Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 21, 2021

Palestinian prime minister defends antisemitic textbooks

The European Union finally released its report on Palestinian textbooks, which was delayed for four months after completion. It is summarized in the Jerusalem Post:

The report includes dozens of examples of encouragement of violence and demonization of Israel and of Jews.
The textbooks present “ambivalent – sometimes hostile – attitudes toward Jews and the characteristics they attribute to the Jewish people... Frequent use of negative attributions in relation to the Jewish people... suggest a conscious perpetuation of anti-Jewish prejudice, especially when embedded in the current political context.”
The report identifies “the creation of a connection between the stated deception of the ‘Jews’ in the early days of Islam and the insinuated behavior of Jews today,” calling it “extremely escalatory.”
One textbook ties Muhammad’s aunt, who clubbed a Jew to death, to a question about Palestinian women’s steadfastness in the face of “Jewish Zionistic occupation.”
One textbook promotes a conspiracy theory that Israel removed the original stones of ancient sites in Jerusalem and replaced them with ones bearing “Zionist drawings and shapes.”
The concept of “resistance” is a recurring theme in the textbooks studied, along with calls for the Palestinians to be liberated via a revolution. To clarify the concept, one textbook has a photo with the caption, “Palestinian revolutionaries,” featuring five masked men toting machine guns.
Glorification and praise of terrorists who attacked Israelis can be found not only in history or social-studies books, but also in science and math books, such as one that mentions a school named after the “shahid” (martyr) Abu Jihad, a leader of the First Intifada.
A demonstration of Newton’s Second Law, which says force is equal to mass times acceleration, is illustrated by Palestinians using slingshots against Israeli soldiers.
Dalal al-Mughrabi, a much-admired figure in Palestinian society, was a Palestinian woman involved in the 1978 bus hijacking in which she and her accomplices murdered 38 Israelis, including 13 children. Textbooks repeatedly refer to her in the context of female empowerment.
There are “no further portraits of significant female figures in Palestinian history,” the report said, implying that “the path of violence [is] the only option for women to demonstrate an outstanding commitment to their people and country.”
In addition, most textbooks have maps that erase the State of Israel, portray the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as Palestine and refer to Israel with the term “Zionist occupation.”

Any modern leader, if such a report was written about their country's textbooks, would respond with "Thank you for this information. We will study the report and if any of the criticisms are accurate, we will make the appropriate changes."

But Palestinian leaders aren't normal leaders.

Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh defended the textbooks and curricula in his weekly ministers meeting:

The Prime Minister reiterated that "Palestinian school curricula is a reflection of our lives and dreams of our children 's freedom and the suffering of our people from the occupation and its violations, and all that is contained in the textbooks is accurate...."
He stressed that our curricula, while responding to the cultural, historical, psychological, scientific, technological, economic and development needs of our children, also respond to international charters and resolutions that consider the Palestinian territories to be occupied lands, and they also respond to the standards set by the UNESCO Education, Culture and Science Organization of the values of truth, justice and equality, which are values that he struggles with our people in order to gain the end of the occupation of our land .

He stressed that the Palestinian curricula cannot be tried by criteria far removed from the history and culture of our people, their suffering and sacrifices in order to obtain their right to freedom and independence from occupation, injustice and colonialism, calling on Europe to conduct a study of Israeli books and curricula, similar to the study that was prepared on our curricula by a German institution, with funding from the European Union.

He doesn't even address the issues mentioned. According to Shtayyeh - who is as moderate a Palestinian as any - Palestinian textbooks must not be judged according to the standards of any other, because Palestinians are so uniquely victimized. Any antisemitism and support for terrorism is justified by their lived experience.

He is really saying that the world revolves around Palestinians and no one can dare criticize them.

It amazes me every day that Westerners act as if Palestinian leaders are like any other world leaders. This small episode shows yet again that they are closer to spoiled children, insisting that the world owes them everything and they have no responsibility or agency.

06/21 Link Pt1: Is Bennett set to shake-up global consensus on a two-state solution?; UK to boycott ‘festival of Jew-hate’ Durban IV; PA to renegotiate COVID-19 vaccine deal with Israel

From Ian:

David Singer: Is Bennett set to shake-up global consensus on a two-state solution?

Bennett – anointed as “Prime Minister and Minister for Settlement Affairs” – is now uniquely placed to promote his “Israel Stability Initiative – February 2012” (Stability Plan) – summarised by him in 2017:

“The main idea of The Stability Plan is to provide full civilian self-governance to the Palestinians so they can elect themselves, pay their taxes, and control those areas that are theirs. We should apply sovereignty in Israeli-controlled areas – known as Area C – and Palestinians living there will become part and parcel of the State of Israel. And since within the State of Israel you cannot have two levels of people, those Palestinians living in Area C – approximately 80,000 people – will be offered full Israeli citizenship, including voting rights. I think most will opt for residency rather than citizenship (like in East Jerusalem) but it’s up to them. They can be Israeli citizens, Israeli residents or Palestinian citizens.

"Those living in the Palestinian-controlled areas (Areas A and B) will govern themselves in all aspects barring two elements: overall security responsibility and not being able to allow the return of decedents [sic] of Palestinians refugees. We can’t have an inflow of millions of great grandchildren of 1948 refugees coming across the Jordan River because in one swoop that would distort the demography of the area, and within a few weeks of their arrival, the local Palestinians in Judea and Samaria would tell them to ‘go back to Jaffa’ which would subsequently create pressure on Israel that could lead to a third intifada inside ‘Smaller Israel’.

"My option is that Palestinians have an ‘autonomy on steroids,’ and I’m open to ideas about how this materialises; it could be a confederation with Jordan, or local municipalities, or a central government. It would encompass full freedom of movement, massive infrastructure investment, the creation of a tourism zone so Christians can enter Haifa, Nazareth, Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Hebron without going through road blocks. We would have joint industrial centres, and we’d be able to create a land port governed by the Palestinians in Jenin that would be connected to Haifa.”

Bennett continued:
“I understand there is global consensus around the two-state solution, but what the world thinks is no proof for the correctness of a plan. The world gets it wrong a lot.

"I’d say to those in the international community who are so entrenched in the idea of a Palestinian state that (a) the Palestinians have a state in Gaza and they blew it, and (b) after 50 years, at what time do we need to rethink? In the high tech world where I come from, if my employees tried the same solution and failed again and again I’d fire them as I’d expect them to have tried to tackle the challenge from a different angle by now! There is an industry around this topic – think-tanks, journals, professionals and academics who keep on chewing on the same old failed solution. We’re not in Europe, we live in a region with very few democracies, and when we tried this idea out it blew up in our faces and no one showed us any sympathy.”

Is Bennett going to stand behind his earlier plan? Global consensus needs to positively respond to Bennett’s challenge.

UK to boycott ‘festival of Jew-hate’ Durban IV

The British government has confirmed it will boycott Durban IV, an international conference that has been dubbed “the festival of Jew-hate.”

The UK will join Australia, Canada, Israel and the US in not attending the United Nations conference, which purports to focus on tackling racism across the globe.

When the event first took place in 2001 the US, Israel and Canada walked out, citing a series of antisemitic remarks that had been made at the gathering.

Several of those present also tried to claim that Zionism equated to racism.

The Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and Conservative Friends of Israel all wrote to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab this year, insisting the UK did not attend.

Last night a government spokesperson confirmed: "Following historic concerns regarding antisemitism, the UK has decided not to attend the UN’s Durban Conference anniversary event later this year."

CFI Parliamentary Chairmen, Stephen Crabb MP and Lord Eric Pickles, said: “Confirmation that the UK will not attend Durban IV is extremely welcome. It is absolutely right that the UK is joining our close allies Australia, Canada and the US in condemning the infamous gathering.

“We applaud this latest decisive action from the UK government in opposing antisemitism in all its forms and wherever it occurs.”

Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, Vice President of the JLC and an attendee at the 2001 conference, said: “This is welcome news. Tainted with Jew hatred, poisonous rhetoric about Israel and Holocaust denial and minimisation, the Durban process is no place to tackle racism. It is time for the Durban conferences to be consigned to history.

"The British Government has done the right thing once again by taking a principled stance and refusing to attend.”

?? #BREAKING: The #UK just confirmed they will withdraw from #DurbanIV anti-Israel anti-Jewish hatefest at the UN, legitimately citing concerns over #antisemitism.https://t.co/8V8PHIA35r

Might have to update my presentation though now ... https://t.co/4LBllY4zpg
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) June 21, 2021

UN Watch commends the UK for pulling out of the UN's anti-Israel Durban IV event to be held in September. We urge other nations to follow.

?? Pulled out of Durban IV so far: ????????????????????
?? Pulled out of Durban III in 2011: ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????https://t.co/faq7UQVtb4
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 21, 2021

Outcry over UK funding for Palestinian school books that ‘incite terrorism’

Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) called on the UK to “act decisively to end its facilitation” of the PA’s “extreme curriculum”.

The UK and the EU directly pay the salaries of teachers who are involved in the production and implementation of the educational materials.

CFI’s Parliamentary chairmen Stephen Crabb MP and Lord Pickles, and CFI Honorary President Lord Polak, said British taxpayers would be “understandably appalled” to discover they had been funding the use of “hate-filled material” and criticised a “decade of prevarication and denial” by the UK government.

The review, undertaken by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, was completed in February 2021 but has just been published following growing pressure for its public release.

It details extensive examples of radical material from 156 textbooks and 16 teachers’ guides used between 2017 and 2019.

The report includes dozens of examples of encouragement of violence and demonisation of Israel and of Jews, including the repeated glorification of “heroine” Dalal al-Mughrabi, who killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children, in a terror attack. The report found glorification and praise of terrorists who killed Israeli civilians in history, social studies, science and maths books.

An exercise in one religious studies textbook asks students to discuss the “repeated attempts by the Jews to kill the prophet” Muhammad and asks who are “other enemies of Islam".

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been touting their "night confusion units" for years.

These are different methods to harass IDF soldiers and residents near Gaza. They include incendiary kites and balloons, cutting the Gaza border fence, fireworks and firecrackers, amplified music, setting tires on fire, Molotov cocktails, and shining laser lights towards the soldiers and residents.

Now, Arabs in the West Bank are importing these methods to harass Jews in the Evyatar settlement outpost.

They are setting scores of fires to tires as well as to plastic to pollute the air and upset the residents.

Other "units" are the catapult unit, the reconnaissance unit, the Molotov cocktail unit, the horn unit that uses air horns, and the firework unit.

Some commercially available lasers are powerful enough to blind people at a distance or even to set fires.

Palestinian faction (Dahlan) claims that "expired" vaccines would have killed half a million Palestinians

To Palestinians, if the truth is inconvenient, you might as well lie.

Before the Palestinian elections that never happened this year, the Fatah party was split into three components. One of them is the Democratic Reform Movement, which is headed by Mohammed Dahlan, who was placed in exile in the UAE by his rival Mahmoud Abbas.

The Dahlan party is attacking the Palestinian Authority - not for spurning perfectly good vaccines for hundreds of thousands of people, but for initially reaching a deal with Israel to bring in "expired vaccines."

But it is not enough to lie about the vaccines being expired, as many "pro-Palestinian activists" are claiming. That isn't dramatic enough. The Dahlan party is claiming that the vaccines are actually dangerous.

Ghassan Jadallah, the local leader of the Democratic Reform Movement, wrote on his Facebook page that the mainstream Fatah movement is hiding the person "who almost killed thousands of our citizens in an expired vaccine deal"

An article in the party's mouthpiece said that "if a healthy person is vaccinated, the health consequences will be catastrophic and dire, because the vaccination is not valid and the vaccine is expired, .... entering into a journey of suffering and misery that will end in death."

Another article in that organization's news mouthpiece said that the deal "endangered the lives of half a million Palestinian citizens at risk of death, in the largest attempted murder in Palestinian history."

A cartoon illustrating this last article shows a bullet inside the syringe.

The Fatah offshoot is saying that, obviously, Israel intended to kill a half million Palestinians with these expired vaccines, because that's what Jews do. Their anger is against Abbas, though, for making a deal with genocidal Jews.

The Palestinian Minister of Health, Mai Al-Kaila, gave a statement to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa with her spin on the vaccine debacle this weekend.

She accidentally revealed that even if it is true that the expiration date on the first batch was the end of June, the Palestinian Authority had the ability to use all of the vaccines well before their expiration.

In fact, they could all have been used by today.

Al Kaila said that the Ministry of Health has the ability to vaccinate 60,000 citizens daily.

Since the first batch of 90,000 vaccines that so upset the Palestinians were, according to them, expiring by the end of the month, then the Ministry of Health could have used all of them between Friday, Saturday and Sunday easily.

By today, 90,000 people could have had their first shots, with over a week to spare for the expiration date. And no one says that the vaccine is less effective on the last days before expiration than when they are brand new from the factory.

Because of hatred of Jews and a counterproductive idea of "honor," even according to their own statements, the Palestinian Authority chose not to protect its citizens from COVID-19.

What kind of a sick government does that?

Al Jazeera (and former BBC) anchor says that Jews control the UAE, quoting Henry Ford

Jamal Rayyan has been an anchor at Al Jazeera for a long time, and in the 90s he was a BBC Arabic anchor as well.

A couple of weeks ago he posted a thread on Twitter about the UAE that is a crazy patchwork of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The secret of the Emirates that no one knows .. No one knows how a country like the small UAE in its area does not exceed (75,000) km2 and its original population, which has not yet exceeded 800 thousand people, witnessed such a rapid renaissance ?!!

The UAE does not have a political history, liberation movements, or cultural or intellectual institutions. Did Sheikh Zayed become, overnight, prosperous with construction and reconstruction, and one of the most growing economies in West Asia..?!!

The truth is that the Jews are behind the establishment of the "Emirates Project", where the "rich Jews" in the West thought of establishing a Jewish settlement in the Middle East that would sponsor financial interests and the movement of trade without having to deal with the "mother" state for political and other reasons.

...
What is astonishing in the UAE is that when you enter as if you are in a European country or one of the developed Asian countries, where the meticulous system, professional dealings, high discipline in order, street elegance and cleanliness, but it is difficult to find a “original” citizen, as all transactions that start from the airport to housing, are in the hands of " foreigners"

There are Arabs from different countries, while you can hardly count the number of flights through airports competing with the largest airports in the world, in terms of capacity and services, nor the number of ships and ships in the ports, so that you are almost stunned.

Is it reasonable that this simple (Emirati) in his thinking and the extent of his aspirations to run this complex machine ..?!!

The Emirates in general, and Abu Dhabi in particular, have the highest percentage of wealthy people in the world, with an estimated number of 75,000 millionaires, while wealthy Jews constitute the highest percentage of them. This means providing a safe environment for this large financial buffer.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the one who led Mohammed bin Zayed from his hand towards Israel was the Jewish millionaire Haim Saban.

The Emirates are not just high-rise buildings, elegant streets, commerce and (now factories and workshops), but rather a settlement of conspiracy against the [Arab] nation.

The important question:

Why does the UAE need to be the fifth country in spending on weapons? Where is its army, and what borders is it defending?
Answer:
All of these weapons, whether their deals are announced or not, go to conspiracy against the countries of the region, as there are no Arab or Islamic countries in the region that do not find that the UAE is involved in its economic, political or security project and creates chaos in it.

The question is:
Does the Al Zayed family have the intelligence to manage all these complex issues?

The question:
Why do the owners of capital do not rule the UAE directly?

This question is answered by the book "The International Jew" written by Henry Ford, the owner of the Ford company in 1921, where he says that "the Jews prefer to lead the world from behind."

Another question:
Why did they not choose Israel instead of the Emirates and move capital, especially since the land of Palestine is abundant in its land and in the beauty of its nature and has an important geographical location and a view of the sea?

Answer:
Israel is not suitable for investment because it is a military state and is threatened at every moment and it is undesirable to deal with it commercially in the region, that is, it is too unstable to be the front of work for the Jews!!.

Conclusion: The UAE has been an Israeli settlement since 1971.

Rayyan has over 2 million followers on Twitter.

(h/t Exposing Antisemitism, which has other examples from Rayyan)

06/20 Links: Palestinian Arab leaders sacrifice health for pr -will their fellow travelers react?; Concessions to Hamas Lead to Violence. Holding Firm Leads to Calm

From Ian:

Why Didn’t Media Challenge Palestinian Authority’s Reasons for Rejecting Over 1 Million COVID-19 Inoculations?

This, even though Israel has asserted that the expiration dates were known when the deal was struck. “The COVID vaccines we gave the Palestinian Authority were perfectly valid,” a statement from the Israeli Health Ministry added. “The Palestinians received the same vaccines that are currently given to Israelis.” Indeed, if stored correctly, there is no reason to believe that the quality of the COVID shots will deteriorate before the expiration date.

So why did the PA refuse over a million vaccines, enough to fully inoculate some 24 percent of all Palestinians in the West Bank, or over 35 percent of the Gaza Strip? The reason can perhaps be gleaned from Palestinian public opinion. As political analyst Saleh al-Nuami commented: “The PA would not have backtracked on its shameful step were it not for the outrage expressed on social media.”

Many Palestinians criticized the vaccine exchange online, saying it was a form of “normalization with the Israeli occupation.” Moreover, rumors circulated that the Jewish state, in collusion with the PA, was trying to “poison” Palestinians with expired doses.

The agreement was also lambasted by Palestinian NGOs, which called for an investigation into the “scandal.” Within hours after the public backlash, Health Minister al-Kaila and PA spokesperson Ibrahim Melhem announced the cancellation of the deal. PA officials afterwards claimed that the agreement would have led to a “health disaster.” The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a US-designated terror group, falsely asserted that the vaccines “could have harmed human life.”

While many Middle Eastern nations like Egypt (0.7 percent fully inoculated), Iran (1%), and Iraq (0.5%) are still struggling to obtain coronavirus vaccines, the Palestinian Authority refused what appeared to be perfectly good doses that could potentially save lives.

Yet, media failed to question the Palestinian leadership on the reasons it gave for not using the batch of vaccines, leaving Ramallah’s claim about the expiry date largely unchallenged. In doing so, news organizations are seemingly attempting to revive the thoroughly debunked libel that Israel is somehow preventing Palestinians from accessing COVID-19 inoculations.

Palestinian Arab leaders sacrifice health for pr -will their fellow travelers react?

Propaganda against the Jewish State is more important to the leadership of the PA than the lives of their people.

This does not surprise me. It is consistent with the behavior of the PA.

The question is how their fellow travelers react to this development.

Someone from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel took to the airwaves to slam Israel while admitting that he was clueless about the details of the expiration dates of the doses.

Will B'Tselem join the chorus?

How about J Street?

Are these groups really on the side of the Palestinian Arabs themselves?

NO.

They are on the side of the Palestinian Authority rulers, not the Palestinian Arabs.

Because if they were truly on the side of the Palestinians they would be slamming the Palestinian rulers for sacrificing the health of Palestinian Arabs for the sake of their ongoing propaganda campaign against the Jewish State.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why the PA scrapped the vaccine deal with Israel - analysis

One reason many Palestinians have been outraged the past 48 hours is because they first learned about the Pfizer exchange deal from the Israeli media. Israeli media outlets have long been serving as a main source of information for the Palestinians about what’s happening in the PA.

The PA has long been facing criticism from many Palestinians not only because of corruption, but also over its continued security coordination with Israel in the West Bank. During last month’s Israel-Hamas war, the PA also came under attack by many Palestinians for failing to make a serious effort to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

And more recently, PA President Mahmoud Abbas faced widespread criticism for his decision to call off the Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections, which were supposed to take place on May 22 and July 31.

The vaccine agreement with Israel was supposed to boost the PA’s already tarnished reputation and show that it is doing its utmost to provide the doses to the Palestinians.

The PA was hoping that the vaccines would reduce the number of coronavirus infections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, help the Palestinians return to normal life and improve the Palestinian economy, thus bolstering the standing of Abbas and the PA leadership in the eyes of the public.

But the botched deal has turned out to be one of the worst PR disasters for the PA, whose leaders are currently working to limit the damage and prevent their critics and political rivals from cashing in on the “scandal.”

Palestinian anti-Israel politics prevent COVID-19 vaccinations

The Palestinian Authority shot itself in the foot with its decision to reject up to 1.4 million Israeli vaccines that could have enabled it to inoculate its citizens months earlier than planned.

On Friday, less than a week since Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s new broad-based coalition was sworn in, Israel announced that the country had reached a deal to immediately transfer Pfizer vaccines that were nearing their expiration date to the Palestinians in exchange for the same number later on.

The PA had ordered vaccines from Pfizer back in April, but the company said they were not expected to be delivered for at least several more months.

The shipment, on top of the one million vaccines promised to the Palestinians under the United Nations-related COVAX program, could have allowed for up to 40% of the Palestinians to be vaccinated by the end of the year.

The Palestinian health minister initially praised the deal, but after coming under intense internal pressure, she used the fact that the first 100,000 vaccines, which were already delivered, were set to expire in the next 12 days to foil the entire deal.

“The decision to return the vaccines we received from Israel was made after our professional teams discovered that the vaccines did not meet our standards,” Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said during a press conference.

BBC News resurrects redundant Covid vaccinations talking points

It also resurrects redundant themes seen in previous BBC reporting.

“UN experts had been critical of Israel’s failure to fully extend its vaccination programme to Palestinians under its control.”

As we noted back in January, those “UN experts” are in fact two UN special rapporteurs (who are not UN staff members) for the notoriously anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council – Tlaleng Mofokeng and Michael Lynk. In common with numerous previous BBC reports, this one too makes no effort to inform audiences of the obviously relevant anti-Israel record of one of the authors of the cited document.

The BBC’s report goes on:
“The Israelis said the Palestinians were responsible for managing health matters in the territories.”

Back in early February the BBC acknowledged that the Oslo Accords “give the Palestinian Authority oversight of public health” following a complaint.

One must therefore ask why the corporation insists on continuing to misrepresent the part of the 1995 Oslo II agreement relating to health (Article 17) which states that “Powers and responsibilities in the sphere of Health in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be transferred to the Palestinian side, including the health insurance system” as merely something that ‘Israel says’ is the case.

Everyday antisemitism in Poland 150 years ago

Sometimes, the reporting of antisemitism in old Jewish media is laced with the blackest of humor.

In this example, reports of Polish police forcibly cutting off the payos (sidelocks) or ripping off the headcoverings of women is sarcastically reported as a service performed for free.

From The Hebrew Leader, a New York newspaper, June 23, 1871:

French general on TV: "You know who controls the world media"

In November 2020, commenting on a blog on the results of the American presidential election, French ex-general Dominique Delawarde hypothesized that there was a major fraud that was helped by Western media, "and we know who controls it."

No one seems to have asked him to clarify the who actually controls the media until now.

On Friday, in a TV interview on Cnews, interviewer Claude Posternak asked the general who controls this media pack.

The retired general smiled in response: "You know who controls the media pack in the world and in France....Who controls the Washington Post, the New York Times, at home BFMTV and all the newspapers....who are these people ...?"

"Who? prompted Posternak, a number of times.

“This is the community you know well,” replied Delawarde.

The host of the show, Jean-Marc Morandini, cut in: "We are going to leave on that, we will stop there my general, I'm sorry. We can not let it be said on the air, I'm sorry, we are cutting, we remove the general."

Unfortunately, the host cut in before the general could say, or confirm, that he was talking about Jews.

The Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation into the general on the basis of public defamation and incitement to hatred and violence on grounds of origin or belonging to an ethnic group, nation, race or religion.

Here you can see the video clip.

The Pfizer vaccine fiasco reveals so much about the Palestinian leadership as well as about the "human rights" groups and activists who pretend to be "pro-Palestinian" but truly aren't.

The Palestinian Authority had agreed with Israel to obtain over 1 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine now, and not to have to wait until September to get them directly from Pfizer. The agreement was signed and the PA knew perfectly well that Israel would first transfer the vaccines that were closest to expiring, and the exact expiration dates of the first doses.

As the NYT reports:

An Israeli official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the initial batch of doses would expire at the start of July and said that would give enough time for Palestinian health workers to administer them.

The official added that the authority had been aware of the vaccines’ expiry date before agreeing to their delivery, and said the authority had scrapped the deal only because it had been criticized by Palestinians for agreeing to receive vaccines perceived to be of poor quality.

The official also said that none of the remaining doses would have been delivered less than two weeks before their expiry date.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians could have received their first doses in the next two weeks.

This should be considered a debacle by any civilized society. Thousands can get sick and scores could die because of this decision by the PA.

But, incredibly, the only inquiry that Palestinians are demanding is one into how the PA almost bought vaccines that they claim were of "inferior" quality. Terrorist media is reporting about how the PA is incompetent - not for trying initially to fight COVID but for making a deal with Israel. The PA, naturally, has to defend its "honor" by canceling the deal.

Keep in mind that the PA eagerly accepts Russia's Sputnik vaccine which did not have anywhere near the same quality trials as the Pfizer or Astra-Zeneca vaccines did.

Unless you are hopelessly biased against Israel, this episode shows beyond any doubt that Palestinian leaders don't care about the lives of their own people, and are willing to sacrifice their people so as not to appear to be "normalizing" with Israel. They hate Israel more than they love their own citizens.

Even more telling are the reactions - or non-reactions - from so called "human rights" groups and Palestinian activists.

As far as I can tell, none of the supposed Palestinian human rights groups are saying a negative word about a decision to delay vaccinating their own people for three or four more months.

Not B'Tselem. Not PCHR. Not Al Mezan Center.

Their silence shows that they are not interested in the human rights of Palestinians - after all, what human right is more basic than the right to life and health?

Ken Roth, of Human Rights Watch, took the absurd Palestinian excuse of "almost expired" vaccines at face value, and used this as another reason to bash Israel.

As if any more evidence was needed, this episode shows that the "pro-Palestinian" community is nothing of the sort. These groups simply use the Palestinian issue as a means to bash the Jewish state.

People who really care about Palestinians would be up in arms over the PA putting their people at risk. Where are their voices?

German government bans Hamas flag because of antisemitic incidents

From DW:

All parties in Germany's grand coalition government have agreed to ban the flag of Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper said in a report published Sunday.

The move comes after several antisemitic incidents occurred last month in Germany during anti-Israel rallies.

"We do not want the flags of terrorist organizations to be waved on German soil," said Thorsten Frei, the deputy parliamentary spokesperson for [Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union.] and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.

The center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the CDU's coalition partner, raised constitutional concerns about the proposal but later backed the initiative.

"I'm very pleased that the SPD has joined our initiative. In doing so, we can send a clear signal to our Jewish citizens," Frei added, according to the Welt am Sonntag.

Synagogues were attacked, Israeli flags were burned and antisemitic slurs were used in cities across Germany in May amid demonstrations against Israel's 11-day war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The German government had previously banned Hezbollah flags.

06/19 Links: Is There a Future for Young Jewish Families in Los Angeles?; Palestinians call for probe into ‘vaccine scandal’; Is it racist to confront a suicide bomber?

From Ian:

Is There a Future for Young Jewish Families in Los Angeles?

Since I’m more involved in the Jewish community rather than the artist community these days, I worry about the Jewish future of Los Angeles. When I go to synagogue, I notice there are more baby boomers and gen Xers than millennials and gen Zers. Baby boomers tell me how concerned they are about my generation since it’s so unaffordable here. I am too.

Sadly, I don’t believe that the Jewish community has much of a future here with the way things are going. Aside from the fact that we can’t purchase property here and start building generational wealth for our children, it doesn’t seem like the non-Jews like us very much. It’s not only frightening that Jews are randomly getting attacked on the streets and synagogues are being vandalized, but also that antisemitism is now being institutionalized. Just look at how the LA teachers’ union is supporting anti-Israel boycotts. It’s peculiar how they don’t boycott China for interning Uyghurs in camps or Iran for killing gay men. Somehow, everyone and their mother have an opinion on Israel. But that’s beside the point.

The nonsense in LA and California in general is at an all-time high. On a typical Shabbat, my husband, daughter and I have to walk through homeless encampments that smell like marijuana and human feces to get to shul. The homeless encampments are allowed to stay there, but if you build your fence a little too high to protect your family, the city’s going to fine you. What did LA residents do to deserve this kind of punishment, aside from paying our taxes and abiding the law?

All this being said, I love California so much that I’m willing to stay until I can’t anymore. When I was a depressed 14-year-old in my hometown, Baltimore, my mom sent me to a hippie summer camp in Northern California. It cured my teen depression and gave me a whole new positive outlook on life. I vowed to move to California one day because I had such fond memories of this state. As soon as I finally arrived here from New York nine years ago, I instantly felt happier.

The Jewish community here is beautiful, the scenery is incredible, the kosher food is the best in the country and the successful people are inspirational. I’m sure that because I’m a content person in general, I would be happy in other places, but probably not as happy.

For now, like many people my age, I’m pulling a “let’s wait and see,” hoping the future gets better, praying for a miracle and having faith in G-d that no matter what, I’ll be OK.

Palestinian protesters: “we don’t want 2 states we want all of it”

How has that worked out for them so far? Let’s review:

??Partition plan
??1948
??1967
??First intifada
??Second intifada
??2008, 2012, 2014, 2021

Maybe wanna rethink that strategy?

pic.twitter.com/5LBlNgsDDt
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) June 19, 2021

From a 1971 Communist film. A Japanese Red Army terrorist describes the deluded worldview that animates contemporary antisemitism, or antizionism; Then, and now, Israel is framed as an enemy of global revolutionary struggle.

3 years later, JRA murdered 26 Christians in Israel: pic.twitter.com/5eRfwJp6mu
— The Conspiracy Libel (@ConspiracyLibel) June 18, 2021

Palestinians call for probe into ‘vaccine scandal’

Palestinians are calling for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into the Pfizer vaccine agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Despite the PA government’s decision late Friday to cancel the agreement, many Palestinians denounced the deal as a “big scandal” and called for holding those responsible to account.

Under the terms of the deal, announced on Friday morning, Israel would give more than one million soon-to-expire Pfizer doses to the PA. In return, Israel would receive later this year the same number of vaccines that were purchased by the PA.

Some Palestinians initially criticized the PA for striking the deal with Israel on the pretext that it was a form of “normalization with the Israeli occupation.”

But upon learning that the Israeli-supplied vaccines were about to expire, many Palestinians condemned the PA and accused it of “tampering” with the health of the Palestinian people.

The PA’s decision to cancel the deal has failed to calm many Palestinians.

Several Palestinians denounced the deal as a “political, health and moral scandal” and said that the vaccines could have endangered the lives of thousands of people.

06/18 Links Pt2: How the Media Ignore Jew-Haters; Palestinians reject 1 million Israeli COVID vaccines; EU releases delayed report on incitement, anti-Semitism in Palestinian textbooks

From Ian:

Christine Rosen: How the Media Ignore Jew-Haters

In the wake of George Floyd’s killing in 2020, Google issued a lengthy statement outlining its commitments to racial equity in hiring and promotion as well as the money and support it had promised to the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet Google has said nothing about the recent spike in anti-Semitic violence, including brutal beatings of Jews on the streets of American cities, despite the fact that Jews are the targets of hate crimes in the U.S. far more frequently than other racial or religious groups.

Part of that has to do with the fact that Google’s workforce is progressive, particularly on matters related to Israel: According to The Verge, some members of the Jewish group at Google to whom Bobb privately apologized claim that the group itself “was not a safe space to express anti-Zionist beliefs,” and they formed their own anti-Israel splinter group. That group demanded that Pichai make a public statement condemning Israel’s response to the recent Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel that would include “direct recognition of the harm done to Palestinians by Israeli military and gang violence.” Not surprisingly, no pressure was placed on Pichai to condemn Hamas’s terrorism, which directly targeted Israeli civilians. The letter further demanded funding for Palestinian causes and “termination of contracts with institutions that support Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, such as the Israeli Defense Forces.”

Google’s inconsistent application of its own supposed principles of diversity and inclusion should be more widely known, but the mainstream media long ago accepted uncritically the notion that anything labeled an effort at fostering diversity cannot and should not be questioned—unless the diversity is ideological. Thus James Damore, a white man, is fair game for dismissal by Google for criticizing diversity dogma, and his story is widely discussed; Kamau Bobb, a black man, remains protected by his institution for his anti-Semitism, and his behavior is barely mentioned in the press. Which is why, as of this writing, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and most other mainstream-media outlets that avidly covered the Damore case have completely ignored the Kamau Bobb story. They employ their own Kamau Bobbs, and that is sufficient for them to cast a blind eye on the matter.

Although appeals to “diversity” are ubiquitous in corporate America, there is little consensus among Americans about what, exactly, diversity means—and little incentive on the part of woke executives or the mainstream media to find out. As the internal contradictions of intersectionality continue to reveal themselves, perhaps the media could spend less time on self-congratulatory reporting of its own “moral clarity” on race and more actual reporting on the hypocrisies embedded in our culture’s pursuit of those things that Kamau Bobb’s former title claimed he represented: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Seth Mandel: The Jews Who Are Complicit in Jew-Hatred

It was an astonishingly vile and aggressive coordinated attack against the Jewish group. The ADL was silent. JDCA was silent. The Democratic Party sided with the Squad. The Jewish community had been abandoned to the rise of the dominant left-of-center ideology according to which Jews are part of a white power structure of which Israel is a prime example.

Corbyn’s attempt to separate the Jews from the Jewish state in the UK failed miserably. But the Squad’s efforts to do the same here are not failing. And it’s not just in the halls of Congress. The New Yorker’s Helen Rosner suggested it would be a good tactic not to beat up Jews, as part of an overall strategy to undermine Israel’s legitimacy. (This after the New Yorker’s union put out a statement of solidarity with the Palestinians that included the phrase “from the river to the sea.”) Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times wrote a column with a headline so instantly infamous that the Times eventually and quietly changed it: “Attacks on Jews Over Israel Are a Gift to the Right.”

Meanwhile, the comedian Sarah Silverman objected to attacks on Jews in Los Angeles not on the grounds that they were evil acts of anti-Semitic violence but rather because “WE ARE NOT ISRAEL.” For his part, Kenneth Roth, the obsessively anti-Israel executive director of Human Rights Watch, declared, “It is WRONG to equate the Jewish people with the apartheid and deadly bombardment of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government.”

Throwing fellow Jews to the wolves is abominable moral behavior. Delicately excising the name and words of a chic Democratic politician from a list of anti-Semitic statements to protect her—or to protect the organization you run from her wrath—constitutes an act of complicity in the violence that ensued in whatever small measure from her remarks. And the man who was thus complicit—Jonathan Greenblatt—had the nerve to act surprised. The anti-Semitic street violence in America is “literally happening from coast to coast, and spreading like wildfire,” Greenblatt told the Times. “The sheer audacity of these attacks feels very different.”

It feels different because it feels so familiar. And if the American Jewish community is to survive, it must start acting like it. And we must start by cleaning our own corrupted house.

Liel Leibovitz: No, Jews Aren’t White

A modicum of immersion in Jewish life would save these Jews from the maws of their own obliviousness. But herein lies their second misfortune: Religion, to them, has become not the communal pursuit of study and practice, as it had been for Jews since at least Moses, but one more lifestyle decision among many. For the most part, the modern progressive Jew is Jewish the same way she’s vegan, say, or a socialist, or a fan of matcha lattes. Like nearly a third of American adults, she likely defines herself as spiritual but not religious, ignoring the fact that religion emerged in precisely the same way across cultures and continents precisely because humans realized that spiritual stirrings alone were meaningless unless tethered to the ground by rituals that had to be performed together with other people.

The young secular Jews who identify as white have none of that. As they are not likely to belong to a synagogue or a faith community, they practice their Judaism as they do their aversion to gluten, privately and sporadically, as the mood suits them. It’s much easier than accepting the yoke of obligations—from holding space with other Jews you may not like to performing practices, like keeping kosher, you may not fully understand—but it also offers far less protection against being swallowed by the tide of a hostile culture.

Which brings us to misfortune number three: Being all too human, progressive Jews are eager to belong to something. And because their own parents spent decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars telling them that the greatest good is to be found in the quad of an Ivy League school or the sparkling boardroom of a Fortune 100 company or any of the other temples of the all-American meritocracy, they are happy to pay any price to fit in among the swells.

If you grew up in a household where Shabbat candles were rarely if ever lit and no one bothered reading a page of Talmud, but where SAT scores were obsessed over and Penn and Princeton stickers, coffee mugs, and sweatshirts ordered as soon as those thick admission envelopes arrived in the mail, you would understandably pay any price to stay in the good graces of the priestly class that maintains these hallowed institutions. So if the priests demand that you identify as white and say a little prayer of repentance for your sins, well, isn’t that a small price to pay for the American dream?

That nothing good ever came to the Jews from groveling, that we survived—indeed, thrived—precisely because we refused to compromise our beliefs, is lost on these lost souls. In their airless world, nothing is true and nothing is permitted except for parroting the articles of faith passed down by those who hold power. Thankfully, as some Jews continue to torment themselves by trying to fit in with a milieu that will never accept them for who they are, most young Jews are traveling in the exact opposite direction. According to the latest Pew Survey, released earlier this year, only 3 percent of Jews 65 and older define themselves as observant, while among adults under 30, the number skyrockets to 17 percent. This means that many among the coming generation of American Jews have no use for obscene formulations like “Jews are white.” They have only one identity marker, the only one they ever had, the only one that matters: Jews are Jews.

The Palestinian cause is "just" - and other memes

I had just about enough of seeing anti-Israel people downplay the danger of Gaza rockets or incendiary devices.

Also:

06/18 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Palestinianism opening up new Nazi front against Jews; HRW, Other NGOs Join "Apartheid" Event, Along with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, PFLP

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Palestinianism opening up new Nazi front against Jews

Furthermore, both the Palestinian cause and Palestinian “identity” itself are based on the attempted theft and appropriation of the historic homeland and history of the Jews— the indigenous people of the land of Israel.

So it’s not just that the demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel are fundamentally anti-Jew. What’s not properly understood is that Palestinianism is antisemitism.

Western liberals who support the Palestinian cause are supporting a profoundly anti-Jewish agenda, not only to steal the land of the Jewish people but to wipe out their history and thus their identity.

Far more ominously, this is also the passionately held default narrative for millions of Muslims who have settled in Britain and other western countries.

As they become more assimilated, and their children enter the professions and political life — in itself a welcome development in terms of social acceptance — they are unfortunately seeding this poisonous narrative throughout British society.

A lethal obsession once confined to the far left is now gaining enormous cultural traction through the number of British Muslims developing public influence (with the sterling exception of those few British Muslims who take a brave and principled public stand against Jew-hatred). But anyone who dares point this out is denounced as a racist and Islamophobe.

This strategy of cultural manipulation and intimidation threatens to push British politicians into hostility towards Israel. It is actively imperilling the security of British Jews. And it is undermining the integrity and values of Britain itself, as its cultural leaders increasingly kow-tow to its dictates through ignorance, ideology or fear. And America is going in the same direction.

Palestinianism is no longer just about the Middle East. It’s now providing cultural rocket boosters behind both antisemitism and Islamisation in the west.

The Mossad chief got it wrong

Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen is not naive. As one might expect, he is suspicious by nature and cynical due to his vocation.

Yet, in his first interview after leaving the intelligence agency, he conceded that he wrongly assessed that Hamas was looking for some sort of deal with Israel. He even revealed his almost-theological mistake, saying, “I wanted to believe” and “I believed wholeheartedly.”

He explained: “I thought we had an arrangement. I wanted to believe that because of all the effort we put into bringing about times of peace that we desperately need here [in Israel] and there [in Gaza]. … I admit I believed, wholeheartedly believed that if the residents of the Gaza Strip saw their wellbeing improve … their motivation for crises and wars would decrease. It seems I was wrong. I was wrong.” Jews have been making this mistake for over a century. In the early statehood years, Moshe Sharett, who would become the second prime minister of Israel, explained that Zionism was built entirely on national consciousness, not on getting Jews to feel that they are better off. Yet, when it came to Arabs that lived in Israel, it expected them to voice their opinions on the economy and progress, entirely ignoring the national problem.

“We said: We are bringing them a blessing. … We expected them to sell their national birthright in this land for the proverbial mess of socioeconomic pottage. … There is an assumption, explicit or not, that since the Arabs are in an economically, socially and culturally disadvantageous position, they only focus on sustenance and on the mundane … [that] they have no understanding of national values. [Such an argument] gives rise to negative inclinations that stem from the insulting feeling that we see them as inferior human beings, who are not enthused over national identity and all they seek is food and medical services,” he said.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Israel must return to sanity on Gaza

According to Yigal Carmon, the president and cofounder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Hamas’ success is so extensive that it has "managed to limit the IDF's capabilities, and turn every Israeli military victory into another political loss."

The real challenge facing Prime Minister Natali Bennett’s nascent government is to change this worrying paradigm.

Currently, the hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the south live in constant fear due to Hamas, with only an occasional reprieve from the rocket fire and arson attacks to provide any comfort and peace of mind.

Apparently though, this dreadful existence is not enough to convince Israel’s decision-makers that they have to deal with the challenge of Hamas.

When Western armies confront organizations such as the Taliban and ISIS, they know it is imperative they avoid harming the civilian population as much as possible.

The IDF must take even more care to avoid civilian casualties, given the fact that every Palestinian child who tragically dies in such confrontations (and even some who do not) eventually winds up on the front page of The New York Times.

A French president or German chancellor would never demand that the U.S. halt its operations against the Taliban because of civilian casualties. They are content, however, to do just that when it comes to Israel - and the U.S president may even join them in their demand. Some might call this discrimination or even anti-Semitism, but it is nonetheless the reality in which we live - and Hamas’ primary power in its war on Israel.

In order to effectively tackle this challenge, Israel cannot return to the policies of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who allowed Qatar to transfer huge sums to Gaza every month and without oversight.