When a suicide bomber blew himself up among the crowd leaving a concert by teen idol Ariana Grande in Manchester on May 22, most Israelis were immediately reminded of the very similar Hamas attack targeting Israeli teens at a popular Tel Aviv discotheque almost exactly 16 years earlier. A Legal Insurrectionpost on the 15 year anniversary of theDolphinarium bombing has some interesting quotes from the media coverage at the time. According to The Guardian, the father of the suicide bomber described his son as “an observant Muslim who moved [from Jordan] to the West Bank two years ago in search for a better job.” The father added: “I am very happy and proud of what my son did and I hope all the men of Palestine and Jordan would do the same.” An ABC report quotes a similar statement from the father and describes how the terrorist was celebrated and idolized in his town. A nine year old boy told the reporter: “When I grow up, I want to be just like him.” The late Palestinian psychiatristEyadSarraj confirmed that by perpetrating a murderous attack, a terrorist“gives his family the highest status ever. His name becomes immortal.” Sarraj also explained: “The teaching of Islam tells you if you die for God, you don’t actually die […] In fact, you find in the last seconds of people acting this act, they smile.”
Sixteen years later, the popular Irish television comedy writerGraham Linehantakes offense when Israel’s prime minister declares after the attack in Manchester: “Terror is terror is terror. We must all unite to defeat it […] We will defeat them.” In response, Linehansneered: “Bibi bombed children playing football on a beach. What’s this ‘we’ business?”Linehan’s tweet garnered some 2350 “Likes” and was re-tweeted by 1853 people (at the time of this writing); among those who re-tweeted it were Linda Sarsour and Ali Abunimah. Abunimah also re-tweeted an antisemitic parody account of Netanyahu – but then, he has of course long been a dedicated purveyor of updated versions of the medieval blood libel.
When you check out the responses to Linehan’s accusation, you will see that one Twitter user challenged him: “Motive for intentionally killing kids on a beach ? Good PR. ? I really don’t think so. Use your brain.” But apparently, Linehan’s brain is such that he responded: “? No idea what point you’re trying to make here but if it’s a genuine question then--to spread terror. It was terrorism.”
So according to Linehan, Israel – or at least its prime minister – is just as much a terrorist child killer as the suicide bomber who caused carnage in Manchester.
Almost exactly two years ago, Linehan also tweeted about the incident he referred to in his recent tweet. Unsurprisingly, he was incensed that the New York Times reported about the findings of Israel’s investigation into the strike that targeted a compound used by Hamas, but resulted in the killing of four boys playing nearby on a beach in Gaza. Linehan made clear that he preferred the version of Mondoweiss – which, for good reason, has been described as a “hate site” that traffics in antisemitism and caters to people who think one Jewish state is one too many.
A Hamas mouthpiece like the Middle East Monitor will also be considered by Lineham as a reliable news source, and occasionally, he will turn to the award-winning antisemiteMax Blumenthal to confirm his views about the world’s only Jewish state.
Needless to say, Lineham has long been upset about “the tactical, disingenuous use of the anti-Semitic smear against anyone who criticises Israel;” he has long realized that “charging Israel’s critics with ‘anti-Semitism’” is just a pathetic effort to “effectively silence them.”And he has such pearls of wisdom to share: “’Peculiar how Israel is always violently attacked but it’s only the ‘attackers’ who die.’” Pity, isn’t it – if only more Israelis died…
And another insight that his followers appreciated: “Want to be called a Nazi? Criticise Israel and wait two days. Works that way for me, at least.”
Well, it’s so funny, isn’t it – but as a matter of fact, today’s Nazis fully share Linehan’s concerns about “the tactical, disingenuous use of the anti-Semitic smear against anyone who criticises Israel.”Indeed, Linehan could just go to David Duke’s website and search for “anti-Semitism” and get plenty of results that reflect his views on the matter. They even created such a funny little image to go with some of the relevant posts!!!
Linehan could also check out Stormfront, where he could find gems like “The Truth is anti-Semitic”… And needless to say, David Duke (who is of course a favorite on Stormfront) is as furious as Linehan when it comes to Israel’s murderous rampage in Gaza, and it just so happens that he also thinks Israel is terrorist…
Of course, we can’t know if Linehan would consider Duke and his Stormfront friends as Nazis, and we can only wonder how he feels that, when it comes to Israel, he seems to have quite a bit in common with them.
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Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt all announced they were cutting ties to Qatar and booting the country from an Arab coalition fighting in Yemen early Monday, amid a deepening fissure between Gulf Arab nations.
The move came to weeks after US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia, calling on Arab and Muslim leaders to fight extremism and terrorism, and isolate Iran.
The dispute between Qatar and the Gulf’s Arab countries started over a purported hack of Qatar’s state-run news agency, running a false story quoting a top official touting relations with Israel and Iran. The crisis has spiraled since.
Bahrain blamed Qatar’s “media incitement, its support for acts of terror and financing for armed groups associated with Iran to carry out subversive attacks and spread chaos” for its decision.
Saudi Arabia followed with an announcement that it too was cutting diplomatic ties to Qatar and it had pulled all Qatari troops from the ongoing war in Yemen.
Israel's image in the region likely can improve amid the current developments.
1. It hurts Hamas
Qatar has supported Hamas over the last decade and hosted former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal for the last five years in Doha. In 2012 Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani visited Gaza and pledged hundreds of millions for the Strip. Qatar therefore provided Hamas not only a home in Doha but financial support and diplomatic succor. The new pressure on Qatar has encouraged it to expel Hamas members and will reduce its support for the group. This may also isolate Turkey’s relations with Hamas. Qataris are now focused on which airlines will still fly to the country tomorrow, spending money on the Gaza Strip and hosting Hamas may seem like a liability they don’t need now. Hamas will find itself with even fewer allies which could give Israel leverage to encourage the group to change its ways. More likely, Hamas may lash out against Israel to show its relevance.
2. It brings Israel closer to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf
Israel has shared interests with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states in opposing Iran. Because Qatar has supported Hamas, the new crises encourages those states that oppose Qatar to see Israel as a partner against Hamas and against Iran. This relationship has already been quietly growing in recent years, but the crises with Qatar allows writers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to speak out more firmly against Hamas. Saudi's Al Arabiya has showcased interviews with Wonder Woman's Gal Gadot.
3. It shows US influence is back in the region
The background of the current crises was a feeling that US President Donald Trump’s speech to “drive out” terror gave a blank check to local states to act. Under Barack Obama Israel sometimes felt isolated, especially as the US pursued the Iran deal. Now Israel feels that the Americans are back in the region and will stand by their allies.
The head of Iran’s influential parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy said the differences between Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the result of US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the region.
The official IRNA news agency on Monday cited Alaeddin Boroujerdi as saying that the move was predicated by the signing of a major arms deal between the Saudis and the US during Trump’s trip.
“It is not unlikely that we would witness more negative incidents in the region,” in the wake of the deal, he said.
Boroujerdi added that Washington has always made it a policy to establish a rift among Muslim countries. He said: “Intervention of foreign countries, especially the United States, cannot be the solution to regional problems.”
Iran and Saudi Arabia are major rivals in the Middle East, with the two countries backing their respective Shiite and Sunni proxies in a number of regional conflicts, namely Syria and Yemen.
These Powerpoint slides were shown - and a worksheet based on them handed out - at Bellaire High School in Houston, Texas for a tenth grade class on decolonialization.
They start off merely as ahistorical. They then move into lies and culminate with blatant anti-Israel propaganda that would make Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss proud.
The McMahon-Hussein correspondence did not include all the land taken by the Ottoman Empire; there were explicit exceptions in Syria and the British interpreted the letters as specifically excluding Palestine.
Not one mention of the Jewish people's history in the region.
There were always Jews in the area, and the more modern migration began in the 19th century, before Arab nationalism.
The graphic does not mention that the Muslims built their structures, deliberately, on top of the site of the Jewish Temples.
It, unbelievably, does not mention the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. It does not mention the Bible.
Oh, and ever hear of another religion called Christianity that also finds the region to be slightly important?
"Civil war begins"? Arabs attacked Jews within hours of the partition resolution.
Opposite to what this slide claims, the Jews accepted the two state formula, the Arabs didn't.
The British withdrew in 1948.
No one considered the territories "Palestinian,."
The territories were never controlled by the UN.
Jordan and Egypt's control of the territories is not mentioned.
This slide is a series of lies from top to bottom.
The photos here are taken straight out of the "Israel is Evil" playbook - the Neturei Karta member who represents exactly zero percent of all Jews worldwide, the implication that Israel has not wanted negotiations while Arabs have which is the exact opposite of the truth, the photo of an Israeli soldier that, while it may or may not be Photoshopped, makes no sense as reflecting reality (soldiers don't pose with their weapons in such a bizarre way where they would fall on their rumps if they fired, for example, and the angle of the photo with a shaky provenance is intended to make it look like the soldier is aiming his weapon at the poor Arab family, when he is not.)
The text is just as bad - nothing about Israeli offers of land for peace, nothing about the wars that Arabs started to try to destroy Israel, nothing about Palestinian terrorism. Nothing about how Israel reached peace treaties with its two most important Arab neighbors. And nothing about how Israel built an amazing nation while under constant threat from hundreds of millions of antisemitic Arabs. The only Arabs in these slides are the ones who are today referred to as Palestinians.
This isn't theoretical. Here is a photo of the final slide taken by a student when it was taught this year in the classroom.
Here's the worksheet with the flawed information verbatim from the slides.
The first question is predicated on a false assumption about the McMahon-Hussein correspondence, written in a way to elicit an "It's not fair!" reaction from students who assume the "fact" about the letters are accurate.
But look at that last question, in the present tense, stating as fact that Jews are warmongers and there would be peace if those uppity Jews just let the UN do its job.
Even with the understanding that teachers must condense facts for tenth graders, this lesson is outrageous in its lies, focus and omissions. It looks like it had been written by a member of "Students for Justice in Palestine."
This slide deck is educational malpractice and it is unimaginable that the creator did not know the actual facts. It is propaganda aimed at high school students who implicitly trust that what they are being taught is true.
It appears from the metadata on the original show that the slide deck is at least a couple of years old. (I have the name of the most recent editor of the deck who is indeed a teacher at that school.)
And this is just one school among thousands. What are the others teaching? Who fact checks these teachers?
There is something very rotten going on, and students are getting taught propaganda instead of facts.
(This is not the first problematic issue at Bellaire High School, by the way. A ninth grade geography teacher once had students read an ISIS recruiting blog for a "critical thinking" exercise. )
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From all accounts, an amazing film on antisemitism in Europe called "Chosen and Excluded – Jew Hatred in Europe" that was commissioned by a French-German public broadcaster has been censored - because it wasn't "balanced."
The whole thing stinks to high heaven. The German-French TV channel Arte accepted a documentary project on "anti-Semitism in Europe" in April 2015 by a narrow majority. Joachim Schröder from the well-established film and television production company Preview Production (Munich) together with Sophie Hafner submitted it. The work was supervised by the Arte editorial team of Westdeutschen Rundfunk (WDR).
In December 2016, Sabine Rollberg, editor in charge, took over the film. Since then, Alain Le Diberder, Arte's program director, has prevented the 90-minute documentary from being aired. He referred to the "negative vote of the French members of the program committee" from the outset, and complained of a lack of "balance". A bizarre argument. Contrary to Le Diberder, I believe that anti-Semitism is not accessible to "balance" (...).
Meanwhile, I have reviewed the film. It draws its strength from intensive research and multiple perspectives. There is footage from right- and left-radical events in Germany and France, interviews with Protestant peace activists, sequences from within the European Parliament, rock concerts and rap videos. The film documents the corrupt, Hamas-controlled "self-administration" of Uno relief funds in Gaza. Le Diberder claims that the film lacks a "broad-based perspective".
The opposite is true. The authors also allow pragmatic students of the University of Gaza to speak, who find the ruling Hamas prescribed Jew hatred disgusting. The socialist mayor of a suburb of Paris sees himself in a lost position, left alone by the state in the struggle against militant Arab anti-Semitism. This causes his Jewish citizens to leave the community in droves, while the principles of the Republic evaporate.
The historian Michael Wolffsohn shares my positive impression of this documentary. But the responsible editor Rollberg could do nothing against the French opposition.
Thanks to its well-researched clarity the documentary provoked in fact, the secret anti-Semites who feel caught. Preventing the film at Arte or the program of the ARD is simply committing censorship - whether from indifference, cowardice or "anti-Zionist" resentment.
After having seen the documentary I am surprised by the reasoning behind the WDR social media team’s refusal to include the documentary in its programming:
„The film had only partially fulfilled the job requirements which were to highlight „anti-Semitism in Europe „. The WDR seconds ARTE’s criticism that the film doesn’t deliver what it was commissioned to cover.“
The film provides very well what it was commissioned to investigate. It illuminates current anti-Semitism in Europe like no other documentary! The film presents European philosophers, composers and writers who had expressed themselves negatively towards Jews over the centuries. Christian writings are quoted which were used to propagate Jew hatred in Europe. Martin Luther, whose anti-Semitic writings were later referred to by the Nazis, is also portrayed. In the documentation, Julius Streicher, who expounded Nazi hatred toward Jews in his publication, Der Stürmer, justified the hatred with these words:
„Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. Dr. Martin Luther would certainly be sitting next to me in a court of law. In the book „The Jews and Their Lies,“ Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are snakes, that their synagogues should be burned, and that the Jews should be exterminated.”
How much medieval European Jew hatred exists today can be experienced in a speech Mahmud Abbas held on June 23, 2016 in front of the European Union Parliament.
During the Plague, Christians accused the Jews of poisoning the water wells. Those accusations were not coincidental, since for centuries, Jews had been accused of subterfuge, sorcery and conspiracy against Christians. Because hygiene regulations anchored in Jewish custom, they were often less affected by epidemics than other urban populations. Instead of searching for the causes of infection and the advantages of clean water, Christians turned against the Jews. That was in the Middle Ages. Today, it’s not much different!
On June 23, 2016, Mahmud Abbas was a guest of the European Parliament. In his speech he tested the Parliament as to its openness to anti-Jewish propaganda by reviving the medieval lie of well-poisoning whereby he claimed that there were certain rabbis who had wells poisoned. Abbas‘ allegation, of course, is a lie, as he himself admitted two days later. However, Abbas had gained certainty that Jew hatred is alive today in Europe. At the end of the speech, there was a standing ovation from members of the European Parliament.
This hate is documented, but ARTE and the WDR refuse to show it. The documentation also shows New Right demonstrations, whereby the most evil conspiracy theories are decimated. The documentary makers were told that there is a secret power behind the United States of America, an American-Zionist world-conspiracy. Zionism is defined as a money-mafia which promotes and profits from worldwide suffering. One demonstrator even said, „Everything written in the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion has so far been true. So even if the protocols are a fake, someone was still thinking pretty cool and was a good prophet!“
The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion is an anti-Semitic treatise that was popular among the Nazis and is still referred to in the Hamas Charter whereby Article 7 calls for the extermination of the entire Jewish people. It is therefore not surprising that the film makers bumped into Fuad Afane, who shouted into the microphone that he is „an avowed anti-Zionist”.
The documentation concerns itself with the connections between German and Palestinian nationalist movements whereby amazing parallels are presented. Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, who was ideologically and financially supported by Adolf Hitler, is portrayed in the film. Mohammed Amin al-Husseini created a Bosnian-Islamic unit within the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS. He arranged for the extradition of several thousand Jews to the German Reich. He also aided Radio Zesen, a German Reich radio station, designed to spread the Nazi ideology into the Arab world.
When the filmmakers visited the Gaza Strip to see whether there were still traces of German initiated anti-Semitism, they made a terrifying discovery: Jew hatred in the Gaza Strip and in the Palestinian autonomy areas is being funded by Germany and Europe. That is probably the most frightening discovery presented in the documentary! Money from “Bread for the World”, “Misereor” and the European Union is being used to finance Jew hatred in the Middle East. The documentary also relates how funds from Europe and the United Nations are used to abuse Arab children by forcing them to function as human shields. Images from Gaza – never having been shown before on public television – are particularly important in this context. It’s a scandal that those images are still being withheld from viewers, mainly because the documentary shows how Jürgen Todenhöfer, a Middle East reporter popular with public broadcasters, is biased in reporting on Gaza, indeed he is a drama queen of propaganda.
The documentation also deals with Palestinians and Arabs who are being threatened by Europeans if they refuse to work against Israel. It is one of the most difficult moments in the documentation to listen to an Arab Palestinian who lives in peace with Jews and relates how his life has been made into a hell by Europeans because of his refusal to hate Israel.
The following excuses made by public television staff are without substance:
“The film is a provocation!“ “The film pours oil into the fire!“ „The film shouldn’t be shown because of terrorism.“ “The film is anti-Protestant, anti-Muslim and pro-Israeli.“ „The film is biased.“
No, the film is not anti-Protestant and not anti-Muslim. The documentary even supports Muslims and Christians who want to live in peace with Jews. No, the film doesn’t pour oil into the fire; it only reveals a view which has been hitherto consistently concealed from the public. It is true, however, that the film is uncompromising. Yes, the documentation denounces Jew hatred. But, such a condemnation can’t be twisted into a reproach. That’s absurd!
The documentary „Chosen and Excluded – Jew Hatred in Europe“ shows in ninety minutes how Jew hatred had set foot in Europe, was brutalized by Luther and justified by philosophers, writers and composers, and finally transformed by the Nazis into industrial mass murder. The documentary shows how this hatred has been exported to the Arab world and is now returning to Europe in the form of a brutal criticism of Israel, funded by European organizations, no longer hesitant to persecute and murder. After seeing the documentation, one understands the conclusion that the Arabs in Europe would never have been opposed to the Jews, had they not been convinced that it was their duty to show solidarity with their brothers in faith in Palestine. „But they were told that it’s necessary.“
The hateful propagandists are people from Europe: Christians of „Bread for the World“ and „Misereor“, left- and rightwing activists, and European Union politicians, But also journalists and editors from the public broadcasting corporations do their part. The documentation illustrates how public television stations reporting on Israel is biased in such a manner that anti-Semitism is fueled. In “I accuse” I documented the long list of failings of public television reporting on Israel.
Then it truly gets delicate: A public broadcaster commissioned a documentary about anti-Semitism in Europe. In the documentation it becomes clear that the manner of reporting on Israel by public broadcasting stations is also partly responsible for the explosive Jew hatred. So, what do they do? They decide the documentation hasn’t delivered what it was supposed to.
It could just be silent embarrassment. Nevertheless, that’s nothing less than a public broadcasting scandal!
This German article goes into much more detail both about the contents and the controversy. The French broadcaster was against the film from the start. But what is clear is that the TV network that commissioned the film only believes that right-wing antisemitism is permitted to be reported about - the left wing variety is simply off limits.
(h/t JW, New Antisemite)
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Declaring “enough is enough,” Prime Minister Theresa May vowed on Sunday to conduct a sweeping review of Britain’s counterterrorism strategy after three knife-wielding assailants unleashed an assault late Saturday night, the third major terrorist attack in the country in three months.
At least seven people were killed and dozens more wounded, including 21 who remained in critical condition, as the men sped across London Bridge in a white van, ramming numerous pedestrians before emerging with large hunting knives for a rampage in the capital’s Borough Market, a crowded nightspot.
It is a terrorist attack. Even the NYT video accompanying the story calls it that.
Almost exactly a year ago, there was a very similar attack at a Tel Aviv cafe in the Sarona Market.that, like Borough Market, also was the latest in a series of deadly attacks. Here's how the NYT reported that:
Two Palestinian gunmen posing as restaurant patrons opened fire on civilians in a popular Tel Aviv cafe on Wednesday night, killing four people and reigniting fears of terrorism in Israel just as a recent wave of Palestinian attacks had seemed to be waning.
Dressed in black suits, the two men sat down and ordered food, according to witnesses, before embarking on a shooting rampage. They did not seem to have aroused much suspicion at first, despite the warm spring weather: An Arab bartender at the restaurant, Yusuf Jabarin, told Israel’s Channel 2 television network that they looked “like lawyers.”
Then the men pulled assault rifles out of their bags and aimed at the patrons, causing mayhem. Video footage showed customers fleeing in panic and a security officer repeatedly firing at one of the gunmen in a nearby street.
Tel Aviv has suffered a number of deadly attacks since a wave of Palestinian assaults began last October in Jerusalem and the West Bank and spread to cities around Israel. More than two dozen Israelis and two American visitors have been killed in those attacks. Most were killed in stabbings, though there have also been several shootings.
They are "gunmen" and "attackers" - but the New York Times does not call them terrorists nor does it refer to Sarona as a terrorist attack, part of a wave of terror attacks, as it clearly calls the Lomdon attacks without scare quotes. In fact, the terror attack in Tel Aviv only was only "reigniting fears of terrorism" - but was not considered terrorism itself.
The New York Times does not consider Palestinian attackers whose methods are mimicked by pro-ISIS terrorists to be - terrorists.
Now, why might that be?
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Sunday, 4 June 2017), delivered the following speech at the ECOWAS Africa-Israel Summit in Monrovia, Liberia:
I am deeply honored to be here today, and I want to thank you for your great hospitality in inviting me. This has been a dream to come here to this organization in West Africa. And there is so much, so much that we can do for the betterment of our peoples.
And yet, when I landed here after a long flight from Israel, I found that a somber cloud hangs over this glorious day. This is the cloud of terrorism that has claimed the lives of so many innocent Africans, most recently in Niger and Mali. And in recent hours, another terrible attack was launched on innocent people in the heart of London. We condemn it. We send our condolences to the British people and we pledge our commitment to fight this scourge – this scourge that knows no bounds.
These terrorists worship death. They murder indiscriminately, but they will not frighten us. They will not terrorize us. They will only harden our resolve to defeat them. And together, together here in Africa, in the Middle East, in Europe, everywhere – together, we will defeat them faster.
But our goal here is not merely to join forces to fight the bad, but to work together to advance the good, and in this spirit, I come here as an expression of a simple truth: Israel is coming back to Africa, and Africa is coming back to Israel.
I believe in Africa. I believe in Africa, I believe in its potential – present and future. It is a continent on the rise. Its people are diverse and talented. I have made strengthening our relations one of our top priorities – national and international priorities of the State of Israel. It’s the reason I became the first Israeli prime minister to visit Africa in decades. Well, one thing I can assure you – it won’t be decades until an Israeli leader visits Africa again. It won’t be five years. It’ll be a few months.
Africa and Israel share a natural affinity. We have, in many ways, similar histories. Your nations toiled under foreign rule. You experienced horrific wars and slaughters. And you’re still fighting to get out of the past into the future, valiantly, in efforts that I deeply admire. With determination and conviction, you won your independence. You healed the wounds of the past to chart a future of hope for your people.
This is very much our history. Our people too were denied independence for far too long. Our people too suffered the indignity of bondage, slavery and dispossession. Our people too experienced unimaginable horrors of mass death and genocide.
But we never ever gave in. We fought for our independence and won. We established a thriving democracy in the heart of the Middle East. We developed one of the world’s most dynamic economies. We became a world leader in agriculture, water, cyber technology, technology of communications, security and much more.
Today we seek to share our experience with the governments and peoples of Africa. ECOWAS’ mission is to increase peace and prosperity by harnessing Africa’s vast resources.
I came to Africa last year, to East Africa. I saw these resources first-hand. I saw diversity and richness. I saw passion and productivity. I saw young African entrepreneurs who are building companies harnessing the power of the digital age. Africans are seizing the future. Israel wants to seize this future with you. You truly have no better partner for this mission than Israel, because Israel is a world leader in technology, in all areas of technology.
And because… It has to be understood that the distinction between hi-tech and low-tech is rapidly disappearing. Every field, every field without exception, is becoming technologized. And unless you absorb this technology and apply it to the various areas of critical life, then you will fall behind. But if you seize it, if you seize it, you jump forward.
The simplest example that all of us know is in cellular phones. Look at what possibilities accrue to the people of Africa from the use of cellular phones. Enormous possibilities. But if we had to develop this communication network by laying pipes and lines and so on, these benefits would never accrue. It’s the use of technology that allows you to leap forward over generations. And this is the leap that Israel can and wants to do with you.
Though small in size, Israel is a world leader in so many fields: in energy, in agriculture, public health, water management, water creation – just creating water literally from thin air – and of course, in the vital area of security. Our cows – as an example, our cows produce more milk than any other cow on Earth. It’s a matter of some pride. You’d think – and no offense, Federica – you’d think it would be a Dutch cow or a French cow, maybe an Italian cow or even an American cow. But it’s not. It’s an Israeli cow. Because every moo is computerized, and the results are tremendous productivity.
And this is why countries like Russia, China, India, are doing all these programs with us, and the benefits that Israel gives to them are the benefits we want to give to the people of Africa. We are the number one country in the world in water recycling. A statistic: We recycle nearly 90% of our waste water, 90%. The next country is Spain, 17%. So it gives you a feeling for the possibilities inherent in technology. It changes the world. Our intelligence has helped stopped terror attacks – dozens and dozens of terrorist attacks all across the world, including in Africa.
And this is why the leaders of many countries – President Trump has just visited Israel. Before that, I visited China and Russia, and Mr. Modi, the prime minister of India, is coming to Israel in a few weeks. When I met President Xi in Beijing, he said to me, 'You know, we’re crossing now 1.4 billion people.' And I said, 'Well, we’ve just crossed eight million.' And he said to me, 'Yes, but you’re a world power in innovation.' A world power. And therefore, China made a special arrangement with Israel and also with Switzerland – two countries – to work on innovation, to advance innovation.
At the UN last year, I met with many African leaders. It was a spectacular visit, because young Israelis showed what they’re doing in Africa. Not what they will be doing, but what they are already doing. And one of the leaders said something that I’ll never forget. He said to me, 'We have problems; you have solutions.'
A young woman there, a young Israeli technologist, comes to the podium and she shows how they’ve solved the problem of an African village, where a typical woman would go eight hours to get a gallon of water. And they solved it by making water out of thin air. And another showed how they make energy out of the sun, out of the air too. And another showed how they’re working to stop the spread of AIDS with miraculous results. In every field, in every field, our technology is there, it’s ready to work with you to provide solutions to some of the most pressing problems of Africa. We want to help your soil become more fertile, your water reusable, your cities safer, your air cleaner.
The foundation for cooperation we lay today will last many decades into the future. Today, Israel and the countries of ECOWAS are in advanced stages of cooperation on joint projects in agriculture, in energy, education. Six months ago, agricultural ministers from your countries gathered in Israel, together with our extraordinary development agency, Mashav, which is doing incredible work in Africa. Mashav was established in the ‘50s, worked here in the ‘60s and then was discontinued and now it’s coming back with full vigor. And it’s coming back for one reason alone – to help Africa achieve its rightful place among the peoples and nations of the Earth. This is something we deeply believe in.
I hope that we will advance two important agreements that will deepen our cooperation even further. Israel is opening two new trade missions – one in West Africa, one in East Africa – to significantly increase trade between our countries. We will hold later this year an African-Israel summit in Togo. I want to thank you, Mr. President, which I hope all of you will attend. We are prepared to send technology survey teams to every one of your countries, and to look and see, together, what is the best way that we can cooperate. Those of you have already experienced our teams and our capabilities can attest to the wisdom of such a move. I invite all of you, without exception, to do this.
Our growing bilateral relations should also be reflected, I believe, in international forums. Israel should once again be an observer state of the African Union. Now, it’s clearly – and I say this openly, especially with my great sympathy and affinity for Africa. It’s definitely in our interest. But, ladies and gentlemen, I fervently believe that it’s in your interest too, in the interest of Africa. And I hope all of you will support that goal.
You see, many nations, many nations, are changing their attitudes toward Israel very rapidly. And I have to say that nowhere, nowhere, is this happening so dramatically and so rapidly than in the Arab world. Many Arab countries no longer see Israel as their enemy. They see Israel as their ally, I would even say, their indispensable ally in the fight against terrorism and in seizing the future of technology and innovation.
And this change in the Arab world is new. And I believe it’s the best hope for peace, not only between Israel and the countries in the region, but ultimately between Israel and the Palestinians. This is what changes minds and hearts. I ask for your support in rejecting anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, and in bodies such as the General Assembly, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council.
President Sirleaf, you once said, 'The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.'
Well, Israel is a small nation that dreams very, very big. Let us work together to realize big dreams for all our peoples. Let our dreams be so audacious that few people would think them possible today. But just as those who doubted Israel were proven wrong, let us ensure that the skeptics who doubt Africa are also proven wrong.
The founding fathers of ECOWAS spoke of creating this organization to promote love and respect for one another. Israel is a nation which loves and respects all. Israel seeks peace with all its neighbors and has done so from its first days. In Israel, Jews, Christians and Muslims live side by side as equal citizens. This is the real Israel. Diversity in Israel isn’t tolerated; it’s celebrated. I hope you see in Israel what Israel sees in the countries of Africa – a vibrant nation that seeks cooperation for the benefit of all.
So I want to thank you for the great honor of addressing you here today. I wish the best of luck to the incoming Chairperson of ECOWAS, the President of Togo, President Gnassingbe.
And I want to close by inviting all of you, with a traditional prayer that the Jewish people have had throughout the centuries across the world. It was, 'Next year in Jerusalem.' But I have to say, why wait for next year? You’re all invited this year and you will be received with the greatest friendship and the greatest respect.
Thank you. Merci. Thank you very much. Shalom.
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Speaking in an Al-Aqsa Mosque address, Palestinian cleric Sheikh Muhammad 'Ayed, known as "Abu Abdallah," cited the fraudulent "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," saying that the Jews cause all the killing, slaughter, and destruction and are behind all the strife in the world. He further said that the Caliphate would "clip the nails" of America and then chop off its hands and feet. "After it can no longer remain here, we will march upon it," he said. The address was posted on a YouTube account dedicated to Al-Aqsa Mosque addresses on May 30.
Palestinian Cleric in Al-Aqsa Mosque Address: The Caliphate Will Clip America's Nails, Chop off Its Hands and Feet, Then March upon It pic.twitter.com/2muSTt5P5p
Listen to what one of the Jewish schemers said - one of the Elders of Zion, whose name was Oscar Levy.
In the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Oscar Levy said, as is written on the cover of the second edition of the Protocols, "We, the Jews, are none other than the masters of the world and its corruptors." He admits that they are the masters of the world and its corruptors, and that they are behind all the strife in it and are its executioners too.
They are behind all the strife in the world. They cause all the killing, the slaughter, and the destruction everywhere.
Allah says about them and about the polytheist Christians of their ilk: "the Jews and Christians will never be pleased with you, unless you follow their religion."
...First the Caliphate will clip America's nails and then move on to chopping off its hands...and then we will chop off its feet and drive it out of our countries. Then, after it can no longer remain here, we will march upon it, and its fate will be the same as that of the Persians and the Byzantines in the past.
Surprisingly, Oscar Levy was a real person from the early part of the 20th century who was a fanatic fan of Nietzsche and who ascribed the world's ills to Judaism and Christianity. He aligned himself with a British anti-semite who would later become a Nazi sympathizer, George Pitt-Rivers. Levy indeed said, referring to Jews:
We who have posed as the saviours of the world, we, who have even boasted of having given it 'the' Saviour, we are to-day nothing else but the world's seducers, its destroyers, its incendiaries, its executioners.... We who have promised to lead you to a new Heaven, we have finally succeeded in landing you in a new Hell.
Levy however hated Nazism when it appeared, considering it yet another outgrowth of Judaism.
(h/t Petra)
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Air Force One had barely lifted off carrying US President Donald Trump to the next stop on his recent peace mission when the Palestinian town of Burka proudly declared it would ignore mounting requests to cease its incitement against Israel by naming a women’s center after a terrorist murderer.
The glorified murderer in question was Dalal Mughrabi, who was one of the killers in what was then the worst terrorist atrocity in Israeli history – the Fatah attackers killed 38 civilians (including 13 children) and a soldier, and wounded 71 others – in the horrific bus hijacking known as the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978.
Palestinian Media Watch reported that the village council of Burka would not budge from its decision to name its center after Mughrabi. Council head Sami Daghlas hailed Mughrabi as a hero, another “holy martyr of the resistance.”
He told reporters she was chosen by the villagers to commemorate a Palestinian hero “who sacrificed herself for her country, and therefore they have no intention to change its name regardless of the price.”
According to a May 15 report by Ma’an, which claims to be an “independent” Palestinian news agency, the center will focus on presenting the history of the “Martyr Dalal Mughrabi” to youth groups. Ma’an declared further that this constitutes “the beginning of enrichment activities regarding the history of the Palestinian struggle.”
Deif and his “supervising minister” Sinwar — both of whom are considered radical even by Hamas standards — are cautious and in no hurry to start a war with Israel. This, despite the worsening situation in the Gaza Strip, the ongoing closure of the Rafiah border crossing, and the PA’s threats to force tens of thousands of officials into retirement and cut the salaries of the ones staying on.
As far as the old-new Hamas headed by Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Deif is concerned, the main goal, at least for now, is not another war with Israel, but rather the survival of Hamas’s regime in Gaza and a future takeover of Palestinian power centers — the West Bank and the PLO — in their entirety.
Adapting
One reason Hamas is not eager for another conflict just yet is that Gaza’s population has had its fill of war and catastrophe. The inhabitants of the Strip have adapted to the new situation of prolonged power outages, salary cutbacks, and so on, and, as always, have learned to survive.
For example, after the iftar and the tarawih — the evening break-fast meal and the prayer service afterward — the young people hurry off to Gaza’s famous cafés, such as Gahwetna, on the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood’s polluted beach, and Habiba. The nargila is the item most in demand there, along with coffee, tea, and fruit juice. These establishments are for the young men — the shabab — only. Other places — such as the Al-Deira Café (on the Rimal beach), the adjacent Roots, and Level Up, on the eleventh floor of a building in the Rimal section — have a mixed clientele.
The threats by the PA in Ramallah to decrease fund transfers to Gaza continue to loom. T., for one, is sharply critical. “I don’t know what Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is trying to accomplish with the cutbacks and reducing the payments for electricity. He wants to punish Hamas, but he’s actually punishing two million Gazans.”
With Britain battered by three terrorist attacks in three months, and its security services having thwarted five more in the same period, Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday morning set out the specifics of her intended strategy “to take on and defeat our enemies.”
May’s succinct and determined statement, delivered hours after three terrorists killed at least seven people in a central London murder spree, raises two questions: Does her government have the will to fight back in the way she specified, and, with general elections on Thursday, will it be given the opportunity?
Watching her from Israel, which has for so long been forced to grapple with the Islamist death cult, May gave every indication of having internalized what she, Britain, and the rest of our free world are up against.
What “bound together” the stream of terror attacks in the UK, she declared, was “the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism.”
Terrorism was now breeding terrorism, copycat style. The situation had become intolerable. Enough was enough. “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are.”
Strikingly, she added: “There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country, so we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society.”
To fight back, May called for an overhaul of Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy. She also demanded that terror groups be tackled on the ground in the Middle East. And she sought to battle them and their ideologues in cyberspace — to “turn people’s minds away from this violence.”
It probably won’t be the last time I shake my head at how the US Reform movement (I’m including the much smaller liberal branch of the Conservative movement) has replaced Judaism with progressive politics – they call it “social action” or “tikkun olam” (repairing the world) although it is always political action on behalf of the causes of the Left – but it is the first time I have understood that it is a survival strategy for them.
The last few generations of liberal American Jews joined a synagogue because they wanted their children to grow up with an idea that they were different in a special way from the majority of non-Jews among which they lived. They wanted them to have bar and bat mitzvahs and to go to Jewish camp, so they would have Jewish friends and maybe ultimately marry a Jewish person. There was still a concern that it was important to belong to the community and not to abandon it. But these Jewish parents had also grown up in liberal or almost secular households and had little Jewish literacy, and certainly no inclination to become observant.
So liberal synagogues catered to their needs. They made it clear that nothing would be expected of them in terms of knowledge or observance, and they moved back and forth on the spectrum of ritual, from “classical Reform” which resembled Lutheranism, to something closer to traditional Jewish worship, looking for a happy medium. But what primarily drew the congregants into the temples and encouraged them to pay the high dues needed to support well-compensated Reform rabbis was the feeling of obligation to provide some Jewish connection for their children.
In recent years this model started to fail. The blandness of the attenuated, content-free Judaism served up bored both the parents and the children. The newer generations didn’t remember their immigrant ancestors’ Judaism. Intermarriage was common and the “interfaith family” became a thing. Kids didn’t have time or head space for religious education; there were organized sports and academic pressures that were far more important to them. Sometimes the perceived spirituality in eastern religions and even – despite the strong taboo – Christianity, pulled them away. In particular, it was almost impossible to recruit the 20-somethings that in a few years would become the heart of the community and its leadership.
Liberal Jewish community members asked themselves why they should pay thousands of dollars a year for – what, exactly? It became harder and harder for Reform congregations to keep the lights on and to pay the “Jewish professionals” – rabbis, cantors and “cantorial soloists,” educators – that a liberal congregation needed. Many congregations merged and some closed their doors. The movement itself suffered a financial crisis as the flow of dues from affiliated congregations dried up. It was forced to cut its staff and activities drastically.
The Reform movement selected the charismatic Rabbi Rick Jacobs as president to rescue it. He made administrative changes, he emphasized camp and social activities for the children – there is no better way to get adolescents interested in something than to provide them opportunities to interact with others of the opposite sex – and, although it had been moving this way for decades, he placed the major emphasis in the movement on “social action.”
There is no theological problem for them. Unlike traditional Judaism in which commandments are obeyed because they are commandments, Reform Jews place the moral intuition of the individual above the literal (written and oral) Torah. This leads to a distinction between “ritual” and “social” commandments, in which the former are optional and only the latter are obligatory. They consider this “prophetic Judaism” and argue that it is grounded in the Torah and Prophets, but the fact that only those “prophetic” principles that correspond to 21st century progressive ideology are honored reveals that their actual moral standards are based on something outside of Jewish tradition. Isaiah’s isolationism or Samuel’s uncompromising violence clearly don’t fit today’s Reform ideology.
Rabbi Jacobs’ maneuver has been spectacularly successful, both for the Reform movement and for other liberal groups. A recent article by Debra Nussbaum Cohen characterizes it as a reaction to the election of President Donald Trump, but the synagogue wouldn’t provide a focus for anti-Trump expression, were it not for its metamorphosis into a political action organization.
Since the presidential election, 45 new households have joined Shir Tikvah Congregation in Minneapolis, said Rabbi Michael Adam Latz. “Trump may be bad for the world, but he’s great for shul membership,” quipped Latz, whose synagogue is Reform.
“We have people in their 20s and 30s with pink mohawks and people in their 60s and 70s joining who are saying they were never interested before, but now ‘want to be part of something good that is bigger than ourselves.’”
Latz is an outspoken social justice advocate and Shir Tikvah has become a sanctuary congregation, ready to offer concrete support to immigrants being threatened with arrest by the Department of Homeland Security.
That’s part of the orientation young Jews find attractive, said Gabriel Glissmeyer, 23, who recently joined Shir Tikvah. There are “definitely more people attending since the election, and more young people especially. When I started, there were seven or eight of us consistently going. Now there are 15 to 20,” he said.
“We definitely saw a surge in January and February, and are still seeing more traction among young folks in their 20s and 30s,” said Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie at Lab/Shul. “They are looking for community and action.” His is a “pop-up,” unconventional and independent congregation.
Yet the phenomenon is also visible at establishment places of worship. The wait list to join New York City’s Central Synagogue has more than doubled since the election, from 250 families to over 540. Friday night service attendance is also up, said Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, spiritual leader of the Reform congregation. “I don’t know if this is a Trump bump or not,” she told Haaretz, “but it is quite noticeable.”
And in Berkeley, California, 20 new households have joined Congregation Netivot Shalom since January 1, said Rabbi Menachem Creditor, who is active in many interfaith social justice initiatives.
“In the immediate aftermath of the election, there was an enormous increase in attendance,” said Creditor of his 400-household Conservative congregation. The way people recited the “Prayer for Our Country” also changed: “There was a change in the volume, in a fresh and urgent way,” he said. Though he’s not sure he can attribute the increased attendance to Trump’s presidency, “there are more people praying and more intense prayer,” he noted. …
Congregants have been galvanized around social justice work, even where there hasn’t been a lasting increase in attendance, said some.
For years, I’ve been predicting the demise of the Reform movement in the US. I’ve agreed with those who said that it would fade away from a combination of irrelevance and assimilation. But it didn’t occur to me that its leftist politics would save it!
A particular target for Rabbi Jacobs’ “tikkun olam” is Israel, which he believes is in great need of repair because the reality here doesn’t correspond to an ideal liberal society in the sense loved by American progressives. In his public pronouncements, he often notes that his movement is the largestJewish religious group in the US, and suggests that he speaks for American Jews, particularly in respect to Israel. His views, unfortunately, are closer to those of J Street than to those of the Israeli government and the majority of Israelis, and he is not shy about wanting to impose them on us.
Those of us who are concerned about Israel’s welfare and who do not think that the worldview of progressive Americans is appropriate for survival in the Middle East find this singularly unhelpful, even dangerous.
That is a very strong statement to make. I am not sure we want to say that a million or so Reform Jews are actually practicing “another religion” (which, incidentally, might disqualify them from aliyah under the Law of Return). But maybe the truth is that we should see the movement simply as a political group, which has stopped being about religion at all.
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For American politicians, electoral and campaign finance incentives still dictate a baseline of unconditional support for Israel. The United States has given more than $120 billion to the country since the occupation began, spent tens of billions of dollars backing pro-Israel regimes ruling over anti-Israel populations in Egypt and Jordan, and provided billions more to the Palestinian Authority on condition that it continue preventing attacks and protests against Israeli settlements. And those expenditures do not reckon the cost to American security interests of Arab and Muslim resentment toward the United States for enabling and bankrolling the oppression of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
What exactly are the costs of those American security interests? What terror attacks have been directed at America because of the "oppression" of Palestinians that would not have happened if Israel withdrew from the territories? This is simple fiction.
And there has hardly been "unconditional support for Israel" from the US over the past five decades. The US has withheld money and arms from Israel several times over the past 50 years when Israel's policies upset the US administrations.
Or this:
Initially, the threat was of an attack by the Arab states. But that soon crumbled: Israel made a separate peace with the strongest one, Egypt; the Arabs proved incapable of defending even sovereign Lebanon from Israeli invasion; and in recent years, many Arab states have failed to uphold even their longstanding boycott of Israel.
Wasn't there a very costly war against Israel in 1973 where the Sinai Peninsula that was gained in 1967 gave Israel a buffer and precious time to defend itself?
And here:
The only real fallout from continued occupation are major increases in American financing of it, with Israel now receiving more military assistance from the United States than the rest of the world does combined.
I know from speaking to people who have been involved that the New York Times subjects pro-Israel op-eds to excruciating fact checks before allowing them to be printed. But for anti-Israel op-eds, as we see here, anything goes.
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Monday, June 05, 2017
Elder of Ziyon
