Short-lived Istanbul agreement between Hamas and the PA
Now that the PLO has caved and returned to security coordination with Israel, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are angry and upset.
The Islamic Jihad spokesperson in Lebanon (who has been very visible lately in PIJ media), Ihssan Ataya, called the announcement of the restoration of relations and security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel "a disregard for the Palestinian people" and "a stab in the heart of national unity, consolidating the hegemony of the Zionist enemy over the Palestinian lands, and reviving the annexation plan in light of the increase in settlement projects."
Hamas stopped their reconciliation talks in Cairo with the PLO.
All of this puts the PLO's Catch-22 situation in focus, and it is also the reason that peace is impossible.
For there to be a chance at peace, the PLO - which would sign the accords - must represent the entire Palestinian people and it must oppose terror.
The PLO doesn't rule Gaza, so there can be no peace with a group too weak to control its own lands. If it unifies with Hamas, then it cannot pretend to be against terror.
There is no realistic solution to this at this time. No Palestinian wants to separate Gaza from the West Bank. Israel is not interested in a long, bloody war that would destroy Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. The PLO is too weak to govern Gaza. Neither the PLO nor Hamas would accept the results of elections that they lose and give up their power base.
The entire world knows this - it has been the situation for 12 years. Which is why those pushing for more negotiations are not thinking rationally: Israel cannot negotiate on final status issues with leaders who are too weak to govern their own people, and Israel cannot negotiate with terrorists.
One major reason peace is impossible is because of this dysfunctional relationship between the PLO's West Bank and Hamas' Gaza.
If you want to laugh, here is a solution: when Palestinians learn how to be as practical and accepting of Israel as a permanent part of the Middle East and Jews as natives - the way that Emiratis are - they can have a state by the week after.
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.
A recent IAEA report showed that Iran has considerably more low-enriched uranium than was permitted by the JCPOA and is installing advanced centrifuges at Natanz, also in contravention of the agreement, to further increase production. In addition, the uranium is being enriched to a higher degree than before. If they want to, the Iranians could have nuclear weapons sometime in 2021.
Apparently in response to the report, President Trump reportedly asked advisors for options to take action against Iran’s nuclear program. Those options could include anything from increased economic pressure, to cyber-attacks, and even military action. The NY Times said he had been “dissuaded” by advisors from a military strike because it “could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.” But Trump is nothing if not independent.
When Donald Trump took over from Barack Obama, one of the first things he did was reverse Obama’s disastrous Iran policy (I highly recommend this link), which was one of appeasement and acquiescence to extortion, motivated in part by Obama’s desire to see the end of the sovereign Jewish state. I’m convinced that Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Iran is the only approach short of war that might have any chance of modifying the behavior of the Iranian regime, which sees its nuclear program as a top priority. While the Iranian regime has responded to the pressure with increased aggressiveness, the US has – or would have, if the policy were to be continued – far more staying power.
The Iranian regime’s strategy has been to keep a low profile. It didn’t retaliate after the American killing of its most valuable terror operative, Qassem Soleimani. It didn’t construct a nuclear weapon. It has contented itself with strengthening its assets in Iraq and Syria, and gradually ramping up its nuclear program without taking any major visible steps. Despite its claims that the US is weak, the regime knows that it would be no match for what is still the world’s greatest military power. And it fears Trump because of his unpredictability.
Unsurprisingly, the major media are full of claims that “maximum pressure has failed.” That is not precisely true: it simply needs more time.
It may not get it. All the evidence seems to point to a Biden Administration returning to the Obama policy in some form, although the particular animus of Obama toward Israel seems to be lacking in Biden himself. The history of negotiations with the regime over its nuclear program shows that it will not give up anything that it is not forced to, and it will demand the relaxation of sanctions as a condition for negotiations. The regime has already indicated that it is happy with the (apparent) result of the American election, and is looking forward to dealing with a Biden Administration.
Whatever happens, Israel will be deeply involved. Part of Iran’s response to an attack, whether by Israel or the US, would be to unleash Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel’s home front. It would also attack US assets in Iraq, and American warships (and maybe commercial shipping) in the Gulf. It would probably hit Saudi Arabia too. These points were certainly made to Trump by his advisors.
While one conclusion could be that it is best not to act, there is another interpretation: rather than a minimalist operation to take out specific nuclear facilities, a larger operation that would also destroy Iran’s overall military capability is indicated. Probably an American attack on Iran would be accompanied by Israeli preemptive strikes against Hezbollah, in order to prevent the damage that would be done to Israel by the massive rocket barrage that would follow a blow against Iran.
PM Netanyahu has been averse to preemptive action against Hezbollah, partly because he wants to avoid the international condemnation that would follow. And because life is unpredictable, he will delay until the last moment; who knows what might happen to make war unnecessary? Finally, he may believe that an ultra-fast response to a Hezbollah attack plus Israel’s anti-missile systems would mitigate the disadvantages of allowing them to strike first.
On the other hand, he is a strong proponent of the Begin Doctrine, which says that Israel will not – must not – allow hostile states in the region to obtain nuclear weapons, especially Iran, which he views as having an antisemitic and genocidal regime. He knows that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, they will serve as an umbrella to protect Hezbollah, greatly multiplying the danger to Israel. I’m convinced he would go along with an American plan.
If Trump wants to achieve his original objective of precluding a nuclear-armed revolutionary Islamic regime in Iran, he has only about two months to act – and his ability to do so will weaken as the lame duck period progresses.
The clock is ticking.
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.
The world will doubtless mark the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials, which began in November 1945, as a model of international law. For the first Nazi executed at Nuremberg, however, the trial embodied not multilateralism but rather the revenge of the Jews. This was made clear in an eerie moment 11 months later, one whose historical and theological lessons reverberate to this day.
On October 16, 1946, Julius Streicher—the Nazi’s Nazi, publisher of Der Stürmer, the man who personally ordered the destruction of the Great Synagogue of Nuremberg on Kristallnacht—was taken to be hanged. As Newsweek reported, Streicher did not die with dignity: “He had to be pushed across the floor, wild-eyed and screaming ‘Heil Hitler!’ Mounting the steps he cried out: ‘And now I go to God.’ He stared at the witnesses facing the gallows and shouted: ‘Purimfest 1946.’”
That is a reference to the Jewish holiday of Purim, which marks the tale told in the book of Esther: the rise of Haman as vizier of Persia and his attempt to wipe out the Jews. In the end, Haman himself is hanged on the gallows, and later, following a war against his allies, Haman’s 10 sons are hanged as well. In invoking Purim, Streicher drew on an anti-Semitic trope with a long German lineage. Purim, for Martin Luther, reflected the bloodthirsty nature of the Jews, as he noted in a text called On the Jews and Their Lies:
They are real liars and bloodhounds who have not only continually perverted and falsified all of Scripture with their mendacious glosses from the beginning until the present day. Their heart’s most ardent sighing and yearning and hoping is set on the day on which they can deal with us Gentiles as they did with the Gentiles in Persia at the time of Esther. Oh, how fond they are of the book of Esther, which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous yearning and hope.
That Streicher went to his death echoing Luther’s anti-Semitism was appropriate, for he had lived his life following Luther’s advice: “First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them…I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.”
A great gulf looms between the image of Mennonites as a peaceful Christian denomination engaged in humanitarianism and peace building around the world, including in the Middle East, and what historians have begun to reveal about the entanglement of a substantial minority of Mennonites with National Socialism during the 1930s and ’40s. So, who hid the Mennonite involvement with Nazism and how?
After World War II, the primary narrative that Mennonite leaders in Europe and North America crafted about their churches’ activities in the Third Reich emphasized repression and hardship. The denomination’s leading aid organization, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), worked during the late 1940s and early 1950s to help resettle thousands of European Mennonites who were displaced as a result of the war. MCC relied on financial and legal assistance from larger refugee agencies affiliated with the United Nations. In dealing with their United Nations colleagues, MCC officials insisted most of their wards “were brutally treated by the German occupation authorities” and “did not receive favored treatment.”
One of Mennonite Central Committee’s star witnesses was a refugee named Heinrich Hamm. Like tens of thousands of other Mennonites who had experienced the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe, Hamm was from Soviet Ukraine, and had retreated westward with German troops in 1943 to avoid again coming under communist rule. Five years later, Hamm was an MCC employee, helping to run a large refugee camp in occupied Germany. MCC’s special commissioner in Europe passed to United Nations officials Hamm’s story of evacuating from Ukraine to more western areas:
It is quite an erroneous idea to think that all Mennonites were brought to Poland to be settled on farms. I and my family came to a camp Preussisch-Stargard in the Danzig area. Immediately representatives of various works and concerns came to fetch cheap labour. I had to work in a machine factory where I remained until the end of the war. Besides the four Mennonite families many Ukrainians, Frenchmen and Poles worked there also. There was no difference in the way these various national groups were treated.
The efforts after the war by Mennonite Central Committee to portray refugees like Heinrich Hamm as victims of Nazism were largely successful. Based on statements from MCC officers and many migrants themselves, refugee agents affiliated with the United Nations believed that “the majority of those [Mennonites] who found themselves in Germany at the end of the war had not come voluntarily to that country. They were deported alongside other Russians to be used as slave labourers.” As another evaluation concluded, Mennonites were fundamentally “an un-Nazi and un-nationalistic group.” MCC ultimately succeeded in relocating most of the refugees under its care with United Nations assistance to new homes in West Germany or overseas, mostly in Canada and Paraguay.
Hamm and his colleagues at Mennonite Central Committee wanted United Nations-affiliated refugee organizations and other interested parties to think that any collaboration by members of the denomination with National Socialism was exceptional and insignificant. They implied that if some young men had perhaps gotten carried away, surely this was because they had been drawn away from their faith under Soviet rule. But wartime records do not corroborate this story.
Shannon Nuszen is coming up against Jewish opposition to her
work at Beyneynu, which is all about exposing the true nature of Christian
missionaries inside Israel. These evangelical Christians are careful not to
use overt language in describing their mission to the Jewish Israelis they meet
and work with. But Nuszen captures the truth by way of videos created by the
Christians for their supporters abroad, in which their mission is stated in
explicit terms. And the truth is that these Christians are in Israel for the
express purpose of converting Jewish Israelis to Christianity.
Why would any Jew not want this truth exposed? It’s not a
mystery: money talks, nobody walks. Evangelical Christians give a lot of money
to Israel, and they’re very nice people. No one wants to believe they have any
underlying, hidden purpose in being here. The Jews don’t want to believe these
Christians are anything other than what they purport to be: nice people who
support the Jews and the Jewish State.
Jews are tired of being hated. When someone shows them a bit
of love, they drink it up. They are like Sally Fields at the Oscars gushing, “You like me! You really like me!”
They need to believe these Christians don’t have an ulterior
motive. They need it for their self-esteem. And of course, there’s the money.
Lots and lots of it. And a lot of these Christians are working the vineyards of
Samaria, for free. Which is as good as financial support, right?
So we have a situation where Shannon Nuszen, through her
organization, Beyneynu, is distributing videos to Jewish journalists in which
Christians expose their true purpose on camera. And Jews are going around
behind the scenes and sometimes, shamelessly, right in front of Nuszen, casting
aspersions on her work.
These Jews tell the journalists and anyone else who will
listen that Shannon is disturbed, that because of her past, she has a vendetta—that
these Christians are REALLY NICE PEOPLE who have told them, the Jews, that converting the Jews is the furthest thing from
their sweet little innocent minds. These Christians LOVE the Jews, say the
Jews, and only want to help and support them.
Would that all that were true. But it’s not. And Shannon is
only curating words said by these very same Christians—words which clearly have
no other context—that is, if one is being honest about this stuff. The
Christians are in Israel for one sole purpose. They want to bring the Jews to
Jesus.
They’ll swear up and down it isn’t so. But the videos say
otherwise, if you can get past all the Jews out to destroy the messenger,
Shannon. To them I say, “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
The Jews know on which side their bread is buttered. And it’s
actually a really shameful thing to witness how they grovel to those trying to
convert them while speaking out against their own: Shannon. But you know what?
Let’s give Shannon a chance to explain it all in her own words. And then you
can decide whom to believe: Shannon, or the Jewish naysayers who benefit from
these Christians and work behind the scenes to deride their fellow Jew:
Varda Epstein: Can
you tell us a bit about your background?
Shannon Nuszen: I was born and raised in Evangelical
Christianity. My father was a minister, and for many years I was a missionary myself
with a tremendous love for Israel and a focus on the Jewish people.
In 2005 I visited Israel for the first time and returned
home more determined than ever to prove to myself and every Jew I knew that
Jesus was indeed the messiah prophesied in the bible.
However, homing in on that one issue and fully immersing
myself in learning about the fulfillment (or lack thereof) of these prophecies
did not result in any reaffirming of my faith, or in me perfecting my arguments
for bringing Jews to Jesus. The opposite happened, and through learning the
Jewish perspective, it became clear that everything I knew and believed in was
false.
Long story short, I ended up converting to Judaism and have
been living as an Orthodox Jew ever since. I now live in Israel.
Varda Epstein: Why
did you decide to focus on exposing and fighting missionaries in Israel? Is
this really a significant presence or threat to the Jews of Israel?
Shannon Nuszen: I was on the other side. I was one of those
missionaries. I understand better than most how aggressive and unyielding these
missionaries are. Most Jewish people, though they may have encountered these
missionaries, really do not understand the full scope and danger they present
to our people. We are not just dealing with Christians trying to convert Jews.
It’s worse than that and more insidious because they are playing word games.
The missionaries misappropriate Jewish symbols, icons, and
traditions in order to evangelize the Jews. They are portraying Christianity in
a Jewish way to get Jews to believe in Jesus. I know this because I was one of
those people. As a result, I feel a heavy responsibility, almost a burden, to
alert the Jewish community to the problem that confronts them.
It is shocking. It is
a stage four cancer, and there is no stage five. These missionaries have
managed to infiltrate and become a part of the highest echelons of the Israeli
government and its leadership. Because of their financial and political support
for Israel these evangelicals have managed to blind Israelis to the inherent dangers
of their mission. Evangelical support comes at an extremely high price, and I
understand why Israeli leaders and many ordinary Israelis and Israeli
businessmen turn the other way. We have many enemies, and therefore we are
willing to work with anyone, even when it comes at a very dangerous price.
Varda Epstein: Would
you tell us about some of the people and organizations you’ve worked with on
the issue of missionaries in Israel?
Shannon Nuszen: In my quest to research and supply
information about specific missionary groups that are active in Israel, I have
worked with and continue to work with every organization I know of in this
field. In an official capacity I began this work 13 years ago in Houston,
countering local missionaries in a grassroots effort with Rabbi Stuart Federow.
During this time, I also worked for Outreach Judaism for a span of a few years.
Most of my work in this field, however, has been with Jewish Israel, as their North American
liaison.
Varda Epstein: Tell
us about Beyneynu. Why did you decide to found this organization and what is
its purpose?
Shannon Nuszen: Beyneynu is a nonprofit organization that
monitors missionary activity in Israel and works with government and community
leaders to create proper boundaries in their partnerships with faith-based
organizations.
Are we against Christian support for Israel? No! We simply
draw the line at missionary efforts, and do not believe Jewish organizations should
be forming alliances or partnerships with those who have as their agenda the
desire to bring Jews to faith in Jesus.
I do not consider myself a “counter missionary,” and Beyneynu
is not another counter missionary organization. Our focus is on alerting the
Jewish community to missionary efforts, and to help the Israeli leadership to
identify those who threaten the Jewish character of the State of Israel.
Varda Epstein: You’ve
released some shocking videos of missionaries in Israel and abroad. How are
these videos created?
Shannon Nuszen: These videos are created the same way news
publications produce videos. They scour hours of videos and take the most
germane elements they find and broadcast them to the public. This is critical
to this effort.
Most videos put out by the missionaries are over an hour
long. The Jewish community needs to know about the elements in these videos
that specifically speak about their intentions in regard to the Jewish people
of Israel.
It’s important to understand that if these missionary groups—based
as they are inside of Israel—were self-sustaining, they wouldn’t take the risk
of discussing these topics in videos, but all their financial support comes
from abroad, from outside of Israel. The videos are created precisely for this audience:
evangelical Christians who live beyond the borders of Israel. Virtually nothing
comes from native Israeli missionaries, therefore they must convey to evangelical
Christians abroad the work that they are doing, and that is “winning Jewish
souls for Yeshua.”
These people all, without exception, use language that serves
as dog whistles for their followers. None of them would ever come straight out
and use the term “convert Jews to Christianity” to describe their mission. That
type of language is no longer used among the Jews because Jewish people
translate “convert to Christianity” as losing their Jewish identity (and they’re
right).
This was clear in another video Beyneynu released not long
ago where the CEO of God
TV, Ward Simpson, clearly stated “We
don’t want Jews to convert to Christianity, we simply want them to accept Jesus
as their messiah.”
Varda Epstein: There
have been some accusations that you are selectively editing these videos to
show something that isn’t really there. They say you have a vendetta, because
you were one of them, and have now converted to Judaism. What would you say to
your accusers?
Shannon Nuszen: The accusers are not bystanders. They are
the same activists who repeatedly carry water for these evangelical Christian
groups by repeating their talking points, because they work with them and
depend on them for their financial support. They have a vested interest in
protecting these missionaries.
The real question for these accusers (or perhaps “handlers”
is a better word) is: Do these Christians believe it is their obligation to carry
out “The Great Commission?” Matthew 28:19 “. . . to make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit.”
In our latest video, these Christians are clearly speaking
of this obligation to their followers, if not in so many words. If the
naysayers cannot answer to the charge or prove that it’s not the case, then the
only tactic left for them is to attack the messenger: me.
As far as having a vendetta, I would say the opposite is
true. Just as much as I feel it is an obligation to warn fellow Jews of this
danger, I would love to be able to demonstrate to Christians the pain their
actions inflict on the Jewish people in order to foster some understanding.
Varda Epstein: Why
are so many Jews against your work, and speaking out against this work and even
you, personally? What do they stand to gain by allying with Christians, and
working against you, a fellow Jew?
Shannon Nuszen: I do not think even our most fierce
opposition opposes the goal of our work. This is the one issue that Jews across
the spectrum agree on. The entire Jewish world is against efforts to convert
Jews. They just refuse to believe that the Christians who give them financial
support, and who support their programs, could possibly have any missionary
agenda. It becomes for them a very personal issue.
The information we present, however, is not our opinion. We
are not quoting out of context or interpreting what these Christians are
saying. Our only aim is to inform.
Varda Epstein: Is
there anything else you would like to say to your accusers?
Shannon Nuszen: I try
not to focus on the negative attention or answer those who are aligning
themselves with missionaries. They have their reasons for what they do, and
they will have to answer for that. My focus is on the effect of these missionaries
on Jewish communities worldwide.
Varda Epstein: Can
you give us some examples of things these missionaries have said for which the
context is undeniable, and cannot possibly be explained away by selective
editing?
Shannon Nuszen: The undeniable issue that cannot be disputed
is “The Great Commission,” which you’ll find being preached in each of the
videos we have curated, and is common to all missionaries. “The Great
Commission” is the commandment given by Jesus himself “. . . to make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit.” Those who teach this concept are fully committed to living by
this commandment and everything they say and do is by way of fulfilling this
obligation.
The methods and language used to explain this in ways that
won’t offend Jews are many, but the bottom line is that they do not believe
they are exempt from this commandment or that they should refuse to participate
in its fulfillment. They see this commandment, “The Great Commission,” as their
primary goal, and crucial factor in the “restoration” (you’ll hear them say
that word a lot) process that in their belief, serves as preparation for the
second coming of Jesus.
Varda Epstein: Where
are you and Beyneynu going with this work? What can we expect to see coming up
next?
Shannon Nuszen: Beyneynu’s efforts are primarily behind the
scenes working with government
and Jewish leadership to understand the dangers of partnering with
missionaries. With the tremendous outpouring of love and support coming from
the Christian world, it is important that we understand who we can and cannot
trust.
Sometimes our efforts include informing the public of
problematic events or relationships that require their help to demand action.
This was the case with God TV. Even though they had already secured a contract
with the cable provider, and had been licensed by the Israeli government to
broadcast this programming, it was public outcry that brought about the
complete reversal of this state of affairs and caught the attention of the
world.
That is the message that every organization looking to
partner with us should understand. We appreciate the support for Israel, but we
must draw the line when it comes to missionary activity.
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.
Yesterday, I was in the mood to find old, public domain comic books and change the dialogue. Romance comics work best because they are so dramatic.
Enjoy!
I also took an Ali Abunimah tweet and put the words, verbatim, in one of the romance comics where it seems to work very well!
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.
The indictments of U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump are as varied as his critics. The mandarins of the foreign-policy establishment have led the charge by insisting that the norm-shattering president has weakened U.S. alliances and empowered the country’s adversaries. Overlooked is the fact that the Trump administration has pursued a successful Middle East policy. And it succeeded precisely because it challenged entrenched assumptions. In the end, Trump will hand President-elect Joe Biden a region that is more stable than it was four years ago and an alliance network that is stronger than the one Trump inherited. This is a worthy legacy that will be squandered by the Democrats if they are determined to eviscerate all things Trump.
Among the world’s revisionist powers, none has taken the battering of Iran. Trump’s successes have confounded his critics. At first, many in the commentariat insisted that if Trump were to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Washington would stand alone and be incapable of maintaining multilateral economic sanctions. In the end, the European co-signatories of the deal may have complained—but more importantly, European businesses complied. The next pillar of wisdom to fall was the notion that should the United States walk away from the deal, Iran would rush to the bomb. Tehran has accelerated some parts of its nuclear activities, but the country is still years away from having a nuclear bomb. The sabotage of Iran’s nuclear installations by unconfirmed intelligence actors has moved the atomic goal post further out of Tehran’s reach. And finally, the last notion to fall was that Trump’s killing of Iran’s famed Quds Force commander, Qassem Suleimani, would spark a war. Instead it provoked a missile attack on a relatively unoccupied potion of a U.S. military base in Iraq—with sufficient forewarning by Tehran to Washington that was passed on via the Swiss.
The stark reality is that the clerical oligarchs were prepared to negotiate with either winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. A regime that cannot stabilize its currency or protect its people from the ravages of a pandemic needs relief from sanctions and understands that the pathway to the global economy and financial system runs through Washington. The problem is that the Americans who will show up at the table after Jan. 20 may be so disdainful of Trump’s maximum pressure strategy that they fail to appreciate its many advantages.
When President-elect Joe Biden finally starts getting intelligence briefings, he may want to pay special attention to Israel’s successful operation against Abu Muhammad al-Masri, al-Qaeda’s second in command.
The significance of that operation, which took place in August and saw al-Masri shot dead in the street, is its location: Iran. According to the center-left conventional wisdom, this sort of thing should be impossible. While many analysts acknowledge that senior al-Qaeda leaders fled to Iran after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, they have insisted that there was no significant relationship between the Shiite majority regime in Tehran and the Sunni-jihadist terrorist group.
In fact, al-Qaeda’s No. 2, who was wanted by the FBI for his role in planning the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, was living freely in an Iranian suburb. It should be obvious by now that Iran is willing to cooperate with al-Qaeda when their interests converge.
Iran and al-Qaeda have cooperated for decades against U.S. targets in the Middle East. “There is ample evidence going back to the 1990s that Iran is willing to work with al-Qaeda at times,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a founding editor of the Long War Journal. “Sometimes their interests are opposed and sometimes they converge.”
This came to the public’s attention in 2017, after the CIA released a batch of documents recovered at the compound of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. One of those documents is a 19-page memo laying out the quarter-century history of al-Qaeda’s relationship with Iran. It says Iranian intelligence offered al-Qaeda money, arms and training and facilitated the travel of some operatives, while providing safe haven for others. Indeed, after the fall of the Taliban, the wives and children of bin Laden and his deputy fled to Iran.
A group of Republican senators led by Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent a letter to President Trump this week urging him to issue an executive order allowing goods produced in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank to be labeled “Made in Israel." Axios obtained a copy of the letter.
Why it matters: While the rest of the world views the settlements as illegal under international law and not part of Israel, the Trump administration has taken several steps intended to legitimize them and blur the differentiation between Israel and the West Bank.
- The letter — signed by Sens. Cotton, Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) — pushes the administration to issue the order before Jan. 20.
The letter was sent to Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf.
- The senators warned that a Biden administration would return to a policy of differentiating between Israel and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
- That would make goods from the settlements “prime targets for BDS boycotts," they wrote, referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
The havdalah ceremony involves wine. Muslims are forbidden to drink wine. So the Muslim policeman stopped the Jews from their own weekly religious ritual because it violates Muslim precepts.
The Palestinian Arabs at the time (and today) would argue - but what about our religious practices? Don't they deserve to be protected?
And the world, facing a disagreement between the (seen as fanatic) Arabs and the (seen as reasonable) Jews, would take the Arab side - because, really, is this something worth fighting over? The Jews should concede to keep the peace.
Now, every single Jewish holy place in the region is also (by sheer coincidence, of course!) also considered a Muslim holy spot. If the Palestinian Authority - which defines itself as Muslim - has physical control over an area, it would always place the Muslim demands over the Jewish demands, on sites that were Jewish for may centuries before Mohammed was born.
This incident is a blueprint of what happens when Palestinian Arabs are given control of Jewish holy places.
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.
Saudi writer Osama Yamani wrote a bombshell article published by the official Saudi Okaz news agency that questions whether the Al Aqsa Mosque mentioned in the Quran is actually in Jerusalem.
While traditional Islamic orthodoxy says that Mohammed's miraculous Night Journey to the "farthest mosque" went to Jerusalem, nowhere in the Quran is that location identified.
The mosque known today as Al Aqsa on the Temple Mount was built decades after Mohammed died.
Yamani brings a number of sources, even saying that it is not definitive that the first qibla (prayer direction) for Muslims was towards Jerusalem.
He then says that the original "farthest mosque" was in Al-Jarana, between Mecca and Taif in Saudi Arabia, some 18 miles from the Kaaba in Mecca.
He further asserts that the only reason Muslims say Al Aqsa is in Jerusalem is political, not historic.
This is causing an earthquake of anger in the Muslim world, especially since this was published by the official Saudi news agency which would not publish anything not approved by the Kingdom. Articles and television reports are claiming that the Saudis have swallowed Zionist lies. Palestinians are incensed.
Notably, Saudi currency features both the Jerusalem mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Why would the Saudis want to publish such an article? They might want to align with Israel against Iran but they are not suddenly Zionist, claiming that Jerusalem is primarily a Jewish holy city.
It is possible that the Saudis are nervous about the potential flood of Gulf Arabs flying to Israel to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, feeling that it is a threat to the Mecca tourist industry, especially hard hit during the pandemic. Videos and photos of UAE pilgrims visiting the Temple Mount must sting. Promoting another Saudi site as the original site of Mohammed's Night Journey is a way to counter that.
Daniel Pipes has written the most definitive article in English debunking the idea that the Al Aqsa mentioned in the Quran is in Jerusalem. He continually updates it here with new information.
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.
Six years ago today, two Palestinian terrorists equipped with axes, a meat cleaver and a gun entered the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue while worshipers were praying the silent Amidah prayer. They hacked four rabbis to death and injured seven other worshipers, one of whom died nearly a year later after never waking from his coma. They also shot a Druze policeman to death.
At the time, the PFLP claimed responsibility. The terrorists were cousins and were related to a PFLP terrorist convicted of attempted murder who had been released earlier in 2014 as an Israeli goodwill gesture to restart "peace talks." Israeli police say that the murderers, who worked in a nearby grocery store, seemed to have acted alone.
Its disgusting article says, "Today the sixth anniversary of a heroic operation at the hands of the mujahideen Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal inside a synagogue, using a large ax and two revolvers, on the land of Deir Yassin, west of Jerusalem, where the Abu Jamals managed to attack five rabbis, killing them and wounding others."
"Uday and Ghassan were distinguished by high morals and humanity, as they were distinguished by love, patience, will, strength and courage, and they were very keen to provide assistance to every needy person. Uday was always sitting near his 90-year old grandmother, inviting her to chant the songs of the Palestinian revolution and the fedayeen, which had a great impact on his upbringing, and paving the way for his path towards martyrdom. As for Ghassan, the compassionate father of three children (Walid, Salma and Muhammad), he was distinguished by his intense love for his children, and perhaps this love was a reason for him to sacrifice his blood to secure a future free of humiliation and dishonor, full of pride and dignity," the article continues.
As usual, there is not the slightest pushback from other Palestinian media denouncing a major news site celebrating the massacre of people because they were Jews. I have never seen any Palestinian (outside the ones who are famous for their dissent like Bassem Eid) condemn this bloodlust in website comments or social media. Articles like this that celebrate the most heinous attacks are part of the fabric of Palestinian society and no one in that world - no "moderate" PLO member, no newspaper columnist, no Facebook poster - finds this celebration of murdering rabbis the least bit objectionable.
This is Palestinian society. Celebrating the murder of religious Jews at prayer is mainstream, not fringe.
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Today, Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said that the Palestinian Authority will continue to pay the salaries of terrorists and their families.
Speaking at a videoconference call, Shtayyeh said, "We will continue to pay aid to the families of martyrs and prisoners to ensure a decent life for their families, and we will not abandon them."
The Palestinian leadership pretends that these are some sort of welfare payments, but the amount paid is proportional to the severity of their crimes.
In 2017, the Washington Post estimated that payments reached over $350 million, which is a significant percentage of the total PA budget.
Remember, in an honor/shame society, financially supporting people who have murdered Jews is on the "honor" side.
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Should she apologize? She did, but I don’t care. We know what’s in her heart, and that’s enough, or too much, for me.
Anyway, you cannot come clean after airing thoughts like this. The stain will always be there, and it will always be part of her legacy. Her bed to sleep in.
What should offend me more, the Holocaust inference, or the Trump reference? I don’t know. As a Jewish-American Trump supporter, I’ll take a spoonful of each.
By way of saying that we do not watch CNN in our home. So we do not know what goes on in that universe, and when something like this gets out, we say, “consider the source.”
For decades, CNN was PLO headquarters, where Hanan Ashrawi was only a dial away from Ramallah to blood libel Israel.
Now they are in the building. Well, they always were, but Amanpour’s obscenity amounts to doubling down.
Oddly, by the way, she said what she said at about the time when Biden’s Antifa and BLM goons were beating up MAGA men, women and children on the streets of DC.
Shades of the Reich’s Brown Shirts, if you ask me…speaking of Kristallnacht.
But I do not think Amanpour is hip enough to get the timing, nor the connection.
I have read the articles where she is being implored to understand the pain she has caused by bringing up the Holocaust…all useless to closed minds and deaf ears.
You can lead a cow across all the wonders of the world, but when it comes back it is still a cow.
You are a well-known journalist with a global audience both on CNN and social media. What you say matters to many.
That’s why your commentary on November 12 likening Kristallnacht to the Trump era was so troubling. Because it comes from you. Because it carries with it an aura of authority and credibility. Because you haven’t backed away from it.
Since we all carry our own “baggage,” let me put mine on the table up front.
I am the first person in my extended family born in the United States. Every relative older than me was touched by the Second World War and Holocaust. That includes my father, who was a target of Kristallnacht in Austria.
Moreover, I represent a strictly nonpartisan organization, American Jewish Committee, so I have absolutely no political axe to grind in writing to you.
What was wrong with your commentary? Two main things.
First, in setting the stage for your attack on the Trump administration, you purported to describe the events of November 9-10, 1938, which came to be known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.
You said it was an assault on “fact, knowledge, history, and truth.”
But something striking was missing from your description. Not a single word about the actual targets of the Nazi assault in Germany and Austria. Those targets were Jews, synagogues, and Jewish-owned businesses.
In the opening segment of her regular daily affairs program on Thursday, Amanpour spoke of the anniversary of Kristallnacht and how the Nazis upended human civilization, which led to genocide.
While showing footage of the events from that November 8/9, 1938 night, she maintained, “and, in that tower of burning books, it led to an attack on fact, knowledge, history, and truth.”
“After four years of a modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump, the Biden-Harris team pledges a return to normal,” she declared.
Israeli officials and Jewish groups denounced the comparison and called for an immediate apology. However, some commentators and analysts noted that at no point in her apology did Amanpour mention the words “Jews” — the people against whom the 1938 pogrom was committed.
Surprised by the @camanpour apology, yes. Satisfied by it, not so much.
While she admitted that Trump isn't as bad as Hitler, she said nothing about her complete Jew-washing of Kristallnacht. The thousands of victims of the pogrom were only the Jews of Germany & Austria. Say it.
The reason was because the Vatican worried that Jews would take over Christian sites in Jerusalem.
The Pope at the time, Leo XIII, was not just an anti-Zionist. He (and the Church altogether) was antisemitic.
From Encyclopedia Judaica:
CIVILTÀ CATTOLICA, LA, official Catholic bi-monthly.
Founded in 1849 by Jesuit writers, and published first in Naples (1850) then in Rome, this review has been the faithful interpreter of papal thought and gained an influence far beyond Catholic circles. ...
With the accession of Pope Leo XIII (1878), the casuistic approach was replaced by systematic defamation. Civiltà wrote of “Jewish hatred… against mankind – Jews excepted” (vol. 32 (1881), no. 5, 727); of the “anti-social spirit of Judaism”; and of the “necessity of hating it” (ibid., no. 6, 603, 608). Worst of all was the review’s attitude concerning the blood libel. More than a century earlier Cardinal Ganganelli (later Pope *Clement XIV) had declared the accusation groundless but Civiltà Cattolica nonetheless wrote of the Jews of Trent, “mingling unleavened bread with Christian blood, every year, at Passover,” and of the “present Jewish use of Christian blood in paschal bread and wine.” Civiltà dwelt further on “the reality of the use of Christian blood in many rituals of the modern synagogue” (vol. 34 (1883), no. 1, 606ff.) as “demonstrated” in the Tiszaeszlar case, which Civiltà considered to be authentic beyond doubt. Likewise Captain Dreyfus could be nothing but a traitor, while France was governed by Freemasonry, which itself was controlled by the Jews. However, the Jews should not be exiled from France for they were a people accursed by God, scattered to the four corners of the earth in order to testify by their ubiquity to the truth of Christianity (vol. 49 (1898), no. 1, 273–87). Thus, anti-Jewish prejudice had again been given a moral nihil obstat and an encouragement to proceed with the worst excesses. Nor did Civiltà relent during the following decades, although “blood” charges were dropped.
Note that the bolded part was also a reason for anti-Zionism.
That publication got worse. Much worse.
Three years after the advent of the Third Reich, the review actively competed with Nazi propaganda, setting out in detail all the arguments for Christian antisemitism as distinguished from the racial antisemitism of the Nazis. The Jews, stated the writer, “have become the masters of the world” (vol. 87 (1936), no. 37–8); “Their prototype is the banker, and their supreme ideal to turn the world into an incorporated joint-stock company” (ibid, 39–40).
Even after the Holocaust, the publication blamed the Jews for their own genocide!
Later, the “unprecedented cruelty of the massacres of Jews and Poles,” and “the horror of concentration camps, gas and torture chambers,” were mentioned in an article which raised doubts about the very principle and objectivity of the Nuremberg trials and stated, among other things, that “conceding even that, on the diplomatic ground, Germany had been the one to set the gunpowder on fire, historically, they had been compelled to do so” (vol. 97 (1946), issue 2297).
Antisemites and anti-Zionists. Peas in a pod.
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Thursday, November 19, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
