Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

When white nationalists sound EXACTLY like the socialist Left's "anti-Zionism"

The far Left has been arguing as loudly as they can there anti-Zionism is not antisemitism - and saying that it is actually fosters more antisemitism.

Here's an example this week from +972 Magazine:

Criticism of the state of Israel is not an attack on Jews, whether as individuals or as a group. As many have argued before, adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism in fact harms efforts to combat real anti-Jewish hatred by conflating the latter with legitimate political criticism of a foreign government.

If anti-Zionism is a completely different animal than antisemitism, then why do antisemites sound exactly like anti-Zionists when they speak about Israel?

Here are some articles in The Daily Stormer, the infamous white nationalist website, that sound literally identical to articles that can be seen in Electronic Intifada or Mondoweiss or The Nation or Jewish Currents (with the exception of the word "Zio:")

If these articles are antisemitic - and of course they are, given the source - then how can anyone argue that the same points made by the far Left aren't antisemitic too?

They can't.

Which means it is the far Left whose positions are harming efforts to combat actual antisemitism, not those who support the IHRA working definition.

When neo-Nazis are parroting your talking points, perhaps it is past time to do some self-reflection.

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(While researching this I found out that the site "antizionism.org" is a white supremacist site. Imagine that.)

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Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah celebrates the birthday of a mass murderer

The Fatah Facebook page and Twitter feed published this:

This is Dalal Mughrabi, the terrorist who led the terror attack the resulted in the deaths of 38 Israelis, including 13 children, at the Coastal Road Massacre in 1978.

Mughrabi herself murdered Gail Rubin, a professional war and nature photographer, before the bus hijacking.

Fatah, the political party headed by Mahmoud Abbas, and the entire Palestinian Authority regards her as a full hero. Not a flawed hero, not as someone who did something wrong but necessary - no, her role in the murder of dozens of civilians including children are considered wholly praiseworthy. Schools and other public areas are named after her.

This disgusting, mass murdering piece of filth is a role model to the entire Palestinian people. Here is a screenshot from a video dramatizing the attack that is shown to Palestinian fifth graders showing her as a hero, students have to answer questions in the end on details of the operation.

This is yet another reason why there can never be a real peace between Israel and Palestinians without a huge change in the Palestinian psyche - one that would take generations.

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Moroccan press on accords with Israel (Zvi)

From Zvi:

The Abraham Accords are a major opportunity for Israelis and Arabs, and I think they represent an incredibly important milestone for the world as a whole.

I have been reading Arab media and government reactions to these accords, because these reactions are one gauge of how Israel's Arab partners view the situation. It's important to do this in order to avoid the kind of overly optimistic assessments about "the other side" that accompanied the Oslo Accords. What people say in their own press (especially in their own languages) can give a deeper sense of what they are thinking than western-focused reports in global media or sometimes-optimistic reports in Israeli news sources.

Arabic and French media responses in Morocco have changed over the last few weeks.

In the days after the Morocco-Israel announcement, there was virtually no commentary on the Israel deal per se on Arabic- and French-language Moroccan news sites; most ment ioned only that the US had recognized Morocco's claim to Western Sahara, but mention of the Israel relationship was either indirect or almost nonexistent; the word Israel did not always appear anywhere in these stories, and of course it never appeared in the headlines. In some cases, this lack-of-coverage was accompanied by articles insisting that Morocco was a strong supporter of the "Palestinian Cause", e.g. the king called Abbas.

That situation has changed.

For example, no stories about the Morocco-Israel renewal appear on the front page of the As Sabah news site, but the "Patriotism" or "Nation" section includes the following stories:

Moroccan-Israeli relations are a "historic" event that consecrates Morocco as a haven of peace (As-Sabah, Arabic)

This is the report on the comments by the Chief Rabbi of Panama.

Argentine News Agency: Morocco is a major actor in bringing peace to the Middle East (As-Sabah, Arabic)

The photo shows Morocco's king with rabbis.

I don't think I appreciated before how interested the Moroccan media is in opinions from Latin America. I know that the country had been engaged in a diplomatic push in Latin America to gain support for its claims to Western Sahara, but this makes at least 5 unrelated Moroccan news sites (in the Arabic, French and English languages) that are reporting on comments by Moroccan Jewish communities or experts in Mexico, Panama and now Argentina, praising the Morocco-Israel accord. These join reports on praise from American Jews, French Jews from Morocco, Moroccan Jews and Israelis of Moroccan descent.

Morocco brings 4,800 billion from America (A s-Sabah)

The two agreements signed between Morocco and the United States of America, on the sidelines of the visit of the Israeli and American delegations to Morocco, will contribute to mobilizing financial resources amounting to 5 billion dollars, approximately 48 billion dirhams (4800 billion centimes).

Morocco likes to tout its long relationship with the United States, and in addition to rediscovering its ties to Israel's Moroccan Jewish community, the opportunity to refresh Morocco's ties with the United States and the US backing for its Western Sahara stance give Morocco a morale boost that should not be underestimated.

The photo accompanying this story, which was printed 2 days ago:

The American - Israeli delegation arrives in the Kingdom (As-Sabah, Arabic)

This was about a week ago.

His Majesty the King holds talks by phone with the Prime Minister of the State of Israel (Al Maghriba, Arabic)

The photo shows the king, but not Bibi. The article itself is moderately positive. It appears under "Royal Affairs".

Le Matin.ma has one report, also in the "Patriotism" section:

Signature of a joint declaration between Morocco, the U nited States and the State of Israel (Le Matin.ma, French)

This includes the full text of the Joint Declaration by Morocco, Israel and the US, translated into French.

Le Maroc et Israël discutent les perspectives de partenariat stratégique (L'Economiste, French)

This is a report about the virtual meeting between Morocco's Industry Minister and Israel's Amir Peretz.

Moroccan French business site La Vie eco has the Industry Ministers meeting at the top of the home page, but it is kind of a blurb.

Morocco-Israel: Identification of sectors with strong partnership potential (La Vie eco, French)

Telephone interview between His Majesty the King and Benjamin Netanyahu (La Vie eco, French)

12/29 Links Pt2: Unsettled by Hebron; De Blasio’s Perfect Patsies; Welcome Lipstadt and Eisen to the roster of Holocaust deniers; Reactions to Israeli model being named 2020's 'most beautiful woman' turn ugly

From Ian:

Unsettled by Hebron

No Jews have been as relentlessly maligned as the Jews of Hebron. From the time of their arrival following the 1967 Six-Day War—40 years after the murderous annihilation of its Jewish community by rampaging Arabs—they have become the pariahs of the Jewish people. Their presence in the city where the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people are entombed, and where King David reigned before relocating his throne to Jerusalem, is deemed to be an unlawful and immoral Israeli intrusion on the Palestinian residents of Hebron.

The most recent contributor to this enduring falsehood is Tamara Neuman, an anthropologist and Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute at Columbia. The first page of her Introduction to Settling Hebron: Jewish Fundamentalism in a Palestinian City displays the misinformation that reveals her embedded bias. Gazing at the Machpelah shrine where, according to the biblical narrative, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are entombed, she nonetheless discerns its “staunch witness to the site’s Islamic character.” Muslims, however, first appeared in the seventh century C.E. long after the reign of King Herod, when the towering Machpelah enclosure was built.

It was, for Neuman, “impossible not to notice the deadening effects of the many [Israeli] soldiers deployed throughout a Palestinian urban area”—in translation, the ancient Jewish Quarter that was “established illegally” following the Six-Day War. (Her tour guide was a founder of Breaking the Silence, a renegade group of ex-soldiers who oppose Jewish settlements.) In a repetitive inversion of historical reality, she accuses Jewish settlers of “the remaking of many Palestinian areas into a geography of biblical sites and origins,” as if Palestinians superseded millennia of Jewish habitation in Hebron. In Neuman’s convoluted (and occasionally incomprehensible) rendering, “Jewish settlers establish a putative sense of the real, which arises from the very materiality of the scene.”

Historically myopic, ignoring millennia of Jewish history in Hebron, she can only discern the “colonial backdrop” of a “land takeover” with “Jewish observance and forms of direct violence in order to erase the presence of an existing Palestinian population.” As for erasure, it was Hebron Arabs who murderously obliterated the centuries-old Jewish community in 1929. She imaginatively, but falsely, describes their targeted violence against a tiny community of several hundred Jews and yeshivah students as “anticolonial riots.”

De Blasio’s Perfect Patsies

Are the Jews to blame for spreading COVID-19 throughout New York City? That’s what Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested in an inflammatory tweet back in April, which, in his typical bumbling fashion, he defended for six months before kinda, sorta walking it back.

Never mind all that. The city is serious! It believes in science! Earlier this week, the mayor’s office launched its “NYC Vaccine for All” campaign, announcing that it will begin offering the COVID vaccine soonest. Who will get it first? Naturally, the neighborhoods “hardest hit” by the pandemic, the mayor’s office assured us, 27 of them in total.

Hallelujah! So now we have an official record of the hardest hit corners of New York, which means that if the mayor’s criticism was correct, we should find many familiar ZIP codes among those singled out for urgent care. Let us, then, turn to the list and search for the neighborhoods heaviest populated by Orthodox Jews, the clear target of the mayor’s ire.

What about, for example, the venerable 11213, at the heart of which lies 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad’s headquarters? Nope, not on the list. Maybe 11218, 11219, and 11230, representing Borough Park? Not on the list either. Now, surely that massive Hasidic funeral that drew thousands and spurred the NYPD to launch a criminal investigation led to a massive outbreak that sent the neighborhood right into the hardest-hit list, right? Check again: That funeral was launched from the Yetev Lev D’Satmar yeshiva, ZIP code 11249. Good luck finding it on the mayor’s list. You can play this game with most NYC neighborhoods that are home to vast populations of Orthodox Jews; you won’t find them on the list.

None of this is to say that no Jews live in any of the neighborhoods most distressed by the pandemic. Take a close look, and you’ll find some neighborhoods that do have strong Jewish populations, like the border between Bushwick and Williamsburg, say. But look closely, and the picture grows complicated: Wallabout Street, for example, one of the neighborhood’s main Hasidic thoroughfares, is largely uncovered by the mayor’s announcement. So while a significant number of Williamsburg Jews do live in areas that get vaccine priority, the densest part with the largest Jewish population in Williamsburg isn’t in any of the priority neighborhoods. Neither are the central Satmar shuls, or the popular restaurant Gottleib’s.

This exclusion of the lion’s share of the city’s heavily populated Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods from the mayor’s list suggests that one of two things are true.

The first possibility is that the list is an accurate, science-based representation of the virus’s spread rates and patterns. In that case, the absence of most Orthodox Jewish enclaves from the list means the mayor was being both a criminally irresponsible public official for pinning the plague on one blameless minority group, as well as a filthy anti-Semite for picking on the Jews.

The second possibility hardly portrays de Blasio in a better light. According to the mayor’s office—which did not return Tablet’s request for more information—the vaccine’s distribution will be spearheaded by the Taskforce on Racial Equity and Inclusion, which is chaired by the city’s First Lady, Chirlaine McCray, not a medical doctor. In fact, the only prominent physician on the committee, Dr. Raul Perea-Henze, resigned in September, joining a wave of senior officials departing the grossly inept administration.

US court strikes down pandemic limits on New York’s houses of worship

A federal court of appeals ruled that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s capacity limits on houses of worship in areas with rising COVID-19 cases constituted a violation of religious liberty.

The ruling on Monday comes after a Supreme Court injunction last month blocked Cuomo from enforcing the rules until the lower court could reevaluate an earlier ruling that upheld state guidelines limiting synagogue attendance to 10 or 25 people.

The case, brought by the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, an advocacy organization representing ultra-Orthodox Jews, was one of the first religious liberty cases to be decided by the court’s new conservative majority. The appeals court ruling was celebrated by Agudath Israel as confirmation that it had achieved a victory for religious liberty.

“The courts have clearly recognized that the restrictions imposed by New York State violate the constitutional rights of those seeking to attend religious worship services,” Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, said in a statement Monday.

The court of appeals did not rule on the constitutionality of percentage capacity limits, which would have impacted smaller houses of worship. Houses of worship in zones with the highest rates of COVID-19, so-called red zones, were subjected to capacity limits of ten people or 25% of building capacity, whichever is fewer. In orange zones, the limit was 25 people or 33% of capacity, whichever is fewer.

Cartoon of the Day: The NYT Job Interview

Continuing our series of recaptioning cartoons...

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Jewish Voice for Peace sent out a fundraiser yesterday written by Judith Butler, the anti-Israel professor who twists Judaism itself to justify her bizarre opinions (which include that Hamas and Hezbollah are part of the global Left.)

Butler complains about rumors that Facebook will adopt the excellent IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which is - she says - an assault on free speech. Nothing new there.

She also claims:

Apart from a chilling effect on social media, any definition of antisemitism that includes anti-Zionism would, if accepted, threaten free speech, scholarly inquiry on the Middle East, academic freedom on campuses, and the ability of nonprofits to support projects in and for Palestine, while establishing a dangerous norm for governments across the world.

According to Butler, it is impossible for scholars to discuss the Middle East or nonprofits to raise money for Palestinian causes without violating the IHRA working definition. This is patently absurd. One does not need to claim Israel is racist or that Israeli Jews are Nazi-like to be pro-Palestinian, and her assertion to the contrary proves that anti-Israel rhetoric goes way beyond what is considered acceptable discourse for any other nation on Earth - because the IHRA definition explicitly states that criticism of Israel similar to that of any other nation cannot be considered antisemitic.

Butler is saying that it is impossible to support Palestinians without holding Israel to a standard that no other nation is held to. That is quite an amazing argument.

Her next statement is even more absurd:

To dismantle antisemitism, we have to know its history, how best to identify its forms, and how to devise strategies for defeating its every instance. Conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism makes this work impossible...

Over the past month we saw the first anniversaries of the Jersey City massacre and the Monsey Chanukah machete attack that left several Jews dead. Jewish Voice for Peace and its socialist Left allies who pretend to be against antisemitism did not say a word about them.

The reason is simple. The attackers were Black. Which means they weren't white supremacists. And to the "brilliant" Judith Butler, that means that these attacks targeting Jews weren't antisemitic!

Butler has the chutzpah to say that "we have to know its history" but she and JVP will never discuss Soviet antisemitism, or Arab antisemitism, or Muslim antisemitism, or Black Hebrew antisemitism, or Nation of Islam antisemitism, or last summer's online Black celebrity antisemitism. If it isn't Christian or right wing, it doesn't exist in their minds.

Which means that they are erasing lots of antisemitism from the history books. And they then claim that they "have to know its history!"

The hypocrisy of Judith Butler and JVP is off the charts.

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12/29 Links Pt1: Can the Palestinians adjust to changing times?; Saudi Arabia-Israel normalization deal estimated within one year; Abbas’ Fatah enters 2021 flaunting terror with video of past terror-parade

From Ian:

Palestinians: An International "Peace" Conference to Displace Israel

While Abbas is talking to the international community about his desire to achieve a peaceful settlement alongside Israel, his Fatah faction is sending messages to the Palestinians that glorify the "armed struggle" against Israel and that promise a "revolution until victory" -- meaning replace Israel.

The poster chosen by Fatah to celebrate the January 1, 1965 anniversary of the first terrorist attack against Israel depicts a map of "Palestine" superimposed over the entire state of Israel.

It is important to note that Fatah is one of the groups forming the Unified Leadership of the Palestinian Resistance. When the Palestinians talk about "resistance," they are referring to actions such as throwing rocks and firebombs at soldiers and settlers, as well as stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks.

Abbas has long been dreaming of a multi-party conference that will impose a solution on Israel. He does not want to hold direct negotiations with Israel.

Abbas claims to the international community that he just wants to establish a Fatah-controlled Palestinian state next to Israel, with the help of the UN, Russia, China, and the European Union.... He does not want Biden and other world leaders to hear the messages of violence that Fatah is spreading (in Arabic), including his pledge to "liberate Palestine."

What Fatah is saying in Arabic is infinitely more important than what Abbas writes in a letter to the UN secretary-general or to any world leader.... Failure to call out the Palestinians for their self-contradictory messages will not advance any cause of peace, but, on the contrary, only further embolden Palestinians to carry out more terrorist attacks and thwart the way to peace.

Jonathan Tobin: Can the Palestinians adjust to changing times?

They'll always have the United Nations. Even as the rest of the world abandons their cause, the Palestinians can still count on the world body to be their faithful ally in their century-old struggle against Zionism. According to UN Watch, the UN General Assembly voted to condemn Israel 17 times during the current session, as opposed to resolutions noting anything happening anywhere else on the planet only six times. The international diplomatic community remains committed to prioritizing the Palestinians' grievances against the Jewish state.

But in the real world outside of the fantasy land of UN resolutions, which have no impact on actual events, the Palestinians find themselves more isolated than ever.

The Arab states, which once sacrificed their national interests, as well as much blood and treasure in the name of the Palestinian cause, have largely abandoned them. The once potent left-wing parties within Israel that championed efforts to create another independent Palestinian state in addition to the one that already exists in all but name in Gaza are now completely marginalized. And not even the most ardent American advocates of a pro-Palestinian policy and the two-state solution have the slightest expectation that the incoming Biden administration will do much to advance those goals.

In other words, after spending the last decades confident in the belief that sooner or later the international community would deliver an isolated Israel—universally branded as a pariah state—to them on a silver platter, it turns out that it is the Palestinians who are the ones without meaningful allies. Israel's critics were sure that it was running out of time to divest itself of the territories in order to prevent a "diplomatic tsunami" against them. But it now seems that the side that has run out of time is the Palestinians.

The Trump administration's successful push for the Abraham Accords meant more than just the fact that the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have normalized relations with Israel. The tacit support for the accords from Saudi Arabia and the refusal of the Arab League to intervene against Israel's new friends demolished the assumption that the Arab world would always back the Palestinians' refusal to make peace indefinitely. And no one in the Arab world or among Israel's foes in the United States thinks even Trump's defeat by Biden will lead to another round of futile peace processing.

250m coexistence initiative only whets the PA appetite for thievery and corruption

The new Stimulus Package which President Trump isn't really keen on, is 'pork' for a people who have trusted their leaders, proven to be most unhalal in their self-induced determination not to abide by any peace initiatives between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel.

$250M. American dollars, in the name of retiring Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) is to be spent on co-existence initiatives between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. To be sure, any monies that the Palestinian Authority leadership ever received, history has shown, has been shifty finger food, also known as, the Palestinian Authority Leadership Treasury.

In 2018, Congress signed off on the Taylor Force Act, prohibiting U.S. Taxpayer Funds from going directly to the Palestinian Autority, which enjoys writing checks to surviving terrorists and the families of those that don't survive their loved ones going to that '72 Virgin Lie In The Sky'.

It was supposed to be NO MORE U.S. 'BREAD' TO THOSE HAVING BRED TERRORISTS.

The Palestinian Arabs have been bereft of a Life Coach from anyone they counted on to lead them. Only America and Israel have ever stepped up to the plate to show the Palestinians humanity.

David Samuel, in his article, "In a Ruined Country: How Yasir Arafat Destroyed Palestine" The Atlantic, September 2005, says: "The Ministry of Finance served most of Arafat's reign as his personal cashbox through the corrupt practices of Arafat's inner circle, so staggeringly large the amounts may exceed half of the total $7B in Foreign Aid-the biggest thief Arafat himself."

The fragmentation of the right ahead of Israel elections and more with @carolineglick https://t.co/xQnglxmaVG
— President Elect Avi Abelow (@AviAbelow) December 29, 2020

Here are excerpts of a ridiculous article in the Hamas-oriented Middle East Monitor by Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh:

This year has seen the world hit with the Covid-19 pandemic but some Arab leaders have afflicted us with the normalisation plague as they race to be best friends with the Zionist state. This plague is deadlier in many ways than the pandemic; the coronavirus affects individuals, while normalisation affects whole nations and threatens the present and future of the Arab people.

The Arab rulers have persisted in their hatred of their own people, and have joined hands with their enemies to conspire against Palestine, the cause that is central to the Muslim Ummah, not just the Arabs.

These normalisers have forgotten Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third Holy Mosque and the fulcrum of the Prophet's miraculous night journey, peace be upon him. In doing so they have made it the sole responsibility of the Palestinians oppressed in their own country, that was usurped by the Zionists, where they face all types of torture, humiliation and deprivation. They stand alone in defence of the Muslim sanctities.

The Palestinians didn't ask anyone to join the ranks of the resistance; they simply wanted moral support. Nevertheless, the Almighty will ask us all what we did to help them in the struggle to defend Al-Aqsa. Those who have made Israel their Qiblah and joined with the usurpers of the Noble Sanctuary have some serious questions to answer. They have given a veneer of legitimacy to the Israeli occupation and helped to strengthen Zionist control over Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. The least they can do is spare the Palestinians from the normalisation evil.

The claims that normalisation will not harm the Palestinian cause overlook the fact that Israel is nothing but a Western colonial project to divide and rule the region through client states. It is beyond comprehension to normalise relations with it, due to the nature of the Zionist project and its expansionist goals, which may include the normalising countries.

Let the normalised regimes rejoice in their relations with the Zionists, while preparing for the day when their people will rise up and depose them. The day will come when the Arab people will be liberated from the tyrannical regimes occupying their lands, and from the externally-imposed occupation state. Tomorrow is just a day away.

At least this article doesn't pretend to care about Palestinians. It shows that the entire supposed Arab support for Palestinians is really just to use them to help destroy Israel.

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From Investopedia:

Remittances are funds transferred from migrants to their home country. They are the private savings of workers and families that are spent in the home country for food, clothing and other expenditures, and which drive the home economy. For many developing nations, remittances from citizens working abroad provide an import source of much-needed funds.

The World Bank keeps track of these figures but some are only estimates. They provide a financial picture of how Israel funds, and is funded, by citizens of other countries in ways that are rarely seen.

Not surprisingly, Israelis send far more to other countries than they receive. In 2017, Israelis sent nearly $3 billion to other countries and received almost $1 billion.

The list of countries that Israelis send remittances to includes many Arab and Muslim countries. By far the biggest recipient is Morocco, with almost $400 million in remittances from Israel. But other countries on the list are even more surprising.

Egypt received $119 million - even though there are only a handful of Jews left in Egypt. Other surprises are Yemen with $68 million, Tunisia with $66 million and Algeria with $54 million. The standard concept of remittances doesn't explain these numbers at all, and perhaps they hint to an underground black market economy between Israel and Arab nations. Further evidence for this is the $166 million sent from the Palestinian territories to Israel, this might be to get around taxes or PA restrictions on businesses.

Most surprising is the $43 million sent from Israel to Iran. Not because there aren't a lot of Israelis from Iran who want to help their relatives, but how these funds are transferred in a way that the World Bank can see them but Israeli and Iranian banking regulations seem not to.

Oddly, no money was recorded between Iran and the Palestinian territories. But in 2017 some $340 million was somehow transferred from the US to Iran!

Altogether, this shows that Israel is far more economically integrated into the Middle East than most people realize.

Remittances from Israel to other countries, 2017

Country	$
France	$545,000,000
Morocco	$399,000,000
Ukraine	$207,000,000
United States	$168,000,000
Romania	$151,000,000
Egypt	$119,000,000
Belgium	$118,000,000
Poland	$104,000,000
Hungary	$103,000,000
India	$98,000,000
Germany	$97,000,000
Russia	$89,000,000
Ethiopia	$86,000,000
Yemen	$68,000,000
Tunisia	$66,000,000
Algeria	$54,000,000
Iran	$43,000,000
Iraq	$32,000,000
Argentina	$28,000,000
Austria	$28,000,000
Bulgaria	$27,000,000
Georgia	$25,000,000
Moldova	$23,000,000
United Kingdom	$19,000,000
Belarus	$18,000,000
Italy	$16,000,000
Spain	$16,000,000
Switzerland	$15,000,000
Brazil	$14,000,000
Australia	$13,000,000
Latvia	$13,000,000
South Africa	$13,000,000
Azerbaijan	$12,000,000
Denmark	$10,000,000
Kyrgyzstan	$10,000,000
Lithuania	$9,000,000
Turkey	$9,000,000
Canada	$8,000,000
Tajikistan	$8,000,000
Netherlands	$7,000,000
Colombia	$6,000,000
Mexico	$6,000,000
Sweden	$6,000,000
Peru	$5,000,000
China	$4,000,000
Syria	$4,000,000
Uruguay	$2,000,000
Kazakhstan	$1,000,000

Remittances to Israel from other countries, 2017:

Country
United States	$408,000,000
Palestinian territories	$166,000,000
Germany	$74,000,000
Canada	$71,000,000
United Kingdom	$55,000,000
Australia	$31,000,000
France	$25,000,000
Netherlands	$14,000,000
Italy	$12,000,000
Turkey	$11,000,000
Switzerland	$10,000,000
Russia	$9,000,000
South Africa	$9,000,000
Belgium	$8,000,000
Austria	$7,000,000
Spain	$7,000,000
Sweden	$7,000,000
Argentina	$5,000,000
Brazil	$5,000,000
Denmark	$5,000,000
Hungary	$5,000,000
Czech Republic	$4,000,000
Jordan	$4,000,000
Mexico	$4,000,000
Panama	$3,000,000
Chile	$2,000,000
China	$2,000,000
Ecuador	$2,000,000
Finland	$2,000,000
Norway	$2,000,000
Peru	$2,000,000
Philippines	$2,000,000
Romania	$2,000,000

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In 1958, a hugely popular novel named The Ugly American was published. It described how American foreign diplomats were tone deaf to the countries they were stationed in, with little interest in learning the local culture, and therefore they were regarded as obnoxious, pretentious blowhards.

Joseph Massad has just unwittingly published The Ugly Palestinian.

Writing in Middle East Eye, the Columbia professor complains that Arab regimes have always put their own interests above that of Palestinians:

In contrast with the Arab peoples who have ceaselessly shown solidarity with the Palestinians since Britain issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Arab regimes, as I have written in Middle East Eye before, have always put their own national interests first and had established ties and collaborated with Israel since 1948 - in the case of the Hashemite Amir Faisal since 1919.

...King Farouk of Egypt entered the war in 1948 not because he placed Palestinian interests ahead of Egypt’s, but as analysts have shown, on account of his rivalry with the Iraqi monarchy for hegemony over the post-colonial Arab world.

Not only did Nasser not launch a single war against Israel, but also all of Egypt’s subsequent wars were fought to defend Egypt, not the Palestinians. In 1956 and in 1967, Israel invaded Egypt and occupied Sinai.

...Rather than sacrifice their national interests to defend the Palestinians, the Arab regimes have used every opportunity to sell out Palestinian rights to advance their own interests without respite.

Massad's cluelessness equals that of the American diplomats of 1950s Southeast Asia ridiculed in The Ugly American.

Of course every responsible national leader is going to place their own national interests above those of anybody else. That is their primary responsibility!

But Palestinians like Massad have drunk the Kool-Aid of the Arab rhetoric where they have claimed for the past 72 years that they put the Palestinian issue above their own. As he notes, they never have - but Palestinians like Massad act as if they should.

This has resulted in a Palestinian leadership and populace that have been taught that they can rely on others to do the hard work to get them what they want, while they just sit back and wait in relative comfort compared to much of the Arab world. Arab leaders should fight wars for Palestinians, they should exert diplomatic pressure for Palestinians, they should boycott Israel for Palestinians, they should forego the benefits of peace with Israel for Palestinians.

Arabs never cared about Palestinians. They always used them as pawns to help destroy Israel. The cynicism was obvious to all, with Syrian and Lebanese leaders pretending that keeping Palestinians stateless was for their own good, to help pressure Israel for a "return" that will never happen.

Astute Palestinians would have noticed this. They would have realized decades ago that if they want a state, they would have to actually work for it, sweat for it, negotiate for it, compromise with Israel for it - not wait for their Arab brethren to do the work for them.

But Palestinian leaders and apologists like Massad just don't get it. They think that the ICC and the ICJ and the UN and the EU will save them just like they used to think that Arab leaders will go to war for them. Instead of building the institutions of statehood, they outsourced all the hard work to Europeans and NGOs. A glance at Palestinian government websites shows that many of them are empty shells, not updated in years, because they never sowed interest in governing themselves or building a government infrastructure.

The only time the world has seen Palestinians being proactive is with terror attacks.

Arab nations finally got fed up with the Hamas/Fatah split, and doubly so when the PA rejected peace plans in the 2000s and a peace framework from John Kerry during the Obama administration - the one president who was the most friendly to Palestinians and antipathetic to Israel. They threw even that away.

Meanwhile, Israel got stronger - not just militarily but economically. Boycotting a regional superpower made less and less sense for Arabs. Jordan and Egypt needed Israel's natural gas. The UAE and Bahrain want Israel's high tech expertise. The policy of following Palestinian demands of boycotting Israel has been increasingly self-defeating.

Massad is complaining that the Arabs are not prioritizing Palestinian interests above their own. Only someone who is spoiled and out of touch would even dare make such a demand. Worse, Massad is denigrating the huge amounts of monetary and diplomatic aid that Arab nations have given Palestinians over the past 50+ years.

Even Columbia professors can have the emotional intelligence of a child, thinking that the world revolves around them.

Massad is using the old playbook, trying to shame the Arab world into giving Palestinians unlimited, no-strings attached support. He has no idea that the world has changed.

Massad's diatribe will not impress any Arab leader. On the contrary, they will be pushed even further away from sympathizing with Palestinians.

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12/28 Links Pt2: "Intersectionality" includes Palestinian Arabs but not minorities persecuted by Arabs;

From Ian:

"Intersectionality" includes Palestinian Arabs but not minorities persecuted by Arabs

Intersectionality is a lie, as Daniel Greenfield shows, adding ithat "It’s not just a lie in its negative hateful aspects, but in its promise of a utopia once the 'white devils' and their 'white privilege' are out of the way."It ignores Black-Black racism in Africa. It ignores minorities persecuted by Arabs.

"The left claims that it’s fighting for equality. What it’s actually fighting for is a tribal society where the notion of equal rights for all is as alien as it is in Iraq, Rwanda and Afghanistan, where democracy means tribal bloc votes and where the despotism of majority rule invariably ends in terror and death."

Why does intersectionality include Palestinian Arabs but not minorities persecuted by Arabs like Yazidi in Iraq, the Copts in Egypt or the Bantus in Somalia? Why does it ignore Black-Black racism in Africa where dozens of different Black ethnic groups opress and persecute other minority Black ethnic groups? Discussed here are examples of discrimination and ethnic conflict in countries like Lybia, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mauritania and Uganda.

In discussing slavery and state racism, our host Biram, president of the IRA (Initiative de Résurgence du mouvement Abolitionniste de France-Mauritanie), emphasised the ‘the ideological and religious foundations of slavery and racism with the state in Mauritania’....Biram returned to the central facts around slavery in Mauritania, notably the practice of guardianship – women and children are left to the cruelty of men and women, heartless masters with neither faith or reason.

"...'Where is the compassion of this community calling itself Muslim? What human values form their identity? What goes on in the heads of those men and women who exercise such cruelty, barbarism and cynicism? The inhumanity of these practices challenges our very confidence in what’s human when humanity is capable of undertaking such acts. An ideological, military and police machinery is consistently mobilised to this effect. There has never been any form of respite for the men, women and children assigned to the deadly status of slaves.'

"'Mauritanian society is deeply slavery-oriented and as such has produced deeply unjust inequalities. Certain techniques involving humiliation, torture and even being put to death are employed in the aim of keeping slaves dependent on their masters through fear, shame and submission.

"Biram explained this in strong terms; the master recognizes no right to a dignified life or free black existence as human beings. As a result, children and women remain without protection or security, being at the mercy of arbitrary, cruel and unbearable Moorish masters who defy contemporary humanity through the use of barbarous and wicked treatment and the denial of the most basic of rights. ... This system is rooted in an enduring ideological base, one which constitutes an untouchable and immutable dogma and which gives rise to a logic of extermination and annihilation of the moral and ethical character of black people.

"...Mauritania as a racist and slave state must be overcome for the purpose of building a fair, free and egalitarian Mauritanian society. This Mauritania will be one in which citizens have the rights of citizenship, rather than one in which black people are reduced to indignity under Moorish oppression..."

Black Lives Matter could make a difference in the lives of people of color if it tried to change the situation in the countries described above instead of rioting in the USA. It might do even more good if it told the Palestinian Arab advocates to fight Arab persecution of minorities and leave democratic Israel out of the equation..

Teacher with Mediterranean and Jewish heritage left bewildered as his trade union insists he's black Jason Wardill, who is a design technology teacher, was surprised to be invited by the National Education Union (NEU) to a meeting of black teachers last year.

A teacher has voiced his bewilderment after his Left-wing trade union insisted he was black.

Jason Wardill, who is a design technology teacher, was surprised to be invited by the National Education Union (NEU) to a meeting of black teachers last year.

Mr Wardill, 42, is of Mediterranean and Jewish heritage and has been trying to stop his union referring incorrectly to his ethnicity ever since – with no success.

He says he feels its actions are 'discriminatory' against other ethnicities and religions.

The NEU – which has been at the forefront of the campaign to keep schools closed during the pandemic – says it treats black as a political term rather than a signifier of African heritage.

Therefore the term includes 'all members who self-identify as black, Asian and any other minority ethnic groups who do not identify themselves as white'.

When Mr Wardill – who now works as an area site manager for an academy trust in Lincolnshire – contacted it to say he was not black, the NEU informed him that since he did not consider himself white, he had to be registered as such.

He told the Daily Mail: 'It made me feel pretty helpless. BAME would be absolutely fine, as it encompasses everything.'

The union has been accused of putting political battles before the interests of pupils, bragging that it had 'made the running in this crisis' when schools across the country were shut and children's education was in tatters.

Mr Wardill said when he registered to join the union and was asked for his ethnicity, he ticked 'mixed other' because it was 'the only option available for me'.

'Jewish was an option in the religion section only, which leads me to believe the NEU doesn't recognise Jewish as a race. They only appear to recognise it as a religion,' he commented.

Cartoon of the Day: Greedy Zionists

Continuing our series of recaptioning cartoons...

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.

As opposed to my last post of the best EoZ essays of 2020, here is a list of the most popular posts of the year that I wrote:

#12: 77-year old female Jewish professor in Pittsburgh sues after being falsely accused of sexual harassment(!) by BDSers

#11: A brief debunking of the “Blacks are the real Jews” theory

#10: Farrakhan’s hate speech, promoted by Diddy, watched hundreds of thousands of times

#9: Why Bari Weiss had to resign

#8: Rabbi apparently forced out as head of Graduate Theological Union after only four months - because he doesn’t hate Israel

#7: Roger Waters hates Jews and Judaism. Now we have proof.

#6: Black lives matter. But don’t support Black Lives Matter.

#5:The anti-Israel “human rights lawyer” who tried to firebomb an NYPD police car

#4: Brown U professor hates Israel so much she erases Jews from her photos of "Palestine" (UPDATE)

#3: New Biden deputy director, Reema Dodin, once justified Palestinian suicide bombings

#2: Amnesty Finland board member defends Hezbollah and Assad, says Israel is the real terrorist

#1: NBC and Fox host Nick Cannon is a racist, antisemitic nutcase

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.

12/28 Links Pt1: Understanding the lobby against Israel’s new relations in the Gulf; Moroccan delegation arrives in Israel; IDF: Our subs sail everywhere; Iran: Our response to any attack will be strong

From Ian:

'Abrahamic' instead of 'Judeo-Christian'

Upcoming elections in the Netherlands and Germany in 2021 will test the strength of the radical right, which has a distinct vision of European identity. In contrast to those who view democratic values as essentially secular and universal, and not tied to specific cultural or religious roots, radical right parties typically say these values are anchored by the heritage of European or western civilization. And they claim that this heritage is being threatened by non-European cultures, particularly Islamic culture.

My research into the international political world views of radical right parties reveals their widespread references to the "Judeo-Christian" roots of European values. The manifesto of the Alternative for Germany declares that the party:

"Opposes Islamic practice which is directed against our liberal-democratic constitutional order, our laws, and the Judeo-Christian and humanist foundations of our culture."

Comparable claims can be found from Marine Le Pen in France and Nigel Farage in the UK.

What do these politicians mean by Judeo-Christian? This term's definition is fuzzy at best, and historical analysis shows that it has long been used and abused for political ends.

Though the Jewish roots of Christianity are clear, Jews were pariahs in pre-modern Christian Europe. As Europe gradually left behind the identity of "Christendom" from the 18th century onwards, efforts to make Jews a legitimate part of European society were a political struggle, resisted by religious conservatives and anti-Semites. In 19th-century Europe, Jews were still commonly grouped with Muslims as non-European "Semites" or "Orientals."

It was in mid-20th century America, especially after the Holocaust, that the idea of the west as Judeo-Christian gained wide acceptance. When President Dwight Eisenhower referred to the Judeo-Christian roots of "our form of government," he chose words that embraced different Christian denominations and Jews within a shared civic identity – one which contrasted with anti-Semitic and godless ideologies of fascism and communism.

Seth Frantzman: Understanding the lobby against Israel’s new relations in the Gulf

THE CAMPAIGN against Israel’s relations with the Gulf uses several talking points. Initially, they claimed that the new relationship was somehow aiding “authoritarians.” This talking point was used by people who don’t condemn “authoritarians” in Doha, Tehran or Ankara. This illustrates how much charlatanism is behind the “authoritarians” talking point. Ankara’s regime is the largest jailer of journalists in the world and sentences opposition politicians to decades in prison on mythical “terror” charges. If there is an authoritarian axis in the Middle East it is the Tehran-Ankara axis and its allies.

Another argument against the Israel-Gulf ties is made by those who oppose Saudi Arabia. Of particular interest here is that most of those who make this argument are not people who historically cared that Saudi Arabia was an absolutist monarchy and conservative Kingdom. Their dislike of Riyadh is primarily anger at palace intrigue in which their allies in the Kingdom were pushed out when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rose to power.

The arguments against Saudi Arabia don’t stand up to scrutiny because they are ostensibly made by people on “human rights” grounds when those very same voices didn’t speak out about human rights as recently as five years ago. Thus, “human rights” and “authoritarianism” became methods of critique of the new Israel-Gulf ties by those who are silent about authoritarian human rights abuses throughout the region.

The critique of Israel-Gulf ties hangs on several interrelated issues. First, the anti-Israel agenda of the 1960s and 1970s has not gone away. The dispute between the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Brotherhood, backed by Turkey and Qatar, is another layer. The Gulf crisis between Saudi Arabia and Qatar in 2017 is part of the issue. In addition, the pro-Iran crowd opposes the peace deals. These voices have ample platforms, from pro-government media in Turkey to Qatar, which mostly serve as English-speaking or Arabic platforms to influence the region and the world.

The emptiness of this critique, which reveals its more complex agenda, hangs on the fact that in no other case in the world are “authoritarian” regimes critiqued for merely having diplomatic relations with other states. For instance, the same voices who have poured cold water on the new peace deals, don’t have an issue with the UAE or Israel having relations with Denmark or China. They just don’t think the UAE and Israel should have relations with each other because they are hostile to both the UAE and Israel and have had to find some reason to excuse that hostility to make it appear legitimate.

The campaign against the peace has had its effect, either by downplaying the importance of the new peace or by sniping at it from various angles. An unprecedented level of new engagement between Israel and the UAE, in particular, has not received the attention it deserves partly because of ingrained biases against both states. Understanding the reasons for this is important because it helps explain some of the challenges that these countries – and their allies – face in the region and globally.

Moroccan delegation arrives in Israel

A Moroccan diplomatic delegation was in Israel on Monday for the first time since normalization between the countries was announced earlier this month.

The delegation, which landed in Israel on Sunday night, plans to work towards reopening the Moroccan liaison office in Tel Aviv, which it has held onto for the past 20 years since Rabat cut official ties. Israel has also retained its closed office in Morocco.

During last week’s visit to Rabat by the Israeli-US delegation led by National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and White House Special Adviser Jared Kushner, the countries committed to reopening the offices within two weeks, which would mean next week.

Morocco is also expected to prepare for a high-level delegation to come to Israel at a later, yet to be determined date.

The Moroccan diplomats have meetings scheduled at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, but they do not have any public events or statements on their agenda.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited Morocco's King Mohammed VI to visit Israel, in a phone conversation over the weekend.

Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra records Moroccan national anthem

Immediately following the announcement of the Israel-Morocco normalization agreement, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (JSO) recorded the National Anthem of Morocco in honor of the historic agreement.

Arranged for the symphony orchestra and choir by Israeli composer and conductor Nizar El-Khater, the rendition of the anthem was performed at the Jerusalem Theater.

The Jerusalem Symphony and the Israeli Kehilot Sharot choir were joined via teleconference by Moroccan singers, a truly unique experience in honor of the normalization deal between the two countries.

3 VOIX De L’espoir (Three Voices of Hope), a Moroccan musical collective helped produce the event.

Today's antisemitism in Arabic media

Algerian site Ech-Chaab has an article on how Jews and Zionists are infiltrating the Arab mind.

Long years ago, the great Egyptian thinker Abd al-Wahhab al-Masiri wrote his encyclopedia on Jews, Judaism and Zionism, and in a section of it he warned against Arab Judaism, saying: “From now on we will find Jews dressed as Muslims, who prays with us in the mosque, but he plays the same role that he a Jewish general is doing it, and accordingly, this phenomenon must be analyzed so that many of us do not turn into Jews without even knowing it. ”
In 1977, Dr. Esmat Saif al-Dawla spoke about "Zionism in the Arab mind," and said, "Zionism and its allies, after they were defeated militarily on the battlefront in October 1973, opened holes in our foreheads and invaded our minds."

Saudi site Al Marsd has an article that praises a Jew, and an angry response. Saud Al-Fawzan describes how he rented an apartment from a Jew when he was in college, and it burned down. The Jew first told him that he was happy he was safe; he then invited him in for coffee and fixed the apartment in ten days while putting him up in a five-star hotel.

In response, Ali Al-Zamil is angry at the story: "What do these people want from the cause of glorifying the morals and exploits of the Jewish man !? ...Why not look at his intentions and what is behind his actions .. What is the point of that! ? It is naive, or even stupid, if these people think that someone will believe that good qualities and good morals are confined only to the Jewish people."

Manadrama has an article on why in Islam, Jews are compared to donkeys: because they are as stupid as donkeys. One must not compare Jews to camels, which are noble creatures.

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