Thursday, January 20, 2022

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.


I Forgot You Were Jewish When I Said I Support Your Self-Determination

by Entirée Szyst, progressive activist

man with shadesLondon, January 20 - Oh, goodness, I'm so sorry. Your ancestry and heritage had totally slipped my mind a few minutes ago, and had I remembered, I'd not have mindlessly agreed that you and your people deserve to govern yourselves in your own land and not remain at the mercy of host cultures. I hope you didn't misunderstand.

As a progressive, I live by a certain set of principles, high among them that every identity group deserves respect and may define itself and its needs without seeking approval from others or the dominant group. My political path, decisions, and rhetoric all draw heavy influence from that principle, and if I neglect to take it into account in my choices and my speech, I risk compromising the very values I claim to hold dear. But I also forgot for a moment that your specific identity group is Jewish. My colleagues and I in the progressive movement carve out an exception to that principle when it involves Jews. I'm sorry I gave the wrong impression earlier when I expressed support for your people's self-determination, let alone in their ancestral homeland. The opposite, I assure you!

In fact I oppose the very notion of Jewish peoplehood, simply because the implications of that phenomenon undermine so many of the causes I espouse.

Jewish faith, or membership in a Jewish faith community, poses no problem. As long as you restrict your Jewishness to matters of ritual, doctrine, or even morality, I'm with you! Just don't claim that Jews are a distinct people, because if I acknowledge Jewish peoplehood, I must perforce concede that Jews have a collective right to manifest that peoplehood in political terms, and that the most appropriate - indeed, the only historically viable - venue for such an endeavor is the very place where Jewish peoplehood came to be. That conflicts with the Palestinian cause, the crown jewel of all progressive causes. I apologize for, however briefly, implying that the two are not mutually exclusive, or worse, that even for an instant I might neglect the primacy of Palestinian claims and narrative.

Now you must apologize to me for causing me to violate one of the cardinal values of progressivism. That is correct: progressives, as ontologically your moral superiors, cannot fail; we can only be failed. Therefore, culpability for my erstwhile neglect of Palestinian supremacy lies with you, my Jewish-and-possibly-Zionist interlocutor, and not with me. Axioms, dear fellow; axioms.





From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: UN ditches its rules for an anti-Israel ‘Inquiry’
The United Nations has created a Star Chamber targeting the State of Israel. The inquisition was devised by the U.N. Human Rights Council last May and funded by the U.N. General Assembly at the end of December. The three members appointed to the new “Commission of Inquiry” make a mockery of the most elementary preconditions of fairness and legitimacy.

The identities of the inquisitors are Navi Pillay of South Africa, Miloon Kothari of India and Chris Sidoti of Australia. Pillay was named chair, hence the fitting epithet of the U.N. offensive: “Pillay’s Pogrom.” The three were appointed in July by then-council president Nazhat Shameem, a Muslim lawyer from Fiji. With funding now assured, the “Inquiry” is underway.

The “Inquiry’s” founding resolution was crafted at the behest of Islamic states and what the United Nations calls the “State of Palestine.” It spells out a number of fantastically broad tasks connected by one overarching goal: to turn the Jewish state into a global pariah.

Internationally recognized credentials for any such inquiry demand “independence,” “impartiality” and “objectivity.” Even the United Nations calls these prerequisites “of paramount importance.” Hence, a close look at the records of the “Inquiry” members, as compared to the “Inquiry’s” assigned tasks, is compulsory.

The first task assigned was to investigate “all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.”

Pillay, who was U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014, has an answer to task No. 1—already. The flagship enterprise of Pillay’s tenure was resurrecting the U.N.’s anti-Semitic hate-fest held in Durban in 2001 and reaffirming the slander of the racist Jewish state. Since then, she’s been preaching, “help end decades of Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people … recognized as apartheid.”

As for the task of identifying root causes, Pillay’s got that covered. In her own words: “The occupation continued to be the main cause of widespread violations of Palestinians’ civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.” “At the heart of so many of the problems plaguing the Israel-Palestine situation,” she once contrived, was “that the Israeli Government treats international law with perpetual disdain”—not the perpetual disdain of law and life by Palestinian rejectionists, racists, terrorists and enablers.


StandWithUs: Stop The UN’s Newest Effort To Harm Israel And The Jewish People
The UN has launched a "Commission of Inquiry" that disproportionately targets Israel and is led by officials who have historically ignored, minimized, and excused violence and terrorism targeted at Israelis. Will the UN ignore Israeli terror victims in its new effort to harm Israel and the Jewish people? UN: Your bias is showing. This is #UNjust and UNacceptable.


  • Thursday, January 20, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon



Sweden released its 2020 hate crimes report.

There were 627 anti-religios hate crime reports. Of those, 27% were against Jews, and 51% against Muslims.

Muslims make up about 8% of Sweden's population while Jews are only about 0.15%.

This means that the average Jew is 28 times as likely to be a victim of an anti-religious hate crime than the average Muslim., and over a thousand times as likely to be victimized for religion as a Christian in Sweden.

Interestingly, Sweden has a relatively low number of antisemites, according to the ADL - only 4% by their criteria, or about 300,000 people. But there are about 800,000 Muslims in Sweden, and usually more than half of Muslim population in any country is antisemitic. I'm wondering if the ADL poll included a relative sample of Muslims; they only reported on Christian and atheist responses.The police report didn't mention who the perpetrators of the crimes were, but the Jewish community has pointed to attacks by Muslims over the past decade.








  • Thursday, January 20, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon


Felesteen reports that a partially decomposed body was found washed ashore in the northern Gaza Strip this morning. Sources say that it was the body of a girl who was not from Gaza.

If that is true, then almost certainly the body came from Israel. And that would be a nightmare.

I found two reports of missing girls over the past couple of months, a 12 year old from Zichron Yaakov, and a 14-year old from Ashkelon who has been missing since early December. I haven't seen any reports of them being found, but it might not have been in the newspapers.

It is conceivable that a body could float from Ashkelon to Gaza.

Arab media are publishing photos of the body.

I really hope that the Hamas authorities are mistaken or are covering up for some Gaza crime. If this is the body of an Israeli girl, the sick leaders of Hamas would hold her body hostage to release terrorists.

I cannot imagine a more terrifying scenario for parents.

I hope that Israel has a plan for such a nightmare. 

UPDATE: Both of these girls have been found. (h/t David)





  • Thursday, January 20, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon
There is a lot of hypocrisy around Sheikh Jarrah, and here is only one small example.
The New York Times reports:

 Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families from their homes on Wednesday to make way for a new school in Sheikh Jarrah...

Israeli officials said the expropriation and evictions were necessary to make way for building a school for Jewish and Arab students with learning difficulties.

But the Salhiye family and rights campaigners said the eviction was part of a more general attempt to force Palestinians from East Jerusalem, and questioned why the school could not have been built on nearby land designated for a Jewish seminary.

They are definitely trying to Judaize the neighborhood,” said Lital Salhiye, 43, an Israeli who married into the Salhiye family in 1998.
Yes, Lital is Jewish, born in Rishon LeTzion. She must have married Mahmoud when she was around 19.  




So hasn't Lital been "Judaizing" Sheikh Jarrah for 24 years? She's a Jewish settler!

I cannot see any article saying she converted to Islam. Yet she covers her hair with what looks like a ski cap while obviously not being a religious Jew. Which means that she is the perfect dhimmi, submitting to the demands of her Muslim community who would be offended by the sight of her hair even though Jewish women have no obligation under Muslim law to cover their own hair.

Which means that Lital isn't "Judaizing" Sheikh Jarrah because she adds nothing Jewish to the neighborhood. 

Only Jews who act as proud Jews are guilty of the terrible crime of Judaizing. 

And Lital hates that! 

Lital's home being demolished also disproves that Israel is only going after Arabs and Muslims.  Is she being ethnically cleansed if she is ethnically Jewish?







Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal


The European Union has spent half-a-billion dollars over the last seven years to support a Palestinian Authority plan to control Area C of the West Bank, an Intelligence Ministry report publicly released Tuesday.

“Foreign assistance as a significant accelerator in the takeover processes,” stated the report by the ministry’s research division, which was authored in June and published this week for Tuesday’s debate in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the matter.

“The rough estimate is that from the period of 2014-2021, at least half-a-billion dollars were transferred to the Palestinians through various channels and it’s possible that the sum was larger,” the report stated.

An annual sum of some €20 million is earmarked for Palestinian legal battles against settlements and the security barrier, the report stated.

All the territories except Gaza were divided into Areas A, B, and C in 1995 by the Oslo II Agreement. Area A includes major Arab population centers, and is under complete PA security and civil control. That means that PA provides all needed services to the population, including counter-terrorism and law enforcement. The IDF only enters Area A when it is absolutely necessary, and coordinates with the PA to locate and apprehend terrorists (needless to say, this procedure can break down when a wanted terrorist is associated with the PA’s ruling Fatah faction). Area B is under Israeli security control and PA civil control. It is made up of areas with Arab populations that, because of their strategic location or nature, must be under IDF control. About 90% of the Arab population of the territories lives in areas A and B.

Area C, which is about 60% of the land area in question, is under complete Israeli control. It comprises all Jewish communities and military installations in the territories, and contains their entire Jewish population. It also includes strategic areas. Some 450,000 Jews and 180,000 Palestinians live in Area C. Some right-wing parties have advocated annexing or extending Israeli law to Area C, and even most “2-state” proponents agree that for security reasons, and to avoid expelling hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes, at least parts of Area C must become part of Israel.

In 2009, former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister and Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, in cooperation with the Obama Administration and the EU, came up with a plan to unilaterally establish a Palestinian state, regardless of Israeli wishes. Fayyad envisioned establishing all the pieces of a government and an economy before declaring the state, much like the Zionists did in the pre-state Yishuv. Detailed plans were written, with a high degree of detail and attention to concepts like justice, democracy, and even environmentalism, that would appeal to the Western technocrats who were to pay for the project. The contrast with the actual behavior of the PA, toward its citizens, the environment, and Israel, is striking.

The stated goal is to create a “sovereign and independent state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, and reach a just and agreed solution for Palestinian refugees in accordance with relevant international resolutions, and UN General Assembly Resolution 194 in particular.” If you think the plan might not be problematic for Israel, let me remind you that the PLO has always interpreted 194 to mean that all the descendants of Arab refugees of 1948 can choose to return “home” to Israel, or be compensated for the loss of their “property.”

The plan requires maximum land area under Palestinian control and maximum contiguity thereof, so control of Area C and the expulsion of as many Jews as possible is critical to it. Although Fayyad was pushed out in 2013 by a jealous Mahmoud Abbas (he went to work at various prestigious educational institutions and think tanks), the implementation of the plan continued under his successors.

American funding for the project began with the Obama Administration, stopped under Trump, and is being restarted by Biden. But the lion’s share has come from European sources. Regavim, an Israeli organization dedicated to protecting Israeli lands (both within and outside of the pre-1967 lines), explains some of the methods used by the Palestinians and their European partners to take de facto control of land in the most strategic parts of Area C, such as “E1,” located between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim:

The method is simple: E.U. vehicles station water cisterns and solar panels in strategic spots in Area C. Bedouin clans then create encampments around these critical resources, and the rest is history: The Jahalin clan and the residents of Khan al Akhmar are two well-known examples of the results.

Another ploy is to build an illegal structure at a strategic location, and to post signs designating it a “school” or a “hospital.” If Israel attempts to remove it – remember, the area is supposedly under full Israeli control, which includes zoning and issuing building permits – then she is alleged to be guilty of an inhumane act, or even a war crime. It’s ironic that at the same time, Palestinians and their supporters claim that Israel is “gobbling Palestinian land” by “settlement construction,” when in fact there is almost no construction of new communities and minimal construction inside old ones going on.

The Israeli government does sometimes take action, often when prodded by Regavim, but equally often the thefts of land are simply ignored. I think this is because many Israeli officials, even ones that are supposedly “right-wing,” have internalized the idea that a Palestinian state of some kind is both benign and inevitable. It had better not be inevitable, because nothing about it is benign. The Fayyad plan is essentially a detailed blueprint for the implementation of Arafat’s “Phased Plan” for the replacement of Israel by an Arab state (Fayyad was Arafat’s Finance Minister in the PA’s 2002 government).

It is difficult to think that the European – and American – officials believe that they are doing anything less than working to subvert the Jewish state. It is difficult to think that they are so credulous as to actually believe that the Palestinian State that they are creating on top of us will be democratic, peaceful, and neighborly. Finally, it is impossible to accept that they don’t have the imagination to picture what is likely to happen here if the PLO succeeds in implementing its plan.

What they are doing is an act of war. I would say it is flying under the radar of the citizens of their countries who are paying for it, but the truth is that most of those citizens couldn’t care less about what happens in this tiny spot in the Mideast.

But we, who live here, care, and it’s up to us to make our government carry out its responsibility to defend its citizens, which in this case also means to protect our lands from being nibbled away.





From Ian:

Following the law is not a disadvantage
Upholding the laws of war in each and every case is a humane action that needs to be carried out anew each time, depending on the context. If there is any suspicion that the law was intentionally ignored, the instance must be investigated honestly. However, during war there can be mistakes and errors, some of which might cause unintentional harm to civilians on the other side. Sometimes mistakes are the result of combat requirements being underestimated and too much caution. For example, in the incident in which Border Police Staff Sgt. Barel Hadaria Shmueli was killed, it's possible that the orders did not correctly assess the demands of the situation.

In any case, there is nothing new in applying the laws of war to the war on terrorist organizations. Legal advisors have been taking part in Israel's war on terrorism for decades, and even if the nature of their involvement changes over time, ultimately they were and still should be part of the process, and advise. That is accepted practice in all western armies, and it should be. The final decision lies with the commanders, and it should take into account the legal counsel they receive.

Too easy
In this context, in recent years we have faced two massive challenges. One is the enemy's increasingly sophisticated methods. Among other things, this includes activating groups that portray themselves as human rights organizations, but actually are branches of terrorist organizations (for example, some of the groups Israel recently declared to be terrorist entities with links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). Others operate with blatantly anti-Israel motives.

The second goal is the ease with which the enemy is able to enlist new media and some of the media establishment to promote its goals – primarily, slandering Israel and chipping away at its legitimacy. For years, radical left-wing entities throughout the world have been investing considerable means in slandering Israel, able to do so in part by taking advantage of the new reality in which areas of conflict are replete with tools of documentation that can be used to manipulate.

The international system, motivated by political considerations, mostly accepts the double standard of morality that this asymmetry expresses. While Israel is required to meet stringent standards and the former chief prosecutor of the ICC decided to open an investigation against it, no one truly expects the Palestinians to follow their laws of war, even though the ICC investigation is supposedly looking to Hamas' war crimes, as well. Moreover, according to the Palestinian narrative, the battle against Zionism justifies any form of war, including terrorism. And although the Palestinian Authority pays fat salaries to terrorists, it is seen as a legitimate partner in negotiations.

The IDF should continue to operate according to the law, but Israel must also recognize how vital it is for its to improve its abilities in the fights for western public opinion through an emphasis on our morality and our strong commitment to the law. The goal should be to increase the IDF's freedom of operation and restrict our enemies' freedom to operate.
Israel’s new man in NY: Bring on the broad — but legitimate — criticism of Israel
Israel’s new consul general in New York touched down in the US three months ago with his work cut out for him.

“I told my predecessors that I received a New York that is much more difficult than what they experienced,” said Asaf Zamir in an interview last month.

“During their tenures, Israel was only a positive buzzword,” he said, positing that the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and the Gaza War the following year intensified the intersectionality framework’s prominence among progressives who now tie the Palestinian struggle “to all other issues.”

While Zamir clarified that the support for Israel he has encountered in recent months both within and beyond the local Jewish community has been “overwhelming,” the new era in the US now features “politicians of all wakes who allow themselves to comment in such extremes on [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] — some of it legitimate criticism, and some of it crossing [the line] into antisemitism in my eyes.”

In this newly challenging environment, Zamir fears that young Jews arriving on college campuses are particularly vulnerable.

In a wide-ranging discussion on the sidelines of the Israeli American Council’s annual conference in Florida, Zamir revealed that one of his main goals in his job as consul general is to provide these students with the tools to be able to defend their Zionist identities on what has become at-times hostile turf.

The outreach efforts of previous governments may have been similarly motivated, but the new diplomat indicated that the message so far failed to resonate. With the most politically diverse coalition in Israel’s history sworn in last June, though, Zamir argued that Jerusalem was uniquely suited to make inroads with the next generation of Americans.

He admitted that the new government’s policies still won’t satisfy many of the skeptics he’ll be serving in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Delaware.

“Because life is complex, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complex,” he said.
US envoy to Israel ‘absolutely will not’ visit West Bank settlements
'I don’t want to do things intentionally that would create disrespect or anger among people'

The United States envoy to Israel said Friday that he never visited an Israeli settlement in the West Bank and had no plans to do so, in an effort to avoid inflaming tensions.

When asked whether he would make such a visit in an interview with Ynetnews, Ambassador Thomas Nides said “I absolutely will not.”

“Just like I ask both the Palestinians and Israelis not to take steps that inflame the situation, I don’t want to do things intentionally that would create disrespect or anger among people,” he continued.

“I’ll make mistakes. I’ll say things that will aggravate people… But I don’t want to intentionally anger people.”

Nides arrived to Israel in November following a lengthy confirmation process due to the refusal of Senate Republicans.

In explaining his approach to the position, he said that he has no ideology “when it comes to Israel.”

“All I care about is that Israel will remain a strong, democratic, and Jewish state,” he told Ynetnews.
Melissa Landa

Melissa Landa had been a popular teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park for ten years when it was decided that her contract would not be renewed. The reason? Landa had become too Jewish, too in-their-face about her Zionism and the immorality of BDS. She had organized her former classmates to fight against campus antisemitism and in particular against Professor Joy Karega, an antisemitic professor at her alma mater.

Landa’s brand of activism, in short, had U of Maryland administrators in a conjoined state of nightly bruxism. This just wasn’t the right kind of activism. It wasn’t Black Lives Matter popular or Free, Free Palestine popular. They needed to find a pretext to SHUT HER DOWN.

Then Landa traveled to Israel for Passover—just long enough that U of Maryland administrators could say she was forsaking her duties as a teacher—even though she’d received prior permission, and had arranged to fulfill her teaching obligations during the time she would be away. (Y’all have heard of Zoom, right?) That’s when the U of Maryland administrators rubbed their hands together and uttered the silent collective equivalent of “Nyuh uh uh,” and failed to renew Landa’s contract.

In other words, Melissa Landa was fired. A popular, award-winning teacher cut from the faculty and from her livelihood for the crime of teaching while Jewish. Landa took the obvious next step and sued the university for discrimination—because that’s what it was: they didn’t like that Landa was being so, well JEWISH.

Did the University of Maryland realize that Landa wasn’t going to “go silent into the night?” If not, they aren’t as smart as you’d think, considering they represent an institution of learning. Landa is good at agitating for change. She is pretty much the reason Joy Karega got cut from Oberlin. So, not smart U of Maryland, College Park. Not smart at all.

Facebook post by Joy Karega depicts PM Netanyahu as an ISIS fighter. Thanks in large part to Melissa Landa, Karega was fired from her position at Oberlin.

As for the rest of us, this story of modern antisemitism should come as a shock to every American. A popular professor fired for being a Zionist? For visiting Israel and displaying the Israeli flag? It’s unconscionable that this is what it has come to for Jews in America and in academia.

Landa, it is clear, has long been fighting for the basic religious rights of her people. It looks like it may be time for us to fight for hers. Here is what you need to know:

Varda Epstein: Can you tell us a bit about your background and family? Where did you grow up, and what is your Jewish background and experience?

Melissa Landa: I was born in Apartheid South Africa. My grandparents had fled the pogroms of Lithuania and had come to South Africa around the time of the First World War. I grew up in a traditional Jewish home with a strong Zionist ideology. My parents were also anti-Apartheid activists.

I first experienced antisemitism after immigrating to the United States and living in an area where there were few Jews. I attended Oberlin College, where I ate in the Kosher Co-op and lived in Hebrew House. At that time, Judaism and Zionism flourished on the Oberlin campus.

My husband is Israeli. He is the 13th generation in his family who was born in the land of Israel. I have been to Israel 18 times and look forward to going again soon. 

Varda Epstein: How long had you been teaching at U of Maryland, College Park prior to what was, effectively, your dismissal? When did things go wrong?

Melissa Landa: I joined the faculty in 2007, four years after completing my PhD in the same College of Education. I was dismissed 10 years later, in 2017. Things began to deteriorate at the very beginning of 2016.

This flier was found pinned to a bulletin board in the Oberlin College student union during the 2013-14 academic year.


Varda Epstein: Your troubles with U of Maryland appear to have begun just after you began to be more vocal in advocating for Israel, in 2015. Was this advocacy a kind of sudden change for you? Was there some kind of awakening, or something else that served as a catalyst to make you speak out?

Melissa Landa: Yes. I joined an Oberlin alumni Facebook group, where I shared my study abroad program in Israel. I was viciously attacked for supporting Israel. As I engaged with those who were attacking me, it became clear to me that Oberlin had become a bastion of anti-Israel antisemitism. Along with three other concerned alumni, I formed a group called Oberlin Alumni Against Antisemitism.

Almost immediately, a recent graduate contacted me and shared with me the Facebook posts of former Oberlin Professor Joy Karega. They included images of Benjamin Netanyahu as an Isis fighter; accused Israel of shooting down a Malaysian aircraft; accused Israel of orchestrating 9/11; and blamed Jacob Rothschild for instigating war. I felt that I needed to pursue these issues with the Oberlin administration on behalf of all concerned alumni.

A Facebook post by Joy Karega suggests Jacob Rothschild is responsible for instigating wars.

Varda Epstein: I’m aware that the group you founded, Oberlin Alumni Against Antisemitism, joined the Oberlin chapter of Alums for Campus Fairness after a few months. The ACF is a nonprofit that fights against anti-Zionism on campus. How many members are in the Oberlin group? What has this group achieved?

Melissa Landa: We have about 100 active members today. As a result of our work, Joy Karega was dismissed from her faculty position. She and Oberlin College settled out of court.

Varda Epstein: You took the step of displaying the Israeli flag in your office. Why? What was the response to this?

Melissa Landa: I wanted to hang an Israeli flag in my office to promote my study abroad to Israel program. My associate chair discouraged me from displaying the Israeli flag and I complied. He told me that it was offensive to many students. I displayed a map of Israel instead.

Melissa Landa with her study abroad students in Israel, a few days before she was fired.

Varda Epstein: Help us understand this: were you a popular teacher? Was the administration happy with you? What happened?? Was your activism really such a sudden change? What is your take?

Melissa Landa: In 2013, I received the College of Education’s Excellence in Teaching Award. In 2017, I received the College of Education’s Exceptional Scholarship Award. In 2017, I also received a letter of commendation from the University’s Associate Vice President for Internal Affairs for my contributions to Study Abroad, including my efforts to raise money for first generation college students to participate in my study abroad program to Israel. And after I was fired, 17 students of color wrote a letter to UMD’s Diamondback newspaper “Letter: We’re Melissa Landa’s former students. She should still work at UMD,” expressing their dismay that I had been fired. They wrote, “Landa is our ally and was one of the best professors at this institution.” 

Melissa Landa (far left) receiving the Exceptional Scholarship Award in the College of Education one month before she was fired.

Varda Epstein: Your lawsuit speaks of religious discrimination. You claim wrongful termination as a kind of retaliation for expressing your Jewish beliefs and affiliations. But this isn’t about Jewish observance, for instance, not being allowed to keep kosher, or avoid working on Shabbat, right? How do you see what has happened as an abrogation of your religious rights?

Melissa Landa: Zionism is part and parcel of my Jewish identity. While I do keep a kosher home, I also express my Judaism by supporting and defending Israel. In addition, there was also the more typical kind of religious discrimination in that I was singled out and treated very differently than my non-Jewish peers when I arranged to miss some classes in order to observe Passover.

Varda Epstein: What happens next? Do you have options? What would you like to see happen?

Melissa Landa: The University of Maryland either submits a response to our complaint or offers to settle out of court.







  • Wednesday, January 19, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1899:


I was struck by by the examples that the 19th century writer used to describe the "old" antisemitism.

Jews commonly believed to murder infants?


Jews poisoning the wells?


Jews bewitching cattle?



Jews embracing witchcraft and sorcery?


And it isn't just Muslims. After all, "progressive" NGOs like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch as well as the UN routinely claim that Israel targets children, that Israel dumps chemicals on Palestinian lands, and that Israeli high tech - today's equivalent to magic - is used to oppress and kill Palestinians. 

It is striking to look through the 19th century lens of how modernity should have banished antisemitism - and to realize that still nothing has changed by the 21st century.








From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The real lesson of the Texas synagogue attack
Akram told the hostages that he chose Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas because it was the closest synagogue to the prison where Siddiqui is being held. As for the reason he chose to target a synagogue at all, that’s not hard to work out — once you know where to look.

According to a tweet by NBC News reporter Tom Winter:
The hostage-taker at the synagogue in Texas had the rabbi call a different rabbi in New York City. The purpose of the call was to again demand the release of Aafia Siddiqui.

That’s because Akram believed that the Jews control American politics. It would therefore follow, in his mind, that rabbis would form a nexus of power over governments and can tell them what to do. So, force a rabbi to call a more influential rabbi, and hey presto — Siddiqui would be released.

He would believe that because the boilerplate antisemitic delusion that the Jews control the west is a commonplace throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, every antisemitic trope under the sun — demonising the apparently all-powerful Jews as an evil conspiracy to harm the rest of the world in their own interests — is generally believed as fact in Muslim societies. To them, the west dances on the strings of its Jewish puppet-masters.

The Muslim world is therefore in the grip of an obsessional and delusional paranoia about the Jews. It is essential to understand this, and the consequences that follow. Very few people do.

Antisemitism is absolutely central to Islamic radicalisation and extremism. Aafia Siddiqui was far from alone when she came out with her deranged Jewish conspiracy theories. Numerous Islamist terrorists have made it crystal clear that, in attacking the west, their most fundamental target is the Jews. At war against modernity, they believe that behind modernity stand the Jews — who they think are behind everything in the world that the Islamists have decided is bad.

Inciting hatred against the Jews therefore acts as a recruitment tool for the jihad against the west. Painting the Jews literally as devils incites a frenzy of murderous paranoia. Which is why such a disproportionate number of Islamist attacks single out Jewish targets.
WaPo($): Antisemitic tropes cited by the Texas synagogue hostage-taker have deep roots
Malik Faisal Akram’s decision to take four hostages at a Texas synagogue left many wondering: Why Colleyville? Why the Beth Israel Congregation?

The 44-year-old British citizen chose the small, tightknit congregation, according to his hostages and those who heard him on the live stream of Saturday services, because he saw it as the closest gathering of Jewish people to a federal facility in Fort Worth where a convicted terrorist was being held.

Akram wanted the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman serving an 86-year sentence in federal prison in Fort Worth for trying to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. And he apparently thought the Jewish worshipers assembled for the Sabbath could make that happen — drawing upon centuries-old antisemitic tropes and conspiracies that Jews secretly control the moves of politicians and manipulate world events to their advantage.

Akram told the assembled that he chose to attack a synagogue because “America only cares about Jewish lives,” according to Beth Israel member Stacey Silverman, who viewed the online Shabbat service.

“He even said at one point that ‘I’m coming to you because I know President Biden will do things for the Jews. I know President Trump will do things for the Jews,’ ” Jeffrey Cohen, one of the hostages, told CNN. Akram “came here, he came to us, he terrorized us, because he believed … these antisemitic tropes that the Jews control everything, and if I go to the Jews, they can pull the strings,” Cohen said.

Experts have long said the pervasiveness of such antisemitic beliefs in society can fuel violence against Jewish people.

“It’s a variation on a classic antisemitic theme,” said David Feldman, director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, a research institution based in London. “Whereas these ideas about Jewish conspiracy often take shape as an idea of Jews exerting power … [to] advance their own interests, this is a sort of variation on the theme — that if you can only get the Jews to work for you, then you’ll get your way.”

The idea has deep historical roots, Feldman said, from the Middle Ages — “where you get this idea that Jews are in league with the devil” — to the 1900s, when the conspiracy theory that Jews have too much power “was revivified and transformed … with the idea that the Russian Revolution, Bolshevism and communism was itself an expression of a Jewish plot for world domination.”

Feldman added that it “spread further, beyond Christian lands, to the Middle East, probably taken to the Ottoman Empire by French Catholics in the 19th century.”
WaPo($): Jewish worship in America should not involve routine fear
Modern antisemitism is a varied phenomenon. But all its forms are premised on the fear and hatred of outsiders. Islamist radicals, white supremacists and leftist activists seek to overcome the dangers of a foreign faith, held by a foreign people, possessed by a foreign agenda. In the Jewish homeland, this hostility is periodically expressed by Hamas rockets. In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, it took (and takes) the form of random, vicious assaults. In Pittsburgh in 2018, it caused so much death at the Tree of Life. In Colleyville, it arrived in an 11-hour synagogue standoff. In every case, Jews have been the entity on which non-Jews project their anger, resentments, fears and venom.

Any adequate response to antisemitism begins with the concerted response of a wounded community. This involves condemnation of antisemitism by social and religious leaders, and immediate comfort for its victims. Here Colleyville has made a start. The public cooperation and shared prayers of Muslim, Jewish, Catholic and evangelical religious figures can have an influence beyond anything they expect or intend. It is more powerful to demonstrate social healing than to call for it. It is more important to model mutual grace than to urge it. Human beings are drawn toward embodied virtues.

Confronting antisemitism is a public cause that begins in the moral and personal realm. It is our ethical duty to confront and marginalize antisemitic tropes. And this is always more effective when we police our own traditions. Liberals have more credibility when they oppose academic antisemitism. Conservatives have better standing to criticize the hard right when it enters the antisemitic fever swamps. The same is true when Christians confront antisemitism among Christians and Muslims oppose antisemitism among Muslims.

None of this is a substitute for the effective pursuit and prosecution of terrorists. And it makes perfect sense, as the Anti-Defamation League has urged, to double funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which helps bolster security at Jewish schools and houses of worship. Synagogues such as the one down my street deserve all the security that planning and preparation can provide.

But we should not accept the presence of guards and traffic barriers at synagogues as somehow normal or acceptable. It is not. It is a scandal of the first order when religious worship in America involves routine fear.
  • Wednesday, January 19, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon
This morning, Israel demolished two homes in Sheikh Jarrah that had been illegally built in the 1990s - to build a special needs school and kindergarten for Arab residents.

People started publishing a photo from the scene, showing a forlorn schoolbag and books.


A photo was found of Arab Jerusalem activist Muhammad Abu al-Hames - with the props.

You can see him with the schoolbag,a bulletin board and bags of other materials.


Here's a closeup of the bulletin board in the debris that you can see matches what al-Hames has in pristine, clean condition.



UPDATE: More of the bulletin board. Note how it was cleaner with al-Hames then when it was in the rubble, so he didn't "save" it.









  • Wednesday, January 19, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon



When Israel declared six PFLP-linked NGOs to be terrorist organizations, the media was uniformly dismissive that there was any evidence to the charges. It highlighted European skepticism about the accusation.

What hasn't been reported is that the EU has quietly restricted funding to two of the organizations while waiting for more information.

According to this December 17 European Parliament question by the Socialists & Democrats Group:

On 22 October 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defence declared six Palestinian non‑governmental organisations (NGOs) – Al‑Haq, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, the Addameer Institute, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defence for Children International and the Union of Agricultural Works Committees – as terrorist organisations under the 2016 Counterterrorism Law, based on still unsubstantiated accusations of links with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Commission has suspended EU funding to al‑Haq and has instructed Oxfam to cut funding to the Union of Agricultural Works Committees until the situation has been clarified.
It sounds like the EU has found Israel's preliminary evidence a little more compelling than has been reported.

Significantly, this all happened weeks before the Dutch government decided to stop funding the Union of Agricultural Works Committees.

These decisions might yet be reversed. There is tremendous pressure from "human rights" NGOs to paint Israel's decision as merely a means to silence criticism. 

That charge is antisemitic. It tries to paint the Jewish state as a dictatorship that restricts free speech and criminalizes criticism. There are hundreds of other NGOs, not to mention Palestinian media outlets, freely criticising Israel every hour of every day. Israel would be idiotic to think that shutting down six NGOs - whose links to the PFLP are beyond question - would stop criticism. 

Meanwhile, the six NGOs hired a lawyer to write to the Israeli government to request the evidence gathered against them.  They published the response that was sent on January 2:
Subject: Request to Receive Materials of the Declaration of Unlawful Associations 
Your letter dated 16 December 2021 

1. I would hereby like to respond to your request made in the letter dated 16 December 2021. 

2. Following your request, I would like to inform you that the unclassified information underlying the decision to declare your clients as unlawful associations can be found in office of the Legal Advisor to the Region of Judea and Samaria located in the Judea and Samaria Division near the town of Beit El. You may coordinate contact with the undersigned on the telephone number: 02-9977711. 

3. Needless to say, this is only the unclassified information underlying the declarations. The core of the declarations is based on classified, crosschecked and reliable intelligence that indicates that your clients operate on behalf of the terrorist organization, the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine" and are essentially arms of the terrorist organization, which cannot be revealed for fear of threatening national security. 

4. As for your request for an extension of time for filing an objection against the said declarations, and for your request for an extension received already on 11 November 2021, I would like to inform you that the IDF Commander in the Judea and Samaria agreed to extend the deadline for filing an objection against the declarations until 18 January 2022.  
I do not know if these objections were filed by yesterday.

(h/t Gerald)








  • Wednesday, January 19, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon


Palestinian media quote Israel's Kan network saying that an Israeli bus driver was injured on Tuesday evening when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at her near the village of Al-Tur in Jerusalem.

There are an average of three such Molotov cocktail attacks every day in Israel, but since most of them do not result in serious injury, no one seems to care. 

Even though they are firebombs.

According to the Shin Bet, there were 124 firebombs in October, 94 in November and 107 in December.

Also in December were 11 pipe bombs, 6 cases of small arms fire, 2 car rammings and 5 stabbings.

Palestinians try to kill Jews every single day. Just because Israel has gotten better at minimizing casualties doesn't mean that the terrorists aren't still trying.






Tuesday, January 18, 2022

From Ian:

Emily Schrader: BDS is a colonialist movement
It’s no news that the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement is deeply problematic. To its very foundations, it is enormously hypocritical and largely ineffective. In the few instances it actually was successful, it was deeply damaging to the livelihoods of Palestinians and the targets of the campaigns, such as the musicians and artists participating in the recent Sydney Festival.

While the movement self-identifies as a progressive human rights cause which is non-violent, in fact, its goals, as stated by co-founder Omar Barghouti, are to destroy the State of Israel. The movement has also given cover to terrorist organizations to carry out their activities and fundraising under the name of a non-violent social movement.

In interviews over the years, Barghouti has admitted increasingly more of what both he and the BDS actually stand for – and it’s nothing progressive.

In an interview this month with French network Paroles D’Honneur, Barghouti reiterated that BDS is unequivocally against any form of “normalization” – meaning it is against the existence of the State of Israel altogether. “We will not accept it [Israel] as a normal part of the region, of Arab culture,” he explained.

More interestingly, however, Barghouti explained at length how BDS has been successful in unifying Palestinians against colonialism and demanding the right of return – adding that this has also become consensus among progressive groups and activists abroad as well. The irony, of course, is that his movement is promoting colonialism that erases the heritage of millions of people in the Middle East.

Barghouti stated explicitly that Arab culture is diverse and includes Imazighen, Kurds, Armenians, Jews and others. “Jewish culture is part of Arab culture,” he claims, but he seems to have forgotten that it includes those groups because Arabs colonized them, and in many cases brutally oppressed them, erasing their history, language and culture. Barghouti speaks with the language of a colonizer while decrying colonialism and accusing others of doing what he does.
Bassem Eid: It's Time for Palestinians to Embrace Dr. King's Nonviolent Resistance
Meanwhile, the feckless Palestinian leadership has rejected this vision for decades, to the detriment of our people. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is currently led by a president who just celebrated the 17th anniversary of his election to a four-year term. Rather than use his position to improve life for ordinary Palestinians, Mahmoud Abbas has spent his nearly two decades in office enriching his cronies. He has blocked fair elections, hindered peace with Israel, and done nothing to create jobs and opportunity in the West Bank. Things are even worse in Gaza, where a terrorist group runs the show and economic opportunity is nonexistent.

Nobody wants to see change in the West Bank and Gaza more than I do. Back when I started the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group in 1996, I sought to follow Dr. King's example by shining a light on the inequities faced by Palestinians. And there is no doubt that Israel bears some of the fault for those inequities.

But Palestinian leaders like Abbas have made clear that their politics come far before any efforts to build bridges between Israelis in Palestinians. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the PA withdrew from a deal with Israel that would have put safe, effective vaccines in the arms of thousands of West Bank residents. Sadly, this is just one example of the PA placing its hatred for Israel before the needs of our people.

In his "Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend," Dr. King referred to Israel as "one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy." If Palestinian leaders truly seek to make life better for our people, they should follow the example of Dr. Martin Luther King and build a society rooted in diversity, equality, freedom, and opportunity—as Israel has done.
Jews, Muslims can walk a common path – Martin Luther King showed us how
In 1957, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered words whose wisdom continues to resound today: “For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater.”

When a weekend meant to commemorate Dr. King was shattered by the hostage-taking at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, we called upon each other as longtime friends and colleagues to find a better path forward for our respective communities. We feared that hate could disrupt the relationship that we had long shared and held dear.

Because the hostage-taker was a Muslim man apparently intent on freeing a Muslim woman convicted on terrorism charges, opportunists are already hard at work exploiting our trauma in order to pit Muslims and Jews against each other. In the spirit of Dr. King, equally embodied in the tireless bridge-building of Rabbi Charles Cytron-Walker of Congregation Beth Israel, we feel called to explore a new blueprint for how we can resist the temptation to allow hate to beget hate. This is but an initial sketch, no doubt with much input needed from lay leaders and clergy from across the Muslim and Jewish communities.

First, we need to change the story. Extremists are of no faith tradition but their own: extremism. We need to stop framing the conversation as a community against community, so much as Muslims and Jews together against a common enemy. We need to call out and sideline extremists, leaving them isolated in their own camp. To that end, we suggest reflecting on the hostage-taker at Beth Israel as an extremist from the United Kingdom with heinous goals unbefitting any faith.

Second, we need to tirelessly build bridges among the rest of us. We are all feeling isolated after two years of the pandemic. We need to go out of our way to call friends, neighbors and relatives across lines of faith just to reaffirm the significance of relationships. Today, in the wake of Saturday’s trauma, Muslims should call their Jewish friends. Tomorrow, unfortunately, in a world brimming with hate, it may need to be the other way around. The rest of the time, both should call — and call upon — each other.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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