Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

04/17 Links Pt1: Israel Sent a Clear Message to Iran in Syria; Hamas' Dirty War Against Israel; Iran Would Destroy Syria to Get Vengeance on Israel

From Ian:

Throughout all the military confrontations Hamas initiated against Israel in 2008-09, 2012, and 2014, as well as in the recent "March of Return," it has systematically disseminated outright fabrications and distortions and manipulated Western and social media. Hamas presented the march as a peaceful demonstration initiated by suffering citizens to protest their awful economic and social conditions. Hamas also accused Israel of committing war crimes by intentionally shooting and killing demonstrators. The truth is exactly the opposite.

The march was initiated and organized by Hamas, not by oppressed citizens. Hamas invested millions of dollars in building an infrastructure for the demonstrators, and called for breaking the border fence and infiltration into Israeli territory. If Hamas had been permitted to accomplish this goal, the life and property of Israeli citizens living a few meters from the fence would have been in danger. These were not peaceful demonstrations.

Hamas deployed operatives among the demonstrators and ordered them to throw firebombs, shoot at Israeli soldiers, put explosives on the fence, cross into Israel's territory, and, if possible, kill or kidnap soldiers and citizens. They also wanted as many Palestinians as possible to be killed, including women and children, in order to obtain favorable media coverage.

Hamas is lying and cheating about the reasons for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It annually spends hundreds of millions of dollars on operatives, rockets, attack tunnels, and violence. If Hamas had spent that money on economic and social development, Gazans would now live in a better economic environment. The recent deterioration in the Gazan economy resulted from a bitter feud between Hamas and the PA, not from any Israeli action.

The media in the U.S. and Europe, including the elite press of the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, CNN, and BBC, largely accepted the manipulations, lies, and fabrications of Hamas without much questioning or reservation. They conveniently removed any reference to Hamas' motivation, aggression, war crimes, and manipulations.

Iran Would Destroy Syria to Get Vengeance on Israel

Tehran's steadfast support for Syria's Assad is not driven by the geopolitical or financial interests of the Iranian nation, nor the religious convictions of the Islamic Republic, but by a visceral and seemingly inextinguishable hatred for the State of Israel. As senior Iranian officials like Ali Akbar Velayati, a close adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have said, "The chain of Resistance against Israel by Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, the new Iraqi government and Hamas passes through the Syrian highway."

Though Israel has virtually no direct impact on the daily lives of Iranians, opposition to the Jewish state has been the most enduring pillar of Iranian revolutionary ideology. Whether Khamenei is giving a speech about agriculture or education, he invariably returns to the evils of Zionism.

The number of Syrian deaths since 2011 is many times greater than the number of Palestinians killed in the last 70 years of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, while many more Syrians than Palestinians have been displaced. Indeed, since 2011 far more Palestinians have been killed by Assad (nearly 3,700) than by Israel.
"Syria is occupied by the Iranian regime," said former Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab. "The person who runs the country is not Bashar al-Assad but [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander] Qassem Suleimani."

Pragmatic: relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters : practical as opposed to idealistic.
Merriam-Webster

To be a pragmatist is to be a realist, someone who understands that there are times that one's idealism or ideology has to give way to different means, even if contrary to that ideology, if one is going to achieve a successful end.

And that is what the new philosophy of Hamas is all about - at least that is what The New York Times believes.

This week, David Halbfinger - who took over last year as the new Jerusalem Bureau Chief for The New York Times - reported that Hamas Sees Gaza Protests as Peaceful — and as a ‘Deadly Weapon’. Halbfinger went on to write approvingly of the Gazan riots controlled by the Hamas terrorists:

Its experiment with popular resistance may or may not be wholehearted, but it is indisputably pragmatic. [emphasis added]

Pragmatic?

Hamas logo

Now keep in mind that when Halbfinger started his new position, Times International Editor Michael Slackman and Deputy International Editor Greg Winter wrote of him in their announcement of Halbfinger’s appointment that

He has written hard-hitting investigations of corrupt public officials and businessmen, murderous prison guards, law-breaking Hollywood moguls...

No one would claim Halbfinger's writing of Hamas to be hard-hitting or as particularly 'investigative' for that matter.

In his article about the riots last week, Halbfinger described the "protest" as "generally nonviolent." He also summed up that a riot replete with throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, tire burning, explosives and attempts to infiltrate the fence separating the rioters from nearby Israeli communities was "for Gazans, even a tentative experiment with nonviolent protest is a significant step" -- even while granting that Hamas "seeks Israel’s destruction, has always advocated armed struggle."

Getting back to Halbfinger's description of Hamas as "pragmatic," a search of the New York Times website for articles containing both the words "Hamas" and "pragmatic" turned up 247 hits - not exactly scientific, but here are some of the articles that came up:

For 2017 three articles come up on the first page or two of results:

New Hamas Charter Would Name ‘Occupiers,’ Not ‘Jews,’ as the Enemy
Ian Fisher and Majd Al Waheidi, March 9, 2017

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that has governed the Gaza Strip for a decade, is drafting a new platform to present a more pragmatic and cooperative face to the world, Hamas officials confirmed on Thursday. [emphasis added]

Actually, the Hamas charter did not change, Hamas still vows to destroy Israel and continues to encourage terrorist attacks against civilians. Yet the word "pragmatic" is not used sarcastically.

In Palestinian Power Struggle, Hamas Moderates Talk on Israel
Ian Fisher, May 1, 2017

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the group had to move beyond its original charter to achieve its goals. “The document gives us a chance to connect with the outside world,” he said. “To the world, our message is: Hamas is not radical. We are a pragmatic and civilized movement. We do not hate the Jews. We only fight who occupies our lands and kills our people.” [emphasis added]

Again, the article does present both sides on the Hamas claim of pragmatism, but the idea is not directly challenged.

Hamas Offer Reflects Pressure From Egypt and Fatah
David M. Halbfinger, September 19, 2017

Mr. Abbas’s quick and positive reply on Monday — he spoke by telephone with Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political director, and promised to follow up after returning from the United Nations gathering in New York — prompted some to ask whether renewed Egyptian diplomatic assertiveness and pragmatic new Hamas leadership had managed to turn a page on the long-running rivalry.

Here, Halbfinger goes so far as to present Hamas pragmatism as fact, for which there is precedent 11 years earlier:

Pragmatic Hamas Figure Is Likely to Be Next Premier
Greg Myre, February 17, 2006

Hamas plans to nominate Ismail Haniya, viewed as one of its less radical leaders, for prime minister, The Associated Press reported, citing a Hamas official in Damascus.

Does anyone today consider Haniya "pragmatic" or a "moderate"?

Ismail Haniya. Source: Haniya

Maybe claims of Hamas pragmatism are the stubborn insistence that the predicted moderation of Hamas upon assuming power is finally beginning to materialize. But if so, it will take more than praising Hamas terrorists as pragmatists.

Mark Twain once described pragmatism like this:

The man who sets out to grab a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful.

Mark Twain. Photographer: A.F. Bradley. Public domain

Hamas has had several useful lessons after having been repulsed by Israel on multiple occasions and to a degree neutralized, being pressured by Egypt and after having failed to get the international support and recognition that its fellow terrorist group, Hezbollah, has achieved.

No doubt Hamas has learned a lesson, but what The New York Times and Mr. Halbfinger have failed to do when referring to Hamas as pragmatic is to make clear whether Hamas is in fact being pragmatic in its ends - moderating its declared goal of the destruction of Israel - or whether it is merely being pragmatic in the means to achieve that goal.

Over and over, what self-confident journalists call pragmatism in Hamas is what with hindsight is just deception.

But what about The New York Times description of Israel?

When referring to Israel as pragmatic, The New York Times has - on occasion - used the term sarcastically, critical of whether there is a sincere change of heart.

That is especially true when describing Netanyahu:

What Does Netanyahu Really Want?
Gal Beckerman, December 8, 2016 - Review of "The Resistible Rise of Benjamin Netanyahu" by Neill Lochery

Pragmatism doesn’t tell us much. Every successful politician is pragmatic, if this simply means reading and responding to your public. What Lochery fails to explore are the consequences of Bibi’s “pragmatism” in a place like Israel. Because, in practice, pragmatism for Netanyahu means twisting every which way to avoid confronting the problems of the occupation. [emphasis added]

Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit: State Department photo/ Public Domain

Netanyahu Names Avigdor Lieberman Israeli Defense Minister as Party Joins Coalition
Isabel Kershner, May 25, 2016

For all of Mr. Lieberman’s bluster, many Israeli analysts predict that he will become more pragmatic once he takes office. [emphasis added]

Hamas disproved those who predicted political responsibility would soften their ideology and rhetoric, but that did not stop the pundits who predicted that Lieberman would soften his views.

When Netanyahu won in 2009, there were those who insisted that if pragmatism was not inherent in the newly elected leadership, perhaps it could be chemically induced, especially if Western values could somehow rub off on the Palestinian Arabs:

Netanyahu to Form New Israel Government
Isabel Kershner, February 20, 2009

A broad government joined by the center and left would likely promote a more pragmatic agenda and avoid friction with Israel’s most important ally, the United States...
Ms. Livni has staked her political career on promoting negotiations with the more pragmatic, Western-backed Palestinian leadership for a two-state solution.

Tzipi Livni. Public domain

But on the same day:

Netanyahu, Once Hawkish, Now Touts Pragmatism
Ethan Bronner, February 20, 2009

To many here, it is increasingly likely that Mr. Netanyahu’s government will consist exclusively of parties from the right, which oppose a Palestinian state and favor expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, making it much harder for him to exercise his pragmatic penchant.

Whatever Bronner's feelings about Netanyahu's "pragmatism," the editor who wrote the headline would have nothing of it.

But 11 years earlier, during Netanyahu's first term in office, there was no sarcasm:

Without Joy, Netanyahu Wins Vote to Adopt Peace Agreement
Deborah Sontag, November 18, 1998

The Israeli Parliament approved the American-brokered peace plan today by a significant majority, reflecting the widespread, pragmatic acceptance here of partitioning the Land of Israel. [emphasis added]

and a few weeks earlier:

Returning Home, Netanyahu Faces The Real Battle
Deborah Sontag, October 26, 1998

At the airport in Tel Aviv, despite the chilly reception from the settlers, Mr. Netanyahu received not only a formal brass-band welcome but also a genuinely enthusiastic one from Cabinet ministers and from the rank and file of his Likud Party. This suggested that he has successfully moved his political camp onto new ideological terrain where territorial compromise with the Palestinians, long anathema, has been accepted as a pragmatic reality. [emphasis added]

Yet there may have always been a wariness of Netanyahu's polemical prowess:

Israel's Likud Passes Torch, Naming Netanyahu Leader
Clyde Haberman, March 26, 1993

No modern politician here has logged more time on American television than Mr. Netanyahu, explaining in idiomatic English Israel's positions on international terrorism and the Persian Gulf war. And no Israeli politician has adopted a more American campaign style, from his crafted sound bites to his cross-country barnstorming by bus.

So successful is he at reducing his pragmatically hawkish opinions to manageable television proportions that some in Likud -- allies as well as foes -- worry that he is prey to accusations that he is not a deep thinker. One task before him now, these Israelis say, is to prove that he is more than glib.

Similarly, Rabin's electoral victory, ending 15 years of Likud governing was a victory for...pragmatism:

Israel's Likud Passes Torch, Naming Netanyahu Leader
Clyde Haberman, June 28, 1992

Forget for a moment about which parties landed on top and which on the bottom in Israel's national election last week. The real winner was pragmatism and the big loser uncompromising ideology. [emphasis added]

Haberman went so far as to see

...the complex combination of events behind the upheaval that ended 15 years of Likud governance, threatening that party's stability and dashing the conventional wisdom that Israel's political drift is inexorably rightward.

Yitzhak Rabin, Source: Israel Defense Forces. Public domain

So much for that idea.

One can appreciate the frustration of The New York Times.

(Maybe they are the ones who need to be more...pragmatic.)

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"As Europeans and Arabs we share in particular an interest in preserving the unique status of our common Holy City, Jerusalem."

Those were the words of EU High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini during the opening session of 29th Summit of the League of Arab States on Sunday.

Not only is the Jewish claim to Jerusalem is not only non-existent, but any claim the Jews have to their capital is less important than that of Europe.

(You know - the continent the Crusaders came from, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews and Muslims. )

Mogherini's outrageous statements to the Arab league didn't end there.

And you know, you can always count on us Europeans to reiterate our belief that the only viable solution is the two-state solution, with East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine.

Meaning that the EU will solidly and always be against the idea of Israeli and Jewish rights to Jerusalem. That the EU places a higher priority on Palestinian rights in Jerusalem than to Jewish rights in any part of the city.

The Arab League has a unique role to play here. The Arab Peace Initiative is still, in our eyes, the essential building block towards peace. The King of Jordan is the custodian of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem.

Oslo isn't the essential building block to peace - after all, Palestinians responded with a terror war. So the Arab plans are the only ones to consider, not the actual signed agreements that Israel made with the Palestinians, that they violently rejected in the end.

And, as we have noted before, the signed agreements between Israel and Jordan give the King no custodianship role over holy sites in Jerusalem. On the contrary - Israel is given the main role on controlling them and Israel is merely requested to "respect" the "present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" for the Muslim (not Christian) holy sites.

Israel doesn't even bother to protest these outrageous and false statements. It should be as energetic and angry at them as Arabs are at any public acknowledgement of Jewish ties to Jerusalem. The EU representative in Israel should be called into the Prime Minister's office to explain these statements every single time they are made.

(h/t Irene)

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When Husam Zomlot gave his speech at J-Street, he described every single thing that Palestinians will never accept.

Most of these were things that any Israeli government, from right to left, would insist on in any peace deal.

No to anything less than a full state - with an army, with control over its borders, which would threaten Israel's nine-mile pre-1967 width. Bill Clinton was OK with this, Barack Obama was OK with this - but not J-Street.

No interim peace plans. Give Palestinians everything they demand unconditionally, and trust them, even though they have given Israel no reason to trust them and celebrate terror, today.

No state without East Jerusalem - a huge amount of applause from the supposedly pro-Israel Jewish crowd, willing to give up their very souls. Yitzchak Rabin would never have dreamed of doing this.

No state without "resolving" refugees - meaning flooding Israel with people whose ancestors were in British Mandate Palestine in 1947. Why a Palestinian leader wants his own people to move to the Jewish state and not "Palestine" is obvious to anyone with a brain - but J-Street audience members support it.

No state with"one Israeli soldier on its soil" - meaning, Israel must outsource its very security to people who celebrate terrorists as heroes and martyrs.

None of these would be accepted by any reasonable Israeli leader without severe restrictions at the very least. But J-Street doesn't represent the needs and wants of Israel.

As the audience proves here, J-Street is pro-Palestinian - and nothing else.
=================
The audience was also remarkably willing to believe the most absurd lies. "We vow that once peace prevails, once the State of Palestine is created, with East Jerusalem as its capital, we will not only recognize the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, we will celebrate it."

Recognizing the Jewish connection to Jerusalem shouldn't be dependent on a peace deal - it is a fact. A promise to recognize a fact doesn't show flexibility - it proves that the negotiator is a liar from the start.

The idea that J-Street actually believes these obvious lies is, by itself, enough to discredit it as any sort of serious group of people.

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J-Street falsely calls PLO delegate to US an "Ambassador." (So does @Haaretzcom.)

Husam Zomlot, the PLO representative in the US, was called an "Ambassador" by J-Street in their conference today.

He isn't an ambassador. That title is reserved to representatives from a nation, and the US does not recognize "Palestine."

But it isn't only J-Street that lies about Zomlot's title.

Haaretz does too.

I remember when truth was a thing.

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04/16 Links Pt2: Evelyn Gordon: Israel proves exceptional, once again; Amos Schocken’s Schocking Racism; Former Australian FM Bob Carr Headlining Fundraiser With Terror-Supporter

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: Israel proves exceptional, once again

In January 2017, the Ipsos Mori research company published a shocking poll headlined “Six in ten around the world think their society is ‘broken.’ ” Out of 23 countries surveyed—13 Western democracies and 10 non-Western democracies, most with relatively strong economies—only in six did a majority of respondents disagree with that statement.

Moreover, almost four in 10 respondents agreed another troubling claim: “These days I feel like a stranger in my own country.” Though the proportion topped 50 percent in only two countries, it exceeded a third in all but three.

Pollsters then asked several questions designed to elaborate on those general sentiments—some exploring trust in national institutions and others exploring attitudes toward immigration. Their theory was that low trust in institutions would correlate to high levels of belief that society was broken, while negative attitudes toward immigrants would correlate to high levels of feeling like a stranger in one’s own country. And there was, in fact, some correlation, albeit not perfect. Notably, countries with both high trust in institutions and low concern about immigration had among the fewest respondents saying either that society was broken or that they felt like strangers in their own land.

And then there was the one glaring exception: Israel.

A majority of Israeli respondents voiced little or no confidence in all seven categories of institutions—international institutions, banks, the justice system, big companies, the media, the government and political parties. In five of the seven categories, more than 70 percent did so. Israel was among the top 10 most distrustful countries in all but one category; in most, it was in the top six.

Bethany Mandel: The Holocaust: What Happened and Why It Still Matters

The saying goes “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In Europe, even before the last survivors have passed, history is already repeating itself. In Paris recently a Holocaust survivor was murdered in her own home, the victim of an anti-Semitic attack. Not only was the 84-year-old woman stabbed eleven times, but she was then burned beyond recognition. The Times of Israel reported on the crime, comparing it to another similar attack on a Jewish woman, Sarah Halimi, in her home last year.

France has been Ground Zero for anti-Semitic attacks in a continent not exactly unfamiliar with the phenomenon. Twelve years ago a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Paris. In 2012, seven were killed, including children at a school in Toulouse, France. The Times of Israel called those attacks the beginning of a wave of terror in the country; though one could argue it began with Halimi’s murder in Paris, a brazen attack which French authorities initially refused to attribute to anti-Semitism.

In her story on the disappearing knowledge of the Shoah among Americans, especially Millenials, Maggie Astor spoke with a number of historians and curators of Holocaust Museums and memorials, who suggested more personalized experiences; hearing directly from survivors whenever possible.

To be sure, ignorance of the slaughter of millions of Jews stems from ignorance of all history, not just that of that era. Americans know less and care less about history; it’s no coincidence the History Channel has somehow morphed into the alien chasing channel.

The sad truth about the study isn’t just that Americans don’t know about how anti-Semitism led to the mass death of Jews, but also that they don’t care. How many know of the continued attacks on Jews in the present day in Europe; at schools, grocery stores, restaurants, synagogues, and even their own homes? The news isn’t even met with a shrug here, so why should historical accounts of the murder of Jews elicit anything more?

Amos Schocken’s Schocking Racism

As Haaretz is fond of reminding its readers and its critics alike, the Israeli broadsheet is the voice of the nation’s embattled intelligentsia, an unabashedly progressive publication that spends much ink criticizing Israel’s faults, small or large, real or imagined. It’s why the paper’s long-time marketing slogan was “a newspaper for people who think”—the same distinction, presumably, did not apply to those who started their mornings with, say, Yediot Aharonot—and why it opted to celebrate Israel’s 70th Independence Day by asking its reporters to choose which classic Israeli song, the national anthem included, they despised the most. You could write all of that off as the same sort of hilariously unaware and irritating condescension you get every day in The New York Times or any other bastion of self-appointed elites anywhere; but this weekend, the paper’s publisher, Amos Schocken, crossed a line.

An active Twitter user, Schocken, the son of the newspaper’s original publisher, Gershom, got into an argument on the social media platform on Saturday after several readers tweeted at him that commemorating Israel’s Independence Day by mocking the anthem was, at best, in poor taste. Schocken held nothing back, and several of the exchanges grew heated. At some point, one woman, Ravit Dahan, tweeted at Schocken that it was security-minded people like her who kept Israel safe and allowed Schocken “to continue and live here like a king and publish your surreal newspaper without interruption.” At that, the publisher lost his cool.

“You insolent woman!” he tweeted back. “My family led the Zionist movement when you were still swinging from trees.”

It didn’t take long for people to note that a privileged, wealthy, Ashkenazi man accusing a Mizrahi woman of apishness was, to put it mildly, wildly racist. Schocken must’ve realized it, too, as he deleted his tweet and issued an apology, claiming that he didn’t think accusing someone of swinging from trees had any racial connotations.

I should have posted this on Yom HaShoah, especially in light of the Polish law criminalizing discussing Polish complicity in the Holocaust.

Unfortunately I cannot embed it here, but watch it.

For more than 70 years,the story of the barn in Jedwabne,east Poland where the local Christians burned to death their Jewish neighbors-all 1'600 of them-was perceived as a unique case of cruelty and brutality. The movie "2 Barns" proves irrevocably that the Jedwabne incident was not an exception, but rather the rule.Even before the Nazis declared their 'Final Solution' tens of thousands of Jews had been murdered by their neighbors in villages and township all over Poland,Russia and Ukraine. The leading protagonist of our story Prof. Shevah Weiss who served as the Isareli Ambassador to Poland. The story of his survival due to Righteous among the nations allowed the Polish people the opportunity to honestly look into their history throughout the war.
The Historian Prof. Jan Tomasz Gross, who revealed the story of the Jedwabne pogrom. Issac Lewin, who was with his family at the outskirts of the Jedwabne on the day of the pogrom.
The poet Wislawa Szymborska, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature,who,even she cant put the cruelty of her people into words.
The Historians Prof. Yehuda Bauer,Prof Jan Garbowski and Dr. Havi Driefuss,some of the world's most prominent Holocaust reserarches.

(h/t Phyllis)

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BDS at NYU: A Deplorable Effort (Noah Phillips)

We are introducing a new columnist at EoZ, Noah Phillips. He is a young man who has written for a number of places and who started his own Jewish online magazine. His writing will focus on American Jewish youth but he will be writing on other topics as well.

________________________________________________

by Noah Phillips

Earlier this week, fifty NYU student groups voted to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, refuse to co-sponsor any events with pro-Israel campus groups, and pressure the premier academic institution to divest any holdings from companies that do business with Israel. No such group or movement voiced any concerns about Syrian President Assad’s chemical gas attacks on civilians and children in his own country or state-sponsored terrorism by many of Israel’s neighboring countries or campaigns to obliterate Israel out of existence that are regularly mounted in Palestinian school textbooks, imam sermons, and government declarations within the West Bank and Gaza. In fact, this same week also marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, when we commemorated the savage annihilation of six million Jews and millions of Catholics, Gypsies and others, while most countries of the world sat silently and took no actions to intervene or help. So what should our reaction now be to these organized local BDS efforts to debilitate Israel’s legitimacy as the only democracy--albeit imperfect--in the Middle East region?

According to a 2013 report by the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a lead sponsor of the BDS campaign at NYU, “consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. JVP has never condemned or sought to distance itself from these messages. Indeed, JVP’s Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson recently gave an interview to American Free Press, a conspiracy-oriented anti-Semitic newspaper.”

For a Jewish student organization that preaches peace and coexistence, an appropriate outlook would be to recognize the merits and shortcomings of both the Israeli and Palestinian ideologies, rather than slandering against Israel unconditionally and furthering the partisan divide over the conflict.

Along with the rejectionist group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), JVP portrays an exclusively one-sided narrative to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The groups and primary sponsors of the student-group-endorsement of BDS solely present the ideologies of Palestinians while ignoring and propagating fallacies regarding Israelis and Israeli society. With the pressing issue of the ongoing protests in Gaza for a so-called right of return for Palestinians, JVP wrote falsely on their website that the protests were peaceful in nature and refused to acknowledge that the protests were largely orchestrated by known terrorists from radical Jihadist groups including al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and of course, Hamas, a days-old example representative of the practices used in anti-Israel advocacy by JVP.

JVP and SJP student affiliates at NYU seek to promote BDS with their anti-Israel contentions distorted and lopsided. No effort was made on the part of the activists to grasp or explain a pro-Israel perspective, a necessary task if any meaningful two-state and peaceful resolution is to be viable. In their pledge, they repeatedly condemn Israel, blatantly overlooking the immense and glaring flaws with the Palestinian nationalist movement. This is particularly disconcerting considering the intended audience of the pledge: the larger NYU student and faculty body. They hope to sway and mobilize the larger student populace in sympathy with the Palestinian cause, altogether disregarding the Israeli history and context. It’s a shameful tactic not aimed to promote discourse or foster constructive engagement, but promote a hostile political agenda in an aggressive and targeted manner.

And to dispel any lingering doubt about the implications of the pledge, I remind you that BDS is by no means a peaceful movement. Founder of BDS Omar Barghouti has repeatedly condemned the two-state solution for a viable Israel and Palestine in coexistence, and countless other prominent leaders have endorsed the eradication of the Jewish state in favor of the displacement of the millions of Jewish people residing in Israel. The movement from inception has excused violence through economic boycotts, with the intention of crippling Israel and undermining the concept of a Jewish homeland.

While BDS leaders and NYU activists and even NYU professors draw absurd comparisons between Israel and the former South African apartheid regime, pandering to the passionate emotional and rightful moral opposition of students to the suffering endured by black and minority South Africans at the time, such logic is entirely inapplicable to the State of Israel. Israel is the sole democratic state in the Middle East and contrary to the opinions of student leaders on campus, is in fact not a genocidal regime mass-murdering Muslims and raiding West Bank villages. 1.7 million of Israel’s 8.5 million citizens are Arabs, notwithstanding the Druze, Bedouins, the sizable Christian population, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Israel enjoying full and irrevocable integration in Israeli society. There are Arab Members of Knesset (Israeli Parliament), voting and shaping the nation’s democracy, in addition to Arab members of the Israeli Supreme Court.

And having BDS implemented in the ways outlined—promoting an academic and economic boycott and total dissociation and refusal to interact with pro-Israel groups on campus—will only further the marginalization of pro-Israel students at NYU and the abhorrent blurring and legitimization of anti-Semitic sentiments.

All in all, a deplorable effort.

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04/16 Links Pt1: Glick: Germany Abets a New World War; Trump pressure pushes Jordan to choose Israel or PLO; Assad is More Dangerous than ISIS

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Germany Abets a New World War

Of course, the U.S. itself views with alarm Iran’s threats against Israel specifically and its nuclear weapons program generally. Not only is a nuclear-backed threat to commit genocide a serious one, a nuclear-armed Iran could easily instigate a new world war.

Alarmingly, in the midst of Germany’s malign efforts to protect Iran and Hezbollah from sanction while permitting them to operate throughout Europe, for the past seven months, the U.S. has been without an ambassador in Germany. Democrats in the Senate are blocking the confirmationof seasoned Republican diplomat Richard Grenell.

While the White House waits for the Senate to permit the U.S. to be represented by an ambassador, the Germans have broken a deal with the U.S. and Israel to permit Israel to run for a rotating UN Security Council seat unopposed. Germany shocked both Israel and the US by opting to run against the Jewish state in the June election. The move ensures, once again, that the Jewish state will be denied representation at the Security Council.

It bears noting that Germany’s central role in empowering Iran and Hezbollah undermines the central rationale of Germany’s postwar governance. For 70 years, the Federal Republic of Germany has insisted it learned the lessons of its past aggression and crimes against humanity.

After fomenting two world wars and carrying out the most egregious genocide in human history, the Germans insist they abjure aggression and take seriously their “special responsibility” to protect the Jewish state. But Germany’s treatment of Iran and Hezbollah on the one hand, and its treatment of Israel on the other hand, indicate that whatever lessons the Germans may have learned, they missed the two most important ones.

First: If you wish to prevent a world war, you shouldn’t empower forces that seek to initiate one.

And second: If you are committed to preventing evildoers from enacting another Holocaust, you shouldn’t enable evildoers committed to annihilating the Jewish state from acquiring the means to do so.

Peter Lerner: The Gaza border – Israel’s White Cliffs of Dover

The Palestinians of Gaza are three weeks into a six-week campaign, the #GazaReturnMarch, that is expected to build up to May 15, or Nakba Day, the day Palestinians mark the establishment of the State of Israel, and their dispersal, chosen or forced, throughout the region.

The main motif of the campaign is the right to march to the lands lost 70 years ago, and as one journalist said, the mixture of participants in the events so far include disenchanted, unemployed young men that wouldn’t know what to do if they crossed the fence but also Hamas’ armed wing, Izzadin Kassam terrorists, that want to attack the IDF along the border fence.

The underlying message, missed by most of the media coverage so far, is the wish to trample the border and extinguish hope for a two-state solution. Beyond the immediate security consequences, this is a main reason for concern, exemplified by one image of a Nazi swastika pitched up alongside the Palestinian flag.

There have been many images of the wounded and killed, and of rocks being hurled, as well as some firebombs and shooting.

Every life lost is a tragedy, and while the IDF went to extensive lengths to convey the message of the dangers of storming the fence, the IDF used live ammunition as a last resort, in a controlled manner to limit casualties, and specifically targeting the lower extremities of violent rioters. Hundreds of people storming into the Israeli communities adjacent to the fence would have most definitely been more lethal. Nevertheless, the deaths must be investigated, and lessons will be learned. This past weekend we experienced less violence on the border fence, which explains the reduction in casualties.

The reality in Gaza today is one of despair, a desperation that is a result of the bad decisions Hamas’ leaders have made. This is one reason for people coming to protest. But for almost 11 years now Hamas has ruled Gaza with an iron fist. That iron fist was chosen by the Palestinian people – but they chose the Islamists over the corrupt Fatah. Since 2007’s violent coup by Hamas, there have been wars, rockets, tunnels and death. Too many deaths.

UNRWA, the EU and the map

The visit of the European Union Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) schools in the Beddawi camp in Lebanon on 27 March was an important and welcomed visit by UNRWA. The EU is now the biggest donor to the UN contributing EUR 82 million to the 2018 UNRWA budget.

But events surrounding the visit also reveal UNRWA’s and the EU’s incapability to deal with extremism in the camp.

Ahead of the commissioners visit to the Beddawi camp, UNRWA decided to polish the facade of its camp. The Palestinian news site Al-Quds News reports that UNRWA had told the inhabitants of the camp:

1. That they had to remove from schools UNRWA flags carrying ”slogans” against the official UNRWA policies.

2. Visible maps of the Palestinian one state solution in which Israel is erased and replaced by an Arab Palestine had to be removed also.

The removal of one such in the Kawkab-Battouf School for Girls caused a lot of angry feelings among the Palestinian Arabs. Terror organizations like Hamas complained and spoke in Palestinian media of the humiliation among those who had to remove the maps, claiming that the decision violates the so called right of refugees to their identity.

The EU commissioner came, gave some speeches and left.

Arab Youm recently went into the famous story of how Jews were turned into apes and pigs according to Islamic legend.

The Quran (2:65) refers obliquely to the story:

And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath: We said to them: "Be ye apes, despised and rejected."

It is interpreted like this:

This Ayah means, O Jews! Remember that Allah sent His torment on the village that disobeyed Him and broke their pledge and their covenant to observe the sanctity of the Sabbath. They began using deceitful means to avoid honoring the Sabbath by placing nets, ropes and artificial pools of water for the purpose of fishing before the Sabbath. When the fish came in abundance on Saturday as usual, they were caught in the ropes and nets for the rest of Saturday. During the night, the Jews collected the fish after the Sabbath ended. When they did that, Allah changed them from humans into monkeys, the animals having the form closest to humans. Their evil deeds and deceit appeared lawful on the surface, but they were in reality wicked. This is why their punishment was compatible with their crime. This story is explained in detail in Surat Al-A`raf, where Allah said (7:163),

(And ask them (O Muhammad ) about the town that was by the sea; when they transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath (i.e. Saturday): when their fish came to them openly on the Sabbath day, and did not come to them on the day they had no Sabbath. Thus We made a trial of them, for they used to rebel (disobey Allah).)(7:163)

In his Tafsir, Al-`Awfi reported from Ibn `Abbas that he said,

(We said to them: "Be you monkeys, despised and rejected'') means, "Allah changed their bodies into those of monkeys and swines. The young people turned into monkeys while the old people turned into swine.'' Shayban An-Nahwi reported that Qatadah commented on,

(We said to them: "Be you monkeys, despised and rejected''), "These people were turned into howling monkeys with tails, after being men and women.''

In short, the story goes, Jews went around the spirit of the Sabbath law by putting nets to catch fish on Saturday even though they were doing no work, and they were punished by being turned into monkeys and pigs, according to this Islamic legend.

However, the question of whether a Jew can set up nets before the Sabbath and catch fish that way is discussed in the Talmud, in a Mishna in Shabbat 17b:

ב"ש אומרים אין פורסין מצודות חיה ועופות ודגים אלא כדי שיצודו מבעוד יום וב"ה מתירין
Beit Shammai say: One may spread traps for an animal and birds and fish only if there is sufficient time remaining in the day for them to be trapped in them while it is still day, and Beit Hillel permit doing so even if there is not sufficient time remaining in the day.

Beit Shammai nearly always rules more strictly than Beit Hillel - and Beit Hillel nearly always is the one whose arguments win in Jewish law.

The Islamic story gets Jewish law exactly wrong. Placing the nets is acceptable in Jewish law as interpreted by the Talmud.

The early Islamists knew the Talmud, as is evidenced from the many Talmudic legends that made it into the Quran.

So this story is indeed an antisemitic story, but it goes beyond that - it is apparently an attack on the Talmudic system of jurisprudence, where lenient opinions are often accepted as mainstream. Islamic scholars were seemingly aghast at the idea of "loopholes" in Jewish law provided by the Talmud, and this story is a way for them to assert themselves morally superior not only to Jews, but specifically to the Jews who follow Talmudic law - which is what all normative Jews follow.

When Muslims complain about "Talmudic rituals" today, it might not be a recent phenomenon. It is possible that Muslims felt threatened by the Talmud from their beginnings, which came after the Talmud was completed. They sometimes try to justify Mohammed as a successor prophet to the Biblical prophets, but the Talmud would contradict that idea, so it could be that the Muslim antipathy to the Talmud is quite old indeed, and this story is merely one early example of it.

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Al Akhbar (Lebanon) reports on a European offer to help Gazans.

According to the report, the EU contacted Hamas through a third party to say that if PA president Mahmoud Abbas would impose further sanctions on Gaza, the EU would take over all humanitarian issues and salaries to Gaza civil employees. The EU would receive all the tax revenues that Israel collects for the PA (I assume the percentage that would go to Gaza, not all the revenues.)

To sweeten the deal for Israel to pay the EU directly and not Abbas, Hamas would pledge not to support any military operations for some unspecified number of years and to prevent any other terror groups from doing the same.

This sounds far fetched, and the PA would never agree to it. I can't tell from the article if this is an official EU proposal or just some NGO trying to throw stuff on the wall to see if anything sticks. Also, Al Akhbar is pro-Hezbollah and anti-PA.

According to the article, Hamas is studying the proposal.

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Amnesty criticizes Roger Waters for acting like @Amnesty

Amnesty's Kristyan Benedict has lashed out at Roger Waters.

Not for his absurd pro-Hamas positions, but for his pro-Assad one:

The article that he refers to says:

The founder and frontman of British band Pink Floyd has echoed Russian propaganda claims that Syria's White Helmets had staged a recent chemical attack that has prompted US-led strikes against Damascus.

Roger Waters made the accusation during a concert in Barcelona on Friday after announcing that a supporter of the volunteer first responders had wanted speak to the crowd about the deadly chemical attack.

"The White Helmets are a fake organisation that exists only to create propaganda for the jihadists and terrorists," Waters said.

When it was pointed out to Benedict that Amnesty and Waters have worked together in the past, on the basis of Waters' purported human rights work as he obsesses about Israel and "Israeli" influence on world media and politics, Benedict acts surprised.

Yet Amnesty had an employee from 2011 to 2016, who had openly admired Palestinian terrorists and leaders who praised blowing up Jews on his Facebook page. The employee remained on their payroll for some 18 months after it was pointed out to them, and they never said anything against him..

Amnesty has carried water for Hamas by claiming that scores of terrorists were "innocent civilians" killed by Israel.

Benedict has refused to answer my points - because he knows that Amnesty is just as much a tacit supporter of anti-Israel terror by its one-sided reports that blame Israel more than Palestinian terrorists by a 20-1 ratio as Roger Waters is a supporter of Syria's regime.

And now Amnesty is claiming that Roger Waters is only a fool with respect to Syria but still a stand-up guy with respect to supporting Palestinian terror?

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