Tuesday, June 15, 2021
- Tuesday, June 15, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- "pro-Palestinian", Al-Aqsa Mosque, antisemitism, Day of Rage, intolerance, jew hatred, new york city, storming Al-Aqsa, Temple Mount
- Tuesday, June 15, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
Monday, June 14, 2021
Dore Gold: The Baseless Charge that Israel Is an Apartheid State, Again
The baseless accusations that Israel has adopted an apartheid system similar to South Africa's pre-1994 racial doctrine just won't go away.MEP's call on UN chief to investigate UNRWA over hate teaching
Former South African Supreme Court Justice Richard J. Goldstone, chief prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, wrote in the New York Times on October 31, 2011, that descriptions of Israel as an apartheid state are "unfair and inaccurate slander." "In Israel there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute." Goldstone headed a UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict in 2008-9, which tried to argue that Israel had deliberately killed civilians in that war. Goldstone eventually retracted the principal conclusions of his own report.
The details here matter. In apartheid South Africa, there were white hospitals and black hospitals. Yet anyone today who wanders into the Emergency Room at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem will find both Jewish and Palestinian Arab patients treated by both Jewish and Palestinian doctors working side-by-side. Charging Israel with apartheid is not only unfair, it is completely inaccurate.
So why do writers persist to argue that Israel is an apartheid state? Because Israel's adversaries are waging an ideological war against the Jewish state. Advocates of the Israel-apartheid libel hope that their campaign will lead to Israel's eventual replacement with a Palestinian Islamic entity.
This campaign against Israel has had vile aftereffects that need to be noted. It is no coincidence that the world is witnessing an upsurge in anti-Semitism. Anti-Israel demonstrations today frequently have signs that refer to apartheid. Those pushing the "Israel is an apartheid state" rhetoric are playing with fire.
Letter also sent to EU Commission president demanding probe into antisemitism, incitement to violenceScorecard: Half of UN Human Rights Council Members Opposed Action for Victims
A cross-party group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sent a letter Monday to the UN Secretary-General and EU Commission president demanding an investigation into the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) over the revelations of antisemitism and incitement to violence in its educational materials.
The 26 MEPs, who represent all the major parties in the European Parliament, initiated by MEP David Lega (EPP, Sweden) and MEP Miriam Lexmann (EPP, Slovakia), raised significant concerns about the kinds of materials that UNRWA uses.
The letter expressed alarm about "UNRWA’s continued use of hateful school materials that encourage violence, reject peace, and demonizes both Israel and the Jewish people. We deeply deplore the agency’s lack of oversight, transparency and accountability with regard to the repeated revelations of teaching hate and incitement to Palestinian children under UNRWA’s care.”
Crucially, the letter condemns the use of EU taxpayers’ money to fund hate teaching and antisemitic provocation, which the authors maintained was a "grave misuse in violation of our values."
They added that the revelations were particularly "disturbing" given that UNRWA's Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini addressed the European Parliament just last November, he personally guaranteed that in UNRWA schools 'there is absolutely no room for any teaching which would encourage violence, discrimination, racism or antisemitism.'"
“The EU condemned UNRWA in May for teaching hate and these members of the European parliament are absolutely right in turning to Secretary-General Guterres for answers they have not been able to receive from UNRWA itself, including who authored and authorized the hateful UNRWA-produced teaching material," maintained IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff.
Nearly half the countries on the UN’s top human rights body—which the U.S. is now seeking to rejoin, and which opens a 3-week session on Monday, June 21st—are using their membership negatively, opposing instead of supporting action for victims of arbitrary detention, torture and other abuses, according to a new report released today by UN Watch, an independent non-governmental human rights organization in Geneva that monitors the world body.
UN Watch’s scorecard measured all 47 UN Human Rights Council member states based on their 2020 votes on resolutions concerning victims in such places as Belarus, Burundi, Eritrea, Iran and Yemen, as well on resolutions that define human rights concepts.
Thirteen countries were rated as having “Destructive” voting records, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Libya, Namibia, Nigeria, Qatar, Senegal and Somalia.
Another 10 council members were rated as having “Very Destructive” records, including Eritrea, Mauritania, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sudan and Venezuela.
“When 60 percent of the UN Human Rights Council is composed of tyrannies and other non-democracies—absurdly, China, Cuba and Russia this year joined existing members such as Libya, Pakistan and Venezuela—we should not be surprised that so many use their votes to oppose action against the world’s worst abusers, or to support counterproductive resolutions that legitimize dictatorships and terrorists,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
“Even worse, most of the world’s worst situations of widespread abuse never even come to a vote, with major violators of human rights such as China, Cuba, Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Zimbabwe enjoying complete impunity at the UNHRC, escaping any censure or scrutiny in the form of council resolutions, inquiries or special sessions,” said Neuer.
Only 24 of the 47 Council members had mixed or positive records. Twelve countries received a “Constructive” score: Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, and Ukraine. These countries contributed constructively to the council’s work between 70% and 89% of the time.
- Monday, June 14, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
David Horovitz: Israel awakens to its most representative government ever, courtesy of Netanyahu
Israel awoke Monday to a new, post-Netanyahu dawn — to a fragile and phenomenally diverse coalition whose members chorused their determination to work for the good of the country. The sun rose as usual, just as Naftali Bennett had promised last week that it would, except he was now prime minister. “King Bibi,” it turned out, was not a monarch after all.
As they assembled for the traditional photograph with the president, there was no mistaking the breadth of Israel represented by the ministers in the government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid. On one side of President Reuven Rivlin sat Bennett, Israel’s first Orthodox prime minister and the former head of the Settlers Council. On the other sat Lapid, the secular centrist who drew together the radically improbable eight-party mix that on Sunday unseated Benjamin Netanyahu after 12 years.
Among those arrayed behind them stood an Ethiopia-born minister (Pnina Tamano Shata), a former IDF chief of staff (Benny Gantz), Israel’s first openly gay party leader (Nitzan Horowitz), a minister from the Arab community (Issawi Frej), other ex-army officers, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union. In her wheelchair to Lapid’s left was Karine Elharrar (she has muscular dystrophy), the incoming energy minister.
For Rivlin, who publicly declared his discomfort when charging Benjamin Netanyahu with forming a government after the March 23 elections, but expressed no such reservations when transferring the mandate to Lapid in May after Netanyahu failed, Monday’s ceremony was a fortuitously timed delight. Rivlin’s seven-year term ends next month, and he relished this most significant of his final events, taking the time to shake hands with all, and embrace many, of the 27 ministers in the government that has ended Netanyahu’s rule.
Not only does Israel’s new government hail from diverse backgrounds, however, but its component parties are advocates of radically contrasting ideologies.
JPost Editorial: We must recognize Netanyahu's achievements despite his flaws
There is something ironic and yet symbolic about Israel entering the post-corona era this week with a new government – but one without Benjamin Netanyahu at its head.Fmr. Ambassador Michael Oren on Netanyahu, New PM Bennett
As of Tuesday, Israelis will no longer be required to wear masks anywhere, thus removing the last public regulation of corona. Israel’s success in countering the pandemic is due to many factors, but one main one is certainly Netanyahu’s success in bringing sufficient vaccines to the country, which were then efficiently and effectively distributed via the country’s health fund system.
Netanyahu probably thought that this alone would be enough to enable him to be reelected to the position he has held for 12 straight years (in addition to his first term between 1996 and 1999.) But he underestimated the mood of the country, and certainly the political forces that were intent on replacing him.
As Netanyahu moves out of the Prime Minister’s Residence and takes over the position of leader of the Opposition, we must look back at his term in office and say thank you for his achievements.
Netanyahu’s last few years in particular have been very divisive, with unbridled attacks on the justice system, the media, the police, and anybody he considered a political rival.
Moreover, Netanyahu is leaving the premiership under a cloud of corruption, standing trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Like any citizen, he should be considered innocent until proven guilty; but this does not allow him the right to actively undermine the institutions that make up Israel’s delicate democratic fabric. It is this rhetoric that many Israelis will now remember.
Nevertheless. there is a Jewish tradition of hakarat hatov – expressing gratitude. Netanyahu is a human being with faults and failings, but he is also someone who has dedicated his life and career to the Jewish state, and has achieved an impressive list of accomplishments.
Honest Reporting: Benjamin Netanyahu: A Political Timeline
Netanyahu: The Early YearsCommentary Magazine Podcast: Bibi Goes Bye-Bye
Benjamin Netanyahu, referred to by many as “Bibi,” was born in Tel Aviv in 1949. By 1963, his family had moved to Pennsylvania, where he attended high school.
At the age of 18, Netanyahu was drafted into the Israeli military, serving in Sayeret Matkal, an elite special operations unit. Over the next few years, he took part in several counter-terrorism missions, notably aiding in rescuing a hijacked plane at the Tel Aviv airport in 1972.
From 1972-76, Netanyahu attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and a Master’s in Business Management.
After his brother, Jonathan, was tragically killed in action while rescuing hostages from German leftist and Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda in 1976, Netanyahu started an anti-terrorism foundation known as the Jonathan Institute. By 1982, Netanyahu had become a well-known public figure, serving as Israel’s deputy chief of mission in Washington, D.C. He became Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in 1984.
In 1988, Netanyahu was elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, for the first time as a member of the right-wing Likud party. He served as deputy minister of foreign affairs until 1991, when he became deputy minister in then-prime minister Yitzhak Shamir’s office.
Continuing to gain traction, Netanyahu was elected chairman of the Likud party in 1993.
Bret Stephens joins the podcast crew today to discuss the change in Israel’s government—and the complex legacy of Benjamin Netanyahu. Then we talk NATO, Biden, and the end of the pandemic. Give a listen.
- Monday, June 14, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
Vanesa, a Jewish Israeli lady expresses how welcome she feels inside Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque 🕌
— Loay Alshareef لؤي الشريف (@lalshareef) June 13, 2021
This is what my great religion Islam promotes, and these are the values of the UAE 🇦🇪♥️ pic.twitter.com/guISS9HWGz
- Monday, June 14, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- Monday, June 14, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
The destruction, which can be seen across the entire 25-mile strip was concentrated in the north, around Gaza City, and the southeast.
Rights groups decried the targeting of Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Tensions boiled over in May after Hamas fired rockets into Israel in response to Israeli police cracking down on Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem. Israel responded with airstrikes, setting off nearly two weeks of hostilities.
Sunday, June 13, 2021
- Sunday, June 13, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- Sunday, June 13, 2021
- Ian
- Linkdump, Richard Landes
Richard Landes: Lethal, own-goal war journalism
The month of May 2021 taught us Israelis many unfortunate things—things we hoped were not true (and continue to hope are not true)—about the sad straights of Israeli democracy; the relentlessly authoritarian nature of Palestinian or, for that matter, Arab and Muslim political culture; the troubled relationship between Jews and Arabs in Israel; the rising strength of religious hatred in the region and the world; and, at least for me, the most senseless yet persistent phenomenon that crops up every time open conflict between Israelis and Arabs breaks out: namely the own-goal, lethal war journalism of the Western media and the wave of hatred it predictably unleashes around the world.Democrats must require Palestinian leaders to do better
A brief preliminary discussion about the three types of unethical forms of “war journalism” is in order. There is patriotic war journalism: reporting as news your own side’s war propaganda; lethal war journalism: reporting as news a foreign belligerent’s war propaganda; and own-goal war journalism: reporting your enemy’s war propaganda as news.
Modern, professional journalism considers patriotic war journalism unethical, a prostitution of its high calling. While reporters sometimes sympathize with one “side” in a foreign war, lethal war journalists systematically give credence to one belligerent’s narratives, depicting the other side as an atrocious enemy. The third category seems wholly improbable, since why would anyone do something that stupid?
And yet, in the 21st century, the land “between the river and the sea” has given birth to a peculiarly virulent case of both lethal and own-goal journalism among Western news providers. From 2000-2002, a wave of the most ferocious and provocative lethal journalism in the history of modern, professional journalism came from Western journalists who published dishonest Palestinian claims about Israeli evil-doing (targeting kids, massacring civilians) and ran them as news.
When those claims were disproven, as they all were, these news outlets did nothing to correct their errors. In the spring of 2002, when lethal journalists filled the global public sphere with reports of Israeli massacres in Jenin (just like the Nazis in Poland), progressives in Europe protested by wearing mock suicide belts in solidarity with an enemy about to attack their own countries. Own-goal journalism scored a massive blow for an enemy whose viciousness was embodied in those very suicide belts that these demonstrators, inebriated with virtue, wore so proudly.
In early June, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote a letter to Sen. Jim Risch, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, asking him to remove a temporary hold on restoring Palestinian aid. That hold was put in place only until the United States can verify, with any sense of certainty, that the recipients will not directly or indirectly funnel the money to terrorists. Releasing it before that happens would be a terrible mistake.David Collier: Gaza, Sky News and the Islamist march on London
The letter, which was signed by a group of Raskin’s Democratic colleagues, was misleading and generally reflective of a failed Middle East approach that they desperately need to abandon.
The letter was misleading because it is full of partial omissions and false promises. For example, it notes that this “humanitarian and development aid was passed in FY20 with bipartisan support and signed by the former President,” but completely fails to mention that there was also overwhelming bipartisan and executive support for the very limitations that Risch is trying to uphold.
Raskin claims that the money “is to be provided in full accordance with U.S. law. It is administered and overseen by our government and by trusted and vetted partners …. Hamas and other terrorist groups will not benefit from our humanitarian assistance.” The truth, however, is that during a May 24 special briefing, a senior State Department official publicly admitted that while the U.S. would be “working in partnership with the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to try and channel aid there,” at the end of the day “there are no guarantees” it would not end up with Hamas.
It is also problematic and unlawful even to pretend (while noticeably declining to mention them by name) that the PA has suddenly become a “trusted and vetted partner” that the U.S. can work with on distributing aid in the region.
Setting aside the fact that as recently as May 19, during the conflict in Israel, the PA released a public statement calling for a unity government with none other than Hamas, the PA itself consistently calls for violent uprisings and intifada. The PA also doesn’t stop at merely glorifying violence; it literally pays for it by guaranteeing convicted murderers a monthly salary for life, with amounts increased according to the number of victims and the severity of the harm. It spends hundreds of millions annually incentivizing terror, much of it from international aid. (h/t Yerushalimey)
In fact, I went back six months on the Sky Twitter feed and there is not a single tweet, not one, about the persecution of Christians.
Instead there is an endless stream of demonising, anti-Israel propaganda.
The BBC, the Guardian all have similar issues and a similar focus. When these news outlets publish a story against Israel, it goes viral. Their advertisers pay more, their subscriptions increase. But they are chiefly speaking to the Islamist crowd who use the material as fodder for new recruits and they are egged on by the same Islamist mob screaming ‘what about Palestine?’
Where is the front cover of the New York Times displaying rows of Nigerian children who have been lost? There isn’t one. Nobody cares.
Muslim footballers hold aloft the Palestinian flag and everyone takes this as a sign that ‘Palestine’ is the real humanitarian issue of our age. It is nothing of the kind and it is a disgrace that the FA took no action. This is people like Liverpool’s Sadio Mane turning it into a religious conflict and publicly using their fame and football clubs to do it. This isn’t about human rights – it is about their ‘brothers’, ‘Islam’ and the ‘Ummah’. Black Lives Matter is being co opted by the Palestinian cause – like the Palestinian cause co-opts every cause. But when it comes down to it – look at those people in Africa who are really suffering that nobody wants to talk about. Black lives don’t seem to matter at all.
People like the Sky News journalist Mark Stone get to feel important. His following increases, people begin speaking his name. The fool even thinks this somehow means he is doing the right thing- so he does it more often and more loudly. The growing applause confirms to him he is on the right track. After all, there are only 1.8 billion Muslims in the world and truth is a numbers game. The level of the man’s stupidity is only beaten by the size of his ego. A sad combination for a journalist.
We are being let down. There is no excuse for the Israel obsession – none. It is part of an Islamist narrative – and it is what these Islamists want to talk about – all the time. Our media have followed these Islamists down the anti-western, anti-Israel, rabbit hole. They run scared of the Islamists in the newsroom. Our police run scared of them on the street. The government knows that if it takes action – it will be labelled Islamophobic. This is a train heading for a crash – and the sooner we stop it – the less damaging the impact will be.
- Sunday, June 13, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- analysis, Daled Amos
And that one sentence got McQuiston in trouble with the Twitter mob:
A handful of Twitter users wrote that even mentioning Israel in fiction “normalizes” the occupation of Palestine. Their complaints were amplified by a fan account of the book, which prompted McQuiston to say the line would be changed for future printings. McQuiston has a new book coming out this year. [emphasis added]
wearing a kippah
speaking Hebrew
- Sunday, June 13, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
INTER - ARAB AFFAIRS TRIPOLI REPORTS RESULTS OF PALESTINIAN CONFERENCE LD291504 Tripoli Domestic ... of keeping the Palestinian revolution ablaze until all the territories of Palestine -- from the river to the sea -- are liberated .
- Sunday, June 13, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
Proud to nominate Gay McDougall for the @UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Her expertise in human rights law and racial equity will help #CERD monitor implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) March 3, 2021
Saturday, June 12, 2021
- Saturday, June 12, 2021
- Elder of Ziyon
- humor, Preoccupied
Washington, June 10 - A representative of the current presidential administration assured reporters today that they will do whatever possible to reach an understanding and arrangement with the Islamic Republic over the latter's pursuit of atomic weapons, spread of international terrorism, and goal of destroying the home of six million Jews, no matter how formidable the obstacles to facilitating that arrangement.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki informed reporters at a Thursday press conference that some issues fall by the wayside when larger values come into play, as in the current situation where preservation of Jewish sovereignty and safety must cede priority to the overarching objective of cementing Iran as the hegemonic power in the Middle East by means of genocidal campaigns across the region and a bevy of puppet states and terrorist groups that target opponents of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime.
"There are more important values than keeping a Jewish homeland safe," explained Psaki. "One of those is allowing Iran to ethnically cleanse Syria of non-Shiite populations with its multiple militias and colonizers, a similar process to what's been going on in Yemen for the last decade or so. In Lebanon, as well, Iran's proxy Hezbollah has spent the better part of the last forty years cementing Tehran's control over that once-idyllic country and sowing violent discord. These are the values that animate this administration, and that animated the Obama administration, before Trump and his cronies disrupted everything with their peace deals between Israel and Arab states. We decided upon assuming office this year that such irresponsible foreign policy could not continue."
"The point is, Iran might not be the most righteous regime on the planet, but who is, really?" she continued. "We all have our faults to one degree or another. Some people accuse China of doing nothing to curb carbon emissions, which is like the worst thing that country has done in the last hundred years, I think. So we're not talking about nations with pristine reputations in the first place. I'm not comfortable with the way Iran treats women or homosexuals, but every progressive knows that empowering repressive, homophobic, misogynistic regimes takes precedence over getting them to improve their behavior. If we're not going to let those repressive policies get in the way of a deal that legalizes, normalizes, and smooths Iran's path to nuclear weapons, what makes anyone think that the far-less-pressing issue of Jewish safety and sovereignty has any importance whatsoever?"