Geneva, June 13 - An international body that aims to look into allegations of violations of the Laws of Armed Conflict by the Jewish State has engaged to spearhead the effort a man with recent experience with allegations of disproportionate, illegal attacks.
The United Nations Human Rights Council today (Thursday) named Jussie Smollett, star of the TV series Empire, the director of a new probe into Israeli crimes against Palestinians at the border with the Gaza Strip and within the territory during the brief explosion of cross-border violence in April. A spokesman for the Council made specific mention of Mr. Smollett's unwavering commitment to his narrative of victimhood even in the face of mounting evidence that he fabricated the entire incident and hired African immigrants to stage it.
"We find in Mr. Smollett a kindred spirit," declared Bahrain council delegate Tashhir Aldam. "His unrelenting insistence that an attack took place even when hostile elements challenged his assertions is exactly what this panel looks for when it encounters allegations of Israeli crimes. The Smollett Commission, as it will be known, will forge ahead with its inquiry undeterred by accusations that it ignores evidence contrary to its predetermined conclusions, in keeping with the finest traditions of UN inquiries such as those conducted under Messrs. Goldstone, Falk, and others."
A representative of the African-American actor thanked the Council for its recognition and conveyed the star's aspiration to justify the organization's faith in his abilities. "Jussie hopes to live up to the Council's expectations," stated Ali Latdam. "He is excited to partner with others in the world who have dedicated their lives and careers to bringing justice as defined by anti-Western, anti-Zionist, often anti-Semitic sensibilities, under which people of color - also defined by that group - bear perpetual victim status and cannot be expected to shoulder responsibility for their actions or situations, with the result that responsibility and guilt devolves onto whatever non-POC entities may be involved. In his case that was the Chicago police, or American society, or whichever accusation gets the most traction; in the case of the Human Rights Council it's Israel, because Jews."
Ambassador Aldam also noted the actor's achievement in avoiding long-term career consequences for adhering to a disproved narrative. "We're especially encouraged by Mr. Smollett's ability to avoid permanently tainting himself with this episode," he explained. "The UN can offer him an even more sympathetic environment in which to pursue blood libels, since the rigor of our methods does not approach that of the Chicago police department."
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I participated in the drafting of UN Security Council Resolution 242 back in 1967, when Justice Arthur Goldberg was the U.S. Representative to the UN. I had been Justice Goldberg's law clerk, and he asked me to come to New York to advise him on some of the legal issues surrounding the West Bank. The major controversy was whether Israel had to return "all" or only some of the territories captured in its defensive war against Jordan.
The end result was that the binding English version of the resolution deliberately omitted the crucial word "all," which both Justice Goldberg and British Ambassador Lord Caradon publicly stated meant that Israel was entitled to retain some of the West Bank. Moreover, under Resolution 242, Israel was not required to return a single inch of captured territory unless its enemies recognized its right to live within secure boundaries.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is right in two respects: (1) Israel has no right to retain all of the West Bank, if its enemies recognize its right to live within secure borders; (2) Israel has "the right to retain some" of these territories. The specifics are left to negotiation between the parties.
The reality is that Israel will maintain control over traditionally Jewish areas, as well as the settlement blocs close to the Green Line. I know this because Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told me this on more than one occasion when we have met.
The attack on Ambassador Friedman is mere posturing by the Palestinian leaders and their supporters. The realpolitik, recognized by all reasonable people, is that Israel does have a right to retain some, but not all, of the West Bank.
The Palestinians can end the untenable status quo by agreeing to compromise their absolutist claims, just as Israel will have to compromise on its claims. The virtue of Ambassador Friedman's statement is that it recognizes that both sides must give up their absolutist claims, and that the end result must be Israeli control over some, but not all, of the West Bank.
For decades, the United Nations has served as the home turf of Arab countries who used it to batter the State of Israel and the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces. In recent years, though, the rules of the game have changed, and no longer finding itself having to deal with a last-minute tie, Israel now takes the field with a significant advantage.
The strength of the alliance between the United States and Israel is a prominent layer in our policies at the UN. Our cooperation at the forefront of the diplomatic stage helps leverage the efforts of both Israel and the US.
In December, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and I submitted a motion condemning the Hamas terrorist movement to the General Assembly. For the first time in the organization’s history, 87 countries voted to condemn Hamas and admitted the terrorist group was a global problem. This helped leverage the efforts Israel is leading to have Hamas defined as a terrorist organization at the UN.
At the same time, when Washington needed our help, we were the first to stand alongside the US. Every year, a resolution is submitted demanding the US revoke its economic embargo on Cuba. Israel was the only country outside the US at the UN to oppose the resolution in last year’s vote.
A few days ago, one of Hamas’ terrorist arms in Lebanon, disguised as a human rights organization by the name of “Shahed,” tried to gain observer status at the UN. We informed our counterparts in the American delegation and together, enlisted a majority of countries within the framework of an international campaign that succeeded in preventing a Hamas delegation from penetrating the UN.
But the cooperation does not begin and end in New York; it is spread across the various branches of the UN, including the infamously anti-Israel Human Rights Council in Geneva. One year ago, the US announced that while it would continue to fight for human rights, it would no longer do so within the framework of an organization so blind with Israel hatred. The US quit the council and called on other countries to follow suit.
Nikki Haley may no longer be the United States permanent representative to the United Nations, but her passion for defending Israel is as strong as ever.
The Jewish community in the United States and Israelis by and large treated Haley as the superstar of the Trump administration because she relentlessly took the UN to task and put a mirror in front of the international organization, revealing just how biased it was toward Israel.
Now, as a private citizen, she takes pains to assure Israelis they have nothing to fear regarding the administration’s peace efforts, just weeks before the rollout of the economic component of its peace plan. She says President Donald Trump’s peace team considers Israel’s security paramount.
Haley sat down for an interview with Israel Hayom Editor-in-Chief Boaz Bismuth on Thursday in New York. The following are excerpts from the interview. The full version will be published on Friday.
Former US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley with Israel Hayom Editor-in-Chief Boaz Bismuth | Photo: Nir Arieli
Q: Later this month, the administration will roll out the economic component of its peace plan. Some in Israel are worried that the US would want something from Israel in return for recognizing Jerusalem as its capital and recognizing its sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Should Israel be worried about the plan?
“Israel should not be worried. Because through the Middle East plan, one of the main goals that [Senior Adviser to the President] Jared Kushner and [US Special Representative for International Negotiations] Jason Greenblatt focused on was to not hurt the national security interests of Israel. They understand the importance of security, they understand the importance of keeping Israel safe. I think everybody needs to go into it with an open mind, everybody should want a peace plan. Everybody should want to make way for a better situation in Israel and I think it can happen. So rather than pushing back against what we don’t know, I hope everybody would lean in on what the possibilities of what the peace plan could look like and think of a better life for everyone.”
This cartoon is dedicated to the DC Dyke March that planned to ban Jewish symbols before giving in.
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I reported on Tuesday about an academic paper that accused Israel of "veganwashing," meaning that Israel is so obsessed with its "occupation" that it will embrace liberal causes like LGBTQ rights or veganism in order to distract people from thinking about Palestinians.
This is psychological projection. Palestinians want the world to only think about "occupation," so much so that they will hang everything they do on publicizing that.
Enter the Palestinian Animal League. Its ostensible purpose is to promote animal rights in the territories, with programs to try to stop Palestinians from abusing donkeys (which are often beaten) and helping take care of stray dogs (which they suggest could be deliberately released by Israel.)
In reality, the PAL is just another cog in the machine of anti-Israel incitement.
PAL provides English-language tours for Western animal lovers called "Vegan Tours in Palestine." Here is their entire description of the goals of these tours:
– Meet Palestinians and get the chance to learn about initiatives of resistance to the Israeli occupation and the colonization of the land;
– Learn about the solidarity movement with the Palestinian people;
– Discover the natural beauty of this land, the culture and the delicious Palestinian cuisine, which is very vegan-friendly.
– Support the local economy that suffers immensely from the occupation.
– Share what we you see and experience here with your own communities, and explain the Palestinian struggle for liberation and self-determination where the voices of Palestinians cannot be heard.
– Get an insight on vegan-washing, i.e. the use of the animal rights movement in Israel to improve Israel’s image and to distract attention from the Israeli violations of both human rights and animal rights.
Not one goal about raising awareness on animal rights issues in the territories. The entire purpose is political, to get international vegans to hate Israel.
This goal is not only seen from the "Vegan Tours." The director of PAL, Ahlam Tarayra, spoke at the animal rights EACAS Conference 2019 which took place at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona earlier this year.
Ahlam discussed how PAL is working to improve the physical and cultural environment for animals in Palestine. She also discussed how PAL has been observing the impact of historical British colonialism and the Israeli occupation upon animals in Palestine. PAL has been “digging back to the roots” to discover where the roots of various forms of oppression – such as speciesism, homophobia, and patriarchy – began in Palestine.
Coming out as a homosexual is almost impossible in Palestine...it is important to underline how the Ottoman rule and the prolonged Israeli occupation have hugely contributed to remarkably emphasizing various forms of oppression that permeate a cycle of violence, which is a fundamental obstacle in Palestine’s efforts to develop into a broad-minded society that acknowledges that all oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, and speciesism) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately.
Palestinian intolerance for every major liberal cause is not the result of their own culture, according to this theory - but because of Israel.
Apparently, Israel controls Palestinian TV, Internet, school curricula, newspapers, magazines, conferences and topics of conversation in the street.
I suppose that the same intolerance in other Arab societies are somehow Israel's fault as well, but the intersectional theorists like Tarayra haven't yet figured out exactly how.
What is clear is that Palestinians are never responsible for their own shortcomings - it is always Israel's fault.
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Here are some of the specifics that Palestinian leaders wanted to teach their kids:
“Mim” (M) is for Musaddas = pistol
“Qaf” (Q) – is for Qunbula = bomb
“Ra” (R) is for Rassasa = bullet
“Sin” (S) is for Sayf = sword
“Shin” (Sh) is for Shibl = lion cub, but in the vernacular always means child fighter
“Fa” (f) is for fidai (pl. fedayeen) - guerrilla fighter
The designer was Mohieddin Ellabbad, an Egyptian graphic artist who was hired by Dar El Fatah El Arabi, a publishing house for children that was an arm of the PLO's cultural program Dar El Fatah. The entire point of Dar El Fatah was to ensure that Palestinian children grow up with the same revolutionary ideals of the PLO.
Ellabbad's boss was Nabil Shaath, currently the spokesperson for Mahmoud Abbas.
Violence is in Palestinian DNA.
(h/t Irene, Ibn Boutros)
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A Hamas-related “military unit” called “Sons of al-Zawari” has been responsible for launching countless incendiary and explosive kites and balloons across the border into Israel for more than a year. Recently they even threatened to fill the condoms they use for balloons (apparently they are made of strong latex, so they are less likely to break prematurely) with a payload of some kind of poisonous or carcinogenic material.
Mohammed al-Zawari, in case you are interested, was a Tunisian engineer who developed drones for Hamas; he was assassinated in 2016, probably by the Mossad.
Although it is not so newsworthy outside of Israel, Arabs from Gaza continue to start fires and try to kill people in southern Israel with these devices. Israel responds in various ways, like reducing the size of the area in the Mediterranean in which Gazans are allowed to fish (really). They have also “attacked” the groups launching the devices with drones – but news reports never say that any of their members are killed, so I presume they fire low-yield weapons near, but not directly at, the terrorists.
The “disturbances” at the border fence wax and wane, but they never stop. Every once in a while someone is shot trying to harm Israeli soldiers on the other side, or planting explosives to create a breach in the fence that would allow a large number of terrorists to cross over and attack local civilians. Israel is building a massive barrier, both above and below the ground, to protect local communities against attacks via tunnels dug under the fence, and from shooting – in a recent case, a man was killed when his car was hit by an anti-tank rocket fired from Gaza. This barrier will cost billions, but will not stop the balloons or kites, nor will it prevent rocket attacks as we experienced this May. Recently, Israeli officials said that Hamas has already replenished its stock of rockets after the recent violence.
In a sense, Hamas is already engaged in chemical and biological warfare against Israel. The border demonstrations often involve burning tires, with the smoke darkening the skies over Israeli communities, some of which are only a few hundred meters from the fence. Even more seriously, for years, raw sewage from Gaza has been dumped in the sea and into streams that flow in southern Israel. Garbage is dumped and burned near the border. The Hamas government has received much assistance from international donors to solve its pollution problems, including the World Bank financing a large treatment plant in northern Gaza, which, due to a lack of electricity and other problems, never became operational.
Of course the population of Gaza suffers far more than that of Israel from the air and water pollution. But Hamas has always allocated available resources primarily to its war effort, following the First Principle of Palestinism,™ which is that it’s always preferable to hurt Jews than to help Arabs (although, to be fair, they have built luxurious residences for their leaders).
The Israeli government has come up with various reasons (perhaps ‘excuses’ is better) for why the mighty Jewish state can’t stop the torture of the residents of the southern part of the country: Israel does not want to occupy and become responsible for Gaza; there is a more serious threat from Hezbollah and Iran in the North; among the balloon launchers and fence busters are “children;” and, an attempt to overthrow Hamas would result in numerous civilian casualties in Gaza – something that the “international community” would not permit.
The “solution” from our “hardline, right-wing” government – just ask the NY Times how “hardline” it is – is to find technological answers to all the threats: we’ll shoot down the rockets with Iron Dome or similar systems, we’ll finish the expensive over- and underground barrier, and we’ll put out the fires started by the incendiary balloons before they get too big. Then, when the Gazans understand that we won’t allow them to hurt us, someone (preferably not us) will provide the cash to solve their economic and ecological problems, and we can live peacefully side by side.
This is a recipe for failure, and it is already failing. With every Iron Dome launch costing the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars, and with Hamas and Islamic Jihad improving both the number of rockets they can fire in a short period of time and their accuracy, the task of intercepting them all becomes more challenging and more expensive. During the last exchanges of fire in May, several rockets did get through and resulted in a number of deaths. The trend is against us: it is easier and cheaper for them to improve their offensive systems than for us to strengthen our defensive ones.
Although various high-tech solutions to the low-tech balloons have been proposed, they are still setting damaging fires on a daily basis. While attempts to bribe the Hamas regime have from time to time reduced the number of balloons launched or the number of demonstrators at the fence, extortion has a way of becoming more expensive and less effective as time goes by. And we have no solution to the ecological crisis that Hamas is creating for its own population and for our common neighborhood as long as Hamas remains in power.
One goal of Hamas is to cause Israeli residents of the area to abandon it. So far, because of economic incentives to live there, the high cost of housing in other places, and apparently a strong feeling of community, this has not happened. But don’t kid yourself – if there is a successful penetration of the border in which there are significant casualties among Israelis, or if there are extended periods during which people must stay in shelters, there may be a point at which many of them ask themselves whether the disadvantages of living there don’t outweigh the advantages.
What we are doing is a combination of holding the line and kicking the can down the road, to violently mix metaphors. These are by definition temporary solutions. What is a permanent solution?
We could win a war with Gaza, and probably suffer relatively few casualties of our own, as long as we actually apply the “principle of proportionality” in the Law of War as it is intended. If the enemy is using otherwise protected targets like mosques, hospitals, schools, and civilian structures for military purposes, then we are permitted to attack as long as the collateral damage is proportional to the military advantage of doing so. In other words, if Hamas has located its main command and control center in the basement of a hospital in Gaza City, then we can bomb it, if doing so is an important enough military objective – which it certainly would be. We are permitted to fight against child soldiers, and human shields that are injured or killed are the responsibility of Hamas.
Part of winning such a war would include targeted killings of the upper echelons of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership. They are war criminals, responsible for the deaths of numerous Israelis, and they maintain a dictatorial and oppressive regime over their own population. They are our deadly enemies and even if their military capabilities were destroyed, would manage an insurgency against us. Killing them would send a message to their successors that they are personally responsible for events.
At this point, the hard part begins. We have eliminated the regime – who will be the new regime? Probably the civilian infrastructure will have collapsed. It is already collapsing economically and ecologically, public health is a disaster, and drug abuse is rampant. The educational system is a training camp for jihadists.
Should we dump it in the lap of the UN? If they agreed, they would be ineffective at best. At worst, they would invite operatives from hostile countries who would establish a beachhead. I am sure Erdoğan would love to help!
I think there is only one acceptable long-term solution: to depopulate Gaza. That is, to provide an exit for most of the Gazan population to emigrate to various parts of the world, including but not limited to Arab countries, Europe, Australia, and North and South America. Emigration would be financed by the UN with funds normally provided to Gaza by UNRWA. If cooperation of host nations could be arranged, this would probably cost less in the long run than continuing the international support for Gaza as at present. There would probably have to be a temporary Israeli administration set up to assure security during the process. At some point, Israel would officially annex the territory, and the remaining population – who would be vetted to ensure that they didn’t present a risk of terrorism – would be offered Israeli citizenship in a way similar to what was done in Jerusalem.
It’s doubtful that there would be many votes for this idea in the UN, if it were put to a vote. But there are probably two groups of people that would love it: Israelis, especially those that live in the southern part of the country – and Gazans.
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Audrey Hepburn starred in a constellation of memorable roles, from Manhattan socialite Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” to Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.” The 1953 classic “Roman Holiday” — in which she portrayed Princess Ann, a royal exploring the Eternal City with Gregory Peck — earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress. And Hepburn is among the select few to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award.
Yet her most important role is perhaps her least-known. It’s the story of a Dutch aristocrat, raised by parents with controversial political allegiances, who aided her country’s resistance to the Nazis while enduring tragedy and starvation — and, despite it all, becoming a prima ballerina en route to Hollywood stardom. It’s her real-life coming-of-age story, told in a new book, “Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II,” by Robert Matzen.
“Dutch Girl” is based on Matzen’s visits to the Netherlands, where he accessed hard-to-get information in archives, and interviewed people with wartime memories of Hepburn, gaining a new understanding of the star’s own statements about her wartime past. Hepburn’s son Luca Dotti wrote the foreword, and shared previously-unseen photographs, documents and mementos.
A veteran Hollywood chronicler, Matzen learned about Hepburn’s war years while researching his previous book, a biography of Jimmy Stewart, who had been a WWII fighter pilot before becoming the all-American star of such films as “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Some of Stewart’s men had been shot down over the Netherlands, and when Matzen visited the city of Arnhem, he learned Hepburn had lived there during the war. That sparked his next project, one that would bring to light Hepburn’s war experiences, which he called in an interview with The Times of Israel, “a side of Audrey that nobody knows.”
Ryan Cooper was a 20-something Californian unsure of his place in the world when he struck up a pen pal correspondence in the 1970s with Otto Frank, the father of the young Holocaust victim Anne Frank.
Through dozens of letters and several face-to-face meetings, the two forged a friendship that lasted until Frank died in 1980 at the age of 91.
Now 73 years old, Cooper, an antiques dealer and artist in Massachusetts, has donated a trove of letters and mementos he received from Frank to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington just before the 90th anniversary Wednesday of Anne Frank’s birth on June 12, 1929.
He wants the letters to be shared so that people can have a deeper understanding of the man who introduced the world to Anne Frank, whose famous World War II diary is considered one of the most important works of the 20th century.
“He was a lot like Anne in that he was an optimist,” Cooper said of Otto Frank at his house on Cape Cod recently. “He always believed the world would be right in the end, and he based that hope on the young people.”
Over the past five to ten years, writes Zach Goldberg, a new group of liberals has emerged—mostly white, mostly born after 1980, and greatly shaped by social media and Internet reporting—that has altered attitudes on the left. Recently dubbed “the Great Awokening”—after the use of the vernacular “woke” to mean awakened to injustice—the resulting changes in liberal opinion bode ill for Jews and the Jewish state:
[These] seismic attitudinal shifts . . . have implications that go beyond race: they are also tied to a significant decrease in support for Israel and—perhaps more surprisingly—an increase in the number of white liberals who express negative attitudes about the perceived political power of American Jews. . . . Then there is the marked shift in attitudes toward Israel. Between 1978 and 2014, white liberals consistently reported sympathizing more with Israel than with the Palestinians. Since March 2016, this trend has turned on its face: significantly more white liberals now report greater sympathy for the Palestinians than for Israel.
The surveys show that among white liberals, Jews are perceived to be “privileged”—at least in comparison with other historically victimized groups. . . . Jews are no longer the downtrodden collective that white liberals can readily sympathize with. Other groups lower on the privilege hierarchy and less tainted by association with “whiteness” now have priority. So long as anti-Semitism comes from whites, there is no problem here. But if the [anti-Semite is] a member of an “oppressed” or “vulnerable” group, there may be a cognitive dissonance.
To see how this logic extends to Israel consider that the same . . . outrage over the bigoted persecution of the vulnerable by the “privileged” that informs the changing policy positions on domestic issues is applied to the international arena. [In the “woke” view of things], a “white-supremacist” America holds people of color down and keeps the door shut for others, while a “Zionist-supremacist” Israel behaves in much the same way toward its minorities of color. It’s a narrow and warped perspective but one that’s easily assimilated into a broader worldview in which human relations are defined by categories of oppressor vs. oppressed; and where these roles are assigned based on one’s placement in the privilege hierarchy. . . .
As Jews have become [symbols] of “whiteness” in the liberal political imagination—to the point that Israel is considered a white state despite having a slight nonwhite majority—they have come to be associated with an oppressor class. We shouldn’t be surprised then that white liberals are significantly more likely to feel that Jewish groups have too much influence and less likely to say the same with respect to their Muslim counterparts.
Benay Blend has written a
kvetchy little piece on the antisemitic Mondoweiss about how her
Arab friend Rima Najjar got banned from Quora. Blend would have us believe that
Najjar’s voice is being silenced because of her “national origin.” She suggests
there is a concerted effort to still voices such as Najjar’s citing a piece I
wrote some years back called “Quora:
The New Battlefront for Israel.”
The piece appears on the Israel
Forever Foundation website, the brainchild of Dr. Elana Yael Heideman. I met
Dr. Heideman at a bloggers meet-up about 5 years ago. She was getting ready to
launch her website and was looking for content that showed a love of Israel. Elana
didn’t care if I were right or left-wing, Haredi or Reform. All she cared about
was whether I had something true and nice to say about Israel.
Elana Heideman’s belief was
that Jews were too concerned with what divided us and needed to focus more on
what we shared. She wanted us to get back to that basic connection that we have
as a people, and she believed the key to that connection was Israel. A love for
Israel was something we shared, no matter our different backgrounds.
I liked the concept and so,
from time to time, I’d write something up for her website. These pieces were
always written from the standpoint of unapologetic love for Israel. Because
that is the entire thrust of the Israel Forever Foundation, and a writer always
tailors the writing to the venue.
Blend, on the other hand, would
have you believe that the Israel Forever Foundation and those of us who
volunteer our time and content there, are a sort of militia, aimed at robbing
others of their right to free speech. Of Najjar’s banishment from Quora, Blend
writes:
She handled herself with grace and strength, always clear in
her convictions, but that was not enough to counter the concerted effort of
groups like the Israel Forever Foundation, which runs pieces such as Varda
Epstein’s in which she describes how she “fight[s] back” against
pro-Palestinian voices on social media, including Quora. Using military terms,
she vows to “obliterate” any anti-Israel bias that she finds. “Because this is
war, Habibi,” she declares, thereby announcing a war of words that she will win
by default if there are no Palestinian voices left on Quora.
This, of course, is a
distortion of the truth, or an outright lie. It is certainly lacking in
context. From the perspective of the Israel Forever Foundation and from my own
perspective, Najjar is free to say
whatever she likes. She is even free to lie, because the Israel Forever
Foundation isn’t concerned with freedom of speech issues or in silencing
dissent.
I asked Elana Heideman to sum
up the purpose of the Israel Forever Foundation: why she does what she does. She
wrote:
Israel Forever was created to bridge the gap in knowledge,
understanding, and engagement with Israel as a vital and vibrant element of
Jewish life and identity. With the growing hate rhetoric, lies and demonization
of Israel and Jews, our content and resources are our contribution to
educators, parents, youth or community leaders, or anyone wanting to strengthen
their connection or activism opportunities. Whether in social media or in
person, we all must do all we can to equip and empower people to know and
protect Jewish history, rights and freedom - in Israel and everywhere in the
world - today, tomorrow and FOREVER.
I don’t see anything in there
about silencing voices or silencing dissent. The purpose of the Israel Forever
Foundation, rather, is to offer a resource to strengthen Jewish identity. It’s
to encourage people to take an active stand against the lies we see from people
like Blend by coming back at them with the truth.
The Israel Forever Foundation
is not meant to silence or divide. It is meant to draw the Jewish people closer
together. It’s certainly not about silencing “pro-Palestinian voices.”
As for me, I don’t fight
against voices. I fight against lies, with words.
It would not occur to me to “obliterate”
a voice, and I wouldn’t even know how.
I would, on the other hand, do
everything in my power to obliterate anti-Israel bias, whenever and wherever it is encountered, such as the bias we
see in Blend’s Mondoweiss piece. An
example of such bias is her reference to my use of “military terms.”
Here were the “military terms”
I used:
I want to answer that [anti-Israel Quora question] in such a
way that my Israel-loving bias will obliterate the anti-Israel bias expressed
in that question. Because this is war, Habibi.
And true love will always win out.
Najjar is getting ready to sue
Quora. Her lawyer says that the ban imposed on her by Quora is “based solely on
‘her advocacy for Palestinian rights through her opposition to Zionism’ and for
‘unlawfully deny[ing] her access to a place of public accommodation on the
basis of Dr. Najjar’s national origin.’”
But nowhere in Blend’s piece
does she offer any proof that Najjar’s ban is based on discrimination. Instead,
Blend says that being Jewish, she, Blend, would say exactly what Najjar wanted
to say, but when she said it, Quora often, though not always, let it through.
It was only when Najjar said the same things that the content was removed and the
ban imposed.
My answers were
not targeted near as often as her writing. This would seem to support the
contention that her ban was a case of censorship partly due to her national
origin. Her content, which countered the Zionist “narrative” so long imposed on
the struggle for justice in Palestine, was a problem for those busily
disseminating hasbara content. Being philosophically and politically in
agreement, she and I collaborated in answering questions. More often than not,
Dr. Najjar edited my writing so that the ideas stood out more clearly. And yet,
I was never a target of attacks that she received.
If Blend and Najjar have spent as much time on Quora as Blend
suggests, then they know that this is not how Quora works. Any user can report
a response or comment, adding a detailed complaint. Eventually a Quora
moderator looks at the report and decides whether or not the material should be
hidden, removed, or left alone.
Some Quorans do use the report feature to target those with
whom they disagree. But that targeting works both ways: many of my responses
and comments have been targeted in exactly this manner. Sometimes I win on
appeal. Sometimes I don’t. A lot of my content has been hidden or removed.
It’s not just one side, not just Najjar, and not just me,
either. One of my sons ended up with a lifetime ban just like Najjar’s for his
Israel advocacy.
Because that’s how it works: if enough of your responses and
comments are troublesome—meaning if enough users complain about you—Quora will
ban you for life.
This is clearly what happened with Najjar.
Now when I don’t win, I move on. I say, “Those are the
breaks.” It has never occurred to me to sue Quora, though, from time to time, I
have suspected an individual moderator of anti-Israel bias.
In my case, I am often certain that a Quoran with an
anti-Israel bias is using the report mechanism to silence my voice. But when it
happens, I don’t then get up on a soapbox and accuse people of employing “military
terms” to obliterate pro-Israel voices. I just buck up and keep on keeping on.
Najjar and her Jewish spokesperson, from my perspective, seem
to be drowning in litigious self-pity or perhaps just plain old sour grapes. It
can be rough out there on Quora. I don’t always like the rules. For instance, I
try not to use the word “Palestinian,” because I don’t believe there is a
distinct people known by this term. If I instead use the word “Arab,” someone
will report me. The same is true of Facebook.
This isn’t fair, of course. But it’s how Quora and Facebook
want it. If you want to play, you have to obey.
Najjar, in short, was not banned because of some inherent
bias against her “national origins.” She was banned because she used language
that offended people and violated Quora policies. Had she not done so and not
been banned for life, Najjar might have discovered, as I have, that there is
always a workaround: a way to tailor language to satisfy Quora specifications.
With a bit more creativity, Najjar might yet have been free
to speak her mind on Quora. But since she was not more creative, and offended
people, she is not free to speak her
mind on Quora. And perhaps Najjar ought to take responsibility for that,
instead of hiring lawyers and having her Jewish friend complain about me and the Israel Forever Foundation—who
have nothing whatsoever to do with Najjar’s apparent lack of control—on Mondoweiss. UPDATE: Before this piece was even published, another article appeared by Blend, this time in the Palestine Chronicle, making the same accusations, and using my Israel Forever Foundation article as an example of the "concerted campaign of harassment and censorship by Zionists and Israelis” that is targeting Najjar "for her content." Here she goes into even more detail, and winds up by suggesting that this "campaign" is at the behest of the Israeli government.
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We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
On the Gaza front, the IDF says it has destroyed 15 tunnels since October 2017, both crossing into Israel from inside the Strip. It has also completed some 27 of 65 km. of the underground barrier designed to block tunnels from crossing into Israeli territory from Gaza. The underground barrier, which will also stretch into the Mediterranean to stave off Hamas infiltration by sea, will be complemented by a six-meter-high smart fence.
Israel says it has removed Hamas’ strategic underground surprise.
Great. But while Hamas can no longer surprise Israel from below, terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip have increased their missile arsenal in both quality and quantity.
In the last round of violence, close to 700 rockets were fired into southern Israel, killing four civilians.
Thousands of Palestinians also demonstrate on a weekly basis along the security fence, and the first IDF soldier killed since Operation Protective Edge occurred during one such violent riot.
That’s Gaza. What about the West Bank? Well, it’s not much better.
Since October 2015, Palestinian youth have stabbed, run over and shot IDF soldiers and civilians – including some tourists – in a wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel. While the violence has since decreased since its peak in the winter of 2016, when there were attacks almost daily, 16 Israelis were killed in 2018-2019.
Those attacks are just the tip of the iceberg of stabbings, shootings and car rammings prevented by security forces.
Recently, the IDF unveiled plans to improve the level of intelligence gathering and sharing in the West Bank in an attempt to stay one step ahead of deadly terrorist attacks, like the one which claimed the lives of the three boys in 2014.
The system – an increase in surveillance cameras and other sensors in key West Bank locations – includes advanced computer analytics and visual intelligence that are all connected to an operations room.
The military hopes the system will assist in identifying imminent threats, foiling attacks in real time and carrying out manhunts for terrorists fleeing following an attack.
On this day 5 years ago, Palestinian terrorists kidnapped 3 Israeli teenagers: Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer & Eyal Yifrah.
The nation of Israel united with intense emotion during the 18-day search, until their dead bodies were found.
Friedman postulated: “The absolute last thing the world needs is a failed Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan,”
He could have also added that:
- Jordan is a Palestinian Arab state that has occupied 78% of the land comprised in the Mandate for Palestine since 1922
- Redrawing the international boundary between Jordan and Israel in direct negotiations between those two states as successor States to the Mandate could see parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem incorporated within each of these two existing states thereby eliminating any danger a failed third state would pose to their security and existence.
Interestingly – Friedman indicated that Trump’s long-awaited “deal of the century” might not even be released if Trump believed it would do more harm than good.
Friedman reportedly said the United States would coordinate closely with Jordan – which could face unrest among its large Palestinian population over a plan perceived as overly favourable to Israel.
“We don’t want to make things worse. Our goal is not to show how smart we are at the expense of people’s safety.”
Trump has seemingly anointed Jordan to replace the rejectionist Palestine Liberation Organization as Israel’s negotiating partner on the future of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It now appears that Trump’s proposals will not see the light of day unless Trump receives an unqualified assurance from Jordan that it is willing to negotiate with Israel before the plan’s details are released.
Recognising Israel has claims in the West Bank and East Jerusalem sends a clear signal to Jordan and the rest of the Arab World that time is not on their side. The opportunity to yet again miss another opportunity to make peace looms large.
Trump has targeted the West Bank and East Jerusalem – as he already has in West Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – with amazing prescience.
Tarek Khoury, a member of Jordan's parliament, tweeted a thread where he stated that peace with Israel is an illusion, and that Israel only accepts peace to swallow land that doesn't belong to it and to prime itself to steal more land. (Essentially he is accusing Israel of doing what the PLO explicitly stated it would do in 1974, to take all of Israel in phases, a position it never abandoned.)
In the middle of the thread, Khoury wrote:
"Victory is achieved only when each of us believes on this land that we have no enemy who fights us in our religion and our homeland except the Jews."
Not Zionists, not Israelis - Jews.
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This isn't just the headline, which could be written by a different editor with his or her own bias. The lede of the article says:
Israel has a right to annex at least some, but “unlikely all,” of the West Bank, the United States ambassador, David M. Friedman, said in an interview, opening the door to American acceptance of what would be an enormously provocative act.
Since the interview with Ambassador David Friedman was an exclusive to The New York Times, who is going to disagree that this is what he said?
Except that, he didn't.
His words were: "Under certain circumstances, I think that Israel has the right to retain some, but not all, of the West Bank."
Later on the article says:
He accused the Obama administration, in allowing passage of a United Nations resolution in 2016 that condemned Israeli settlements as a “flagrant violation” of international law, of giving credence to Palestinian arguments “that the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem belong to them.”
“Certainly Israel’s entitled to retain some portion of it,” he said of the West Bank.
This does not mean unilateral annexation. He didn't use the word "annex." . It means that the 1949 armistice lines are not the legal boundaries of Israel and that UN Resolution 242 entitles Israel to territory in the West Bank under any permanent agreement.
I know, because I participated – albeit in a small way – in the drafting of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 back in 1967, when Justice Arthur Goldberg was the United States Representative to the United Nations. I had been Justice Goldberg’s law clerk, and was then teaching at Harvard Law School. Justice Goldberg asked me to come to New York to advise him on some of the legal issues surrounding the West Bank.
The major controversy was whether Israel had to return "all" the territories captured in its defensive war against Jordan, or only some of the territories.
The end result was that the binding English version of the United Nations Resolution deliberately omitted the crucial word "all," and substituted the word "territories," which both Justice Goldberg and British Ambassador Lord Caradon publicly stated meant that Israel was entitled to retain some of the West Bank.
Moreover, under Resolution 242, Israel was not required to return a single inch of captured territory unless its enemies recognized its right to live within secure boundaries.
Friedman is right, therefore, in these two respects: (1) Israel has no right to retain all of the West Bank, if its enemies recognize its right to live within secure borders; (2) Israel has "the right to retain some" of these territories. The specifics – the amount and location – are left to negotiation between the parties.
When asked explicitly about annexation, Friedman did not say anything at all:
Mr. Friedman declined to say how the United States would respond if Mr. Netanyahu moved to annex West Bank land unilaterally.
“We really don’t have a view until we understand how much, on what terms, why does it make sense, why is it good for Israel, why is it good for the region, why does it not create more problems than it solves,” Mr. Friedman said. “These are all things that we’d want to understand, and I don’t want to prejudge.”
The absence of a condemnation does not equal support. Friedman did not say a single thing against US policy.
Reporters tried to play "gotcha" with the State Department spokesperson, who didn't say that Friedman said anything wrong:
State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the administration's position on the West Bank has not changed, despite Ambassador David Friedman's comments to The New York Times that "Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank."
Speaking to reporters Monday, Ortagus said that "the administration's position on the settlements has not changed. Our policy on the West Bank has not changed."
Asked what the US position on settlement activity is, a State Department official cited President Donald Trump, saying that "as the President has said, while the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity doesn't help advance peace."
Of course, Friedman didn't say anything about whether the settlements were legal according to US policy in the interview as published.
Friedman is characterized in the media as a pro-Israel cowboy who ignores US policy in the region. He is undoubtedly pro-Israel and pro-settlement in his own opinion, but he did not say one word that contradicted US policy, nor did he say a word about supporting unilateral annexation.
This is all media bias by the New York Times and picked up by scores of reporters who do not have the ability to independently evaluate an official's statements and uncritically accept the false interpretation of the NYT.
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Elder of Ziyon
