Melanie Phillips: As the west goes terribly wrong, Arabs inch in the right direction
As the west goes in one direction, so the Arab world is now going in the other.
While British and western “progressive” circles descend ever deeper into the sewers of antisemitism and its contemporary mutation, the campaign to exterminate the State of Israel, the Arab world is beginning to renounce its own desire to wipe Israel off the map.
Prominent figures from 15 Arab countries met in London last week to reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement — whose aim is to destroy Israel — and encourage the establishment of relations with Israel instead.
The Clarion Project reports that participants were drawn from Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and the Gulf states and included journalists, artists, politicians, diplomats, Quranic scholars, women and young people. The meeting was publicised only after its participants returned to their native countries. The New York Times was allowed to post a live stream of the meeting (held in Arabic) after the event.
“The Times reported that the group in London agreed that ‘BDS] has only helped [Israel] while damaging Arab nations that have long shunned the Jewish state. Demonizing Israel has cost Arab nations billions in trade.’ Mustafa el-Dessouki, an Egyptian who is the managing editor of the prominent news magazine Majalla (which is funded by Saudi Arabia), was one of the main organizers of the meeting.
“In recent travels around the Middle East, Dessouki said met many Arabs with similar views to his, including citizens of Lebanon. This was in spite of the fact that the Arab news media and entertainment industry have long been ‘programming people toward this hostility’ against Israel and Jews, he said, while politicians were ‘intimidating and scaring people into manifesting it.’”
Caroline Glick: The split screen
In normal times, a full screen of anti-regime protests in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon would be followed by full screens of security cabinet meetings. We would see Facebook and Telegram videos of Netanyahu speaking in Farsi directly to the Iranian people and expressing solidarity with their aspirations for freedom. In response to requests by Iranian opposition forces, the government would restore Farsi-language Voice of Israel radio broadcasts, directly into Iran.French Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Muslim Man Who Killed Sarah Halimi in 2017
In a full-screen reality, we would have seen a more serious response to the statements that US Central Command leader General Kenneth McKenzie made to The New York Times last Saturday. In remarks to the paper, the US commander responsible for the Middle East said that the possibility Iran will attack the Gulf states and Israel has risen.
In the event, the Israeli response was limited to a statement Sunday by Netanyahu. On a tour of the Golan Heights with IDF commanders Sunday morning, Netanyahu said that Israel is fully committed to preventing Iran from attacking it.
In normal times, a statement like McKenzie’s would have been followed by a sudden trip to Washington by Israel’s defense minister to visit with his counterpart at the Pentagon.
Our times are not normal times. We are relegated to living in a split-screen reality because our government is incapable of carrying out any real action. Its paralysis is not the result of its status as an interim government. Israel has been living under an interim government for some time now. And its members, including the prime minister, have shown no aversion to doing their job responsibly.
The reason our government is incapable of fulfilling its duty, particularly on issues of strategic importance, is because Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has decided that almost all government activities require his prior approval.
A French prosecutor has dropped charges against the killer of Jewish kindergarten teacher Sarah Halimi after experts ruled he had suffered a massive psychotic episode by smoking cannabis.French Jews Are Fleeing Their Country
Ms Halimi, who was Orthodox, was killed after Kobili Traoré broke into her council flat in eastern Paris on April 4 2017.
Witnesses said the 65-year-old was beaten and called a “demon” by her attacker, who recited Koranic verses as he threw her off her balcony.
In an appeals court hearing on Wednesday Traoré admitted killing Ms Halimi, saying he was not aware of his actions on the night of the murder and did not recognise when he broke in.
“I felt persecuted. When I saw the Torah and a chandelier in her home I felt oppressed. I saw her face transforming,” he said.
But in a rare turn of events, French prosecutors were divided on how to proceed.
Local prosecutors in Paris initially argued that Kobili Traoré should be put on trial for his actions. But they were opposed by the more senior procureur général, which argued Traoré should be hospitalised.
France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish population, the third largest in the world after Israel and the United States. Yet this historic community—dating back to the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and expulsion of the Jewish population 2,000 years ago—is in the midst of an existential crisis.
France's interior minister has warned that anti-Jewish sentiment is "spreading like poison." President Emmanuel Macron declared that anti-Semitism was at its highest levels since World War II. Amidst a string of attacks, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe admitted that anti-Semitism is “deeply rooted in French society.”
Eighty-nine percent of Jewish students in France report experiencing anti-Semitic abuse, according to a poll published in March. In 2017, Jews were the target of nearly 40 percent of the violent incidents classified as racially or religiously motivated, despite making up less than 1 percent of the French population. In 2018, anti-Semitic acts rose by nearly 75 percent.
The current wave of immigration began in earnest after the 2012 Toulouse massacre, in which a French-born Islamic extremist opened fire at a Jewish day school, killing a young rabbi who was shielding his three- and six-year-old sons, then shooting to death both boys and an 8-year-old girl. Three years later, a gunman pledging allegiance to ISIS killed four customers at a kosher supermarket in Paris. “In the days after that, we received thousands of calls from people saying they wanted to leave,” says Ouriel Gottlieb, the Jewish Agency’s director in Paris. “Of the four people murdered at Hyper Casher, three of the families moved to Israel.”
Nearly every year since has seen another deadly anti-Semitic attack, from the beating and defenestration of 65-year-old Sarah Halimi in 2017 to the gruesome killing of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll in 2018. Less frightening, but just as damaging to this fragile community, are the constant smaller-scale incidents, such as the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and memorials, or attacks on boys wearing yarmulkes. Such attacks have led many here to hide outward appearances of their faith. Others choose to leave.