Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 25, 2019

Ultra-Left bookstore cancels screening of film on Gaza because producer Max Blumenthal is such a pro-Syria turd

The uber-Left social media is in an uproar because one of their own has decided that supporting Syria's murderous regime is perhaps not very progressive.

Bluestockings is a bookstore in Manhattan that describes itself as "a volunteer-powered and collectively-owned radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We carry over 6,000 titles on topics such as feminism, queer and gender studies, global capitalism, climate & environment, political theory, police and prisons, race and black studies, radical education, plus many more! "

It was scheduled to screen an anti-Israel film called "Killing Gaza" and follow that with a discussion via Skype with Max Blumenthal who produced the film.

Then it realized that Blumenthal supports the murder of hundreds of thousands by Syrian president Assad, and decided that he is perhaps not as progressive as his anti-Israel credentials would indicate.

In a Twitter thread last night, the bookstore wrote:

We here at Bluestockings want to be very clear on our decision to cancel the Killing Gaza screening the @nycDSA set for March 16. All the love to the DSA, it's clear that there wasn't enough due diligence on both our parts in regards to the film's director, Max Blumenthal.

As has been pointed out to us over the past few days, Max Blumenthal and many in his camp regularly make a point of retweeting and sharing pro-Assad stances.

This goes from directly mocking Syrian refugees to suggesting that Assad's war crimes are completely fabricated. Which hurts not just the Syrian people but the sizeable Palestinian population within Syria.

The objection to this screening is entirely based on Max Blumenthal and we are in talks with the DSA to screen another film that is made by and centers Palestinian voices in the ongoing conflict against the Israeli army.

Bluestockings is a community space first and we want to make sure that our inclusivity does not come at the expense of Middle Eastern communities and activists.

The response has been pretty evenly split between those who love Blumenthal's hate for Israel above all, and those on the far-Left who still have some idea of the difference between right and wrong. (Not with Israel, of course, but I suppose we should praise those who actually agree that killing hundreds of thousands of Syrians is a bad thing.)

Here's a subthread where Lebanese journalist Rania Khalek and her friends explain why they are so upset, to a little pushback - but mostly support.

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Major European leaders are meeting with Arab leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

If you believe the Palestinian media, the summit looks like it could have taken place during the Oslo process, and the Palestinian issue is dominating the discussion as the issue that must be resolved before anything else.

European media indicates something quite different, with the Palestinian issue all but ignored.

Palestinian Ma'an says that the Palestinian cause is the central issue, and gives examples from speeches.

Host Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said at the opening, "Common challenges have been reflected in the hotbeds of conflict in the region, foremost of which is the Palestinian issue, which is the main Arab cause and one of the main roots of these conflicts, as it continues to deprive the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, and even the continued destruction of Palestinian human rights, which the international community overlooks."

King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia said that the Palestinian issue is the primary issue of the Arab states. "At the recent summit of the Arab states held in Jeddah called the Jerusalem Summit, we reiterated our firm stand towards restoring all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital in accordance with the Arab peace initiative and international legitimacy. "

He echoed the subtle threat that used to be standard in all discussions with Arabs, saying that the solution of the Palestinian issue is important for peace and stability not only in the region but also for world peace and for Europe in particular, praising the European efforts to find a lasting and just solution to this issue. The implication being that terrorists will blow stuff up unless Europe gives the Palestinians whatever they want.

Mahmoud Abbas' speech today is expected to echo the same theme, according to Saeb Erekat, that the key to regional and world peace is giving in to Palestinian demands.

Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit also mentioned the Palestinians, saying that the Palestinian issue is a political issue and will not be solved by economic measures. The settlement of the Palestinian issue in a fair and sustainable manner is the most effective way to stabilize the region, he said.

Coverage of the summit by the European media tells a different story, though.

Germany's DW has an article on Day 1 of the summit, and the word "Palestinian" is missing.

The EU statement on the summit likewise ignores what had been up until recently widely considered the key issue to be resolved in the Middle East. Instead, it says:

Leaders from both sides will seek to strengthen Arab-European ties. They will also address a wide range of issues and common challenges, such as:

multilateralism
trade and investment
migration
security
the situation in the region

The summit will also provide an opportunity for leaders to discuss the latest developments in the region, such as the Middle East Peace Process and the situation in Yemen, in Libya and in Syria.

The absence of the word "Palestine" in that last paragraph says volumes.

Significantly, after the opening statements, the rest of the Day 1 activities were closed sessions, so it appears to be understood that the Arab leaders would trot out the pretense that they care about the Palestinian issue and then get to work on the real problems of the region.

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Libya jails Palestinians suspected of being Hamas members

Interesting, from Middle East Monitor:

A court in Tripoli on Wednesday sentenced four Palestinians to prison terms ranging from 17 to 22 years over their alleged links to Hamas.

The four defendants were accused of “setting up a secret foreign organisation on Libyan territory, arms possession and conspiring against state security.”

The Palestinians were arrested on 6 October 2016 from their homes in the capital, Tripoli, and were taken to an unknown destination.

The four Palestinians used to work for a technology company in the capital, Tripoli.

The detainees’ families expressed their “fear that they would be handed over to Israel via a third party” appealing to all concerned bodies to help release them.

Western far-leftists are more supportive of Hamas than Libya!

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Now @IfNotNowOrg romanticizes the Diaspora to justify hating Israel

On Saturday, IfNotNow protested outside a Chabad house in Austin, TX because of an Israeli speaker there.

Besides the immorality and obnoxiousness of pseudo-Jews protesting outside a synagogue during services, the group bragged about it with a crazed justification:

Today we stood outside of Chabad at UT in protest of their event, Morality and Combat. The invited speaker, Leibel Mangel, was a machine gunner in the IDF and uses the Holocaust as a way to justify the occupation. There is no denying the very real trauma that the Holocaust has left on our community; yet, our historical trauma should not be exploited to justify the oppression of Palestinian people.
Our Jewish history is not only one of persecution, oppression and fear. We also have a rich history of resistance and solidarity. Jews have survived in diaspora for thousands of years, largely through solidarity with other oppressed groups. We do not need to support Israel at all costs to stay safe.

Really? Jews have been largely safe in the Diaspora because of solidarity with other oppressed groups?

Can IfNotNow name a single time in 2000 years that a pogrom or massacre was averted because of some other oppressed group sticking their necks out to save the Jews?

They are just making shit up to appeal to their "progressive" friends.

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02/24 Links: Arabs continue destroying Jewish archaeology on the Temple Mount; Palestinians celebrate victory after Israel capitulates, again, on Temple Mount; Dr. Miriam Adelson: In heaven's name

From Ian:

Arabs continue destroying Jewish archaeology on the Temple Mount

While Israel preserves Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, Arabs have proven that they cannot be trusted to respect Jewish Holy sites.

On December 15, 2017 Nadav Shragai wrote in Israel Hayom "King Herod's grand Third Palace is being systematically destroyed by the Palestinians, who are stripping its stone and building homes around it. The site is in Area A, meters from Israeli-controlled territory, but the Israeli government can do nothing...Here is a lesson that teaches us how the Palestinians today treat remnants of the past...It is unclear how much of this beauty remains.

Yaron Rosenthal, director of the Kfar Etzion Field School, who sometimes works with the Palestinian Arabs on environmental preservation projects, finds it difficult to hide his anger. "Israel sees how one of the grandest palaces ever built in the Holy Land is being destroyed, and is standing by helplessly, because under the Oslo Accords the site, which is 30 meters from Area C, was made the responsibility of the Palestinians. It's time for Israel to say, 'No more.' With all due respect to the Oslo Accords, we will not let you destroy important [archaeological] remains linked to the history of the Jewish people in their land, remains that are part of the cultural fabric of this country," Rosenthal says..."

On Jan 6, 2018 Judith Abramson reported in Jerusalemonline "Hebrew University archaeology doctoral student Haggai Cohen Klonymus described to the Israel News Company (formerly Channel 2 TV) how Palestinian tractors and bulldozers arrived at an archaeological site where the ancient city of Archelaus once stood. The Palestinians completely leveled the compound in order to locate hidden archaeological treasures to sell in the antiquities market. "Just as ISIS destroyed sites in Iran and Syria that were thousands of years old, the same situation is occurring here," he said. "This is a deliberate and systematic destruction of an archaeological site....It's just a tragedy."

In 2000 the Palestinians destroyed Joseph's tomb. Sidney Brounstein wrote for the Los Angeles Times "Oct. 8: Where is the outrage? Imagine what would have happened if Jewish police stood by and allowed a Jewish mob to destroy a Muslim holy place! Does the destruction of a Jewish holy place by an Arab mob while Palestinian police stand by (after promising to protect it) deserve no more than inclusion in a list of other damage done by rioters? Is this an acceptance of attacks on Jews and things Jewish as a normal part of life?" "It makes a mockery of any thought of giving Arabs any control of Jewish holy places. The destruction of dozens of such places in the Old City of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, along with the exclusion of Jews entirely from their most holy site, the Western Wall, was clearly of a piece with the current destruction."

Vandals draw swastikas on school playground in New York City

Vandals drew dozens of swastikas on an elementary school playground in New York City overnight Thursday.

The anti-Semitic graffiti, which included the words “Heil Hitler,” was found early Friday morning in the Rego Park neighborhood in the borough of Queens.

School staff removed the drawings and called the police, the Ynet news site reported.

The school was closed for vacation but the playground was open to the public.

“This is terrible anti-Semitism. This is a neighborhood with a lot of Jews who are proud of their Judaism and don’t hide it. It’s terrible that something like this is happening in New York,” Idan Shefi, an Israeli who lives near the school, told Ynet.

The incident comes amid a surge in hate crimes in New York City, especially attacks against Jews. The 55 hate crimes in the city so far this year represent a 72 percent increase over the same period last year, with close to two-thirds of the attacks this year targeting Jews, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Car drives on NY sidewalk, nearly hits kids from religious Jewish school

New York City police are searching for a motorist who drove around a stopped school bus onto a Brooklyn sidewalk, nearly mowing down schoolchildren.

A security camera captured the startled children as they scattered outside a Jewish school in the Borough Park neighborhood.

On Saturday, authorities looked for the driver using the car’s license plate, taken from the video as the children came off the bus Thursday morning. The children are seen heading for the Yeshiva Medrash Chaim.

A police spokeswoman says the suspect is wanted for reckless endangerment.

Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represented Borough Park, says that passing the school bus could have resulted in the driver committing murder.

No, Bibi isn't racist. But he is a politician, which can be almost as bad.

I usually don't comment on internal Israeli politics, mostly because I don't feel qualified to provide an opinion any better than those of actual Israelis.

I do, however, want to make a point about the controversy of Netanyahu convincing the Jewish Home party to partner with Otzma Yehudit, a party that follows the teachings of Meir Kahane, who was banned from Knesset as a racist. The combined party would then be part of a Likud coalition should they do well enough in the upcoming elections.

The optics of this move are terrible.

But Netanyahu himself is no racist - he is just, like virtually all politicians, willing to do whatever it takes to win.

In recent weeks the Israeli media have reported that under Netanyahu's "racist" Likud:

- The number of Israeli Arab Ph.D. candidates has more than doubled
- There has been a 60 percent increase over five years in enrollment to bilingual Hebrew/Arabic schools where Jewish and Arab students share classrooms
- The number of Bedouin students who began studying for a bachelor's degree has doubled

This is only in education. The Likud-led government has put lots of money into the Arab sector, more than under any other government.

Netanyahu is a brilliant politician and he has been a brilliant statesman, and as a direct result of his decisions Israel has the best relations with the rest of the world since the Six Day War. He is a strategist, not just a tactician, and that is a highly unusual feature from a democratically elected leader. As a strategist, he knows that his vision will not continue to be implemented if he is not in charge. This is why he is trying to salvage his coalition in the next election.

Israel is already paying the price. Mainstream American organizations like AIPAC and the American Jewish Congress have issued strong statements against this, and today the New York Daily News published an editorial that sums up the mainstream Zionist American view of the move:

We, who consider ourselves proudly Zionist, who believe Palestinians' stubborn refusal to accept the Jewish state is the central problem in their conflict with Israel, who have frequently admired Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's grit, are sickened by Netanyahu's decision to bring into the fold his nation's most hateful right-wing extremists.

Alienating Israel's friends is not a smart move. And in this case, Bibi's calculations might backfire on him.

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Marc Lamont Hill, who was recently fired from CNN for his rabid hate of Israel, is releasing a documentary about supposed Israeli racism.

The trailer starts off with an interview with a self-described "Afro-Palestinian" who says that Israeli Jews oppress his people not only for being Palestinian but for being black.

The narrator for that section of the video is a terrorist.

His name is Ali Jiddah and his father came from Chad. But he considers himself a "Palestinian."

In 2014, he was interviewed by the Times of Israel, in the exact same spot at this video:

Ali Jiddah planted four hand grenades on Strauss Street in downtown Jerusalem in 1968. The blasts injured nine Israelis and Jiddah spent 17 years in Israeli prison. His cousin Mahmoud also served 17 years for a similar attack; the two were released in 1985 in a prisoner swap. Fatima Barnawi, daughter of a Nigerian father and Palestinian mother, has the dubious distinction of being the first female Palestinian arrested on terrorism charges. As a member of Fatah, she planted a bomb in the Zion Theater in downtown Jerusalem in October 1967. Although it didn’t explode, she was sentenced to 30 years in prison, of which she served 10 before being exiled.

After his release from prison in 1985, Jiddah worked first as a journalist, then started giving alternative tours of Jerusalem’s Old City, showing the Palestinian perspective of life under Israeli rule.

Tailor made for Marc Lamont Hill.

JTA described the bombing attacks in Jerusalem in 1968 this way:

Sunday night’s grenade explosions were described by observers as the most serious terrorist acts on Israeli soil since the June, 1967 Six-Day War and were obviously the work of organized professionals. The grenades, each with a Chinese-made chemical timing device, were planted in central parts of West Jerusalem, concealed in trash bins and in wastepaper cans attached to lamp posts. Five of them exploded between 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. local time but nine of the 10 injured persons were struck by fragments from a single grenade that detonated in a trash bin on Strauss Street, near the Bikur Holim Hospital, about 100 yards from the city’s main business crossroads.

There was an entire documentary made about Jiddah last year, that you can see here.

Some of what he says is word for word identical with the excerpts in Hill's forthcoming documentary. And they are lies.

Jiddah claims that he was jailed as a "political prisoner" for "political activities."

To prove how racist Israel supposedly is, he mentions that Israel in the 1980s (actually, 1990s) would not accept blood from Ethiopian Jews because their blood was "dirty" and Shimon Peres defended that decision. (In reality, because the incidences of HIV among the immigrants at the time were considered unacceptably high at about 1%, and the Israeli officials accepted and quietly discarded the blood so as not to embarrass them. When the news came out the Ethiopians rioted. Peres opened up an inquiry into the circumstances of the decision. The US didn't accept blood donations from Haitians and sub-Saharan Africans - including Ethiopians - starting in 1990 for the same reasons.)

Jiddah also claims that there is no anti-black racism among Palestinians. This is quite a lie. Blacks experience racism among the Palestinian and the larger Arab worlds. In fact, Marc Lamont Hill himself experienced it in Egypt.

Jiddah doesn't mention that he was a member of the PFLP terror group. He might still be - in 2008, when asked if he was still active in the group, he answered, "Well if I admitted to it, it would mean I would have to go back to jail again... But I will tell you... I’m addicted to politics and especially to the policy of the PFLP." (He also said about President Obama: "for me, he is not black, he is a coconut, black on the outside, totally rotten, corrupted, white on the inside.")

Ali Jiddah and Yasir Arafat after he was released from prison in a swap

In the TOI interview, he admitted that he planted the bombs:

“Due to the responses from my clients I am satisfied, and I am convinced that the work I am doing today is more effective than the bomb I planted in 1968,” he said.

In other words, he decided that it is easier to destroy Israel by pushing lies to tourists and reporters who don't even bother to check out the truth - or, in Marc Lamont Hill's case, journalists who actively try to hide the truth.

(h/t Petra)

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From The Telegraph:

Sajid Javid is preparing to ban Hizbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as soon as this week, The Sunday Telegraph understands.

The Home Secretary is expected to proscribe the entire Shia organisation as a terrorist group, preventing supporters from parading its flag through the streets of Britain.

The move will have to be approved by Parliament, raising the prospect that it could be opposed by Jeremy Corbyn, who once referred to members of the group as "friends".

It follows warnings by MPs that the UK had created a false distinction by proscribing the military wing of the group but failing to outlaw its political side.

The distinction allows demonstrators in the annual Al Quds Day protest to march through central London waving the Hizbollah flag, which features an assault rifle.

The distinction between "military" and "political" wings of Hamas was always completely artificial. It isn't like they have different flags!

This is especially notable because only recently has the new Lebanese government finally been formed, including Hezbollah as a party, which controls three ministries.

(h/t Phil D)

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Mrs. Elder and I will be going to Israel for two weeks starting March 3!

In previous trips we had memorable tours of the Gaza border, the Belz synagogue and yeshiva, the Temple Mount, Save a Child's Heart, tours with Regavim of the Negev and Judea/Samaria, and lots of interviews with well known figures in politics and Israel advocacy.

I've also given talks and hosted symposia in Israel.

If anyone wants to host me speaking, or if anyone wants to give us a tour of a place that doesn't get enough publicity, let me know!

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02/23 Links: The Destructive Legacy of Obama’s Approach to the Middle East; Glick: The U.S. Is Right -- Israel Should Apologize to Poland; Roger Waters Announces Boycott of the Moon

From Ian:

The Destructive Legacy of Obama’s Approach to the Middle East

The chief legacy of Obama's foreign policy is not the Iran nuclear deal, but rather the visceral partisanship that he fostered at home while trying to defend the deal. As the country debated whether to support the JCPOA in the summer of 2015, recall how Obama demonized the accord's critics. He went so far as to compare them to the hard men of Iran's murderous regime. "It's those hardliners chanting ‘Death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal," Obama said in August 2015. "They're making common cause with the Republican caucus." Such language is vile and dishonest, but the president and his allies employed it consistently, using an "echo chamber" of experts and media figures to drown out any opposition, no matter how genuine and well reasoned. Obama also troubled American Jews at the time with his rhetoric, singling out Israel and flirting, perhaps unintentionally, with conspiracy theories about nefarious Jewish money seeking to influence the public debate.

The Obama administration and its allies also made support for the Iran deal a litmus test of loyalty for Democrats in Congress. "Opponents of the agreement said they could not remember another recent policy battle where the White House and [Rep. Nancy] Pelosi were so driven," the New York Times reported at the time. "In tandem, they made the Iran vote a strong test of party loyalty." Several Democrats expressed strong concerns about the deeply flawed deal, but they were pressured to fall in line, no matter their reservations. Only a few voted no.

Meanwhile, as Obama waged his campaign of demonization against the deal's critics, he carried on a similar campaign against America's traditional allies in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. Obama's contempt for the Saudis has been well documented, and, whether intentional or not, his approach to the region put the Democratic Party in the position of defending Iran and criticizing Saudi Arabia. Naturally, the Republicans did the opposite.

So what do we have now? One party effectively supports the regime in Iran and opposes Saudi Arabia, while the other party opposes Tehran and supports the Saudis. Both regimes are odious, but the Saudis are, like it or not, an essential strategic ally. They are an important security partner and ensure the free flow of oil from the Middle East. Iran's leaders, meanwhile, chant "death to America" and seek regional preeminence.

A country so divided on the Middle East cannot create effective policies in the region. American leaders cannot even agree on who their friends and enemies are. How can they possibly come to some kind of a bipartisan consensus? The DNC's resolution is a reminder of how far apart Democrats and Republicans are regarding the Middle East, and especially Iran. Of course the parties were never entirely on the same page. But the partisan divide grew substantially during Obama's presidency. His campaign to garner support for the Iran deal at all costs hurt American national security in the long run. Obama did not just cause lasting damage to the Middle East; he also caused lasting damage to Washington, D.C.

Caroline Glick: The U.S. Is Right -- Israel Should Apologize to Poland

The U.S. chose not to cut off its ties with its closest allies and partners in the Arab world — but not because it didn’t recognize their responsibility for spawning and enabling the growth of the jihadist ideology that informed the actions of their nationals. The U.S. chose to remain a close ally of the Saudis and Egyptians because doing so served its strategic interests — whether in preserving the flow of oil in the world market, or ensuring the safe passage of maritime traffic across the Suez Canal.

Was that move wrong? Of course not.

If Israel were to base its foreign policy on countries’ past record of abuse of Jews during the Holocaust — and, more generally, throughout Europe’s 2,000 years of persecution of Jews — then the only European states it would be capable of having diplomatic relations with are Bulgaria and Denmark.

The point isn’t whether or not a state has a past of persecution of Jews generally. All states in Europe have such a past.

The point is that today, some European states are becoming more antisemitic and more hostile to Israel. And some European states are becoming less antisemitic and friendlier to Israel.

Poland, like the other Visegard members, is in the latter category. France, Germany, Belgium, and other Western European states are in the former category. Israel is best served by cultivating close ties to the European states that want close ties with it, and keeping its distance from those who want close ties with Iran and the Palestinians.

The U.S. is now calling for Israel to apologize to Poland for Katz’s statement. And Washington is right.

Hopefully, someday, Poland will reconcile itself with the historical truth of its people’s dubious and decidedly mixed record of behavior towards the Jews during the Holocaust. And Israel cannot accept revision of the historic record.

But Israel also has important interests in the world. Those interests are best advanced by working with like-minded countries. And in issues that matter, along a wide spectrum of areas, Poland is a like-minded country. Israel should treat it accordingly.

British Jewish TV Presenter Rachel Riley, Actress Tracy Ann Oberman to Take Legal Action Over Twitter Abuse They Have Faced for Calling Out Labor Antisemitism

Rachel Riley, host of the UK television show “Countdown,” and actress Tracy Ann Oberman are preparing to take legal action against those who have targeted them on Twitter with abusive remarks over their efforts to call out antisemitism in the Labour party, the pair’s lawyer said on Thursday.

Mark Lewis said he was contacting “between 60 and 70 people” who are “almost exclusively Labour supporters” for alleged libel or harassment of his two Jewish clients, according to the Daily Mail.

He told The Guardian he would go to court and force Twitter to release details of social media users who made the Twitter posts if they did not voluntarily provide him with their contact information.

Oberman, 52, was previously a Labour member but left in April 2017 after the party’s decision to not suspend MP Ken Livingstone following antisemitism allegations. Livingstone resigned in 2018.

Riley, 33, was given extra security in January when appearing on “Countdown” after her criticism of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn resulted in her being threatened by his supporters on social media.

Giving away land to terrorist supporters seems to be a strange way to bring peace. pic.twitter.com/GGtUA1aUmK
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 18, 2019

This is a lie, @UNRWA.https://t.co/2yCDqDuoAR

UNHCR AT BEST calls them "derivative" refugees, not refugees themselves. For starters.

Most importantly: UNRWA has no means to take people OUT of refugee status, EVER, unlike UNHCR. https://t.co/sNrMq81G4h
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 21, 2019

Inspirational: Co-founder of Israel's SpaceIL Yariv Bash, who is launching a spacecraft to the moon tonight, uses a wheelchair. pic.twitter.com/GsIwjulAkl
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 21, 2019

Abba Eban, November 2, 1975 @nytimes on one example where anti-Zionism is antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/o5ByTBmxcf
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 20, 2019

How many minutes before some anti-Israel idiot says that Israelis are only going to the moon in order to distract the world from Israeli crimes?
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 22, 2019

The Exception. pic.twitter.com/aFxQOoHF09
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 21, 2019

By any measure, Palestinians are treated worse in Lebanon because they are Palestinians than anywhere else in the planet.https://t.co/laD0oZmmMY pic.twitter.com/wkZ4hVYG0i
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 22, 2019

BOYCOTT THE MOON pic.twitter.com/Mq4ihCjd9E
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 22, 2019

The cleanest nation on Earth pic.twitter.com/LoX2iiAj2Q
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 22, 2019

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02/22 Links Pt2: While hoaxes make headlines, real attacks on Jews keep happening; The ‘Times’ and Israel: A Review of 2018; Why the Academic Boycott of Israel Is Anti-Semitic

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: While hoaxes make headlines, real attacks on Jews keep happening

And it’s why American Jews who vote Democrat are muted or silent about the virulent antisemitism of people like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan or Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Having told themselves falsely that Trump is a mortal threat to Jews, black people or Muslims, they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the most dangerous enemies of the Jewish people are on their own side— and that it’s Trump who is their target, not the other way round.

Hoaxes are a kind of false flag operation to cast as villains the victims of such attacks. They are a hallmark of Soviet communism’s strategy of psychological warfare in creating a looking-glass world where nothing is what it seems.

Israel is a prime victim of this hoax politics. The whole Palestinian narrative — cooked up originally by Yasser Arafat in cahoots with the former Soviet Union—is a false flag operation, a hoax that falsely blames its Israeli victim of appalling crimes of which it is innocent but of which the Palestinian perpetrator is itself guilty.

Hoax politics is an example of cultural totalitarianism that fries the brain and creates a climate of political, intellectual and moral chaos.

It’s why so many of us feel that the world has spun off its axis of reason altogether. And it’s why the whole anti-Israel and anti-Jew pathology that has erupted in the West is part of a broader and devastating cultural nervous breakdown.

The ‘Times’ and Israel: A Review of 2018

On the first day of 2018, the publisher of the New York Times wrote a letter to his readers. Quoth A.G. Sulzberger: “The Times will hold itself to the highest standards of independence, rigor and fairness—because we believe trust is the most precious asset we have.” Fairness and accuracy would be paramount, he promised, “and in the inevitable moments we fall short, we will continue to own up to our mistakes, and we’ll strive to do better.”

The date of the letter suggests it would be only fair to look closely at the 12 months of journalism that followed and judge whether the Times delivered on Sulzberger’s promise of impartial, accurate reporting. That is what the media-monitoring organization CAMERA did when producing a timeline assessing a year’s worth of the newspaper’s coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The timeline, alas, makes clear that the Times fell far short of those promised standards when it came to its coverage of Israel and its opponents.

Again and again, the newspaper distorted the news, downplayed inconvenient facts, and departed from journalistic norms. And while the chronological list of the newspaper’s stumbles is striking, a still more damning picture emerges when we sort those stumbles by common theme—a picture of a newspaper eager to tilt public opinion by glossing over news reflecting poorly on Palestinian actors while at the same time zooming in on perceived Israeli misdeeds.
“More Than Just Victims”

At one point during her tenure as public editor of the New York Times from 2012 to 2015, Margaret Sullivan delivered a stunning message to her colleagues. In an otherwise gentle 2014 column about the paper’s coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict, Sullivan called on Times reporters to remember that the Palestinians “are more than just victims.” Her colleagues, don’t forget, are professional journalists at the country’s most reputable newspaper. That the public editor felt the need to impart such a rudimentary lesson about the Palestinians, a multidimensional group that has experienced but also imposed plenty of suffering, raised questions then about how much Times journalists actually knew about the conflict, or about impartial journalism.

In 2018, the newspaper demonstrated time and again that it was unwilling to offer frank coverage of news that highlighted the Palestinian role in exacerbating the conflict. In one emblematic example, Times journalist Nellie Bowles described the Palestinian Authority’s payments to families of imprisoned terrorists as a figment of the right-wing imagination. Facebook, she lamented, has been “flooded with far-right conspiracy programming like ‘Palestinians Pay $400 million Pensions for Terrorist Families.’” In fact, the Palestinian government had been perfectly open about its payments. The newspaper, at least in this case, made amends after CAMERA contacted editors. “That is not a conspiracy theory,” a correction noted.

It’s all about the Benjamins – Franklin and Herzl

Similarly, 150 years later, addressing a people scattered worldwide, not just along America’s East Coast, Herzl said: “Zionism has already brought about something remarkable, heretofore regarded as impossible: a close union between the ultramodern and the ultraconservative Jews.... A union of this kind is possible only on a national basis.”

This is not an exercise in cherry-picking selective quotes that might fit together – their ideas flow naturally together, one of many illustrations of the natural fit linking Americanism with Zionism, Americans with Israelis, the US with Israel. True, shared interests help, too. No other country backs Israel as America does, and Israel watches America’s back. Following Franklin Roosevelt’s high standard, “Judge me by the enemies I make,” the Iranian mullahocracy’s obsessive attacks on “Big Satan” and “Little Satan” honor America and Israel.

Ultimately, it’s all about the Benjamins: thanks to shared values, not just shared interest. A certain brand of transformational, aspirational nationalism, a catalytic identity, a zeal to be useful, constructive, free and redemptive drive America and Israel more than most democracies, thereby driving them together, too.

The other Benjamins – money – lack the power such bonding ideas and defining values enjoy. No lobby could ever manufacture the overlapping images, dreams and ideals that link America with Israel, while making the two peoples so close, too.

That little Israel cheers America is not surprising. But that capitalist America – with its eye on oil – sticks by Israel; that media-driven America, despite constant campaigns to delegitimize Israel, resists such lies; and that Christian America, transcending centuries of Western antisemitism, supports the Jewish state say much about Israel’s value and even more about American values. As Franklin taught: while “a friend in need is a friend indeed,” there is “no better relation than a prudent and faithful friend.”

Lobby-libelers be damned. How lucky Israel and America each are to have each other.