Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 11, 2018

01/11 Links Pt2: UN Watch Leader Faces a World of Challenges While Defending Israel; The Future Does Not Belong to Those Who Slander Israel

From Ian:

UN Watch Leader Faces a World of Challenges While Defending Israel

Hillel Neuer considers it a badge of honor that he is a “feared and dreaded” figure at the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), as the European newspaper Tribune de Genève once described him.

“There are people who cross the street in Geneva to avoid me,” Neuer said. As executive director of UN Watch, a nonprofit that monitors United Nations activities, Neuer is both watchdog and whistleblower, holding world powers to account when it comes to their human rights records. A lawyer, activist and humanitarian, Neuer spoke with the Journal from Geneva, where he lives and works.

Jewish Journal: As head of UN Watch, you define yourself as “the voice of conscience at the United Nations.” What’s it like to be the guy defending democratic ideals in a room full of non-democratic countries?

Hillel Neuer: It often feels surreal. You ask yourself how bizarre is it that you need to state basic truths in an arena that is often Orwellian, where the worst criminals are often the prosecutors and the judges.

JJ: The U.N. Human Rights Council notoriously singles out Israel for violations even as far worse offenders go unchallenged. Where is this discrimination most evident?

HN: During a given meeting, you’ll have resolutions — maybe one on Iran, one on Myanmar, one on North Korea and then five on Israel. And it’s not just the numbers: When there is a resolution criticizing a country, the practice at the U.N. is to recognize and acknowledge various positive things [a country has done], whether they are justified or not. But when it comes to Israel, even though Israel has done many positive things, none of this ever appears in the resolutions. This is part of an attempt to portray Israel as so evil, nothing good can be said of it.

The Future Does Not Belong to Those Who Slander Israel

Somebody needs to give Wafsi Kailani a copy of the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel. Kailani, who has served as manager of Jerusalem Affairs for the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan since 2008, violated a major component of this treaty by falsely declaring that a Jew set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on August 21, 1969.

Kailani leveled the false accusation — clearly intended to defame the Jewish state — at a conference about the Temple Mount that took place at Harvard Law School late last year. The conference, organized by professor Noah Feldman, was titled “Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif: Conflict, Culture, Law,” and was held from November 28-29, 2017.

During his November 29 keynote address, Kailani described Denis Rohan, the man who set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a “Jewish extremist.” In fact, Rohan was an Australian Christian, who — after his arrest — told doctors that he set the fire under instructions from God. Rohan was declared mentally insane, and was eventually sent home to Australia, where he spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital. He died there in 1995.

A subsequent inquiry declared that one of the factors that led to the fire was the poor security measures imposed by the Islamic Waqf, which was in charge of the site. “It was additionally made apparent that a mosque worker saw the Australian in the mosque, however did not approach him, even though tourists are banned from entering the mosque in the early morning hours,” Ynet News reported in 2015.

Daniel Gordis: Israel-bashing by analogy

Peter Beinart, who wrote a compelling mea culpa in The Atlantic a few weeks ago, in which he acknowledged that he had “made a series of moral compromises in order to stay at The New Republic,” now wishes to apply the lessons learned to Israeli oppression. “As I watch the extraordinary reckoning between women and men,” he wrote in The Forward more recently, “I sometimes wonder: Will there ever be such a reckoning between Palestinians and Jews?”

Beinart’s argument is not new. Just as many men (including himself, he honorably admits) looked the other way when confronted with sexual harassment in the workplace, so, too, American Jewish support for Israel fosters “a relationship of oppression and deliberate ignorance. American Jews help sustain America’s near-automatic support for the Israeli government. And that support makes possible Israel’s denial of basic rights... to millions of Palestinians.”

Beinart and I have been disagreeing – and debating – about Israel’s foreign policy, American Jewish attitudes to Israel and more for years. We are not likely to agree anytime in the near future. But something about this new analogy strikes me as particularly pernicious, deeply unfair to both Israel and women.

Beinart’s assertion that the #MeToo paradigm ought to be applied to Israel and the Palestinians is deeply unfair to Israel; it suggests that the relationship of Israel and the Palestinians is as cut and dry as the Weinstein or Lauer cases. But that, of course, is absurd. Whatever one wants to say about Israel’s conduct of the occupation, the Palestinians do not yet have a state largely because of decisions that they have made. It was Palestinian terrorism that killed the Oslo Accords. Yasser Arafat’s response to Ehud Barak’s offer at Camp David was the Second Intifada. The Palestinians’ response to Ehud Olmert’s offer was to ignore it. But mentioning that, Beinart says, is an “absurd rationalization.”

But what is truly absurd is analogizing Israel to the moral reprehensibility of men abusing their power, when there are often no “two sides” to the story. In the most egregious cases, such as rape (we’ll ignore the controversy about explicit consent now sweeping across American campuses), blame must never be shared. Rape is a vicious violation of the very worst order. It is black and white; there are no grays, and we must never pretend there are. Does Beinart really think that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is equally clear, and that the Israelis are the rapists? Why must every moral conversation in society end up dumped at the door of Israel’s “sins”?

From Ammon News:

Fifty members of the Jordanian Parliament signed a petition yesterday urging the government to summon the Jordanian Ambassador to Israel, Walid Obeidat, in protest against the “unilateral and racist practices” of the occupation authorities.

In the petition, which was introduced by MP Mustafa Yaghi, the members of the Jordanian parliament demanded the action be taken as a response to the Israeli Knesset’s ratification of a law that would subject Jerusalem to Israeli sovereignty, which would pave the way for expelling Palestinian people from Jerusalem.

I guess in theory it paves the way for expelling Jews from Jerusalem as well, but that is equally unlikely.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Every time there is a horrific terrorist murder of a Jew because he or she is a Jew, I am compelled to write one of what I am calling my “outrage posts.”

I’m outraged that this can continue, over and over. Every time, I write that we need a death penalty, or that we should fire a cruise missile at the center of the town that the murderers came from and then build a Jewish town on the ruins. Every time, I write that the perpetrators will almost certainly be caught, but the chances are good that they will survive their arrest and get more-than-humane treatment in an Israeli prison, and their families will receive a monthly stipend from the Palestinian Authority paid for by the US, the EU and even Israel. And every time, I am reminded of the Shalit deal, where a kidnapped soldier was traded for more than a thousand terrorists, including mass murderers.

Yesterday it was Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a 35-year old father of six children, mohel and volunteer medic, murdered in a drive-by shooting on Route 60 near Shechem, in Samaria. Because he was a Jew.

Rabbi Raziel Shevach, Hy”d, with his family

You can’t look at this picture without wanting to cry. Unless, of course, you are a member of Hamas, which announced that they “bless the heroic Nablus operation,” the murder of Rabbi Shevach; or if you belong to Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, which praised the “skilled and experienced” terrorist who carried out the “operation” and escaped.

This will undoubtedly contribute to the death penalty debate which is currently taking place in the Knesset. I have always favored a death penalty for terrorist murderers, but now I’m not so sure. After all, if such a law passes it will surely include all kinds of safeguards and chances to appeal to the Supreme Court, and who knows what else. It will certainly take time before all the options are exhausted. This is Israel, after all, which aspires to be Berkeley, California, and you know how long it takes (forever) to get a murderer executed in California.

A death sentence that could be executed within a few weeks after the crime would be great. For that matter, so would a real life sentence without possibility of early release. But neither of these are likely.

Most of the time the security forces succeed in finding the terrorists responsible for crimes like this. And despite the fact that there are some terrorists who do want martyrdom, most of them don’t. So they give themselves up to the PA, which hands them over to Israel. Or they manage to surrender to our forces peacefully. And then they get the country-club prison, the conjugal visits, the Open University correspondence courses, the salary from the PA and perhaps an early release. I urge these terrorists to show that they are real men. Don’t go quietly! When the army or YAMAM comes to get you, point your guns at them. They’ll give you a sporting chance, which is more than you gave Rabbi Shevach.

I’ll support the death penalty law. While it probably won’t make much difference, it will make a statement. More important would be a decision by the IDF and police brass that security forces should shoot to kill, not to “neutralize,” and definitely not take terrorists alive. I’ve explained my reasons before, but the most important reason is that in the Middle East upholding your honor is an important part of deterrence; and a people that lets its members be killed without responding in kind loses its honor.

The lesson that these incidents teach me, over and over, is that there is no possibility of sharing our country with the Palestinian Arabs. They have never accepted the idea of Jewish sovereignty and never will. They will always believe that we stole the land and their honor and will always want to get them back, and violence will always be the preferred means. Incitement to murder in their official media, social media and mosques only increases from day to day.

It is the most elemental kind of conflict between human tribes, from long before the dawn of civilization. Two tribes want the same piece of land. Only one side can win. But today modern techniques of incitement and propaganda have made it possible for the tribes to be much larger and the conflict more permanent. It can’t be snuffed out or redirected. And geography doesn’t permit a compromise. One side or the other will have to win.

I wanted to believe, and indeed I did believe for many years, that compromise was possible. A deal could be worked out. Two states for two peoples. But one by one or ten or twenty at a time, Jews were murdered: rabbis, beautiful young girls, old men, soldiers, a bride having lunch with her father on the eve of her wedding, Jews shopping in stores, Jews walking on the sidewalk, riding in cars and buses, praying in synagogues, eating pizza, celebrating holidays, having Shabbat dinner with their families, waiting in line to go into a club, waiting for a bus or a ride, doing anything at all in eretz yisrael.

Rabbi Shevach is the latest, but he won’t be the last.

There have been too many. For me, the debate is over. It doesn’t matter whose narrative is closer to the truth (ours is, but it doesn’t matter). It doesn’t matter how much we Jews really, really want peace. It isn’t up to us.

What matters is that we are engaged in a war that has been waged against us since long before the founding of our state, whose objective has always been to prevent Jewish sovereignty anywhere in our homeland. Our enemies are not confused: they want total victory, and they understand what that means in a practical sense. We need similar clarity, because for the Jewish people, this is an existential war.

We can win it or we can disappear.

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01/11 Links Pt1: An Overlooked Legacy of Arab Rejectionism; PLO moves to withdraw recognition of, cut ties to Israel; The U.S. Must Show Iranians That They Can’t Have It All

From Ian:

CAMERA Op-Ed: An Overlooked Legacy of Arab Rejectionism

It is deceptively easy to reduce the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict to a series of dates. The 50thanniversary of the June 1967 Six-Day War and the recent centennialof the Balfour Declaration occasioned considerable—if often flawed—media coverage and discussion by policymakers. Yet another—often-underreported—anniversary is perhaps more telling and highlights a long-running theme that was on full display after President Trump's Dec. 6, 2017 speech recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital: Arab rejection of any Jewish state in the Jewish people's ancestral homeland.

Nov. 29, 2017 marked the 70thanniversary of Arab states rejecting U.N. Resolution 181. The non-binding recommendation advised the partition of Mandate Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. The Zionist leadership in Mandate Palestine accepted the resolution. Arab nations, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, denounced it and promised bloodshed if it were passed.

Threatening to shed Jewish blood a mere two years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust was hardly a winning strategy and Resolution 181passed, with support from the United States, the Soviet Union, and others.

Yet, by promising to defy the implementation of the partition plan by force, the Arab leaders voided its very terms, which noted that any “attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution” a “threat to the peace.” This hardly dissuaded the Arab states from unsuccessfully seeking to destroy the fledgling Jewish state in Israel's 1948 War of Independence. In this conflict—and those that preceded it—a man named Amin al-Husseini assisted them.

Although Western press outlets seldom mention him today, al-Husseini should be considered one of the seminal figures of the 20thcentury.Revered as a founding “pioneer” by current-Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, al-Husseini loomed over Middle Eastern politics for decades, reshaping much of it in his image.

Brit woman attacked by Palestinian terrorists demands probe as UK aid ‘used on prisoners'

International development committee chairman Stephen Twigg has confirmed that he intends to raise the proposal with MPs after he receiving a letter from a British woman who was butchered and left for dead by Palestinian terrorists.

Kay Wilson sent the letter, supported by 130 campaigners, after she discovered that the Palestinian Authority is using British taxpayers’ money to pay her attackers in prison who also killed her American friend Kristine Luken.

The two murderers have received £9,000 each according to reports.

The row highlights how British aid money is being wasted on corrupt regimes supporting the Daily Express campaign to end the £13 billion international development budget and spend it on British priorities including the NHS.

More than 70,000 people have signed an Express petition

Mr Twigg told the Express: “I received Kay Wilson's letter and I take its contents very seriously.”

He said not give a response on behalf of the committee until it had been discussed.

However, he went on: “As a committee we generally undertake two major inquiries at a time.

“However we do have other opportunities to raise issues with Department for International Development (Dfid) ministers and I will discuss with other committee members how best to do so in this case.”

In her letter, supported by 130 campaigners, Ms Wilson accuses the Dfid committee of ignoring the issue and ministers of misleading parliament about payments.

She described how she and her friend were held for 30 minutes at knifepoint then gagged and bound before being butchered with machetes.

IsraellyCool: WATCH: Netanyahu (Politely) Roasts Foreign Press

Israel’s Government Press Office held its regular reception for foreign correspondents in Israel. As we know, there are way more foreign correspondents in Israel than almost anywhere else in the world (especially considering how small this country is).

The quiet fireworks are in the first 6 minutes of Bibi Netanyahu speaking:

Off the top he highlights US Ambassador Friedman for his exceptionally strong tweet following Saturday’s heinous murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a 35-year-old father of six, rabbi & Magen David Adom medic. Here’s Friedman’s tweet:

Statements from the official representative of the US Government and State Department don’t come more unequivocal than this. No calls for restraint, no “both sides”, just condemnation of evil terrorists and the people who support and send them. I didn’t notice particularly abundant coverage of just how different that tweet is from ambassadors of previous Administrations.

Immediately after this (at 2 mins) he lists three stories he directly challenges the foreign media for under covering or even ignoring. He asks for a show of hands for who covered each point. He gets a few on point 1, precisely none on point 2 and I suspect they were all nervously looking at their shoes on point 3.

1. Payments by Abbas’s Palestinian Authority direct to terrorists and their famlies.
2. Massive extra investment in Arab citizens of Israel for education, health and opportunities.
3. Did the journalists’ outlets call the Iranian Rouhani government “moderate” even as it is shooting peaceful protestors in the streets and dumping them in torture prisons?

Evelyn Gordon: The U.S. Must Show Iranians That They Can’t Have It All

Iran’s decision to spend most of its sanctions relief on guns rather than butter meant ordinary Iranians saw little improvement in their own situation. Until recently, however, the regime could mollify public anxieties by stalling for time. The money is going to keep pouring in, they’d note, and soon there will be enough for everyone.

But President Trump’s decertification of the nuclear deal in October upended this calculus. European companies became more reluctant to do business with Iran, fearing loss of access to the much more important American market. And new American sanctions on Iran became a real possibility.

Consequently, the continued influx of money was no longer guaranteed. The billions Suleimani spent on his military adventures weren’t necessarily going to be replaced by a flood of European investment, and surging economic growth might once again be crimped by new sanctions. Ordinary Iranians were suddenly back in the pre-nuclear deal world, where the regime’s bad behavior had real economic costs.

In this sense, the media debate over whether the protests were “economic” or “political” was ludicrous. They were both because the protesters understood that their economic woes stemmed from their government’s political choices. That’s why they chanted slogans like “Forget about Palestine, forget about Gaza, think about us” and “Leave Syria alone, think about us instead.”

They also understood that those political choices were a product of the regime’s very nature, which is why they chanted slogans like “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to the Islamic Republic.” The nuclear deal was the Islamic Republic’s best shot at reconciling its desire to export Shi’ite revolution with its need to satisfy its people’s desire for a decent quality of life. If that doesn’t work, the regime clearly doesn’t have any solution to this dilemma and never will.

But if protests are ever to grow to the point that they actually threaten the regime, many more Iranians–especially the middle-class Tehranis who sat this round out–must come to understand this. And easing economic pressure on Iran would send the exact opposite message: that the world actually will let the Islamic Republic have its cake and eat it, too.

A Palestinian Christian tries to convince American Christian evangelists to oppose Israel

The Christian Post published two articles by Rev. Dr. Jack Y. Sara, a Jerusalem-born Christian leader, on why Americans should not support Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The arguments reveal more than perhaps Rev. Sara wanted.

Because reports indicate that it was primarily American evangelicals who encouraged President Trump to make this declaration, the term "evangelical" has become increasingly despised in our region. When our people hear American evangelicals speak, they assume that all evangelicals (or maybe even all Christians) believe the same things. This makes it easy for them to dismiss Christianity and its message.

...For many years, we Arab evangelicals have been "guilty by association." We've been criticized or stigmatized with the label of Zionist. Sadly, it is because of our evangelical brethren overseas that we have had to work twice as hard to maintain our witness here—and there are many who have no interest in hearing us at all.

Rev. Sara is saying that if his fellow evangelists we want to convert Muslims to Christianity - which is their main concern - then they cannot be seen as being pro-Israel, or else their job is twice as hard!

This is not a new concern for right wing Christians. Many were opposed to any part of Jerusalem being under Jewish control in 1948 for similar reasons - that Jewish control of the city would make it more difficult for them to convert Muslims.

But the underlying theme, whether Sara admits it or not, is that without antisemitism, the Arabs won't listen to the message of Christ.

My next point is that Mr. Trump's declaration is not in line with the Biblical teaching of justice and thus, it undermines the peace process. "Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favor to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly" (Leviticus 19:15). Leaders should issue words of reconciliation and make every effort to be true and impartial mediators. They should not be instruments for division and the escalation of violence.

There is nothing wrong with justice, but there is something very wrong with the assumption that "justice" means a Jerusalem that is divided, a Jerusalem where Jews cannot freely worship, and a Jerusalem where Christians will be persecuted by the Muslim population as they are in the rest of the Middle East.

Sara reluctantly admits:

I would be remiss if I did not mention that many Christians throughout the Middle East and North Africa suffer because of their faith. It is also true that when some of the regimes in the Middle East are compared to the state of Israel, Christians here are flourishing in comparison. But why should those religiously oppressive regimes be the standard of comparison for Israel? Should we praise what is bad just because it could be worse somewhere else?

Of course, Sara will not say specifically how Palestinian Muslims have driven out tens of thousands of Christians. And even worse, he says:

When atrocities are committed against Christians or anyone else—in any context—we should be prophetic voices within the nations that we live.

He is saying that Israel commits "atrocities" against Christians. This is slander. And in the context of ignoring Palestinian crimes against Christians, he reveals that he is not interested in "justice" at all.

I pray that my evangelical brethren will engage in more reconciliation efforts in the Middle East instead of indirectly inciting violence through their statements. I pray that instead of pouring millions of dollars into activities that are secondary, they would join us by investing in true kingdom work throughout this region. I believe if these millions were spent in efforts to bring the people to Jesus, we would have already seen revival here.

Does Sara really think that in the State of Palestine, his efforts to convert Muslims would be tolerated any more than they are in any Muslim country?

In his follow up article, Rev. Sara rehashes old lies:

In neighborhoods like Shu'afat, the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem—many of them people who lost their homes in 1948 and 1967—are not allowed Israeli citizenship and live in walled-off, slummy neighborhoods that receive very little municipal support for things like pavement, schools, electricity and other amenities— though they pay the same municipal taxes as everyone else in Jerusalem.

They are allowed to apply for Israeli citizenship as Jerusalem residents. Most don't. And the reason they don't get their share of municipal services is because they refuse to allow any Israeli officials to go there to help them - ambulances and garbage trucks get stoned on arrival.

Of the negative responses that I received on my article, sadly, most of them were old-school arguments, based on misinterpretation of Scripture. None of them were brave enough to answer my primary question: What is their good news for the Palestinian people and what is their Gospel for the Arab nations in the Middle East?
Since God's "restoration plan" has not worked so far according to their plans, I hope that more of them will begin to depart from Dispensational theology.

Sara is saying here that Christians must depart from the idea that Israel is the fulfillment of prophecy. Instead, he urges them to believe in replacement theology, where the Church has replaced Israel, Israel as a nation is rejecting God and the Jews who stubbornly remain Jewish are problematic.

Replacement theology/supercessionism is antisemitic. And, ironically, Israel's existence today is the biggest threat to age-old Christian supercessionist antisemitism.

Which is the real problem Rev. Sara has with today's Christian Zionists. A proud Jewish nation completely contradicts his antisemitic vision of how the world should work, how the Church is the entity to replace the Jews in Biblical prophecy. The existence of the Jewish state is a direct threat to his entire worldview.

Everything else is a smokescreen.

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Times of Israel reported Wednesday:

Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Tuesday said the Palestinians would reject all United States-sponsored peace talks until Washington rescinded its December 6 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“The continued American talk about deals to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or calling for negotiations or talks is unacceptable to the Palestinian leadership, as long as Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is not revoked,” Erekat told the official Voice of Palestine radio station, according to the official PA news site Wafa.

It looks like the EU is anxious to try to fill the US' role as a mediator. From the EU External Action website:

Norway’s Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide and EU’s High Representative Federica Mogherini have decided to convene an extraordinary session of the international donor group for Palestine, the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC).

There is an urgent need to bring all parties together to discuss measures to speed up efforts that can underpin a negotiated two-state solution.

Furthermore it is necessary to enable the Palestinian Authority to execute full control over Gaza, based on the Cairo agreement from 12 October 2017.

The meeting will be held in Brussels on 31 January 2018 at Ministerial level, hosted by the European Union and chaired by Norway.

The impression I get from this is not that the EU particularly expects to gain any more traction towards peace than it has in the past 69 years. It sure feels like the EU sees an apparent vacuum created by the US and it wants to fill that vacuum by giving Palestinians more money and by tacitly agreeing with them that Jerusalem belongs to them as a basis for negotiations.

In this case, peace isn't the goal - it is using the conflict to make the EU look more relevant.

Because if they wanted peace, taking Jerusalem off the table and admitting that it is Jewish is the single most effective move that the EU could make towards pushing Palestinians to compromise rather than insist on acting like a victor which can impose its terms on the region.

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Israeli scout uniforms sold in Saudi Arabia, hilarity ensues

A Saudi citizen was shocked - shocked! - to see what appeared to him to be an Israeli army uniform being sold in Jizan:

Being the good citizen he is, he filed a complaint to the Ministry of Trade and Investment.

The official spokesman of the Saudi Ministry of Commerce, Abdul Rahman Al Hussein, stressed that "the regulatory authorities punish any illegal activity, and will be investigating to complete the procedures and the imposition of systematic penalties."

An Arabic Twitter account called "An Urgent Event", followed by more than 2 million people, said the Ministry of Commerce had arrested shop owners selling clothing bearing Israeli flags in Riyadh as well and threatening them with deterrent penalties.

As can be seen, the clothing was meant for Israeli Scouts.

Apparently, the sweep of clothing stores also resulted in finding these offensive pajamas that included an Israeli flag among many others:

Yes, evil smiley face Israeli flags!

Saudis immediately assumed that these clothes were being imported by Prince Salman in order to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

This seems logical to them - because as Arabs well know, you have to start by brainwashing the kids, right?

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NYT anoints Hamas as a "national movement"

In a New York Times article about how ISIS has "declared war" against Hamas, it uses these words to describe Hamas to its readers:

Hamas is essentially a Palestinian national movement whose main effort is directed against Israel.

Nothing about terrorism. Nothing about suicide bombs and rockets and tunnels aimed at killing civilians. Nothing about Hamas' long history of outrages that the group is proud of. Nothing about how Hamas' goal to destroy Israel.

No - Hamas is a "national movement."

You know....freedom fighters.

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01/10 Links Pt2: Pipes: How 99 percent of ‘Palestine refugees’ are fake; Vienna police charge 3 men for waving Israeli flag at rally; Are we bored of Ahed Tamimi yet?

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: How 99 percent of ‘Palestine refugees’ are fake

And even if no one replaced U.S. donations, denying UNRWA money does not get to the heart of the problem, which lies not in its sponsored activities but in its perpetuating and expanding population of “Palestine refugees” in three unique, even bizarre ways: allowing this status to be transferred without limit from generation to generation; maintaining the status after refugees have acquired a nationality (such as the Jordanian); and assigning the status to residents of the West Bank and Gaza, who live in the putative Palestinian homeland. These tricks allowed UNRWA artificially to expand the refugee population from 600,000 in 1949 to 5.3 million now; an accurate count of real refugees now alive numbers around 20,000.

Therefore, while enthusiastically endorsing Trump’s political goals, I suggest that withholding funds is not the right tactic. Better would be to focus on the “Palestine refugee” status. Denying this to all but those who meet the U.S. government’s normal definition of a refugee (in this case, being at least 69 years old, stateless, and living outside the West Bank or Gaza), diminishes the irredentist dagger at Israel’s throat by over 99 percent. It also puts the “Palestine refugee” status into play, permits millions of Palestinians to live more healthily, addresses the dank heart of Arab anti-Zionism, and helps resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Accordingly, I propose that the president adjust U.S. policy to work with Jerusalem and continue to send aid to Palestinians while making it contingent upon the overwhelmingly majority of recipients formally acknowledging that they are not now and have never been refugees.

The Middle East Forum, which has been working this issue since 2010, has proposed legislation to make such a shift. It’s both simple and feasible, as it does nothing fancier than bring Washington’s relations with UNRWA into line with U.S. law and policy. About time.

Melanie Phillips: Our crazy world: fire, fury and UNRWA

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the fire and fury around President Trump, America’s attempt to draw the poison of UNRWA (25:30), and the extraordinary fact that Israel helps keep the Arabs of Gaza alive in response to which the Arabs of Gaza keep trying to murder them.

UNRWA – end the UN state

As long as the “UNRWA state” exists, the Palestinian issue will never be resolved.

In the 1948 war the Arab Liberation Army suffered a crippling defeat. The Arab League refused to accept defeat and, to save its reputation, decided to demand the implementation of the principle “status quo ante bellum.” Meaning to restore the Palestinian refugees to their homes.

The United Nations embraced the League’s demand and created a special UN agency – the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The goal was not to rehabilitate the refugees, but rather to render the League refugees state services, like health, welfare and education.

Had the question of rehabilitation been on the agenda, the UN would have decided to let the International Refugee Organization (IRO – established in 1944) to take care of the Palestinian refugees.

Thus, the UN created a political unit/ entity of its own – UNRWA. A political Palestinian semi-entity, ruled by Arab states and/or organizations, depending on the location. Despite the fact that this political entity enjoys UN immunity, it is controlled by the PLO.

Every new physician, on the day of his graduation, knows that you can’t heal a wound unless you had drained the purulence first. As long as UNRWA exists, the Palestinians will never agree to reach an agreement with Israel. They believe that, through the “assistance” of the refugee-hosting Arab countries, UNRWA eventually will serve them the annihilation of Israel on a silver plate, by bring them back to Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheba and Jerusalem. They consider the refugee ID card UNRWA provides them the passport to the promised land.

Zionism and Feminism have a great deal in common

I admit that when I saw the title of this Tablet piece by Einat Wilf, Anti-Feminism and Anti-Zionism, I expected a Zionist version of the flawed leftist intersectionality arguments that try to tie disparate themes together based on very little but with a clear political purpose.

I was wrong. This is really an excellent article that shows that feminism and Zionism have a great deal in common - not that one necessarily affects the other, as intersectionality theory insists, but that they have the same underlying philosophy of equal rights for historic victims of discrimination.

Excerpts:

Feminism and Zionism are cut from the same cloth. Both movements emerged from the same intellectual and political origins, they both exhibited similar growth trajectories, becoming two of the most successful revolutions to sweep and survive through the 20th century, both continue to face ferocious backlash, and both remain vibrant and necessary in the 21st century.

Feminism and Zionism are ongoing rebellions against millennia-long power structures that assigned women and Jews a “proper place" in society....They were both forms of refusal to accept the role that others have assigned to women and Jews. They were forms of self-assertion that cried out: I refuse to be seen how you wish to see me, I refuse to be that which you want me to be, I am not your inferior, I can be so much more than I am allowed to be, and I insist on being free to explore and make the most of my humanity.

Feminism and Zionism developed as those claiming to espouse the ideals of equality and liberty and solidarity twisted themselves into ideological and religious knots to justify keeping women and Jews out of this new world. Feminism and Zionism came into their own as the logical trajectory of equality among human beings could not but be extended to those who could also lay legitimate claim to being human beings, even if somewhat different from the mold.

Alas, feminist women and Zionist Jews proved themselves ingrates. The more they attained, the more they wanted. Unable to celebrate what they were given, they exhibited an annoying tendency to not just care about being somewhat better off than before but to actually want true equality. It was a tendency that was often resisted by women and Jews themselves, who feared that the fragile achievements they already had would be endangered by movements that insisted on pressing ever forward. The “problem” with feminism and Zionism was that no matter how successful they were, what achievements they brought about for women and Jews, it never seemed to be enough....

That change was not always welcome. In fact, it was resisted at every turn, often violently, even ferociously. The more power—of various kinds—was amassed by women and Jews, the more their rise felt like an offense to the “proper order of things.” The challenge of feminism and Zionism to millennia-long power structures was never going to go over unchallenged. It is in the very nature of power that no-one, ever, gives it up willingly and easily. If women and Jews seemed unable to know “their proper place” and intent on demanding more, then they must be placed back in “their proper place,” and if needed, by force.

..[E]ntire cultures and civilizations were mobilized to drive a wedge between the “Good Woman” and the “Bad Feminist,” between the “Good Jew” and the “Bad Zionist.”
The difference between the Good and the Bad? Power. A “Good Woman” does not aspire to power; in fact, she feels uncomfortable with it and would be more than happy to forgo it. A “Good Jew” feels queasy with manifestations of Jewish power, and in the face of raw expressions of it rushes to declare his or her renunciation of Zionism. It is no accident that the forms of female and Jewish expressions that are most mocked, criticized, and denigrated are those that involve the expression of power. If the revolutions of feminism and Zionism are ever to be stalled, and even rolled back, women and Jews must come to feel uneasy with power.

This essay demolishes the pseudo-academic idea of intersectionalism and it shows that Zionism is a truly liberal idea and movement. It also neatly shows that those opposed to Zionism, for ostensibly liberal reasons, are really trying to keep Jews in their place.

And it also shows that opposition to Israeli policies is not necessarily anti-Zionism just as opposing some feminist tactics is not necessarily anti-feminist., But to oppose Zionism because of Israeli policies is just as dismissive of equal rights of Jews as opposing feminism is dismissive of equal rights for women.

This article is the best rejoinder for Linda Sarsour and her ilk who try to pretend that Zionism and feminism are incompatible.

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Meshichist Lubavitchers Aghast At People Who Insist Two-State Solution Not Dead

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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: Credit: Mordechai Baron

Crown Heights, January 10 - Adherents of the belief that the late Rebbe of the Lubavitch Hasidic movement did not, in fact, die in 1994, expressed shock today that anyone could think the Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has any life in it.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh leader of the Lubavitch dynasty, is interred at Montefiore Cemetery in the New York City Borough of Queens. A small but vocal segment of the Chabad movement, the Lubavitch organization that spreads the teachings of the dynasty's founder and his successors, insists that Rabbi Schneerson is not truly dead, and will reappear to claim his rightful status as Messiah when the time comes. To support their contentions they cite unconventional, controversial interpretations of classical Jewish teachings that run counter to authoritative teachings, and they disregard evidence to the contrary, but find the notion that the Two-State Solution remains in any way viable an absurd notion.

"Goodness gracious, it would take a credulous, willfully blind imbecile to believe that nonsense has anything to recommend it," remarked Rabbi Yechi Admor as he hoisted a "Messiah" flag out his Eastern Parkway apartment window. "People still hold by that codswallop? I'm stunned. Anyone with half a brain should be able to make an honest assessment of the situation and conclude there's no chance of 'Israel and Palestine dwelling side by side in peace and security,' as the plan's proponents never tire of declaiming."

"They must take everyone for fools," added Shaya Green, a Messianist Lubavitcher who lives in Tzfat. "Nobody in his right mind could think the Palestinians are interested in a negotiated peace, and even if they were, that the faction nominally holding the leadership has the power, resources, or will to make good on any such commitment. You have to be out of touch with reality to fall for that one," continued the father of nine. "I catch plenty of flak from my fellow Jews, even fellow Chabad people, for believing in, shall we call it, an unconventional and unlikely set of notions about the Rebbe and his position as Moshiach, but compared to the evidence for a workable Two-State Solution, the idea that the Rebbe is Moshiach is a slam dunk."

Wednesday afternoon, reports emerged that former US Secretary of State John Kerry had convened a meeting with several Messianic Chabad Rabbis to discuss potential collaboration on putting forth delusional, starry-eyed, potentially disastrous proposals for Israel.

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01/10 Links Pt1: Terror victim Raziel Shevach remembered as unique, kindhearted man; How Israel Contributes to the Security of Every NATO Country; ISIS Sets Its Sights on Gaza

From Ian:

Terror victim Raziel Shevach remembered as unique, kindhearted man

Rabbi Raziel Shevach, slain in a West Bank terror attack Tuesday night, was remembered by friends and acquaintances as a goodhearted family man who was a central figure in the local settlement community and in his home of Havat Gilad.

“He was a very special person,” said friend Yehuda Hass, who volunteered with Shevach as a medic in Magen David Adom. “Just recently he received a citation for his work in the organization. He was the unofficial rabbi of Havat Gilad.”

The 35-year-old father of six was also a rabbi in a yeshiva and a mohel.

“He was a very well known mohel here…in the area, entirely as a volunteer,” Hass told the Ynet news site. “He was a great man with a great heart.”

Shevach was shot dead Tuesday while driving down a highway near his home in the outpost outside Nablus. Israeli security forces were searching for the perpetrators.

His funeral will be held at the Havat Gilad outpost at 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau also released a statement in which he said he was heartbroken by Shevach’s death. He described him as a “unique, affable and rare character” who “devoted his life to saving lives, teaching Torah and safeguarding Judaism in the Land of Israel.”

The head of the local settler council, Yossi Dagan said “residents of Samaria and all of Israel grieve this terrible loss and embrace the family and the orphaned children.”

Dagan called Shevach a central figure in the region, “a man of grace, a man of Torah and a friend. All who knew him loved him, and loved him deeply.”

Frustration boils into calls for revenge at funeral of slain rabbi

Irate and mournful, hundreds of mourners attended the Wednesday funeral of a rabbi who was slain by terrorists in a drive-by shooting attack in the northern West Bank, eulogizing the father of six and calling for revenge.

A large group of mourners shouted down Education Minister Naftali Bennett as he concluded his eulogy for Raziel Shevach at the Havat Gilad outpost, where the victim lived.

As dozens of hecklers chanted “revenge,” Bennett attempted to calm the crowd by saying that “the only revenge is to keep building.”

Not appeased, the chants only grew louder, with one yelling that the minister, the head of the Jewish Home party, was “all talk.”

“Your name should be blotted out,” one mourner yelled out, using a Hebrew phrase usually reserved for especially villainous figures.

Rabbi Raziel Shevah was murdered in a drive-by shooting tonight. Per Palestinian Authority law, the PA will likely pay his killer five times the average salary for a Palestinian for the rest of his life, to reward him for making this woman a widow and these children orphans. pic.twitter.com/mLxwRBr7cP
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) January 9, 2018

Last night's victim of Palestinian terror was a 35-year-old rabbi, a first responder who no doubt treated many Palestinians over the years. He was also a father of 6 young children. Anyone who thinks this murder will advance peace or a Palestinian state understands nothing.
— Michele Chabin (@MicheleChabin1) January 10, 2018