Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, wrote an open letter to "Palestine refugees."
Most of the letter is whining about how UNRWA's budget is stretched too thin and services are starting to be impacted.
This is the direct result of UNRWA's working definition of a "Palestine refugee" which contradicts the definition of refugee used in the Refugee Convention and guarantees that the number of "Palestine refugees" will continue to increase by the millions forever.
Somehow he doesn't consider the fact that UNRWA's definition of refugees might have something to do with their budget woes. Unless there is a way to take "refugees" off the rolls, nothing will happen to solve the problem.
In the letter, he writes,
But some decisions to decrease or stop support to the Agency are political. Since 2018, the Agency and its mandate have come under increased political attacks. These attacks aim at harming the reputation of the Agency. These attacks are based on the foolish and wrong idea that by closing UNRWA they will erase 5.8 million Palestine refugees. Let me reassure you that your rights, including your right of return and compensation, are enshrined in international law and UN resolutions and have nothing to do with the UNRWA mandate.
There is no "right to return" under international law. Period.
Practically all "Palestine refugees" aren't real refugees, so any international law about refugees do not apply to Palestinians. That is why they cannot apply for asylum in other countries like real refugees can. Everyone knows this but no one wants to say it out loud because the #1 rule in international relations is "don't piss off the Palestinians."
UNRWA needs to be dismantled. There is no reason to consider millions of Jordanian citizens to be refugees, or for them to have a separate school and medical system. There is no reason for Palestinians living in Lebanon for seven decades to not have a path to citizenship. There is no reason why Palestinians who live in Palestine, under Palestinian rule, should be considered refugees.
None of this makes sense until you realize that UNRWA's official policy to solve the problem is to force Israel to take in millions of "refugees." The UN intends to force Israel to commit national suicide.
This is why UNRWA needs to be dismantled and Arabs who pretend to care about Palestinians should take responsibility for keeping them stateless.
Hafez al-Barghouti is a Fatah member who is the former editor of Palestinian Authority newspaper Al Hayat al-Jadida, and a frequent op-ed contributor to various Arab media.
Writing in Jordan's Al Ghad, Barghouti has come up with a completely new example of how Zionists steal everything from Arabs.
Hebrew.
In the middle of an article about Israeli cultural appropriation, where he falsely claims that Israelis told Miss Universe contestants that Bedouin culture was Jewish, and goes through the usual litany of how Israelis steal Arab dance, music and cuisine.
Then he says:
Even the current Hebrew language is a modern invention, as it was developed by a Russian Jew who came from Russia to Palestine in 1890 and used Arabic grammar and the Canaanite Aramaic language, and added to it from the Yiddish language and European languages and called it a Hebrew language and written in Aramaic letters similar to ancient Arabic, i.e. separate letters.
Yes, he is claiming that the primary influence on modern Hebrew is not...Hebrew, and that the language was stolen from Arabs.
Of course, even before Eliezer ben-Yehudah worked to standardize modern Hebrew, Hebrew was spoken and used for secular purposes. A simple Hebrew was spoken in the Old Yishuv throughout the 1800s, and there were Hebrew journals and newspapers that pre-dated Ben Yehuda. The earliest examples of periodicals written in Hebrew online at Israel's National Library are Ha-Me'Asef (Poland) from 1783 and Ha-Tzefirah (Ukraine) from 1823. Ben Yehudah based modern Hebrew grammar primarily on Mishnaic Hebrew, not Arabic, although he took some words from modern Arabic and Hebraicized them.
But to some people, Jews are thieves and therefore everything Jewish or Zionist is stolen. Other languages evolve with outside influences, but Jews steal their language. Other cuisines borrow from other cultures, Israeli cuisine steals.
___________________
Barghouti ends off the article with an old Arab joke, although I cannot figure out how it relates to his theme:
It is said that a well-known merchant in Hebron was a friend of an Israeli merchant, and one day the Israeli merchant complained that he had bought a large amount of women's bras and could not sell them because they were too large, so he offered to sell them to the Arab merchant at a cheap price. Months later they met, and the Israeli asked him what happened to the bras? The Hebronite replied, “They have all been sold.” The Israeli wondered, “Do your women have big breasts?” The Hebron merchant replied, “No, but your heads are big. I have prepared and embroidered them as kippot for religious Jews, and I sold them.”
I've seen variants of that joke elsewhere, but someone who doesn't know that kippot are significantly cheaper than bras is not exactly the right person to act as an expert on Jews, Israelis or Hebrew.
A number of rabbis met today (Wednesday) with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at his palace in Ankara, and discussed with him a number of issues related to Jewish life in the country and around the world. The meeting was attended by many rabbis, led by Russia’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Berl Lazar. The person who was supposed to arrive was also the Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who was eventually forced not to arrive because Turkey is a red state.
The rabbis discussed with Erdogan and then ate a sumptuous dinner. According to the organizers of the meeting, this is the first time that a strictly kosher meal is served in Erdogan’s palace.
Erdogan even surprised when he promised to approve the construction, for the first time ever, of a synagogue in northern Cyprus – a territory occupied by Turkey a few decades ago, unrecognized by world nations and having Chabad activities. The Turkish president even stepped in when he said he hoped the synagogue will be inaugurated in about a year. Today there is an improvised and semi-secret prayer house in the Chabad house in the Turkish half of the island, and now the Turkish president has promised to take active action to establish a synagogue there.
Turkey has been building settlements on occupied territory for decades, and it is met with a shrug from the same world leaders who say that Jews building houses in disputed territories are guilty of war crimes.
But now that Erdogan is saying that he is building a synagogue for Jews in occupied territory, that might be enough to get the world upset for the first time at Turkey.
With the arrival of the Omicron variant in Israel, the Israeli government made a sweeping decision to close its skies from the entry of foreigners. This decision insensitively equates Jews living in the Diaspora with foreigners, denying them entry into Israel, the Jewish State. This decision widens the chasm between Israel and world Jewry.
Significant and fundamental values are tested precisely in moments of crisis. We must recall our values and principles.
The Zionist revolution took place in the last two hundred years thanks to the resourcefulness of Jews from around the world whose devotion to the Land of Israel overcame material challenges, diseases, and security threats. The State of Israel was established thanks to the Zionist movements that operated in the Diaspora and in Israel, throughout the years. These efforts included opening the gates of the country to Diaspora Jews to visit, learn, experience, and connect with Israel, thereby preserving the national entity of the Jewish people globally.
Jews are not foreigners. We must not create a precedent in which the State of Israel will treat our brothers in the Diaspora as foreigners. Over the past two years, Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora have expressed frustration at the decisions to prevent their community members from entering Israel, and in many cases, preventing the reunion and reunification of families.
If Zionism is at the forefront of our values, then we must find creative solutions that are less harmful to the relations between the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Government ministries must convene and produce circumstance-specific criteria in which Jews can be allowed to enter Israel while maintaining health guidelines. Just as it is clear to us that Israelis cannot be prevented from entering Israel simply because it is their home, so we must work to find solutions for Diaspora Jews seeking to arrive in Israel, as it is their home as well.
Although Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, it is home to a free and thriving Arab community. For decades, anti-Israel activists have decried Israel as an illegitimate state which represses Arabs and Muslims. Israel has been incorrectly labeled as a state for “settler colonialism” and apartheid. These baseless claims could not be further from the truth.
Researchers have conducted surveys to shine a light on the true treatment of Arabs living in Israel. According to these surveys, there is a growing trend of Israeli Arabs ditching their former Palestinian identity and starting to identify more heavily with their Israeli nationality. This switch in national identity is great news for everyone who holds a stake in the Middle East. It proves that Arabs have been able to call Israel home, while Israel is able to maintain its Jewish majority. Despite being the world’s only Jewish state, Israel is a welcoming, diverse country that boasts a thriving Arab population.
Arabs make up 20% of Israel’s 8.8 million people population. Israel’s Arabs have been integrating into society and live in every corner of the country. Israel’s Arabs enjoy the same freedoms as their Jewish neighbors. Contrary to anti-Israel talking points, Israel’s Arabs live and work side-by-side with Jews, Christians, Armenians, and all others who call Israel their homes. As they do in other western democracies, Arabs can vote in elections, own businesses, work, speak, and worship freely, wherever in Israel they call home. In the recent Israeli elections, Ra’am, a pan-Arab party, became a part of Israel’s governing coalition. These results could not be more clear: Israel, a heterogeneous society, is among the leading nations in the Middle East. Israel’s Arabs have taken notice.
Arabs, no matter how long they have been Israelis, are increasingly supportive of their home country. According to a 2019 survey by Dahlia Scheindlin and David Reis, two leading progressive pollsters, 51% of Israel’s Arabs identify themselves as “Arab-Israeli” and 23% identify as “Israeli”. The survey went on to indicate that 76% of Israeli-Arabs went on to say that, within Israel, Jewish-Muslim relations are overwhelmingly positive and that 58% want to continue to advance coexistence and improvement of relations between Muslims and Jews.
India's Harnaaz Kaur Sandhu, the winner of the Miss Universe pageant that was recently held in Israel has come under fire in recent days for sharing her positive reviews of the Jewish state.
Sandhu uploaded an Instagram reel on Dec. 15 sharing her experience and even wrote alongside the video "Shallom, Thank you from the bottom of my heart ISRAEL for hosting the 70th edition of Miss Universe in your beautiful country, the Holy Land. It's a pleasure and honor for me to witness the great historic places in Jerusalem and Marvellous hotels in Eilat, can't wait to come back again in Israel, Toda 🙏🏻✨ Escape from the sun."
The reaction by Israel haters was quick, and they have been flooding her profile with hostile comments over the past several days.
One user wrote, "free Palestine," and another said, "You spelt Palestine wrong," another wrote. Others resorted to emojis with the Palestinian flag.
Hempstead, December 26 - A local small-business proprietor who devotes his time and resources to nurturing his children, enriching his marriage, caring for his aging parents, volunteering at a nearby soup kitchen, running fundraisers for area schools, and participating in initiatives to keep the streets of his hometown clean and safe, instead of following the exhortations of prominent activists and putting the plight of Arabs living under Israeli governance six thousand miles away, must perforce disdain those Arabs as inferior to other humans, activists report.
According to those activists, Terrence Howell, 50, who runs Front Street Hardware - a franchise in the True Value chain - spends his non-work hours on family and community endeavors, and donates supplies from his business to local projects, such as last year when a neighborhood elementary school needed to perform emergency repairs to its student bathrooms, and Front Street Hardware provided various fixtures gratis. Moves of that nature, the activists conclude, in the presence of known pro-Palestine alternatives such as harassing Jews or donating to known terrorist groups, demonstrate Mr. Howell's racist sensibilities.
"It's not like Palestine is an obscure issue," explained Hofstra University Students for Justice in Palestine chapter head Latisha Holmes. "It's in the news practically every day. No one can claim not to know how urgent it is, or how important it is to make every issue about Palestine. The only reasonable conclusion one can draw from this man's pattern of behavior is that he regards Palestinians as racially inferior."
"It's internalized white supremacy," agreed Palestine Solidarity Campaign volunteer Holden Lamaar. "You'd think as a person of color himself, Howell would be sensitive to the racist implications of supporting anything that isn't Palestine. Everyone who knows anything knows that there can be no justice for anyone until there's justice for Palestinians, and it's we apologists for antisemitic terrorism who get to define 'justice.' That Howell disregards this axiom is damning enough. What is a pothole on his street compared to the suffering of Palestinian children at the hands of imperialist white supremacist Zionists?"
Holmes added that at a meeting of the local parent-teacher association, Howell voted in favor of allocating certain funds to extracurricular enrichment of children's science education, and not, as Holmes and a group of activists had lobbied, to have her lecture the children on the crucial topics of blaming Israel and Zionists for everything that's wrong with the world, and making the undoing of Jewish security the centerpiece of a fulfilling existence.
The inclusion of Ra’am in the current coalition was already a turning point in Israel’s history. Its participation signified a pragmatic approach for Arab-Israeli leaders, one that focused on improving the lives of their constituency.
Abbas and his party campaigned on solving issues in Arab communities and improving the quality of life. Since then, as part of the coalition, he has secured budgets for an ambitious five-year plan for the Arab population – called Takadum (Progress) in Arabic – that tackles vital issues such as the uncontrolled gun violence in the Arab sector and a severe housing shortage.
That refreshing hands-on approach to leadership, which recognizes the reality and attempts to work within the system to improve constituents’ plights, unfortunately, hasn’t been adopted by Mansour’s fellow Arab lawmakers from other parties.
Joint List MK and Balad Party leader Sami Abou Shahadeh responded to Abbas’s statement on Jewish statehood by accusing him of “having a split personality.”
“The question of the status of the Palestinian minority in Israel is fundamentally tied to the definition of the state as a Jewish state. Only a state of all its citizens can bring about justice and full equality among all citizens,” Abou Shahadeh said.
Likewise, Joint List leader Ayman Odeh dismissed Abbas for giving in to the Jewish majority. “The question of the state’s identity should interest every citizen – Arab or Jew – who cares about peace and democracy,” he said.
Odeh, it seems, is living under the illusions that Abbas mentioned. Israel was indeed founded as a Jewish state, and that it shall remain, affording full rights and equal status to all its citizens. If that issue could be taken off the table, it would create so much more opportunity to address the real issues that affect all citizens of the country.
Mansour Abbas’s statement on Tuesday was long overdue from an Arab-Israeli leader, but it’s certainly most welcome. Let’s hope that other courageous leaders also come forward with similar declarations.
Sometimes small, incremental changes lead to seismic shifts in society. If this is indeed a turning point in the way the Arab citizens of Israel view their country. We can look back on Abbas’s statement as a game changer.
In a televised interview on the Kul al-Arab Israeli-Arab news station, Ra’am Secretary-General Ibrahim Hijazi this week praised the “security prisoners” who are fighting the “occupation,” and asserted that the Temple Mount and the Western Wall belong only to the Muslims, and called for erasing the Jewish communities in Judea & Samaria.
Hijazi’s interview, which was translated and brought to the public eye by the Arab Desk of Im Tirtzu, took place a day before the highly-praised declaration by Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas that Israel was and will remain a Jewish state.
Critics of Ra’am’s inclusion in the government have long accused Ra’am of speaking one way in Arabic and another in Hebrew to mask its true agenda.
Hijazi’s interview did nothing to soothe the critics’ concerns, as he made clear that “the one who makes decisions on the big issues, national and ideological, is not Ibrahim [Hijazi] or Mansour [Abbas] – it’s the Ra’am platform.”
“Our position is firm,” continued Hijazi. “The blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and every grain of dirt in it, its plazas, its domes, its walls, and the Buraq Wall (Western Wall) all belong to Islam and no one is allowed to set foot there.”
Regarding Israel’s jailed terrorists, he said: “Why are the security prisoners in Israeli prisons? They defended their land. The security prisoner has a problem with the state, or with a police officer, a prison guard, or the army. He has a problem with the state that is occupying its land. In every matter regarding the prisoners – by the way, there are old prisoners, sick prisoners, child prisoners, sick prisoners [sic], and women. What’s about them? What are they still doing in prison? I know how to do my job, to make a serious contribution regarding this matter. This is a serious matter in which a security prisoner fought and sacrificed.”
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday told a visiting delegation led by Chief Rabbi of Turkey, Isaak Haleva, and the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, with representatives of the Alliance of Rabbis in the Islamic States (ARIS) that Turkey views antisemitism as a crime against humanity, just like Islamophobia, Anadolu reported.
At the meeting at the presidential complex in the capital, Ankara, Erdogan told the visiting rabbis: “Just as we see Islamophobia as a crime against humanity, we also see anti-Semitism as a crime against humanity,” and added: “I do not accept any approach that marginalizes people because of their faith or ethnic origin.”
The Turkish President praised the contributions of his country’s Jewish citizens over the centuries, and said: “We did not allow inhuman ideas such as racism, antisemitism, intolerance to other religions to find ground in these lands.” He also said, “We need to be in solidarity in the fight against Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, especially in Western countries.”
And then Erdogan addressed the blue and white elephant in the room, saying, “Turkey’s greatest desire is a Middle East where societies from different religions, languages, and ethnicities live together in peace.” He suggested that the past decade and a half of terrible relations between Turkey and Israel were rooted in Turkey’s warnings to the Israeli government to “ensure that matters are approached via the perspective of long-term peace and stability in the Middle East.”
He’s only been educating his less bright younger brother, see…
Erdogan then continued his patronizing message to Israel, saying that “relations with Israel in the fields of economy, trade, and tourism are progressing in their own way,” but, naturally, “Israel’s sincere and constructive attitude in the context of peace efforts will undoubtedly contribute to the normalization process. Turkey-Israel relations are vital for the stability and security of our region.”
Israel's occupation of Palestine is behind the exodus of Palestinian Christians from the region, according to a new study.
Research carried out by Dar al-Kalima University in the occupied West Bank town of Beit Jala, concluded that only a small percentage of Christians had left Palestine because of concerns over Muslim religious conservatism.
Explaining the rationale behind the results of the roughly 500 Christians and 500 Muslims interviewed, the study said: "The pressure of Israeli occupation, ongoing constraints, discriminatory policies, arbitrary arrests, confiscation of lands added to the general sense of hopelessness among Palestinian Christians."
Details of the survey are not available online, so I cannot yet see the methodology. It was published in a book by Diyar Publisher, edited by Mitri Raheb, who is the founder of Diyar as well as of Dar al-Kalima College in Bethlehem.
Raheb is not exactly apolitical. He is a member of the Palestinian National Council and the Palestinian Central Council.
He is a founder of Kairos Palestine, the antisemitic, supersessionist organization that attempts to use Christian theology to justify the idea that Jews have no business living in Israel and which calls the Torah a "dead letter."
Raheb's own quotes prove that he is an antisemite.
He spoke at a 2010 "Christ at the Checkpoint" conference - whose title says that if Joseph and Mary tried to go to Bethlehem today, they would be blocked as "Palestinians." (In fact, as Jews, they would be lynched in today's Bethlehem.)
At that conference, he said that "the Palestinian people ...are the continuation of the peoples of the land" but "Israel represents Rome of the Bible, not the people of the land." Meaning that Jews have no connection to the Israel of the Bible but Palestinians do.
Then he descended into the purely antisemitic and thoroughly debunked Khazar theory: "I'm sure if we were to do a DNA test between David, who was a Bethlehemite, and Jesus, born in Bethlehem, and Mitri, born just across the street from where Jesus was born, I'm sure the DNA will show that there is a trace. While, if you put King David, Jesus and Netanyahu, you will get nothing, because Netanyahu comes from an East European tribe who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages."
The head of a college, who has published his own academic papers and books, is a clear antisemite.
Why would anyone trust his study that was obviously designed to confirm his hate?
Al Monitor is usually a pretty good news source, but sometimes they will allow someone who can't even get their anti-Israel story straight to write an article.
The Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah are increasingly being harassed and attacked by settlers and the Israeli police, in an effort to push them to vacate their homes and hand them over to settlers.
In 1972, Israeli associations forged ownership papers of land in Sheikh Jarrah, which the Palestinians own, and registered a number of land plots in the Israel Lands Administration. Yet the team of lawyers in charge of defending the Palestinians found Turkish papers denying Jewish ownership of this land. The Israeli courts, however, rejected the documents claiming Palestinian families’ ownership of the land and insist on the eviction decisions.
OK, so according to the writer, Israelis forged the ownership papers and Israel's courts are part of the scam - this is stated as fact.
So why haven't the Jews just taken the houses yet?
Despite the constant harassment, and threats to their lives sometimes, the Palestinians turned down all compromises and mediations by the Israeli courts. This is why the settlers sought to make high financial offers to the Palestinian residents of the neighborhood to leave their homes and sell them to the settlers. Abdel Fattah Skafi, a Palestinian resident who was offered $5 million for his home, which is adjacent to the settlers’ homes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, rejected this offer....
[Skafi] explained that the Israelis' position on Sheikh Jarrah is weak, because the ownership papers in their possession are forged and that this is why they are making financial offers.
Why would the corrupt courts offer a compromise?
Moreover, why would Israelis offer millions of dollars for a home if they have already forged the documents of ownership and the courts already accept those documents? Those Jews should be able to steal the houses just like Palestinians claim they do all the time!
The writer is trying to have it both ways, saying that Israelis steal the land but that the Arabs are steadfast enough to reject multi-million dollar offers.
I wish I was that harassed with such an offer for my home.
The truth is much simpler and doesn't require such contradictions. The Jews who legally own some homes in Sheikh Jarrah have already shown their proof of ownership. Israeli courts don't want to award the Jews the homes because it would become an international incident.
One week after the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Ohio chapter in Hilliard was fired for spying on the organization for an anti-Muslim group, the national office of CAIR announced Tuesday via its Twitter account that a second "spy" had been identified.
The unnamed second person that CAIR said was spying on the organization and American Muslims came forward voluntarily. While the individual did not work for the nonprofit, he was an active volunteer in a large mosque and was invited to national meetings and events, the tweet said.
So if he wasn't an employee at CAIR, what sort of "spying' did he do?
Steven Emerson, the founder on the anti-Muslim IPT, paid the second individual $3,000 per month to record prominent Muslim leaders, CAIR's tweet said.
If this spy was not a member of CAIR, that means that all he could record were what CAIR leaders were telling Muslims during their seemingly public events.
It sounds like this person was simply recording speeches that were given to the Muslim community at large.
What is wrong with that - unless, as this CAIR tweet implies, Muslim leaders say things to their fellow Muslims that they don't want the rest of the world to hear.
If that is true, then the real problem isn't that Emerson's group paid someone to record the speeches. The real issue is that "prominent Muslim leaders" say things to Muslims that they don't want anyone else to hear.
Israeli newspapers publicize things that haredi leaders say to their flocks all the time, including things that are embarrassing or that they take out of context to make them sound embarrassing.
When it happens to Jews, it is brave whistleblowing journalism. When it happens to Muslims, it is underhanded spying.
The Washington, D.C., public school librarian who made third graders reenact graphic scenes from the Holocaust is a Democrat who claims she ran for office in New Jersey, where she was convicted of defrauding the state through a tutoring scam and charged with several counts of animal abuse.
Kimberlynn Jurkowski was placed on leave this week after parents complained to Watkins Elementary School that she made students role-play the Holocaust, assigning students to be Jews and pretend to die in gas chambers and dig mass graves, according to the Washington Post. One student was assigned to be Adolf Hitler, who carried out the Holocaust, Jurkowski told the students, "because the Jews ruined Christmas." A Washington Free Beacon investigation found that Jurkowski was hired by the D.C. public school after a scandalous tenure as a librarian in New Jersey, where she ran in 2010 for a local school board as a Democrat, according to an image posted to her Twitter account.
There is no record of Jurkowski serving on the school board for Hamilton Township in Atlantic County, where she says she ran for office. There is record, however, of New Jersey catching Jurkowski bilking taxpayers out of approximately $24,000 through a program designed to help the children of the state's educators. The Hamilton Township district paid for Jurkowski's two children to receive tutoring—but she continued to bill the district for reimbursements once the tutoring stopped. She was convicted of fraud and forced to forfeit her librarian job, according to court records.
Jurkowski's legal problems continued in 2019 when she faced four charges of animal cruelty for leaving her dogs out in the cold. According to coverage at the time from Pet Rescue Report, Jurkowski left five dogs behind to survive frigid temperatures in a dilapidated environment. Body camera footage from police officers called to the site shows "the entire property was completely run down," with "dogs in pens with sheets of plywood leaning against a fence to act as shelter."
One of the dogs, an older Rottweiler named Poseidon, could barely walk, and was found dead and frozen solid to the ground in one of the pens. The dog's death prompted animal rights activists to launch a #JusticeForPoseidon campaign.
The principal of Watkins Elementary School, Scott Berkowitz, did not return a request for comment on Jurkowski. D.C. Public Schools did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including about whether it was familiar with Jurkowski’s criminal record prior to hiring her.
Since working in D.C. Public Schools, Jurkowski has struck an ultra-partisan combative tone online. Her Twitter account is filled with retweets of calls to abolish the police and defend Palestinian terrorism. One Al Jazeera post she shared claims that a Palestinian terrorist named Ahmad Erekat was killed by Israeli police but fails to mention that he was shot after ramming his car into Israelis.
Watkins Elementary School is located just outside a city ward represented by a Democratic lawmaker who claimed that Jews control the weather.
Democratic members of the US House of Representatives passed legislation last week to create a special envoy to combat Islamophobia worldwide. The bill was sponsored by Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and her Jewish colleague Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois.
At first glance, the creation of this position seems noble as it reassures Muslim minorities around the globe who are being persecuted or facing racism that the leader of the free world is ready to acknowledge their suffering and defend them if necessary. But the reality is the opposite.
As an American Muslim, I stand against this bill along with many similar-minded Muslims who know firsthand what political Islamism is all about and are willing to fight these efforts.
The term “Islamophobia” itself is questionable, especially since it is nothing but an invention of political Islamists who wanted to silence even Muslim voices who question their motives and object to their totalitarian ideology in the name of freedom of religion.
The bill that was proudly supported by the Democratic party failed to define Islamophobia.
Does describing Hamas as a terrorist group fall into this category? What about condemning suicide bombings by Islamist jihadists? And, most importantly, would standing against the Muslim Brotherhood and its defenders make you an “Islamophobe” who deserves to be canceled?
No one has the answers, except the Islamists themselves who are trying to infiltrate the Western political system and modify it to suit their political agenda, which has nothing to do with the Muslim faith.
A new study has found that there are “at last 290 streets or squares” in Berlin that are named after individuals who openly expressed antisemitic views.
That’s probably the record for the most streets named in honor of Jew-haters. Wondering which city is second? I would put my bet on Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority.
And I would argue that the street names in Ramallah are a much more serious problem than the offensive names in Berlin.
A major street in Berlin, Martinlutherstrasse, honors the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther. In his 1543 book, On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther proposed that all synagogues, Jewish schools and Jewish homes be set on fire, that Jewish property be confiscated, and that rabbis be forbidden to speak publicly.
There’s also a Berlin street named after Bishop F.K. Otto Dibelius. In the 1930s, he advocated restricting the number of Jews in various jobs and preventing Jewish immigration. Regarding Nazi violence, he declared his hope that “the hour may come soon when violence is no longer necessary.”
Another street in the German capital is named after Heinrich von Treitschke, the 19th-century nationalist rabble-rouser who coined the phrase “The Jews are our misfortune,” which later became a popular Nazi slogan.
I tip my hat to German political scientist Felix Sassmannshausen for publicizing these outrageous choices of names for streets in Berlin.
Interview with Master Holocaust Teacher Dorene Schwartz-Weitz
Master Holocaust Teacher Dorene Schwartz-Weitz
Holocaust education is something that should be part of
every history or social studies class. Or so you would think. After all, the
Holocaust is an historic event, a catastrophic event, an attempt at genocide.
It happened. People are yet alive to
give testimony that this is so.
We know however, that in many cases, this particular event
in history, the event known as the Holocaust, goes unmentioned in elementary
and high school curriculums. Artist and Master Holocaust Teacher Dorene Schwartz-Weitz
aims to change this. She wants mandatory Holocaust Education in every school in
the United States. And she wants that education done properly. Schwartz Weitz
wants Holocaust Education curriculums to be not only mandated but regulated.
How do we know that the state of Holocaust Education within
the United States is a failure? A 2020 poll revealed
that 63% of the respondents had no idea that “6 million” Jews had been
murdered.* Of those who were aware that
a number of Jews had been murdered by the Nazis, 36% believed the number
of victims to be 2 million or so. A further 48% of those polled could not name a single
concentration camp. They had apparently never even heard of Auschwitz, the most
infamous of all Nazi concentration camps.
The Holocaust occurred only 75 years ago, but is largely forgotten by Americans. Some educators in, for example, Florida
and Texas,
feel that Holocaust denial should be a part of Holocaust Education, and treated
as valid opinion. Not to mention the staff member who had third graders reenact the Holocaust and told them that Jews caused the Holocaust "because they ruined Christmas."
Whether all of this is from ignorance or antisemitism, it is (and sometimes isn't) hard to
say. But we do know that something must be done. Dorene Schwartz-Weitz is doing her part, having made it her life’s
work to improve and make mandatory, Holocaust Education in schools across
America. A busy artist whose uncle, aunts, and cousin were Holocaust Survivors, Dorene gave generously of her time to tell us about her work:
Varda Epstein: Tell
us something about yourself, your background. How does one become a master
teacher of the Holocaust?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: If someone would have shown me a
video of my future, I'd never believe I'd become someone who has devoted her
life to working passionately on promoting Holocaust Education. My original
career trajectory was to become an artist.
And indeed, my first major gallery opening was on 57th Street at the age of 25.
Though I was raised by an extended family of Holocaust
Survivors, the subject was always "the elephant at the table" (as
Jews, we were always at the table, lol). The noted Holocaust historian and
Survivor, Dr. Yaffa Eliach, zt"l, was my high school teacher. But
antisemitism wasn't part of my everyday life experience.
Dr. Yaffa Eliach (A"H) with Dorene Schwartz-Weitz
There was, however, always an undercurrent of antisemitism
prevalent throughout my teaching career with what unfolded and what I came to
witness was a lack of basic understanding of what it was to be a Jew. The
culmination of all this arrived one day when a student—a high school football
star in the running for a full scholarship—refused to do the required
assignments. When confronted, he said, "You didn't learn your lesson. You
should be sent back to Auschwitz".
Informed of the incident, the administration of the school
failed to support me. Instead, they turned the tables "and
then they came after me" with accusations regarding my teaching
abilities.
It was then that I wrote, coordinated and taught,
"Portraits of Survivors,” an interdisciplinary Holocaust Education
program, and went back to Rutgers for a Master Teacher of The Holocaust
certification. I was thereafter awarded plaques inscribed with, "Excellence in Teaching.”
Varda Epstein: Not
long ago, you told me that teaching the Holocaust “should not be like teaching
kids dangers of smoking when they haven’t started.” Why shouldn’t the Holocaust
be taught as a cautionary tale?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: There is a phenomenon I became aware of while teaching the Holocaust. I had a student who seemed so dedicated, supportive and involved until I realized it was he who was carving those swastikas into the table where he sat. Apparently, when teaching, i.e., anti-smoking or sex ed. you get students who will suddenly start smoking and students who will start to engage in premarital sex.
It's called "The Boomerang Effect" and has to do with the fact that those in this age group are often rebellious.
Varda Epstein: Can
you talk about the principal in Florida who refused to say that the Holocaust
is a fact? What are your thoughts on this? How can we address top down
Holocaust denial from our educators?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: More and more we are seeing the dire need for school to be a safe place. Creating this environment begins from the top down in setting the atmosphere. Administrators need to first be educated, have a curriculum in place, and an agreement as to how to best achieve a result where students know their well-being is the top priority.
Opening the door for Holocaust Denial by redefining it as "others' views and opinions,” sets the stage for conflict, not resolution. Would we give sex offenders a voice in sex education? I would dare to say that denying the Holocaust, with all its ramifications, is far worse.
Varda Epstein: How
can educators teach the Holocaust to youth in an accurate way without sugarcoating
the truth? And if we get that far, how do we avoid traumatizing them?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: The concept of having a whole school work on Holocaust education as an interdisciplinary program creates the environment where everyone knows they are working together toward a common goal of learning so as to promote an understanding of how this could have happened, and thus be prevented.
Moreover, having a student meet with a Holocaust Survivor so as to listen to their life's story of survival makes the unspeakable more humanely digestible. After 9/11, such meetings became all the more valuable with our students desperately seeking ways to survive psychologically or in the face of terror.
My Great Uncle Moish, Aunt Tzeril and Yankel, Holocaust Survivors on their first day in America.
Yankel was 9.
They survived by burying themselves alive in shallow graves and bunkers, in the forests surrounding Poland.
Varda
Epstein: Where are we failing in regard to teaching the Holocaust?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: With regard to the goals of teaching lessons learned from the Holocaust, we fail in that there isn't first an agreement as to the necessity for Holocaust Education in its own right, rather than as a tagline to Genocide Education, where the Holocaust may be merely mentioned, if at all. There needs to be an awareness of the Holocaust as the turning point in civilization, on all levels. When the discussion encompasses other times and places where there were unspeakable genocides, it waxes over the very facts. The Holocaust happened at a time and in a place where science, art, music, and education were in top form. This wasn't happening to some uncivilized population unable to protect itself, thus making for the possibility of, “it can happen again.”
We need a Holocaust Mandate instituted as a requirement for a high school graduation diploma. There needs to be an agreed upon curriculum implemented by administrators and teachers, and supported by parents.
My father's family, Maciejow Poland. Taken the day my Bubby, father and uncle left to the US. Everyone else in this picture was killed as Hitler went through all the shtetlach.
Varda
Epstein: How can we improve Holocaust education in the classroom?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: In writing a Holocaust curriculum, there needs to be age appropriate information paired with exercises that promote an understanding of how to process and direct those goals so as to improve our relationship to the Holocaust. Those who have gone through Holocaust Education programs, Holocaust Survivors, children of Holocaust Survivors, and victims of antisemitism are our greatest resources in conveying the message. Students should know what a Jew is, along with some Jewish history (including prior persecutions), and current events as part of the basic foundation of understanding. Additionally, students should be made aware of the WWI events that led to Hitler’s, y"s, rise to power, which in turn, led to the near accomplishment of his main goal: the Final Solution.
All of the above should be included in the Holocaust curriculum.
Varda
Epstein: How can parents supplement their children’s understanding of the
Holocaust at home?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: After sitting to draw the portraits of a couple who had survived the Holocaust, one of my high school students said, "I didn't believe the Holocaust happened, but when I saw all these old people getting off a bus on this cold icy winter day just to talk to us, I knew they were not coming to make up stories.”
It later became known that the student's parents were Holocaust deniers. Thus separated from their influence, he was able to form his own opinion.
We cannot assume that parents will be supportive. Some need to first be educated. On the other hand, there are many parents who want to help and do so by chaperoning or taking their children to a Holocaust museum or movie, and then discussing the lessons to be learned.
Student portrait of Survivor Adam Boren
Student portrait of Survivor Ana Balaban
Varda
Epstein: What would you say is the main takeaway that we should want our
children to have from the historic catastrophe that is the Holocaust?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: The world is made of many nations, religions (4,200!), and creeds. Though we are sometimes seemingly so different, we share a most common need and goal for communication, acceptance, understanding and especially peace and love. By opening ourselves up to this awareness, we can all enjoy our shared lives.
Yes, it can happen again, but with Holocaust Education you will know there is a choice in how to respond to your own or others' needs for help. There are still many Righteous Gentiles being honored for their unbelievable courage when putting their own lives and the lives of their loved ones, on the line to save a Jew.
Varda
Epstein: What does the future hold for you as a Holocaust educator?
Dorene Schwartz-Weitz: Things have drastically changed over the past two years in the world. We are living in the most challenging of times. G-d fearing people see "The Hand of G-d" in all unfolding.
Growing up after The Holocaust, in The Golden Medina, we had childhoods filled with attainable dreams and hope. As a parent/grandparent I pray my children and grandchildren will enjoy the same opportunities afforded us—and especially in regard to having the ability to live their lives as practicing Jews.
As Jews, we are taught to be accepting and respectful of others. Hillel summarized the entirety of the Torah by stating the most important commandment is to, "Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
As a Holocaust Educator, I see that our work, in many ways, has just begun.
If you would like to help assist the goals of education toward prevention, here's what all of us should do ASAP:
1. Demand mandatory Holocaust education: only 19 out of 50 states in the US have mandatory Holocaust Education.
*It is important to note that “6 million” was only an estimate. The actual number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust is closer to 7 million and still counting, as mass graves and bodies continue to be discovered in various parts of Europe.
In my previous blog I wrote incorrectly that 16 Israelis were murdered in the 2001 Sbarro Restaurant bombing, with one victim remaining unconscious only to die later.
The truth is that 15 died in the explosion or immediately after, and 130 were injured, some of them very seriously. A 31-year old woman named Chana Nachenberg, who was there with Sarah, her toddler daughter, suffered a traumatic brain injury from one of the pieces of shrapnel in the bomb, and entered what doctors call a “persistent vegetative state.” Chana is still alive 20 years later, and still unresponsive. Her daughter Sarah was one of the few at the location who escaped unhurt.
A person in a vegetative state has some brain function, but is not able to communicate. Sometimes they recover, but the longer they have been in this condition, the less likely it becomes. Are they in any sense aware? Nobody knows, but I hope not. Here is something Sarah wrote about her mother some years ago. Twenty years is a long time, the length of a generation. Think about what happened in your life in the past 20 years. Today Sarah has a daughter of her own.
I was informed of my error by Arnold Roth, who lost his daughter Malki in the bombing. Malki was 15, and had gone to Sbarro’s for pizza with a friend, Michal Raziel. Both girls were among the murder victims. Several years ago I met Arnold for lunch in Jerusalem, and as we walked back along Jaffa Road toward his car and the bus station, I suddenly realized that we were at the corner with King George St. where the Sbarro restaurant had been. There is a plaque at the location with the names of the victims on it. I could only imagine what Arnold was feeling.
Since Malki’s death, Arnold and his wife Frimet have taken on two tasks. One is to help provide home care alternatives for disabled children, and to this end they established the Keren Malki Foundation in her name. The other is to get justice for their daughter, one of whose murderers walks free.
The Sbarro bombing was one of the most horrifying episodes of the Second Intifada, when Palestinian suicide bombers exploded on almost a daily basis in buses, restaurants, markets, and railroad and bus stations. The attack was planned by Ahlam Tamimi, then a 20-year old journalism student who chose the location and accompanied a suicide bomber, Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri to the restaurant. Al-Masri carried a guitar case containing 5-10 kg. of explosive and hundreds of nails and other shrapnel. Tamimi left him there and returned to Ramallah, where she had a part-time job as a TV news presenter, and reported on the attack to her Palestinian audience. A remarkably cold killer, Tamimi later smiled broadly and thanked Allah when an interviewer noted that she had killed seven children, and not just three as she had thought. She has said that she is not sorry for what she did and would do it again.
Tamimi was sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences, and the bomb-maker, Hamas commander Abdullah Barghouti, to 67 (!) of them for his role in multiple murders. But in 2011 when the Israeli government foolishly agreed to trade 1027 convicted terrorists for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, Tamimi was among them. She was released and deported to Jordan, where she was given a job on Jordanian TV and became a media celebrity. Frimet Roth wrote then that the release and hero’s welcome of Ahlam Tamimi made her feel as though her daughter were being murdered a second time.
Chana Nachenberg, Malki Roth, and another victim, Shoshana Hayman Greenbaum – who was pregnant – all had American citizenship, and the US has demanded Tamimi’s extradition, in part due to the efforts of Arnold and Frimet Roth. But Jordan refuses to honor its extradition treaty, probably because the king fears the reaction of his subjects. Apparently American officials agree with him, because they haven’t tried to force him to give her up, despite her position on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists.
In the last few weeks there has been an uptick in Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. There have been stabbings, car rammings, an attempted mass shooting (only one death, thanks to quick police reaction), and the recent ambush of a car carrying yeshiva students, which resulted in the death of one of them. And of course, there is also the “background noise” of daily rock-throwing and firebomb attacks which don’t make the news, even in Israel, unless a terrorist gets lucky and kills someone. We get used to all of this, and perhaps don’t think about the suffering of the terror victims and their families. And we don’t dare ask ourselves what it must be like to be as full of hate as Ahlam Tamimi.
One thing that we do know is that Palestinian terrorism is more than just an expression of rage; it is a targeted act with a specific objective. Terrorists and their supporters believe that they can make life here unbearable for Jews, who will pack up and “go back where they came from.”
This is a remarkable mistake for Palestinians, who are usually relatively clever and resourceful. Very few Israeli Jews have a place to go “back” to; certainly Mizrachi Jews are not welcome in North Africa, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and so on. Nor do the descendants of Jews displaced or murdered in the Holocaust, nor the children of those who came from Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire prior to WWII. I doubt that Russia would welcome former Soviet Jews, either. But even those from Western countries, like the Roths, are not going anywhere, despite the pain, sometimes felt very personally, of terrorism.
Israel is not a colony, and it is not a temporary arrangement. The land is soaked in Jewish blood, and the Jewish people have taken root in it. The idea that they can be dislodged by Palestinian terrorism, either the organized kind coming from Hamas or the random acts of hatred by “lone wolf terrorists” is ludicrous. All the terrorists can do is provoke a reaction – one that may ultimately lead to their expulsion in a second Nakba.
Palestinians from across the political spectrum have strongly condemned Ra’am (United Arab List) leader and MK Mansour Abbas for allegedly recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.
On Tuesday, Abbas was quoted as saying, “The State of Israel was born as a Jewish state, and it will remain one.” He made the statement at a conference of the Hebrew economic newspaper Globes.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has repeatedly stated his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, on Wednesday expressed outrage over the statements of the Arab MK.
“These irresponsible statements are consistent with the calls of extremists in Israel to displace the Palestinians and harm the status of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque and the history of the Palestinian people,” he said in a statement released by the PA president’s office.
The statement added that Mansour Abbas represents only himself when he talks about accepting Israel as a Jewish state.
“He does not represent the Palestinian people at home and everywhere in the world,” the statement read, adding that such remarks “contradict religion, history and Palestinian heritage.”
Accusing Mansour Abbas of being part of a “current that promotes the Zionist colonial project,” the PA statement continued, “It is unfortunate that instead of siding with the rights of his people and condemning the settlements, killings and displacement committed by the occupation and the plans of Israeli extremists to empty Palestinian lands, we see him repeating the lies of the Zionist movement.”
The PLO Executive Committee, which consists of representatives of several Palestinian factions, expressed “strong condemnation” for the statements of Mansour Abbas, saying they do not reflect the views of the Palestinians.
The committee accused the Arab MK of supporting Israeli “racist” laws and aligning himself with the “right-wing, racist and extremist policy” of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked.
Einat Wilf Goldman Lecture - “Arab Zionism and the Path to Peace".
Dr. Einat Wilf, the 2021 Georgetown Goldman Visiting Professor, gives the annual Goldman lecture hosted by the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown.
Samantha Power, who had once called for a military invasion and occupation of Israel, appeared in her new role as the head of USAID to complain about aid to the terrorists.
Power made her complaints at the virtual winter event for the Alliance for Middle East Peace, an organization that, like anything middle eastern with the word “peace” in it, is anything but peaceful, but managed to lobby Congress into allocating a quarter of a billion dollars to promote “peacebuilding” efforts by organizations like its anti-Israel member groups.
"Investments in the health and wellbeing of Palestinians benefits everyone, including Israelis," Samantha Power complained. "Yet today, it has become controversial to provide life-saving aid to the Palestinian people and invest in their development."
Having the United States fund a welfare state in the West Bank and Gaza, buying butter so that Hamas and the PLO are free to focus on buying guns, missiles, and suicide bombers helps no one, least of all Israelis. The PLO's Palestinian Authority paid out some $150 million in 2019 to imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists as part of its 'Pay-to-Slay' program.
The PLO’s puppet regime has over $4 billion in debt, and keeps claiming that it’s on the verge of bankruptcy. And yet despite pressure from its donors, it has refused to stop paying terrorists.
Power is well aware of this even as she decided to play dumb in her address to her partners.
The Alliance for Middle East Peace cheered Power’s nomination to head USAID. And Power in turn praised ALLMEP for convincing Congress to allocate $250 million to promote “peace” which will be allocated through USAID.
Power, the NGOs, and the terrorists win while Americans lose. Again.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
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