Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 25, 2021

02/25 Links Pt2: BDS Is Anti-Semitic; Na’amod – toxic anti-Zionism with no students to be seen; It's Time for Black People to Reclaim the Term "Apartheid"

I rarely ever feel comfortable talking about Israel in a university setting, despite the fact that the land of Israel is such a dearly held part of my Jewish identity. I have always found it interesting that sweeping dismissals of this part of my Jewish identity, the part that is tied to Israel, are so very welcomed in certain academic and progressive circles. In these groups, it feels like everyone else has the right to defend their cultural, ethnic and religious identities except for the Jew.

On Feb. 9, 2021, the student government at the University of California, Irvine voted 19-3 to pass a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution. BDS stands for the boycott of, divestment from and sanctions on the current Jewish state of Israel. The BDS movement will not be satisfied until there is no Jewish state existing within the land of Israel.

From a principled perspective, the notion of divesting from one nation in the name of helping an entirely separate nation strikes me as odd. Why divest from Israel to help under-resourced Palestinians? Why not invest directly in Palestinian aid or grassroots movements?

It is a lack of satisfactory answers to these questions that leaves me and many other Jewish people feeling like these movements are more about opposing Jewish self-determination than they are about supporting Palestinian liberation.

Calling for the mass boycott of Israel is a way to publicly stand against the existence of a Jewish nation in a land that Jews are indigenous to. In doing so, the movement is denying a huge part of the Jewish identity from having an acceptable place in social life. If that is not anti-Semitism, what is?

David Collier: Na’amod – toxic anti-Zionism with no students to be seen

Nobody should be in any doubt that the group called Na’amod are at the core – an anti-Zionist organisation that was set up to undermine Jewish community support for Israel. They are targeting our children and their focus on the ‘occupation’ and ‘Gaza’ is little more than a strategic deflection.

If you mistakenly think Na’amod is some innocent student ‘anti-occupation group’ – you will be shocked to find out what they are really about – and who is helping to fund their attacks on the Jewish institutions (such as on the JNF, Zionist Federation or the Board of Deputies). Want to know more – Read on.

Talking about Na’amod
I rarely acknowledge Na’amod – it is a Jewish-led organisation that sits to the left of the left on the political spectrum. Like most astroturf groups they need external attention to survive. It is why for Na’amod, provocation is a primary strategy.

This is what they do. They provoke – Zionists respond – they play the victim – they get attention. When you respond to them – when you speak their name – you give them oxygen.

It is why I never rise to their bait – never allow them to dictate the narrative. This article on Na’amod is different. It had to be written as a vital part of our community conversation.

The journey begins last Tuesday. I tuned in to an Oxford University Zoom talk by Jamie Stern-Weiner. It was about the history of the IHRA definition of Antisemitism and his entire argument was to suggest the examples included in the IHRA definition were never properly adopted by the IHRA as part of the definition itself. A pointless exercise that included cherry-picking comments from those involved when it suited him – and ignoring them when it did not.

Unlike the Jewish, academic, anti-Zionist old guard, such as Jonathan Rosenhead, Stern-Weiner is a fresh face. Yet the talk was incredibly boring. His delivery is poor and he fails to spark any interest or emotion in what he has to say. Unlike fanatics such as Tony Greenstein, he remains coherent but after a while I just found myself zoning out. He has the air of a man who thinks he is intellectually superior. Weiner’s problem is that he isn’t as clever as he thinks he is.

It's Time for Black People to Reclaim the Term "Apartheid"

As a young black South African, I am reminded that our parents and grandparents were compelled to live under the viciously discriminatory system of apartheid. Precisely because we South Africans know intimately what apartheid involved, we have a duty to question whether it is an appropriate term to be used in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Apartheid was about race, not religion or nationality, the domination by one race over another. By contrast, Arab citizens of Israel enjoy the same rights and freedoms as Jewish Israelis. Comparisons between the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the bantustans in apartheid South Africa are absurd. As foreign governments refused to recognize them, economic aid was withheld, while the PA has received billions of dollars in aid from international governments. It already looks after a range of functions in Palestinian society, including policing functions and healthcare.

Unlike black people in apartheid South Africa, Arabs in Israel are entitled to vote in national elections and elect their own representatives. They currently have the third-largest party in the Israeli Knesset. In Israel, Arabs are found in the highest ranks of political, civil and even military life. Arabs in Israel enjoy more freedom than those living in the rest of the Middle East.

Those who apply the term "apartheid" to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse are guilty of cultural appropriation by denying the uniqueness of the racism and hatred that we faced and overcame with much blood and tears.

10 Things You Never Knew About Israeli Arabs

Suicide Bomber Hoping Work-From-Home Rules End Soon (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

work from home Hebron, February 25 - Citing what he calls the lockdown's "devastating effect" on his family, a local resident who aspires to kill Israelis by detonating an explosive belt he wears voiced his wish today that Palestinian public health officials lift movement restrictions to allow him to perform his duties outside the family residence.

Muhammad Qawasmeh, 24, told reporters this afternoon that he feels constrained by the regime of COVID-mitigation restrictions in place in this town less than an hour's drive south of Jerusalem, and that he cannot engage effectively in his work as a suicide bomber for the Islamic Resistance Movement known as Hamas.

"I simply can't do my job stuck here at home," lamented the now-unemployed holder of a degree in agricultural engineering. "If I were allowed to move more than a kilometer from my apartment, I could find some Jews to kill along with myself, but all the Jews are on the other side of town from here." Qawasmeh gestured toward the center of Hebron where an enclave of several hundred Jews lives, the fruits of an Israeli effort to restore a Jewish community to King David's first ancient capital following the massacre of the town's Jews by local Arabs in 1929. A larger community called Kiryat Araba lies on the next hilltop, even more inaccessible to Qawasmeh under present conditions.

"It's not good for me or my family," he observed. "I practiced a small detonation a couple of months ago, just to keep myself sharp, you know? I can't let those professional skills erode. I'm going to need them someday soon - at least I hope it's soon. But I ended up giving my little brother Osama third-degree burns and he almost lost an eye. This whole situation is having a devastating effect on my family."

Qawasmeh remarked that ironically, his very dedication to the greater good at the expense of his own physical welfare, or life, demands that he refrain from engaging in the very sacrificial activity for which he was recruited and trained. "Stay at home in the interest of public health, I get it," he acknowledged. "But why is it so important all of a sudden that it overrides the supreme value we've all nurtured until now, that of killing Jews as a way to liberate the land of our ancestors? Nobody used to care very much if it also meant killing Allah knows how many fellow Arabs. Suddenly this pandemic is different? I think the martyrs would understand either way."

02/25 Links Pt1: Israel in Talks to Establish Four-Nation Defense Alliance With Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain; A decade on, Iron Dome has intercepted 2,500 rockets, and counting

From Ian:

Israel in Talks to Establish Four-Nation Defense Alliance With Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain

Jerusalem is currently in talks with the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on establishing a four-nation defense alliance, according to an exclusive i24 News report.

While Jerusalem does not have official diplomatic relations with Riyadh, foreign media report that the two countries have long-standing clandestine ties.

However, the UAE and Bahrain signed a historic normalization deal with Israel in September 2020 known as the Abraham Accords.

The reported defense alliance talks likely come in response to the “growing Iranian threat” in the region, specifically regarding its budding nuclear program along with its expanding influence in the Middle East with countries like Syria and Iraq.

News of the reported talks comes as the Biden administration sends signals to Tehran and world powers that it is ready to rejoin the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, brokered by former President Barack Obama, which Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vehemently opposed at the time.

A decade on, Iron Dome has intercepted 2,500 rockets, and counting

Ten years have passed since the Iron Dome air-defense system, produced by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, made its first revolutionary interception of a Gazan rocket in Israeli skies in 2011. Since then the system has conducted more than 2,500 successful real-world interceptions, preventing large-scale carnage in Israeli cities.

It has achieved an interception rate of more than 90% and is considered an essential element of Israeli security, on standby against enemy arsenals threatening the Israeli home front from north to south.

While Iron Dome is indispensable today, it had to overcome some preconceived notions about the role of air defense in security before first making its appearance.

"A soccer team that goes to the field without a goalkeeper loses," Brig. Gen. (ret.) Shachar Shohat, Rafael vice president and marketing and business development manager of the company's Air and Missile Defense Division, said.

Shohat, who previously served as commander of the Israel Air Force's Air Defense Array, described Rafael as the national combat laboratory that has become a "symbol of innovation" in the world of Israeli security, winning 50-plus Israeli defense prizes for significant contribution to state security.

"Employees at Rafael, who go to work in jeans and sandals, are creating true added value to Israel's national security," he said. "They do it with a spark in their eyes from the founding of the state until this day."

Caroline Glick: Interview with CBN on the Biden administration, Iran and Israel

The Tikvah Podcast: Richard Goldberg on How Iran is Already Testing the Biden Administration

President Biden has been in office for just over one month, but when it comes to his administration’s relationship with Iran, the honeymoon is already long over. Just in the past few weeks, Iran has launched rockets at American assets in Iraq, refused to allow in-person inspections by International Atomic Energy Agency officials of its nuclear facilities, and extorted sanctions relief from South Korea by taking an oil tanker hostage. Through all these actions, Tehran is trying to determine the Biden administration’s objectives, probe its limits, and assess its political will.

Now it’s up to the new American team to lead a response, and to declare—in its words and actions—to the world, and especially to the Iranians, what the United States wants to do, what it can aide, and what it will not accept. On this week’s podcast, the national-security expert Richard Goldberg joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to explain the Biden administration’s early moments of decision on Iran and to project what the short and long term consequences of those decisions might be.

SNL crosses the line. Merrick Garland gets emotional. ?@jarrodbernstein? and I go deep on the NYC mayor’s race with ?@SallyGold? and ?@howiewolf?. Episode 7 of ?@JIPodcast? is ready for download. Listen, subscribe and Happy Purim! https://t.co/Lud4Sssdvm
— Richard Goldberg (@rich_goldberg) February 25, 2021

I still remember when our family went to Disney World, years ago, and we went to the exhibit for "It's A Small World After All." To illustrate the point, the exhibit contained caricatures of every nationality.

The typical Israeli was depicted as -- a Chassid.

Maybe the people at Disney had trouble figuring out what an Israeli is.

Or perhaps they thought their visitors did.

Times haven't changed.

Depictions of Jews in the media are often inaccurate.

As an extreme example, take the new show on NBC called Nurses:

Set in Toronto, "Nurses" follows five young nurses working on the frontlines of a busy downtown hospital, dedicating their lives to helping others, while struggling to help themselves.

In a recent episode -- which NBC has now pulled off its digital platforms -- one of the subplots is that a Chassidic boy requires a bone transplant in order to be able to walk again.

The boy, with his father at his side, refuses the transplant because the bone might be from an Arab or a woman, or -- as the nurse helpfully chimes in -- an Arab woman.

First @nbcsnl now @nbc 'Nurses' airs a viciously antisemitic episode filled with lies about Orthodox Jews.

"A dead goyim leg ... from an arab, a woman, G-d forbid an Arab women ... Israel ... without this next step you won't walk again".

Lies and libels lead to VIOLENCE! pic.twitter.com/BvRA4Xiq9e
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 23, 2021

Elder of Ziyon outlines the extent to which the show Nurses mischaracterized Orthodox Jews as:

o Being against any modern medical procedures
o  Being against grafting bone or tissue from non-Jews
o  Being against having women's organs or bones placed in men
o  Jewish men not directly addressing female nurses
o  Saying that prayer and medicine are incompatible

Against that background, we can understand The Wiesenthal Center's reaction:

The writers of this scene check all the boxes of ignorance and pernicious negative stereotypes, right down to the name of the patient, Israel – paiyous and all.

In one scene, NBC has insulted and demonized religious Jews and Judaism.

Overreaction? Orthodox Jews are targeted for violent hate crimes – in the city of New York, Jews are number one target of hate crimes in US; this is no slip of the tongue. It was a vile, cheap attack masquerading as TV drama. What’s NBC going to do about it?

(Note: Apparently the name of the patient is Ezriel, not Israel.)

It is insulting not only for the deliberately negative slant the show casts on Orthodox Jews, but the show's writers couldn't even be bothered to do the minimal research necessary to realize that under the circumstances, no Orthodox Jew and no Orthodox rabbi would object to such an operation.

The website TV Fanatic does offer a possible context for this sub-plot and what it was intended to do -- draw a comparison with the nurse, who is a religious Christian:

I understand what they were going for. Ashley [the nurse] comes from a religious background. She has issues with her conservative Christian home and with her conservative Christian mother.

They were trying to draw a parallel and stir up some feeling for her with this push-button topic.

Stir up some feeling?

Mission accomplished!

But even so, the thinking behind the plot of this episode is not even new.

In 2005, Grey's Anatomy ran an episode with a similar sub-plot: a 17-year-old girl who has recently become more religious finds out that she has a potentially threatening heart condition that could kill her. The good news is that her life can be saved with an operation that will provide her with a new heart valve.

But the valve is from a pig.

The subplot revolves around her refusal to accept the operation because of the source of the valve.

As Rabbi Avi Shafran wrote in response to the show at the time:

That Jewish law in no way forbids such use of pig parts (only their consumption – and not even that when life is endangered) is not noted; quite the contrary, the viewer is led to believe that the girl’s refusal would be the natural stance of any observant Jew. The silliness of the scenario is only compounded by the casting of a woman as the Orthodox girl’s rabbi (and the episode’s “good guy,” of course).

...But the most egregious element of the fantasy is the character’s, well, character. The Orthodox youth is portrayed as, in the words of one viewer, “a crazy fundamentalist fanatical Jew [who] was rude and behaved horrendously to the doctors who were only trying to help her.” The character belittles her less-observant parents, cursing like a sailor in the process. Just your standard-fare nice, newly religious Jewish girl. [emphasis added]

Realism and accuracy clearly were not considerations. The writer admitted to The Forward, "Whenever there is a story that has a rabbi I never see a woman, I just see old men. I wanted to clash with the stereotype a bit."

But there is more going on in this episode on Grey's Anatomy than just a clash in stereotypes of what a rabbi looks like. As in the episode in Nurses, in this episode of Grey's Anatomy, the writer deliberately created a character who was obnoxious because of her religiosity.

As Rabbi Shafran points out:

...If the character is a positive one, or even a neutral one, no one, save perhaps an anti-Semite, would complain. But if he or she is consciously crafted to be obnoxious – and not merely obnoxious, but obnoxious in her dedication to her ostensible religious beliefs – does that not border on provocation? [emphasis added]

So what is going on here?

In 2005, Wendy Shalit examined the books written about the ultra-Orthodox world, many of which painted a negative picture, and wondered aloud about the audience for such books:

What is the market for this fiction? Does it simply satisfy our desire, as one of Mirvis's reviewers put it, to indulge in "eavesdropping on a closed world"? Or is there a deeper urge: do some readers want to believe the ultra-Orthodox are crooked and hypocritical, and thus lacking any competing claim to the truth? Perhaps, on the other hand, readers are genuinely interested in traditional Judaism but don't know where to look for more nuanced portraits of this world.

Does the same desire to undermine the Orthodox Jews motivate the writers of these kinds of episodes on Grey's Anatomy and Nurses?

In response to criticism of her article, Shalit writes:

For whatever reason, many writers today like to create immoral haredi and newly-religious characters. The truth is, I don't know why. Perhaps because they are not from these worlds, they fail to appreciate the idealism that's there. Or perhaps it's because, as Ms. Mirvis has admitted, nowadays "there is a great deal of discomfort with religiosity, and I have to admit, I feel it myself as well."

...But when all your Orthodox characters are cold and dysfunctional, and unlike anything this group understands itself to be, then I think one must ask what else might be going on. [emphasis added]

Shalit ends this article with a challenge:

Let's turn the tables. Suppose there is a new genre in American Jewish literature, in which Reform Jews are vilified regularly. There is the temple's secretary who kills one of her Hadassah sisters in order to get the latest Judith Lieber bag, and a gay Reform rabbi who seduces younger male congregants. There are idealistic college coeds who want to escape Reform life, but are daunted by the prospect of learning Hebrew, so they abuse drugs instead. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that there is such a genre. And suppose further that these novels are a bit short on character development, that they are primarily driven by page after page of weirdo Reform characters, and mouth agape, one must turn the pages in order to satisfy one's curiosity: what will this bad Reform bunch do next? The authors, who are not Reform themselves, are celebrated in the non-Jewish world and their Reform-bashing literature is translated into multiple languages.

How would we feel about such novels? My guess is that they would not be so popular, and the fact that we have toasted such literature about Orthodox Jews for so long might -- just might -- tell us something about our prejudices. [emphasis added]

There was a time that simple curiosity was the driving force in the depiction of Orthodox Jews. In his review of the book This Ain't Kosher, Elliot Gertel reveals that "the (Jewish) producers of [the TV show] Kung Fu originally thought of making the martial arts master a Hasidic rebbe."

But those were simpler days that are long behind us.

Iran's "Supreme Leader" Khamanei tweeted, "Iran is not after nuclear weapons, but its nuclear enrichment will not be limited to 20% either. It will enrich uranium to any extent that is necessary for the country. Iran's enrichment level may reach 60% to meet the country's needs."

There is no valid non-military reason to enrich uranium beyond the 20% that is the threshold to be considered highly enriched.

Highly enriched uranium (HEU has been historically used for several non-weapons applications: nuclear submarines, some types of civilian nuclear reactors, some types of isotopes for medical applications, and even satellites. However, the entire world has essentially agreed to eliminate the need for HEU in those applications.

For example, outside of a German FRM-II research reactor that has received massive criticism for continuing to use HEU, no new HEU-fueled civilian research reactors with a power level of more than 1 MW have been built in Western countries since the early 1980s. There is no reason to build such a reactor today.

The US Navy has been researching how to phase out the use of HEU for its nuclear submarines. France and China's nuclear submarines use low-enriched uranium. Yet Iran has floated the idea of building a nuclear submarine using HEU.

There is no technical reason why medical applications that still use HEU could not use LEU, meaning that HEU is not a "need" for any country's medical applications.

If Iran is insisting on enriching uranium to 60%, it is not for any legitimate purpose.

The problem is not only Iran building a nuclear weapon.

A simple nuclear weapon in the kiloton range—likely to be delivered by ship or van or assembled on site— is well within the capabilities of technically unsophisticated states, subnational groups, and international terrorist organizations such as al Qaida. The IAEA defines a "significant quantity" of fissile material as the amount required to make a first-generation Nagasaki-type implosion bomb: 8 kg for plutonium or 25 kg of U-235 contained in HEU. Modern nuclear weapons may require as little as 1 to 3 kg of plutonium or 5 to 10 kg of HEU.

HEU may be the preferred nuclear weapon material for terrorists for other reasons as well. Uranium metal can be handled relatively safely by hand and the low radiation it emits is easily hidden by even modest shielding, making smuggling extremely difficult to detect. Sixty kilograms of weapons-grade HEU could easily fit into a five-liter container.

In 2002, the US National Research Council warned that the inavailability of HEU was the "primary impediment" to the development of a terrorist bomb, and there is abundant evidence that terrorist groups have been trying aggressively to obtain nuclear materials.

Iran could smuggle the HEU to Hezbollah, which could attempt to bring a simple bomb to Israel by tunnel or boat.

In short, while the entire world is trying to reduce the use of HEU and finding ways to dispose of it safely, Iran is openly threatening to manufacture more HEU which has no legitimate purpose nowadays.

Scholar Manfred Gerstenfeld passed away this morning.

Anshel Pfeffer of Haaretz wrote in 2013 that Gerstenfeld "is without doubt the greatest authority on anti-Semitism today." Yet as far as I can tell, he only started researching and writing about antisemitism in earnest when he was already in his mid-60s. He had written a number of books about Judaism and environmentalism beforehand. (He received his PhD. in environmental studies in 1999, when he was 62. )

Some of Gerstenfeld's books are available for download at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which he was the chairman from 2000-2012. I loved his book The War of a Million Cuts, which was in some ways a summation of his scholarship on modern antisemitism.

I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Gerstenfeld in his Jerusalem home in 2016. Here are two excerpts of that interview.

The first is about the history of antisemitism over the centuries, where he also discusses the IHRA definition.

And here he speaks about European antisemitism, which he had written extensively about.

We have lost a giant, but Manfred Gerstenfeld's works live on.

Israel and the US are on a Collision Course Over Iran (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Joe Biden has been in office for about a month. I have my doubts about the degree to which Joe himself is running things, but because he has always bent pragmatically to the winds of political (and perhaps personal) advantage, it’s not really important. Someone is making policy, in particular policy that concerns Israel. The course set by the Biden Administration appears to be almost 180 degrees from that taken by Donald Trump, and promises to bring back the sharp disagreements between the two nations that characterized the Obama period. He has already brought back most of the same people.

There are two main areas with which Israel must be concerned: the Palestinian and Iranian arenas. The Palestinian question seems to be on the back burner now, perhaps because everyone realizes that no solution is likely. But the Iranian desk is buzzing with activity. Obama’s people had four years to lick their wounds and plan for a rematch. Now their time has come, and they are moving swiftly.

Indeed, it has recently been revealed that during the Trump Administration, John Kerry and Robert Malley met with Iranian and EU officials and advised them to ignore overtures from President Trump’s people to fix the defects in the deal, and wait for their team to return with the expected Democratic victory. Seeing no alternative, Trump took the US out of the deal in 2018 (several European nations remain in it with Iran).

Biden’s declared Iran policy seems to be more or less the same as Obama’s, and it will be implemented by the same people: Malley, Jake Sullivan, Wendy Sherman, and Anthony Blinken. Before his appointment, Malley’s “International Crisis Group” prepared a report that recommended that the new administration should “move swiftly to revive the nuclear agreement on its existing terms.”

This is the deal that provided for an inspection regime with holes big enough to drive a truck through, which had sunset clauses that in effect guaranteed that after a certain point Iran’s weapons development would be legitimate, which revoked UN prohibitions on missile development, and which suffered from numerous other flaws – to the point that Binyamin Netanyahu risked an open break with the US, its essential ally and prime supplier of critical military equipment, in order to oppose it.

The new administration has already begun to make concessions to Iran in order to initiate a process of mutual moves to restart the deal. It removed the designation of Iran’s proxy Houthi rebels in Yemen as terrorists, and announced that it would no longer support Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against them. Biden also reversed Trump’s “snapback” to honoring pre-2015 UN sanctions on Iran.

Iran, for its part, has said that it wants to see all sanctions lifted and the deal reinstated at the point Trump left it. It’s not clear what the Iranians would do with the prohibited high-enriched uranium and even uranium metal that they have produced in violation of it since then.
Biden’s policies, from Israel’s point of view, are extremely dangerous. And the political situation in Biden’s Democratic Party is becoming more and more anti-Israel, as it moves to the left. There is little to restrain the administration, and there are forces pushing it to take positions even more disadvantageous to Israel.

The evaluation in Israel is that we cannot simply leave it to the US and trust that everything will be fine. A return to the deal without significant changes – which nobody thinks the American negotiators can, or even want to, obtain – will ultimately result in a nuclear Iran. On the other hand, direct opposition to the US could leave Israel in trouble, a result of the excessive dependence of the IDF on American aid. Israel is locked into extremely complex weapons systems that in many cases are integrated with our own systems, and switching to (for example) Russian systems, or even trying to develop our own, would be a very long, difficult process.
Caroline Glick thinks that Israel can maintain good relations with the US while working to decrease dependence, and establish relationships various political factions in the US as well as with other allies who are not happy with the prospect of Iranian nuclear hegemony.

I am afraid this is wishful thinking. Everything she suggests about developing our allies, and so forth, is worth doing, but there is no way Israel can avoid direct conflict with the American administration if it will not “concede either its sovereignty or its core interests to satisfy an administration committed to policies that harm both,” as Glick puts it. In my opinion, a confrontation is unavoidable, even if our PM does not travel to the US and speak to a joint session of Congress, as Netanyahu did in 2015.

I can see one way out of the dilemma. That is to present the Americans with a fait accompli that will at the same time send an unmistakable message that Israel cannot accept a nuclear Iran, and that will significantly set back the Iranian project. I mean, of course, military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. And the sooner – before the US becomes fully enmeshed in negotiations with Iran – the better.

Although there is no doubt it will anger those in the American administration who are more anti-Israel than worried about Iran’s expansionism, it will speak to those who have a realistic attitude and understand that the primary goal is to keep Iran from going nuclear. The Rob Malleys will not approve. The Tony Blinkens might. You may recall the condemnation of Israel that followed her destruction of Saddam’s reactor in 1981; ultimately, almost everyone agreed that it was a good thing.

This time the job is much more difficult. Is it possible to carry it out without too much damage from the certain retaliation? Is there a way to neutralize Iran’s ability to retaliate? What are the probabilities?

These are questions that I can’t answer. They are questions for our Chief of Staff, and I believe the Prime Minister has already asked them.

02/24 Links Pt2: Are ‘Human Rights’ Organizations for Palestinian Rights, or Lawfare Against Israel?; Cabinet Approves Purim Curfew to Head Off COVID-19 Outbreak

From Ian:

Are ‘Human Rights’ Organizations for Palestinian Rights, or Lawfare Against Israel?

Recently, an Arab Christian gynecologist, Dr. Salamah Qumsiyeh, was brutally attacked in Bethlehem by a man who attempted to slash his wrists (there is a video that documents the injuries the doctor sustained, and it is not for the faint of heart). This was the second attack on a physician in the Palestinian territories within a year. The Internet site Jihad Watch, which is run by a former resident of Beit Jalah (a Christian town neighboring Bethlehem) who was until recently an anti-terrorist investigator for the government, claims the attack was committed by Khadr Odeh from the Aida refugee camp. Odeh is a gang leader with close links to the Palestinian Authority (PA) security apparatus. The motive appears to have been alleged malpractice when the physician treated the assailant’s wife.

Qumsiyeh admitted, in a short interview from his hospital bed, that he knew his attacker, but he did not name him, probably out of fear. Most of his brief remarks were a plea to the PA to take action against his assailant and questioning why the PA does not protect its citizens.

According to Jihad Watch, Odeh and his gang have committed a spate of attacks on Arab Christians in the Bethlehem area. The head of the PA’s Bethlehem District acknowledged Odeh’s involvement in four brutal attacks in the past year, but did not mention that the victims were all Christians. The official PA and PLO line is that all Palestinians are treated equally and that brotherly love prevails between Muslims and Christians in the Bethlehem area and elsewhere.

There are, of course, two sides to every story. The question is whether the many “human rights” organizations covering Israel and the Palestinians — probably the highest density of human rights organizations in the world relative to the size of their beat — investigated these claims.

An Internet search revealed that no organization other than Jihad Watch covered the attack on Qumsiyeh or the allegations of systematic maltreatment of Christians in the Bethlehem area, where Christians are now a minority. The search only revealed “occupation forces” alleged attacks on Christians several years ago.

The Israeli “human rights” organization B’Tselem takes its name from the Biblical verse stating that man is made in God’s image. It is true that the organization’s self-declared aim is to cover Israeli violations in the “Occupied Territories.” Still, B’Tselem must surely acknowledge that Christian Arabs are also made in His image, so the possible violation of their rights should be a matter of concern to the group.

Cabinet Approves Purim Curfew to Head Off COVID-19 Outbreak

Israel’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a nighttime curfew for the Purim holiday weekend in an attempt to forestall a spike in COVID-19 infections due to parties and gatherings. Starting Thursday night, the eve of Purim, and ending on Sunday morning, the curfew will be in effect from 8:30 pm to 5 am.

During the hours of curfew, members of the public must remain within 1,000 yards of their own homes, and may not be present in others’ residences. Private intercity travel will be banned entirely for the hours of curfew, starting at 8 pm Thursday. Intracity public transportation will be reduced, and occupancy limited to 50 percent. Police will also be setting up roadblocks on intercity arteries and at entrances and exits to cities and towns.

The Cabinet stressed that in addition, no Purim gatherings would be allowed during the daytime that exceed 10 participants indoors or 20 people outdoors.

Following the Cabinet’s approval of a curfew, the Israel Police began gearing up to enforce it, with an eye on planned underground parties.

One high-ranking police official told Israel Hayom that because Purim would be the first holiday after Israel began lifting its third nationwide lockdown, the public was feeling “a sense of freedom,” especially in light of the vaccination campaign, and warned that “it will be hard to enforce the curfew hermetically.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci on US, Israel Vaccine Rollouts in Interview with i24NEWS

Mauritania reportedly among 19-20 countries Israel is planning to give vaccines

The number of countries Israel is planning to provide with coronavirus vaccines in return for diplomatic support has grown, according to Hebrew media reports Wednesday, as top health officials said they weren’t consulted on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to give away doses.

The list now includes 19 countries, the Kan public broadcaster reported, while Army Radio put the number at 20.

Among the countries now reportedly slated to get vaccines is Mauritania, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

The northwestern African country became the third member of the Arab League to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, but cut ties a decade later amid the 2008-2009 Gaza war. US officials told The Times of Israel last month that Mauritania was close to normalizing relations with Israel before president Donald Trump’s term ended.

Other countries named by Kan included Cyprus, Hungary, Guatemala, Czech Republic, Maldives, Ethiopia, Chad, Kenya, Uganda and Guinea. Each country will receive between 1,000 and 5,000 doses of Moderna vaccine.

The broadcaster said it remained unclear how the decision to give doses away was made or how the list of countries, which was passed on by the National Security Council, was drawn up.

WHO Regional Rep. Praises Israel as Vaccination 'Frontrunner'

As we approached the northern entrance to Efrat, my husband gasped. A car with Palestinian Authority license plates had run a red light, right in front of us. It was nighttime and we were returning from Jerusalem to our home in the Judean Wilderness. We’d traveled there to receive the second of our two vaccination shots against COVID-19. Watching that car speeding past, the driver ignoring the stop light, my first thought was that this wouldn’t happen if Israel exercised sovereignty here in this place, in Judea. My second thought was that people have no clue that sovereignty is about more than land rights.

As the errant driver passed the bright red traffic light, the safety of other drivers on the road in the dark of night was clearly not his concern. And since the residents of Judea and Samaria live under martial law, there was also no one to apprehend him for his misbehavior. Here is a driver who never had to take into account the niceties or legalities of risky driving behavior. Why should he? There is no one to deal with those who drive dangerously on the roads of Judea and Samaria.

According to Prof. Eugene Kontorovich, head of the International Law Department of the Kohelet Policy Forum, it’s not just a matter of no one to police the roads. Without sovereignty, there's simply no law and order. “By preventing the normal administration of law and policing, the existence of military law, and in particular the Civil Administration, prevents effective enforcement against property crime," says Kontorovich. "The military is not organised to be property police, and the Civil Administration does not see law enforcement as its primary priority.”

Crime Doesn't Care About Your Religion

Crime, by the way, is not exclusive to Jewish residents of the territories. Because crime doesn’t care about your ethnicity, religion, or nationality. Though religion does matter--along with your gender--when it comes to inheriting or purchasing property. Naomi Linder Kahn, director of the International Division of Regavim, explains:

“Both Arab and Jewish residents are suffering as a result of the legal limbo that has existed in the territories since 1967, where outmoded Jordanian and Ottoman law is still being enforced by Israeli courts. The old Jordanian legislation means that women—whether Arabs or Jews—cannot inherit or purchase land in Judea and Samaria. Worse yet, Jordanian laws still in effect prevent Jewish people of either gender from purchasing land anywhere in Judea and Samaria, in what is a clear case of Israel propping up an antisemitic policy. Finally, Israel continues to uphold outrageous Ottoman laws no longer in effect anywhere else in the world for over 100 years that allow for property theft through agricultural land use in territory over the Green Line.”

Failure of Israeli Leadership

Beyond these points of concern, there are many more problems that go unresolved as a result of the failure of Israeli leadership to implement sovereignty. But while sovereignty is currently relegated to the backburner for a variety of reasons, the sole issue of the Sovereignty Movement (Ribonut) is to keep the issue of Israeli sovereignty front and center. Asked about the implications of sovereignty beyond the issue of land, Nadia Matar, co-founder of Ribonut, along with Yehudit Katsover, reframed the issue to show how the application of Israeli law to Judea and Samaria would necessarily improve society. Matar provided a bulleted list:

· Substantive rather than political considerations when deciding whether to build or not to build

· Fewer road accidents

· Economic benefits, such as a drop in housing prices, nationwide

· Ecological benefits: Enforcement and supervision in the areas of the environment: landfills, quarries, pollution of streams and groundwater, and etc.

· The IDF will be free from being occupied with silly things like giving out building permits and will finally be able to deal with its real missions, fighting terrorism and protecting borders

· Improvements in the provision of road infrastructure, electricity, water, and etc.

· Preservation of and preventing the looting of heritage and archeological sites by official and unofficial robbers

“But above all,” says Matar, “sovereignty will be an official political and national statement that this land is ours.”

Being There

It is this last point that resonates most of all with those of us who live in Judea and Samaria. We poke along under an onerous and archaic quasi legal system--one that is woefully subpar, ignoring as it does, infractions of basic legal norms. The Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria must put up with a lot, simply for the privilege of being here: the unfairness of how we are treated compared to other Israelis; the dangers of living beyond the Green Line; and living without the standard legal rights our contemporaries have come to expect.

But we live where we live because we love the land, indigenous Jewish territory for thousands of years. And we live where we live because our presence serves to protect the holy city of Jerusalem (the enemy has to go through here to get to there). Finally, we live here because we hope that if enough of us do so, our government will come to do the right thing.

From our point of view, you see, it doesn’t matter who sits in the White House, Trump or Biden. What matters is who sits in the prime minister’s seat in Jerusalem. And we are waiting for someone who has the stones to declare our sovereignty over all our land, at last.

02/24 Links Pt1: Why is KKL-JNF's plan to buy Palestinian land in West Bank controversial?; Blinken: US to run for UNHRC seat, abolish anti-Israel bias

From Ian:

Jpost Editorial: Why is KKL-JNF's plan to buy Palestinian land in West Bank controversial?

KKL-JNF, which was established in 1901 to buy and develop land for Jewish settlement and is famous for the millions of trees it has planted throughout Israel, serves as the Jewish people’s custodian for some 15 percent of the land in the country. In this role, it has in the past purchased land in Judea and Samaria and been involved over the Green Line since the 1967 Six Day War, buying at least 65,000 dunams across the West Bank including in the communities of Itamar, Alfei Menashe, Einav, Kedumim, Givat Ze’ev and Otniel. In other words, buying land is what it does.

While it may be true that KKL-JNF’s expansion of activities in the West Bank could complicate Israel’s ties with the Biden administration, as critics of the plan have claimed, this is a question for the government of Israel of what it wants to do. Indeed, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in response to the plan, “It is critical to avoid unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut the efforts to achieve a two-state solution. This includes annexation, settlement building, demolitions, incitement and payments for terrorists.”

But while the State Department is voicing the views of the US, the KKL-JNF plan is in line with existing Israeli government policy which is not aimed at unilaterally establishing new facts on the ground, but rather at expanding and developing existing Jewish communities. This is something that Israel has always done and will need to continue doing to enable a quality of life for residents of existing communities in Judea and Samaria.

Although the Israeli government – under pressure from the US – can freeze settlement expansion as it has in the past, it cannot prevent existing communities from meeting the needs of their growing populations. This was once termed “natural growth,” and has been largely accepted by the international community, including the US, as legitimate and not in violation of the status quo. We do not expect the Biden administration to adopt the peace plan put forth by the Trump administration under which all settlements were meant to remain and the land to be annexed by Israel, but natural growth of existing communities should not be impaired.

KKL-JNF has the right to approve the plan, and instead of criticizing the organization, Zionist groups should see it as a way to better the everyday lives of Israelis living in the land of Israel, something KKL-JNF has done since its inception.

Blinken: US to run for UNHRC seat, abolish anti-Israel bias

The United States plans to run for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday as he decried the 47-member body's bias against Israel and called for its Agenda Item 7 to be abolished.

"I’m pleased to announce the United States will seek election to the Human Rights Council for the 2022-24 term," Blinken said as he spoke at the virtual high-level meeting of the 46th session which opened Monday and ends on March 23.

Former US president Donald Trump exited the UNHRC in 2018, abandoning the US seat, to protest the council's bias against Israel, which is the subject of more resolutions than any other country.

US President Joe Biden rejoined the council, but as a participant and not a voting member. The US can regain its seat only through elections held annually by the UN General Assembly in New York.

"We humbly ask for the support of all UN member states in our bid to return to a seat in this body," Blinken said.

He lauded the UNHRC for its important work in highlighting global human rights abuses, but chastised it for its treatment of Israel.

"We urge the Human Rights Council to look at how it conducts its business. That includes its disproportionate focus on Israel," Blinken said.

"We need to eliminate Agenda Item 7 and treat the human rights situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories the same way as this body handles any other country," he said.

🇺🇸@SecBlinken: “We urge the UNHRC to look at how it conducts its business—including its disproportionate focus on Israel. We need to eliminate Agenda Item 7. We will focus on ensuring Council membership reflects high standards. Those with the worst records should not be members.“ pic.twitter.com/njnU9yBFoz
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 24, 2021

5️⃣ Problems with @UNWRA:

Last week UNRWA was found to have material promoting terrorism in children’s textbooks...but that’s only the beginning of the problem with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Watch @YosephHaddad and I break it down: pic.twitter.com/k9c3PE2771
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר (@emilykschrader) February 24, 2021

For the past month, the anti-Israel Left has mounted a major campaign - a petition, a website, lots of articles - claiming that Facebook is considering adding the word "Zionist" to its hate speech policy.

The only piece of evidence for this is a single letter that Facebook sent to someone where they wrote:

As you know, in the context of our hate speech policy, we do not allow content that attacks people based on a protected characteristic (e.g., race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation). Under the same policy, we also remove violating attacks where proxies or codewords are used by way of substitute for a protected characteristic.
In that context, we are looking at the question of how we should interpret attacks on "Zionists" to determine whether the term is used as a proxy for attacking Jewish or Israeli people. The term brings with it much history and various meanings, and we are looking to increase our understanding of how it is used by people on our platform.

There is not one clue that Facebook is doing anything wrong or underhanded. On the contrary, it is doing research. A word can be used in many ways, and Facebook was reaching out to understand how the word "Zionist" may be used as a substitute for "Jew."

Facebook no more wants to restrict the word "Zionist" than it wants to restrict the word "Jew" itself. It wants to understand how the context of the word can be interpreted as a slur, just as the word "Jew" can.

The Israel haters are purposefully twisting this Facebook-initiated request to claim that it is a Zionist plot.

Mitchell Plitnick, co-author with Marc Lamont Hill of the recently released book "Except for Palestine," writes in the New Arab:

Facebook is facing a dilemma. The social media Goliath finds itself caught in a debate over the use of the political label "Zionist". Supporters of Israel are pressing Facebook to treat the term "Zionist" as a proxy for "Jew", and to therefore label harsh criticisms of Zionism - a political ideology that must surely be open to criticism in any free society - as anti-semitism, a hateful ideology that has no place in civil discourse.

There's a funny thing about that paragraph. While the rest of the article is replete with links, Plitnick has no link showing that Zionists are pressuring Facebook to do anything. No proof for the main assertion in the first paragraph of the article.

Because, as far as anyone can tell, this wasn't a Zionist initiative. It was Facebook trying to uphold its own policy.

Plitnick then argues unwittingly for Facebook to do exactly that - in terms of the Right:

The use of the word "Zionist" to launder anti-semitism is a real issue. For decades, white nationalist conspiracy theories have talked about the "Zionist Occupied Government," or "ZOG," referring to Jewish control of the United States, or even the world. It is an outgrowth of centuries of anti-semitism and particularly of the continuing malign influence of the notorious Russian forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, first published in 1903.

...The disingenuous practice of using the term "Zionist" to cover for anti-semitism is not difficult to see through. Both opponents and adherents of white nationalist propagandists, for example, routinely understand precisely what is meant.

Which means that Plitnick agrees that sometimes the word Zionist is used as a pejorative proxy for "Jew" and therefore would fall under Facebook's hate speech policy. He admits that the way that white nationalists use the term is clearly antisemitic. So why shouldn't Facebook treat those cases as the antisemitism it is?

He gives no answer. He just says that when legitimate critics of Israel use the term, it never means Jews, so don't bother even checking it out.

Yet even the Left was forced to admit the blatant antisemitism in the British Labour party, often hiding behind "anti-Zionism."

Iranian and Arab media today will talk about "Zionist" control of the media or of banks, simply substituting "Zionist" for traditional anti-Jewish tropes. Only last week I wrote about an Arab article that claimed that Mohammed drove out the deceitful "Zionists" from Medina.

Denying that is denying reality, but Plitnick ludicrously claims that Palestinians and their allies are never antisemitic.

Plitnick's example of the far-right slur "Zionist Occupied Government" is clearly antisemitism. But the Left makes the same claim - that the "Zionist lobby" controls Congress and the White House. What, exactly, makes one of them antisemitic and the other one legitimate criticism? The stereotype is identical, the aims are identical, the language is nearly so. While Plitnick himself criticized some aspects of the infamous "Israel Lobby" book by Walt and Mearsheimer, he didn't consider it antisemitic, and plenty of people on the Left embraced its theme that is indistinguishable from "ZOG."

If even Plitnick agrees that some purported anti-Zionism is thinly disguised antisemitism, what could be wrong with Facebook learning how to identify this and treat it as the hate it is?

Because Plitnick and the groups behind this initiative want to defend left-wing and Arab antisemitism. They doesn't want it to be scrutinized. They want free reign to cross the line between legitimate criticism of Israel and hate. They want to allow the most vile antisemitism to be spouted from people on the Left and then defend it as mere "criticism of Israel."

Facebook wants to see what it can do to flag hate speech. People from the Left want to defend hate speech when it comes from their own side. Which means that they aren't against antisemitism - they just want to use the term to apply only to their ideological opponents.

NBC's "Nurses" program aired an episode that is antisemitic. There is no other way to view it: it characterizes religious Jews as:

* Being against any modern medical procedures

* Being against grafting bone or tissue from non-Jews

* Being against having women's organs or bones placed in men

* Jewish men not directly addressing female nurses

* Saying that prayer and medicine are incompatible

The inaccuracies about how religious Jews are would be laughable if it didn't just teach millions of viewers that they are uncaring monsters who reject women and medicine.

A Hasidic Jewish youth named Israel (of course, in case the point wasn't made) who skipped "temple" to play basketball gets hit by a car and needs an operation to fix his leg and walk normally again. His rabbi father is aghast that doctors suggest a bone graft, which could come from "a dead goyim leg" - from "an Arab, a woman."

Of course, Judaism has no such restrictions. But funny looking Jews with sidecurls are an irresistible target for modern entertainment.

Notice also that the nurse sarcastically makes fun what the rabbi is saying, normalizing the idea that Jewish beliefs can be lampooned on TV. Even though the show is claiming that Jews believe something that is diametrically opposed to Jewish law, the message that gets through from this show is that nurses must be respectful to all people - except Dark Age Jews.

Later, the nurse tries to make a Biblical argument to the son that one can break (nonexistent) Jewish laws to save one's life. The father refuses to acknowledge the nurse is even there, because, of course, she's a woman.

Then the father says that his son getting a bone graft would jeopardize his eternal soul, and that the choice is between trusting medicine or prayer.

In the end, the nurse is frustrated that she couldn't convince the backwards Jews what was best for them.

This entire episode is the Jewish equivalent of having a Black character eating watermelon with fried chicken and saying "Yessa Massa!" It is not only a thoroughly offensive stereotype, but it is a stereotype that has no relationship with reality.

At a time when identifiable Jews are being beaten in the streets simply because of how they look, NBC is contributing to the idea that Jews are not just like anyone else - but that they are fundamentally different, completely wrong and deserve to be treated with contempt.

This requires an immediate and abject apology.

EoZTV: Fisking an anti-Israel propaganda video that tries to exonerate a car-ramming terrorist

From The Guardian:

Israeli forces executed a 26-year-old Palestinian at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank last year, a report has alleged, challenging Israeli police claims that the man was a “terrorist” conducting an attack.

Forensic Architecture, a British research body based at Goldsmiths, University of London, said it had conducted an analysis into the death of Ahmad Erekat, who was shot seconds after his car crashed into a booth and lightly wounded an Israeli border guard.

The incident last June was described on the day by Israeli police as a “vehicle attack”, saying that its forces had “quickly neutralize [sic] the threat from the terrorist”.

In the past few years, Palestinian attackers have used car-rammings against Israeli security forces and civilians.

However, Forensic Architecture said its investigation, which reconstructed the scene using available film, including security footage published by police, cast “significant doubt” on claims Erekat was involved in an attack, and suggested the crash may have been an accident.

It takes a video to fisk a video, and I made one to demolish the major two claims: that Ahmad Erekat was innocent and that the Israeli border police "executed" him for no reason.

Both of those are not only lies, but easily proven lies. Forensics Architecture, an anti-Israel group that pretends to be objective and scientific, uses "computer models" and hand waving to obfuscate the simple truth that is obvious from the 11 second video of the attack: that Erekat accelerated, on purpose, into an Israeli checkpoint and then jumped out of the car one second later, something that innocent accident victims never do.