Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Seminary of Fools (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I belong to a Masorti (Conservative) congregation in Israel. Although most Israelis don’t believe this, the movement is theologically much closer to Modern Orthodoxy than to Reform Judaism. There is a commitment to halacha, albeit somewhat more lenient than in Orthodoxy (but not so much as Orthodox Jews tend to think). The biggest difference is the equal role granted to women and men in every respect, including participation in ritual.

Our rabbi leans a little leftward, at least compared to me, but he is capable of distinguishing politics from religion, and I like him.

Having said that, I am absolutely appalled by the anti-Israel politics rampant in the Conservative seminaries in the US, where most of our rabbis, American and Israeli, are educated.

Recently, a group of 36 rabbinical students from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and the Zeigler School of Rabbinic Studies – about half of the student body – signed an open letter opposing Trump’s “deal of the century” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The letter opposes Trump’s plan and PM Netanyahu’s intention to extend Israeli law to Jewish communities in Judea/Samaria and to annex the Jordan valley:

Each of these proposals flies in the face of decades of diplomatic efforts to achieve a just and peaceful future: Trump’s plan would leave Palestinians with a handful of discontiguous territories surrounded by settlements, and Netanyahu’s would make permanent the status quo in which millions of Palestinians live under Israeli military control without civil rights. Trump’s irresponsible vision and Netanyahu’s objective of annexation will move the region closer to catastrophe and even further from peace.

One would expect rabbinical students to have enough grasp of the facts to know that everything in the paragraph above is wrong. Millions of Palestinians do not live under Israeli military control; they live under the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, or in Gaza under Hamas. To the extent that their civil rights are circumscribed, it is by the PA and Hamas. Only a small number of them live in Area C, where they are under the Israeli military government (and probably have more rights than those under the PA).

The Trump proposal, in fact, “flies in the face” of decades of diplomatic failure to end the conflict based on unrealistic formulas that try to satisfy the insatiable demands of the Palestinian Arabs. Indeed, we should be thankful that none of the previous proposals went far enough to make them happy, because in every case the proposed agreements would not have adequately protected Israel from the terrorism and war that the Palestinians believe they have the inalienable right to wage. Trump’s proposal is the first that recognizes the realities of geography, and the everlasting Palestinian aspiration to end the Jewish state.

The letter continues,

As emerging Jewish leaders, we wish to make clear that any political decision that strips Palestinians of their rights is antithetical to our belief in human dignity. We dream of a democratic Israel that affirms the humanity and agency of all who dwell there, and of a government that honors the shared history of Jews and Palestinians in the land.

The Palestinians do not automatically have a right to a fully sovereign state, or a right of return to Israel for the descendants of 1948 refugees. These are not human rights, and the granting of these wishes would be inconsistent with right of Israeli Jews to live in peace – a real human right.

The reference to the “shared history” of the Jews and Palestinians in the land is most likely a nod to the tendentious Palestinian narrative of an indigenous people dispossessed by non-native colonialist settlers, the awful injustice of the nakba.

The letter continues for several paragraphs of nauseating virtue-signaling. Hashem help future congregants who will be forced to listen to the sermons of these pompous fools! More importantly, it shows an alarming lack of identification with the Jewish Israelis that would suffer the consequences of their desired “vision of a shared destiny with our Palestinian siblings.”

The students suggest that their universalist ethic, in which “human rights for all people,” including people whose greatest desire is to conquer our country and kill or disperse its Jewish residents, represents the “values of Jewish tradition.” But surely personal and collective survival, pikuach nefesh, has a higher priority in Jewish tradition than the aspirations of our enemies.

In addition to their divergence from traditional Jewish ethical principles, these future rabbis fail to understand, or they deny, the importance of the relationship between Hashem, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel that I see as the single most important theme in the Torah.

This is not the first time Conservative rabbinical students have displayed their ignorance and arrogance. In 2017, thirteen students (some whose names also appear on the more recent letter), wrote a similar letter opposing the historic decision of President Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I won’t bother to quote it, but it is based on the same virtue-signaling misapprehension of Jewish values.

This phenomenon is partially a result of the attitude that “anything Trump or Bibi likes must be bad,” but it is a lot more than that. Their un-Jewish, I would even say anti-Jewish, morality is identical with the Tikkunism that has become the official philosophy of the Reform movement. Indeed, the Masorti movement in Israel seems to have developed close connections with the Israeli Reform movement, sharing many of its political goals (although not its approach to Judaism). In my opinion, this doesn’t bode well for the future of the Masorti movement, which will have to differentiate itself from Reform if it ever wants to have a hope of attracting native Israelis.

This is painful to me, as someone who finds the misogyny inherent in Orthodox Judaism troubling – and no, I don’t intend to get into an argument about this. I would like to see a truly conservative Conservative Judaism in Israel as well as the US, for that matter. But that is never going to happen if these are the future rabbis that can be expected to carry the flag.

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02/19 Links Pt2: The UN Should Be Ashamed of Its Anti-Israel Boycott List; The Only Way to Fight Anti-Semitism Is through Policy Action, Not with Lip Service

From Ian:

The UN Should Be Ashamed of Its Anti-Israel Boycott List

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has produced a handy catalogue of companies that supporters of Israel can give their business to. Of course, this was not its intention. The roster was compiled at the request of the UN Human Rights Council. This is a body in which countries whose idea of human rights is gender-neutral torture and equal-opportunity ballot-rigging get together and pass reams of vexatious resolutions against Israel.

The BDS movement's economic warfare against the Jewish state has had little success but that's not the point: a UN body is tacitly legitimizing its agenda and even doing the research for it. What OHCHR's list is about is the UN's institutional hostility towards Israel and support for "de-judaizing" Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

Jerusalem is Israel's capital; before that it was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Judah. However hard the UN strives to erase the Jewish character of the city, its historical record isn't going anywhere. When Israel captured Judea and Samaria in 1967, they did so not from any state called Palestine (no such state has ever existed), but from Jordan, whose annexation was almost universally unrecognized - it was an illegal occupation - and prior to this these lands had been part of Mandatory Palestine.

Mandatory Palestine was created by the League of Nations to "secure the establishment of the Jewish national home." The Israelis have many innovations to their name, but perhaps their greatest feat is being the first nation-state in history to "illegally occupy" their own territory.

The people the UN harms when it works to isolate and delegitimize Israel are the Palestinians. It tells them that their long, painful campaign of national self-harm is just and holds out false hope that it will one day triumph. It won't.

The priority of anyone who professes to be pro-Palestinian should be convincing the Palestinians to recognize that Israel is here to stay and, on that basis, finally accept offers of peace and statehood.

The Australian Editorial: A Brazen Anti-Semitic "Blacklist"

The UN Human Rights Council's "blacklist" of 112 international and local companies operating in the territories is a shameful attempt to strike a blow against the Middle East's only functioning democracy and upholder of the rule of law and religious freedom. No wonder Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein described publication of the blacklist as "a witch-hunt that reminds us of Nazi-era boycotts of the Jewish people." There is no precedent for any UN body taking similar action over a disputed territory, and no basis in international law for it to do so.

As Dr. Rubenstein pointed out, it is not in breach of international law for the 112 companies to operate in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. "They are legitimate businesses providing goods and services...they are not breaking any international laws." Australia must waste no opportunity to condemn and counter the council's brazen hypocrisy and the sinister witch-hunt it has embarked on.

Yair Lapid, co-leader of Blue and White, says that if the Democrats beat Trump, Israel, with Bibi at the helm, will be in “deep, deep trouble.” That “Obama time is going to be just a promo for what is going to happen.”

But the truth is, it doesn’t matter who wins the Israeli election. The Dems would screw Israel over no matter who sits in the prime minister’s seat. Which means this is just another fear-mongering lie. It’s Lapid going “OOGA BOOGA!” to scare us into voting for his guy, Gantz.

And the thing is with this third round of elections in March, Israelis are tired. We’re tired of the scare tactics; of listening to the candidates vie for our attention. We are tired of thinking about who will be the least of all evils, of listening to the endless lies. The candidates lie to us in the media and on social media. They spam us on our phones by SMS.

So I began to think about what might make voting different this third time around. How might the average Israeli be induced to feel a bit of enthusiasm for sticking yet another ballot in a box? Sure, it’s nice to have another legally mandated paid day off, but I’d like to feel excited about what we can do to make Israel a better place to live.

What exactly would I like the government of Israel to achieve? What might the candidates, offer me other than fear? To my mind, the ideal prime minister of Israel is someone who will:

· Stop the balloons targeting Israeli children in the South

· Solve the problem of Gaza rocket fire, once and for all

· Make housing more affordable for middle class Israeli citizens

· Allow Jews greater access to Jewish holy sites, and the right to pray wherever they wish

· Reform the Israeli court system that cripples Israeli governments and holds them hostage

· Do what is best for Israel, even under pressure from friendly foreign leaders and

· Assert Israel’s right to rule over itself without interference

Who will do these things and lead my granddaughter out of her safe room in Netivot, dry her tears and wipe away her fears? Who will turn balloons back into objects of delight instead of something to fear? Who will make it possible for Yehudah Glick to linger as long as he likes on the Temple Mount, and pray there, too, without fear of arrest or interrogation?

These what I see as very basic needs have not been met by Bibi in his long run as prime minister. That won’t be different after the next election. Gantz and Mr. Hair, on the other hand, would be an inexperienced disaster. So the only question left is whether enough people will hold their noses and vote for a clear majority, or whether Israelis will get yet a fourth legally mandated holiday, on September 8.

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Jordan still nervous Jews will take it over - so it denies ANY Jewish history there

Rai al Youm has a paranoid article about how Jews want to take over Jordan.

On Sunday, Jordan struck down a bill that would have theoretically allowed foreigners to purchase land in Petra. Jordanians are deathly scared that Jews will buy land there and somehow transfer it to Israel.

The author, Ahmed Abdul Basit Rajoub, mentions the filming of "Jaber" that was shut down last year because Jirdan found out that the movie implied a Jewish history in Petra. It mentions that Jews visit the mountain said to be the burial site of the biblical Aaron, and how terrible that is.

Rajoub argues that there is no evidence that the Children of Israel were ever in Jordan. In fact, the ancient Jews were nobodies:

Most historians in archaeology and anthropology tend to believe that the ancient Jews in the East are Arab tribes that were Judaized. They were pastoral, and practiced usury and the profession of mercenaries due to their particular social situation. They did not know stability, agriculture, city building, or fortresses. ...

We are facing a wicked enemy. We must pay attention to every movement he makes, not only in the political field that relates to the Palestinian issue, but rather in the religious, cultural, touristic, etc. areas from which he crept to consolidate his allegations, his lies, to implement his plans.

Indeed, Jordan's archaeological sites regularly erase any Jewish connection out of their paranoia and hate.

One of the less traveled tourist sites there is Machaerus, a fortress originally built by the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus around 90 BCE, destroyed but later rebuilt by Herod the Great in 30 BC as a military base.

This is the sort of thing that Jordan doesn't want the world to know.

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02/19 Links Pt1: Danny Danon: Mahmoud Abbas’s map of lies; The moral bankruptcy of a PLO state; Palestinian rights activists moonlight as terrorists

From Ian:

Danny Danon: Mahmoud Abbas’s map of lies

That Abbas brought his map to the highest level of international diplomacy suggests that he believes that the world is ready to entertain this revisionist history of the Middle East. Sadly, in this regard, he may not be mistaken.

Rewriting history has long been a tactic of overtly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations. On college campuses, anti-Israel groups regularly use a version of this map during the notorious Israel Apartheid Week. The anti-Semitic BDS movement features this graphic in its campaign materials. Al Jazeera, the propaganda arm of Qatar that has a growing audience among younger generations in America, has a “Vanishing Palestine” interactive video as part of its “Palestine Remix” channel.

What is most insidious, however, is the growing use of the map in mainstream venues. In October 2015, MSNBC displayed these maps during a live segment discussing a recent spate of Palestinian violence on the Temple Mount (for which it later apologized). In 2017, Columbia University published the maps on advertisements for a workshop on “Citizenship and Nationality in Israel/Palestine.” Last September, a high school matriculation exam in Finland included the maps.

The use of the “Map of Lies” in mainstream media and academic circles in particular will have the effect of normalizing its content and message.

For Israel and the Jewish people, this presents a real danger. Efforts to delegitimize the Jewish State are growing louder, with the United Nations recently releasing a “blacklist” of Israeli companies that operate in Judea and Samaria being only the latest example of revisionist history having tangible consequences.

One’s interpretation and understanding of the past forms their assumptions about the present and determines their vision for the future. Believing Abbas’s “Map of Lies” will do more than dishonor the past; it will irrevocably damage the cause of peace.

David Singer: Netanyahu Goes into Judea and Samaria where Gantz Fears to Tread

Ambassador Friedman heads the three-man American delegation now sitting down with the three-man Israeli delegation on the Mapping Committee.

Gantz has been powerless to stop the formation and work of the Mapping Committee. Indeed Gantz urged Trump to release his peace plan before the elections. Gantz has not even requested that one of his nominees be part of the Israeli delegation on the Mapping Committee.

In ignoring the Mapping Committee – Gantz is signalling the continuation of his policy opposing Israel extending its sovereignty into Judea and Samaria with America’s approval.
Gantz has made his own policy very clear:
“After the elections, we will work to apply [Israeli] sovereignty on the Jordan Valley. We will do this in a nationally agreed process and in coordination with the international community.”

Believing the international community would ever agree to Israel extending its sovereignty into any part of Judea and Samaria – without swaps of existing Israeli sovereign territory – is totally unrealistic. The international community has been fixated for decades on seeing another Arab State created in the entirety of Judea and Samaria – or in an area of the same size including land currently part of Israel.

Gantz – in limiting sovereignty to just the Jordan Valley – is dashing the hopes of an estimated Jewish population of 464,353 in 131 settlements seeking unification with Israel.

Israeli voters now have a clear choice to end the political deadlock that has followed two indecisive elections held in the past twelve months:
Is it Netanyahu – promising the restoration of sovereignty in parts of the heartland of the Jewish people’s historic and biblical homeland for the first time in 3000 years?
OR
Is it Gantz – promising more of the same in Judea and Samaria that has been going on for the last 53 years?

A third deadlocked election result now seems increasingly unlikely.

The choice is stark and the direction Israel will take for generations to come is at stake.

Palestinian rights activists moonlight as terrorists

One of the most egregious examples is the NGO for Palestinian “prisoner rights” Addameer. Addameer leaders regularly meet with EU officials and are very involved internationally. It even participated in the UN Human Rights Council’s discussions on Israel in 2018, and urges the ICC war crimes probe of Israel. They also hold “educational” events on campuses with students in the US. Multiple Addameer employees and leaders have a long and rich track record of terrorist convictions and, in several cases, have been Addameer employees and PFLP operatives simultaneously. It is problematic, to say the least, for the EU or UN to be advised on their decisions by organizations with such extensive ties to an EU-recognized terrorist organization.

From 2013-2019, Addameer received nearly $2.1 million from the EU and European member states, including Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain. The Basque autonomous community alone has given it over $920,000 in grants between 2014 and 2019. From 2014 to 2017, Addameer received $498,700 from the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (according to their website), a joint funding body financed by Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. With such significant EU investment, heightened transparency is an absolute necessity.

If the EU is not prepared to cut funding completely, they must double down and demand not only that Palestinian NGOs commit to not working with terrorist organizations, but also that they demonstrate complete financial transparency as to how their money is being spent. Palestinian NGOs should also be required to prove, in light of the evidence, that their employees and leaders are not active PFLP members, perhaps by a new disclosure requirement of past and present civil society affiliations.

The fact that the ties between Palestinian civil society groups and terrorist organizations have significantly deepened over the years, and that simultaneously their ties to European countries have also deepened, should alarm anyone. The EU, and other European states, have an obligation to ensure their grants are not being used to fund the expansion of terrorist activities. They also have an obligation to ensure that decisions made at the UN and EU regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not unduly influenced by groups with PFLP ties.

24,000 Palestinians now work in "settlements" at double the local wage

The latest Palestinian Central Bureau for Statistics report says that there are now 135.000 Palestinian workers who are employed by Israelis (a drop of 6000 in the last quarter 2019) and 24,000 of them work in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, an increase of 2000 from Q3.

65% of them work in construction, which is the highest paying category of work.

This chart shows the comparative daily wages in shekels for Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel/settlements for different types of jobs.

While some 13% of Palestinians work for Israelis, based on the averages in the chart above, it appears that about half of all Palestinian construction workers are actually working in Israeli communities and a much smaller percentage of the other categories.

Last year several thousand Gazans were quietly allowed to work in southern Israel. I do not believe that the PCBS has those people included; Hamas probably has those statistics.

Also, there are many Palestinian workers who depend on business from Israel but who are not employees. I know that some Israeli high-tech firms outsource programming to Palestinian consultants, for example. If Palestinians would succumb to BDS-style pressure, their economy would be devastated.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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I enjoyed reading Yoram Hazony's The Virtue of Nationalism. I want to center this review on Hazony's theory of modern anti-Zionism.

To oversimplify, the book is a defense of nationalism as opposed to imperialism. Nationalism is defined as being loyal to one's nation and letting other nations do their own thing; each nation is free do decide on the best way to govern yet each maintains its own national character. Imperialism is a philosophy where the ideas of one nation are imposed on others that might have different ways of thinking because the ideas are superior to all others, so imposing them is for the greater good.

Modern Europe is in many ways a response to Nazism; the horrors of Hitler were so great that we must do everything possible to avoid anything that resembles it in the slightest. But Europe, specifically the EU, makes two very horrible mistakes.

One is that they look at Nazi Germany as being the outcome of extreme nationalism. Because of that, they regard all nationalisms with suspicion at best and hostility at worst.

Yet Nazi Germany was not nationalist - despite calling itself National Socialism. Nazi Germany was imperialist. The Third Reich was meant to rule over Europe and to impose its racist and antisemitic philosophy worldwide.

The EU's connection between nationalism and Nazism is completely wrong.

The second mistake is that the EU, by trying to impose a single standard of law and regulations across Europe, is imperialist itself! The irony of an imperialist Europe, being largely led by Germany, as an answer to the imperialist Third Reich, is painful.

(The major difference between the two is that Europe has effectively outsourced its defense to the United States, so in that way it is a protectorate. Yet its philosophical underpinnings are imperialist.)

Europe looks at Israel as a nationalist endeavor - which it most certainly is. (Hazony brings much evidence that early philosophers of nationalism got their ideas from the Biblical description of the Jewish kingdoms, where individual tribes banded together for defense, one of the major functions of a nation.) Since Europe is traumatized by World War II and mistakes Nazism as nationalism, it views Israel as a potential nationalist danger.

Hazony makes a stark distinction between what lessons Israel and Europe learn from the Holocaust. Israel looks at the slaughter of Jews and says that a national entity could have defended them; Europe looks at the same slaughter and says that Nazi "nationalism" is the cause and that is what must be stopped to ensure it doesn't happen again.

As Hazony writes (p. 206):

In both paradigms, the fact of Israel takes on an extraordinary significance because of the identity of the Jews as the victims of the Shoah. For Israel's founders, the fact that the survivors of the death camps and their children could be given weapons and permitted to train as soldiers under a Jewish flag seemed a decisive movement of the world toward what was just and right. It could in no sense make up for what had happened. But it was just nonetheless, granting the survivors precisely the empowerment that, had it come a few years earlier, would have saved their loved ones from death and worse. In this sense, Israel is the opposite of Auschwitz.

At the same time, Israel takes on extraordinary significance in the new European paradigm as well. For in Israel, the survivors and their children took up arms and set themselves on a course of determining their own fate. That is, this people, so close to the Kantian ideal of perfect self-renunciation only a few decades ago, have instead chosen what is now seen as the path of Hitler—the path of national self-determination. It is this that lies beneath the nearly boundless disgust so many feel toward Israel, and especially toward anything having to do with Israel's attempts to defend itself, regardless of whether these operations are successful or unsuccessful, irreproachable or morally flawed. In taking up arms in the name of their own national state and their own self-determination, the Jews, as many Europeans and others now see it, have simply taken up the same evil that led Germany to build the camps. The details may differ, but the principle, in their eyes, is the same: Israel is Auschwitz.

Therefore, Hazony stresses, it doesn't matter what Israel does or doesn't do - its very existence as a nation willing to defend its people is proof of its inherent immorality.

Antisemitism is not the driving factor of anti-Zionism, according to Hazony. He says that Europe is also antipathetic towards all (European-origin) nations that embrace nationalism. This is why they are so upset at Britain after Brexit, at Trump's America, at some eastern European countries - because those countries insist on making their own national decisions and not to be bound by the rules and international institutions and protocols and standards pushed by Europe (e.g., the ICC, the Kyoto Protocol.). I am reminded of the Carter-era US arguments when abstaining from the 1980 UNSC Jerusalem resolution that emphasized how the portion that demanded that no country establish embassies there was an unacceptable violation of national sovereignty. To the Left, every nation must give up some independence to be part of the world community, and the US has always resisted that to varying degrees.

I'm not so sure that antisemitism is not a major factor in European anti-Zionism - it seems to me the vitriol against Israel by the European Left is much greater than that against the US or Britain. But Hazony's theory is intriguing.

As far as non-European countries such as Arab nations are concerned, Hazony claims that Europe and the Left subconsciously do not consider them to be full nations but savages. In this, they are recalling Kant, who theorized three stages of mankind's development, from savages to nations to a higher moral order where all nations federate under one rule of law. European anti-nationalists look at themselves as being at the highest level, at the US, Israel and Britain at the second level, and the rest of the world still at the level of savages, from whom nothing can be expected. I'm not so convinced of this argument; it seems to me that the anti-colonialism of the Left is driving them to regard all non-whites as noble people whose immorality is the fault of the West.

It is always a treat to read Hazony. And this is a very important book.

(Naturally, any mistakes in summarizing Hazony's arguments are mine alone.)

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Underage sex-trafficking "temporary marriage" ring uncovered in Egypt

Egyptian authorities have uncovered a human trafficking ring in Giza where young girls were forced to "marry" rich Arabs for as little as 48 hours where they would be sexually abused.

The price of the girls were between 10,000 and 200,000 Egyptian pounds ($640-$13,000) and the timeframe of each "marriage" was from two days to a week. The leaders of the ring, which included a lawyer, would keep the money for themselves.

The girls were between 12 and 15.

The girls were often runaways. The pimps would send photos of the girls via WhatsApp to the rich Arab johns. One of the pimps performed the "marriage" ceremony with a Quran. in a cafe in Agouza.

The girls say that the pimps also sexually assaulted and raped them.

During the police raid, a "large number" of girls were found.

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02/18 Links Pt2: British Comedian Confronts Holocaust Denier in New Documentary; New Forms of Old Hate: Confronting Assad’s Anti-Semitism in Germany

From Ian:

British Comedian Confronts Holocaust Denier in New Documentary

In a new BBC2 documentary that aired on Monday, British Jewish comedian and presenter David Baddiel sat down with a Holocaust denier and challenged his conspiratorial views.

A clip from “Confronting Holocaust Denial” showed a frustrated Baddiel trying to argue logically with Irish antisemite Dermot Mulqueen, who expressed a range of vicious tropes, among them the medieval accusation that Jews murdered Christian children and that Jews “hate” Europeans.

Baddiel at one point countered, “If the gas chambers never existed, us Jews would have no reason to hate Europeans. Why would we hate Europeans for something that actually never happened?”

Mulqueen paused awkwardly in response, before stammering, “…because it’s profitable.”

After being arrested in 2015 for vandalizing private property in protest of Holocaust Memorial Day, Mulqueen unsuccessfully ran in Ireland’s 2016 general election as an independent MP.

In an interview with BBC HistoryExtra, Baddiel said he struggled with the question of whether exposing Holocaust deniers to the public provided them a platform to gain legitimacy.

“My feeling — and indeed the empirical fact — is that Holocaust denial won’t go away if we ignore it and therefore it’s better to confront it, and at some level try to understand it. That was my mission in this film,” explained Baddiel.

BBC: Confronting Holocaust Denial with David Baddiel

The Holocaust is one of the most documented, witnessed and written about events in history, yet one in six people worldwide either think the Holocaust has been exaggerated or deny that it took place. What has happened in the 75 years since the liberation of the camps to have so skewed the picture? And, if it matters, why does it matter?

In this timely and important film, David Baddiel explores the multi-faceted nature of Holocaust denial - in both historical and contemporary terms, in an attempt to understand what motivates this dangerous phenomenon and why it is on the rise, both in Britain and across the globe.

David begin his journey at Chelmno, the site of a huge extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland where 200,000 Jews were murdered. He learns of the extraordinary lengths German forces employed to conceal what they were doing – building huge crematoria to burn bodies, using ‘bone mills’ to grind down skeletons and scattering the resulting human ashes in surrounding woodland. For David, this is the starting point of Holocaust denial – where the Nazis themselves were attempting to deny their actions.

But the Germans were not alone in concealing the truth of the Holocaust. In the national archives in Kew, David uncovers an extraordinary memo issued by the Ministry of Information’s propaganda department, discussing how the atrocities of death camps should be reported to the public. The memo recommends reports focus on the camps' ‘innocent victims’, not criminals, and ‘not Jews’. This idea that the suffering of the Jewish people should somehow be played down was still dominant when the camps were liberated - many newsreels barely mention that the majority of victims had been Jewish. For David, anti-Semitism is fundamentally at the root of all Holocaust denial.

David discovers how, as the true scale of the Holocaust emerges in the postwar years, the numbers of people attempting to deny or to downplay its scale increases. There is a direct correlation between a higher profile of the Holocaust and rates of denial, something reflected in David’s own experience. As soon as this programme is announced by the BBC, David's Twitter feed fills with posts trying to deny the truth of the Holocaust. It begs the question whether David, by making the film, is himself fanning the flames of denial? And if so, should he be doing it?

Watching deeply disturbing and depressing documentary on Holocaust denial by @Baddiel which features a copy of “‘Holocaust’ News” with the headline “Holocaust story an evil hoax”. I’ve seen a copy of that. This one. It was in the private papers of the Labour MP, Andrew Faulds. pic.twitter.com/zbTl4TTEEW
— James Vaughan (@EquusontheBuses) February 17, 2020

New Forms of Old Hate: Confronting Assad’s Anti-Semitism in Germany

Now more than ever, Germany has its own domestic challenges again rising to the surface: the far-right ideology that has resurfaced throughout Europe in apparent response to the refugee crisis has provoked a resurgence of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia—particularly in Germany. On the one hand, many fear that if Germany fails to address its current situation, the world could relive one of its darkest moments in history. German-Jews have already been told by Jewish leadership to refrain from wearing Kippahs in public and remove mezuzot from their doors—many have begun to conceal their identity. The attempted attack on the Halle Synagogue—though prevented from becoming a full-blown massacre by a locked door—still led to a loss of life and demonstrates the repercussions of not actively addressing this issue. On the other hand, if this issue prioritized, as was publicly called for by Germany’s foreign minister, Germany will have the chance to confirm its position as a ‘land of opportunity,’ where people from around the world can reinvent themselves.

Yet while the German government has vowed to combat anti-Semitism, its threats so far have mainly consisted of unspecified consequences for individuals who attack German Jews. As a Syrian, I know that warnings alone are not enough to counter decades of anti-Semitic messaging. In febrile minds of extreme anti-Semites, attacking Jews can be seen as an honorable and courageous act. In many cases, these individuals have been conditioned since birth to perceive the Jewish people as their enemy, themselves victims of a narrative designed to prevent them from holding their country’s dictators accountable for the widespread misery felt throughout the Arab world.

Syrians must educate themselves on persistent history of Anti-Semitism, which did not start with the Holocaust—nor end with the creation of the state of Israel. Every Syrian who aspires to become a European citizen must refuse to be an anti-Semitic extension of their government. Germany, with its years of retraining its own population, has a lot to offer on this front, but the German government must make this a priority and a commitment with its deeds as well as its words.

A Europe unsafe for Jews will never be safe for other minorities. When Syrian communities throughout Europe come to recognize this reality, there is the remarkable potential for fostering a conducive environment for Jews and Syrians to respect one another, encouraging understanding and cooperation between neighbours and mutual support of minority communities throughout Europe. However, getting to this point will require a lot of effort and determination, both on the side of the German government and among Syrian communities themselves.

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency has an article about how difficult life is with Israeli checkpoints, claiming that Israel wants to "strangle" the Palestinians:

The Israeli occupation authorities are trying to subjugate the Palestinian citizen, imposing him, arbitrarily, on the military barriers and iron gates that make it difficult for him to carry out the simplest tasks, and confuse his planning for his life. Will he be able to arrive at the appointed time or not?

The West Bank barriers and gates were divided into 100 cantons, and its goal is to generalize the apartheid regime and prevent the establishment of a connected Palestinian state...

The occupation forces install about 165 iron gates on the entrances of villages and cities, and on the roads connecting them, half of which are closed in normal conditions, while about 600 military barriers, dirt berms or cement blocks control the lives of citizens, which restrict the movement of vehicles and pedestrians alike, and they erect gates at the entrances to the villages which aim to isolate any village within a few minutes when the occupation decides.

Besides the fact that the numbers seem hugely exaggerated, the timing of this and similar articles is curious.

After all, if anything, the checkpoint situation is better today than at any time in the past 20 years.

This seems to me to be a way for Palestinian leaders to misdirect both their own people and the world by starting a campaign against Israeli security measures.

They want to proactively stir up anger because there is a simple solution to the checkpoint problem, as well as the "canton" problem and most of their other complaints: Accept the "Peace to Prosperity" plan!

Every single checkpoint, except those into Israel, would be dismantled under the plan.

Palestinian propagandists realize that they need to change the focus away from the plan and towards their usual posture of playing the innocent victim of Israeli evil. They know they can't have it both ways - complain about how terrible life is and also complain about how terrible a plan that solves all their every day problems is as well. So they will complain about specific aspects of the peace plan they don't like and try as hard as they can to distract people away from the parts that would solve their major everyday issues.

The proper response to all of these types of articles and tweets is - if things are so bad, then a peace plan that solves those issues is a good idea.

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In September 2017, right after Rosh Hashanah, Peter Beinart wrote in The Forward:

Last week, Bernie Sanders gave a much-touted foreign policy speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the same location where Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” address in 1946. The contents of the speech were intriguing. So was its timing.

Sanders delivered it on the first day of Rosh Hashanah.

This has become a pattern for the Vermont Senator. In 2015, Sanders used the Jewish New Year to deliver a major address on, ironically enough, religion and public life, at Liberty University, an institution founded by Jerry Falwell. In 2016, he spent Yom Kippur at the White House meeting Pope Francis and talking about it on CNN.

It’s a pattern he’d do well to reconsider. Although he considers himself Jewish, Sanders is not, in his words, “actively involved with organized religion.” That is, of course, fine. He can observe or not observe Jewish holidays however he’d like. But he’s also a former — and likely future — contender for the presidency in a deeply religious country. And flaunting his disrespect for his own religious tradition isn’t smart.

Beinart's concern was not for Sanders to embrace his spirituality, but to ensure he is electable:

Sanders has not called himself an atheist. His secularism, however, may hurt him with voters who espouse a specific faith. According to a January 2016 Pew Research Center survey, Democrats who identified as Protestant or Catholic were roughly 20 points less likely than religious unaffiliated Democrats to say Sanders would make a good or great president. Among the religious unaffiliated within their party, Sanders led Clinton by eight points. But among Protestants and Catholics, she led him by 23 points.

Sanders' recent videos where he claims to be proud to be Jewish may be a direct, and somewhat cynical, attempt to gain the votes he lost to Hillary.

Bernie's latest outreach video to Jews is more of the same - he talks a lot about Hitler's Nazis and contemporary Nazis and that is pretty much his entire Jewish playlist.

I'm very proud to be Jewish and I look forward to becoming the first Jewish president in the history of this country. pic.twitter.com/UOPvEomHNE
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 17, 2020

There is a short clip there of Bernie lighting a menorah - but even then, in Des Moines, he couldn't come up with a single word to relate to Chanukah itself, only speaking in platitudes about freedom and diversity. It's a holiday that celebrates religious freedom and he couldn't even bring himself to make the connection, something that non-Jewish presidents have done ever since they started creating greetings for Chanukah.

Maybe he can fool some people of faith in America into thinking that his talking about people who hate Jews gives him some Jewish bona fides. But the entire "proud to be Jewish" shtick, when four years ago he avoided the topic at all costs, is not seeming very authentic.

He has yet to say a single specific thing about Judaism he is proud of.

(h/t EBoZ)

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02/18 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: U.S. Peace Plan Says Israel Is Here to Stay; Palestinian reporter demonizes Israeli soldier seconds after soldier protected him and other journalists;

From Ian:

PMW: Fake news in real time: Palestinian reporter demonizes Israeli soldier seconds after soldier protected him and other journalists

Question: How long does it take a Palestinian Authority TV reporter to rewrite history and deceive Palestinians into hating Israelis?

Answer: 10 seconds.

This is a classic example of how the Palestinian Authority lies to its own people to demonize Israelis and create hatred of them among Palestinians.

At a Palestinian protest against US President Trump’s Middle East peace plan, an Israeli officer instructed Palestinian journalists to move to the other side of the road to be safe from oncoming cars.

But in the PA TV reporter’s instantaneous rewriting of history – during his live broadcast – this was distorted into a lie, turning the Israeli officer’s attempt at protecting the Palestinians into a racist statement. The PA TV reporter told viewers that the Israeli soldiers ordered them to move because “this is an Israeli road and Palestinians are not allowed on it.” In truth, the Israeli officer stressed that the soldiers were trying to “look out for” the lives of the Palestinians, because they were in danger of being “run over.” It is worth noting that the Israeli officer and the PA TV reporter spoke Hebrew together.

Israeli officer (in Hebrew): “Stand over there.”
PA TV reporter (in Hebrew): “We are journalists.”
Israeli officer (in Hebrew): “Journalists over there.”
PA TV reporter (in Hebrew): “Where?
Israeli officer (in Hebrew): “Across the street. They’ll run you over. It’s your life. Go over here.”
PA TV reporter (in Arabic): “As you can hear –”
Israeli officer (in Hebrew): “You’ll get killed. We’re looking out for you.”
PA TV reporter (in Arabic): “One of the occupation soldiers is making us move away on a false claim that this is an Israeli road and Palestinians are not allowed on it.” [Official PA TV, Jan. 29, 2020]

Iran Threatens to Destroy Ancient Jewish Site and Build Palestinian Consulate

Iranian authorities are threatening to destroy the historic tomb of Esther and Mordechai in the city of Hamedan, 200 miles west of Tehran, in favor of constructing "a consular office for Palestine," ARAM, the Alliance for Rights of All Minorities in Iran, said in a Twitter post on Sunday.

The organization claims that members of Iran's formidable Basij paramilitary force attempted to raid the historic site in what it called "an act of revenge against the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan by President Trump."

"Ester and Mordechai were biblical Jewish heroes who saved their people from a massacre in a story known as #Purim. Their burial site has been a significant Jewish landmark for Jews and history buffs around the world," ARAM said.

In December 2010, Iranian protesters tried to breach the compound citing fears that Israel might damage the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.