Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 04, 2021

Cartoon of the Day: Unique kind of racism

Bibi Mulls Courting Israeli Left By Emulating Biden, Sniffing Women's Hair (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Caesarea, March 4 - Israel's incumbent prime minister floated the idea today of appealing to segments beyond his traditional right-wing base by adopting some behaviors of the center-left American president, such as standing behind women on stage at public functions and immersing his nose in their coif to inhale the scent of their shampoo.

Binyamin Netanyahu of Likud hinted in an interview at his seaside home in this ancient Herodian city Wednesday that his electoral approach has shifted in this campaign, including an unprecedented effort to reach out to Arab citizens, and in the concluding weeks of the campaign he intends to expand that outside-the-box thinking to include left-wing voters by imitating Joe Biden's women's-hair-sniffing displays. The elections are scheduled for March 26, the fourth such contest in two years.

"We obviously need to avoid the paralysis and despair that come with an inconclusive election outcome," explained the premier, who has now served longer than any other in Israel's history. "That will require changing the way things are done to attract votes. My policies have actually been more or less indistinguishable from a left-wing government: I haven't confronted the growing hegemony of the courts and prosecution; I haven't made good on promises to demolish illegal villages; I haven't addressed discriminatory enforcement in different demographic sectors, favoring non-Jews over Jews; I haven't done anything about tens of thousands of illegal migrants from Africa; I've instructed the military to take a soft approach to Hamas violence; I've continued to allow the terrorism-inciting, violence-glorifying Palestinian Authority to receive tax revenues and goods."

"In short," he continued, "it's clearly not my policies these voters oppose, so maybe it's my personal behavior. But if I were to adopt some of the unmistakable affectations of, say, the current American president, a Democrat, that might resonate better with otherwise-left-wing members of the electorate, and the mandate to form a government under my leadership this time around will prove more convincing and longer-lasting. I've known Joe for a long time and been able to see him in action, in addition to all the footage available of him, and I have to say I'm leaning towards the whole sniffing-women's-hair tendency has a special hold on my imagination." No Israeli government has lasted its full term in decades.

Netanyahu revealed he has mooted other "Bidenisms" he can also adopt to serve the same purpose, such as putting illegal migrants in cramped quarters and calling them "overflow facilities" and "definitely not cages."

(h/t Zvi)

03/04 Links Pt1: ICC undermines its own legitimacy; Blinken: US stands with Israel, ICC lacks jurisdiction to hold investigation; Nikki Haley: Joe Biden Is Going Backward at the United Nations

From Ian:

ICC undermines its own legitimacy

It is not justice the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is after. Are there not enough real war crimes around the world? Hamas has sworn in its treaty to eradicate Israel down to the very last Jew. It launches tens of thousands of missiles at our citizens and uses its citizens as human shields, yet only Israel is barred from defending itself. The Palestinian Authority supports our killers with its budgets, a sort of family insurance for all those who want to harm us, but Israel is the problem. This is a moral disgrace under legal cover.

For months, the Foreign Ministry, including all of its emissaries and ambassadors, as well as the Prime Minister's Office have been working to blunt the outrageous determination by two justices at The Hague against the minority opinion of the head of the tribunal that played into the hands of a prosecutor overly eager to build her reputation at Israel's expense. Even when the court ruled it had the jurisdiction to open a war crimes investigation against Israel, and although we told policymakers in Italy that Bensouda had not yet decided to open an investigation, something that was true at the time, I said in deliberations at the Israeli Embassy in Italy it was clear she would announce the opening of an investigation precisely because Bensouda was nearing the end of her tenure. This was also the reason she chose not to handle other cases pertaining to Nigeria and Ukraine. Bensouda had to think of her next career move, and hatred of Israel has always been a good catalyst for advancing one's career.

The ICC drew its moral authority from the reason for its establishment following the atrocities of World War II and the genuine crimes carried out against our people. This decision harms its legitimacy and the reasons for which it was established because it is a politicization of the court and morality to be used against Israel.

The ICC's crude interference in Israel's affairs when Israel is not a member-state and Palestinian affairs when they do not have a state is an attempt to force the semblance of a solution on a yearslong conflict that has left cultural, religious, and historical scars. The cruel irony is that now, at a time when moderate Arab states have understood they cannot give in to the Palestinian refusal to move forward on the normalization of ties with Middle Eastern states when all that is needed is confidence-building steps, in walks the ICC and gives the warmongers who reject peace a prize.

The International Criminal Court Violates Its Statute

At present... the ICC renders itself irrelevant by adjudicating "national jurisdictions" perfectly capable of doing so while refusing to adjudicate or indict the world's worst violators of human rights.

The ICC has already provided its critics with plenty of ammunition to question the Court's legitimacy as a consequence of additional violations of its founding statute. Neither Israel nor the United States ratified the Rome Statute (the ICC's founding treaty). The Court therefore has no jurisdiction whatsoever over the state actions of either country.

State parties dissatisfied with the ICC's dismal record should be encouraged to discontinue financial support for the Court or to withdraw altogether from the Hague-based institution.

Meanwhile, at least four Gulf Arab states and other Muslim-majority countries appear far more concerned, with good reason, about Iran's drive for regional supremacy, while welcoming warming relations with Israel, which will prove a most loyal friend.

JINSA PodCast: The United States, Israel, and the International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court (ICC) recently made several controversial decisions regarding investigations into alleged Israeli and U.S. war crimes.
• How does a case land in the ICC?
• What are the bases of jurisdiction?
• What is the relationship between the authorization to investigate Israel and the authorization to investigate the United States?
• What does the potential politicization of the ICC mean for the realm of international law (including law of armed conflict?)?

Professor Geoffrey Corn of South Texas College of Law Houston joins host Erielle Davidson in an effort to answer these questions.

On this week's @JIPodcast, hosts @jarrodbernstein and @rich_goldberg are joined by @SenGillibrand to discuss her ties to the Jewish community, the recent allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo and her approach on Iran.https://t.co/HpuuNUh8pn
— Jewish Insider (@J_Insider) March 4, 2021

In his 1986 capsule review of Raphael Patai's book, The Seed of Abraham: Jews and Arabs in Contact and Conflict, John C. Campbell concludes:

The author draws some personal conclusions of his own that seem unduly optimistic, such as that the Israeli Arabs are moving through evolving cultural values to a status of equal partners in the democratic and liberal state of Israel. [emphasis added]

Is Campbell right?

In his book, Patai writes that Arabs living under foreign rule is not something new. Until World War I, most Arab countries were ruled by the non-Arab Turks, followed afterward by control under the forces of Great Britain, France and Italy in the region.

But in those cases, the Arabs were the majority population.

In Israel, in 1948, the Arabs almost overnight became a minority in a country in which for many centuries they had been the overwhelming majority even though they did not enjoy self-rule. [p. 322]

With the reestablishment of the State of Israel, not only did the Arabs become a minority -- for the first time, Arabs were exposed to the kind of non-Arab influences which few Arabs had ever experienced before.

Patai describes the compulsory education, exposure to Hebrew and integration into the Israeli workforce, as the Arabs commuted to nearby Jewish cities, towns and villages. All this brought improvements to the Arab standard of living -- and also gave the Arabs increased exposure to Israeli society and culture.

In brief, although in no segment of Israeli Arab society had things reached a stage even in the 1980s where one could speak of the onset of Arab deculturation that is, a decline of their national Arab culture, it soon became clear that what was happening was that the Israeli Arabs were rapidly becoming bicultural...At the time of this writing (1985), this process is still in full swing. [p.323]

To get an idea of how the Israeli-Arabs themselves viewed this, Patai quotes from research done by Mark A. Tessler in 1974, published as "The Identity of Religious Minorities in Non-Secular States." Tessler examines Jews in Tunisia and Morocco -- and Arabs in Israel. As a result of his research, Tessler finds Israeli Arabs to be a "non-assimilating" minority with an "unnarrowed cultural distance" between Arabs and Jews in Israel.

Tessler's evaluation is supported by these responses from the 348 Israli Arabs he interviewed:

23% said they feel more comfortable in Israel than they would in an Arab or Palestinian state

30% said it made no difference

55% considered Israel's creation in 1948 to have been illegal

But on the other hand:

53% stated the term "Israeli" described them "very well" or fairly well"

40% said they felt closer to Jews in Israel than to Arabs in distant lands such as Algeria or Morocco

As a measure of the extent of bicultural acculturation:

50% rejected the statement that it was unacceptable for a married woman to go out socially in public without he husband

Most listened to Hebrew radio and television programs as often as Arabic ones.

55% felt it was important for their children to study the history of Judaism

65% felt it was important to study the history of Zionism

78% said they would not object to their children attending a Jewish high school

Tessler writes that "the rejection by many Israeli Arabs of some aspects of traditional Arab culture is unmistakable, suggesting that the distance between Jews and Arabs in Israel is reduced in some areas" -- but then goes on to conclude that "no plausible outcome of the struggle among [the] cultural and religious facts would bring about a situation in which non-Jews can share fully the mission of the state."

But based on the positive side to some of Tessler's results, Patai interjects:

The data presented do not seem to justify this conclusion.

According to Patai, the tension between Arab and Jew is aggravated by 3 things:

o The Arab religion, tradition and history have conditioned them to have a disparaging view of Jews as dhimmis
o Never before in Arab history have they lived under Jewish rule
o An Arab's knowledge of the Koran and Islam has taught them that for a Jew to rule over Arabs is against the will of Allah and intolerable

Based on this, we might expect matters to be worse.

Why aren't they?

Arabs are also pragmatists, and, if not in thought and word, certainly in action, have always recognized and accepted the limitations of the possible. [p. 328]

Because of that Arab pragmatism, Patai still cautions that in the event of renewed hostilities, Israeli Arabs would side with their fellow Arabs if given the opportunity, seeing as at the time of the writing of his book, Arabs have still not reconciled themselves to life under Israeli rule. And material improvements to the lives of Israeli Arabs will not necessarily improve matters.

Then what will?

Israeli Arabs will have to absorb enough of the Israeli-Hebrew culture and values to erase from their psyche that age-old Arab contempt for the Jewish dhimmis...It can come about only gradually as a result of the de facto symbiosis of Arabs and Jews. [p.328]

Patai sees the contact of Israeli Arabs with Palestinian Arabs as a major factor preventing "Israelization." This is the second consequence of Israel's victory in the Six Day War, that the presence of these Palestinian Arabs and the challenges of Gaza and the "West Bank" since 1967 serves to radicalize Israeli Arabs. The other problem, which Patai mentions earlier in the book is that while Gaza and the West Bank were under the control of Egypt and Jordan, there were no expressions of independence or of establishing a Palestinian state, knowing that neither Nasser nor King Hussein would take kindly to the idea. The miraculous victory also removed that inhibition on calls for a Palestinian Arab state.

Similarly, as Patai writes in his preface to the 1976 edition of The Arab Mind (p. xxiv-xxv), the fact that Egypt was able to hold its own in the beginning of the 1973 October War, not only gave Sadat the self-confidence to pursue a peace treaty with Israel with honor -- instead of being merely a defeated foe -- but as Patai adds here, it helped create a new generation of Palestinian Arabs who actively supported the PLO.

On that score, evidence that this ominous radicalization of Israeli Arabs that Patai saw may be counterbalanced by surveys of Israeli Arabs in recent years which indicate a decrease in the identification Israeli Arabs feel as Palestinians, as noted in an earlier post, More evidence that fewer Arab Israelis identify as "Palestinian":

Survey	as Israeli	as Israeli- Arab	as Israeli- Palestinian	as Arab- Palestinian	as Arab	as Palestinian	as Religious (Muslim, Christian, Druze)
Smooha I (2012)	---	40%	40%	20%	---	---	---
Smooha II (2014)	---	32%	45%	22%	---	---	---
Shaharit (2017)	20.5%	---	---	---	28.4%	14.6%	35.8
+972 Magazine (2019)	---	46%	19%	---	22%	14%	---
JPPI (2020)	23%	51%	---	---	15%	7%	---

An apparent problem with this chart is that it does not jive with Tessler's survey that back in 1974 53% of Israeli Arabs stated the term "Israeli" described them "very well" or fairly well -- unless you include in the above chart those who see themselves as Israeli-Arab/Israeli Palestinian as well.

Patai sees the situation of Israeli Arabs as not merely a problem that needs to be solved. After all, he is a cultural anthropologist, not an old-school Orientalist.

The Israeli Arabs by acquiring modern Hebrew Israeli culture, are thereby transforming themselves before our very eyes into a radically new coinage in the Arab world: into an Arab people whose cultural physiognomy will have two sides, an Arab and a Hebrew. [p. 329]

Going a step further, he sees a "reversal" of classical Arab history itself. The Koran duality reflects Muhammad's original respect for Jews, whom he hoped to convert -- as well as his later contempt for them when they refused.

But now:

The present-day Israeli Arabs' attitude to contemporary Israel has no choice but proceeds in the opposeite direction, from the tradional Arab contempt for the Jewish dhimmis to a respect for the people of Israel which will inevitably develop as a by-product of the growing Arab familiarity with and understanding of the nonmaterial aspects of Israeli-Hebrew culture. One hardly maintains a contemptuous attitude to a people whose culture one has absorbed and values internalized. [p. 329]

The importance of Patai's analysis is that he provides a view not only of the enormity of what Israeli Arabs are experiencing, but also of the slowly progressing success of their integration into Israeli society, even with the bumps in the road along the way.

These days, we are witnessing this acceptance of Israel on a larger scale that Patai may not have foreseen, with the Abraham Accords and Israel's normalization with the UAE in particular, which we can see goes beyond being a joint defensive pact against Iran.

It is a rocky road, after all -- this is the Middle East after all, and nothing is easy or can be taken for granted.

But the Abraham Accords is leading to a growing relationship that itself is also affecting Israeli Arabs, demonstrating the potential for accepting Israel, not only as a neighbor in the Middle East, but as another home for Arabs in it.

Yesterday, the International Criminal Court said it was opening an investigation into possible war crimes by Israel and Palestinians.

The statement - under a photo of prosecutor Fatou Bensouda with a sign saying "Dedication Integrity Respect" - took great pains to say the investigation would be impartial and look at both sides equally:

Any investigation undertaken by the Office will be conducted independently, impartially and objectively, without fear or favour. The Rome Statute obliges the Office, in order to establish the truth, to extend its investigation to cover all facts and evidence relevant to an assessment of whether there is individual criminal responsibility under the Statute and, in doing so, to investigate incriminating and exonerating circumstances equally.

...Investigations take time and they must be grounded objectively in facts and law. In discharging its responsibilities, my Office will take the same principled, non-partisan, approach that it has adopted in all situations over which its jurisdiction is seized. We have no agenda other than to meet our statutory duties under the Rome Statute with professional integrity.

We have already shown how the statement itself shows that this investigation is anything but unbiased, because it specifically and deliberately excludes the one horrific event of a kidnapping and murder of teens that began the events of 2014.

But there is another way to show that this investigation is going to be a circus with a foregone conclusion to only go after Israel.

Hamas and other terror groups, which by any reasonable criteria are guilty of multiple war crimes in 2014 are welcoming the investigation!

Here's how Hamas newspaper Felesteen reports the story:

The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, welcomed the decision of the General Prosecutor of the Criminal Court, calling on the court to resist any potential pressures that could prevent it from completing its mission.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem described the decision as "courageous", and that it is an important step to achieve justice and redress for the Palestinian people and to punish the occupation leadership for its crimes. "Our resistance comes within the framework of defending our people, and it is a legitimate resistance guaranteed by all the laws and international laws," Qassem stressed in a press statement received by Felesteen.

...Leader in the Islamic Jihad Movement, Ahmed Al-Mudallal, called on the International Criminal Court to impose the harshest penalties on the criminal occupation leaders, describing the court's decision to open an investigation into war crimes they committed in the Palestinian territories as a "positive but insufficient step."

Another terror group that has been involved in war crimes, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine also welcomed the decision.

The terrorist groups know very well that the ICC is on their side. They will get a slap on the wrist for "indiscriminate rocket fire" (even though it is aimed at civilians) which they will then brush off as legal, as they always do when there is a pro forma "even handed" mention of their war crimes by any NGO. Other war crimes witnessed by journalists will be ignored.

No wonder Hamas welcomes the investigation.

University of Toronto History Department advertises a terrorist

The University of Toronto Faculty of Arts and Science - Department of History is advertising this event happening today:

On the lower left of this picture we see Ghassan Kanafani:

Kanfani was a terrorist.

He was the spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine during the heyday of international terrorist attacks in the 1970s.

Here he is posing with Fusako Shigenobu, founder of the Japanese Red Army terrorist group, which combined with Kanafani's PFLP to carry out the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre, killing 26 and injuring 80.

Kanafani's PFLP recruited the Japanese Red Army to launch the attack with assault rifles and grenades hidden in violin cases because Israeli security would never suspect apparent Japanese tourists.

Among the slaughtered were 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico.

Nobody blinks at a university publishing the Kanafani picture. It is woke to celebrate a terrorist as a Palestinian hero at a Western university in an event sponsored in part by the Department of History.

There is something very, very sick about this. And the sickest part is that no one outside the Jewish community seems outraged. Instead of disgust, these sort of criticisms are looked at as Jewish touchiness rather than valid reasons for anger.

Counterpunch published a tribute to Kanafani only last week.

Photos of Kanafani should elicit disgust from any decent human beings.

(h/t B'nai Brith Canada and Josh K)

“Who’s a Jew?” Hits the Headlines, Again (Vic Rosenthal)

Israel’s Supreme Court decided a few days ago that conversions to Judaism by the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel must be recognized by the state for the purposes of the Law of Return. Until now, the state has somewhat illogically recognized non-Orthodox conversions done outside of the country, but has not accepted those that took place here.

Despite what many of us think about the Court, it did not make this decision out of rampant leftism and desire to destroy Judaism. In fact, the justices probably would have preferred not to have to take up this issue, which is the hottest potato in Israeli politics.

At the time of the founding of the state David Ben Gurion negotiated a historic agreement with the religious Agudat Israel party in return for its support. This compromise, which is often referred to as the “status quo,” included stipulations about state observance of Shabbat and kashrut, separate streams of education, and – very significantly – that the state would “satisfy the needs of the religiously observant” in connection with “marital affairs.” This came to mean that the Haredi-dominated Chief Rabbinate (the Rabbanut) would be the sole authority concerning marriage, divorce, burial, and so on, of Israeli Jews.

Until recently, the only authority in Israel whose conversions to Judaism were recognized for any purpose was the Rabbanut. About 15 years ago, two petitions were filed with the Court by people who were denied citizenship under the law of return because they had non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism in Israel. At that time, the Court said that it was up to the Knesset to legislate the conversion issue, which was problematic for many reasons besides immigration, and set a deadline for it to do so.

One of the most pressing aspects was that a large percentage of the roughly one million Russian immigrants to Israel were not accepted as Jewish by the Rabbanut, although they had been considered Jewish by the state for the purposes of immigration. Documentation of Jewish parentage was very hard to obtain in the former Soviet Union, where records had been destroyed during the war, and where the Soviet government had discouraged the practice of Judaism. Orthodox conversion via the Rabbanut was long, difficult, and required the adoption of a Haredi lifestyle which many secular Russian Jews were not willing to adopt – although they considered themselves part of the Jewish people (and so did almost everyone else). But if they weren’t Jewish according to the Rabbanut, then they and their descendants were unable to marry, divorce, or be buried in the Jewish part of a cemetery (unless they served in the IDF!)

In order to solve this problem (and satisfy the Supreme Court), various arrangements and compromises were proposed, involving the establishment of Orthodox (but not Haredi) conversion courts outside the control of the Rabbanut. This was shut down by the political power of the religious parties. Conversions in Israel still had to be under the auspices of the Rabbanut. In 2016, the Supreme Court decided that private, Orthodox conversions in Israel would be recognized by the state – but only for the purposes of the Law of Return, and not for matters of family law.

But the old petitions of the Reform and Conservatives Jews had still not been acted upon after 15 years, and the Knesset, after the appointment of a commission and countless extensions of the Supreme Court’s deadline, still had not legislated on the matter. It became clear that the religious parties would continue to stonewall any attempts to introduce leniency into the conversion process. Former Justice Minister Moshe Nissim, who headed the legislative commission, said,

At the time I proposed establishing courts for conversion and determined that the conversion would be done according to Torah law and the judges would be certified by the Chief Rabbinate … They didn’t accept the proposal because the words “under the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate” did not appear in it.

So the Supreme Court had no choice but to rule, and in light of its prior decision to accept Orthodox conversions outside the Rabbanut and not wanting to be put in the position of deciding which branches of Judaism were legitimate, extended its recognition to Reform and Conservative conversions.

Practically speaking, the ruling has little effect. It does not include family law and other matters, which remain under the control of the Rabbanut. Very few people in Israel who are not citizens convert to Judaism via the Reform or Conservative movements; the movements say they number 30 or 40 a year.

But the decision is symbolically important, because it constitutes a form of state recognition of the Reform and Conservative movements as Jewish institutions, something that Haredim and many other Orthodox Jews do not accept any more than they accept “Jews for Jesus.” They especially object to what they see as the liberal movements’ lax standards for conversion and recognition of a person’s Judaism.

Full-time rabbis of larger congregations in Israel receive salaries from the state, but until 2014 only Orthodox rabbis were eligible. In response to a petition by a (female) Reform rabbi, the Supreme Court decided that Reform and Conservative rabbis must be included. The government had no choice but to comply, but the religious parties insisted that the payments come from the Ministry of Culture and Sport rather than the Ministry of Religious Services!

***

So now I will give my personal opinion: the Rabbanut has always been Orthodox, but it has not always been Haredi. The organization today is corrupt, slow, and intolerant, and needs to be at least reformed (not Reformed!) and possibly abolished. I believe the refusal to permit Orthodox conversions outside of the Rabbanut is harmful and should be ended, as well as the Rabbanut’s monopoly on kashrut certification. I would also like to see an option for civil marriage and divorce in addition to traditional religious marriage. It’s ridiculous that many Israelis have to jump through demeaning hoops or leave the country to get married.

What about Reform and Conservative Judaism? I think a good argument can be made that Conservative Judaism is just a less stringent form of Judaism, while the Reform Movement practices a different religion from Judaism. Here are some relevant comparisons:

Early Christianity was an offshoot of Judaism. Beginning with a significant theological divergence – the attribution of divinity to Jesus – it continued to diverge by the introduction of extreme leniency in practice and the mass incorporation of formerly pagan converts. By the time of Constantine, and probably well before then, nobody would have said that Christianity and Judaism are the “same religion.” Protestantism (which is in itself very diverse) was a later offshoot of Catholicism. There are many theological and practical differences, but the most essential part – the human need for salvation from sin that is provided by Jesus – remained. Most people agree that they are both forms of Christianity.

Now consider Unitarian Universalism, an even more recent offshoot of Protestantism. It has abandoned the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus. Today’s Unitarian Universalists do not identify as Christian, and may even be atheists. They have crossed the line and now explicitly practice a “different religion.”

Rabbinical Judaism became the primary form of Judaism after the destruction of the Temple. It added to the monotheism and narrative of the Jewish people that had previously characterized Judaism alongside the Temple ritual, an elaboration and codification of the mitzvot found in the Torah. This became the halacha, the laws for Jewish living. Halacha became an essential part of Judaism.

Jews living in Eretz Yisrael and in the various parts of the diaspora placed emphasis on different parts of the halacha or observed it more or less stringently. However, Reform Judaism, from the moment of its creation, rejected the idea that there is an obligation of any sort to follow halacha. The famous “Trefa Banquet” held in honor of the first graduating class of Hebrew Union College in 1883 was not significant because Reform rabbis ate non-kosher food, but rather because it demonstrated that they did not consider themselves bound by halacha. Their deliberate action defined them not as nonobservant or even “bad” Jews, but as Jews who had stopped observing Judaism.

Since then, the Reform Movement has replaced halacha with a different moral code, one which is very similar to that of Unitarian Universalists and other liberal and progressive people, emphasizing values like diversity, environmentalism, gender and racial equality, and so on. Indeed it is often hard to tell the difference between Reform Jews and Unitarians, and I am acquainted with numerous people that have moved from one to the other faith. But unlike the Unitarians, the Reform Movement does not admit how far it’s come from its roots.

The Conservative Movement observes halacha, although its rabbis have – especially in America – issued halachic rulings that are more lenient than Orthodox Judaism; for example that it is permissible to drive to the synagogue (but only there) on Shabbat. However, if a line must be drawn between Judaism and not-Judaism, I would place the Conservatives on the side of Judaism – and the Reform movement on the other.

***

The Supreme Court’s decision will change little. The Russian immigrants are already citizens. What they need is to be able to be married (and buried) like anyone else. It would be good for all of us if this could be achieved by making it possible for them to affirm their Jewish identity.

03/03 Links Pt2: Israel has become a wedge issue due to progressive left - David Friedman; Has Ben Rhodes Made the Descent into Antisemitism?; NY Dems’ BDS Debate Shows the Power of the Woke Left

From Ian:

Israel has become a wedge issue due to progressive left - David Friedman

He said that “there was not a place to land this issue in a way that would have great consensus” during the time he served as ambassador – from May 2017 to January 2021.

“Had we reached out to get more buy-in from the Left, we would have lost the support of the Right,” he told the Post, referring to what he considers some of the Trump administration’s greatest accomplishments: recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and changing the State Department’s legal analysis with regards to the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

While there were Democrats who supported the State of Israel, the push against by the so-called progressive Left, had stirred this controversy around support for the Jewish state. Friedman said he wished that more of an effort was undertaken to break that wedge by finding common ground - between both sides of the aisle - for Israel support among all Americans.

The Trump administration announced in November 2019 that it did not view Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. The announcement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington marked a historic reversal of US policy.

“Bipartisanship is important,” Friedman said, “but it does not mean that you are looking for the lowest common denominator. If that is the price of bipartisanship then it probably isn't worth it.” He said, “you cannot abandon principles to achieve great consensus” and “it is clear… that uniform support for Israel in the US is being challenged.”

But he said that the United States’ decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is one of the moves the Trump administration made that enjoys greater consensus.

Dexter Van Zile: Has Ben Rhodes Made the Descent into Antisemitism?

Ben Rhodes, the former national security aide to President Obama — who once boasted that he used non-governmental groups and the media to create an “echo chamber” to garner support for the Iran nuclear deal — can’t stand people looking over the government’s shoulder when it formulates policy regarding issues of importance to them.

Rhodes made his contempt for democratic accountability perfectly clear in a recent interview with Peter Beinart, a well-know Israel hater and a fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. During the interview, which allowed Rhodes to promote his forthcoming book, “After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made,” he complained about the interest that American Jews and Christians have exhibited in their concern for foreign policy in the Middle East.

“You have this incredibly organized pro-Israel community that is very accustomed to having access in the White House, in Congress, at the State Department,” Rhodes said. “It’s kind of taken as granted, as given, that that’s going to be the way things are done.”

Rhodes also complained about media oversight of American policy regarding Israel.

“The media interest is dramatically intensified,” he said, complaining of an “aggressive, kind of pro-Likud media in the United States” and of a “mainstream media that delights in Israel controversies.”

The pro-Likud media seems to be anyone who doubts the good intentions of the Iranian government, which is intent on developing nuclear weapons, and declares its desire to attack Israel and the United States on a daily basis. It’s also curious that Rhodes can’t bend the media to his will, since he once said, “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. […] They literally know nothing.”

Oded Revivi, mayor of Efrat, has no problem participating in the annual Haaretz conference sponsored by Btselem and Breaking the Silence. That was the upshot of a shocking news piece that appeared in the Jewish Press on Sunday. That a conference by fifth column newspaper Haaretz was to be co-sponsored by fifth column NGOs Btselem and Breaking the Silence is not shocking and no surprise. All three share a common goal: undermining the State of Israel. But why on earth would Revivi grace the conference with his presence and lend credibility to these three fifth column entities bent on Israel’s destruction?

Especially since David Elhayani, head of the Council for Judea and Samaria, canceled his own scheduled talk at the conference. Elhayani announced his withdrawal from the conference after he was pressured to do so by the Choosing Life Forum of Bereaved Families and the Wounded IDF Veterans Forum. These two organizations begged Elhayani not participate in a conference sponsored by organizations that actively work to harm IDF soldiers. Elhayani did the smart thing for his political career and canceled his talk:

“I agreed to participate in the Haaretz conference in order to make the important voice of the communities [in Judea and Samaria] heard and to represent a sane voice on that day. At the same time, I can’t help recognizing the pain of bereaved families and terror victims that see these organizations as partners in activities against IDF soldiers, who suggest that my participation would add to their pain.”

Elhayani then tried to get Oded Revivi to back out along with him:

“Therefore, I announced that I am canceling my participation and ask that my friend Oded Revivi, head of the Efrat local council, who is also scheduled to participate in the conference, listen to the voices of these dear families and cancel his participation.”

Is it possible that Elhayani only grudgingly canceled his participation when pushed into a corner by bereaved families? Could the decision have been made in consultation with others? Elhayani has joined Gideon Saar’s New Hope Party, and Israel is in the midst of yet another election cycle. It sure wouldn’t look good for Elhayani to be seen hobnobbing with fifth column agents during an election cycle. Why, on the other hand, should it matter to Elhayani (or Gideon Saar) what Revivi, a free agent, does with his time?

My theory is that Elhayani withdrawing his participation from the conference meant that Revivi would become the conference’s main settler sell-out attraction, with all the attendant publicity. Revivi would have been smart enough to see this golden opportunity. That may be why Revivi then refused to withdraw from the conference. From the Jewish Press:

Revivi said he does not plan to cancel his participation in the forum. “I will go to every possible platform to give my opinion about our rights to the Land,” Revivi said in a statement.

Sure enough, Revivi went ahead and participated in filming for the conference. From Arutz 7:

Efrat Council head Oded Revivi today participated in filming for the Haaretz newspaper conference, despite many calls he received to boycott it, which was also attended by representatives of organizations that delegitimize the State of Israel and the IDF.

In his opening remarks, Revivi explained his participation, "I came despite the calls and requests for a boycott. I am unwilling to be boycotted and I am unwilling to boycott others. I came because the truth must be told."

Like Elhayani, Revivi appears to have his heart set on taking his political career in a national direction. He has managed to garner more attention than would seem proportional to his small town role as mayor of Efrat. Revivi has been cited by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic, and even wrote an op-ed for the LA Times. He has done so riding on the cachet of being a dependable settler “expert” to call on for quotable quotes.

It is worthy of note that most Efratians (as we call ourselves) would be appalled to know that Revivi took part in the Haaretz conference. Ahead of the conference, Efrat council member and Opposition head Avraham Ben-Tzvi, gave the following statement to the Jewish Press:

“Even if Mayor Revivi participates in this conference, he speaks in his name only, not in the name of Efrat residents. It’s embarrassing that the mayor chooses to not include Efrat’s name on pro-settlement petitions and statements supported by the majority of the residents of Efrat, Gush Etzion, Hebron, and other settlements, but has no problem sitting down with these anti-Zionist and anti-IDF organizations.”

How bad are these “anti-Zionist” and “anti-IDF” organizations? Bad enough that in January, Education Minister Yoav Gallant took the extraordinary measure of issuing an order banning groups that slander the IDF and call Israel an "apartheid state" from giving talks in Israeli schools. Only last month, Btselem did just that, agitating against Israel through the launching of an international campaign that libels Israel as an apartheid state. Breaking the Silence, on the other hand, is more focused on defaming the IDF, telling wild lies of cruelty by IDF soldiers to Arab civilians. Both organizations are heavily funded by private European individuals and European government sources. This too, is no surprise, Europe being the place where millions of Jews were forced into gas chambers.

Btselem

Here is a small taste of a long bulleted list hosted on the NGO Monitor website under the heading of “political activity” on the egregious anti-Israel activities of Btselem:

·         Accuses Israel of “apartheid,” perpetrating “war crimes,” “beating and abus[ing]” Palestinians, “demolition of [Palestinian] houses as punishment,” and forced “deportations.”
·         In January 2021, B’Tselem launched a discriminatory and hateful campaign, under the banner of “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.” As part of the campaign, B’Tselem attacked Israel’s role as a haven for the Jewish people (the Law of Return) and used the phrase “from the river to the sea” – echoing long-standing Palestinian terminology for the destruction of Israel. (Read NGO Monitor’s analysis: “From the “River to the Sea”: B’Tselem’s Demonization Crosses the Line.”)
·         In December 2020, B’Tselem, alongside a number of Israeli, Palestinian, and international organizations, issued a declaration headlined “Israel must provide necessary vaccines to Palestinian health care systems.” The NGOs falsely claim that Israel has “legal obligations” to “ensure that quality vaccines be provided to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and control,” while altogether ignoring that Palestinians residing in Jerusalem are part of the Israeli health care system; that under the Oslo Accords the PA is responsible for health care of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; and that the PA has adopted its own vaccine policy for its population.
·         In July 2020, in the context of the Black Lives Matter protests, Hagai Elad compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the death of George Floyd, stating that “I think about us and the Palestinians, and see the picture of George Floyd in my mind. We have our knee on their necks while holding an argument with ourselves on how we wish to continue doing so.”
·         In September 2019, B’Tselem published a report titled “Playing the Security Card: Israeli Policy in Hebron as a Means to Effect Forcible Transfer of Local Palestinian” stating that “For 25 years, Israel has been openly pursuing a policy of segregation in the center of Hebron…Some features of the regime employed in Hebron recall certain aspects of the apartheid regime in South Africa.” (The report was funded by the European Union.)

Breaking the Silence

BtS Spokesman Dean Issacharoff's commander calls BS on Issacharoff's lies.

Breaking the Silence, like Btselem, has no compunction about lying to drive home its anti-Israel narrative. After Breaking the Silence Spokesman Dean Issacharoff trumpeted lies about his military service and that of others with whom he served, speaking of unspeakable (and imaginary) human rights violations against Arabs, his “brothers” in arms (including his commanders) refuted those disgusting lies with a video that really packed a wallop, if you’ll excuse the pun:

Having just celebrated Purim, it is unfathomable, not to mention reprehensible, that settler leaders would grace such a conference for any reason. The conference was not a platform for talking about Jewish land rights or spreading a different narrative and the truth. On the contrary, participating in such a conference is to pal around with Amalek, a latter day Haman, pretending that this will somehow benefit the Jewish people. And if we learn anything from Purim it is that you give such monsters no quarter because participating in their events turns you into just another pawn to be put into play by evil.

The participants and sponsors of today’s conference were not there to listen to dupes like Elhayani or Revivi. Nor were they there to learn because the truth has no meaning to them, liars to a man, every one. The purpose of the fifth column NGOs and the conference they sponsored on behalf of the most anti-Israel newspaper in Israel, was to lie and cheat and cause Jewish blood to be spilled and to steal Jewish land they openly promise to give to enemies of the Jewish people. By their actions, the evil ones name themselves among those enemies, proclaiming their hate for Israel loud and clear to the world at large. The righteous have no place among them.

03/03 Links Pt1: ICC prosecutor announces formal investigation into Israeli 'war crimes'; Biden Appoints Another Israel-Hater: Uzra Zeya; PA admits some of its 1st vaccines went to gov’t officials, soccer stars, Jordan

From Ian:

ICC prosecutor announces formal investigation into Israeli 'war crimes'

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced on Wednesday that she is opening a full war crimes probe against Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip

"The decision to open an investigation followed a painstaking preliminary examination undertaken by my office that lasted close to five years," Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement.

"In the end, our central concern must be for the victims of crimes, both Palestinian and Israeli, arising from the long cycle of violence and insecurity that has caused deep suffering and despair on all sides," she added. "My office will take the same principled, non-partisan, approach that it has adopted in all situations over which its jurisdiction is seized."

Bensouda's announcement comes less than a month after a February decision by the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber recognizing a State of Palestine and authorizing her to move forward.

The probe is expected to cover the 2014 Gaza War, the 2018 Gaza border crisis and the Israeli settlement enterprise in the West Bank as well as Hamas' rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

War crimes suits could be leveled at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defense ministers and any other high-level officials involved in such activity since June 13, 2014. Soldiers and commanders could also be targeted.

The State of Israel is a strong, Jewish and democratic state which knows how to defend itself and to investigate itself when necessary.

We are proud of our soldiers, our sons and daughters, the essence of our people, who stand guard for their country generation after generation
— Reuven Rivlin (@PresidentRuvi) March 3, 2021

Israel attacks ICC for its 'scandalous' investigation

The International Criminal Court's announcement Wednesday that it would launch an investigation into Israeli conduct in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip sent shockwaves throughout the country, drawing condemnation from both sides of the political divide.

President Reuven Rivlin called the decision "scandalous" on Twitter and asserted Israel's right and duty to protect its citizens.

"The State of Israel is a strong, Jewish and democratic state, and it knows how to defend itself and also to investigate itself if necessary," the president tweeted. "We are proud of our soldiers, our sons and daughters. We will make sure that they are not harmed as a result of the decision."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision was "the essence of anti-Semitism and hypocrisy." He added that "there is only one answer: to fight for the truth with all our might, all over the world, and to protect our soldiers."

Echoing similar sentiment, the head of the newly created right-wing party New Hope Chairman Gideon Sa'ar accused the ICC of having been "hijacked by sponsors of terror" and vowed to work with Israel's "allies and friends around the world to defend our moral army, and brave soldiers who risk their lives to keep us safe."