Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

11/22 Links Pt1: Hold Abbas accountable; NYTs demonstrates why Israelis have turned right; Mossad was behind intelligence tip to UK’s MI5 over Iranian terror threats

We should recall here that last March, then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced the launch of an investigation into suspected crimes committed in the territories of Judea and Samaria, in east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since June 13th, 2014. Her announcement followed a preliminary investigation in the wake of a Palestinian complaint that determined – contrary to Israel's position – that the court has the jurisdiction to deliberate on such complaints. Israel called this decision a moral and legal disgrace and officially informed the court that it would not cooperate with it.

It should be noted here that ICC investigations enable arrest warrants to be issued against suspects without any public notification. The court's signatories are required to cooperate with the investigation, honor arrest warrants, and hand over suspects located in their territory to the court. Beyond immediate harm to such persons, the opening of processes against could impact its comportment in the international arena and severely damage its international standing. In any event, in practical terms the investigation against Israel has yet to commence and this is also something that the Palestinians wish to advance through the move at the ICJ.

In fact, what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his people are trying to achieve is a decision that the "occupation" is permanent and that it is in its entirety (not just measures within its framework) is illegal and therefore Israel should be subjected to pressures and a price should be exacted for its continued presence in Judea and Samaria. The ICC will find it hard to ignore an advisory by the ICJ that adopts these conclusions in their entirety or in part.

At present the ICJ should be busy dealing with the war in Ukraine and events in Georgia, Afghanistan, Africa, and elsewhere. But Israel should not count on the court being too busy to deal with it.The ICJ (once the UN General Assembly officially turns to it) will approach Israel, which will be required to answer the question of whether it is willing to cooperate. It would seem that the considerations that in the past led to a decision to turn down any such request, still hold.

Without any connection to all of the above, Israel will have to consider changes to its approach to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. It should weigh measures that will make it clear to Abbas and the PA that there will be consequences to the incessant campaign to negate Israel's legitimacy. The means at Israel's disposal are not meagre. If they don't deter Abbas, they should at the very least encourage a rethink of his approach among leaders who support it.

The history of apartheid proves Israel is not an apartheid state

By contrast, in Israel, there is an official policy of affirmative action administered by the Israeli government aimed at including minority Israelis in all aspects of public life. The Arabs who chose to stay in Israel during and following the 1948 war are Israeli citizens and are entitled to the rights granted to all citizens under the law. Arab Israelis serve in public institutions as ministers, Supreme Court judges, parliament members and governmental clerks. Furthermore, the former parties of the Joint List, an Arab-Israeli political bloc, hold seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. For the first time, in 2019, the Joint List endorsed a candidate to become prime minister of Israel.

It is also common to find many Arab Israelis holding only Israeli citizenship. Between 2011 and 2013, Professor Sammy Smooha, a researcher from Haifa University, conducted a poll among Arab Israelis, asking if they identify as Israeli or Palestinian. More than 20% responded “Israeli” or “Israeli-Palestinian.” Furthermore, according to his findings, when Arab-Israeli participants were asked if they would move to a Palestinian state if it is formed, 65– 77% percent of them replied that they would not.

A walk through the streets, shopping malls and hospitals of Israel will permit one to see and appreciate the integrated society that exists within all of Israel. People of all religions, all races and all beliefs are treated with respect in all public places; have access to all religious places; are protected in their right of prayer and assembly; have full access to healthcare treatment without regard to their race, religion, sexual orientation or beliefs; and enjoy freedoms not known anywhere else in the Middle East.

Where South Africa intended to and did impose a segregationist regime and called it apartheid, the allegation that Israel is similarly an apartheid state originated not from fact or from governmental policy but from Israel’s enemies as an intentional distortion of her commitment to building a wholesome society where diversity is cherished and rights are protected by the rule of law. Applying the moniker of apartheid to Israel today is another example of an antisemitic double standard applied exclusively to the Jewish state and ignores much greater injustices suffered by minority ethnic and religious groups around the world.

To put it bluntly, the attempt to equate Israel with South Africa is defamatory and disingenuous. Moreover, calling Israel an apartheid state under these circumstances does great injustice to Israel’s vibrant democracy and further disrespects the real and genuine struggle against the racism of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Moreover, the accusers against Israel who are in the Palestinian territories are obligated to look at their own leadership, and to look inward, as they essentially call for the future Palestinian state to be judenrein—free of Jews.

Who is it that is practicing apartheid?

'The New York Times’ demonstrates why Israelis have turned right

From Abdulrahim’s previous dispatches for the Times, it is clear that she has visited Gaza. That means either she is suffering from hallucinations that Israel is “controlling” things there, or she is fully aware that it is not, but wants to give the impression that it is in order to blame Israel for the Gaza fire.

Either of those two possibilities should be grounds for immediately firing her.

Not that Ms. Abdulrahim’s journalistic misbehavior relieves her editors of any responsibility. After all, they knew what they were getting when they hired her earlier this year. She had previously received awards from the anti-Israel organization CAIR after she wrote a letter denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations.

A staff reporter for one of the world’s most influential newspapers maliciously smears Israel with a blatant falsehood, and her editors look the other way.

This is one reason Israelis have been turning more hawkish in their voting preferences. No matter how many concessions they make, no matter how many risks they take, no matter how many territories they withdraw from—they still get blamed for anything and everything.

You can’t blame Israelis for feeling like, no matter what they do, they just can’t win. Israel’s critics will never play by the rules. They will lie and smear in order to turn public opinion against the Jewish state. They want to see Israel isolated, hated and harangued. And when Israel is threatened, they want the international community to stand idly by.

That leaves Israelis to conclude that their only hope for survival is to strengthen their military resolve and fortify their security policies—in other words, to vote for parties on the political right.

Israel’s critics complain that such thinking represents a “siege mentality.” Maybe that’s because Israel really is under siege—including in the information war, where combatants such as Raja Abdulrahim, pretending to be journalists, hurl dart after dart at the Jewish state without the slightest regard for the facts.

Egyptian Writers' Union expels three members for "normalization," warns of Zionist "penetration of Arab culture"

Cairo24 reports that Dr. Alaa Abdel-Hadi, head of the Egyptian Writers Union, stressed the union's firm position rejecting normalization with Israel, warning of the danger of this entity penetrating Arab culture.

What exactly does that mean? How can Israel "penetrate Arab culture?"

Perhaps we can get a hint of what this means from the steps being taken to expel three members of the union for the heinous crime of "normalization" with the "Zionist entity."

Alaa Al-Aswany, a prominent Egyptian writer, gave an interview to an Israeli radio station.

Youssef Ziedan, a scholar and writer of over 50 books, had said that he would like to visit Israel and lecture there.

Mona Prince, a lecturer in English literature at Suez University, had a photo taken with Israel's ambassador to Egypt.

All of these are bizarrely seen as threats to Arab culture.

If mere speaking to Israelis is a danger to Arab culture, then it sounds like Arab culture is not very strong.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Al Jazeera has become considered a trustworthy news source in the West - but in Arabic, it is just as disgusting and supportive of terror as it was in the years after 9/11.

It published an article about the terrorist attack in Ariel last week where it describes his bloody spree in terms of sports, saying that Muhammed Souf "scored goals" with his stabbings and car rammings. Describing his murderous attack in poetic terms, the article says, "he decided alone, like a falcon flying in the expanses of pride, to play his match solo."

Written by Palestinian Muhammad Khair Musa, the article praises the murderer:

History will record for a long time that on Tuesday the fifteenth of November of the year 2022 AD, a young man named Muhammad Souf, at the age of eighteen, ... executed an epic triple in the face of a heavily armed army, and he had nothing but a knife in his hand and a heart in his chest that did not fear death.

Even worse, the article explicitly calls on other Palestinian youth to follow in his footsteps and attack Jews. It compares Souf with Mohammed's young companions, and urges Palestinians to use Souf as a model.

This is Al Jazeera - not the airbrushed, carefully edited Western version of Al Jazeera English, but the real, terrorist supporting media empire from Qatar.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

A short history of "Arabs Threaten Jews" (not "Zionists")

I decided to do a quick search of headlines that said that Arabs threatened Jews.

April 17, 1920: Arabs threaten to massacre all Jews of Palestine (which included many non-Zionists at the time.)

March 14, 1925: Arabs threaten to attack Jews if they honor Balfour when he visits.

August 11, 1925: Arabs threaten to massacre all Jews in Palestine again (even though the headline says "of Zion movement."

November 23, 1929: Arabs threaten force if Jews continue to worship at the Western Wall.

May 13, 1936: Arabs threaten Jews in Arab countries if they don't get their demands met in Palestine.

June 26, 1936: Bedouin in Transjordan threaten to march across the river to aid their brethren in the "great Arab revolt."

June 30, 1936: Algerian Arabs threaten Algerian Jews.

October 10, 1938: Arab leaders send a telegram to Chaim Weizmann threatening the lives of all Jews in the "East" if Zionists don't accede to their demands, saying it would be the worst calamity in Jewish history.

May 30, 1946: Rulers of Arab states warn Palestinian Jews of plans to have Jews immigrate from DP camps to Palestine. One leader says that if 100,000 Jews enter Palestine after almost being slaughtered in Europe, then the Arabs would slaughter all 100,000 of them.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/21 Links Pt2: Why is the religious left taking sides against Israel?; 1,000 Israeli Students Call on Harvard Crimson to Move Office from "Stolen Lands"

From Ian:

Why is the religious left taking sides against Israel?

For the old religious and evangelical left, Israel often represents Western Civilization, colonialism, and imperialism. For aging denizens of Liberation Theology, the Palestinian cause offers the narrative of a Third World people oppressed by First World wealth, technology, and cultural superiority. Israel is an ally of the United States, and from the religious left’s perspective, is an unwelcome extension of American (and British) power into the Mideast. The Palestinians, from that view, are victims of the American imperium, meriting special advocacy by concerned justice-minded American Christians.

The religious left’s animus towards Israel leads to often absurd contradictions and double standards.

Evangelical leftists relate to this narrative, often informed by their own neo-Anabaptist perspective, which is pacifist and anti-empire. Israel of course has by necessity a significant military force, much of it made possible through American aid. This rankles neo-Anabaptists who think anti-violence is the gospel’s chief theme. There is another sometimes-underlying concern for neo-Anabaptists. They are discomfited by ancient biblical Israel, with its divinely ordained kings, warrior heroes, armies, and military victories, all of which defy the neo-Anabaptist stress on God as supremely peaceful. If only unconsciously, they are inclined towards a form of Marcionism, the early church heresy that minimized the canonical authority of the Old Testament. This discomfort with the Hebrew scriptures facilitates unease with modern Israel.

The religious left’s animus towards Israel leads to often absurd contradictions and double standards, especially for a denomination like the PCUSA. It and the other mainline Protestant bodies have countless statements condemning Israel for ostensibly oppressing the Palestinians among other depredations. But they are largely silent about human rights abuses so prevalent among Israel’s Arab neighbors, including the Palestinian Authority, not to mention countless repressive regimes around the world. They ignored Hamas’s July rocket attacks on Israel. A 2011 PCUSA report affirmed calls for democracy during the Arab Spring, but such calls are rare, and it naturally focused on criticizing U.S. Mideast policy.

The PCUSA General Assembly in July did condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But it devoted more verbiage to the United States and NATO having “flooded Ukraine with lethal weapons,” enriching “war profiteers—at the expense of the taxpayers, the poor and the planet,” guided by “powerful geopolitical and financial interests.” It also derided sanctions against Russia and lamented the cost to “planetary survival and social justice.”

The Religious Left descends from the Social Gospel, later radicalized by Liberation Theology. It disdains capitalism, bourgeois democracy, America, Western Civilization, and human rights regarding speech, religion, and property. But its hostility to Israel is especially pernicious, not just for its double standards, but also for its underlying disregard for a people who have been among the world’s most tormented.

Modern Israel arose from the ashes of the Holocaust. From the beginning, Israel has had to fight for its very existence. Christians should understand that opposition to Israel as a Jewish state is opposition to Israel as a nation.

John-Paul Pagano: First Principles

Antisemitism is different from most other forms of racism. In order to combat it, we need to understand what is a conspiracy theory.

It's customary to hear well-meaning people intone something along these lines: "Antisemitism and anti-black racism are part of the same fight.” In a basic sense, this is true: they are both odious forms of hatred that endanger people and corrode society. Diminishing them as much as possible is part of the same overarching defense of our civic health.

But it’s a platitude that papers over essential differences between two opposite forms of racism. Few human phenomena can be described with an algorithm. There are always ambiguities and exceptions. Nevertheless, it’s heuristically valid to arrange racism into two categories: a caste-oriented, “down-punching” form and a conspiracist, “up-punching” form.

By and large, anti-black racism constructs an underclass that the racist regards as inferior, to be segregated, plundered, and exploited. In the main, Antisemitism views the Jews as a preternaturally powerful, evil elite that plunders and exploits the Antisemite—and the broader society he seeks to awaken to the struggle. In the ugliest of ironies, however much he rails about Jewish degeneracy, the Antisemite invests the Jews with traits and abilities that make them seem diabolically superior.

Jonathan Tobin: The ADL is waging war on free speech, not on Trump or Twitter

Yet the ADL has shown a dangerous propensity for Internet censorship—an authoritarian impulse that it usually veils behind a desire to quell the rising tide of antisemitism. Its consultations with the PayPal online payment system, for instance, were geared toward demonetizing anyone, not just far-right extremists, whose opinions were out of favor with the left.

The attempt to sink Twitter by persuading advertisers and users to exit it goes beyond those efforts to harness Big Tech clout to enforce woke orthodoxy on the Web.

What the ADL is now demanding is to set a standard by which no social-media platform or Internet service can survive if it enables conservatives to participate on an equal footing with liberals.

Censored or uncensored, Twitter—or any similar company—will always be something of a sewer, as it prizes angry discourse and discourages thoughtful exchanges. But if the ADL and others succeed, a precedent will be set to ensure that no platform encouraging debate from both ends of the spectrum can survive.

The consequence of the above—such as the Biden administration’s use of social- media companies to squelch COVID-19 debate—will be an even more divided country and greater civil strife.

Just as important, it will create an atmosphere in which free speech is not merely under assault, as it is on college campuses and other places that have been completely captured by the left. It will mean we are moving closer to a society where the norm will be to silence dissent on all important topics.

It is already a disgrace that the ADL treats partisan advocacy as more important than its core mission of fighting antisemitism. But its effort to sink Twitter makes clear that its real goal is to shut up those who don’t toe its political line.

Think what you like about Trump or Musk. But this latest stand shows that there is no greater foe of democracy than the ADL under Greenblatt.

The Al Aqsa Gym and Circus

A couple of videos of Muslims showing their respect for the "third holiest spot in Islam."

Here are some Palestinians recently practicing their boxing.

And, this past summer, some sacred circus moves.

They aren't "storming," though. So all is good.

(h/t Imshin via Irene)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

John Glubb and Leila Khaled (guest post)

Guest post from Paul M.

John and Leila

The most effective army Israel faced in its 1948 war of independence was the Arab Legion of Transjordan. There’s a reason for that: It was not just armed and trained by Britain, it was led by British officers as well, commanded by Lt. General Sir John Bagot Glubb, affectionately known by the Ottoman honorific Glubb Pasha.

Glubb was a career soldier, a much-decorated British officer from 1915 until 1956, through two world wars and the assault on the new Jewish state. He was much-honored too, with an alphabet behind his name: KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ & KPM.

If, in the fighting world, you wanted to find Lt. General Sir John Bagot Glubb’s diametric opposite, you might be tempted to choose Leila Khaled, member of the Marxist-Leninist PFLP, serial airplane hijacker, pin-up for terrorism groupies everywhere.

And, surprisingly, you might be wrong. They’re less different than you would imagine.

In 1973 Leila Khaled wrote her autobiography, called “My People Shall Live.” (I expect there will be a second volume someday, “Your People Should Die,” but I digress.) Who supplied the foreword? John Bagot Glubb. I had always assumed Lt. General Glubb was simply a good soldier, following orders to serve his country by serving his country’s client, but it seems it was more personal than that.

The first thing to strike you about Glubb’s foreword is how naive it is. He simply takes her words at face value. Everything else written on Palestine is “prejudiced, if not pure propaganda,” full of “half-truths,” “distortions” and “intentional deception.” Khaled, by contrast, is “refreshing” because her position is so clear. The things she has to say are “simple facts.” Perhaps we should give him credit for at least acknowledging that she’s not impartial but there’s almost nothing to show that he has any opinion of his own on the morality of her refreshingly clear position or its consequences.

He does, though, eventually find a flaw. Her politics are “oversimplified” to the point of paranoia and her rejection of anyone who doesn’t embrace violence makes it hard for her sympathizers to help her. As you read this, you can’t help but feel his personal sense of unfair treatment. Perhaps it pulled at the quarter-century-old scar of his dismissal by King Abdullah.

What begins by seeming like amorality, a disinterest in Khaled’s choices, veers into something else soon enough. Before the end of the first page Glubb presents the conclusion of his moral thinking. Violence begets violence, but Palestinian violence is their “only means of recovering their country and their freedom.” Wait, wasn’t that what the Jews were doing?. He quotes Khaled,”As a Palestinian, I had to believe in the gun as an embodiment of my humanity,”without comment except to note that she’s a bit down on anyone who thinks otherwise. Even so, he wants us to know that she cried when John Kennedy was shot. When he turns to the Jews, it’s different: Jewish violence is inherited from the Nazis.

Now we know where to place him. We’ve heard that one before.

Her contempt for non-violence and political difference notwithstanding, Glubb simply takes Khaled at her word when she says Jews and Arabs will be equals in the democratic Palestinian state she and her friends are going to create. The real problem is the Jews won’t allow it. They “desire to have an all-Jewish state.” Like the one we see today, presumably.

Glubb ends by solemnly informing us that “It is easy for us, who have never been the victims of foreign conquest ... to denounce with vehemence the crimes of the evicted Palestinians.” That’s some chutzpah from a son and servant of the empire on which the sun never set. It’s world-class chutzpah when we remember that Transjordan’s purpose in invading on May 15th 1948 was not to free the Palestinian Arabs—who could have had their freedom for the asking but chose war instead—but to annex the land to itself. Abdullah had said as much to Jews and Arabs alike(1).

In his own memoirs, Glubb wrote that he came to love the Arabs(2). That must have been British understatement, because what shines through this foreword is not just love but infatuation. This is the Glubb Pasha who led his army into the Old City of Jerusalem and who had ultimate responsibility for the emptying, looting & burning of the Jewish Quarter. Some people (not me, obviously) can say much in a few words. Glubb was accidentally one of those. It’s hard not to wonder how many others among the British military and functionaries, in Mandatory Palestine and back in London, felt the way he did.

1) Howard Sachar, “A History of Israel” 2007, p.321–322

2) John Bagot Glubb, “A Soldier with the Arabs” 1957, p.5

11/21 Links Pt1: Qatar’s farcical World Cup begins; Time for the UN to Stop Funding Hate Groups; Hezbollah transporting hundreds of chemical weapons to Lebanon

From Ian:

Qatar’s farcical World Cup begins

Even before the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar kicked off, the tournament already had a hero: the former captain of the Iranian national team, Ali Daei.

Now retired and working as a coach, Daei is without question the greatest footballer Iran has ever produced, playing at senior level both in his home country and in Germany. Daei was even the world’s top international goal scorer until last year, when his haul of 109 goals was pipped by a certain Cristiano Ronaldo. Adored in Iran, he made 149 appearances for the men’s national team, including the World Cup tournaments of 1998 and 2006.

Daei is also a devout Muslim who once turned down a lucrative offer to appear in a beer ad in Germany on the grounds that the consumption of alcohol is proscribed by his faith. But as with many Iranians, in Daei’s case, belief in the religious tenets of Islam does not necessarily translate into support for the Islamic Republic that has ruled with an iron fist since 1979.

Last week, circumventing the restrictions imposed on internet access by the Iranian regime amid historic protests against its continued rule, Daei told his 10.6 million followers on Instagram that he had turned down an invitation to attend the competition from its Qatari hosts and FIFA, world soccer’s governing body.

Daei cited the protests that have convulsed Iran as the reason for his staying away from Qatar. He wanted, he told his followers, to “be by your side in my homeland and express my sympathy with all the families who have lost loved ones these days.” This was in keeping with Daei’s previous statements, such as his message to the regime declaring, “instead of suppression, violence, arrests and accusing the people of Iran of being rioters, solve their problems.” Daei also put his neck on the line last month when he publicly challenged the regime’s claim that a young female protestor in his hometown of Ardabil had died of a pre-existing medical condition, and not at the hands of police officers.

Daei’s announcement might be taken as evidence of the old observation that there are things in life more important than soccer. But in soccer-mad Iran, what happens with the national team both on and off the field frequently takes on a political significance unknown among those teams coming from democratic countries.

Iran’s World Cup appearances are invariably an opportunity for Iranians living outside their homeland to express their patriotism while loudly opposing the ayatollahs. In Qatar, they may even be joined in those protests by the players, who have been told by coach Carlos Queiroz that they are “free to protest as they would if they were from any other country as long as it conforms with the World Cup regulations and is in the spirit of the game.”

Certainly, that is a prospect which worries the Iranian regime. Speaking to the players as they were paraded in front of him before departing for Qatar, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told them, “Some don’t want to see the success and victory of Iranian youth and wish to disturb your focus. Be very vigilant on this.” As much as that might sound like advice, it is in fact a threat – and given that the regime has murdered nearly 400 people and arrested more than 15,000 since the protests began in September, it is a threat that should be taken seriously.

The regime is taking all the measures it can to ensure that mass sessions of soccer watching don’t become the occasion for additional protests. To that end, they can count on their allies in Qatar, an obscenely wealthy Gulf emirate that thumbed its nose at the Abraham Accords with Israel some of its neighbors signed up to, and which continues to back the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Qatar's Double Game: Funding Islamists While Pretending to Be America's Ally

Hamas leaders [who have relocated to Doha]... are using Qatar as a base for calling for the destruction of Israel. Yet this does not seem to bother the rulers of Qatar or its allies in the West, including the US.

This is the same Qatar whose leaders claim that they condemn all acts of terrorism and violent extremism.

It is disquieting, to say the least, that a county that hosts the leadership of a Palestinian group that carried out thousands of terror attacks against Israel is talking about Qatar's desire to help eliminate terrorism and extremism.

It is also disquieting that Qatar... continues to pour millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip, thereby emboldening Hamas, whose leaders and charter champion violence and call for the destruction of Israel.

Haniyeh is not the only Hamas leader living under the patronage of Qatar. Several other Hamas leaders, including Khaled Mashaal, Hussam Badran, Izzat al-Risheq and Sami Khater, have also been welcomed to move their offices and homes to the Gulf state.

In addition to hosting the Hamas leaders and their families, Qatar has been providing millions of dollars to Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.... [T]he Qatari aid indirectly helps Hamas to hold on to power. Qatar's beneficence exempts Hamas from its responsibilities towards the Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip and allows the terror group instead to direct its resources and energies towards building tunnels to attack Israel and manufacturing weapons, including rockets, in preparation for their next war to try to destroy Israel.

The Hamas leaders have often been criticized by Palestinians and other Arabs for leading comfortable lives in Qatar while calling on their people in the Gaza Strip to continue the jihad (holy war) against Israel.

Qatar, however, evidently cares nothing about the interests of ordinary Palestinians, such as boosting their economy and improving their living conditions. What it cares about is embracing the leaders of Hamas to make Qatar appear to the Arabs and Muslims as the main supporter of the Palestinian "resistance" – a euphemism for the "armed struggle" against Israel.

JPost Editorial: International scrutiny toward Qatar hosting World Cup

These games are as much about Qatar’s standing as an influential player in the Arab world and global affairs as they are about international football. Qatar has already put a great amount of money into foreign clubs and interests. Furthermore, the state-owned Al Jazeera has a tremendous impact on the Arab world and beyond. There are also questions regarding Al Jazeera’s role in Qatar winning the bid to host the tournament having reportedly offered FIFA vast sums of money ahead of the vote.

Al Jazeera’s broadcasts and stance are particularly pertinent in Israel’s case following the death of American-Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in May, as Palestinian terrorists clashed with IDF forces. The FBI last week said it would begin its own probes into the incident even though thorough Israeli investigations had concluded that she was likely killed accidentally by an IDF soldier during the exchange of fire.

From Israel’s viewpoint there are also heightened sensitivities due to Qatar’s financial support of Hamas’s regime in Gaza (although Israel has permitted the influx of funds as humanitarian aid.) In addition, Qatar maintains cordial relations with Iran, whose support of terrorism and human rights abuses are evident.

The slogan of this year’s World Cup is “Now is all.” The mantra seems to be an attempt to focus on the moment and put the criticisms to one side.

We respectfully suggest going beyond the “here and now.” It would be wrong to ignore the human rights issues and Qatar’s double game when it comes to support for terrorists.

Yet, the World Cup in Qatar could also be an opportunity for the small state to prove that this international mega-event was not simply “sportswashing.” It can significantly improve its treatment of migrant workers and gays, for example, without compromising its Muslim religious values.

Especially when it comes to the relationship with Israel, having hosted Israeli fans and media and permitted direct flights from Tel Aviv, Qatar could put its best foot forward and go a stage further.

Israel’s role in the Middle East has changed significantly since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020. Israel has had quiet ties with Qatar and even established an economic interest office in Doha in 1996 but it was closed during the Second Intifada in 2000.

Moving beyond the “Now is all” to official ties between Qatar and Israel would be a win-win situation and a fitting step to take when the World Cup is over.

Iran's Tasnim News Agency reports:

The residents of Tel Aviv and Haifa in the occupied territories left their houses a few days ago after a massive explosion sound and a power outage. The people fleeing in panic were told that the blast sound was caused by the sonic boom of fighter jets during a military drill.

The residents of Tel Aviv and Haifa districts (the Sharon plain) in the occupied territories heard an explosion sound on Friday night, which was followed by a power outage. The people fled their houses for fear of a missile attack by the Gaza resistance forces. They were told after a while that the blast sound was caused by the sonic boom of fighter jets during a military drill.

Immediately after the incident, all reports about the blast released by the Hebrew-language media outlets and accounts were deleted from the virtual space. A number of more famous media outlets had already announced in their reports that updates about the cause of the blast or the number of casualties would be released later.

What has remained unclear two days after the incident is the unannounced war game and why the Zionist regime’s ministry of defense had not publicized the drill beforehand. Another suspicious issue is the deletion of posts and news about the incident from the virtual space.

The monitoring of the incident lays bare the special connection between the Zionist regime’s security organizations and the administrators of social networks, particularly Twitter, showing how they divert the attention of readers by censoring or running whatever story they want about specific subjects.

The findings of the Hebrew department of Tasnim indicate that at first, a person named Yuer Dadia in a post on Facebook protested about the huge blast sound and massive power outages in the Sharon plain, which includes the cities of Netanya, Herzliya, Hadera, Kfar Saba, Kfar Yona, Rosh Haayin, Ra'anana, Hod Hasharon, Ramat Hasharon, Tira and Qalansawe, and wrote, “This corporation is not the electricity corporation. Shame on the electric corporation that charges us millions, but we have no power for hours.”

However, the organization that took action after the incident was not the Israeli electric corporation, but the Zionist regime’s security organizations.

The reporter of the Hebrew department of Tasnim has found out that:

1. The incident happened with sound, flashes and a thick plume.

2. There was a massive blackout immediately after the explosion.

3. Some electricity transformers and utility poles exploded.

4. Nearly all electrical appliances that had been plugged in were damaged or caught fire.

I can find absolutely nothing about this. The only tweets I can find on Friday night that mention an explosion are from Iranian or Iranian-allied accounts.The same with the reports that the IDF said that they were sonic booms - I cannot find that anywhere besides the Iranian and Syrian accounts.

I saw someone complain about a 3 hour power outage on Thursday night in Haifa, making acid remarks about the "third world electric company" Israel has. So power outages aren't that unusual, it seems.

The photo above was found to be from at least 2019 (h/t GnasherJew.)

Either a very major event happened and Israel somehow managed to cover it up on all social media (except allowing Twitter to allow the Iranian media to post it), or Iran is making all of this up. Usually their lies are based on some thread of truth, though, so my guess is that the Facebook post by this "Yuer Dadia" is somewhat true but based on either a misunderstanding or a joke, and Tasnim ran with it.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Arabic media is filled with dozens of mentions of this story:

Dr. Mohamed Mukhtar Gomaa, Minister of Awqaf, confirmed that the ministry has finished translating 20 chapters of the Holy Qur’an into Hebrew, and added that the aim of the translation into Hebrew is that there are Jewish orientalists who translated the Qur’an and there are big mistakes that lead to deviation in the meaning, so it was necessary to translate into Hebrew..

It is interesting that even though the story is widely reported, I am not seeing anyone accusing the Egyptian Waqf of "normalizing" with Israel because of this translation. Islamic scholars are especially sensitive to any misrepresentations of the Quran.

The most famous translation of the Quran into Hebrew was by Professor Uri Rubin, who was a scholar at the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Tel Aviv University. This abstract of an Iranian paper about his Quranic translations would explain why the Muslims might respect Rubin's scholarship but would not accept it as a translation that they would trust:

The Hebrew translation of the Quran by Uri Rubin, (1944-2021) was first published in 2005. In 2016, the translator after 11 years, published its edited version. The importance of this translation, regardless of linguistic debates, is the existence of a lot of footnotes under the verses; the content of some of them will definitely help interpretive- Intertextuality discussions, but in some cases the footnotes have conflict with the Muslim views. In fact, the final text is something beyond translation, but a commentary.

The content of the footnotes can be categorized in four main parts: I. Purely explanatory texts for literal explanation of the meanings of verses; II. Referring to exegetical views and disagreements of commentators; III. Referral to similar verses in the text of the Qur'an; IV. Referring to the similar concepts in Torah, and Midrash. The present article focuses on this new version and its changes in two subjects of basic issues and its references to pre-Islamic texts.

At any rate, it is clear that traditionalist Muslim scholars cannot allow any Quranic translation that includes commentary showing how it corrupted earlier Jewish texts to be considered an accurate translation, and why they would want to counter it.

Among other things, Rubin specialized in finding Jewish sources for Quranic episodes. It is well known that nearly all Quranic descriptions of Biblical events are based on Talmudic and Midrashic sources.

I looked up one of Rubin's papers about the famous Quranic story of sinning Jews, who gathered fish on the Sabbath, turning into apes and pigs. Rubin attempts (not very convincingly, IMHO) to tie the "apes" story with Midrashic interpretations of the Biblical story of God punishing the children of Israel with excessive amounts of quail, claiming that the description of the meat coming out of the sinners' noses is akin to turning them into animals, even though their sin had nothing to do with the Sabbath. (Since the quail came from the sea, and the Jews complained about a lack of meat and fish, he links the quail to the fish in the Quranic story.)

One of his footnotes, to a 1902 German paper on the topic, seems a little more likely an explanation to me:

Hartwig Hirschfeld, New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran (London, 1902), 108. Cf. Reynolds, The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext, 114 n. 339. According to Hirschfeld, the Quranic story is “a mistaken rendition” of the biblical episode about the manna that became worms after the Children of Israel had disobeyed Moses by saving it for the morrow (Exodus 16:20). Hirschfeld posits that in the Quranic version, the people who left the manna overnight became insects themselves – qirāda (vermin). He maintains that the compilers of the Quran eventually preferred qirada (apes) to qirāda.

I did find another Hebrew translation of the Quran online, I do not know if it is based on Rubin or on another; there have been Jordanian and Saudi translations in recent years.

The earliest Hebrew translation of the Quran was published in 1857 by a German scholar. I was surprised to see that the lengthy introduction was written in "Rashi" script, I was unaware that this script was ever used for anything non-sacred.

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Palestinian media is very happy at videos of football fans in Qatar who insult Israeli reporters.

But one writer sees that Qatar and the other Gulf countries only pretend to support Palestinians. This article shows that Palestinians see the difference between real support for Palestinians and the Arab version of virtue signaling.

Hosting the World Cup Qatar cost the Gulf states 220-240 billion dollars. Housing projects for two million Palestinians in the Palestinian territories and two additional power plants would cost $10 billion...

The splendor of the World Cup marks the demise of what little concern other Arab and Muslim countries had for the fate of the Palestinians over the past two decades. This attention will go down in the history of the Middle East as a clear sign of the oil-rich Arab states turning their backs on their Palestinian brethren.

They justify their unwarranted self-interest with the absurd pretext that such aid to the Palestinians amounts to interference in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on behalf of the Jewish state. The hypocrisy in this statement stinks to the high heavens.

These wasteful people should go to the refugee camps in Gaza and tell their inhabitants that they are not ready to help them because their poverty, neglect and suffering are the best card in the Arab world against the “occupying Zionists”.

Try to say that the lack of aid is part of a clever political plan to help the Palestinian people politically. Try to explain to them how you build museums, malls, and stadiums in your countries at a cost of billions of dollars each year.

There was a lot of bitterness in Palestinian media after the Abraham Accords, but I have only rarely seen something this caustic towards the Gulf countries.

The ironic part if that Qatar has shown more genuine interest in giving aid to Gazans than any other country.

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Al Haq: If Israel is involved in climate agreements, better to screw the environment

Al Haq issued a statement about Israel's participation at COP27, "Cooperation with Israel on Climate without Palestinian Self-determination Entrenches Colonial Climate Vulnerability of Palestinians."

It is a very interesting document. It looks at everything Israel agreed to with other countries to help the environment - and denounces them.

For example,

The Abraham Accords are not only a shameful, dangerous acceptance and endorsement of Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, they also violate third states’ legal responsibilities under international law not to recognise the illegal situation arising from Israel’s violation of peremptory norms of international law.

Essentially, they are saying that any agreement with Israel is illegal.

The EuroAsia Interconnector, an EU infrastructure project that aims to connect the national electricity grids of Israel, Cyprus, Greece and wider Europe, is denounced because...

...the electricity grid receives electricity from illegal settlement solar panel fields. Under the rubric of cooperation to address the climate crisis, the implementation of this project would in fact, contribute to the further entrenchment of grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the violation of peremptory norms under customary international law against the Palestinian people.

Yes, solar panels in Judea and Samaria are crimes against humanity!

The East Mediterranean Gas Forum, a cooperative group that includes Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, is denounced as "a political smokescreen which enables Israel to perpetrate the exploitation and pillage of Palestinian gas resources." But why is this bad if it includes the Palestinian Authority? "Al-Haq warns that Palestinian Authority presence at the East Mediterranean Gas Forum table, does not qualify as consent for the exploitation of Palestinian gas resources by Israel, whose ownership vests in the occupied Palestinian population."

Essentially, if the PA makes any deal with Israel, that makes the PA illegitimate as well!

The only common denominator in the examples of things Al Haq condemned at COP27 was anything that treated Israel like a normal nation. The deal between Israel and Jordan to provide desalinated water from the Mediterranean in exchange for electricity was twisted into somehow taking away Palestinian water rights. An agreement for Israel's water carrier to provide expertise to Bahrain is condemned for the same reason, even though Israel has signed agreements with the PA on water and is adhering to them.

What this press release proves is that when anti-Israel groups pretend to care about other social justice issues like the environment, it is only meant to either recruit more dupes to their cause or to hijack it. Because when it comes down to it, they clearly don't care in the least about the environment - not as long as Israel is part of the solution.

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11/20 Links: Adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism is a critical step for all; Pompeo: ‘Anti-Zionist bias runs very deep inside of the Biden administration’; How and why the PA kills its own children

From Ian:

Adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism is a critical step for all

THAT THE IHRA Working Definition prevents criticism of Israel is an easy claim to make, but it’s simply false. “Criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic,” are the words written in plain and simple language in the IHRA Working Definition.

Criticism is normal and encouraged; however, there is legitimate criticism and then there is antisemitism. Some of the contemporary examples of antisemitism hiding as anti-Zionism include denying the Jewish people’s right to self-determination or using classic antisemitic imagery when talking about Israel. Denying the Jewish people’s right to self-determination is one of the examples of clear antisemitism given in the IHRA Working Definition and the point where the line is crossed from legitimate criticism to antisemitism.

Nor does the IHRA Working Definition provide special treatment to Jews. The goal is simply to help identify antisemitism, plain and simple. Identifying hatred against one group does not harm or negate another one’s rights.

Then there are some that propose alternatives to the IHRA Working Definition. One of the main similarities in all of these alternative definitions is that they seek to remove Israel from the discussion. One cannot discuss modern antisemitism without including the State of Israel, the Jewish homeland. Thus, rhetoric and actions that reject Israel’s right to exist are also clear antisemitism.

These alternative definitions all seem to try and point to one statement: that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. In many cases, the word “Jew” is replaced with “Zionist” or “Israel” in order to hide blatant antisemitism. The IHRA Working Definition merely calls this out. Israel is the home of the Jewish people. We have historic, cultural and religious ties to this land that go back millennia. The definition of the word Zionist means that you support the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, and denying them this right, is antisemitic.

Today, Jews worldwide are being attacked and find themselves the targets of exclusion, marginalization, harassment, and even real or perceived violence based on their identification with Israel and Zionism.

The IHRA Working Definition serves as an invaluable resource to identify antisemitism in all its forms, creating a tool that will become all the more necessary, as global antisemitism continues to surge. As we must all stand against antisemitism and hatred, so too must we encourage education and adoption of the IHRA Working Definition and defend it against its detractors.

Phyllis Chesler: Like Freud, are we in denial about the danger of antisemitism?

Why didn’t Sigmund Freud leave Vienna until it was almost too late? He knew what was happening to his Jewish colleagues in Germany after the Nazis took power. Nevertheless, the great man refused to depart his beloved city of dreams—and of his pioneering dream interpretations—even after Nazi Germany absorbed Austria in 1938.

The signs were there for Freud to see. He knew that his books had been burned in Germany, that German Jews were beginning to commit suicide and that Jewish psychoanalysts were being fired and replaced by non-Jews.

He was not completely in denial. In a 1933 letter to his former patient, Princess Marie Bonaparte, he wrote, “The world is turning into an enormous prison. Germany is the worst cell. What will happen in the Austrian cell is quite uncertain.”

However, according to Freud’s physician Max Schur, “It would seem that Freud, who had uncovered the force of the aggressive drive in the individual, could not believe that this force could be unleashed in an entire nation.”

For years, Freud refused to make plans to leave. Yet the persecution continued. Swastikas were hung on his building. Nazi goons invaded his home and extorted money from his wife. His books and publishing house were seized. A man who resembled Freud was beaten up near his residence. Yet he did nothing.

Ruthie Blum: The FBI contributes to antisemitism while claiming to combat it

Wray prefaced his reply to the Jewish lawmaker—a member of the Democratic Party that has its own antisemitism problem—by saying that the FBI was “pleased” to have been able to thwart the above threat, and that he’d been in touch with the Anti-Defamation League about it.

“Certainly, antisemitism, and violence that comes out of it, is a persistent and present fact,” he acknowledged. “[A]bout 63% of religious hate crimes overall are motivated by antisemitism. And that’s targeting a group that makes up about 2.4% of the American population. So, it’s a community that deserves and desperately needs our support, because they’re getting hit from all sides.”

The FBI is “trying to address” this situation, he continued, “through a combination of things: one, on the domestic terrorism side, through our joint terrorism task forces; two, on the hate-crime side, through our civil-rights program, [which] we’ve elevated … to a national threat priority; [three], a domestic terrorism hate-crime fusion cell, which brings together those two programs … to try to be more proactive.”

Furthermore, he added, “we’re engaged in a very aggressive outreach campaign that’s designed to kind of raise awareness, help people know how to report, what to be on the lookout for, because we need to tap into the eyes and ears in the community. And that has included … not far from you in New York, translating some of the materials into Yiddish, for example, and Hebrew, to make [them] more accessible to certain parts of the Jewish community.”

Wray’s last reference was amusing, since the only Jews in the United States whose native tongue is Hebrew are Israelis. And neither they nor the Yiddish-speakers in certain Big Apple neighborhoods, who also know English, need the FBI to tell them how to recognize antisemitism when they witness or experience it.

Being called a “dirty Jew” by thugs throwing punches doesn’t get lost in translation, after all. Ditto for anti-Israel epithets hurled by individuals or groups of protesters waving placards about so-called “war crimes” committed against Palestinians by the “apartheid” Jewish state.

Speaking of which, Wray has some nerve touting his agency’s efforts at combating antisemitism, and not only due to a clear lack of success on its part, as statistics keep showing. No, a massive, inefficient bureaucracy like the FBI is ill-equipped to tackle a multi-pronged phenomenon that’s exploding in various forms on city streets, college campuses, social media and Capitol Hill. It’s not even good at focusing on its actual job of apprehending perpetrators and monitoring potential ones.

But it’s the height of chutzpah for him to be patting himself on the back for attempting to minimize antisemitism, while in the midst of a mission that fans its flames. Indeed, the FBI suddenly decided to launch a new probe into the May 11 death of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

When the UN banned Jews from the Partition Commission

The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle reported on December 12, 1947:

The original JTA story was dated December 9.

The UN Palestine Commission was created as a result of the Partition resolution of November 30, so the policy of "no Jews, no Arabs, no Britons" must have only existed for a week or so.

Even so, this is remarkable. The UN at the time met in Lake Success, in Long Island, NY, and there would have been very few Arabs or Britons available for the commission; the only practical effect of this rule would be to ban Jews.

Meaning that, for a short time, the UN banned American Jews from membership of a high profile commission, because they were Jews.

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"Pay for Slay" is very possibly the motive for last week's terrorist murders in Ariel

Muhammad Murad Souf, the terrorist who murdered three Israeli fathers last week in Ariel, may have been motivated by the Palestinian Authority's program of paying salaries to the families of terrorists, known as "pay for slay."

According to a fawning biography at Safa Palestinian News Agency, "Fate chose the 19-year-old martyr Souf, from the town of Haris, to be the sole breadwinner for his family after the death of his father, and he chose to end his life as a martyr in a commando operation that will be immortalized in history."

The article goes on to quote Souf's mother, saying,"May God be pleased with him. He left school to support us after his father died, and he was responsible for all the expenses of the house."

"His life was from the mosque to the house and from home to work, and he had no time for fun except for the time he spent when his friends visited him at home," his mother added.

The article notes that Souf's father died when he was in the tenth grade. He quit school to find work and support his mother and seven siblings. Muhammad was no the oldest sibling; his oldest brother Sami was already in law school at An-Najah University, which left Muhammad to become the breadwinner at around 16.

Souf first worked for Israelis at the Barkan industrial park, and then he got a job at a detergent factory at the Ariel industrial park.

One can only imagine the pressure that Muhammad felt to take care of his family, of his bitterness at missing out on enjoying his teenage years, at the little prospect of a happy marriage when he would have more mouths to feed, and at his older brother staying in school while he was forced to leave to become a common laborer.

"Martyrdom" sounds like a very attractive alternative, especially knowing that his family would no longer have to worry about affording to live. Palestinian Law No. 14, Articles 1 and 2, enacted by the PA in 2004, says that Soufs' family will receive a pension for life equivalent to triple the average West Bank salary.

That would be about 97,500 shekels a year, forever.

It is likely far higher than Souf's salary at Barkan, which was probably not much above Israel's minimum wage of 64,000 shekels a year (which in turn is still double the average Palestinian worker salary in the West Bank.)

If "Pay for Slay" didn't exist, would Muhammad Souf have wanted to risk his family losing their main means of support?

Given the choice of a thankless future doing manual labor and few prospects for any improvement on one hand, and an easy way to guarantee his family's financial security on the other hand - together with the knowledge that he would be instantly transformed into a national hero - is it any wonder that Souf chose to kill Jews and achieve martyrdom and paradise?

The Palestinian law paying "martyrs" is almost certainly responsible for the deaths of Tamir Avihai, Michael Ladygin and Motti Ashkenazi.

It is also notable that Souf went on Hajj recently, based on his photo. A 19-year old breadwinner for a family of 8 would no doubt find that difficult to afford. In retrospect, this looks like a "bucket list" item, an achievement that the religious Souf would want to earn before he dies. Israeli intelligence may want to look at the Palestinians who make the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to see if any of them are doing it beyond their means, as this may be an indication that they are also planning on a future windfall for their families.