Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, November 23, 2020

11/23 Links Pt2: Yisrael Medad: Finally, Pollard is free; Joshua Washington: Black and Jewish communities stand together against hate; Starmer should purge Labour of the far-left

From Ian:

Yisrael Medad: Finally, Pollard is free - opinion

Twenty years later, writing for Ynet, Eitan Haber, Yitzhak Rabin’s speechwriter, wrote that right-wing politicians “turned Pollard’s cell into a pilgrimage site. They made political capital on his broken back and threw him to the dogs and to prison after using him.” If anything, it was left-wing politicians that stymied endeavors for his release.

The last significant success the lobby had was when then-interior minister Ehud Barak agreed to authorize the granting of Israeli citizenship to Pollard. The passport came a bit later from Haim Ramon who had replaced Barak.

IN 2011, I sat in a hotel room with Morris Pollard, Jay’s father. We went over the past decades of activities, and he shared with me his thoughts. He even left me with a copy of a summary he had with him of his thinking on the affair, on how it was handled and what the proper course should be.

Foremost in his mind were the incomprehensible attitude of American authorities toward his son; the suggested charge of “treason” that had been tossed out by the prosecutor; the in camera appeal to the judge; the prison treatment; and the less-than-forthcoming positions of certain Israeli officials. But he would not lessen his determination to work for his son’s release. Unfortunately, he died soon after. His son did not receive permission to attend the funeral.

Jonathan is free now. His burdens with his wife’s illness are great. He has much to make up for. I hope he will do that in Israel.

Professor Alan Dershowitz on Ex-Spy Jonathan Pollard

Five years after his release from prison: electronic handcuffs removed by Jonathan Pollard: "I am a free man" pic.twitter.com/9HdQvhqCUb
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) November 22, 2020

Former PM Olmert to 'Post': Don't let Pollard make aliyah, it'll anger Biden

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert criticized former agent Jonathan Pollard on Sunday, saying he should not be welcomed in Israel. Interviewed by Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz at the Maariv newspaper’s business conference on Sunday, Olmert cautioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against holding a festive ceremony for Pollard when he moves to Israel soon.

“With all due respect, I would prefer that he not move to Israel,” Olmert said. “We don’t owe him anything. He was a spy who worked for a lot of money. He was not a ZiontistZionist volunteer who came and sacrificed his life. He was an American who loved Israel and worked for a lot of money, spying for Israel.”

Olmert said the information Pollard provided Israel helped the Jewish state but in retrospect did more harm than good.

“His spying was beneficial, but when taking a full account, the damage caused to Israel’s interests as a result of revealing his involvement was the harshest in the history of US-Israel relations,” Olmert said. “The danger of increasing this damage has not ended. If the prime minister will act like he does and have a festive welcoming ceremony for Pollard, we will pay a heavy price when there will soon be a new administration in America.”

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman also criticized Pollard on Sunday in an interview with KAN Radio.

“I recommend we celebrate less because of American public opinion,” Olmert said. “I suggest we lower our level of excitement, because it doesn’t help with the American defense system, which sees the Pollard affair as an unacceptable incident that violated acceptable codes between Israel and the US.”

Some Lebanese Muslims upset at Muslim who facilitated synagogue restoration

Beirut's Magen Avraham synagogue, located in the Wadi Abu Jamil neighborhood downtown, was damaged in the Beirut port explosion.

Philanthropist Richard Heykal rebuilt the synagogue, according to reports. It is really a beautiful building.

It had private opening for dignitaries, although it was not and is not planned to be open to the public, and there are not enough Jews in Beirut to have services there.

One of the people seen in one of the photos of the private opening was Basem Al-Hout, a Muslim who is the Mukhtar of the remaining Jewish community there. He keeps tracks of births, deaths, and marriages, and is pretty much responsible for the community.

And other Muslims are upset at his involvement in rebuilding the synagogue.

According to Al-Ankabout, members of the "Islamic Group" have been arguing about Magen Avraham and specifically Al Hour's role.

Sheikh Sami Al-Khatib of the group said, "the presence of the [Jewish community's] political official in Beirut at the opening ceremony, is neither natural nor acceptable."

Sheikh Hussein Atwi said, “This synagogue is an advanced base to the enemy in the heart of the capital. Otherwise, how do we explain the relentless US and Israeli efforts to restore it? What convincing argument is this that speaks of coexistence? ”

Sheikh Muhammad al-Hajj, of the Association of Palestinian Scholars Abroad, also objected: “We are not against the Jews in performing their rituals, but why today? How many Jews are there in Lebanon? This coincides with the demarcation of [maritime] borders and with political and economic pressures on Lebanon, while Lebanon still refuses to grant civil rights to Palestinian refugees."

The secretary general of the Islamic Group tried to calm things down, defending Al Hout and saying that supporting a synagogue has nothing to do with Israel.

And then the Islamists of his group started attacking him!

This is how deep antisemitism is in Lebanon.

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'The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, received this evening, Sunday, a phone call from the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa .

During the call, the King offered his condolences on the death of the great fighter, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat.

In turn, the President offered condolences to King Hamad bin Isa, on the death of the Bahraini Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

Here is how Bahrain's news agency wrote about this:

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa held a phone call with Palestinian President, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas.

President Abbas offered to HM the King condolences on the passing of His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, praying to Allah the Almighty to rest his soul in vast paradise.

HM the King also expressed condolences to President Abbas on the death of PLO Executive Committee Secretary-General Dr. Saeb Erekat.

They don't say who called whom, and they switch the order of the conversation to prioritize condolences over Khalifa first and then Erekat.

Erekat died on November 10.

Prince Khalifa died on November 11.

The phone call took place on November 22, an exceptionally long time after both deaths to offer condolences.

This looks a lot like a game of diplomatic chicken, with each leader wanting the other to call them first to offer condolences so they feel more powerful and force the other into a position of subservience. In this case, Abbas "won."

Here we have the stupidity of the honor/shame culture in full view.

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11/23 Links Pt1: Netanyahu meets Saudi crown prince MBS, Pompeo in Saudi Arabia; Pompeo made history; Israeli-Palestinian “security cooperation”—myth or reality?

From Ian:

Netanyahu meets Saudi crown prince MBS, Pompeo in Saudi Arabia

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Neom, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, Israeli sources confirmed.

Netanyahu used a private plane belonging to businessman Udi Angel, which he has used for past diplomatic trips. The plane left Israel at 5 p.m. on Sunday and returned after midnight.
ABSOLUTELY rare Israeli flight direct to new Saudi mega-city Neom on Red Sea shore

It was Bibi's ex-fav bizjet t7-cpx. Back to Tel Aviv after 5 hours on ground pic.twitter.com/Ty9aedYbsK
— avi scharf (@avischarf) November 23, 2020
The Israeli and Saudi sides discussed Iran and normalization, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a Saudi source.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan denied the meeting took place on Twitter, saying only Saudi and American officials were present.

Yet Education Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed the meeting, calling it an “amazing achievement” and “a matter of great importance” in an interview with Army Radio.

The trip was kept tightly under wraps as it was planned for over a month, with Netanyahu not informing Defense Minister Benny Gantz or Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi before it took place.

Pompeo made history

Instead, Pompeo's visit and his statements were correctives to these errors of judgment in reporting and commentary. Facts still matter. Pompeo's visit reminds the International community of a truth that every Israeli government since 1967 have attempted to convey to the world, unsuccessfully: Psagot and Petach Tikvah share the same legitimacy. The secretary's visit marks the first time that a United States administration has formally recognized the equality of Jewish sovereignty.

This US recognition of collective Jewish human rights parallels the principle of secure Jewish collective life that every Israeli government has recognized since the Jewish people's reestablishment of sovereignty in 1948. The International community had formally recognized those same rights to Jewish Sovereignty in 1920 at the international San Remo Conference. The principal powers of the League of Nations formalized San Remo's declarative recognition in 1922 of the Right of the Jewish People to "reconstitute their National Home In Palestine". The League of Nations further called for "close (Jewish) settlement" establishing and unanimously approving the Mandate for Palestine, that anchored the Jewish collective human right to collective freedom and sovereignty and ultimately led to Israel's Declaration of Independence and policy of every Israeli government Since 1967, sanctioning rights to Jewish community building on both sides of the 1949 armistice lines on state land.

The United States' top diplomat apparently did his legal and diplomatic homework. Apparently, he and his advisers studied the abovementioned international legal documents. His visit to Israel's Psagot winery and his accompany condemnations of BDS and anti-Semitic product labeling, reminiscent of the World War II-era, break the "glass ceiling" regarding formal US recognition of Israel's legal rights to sovereignty. US and Israel's alignment on Israel's rights to sovereignty safeguards the most fundamental Jewish collective human right today. Unfortunately, the cynical discrediting of Secretary Pompeo's alignment with the policy of all Israeli governments since 1967 reflects the lack of understanding of its critics rather than the well-reasoned positions of the current US State Department.

MEMRI: Saudi Journalist In Message To Iran Following Normalization Agreements With Israel: Iran, Not Israel, Is The Enemy Of The Arabs, Destabilizes The Region

In a September 23, 2020 column titled "Message to Iran, in Light of the Peace with Israel," Saudi journalist 'Abdallah Zayed reacted to Iran's harsh attack on the normalization agreements between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel. [1] Iran, he wrote, is forgetting that it is the one whose bullying and terrorist behavior is destabilizing the region and who has become the enemy of the Arabs. He added that Iran spouts slogans of liberating Jerusalem, but in practice it does nothing to realize that goal and, moreover, continues to occupy many Arab countries while pursuing the goal of renewing its lost Persian empire.

The following are translated excerpts from his article:[2] "The wailing, weeping, pain and sorrow of the of the government officials of Iran and its proxies have been steadily growing since the UAE and Bahrain signed a peace agreement with Israel. The spokesman of Iran's foreign ministry keeps repeating terms like 'Arab nobility' and 'Islamic values,' while the Iranian government keeps forgetting its [own] actions in the region and [the fact that it has] crossed many red lines, which have turned it into a blatant enemy [of the Arabs].

"The Iranians are forgetting that it is they who are in a state of hostility and actual war with the countries of the region. Who is occupying the [UAE's] Persian Gulf islands?[3] Who tried to precipitate a coup in Bahrain? Who conspired against Kuwait by employing terror cells? Who are the ones firing their missiles into Saudi Arabia? Who are the ones who sent their mercenaries to [fight in] Syria? Who founded the militias in Iraq? Who founded a terrorist party in Lebanon [i.e., Hizbullah]? Who is cultivating the [Houthi] mercenaries in Yemen to stage a coup against the legitimate government? The truth is that the one who did all this is not Israel but Iran.

"No Israeli official has ever declared [with pride] that his country is occupying five Arab capitals.[4] Although Iran brandishes the slogan of resistance, although it has [a military force] called 'Qods [i.e., Jerusalem] Force'… and although it claims that its goal is to liberate Al-Aqsa, we have never seen the top Iranian officers [firing] a single bullet in retaliation for Israel's bombing of their bases in Syria. Israel sends planes and fires missiles, constantly bombs the [Iranians'] bases in different areas, yet Iran does not respond. When Russia intervened and ordered the Iranians to move their bases hundreds of kilometers away from the Israeli border, Iran did so, [despite] the intense humiliation.

"Doesn’t Iran claim that it now has a foothold in northern Israel, thanks to Hizbullah, which controls Lebanon, and also thanks to its presence in Syria?! Yet it hasn't liberated Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem, as it constantly calls [to do].

"The clear equation and the obvious [conclusion] is that Iran's real goal is to take over the Arab world and reestablish the obsolete Persian Empire in it. Simply put, that is the reason for the Iranian actions we are seeing on the ground. Is it Israel that is present [in Yemen], on Saudi Arabia's southern border? What does [Iran] want with Yemen? Is it Israel who is present north of Saudi Arabia, in Iraq? What does [Iran] want with Iraq? Is it Israel who is present east of Saudi Arabia, [in Bahrain]? What does [Iran] want with Bahrain?

Remember The Quartet? That was the group made up of the US, UN, EU and Russia in 2002 to push the Oslo process along during the second intifada when Palestinian terrorists were blowing up Jews in Israeli cities.

Besides creating a "roadmap" that went nowhere, it really hasn't done much.

The Quartet does issue reports every once in a while, including one as recently as last month that no one noticed. That report discusses the Palestinian refusal to cooperate with Israel:

There has been no notable progress in addressing outstanding fiscal files. The PA’s decision – in response to the threat of annexation and deductions to clearance revenues – to stop accepting the monthly revenues from the GoI, combined with reduced tax generation, reduced PA monthly revenue by 80 per cent. Resuming acceptance of monthly clearance revenue transfers as well as any accumulated sums to date will go some way to addressing this crisis. ...
In the security sector, the suspension of security cooperation limited the PA’s ability to enforce COVID related restrictions outside PA cities, particularly in rural areas, as well as its ability to monitor the flow of Palestinian labour crossing to and from Israel. It also hampered the PA’s ability to enforce rule of law in much of the West Bank. Resumption of security coordination that enables PA Security Forces to provide effective law enforcement to communities residing outside Area A is strongly encouraged.

Now that the PA walked back its refusal to deal with Israel, the Quarter apparently woke up to issue a statement of support for the Palestinians not acting like spoiled brats. I couldn't find the Quartet statement, but PLO leader Abbas praised the Quartet for complimenting him on resuming what should never have stopped.

The Palestinian Presidency welcomed the position issued by the International Quartet meeting, which confirmed that the Palestinian move to restore relations with the Israeli side creates the necessary conditions for building confidence and returning to direct negotiations on the basic issues related to the final status.

The presidency welcomed the positive evaluation of the Palestinian move by the Quartet representatives during their meeting, which included the Russian Federation, the United States of America, the United Nations and the European Union

The Quartet spends about $6 million annually. In the words of Palestinian officials in 2012, the Quartet is "useless, useless, useless."

But it is much easier to create bureaucracies to work on Oslo-era issues than it is to end them.

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On November 6, Hen Mazzig tweeted, "Trump’s ‘support’ for Israel was never a gift. He cared more about the way Christians viewed it, than the lives of American Jews, made Israel a partisan issue, and harmed public opinion towards Israel. Remember, Trump cares only about himself."

I wrote a post disagreeing, and proposing a test:

Assuming that he has lost the election, he is a lame duck president.

If he ignores Israel in his remaining weeks in office, then that would strongly indicate that Mazzig is right.

If he works to do more things that are good for Israel, then that would strongly indicate that Trump really is pro-Israel.

In Round 1, I said that reports that the Trump administration planned on pushing new rounds of sanctions up until he leaves office indicates that I am right. Mazzig responded that Trump didn't personally do this, saying all he was doing was playing golf. (He then retweeted the fake news that Trump unfollowed Netanyahu on Twitter.)

In Round 2, I noted a story that an American official stated that Trump would do all he can for Israel until the last minute. Mazzig dismissed that:

I'm fine with saying that the test is about actions, but if one wants to redefine everything good for Israel as really being good for himself - even after the election - then this test is meaningless, since it means that no matter what Trump or his administration do, some reason can be found to make it about Trump, real or imagined.

Since then we have round 3, 4 and 5, all of them courtesy of Mike Pompeo.

Round 3 was saying that the US would start to determine whether any organizations that are funded by the US are adhering to BDS with the intent of stopping aid to those organizations. Chances are very small that this will go past January 20. At the same time, Pompeo tweeted that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

Round 4 was Pompeo changing the labeling guidelines for goods imported from the territories to say "Made in Israel." This reflects reality of Israel's rule over those areas, whether one agrees with it or not; the labeling laws were embraced by Israel-haters.

Round 5 is today's bombshell news:

In the first visit of its kind, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an Israeli official told Hebrew media on Monday.
Netanyahu was on the ground in Neom, a Red Sea city, for five hours for the first known high-level meeting between an Israeli and Saudi leader. He was accompanied by Mossad intelligence chief Yossi Cohen, according to the reports.

Clearly Pompeo was behind this meeting as well, and all parties knew this would be leaked, to send a message of things changing in the Middle East (as opposed to previous secret meetings with the Saudis.)

I imagine Hen can find excuses on these three as well, saying that this is all Pompeo and not Trump, that Pompeo is preparing for a 2024 campaign for President and this is all about that. But again, ultimately this is Trump's foreign policy; Pompeo cannot do this without Trump's go-ahead.

Is there an element of self-interest with Trump? Of course! And more so than with other presidents. Even so, everyone has multiple motives for anything that they do. Philanthropists have buildings named after them, does that negate the charity they give? Also, one would hope that US presidents would be pro-Israel because it is in America's interests, if they prioritize Israeli interests above their own nation's then they are not good leaders. Does that mean there was never a pro-Israel president?

Bottom line is that Israel is in better shape today than it was two weeks ago because of the Trump administration's recent decisions.

Plus, there is no way to look at these moves since the election without comparing them to Obama's throwing Israel under the bus when he was a lame duck in pushing the UN Security Council to pass an anti-Israel resolution. That revealed his true nature; Trump's actions (direct or indirect) since the election are a polar opposite.

I would say that in the two weeks since the election (and since the Lame Duck Test) the Trump administration did more for Israel than any President in their entire terms since Clinton, at least.

I trust my readers can make their own determinations as to whether this test has been a success or not.

And there are still almost two months to go.

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Turkey's Jewish community is frightened and dwindling

David Lepeska writes about Turkish Jewry in The National. Excerpts:

The plight of Turkey’s Jewish community underscores the deeply rooted, extremist Islamist nature of Turkey’s leader.

Jews have a long history in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. When Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, the Ottoman Empire welcomed thousands of them. By 1500, Istanbul, the Ottoman capital, was more than 10 per cent Jewish.

Extremist terrorists killed 22 Jews in an Istanbul synagogue in 1986, unsettling the community. Yet by 2000, the 23,000 Jews who remained in Turkey felt largely at home. Many even identified as Turkish first, according to Dr Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a Turkish-Jewish researcher at Tel Aviv University.

Things changed after Mr Erdogan took power. His political mentor was Necmettin Erbakan, head of the Islamist movement Milli Gorus, or National Vision. Erbakan drew from the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been anti-western and anti-Semitic since its founding nearly a century ago in Egypt. Mr Erdogan left to launch the AKP in 2001 and became prime minister two years later. In those early days, he served as the West’s poster child for Islamic democracy, pointing toward a “Turkish model” as he strengthened the rule of law to prepare for Turkey’s bid for accession to the EU.

Slowly, Mr Erdogan returned to his Islamist roots, highlighted by a series of political confrontations with Israel. During Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon, Mr Erdogan began to criticise Israel heavily. In 2009, Mr Erdogan frequently clashed with Israel’s then president, Shimon Peres, and stormed out of that year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Then, in 2010, came the Mavi Marmara affair: Israeli commandos boarded a humanitarian ship that sought to break Israel’s blockade over Gaza, and killed nine Turkish nationals as well as a Turkish-American.

Thousands of Turkish protesters attempted to overrun the Israeli consulate in Istanbul.

Jewish shops were boycotted. Turkey’s predominantly pro-government newspapers filled with anti-Semitic vitriol, and Turkish Jews started streaming for the exits. By 2012, just 17,000 of them remained.

“For Turkish Jews it was like a slap in their face,” Dr Yanarocak says.

Turkish Jews might have also seen it coming. Back in the 1970s, when Mr Erdogan was head of a National Vision youth group, he wrote and played the lead role in a theatre production about Islamists facing an evil, Jewish-led conspiracy.

Spain and Portugal have offered to grant citizenship to any proven descendants of Jews expelled in 1492. Dr Yanarocak says many of his Jewish friends in Turkey have applied for that programme so they have an escape hatch should the situation deteriorate further. Three years ago, his parents finally picked up and left Istanbul for Israel – one more step toward Turkey’s Jewish community acknowledging that its days are numbered.

In former US President Barack Obama’s hot-selling new memoir, he warns of Mr Erdogan’s “vocal sympathy for both the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas…[which] made Washington and Tel Aviv nervous”. Former Turkish parliamentarian Aykan Erdemir told an Israeli newspaper earlier this year that Mr Erdogan’s anti-Semitism would haunt Turkey at home and abroad long after he leaves office. “The hate and prejudice inculcated in the Turkish people for almost two decades will have lasting effects,” Mr Erdemir said.

It already has.

Earlier this month, Turkey's Miswak magazine published this antisemitic cartoon:

Two Jews, symbolized by the menorah on the mantel as well as the Masonic pyramid symbol, are discussing the US elections; the man on the left asks who will win and the one on the right responds "of course we will."

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Lebanese economy circling the drain as forensic accounting firm quits

From AP:

A New-York-based company contracted by the Lebanese government to conduct a forensic audit of the country's central bank has decided to pull out of the deal because it was not able to acquire requested information and documents, Lebanon's caretaker finance minister said Friday.

The announcement by Alvarez & Marsal deals a major blow to those hoping for accountability in a country mired in corruption and a crippling economic and financial crisis. It comes after Lebanon's central bank refused to provide the company with the needed documents, using the country's decades-old banking secrecy laws as a pretext.

Caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni told The Associated Press that Alvarez & Marsal, which was contracted in July, says the information it received so far isn't enough and that it doesn't expect to get more.

The country's current economic and financial crisis, the worst in its modern history, is rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement.

The outgoing government had been calling for a forensic audit into the central bank's accounts since March, after the country defaulted on paying back its massive debt for the first time earlier this year.

President Michel Aoun has been a strong supporter of a forensic audit but other politicians were strongly opposed to such a move, which could reveal parties that have been benefiting from corruption.

Al Jazeera adds a salient point:

Nasser Saidi, a former vice governor at the central bank, said the decision likely came down to considerations over A&M’s image.

“Incredibly, this company cares more about its own reputation than Lebanon cares about its reputation,” Saidi told Al Jazeera. “They are professionals, they wanted to do a professional job, they were prevented from doing so and now we’re back to square one.”

Lebanon hired Alvarez and Marsal because of an outcry after they first hired Kroll, which has offices in Israel - as do virtually all major accounting firms.

Which means that there are very few professional forensic accounting firms available to do what Lebanon needs to climb out of its crisis, even if they open up the books of their central bank.

No country will provide aid to Lebanon without this forensic accounting - unless it is a country that intends to take over Lebanon altogether.

Like Iran, which expects a financial windfall in the coming months.

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11/22 Links: Holocaust Museum opens exhibition about the killing of George Floyd; Would Trump recognize Israeli sovereignty in east Jerusalem? - analysis

From Ian:

Holocaust Museum opens exhibition about the killing of George Floyd

An American Holocaust Museum has opened an exhibition about the death of George Floyd.

The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center in Florida, established to educate future generations about the Nazi extermination of six million Jews during the Second World War, is housing a collection of 45 photographs of individuals reacting to killing of Mr Floyd, the African American choked to death by white police officer in Minneapolis earlier this year.

The exhibition is entitled Uprooting Prejudice: Faces of Change, and features images by Minneapolisphotographer John Noltner. One portrait features the father of Michael Brown Jr, who was shot dead by a policeman in Missouri in 2014.

Lisa Bachman, assistant director of the Holocaust Center, said: “We have produced this so that people can come and look these individuals in the eye. So you come face to face with people, so you can really experience the feelings that they were feeling.”

George Floyd is added to a Holocaust museum? That trivializes and distorts the Holocaust and its six million Jewish victims. And it grotesquely implies that American police are Nazis. pic.twitter.com/zNsG0bqyEe
— Ezra Levant 🍁 (@ezralevant) November 22, 2020

How Pollard was held captive by 35 years of politics - analysis

Peres’s message to Obama was to be the following: You don’t have to grant clemency. In fact, you can distance yourself from the matter completely. Just privately let the US Justice Department know that you don’t oppose paroling Pollard and letting him leave for Israel. Obama would not need to get his hands dirty, just keep the commitment he had made to Israelis 15 months earlier to treat Pollard fairly, like any other prisoner, and let his parole be assessed naturally on the merits of his case.

Following the meeting, Peres’s diplomatic adviser, Nadav Tamir, reported back to the lawyers with good news: The message had indeed been delivered.

Peres’s office leaked to the press that Obama had personally referred the matter to his attorney-general and close confidant Eric Holder – the head of the American Justice Department and the chief law enforcement officer of the US government.

“The entire nation is interested in releasing Pollard, and I am the emissary of the nation,” Peres told reporters after the meeting. “I don’t think of myself as Shimon. I am the representative of the State of Israel, and I speak in the name of its people.”

Pollard entered the room at his prison skeptical but cautiously optimistic, ready to see what his first parole hearing would be like.

But all hopes that the hearing would be fair were dashed immediately. The government’s representatives spoke menacingly, treated Pollard with contempt, prevented his lawyer from making his case, and made it clear that the Israeli agent would not see the Jewish state any time soon, if ever.

Those present described the hearing as a “kangaroo court” and even “a lynching.”

Pollard’s parole came a year later and was granted for technical, not political reasons. The unprecedented parole restrictions he faced were typical for Pollard, whose life sentence was also an exception to the rule.

He served more than 20 years longer than anyone ever convicted of spying for an ally, the victim of attempts to make an example of him and deter future spies. The plea agreement he signed that was supposed to guarantee he would not be given a life sentence went ignored.

Former CIA head James Woolsey blamed Pollard’s continued incarceration on antisemitism, in an interview with The Post’s Caroline Glick. “My view is that he should be treated like other intelligence assets of allies,” he said. “We spy on some allies, and they have spied on us. Because they’re allies, usually they have only been in prison for a few years. What I said is that people shouldn’t be hung up on him being Jewish or Israeli. Pretend he’s Greek and release him.”

It is only fitting that Pollard finally ended up getting his release on Friday – not because of politics but in spite of politics.

J Street uses a pro-terrorist EU bureaucrat to malign Israel

J Street, in a mid-November email appeal, quoted an unnamed "top EU diplomat" in its tirade against an Israeli government call for bids for new homes in a nearly 30 year-old Jerusalem neighborhood, Givat Hamatos, where Ethiopian Jewish and Russian immigrants live.

What's worse than J Street's vitriol against the construction of Jewish homes, is that the name of the EU functionary was left off of J Street's rant, probably intentionally, because he is an anti-Israel extremist who earlier this year gave outright support for terrorists. According to Israel's Foreign Ministry, he stated that Palestinian Arabs affiliated with blacklisted groups remain eligible to participate in projects funded by the EU.

J Street is the controversial Washington, D.C., based Jewish pressure group that, judging by its actions, seems to have been created specifically, and almost exclusively, to lobby for an independent Palestinian state. J Street maintains, as a central theme, that Jews do not have a right to live wherever they choose and must be transferred out of their homes and neighborhoods in wide swaths of Judea-Samaria where Israeli citizens have lived for nearly fifty years.

The EU bureaucrat who opposes Jewish homes in Givat Hamatos in southern Jerusalem, and who was quoted by J Street, is a German named Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff.

Von Burgsdorff previously was the head of the EU's delegation to South Sudan and in a May 8, 2020 JTA article, he was identified as heading the "EU mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

The Times of Israel news website reported on May 7, 2020 that an Israeli Foreign Ministry official stated that the letter by "von Burgsdorff, constituted a 'violation of all our agreements with the European Union'."

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan affirmed that his country "has always supported full normalization with Israel" after a peace plan with the Palestinians.

In an interview on the sidelines of the G20 leaders' summit, Farhan indicated that Saudi Arabia "supports a permanent and comprehensive peace deal that leads to a Palestinian state that comes before normalization."

At first glance, this seems to be no different than the Saudi support for the Arab peace initiative which always envisioned peace with Israel after a two state solution. But the difference is the word "normalization," which was never stated publicly before the Abraham Accords.

Before August, the best Israel could ever hope for was a cold peace with the Arab world, like its peace with Egypt and Jordan. Israel always thirsted for real normalization, and now that word has entered the Arab vocabulary in contexts other than being an expletive.

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Tomer Ilan gets results! @NYDailyNews silently removes slander from op-ed (UPDATE)

Occasional EoZ contributor Tomer Ilan noticed on Friday that a New York Daily News op-ed, by American lawyer of Palestinian origin Vivian Khalaf, included an absurd slander against Israel.

The claim that the IDF shot anti-tank rockets at Palestinian cars is absurd. (That is a Hamas specialty.)

The only place on the Internet that this claim can be found is at a site called "Decolonizing Palestine" which is an art/architecture project dedicated to how Palestinians can take over Jewish settlements.

Tomer and I tweeted about this on Friday. Tomer then contacted Daily News op-ed editor Joshua Greenman, who silently had the article edited to take out the obvious lies:

There is no mention that the piece was corrected, which is the standard journalistic practice.

How do such lies and slanders get into a mainstream newspaper to begin with?

A hint may come from Khalaf's Facebook page, where she thanks the Institute of Middle East Understanding for their help in getting the piece published.

The IMEU is an NGO founded by Americans of Palestinian origin that provides "experts" and links to source materials for journalists to use when writing stories about Israel and Palestinians. It seems that the organization, whose board of directors includes prominent CEOs and lawyers, has contacts with the editorial boards of newspapers and can grease the wheels to get opinions published - including opinions with bald-faced lies.

UPDATE: Tomer pushed back and the Daily News added a correction:

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The dictatorship known as the Palestinian Authority has arrested Nizar Banat, a vociferous critics of the PA, for criticizing their resumption of security and financial cooperation with Israel.

He was arrested on Friday after posting a video on Facebook complaining about the decision.

On Saturday, his detention was extended by another 48 hours and he started a hunger strike.

He was charged with "defaming the Palestinian authority," a crime under the very expansive cybercrime law of the PA.

Banat has been arrested numerous times before, most recently in August when he criticized corruption in the PA.

While some militant groups and media in the territories have criticized these arrests, the English language media and international human rights organizations are typically silent for his many arrests.

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