Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

How many Palestinians are being sexually abused by aid workers?

The UN's OCHA issued a press release listing the humanitarian activities implemented in Jenin after Israel's raid earlier this month.

As you would expect, the text discusses topics like providing water, food, shelter and psychological support to residents of the camp affected by the fighting.

Some of the support they are sending, however, indicates that the media reporting on Palestinian issues in the territories is very skewed.

For example:

A mine action expert has conducted two training sessions on explosive ordnance risks (EOR), targeting 30 UNRWA staff in Jenin camp to reduce community exposure to UXO threats and promote safety.

Outside of my own, I have not seen a single article in the media that discusses how Palestinian terrorists are endangering their own people by burying huge IEDs in the ground for IDF vehicles.

But aid workers know. Which is why reports like this can be used to glean a lot of information that the media choses to downplay or ignore.

The report implies that there is an uptick in violence against women and sexual abuse in the wake of the raid: (GBV is "gender based violence".)

Partners specializing in GBV response have, on average, provided medical services and psychosocial support (PSS) to 50 women per day.
One partner has sent social workers to Jenin to reinforce the provision of PSS.
A hotline based in Nablus is receiving daily calls and has provided online PSS.
UNRWA is ensuring ongoing safe identification and referral of cases needing more specialized counselling and follow-up (including for people exposed to GBV or sexual exploitation and abuse).
Partners responding to GBV have sent psychosocial support teams to Jenin camp, to assess the needs and provide services. Two nationwide hotlines are available to support women who seek support in response to GBV. The GBV Sub-Cluster has informed women and girls of available services.

If 50 women are being counseled on gender based violence every day, that indicates that hundreds of Palestinian women may be subject to violence and sexual abuse.

We know this is true, NGO reports have mentioned - although rarely highlighted - the huge amount of violence that Palestinian women endure from their fathers and husbands. A 2019 survey showed that 29% of Palestinian married women had experienced some form of GBV by their husbands in the previous twelve months, including 18% being subjected to physical violence and 9% to sexual violence.

Palestinian Arab men use an Israeli raid as an excuse to abuse their wives.

But even that is not the most troubling fact to emerge from reading between the lines of this report. It also says:

In coordination with UNRWA, SAWA ...has been actively educating the affected population about the importance of accessing confidential reporting channels. This effort aims to empower people to report any misconduct or wrongdoing by humanitarian workers, ensuring a safe and accountable environment for everyone.

Misconduct by medical workers is rampant enough to prompt NGOs to pro-actively educate people on how to report it? They are paying for commercial spots on the radio.

What kinds of misconduct could this be?

UNRWA publishes this poster about its zero tolerance policy for sexual abuse by its staff.

In other contexts, sexual abuse by humanitarian aid workers have been well reported. But finding specific statistics on how often this happens in the territories is not easy. The Palestinian and international media is clearly not interested in reporting about it.

What we do know is that a lot of NGOs are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and assigning scores of workers and "focal points" to fight this abuse against Palestinian women and children - that no one is talking about.

Clearly, there is some serious sexual abuse by UN and other aid workers against Palestinian women and children. The extent of that abuse is not being compiled and reported anywhere as far as I can tell. But these organizations wouldn't be putting this much money and effort into fighting this abuse if it was only a marginal, rare concern.

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The Palestine Post, July 26, 1948, reported:

A commentator on the Baghdad Radio strongly criticized the refugees in the Arab States for their complaints about their treatment.

Arabs who said they wished they had stayed in Palestine with the Jews should he shot as spies. he urged.

"The Jews will make you their slaves, if you return to them." the commentator said. "They will feed you only on bread and water. They will force you to sleep in the open. five on one blanket. They will take your wives and daughters from you. Choose death rather than the Jews."

That's how much they supported Palestinian Arabs!

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07/25 Links Pt2: The EU-Funded Education for Jihad and Martyrdom; Reuters Parrots Palestinian Historical Revisionism in Archaeology Report

From Ian:

Bassam Tawil: The EU-Funded Education for Jihad and Martyrdom

While the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups in the Gaza Strip use summer camps to train children how to become combatants and murder Jews, the Palestinian Authority, through its education system, effectively does the same thing. It poisons their hearts and minds through incendiary material in its school textbooks.

Even the European Parliament condemned the Palestinian Authority over the "hateful" content of its textbooks. The European Union, for the past two-and-a-half years, withheld assistance from the Palestinian Authority while demanding political reforms and the purging of incitement to violence from Palestinian textbooks. A resolution passed this year by the European Parliament went so far as to directly link the content of the textbooks with Palestinian terrorism... The resolution also acknowledged that there is antisemitism in the textbooks and demanded that it be removed.

The Palestinian Authority, however, has not removed from its textbooks material that promotes violence or loathing Jews.

Nevertheless, despite repeated talk by the European Union on the need to change Palestinian textbooks, it is apparently resuming unconditional financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced last year during a visit to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians, that EU funds will be resumed "rapidly."

This sudden burst of generosity raises questions about the EU's seriousness when it talks about the need to remove the "hateful material" from the textbooks.

The announcement by the European Commission president shows that the Europeans do not honestly care if the Palestinian Authority continues to incite violence and promote Jew-hatred in its schools. In fact, by resuming unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians, the EU is signaling that it approves of the hateful material in the textbooks and actually encourages the Palestinians to continue their Jihad against Israel and Jews.

Reuters Parrots Palestinian Historical Revisionism in Archaeology Report

In its brief report on a recent archaeological discovery in Gaza, Reuters not only reported the facts but also uncritically provided a platform for inane Palestinian historical revisionism.

Detailing the unearthing of 125 Roman-era tombs near a building site, including a rare find of two sarcophagi made from lead, both Reuters’ report and accompanying video also aired the statements of two Gaza-based authorities who hijacked this exciting archaeology news by unabashedly trying to connect this ancient discovery to the modern-day Palestinians.

Fadel Al-A’utul, of the prestigious French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research, claimed that this find “proves to the world about the existence of Palestinian culture and heritage.”

Likewise, Jamal Abu Reida, the General-Director of the Hamas-run Antiquities Ministry, asserted that:
The cemetery is important because it deepens Palestinian roots on this land and that it dates back to thousands of years and it refutes the Zionist allegations. It refutes Israeli claims that Palestine is a land without people and that its people are without land. The existence of this cemetery…signifies stability and ongoing habitation.

However, the fly in the ointment for both Al-A’utul and Abu Reida’s claims is that these tombs predate the Palestinians and are entirely unrelated to Gaza’s current inhabitants.

Related Reading: Forensic Architecture ‘Investigation’ Into ‘Destruction of Gaza’s Antiquities’ Glosses Over Real Archaeological Crimes

According to a 2014 historical survey in Haaretz, the Gaza of Roman times was inhabited by a diverse population of Jews, Greeks, Romans, Philistines, Egyptians, Persians and Bedouin.

Notice who’s missing?

The Palestinians didn’t reside in Roman Gaza because there weren’t any Palestinians yet.

The Palestinians claim to trace their heritage back to the Muslim Arab conquest of the region in 637 C.E., hundreds of years after these ancient tombs would have been sealed.

By ludicrously alleging that these tombs are evidence for 2000 years of Palestinian history and that they also serve as a refutation of long-standing Jewish ties to the region, Al-A’utul and Abu Reida are not only distorting history in the service of modern-day politics but are also calling into question the integrity of any academic archaeological work that is conducted in the Hamas-administered coastal enclave.

Gaza had a truly diverse society in Roman times.

Philistines, Greeks, Romans, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Jews, Egyptians, Persians and Bedouins were all members of the population.

Palestinians? No. pic.twitter.com/9dvMY4I9KG
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 25, 2023

And this guy? Jamal Abu Reida?

Here he is supporting a terrorist who murdered an Israeli civilian using the subconscious reminder of "from the river to sea," a dog whistle for the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews. pic.twitter.com/DgzKXRr65Q
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 25, 2023

From BNN:

The Iraqi Fencing & Modern Pentathlon Federation recently decided to withdraw its team from the FIE Fencing World Championships in Milan due to a potential confrontation with Israeli players.

This is not the first time the Iraqi team has made such a decision. The team also withdrew from individual races in a previous World Fencing Championship held in Istanbul for the same reason.

Azhar Ali, the director of the Federation’s media, stated that the team’s withdrawal only applies to confrontations with Israel, and that the Iraqi players would continue to participate in other competitions. Ali also emphasized that the Iraqi Federation would not face any penalties due to the withdrawal, as it is in compliance with international regulations.

That last sentence does not seem to be true.

The official FIE regulations state:

t.113 Refusing to fence an opponent
1 No fencer (individual or team) from an FIE member national federation may take part in an official competition if he refuses to fence against any other fencer whatsoever (individual or team) correctly entered in the event. Should this rule be broken, the penalties specified for offences of the 4th group will be applied (cf. t.158-162, t.169, t.170).

Offenses of the 4th group means a black card.

2 The FIE shall consider whether there are grounds, and to what extent, for taking sanctions against the national federation to which the disqualified competitor belongs (cf. FIE Statutes 1.2.4 and Rules Article t.170).

Any black card awarded at a competition of the FIE or at a competition organized by any Confederation which has subscribed to the FIE disciplinary code shall be reported within 10 days to the President of the FIE, for him to assess whether the severity of the offence committed warrants the sending of the report made by the FIE supervisor or by the Directoire Technique to the president of the Legal Commission, requesting him to establish a Disciplinary Tribunal to determine if penalties in addition to those imposed at the competition should be imposed.

Given that the Iraqi team did the same thing in Istanbul a couple of months ago, if the FIE has any concern for the sport, it should expel any team that has clearly stated that they refuse to participate in these competitions against legal competitors.

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From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The meeting was supposed to focus on recent controversial remarks on Israel by one member of San Diego County’s Human Relations Commission. Instead, they were overshadowed when another commissioner made new, inflammatory false comments about Jews.

Now, local Jewish leaders are calling for dramatic changes to the commission they believe are needed to ensure it improves human relations, and doesn’t incite hate.

While coming to the defense of a fellow commissioner who had drawn outrage for earlier comments on Israel, Khaliq Raufi made offensive remarks of his own, falsely asserting that Judaism teaches Jews to kill.

Raufi said he’d read a few verses in Deuteronomy, the fifth book of both the Torah and Christian Old Testament. “It states ‘Go kill Palestinians. Wipe them all out,’” Raufi said Tuesday. “So it’s a teaching that they, on a daily basis, teach their followers in their synagogues.”

Audible surprise came from those in the audience. Among them was Sara Brown, regional director of the American Jewish Committee of San Diego, who could be heard saying, “Are you serious right now?”

He then went on to supposedly quote Deuteronomy, where he said that God commanded the Israelites to wipe out all of the residents of Canaan.

You can see the meeting here.

The meeting was discussing an earlier statement by another commission member, George Khoury, who in May described Israel as a "racist, fascist state."

The purpose of the human relations commission is "to promote positive human relations, respect, and the integrity of every individual regardless of gender, religion, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, or citizenship status."

But Jews are fair game - even for those whose very job is to promote tolerance.

The official response from the local ADL, AJC and Federation said, "This statement is representative of the historical and false accusation of modern blood libel/antisemitic tropes, which have led to horrific violence, destruction, persecution, and massacres of Jewish people and communities."

There were some Jewish representatives there. I bet that none of them could effectively answer either the "racist, fascist" state slur nor the slander from the Torah.

Jews need to educate our own leaders so they con confidently and quickly demolish these slanders.

(h/t Michelle)

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07/25 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The real coup against Israel's democracy; Israel rebukes Jordan over restrictions on religious Jews; Abbas’ advisor: Allah will destroy Israel before its 80th year

From Ian:

Lahav Harkov: Security concerns could bring Israel's summer of discontent to an end

There is no doubt that the judicial issue and related protests are a huge story whose outcome has the potential to have a massive influence on every Israeli.

That being said, there's a tendency in the Israeli media to behave as though it is the only thing happening in the country.

Elyashiv Reichner is a columnist in religious-Zionist publications who writes about life in Israel's periphery, the areas far from the wealthy coastal area or the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor that get little media attention when they're not under attack.

Last week, on one of the big "days of disruption", Reichner, who lives in Yerucham in the Negev, had to drive to Israel's north. None of the roads on his way were blocked, and at most, there were a few handfuls of people waving flags at the sides of the street.

"Life mostly flowed as usual," Reichner wrote in the right-wing Makor Rishon weekly. "Facing the relative peace in the periphery, I asked myself: What better reflects reality? Are the mass protests in [Tel Aviv] the real view of Israel today, or maybe the quiet that I found in the last two weeks in Ma'alot, in the Golan Heights, in Lod, in Beersheba and in Yerucham more authentically express Israel of summer 2023?"

Though I live in central Israel, I have asked myself this question as well, feeling a sharp dissonance between my work and my life, which has gone on as normal. My husband takes our kids to camp in the morning and goes to his high-tech job almost entirely unimpeded by protests, despite getting off the train in central Tel Aviv. I go to appointments, pick up the kids in the afternoon, make them dinner and read them bedtime stories – on the same day as reading and writing about it being a day of disruption.

I'm sure that some will say most Israelis are being dangerously complacent by continuing their life as normal while the country is transformed into fascist dictatorship.

Reichner, for his part, wrote: "This is not a call to ignore and certainly not for apathy... We must listen to the protest, but at the same time, we can wonder if we've lost all proportions and the relative routine in the periphery at this time is what actually better reflects the appropriate treatment of these events."

He suggested to his friends who oppose the reform to take a deep breath, step away from social media and get out of central Israel.

The same recommendation goes for the government’s supporters. Having eaten their salad, as Ben-Gvir put it, it won't hurt to take the Knesset’s lengthy recess to go on a diet and forgo the other courses. They now have more than two months to consider if the cost of full-scale judicial reform outweighs its benefits. Perhaps some, like Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, will have greater success convincing Netanyahu to reach a hand out to the other side of the escalator. If for nothing else, then for Israel’s security.

Melanie Phillips: The real coup against Israel's democracy

Got that? Spotted the difference with Israel? These were all coups against a tyrannical regime. They were insurrections mounted to wrestle freedom and the rule of law away from regimes which suppress them. Yet Melman is using this argument to justify an insurrection against Israel’s democratically elected government.

That isn’t a coup to protect democracy. It’s a coup to destroy democracy.

Moreover, the claim that the measure passed today abolishing the “reasonableness” criterion in judicial review will usher in a dictatorship doesn’t hold water. As Israel Kasnett reported on JNS.org, legal experts such as law professor Avi Bell and the lawyers at the Kohelet Forum argue that the Supreme Court’s criterion of “reasonableness” , developed after 1993 in a judicial power grab to counter the rise of the democratically elected Likud party, is not anchored in any legal principle and has been used to give the judges powers to strike down laws and ministerial actions unprecedented anywhere else in the democratic world.

As for the claim that abolishing this “reasonableness” criterion will remove Israeli ministers from judicial scrutiny, the Kohelet Forum says this is ridiculous. Kasnett writes: Kohelet also emphasised that contrary to popular belief, the annulment of the reasonableness criteria as proposed by the bill “will not prevent judicial review or lead to a violation of human rights. Most of the main review grounds in administrative law will remain… Repealing reasonableness grounds will demand of the court that it review decisions based on sound legal grounds, and not on the judges’ opposing world-views or preferences, and will leave value decisions to the elected officials”.

Bell observed:
“With the high court and official legal establishment acting in open contempt of the elected legislature and executive, and in open rebellion against any attempt to return legal limits to their power, Israel is already in a constitutional crisis. One can only hope they will come to their senses.”

Alas, it looks like they are not. For those opposing reforms such the one passed today, their inescapable position is that they want to have rule by unelected and unaccountable judges rather than rule by democratically elected politicians they despise. For such opponents, the argument that the proper way to deal with such despised politicians is through the ballot box no longer has any validity. Their claim that they are defending democracy is bogus and Orwellian. They want representative democracy replaced by unbridled judicial power — and the power of the streets, enforced by the military.

We owe Ha’aretz a debt of gratitude for tearing aside at least one of the veils of obfuscation to call this crisis out for what it is — a military coup.

Ignore President Biden, Here’s What Is Really Happening In Israel

The system is so insane that not only can the court lord over the legislative branch without explanation, but it can remove ministers and elected officials at will. The attorney general is empowered to bar officials — even the prime minister — from participating in national debates. This is not, by any real standard, “democratic” governance. It is illiberal.

Perhaps there is no good way to balance what is effectively two branches of the Israeli government. It’s a complicated issue. Reforms are no panacea. Some aspects make more sense than others. But judicial reform is hardly a new idea, and reforms are not being “rushed.” They have been debated within Israeli politics for decades, with numerous moderate legal voices proposing changes over that time. In many ways, the freak-out reminds me of the American left’s alarmism over tax cuts and net neutrality. It is largely a political effort to undermine Netanyahu.

The Associated Press, however, stresses that the protests in Israel are a “grassroots” effort as if this imbues a mob with a moral high ground or the authority to dictate government policy. In truth, many of the marches — and threats to shut down Israeli society — are organized by Israel’s biggest and most powerful unions and egged on by foreigners. If the prime minister lets these protestors blackmail him, he might as well resign right now. It’s going to incentivize anarchy.

As of now, protestors from both sides are out on the streets. And so far, they haven’t engaged in the defenestration of their opponents or any violence. The debate is an illustration of a “democracy” working, not one sliding into tyranny.

Yet, every time Israel has a contentious internal debate, concern-trolls like Tom Friedman emerge to lament the coming end of Israeli democracy. You will notice that according to the media, legislative proposals, domestic or foreign, are only “divisive” and “deeply contentious” when conservatives support them. The reality is that virtually everything we do in politics is “divisive” and “deeply contentious.” That’s why politics exists. And in Israel, the time of day is a deeply contentious issue.

Moreover, for the left, “democracy” can mean hyper-majoritarianism or judicial tyranny. Whatever works. Depends on the day. What am I saying? Democrats will argue that limiting judicial supremacy in Israel is an attack on “democracy” while at the same time claiming SCOTUS is engaged in judicial supremacy for showing deference to the Constitution and handing back issues like abortion to voters. Calvinball all the way down.

Of course, the Israeli Supreme Court was packed with right-wingers instead of left-wingers, American media, the Democratic Party, and the protestors would be on the reform side. None of this has anything to do with governing principles or justice or norms or “democracy.” Like those destroying the American judiciary at home, it’s about power.

The Israeli right is also about power. I’m not naïve. But right now, the reforms they support are far better aligned with the norms of a functioning “democracy” than the ones in place. That’s something a person reading headlines in the American press might not know.

The official spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said today that the "assassination" of "three young men" by the IDF near the gate of Mount Gerizim in Nablus is a "war crime", and it is a continuation of the policy of "collective punishment" to which our Palestinian people are subjected.

The "victims" were terrorists who opened fire on the Israeli troops and were killed in response.

The "young men" were 32, 33 and 43 years old.

While the Palestinian Authority in English says that they were innocent victims of Israeli aggression, Hamas says it is proud of "this group of the al-Qassam Brigades' mujahideen, who set out with all their faith and certainty to confront this criminal enemy."

There is no universe where soldiers killing those who fire at them first are war criminals - except in Palestinian fantasy land.

Unfortunately, fantasies are often treated as reality when people want them to be true.

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The first paragraph of the American Anthropological Association's BDS resolution refers to a fictional Palestinian organization (update)

This week, the American Anthropological Association voted to boycott all Israeli academic institutions.

The resolution that they approved is antisemitic. It says that Israel's very existence is "apartheid", not "settlements" or "occupation", saying that "from the onset of the Nakba, the catastrophic events of 1948 that led to the mass expulsion and displacement of Palestinians from their homes, Palestinians—including activists, artists, intellectuals, human rights organizations, and others—have documented and circulated knowledge of the Israeli state’s apartheid system and ethnic cleansing."

The first paragraph of the resolution is all the proof you need that there was no research or academic rigor that went into this decision.

Whereas, in 2005, 175 Palestinian civil society organizations, including the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), issued a call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state, in support of the Palestinian struggle for human and political rights, including the basic right of freedom;

The very first paragraph invokes the antisemitic BDS movement as justification for the boycott, blindly accepting whatever accusations it makes against Israel. The following paragraphs are all essentially cut and pasted from BDS materials. No one at AAA did any fact checks on the assertions in the rest of the resolution.

But what about the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees? Their support for a boycott is considered the linchpin from which the entire resolution gets is legitimacy. Who are they?

The PFUUPE does not exist in any real sense.

It has no webpage. It has no Facebook account. It has no Twitter account.

It does have a phone number, which is also the main phone number of Palestine Polytechnic University and the office number of that university's president, Dr. Amjad Barham

He is the president of the PFUUPE according to his CV.

Is it not strange that the president of a federation of unions is also the president of a university that those unions would naturally make demands of for better benefits and working conditions? There appears to be a conflict of interest there.

But not if the PFUUPE is fictional.

There is no evidence that the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees has a single member outside Dr. Barham. It apparently does not have bylaws, or membership fees, or benefits, or recruitment materials, or a board, or committees, or elections, or a vice president.

It is one person named Amjad, a man who lists being able to use a PC and the Internet on his resume, and who issues regular press releases in the name of all Palestinian academics. Nearly all of those are about boycotting Israel. He even managed to parlay his one man organization into a Guardian op-ed - again, advocating boycotting Israel, which appears to be the only purpose of this purported federation.

Many other of the "175 Palestinian civil society organizations" that signed the BDS "call" for boycotts appear to be equally fictional, tiny one-person operations created just for the purpose of appearing to be part of a greater whole. Many of them are not even based in the borders of British Mandate Palestine - these "Palestinian civil society" organizations are in Syria and Lebanon and Canada - but they are presented as "Palestinian" to promote the myth that the BDS movement was initiated by Palestinians.

The American Anthropological Association didn't check out whether the PFUUPE that they refer to in their very first paragraph is a real organization. They have no intellectual honesty at all. And any academic who remains a member of an organization that cannot be trusted to check the facts in its own resolutions is not interested in truth either.

UPDATE: GnasherJew did find a Facebook page for this union.

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An Iranian government ministry has belatedly blamed Israel for the Quran burnings and desecrations in Sweden.

The Tasnim News Agency reports that the Iranian Ministry of Security has explained that the reason for the desecration is "to divert the Islamic public opinion from the crimes in the oppressed city of Jenin."

Those Jews are so sneaky!

It turns out that Iran has previously claimed that Salwan Momika, the Christian Iraqi asylum seeker who is performing these stunts, is actually a Mossad agent. After the initial Quran burning, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry claimed that Momika had been hired by the Mossad in 2019, and that he “played a major role in spying on the resistance movement and advancing the project of Iraq's disintegration.”

“The evil show of the desecration of the holy Muslim book was organized and executed precisely with the aim of creating… media propaganda and marginalizing the news of the heinous and widespread crimes of the Zionist regime in the West Bank, especially the oppressed Jenin,” the ministry said.

“This is common practice among the Zionists, who, along with every killing and destruction project, implement another criminal project in order to divert attention from the previous one,” it added.

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07/24 Links Pt2: The French Riots and the Jews; Review: ‘Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence’; American Anthropological Association Endorses BDS After Referendum

From Ian:

The French Riots and the Jews

So has more than 20 years of rabid, often Islamist-inspired antisemitism in France exhausted itself? Or is it so ingrained now that the new generation can do without the explicit reference to the Jews in its war against assimilation? Either way, what no one wants to grasp is the complete failure of the assimilationist model, which has been abandoned not only by the kids of the cités but also by the society at large.

There is a long and a short story for this lack of faith. The long story, of course, is the Vichy regime. During WWII, contrary to what the right claims today, not only did the most assimilated Jews not escape persecution, but the Consistoire—the religious Jewish structure of the era—supported the collaboration, a position that has been rightly regarded as a perverse outcome of the assimilating process. As Yonathan Arfi phrases it: “if the assimilation process had succeeded, the CRIF (a secular organization born out of the Jewish Resistance) would not exist. There would be only the Consistoire. The CRIF is the result of a failure, which is why, as an institution, we are incomprehensible and why we attract antisemitism.”

But the assimilation did not only fail the Jews. It failed postwar migrants from North Africa, too. Aside from racism, one of the most underestimated reasons for why the French failed to develop any active policy to integrate migrants from their former colonies was that this would have been seen as a casus belli by the new nationalist Algerian and Moroccan regimes, whose oil and gas were vital to the French economy. In 1993, King Hassan II from Morocco could still state on French public television that “Moroccans would never be French, did not want to assimilate, and France would be well advised not to try.” The Algerian FLN was even more nationalist. Honor was at stake.

The former colonies made a point of directly controlling their nationals on French territory, a deal to which the French state assented. As a result, the ex-colonies also controlled the mosques and migrant culture in France.

Caught between French prejudice on the one hand and the control exercised by their countries of origin on the other hand, migrants were actively prevented by both their old and new state authorities from developing their own autonomous culture inside France. This conflict of loyalties often plagued the migrants themselves, especially the fathers who in the Algerian case had fought the French during the war of independence. It is the failure of the second generation of migrants, and of the French government as well, to solve the contradictions of identity produced by this bifurcated reality during the French civil rights movements of the ’80s that led to the building of the walls enclosing the cités, to the rise of Islamist propaganda, to the riots of 2005, and to today’s crypto-secessionism.

The researcher Hugo Micheron, whose last book, Les Démocraties face au jihadisme européen, will be published in English soon, explains that today, social groups instrumentalize each and every incident to denounce Islamophobia. “Very serious matters like the killing of Nahel Merzouk are being put on the same level as superficial ones to trigger a feeling of permanent threat, paranoia, and emergency,” he explains. “They call this ‘micro-aggression,’ but in fact, this narrative produces a ready-made interpretative grid where Muslims and descendants of Muslims are natural permanent victims of the system. What is really scary is that far-right groups in France have started to mimic that strategy. They, too, exploit what they call anti-French ‘micro-aggressions’ in order to nurture ‘the Great Replacement theory.’ Both of these narratives are martyr-producing machines.”

How to resurrect an assimilation model that works in such a context is anybody’s guess. One thing is certain: Denouncing a nonexistent French Muslim intifada against French Jews won’t help. The problem here is much worse.

‘To Stop the Dead From Dying’ Review: ‘Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence’

Winston Churchill called the Holocaust a "crime without a name." Elie Wiesel, one of its most eloquent survivors, would spend the rest of his life trying to find the words to describe what for many seemed incomprehensible. That he often succeeded is a testament to his greatness. In his new book, Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence, Joseph Berger profiles a man who became not only a spokesman for Holocaust survivors, but the living embodiment of their calls to "never forget."

As Berger, a former New York Times journalist, has observed: "By the sheer force of his personality and his gift for the haunting phrase, Mr. Wiesel, who had been liberated from Buchenwald as a sixteen-year-old with the indelible tattoo A-7713 on his arm, gradually exhumed the Holocaust from the burial ground of the history books." Wiesel became, a Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee said, "a messenger to mankind."

Wiesel’s works, particularly his 1960 memoir, Night, spread awareness about the Holocaust at a moment when much of the world would have rather forgotten a crime whose barbarity remains hard to fathom.

Wiesel, Berger notes, "had an aura of a prophet about him," yet "he wasn’t a prophet, he was a human being." Berger wondered how a little Hasidic boy from a small town in what is today Romania became an "iconic figure that everyone knows." His biography goes a long way in explaining this.

Wiesel was born in the Carpathian town of Sighet, then a part of Hungary. On the eve of the Holocaust, 40 percent of its 10,000 residents were Jewish, many of them Hasidim. The town was deeply cultured, with eight synagogues, an elegant hotel, and a publishing house. Like many of Europe’s shtetls, or Jewish communities, it would become a lost world.

As a child, Wiesel displayed a love for both books and music that would remain with him all his life. He was fascinated with the mystic and the otherworldly. His idyllic life would change, however, when on March 19, 1944, Nazi forces occupied Hungary. Reports reached Sighet warning of what was to come. On the eve of Passover, Nazi forces ordered the town’s synagogues to be closed and soon the Jewish community had to surrender their possessions, livelihoods, and eventually, their very lives.

"I felt like I was living—not learning but living—an incandescent chapter of history; one that later generations would study," Wiesel would one day write. But that introspection came later. First came surviving.

‘Unprecedented and Inappropriate’: Sen. Tom Cotton Slams Biden Statement on Israeli Judicial Reform

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) on Monday slammed President Joe Biden’s attempts to influence Israeli politics in the aftermath of a vote that Israel’s governing coalition says is the first step in a sweeping plan to reform the country’s judicial system and that has seen the country rocked by mass protests and divided the global Jewish community.

“Joe Biden’s meddling in Israel’s internal politics is unprecedented and inappropriate,” Cotton said in a statement to The Algemeiner. “He has no business telling one of our most important allies how to govern their own country.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre earlier on Monday had issued a statement criticizing the vote on Israel’s “Reasonableness” bill, the first in a set of measures planned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meant to limit the power of the Israeli Supreme Court.

“As a lifelong friend of Israel, President Biden has publicly and privately expressed his views that major changes in a democracy to be enduring must have as broad a consensus as possible,” the statement said. “It is unfortunate that the vote today took place with the slimmest possible majority.”

The bill, which bars Israel’s high court from using a standard allowing it to strike down any administrative action that it deems “unreasonable,” passed 64-0 after the opposition members of the 120-seat Knesset abstained from the vote.

Former Vice President and Republican Presidential primary candidate Mike Pence also condemned the Biden administration’s statements in an appearance on the Hugh Hewitt Show before the vote Monday.

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In English, Palestinians are poor, hapless victims. In Arabic, they are strong jihadists.

A tweet from Palestinian propagandist Nour Odeh:

Overnight, Israeli forces attacked Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem and literally plowed the streets & infrastructure leaving devastating & destruction in its wake.

She showed a video of an IDF bulldozer and then a bulldozed street.

But in Arabic, Palestinian terrorists are celebrating - because they have video of IED exploding in those same streets.

In other words, they mined their own streets - endangering their own people - in an attempt to blow up soldiers, and the IDF is forced to use the armored bulldozers to clear the IEDs.

An explosion like that would barely slow down an armored D9R bulldozer.

As usual, the Palestinians are trying to have it both ways - claiming victimhood status while they bury IEDs in their own streets. Their placement of the bombs are meant to protect terrorist infrastructure as they whine about civilian infrastructure that they are subverting for attacks.

(h/t Jon S)

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07/24 Links Pt1: Opponents of Netanyahu's judicial reforms want government by tantrum; What Happened to Robert Malley?

From Ian:

Richard A. Epstein: Opponents of Netanyahu's judicial reforms want government by tantrum

It’s ironic because, at least in the American context, progressives are the biggest champions of administrative and political decisions and have been quick to decry what they see as an activist, conservative court striking down laws and regulations where they have no business or expertise doing so. Many Democrats, including President Biden, have entertained making fundamental changes to the size and jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court — plans known as “court packing.” They have a double standard when they turn to Israel.

The protesters and their leaders never explain why Israel should remain a global outlier. Instead, they throw a tantrum intended to disrupt the deliberative processes of a democratic government. The intensity of their preferences are meant to drown out any serious substantive discussions, and their explicit threats to economic and national security are a powerful veto over any action. Trying to decide whether to resist these threats or beat an unhappy strategic retreat puts the government in the position of a store owner who has to decide whether to pay protection to the Mafia or risk vandalism to his store.

And why the crisis now? Because the protesters know that their political power is ebbing. What is most upsetting to the protestors is not any particular proposal on the table, but their loss of influence and control. Israel has become more religious and less white since its founding and the ruling elites there are not happy about either situation. But the same Joe Biden who favours diversity in the U.S. is loath to let the Israeli government and courts reflect the values of their citizenry, and Israel now risks becoming ruled by out-of-touch WASPs (that’s White Ashkenazic Supporters of Peace).

There is no question that these reforms could set back economic progress in the short term because of the self-inflicted wounds caused by the protests. Worse still, the threat to draw military reservists into the fray could compromise national security. Just think how it would look in the United States if tomorrow many Republicans were to go on strike in objection to Joe Biden’s recent criticisms of the American Supreme Court — or if Democrats would not show up to military service to protest Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

Brinkmanship never pays, and in the long-run, good policy wins out. Investors will continue to pour money into Israel because they understand that these changes are necessary to rein in a judicial system that has, among other faults, led Israel’s level of contract enforcement to rank between South Sudan and Samoa.

Acts of civil disobedience should be reserved for only the direst of circumstances: vandalism, the harassment of public officials, the closing down of major public transportation, the disruption of Knesset proceedings, and the threats of military insubordination should not be the first response to reasoned public debate. By castigating these rather measured reforms, such as preventing judges from appointing their own successors, the protesters engage in behaviors that they would denounce were the shoe on the other foot. Pity that they and their too numerous supporters fail to see that they are holding a lit match next to a political powder keg.

Arsen Ostrovsky: There is still time to get this right, but shouting matches won't work

I have actually never thought that Iran presented an existential threat to us (albeit not from lack of effort on their part, or the vigilance and actions of our security forces and intelligence). Our military knows very well how to deal with those who seek us harm and I continue to place absolute faith in them.

It is the internal division and the incendiary rhetoric, that is unprecedented, and threatening to rip us apart.

Our people have a history unlike any other, with no shortage of tragedies that have befallen us, both due to outside foes and our very own doing and disunity. That we are today on the eve of Tisha B'av should only remind us of this danger and serve as a clarion call to action.

We need to accept that our brothers and sisters, with whom we disagree, even passionately so, have legitimate views. We need to reach out to one another, not scream at each other from competing rallies.

The rhetoric on both sides needs to be toned down immediately.

Our leaders need to listen to their people, with empathy and fair hearing. They need to put aside their ego, sit down and negotiate a compromise until there is a resolution.

There is still time to do the right thing.

Until that happens, we cannot commence the process of healing that we truly need, and the gaping wound that is ripping at our nation, will only tear us further apart.

I made aliyah exactly eleven years ago, out of a deep Zionist yearning. Throughout that time, there has been no shortage of challenges and tribulations, including multiple wars. But I have never regretted a day.

Now more than ever, I am still profoundly inspired by Israel's story and will always continue to unwaveringly fight for the Jewish nation – both against foreign enemy and for what I believe within.

In the immortal words of Ehud Manor, "I have no other country even if my land is burning."

Meir Ben Shabbat: Lessons of destruction resonate louder than ever

Our enemies are rubbing their hands in glee
"Earthquake in the Israeli Army of Occupation's air force" – this is the headline that the Lebanese news outlet Al Mayadeen gave to the worrying development of IAF pilots refusing to serve. Our enemies are gazing at us in wonder and rubbing their hands in glee. This crisis fills them with hope, as they see Israel torn apart by internal strife, continuing to rip itself up into pieces.

Just as was the case during the destruction of the Temple, today too, it is difficult to find a figure of consensus, somebody who can really bang down hard on the pulpit and warn everybody of the potential ramifications of this current vector. Where are we headed?

If we insist on focusing our attention on the question of who is to blame and who is right – we will not succeed in extricating ourselves from the quicksand that threatens to pull us further down. Instead of going out to prove that we are right, now is the time to display responsibility: for the security and resilience of the state and to ensure that society remains intact. Above all we need to remove the IDF, the defense establishment, and the health system from all disputes. The damage that these domains might incur could well be irreparable, or in the eternal words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes (1:15) "A twisted thing that cannot be made straight".

The representatives of the various camps must engage each other in a meaningful dialogue to reach agreement. Such a dialogue must be conducted based on recognition of the genuine concerns troubling each side, founded on trust and respect, and mainly out of a sense of responsibility. Beyond the need to reach agreement on any specific issue that is on the agenda, it would be advisable to regard these talks as a good opportunity to pave the way towards addressing the root causes of the conflict and the key questions of identity, vision, and "rules of the game" during situations of discord.

It is probably safe to say that it won't be possible to reach a formula upon which everybody will agree, but a formula with a broad and solid basis of consensus would be a sufficiently good achievement.

Just as is true of any family, when dealing with the state too, a formal arrangement of relations will never be able to replace those "soft" components that are essential to preserving a viable framework for living together: mutual respect, consideration for others, friendship and above all: a sense of responsibility. Only when we begin to walk down this path will we know that we have learned the historical lessons of the Temple's destruction.

Iraqi news site Buraitha News, which is a Shi'ite site, has an "analysis" of Israel-Turkish relations by journalist and TV presenter Tabarak al-Raadi. She recently earned her PhD in International Relations from the University of Baghdad.

It starts off with:

The issue of the role of the Jewish lobby in Turkey may shed light on the Israeli-Turkish relations, which are frequently talked about these days, and which cannot be separated from their historical course.

A Jewish lobby in Turkey? Who knew?

You see, this expert has traced back the Jewish influence on Turkey to Shabbati Zevi, the famous false messiah who converted to Islam. According to her his followers converted to Islam but remained Jewish and continue their secret Jewish influence in Turkey today.

As she writes, "Since those times, they assassinate the sultans, support the generals, promote this and oppress that, and sign secret treaties."

Her conspiracy theory extends into classic Western-style antisemitism, as she claims that Turkey's major media are all controlled by these secret Jews. She then adds some legitimate anecdotes of Israeli-Turkish cooperation and agreements, as if that proves that Turkey has been infiltrated by Jews.

It is hard for Westerners to wrap their heads around this sort of pseudo-intellectual antisemitism that is widespread even among the Arab intelligentsia. But it is there, and it drives a lot of decisions.

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Last night there were anti-Hamas demonstrations in various locations in Gaza.

The protesters reject the disastrous conditions that the Gaza Strip is going through, and demand as good a life as the children of Hamas leaders enjoy.

Here's one that was posted on TikTok this week although I don't know when it occurred:

There are actually two stories here. One is that there are demonstrations like these altogether, and the other is that the media roundly ignores them.

Hashtags accompanying videos of last night's demo say "Where is Al Jazeera?" nearly as often as they say the slogan of the demonstrations, "We want to live."

Earlier this month, the leaders of the protests issued a list of demands to Hamas to improve their lives.

The word "Israel" is not mentioned - they blame Hamas and Hamas alone for their predicament.

They are demanding more hours of electricity, timely payment of Gaza government salaries, and for Hamas to stop taking out "taxes" on the money Qatar sends to Gazans (as well as an increase.)

If the demands aren't met, the protesters plan a huge set of demonstrations this coming Sunday, July 30.

So why are these issues not being covered by the media, including Arabic media?

One major reason is that there is an unwritten rule: unless problems can be blamed on Israel, they must not be publicized. And even ordinary Palestinians have internalized this rule when they speak to reporters on the record.

When they are assured anonymity, they are much freer to criticize their leaders, but most reporters aren't even interested in asking the right questions. The international media has its own narrative to uphold, and that one coincides with that of the PA and Hamas - always blame Israel and Israel alone.

Yes, there is censorship from Hamas and the PA, and they routinely will insult their political opponents on their own media so we know about their own infighting. But popular protests like these do not benefit the PA, because they have their own critics and protesters, and the optics of showing Palestinians protest against their own leaders is problematic for both sides.

These sorts of things only get any traction when they are too big to ignore.

This Sunday's protests will probably not bother Hamas - they will repress them and try to keep them quiet. But any Middle East media that ignores those protests are clearly not media that can be trusted to report anything accurately.

Which is essentially all the media in the region.

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