Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, June 29, 2017

"When men and women prayed together at the Wall" - and how they can today

Times of Israel has a fairly decent overview of the history of prayer at the Western Wall. But it has an unfortunate headline:

One has to read the article carefully to find out the reason why:

Under the Ottoman Empire, restrictions were again imposed on the Jews by 1705, including the inability to create permanent fixtures such as partitions — or even tables and benches — at the Western Wall, though they were still able to worship there. In 1840 Ibrahim Pasha wrote an edict forbidding Jews from paving a path to the Western Wall. The firman, or decree, also told Jews not to speak or pray loudly or keep books in the area.

Every synagogue on the planet included a partition between men and women until the 19th century. It is disingenuous to point to the history of the Kotel as evidence in the current controversy over non-Orthodox prayer there.

However, for those who want egalitarian prayer who are are nostalgic for the old days when the Kotel had no partition, there is a simple solution.

Today, at this very moment, there is a Kotel that is spiritually superior to the current Kotel - and which has no partition

The "Little Western Wall" (Kotel HaKatan) is situated north of the Kotel, much closer to the spot of the "Holy of Holies" in the original Temple.

Israeli authorities, like the Ottomans and British before them with the more famous Kotel, do not allow a partition to be placed there. No chairs or prayer books are there either.

If the non-Orthodox are burning in their desire to pray at the Kotel with men and women together, they can do it today, under protection of Israeli police who have a strong presence there.

Jews who feel like they are being disenfranchised by the political controversy over the Kotel plaza - those who feel that they cannot properly pray without men and women being together, or without their families with them - can, with a small amount of effort, go to a spiritually superior place and pray to God in whatever language and with whatever type of service they want. They can organize men's and women's prayer groups three times a day. They can effectively take over a holier spot than the Kotel.

But if they are more interested in making noise than actually praying - if they want to rile up the non-Orthodox and split the Jewish community - if they don't give a damn about the actual point of prayer to God and instead want to pit American liberal Jews against the Orthodox....

They can choose to do exactly what they are doing today.

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06/28 Links Pt2: Whitewashed: Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party; The Balfour Declaration Was More than the Promise of One Nation

From Ian:

Major Documentary on UK Labour Party Antisemitism Premieres in London

Some of the UK’s leading Jewish intellectuals gathered with Labour Party parliamentarians at London’s JW3 Jewish community center on Monday night for the public launch of a major documentary on the issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party.
Read The Algemeiner’s review of “Whitewashed: Antisemitism in the Labour Party”
Among those speaking at the first screening of “Whitewashed” — based on the testimonies of loyal Labour Party members and supporters who submitted evidence to the party’s internal inquiry into antisemitism in 2016 — was award-winning British Jewish novelist Howard Jacobson, whose books include The Finkler Question, a satire on modern British antisemitism.
Jacobson noted that the author of the party’s internal report, civil rights activist Shami Chakrabarti, was quickly elevated to the House of Lords, the British parliament’s upper chamber, after submitting her findings.
Holding up his middle finger, Jacobson said he felt “that was what [Labour Party leader Jeremy] Corbyn was saying to all of us who complained.”
“Corbyn has never yet said ‘antisemitism’ without also saying ‘all racism,’ as though he has to apologize to everybody else before he can apologize for antisemitism,” Jacobson continued.
Three Labour MPs — John Mann, Louise Ellman and Joan Ryan — were present for the screening of the documentary and the discussion afterwards, which took place between Jacobson and academic David Hirsh, who narrated the film, the Jewish Chronicle reported. (h/t Jewess)

Whitewashed: Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party

Melanie Phillips: BRITAIN UNITED AGAINST TERRORISM AND HATE? IT’S A LIE

As reported here, a study by the University of Oslo has found that most anti-Jewish violence in France, Sweden, Germany and the UK is committed by Muslim extremists. This is all the more striking considering that Muslims currently make up only relatively small proportions of the populations of these countries.
Scarcely less notable (though no surprise to some of us) is that left-wing violence was the next largest category of anti-Jewish attacks, with right-wing violence trailing into insignificance. Only in Germany were right-wing attacks more numerous than left-wing ones, and then by a relatively small margin.
Last weekend, London hosted an al Quds-day rally. Al Quds-day was introduced to the world in 1979 by the Islamic Republic of Iran “in opposition to the existence of Israel”. The day itself is therefore innately anti-Israel and anti-Jew.
The good news was that the number of marchers, estimated at around 250, was lower than in previous years. Better still, they were stopped from claiming the streets as their own by brave and determined Jewish resistance activists. These faced them down by effectively saying, as the anti-fascists had said of Oswald Mosley’s marchers in London’s East End in the 1930s: “They shall not pass”; and they brought the Islamo-fascists to an unexpected halt.
The bad news was that those marchers were carrying the flag of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed genocidal terror organisation, and screamed vile anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement. This took place under the noses of the police who were reportedly following guidance, in accordance with British government policy, that distinguishes the “political” wing of Hezbollah from its terrorist activities.

David Collier: Avi Shlaim, the foolish old man and the adoring church goers

It is the 27th June 2017. I have just returned from an event at St James’s Church, an Anglican church in Piccadilly, London. It has a history of anti-Israel activism. Tonight Avi Shlaim was speaking at the ‘Embrace Annual Lecture’. The official subject was to ‘explore Britain’s historical and current relationship with Palestine’. The main drumbeat provided another anti-Israel festival. This one was delivered with the impeccable presentation and captivating tones of Avi Shlaim.
This event wouldn’t have gone ahead without an anti-Israel under-current. The main purpose of the evening was to raise funds for ‘Palestinian refugees’, wherever they may be. When it came to the fund raising speech, we were even told that some ‘Palestinians’ in Akko (Israel) are living in what is basically a refugee camp. With this level of distortion trying to send church goers reaching for their wallets, a little balance would have been a very distracting and self-destructive strategy. It was simply not going to happen.
Hidden dangers
But I find events like this far more dangerous, far more damaging, than a university hate-fest or Al Quds day march. At a university, the hate is in your face, out in the open. Everyone knows the score. Here in the church it is very different. The hate is hidden, insidious and dealt out with a smile. Avi Shlaim starts speaking, and with a CV like his, who would doubt his words. A packed crowd of about three hundred and fifty, are about to feed from the poison tree, believing it to be hand-picked, freshly squeezed, fruit juice. The type of fruit juice the people in this church would buy in Waitrose.
Avi Shlaim and the missing pages
Shlaim recounts a history that is entirely devoid of balance and actual context. It isn’t that Avi is factually wrong about the nuts and bolts of the conflict, nor is it that Avi Shlaim is deliberately deceptive. Shlaim is simply building his understandings on assumptions that are fundamentally flawed. It doesn’t matter how much he reads, or what data is placed on the page, Avi Shlaim will not be able to order it properly. For as long as he fails to address the basic mistaken concepts driving his ideas, he will remain forever wrong.

The egalitarian prayer space, Robinson's Arch, Western Wall.

I've been writing about the Western Wall controversy and Women of the Wall since 2013, when I was still a starry-eyed blogger for the Times of Israel. Back then, I summed it up as follows:

"The question is: whose freedom of religion is in question here? Is it the freedom of the Women of the Wall to worship in any manner they so please, or is it the freedom of the Haredim to continue to worship as they always have at the Wall, for decades, that is the bone of contention? Because the two are mutually exclusive and this is something that is overlooked by a majority of people: the fact that by granting one group its freedom to worship, you take away that same freedom for the other group."

Well, since that pretty much does sum it up, I've said all I have to say about the Women of the Wall and the Wall itself so that pretty much, it's been effectively crossed off my list, a non-issue, a dead issue, somewhat like the dead girl in Love Story:

“What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. The Beatles. And me.”

(Did anyone really need Erich Segal to write another word after that tell-all intro?)

But *sigh* since the Wall is in the news, and since so many people have gotten their dander up misinterpreting the most recent decision by the Israeli Knesset to keep the entrance to the egalitarian prayer section at the wall where it is, and to keep the prayer section under the same management, I thought it might be useful for me to use this forum to tell the truth about the Wall, the controversy, and egalitarian prayer, once again.

Here's the main thing you need to know:

Egalitarian prayer services are already held at the Wall, at a section of the Wall known as Robinson's Arch. In fact, these mixed prayer services have been held at Robinson's Arch for the past 15 years.

Author Caroline Glick explains the whole tempest in a teapot, but the gist is as I've stated above: THERE ALREADY IS AN EGALITARIAN PRAYER SPACE AT THE WALL. And in fact, the decision to put off honoring the resolution means the current section will be expanded and improved.

In short: no one is denying anyone the joys of mixed prayer at the Kotel.

But you'd never know these simple truths from reading the media. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (JTA), a news agency similar to Reuters that outlets like the Times of Israel depend upon for stories, told a bold lie in the very first line of its piece on the Knesset decision:

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet has frozen a government decision to create an official egalitarian prayer section at the Western Wall."

Nope. Not true. There ALREADY IS AN OFFICIAL EGALITARIAN PRAYER SECTION AT THE WESTERN WALL. The Knesset just decided not to hand management over to a different body and to keep the entrance in the same spot. But I said that already, didn't I?

*yawn*

The follow-up story, filled with imprecations by American Jewish leaders against the Israeli government, something that would have been unheard of when I was a young girl growing up in Pittsburgh in the 60's and 70's, similarly paints a false picture.

"They’ve tried strongly worded statements. They’ve tried private meetings with the prime minister. They’ve tried negotiations, protest and prayer."

(Reminds me of that old television commercial, "You've trying rubbing it out, and scrubbing it out, and still that dirty ring.")

The article continues:

"But for the past five years, despite broad internal consensus and consistent pressure, the American Jewish establishment has been unable to persuade Israel’s government to create an equitable space for non-Orthodox prayer at the Western Wall."

Um. NO. Again. There ALREADY IS A PERFECTLY NICE EGALITARIAN PRAYER SECTION AT THE WESTERN WALL. The implementation of the resolution would not have changed that fact. The fact that the resolution has not been implemented will not prevent expansion and improvements to the egalitarian prayer section.

So how is the Israeli media portraying this contretemps? It's the fault of the evil Haredim! Which it kinda is, except the "evil" is an unhelpful characterization. They're lobbying for what is important to them. Isn't that their right? They're protecting their interests. I don't blame them one bit for that.

There's comic relief, at least, in the headline of this piece in the Jewish Press: "Kotel Stays Divided, If You Don’t Like It Make Aliyah and Change Government."

There was nothing funny at all, on the other hand, about this video by the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) which is essentially a hit piece on Netanyahu in which Netanyahu is accused of saying one thing in Hebrew and another thing in English. This is an incredible chutzpa because it's a riff on what Israel has been saying about the PA all along: they say one thing in Arabic, and another thing in English, and whenever we say it, the left sticks its fingers in its ears. Like for instance when PA leaders say in Arabic: "Kill the Jews" and in English, "We just ADORE peace!"

The thing that's getting lost in the sauce here: Netanyahu was hamstrung. The only way to keep his government together and maintain stability was to placate the demands of the Haredi parties not to implement the resolution. Bibi had no choice in the matter and anyway: There ALREADY IS AN OFFICIAL EGALITARIAN PRAYER SECTION AT THE WESTERN WALL which will continue to be improved and expanded.

No one has lost any rights here. That is the missing part of the stories I am reading. According to Zev Stub, of Janglo, who referenced Haaretz, around 100,000 Conservative and Reform worshipers pray at the egalitarian prayer space every year, or some 275 per day. Stub was there Monday morning and witnessed with his own eyes, three different groups of people celebrating happy occasions at Robinson's Arch.

Yes. Freedom of religion is a thing in Israel. It's real.

But you'd never know that from reading Ruth Eglash and William Booth in the Washington Post:

"Israel’s government on Sunday nixed an ambitious plan approved last year to allow mixed-gender religious services at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, angering many American Jews, who said they felt insulted and abandoned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition."

NO, NO, NO. This is a bald faced LIE. The plan isn't to allow mixed-gender religious services at the Western Wall, because THERE ALREADY IS AN OFFICIAL EGALITARIAN PRAYER SECTION AT THE WESTERN WALL.

Also, the Western Wall is not Judaism's holiest prayer site. That would be the TEMPLE MOUNT. Now you know that Eglash and Booth know this. They know it well. They are both based in Jerusalem for many years.

They get around the truth, Eglash and Booth, by calling the Wall the holiest "prayer site" because if Jews pray on the Temple Mount, their actual holiest site, they get ARRESTED and BANNED from the area for future visits. Unlike the Muslims, who are allowed to flock to the holiest site of the Jewish people, to pray in the mosque they built on the holiest site of the Jewish people on Ramadan, in the hundreds of thousands, as Elder has detailed HERE. Freedom of religion for thee and not for me! Unlike the mixed-gender prayer services at the Western Wall.

So American Jews feel insulted and abandoned by Bibi's "ruling coalition?" It's only because they haven't a clue that he has no choice. That he is Israel's stability and that he can't have his government fall for some American whim which essentially has no impact on egalitarian prayer at the Wall since THERE ALREADY IS AN EGALITARIAN PRAYER SECTION AT THE WESTERN WALL.

Bibi is being criticized from within and from without over basically nothing at all. The Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency said it would be "changing its entire agenda for the remaining two days of its meetings in Jerusalem, in order to address the ramifications of these decisions." The same press release noted that, "The scheduled dinner with the participation of the Prime Minister has been canceled,"

Bad boy, Bibi. Bad. *slaps hand*

Natan Sharansky, who serves as Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency, said, “I must express my deep disappointment at today’s decision by the Government of Israel to suspend the implementation of its own decision to establish a dignified space for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.”

Reading that, any American Jew might be forgiven for thinking that there is currently no space provided for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall. But Sharansky didn't actually say that. He said, "a dignified space," which means that the people doing the complaining want to be in charge of the space rather than continue to let the Western Wall Heritage Foundation manage things as they have since 1988, when the Israeli government tasked them with the duty of overseeing all things Wall.

In other words, these very American groups doing the complaining, want to wrest control from Israel over this Jewish holy site located in, um, ISRAEL.

I rest my case.

Nothing to see here. Run along.

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Palestinian Teachers Fear Students' Murderous Hate For Jews Will Atrophy Over Summer

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Jenin, June 28 - Educators in the Palestinian Authority school system and in the parallel institutions run by the United nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees voiced concern this week over the impending two-month summer break from formal studies, during which the hard work they invested inculcating in the children vengeful animosity toward Jews might dissipate.

With the school year reaching its formal completion this Friday, teachers and other staff members at schools across the Palestinian Territories expressed anxiety over how successful they had been at instilling lasting Jew-hate in their students during the last ten months. Summer camps will provide some of the same treatment to the children during July and August in informal settings, but the educators can only hope the hard work they have put into growing the next generation of stabbers, bombers, vehicular homicide perpetrators, hijackers, and inciters to murder does not go to waste once their young charges leave behind the school walls for the summer.

"I know summer camp can provide some of that content, but I still worry," admitted Jenin sixth-grade teacher Sobbi Bor. "When the kids move up to seventh grade in September, will they retain the same level of murderous ill will, or will their new teachers have to go over some of the ground I was supposed to cover, just to get them up to speed? It's a real worry of mine - basically, was I good enough? Am I good enough?"

For veteran Palestinian educators, the feelings are all too familiar. "Man, not a year goes by that I don't dread the summer for this reason," concurred Mustafa Massikr, who teaches fourth grade in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. "It doesn't get any easier. My mind fills up with visions of the children losing what I've tried to teach them, and actually starting to see Jews as human, or at least deserving of compassion or respect. Only through mindfulness training have I managed to overcome those nightmares and push forward."

He added that he had yet to be disappointed in any of his classes. "I'm happy to say the nightmare has never come true," he boasted, but with relief visible on his face. "I mean, it's possible there were former students who may have gone astray like that, but you never find out about those cases directly. Their colleagues or neighbors always make sure to kill them off for collaborating, but there are enough personal vendettas or 'family honor' killings disguised as vigilante justice for 'collaborators' that you can never be sure, and I'm OK with that."

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The Chicago Dyke March Collective issued a statement on their telling a lesbian marcher with a rainbow flag with a Jewish star to leave.

It is a truly amazing statement.

On June 24th, 2017, a small group of individuals were asked to leave Chicago Dyke March for expressing Zionist views that go directly against the march’s anti-racist core values.
...Zionism is an inherently white-supremacist ideology. It is based on the premise that Jewish people have a God-given entitlement to the lands of historic Palestine and the surrounding areas.

Yes, the Chicago Dykes are saying that people who believe in the right of Jews to national self-determination are white supremacists.

These paragons of intersectional virtue say that of all the people of all types that attend their events, only Jews have to pass an ideology test to make it acceptable to them.

The Jewish state has about 125,000 black Jews from Africa as full citizens. It also has millions of Jews from Middle East countries whose non-Jewish neighbors are not considered "white" by these people.

What do you call people who automatically consider all Jews from any background who live in ISrel to be "white supremacists"?

This is pure, unadulterated antisemitism.

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06/28 Links Pt1:Whatever Happened to the Term “Palestinian State?”; Iran's flag on Israel’s border: ‘We are coming’

From Ian:

Iran targeted Star of David in ballistic missile test

Iran used a Star of David as a target for missile test last year, according to satellite images of the site distributed by Israel to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.
“This use of the Star of David as target practice is hateful and unacceptable,” Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon wrote in a complaint to the Council.
Photos provided to UN members showed the Jewish and Israeli symbol as the target in a test of a ballistic missile carried out in November with the impact crater visible next to it.
“The missile launch is not only a direct violation of UNSCR 2231, but is also a clear evidence of Iran’s continued intention to harm the State of Israel,” Danon said, adding that “the targeting of a sacred symbol of Judaism is abhorrent.”

'The next war will be bloody' A trip along Israel’s tense northern border

Israel’s northernmost village of Metulla with a population of close to 2,000 people sits on the Lebanese border and despite the ever-present risk of conflict with Hezbollah, the community continues to grow. Metulla is one of the communities that is expected to be evacuated in the event of a war between Israel and the Shiite Lebanese terror group.
“The next war will be pretty bloody for both sides. Israel will evacuate its population and I suggest the Lebanese do the same,” Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, the head of Alma, an organization that gives briefings on Israel’s security challenges on the northern border told The Jerusalem Post. As Lebanesefarmers worked a field in the distance, and tractors waddled down the streets of Metulla, the situation seemed quiet, but threats overshadow the border.
Israel has never carried out a mandatory evacuation of any community since the founding of the state. However, the IDF is now concerned about the very real possibility of ground attacks by the terror group against Israeli civilian communities in border communities in addition to the threat posed by Hezbollah’s stockpile of more than 100,000 rockets.
“Hezbollah knows how to fight and how to move large forces,” Zehavi said, stressing that the group will likely not “occupy” any Israeli villages but aims to create fear by massacring Israeli civilians.
“It will be a totally new battlefield than what we saw in 2006,” she said i reference to the Second Lebanon War, explaining that the group has significantly increased its battlefield knowledge due to its fighting in Syria for the regime of Bashar Assad.
“Everything they learn in Syria, including from the Russians, is being brought here.”

Iran's flag on Israel’s border: ‘We are coming’

Lebanon seems to be having a flag sale. Iranian flags, Hezbollah, the UN, Spain, Palestinian flags. They are all flying provocatively along the border with the northern Israeli community of Metulla. Just meters from the fence that separates the countries, not far from the site of a 1985 terror attack, Hezbollah has festooned the roads with signs of its presence. It’s purposely done so Israeli residents can see the flags and the billboards next to them. In Metulla there is a memorial for the 12 Israeli soldiers killed in the 1985 suicide bombing, while just across the border a huge billboard celebrates the same killing.
I spent Tuesday touring the Lebanese and Syrian borders with Israel to see the tense situation in the north of the country. The flags across the border seemed representative of the situation that prevails today. Next to the Hezbollah flags is a small post that has a UN logo. Near it the Amal Shia Lebanese movement has erected a large banner reading “to he of pure hands and a generous soul, thank you speaker of parliament Nabih Berri.” On the banner is the Iranian flag. Here is a visible presence of Iran just a stone’s throw from Israel. It’s not the only Iranian symbol here. On a hill overlooking new houses being constructed in Metulla is another huge poster with a photo of the Dome of the Rock. The face of Ayatollah Khomeini glowers down over the dome and Hezbollah has written “we are coming” in Hebrew and Arabic. They’ve put a giant Palestinian flag next to the poster.
The message is clear, as it is disconcerting. Here is Iran glowering down on Israel from the north. As we toured the border area with Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, the head of Alma, an organization that gives briefings on Israel’s security Challenges on the Northern Border, what should be a tense situation seemed quiet. This area has known war for many years. There is an old British police fort here from the 1930s when terror also struck at Jewish communities. Zehavi stresses that the situation along the Lebanese border has not affected tourism or housing prices, and the new construction is evidence of that.

In response to a Haaretz article yesterday (highlighted here) showing that the Palestinian Authority has nearly stopped paying for Gaza medical patients to get treatment in Israel, the PA has responded exactly how one would expect:

They blame Israel.

They claim that it is Israel, not them, who are restricting patients from being treated in Israel. A spokesman for the PA health department explicitly denied that there was any change in their own policies.

However, the Haaretz article was well sourced. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel documented that some 90% of requests to the PA for medical treatment were being ignored and a number of family members of sick children who had routinely been able to get treatment in Israel were interviewed about their frustration on the sudden change in policy.

It is of course no coincidence that the PA policy towards patients in Gaza coincides with its policy limiting medicines, anesthesia and electricity to Gaza hospitals.

They are literally complicit in killing their own people. But they are embarrassed when that fact is publicized.

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"Human rights" organizations have created a new rule that applies to Israel and Israel only:

Israel must provide free electricity to its enemies.

B'Tselem says "The PA’s wrongful actions towards Gaza residents do not mean Israel can shirk its responsibility for their fate." Meaning, if the PA refuses to pay for electricity, Israel must shoulder the costs.

Gisha says the same: "Even if the PA asks it to do so, Israel has its hand on the switch and would be complicit in and accountable for the certain devastation that would occur in the Strip as a result of further interruption in supply."

And Human Rights Watch says, "Israel has legal responsibilities to civilians in the territory. ...International law – and basic decency – require Israel to not further cut the supply of electricity to Gaza."

But Israel has no problem supplying Gaza with electricity when it gets paid. This is what it's done for well over a decade.

In other words, "human rights" organizations have created an entirely new rule of human rights law that applies only to Israel.

If these "human rights' organizations were truly so concerned over Gazans having so little electricity, they could appeal to the Arab world to pay the electricity bill. They could appeal to oil-rich Arab countries to provide fuel for Gaza's power plant. They could lobby EU nations to pay the PA's electric bill. They could insist that Egypt allow Palestinians to move across the border.

All of these things would help lessen the problem.

But for some reason they aren't insisting that anyone in the world do anything to help Gazans except the one nation that Gaza has attacked with rockets thousands of times.

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Last week reports started coming out that the Palestinians were furious at Jared Kushner:

Here's how The Hill reported it but similar coverage was widespread:

President Trump will reportedly receive a report about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process following a "tense" meeting between White House senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and leaders about the issue.

The London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat reports that Kushner's meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was “tense,” according to a translation from the Jerusalem Post, and Abbas was reportedly furious at Kushner relaying the demands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz also reports that Palestinian officials were “greatly disappointed” by their meeting with Kushner and Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt.

"They sounded like Netanyahu's advisers and not like fair arbiters," a senior Palestinian official told the newspaper. "They started presenting Netanyahu's issues and then we asked to hear from them clear stances regarding the core issues of the conflict."

The report also claims that the Trump delegation was also upset with Abbas for refusing to denounce a recent stabbing attack in Jerusalem.

Swallowing a report from an unnamed person in an Arabic newspaper is not exactly great journalism.

Technically, the media cited where they got the report from, but the average reader does not know how to interpret such a story.

And now the State Department denies much of it:

The State Department rejected claims that a meeting last week between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and senior White House official Jared Kushner went awry and an unconfirmed report that US President Donald Trump was ready to pull the plug on efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert reiterated that Trump has made Mideast peace “one of his top priorities,” adding that allegations that Abbas left his meeting with Trump’s son-in-law fuming were “false,” while conceding that “some meetings and conversations may be a little bit more difficult than others.”

So what really happened?

There is no doubt that Kushner went to the meeting and presented the Israeli side in negotiations. That's one major purpose of negotiations, after all.

It is also widely known that the US and the EU have been pressuring Abbas over the twin issues of incitement and paying salaries to terrorists, which are also the two major Israeli issues. (Similarly, they constantly pressure Israel on settlements, the major Palestinian issue.)

None of this would have surprised Abbas, and none of those would have left him fuming.

The entire report was manufactured for one reason: to pressure Kushner.

Kushner is a neophyte at international diplomacy. The Palestinians are masters at pushing their agenda in any venue possible. They see Kushner as a person who can be pressured via the media because he is not a hardened diplomat used to being publicly criticized. They know that media pressure can translate to Kushner being less likely to push them on these issues that they are most vulnerable to in the future. These are the issues that they have no answer to, after all - the issues that prove that they directly encourage terrorism in an era when even moderate Arab governments are turning against all kinds of terrorism.

Here's where the media's irresponsibility comes in. They should knowm and reported that this is the PLO's modus operandi. Any story that mentions an unnamed Arab source, especially coming from an Arab newspaper where the source cannot be questioned, should be prefaced with (at the very least, informed speculation about) the possible motives for such a "leak" to occur.

Otherwise, readers assume that all unnamed sources are the same. But (in theory at least) Western media has some checks and balances before running a story from an anonymous source that Al Hayat is unlikely to have.

Of course, governments will fake-leak information to the media all the time for political purposes. Yet the media should be aware that they are being manipulated. Often the reporter that is leaked to is chosen for being sympathetic to the story that the leak supports, so he or she would be less likely to question its veracity to begin with. Even so, it is the editor's job to minimize this sort of thing.

In this case the "leak" was fake through and through. There is nothing strange or wrong with the US bringing up in private the exact same issues that it has mentioned in public.

This is all about ensuring that Kushner's next meeting with Abbas is more to Abbas' liking.

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06/27 Links Pt2: British Academia is rife with anti-Semitism; The Failed Practice of ‘Jew-Washing’

From Ian:

JPost: Intolerance parade

What is intersectionality? It is a vogue theory – particularly on the Left – that essentially posits a hierarchy of oppression. It first appeared in the feminist movement when black women complained that their unique struggles were not adequately addressed by the elitist white women (many of whom Jewish) who dominated the movement. But it has since developed into a form of discourse in which one’s identity determines the extent of one’s suffering and, therefore, the justness of one’s grievances in isolation from reason.
In the cases of Grauer and Shoshany-Anderson intersectionality works to their disadvantage because in addition to their sexual identity they also share a Jewish or Israeli identity.
There is no contest in the clash between the pro-Palestinian gay and the Zionist gay. In the parallel universe of intersectionality, Israel is not the only place in the Middle East where the rights of homosexuals are protected and where Palestinian homosexuals can find refuge from repression in an intolerant Palestinian society. It is a place where colonialist, white Jews oppress an indigenous Palestinian population. No matter that the State of Israel was a refuge for Jews after the Holocaust, that Jews’ connection to this particularly land is undeniable and that most Israelis have roots in Muslim countries.
Reason does not apply in the parallel universe of intersectionality.
And that’s why it has become such a congenial environment for antisemitism. Certain dogmas must be accepted: America is evil; whites are privileged; Israel is evil; Muslim countries cannot be held to the same moral standards as the West (therefore, capital punishment for homosexuality in Iran or Saudi Arabia does not spark indignation in the LGBTQ community). Anyone who does not accept these axioms deserves the severest rebuke and shaming.
And so we have come full circle, back to the era of Stonewall when individuals were made to feel they must hide aspects of their identity for fear they would be derided or worse. But this time those expected to enter the closet are whites, Jews, Zionists and other purportedly “privileged” groups. Gay pride parades or dyke marches were conceived to be celebrations of LGBTQ identity. Sadly, they have become venues for bigotry and intolerance.

Dykes vs. Kikes

Last weekend’s outrage in Chicago is but the latest example of Jews being written out of progressive movements. Whether Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party or Linda Sarsour’s #Resistance, Jews are not only being made to feel unwelcome in left-leaning spaces, but anti-Semitism—masked as anti-Zionism—is becoming a marker of virtue. These episodes of ostracism are almost always undertaken to appease Muslims, which makes no sense under any circumstances, least of all for the LGBT community, which is welcomed and celebrated in the world’s only Jewish country and subject to state-sponsored harassment, imprisonment, and murder in nearly every Muslim-majority one.
It’s also cruelly ironic that Jews, of all people, would be subject to this sort of discrimination, given the disproportionate role they have played in LGBT politics and culture. The first homosexual advocacy organization, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, was founded by a German Jew, Magnus Hirschfeld, whose pioneering work made him an enemy of the Nazis. The grandfather of the modern American gay rights movement, Frank Kameny, was Jewish, as is our most famous AIDS activist, Larry Kramer. Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay people elected to public office in the United States, was a Jew, as is, of course, Barney Frank, one of the first openly gay congressmen. I could go on and on and on.
Watching this American LGBT movement infighting must seem strange to those from the many parts of the world where gay communities are fighting just for the basic right to exist. The notion of banning fellow gays from inclusion based solely upon their religious-ethnic identity must seem so preposterous, so strategically self-defeating that it could only be the work of a community too comfortable to realize its own good fortune. That, as well as the product of a commitment to a rancid political dogma known as “intersectionality,” which mandates one group of people, Jews, be stigmatized as the price of adherence to a victim hierarchy that imparts varying levels of virtue to individuals based upon their identity, with Muslims ranking highest.
“I was here as a proud Jew in all of my identities,” an Iranian Jewish lesbian told the Windy City Times about being forced to leave the festival. “The Dyke March is supposed to be intersectional. I don’t know why my identity is excluded from that. I felt that, as a Jew, I am not welcome here.” This is, alas, the ineluctable logic of intersectionality as defined by contemporary progressives: Judenrein gay pride parades.

Jewish Groups Condemn ‘Antisemitic’ Exclusion of Marchers From Chicago LGBT Rights Parade Over Star of David Flags

Leading US Jewish organizations on Monday excoriated the organizers of a gay rights march in Chicago this past weekend whose stewards ejected a group of women carrying Jewish Pride flags on the grounds of their opposition to “Zionism.”
On Monday, the Chicago Dyke Collective defended its decision to prevent the women from participating by saying that anti-Zionist Jews were welcome — a rationale slammed as “heinous” by Arthur Slepian, founder of the Israeli-North American LGBTQ organization A Wider Bridge, in an interview with The Algemeiner.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called on the organizers of the Chicago LGBTQ pride march to apologize.
“It is outrageous that while celebrating LGBTQ pride, Jewish participants carrying a rainbow Star of David flag were asked to leave the Chicago Dyke March,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said. “The community of LGBTQ supporters is diverse and that is part of its tremendous strength. Both the act and the explanation were anti-Semitic, plain and simple.”
Greenblatt — whose organization has produced a set of materials to mark Pride Month — called on “leaders from LGBTQ and progressive communities to join us in condemning this exclusion.”
Greenblatt praised the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national LGBTQ civil rights organization, for offering its support.

The Israel Speaks Arabic Facebook page posted this video showing a Haredi man dancing on top of his car to a song that he was blaring during an unusually long red light.

Arab media picked up on this, calling it "shocking," because the song is a very popular Arabic song by an Emirati singer. It apparently is being used in Egypt as a song of support for Egyptian president Sisi.

The man dances until the light turns green when he goes back into his car.

The graffiti on the car says "simcha," or "happiness." Chances are the driver is a Breslov hasid.

I'm not sure what this signifies - except that Arabs really do read the official Israeli Arabic hasbara media. The video has received 202,000 views so far.

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

We are a tiny tribe.
Threatened from all corners of the earth, from near and from far.
We are Jews.

So few. So threatened.

So brilliant and yet so very stupid.

Our enemies laugh while, instead of uniting against them, we fight amongst ourselves.

I follow the religion more correctly than you!

I am more modest than you!

I am more studious than you!

I am more Zionist than you!

My physical strength protects you!

My spiritual strength protects you!

It goes on and on…

Our friends shake their heads in wonder.

And our enemies laugh.

The Jew says: “I am modern! I belong to the world! I am first German/American/Gay and Jewish second.”

The enemy responds: “You don’t belong to the world, you belong to Israel and we feel Israel is vile. You can march with us, but only if you utterly reject your Jewishness.”

I have heard Olim tell diaspora Jews that they are superior because they are “true Zionists”.
I have heard diaspora Jews tell Israelis that we should be grateful to them, do as they say, because they contribute money to Israel.
(I have heard both tell non-Jews that they cannot be Zionists because they are not Jewish)

How do any of those attitudes help?!

There are so many of them and so few of us.

We are the Jews.
Together we are indestructible.

Of course, our enemies want to divide us. They would much prefer that we stay weak.

But why do so many Jews collaborate, participate eagerly in this damaging and dangerous game?!

Our enemies laugh, knowing that there are those amongst us, working from within to weaken the tribe.

History has shown that the Jewish people are invincible – accept against the enemy from within.
Baseless hate. Jealousy. The desire to receive credit for achievements. The desire for political gain.

All somehow couched in terms of “I do this because I care…”

Pushing someone else down to make yourself feel superior is the action of an inferior personality.
Jew working against Jew is, in the long run, suicidal and potentially genocidal.

It is time for every Jew around the world, and every friend of Jews, to call for unity.

We must stand together. Opinion may differ but family is an unbreakable bond.

We are the Jews.

Our tribe is small and every member is needed.

Those who live in Israel must protect Zion from within. Those who live abroad must protect Zion from without. Each does what he or she knows how.

We can all do more, do better.

If only we would all be decent people first.
“Decency precedes the Torah”. Of all the enlightening revolutionary ideas, our tribe has brought to the world, if we only learned that one lesson, dayenu.

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