Sunday, February 17, 2019

  • Sunday, February 17, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

10 Arab entities among 25 most racist nations on Earth

Recently when I saw an op-ed that casually referred to Israel as "racist" I decided to see if anyone had actually ranked nations on their racism by any sort of objective criteria.

The most recent, fact based results came out in 2016 from Insider Monkey, combining public data from two other surveys.


10 of them are Arab. At least 12 of them are officially Muslim. (Hong Kong appears to be a mistake, by the way.)

"Palestine" came in second in the percentage of people who would not want neighbors of another race, behind only Libya.

You will be hard pressed to find the adjective "racist" prepended to any mention of Lebanon or Japan or Turkey, but using that word before "Israel" doesn't even raise eyebrows. That's the power of anti-Israel propaganda.

Just another piece of evidence that the people who pretend to be the most liberal for some reason embrace the least liberal causes - when that cause happens to oppose a liberal, tolerant Jewish state.



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02/17 Links: Amnesty tries banning Jewish history; Democrats Tacitly Support Anti-Israel Movement While Pretending Not To; Life as a dhimmi in pre-state Israel

From Ian:
Amnesty tries banning Jewish history
Amnesty International has long sought to isolate Israel by lobbying governments, international bodies, and civil society to adopt boycotts against the Jewish state.

The organization reached new levels of discrimination in its recent report, “Digital Tourism and Israel’s Illegal Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” In it, the international NGO superpower attempts to criminalize Jewish and Christian tourism to holy sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank, erasing the Bible, and denying the Jewish people’s connection to its historic homeland.

According to Amnesty, travel platforms such as Airbnb, Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, TripAdvisor and others, are “contributing to human rights violations” by facilitating and advertising travel to Judaism and Christianity’s holiest sites, because these lie beyond the 1949 Armistice line – the “Green Line.” Specifically, Amnesty presents as deeply problematic tourism to Old Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as well as to Jewish historic locations in the West Bank.

For Amnesty, biblical sites in particular, alongside other locations of importance and interest in Jerusalem and the West Bank, are inconvenient, legitimizing Israel’s historical narrative as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Regardless of the political future of these areas, there can be no denying their historic Jewish significance. Amnesty, however, is attempting to sever, erase, and even ban these ties.

In diminishing these religious and cultural connections, Amnesty accuses Israel of creating a “settlement tourism industry” to help “sustain and expand” communities beyond the Green Line. Israel’s interest in Jewish archaeology is reduced to artificial manipulation, used “to make the link between the modern State of Israel and its Jewish history explicit,” while “rewriting of history [which] has the effect of minimizing the Palestinian people’s own historic links to the region.”

The possibility that Jews and Christians would visit holy sites, and want to see archaeological remnants of biblical locations for their religious and historical significance, is not entertained.

Are France and the EU helpless against anti-Semitism?
As Mauricette Rouffignat stood before yet another desecrated Jewish site on a recent sunny morning, it seemed like a playback to darker days. "I experienced World War II and all the suffering, the Jews who were deported," said 84-year-old Roussignat, who is not Jewish, but a resident of Saint-Geneviève-des-Bois, a quiet town on the outskirts of Paris. "We cannot remain unresponsive to these events, to this growing racism and insensitivity."

Nearby, local politicians blasted intolerance and laid wreaths next to a portrait of a smiling young man, as trains rumbled by overhead. Twenty-three-year-old Ilan Halimi was dumped at the spot where they stood, barely alive, after being kidnapped and tortured for weeks. Because he was Jewish, his abductors thought his family could pay a steep ransom. They couldn't, and Halimi died on his way to hospital.

That was 13 years ago. Since then, France has experienced a raft of other horrific anti-Semitic incidents, from a 2012 shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, to 2015 terrorist attacks targeting a Paris kosher supermarket. Last year, 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll became the second elderly Jewish women murdered in as many years.

Once again, anti-Semitism is on the rise in France, with the government reporting this week a 74 percent uptick in anti-Jewish acts last year, compared to 2017. "The government has to do more," said Rabbi Michel Serfaty, who heads a Jewish-Muslim friendship association. "The fight against anti-Semitism can't just be carried out by citizens and communities. It has to become a national cause."
Democrats Tacitly Support Anti-Israel Movement While Pretending Not To
Congressional Democrats don’t want to talk about the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. And many of them really don’t want to be asked to vote on it.

In spite of such reluctance, Sens. Marco Rubio, Joe Manchin, and their allies passed S. 1, the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, 77-23 last Tuesday. The bill combined four Middle Eastern security-related bills. For many Democrats, though, the fly in the ointment was the Combating BDS Act of 2019, which affirms state and local governments’ right to avoid working with firms that support the anti-Israel BDS movement. More than 25 states currently have anti-BDS laws or executive orders, and BDS supporters have begun challenging them in court.

Rubio introduced his bill January 3 and spent more than a month fighting excuses and strawmen, as Democrats attempted to thread the needle of being anti-BDS while opposing Rubio’s economically focused anti-BDS bill and wishing the whole discussion would just disappear.

Democrats said it was improper to vote on such things during the government shutdown. They also asserted the bill was a threat to the First Amendment and attempted to filibuster it. Rubio addressed falsehoods about the bill’s constitutionality on Twitter and in a New York Times op-ed, while Republicans were repeatedly accused of politicizing Israel in an attempt to fracture Democrats.

President Obama’s former ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Bloomberg: “There’s a desire by Republicans to use Israel as a wedge issue . . . Not a single Democrat in the Senate supports BDS, so there is an opportunity to craft the provision on BDS in a way that reflects that consensus and make sure it passes constitutional muster.”

Israel should never be a political wedge issue, but Democrats need no help with divisions on this issue. As The Daily Beast acknowledges, “the Democratic Party is heading into a slow-motion, three-way car wreck [“the pro-Israel old guard, pro-Palestine young progressives, and anti-censorship liberals,” as they call them] when it comes to Israel/Palestine.” I’m skeptical that the “anti-censorship” middle ground is a meaningful long-term category, but the point remains. Democrats are undergoing a generational shift. Israel is now a subject of intra-party conflict.

  • Sunday, February 17, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

The Arab countries that ignored the PLO demand to boycott the Warsaw conference



I mentioned last week that the Palestinian leadership had a full court press to stop Arab nations from participating in the Warsaw Middle East conference sponsored by the US and Poland.

The PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned all countries against participating in the conference. Fatah spokesman Osama Qawassmeh warned that any Arab leader who meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Warsaw conference would be “stabbing Jerusalem and our Palestinian people,” similar to what Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO, Saeb Erekat, said.

In the end, the Arab world ignored the demands of the PLO.

The list of Arab countries who sent ministers were:

Saudi Arabia
Bahrain
Yemen
Jordan
Kuwait
Morocco
Oman
United Arab Emirates
Qatar

Tunisia and Egypt send deputy ministers.

The participation of Qatar's foreign minister prompted derision from Arab observers because its Al Jazeera channel insulted the Arab nations who participated without mentioning that it was one of them. (The image above came from one of the social media hecklers showing Qatar's foreign minister at the table, with Qatar's name.)

Palestinian media noticed that these countries completely ignored their leaders' demands.

It used to be that Arab nations were deathly afraid of any perception of being friendly with Israel. The most cutting insult for political opponents was "Zionist." Opposition group leaders would be accused of having Jewish blood. No one wanted to appear soft on Israel, and the PLO ensured that this would be the status quo.

Now no one cares about the PLO. This is not so say the Arab nations don't care about Palestinians, but they have no confidence in their leadership and they are done with being bullied and threatened for talking with Israel.

It is a remarkable change, and one that can almost wholly be credited to Netanyahu.

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  • Sunday, February 17, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

The other Pittsburghs that were foiled were plotted by Islamists, not white supremacists



In December, Damon Joseph, an Islamist who called himself "Abdullah Ali Yusuf,"was caught plotting to shoot Jews at at least one Toledo synagogue. He wanted to "kill as many people as possible."  He was inspired by ISIS and his plot, already in progress, was further inspired by the Pittsburgh Tree of Life massacre.

The only thing that stopped another terrible synagogue attack was the FBI.

It has been pointed out in recent months (by the ADL and by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs) that most deaths from anti-Jewish hate crimes have been at the hand of the far right as opposed to any other group.

The Tree of Life synagogue attack is the most obvious example, but most of the deadly attacks on Jewish institutions in the past decade (Holocaust museum in Washington, have indeed been from the far right, and not from Muslims.

However, that isn't the whole story.

Muslims have been trying to bomb synagogues in America for quite a while. The FBI has foiled all of these bomb plots.

In 2016, a Muslim convert was arrested and later convicted after plotting to blow up a synagogue in Aventura, Florida.

In 2011, two Muslim men were arrested for trying to blow up two Manhattan synagogues. One said he hated Jews and was a supporter of Palestinians.

In 2009, four Muslim men were arrested, and ultimately convicted, of a plot to blow up four New York synagogues.

In 2005, a group of Islamists were caught trying to bomb Los Angeles synagogues along with military targets.

(Also last year a Muslim was arrested for attempting to run over two Jews outside a Los Angeles synagogue, while shouting antisemitic slurs.)

There were other plots by Muslims against other targets in America. The woefully incomplete Wikipedia page details a number of failed terror attempts since 9/11, of which the majority are Muslim-plotted.

The lack of successful Muslim terror attacks against Jewish targets is for one simple reason:  very effective law enforcement. It sure isn't from lack of trying.

One probable reason that the right-wing antisemites are more successful is that, unfortunately, they have relatively easy access to guns and automatic weapons. Muslim terrorists cannot as easily walk into a gun show and pick up weapons without raising eyebrows. This forces the Muslim terrorists to go to the Internet to find suppliers and collaborators for their plots and be more easily detected by the FBI.

To conclude that the real danger to Jews comes from the far Right and not from Islamists is to be very shortsighted. It is luck and good police work that has stopped several other Pittsburghs from happening.



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  • Sunday, February 17, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Saeb Erekat says insisting that Palestinians stop paying terrorists is part of a plan to destroy the Palestinian Authority



In recent months, as the Palestinian Arab issue has faded in importance in the Arab world, Saeb Erekat has been getting more and more insane in his public statements - and revealing more and more of the hate that is central to Palestinian nationalism.

Today, he said that Israel's intention to cut the salaries of prisoners and families of "martyrs" from tax money is part of the Israeli-American plan aimed at destroying the Palestinian Authority.

Which shows that the Palestinian Authority's very identity, and Palestinian nationalism itself, is completely tied into terrorism.

Erekat told the official Voice of Palestine radio station that "This is part of the plan to destroy the Palestinian Authority, in conjunction with the separation of the Gaza Strip, because the American-Israeli project means to exclude Jerusalem, refugees and settlements from the negotiating table."

Erekat said that "the occupation" is the source of extremism and violence in the region - not the affinity that even "moderate" Palestinians like him have for diverting a huge part of their budget to support terrorists (and tacitly encourage future terrorists.)

Erekat also repeated his assertion that Arab nations that are cooperating with Israel are stabbing Palestinians in the back.

Those nations spent decades trying to support the Palestinian issue, saying as a mantra that it was the key to all Middle East problems, and ignoring all other sectarian divisions and Arab lack of education and all other problems in the Arab world - in order to have a singleminded "blame Israel" message. That strategy failed, badly, and at the same time the Palestinians have spent the last 19 years turning their backs on promises of abandoning terror and being unable to handle the Hamas/Fatah split, no tto mention rejecting multiple peace plans that would have resulted in a Palestinian state.

Those, plus Iran, are the Palestinian policies that have prompted the Arab world to become public with their disillusionment and disgust with the Palestinian leadership.

Palestinian policies are so toxic and so counterproductive that they are forcing Erekat, who has not been directly involved in terrorism and who has been perceived as a peace loving moderate, to defend the public support of the worst murderers.

Which makes the Palestinian cause even more toxic to the world.

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Saturday, February 16, 2019

02/16 Links: Hot Mic: Netanyahu lashes EU’s ‘crazy’ policy on Israel; The True History of the Land of Israel; 14 must-read books about Israel

From Ian:
In hot mic comments, Netanyahu lashes EU’s ‘crazy’ policy on Israel
Unaware that his remarks were also being transmitted to reporters outside, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the European Union in unusually harsh terms on Wednesday for its treatment of Israel, urging the leaders of four Central European countries to use their influence in the organization to ease its conditions for advancing bilateral ties.

“I think Europe has to decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear,” he said in a closed-door meeting whose content was accidentally broadcast to journalists outside the room. “I am not very politically correct. I know that’s a shock to some of you. It’s a joke. But the truth is the truth — both about Europe’s security and Europe’s economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy towards Israel.”

During the meeting, Netanyahu also urged the leaders of Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland to close their borders to refugees from Africa and the Arab world, and praised the administration of US President Donald Trump for its “stronger” position on Iran and Syria.

“The European Union is the only association of countries in the world that conditions the relations with Israel, that produces technology in every area, on political conditions. The only ones! Nobody does it,” Netanyahu said in the minutes before officials realized the meeting was being overheard by reporters, and cut the feed.

“It’s crazy. It’s actually crazy,” he said, referring to the EU’s insistence on conditioning some agreements with Israel on progress in the peace process. He referred the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which has not been renewed since 2000. He urged the prime ministers who were present — Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Czech Republic’s Bohuslav Sobotka, Poland’s Beata Szydlo and Slovakia’s Robert Fico — to work toward convincing Brussels to advance talks about renewing the agreement without reference to progress in the peace process.

“Please help us, and help Europe, in the expediting this association agreement,” he said.

“It’s not about my interests, Israel’s interest. I’m talking about Europe’s interest,” Netanyahu said.

Hezbollah releases video of deadly 2015 attack on IDF convoy
The Lebanese Hezollah terror group on Friday released new video footage from a deadly 2015 attack in which the group fired a salvo of anti-tank missiles at an IDF convoy, killing two Israeli soldiers.

The video aired by al-Mayadeen, a television station linked with Hezbollah, appears to show two anti-tank missiles being fired at an Israeli military convoy in the Mount Dov area near the Lebanon border, and two vehicles going up in flames.

Israeli analysts said the timing of the new footage appeared to be a message from Hezbollah to Israel that it has the capabilities to respond to Israel. In recent months Israel has repeatedly hit Iranian attempts to transfer advanced weapons to the group and uncovered Hezbollah’s cross border attack tunnels.

The release of the footage came soon after the conclusion of a massive IDF drill that simulated war with Hezbollah.

Cpt. Yochai Kalengel and Sgt. Dor Nini were killed in the attack on January 28, 2015, while another seven soldiers were injured.

Hezbollah said at the time the anti-tank fire was in retaliation for an airstrike in Syria attributed to Israel the week before in which at least seven people were killed, including a top commander in the terror organization and an Iranian general.

The commander killed in the attack was Jihad Mugniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah operative thought to have been killed by Israel in Damascus in 2008.

The video’s release also appeared to be timed to coincide with the February 12 anniversary of Imad Mughniyeh’s death.

  • Saturday, February 16, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Pakistan's foreign minister:"Pakistan is interested in advancing its relations with Israel"



Pakistani Foreign Minister Mahmoud Qureshi told an Israeli reporter that "Pakistan is interested in advancing its relations with Israel, but this is a question of the political situation in the region."

"Progress in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be very helpful," he said, "and if the American plan succeeds in doing so, that's great."

"We wish all the best for Israel, we have many friends in the region and we would like you to join them,"  Qureishi concluded.

This is perhaps more astonishing than even the statements from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Arab media has been reporting on this story, but it hasn't been in any English outlets that I have seen yet.

(h/t Yoel)

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  • Saturday, February 16, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Twelve of my noteworthy tweets from this past week (I was very busy)

Here are some of the tweets I made this past week..



























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Friday, February 15, 2019

02/15 Links Pt2: David French: America Chooses Morality over Money to Support Israel; The two-faced women who hate Israel - and Jews; Phillips: The unique disorder of hatred now destroying the Left

From Ian:
David French: America Chooses Morality over Money to Support Israel
America’s long support for Israel — often in the face of fierce criticism from key allies and painful economic reprisal from the Arab world — represents an enduring, bipartisan commitment to moral clarity in the Middle East. For the quarter century following Israel’s founding, it was subjected to repeated, genocidal threats to its existence. It has served as a homeland for the Jewish people even as Arab nations rendered life intolerable for more than 800,000 of their Jewish citizens, sometimes destroying communities that existed for centuries. Israel took in hundreds of thousands of refugees, receiving them as the world’s only Jewish state.

When the attempts to invade Israel and destroy it with brute military force ended (for now, at least) with the signing of the Camp David accords, terror campaigns continued and escalated to a point that the United States (or its more anti-Israel allies) would never tolerate. Even today — with all its military might — its citizens live under a terror-threat level experienced by few other nations, and (unlike other nations) it exists in the midst of a region full of people who express feelings of outright hatred for its right to exist. Not long ago, an ADL survey found that a full 74 percent of citizens of North Africa and the Middle East harbored anti-Semitic attitudes.

Moreover, it faces a unique level of international hostility, with the United Nation Human Rights Council condemning its actions far more than it condemns all other nations combined. There exists a concerted international effort to boycott Israeli companies and academies, divest resources from Israel, and sanction Israel. Many of the founders and leaders of the BDS movement hope ultimately to eradicate Israel as a Jewish state.
WSJ: Why Do So Many American Politicians Support Israel?
American attitudes toward Israel have been shaped far more by debates among non-Jews than by the influence of Jewish organizations. The most important reason public officials support Israel is that the public does. In fact, approval is at a 17-year high, with 74% of adults reporting a favorable opinion.

Public support for Israel is not a new phenomenon. Surveys conducted between 1947 and 1949 showed that nearly three times as many Americans sympathized with Jews over Arabs in the conflict in former Mandatory Palestine.

American approval for Israel has deep historical roots in the Christian understanding of America. Leaders of Puritan New England predicted the demographic return and political revival of the Jewish people in the biblical promised land. In 1845, John Price Durbin, a Methodist who served as chaplain of the Senate and president of Dickinson College, insisted on "the undoubted fact of the restoration of a Jewish state in Palestine."

In 1891, the evangelist William E. Blackstone presented a petition to President Benjamin Harrison calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Ottoman Palestine. Americans who signed included Supreme Court Chief Justice Melville Fuller, future president William McKinley, titans of industry and finance like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, and the editors of dozens of major newspapers.
It Is Anti-Semitic to Oppose Israel's Right to Exist
Israel should be challenged and scrutinized in the same way as any other country. Yet other countries, no matter how they came into being or how they behave, do not have their legitimacy or right to exist questioned or their outright destruction called for. Anti-Zionism should not be conflated with mere criticism of Israeli policy. Anti-Zionism rejects the very idea of a Jewish state.

Zionism is the belief in the right to self-determination of the Jewish people (a right guaranteed to them by international law) in their historical and spiritual homeland, Israel. It acknowledges the Jewish people as indigenous to the land and Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, although all citizens, including Israel's 20% Arab population, have equal civil rights. For most Jews, Zionism is core to their identity.

Had a Jewish homeland been set up anywhere else, for example in Uganda, then the accusation of colonialism would have legitimacy. But in the Land of Israel, where Jewish people are the Tangata Whenua - a Maori term that means "people of the land" - accusations of colonialism are made to delegitimize the Jewish presence in their ancestral homeland.

Anti-Zionism has become the new form of anti-Semitism. The state of the Jews has become the Jew of the states. Yet Zionism is not just an idea but a reality whose elimination would mean 6.5 million Jews facing the prospect of ethnic cleansing and a return to homelessness.

Melanie Phillips: The unique disorder of hatred now destroying the Left
Although her fellow Democrats denounced her, their reaction has been wholly inadequate. A statement signed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats called on Omar to apologise for her “hurtful” comments.

“Antisemitism must be called out, confronted and condemned whenever it is encountered, without exception,” Pelosi said. “Omar and I agreed that we must use this moment to move forward as we reject antisemitism in all forms.”

No apology can ever expunge the evil of antisemitism. For this doesn’t merely cause hurt or offence: it directly adds to the demonic discourse that continues to make Jews both within and outside of Israel the target of murderous hatred. Requiring an apology is to help the antisemite get herself off the hook with a mere slap on the wrist.

If that. In Tablet magazine, Yair Rosenberg said Omar deserved “dialogue not denunciation.” He hailed Omar’s “genuine self-awareness” when she reflected upon being accused of antisemitism in 2012 after tweeting: “Israel has hypnotised the world; may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

But this “self-awareness” merely consisted of saying she could identify with her Jewish critics because experiencing antisemitism was like experiencing “white privilege.” Well no, it’s not; there’s no comparison.

She made no acknowledgment that she had perpetrated malicious incitement against the Jews. Indeed, straight after the “unequivocal” apology for her latest barb about sinister Jewish influence, she doubled down on her bigotry by “reaffirming” the “problematic role” of AIPAC as a political lobby.

This is an individual who clearly believes that Jews are a manipulative force controlling the world. And yet certain liberal Jews want to “move forward” now that she has “apologised” – and even to open up a dialogue with her.

The proper way to “move forward” with antisemites is to remove them from public life. Yet Omar will remain on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Melanie Phillips: Crazy world antisemitism, Faustian pacts, revolutions eat their own
Please join me here in discussion with Avi Abelow of Israel Unwired about the latest goings-on in our crazy world. We were talking about the remarks by an official from Human Rights Watch who was peddling conspiracy theory and antisemitism, and the enduring nature of “Jewish conspiracy” theory. We discussed whether Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was making deals with political “devils” through his alliances with sundry nationalists, populists, autocrats and worse. We talked about the great controversy that has boiled up in America over an apparent slide from abortion to infanticide. And we mused over how revolutions always eat their own.


02/15 Links Pt1: Mutual Recognition Never Happened, Palestinian Leaders Are Stuck in 1948; Gaza’s self-inflicted health crisis shows why peace remains a fantasy

From Ian:
Gerald Steinberg: Mutual Recognition Never Happened, Palestinian Leaders Are Stuck in 1948
In the Israeli election free-for-all, the prospects for peace with the Palestinians will get some attention, but without engagement from the other side, there is little to discuss.

At the same time, many Israelis are aware of the need for a change to the “temporary” status quo, which has lasted 51 years. The fundamental question that remains unanswered is: how will Israel continue to be Jewish and democratic if millions of Palestinians are included indefinitely? Although Israelis are wary of the “ultimate peace deal” that U.S. President Donald Trump promises to push after the election, it adds to the momentum for rethinking the issues.

For most Israeli political parties, the two-state formula (very few Israelis think a “solution” is realistic) has run its course, without yielding any results. Proposed in 2002 by then-U.S. president George W. Bush and grudgingly accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009, the hope was that the Palestinians would finally accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state, in exchange for their own sovereign nation.

But this never happened – Palestinian leaders are stuck in 1948, still hoping to reverse the creation of Israel altogether. Dreams of returning to the 1949 armistice lines, including re-dividing Jerusalem, are obvious non-starters. They are also busy fighting each other, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah governing the West Bank. At the same time, terror and incitement continue, and Israelis are not convinced that the two-state approach will improve the situation (most think it will make things worse). The “international consensus” that presses Israel to take all the risks, while exempting the “powerless” Palestinians from any responsibility, has no traction here.

In this political vacuum, a number of civil society institutions are discussing alternatives, in part to pre-empt the Trump plan. After a hiatus of a decade or more, think tanks are publishing maps showing which parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) should be annexed to Israel for pragmatic, security, historic or other reasons, and which areas should be relinquished, and under what conditions.
The Key to Middle East Peace Is Getting Palestinians to Say "Yes"
The necessity for the Palestinians to make peace with Israel as a prerequisite for the establishment of a Palestinian state isn't arbitrary or the result of inherently "unfair" imbalances of power. It is a reflection of the reality that the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan of November 29, 1947, establishing two states, in favor of open-ended war. This rejectionism continues to this day.

The Palestinians have been given multiple opportunities to reverse their historic own-goal and accept statehood many times since then but have always broken off talks at the moment of truth, refusing the very independence they claim to pine for if the price is to end their conflict with Israel. Martin Indyk, President Obama's special envoy on the Middle East, told Al Jazeera in 2016: "We have [Israeli Prime Ministers] Barak and Olmert offering the Palestinians 95-97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and they didn't take it." Since 2014 the Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate at all.

Israel cannot make peace on its own, nor can it be expected to accept the creation of a hostile, armed state on the doorstep of its major cities without a viable peace agreement. Unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood would be rewarding the Palestinians for continuing to say "no."

Evelyn Gordon: Gaza’s self-inflicted health crisis shows why peace remains a fantasy
Gaza’s health system is on the verge of collapse, Israeli defense officials warned last week. Their report echoed an international aid agency’s findings that Gaza hospitals are severely short of doctors, especially specialists, and lack 60 percent of necessary medications, including basics like painkillers and antibiotics. Entire hospital departments have closed due to the inability to offer treatment, and patients with cancer, diabetes or renal failure are simply being sent home.

You might think this situation would prompt at least one of the Palestinians’ two rival governments to take action. But you’d be wrong.
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The Palestinian Authority, which repeatedly proclaims itself the sole legitimate government of both the West Bank and Gaza and is recognized as such internationally, receives billions in international aid to provide for humanitarian needs in both places. It ostensibly budgets 150 million shekels a year ($41.3 million) for medical supplies for Gaza. But it hasn’t paid this money in months.

Yet this same P.A. has no trouble finding $330 million a year to pay salaries to jailed terrorists. Evidently, paying terrorists is more important to it than its people’s health.
Dr. Martin Sherman: 2019 Intelligence Assessment- implications for Gaza
Last December, I was excoriated by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, for reaching what I consider to be an inescapable, fact-based conclusion that, “Eventually, there will either be Arabs in Gaza or Jews in the Negev. In the long run, there will not be both!”

Accordingly—since there appears little chance of the Palestinian-Arabs in general, and the Gazans in particular, morphing into something they have not been for over hundred years—for anyone who favors the option of Jews remaining in the Negev, there is little option but to reconcile oneself to the lamentable fact that “The solution to the problem of Gaza is its deconstruction—not its reconstruction.”

Indeed, I would be intrigued to hear what my detractors have in mind for Gaza and how they envisage the fate of the hapless enclave in, say, ten to fifteen years from today. For already, its unfortunate inhabitants are in dire straits, with most of their natural water sources polluted, with raw sewage flowing into the streets, and with electrical power available for only a several hours a day.

Significantly, this grave situation has been precipitated despite the fact that Gaza has received one of the world’s highest levels of international aid and massive flows of humanitarian merchandise from Israel, which have, almost invariably, been promptly expropriated by Hamas. Ominously for the people of Gaza, this aid appears to be diminishing, making the future seem even bleaker than the present.

  • Friday, February 15, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

The haters won










The problem is, the antisemites won. There's now more talk about the nefarious, insidious "Jewish lobby" than about the antisemitism behind people blaming it on all their problems.
The blaring headline at The Guardian reveals that "Pro-Israel donors spent over $22m on lobbying and contributions in 2018." Sounds like a lot, right? 
16 paragraphs about how influential Jewish money is in Washington.

Then, in the MIDDLE of paragraph 17 we learn that the amount spent by the pro-Israel lobby (including millions from the not pro-Israel J-Street) is dwarfed by dozens of other causes, not even reaching the top 50, as I've noted elsewhere.
How's that for context? 16 paragraphs on the Jewish $22 million and a bare mention of the nearly billion dollars from other causes, most of which spend far more.
Even the numbers about the pro-Israel lobby are deceptive in the Guardian piece. Because the amounts they are mentioning are being given by Americans, not by foreign countries. As opposed to the FAR greater amounts spent by foreign countries directly to lobby Congress, much huger amounts than the amount given by Jewish Americans. 

Israel is #3, but much lower that Gulf nations, South Korea, Japan.
 So why does The Guardian choose to write such a large story on the Israel lobby that, in context, is a small percentage of the money spent influencing the US government?

It means that the haters of Israel have won. Omar's antisemitic tweet seems to have brought a backlash against her but it has turned the antisemitic meme of outsize Jewish influence on American politics into mainstream thinking.
The Guardian reporter obviously knows he is doing this since he included part of the context - but buried it where no one would notice.

So, yes, Omar's antisemitism has won. Left-wing social media is exultant over this "exposure" of Jewish power over Washington and how anyone against Omar is by definition a racist, misogynist and Islamophobe. 
The haters won. 
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"Ask Rabbi Sarsour" (Daled Amos)



Last year, Linda Sarsour -- who in the past has assured us that “nothing is creepier than Zionism” and has only praise for Louis Farrakhan -- went so far as to advise Jews on Antisemitism at a panel assembled by New School:


Now, the ever-helpful Sarsour is advising Jews on who they should and should not support. And who they must not support is The Forward.


We live in a world where antisemites are free to advise Jews who to follow and who to support and what to believe, if you don't want to be a target, and especially if you want to be welcomed among progressives. Just remember how Women's March proudly shunned Jews, until there was pushback.


Keep in mind that Sarsour is a fan of Louis Farrakhan, who among the vile things that have spewed from his mouth over the years, has helpfully advised his own followers on the need to distinguish between the "good" Jews and the "bad" Jews:
[Y]ou and I are going to have to learn to distinguish between the righteous Jew and the Satanic Jews who have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.
Sarsour has previously assured us that feminism is "incompatible with Zionism."
Now Sarsour has decided that criticizing antisemitism is incompatible with being a progressive.

But at least we are getting a good laugh out of it:


Among the "shailos" (halachic questions) so far, under the hastage #AskRabbiSarsour:
o Do you still say Kaddish for Hamas terrorists that blow themselves up?
o What bracha do you make upon seeing Louis Farrakhan in all his might and glory?
o How long should you wait between hanging out with PFLP terrorists and Hamas terrorists, 3 hours or 6?
o If I have limited funds and can only donate to help either a terrorist or a leading voice for bigotry, who should I support first? Farrakhan? Or Rasmea?
o Does donating to Ethiopian-Israelis count as supporting Jews of color, or does that make me over issur Zionism?
o I accidentally bought Israeli produce. May I donate it to the intersectional poor, or is that assur according to hilkhot BDS?
o if I purchased a book written by a progressive who went off the path and became a, lo aleinu, conservative, should I burn the book with my chometz?
The last 3 are under the hashtag #DearRabbiSarsour.
Less than 24 hours and already we have a breakaway.

Maybe we should ask Rabbi Sarsour...?

(EoZ: As far as I can tell, my contribution to the #AskRabbiSarsour hashtag has been the most successful:)



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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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