Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, October 10, 2021

10/10 Links: Why are Jews so quick to defend our enemies?; Amazon, Google Under Fire for Sponsoring Event With Linda Sarsour; Islamic/Arab terrorists bite the hands that feed them

From Ian:

Why are Jews so quick to defend our enemies?

Writing here last month, Sabrina Miller made a plea: Jewish schools should teach Palestinian views. Her argument was that this would help woefully ill-informed young Jews better to argue Zionism’s case once they arrive on campus. Although the plea came with the best of intentions, it risks falling into a trap. The nakba (an Arabic term for the ‘catastrophic’ exodus of 710,000 Palestinian refugees) is the self-inflicted consequence of the Arab decision to go to war in 1948 — a war which their side instigated and lost. To talk of the nakba without balance or context would be to promote a one-sided narrative of Palestinian victimhood.

If we mention the Arab nakba, we are compelled as a matter of law and equity to talk about the Jewish nakba (I use the expression for convenience). As many as 870,000 Jews (persecuted by the Arab League as the “Jewish minority of Palestine”) were driven from, or fled, the Arab world at around the same time as the Palestinian refugees — and as a consequence of the same conflict, merely because Jews in Arab lands shared the same religion and ethnicity as Israelis.

Why should we take only the Palestinian refugee cause seriously, while dismissing the Jewish refugees? Why are Jews so quick to empathise with our enemies, while failing to defend our own rights? Furthermore, no credible and lasting peace settlement could be reached if the grievances of more than half the Jews of Israel — refugees from Muslim lands or their descendants — are ignored.

Recognising the Jewish nakba, the mass displacement and dispossession of ancient Middle Eastern Jewish communities, is central to achieving reconciliation. It would mean acknowledging that an irreversible exchange of refugees took place, similar to exchanges which occurred as a result of other 20th Century nationalist conflicts.

One cannot teach about the Arab nakba without also teaching about its root cause: Arab rejectionism. Today, such rejectionism has religious overtones. The Israel-Palestine conflict cannot be divorced from the eliminationist intentions of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian ayatollahs and Islamist groups generally. These do not even bother to camouflage their genocidal aims in terms acceptable to western ears, such as “occupation”, “settlements” and “Palestinian human rights”.

Diaspora Jews do not make the right counter-arguments because our approach to Israel is frustratingly “Ashkenormative”. The tragedy of the Mizrahi (eastern) communities is not known to the majority of Ashkenazi Jews. Consequently, we don’t adequately make the case for Jews in general.

Israel is the vindication of an aboriginal Middle Eastern people’s aspirations for self-determination. Over half its Jewish population — Mizrahim from the Muslim world — never left the region and pre-dated the Arab conquest by 1,000 years or more. (The long sojourn of Ashkenazim in Europe does not make them any less Middle Eastern in origin, culture and identity.) Why should Arabs have 22 states, while other indigenous victims of Arab imperialism such as the Amazigh (Berbers) or the Kurds — 99 per cent of whom have voted for an independent state — have no political rights? To the latter, Israel is an inspiration.

Melanie Phillips: Far from an act of piety

Campaigners against the proposed Holocaust memorial and “learning centre”, which is to be built in Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament, have launched an appeal in the High Court which starts next week.

Some may be wondering at this 11th-hour challenge. Isn’t building this centre a done deal? Why are people making all this fuss? Surely such a memorial is a good thing?

To which the answers are: maybe; for very good reason; and no, it is not.

Let’s take these in reverse order.

The site is wholly inappropriate. It’s a much loved, small, green oasis. The proposed centre, with its 23 tall, bronze fins, would be an eyesore. As a tourist attraction, it would be submerged by people and traffic.

Being so close to the Thames, its subterranean levels would be at serious risk of flooding. And as Lord Carlile, the government’s former reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the planning inquiry, its location would turn it into a terrorist target.

So why did this deeply unsuitable site suddenly become the only site? Westminster City Council told the inquiry that it was presented to the Prime Minister as a fait accompli.

“No alternatives were offered,” it said, “nor professional advice sought as to the acceptability in planning terms” of the site. “There has been no public consultation on this less than transparent process”. Why not?

David Collier: What if… it wasn’t Ireland? The awful truth about the antisemitism report

On Thursday I published an indepth study into antisemitism in Ireland – much of it disguised as anti-Zionist activity. This is Ireland’s shame.

These are the facts:
The report was based on years of research.
The report contains 760 footnotes that provide concrete evidence to support the findings.
It exposes Irish politicians who have shared blatant fake news stories.
Shows Irish politicians have also like or shared horrific antisemitic comments.
That violence, intimidation and antisemitism are pillars of anti-Zionist activity on campus.
It proves that on the street that there is foul antisemitism from key ‘human rights’ activists – including support for the Protocols and Holocaust denial.
That traditional Christian antisemitism plays a significant role and Christian NGOs facilitate the spread of antisemitism.
And It shows that a lot of antisemitism denial occurs where antisemitism is at its most concentrated.
In response to the report the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland called on ‘all the Irish political parties and both Houses of the Oireachtas‘ to take action.

And the response? Outside of the tiny Irish Jewish population and the small group of vocal allies that they have in Ireland – the response has been a wall of silence with just an occassional abusive comment thrown overhead. But what if… it wasn’t about Ireland…..?
What if a report had just been published in London, showing that an MP had liked a post saying Hitler’ wasn’t wrong’. The 200 pages of the report went on to prove that there were a few Westminster MPs sharing blatant fake news from the accounts of rabid anti-Jewish racists and Holocaust deniers – spreading anti-Jewish hate into the population. That these MPs were found to be obsessed with lying about Israel and openly calling for its destruction. What if the report also showed many of the UK’s well-known ‘anti-racist’ faces believed that the Protocols were real, the Holocaust never happened and evil Jewish bankers were secretly behind all the evil in the world. That antisemitism was a growing problem of the most vile kind.

What if too, the Jewish organisations in the UK expressed their outrage and horror – calling on the UK to take immediate action against the anti-Jewish racism.

And then what if nobody responded? Not a single MP from any political party said a word. And not a single member of the press thought it was worthy of writing about.

What if nobody cared and the cries of the Jewish citizens were just completely ignored? What if antisemitic Corbynism had risen and the response of the UK population was just to shrug its shoulders and call the Jews a bunch of liars?

What would that say about Jewish life in the UK? Or the US – or anywhere that such horrific anti-Jewish racism – at every level – was so easily ignored. This is the awful truth about how bad things are in Ireland.

Amad reports that the Human Center for Democracy and Rights (I think they mean this) sent a letter to a number of Palestinian and international bodies about the continued failure of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to issue passports to a number of Palestinian citizens in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian passport is not recognized everywhere but it is better than nothing, and it seems that the PA has a deliberate policy to deny many Gazans the ability to obtain one that they could use to travel through the Rafah crossing, or when they get permission to go through Israel. Egypt has recognized these passports in the past.

While Israel apparently has to give permission as well for Palestinian passports (according to Wikipedia, although the page seems dated) this NGO is not blaming Israel but the PA. If Israel was stopping the issuance of passports, you can be sure that it would be making headlines.

Gisha, the Israeli NGO that supposedly deals with freedom of movement for Palestinians, has nothing on this topic.

Muslim Temple Mount "silent prayer" reaction is nothing less than naked Jew-hatred - but too many Jews adopt their narrative anyway

On Friday, the Jerusalem District Court overturned the ruling the previous week from the Jerusalem Magistrate Court saying that Jews cannot be prevented from saying silent prayers on the Temple Mount.

Given that so many Muslims had made such a big deal over the initial ruling, one would think that they would celebrate this new ruling, right?

Nope - it is barely being reported. And most of the reports are dismissing the new ruling as being irrelevant, by the same people who claimed the initial ruling was cataclysmic.

Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib, deputy head of the Islamic movement inside the Palestinian territories, said in a press statement that the new court ruling "is a kind of fraud and igniting public opinion with a fair position of the Israeli judiciary, but the truth has proven that the judiciary is an arm of the Israeli establishment."

Palestinian lawyer Khaled Zabarka said that the Hebrew media was trying to "mislead public opinion."

Director General of the Waqf, Sheikh Muhammad Azzam Al-Khatib, said: “According to the information available to us, there is no decision to cancel the silent prayers in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque by the Israeli Central Court."

What he apparently means is that the Central Court ruled that since Rabbi Aryeh Lippo was shown to be moving his lips, even though his prayers were silent, it cannot be said that he was not doing "visible prayer" - and Muslims say that the ruling still allows invisible prayer.

Meaning that Jews should not be allowed to even think prayers.

Meaning that their goal, as always, is to ban Jews from the Temple Mount altogether. And this is something that they say explicitly in Arabic all the time, with daily headlines showing Jews visiting the site saying that they are "provocative" and "storming."

This court kerfuffle is just an excuse for Jew-haters to promote the lie that respectful Jewish prayer can somehow ignite a regional conflict.

Arab op-eds screaming about how the "silent prayer" decision will lead to the building of the Third Temple are still being published even after the new ruling.. Muslim organizations worldwide continue to condemn the initial court ruling. Arab social media is still filled with photos of Jews praying even today.

The unfortunate thing is that Israel's Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev has swallowed the antisemitic lies and adopted them as his own.

He announced that Israel Police appealed the ruling because "a change in the status quo will endanger the public peace and could cause a flare-up."

"The State of Israel advocates freedom of worship and prayer for all, however, in view of the security implications, the status quo must be upheld that the prayer of Jews on the Temple Mount will take place next to the Western Wall and the prayer of Muslims will take place in al-Haram al-Sharif," he said.

Evidence from the past few years shows that this is not true. Jews have been praying, openly and in groups, on the east side of the Temple Mount without incident, proving that the apocalyptic predictions from the "experts" are thoroughly wrong.

There isn't a grassroots opposition to Jews quietly praying. There is official incitement from self-appointed Muslim leaders to spark such opposition. The reactions to the original court ruling are an affected outrage, not a genuine outrage - they are meant to rile people up. And for the most part, these efforts are failing.

But some Jews are so afraid of defending their rights that they are happy to adopt the Muslim incitement narrative as truth. This emboldens the haters to redouble their efforts to rid Jerusalem of Jews altogether, which is the "status quo" of 1948-1967 that many Muslims really desire.

Only when Jews actually fight for their rights will Jews get those rights. Proud Jews must combat the the meek dhimmis who think they must do what their Muslim masters say.

After another tweet by Ken Roth (roughly #130 this year) claiming that Israel practices apartheid, I decided to look further into the actual legal definition of apartheid and see if and how Human Rights Watch twists it.

All the relevant definitions of apartheid use specific language that it is a crime of racial discrimination. The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid says "For the purpose of the present Convention, the term 'the crime of apartheid', which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them" and then goes on to give lots of examples always using the term "racial group."

The Rome Statute defines apartheid as "inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."

The April HRW report accusing Israel of apartheid says that "racial group" doesn't really mean racial group. They have no proof from the source materials, for which the definition of "racial group" was obvious enough not to be defined. Since the actual conventions didn't define the term, HRW took the definition from a completely different Convention.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which was adopted in 1965 and came into legal force in 1969, defines “racial discrimination” as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the UN body charged with monitoring the implementation of the ICERD, has consistently found that members of racial and ethnic groups, as well as groups defined based on descent or their national origin, face racial discrimination.[47] Rather than treat race as constituting only genetic traits, Human Rights Watch uses this broader definition.

On first glance, that sounds like a pretty good argument for an expansive definition of racial discrimination, although perhaps not for a definition of a racial group. (I think an argument can be made that the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute intended the narrower definition, and that the expansive definition is explicitly only meant for ICERD ["In this Convention, the term 'racial discrimination' shall mean..."]. Others have argued that the definition of apartheid is specifically based on race alone. But let's set that aside for now. )

Once HRW is relying on ICERD to define what racial discrimination is, they must then include the very next paragraph in ICERD, which applies directly to Israel - and which they do not quote in their report.

This Convention shall not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to this Convention between citizens and non-citizens.

This one paragraph completely destroys HRW's "apartheid" argument.

Israeli laws do not distinguish between Israeli Jewish citizens and Israeli Arab citizens. They distinguish between Israeli citizens and non-citizens - which every nation on Earth does.

HRW and others will base their "apartheid" arguments on claims like saying that Jewish "settlers" in the territories have different laws than their Arab neighbors. HRW says that Israeli "policies include limiting the population and political power of Palestinians, granting the right to vote only to Palestinians who live within the borders of Israel as they existed from 1948 to June 1967." But that is a lie - there are thousands of Israeli Arab citizens who live across the Green Line in French Hill, Beit Hanina, Beit Safafa and other communities, who can vote in Israeli elections, just like Israeli Jewish "settlers" can.

And if someone like, say, Peter Beinart decided to move to Ramallah to prove that Palestinians are wonderful people who wouldn't murder him, he would not be allowed to vote in Israeli elections even though he is a Jew - because he is not an Israeli citizen.

Virtually every example of discrimination in the HRW report, as well as in other articles that make the claim of "apartheid," is based not on whether someone is Arab or Jewish, but on whether they are citizens or non-citizens - the exact distinction that the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination made clear is not to be considered racial discrimination.

This one paragraph in the ICERD demolishes their entire 213 page report.

The authors of the Human Rights Watch report definitely knew this when they decided not to quote the other section of the ICERD that they base their entire argument on.

If this was an issue of conflicting legal arguments, then one could let the lawyers argue it out. But if it was a legal argument, one would assume good will from both sides, pointing out their own interpretations of the law. By quoting only the definitions that agree with HRW's pre-determination of Israeli "apartheid" and pretending that the definitions that disprove the argument don't even exist, HRW shows that its own arguments weren't based on the law to begin with, but on a bastardization of international law meant to attack only one state.

10/09 Links: US: 'Our position against unilateral Israeli settlement activity is clear'; Bernie Backs Iron Dome Funding – If Schumer Promises $1B for Gaza, Too

From Ian:

Biden administration to host Abraham Accords trilateral

The Biden administration plans to host an Abraham Accords trilateral meeting in Washington this Wednesday, between US, Israeli and Emirati officials.

"They will discuss progress made since the signing of the Abraham Accords last year, future opportunities for collaboration, and bilateral issues including regional security and stability," the US Embassy said in a statement about the meeting.

The trilateral will be held with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and his United Arab Emirates counterpart Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Blinken will hold separate bilateral meetings with Lapid and bin Zayed prior to the trilateral. The secretary of state tweeted on Saturday night that he looked forward to his meetings with both foreign ministers.

Lapid will be in the US from October 12-14, on his first visit since taking office in May.

Lapid has been the most visible government figure involved in the continuation of the Abraham Accords which were initiated by former US President Donald Trump and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The accords normalized ties between Israel and four Arab states; the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Lapid has traveled to all but Sudan.

US: 'Our position against unilateral Israeli settlement activity is clear'

The Biden administration has clearly opposed unilateral settlement activity, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington, in response to a query about US pressure on Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to halt such action.

“Look, we don’t always – in fact we never read out our private diplomatic conversations, the back and forth we have, whether that’s with our Israeli partners or any partner around the world,” Price said.

“But suffice it to say we have made our position very clear, and when it comes to unilateral action like settlement activity, we have also made that very clear,” he said.

“And in fact, I just reiterated where the United States stands on settlement activity. There should be no question about that,” Price said on Thursday.

He spoke in the aftermath of a report by The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Walla, that the Biden administration was quietly calling on Israel to restrain settlement activity.

Price, however, has been fairly blunt about the Biden administration’s opposition to it, including at the Washington briefing on Thursday. “We believe it is critical for all parties to refrain from those unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and, again, undercut efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution,” he said. “That includes, as I was saying before in a different context, annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions and evictions” and “incitement to violence.”

10/08 Links Pt2: Mark Regev: The problem with Corbyn, AOC and left-wing antisemitism; Museum unveils 14th century hand-painted scroll depicting ancient Israel

From Ian:

Mark Regev: The problem with Corbyn, AOC and left-wing antisemitism - opinion

FOR BRITISH Jews, the Corbyn phenomenon was highly unsettling. The outbreak of antisemitism at the top tier of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition was a genuine shock, especially as it was centered on the individual who challenged three consecutive Tory prime ministers for the keys of 10 Downing Street.

American Jews also took notice. Prior to COVID-19, delegations to Israel from American Jewish organizations were always looking for something new to attract participants, and years ago started including a stopover of interest in the itinerary – a tour of Jewish Prague, a visit with Morocco’s Jewish community or even a meeting in Amman with the Jordanian foreign minister. During my tenure as Israel’s ambassador in Britain, more and more they included a stopover in London.

A UK visit was not just a matter of showing solidarity with a Jewish community undergoing a difficult period. The American Jews I met in London were anxious that Corbyn’s takeover of Britain’s Labour could be a sign of things to come in the Democratic Party.

Such fears were exacerbated following the 2019 phone call between Corbyn and US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a conversation that took place after Corbyn’s antisemitism had already received significant media coverage in the US. Corbyn, who at the time had legitimacy issues with social-democrats across Europe, thoroughly enjoyed his 45-minute discussion with the New York representative, tweeting: “Great to speak to @AOC on the phone this evening and hear first-hand how she’s challenging the status quo.” AOC responded with a warm tweet of her own: “It was an honor to share such a lovely and wide-reaching conversation with you, @jeremycorbyn!” Consistent with honoring Corbyn, she later pulled out of an event hosted by the dovish American Friends of Peace Now to commemorate assassinated prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yitzhak Rabin.

Does the Iron Dome funding episode indicate that “the chickens have come home to roost?” Unclear. In Britain, the Jewish community played a decisive role in the effective public campaign against antisemitism in the Labour Party. If American Jews and their allies act with a determination akin to that shown in Britain, the Iron Dome funding affair may turn out to be just a troubling aberration. If not, the incident could very well be a milestone in the growing Corbynization of the Democratic Party. The latter development may have highly problematic implications for the American Jewish community and for the US-Israel partnership.

A discredited Corbyn was ultimately forced to resign his leadership after Labour’s unprecedented losses in the 2019 national elections, with the party’s faithful increasingly convinced that Corbynism was a prescription for keeping Labour out of office in perpetuity. Hopefully, Democrats are closely following developments across the pond.

Dreyfus, Zionism, and Sartre

A Jew most often combats the antisemite’s onslaught by being reasonable. He asks for fair treatment, as Dreyfus did, but this, Sartre points out, is a frail defense, which causes the Jew to further victimize himself, while inflaming the malice of his accusers.

Sartre has gotten much bad press for his claim that “it is the antisemite who makes the Jew.” But Sartre was being polemical—he ignored the rich resources of Jewish self-definition so he could focus on the Jew who was anxious about being a Jew. Such an anxious, inauthentic Jew, Sartre says, “has allowed himself to be persuaded by the anti-Semites ... He admits with them that, if there is a Jew, he must have the characteristics with which popular malevolence endows him, and his effort is to constitute himself a martyr, in the proper sense of the term [i.e., a witness], that is, to prove in his person that there are no Jews.”

Sartre’s analysis applies to those Jewish anti-Zionists who wish to wipe Jewish nationalism from the map and turn the Jew into the universal man or woman—a purely virtuous apostle of human rights (while at the same time applauding Palestinian nationalism). By contrast, Sartre was a committed Zionist who argued that the United Nations ought to have armed the Jews when the British departed from Palestine. In 1949, he said that the creation of Israel was one of the rare events that “allows us to preserve hope.” “I will never abandon this constantly threatened country whose existence ought not to be put into question,” he remarked in 1976. In Anti-Semite and Jew, composed before the birth of Israel, he wrote that the Jew “may also be led by his choice of authenticity to seek the creation of a Jewish nation possessing its own soil and autonomy.” Though Sartre also says one can be an authentic French Jew, this seems a less attractive option given pervasive French anti-Semitism.

For Sartre, as for Herzl, the Jew’s problem was rootlessness: the Jew ran the risk of becoming nothing except a defender of universal rights, and so not Jewish at all. By default, his loyalty, like Dreyfus’s, would belong to the nation-state that oppressed him. A new Jewish rootedness—Zionism—was needed instead. And so Sartre’s logic leads in a Zionist direction, though this remains less than explicit in Anti-Semite and Jew.

Near the end of his life, Sartre gave a lengthy interview to Benny Lévy, his young Maoist secretary, who later abandoned Marx and became a rabbi in Israel. Sartre shocked his leftist comrades by telling Lévy that Jewish messianism was superior to the Marxist ideology he had long championed. For the Jews, Sartre argued, each virtuous act is justified because it contributes to the coming of the Messiah, and this seemed to him a better idea than Marxist class warfare, since it spoke to Sartre’s ideal of committed personal action.

Most European Jews, instead of emigrating to Palestine, had either remained loyal like Dreyfus to the nations that scorned them, or simply hoped they could survive the coming persecution without leaving their homes. Their hopes were ruined. Outside Paris’ schools, the visitor can now see plaques commemorating the thousands of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis with the active assistance of the French state.

Dreyfus’ nephews fought and died for France in World War I. His son Pierre, who passed through the hell of Verdun, earned the Croix de guerre. Dreyfus himself died in 1935, too early to see French gendarmes deport his favorite granddaughter, Madeline, to Auschwitz.

Museum unveils 14th century hand-painted scroll depicting ancient Israel

The Israel Museum unveiled the Florence Scroll on Wednesday, a hand-painted scroll from the 14th century which is now displayed unrolled to its full length inside the glass vitrine of a museum gallery.

The nearly 11-meter parchment is the focus of “Painting a Pilgrimage,” the exhibit depicting the pilgrimage of a medieval Egyptian Jew from Cairo to the Land of Israel, the earliest known visual travelogue of the Holy Land.

It’s a scroll dominated by the cherry red, leaf green and ochre yellow lines that make up its 130 illustrations, displaying holy sites located from Egypt to Lebanon and offering one painter’s idea of what the region looked like 700 years ago.

“Scrolls are usually rolled up and kept out of the light, so the colors are kept sharp and bright,” said Rachel Sarfati, the senior curator who has been researching the scroll for the last 14 years.

The parchment includes illustrations of Egyptian and Lebanese landscapes, a central drawing of the Temple Mount, others of Mount Sinai, the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Tower of David.

It’s a relic that depicts sites and places built and visited in ancient times, yet in a landscape that is very familiar to the museum visitors, accentuated in the “Painting a Pilgrimage” exhibit with hands-on, digital maps and two wall-sized slide shows offering a pictorial view of those locations in modern times.

“Rachel Sarfati curated this, she realized its importance and brought it to light,” said museum director Ido Bruno at the opening on Wednesday night.

Ethnic cleansing, illustrated (infographic)

I has seen variants of this graphic, but I wanted to emphasize the percentage loss of Jews in Arab countries.

10/08 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Europe's deadly hypocrisy; Ruthie Blum: UNRWA’s deceitful ploys to stifle Israeli truth-telling; Golda Meir: World will ‘throw us to the dogs’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Europe's deadly hypocrisy

The European Commission released on Tuesday its first official strategy on fighting antisemitism and promoting Jewish life.

The programme is intended to prevent antisemitism in all its forms, promote Holocaust research, education and remembrance, and initiate programmes to raise awareness about Jewish life and culture in Europe.

The commission says it will lead the creation of a network of organisations across Europe to flag antisemitism content online, and will develop “counter-narratives.” It will also work with tech companies and retailers to prevent the online sale of Nazi-themed merchandise.

Yet the European Union continues to funnel money to the Palestinians even while they pour out antisemitism and remain committed to eradicating Israel. Their educational materials, for which the EU helps pay, promote hatred of Jews and incitement to murder Israelis and steal their land.

The EU also enables the Palestinian Authority to pay the families of terrorists for murdering Israelis. Last December, the PA announced that the EU had contributed 54 per cent of the cost of benefits for “needy” families.

By so substantially helping provide for the “Palestinian needy,” the EU allows the PA to use its own funds in order to pay rewards for terror. The purported wall between welfare assistance and “pay-for-slay” is an illusion.

The EU is also pouring money in to create a de facto Palestinian state, regardless of the Palestinian strategy of using such a state to destroy Israel — and while the EU condemns Israel for “illegally” building homes for Israelis in these disputed territories.

Ruthie Blum: UNRWA’s deceitful ploys to stifle Israeli truth-telling - opinion

Given the nature and mission of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan was prevented on Monday from entering the General Assembly hall with a prop proving the point he intended to make at a meeting about the organization.

The item was a poster illustrating the antisemitic views of an UNRWA school teacher in Gaza by praising Adolf Hitler. Erdan had equipped himself with the placard to refute the statements he knew were going to be made by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.

He had good reason to want to come prepared with visual evidence. The corrupt body, whose ill-deserved status as an agency for “refugees” keeps it in financial cover, continues to employ educators who regularly incite terrorism against Jews, both in the classroom and on social media.

This was one key impetus for the decision by the administration of former US president Donald Trump in 2018 to cut America’s entire aid budget to UNRWA. In the first place, the bloated agency has spent the many decades since its inception perpetuating the “refugee crisis,” rather than using its mandate to settle the approximately 600,000 “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict [Israel’s War of Independence].”

Second, and even more egregiously, it has actively and passively abetted terrorism. Not only does it hire people affiliated with Hamas, but the terrorist group that rules Gaza uses UNRWA schools and other buildings as facilities for the storage of weapons.

LIKE THE current White House, which in April restored massive aid to UNRWA, Lazzarini doesn’t seem to know or care that this is the case. Instead of vowing to root out such evil, he took the opportunity of the meeting in question to say that he’s “proud of UNRWA’s education system and its resources.”

UNRWA, he stated, “uses host country curricula in line with the best practices in refugee education.”

Visiting US envoy raises human rights with Israelis, terror payments with PA

The Biden administration’s envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raised human rights concerns during his meetings with Israeli officials, and US objections to the Palestinian Authority’s payments to security prisoners during his sit-downs in Ramallah this week.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was in the region from Monday to Thursday, meeting with government officials and civil society leaders with the stated goal of “equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians,” the US State Department said in a Thursday statement.

“Amr found his meetings with Palestinian civil society focused on the importance of human rights, as well as the need to provide hope, opportunity, and a political horizon, especially for young people. They also discussed the challenges activists and journalists are facing with freedom of expression and peaceful demonstration,” the State Department added.

The decision to highlight the desire among Palestinian civilians for greater freedom of expression appeared to be a shot at the PA, which cracked down brutally on protesters earlier this year and has been accused of ordering the killing of prominent government critic Nizar Banat, who died while in police custody this past June.

The US condemned Banat’s death and called for an independent probe into the incident. While the Biden administration views the PA as an important partner in the region, one it seeks to strengthen at the expense of the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group, Washington has grown frustrated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s authoritarian tactics, according to an official familiar with the matter.

But the frustration among those in the Biden administration dealing with the region is not limited to the PA. The US is also deeply concerned about Israeli plans to approve thousands of settlement units in the West Bank, the official added.

The Israel Guys: This Would Be the Worst Thing for the Palestinian People

Four different world leaders on all sides of the political spectrum have recently said that a Palestinian state is not a viable option. On today’s show, we talk about why a Palestinian state is suicide for both Israel, and the Palestinian people.

B’Tselem, who is supposed to be a human rights organization, got caught red-handed this week trying to frame Israel for setting fire to an Arab building. They didn’t realize an IDF soldier was watching.

Is there a building freeze happening in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria? Watch today’s show to find out.

(from a Twitter thread last night)

1. If you are pro-Palestinian, you are actively supporting the one group that has the highest percentage of antisemites in the world (Pew poll.)

2. If you are anti-Zionist, that means you say Jews - alone among all peoples = have no right to their own homeland in their historic home.

3. Israel-haters hate context: they compare Israel with a shining ideal but have nothing to say about anyone else. Singling out the Jewish state for vitriol is antisemitism.

4. Today's anti-Zionists have something in common with Hitler - they both hated Zionism.

5. The Israel-boycott movement says Israeli Arabs are Palestinians. They only boycott Israelis - meaning, only Jews. Textbook antisemitism.

6. There is a direct historical line between the Arabs boycotting Jews in the 1920s-40s and people boycotting Israeli Jews today.

7. Anti-Israel Arab media is unrepentantly antisemitic in Arabic. If you don't call it out, you condone it.

8. College campuses with the biggest anti-Israel populations are also the most antisemitic, according to studies.

9. Be real: the only reason anti-Zionists obsess over Israel when other countries are far worse is because it is filled with Jews.

10. Obsessive Israel-hatred is more a cult than a sober opinion. The only obsession comparable to it in history is classic Jew-hatred.

11. The Khazar theory is only popular among Israel haters because it says today's Jews have no historic right to the land of Israel. It's pure antisemitism.

12. Saying that Zionists control America and/or the media is literally identical to what the Protocols of the Elders of Zion says.

13. If you create or use definitions of "apartheid" or "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" in a way that only applies to Jews, you hate Jews.

14. The accusation of "Jewish supremacy" is directly out of the Nazi playbook.

15. Israel is a pretty remarkable country in thousands of ways. If you can't admit any of them, you aren't just a "critic of Israel." You hate Jews.

16. If you say that Jews do not have the right to pray on the Temple Mount, their holiest spot, you have a problem with Jews.

17. If you complain about "Judaization" of Jerusalem or any other important Biblical city, you have a problem with Jews.

18. If you claim to support Palestinians but don't have anything bad to say about how badly the Arab world treats Palestinians, you are just a Jew-hater.

19. If you twist Jewish ritual into anti-Israel ritual, you have a problem with Jews and Judaism.

20. Saying that you hate Nazi-style antisemitism but being okay with Soviet-style antisemitism means you support antisemitism.

21. The Palestinian nationalist movement was literally founded by someone who collaborated with Nazis because they both saw Jews as a common enemy.

22. Even the UN admits that calling for the destruction of Israel, including when the BDS movement does it, is antisemitic.

Yes, the UN.

Times of Israel's coverage on the Jerusalem court's decision that it is not a crime for Jews to silently pray on the Temple Mount adds some important details - and they indicate that this isn't as positive a move as it seems at first glance.

The background: A Jewish man, Aryeh Lippo, was "caught" by Israeli police silently praying on the Temple Mount, and they banned him from returning for 15 days.

Jerusalem magistrate court judge Bilha Yahalom ruled that his silent moving of lips could not be considered a crime and overturned the police ban.

She wrote: “The appellant stood in the corner with a friend or two, there was no crowd around him, his prayer was quiet, whispered.”

“I have not found that the religious acts carried out by the appellant were externalized and visible,” she ruled, determining that such prayer did “not violate police instructions,” and canceling his ban from the site.

This is a very narrow ruling. It doesn't legalize prayer; it just determines that silent prayer said alone does not violate the existing police instructions and the police overstepped their bounds by banning him.

The magistrate court is the lowest court, for minor offenses. This is not a major ruling. And the Israeli police are appealing it.

Advocates for equal rights for Jews on the Temple Mount are not impressed with the ruling:

Long-time activist for Jewish Temple Mount prayer Arnon Segal stressed that despite the ruling’s sentiment, “the simple truth is that (Jewish) prayer is prohibited on the Temple Mount.”

“There’s no change in policy,” he wrote on Twitter, noting that on Thursday police had detained a Jewish man for silent prayer, accusing the state of “trampling” the rights of those prevented from praying.

Segal further told AFP that not only was the ruling was not a precedent, but it would also likely harm his cause.

“The harsh Palestinian reaction to the very weak ruling will deter the justice system and the state from even enabling quiet prayers,” he said.

Indeed, the Muslim world is up in arms, with condemnations coming in from Turkey's Foreign Ministry to the Arab League.

Keep in mind that Jews have been unofficially performing communal prayers daily at the Temple Mount for years now - far beyond what Lippo was detained for. When Naftali Bennett said that Jews have such a right, the reaction caused his office to backtrack and support the bigoted "status quo."

Notably, Bennett did not delete his original social media posts saying Jews have the right to worship.

If the Israeli government and Israeli police are not vocally supporting the Jewish right to worship on the Temple Mount, and they are willing to cave to Arab pressure on the issue, then this ruling will backfire.

A much more important ruling on the issue was made by Israel's High Court earlier this year.

In a ruling earlier this year on a petition demanding Temple Mount prayer rights for Jews, Israel’s Supreme Court found that “every Jew has the right to pray on the Temple Mount, as part of the freedom of religion and expression.”

“At the same time, these rights are not absolute, and can be limited to take into account the public interest.”

This is far more expansive and it asserts that Jewish worship is a right - something that the detractors are denying. It is true that public safety is an important concern, but to say that silent prayer endangers public safety is to say that fanatic Jew-hating Muslims have unlimited veto power over Jewish rights by simply threatening violence for the slightest perceived affront.

The fact is that the twice daily prayers that Jews have been performing for years at the little-traveled eastern section of the Temple Mount have not caused any riots or disturbances. Even the Arab Waqf guards are there and watch. The prayers don't disturb anyone.

This ruling, paradoxically, can endanger this new status quo of respectful Jewish prayer - because the antisemites will use any excuse to escalate tensions against Jews. Which is exactly what we are seeing today.

If you have any doubt about the antisemitic intentions of the people supposedly outraged at a Jew moving his lips, here is a video from the Palestinian Safa news agency about the topic - with discordant, scary music playing while showing religious Jews praying at the Western Wall.

Jew-haters should not determine what Jewish rights are.

The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed, has issued his final report on antisemitism.

It is actually good.

The litmus test is whether the report admits that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, and it definitely does.

Excerpts:

The Special Rapporteur also takes note of numerous reports of an increase in many countries of what is sometimes called “left-wing” antisemitism, in which individuals claiming to hold anti-racist and anti-imperialist views employ antisemitic narratives or tropes in the course of expressing anger at the policies or practices of the Government of Israel. In some cases, individuals expressing such views have engaged in Holocaust denial; in others, they have conflated Zionism, the self-determination movement of the Jewish people, with racism, claimed that Israel does not have a right to exist and accused those expressing concern about antisemitism of acting in bad faith. The Special Rapporteur emphasizes that it is never acceptable to render Jews as proxies for the Government of Israel. He further recalls that the Secretary-General has characterized “attempts to delegitimize the right of Israel to exist, including calls for its destruction” as a contemporary manifestation of antisemitism.

The Special Rapporteur further notes the claims that the objectives, activities and effects of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement are fundamentally antisemitic. ...He recalls that international law recognizes boycotts as legitimate forms of political expression and that non-violent expressions of support for boycotts are, as a general matter, legitimate speech that should be protected. However, he also stresses that expression that draws on antisemitic tropes or stereotypes, rejects the right of Israel to exist or advocates discrimination against Jewish individuals because of their religion, should be condemned.

The Special Rapporteur received numerous reports that in countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Jews are frequently conflated with Israel and Zionism, even in countries with a deep history of Jewish life. Literature demonizing Jews is prevalent in the media in the region. 31 It was reported that school textbooks in Saudi Arabia contained antisemitic passages, with some even urging violence against Jews. In August, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed serious concern “about the existence of hate speech, in particular hate speech directed against Israelis, which at times fuels antisemitism towards this group, in certain media outlets, in particular those controlled by Hamas, as well as on social media, in public officials’ statements and in school curricula and textbooks, which also fuels hatred and may incite violence” (CERD/C/PSE/CO/1-2, para. 19 (c))

He is a little more nuanced in his discussion of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, but he ultimately endorses it:

The Special Rapporteur notes that critics of the working definition have expressed concern that it can be applied in ways that could effectively restrict legitimate political expression, including criticism of policies and practices being promoted by the Government of Israel that violate the rights of Palestinians. Such concerns are focused on three of the illustrative examples attached to the definition, namely, claiming that the existence of Israel is a racist endeavour; requiring of Israel a behaviour not demanded of other democratic States; comparing the government policy of Israel with that of the Nazis. The Special Rapporteur notes that the definition developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance does not designate them as examples of speech that are ipso facto antisemitic and further observes that a contextual assessment is required under the definition to determine whether they are antisemitic. Nevertheless, the potential chilling effects of the use of those examples by public bodies on speech that is critical of policies and practices of the Government of Israel must be taken seriously, as should the concern that criticism of Israel sometimes has been used to incite hatred towards Jews in general, including through expression that feeds on traditional antisemitic stereotypes of Jews. Therefore, the use of the definition, as a non-legal educational tool, could minimize such chilling effects and contribute usefully to efforts to combat antisemitism. When public bodies use the definition in any regulatory context, due diligence must be exercised to ensure that freedom of expression within the law is protected for all.

...The Special Rapporteur recognizes that the working definition of antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance can offer valuable guidance for identifying antisemitism in its various forms and therefore encourages States to adopt it for use in education and awareness-raising and for monitoring and responding to manifestations of antisemitism. The Special Rapporteur recommends its use as a critical non-legal educational tool...

Notably, this comes on the heels of the EU 10-year Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life which also supports the IHRA working definition.

UPDATE: Apologies, this report came out in 2019. I thought it was new because the author's original tweet for it was retweeted.