Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 10, 2019

01/10 Links Pt2: Sorry, Angela Davis Is No One’s Human Rights Hero; 4th Anniversary of Paris Kosher Supermarket Attack: ‘Our Anger Is Still Strong,’; Dershowitz: Is Rashida Tlaib Guilty of Bigotry?

From Ian:

Will backing anti-BDS bills be a liability for 2020 Democratic hopefuls?

April 14, 2016. The day Democratic Party officials might have realized something was brewing on the American left. In the middle of a fiery primary debate between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the two were asked about the 2014 Gazan conflict, also known as Operation Protective Edge.

Clinton defended Israel, which she said did not invite Hamas’ relentless rocket attacks. She further excoriated the terror organization, which she said had squandered an opportunity to rebuild Gaza. For this blazing defense of the Jewish state, she received mild applause.

Jewish maverick politician Sanders, meanwhile, castigated Israel for what he deemed its excessive use of force during the 51-day offensive.

“We had in the Gaza area some 10,000 civilians who were wounded and some 1,5000 that were killed. If you’re asking not just me but countries all over the world, was that was a disproportionate attack, the answer is yes, I believe it was,” Sanders said, to uproarious applause. “In the long run,” he continued, “if we are ever going to bring peace to that region, which has seen so much hatred and so much war, we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity.” That line brought down the house.

According to long-time member of the Democratic National Committee James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute, that moment sent a message to Democrats. “I think Sanders discovered at the Brooklyn debate that there is a constituency that wants to hear about this,” Zogby recently told The Times of Israel.

Today in the Senate, most of the party’s leading 2020 prospective candidates seem to want to avoid creating a vulnerability with the pro-Palestinian constituency Zogby described.

Reuters Misrepresents New Congress’ Anti-BDS Bill

Reuters’ article yesterday on the “Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act,” a bill which stalled Tuesday in the Senate, opens with a misleading and ominous reference to the legislation’s “measure to punish Americans who boycott Israel” (“First bill of new U.S. Congress, on Middle East policy, stalls in Senate“).

Further down, the article repeats this inaccurate and overly broad characterization of the bill’s supposed application to Americans at large, stating that it “would let state and local governments punish Americans for boycotting Israel.”

In fact, the bill would not sweepingly apply to “Americans” at large, but to “entities” engaged in geographically specific boycott activity. Thus, the bill clearly defines what constitutes an entity and what constitutes “activities described.” The bill states:
(a) State And Local Measures.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a State or local government may adopt and enforce measures that meet the requirements of subsection (c) to divest the assets of the State or local government from, prohibit investment of the assets of the State or local government in, or restrict contracting by the State or local government for goods and services with—

(1) an entity that the State or local government determines, using credible information available to the public, knowingly engages in an activity described in subsection (b);

(2) a successor entity or subunit of an entity described in paragraph (1); or

(3) an entity that owns or controls or is owned or controlled by an entity described in paragraph (1).

US Muslim group sues to block anti-BDS measure in Maryland

A Muslim civil rights group is suing to block the US state of Maryland from enforcing an executive order barring state agencies from contracting with businesses that boycott Israel.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations sued Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and state Attorney General Brian Frosh on Wednesday on behalf of software engineer Syed Saqib Ali, a former state lawmaker.

The October 2017 executive order requires contractors to certify that they don’t boycott Israel. Ali’s federal lawsuit says the order bars him from bidding for government software contracts because he supports boycotts of businesses and organizations that “contribute to the oppression of Palestinians.”

CAIR says 26 states have enacted anti-BDS legislation similar to Maryland’s that prohibits the state from working with entities that boycott Israel, though none have passed measures making participating in a boycott of Israel illegal.

CAIR attorney Gadeir Abbas noted that other federal lawsuits have challenged the anti-BDS measures in Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas.

In December, CAIR filed a motion in a Texas federal court on behalf of a speech pathologist who was fired for refusing to sign an anti-BDS pledge included in her employment contract.

Jordanian member of Parliament Raed al-Khaza'leh spoke on Monday about the kerfuffle over Jordanian trade unions placing Israeli flags at the entrances of their buildings, forcing visitors to step on them as they enter.

Saying that the country celebrated the incident for three days, asked, "Is this the level that we have reached? That our heroism is trampling on a flag?"

Of course, he emphasized, he hates Israel, and he saluted the Egyptian singer whose song "I Hate Israel" was a hit a couple of years back, although he admits that Arab rulers (Jordan presumably excluded) have interests in maintaining relationships with Israel.

(h/t WhoCares and Ibn Boutros)

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Benny Gantz wants to negotiate a two-state solution with the PLO and divide Jerusalem. No, wait, he wants to annex Area C and offer the Palestinians autonomy in less-than-a-state enclaves. Who knows? Nobody, because Gantz won’t say. But more important, nobody seems to care what Silent Ben’s actual positions on anything are. A recent poll shows that in a contest between Gantz and PM Netanyahu, Gantz came in a close second with 38% of respondents favoring him to Netanyahu’s 41%. Apparently, Gantz’s experience as a former IDF Chief of Staff plus his prime ministerial appearance is enough to make him a viable alternative to Netanyahu, who is certainly one of the most successful Israeli prime ministers in history.

But maybe that’s because Netanyahu’s legal problems are deterring voters? Nope, polls show that, like Gantz’s extreme reticence, Bibi’s possible indictment on several counts of corruption simply doesn’t matter. Those who like him believe that the accusations are either stupid – I mean, after all, so what if someone gave him expensive cigars and champagne? – or criminalization of politics as usual, such as the government’s granting benefits to the Bezek communications conglomerate and its owner, Shaul Elovitch, in return for favorable coverage of the Prime Minister on its Walla website. Supposedly, the personal benefit for Elovitch was in the millions of shekels. The cases against Bibi are based on evidence provided by state’s witnesses, or, if you prefer, rats who will say anything to save their own skins.

There seem to be two kinds of people that dislike him. There are those who hate him for being instrumental in keeping the Left from realizing what it believes is its natural right to rule the country, all the more so insofar as he has been far more successful than they were in avoiding war and guiding the economy to its best condition ever. And there are those who simply dislike his personality, seeing him as shady and manipulative. One day I was waiting to cross the street when several people crossed against the traffic light. A man was standing next to me with a small boy:

Man: “We don’t cross on red. We are not Bibi.”
Boy: “Who is Bibi, grandpa?”
Man: “Bibi is one who always crosses on red. Don’t be like him.”

Monday night Bibi made what he had said was going to be a dramatic announcement. Speculation ranged from “he is going to resign” to “he is going to invade Syria,” but it turned out that he wanted to demand the right to confront his accusers publicly. The speech was treated very negatively in most of the media, and I don’t think it especially helped (or hurt) him, but he has a point. For – literally – years, there have been almost continuous leaks to the media about how any minute now there will be stunning revelations of corruption that will bring down the Prime Minister; but in fact, until recently none of it amounted to a hill of beans. For example, who remembers the “deposit bottle scandal” in which Sara Netanyahu was accused of – can you imagine? – returning empty bottles that had been bought for official functions and keeping the money!

Every time – and there were dozens of times – that Netanyahu or his wife were questioned by the police, illegally leaked stories about what had transpired appeared on the evening news. Nobody in the police seems to have been punished, or as far as I know, even investigated about the leaks.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a general feeling that Bibi “has been Prime Minister long enough.” At age 69, he is possibly a little tired. If he isn’t ready to retire today, he certainly will be in a few years. One of his foibles is that he has never been able to abide anyone in his party that he suspects could challenge him, which means that there are few natural successors. The danger is that when he does step down, the majority of Israelis who have supported a right-wing coalition in recent years will fragment and the result will be that the Left will return to power. This could be facilitated by so-called “centrist” parties who lean to the right during the campaign, but when elected implement left-wing principles. This is the approach taken by Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, who promised during his campaign that there would be no direct talks with the PLO, no return to the pre-1967 lines, and no additional state between Israel and Jordan. As everyone knows, a year later he was shaking hands with Arafat on the White House lawn. So when Bibi says of Gantz – another former soldier like Rabin – that someone who won’t say whether he is left or right is probably left, right-wing Israelis are understandably worried.

Bibi himself has sometimes taken actions that can’t be understood from a right-wing perspective. For example, the illegal Bedouin settlement of Khan al-Ahmar, which can fairly be described as a joint provocation by the European Union and the Palestinian authority, and which the Supreme Court has (surprisingly) agreed ought to be demolished, still stands. Why? Perhaps Bibi has been threatened by the UK or other European countries, but it seems to me that a strong stand on this issue would be both good policy and good politics. Bibi doesn’t see it that way.

Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, who have recently separated from Beit Yehudi to form a new party called Hayamin Hehadash(The New Right) have sharply attacked him over his extended delay in removing the settlement. They have contrasted it to the recent violent removal of right-wing squatters from the wreckage of the community of Amona that was dismantled in 2017 by order of the Supreme Court over controversial Palestinian claims of ownership of part of the land.

In addition to the security concern posed by the location of Khan al-Ahmar, next to the strategic Route 1, there is the aspect of honor/humiliation/deterrence that I’ve written about so many times. From Israel’s point of view, it has a perfect right and a legitimate reason to enforce its building regulations in Area C. By allowing the Arabs and their European backers to thumb their noses at our sovereignty, we yield it to them, sending a message that we are too weak to defend our land, and therefore don’t have the right to keep it. Or perhaps Bibi doesn’t think that Judea and Samaria, even Area C with its Jewish majority, should be part of Israel. It’s hard to know what he thinks, which is one of the reasons many Israelis have a problem with him. If you hide your principles under a rock, people think that you are ashamed of them.

This is why I am disappointed with him. He is a pragmatist who tends to ignore the psychological and spiritual dimensions of power, which, especially in the Middle East, can be as important as the power of your air force or the number of tanks you can deploy. I see Bibi accepting too much humiliation, losing too much status, and not fighting the information war at all. He would say that our military and economic power has never been greater, and he would be right. But the degree of respect that we can command, both from our friends and our enemies, has declined in recent years.

I’ve always supported Bibi and Likud. But this April, I might vote for a party with more clearly articulated principles – and one that is likely to stand up for them.

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An interview with new member of Congress, Donna Shalala, from JNS:

Newly elected to serve Florida’s 27th congressional district, Donna Shalala is no stranger to politics or the relationship between the United States and Israel. She served as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton, where she traveled to Israel and helped researchers there obtain grants from the National Institutes of Health, in addition to assisting with other initiatives inside the Jewish state.

She then went into the private sector: serving as University of Miami president for 14 years and president of the Clinton Foundation for two years.

Shalala, who is Arab-American, was endorsed by the Jewish Democratic Council of America. She defeated Maria Elvira Salazar in the midterm elections to replace the retiring Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, known to be staunchly pro-Israel, and became the second-oldest freshman representative ever.

JNS talked with Shalala by phone. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: What is your overall stance on the U.S.-Israel relationship? I know you were briefly detained at Ben-Gurion Airport in 2010 on your way back to the United States.

A: I issued a statement saying that Israel had a right to protect the security of its people. I didn’t have any problem with that. My Jewish friends had a bigger problem than I did. They thought it was absurd. The prime minister got up in the Knesset and said, “We got to take a look at our security because Donna Shalala is one of our friends.” So it wasn’t a big issue as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve been a friend of Israel for a long time. I’ve been working with the universities within the health-care system for a long time. I first went to Israel to be on Mayor Teddy Kollek’s Jerusalem Committee to help plan the city of Jerusalem when I was a young urbanist, a young academic, teaching at Columbia [University]. And I have honorary degrees from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the University of Haifa and from Ben-Gurion University [of the Negev].

Q: What experiences did you have with Israel when you were HHS Secretary?

A: I actually worked with Israeli health officials to guarantee the Weizmann Institute [of Science] scientists the opportunity to apply for NIH grants among other things. I worked with women leaders in Israel on health-care issues. I went in and out of Israel four times when I was secretary.

Q: Did the scientists get the NIH grants?

A: Absolutely. And to this day, they can apply for NIH grants.

Q: How many times have you been to Israel?

A: Oh, I don’t know. 20? 30? A lot.

Q: What’s your stance on BDS? In 2010, as University of Miami president you said “there will never be a boycott of Israel.”

A: I’m absolutely opposed to a boycott of any kind both in terms of disinvestment, as well as in the attacks on Israeli academics by the British Union. I was one of the first college presidents in the country to denounce that.

Q: What is your reaction to fellow incoming Democrats Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, who have made anti-Israel statements?

A: That’s their position, and I disagree with it. I don’t agree with anyone that makes antisemitic remarks. And my position on Israel is very firm and very clear. There are going to be members of Congress with different positions. That’s their position, not mine.

Q: What is your stance on the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act?

A: I have not looked at specific bills, but I’ll be talking to my colleagues about a list of things I intend to support. Anything that has to do with antisemitism you can be sure I’ll be front and center.

Q: Anything else our readers should know about you?

A: They should know there’s an Arab American with longstanding support of Israel who’s just been elected in South Florida.

Interestingly, Shalala was honored by the American University of Beirut with an honorary degree (she's of Lebanese ancestry) and students protested because she is "Zionist." But an article in Lebanon made fun of the protesters and defended her because she has also said that she is a staunch advocate of a Palestinian state.

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01/10 Links Pt1: Send the Hebron observer force home; Why the UN Is Awful: Part Eleventy Billion; Is the key to Middle East peace Ted Cruz's beard?

From Ian:

Prof. Eugene Kontorovich: Send the Hebron observer force home

The Temporary International Presence in Hebron is Israel's perpetual own-goal. The special task force oversees Jewish areas of Hebron and – beyond its members' diplomatic passports – is similar in its activities to left-wing rights groups such as the B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence. At the end of the month, Israel will have an opportunity to send TIPH home.

Israel has more observers than any other country, from the U.N. presence in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood to the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force on the Golan Heights. But the TIPH is an entirely different animal. It isn't operated by the U.N. yet it is still an international force in Hebron. And unlike other such forces, which only the U.N. can abolish, it maintains an ongoing presence in Hebron because Israel says it can.

Israel was pressured to accept TIPH's presence after Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994. The organization received its current mandate as part of a 1997 agreement stipulating that its validity must be renewed every three months – hence its "temporary" status. For 20 years now Israel has renewed the hostile organization's mandate to operate in Hebron. Otherwise, its presence would have ended long ago. It is now one of the oldest observer forces in the world, and it contributes to Israel's image as an outlaw state that demands special observation.

The anti-Israel bias of TIPH is built into its mandate, which tasked organization members with the one-sided mission of "promoting by their presence a feeling of security" for Palestinians in Hebron. Protecting Jews from constant terrorist attacks is not part of their job description. Members of the organization even "succeeded" in veering from this narrow definition by attacking Jews in Hebron in the last year. The attackers were later pulled out of the country by the TIPH leadership without ever having to stand trial. TIPH has cooperated with radical groups like Breaking the Silence and leaked confidential reports to the press. The organization's reports are full of anti-Israel claims that have no connection to its stated task. According to media reports, TIPH asserts that Jews have no right to any presence anywhere in Hebron.

Jonah Goldberg: Why the UN Is Awful: Part Eleventy Billion

Via the inestimable Hillel Neuer, I learned that the UN elected Yemen to the vice-presidency of the organization that promotes gender equity.

No joke: @UN_Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, just elected 🇾🇪 #Yemen — ranked as the worst country in the world on gender inequality (149th out of 149) — to be Vice-President of its Executive Board. pic.twitter.com/sW3x9KofSt
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 9, 2019

You should read his whole tweet-storm. Yemen is not a woman-friendly place.

But this is yet another example of how the worst actors flock to the organizations charged with “fixing” various problems. Human-rights abusers race like moths to a flame to sit on human-rights bodies, precisely because that is the best way to protect themselves from international condemnation and, all too often, focus international fury on Israel. Also via Hillel:

Why dictators actually LOVE the UN Human Rights Council.

UNHRC Condemnations, 2006-2016:
🇮🇱 Israel - 68
🇩🇿 Algeria - 0
🇨🇳 China - 0
🇮🇶 Iraq - 0
🇵🇰 Pakistan - 0
🇶🇦 Qatar - 0
🇷🇺 Russia - 0
🇸🇴 Somalia - 0
🇹🇷 Turkey - 0
🇻🇪 Venezuela - 0
🇿🇼 Zimbabwe - 0
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 12, 2018

NGO Monitor: Palestinian NGO Inadvertently Exonerates IDF

A Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO), Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), has, in two documents, compiled information demonstrating Palestinian violence along the Gaza border during the “Great March of Return.” Despite DCI-P’s claims that the march is a series of “protests” led by “civilians,” the actual evidence provided in their documentation proves otherwise.

For example, in its December 31, 2018 “Year in Review” report, DCI-P states that “protestors’ activities have involved…burning tires, efforts to pass through the perimeter fence on foot or the Israeli-enforced ‘no go zones’ at sea on fishing boats, launching incendiary balloons across the perimeter fence, and throwing stones, molotov cocktails, firebombs or other objects toward the perimeter fence” (emphasis added). Individuals committing these acts of violence are combatants, or civilians directly participating in hostilities.

DCI-P labels other undoubtedly military acts as civilian, claiming that “some civilians have developed other protest strategies such as the ‘night confusion unit’ whose goal is to create distractions for Israeli forces late at night with loud sounds and fireworks. Another group has self-organized to construct large kites with flaming tales to be flown across the perimeter fence in order to start fires in Israeli agricultural fields and forests” (emphasis added).

In the second publication, “Two children died from Palestinian armed group activities,” DCI-P simultaneously claims that children participating in the violence along the Gaza border were both “recruited and used” as child soldiers and killed as civilians. For instance, DCI-P states that “a 15-year-old boy killed by Israeli forces on May 14, was a member of Islamic Jihad’s youth ‘Scouts’ program, known as Al-Faris” adding that “According to eyewitness testimony, Ahmad was throwing two tires toward the remnants of burning tires…he was unarmed and dressed in civilian clothing” (emphasis added).

DCI-P also explains that a 16-year old was “shot him while he was attempting to set fire to a tire near the perimeter fence…while wearing civilian clothing and unarmed”.

"Jewish Voice for Peace" admits it supports terrorism

A fun day on Twitter on Wednesday with the "Jewish Voice for Peace," which tweeted this:

When people started asking them why they were highlighting a poster showing a Palestinian woman with a rifle and ammunition, and how that jives with "peace," they gave a consistent answer:

And when one of their fans noted that this is not a good look for them ans they should edit out the guns and bullets, they doubled down, saying it is crucial that people understand that Palestinians are allowed to kill Jews, they claim, under international law.

Then, as more and more people piled on about their hypocrisy, they silently deleted every tweet that said that terror is allowed under international law.

Not that they deny it. But they saw that it made them look very bad.

In 1978, when the poster was made, no one even made a pretense that Palestinian violence was "defense." But even now, what defense do they do - digging tunnels to kidnap Israelis, shooting rockets at civilians, floating explosive balloons and kites to start wildfires in Israel, car ramming and stabbing attacks - how are any of those the least bit "defensive?"

Palestinian militarism has been synonymous with terror, and JVP proved in this thread that they support Palestinian terror.

"Jewish Voice for Peace?" Ha!

(h/t kweansmom)

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A children's geography book published for over 10 years in Morocco has caused an uproar over social media recently, because it shows Israel and not "Palestine" - and it shows the Dome of the Rock as being in Israel's capital, Jerusalem.

According to the story, the book "L'atlas du monde" or "Atlas of the World" was printed by a Casablanca-based publishing house.

"Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, a holy city to the Jews,"it says in French. "Israel is a state founded by the Jews in 1948" and that "it is inhabited by Arab Palestinians and Israeli Jews."

According to Moroccan websites, the current edition of the book in the Moroccan markets was issued in 2016, and earlier editions have been published there since 2007.

I found versions of this book being published in Serbia and Poland as well as France, so it is clearly very popular.

It is surprising that it took Moroccans so long to notice this!

(h/t Ibn Boutros and Yoel)

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01/09 Links Pt2: Yes, Anti-Zionism Is The Same As Anti-Semitism; BDS Bill Debate Is about Anti-Semitism, Not Speech; For Jews, 'Never Again' is right now

From Ian:

Yes, Anti-Zionism Is The Same As Anti-Semitism

In a recent New York Times op-ed titled “Anti-Zionism isn’t the same as Anti-Semitism,” columnist Michelle Goldberg defended Ilhan Omar, a newly elected House representative who has claimed that Jews have hypnotized the world for their evil works. A person can oppose “Jewish ethno-nationalism without being a bigot,” Goldberg explained. “Indeed,” she went on, “it’s increasingly absurd to treat the Israeli state as a stand-in for Jews writ large, given the way the current Israeli government has aligned itself with far-right European movements that have anti-Semitic roots.”

It’s true, of course, that anti-Zionism isn’t “the same” as common anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionism is the most significant and consequential form of anti-Semitism that exists in the world today. Anti-Zionism has done more to undermine Jewish safety than all the ugly tweets, dog whistles, and white nationalist marches combined. It is the predominant justification for violence, murder, and hatred against Jews in Europe and the Middle East. And it’s now infiltrating American politics.

What was once festering on the progressive fringes has found its way into elected offices and the heart of the liberal activist movement. As Democrats increasingly turn on Israel, Jewish liberals, many of whom have already purposely muddled Jewish values with progressive ones, are attempting to untether Israel from its central role in Jewish culture and faith for political expediency.

Now, of course, merely being critical of the Israeli government isn’t anti-Semitic. No serious person has ever argued otherwise. I’ve never heard any Israeli official or AIPAC spokesman ever claim that Israel is a “stand-in for Jews writ large,” nor have I ever heard an Israeli prime minister profess to speak for all Jews. (We have the ADL for that.) Israel has featured both left-wing and right-wing governments, and like governments in any liberal democracy, its leaders can be corrupt, misguided, or incompetent. Israelis criticize their governments every day.

However, opposing “Zionism” itself — the movement for a Jewish homeland — is to deny the validity of a Jewish claim to a nation altogether. It puts you in league with Hamas and Hezbollah and the mullahs of Iran. The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s 1968 charter states that “Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.” This, it seems, is now also the position of a number of Democrats.

Daniel Gordis: The American ‘Zionist’ assault on Israel

“American Jews and Israeli Jews Are Headed for a Messy Breakup,” a column by Jonathan Weisman announced in the New York Times earlier this week. He’s probably right. But only “probably.” The relationship does not have to crash, if both sides can acknowledge the profound ways in which the world’s two largest Jewish communities are profoundly different, and cease imposing their own worldview on the other.

To heal this rift, both sides are going to need to accept that we are invariably going to continue disappointing each other, because American Judaism and Israeli Judaism are, by this point, very different animals. As I describe in my forthcoming book, We Stand Divided: Competing Visions of Jewishness and the Rift Between American Jews and Israel, they now rest on almost entirely different foundations. One is universal and one particular, one focuses on Judaism as religion while the other sees Judaism as nationality, one largely exempt from the messiness of history, while the other is the product of a movement that expressly sought to restore the Jews as players into the complexities (and ugliness) of history.

Ultimately, both Israel and American Jews will have to change much about their views of and discourse about the other. At this moment, though, I want to focus on the ways in which American Jews need to rethink their discourse about Israel, since this side of the equation was much in evidence both in Weisman’s column and in another piece week, by Peter Beinart, in the Forward.

As part of the IfNotNow-instigated brouhaha about Birthright, Beinart issued a characteristic warning this week: “Birthright Will Fail If It Doesn’t Evolve With Young Jews,” arguing that Birthright trips do not offer a balanced picture of the conflict, which in turn will lead many young American Jews to ignore the program.

Now, to be clear, I have never worked for Birthright, have never been on a Birthright trip, and am not in any way privy to their curricular conversations. But here is what I do know. Many children of friends of ours, sophisticated and thoughtful young people, have been on Birthright trips, and have had life-transforming experiences. They did not feel that they’d been brainwashed or worked over – they just fell in love not only with the State of Israel, but with Judaism writ large. Also, for the record, I like Peter Beinart. He’s intelligent and I believe he’s being honest when he says he cares about Israel. For a while, Peter and I did a podcast together in which we modeled how two people who disagree deeply can engage in respectful dialogue. (We’ve also debated each other a few times, and are doing it again on February 7 at Harvard Hillel.)

But in many ways, Beinart’s column reflects a fundamental decision American Jews are going to have to make when it comes to Israel. They will have to decide what matters to them more, Israel’s welfare or their own good standing in their progressive American circles. Though he would of course say that he disagrees, I believe that Beinart is more committed to the latter. That is why he takes a complex issue, oversimplifies it and assumes that the only reasonable read of the situation is that held by American progressives; and then, since he knows that Birthright cannot accommodate his demand (and because he sees Birthright as part of the American Jewish establishment of which he is relentlessly critical), he essentially threatens to join the crowd seeking to destroy it.

In NY Times, Jonathan Weisman Misrepresents Quotes and Polls to Push Jewish “Breakup” Narrative _ CAMERA

Jonathan Weisman insists that the tribulations of 2018 brought American Jews and their Israeli counterparts “ever closer to a breaking point.” That, at least, is how he put it in the opening sentence of his Jan. 4, 2019 news analysis piece in the New York Times.

So convincing did the author seemingly find his own arguments that, at some point between his first and last sentences, the breaking point went from near to already here: “The Great Schism is upon us,” Weisman concluded in his dramatic final sentence.

It’s a sweeping hypothesis. And yet the analysis, published in the newspaper’s Opinion section, doesn’t offer a single statistic to directly substantiate his claim. Do any surveys confirm the existence of a Great Schism? Or the idea that “neither side sees the other as caring for its basic well-being,” a view Weisman approvingly attributes to a Chicago rabbi? Or that Israeli citizens “are increasingly dismissive of the views of American Jews”? Or that younger American Jews see in Israel “a bully, armed and indifferent”? If so, Weisman doesn’t share them.

The author does cite some polling numbers from the Pew Research Center meant to give credence to his case. But those numbers aren’t just wrested from their context in a way likely to mislead. They are flatly misreported.

For Jews, 'Never Again' is right now

Australia: The St Kilda rally, which was part of a move by far-right adherents to move their activism from the virtual to the real world, violated and betrayed the values and convictions that we hold dear.

My friend Rabbi Marvin Hier reminds us that on April 29, 1945, a day before he committed suicide, Hitler predicted that it would take centuries for anti-Semitism to return.

But he was wrong. It has taken less than seven decades.

The climate for Australian Jews remains hostile, with 2018 seeing a number of alarming incidents across the country.

Last year, a Jewish woman driving in Elsternwick was abused by a couple who screamed, "Hitler was right and should have killed you all" and "move your f---ing car or else I will come out and hit you".

A teacher in a car park in Bentleigh was subject to frightening tirade with a man and woman yelling at her, "Hitler had the right idea". A woman sitting in a cafe in Waverley was called "a bloody Jew", and a mother, her daughter and granddaughter on Australia Day were called "f---ing Jews".

And what about the 13-year-old Jewish girl at a public school who was sent a Snapchat video with a classmate rapping about her, "going to the shower, the gas shower", or the 15-year-old Jewish teen at a private school whose friend posted an image on Instagram, dressed as a Nazi, with the tagline, "We’re going to a place called Auschwitz, it is shower time little Jews", or the 16-year-old Jewish girl who was told she would be raped in the gas chambers.

Neo-Nazi groups such as Antipodean Resistance are invading our streets with vandalism, last week defiling a residential aged care facility that houses many Holocaust survivors with a swastika, while other right-wing extremists distributed flyers last year in Footscray describing Jews as "The whole world’s enemy ... pure evil", or plastering universities with Holocaust denial material.

Imagine having to teach your child that brightly colored balloons can kill. Imagine that hate that impels a people to try to murder and maim small children. https://t.co/tIF74KxW7C
— (((Varda Epstein))) (@epavard) January 8, 2019

Etti always awoke at dawn, as her parents and sister slumbered on for that one more delicious hour. Soon the house would fill with the smell of coffee as the family began the hectic battle of getting everyone showered, dressed, and out the door for the day to jobs and daycare and school. Even Shaked, Etti’s sister, already a big girl in first grade, slept on. It was warm under the covers. Why not?

Etti spied something moving on balcony, something colorful, floating in and out of sight. “What could it be?” she wondered. She pushed the sliding door ever so carefully, so as not to wake the others. She knew she’d catch it if she risked even one precious moment of their sleep.

It was a balloon! A red one. Tied to a string, the bobbing orb had become entangled with the arms of a chair. Etti clapped her hands, but without a sound, just the two hands meeting, still reluctant to incur the wrath of her sleeping family.

The girl crept closer, reached out for the balloon, and “Boom!” a big explosion.

Now it was like all the sound had been sucked out of the air.

Etti was on the ground when her parents ran to the source of the explosion and found her. And then there were sirens, so many sirens. Too many sirens. Too many people running around. Some of them in uniforms of various types, doctors, fire fighters, policemen, soldiers. Residents in pajamas, too.

It was not even 7 AM.

***

This scenario might go in a number of directions. In the worst case, Etti is dead by balloon, a gift from the lovely people of Gaza, who want Jews dead, even children. That’s how much they hate us. That’s the extent to which they dehumanize the Jews. If the Jews are vermin, it’s a good deed to kill them, and certainly no reason to let a small cockroach grow up to become a large one.

Fear would spread throughout the neighborhood. Parents would warn their children not to touch balloons unless a parent authorizes the contact. Etti’s little kindergarten friends would ask for her, and wonder why their teachers looked away—couldn’t seem to look the children in the eyes as they explained that Etti would not be coming to kindergarten again.

When they asked their parents, “Aifo Etti?” (where is Etti), their mommas hugged them and cried, while daddy went to check that the new lock on the balcony door was secure.

Or maybe Etti lived, but the explosion robbed her, at age 4, of her eyesight. There were many weeks in the hospital, her face bandaged. Tests, pain. Tension. And worst of all, Etti simply didn’t understand what had happened. She remembers the balloon, tantalizing, red, weaving in and out of her sight, and being so careful not to wake anyone, and then something big, a big noise, then no noise and now hospitals, pain, and bandages over her eyes.

On the other hand, maybe it was only a digit lost, or an appendage. A hand, her right one, of course, or a foot or “just” her thumb. It wasn’t there anymore after the balloon, the red balloon that beckoned to her on the balcony on that clear winter morning, so warm in the South of Israel you could go out in your pajamas barefoot and not be the least bit cold. Etti could still feel her foot/hand/thumb. And sometimes it hurt bad. But when she looked, it wasn’t there. It never was anymore.

Etti had to learn everything all over again. And she’d just learned to draw a house, with a sun in the sky, and grass on the ground, and a happy family standing nearby. Two parents, and two little girls. But now no one was happy.

Her mother would sit and rock with Etti on her lap, neither of them making a sound. With her good hand, Etti would sometimes reach up and touch the fat tears as they fell from her mother’s eyes and then put her fingers to her mouth wondering at the salty sadness, so different from the rain. Her father too, never smiled anymore in the way he used to do when he looked at her, so his eyes would crinkle up with delight. Now his mouth was a tight, straight line. He was angry. Maybe it was her fault for touching the balloon! But it had been so red. She was sorry!

Perhaps, on the other hand, Etti was the luckiest little girl in the world, and all that happened was a loud noise, people running, and a stinging feeling where she’d received a small powder burn on her hand. Lucky means never trusting ever again that a toy could be just a toy. Being fearful and afraid to do anything without an adult confirming that it’s okay, nothing will happen to her, she’s safe. Even though never again does she really feel safe.

She wakes up in the night with heart pounding from the bad dream, the scary one of red balloons with monster faces exploding and hurting her, more and more of them each night, and again she feels that the bed is wet. She imagines that dangerous things are all around her and she is scared of the people she knows, too.

One fine morning, Etti woke up a happy girl. But the next day she was not. Everything had changed. Her face, once cute and pudgy became pinched and sullen. She acted out and had no friends. Etti didn’t want friends. She couldn’t trust them.

They were stupid. They didn’t know about the bad people who think up ways to hurt little girls with toys from far away.

She’d learned to hate the color red.

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Arab Officers Meeting With Israeli Counterparts Vehemently Deny Contacts With IDF (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tel Aviv, January 9 - Senior officers from Iraq, Egypt. Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia who gathered for a conference at Israel's Ministry of Defense this week issued fierce rebuttals of reports by media in their home countries that they are engaged in "normalization" with the Zionist enemy.

Attendees at a gathering of generals and colonels from several Persian Gulf states and other players in the global fight against Islamic terrorism who convened to discuss the latest developments and strategies with Israeli defense officials berated journalists for suggesting that any contacts with the hated Jews were taking place. An aide to General Ghass Layt of the Royal Bahrain Armed Forces interrupted a session with IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to admonish reporters not to engage in what he termed outrageous, libelous, and irresponsible rumor-mongering.

"This dangerous slander must stop," declared Major Huday Utrust. "Our political. military, and diplomatic leadership has been trying for decades to address the threat of extremism, at times in consultation and cooperation with experts from every relevant country, and these false reports have the potential to inflame emotions and lead to disaster. General Layt was just stressing to Mr. Cohen how important it is that they continue not to maintain contacts to collaborate in opposing the Islamic State and Iran. My colleagues from the other Arab nations represented here will all agree."

Egyptian General Yuwar Aful seconded the major's remarks. "Journalists have a responsibility to exercise judgment, not just to spread reports they hear," he warned. "Freedom of the press, if it were practiced in Arab countries, would not include the freedom to endanger the public safety. General Eizenkot just gave us a presentation on the importance of managing the media in that regard, and I must emphasize my agreement with his assessment that these stories of us conferring with and thus normalizing contacts with Israeli officials are harmful, hurtful, and incorrect."

The officers indicated that regular, routine meetings of this nature will occur until the threat of such malicious reports is stamped out. "The spread of misinformation can be as damaging as the spread of disease," observed IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Yair Golan. "We need the cooperation of all the region's major players to contain the threat and eliminate it. Israel stands ready to assist its neighbors where necessary in the fight against open normalization with Israel."

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01/09 Links Pt1: Abbas Celebrates 14th Anniversary of His Four-Year Term; Fatah burn “coffin” with photos of Pres. Trump and Netanyahu; PA orders Palestinian landlords to seek approval for Israeli-Arab tenants

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: Abbas Celebrates 14th Anniversary of His Four-Year Term

On January 9, 2005—exactly 14 years ago today—Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority. For a four-year term.

Today Abbas begins serving the fifteenth year of his four-year term.

That 2005 election was actually a milestone for Palestinians. Yasser Arafat had died the previous November, and this election was to choose his successor as head of the PA. It was a good election—free and fair in the sense that the votes were counted accurately and people could campaign against Abbas. There were loads of international observers, including a U.S. team led by former President Jimmy Carter and then-Senators Joseph Biden and John E. Sununu. According to The New York Times, Javier Solana, who was then the European Union's foreign minister, said "It has been a very good day. The moment is historic."

Abbas won only about 62 percent of the vote (compare Egyptian president Sisi’s ludicrous claim to have won 97 percent of the vote in the 2018 election there) and one challenger won 20 percent. Hamas boycotted the election, but was not forced to do so—as we saw when it competed in the elections for the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) in 2006.

That 2006 parliamentary election was the last parliamentary election held in the Palestinian territories, and there has similarly been no presidential election since 2005. Abbas just holds on and on and governs by decree. He has now undertaken machinations that will in fact eliminate the PLC entirely, replacing it with an unelected PLO organ. The PLC has been dissolved by the Palestinian constitutional court--whose own term of office expired over a decade ago.

Dissolved Palestinian Legislative Council removes PA president Abbas from power

In the latest development in the rift between Palestinian factions, the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza voted to remove Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas from power on Wednesday.

In a text submitted by prominent Hamas political committee member and spokesperson Salah al-Bardawil, the assembly called the president an "enemy of the state" for committing "a number of constitutional, legal, security and humanitarian violations, which seriously and seriously affected the Palestinian national project."

The resolution then asked the politician to immediately step down, or face constitutional proceedings aimed at his destitution. It also appealed to national, regional and international institutions to "stop dealing" with the president or any of his delegations.

The PLC, which has largely had a symbolic function since the last elections in 2007 due mainly to the impossibility of assembling in one location. It was dissolved by Abbas at the end of 2018.

The Fatah leader dissolved the institution, in which Hamas has a majority, in order to put pressure on the Gaza-based movement as reconciliation talks between the two factions degenerate into an open conflict.

Last week, Hamas called dozens of Fatah members in the coastal enclave for questioning, and de facto prevented a rally that was meant to commemorate the movement's 54th anniversary.

The silence from faux “human rights” orgs like @amnesty @jvplive and @ifnotnoworg on this issue is deafening. Real humanitarians are keeping the pressure up until the American citizen Issam Akel is freed! #PalestinianLivesMatter #TheRealApartheid pic.twitter.com/YJSBXzSn4K
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) January 8, 2019

PMW: Abbas’ deputy participates in burning “coffin” with photos of US Pres. Trump and PM Netanyahu

Celebrating the 54th anniversary of the Fatah Movement, which is commemorated on the day of its first attempted terror attack against Israel, Abbas' deputy chairman of Fatah, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, participated in a ceremony at which a black "coffin" decorated with photos of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Trump was burned in front of a large crowd.

A red "X" is painted over the faces of Netanyahu and Trump. [Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 3, 2019]

Text on coffin: "The deal of the century (i.e., Trump's as yet unpublished Middle East peace plan) will not pass, to hell with it and good riddance"

At the event, Al-Aloul praised the terror attacks and the Palestinian waves of violence and terror against Israel (the intifadas) as "accomplishments" of Fatah's "self-sacrificing fighters," and "battles of honor," which have "brought glory to the nation":
"The Palestinian revolution... depended on our people's will and was characterized by suffering, sacrifice, and pain. However, it was also full of victories and achievements that Fatah's self-sacrificing fighters (Fedayeen) accomplished on the ground; and they returned the spirit to the nation. Starting from Eilabun (i.e., attempted bombing of Israel's National Water Carrier) ... the intifadas (i.e., Palestinian wave of violence and terror against Israel killing approximately 200 Israelis from 1987-1993, and PA terror campaign killing approximately 1200 from 2000-2005), and the rest of the battles of honor and heroism with which the Fatah Movement has brought glory to the nation."

He pointed out that Fatah "is loyal to the team of Martyrs (Shahids)" and that the movement's identity is one of a "national liberation movement that is fighting for our people's freedom and independence":
"We in Fatah are not being lured away by anything - neither power nor government - and we again emphasize our identity as a national liberation movement that is fighting for our people's freedom and independence. We will complete the path, without any shadow of a doubt, and we still see that our most important priority is to fight our primary enemy - the occupation - and those who assist it."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 4, 2019]

Know How to Answer, part 11B "Settlements are illegal"

Nearly six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument.

Here is the second half of part 11, probably the longest clip.

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