07/14 Links Pt1: David Friedman: Israel will always be a Jewish state; Dershowitz: Beinart's Final Solution: End Israel as Nation-State of the Jewish People

From Ian:

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David Friedman: Israel will always be a Jewish state

The insanity of Beinart’s position is that he believes a bi-national state, which will destroy Israel, is the appropriate outcome that should result from the failure of the two-state solution. But why has that solution failed? Because the Palestinian leadership has refused offer after offer, because it pays terrorists to kill Israelis, because it incites hatred against Jews, and because it is deeply unpopular, corrupt and cruel to its own people. Beinart’s solution: let’s reward the Palestinian leadership for its malfeasance and give them control of not just Judea and Samaria but potentially all of Israel itself!

The two-state solution is not dead, it has just morphed from an unattainable illusion to a pragmatic and realistic plan to end a century-old conflict. President Trump’s Vision for Peace proposes an achievable means for the Palestinians to self-govern within the bulk of Judea and Samaria without jeopardizing Israel’s security.

The Palestinian people have the opportunity today for real independence and to put an end, once and for all, to the hatred and violence that has impeded their advancement. The world stands by with an offer of massive financial assistance in the form of investment, not handouts, so that legitimate Palestinian aspirations may be realized. Sadly, the Palestinian leadership appears poised to miss this opportunity just as it has missed every other opportunity since 1947.

The answer to the Palestinian leadership’s antisemitic prejudice and bad faith rejection is not Israel’s disappearance. Israel’s existence as a Jewish state is every bit as just and compelling today as it was at the time of its founding in 1948. The State of Israel is the culmination of 2000 years of Jewish prayer and sacrifice; it is the restoration of an ancient people, a valley of dry bones come back to life in the words of the prophet Ezekiel. It will always be a Jewish state.

Alan Dershowitz: Beinart's Final Solution: End Israel as Nation-State of the Jewish People

Beinart arrogantly rejects democracy and the polls that show most Israelis and Palestinians are opposed to his proposed one-state solution. He has it exactly backwards when he argues that only "Palestinian and Jewish hardliners" resist his one-state solution. In reality, it is only hardliners who want one state: many Muslim hardliners want one Palestinian state "from the river to the see," and some Jewish hardliners want a Jewish state in all of biblical Israel.

Beinart rejects these democratic preferences.

Beinart's attempt to destroy the nation-state of the Jewish people would undo decades of sacrifice and hard work by Zionists since the middle of the 19th century. Despite its imperfections, Israel is a wonder to the world. It has given more to humankind—scientifically, medically, technologically, literarily and in so many other areas—in the 72 years of its existence than have the overwhelming majority of far-older countries throughout their entire histories. No nation faced with the threats comparable to those faced by Israel—including terrorism, rocket and terror tunnels attacks as well as Iranian aggression—has ever had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law and concern for enemy civilians than has Israel.

In a world with so many Islamic, Christian and other religious and national states, why does Beinart believe there is no room for one nation-state of the Jewish people capable of protecting its citizens from aggression, capable of welcoming oppressed Jews from around the world and dedicated to equal rights for all of its citizens?

Beinart's nasty and ignorant article belongs in the waste basket of history. He has lost all claim to speak for any segment of the pro-Israel and Jewish communities by siding with those who would end the existence of the only nation-state of the Jewish people.

Fortunately, Beinart's anti-Israel arguments are likely to be accepted only by left-wing Jews who are embarrassed by Israel's strength and determination to protect the Jewish people against a repeat of history's tragedies. It was this history that led to the widespread acceptance of Zionism and the formation of the democratic Jewish nation-state.

The citizens of Israel—both Jewish and Muslim—will be the ones to decide on the appropriate solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. They overwhelmingly support a two-state solution, and they overwhelmingly reject Beinart's Final Solution. If the Palestinians want to have input in these decisions, they will have to come to the table and negotiate. Their fate and the fate of their Israeli neighbors will not be decided on the op-ed pages of The New York Times. It will be decided on the ground by direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Dear @PeterBeinart @YachadUK

Recently you wrote / shared a vile anti-Zionist piece about how we should basically dismantle the Jewish homeland.

As I write it seems Yemen's last remaining Jews are being ethnically cleansed.

Any idea where they should go?

Asking for a friend.

— David Collier (@mishtal) July 14, 2020

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My response to Nick Cannon’s statement on Facebook

Here is what I wrote in response to Nick Cannon’s Facebook statement (see my last post.) it is really aimed more at the Black people who are his fans, and I doubt it will make a difference (especially being buried under hundreds of other comments) but I wanted to at least try to inject some truth in what was a pretty bad thread.

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I hope that Nick Cannon is serious about wanting to learn. Because this thread includes so much further antisemitism, I hope I can explain a few things:

1. Jews did not dominate the slave trade. There were some Jewish slave owners and traders but they were a small percentage. Blaming Jews for the bulk of a reprehensible practice is an excuse for bigotry against Jews.

2. Some Jewish landlords are unethical, just like some Black landlords and some white Gentile landlords and everyone else.

3. I saw a guest on another of Nick's shows say that the US gives $80 billion a year to Israel. The number is less than $4 billion, and most of it goes towards US companies and jobs. You can argue about whether Israel should get anything but at least base it on truth.

4. There is no grand conspiracy of the Rothschilds controlling the world. Of course bankers have influence but the Rothschilds are not even in the top tier of the Forbes richest billionaires. Most of the billionaires are not Jewish.

5. The idea that a lack of melanin causes one to become a savage is EXACTLY as racist and offensive as the idea that the presence of melanin causes one to become a savage. It is pure hate and Cannon should apologize for that extraordinarily racist statement immediately. Otherwise he is literally no different than the KKK.

6. If there is any evidence that most Blacks are descended from the Hebrews, for example from the Ten Lost tribes, I would be happy to welcome you as a Jew. But to claim that today's Jews are not really Jews is false and offensive. There is an unbroken chain of tradition and written records, as well documented as anything can be, that show how Jews migrated from Judah throughout the world, often oppressed and expelled from one country to another, but always keeping their traditions and laws and peoplehood and religion. I myself am descended from the tribe of Levi and this is an unbroken tradition in my family. Telling me I am a Khazar or whatever is hugely offensive.

7. Nick Cannon says that he values truth, so I must say the truth: Farrakhan is a bigot. Nation of Islam can deny it all they want, but just like Black people don't want white people to tell them when to be offended, Jews don't want to be insulted as satanic and then told that it really isn't offensive. It is. Jews don't want to be told by Farrakhan that they are not really Jews and that he can decide who is and who isn't a real Jew. In the July 4th speech, he claimed that he prayed for Florida to get the coronavirus because, he claims, Jews from Cuba moved to Florida to turn America against Castro. What kind of a person wishes that so many people die because of a bizarre belief about Jews? Not to mention his anti-gay positions. The minister may say some good things but his bigotry should not be condoned by a community that knows the dangers of bigotry.

8. American Blacks who want to raise themselves up can learn a great deal from the American Jewish experience. While of course we were never treated as badly as Blacks have been in America, we came as outsiders - and the Holocaust survivors, like my own parents, were literally slaves themselves. Not figuratively - literally. Nevertheless, Jews in America built our own businesses and schools and hotels when the Christian majority placed restrictions on where we can work and learn and vacation. Some tried to assimilate, some held on to our traditions and didn't compromise. This sense of being outsiders is what animated so many Jews to support the civil rights movement in the 1960s. There are Jewish racists just like any other group, but Jews have been more anti-racist than any other group in America. We are not the enemy, and it is disheartening to see so many Black people subconsciously accept the hate spewed out by Louis Farrakhan and others.

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Nick Cannon’s attempts to explain his hate speech: extreme ignorance or whitewashing?

 

Yesterday, I tweeted “I wouldn't want @NickCannon to be fired. I would want him to have an articulate Jewish guest on his podcast that can explain to him AND HIS AUDIENCE why his beliefs are offensive and wrong, where he is free to ask questions.”

The reason I say this is twofold: One is that cancel culture is evil, and that applies to both sides, although there must be consequences for bigoted speech.

Secondly and more importantly, if Cannon is fired it would only increase the Black antisemitism we have been witness to on shows like his and elsewhere. It would just prove to the Black community that Jews control everything and that their people are not free to speak. If someone knowledgeable can appear on his platforms, at least his audience can be exposed to the truth. As Jemele Hill wrote in The Atlantic yesterday, many Black people grow up with bigotry the same way that many whites do and it is more ignorance than malice:

[T]he unfortunate truth is that some Black Americans have shown a certain cultural blindspot about Jews. Stereotypical and hurtful tropes about Jews are widely accepted in the African American community. As a kid, I heard elders in my family say in passing that Jewish people were consumed with making money, and that they “owned everything.” My relatives never dwelled on the subject, and nothing about their tone indicated that they thought anything they were saying was anti-Semitic—not that a lack of awareness would be any excuse.

I don’t know if it was because of my tweet, but not long afterwards Cannon wrote a statement echoing the same suggestion I wrote. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I have no hate in my heart nor malice intentions. I do not condone hate speech nor the spread of hateful rhetoric. We are living in a time when it is more important than ever to promote unity and understanding.

The Black and Jewish communities have both faced enormous hatred, oppression persecution and prejudice for thousands of years and in many ways have and will continue to work together to overcome these obstacles.

When you look at The Media, and other sectors in our nation’s history, African Americans and The people of the Jewish community have partnered to create some of the best, most revolutionary work we know today.

I am an advocate for people’s voices to be heard openly, fairly and candidly. In today’s conversation about anti-racism and social justice, I think we all - including myself - must continue educating one another and embrace uncomfortable conversations - it’s the only way we ALL get better. I encourage more healthy dialogue and welcome any experts, clergy, or spokespersons to any of my platforms to hold me accountable and correct me in any statement that I’ve made that has been projected as negative. Until then, I hold myself accountable for this moment and take full responsibility because My intentions are only to show that as a beautiful human species we have way more commonalities than differences, So let’s embrace those as well as each other. We All Family!

Notice that this is not an apology. Cannon explains why in an interview:

“To me apologies are empty. Are you forcing me to say the words, ‘I’m sorry’? Are you making me bow down, ’cause then again, that would be perpetuating that same rhetoric that we’re trying to get away from,” Cannon says. “What we need is healing. What we need is discussion. Correct me. I don’t tell my children to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I want them to understand where they need to be corrected. And then that’s how we grow.”

“You can say sorry in as many different languages as you want to, and it means nothing,” Cannon continues. “But until someone truly understands where they may have been wrong or where they may have offended someone, then that’s where growth occurs.”

I agree with this. Too many times we have seen celebrities issue pro forma apologies that were drafted by teams of public relations experts and lawyers and the media accepts it and they go on with their lives.

The question is whether Cannon is serious about wanting to learn.

I have grave reservations about whether Nick Cannon can be educated. He believes in conspiracy theories – in the Rothschilds controlling the world, in the Illuminati, in “six corporations” and “13 families.” The idea that Blacks are the true descendants of Hebrews and Jews are imposters is also a conspiracy theory based on absolutely crazy premises that ignores 2000 years of recorded history. Conspiracy theorists cannot be swayed with facts because they regard the facts as just more evidence of an even larger conspiracy.

I also fear that perhaps my idea gave him a “get out of jail free” card where he can claim to care about dialogue and truth while keeping his media empire intact.

But it would still be far better for Cannon to host people, Jewish or Black or both, who can explain to his audience both why his words are hurtful and why they are false, rather than let him spew his bile unopposed. Cannon might be irredeemable – but a quarter of a million people watched his antisemitic and racist podcast on YouTube and plenty more on other platforms. if Jemele Hill is correct, many or most of them are simply never exposed to any other opinions besides antisemitism. Hosting an articulate counterpoint can have far better results than simply forcing Cannon to issue another insincere celebrity apology.

it may be too late. Reading comments on his statement in Facebook one sees Black people happily repeating lies about Jews controlling the slave trade or blaming all Jews for bad landlords. Like it or not, when Farrakhan spouts is hate, he has a large audience primed to believe it uncritically.  But the more that the truth can be exposed on the same platforms that are usually filled with lies, the better.

We’ll see if Cannon follows through, who he chooses as his guest if he does, and how many times he will welcome critics to his show and not just like-minded bigots like Professor Griff.

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The three Arab heroes who murdered Jews in 1929

Ninety years ago, July 14, 1930, the Palestine Bulletin reported that the Arab leaders wanted to honor three Arabs who led the pogroms against Jews in Hebron in 1929. They were executed by the British and they were to be celebrated on the 40th day after their deaths.

In the end, the British banned the public memorial.

 

Astonishingly, however, Arabs from Israel’s Balad party celebrated these cold blooded killers on the 90th anniversary of their execution. Not only that, but there is a memorial to the men in the Israeli Arab city of Acre!  From the Jewish Press:

The Ad Kan organization on Sunday sent a letter to Interior Minister Aryeh Deri requesting the immediate removal of a monument in Acre, glorifying three pogromists who murdered Jews in the 1929 massacre in Hebron. Ad Kan warned the minister that such a memorial encourages Arab youths to follow in the path of the murderers.

 

The existence of the monument was exposed by journalist Yishai Friedman, who reported last June in Makor Rishon that the Balad party, member of the Joint Arab list, posted on its official Facebook page praises to three leaders of the massacre of the Jews of Hebron and Tsfat in 1929, on the 90th anniversary of their execution by the British .They are described by Balad politicians as “martyrs of the al-Burak revolution” – the Arab nationalist name for the 1929 riots.

 

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In total, 67 Jews were killed on August 24, 1929 in Hebron. 59 Jews died during the rioting and 8 more later succumbed to their wounds. They included a dozen women and three children under the age of five. Twenty-four of the victims were students from the Hebron yeshiva, seven of whom were American or Canadian. 58 are believed to have been injured, including many women and children.

The mostly Arab Hadash communist party in Israel also celebrates the murderers.

It is unbelievable that Arabs in Israel can celebrate murderers of Jews – and have a monument in their memory.

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07/13 Links Pt2: Zionism 2020 is Alive and Kicking: A wave of many Jews and Israelis are asking to return home; In first, Saudi researcher contributes article to Israeli academic journal

From Ian:

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JPost Real Estate Feature: Zionism 2020 is Alive and Kicking: A wave of many Jews and Israelis are asking to return home

As a result of the global Corona crisis many Israelis living abroad have decided to return home and Jews from communities across the globe are asking to make aliyah. Will Corona Zionism bring with it another wave of Israeli settlers, similar to the waves of immigrants in the 60s and 70s? Which are the most attractive cities for new neighborhoods? What are the prominent characteristics immigrants take into account before purchasing an apartment?

Since the founding of the state to the current day, history has proved that global crises leave their mark on Jewish communities across the world, increasing the number of those making aliyah to Israel. Israel’s coping abilities and high functioning throughout the crisis have coined a new phrase, Corona Zionism.

The global Corona crisis has resulted in many Israelis, who emigrated abroad for various reasons, asking to return home and many Jews living in various communities across the globe taking an interest in making aliyah. Have you too found yourself examining places to live? Attractive areas for employment? Quality education? Life in an enveloping and embracing community? And who are the real estate entrepreneurs who make it possible to realize your dream of a home and move forward economically without giving up financial security and peace of mind?

“Avney Derech” Group, who have been active for over a decade, have so far populated 1,000 housing units and are in the planning and construction stages of an additional 2,500 housing units, leading a unique and original business world view that combines business thinking, creative social Zionist measured thinking, allowing hundreds of families whose dream of buying an apartment seemed far from possible, to purchase an apartment, and even move forward financially. The company specializes in finding housing solutions for young couples and families with children thanks to the perfect professional envelope they provide their customers. And as part of that, they are the only entrepreneurs with a subsidiary that currently manages about 500 units owned by home buyers from Israel and abroad.

In addition, the group owns a mortgage consultation firm that accompanies buyers throughout the financial process of taking out a mortgage or other loans.

Caroline Glick: How can Israel help Diaspora Jewry?

One of the reasons for the precipitous drop in synagogue membership and ritual observance is costs. Today, there are already extraordinary programs in Israel that train young rabbis to serve as community rabbis in Diaspora Jewish communities. The young rabbis and their families move to far-flung communities for five years where they build, organize and serve the communities. The rabbis provide religious leadership and training and religious services like supervising the preparation and sale of kosher food enabling local community members to open kosher restaurants and supermarkets.

The government should support and expand these programs. By sending young Israeli rabbis abroad, Israel will lower synagogue membership costs—and through them the cost of living Jewish lives. These rabbis and their families will develop strong, lasting grassroots relationships between Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jewry.

The rise in violent attacks on synagogues and Jewish schools, grocery stores and other Jewish institutions worldwide over the past several years has made many Jews fearful of participating in communal life. Israel can and should help Jewish communities protect themselves by providing them with the means to protect their institutions.

Again, at marginal cost in terms of manpower and financial outlays, Israel can and should provide training for local Jewish security officers and when necessary, provide security officers to protect Jewish institutions from attack.

By every measure, the position of Jewish Diaspora communities is deteriorating. The steep rise in anti-Semitism; the high rates of assimilation and the rising cost of membership in synagogues and tuition costs for Jewish schools amid economic turndowns all contribute to the rapid emptying out of Jewish communities worldwide; the weakening of their ties with Israel and the rise of radical forces within the weakened communities.

The government made a critical decision on Sunday. Israel has to develop and begin implementing a strategic plan to reconnect Diaspora Jewry to Israel and to Judaism. Israel has the professional and human resources to accomplish this vital goal. Given the gravity of the situation, the government must define clear methods and goals now to ensure the success of its efforts.

Dutch Holocaust theft of Jewish assets has finally been revealed

A talk with Raymund Schütz, whose doctorate exposed the role of the notaries who made money from transactions and mortgages of stolen Jewish real estate during the German occupation of the Netherlands..

"Holocaust and restitution issues keep coming up regularly in new Dutch public debates even though it is seventy-five years after the Second World War. The post-war restitution of stolen Jewish real estate during the war is one of several such topics currently in the media. The journalist platform Follow the Money and the TV program Pointer have brought it to the public's attention. Thereafter it has been picked up by local papers.

“The official reason why this issue has not been discussed publicly earlier was that no historic data was available about what happened to Jewish-owned real estate robbed during the German occupation. This was a false argument because the relevant transactions had to be registered in the land register, which is accessible to the public. It was not easy to find the data, but my past research has proven that this was possible years ago."

Dr. Raymund Schütz, born in 1964, is an independent researcher, formerly of the Netherlands Red Cross, where he worked in its war-time archive in The Hague. The title of his doctorate on the role of the notaries during the German occupation is Cold Fog: The Dutch Notaries and the Heritage of the War.

“It took until 2008 when another Dutch historian, Eric Slot, found one of the war time books of these sales of robbed assets (Verkaufsbücher) at the National Archives. The books listed the first transactions of expropriated Jewish real estate. There were 18 volumes with transactions, one of which is missing In 2016, I published my doctorate about the role of the notaries who made money from such transactions and the resulting mortgages.

“My estimate is that there were 10,565 assets involved. In 2013, scholars claimed --on the basis of sampling --that in almost all cases, restitution had taken place. In many cases the original owner was dead. Yet I have since found by studying only one town, Hoorn, that 40 assets have not been restituted there. Generally, it is interesting to note that in the Netherlands a substantial number of robbed Jewish assets were purchased by municipalities.

“Besides buildings, now also robbed shops, building plots, heathlands, and forests owned by Jews are in the public eye. Jews also owned some agricultural lands. Yet one finds little about these in the sources because when expropriated no notarial act was required for their sale. One could transfer ownership via an agent through a private act. The historian Rob Bakker claims that 17 million guilders was received for these, which were not passed to the original Jewish owners.. They represented 0.9 percent of the Dutch territory. In order to find out more information about this, one would have to do research in individual localities.

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Jordanian newspaper reveals the facts about wealthy Jews controlling the WORLD!

With all the news about Black antisemitism recently, don’t forget that the Arabs can spin up a wild antisemitic conspiracy theory with the best of them.

In a series that started on Saturday in Addustor of Jordan, Abdul Hamid al-Hamshari informs his well-primed Jew-hating audience that

Jewish families contributed to building the Jewish personality and the Jewish state's domination of the financial world, the media, arms trade and manufacturing and hospitality. For centuries, it dominated Europe and America:Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, Baruch, Murdoch and Pritzker, by monopolizing the majority of the money of their countries’ banks, especially the central ones, the oil and weapons industry, and the world of hotels and the media, all went at a steady pace, proving their existence in their respective areas of competence, especially those working in the financial world. …

The Rockefellers and the Morgans weren’t Jewish, but, why worry about pesky details like that?

The Rothschild Jewish family - the owner of the empire of the worlds first and world banks - was one of the wealthiest families during the reign of Napoleon I and many see it as the one who encourages and nurtures most wars….It became the first empire in the world of finance and international banks, to the point that its total wealth reached about 500 trillion dollars.

Only $500 trillion? They must have fallen on hard times. An Egyptian TV host two years ago said they were worth $700 trillion.

The article goes on to say the Rothschilds inserted Israel in the Middle East to destroy the Arabs economically, and mentions in passing that they were behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. The Rothschilds were also behind the Balfour declaration and Chaim Weizmann was the major “dean” of money in Europe at the time. (He was not a banker.)

In part 2, we learn that these trillionaires are putting together a scheme to kill most of the world’s population, desiring only a billion people on Earth.

The theory of the golden billion states that the white race is from Europe, America and Japan, and the third layer of society such as Arabs and blacks should be wiped out, and today we live in the age of the golden billion already, but they are looking for possible means to rid the world of the surplus of people on earth with wars or lethal diseases. The Corona epidemic very well might be the product of this family or its followers.

For some reason, the article then goes back to the 19th century and that other famous “Jewish” family the Rockefellers which controlled America in the early 20th century.

One can only imagine what new things we will learn in Parts 3 and beyond.

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My Jewish Privilege

Yesterday, antisemites on Twitter started a hashtag called #JewishPrivilege about how Jews have it made. Jews (including myself) responded with stories of awful things that have happened to them or their families as a result of being Jewish.

My parents survived the Holocaust. I’m religious. I grew up not expecting to be treated like everyone else. So while I encountered a fair share of antisemitism, I didn’t let it bother me.

Kids threw my yarmulke in the mud. Teens threw pennies at me.  People pretended to sneeze near me saying “a-Jew!”  I built a sukkah for my Hillel in college and it was destroyed. I’ve been called a Christ killer while walking my son to shul. Others scream stuff from their cars I can’t quite catch.

I have to worry when I take public transportation – should I wear my kippah or cover it with the ubiquitous cap that all but screams “KIPPAH UNDER HERE.” Will today be the day a crazy person comes at me?

Personally, I think it is important to wear a kippah in public, to help normalize the idea and help make it easier for other Jews in years to come. But my wife is more frightened than I am and I have to worry about not only my safety but that of my family. I usually wear the cap.

Job interviews – do I wear the yarmulka then? Is it better to be up front and risk losing the job, or to get the job  and then let them know I cannot work late Fridays, Saturdays and Jewish holidays? Will they think I tried to fool them and will they resent it?

There is a constant low level of discomfort, or being on edge, of always being reminded that I am different.

People say that I can pass as white, so I have white privilege. It is true that when I wear a cap  I am not as recognizably Jewish as a Black person is as a person of color. A cop is not likely to treat me badly. I would never in a million years claim that the antisemitism I have experienced is as bad as the racism a typical Black person has experienced.  On the other hand, the worry that I need to hide who I am, to look around to make sure it’s safe, to worry about the person who will choose the Jew as the easy target is its own kind of tension.

The only time I feel completely comfortable is when visiting Israel.  I am far less worried about being a terror attack victim there than a victim of an antisemitic hate crime in the US.

Some of the things I have experienced may seem awful or unfair to you. I’m used to it.  To me, it is part of the deal. I am not complaining about these things – it is what I expect and it’s OK. America is a great country. I have a good job, a great family, a nice life.

When there is an event at work and they go out of their way to get me kosher food, or even to hold the event in a kosher restaurant, I am always astonished and most appreciative. I would have happily brown-bagged something. I don’t want nor expect any special accommodation outside what it required by law. 

What good is it to play a game of “who’s the bigger victim?” What does it gain you? If you want to play, then Jews will win. 2000 years of homelessness, of pogroms and Crusades, of blood libels and an Inquisition and a Holocaust and a Farhud.

Even in the US it wasn’t that long ago that we were banned from certain clubs, restricted  from certain colleges, blocked from many professions. What did we do? We made our own colleges, built our own businesses, created our own imprint on America. We did all right.

The Victimhood Olympics is easy to win and thoroughly pointless – it doesn’t gain us a damn thing.  Better to  live our lives than to dwell on the past. We remember our past, of course, and we try to ensure the bad parts are not repeated, but we want to move forward, to live today, to make a better life for our kids and grandkids. 

Perhaps “Jewish privilege” in the Diaspora is the ability to appreciate what you have, know that things could be much worse, and try to make things better for you and for future generations.

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07/13 Links Pt1: Britain Shamefully Betrays the Jewish People Again; Biden’s Foreign Policy Team Looks to Repeat a Legacy of Failure; Peter Beinart is neither a Zionist nor a Liberal

From Ian:

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Amb. Alan Baker: Sovereignty in the West Bank Areas of Judea and Samaria: Historical and Legal Milestones that Make the Case

The subject of the rights of the Jewish People and the State of Israel under international law, in the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria, involves a complex and extensive web of historical, legal, military, and political issues.
The Jewish People Have Historical Claims in Judea and Samaria

Israel’s claims to sovereignty regarding the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria did not originate with Israel’s attaining control of the area following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israel’s rights are based on the indigenous and historical claims of the Jewish people in the area as a whole, virtually from time immemorial.

Israel’s international legal rights were acknowledged in 1917 by the Balfour Declaration’s promise to the Jews to reestablish their historical national home in Palestine. These rights are based on clear historical, archeological, and Biblical evidence.

The Balfour Declaration was subsequently recognized internationally and encapsulated into international law through a series of international instruments commencing with the 1920 San Remo Declaration by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, followed by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

The continued validity of these foundational legal rights was also assured under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Persistent Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Leaves Israel No Option but to Act Unilaterally to Protect Its Rights
While Israel’s prior, well-established, and documented international, legal, political, and indigenous rights to sovereignty over the areas are clear, Israel nevertheless acknowledged in the Oslo Accords Palestinian rights in the areas, and agreed to negotiate with them the permanent status of the areas.

Persistent Palestinian refusal to return to negotiations and their rejection of peace plans to settle the dispute, cannot and should not serve to veto a settlement of the dispute.

Such ongoing refusal and rejection undermines the peace process, invalidates the Oslo Accords, and leaves Israel no option but to act unilaterally in order to protect its vital security and other interests and historical rights.

David Singer: Britain Shamefully Betrays the Jewish People Again

Britain – the architectof the San Remo Resolution and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 that led to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922 – has yet again shamefully betrayed the Jewish People by warning Israel not to extend its sovereignty into Judea and Samaria.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that any such action would be in violation of international law – which Netanyahu disputes – despite the Mandate vesting in the Jewish People the right to “close settlement” in Judea and Samaria for the purposes of reconstituting the biblical Jewish National Home in what had been the heartland of the Jewish People 3000 years ago.

Britain had betrayed the Jewish People in 1950 after all the Jews living in Judea and Samaria had been ethnically cleansed by the invading Arab army of Transjordan in 1948. Britain – supported only by Pakistan and Iraq – recognised Transjordan’s illegal annexation of Judea and Samaria, the renaming of the newly merged entityas “Jordan”whilst “Judea and Samaria”was renamed“West Bank”.

Johnson told Netanyahu:
"I am immensely proud of the UK’s contribution to the birth of Israel with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. But it will remain unfinished business until there is a solution which provides justice and lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The only way it can be achieved is for both sides to return to the negotiating table. That must be our goal. Annexation would only take us further away from it."

Peace for both “Israelis” and “Palestinians”?

Neither existed until 1948 and 1964.

There were only “Arabs” and “Jews” in 1917. The Arab residents of Palestine then comprised part of “the existing non-Jewish communities”.

Johnson seems apparently unaware that the “Palestinians”:
• were defined for the first time in recorded history by article 6 of the 1964 PLO Charter
• did not claim “regional sovereignty in the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”or“on the Gaza Strip” under article 24
• were Jordanian citizens between 1954 and1988.

Biden’s Foreign Policy Team Looks to Repeat a Legacy of Failure

It was under Obama’s watch that Bashar Assad burnt Syria to the ground and Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The Obama administration’s policies in Syria and Ukraine were a disaster that handed victory after victory to Putin, none more so than the total abdication of responsibility following the crossing of Obama’s own chemical-weapons “red line.”

Even the much-vaunted Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Obama’s defining foreign policy legacy, while seeking to use diplomacy to prevent a future war with Iran over its imagined potential ability to build a nuclear weapon, was signed by largely ignoring its very real ability to cause untold human suffering through conventional slaughter, further fueling the fires burning in Syria and Iraq.

Speaking last week on whether Biden’s team had learned anything from the Iran deal and its impact on the region, former U.S. special envoy to Syria, Ambassador Frederic Hof said, “the Obama administration and in particular with the president, there was faith in the proposition that by signing the nuclear agreement, Iran would begin to modify its other regional policies. Many of us believed from the beginning that this was false, that it was not going to happen. And I think it’s a lesson learned.”

One of the principal architects of the Iran deal, Colin Kahl, has taken on the Iran file for Biden’s foreign policy team. Kahl’s appointment likely signals a reversal of Trump’s maximum pressure policy and, at least in policy terms, an attempt to return to the JCPOA, but is there any real evidence that lessons have been learned? While it’s important not to read too much into social media reactions, Kahl’s smug social media post following the assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, stating, “In death, Soleimani accomplished one of his ultimate objectives: getting the US kicked out of Iraq,” displays a worrying naivete, not just of internal Iraqi politics, but also of his own brief. Just what did he think his own administration’s policy was towards Iraq?

A thread posted by Kahl in January laid bare the moral bankruptcy of the previous administration’s failed Middle Eastern pivot, as Kahl concedes “there is no question that Iran’s military spending went up by a few billion after the JCPOA,” before concluding that the best strategy should be “playing the long game to counter their influence in places like Iraq and Lebanon through engagement and institution building.”

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2020: The year of celebrity antisemitism

 

2020 is already infamous for being a historically bad year. Beyond COVID-19 and George Floyd and government incompetence, though, is that this year is shaping up to be a year of publicly expressed antisemitism – by celebrities who have massive followings.

And most of that has been in only the past couple of months.

Roger Waters tells a Hamas-linked TV station that a rich Jew is the “puppetmaster” controlling the US government, and that religious Jews think non-Jews are subhuman.

Rosanna Arquette tweeted that Israel had a vaccine for COVID-19 for a year already and implied that Jews were behind the virus so they could profit from the vaccine.

Louis Farrakhan, who has millions of fans, says that Jews are “satanic” and said that when he dies, the Jews who opposed his hate would be at fault and  will be destroyed.

Chelsea Handler, before apologizing for posting an old Farrakhan video, defended his antisemitism, tweeting, “perhaps Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic views took form during his own oppression.” The implication is that Jews are responsible for Farrakhan’s hate. Oh, and she said that anyone who didn’t like her post – meaning, Jews - can “go f--- themselves.”

Rick Wiles, the antisemitic head of TruNews, said, “There is a plague moving upon the Earth right now, and the people that are going into the synagogues are coming out with the virus. You are under judgment because you oppose his son, Jesus Christ. That is why you have a plague in your synagogues.”

Ice Cube has been sharing a series of blatantly antisemitic tweets, blaming Jews for the world’s ills.

DeSean Jackson posted as fact a fake antisemitic quote from Hitler, and was supported by other sports stars Malik Jackson and Stephen Jackson.

Peter Beinart said Orthodox Jews are racists and started a huge publicity campaign for the idea that the entire idea of a Jewish state is immoral and it should be dismantled.

And now Nick Cannon, along with Professor Griff, are happily riffing on the idea that Jews aren’t really Jews although they do control the world and are inherently savage and evil.

All of these people have hundreds of thousands, some of them millions, of fans.

All of these people still have careers.

None of them have been “canceled.” Sometimes there is some press coverage, sometimes they are forced to apologize to keep their jobs, but in the end antisemitism is not something that is considered to be as bad as other forms of hate.

This is especially jarring when there is an entire “cancel culture” for other kinds of bigotry that skips over this kind.

The only conclusion is that Jew-hate is not considered to be “real” hate. Outrage is cosmetic. There are always extenuating circumstances to consider, as Chelsea Handler asserted. The antisemites are seen as victims too, of rich Jews or Israel or the Jewish media.

And because the outrage is false, the antisemites are emboldened. It is becoming mainstream to attack Jews and to defend the haters. Conspiracy theories are not countered. Jews are expected to turn the other cheek because there is “real” hate we have to tackle first.

When celebrities – the most reputation-conscious people on Earth - can spout Jew-hate in public without fear, American Jews are in big trouble. And the rest of America isn’t that far behind.

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The Left is clueless about their bigotry–saying a “white Christian” cannot be a leader in fighting antisemitism

 

The American Jewish Committee announced the appointment of Holly Huffnagle to be their US Director  for Combating Antisemitism.

Huffnagle’s resume is impressive. She was previously the policy advisor to the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the U.S. Department of State and a researcher at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. She has a master’s degree from Georgetown University where she focused on 20th century Polish history and Jewish-Muslim relations before, during, and after the Holocaust. Huffnagle was also a Scholar-in-Residence at Oxford University with the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.

Howard Dean, the former presidential candidate and governor of Vermont, criticized the appointment of someonewith excellent credentials to lead the fight against antisemitism – because of her religion.

He tweeted, “Unfortunately Christians don’t have much a reputation for anything but hate these days thanks to Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell and other trump friends. AJC gets no points for this.”

Excuse me?

The AJC highlighted that she was Christian. In her words, “Antisemitism is not a problem for Jews to solve. It is a societal problem….It effectively requires non-Jews to fight it.”

Then, the purportedly Jewish organization IfNotNow doubled down on the criticism, by saying that a “white Christian” is inherently unqualified for a major role in fighting antisemitism.

 

This bigotry is even more astonishing when you realize that IfNotNow and other anti-Zionist socialists fully support Ali Abunimah, most definitely a non-Jew, when he defines Zionism itself as antisemitism as he has been doing for at least a decade:

 

And they are fully on board when Columbia University professor Joseph Massad, another gentile, says that Zionism and antisemitism are virtually identical.

Their affiliate Jewish Voice for Peace actually brought an Arab Muslim, Linda Sarsour, as an expert on antisemitism on a panel that was meant to whitewash, not teach, what antisemitism is.  No objection from the Left about that.

A white person who defines racism in a way that most Black people would object to would rightfully be called a racist themselves. But IfNotNow and other socialist groups are fine with non-Jews defining antisemitism in a way that most Jews find abhorrent.

And then these hypocrites say that a “white Christian” cannot be a leader in the fight against Jew-hatred. (Their deliberate use of the word “white” is apparently meant to defend their use of Sarsour and Massad and Abunimah as definers of antisemitism – but all it does is prove how fundamentally bigoted they are.)

I would be thrilled if the AJC would hire members of groups where Jew-hatred is smoldering to be leaders in fighting it. It would be fantastic if the AJC could hire Arabs and non-Jewish Blacks to lead the way, to teach their communities what antisemitism is by the accepted Jewish definition and how to fight it.

Only a bigot would object.

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Report: Houthis arrest remaining Yemeni Jews of Kharif

 

There are very few Jews left in Yemen as most of them have decided to leave in recent years because of the Yemeni civil war. As was reported in 2017:

Yemen’s information minister said his government is unaware of the fate of the country’s few dozen remaining Jews, most of whom reside in the Houthi rebel group-controlled capital of Sana’a, Israel Radio reported.

Speaking to an Israel Radio reporter on the sidelines of a conference on the civil war in Yemen in Paris, Moammer al-Iryani also said Saturday that the Houthis view the tiny remaining Jewish population as an enemy and are engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that includes ridding Yemen of its Jewish community.

One of the tiny Jewish communities left is in Kharif, where things have been getting increasingly worse since at least 2007.

Now there is a report that even those that didn’t leave Kharif are in extreme danger.

Al Mesryoon reports that the pro-Iranian Shiite Houthi militia arrested the remaining Jews of the Kharif and imprisoned them simply for being Jews. The Houthis forced the Jews to sign over their properties for a nominal price and they are being pressured to leave Yemen.

The report says that previously the Houthis have cut off the supply of water and electricity to the Jews.

Hopefully the Jews really will be able to leave before something even worse happens to them.

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When I say Beinart’s “peace plan” resembles Hamas’ plan, I’m not joking

I tweeted last night:

I think I figured out what being a "progressive" Jew means.

Peter Beinart "progressed" from supporting Yasser Arafat's vision of a "solution" into adopting Hamas' vision.

— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) July 12, 2020

This was not entirely facetious.

In 2017, Hamas famously took out the blatantly antisemitic language in its manifesto that was supposed-to-but-not-really replace their original Hamas charter.

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. …

Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.

See? Hamas doesn’t say it wants to persecute Jews in its one state solution.

Other parts of the 2017 Hamas manifesto sounds very close to  what Beinart would want:

Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. It provides an umbrella for the followers of other creeds and religions who can practice their beliefs in security and safety. Hamas also believes that Palestine has always been and will always be a model of coexistence, tolerance and civilizational innovation.

Hamas believes that the message of Islam upholds the values of truth, justice, freedom and dignity and prohibits all forms of injustice and incriminates oppressors irrespective of their religion, race, gender or nationality. Islam is against all forms of religious, ethnic or sectarian extremism and bigotry.

Life in an Islamic state under Hamas rule sounds like a dream!

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said this also in 2006:

  "I dreams of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it," he said. "I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel)."

    "This dream will become real one day. I'm certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land," said al-Zahar.

    However, he didn't rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state, adding that the Palestinians never hated the Jews and that only the Israeli occupation was their enemy.

Does anyone believe Hamas? Beinart was skeptical in his 2012 “Crisis of Zionism” book, but he felt that their conciliatory statements should be considered by Israel and Zionists as reflecting an evolution of Hamas’ thought.  Now? Outside the Islamic part, Hamas’ manifesto sounds remarkably like Beinart’s plan for peace and happiness in the Middle East.

Now, Beinart will claim that his solution is different, because Isratine would not be defined as an Islamic or even an Arab state. But how can that be stopped? Every Arab-majority state defines itself as an Arab state; every one except for Lebanon refers to its Muslim identity in their constitutions, and Lebanon is a perfect example of how a nation that is constitutionally committed to equal rights is not the same as one actually committed to equal rights.

Many Arab states claim equal rights for non-Muslims in their constitutions, but that isn’t stopping Christians from fleeing as fast as they can.

Officially calling the state “Islamic” or not is a distinction without a difference. And that is the only difference between Peter Beinart and Hamas’ stated vision of the future of the borders of British Mandate Palestine.

Of course, Beinart studiously ignores the thousands of statements from Hamas every year that contradict the language of tolerance in its manifesto.

To Beinart, Arabs must be judged favorably; only Jews must be judged harshly; Palestinians must have sovereignty, Jews should be happy with the crumbs of dhimmitude that may come their way under a benevolent Muslim-majority rule.

Which is exactly what Hamas believes.

UPDATE: Only last week, a Hamas MP described the evil of Jews.

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07/12 Links: Senior Rabbi Rebukes Junior Rabbi’s Viral Tweet Claiming Jews Aren’t Indigenous to Israel; For PA 'peace' means destroying Israel with 5.6 million refugees

From Ian:

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Senior Rabbi Rebukes Junior Rabbi’s Viral Tweet Claiming Jews Aren’t Indigenous to Israel

The tweet quickly went viral, surpassing 10 thousand likes. In the expanded thread, Kahn went on to argue that “Jews, as a people, have not been part” of the indigenous rights struggle because they have not been included in the work by the United Nations for Indigenous Peoples “over the past 20+ years.”

The statement drew criticism from numerous Jewish voices, including Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson, the Senior Rabbi at Kahn’s synagogue.

“I disagree with Rabbi Kahn’s statement in both its facts and its effects, nor does it speak for Temple Emanu-El,” Davidson wrote in a letter to The Forward. “Beyond the Bible, numerous historians argue the Jewish people’s national identity was forged in the land of Israel.”

The senior rabbi also noted that Kahn’s tweets can be harmful and easily exploited.

“Whatever point Rabbi Kahn sought to make, and whether Jews meet the United Nations measure of an indigenous people or not, such claims are too easily manipulated by those who seek to undermine Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish homeland,” Davidson wrote.

He then went on to argue that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel.

“Archeology suggests an ancient Jewish presence there 3,000 years ago corresponding to the period of the Davidic monarchy,” Davidson said.

One group who took major issue with Kahn’s comments were Jews of color.

“You do realize that over half of Israeli Jews never left the Middle East — ever. So, how are we appropriating the suffering of others? Sorry if our indigeneity, oppressions, and culture are inconvenient truth to your political agenda,” Jews Indigenous to the North East and North Africa (JIMENA) tweeted in response to Kahn.

Siamak Kordestani, who is on the young professionals board of JIMENA, penned an open letter to Kahn.

“The fact you a) blocked a large number of Jews including Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa and b) failed to note that these communities have been living in the Middle East for well over 2,000 years deeply concerns me,” Kordestani wrote. “Can you see how this is extremely offensive and even prejudiced against non-European Jews?”

Mitch Albom: Anti-Semitic posts — and tepid reactions — should enrage us

These days, you can lose your job for a tweet. You can lose it for a retweet, or a spouse’s tweet. If your message is considered racist or hateful, it can bring an onslaught of condemnation, followed swiftly by an erasure of your reputation and your career.

So it might seem surprising that after NFL star DeSean Jackson posted several anti-Semitic messages on Instagram last weekend — including a quote he (wrongly) attributed to Adolf Hitler claiming Jews “will extort America” and “have a plan for world domination” — there was no mass outrage from his industry, and no immediate punishment from his team.

In fact, although they labeled the posts "offensive" and "appalling," it took nearly a week before the Philadelphia Eagles finally announced the consequences for Jackson’s hateful messages: An undisclosed fine.

Think about that. A fine. Meanwhile, despite Jackson repeating the worst form of Jewish stereotyping and citing not only Hitler but Louis Farrakhan, who has called Jews “satanic” and likened them to “termites," only a handful of athletes (several of them Jewish) and some notable media voices criticized him.

Jackson did, however, receive support from other sports stars, including former NBA player Stephen Jackson, who initially said DeSean was “speaking the truth” and claimed Jews “are the richest” and “control the banks," then later said, “I don't support Hitler, I don’t know nothing about Hitler and I could give a [expletive] about Hitler!”

Fellow Eagle Malik Jackson supported DeSean Jackson as well, and echoed praise for Farrakhan, even though Farrakhan has referred to Hitler as “a very great man.”

Malcolm Jenkins, an NFL player with the New Orleans Saints known for social justice advocacy, seemed bothered that this was “a distraction” from the Black Lives Matter movement, saying: “Jewish people aren’t our problem, and we aren’t their problem ... We’ve got a lot of work to do, and this ain’t it.”

Respectfully, Malcolm, yes, it is.

Because you can’t separate one hate from all hate, any more than you can separate a breeze from the wind.

Honest Reporting: Activism through Racism: Celebs share Farrakhan video

Social media giants Twitter and YouTube have still not totally deplatformed infamous antisemite Louis Farrakhan. Despite breaching YouTube and Twitter's hate speech policies, his hateful messages continue to reach literally hundreds of thousands of people.

Yet the media remains silent. Why?

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EoZTV: Hen Mazzig

 

I had the privilege of interviewing well-known Israel advocate Hen Mazzig today on EoZTV. We spoke about the Peter Beinart kerfuffle, Black Lives Matter and Israel, intersectionality, the terror attack Hen witnessed as a child, his experiences in the Israeli army for COGAT in Hebron, "annexation," his optimism about the future for Israel in the Middle East and and the importance of Jewish pride in Israel.

A lot of stuff for 35 minutes! Check it out!

 

 

This was my 27th EoZTV interview since I started these in April. Check out the ones you missed!

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NBC and Fox host Nick Cannon is a racist, antisemitic nutcase

Nick Cannon is an actor, comedian, rapper, director, writer, producer. Most people are familiar with him as being the host on NBC’s America’s Got Talent and Fox’s The Masked Singer. 

Two weeks ago, he hosted Professor Griff, who was part of the rap group Public Enemy and had already been known to be antisemitic and anti-gay. In 1988 he said, “If the Palestinians took up arms, went into Israel and killed all the Jews, it'd be alright” and then followed that up with "the majority of them [i.e., Jews]" are responsible for "the majority of the wickedness that goes on across the globe." He added that "the Jews finance these experiments on AIDS with black people in South Africa," and that "the Jews have their hands right around Bush's throat." He was forced out of Public Enemy after this, and his resentment towards Jews as a result is still there.

The entire show is 90 minutes long, but it includes long stretches of pure Jew-hatred by both Cannon and Griff, punctuated with the insistence that they don’t hate Jews.

I edited several sections here.

In the first, Griff says that blacks cannot be antisemitic because they are the real semites (implying, of course, that Jews are fakers.) Then Griff says that “they” drove him out of his group.

The second clip is a conversation where Griff says that Jews have taken the Black people’s birthright and are now scared because Jews know that Blacks know that they are fakes. Cannon then clarifies that, yes, they are really talking about  the Rothschild and Illuminati families and global corporations that are trying to silence Blacks for being the people that these white Jews and others want to be.

Griff then goes on to compare this supposed theft of identity to someone who steals the bicycle of another, and then the victim comes back to claim their bike. So that’s why “they” silence Michael Jackson when he sang, “Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/ Kick me, kike me, don't you black or white me” and when Puff Daddy wrote in “All About the Benjamins”, “You should do what we do, stack chips like Hebrews.”

The next clip shows Cannon go on a truly racist screed saying that white people are naturally savage because they lack melanin. He says that “they” have to rob, steal, and rape in order to survive. He then clarifies that when he says “they” he is referring to “Jewish people, white people, Europeans, the Illuminati.”
There’s more that I didn’t highlight here.

Both of them are reverent towards Louis Farrakhan,  and Griff seems to be a follower of the Nation of Islam while Cannon is merely a fan. 

The video already has 250,000 views on YouTube and who knows how many watched it or listened to it as a podcast.

The week before, Cannon highlighted this part of his show where another guest, also a Nation of Islam follower,  absurdly claimed that the US gives Israel $80 billion a year as Holocaust reparations. 

This is crazy conspiracy theory nonsense that is accepted as mainstream thinking among many Blacks – with very little pushback.  And these kinds of antisemitic conspiracy theories are what prompted the Jersey City shootings. 

Nation of Islam-fueled antisemitism is a major problem in the Black community, and too many people are too frightened to push back against it for fear of being labeled racists. As we see from this video, when there is pushback, the Black community to often considers that to be proof of Jewish power rather than a legitimate objection to Jew-hatred. The result? More Jew-hate. 

But if you are against bigotry, you should be against all bigotry. It does no credit for people who claim to be anti-racists to condone antisemitism, and we have seen too much of that happening. 

(h/t Judean People’s Front)

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Nothing is eternal, except antisemitism

This tweet has been shared by the usual Arab and leftist Jewish crowd:

 

 

Now, why can one not take a train from Alexandria to Haifa nowadays? Israel and Egypt have had a peace agreement for over 40 years now. What’s the issue?

The issue is Arab antisemitism. Israel would welcome such a train ride, and happily allow it to go into Jordan and Saudi Arabia too.

Everyone knows this.

But the commenters are somehow pretending that Israel is the problem:

 

No one, net least the Jewish socialists who retweeted this, even considers that Israel is not the obstacle here – it is Arab hate for Jews. It is axiomatic to them that no Arab nation could possibly allow a train line to the Jewish state. But their minds cannot quite take the next step to ask why that is.

The train line used to go from Alexandria through Palestine to Aleppo, Syria and on to Baghdad, Iraq.  More recently, Israel has been talking about a railway that could link Saudi Arabia with Haifa, resurrecting the old Hejaz Railway.

 

Israel sure isn’t opposed to such a railway.

This tiny thread shows, yet again, that the obstacle to peace isn’t Israel. It is Arab antisemitism.

Perhaps, as the last person posted, nothing is eternal, but antisemitism seems as enduring as the stars.

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07/11 Links: Peter Beinart’s One-State Call Earns Praise of Israel-Hater Linda Sarsour; 56% of Israelis prefer Trump over Biden as next US president - poll; Has Israel infiltrated Hamas’s military wing?

From Ian:

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Peter Beinart’s One-State Call Earns Praise of Israel-Hater Linda Sarsour

While widely panned by mainstream commenters, US Jewish journalist Peter Beinart’s New York Times op-ed earlier this week in which he called for a one-state solution to the Middle East conflict did earn the praise of some on the far-left — including anti-Israel firebrand Linda Sarsour.

In a Facebook post about Beinart’s “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State” article, the Israel-hating Sarsour wrote, “Palestinians have made some of the same arguments that Peter Beinart is making about why a one-state solution is the only way forward but have often been dismissed as antisemites. Maybe Zionists will listen to one of their own. Peter has evolved over the years and I welcome his evolution.”

“Justice, equity, safety and security for ALL is what democracy is supposed to be,” she added. “You can’t be a democrátic state that favors one group over another. You can’t be a democratic state whose survival requires the occupation and dehumanization of another people.”

“Take a read,” Sarsour concluded.

When @PetetBeinart’s essay calling for dismantlement of the Jewish state, gets such glowing endorsements from fellow One Stater, rabid racists and Antisemites like Linda Sarsour & Ali Abunimah, that oughta tell you all you need to know! pic.twitter.com/2oJ6D5dKn4

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 10, 2020

Elan Carr calls J Street annexation tweet antisemitic, sparking argument

The United States Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Elan Carr, sparked a heated online argument among renowned global Jewish community contributors when he called out a tweet posted by J Street, a liberal Jewish Middle East lobbying group.

The tweet used an image of US President Donald Trump, his son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, and was captioned "Stop Annexation." Under its call to action, the organization wrote "tell the US Senate: US tax payers should not foot the bill for West Bank annexation."

The tweet references Trump's Middle East peace plan, which allows Israel to to annex up to 30% of the West Bank.

Following J Street's July 7 tweet, Carr denounced the image the next day, stating in his own post.
“How dare @jstreetdotorg use this picture in this context. Their imagery uses #Antisemitism and crude anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to advance their agenda. They should withdraw this and apologize to @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and to #Jewish Americans who serve our great country,” Carr tweeted.

How dare @jstreetdotorg use this picture in this context. Their imagery uses #Antisemitism and crude anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to advance their agenda. They should withdraw this and apologize to @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and to #Jewish Americans who serve our great country. pic.twitter.com/g4nz13g8K3

— U.S. Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism (@USEAntiSemitism) July 8, 2020

Student leaders at historically Black US colleges join Israel advocacy effort

As Marvel Joseph walked down the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem for the first time, his grandmother’s words echoed in his head: “Have love for the Jewish people.”

It was 2018 and Joseph, now 23, was visiting Israel as part of AIPAC’s African-American student leader trip. An emotional trip, it was just one stop on the way to his new job as coalitions coordinator with the Maccabee Task Force (MTF). In this role he aims to build support for Israel at historically black colleges and universities, also known as HBCUs.

HBCUs were established in the United States, mostly post-Civil War, to educate freed slaves, who were prohibited from most universities due to racism. Today, about 214,000 students attend about 105 HBCUs nationwide.

Because the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement isn’t as entrenched at HBCUs at other US campuses, the 23-year-old said he considers his job to be “proactive, rather than reactive.”

“My biggest goal is to get pro-Israel advocates on campus. Israel is not a top five issue for a lot of students at HBCUs. BDS is not a big topic either, but I don’t want to wait for the day BDS comes on campus,” Joseph, a recent graduate of Florida Atlantic University, said in Zoom call with The Times of Israel.

Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson founded the Maccabee Task Force in 2015 to oppose BDS and to cultivate support for Israel on campuses across the US. Today the group has a presence on more than 100 campuses.

“There was a time for obvious reasons when Jews and Blacks were united in struggle in America. For a lot of people that was the golden era,” said David Brog, MTF’s executive director.

Oh look, the propaganda arm of the Qatari govt, which has modern-day salves build its football stadiums, is spreading poison about US & Israel. Woke AF. https://t.co/KMx0xSU3WV

— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) July 11, 2020

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07/10 Links Pt2: Dershowitz: Is the ‘Black Lives Matter’ Platform Antisemitic?; Melanie Phillips: Conversation the eclipse of liberalism and the failure of conservatism

From Ian:

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Candidates must adopt IHRA definition of anti-Semitism

Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, an organization that takes no position on BDS, told The Jewish Week in late 2018 that BDS is not about free speech. “Lawmakers from both parties are working together to erode the First Amendment in a joint effort to create a new political free speech exception for Israel,” she wrote. “The potential ramifications of this effort are far-reaching and should provoke deep bipartisan alarm.”

Jonathan Tobin, editor-in-chief of JNS, has also written quite often of the erroneous conflation of BDS with free speech. “Political speech is broadly defined in American law, and the courts have chosen to include activity like flag-burning or paying for political advertisements under that rubric. But it has never been defined as granting impunity to those who wish to discriminate against religious or racial groups in the course of conducting business,” he wrote in a Dec. 18, 2018 column titled “Discrimination against the Jewish state isn’t free speech.”

The other concerning statement in Kreibich’s position is: “Advocate for the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank through settlements.” While the word “occupation” should have signaled concern to Kreibich’s Jewish neighbors, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. This statement shows that the candidate does not believe that Israel has the right to self-determination.

The territories to which Kreibich apparently refers are certainly disputed, but they have been part of Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. It must then be assumed that she means the disputed territories must all be returned to the pre-1967 lines, regardless of Israel’s self-determination through armed conflict. That is a position supported by Sanders and was a position supported by former President Barack Obama in the final months of his term, though not by current Democratic leadership and not even by the current leading Democratic candidate for president, former Vice President Joe Biden.

The IHRA definition includes as anti-Semitic “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”

Saying that she will “advocate for the end of Israeli occupation” means that to Kreibich, Jews do not have the right to self-determination. According to the IHRA, this is inherently anti-Semitic and provides ammunition to those who would demonize Israel and its right to exist.

In this day and age, editors and reporters at The Jewish Link have learned that it is no longer enough to go to Washington once or twice a year with NORPAC or AIPAC to advocate as a group for America to support Israel. Israel must be accepted as the only democracy in the Middle East and America’s loyal ally since 1948, the establishment of the modern-day nation. Americans should know that Israel has a right to defend its borders and live in peace like any other country. In an era of rising anti-Semitism, xenophobia and violence, the need for American Jews to have a safe haven in the world is more important than ever.

It is incumbent upon every community member who cares about Israel and the survival of the Jewish people to read statements made by would-be elected leaders. This is not a time for complacency or quiet. If Jewish constituents care about the topic, then they must ask for representation from their elected leaders as well as explain, with specificity, why they cannot be supported with views like these.

The IHRA definition is a great place to start.

Pro-Israel activist Richard Millett wins first stage of High Court libel case against Jeremy Corbyn

A High Court judge has ruled that statements made by Jeremy Corbyn on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show in September 2018 could be held to be defamatory of the pro-Israel activist Richard Millett.

In a judgement delivered on Friday Mr Justice Saini rejected the claim by lawyers representing the former Labour leader that he was not referring to Mr Millett when he appeared on the programme and was asked to defend earlier remarks made about “Zionists” who, he believed, “do not understand English irony”.

Handing down his judgement, Justice Saini concluded: "To summarise my rulings on the preliminary issues, I find that the words complained of referred to Mr Millett; that they bore a meaning defamatory of Mr Millett as identified above; and I find that the allegations were factual.”

A June 23rd hearing at the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court took place to enable Mr Justice Saini to determine whether the meaning of Mr Corbyn’s remarks on the show justified a libel action.

The libel case revolves around an appearance by Mr Corbyn on the BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show in September 2018.

Mr. Millett launched a libel action alleging that the words spoken by Mr Corbyn in the programme were defamatory of him and their publication caused and is likely to cause serious harm to his reputation.

Mark Lewis, of Patron Law, who is representing Mr Millett told the JC: "The judge rejected the argument that Mr Corbyn was not referring to Richard Millett when he appeared on the Marr Show defending his 'irony statement'.

"The Court accepted that these were factual allegations that have a defamatory meaning."

Cool. I hit the target. https://t.co/KofnqS4ExI

— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) July 9, 2020

A Polish govt institute honors Poles who saved Jews. Scholars say it’s whitewash

In February 1943, Stanisława and Henryk Budziszewski decided to help a family of Jewish escapees at their farm in the Polish village of Żebry-Laskowiec where they lived with their three sons, Wacław, Stanisław, and Konstanty. The Jewish family consisted of a husband and wife — shopkeepers from the nearby village of Nur — along with their three children. Their surname remains unknown.

Everyone in the local villages knew that hiding Jews was illegal and, if discovered, the crime brought a sure death penalty.

The Jews were successfully hidden for just two weeks before they were discovered by German gendarmes and the Gestapo in the Budziszewskis’ farm, covered in hay in one of the barns. The adults in the Polish family were separated and interrogated; Waclaw, aged just 18, lied to the Germans and claimed that he had been helping the Jews without his parents’ knowledge.

The Jews were deported and murdered at an unknown location. Wacław was sent to the Stutthof concentration camp, where he died on April 1, 1943. The rest of the Budziszewski family was sent to perform forced labor for the Third Reich.

Recently, the Budziszewskis are among 17 cases identified and honored by Poland’s Pilecki Institute as part of a project launched in March 2019 entitled Called by Name.

According to the Pilecki Institute website, the project is “devoted to persons of Polish nationality who were murdered for providing help to Jews during the German occupation.” Once identified, the rescuers are honored with a ceremony in which a memorial stone is unveiled in their name.

While the honor sounds admirable enough, numerous scholars claim that the initiative launched by the Pilecki Institute — an entity founded in 2017 with government funds — is part of an organized campaign to whitewash Poland’s wartime narrative and portray ordinary Poles as rescuers of Jews while ignoring their many acts of betrayal and anti-Semitism.

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New blog feature: Printing (and PDF)

I was asked yesterday if it  would be possible to add a “print” feature to my articles without the stuff on the sidebars.

I found a solution.

Now, below each article, you can see a widget:

 

Click on that and you can print the article, or create a PDF. (The email feature isn’t so great, it just links to the article.)

For those who don't have time to read articles during the week, this is a good way to read them on Shabbat for those Shabbat observers who are so inclined. 

Ian's linkdumps from Thursday totaled 61 pages! 

Enjoy! 

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07/10 Links Pt1: Jews aren’t indigenous to Israel? According to whom?; Do We Really Have to Read Beinart Again?; Danon: Obama’s Decision to ‘Abandon’ Israel Was Lowest Moment of UN Tenure

From Ian:

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Jonathan S. Tobin: Jews aren’t indigenous to Israel? According to whom?

In this woke version of reality, humanity is divided into two groups: white oppressors and indigenous people of color straining under the yoke of white atrocities. And in delineating this stark division between the bad and the good, Jews must accept that they are among the former and irredeemably white. The only thing for them to do is to admit guilt and to struggle against the systemic racist system into which they assimilated into in the United States.

As The Forward noted in an article about the controversy stirred up by Rabbi Kahn, Israel’s Consul General to New York Dani Dayan, recently noted that both Jews and Palestinian Arabs are indigenous to Israel, and that peace will only happen when the latter finally recognize this fact rather than insisting that Jews have no sovereign rights in any part of the country. By lending support to the idea that Jews aren’t indigenous, Kahn is actually undermining chances of peace in the Middle East rather than promoting it.

The fact that the Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel, to which their ties date back thousands of years and were reaffirmed with continuous settlement, as well as prayers throughout the ages, is irrelevant to the woke. So is the fact that the majority of Israeli Jews are not white or European, but descended from people who were forced to flee their homes in the Arab and Muslim worlds after Israel’s creation in numbers that were greater than those Palestinian Arabs who fled Israel during the War of Independence. Yet as far as the rabbi is concerned, Jews who speak of being indigenous are stealing victim status that belongs only to Arabs and other people of color.

Perhaps Rabbi Kahn thinks the semantics here is important because the assertion of indigenous status distracts us from the sufferings of African-Americans or Palestinians. But his scolding of Jews for having the effrontery to claim ownership of this word has implications that go beyond his repellent pedantry and ideological inflexibility.

That’s because telling Jews they are not indigenous to Israel is akin to branding them imperialist colonizers in their ancient homeland. And once you step down that path you aren’t just virtue signaling your concern for the oppressed; you’re also implicitly declaring that Zionism and the existence of the one Jewish state on the planet are illegitimate.

The redefinition of words with plain meanings in order to weaponize them for ideological purposes is key to the Orwellian process by which the woke suppress not only free speech, but the rights of those they consider white oppressors. In effect, what Rabbi Andy is doing when he lectures us about “white Jewishness” and who can be considered indigenous is canceling the entire Jewish people.

The only possible response to such despicable wordplay is to refuse to play by woke rules. There can be no compromise with intersectional canceling. It’s time to make it clear to the self-righteous Rabbi Andys of American Jewish life that we won’t accept their lectures or their politicized language lying down. The alternative is to consent to a denial of Jewish rights whose ultimate purpose is the sort of tragedy that ought to horrify a nice young rabbi a lot more than how to define a word.

Melanie Phillips: Both hero and zero Israel's strategic incoherence

While Israelis are increasingly alarmed by the government’s loss of control over the coronavirus crisis, different events suggest that the country may have pulled off a spectacular advance in the battle against another intractable foe.

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a succession of mysterious explosions in Iran.

At the end of last month, there was a major explosion in the Khojir missile factory near Tehran and at a power plant in Shiraz, which plunged the city into darkness. There has also been an explosion at a Tehran clinic, and other major fires in power plants and a petrochemical factory.

The most significant event, however, was an explosion and fire last week at Iran’s centrifuge assembly plant in Natanz.

According to the former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington D.C., this destroyed nearly three-quarters of Iran’s main centrifuge assembly hall.

No one has claimed responsibility for these events. But the explosions at Khojir and Natanz required the kind of sophisticated intelligence, coordination and operational skill that suggest the involvement of a foreign power. Many experts assume that, in these at least, Israel was a principal actor.

The two sites were important elements in Iran’s infrastructure of warfare against Israel and the west.

Khojir, which is said to have a network of underground tunnels, is suspected of involvement in the production of ballistic missiles. Intelligence experts agree that the explosion there seemed to be the result of an Israeli cyber-attack. The Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida, however, claimed that an airstrike by an Israeli F-35 stealth jet was involved.

The Natanz centrifuge hall, buried deep under concrete and enmeshed steel roof, was inaugurated in 2018 in order to make the advanced centrifuges needed to make an atomic bomb. Albright writes that it was thought to be Iran’s only clean-room operation set up for the mass
assembly of these centrifuges.

Do We Really Have to Read Beinart Again?

Beinart wrote, “The essence of Zionism is not a Jewish state in the land of Israel; it is a Jewish home in the land of Israel, a thriving Jewish society that both offers Jews refuge and enriches the entire Jewish world.”

He is wrong. For most practicing Zionists — who live here and decide what Zionism is — the essence is indeed a Jewish state. In Beinart’s imaginary world, substituting the Jewish State for a far-fetched idea of a Jewish home is not such a big deal. But it is.

Beinart writes that the urgent need for new ideas is based on the moral call to prevent the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. He wrote, “Today, Israeli leaders find the status quo tolerable. But when Palestinian violence reveals that it is not, those leaders — having made separation impossible — could inch closer to policies of mass expulsion.”

Maybe. Probably not. We’ve managed a long time and with a lot of violence without resorting to ethnic cleansing. But even if you accept the necessity of Beinart’s warning, there is a much simpler way to prevent a catastrophe. Convince the Palestinians to refrain from the “violence” that could trigger “mass expulsion.”

Another problem is that a one-state solution does not preclude the option of ethnic cleansing. See Yugoslavia as an example.

On the plus side, what Beinart says is largely unimportant. He is not the first to propose a one-state solution, and probably won’t be the last. He will try to pitch his latest gimmick to a new generation of Jews (anyone for a book deal?). He will find some takers among radical American left-wingers. But where he gets it wrong again is that one of the main reasons Israeli Jews want a state is because they don’t wish to be the world’s pawns. Israel is armed to the teeth. It is savvy, tough and resilient. And if Beinart or any of his self-righteous friends want to take our state away, they can come for it. Let’s see how far they get.

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