Category: The Society

Posted on

The Truth About Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria

For 50 years now, Israel has endured censure from global bodies and foreign countries for its construction and development of Jewish communities in the ancient Israelite tribal territories of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and western Menasheh, a.k.a. Judea & Samaria, referred to by the international community as the “West Bank”.

These Jewish communities are routinely condemned as illegal and illegitimate under international law and wielded as a political tool with which to tarnish Israel’s reputation. However, this position glaringly fails to take into account elementary history, Jewish indigeneity to the Land of Israel, and the applicability of international law.

 

Judea & Samaria form the heartland of the homeland of the Jewish People—the Land of Israel—which Jews have inhabited for 4,000 years.

 

  • Since the era circa 2000 BCE when the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs first settled and constructed in Shechem, Beth-El, Ai, and Hebron (a.k.a. Mamre/Kiryat Arba), Jews have been an autochthonous people throughout the area.
  • Judea & Samaria consist of the ancient Israelite tribal territories of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and west Menasheh.
  • Jewish predominance in the area ended as a result of the Jews being besieged and starved, slaughtered, sold into slavery, exiled, and expelled by their imperial Roman conquerors and occupiers following The Great Revolt (66-73 CE) and The Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE).
  • Arabs only became a major presence in the area following the Islamic conquests of 634-636 CE under Caliph Umar’s imperial Muslim armies led by Khalid ibn al-Walid, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, Amr ibn al-A’as, and Shurahbeel ibn Hasana.

 

Judea & Samaria never constituted an independent Arab state under sovereign authority.

 

  • After being conquered by Sultan Selim I, these areas were controlled by the Ottoman Empire from 1516-1917, ruled as sub-districts of the province of Damascus from the imperial Ottoman capital at Istanbul.
  • Following the War of Independence of 1948, Jordan illegally occupied Judea & Samaria from 1948-1967 and prohibited Jews from living in these areas, contravening the Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations in 1922.

 

Jews finally reclaimed Judea & Samaria in the defensive Six Day War of 1967.

 

  • In June 1967, with belligerent Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq poised to exterminate Israel, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes and within a week had achieved stunning victories which included regaining its historic heartland.
  • As the aboriginal people of the Land of Israel, Israeli settlers are repatriating and repopulating the historic land of their forebears.

 

The Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV), an international treaty adopted in August 1949 in the wake of Nazi atrocities and signed by Israel in 1951, was designed to protect civilians and regulate the rules of war, not to adjudicate or arbitrate disputed territories.

 

  • From the normative Jewish/Israeli perspective, Judea & Samaria were areas liberated, not occupied, in 1967 and therefore Section III of the Fourth Geneva Convention does not pertain.
  • Jews possess the legal right to settle in Judea & Samaria.
  • Section III, Article 49 (1) of the GCIV states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.” ( Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949. https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/ART/380-600056?OpenDocument) Since Israel regained control over Judea & Samaria in 1967, locals Arabs have not been forcibly displaced and today they number approx. 2.78 million alongside approx. 371,000 Jews.
  • Section III, Article 49 (6) of the GCIV states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” (Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949. https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/ART/380-600056?OpenDocument) Jewish inhabitants of Judea & Samaria are not forcibly implanted therein by Israeli governments, but reside there voluntarily.
  • “The provisions of Article 49 (6) regarding forced population transfer to occupied foreign territory should not be seen as prohibiting the voluntary return of individuals to the towns and villages from which they, or their ancestors, had been forcibly ousted. Nor does it prohibit the movement of individuals to land which was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state and which is not subject to private ownership. In this regard, it should be noted that Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been established only after an exhaustive investigation process, under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Israel, and subject to appeal, which is designed to ensure that no communities are established illegally on private land.” (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Israeli Settlements and International Law.” (Nov 30, 2015. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/israeli%20settlements%20and%20international%20law.aspx)
  • While Israel does not accept that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies de jure, it has stated that on humanitarian issues it will govern itself de facto by certain GCIV provisions.

 

Jewish communities in Judea & Samaria are explicitly recognized as subject to exclusive Israeli jurisdiction within bilateral agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

 

  • These agreements affirm that settlements remain under Israel’s remit “pending the outcome of peace negotiations, and do not prohibit settlement activity.” (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Israeli Settlements and International Law.” Nov 30, 2015. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/israeli%20settlements%20and%20international%20law.aspx)

 

Numerous Israeli settlements have been re-established on sites formerly home to native Jewish populations, in an expression of the Jewish People’s profound historical and ongoing connection to its homeland, the cradle of Jewish civilization.

 

  • A significant number of settlements are situated in loci where previous Jewish communities were forcibly expelled by Arab armies or militia, or slaughtered, as was the case with the ancient Jewish community of Hebron in 1929.

 

The only illegal or unauthorized (under Israeli law) settlements in Judea & Samaria are those Jewish outposts established without Israeli building permits.

 

  • Outposts are small settlements usually consisting of less than 1,000 residents, some of which were established on state lands and others on private Arab land. Estimates of the number of outposts range from around 50 to over 100, depending on the classification of an outpost as a standalone entity or a settlement neighborhood.
  • In recent years the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has determined to retroactively legalize at least some outposts on state lands and to dismantle those on privately-owned Arab property.
Posted on

Stage Two Statehood: Anticipating the State of Israel’s Coming of Age

Accounting for the State of Israel’s survival into the 21st century exercises the mind, given the external threats and internal deficiencies it has had to cope with from the outset. The state’s congenital defects are myriad and generally stem from the staunchly secular, socialist vision of many of its founders.

Israeli politicians regularly intone the mantra that Israel must be both Jewish and democratic, and most privilege democratic over Jewish. Yet Israel’s electoral system and parliamentary impotence make a mockery of democracy and excommunicate the state’s Judaic character.

Democracy entails elections whereby people are canvassed for consent, but Israel’s fixed party lists absolve members of the Knesset from accountability to their constituents. When the entire nation is a single constituency without candidate districts or voter ridings, the interests of the electorate are not represented and the purported representatives are beholden to party leaders, not voters. And the low electoral threshold means the Knesset is glutted with special interest parties cobbled together into coalition governments that thereby wield disproportionate national influence.

Moreover, prime ministers populate their cabinets with rival party leaders and elites, resulting in a plural Executive branch of government that constrains peremptory actions, often causing petty infighting among ministers and even the disintegration of governing coalitions. Furthermore, a cabinet constituted with MKs means there is no arm’s length separation of the Legislative and Executive branches of power. In addition, Israel still has no formal constitution, only a series of sporadically enacted Basic Laws, and does not accept the constitution of the Jewish people—the Torah—as the foundation for its state charter. So much for the democratic nature of the State of Israel.

The Judaic nature of Israel is arguably in worse shape. Due to their entrenched secular, socialist ideologies, those steering the ship of state since its inception have largely refrained from instilling Judaic character into national institutions. Absent the compass of identity and the helm of heritage, over the decades Israel’s leadership has made numerous gratuitous concessions without reciprocation and has surrendered sacred lands and holy sites to its sworn enemies as part of the fatal charade known by the misnomer of “peace process”. Identity infirmity in a region crowded by strident neighbors mired in a medieval mentality is an invitation to annihilation, even if only through piecemeal accords for which Israel employs goodwill diplomacy and its foes ill-willed or martial diplomacy, i.e. warfare waged by other means. Without a profound and expansive understanding of Jewish patrimony, Jewish posterity is imperiled. Israel’s palpable absence of ethno-national authenticity makes it prone to foreign pressures and to misguidedly engaging in political self-immolation. 

There are remedies to Israel’s institutional ills, though reform will be inadequate where overhaul is necessary. One key remedy would be to establish a bicameral legislature: the lower house, the “Knesset” of 120 elected members, would possess an administrative and legislative capacity and be open to Jews and non-Jews alike, thereby enshrining the democratic aspect of the state, while the upper house, the “Great Sanhedrin” of 71 appointed members (rabbinical sages appointed based on merit), would possess a legislative and judicial capacity and be open only to the most respected Judaic legists, thereby ensuring the Judaic aspect of the state.

Re-instituting the Great Sanhedrin of 71 rabbinical sages as the legislature’s curule body, equivalent to a Senate or House of Lords, would bolster world Jewry’s sense of renewal and signal the supremacy of Israel’s Judaic character. Historically, the Great Sanhedrin was a council and court concerned foremost with religious law and adjudicating cases. Nonetheless it had different powers in different epochs, including political and legislative powers, and always maintained a legislative component even strictly within religious affairs, as in its issuing of takkanot (innovative laws) and gezeirot (preventative laws).

Re-establishing the Great Sanhedrin as a Senate would only modestly modulate its mandate. A reconstituted Great Sanhedrin would serve as a combined legislature and magistrature/judicature overseeing the Knesset, offering sager counsel to lawmakers of the lower house while acting as guardians of Israel’s Judaic nature in line with the rich teachings of the Torah, Talmud, and authoritative halakhic codes, in addition to operating within the discrete realm of Jewish religious affairs by issuing rulings and deciding cases of utmost import for world Jewry according to Judaic law. Both the upper and lower houses in Israel’s legislature would be able to introduce bills, but only a majority (whether simple, absolute, or extraordinary) of the Great Sanhedrin could enact a bill into law. An authoritative Great Sanhedrin, along with local courts (battei din), would also obviate the need for a Chief Rabbinate, an institution imported into the State of Israel from the Diaspora, which has proven all too often to be prone to controversy and scandal.

Historically, there was also a lesser Sanhedrin of 23 rabbinical jurists as well, and re-establishing this body as the supreme court of Israel would also remedy many ills currently plaguing the state. Israel’s current Supreme Court is the world’s activist court par excellence, overreaching into the purview of legislators at every possible opportunity and frequently negating the state’s Judaic content, thus threatening both Israel’s democratic and Judaic character. Such juridical over-extension is facilitated by the radically liberal Supreme Court’s ideological homogeneity and overt disregard for the will of the populace, much of which is religious or traditional. Unelected justices arrogating to themselves powers beyond their remit is a travesty of the first magnitude, an oligarchic threat to democracy.

In any nation the corporate good requires leadership that is coherent and resolute, which comprises a government, legislature, and judiciary rooted in the nation’s reason for being. Is Israel’s premise to be a democracy? Democracy is a method, not a vocation. It is important, but it cannot supersede Israel’s Judaic substance (in which many “democratic” elements are already enshrined). A nation’s allies extol strength and its adversaries exploit weakness. Resolving Israel’s identity crisis domestically would additionally go a long way in strengthening its international posture.

 Stage One of Israel’s statehood—political Zionism—involved the preliminary in-gathering of exiles, the establishment of rudimentary national institutions, and fighting for survival in armed conflicts with neighboring aggressors. In Stage One, land and people (nation and nation-state) remarried, but the marriage has yet to be consummated.

Now pushing 70, Israel should confidently segue into Stage Two of its statehood, which entails a Judaic renascence so that the nation-state of the Jews naturally evolves into a Judaic state, a polity proudly embodying the exemplary morals, ethics, values, virtues, and principles of Judaism.

One of the ideal ways to do this would be to introduce a Declaration of Restoration, sequel to the Declaration of Independence, that would not be merely symbolic, but would entail a pragmatic agenda comprising long overdue measures:

  1. the enshrinement of a constitution governing the Judaic state, to whose letter and spirit all other laws must conform, which would formally replace the existing Basic Laws while incorporating them, with or without amendments, as necessary;
  2. the re-establishment of the Great Sanhedrin council of 71 rabbinical sages as the upper chamber in a bicameral legislature and the abolition of the Chief Rabbinate;
  3. the re-establishment of the Sanhedrin tribunal of 23 jurists to replace the Supreme Court; 
  4. the administrative redivision of Israel into electoral regions/provinces, counties, and wards/ridings/boroughs, from which Knesset members would be elected by constituent citizens to whom members would be politically and professionally accountable, including via a formal recall provision;
  5. the final indigenization of institutions such as the Jewish Agency (merged into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Immigration & Absorption) and Jewish National Fund (merged into the Israel Land Authority & Israel Nature & Parks Authority).

While today hybrid Israel—part Hebraic republic, part Judaic state—remains the Middle East’s target of choice, it may yet progress into a self-respecting, ergo respected, state, fulfilling its premise as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation and its purpose of serving as a light to the nations.

Posted on

JEWS UNDER ATTACK: Jewish House Near Lions Gate Firebombed

Although deep inside what even Arabs consider to be a dangerous part of Jerusalem’s Old City do to rival Arab clans, Jews have returned to their former property near to the Lions Gate. Despite the isolation from the other burgeoning Jewish areas that have continued to grow througout the Old City, the reacquired building has undergone significant renovations in the past few months.  With two liveable rooms and more to be renovated the, the house near the Lions Gate provides hope that the Jewish return to the entire Old City will continue to all parts of the ancient walls.

With the Lions Gate property showing increased Jewish presence the Arab neighbors have now decided to stop more Jewish residents from moving in.  Over the past week Arab neigbors have violently firebombed the front entrance to the house in the hopes Jewish residents will flee, but the opposite has occurred.

The Lions Gate property is key to continuing the returning of stolen Jewish property throughout Jerusalem’s Old City.  Where Jews move into, safety and security can be established once there is a critical mass. The Lions Gate property will lead to more properties and they will connect the last area once void of Jews to the growing Jewish areas on the main street running from the Western Wall to Damascus Gate.

Redemption occurs in steps.  The Lions Gate property like those Jewish properties in other parts of the Muslim Quarter have become beacons of light, shining the pathway to redemption in a sea of darkness.  Now is the time to strengthen the lights of the Jewish return to Jerusalem.

Posted on

THE RISE OF THE NETWORKED LEFT

The riots against Murray and Yiannopoulos are a familiar sight to the campus Jewish community.

An acrid stench of repression is spreading through America.

Last Thursday, conservative political scientist Charles Murray from the American Enterprise Institute was attacked by a leftist mob at Middlebury College.

Murry was invited to Middlebury by the college’s AEI club. He was to discuss his new book, Coming Apart, which discusses the plight of white working class Americans. Middlebury’s liberal political science professor Allison Stanger was set to ask him questions about his work.

As has been widely reported, a mob of leftist students prevented Murray from speaking. They shouted him down with a stream of epithets that went on without interruption, until Murray and Stanger were spirited out of the lecture hall.

They were brought to another location where they carried out their conversation in front of a camera that was livestreaming to students blocked by the mob from hearing them in person. The mob followed them to the new location and rioted outside the room as they spoke.

The rioters assaulted them as they made their way from the second location to their car. They hurt Stanger in the neck.

The assault continued after the professors entered their getaway car and at the restaurant where they tried to dine at with students.

In the end Murray and his companions were forced to leave town in order to have dinner away from the rioters. Stanger was later treated for her wounds at a local hospital.

The riot against Murray at Middlebury occurred barely a month after right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulis was blocked from speaking at the University of California at Berkeley by a similarly violent mob. The Berkeley rioters caused more than $100,000 in property damage. They beat up students who came to hear Yiannopoulis speak.

The riots against Murray and Yiannopoulis both received wide media coverage. The basic narrative of the stories regarding both is that the shouting down of speakers and mob assaults by leftist students and professors is a new phenomenon.

To Jewish ears, this storyline is deeply unsettling.

Jewish speakers and students have been subjected to identical, and often worse, campaigns of repressions for nearly 20 years at universities and colleges throughout the US.

What is new about the riots against Murray and Yiannopoulis is that they were shouted down despite the fact that they weren’t talking about Israel.

Since the PLO rejected statehood and peace with Israel in 2000 and launched a multipronged political and terrorist war against Israel instead, the climate on US campuses has become progressively worse for pro-Israel students, faculty and visiting speakers.

Perhaps the moment that signaled open season for Jews on campuses occurred on May 7, 2002, at San Francisco State University. That day, Muslim students and their leftist supporters launched a mini-pogrom against pro-Israel Jewish students.

As Laurie Zoloth, who served at the time as the director of SFSU’s Jewish Studies Department, and was present on the scene, wrote in a letter published shortly after the events, that day some 400 Jewish students participated in a pro-Israel, pro-peace rally on the campus’s central thoroughfare.

After the rally ended, several dozen Jewish students remained on hand to clean up the area. As they gathered up their posters, they were beset by an antisemitic mob.

“They screamed at us to ‘go back to Russia,’ and they screamed… ‘Get out or we’ll kill you,’ and ‘Hitler didn’t finish the job,’” Zoloth wrote.

When Zoloth asked the police at the scene to arrest the rioters, they refused, explaining they had been ordered to take no action. Arrests, they explained, “would cause a riot.”

After a week of silence, SFSU’s then-president Robert Corrigan posted a statement condemning the incident and referring it to the district attorney to assign to his hate crimes unit.

The pogrom at SFSU and the administration’s belated condemnation of the crime set in motion what became a pattern of ever-escalating violence and intimidation of pro-Israel voices on college campuses accompanied by half-hearted and short-lived denunciations of the assaults by campus authorities.

Today, the situation is even worse. If SFSU felt the need to condemn the Muslim students who called for their Jewish counterparts to be killed 15 years ago, today they stand openly with those calling for Jews to be killed against those who protest the calls.

In 2014, SFSU signed a memorandum of understanding with An-Najah University in Nablus. The MoU was organized by the leaders of the BDS campaign on campus and the General Union of Palestine Students on campus. An-Najah is a hotbed of terrorism in the PA. Its alumni include terrorism masters and terrorist murderers.

In 2013, then-president of the GUPS Mohammad Hammad posted a video of himself holding a machete and expressing his desire to murder IDF soldiers.

In 2015, SFSU president Leslie Wong praised the GUPS saying, “GUPS is the very purpose of this great university.”

In May 2016, GUPS members led protesters in silencing Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat when he tried to address students during a visit to campus.

When the David Horowitz Freedom Center launched a campaign to expose the Jew-hatred at SFSU which involved putting up posters on campus decrying antisemitism, school authorities and the local media were quick to condemn the Freedom Center and accuse it of repressing free speech and fomenting racism. Wong called the posters an act of “vandalism.”

SFSU is not unique. The often violent repression of pro-Israel voices is now the rule rather than exception at campuses around the US.

Two factors account for the fact that the same means that have been used for years to repress pro-Israel voices on campuses are now being used against non-leftists who speak on subjects unrelated to Israel.

First, the tactics are being used more broadly because they have been successful. Pro-Israel voices have been largely silenced on campus. Indeed, Jews themselves now join those who repress them.

For instance, last year SFSU’s Hillel and its Jewish Studies Department condemned the Horowitz Center’s campaign to highlight the antisemitism and support for terrorism endemic on their campus.

The second reason that the Left has expanded its assault on freedom of speech and inquiry beyond Israel and the Jews is that the Left today is no longer a collection of issue specific organizations and causes. Today the Left is a network of interlinked organizations, largely funded from the same sources and run by the same people.

It might have been hoped that once antisemites merged into a larger network, their voices and power would be diminished. But the opposite has happened. The antisemites who pioneered the intimidation tactics now being employed against non-leftists who speak on issues unrelated to Israel, are now the leaders of the leftist network. The network includes African-Americans, Latinos, LGBTQs, feminists and Communists.

The move by antisemitic organizers into the center of the newly networked Left was first exposed with the rise of the Black Lives Matter group. Although BLM arose to protest what its members claim is excessive police violence against African-Americans, from the outset, antisemitic groups pounced on the movement as a means to take over the rising network of leftist groups. In cities across the US, BLM protesters’ signs opposing law enforcement authorities were accompanied by signs calling for Israel to be destroyed.

When BLM published a platform last year, the group explicitly linked the movement with the cause of Israel’s destruction. BLM’s platform accused Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinians and claimed that Israel is an “apartheid” state.

In their work with the BLM activists, anti-Jewish operatives exploited a campaign that was launched independently of their anti-Jewish efforts. Today, the anti-Jewish operatives are themselves initiating and organizing the actions of other groups and so directing the course of the political Left in the US in general.

Case in point is the new group organizing women’s marches throughout the US. The “International Women’s Strike” group organized the women’s protests against President Donald Trump on January 21, the day after his inauguration. The group also organized this week’s protests which took place on International Women’s Day. Among the organizers of January’s protests was Linda Sarsour, an anti-Israel, antisemitic operative who has repeatedly praised Hamas terrorists and condemned “Zionism,” in her public statements.

This week, Sarsour was joined by the convicted terrorist Rasmeah Odeh. In 1970, Odeh, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, participated in a terrorist attack at a Jerusalem supermarket in which two Israeli college students were murdered.

With Hamas supporting operatives and actual Palestinian terrorist murderers serving as leaders of the organization behind the women’s marches, it is no surprise that the International Women’s Strike group is anti-Israel. The group’s published platform makes destroying Israel, or the “decolonization of Palestine,” its goal no less than free abortions on demand.

In other words, the feminist movement in the US is run by antisemites who use the feminists to advance their anti-Jewish agenda.

The core justification that the networked Left uses to defend its actions – first and foremost its goon squads on campuses – is that its actions are protected speech.

The claim of course, is ridiculous. There is a world of difference between freedom of expression and freedom of action. When students harass and shout down speakers with whom they disagree, they are not exercising freedom of speech. They are denying the freedom of speech of others.

When BDS operatives coerce university administrations and corporations to divest from Israel and ban Israelis from campuses, they are not exercising free speech. They are engaging in economic and cultural warfare against Israel.

Rather than recognize the distinction, major Jewish groups have embraced the antisemites’ false defense, internalizing the notion that opposing the onslaught against the community is tantamount to opposing freedom of speech.

So for instance, two major American Jewish groups harshly criticized the Knesset’s recently passed law banning BDS operatives from entering Israel. The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League issued statements claiming the move is a blow to free speech.

The riots against Murray and Yiannopoulis alerted non-Jewish Americans to the intellectual and moral decay of their campuses. It is possible that in moving beyond the safe confines of antisemitism – now largely accepted on campuses – the Left has gone too far. Perhaps its wings will be clipped.

But given the Jewish community’s inability to understand, let alone defend against, the campaign being waged against it, it is likely that even if the networked Left curbs its assaults on non-Jewish non-leftists, it will continue and escalate its campaign against Jews and the Jewish state.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

Posted on

REAL ANTI-SEMITES AGAINST FAKE ANTI-SEMITISM

The left opposes bombing synagogues except when it supports it.

Keith Ellison is suddenly very concerned about anti-Semitism.

The former Nation of Islam member who appeared on stage with Khalid Abdul Muhammad (“that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating… just crawled out of the caves and hills of Europe, so-called damn Jew”) and defended the anti-Semitism of Louis Farrakhan (“Do you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET?”) is worried about the hatred of Jews.

The leading candidate to head the DNC who used to rant about, “European white Jews…  trying to oppress minorities all over the world” denounced President Trump for having, “taken… so long to even say the word ‘anti-Semitism.’”

How long did it take Ellison to stop defending the anti-Semitism of Farrakhan or of Joanne Jackson?

And Ellison isn’t through yet. He associates with CAIR, a hate group that has defended terrorists who target synagogues, and touts an endorsement from Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson.

Keith Ellison put out a press release after the bomb threats to Jewish centers declaring, “To all those who have felt threatened: I stand with you.”

Speaking of threats, the Minnesota Daily opinion editor, Michael Olenick, had described Ellison’s writing as “a genuine threat to the long-term safety and well-being of the Jewish people, a threat that history dictates must not be ignored.”

Except it was ignored.

Ellison is currently opposed to bomb threats to Jewish centers. That’s progress. But he’s closely allied with CAIR and other Islamist groups that have defended actual synagogue bomb plotters. CAIR has spread claims that the Muslim terrorists who plotted to bomb the Riverdale Jewish Center and Temple were really the victims of government entrapment.

When Ahmed Ferhani was arrested for a plot to attack a synagogue, CAIR held a rally to support him.

Linda Sarsour, who had described throwing stones at Jews as “the definition of courage”, accused the Trump administration of anti-Semitism. Sarsour claims to be raising money to repair a vandalized Jewish cemetery. While the campaign was touted by the media, it is unclear who the actual donors are.

What is clear is that Linda Sarsour supported Ahmed Ferhani. Sarsour insisted on calling the anti-Semitic terrorist a “boy” or a “kid”. She also defended the Riverdale Jewish Center bomb plotters.

At his trial, Ahmed Ferhani had boasted, “I intended to create chaos and send a message of intimidation and coercion to the Jewish population of New York City.”

“Look at the Jewish guy. You’re not smiling no more, you f___r. I hate those bastards. I hate those m______s. Those f____g Jewish bastards. I’d like to get one of those. I’d like to get a synagogue. Me. Yeah. Personally,” James Cromitie had ranted.

This is what Linda Sarsour and the left have been defending for some time now. The vast majority of the accounts you will read about Cromitie, the Newburgh Four, and Ahmed Ferhani, will be positive. Their innocence has been defended by CBS, HBO, the New York Times and countless other media outlets.

Like Keith Ellison and Linda Sarsour, the media is momentarily opposed to burning and bombing synagogues.

It wasn’t always.

In New York City, a year before September 11, Muslims threw firebombs at a synagogue in the Bronx. “A bias-motivated attempt to firebomb a synagogue?” the New York Times asked. “Or a misguided message critical of Israeli policies against Palestinians?”

If the cemetery vandals or JCC callers turn out to be Muslims, the media will ask whether desecrating Jewish graves was bias or a “misguided message critical of Israeli policies against Palestinians?”

That is what makes the sudden outpouring of concern about anti-Semitism shamelessly opportunistic.

Real anti-Semites are fighting fake anti-Semitism as a publicity stunt to attack the first administration to question the wisdom of financing the anti-Semitic mass murder of Jews by Islamic terrorists.

Linda Sarsour is a bigot who supports the anti-Semitic BDS movement and assorted Islamic terrorists. At a pro-Hamas event, she called for limiting friendships with Jews to opponents of the Jewish State. She is expected to share a stage at a BDS event with a woman who played a role in the murder of two Jewish college students.

This is anti-Semitism.

The left has a studied disinterest in true anti-Semitism. It views Linda Sarsour and Keith Ellison as heroes. It makes excuses for Ahmed Ferhani or James Cromitie. It has opportunistically decided to exploit accusations of anti-Semitism to attack President Trump. But if the bomb threats to Jewish centers or the cemetery vandalism turn out to be the work of Muslims, then the hot potato will fall.

Stories about the incidents will quickly go away. The Muslim perpetrators will become victims of entrapment. HBO will air a documentary blaming the whole thing on overzealous FBI agents.

Anti-Semitism also has its fellow travelers. These are the people who are very selective about the anti-Semitism that they reject. They will oppose bombing synagogues only as long as the wrong sort of people are doing it. If the right sort of people bomb synagogues, the issue will become nuanced.

Bombing synagogues will suddenly cease to be a “black and white” issue.

The media has decided to spend a few weeks accusing President Trump of anti-Semitism. Its sudden concern about fake anti-Semitism goes hand in hand with normalizing real anti-Semitism.

Fighting fake anti-Semitism consists of fake left-wing organizations, like the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a group run by two gay rights activists from New Jersey that no one in the Jewish community had ever heard of before, getting airtime on the Fake News media to attack Trump.

Fighting real anti-Semitism would mean holding Linda Sarsour and Keith Ellison accountable for their long history of hating Jews instead of providing them with a platform for their publicity stunts.

The previous administration sent billions of dollars to two terror states, the Palestinian Authority and Iran, which finance the murder of Jews. Not a single of the organizations attacking Trump said a word of protest when our tax dollars were used to pay the salaries of Islamic terrorists in proportion to how many Jews they killed. None of them had a word to say when Obama sent billions in illegal payments to the Iranian paymasters of Hamas and Hezbollah in foreign currency on unmarked cargo planes.

Previous administrations had funded the Palestinian Authority. Obama was the first to fund the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah. It’s quite an accomplishment for a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Opposing anti-Semitism doesn’t mean opposing it from people you don’t like. That’s no great challenge. It means opposing it from those you do like. And the media likes Keith Ellison and Linda Sarsour.

The left has always celebrated its anti-Semites. Stop by an event celebrating the literary legacy of Amiri Baraka (“I got the extermination blues, jew-boys. I got the Hitler syndrome figured”) or Alice Walker (“May God protect you from the Jews”… “It’s too late, I already married one.”)

The left doesn’t oppose anti-Semitism. It opposes the right. It will accuse the right of anti-Semitism when convenient even while its ranks swell with the blackest and ugliest bigotry imaginable. It is rotten with anti-Semitism. It can’t and won’t reject it. It won’t even reject the murder of Jews, the bombing of synagogues and membership in anti-Semitic hate groups when its own heroes are doing it.

Behind the fake outrage is a real outrage. Behind the fake anti-Semitism is real anti-Semitism.

Originally Published on FrontPageMag.

Posted on

Outrage on the Eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day over German Funding of Anti-Israel NGO

Im Tirtzu CEO Matan Peleg: “Dishonors the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust”

Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day that will be marked worldwide on Friday, January 27, the Zionist organization Im Tirtzu released a new report documenting the German government’s funding of Zochrot, an Israeli NGO that works to “decolonize” Israel by promoting the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees.

Zochrot’s vision, according to its official website, is to “promote acknowledgement and accountability for the ongoing injustices of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 and the reconceptualization of the Return as the imperative redress of the Nakba.”

According to the official details from the Israeli Corporations Authority’s non-profit registrar cited in the report, from 2012-2016 the Government of Germany has provided over 1,100,000 NIS (290,000 USD) to Zochrot via two German foundations, Misereor and Rosa Luxemberg Stiftung, which are heavily funded by the federal German government.

Zochrot utilizes this extensive funding to engage in an array of controversial activities, including screening its “Film Festival on Nakba and the Right of Return” on college campuses during Israeli Apartheid Week, promoting an “iNakba” smartphone application, and defaming Israel on the world stage with slanderous language like “ethnic cleansing.”

In 2014, Zochrot CEO Eitan Bronstein and other of the organization’s officials participated in the production of a radical video that dubbed the Holocaust “the best thing that ever happened” to the Jewish people.

In response to the findings of the report, Im Tirtzu sent a letter to Germany’s ambassador to Israel Dr. Clemens Von Goetze demanding the secession of German funding to Zochrot.

“What gives the Government of Germany the right to undermine the character of another democratic and sovereign nation?” the letter reads. “We are calling on your government to immediately cease all funding of ‘Zochrot.’ This funding makes a mockery of any and all efforts to find a peaceful solution to any Israeli-Palestinian issues.”

The German Embassy has yet to respond to Im Tirtzu’s letter.

Germany’s funding of Zochrot also sparked outrage among the children of Holocaust survivors.

Noah Klein, the son of two Holocaust survivors, said:  “As a child of two Holocaust survivors I appreciate that despite the horrors of the Holocaust, Germany has been a great friend and supporter of Israel. However, it is very painful to me that Germany is funding an anti-Israel NGO whose goal is the destruction of the Jewish State. The remnant of my family lives in Israel, and Germany’s funding of such an organization that seeks to destroy their future must stop.”

Lori Fagelston, also the daughter of Holocaust survivors, noted: “This funding is a disgrace like no other. Only a few generations have passed, and Germany is again committing another grave injustice against the Jewish People by funding this anti-Israel organization. This needs to stop immediately.”

Im Tirtzu CEO Matan Peleg said: “The idea that Germany in 2017 is funding an organization that brazenly seeks to destroy the Jewish character of the State of Israel is a disgrace. This funding is not only dishonors the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, but is anti-democratic at its core. This is another painful example of foreign governments working to impose their unwanted policies on the State of Israel via anti-Israel NGOs from within.”

[huge_it_share]

Posted on

THE HOLOCAUST’S UNLEARNED LESSONS

How Merkel’s mistakes are empowering anti-Semites.

Two days before the leaders of European far-right parties met in Koblentz on January 21, one of the leaders of Germany’s far-right AfD party made clear why so many people fear the rise of nationalist forces in Europe.

Speaking at a rally in Dresden, Bjorn Hocke, AfD’s state leader in Thuringia, attacked the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. In his words, “Germans are the only people in the world who plant a monument of shame in the heart of the capital.”

Hocke likened German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Eric Honecker, the last leader of East Germany. The crowd responded by chanting, “Merkel must go!” Hocke insisted there must be a “180-degree turnaround” in the way Germany remembers its past. “This laughable policy of coming to terms with the past is crippling us,” he said.

Recalling the Allied bombing of Dresden, Hocke argued that Germany’s current policy claims that in World War II “there were no German victims, only German perpetrators.” This, he argued, is unjust.

Some of Hocke’s party colleagues criticized his remarks. But reported criticisms did not relate to the substance of what he said. Rather his fellow AfD leaders criticized him for making statements that could scare German voters away.

Frauke Petry, Hocke’s party leader, participated in the Koblentz conference. Sitting next to her fellow nationalist European leaders, Petry was the belle of the ball. Holland’s Geert Wilders, whose Freedom Party is expected to win the Dutch elections in March, and France’s Marine Le Pen, who is now leading national polls ahead of April’s presidential elections, both enthused that Petry is the future of Germany.

AfD enjoys the support of between 10%-15% percent of German voters. It is expected to gain seats in the Bundestag for the first time in September’s general elections.

The AfD’s rise has been sudden. It was formed in 2013 and in its short history it has siphoned off voters from nearly every party in Germany. In the 2014 elections for the European Parliament AfD shocked Germany’s political establishment when it won 7.1% of the vote.

In 2015 it won big victories in regional elections. In Merkel’s home state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania it outperformed the chancellor’s CDU party with 20.8% of the vote. It even won 14.2% of the vote in normally left-wing Berlin.

Like its European counterparts, whose leaders shared a stage in Koblentz with Petry on Saturday, AfD’s steady empowerment is based in large part on its stalwart opposition to Islamic immigration and its concomitant rejection of the intellectual constraints of political correctness and the cultural restraints of multiculturalism.

AfD’s barely disguised xenophobia and Nazi sympathies make its empowerment disconcerting.

It also points to the fact that not all far-right parties are the same.

Le Pen, for instance has taken drastic steps to separate her National Front party from the antisemitic and fascist roots her father Jean-Marie Le Pen planted.

Wilders has adopted a decidedly pro-American and pro-Israel platform and record.

In Germany, though, the situation is different.

There are many causes for the absence of a nationalist party in Germany that is bereft of Nazi sympathies.

Two are particularly worth noting.

First there is Angela Merkel and the political establishment she represents. The AfD’s rise is a direct consequence of the German political establishment’s refusal to consider the wishes of German voters along a whole spectrum of issues. On immigration specifically, rather than listen to her critics Merkel and her allies denounce them as racists and treat them as criminals.

For instance, as Judith Bergman reported last week at the Gatestone Institution website, in July 2016, 30 people had their homes raided by German police for publishing anti-immigration posts online.

When thousands of German women were raped by Muslim immigrants during the public celebration of New Year’s Eve in Cologne last year, German authorities went to great lengths to cover up and deny what had happened. The Cologne police took several days to acknowledge or begin investigating what had happened. For four days, the German media delayed reporting what had happened.

In September 2015 Merkel was caught on a hot microphone excoriating Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for not erasing anti-immigration posts from Facebook fast enough.

If Merkel spent more time listening to her constituents and less time rejecting their right to their entirely rational opinions, the AfD would probably not be so powerful today. In all likelihood, AfD politicians wouldn’t be embarrassed when their colleague mouthed off about Holocaust memorials because their constituents wouldn’t include anyone who had a problem with people like Hocke.

Even if Merkel was willing to listen though, she would still have to worry about Germans that yearn for the glory days of Hitler and the Third Reich.

This then leads us to the second reason for the resonance of Nazi messaging in Germany and beyond.

In 1945 the Nazis were defeated and Nazism was outlawed in Germany and throughout Europe. But whereas the peoples of Europe were prohibited from denying the fact of the Holocaust, they were never required to conduct a true moral reckoning with what happened. Criminalizing Holocaust denial and outlawing Nazi parties, while reasonable on their own terms, mistook the symptoms of Nazism with the cause of Nazism.

Europeans have been schooled to view the Nazi period as a unique phenomenon unrelated to anything that happened either before 1933 or after 1945.

But the opposite is true.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazis and their collaborators throughout Europe didn’t spring from nothing. They were the natural outcome of centuries of European antisemitism. Their genocidal obsession with the Jewish people was a natural progression of a hatred that predated Christianity, and was an integral part of Europe’s development through the ages.

The way to block the Nazis from rising on the Right is to correct both Merkel’s mistake and the larger mistake of the leaders of Europe since 1945.

Merkel empowers Nazi forces by preventing liberal democracy, predicated on limited government, individual freedom and equal protection under the law, from developing in Germany. By demonizing and criminalizing her critics, she forces lawful citizens into the open arms of the political fringe, which resonates their concerns.

More generally, Europe itself facilitates the rise of antisemitism as a political force on the Right and Left by conflating European rejection of Jews with a more general, and less meaningful, problem of racism. You do not fight hatred of Jews by pretending away its significance and its roots that go back as far as European civilization itself. You do not block the resurgence of Nazism by pretending that European antisemitism was born the day Adolf Hitler came to power.

There is a tendency to believe that all nationalist movements are alike. But this is not true. Each nationalist movement is a reflection of the specific nation it represents. For European nationalists and globalists alike to avoid the fascism that captivated their grandparents, they need to embrace liberal values and meaningfully reject Jew hatred in all its forms.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

[huge_it_share]

Posted on

Trump, Israel, and the Final Redemption

Today is the day.  The unlikely rise of Donald Trump, from building mogul, reality TV Star to the highest office in America has been the story of the past year.  Pundits counted him out, the left thought he was a clown, and his own party wanted nothing to do with him. Yet, he succeeded in a near miraculous fashion.

Jewish history is ripe with unexpected events, historical anomalies, and non-Jewish political leaders lending a hand to help push the long march towards redemption.  It is not lost on anyone that Trump’s rise is more than just about a flamboyant entertainer unexpectedly rising to the top.  Trump’s daughter and son-son-law are both observant Jews who support Israel in an unwavering fashion.  Some of Trump’s closest friends are both orthodox and highly supportive of Israel’s permanent return to all of its historic homeland.

While all of the above makes a Trump Presidency truly historic for those who support the Jewish return to all of the nation of Israel’s ancestral homeland, there is something far deeper going on.

America is Different

The Founding Fathers of America understood that there is a Creator to all things; an active G-d which is involved with the history of the world.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

By naming the Creator as the source of our rights Jefferson was hooking the destiny of America with that of the Bible.  The Founder Fathers believed their destiny was so bound up with the Hebrew Bible that there were those among them that wanted to make Hebrew the official language of America.  Afterall Adams and others were considered to be Hebraists, which was a movement that sought to reconnect Christianity to its roots in Judaism.

The final redemption is about mankind recognizing that the Creator and his Torah are the source and building blocks for all.  Trump may not be politically correct.  He may be thrice married and expresses himself in a way liberals scoff at, but he understands the roots of America’s greatness.  This greatness unlike its European counterparts, is America’s connection to the G-d of Israel, which goes back even before the Declaration of Independence.

While Europe has done everything in its power to rid itself of Christianity’s Hebrew roots, America has done the opposite and embraced them.

Eisav’s Head is Burried with the Patriarchs

There is a midrash (tanaic story from the time of the Mishna) that relates to Eisav coming to the Cave of the Patriarchs when Jacob’s sons come to bury him. Chushim the son of Dan quickly lobbed his head off.  The head rolled into the cave and is buried with Israel’s patriarchs and matriarchs.

The sages of the Torah teach that Rome is the expression of the exile of Eisav in the world.  Rome became Christian and spent centuries attempting to sever Christianity from its source. Now at the End of Days, the midrash makes more sense than ever.  Eisav’s head was always “kosher,” while his body, not.  America has a unique role in reconnecting “the head” of Eisav to its Israelite source while disconnecting it from its pagan influence, which is drawn from the decadent liberal culture flowing from the main stream media, Europe, and American universities.

The battle between Israel and the world is far more to do with reaffirming a direct connection to the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and spreading their teachings to the world.  Far too many Jews have forgotten that this is Israel’s mission. Ironically, Americans understand that they too can share in this mission by lending a hand to the Jews that do embrace the covenant of their forefathers.

On a subconscious level, this is what angers those who oppose Trump. At a base level they desire to break America’s bonds with its Hebrew roots, because they themselves are fearful of the responsibility such roots carry with them.

At the End of Days, just before the Redemption as Israel returns to its Land, the prophecies are unfolding as written. There is another midrash that clearly states: Eisav will return the Crown of Torah to Israel. It does not say Israel will take its crown, but rather it will be returned to it, connotating a partnership.

Trump and America appear ready to stand up to the global elite and fulfill the USA’s mandate to be a partner in redeeming Israel and all of mankind, that is if those that oppose the new President don’t try to uproot the source of its wellbeing first.

Posted on

Body Count

As terror attack follows terror attack, the body count rises.

How many bodies are enough? 1? 20? 200? 6 million?

When will enough be enough?

But who counts the bodies of those left behind?The body count rises.

Parents murdered, orphans left behind… Who considers the children who have to grow up without parents?

The boys with no father to teach them how to be a man. The girls with no mother to guide them in to their womanhood.

Children with no parents to comfort them after a nightmare.

Children who saw their parents murdered in front of them… their nightmare is real.

Children murdered. Parents who have to bury their son or daughter.

The child they loved, held in their arms, watching every step they took as they grew.

Does the baby eat enough? Is he growing fast enough? Don’t let her fall, she’s learning to walk, she might get hurt.

Worrying over skinned knees, grades in school. Is he hanging out with the right kind of friends?

Worry cut short by the blade, bullet or bomb of a terrorist.

Their baby will never be cold, tired or hungry again. Never laugh. Never smile. Never grow up.

Who counts the tears of parents?

The sleepless nights?

The days full of effort to be normal, trying not to burden others with their sorrow. Trying to not fill guilty for being happy.

The thoughts flit through the mind a thousand times a thousand: “Oh how lovely! My daughter would have loved that!” or “That would have made my son laugh so hard his drink would spurt out of his nose like it did that time when…”

It only takes a split second for the thought to rise up, for realization to beat it down.

There will be no more shared moments with the beloved one, torn away.

Who notices the stabbing heartache in the eyes of the parent as it suddenly comes and then is shoved back down in the effort to be normal?

Who counts the brothers deprived of their sisters? The sisters deprived of their brothers?

Who counts the children who held their siblings in their arms as they died?

Who counts the children who protected their siblings while terrorists murdered their parents?

Who counts the children who became parents to their younger brothers and sisters? Or those who took in and raised the children of their murdered siblings?

The grandparents who raised their grandchildren because the parents, their children had been murdered?

Who counts the friends who lost their best friends?

Who can fill the hole left behind?

Who counts the pain of losing a friend, a neighbor, a classmate?

A stranger who was there, murdered instead of you?

Who counts the bodies of the grieving? The bodies of the traumatized?

Who counts their percentage in the population? What it means to a tiny nation to lose even one person?

If no one counts the bodies

No bodies count.

Not Jewish bodies. Certainly not Israeli bodies.

Those are excusable murders.

And the triumph of spirit of those who continued living despite the grief and the horror is taken for granted.

And the loss to the world does not matter.

Who counts the books that would have been written?

The music that would have been composed?

The scientific discoveries, the medical innovations, the lives that would have been bettered or even saved had that one person lived to fulfill their potential?

No body counts …

The problem is that if the world doesn’t learn from the experiences of the Jewish Nation,

They will have to learn for themselves.

Maybe when it is the bodies of their friends, their loved ones,

When the horror knocks on their door,

Maybe then they will begin to count.

Originally published on Inspiration from Zion.

[huge_it_share]

Posted on

[watch] Giving heart and soul…

When it seems there is nothing left, there is still heart and soul.

Around the world there are people busy spreading hate, shouting about killing Jews: “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free (i.e. free of Jews)” and “Too bad Hitler didn’t finish the job”. In Gaza there are people actively trying to kill us, bombarding our children with missiles and planning terror attacks in to our towns.

In Israel we are focused on each other, on protecting homes and lives. Many are grieving; many more are struggling with wounds from Hamas attacks.

Parents send their children to the army. They don’t go for the fun and adventure. They go because it’s necessary to protect our family and friends from people bent on destroying us.

Parents spend years doing everything they can to keep their children safe until suddenly, the tables are turned and the children become the protectors.

Israeli parents watch with pride and carefully concealed terror when their children, now soldiers, go to battle. Every wounded soldier might be their soldier. Every car that stops outside their home, every knock on the door, might be the army representatives coming to tell them that their beloved son (or husband and sometimes daughter or wife) is dead.

When soldiers are brought wounded to the hospital, a new more private battle begins. The battle for recovery can take years, sometimes complete recovery is not possible.

Parents of the wounded race to the hospital and then have to wait. Watch and wait as doctors battle wounds to repair the body. Wait for each tiny step in the healing process. Now closer to their child, they are still fairly helpless. What can be done but watch and wait?

When it seems there is nothing left, there is love.

In this clip you can see the Israeli singer Muki using his song “Free Heart” to pour love in to a wounded soldier, to boost his healing strength. In this small way he could give back to those who had given everything to protect us all.

Watch the clip, the face of the reporter describing what happened – it’s not the words that matter, it’s the emotion. Muki explains, that the people he met in the hospital were revealed in all their glory and beauty (of their souls) and he hopes that the people of Israel will be able to hold on to the knowledge that this is who we are, also when we are not in the midst of a crisis – because that is who we are.

Watch Muki sing: “Free heart. Today my heart is free, no chains, no more worries…”

I don’t know how this will affect non-Israelis. Can you see the love? Can you feel its power?

This is our strength. Even when nothing is left, we still have heart and soul.

[huge_it_share]