Surprise! New York Times Stumbles on BDS Antisemitism

The New York Times finally acknowledges that BDS opposes Israel's existence, but seems to ask: Is that so bad?

CAMERA.org..
30 July '19..

The New York Times has long history of whitewashing the extremism of the BDS movement.

BDS stands for “boycotts, divestment, and sanctions,” and the BDS campaign seeks to leverage those tools to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Arab-majority state.

Although BDS leaders openly admit they seek to disenfranchise Jews by eliminating the country’s Jewish majority — BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti has admitted his goal is “a unitary state where, by definition, Jews will be a minority” — the Times has consistently downplayed the movement’s goals by reporting, for example, that BDS merely “seeks to pressure Israel into ending the occupation of the West Bank,” or that the its activists are simply “critical of Israel’s policies toward the West Bank.”

Language of this type had prompted Tablet’s Yair Rosenberg to charge the paper with having “dramatically misrepresented [BDS’s] stated aims and implicit goals, whitewashing the movement’s radicalism.”

Another Whitewash?

Days after the U.S. House of Representatives delivered an overwhelming, bipartisan rebuke to BDS with a 398-17 vote explicitly opposing “the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement,” the New York Times jumped in with a piece titled “Is B.D.S. Anti-Semitic? A Closer Look at the Boycott Israel Campaign.”

The piece purports to provide “answers to some of the most difficult questions” about BDS. And this time, the paper did manage to acknowledge that the campaign opposes the existence of the Jewish state, an improvement over earlier coverage that falsely cast the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement as merely anti-occupation. In that respect, at least, it is a needed improvement. Still, the article relies on distortions and omissions to make BDS extremism more palatable to readers.

Throughout the piece, reporters David Halbfinger, Michael Wines, and Steven Erlanger put their fingers on the scales in support of BDS, including by:

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The Many Levels of Hypocrisy in BDS - And Will You Have Fries With That? (Daled Amos)

How widespread is this use of Israeli products by members of BDS? Consider Omar Barghouti, one of the BDS leaders.

Daled Amos..
Elder of Ziyon..
29 July '19..

In a recent post, Elder of Ziyon pointed out an ignored truth about the campaign to boycott Israel: BDS isn't about boycotts. It is about turning Israel into a pariah state.

Even BDSers admit that they choose their targets of boycott for maximum leverage and publicity, even as they use Israeli products themselves. The boycotts are indeed a sideshow to their real aim - to have average people associate Israel with racism and apartheid.

By repeating the lies that Zionism is racism, Israel is an apartheid state, Israel must be boycotted for human rights abuses, and so on - over and over again - it makes an impression on college students and people who don't follow Israel closely.

When an artist boycotts Israel, it makes a huge impression on people who want to identify as supporting social justice.

When an academic group calls to boycott Israel, it puts an aura of respectability on hating Israel.

BDS is a tactic, it is not a movement whose goal is to remake Israel as the previous boycott movement was capable of forcing change on the level it did with South Africa.

And the strategy behind that tactic is publicity.

Now more than ever, especially in the age of social media, it is possible to reach people without having to engage the mainstream media, who in the past were the gatekeepers who could to a larger degree control who got access to the public audience.

When small groups like If Not Now want attention, they stand outside and say Kaddish for Hamas terrorists -- not Jews who were murdered by terrorists -- because that is what gets attention, and it is that attention that is the crucial oxygen to breathe life into the membership and create the attention that such movements need.

Recently on Twitter, it was pointed out that both Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar -- vocal supporters for boycotting Israel -- used Israeli technology, Wix, for their website:

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The New York Times Inquires ‘Is BDS Anti-Semitic?’ - by Ira Stoll

It’s often a bad sign when an article fails to answer the question in the headline. The Times waffles. In a section headed, “Is B.D.S. anti-Semitic?” the article reports, “Leaders of B.D.S. insist that it is not anti-Semitic… But many Israelis and American Jews say it is.” That’s not particularly helpful. In a different section, the Times article does eventually concede, “There is some overlap between support for B.D.S. and anti-Semitism.” What a coincidence!

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
28 July '19..

The New York Times devotes a full page in its Sunday newspaper to a deeply flawed look at the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel.

Given all the advance work that usually goes into a long Sunday feature, you’d think the Times could be troubled to get the facts right the first time around. Yet by Sunday morning, the Times article already carried a two part correction: “An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the status of legislation in Ireland concerning goods produced by Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Ireland has advanced legislation to ban the import of those goods, it has not banned them. Also, the article misstated the status of Omar Barghouti, a B.D.S. spokesman. He is a Palestinian resident of Israel, not a citizen.”

That correction, though, only scratches the surface in terms of the problems with the Times article, which extend well beyond the errors that were corrected.

The so-far-uncorrected problems begin with first sentence, which claims, “In a matter of months, a campaign to boycott Israel has moved from the margins of politics — liberal college campuses and protest marches — to Congress.” Yet the overwhelming Congressional vote was to condemn the BDS campaign, indicating that the campaign remains marginal. And, far from being a recent phenomenon as the phrase “a matter of months” indicates, the effort to boycott Israel, and Jews, dates back to before Israel even existed. Laws forbidding American companies from cooperating with such boycotts were passed in 1976 and 1977, a fact the Times almost invariably ignores in its coverage attempting to hype the boycott as some sort of innovative, new, or recent development.

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Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. More of his media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

Roi Klein was my commander and my friend - by Yoseph Haddad

Thirteen years have gone by, but Roi Klein will be remembered forever, a symbol of friendship, mutual responsibility, caring for others and, above all, friendship. If each of us could only learn a small lesson from him we would only build the true civic strength of our nation.

Yoseph Haddad..
Jerusalem Post/Opinion..
25 July '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Roi-Klein-and-I-596835

Friday, July 26, marks the 13th year since the death of Maj. Roi Klein. I have the privilege of being able to say that I personally knew Roi. He was my commanding officer, but he was also a family member – the family of the Golani Brigade’s Battalion 51.

For me he was Klein the “samgad,” the deputy brigade commander. As a soldier and officer under him I had the opportunity to be with him for a significant amount of time. We had many conversations and had a special relationship, despite the fact – or maybe because of the fact – that I am an Arab-Israeli from Nazareth and he a settler from Eli.

I remember when our battalion was deployed in Ghajar, a village on the Lebanese border. There, lying in wait for hours before an ambush, we past the time in conversation. During this time I got to know the man behind the shoulder mark.

Klein took a sincere interest in me and in the community from which I came. He wanted me to tell him about the Arab sector of society. He had a very difficult time understanding that I was cursed at when I went home to Nazareth in uniform.

He told me about himself, and about Judaism. In one of our conversations we spoke about the value of friendship, which he held as the highest value in the army. It is because of Roi that we in Battalion 51, young men hailing from completely different worlds, often complete opposites, found ourselves to be one big family.

In the staging areas before we entered Lebanon for war, I saw Klein praying and I said to him jokingly, “Klein pray to your God on my behalf too.” He responded with a smile and said, “You’re my brother, of course I will pray for you.” I will never forget this sentence.

Those who make hatred of the world's only Jewish state part of their moral and political doctrines - by Aaron Kliegman

Criticizing Israel is fine, but demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state crosses a clear, red line, into the realm of something much worse. When progressives discard the truth to demonize Israel, they also demonize the Jewish community, whether they know it or not. They are creating an environment hostile toward Jews—an environment that, one day, may make Jews in the West that much more grateful for having Israel as a refuge.

Aaron Kliegman..
Freebeacon.com..
25 July '19..

In February, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) received a well-deserved backlash after she accused American politicians of supporting Israel because of the "Benjamins," referencing money and America's foremost pro-Israel lobbying group. Omar's suggestion—that American leaders only back the Jewish state because Jews buy their political support—is, by any reasonable definition, anti-Semitic. The next month, however, Ben Rhodes, who served as Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, went unnoticed as he used the same slur. "The Washington view of Israel-Palestine is still shaped by the donor class," Rhodes told the New York Times. "The donor class is profoundly to the right of where the activists are, and frankly, where the majority of the Jewish community is." Sure, Rhodes's wording is more eloquent than Omar's (although inaccurate about the Jewish community's positions), but his implication is the same: scheming, wealthy Jews are gaming the political system to help Israel and, naturally, to hurt the Palestinians. Rhodes, of course, has a history of undermining the Jewish state as a prominent member of the Obama administration.

It should not be surprising, then, to see Rhodes lie and mislead to demonize Israel. He did just that earlier this week, retweeting a story on Israeli crews demolishing Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem with the added message: "Imagine having your home destroyed just because of who you are, and that being the point." Naturally, Omar and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) both endorsed Rhodes's tweet. To say that Rhodes mischaracterized the situation would be a radical understatement. It is possible that Rhodes is remarkably ignorant about Israeli affairs and did not read the article, but he is an intelligent man who presumably follows international news closely. More likely he had at least a basic idea of the truth, which would mean he intentionally misled the public.

Here are the facts that Rhodes conveniently ignored:

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Aaron Kliegman is the news editor of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Free Beacon, Aaron worked as a research associate at the Center for Security Policy, a national security think tank, and as the deputy field director on Micah Edmond's campaign for U.S. Congress.

The Grand Mufti's War Against the Jews - by Sean Durns

In 1937, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini released an “Appeal to All Muslims of the World,” urging them “to cleanse their lands of the Jews” and laying the foundation for the anti-Semitic arguments used by radical Arab nationalists and Islamists to this day.

Sean Durns..
JNS.org..
24 July '19..

This month marks the 45th anniversary of the death of Amin al-Husseini, the one-time Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Nazi collaborator. Hailed as a “pioneer” by current Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, during World War II al-Husseini raised SS regiments in the Balkans, promoted the Reich’s propaganda in the Arab world, toured death camps and plotted the genocide of Middle Eastern Jewry. After he escaped justice, conventional wisdom has it that the Mufti ceased to be a political force in the post-war years. But conventional wisdom is wrong.

Declassified CIA documents—many revealed for the first time—and a recent book tell a different story, one in which al-Husseini continued to be influential more than a quarter-century after the war’s end. Although he would never regain the power that he once wielded, the Mufti remained a force to be reckoned with. Intelligence agencies closely monitored him, and Arab regimes variously sought his support or his assassination. Through it all he remained not only an unapologetic anti-Semite, but also an inveterate schemer.

The Mufti’s rise to power was itself owed to intrigues. The British, who ruled Mandate Palestine after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, made al-Husseini the grand mufti of Jerusalem in 1921, making him both the country’s highest Muslim cleric and leading Arab political figure.

As Wolfgang Schwanitz and the late Barry Rubin revealed in their 2014 book Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East, the 24-year-old with no religious training was likely chosen in recognition of his service as a spy for the British in the final years of World War I. The decision, the historians conclude, “was one of the most remarkable errors of judgment ever made in a region rife with them.”

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The writer is a senior research analyst for the Washington, D.C. office of CAMERA, the 65,000-member Committee for Accuracy and Middle East Reporting and Analysis.

Omar Shakir, BDS, and the Real Goal, Elimination of Israel - by Prof. Gerald Steinberg

Regardless of the High Court’s decision, Shakir has been exposed as a major activist in the elimination campaign. And far beyond the legal arena, HRW and Shakir, like Corbyn and his ilk, are clearly in violation of basic moral norms.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg..
Opinion/JPost..
24 July '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/BDS-Omar-Shakir-and-Israel-Eliminationism-596641

They call it by different names -- demonization, BDS (short for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions), anti-Zionism, or Israel derangement syndrome. But the bottom line is best summed up as “eliminationism.” Because the elimination of Israel is the real goal of all of these campaigns.

The scale and depth of the effort to remove Israel from the world map was dramatically highlighted in an hour-long BBC documentary on the visceral hatred of the UK Labour party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn. The problem that they have is not with specific Israeli policies or leaders, but with the existence of a Jewish-majority state, in any form. They want a reversal of the outcome of the 1947 UN Partition vote and of the 1948 war, as well as a Palestinian “return,” meaning millions of descendants of 1948 refugees, three generations and 71 years later. These measures, wrapped in the language of justice and human rights, would ensure that Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people, would cease to exist.

Eliminationism is also the underlying issue regarding the government’s rejection of Human Rights Watch (HRW) employee Omar Shakir’s request to renew his visa to work in Israel. Shakir’s appeal is scheduled to be heard by the Israeli High Court on July 25. As in the lower level courts, which ruled against Shakir and HRW, the arguments will focus on whether the government was justified in determining that his “work” in promoting BDS is grounds for non-renewal.

While Shakir, his lawyer, and their supporters try to shift the discussion into philosophical debates on free speech and the right to criticize Israeli policy, the case is far more concrete.

Shakir has the title of the “Israel and Palestine” director at HRW, a powerful NGO that has been among the leaders of anti-Israel demonization for two decades. A more accurate title would be director of BDS campaigns, reflecting his long history of activism on behalf of Israel eliminationism, and the focus of his social media posts, including while employed at HRW. Like others at HRW, Shakir’s activities before being hired were also BDS-centered, and in the past three years, he sought to have Israel expelled from FIFA -- the world football (soccer) federation, promoted boycotts of Israeli banks and other businesses, and pressured companies like Airbnb to single out Israel for sanctions. Although Shakir and HRW ultimately failed in all of these efforts, they succeeded in adding to the demonization of Israel.

A plan that might save both Israeli Jewish and Arab lives alike - by Prof. Hillel Frisch

Engendering economic well-being does not solve deep-seated political conflicts, but it holds out the prospect that differences can be expressed in less violent ways. Trump’s plan might save both Israeli Jewish and Arab lives alike – provided, of course, that it is not followed by a delusional peace process.

Prof. Hillel Frisch..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,234..
23 July '19..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/trump-economic-plan-peace/

None of the three actors in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict envisions peace in the foreseeable future.

Hamas can’t entertain the idea of real peace for ideological reasons. It would mean openly acknowledging that the dream of Palestine “from the river to the sea” is no longer attainable, and in so doing, it would lose its legitimacy in favor of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is recognized by the international community. Peacemaking would also mean the end of Iranian military aid and Turkish and Qatari support.

Hamas would be threatened by the same marginalization that doomed once-strong Palestinian factions like the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine. To court oblivion for the sake of the Jews is, to say the least, unpalatable.

Even less eager to make real peace is the PA under Mahmoud Abbas. Real peace would mean the cancellation of the daily penetration of Israeli security forces, which, in close coordination with PA security forces, currently protects the PA from their common foes – Hamas and Islamic Jihad – by arresting the lion’s share (70%) of their supporters. If the IDF is forced to withdraw for the sake of peace, the PA and its political elite will be threatened with nightmarish scenarios.

At best, Hamas and Islamic Jihad would emerge strong enough to engage in a long civil war in areas controlled at present by the PA. The outcome could be a division into a sort of Palestinian Judea and Samaria, with the former controlled by the Khalaileh (the Hebronites), who form the majority of east Jerusalem and south of it, and Hamas enjoying considerable support among Palestinian Judeans from Ramallah northward. That area would be controlled by Fatah factions and overlords who would either be divided or act in unison.

At worst (from the perspective of the PA), Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be able to achieve a complete takeover along the lines of Hamas’s success in Gaza in 2007.

Unlike the PLO elite of the past, which always found a refuge – first in Amman, then in Beirut, then in Tunis, and finally in Ramallah – the political elite of today’s PA has literally nowhere to flee.

Not one Arab country, including Jordan, will offer them refuge, meaning a bleak future under Hamas rule. For a glimpse into that future, Abbas and his coterie have only to look at how Fatah supporters fare in the one-party Hamas state of Gaza.

Nor can most Israeli voters envision peace in the near future, much as they would like to achieve it. Not only have they internalized the bitter lessons of Oslo – dubbed a peace process, but in fact a war process – which increased Israeli casualties five-fold and doubled Palestinian casualties, but they have only to contemplate the ramifications of enabling Hamas to replicate its actions along the Gaza border over the past year on the Green Line between Israel and the PA. Consider what fires, incendiary bombs, and daily to weekly attacks along the security fence between Afula and Jerusalem would mean.

Fighting the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) Movement (Part I) - by Victor Rosenthal

If BDS does not damage Israel’s economy – and Israel’s success since the initiation of the movement in the early 2000s shows that it doesn’t – and if its demands are so extreme that they will never be met, then what is its true objective?

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
22 July '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/07/fighting-bds-part-i/

The Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has not been an effective economic weapon. It has had few victories and numerous defeats. I think that’s probably because market forces are stronger than ideological ones, at least among the populations that make decisions with economic impact. But I don’t think it’s intended to do economic damage.

Some people think that BDS is a nonviolent way to pressure an intransigent Israeli government to stop “oppressing the Palestinians.” That this is not the case is clear from the conditions that the BDS movement has set for the removal of its boycott. They are

 1. Withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967 and removal of the security barrier.
 2. Giving “full equality” to Arab citizens of Israel.
 3. Recognizing a right of return for the descendants of Arab refugees.

The first is inconsistent with Israel’s survival from a security standpoint, and the last is inconsistent with it from a demographic one. The second condition is interesting, since Arab citizens already have full civil rights; so the demand is for national rights, which would mean that Israel (or whatever it would be called) would no longer be a Jewish state, but a state of all its citizens.

Accepting these conditions would result in the replacement of the Jewish state by an Arab-majority state. Practically speaking, this could not occur non-violently. It would certainly result in civil war and, if the Arabs were successful, expulsion and/or genocide for Israel’s Jews.

Israel will never agree to these demands. It would literally be national suicide, and everyone, Jews and Arabs, knows that. But the demands of BDS are not intended to be acceptable. They are intended to make it possible for the BDS movement to continue for as long as its leaders wish it to.

If BDS does not damage Israel’s economy – and Israel’s success since the initiation of the movement in the early 2000s shows that it doesn’t – and if its demands are so extreme that they will never be met, then what is its true objective?

The Latest Israeli Genocide? No, It’s Herbicide! - by Simon Plosker

...It’s difficult to treat The Guardian’s story with any sympathy given its failure to mention the real environmental destruction going on near the Gaza border. In the past year, hundreds of incendiary balloons and kites have been launched by Palestinians leading to the destruction of thousands of acres of forest and Israeli farmland, wiping out flora and fauna and decimating livelihoods. And driven by the same wind that is allegedly spreading the herbicide further over the Gaza border.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
21 July '19..





Israel has been accused of many things when it comes to its treatment of Palestinians, including the false charge of genocide. Here’s a new one: Herbicide.

The Guardian reports:

Israeli aircraft spraying herbicide beside the buffer zone along the Gaza strip is directly affecting the livelihoods of Palestinians in violation of international standards, a new report claims.

The study tracked the drift of the herbicides on to the Gazan side and concluded it was killing agricultural crops and causing “unpredictable and uncontrollable damage”, according to the report’s main researcher.

Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at Goldsmith’s University, London has apparently spent 16 months investigating. This is the research agency behind the front-page revelation in the New York Times in December 2018 that a Palestinian medic was killed by mistake after a bullet fragment tragically ricocheted into her, but nevertheless managed to suggest that her killing was perhaps not accidental.

It’s also the research agency whose director prompted an astonishing story in the Financial Times attacking Israeli shrubs and trees for “erasing memory” of other peoples.

Forensic Architecture’s latest foraging for evidence to soil Israel’s image, courtesy of The Guardian, presents Palestinians as victims of some malevolent herbicide spraying that is taking place on the Israeli side of the border.

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Sorry Odeh, but it is and will be a Jewish state with a Jewish flag - by Victor Rosenthal

...Odeh Bisharat does not have a deed to this land. If the Arabs of Palestine had any claim to justice, it was blown away by the hundredth exploding bus or pizza restaurant. His “revulsion” is misdirected: it should be aimed at the real architects of the nakba, the Arab states that tried to wipe out the Jews and then put the Arab refugees of 1948 in camps instead of resettling them, as Israel did for the Jews fleeing Arab countries.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
17 July '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/07/realism-not-sadism/

Odeh Bisharat is an Arab novelist, political writer and activist, who is also – quite painfully for him – a citizen of the Jewish state of Israel. He recently published an op-ed in that flagship of Jewish shame, Ha’aretz, in which he describes the display at Arab schools of the flag of the state of Israel, the very Jewish magen david, as “an act of sadism:”

After all, the national flag … is related to the Arabs’ tragedies from 1948 to the present. It provokes considerable sadness, bitterness and even revulsion. It was under this flag that most of the Arab villages were captured in 1948, and later their residents were expelled under this flag, and in the shadow of this flag all those villages were destroyed. …

The Arabs don’t object to the flag because of what it symbolizes for the Jews — a state and independence — but because of what it symbolizes for the Arabs: expulsion and destruction.

I understand. After all, Jews were forced to stand in view of all kinds of flags, from the Roman standards that symbolized the destruction of our holy Temple and expulsion from our homeland of Judea, to the Christian cross of persecution, and even the twisted cross of Nazi Germany.

But painful or not, there is an important lesson conveyed by the flag of the state of Israel to its Arab residents, a lesson that Bisharat rejects with his “sadness, bitterness and even revulsion.” That lesson, which the editors of Ha’aretz also would prefer not to learn, is that the Jews won their War of Independence in 1948, a war that was forced upon them by the refusal of the Arab residents of the land and their Arab neighbors to accept any Jewish state, no matter how small.

It was a vicious war, in which the Arab armies eliminated any trace of Jewish presence in the areas they controlled, expelling or murdering the people and destroying synagogues and even cemeteries. The Arab nakba was nothing compared to the “war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades,” in the words of the Arab League’s Abdel Rahman Azzam, that would have occurred had the Arabs won.

But note: they didn’t win. A Jewish state was created, one which does not insist on ethnic purity within its borders; and Odeh Bisharat lives and works in it, received a university education in it, can vote and hold political office in it, and is not punished – indeed, he is paid – for vilely speaking out against it as he does.

Been There, Done That. Déjà Vu in Bahrain - by Sean Durns

Karl Marx famously said that history repeats itself—first as tragedy and then as farce. But Palestinian leaders seem stuck on repeat—with only tragedy to show for it.

Sean Durns..
TOI Blog..
16 July '19..

“History,” Mark Twain reportedly said, “doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.” And recent attempts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement prove it.

On June 25, 2019, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, presented part of the administration’s plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The economic portion of the proposal, entitled “From Peace to Prosperity,” was formally unveiled at a conference in Bahrain, with representatives from several Arab nations in attendance.

The Palestinian Authority, however, refused to participate. Indeed, the PA announced its opposition more than a year ago—long before the terms of the proposal were announced. The PA not only boycotted the proceedings, it threatened retaliation against any Palestinians who would participate.

In an interview on i24News English, a former PA minister, Ashraf Al-Ajrami called the several Palestinian businessmen attending “collaborators” who will be “seriously punished.” On Twitter, Jason Greenblatt, the U.S. envoy in charge of negotiations, noted that Palestinians were “threatened” or “forbidden” from attending. The Jerusalem Post reported that the PA even raided the homes of several Palestinian businessmen who participated, arresting at least one of the participants, Saleh Abu Mayaleh, who was only released after pressure from American officials.

Some commentators, in The Washington Post and elsewhere, asserted that the U.S. is to blame for the PA’s behavior. However, Palestinian leaders’ choosing to reject both negotiations and normalization predates the Trump administration. In fact, Palestinian leadership have rejected any type of compromise and threatened those Arabs who contemplate normalization—and they’ve consistently done so for nearly 100 years.

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The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for the Washington D.C. office of CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America

Surprise! IfNotNow Proves Its Anti-Israel Bona Fides - by Jonathan Michanie

Here is my message to the executives of IfNotNow: Either learn the beauty and tragedy of our people’s history, or steer clear of it. Do not use false pretenses in order to exploit your Judaism to gain political points. Your rhetoric is not just inconsistent, inaccurate, discriminatory, and offensive; it is also dangerous to whatever future Israelis and Palestinians may have.

Yoni Michanie..
Algemeiner..
15 July '19..





Amid the recent eviction of a Palestinian family from the neighborhood of Silwan, East Jerusalem, the radical left-wing organization IfNotNow pleaded with their community through Twitter to “…stand against the Judaization of East Jerusalem.”

Ignoring the particular history and presence of the Jewish people in that region, IfNotNow subconsciously invoked a term used by some of the vilest antisemitic figures and texts in modern history.

For example, one may easily find the following quotes while skimming through Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf:

The Judaization of our spiritual life and mammonization of our mating impulse sooner or later befouls our entire new generation, for instead of vigorous children of natural feeling, only the miserable specimens of financial expedience come forth.

A few pages later:

How far in this the inner Judaization of our people has progressed can be seen from the low respect, not to disdain, which is awarded the craftsman’s work in itself.

That’s right. The same organization that has invited a type of comparison between the Holocaust and the current crisis at the US-Mexico border, is using the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler.

One may also find such language in Henry Ford’s infamous antisemitic tract, The International Jew — The World’s Foremost Problem.

But in the grand scheme of things, the term represents a larger aspect of the rejectionist policies of the Palestinian leadership. This policy has deprived the Palestinian people of establishing a sovereign state next to a neighboring Jewish state.

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Yoni Michanie is a campus adviser and strategic planner for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). He is a former IDF sergeant, and a speaker, writer, and pro-Israel activist. He holds an MA in Diplomacy from IDC Herzliya.

(Excellent!) From Israel: With Pain and Bewilderment! - by Arlene Kushner

Arlene Kushner                                               14 July '19 With all there is to write about, I have decided first to do a follow-up to my posting about the Ethiopian riots sent out last Monday: https://www.arlenefromisrael.info/uncategorized/from-israel-the-ethiopian-riots-distortion-and-truth/ After I wrote, the issue lingered with me: I could not stop turning it over in my mind, in part because of having worked with this community. I was reaching for some of the complexities of the situation. ~~~~~~~~~~ Last Thursday, something came to my attention that provided a focus for this posting: Five blog entries on the Times of Israel site, all written by young Ethiopian Israeli women: Accomplished young women, on their way to substantial academic achievement. All five have been or are currently associated with Nishmat, an institute of advanced Torah study for women, in Jerusalem, which also features programs for developing leadership and social responsibility.

Credit: Nishmat

Four of them are associated with Nishmat’s Maayan program, which, along with Jewish studies, offers participants full financial support and provides them “with tools for their personal and professional advancement, enabling them to succeed in academic studies.” http://www.nishmat.net/maayan-ethiopian-women/ Ninety percent of the graduates of the Mayan program “continue on to higher education and academic professional training (for example, teachers, lawyers, social workers and occupational therapists).”

Credit: Nishmat Maayan Program

~~~~~~~~~~ What the women wrote in their Times of Israel blogs shocked me, and left me deeply, deeply sad. For their perception of what is going on – their subjective reality – has become so negative. It’s the old story of the glass which might be seen either as half full or half empty. In what they wrote, there seemed to be either a reluctance or inability on their part – I cannot say which – to also embrace the good, even as there are significant problems. In some instances (I will cite just a few examples) it seemed as if they had internalized a litany of grievances, and would not let go, even in cases in which those grievances have been rectified – as if these grievances are part of a running narrative. (Let’s not forget the bad stuff that happened to us.) This is painful twice over. It is, of course, a bad place for them to be; if they feel themselves defeated and alienated, it inevitably will inhibit their success in life. Additionally, and significantly, the picture they paint is one that does an injustice to Israel. ~~~~~~~~~~

The importance of Israel to stay as strong, and as independent as possible - by Victor Rosenthal

One of the lessons the Jewish people learned from the Holocaust was that we could not rely on the non-Jewish world to come to our aid in times of danger. Today as antisemitism is growing throughout the world, even in the US, and when our regional enemies are putting strategies into place that they believe will be our undoing, it is more important than ever that we stay as strong – and as independent – as possible.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
13 July '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/07/an-ally-not-a-satellite/

Despite the fact that my daughter once had one of those T-shirts with a picture of an F-16 and the words “Don’t worry, America, Israel is behind you,” a mutual defense pact with the US is a terrible idea.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a great friend of Israel, recently proposed it, and there are rumors that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering it (right before our election, of course).

Don’t do it, Bibi.

With all due appreciation for my former country, which I still love and care about, increasing Israel’s dependence on the US is not in Israel’s interest.

Treaties are pieces of paper; countries act in ways that advance their perceived national interests regardless of what’s on the paper. In 1956, President Eisenhower promised (or appeared to promise) that the US would defend the right of passage through the Strait of Tiran, which was critical for Israel’s import of oil (in those days, we bought it from Iran!) But by 1967, President Johnson, embroiled in Vietnam, felt that he could not afford the risk that keeping Ike’s promise would involve the US in another conflict. When Egypt expelled UN troops and closed the straits to Israeli shipping, Israel was on her own.

In 2004, President Bush wrote a letter to PM Ariel Sharon encouraging him to continue with his plan to “disengage” (read: withdraw) from Gaza and northern Samaria. It included the statement that “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations [sic] centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” This was understood by Israeli officials, and confirmed by Elliott Abrams, a member of Bush’s National Security Council involved in the negotiations, to imply that construction in the large existing settlement blocs such as Betar Illit could continue. Sharon went ahead with the withdrawal. But in 2009, Obama’s new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, reneged on Bush’s promise, saying “there were no informal or oral enforceable agreements” about construction in any settlements. “These settlements must stop,” said Obama.

So much for Bush’s letter – and so much for American credibility.

Even if there were no worries about whether a future administration would live up to commitments made by a prior one, there is the question of how fast the US could come to Israel’s aid. Israel is a tiny country, with little strategic depth. Our response to an attack must be as close to immediate as possible, or it could be too late – as was almost the case in 1973. And although our politicians would deny it, the existence of a treaty would lead to complacency and the erosion of our own deterrent power. We not only ought to defend ourselves, we must.

PaliRoots is not about “Palestine” but is about “Not Israel.” by Varda Meyers Epstein

...PaliRoots is not about “Palestine” but about “Not Israel.” Their mission isn’t to “cultivate education and awareness,” but to eradicate the Jewish State and annihilate the Jews. The reason we know this is so is that if they were being honest, the shape of the items they sell at PaliRoots, would be in the shape of the 1920 British Mandate for Palestine, before it was divided up, rather than in the shape of the modern State of Israel, the Jewish State.

Varda Meyers Epstein..
Judean Rose/Elder of Ziyon..
10 July '19..

For a really long time, I wanted an Israel necklace with a pendant depicting the shape of the State of Israel. I thought this would be a unique way of expressing my love for the Jewish State. Everyone has a Star of David necklace, but not everyone has a State of Israel necklace. They are different. I wanted one, and I decided that if I got one, I would put it on and never take it off.

Dov took me out for dinner on my 57th birthday, and when we were done, we walked around Jerusalem and happened to pass a jewelry store that was still open. We went in and I picked out a simple gold chain and pendant. It’s just an outline of the Jewish State, unpretentious, simple. I like it. And the only time I have removed it was during a medical procedure.

It takes time to get used to wearing something around your neck 24/7; sleeping with a chain isn’t comfortable at first. But I knew that after a while, I wouldn’t even feel the necklace. And I don’t, though in my waking hours, my fingers often wander up to the pendant, to feel its distinctive shape with my fingers, or to adjust the chain.

I love my necklace because I love my country. Which is why it was so disturbing when my son Aharon drew my attention to a website called PaliRoots. The website and its Facebook page market things with the same shape you see on my necklace—the shape of Israel—except they are calling it “Palestine.” They boast that they are “The first and only brand in the world that seeks to cultivate education and awareness about the unique Palestinian culture and traditions.”

Except that they are doing no such thing. Instead, they are pushing the modern State of Israel as if it were a place called “Palestine.” It is obvious that the items they are selling depict the Jewish State, because there never was a place with these same borders called “Palestine.”

Which makes it all a huge lie.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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(Excellent!) Applying "do not favor the poor or the mighty" to road blockers - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

...The police officials and politicians allowing the road blocking are essentially stealing the precious time of many thousands of people so that they can avoid the bad press they may suffer for stopping road blockers favored by the media. The enforcement of the law should not be driven by the degree of popularity of those violating the law.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
09 July '19..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73538




You shall do not injustice in your judgment; do not favor the poor or the mighty, but judge your neighbor fairly.
Leviticus 15 Chapter 19

It is against the law to block traffic.

Period

It is just as much a violation of the law for someone to block a road for a popular cause or an unpopular cause.

I thought that after the police and the political leadership responsible for the police screwed up last week in first allowing roads to be blocked for hours by protestors that this concept sunk in.

But it hasn't.

We still have police officials and the minister responsible for the police mumbling something that seems to indicate that its ok to block roads as long as the action doesn't include violence.

So.

If you are a bunch of people with wheelchairs you can apparently continue blocking people from reaching medical appointments, catching flights they've spent their savings on or attending a once in a lifetime wedding or other event.

If you are protesting something that the media has picked up as the cause of the moment you also can block the roads for hours.

The Second Lebanon War: What Have We Learned In 13 Years? by Prof. Eyal Zisser

The 2006 Second Lebanon War was more successful than many believe it to be, but despite the deterrence Israel secured, the challenges Hezbollah poses remain.

Prof. Eyal Zisser..
Israel Hayom..
08 July '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/what-have-we-learned-in-13-years

The pastoral quiet that welcomes hikers in northern Israel makes it possible to forget for a moment that this week, Israel is marking the 13th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. A few days from now, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah will pop out of the bunker where he has been hiding since the summer of 2006 and once again announce that he won the war.

But the quiet along the northern border, as well as the level of caution Hezbollah exhibits in not provoking Israel or dragging it into another round of fighting, testify to the strength of the blow the organization sustained and the heavy price its Shiite supporters paid for their leaders' adventurism.

It took years for Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran, to repair the damages the war cause to Shiite villages in southern Lebanon, not to mention the thousands of dead and wounded. Nasrallah, as we've said, was forced to apologize to his people at the end of the war for his mistake in starting it, and ever since then, in every one of his speeches, he has promised to do everything in his power to avoid another war with Israel.

Israel's achievements in the Second Lebanon War were greater, in many respects than in past wars – such as the Sinai Operation, which brought Israel only 11 years of quiet. Nevertheless, many Israelis feel that something was amiss because of the way the war was handled and the heavy price Israel paid for what it secured.

It would appear that the war achieved what it did thanks to the heroism of the IDF soldiers and the stalwart northern homefront, rather than because of any decisions by the leaders who were in charge of the country and the army at the time.

The two sources of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - by Matan Peleg

For there to be any semblance of a chance for peace in the region, all the existing financial incentives for the Palestinian Arab leadership must be removed, and the philosophy of “mukawama” has to die.

Matan Peleg..
JNS.org..
07 July '19..

Many Western observers were surprised by the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to participate in the U.S.-sponsored economic conference in Bahrain last month, as well as the subsequent arrests of those who participated. However, their response should come as no surprise.

Bahrain was merely the latest manifestation of the ongoing theme of Arab rejectionism. This rejectionism, together with the financial gain of those profiting from it, represent the two fundamental sources of the Middle East conflict.

Only by understanding these two underlying sources of the conflict can one fully understand the P.A.’s modus operandi.

Mukawama is the Arabic word for “resistance,” but it’s also used to describe opposition or rejection. A stubborn refusal. In other words, an attitude and posture of “just say no.” Mukawama underlies and defines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and continues to shape it to this very day.

While this resistance started long ago, in fact from the earliest days of the Zionist movement, it was first formally manifested in 1937 when the Arab High Committee unanimously rejected the Peel Commission, which had recommended partitioning the Land of Israel between Jews and Arabs.

Ten years later, Arabs maintained the same approach and rejected the U.N. Partition Plan, which subsequently led to Israel’s War of Independence.

In 1967, after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, the Arabs responded to Israel’s overture of peace by issuing the “three no’s”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.

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 The writer is the CEO of Im Tirtzu.

He must not be given another opportunity to divide and harm Jerusalem - by Nadav Shragai

Now, more than ever, is the time to remind people how, as Israel's 10th prime minister, Ehud Barak betrayed the trust of his constituents and Jerusalem.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
07 July '19..
Link: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9005789597982574645#editor/target=post;postID=3572715414862987046 



Ehud Barak, the man who pulled the wool over his electorate's eyes 19 years ago in what one of the most scandalous political flip-flops ever witnessed in our political arena, is now back in the ring and looking to regain our trust. As Israel's 10th prime minister, Barak in July 2010 agreed to divide Jerusalem and the Old City at the 2000 Camp David Summit. He has never expressed regret over the move.

Nor has he ever explained to the public how, just two months earlier, on the 33th anniversary of Jerusalem's unification, he declared at a ceremony at the city's Ammunition Hill that "only someone who does not understand the profound depth of total emotional attachment the Jewish people have for Jerusalem could even imagine the State of Israel conceding part of the city" and "only someone completely disconnected from the historical heritage, who is alienated from the vision of the people, the poetry of his life, his faith and the hope of his life - could even conceive of a concession … of a part of Jerusalem."

Just a few weeks later, he annulled his vow.

The damage incurred as a result of Jerusalem's division would be felt in countless arenas: Zionist, Jewish, historic, security and urban. But Barak delivered an even more fatal blow by breaking the taboo and the consensus on Jerusalem. He created the precedent that Israel would consent to Jerusalem's division, after which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, along with other ministers and lawmakers and mistaken parties that have gone astray were able to follow in his footsteps. And above all else, it served to raise the Palestinians' expectations to intolerable levels.

Makovsky's advice? Squeeze Israel, gradually - by Stephen M. Flatow

For those who sit on the comfortable banks of the Potomac and pontificate about what Israel should do, it’s all a matter of semantics and clever arguments and theoretical lines drawn on theoretical maps. But for every citizen of Israel, it’s a matter of life and death.

Stephen M. Flatow..
Israelnationalnews.com..
05 July '19..

Squeeze Israel more gradually!

That’s the advice a former U.S. Mideast emissary is offering Jared Kushner, courtesy of the op-ed page of Tuesday’s Washington Post.

David Makovsky, formerly the right-hand man to the Obama administration’s top Mideast envoy, Martin Indyk, was given the front-and-center spot on the Post’s op-ed page in order to tell Kushner what he’s doing wrong in his Mideast peace efforts.

There is more than a little irony in the fact that Makovsky presumes to lecture the current U.S. Mideast negotiators, after he and Indyk spent years at the exact same task and completely failed. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

According to Makovsky, Kushner’s big mistake is that he is trying to achieve too much, too soon. Kushner should seek “short-term gains” instead of “a grand peace deal.” What Makovsky has in mind is “incremental economic progress,” meaning that Israel should make one-sided economic concessions to the Palestinian Authority and the United States should start pouring money into the PA again.

Such economic “progress” would “create the political space to deal with tough policy issues later,” Makovsky claims, because it “would give Palestinian something to lose and would mitigate the chances of an explosion.”

Makovsky apparently wants us to forget that it’s all been tried before, with dismal results. From 1994 until last year, the U.S. donated a total over $10-billion to the Palestinian Arabs. Other countries around the world gave billions more. The Palestinians have had plenty “to lose,” yet they have continued to wage war against Israel anyway.

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The writer, a New Jersey attorney, is vice president of the Religious Zionists of America and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 1995 on a study trip to Israel when the bus she was on exploded on her way to the beach in Gush Katif. When Alisa succumbed to fatal head wounds at Soroka Medical Center, the family donated her organs to save the lives of others.

The Roots of the Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace Lobby - by Mitchell Bard

Interestingly, the lobby’s funding apparently dried up during the period from 1949 until 1967. I could find no calls for the end of Jordanian and Egyptian occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, nor could I find any demands for a Palestinian state in those territories to achieve the “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.” 

Mitchell Bard..
 Algemeiner..
 02 July '19..

 I have been going through the archives of the pro-peace, pro-Jewish state (later Israel) lobby, and I’ve found some interesting fundraising letters that offer insight into the thinking of the early advocates of this slogan. In November 1917, the lobby was formed to rally liberal Jewish support for the Balfour Declaration’s call for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. To distinguish itself from other Jewish organizations, the new group said it would lobby to ensure the United States supported Balfour’s insistence that nothing be done to “prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

 In 1936, the lobby asked for donations to help it persuade members of Congress to tell President Franklin Roosevelt that he should support British immigration quotas to limit the number of Jews who could go to Palestine, in order to mollify Palestinian Arabs who claimed they were being displaced, and were reacting with violence.

 In September 1938, the lobby asked members of Congress to sign a letter urging Roosevelt to join his British ally, Neville Chamberlain, at a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Munich to discuss how to avoid war and achieve peace in Europe.

 Less than two months later, the lobby sent a message to its followers expressing outrage over the pogroms against Jews in Germany and Austria, but raising questions about whether the actions of some of the Jewish communities had provoked the response.

 In the interest of peace, the lobby called on Roosevelt to pressure leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine in 1939 to accept the British White Paper, which called for the creation of a unitary state in which the Arabs would be the majority, and would impose restrictions on land acquisition by Jews, limit Jewish immigration to the country’s “economic absorptive capacity,” and make it contingent on Arab consent.

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  Mitchell Bard is Executive Director of AICE and Jewish Virtual Library.

Fifty billion reasons why the PA and PLO reject Peace for Prosperity - by Lt. Col. (res) Maurice Hirsch

How can the Palestinians accept a plan that clearly points to their leadership failing them for the past 25 years?

Lt. Col. (res) Maurice Hirsch..
Times of Israel Blog..
30 June '19..

When you read Peace to Prosperity, the American economic plan to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the first question that comes to mind is why are Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority (PA)/Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) rejecting it?

Setting the goals and path to the $50 billion investment, the plan, which is clearly rooted in the basic paradigms of the Oslo Accords, would appear to give the Palestinians almost everything they want. 

Far from being a solely “economic” vision for the development of Palestine, Peace to Prosperity incorporates themes of a purely political nature, favorable to the Palestinian narrative and detrimental to Israel’s.

The plan refers repeatedly to the area Israel seized in the Six Day War from the Jordanians as “the West Bank” – i.e., the term coined by the Jordanians, and adopted by the Palestinians, for the area of land that Israel refers to as Judea and Samaria. It continues to discuss the need and practicalities of physically connecting the West Bank to the Gaza Strip in order to allow the free movement of Palestinians and goods between the two areas.

Going further than the Oslo Accords, the plan assumes independent Palestinian control over the border crossings of the Palestinian state, granting the Palestinians the ability to gather import taxes. At present, Israel controls the external border crossings and collects all the import taxes, which are then transferred to the PA.

Referring to Palestinian development in the West Bank, the plan integrally requires the extension of the Palestinian control beyond the areas they govern today into the areas which are solely governed by Israel. These development plans include the laying of new roads and the building of both industrial areas and residential housing.

 Additional to these and other plans, Peace to Prosperity makes one major factual claim that represents the US adoption of the PA/PLO narrative. Discussing the development of the Palestinian manufacturing industry, the plan refers to “Palestinian craftsmanship” that has been in demand for “hundreds of years.” Critics of this claim would refer the authors of the plan to the words of Palestinian historian Abd Al-Ghani Salameh, as exposed by Palestinian Media Watch, who said that at the time of the Balfour Declaration – i.e., 1917, just over 100 years ago – “there was nothing called a Palestinian people.”

Since the plan adopts Palestinian terminology and narrative, and is often implicitly critical of Israel, the question remains, why is the Palestinian leadership rejecting it?

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Lt. Col. (res) Maurice Hirsch is the Head of Legal Strategies for Palestinian Media Watch. He served for 19 years in the IDF Military Advocate General Corps. In his last position he served as Director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria.