Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Interestingly, Islamic Jihad has not claimed responsibility for mortar barrage to Israel

From TOI:

More than two dozen mortar shells were fired at southern Israel in at least three separate barrages Tuesday morning as sirens blared throughout the area, the army said, amid heightened tensions along the Gaza border.

One person was lightly injured by shrapnel in his shoulder and was being treated at the Soroka medical center in Beersheba. There were no reports of significant material damage. One shell hit a tree in the yard of a kindergarten shortly before children were due to arrive.

The shellings appeared to be the largest attack from the Gaza Strip since the 2014 war, known in Israel as Operation Protective Edge.

The head of the Eshkol region told Channel 10 news that the army told him the attack was carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, as revenge for the Israel Defense Forces killing three of its members in a cross-border exchange earlier in the week.

The Iran-backed Islamic Jihad did not immediately take responsibility for the mortar attacks, but its spokesperson praised them, saying “the blood of our people is not so cheap that the terrorists (Israel) can do what they want without deterrence.”

Islamic Jihad and Hamas media are reporting on the mortar attacks and praising them, but for the past few years terror groups have not been as interested in taking responsibility for them.

The reason is that they don't want Israel to target them.

But Hamas is responsible in the end, and Hamas has stopped many rocket and mortar attacks in the past because it cannot afford a war.

This seems to be a tactical blunder on Hamas' part, as it has been successful in convincing the world that the Gaza riots were "peaceful protests" and it is hard to portray mortars as peaceful. Indeed, the EU and UN condemned this attack, but only condemned Israel for its response to the Gaza riot.

Terror media are showing photos of missiles fired from Gaza but they do not appear to be from this morning's attack, rather old file photos.

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05/28 Links Pt2: Deir Yassin: There was no massacre; Colonizing Gaza’s dead for Kaddish theater; Netta Barzilai’s "Toy" Most Popular Eurovision Song Ever

From Ian:

Deir Yassin: There was no massacre

Deir Yassin is one of the founding myths of the Palestinian narrative, according to which Israelis murdered 254 people, committed rapes, and other gender-oriented atrocities in a peaceful 1948 Palestinian village. For the past five years, I have carried out an in-depth research into the affair, learned to know the village, who lived there and where, their names, and above all, the exact circumstances of death of each of the people killed there. The results were astounding, but clear. There was no massacre in Deir Yassin. No rapes. Lots of unfounded Palestinian propaganda.

On 9 April 1948, combined forces of the Jewish Etzel and Lehi underground organizations attacked Deir Yassin, an Arab village west of Jerusalem. It was four months after the eruption of hostilities between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and about a month before the termination of the British mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel. The nature of this attack became one of the most controversial issues in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, serving the Palestinians as a proof for Israeli inhumanity. For almost seven decades, an anti-Israeli biased literature described it as an intentional and deliberate massacre of defenseless Arab villagers, accompanied by rapes and other atrocities.

What really happened in Deir Yassin? Contrary to what one could expect, I found that the testimonies of the Jewish attackers on the one hand, and the Arab survivors on the other hand, were surprisingly similar, at times almost identical. My methodology, therefore, was to integrate the testimonies of both parties involved, Jews and Arabs, into one story. I relied on a vast number of testimonies and records from 21 archives (including Israeli, Palestinian, British, American, UN and Red Cross), many of them yet unreleased to the public, and hundreds of other sources. My findings were basically two: no massacre took place in Deir Yassin, but on the other hand, the false rumors spread by the Palestinian leadership about a massacre, rapes and other atrocities, drove the Palestinian population to leave their homes and run away, becoming a major incentive for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.

No Massacre
Deir Yassin was not the peaceful village many later claimed it to be, but a fortified village with scores of armed combatants. Its relations with the adjacent Jewish neighborhoods were troubled for decades and the Jews believed it to endanger the only road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, thus constituting part of the Arab siege of Jewish Jerusalem. Therefore, although later denying it for political reasons, the Jewish main militia in 1948, the Haganah, sanctioned the attack and later took part in it by means of its striking force, the Palmach.

Seth Frantzman: Colonizing Gaza’s dead for Kaddish theater

On May 14 more than 60 people in Gaza were killed during protests that were the culmination of the “Great Return March” organized by Hamas. Two days later a group of 50 Jewish activists, some affiliated with well known groups, attended a Jewish prayer event at Parliament Square in London to, in the words of one attendee “express grief and anger in the most Jewish way possible.”

Have 50 Jews from different groups in the UK, or anywhere else, ever held a mass Kaddish for other groups? Have they ever held a Kaddish for the dead in the Rwandan genocide? Or Rohingya refugees? Or thousands of Yazidis machine-gunned to death by Islamic State? Or for hundreds of Israelis killed during the Second Intifada? Or for Jewish victims of antisemitism, whether in the AMIA Jewish Community Center bombing in 1994 or the murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006?

It doesn’t seem so. Only one group has received such a Kaddish, and only once, in a public place for all to see.

Palestinians didn’t ask for Kaddish to be said for them. They didn’t ask to become part of a Jewish mourning ritual. They had their own mourning tents in Gaza, their own prayers. But no one who said Kaddish for them in Parliament Square seemed particularly interested in Islamic mourning, or in live-streaming a mourning tent from Gaza. They wanted to say Kaddish – they wanted to colonize the dead in Gaza for a kind of theater in London.

I read two accounts of the Kaddish prayer in London, by two participants. One uses the word “Jew” or “Jewish” 10 times, the other five times. One uses the term “Gazans” once and the other uses the term “Palestinian” once. This incredible imbalance between self-references and references to the other – the group supposedly being prayed for – illustrates that the event wasn’t about Palestinians, it was about Jews.

David Collier: We must not accept the normalisation of extremism

Giving the extremists airtime

As the news became public, social media comments were filled with the anger of many in the Jewish community. Some of these comments were indeed outrageous. Why people make comments such as ‘I hope you commit suicide‘ is totally beyond me. But as awful as this may be, this isn’t news that is specific to this event. We know social media comments are full of hate. I personally receive ‘hate mail’ almost daily. Focusing on this element, rather than the fact that Jewish groups are creating extremists, was a matter of choice. It became a successful exercise in deflection.

Jewish News published a blog written by someone who had said Kaddish for terrorists.

Jewish News extremists blog
It wasn’t the blogger who chose to use the word ‘murder’ in the headline, it was the Jewish News editorial team (the Jewish News later changed the disgraceful headline). The blogger merely whines her way to the conclusion that Israel ‘does not value human life’. In any event, a party of forty-five extremists had been given a voice in the Jewish News.

How about giving Kahanist views airtime? Or does the paper’s pandering to more extreme views only reach out in one direction?

Forty-five people and one blog. Enough, right? Wrong. One hour later there was another one.

The second blog ran with an identical tune. Like the first it misled readers by suggesting the Kaddish group came from a ‘diverse’ range of opinions. Like the first it suggests the author is the one with a superior moral code that the rest of us need to aspire to. Just like the first it whines its way to the conclusion that outside of this band of extremists, Jewish people do not respect Jewish life.

Two is enough right? Wrong. The Rabbi who led the Kaddish also wrote a blog. That too was published. Forty five people – three blogs. But we are not finished.

Interesting analysis of Iranian antisemitism as strategy - in Arab News

An op-ed in Arab News by Dr. Majid Rafizadeh describes why Iranian antisemitism and anti-Israel positions are strategic.

To begin with, the clerics did not view their power and revolution as limited to Iran’s borders. One of the vital parts of the regime’s pursuit of regional domination is expanding its influence in the Levant, which has considerable strategic importance in the region. Having a presence in the Levant ensures Iran’s access to the Mediterranean Sea and grants the mullahs a significant edge over the Arab world. Competing with, outdoing, outperforming, and dominating powerful Arab states is one of Iran’s regional aims.

To achieve such an objective, the most effective way was to create an enemy. Which enemy is better than a powerful state such as Israel? From the mullahs’ perspective, having such a strong enemy would justify Tehran’s intensive military adventurism and expansionist policies in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine.

It would also justify Iran’s efforts to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and allocate a significant part of its budget to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite branch, the Quds Force, which is in charge of clandestine and extraterritorial military operations.

Secondly, projecting an obsessive hostility toward Israel paves the way for the Iranian leaders to defend establishing “resistance” groups, such as Hezbollah. In truth, these so-called resistance groups act on behalf of the Iranian regime, advancing its interest in the region, and assist Tehran in interfering in the domestic affairs of Arab nations.

Third, having Israel as an enemy helps the mullahs to repress domestic opposition. One of the charges commonly used to silence dissidents and opponents is being a “Zionist spy.” The penalty can range from long imprisonment to death.

Finally, the Islamic Republic is a revolutionary regime that sits on the bedrock of its extremist founders’ ideology. One of the core revolutionary principals of Khomeini and his gilded circle was anchored in anti-Semitism. The execution in May 1979 of Habib Elghanian, the head of the Jewish community, a businessman, and a philanthropist — after a 20-minute trial on trumped-up charges — was the regime’s first robust anti-Semitic message to Jewish communities and the rest of the world.

Threats to annihilate Israel, Holocaust denial by senior officials such as former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and hosting anti-Semitic events such the annual Holocaust Cartoon Competition are common practices within the clerical establishment, and are further examples of the regime’s anti-Semitic stance.

The mullahs’ obsession with Israel has nothing to do with defending and advancing the cause of the oppressed Palestinian people. It is for strategic and ideological reasons; to export the ruling clerics’ extremist ideology, to dominate and expand its influence in the Levant, to justify its military adventurism, and to more easily suppress domestic opposition and dissent.

The analysis seems pretty solid, and the fact that Arab News published it is significant - it means that traditionally antisemitic Arabs are starting to viewing hating Jews as a bad thing, under some circumstances.

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A little behind on my magazine reading, I read Karl Vick's description of the "Great Return March" riots in Time. He had adequate time to correct his mistakes before the issue was published, but there is no correction, in the magazine or even online.

Let's do a little fisking:

In Jerusalem, the ceremonial opening of the new U.S. Embassy proceeded at a stately pace, President Trump’s daughter Ivanka unveiling a plaque that announced not only the new address for U.S. representation in Israel but also a new, snugger alignment with the host nation. A few miles away, cameras captured the chaos as Israeli soldiers methodically cut down some 2,700 Palestinians, 60 fatally, as they marched toward the fence that separates Israel from the Gaza Strip.

Even Gaza's Health Ministry never claimed that Israel shot 2700 people. It said that some 3000 were injured - half of them from tear gas. Vick made an assumption and he was wrong.

The people who were killed were not shot while "marching" - they were either trying to cut the fence or directing people to set fires, hurl firebombs and cut the barbed wire and fence.

At press time, it was known that most of the dead were Hamas militants dressed like civilians. Time didn't update the article between online and print publication with this critical information, nor is it there now.

That patch of land, which hugs the Mediterranean Sea between Israel and Egypt, is home to some 2 million Palestinians, most of whose families once lived on land that is today Israel. They are stubborn refugees with no prospect of return, physically confined in an area only twice the size of the District of Columbia and with no prospect of improvement. Last year a Gaza home had four to six hours of electricity a day and water for six to eight hours every fourth day. Youth unemployment is 60%.

They are not refugees. There is only one definition of refugee under the Refugee Convention. Just because UNRWA calls them refugees does not make them refugees.

Beyond the absurdity of calling great-grandchildren of those who mostly voluntarily left their homes to be "refugees" we can add that from their own perspective, their families were from Palestine and they now live in Palestine. So how can they be considered refugees?

Vick cleverly doesn't directly blame Israel for Gaza's power issues but the implication is clear. Yet the Gaza power plant can run at full capacity if the Arabs would give Gazans the fuel. They aren't.

No corrections in the two weeks since this was written.

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05/28 Links Pt1: Explosive-laden Gazan drone found in southern Israel; Feckless West can't keep falling for Hamas propaganda; Labor MK: Annex the West Bank until Palestinian ‘Mandela’ arrives

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: Did Israel Use “Disproportionate Force” to Protect the Gaza Fence?

The Gaza border clash was not a situation of armed conflict, nor had it anything to do with the laws of armed conflict and occupation of territory. It was routine border protection by a sovereign state, from within its sovereign territory, facing a blatant threat of border violation by violent elements on the other side of the line.

Accusing Israel of committing war crimes, massacres, and violations of international humanitarian law, as well as invoking criteria and norms – including the customary international law rule of proportionality – characteristic of situations of armed conflict, has no relevance vis-à-vis the situation along the delimiting fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

The highly publicized visit by the Palestinian Foreign Minister to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), armed with a new set of complaints of war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions along the fence, cannot be considered to be anything other than a flawed and cynical manipulation of the Court.

Israel to Issue Its Own Report on Gaza Riots, Won’t Collaborate With United Nations Human Rights Council

Israel will not collaborate with the United Nations Human Rights Council on an investigation into the recent riots on the Gaza border. Instead, it will issue its own report on the events, Hebrew media outlets reported on Sunday.

Around a hundred Palestinians were killed in the riots, most of them terrorists. The events were marked by attempts to breach the border fence, the planting of explosives, and the use of kites equipped with incendiary devices.

The UNHRC recently voted to establish a committee to investigate the riots, with only the US and Australia opposing the idea.

Israel views the UNHRC as wholly biased and therefore unable to conduct a fair investigation. The overwhelming majority of the council’s resolutions are anti-Israel, and the Jewish state is the only country that is the object of a permanent agenda item.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said of the council, “The results of the investigatory committee are known in advance and are written into the language of the resolution itself. It is clear to everyone that the council’s goal is not a real investigation, but to harm Israel’s right to self-defense and the specific demonization of the Jewish state.”

In response, Israel will issue its own report. According to the Hebrew news site Walla, a top legal official stated, “Previous experience teaches that the best response to the false narrative put forward by the Human Rights Council is to present a direct and professional presentation of the facts for their approval.”

Amb. Alexander Downer: Feckless West can't keep falling for Hamas propaganda

So that brings us to the Hamas protest against the US Embassy on the Israeli/Gaza border. Hamas' strategy is to build international opposition to a Jewish state. Since they don't care about human life, any tactics will do.

They sent their fighters – as well as women and even some children – to try to breach the Israeli border and attack Israelis within Israel. The Israelis tried to stop them breaching the border with tear gas and even leaflets. But they kept coming trying to breach the border. The Israeli army fired at the invaders feet but even that didn't work. In the end they did shoot dead some of the attackers.

That may have been tragic. But 80 per cent of the victims were Hamas fighters, not Sunday afternoon protesters. For Hamas it was a triumph. They got what they wanted. Martyrs, as they like to call the victims, helped them win a media propaganda war worldwide. They saw it as a price worth paying. Even thrusting children and babies into a conflict zone is okay by them.

How feckless are so many governments to be taken in by these cruel tactics. And where, ultimately, will this lead? Will the Jewish people, mercilessly persecuted for centuries, give up their own state? Will those great people who have given so much to science and scholarship give in and let cruel extremists like Hamas define their future? I think not.

Gaza kindergarten stages play where kids kidnap an Orthodox Jew, kill Israeli soldier

From MEMRI:

Gaza Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony: Kids Stage Mock Military Attack, Hostage-Taking pic.twitter.com/zgWx2AThIr
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 28, 2018

At the graduation ceremony of the Al-Hoda kindergarten in Gaza, pre-schoolers carrying mock guns and rifles simulated Islamic Jihad militants storming an Israeli building on "Al-Quds Street," capturing a child dressed in stereotypical garb as an Orthodox Jew and killing an "Israeli soldier." To the sounds of loud explosions and gunfire, the children, dressed in uniforms of the Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades, attacked the building, placing a sign reading "Israel has fallen" in Hebrew and Arabic on the back of the "soldier," who lies prone on the ground, and leaving the stage with their "hostage." Then some of the children performed on stage, with an address by Yasser Arafat playing on the speakers.

Do you hear that?

It is the silence from Western liberals who care so much about peace.

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There were two stories over the past week that showed how liberal Jews love prominent Jewish authors who truly hate Jews and Judaism.

Philip Roth, the venerable American Jewish author, died last week. There was a torrent of coverage over his death and his importance, as well as how central Jewishness was to his writings. But there was comparatively little coverage to how his writings about Jews - and more importantly, about Judaism - would have been considered undeniably antisemitic if a non-Jew had written them.

Roth was indeed controversial in his early writings and people did protest him, but over the years liberal Jews decided that he was more a prophet than a scoundrel. His descriptions of middle class Jews as repressed hypersexual beings seem to describe him more than anyone else, but that portrayal became mainstream because of his writings.

Most disgusting was his short story "Conversion of the Jews" where Roth creates a teen character, Izzy, who gets Jews to kneel and accept Jesus as their savior using threats and a logic that any real 13 year old Jewish student could answer easily but that Izzy's rabbi teacher is stymied at. It was not only an attack on Jews, but a puerile attack on Judaism that the liberal Jews of the '60s considered brilliant because of their own complete ignorance of their own faith and theology.

I haven't read any of Roth's books since the 1970s but based on book reviews, it doesn't seem like his thinking evolved beyond the hate he had when he was young. He just became more willing to admit that he was always speaking about himself, as his books apparently became more and more self-referential. As far as I can tell, his hate for his coreligionists and his religion had not abated, and indeed he refused to be buried in a Jewish ceremony.

In liberal Jewish circles, Roth is not reviled for his antisemitic writings, but he is celebrated for them. He was "brave" in the sense that anything that brings notoriety and fame and fortune can be considered brave - in the way that ignorant Jews who rail against Israel consider themselves brave.

The newest story, and even more disturbing, was Reform Judaism's Hebrew Union College inviting author Michael Chabon to speak at their graduation.

It was to be expected that he would give an anti-Israel speech. That is what the HUC was looking for. But beyond that, Chabon took aim at Judasim itself, attacking Jews who have the audacity to want to marry other Jews rather than allow themselves to joyfully assimilate and disappear in the larger secular world, leaving only some bagels and Yiddish phrases as tokens of Jewish culture's contributions to the world. He celebrated his atheism and described how he hated Jewish rituals.

And he is celebrated at a liberal rabbinical college!

Only one student walked out, and that was over his anti-Israel stance, not his anti-Judaism stance.

Their has been little backlash against both the celebrations of Roth and of Chabon's offensive and ignorant speech from the target audience. The only reason I can imagine is that the liberal Jewish audience is simply too Jewishly ignorant to even understand what is being said. They think that their afternoon bar/bat mitzvah classes taken decades ago and annual Passover seders with additional symbols for the victims of the month somehow make them experts on a religion and a nation that they know nothing about.

There is nothing to be celebrated about hate. Yet it is directly because of their hate that Roth and Chabon are celebrated. Liberal American Jews don't even know enough to know that they should be offended. That is perhaps the biggest tragedy of all.

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Belgian TV cannot find a single Jew to agree to wear a yarmulke in public

Natasha Mann, a reporter for Belgian broadcaster RTBF, was preparing a report on antisemitism in Belgium and wanted to have a visual of a Jew being seen in Brussels in a Jewish skullcap.

So she asked around the Jewish community to find someone who would be willing to be part of the story, just to walk around the capital for the cameras.

For ten years, most observant Jews in Brussels have been wearing caps or hats to avoid being seen publicly as Jews and to avoid being attacked.

After three weeks of looking for a single Jew to be part of the story, she had to give up. The Jewish community is so frightened of Jew-haters that literally none of them would agree to publicly wear the most basic and unobtrusive of Jewish symbols.

First, Mann contacted a couple of rabbis. After finding out which neighborhood Mann wanted them to appear in, they declined. The Chief Rabbi, who was attacked a number of years ago, originally accepted the idea but the community leaders convinced him it was not a good idea.

Mann went to other Jewish community leaders. She thought she hit paydirt when one man said he wanted to do the story, saying that he is sick of being harassed for being a Jew. Mann asked him, "Do you complain to police when you hear antisemitic insults?" He answered back, "Do you complain to police when men whistle at you in the street?" Ultimately, he declined to do the story as well.

Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the Belgian league against anti-Semitism, who normally does not wear a yarmulke, agreed to do the story - but only if he is escorted by a security officer who is in contact with the police. It is too complicated.

The story ran without the visual Mann wanted. Which says a lot about how fearful the Jewish community in Belgium is, today.

Here is the story that was broadcast, without a single Jew willing to wear a yarmulke - and with a teen victim of antisemitism and his mother too afraid to show their faces.

(h/t Yoel)

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Tuesday's human shields: Gazans to put injured people on boats and set sail, to nowhere

From Middle East Monitor:

The Gaza Strip will set off a flotilla of ships on Tuesday in a bid to break the 12-year-long Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.

“This trip will carry the hopes and dreams of the Palestinian people for freedom,” Salah Abdul-Ati, a member of a Palestinian committee tasked with breaking the siege, told a press conference in the Gaza City on Sunday.

He said the first ship will set sail on Tuesday morning, with a number of injured Gazans and patients aboard.

He, however, did not specify the first stop of the ship.

This is the naval equivalent of the "Return march" riots. In this case, instead of women and children at the front lines that they hope Israel will kill, the organizers (who are probably Hamas since no one can do anything without Hamas permission) hope Israel will kill some "injured" people.

If the "injured" people are not really seeking treatment anywhere, then this is a sham. If they are really in need of hospitalization, then the organizers are knowingly putting their lives at risk, hoping that they die, so Israel can be blamed.

And judging from how the media covered Gaza, we can expect this gimmick to work as well.

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05/27 Links: Fatah: Israel worse than Nazis, wants to "crush" the Arab world, "steal its resources"; Imaginary War Serving False Peace; The 77th anniversary of the Farhud

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah: Israel worse than Nazis, wants to "crush" the Arab world, "steal its resources"

According to Fatah Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi, Israel's goal is to "break the dignity" of the Arab world, "crush" it, and "steal its resources." Israel will turn to this task after it is "done with" the Palestinians. To reach these objectives, Israel is using the US as a tool. Al-Qawasmi claimed Israel "rules over the American decision-making and the American Congress" and controls everything the US is doing in the region:

Fatah Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi: "Israel is thinking about how to completely be done with the Palestinian people and the issue of Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Sepulchre, in order to completely break the Arab dignity. Afterward, its aspiration will be to turn to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, and all of the Arab countries. Israel stands behind the American invasion of Iraq; Israel stands behind the American bombings in Syria. It wants the Arab countries to be crushed, and wants to steal their resources. It wants the Arab countries to be broken apart, poor, and involved in conflict with each other... It wants to completely unravel the Arab identity in order to guarantee its aspirations and realize its economic, military, and political superiority in the region... Whoever views Israel as a friend is completely mistaken. Israel wants to divide the Arab states and it does not exempt anyone. It rules over the American decision-making and over the American Congress. It is the one that is pushing and planning the need to invade all of the Arab and Islamic states for the American administration." [Official PA TV, April 15, 2018]

In another interview, Al-Qawasmi stated that Israel is worse than "Hitler, the Nazis, and fascism," but hides this "under the cloak of 'democracy'," claiming it is 'an oasis of democracy in the heart of the Arab dictatorships'":
Fatah Spokesman and Fatah Revolutionary Council member Osama Al-Qawasmi: "There is no regime in history - believe me, not Hitler, not the Nazis, not fascism - that has implemented what Israel is implementing against the Palestinians. It conceals these crimes - this Nazism and fascism, and this racist apartheid regime against the Palestinians - in the media under the cloak of ‘democracy,’ that it is ‘an oasis of democracy in the heart of the Arab dictatorships.’ It attempts to present itself in this way with the aid of the US." [Official PA TV Live, May 14, 2018]

Fatah spokesman: Israel is worse than Hitler, the Nazis, and fascism

Fatah spokesman repeats libel: Israel wants to “crush” the Arab world, “steal its resources”

Brendan O’Neill: The ugly trade in Palestinian pain

The Israel-Palestine conflict is unique among modern wars. No, not because Israel is an unnaturally wicked state, as its many critics across the West, and in the Middle East of course, would have us believe. And not because this conflict has been a long one. Or because it is a sometimes asymmetrical one, pitting a well-armed state against protesters armed with catapults and attitude. Many wars have been long and imbalanced.

No, this war is different because of who shapes it. Who impacts on it. Who contributes to it, usually unwittingly. This war is unique because very often its distant observers, those who watch and comment and hand-wring from afar, play a role in intensifying it and making it bloodier than it already is – without even realising they are doing so.

This should be the central lesson of the terrible events at the Gaza-Israel border last week: that much of what happens in the Israel-Palestine conflict is now largely a performance, a piece of bloody theatre, staged for the benefit of outsiders, especially for myopically anti-Israel Western activists and observers.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Hamas pushes Gaza’s people into harm’s way because it knows their suffering will strike a chord across the West. Because it knows images of their hardship will be shared widely, wept over, and held up as proof of the allegedly uniquely barbarous nature of the Jewish State. Hamas knows there is a hunger among the West’s so-called progressives for evidence of Palestinian pain, and by extension of Israeli evil, and it is more than willing to feed this hunger.

Richard Epstein: The Libertarian Podcast: Peace in the Middle East?
Previously Posted Article: The Israel-Palestine Standoff

Dani Ishai Behan is the founding administrator of the "Progressive Zionism" Facebook page.

Behan describes himself as a "Half-Irish/half-Jewish American activist, musician, and writer."

I think of him as an administrative pain-in-the-ass and a dedicated fighter for justice for the Jewish people. Mainly, however, he is known for drilling down into the heart of western-left antisemitic anti-Zionism and discussing his ideas on social media for years, now, before a significant audience.

Behan's most recent piece is a response to an article by Marc Lamont Hill published in the Huffington Post on May 17, 2018, entitled, "7 Myths About The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict."

Behan's response in the Times of Israel is entitled, Marc Lamont Hill’s ‘7 Myths’ Are Not Myths at All.

Hill, to my horror and disgust, is the "Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University."

Behan addresses seven ideas around the Long Arab War against the Jews of the Middle East that Professor Hill claims are false.

These are:

1. These people have been fighting forever.

Hill writes:

The truth is that Arabs and Jews have not been fighting forever. Rather, it can be dated to the end of the 19th century or, more acutely, the beginning of the post-World War I British Mandatory period.

Behan refutes:

Land theft, colonization, dhimmitude, heritage theft, massacres (beginning with the slaughter of Jews at Khaybar, in case anyone is wondering where the Palestinian “Khaybar” chant comes from), expulsions, confiscation/destruction of Jewish cultural sites – the list of injustices committed by Arabs against Jews is very long, and that’s only accounting for the pre-20th century stuff.

2. This is a religious conflict.

Hill disagrees:

Simply put, this is not about religion. It’s about land theft, expulsion and ethnic cleansing by foreign settlers to indigenous land.

Behan refutes:

Why else would Hamas’ charter include Islamic hadiths in it? Why else would they regularly invoke the Gharqad tree hadith explicitly commanding Muslims to kill Jews? Why else would the PA exclaim that Jews have “no right to desecrate our holy sites with their filthy feet” in response to Jews visiting the Temple Mount?...

I didn’t know indigenous peoples (Jews, in this case) could become “foreign settlers” in their own land by being exiled for centuries.

And I didn’t know colonizers (Arabs, in this case) could become indigenous by stealing land and replacing indigenous sacred sites with mosques.

3. It’s very complicated.

Hill writes:

Too often, however, the claim that “it’s complicated” functions as an excuse to sidestep a very simple reality: this is about the 70-year struggle of a people who have been expelled, murdered, robbed, imprisoned and occupied.

Behan refutes:

And now you’re saying that it was only 70 years?

So which one is it? 70 years or 100+ years? Pick one.

4. Palestinians keep turning down fair deals.

Hill writes:

This argument wrongly presumes that any deal that includes the sharing of stolen land with the victims of said theft could be fair. But even in relative and pragmatic terms, this is not true. Think back to the wildly disproportionate U.N. partition agreement of 1947 that allotted 55 percent of the land to the Jewish population even though there only comprised 33 percent of the population and owned 7 percent of the land.

Behan refutes:

Only half of the land was given back to the Jews, and most of it was indefensible, inarable desert. The only reason we weren’t offered even LESS than that is because the UN anticipated further mass aliyot in the aftermath of WWII. The Arabs got the better deal by far, but they rejected it because they could not stomach the idea of living with Jews as neighbors and as equals, rather than as second class citizens.

5. Palestinians don’t want peace.

Hill writes:

This argument plays on Orientalist narratives of Arabs as innately violent, irrational, pre-modern and undeserving of Western democracy or diplomacy. The argument also castigates Palestinians for resisting their brutal occupation and repression. Occupied people have a legal and moral right to defend themselves.

Behan refutes:

If your idea of “peace” entails either a wholesale genocide/expulsion of Jews or restoration of the post-conquest/pre-Zionist status quo of Jewish subordination (and yes, this is what most Palestinians want), then it’s absolutely fair (and certainly not a myth) to claim that you do not want peace, but rather continued conflict until the other side is “defeated”.

6. Israel has a right to exist!

Hill writes:

This claim is a product of U.S. and Israeli hasbara, a term for propaganda. First, this argument is only rhetorically deployed in relation to Israel, as opposed to Palestine or virtually any other nation-states.

Behan refutes:

No, this claim is common sense.

7. You’re anti-Semitic!

Hill writes:

Anti-Semitism is a very real phenomenon around the globe. And we must be vigilant about addressing and destroying anti-Semitism wherever it emerges. Too often, however, this claim is leveled against anyone who critiquesor protests the practices of the Israeli nation-state.

Under these conditions, allegations of anti-Semitism become nothing more than a reflexive retort, intended to shut down the conversation. More importantly, this is a key part of Zionist strategy: equating Judaism with Zionism and the Israeli state itself.

Behan refutes:

Marc, listen very carefully to what I’m about to say. Are you ready? Good.

1. You are NOT Jewish. You do not get to decide what is and is not antisemitic. Period. End of story.

2. Where do you get off lecturing us about our culture, especially when you can’t even get the definition of “hasbarah” right? Get back in your lane, fella.

3. You complain of “Orientalism”, only to invoke Orientalist tropes about Jews (i.e. that we are irrational, conspirational, and innately predisposed to lying and trickery for personal/political gain) mere moments later. Good show.

4. Antisemitism is any belief or action, intentional or otherwise, that serves to threaten our national, racial, religious, or political equality. It does not mean “critique of Judaism”, you ignoramus.

5. You obviously consider yourself a progressive, so what makes you think it’s okay to dismiss Jewish claims of antisemitism out of hand? What makes you think it’s okay to decide for us what constitutes antisemitism? Do you do this sort of thing to other minorities? I seriously doubt it.

6. No one, not even the most unhinged right wingers in our community, believes that “criticism of Israel” is a priori antisemitic. Literally NO ONE says that. These Jews who believe that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic are strawman inventions that exist only in the fevered imaginations of antisemites.

7. Denying Israel’s right to exist, demonizing/dehumanizing its people, holding it to a standard expected of no other nation, and hurling libel after libel after libel at it (as you’ve done throughout your entire article, if not your entire career) is not “critique”. It is antisemitism, nothing more.

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Pierre Rehov's Behind the Smokescreen, part 2, video showing the reality behind Gaza violence

Filmmaker Pierre Rehov has made a part 2 of his "Behind the Smokescreen" video, updating what is really going on in Gaza.

Behind The Smokescreen Part 2 ( The great deception ) from Pierre Rehov on Vimeo.

Part 1 is here.

(h/t Forest Rain)

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