Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 10, 2021

05/10 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: US has plunged its relations with Israel into crisis; Rocket sirens sound in Jerusalem, central Israel amid Temple Mount clashes

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: US has plunged its relations with Israel into crisis

In light of the reactions from Washington to the Hamas and Fatah-inspired Arab violence in Jerusalem, it is hard to see how Israel will be able to maintain a constructive dialogue about its relations with the Palestinians with the Biden administration or more broadly, with the Democrat Party. Indeed, the reactions coming out of Washington to the Arab violence in Jerusalem indicate that Israel will be hard-pressed to conduct a constructive dialogue with Washington about anything, and this will be the case regardless of who forms the next Israeli government.

Saturday, Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren published a shocking post on her Twitter account in response to the Arab riots in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which started in earnest last Thursday. The progressive powerhouse wrote, "The forced removal of long-time Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah is abhorrent and unacceptable. The Administration should make it clear to the Israeli government that these evictions are illegal and must stop immediately."

Warren's statement isn't a demand for justice for Arabs. It is a demand for injustice for Jews. Warren has become the first senior US official to call for Jews to be barred from doing something specifically because they are Jewish since Ulysses Grant barred Jews from entering Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky at the height of the Civil War.

The situation in Sheikh Jarrah is cut and dry. Buildings in the neighborhood that were purchased by Jews 146 years ago were illegally seized in 1948 by Jordan as its forces illegally occupied eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem in the course of the pan-Arab invasion of the nascent Jewish state. During the course of Jordan's illegal occupation of those areas of Jerusalem, the Jordanian Registry of Enemy Property illegally leased the Jewish-owned buildings to Arab tenants.

When Israel liberated the Jordanian-occupied areas of Jerusalem in 1967, the owners of the buildings reasserted their property rights. Their ownership over the properties in Sheikh Jarrah was duly registered in Israel's land registry in 1973. But when the owners tried to retake poss. Their refusal instigated a now 48-year legal battle between the owners and the squatters which is scheduled to finally come to an end this week.

In countless court decisions, judges found time after time that the Jewish owners were the legitimate owners and the Arabs were illegal squatters. The Arab squatters admitted this was the case in 1982. And yet, 39 years later, the children and grandchildren of the squatters from 1982 still refuse to leave the buildings.

This document is a very helpful corrective to the misrepresentations of the Sheikh Jarrah dispute. https://t.co/uFyAILQ4Ly pic.twitter.com/tDw4CnjjXN
— Elliot Kaufman (@ElliotKaufman6) May 10, 2021

Melanie Phillips: Accessories to evil

During the administration of former US president Donald Trump, Palestinian violence declined as a result of Trump’s refusal to pander to Palestinian blackmail. Not only did Trump move the US embassy to Jersualem, he empowered a rapprochement between the Gulf states and Israel which left the Palestinian cause abandoned. He also cut funding to the Palestinian Authority as a consequence of its continued incitement and support of terrorism against Israeli Jews.

The Biden administration, which is stuffed full of officials with a baleful record of hostility to Israel, immediately restored funding and diplomatic recognition to the Palestinian Authority, started to try to drive a wedge between Israel and Saudi Arabia and made clear that it would give Israel short shrift and empower its genocidal foe, Iran.

This US shift in support effectively gave a green light to the Palestinian Arabs to renew their murderous onslaught against the Jews of Israel.

And so what’s been the response by the Biden administration and the EU and various European states to this co-ordinated campaign of incitement, murder and other attacks on Israeli Jews? Far from condemning these Palestinian aggressors and inciters, the EU and US have instead condemned their victim, Israel. They have warned against its planned evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, and repeated their habitual and historically illiterate lie that Israel is in illegal occupation of Jerusalem, the ancient historic capital of the Jewish people — the only people for whom it was ever their capital city.

But hey — the Bidenites, EU states and western “liberals” promote the Holocaust-denying Jew-hater Mahmoud Abbas as a statesman; declare that his terrorism-supporting, Jew-demonising, Israel-exterminating Palestinian Authority deserves to run a state; give it the funds which enable it to continue its incitement and support for terrorism; require Israel to compromise its security to facilitate the creation of an entity which aims to destroy it; parrot the false narrative of Israeli illegality while conniving at the Palestinians’ attempt to hijack both international law and Jewish history; and label murderous Palestinian attacks on Jews as “resistance”.

And then they have the sheer gall to urge a return to “calm”. They are themselves accessories to evil.

One of the constant accusations hurled at Israel for protecting the rights of Jewish land owners in Jerusalem is that evicting tenants who don't pay rent is "ethnic cleansing."

Wikipedia's Demographic History of Jerusalem page is quite illuminating on this topic.

Before the modern Zionist movement, there were never more than 45,000 residents in Jerusalem.

By 1944, that number had ballooned up to 157,000 - 97,000 Jews and the rest split equally of about 30,000 Muslims and 30,000 Christian Arabs.

Before Zionism, Jerusalem was a fairly small town.

In 1967, although Jews were banned from Jordanian controlled areas, the number of Jews doubled to 195,700. The number of Muslims climbed during those years as well, to 55,000. And under Jordanian rule, the number of Christians were slashed by more than half - to only 12,500.

After 50 years of Jewish rule and supposed ethnic cleansing, the number of Arab Muslims in Jerusalem has gone up nearly six times - to 320,000.

(The number of Christians - who live in predominantly Muslim areas - have stayed mostly the same. They don't like to talk about it, but Muslim persecution of Christians is alive and well, as Christians have been fleeing Palestinian areas in droves to the West.)

What kind of ethnic cleansing shows the oppressed people sextupling their size?

The fact that the haters don't want you to know is that in no time in Jerusalem's history has there been as many people, with more liberty and more rights and more freedom to worship, as there has been under Jewish rule.

Anyone who actually cares about Jerusalem and even about the Arabs of Jerusalem would not want things to go back to how they were before 1967. Only pure hate would prompt people to insist that Israel no longer control all of Jerusalem.

Because they sure don't care about human rights.

Hamas: "Cut off the heads of Jews with knives" Fatah: Do everything to "confront the occupation." Media: "Israel is the aggressor"

Hamas is calling for Palestinians to behead Jews:

Fatah is tweeting to increase violence with barely concealed code-words like "confront the occupation:"

The Fatah movement calls on everyone in the coming days and hours to raise the pace of confrontation in the Palestinian territories, friction points and settler roads. The Fatah movement calls for Monday to be a day of unified activity and activities in the Palestinian territories that will start after breakfast hour to confront the occupation.

Palestinian TV is showing this music video inciting violence:

This is Jerusalem, calling to its residents
And Jerusalem – we will redeem it with our lives
O Prophet [Muhammad’s] Ascent to Heaven, and birthplace of Jesus
O most beautiful homeland in the entire world…
This is Jerusalem, calling to its residents
And Jerusalem – we will redeem it with our lives…
O homeland, life is insignificant for your sake
This is Palestine that is like Paradise
O Almighty Master of Heaven – defend it…
And the sun, we will cover it with our swords
This is Jerusalem, calling to its residents
And Jerusalem – we will redeem it with our lives…
We will sacrifice for the sake of the Al-Aqsa Mosque until the last breath
We will turn the world upside down for the sake of this homeland…

Here's an example of what happens from such incitement.

The Palestinians are using this video as evidence that Jews are trying to run down Palestinians.

#Jerusalem this morning: a Jew got with his car into a raging Palestinian mob that tries to lynch & hurls rocks at him; when the Jew tries to escape, he hits one of the rioters.

The Palestinian media already presents it as a Jewish anti-Arab attack pic.twitter.com/pzX05TGLSC
— Shlomi Ben Meir (@shlomikliab) May 10, 2021

But as this angle shows, the car was blocked in, attacked by rioters and tried desperately to escape - and was attacked more.

Footage of the incident from Israeli police's camera. This is the result of the PA's & Hamas incitement to violence with the global encouragement that followed (yes @IfNotNowOrg @IlhanMN @RashidaTlaib I'm talking about you, but not only you)

pic.twitter.com/nrATqC3EWq
— Shlomi Ben Meir (@shlomikliab) May 10, 2021

A heroic policeman saved the bloodied driver before he could be lynched:

This is what Fatah means by "confrontations."

Meanwhile, as Israel is accused of starting battles in Al Aqsa, Palestinians have been stockpiling stones in the mosque:

The incitement to attack Jews has been a constant theme on Palestinian media since before Ramadan began a month ago. But that isn't being reported in the media; only that Israel is somehow the aggressor even as Hamas flags are waving on the Temple Mount.

Today is Yom Yerushalayim, the anniversary of the day that the Jewish people regained sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem and reunited the city that was divided for 19 years.

Yom Yerushalayim literally means Jerusalem Day.

So does Quds Day, the holiday that Ayatollah Khomeini created in 1979 as a direct response to Yom Yerushalayim.

This year, the two days are only a few days apart, so it is worthwhile to compare the two.

Here is part of the original declaration of Quds Day by Khomeini: "For many years, I have been notifying the Muslims of the danger posed by the usurper Israel which today has intensified its savage attacks against the Palestinian brothers and sisters, and which, in the south of Lebanon in particular, is continually bombing Palestinian homes in the hope of crushing the Palestinian struggle. I ask all the Muslims of the world and the Muslim governments to join together to sever the hand of this usurper and its supporters."

Quds Day is not a day of celebrating Jerusalem. It is not even a day of solidarity with Palestinians. It is a day to incite hate against the Jewish state.

Quds Day is a holiday of Jew-hatred.

Nothing can be more opposite to Yom Yerushalayim.

The Jewish love for Jerusalem goes back to the days of King David himself, who wrote Psalms showing his love for the city. Multiple daily prayers yearn for Jerusalem, as does the Grace After Meals. Jewish art is centered on depictions of Jerusalem. The philosopher and poet Judah Halevi wrote poems of his love for Jerusalem. One of the most beautiful songs of the 20th century, Jerusalem of Gold, was written even before Israel reunited the city.

Yom Yerushalayim is a day showing Jewish love for the city that has been the spiritual capital of the Jewish people for 3000 years.

Love always wins over hate, as long as love is willing to fight for the object of its desire.

Naturally, the response to Jews asserting legal rights in Jerusalem is to ....burn forests in the South?

Palestine Today reports that the Jihadi Lightning Unit in the Gaza Strip launched several batches of incendiary balloons towards Israel on Saturday, "in protest against the Israeli occupation's violations of the rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the holy sites, and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood."

Hundreds of balloons were launched towards Israeli towns, which the Gazans call "occupied."

They sparked fifteen fires in forests and fields in the Negev. They were all extinguished.

Now, what exactly does the Negev have to do with Sheikh Jarrah?

Nothing, except...Jews.

05/09 Links: Europe's romance with the Palestinian terror network; Abbas wants more blood; Iranian man ironically catches fire while burning an Israeli flag

From Ian:

Europe's romance with the Palestinian terror network

Seventeen years ago, in 2004, a European Parliament visiting delegation to Israel asked me to brief them on EU funding for Palestinian and Israeli political NGOs under the banners of human rights, peace and other worthy causes. Although the budgets were small then ("only" a few million Euros), they were significant and did major damage. But before I could speak, an EU official tried to prevent my presentation, declaring that I was about to reveal state secrets. His face turned redder when I pulled out the numerous brochures from the NGO grantees with the EU logo.

But beyond the logos, the details of the deep and often personal European relationships with the leaders of influential Palestinian and Israeli NGOs were and remain closely guarded state secrets, on the level of nuclear weapons. This strange and fundamental departure from the transparency that is central to democratic norms explains why year after year, the members of an NGO network linked to a terror organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), are among the main recipients of European funding. Since 2011, the European governments have provided at least 200 million euros to these organizations, including 40 million from the European Union, and probably more from subcontracting that is not reported and from grants that remain hidden.

The arrest and indictment of a number of four individuals with high-level positions in the benignly named Health Workers Committee, who are charged with diverting NGO funds directly to terror groups, shines a bright spotlight on this core dimension of the NGO industry. After many years of hiding the details and denying the extensive evidence of links published in NGO Monitor research reports, it will now be harder for the European officials in charge of the funding to continue to claim "we did not know", "the evidence you provide is not absolute proof…", or "we do not need to examine the recipients because other countries and the UN are funding the same groups."

In official correspondence and awkward meetings with European ambassadors and other officials, they offered rehearsed justifications for funding for Palestinian and Israel NGOs leading anti-Israel "apartheid" demonization. Often reading uncomfortably from pre-cooked slogans, they have claimed (without credibility) that their governments only support projects and not organizations, that the NGO links to the PFLP are outdated and invalid, and even that the PFLP is a legitimate political organization. The long-standing relationships between PFLP officials and their European sponsors, including leaders of powerful church groups such as Pax Christi, are never acknowledged.

Recently, however, recognition of the damage done and the need for independent oversight regarding these NGO relationships has gradually increased. One year ago, Olivér Várhelyi, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement (which has jurisdiction over some of the seven distinct EU funding mechanisms) ordered a comprehensive investigation of terror ties involving NGO grantees, and declared that such funding "will not be tolerated." That report is expected very soon.

Israel’s Critics Are Right: ‘Sheikh Jarrah’ Exemplifies the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Arab Jew-Hatred

This is how the current controversy and conflict surrounding the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood is emblematic of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict.

Shimon HaTzadik is an area that holds deep historical and religious significance to the Jewish people. It is a place where the Jewish people developed — as Ben-Gurion said in Israel’s Declaration of Independence — their “spiritual, religious, and political identity.” It is a place where the Jewish people “first achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance.” It is land that was part of the only independent state that has ever existed west of the Jordan River over the last 2,000 years (that wasn’t part of some foreign colonizing empire). All of this, of course, also applies to every inch of the land of Israel.

Shimon HaTzadik is also where Jewish organizations purchased land and built homes during the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire’s control of the region. The Yemenite Jews who moved to the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood in the 1880s came with the dream of living in Zion and re-establishing the Jewish homeland. This applies to every Jewish community established in the land of Israel between 1870 and 1947.

Shimon HaTzadik is a neighborhood where Jews and Arab could have lived side by side peacefully had Arabs — incited with antisemitic fervor by Nazi ally and collaborator Haj Amin al-Husseini and then by five of the most powerful armies of the entire Arab League — not tried to ethnically cleanse all of the Jews living there. This also applies to every Jewish community established in the land of Israel before 1947.

In Shimon HaTzadik, Jews are trying to move back into homes which were purchased peacefully and legally by their ancestors on land that is part of the Jewish people’s indigenous, historical, and religious homeland. They are trying to move back into homes on land that was conquered by a foreign Arab army and renamed to erase the historic Jewish connection and character of the area. This also applies to every inch of the land of Israel before 1948.

Shimon HaTzadik and Sheikh Jarrah: the Arab-Israeli conflict in a nutshell.

The truth about Sheikh Jarrah.

What the media isn't telling you.#SheikhJarrah #SaveSheikhJarrah #انقذوا_حي_الشيخ_جراح pic.twitter.com/RqWBOcHBlz
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) May 9, 2021

Supreme Court delays session on Sheikh Jarrah evictions amid Jerusalem violence

The Supreme Court, amid daily violent clashes in East Jerusalem, has canceled a hearing scheduled for Monday that could have determined whether four Palestinian families in the city’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood will be evicted.

After the families asked Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to become a party to the case, Mandelblit’s office asked the Supreme Court for two weeks to consider the matter.

The court gave Mandelblit until June 8 to consider whether he will become a party to the case. The planned evictions — already approved by lower courts — will not go forward in the interim.

“A new date will be determined within the next 30 days. In the meantime, until further notice, I order a freeze on the decision by the appellate court, which does not imply any position regarding [that lower court’s decision],” Justice Yitzhak Amit wrote in the ruling.

In all, over 70 Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah are set to be evicted in the coming weeks, to be replaced by right-wing Jewish Israelis. The Palestinians live in houses built on land that courts have ruled were owned by Jewish religious associations before the establishment of Israel 1948.

The anticipated decision to evict the families came as Jerusalem lives through tense, violent days. The city has been on edge in recent weeks as Palestinians have clashed with Israeli police, with both sides blaming the other for igniting the confrontations.

What’s *really* happening at #SheikhJarrah?

The members of US Congress condemning #Israel over this are acting irresponsibly. As an American Israeli I’m asking them to STOP fanning the flames of antisemitism and incitement to violence. pic.twitter.com/AxtkaTICrJ
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר (@emilykschrader) May 8, 2021

Liar @RashidaTlaib accuses Israel's government of burning Palestinian lands to make way for settlements

Rashida Tlaib has decided that she can be most effective if she acts like an anti-Israel organization.

Here's her logo:

That logo isn't in her Congressional webpage - it is at a "progressive action" website.

She started a petition for US citizens to sign a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaTzaddik - a strange thing for a member of Congress to do, unless the goal of the petition is really to spread lies.

Which it is.

The petition is filled with lies and half-truths, as can be expected.

And one of them is so absurd that it is clear that she knows she is lying.

This forced displacement is part of a broader, ongoing project by the Israeli military and government: forcing Palestinians out of their homes and burning their lands, all to make way for more Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, which are illegal under international law.

This is the first time I have ever seen anyone accuse the Israeli government (as opposed to "settlers") of burning Palestinian lands. The idea that they need to burn lands to make way for settlements is complete fantasy out of her fevered imagination.

This is the sort of lie we would expect from a Palestinian blog, not a member of Congress.

But this is even worse. Even the most extreme anti-Israel NGO tries to be careful to avoid direct lies, for example by deceptively using footnotes. But Rashida proudly makes stuff up even when they don't make any sense. Why would the IDF need to burn lands when it can simply confiscate them at will, according to people like Rashida?

If anyone needs further proof that Rashida Tlaib is a liar hell-bent on spreading the most outrageous slanders about Israel, this is as definitive as possible.

Yes, Jordan illegally gave Jewish owned land to UNRWA

Turkey's anti-Israel Anadolu Agency gives a summary of the background behind the headlines in Sheikh Jarrah:

In 1956, the 28 refugee families who lost their homes during the Nakba reached an agreement with the Jordanian Ministry of Construction and Development and the UN refugee agency UNRWA to provide housing for them in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

At that time, the West Bank was under Jordanian rule (1951-1967).

According to the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ), the Jordanian government provided the land while UNRWA covered the cost for constructing 28 homes for these families.

“A contract was concluded between the Ministry of Construction and Reconstruction and Palestinian families in 1956, with one of the main conditions stating that the residents pay a symbolic fee, provided that ownership is transferred to the residents after three years from the completion of construction,” the CCPRJ said in a statement.

This, however, was interrupted by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, in 1967 which prevented the registration of the houses under the names of families, the statement said.

There are two important facts that need to be verified: Did Jordan actually promise to give these houses to these families, and who owned the land?

UNRWA's annual reports that mention this issue do not verify anything about the first assertion. Its 1954 report says:

Because of the housing shortage in most Jordanian towns shelter represents a heavy cost element in the budget of refugees who wish to become self-supporting. The provision of low-cost housing is therefore an urgent necessity. In addition to the Amman housing scheme, involving fifty houses for 253 ration recipient refugees, completed in 1952, UNRWA is now planning new low-cost urban housing for a total of 200 families in Amman, Jerusalem, Hebron and Aqaba. Refugees who will occupy the houses are those who are already partially self-supporting and who, with low rents, will become entirely self-supporting and thus removable from ration rolls. Designs are being drawn and negotiations are under way with the Government of Jordan for the selection of suitable sites. The houses will be financed by UNRWA, with the refugees paying nominal rents; the land will be obtained by the Government.

The intent was that the families would pay low rent, which definitely means that they would not own the houses.

This seemed to change slightly over the years from low-rent to no-rent, but there was no indication that the residents would own the housing. From the 1955 report:

Building work at the second, at Sheikh Jarrah, near Jerusalem, has also been started. Housing for 28 families will be built at a cost of $55,636 made available by the Agency to the Government under an agreement signed on 16 November 1954.

And UNRWA's 1956 report added:

At the Sheikh Jarrah quarter, near Jerusalem, the twenty-eight housing units were completed and the selection of families is being finalized.

Jordan had seized Jewish-owned lands after the War for Independence. As summarized by the PLO in one of the "Palestine Papers" memos that freely admitted Jews owned large amounts of land in Judea and Samaria:

In August 1950, the Jordanian General Administrative Governor of the West Bank issued A Proclamation Aiming to Prevent the Crossing of Borders between the Arab Areas and Jewish Areas in Palestine, and Prohibition of Trading and Dealing with the Enemy No. (55) of 1950. This Proclamation provided that residents of the State of Israel (including its Arab citizens) would be considered enemies in relation to the laws regarding trading with the enemy. Relying on the Trading with the Enemy Ordinance, 1939 and on the Proclamation, the Jordanian Minister of Interior appointed the Custodian of Enemy Property and vested in him, through a multitude of specific and general vesting orders, the property of Israelis in the West Bank.

The Custodian held and administered Jewish-owned in the West Bank until 1967 according to the Trading with the Enemy Ordinance (as opposed to administering the land like absentee property according to the powers and rules of IHL). Some of these assets were used by the Custodian for public purposes, such as the establishment of refugee camps, the rehabilitation of refugees, and the setting up of army camps and marketplaces. In other cases, the property was leased to private individuals, who used the land for agricultural, commercial or residential purposes, depending on its characteristics.

Note that the PLO admits that Jordan did not treat Jewish-owned property according to international humanitarian law (IHL.) Even the PLO admits that Jordan took land illegally from Jews.

Nowhere is there any indication that Jordan sold these lands, though - as this memo shows, the land was leased to others. That must include UNRWA, which in the early 1950s was still considered to be a temporary agency - Jordan wouldn't willingly give away land to UNRWA permanently. And when Jordan allowed private individuals to use the land, it was leased, not sold.

There is no way Jordan would have agreed to give this land to the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah.

Although I can only see snippets from this publication, a Jewish Agency digest from around 1950 showed that the Jordanian Ministry of Construction and Reconstruction definitely allocated Jewish-owned properties to UNRWA, but didn't sell it:

It was quite well known at the time that the properties that Jordan gave to UNRWA were often those that were owned by Jews. There is absolutely no reason to think that the lands that Arabs now claim ownership for in Sheikh Jarrah were originally owned by Arabs - if so, they would have protested Jordan's takeover of those lands back in the 1950s and UNRWA's building on them.

While this evidence is fragmentary, it all points to the conclusion that the land in Sheikh Jarrah was originally owned by Jews, taken by Jordan, and lent or leased to UNRWA - but never given or sold to private individuals.

The ex-Grand Mufti of Jerusalem appealed to Arab Americans during World War II to support Nazi Germany - and he appealed to antisemitism to help convince them.

Here are excerpts from his shortwave radio address broadcast from Rome on March 19, 1943:

The Arabs and Moslems will not be deceived by Britain once again because not only have they known its true intentions but they have also known those of Britain’s allies—America—and I want to draw the attention of the Arab emigrants in America to this fact, reminding them of their glorious past when they supported the National movement. I would also like to remind them that their efforts will be wasted if, God forbid, America and her Allies may be victorious in this War because at such a time the Arabs will never rise again. I therefore know that those Arab emigrants in America will refrain from helping Roosevelt or taking part in a war which he brought on to his country.

If those Allies win this war the Jewish influence will be the arbiter in the world resources and one can thus imagine the future of the Arabs and Moslems, and the dangers which they are exposed to in their fatherlands and beliefs if the Jews and their Allies dominate them and spread the latent hatred on to them.

Then the world will become Hell—God forbid:

But Allah is too just and merciful to grant such murderous violators any victory. We are sure that victory will be ours and that of our friends. We have not the slightest doubt about that, we shall not slacken our struggle nor will we be deterred or quietened. Do not be deceived by the allegations of your enemies, because you know full well about their intrigues, and be sure that the nation which fights, sacrifices and awaits will be the victorious one in the end.

The Mufti took it for granted that all Arabs are antisemitic so appealing to their hate of Jews was the central part of the speech.

05/08 Links: For Jerusalem Day, the humble memorials to those who died unifying the city; Netanyahu says Israel protects right to worship; 186-year-old account of US diplomatic visit to Holy Land surfaces at auction

From Ian:

For Jerusalem Day, the humble memorials to those who died unifying the city

The 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, which this year falls out on the evening of May 9 and the day of May 10, is the anniversary of the day that Israeli paratroopers captured Jerusalem’s Old City in the Six Day War.

Almost immediately following the Old City’s liberation, the soldiers who had participated in the battle piled some rocks together along Jericho Road outside the Lions’ Gate and planted a flag in the ground.

It was their way of honoring the memory of their fallen comrades, killed on that very same road, when soldiers made a fatal navigational mistake. Israeli troops had conquered the Jordanian outpost at the Rockefeller Museum, but two large obstacles remained: the Old City, and the well-fortified Augusta Victoria complex on the Mount of Olives, which offered a clear view of the Temple Mount down below.

Soldiers heading for the Mount of Olives missed the turn onto the ascent and instead descended along Jericho Road. Unfortunately, from their position on the road, the Israeli forces couldn’t see the Jordanian troops standing at the ready atop the Old City walls. Thus, the soldiers were hit hard when they reached the curve in the road which serves as a bridge above the Kidron Valley. A savage battle raged on the bridge, and other Israeli troops were called in to extract their comrades.

Years later, the impromptu monument, an extremely emotional sight, was moved from the location of the battle to its permanent home across from the ascent to Lions’ Gate. Replacing the rocks is a sculpted eagle with one wing reaching to the sky. A second shattered wing tilts sadly towards the earth.

What we learnt yesterday:

That the @guardian regrets supporting the creation of Israel

They literally regret that the Jews have a place to defend themselves.

They want Jews to be weak, homeless and defenceless.

There is no forgiving this.
— David Collier (@mishtal) May 8, 2021

To be fair, it did lead to national, religious and capitalist success, so lamenting it seems on brand. https://t.co/LyOQ5M7sB1
— David Wolpe (@RabbiWolpe) May 7, 2021

IfNotNow tweeted:

Incredible, inspiring images of Palestinian resistance coming out of Jerusalem tonight.

American Jews are with you ✊ https://t.co/TCPYR0McE2
— IfNotNow🔥 (@IfNotNowOrg) May 8, 2021

The chants include "Bomb, Bomb Tel Aviv."

From the holiest site in Judaism.

And IfNotNow claims not only to be inspired by a genocidal call to kill a million Jews, in a place that is sacred to Jews - but that American Jews support these terrorist supporters!

95% of American Jews support Israel, and IfNotNow is nothing but the fringiest of fringe groups. This tweet proves it. And any media that gives them attention is promoting people who literally support genocide of Israeli Jews.

05/07 Links Pt2: Canadian Court Overturns Barring ‘Product of Israel’ Labels on Judea, Samaria Wine; Guardian Article Listing Its 1917 Support for Creation of Israel Among ‘Worst Errors of Judgment’ in Paper’s History

From Ian:

Canadian Court Overturns Barring ‘Product of Israel’ Labels on Judea, Samaria Wine

A Canadian federal appeals court reversed a lower court’s decision that barred “Product of Israel” labels for wines produced in Judea and Samaria.

In July of 2020, the Federal Court of Canada had ruled that it was “false, misleading or deceptive” for wines produced by Israeli vintners east of the Green Line to be labeled “Product of Israel.” Parts of the decision had also lent support to boycotts of Jewish communities, suggesting that the “Product of Israel” obstructed consumers’ right to boycott these communities.

However, the Federal Court of Appeal reversed this decision, ruling that the lower court judge had gone too far in its decision and that the federal agency, Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), that initially reviewed the labels should be allowed to try again, with all options remaining open.

“We welcome the decision, which puts this matter back on track to being resolved fairly and correctly,” said Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada. “B’nai Brith has engaged with decision-makers on this issue since the very beginning and will continue to do so as this matter progresses. We say proudly that Jews returning to producing wine in their indigenous homeland is something to be celebrated, not stigmatized.”

Shimon Koffler Fogel, president and CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said he is not surprised by the appeals court ruling.

“CIJA believes that current labeling practices are fully consistent with the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, as well as Canadian and international law,” he said.

British Jews Blast Guardian Article Listing Its 1917 Support for Creation of Israel Among ‘Worst Errors of Judgment’ in Paper’s History

Leading Jewish groups and Israeli officials were outraged on Friday at the The Guardian listing its past editorial support for the 1917 Balfour declaration — which announced the British government’s support for the establishment of a Jewish state — as one of the paper’s “worst errors in judgement over 200 years” in a bicentennial feature article.

“A daily newspaper cannot publish for 200 years without getting some things wrong. This one has made its share of mistakes,” the article began, in an ongoing series marking the publication’s 1821 founding. After regrets including its editorial column’s past support for limiting suffrage to male taxpayers and its animosity towards Abraham Lincoln, the Guardian listed its support of the 1917 decision by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to back a national home for the Jewish people in then-Palestine.

Balfour’s “words changed the world,” the article continued. “The Guardian of 1917 supported, celebrated and could even be said to have helped facilitate the Balfour declaration. [Former chief editor CP] Scott was a supporter of Zionism and this blinded him to Palestinian rights. In 1917 he wrote a leader on the day the Balfour declaration was announced, in which he dismissed any other claim to the Holy Land, saying: ‘The existing Arab population of Palestine is small and at a low stage of civilization.’ Whatever else can be said, Israel today is not the country the Guardian foresaw or would have wanted.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl called the article “breathtakingly ill considered” in a statement Friday.

“In its eagerness to disassociate itself in any way from its early support for Zionism, the Guardian chooses not to focus on the simple fact that had such a national homeland existed even a decade earlier than 1948, many millions of Jews — our close relatives — murdered in the Holocaust might still be alive,” she wrote.

“Alongside a safe and secure Jewish State, the Board of Deputies supports the creation of a Palestinian State, something the Balfour declaration does not negate. The Guardian would be best advised to advocate for this as well rather than its current position, which seems to be to do everything it can to undermine the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state,” van der Zyl continued.

Disgusting: @Guardian expresses regret for having supported Israel's creation, listing it as one of the paper's "worst errors of judgment over 200 years."

If a Jewish state had been born then, in 1917, there may never have been a Holocaust.

Would they have regretted that too? pic.twitter.com/Y3EJgiNXf6
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) May 7, 2021

Israel Advocacy Movement: Palestinian propagandists caught lying… again - Am Yisrael Live with David Collier

05/07 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: A powder keg, courtesy of Washington; An open letter to Israel's Muslim Terrorists; ‘Major attack’ in Israel foiled as 3 gunmen shot in firefight

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: A powder keg, courtesy of Washington

Since the Democrats took control of the White House and both Houses of Congress a hundred days ago, the Middle East has become a powder keg. But Israel's ruling class sees nothing.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, violent attacks against US forces are rising steeply. From January through April, attacks on US forces increased 40%. President Joe Biden's announcement that the US will withdraw its forces from the country by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the jihadist attacks on the US worsened the situation by communicating a message of profound American weakness and defeatism. The Taliban, al-Qaida and Iran clearly believe they are now free to humiliate and bleed the US as they take control of the country.

In Iraq, Iranian-controlled Shiite militias launched three missile strikes against US bases in the past week. Hoping to avoid confrontation with Iran as its emissaries appease it in Vienna, the Biden administration is assiduously avoiding acknowledging that Iran is behind the attacks, and so it guarantees that more attack will soon follow. As in Afghanistan, Iran reads US behavior as an invitation to strike with immunity.

In Syria, Iran's Syrian proxy President Bashar Assad and Iran's Lebanese proxy Hezbollah continue to wage a war of extermination against Syrians who oppose them. In southern Syria last weekend, after opposition forces from the village of Am Batana, six kilometers (3.7 miles) from the border with Israel attacked a joint Syrian military and Hezbollah base nearby, the military ordered the entire village to evacuate by 2 p.m. last Saturday, or else. Most of the villagers reportedly fled their homes.

While turning a blind eye to Syria, the Biden administration continues to empower the Lebanese armed forces and government – both wholly controlled by Iran through Hezbollah. Last month, the administration transferred armored trucks valued at $14 million to the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese military and asked that Congress provide financial assistance to the government. Hezbollah for its part has launched a charm campaign on the public. Having caused the government to go bankrupt and forced the people of a once prosperous land into destitution, Hezbollah is now carrying out a well-publicized food drive, handing out Iranian basic foodstuffs to starving Lebanese along with Hezbollah membership cards.

Just months ago, hope abounded that Saudi Arabia would join the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan in the Abraham peace accords with Israel. But the picture is now reversed. Recognizing the US has changed sides, the Saudis no longer believe that with Israel they can contain Iran. So now they are hoping to cut a deal with the ayatollahs.

The Caroline Glick Show: Ep4 - The stakes in Israel's political bazar

In Episode 4 of the Caroline Glick Mideast News Hour, Caroline and co-host Gadi Taub discuss the nature and likely outcomes of Israel's prolonged political crisis and the pros and cons and likelihood of various ways of resolving it, either through the formation of a right-wing minority government supported by an Islamist party, the formation of a left-dominant government formally led by a breakaway ideologically right-wing party led by Naftali Bennett, and various permutations in between. Caroline also discusses her experience running for Knesset with Bennett in the April 2019 election and what she learned about his character from that experience. Caroline and Gadi also analyzed the implications of Israel's political instability and the likelihood that it will soon be led by inexperienced leaders presiding over either a weak or radical government for prospects of regional war.

An open letter to Israel's Muslim Terrorists

Dear Muslim Terrorist,

First, I want to recognize your 100 years of mayhem against the Jews of Israel. Oh, I know that you have been terrorizing and killing Jews for much longer than that, but your 1921 Jaffa pogrom when you murdered 47 and injured 146 innocents was really when you got your party started. Your dedication to the destruction of Israel's Jews warms the heart of today's European and American anti-Semites who continue to fund and applaud your work.

Your daily attempts to poison, bomb, stab, rape, burn, threaten, intimidate, beat, and slaughter Jews appears to provide you with your life's meaning and purpose. It seems that no amount of Jewish goodwill and offers of friendship can stop your homicidal fantasies and your compulsion to act on them. That is dedication. That is focus. It is exactly those things that make you and your "people" uniquely unfit, unqualified and undeserving of the state you insist to the world that you deserve.

This last week in Israel, you continued your serial torment of the Jews. My heart cries for each Jew you humiliate, injure or G-d forbid, kill.

Keep this in mind, dear terrorist:, although the Israeli police are too scared to stop you, and corrupt left-wing judges release you as soon as you are arrested, and Israel's political leaders haven't found a way to punish you - Israel's Jews are thriving.

One hundred years ago, there were 60,000 Jews in the Land of Israel. Today, there are 6.7 million and soon, God willing, there will be unlimited millions of Jews living in Israel. That must set off a hot Roman candle in your head. In 1921, the Jewish state was a dream. There was no Israeli Army, Air force, Navy, Special Forces, Mossad, Iron Dome, sky scrapers, high tech, agriculture, hospitals, industry, powerful economy, and material abundance. Synagogues and Institutes of Jewish learning are flourishing. The Israel of 1921 was a backwater part of the British Empire with people dying of starvation on the streets. Now Israel ranks in the top 20 countries in the world in GDP per capita, above Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In the last 100 years, we Jews in Israel have seen a miracle that no one could have imagined in their wildest fantasies.

INVESTIGATION REVEALS: PFLP terror group diverts humanitarian funds REVEALED: Millions of euros in European government funds, meant for humanitarian purposes, supported terrorism by the PFLP, a Palestinian terror organization responsible for the murder of dozens. European taxpayers' money must not end up supporting terrorism.

Meet the PFLP terror group responsible for killing dozens Meet the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP): a terror group responsible for the murder of dozens around the world. For years, European funds donated to Palestinian civil society organizations ended up supporting Palestinian terrorism. This has to stop.

Other countries are following the US lead in boycotting Durban IV.

The US committed to boycotting the Durban IV conference this September - in response to a question by a Jerusalem Post reporter Lahav Harkov, who had read about it from one of my articles. This helped push other countries into making a decision as to whether they will legitimize the notorious 2001 Durban antisemitic hatefest or not.

Australia was the first to follow the US in announcing that they will not attend. “We will not associate Australia with one-sided and contentious language that singles out Israel or an event that champions such language,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated on Thursday, in a much more public position than the US had done with an anonymous State Department official.

Shortly afterwards, Canada also declared that they will not attend. Global Affairs Canada spokesman Grantly Franklin said, “Canada remains committed, at home and abroad, including at the UN, to advancing human rights, inclusion and combatting antisemitism, islamophobia and systemic racism in all its forms. Canada opposes initiatives at the United Nations and in other multilateral forums that unfairly single out and target Israel for criticism.‎ Canada is concerned that the Durban Process has and continues to be used to push for anti-Israel sentiment and as a forum for antisemitism. That is why we do not plan to attend or participate in events surrounding the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action."

Jewish leaders in the UK are urging Great Britain to follow suit, but the government has not committed to that, only saying that they will see how likely it is that Durban IV will host antisemitism. That is a poor answer because Durban IV will re-commit to the Durban I declaration that singled out Israel as guilty of "racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia [or] related intolerance."

According to Harkov, France is expected to pull out as well.

14 nations boycotted the tenth anniversary of Durban I. It is unclear if the US will actually lead the push to boycott Durban IV, though, as it did then under Obama. This is still very troubling.