Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 01, 2019

McGill University Student Society legislative council member threatened to be removed if she visits Israel. Here's her story.

JTA reports:

MONTREAL (JTA)—A Jewish student leader at McGill University in Montreal is fighting efforts to oust her from the student union for accepting a trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Jocelyn Wright, a member of the Student Society of McGill University’s legislative council and board of directors, said she is “outraged and disgusted” by an SSMU call for her to resign Thursday for agreeing to the trip sponsored by Hillel.

Here is what Jocelyn Wright has to say about it in her own words:

Year after year, we have witnessed student leaders at McGill University being targeted as a result of their Jewish and pro-Israel identities. This year, that student is me.

I am a Jewish second-year Science student at McGill. I represent my peers to the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council and serve on the Society’s Board of Directors.

This winter break, I have decided to participate in a trip called Face to Face that is being offered by Hillel Montreal, an organization that I have been involved with since I first arrived at McGill. The trip entails visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories to meet with politicians, journalists, and locals from all sides to better understand a very nuanced geopolitical conflict. As a Jew, my connection to Israel is a core aspect of my identity, and I hoped that this trip would help me to experience Israel through a new lens.

As a result of my decision to participate on the trip, last night, the SSMU Legislative Council voted to call for my resignation from my positions in student government. The SSMU President personally singled me out, and actively encouraged others to attack me. Only I was targeted, despite the fact that another non-Jewish Councillor will also be joining me on the trip. I am outraged and disgusted, but not surprised. This is not the first time that Jewish students at McGill have been bullied out of student government.

I have also been subject to attacks by members of student government in my own faculty. At Science’s General Council last week, I was blindsided and interrogated on-the-spot for almost two hours about my participation in Hillel Montreal’s trip. Not only were the questions designed to target and intimidate me, but I was purposefully prevented from having sufficient time to find the information they wanted.

This week, the Science Executive Committee also voted to give me an ultimatum: either I withdraw from the trip, or I resign from my position. If I do not resign, I am being implicitly threatened with impeachment upon my return.

Those who have sought to remove me from student government frame my participation as a Conflict of Interest issue. If that were the case, then why is a SSMU Executive with a pro-BDS sticker on their water bottle not facing the same scrutiny? Every member of student government holds a multiplicity of personal political opinions, yet we constantly and necessarily separate these from our roles as student representatives. They take issue not with the fact that I have other involvements, but that these other involvements are associated with a political view that they personally disagree with.

In the past, I was warned about getting involved in student leadership at McGill. The toxic environment, countless scandals, prohibitive anti-Israel sentiment, and anti-Semitism have led to a tainted image of an unfriendly campus for Jews. Two years ago, three students were voted off of the SSMU Board of Directors simply for being Jewish or connected to pro-Israel organizations. Last year, a Political Science summer exchange course taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was the source of a controversy in which pro-Israel students were harassed and cyber-bullied. This year, I am feeling the discriminatory burden that our student politics routinely places on Jewish and pro-Israel students.

While the form may change, the messages are the same year after year. There is a double standard for anything that involves Israel at McGill. In this case, controversy surrounding my participation in Hillel Montreal’s trip resulted in a publicly humiliating witch-hunt, repeated interrogations of my personal life, and me being placed under an intensely unfair microscope. SSMU passed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which includes that holding Jews accountable for the actions of the Israeli government or holding Israel to a double standard is anti-Semitic. By scrutinizing only me for participating in a trip to Israel, SSMU is engaging in this kind of anti-Semitism by assuming I have to be held accountable for what the Israeli government is doing.

I have had friends and colleagues denounce, abandon, and slander me in professional contexts. I have been the subject of thinly-veiled and blatant anti-Semitism. Someone I used to consider a friend said I was “victimizing myself” when I voiced my concerns about my right to visit Israel as a Jewish student. On the other hand, I have had people I only knew in professional contexts before reach out and support me. Colleagues have turned into friends. Jewish and non-Jewish students alike have vocalized their support to me because they understand what’s happening is not right.

I am proud to be Jewish. Israel is the country with which I identify my heritage and culture, and I am lucky to call it a second home. My personal views do not preclude my sympathy for the continued suffering of the Palestinian people. I never hid my identity when I ran for my position. I am an open book, and Judaism is an integral part of who I am.

McGill’s student leaders consider themselves to be champions of equity, inclusivity, and diversity. I am appalled that McGill politics continues to exclude and discriminate against Jewish students.

It is time to end this pattern of anti-Semitism deeply embedded in the SSMU that continually targets Jewish or Zionist students year after year. We must demand better of the people we elected to serve us.

Science demands that I resign as a Councillor. SSMU demands that I resign as a Director.

I am Jordyn Wright, and I will not resign.

Hillel of Montreal says:

Hillel Montreal is deeply concerned and gravely disappointed with the passing of a motion by the Students Society McGill University (SSMU) Legislative Council that calls for the resignation of a SSMU councilor who has chosen to apply for and attend Face to Face – Hillel Montreal trip, an opportunity to explore the nuances and complexities of Israeli and Palestinian societies, politics and the geopolitics of the Middle East. The SSMU Council has abused its authority, defying its own constitutional processes in order to attack this program and the students involved. Despite rulings from SSMU’s highest governing body clearing participants of any wrongdoing, those involved have been subjected to hours of hostile questioning and have had their reputations disparaged in Council because they have chosen to take part in a legitimate exploratory trip to engage with Israelis and Palestinians. The SSMU council is trying to deny these students the ability to exercise their personal and academic freedom in order to become better informed, an act that goes against SSMU's duty to enrich the lives and intellectual pursuits of McGill Students. This inequitable decision cannot be allowed to stand. Hillel strongly supports and will continue to stand behind all students affected by this antisemitic and anti Israel rhetoric.

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The European Council on Foreign Relations has created an extensive website, Differentiation Tracker, solely to determine to what extent different European countries are adhering to UNSCR 2334, the Security Council resolution that called all Israeli sovereignty to the east of the Green Line illegal, including the Kotel and the Jewish Quarter.

Paragraph 5 of that resolution "Calls upon all States, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of this resolution, to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967." This website is an exhaustive list of how each EU member is doing that.

So far, there is very little adherence to 2334. Out of hundreds of agreements listed there between Israel and EU countries, only 18 adhere to the resolution - six from the Netherlands, three from the UK and six more from the EU altogether. Here's what the top of the France section looks like, showing zero compliance

This is an enormous amount of work, and it is only against Israel. No other territorial dispute or case of belligerent occupation has such an elaborate site dedicated to it.

The ECFR is sensitive to that argument of double standards, so it renames it "Whataboutism" and pretends to answer:

Defenders of Israel’s settlement enterprise regularly criticise the EU, and international law advocates more broadly, of a disproportionate focus on the Israeli occupation, to the detriment of other conflict areas. These ‘pro-settlement’ talking points are a mixture of spin and disinformation, ignoring important factual and legal differences.

Nevertheless, it is true that the importance of third state responsibilities, and business and human rights practices, in situations of occupation and annexation remains under-developed. It is also true that what limited implementation there has been tends to be uneven. For example, the EU has been much more diligent in enforcing its non-recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea than it has been towards Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara.

But instead of deconstructing international law to make internationally unlawful actions permissible – as supporters of the settler movement seem to advocate – a more correct approach would surely be to improve implementation and respect across the board. In other words, third states should be doing more, not less, to meet their international law-based duties in all situations of annexation and occupation.

In short - yeah, we do have double standards, and we should do more on other conflicts, but you gottta start somewhere.

The only problem with that logic is that international law is determined by actual state practice as much as it is based on written law. As Eugene Kontorovich remarked about this site, "The 'rule' they claim to apply is not written down anywhere. They deduce it from other rules. But int'l law is made by state practice when treaties silent. A rule that applies basically never is not a rule of in'tl law. "

The very fact that the EU created this elaborate site only for Israel while all but ignoring all other similar situations proves that these rules are applied only to Israel, which means they aren't rules at all.

The site has a FAQ that shows that the entire purpose of the site is to stop putting Europe on the defensive for these very reasons:

The EU must do more to counter Israeli efforts to build up a substantive case with which to put Europeans on the defensive, make EU consensus more difficult to attain, and block stronger EU action on settlements.

But later in the FAQ, when dealing with the differences between the territories and Western Sahara, it says:

There exist a number of significant differences between Western Sahara and the Palestinian territories. For one, there is a lack of consensus in Europe on whether the territory of Western Sahara is indeed “occupied” by Morocco or whether, as non-sovereign administrator of the non-self-governing territory, it is otherwise obligated to protect the people’s right to self-determination.

In other words, Morocco has already managed to destroy EU consensus on Western Sahara - mostly because greedy European countries want to make agreements to grab natural resources from the territory - so because of European greed, there is no consensus. But there is no EU interest in the resource-weak West Bank so there is more of a "consensus" - and that is the reason the two situations are different.

That has nothing to do with international law. It means that if Israel convinces an EU member country to follow the lead of the US on the legality of the "occupation" then the EU should drop the entire thing. (Like that will happen!)

The double standards is obvious, and the ECFR knows it quite well.

(h/t Irene)

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12/01 Links: Simon Sebag Montefiore: This antisemitism poisons any good Labour might do; Antisemites make up two-thirds of Corbyn’s strongest supporters; Israel struck by over 2,600 rockets and mortars over past two years

From Ian:

Simon Sebag Montefiore: This antisemitism poisons any good Labour might do

Obviously Corbyn is no Stalin. But the mural of hooknosed Jewish bankers, alliances with antisemitic terrorists and refusal to condemn many disgusting anti-Jewish confabulations are the rotten fruit of this ideology, now oozing from Corbynists all over the internet. Corbyn himself has met with Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. Stalin refused to admit Hitler’s final solution was any different from his killing of other Soviet citizens.

Why should this Jewish problem matter to non-Jews faced with Brexit, Tories, austerity? It undermines the Labour leadership’s ability to be real progressives at all. Hostile towards Western democracies for their “imperialism”, Corbynists support dictatorships in Russia, Iran and Venezuela while claiming that what is called “antisemitism” is not anti-Jewish, merely pro-peace, pro-Palestine, anti-Israel.

That is untrue. It is fine to criticise the Israeli government without being antisemitic. British Jews support a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But Corbynists are fixated with the destruction of Israel above all other causes – and that includes a strange neglect for the plight of any other Arab peoples such as the 500,000 killed in Syria by Bashar Assad. (Emily Thornberry recently insisted on Assad’s popularity in Syria.) This is not really about Israel but a preposterous worldview that requires Jews as enemies, only making sense in a shady cavern of conspiracy theories, the stupid path that has shamed a great party.

This racist rot poisons any good Labour might do. There are flickers of hope that calm reason can work amid Twitter shrieking. Tuesday: historian Sir Richard Evans tweeted he’d vote Labour. Thursday: after lawyer Anthony Julius wrote an open letter to the New Statesman, he courageously changed his mind.

Tragically, this is not just about one man: Labour is now controlled by this thuggish camarilla while frontbench “moderates” passively enable Corbyn. But Britain’s soul is at stake: many decent Labour supporters will surely show that they are better than the racism of their shameful shameless leadership.

And I am still grateful I was born Jewish in Britain.

Jonathan Tobin: An utterly, unspeakable wrong new ‘right’

Malkin is also apparently untroubled by groyper anti-Semitism. Other conservatives defend them on narrow free-speech and procedural grounds — instead of taking on their odious substance.

This isn’t the first time that the conservative movement has faced such a challenge. In the early 1960s, extremists from the John Birch Society peddled racism, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories like those of today’s alt right. The Birchers were establishing a foothold in the GOP.

It was at that moment that conservatism’s intellectual leader, the late William F. Buckley, made it clear that Birchers wouldn’t be welcome in the movement or the GOP. Buckley ultimately succeeded, as the Birchers were forced to retreat to the fever swamps of American politics. In no small measure, Buckley’s efforts made the subsequent electoral victories of Ronald Reagan and other conservatives possible.

So it is important that a group Buckley founded to spread conservatism on college campuses, the Young American Foundation, has taken the first step toward isolating the groypers and those who condone them. YAF has taken Malkin off its speakers’ list over her refusal to disavow Fuentes.

That’s encouraging, but if this contagion is to be stamped out, it will require more such actions. The longer the White House fails to channel the spirit of Buckley and have Trump explicitly condemn groypers and the alt-right, the danger for both conservatism and American society will only grow.

Brendan O'Neill: It’s time to get real about Islamist terror

We’ve seen this for years now. Even to use the i-word — Islam — in relation to recent acts of terrorism is frowned upon. Anyone who gets angry about these attacks, whether it was 7/7 in 2005, the slaughter at the Manchester Arena in 2017 or yesterday’s stabbings, risks being denounced as ‘Islamophobic’. The left, including the left that currently runs the Labour Party, is myopically devoted to distracting attention from the Islamist threat. ‘What about the far right?’, they’ll say. Such cynical and spineless whataboutery wilfully overlooks that the far right has not killed anywhere near 500 people in Europe over the past five years — Islamists, on the other hand, have. ‘Don’t look back in anger’, we are told after Islamist attacks. In short, lay a flower, be sad for a day, and then move on — whatever you do, don’t talk about it.

This policing of emotion and of public debate about radical Islam is explicitly designed to suppress difficult questions. In particular questions about the divisive ideology of multiculturalism and the way it has nurtured a culture of victimhood, grievance and even violence among certain religious and social groups who have been convinced by officialdom for years and years that they are hated by ordinary Brits — or ‘dogs’, as Khan came to view us. This cultivation of separatism, this sowing of a victim mentality, this inflaming of community grievance and community bitterness — these are the ‘achievements’ of the ideology of multiculturalism and they have played an important role in the rise of Islamist violence in the UK.

It’s time to get real about Islamist terror. No more censorship. No more demonisation of people who are concerned about this violent threat. No more whataboutery. And no more treatment of self-styled holy warriors who want to slaughter us ‘dogs’ as run-of-the-mill criminals. The ideologies of victimhood and separatism have helped to give rise to Islamist violence and traitorism on a very worrying scale — let’s talk about them. Let’s find out why a holy warrior was released from jail to visit holy war on the citizens of London.

When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US does not consider Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria to be illegal per se, PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said, ""The decision shuts the door on peace and opens the door on extremism, terror, corruption and violence. It will open the gates of hell.

These were the same dire warnings given if the US was to move its embassy to Jerusalem or recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

None of them came true.

Not that the PLO didn't try. Last week they called a "Day of Rage" to protest the US move. They closed schools to maximize the number of young people who would participate. Yet nothing major materialized, as I reported at the time. Israeli media noted this and picked up on the fact that most of the protests were held inside Palestinian cities and not near Jewish areas, minimizing friction.

A more telling report from Al Monitor notes that West Bank Palestinians stayed quiet even during the recent flare-up in Gaza between Israel and Islamic Jihad:

Amid the recent military flare-up in Gaza, there were no protests, sit-ins or strikes on the West Bank to express support for the Palestinians trapped in the besieged enclave. The lack of public displays of solidarity has reportedly left Palestinians in Gaza angry and bewildered.

Imad al-Frangi, former head of the Forum of Palestinian Journalists in Gaza, published an article on Nov. 17 in the newspaper Felesteen, which is close to Hamas, claiming that Gazans are in shock over the absence of supportive actions on the West Bank. Zakaria al-Agha, former member of Fatah’s Central Committee, wondered in a Nov. 15 Facebook post why this was so, noting that in the past, the Palestinians have reproached other Arabs for being apathetic to their suffering. He went on to say that Gazans had adopted “Ya wahdana” (“Oh we are alone”) as their slogan, borrowing from a poem by Mahmoud Darwish dedicated to Palestine.

...To those in Gaza, it was unacceptable that the official Palestinian television broadcast a FIFA qualifying match, Yemen versus Palestine, on Nov. 14 while the Israelis and factions in Gaza launched missiles at each other.

This mirrors the lack of protests in the Arab world towards the Palestinian issue in recent years. Anti-Israel protests are more spirited in London than in Libya (whose foreign minister just said he'd like to see normal relations with Israel while naming Turkey as an enemy.)

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The @NYtimes, pretending to be "even handed," promotes a fringe pro-Corbyn Jewish group

On November 7, UK correspondent for the New York Times Benjamin Mueller tweeted out asking for some help from an anonymous Twitter account called JewsAgainstBoJo (Boris Johnson):

The JewsAgainstBojo account has only 3000 followers (many of whom are not Jewish or British like Linda Sarsour), a GoFundMe page that has raised £3,492 to publish flyers against Johnson, and its biggest rally seems to have attracted 10 people.

In other words, it is patently obvious that JewsAgainstBojo is a fringe movement in the Jewish community. At the time Mueller reached out to them, the Twitter account was only a couple of weeks old.

So why is the New York Times correspondent in the UK interested in information from them? Because he wants to make them look mainstream.

He got his opportunity when he wrote the NYT story three weeks later about Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis' criticism of Jeremy Corbyn.

The chief rabbi’s rebuke instantly generated fierce debate among British Jews, with some seeing it as reflecting their fears of Labour and others saying that he did not speak for them.....

But some British Jews also criticized the way Labour’s political opponents were putting Rabbi Mirvis’s words to use. Not all British Jews recognize the chief rabbi as the leader of their communities.

And some people warned that Rabbi Mirvis had sidestepped a greater threat posed to Jews and other British minority groups by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has himself been accused of making racist and Islamophobic remarks and energizing parts of the far right similar to those responsible for recent attacks on Jews in the United States.

“We understand why so many in our community feel unable to vote for the Labour party, however we must not make the mistake of thinking the Conservatives are a safer alternative,” an organization called Jews Against Boris wrote on Twitter. “This is a party which is courting nationalist votes by demonizing and threatening minorities, and undermining the rule of law. The idea that this would be a safe environment for Jews is incredibly dangerous.”

The group, modeled in part on the efforts of American Jews to organize against President Trump, said keeping British Jews safe meant standing in solidarity “with all other communities experiencing oppression.”

The vast majority of British Jews who bitterly oppose Corbyn are not quoted. But an anonymous Twitter account is quoted, without even verifying if the account owner is Jewish, or even British.

This fringe account takes up over four paragraphs and is the only "Jewish" person quoted in response to Rabbi Mirvis' passionate article. As far as we can tell, Jews Against Boris didn't even respond to Mueller at all, and all his information came from their Twitter feed.

This isn't reporting. This is advocacy and mainstreaming a tiny pseudo-Jewish organization while downplaying the very real feelings and fears of the vast majority of the UK Jewish community.

(h/t Seth Mandel, who wrote a great thread about this)

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Israel, the United States and the Netherlands have all been reducing or stopping payments and aid to the Palestinian Authority because of their "pay for slay" program of giving lifetime salaries to terrorists.

I had heard in the past that some Hamas terrorists in Gaza who were former prisoners had not been getting their "salaries" from the Palestinian Authority, but it appears that some former prisoners in the West Bank have stopped receiving their pay as well.

For more that two weeks (or perhaps as many as 43 days) former prisoners have been holding a sit-in in tents in Ramallah, some holding a hunger strike, in order to protest the cuts in their salaries. This past Tuesday PA police tore down the tents; when the prisoners complained officials said that the space was needed for setting up a Christmas tree and the tent was relocated.

Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh offered to meet with the prisoners to work on their demands, but the meeting failed.

It is possible that these are Hamas members and the PA doesn't want to pay the. But it appears that this is one of those cases where no one has any desire to be upfront about the truth - Israel wants to maintain maximum pressure, and the PA wants its people to think that these payments to terrorists and their families are their highest priority - so any change in the PA's policy can only be gleaned by reading between the lines.

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11/30 Links: 'Breath-taking heroism': praise for Londoners who tackled knife attacker; Rabbi Mirvis’s message sounds the alarm over antisemitism; Transcendence: 50,000 Jews celebrated Zionism in Hebron

From Ian:

London Bridge killer, 28, was jailed for eight years in 2012 for plotting to BOMB the London Stock Exchange and build an Islamic terror training camp - but was RELEASED last year and had an ankle tag on when he stabbed two people to death

Scotland Yard has named the terrorist responsible for yesterday's attack on London Bridge as 28-year-old Usman Khan, who was convicted of a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange in 2012.

Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu confirmed that a man and a woman were killed in the attack which saw Khan, wearing a fake suicide vest, stab up to five people before being shot dead by armed police.

Commissioner Basu also revealed that Khan, who was from Stoke-on-Trent, had a prior terrorism conviction and had been jailed for eight years in 2012.

He was released on licence in December 2018 and was still wearing a monitoring tag.

Anti-terror police have raided a house in Staffordshire area linked to the killer.

The commissioner also confirmed that Khan had been attending a seminar in Fishmongers' Hall run by Cambridge University's Criminology Department to help offenders reintegrate into society following their release from jail.

Khan had threatened to blow up the building at the start of his five-minute rampage which ended in his death on London Bridge.

Dramatic video footage showed him being tackled to the ground by at least six members of the public. One man chased the attacker with a fire extinguisher while another used a Narwhal whale tusk to restrain him.

Khan had previously been arrested on December 20, 2010, four days before he and his nine-strong Al-Qaeda-inspired gang had planned to plant a bomb in the toilets of the London Stock Exchange.

Police found a handwritten list of targets which included the U.S. Embassy and the homes of London Mayor Boris Johnson, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and two rabbis.

'Breath-taking heroism': praise for Londoners who tackled knife attacker

Ordinary Londoners who showed "breath-taking heroism" in disarming a knife-wielding attacker were praised by politicians and members of the public alike after they intervened to stop an attack which injured several people at London Bridge on Friday.

Police shot dead the man, who had strapped a fake bomb to his body before stabbing a number of people, in what they said was a terrorism incident.

Videos on social media showed a crowd of people who had tackled the man to the ground, before being moved away by police who then shot him.
"I ... want pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of those members of the public who physically intervened to protect the lives of others," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. "For me they represent the very best of our country and I thank them on behalf of all of our country."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said those who confronted the attacker would not have known that a bomb device strapped to his body was a hoax.

"What's remarkable about the images we've seen is the breath-taking heroism of members of the public who literally ran towards danger not knowing what confronted them," Khan told reporters.

"They really are the best of us," he added.

Bad to the bone: Moment hero Polish chef called Luckasz used a narwhal tusk to tackle London Bridge terrorist after grabbing it off the wall at Fishmongers Hall

A chef at Fishmongers' Hall who grabbed a narwhal tusk to fight off a knifeman is the latest hero to be identified in the London Bridge terror attack.

Luckasz, originally from Poland, tried to pin down knifeman Usman Khan, 28, who wore a fake suicide vest, using a five-foot narwhal tusk he took from the wall of Fishmongers' Hall yesterday.

One man - identified as Cambridge graduate Jack Merritt, 25 - and one woman were killed in yesterday's attack, and three others were injured.

Video exclusively obtained by the Daily Mail shows Luckasz using the narwhal tusk as he and a group of men try to pin down the attacker.

The Queen today praised the 'brave individuals who put their own lives at risk to selflessly help and protect others' during yesterday's attack.

Hero Luckasz's colleague, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Times: 'Luckasz grabbed a nearby pole and ran at him, getting stabbed in the hand in the process but continued to pin him down.

'Being stabbed didn't stop him giving him a beating. Luckasz is a hero.'

Luckasz is thought to have suffered from cuts but is not critically injured.

11/29 Links Pt2: Jeremy Corbyn Reminds Us Why Israel Exists; Liberal Jews and their anti-democratic, anti-liberal critique of Israel; Canceling Roger Waters; The BBC portrayed Raed Salah as ‘the Gandhi of Palestine’

From Ian:

Jeremy Corbyn Reminds Us Why Israel Exists

Israel looms large in Corbyn’s worldview. The Corbyn-led Labour Party was initially unable to adopt The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance of anti-Semitism until tremendous outside pressure compelled them. Why? Because the guidelines conflicted with its anti-Zionism, the most significant and consequential form of Jew hatred that exists in the world today. Anti-Zionism is now the predominant justification for violence and murder against Jews in Europe and around the world. Corbyn is one of its champions.

“It’s not anti-Semitic to be critical of Israel,” Corbynites, and their progressive ideological cousins here in the United States like to say. And, of course, they’re correct. Curiously enough, though, those who reserve special opprobrium for a Jewish state they view as an inherently racist and colonial endeavor, as most Corbynites do, also seem to have odious views about the people who democratically govern that small strip of land.

As Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis correctly points out, Corbyn hasn’t merely “tolerated” anti-Semitic attitudes — as so many publications like to claim — but rather he has actively transformed Labour, once one of the most important political parties in the free world, into a safe haven for Jew hatred. As Mirvis notes, under Corbyn, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, Labour has “hounded parliamentarians, members and even staff out of the party for challenging anti-Jewish racism.”

Perhaps Corbyn’s rise simply reflects a new — or is it a renewed? — reality in Europe? A recent ADL poll claims that a quarter of Europeans hold anti-Semitic views. Around 45 percent of Poles and 42 percent of Ukrainians admit to pollsters that they believe that “people hate Jews because of the way Jews behave,” a view that over 30 percent of our old friends the Austrians and Germans share. And one of the fastest growing groups in Europe, Muslims, are importing an even deeper enmity towards Jews than is found in Poland, Ukraine, Germany, and elsewhere. Muslims in Western Europe are anti-Semitic at almost three times the rate of the general population. Thus far, Corbyn has appeased, rather than tried to extinguish, this hatred.

If Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party ends up winning next month, Britain will be led by an openly anti-Semitic government. Mirvis warns that such a result is an existential threat to Britain’s Jewry. What he can’t say, but implies, is that people such as Corbyn are exactly why Israel must exist.

🚨 BREAKING: Video emerges of @jeremycorbyn bashing the @BBCWorld on Iranian TV for “believing that Israel has a right to exist.” pic.twitter.com/OounUIxtyi
— Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) November 29, 2019

Daniel Gordis: Liberal Jews and their anti-democratic, anti-liberal critique of Israel

All of this ultimately proves the central thesis of my book. What separates American Jews and Israel is, well, everything. The majority of Israeli Jews and the majority of American Jews are demographically different, have different instincts when it comes to concessions for peace, and differ when it comes to visions for Jewish life. It was inevitable that Jews who constitute 2% of the population of the country in which they live and those who constitute some 80% would see the world differently and create radically different visions of what Jewish life can and should be.

Israel was not created in order to enable American Jews to feel virtuous – it was created to be a sanctuary of Jewish survival. Israelis have fashioned different instincts than American Jews on the ideal balance between risk and the quest for peace and have made their own unique determinations about what Jewish cultural survival looks like.

We ought to celebrate those differences, not bemoan them, for it is our disagreements that give us what to learn from each other. The first step toward that mutual learning, however, is not preaching, but listening, seeing each other through the most generous lens we possibly can.

Sadly, condescending and paternalistic attitudes to each other (in Rabbi Yoffie’s concluding words, “It may be that Israelis themselves don’t see as clearly what US Jews see from there”) take us in precisely the wrong direction.

David Collier: The orthodox Rabbis, the letter and the offices that weren’t

Did you see the letter supposedly written by the Orthodox Rabbis supporting Jeremy Corbyn? This week has been full of drama. It started on Monday, when the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis wrote a scathing article about Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he is ‘not fit’ for high office. The Chief Rabbi was supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and British Hindu leaders. The timing could not have been more problematic for the Labour Party. The article came as they prepared to launch their ‘race and faith manifesto’. Instead of a positive news cycle, the headlines were telling the story of Labour’s total failure on the antisemitism issue.

The situation did not get any better. On Tuesday morning, Corbyn was late for the launch of the manifesto. The reason? An anti-Corbyn demonstration by British Jews was taking place. Worse still, three vans had parked outside the venue displaying billboards about Labour’s failure to deal with antisemitism. Corbyn’s team did not want him to be filmed walking past such a demonstration, so they held him back. Eventually, as neither the demonstration nor billboards left, they had to send Corbyn in anyway. A few minutes before he arrived a few loud and large pro-Corbyn activists appeared – clearly a damage limitation rent-a-mob – and there was a scrum as he made his way to the venue.

Tuesday night saw the car-crash interview of the decade. Andrew Neil destroyed Jeremy Corbyn in 30 excruciating minutes. The interview was littered with not-to-be-missed disaster moments. Jeremy Corbyn and his election campaign were on the ropes. Corbyn’s activists needed some ammunition to deflect the tsunami of criticism.
The Orthodox letter arrives

Suddenly and without warning a pro-Corbyn letter emerged. It was apparently written by a group of ultra-orthodox Rabbis presenting themselves as a group called ‘United European Jews’. The letter condemned the words of the Chief Rabbi. It was dated 26th November, signed by a Rabbi Mayer Weinberger and it carried a letterhead with several other Rabbi’s listed.

The pro-Corbyn machinery sprang to life. Jewish Voice for Labour, Socialist voice, the Canary and Skwawkbox all pushed the letter. JVL’s tweet alone had over 1000 retweets. Official Labour outlets such as ‘Southgate Labour’ retweeted it. The letter went viral. In just one day, Jewish advocacy groups on Facebook had to delete 1000s of repetitive posts, placed by Corbyn activists who wanted to argue that Chief Rabbi Marvis is a Tory, doesn’t represent many Jews and it is all one big media smear. Suddenly everyone was an expert in the divisions of the Jewish community.

Muslim "Protest praying" in Hebron

Last weekend was he one Sabbath of the year where Jews celebrate regaining control over the second most sacred spot in Judaism, the Cave of the Patriarchs. It is one of the ten days of the year that Jews have access to the entire building. Some 45,000 Jews came to celebrate, most staying (and eating) in tents because there are not nearly enough rooms to accommodate them all.

Some youngsters apparently got out of hand but from what I can tell the vast majority was well behaved and had a great time.

But this upset the Muslims so they decided to make their own "protest prayer" event in Hebron on Friday.

Muslims love to say that Israel is trying to turn this into a religious conflict - but what is a "protest praying" if not a desire to turn it into a religious conflict? Using prayer as a protest tool pretty much ignores the entire purpose of prayer.

If religious Jews held a "protest prayer" there would be angry op-eds that they don't know what prayer is. (When left-wing Jews try to hijack religious rituals for their own politics, no one seems to mind.) But a Muslim "protest prayer" shows again what a huge double standard there is between Muslims and Jews.

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11/29 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: As the west goes terribly wrong, Arabs inch in the right direction; French Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Muslim Man Who Killed Sarah Halimi; London Bridge Terror Attack

From Ian:

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.

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.

French Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Muslim Man Who Killed Sarah Halimi in 2017

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.

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.

French Jews Are Fleeing Their Country

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.

A Gaza man died Friday from a Thursday "work accident" explosion in Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medical sources said.

Thaer al-Abdul Hamid, 29, died of serious injuries from the explosion as he was apparently working on building some weapons, probably rockets.

Hamid was a member of the Nidal al-Amoudi Brigades of the Fatah movement that is led by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

Two other men from Fatah were wounded in the explosion.

Pass the candy!

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Another terrorist dies, and Israel-haters pretend he is a civilian

The International Solidarity Movement tweets:

Aw, poor guy, just trying to earn is living in Gaza as a supermarket clerk, tragically and senselessly killed.

Except that he was a member of the Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad. He was killed along with another PIJ terrorist when the IDF targeted a motorcycle they were riding.

ISM knows quite well Sersawi was a terrorist. The only place I could find the supermarket photo was at Shehab News which explicitly said that he was a member of the Al Quds Brigades.

It all goes to show how dishonest the Israel-haters are.

(I can't tweet this at the moment so I'd appreciate anyone tweeting this story using the Twitter button here. Thanks!)

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