Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, March 01, 2021

Cartoon of the Day: Academic freedom

This isn't even parody.

Al-Arab op-ed: Iraq should normalize relations with Israel

The normalization train keeps going. This is a particularly strong piece in Al Arab (UK) by University of Brussels professor Saif Sham that notes that Arab anti-normalization positions are often just antisemitism.

What Sabah Al-Saadi proposed with a law criminalizing normalization with the Zionist entity is surprising. For those who do not know him, he is a deputy in the Iraqi parliament, and yet he does not distinguish between the Zionist entity, the state of Israel and its people, and the Jews, as he spoke in the text of his proposed law about “the criminalization of normalization with the Zionist entity that usurped the Palestinian lands in any way”.

The Saadi Law, in its form and clauses, is an oppressive and arbitrary law, which calls for the death penalty, and encourages the spread of individual dictatorship among judges, each of them practicing it according to their liking. For example, what does Al-Saadi mean by the State of Israel? This country contains many nationalities, ethnicities and religions. Nevertheless, it overlooks the existence of Israeli Muslim Arabs who live in this country and hold its nationality and passport. Is this group also included in the normalization law, and it is forbidden for us to deal with them?

Iraq needs normal relations with Israel for the clear reason that large numbers of Israeli Jews are of Iraqi origin.

Establishing relations with Israel is a natural matter for Iraq and the Iraqis, while Al-Saadi calls by his law to ostracize the Iraqi Jews, not recognize them, and strip more of their rights, as stated in Article 17.

This is a law that violates the freedom of a large segment of Iraqis, breaks ties of kinship, friendship and love between members of the Iraqi people, and ignores the size of the relations between the Iraqi people inside Iraq and the Jews of Iraq.

According to this law, the death penalty applies to everyone who prints, publishes, sells, and even whoever buys or reads any of the books of the Iraqi Jews who have made a major contribution to building Iraq from the dawn of time to modern Iraq that was established after the First World War.

Al-Saadi wants to fight and cut ties with institutions that promote normalization, so does he mean by that to close embassies, such as the US embassy and others, for example, under the pretext that their countries encourage normalization, so that we end a situation in which Iraq becomes isolated from the world?

Article 17 states that “the Tourism and Antiquities Authority prohibits any foreign tourist activities aimed at promoting or normalizing with the Zionist entity through the exploitation of Jewish antiquities in Iraq.”

Looting the property and rights of others is the language of the mob, who understand nothing in the language of dialogue except bloodshed, displacement, and the looting of property. Al-Saadi calls for a second “Farhood” that recalls the acts of violence and looting that broke out in Baghdad and targeted the city's Jewish residents on June 1, 1941, and overthrows the remaining hope for the return of the Iraqis to their land to which they belonged for more than 2,500 years.

The properties of the Iraqi Jews were plundered and their features were distorted, as happened in the Shamash School, which was established in 1929, which was a secondary school for the Jewish elite due to its high level of education. It was founded by Yaakov Shlomo Shamash in Baghdad, and in 1930 it attracted more than 900 students. Literature and the English language were studied in depth. This great cultural edifice was confiscated to be converted into a regular school under the name “The Message”, and then it became a car park.

This also happened in Basra, the house of Yosef Karah, which was demolished in 1999 to turn into a dump, and the house of Moshe Tuwaiq, an architectural masterpiece, which today has become a mere medical clinic.

It seems that Al-Saadi wants to continue the acts of vandalism committed against the heritage and history of Iraqi Jews. He also wants to return the execution scenes that Iraqis used to see being carried out in public squares. With his proposed law, Al-Saadi wants to return these gallows to be use for all who dared praise the Jews of Iraq.

03/01 Links Pt1: Obama offered Syria an Israeli withdrawal from Golan Heights; The UN Should Protect Human Rights, Not Human Rights Abusers; When an Emirati and an Israeli diplomat meet

From Ian:

Report: Obama offered Syria an Israeli withdrawal from Golan Heights

Just a few months before the Syrian civil war erupted in March of 2011, the Barack Obama administration offered the Assad regime an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for severing ties with Iran and Hezbollah, the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Sunday.

According to the report, which was relayed to the newspaper by senior American and Syrian officials who were involved in the negotiations at the time, the talks reached an advanced stage and the sides had even prepared a document for signing.

The talks involved then-American envoy Frederic Hof, the paper said, along with ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As stated, the proposals in the draft agreement included Damascus' abandoning of "military relations" with Tehran and Hezbollah in exchange for the Israeli withdrawal from the Golan towards the June 4 border.

Asharq Al-Awsat is a Saudi-owned newspaper and often reflects the official government position. It's possible the timing of the report is not coincidental and was intended to pressure Washington on the Iranian nuclear program.

The report was not confirmed by any official source in the US or Syria, but does somewhat coincide with claims made by another former US secretary of state, John Kerry, in his book "Every Day Is Extra."

The final meeting between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hof took place on February 28, 2011, the report said, at the height of the Arab Spring uprising that had already toppled regimes in Libya and Egypt and had just begun spreading to Damascus.

Amb. Dore Gold: Insufficient Diplomatic Strength to Stop Iran

A new Iranian law mandated by the parliament has cut back the monitoring of the Iranian nuclear program. There would be no more "snap inspections" by the West on Iranian facilities.

With Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declaring that Iran's uranium enrichment levels would no longer be limited to 20%, and adding, "We may even increase enrichment to 60%," Tehran is now on a path to get closer to an atomic bomb than ever before.

When the West created an arrangement with Saddam Hussein at the end of the First Gulf War that sought to address his weapons of mass destruction, they included all ballistic missiles above a range of 150 km. But the JCPOA did not touch Iran's missile capabilities. There is no indication that this is now going to be remedied.

The JCPOA was built around the assumption that Iranian behavior would become more moderate as a consequence of the easing of economic sanctions. But the relaxing of sanctions on Iran did not moderate its regional behavior. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change reported in February 2021: "The number of militias created by the IRGC surged."

Iranian expansionism spread in this period to areas which are not thought to be within its sphere of influence. Its support for the Houthi guerrillas in Yemen gave it a strategic presence along the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that connected the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Iran began working with the Polisario in the Western Sahara, basing themselves in Algeria. Iran was operating far away from the Persian Gulf.

What was needed was a robust response by the West to these Iranian actions. In the past month alone, Iranian proxies rocketed an American facility in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as a civilian airport in Saudi Arabia. True, the U.S. hit back at an Iraqi militia stationed just over the border in Syria. But without a consistent American policy of striking back, the Iranians will not internalize the U.S. message. There was no indication that the U.S. and Europe understand what they are facing.

The UN Should Protect Human Rights, Not Human Rights Abusers

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Wednesday that the United States will seek membership at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in January 2022 as part of the Biden administration's commitment to "putting human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy."

To be sure, the United States is at its best when it strives to model human rights at home and stand up for those principles abroad. And when Washington leads and assembles like-minded countries to advance international human rights together, we are more likely to succeed.

Accordingly, it would seem to be an easy decision for the United States to join the UNHRC. But that is not necessarily the case. To understand why, it is worth considering what the UNHRC has become.

The UNHRC certainly includes countries and individuals of good faith who are dedicated, sincere advocates for human rights. Unfortunately, they have allowed it to be increasingly coopted by countries that do not share a genuine commitment to human rights.

To escape unwanted attention or consequences for their illicit activities, criminal syndicates may attempt to control the local police department. That is not unlike what happens today at the UNHRC. The world's worst human rights abusers, such as China, have sought membership on the UNHRC to shield and enable their own egregious human rights abuses, seeking to shift attention elsewhere.

Take a moment to let that sink in. China has detained upwards of a million Uighur Muslims in what Blinken himself has described as a "genocide." China has violently suppressed pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and continues to occupy Tibet. Yet China sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

If the Biden administration is successful in gaining membership at the UNHRC in 2022, China is not the only authoritarian human rights abuser the U.S. delegation will find around the UNHRC table.

Recent Jew-hatred in schools worldwide

This was a particularly bad past couple of weeks. Antisemitism is getting more and more mainstream from every direction on campus and schools.

Here's a list of recent events:

A student at Tufts University, Max Price, suffered months of harassment for his opposition to a Students for Justice in Palestine initiative to create a referendum to pledge not to have Tufts employees go on any Israeli security programs.

Price’s lawyers, who are from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, claim that Price endured a months-long campaign of intimidation, harassment and discrimination for speaking against SJP’s attempt to include the referendum on the ballot.

The harassment included Price having to sit through meetings by Tufts student-government leadership questioning his personal beliefs and identity as a pro-Israel Jew, according to the lawyers. Even after the TCUJ determined that there was no evidence of bias and no need for Price to recuse himself, he was placed on “mute” for the entire final Zoom meeting when TCUJ members considered the referendum.

“They wanted me to back down and to silence me, and when I didn’t, SJP expanded their campaign to slander me in the student newspaper, had me interrogated numerous times as to whether I was fit to hold office, attacked me with age-old anti-Semitic tropes about money and power, threatened me with impeachment, and now, I’m being denied a fair trial,” he said.

SJP tried to have Price removed from office, but dropped the attempt after Price's lawyers got involved. Yet the school not once defended Price from months of harassment.

From Germany:

Students at an elite German university fraternity regularly greeted each other with the words “Heil Hitler” and used the word “Jew” as a pejorative, according to one of its former members in explosive revelations published this week by the German newsmagazine Spiegel
The fraternity in question — Normannia — has been under German police investigation following an outrage at a party held by its Heidelberg University members at their mansion on Aug. 29, 2020. A 25-year-old student in attendance who spoke about his Jewish ancestry was berated with antisemitic abuse, whipped with belts and pelted with metal coins by several assailants.

Massachusetts:

School Committee member Robert Hoey Jr., who referred to a former administrator at the Lowell Public Schools as a “kike” on live cable access TV on Wednesday, announced his resignation on Friday in a video posted on Facebook.

Hoey, who hosts the morning show “City Life” on Lowell Telecommunications Corporation cable access Channel 8, made the statement on the live program at around 6:35 a.m. while discussing school personnel. “We lost the kike, I mean the Jewish guy. I hate to say it but that’s what people used to say behind his back – Gary Frisch … He was the guy in charge of our budget,” said Hoey.

From the UK:

About 200 academics from the United Kingdom and the United States have signed a petition defending a British university lecturer who had called Jewish students on his campus “pawns” of Israel, “a violent, racist, foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing.”
Jewish groups and organizations have protested the remarks by David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, made during an online videoconference Feb. 13. Some have called for his ouster.
“Prof Miller is an eminent scholar. He is known internationally for exposing the role that powerful actors and well-resourced, co-ordinated networks play in manipulating and stage-managing public debates, including on racism,” the petition read.

At Columbia University, the Young Democratic Socialists of America have tied a popular tuition strike with BDS:

The tuition strikers are now prioritizing that the school reject what they call an “ongoing system of settler colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid” and comply with “the results of future referendums relating to investment decisions.”

This attempt to strong-arm the university into accepting the results of a controversial referendum by tying it to a far more popular cause—a tuition strike in the midst of a global emergency—is shameful. It has also alienated many students who would otherwise be supportive of the Young Democratic Socialists’ tuition strike.

As Adi Mayer, a sophomore at Barnard College, explained: “Students for Justice in Palestine’s intricate involvement in the tuition strike, and their efforts to use it to disguise the promotion of BDS, exclude me as an Israeli and Jewish student from participating in a cause I would otherwise believe in.”

Danielle Serota, a junior at Columbia, expressed a similar view: “I feel alienated by the tuition strike because it argues for some issues that so many of my friends and myself relate to and support but then strategically ties them together with a clause that directly harms me and others in my community.”

Miles Rubin, an Israeli citizen and sophomore at Columbia, went further, saying that he “supported the tuition strike at first.”

“I felt the cause was just and still do. We have legitimate grievances with the university [and] the strike was an opportunity to unite all the students.”

Because of this, Rubin was taken aback by an email from the tuition-strike coalition, sent on December 22, which stated that instead of “investing in fossil fuels and companies enabling apartheid in Palestine, Columbia should invest in its students and workers.”

As Rubin said, “I was pretty alarmed, and completely put off by what was said, as a Jew and as a citizen of Israel.”

Sweden:

The small number of Jewish children attending public schools in the Swedish city of Malmo experience “widespread antisemitism,” according to a new study published by the municipal authorities this week.

Fourteen Jewish children and 26 teachers were interviewed for the report, titled “Schoolyard racism, exclusion and conspiracy theories.” Speaking about the study’s conclusions to Swedish national television, Sarah Wettergren — chair of the Malmo Council’s primary school committee — stated that “we now have it in black and white that antisemitism is widespread in our schools.”

Netherlands:

A swastika is carved into the doorframe of a Jewish student’s house in the Dutch city of Maastricht and the mezuzah is torn off.

The Maastricht University student discovers the damage to his mezuzah, an object containing scripture on parchment that Jews affix to their doorframes, and makes a police complaint, the Netherlands chapter of the StandWithUs pro-Israel group writes in a statement.

The antisemitism on campus today becomes the mainstream Jew-hatred by the leaders of tomorrow.

(h/t Andrew Pessin)

Lebanese politicians and media are saying that the massive oil spill that is now polluting beaches along the Israeli and Lebanese coasts is a result of "Israeli environmental aggression."

A deputy in the Lebanese Parliament, Inaya Ezz El-Din, said that "the large amount of tar that spread on the shores of southern Lebanon as a result of the Israeli environmental aggression on them is estimated at about two tons."

Hezbollah's Al Manar said that the the spill came from an "oil spill from a tanker belonging to the Israeli enemy near the shores of occupied Palestine."

Jordan's Roya News similarly said the leak came from an "Israeli Occupation ship's leak." It credited AFP with the story but AFP didn't write that.

If anything bad happens, many people assume it must be the Jews' fault.

Meanwhile, Israel is trying to find the source for the spill, and it has investigated a number of oil ships that were in the Mediterranean without finding a culprit yet out of dozens of suspected sources.

Greenpeace says that there are as many as twelve oil spills in the Mediterranean visible from satellite images in the days before the slick hit Israel's shores. They could be from tankers or from exploratory wells.

Politico reported on Friday:

A State Department official for several years has been publicly calling for the establishment of Christian nation-states, warning that white people face “elimination” and railing against Jews as well as Black Lives Matter and other social movements.

Fritz Berggren, a mid-ranking Foreign Service officer, openly uses his name and image as he espouses these and other controversial views, according to a review of his online postings. Current and former State Department officials noted the connection to POLITICO in recent days.

“Jesus Christ came to save the whole world from the Jews — the founders of the original Anti-Christ religion, they who are the seed of the Serpent, that brood of vipers,” states an Oct. 4 blog post signed “Fritz Berggren, PhD” and titled “Jews are Not God’s Chosen People. Judeo-Christian is Anti-Christ.”

“They murdered Jesus Christ,” the 5,300-word post continues, “How then can they be God’s chosen?”

The site is truly twisted.

Here's an excerpt of one post from mid-February where he rails about the evil of Jews and Israel, to prove yet again that there is no difference between Jew-haters and Israel-haters.

There are Jews out there who may want to take the above say “Fritz inspires violence against the Jews!” Such hypocrites they are. They who stoned the prophets and killed the messengers and crucified Jesus Christ. How well they play the victim. They will say “people like you inspired the Holocaust!” Hypocrites that they are — the Jews would gladly holocaust entire nations (as long as they are not Jewish) with their nuclear weapons — and they have said as much. Again they will say, “Fritz’s ideas justify violence against the Jews!” Hypocrites — Jews have an easy time justifying violence against anyone not their own people — go ask the Arabs in their neighborhood.

Again, the Jews are hypocrites — they reserve unto themselves the rights to do and say what they condemn in others for doing. It is an institutional hypocrisy far deeper than a personal hypocrisy, which is common among all men. They encourage open borders in Europe and America and build walls for themselves. Non-Jews are only permitted to come and spend their shekels in Israel and leave again. They know very well that mixing peoples and languages and religions leads only to weakness – that is why they promote it in countries but forbid it in their state of Israel. Jewish organizations promote contempt toward anyone who dares point this out. They have been so effective that even the Christian church has been seduced by their traditions of men.

The Jews (in the religious sense, which extends far beyond those attending a synagogue) will come to a very bad end. They are the tree that will be burned with fire that John warned about. They are the tares that shall be burned at the end of the age. They are those who shall not escape the sentence of hell according to Jesus.

How lovely.

He claims he doesn't want anyone to physically attack Jews, yet he is saying the exact same stuff that the Pittsburgh Tree of Life murderer said.

Or how about this post from Sunday:

Jewish Fragility refers to feelings of discomfort a Jewish person experiences when they witness discussions around race and theology. This may trigger anger, fear, guilt, and violence. Some Jews may become insecure when other people groups claim privileges that Jew people enjoy.

Manifestations of Jewish fragility commonly include accusing others of what they do themselves. These include, but are not limited to:
Inventing a social sin that only applies to non-Jews (anti-semitism).
The privilege of their own racial homeland while accusing others of a social sin (racism) for seeking the same privilege.
Establishing organizations promoting the interests of their own race while denying that privilege to others, specifically Whites.
Violence toward those who do not submit to religious, historical, and cultural narratives promoted by the Jews.

Isn't that rich? A proud Jew-hater who says Jews made up antisemitism. Someone whose philosophy has been used to justify murdering millions of Jews saying Jews are the ones who are responsible for violence. And he claims that Jews are the ones doing the projection!

And this is in post after post, along with videos.

And he recently wrote this post that may or may not be referring to Jews, but it sure doesn't sound non-violent to me.

You don’t have to live under THEIR rules.
Break them.
Break them hard.
Anger them.
Defile their sanctuaries.
Tread on their unholy saints.

Politico goes on:

The State Department’s options for addressing Berggren’s online postings may be limited.

There are rules that govern diplomats’ on- and off-duty behavior that could be grounds for punishment or dismissal in similar instances — rules that can differ based on whether a person is serving overseas or in the United States. But the federal government, for First Amendment reasons, is not supposed to dictate its employees’ religious views.

So right-wing antisemitism is a protected religious viewpoint. Left wing antisemitism is protected political speech.

But if someone tried to use those same arguments protecting racist speech, I suspect that it wouldn't be nearly as well accepted.

Cartoon of the Day: Raising a child correctly

02/28 Links: When Israel Hits Iran, Politicians and the Media Will Hit Israel’s Supporters; Tobin: Who’s Legitimizing the Vaccine Blood Libel?; Iran behind attack on Israeli-owned ship, Kochavi confirms

From Ian:

When Israel Hits Iran, Politicians and the Media Will Hit Israel’s Supporters

Leading US and European news outlets repeatedly inverted aggressor and defender, and Palestinian civilian and military casualties, in coverage of Israel’s 2014 fight against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. They chronically overstated Palestinian non-combatant dead and under-reported attacks and attempted strikes against Israeli civilians.

Last year and even more recently, news media coverage of Israel’s comparatively successful COVID-19 vaccination program periodically sabotaged itself with false claims that Israel denied the coronavirus vaccine to Palestinian Arabs.

Reporting and commentary on a renewed Hezbollah-Israel conflagration might well emphasize a Lebanon in ruins, parents weeping over dead children while downplaying Iranian-funded and directed Hezbollah aggression. Neither the Biden administration nor the media are likely to have Israel’s back.

The White House has signaled to the mullahs in Tehran that it wants to talk. It resumed funding the Palestinian Authority despite the PA’s incessant anti-Israel incitement and subsidies to the families of terrorist “martyrs.” In the month after his inauguration, President Joe Biden called virtually every other US ally plus Russia and China before getting to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A Washington Post editorial approved the snub.

If open Israeli-Iranian warfare erupts, will Israel’s supporters be ready to wage the accompanying psychological war? Will they effectively counter the likely increase in anti-Zionist and antisemitic atmospherics, and assaults sparked by Middle East combat?

Preparations should be underway.

J.E. Dyer: U.S. and Iran: The view from inside the OODA loop

No one outside the Western Left takes the bombing of Syria with 7 JDAMs seriously. If we are to play an effective hand, it will have to be the American way: in the open, or at least face-to-face, not skulking around making Delphic communications with 500-lb bombs.

The compromised nature of the messaging is evident in this simple reality: the message from those bombs wasn’t meant for Iran. It was meant for the American public. Iran knows that, the whole region knows it, the Europeans, Putin, Xi – they all know it.

And the American public does too, if it pauses to think for 15 seconds.

But will this be when the Iranian people save the day, most especially for themselves, by standing up inside the OODA loop and blowing it to smithereens? I know no better than anyone else, and would not raise false hopes. But surely there will be help for them. Maybe Iran’s regime has not yet recovered enough from Trump’s tightened sanctions to brutally “stabilize” its deteriorating domestic conditions.

This may go in fits and starts, and it may seem impossible now. But no one would have predicted success for the Abraham Accords a year ago either. And Washington isn’t the only place succor can come from.

One of our best old hands on Iran, Michael Ledeen, likes to say, “Faster, please!” Fast or slow, the current drama isn’t an overture; it’s more like being catapulted into Act III. God be with the people of Iran, as indeed with all the peoples of this most ancient of regions.

Geral Steinberg: German ‘cultural leaders’ and the anti-anti boycott campaign - comment

AT THE SAME time, the German cultural activists also completely and perhaps willfully ignore the dangerous reality of antisemitism, including the incitement against Israel and Israelis, including boycotts based on false accusations of war crimes and racism. This incitement is directly related to the violent attacks against synagogues, museums and individual Jews. Instead of playing a positive role in combating this evil, the participants sought to undermine the most effective mechanisms available, in some cases accompanied by shameful personal attacks on Felix Klein, the official responsible for combating antisemitism. The activists sought to undermine Klein and others while Germany held the rotating presidency of the IHRA.

In media portrayals, they appear as well-intentioned innocents whose motivations are strictly artistic, unfairly caught-up in distant wars, and suffering terribly from criticism for inviting BDS activists to participate in their events. (Many of the incidents took place before the 2019 Bundestag resolution and the alleged “misuse of allegations of antisemitism” that followed.) One prominent activist in the Weltoffenheit campaign told journalists that even after the Bundestag resolution, she still did not know anything about BDS. (“Ich weiß auch heute noch nicht ganz genau, was der BDS ist.”) Given the extensive presence of the anti-Israel boycott in Germany, this claim strains credibility.

The distortions of the Weltoffenheit text strongly echo the campaigns, launched around the same time (at the end of 2020), by powerful non-governmental organizations that are at the forefront of the anti-Israel movement, under the banner of moral agendas. Human Rights Watch is one of the most active in promoting BDS, and in campaigning against the IHRA definition, including efforts to prevent any discussion of the antisemitic aspects of the BDS movement. The US-based HRW organization is very active and has a strong following among the left-wing German elite. In parallel, numerous Palestinian and left-wing Israeli political NGOs blasted out the same message at every opportunity. Their objective is to deflect the growing international consensus that accepts the IHRA document as a guideline for assessing antisemitic behavior. The Weltoffenheit campaign is well-financed, in order to gain wide publicity and impact, although the list of funders, as is often the case, particularly in Germany, is not transparent. It is possible that the money came from NGOs such as HRW, or from governmental programs and political foundations. Whatever the source, the public relations campaign was highly professional, gaining entirely favorable publicity in many German, European, Israeli and American media platforms, including The New York Times.

In summary, behind “Initiative GG 5.3 Weltoffenheit” are many questions, waiting to be examined by an investigative journalist or academic researcher able to look beyond the public relations blitz and high-sounding rhetoric.

Jonathan Tobin: Who’s Legitimizing the Vaccine Blood Libel?

Why then is this false narrative being spread about so blithely?

The answer is clear. Though the vaccine argument lacks credibility, it fits in nicely with a narrative that not only smears Israel as a uniquely awful human-rights violator: By putting forward the claim that it is denying life-saving medicine to non-Jews, it buttresses other longstanding claims that Israel is also a uniquely illegitimate state.

That brings us back to where “SNL” and Che entered the argument. The reason why we’re having this discussion is neither a misunderstanding nor a mistake rooted in ignorance. The obsessive desire to associate Israel with every conceivable slander, including those that reinforce old hateful lies that have led to bloodshed, is based in the antisemitic premise that the Jewish state — alone of all nations in the world — has no right to exist. That is why so-called human rights groups focus on the only democracy in the Middle East rather than the tyrannies that surround it.

Israel isn’t perfect. Nor are its leaders incapable of bad behavior. But the willingness of so many to say hateful things about it is unrelated to its actual faults. They smear Israel because of what it is — the one Jewish state on the planet — not because of what it does. Those who try to justify the “SNL” smear are giving aid and comfort to those who wish to deny to the Jews that which they would never think of denying to any other people. Whether you cloak that in lame humor or high-flown rhetoric about human rights, it amounts to the same thing: antisemitism.

The Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned "the continuing violations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque / Al-Haram Al-Sharif," specifically today's visit by 153 Jews to the site for the holiday of Purim which is celebrated in Jerusalem today.

The spokesperson for the ministry, Dhaifallah Ali Al-Fayez, said that "the raids of extremists under the protection of the police are a flagrant violation of the existing legal and historical status, international law and the obligations of Israel, the occupying power in occupied East Jerusalem, in accordance with international law."

Al-Fayez added that "the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque / Al-Haram Al-Qudsi Al-Sharif, with its entire area of 144 dunums, is a pure place of worship for Muslims, and that the Department of the Jerusalem Endowments and the Jordanian Al-Aqsa Mosque affairs are the legal body with exclusive jurisdiction to manage all the affairs of the Haram and regulate entry to it."

He called on the international community to shoulder its responsibilities to pressure Israel to stop the ongoing violations and provocations on the Temple Mount.

In practical terms, this means that Jews, and only Jews, should be banned from visiting the most holy site in Judaism. Before 1948, non-Jews could visit the Mount under the Waqf, so this isn't a Muslim thing. This is pure antisemitism.

And an official of the Jordanian government is saying that antisemitism is not only legal but a requirement under international law.

Iran's Kayhan newspaper, which is aligned with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei, has all but admitted that the attack on an Israeli cargo ship Helios Ray was done by Iranian forces.

In an article headlined "Evil in Syria and Iraq was answered in Yemen and the Sea of Oman," the newspaper concluded "this spy ship, despite moving secretly, has probably been ambushed by one of the branches of the Axis of Resistance."

The "Axis of Resistance" includes pro-Iran forces in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, but the only possible source for such an attack in the Gulf of Oman is Iran itself.

The article says, "The attacks and crimes of the Zionist regime in the region, which have been carried out in public for some time, seem to have finally turned that regime into a legitimate target. A likely warship of this regime has been professionally targeted in the Oman Sea, which has completely confused the regime and its allies."

The Helios Ray was apparently hit by limpet mines, suffering two holes on both the starboard and port sides of the ship, each with a diameter of 1.5 meters.

The ship is a vehicle carrier, and was traveling en route from Saudi Arabia to Singapore. It is registered under the flag of the Bahamas.

The damaged ship is now docked in Dubai.

Israeli officials say the attack has the hallmarks of being from Iran, and it is similar to other attacks on ships in the Gulf of Oman attributed to Iran over the years.

The Kayhan newspaper alleges that the cargo ship was in fact a spy ship, claiming that the owner of the ship, Abraham "Rami" Ungar, is friends with Yossi Cohen, the head of the Mossad.

Iran's pretense that the Helios Ray is a spy vessel is justification for the attack. It knows that any attack on a civilian target is terrorism by definition so, like Hamas shooting rockets to Israeli towns, it is pretending that the target is in fact military.

Make no mistake, though: this is state sponsored terrorism.

This is a rare case where Iran is practically admitting a direct attack on Israel. Usually it hides its attacks behind proxies like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Israel is likely to respond in a measured way to avoid escalation but also to make clear that it will not tolerate such an attack.

An interesting point from Daniel Finkelstein writing in TheJC:

Have you had a chance to read David Baddiel’s new book Jews Don’t Count? I think you ought. You might think you have read everything about antisemitism that you can be bothered with. But I think you should nevertheless bother with this.
...
I find it annoying when someone makes a point about Israel in response to an article I have written about, I don’t know, the rate of corporation tax or regression to the mean in football. I might object that Israel has got nothing to do with the point I am making and the person is only making the point because I’m Jewish. Yet in response they can always say, no, they are making it because I’m a Zionist.

This might be obviously disingenuous but it is hard to disprove.

David Baddiel is not a Zionist. I may disagree, but the power of this in the debate on antisemitism is immense. The same person replies to him about Israel after he makes a joke about corporation tax or mean reversion in football and he is able to — and does — expose the true antisemitic nature of the comment.

This makes him a hugely valuable part of the resistance to Jew hatred. It wouldn’t, in my view, be enough by itself because I think Israel is vital and David is wrong about that. But the breadth he provides is very important.

...[In addition,] he argues that the progressive left has adopted identity politics but many don’t then count Jews as an identity. People who say racist things are “cancelled”, but not if they say racist things about Jews. People who play ethnic roles as actors are excoriated if they don’t come that ethnic group themselves, unless they are a non-Jew playing a Jew. People who use ethnic influences in cooking from groups to which they don’t belong are accused of cultural appropriation unless they are appropriating Jewish food.

One or two critics have argued that none of these progressive rules are all that sensible and that the problem is with identity politics. This, however, is to miss Baddiel’s point. His book is addressed to progressives who accept identity politics. He is pointing out — and in a way that is startling and stark — their exclusion of Jews.

Nick Cohen's review of the book concentrates on the latter point:

David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count is out this week; a piercing 28,000-word essay that throws you back to the age of pamphlet wars. His central and unanswerable contention is that, in a time of identity politics, when every persecuted minority is listened to, there is one ethnic minority large numbers of progressives do not want to hear from: Jews, one of the most persecuted minorities in history. Baddiel builds his argument by weaving in examples so skilfully all but the most bigoted reader has to accept he has a case. A few are familiar. The people on the UK left who stuck with Jeremy Corbyn after he defended a mural showing hook-nosed capitalists, that might have come straight out of Nazi Germany. But many are drawn from a world that is unfamiliar, to me at any rate. I never knew, for instance, that Alice Walker, author of the idolised novel, The Colour Purple, took the time and trouble in 2017 to sit down and write a poem bubbling with hate entitled ‘To Study The Talmud’.
Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not only
That, but to enjoy it?
Are three year old (and a day) girls eligible for marriage and intercourse?
Are young boys fair game for rape?
It was grotesque. But the idea that an African-American author could ever be cancelled for racism against Jews remains unthinkable to right-thinking people, even though Walker went on to endorse the works of David Icke, whose anti-vax lies could incidentally lead to the deaths of, among others, a disproportionately high number of black people suffering from Covid-19. In 2019, a musical version of the Colour Purple came to the UK. There was a hell of a fuss because Seyi Omooba, one of the cast, had once written an anti-gay post. The producers fired her, of course. Omooba’s prejudice was unforgivable, while Walker’s was, if not quite forgivable, then a matter of no consequence.

02/27 Links: Israel's Strategy To Stop Iran's Existential Threats; IfNotNow smears IHRA definition as a ‘threat’ to progressivism; Get vaccinated now! The Torah commands it

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Israel's Strategy To Stop Iran's Existential Threats

Israel is willing to take action to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said this week. His statement framed part of a full-court press of Israel warning of Iran's regional threats as Tehran continues to enrich uranium. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long warned of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, but the transition to a new administration in Washington has been exploited by Iran to increase its enrichment and threats. A senior Israeli defense official laid out to me this week how seriously Israel views the threat. Tehran should listen.

Israel has acted in the past to prevent Iraq and Syria from obtaining nuclear capabilities. Netanyahu warned in a 2012 speech to the United Nations that a red line must be drawn on Iran's nuclear enrichment program. Now Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei says Iran could increase the levels of enrichment to 60 percent. This is a nuclear numbers game that Iran uses like a game of chicken with the U.S., hoping the Biden administration will blink and jump right back into an Iran Deal 2.0.

For Israel, it's essential that the U.S. understand Jerusalem's views. Israel doesn't want a nuclear arms race in the region. Iran is an existential threat and no matter who wins Israel's elections next month, Israel will not accept a threat that violates its declared red lines. At the same time, Israel wants the U.S. and its Western allies to know that they can count on Israel to confront Iran's proxies and various entrenchments throughout the region. In January 2019, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot revealed that Israel had carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria. Since then, Israel has continued what it calls the "campaign between the wars" to stop Iran's entrenchment in Syria and transfer of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

There is no substitute for U.S. power and influence in the Middle East, the senior Israeli defense official told Newsweek this week. This unshakable bond with the U.S. is essential, as is bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. Part of this support for Israel also anchors the Jewish state in the region via new U.S.-brokered peace deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and it is linked to U.S. support for other important partners, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. While the Biden administration has been critical of Egyptian and Saudi human rights abuses, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently indicated in a call with his Egyptian counterpart, Israel hopes this criticism will go hand-in-hand with continued U.S. support.

Iran doesn’t hate Israel

Last week, the Iranian judo champion Saeid Mollaei, who accepted a life of exile rather than refuse to compete against Israelis, took part in a tournament in Tel Aviv. He was welcomed to the country by the Israeli Judo champion Sagi Muki, who called the Iranian his ‘brother’.

Mollaei was one of many young Iranian athletes from conservative roots who used their profession as a means to escape and take a public stand against the Ayatollahs. And it is not only the younger generation that is liberalising.

After the Islamic revolution of 1979, ordinary Iranians tended to embrace the anti-Israeli and anti-Western slogans pumped out by the new rulers. Not anymore. Pro-Israel views range from an ‘Iran first’ indifference to the Jewish state – a popular slogan is ‘Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life only for Iran’ – to out-and-out Iranian pro-Zionism, which is tied into a hatred for the theocracy that makes hell out of daily life.

In such a corrupt, statist country, huge numbers of people rely for their living on the government, and this has traditionally helped to keep any resistance in check. And citizens have previously put up with the oppression partly out of a hope for reform. But the bite of sanctions is making people bolder. Sporadic demonstrations are put down with increasing levels of lethality, to which the public is gradually becoming inured. Perhaps the only thing saving the Ayatollah is the absence of a well-organised opposition.

From the regime’s point of view, all of this makes the threat of popular uprising very real. The authorities are in a constant state of alert, clamping down on organised groups such as labour unions in a desperate bid to cauterise any roots of dissent. State surveillance has become absurdly extensive. In fact, Israeli intelligence sources have told me that their spies are able to operate so effectively in Iran because the security services are burdened by having to monitor such large numbers of their own citizens.

Recently, while briefing off-the-record on aggressive operations targeting the Tehran regime, an Israeli official described the place as a ‘beautiful country with beautiful people’. ‘We are aiming to defend ourselves, not harm them,’ the source told me.

In this statement, I found great hope. Israel and Iran may be sworn enemies, but take the regime away and there is no bad feeling. In their deep tolerance, the people of Iran are remarkable. The international community must not lose its affection for them, or allow their reputation to be contaminated by their oppressors. Iran: we love you; we respect you; we are waiting for you. One day, there will be peace.

IfNotNow smears IHRA definition as a ‘threat’ to progressivism

The self-proclaimed Jewish-American “progressive” organization IfNotNow hosted a discussion on Jan. 27 about “how the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has been destroying the progressive movement.” The word “discussion,” may, in fact, be too generous a term for what was, in reality, a diatribe of misinformation.

An address by Taher Herzallah, associate director of outreach and grassroots organizing for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), took up much of the event. It should be noted right away that AMP’s platforms disseminate anti-Jewish propaganda. Articles on its website complain about “Jews … illegally colonizing the occupied territories” and “Zionist Jews” who have the gall to regard Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Jewish state. Appallingly, a video posted to AMP’s Facebook page commemorating “Nakba Day” falsely presents a picture of Holocaust victims as Palestinian victims of Israeli violence (the picture in question is displayed at 1:25 in the video). IfNotNow has partnered with AMP in the past.

Herzallah has hardly shied away from hatred himself. At a 2014 AMP conference, he reportedly claimed: “Israelis have to be bombed; they are a threat to the legitimacy of Palestine, and it is wrong to maintain the State of Israel.” That same year, AMP hosted a fundraiser dinner in honor of Rasmea Odeh, a convicted terrorist directly responsible for the deaths of two civilians in a 1969 grocery-store bombing in Jerusalem. IfNotNow may purport to “stand up for the freedom and dignity for all Israelis and Palestinians,” but its embrace of AMP suggests otherwise.

The rhetoric spouted by Herzallah during this event is of equal concern. He egregiously asserted that “people like [him] … had to pay the price” for the Holocaust—an obvious attempt to appropriate the trauma of the victims of Nazi genocide on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, no less. He even dismissed the well-documented alliance between “certain Palestinian leaders” and the Nazi regime as part of a “myth” before later insisting that “we want to question the existence of the State of Israel itself.” This questioning, he urged, “should not be off the table.”