Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 05, 2020

The HIAS Controversy (Daled Amos)

Back in 2014, HIAS was in the news as exemplifying a new trend in Jewish organizations.

The organization had moved from New York City to Silver Spring, a step that was seen by The Washington Jewish Week as "just another sign that the Jewish organizational universe is changing":

Once known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the agency has responded to the end of Jewish refugee immigration into the port of New York by refocusing on refugee advocacy Washington, D.C.

In doing so, HIAS is joining an exodus of religion-based immigrant agencies, said Mark Hetfield, HIAS president and CEO.

It was all about a growing trend among organizations that were shedding their old identities once they saw their original missions as having been fulfilled.

The change was more than geographic:

Not only will HIAS join other refugee aid organizations in Washington, it will also compete with other Jewish organizations involved in advocacy and claiming to be the “Jewish voice” on this or that political issue. Each group is fighting to carve out a niche for itself in what some think is an oversaturated market of advocacy groups, none of which seem to close down when its job is done.

Now, just 6 years later, HIAS is again in the news and may be signaling another new trend in American Jewish organizations.

The recent nomination of Dianne Lob as the next chairperson of the Conference of Presidents created an uproar, and it is more than just because of claims that the organization's bylaws may have been violated to make the nomination happen.

The larger concern is that Lob was the former chairperson of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society -- HIAS.

Just how controversial can helping Jewish refugees be?
There are 2 distinct narratives as to what is happening.

Is It All About Trump?

Last week, Ron Kampeas wrote that A Trump-era compromise on the Presidents Conference chairwoman reveals Jewish organizational tensions.

He writes that despite Lob's statement of unity in strengthening the Jewish community and supporting Israel,

over the past week, right-wingers within and outside the Presidents Conference launched a pressure campaign against the nomination, citing Lob’s involvement with HIAS, which has clashed with the Trump administration over immigration policy. Leading the charge was Morton Klein’s Zionist Organization of America, which has strongly opposed efforts to resettle Muslim refugees from Arab countries in the United States and Europe — something that has topped the HIAS agenda in recent years because of unrest in the Muslim world.

Kampeas writes that this "injection of immigration politics into Presidents Conference deliberations" reflects how the left-right divide in the Jewish community has gone beyond an Israel-centric focus to encompass an issue embroiling the country. The controversy of the Lob's HIAS background is

the antagonistic relationship between HIAS and the Trump administration. HIAS has clashed repeatedly with the current administration on its immigration policy and has been lead plaintiff in at least two lawsuits against the administration.

Is The Conference of Presidents Leaning Left?

A different view of the controversy is that the issue is not Trump and his immigration policies but rather that HIAS is considered one of the most liberal organizations in the Conference of Presidents. Their recent change in its mission is part of that concern. According to the HIAS website:

We were founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. As we expanded our mission to protect and assist refugees of all faiths and ethnicities, we realized our name no longer represented the organization. We are now known as HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees. [emphasis added]

HIAS CEO, Mark Hetfield, however, gave a different reason for the change, saying that the word “Hebrew” is exclusionary and outdated, much as the word “colored” is to refer to African Americans.

That doesn't seem to bother the NAACP, which does not shy away from referring to itself by its full name:

The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.

Nor does it shy away from making it clear their mission remains:

the major areas of inequality facing African Americans that are the focus of the NAACP’s work. [emphasis added]

But there is more to this than a change in name.
This change in focus that Hetfield refers to has had real ramifications.

In an article for the Jewish Journal, David Suissa asks Why Did HIAS Move Away from Helping Jews? He quotes from a 2017 article in The Forward, which has some numbers on the steep drop in HIAS assistance to Jewish refugees:

The group assisted 4,188 people last year from 36 different countries; about half were Muslims. The others were Jews and Christians and some Hindus and Buddhists, Hetfield said. The Jews – just 169 out of the total – were mainly from Ukraine and Iran.

As Suissa points out, that's just 4%.

But Suissa has no problem with helping non-Jewish refugees. Instead, his argument is that HIAS should “grandfather” immigration assistance into its budget for Jews who, though not technically qualifying as refugees, are feeling the pressure of antisemitism in the US or are experiencing other kinds of extreme hardships.

But ZOA's Mort Klein goes further, taking those numbers and making a case against Lob and claiming that HIAS itself should not be a member in the Conference of Presidents, altogether.

In A letter to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Klein argues that because of their lack of focus on Jews,

HIAS likely does not even qualify for COP membership. The “Processes and Procedures of the Conference of Presidents” (updated March 2017) limits COP membership “to those national Jewish organizations whose primary purpose is to serve the interests of the American Jewish community and whose activities are consistent with the goals and objectives of the Conference.” It would be inappropriate to select a COP chairperson from an organization that likely does not meet the COP’s membership requirements.

Going further, Klein adds that HIAS also has a history of associating with anti-Israel groups.

He quotes from the HIAS website, which boasts that

HIAS and IRUSA [Islamic Relief USA] have been collaborating to advance refugee rights for several years. In June 2017, IRUSA honored HIAS with its Courage Award. Upon accepting the award in Washington, D.C., Hetfield noted, “All the Abrahamic faiths are united by the value of hospitality and welcoming the stranger as ourselves, for we were all once strangers in a strange land.” [emphasis added]

Klein notes ties between Islamic Relief Worldwide and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, a connection that is documented also by NGO Monitor, which notes that Israel banned the group in 2014.

Elsewhere on its site, HIAS reports that it is

partnering with the Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Children’s Services in another pilot program to support successful Syrian refugee resettlement through a range of activities including resource development, bridging cultural differences, and educating the community about their potential contributions to the community. The program also works closely with the Council on Islamic Relations [sic] and other faith based organizations. [emphasis added]

CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial -- which among the offenses cited was the funneling of money to Hamas.

A further issue is a letter Hetfield signed as a representative of HIAS when Democratic Jewish state Assemblyman Dov Hikind spoke out against Linda Sarsour speaking at the CUNY commencement because it would be “giving a podium to promoters of violence. The letter was in defense of Linda Sarsour, signed by multiple leaders of left-wing groups such as J Street, If Not Now, New Israel Fund and T'ruah. The letter proclaims that while not agreeing with everything she says, "with Sarsour and others, we work as allies on issues of shared concern and respectfully disagree when our views diverge" -- apparently ignoring such disrespectful things as

o Sarsour's tweet that “there is nothing creepier than Zionism”
o Her praising the Palestinian Authority tactic of deploying children to hurl rocks at Israelis as the “definition of courage”
o Her embracing (literally) Rasmeah Odeh, the Palestinian terrorist who was convicted of murdering 2 Israelis. Sarsour said she was "honored" to be on the same stage with Odeh.

Last month, in response to these and other charges by Klein, Hetfield proclaimed that HIAS has maintained its connection to Israel

“As a Jewish refugee organization, we have an important connection to Israel because the reason we can advocate for refugees who are not Jewish today is because the Jewish refugee problem has essentially been solved by the State of Israel. That’s the thing — Israel is central to our mission, in that sense.”

'In that sense'?
Even Hetfield doesn't sound convinced.

More problematic is that according to the same article

Hetfield also noted that as a matter of policy, HIAS won’t partner with organizations that promote the BDS movement. [emphasis added]

It's not clear how that is supposed to jive with HIAS partnering with Islamic Relief and CAIR.

The Radical Left Insurgency

Caroline Glick sees in all this the continuation of a trend, what she sees as American Jewry’s organizational crackup.

According to Glick, while American Jewry as a whole is not being radicalized, Lob's nomination reflects the efforts of radical leftists within the American Jewish organizations, Jews who are pro-BDS and anti-Zionist. And in furtherance of their views, they are trying to either gain control or to neutralize American Jewish organizations -- all this while many of the leaders of the large Jewish organizations are retiring or close to it, and in some cases have failed to cultivate successors.

She warns that

At the rate that the radical left is taking over major Jewish organizations, we can assume that within five years, there will be a steep rise in the number of American Jewish groups that advocate on behalf of BDS. Our notion of a “friendly organization” will change from an organization that advances Jewish interests and supports Israel to an organization that doesn’t work against Jewish interests and opposes Israel.

An Expiration Date?

Jonathan Tobin offers a different perspective in his column for JNS, where he focuses on the overall implications of the growing split within the groups and asks Do the Jews really need a Conference of Presidents?

Tobin notes that the history of the Conference of Presidents goes back to 1956, when Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles gave an ultimatum to the Jewish groups advocating on behalf of Israel following Israel's campaign with England and France against Egypt. Tired of dealing with individual groups, he threatened that if the various groups did not unite to form a single group he could deal with more easily, he would not listen to any of them.

And so the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations was born.

But now, in light of the current rift in the organization in reaction to Lob's nomination, Tobin suggests that the group may have reached its "expiration date":

But what this dispute could demonstrate is that the Jewish right and left are now so divided that the entire concept of an umbrella group like the Conference is no longer viable.

Rather than as an insurgency by the radical left, Tobin sees the current controversy as a sign that the Conference of Presidents has reached the point where differences can no longer be transcended by a common love for Israel.

And if that is true of the Conference of Presidents, what does that say of the American Jewish community as a whole?

A Tempest in a Kum-Kum

But some see all this as an over-reaction.

Mitchell Bard, Executive Director of American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and director of the Jewish Virtual Library notes that taking into account the influence and familiarity that William Daroff has as the successor to Hoenlein as head of the Conference of Presidents, Lob will, in fact, have minimal influence within the organization, and as such it does not pay to get all worked up over the current controversy surrounding Lob.

After all, can anyone even name the person currently serving in the position Lob will be assuming?

Between Israel, the US and now the Conference of Presidents -- elections seem to have an increased sense of drama to them.

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05/05 Links Pt1: Minister claims Israel’s biological institute developed virus antibody; Col. Kemp: The contortions and collusions of ICC's Bensouda

From Ian:

Defense minister claims Israel’s biological institute developed virus antibody

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday said he witnessed a “significant breakthrough” by Israel’s defense biological research institute in developing an antibody to COVID-19, as the researchers wrapped up the development phase and moved to patent and mass produce the potential treatment.

Bennett visited the labs of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), a secretive unit that works under the Prime Minister’s Office, in Ness Ziona and was shown the “antibody that attacks the virus in a monoclonal way and can neutralize it within the bodies of those ill,” according to a statement from his office.

The statement said the antibody’s development had been completed. The institute was in the process of patenting the find “and in the next stage, researchers will approach international companies to produce the antibody on a commercial scale.”

“I am proud of the institute staff for this terrific breakthrough,” said Bennett. “Their creativity and the Jewish mind brought about this amazing achievement.”

It was not immediately clear if the breakthrough presented to Bennett was in addition to progress that was reported in late March, and no further details were provided. The statement also did not specify whether human trials were conducted.

31 new infections recorded over past day; virus death toll rises to 237

The Health Ministry on Tuesday reported 31 new coronavirus cases over the preceding 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections in Israel to 16,268.

Three people died from COVID-19 over that period, putting the death toll at 237.

According to the Health Ministry, 5,808 people in Israel were sick with the virus, 89 of whom were in serious condition. Of those in serious condition, 66 were on ventilators.

Another 58 Israelis were in moderate condition and the rest had mild symptoms.

There were 10,223 people in Israel to have recovered from the virus, an increase of 365 since Monday morning.

Among those to recover were an 11-year-old and a 16-year-old who had been hospitalized in serious condition at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

Netanyahu celebrates a victory over COVID-19; it marks his political triumph too

Less than eight weeks after he warned that the coronavirus pandemic could kill tens of thousands of Israelis, and intimated that tens of millions might die worldwide, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the nation on Monday night that Israel has brought the virus under control, at least for now, with its death toll at a strikingly low 235.

“Every death is a great loss… it’s heartrending,” he said. But overall, he declared, Israel’s battle against COVID-19 has been “a great success story.”

Throughout the past eight weeks, Netanyahu has frequently held evening broadcasts: to tell the citizens of the latest restrictions being imposed on their lives in the first weeks of the crisis, and, more recently, to tell them of limitations being gradually eased. On Monday night, during an unprecedentedly lengthy appearance summed up by TV commentators as a kind of “victory over coronavirus” event, Netanyahu announced that the State of Israel was now gradually reopening — for business, and for something akin to normal life.

Taking questions, sharing the forum with ministers and experts, a strikingly upbeat Netanyahu announced that citizens are now free to travel as far as they like from their homes; families can visit their elderly relatives; gatherings of up to 100 will be permitted by the end of the month, and unlimited gatherings by mid-June; the whole school system will be open by the end of the month; sports and leisure will be unlimited by mid-June; and Israel is looking for ways to work toward a resumption of international flights without risking new waves of infection from countries that have handled the pandemic less effectively. “We want to reconnect to the world,” he said, but without importing a new wave of contagion.

Every effort would now be made to get the economy back on track, he said, and to get compensation more effectively distributed to battered companies, freelancers and small business owners than has been the case to date. “We’ve made mistakes too,” he allowed. “Not everything is perfect.”

World Health Organization politicizes COVID-19 data for "Palestine" - double-counts Jerusalem Arabs, takes Israel out of the Eastern Mediterranean

The World Health Organization has a series of dashboards showing the spread of COVID-19 worldwide.

Its dashboard for the Eastern Mediterranean region is interesting:

Yes, Israel is not included as a place where there are any COVID victims.

While WHO is part of the UN, and the UN does not include Israel in various Middle Eastern categories because of the refusal of much of the Arab world to sit with Israel in committees, this has nothing to do with public health. When using data to monitor and help stop the spread of a virus, geography is more important than politics, and in normal times there is some travel between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian-controlled areas.

Leaving Israel out of the region is politicizing health, and this is unacceptable.

But WHO does even worse.

Here are its numbers for "occupied Palestinian territories." Look at the footnote.

They are counting "East Jerusalem" cases as Palestinian, even though the area is not under Palestinian Authority control and therefore the numbers are meaningless. This is a health crisis, and as such the data is meant to show what nations are doing to combat it. "Palestine" has no control over treatment or even counting the number of cases in the portions of Jerusalem that were under Arab control for 19 years. These numbers are not only deceptive, but double-counted, since Israel already counts them.

The Palestinian Authority coronavirus page makes the distinction between the cases registered under the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the numbers of Jerusalem Arabs that they hear about second-hand.

Every other dashboard I've seen uses the numbers from the Palestinian Ministry of Health and doesn't include "East Jerusalem."

It makes no sense for an international health organization to count according to its own political biases rather than according to the areas of control.

Furthermore, the WHO page for "occupied Palestinian territory" includes a map that somehow counts the highest number of cases as being in "Jerusalem" as opposed to "East Jerusalem."

Apparently, the PLO has a very expansive definition of "Jerusalem" that reaches the Jordan River - and the WHO uses it, no question. (Perhaps this can be leveraged to have Palestinians build a capital city in far-far-east-Jerusalem as shown here.)

Finally, check out the absurd map of "Europe region" by WHO that includes Israel as a tiny island with no neighbors:

To play politics with health is to prioritize politics over health. The UN shows that its hate for Israel is more important than providing accurate information during a pandemic.

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Jews have been extremely sensitive to Christian proselytization since Christianity started. There are a number of good reasons for this, not the least being that it was often accompanied with a harsh choice of being expelled or killed if we don't "choose" Christianity.

More recent attempts by Christians to proselytize to Jews came in the 19th century, as a type of proto-Zionism emerged to encourage Jews to emigrate to Israel as a way to hurry along the end-times, where they would be slaughtered ahead of the arrival of the Christian messiah. There were scores of lectures and books from England and the United States on the "conversion and restoration of the Jews" to Israel.

In recent decades the proselytizers began a campaign creating completely new movements specifically to fool Jews into thinking that Christianity is just another form of Judaism, with names of groups like "Jews for Jesus" and "Messianic Judaism." Ignorant Jews fell for the deception as these charlatans hijacked Jewish symbols and rituals to attract Jews, often staying away from using the word "Jesus" until the Jews already bought into the Christian message of salvation by embracing their god.

At its root, the entire idea of proselytization is antisemitic. After all, the entire point is that Jewish teachings are wrong and Christianity has supplanted Israel. Millions of Jews were martyred for defending their faith and the implication of the proselytizers is that they either died for no reason or, at worst, they deserved it for rejecting Christian teachings. This is profoundly offensive.

As a result of millennia of being cajoled, prodded, intimidated, fooled or forced into embracing a religion that is utterly incompatible with Judaism, Jews are understandably sickened by modern attempts to convert Jews. It took Vatican II for the church to say that Jews were not responsible for killing Jesus and to reject the antisemitism that underlied centuries of persecution and forced conversions, and only in comparatively recent times have major Christian denominations started to say that Jews have a place in Heaven without conversion. In 2011, the Pope explicitly wrote that the Church should not try to convert the Jews anymore.

As this new attitude started spreading, Jews started slowly accepting the idea that some Christians could be Zionist without an agenda of trying to set up an End Times scenario. The new, improved relations between Jews and Christians have taken a while to be accepted by Jews as being heartfelt, but over time Jews have felt more comfortable working together with Christians without the horrible history of Christian antisemitism being recalled.

Which is why this new channel from "GodTV" that somehow was allowed to be put on Israeli cable TV is such a punch in the gut.

Today we made history! For the first time ever, a Messianic television channel is broadcasting the Gospel across Israel in the Hebrew language! At 13:00 Israel time, Shelanu TV launched in Israel. And the mission field in Israel will never be the same again.

Shelanu translates to ‘Ours’ in Hebrew. We want every person in Israel to know, not a foreign Messiah, but a Jewish one! His name is Yeshua and He has not forgotten His people.

Shelanu TV has signed a seven-year contract with HOT Cable, the largest cable network in Israel reaching both Jews and Arabs. It will present new and original programming from local congregations on the ground in Israel. Additionally, international Messianic voices will share powerful real-life testimonies of Israelis who have come to know Yeshua as Messiah.

Notice that this press release avoids using the word Jesus. They make no secret that they want to convert Jews - and they want to do it in Israel.

Israel does not have laws against proselytization in general. It does have laws against proselytizing to children without parental consent, which would preclude such a channel on TV. There are Christian networks on Israeli TV that do not attempt to convert Jews and those are fine - but "Shelanu" is explicitly meant to preach to and convert Jews.

And it appears that they hid that fact from the Israeli cable company HOT:

Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for HOT said: “It [Shelanu TV] is an independent Christian channel, similar to other religious channels broadcast in Israel. It received a permit from the council and is broadcasting according to law.”

When asked about the missionary nature of its activities, she said that “full information was provided to the council, and the channel is operating in accordance with the permit it received.”

Shelanu TV is broadcast on Channel 182 of HOT. The description provided to subscribers on their television screens says it is a “faith-based channel geared toward pro-Israel Christians.”

That's a lie. The opening words of the video announcing the channel to Christians says:

If you've not already heard, GodTV has been given the government permission to broadcast the gospel of Jesus Christ Yeshua the Messiah in Israel on cable television in the Hebrew language. Never before as far as we know in the history of the world has this ever been done. God has supernaturally opened the door for us to take the gospel of Jesus into the homes and lives and hearts of his Jewish people.

Characterizing the channel as being geared towards Christians and then announcing that it is meant to bring the Gospel to Jews recalls the deceptions of the past Christian missionizers.

This is profoundly offensive, especially in Israel. And at a time that Christians have just started to be trusted by Jews to not have an agenda, this channel hurts the cause of Jewish-Christian relations immeasurably.

(h/t Real Jerusalem Streets)

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In this video, I (along with Mrs. Elder) fisk a two minute clip of Linda Sarsour, showing exactly how she uses propaganda methods to libel Israel (along with old fashioned lying.)

Framing a discussion is a major way to keep people from even thinking of bringing up facts you don't want to talk about, and Sarsour is good at it. I show how and when she does it.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

05/04 Links Pt2: Amb. Alan Baker: How to Rescue Civil Discourse on Israel; Linda Sarsour’s New Book Delusional

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: How to Rescue Civil Discourse on Israel

Israel has been the only democratic nation-state whose existence has been rejected and attacked since the day of its establishment in 1948, 36 months following the revelation of the Nazi regime’s mass murder of European Jewry. It would appear reasonable that any well-reasoned civil discourse on Israel would include an appreciation of its security concerns, historical and legal rights, and its diplomatic claims.

The topics of settlements, occupation, the West Bank security barrier, and borders have been among the most politicized, distorted, and mischaracterized in the decades-long history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Legitimate political critique would include the presentation of raw facts, stripped of political hyperbole, and couched in principles of evenhanded assessment and well-reasoned legal, historical, security, and diplomatic context. The principles of fact and context-based discussion on Israel would result in far more productive international dialogue than the current one.

Finally, Israel should be judged by the same values as other nation-states, values that overcome the current tendency to defamation, delegitimization, dehumanization, demonization, and denial of equal treatment under the law.

Coverage of Israel Has Undergone a Transformation amid Corona Crisis

Coverage of Israel has undergone a transformation in recent weeks, according to a report by the Department of Public Diplomacy at the Israel Foreign Ministry.

When the coronavirus pandemic first hit in January 2020, "Israel's [approach] was viewed with hostility, mainly due to its decisions to cancel flights, close borders and remove foreign nationals in the first stage."

Once the scope of the pandemic became more apparent in the West, articles began praising Israel's life-saving policies.

"In the second stage, Israel was portrayed as a model of a country successfully coping with the medical crisis, precisely due to all the reasons for which it was previously criticized."

Israel also received recognition for its immense efforts on behalf of its citizens stranded across the globe

.
Top Jewish Leader Praises President Trump for Commitment to Fighting Antisemitism Amid COVID-19 Crisis

The head of a leading international Jewish group praised US President Donald Trump over the weekend for a proclamation condemning antisemitism, saying, “I know personally that he is committed to eradicating the spread of antisemitism from our society.”

“President Trump has consistently stood by American Jewry and the State of Israel throughout his tenure,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder. He added that Trump’s commitment applies “even in the midst of the present immense global uncertainty and concerns accompanying the COVID-19 crisis.”

“As the president emphasized … antisemitic discrimination, persecution, and violence continue to plague our Jewish communities,” Lauder noted, saying the president’s words “must be repeated, over and over again … until it is made absolutely clear that incitement, bigotry, hatred, and xenophobia will not be tolerated.”

“The World Jewish Congress deeply appreciates the US administration’s ongoing efforts to combat the evil of anti-Jewish hatred, and its continuing support of American Jewry in its cherished traditions and innumerable contributions to society,” he added. “We look forward to the day when we will be able to say that antisemitism has truly been eradicated in America.”

Lauder’s comments came in response to a proclamation late last week marking Jewish American Heritage Month. In the statement Trump said, “Hatred is intolerable and has no place in our hearts or in our society. We must therefore vigorously confront antisemitic discrimination and violence against members of the Jewish community.”

May is #JewishAmericanHeritageMonth. Jewish Americans have contributed in countless ways to our country and to the Department. This month celebrates their heritage and achievements and reaffirms the U.S. is committed to a world free of anti-Semitism. https://t.co/vIewlUstNz pic.twitter.com/AhwcKdiQST
— Department of State (@StateDept) May 4, 2020

Heritage month

Ghassan Salameh is the chair of UNRWA USA, the American fundraising arm of UNRWA.

He himself was born in Lebanon and attended UNRWA schools there. He made his way to the US:

Ghassan came to the United States when he was 20 years old and received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the California State University-Sacramento and an MBA, focusing on marketing and finance, from the University of San Francisco. From there, he rose through the ranks of Booz Allen from Associate to the coveted position of Senior Partner. Since retiring from Booz Allen, he has held senior management positions at top global companies and is currently the Chairman and CEO of Rubix Holdings, a technology and investment company that has just launched its first two global social media platforms, with more on the way.

This successful American businessman is considered, according to UNRWA's definition, to be a "Palestine refugee" - today.

And so are any of his children and grandchildren, born and raised in the US.

If Salameh would decide to move back to Lebanon, he would be eligible for UNRWA services as a refugee. His American citizenship is not a factor in determining what UNRWA considers refugee status.

This is just one of the absurd stories about UNRWA's definition of "refugee" that the media does not cover. If UNRWA's definition would be in line with that of the Refugee Convention, then the number of "Palestine refugees" would plummet from millions to thousands. And places like Lebanon and Saudi Arabia would feel more obligated to actually give these people a path to citizenship instead of pretending that they will one day go "back to Palestine."

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Like most countries, Lebanon has been arranging flights from countries around the world to bring back citizens during the coronavirus pandemic.

Last Friday, the General Directorate of Lebanese Public Security issued a directive (No. 5932 / m) to Middle East Airlines to not allow people from the Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon to return to Lebanon on evacuation aircraft.

A small number of Palestinians in Lebanon have a Palestinian travel document or an PA passport so they can travel to some countries.

The directive said that Lebanese can return along with their families - but no servants, and no Palestinians.

As a result, many Palestinians who were preparing to return on the evacuation flights in Lebanon were informed that their names had been deleted from the approved lists. These people have no other place to go, and Palestinian media is regarding this as a kind of expulsion of Palestinians from Lebanon.

A Palestinian residing in Lebanon who is married to a Lebanese woman and who has a Lebanese mother (but Palestinian father) told Al-Akhbar that he was literally pulled from the plane after one of the General Security officers checked his papers. He was forced to stay at Dubai airport, although the Dubai authorities had already given him an exit visa. He managed to get himself onto the plane but he knows that many other Lebanese Palestinians are stuck in Dubai with no way of going back to the only home they ever had.

Because they are Palestinians.

Just some more Arab apartheid against Palestinians that doesn't get coverage in the West.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

05/04 Links Pt1: Israel’s Death Toll Rises to 234; Nearly 10,000 Have Recovered; UN Special Rapporteur incites Hatred towards the Jewish People; Palestinian Pay-to-Slay Economics

From Ian:

Israel’s COVID-19 Death Toll Rises to 234; Nearly 10,000 Have Recovered

The number of Israelis who have recovered from coronavirus infection stands at 9,858, the country’s Health Ministry reported Monday. The virus has so far claimed the lives of 234 citizens.

A total of 6,145 Israelis are currently defined as “active” cases, with 94 listed in serious condition. Of the serious cases, 72 are on ventilators. Another 62 patients are listed in moderate condition, with the rest considered light or minor cases. A total of 273 coronavirus patients are currently hospitalized, with 5,872 being treated in hotel facilities or at home.

Hospitals and medical centers throughout Israel continue to shut their coronavirus wards as the number of patients dwindles.

Since coronavirus was first identified in Israel, a total of 16,237 Israelis have tested positive for it. This is double the number of positive tests confirmed in Israel on April 5, meaning that since the first week in April, it has taken 31 days for the number of Israelis who tested positive for coronavirus to double, in comparison to the number doubling every three days at the height of the crisis, when the government enacted the shutdown to contain the spread of the virus.
May 4, 2020 10:31 am
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Five HR Executives Share What It Takes to Get Hired During the Covid-19 Crisis

CTech - Even now, amid the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis and the uncertainty and restrictions that come with it, some companies...

The proximity to coronavirus carriers has taken a toll on the country’s healthcare workers: As of Monday, 582 health care professionals were in self-quarantine, including 112 doctors, 217 nurses and 253 other professionals.

Legal Insurrection: Investigation: The Islamist Origins of Anti-Israel Activists’ Coronavirus Narratives

In April 2020, we published an in-depth investigation: How Anti-Israel Activists Are Hijacking The Coronavirus Crisis And Turning It Against Israel. Our research demonstrated how proponents of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel have exploited the COVID-19 pandemic: namely, blaming the Jewish state and its supporters for as many aspects of the outbreak as possible.

Now, we’ve taken a closer look at how international Arab, Muslim, and especially Palestinian sources have rhetorically weaponized the virus against Israel. And it’s clear that the BDS campaign’s appropriation of COVID-19 is only part of a larger effort to fold the pandemic into pre-existing anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish ideology.

A. Introduction: Historical Accusations of Jews and Disease

The exploitation of COVID-19 as a propaganda tool against Israel is not a unique phenomenon. For hundreds of years, civilizations all over the world have invented false claims about Jews facilitating the spread of sickness; lies about Jews as disease vectors have long been used as a justification for their persecution.

Contemporary allegations about Zionist connections to the coronavirus outbreak are simply the newest iteration of a well-worn conspiracy theory.

David Singer: UN Special Rapporteur incites Hatred towards the Jewish People

Michael Lynk – UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 – has issued an explosive anti-Jewish statement that fails to acknowledge the Jewish People have any vested legal and human rights claims to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria.

Lynk’s statement is the latest in a steadily-growing outpouring of hatred towards the Jewish People that could lead to violence between Jews and Arabs as the 1 July date of destiny approaches for restoring Jewish sovereignty in about 30% of Judea and Samaria after 3000 years.

Couched entirely in the language of the enemies of the Jewish People, Lynk uses the terms:
- “annexation” instead of “restoring Jewish sovereignty”
- “West Bank” instead of “Judea and Samaria”

Lynk lays the groundwork for inflaming violent Arab responses with this highly-exaggerated claim:
- “Israel’s decision to unilaterally march ahead with the planned annexation on July 1 undermines human rights in the region, and would be a severe body blow to the rules-based international order”

Israeli sovereignty will be applied in about 1697 km2 (i.e. square kilometers) – approximating 30% of Judea and Samaria -where 65000 Arabs – 4% of Judea and Samaria’s Arab population – live.

Lynk then misleadingly states:
“It would also further undermine any remaining prospect for a just and negotiated settlement”

Rubbish.

Sovereignty in the remaining 70% – 3958 km2 – home for 96% of Judea and Samaria’s Arab population – will be allocated in direct Israeli-Arab negotiations.

Lynk continues:
“If Israel’s annexation plans proceed, what would be left of the West Bank would become a Palestinian Bantustan, an archipelago of disconnected islands of territory, completely surrounded and divided up by Israel and unconnected to the outside world”

Lynk makes this sensational claim without having seen the actual joint US-Israel Mapping Committee proposals.

Adham Mahmoud Mohamed Al-Masry, 18, died of an unspecified "accident" while on the job with Hamas yesterday.

Usually when this happens the victims either shot themselves or blew themselves up. (Although, judging from this guy's love of phallic objects, it seems possible this was an honor killing.)

Also, an Islamic Jihad member, Anwar Mustafa Hassan Abu Hamada, 45, died in an Egyptian hospital with an unspecified terminal illness.

May Allah accept such martyrs by the tens of thousands.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Gideon Levy builds an entire anti-Israel article in Haaretz around a fake quote

The execrable Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, proves yet again that he is not a journalist but an anti-Israel hack.

He wrote a loving obituary to Denis Goldberg, a long time fighter against South African apartheid. But the entire article is centered around a single quote, and the rest of the article is filler:

A Jewish hero died on Independence Day, with his death unmarked here. Denis Goldberg died in Cape Town, the city he was born in, at the age of 87. He was the epitome of struggle, sacrifice, courage and solidarity, all the qualities so lacking in Israel’s left. If he’d immigrated to Israel, he’d be considered a traitor and terrorist here. But Israel never had Jews such as him, willing to sacrifice everything in the struggle for the freedom of the Palestinians.
...
Like his partners to the struggle, he detested what was happening here. He told historian Tom Segev that Israel was the Middle East’s South Africa and that the solution in both places should be identical: one state with equal rights for all. His vision was realized in his own country and Goldberg returned there, crowned in glory.

The link that Levy gives towards the "he detested what was happening here" is from Middle East Monitor (MEMO), a well-known Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood mouthpiece. That quote, where he called Israel an apartheid state, cannot be confirmed by any other source. Perhaps he said it; but the source is quite suspect. In fact, Levy's fellow Haaretz columnist Anshel Pfeffer called MEMO a "conspiracy theory-peddling anti-Israel organisation."

In other words, perfect for Levy to quote.

Trusting a quote from MEMO is poor judgment, but that is not Levy's major crime here. His quote from Tom Segev is.

Here is what Goldberg himself wrote in his autobiography about that quote (italics his, bolded mine)

In all the time I have been out of prison, and it is now about thirty years, only one joumalist has deliberately misrepresented my political attitudes, and that was Tom Segev, an Israeli who was reputed to be the intellectual agenda setter in the Israeli media.

Segev, who wrote for a weekly magazine, Koteret Rashit, asked to interview me. He came, he said, because he wanted to know about the ethics of the armed struggle. And I gave him a long interview. After all, it is a very interesting topic for an intellectual discussion.

At the outset I explained, using the words off the record, that I would not speak about the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during this interview because I was addressing an Israeli audience about South Africa and apartheid, and no one would give or a hearing if I spoke about the PLO. Those were the conditions of the interview. Now, off the record is off the record. He wrote an article of such blatant dishonesty in which he so blended quotations with his own opinions that his views appeared to be mine. His introduction read, "The ANC is the PLO of South Africa. Oliver Tambo is the Yasser Arafat of South Africa. Israel is the Apartheid nation of the Middle East." I had said none of these things.

Because the subject of the interview was the ethics of armed struggle, I had said as a condition of the interview that the examples I would give would be from South Africa and Southern Africa. For example, General Peter Walls of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, flew in a civilian passenger plane so that he had civilians covering his military movements. At the last moment the general switched planes. When the plane he had been in was shot down, who was ethically responsible? The general who used unknowing civilians to shield him, or the people who shot the plane down? You can discuss until the cows come home, but the general is not innocent. Segev simply omitted my examples, which were relevant to my discussion, and took examples from the Middle East—Palestine, Lebanon, Israel, and so on —to poison the audience against what I was saying. But more than that, he translated every word related to liberation war, armed struggle, just war, anticolonial war, all such terms, as one Hebrew word, terrorism.

How can you discuss ethics if you don't distinguish categories? Worse still, by merging all these different ideas into one, he was saying there is no such thing as ethics. In the political sense he was saying, "The bullets and the bombs and the napalm, and the brutality that comes from the government of the day, are clean, and everything else is terrorism," whether you are talking about Israel, or apartheid South Africa, or any other conflict.

His article caused a media uproar. Many journalists who had been in support of Denis Goldberg of the ANC and of the struggle against apartheid now turned around to attack me in the media. I hoped that the controversy would die down, but k mounted day after day.

Peter Allen-Frost, the doyen of Middle East journalists, phoned me after some days. He said that serious journalists were embarrassed by Segev's artide because it was such a blatant misrepresentation of everything I would have said. He said that the editor of the magazine, Nahum Barnea, was embarrassed and indicated that if I asked for the right to reply, I would get it. I followed his advice. The editor offered me space for a letter to the editor. I insisted on an article with the same prominence as the original. I wanted a cover story, too. He agreed to an article bur not to a cover story. We agreed that I would write the article and that he, the editor, would personally translate it to ensure that it was accurate. He did publish it, and friends told me that it was accurately transcribed. . .

So Goldberg wrote a rebuttal article in the same magazine, strenuously denying Segev's quote, but Levy pretends that this never happened and quotes Segev's lies as truth.

There is no question that Goldberg criticized Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Based on what he wrote in his book, some of that criticism seems to be based on twisted information about Israel. But he denies telling Goldberg that Israel is the Middle East's South Africa and that Israel is the apartheid nation of the Middle East - and this book was published after the MEMO article, further casting doubt on whether he ever called Israel an apartheid state at all.

Levy once again proves that his zeal to smear Israel outweighs integrity and journalistic ethics.

Naturally, the Palestinian press is republishing Levy's piece. I wonder if Haaretz gives permission to them.

(h/t Lawrence)

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Yes, that's really him.

Syksy Räsänen is a board member of Amnesty Finland, and a veteran anti-Israel activist who has written a book about "Israeli apartheid."

Germany announced last Thursday that it was declaring all of Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Räsänen went on a rant about this on Sunday:

Germany's ban on Hezbollah is a perfect illustration of how terrorist lists are tools of power politics.

Hezbollah is banned because it "calls for the violent elimination of the State of Israel and questions the right of the State of Israel to exist".

Replace Israel->Palestine, and this describes most Israeli parties.
Admittedly, there is the difference that most Israeli parties have been implementing the elimination of Palestine, not just called for it.

Yet Likut, Yesh Atid, Shas, Labour etc. are valued partners for Germany and the EU, instead of being labeled terrorists.
Also Syrian islamist rebel groups, which not only called for but fought to bring down the Syrian government were not labeled terrorists by the EU.

Instead they were supported by European states, in line with official EU policy.

Räsänen used as source material a CNN report that the reason for the ban was Hezbollah's anti-Israel stance. But Hezbollah's terror activities are widely documented:

Hezbollah was behind a bombing in Istanbul in May 2011 that wounded eight Turkish civilians in an assassination attempt on the Israeli consul to Turkey, Moshe Kimchi.

In July 2012, a Lebanese man who admitted working for Hezbollah was detained by Cyprus police for planning attacks against Israeli tourists.

The 2012 Burgas bus bombing terrorist attack against Israeli citizens in Bulgaria, which killed six, was done by Hezbollah.

These are only the European attacks since 2010. Hezbollah has been involved in attacks and attempts in Singapore, Argentina and elsewhere. Denying that they are terrorists is the worst kind of pandering.

Oh, and Germany seems to have acted after the Mossad helpfully informed German authorities of the locations of warehouses in Germany where Hezbollah was storing explosives. But that's a minor detail to someone as big-brained as Syksy Räsänen.

But Räsänen, the human rights activist, has nothing bad to say about these attacks - because the intended target was Israeli civilians, and to him, Israelis are not human.

In fact, one does not need a PhD. in psychology to understand that the only reason Syksy Räsänen supports an Islamist terror group that is anti-woman, anti-gay and antisemitic is because Hezbollah is also anti-Israel, and therefore a partner.

And then he goes on to defend the Assad regime, of barrel bombs and poison gas - a truly strange position for a supposed human rights activist to take. But Assad is also anti-Israel so it all makes sense.

Isn't Amnesty the slightest bit embarrassed by their prominent members condoning terror and supporting groups that are against everything Amnesty pretends to stand for?

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

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