able to tunnel into Israel without UNIFIL being tipped off by any tremors from just a few hundred meters away speaks for itself.

Badran writes that unlike last year, this year US Ambassador Haley did not even bother attending the UN vote to extend the UNIFIL mandate and did not issue a statement afterward either.

Clearly, there are no words to describe the failure of one more organization of the UN.

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"Don't piss off Muslims" is official EU security policy

Back in 2006, I wrote an essay called "Diplomacy of Fear: The Muslim Way" where I pointed out:

For decades, the Arab world specifically and the Muslim world in general has used threats as its main leverage to get the West to bend to its will. The threats aren't usually direct; most often they take the form of "if you don't do what we want, the Arab street will erupt" or "the terrorists will have an excuse." In other words, if Arab thugocracies do not get what they desire from the West, then they will be powerless to stop the irrational forces within their borders from damaging Western interests.

...European Mideast policy is almost wholly driven by fear of upsetting Arabs and Muslims. Those who claim to be seeking "peace" make the assumption that asking Arabs for concessions is useless and could ignite some sort of negative response - so is makes more sense to pressure Israel into making even more concessions.

How many times have we seen a variant of this recent pronouncement from Mahmoud Abbas:

Mr Abbas said the freeze was causing hardship to ordinary people and would lead to further instability.

"Instability?" We all know what he means by that - he means violence and terror, which is apparently a natural reaction in the rules of Arab physics. If the West doesn't give Palestinian Arabs more and more money, well, hey, he sure can't control his people from the spontaneous inevitable violence (remarkably similar to the violence they seem to have perfected when they had a billion dollars a year coming into their coffers.)

Mahmoud Abbas threatens the Western world and no one bothers to call him on it.

This climate of fear is so endemic that fundamentally irrational and immoral acts by the Muslim world are accepted by the West with little question - to challenge it could put you in the same category as a Salman Rushdie or a Danish cartoonist, and who needs that hassle?

In a speech given this week at Harvard University, High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini shows that fear of irrational responses by Muslims indeed is what drives official EU security policy:

Strategic autonomy for us is about responsibility. It's about being grown-ups and stating what we believe is right, what we believe in is in the interest of Europeans but also of our transatlantic friends....

I know that many people here in America, including in Washington D.C., understand this perfectly well: that our security is tied; that our destinies are connected more closely than we often admit.

So, I don't want to underplay the breadth and the depth of our disagreements with the current U.S. administration: they're there and they're self-evident. Sometimes they are so self-evident that they hide all the rest and this is a shame.

But it is true that on Iran or on Jerusalem we believe that this administration has taken decisions that run counter to our collective interest and to our collective security: our European one but also the US' interest and security.

Any country can move their embassy to any city they choose, with no worries about security. But moving an embassy to Jerusalem suddenly becomes an issue for both European security and, we are condescendingly told, for American security as well.

What is the threat from moving an embassy? The threat is that Muslims will get pissed off.

And the top politicians in the EU have incorporated the fear of irrational Muslims into their foreign and security policies.

So Angela Merkel has personally intervened with European countries to not move their embassies:

The founding director of the European Coalition for Israel in Brussels, Tomas Sandell, announced in a shocking video message on Thursday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel waged a campaign to prevent central and eastern European countries from moving their capitals to Jerusalem to preserve the Iran nuclear deal.

Speaking from the European parliament, Sandell said, “What we have found out, something I heard for quite some time already, from central and eastern European countries that would have an inclination to move their embassy to Jerusalem, this is the natural thing for them to do, is that they have received phone calls from Berlin, from Angela Merkel, the chancellor. Basically, this cannot happen under any circumstances.”

Muslims have cultivated this Western fear of them going crazy for over a century, as this 1899 article shows.

This willingness to outsource security decisions to adhere to whatever the Muslim world is threatening today is so much a part of European thinking that they don't even realize how this is a violation of their own principles. It is outrageous that right after that Mogherini claims that the EU policy is about responsibility and being grown-ups and stating what they believe is right, she openly says that all of these high sounding principles are consistent with cowering in fear and buckling under Muslim threats of irrational violence. And then she self-righteously claims that those who do not believe that political decisions must be approved first by the Muslim world are the ones who are acting immaturely.

Letting Muslim threats drive policy makes the world less safe, not more secure. It shows that fear of Muslims, not lofty principles, are the most important drivers for European policy.

A proud state or group of states would not act this way, let alone justify cowardice as a security imperative. But the EU is doing exactly that - and they brag about it!

(h/t Irene)

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Radio Free Asia:

On Tuesday, Scott Busby, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. Department of State, said there are “at least 800,000 and possibly up to a couple of million” of Uyghurs and others detained at re-education camps in the XUAR without charges, citing U.S. intelligence assessments.

Citing credible reports, U.S. lawmakers Marco Rubio and Chris Smith, who head the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, recently called the situation in the XUAR “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.”

One would think that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation would be in the forefront of the issues being discussed at their conference occurring right now in Istanbul.

But, no, two million Muslims being incarcerated was not even mentioned in the OIC Twitter feed for the conference. The words "China" and "Uyghur" are not used at all in any human rights context.

But guess what topic was number one at the conference?

OIC SG: Since the #Palestinian issue is the core & main issue on the agenda of the Organization, I take this opportunity to commend efforts made by various OIC Institutions to implement the resolutions on #Palestine & Al-#Quds Al-Sharif. #OICACMOI #Palestineday #Jerusalem 1/ pic.twitter.com/gh92wKDCFR
— OIC (@OIC_OCI) December 4, 2018

Palestinians take up all the air in any international gathering. That insistence on prioritizing the Palestinian issue over actual serious human rights abuses actually hurts people.

Just ask the Uyghurs.

(h/t Petra)

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