Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Hezbollah embarrassed by extravagant weddings as Lebanon suffers

Empty supermarket shelves, hours-long queues for gasoline, and resorting to sleeping on the balcony to endure no electricity for fans or air-conditioning in the summer - such has become the routine for the everyday Lebanese.

“These scenes of humiliation, people should not bear,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech last month, waving his finger as he lambasted the long fuel lines in recent weeks.

“Those responsible for government formation need to listen to people’s voices and look with pain at the cars queueing up for fuel and the loss of electricity and medication,” Nasrallah said as he urged his supporters to be patient and to sacrifice.

Indeed, Lebanese people of all backgrounds should not have to bear with the consequences of years of government corruption and a financial meltdown - and yet, it appears that Nasrallah’s former representatives in government, and his party allies’ current parliamentarians do not fall into that category.

Free Patriotic Movement MP Ibrahim Kanaan and former Hezbollah MP Nawwar Al-Sahili both walked their elegantly-dressed daughters through fireworks-laden walkways and striking strobe lights this week - not two weeks after former Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri stepped down from attempting to form a government after 10 months.

Photos and videos of the luxurious weddings were widely shared across social media as they were heavily criticized, prompting Sahili to issue an apology online - claiming that it had not been on purpose.

“Hezbollah is proving yet again how aloof it is to the suffering of Lebanese people. This video of the lavish wedding of their MP Nawar Sahili's daughter, going viral in #Lebanon. No empathy whatsoever,” Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center Research Fellow Mohanad Hage Ali tweeted.

The weddings were clearly tone deaf, but if they were given by popular politicians this would have been a non-story. Hezbollah's stock in Lebanon has gone down a great deal, and the anger over the weddings are an indication of that.

07/26 Links Pt2: Antisemitism debate cuts to heart of Zionist vision; Twitter discriminates against me because I am a proud, unapologetic Jew; The Enigma of Colonel Richard Kemp

From Ian:

A hatred that dwells alone? Antisemitism debate cuts to heart of Zionist vision

Left and right

When the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville in 2017 chanted “Jews will not replace us,” they were deploying the same mechanism: Explain away real anxieties and fears by misdirecting them onto a nefarious Jewish power.

To European conservatives of the 19th century, Jews were the unwanted liberalizers or communist agitators. But they were no safer in the Soviet sphere in the 20th century, where they quickly became the regime’s favorite target.

Where conservatives and nationalists hated the Jews’ “cosmopolitanism,” communists depicted them as a capitalist vanguard and nationalist reactionaries whose clinging to their cultural distinctiveness threatened the global progressive revolution.

In hindsight, it might astonish us that Zionism could ever have believed the solution lay in changing the Jew. Antisemitism, then and now, was simply too useful to be abandoned just because the Jews of the eastern hemisphere had reorganized themselves into a nation-state.

Strident opposition to Israel’s existence on the ideological left has its intellectual roots in that Soviet antisemitism. In Soviet discourse, Jewish peoplehood was a very specific sort of threat: a retreat from the progressive project toward the old nationalisms that communism (and more to the point, Soviet imperialism) sought to eradicate. The USSR invested a great deal of effort in erasing Jewish distinctiveness, systematically persecuting and killing off the Jewish cultural elite and outlawing the study of Hebrew.

It was in Soviet ideology and its response to Jewish nonconformity that antisemitism became anti-Zionist — Israel was the epitome of the distinctiveness they sought to uproot. The Soviet intertwining of antisemitism and anti-Zionism swept through the Arab world to become a dominant paradigm of Arab politics for generations.

In March 1945, as Adolf Hitler hid in his Berlin bunker awaiting the Soviet advance on Berlin, Arab leaders met in Cairo to declare the founding of the Arab League. “It was organized around one principle unifying idea: being anti-Israel, the prevention of the creation of the State of Israel, and then after 1948, war against the State of Israel,” said Wisse.

Resisting Israel wasn’t one of the Arab League’s policies, it was its raison d’etre, the organizing principle of pan-Arab politics from that moment on.

“Why did they need to do that? They could have organized in 1945 against any other thing. It was a marvelous time for the Arabs. All their imperial overlords had been involved in this devastating war. Britain was crawling home. So suddenly the whole Arab world was free. They could have done anything,” Wisse said.

“But they couldn’t, because their leaders were worried about democracy, modernization. So the handiest thing was to organize [their politics] against the emergence of the State of Israel. This was their organizing tool. They used opposition to Israel as a unifying element among all these disparate and politically dysfunctional countries and leaderships.

“The more dysfunctional you are, the handier it is to point to Israel, to make Israel the target, to make Israel and the Jews” — and not your domestic troubles and failings — “the subject.”

David Collier: Twitter discriminates against me because I am a proud, unapologetic Jew

Twitter discriminates against me because I am a proud, unapologetic Jew. If you are Jewish and active on the platform – Twitter probably discriminates against you too.

Twitter is a biased platform. We all know that. But their ability to influence goes a lot further than simply not banning antisemites. They also decide who to legitimise and who to refuse to give that credit to. As an example, Twitter have just turned me down as a candidate for verification for the third time.

Last year there was a Jewish boycott of Twitter because of the platform’s unwillingness to take antisemitism seriously. Twitter provides a blatantly visible example of open discrimination – in which anti-Jewish racism is treated very differently. You can say almost anything about Jews on Twitter- yet Twitter rarely responds to complaints of antisemitism the way they would if the target was a different minority group. This blindness explains why antisemitism is so rampant on the platform.

When their own ‘partners’ point out their failings, Twitter cuts all contact – just as they did recently with the Campaign against Antisemitism. Through their inactivity and unwillingness to act, Twitter permit daily racist abuse against people like me.

But the non-banning or suspending of anti-Jewish racists is only one element of Twitter’s multi-faceted discriminatory environment. ‘Zionists’ are errantly seen as ‘right wing’ and the Twittersphere leans ‘progressive’ left – which means openly unapologetic Zionists are disfavoured on the platform. It is a shifting Overton window. As right-wing voices are cut more frequently, and for lesser crimes, than left-wing voices – what constitutes the middle ground, slowly, but consistently moves further left. Eventually what was once a centrist opinion becomes right-wing, and what was centre-right is then viewed as an extremist position- and those promoting it become vulnerable to censorship or expulsion. In such a manipulated test-tube, everyone who does not conform to the progressive mindset – is standing in quicksand.

I’ve been active against antisemitism and extremism for over two decades – but only turned to publicly associating with my own research with the start of this blog in 2014.

Within a year my research saw an MP disciplined (Guardian, Independent). I was the one there – reporting on Gerald Kaufman when he made his antisemitic comments about ‘Jewish money’. My research also played a large part in the fight against the one-sided conference scheduled to take place in 2015 at Southampton University. My analysis of the participating academics was used as the evidence with which to expose the hypocrisy and bias, and thus delegitimise the delegitimisers.

The Enigma of Colonel Richard Kemp CBE explained in his own Words

“Why?” was the question I asked Colonel Richard Kemp CBE during our recent meeting in Jerusalem. Why is the former head of the British military in Afghanistan, who is neither Jewish or Israeli, such an outspoken, eloquent and effective defender of the IDF and the Jewish State? He began his answer with this statement,
I was taught when I was a child to know right from wrong. And when I hear some of the lies, the propaganda and the malice that’s churned out in the international media, in universities, in high schools and so-called “human rights” groups, I know it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong what’s being said in relation to the IDF (Israel Defense Force).

Colonel Kemp then went on to explain that he served as the Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, and was a veteran of thirty years-service, and that he had fought in combat zones around the world including Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Macedonia and Iraq, and that he was also present throughout the conflicts in Gaza in 2014 and the most recent “Operation Guardian of the Walls” in May this year, when the Iranian-backed Hamas Terror organization fired thousands of rockets into Israel.

He added that based on his experience and on his personal observations: the IDF does more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. He gave three main reasons for this. Firstly, Israel is a decent country with Western values, run on democratic principles. Israel has no more interest in war than Belgium does. In fact, Israel has never started a war. The only reason it ever goes to war is to defend itself. And it has to defend itself because, unlike Belgium, it is surrounded by countries and armed groups that want to destroy it. Secondly, Judaism, with its unsurpassed moral standards, remains a major influence on the citizens of Israel. “I say this as a non-Jew.” Thirdly, the army is composed overwhelmingly of citizen soldiers. Israel is a small country with a small professional army.

He also went on to express admiration for “Lone Soldiers” from abroad. During his visit he met with Harriet and Mark Levin, the parents of fallen Lone Soldier Michael Levin z”l (whose 15th Jahrzeit was commemorated by the Levins, IDF comrades and friends on Mt Herzl this month)

Peacemakers in the Holy Land https://t.co/iwrNxHswzd
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) July 25, 2021

1946 advice on fighting antisemitism that works today

If ever there was a time when one would think that antisemitism was not an issue, it would be 1946.

The horrors of the Holocaust were apparent to all. Israel had not yet been reborn. What possible excuse could ther be for Jew-hatred in 1946?

Yet if you look at the Jewish newspapers from exactly 75 years ago, you can see the headlines:

In that same issue of the B'nai Brith Messenger was this article on antisemitism by Dr. Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, a German Jewish immigrant who founded the Jewish Spectator magazine. Her essay on antisemitism could have been written today.

You Can't Argue With Bigots

By DR . TRUDE WEISS-ROSMARIN

Can anti-Semitism be fought with reason ? No , says Dr . Rosmarin. The only defense is in reforging the armor of Judaism.

IF JEWISH history has proved anything ; surely it is the impossibility of fighting anti-Semitism with reason . The hatred of Jews is a primitive antagonism that sprouts from the aboriginal fear of the different , the nonconforming . Jew-hatred has never needed logical justification for enlisting followers . The triumphs of antisemitic agitators prove that the slogan "kill the Jews" is all that is needed to rally the masses . Those who would fight antisemitism with reason meet their most formidable obstacle in the nonsensical , illogical and contradictory charges they are expected to disprove . Simultaneously , antisemites charge Jews with being Communists and capitalists, internationalists and rabid Jewish nationalists , diabolically imaginative and utterly uncreative . There is no trait and its very opposite which have not been ascribed to| the same Jew . Where , then , is refutation to start , and what should be refuted ? Is there even a possibility of debating with Jew-haters ?

The question arises whether some of the resources expended on fighting anti-Semitism should not be diverted to efforts to compensate for the psychological effects of the hatred , by strengthening the spiritual stamina of our people , so that we may be able better to withstand the corroding impact of antisemitism . This theory does not imply resignation and submission to our enemies . Rather , we must insist on our constitutional rights and fight individuals and movements that would infringe upon them . The resources used to convince our enemies of the absurdity of their anti-Semitism are spent in vain, for as three thousand years of Jewish history has verified , there is no possibility of achieving this goal . The eradication of antisemitism is a dream beyond the realm of possibility , as long as the Jews live as a minority , distinct and different , scattered among nations . In the words of Theodore Herzl , the nations in whose midst Jews live are all either overtly or secretly antisemitic .

The Jews of history took antisemitism in their stride . They were sufficiently realistic to recognize the impossibility of outrooting it with the spades of reason and enlightenment , they investigated what lay beyond antisemitism. The Jew of the past was virtually immune to the psychological ravages of antisemitism . Medieval chronicles report of Jewish martyrs who died for Judaism , but there is no mention of Jews who choose death because they were Jews , as did Stefan Zweig and other Jewish intellectuals of our time . The Jew of the ghetto found Judaism satisfying and a compensation for the sufferings he had to endure for its sake .

But the modern Jew who no longer fulfills himself in Judaism , nervously concentrates all his efforts on fighting anti-Semitism , or he tries to escape from the Jewish community .

Although it sounds paradoxical , it is true that the survival of Judaism and the Jewish people was never threatened by anti-people , their philosophy and way and expulsions were tragedies for those directly affected and a heavy drain on the resources of the Jewish people as a whole , but they did not weaken nor even touch the core of the Jewish people , their philosophy and way of life , because those bases of Judaism always were beyond antisemitism . There is no power that can remake antisemites . Even in free America we are all but helpless before the politer forms of antisemitism . There is little we can do to turn anti-Semites Into philo-semites . Rather , we must arm ourselves so that their sting will not poison us . Instead of being concerned primarily with the negative of antisemitism , its prevention , treatment and cure , Jews should concentrate on the positive aspects of Jewishness , the eternal verities of our existence and survival . An observer of the contemporary American-Jewish scene easily could be led to believe that Judaism is a fight against rather than an effort for .

Jewish self-hatred has been popularized recently in our literature . But little is done to prevent and cure it . In the essay Hatzi Nechamah ( A Half-Consolation ) written in 1893 , Ahad HaAm . the Zionist philosopher , offered a novel and correct analysis of the impact of anti-Semitism on Jewish psychology by pointing out that if an accusation is hurled long enough at a person who is completely innocent , the victim ultimately may doubt his guiltlessness and be swayed to agree with his accusers . Jews constantly plagued by antisemitism eventually may reach the point where hatred by the majority will raise doubts of tha justice of their own cause and the merit of their people and their culture .

This state of mind Ahad HaAm . diagnosed correctly as the real threat of anti-Semitism . Its grave peril lies in its propensities for breeding Jewish self-hatred .

History attests that while the success of the fight against antisemitism is never commensurate with the effort , prophylactic measures against the spread of Jewish self-hatred are highly effective . These steps include the strengthening of Jewish self-respect and of psychological resistance by teaching what Judaism really represents . That the Jew who is ignorant of the Jewish legacy and the meaning of Judaism is singularly vulnerable to Jewish self-hate is evident , for this type of Jew has nothing to compensate for the hurt of anti-Semitism . The intelligent and effective attack on anti-Semitism should be concentrated primarily on strengthening the inner Jewish bulwark . It is here that defense is needed most .

Not anti-Semitism . but what lies beyond it in the Jewish sphere , is the challenge of the hour , the emergency which must be met if our people is to survive in creative vigor

This isn't too far off my recent post on this topic.

Support for terror. Demonization of Israel. Antisemitism. This feedback loop is all illustrated on the security barrier.

Recently, Palestinian artist Taqi al-Din Sabateen painted a picture on the separation barrier, showing an Israeli soldier who removes his helmet to reveal a KKK mask, as he glares at a Palestinian child hilding a goldfish bowl.

Calling Israeli Jews racists has been fashionable since Israel existed, and it is not considered outrageous anymore.

It should be.

The cumulative effect of this slur - along with "genocide" and "apartheid" and all the others - is that people believe it and eventually it becomes something that you cannot even argue against because they are accepted as historic fact.

Which is entirely the point.

To the immediate left of this mural is another, of PFLP terrorist and airplane hijacker Leila Khaled.

At the very same time that the audience is being told that Israeli Jews are like the KKK, we see that killing Israeli Jews is a heroic act - it is the "struggle" and the "resistance." Terror against Jews is not only allowed, but mandatory, because they are evil racists who think they are "chosen" and better than goyim - which is a mainstream Palestinian view.

And Westerners are not allowed to criticize this because the Palestinian experience makes their opinions tantamount to facts - if they are antisemites, they are justified in being antisemites.

Therefore, antisemitism is a legitimate opinion.

And when repeated over and over without pushback (because it is considered vaguely racist to question Palestinian hate,) it becomes more and more accepted.

07/26 Links Pt1: Casualties in the 2021 Gaza War: How Many and Who Were They?; Palestinian Man Who Saved Jewish Family Granted Permanent Israeli Residency

From Ian:

JCPA: Casualties in the 2021 Gaza War: How Many and Who Were They?

This article is part of the forthcoming Jerusalem Center research report: The Gaza War 2021: The Iranian and Hamas Attack on Israel.

During the 2021 Gaza War, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza claimed there were 256 Palestinian casualties. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) concluded, “at least 253 Palestinians have been killed, 129 of whom were civilians.” That means 124 of the dead were combatants, close to a 1:1 ratio, an unprecedentedly low ratio in terms of civilians killed in urban warfare.

At least 680 Palestinian rockets fell short or misfired, landing inside Gaza. According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Israel, 9 children and 10 adults were killed by Palestinian rockets.

The New York Times provides a case study of inaccurate reporting on casualties among Palestinian children. On May 26, 2021, the Times published a front-page report entitled, “They Were Only Children,” which displayed pictures of 67 children in Gaza allegedly killed by Israel. It included 20-year-old Khaled al-Qanou and 15-year-old Muhammad Suleiman, both confirmed Hamas members engaged in violent anti-Israel activity. A stock photo of a young girl from 2015 was also included in the Times report.

Hamas is known to blur the lines between those who died of natural causes and those who died in the war. About 16 Gazans die of natural causes each day. Since Hamas tightly censors information, it is difficult to know if some natural deaths were falsely attributed to deaths from the conflict, especially during the time of the coronavirus pandemic. Moreover, some of those executed by Hamas as spies and collaborators with Israel may also be included in the civilian casualty toll.

Jewish Groups Praise Germany for Skipping UN Anniversary Event Marking Durban Conference

Major Jewish groups applauded Germany’s decision to boycott the event marking the 20th anniversary of the UN’s World Conference Against Racism to be held in Durban, South Africa.

First held in 2001, the conference has become notorious for serving as a forum for antisemitic materials and virulent anti-Israel activism.

This year’s 20th anniversary event is already being boycotted by the United States, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Austria, Canada, Australia, and the Czech Republic.

American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris said Saturday, “Germany has again asserted leadership in the global fight against antisemitism,” adding that the country “laudably recognized the discredited nature of the original conference, held in Durban, South Africa. We hope other nations will follow suit.”

“Confronting true racism around the world is a noble cause, but singling out one country, Israel, and one group of people, Jews, for continual censure is grossly unjust, and undermines the global fight against antisemitism and other forms of bigotry and hatred,” Harris added.

B’nai B’rith International tweeted, “We welcome the news that #Germany will not participate in @UN commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Durban conference, which was overtaken by anti-Jewish, anti-Israel bigotry.”

“All democracies must do similarly,” the group said.

Palestinian Man Who Saved Jewish Family Granted Permanent Israeli Residency

Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked has granted permanent residency to a Palestinian man who saved the lives of three members of the Ettinger family following a terrorist attack in 2016.

The father of the family, Mark, lost his life in the attack, but wife Chava, son Pedaya and daughter Tehila survived thanks to the first aid provided by A. — whose full name has not been revealed — and his wife, who also alerted law enforcement.

News of A.’s actions quickly reached Ramallah, and A.’s family began to receive death threats. In an effort to protect his loved ones, he fled to Israel, leaving his parents, wife and newborn son behind. Sometime after, A.’s wife joined him in Israel, and in November 2019, due to public pressure, the Interior Ministry provided the couple with a temporary residence visa.

After granting the two permanent residency, Shaked said: “He who saves one life it’s as if he saved the entire world. A. saved the life of the Ettinger family in a deadly attack, for which he has been persecuted relentlessly. We will never turn our backs on a friend. That is why I approved his permanent residency in Israel.”

Continuing on with my summary of portions of the book, "Eight years in Asia and Africa from 1846-1855" by Jewish explorer Israel Joseph Benjamin, this was what he had to say about the Jews of Shiraz, Persia, present-day Iran:

Shiraz. — Deplorable condition of the Jews.
Only about twenty years since, nearly 3000 Jews lived in this once magnificent and flourishing city. By persecutions, oppressions and odium of all kinds more than 2500 of them were compelled to go over to the Mussulman sect of Ali. Although outwardly apostate, a great number of these families still preserve in their hearts the faith of their fathers, and even find means of having their children circumcised in secret. Nine synagogues in the town testify to the former greatness of the Jewish community ; now unfortunately, they are almost all laid waste.

Benjamin then goes on to describe how the Jewish women manage to remain true to their religion even after being forced to convert, and then describes how one of the Jewish leaders in the town was tortured mercilessly when he refused to convert.

He ends off with another story:

A rich Persian took a fancy to a Jewish girl, and brought her in the home of her parents. As, however, these visits became dangerous, he tried to persuade the girl to adopt the MussuIman faith, so that she might become his wife. "My parents would die of grief," said the Jewess,"if I forsook my religion." — "You heard it," said the Persian to his companions, "she will embrace the Islam faith."

Notwithstanding all her protestations he hurried to the Achund (Priest and Judge), and corroborated by his companions, stated to him that the maiden wished to embrace Islamism. The Achund immediately caused the girl, who had meanwhile been concealed, to be sought for at her parents' house; the messengers treated the parents most cruelly, and their daughter was dragged before the Achund.

At the end of two days the prescribed purifications were concluded, and the girl begged for permission to walk on the terrace in order to enjoy the evening air, She was allowed, and she threw herself down from the terrace and fractured her skull. The Persians, who knew the cause of this suicide heaped the most dreadful insults on the dead body, hacked it to pieces, and left it in the streets. Only during the night did the Jews venture to collect the remains, and bury them.

Shiraz continued to be viciously antisemitic in the decades after this. Wikipedia summarizes: "There has been a significant Jewish population in Iran for 2,500 years. Pogroms have not been unknown. In 1892, several Jews were murdered in Shiraz. Twenty Jews were murdered and three synagogues were burned down in 1897. Pogroms, forced conversion and expulsion swept Zarqon, Lar, Jahrom, Darab, Nobendigan, Sarvestan and Kazerun.Jamshid Sedaghat, a historian in Shiraz, has said attacks happened annually during the late 19th century, finally ending as a result of pressure from Europe. The last of these occurred in 1910" - which was a blood libel that resulted in the murder of 12 Jews and the entire Jewish quarter devastated.

A major online campaign to force Mahmoud Abbas to resign his position as president of the Palestinian Authority kicked off this weekend.

The hashtag #ارحل, which means simply "Leave," is base on a promise that Abbas made years ago that he would resign if there were even small protests calling for him to leave.

The protests were sparked by the apparent murder of Abbas critic Nizar Banat last month by Palestinian police.

Some of the current criticisms of Abbas now are more centered on his being way too moderate and conciliatory towards Israel, saying that he has no right to accept a two state solution.

This one quotes him as saying that "East Jerusalem is ours and West Jerusalem is theirs," asking what gives him the right to give up 80% of Jerusalem?

This graphic lists the high Palestinian officials who have gone to Israeli hospitals when they are ill, leaving their people to use sub-par Palestinian hospitals. (The Palestinian Authority used to pay for all citizens who needed treatment in Israeli hospitals and stopped that a few years ago.)

But while Hamas is trying to take advantage of this unrest, and indeed stokes a great deal of it, it has its own challenges with the people under its own control in Gaza.

The blast at the Al Zawiya market has spawned calls for investigations on why Hamas allows - and encourages - placing military equipment in the middle of civilian areas, knowing that Israel is reluctant to bomb those targets but putting Gaza lives at risk.

Also, last week Hamas forces shot at a car that they claimed sped through a checkpoint. (Yes, there are checkpoints inside Gaza, under full Hamas control.) One of the passengers died and Hamas' story was not consistent with the autopsy results.

Both Hamas and Abbas are trying to distract the criticisms by redirecting anger towards Israel, their usual go-to move. Hamas has resumed allowing incendiary balloons to start fires in Israel and PA prime minister Shtayyeh has been working to get new UN Security Council condemnations of Israel as well as to re-start the moribund Quartet, with a friendlier White House less likely to object.

Hamas is in no danger of falling, although it is sensitive to criticism. Abbas is more vulnerable- most likely by his death - and the terrorist-paying, Holocaust denying antisemite would be replaced by someone even more extreme.

Attempt to #BlockTheBoat in Elizabeth, NJ a miserable failure

From The New Arab:

Thousands of US activists in New York City and New Jersey are planning to block an Israeli-operated cargo ship from docking at the Port of New York on Sunday morning in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Activists seek to stop the ZIM Qingdao cargo ship, which is operated by the Israeli international shipping company ZIM, from unloading. It is expected to arrive at 6 a.m. EST at the Maher Terminal in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The Palestine Chronicle, Gaza Post, and Wafa News Agency all reported on the expected arrival of "thousands" of activists.

Here is what the pathetic turnout looked like:

And the equally pathetic chants, with about as little enthusiasm as possible:

This demonstration was heavily promoted, meaning that it missed its goal of thousands of protesters by about 99%.

Even the activists had to admit that the number that showed up was in the "tens."

Any way you look at it, this was a huge fail.

The Ben and Jerry's Foundation has funded BADIL, a Palestinian NGO that supports terror and promotes antisemitism

Ben and Jerry's controls the Ben and Jerry's Foundation which supports various social justice causes.

In 2017, the Foundation gave some $80,000 to the Oakland Institute, a think tank whose executive director is Anuradha Mittal, the head of Ben and Jerry's Board of Directors who has shown her antipathy towards Israel and sympathy towards terror groups on multiple occasions.

Of that amount, thousands were earmarked for the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, which is dedicated to destroying Israel through the "right of return."

But BADIL is much worse than that.

In December of 2016, before this grant, BADIL issued a report that justified Palestinian terror - and said that Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself from rockets and terrorists.

The right to resist of people under foreign and colonial domination, including armed struggle, and the applicability of these provisions to the Palestinian people has been reaffirmed by many other UNGA resolutions...In its suppression of resistance, Israel has made use of excessive force to stop armed struggle....Equating all forms of resistance with terrorism as a justification for suppression lacks legal basis, as the Palestinian struggle for liberation is legitimate and all actions carried out against Israel for that purpose are therefore lawful.

BADIL allows that there are rare instances where individual Palestinians might have crossed a legal line, but then says that Israel cannot retaliate against entire armed terror groups that sent them on their murderous mission. BADIL says that it is open season on Jews in Israel.

Before that, and certainly known to the Oakland Institute, BADIL cosponsored the 4th Annual Al-Awda Award in 2010 for posters, papers and caricatures. The second place award for caricatures, with a cash prize, went to this blatantly antisemitic cartoon:

This wasn't the only brush with antisemitism from BADIL. Its director Nidal Al-Azza, wrote in 2007 that it isn't only Zionism that is racist, but Judaism itself:

Racism in the Zionist ideology and later, in the Israel regime, can be identified in… political concepts, ideas and visions inspired by religious thought, provisions of the Talmud, and legends, most importantly, the notions of Jews as “the chosen people of God,” “the pure race” and “the promised land,”… [and] the mentality of segregation, nurtured by life in the ghettos.

All of this was known at the time Ben and Jerry's Foundation decided to grant thousands of dollars to BADIL, through Anuradha Mittal's own foundation.

Is antisemitism and explicit support for murdering Jews in Israel part of the "social justice" that Ben and Jerry's promotes?

(h/t StopAntisemitism)

This is something you don't often see - an Arab at a major Arab newspaper debunking an antisemitic rumor that has become an accepted part of the narrative.

For decades, Arabs have been taught that the Jewish men and women of the IDF, upon conquering the Old City of Jerusalem, went through the Al Aqsa Mosque in a drunken and half-naked state, chanting, "Mohammed is dead, and he left only daughters!"

Even though this story is absurd to begin with, Ali al-Ameem, a Saudi journalist, traces the rumor back to its origin and debunks it thoroughly.

The first mention of the story comes from Iraqi Islamic writer Mahmoud Sheet Khattab in his 1969 book “Arab Military Unity.” He wrote, “When the Jews entered the city of Jerusalem on June 6, 1967, they were chanting in Al-Aqsa Mosque in Hebrew, with the meaning: Muhammad died, he died... He left daughters, and I listened to the silly joking, broadcasting a text from an Arab radio station, and commenting on it by the announcer, translating it to Arabic. Perhaps many Arabs and Muslims listened as I listened to that radio, and felt as I felt that a poisoned arrow hit my liver, which is bleeding blood, bitterness, sadness and pain.”

The story morphed. In a 1970 book by the same author, "Israel's Expansionist Objectives in the Arab Countries" Khattab wrote:

On June 6, 1967, Israel occupied the ancient city of Jerusalem. So the President of the Israeli State, the Prime Minister of Israel and the Ministers of Israel, led by the Israeli Chief Rabbi, proceeded to march towards the Western Wall, and there Moshe Dayan said: Today the road to the city is open.

The Jews desecrated the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque by allowing the Israeli male and female soldiers to enter it wearing revealing clothes while they were drunk as if they were in bars or places of prostitution.

The Israeli army and the Jews violated the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque. They were chanting in his courtyards on June 6, 1967: Muhammad died, he died... He left behind daughters!

Ameem points out the inconsistencies between these two stories as well as more embellishments that Khattab added in years later. He notes that the phrase "Mohammed dies, and left daughters" only rhymes in Arabic, not Hebrew (Mohammad mat wakhalf banat.) He mentions that it makes no sense for Israelis, who have had women in the army since 1948, would say anything disparaging about Mohammed having only daughters. He points out that if the phrase had been on Arabic radio then many Arabs would have condemned it immediately and not waited until 1969.

Furthermore, Ameem points out, indeed Mohammed did die and leave behind only daughters. Why is that an insult to begin with? It only is insulting since Arabs do not regard women to be as important as men!

Ameem ends off with words I've never seen before in an Arabic article. He says that whenever one hears rumors like this one, one should not believe them unless there is real evidence to back it up.

Things are definitely changing in the Arab world, mostly for the better.

07/25 Links: Yes, BDS is a terrorist group; Joseph Lieberman: The inspirational life of Menachem Begin; Nobel Prize winner Steven Weinberg dies 88

From Ian:

Yes, BDS is a terrorist group

This is not about semantics, and it's a shame the State of Israel needed an ice-cream crisis in the summer to be reminded of the existence and effectiveness of the BDS campaign. One need only visit a European, Canadian, or American college campus during Israeli Apartheid Week to see why to understand that, to put it mildly, you wouldn't want to make your Jewishness overly obvious to others. If there is one challenge Herzog can tackle head-on, in direct continuation of his previous role as Jewish Agency chief, it is to make Israelis aware of this shocking terrorism.

For some reason, here in the Jewish state, the issue has been downplayed. It's not spoken about or taught. Television studios don't bring in Jewish or Israeli students studying overseas to share their stories. In Israel, there is complete ignorance of the issue.

The utter silence in response to a number of lecturers from Haifa University, Bar-Ilan University, and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev calling on Berlin not to recognize the BDS movement as antisemitism is absolutely stunning. Through their letter, these lecturers not only lent a hand to antisemitism, but they also lent a letter to violence, meaning actual terrorism, against Jews, Israelis, and their supporters in Germany. Those unfamiliar with the overseas campus experience could be forgiven for being naïve enough to think this was just another show of support for an ideological movement that sends letters to the editor of Haaretz and The New York Times. This simply isn't the case.

The amazing thing is that this movement does not conceal its objectives or actions: It is a movement that opposes Israel's existence within any borders, whose supporters wave signs with Nazi symbols, and promotes conspiracy theories on every issue on the agenda, accusing Israel of anything and everything from the September 11 attacks to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. On campuses, BDS terrorizes any lecturer who merely contemplates teaching a course that offers a balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only will doing so put any future promotions at risk but their physical safety and ability to get through a seminar will also be threatened, ultimately leading to their firing.

The BDS movement seeks to remove the Jewish or Zionist voice from the non-Israeli space by any means necessary, regardless of whether that requires connecting to radical leftist or radical right-wing cells. In Israel, BDS proponents support the movement either in excessive good or bad faith. We must hope Herzog's much-needed call leads to greater coverage of the BDS movement's activities.

You’re focused on the wrong thing

No, dearest friends, it's not enough to just kick both Ben and Jerry out of your homes and stores. You need to kick yourselves out of your foreign countries as well! All these signs that have been posted by stores proudly displaying that they “We Stand with Israel” need to be changed to “We Stand in Israel” because that is what the Jewish nation needs more than anything else.

This twisted attitude reminded me of the difficult time in Israel during the knife attacks. It started on Sukkot, a few years ago, when an innocent Jew was stabbed – almost daily - as he/she was shopping or simply standing at a bus stop. Remember the holy Ari Fuld? He was one of those victims, may HaShem avenge his blood. After one of those horrific stabbings inside a Rami Levy supermarket, by an Arab employee, the owner - Rami Levy himself, announced that all knives would immediately be removed from the shelves. Wow! What a bold move… no more knives will be sold in Rami Levy!! There’s only one small problem… 80% of Rami Levy employees are Arabs and – last I checked – it wasn’t the knife that did the stabbing…

Throwing out the knives is similar to throwing out the ice-cream. The intention is good, but the action is meaningless. Let’s be honest; keeping the Arabs but throwing out the knives won’t save Jewish lives and keeping the Jews in America while throwing out the ice-cream won’t accomplish much either.

Therefore, here’s what really needs to be done. Call Nefesh b’Nefesh and get your Aliyah moving along. Then, at the big “Going Home to Israel Party”, serve Ben & Jerry’s to all your guests. Get the Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake (my personal favorite) and take as many selfies as possible. Send them to both Jerry & Ben with the line; “Thanks to you, we are moving to Israel with a sweet taste in our mouth!” Then get on the plane and never look back.

'Ben & Jerry's will regret the day they boycotted Israel'

In a letter to Unilever, Shurat Hadin asserted that it plans to assert ownership of the brand in Judea and Samaria, citing us legislation that under US law, in order for Unilever to preserve trademark protection for the Ben & Jerry's brand name against use by other entities, it must demonstrate full intent to conduct business in a particular area.

By announcing that the company does not intend to operate in Judea and Samaria, the British conglomerate has forfeited the right to claim said trademark as its own, the NGO argued.

Shurat Hadin chief Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told Israel Hayom that "Unilever is no longer in a position to enforce its trademark in these areas.

"These are our new weapons and approach in the war against BDS: Anyone who stops selling their products in Israel will find that we have taken over their trademarks and rights. Ben & Jerry's will regret the day they boycotted Israel. "

Brooke Goldstein, executive director of the Lawfare Project and co-founder of the End Jew Hatred movement, said last week that the sheer size of Unilever opens it up to possible significant financial penalties.

"By virtue of its wayward subsidiary, Unilever – a massive international conglomerate – risks potentially crushing financial consequences in terms of its ability to receive investments from, or do business with, the majority of US states," she said.

Video of Gaza market explosion shows lots of minor blasts before the big one

Last week, in the heavily trafficked Al-Zawiya market in Gaza City, there was a massive building explosion.

You can hear many smaller explosions before the huge blast at the 45 second mark.

It was apparently an Islamic Jihad weapons depot, and the initial blasts were probably mortars or small rockets exploding before the fire reached a much larger cache of explosives.

In the past, Hamas weapons have also been known to explode in crowded markets, as the Jerusalem Post notes:

Palestinian writer Fadel Al-Manasfeh said it was clear that Hamas chooses popular markets as a safe place for its ammunition warehouses because it knows that Israel does not target such places. He also pointed out that a similar explosion took place in an open market in the Nuseirat refugee camp last year, killing more than 10 Palestinians and injuring dozens others.

It is another clear case of using human shields to protect rockets, a clear war crime. Outside some Palestinian NGOs, no human rights organizations mentioned this explosion - despite popular anger from Gazans at being used as pawns to shield weapons.

Arnold Roth noted bitterly that we are not likely to see photos of kids' toys sprinkled among the images of the leveled building the way they pop up when Israel bombs targets just like this.

In fact, the international media barely mentioned this story. It doesn't have Jews to blame.

Over the past week, Amnesty International together with an advocacy group called Forbidden Stories have released a bombshell story to dozens of media outlets claiming that Israel's NSO Group has provided its commercial Pegasus spyware to many regimes who then turned around and used them for surveillance on thousands of people, including prominent reporters, whistleblowers and politicians.

The NSO Group insists that it only sells its software to governments to use to combat terrorism and major crime, and that they sign agreements to that effect.

The entire story hinges around a "leaked" list of 50,000 phone numbers that is supposedly a list of potential targets for the spyware. All the reporting from 80 reporters from 17 newspapers who have investigated this story for months is based on this list.

As of today, there is no evidence that this list has anything to do with NSO Group or Pegasus.

Amnesty, Forbidden Stories and the dozens of reports of the story have been remarkably vague about the origins of this list. The entire investigation makes the assumption that the list is linked to the NSO Group - something that the company strenuously denies, and which makes no sense if you actually think about it. Why would the NSO Group keep a list of the targets used by the countries? Wouldn't they want to keep that list as secret as possible?

Even more incredibly, why would the governments using Pegasus pool their lists of targets on the same database, whether maintained by NSO Group or not?

It literally makes no sense that anyone would maintain such a list.

Amnesty's cybersecurity team, backed by experts at the University of Toronto, checked the mobile phones of a small percentage of the people said to be surveilled by the software and found about half of them had evidence that Pegasus was installed on their phones - 37 out of 67 checked from a "leaked" list of 50,000 phone numbers.

The NSO Group founder and CEO Shalev Hulio told Calcalist, "Around one month ago we received the first approach from an information broker. He said that there is a list circulating in the market and that whoever holds it is saying that the NSO servers in Cyprus were hacked and that there is a list of targets there and that we should be careful. We looked into it. We don't have servers in Cyprus and don't have these types of lists, and the number doesn't make sense in any way so it has nothing to do with us. He insisted that it does. We were later approached by two different clients who said that brokers have come to them claiming that they have a list related to NSO. We eventually received some screenshots of the list the brokers managed to get a hold of and based on that we understood that this doesn't look like the Pegasus system, certainly on the server, and that this is an engineered list unrelated to us. We looked over it with the clients and it slowly became clear to us that it is an HLR Lookup server and has nothing to do with NSO. We understood that this was a joke."

HLR is a global database of cellular phone numbers. Anyone can get information from commercial vendors of HLR data - including the location of the phone.

It makes no sense that anyone would compile a list of phones that Pegasus is installed on.

Here's what does make sense:

It makes perfect sense that someone would compile a list of phone numbers of prominent government officials and reporters. If someone simply compiled a list of prominent people and their mobile phone numbers, and then linked that to their HLR data, it would be very valuable indeed, mostly for underhanded purposes.

It makes sense that governments that acquired Pegasus legally are using it for illegal or potentially illegal purposes against prominent investigative reporters and political opponents. There is no way to stop that, except for NSO to pull the license when abuses are discovered - and NSO has done exactly that a number of times.

It makes sense that Israel allows NSO to export the software to Arab governments (and others like India) that Israel wants to have closer ties with, even if they have dodgy human rights records, and that they are using it in ways that it is not licensed for. That sort of behavior can be criticized but it is the sort of decision literally every government makes.

It is also very possible that Pegasus, which is just software, has been leaked to unauthorized users to be used illegally. I don't see how NSO could stop that from happening - while normal software might check in with a central server to ensure that it has a valid license, by its very nature Pegasus wouldn't do that because the check itself would reveal its presence.

If there is an underground trade in Pegasus - which seems highly likely given how it can be used - then one can expect that the software has been installed, or attempted to be installed, on the phones of many prominent political players and reporters - people that would be on existing lists.

That would explain why the leaked list would have the phone numbers of some people with verified Pegasus installations or installation attempts. It would also explain why so many of the leaked phone numbers do not have Pegasus installed, a major flaw in the story that has been papered over with the wild guess that the list is of "potential Pegasus targets."

Similarly, Pegasus may have been reverse engineered and recreated to get around any controls the NSO Group may have put into the software itself to protect its own intellectual property.

It furthermore is likely that the NSO Group is aware that its software is being used in ways that it is not licensed for, just as the manufacturers of weapons know that they sometimes get stolen or used illegally despite the efforts of lawyers to ensure that the sales/license agreements are as ironclad as possible. The NSO Group would not admit publicly that there is a lucrative underground trade in its software, because it is a security company and that would hurt its reputation. But criminals and rogue states are always trying to obtain weapons and weapons technology illegally, and cyberweapons are at least as desirable as guns or stealth airplane designs - with the added benefit that once obtained, they can be reproduced for free.

The Pegasus Project and its journalists are acting irresponsibly in reporting this story as if the linchpin to the story itself - the leaked list - is associated with NSO Group. That part is unlikely in the extreme, and the reporting itself is careful not to directly link this list with NSO, instead relying on innuendo.

One can understand why journalists are jumpy at finding out that their names and phone numbers are on some sort of list of targets. That doesn't give them the right to make accusations that have no evidence, and moreover for them to be so opaque about the source of the leaked list - clearly the weak spot in the story itself. And many stories have been based on the idea that the list itself is definitely linked to NSO Group and not a more general list of phone numbers of prominent politicians and critics.

The desire to place blame on NSO, and on Israel itself for allowing the software to be exported, is more wishful thinking than real reporting.

There is definitely a market in spyware, and it is certainly being used in ways that violate human rights. That is a real story and that it what the story should have been from the start. Instead, it has become just another reason to bash Israel.

Arabs support Algerian judoka refusal to compete against Israeli at the Olympics

The International Judo Federation issued a statement:

Following the draw of the judo competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Fethi Nourine (-73kg) and his coach Amar Benikhlef gave individual statements to media announcing their withdrawal from the competition to avoid meeting an Israeli athlete during the event. The immediate response of the IJF Executive Committee was to form an investigative commission which confirmed all the facts, leading to a temporary suspension of the athlete and the coach and assigning the case to the Disciplinary Commission of the IJF for further investigation, judgement and final sanctioning beyond the Olympic Games.
The IJF launched the investigation and notified the Algerian Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee. Responding to the information, the Algerian Olympic Committee withdrew both the athlete and coach accreditation and plans to send them home, applying sanctions accordingly.

Judo sport is based on a strong moral code, including respect and friendship, to foster solidarity and we will not tolerate any discrimination, as it goes against the core values and principles of our sport.

The BBC reports that most Arab social media supported and praised Nourine, with some saying that his refusal to compete hurts Israel more than if he would have won.

This bizarre logic is accepted as normal.

The head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Jibril Rajoub, praised the Algerian position "in support of Palestine at all levels, including sports," taking a photo of himself with Nourine.

Rajoub is announcing ahead of time that Palestinian athletes would refuse to compete against Israelis.

That declaration itself should disqualify the entire Palestinian Olympic team, since they are essentially declaring that they will eagerly violate Olympic rule 50 which says, "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."

07/24 Links: Germany will skip Durban 20 summit; Avishag Samberg wins bronze in taekwondo; AOC: Agent of chaos; Algerian suspended, sent home for refusing to face Israeli Judoka

From Ian:

AJC Welcomes Germany's Decision to Skip Durban 20 Summit

American Jewish Committee (AJC) applauds Germany for its principled decision to not attend the 20th anniversary summit of the UN's notorious 2001 World Conference Against Racism.

The gathering is set to take place in New York on September 22, during the opening days of the UN General Assembly. With its announcement today, Germany joins the United States, Israel, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Hungary, Austria, Canada, Australia, and the Czech Republic in announcing they will skip the meeting.

"Germany has again asserted leadership in the global fight against antisemitism," said AJC CEO David Harris. "Germany has once again, as it did in 2009 and 2011, laudably recognized the discredited nature of the original conference, held in Durban, South Africa. We hope other nations will follow suit."

The 2001 conference quickly diverted from its original agenda and goals and turned into a hate fest, where Israel and its supporters were consistently attacked, sometimes involving physical intimidation, as racist. At the parallel NGO Forum, many participants openly expressed hatred toward Israel and threatened representatives of Jewish NGOs participating in the event.

"Confronting true racism around the world is a noble cause, but singling out one country, Israel, and one group of people, Jews, for continual censure is grossly unjust, and undermines the global fight against antisemitism and other forms of bigotry and hatred," said Harris.

Citing concerns of antisemitism, Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, the UK & US have announced they won't attend the UN’s Durban IV Conference.

Urge France, Italy, Spain and other nations to follow:https://t.co/YbsqAUdS5N
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 24, 2021

.@CFoI's Lord Polak today underlines that if BBC "are sincere in their wish to draw a line in the past" they should "apologise for spending 100s of 1000s of pounds of public funds" to keep secret the Balen report investigating bias in Israeli-Palestinian conflict reporting pic.twitter.com/9ou38gY6rW
— CFoI (@CFoI) June 24, 2021

Olympics: Israeli Avishag Samberg wins bronze in taekwondo

Israeli Olympian Avishag Samberg won a bronze medal in taekwondo in the Olympic Games in Tokyo on Saturday. Stunning fans at her first Olympic Games at only 19 years old, Samberg's win marks Israel's first medal in the Tokyo 2020 games. Samberg competed in the under 49 kg weight class, edging out the Turkish Rokia Yildirim with a score of 27-22 during the battle for the bronze.

Samberg said after her winning fight that she "had a difficult day."

"I lost in the morning, it was a bit difficult," she said, thanking her coach.

"I have an Olympic medal at 19," she said in disbelief. "I worked so hard all the way. I withstood the pressure, I believed it would happen."

"I knew the draw was very difficult," she said, adding that she "looked [Yildirim] in the eyes and did it. I said to myself, 'so what if I'm the youngest?' I will give everything I have. Hope this is not my last medal. It feels like a dream to me."

Athlete, IDF Soldier, and now, Olympic medalist—is there anything she can’t do? ??

Home Front Command soldier Cpl. Avishag made history today by winning Israel’s first taekwondo medal in the Olympics.

?? Amit Schussel pic.twitter.com/epIO6rMn31
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 24, 2021