Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 05, 2016

09/05 Links Pt1: The West Must Insist that the Palestinians Change Their Narrative; Peace Now, Wrong Again

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Invisible (Female) Palestinians

Instead of referring to the female candidates by name and publishing their pictures, the electoral lists are using the terms "the wife of" or "sister."
"It is disgraceful for any Islamic, national or independent list to scrap the names of the women. If they are not willing to recognize the woman's name, how will they accept the role of the women woman's name, how will they accept the role of the women after they are elected? ... I'm against the participation of women in this manner. Let men participate in the election alone." — Nahed Abu Taima, Media Development Center at Bir Zeit University.
Dr. Walid Al-Qatati, a writer and analyst specializing in Islamic affairs, said that the move reminded him of wedding invitations that are sent out without naming the brides.
When Palestinian women carry out attacks against Israelis, Palestinian society glorifies them as heroes. Then the names and photos of these women are plastered across billboards. Yet it appears that when the women wish to work for life rather than for death, their identities are not fit for public consumption.

NGO Monitor: IDF Document Refutes NGO Allegations regarding 2014 Gaza War

On August 24, 2016, the IDF Military Advocate General (MAG) issued a statement providing detailed information on 12 incidents from the 2014 Gaza War in which allegations of potential war crimes had been raised. The MAG described the findings of its “examination and investigation of [these] exceptional incidents” and explained the rationale behind its decision to open or close criminal proceedings for each.
In many instances (see chart below), the details in the MAG publication contradict the claims and repudiate the conclusions of NGOs – including Adalah, Al-Mezan, B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel – and the UN Schabas/Davis Commission of Inquiry regarding these specific incidents.
In response, the NGOs Adalah and Al-Mezan addressed the MAG’s findings in a seven-page report published on August 28, alleging the Israel was “unwilling to conduct genuine, independent investigations.” In addition, Human Rights Watch claimed that Israel had not conducted “adequate domestic investigations” and that the International Criminal Court should step in.
Despite these reactions, the MAG’s latest update highlights the fundamental difference in the salience of information provided by different investigations: The MAG report (as well as others released previously) gives inside details on intelligence, targeting, weapons systems, operational capabilities, commander decision making, and real-time field conditions; without these, it is impossible to make determinations as to whether a violation of the law occurred. In sharp contrast, the publications of NGOs and the Schabas/Davis Commission (largely based on these same NGO publications) contain speculation, innuendo, unverifiable (and sometimes clearly mistaken) claims, and “testimonies” from “eyewitnesses,” and lack the essential facts provided by the MAG.

BESA: The Middle East Will Remain a Source of Terrorism

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The collapse of the Arab state system and the rise of political Islam have destabilized the Middle East and entrenched the region as the major source of global terror. Even the more stable states, such as Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, display strong Islamic tendencies and support radical groups that engage in terrorism. Not much can be done to change this situation. Accepting this unpleasant reality will entail a sea change in Western strategic outlook.
Several major developments in the Middle East will keep the region a wellspring of Islamic terror and a source of inspiration for Islamist radicals for the foreseeable future. Attempts to perpetrate acts of terror against the “enemies of Islam” should be expected to continue.
The first development contributing to the growth of terror has been the historic disruption of the Arab state system. The relatively new Arab states failed to instill deeply held national identities (with the exception of Egypt, a true historical state). This failure allowed for the breakdown of states along ethnic, tribal and sectarian lines and for the emergence of armed militias.
The rise of numerous failed states, characterized primarily by the loss of monopoly over the use of force, started before the Arab Spring. Lebanon, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority and Somalia are prime examples. This trend intensified with the weakening of the central governments in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Those states were transformed into vast battlefields containing many militias notable for their lack of inhibitions against using terror to attain political goals.

Yesterday was the annual European Day of Jewish Culture and Heritage, where Jewish culture is celebrated.

The Jewish Museum of Belgium decided that this would be a good time to celebrate how wonderful things were for Jews under Islamic rule.

Specific lectures and workshops were given on Jewish and Muslim calligraphy and the history of perfumes in Jewish and Muslim Andalusia. There was a concert of Judeo-Arabic music and a documentary about Jews in Morocco.

There is nothing wrong with studying Jews in the Muslim world. But there is a problem when it is presented in a biased way, as if Jews suffered no persecution and Muslims were nothing but benevolent and tolerant.

Yes, Jews nearly always had more rights in the Muslim world than they did in Europe throughout history. But having comparatively more rights is not the same as having equal rights, and they didn't have anything close to equal rights. There were a specific set of rules that Jews had to adhere to in most of the Muslim world. As summarized here:

The manner in which the rules of dhimmitude were applied varied according to the political circumstances and the disposition of the ruler. There were periods of tolerance which gave a small degree of security to the dhimmis. However the fanaticism which could be riled up by the clergy could change the situation in small time. If the local Muslim population became intolerant or jealous of the successes of the dhimmi, then a pogrom would ensue. Communities could find themselves evicted, women raped, exorbitant ransoms placed on them, children abducted and forced to convert, and in other cases mass murders of the dhimmi population was condoned.

Rules would be formulated to deny the dhimmi due process of the law. Discriminatory and restrictive dress and behavior codes would be enacted and severely enforced to reduce the dhimmi into a state of despair and poverty. Dehumanization of the dhimmi was not uncommon, and generally the rule. Various forms of physical abuse were common.

Many times distinctive dress was specified to identify a dhimmi that he would be unable to either mix with a Muslim or even walk in a Muslim area of a city. Other rules specified such demeaning dress codes as not wearing shoes or sandals, not using certain colors, wearing stars on their clothing. Dhimmis were often prohibited from working in many occupations. Even rules were made as to how a dhimmi could ride a mule to distinguish him from a Muslim.

The non-observance of these rules would entail a severe beating. Often passing a Muslim on the wrong side would begin a beating that could leave a dhimmi mortally wounded. Since the dhimmis were denied the ability to testify against a Muslim, there was absolutely no recourse.

It is dishonest to concentrate on the growth of Jewish culture in the Muslim world - which is still a fascinating topic - without mentioning the other half of the equation of the oppression that the Jews had to endure while building their lives.

The museum's program seems to be more oriented towards political correctness than for scholarship. Today, more than ever, Muslim antisemitism - both historic and contemporary - needs to be highlighted and exposed, not swept under the rug.

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The ramp-up to the municipal Palestinian elections has created a bizarre story.

Both Hamas and Fatah are scrambling to get votes, and a small bombshell was detonated a couple of days ago when Jibril Rajoub, the PA sports minister and prominent Fatah member, made fun of Christians who voted for Hamas ten years ago and referred to them as the "Merry Christmas bunch" in an interview on Egyptian TV.

Even though Christians are only 1% of the population, both Fatah and Hamas as vying for their votes.

Now, both Islamic Jihad and Hamas - Islamist terror groups who view Christians with the same disdain they view Jews - are condemning Rajoub for his remarks.

Hamas said the statement was "offensive to our religion and our people and our history and our values." Almost unbelievably, Hamas added that "they are Palestinian citizens with full citizenship rights and we may not be discriminate against anyone based on race, religion or sex."

Christians in Gaza are in constant fear ever since Hamas took over, and there have been a number of attacks against them.

Islamic Jihad said the statement was "inappropriate and harm the Palestinian people and its culture and Islamic values and national traditions."

The PFLP likewise condemned Rajoub.

Fatah is scrambling to contain the damage. They issued a statement from a Fatah committee member, not mentioning Rajoub but saying how important Christians have been in the intifada against Israel and that no one has the right to cause discord between Muslims and Christians.

Christians have been fleeing the territories by the thousands since 1948, when they were the majority in some towns and made up some 10% of the population. Their flight accelerated under the rule of Fatah and Hamas who are now pretending to love them so much.

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Palestinians are accusing Israelis of "Judaizing" Samaria, capital of ancient Israel

Times of Israel wrote last year:

Sebastia is situated just a few kilometers northwest of Nablus in the northern West Bank. Known in Hebrew by its biblical name Shomron, the city was capital of the northern Israelite kingdom in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, founded by the sixth Israelite king, Omri.

Fragments of houses, walls and a palace from the Iron Age remain. After its destruction by the Assyrians in 721 BCE, the city became the provincial capital of the conquered region. Under the Greeks it again flourished, but was destroyed by Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus. Then his son Alexander Jannaeaus rebuilt the city and repopulated it with Jews.

During the Roman era, King Herod renamed it after Augustus Caesar — Sebaste is Augustus in Greek. At its height, Sebastia was a major city and entrepôt; the remains of its Roman theater, temple, palaces, forum, hippodrome and marketplace are still visible today.

In the centuries of its long decline, Sebastia was a major Christian site, as underlined by the ruins of a Byzantine church dedicated to St. John the Baptist, where legend says he was executed and his head interred. A Crusader cathedral-turned-mosque still stands in the nearby modern Palestinian village, a vestige of the Crusader city’s former glory that shares the same name.

The PA’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities brochure avoids any mention of Israel or a Jewish connection to the site. It notes that Sebastia was “an important administrative and political regional capital during the Iron Age II and III” and was “a major urban center during the Hellenistic period,” but makes no reference to the Israelite Kingdom or the Hasmoneans.

A Palestinian description of Sebastia in a bid to have it listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site goes to even greater lengths to omit references to the city’s Jewish history, referring to it as the former “capital of the northern kingdom during the Iron Age II,” and alluding to Jewish figures such as Omri and John Hyrcanus without explanation.

On the other hand, the Nature and Parks Authority’s site makes no reference whatsoever to the village, home to 3,000 Palestinians, in which the church-turned-mosque is located, to the Church of St. John the Baptist located in the ruins, or to the former Crusader presence in Sebastia.

Despite Sebastia’s historical significance, the site has barely been excavated. The last archaeological dig took place in 1967, when the West Bank was still under Jordanian control. Since then only salvage operations have taken place. The national park is dismally neglected. There’s no fence to protect its artifacts, weeds grow rampant throughout, and garbage is littered all over the ancient ruins.

Most of the site is in Area C, but for some reason the PA controls much of it.

Wafa is now reporting that residents of Sebastia/Samaria are complaining that Jews are visiting the site and trying to "Judaize" the site - a site that was the capital of the Kingdom of Israel.

The mayor of Sebastia, Moatasem Allioui, said "The occupation is trying to ascribe Jewish legends over the area."

He called on the local and international community to protect the site "from the risk of Judaization and distortion."

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From Salon:

Amnesty International has accused the U.S. of “deadly hypocrisy” for its massive arms deals with Middle East governments that have carried out war crimes and other violations of international law.

“One of the unspoken legacies of the Obama administration is the extraordinary uptake in the amount of U.S. weapons and military aid that are provided to major U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt that have terrible records when it comes to human rights,” explained Sunjeev Bery in an interview with Salon.

Bery, the advocacy director for Middle East and North Africa issues at Amnesty International USA, called on the Obama administration to “do an about-face on its current policy of providing vast arms sales and military aid to repressive allies in the Middle East.”

As far as I can tell, Amnesty never said a word about the US arming the Palestinian Authority to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

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09/04 Links: A History of ‘Evenhanded’ Failure; The Zohan Launches Presidential Run

From Ian:

A History of ‘Evenhanded’ Failure

Among those diplomats and journalists who don’t simply blame the Arab-Israeli conflict entirely on Israel, the preferred approach is “evenhandedness.” This approach, epitomized by the “cycle of violence” cliché, holds that both sides want peace and are equally to blame for its absence. Remarkably, this view has persisted despite decades of proving wrong in ways that hurt the very countries which espouse it – as demonstrated yet again by newly released documents from the Nixon Administration.
The documents, which Amir Oren reported this week in Haaretz, include redacted versions of the CIA’s daily presidential briefings on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The agency’s cluelessness is mind-blowing.
On October 5, 1973, one day before the war began, the CIA acknowledged that “The military exercises underway in Egypt seem to be on a larger scale and are being conducted more realistically than previous ones,” but nevertheless insisted that “they do not appear to be preparations for an offensive against Israel.” The agency even dismissed an obvious danger sign as a reasonable response to fears of Israeli aggression: “Cairo may have put its air defense and air forces on alert as a precaution against an Israeli reaction to the initial phase of the exercise.”
On October 6, just hours before the war began, the CIA’s briefing was similarly disconnected from reality:
Tension along Israel’s borders with Egypt and Syria has been heightened by a Soviet airlift that is in its second day. Neither the Israelis nor the Arabs seem bent on starting hostilities, but in this atmosphere the risk of clashes is greater than usual. … Both the Israelis and the Arabs are becoming increasingly concerned about their adversaries’ military activities, but neither side seems bent on starting hostilities … A military initiative at this time would make little sense for either Cairo or Damascus.

JPost Editorial: Straight talk

At the Swedish Zionist Federation’s annual rally in Stockholm last week, visiting Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid made undiplomatic history by accusing Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom of anti-Semitism.
While many members of the diplomatic community were no doubt shocked by Lapid’s remarks, they brought a refreshing moment of moral clarity.
For Lapid said what is too often let pass in a futile accommodation with hatred, the kind of enmity that spurred Wallstrom to demand an inquiry into Israel’s killing of terrorists while they were trying to murder Israelis.
“If the Swedish foreign minister is concerned about human rights in the Middle East, she needs to talk about the Palestinians’ use of children as terrorists and human shields,” he said. “She needs to talk about the discrimination against the gay community [by the Palestinians], about the Der Sturmer-like incitement spread by the Palestinian Authority, about the abuse of women in Gaza.”
Lapid categorized Wallstrom’s attacks as coming from a deeper source than the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians: “If your attack on Jews is detached from facts and based only on bias, there is a name for it: anti-Semitism.”
Lapid’s accusation was especially poignant at the rally in Raoul Wallenberg Square, named for the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, including his own father, the late justice minister Yosef “Tommy” Lapid. The heroic Wallenberg, whose execution by the Soviets following the war was recently revealed, is one shining example of Swedish moral courage during the war.

Demand a full and transparent investigation of Syracuse University disinvite of Israeli filmmaker

The academic boycott movement against Israel has achieved very little so far, though it has poisoned the campus atmosphere with its anti-academic freedom message.
There is no university or college in that United State that I’m aware of even considering the academic boycott of Israel. The academic boycott resolutions at faculty organizations have had limited success, limited to the humanities and social sciences, and even there the only significant sized group to adopt the boycott was the American Studies Association in December 2013.
The move to hijack faculty groups continues, and we can expect more boycott resolutions this annual meeting season in the fall and winter. The information spread against Israel by these faculty members is consistently false and misleading, and always one-sided. It is a critical part of the international effort to delegitimize and dehumanize Israeli Jews, and needs to be fought for that reason regardless of the relative lack of success.
Lacking institutional success, the BDS war on campus has devolved into trench warfare at a very personal level.

Writing in the Times of Israel, Dov Lieber tells us:

"Palestinians officials rejected a recent US proposal for a trilateral peace summit with Israel, a Palestinian official said on Sunday, amid reports that efforts for possible talks hosted by Moscow were pushing forward.

Senior PLO official Wasel Abu Yousef told the Jordanian daily al-Ghad that the US had been informed of the PLO’s “firm stance” for two requirements to be met before any meeting with the Israelis: a freeze of construction in the settlements and the release of the fourth batch of prisoners promised to the Palestinians during negotiations in 2014."

I have absolutely had it with this painful and pointless and entirely unjust charade.

Have you ever heard of an allegedly oppressed people who insist upon "painful concessions" from their oppressors before they would deign to accept sovereignty?

The Desperate and the Persecuted

One would think that a desperate and persecuted people would take any way out of that desperation and persecution. Generally one would not think that the desperate and persecuted tend to make arbitrary demands on their persecutors as a precondition for their release from that persecution.

This is because Abbas and Fatah and the PA are playing the Americans, the Russians, and the Israelis for fools. Furthermore, it gives away the lie of Palestinian-Arab oppression at the hands of Jewish Israelis. The Palestinian-Arabs may be oppressed, but they are oppressed by their fellow Arabs who honestly do not care if they live or die. They are not oppressed by their Jewish neighbors who actually treat them considerably better than do their brothers and sisters throughout the rest of the Arab-Muslim world.

Throughout the regions, adjacent to Israel, the Palestinian-Arabs are kept in refugee camps to be used as diplomatic and, eventually, demographic weapons against the Jews of the Middle East.

Meanwhile, by law, Palestinian-Arabs are kept out of the best professions - or even the mediocre ones - in Lebanon. Jordan, not so long ago, deprived the franchise from any number of Palestinian-Arabs living in that country. The Kuwaitis, of course, kicked the Palestinian-Arabs out of their country almost entirely following the First Gulf War, but since the Palestinian-Arabs were rooting for Saddam Hussein over the Kuwaitis, the Kuwaitis had very good reason to give them the boot.

And, needless to say, the Palestinian Authority has stated that any Palestinian-Arabs who emigrate into the Palestinian-Arab state - if any such entity would ever arrive in the universe - then even the newly formed state of "Palestine" would keep those Palestinian-Arab refugees in detention camps for the purpose of eventually releasing them into Israel as a demographic club.

If Israel actually goes along with the freeze on building within certain sections of Israel that both Mahmoud Abbas and Barack Obama hope to remain Judenrein, then it will have earned my considerable contempt. The Palestinian-Arabs have turned down offer after offer for statehood since the British Peel Commission of 1937 and they should need no additional inducements to accept a state for themselves.

If Netanyahu releases the murderers of Jews from Israeli state prisons in order please the murderers of Jews then the man is no longer mentally fit for office.

The Palestinian Emirates

Given the fact that the Palestinian-Arabs absolutely refuse to accept a state for themselves in peace next to Israel it means that Ted Belman is correct, "There is no diplomatic solution." This being the case it is incumbent upon Israel to come up with unilateral measures to ease the situation. I will not say that it is up to Israel to come up with a unilateral solution because, in truth, there is precious little that any Jewish people can do to ease Arab-Muslim Koranically-based hatred of us children of orangutans and swine short of submitting to the Pact of Omar and thereby submitting to dhimmi status.

Lest we forget what living under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperial rule as dhimmis for thirteen long centuries was like, recently deceased historian Martin Gilbert reminded us:

There could be no building of new synagogues or churches. Dhimmis could not ride horses, but only donkeys; they could not employ a Muslim. Jews and Christians alike had to wear special hats, cloaks and shoes to mark them out from Muslims... A dhimmi could not - and cannot to this day - serve in a Muslim court as witness in a legal case involving a Muslim... men could enter public bathhouses only when they wore a special sign around their neck distinguishing them from Muslims... Sexual relations with a Muslim woman were forbidden, as was cursing the Prophet in public - an offense punishable by death.

(Martin Gilbert, In Ishmael’s House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands, Yale University Press, 31 – 33.)

It is true, of course, that what we call dhimmitude was in some times and places better and in some times and places worse, but it was never better than black people had it under the very worst of Jim Crow in the American South.

What I have been arguing for quite some time, now, is that Israel should simply declare its final borders, remove the IDF to behind those borders, and then toss the keys over the shoulder.

Good-bye and good-luck.

However, another idea that is gaining traction - in part due to the work of Dr. Mordechai Kedar, professor of Arabic Literature at Bar-Ilan University in Israel - is that of Palestinian-Arab emirates.

The basic idea is that the European nation-state model has failed in the Middle East among Arabs because it is simply not part of their cultural-political traditions and it rubs their religious sensibilities the wrong way. For at least fourteen hundred years, and probably much longer, the fundamental Arab political loyalties were centered around family, clan, and tribe ruled over by a powerful sheik under the universal umbrella of imperial Islam.

The imposition of the European nation-state model onto a part of the world where it did not develop organically has not changed the fundamental political-social structures of the Arab-Muslim world.

The primary loyalties, not surprisingly, are still toward family, clan, tribe, sheik, and Allah.

We certainly cannot change this and although the West has not really tried to interfere with that essential social structure, we certainly tried to impose a hard reality on top of it.

What Kedar and others are suggesting is that we dissolve relations with the Palestinian Authority and Fatah and empower six or seven of the local sheiks with a degree of autonomy and deal directly with them. It is they, after all, not Mahmoud Abbas, that have organic relationships with the young, blood-thirsty, Koranically-inspired, knife-wielding potential Jew-Killers in the streets.

In any case, whatever major step Israel takes next vis-à-vis the Long Arab War Against the Jews, the "two-state solution" is dead, dead, dead.

At this point it is nothing more than a club that the Arabs, and their western allies - particularly the United States - use to ring concessions out of the Jews of the Middle East and that the Palestinian-Arabs always use as an excuse for more violence against little old ladies in the streets of Haifa or Jerusalem.

It is time to move on.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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Last week, in Haaretz, Fatah's International Relations Commissioner and former PLO foreign minister Nabil Sha'ath accused Israel of not being interested in the two state solution.

It is easy enough to fisk his op-ed by itself, with statements like "Palestinian people['s] self-determination...is systematically and directly obstructed by the wall." Why exactly is that?

Nevertheless, it is more instructive to look at Sha'ath's other statements on the record to see how interested he is in peace, as he pretends to be.

In 2015, he said, in describing cities in Israel, "My right to return here has not been lost. Safed, the city of my birth, is my city; Gaza, the city of my father and his family, is my city; Jaffa is my city, and glorious Jerusalem is my city. Nablus, my wife's city, as well as Hebron, Acre, Bethlehem, Beersheba and Nazareth – they are all my cities."

In 2012, he said, "Adoption of the popular resistance does not mean giving up the armed struggle ...international law and morality gives the right of armed resistance."

In 2011, he said that the international community "reshaped the issue of the 'Jewish state' into a formula that is also unacceptable to us – two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of "two states for two peoples" means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this – not as part of the French initiative and not as part of the American initiative.

And he has stated, multiple times, that any two state solution is simply a stage for a one-state Palestine where Jewish self-determination does not exist.

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Reuters had a rare pro-Israel article last week about how Israelis were mystified by the French "burqini" ban:

In Israel, there may be profound ideological and political differences between the Jewish population and the near 20-percent Muslim minority, but it has never come down to banning someone's dress on the basis of religion.

"It is very funny that people think they are so liberal and open and yet they cannot stand other religions and the feelings of other people," said Ruti Solomon, an Israeli Jewish woman enjoying the sunshine on the beach in Tel Aviv.

Behind her, Muslim women with their bodies and heads fully covered in burkini-like clothing played in the water or relaxed on the sand, with the church spires and mosque minarets of the town of Jaffa in the near distance.

"I've heard what's happening in Europe," said Shams al-Duha Alayyan, a fully-covered young Muslim woman visiting the coast from Jerusalem. "This is personal freedom. If I want to cover my body, why can't I cover my body?"

Reuters wasn't the only one to notice, and may have gotten the idea from this Dutch TV report earlier in the week:

I recently noted fully covered Muslim women on the beach in Bat Yam showering off their sand right next to Jews doing the same.

But there is another aspect of daily life in Israel that is far more liberal than other leaders of Western liberal culture.

Most places we visited in Israel, especially restaurants, had unisex bathrooms.

Coming right after the LGBT bathroom controversy in the US, I found this fascinating.

The stalls were mini-rooms, with floor to ceiling doors. The sinks were used by both men and women.

And no one batted an eye.

Doesn't this make more sense? It saves space, and any clothing adjustments can be done in private. And who cares if someone of another gender - or transsexual - is washing their hands next to you?

In fact, the idea of mini-bathrooms was floated by Rabbi Michael Broyde and Amy Katz in an article in the Jewish Week a couple of months ago, without referring to the fact that this is already largely done in Israel:

Why are we Americans suddenly so concerned about transgender bathroom usage when there was never an uproar about intersex bathroom usage?

The proper solution to the transgender bathroom issue obviates the need for any in-depth assessment of gender status and identity, which is both hard to do and very individualized. While the particulars of one’s anatomy can be important in Jewish law, for example with respect to marriage, they are of no concern when considering bathroom usage. The solution is much simpler.

The solution is to change our bathrooms rather than our ethics. Regardless of the side of the moral argument on which one falls, a better bathroom solves the problems. Unisex mini-bathrooms would address not only the issue of transgender bathroom usage, but also of privacy and modesty concerns generally.

Houses have unisex bathrooms. The airplane on which the first draft of this paper was written has unisex bathrooms, and so do many other places. Unisex mini-bathrooms are more consistent with our Jewish values than the familiar, gendered, semi-private, communal model. Private unisex bathrooms are more modest in every way than communal facilities, which at best are only semi-private and which many find uncomfortable and immodest.

In this model, the bathroom area of any public place would contain many small, self-contained, fully enclosed rooms, like those in a private residence or on an airplane (hopefully larger than the latter), each with a toilet. Every person would have a private unisex mini-bathroom. There would be no collective men’s or women’s room.

The restroom is another place where the supposedly bigoted and human-rights scorning Israelis are more liberal than the countries that their critics come from.

Finally, it is worth reading this Times of Israel blog post about an (accidental) unisex bathroom in the Old City:

In the heart of the Jewish Quarter I stumbled across a unisex bathroom.

Yes, you read correctly, a unisex bathroom, where a secular woman could dwell peacefully in the stall while haredi men peed blissfully and openly into a nearby urinal. And together, the children of Israel, male and female, haredi and secular, Israeli and tourist were able, if not to break bread together, at least wash hands together without incident.

Has the messiah arrived – or has the Jerusalem municipality messed up so badly as to offend everyone equally, denying them all of their privacy and dignity?

Apparently the women’s room was inoperative that day, and who knows for how many other days, but from the undaunted looks of those who went in, the Israeli unisex toilet experience is not so uncommon. The haredi guy at the urinal didn’t flinch even a little bit when a woman passed behind him, nor did she, a secular tourist, whose smirk quickly melted when she saw that the last person to use her stall hadn’t put the seat down.

The religious Jew in the Jewish Quarter was more accommodating a secular woman in the bathroom than most Americans would be towards running into someone of a different gender in theirs.

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Why did Bishop Wayne T. Jackson present Donald Trump with a Jewish tallit, or prayer shawl, as well as a "Jewish Heritage Bible" which is a Christian Bible with annotations about Judaism?

Jackson said the tallit was "straight from Israel" and that his wearing it would be an "anointing from God."

"There are going to be some times in your life that you are going to feel forsaken, you are going to feel down, but the anointing is going to lift you up," Jackson said to Trump to cheers.

But why is he giving a Jewish gift to Trump? Does he think Trump is Jewish? Is he trying to convert Ivanka back?

A small minority of Christians do wish to wear tallitot.

The Bible that Jackson gave to Trump is meant to uncover the Jewish roots of Christianity. It annotates the Hebrew Bible with cross-references to Christian scriptures.

Jackson's TV network broadcasts one show from an evangelist who calls himself a "rabbi" who also tries to uncover the Jewish roots of Christianity.

It may be possible that Jackson honestly believes that Judaism is the key to his faith, although I cannot find any indication that he wears or uses a tallit himself when he prays. So this is still very, very strange.

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09/03 Links: German teachers’ union urges total boycott of Israel; Zionism belongs to Jews

From Ian:

German teachers’ union urges total boycott of Israel

The teachers union in the city of Oldenburg published an article in its September paper calling for a complete boycott of the Jewish state, sparking criticism from Israel’s embassy, German teachers and pro-Israel activists, as well as the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
It appears to be the first call to boycott Israel or Jews from a German organized labor group since the Holocaust. Critics accuse the union of stoking modern Jew-hatred.
The anti-Israel activist and teacher Christoph Glanz outlined the goals of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement in his two-page article in the magazine of the Education and Science Workers’ Union (GEW).
“The GEW is an important institution in Germany. That is why we are surprised and disappointed, that the Oldenburg chapter chose to re-publish the pamphlet of a BDS activist in its magazine,” the embassy told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

How Jordan’s ‘sheikh of sheikhs’ negotiated with Zionists, founded a kingdom

On April 8, 1933, the “most powerful man” in Transjordan took a trip to the famous King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He was there to negotiate with the Zionist leadership over the sale of huge tracts of land on the east bank of the Jordan River. Among the attendees of the meeting were Chaim Weizmann, soon to be Israel’s first president, Moshe Sharett, who would become Israel’s second prime minister, and Haim Arlosoroff, the top Zionist diplomat at the time and the one who set the meeting up.
This Jordanian VIP, who worked publicly with the Jewish Agency, was Mithqal Pasha al-Fayiz, the leader of the Beni Sakhr tribal confederacy who, and would, ultimately become the kingmaker of the Hashemite dynasty.
Mithqal’s life is the subject of a new book, “The Shaykh of Shaykhs: Mithqal al-Fayiz and Tribal Leadership in Modern Jordan,” by Israeli researcher Yoav Alon.
Alon, who says he was probably the first Israeli researcher to do fieldwork in the kingdom since the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement in 1994, interviewed the direct descendants of the great sheikh in order to bring his story to life.
A shrewd diplomat, a daring warrior and wise ruler, Mithqal’s life was full of intrigue — prime material for a Hollywood movie, says Alon. He led raids, acted as a judge for thousands of tribespeople, and had to maneuver through the political swamp of British colonialism, the Zionist project and Arab nationalism while balancing local affairs.
In the end, Mithqal did not sell any land to the Zionists, though he did accept their money. And a few years later during the Arab revolt against the British in Palestine, he became the strongest supporter of Palestinian nationalism, defying Abdullah bin Hussein, whom he had helped put on the throne.
The British, the Zionists and even the Hashemites all sought to exploit Mithqal, who Alon believes commanded the most powerful army in Transjordan at the time. But the sheikh turned out to be a chess grandmaster, working with everybody while bolstering his own coffers and political power.

Fred Maroun: Zionism belongs to Jews

The Palestinian cause should belong to Palestinians, but sadly it does not, and that is one of the main reasons for its failure. In 1947, the trend was established when the Arab world pushed the Palestinians to reject the UN partition plan and to fight their Jewish neighbors instead of living at peace with them.
This trend has continued since then, with Palestinians being encouraged repeatedly by their “friends” to reject Israeli offers for peace. Today the so-called pro-Palestinian movement, including the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, is driven largely by non-Palestinians and even non-Arabs, and it is far more anti-Israel than pro-Palestinian.
These foreign parties have no interest in helping the Palestinians build a peaceful state. Their interest lies in satisfying an ideological view of what the Palestinians need, which often is very far from reality. For example, they oppose Israeli businesses in the West Bank, regardless of the consequences to the Palestinians. Five hundred Palestinians lost their jobs as a result of the closing of SodaStream which the BDS movement targeted.
Palestinian human rights activists Bassem Eid wrote, “There is no connection between the tactics and objectives of the BDS movement and the on-the-ground realities of the Middle East. Israelis continue to come to the West Bank to do business, and most Palestinians continue to buy Israeli goods. Indeed, if you ask Palestinians what they want, they’ll tell you they want jobs, secure education, and health”.

09/02 Links Pt2: MSNBC host accused of anti-Semitism after BDS post on Twitter;

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Campus challenge

With the academic year set to begin at universities throughout North America next week, Jewish students who care about Israel are going to face some daunting challenges.
As laid out in a widely disseminated column published in The Washington Post recently by McGill University junior Molly Harris, titled, “So you’re a Jew and you’re starting college? Prepare for anti-Zionism,” elements of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic overtones are common place on her campus in Montreal, and have also been reported on campuses throughout the US.
Last week, the atmosphere Harris described was also reported by Milan Chatterjee, a former UCLA student president, who informed the university that he would be leaving due to a “hostile and unsafe campus climate” created by pro-BDS organizations.
Chatterjee told the Los Angeles Jewish Journal that he has been harassed and discriminated against because he “refused to support an anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist activity, organization and position while serving as president of the UCLA Graduate Student Association.”
Another worrisome aspect of North American campus life Harris described was the growing tendency to exclude Israel-friendly Jewish students from social justice campaigns and organizations.
That trend may intensify following the release of Black Lives Matter’s platform last month. The popular left-wing cause, which many US Jewish organizations and campus groups have vocally supported, outrageously called Israel an “apartheid state” and accused the United States of complicity in Israel’s “genocide” against the Palestinians.

The NY Times has Duranty's Syndrome on Islam

Pulitzer Prize winner, Bret Stephens, in the Wall Street Journal highlighted a gap in the investigative journalism of the New York Times:
“An Israeli heavyweight judoka named Or Sasson defeated an Egyptian opponent named Islam El Shehaby Friday in a first-round match at the Rio Olympics. The Egyptian refused to shake his opponent’s extended hand, earning boos from the crowd. Mr. Sasson went on to win a bronze medal. If you want the short answer for why the Arab world is sliding into the abyss, look no further than this little incident. It did itself in chiefly through its long-abiding and all-consuming hatred of Israel, and of Jews. That’s not a point you will find in a long article about the Arab crackup by Scott Anderson in last weekend’s New York Times magazine, where hatred of Israel is treated like sand in Arabia—a given of the landscape”.
David French in the National Review also explains that “the role of Islam is minimized by the New York Times”. Reading Anderson’s investigation, it seems that the recent history of the Middle East is only a succession of betrayed hopes, neo-colonialism, ethnic fault lines, migrations. No mention of radical Islam and its project of conquest.
The long essay by Anderson is just one example of what William McGowan, winner of a National Press Club Award, in a book titled “Gray Lady Down” (Encounter Books), called “the decline and fall of the New York Times”, the bible of liberal intelligentsia, the object of worship of American journalism.
The New York Times was immediately ready to back Obama’s efforts of a “rapprochement with the Islamic world”, by drawing attention to the speech in Cairo in June 2009 modeled on cultural relativism and political correctness. Not once has Obama spelled the words “Islamic extremism” or “jihadism”. Yet Obama’s speech on Islam was music to the ears of the Times, which in an editorial titled “The Cairo Speech” magnified the naiveté of Obama.

MSNBC host accused of anti-Semitism after BDS post on Twitter

A host on TV news network MSNBC was accused of anti-Semitism after he responded to a Twitter post about an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man as a "perfect time" to talk about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement against Israel.
On Wednesday, journalist Collier Meyerson complained on Twitter of being forced to move seats on an Air France flight after a "Hasidic man" refused to sit next to her.
MSNBC host Christopher Hayes, who is also editor of far-left magazine The Nation, responded to her post saying it was the "perfect time to start a good, frank BDS convo."
@collier perfect time to start a good, frank BDS convo.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 31, 2016
Meyerson, whose father is Jewish, shot back at Hayes' comment, saying that she "doesn't discriminate against Hasidic folk" and pointed out that the man may be from the Satmar Hasidic sect, which is anti-Zionist. His post garnered dozens of responses, most of the them perturbed by his connection between the actions of the Jewish man on the flight and a boycott of Israel. Several of the commentators said that making the link was anti-Semitic.
The Jerusalem Post's Op-Ed Editor Seth J. Frantzman responded to Hayes' comment, saying that "it's time to start a good frank discussion about [anti-Semitism]." In the same post, he asked why "every time Jews do something [you] attack Israel?!"