Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 09, 2017

10/09 Links Pt2: Disproving 'Temple Mount denial' one bucket at a time; Adam Sandler Getting His Palm Frond On

From Ian:

Were Egypt’s Jews expelled? Bonan rebuts Bisawe

Israel Bonan 's plans to leave Egypt were disrupted when he became one of 400 Jews jailed for up to three years after the 1967 war. Haaretz has published his long rebuttal to an earlier piece by Eyal Sagui Bisawe which argued that Egyptian Jews were not singled out for expulsion: their exit was not as dramatic nor as systematic as they claim, but a result of decolonisation targeting all minorities. (Bisawe’s claim that Jews from Arab countries exaggerated their persecution to gain legitimacy with Ashkenazi Jews is commonly heard on the left.) Bonan argues that Jews were targeted over and above other minorities and for their religion, not nationality (with thanks: Pablo, Eliyahu, Imre and Lily):

"We can imagine rows of hooded soldiers gathering Egyptian Jews in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and giving them two options: convert to Islam or be expelled. Or even not giving them the choice but expelling them all. But such an event simply never occurred."

Putting aside the vulgar and unworthy lack of empathy, the ridicule and venom, what is the definition of the word expulsion? A common definition would be: “The process of forcing someone to leave a place, especially a country.”

A process usually entails more than one step to accomplish a purpose.

So, what was the process used to expel the Jews and other minorities from Egypt? These steps spanned many years, promoted by successive governments all marching to the same tune: "Egypt for the Egyptians".

The process follows the same template of Nazi Germany, and of all forms of fascism. Loss of citizenship rights and protection, loss of jobs in the private and public sectors, no prospect for future employment, dispossession of assets, death, and expatriation/expulsion.

.@Amnesty never questions minorities claiming persecution or human rights abuses, yet oddly 'liked' this tweet. Why? https://t.co/TMNPmF2TBy pic.twitter.com/PcV00mcRme
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) October 9, 2017

Disproving 'Temple Mount denial' one bucket at a time

When Wakf bulldozers illegally ascended the Temple Mount in 1999 to surreptitiously remove thousands of tons of ancient soil to make way for a subterranean mosque, two archeologists found hope in recovering some of the Jewish heritage that crime destroyed.

As countless invaluable artifacts dating from the First Temple period at Judaism’s holiest site were dumped in a garbage heap in the capital’s Kidron Valley, Dr. Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira saw an opportunity.

Five years later, under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University, the two archeologists procured a government license to have the ancient debris transferred to Emek Tzurim National Park on the western slope of Mount Scopus, where they established the headquarters of the Temple Mount Sifting Project.

Today some 70% of the 400 truckloads of earth has been scrutinized by a staff of 15 employees and thousands of volunteers from around the globe, one bucket at a time.

Since then, more than 500,000 artifacts – from a 3,000-year-old seal from the time of King David to coins, stone vessels, jewelry and flooring tile fragments from the Second Temple period – have been painstakingly documented for future generations.

Nevertheless, to the outrage and utter befuddlement of millions, last October UNESCO approved a resolution denying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

I'll say it: Amnesty (at least its UN Tweeter) is antisemitic

UN Watch noticed something that is more than creepy:

Haaretz published an article by Eyal Sagui Bizawe with the title "Were Egypt's Jews really expelled?" The article itself made it clear that many Egyptian Jews in fact were expelled from Egypt; the author is arguing that it would not be accurate to say that all Egyptian Jews were expelled. (Haaretz has since changed the headline dramatically, to "Jews Were Expelled From Egypt. But Can We Talk About 'The Expulsion of The Jews?'"

Later, Haaretz published a rebuttal by Israel Bonan that pretty much destroys Bizawe's thesis. Bizawe himself admits he is not a historian.

But, as UN Watch notes, the original article title questioning whether Egypt's Jews were expelled in its headline was "liked" by the Amnesty UN account.

Now, Amnesty is no fan of Egypt. It regularly tweets and writes reports that are anti-Egypt.

And the Egyptian Jews who were forced to leave Egypt (there are only a handful of old women left out of 80,000 in 1948) were not generally Zionists.

So why would Amnesty "like" an article that calls into question the Jewish narrative of what happened to the now disappeared Jewish community of Egypt?

Amnesty never, ever questions the narrative of persecuted groups or minorities. It always goes after the big, evil governments. Its entire goal is to protect the rights of the persecuted, not the persecutors.

Except for this one, singular, time. When the persecuted minority are Jews.

Amnesty's tweet reveals its true nature of antisemitism. The idea that Jews are lying about their history of being persecuted by Arabs is too delicious for the famed NGO to let go. The community that was destroyed is populated by criminal liars, and the ethnic cleansers are the innocent victims of Jewish slander.

Amnesty UN has since "unliked" the tweet. But that is because of fear of embarrassment, not because of any moral problems with the tweet. The baseline thinking of the Amnesty tweeter, which is utterly consistent with everything else we've seen from that organization, is a dislike for Jews, usually demonstrated by its focus on Israel beyond nearly every country with serious human right abuses.

Twitter is great because it reveals the subconscious thinking of the tweeter. In this case, it showed in no uncertain terms that Amnesty considers Jews to be, by default, liars whose persecutions have been exaggerated or invented.

That's pretty antisemitic.

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Islam Question and Answer: Muslim Jew-hatred 101 (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

I recently came across a report about a Canadian mosque that had removed a link from its website after it was pointed out that the linked site promoted “anti-Semitic content that urges an ‘Islamic jihad’ against Jews, denounces democracy and approves the killing of ex-Muslims.” The offensive site was identified as Islamqa.info, i.e. “Islam Question and Answer” and it was noted that it “is run by a conservative Saudi cleric.”

As it happened, I was somewhat familiar with the site from research I had done for some of my recent writings. The post I first read on Islam QA responded to a questioner wondering about the difference between the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock: “if the Masjid e Aqsa is different from the Doom of the Rock, why do we see its picture representing Masjid e Aqsa at all Islamic places, and I (and many other muslims) were completely inaware of the difference.”

The response claimed that “the name of the mosque was historically applied to the whole plateau,” (i.e. the Temple Mount), but also stated: “The Muslims’ fondness for the picture of the Dome may be because of the beauty of this building, but this does not excuse them from the resulting mistake of not distinguishing between the Mosque and the buildings that surround it.” To my amazement, the apparently widespread Muslim ignorance about the difference between the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque was then explained as a result of nefarious Jewish plots – which of course show how urgent it would be “to cleanse al-Masjid al-Aqsa of the brothers of the monkeys and pigs.”

Since the site prominently declares that Shaykh Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid is its “General Supervisor,” I looked him up. According to Wikipedia, he is “an Islamic scholar known for founding the website IslamQA.info, which provides answers to questions in line with the Salafi school of thought.” Even though Salafists are supposedly only a tiny minority of the world’s estimated 1.8 billion Muslims, the entry notes that “IslamQA.info is one of the most popular websites providing the Salafi perspective and is (as of November 2015) according to Alexa.com the world’s most popular website on the topic of Islam generally.” Apparently, the site still holds its number 1 rank, and it seems to be well-funded since it can afford to offer texts in more than a dozen languages. (E.g. the antisemitic post explaining the difference between the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque is available in English, Arabic, Uighur and Spanish).

As noted in the report on the Canadian mosque, Islam QA includes plenty of posts encouraging Jew-hatred and hostility to western values:

“’The Jews are people of treachery and betrayal; it is not possible to trust them at all,’ reads a post on the formerly-linked site, Islamqa.info […] ‘The hour (the Day of Judgment) will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.’ […] another Islamqa.info entry calls democracy ‘a system that is contrary to Islam’ and says ‘the main goal of jihad is to make people worship Allah alone.’ A discussion on ‘why death is the punishment for apostasy’ reads: ‘Whoever changes his religion, kill him.’ As for homosexuals, it says to ‘drive them out of your town.’”

Another article focusing on how Islam QA defines the status of women notes that “the opinions […] read like documents from a time long, long ago;” one of the cited examples is a ruling claiming that “Islam allows a man to have sexual intercourse with a slave, no matter whether the man is married or single.”

It is worthwhile noting that the post (archived) describing Jews as “people of treachery and betrayal” goes back to the early days of IslamQA: it was published already in January 1999 and signed as written by Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid himself; the text is available in English, Arabic, French, Uighur and Indonesian, and it has also been posted on other sites (e.g. here, here, and here; also documented as inciting hate here). I would urge everyone to read the post in full, because it is a breathtaking example of the depth of Muslim Jew-hatred, which is justified both by invoking Islamic scripture and by inventing Nazi-style fantasies about Jewish evil:

“There cannot be harmony between Jews – who are usurpers and aggressors, who have oppressed and persecuted others, and who are known for their treachery and corruption throughout the world, historically and in the present age – and the purely monotheistic Muslim owners of the land, whose menfolk the Jews have killed, and imprisoned their sons, and destroyed their homes, and taken possession of their lands by force, and prevented them from earning a proper living, and carried out chemical and radiational experiments on their prisoners, and taken organs from them for transplant into Jewish patients… and all other kinds of persecutions and atrocities.”

During an appearance on a Saudi TV program last year, Al-Munajid re-affirmed similar views:

“The Jews are among the enemies of (Islam). In fact, they are at the top of the list. The Jews today are the Jews of the past. This requires no proof. Allah made their traits clear to us, and the Prophet Muhammad clarified that our war with them will continue until the end of time [...] Allah said that 'the Jews are the strongest in enmity to the believers.' He said that the Jews 'strive to spread corruption in the land.' He said: 'They hasten into sin and aggression.' He said: 'Nor did they forbid one another the iniquities which they committed.'” […] “'The Jews are the nation that incurred the wrath of Allah. They are a people of lies, fabrications, treachery, and conspiracies. They are the slayers of prophets, the profiteers from that which is forbidden. They are the filthiest of nations with the basest of character.'”

No wonder the TV host thought it was entirely reasonable to follow up with the question “Is hatred of Jews considered a form of worship in and of itself?” Al-Munajid evaded a direct response, countering instead: “The question should be: Do they hate us? These people believe that anyone who does not adhere to their religion is a filthy pig. This is written in their distorted Torah. Jews have the right to rape non-Jewish women. This is also written in their books.”

How is that from a man who refers to Jews as “the brothers of the monkeys and pigs” and insists that Islamic scripture gives Muslim men the right to rape female slaves? Looks like Al-Munajid could greatly benefit from reading a bit of Freud and learning about projection…

However, as already noted, even though Al-Munajid’s IslamQA is apparently the most popular website on Islam, it supposedly reflects Salafist doctrine and therefore only the beliefs of a small minority of Muslims. So it might be useful to look for some comparable material on Jews from other sites. I noticed on one discussion board that some Muslims who considered Al-Munajid’s IslamQA as too rigid and intolerant recommended instead another IslamQA (which has the extension .org instead of .info). One particularly fascinating example is provided by two posts from the two sites (here and here) that address the notorious hadith that predicts an end-time battle in which Muslims will slaughter the Jews. In both cases, the person asking the question is wondering how this violent hadith can be squared with Islam’s claim to be “a religion of love and peace.”

On Al-Munajid’s IslamQA, the response (also available in Arabic) includes extensive quotes from Islamic scripture explaining and justifying the hadith; the conclusion is that

“Allah, may He be exalted, will honour the Muslims in this battle with this miracle, which is that rocks and trees will speak and call the Muslims to come and kill the Jews who will be hiding behind them.

All of this indicates that it will be a just battle that Allah approves of, as was the case with all the Islamic battles in which the aim was to make the word of Allah supreme on earth. ‘Whoever fights so that the word of Allah will be supreme is fighting in the way of Allah.’”

On the supposedly more moderate IslamQA site, the response – provided by a South-African mufti who studied in India – is rather laconic (and can also be found here): “This will happen around the time of Isa (alaihis salaam). The ones that are not bad will accept the truth and hence will be Muslims.”

In other words: all the Jews “that are not bad” will eventually convert to Islam, and the Jews who stubbornly remain Jews are obviously so bad that they deserve to be slaughtered…

Here are a few more gems from the supposedly more moderate IslamQA:

“Are Muslims supposed to hate Jews?” Well… yes, they are, because the “Qur’aan is replete with the descriptions of the Jews” showing them as greedy, ungrateful and murderous. So the post offers “just a few [examples] from an infinite list of their disobediences and violations of Allah’s orders. Due to their disobedience, Allah Ta’ala said, ‘Disgrace and need has been set on them.’ Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam) said, ‘Verily this (the Jews) are a dirty nation. We do not need them.’”

“Why Islam or Muslims are against Jews (in general)?” Well, naturally, this is the fault of the Jews: “The holy Qur?aan declares them to harbour the most enmity against us Muslims. This is one of the reasons the Muslims don?t get along with them. The main reason for this enmity stems from jealousy.” (It’s a bit ambiguous here who is jealous, isn’t it…)

“Why are the Jews hated so much throughout the world?” Well, again – the Jews deserve to be hated, of course: “Allah Ta’ala has cursed the jews for their repeated disobedience of Allah Ta’ala, and has cursed their offspring for their approval of the sins of their forefathers. This is why they are hated.”

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10/09 Links Pt1: Bayefsky: Why is Pres. Trump Letting Palestinians Violate U.S. Law?; Iran Deal Isn’t Worth Saving

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: Why is President Trump Letting Palestinians off the Hook for Violating U.S. Law?

If President Trump is backtracking on his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem allegedly for the sake of a “peace process,” why is he simultaneously allowing the Palestinians to violate U.S. law and sink peace unilaterally?

American law requires that funding for Palestinians be drastically curtailed if they use the International Criminal Court (ICC) to turn Israelis into war criminals. Though Palestinians have given the ICC a veritable bear hug, hundreds of millions of American dollars are still flowing into Palestinian coffers.

Palestinians are actively using a crooked international legal system as a means to avoid a negotiated end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and an acceptance of a Jewish state. It’s called lawfare — the antithesis of a “peace process.”

Palestinian-led lawfare has two goals: to criminalize Israeli exercise of the right of self-defense, and to criminalize Israelis living on any territory that Palestinians and the UN have unilaterally appropriated.

Congress has understood lawfare to be exactly what it says — namely, war by another means. They have also understood that twisting self-defense against terrorism into a war crime will rebound on American and NATO soldiers. Feeding Israelis to the sharks will be just the first course.

The International Criminal Court Statute was a coup for anti-American and anti-Israeli globalists because it trashed the essence of the reach of international law – namely, the consent of states. For the first time, international law could be used directly against citizens of states that had refused to be bound. Neither Israel nor the United States hase ratified the ICC Statute, but that cannot prevent the ICC prosecutor from going after either Americans or Israelis.

Moreover, the late stages of the drafting process of the ICC Statute – originally conceived as an instrument to target the most heinous acts perpetrated by humankind – were hijacked in 1998 by the Palestinians and their friends. The result is a statute that purports to turn Israeli settlements into war crimes.

PMW: Another PMW success as Belgium freezes funding of PA schools

On Sept. 27, 2017, Palestinian Media Watch reported that the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education has named at least 31 schools after terrorists. PMW reported and notified the Belgian government that one of those schools whose building Belgium funded, the Beit Awwa Basic Girls School, subsequently changed its name to the Dalal Mughrabi Elementary School, honoring the Palestinian female terrorist who led a bus hijacking and murder of 37 people, including 12 children.

PMW also reported on the danger of naming schools after terrorists as exemplified with one of the schools named after Dalal Mughrabi where children are taught to see the terrorist as a role model. One girl told PA TV that her “life's ambition is to reach the level of the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi." [Official PA TV, March 27, 2014]

PMW sent this information to the Belgian embassy in Tel Aviv, including the picture below of the Belgian flag, which still appears on a plaque announcing Belgium’s funding at the Dalal Mughrabi Elementary School.

Reporting on the Belgian government’s outrage that the PA has renamed the school after the terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi, The Algemeiner quoted the spokesperson for the Belgian Foreign Ministry, Didier Vanderhasselt:

“Belgium unequivocally condemns the glorification of terrorist attacks [and] will not allow itself to be associated with the names of terrorists in any way.” [The Algemeiner, Oct. 7, 2017]

According to the Belgian Development Agency (BTC), Belgium has built 23 Palestinian schools since 2001, and was planning to build 10 more in the coming years. [Website of Belgian Development Agency, accessed Oct. 9, 2017] However, according to the spokesperson all these plans are now frozen:
“Belgium has immediately raised this issue with the Palestinian Authority and is awaiting a formal response... In the meantime Belgium will put on hold any projects related to the construction or equipment of Palestinian schools.”

Michael Oren: The Iran Nuclear Deal Isn’t Worth Saving

Had American sanctions on Iran remained in place in 2015, companies would have had to choose between doing business with the United States, the world’s top-ranked economy by gross domestic product, and Iran, ranked 27th. That same stark choice will confront businesses if sanctions are reinstated.

Similarly, the contention that Iran will rush to make nuclear weapons in the absence of an agreement is unfounded. Iran could have made that rush well before 2015 but it did not. The reason was the 2012 speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United Nations General Assembly and the implicit military threat that backed it up.

The world, he declared, must not allow Iran to amass enough highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. “Red lines don’t lead to war,” he said. “Red lines prevent war.” That red line will remain indelible whether the deal is strengthened or canceled. What was true in 2015 holds equally today: The more credible the military option, the lesser the chance it will need to be used.

The agreement’s apologists say that altering or negating the agreement will irreparably harm America’s prestige. Yet it is difficult to see how America’s status is served by a refusal to stand up to Iran’s complicity in the massacre of half a million Syrians and its efforts to annihilate American allies.

Israel’s position on the Iran deal was and remains clear. “Fix it or nix it,” Prime Minister Netanyahu recently told the United Nations. If canceled, the deal must be replaced by crippling sanctions that force Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons capacity. Fixing the deal would include conducting stricter inspections of suspect Iran nuclear sites, imposing harsher penalties for Iranian violations and, above all, eliminating the “sunset clause.”

Either way, revisiting the agreement will send an unequivocal message to the world. It will say that Iran’s state-funded terrorism and its attempts to establish a Shiite empire will not be tolerated. The weakness of the Iran deal invites wars, it will say, while displays of strength prevent them. It will say that the United States is truly unwilling to accept a nuclear Iran — not now, not in a decade, not ever.

John Bolton: The Iran Deal Isn't Worth Saving

"Cut, and cut cleanly," Sen. Paul Laxalt advised Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, urging the Philippine president to resign and flee Manila because of widespread civil unrest. The Nevada Republican, Ronald Reagan's best friend in Congress, knew what his president wanted, and he made the point with customary Western directness.

President Trump could profitably follow Mr. Laxalt's advice today regarding Barack Obama's 2015 deal with Iran. The ayatollahs are using Mr. Obama's handiwork to legitimize their terrorist state, facilitate (and conceal) their continuing nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, and acquire valuable resources from gullible negotiating partners.

Mr. Trump's real decision is whether to fulfill his campaign promise to extricate America from this strategic debacle. Last month at the United Nations General Assembly, he lacerated the deal as an "embarrassment," "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."

Fearing the worst, however, the deal's acolytes are actively obscuring this central issue, arguing that it is too arduous and too complex to withdraw cleanly. They have seized instead on a statutory requirement that every 90 days the president must certify, among other things, that adhering to the agreement is in America's national-security interest. They argue the president should stay in the deal but not make the next certification, due in October.

This morganatic strategy is a poorly concealed ploy to block withdrawal, limp through Mr. Trump's presidency, and resurrect the deal later. Paradoxically, supporters are not now asserting that the deal is beneficial. Instead, they concede its innumerable faults but argue that it can be made tougher, more verifiable and more strictly enforced. Or, if you want more, it can be extended, kicked to Congress, or deferred during the North Korea crisis. Whatever.

As Richard Nixon said during Watergate: "I want you to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up, or anything else if it'll save it — save the plan."

If recent analysis here and elsewhere is correct, SJP and associated anti-Israel organizations are likely to be shifting strategy to take advantage of the increase in radical political activity on college campuses and elsewhere. This activity is likely to take the form of building alliances with groups protesting at schools, pressuring administrators to cave in to demands, and shutting down events held by those with whom they disagree.

The marriage of such groups and organizations like SJP makes perfect sense since (1) the tactics now being inflicted on large numbers of students (such as shout-downs of speakers) were pioneered against Israel’s supporters and (2) anti-Israel activists have mastered the technique of bending other radical groups to their will through a one-sided application of “intersectionality” (which is why feminists in “the movement” must submit to the male-dominated SJP agenda, while SJP has no obligation to even mention gender Apartheid in the Middle East).

There are number of ways to meet this threat, some more productive than others.

For instance, one poor choice would be for Israel’s supporters – Jewish and otherwise – to try to find a home in newly forming radical alliances in hope to have a say when villains and victims are selected. The problem with this approach is that our side displays little of the ruthlessness that is the ultimate source of power in such “movements.” SJP, for example, is ready to cause limitless turmoil in other people’s organizations in order to get their way. For better or worse, it is unrealistic to assume our side can effectively manage similarly destructive power grabs.

Another poor choice would be to set ourselves up in opposition to the radicals, abandoning interaction across the political spectrum and throwing our lot in with those most averse to the protestor’s agenda. While there will always be a certain logic to embracing whoever seems to most vocally support Israel at the moment (which today are conservatives), a quick glance at history or the current political landscape demonstrates the folly of assuming today’s friends will always be friendly.

This is especially so since our greatest successes have come from cultivating support across the political spectrum (exempting the radical fringes), best exemplified by the ability of AIPAC to manage the community’s relationship with Congress regardless of which party is in power. In addition, the more we can separate Jewish and Israeli concerns from domestic politics (either American or Israeli) the better.

So if joining the mob or joining the mob’s enemies are not likely to be productive options, what can we do (beyond holding the usual speaking events and hummus parties and hoping for the best)?

First of all, we need to understand each challenge we face as clearly and concretely as possible. Reading stories of rampaging mobs on campuses can boil the blood, and get us fearful that any radical group we face has similar numbers and power. But if you look at any political challenge objectively, it always boils down to understanding the enemy and his or her true numbers and resources, understanding your side in similarly concrete fashion, and being aware of the battlefield on which the fight might be fought.

SJP is made up of individuals, as are the organizations they are trying to align with or corrupt. So how many people are in each of these groups, and how many of those people know what they’re doing with regard to creating and maintaining political alliances (a tricky project under any circumstances)?

Speaking of alliances, we do have alternatives (which I describe here) to throwing our lot in entirely with either our enemies or our enemies enemies and hope they play nice with us.

So first steps are to avoid panic, get a handle on the situation as it really is (as much as possible) and create the teams that can effectively country the enemies likely next steps.

Some examples of how this can work next time.

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Mudar Zahran, Khaled Abu Toameh and the "Jordan is Palestine" conference

Tal Schneider at Globes/JPost writes an op-ed that mentions EoZ and varda (a Hebrew version came out last week.)

After months of preparations, "The Jordan Option - The Ultimate Alternate Solution" conference will take place in at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem next week.

The organizers of the event, right-wing writers and bloggers, want it to carry weight. They invited Knesset member Yehuda Glick (Likud) to take part. Former Knesset member Arieh Eldad is listed among the speakers, which also includes Mudar Zahran, billed as the Secretary General of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition and the representative of six million Jordanians of Palestinian extraction.

According to past reports, Zahran, who has written for the Jerusalem Post, has pretensions to bringing about the collapse of the Kingdom of Jordan and to becoming the next leader of Jordan, replacing King Abdullah II. Hypothetically, immediately after he does so, he says he would make peace with Israel. His writings and ideas have sparked the imaginations of some columnists on the Israeli right: he was interviewed in Israel Hayom, took part in a conference at Ariel University, and had a column written about him in Ma'ariv.

He was recently featured as a commentator on the i24 News television channel broadcast from Jaffa in English and Arabic. He is presented everywhere as the leader of the Jordanian opposition.

Slowly but surely, with his media coverage broadening to English-languages publications, Zahran has consolidated his status.

Within the past six months he has even obtained a meeting with a Likud minister, to whom he expounded his ideas. Eureka, they thought on the right: there's hope and there's an opposition in Jordan with an aspiration on par with organizations in exile to turn the Kingdom of Jordan into a secular, modern Palestine. As the Jewish sages said, when someone tells you that he sought diligently and he found, believe him.

A surprising twist in the plot has, however, taken place in the past few weeks. Zahran developed a strange obsession with Israeli-Arab journalist Khaled Abu-Toameh, formerly the Jerusalem Post Arab affairs reporter. Zahran wrote articles attacking Abu-Toameh and smearing his reputation with all kinds of tales. Since Abu-Toameh is well known to many reporters and respected by columnists on both left and right, his circle of acquaintances, especially on the right, started to stick pins in the "leader of the Jordanian opposition" balloon. It was no more than a mirage.

The first was Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, a promoter of the Jordanian option, and a personal and professional acquaintance of Abu-Toameh for fifteen years. In a long Facebook post she told how she wanted to believe Zahran, to believe that there was an opposition to the king, that there was a chance of establishing a Palestinian state in Jordan.

Glick commented how she had been led up the garden path: "I also cited Zahran and described his vision of Jordan as Palestine," Glick wrote. "I recommended that President Trump and/or Prime Minister Netanyahu meet with Zahran if Abdullah continues to protect Tamimi from extradition. After I wrote the column, I was contacted by three knowledgeable sources with whom I have longstanding relations.

"They did not coordinate their calls. Each one told me independently that Zahran is not a credible source. He is not a leader of an opposition movement. He doesn't have an organization. He has multiple websites, they said… I was disappointed because, as I wrote in my second column, I think the best way to compel Abdullah to behave responsibly, as behooves an ally in the war against jihadist terror, is to make clear to him that he isn’t the only option.

"My colleagues effectively told me that despite the fact that we could use an alternative to Abdullah, none exist today, at least none that are better than he."

Glick has been joined by other right-wing journalists: commentator and columnist Ruthie Blum, Dr Harold Rhode, and Varda Meyers Epstein on her blog "Elder of Zyon" [sic sic], considered a leading right-wing publication.

Varda certainly brought this issue to the forefront with her last two blog posts here.

Yesterday I was roped into a bizarre email thread between Zahran and his supporters and Toameh's supporters. Zahran is accusing Toameh having received an expensive car as a gift from an ex-intelligence chief in Jordan. You can see Zahran's other accusations against Toameh, filtered through his allies, here.

Toameh was also accused of secretly being anti-Israel in an Arabic-language interview. I read the interview and saw nothing of the sort. It showed that he is not a right-wing Zionist, which I don't think any intelligent person expects him to be.

Most of the email thread deteriorated into accusations and counter-accusations regarding minutiae of who accused which other right-wing Zionist of doing what first.

But Zahran did not come off looking good in this email exchange. After spraying his messages to some 20 people, he then threatened those who stood against him with legal action for sending unwanted emails to him. One scholar who asked politely, twice, to be taken off the thread was directly threatened with legal action by Zahran when he said he supported Toameh - without saying anything bad about Zahran. Even Zahran's main ally told him to cool it.

In the end, Toameh's work speaks for itself. He has legitimate questions about the conference and the idea of "Jordan is Palestine" that he has mentioned for years. That seems to be Zahran's main issue with him. But Toameh is an excellent journalist and Zahran's effort to smear him makes only Zahran look bad.

On the other hand, we cannot say that Zahran's work speaks for itself. I have yet to see any evidence that ANY Jordanian supports him. He sometimes gets written up in Jordanian media, often based on Hebrew articles, but that proves Jordan's paranoia more than Zahran's political influence in the kingdom.

It does appear that Zahran is using passionate right-wing Zionists to build up his reputation and his power, such as it is, but in reality the idea that he is a credible challenger to King Abdullah is laughable. A leader needs followers, and Zahran apparently has fewer Arab followers than he has thumbs, from what I can tell. (Apologies if he has six anonymous Arab fans.) (UPDATE: Yes, six seems to be the number: )

I have nothing against the conference, however. All options should be discussed, even if they are (as I've said before) non-starters. I like the idea of putting pressure on Jordan to take more responsibility for their Palestinian population.

This whole episode is silly, and in danger of getting ugly. Whatever we do, it must be based on reality and facts. An Arab accusing another Arab of not being Zionist enough is, frankly, ridiculous, as are the accusations from both sides on whether a supporter is a sock-puppet or on someone's payroll. Stick with the facts and the record.

I would be thrilled if a Zionist Jordanian could become the leader of the kingdom. But - I happen to inhabit the real world.

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Islamic Jihad leader on FBI Most Wanted Terrorist list - Fatah members support him

The FBI has placed Ramadan Shallah, head of Islamic Jihad, on its Most Wanted list:

Naturally, the "moderate" Fatah movement headed by Mahmoud Abbas is on the side of the terrorist, not the US.

Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, gave full throated support to the terrorist leader, saying "Dr. Shallah is a fighter for freedom and liberation of his country."

Zaki said, "Allah forbid that Dr. Ramadan Abdullah Shallah be considered a terrorist. He is a fighter for freedom, and these actors (the FBI) is working against human freedoms and national sovereignties."

Zaki said that the FBI were mere slaves of the Zionists.

He also expressed concern over the possible increased danger to Ramadan's life.

He expressed no concern over the lives of hundreds of Israelis killed by Islamic Jihad under Shallah's leadership.

(h/t Breitbart)

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Getting "Chai" at Havdalah

From Leafly:

On a warm Saturday night in July, a group of people gathered together in Los Angeles for Havdalah—a Jewish ceremony marking the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the new week. As part of the Havdalah tradition, a small silver container filled with sweet herbs was presented for smelling, only this time the usual mix of aromatic spices featured a new and pungent guest: cannabis.

Chai Havdalah is the brainchild of self-described gay Jewish stoner Catherine Goldberg, who spent 10 years envisioning a celebration blending Jewish culture and cannabis. (‘Chai’ is the Hebrew word for life—it’s pronounced ‘high’ with hard “ch” sound.)

Goldberg set her sights on bringing Chai Havdalah to legal cities around the country, and as word has spread attendance has grown. Her first event in LA welcomed over 50 guests, while her most recent event in Denver pulled in more than 100 attendees. Guests range in age from 21 to 80 years old, and represent many branches of Judaism spanning from Reform to Orthodox. Goldberg credits the authenticity of the events as the reason why attendance is increasing. “It’s the most authentic thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she says.

What exactly does a “High Havdalah” look like? The cannabis at the event is donated by producers and growers, so guests only pay for snacks, atmosphere, and music. Beyond options for smoking, the event also offers plenty of cannabis-infused food, such as cannabis challah baked by a professional bread maker.

“It was the most delicious challah I’ve ever had—period,” says Goldberg. “For every event we have in different cities, we can feature different chefs and bread makers.” She keep the THC levels low at her events to avoid anyone having a bad experience: “All the desserts were CBD infused, except for one, where the THC was 2.5 mg. I do this because I like cookies, so I want to be able to eat seven cookies without worrying if I’m going to get too high or not feel good,” she explains. “I’ve had a lot of people ask to sponsor the Chai Havdalah events, and their products might be perfect for very young stoners that want to get super high, but we have 80-year-old women coming so we really have to focus on CBD products, 1:1 ratios, sativas … That’s been a mindful part of planning these parties.”

For the record, I don't understand that paragraph as all.

Goldberg had help on the Chai Havdalah project from Shifra Zipp Klein. Klein, who is Orthodox herself, is also the owner of Mitzva Herbal, a medicinal kosher cannabis company. Her journey began two years ago when researching alternative treatments for her 12-year-old son, who was non-verbal and heavily medicated due to severe autism. She heard about cannabis as a potential treatment and despite discouragement from her doctors, decided to give it a chance. The results were immediate and the progress, amazing. “To have a child at 12 years old that doesn’t speak, saying ‘Mommy,’ … it changes everything,” Klein explains.

Soon, Klein realized she had other friends who could benefit from cannabis, such as a man receiving chemo and experiencing severe nausea. More and more people began to reach out to Klein for advice and help, so she was inspired to create her first infused chocolates.

Klein tells the story of a rabbi who was at first highly skeptical of cannabis—until late one night, she received a call from him. “He said, ‘I need relief now.’ He had just had a procedure, [and] he was desperate.” Klein told the rabbi that he needed a prescription first, and the next day helped him get a recommendation. Her actions struck a cord, and the rabbi called her again later to express his deep respect for her and for medicinal cannabis. This sort of education and shifting perspective is part of Klein’s day to day work.

“A big part of our mission is education and being sensitive to people’s culture,” she says. “They just don’t understand, [and] we want to turn that around by being positive, keeping doing what we’re doing, and evolving that way.” Today, many in her community have come around to the idea as they’ve discovered the benefits of medicinal cannabis for themselves. “I think we’re taken a lot more seriously now, when people really see the need for it,” says Klein.

Goldberg, for one, contends that the Jewish community needn’t feel limited to using cannabis for only terminal or very severe medical conditions. “Life is really stressful,” she says. “If there’s a natural plant that Hashem grew, that helps with anxiety and quality of life, that is medicinal.”

I suppose the plants would make perfectly good schach (roofing material) for Sukkot.

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Some 2014 Pallywood scenes of Al Quds University sports practice

I have finished reading The Anti-Israel Agenda, Inside the Political War on the Jewish State, edited by Alex Ryvchin

A book review is forthcoming, but I wanted to look up something that Seth Frantzman, op-ed editor at the Jerusalem Post, wrote in his chapter on media bias.

An essay by James Estrin in the Times in 2014 claimed to show a Palestinian girl throwing a javelin at Al Quds University with the Israeli security barrier in the background. This writer happens to teach at Al Quds University and in four years there has never seen javelin practice conducted in the area in which the photo was taken. The photographer created a perfect political backdrop to suggest that Palestinians cannot practice javelin except under the shadow of an Israeli wall.

Here is the article and the photo:

The story doesn't end there.

The New York Times article was written in January 2014. By March, Getty Images decided that the same wall was a perfect backdrop not only for its own staged scenes of javelin throwing, but also for shot-put and running.

Does anyone actually think that they practice running on a field with rocks and weeds that could injure them?

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10/08 Links: Fatah glorifies murderer of 3 Israelis; Gal Gadot Speaks to Her Israeli Roots in ‘SNL' Monologue

From Ian:

An insane society

Violent husband Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal, who murdered three people in Har Adar two weeks ago, was the latest in a long line of depressive, mentally ill, or "whacked out" Palestinian terrorists for whom the killing of Jews blotted out the label "crazy" that Palestinian society had previously stuck on them.

By killing, Jamal, like dozens of other troubled murderers, resituated himself in his society as normative, and even bought himself a ticket into the Palestinian hall of fame as a shahid [martyr] for the price of the three people he killed two weeks ago.

The more mentally ill Palestinians carry out lethal terrorist attacks, the more people get used to categorizing their bloodfests as a separate genre of attack, which presents a problem. Even more than this approach goes easy on the attackers from the "new" group, it goes easy on Palestinian society, which embraces them.

A healthy, sane society keeps the deranged at a distance and cares for the troubled. But in Palestinian society, murdering Jews gives even the mentally ill and those in the midst of various emotional crises a place of honor in its ethno-religious pantheon.

In Palestinian society, the murder of Jews allows even the most delusional and problematic marginalized characters under the perverted canopy of the institution of martyrdom.

PMW: Fatah glorifies murderer of 3 Israelis

Since a Palestinian terrorist murdered 3 Israelis last month, Fatah, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, has repeatedly emphasized his status as hero. Palestinian Media Watch reported that only a few hours after the murders, Fatah celebrated the morning scented with the fragrance of the Martyrs.

Subsequently, Fatah has issued and distributed a poster glorifying murderer Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal who shot and murdered an Israeli border police officer and two security guards and wounded another Israeli at the entrance to Har Adar, northwest of Jerusalem, on Sept. 26, 2017.

In a PA TV News broadcast, the murderer's children and others were seen holding the Fatah issued poster which displays a large picture of terrorist murderer Nimr Al-Jamal, together with pictures Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat, with the text:

"With all honor and pride, The Fatah Movement, Jerusalem district, Beit Surik branch, mourns the death of its heroic Martyr Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal." [Official PA TV News, Sept. 29, 2017]

The poster also featured the Fatah logo that includes a grenade, crossed rifles, and the PA map of "Palestine" that presents all of Israel as "Palestine" together with the PA areas.

David Collier: In Edinburgh they are still promoting SPSC antisemitism

This highlights the difficulty of the fight we are in. Whilst we are mainly passive, these ‘haters’ are aggressive. Single actors in a variety of settings become ‘enablers’. In unions, on councils, in schools. Intersectionality drives their strategy and in every setting where just one single member of the group has been tainted, the poison is spreading.

In this example someone who shared hard-core antisemitic material was a speaker at an event held by a group known for hard-core antisemitism. Yet such poison is still allowed to spread inside a school setting, just two months after the groups antisemitism had been laid bare.

This isn’t an exception. In February, my report into antisemitism inside the England & Wales PSC threw light onto the activities of Tapash Abu Shaim. A PSC activist who had helped run the PSC stall at the 2016 Labour Party Conference. Despite this receiving national coverage, despite complaints to the Labour party. Nothing changed. As I reported from the 2017 conference last week, Tapash was there, back at the PSC stall. Once again my own research is being shared, but if people are looking to groups like the PSC or SPSC, or even Political parties like Labour, to ‘self cleanse’, they misunderstand the depth of the problem.

On every council, in almost every school, in every community centre. Wider society is not dealing with toxic groups the way that it should because of individual sympathisers who have become activists. It takes just one member of the group to have ‘fallen into the trap’ of believing that antisemitism cannot exist where a humanitarian flag is waved. Where that happens, hard-core antisemitism is promoted and allowed to spread. When left unchallenged this turns each environment into a hostile environment that sees Jews as the problem. Because of this, society is not dealing with Jew hate in the same way it does other forms of racism. We have a real fight on our hands. We cannot stop, we cannot relax. Not for a second.

Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland

Reem Assil has placed a giant floor-to-ceiling mural of recently deported genocidal Jew murderer Rasmea Odeh in her bakery/cafe next to the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California.

For Jewish people, it might as well be a giant Nazi Swastika.

As one of those who objected to this public veneration of an ideological killer of Jews near the entrance to a major San Francisco Bay Area transportation hub, her lawyers are dragging me into court for the purpose of obtaining a restraining order... for which they have already been twice denied by the courts.

Not that I ever came anywhere near the woman, but that is not the point... this is a matter of "lawfare."

The point is to silence pro-Jewish / pro-Israel voices in favor of antisemitic anti-Zionism.

Assil is intentionally giving the small Jewish community in Oakland a little taste of 1930s Berlin wherein promoting violent hatred towards Jews was not the least bit uncommon.

Her case against me is that I stood with a few other people who objected to this transgression on the dignity and safety of the Jewish people and I wrote about it in a piece entitled Reemed in Oakland that was published in various small pro-Jewish / pro-Israel outlets such as the Elder of Ziyon, Jews Down Under, and The Jewish Press.

This is a scurrilous court case and if the law has merit Assil and her attorneys are going to lose.

Most people who follow American progressivism are familiar with the ethnic chameleon Linda Sarsour who claims to have magically transformed herself into a woman "of color" when she put on the hijab. Fewer know about her recently deported spiritual sister, the genocidal Arab-Supremacist / faux-feminist Rasmea Odeh.

Odeh and her partners in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) murdered two innocent college students in 1969.

She and her friends - including Aisha Odeh who named Rasmea as a co-conspirator - killed those kids and injured nine others at a grocery store in Jerusalem.

I was one of the people at the vigils on July 8 and July 22 - in memory of Leon Kanner and Edward Joffee - both of whom were college students in their early twenties when Odeh thought it would be a terrific idea to blow their bones all over a grocery store for the crime of being regular Israeli Jews.

But the elevation of Rasmea Odeh from Jew killer to a hero of American feminism is going to make a fascinating story for some writer/researcher.

In the meantime, what I argue is that the case of Reem Assil's racist presence in Oakland represents an example of the deliberalization of the Western progressive-left.

That's the broader point.

The Left Has Embraced Racism and Deliberalization

Bigotry against any people including those heinous "white" people is anti-liberal.

In the United States for political-historical reasons, we tend to confuse liberalism with the Left but unfortunately what we are seeing today is the American progressive-left shedding its liberalism.

The primary method through which the Western-left embraces anti-liberal values is through the encouragement of racial agitation and the violent stomping on freedom of speech as we see in Berkeley and throughout universities within the United States.

While a discussion of the history of liberalism - from Magna Carta to the Constitution of the United States to the appearance of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the American political landscape - is well beyond the scope of this article, it must be understood that anti-racism is foremost among liberal values as they emerged out of World War II.

When I was growing up in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the American-Left primarily embraced liberalism. It stood up against racism and it championed freedom of speech as we saw in Berkeley in the early 1960s with Mario Savio.

Before I was born UC Berkeley was the heart of the Free Speech Movement in the United States.

Now UC Berkeley is the heart of the anti-Free Speech Movement in the United States.

Reem Assil's bakery and coffee shop directly at the access to the Fruitvale Bart Station in Oakland - a major transportation hub in the San Francisco Bay Area - represents an excellent example of what more and more liberals are referring to as the "regressive left."

The idea, of course, is that the Left is decreasingly liberal and increasingly authoritarian and regressive.

What Dave Rubin, formerly of the Young Turks, and others call the "regressive-left" embraces three kinds of racism.

These are anti-white racism, antisemitic anti-Zionism, and what Manfred Gerstenfeld dubbed "Humanitarian Racism."

This last is the contemporary version of nineteenth-century American imperialist notions of "white man's burden."

Reem Assil, as a neighbor is - much to my disgust - selling all three along with her flatbread.

Through promoting Rasmea Odeh at the Fruitvale BART Station - the very place where Oscar Grant was shot dead by an Oakland cop on New Year's Eve 2009 - Assil is using the concept of "intersectionality" to suggest that the Jewish minority in the Middle East, along with their supporters throughout the diaspora and in the United States, are responsible for the alleged oppression of the Palestinian-Arabs.

The fundamental idea is that just as "white" people are evil toward "people of color" throughout the world, so Jews are rotten to Arabs in Israel.

It is all alleged to be part of the same insidious racist, imperialist, colonialist, apartheid, mindset.

As someone who has been publicly outspoken in the movement against Jewish freedom and self-defense for many years, Assil joins people like Linda Sarsour and Rasmea Odeh in opposing Jewish self-determination.

By supporting Linda Sarsour and Rasmea Odeh and, now, small-time local racist Reem Assil, the Left has betrayed its own values.

And that is what is most disappointing of all.

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Essam Youssef, who is the head of a "human rights" NGO in Gaza, has declared that the kids playing soccer on the most sacred Jewish site is a "human right."

Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that soccer and other games on the Temple Mount are forbidden for desecrating the site's holiness, and the Jerusalem police are enforcing that ban, selectively, when pressured.

Youssef, who styles himself as a human rights activist, called the Supreme Court decision "ridiculous," adding how ironic it was that Israel allowed Jews to "break into the sanctities of others and desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque continuously" while pretending to care about the holiness of the site by banning soccer.

Youssef heads a previously unheard-of NGO, the "Integrity Foundation for Humanitarian and Human Rights (Hayat Haq)". Before that he headed a similarly sketchy organization called the International Public Foundation to Aid Gaza which seems to have done nothing to actually help anyone in Gaza.

Essam Youssef is not the first Palestinian to try to grab headlines by characterizing himself as a human rights leader when in fact he is using a fake interest in human rights as a way to enrich himself. NGOs are a big business in the territories.

But his statement was published widely in Palestinian media, including Ma'an, Felesteen and others.

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