Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, June 25, 2020

06/25 Links Pt1: Hagee: Gulf states should offer Israel normalized ties; Poll: Most Palestinians expect sovereignty to proceed, despite protests

From Ian:

Hagee: Gulf states should offer Israel normalized ties

The Gulf states should offer to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel rather than threatening to cut burgeoning ties out of anger over Israeli annexation plans and the US peace initiative, Pastor John Hagee told The Jerusalem Post.

“The Gulf states, who are claiming that Israeli ‘annexation’ would lead to an end to their not-so-secret relations with Israel, ought to put their requests in a positive light,” said Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel. “Rather than threaten to walk away, they should publicly and formally offer normalization of ties between the broader Arab world and Israel, if Israel gives the Palestinians a set period of time to return to the negotiating table in good faith.

“But there must be an understanding that if the PA walks away, ‘annexation’ will then have no impact on broader Arab-Israeli ties,” the pastor continued.

Hagee and his 8.5-million-member Christians United for Israel (CUFI) support the Trump peace plan “in its entirety” and would back up Israel if it decides to apply sovereignty to the West Bank and Jordan Valley.

He dismissed threats the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have made in recent weeks about possible damage to their ties with Israel, should annexation proceed.

King Abdullah and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi have warned that they would review their country’s peace treaty with Israel and might decide to cancel it if Jerusalem annexes the Jordan Valley.

“I had more faith in the treaty before Jordan so easily threatened to cancel it,” Hagee told the Post. “I think this proves that Israel can only rely on herself, and not a piece of paper, to keep her citizens safe. And that means truly defensible borders.

“CUFI stands with the decisions of the democratically elected government of Israel. We don’t weigh in on internal debates, whether they are between average citizens or generals,” Hagee, told the Post ahead of the organization’s annual conference, which will take place June 28-30.

HonestReporting: Did Balfour Declaration Give Jews a License To Steal?

In a commentary published in The Guardian, Avi Shlaim maintains that by recognizing Palestine, Britain can help right the wrongs of 1917’s Balfour Declaration. According to Shlaim, the theft of Palestinian land is a legacy of British colonialism. As such, the UK must do what it can to prevent Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank.

Shlaim’s conclusion is based on a belief that the Balfour Declaration was the original sin in which Israel was conceived. The writer thus implies that this sin has been transmitted by heredity to every Jew who has ever lived in Israel to the present day:

The Balfour Declaration enabled the Zionist movement to embark on the systematic takeover of Palestine, a process the Zionists themselves initially described as settler colonialism, a process which is still continuing.

That’s strong stuff. But not even the intensity of Shlaim’s conviction can overcome some pesky facts about the Balfour Declaration.

Palestine 1917: Not a State in Sight
At the time that Arthur James Balfour issued his famous declaration in support of “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, Shlaim asserts that Jews only comprised 10% of the population. The other 90% were Arabs. How could Britain have recognized the national rights of a tiny minority and denied it to the majority?

Shlaim gets it right. There were 600,000 Arabs and 60,000 Jews living in the region at the time. But what he neglects to mention is that there was no Arab state in the land at the time, nor was there any effort to establish one. In 1917, there was no national Palestinian identity – the non-Jewish residents of the land considered themselves to be part of the wider Arab nation.

State Department accuses Abbas of inconsistency on non-violence pledges

An annual US State Department report on counter-terrorism, published Wednesday, singled out Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as failing to consistently maintain a stance of non-violence.

“President Mahmoud Abbas has stated in the past a commitment to non-violence, a two-state solution and previous PLO commitments, but he has also made inconsistent statements that appear to contradict and undermine his prior commitments,” the report stated.

It quoted one instance in August of last year, in which Abbas said, “So we say to [Israel], ‘Every stone you [used] to build on our land and every house you have built on our land is bound to be destroyed, Allah willing…Jerusalem is ours whether they like it or not… We shall enter Jerusalem — millions of fighters! We shall enter it! All of us, the entire Palestinian people, the entire Arab nation, the Islamic nation, and the Christian nation… They shall all enter Jerusalem…'”

The quote is based on a translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute, a US-based watchdog with strong links to Israel.

Last year, the same State Department report noted only that “PA President Mahmoud Abbas maintained a public commitment to non-violence.”

Israel has long argued that the Palestinian Authority, and particularity its financial support for families of terrorists, glorifies and incites violence against Israelis.

According to PA law, Palestinian security prisoners serving time in Israeli jails and families of assailants killed while carrying attacks against Israelis are eligible to receive stipends and other benefits.

The State Department report also said that the PA’s security forces, which recently cut ties with the US and Israel over Jerusalem’s plans to annex West Bank land, cannot manage counter-terror operations on theirs own.

The coordination has been seen as critical in preventing numerous attacks against Israeli targets.

The PA has boycotted the US administration since President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the US embassy there in late 2017. Washington has retaliated by halting virtually all aid to the Palestinians.

The occupied territory McDonald’s that the UN and HRW don’t mind

Human Rights Watch celebrated the UNHRC releasing a database of Israeli businesses in Judea and Samaria, so the world could boycott them.

We welcome the long-awaited release this session of the database of businesses contributing to illegal Israeli settlements. Settlements are at the root of serious, systematic violations of Palestinian rights, undermining their livelihoods and economy. Transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population to an occupied territory violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and is a war crime. Business activities in the settlements contribute to entrenching them--and the serious rights abuses and the severe discriminatory system that they embody.

Even if you consider the settlements to be illegal, no lawyer in the world claims that businesses are not allowed to operate in occupied territories. But because of the seething hate that the UN and HRW have for Israel, they decided that businesses should be boycotted for where they choose to do business.

But their outrage only extends to Israeli businesses.

Here are photos from a McDonald’s in Laayoune, Western Sahara. (It is Halal.)

This is territory occupied by Morocco. But the McDonald’s there has no fear of being boycotted by the UN or being shamed by Human Rights Watch.

They only care if they can blame the Jewish state.

Laayoune also has a Hyundai service center. It many branches of Moroccan banks like Banque Du Maroc and international banks like Banque Populaire. It has pharmacies, mobile phone stores, shopping malls, hotels.

And no one is making a list of these businesses that support occupation. No one is holding signs outside McDonald’s headquarters insisting that they close their store in Western Sahara.

No one would even consider such a thing. Just like they don’t write threatening letters to HSBC and others over operating banks in Northern Cyprus.

But when it comes to the Jewish state, suddenly everything must be boycotted.

Interesting how that always seems to happen.

Ahmad Erekat’s death shows yet again that Palestinian “eyewitnesses” often lie

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights wrote a narrative of what happened at the Abu Dis checkpoint based on “eyewitnesses.”

But before the video of the incident was released.

According to PCHR’s investigations and eyewitnesses’ testimonies, … At approximately 15:55, when Erekat’s vehicle approached the checkpoint, it deviated from its path and collided into the traffic island opposite the glass room where Israeli border guard soldiers stationed. The soldiers immediately opened fire at the vehicle, wounding Erekat with several live bullets in his upper body. They pulled him out of the vehicle, threw him on the ground and prevented Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS)’s medical crew from approaching him or providing first aid; leaving him to bleed to his death on the dirt at the checkpoint.

But then the video was released, showing that he got out of the car on his own and was not pulled out and thrown on the ground. He jumped out of the car and was immediately shot.

No one who saw the incident could make such a mistake; the “eyewitnesses” lied.

We have documented many similar cases where Palestinian eyewitnesses are quoted as if they are credible only to be found later to have made up the entire incident or crucial details.

The PCHR, which has links to the PFLP terror group, uncritically believes and reports what it wants to report.

As far as "leaving him to bleed to his death," we do not have video but the police at the scene dispute that too:

Responding to the allegations, a Border Police spokesman told The Times of Israel that forces provided medical attention to the assailant within minutes, but were forced to declare his death minutes later.

Footage from the scene after Erekat had been shot shows him bleeding, but still moving. The Border Police spokesman said the video in question had been filmed in the minutes before medics arrived at the scene.

Given that the Border Police was found to be telling the truth about the incident initially, they have far more credibility than the Erekat family of known and consistent liars.

One more inconsistency that should be mentioned, also from the TOI article:

Shani Orr Hama Kadosh was lightly injured in the incident at a checkpoint in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem.

“I signaled to him to halt, the car started to slow down, and I moved in his direction,” Kadosh told Channel 13 news. “He saw that I took a step, he looked me in the eye, turned the steering wheel and rammed into me, and I flew to the other side” of the median.

“The soldiers understood what happened, heard me yell, turned straight in his direction, saw him getting out in their direction, cocked their weapons, and fired in his direction,” Kadosh said.

In the video, a car driven by Erekat can be seen approaching the checkpoint before abruptly accelerating and turning toward a group of police. The car then rams into Kadosh, who is knocked into the air, then it collides with a booth and comes to a stop.

As the driver gets out of the vehicle, he appears to begin running from the police officers, but quickly falls to the ground after being shot.

“He waited for a good moment, turned from the middle of the lane to the side to get a better angle to hurt the officer and then accelerated, turning his car 90 degrees, and lunged wildly at the officers,” a Border Police statement said.

Was Erekat running away and shot in the back, or was he running towards the officers?

He is blurred in the video, but there is enough there to show that he was facing the officers when he was shot. He exits the car a mere 0.2 seconds after the car finishes its recoil from the crash (innocent people in an accident are stunned for several seconds) and Erekat certainly appears as if he is about to run towards the police but they shoot him before he gets a chance. I don’t see him “lunging” but it sure looks like he was about to. (He certainly didn’t slowly exit the car with his hands up.)

And, as we saw from his other videos, it looks more like he wanted “suicide by cop” rather than a planned attack.

EoZTV: Steven L. Pomerantz, expert on law enforcement

This was a really fun interview.

Steven L. Pomerantz is the Director of the Homeland Security Program at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) and a former #3 at the FBI. He created one of the popular police exchange programs between the US and Israel (there are three of them).

We spoke of course about the lies of Jewish Voice for Peace about those programs and what those programs actually teach. Besides that, we also spoke about US law enforcement in general, police morale when people talk about defunding police, what kinds of positive changes could be made to US police departments, how cutting their budgets could affect Jews, and a little about the FBI’s cooperation with Israel.

Definitely worth a listen!

It will be OK (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Israelis are sometimes criticized for saying “yehiye b’seder” [it will be OK] without sufficiently considering the consequences. But there is such a thing as decision paralysis, when you can’t act because you never feel that you have enough information. Sometimes that’s worse than a less-than-perfect decision. I think the opponents of Israel’s application of civilian law to parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley are trying hard to induce decision paralysis.

Today (Wednesday) there is supposed to be a meeting in the White House at which Trump Administration officials reportedly will decide whether to green-light the move. Of course it will be a good thing if the US recognizes Israel’s action, especially if that means that it will issue an official statement that Jewish communities outside the Green Line are part of Israel.

But on the other hand, there is a feeling that the US is trying to micromanage Israel’s behavior. Perhaps, it is suggested, the “green light” will only include several communities near Jerusalem. Or maybe a phase-in that will take several months. Or maybe the US will require Benny Gantz’ explicit agreement. Or – who knows?

Gantz, incidentally, is remarkably unclear about his position, if he indeed has one. Here is how Noa Landau, a left-leaning journalist for Ha’aretz, describes it:

Not unilaterally, yes unilaterally. Only with the international community’s (unobtainable) consent, only with Jordan’s (unobtainable) consent. Only the Jordan Valley, only the settlement blocs. Only as part of the broader Trump plan, only a limited symbolic step. Only with a gesture to the Palestinians – but who needs the Palestinians anyway? Just don’t ask us to elaborate.

There is great pressure being applied from many quarters, both against PM Netanyahu and against Trump, to oppose this step, which is almost universally referred to as “annexation of [part of] the ‘West Bank’”. As Eugene Kontorovich argues [$], it is not “annexation” because the territory in question

…isn’t legally the territory of any other state, nor has it been since Israel’s independence in 1948. Neither the U.S. nor the European Union recognizes the existence of a Palestinian state, and Israel’s sovereign claim to the territory is superior to any other country’s. Putting this move in the same category as Russia’s seizure of Crimea is entirely misleading.

The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) in the US is asking its members to lobby Congress against the plan, “out of a concern for Israel’s safety and security, for the preservation of Israel’s democratic character, and for the place of Israel among the nations of the world.” Its talking points come directly from the Israeli Left, which has been consistently defeated at the polls since the disasters wrought by the government of Ehud Barak in 2000. But don’t liberal American Jews know better than Israeli voters?

The Obama Gang has weighed in as well. Here’s Gangster Susan Rice: “So when it comes to annexation, I think the obvious argument against it is that it all but makes that objective of a two-state outcome impossible…”

What she means, of course, is that it makes impossible the Gang’s version of a two-state solution, in which Israel, including Jerusalem, is divided along the 1949 armistice lines. But that was always so, because it would render Israel indefensible, precisely the opposite of their contention. The Gang also envisioned the expulsion of tens of thousands of Jews from the territory in order to make a Jew-free Palestine possible, and Israel giving up control of Judaism’s holy places – which worked so well [not] under the Jordanians.

But a demilitarized Palestinian autonomy in less than all of the territory is far less dangerous. It does not require expelling Jews (or Arabs), and very few Palestinians are incorporated into Israel. That’s the Trump Administration version of the two-state solution.

Opponents of the move worry a great deal about the response of the Arab countries, especially Jordan, and the Europeans. I must note that if I have misgivings about the US micromanaging Israeli policy, I am even less likely to be influenced by the public pronouncements of Arab leaders who have been pumping anti-Israel venom into the veins of their subjects for decades, and now – when they depend on us for their security – are afraid that they will be overthrown if they don’t show sufficient enmity toward us. Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states all know who will help them when they are in trouble, and who wants to hurt them.

The intersectional Left is fond of asking people to “check [their] privilege.” To the Europeans, I say “check your history,” you who practiced viciously exploitative colonialism for hundreds of years, who started world wars, and who either participated in the genocide of the European Jews, prevented their escape (Britain, I am looking at you), or turned a blind eye. It hasn’t been long enough to give any weight to your moral pronouncements.

Returning to President Trump, I think that moving this deal forward is of great importance to him, to show both his allies in the Middle East and his pro-Israel domestic supporters that he keeps his promises. The fact that his political enemies are mobilizing against him in force – particularly the Obama Gang – shows the importance of this issue. This gives Israel some leverage, which should be applied to keep the initiative from being watered down. We don’t have to agree on anything other than the map, and certainly not to a sovereign Palestinian state.
I think time is very short. The American election campaign will soon begin to absorb all the energies of the administration. Any gradual phase-in of sovereignty will not survive a change of administration, if it should occur. I am convinced that if Mr. Biden is elected, his administration will be dominated by the Obama Gang, which has proven itself an enemy of the Jewish state.
A Biden Administration could reverse an American position established by Trump – as Obama did with respect the Bush-Sharon letters – but it can’t undo Israeli decisions, which can and should be translated into facts on the ground.

It’s imperative that Israel move ahead and extend civilian law to communities in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley, in July as planned. If the map that will delineate the lines isn’t complete, it should be completed, unilaterally if necessary. I don’t see Trump objecting to unilateral action. Why should he? The details, essential to us, are unimportant to him.
There’s one week left in June. If not now, when?

06/24 Links Pt2: Antisemitic Judensau relief preserved, Columbus statue toppled; Sarsour Group Says ‘No Zionists’ at Civil Rights Rally; NFL Quarterback Kirk Cousins Talks About His Love for ‘All Things Jewish’

From Ian:

Antisemitic Judensau relief preserved, Columbus statue toppled

Recently in these columns there appeared the disturbing story of a Protestant Church in Calbe, Germany, whose Pastor, Jürgen Kohtz, was forced by law to reinstall a relief of the Judensau after it had been dismantled for restoration work.

The Judensau – the Jews’ Sow – is one of the more scurrilous images to have come out of the Church. Originating in Germany in the 13th century, when the only Christianity in Europe was Catholicism, it typically depicts Jews as piglets, suckling from their “mother” the sow, sometimes eating her excrement. In its even more obscene form, it depicts Jews engaging in sexual intercourse with the sow.

Martin Luther, who broke away from Catholicism in 1517 to found the Protestant Church, was a particularly eager exponent of the Judensau.

The Judensau found its way into popular German anti-Jewish sentiment, and of course the Nazis made full use of it. Following the First World War, when the German-Jewish industrialist and physicist Walther Rathenau was appointed Foreign Minister, the anti-Semitic masses – those who would later form the core of the Nazi Party – popularised the chant:

“Erschlag den Walther Rathenau / die gottverdammte Judensau”
(“Kill that Walther Rathenau / the God-damned Jewish sow”).

This was later expanded into the lyrics of a song:
“Auch der Rathenau, der Walther
Erreicht kein hohes Alter;
Knallt ab den Walther Rathenau,
Die gottverfluchte Judensau”
(“Also this Rathenau, this Walther,
Do not let reach old age;
Knock off Walther Rathenau
This God-accursed Jewish sow”).

It mattered not to them that Rathenau was deeply patriotic to Germany, his Fatherland; that he was unstintingly loyal to Germany; that he began the secret program to re-arm Germany, in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles, directly challenging the Allied powers who had defeated Germany in the recent World War; or that Rathenau defined himself as “a German of Jewish origin”.

For the anti-Semites he was a Jew – and therefore marked for destruction.

These were not empty words.

One man's quest to take down antisemitic sculptures from German churches

They date back to the late Middle Ages and irritate to this day: The Judensau (literally “Jewish sow”) is a Christian folk image that depicts Jews sucking on the teats or peering into the anus of a pig.

Mostly found in the form of reliefs or gargoyles on the exterior of German churches, some of them major historical landmarks, the images have been the subject of increasing public debate in recent years. And now Germany’s highest court will weigh in on the matter when it hears the case of a Jewish man who says one such sculpture insults him personally.

Michael Duellmann has already lost his bids against St. Marien Church in Wittenberg in district court and on appeal.

“This is the first case regarding a Judensau that is going to the Federal Supreme Court,” Duellmann’s attorney, Christian Rohnke, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

In fact it may be the first Judensau case to go to court at all, but it’s certainly not the first time a German church has tried to lance this abscess. Last week, a landmarks commission in the town of Calbe ruled against a local church that was seeking to retire its Judensau, which had been removed temporarily for restoration. The commission insisted the sculpture be put back on the church facade. The church has not decided whether to appeal.

There are assumed to be about 40 Judensaus in Germany, the oldest dating to the 13th century. Intended to teach lessons about sin and virtue, they were usually placed inside where Jews would not see them.

But beginning in the 14th century, churches also placed them outside, according to the late Israeli historian Isaiah Shachar. In a 2017 interview with the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Shachar said there are Judensaus in Portugal, France, Poland and Sweden, but most are in German-speaking countries.

Opinion is split over how to deal with the sculptures. The German-Jewish historian Michael Wolffsohn recently told Deutschlandfunk radio that the Judensau is a “perversity,” but he opposed taking them down, saying it’s better to address the issue forthrightly than hide it from view.
“What’s done is done and cannot be undone,” he said.

But Germany’s commissioner on antisemitism, Felix Klein, says all the Judensau reliefs should be taken down and put in museums.
Wolfram Kastner, an artist and activist, agrees.

“They have to be removed from the public space,” he said.

A comprehensive list of antisemitic celebrities doesn't exist and it would probably be impossible to create one. What follows is at least the beginning of such a list, to be updated as candidates are suggested (or out themselves in the public sphere).

What constitutes a celebrity? A decision was made to limit the list to entertainers, and to exclude antisemitic politicians and writers who surely deserve their own lists. All in good time. (Which is not a threat. If people go on record with their views, the public is allowed to take note.)

Do we include European celebrities? We can, and did, though Hollywood is king.

How is such a list useful? First and foremost, it serves to tell the world that antisemitism is evil. If we see it, we will call you out on it. Because antisemitism is evil and this is society's way of enforcing morality.

Can a Jew be an antisemite? Sadly yes. There are many inclusions to this list that are either Jewish or of Jewish heritage. The self-hating Jew is a real phenomenon.

What is antisemitism? The official IHRA working definition of antisemitism aside, sometimes it's difficult to know, in particular when antisemitism involves criticism of Israel. Each name in the list is linked to an online news piece that serves as a source for the allegation (more about methodology HERE). Readers may not agree with every inclusion. For purposes of this list, the working guide was "where there's smoke, there's fire."

Does an apologetic statement get a celebrity removed from the list? It's possible, but in most cases, we must remain suspicious. After all, it's only good PR to apologize or remove a tweet deemed a bad move by the public (or one's publicist). There's really no way to know if an entertainer's apology is sincere.

Feel free to email me to suggest other candidates and if a source can be found backing assertions of antisemitism, the list will be updated to include them.

The Comprehensive List of Antisemitic Celebrities:

Sean (P. Diddy) Combs

Dieudonne M'bala M'bala

Letty Cottin Pogrebin

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.

Times of Israel reports:

Qatar is reportedly threatening to cut off millions of dollars in aid to the Gaza Strip if Israel goes ahead with annexation, in an apparent bid to pressure Jerusalem to rethink the plan.

Qatari payments to the impoverished, Hamas-controlled Strip have been key to maintaining quiet there, as well as an unofficial truce between Israel and terror group, and Qatar is reluctant to be seen as enabling any West Bank annexation, Channel 13 reported Tuesday.

Of all the Arab nations, only Qatar has shown a willingness to actually help Gaza, as it coordinates its aid through Israel and has spent billions on housing and food for Gazans while every single other Arab nation only plays lip service to the Palestinian cause.

Here, though, Qatar is threatening to end aid to Gaza in order to make things worse in Gaza so there would be more reason for Hamas to resume rocket attacks – which would bring an Israeli military response.

Even to Qatar, the one nation who has shown sympathy for actual Palestinians as opposed to sound bites and photo-ops of every other Arab country, is saying that politics is more important than Palestinian lives.

Also, Qatar is indirectly showing how Israel cares more about Palestinian lives and livelihoods than any Arab country does. If Israel was as anti-Palestinian as the haters claim, it would not care at all if Gazans have no shelter or food. But it is the Arabs who don’t care about Palestinian lives, and the only reason this threat makes any sense is because Qatar knows that Israel doesn’t want to see innocent Palestinians hurt.

Only Arabs do.

06/24 Links Pt1: Kontorovich: Don't Buy the "Annexation" Hype; Belgium to vote on recognizing Palestinian state, sanctions on Israel; Iran is ready for talks if US apologizes over nuclear pact

From Ian:

Prof. Eugene Kontorovich (WSJ): Don't Buy the "Annexation" Hype (google link)

Applying Israeli civilian law to West Bank settlements wouldn't preclude peace or violate Palestinian rights. It is widely described as an Israeli "annexation." But annexation has a precise meaning in international law: the forcible incorporation by one state of the territory of another state.

The land to which Israel seeks to apply its laws isn't legally the territory of any other state. Neither the U.S. nor the European Union recognizes the existence of a Palestinian state, and Israel's sovereign claim to the territory is superior to any other country's.

Over the past 53 years, Jews have returned to Judea and Samaria, territories from which they had been ethnically cleansed by the Jordanians in 1949. After five decades of Palestinian rejectionism, it is hard to argue that the legal regulation of these communities must remain in limbo until a far-off peace deal is signed.

Past peace efforts have been based on the morally repugnant and impractical assumption that the creation of a Palestinian state must be preceded by the expulsion of all Jews from its territory.

The application of Israeli law wouldn't affect the treatment of Palestinians. In the West Bank, they would continue to be governed by the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli move may help bring the Palestinians to the table, as it would show Palestinian leaders that turning down negotiations weakens their hand.

David Horovitz: Netanyahu’s annexation bid is bad for Israel. Our ally the US should just say no

Many in the international community, too lazy or ideologically blinded to distinguish between cause and effect, have castigated Israel through the decades for the ostensible crime of defending itself against those who have sought our destruction, when the most cursory of inspections would confirm that the “Middle East conflict” would end if the aggression against Israel were to halt.

But Israel itself has known the truth. Its very resilience — its capacity not merely to survive but to thrive through decades of warfare, terrorism, and efforts to demonize it — is the greatest testament to that domestic confidence in our cause and legitimacy.

Unilaterally extending Israeli rule into the West Bank — preempting the Trump administration’s declared effort to foster a negotiated accord, with a land grab that turns Israel into the rejectionist party — marks the very opposite of our national interest. It not only damages the way we are perceived around the world, it remakes the way we present and see ourselves.

The Palestinian Authority rejected the Trump plan before it was even unveiled. It routinely incites against Israel, and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, in incendiary speeches designed to foster intolerance and intransigence, repeatedly seeks to separate modern Israel from its historic Jewish heritage. We cannot safely relinquish territory to this Palestinian leadership, not in the toxic climate it has helped create. We are also, of course, mindful of the devastating consequences of having relinquished adjacent territory to the north (the South Lebanon “security zone” in 2000) and south (the Gaza Strip in 2005), where in both cases terrorist organizations filled the vacuum, sparked wars and conflict, and pose ongoing danger.

But neither should we subvert our own long-term goals, the foundational principles of our own Declaration of Independence — to flourish as a Jewish and a democratic state ready and willing to defend itself against its enemies, and with its hand stretched out in peace to those neighbors who truly wish to live in tranquility alongside it.

Why Netanyahu purports to see a “historic opportunity” in the declarative extension of Israeli sovereignty to disputed parts of the West Bank, deepening Israel’s entanglement among the hostile Palestinians and ceding the moral high ground that is central to Israel’s own resilience and self-confidence, is hard to fathom. He was previously wary of the dangers of a bi-national state between Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea in which Israel would either lose its Jewish majority or have to subvert its democracy.

But he has said he will only go ahead with the approval of the US, our most important, trusted and closest ally. And so it falls to the Trump administration, now deliberating whether to green light Netanyahu’s gambit, to just say no.

In January, US President Donald Trump unveiled a proposal avowedly designed “for the benefit of Palestinians, Israelis and the region as a whole” as a recommended basis for direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiation on a “realistic two-state solution.”

Let’s stick with that.

Australia Takes a Stand Against Anti-Israel Bias

COMMUNAL leaders have lauded the Australian government’s stance at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), after it was the only country to vote against all five anti-Israel resolutions at UNHRC’s 43rd session.

The UNHRC, which has a history of systemic bias against the Jewish State, passed five resolutions against Israel, leading the Australian Mission to the United Nations to blast its “disproportionate focus”.

“Australia has been consistent in its principled opposition to biased and one-sided resolutions targeting Israel in multilateral forums,” the mission said.

Stating, “Our position has not changed,” it added the resolutions “do nothing to contribute to lasting peace and stability for Israelis and Palestinians”.

Meanwhile, Australia’s ambassador to the UN Sally Mansfield said the UNHRC “holds Israel to a higher degree of scrutiny than any other state”.

Noting that Australia has “insisted on bringing these resolutions to a vote, so that they cannot simply be waved though as consensus resolutions”, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim said, “The Australian government is to be highly commended for consistently voting against these resolutions, and for exposing the bias and puncturing the hypocrisy which motivates them.”

Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister had refused to “kowtow to the UN’s obsessive focus on Israel”.

Jews: From Asiatic, Mongoloid, Slavonic, Low-Level Caucasians To Privileged White Supremacists (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

When it comes to spreading Jew-hatred, Tamika Mallory -- a disciple of Al Sharpton -- learned her lessons well. Back in 2018, she was quoted in a New York Times article, about how much she knew about those white Jews:

Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it.

Labeling Jews as "white" and accusing them of having "white privilege" has proven to be a winning strategy for Jew-haters, as protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd have devolved into riots, some of them deliberately targeting Jewish businesses and synagogues.

But as we've pointed out before, Jews Were Not Always Considered "White" In The US

In her article, Diabetes and Race: A Historical Perspective, Arleen Marcia Tuchman writes about how difficult the US government found it to pigeonhole Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century. The Dillingham Commission, a US Congressional Committee set up in 1910 to ascertain the "whiteness" of immigrant groups, apparently had their hands full with the Jews:

In the 19th century, the United States Bureau of Immigration had classified Jews as “Slavonic,” a subgroup of the elite Aryan stock. However, the Dillingham Commission took issue with this, insisting that linguistic and physical criteria, including the “Jew’s nose,” placed them among the Semites, lower down on the Caucasian ladder.

...extreme nativists, who were determined to end the influx of eastern European Jews into the United States [referred] to the Jews’ physical stature, moral traits, and origins as a nomadic tribe, they insisted that the Jews not be classified as Caucasian at all, but as “thoroughbred Asiatics.”...One author could not hide his disdain for the “primitive, tribal, Oriental” character of the Jews. Yet another wrote disparagingly of the “Mongoloid traits” of the Jews, which he attributed to the blood of the Mongolian Khazars allegedly coursing through the Jews’ veins.

Now at last the Jews have finally made it as full-fledged members of the white race in the US -- only to find out that now being "white" is a bad thing.

How are Jews supposed to respond to the charge of being White?

One recourse has been to point out that not all Jews are white -- a fact that is part of the complex history of the Jews.

Ethiopian Jews are, of course, only one example of Jews of Color.

Here is another example of a Jew of Color:

Gal Gadot. Youtube screencap

When Wonder Woman hit theaters in 2017, the Comicbook / DC site confirmed:

Yep, with a quick google search, it turns out that Gal Gadot is not actually Caucasian, but is in fact Israeli.

For proof that Gal Gadot is not "white", the article pointed its readers to a post by Dani Ishai Behan on the Times of Israel Blog, who addresses the question -- Are Jews A People of Color?

At issue is the culture of antisemitism on the "anti-racist" left:

if we are “just white people with funny hats”, then we are perforce not “really” an oppressed group, thereby enabling anti-racists to retain their credentials without having to listen to Jews or take our concerns seriously.

And by extension, labeling Ashkenazic Jews as "white," makes it that much easier to portray Israel as a "white colonial project," based on some religious whim, taking advantage of the Arabs.

Behan responds by saying straight out that Jews -- including Ashkenazic Jews -- are People Of Color:

For one thing, we are an indigenous people of the Middle East. Our identity, our DNA, our culture, our language, and our history all attest to who we are as a people – centuries of exile doesn’t change that.

An obvious rebuttal is that the fact remains that Ashkenazic Jews are...white.
Behan's response is -- so what?

but this is fairly common among all Levantine groups, not just Jews. Moreover, fair skinned Latinos, Iranians, Pashtuns, and Native Americans aren’t exactly rare either. This is called “white passing”: the ability to blend in and escape some of the more immediate effects of non-whiteness while still suffering from the marginalization and othering that non-Jewish minorities experience. To put it another way, looking white is not the same as being white. [emphasis added]

You know, Behan may have a point.

Linda Sarsour. Youtube screencap.

In a second post, Behan writes that Ashkenazic Jews also qualify on the basis of their history for inclusion in the PoC club:

An indigenous people of the Middle East, Ashkenazi Jews were driven out of their homeland by European (and later Arab) colonists and taken as slaves to Europe where they were consistently regarded as savages, periodically massacred, and excluded from society on the grounds that they are a foreign, non-Christian, and non-European (or in the words of our European oppressors: Oriental/Asiatic) presence on European soil. [emphasis added]

The fact that today, Ashkenazic Jews are able to pass as "white," mix with them, and be accepted by them still misses the key point that Behan made before: "looking white is not the same as being white" --

having to hide one’s ethnic background just to be treated as a “normal” human being is not privilege, because white people (*actual* white people, not Jews) don’t have to do this. They don’t need to change their names, or flatten their noses, or bleach their skin, or straighten their hair, or take their kippahs off, etc. The fact that Ashkenazim, and white passing Jews in general, need to *work* just to be seen as regular people really says it all...

A perfect recent example in Winona Ryder, who spoke in an interview of her own experiences of antisemitism as an actress:

“There are times when people have said, ‘Wait, you’re Jewish? But you’re so pretty!’ There was a movie that I was up for a long time ago, it was a period piece, and the studio head, who was Jewish, said I looked ‘too Jewish’ to be in a blue-blooded family.”

True, Jews, to some extent, are able to "pass" themselves off as "white" and do not suffer from the same kind of racism as other groups. But those who exploit this difference in order to attack Jews in the US as benefiting from "white privilege" are jumping the gun -- and show a certain amount of hypocrisy as well:

All in all, we mustn’t make the mistake of assuming Jews enjoy “white privilege” just because our experiences are not symmetrical with those of African-Americans or Hispanics, as to do so would be unreasonable, fallacious, and hypocritical (again, no other ethnic minority is held to this standard). Anti-Jewish racism looks different because the stereotypes are different. In other words, we are not viewed by society as “uneducated thugs”, but as “dishonest”, “conniving”, “clannish”, and “bloodthirsty” mongrels who control everything behind the scenes, and these racist tropes play out in the way we are treated in this country. [emphasis added]

Those who will argue that the economic success of Jews is proof of their "white privilege" are willfully blind to history. There was a time that Jews enjoyed that same level of economic success in Germany and France -- and we all know how fleeting and impermanent that turned out to be.

Bottom line, those elements that combine to make a Jew an Ashkenazic Jew make him non-white as well:

Inasmuch as a group’s non-whiteness is contingent on their history, experiences, heritage, and relationship with the concept of “white” as defined by its pioneers, Ashkenazim certainly do qualify as a non-white people.

If other people from the Middle East are considered to be "people of color" -- regardless of their appearance, then the same must go for Jews as well, and the length of time that Jews have been displaced from their home in the Middle East does not make one bit of difference -- "Centuries of displacement from our land does not change this fact, and alleging otherwise is a form of erasure and antisemitism."

Yet, of all ethnic groups, it is the Jews who continue to be begrudged their Middle Eastern roots on account of the color of their skin.

Now that's creepy.

Saeb Erekat’s nephew, killed during an attack at a checkpoint, seems to have made a farewell video (UPDATE)

Yesterday, Israeli forces killed Ahmad Erekat, a nephew of PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, as he appeared to purposefully swerve into an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint. The Erekat family is calling it a cold blooded execution:

Palestinians said a man shot and killed by Israeli forces during an alleged car-ramming attempt was actually rushing to pick up his sister and mother ahead of a family wedding later Tuesday evening, accusing Israel of executing him in cold blood.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said his cousin, Ahmad Moustafa Erakat, was only rushing when Border Police shot him dead at the “Container” checkpoint in the neighborhood of Abu Dis, north of Bethlehem. Erekat rejected the Israeli account that the 28-year-old victim had attempted to run over a female officer in an attempt to commit a terror attack.

“My cousin, the nephew of my wife, was executed, murdered in cold blood and Netanyahu bears responsibility,” Erekat was separately quoted as having told the Kan public broadcaster.

According to Border Police, the younger Erekat was speeding when he arrived at a checkpoint at the entrance of Abu Dis. When an officer flagged him to halt, the driver veered toward her and slammed into the checkpoint tower. He subsequently got out of the vehicle and advanced toward forces who opened fire and killed him.

The Border Police have not yet released the video of the incident* (see below) which could clear up a lot. But a video has surfaced, from Ahmad’s phone, that appears to show that he was depressed and fighting some sort of accusations against him of collaborating with Israel, and that he had shamed his family:

The audio is unclear, but Shimrit Meir, who broke this story, says that he is saying, “Your brother is not a spy, I have never betrayed my homeland. I didn’t look at other men’s girls; ever since I got to know that girl, I didn’t know any secret of hers nor she of mine…Look at the situation I am in, I started telling things….I brought shame on my parents, and myself. …What happened to me has to do only with my fear and the thing that they put in my drink, and nothing else.”

I verified that this is consistent with what other Arabic speakers can understand from the video.

UPDATE 1: Meir says there was another similar video on his phone as well, where he spoke about the Shin Bet trying to recruit him, his saying some names to them, and something about his photo on the COGAT page, which may be what shamed him.

The part that Erekat says about shame, together with his exiting the car after the crash and approaching the border police, strongly indicates that Ahmad was intending “suicide by cop.”

The shirt in the video seems to be the same one he was wearing when he was shot, which means that this video might have been made only minutes before the attack. (I don’t know the provenance of this photo.)

It seems possible that Ahmad was the target of a “honeytrap” where an Israeli poses as an Arab girl and strikes up a friendship to get information, and the family suspected.

The family claims that Ahmad was engaged to be married next month. Perhaps Erekat was also pressured to become engaged to a girl he did not want.

There are still questions to be sure, and the Erekat family is also accusing Israel of allowing him to die without giving him medical attention – there is one video showing him still moving while a border police officer walks near him. Without knowing more, it appears that more could have been done to save his life.

But the video from the car strongly indicates that Ahmad Erekat fully intended to die and to erase his shame for some incident with a girl.

(h/t Yisrael Medad and Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE 2: Video of the incident shows what can only be a deliberate car ramming attempt.

Palestinians are REALLY sick of Abbas

The latest Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll shows that Hamas and Fatah are virtually tied if evections were held today in the West Bank and Gaza.

If new legislative elections were held today with the participation of all factions, 66% of Palestinians say they would participate in such elections. Out of those, 34% say they will vote for Hamas and 36% say they will vote for Fatah, 8% will vote for all other third parties combined, and 23% are undecided.

Four months ago, the same question gave Hamas 32% of the vote and and Fatah 38%.

Also, if Mahmoud Abbas would run against Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Haniyeh would win 49% to 42%. Abbas would also lose against imprisoned terrroist Marwan Barghouti.

An astonishing 58% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign (it was 62% four months ago.)

Perhaps Palestinians are no longer fooled by the wall-to-wall photos on social media and in posters of Abbas and Arafat together as equals.