Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Breaking the Silence, Peace Now and Hamas agree: Jews should not be allowed in Judaism's second holiest site for Chanukah

Israel's President Isaac Herzog plans to light the first Chanukah candle in Hebron, at the Tomb of the Patriarchs - Judaism's second holiest place.

The reactions from the "moderate" Palestinian Authority and "extremist" Hamas were nearly identical.

Mahmoud al-Habbash, advisor for religious affairs to Mahmoud Abbas, and Husam Abu al-Rub, undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, said that Herzog's visit represents a provocation to the feelings of the Palestinians, and to the feelings of millions of Arabs and Muslims.

Hamas said that the visit would be "a provocation to the feelings of the Palestinian people and a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the Ibrahimi Mosque." It warned that "the occupation bears full responsibility for the repercussions of this attack," calling on the Palestinians in the West Bank, and Hebron in particular, to "confront this provocative step and confront the attack on the Ibrahimi Mosque."

But Leftist Israeli groups are no less strident.

Breaking the Silence, Peace Now and other groups plan to protest in Hebron, making a pun on "The Days of Chanukah" into the "Days of Chanufah - Impiety/Hypocrisy:"

Israel's previous President Reuven Rivlin also visited Hebron, also to protests.

Hamas and the Leftist protesters agree: Jews should not be allowed to visit their holy places unless the Muslims generously allow them to.

Historically, Jews were never allowed to enter the Tomb of the Patriarchs (or the Temple Mount) when they were under Muslim rule. Jews had a pay an annual protection payment to ensure that Muslims wouldn't destroy Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and that they would be allowed to visit the Western Wall. Right now, the only way Jews can visit places like the synagogue in Jericho or Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus) is under permission from the PA and IDF protection.

That is what these groups want the status quo to return to.

According to these groups, freedom of religion is not a human right - but Muslim antisemitism is.

UPDATE: All Palestinian media headlines at this moment say "Herzog stormed the Ibrahimi mosque."

On Thursday, I reported on the insanely antisemitic resolution passed by the University of Toronto at Scarborough Student Union (SCSU) that demanded that all student groups - meaning Jewish student groups - actively support boycotting Israel in order to be accepted, and that all suppliers of kosher food to Jewish students must also be anti-Israel (although the new fascists might allow exceptions if they decide that it is absolutely necessary for Jews to eat.)

On Friday, the adults in the room made a statement about how unacceptable this new brand of antisemitic fascism is on campus.

From the President of the University of Toronto, Meric Gertler:

The University of Toronto is opposed to all forms of discrimination, and committed to the protection of freedom of speech and academic freedom. The University was alarmed to learn about two motions passed at the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) Annual General Meeting on November 24. Both motions are inconsistent with the University of Toronto’s core values of freedom of speech and inclusion.

One motion reaffirmed SCSU’s commitment to the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement; another concerns the rights of Jewish students at UTSC. Student organizations are free to take positions on a wide variety of controversial topics. Student societies for which the University collects mandatory fees based on registration must abide by our Policy on Open, Accessible and Democratic Autonomous Student Societies. This Policy simultaneously affirms the independent operation of autonomous student societies and the requirement that “autonomy must be exercised in a manner that is compliant with the law and University policy. Further, all Student Organizations must conduct themselves in an open, accessible and democratic manner.”

One of the requirements in the BDS motion is that SCSU “refrain from engaging with organizations, services, or participating in events that further normalize Israeli apartheid.” The motion allows an exception for suppliers of Kosher food if “no alternatives are available.” A requirement that providers of food as a religious accommodation be required to apply for an exemption, or even be asked about their views about issues elsewhere in the world is unacceptable.

So too is the striking of the language about academic freedom from the second motion. Academic freedom is an individual right, and the Policy on Open, Accessible and Democratic Autonomous Student Societies requires that these organizations must permit their members to determine which positions to take. Nor should they restrict the speakers that they can invite, or organizations with which they can cooperate based on their connections to a particular country.

The motions are specifically focused on Israel in a way that is troubling to many members of the community. Such motions would be no more acceptable if focused on another country, or if a student organization in which members are enrolled by their registration were to take multiple stands on a wide variety of issues.

The University’s place in society requires that its members be free to take positions on controversial questions. These issues are addressed by a number of University of Toronto policies, including the Statement on Freedom of Speech and the Policy on the Recognition of Student Groups. According to our Statement of Institutional Purpose,

The University of Toronto is dedicated to fostering an academic community in which the learning and scholarship of every member may flourish, with vigilant protection for individual human rights, and a resolute commitment to the principles of equal opportunity, equity and justice.

Within the unique university context, the most crucial of all human rights are the rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom, and freedom of research. And we affirm that these rights are meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the university itself.

These requirements apply directly to the SCSU motions. It is not acceptable to impose political tests on the recognition of Jewish student groups on any of the University of Toronto campuses. It is unacceptable to impose political tests on suppliers of Kosher or any other type of food.

The University will be following up with the SCSU to address our concerns.

Meric S. Gertler
President

The statement is way too polite. The people behind these motions were themselves violating University policy, not to mention basic decency and liberal standards, and they should be put on notice. Putting a purity test on student groups and on suppliers of goods and services is, simply, fascism.

Singling out Jews by making a specific motion banning kosher food from vendors who are not sufficiently anti-Israel is clear-cut antisemitism, and President Gertler should have called that out. As the Jewish Student Life group at U of T mentions:

Although there were many strong comments made by the University in our support, there is a need to call out bigotry by name when it is so clearly manifested. The actions of the SCSU were not simply political disagreement. The passing of these motions is an act of blatant antisemitism and must be addressed as such.

I am also troubled by one sentence: "The University’s place in society requires that its members be free to take positions on controversial questions." This implies that supporting the existence of the only Jewish state in the world is controversial. It is not; it is mainstream. Calling it controversial is essentially saying that one supports the positions of such human rights luminaries as Algeria, Syria and Iran. When President Gertler says a statement like that, it shows that the haters have scored a victory in putting Israel's very existence into question even in this statement against them.

Gertler's mother survived the Holocaust and he has lectured in Israel, so no doubt the modern fascist antisemites will claim that his position is due to his being "Zionist," not because he is right.

Every once in a while one can see the birth of a new conspiracy theory in the Arab world.

This one is a doozy.

Palestinian news site Amad reports that the Egypt-based Justice and Development Organization for Human Rights, which we recently noted supports Hamas terrorism, has figured out why the US is pushing normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states.

According to this theory, because of climate change, millions of Jews will want to emigrate from the US and Europe to Israel.

Israel is too small to accommodate them, so - according to Zaidan al-Qani, its spokesperson - the US hatched a plan with Israel to push normalization with Arab countries so that the millions of Jews have a place to go.

Al-Qani added that Arab governments are implementing the "deal of the century" with its various clauses in agreement with the United States of America, with the aim of opening the doors of Arab countries to settle Jews displaced from Europe and America.

It's a little unclear why only Jews would be displaced in this future climate catastrophe. But it takes time for crazy conspiracy theories to flesh out.

11/27 Links: The 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai helped shape Israel-India relations; Canada’s Largest Labor Union Rejects Israel Boycott by 2-to-1 Margin; Hearing the cantor sing the prayer for IDF soldiers… in Morocco

From Ian:

The 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai helped shape Israel-India relations

November 26 marks 13 years since the terror attacks in Mumbai, India. On that night, in 2008, 10 gunmen associated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT – “Army of the Righteous”) organization attacked five locations in the city, firing at random, with the simple intention of killing the maximum number of people. The attackers deliberately targeted areas of the city frequented by foreigners, evidently with the intention that this would maximize the global impact of their actions.

Among the sites targeted was Nariman House, known also as “Chabad House.” Six Israeli citizens were tortured and murdered at this site, which had been deliberately selected by the organizers. Among the dead Israelis were Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, who managed the Chabad House. Sandra Samuel, an Indian citizen who worked as a nanny for the Holtzbergs, famously risked her own life to save their then two-year-old son, Moshe.

The Mumbai attacks did not conclude on the evening of November 26, 2008. Rather, the gunmen took hostages and held off the Indian security forces for three days. The final death toll was 165 killed, consisting of 140 Indian citizens and 25 foreign visitors. Nine of the 10 gunmen were also killed. The 10th was apprehended by the authorities, convicted of murder, and executed four years later.

The Mumbai attacks were a profoundly traumatic event seared in the memory of the people of that city, and of India as a whole. Meanwhile, 13 years on, many unanswered questions remain regarding the perpetrators of the attacks, and who stood behind them.

The direct responsibility of the Sunni Islamist LeT group for the Mumbai killings is not in doubt. The captured gunman, Ajmal Kasab, admitted his membership of this organization, and described in detail the process in which he and his colleagues had trained in Pakistan, and set out for the attacks from Karachi, the capital of Pakistan’s Sindh province.

Canada’s Largest Labor Union Rejects Israel Boycott by 2-to-1 Margin

Canada’s largest labor union rejected a motion endorsing the movement to boycott Israel during its national convention on Thursday, by a broad margin that was applauded by Canadian Jewish groups.

Members of the 700,000-strong Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) held the body’s biennial summit online this week. Resolution No. 70 called for CUPE to “support the Palestinian people’s’ right to self determination and their demands to end Israel’s military occupation and colonization,” and to officially back the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Weighing the measure Thursday, CUPE members spurned the measure with 32% voting for and 68% against.

“CUPE members should be praised for standing up to the lies and intimidation of the BDS movement,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada, on Friday. “The passage of this motion would have inflicted great harm not only on Jewish and Israeli members of CUPE, but on all workers who benefit from trade between Canada and Israel.”

“CUPE has heeded the wise words of Tommy Douglas, Canada’s greatest labour icon: ‘The main enmity against Israel is that she has been an affront to those nations who do not treat their people and their workers as well as Israel has treated hers.’”

Commenting Friday, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said members voting against the resolution “chose peace over division.”

“BDS is an anti-Zionist, antisemitic movement that calls for the demonization and delegitimization of Israel and denies the Jewish people the universal right of self-determination,” CIJA said. “It does not stand for Palestinian rights.”

While the socialist Left pretends to support Palestinians, Palestinians sure don't support the Left

When BDS says that it was created by a call from "Palestinian civil society," or when the socialist Left complains that Israel is calling some "Palestinian human rights groups" fronts for terrorism, they try to give the impression that Palestinian society is a socialist paradise.

It is nothing of the sort.

While Palestinian terrorism had originally traditionally skewed far to the Left, with the most spectacular terror attacks of the 1960s and 70s coming from socialist organizations like the PFLP and its offshoots, the vast majority of Palestinian society is not interested in socialist ideals.

A new poll from the JMCC asked Palestinians about what should govern the Personal Status Law, and 72.3% of respondents said it should be based on Islamic Sharia.

More directly, the survey asked Palestinians which political party they would vote for in legislative elections. All the socialist parties combined - the PFLP, DFLP, PPP, FIDA - gather just 2% of the support of Palestinians.

The socialist Left is excellent at propaganda. They excel at making it appear that they have a groundswell of popular support. The entire concept of basing BDS on the call of "Palestinian civil society" which sounds very impressive while no one realizes it is on the fringe of Palestinian society as a whole is brilliant.

But when you support Palestinians, you are supporting people who show time after time that they support the most regressive positions in regards to social justice issues.

Here is an infographic I made in 2013 based on a Pew poll that shows the side of Palestinian society that the Western media ignores.

11/26 Links Pt2: Lyn Julius: Exodus commemoration is an antidote to denial; Should J Street Be Welcome in Westchester?; The Canadian 'Falcon of Malta' who died for Israel

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The 1620 Project

Four hundred years ago this month, the Mayflower set sail for the New World. On board was William Bradford, who would serve for decades as governor of Plymouth Colony and whose memoir is still the central source of knowledge about the colonists’ triumphs and travails. His grave is in Plymouth as well, an obelisk marking the spot and bearing his name. But above the engraved English words three words appear, etched in Hebrew: Adonai ezer hayai, the Lord is the help of my life. To most tourists, the Hebrew words are gibberish, but to Jews who come upon them, they are a source of fascination—and a reminder, 400 years after the Mayflower set sail, of the remarkable tale of America itself. The origin of the intriguing epitaph can be found in Nick Bunker’s fascinating book on the Pilgrims, Making Haste from Babylon. There he reveals Bradford’s fascination with Hebrew, and how, at the end of his life, he began to study what he saw as a sacred script. “I have had a longing desire,” Bradford reflected, “to see with my owne eyes, something of that most ancient language, and holy tongue … and what names were given to things, from the Creation.” With paper scarce, Bradford “copied out his exercises on blank pages at the front of the manuscript of his history of the plantation. He covered the white space with nearly 900 Hebrew words, starting with eight names for God.” Bradford’s Pilgrims, like the Puritans who would follow him, “wished to swim back up the stream of learning, and to absorb the wisdom of the Bible from as close to the source as possible.” They sought out Christian exegetes with interests similar to theirs, who “read with sympathy the rabbis of the Roman Empire, Egypt, and medieval Spain, authors whose books were preserved by the Jews of Germany or Venice.”

Bunker further reveals that Bradford’s engagement with Jewish tradition began on the Mayflower itself. One book he carried with him was a commentary on the Psalms by the Hebraist Henry Ainsworth. While Ainsworth was interested in the vastness of rabbinic tradition, he was in love with Maimonides, whom he called “the wisest of the Hebrew Rabbins.” Ainsworth cites Maimonides in explaining how Psalm 107 serves as the source for Jews to express gratitude to God after successfully crossing a wilderness or a treacherous body of water. Bradford’s brethren could certainly identify with this teaching, and his memoir, which references the words of this Psalm, recounts that upon arriving safely at Cape Cod, the Pilgrims expressed their own gratitude to the Almighty. The feast that we annually commemorate today would not come until 1621, but, as Bunker reflects: “If we could ask William Bradford to define the first Thanksgiving in America, he would point to something else. He would say that it took place at the instant of arrival, at the moment on Cape Cod when the Pilgrims fell on their knees to say the Jewish prayer.”

Bradford’s Hebraism set the stage for what would follow. The Puritans who arrived after the Mayflower were equally obsessed with the people of Israel. This was succinctly and sublimely described by George W. Bush in remarks to Israel’s Knesset: The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: “Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.” The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.

Lyn Julius: Exodus commemoration is an antidote to denial

Professor Mohamed Aboulghar is a busy man—an obstetrician, politician and amateur historian who has published two books on the Jews of Egypt. Apparently, they are selling like hotcakes. At a recent Zoom meeting, however, his assertion that few Jews had been driven out after the 1956 Suez crisis, and that the rest had left of their own free will, provoked outrage.

Some 25,000 Jews were forced out: Dozens of Egyptian Jews could testify to having been expelled at 24 hours’ notice, or interned for months and put on a ship leaving Egypt, their property sequestered without compensation.

As the saying goes, “denial is a river in Egypt”—but denial is not confined to the Arab world. Plenty of academics and opinion-makers in the West believe that Jews and Muslims coexisted peacefully before Israel was established. Executions in Iraq? Torture in Egyptian prisons? Deadly riots in Libya? If all this was not a figment of the Jewish imagination, they say, it was “understandable backlash” for which the Zionists are ultimately to blame. (The Farhud massacre in Iraq seven years before the establishment of Israel, and the Tritl in Fez, Morocco, in 1912, are harder to explain.)

Jews who look back to their idyllic childhoods in Arab countries have themselves contributed to Exodus denial. Their golden age only lasted as long as the colonial era in the Middle East and North Africa. Arab nationalism soon marginalized and oppressed minorities. Other Jews suppress negative memories because they suffer from a kind of dhimmi syndrome, a survival strategy developed more than 14 centuries of “coexistence” that entails silence and submission.

President Herzog marks 30 November

This year, Israel President Isaac Herzog will mark 30th November, the date designated to commemorate the exodus of 850,000 Jews from Arab lands and Iran with a reception, live-streamed to a global audience and hosted jointly with Merav Cohen, minister for Social Equality, at the President’s residence in Jerusalem. After the formalities, organisations representing the different communities have been invited to join him for a tour of the residence, which was home to the President when his father Chaim Herzog was himself President.

The commemoration has a personal significance for President Isaac Herzog, as his mother Aura (nee Ambache) was a Jew from Egypt, born in Ismailia. Her sister Suzy married the great diplomat Abba Eban. The President has often mentioned that his mother’s family had fled Egypt in 1948, leaving all their possessions behind.

The Ambache family was among 11,000 Ashkenazi Jews driven out from Palestine during World War I by the Ottoman Turks, mostly because they were identified with the Turkish enemy Russia. The Palestinian Jews found refuge in Egypt. They were helped to resettle by the local Sephardi community. They joined other Ashkenazi refugees fleeing the Tsarist pogroms at the turn of the 20th century. Egypt was the only Arab country to host a Jewish community composed of both Sephardim and Ashkenazim.

11/26 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Israel needs a narrative strategy. This is why; Hamas urges Hebron unrest in reaction to Israeli president’s planned Hanukkah visit

From Ian:

Mark Regev: Anti-Zionism, antisemitism does nothing to help Palestinians

THERE IS a lesson here for all the militant “friends” of the Palestinians worldwide. Demonization of Israel, unequivocal backing of maximalist demands and fervent opposition to any concessions, does nothing to help the Palestinians. Such positions only support the perpetuation of the futile hardline approach that created the Nakba in the first place.

From Dublin to Durban to Detroit, those urging the Palestinians to remain steadfast and unbending, proclaiming their belief in ultimate victory, are peddling a lie. Every vector points in the opposite direction. With each passing year Israel is stronger; more powerful militarily, more influential diplomatically, more integrated regionally, more consequential economically, more sizable demographically and more advanced technologically.

There is no evidence that Palestinians will somehow be able to dictate terms, and by promoting a maximalist stance divorced from the strategic realities these “friends” are emboldening the intransigence that can only lead the Palestinian people to a political dead end.

Such an untenable position can have no logic unless the militants’ publicly professed solidarity with the Palestinians is merely a veil for the oldest of hatreds. Of course, charges of antisemitism often face a knee-jerk rejection, portrayed as an attempt to silence criticism of Israel. But to refute the connection between radical pro-Palestinianism and antisemitism is to disavow reality.

First, on the substantive level, anti-Zionist activists deny Jewish peoplehood and reject the Jews’ right to national self-determination. This while championing the very same right for others, the Palestinians. When you uphold a universal principle, but oppose it for the Jews, what is that called?

Second, there have been a series of documented cases where groups ostensibly established to support Palestinian rights have been exposed for being awash with antisemitic bigotry, Holocaust revisionism and Jewish conspiracy theories. David Collier’s 2017 report on the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign is but one of numerous such examples. This is not a new phenomenon. In his autobiographical Once Upon a Country, acclaimed Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh describes being in London on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War, searching for a pro-Palestinian event among what he perceived as being wall-to-wall British public support for Israel. When finally coming across such a meeting Nusseibeh discovers it is being hosted by neo-Nazis.

Finally, social scientists have found a clear statistical correlation between anti-Israel activism and antisemitism. When surveyed, hardcore pro-Palestinian activists are more likely than others to hold strong antisemitic prejudices, soft pro-Palestinian activists are more likely than others to be mild antisemites (see Jewish Policy Research’s 2017 “Antisemitism in contemporary Great Britain: A study of attitudes towards Jews and Israel”).

Melanie Phillips: Israel needs a narrative strategy. This is why

Israel needs to develop a strategy that shapes the narrative rather than – as at present – trying to defend itself on ground chosen by its enemies. Rather than merely responding to the onslaught, it should be constantly placing essential but rarely stated truths into the public domain.

It should be pointing out, for example, that there is nothing illegal about its "settlements" that are underpinned by international law. It should be calling out Western governments for misrepresenting the Geneva conventions in the false claim of "illegal occupation."

It should constantly be driving home the fact that that the Jews are the only extant indigenous people of the land. It should be publicizing the Palestinian Authority's Nazi-style portrayal of the Jewish people as bloodsuckers controlling the world – and pointing out that this vile agenda is actively supported and promoted by supposed "anti-racists" in the West. And so on.

Yet Israel has no such proactive strategy.

Understandably, it is preoccupied with the need to fight off the immediate threats to Israeli lives from its genocidal enemies bristling with weapons on its borders and on its streets. It's also frightened of not playing by the diplomatic rules and thus upsetting its friends in the west, however false they may be.

More fundamentally, it believes that trying to influence Britain or Europe, with their terrible histories of endemic antisemitism, is a useless endeavor.

This is a bad mistake. In Britain at least, many support the Palestinian narrative of lies simply because they haven't the faintest idea of the truth. And that's because Israel doesn't provide it for them.

America and the West ignore the reality about Iran or the Palestinians or the Muslim Brotherhood because they take refuge in the fantasy that the world is shaped in their own image.

Israel is in the unique position of being both of the West and at the same time of the Middle East. It is therefore uniquely equipped to educate the West out of this dangerous fantasy. That it chooses not to do so is a tragic mistake, both for Israel itself and for the world.

UN Watch: Protecting Human Rights

On Thursday, November 25, at 12 pm EST, UN Watch’s Fundraising Campaign continues. Hillel Neuer will speak about how we protect human rights, fight dictatorships, and answer your questions on the subject.

Mark your calendars and send your questions in advance to: campaign@unwatch.org

About the Campaign:
UN Watch needs to raise $500,000 by the end of November to ensure the continuation of its vital work. We are turning to our social media community to help us reach our goal.

We are only 1 week away and still need to raise $335,000!

To take part in the campaign, all you have to do is make a $5 donation and inspire 5 friends to do the same so that we can reach our $500,000 target by the end of November. It might not sound like much, but if every one of our social media followers gives $5 and asks 5 friends to do the same, we will surely hit our goal.

Donate now, visit: www.unwatch.org/2021-donate

As part of the Campaign, Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of UN Watch, will be holding a series of exclusive Live events, during which he will talk about the main pillars of our work and answer your questions.

Palestinians more and more alarmed at Israeli agreements with Arab countries

The pace of normalization between Israel and Arab countries is, if anything accelerating.

This week we saw Israel and Morocco signing a security deal, Israel's former defense minister “Bogie” Ya’alon announced a new Israeli-owned venture capital fund in the UAE, American Jewish leaders are openly visiting Gulf leaders, the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem wrote an op-ed in the Khaleej Times, and Qatar reached an agreement with Israel for the diamond trade, allowing Israeli companies to open there.

Any one of these would have front page news two years ago. Now they are happening every day.

Palestinians are alarmed at losing their Arab patrons, who for so many years they were able to bully in the name of "Arab unity."

This cartoon in Felesteen shows this antipathy with an illustration that would be considered very positive for Israel and very negative for Palestinians.

The caption says "Security and economic agreements with the occupation."

What BDS and Holocaust revisionists have in common

In the early 1990s, the Internet Usenet forums were flooded by Holocaust deniers with long, detailed articles that purported to show that the Holocaust never happened.

This upset a lot of people, as most of the newsgroups were not moderated and no one could keep them out. Some would ignore them, some tried to create a new group where people could argue about the Holocaust.

Most people didn't notice that the antisemites were using the forums to refine their arguments to become more effective.

The points that were easily debunked were dropped, while arguments that could not be as easily countered were promoted and refined. Blatant antisemitism was reduced while pseudo-scientific arguments were improved in order to make the Holocaust deniers appear more reasonable and interested in historic research and debate.

In less than a year, the antisemites had managed to transform themselves from looking like bigots into looking like historians who were just challenging the conventional narrative. Without knowing the context of where they came from and a deep knowledge of the subject matter, their heavily footnoted papers appeared to have some legitimacy and could fool people who did not understand the nature of propaganda.

The so-called revisionists did not become any less antisemitic. They still subscribe to conspiracy theories where Jews are promoting myths to gain power. But by leveraging the nascent Internet, they learned how to hide their antisemitism better and present themselves as promoting a legitimate alternative history.

In many ways, this is the story of the movement to boycott Israel today.

BDS didn't come out of a vacuum. It is a direct continuation of the Arab boycotts of Israel throughout the 20th century. But the Arab boycott movement had mostly run out of steam by the turn of the century., and BDS came along to modify it and avoid the pitfalls that defeated the Arab boycott.

For one thing, like the Holocaust deniers, the Arab boycott was explicitly antisemitic. It demanded that companies that wanted to deal with Arab countries answer questions about whether their owners or board members were Jewish. It blacklisted Jewish actors and performers. It extended into boycotting Jewish bankers in the 1970s. It didn't allow Jewish employees of multinational companies to set foot in their borders. Blatant antisemitism was not a good look.

Another more technical issue is that the US passed laws against the Arab boycott. The Office of Antiboycott Compliance summarizes its goals: "These authorities discourage, and in some circumstances, prohibit U.S. companies from taking certain actions in furtherance or support of a boycott maintained by a foreign country against a country friendly to the United States (unsanctioned foreign boycott)."

US anti-boycott laws are specifically against boycotts by foreign countries. So BDS emphasizes that it is supposedly a grassroots, non-government movement, answering a call from "Palestinian civil society," to boycott Israel.

This is also why the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have not officially supported BDS, even though they encourage their own citizens to boycott Israel. (In 2018, the Central Council of the PLO did explicitly endorse BDS, but it is unclear if that has any official standing as a government body.) If they called on the world to support BDS, then the US anti-boycott regulations would kick in and US citizens would be penalized. The state-level anti-BDS laws are meant, in part, to counter the loophole that BDS exploited to ensure the campaign does not run afoul of US laws at the national level.

For its part, the BDS movement goes out of its way to deny any connection with the Arab League boycotts, saying "BDS activists are not acting in accordance with the Arab League boycott, which calls for boycott and divestment of any corporation doing business with or in Israel. Modern BDS campaigns take their cues directly from Palestinian civil society groups – not governments or political parties." This is directly to avoid US and possibly European sanctions.

The BDS proponents are just as antisemitic as their progenitors. Their movement is a continuation of the Arab boycott. Like the Holocaust deniers, they play up the pretense that they are legitimate players. Like the Holocaust deniers, they try to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors to appear more legitimate.

And as with the Holocaust deniers, those who see clearly see that they are just as antisemitic as they have ever been.

At this time, Palestinian society is extremely worried about Jewish schoolchildren.

Israel is considering encouraging schools to go on field trips to the Temple Mount, and Palestinian media has been talking about it non-stop.

On Thursday, the main preacher at Al Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, issued a statement today about how Jewish schoolchildren visiting Judaism's most sacred place is somehow an existential danger Al Aqsa mosque.

Warning: extreme hyperbole alert.

The preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, warned today, Thursday, of an “existential danger” threatening the blessed mosque, as it was transformed into a lawless intrusion arena for students of settlement schools, as part of their compulsory tours.

Sabri said that the occupation's transformation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque into a shrine for settlement schools is an attempt to promote the Jewish character of Jerusalem and end the Islamic landmarks in it.

He added that the occupation wants to make Jerusalem the capital of the Jews, and accordingly it completes its procedures with the purely Jewish characteristics to say that Jerusalem is Jewish.

He continued, "We've said before that Al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger, but today it is really facing dangers."

He considered the decision to include Al-Aqsa in the program of trips to the settlement schools as "a blatant interference in the affairs of the mosque, and an insult to its sanctity and its courtyards."

Sheikh Sabri stressed that Al-Aqsa Mosque is above being subject to the decisions of the Israeli Knesset or the occupation courts, as it is for Muslims alone and by a divine decision. "We categorically reject the Israeli decision regarding Al-Aqsa, and we hold the occupation government fully responsible for any damage to the blessed mosque," he added.

He cautioned about the seriousness of the decision, which violates Al-Aqsa courtyards, intensifies the presence of Jews inside it, and tightens the noose around Muslims, indicating that this step is in the interest of imposing Israeli sovereignty over the mosque.

Sheikh Sabri pointed out that "these extremist Jewish groups feel that the atmosphere is ripe for them to attack Al-Aqsa Mosque."

The preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque called on the people of Palestine and Jerusalem to "intensify the pilgrimage to the blessed mosque, and to reconstruct it permanently, to repel any possibility that we might be surprised by the extremist Jews."

Not a word about Zionists or Israelis visiting - only Jews.

The Temple Mount is a microcosm of the entire conflict. Israel wants to share with the Muslims, Muslims want to expel the Jews.

11/25 Links Pt2: Hitler Intended to Eradicate the Jews of the Middle East; Patriotic Manhattan synagogue has celebrated Thanksgiving since 1789; Jewish A Cappella Group Drops ‘West Side Story’ Hanukkah Parody

From Ian:

Hitler Intended to Eradicate the Jews of the Middle East

As German historians Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers have detailed, Rauff carried out a “reign of terror” against Tunisian Jews that included conscripting 5,000 for forced labour. But with shipping to Europe under constant attack, Rauff could not carry out the larger SS plan to send Tunisia’s Jews to death camps in Europe.

The Nazis’ intentions to carry the war against the Jews beyond Europe never wavered. Ultimately, though, defeat at El Alamein turned the tables and kept the SS from carrying out its plans.

Yet leaving north Africa and the Middle East out of Holocaust history has erased the suffering of many of the Nazis’ victims and obscured the full significance of the victory at El Alamein.

Early in 2021, I received an email from the scientist Michael Bevan, son of Lance Corporal John Bevan of the Second New Zealand Division, who fought and was taken prisoner at El Alamein. “My father always thought they were fighting to preserve the British empire,” he wrote, which for “a colonial was not a high priority.” Only in the winter of 1945 in Germany, when as a prisoner of war his father saw female slave labourers building an airfield, did he fully grasp “the evils he had fought to contain”.

Therefore, the soldier’s son went on, understanding how the Eighth Army “established the El Alamein line”, and thus prevented genocide in the Middle East, “has brought new and deserved honour to the brave men of my father’s generation, who fought and suffered in Egypt.”

For their sake, too, the story must be told.

Giving Thanks in America

When Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot, a theatrical salute to the power of love in modern-day America, made its debut on Broadway in 1908, it brought down the house. How could it not? The production’s melodramatic staging of New World promise had something for everyone—family tension, musical bravura, patriotism, romance—and a host of visual clues to anchor it. Act I, for instance, featured a prominently displayed American flag in the home of a recently arrived Jewish immigrant family—you couldn’t miss it even if seated in the cheap seats—while the drama’s concluding coup de theatre involved the Statute of Liberty.

In the course of their daily lives, America’s immigrants didn’t have too many opportunities to demonstrate their love of country in a forum that felt true, unforced, and from the heart. The Melting Pot provided them with one.

The celebration of Thanksgiving furnished the nation’s newest Jewish arrivals, as well as those of long standing, with yet another. The two communities took eagerly to this most American of holidays, both on its own terms and, most especially, in relation to what some of their number defined as its biblical pedigree. Long before the New World gave rise to Thanksgiving, the Israelites of the ancient Near East, it was proudly said, had celebrated a national “day of gratitude”: Sukkot.

Now and again, flag waving and Thanksgiving went hand in hand. Jewish organizations that helped to familiarize immigrant children and their families with American culture often made a point of linking the two. In 1900, for instance, New York’s Educational Alliance held a “special Thanksgiving service” at which 50 young boys and girls, each bearing two small American flags “crossed on their breast,” marched in formation to the head of the auditorium. One young girl, “slightly larger than the rest,” or so the New-York Tribune reported, then waved an equally large flag, after which the children “in concert” recited the following pledge: “Flag of our great Republic, inspirer in battle, guardian of our homes, whose stars and stripes stand for Bravery, Purity, Truth and Union, we salute thee!” No sooner had they concluded this verbal display then they were once again put through their paces by engaging in a series of calisthenics without dumbbells—proof, it would seem, of their newfound physical dexterity as budding Americans.

Even when it wasn’t Thanksgiving, much was made of Old Glory on the Lower East Side and in other American Jewish immigrant enclaves. At graduation exercises and comparable public assemblies, educators and civic reformers were given to extolling the flag in the hope that those in the audience would come to understand that it wasn’t a “mere piece of bunting,” but a benefaction. “Every time you gaze upon it, every star and stripe should cause you to reflect upon what it means to those thousands of our people who, driven from their homes by persecution, find actual physical shelter beneath its folds,” declaimed the Honorable N. Taylor Phillips, a highly pedigreed New York Jew (his forbears fought in the Revolutionary War) and a dedicated public servant, at one such gathering in 1903. “Order your lives that you will shed lustre upon it in gratitude to the blessings which it gives you.”

Patriotic Manhattan synagogue has celebrated Thanksgiving since 1789

A patriotic Upper West Side synagogue whose leaders fought with George Washington has been celebrating Thanksgiving since the first president proclaimed it a national holiday in 1789.

As a modern and secular holiday, Thanksgiving celebrations are rare in Jewish houses of worship — but that is not the case at Shearith Israel, America’s first Jewish congregation.

On Thanksgiving day, the temple will feature a special holiday-themed liturgy, followed by an address by Rabbi Meir Soloveichik and readings from a Torah adorned with Liberty Bells. An English prayer wishing good health and fortune on the president, vice president, governor, and other elected officials has been recited for two centuries. There’s no turkey at the morning gathering, but ample hot chocolate for parade watchers.

The congregation was organized in 1654 by Sephardic Jews fleeing the inquisition in Portuguese-ruled Brazil, and the members of the synagogue at 2 West 70th St. take pride in being not just the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States but eyewitnesses to American history.

“We were around when it was a Dutch colony, and the establishment of the United States of America, and the very first Thanksgiving,” Barbara Reiss, executive director of the synagogue, told The Post. “We felt it was important enough to incorporate that into our service and our prayers from the get go as a day of thanks as American Jews.”

The roots of the Thanksgiving celebration stem from Gershom Mendes Seixas, the temple’s hazzan and first American-born leader of the congregation. He was a devoted patriot of the American Revolution.

University of Toronto - Scarborough students pass motion that kosher food must come from companies that are anti-Israel

From Hasbara Fellowships:

Hasbara Fellowships Canada is demanding that the University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC) intervene after its student union (SCSU) voted to eliminate funding for student groups that support Israel.

At its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday, Nov. 24, the SCSU passed its second motion in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. A subsection of the original motion passed in 2013 now requires that any kosher food brought to campus must come from an organization that does not support “Israeli apartheid.”

The subsection states that if Jewish students cannot find such an organization, kosher food suppliers that support “Israeli apartheid” shall be granted exemptions.

According to the motion, the SCSU must also “refrain from engaging with organizations, services, or take part in events that further normalize Israeli apartheid.” The SCSU will now mandate that a “BDS List,” which must be “accessible” to all members, is aimed at blacklisting organizations that support the Jewish State.

Gabriela Rosenblum, a Hasbara Fellow at UTSC, harshly condemned the motion at last night’s AGM. “This BDS vote undoes all the critical work done by this student government,” she said. “This motion requires that Jews at UTSC prove that they are ‘good Jews’ in the eyes of the student government, distinct from the many ‘bad Jews’ who support Israel. This motion even defines antisemitism for the Jewish students on campus.”

She continued. “These are hurdles that exist for no other group. It is clear that this motion targets Jews for discrimination. Even for something as simple as ordering jelly donuts for Chanukah, Jewish students at SCSU will now be forced to prove that kosher caterers do not support their Jewish homeland, which is basically impossible.”

The language of the motion is insane. Here is a screenshot from the SCSU November 3 meeting discussing it:

From the BDS perspective, anyone or any company that does not sign onto BDS may be"normalizing Israeli apartheid." A supermarket that sells Osem snacks cannot supply any food to campus. Jewish students in the SCSU would not be allowed to display Israeli flags. Jewish organizations would not be allowed to celebrate Yom Haatzmaut.

And the motion includes thought control: any students that point out that BDS is targeting Jews and is antisemitic violates the policy itself!

What about Chanukah? After all, it celebrates Jewish sovereignty over "Palestine" and the "Al Aqsa mosque." Is celebrating that allowed? Can Jews mourn the destruction of the Temples on Tisha B'Av? Are they allowed to say "Next Year in Jerusalem" on Passover and Yom Kippur? Because all of those can easily be considered "normalizing Israeli apartheid" to the bigots who drafted this obscenity.

As far as the kosher food goes, the BDSers are the ones who would determine if "alternatives are available," so they can easily tell all Jewish students that they must become vegan to avoid buying meat from companies that are not sufficiently anti-Israel.

Or perhaps the BDSers will ensure that all meats come from Satmar Chassidim.

People who hate Israel will determine which Jewish practices, beliefs, holidays and prayers are acceptable and which are not. Sort of like medieval Christian censorship of the Talmud, updated for campus life.

This is spectacularly antisemitic - and you can be sure that the words of this resolution will now be copied by BSD bigots on other campuses in North America.

(h/t Andrew P)

Israel Racist For Not Wanting To Drink Gaza Sewage From Mediterranean (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

: Credit: James Grellier via Wikipedia

Ashkelon, November 25 - Activists denounced the Jewish state again today over its discriminatory attitudes and policies, in this case over the latter's refusal to operate a desalination plant just up the coast from where a Hamas-governed territory dumps untreated wastewater into the sea, a refusal that the activists say provides further evidence of Israel's view of Palestinians as "dirty" or "inferior" and therefore worthy of exploitation.

Representatives of Human Right Watch, Btselem, and others from within Israel, within the Palestinian Territories, and around the world accused Israel today of racism in its handling of the millions of gallons of raw sewage that flows from the Gaza Strip into the Mediterranean, which causes Israel not to operate the desalination plant near this coastal city. The groups called on the international community to pressure Israel into reversing the decision, thereby destroying the plant and depriving its people of drinking water even when the sea remains clean.

"Palestinian sewage is just a pretext for this bigoted behavior," insisted Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch. "If anything, Israelis should be drinking that raw sewage regardless of desalination, because I don't like them and I think they should be made to suffer because of my prejudices."

A Btselem activist explained that the refusal to desalinate sewage-contaminated water from Gaza goes beyond the mere insult of deeming Palestinian sewage unfit for Israeli consumption. "The hurt is magnified because until Zionism came along, forcing Jews to drink Muslim wastewater, whether figuratively or literally, was the norm in the region," observed Mashka Biyuv. "The institutionalized power of the Zionist state, embodying as it does the emancipation of Jews from underclass status under Muslim domination, defiantly not taking in Gaza's wastewater, is a bitter pill to swallow, so to speak. It's merely the latest manifestation of malignant Zionist arrogance that harms Palestinians."

Gaza lacks sufficient facilities to process sewage, a situation that human rights activists blame on an Israeli blockade aimed at keeping war materiel from reaching the militants factions that thrive in the territory, and which attack Israel with rockets and other weapons they smuggle into Gaza, or manufacture with imported materials. Those materials include pipes that would otherwise function as components of proper sewage treatment infrastructure, but end up as parts of locally-made rockets. The activists further explained that since the Palestinian leadership sees no problem harming its own people in order to hurt Israel, and international activists such as the BDS movement see no problem in harming Palestinians economically just to pursue symbolic moves against Israel that fail to harm her economically, Israeli must suffer to spare Palestinians from feeling the shame inherent in the diminution of their once-superior status vis-à-vis Jews.

11/25 Links Pt1: The UN Must Reject Palestinian Rejectionism; US to unilaterally reopen PA Consulate in Jerusalem; UK Hamas Ban Doesn't Go Far Enough

From Ian:

The UN Must Reject Palestinian Rejectionism

The United Nations reserves November 29, its International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, for robust anti-Israel activity. The day’s events inappropriately put the UN’s thumb on the scale in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, encouraging Palestinian obstinacy by normalizing Palestinian viewpoints.

November 29 marks the anniversary of the 1947 partition plan, which would have created an Arab state and a Jewish state in British Mandatory Palestine.

While the Jewish leadership accepted partition, Arab leaders rejected it, setting in motion more than seven decades of bloodshed. Now, many pro-Palestinian activists have embraced Solidarity Day as a repudiation of Israel’s existence.

In previous years, speakers at Solidarity Day events have falsely charged one of Israel’s founding fathers — David Ben-Gurion — with advocating ethnic cleansing; mendaciously accused Israel of perpetrating apartheid and ethnic cleansing; called for boycotts of Israel; and advocated a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” which is a call to ethnically cleanse the land of Jews.

According to the UN, Solidarity Day provides an opportunity to focus on how the Palestinians have yet to “attain their inalienable rights,” including “the right to return” to Israel, as a UN advertisement put it. Yet the Palestinian “right to return” is fictitious, according to many international law experts, since it rests on non-legally binding documents, including a General Assembly resolution. Forcing Israel to accept an influx of potentially hostile individuals would infringe on the Jewish state’s right to security — a recipe for promoting violence and strife.

The UN event’s advertisement also highlights the participation of “Palestinian activist” Mohammed El-Kurd. El-Kurd has previously praised the violence of the Second Intifada, which occurred between 2000 and 2005, for terrorizing Israelis; he has described all Israelis as terrorists; and he also called for ethnically cleansing the land of Jews. Just this month, El-Kurd justified the murder of an Israeli civilian in Jerusalem by posting an old photo of the victim in an army uniform and falsely calling him a settler — which, in any case, is not an open license for murder.

Solidarity Day is also sandwiched between the General Assembly’s 16 annual end-of-year resolutions promoting the Palestinian agenda and castigating Israel. One resolution, titled “Occupied Syrian Golan,” even deplores Israel’s presence in the Golan — without mentioning the Syrian regime’s butchering of over half a million of its own people

Report: US to unilaterally reopen PA Consulate in Jerusalem

A high-ranking Israeli official has told i24news that the United States will be opening a consulate to deal with Palestinian affairs “soon,” Asharq Al-Awsat reports.

According to the report, the Biden administration has already informed Israel of its intentions and plans to move ahead unilaterally if it does not obtain a response from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government, which is no longer seen as under immediate threat of dissolving due to internal strife, now that the budget has passed.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump closed the consulate in 2019 after recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the U.S. embassy to the city, merging its services with the consulate.

The report added that the official Israeli source also stated that the government would soon be announcing a new settlement plan in “East Jerusalem,” an area which includes parts of the city’s northern and eastern neighborhoods that were brought under Israeli control during the Six-Day War. The area referred to is actually in the northern suburb of Atarot near to where an industrial zone already exists.

Tom Gross: “A stronger Israel in a less stable world,” Tom Gross, 24 Nov 2021

Tom Gross argues that despite the various threats and challenges it still faces, Israel has never been in a stronger position: diplomatically, economically, militarily, culturally, and in terms of personal safety for its citizens. Meanwhile, several Arab states are in a state of full or partial disintegration (Syria, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq) -- and the wider world is in many ways less stable than at any time since the end of WW2.

Tom Gross is interviewed by Paul Gross (no relation) of the Jerusalem think tank, the Begin Center. (Nov 24, 2021).