Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 27, 2021

12/27 Links Pt1: PA seeks to undo the result of Balfour Declaration and have Israel “disappear”; 'Iran deal put us on cruise control heading over a cliff,' former envoy warns

From Ian:

PMW: PA seeks to undo the result of Balfour Declaration and have Israel “disappear”

PA school kids taught that the Balfour Declaration is:
“The filthiest colonialist promise in human history”
“the ugliest historical injustice”
“Palestine is ours and will not be a homeland of the Jews”
“We will give our children’s blood” to undo Balfour Declaration, says Fatah official in Gaza
Girl from Fatah calls Balfour “a traitor of humanity,” vows to “fight… with the blood of Martyrs” to erase Israel
The Balfour Declaration was “a declaration of war against Palestine” – editorial in official PA daily
The Balfour Declaration helped Europeans realize two goals: “Get rid of the Jewish problem in Europe” and “ensure their colonialist interests in the Near East and Far East” – columnist in official PA daily
Fatah: “The Balfour Promise was and will remain the most shocking crime in modern human history” whose goal was “to empty the land of Palestine of its people” and “build a military apparatus” so that the Jews “would fulfill a role for the global colonialist system”

'Iran deal put us on cruise control heading over a cliff,' former envoy warns

Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer this week defended his government's positions that encouraged the United States to leave the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and supported Israel's current position that the US must leave a military option on the table and signal that Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons.

Speaking on Tuesday in a Zoom seminar held by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), in conversation with JINSA President and CEO Michael Makovsky, the former envoy said he stands by his previously expressed stance that US withdrawal from the deal (also known as the JCPOA) under the Trump administration was the single-most important decision that any president had made for Israel's national security.

While that decision didn't end the Iranian threat, it was a "critical means to an end" because the JCPOA provided a legal framework for Iran to achieve nuclear status once the deal's provisions ended, rather than block it entirely, he said.

"Because what the deal did is it put restrictions on Iran's nuclear program for a limited number of years, and those restrictions would be automatically removed," said Dermer, who served as ambassador from 2013-2021 before joining JINSA as a non-resident distinguished fellow at the JINSA Gemunder Center. "And contrary to what many people believe, the nuclear deal did not freeze Iran's program."

Under the accord, Dermer explained, Iran "was allowed to do research and development on more and more advanced centrifuges. So, the nuclear deal with Iran enabled Iran to advance their nuclear program, under the imprimatur of the international community – essentially gave a kosher stamp to Iran moving on a path not just on one bomb but to an entire nuclear arsenal."

Makovsky said that Iran is getting very close to a nuclear bomb, having enriched Uranium to 90% – one of the red lines that those discussing Iran were hoping would not be reached.

Dermer noted that even according to former President Barack Obama, whose administration helped negotiate the agreement, when the deal's provisions were scheduled to sunset, Iran would have had a breakout time of zero.

Experts View Iran's Advance toward Nuclear Weapons

Sima Shine - head of the Iran program at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and former head of the research and evaluation division at the Mossad - explained earlier this month that Israel is faced with three main issues with regard to Iran: the nuclear program; the fact that Iran is close to Israel's borders in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza; and Iranian cyberattacks against Israeli infrastructure and civilian entities. "The closer Iran gets to a nuclear weapon, the more temptation there is to get there," she added.

Elliott Abrams, former U.S. special representative for Iran, said, "We see the behavior of Iran in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. All of this is undertaken without nuclear weapons. One therefore must ask oneself: What would Iranian behavior be like if it felt safer because it had a nuclear weapon?"

He noted that it would be "destabilizing and terribly undermining of U.S. leadership and credibility if all of these pledges and promises by American presidents over the years turn out to be hollow, and it turns out they can be defied by Iran with no impact or reaction on the part of the United States."

The world order "is largely based on the credibility of the U.S., and if that credibility disappears, we have a whole different world....An Iranian nuclear weapon, in the teeth of the American pledge 'this will never be permitted to happen,' would really do damage to America's interests throughout the world."

Joseph's Tomb in the early 1900s

Palestinian media report:

On Friday evening, security forces prevented angry youths from burning Joseph's Tomb in the city of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank.

Local sources reported that an angry march started at night in front of Balata refugee camp, east of Nablus, with the participation of dozens of young men, and headed towards Joseph's tomb in the Balata Al-Balad area, in an attempt to burn it in response to the escalating attacks by settlers.

The sources stated that reinforcements from the security services arrived at the site of Joseph's tomb and spread around it, preventing the march from approaching it, and confrontations erupted between them and the march participants.

According to Khaled Abu Toameh, there were two such attempts in recent days.

For the second time in the past few days, Palestinians attempted to set fire to Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. Palestinian Authority security forces fired tear gas to disperse the attackers.
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) December 26, 2021

Trying to burn down a Jewish holy site? Nah, nothing antisemitic about that!

Al Jazeera quotes Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Dahglas, who is literally paid to lie about Jews in the territories and gets believed by major media. He claims that Jews only created Joseph's Tomb in recent years!

Ghassan Dahglas, who is in charge of the settlement file in the northern West Bank, confirms that the place is "a shrine, not a tomb, and not for the Prophet of God Joseph, peace be upon him, as the occupation claims."

Dahglas denies that there is a tomb in the first place, and says that the Israelis came in 2011 with large stones carried by trucks, and put them down in the place, and later claimed that it was the grave, and he tells Al Jazeera Net, "This is Palestinian-documented," and adds that "all of this is taught by their children to preserve it for future generations and adopt the forged story."

Calling Jews liars and thieves for trying to claim a Muslim site as their own? Nah, nothing antisemitic about that!

While there is certainly doubt whether this is the actual location of Joseph's Tomb, it has been identified as such since the 5th century at least. Here is an 1864 account of the site by John Mills:

There is nothing remarkable in the present structure. It is surrounded by a common -built stone wall, six feet high and thirty -eight inches thick , plastered on the inside with mortar. The space within the wall measures nine feet and five inches, from north to south ; and nine feet and thirteen inches from east to west. The corners nearly answer to the cardinal points. The doorway is in the northern side ; and opposite to it in the southern wall is a place for prayer, looking towards Mount Gerizim , and marked by a niche in the wall, over which are two slabs of stone, with defaced Hebrew writing upon them : similar niches are in the south -west and north- west corners, The tomb itself is built diagonally across the floor, and not parallel to the walls, as is usual, with the head towards the door, and the feet towards the south - west. It is built of common stone, plastered over with mortar. It measures seven feet two inches long, three feet six inches high , and three feet ten inches wide at the floor, but narrowing as it rises, and at the top terminating in a ridge. There are, also, two pillars built of stone and plastered over, in the same style as the tomb itself — one standing at the head and the other at the foot - having cavities on their tops, to hold the incense burnt by the worshippers who visit the place. The larger of the two measures nearly four feet in height, and three feet in circumference. The walls on the southern side of the tomb are scribbled over with names of Samaritans, Jews, and Mohammedans, written in their different languages.

Times of Israel reported yesterday:

Israel is planning to ease a series of restrictions currently in place on the Gaza Strip, aiming to alleviate some of the territory’s economic woes and prompt the population to pressure the Hamas terror group to keep the calm, according to a report Sunday morning.

Among the moves allegedly being weighed is increasing the number of work permits for Gazans in Israel and allowing some dual-use materials to enter. in coordination with the UN. which will ensure they are used for civilian purposes rather than terror, the Haaretz daily reported, citing unnamed security sources.

Naturally, Gaza's terror leaders responded by saying they prefer war to easing restrictions.

Informed sources stated that the resistance factions informed the concerned mediators, especially the Egyptian mediator, of their rejection of any Israeli solutions or proposals represented in a formal easing of the restrictions imposed on the Strip.

In turn, the spokesman for the Islamic Jihad Movement, Tariq Ezz El-Din, said: "The Israeli talk about alleged easing will not deceive the resistance factions, and it will not be a substitute for lifting the siege, nor will it succeed in absorbing the anger of the resistance."

Hamas issued a press release where they said that they prefer war to any other solution:

The Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" affirmed that the choice of comprehensive resistance, primarily armed resistance, and igniting the intifada in the face of the occupation, is the way to extract our rights, liberate our land, and defend our people, our principles, our sanctities and our prisoners, and it is capable of deterring the occupier, curbing his aggression, and stopping his crimes.

Gazans know who wants peace and who wants them to be under constant war.

It is notable that Hamas' press release was for the 13th anniversary of the start of the 2008-2009 Gaza war, on December 27.

However, at the time, Hamas had declared that it started the war three days earlier, with a barrage of rockets they called Operation Oil Stain. Throughout the war Hamas maintained that they were the ones who started it. Now, they choose to say that Israel started it - by responding to their rockets.

Here was the scene in the Silwan (Kfar HaShiloach) neighborhood in Jerusalem on Saturday night.

At least 35 firebombs were thrown by Arab youths at Jewish-owned homes and cars.

Police arrested two minors and one adult.

This barely made it into even the Israeli media.

The world considers the arsonists to be freedom fighters and the legal Jewish residents to be thieves.

Newspeak has been true for years.

(h/t iTi, Esty)

The far-Left and the far-Right agree about Zionist “puppet-masters”

(I've been working on my book, and this is a chapter I drafted this morning.)

Prominent anti-Zionists continually cross the line into antisemitism, with little or no repercussions to their careers.

Former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters was interviewed by Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency in 2020. During the interview he essentially quoted Nazi literature:

Sheldon Adelson, who is the puppet master pulling the strings of Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, and what's his name... The Ambassador [to Israel], Greenberg [sic] I think his name is. Sheldon Adelson is the puppet master pulling all of the strings. And Sheldon Adelson is a right-wing fascist racist bigot who doesn't understand the first thing about the idea that human beings might have rights. Sheldon Adelson believes that only Jews - only Jewish people - are completely human. … everybody else on Earth is there to serve them. Sheldon Adelson believe this. I'm not saying Jewish people believe this. I am saying that he does, and he is pulling the strings. [1]

There are no quotes by Sheldon Adelson that remotely resemble what Waters is saying this “puppet-master” believed. However, similar quotes abound all over neo-Nazi websites referring to Jews altogether. Waters, knowing Adelson was a religious Jew, connected the fake antisemitic Talmud quotes that are all over the Internet with every religious Jew, and Adelson – as a “puppet-master” – was the most dangerous religious Jew.

Another example that was eagerly seized upon by the anti-Zionist crowd was the “Deadly Exchange” campaign. Started around 2015, it claimed that police exchange and training programs between local police departments in the United States and Israel led to US police brutality that they learned from their Israeli counterparts.

The charge is obviously and provably false. The training that US police received in Israel was not on riot control techniques or anything else to do with subduing people; the programs emphasized intelligence gathering, counterintelligence techniques, border security, mechanisms to delay terrorists on their way to a target such as checkpoints, site security for terror targets like restaurants, shopping malls, preventing bombings, securing airports and border crossings and performing mass rescue operations. [2] But those facts don’t stop anti-Israel propagandists and heroes of the Left like Rania Khalek and The Nation’s Dave Zirin from asserting that Israel teaches US police “the arts of suppression.”[3]

The accusation veers into pure antisemitism because it assumes that somehow local US police departments have no autonomy or agency of their own. If, as they falsely claim, Israeli police taught them how to place a knee on a suspect’s neck or other potentially fatal techniques, that would mean that the local US police were somehow brainwashed into putting these techniques into their own procedure manuals. It is another variant of the Jewish puppet-master who bends the gentiles into doing its nefarious will.

Even Jewish Voice for Peace, which spent years pushing the “Deadly Exchange” lies, did an about-face when it enlarged its focus from purely anti-Israel activism into more general social justice issues. It quietly admitted that blaming US police brutality on Israel was, yes, antisemitic and the exact same thing that the alt-Right racists do:

Making connections between the U.S. and Israel without context can do harm Highlighting these police exchange programs without enough context or depth can end up harming our movements for justice. Suggesting that Israel is the start or source of American police violence or racism shifts the blame from the United States to Israel. This obscures the fundamental responsibility and nature of the U.S., and harms Black people and Black-led struggle. It also furthers an antisemitic ideology. White supremacists look for any opportunity to glorify and advance American anti-Black racism, and any chance to frame Jews as secretly controlling and manipulating the world. Taking police exchanges out of context provides fodder for those racist and antisemitic tropes.[4]

Tropes that JVP heartily encouraged only a couple of years before, blaming US police brutality on Israel.^{^[5]}

Another example of how Zionists are the secret puppet-master of hapless, defenseless gentiles comes from the United Nations.

A 2005 UN report on violence against women said,

Women with husbands explained that the dire economic situation and the pressures of the occupation have made men more violent because they have lost their ability to provide and protect - two essential elements of manhood in a traditional patriarchal society. As men become stripped of their manhood, women become the shock absorbers of the crises as targets of domestic violence.[6]

This blaming Israel for Palestinian men beating their wives has been echoed by then-High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in 2014[7] and again in 2015. [8]

This might not be direct “puppetry” but the message being hammered home is that Israel is responsible for domestic abuse of Palestinian women. This is doubly bigoted: it echoes the theme of Jewish control over non-Jews, and it infantilizes Palestinian Arabs as not being responsible for their own lives.

Those two themes are accepted as truth in countless other ways. Arab terrorism is Israel’s fault, Arab intransigence is Israel’s fault, the lack of vaccines in the territories is Israel’s fault even when the Palestinian leaders explicitly say they don’t want Israel’s help. Israel has all the responsibility and Palestinians have none. What is that if not an echo of the traditional antisemitic themes of Jewish control over the “goyim”?

[1] “Musician Roger Waters On Hamas-Affiliated News Agency: Crazy Puppet Master Adelson Has Donald Trump's Tiny Little Prick In His Pocket; Israelis Teach U.S. Police How To Murder Blacks,” MEMRI-TV, June 20, 2020

[2] See “Idiots blame Israel for – Baltimore!”, Elder of Ziyon, May 7, 2015.

[3] See “’The Nation’ sportswriter blames Israel for US police brutality,” Elder of Ziyon, July 28, 2015

[4] DeadlyExchange.org, retrieved June 28, 2020

[5] “Israel Security Forces Are Training American Cops Despite History Of Rights Abuses – The Intercept,” Deadly Exchange, September 25, 2017

[6] “Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Yakin Ertürk,” E/CN.4/2005/72/Add.4, 2 February 2005

[7] “Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the implementation of Human Rights Council resolutions S-9/1 and S-1,” ns A/HRC/25, January 13, 2014

[8] “Situation of and assistance to Palestinian women: Report of the Secretary-General,” E/CN.6/2016/6, December 22, 2015

12/26 Links: Does antisemitism exist in Israel?; The UNRWA fake concern for refugees; New translation of ‘Bambi’ showcases tale as allegory on early Austrian antisemitism

From Ian:

Does antisemitism exist in Israel?

By and large, Israelis intuitively understand that the BDS movement—with its aim to kill Jews, and eliminate the Jewish State, its demonization and double standards against Israel, and its tacit, if not explicit, support for violence and terrorism against Israelis and its Jewish and non-Jewish supporters—is inherently antisemitic.

It’s well past time that Israeli leaders caught up to the reality that antisemitism is present and a clear danger in Israel and those killing innocent Israelis in Israel and worldwide are acting on antisemitic motives.

Given BDS’s irrefutable antisemitic and violent nature, it is deeply alarming that Israeli leaders are soft-pedaling the antisemitic menace that BDS is. The war against Israel, for which BDS essentially serves as the public relations arm, is part and parcel of global antisemitism. Jews in the Diaspora and Israel are both targets in this campaign.

We must stand together against BDS and all forms of antisemitism. The war against Israel is rooted in antisemitism, and we must no longer inaccurately diminish the conflict as some kind of intercommunal, territorial struggle. Rejection of a sovereign Jewish presence in Israel, which BDS promotes, is antisemitic.

I call on Israeli Jews to forthrightly recognize the antisemitic war that has been unjustly thrusted upon them, as well as past and future generations, for so many decades, and stand together with their Jewish brethren in the Diaspora who are also under assault.

They must also demand that their leaders directly identify and combat this antisemitic menace and not dilute this real and present danger, which all too regularly kills and maims Jews in Israel and worldwide. Together, we can prevail against this evil.

Translated from Portugese:The UNRWA fake concern for refugees

Letter to Secretary General of the UN Mr. Antònio Guterres. "According to UNRWA, there are now over 5 million Palestinian refugees, the only people whose refugee status is passed on to the next generation with its own agency,

By not following UNHCR’s refugee resettlement standards. UNRWA now employs more than 30,000 people and has a billion-dollar budget annually, where more than 58% of the money goes to education.

With this data alone, we can already conclude that UNRWA and the Palestinian people have a differentiated international status, as no other people have as many economic and political resources as the international community.

On December 20, 2021. Mr. António Guterres, UN Secretary General, visited an UNRWA refugee camp in Tripoli, Lebanon. During the meeting, participants, including President Michel Aoun, reaffirmed their commitment to “openness, tolerance and coexistence”.

It is noteworthy that the Secretary is aware of the questionable fate of donations to UNRWA, financing of chaos and terrorism at the expense of quality education for refugees.

The camps that should provide refugees with quality of life and provide for their resettlement instead perpetuate their life of despair in refugee camps which have been “temporary” since 1949

In UNRWA schools across the Middle East, the doctrine taught is that the best way to honor the Palestinian cause is bloodshed. UNRWA has gigantic power, not only economic and political, but also influence, its structure has become a factory of extremists and terrorists who grow up believing in an ideal world where evil is represented by Jews and Israel.

9. U.N. Human Rights Council Ends Yemen Investigation After Saudi Pressurehttps://t.co/HWlk5iBwQO pic.twitter.com/ovHtD1WFKR
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) December 26, 2021

New translation of ‘Bambi’ showcases tale as allegory on early Austrian antisemitism

The 1942 animated film “Bambi” has charmed generations and has cemented its status as a cinema classic. However, the tale has a darker origin, dating to the antisemitism of 1920s Austria.

A new translation is looking to showcase the original text as a parable foreshadowing the fate of Jews in the Holocaust, The Guardian reported Saturday. Departing from the somewhat sanitized version audiences are familiar with, the new text is aiming to make clear the political and societal undertones that informed the original version.

The new edition will be published by Princeton University Press and released in the US on January 18, 2022, translated by Jack Zipes, a professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, and illustrated by Alenka Sottler.

Felix Salten, a rabbi’s grandson born in Austria-Hungry in 1869, wrote the iconic and poignant tale of the fawn bereaved of his mother by hunters in 1922, under the title “Bambi: A Life in the Woods.”

Salten was a product of the cultural blossoming in the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire around the turn of the 20th century, a prolific writer who moved in the same circles as the likes of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.

But beneath the trappings of prestige and privilege that were afforded Salten, a dark undercurrent of antisemitism was sweeping through Austria, a trend that he picked up on and that informed his writing while he was putting together this work.

“The darker side of ‘Bambi’ has always been there,” Zipes told The Guardian. “But what happens to Bambi at the end of the novel has been concealed, to a certain extent, by the Disney corporation taking over the book and making it into a pathetic, almost stupid film about a prince and a bourgeois family.”

These are my 2021 tweets that received over 1000 "Likes" (that were not responses to other tweets.)

I'm sure there is a rational reason that the death of 100 Palestinian civilians during a war where the terrorists hide among innocents generates huge protests worldwide....

... but those protesters were nowhere to be found when 3500 Palestinians were killed by Syria.
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) May 23, 2021

Here's a colorized photo of Renée Dangoor, the first Miss Iraq, who won in 1947. She was Jewish. pic.twitter.com/QJPs8L5BZw
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) June 8, 2021

Our sincerest apologies. pic.twitter.com/fkXDRQUGmO
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) November 1, 2021

Ever wonder what the Middle East would look like if Israel lost in 1948?

The borders might not be exact, but one thing is for sure - there still would never have been a Palestinian state.

And no one would be screaming for one, either. pic.twitter.com/93SZEO26LQ
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) January 18, 2021

Another item from my vault... pic.twitter.com/JGy05nVuWD
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) November 25, 2021

Today is #JewishRefugeeDay.

This is what ethnic cleansing looks like. pic.twitter.com/oZdZ3CIN4N
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) November 30, 2021

Palestine is a magical place where whatever your favorite social justice issue is, it is at the center. pic.twitter.com/FSOmmPOyfx
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) November 8, 2021

Not a speck of dust on the bassinet. Truly a miracle captured by a @nytimes photographer without the slightest staging done, because that would be unethical, and we know how ethical journalists are in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/1lORjseov9
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) May 16, 2021

Here are the most popular posts on EoZ in 2021.

Philadelphia Jewish school didn't fire teacher for "anti-Zionist tweets." They fired him for bragging he'll violate school policy.

Hamas rockets killed 16 Gazans on Tuesday, including 8 children

Her father was a Nazi. She's a woke professor at Columbia. They both boycott Jews.

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators @scbwi forces out Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer for issuing a statement condemning antisemitism

Military experts agree: Israel didn't break international law in Gaza, but Hamas did - and the media failed to report it

The real scandal: Why didn't journalists report that Hamas was in their building in Gaza?

An elevator for the disabled is called a "racist, Judaizing, colonialist,Talmudic crime" by the Palestinian Authority

The name "Palestine" may be a literal Greek translation of Israel - and not so much derived from Philistines

The IDF (finally!) explains what Hamas was doing in the Al Jalaa (AP, Al Jazeera) building

The TikTok intifada - Arabs attacking religious Jews to make "funny" videos

The @NYTimes chooses an Israel hater to report from Israel

Hamas video shows them digging up water pipes to make missiles

Hamas' top priority in Gaza- protect and repair the tunnels

200 journalists on the record supporting lying about Israel. Why are they still employed?

BDS upset at Palestinian booth at Dubai Expo

"Innocent victim" also enjoyed posing with guns

The Jerusalem Post reported last week:

A Palestinian who opened fire at Israeli troops on Wednesday evening near Ramallah was shot dead by the soldiers who returned fire.
The man, identified by the Palestinian Health Ministry as 26-year-old Mohammed Issa Abbas, shot at the troops who had entered the outskirts of Ramallah by vehicle.
The IDF said that troops had entered the city’s al-Bireh neighborhood to arrest a number of Palestinians who had approached the nearby Israeli settlement of Psagot. While it is unclear if Abbas was connected to the wanted suspects, he opened fire toward troops during the search.

Palestinian media is mostly treating Abbas as an innocent victim, noting that he was due to be married in three months and showing pictures of his fiancée mourning his body.

But other social media are treating him as a hero, and they have other photos of Abbas:

Any doubt that he shot first?

12/25 Links: Non-jewish allies can be key to combatting antisemitism; Ireland: Still No Room at the Inn; Lapid: ‘Bad deal’ With Iran Worse Than None at All

From Ian:

Non-jewish allies can be key to combatting antisemitism

Comprehending this age-old hatred and the implication for modern Jewish life is what gave me the tools and knowledge to be able to lead the online activism content for a Jewish organization in Israel, called Act-IL.

It is crucial that more non-Jews actively seek to end Jew-hatred the same way that White people want to play a part in dismantling systemic racism and the same way that men want to fight against sexism and sexual assault against women. It’s not only that there are simply not enough Jews in the world to combat the amount of conspiracy theories, false information and hatred directed towards the Jewish people, it’s also the decent thing to do.

During the last escalation in May 2021 between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, the necessity for non-Jewish allyship became alarmingly clear. Antisemitism worldwide (online and physical) rose to levels not seen for decades, in part because of non-factual and non-nuanced posts made by famous anti-Israel activists and “progressive” celebrities during the escalation.

Though anti-Israel activists know exactly what they are doing when they share lies and information without context, progressive celebrities most likely think that what they are sharing is important and truthful, that they take the moral high ground, when in reality they are doing the exact opposite. However, the lack of empathy and research behind their sharing of biased and non-nuanced posts shows just how little they understand about the connection between antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel.

If this kind of activity continues and influencers, who have five times more followers than there are Jews in the entire world, do not involve themselves in actively learning about and combatting antisemitism, this current wave of left- and right-wing antisemitism will only become more concerning.

Non-Jewish allies can be a key factor to combatting this wave of antisemitism and more should be done to reach out and include them in the fight against hate.

Ireland: Still No Room at the Inn

Ostensibly, the BDS movement's goal is to shift world opinion to declare that Jewish settlements in the historically-named areas of Judea and Samaria are supposedly illegal seizures of Palestinian Arab land. In truth, the principal and outspoken objective of Palestinian organizers of the BDS movement is the destruction of Israel.

In Ireland, Jew-hatred does not well up from the general public but seems clearly driven from the top down. These Goebbels-like attacks on Israel include salvos from several Sinn Fein members of parliament. One of them, Martin Browne, represents Tipperary and claims, falsely, that Israel created ISIS. Another, Matt Carthy representing Cavan-Monahan, has stated that Israel is the worst human rights offender on earth -- presumably dwarfing China, North Korea, Venezuela and Iran.

There is understandably some sympathetic sentiment among the Irish people for the plight of Palestinians, as there is also among Israelis, saddened to see people suffer unnecessarily under a brutal and corrupt Palestinian leadership, which has full autonomy over much the territory under dispute. The Palestinians long ago agreed, in the Oslo Accords of 1993, to settle those disputes by direct negotiation, not by external fiat.

All Israelis -- about 20% of whom are Muslims, along with Christians and Druze -- have identical rights under the law. Israeli Arabs can vote, have political parties and prominent job opportunities, and are members of Israel's parliament. The one exception is that Arabs are not required to serve in the Israeli military; in the event of possible conflicts with Arab states, Israelis did not want brother fighting brother.

Even more shocking was that fully a third of Irish members of parliament of voted to expel Israeli diplomats from Ireland.

Nazis used to claim they weren't antisemitic

When I see modern antisemites denying that they have any problem with Jews, I am reminded that most antisemites throughout history said the same thing.

Even the Nazis.

From wire services, March 25, 1933:

Days later, Goering even claimed that there would be a death penalty for anyone attacking Jews!

The US State Department believed Goering.

Even though, that very same day, journalists from the Manchester Guardian documented the persecution:

Only a month later, newspapers in the US showed photos proving that Goering was a liar.

A lot of people today also deny that they hate Jews. Yet the only people they want to see ethnically cleansed, or boycotted, or forcibly removed from their homes, or killed for "legitimate resistance" reasons, all happen to be Jews.

The "Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism," which says BDS is not antisemitic, would not say that Nazis in 1933 were antisemitic because they claimed they didn't attack "Jews as Jews" but merely as socialists.

And just like the Nazis, the new antisemites can point to Jews who agree with them as "proof" that they aren't antisemitic.

Right or left, the hate is the same.

12/24 Links Pt2: Are Palestinians an indigenous people?; Phillips: A Christmas crusade: scapegoating the Jews; Mainstream Jewish Groups Need to Understand That Interfaith Dialogue Legitimized CAIR

From Ian:

Are Palestinians an indigenous people?

According to a definition cited in the RTD Journal, “Indigenous peoples, also referred to as first people, aboriginal people, native people, or autochthonous people, are culturally distinct ethnic groups who are native to a place which has been colonized and settled by another ethnic group.”

For several decades, Palestinian leaders, followers and archeologists have touted the notion that Arabs are the true “indigenous people” of what was called Palestine, and are descended from Canaanites and other tribes who lived there before it was conquered by the Jewish people. Although they offer no evidence for this claim, it has become part of Palestinian identity; and, as a belief, it is unquestioned.

Nomadic tribes, such as the Bedouin, cannot be included in this category, because there is no way of knowing from where they originated. Arab tribes who migrated to the land of Israel/Palestine in the modern period left no texts, documents or evidence of their origin or culture. Their tribal/family names, however, often indicate their foreign origins.

Arab Palestinians call themselves “indigenous people” to depict themselves as victims of colonialism and to support their claim that Jews have “stolen the Palestinian homeland” and “occupied” it. Written in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter—and advocated by Islamists and organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood—it is used to justify terrorism, demonize Israel and pursue the goal of eliminating Israel.

Arabs who call themselves Palestinians—derived from the word “Philistines,” an invading force from the Aegean Sea—use the word “indigenous” to legitimatize their efforts to carry out their struggle against Israel’s existence. Their self-description as a “people” is refuted by the fact that they have little in common, and are merely a collection of tribes and clans that are often at war with each other.

Indeed, the idea that the Arab Palestinians are an “indigenous people” is a lie, as proven by Biblical and historical texts and archeology, which confirm Jewish civilizations throughout the land of Israel; there are no documents, sources or other evidence that refer to a “Palestinian people.”

Melanie Phillips: A Christmas crusade: scapegoating the Jews

It’s more than just troubling. Not only does it slyly reinforce the blood libel perpetrated against the Israel’s Defense Forces — which goes to lengths unmatched by any other military to protect civilian life — that they willfully slaughter Palestinian children.

It also continues to tap into the calumny of replacement theology, which in recent years has been revived within the church.

This ancient doctrine, which was responsible for the Christian pogroms against the Jews of medieval Europe, held that the Christians had replaced the Jews in the eyes of God and had inherited all divine promises made to them while the Jews themselves had become the party of the devil.

Today, this doctrine has been appropriated by Palestinian Arab Christians — and endorsed below the radar by many liberal Western churches — to claim that the Palestinians have now inherited the divine promise of the land of Israel.

This has created such absurdities and obscenities as representing Jesus, the Jew from Judea, as a Palestinian; writing the Jews out of their own national story in Israel; and rehashing the ancient libel that the Jews killed Jesus to underpin the modern libel that the Israelis are slaughtering the Palestinians.

The churches’ accusation against Israel is even more egregious since Christianity really is under existential threat throughout other parts of the Middle East and the developing world.

In its ancient cradle of Iraq, Christianity has been virtually wiped out by Islamist attacks. At the beginning of this year, Open Doors listed the ten countries where Christians were most persecuted as North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria and India. Of more than 50 countries on its full list, all were in the developing world. None of them was Israel.

Yet Welby and the other clerics ignored all this (although Welby subsequently sought to deflect the growing outrage over his article by writing a postscript on the Spectator website in which he devoted three paragraphs to Christian persecution around the world). Instead, the churches’ campaign chose to scapegoat the Jews for crimes against Christianity perpetrated by others — the fundamental myth fueling Christian antisemitism from the time of the early church fathers.

Many decent Christians are horrified by the venom of the liberal churches towards Israel and the resurgence of theological Christian Jew-hatred, which to them goes totally against the uplifting lessons they learn from their faith.

But judging from this disturbing campaign, it seems that little of substance has changed for the church in its foundational malice towards the Jewish people.

There’s only one place in the region where Christianity grew by 1.4% this year…it’s the same place the Archbishop of Canterbury is warning Christians are being “driven out” of. ?? Heres what you need to know about Christians in Israel, from me and a Christian Arab, @YosephHaddad pic.twitter.com/s13G85zsvM
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) December 23, 2021

The Palestinian Authority has Jesus envy

Once the PA turned Jesus into a Palestinian it was a simple step to misappropriate some of Christianity’s religious, as well as holiday, symbols. The PA and Fatah on numerous occasions have depicted Palestinians on a crucifix in political cartoons. The PA likewise has turned Santa Claus into a Palestinian. Palestinian Media Watch has documented at least seven cartoons in which Santa Claus is fighting, abused by and even murdered by Israeli soldiers.

Some mistakenly think that the PA’s claiming Jewish history and Jesus is so absurd it therefore can be ignored as meaningless Palestinian identity creation. Unfortunately, the PA’s falsification of history must not be ignored, because it has a much more sinister goal: it serves as justification for the PA and Fatah seeking to destroy Israel.

Fatah’s Waed magazine for children aged 6 to 15 repeatedly teaches that it is this fictitious history that justifies and guarantees Israel’s destruction: “Palestine underwent dozens of invasions, and many peoples entered it such as a Babylonians, the Persians, the Samaritans, the Assyrians, the Hyksos, the Hittites, the Pharaohs and the Hebrews. Afterward the Greeks and Romans arrived… In the end, Palestine fell under the Zionist occupation… The occupation will cease to exist just as what was before it ceased to exist.” (Waed, Issue 32, pp. 5-6) And this: “Over thousands of years, it has proven that… there is no invader who invaded this land and did not leave it defeated in the end, and that is what will happen to the Zionist invaders.” (Waed, Issue 27, p. 23)

As long as the PA continues to deny the thousands of years of the Jewish people’s history in the land – including the fact that Jesus was a Judean – and uses this as a basis to deny Israel the right to exist, a peace process has yet to begin.

Merry Christmas! (cartoon)

I made this cartoon as a response to those "Joseph and Mary would be stopped by an Israeli checkpoint" memes...

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

12/24 Links Pt1: Israel's gates are always open for aliyah; Mark Regev: What is Israel's endgame in attacking Syria?; Israel’s Moment of Truth in Dealing with Hamas?

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Israel's gates are always open for aliyah

While they are all right to praise the increase in aliyah, we should not rest on our laurels. Israel must do more, must do all it can, to encourage Diaspora Jewry to make aliyah.

According to demographer Prof. Sergio Della Pergola of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the number of Jews worldwide stands at approximately 15.2 million, with more than 6.9 million living in Israel and the other 8.3 million in the Diaspora. The largest Jewish populations by country are the US (six million), France (446,000), Canada (393,500), the United Kingdom (292,000), Argentina (175,000), Russia (150,000), Germany (118,000) and Brazil (91,500).

Aliyah officials here cannot be complacent, though, especially when it comes to communities in distress. As Ethiopia again faces political turmoil, it is essential that Israel enable those awaiting aliyah to fly here, despite the pandemic. The cabinet voted on November 21 to approve the immigration of thousands of Ethiopians who have been waiting for years to fly to Israel, many in transit camps. But the government’s new regulations aimed at stemming the spread of the Omicron variant have apparently held up the process.

Rabbi Stewart Weiss, a regular Jerusalem Post columnist, wrote two columns recently urging the government to “bring home 10,000 members of Beta Yisrael waiting anxiously to immigrate to the Jewish state,” as well as the estimated 50,000 Jews living in South Africa. “This is a moment in time for South African Jews to gather up their courage, their vast talents and their families, and join us in our historic, divinely inspired march to redemption,” he wrote.

We echo his appeal to the Israeli government to seize the moment and expedite the immigration of Jews from Ethiopia, South Africa and elsewhere in the Diaspora. Israel has not sent a welcoming message to Diaspora Jewry by closing Ben-Gurion Airport to foreigners. But it can send a clear signal to all Jews abroad that its gates are always open to those who want to make aliyah.

Caroline Glick: The empty suit at the head of the table

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held a primetime press conference about his COVID-19 policies Monday evening. It went poorly for him.

Channel 12 News reporter Ofer Hadad spoke for many Israelis when he said, "Mr. Prime Minister, on the one hand, you're signaling urgency and fear, and on the other hand, confusion.

"You decide to require a Green Pass for entry into shopping malls, and then you do an about face. You call for children to get vaccinated and then we discover that the education minister is – at best – refusing to mobilize the school system to this end. You ask the citizens of Israel not to travel abroad. And then your family flies off to the Maldives. You're confusing us."

Bennett's confused and contradictory policies on COVID-19 are of a piece with his confusing and failed policies in every other major policy sphere. From his dealing with the Biden administration, the Palestinians, Iran, Diaspora Jewry, the economy and beyond, Bennett's policies are a muddle of self-defeating contradictions.

Consider the situation with the Biden administration. Bennett said that by forming a radical ruling coalition dominated by the Left and the Islamist Ra'am Party, he would vastly improve Israel's relations with the administration. Bennett and his partner, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, insisted that then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had brought Israel-US relations to a crisis through his close relations with then-President Donald Trump and the Republican party. Bennett and Lapid claimed that once they took charge, ties with the Biden administration would vastly improve.

‘Israel’s contract with Diaspora suspended due to COVID-19’

Arsen Ostrovsky is disappointed with the State of Israel.

Ostrovsky is a leading human rights lawyer who moved to Israel from Australia in 2012. In 2018, he won the Sylvan Adams Nefesh B’Nefesh Bonei Zion Prize recognizing outstanding English-speaking olim who embody the spirit of modern-day Zionism by contributing in a significant way to the country. Yet he wrote in an impassioned Facebook post this week that he feels abandoned by the country.

“We have chosen to make aliyah and devote our lives to this state that we love so much,” Ostrovsky said. “Yet, when we need the state for us, it is nowhere to be seen. No other way to describe this feeling other than pure abandonment.”

Ostrovsky’s story is unfortunately not unique.

Countless new and veteran immigrants have been struggling over the course of the pandemic to gain entry for their loved ones into Israel – for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, births and deaths. Some have succeeded, but others have been met with silence or, perhaps worse, form letters coldly stating a denial of entry.

“The State of Israel has a contract with the Diaspora, wherein Israel is a place of refuge for us, where there is a safety net that exists for all of us,” said William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “That contract has been suspended.”

Daroff was one of a small number of “exceptions” who was accepted into Israel to visit his daughter who, until last week, was a lone soldier. He and his family arrived just before the government voted to turn the United States, where Daroff lives, into a “red state.”

Now, there are few flights to and from Israel and the US, as not only are American foreign nationals banned from entering Israel, but Israelis are also banned from traveling to the US.