Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 06, 2021

10/06 Links Pt1: UN Chief Should Rescind Ban on Naming Antisemitic UNRWA Teachers; Biden Admin Reverses State Department Declaration of Strategic Talks with ‘Palestine’

From Ian:

UN Watch: UN Chief Should Rescind Ban on Naming Antisemitic UNRWA Teachers

A watchdog group today appealed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to intervene after the UN Human Rights Council president on Friday cut off a speech for naming antisemitic teachers who work for UNRWA, the UN agency that runs schools for Palestinians.

In an unprecedented and controversial move, President Nazhat Shameem Khan cut off Hillel Neuer for what she said were unacceptable “personal attacks.” She then ruled his statement “out of order.”

Khan interrupted the Geneva-based human rights activist as he began to present examples from UN Watch’s recent report that exposed over 100 antisemitic UNRWA teachers, a study that has already prompted UNRWA investigations — and, according to Al Jazeera, suspensions.

“I have noticed that in the course of this video, derogatory, insulting and inflammatory remarks have been made which in particular refer directly to specific individuals,” said the council president, reading from prepared remarks.

“This amounts to personal attacks against those individuals and it is not acceptable in this forum. This statement is out of order,” ruled Khan, who then gave the floor to the Palestinian Return Centre, a group linked to the Hamas terrorist organization.

Gilad Erdan Israel Ambassador Today, the UN tried to silence the truth. UN personnel prevented me from bringing in a photo showing the antisemitism and incitement that exists among UNRWA teachers. Despite their best efforts, I will always continue to fight to defend Israel. pic.twitter.com/DCrITSfGji
— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) October 5, 2021

BREAKING: B'TSELEM ACTIVIST WAS CAUGHT ON CAMERA SETTING PALESTINIAN PROPERTY ON FIRE, AND THEN TRYING TO BLAME THE JEWS.@EUinIsrael @btselem @DTzantchev @Ofer_Hadad pic.twitter.com/rjH9sqRZwv
— ????? ??? | MyIsrael (@MyIsraelorgil) October 5, 2021

JTA reported last month:

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan are contributing $1.3 million to 11 Jewish groups, eJewish Philanthropy reported, citing a spokesperson for the couple.

News of Zuckerberg and Chan’s donations comes as the couple has gradually emphasized its Jewish identity in public in recent years. Privately, Zuckerberg and Chan have also been meeting with rabbis and scholars to discuss Judaism and the Jewish community, according to eJewish Philanthropy.

Two of the grantees are national organizations: OneTable, which supports Shabbat dinners hosted by young Jews, and PJ Library, which distributes Jewish children’s books and music for free.

But the rest primarily serve local needs in the San Francisco Bay Area. Three educational institutions received funding: Contra Costa Jewish Day School in Lafayette, Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto and the Jewish Community High School of the Bay. Three summer camps in California, URJ Camp Newman, Camp Ramah in Northern California and Camp Tawonga, also were beneficiaries.

For Zuckerberg, this is very little. He has given $250 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life and hundreds of millions to education programs. $1.3 million is pocket change for him.

It makes sense that Israeli and Jewish media would report on the Zuckerman donation to Jewish causes, even though they are small for him.

But why would Palestinian media care?

The story was picked up in Palestinian media today. I couldn't find any stories about Zuckerberg's much larger other charitable donations in Palestinian media.

The recipients of the $1.3 million are not particularly Zionist. They are not funding settlements. The donations are exclusively for helping American Jews.

So why is this series of small donations even being reported by Palestinian news media?

It is hard to know for sure, but it seems like the story is meant to elicit negative reactions from Palestinians. The story seems to promote the idea that the Jew Zuckerberg is prioritizing charity to his fellow Jews at the expense of others, and that Jews stick together for nefarious purposes, an echo of the Elders of Zion myth.

Yasan al-Masri, 2

On the first day of the May war, and anti-Israel NGO DCI-P reported:

Six Palestinian children and two adults were killed in a third blast that occurred around 6 p.m. in Beit Hanoun about 800 meters (2,600 feet) west of the Gaza Strip perimeter fence. Those killed included Rahaf Mohammad Attalla al-Masri, 10, and her cousin Yazan Sultan Mohammad al-Masri, 2; brothers Marwan Yousef Attalla al-Masri, 6, and Ibrahim Yousef Attalla al-Masri, 11; as well as Hussein Muneer Hussein Hamad, 11, and 16-year-old Ibrahim Abdullah Mohammad Hassanain, according to information collected by DCIP. When the blast occurred, members of the al-Masri family were reportedly harvesting wheat in the field outside their home, and their children were playing nearby, according to information collected by DCIP.

DCIP has not yet confirmed the cause of these deaths. At the time of the incident, Israeli drones and warplanes were reportedly overhead and Palestinian armed groups were firing homemade rockets towards Israel. DCIP continues to investigate these incidents to determine and identify the responsible parties.

The launch site of a Hamas rocket that killed this family, including 6 children, has been identified:

The rocket came from an underground Hamas rocket launch site with 10 silos. It flew 7.5 kilometers to Beit Hanoun, where it killed the al-Masry family.

The silos were located next to a mosque in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.

This occurred at 6 PM on May 10, either before or within minutes of any Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.

Even though Defense for Children - International believed that this might have been a "homemade" rocket, Human Rights Watch decided months later this was an Israeli missile after its sham "investigation."

On May 10 near the town of Beit Hanoun, an Israeli-guided missile struck near four houses of the al-Masri family, killing 8 civilians, including 6 children.

HRW based its lies on "eyewitnesses" who said the rocket came from the east. and it decided, based on its experts who know literally nothing about weapons, that it was an Israeli anti-personnel missile.

And so it goes - Hamas kills Gaza kids and Israel gets blamed.

10/05 Links Pt2: Phyllis Chesler: People just love dead Jews; Kamala Harris and the Truth about Israel; The myth of Cable Street; Middle East 'kidney diplomacy' saves 3 women's lives

From Ian:

Prof. Phyllis Chesler: People just love dead Jews

I am, quite simply, blown away by Dara Horn’s impeccable and original research, relentless courage, and sheer eloquence as contained in her latest book, People Love Dead Jews: Reports From A Haunted Present.

I think that Horn is rather like Ruth Wisse, only younger. And, it is no accident that they are both steeped in Yiddish literature and Jewish sacred texts. In addition, both are supremely literary Ladies—Grand Dames, really.

Please understand who exactly is being overwhelmed here. And overjoyed, because Horn is almost half my age. In her hands, the work of truth-telling against all odds, continues.

By 2000-2001, I was already writing The New Anti-Semitism and have proudly been seen as a traitor in certain circles ever since I published it in 2003. In lectures, I’d ventured the idea that Jewish deaths have long been worshipped as “redemptive” by Christians—but, like Horn, I was also made uneasy by the unsettling reverence that Jewish people manifested when they visited Holocaust exhibits.

In 2006, I published “How a Holocaust Happens,” a piece in which I wrote:

“As dangerous as Holocaust denial is, Holocaust Memorialization may also function as a form of denial…it may allow us the luxury—and the consolation—of assuming that the ‘worst’ has already happened. Alas, this may not be true. Certain intellectuals, Jews among them, attempt to hide their rabid Jew-hatred by focusing on the European Holocaust—on all the dead Jews—as a way of diverting attention from the impending (slow motion) Holocaust against living Jews. Because they oppose what was done to the Jews in World War Two, they feel justified, credentialed, to say that today’s attacks on Israel are ‘justified,’ that the Palestinians are now the true victims, (the ‘new Jews’ in a sense), and the Israeli Jews are their ‘Nazi’ persecutors.”

I am so glad to say that Horn has taken my insights to a whole other level.

Her essay on Anne Frank is masterful. She reminds us of the vast tourist industry that has grown up with visitors to Anne’s hidden room—just as if “people love dead Jews.” But there’s more, much more, especially the bizarre incidents in which Museum employees were prohibited from wearing yarmulkes—lest the Anne Frank House be seen as losing its “neutrality.”

Emily Schrader: The cost of Kamala validating 'Israeli genocide' speech

Several years ago, we saw this occur with the Women’s March, which is absolutely a necessary and just cause. Yet instead of being able to grow the movement and gain allies across the aisle in fighting against sexual assault and sexual harassment, the co-founders of the Women’s March damaged the credibility of the movement by making multiple inflammatory and antisemitic comments, which frankly have nothing to do with the fight for women’s equality.

We saw a similar phenomenon with Black Lives Matter inserting anti-Israel positions based on outright lies into its agenda.

Unfortunately, these are just a few of many examples of how anti-Israel interests have made a concerted effort to dump Palestine onto any and every cause they possibly can, inserting the issue in debates that have absolutely no association whatsoever with Israel and the Palestinians or even the Middle East. These efforts polarize important discussions that should be taking place in society, be they racial inequalities, feminism, or voting rights.

For the vice president of the United States to fall into the trap of labeling outright lies as “your truth” sets a terrible example for the rest of society from a leader who absolutely knows better.

While her office has clarified her position, noting that, “the vice president strongly disagrees with the student’s characterization of Israel,” it’s too little, too late. Her response already gave legitimacy to anti-Israel lies when she had the perfect opportunity to set an example and take a stand for the truth the way any leader should.

Kamala Harris and the Truth about Israel

The fact of the matter is that truth is not subjective. The second-highest elected official in the United States is not doing our undergraduates any favors by encouraging them to believe they can imagine the truth to be anything they want. And in this case, the truth is that the state of Israel is America's great and good ally which has flourished for more than seven decades as the only democracy in the Middle East, and is a critical security partner. Our alliance has enjoyed robust, bipartisan support in the United States Congress for decades, which both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris claim is their administration's policy.

It is also a truth, however inconvenient, that Jews are the disproportionate targets of violent crimes both in the United States and around the globe. Failure to respond to false assertions that demonize Jews implicitly condones this violence. Harris' shameful episode happened to have occurred on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre, which took place at the end of September, 1941.

Nazi forces had entered Kiev a month before, and booby traps left by retreating Soviet forces destroyed some of the buildings they occupied, causing significant casualties. Whether they knew who the real perpetrators were or not, the Nazis took advantage of the situation to scapegoat the remaining Ukrainian Jewish population. They swiftly massacred 33,771 Jews at the Babi Yar ravine, creating one of the largest mass graves in history. As the events of World War II become more distant in time, they run the risk of becoming abstract. Our contemporaries forget all too easily how the long, ugly history of anti-Semitism, and its tacit acceptance, erupted into the Holocaust.

Rather than gloss over pernicious bigotry, Harris would have done better to treat the George Mason student to a history lesson on what such attacks have led to in the past. "Never forget" doesn't mean we assume the Holocaust can never happen again. It means we all do everything we can, in ways great and small, to vigilantly oppose this evil. After the flare up of violence in Gaza this spring, there was a disturbing trend in both Europe and America of attacks on any and all Jews as surrogates for Israel, regardless of their citizenship. The way to reverse this trend is not to legitimize it as some sort of subjective personal truth, then have your communications team issue a "clarifying" statement. It is to personally and unequivocally reject false allegations, and forcefully defend the U.S. alliance with the Jewish state.

From Iran's IQNA:

Prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassem condemned Bahraini government’s steps to normalize ties with the Israeli regime as a crime against the Islamic Ummah.

“What will you write in history about the opening of the embassy of the occupying regime and the visit of the Zionist foreign minister Lapid to Bahrain and the welcome of the Bahraini rulers except the government’s shame and crime against Islam, the Islamic Ummah and the people of Bahrain? And what gap this will create between the government and people?” tweeted the top cleric.

For once, it isn't Israel committing the "crime" - but nations normalizing relations with Israel.

Given that Israel has relations with 164 nations, that is a lot of criminal activity.

Recent articles in Arabic consistently accept the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as true

A century after the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" was

proven to be a hoax, Arabic media continues to believe that they are true. All of these articles are from within the past month.

Egypt's popular Seventh Day news site celebrated the birthday of the first person to translate the Protocols into Arabic.

Iraq's Kitabat quotes them as an aside in an article on political money to prove the point that controlling the media and money is a decisive factor in politics.

An Amman news site says that one should not believe the "Pandora Papers" accusations against Jordan's King Abdullah because the media is under Zionist control, as the Protocols prove.

A Jordanian writer in Al Quds says, as an aside, that luxury items should be eschewed because the Protocols say that Jews use luxury items to control everyone else.

Last but not least, Dr. Ghazi Hussein - an elder Palestinian statesman whom we recently quoted - wrote an entire article in Al Majd filled with Jew-hatred based on the Protocols. Excerpts:

The protocols aim to create the means to control global politics by controlling money and the press, spreading chaos and corruption, undermining Christianity, Islam,
nationalism, moral values, values of truth and justice, and sanctifying power and placing it above truth and the principles of international law.
The Zionists spread corruption, devastation, destruction, settler colonialism and genocide from the Torah, the Talmud, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the Israeli strategies, which feed in them placing force above the right, and that force creates the truth, and that the world and what is in it belong to the chosen people of God, belief in superiority, racism, terrorism, and the theft of the lands, property and wealth of non-Jewish peoples. . They believe that only Jews are human beings, and non-Jews are animals created in human form to serve the Jews. They established protocols to corrupt and weaken the world so that it would eventually be subject to the control of the Jews and their interests in the Middle East and the entire world through the control of American Judaism over the Congress, the White House, the Pentagon, the American National Security Council and the State Department.

The Fifth Protocol provides for the elevation of Jewish ambitions to the rank of religion, and states:
“We have been chosen by God to rule the whole earth. And God gave us the genius to take on this burden... All the wheels of the apparatus of governments need a motor, and this motor is in our hands and it is gold... Then we step forward after that and establish the supreme world government”
.
The eleventh protocol states:
“God has bestowed upon us, the chosen people, the grace of captivity, exile, dispersal, and scattering in the land, and this matter that was in the past the manifestation of our weakness, has later been reversed, the reason for our strength that has led us now to enter the door through which we extend our sovereignty over the whole world.”
Protocol Seventeen: “We will degrade the dignity of the clergy in order to succeed in harming their message, and it will only take a few years for Christianity to completely collapse, and the rest of the religions will follow in the collapse, and the King of Israel will become a “pope” over the world.”
The Protocols clearly show what the sages and leaders of the Jews planned for the world of hatred, evil, and enslavement of peoples and individuals by exploiting the weaknesses in souls to achieve their plans and ambitions.
The Jews seek to destroy morals and spiritual values and destroy religions because achieving this enables them to reach their plans and goals and brings them wealth and wealth. They use the press, cinema, theater, and publishing houses, which in the United States and Europe are under their control, to reach their goals and to eliminate all those who stand in their way from politicians, countries, nations and peoples.
The Jewish history recorded by the Torah writers was characterized by violence, terror, genocide, the killing of children and women, and the appropriation of the property and lands of other peoples. The past and present of the Jews, and in particular Israel, were based on aggressive wars and genocide of other peoples, just as they do today with the Arabs in Palestine and the rest of the neighboring Arab countries.
In the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Jewish rabbis planned to establish a global Jewish government that would control the world and control it and its capabilities for the benefit of the Jews only and to increase their profits, influence and control.. They laid the path that the Jews should follow in order to reach global control and make Greater Jerusalem, which extends to Jericho, the capital of the world.
Thus, the Protocols are a hellish Jewish scheme to control the Middle East and the world through their control of the United States of America and the rest of the Western countries and their followers from the Arab kings and princes in the Gulf. The Protocols clearly demonstrate the evil intentions of universal Judaism towards all peoples in the world and towards all humanity.

The Protocols were used heavily by the Nazis to spread antisemitism. Today, the "progressive" Left - while claiming to hate Nazism - insist that antisemitism and anti-Zionism have nothing to do with each other, when these articles show that they are one and the same. Their failure to condemn Arab antisemitism, and particularly Palestinian antisemitism, shows that they don't really care about antisemitism at all.

10/05 Links Pt1: UN prevented Erdan from displaying pro-Hitler posts by UNRWA teacher; Global Media and Leaders Tacitly Accept Palestinian Authority-Backed Violence

From Ian:

UN prevented Erdan from displaying pro-Hitler posts by UNRWA teacher

UN security personnel stopped Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan from bringing a display poster into the General Assembly on Monday showing a social-media post by a UNRWA teacher that glorified Hitler.

“I see it as a very dangerous precedent here, preventing my freedom of expression, preventing my freedom of speech and hiding the truth from the UN,” Erdan said during his public speech to the UNGA.

He had meant to display the post during a discussion on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees so that he could illustrate his concern about the problem of incitement in UNRWA schools.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan decrying the UN's prevention of his display of pro-Hitler posts by an UNRWA teacher, October 4, 2021.

“I am shocked because I brought here with me a photo of a UNRWA teacher’s post glorifying the most horrific mass murderer in history, Adolf Hitler,” Erdan said. “Unfortunately, shockingly, I was prevented from bringing in this photo in order to share this proof with the other distinguished ambassadors here.”

UN protocol prevents ambassadors from using props when delivering speeches, a UN representative told The Jerusalem Post.

However, heads of state who speak during the high-level opening sessions that take place every September can do so, the representative added.

43 countries pledge to combat antisemitism at UNHRC session

Statement led by Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia in coordination with World Jewish Congress

At least 43 countries signed a statement pledging to combat antisemitism that was issued at the 48th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Monday.

The statement was led by Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia with the coordination of the World Jewish Congress.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg warned of the dangers of antisemitism in a video statement, saying that "we will remain steadfast in our pledge, never again."

"Even 75 years after the end of World War II it is a tragic reality that antisemitism is not a thing of the past," Schallenberg said. "This venom still exists, right in the midst of our societies. This is why today we declare our unequivocal solidarity in the face of hatred."

The statement was read at the start of a debate on racism, antisemitism and the growing threat from hate speech and the glorification of Nazism.

Countries that signed the declaration include: Israel, Germany, the United States, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Honduras, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Australia, the United Kingdom, Greece, Belgium, Cyprus, Ukraine, Cameroon, Japan, Slovenia, Argentina, Armenia, Croatia, Finland, New Zealand, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Poland, Moldova, the Netherlands, Latvia, Romania, Seychelles, Lithuania, Estonia, Uruguay, Norway and Sweden.

Also at the UNHRC special session on Monday, the World Jewish Congress and the Muslim World League issued a joint a statement calling for the protection of human rights for all in what is the first joint declaration between Jewish and Muslim organizations at a UN body.

The fall season of ?@JIPodcast? kicks off with ?@mikepompeo?. Topics: Iran, Afghanistan, Abraham Accords, Israel & the possible reopening of a consulate in Jerusalem. Plus: ?@jarrodbernstein? & I discuss Iron Dome funding & @Unilever. https://t.co/AS4mtMIBIu
— Richard Goldberg (@rich_goldberg) October 5, 2021

83 years ago: A massacre at Tiberias, Arabs murder 19 Jews - 11 of whom were children

From the October 3, 1938 Boston Globe:

Wikipedia adds:

Arab rioters killed 19 Jews in Tiberias, 11 of whom were children. During the massacre, 70 armed Arabs set fire to Jewish homes and the local synagogue. In one house a mother and her five children were killed. The old beadle in the synagogue was stabbed to death, and another family of 4 was killed.

A representative of the British mandate reported that: "It was systematically organized and savagely executed. Of the nineteen Jews killed, including women and children, all save four were stabbed to death."

The targets weren't the Haganah or even "Zionists" - Tiberias was settled by Jews multiple times before modern Zionism. The targets were Jews - Jewish families, Jewish women, Jewish children, and a synagogue.

The massacre seems to have been the handiwork of Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir, a disciple of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.

Al-Kabir is still considered a hero to Palestinians - here is a Fatah page dedicated to him that compliments him on a 1932 bombing in Nahalal that killed a Jewish father and son. Here's a video praising him that includes a song in his honor.

Palestinian nationalism and antisemitism are two sides of the same coin.

Iraqi newspaper makes up lies, claims Israeli who saved Iraqi Jewry "admitted" to bombing synagogues

A pernicious Arab lie has been published, slandering an Israeli Jewish hero.

From Iraq's Annabaa:

On September 19, 2021, Mr. Ghassan Al-Attiyah published an exciting article on his Facebook page, under the title “Death of the Farhud Organizer.” The post was topped by a phrase for Al-Attiyah saying, “Thank you to those who provided me with this information.” And it was stated in it, that Shlomo Hillel, an Iraqi Jew, who died recently at the age of 97, was a resident of Baghdad and immigrated to Israel and later returned in disguise to carry out a very dirty mission that targeted the security of Iraqi Jewish citizens, by inciting mobs and planting bombs in synagogues to intimidate the people and push them to immigrate to Israel. Unfortunately, these actions led to casualties and entered the history of contemporary Iraq in the name of “the Jews’ Farhud”!

Al-Attiyah quotes a confession by Shlomo Hillel in his book “Operation Babel” and he says frankly that the Iraqis are innocent of this issue and that it was orchestrated by him with an entire team, including the Israeli Defense Minister in the June 1967 war, Moshe Dayan...The publication also stated that Jewish Iraqi writers, including the poet Ibrahim Obadiah and Professor Shmuel Moreh-Sami, confess in books and diaries the innocence of Iraqis from the Farhud events.

Shlomo Hillel did die this year. That is the only accurate sentence in this article.

Hillel was a key figure in the airlift of 120,000 Jews from Iraq in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. He did write a book about it, but he certainly never said that he was responsible for the (1941) Farhud or the bombings of Jewish areas of Baghdad in 1950-51.

No Jew was responsible. The idea that Jews were involved is an Iraqi myth (although many Iraqi Jews, disillusioned after they reached Israel and suffered discrimination, believed the myth, which helped spread it. )

Here is a good debunking of that slander:

The Jewish exodus from Iraq was influenced by, and coincided with, a wave of bombings which took place between April 1950 and June 1951. These bombings damaged both Jewish and American targets, produced a number of serious injuries, and caused the deaths of six Iraqi Jews.

According to a number of anti-Zionist authors, the bombings were perpetrated by Zionist agents in order to cause fear amongst the Jews, and so promote their exodus to Israel (Black Panthers 1975:128-132; Hirst 1977:155-164; Eveland 1980:47-49; Wolfsohn 1980:186-201; Shapiro 1984:37-38; Avnery 1986:135-136; Shiblak 1986:119-127; Shohat 1988:12; Giladi 1993; Cohen 1998:111).

Some evidence for this argument is provided by the fact that the Iraqi authorities charged three members of the Zionist underground with perpetrating the explosions. Two Jews were subsequently found guilty and executed, whilst a third was sentenced to a lengthy jail term (Gat 1997:173-175).

The historian Moshe Gat argues convincingly (in my opinion) that there was little direct connection between the bombings and exodus. He demonstrates that the frantic and massive Jewish registration for denaturalization and departure was driven by knowledge that the denaturalization law was due to expire in March 1951.

He also notes the influence of further pressures including the property-freezing law, and continued anti-Jewish disturbances which raised the fear of large-scale pogroms. In addition, it is highly unlikely the Israelis would have taken such measures to accelerate the Jewish evacuation given that they were already struggling to cope with the existing level of Jewish immigration (Gat 1987:395; Gat 1997:182-187; also Meir-Galitzenstein 1988:235).

Gat also raises serious doubts about the guilt of the alleged Jewish bomb throwers. Firstly, a Christian officer in the Iraqi army known for his anti-Jewish views, was arrested, but apparently not charged, with the offences. A number of explosive devices similar to those used in the attack on the Jewish synagogue were found in his home. In addition, there was a long history of anti-Jewish bomb-throwing incidents in Iraq.

Secondly, the prosecution was not able to produce even one eyewitness who had seen the bombs thrown. Thirdly, the Jewish defendant Shalom Salah indicated in court that he had been severely tortured in order to procure a confession (Gat 1997:180-181 & 187-188; Gat 2000:11-13; also Hillel 1987:277-282; Meron 1995:51).

It therefore remains an open question as to who was responsible for the bombings, although Gat suggests that the most likely perpetrators were members of the anti-Jewish Istiqlal Party (Gat 1997:187; Gat 2000:20).

There is an Iraqi political analyst named Ghassan al-Attiyah but it seems highly unlikely that he would have said this. I could not find the Facebook post mentioned, but if this was only published on Facebook then the Ghassan Attiyah who published it is a nobody.

Yet the lie is published as truth.

h/t RealJerusalemStreets

Al Monitor reported last month:

The current religious leader of the Armenians [in Jerusalem] and his real estate director are now embroiled in a row with the Palestinian leadership for leasing hitherto unused sensitive land next to the Jewish Quarter initially to the Israeli municipality for a parking lot.

The 10-year lease that required the Israelis to spend $2 million to clear rubble in order to prepare the parking lot is now said to have become a 99-year lease to Jewish Australian businessman Danny Rubenstein, to convert it into a luxurious hotel that the patriarchate has admitted to and said it “will bring in a stream of hundreds of thousands of dollars that will provide financial stability for the cash-strapped church.

Palestinians are very upset.

Al Quds newspaper reports:

The Secretary-General of the National People's Congress of Jerusalem, Major General Bilal Al-Natsheh, warned of the danger of the Armenian Patriarchate renting a plot of land belonging to it to a Jewish investor in the Armenian neighborhood of East Jerusalem to build a hotel on it. Al-Natsheh said in a statement issued today, Monday, that this step serves the Israeli policy of Judaization of the Holy City in general and the Old City in particular.

The Secretary-General of the National People's Congress of Jerusalem added that this measure is totally rejected, and the Patriarchate must reconsider and retract its decision.

If the land would be leased to a Muslim, no one would care. If it would be leased to Christians, no one would care. But when it is leased to a Jew - not an Israeli, but a Jew -the furor proves yet again that anti-Zionism is merely a thin camouflage for old fashioned Jew-hatred.

It was never about Israel or Israelis. It was always about Jews.

10/04 Links Pt2: Why anti-Zionism and antisemitism are inextricably linked; Kamala Harris’ silence vs Sarah Silverman’s noise; The Associated Press war of words against Israel

From Ian:

Why anti-Zionism and antisemitism are inextricably linked

Since 2014, we have seen a dramatic shift regarding the discourse around Israel. In a nation that celebrates free speech, almost any conversation is encouraged. But when that conversation borders on incitement and causes Jews to feel unsafe, then there is a serious problem. The US State Department upholds the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism, which posits that it can and does entail attempts to delegitimize Israel.

As for both Jews and non-Jews who want to criticize Israel and flinch every time they are accused of being antisemitic or a self-hating Jew, I would say this: We can have a whole discussion about the standards that Israel is held up to, as well as its policies. However, Israel is held to a different standard than any other country in the world when defending its citizens.

A misguided and simplified narrative that looks at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a powerful aggressor and an innocent underdog fails to understand that there are two sides to this complex situation, with people across Israel's border in the Middle East all too often committed to the country's demise. Moreover, an obsessed and myopic view on what the one Jewish state in the world does or does not do? That is antisemitic.

No matter what political affiliation we have, we are Jews first and foremost. It is crucial to come together on this issue before we splinter off into partisan leanings.

Across the Atlantic, for Israelis who think this is exclusively a problem for American Jews, they must understand that the broader erosion of support for Israel may very well lead to diminishing bipartisan support for the Jewish state, which will have a detrimental effect on Israel's own security.

On a macro level, though, antisemitism has historically been the canary in a coal mine. Any society that actively embraced Jew-hatred has shown acceptance for discrimination and prejudice that far extends beyond Jews. It may start with us, but it never ends with us.

To that end, I call on communal and world leaders to call out antisemitism when they see it and advocate for schools to actively teach about this complex phenomenon and what constitutes it (while also explaining that criticism of Israel is legitimate and valid). Meanwhile, politicians must cease using antisemitism as a political tool. Too often, we see politicians blame the opposing party of having anti-Jewish members for the sake of accruing political capital. Jews are not political pawns. We are active, contributing citizens of the United States who deserve protection and security amid this growing crisis.

As for our community, right now it is imperative for global Jewry to come together. It should not have to reach a point where we all speak out against antisemitism only when violence breaks out. We do not need another Pittsburgh or Poway. What we need is unity.

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism Is Itself Antisemitic

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA), presented in March 2021, was created to replace the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which had been adopted by 35 countries by 2020. The writers of the JDA wished to “clarify” the IHRA, which they feel is insufficiently obsequious to the Palestinians. Their real object is to use the fight against antisemitism as another weapon with which to vilify Israel.

The Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism (JDA) is the product of a group of international scholars of antisemitism and related fields who have been meeting since June 2020 in a series of online workshops convened by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. Essentially, the new document charges the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism with blurring the “difference between antisemitic speech and legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism.” As a result, the IHRA definition “delegitimiz[es] the voices of Palestinians and others, including Jews, who hold views that are sharply critical of Israel and Zionism.”

The JDA was purportedly written as a resource for strengthening the fight against antisemitism, because “there is a widely felt need for clarity on the limits of legitimate political speech and action concerning Zionism, Israel, and Palestine.” The JDA is presented as the alternative, a “corrective to overcome the shortcomings of the IHRA definition.”

Nowhere in the IHRA definition are Palestinians mentioned; nor does it mention BDS. There are, however, three clauses that can be construed as applying to the actions of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists. These are:
- the denial of the Jewish people’s right to national self-determination; e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor
- the application of double standards by requiring of Israel behaviors that are not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation
- the comparison of Israeli policies to those of the Nazis.

Pro-Palestinian activists and anti-Israel groups have long complained about the IHRA definition because, in the grip of their fixation on Israel as fundamentally illegitimate and their flat denial of the Jews’ right to self-determination, they reject the premise that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

How to Use Antisemitism Against Antisemites

So what is the Jewish community to do with all this perceived power? The gap between reality and perception is wide. Yet it opens up a space for skillful negotiation by thoughtful Jewish leaders who understand that, as in certain martial arts, the key to winning is to turn an opponent’s momentum against him.

By population, the Jews are a tiny people: almost 15 million worldwide, about 0.2 percent of the global population and about 2 percent of America’s. There are approximately 6.9 million Israeli Jews, compared with an Iranian population of over 80 million, more than 420 million Arabs, and almost 2 billion Muslims. By sheer numbers, Jews are clearly outmatched. The intersecting echo chambers I have described mutually reinforce one another in a way that elevates the perceived power of a people who usually haven’t had much power at all.

Yet the malignant perception of overwhelming Jewish power comes with a hidden but potent benefit: the chance to leverage the tropes used against Jews to Jewish advantage. If Khamenei, Hamas, and Hezbollah prefer to believe that Jews pull all the big levers of American might, it only feeds a mindset of paranoia and illogic that is usually self-defeating. It might even give them more reason to fear us than to fight us. If Tehran (or the Washington press corps) wants to feed the perception that my modestly sized think tank dictates U.S. policy in the Middle East, who am I to complain?

What goes for U.S. policy in the Middle East goes for other areas of Jewish concern: Especially in a democracy, the perception of power is power, at least in the hands of those who know how to use it judiciously.

From biblical times onward, Jews have often proved adept at this, not for nefarious reasons but because we appreciate how necessary that perception can be to our own survival. To take one example: In 1991, after Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam lost his Soviet patron, he approached Israel as a conduit to Washington — doubtlessly on the idea that Israeli influence in Washington would surely be enough to rescue him. The belief was antisemitic, but it still helped set the basis for negotiations leading to the rescue of Ethiopian Jews in Operation Solomon.

Something similar might be said about the way Jewish politics play out in the U.S. By any standard metric, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is far from the biggest lobby in Washington — certainly not when compared with, say, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association, or the pharmaceutical lobby. What actual power AIPAC has derives mainly from three strengths: the talent of its staff; the passion of its members; and, above all, the instinctual support that a majority of Americans (only a small fraction of whom are Jewish) feel for a country they rightly see as an embattled bastion of democracy facing and fighting the same enemies that threaten the United States.

Yet AIPAC’s critics, at home and abroad, like to paint it as a Washington juggernaut that politicians cross at their own peril. In a city where perception counts for almost everything, such a view can work in AIPAC’s favor. As in the 1959 Peter Sellers classic, The Mouse That Roared, it’s better to be a midget thought of as a giant than the other way around.

Iranian media doesn't scare Israel as much as it thinks

Wikipedia says:

The Arba'een Pilgrimage, or the Arba'een Walk, is the world's largest annual public gathering. It is held at Karbala, Iraq at the end of the 40-day mourning period following Ashura, the religious ritual for the commemoration of martyrdom of the grandson of Prophet Mohammad and the third Shia Muslim Imam, Husayn ibn Ali...The number of participants in the annual pilgrimage reached 25 million or more by 2016. On the routes of the pilgrimage, food, accommodation and other services are provided for free by volunteers.

That would be a great opportunity to do some propaganda, right? Millions of people passing by can see what you have to say.

Some Iraqis decided to put up signs and drinking stations that say "No to Normalization."

Here are the photos published in Iranian media:

It doesn't look like there was much of a crowd.

Earlier today I quoted an article by a former PFLP leader who later became a senior advisor to Yasir Arafat who claimed that rich Jews controlled US defense contractors and gave their technology to Israel for free, where somehow Israel took credit for them after threatening them....it made no sense but it is unquestionably antisemitic.

Here's another antisemitic article published this past weekend from a former Palestinian political leader, Dr. Ghazi Husain, currently legal advisor and head of administration in the Political Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Damascus.

You don't have to go far into the article to see Husain fall down the rabbit hole of Nazi-style antisemitism:

Is it possible to normalize and coexist with the biblical and Talmudic teachings, with the Zionist ideology and with the economic Greater Israel as the leader and center of the new Middle East? Is it possible to coexist between the Arabs and "Israel"?... Is it possible to coexist with the racist and terrorist Jewish settler colonialism and the hegemony of Israel and America?

The facts and events since the crystallization of Zionism as an ideology and a global political movement whose backbone is Jewish settler colonialism from the Nile to the Euphrates, and the secret decisions of the First Zionist Congress known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion clearly prove the impossibility of coexisting with the Zionist entity, which is the practical embodiment of lies and ambitions, Biblical, Talmudic, Zionism, colonialism and Israel.

He covers a lot of Jew-hating territory in only two paragraphs! And Husain is another elder statesman of Palestinian nationalism.

From the Mufti through Arafat through Abbas, antisemitism has been the backbone of Palestinian nationalism. Most of the world refuses to believe it, but the original thinkers of the movement continue to publish explicitly antisemitic articles in Arabic for Arab audiences - today.

10/04 Links Pt1: Iran tried to kill Israeli businessman in Cyprus; What’s behind the obsession with U.S. Aid to Israel?; Before meeting Meretz ministers, Abbas called parents of Palestinian attackers

From Ian:

Iran tried to kill Israeli businessman in Cyprus - Bennett spokesman

Iran was behind the attempt on Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi’s life last week, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s spokesman Matan Sidi said Monday.

“Contrary to some of what was published [Sunday] night in connection to the incident in Cyprus, I ask to clarify, in the name of security officials, that this was a terrorist attack by Iran against Israeli businesspeople living in Cyprus,” he said.

“This was not a criminal incident, and the businessman Teddy Sagi was not the target of the attack,” Sidi said.

The Iranian Embassy in Nicosia said the claims were baseless.

Sidi’s comments came after conflicting reports about whether the assassination attempt was a terrorist attack or the result of a business dispute between Sagi and Russian businessmen.

Sagi indicated that Iran was responsible for the attack.

The attempted murder was “another act of aggression by Iran aimed at Israeli targets,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Monday.

“Iran continues to be a global and regional threat and a challenge to Israel, and we will continue to act to defend our citizens and the security of the State of Israel everywhere and against every threat,” he said at a Blue and White faction meeting.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said: “Israeli businesspeople will continue to travel the world. They need to be careful and listen to instructions, but Israel can and knows how to protect its citizens.”

The Cyprus police arrested a 38-year-old Azeri-Russian man on September 27 for plotting to murder several Israeli businessmen living in Nicosia.

Biden Ignores Palestinian Support For Terrorists

The Biden administration's talk about achieving a "two-state solution" does not seem to impress many Palestinians. They believe, according to a recent public opinion poll, that this solution is no longer practical or feasible. These Palestinians, the poll found, prefer to wage an "armed struggle" against Israel.

With such views, it is safe to assume that the Palestinian state the Biden administration is hoping to establish alongside Israel will be controlled by Iranian-backed terrorists such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.....

The findings of that poll confirmed that a majority of Palestinians continue to see Hamas and other terrorists as their heroes and role models. The results also confirmed that a majority of Palestinians continue to believe that violence and terrorism are the best and only way to deal with Israel.

Their demand reveals that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians have no confidence in Abbas and are likely to reject any peace agreement he signs with Israel. First, anyone who signs a peace deal with Israel will be regarded as a traitor and rewarded the same ill-starred way as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who signed a peace treaty with Israel and was assassinated. It is a consequence with which Abbas is acquainted.

Those who continue to talk about a "two-state solution" are not only deluding themselves, but also endangering the security of the Middle East by seeking to establish yet another terrorist state, especially so soon after the debacle of the U.S. surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Here is some well-intentioned advice for Biden and other world leaders: before you link the idea of peace and security to the idea of a "two-state solution," try believing the Palestinians when they say that the prefer "armed struggle." Try believing the Palestinians when they say that they would vote for any leader who supports violence and terrorism against Israel. Try believing, when the Palestinians say they reject peace with Israel, that they actually mean what they say.

Ah. So he really only likes dead Jews. Pretty sure that’s not just about Netanyahu. pic.twitter.com/7KHUqDzZhY
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) October 3, 2021

Before meeting Meretz ministers, Abbas called parents of Palestinian attackers

Ahead of a meeting with ministers from the Meretz party on Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke with the parents of two Palestinians who were killed recently as they carried out attacks on Israeli security forces.

Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Abbas called the father of Israa Khuzaimia, who police said was shot dead last Thursday as she tried to stab officers in the Old City of Jerusalem. Abbas offered his condolences over the death of Khuzaimia, 30, a mother of four.

Abbas also called the father of Alaa Nassar Shafik Zayoud, a member of the Palestinian Islamist Jihaad terror group, who was also killed Thursday after he opened fire on IDF and Border Police officers in Kfar Bourkin near Jenin, in the West Bank.

Later Sunday evening, Abbas met for talks with Israel’s Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz and Regional Cooperation Minister Issawi Frej from the left-wing Meretz party in the West Bank city of Ramallah, in the second such high-profile meeting in recent months.

In statements after the meeting, the ministers and Abbas said they were working to keep alive the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which envisions a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem alongside Israel.

The head of Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth, used the word "apartheid" to describe Israel 18 times in 2019, compared to 5 times for Myanmar and once for China.

In 2020, Roth used the term "apartheid" to describe Israel 22 times, Myanmar 3 times, and China once.

In 2021, Roth has used the term to refer to Israel 129 times - and has not referred to any other nation with that appellation even once since the his first use of that term in January.

The "apartheid" claim is ludicrous. Beyond that, Roth's obsession with painting Israel exclusively with that term this year means that Human Rights Watch has decided that only Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid - giving Myanmar and China a pass in 2021.

HRW's definition of "apartheid," when applied to Israel, means little more than "discrimination" - something that pretty much every nation on Earth is guilty of in some way.

Even though Muslims in many European nations suffer discriminatory laws that Israel doesn't have. Even though Palestinians suffer worse under Arab rule than they do under Jewish rule.

The "Zionism is Apartheid" lie was started, not surprisingly, by Stalinists - people who didn't hide their antisemitism.

HRW's singling out of Israel as being uniquely evil is nothing short of obsessive - and its not using that term against any other state since January proves that this obsession has nothing to do with Israel's supposed crimes but rather HRW's underlying Jew-hatred.