Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

Two tweets that show Americans for Peace Now is clueless

I was struck by these two consecutive tweets by Americans for Peace Now's Lara Friedman.

The first:

Here is what the referenced Haaretz article says:

According to the developing formulation, a court will be able to order the platform to remove any content immediately, if it is a post that deals with terror or poses real danger to the security of the state, the public or an individual.
“In light of the potential harm to freedom of expression, orders to remove content will be given sparingly, in extreme cases and directed only at harmful content,” according to the statement released at that time.

In other words, the proposal is meant to save lives when the content is incitement to murder.

No less an authority that Amnesty International says "International human rights law obliges states to prohibit advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence." (Amnesty unfortunately changes its opinion radically when Israeli Jews are the targets of such incitement.)

Lara Friedman is falsely claiming that incitement to murder and terror is protected speech - and limiting it is similar to what China and Saudi Arabia and Russia do. Actually, she says that Israel is holding up those three countries as examples of what to emulate.

The article says no such thing. And international humanitarian law says the opposite of what Americans for Peace Now seems to believe.

Why does Americans for Peace Now support incitement to murder?

The second tweet:

I responded back by pointing out that the entire "linkage" argument that was popular around 2010 and has experienced a resurgence lately is based entirely on that false claim that she says doesn't exist:

Except for Mahmoud Abbas. https://t.co/R9cfbn8IAl And French FM https://t.co/2Vfg9aG7NZ And many others @lara_apn https://t.co/26Qc39Xgq6
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) July 6, 2016

Two tweets that are both 100% wrong.

You would think that Lara Friedman and her fellow "Peace Now" pals would be embarrassed at being so wrong. But these people live in a fantasy land where wishful thinking is far more real than reality.

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07/06 Links Pt2: Undeclared Wars with Israel; How to talk to Jews about Israel

From Ian:

Review: Undeclared Wars with Israel

Nothing new under the sun, King Solomon said about three thousand years ago. Those who fight for BDS, who make the apartheid analogy with Zionism, who accuse the Zionists of having collaborated with the Nazis and who spread the legend that Zionists define Jews as a “chosen people” and are therefore racist have not invented something new. They just continue the Soviet and communist propaganda that stopped with the crumbling of the system in the late 1980s. Probably nowhere outside the Soviet Union was this propaganda take more seriously than in East Germany (the so-called German Democratic Republic).
Cambridge University Press has recently published Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967–1989 by the American historian Jeffrey Herf.
Nothing new under the sun. Herf shows the origins of the present strategy to delegitimize Israel and amalgamate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Shortly after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, East German leader Walter Ulbricht said on June 15, 1967 that the Israeli government had made itself into a “tool of a new despicable imperialist aggression” and had “brought shame and disgrace on itself by playing the role of an imperialistic aggressor against the Arab states”. Ulbricht turned a source of pride in West Germany – the tradition of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, its policies of restitution and support for Israel – into liabilities of shame and windows of opportunity for East German diplomacy in the Arab states. Israel, he insisted had not faced any threat at all. Rather than have regard for human rights, “the government and militarists of the state of Israel [then still led by the Labor Party] are apparently struck with blindness, due to chauvinism, racial madness and class rule.”
East Germany wanted to publish statements by Jewish citizens of the GDR which expressed indignation about “Israeli aggression” and the “Israel-Washington-Bonn conspiracy.” However, it was difficult to obtain supportive statements. Several prominent Jewish writers and leaders in East Germany, including the author Arnold Zweig, refused to sign such a statement. The singer Lin Jaldati referred to the PLO’s Ahmed Shukeiri’s call to annihilate the Jews. Helmut Aris, president of the Association of Jewish Communities in East Germany, refused because “in the past our brothers and sisters in Germany were murdered and today their lives are at risk in the Near East”.
Ulbricht proposed to Brezhnev in 1969 to send East German “volunteers” to fight Israel. According to Herf, the issue of whether East German soldiers ever engaged in combat with the IDF remains unresolved. Nevertheless we find in the book long lists of East German arms and munitions sent to the Arab states and terrorist organizations fighting Israel. East Germany became a safe haven for anti-Israel West German terrorists.

Vic Rosenthal: How to talk to Jews about Israel

I tried to buy a day sponsorship from the local NPR station “in honor of the 1000 [or whatever the number was at the time] Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism since 2000.” They refused, saying that I couldn’t prove that there were so many victims. I provided names, dates and locations. They said that it was ‘too political’. I said it wasn’t political, it was factual and asked how it was different from the sponsorship they did accept “in honor of the victims of the Stonewall Uprising.” That’s different, they said. That was a matter of civil rights, not politics. Anyway, you can’t prove that there were so many victims.
The local newspaper sometimes printed my letters, all 200 words of them, and sometimes not. They rarely printed op-eds that I wrote. Meanwhile the ‘news stories’ that ran every day pushed the ‘cycle of violence’ line that presented the attempts to kill us as a squabble between two parties both at fault.
My personal approaches were, if anything, more frustrating. People were polite, but noncommittal. As time went on, I realized that they weren’t uninterested; rather, they sensed that my position wasn’t shared by many Democratic politicians, NPR and the New York Times. They suspected that I was influenced by Republican ideas or even becoming a Republican myself. I realized, in 1960s slang, that they were shining me on. Anything I said was tainted and could be ignored.
As time went by and Barack Obama became president and Israel more and more a partisan issue, it got much worse. Now it wasn’t the ‘cycle of violence’ anymore, it was ‘Netanyahu won’t negotiate and won’t stop building settlements’. The local Reform rabbi refused to allow a film critical of J Street to be shown in his building. The Jewish Federation, of which I was a board member, was increasingly nervous about programs related to Israel.
It soon became clear that there weren’t very many ‘undecideds’. There were those that were pro-Israel, those that were against us, and those that would not listen because being pro-Israel was out of their political comfort zone.

Remembering the Destruction of Iraqi Jewry

One of history’s most devastating pogroms is also one of its least well-known. A historian analyzes how it happened, and why its origins have such troubling resonance today.
Seventy-five years ago, on June 1, 1941, a massive pogrom broke out against the Jews of Iraq. Committed by Muslim mobs influenced and incited by Nazi propaganda, it has come to be called the Farhud, and it remains the primal trauma of Iraqi Jewry, beginning the process of oppression and violence that ultimately forced the ancient community to emigrate en masse, most of them to Israel.
The Farhud killed hundreds of Jews and wounded thousands. The cruelty reached its height during a massacre in Baghdad. Interviews I have conducted with survivors paint a picture of inhuman violence. Children were murdered and the legs of babies were cut off because the Iraqi Jews placed bracelets on their children’s legs to ward off evil spirits and track their movements by attached bells. Pregnant women were raped in front of their husbands.
Jewish property was looted and Jewish homes burned to the ground. “The destruction itself was enormous,” future Israeli president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi reported to the Jewish Agency in 1941. “From 2,000-3,000 were left without a means of making a living. … The damage to property is valued at a million Palestinian pounds. This amount is not exaggerated.”
In contrast to popular myth, however, the Farhud did not break out spontaneously, but in fact was well-organized. Ezra Levi, a witness to the events, showed me photographic evidence that several days before the Farhud, Baghdad Jews noticed that Arab names had been written on Arab-owned shops, apparently to ensure that only Jewish businesses were looted.

#HasbyAwards part 3: Hen Mazzig (StandWithUs) presents "Best Activist Organization" to My Truth

As we continue to show the great talks that the presenters and awardees gave at the Hasby Awards, here is Hen Mazzig of StandWithUs talking about his experiences speaking to college campuses. He presents the Best Activist Organization Hasby award to Elan Miller of MyTruth, which counters the lies of Breaking the Silence.

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Islamic State Claims Credit For Trump (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Medina, July 6 - The Islamic State has not claimed credit for perpetrating an suicide bombing attack yesterday at the burial site of the prophet Muhammad that killed 4, but a video clip has emerged of an organization spokesman asserting that a more momentous phenomenon, the rise of Donald Trump as a likely candidate to win the US presidential election in November, is an IS initiative.

In a two-minute video posted on social media today, IS representative Ayman Assol can be seen announcing that Trump's success as a candidate is the result of a Daesh plot to bring about the downfall of the West and thus remove a major obstacle blocking the organization's ambition to establish a global Islamic caliphate.

"The people who prophesy the decline of Daesh will be shamed and our enemies will cower when they finally realize that the political rise and success of Donald Trump is our doing," boasted Assol. "The arm of Islam reaches into the depths of the enemy's rear and strikes with the fist of a thousand vengeances."

Analysts voiced disagreement over whether the claim constitutes mere bluster or reflects fact. "I'd say that, like Trump himself, this claim is little more than hot air dressed up in funny hair," asserted Richard Silverstein, a Seattle-area blogger with expertise rivaled only by that of the 1940's IBM executive who predicted a world market for maybe four computers. "The only kernel of truth in this claim is that because ISIS is actually an Israeli conspiracy to divide, weaken, and ultimately destroy the Islamic world, and Israel also controls everything happening politically in the US, ISIS and Trump are on the same team." He called for the abolition of the two-party system and the Constitution and for them to be replaced by a triumvirate consisting of him, Ali Abunimah, and Max Blumenthal to safeguard against further Zionist control of the country.

On the other side of the divide stands noted political analyst David Duke. "Oh, this is real," he said. "But I'm still endorsing Mr. Trump, because in the chaos that will inevitably follow his election, my allies and I will be able to seize power and implement our agenda, which in many ways parallels that of the Islamic State, only with more Jews on the receiving end."

Others disputed both assessments, noting that earlier reports showed evidence that Trump's rise is a plot by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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07/06 Links Pt1: U.S. Bankrolling Hezbollah'; 3 soldiers hurt in car ramming attack

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Can the Palestinians Hold Free and Fair Elections?

Even as Hamas continues to resist Fatah demands to relinquish control over the Gaza Strip, Hamas representatives could easily win elections in several West Bank cities and villages, especially in the Hebron area, where the Islamist movement is considered more popular than the Fatah faction. Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah have yet to recover from their recent defeat by Hamas at Bir Zeit University's student council election in April.
The decision to hold the municipal elections was announced at a time when the West Bank is witnessing increasing lawlessness among Palestinians, and Palestinian Authority security forces seem to be losing control.
Holding elections without Hamas's participation, will risk further consolidating the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- and reinforcing the reality that the Palestinians already have two separate mini-states.
The current mayhem plaguing West Bank cities, villages and refugee camps will not help in holding any free and fair elections.

Elliot Abrams: The Iran deal a year after: There are no benefits

Most critics of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA ), or the Iran nuclear deal, thought the costs outweighed the benefits. Supporters of the deal thought the benefits outweighed the costs. But today, after a year of experience, we can conclude both sides were wrong – because there aren’t any benefits.
Consider the arguments made during the debate over the agreement. In every single case – with one possible exception we will get to later – the arguments have already been disproved.
First, transparency.
On July 14, 2015, President Barack Obama said: “Because of this deal, we will, for the first time, be in a position to verify all of [Iran’s] commitments.
That means this deal is not built on trust; it is built on verification.” The next day, he said the deal offered “unprecedented, around-the-clock monitoring of Iran’s key nuclear facilities and the most comprehensive and intrusive inspection” ever.
But this year’s two quarterly reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) included less information on Iran’s nuclear program.
How is this possible? “In the previous reports, the bases were the previous UN Security Council resolutions,” IAEA head Yukio Amano said in March. “But now they are terminated. They are gone.”
Yes, and so is our access to information.

U.S. Bankrolling Hezbollah

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, said that U.S. sanctions would have no impact on the organization, as it already obtains complete financial and weaponry assistance from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
After the flimsy and uncompleted nuclear agreement, the Obama Administration immediately began transferring billions of dollars to Iran's Central Bank. One of the payments included $1.7 billion transferred in January 2016. $1.4 billion of this sum came from American taxpayers.
Thanks to President Obama and the continuing lifting of sanctions, the money that Iran is receiving from the U.S., from international trade, and from increased oil sales is most likely being directed toward Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's major beneficiaries, which keep attempting to scuttle U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region.

Hamas official Ahmed Yousef is reported to have complained on his Facebook page about the "chaos" caused by the huge number of mosques that are disturbing the peace with their incessant announcements and sermons in Gaza.

According to the report, Yousef asked whether anyone at the Ministry of Awqaf can be held responsible for this "mess."

Throughout the month of Ramadan, we can not rest; the sounds of the PA systems do not calm down and are heard all day and night. In the morning the sheikhs' throats are bursting with their prayers and are unforgiving for those who want to sleep after the prayer. .. .. Ears are rattling. If you try to take a nap the voices of microphones start again, mixing with the sounds of those calling people to give to charity and to offer their assistance to the mosque. This scene is repeated routinely each day.
It is our right to enjoy quiet.

Just remember: when non-Muslims complain about being woken up by calls to prayer and loud sermons from nearby mosques, they are being Islamophobic.

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On Tuesday, I visited the newest university in Israel, Ariel University.

It is a beautiful campus with 15,000 students. Over a dozen buildings are being constructed right now as it expands. I was shown the robotics lab and spoke with an expert in making wine from grape varieties that have been proven to have been used in First and Second Temple times. (I plan to write about that in the future.)

Ariel University has the only free electron laser particle accelerator in the Middle East.

The campus has hundreds of Arab students. Student groups foster dialogue between Jewish and Arab students. It also attracts students from around the world. (Some of the lectures are in English.)

It is building a hospital which will be available for all residents of the region, with the aim of building a medical school as well. Ambitious plans to add more dormitories and more research centers are bearing fruit.

It has what may be the only college-level program in the world to mainstream students on the Aspergers' spectrum. I met one very polite young man in that program who said that he had been rejected from every school he applied to before Ariel accepted him and he is soon to graduate with a degree in Middle Eastern studies.

Ariel U is centrally located, easily accessible via Highway 5 which goes directly there from Tel Aviv. From Ariel University's "upper campus," on a clear day, you can see Israel's entire coastal plain.

Ariel University is a Zionist success story, in the edge of a bustling and beautiful town of 20,000 residents.

But when American Jewish groups visit Israel, nearly all of them avoid visiting Ariel University.

Jewish Federation trips to Israel do not go to Ariel University (with very few exceptions.)

AIPAC doesn't visit.

Even Birthright won't visit - left-wing or right-wing trips avoid it.

Because Ariel University is across the Green Line.

American Jewish organizations, afraid of criticism from the Left, have decided that Ariel does not exist and it should not be visited. It is too controversial.

But here's the thing. Virtually every Israeli politician from left to right considers Ariel to be non-negotiable in any peace plan,

If you visit the community you know why. It is a large town and strategically situated. It is part of Israel in every real sense. The idea of uprooting the town is unthinkable.

Amazingly, J-Street U has visited Ariel to see what it is like and what their ideological enemies are up to. Yet groups that are unabashedly Zionist do not want to visit.

Christian groups love to visit the university when they go on Israel trips. But Jewish Israel missions almost all will avoid it.

This is outrageous.

The same people who say that BDS is terrible, even when practiced against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, are effectively engaging in BDS themselves by avoiding visiting the incredible, and very Zionist, accomplishments of Ariel and Ariel University.

They cannot argue that Ariel is dangerous. (That is Birthright's official reason.) It isn't. There were no incidents since the knife uprising began last September. Hamas rockets never reached Ariel. It has been far more dangerous to visit Jerusalem than Ariel over the past year.

They cannot argue that Ariel University is filled with messianic right-wing Jews. It isn't. Some professors there are leftists, even Meretz-voters. Arab students can and do write their theses on the "Nakba." Yarmulkas are the exception, not the rule.

At the very least, these American organizations that tell their participants that they are going to learn about both sides of the conflict are completely ignoring the biggest settlement, and only Israeli university, that is in the territories not adjacent to the Green Line.

If anyone is going to claim that they are well-educated on the conflict, shouldn't they at least visit Ariel?

To have Jewish groups - liberal or conservative - essentially boycott Ariel sends a message that American Jews are out of sync with what most Israelis believe would be part of any peace agreement.

If you are planning a mission to Israel for your Jewish group, ask yourself why you shouldn't visit a miraculous, modern and liberal campus that could teach most so-called "pro-peace, pro-Israel" groups a lot about real co-existence and peace.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In recent months, a number of states have passed laws or taken other official actions to punish companies that participate in boycotts against Israel. California soon may do the same. But if it does, it will be making a mistake.

You don’t have to support the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to be troubled when state governments in this country penalize American citizens for their political speech. As the Supreme Court has recognized, boycotts are a form of speech, protected under the Constitution.

As I have already shown, the Supreme Court ruling that the BDSers cite says no such thing. It protects non-violent speech and it protects peaceful picketers of a store as engaging in free speech. Boycotts aren't speech, though - they are actions, and the First Amendment does not protect them. Nowhere in that ruling is it said that boycotts are free speech.

The editorial's misstatements of the law continue:

Do such laws violate the 1st Amendment? Although the Supreme Court has held that government may engage in its own “speech” and express its own opinions, it also has held that government may not deny a benefit to a person (or a company) because he holds the “wrong” opinion. In our view, denying state business to an otherwise qualified contractor simply based on its views about Israel — and its participation in a legal boycott — goes beyond “government speech” and raises serious constitutional concerns.

No one is penalizing a contractor for their political views, only for their actions. If they call for a boycott of Israel that is OK, if they are engaging in such a boycott then it isn't. It is a fairly straightforward distinction that the LA Times is choosing to fuzz.

In California, the situation has grown even more complicated. Opponents of BDS in the Legislature previously proposed a bill that would have forbidden state contracts with companies engaged in a boycott of Israel. But after legal objections, the legislation was radically reconfigured.

From the news stories I have seen, the legislation was not rewritten because of "legal objections" but because of political concerns to increase the chances of passage.

This editorial is misstating and misrepresenting the law. The reconfigured bill doesn't even have the alleged problems that the initial bill had so the entire purpose of this editorial seems to be to make a legal statement - the headline of the article is "Boycotts of Israel are a protected form of free speech" - that is simply not true.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

07/05 Links Pt2: Why Is the New Israel Fund Backing Breaking the Silence?

From Ian:

Israel supporters confront Iran hate-fest en masse

Last week, London - like many cities throughout the world - saw its own "Al Quds Day" march, a yearly anti-Israel hate-fest first launched by the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, to call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Typically, the march sees thousands of Islamist and far-left demonstrators parading Hezbollah flags and calling for Israel's destruction unchallenged through the streets of the British capital - though in recent years the number of anti-Israel marchers has dwindled somewhat, as Sunni Muslims and supporters of the Syrian opposition have boycotted the parade due to its support for Iran and Hezbollah, the two most important allies of the brutal Assad regime.
Pro-Israel groups have tended to shy away from confronting the parade, with many among the Jewish establishment preferring to "play it safe" and ignore the event - much to the frustration of grassroots activists, who say such demonstrations of anti-Israel hatred, which often spill over into open anti-Semitism, cannot go unchallenged.
This year, however, was different, courtesy of a coalition of pro-Israel and Jewish groups, spanning grassroots groups such as the Israel Advocacy Movement and Sussex Friends of Israel, as well as major Jewish and Zionist organizations such as the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and Zionist Federation.
First, a handful of pro-Israel counter-protesters fearlessly confronted the march, at one point even blocking their route in an unprecedented show of defiance. (h/t vwVwwVwv)

IsraellyCool: EU Ambassador Refuses To Condemn Abbas Standing Ovation After Blood Libel

When IBA News anchor Eylon Aslan-Levy asks EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen if he condemns the EU Parliament’s decision to give Mahmoud Abbas a standing ovation after his infamous blood libel, this is the response.
Why am I not surprised? This is so typical of Europe (home of the blood libel, incidentally).
Imagine if the EU had sent a clear message to Abbas. No terrorism! No incitement! Or otherwise no funding!
Instead, the Europeans continue their downward slide by siding with the very forces that will be the end of them. (starts 3:35)

Palestine in the 1800s

Félix Bonfils (1831-1885) was French photographer and writer who was active in the Middle East. Four years after his arrival he reported 15,000 prints of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece, and 9,000 stereoscopic-views. He traveled to the region several times and we hear of no mass population of Palestinians, which contradicts everything the Palestinians lie about to the world.
His pictures did not manage to capture any photographs of a single so-called ‘Palestinian’ who are suppose to have lost land to Jewish occupation, if we believe Arab propaganda.
Amin al Husseini made the dome his special project. It had fallen into a state of utter disrepair, but al-Husseini saw it to his political advantage to restore it. The dilapidated Dome of the Rock was a decaying old relic well into the 20th century. It was of no import and it was no longer used as a place of worship.

My interview with the Nothing Left radio show in Australia is now up for listening. It can be heard here and my piece starts at the nine minute mark.

I gave a huge shout-out to Ian as my Ozzie co-blogger.

My segment is about 20 minutes long.

Of course, you can also listen to our blogger Mike Lumish on the show every week as well, His section starts at the 49 minute mark.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

So much of a controversial nature has been going on this week – a knife-edge General Election in Australia, the continuing fallout from Brexit that’s sent the Conservative Party leadership into turmoil, Jeremy Corbyn’s despicable comparison of Israel with Islamic State and an antisemitic allegation regarding a Jewish MP by a Corbynista activist – that I feel like a political junkie who has overdosed on it all. Accordingly, for this week’s post I’ve turned once more to the historical archives.

The Rev. William Jowett was an English clergymen who, under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society, authored Christian Researches in Syria and the Holy land, in 1823 & 1824, published in Boston, Mass., in 1826 together with an appendix consisting of the journal of another English missionary, Joseph Greaves, who was based in Tunis.

Jowett was a typical conversionist of his time – he wrote that “The Jews have been suffering now these eighteen hundred years a special punishment on account of their rejection and murder” of “the only Messiah” and sentiments of that nature – but leaving aside his “ulterior motive” in visiting their eastern venues his narrative has points of interest.

“…. From Aleppo to Jerusalem, Jews are to be found in all the principal cities: in Mount Lebanon there are but few….

[At Tiberias] we judged the population might be one thousand souls: but considering that a large portion is peopled by Jews, who crowd together in a very little space, possibly the number may be greater. We remarked two Minarets. As we approached the gate of the city, we were met by two Polish Jews …

We rode at once, as we had been recommended to do, by Seignior Rafaele Picciotto, an aged Jewish gentleman, who formerly held the office of Austrian consul at Aleppo; and, being succeeded by his son, has retired hither to pass the remainder of his days peacefully, on ground considered by the Jews as holy. We had every reason to be grateful to him for his civil attentions to us. We were entertained with a clean upper room, and entertained hospitably at his table.

Toward evening, we witnessed the scene of his whole household performing prayers. About thirty persons came at this hour into the court, and united in repeating the service, in conducting which, Rabbi Samuel, who has married his [Picciotto’s] step-daughter, was the chief leader. It was very affecting, at one part, to view them turning their faces toward Jerusalem – bowing, and lifting up their voices in fervent petitions. It reminded us of Daniel’s supplications when in Babylon, who had his windows open toward Jerusalem, and kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed: (Daniel vi. 10.) After sunset the table was prepared, and we sat down to a plentiful supper, at which it gratified us to see the females joining the circle – a sight banished from Turkish and Christian houses in this country, but not from Jewish. These were the consul’s wife and step-daughter.

The consul himself professes to know very little of his countrymen in this place. His son-in-law, however, is more communicative. The Mohammedans in this place are more numerous, he says, than the Jews, but when it comes to the question of actual numbers, you will rarely find two men agreeing in their account. Rabbi Samuel stated the Sephartim [sic], or Spanish Jews, at seventy or eighty houses; but another said that the Sephartim were ninety houses, and the Ashkenasim [sic] ninety-six. Rabbi Samuel says that there are no Jews of the sect of the Perushim, but that all are Hassidim.

…. The baths of Tiberias, so much celebrated by many authors, are just a mile south of the town, and about fifty feet from the margin of the lake. On the way thither we passed the Jewish burying ground…. On every side, small ruins of walls, columns and foundations indicate the former extent of Tiberias. …. [J]ewish literature flourished in this spot, and some of the most learned Hebrew commentators on Sacred Scripture formed a kind of university in this city.”

He found that the following quotation from French Huguenot divine Jacques Basnage’s History of the Jews (1708; French original, 1706) presented a rosy contrast to their treatment at Sfat (Safed):

“Safet [sic] is the most peopled, and the most celebrated [Holy Land city] celebrated among them. There they enjoy many advantages. For, first, this city, situated in the tribe of Naphtali, at a distance of nine miles from Bethsaida, upon a mountain with a triple ridge or summit, is extremely difficult of access. It is thus protected from the incursions of the roving Arabs, who pillage and desolate whatever cities they can enter. Second, I know not whether it be that the Turks are unwilling, by ill-treating the Jews, to occasion the depopulation of the town, or whether it is the mildness of the Ottomans that attracts the Jews thither; certain it is that they are more numerous at Safet, and that they are more kindly treated here, than in all the rest of the Ottoman Empire…. A third of the inhabitants are Turks; the other two-thirds are Jews.”

Jowett visited in November 1823:

“[In the Jewish quarter of Safet] …. After much delay, and many enquiries, we reached the house of Rabbi Israel, one of the Perushim [‘separate ones’; followers of the Vilna Gaon], and chief of that sect in this place. He himself was gone to Jerusalem: but his wife and son, and Baruch the Shemas [shammas] … welcomed us, and gave us the best room in their house; it was, however, very wretched and cold.

In the evening some of the Jews called upon us. One of them complained, most bitterly, of the treatment which he had received at the last festival of Succoth: he had brought it, indeed, on himself, having gone to some excess in wine; a Mohammedan laid to his charge the crime of blaspheming against the Mohammedan religion; and, without further witness or investigation, the governor ordered him for punishment, when he suffered … five hundred stripes of the bastinado…. They all [the Safed Jews] complain of the severity to which they are liable from the ruling powers.

The number of Jewish families at this place, they stated at four hundred: of which the Ashkenasim [sic] and Sephartim [sic] are in about equal numbers; that is, two hundred families of each. Since the war in Turkey, few venture to come from Poland, so that the Hebrew population is rather on the decrease. They said there were sixteen synagogues in the place … this … I suspect to be exaggerated…. In the room which we occupied we counted five hundred books, all Hebrew; the library of Rabbi Samuel.

….. Of [the synagogues] we counted five. Of the Hassidim, one synagogue … and one Maddras, College: for, with this title do they dignify a room which will scarcely contain twenty persons … but, certainly, a few appeared here to be in the very act of poring over Talmudical books. For the Perushim there is one place, which is used both as a synagogue and Maddrass; and one other place, which has at least some pretensions to its title of Maddrass, as it contains a thousand Hebrew volumes. Lastly, one synagogue of the Sephardim: this was by far the best and largest of the places which we saw….

From the view which we had of the town when on the castle, we judged, that if there are in the Jewish quarter the number of families which they state, namely, four hundred, there would be about one thousand Mohammedan houses: for, as they occupy distinct quarters, it is easy to compare their superficial area; the Jews, however, state them at fifteen hundred families. The population of Safet might be stated, in round numbers, at seven thousand souls. We observed four Minarets.”

In December 1823 he visited Jerusalem. On Friday, 5 December,

“A little before noon, we called on Rabbi Mendel, a Jewish rabbi, of some consideration on account of his talmudical learning …. He had at his side a volume of the Talmud, and he is greatly in repute for his skill in these works…. In addition to a certain wild abstracted gaze, which nature and talmudical studies have given to the countenance of Rabbi Mendel, he was further suffering from terror, the impression of which was not yet effaced from his mind; he having been, about a week before, forcibly seized in the night, and carried off to prison by order of the new governor.

The pretext alleged was that his street door had been left open in the night: for this he was compelled to pay a heavy fine of three purses; about £37 sterling. The officer who apprehended him burst with violence into his inner chamber – waked him – spurned all his protestations of his having European protection – he having an Austrian firman [decree]; and, forthwith, took him, his disciple Rabbi Isaac, and two others to the prison, from which, after twenty-four hours’ confinement and the payment of the fine, they were set at liberty.

He was proposing to go for relief to the consul at Acre: from the Austrian consul at Tiberias he expected nothing, as that gentleman, himself a Jew, probably finds it as much as he can do to secure protection for his own declining old age. Rabbi Mendel preferred going in person to writing, for if it were known in Jerusalem that he had written, it would subject him to fresh insults or exactions. How truly is this threat accomplished – Thy life shall hang in douby before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life! (Deut. Xxviii, 66).

The money was, clearly, the sole motive for this proceeding – a new governor, in this devoted city, generally making his advances, by rapid steps, first to the Jews, next to the Greeks and Armenians, and finally to the Latins. Nor have these any appeal: their only relief is, by cunning and intrigue, to throw the burden as much as possible upon the shoulders of their neighbors; or to plead their inability to meet the demands of the governor, who always begins by bidding high. The parties from whom the demand is made being either put in prison or otherwise annoyed, part of their policy is to endure as long as nature can bear the unjust affliction; thus proving, by their willingness to suffer, their inability to pay.

The other party of the Jews, the Sephartim [sic], being much more numerous, were soon obliged to pay a much larger sum. Four of their principal men were, during these days, thrown into prison; from which they were not released till the bargain was adjusted. Some, whom we inquired after, had secreted themselves in their neighbors’ houses.

Rabbi Isaac conducted us to see an interesting spot, to which the Jews frequently resort on the afternoon of Friday. It is on the outer wall of the mosque of Omar. Within the area which surrounds the mosque, none may enter, under pain of death, unless he becomes a Mohammedan; but, at a particular part of the outside of the surrounding buildings, the Jews have the permission, for which they pay money, to assemble every Friday, to pray. There were only eight when we were there, but at a later hour, probably, there would be more. On other occasions they are numerous: but the measures of the new governor have thrown them into consternation, so that they are not so forward to show themselves.

I observed, as we passed through the Jew quarter – and upon many faces, in most parts of Jerusalem – a timid expression of countenance … with a curiosity that desires to know everything concerning a stranger, there is, at the same time, a slinking away from the curiosity of others. We stood awhile with the worshippers at this spot… To worship here must be the summit of their desires: it seems to be somewhat in the spirit of David’s vow, In thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.”
In October 1824 Joseph Greaves, in Tunis, was informed that the total population of that place numbered about 120,000.

“Of this number there may be 30,000 Jews. The native or Tunisine Jews are distinguished from the Mohammedans by their dress, not being allowed to wear the red scull [sic]-cap under the turban: it must be black, or dark blue: they are sometimes very ill-treated, but are not liable to greater exactions than the Moors. The European Jews wear hats, and speak chiefly Spanish or Italian: their number does not exceed 2000 at the most: they have considerable connections in Leghorn. The native Jews speak the Arabic of the country, but their books are in Hebrew. There is not much cordiality between the two classes; rather, I am informed, division and animosity. A few of the Tunisian Jews by purchase, and others through interest, enjoy the privilege of wearing the European dress."

There, he learned of “justice” as meted out the dhimmis:

“Wednesday, Dec. 1 [1824]: “A shocking instance of cruelty occurred yesterday, which will give an idea of judicial proceedings in Barbary. The two victims of it were a young Jew and a Moorish woman. It was stated that they had been taken in adultery; but all the circumstances were so improbable as to leave no doubt on the minds of most persons of the innocence of the parties. The crime was affirmed to have been committed about four days ago, and the individuals were immediately taken to prison. The young man was carried before the Bey yesterday morning; and some witnesses came forward, and gave evidence of the fact: the poor Jew, seeing that his death was determined on, as the last resource [resort] repeated the Mohammedan profession of faith, by which he became a Turk: he was told, however, that it was too late, as he had been induced to take the step through fear.

This measure failing, he boldly asserted his innocence, telling the Bey that he [the latter] was his superior now, but that before God they should be equal, and that he should then ask an account of his blood: the Bey shook his clothes, and said that it would lie at the door of the witnesses. From the palace he was immediately conducted to the place of execution, and cut down. I was told his sufferings were not protracted; one of the executioners having almost immediately struck off his head. His mangled body was afterward dragged about the town by the infuriated mob, and treated with every possible indignity. He has left a wife and two young children, who, by the seizure and confiscation of the little property that he possessed, now depend for subsistence on the small allowance which they may receive from the general poor-fund of the Jews. The Moorish woman was a very bad and troublesome character: she was punished, according to the Mohammedan custom, by being put into a sack and drowned.

I much regret having been absent during this transaction, for I cannot help thinking that a little exertion might have procured for the unfortunate individual at least a regular trial according to Mohammedan law. By that law, so many qualifications in a witness are required that the lives of the parties would probably have been saved: at all events time would have been gained, which might have led to the development of many circumstances. It was generally thought that revenge for legal proceedings to which the Jew had had recourse against a Moor for the recovery of a debt was at the bottom of the whole affair. In consequence of a somewhat similar case, which happened about a year and a half ago, I was told it was made an article in the last treaty with the British Government that a Christian shall not be put to death within less than forty-eight hours from the time of conviction, and that the trial shall be conducted in the presence of the consul of his nation. But the Jews, unhappily, have no nation – no Consul.

Thursday, Dec. 2, 1824. Mordecai Naggiar [scholar Mordecai Ibn al-Najjar, Greaves’s Jewish contact and interpreter in Tunis] informed me that the Mohammedans have an idea that they acquire merit in heaven by taking the life of a Jew; and that, to succeed in this, they would sacrifice the lives of ten women. These observations were made with particular reference to the late occurrence; and, no doubt, under the influence of passionate indignation; yet they probably describe, not too strongly, the fanaticism which prevails among the Mussulman populace.

…. Monday, Dec. 6 …. I was determined to call on the poor Jewess whose husband was put to death a few days ago; and also to endeavour to interest some of the consuls in her favour: but my Arabic master [i.e. teacher], himself a Jew, told me that it would be better not to do so, as it might excite a suspicion that the Jews were seeking the protection of a Christian nation, and be worse both for the family and the Jews in general.”

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07/05 Links Pt1: Glick: Moral equivalence has become a moral atrocity; The Humble Nobility of Elie Wiesel

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Moral equivalence has become a moral atrocity

We have reached the point where moral equivalence has become a moral atrocity.
The smart set in the West has insisted for over a generation that Israel and the Palestinians are morally equal. There are extremists, on both sides, they say. Both sides are responsible for the absence of peace.
The first serious outcry against this lie came immediately after the Palestinians began their terrorist war against Israel in September 2000. That war, incited, directed, funded, commanded and celebrated by Yassir Arafat and his henchmen, including his successor Mahmoud Abbas, began two months after Arafat overturned the table at Camp David in response to then prime minister Ehud Barak’s offer to withdraw from 95 percent of Judea and Samaria, all of Gaza and half of Jerusalem to enable the establishment of an independent state of Palestine in the areas.
The areas in question, Barak said, would be handed over to the PLO Jew free. The hundreds of thousands of Jews living in the areas set to become Palestine, would be forcefully evicted from their homes to ensure that the delicate, sensitive Palestinians, wouldn’t be troubled by the Jews with their “dirty feet,” in the words of Abbas.
That, of course, wasn’t enough for Arafat. And it was insufficient not because Barak failed to give him what he demanded. It was insufficient because his demands were insatiable. Arafat was never interested in peace.
As his deputy Faisal Husseini said at the time, the peace process was a “Trojan Horse.”
Its purpose was to get the PLO bases of operation inside of Israeli territory in order to expand its ability to destroy the Jewish state. This is the reason that despite the fact that the international community has given them more financial assistance than any other people in the history of humanity, the Palestinians have not built a society. They have received tens of billions of dollars in development aid and failed to develop an operating economy.
This failure isn’t due to incompetence or corruption.
It is simply that the Palestinians don’t want those things. They chose not to develop independent institutions.
They do not want to build a state. They have spent the money to transform Palestinian society into the most anti-Semitic society in the world where the vast majority of its people want to kill Jews and destroy Israel. They have transformed Palestinian society into a place where Jews have no right to live – not because of some sort of occupation, but because they are Jews, and Jews, they have been indoctrinated to believe, are an abomination.

PMW: PA, PLO, and Fatah enraged by Israeli UN Ambassador’s election as chairman of UN Legal Committee

Enraged by the election in June of Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon as chairman of the UN Legal Committee, the Palestinian Authority Government Spokesman Yusuf Al-Mahmoud called it “a farce and a shameful and disgraceful thing,” and stated that Israel is a “threat to the peace and security of the region.” [WAFA (official PA news agency), June 14, 2016]
The official PA daily printed a cartoon titled “Israel is chairman of the UN Legal Committee,” showing an Israeli soldier looking through the sights of a machine gun while standing on the scales of justice. [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 16, 2016]
Abbas’ Fatah Movement called the election “a blow to international law.” [Website of Fatah's Information and Culture Commission, June 14, 2016]
Fatah in Lebanon portrayed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a killer of Palestinians as well as of Lady Justice in two cartoons.
In both cartoons, the election of Israel as chair of the UN Legal Committee, which deals with all of the UN’s legal activities and coordinates its fight against terror, was termed “a prize for terror.”
One cartoon (above) shows a figure representing the UN and the world waving Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bloody hands in the air as a sign of victory on the UN podium. At their feet are skulls and bones of Palestinians, one of the skulls is holding a Palestinian flag. [Falestinona, website of Fatah's Information and Culture Commission in Lebanon, June 24, 2016]