Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 11, 2019

10/11 Links Pt2: Yom Kippur shooting victims named: Jana Lange and Kevin S.; Ousted From CNN For Hezbollah Tweet, Octavia Nasr Returns as Producer at Taxpayer-Funded News Outlet Alhurra

From Ian:

Yom Kippur shooting victims named: Jana Lange and Kevin S.

The two victims in the Yom Kippur shooting at a synagogue in Halle, Germany have been named as Jana Lange, 40, and Kevin S., 20.

Lange was shot by extremist anti-Semite Stephan Balliet, who livestreamed the attack via a helmet camera as she attempted to stop him from shooting up the synagogue.

Balliet went on to shoot Kevin, whom local media described as a soccer fan, who was at a nearby kebab stand during the terrorist attack.

German media described Lange as a "warm, funny" person and a devoted music lover. She liked to share pictures of artists she admired on social media.

Kevin, the second victim, was a painter. He worked at a building site near the synagogue.

Kevin's father began to fear the worst when reports about the shooting began to circulate.

"All we know is that you're at the construction site nearby and you lost your phone. Kevin, we love you more than anything," the father wrote on his Facebook page prior to receiving the news of his son's tragic death.

Ousted From CNN For Hezbollah Tweet, Octavia Nasr Returns as Producer at Taxpayer-Funded News Outlet Alhurra

The U.S.-funded Arabic channel Alhurra TV recently brought on Octavia Nasr, a former CNN senior editor who left the network after publicly expressing sympathies for a Hezbollah-tied cleric, as a consultant tasked with helping lead the outlet’s revamp.

Nasr has largely been out of journalism work for the past decade after losing her role as CNN’s editor of Mideast affairs. Her demise at the network she worked at for two decades came after she used her CNN Twitter account to praise Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a highly controversial Shia cleric who supported Islamist terrorist attacks and was regarded as the spiritual leader for Hezbollah, a militant group based in Lebanon. The U.S. State Department currently labels Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization.

“Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot,” wrote Nasr in July 2010.

A source who spoke to Mediaite about Nasr’s role at the outlet said she acted as a producer, assisting the network with how they covered subjects and what details they decided to omit or include in their reporting.

When reached for comment, Alhurra’s spokesperson described Nasr’s role at the outlet as “a consultant on technical issues,” but claimed she has “completed her contract.”

“MBN is an equal opportunity employer. The company does not discriminate on any basis,” the spokesperson added in response to questions about Nasr’s past employment issues.

Nasr did not respond to Mediaite’s requests for comment.

BDS and antisemitism: Examining the Ministry of Strategic Affairs Report

In recent days, Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry published a report documenting some 100 examples in which activities of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign qualify as antisemitic, based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by 15 countries and by the European Parliament. Given the difficult task of operationalizing what antisemitism is, all cases documented in the report manifest at least one of the following characteristics: expressions of classic antisemitism; Holocaust inversion; and denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.

Three central claims emerge from the more than 90-page report.
• One: Delegitimization and demonization of the State of Israel by the BDS movement invariably results in the stigmatizing of Jews worldwide and in Israel.
• Two: Some members of the BDS leadership are antisemitic.
• Three: The argumentation patterns and methods of the BDS movement – which include the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland and the singling out of Israel for boycott – are antisemitic.

It is worth scrutinizing each of these conclusions separately.
• The first point, which links the delegitimization of Israel spearheaded by BDS to the stigmatization of Jews, is also reflected in research conducted by the Institute for National Security Studies, based in large part on interviews with members of Jewish communities across the globe. We have seen this phenomenon play out in the personal security sphere. One domain in which the connection between BDS and manifestations of antisemitism is most readily traced in our research is the academic realm.

In this setting we found that Jewish (and Israeli) students studying on campuses outside of Israel fear for their personal safety, are intimidated by BDS activists, and experience obstacles related to their Jewish identity in competing for student leadership positions. While it is impossible to trace every antisemitic manifestation experienced by students to BDS, the ministry’s report is instrumental in demonstrating the connection between BDS and antisemitism on campus life through the documentation of antisemitic imagery and rhetoric adopted by student BDS-promoting organizations.

10/11 Links Pt1: Is Israel past the age of heroic leaders?; The U.S. Alliance with Israel Cannot Be Sacrificed to Ideological Purity; Caroline B. Glick: Trump did not betray the Kurds

From Ian:

Is Israel past the age of heroic leaders?

In their recent book Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel’s Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny, Dennis Ross and David Makovsky—who both have had long careers as Middle East experts inside and outside the U.S. government—analyze the “courageous decisions” made by David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitz?ak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon. Not coincidentally, three of these four decisions involved territorial concessions. Ross and Makovsky use the book’s final chapter to compare their profiles in courage with Benjamin Netanyahu’s cautious approach on the Palestinian front. Calling this an “almost cartoonish juxtaposition,” Haviv Rettig Gur writes:

Netanyahu’s indecision on the Palestinian issue is not shallow. Indeed, it may be what his voters like most about him. The optimism that animated the imaginations of leaders like Rabin and Sharon—who imagined peace with the Palestinians, then unilateral separation and deterrence—is now understood by the vast majority of Israelis to be relegated to a more naïve past. The Oslo process in the 1990s ended in the suicide-bombing waves of the second intifada in 2000, and the Gaza withdrawal of 2005 in the Hamas takeover of the territory in 2007, a result that may yet play itself out on a much larger scale if Israel pulls out of the West Bank.

To most Israelis, the shift from the era of Sharon to the age of Netanyahu does not feel like a country somehow grown less ambitious or innovative—witness other fields of human endeavor in which Israelis continue to shine—but rather like a country that has become wiser and more aware of the limits of optimism.

Netanyahu’s refusal to initiate new peace processes is not just about what his rightist flank will say (though of course that is one pressure he clearly feels). It is also due to the simple fact that he is convinced it will fail. . . . He has shown that he can be decisive, courageous, and as rude as any of his iconic forebears when he believes the times require it, as in his brazen and intensive efforts to torpedo the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

But there is another message in this book, a subtler critique of present-day Israeli leadership that begins by rejecting the usual run of the debate. Ross and Makovsky challenge the simplistic declamations of past U.S. administrations and countless foreign observers that the occupation is “unsustainable.” The diplomatic costs, they note, instead “remain manageable” for Israel, as do the military and financial burdens of the conflict, if only because Israelis do not see better alternatives. . . . And that’s the key: Israel’s indecision flows not from decline, but from strength.

Dopey doves

“Until 1967, Israel did not hold an inch of the Sinai Peninsula, West Bank, Gaza Strip or Golan Heights...Year after year Israel called for …peace. The answer was a blank refusal and more war”-Yitzhak Rabin, 1976

The most righteous of men cannot live in peace if his evil neighbor will not let him be– from Wilhelm Tell Act IV, scene III, by Friedrich von Schiller, 1804.

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion. – R. Inge, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1915.

He who comes to kill you, rise up early and kill him first – The Talmud

The Oslo process that resulted in the signature of the “Declaration of Principles” on the White House Lawns on September 13, 1993, was in many ways a point of singularity in the history of Zionism, after which everything was qualitatively different from that which it was before. It was a point of inflection in the time-line of the evolution of Jewish political independence, at which what were once vaunted values became vilified vices.

Metamorphosis: From deterrence to appeasement?
Thus, almost at a stroke, Jewish settlement and attachment to land, once the essence of the Zionist ethos, were branded as the epitome of egregious extremism. Jewish military might, once exalted as a symbol of national resurgence and self-reliance, was excoriated as the instrument of repression and subjugation.

This metamorphosis is decidedly perplexing. After all, even by the early1990s, Zionism had proved to be one of the most successful—arguably, the most successful—movement of national liberation that arose from the dissolution of the great Empires—providing political independence, economic prosperity and personal liberties to a degree unrivalled by other such movements.

Turkey's official Jewish Community supports invasion of Syria "against terror"

Turkey's official Jewish community Twitter account says (translated):

Which makes it sound like the Turkish Jewish community is an Erdogan mouthpiece.

Indeed, when you go to their webpage the last entries are about Erdogan's holiday wishes last Passover and Chanukah:

It sounds like a Turkish site for outreach to Jews, not a Jewish site serving the community.

This makes one worry about the safety of the Jewish community in Turkey if one Jew should actually say his or her own opinion.

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Terror groups warn Gazans not to engage in social media with Israeli officials

Islamic Jihad mouthpiece Palestine Today warns all Gazans not to respond to social media posts by Israeli government officials, especially the Israeli in Arabic pages and COGAT pages, saying that their responses can be analyzed and help the Mossad entrap them.

Iyad al-Bazm, spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza, stressed that "Israel always seeks to harm the Palestinian internal mood and attempts to strike and influence the resistance and recruit all means to achieve this purpose. "

Al-Bazm advised Gazans not to deal with the pages Avichai Adraee, Ofir Gendelman, and others, and not to comment on them, and not to be provoked by sarcastic comments. He explained that these pages are run by intelligence officers who analyze all the interactions on these pages and analyze the data and might be a gateway to infiltrating Gaza.

He praised the Palestinian media for doing their part to let citizens know of the danger.

Hamas actually started a billboard campaign urging people not to respond to the Facebook page of COGAT Arabic.

It does seem probable that Israeli intelligence does take advantage of what they learn from social media posts. However, if anything, this campaign indicates how popular Israeli army and government social media has been in Gaza.

It seems like Gazans are thirsty for the truth. The terrorist organizations want to stop them from getting it.

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Hamas, the internationally recognized terrorist group. issued a press release pretending to condemn the terror attack on a synagogue in Germany on Yom Kippur:

We condemn the shameful attack on the synagogue in the German city Halle and the killing of two innocent people.

This attack proves that terrorism poses a danger for all people and that terrorism has no religion or is not restricted to a single nation.

We, in Palestine, are the most to endure the horrific outcome of terrorism.

Dr. Basem Naim
Member of Hamas International Relations Office

See? Hamas is a victim of terror by Jews, so it knows how awful it is for innocents to be terrorized!

Twisting a terror attack on Jews into another attack on Jews is as loathsome as it gets.

How do we know that Hamas doesn't really condemn attacks on Jews in synagogue?

Because this "condemnation" does not appear anywhere on Hamas' Arabic language site. The very idea of condemning any attack on Jews in Arabic is unthinkable to Hamas.

Any "condemnation" of antisemitism is purely for Western consumption and an excuse to pretend to be victims of Israeli terror.

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Iran has a Mafia-style "peace plan" for Gulf countries

From Iran's Tasnim News:

The Hormuz region is of strategic significance in international and energy trade. Some 15 million barrels of oil are supplied to consumers from this region on a daily basis, and at the same time a large amount of goods are traded between countries dependent on this region and those beyond. For the regional countries, security and stability are an undeniable necessity in a bid to guarantee access to international markets. It has been centuries that regional security has been ensured by regional states, and doing so would not be possible without cooperation and interaction.

The current critical situation should lead us to believe that what the region is in dire need of to achieve lasting security, but has not attained yet, is to develop the common understanding that security cannot be achieved by purchasing massive amounts of weapons and signing military accords with foreign powers, which pose the greatest threat to regional security with their relentless interference and by supporting the Zionist regime. Rather, security is contingent upon reliance on people and national potentialities as well as boosting relations to enjoy good neighborliness with other countries in the region. Our region is suffering from a lack of comprehensive regional dialogue in different domains, which can uproot peace and prosperity forever. Our region is more in need of intra-regional dialogue than accusations, harsh and aggressive rhetoric, and stockpiling of weapons and an arms race. ...Security should be endogenous and not affected by foreign intervention. The destiny of people and nations in the Persian Gulf region is closely intertwined thanks to religious, cultural, traditional, historical, geographical and family commonalities. Security in that region cannot be divided. Either all in the region enjoy security or all are deprived of it. Accordingly, the Hormuz Peace Endeavour (HOPE) initiative was presented by President Rouhani during his speech at the UN General Assembly meeting.

The Hormuz Peace Endeavour brings together eight countries, namely the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Iraq, the Sultanate of Oman, the United Arab Emirates, the State of Kuwait, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The proposed plan has what it takes to realize lasting security in the region through intra-regional dialogue.

Of course, the only party that has threatened the Straits of Hormuz and its oil traffic is...Iran.

Which means that Iran is telling the Gulf states that they should cooperate on "security" - or else.

This seems to be a response to the US sanctions and Saudi Arabia's massive weapons purchases in recent years. Iran has always wanted to be the leader of the Muslim world and this is an almost laughable attempt to try to do it again with Sunni countries meekly following the Iranian lead.

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10/10 Links Pt2: Why the US should change its approach toward the PA; A new house and huge terror salaries - the PA’s rewards to a family of murderers; Time for Europeans to pay for pay-to-slay

From Ian:

Why the US should change its approach toward the Palestinian Authority

Besides promoting a culture of violence within the Palestinian people, the boycott of the Kushner/Greenblatt plan to deliver $50 billion of assistance further calls into question whether the PA even governs in the interest of its people.

Considering President Abbas and the PA’s long record of denying Israel’s right to exist and glorification of terror, the PA is an obstacle to peace, not a partner, and the U.S. should approach its leadership with the understanding that it institutionally engages in the indoctrination of the Palestinian people to hate Israel.

However, while the U.S. must have a paradigm shift in its relations with the PA, it cannot afford to cut off all communication with the PA or wait for new leadership. Palestinian-Israeli relations need U.S. engagement to avoid the fragile situation from spiraling out of control, especially on matters of security coordination. Also, the U.S. cannot simply wait out the current generation of PA leadership, since is not clear that the next PA president will be any more moderate than the current leader or any more inclined towards peace.

Instead, the U.S. should model its approach on the Helsinki Accords that it signed with the Soviet Union in 1975, which allowed Soviet citizens to push for human rights and develop civil society organizations that fostered the dissolution of the Soviet Union 25 years after their creation. Promoting similar independent human rights watchdog organizations in Palestinian society should further reveal PA corruption and intransience that, over time, will promote and enable moderate Palestinians to demand the rights they deserve.

The acknowledgment by Congress in the Taylor Force Act that the Palestinian Authority has institutionalized its promotion and sponsorship of terrorism must translate into a shift in how the U.S. interacts with the PA and engages them in negotiations. Since the current PA leadership has shown it won’t end its incitement, there will be lasting peace between the PA and Israel only once a new group of moderate Palestinians have power.

PMW: A new house and huge terror salaries - the PA’s rewards to a family of murderers

Even while the Palestinian Authority was facing a self-inflicted financial crisis, the PA coffers were still full enough to fund the reconstruction of the houses of terrorists demolished by Israel as a means of deterrent.

Making good on promises made by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the PA has financed the rebuilding of the home of a terrorist, who also has five other terrorist brothers - all of whom murdered Jews. Four of them are serving multiple life sentences and a fifth was killed when he resisted arrest after murdering a member of Israel’s Security Agency. The mother of the terrorists - Um Nasser Abu Hmeid - is the focus of constant PA attention and even led the PA’s bid for membership in the UN in 2011, simply because she is the mother of multiple murderers. Now the PA is rebuilding her and her sons’ house:

“The rebuilding of the four story house is being conducted with full vigor, and the construction of the first floor is already finished. It is being funded by the [PA] Presidential Office and is being carried out by the popular committee to serve the refugees in the Al-Amari camp.
Um Nasser said to Raya that the construction of the house is expected to conclude at the end of this year [2019]. She thanked [PA] President [Mahmoud] Abbas for his support for her family...
It should be noted that the [PA] Ministry of Public Works began to remove the ruins of Um Nasser's demolished house at the beginning of January this year." [Raya, independent Palestinian news network, Sept. 2, 2019]

Despite the financial crisis that the PA was facing, Abbas committed the PA to rebuild the house immediately after its demolition.
Fatah Central Committee member and Head of Civil Affairs in the PA Hussein Al-Sheikh: "President Abbas has given direct orders this morning [Dec. 15, 2018] to quickly and immediately rebuild the home of the Abu Hmeid family. This is a fighting family. We bow to this family, its history of struggle, and their heroism (i.e., terrorists who murdered at least 10). Therefore, the minimum that can be provided to this family is to stand by it and immediately rebuild its demolished home." [Official PA TV News, Dec. 15, 2018]

At the time, Fatah’s Central Committee member, Fatah Commissioner of Mobilization and Organization in the West Bank, and PLO Central Council member Jamal Muhaisen also expressed his support for PA financing the rebuilding of terrorists’ houses:

Time for Europeans to pay for pay-to-slay

Every year the European Union and its member states pour over 400 million Euros into the coffers of the Palestinian Authority. As Israelis know all too well a substantial portion of this money is spent by Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies to reward the families of those who murder Jews. Just in 2016 these blood-stipends amounted to US$303 million.

As a European Gentile this pains me deeply. After all, as a European taxpayer I am as complicit in the murder of innocent Jews as was the average German citizen during the Third Reich. Since I cannot stop paying taxes, allow me to make atonement for the murders my government funds, by providing fellow Zionists, Jews and Israelis with a piece of advice.

Don’t rely on European goodwill or European good-faith. Whether the indifference of most European leaders to Jewish blood is due to atavistic antisemitism or pragmatic Realpolitik is irrelevant. What matters is the end result. This end result must be challenged with the same ruthlessness masked as benevolent humanism that European leaders have mastered.

Israel’s government or – alternatively – a Zionist philanthropist, should announce that in view of the unspeakable traumas that Africans, Asians and Latin Americans experience due to the legacy of European colonialism and imperialism, and in the light of the destitution faced by the families of people convicted for harming Europeans, grants and scholarships will be paid out to the families of future convicts.

This philanthropic grant should be announced with maximum media fanfare in order to galvanize European outrage and indignation. To make sure that this outrage and indignation are channeled constructively, the donors involved in this initiative should clarify that these grants will be suspended as soon as the European Union and its member states persuade the Palestinian Authority to cease its pay-to-slay policy.

AP Style Guide Update: All Jews Now 'Armed Settlers' (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, October 10 - A leading news organization whose decisions on terminology and phraseology exert an important influence in the framing of developments the world over has amended its guidelines to bring default references to Jews more in line with prevailing assumptions about the group, assumptions that the organization's coverage fostered in the first place, a spokesman for the outfit announced today (Thursday).

Associated Press Jerusalem Bureau Chief Peusen Dewell announced this morning that the wire service has updated its famous Style Guide to reflect the way most everyone now thinks about those of the Hebrew persuasion - in particular the ones inhabiting Israel, but not exclusively - now that decades of AP framing have helped cement in the popular consciousness the image of the greedy, violent, usurping Israeli Jew as the starting point for any news involving Israelis and Palestinians.

"The Associated Press is pleased to issue its latest modifications to the AP Style Guide, with input that this bureau had a significant hand in producing," proclaimed Dewell. "From now on our headlines, lede text, and initial mention of Israeli Jews will refer to them as 'armed settlers,' in keeping with how the world sees Jews with the unmitigated gall to live in their ancestral homeland. It is with no small measure of pride in our staff over the years, including those who preceded me in this bureau and position, that I note the role the AP itself has played in cultivating Israeli belligerence and guilt as the default assumption governing any news story, indeed, in determining whether a story is newsworthy in the first place."

Thus, explained Dewell, this past May's mention of the 45th anniversary of the Maalot Massacre, in which armed Palestinian terrorists killed dozens of Israeli schoolchildren and several other civilians, will be emended to refer to the children as "armed settlers" unless or until conclusive proof emerges that none of the dead had on their persons anything that can be used as a weapon, such as a penknife or shoelace.

"We will apply this style change retroactively twelve months," he informed other journalists. "Going forward, the AP will now replace its older terminology with the new phrase, and we expect other news organizations to follow suit before long. Some of our colleagues in the Palestinian and Middle East media anticipated this locution by several decades, but to date it has had only marginal currency in wider news usage. That changes today, and it pleases me to place the AP in the vanguard of that change."

Numerous armed settlers sent letters of protest to the bureau in response.

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The lesson for Israel from the NBA/China debacle

The recent NBA capitulation to agree to Chinese censorship of opinions not to that country's liking reminds me of something that happened early in my career.

I was working for a major US telecommunications company and was in one of those corporate meetings about company ethics. We were told that not only does the company adhere to its standards (including, of course, non-discrimination) but that they require their business partners to follow the same standards.

I raised my hand and asked if Saudi Arabia wanted to give the company a multi-billion dollar contract, with the proviso that no Jews can work on the project in their territory, would they turn down the contract?

The hemming and hawing in response was most amusing.

Money makes the world go 'round. Not ethics. The percentage of times that companies, and countries, turn down a deal when it can bring in serious money is quite low. It happens sometimes, sure, but usually economics wins, not moral standards. (And moral standards sometimes only win when it can be argued that they can pressure the parties economically themselves - boycotting companies and advertisers, voting politicians out of office.)

Sometimes of course the moral imperative clearly outweighs the economics, but those are the exceptions.

What does this have to do with Israel?

In the 1970s, it took only a couple of years between Yasir Arafat being feared as the new breed of terrorist to him speaking at the UN pretending to be peaceful and demanding to get his way or "the olive branch [will] fall from my hand." The reason was twofold: The West feared being the victim of terror and was willing to throw Israel under the bus so that the PLO would only attack the Jewish state, and the Arab oil embargo spooked the West into capitulating to the demands of the then-seemingly united Arab front.

Fear of violent terror and fear of an economic meltdown brought on by soaring oil prices brought Europe to its knees.

But Europe didn't want to think of itself as quite that craven. It justified its actions by saying that Israel was immoral, not the terrorists. It allowed the UN to declare Zionism is racism. It voted against Israel in numerous other one-sided UN resolutions. It pretended that its fear of Arab violence and economic blackmail was a moral decision, and the Jewish state was the entity that needed to be condemned, over and over and over again.

Binyamin Netanyahu was one of the few to grasp that Israel's security is as dependent on its economic might as much as its armed forces. He prioritized the free market replacing the socialist model and investing in R&D, and Israel became the "start-up nation." Israel's relations with the nations of the world is in no small part due to Israel's strong economy and what it can bring to the table as a result. After all, no one has seriously discussed boycotting China despite its horrendous, well documented human rights record. The reason is money.

Even though Israel has been falsely tarred as an immoral state, its economic might has turned that around more than anything else (except in the Arab world, where the Iranian threat has changed Arab opinions of Israel.)

This isn't a pretty view of the world. Everyone likes to think that they, and their nation, make decisions based on morality and the greater good. But this is usually a fantasy, with people, corporations and nations justifying their choice of hard cash over morality as moral itself. \\

It really is all about the Benjamins, baby. Don't pretend to be shocked. And the only way the NBA will change its direction is if it thinks it will lose more money (and its reputation translates into money) by allowing the Chinese to tell it what to do than by showing some backbone.

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10/10 Links Pt1: Germany's Jews are once again easy prey; JPost Editorial: Rely on no one; America's Good Intentions in Syria Have Led to This Dismal Outcome

From Ian:

Germany's Jews are once again easy prey

At least two people were killed in a carefully planned terrorist attack on a synagogue in the German city of Halle on Yom Kippur, an attack that followed an earlier attempt to attack a synagogue in Berlin ahead of Rosh Hashanah.

This is Germany in 2019. And this is no longer a phenomenon that can be diminished or treated as a passing wave. This is an epidemic.

Germany is once again a dangerous place for Jews. All efforts to deny this reality, whether from the authorities, local Jewish leadership, or recent Israeli immigrants, crumble in the face of the terrible day-to-day reality, which is the product of an industry of repudiation and denial. Barely a week passes without violent assaults on Jews in the country. In Berlin alone, over 400 anti-Semitic attacks were reported in the first half of 2019. We can assume the actual figure is higher since not every attack is reported to the authorities.

Jews, with kippot on their heads and Stars of David around their necks, speaking Hebrew, cannot feel safe outside of their homes and cannot convene in Jewish institutions without fearing that either on their way there or back, something bad will happen to them. And now, we can add another element of fear to this trepidation: Even if meticulous safeguards are in place, an attack can be carried out inside a Jewish institution, synagogue, or community center. Luckily, in these two most recent incidents, these safeguards proved relatively effective.

The attack in Halle is the result of the failure of German authorities; it is the result of the incomprehensible forgiveness that the country's law enforcement chooses to show the perpetrators of attacks against Jews, which in recent years have been largely carried out by either members of Arab and Muslim immigrant communities. Although the perpetrator of the Halle attack was a member of the radical Right, the day-to-day physical threat to Jewish security in Germany is sacrificed at the altar of Germany's policy of appeasement toward Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism. And when they are able to attack Jews as they please, other radicals get the sense the spilling of blood is permissible so long as the targets are Jews.

Antisemitism, the Western heart of darkness

"Neo-Nazis in Halle", where a gunman tried to break into the synagogue and commit a massacre of Jews during Yom Kippur. We are in Germany, after all! And in Germany Jews are in danger, again. Every week we have headlines about Jews being attacked in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, for wearing a kippah, speaking Hebrew, sporting a Star of David.

But we now have to go much deeper and try to figure out how and why antisemitism is not only an Islamic sport, but the Western heart of darkness.

Halle is in the former East Germany, where antisemitism is much stronger than in the Western party. Alternative für Deutschland is the largest party in the former East Germany, Pegida (the movement against Islamization) was born there, as the most important popular protests against immigration took place there.

Why? Because the society is collapsing. 50 years of Communism, materialism, dictatorship and atheism didn't help the population. “The 'social infrastructures' have collapsed: schools, hospitals, sports and recreational facilities and cultural institutions have had to close”. Die Zeit, the first German weekly, last June dedicated a special to the most disruptive phenomenon in the former East Germany: depopulation. “Migration to the West was not the only thing that altered East German demography. After 1990, the birth rate fell by almost half”.

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Israel’s Security Cabinet met on Sunday, according to reports, to discuss the Iranian threat and in particular the dangers exposed by the September 14 attack on a Saudi Arabian oil facility by Iranian cruise missiles and unmanned aircraft (UAVs or drones).

The Iranian attack was very successful in hitting key targets precisely, and in avoiding Saudi missile defense systems. It demonstrated advanced capabilities in coordinating the attack using multiple weapons systems. Although Israeli defensive capabilities are probably much better than those of the Saudis, the small number of critical power stations, industrial installations, communications facilities, airports, fuel depots, roads and more, means that a great deal of damage to Israel’s ability to fight, her economy, and daily life could be done even if a relatively small number of Iranian weapons were to find their targets. There are very important military targets, some of which I know about but won’t mention, as well as others that I don’t know about but the Iranians might. And then of course there is the Dimona nuclear reactor. Such an attack could be launched against Israel from Iranian bases in Iraq, which bring us within the range of the missiles used in the attack on Saudi Arabia.

PM Netanyahu reportedly asked that the defense budget be boosted by billions of shekels, in part to develop a better defense against cruise missiles. Although some might be tempted to attribute political motives to his statements, the comments by independent analysts Uzi Rubin and Uzi Even, as well as expressions of concern (albeit guarded) by defense officials, indicate that the danger of attacks by “low and slow” weapons like cruise missiles and drones should not be minimized.

If we needed to add billions to our budget, why wasn’t this known beforehand? I’m not reassured by those like Moshe Ya’alon, the shadow Defense Minister of the Blue and White party, who said that the attack on Saudi Arabia revealed “nothing surprising.” Let me remind readers of the way that warnings about the threat of tunnels under the Gaza border given by Naftali Bennett in 2014 were ignored by Ya’alon, who was Minister of Defense at the time.

Questions immediately arise: what would we do if a drone/cruise missile attack were aimed at our key infrastructure tomorrow? Do we know how many of Hezbollah’s missiles have already been modified to give them precision guidance capability? Do we have countermeasures in place?

It seems that there were significant things we didn’t know about Iranian capabilities before the attack on Saudi Arabia. How is it that the people who stole the nuclear archive out from under Iranian noses didn’t know about conventional weapons?

I understand that our strategic doctrine is not to preempt an attack unless it is truly imminent, because of expected international reactions. Is it possible that we will wait until precision-guided missiles are striking our airbases and critical infrastructure, or will we be able to realize the very great advantage of striking first?

Iran is preparing for the conflict by trying to improve the quantity and quality of Hezbollah’s rocket inventory, by positioning its proxy militias in Iraq and Syria, and by trying to set up missile launchers there. We are trying to stop them, but although we can slow them down, we can’t stop their progress entirely. The American withdrawal from Syria will probably result in gains for the Assad regime and Iran, in particular by allowing Iran to complete its “land bridge” through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

At this time of year, it’s impossible to forget the way Israel’s defense establishment was unprepared for the Yom Kippur war, the failures in intelligence gathering and – perhaps worse – the failure to translate intelligence into practical recommendations and to transmit it to the commanders in the field. For example, a new study by a former tank commander, Oded Meggido, explains how Israeli tank forces suffered great losses on the Egyptian front because they were not prepared to deal with infantry armed with effective anti-tank weapons. The IDF had already encountered “Sagger” shoulder-fired antitank missiles in the early 1970s, but “the information was not assimilated … practice drills were not carried out,” he said. “There was a shortage of machine guns,” necessary to protect tanks against infantry armed with antitank weapons. “Overconfidence,” “hubris,” “arrogance,” “negligence,” and “lack of professionalism,” are all expressions used by Meggido to describe the higher echelons of the tank corps in 1973.

I think these words could fairly be applied to our leadership today. The home front must be reinforced, as much against earthquakes as against enemy rockets, and it is barely being done. The security situation is often used as an excuse to put aside worries about social problems, the transportation infrastructure, and more. And yet, what percentage of their day do our politicians spend working on these questions as opposed to intriguing against their political opponents and defending themselves against such intrigues? How many buildings could be made more secure for the cost of one national election?

We would like to believe that today the lesson to learn lessons has finally been learned. We recall the war against Hezbollah in 2006, in which the IDF ground forces were seriously hurt by poor intelligence, logistical and communications failures, and incompetence at the highest levels, especially including the political echelon. As we draw nearer to the next war, which will be fought against an inventive and relatively sophisticated enemy, I wonder what, if anything, we have learned.

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The original news stories of a PLO representative denying Palestinian identity in 1977

I had heard this quote before but never looked at contemporaneous sources.

From the Sentinel, a Chicago Jewish newspaper, May 5, 1977:

He added slightly more in this account from the B'nai Brith Messenger the week after:

The full quote in Wikiquote includes, "Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem."

Here is a scan of the original article: (h/t iTi)

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