Middle East

Get the popcorn: J Street is getting some competition.

The Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) is a new group, presenting itself as "the pro-Israel voice of Democrats."
How new is DMFI?
So new, that when I did a search by name to find their website -- it showed up at the bottom of the first page of hits -- and that was a paid advertised link.

Here is their introductory video:




According to the Democratic Majority for Israel website, their mission is to:

• Maintain and Strengthen Support for Israel Among Grassroots Progressives and Democratic Leaders
• Advance Policies to Ensure a Peaceful and Secure Israel
• Defend Israel’s Legitimacy
• Promote a Two-State Solution and Arab-Israeli Peace through Diplomacy and Partnership
• Encourage American Global Leadership
• Promote Progressive Values
• Educate and Support Democratic Leaders

The group even supports the 2 state solution, which leaves the question: what does DMFI aim to do that J Street has not been doing?

Mark Mellman, CEO of Democratic Majority for Israel, and Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street recently addressed this question with the JTA.

Mellman stated that “a central thrust for us is making sure the Democratic Party remains pro-Israel” at a time when Israel is facing increasing attacks by some within the Democratic party.

Mark Mellman, President and CEO, Democratic Majority for Israel. Screen capture from YouTube video

In his response, Jeremy Ben-Ami did not claim to be defending Israel form these attacks. Instead, he charged that the DMFI website lacked substance and asked, "would they have supported the Iran deal, do they support two states, would they support Democrats who want to reinstate funding for UNRWA."

But the group does support the 2 state solution, and as far as the Iran deal goes, Mellman responded that the deal was "old news".

It's hard not to think that to some extent, the apparent need for The Democratic Majority for Israel is an indictment of the failure of J Street.

Gregg Roman, Director of Middle East Forum, wrote in a piece for The Hill already in 2017 about J Street's Dead End:
For eight years J Street supported Obama's destructive policies toward Israel like the unilateral settlement freeze, nuclear détente with Iran, and his allowance for international condemnation of Israeli communities in the West Bank.Roman goes so far as to say that considering the influence they had during the Obama years, J Street shares some of the responsibility for the failure to get peace talks off the ground during those 8 years.

Last year, David M. Weinberg , vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, went a step further - asking the question: Is J Street Still Pro-Israel?
J Street has become something else altogether: an organization that spends almost all its time and money besmirching Israel, smearing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other leading American Jewish organizations, boosting US-Iran relations, and backing political candidates for whom promoting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement is a badge of honor.Even granting that J Street endorses Democratic candidates for Congress, as DMFI will do, the question remains: which Democrats has J Street been supporting?

J Street has supported allegedly "pro-Israel" Democrats such as Representative Mark Pocan, who in 2017 anonymously reserved official Capitol Hill space for an anti-Israel forum put together by organizations that support boycotts and Representative Hank Johnson, who referred to Israelis living in Judea and Samaria as 'termites.'

J Street has endorsed Keith Ellison, despite his ties to Farrakhan - and has defended Ellison, claiming that criticism of Ellison was actually "a concerted and transparent smear campaign driven by those whose true objections may be to the Congressman’s religion, strong support for the two-state solution or concern for Palestinian rights."

This past year, J Street endorsed Rashida Tlaib, who

• supported Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh
  
• supported Islamic Relief, which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
  
• retweeted a post from Linda Sarsour supporting Ahed Tamimi, who was jailed for incitement and assaulting an IDF soldier -- and upon release voiced support for suicide bombing.
  Later, J Street withdraw their endorsement -- but only because Tlaib reneged on her support of J Street's precious 2 state solution.

This problem with J Street goes back to its origins. According to a video they put out in 2018, J Street's beginnings go back to Howard Dean's presidential campaign in 2004, when Ben-Ami defended Dean, who advocated a balanced role for the US that supported both Israel and the Palestinian Arabs:



The video itself uses articles dating back to the last few months of 2003. But an article written by Ron Kampeas for JTA in 2006 paints a different picture, noting the involvement of Soros in the early meetings that year that led to the start of J Street. A meeting in September included, in addition to Morton Halperin, a director of Soros’ Open Society Institute and Ben-Ami, members of Israel Policy Forum, Americans For Peace Now and Brit Tzedek. Those 3 groups are credited with the lobbying efforts at the time that derailed the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, legislation that would have cut off US aid to the Palestinian Authority unless it renounced terrorism and recognized Israel. One can already see the source of J Street's current agenda. The article noted that a second meeting was scheduled for the following month, but the goals were not clear:
Some participants speak of wrapping together a number of the existing groups at some future date; others speak of a support structure that would back the groups as they continue to operate separately.But there are hints of other groups secretly supporting The Democratic Majority for Israel as well. J Street claims that it opposes the new group because they see DMFI as an ally of AIPAC and the pro-Israel mainstream, and The Forward quotes an unnamed source that goes one step further, claiming that AIPAC is behind DMFI:
For years, even before this last election, AIPAC has been discussing credibility problems with progressives at the highest level,” a pro-Israel Democrat familiar with AIPAC’s works, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely, told the Forward. “And they have been exploring the possibility of creating a Democratic group that would push AIPAC policy and fight the pro-Israel fight within the Democratic Party. That’s something they’ve been discussing for years.Out of DMFI's 15 board members, 11 of them have either worked or volunteered for AIPAC, or have donated to it or spoken at its events. Also, the company that made DMFI’s announcement video has a long working relationship with AIPAC, and designed their Policy Conference app. Whether there is any truth to a direct connection between the 2 groups or not, there seem to be forces at work that may be trying to create an anti-J Street, just as J Street was conceived as an anti-AIPAC. 2019 will not be a boring year.
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One of the most controversial issues surrounding how UNRWA does business is its fast-and-loose definition of refugees, which has kept expanding over the years.

When UN General Assembly Resolution 393 was passed on December 2, 1950, endorsing UNRWA's purpose, it clearly stated:
[T]he reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential in preparation for the time when international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization of conditions of peace and stability in the areaUNRWA's job was to either repatriate refugees, where possible -- or to resettle them elsewhere, with the realization and acknowledgment that the money was not going to last forever.

But that goal was only good for about 10 years.


These days, UNRWA is no longer in the business of resettling refugees.
And they seem to think the money can, and should, keep flowing forever.

UNRWA Logo

UNRWA's Self-Declared Flexibility
On the issue of finding homes for refugees, Lance Bartholomeusz, former head of the International Law Division of UNRWA admits that "this part of the mandate probably ended by 1960 when reference to 'reintegration' was dropped from General Assembly resolutions relating to UNRWA, reflecting some acknowledgment that this objective had been defeated."

Considering how integral the job of finding homes for the refugees was to the mandate of UNRWA, one might have thought that UNRWA would disappear at that point.

But in The Mandate of UNRWA at Sixty, Bartholomeusz described how UNRWA has continued to change its focus:
For almost sixty years, in response to developments in the region, the General Assembly has mandated the Agency to engage in a rich and evolving variety of activities, for many purposes and for several classes of beneficiaries. The Assembly has provided UNRWA with a flexible mandate designed to facilitate, rather than restrict, the Agency's ability to act as and when the Commissioner-General [of UNRWA], in consultation with the Advisory Commission as appropriate, sees fit. [emphasis added]As we know, over the years, UNRWA has defined those "classes of beneficiaries" rather loosely, to the extent that UNRWA has taken upon itself the ability to extend refugee status from one generation to the next, significantly multiplying the number of refugees it claims to be responsible for. Also, UNRWA has been criticized for the 'stickiness' of the refugee status, which is retained even when the refugee becomes a citizen in another country.

Citizen or Refugee -- But Not Both
James G. Lindsay, who served as lawyer and general counsel with UNRWA from 2000 to 2007, criticizes UNRWA for the ease with which it doles out and retains refugee status.

In 2012, Lindsay wrote about Reforming UNRWA in an article that appeared on Middle East Forum. He takes issue with the UNRWA unique position that Palestinian Arab refugees who become citizens of another country, retain their refugee status on the UNRWA rolls:
Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestine refugees are people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.

The UNRWA definition makes no mention of citizenship, and UNRWA makes no effort to de-register persons who were formerly refugees but are now citizens of a state. As such, UNRWA is the only refugee organization in the world that considers citizens of a state to be refugees, and there are many of these oxymoronic "citizen-refugees" on UNRWA rolls. [emphasis]Lindsay is consistent in this critique of UNRWA.

Two years later in the Winter 2014-2015 edition of Justice, the magazine of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, Lindsay writes UNRWA: Still UN-Fixed, and he is damning in pointing out UNRWA's failure:
[UNRWA] never addresses the fact that there is no basis whatsoever in international law for its practice of “referring to” persons who have acquired a new nationality as “refugees.” This indefensible practice is not an oversight on UNRWA’s part—even some commentators sympathetic to UNRWA have admitted that citizens under the protection of their state of citizenship are not refugees. Instead, knowing that it is impossible to make a credible argument that citizens are “refugees,” UNRWA simply does not address the issue. [page 18]Generations of Refugees 
However, Lindsay has tempered his critique of UNRWA when it comes to refugee status passing on from generation to generation. He is willing to compare UNRWA with UNHCR, the UN refugee agency which looks after all of the other refugees.

UNHCR Logo

Back in his 2012 article, Lindsay wrote that UNRWA's refugee definition includes all the descendants of male refugees and takes this liberty despite the fact that the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is silent on the matter of refugees' descendants.

But not everyone is silent.

Lindsay himself points out that standards for refugee status are laid out in the UNHCR publication, "Procedural Standards for Refugee Status Determination under UNHCR's Mandate." There, family members of a refugee are eligible for "Derivative Refugee Status." In other words, family members of refugees may be entitled to derive benefits by virtue of their familial connection to a refugee. However -- as Lindsay himself writes:
"they are not refugees themselves, through whom derivative refugee status may be claimed".Here Lindsay makes clear that one derivative refugee cannot generate another derivative refugee -- which means that there is no basis for the UNRWA policy to allow refugee status to be passed on from generation to generation has no basis.

But fast forward 2 years later.

Does the UNHCR Standard of Refugee Status Support UNRWA Policy?
In the later 2014 article in Justice, on page 18, in the section "Descendants of Refugees," Lindsay refers to critics such as himself who have argued that UNRWA's policy of granting refugee status to grandchildren and later descendants is contrary to the standard applied by UNHCR.

But then he argues that the UNRWA definition of refugee status is comparable to UNHCR's, based on Unit 5 of the UNHCR's above-mentioned "Procedural Standards":
However, as UNRWA and its supporters argue, UNHCR does refer to the dependents of a refugee as being eligible for “derivative refugee status” and does state that persons with derivative refugee status enjoy “the same rights and entitlements as other recognized refugees .”

Based on the concept of persons with derivative refugee status having the same rights and entitlements as other refugees, one could argue, as UNRWA does, that a person with derivative refugee status has the right to have his or her own dependents receive derivative refugee status.

In that case, the differences between UNRWA and UNHCR in the matter of refugee status passing to descendants would not be as great as the critics have suggested.So according to Lindsay, based on UNHCR standards, UNRWA has a basis for its policy based on 2 claims:

• Derivative refugees have the same rights as actual refugees
• Derivative refugees, like actual refugees, can pass that status on to their descendants

Regarding that first claim, the statement that derivative refugees enjoy “the same rights and entitlements as other recognized refugees” is not absolute. In correspondence with Avi Bell, law professor at the University of San Diego School of Law and at Bar-Ilan University's Faculty of Law, he pointed out that, for example, the right to non-refoulement, the practice of not forcing refugees to return to a country where they are liable to be subjected to persecution, applies only to actual refugees and does not apply to parents, spouses, children or grandchildren.

In addressing the second claim, it is helpful to take a look at the arguments offered by Uri Akavia, a researcher at Kohelet Policy Forum, whose background paper "Is UNRWA’s hereditary refugee status for Palestinians unique?" came out just last month. Akavia counters Lindsay's claim of similarity between UNRWA and UNHCR definition of refugees and posits that there is a distinction: while UNHCR grants refugee services to derivative refugees, refugee status is another matter entirely:
It is not automatic - it is based on a case-by-case review of whether the actual situation merits it. When it does, UNHCR gives certain services to the children of refugees. UNHCR does not automatically add the children and grandchildren of refugees to the count of refugees and does not automatically define them as refugees. Even if a child of refugees is given refugee services, the grandchild will not be eligible for status or services. UNRWA, on the other hand, automatically grants such children refugee status, resulting in exponential growth of refugee numbers.I emailed Uri Akavia for more background for the basis of what he wrote. In his response, he pointed to the same section 5 of UNHRC's "Procedural Standards" that Lindsay refers to.

First of all, any comparison between refugees and derivative refugees has to deal with the implications of the word "derivative," which clearly set the two apart.

According to Section 5.2.1 General Principles (of Derivative Refugee Status):
Recognition of refugee status in their own right affords family members/dependants better protection as their status will not automatically be affected by a subsequent cancellation, revocation or cessation of the refugee status of the individual from whom they derive refugee status (hereinafter “Refugee Status Applicant”). [emphasis added]In other words, the two kinds of refugee status are not the same. Actual refugee status gives "better protection" by its very nature because derivative refugee status by definition depends on maintaining the ties to the refugee from whose status the derivative status is derived.

What happens if that tie is dissolved?

The end of that section does make clear that despite that dependence on the status of the original refugee, the breakup of the family does not automatically dissolve the status of the derivative refugee:
While, as a general rule, family members should retain their derivative refugee status notwithstanding the dissolution of the family through divorce, separation or death or the fact that a child reaches the age of majority [age 18], careful consideration should be given to the personal circumstances of the family members to determine whether retention of status is appropriate in a particular case or whether retention of status would be merely for reasons of personal convenience. [emphasis added]Each refugee is evaluated on a case by case basis. The derivative status is not automatically voided, but neither does it automatically continue either.

The very fact that reaching the age of 18 triggers re-consideration of the status of a derivative refugee by itself raises doubts about the whole idea of automatically passing along refugee status from generation to generation.

So it is not surprising that the limit on perpetuating derivative refugee status is clearly spelled out on the same page of this UNHCR document:
As a general rule, a person cannot acquire derivative refugee status solely on the basis of a family/ dependency relationship with a person who has derivative refugee status.According to UNHCR itself, a person who is a 'derivative refugee' himself cannot pass this status to other family members who are in turn dependent on him.

And that is why there are no 3rd generation refugees treated by UNHCR.

This contradicts James Lindsay's claim of a close correlation between UNHCR and UNRWA definition of refugees. It shows that just as in UNRWA's policy of continuing refugee status for citizens, here in the case of perpetuating refugee status from generation to generation we are dealing with a fabrication that has no basis in international law.

Here's a thought.

If UNRWA really wants to base policy on UNHCR, it could take a look at Article 1, F of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. There, it touches on when not to apply refugee status:
The provisions of this Convention shall not apply to any person with respect to whom there are serious reasons for considering that:

(a) he has committed a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, as defined in the international instruments drawn up to make provision in respect of such crimes;Now that would be a good place to start.

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It's common to think that Farrakhan's poisonous Antisemitic rhetoric carries no consequences with it.

• There are no condemnations from African American leaders.
• Politicians show no reluctance to appear with him
• Community leaders in general do not condemn his Anti-Jewish attacks
• Farrakhan is a popular leader among African Americans

That is why the backlash against Women's March is so surprising.

Apart from the Antisemitism of the Women's March leadership itself, as documented by Tablet Magazine and The New York Times, their ties to Louis Farrakhan and their refusal to condemn his ongoing Antisemitic attacks have been a stain on that movement.

But historically, the Women's March is not alone in bearing the consequences of the albatross that is Louis Farrakhan.




Edwin Black, the author of "IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation," wrote a background article in 1986 about Louis Farrakhan.

Black reveals Farrakhan's plan in the 1980's for a project known as POWER, People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth, which included a plan for selling toiletries and personal products to African Americans:
Black toiletry manufacturers would be subcontracted for production. POWER consumers would commit to a minimum monthly purchase of $20, ordering via an 800 telephone number. Merchandise would be delivered from POWER directly to the consumer's door. Distributors and retailers would be eliminated, doubling POWER's sales income. By this brilliant strategy—combining the best capitalistic experience of Avon, Proctor & Gamble, Fuller Brush, and the Book-of-the-Month Club—the Nation of Islam would make money every time a black customer gargled or went to the bathroom.POWER had the potential to be the biggest African American enterprise in the country, capable of sales of over $150 million within its first 5 years and $1 billion within its first 10 years.

The Nation of Islam sought support in Chicago of Johnson Products, which manufactured cosmetics and household products. Farrakhan suggested raising the necessary capital to start production by selling tapes of his speeches at $10 each at various rallies he would hold around the country, with the expectations of drawing 6,000-10,000 people at each rally, in order to raise the necessary millions.

So in 1985, Farrakhan launched a well-publicized speaking tour, starting in Detroit on January 19. But between cold weather and technical difficulties, sales were less than expected.

That is when Farrakhan turned elsewhere for the help raising the money: Muammar Khaddafi.

This is the same Khaddafi who, in 1975, gave NOI leader Elijah Muhammad a $3 million interest-free loan to build a national mosque. Now, on February 24, 1985, Khaddafi had a special address beamed by satellite to a Chicago meeting hall as the climax to the Nation of Islam's annual "Savior's Day" convention. The Libyan leader, who financed terrorist groups around the world, did what came naturally. On a large TV screen, Khaddafi
called upon American black servicemen to desert from the military and engage in wide-spread sabotage and rebellion with weapons he would provide.A few days later, Farrakhan held a Washington press conference, where he formally renounced the offer of weapons. As Farrakhan put it, the offer "was appreciated but unacceptable unless [Khaddafi] wanted to offer monetary weapons to get the proposed program off the ground."

In the end, Farrakhan got a $5 million interest-free loan from Khaddafi. Khaddafi, of course, was not Farrakhan's only favorite Arab despot. During a 1985 tour of the Middle East:

• He visited Syria, where he had visited earlier with Jesse Jackson to win the release of downed pilot Robert Goodman
• In the UAE, Farrakhan met with Dr. Ibrahim Ezzadine, an adviser to the leading Emirate sheiks
• He visited Saudi Arabia, where he located and spoke with Idi Amin, who he claimed was a great man
• In Sudan, he met with Omar al-Bashir who had recently come to power as a result of a coup and would later be accused of war crimes

So his attacks on Jews helped Farrakhan cement his friendship with Arab despots, as well as energize his base.

In fact, when he returned home, Farrakhan's attacks increased, targeting the US, Christians and Jews which had the effect of increasing the size of his audiences among Black Americans even further.

And that is when the problems started:
It was one thing to enter a pro-black business venture. It was quite another to participate in an enterprise conceived and advertised as anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-white, and anti-Semitic.Eventually, word got out about Khaddafi's involvement in the POWER project and that Johnson Products was involved, tying the company with an Arab despot who was an enemy of the US.

And Farrakhan just kept digging:
Farrakhan began publicly mentioning Johnson as a courageous black manufacturer willing to stand up to white society and the Jews. The Minister even asked blacks to increase their purchases of Ultra Sheen as a gesture of thanks. Johnson's Jewish business associates were shocked at his involvement, and soon the heat was on.Farrakhan's Antisemitic statements combined with pressure from Jews who helped Johnson start his business and invested in it forced him to call Farrakhan and tell him that his company could not be associated with Farrakhan in any way. Farrakhan took the news badly and insisted Johnson was backing out because Jews wanted POWER to fail because it would do something to help black people.

Farrakhan should not have been surprised nor upset by the Jewish reaction to his anti-Jewish comments, since he himself advocated the use of economic pressure to defend one's community.

Black writes:
The Minister added that it was right for the black community to fight the Jews with whatever economic influence they had because it was in their self-interest. Asked, "Do you not agree that Jews likewise should use any economic influence that they have to protect their interests as well?" Farrakhan smiled and said, "Certainly...Each of us as a people have a right to use whatever we have at our disposal to protect our interests. But," he qualified, "if those interests lie in...robbing others of that precious right that is given by God...keeping us suppressed and oppressed, then that's not legitimate."But Farrakhan didn't see it that way, and rather than take responsibility for the chilling effect of his own Antisemitism, doubled down on the excuse that Jews were out to get blacks.

At a rally at Madison Square Garden a little later, Farrakhan publicly lashed out at Jews, whom he accused of being "bloodsuckers of the poor." Soon after, George Johnson issued a formal written statement disassociating himself from Farrakhan and POWER. He gave Farrakhan's Antisemitism as the main reason.

The problem didn't stop there.

Farrakhan's connection with Khaddafi became a headache for the small black-owned Independence Bank in Chicago, where Farrakhan deposited the $5 million he received from him. Black notes in his article that Khaddafi's $5 million, provided $50,000 in annual profit, about 5% of the bank's total. At the time of the article, the bank had canceled the lock-box service for contributions to POWER and from tape purchases. A bank source indicated that in any case, very few checks had come in since the bank had terminated the service -- and it was considering further measures.

Black points out that Farrakhan mixed his personal politics with the product line that formed the basis of POWER, undermining the project.

Farrakhan's friends in the Women's March leadership seem to be doing the same. Phyllis Chesler, a feminist leader starting in the 1960's, writes "The Women’s March is a Con Job":
Most concerning, though, is that the Women’s March leadership appears to have no particular interest in the independent women’s liberation movements. I have read their literature extensively and all I can find are issues, which, however worthy they may be, are not, strictly speaking, feminist issues. The Women’s March addresses things like “immigration reform” and “police violence against black men.” They say they are “anti-racists,” more than they are “anti-sexists.” And they prioritize “queer and transgender” politics, but never plain old garden variety women’s issues.

Women’s issues — even those that are impacted by race, class, religion, and ethnicity — are still woman-specific: sexual harassment on the job; rape; incest; domestic violence; economic, social, and legal discrimination; and of course reproductive rights, including access to birth control, abortion, and prenatal care.

...Sex trafficking? Child marriage? FGM? Forced face veiling? Honor Killing? None of these issues are being addressed by the American Women’s March leadership.

What is going on?Back in 1985, Farrakhan made his product line for POWER secondary to his politics and the rhetoric of hate that he is dependent on to energize his base. The leadership of Women's March, with its admitted admiration for Farrakhan, has sublimated women's issues to their own politics.

Both are strident in their anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric.

In the end, a project that had the potential to benefit the black community fell apart.
Whether the same fate will befall The Women's March remains to be seen.



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Since Tamika Mallory's connection to, and adoration of, Antisemite Louis Farrakhan is well known, her Antisemitic attacks on Jews and Israel -- and her recent refusal to address those concerns -- are not surprising.


But she is also a disciple of Al Sharpton. Mallory joined the staff of Sharpton's National Action Network when she was 15 and later became its youngest-ever executive director.


Mallory with Sharpton in 2010. Politico. Credit: Colby Hamilton Fair Use.
Like Farrakhan, Sharpton also has a history of inciting hatred.

• 1987 Sharpton pushed the Tawana Brawley hoax, where a 15-year-old black girl claimed she was abducted and raped by a group of white men. Sharpton deliberately singled out Dutchess County prosecutor Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor and accused him of racism and of having participated in the attack on Brawley. Pagones sued and won a $345,000 verdict for defamation against Sharpton, Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason. Sharpton refused to pay and Johnnie Cochran paid for him.
  
  
• In 1991: When a Hasidic Jewish driver in Crown Heights accidentally killed Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, antisemitic riots erupted. At the funeral Sharpton blamed the "diamond merchants" (Jews) with "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. Sharpton went further, mobilizing hundreds of demonstrators marching through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." Rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, was surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and was stabbed to death.
  
  But Sharpton's comments go further than that. The Forward quotes comments by Sharpton that would rival Farrakhan in their racism and history revisionism:
  The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident...It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights...Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid...All we want to say is what Jesus said: if you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin’. Pay for your deeds...It’s no accident that we know we should not be run over. We are the royal family on the planet. We’re the original man. We gazed into the stars and wrote astrology. We had a conversation and that became philosophy. We are the ones who created mathematics. We’re not anybody to be left to die waiting on an ambulance. We are the alpha and omega of creation itself...We will win because we’re right. We will win because we’re strong. God is on our side. [emphasis added]
• In 1995, the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raised the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, owned by a white Jewish owner who was forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. Following the ensuing dispute, Sharpton got involved and raised tempers, warning "we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's organization, National Action Network, set up picket lines. Customers who entered the store were spat on, cursed and accused of being "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Going further, some protesters shouted,"Burn down the Jew store!" while simulating striking a match with Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell saying "We're going to see that this cracker suffers". On December 8, one of the protestors entered Freddy's, shot 4 of the employees and set the store on fire, killing 7 employees. [emphasis added]Like Farrakhan, Sharpton acted the demagogue, picking a target and focusing on it relentlessly, whether it was Pagones or the Jews. Sharpton fabricated accusations against Pagones and the Jews with no basis in reality -- but the hatred deliberately generated by those accusations did its job, energizing his followers and victimizing his targets.

This is what we see now from Sharpton's disciple, in the way Mallory thinks about both white people and Jews.
“Tamika told us that the problem was that there were five white women in the room and only three women of color, and that she didn’t trust white women. Especially white women from the South. At that point, I kind of tuned out because I was so used to hearing this type of talk from Tamika. But then I noticed the energy in the room changed. I suddenly realized that Tamika and Carmen were facing Vanessa [Wruble, another leader], who was sitting on a couch, and berating her — but it wasn’t about her being white. It was about her being Jewish. ‘Your people this, your people that.’… They even said to her ‘your people hold all the wealth.’ You could hear a pin drop. It was awful.” [emphasis added]For her part, while Mallory refuses to condemn her mentors, she claims
“I don’t agree with everything that Minister Farrakhan said about Jews or women or gay people,” said Mallory. “I study in a tradition, the Kingian nonviolent tradition. [emphasis added]Actually, she agrees with Farrakhan quite a bit, claiming that "white Jews" contribute to white supremacy.

Mallory has openly expressed her distrust white women as well:
“We’re not really interested in hearing white women talk about how much they want to work with us, and how much they want to be allies, and how much they appreciate us, and all those great things. We don’t want to hear that, because we continue to see — in places like Alabama — and as we approach the State of the Union, we’re dealing with a megalomaniac as president of this country and white women are largely to blame for that. They are largely the cause of it. White women have been voting the wrong way.”And on the other hand, contrary to her claim of following the Kingian tradition -- Mallory seems to fall short. In 1968, Reverend King condemned the identity politics Mallory advocates:
The response of some of the so-called young militants does not represent the position of the vast majority of Negroes. There are some who are color-consumed and they see a kind of mystique in blackness or in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned. We do not follow that course. [emphasis added]


Putting aside Martin Luther King's well known positive feelings about Israel, we can only wish that Mallory was capable of emulating Reverend King's refusal to sink to identity politics that fuel the hate and divisiveness we see today.

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Finally, the media has begun to take the issue of Antisemitism in The Women's March seriously.

A turning point was the article Is The Women's March Melting Down featured on Tablet. In one of the key passages, a conflict during a meeting of some of the leaders is described:
“Tamika [Mallory] told us that the problem was that there were five white women in the room and only three women of color, and that she didn’t trust white women. Especially white women from the South. At that point, I kind of tuned out because I was so used to hearing this type of talk from Tamika. But then I noticed the energy in the room changed. I suddenly realized that Tamika and Carmen were facing Vanessa [Wruble], who was sitting on a couch, and berating her—but it wasn’t about her being white. It was about her being Jewish. ‘Your people this, your people that.’ I was raised in the South and the language that was used is language that I’m very used to hearing in rural South Carolina. Just instead of against black people, against Jewish people. They even said to her ‘your people hold all the wealth.’ You could hear a pin drop. It was awful.”
Later, in an interview with The New York Times, Mallory is quoted patting herself on the back for how she has become more educated about Jews since that meeting:
“Since that conversation, we’ve all learned a lot about how while white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy, ALL Jews are targeted by it.”Apparently, we are supposed to be impressed by her new level of enlightenment.

Tamika Mallory with Farrakhan (Cropped from screenshot)
Mallory is one of many whose fixation on 'white people' dictates her statements and politics. But preoccupation with race has a history.

On the PBS program "The Origin of Everything," one episode covered "The Origin of Race in the USA," and makes the point that Jews were not always considered to be "White":



The non-White categorization of Jews predominated from between the mid to late-19th century into the first couple of decades of the 20th century and is a distinction that no longer is used today:


According to the beginning of the program, the change in categorization of Jews from the "Hebrew" race to the "White" race was in part one of convenience, shoring up a "white" racial majority against immigrants.

More importantly, the idea of categorization by race is itself a matter of convenience -- and manipulation. The concept of race was used to support colonialization and slavery in the 17th and 18th centuries and then the Enlightenment provided the rationalization to justify it.

Eric Goldstein, author of the book "The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity" gave further background on the issue of Jews and race in a lecture last year entitled "Jews and the Science of 'Race' in America"

In that lecture, Goldstein explains that Jews during the late 19th century and early 20th century wanted to preserve the possibility of Jewish assimilability, something that was far from being a given.

For example, Goldstein showed the following during his talk:


This is not some caricature from Der Sturmer -- it was published in New York in 1902 and illustrates the kind of images of Jews that circulated in popular culture in the US at the time. Jews were perceived as being different both physically and racially.

They were hardly white supremacists.

Ships passenger lists around that time used the European designation for Jews, where the nationality would be given as Russian, while the race was registered as Hebrew -- as opposed to the US designation that defined race along white/black lines.

In 1909, the Commerce Department, which was in charge of the census at the time, suggested using the European system to better track and understand the new immigrants, a move that would promote Jews as being separate. The American Jewish Committee and Union of American Hebrew Congregations saw this as a liability and successfully lobbied against using the European designation.

Also around that time, there were some courts that denied naturalization to Syrian immigrants, based on the understanding that they were not "white" -- which again caused concern among the Jewish committee because of the fear they could have the same problem.

In his book, "Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race," Matthew Frye Jacobson notes that Jews were not unique in being considered as non-white. The Irish, Armenians, Italians, Poles, Syrians, Greeks, Sicilians, Finns and others were also not considered "white" and in fact only became considered white over time.

Jacobson writes that "whiteness" itself is a fiction:
As races are invented categories--designations coined for the sake of grouping and separating peoples along lines of presumed difference--Caucasians are made and not born. White privilege in various forms has been a constant in American political culture since colonial times, but whiteness itself has been subject to all kinds of contests and has gone through a series of historical vicissitudes.But while "whiteness" is a fiction, it is a very useful fiction.

The concept of race is malleable and "whiteness" was used in the past by colonialists to enable and justify the subjugation of others.

Today, there are those who share Mallory's obsession with race and manipulate the concept of "whiteness" to ostracize Jews.



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In the book Freakonomics, one chapter deals with the question "Why do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?" In providing an answer, the book touches on the sensitive relationship between drug gangs and the communities they live in. One particularly sensitive area is the murder of gang members and how it affects the expenses of drug gangs:
The miscellaneous expenses also include the costs associated with a gang member's murder. The gang not only paid for the funeral but often gave a stipend of up to three years' wages to the victim's family. Venkatesh had once asked why the gang was so generous in this regard. "That's a f****** stupid question," he was told, "'cause as long as you been with us, you still don't understand that their families is our families. We can't just leave 'em out. We been knowing these folks our whole lives, man so we grieve when they grieve. You got to respect the family." There was another reason for the death benefits: the gang reared community backlash (its enterprise was plainly a destructive one) and figured it could buy some goodwill for a few hundred dollars here and there. [pp 101-2]


We can argue about just how much respect drug gangs actually have for the communities they live in considering the destruction they caused.

But there is no denying that paying stipends to the surviving families is good politics.

Just ask Abbas.

If there is one thing - and perhaps there is only one thing - that Abbas does for the Arabs who live in the West Bank, it is to pay stipends to the surviving families of Palestinian terrorists who are killed as well as to the terrorists who survive. It is a good public relations move that shows that he and the PA is good for something.

But it also gives an incentive to Arabs to stay loyal to Fatah and not join Hamas. Is it any wonder that Abbas won't give in to the pressure to stop the payments to terrorists? Does anyone honestly believe Abbas insists on these payments out of altruism? That money helps to keep Fatah intact.

This second motivation for the stipends goes back to when they were first started, in 1964, under Arafat. According to the book, Humanitarian Rackets and their Moral Hazards: The Case of the Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon,
Fatah had originally established what was known as the Palestine Mujahidin and Martyrs Fund in September 1964 to financially recompense families of martyred, disabled or captured Fatah guerrillas. It was later transferred to the PLO, where it became know as SAMED. The fund was providing pensions and social assistance to more than 20,000 families by 1980. But this was a reflection of Arafat's extension of his patronage network to incorporate families allied to PLO guerrilla groups The Martyrs Fund provided financial assistance only to those dying either of combat or natural causes, so long as it was during their active member hip in the PLO groups. This forced family members of non-PLO combatants to reclassify their dead in order to receive the stipend Today in the camps of Lebanon a significant portion of families who have sons or fathers who were guerrillas are still in receipt of such PLO paymentsGangs, whether of drug dealers or terrorists, know how to keep their people loyal.

Maybe that explains the Israeli tactic of destroying the homes of the families of terrorists. It provides a contrary motivation to those families, that maybe the money is not worth it. It is debatable whether the strategy has been successful enough to justify it, especially considering the bad optics it generates.

But terrorists have a major advantage over drug gangs.

According to the quote above from Freakonomics, the pensions received by the families of the murdered gangsters was for only 3 years, and the amount paid was equal to their salary at the time of their deaths. While the leader of a drug gang could make in the area of $8,500 each month, for a total of about $100,000 a year, the 3 officers working just under the boss (in this case) made about $7.00 per hour [$14,560.00 per year] -- and the rank and file made around $3.30 per hour [$6,864.00 per year]. Also, the money for these stipends came from within the organization (see here)

Compare that with the largesse of Palestinian terrorist organizations.

According to a Washington Post article in 2017, a man serving a 17-year sentence for shooting at Israeli forces during the second Palestinian intifada is receiving a Palestinian stipend of about $800 a month - $9,600 per year. But Palestinian terrorists who are sentenced to 30 years in Israeli jails get $3,000 a month - $36,000 per year. In the case comparable to ours, the families of Palestinians who are killed by Israeli forces get about $800 - $1,000 a month - $9,600 - $12,000 per year.

The drug gangs are paying their stipend out-of-pocket and - for a maximum of 3 years.
Abbas is paying the Fatah stipend out of funding provided by the EU - for life.

And according to the excerpt from the article "Humanitarian Rackets and their Moral Hazards" quoted above, a significant number of families in Lebanon who have sons or fathers who were terrorists are still receiving PLO payments.

Compared to the drug lords, Abbas is clearly running the better racket.

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Controversy is the bread and butter of radical left-wing anti-Israel groups. The key is to grab the headlines, whether it is by preventing pro-Israel speakers from speaking, attacking groups like Hillel and Birthright for an alleged lack of balance, or saying Kaddish for terrorists.

So it is really not all that surprising that often facts they claim to give are full of sloppiness and outright fabrications.

Take for instance Jewish Voice for Peace and their Jews From The Middle East Fact Sheet, which adopts both anti-Israel and pro-Arab narratives.






Trifecta
In the second paragraph of this sheet, JVP claims:
Middle Eastern Jews were generally indifferent or opposed to secular Zionism coming from Europe (Zvi Ben Dror, Invisible Exile: Iraqi Jews in Exile: 149).That's 3 errors in just one sentence.

Just look online at a copy of the actual article and you will find:

• Instead of "Zvi Ben Dror" -- the actual name of the author is Zvi A Ben-Dor Benite
• Instead of "Invisible Exile: Iraqi Jews in Exile" -- the actual name of the article is "Invisible Exile: Iraqi Jews in Israel"
• Instead of saying "Middle Eastern Jews were generally indifferent or opposed to secular Zionism coming from Europe" -- the article's claim is actually much more limited: "However, what seemed very logical in Palestine did not make much sense in Iraq, where Jews remained by and large indifferent to Zionism."

Other questionable claims by JVP in this "fact sheet" are not as blatant, but do offer an opportunity for setting the record straight:
ApologeticsAccording to the fact sheet, life for dhimmis under Islam wasn't so bad:
Prior to World War I, much of the Middle East was under Ottoman control, and Jews lived as Ottoman subjects with dhimmi status (people of the book). Under the Ottoman system, ethnic and religious groups had their own leadership and some autonomy over community affairs; they were protected through jizya, a poll tax. Depending on where in the region, violence against Jews was not a usual occurrence.To claim that Jews were "protected through jizya" is the equivalent of euphemistically saying that store owners pay "protection money" to guard against theft -- without mentioning the 'protection' is from the very gangsters who are coercing the payments. The word 'dhimmi' itself is translated as 'protected' -- not "people of the book," but according to the Quran, the Jizya tax is not about protection, but humiliation:
“Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.” [9:29]How much was the Jizya? Estimates vary.

The 2014 Wikipedia article on Jizya quotes scholars saying that the rate of jizya (head tax) and Kharaj tax (land tax) was more than 20% for all non-Muslim dhimmis. In the western Islamic states of Egypt and Morocco, these taxes had a minimum rate of 20% of all estimated assets and sales, while the highest rates averaged between 33% to 80% of all annual farm produce.

But according to the current Wikipedia article on Jizya, though the rate paid was not uniform, the jiyza tax was one dinar per year during the time of Mohammed, while the maximum was twelve dirhams. Muhammad Hamidullah is quoted as saying that the rate of ten dirhams per year was equivalent to the expenses of an average family for ten days. Old habits die hard, and 5 years ago, a Muslim cleric in Egypt claimed that US aid to Egypt was Jizya and that Egypt must "impose on America to pay aid as jizya, before we allow it to realize its own interests, the ones which we agree to."

What both versions do agree there are Muslim sources that advise humiliation, whether it means walking instead of riding a horse on the way to make payment or grabbing the beard of the dhimmi and hitting him in the face.

As for the claim "violence against Jews was not a usual occurrence," there is a long history of Muslim violence against Jews in then-Palestine, as there was in the rest of the Middle East.

Ethnic Cleansing?
JVP mirrors the Arab claim about "the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the making of over 700,000 Palestinians refugees," but the role of the Arab world in encouraging Palestinian Arabs to flee is documented by the Jewish Virtual Library:
o  The Economist, a frequent critic of the Zionists, reported on October 2, 1948: “Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit..It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.”

o  Time's report of the battle for Haifa (May 3, 1948) was similar: “The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city...By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.”

o  The Secretary of the Arab League Office in London, Edward Atiyah, wrote in his book, The Arabs: “This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re­enter and retake possession of their country.”

o  In his memoirs, Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948­-49, also admitted the Arab role in persuading the refugees to leave:
Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.o  “The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade,” said Habib Issa in the New York Lebanese paper, Al Hoda (June 8, 1951). “He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean....Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.”Jewish Virtual Library also notes the flip side, that in select strategic cases -- as described by Palmach Commander Yigal Allon -- Israel did encourage Arabs to leave from the Galilee, and from Ramle-Lod to relieve pressure on besieged Jerusalem.

The Jews in Iraq
JVP tendency to adopt the pro-Arab narrative is also apparent in their description of Iraq's treatments of its Jews:
The Iraqi Denaturalization Law was enacted in March of 1950 when Iraqi Jews were allowed to immigrate legally to Israel if they gave up their Iraqi citizenship. In 1951, when the government realized that Iraqi Jewish registration increased after violent incidents, the government also froze Jewish assets, keeping Jewish resources in Iraq.But according to Edwin Black, author of "IBM and the Holocaust," Iraq was not quite so generous to its Jews. He gives the missing context JVP fails to provide that already in October 1948, over a year before that law was passed, approximately 1,500 Jews were fired from their government positions, followed by the boycott and systematic expulsion of Jews from positions in commerce:
Now Jews began fleeing, mainly to neighboring Iran. They smuggled out whatever valuables they could to rebuild their lives. On March 3, 1950, to halt the uncontrolled flight of assets and people, Iraq passed a one-year amendment to Law 1, the Denaturalization Act. This statute revoked the citizenship of any Jew who willingly left the country. Upon exit, their assets were frozen but were still available to the emigrants for use within Iraq.

Thousands of Jews seized the opportunity to leave, believing at least that their assets, while frozen, would still be viable within Iraq until a better day. But when the one-year law expired, a successor anti-Jewish statute was enacted secretly on March 10, 1951. Law 5, known as the Law for the Control and Administration of Property of Jews Who Have Forfeited Nationality, permanently seized all the assets of Jews who had been denaturalized by the previous law and any others that would be pressured to leave the country.Black addes that when the law was passed, the phones in Baghdad went down to keep Jews from transferring their assets to safety and the banks themselves were closed for three days.

Mizrachi Jews
The fact sheet emphasizes the treatment of Mizrahi Jews by Israel -- a controversial issue that has a painful history. Some of the points raised have a factual basis: the disappearance of Yeminite children - many of whom were adopted by Ashkenazi Jews and the thousands of eastern Jews who were given dangerous doses of radiation for ringworm, resulting in death or permanent medical problems. There is nothing to be gained in splitting hairs over the degree of the tragedy or over whom to assign blame.

But there are still false claims made by JVP:
Despite being the majority Jewish population in Israel, Mizrahim are represented in small numbers in the Israeli Parliament and in elite positions such as professorships.While it is undeniable that Mizrahi Jews have battled for equal recognition and representation, the JVP claim again is incorrect.

A 2015 article in Haaretz reported that Mizrahi Jews already gained equality in representation in 1999:
"Various studies have also shown a significant reduction in the gap between the political representation of ethnic groups,” added Dahan. “The first Knesset had a negligible percentage of Mizrahi Knesset members. But this proportion grew until the 15th Knesset, elected in 1999, in which the proportion of Mizrahim was about the same as their representation in the population. The gap also decreased in the representation of Mizrahim in senior army ranks,” Dahan added."As for other positions, Wikipedia has an article on Mizrahim with lists of prominent Mizrahi Jews in business, science, politics, the military and writing/academia.

Who's Indigenous?
Jewish Voice for Peace also tries to manipulate the issue of Mizrahi Jews to counter the indigenous ties of Jews to the land:
By defining Mizrahim as “indigenous” some political groups attempt to turn Mizrahim into a political tool to counter Palestinian claims to rights and redress from Israel. While there were Sephardi Jews living in Palestine for generations prior to modern Zionism, their relationships to the land, to their Arab and Ottoman neighbors, and to the surrounding cultures were entirely different than those of the European Zionists. The advent of Zionism rendered these longstanding relationships largely irrelevant, as power passed from the hands of European colonizers to those of European Jewish Zionists.The meaning of the vague reference to the earlier relationships of Jews to the land and the Arabs is unclear -- and as already pointed out above, there is a long history of Arab discrimination and attacks against Jews in then-Palestine itself. The existence of Arabs on the land is a result of either being descended from the Muslims who invaded and conquered the land, having immigrated from other areas in search of better opportunities, or having converted from Judaism to Islam. In none of those scenarios do Arabs have cultural/historical ties to the land that come anywhere near the ties of Jews to the land. There is a reason why people with ties to Arabia are called Arabs and those with ties to Judea are called Jews.

Reverse TransferJVP wants us to take invitations to return to Arab countries seriously -- and reciprocate:
It is interesting to ask, given that some Arab countries have invited Jews to return and regain citizenship, would Israel make the same offer to PalestiniansMore interesting is how one can compare inviting Arabs back to Israel where they may be a potential terrorist threat, with Jews returning to Arab countries where they would live in danger in response to an invitation that is likely less than sincere.

Bottom line, Jewish Voice for Peace consistently takes on narratives that are either anti-Israel or pro-Arab. Nothing wrong with that -- if in fact those narratives were based in fact.

The problem is that JVP's fact sheet, isn't.

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Malaysia is making news - at least in the Jewish media - for its refusal to allow Israeli participants into the Paralympic Swimming event it is hosting this year from July 29 to August 4. This has broader implications for Israel since this is a qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

This is not even the first time Malaysia has blocked Israel from participating in a sports event.


As Elder of Ziyon pointed out 3 years ago, Malaysia also blocked 2 Israeli teenagers from competing in the 45th Youth Sailing World Championships held there in 2016. Malaysia also refused visas to Israel that year to prevent them from participating in the World Team Table Tennis Championships. The International Table Tennis Federation threatened a ban, but in the end, Israel withdrew because of security concerns.

Paralympics logo. Public Domain

But Malaysia has no problem hosting Hamas terrorists, for whom it hosts their own special "events".

Hamas Logo. Fair Use

Malaysia provides Hamas with a training ground where it conducts financial activities, trains terrorists, and develops rockets and missiles.

When Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak visited the Gaza in 2013, he became the first non-Arab leader to visit Hamas since it grabbed control from the PA in a bloody civil war in 2007. Razak pledged Hamas political and financial support -- all of which is mutually beneficial: improving Hamas’ image worldwide, while also strengthening Razak’s own standing in Malaysia’s Muslim community.

As for Malaysia's Jewish community, there isn't one. In Malaysia itself, there are virtually no Jews remaining, as a result of state-sponsored Antisemitism:
Few Malaysians have laid eyes on a Jew; the tiny Jewish community emigrated decades ago. Nevertheless, Malaysia has become an example of a phenomenon called “Anti-Semitism without Jews.” Last March, for instance, the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department sent out an official sermon to be read in all mosques, stating that “Muslims must understand Jews are the main enemy to Muslims as proven by their egotistical behaviour and murders performed by them.” About 60% of Malaysians are Muslim.

In Kuala Lumpur, it’s routine to blame the Jews for everything from economic failures to the bad press Malaysia gets in foreign (“Jewish-owned”) newspapers.Ten years ago, Forbes ran an article on The Myth Of A Moderate Malaysia. Even without having to make any mention of either Jews (around 100 remain) or Israel in the article, the article had no trouble seeing that
Malaysia has rejected secularism in favor of a kind of ethnoreligious apartheid that belongs more in a medieval kingdom than in a modern democratic republic.

In Malaysia, Islam is the state religion. Higher education, the bureaucracy and vast swathes of the economy are operated as a kind of spoils system almost exclusively for Malays, whom the state defines as Muslim. Race and religion determine everything from your odds of getting into medical school to the amount you're expected to put down for an apartment.Not surprisingly, Malaysia is also a big supporter of BDS. Last year there was a call to boycott Malaysia’s largest television service provider, Astro, because it allegedly made a business deal with the Israeli software and service provider Amdocs. Malaysia also put pressure on McDonalds and Tesco, for alleged business relations with Israel. To counter this, these companies downplay the political aspect of their connection and instead emphasize how they provide jobs and help Malaysia's economic growth.

Yet Malaysia avoids the consequences of its actions, as its leader Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad manages to walk a thin line condemning the US while also playing a supportive role in fighting terrorism.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Public Domain
Back in 2002, The New York Times reported on how moderate Malaysia is:
Dr. Mahathir has cracked down hard on suspected terrorists and shared intelligence with the United States, the kind of support the Bush administration wishes it were getting from Indonesia.

Some American officials have said Malaysia was a launching pad for Sept. 11, that it is a base for Islamic terrorists. Although a few of the hijackers did pass time here, Western and Asian analysts say that this is a moderate Islamic country, where extremists are as unwelcome as they are in Europe or the United States. [emphasis added]In 2016, even the State Department praised Malaysia in its Country Reports on Terrorism praised Malaysia for its combatting terrorism, although it also noted that the same laws were used to harass and intimidate critics and political opponents.

It was a just a few months after that 2002 Times article that Malaysia's opposition Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party invited terrorists from Hamas and Hezbollah to speak at their conference, they claimed they had no formal links. That may be when Malaysia and Hamas terrorists started to begin to get close. At the time, Current Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was prime minister then too -- and accused the opposition party of fomenting extremism.

So all things being equal, the question is not merely what is taking the International Federation for Paralympic Swimming so long to take real action.

The question is why are they holding their Olympics there to begin with?

Hat tip: This Ongoing War



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One of Netanyahu's undeniable successes as Prime Minister of Israel is his ability to increase the circle of Israel's friends. Part of his agenda to improve Israel's ties with other countries is his outreach to Eastern Europe. For example, he has extended Israel's friendship to Viktor Orban, the far right Prime Minister of Hungary. More than pursuing some vague, abstract goal, Netanyahu's actions can be seen as an attempt to weaken the EU's hostile strategy against Israel.

For example, last December, Hungary abstained when the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly rejected the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Hungary also joined the Czech Republic and Romania to block an EU statement criticizing the US for moving its embassy to Jerusalem.

For their part, right-wing Eastern European leaders get a hechsher, "kosher certification" from Netanyahu that protects them from accusations of being Antisemitic racists.

Now it appears that this wooing of Israel manifests itself not only on a global level but on a local level as well.


In his article in The Wall Street Journal, Bojan Pancevski writes how Europe’s Right Wing Woos a New Audience: Jewish Voters, reveals how right-wing groups in Europe are getting Jews to join their ranks:
Across Europe, anti-immigration parties with ties to far-right movements have stepped up efforts to recruit supporters in the continent’s small Jewish community, often drawing on perceptions in that community about anti-Semitism among Muslims.Based on the recent release of the EU survey on the increase in Jew-hatred and hate crime in the EU, this 'perception' has a very strong and very dangerous basis in reality. The fact that much of this Antisemitism comes from the Muslim immigrant community makes Jews natural allies of the far-right.

The article illuminates a developing trend -

• Jewish legislators in the Swedish parliament are members of the Sweden Democrats, a party with Neo-Nazi roots (that it has renounced).
  
  
• Austria’s parliament includes Jews who are members of the Freedom Party, which was founded by former members of Hitler’s SS.
  
  
• Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician and vociferous critic of Islam, has a Jewish legislator in his party.
  
  
• In France, which has Europe’s largest Jewish community, about 10% of Jewish voters are estimated to support the National Front. The party has renamed itself National Rally.
  
  
• Right-wing political leaders Ms. Marine Le Pen, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have all traveled to Israel, building ties with the Israeli government as well as with their local Jewish constituencies
  
  
• Emanuel Bernhard Krauskopf and about 30 others recently founded a Jewish chapter of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), the largest opposition group in parliament, among whose members are people accused of being Antisemites and right-wing extremists.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban meets with Netanyahu.
Screenshot from YouTube video


Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. Screenshot from YouTube Video
Keep in mind that this is not part of an attempt to win the Jewish vote itself. According to the Pew Research Center, the total Jewish population of Europe is a little over 1 million, far less than the growing Muslim population.

The Muslim vote is more important than the Jewish one. What the Jews do offer, through their participation in right-wing parties, is their own hechsher of these groups.

Krauskopf says he doesn't mind “being used as a fig leaf" by the AfD in order to fight the growing Antisemitism, and no doubt many Jewish members of these groups and parties across Europe feel the same way.

But suspicions of AfD persist:

• In January, a court ruled against an AfD member and lawmaker in a libel case after he was accused of being a Holocaust denier for challenging the number of the Nazis’ victims
• The party’s co-chairman minimized the importance of the Third Reich in 1,000 years of German history. 

In response to such events, Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the country’s biggest Jewish body, said “a party that tolerates people playing down the Holocaust cannot possibly stand for the rights of Jews.”

Sigmount Königsberg, appointed by the Jewish community in Berlin to monitor anti-Semitic acts takes a different tack in addressing Antisemitism, noting that "if we want to fight it, we can only do it together with the Islamic community.”

This reaction in Germany is likely indicative of the kinds of reactions to be found by mainstream Jewish groups throughout Europe. Clearly, not everyone agrees that the right-wing parties are part of the solution and no longer part of the problem.

Pancevski does note an example of Muslim leaders making an effort to address the rise of Antisemitism. He quotes Mohamad Hajjaj, chairman of the Berlin chapter of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, who says imams in Germany work together in their communities and in their schools to fight against Antisemitism. Since only the example of Germany is mentioned, it appears to be a very limited initiative. After all, the potential backlash Muslim leaders would face for the perception of helping Jews or for supporting some kind of normalization with Israel is obvious. Don't expect any imam-led trips to Israel in the near future.

Of course, none of this is going to affect the ongoing Jewish love affair with liberals and the Democratic party in the US. Growing accusations that Jews are white supremacists will see to that.

For now.



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This week, Rashida Tlaib will be one of our first 2 Muslim congresswomen. Ilhan Omar is the other. Tlaib's swearing-in will be noteworthy because she will be sworn in using Thomas Jefferson's own copy of the Koran.

Tlaib, of course, will not be the first to use Jefferson's Koran for the swearing-in -- Keith Ellison used it, amidst all kinds of discussion and debate back in 2007. At the time, Ellison said his use of Jefferson's Koran
demonstrates that from the very beginning of our country, we had people who were visionary, who were religiously tolerant, who believed that knowledge and wisdom could be gleaned from any number of sources, including the Koran.
Two volume set of the Koran, translated by George Sale
Snapshot from YouTube video
Yair Rosenberg touches upon the use of Jefferson's Koran, noting the complicated history of Thomas Jefferson’s Koran. The complication is that Jefferson's copy of George Sale's 1734 translation of the Koran has the following introduction:
“Whatever use an impartial version of the Korân may be of in other respects, it is absolutely necessary to undeceive those who, from the ignorant or unfair translations which have appeared, have entertained too favourable an opinion of the original, and also to enable us effectually to expose the imposture.”According to Rosenberg, this original intent of Sale's edition of the Koran to convert Muslims makes its use "particularly appropriate for this occasion, not in spite of the prejudice within it, but because of it." That is because it serves as a reminder that Islam has been part of American history from its beginning, while on the other hand, Sale’s translation reminds us of the fear and misunderstanding of Muslims.

Fair enough. Islam has been part of US history from the beginning -- but how?
And might there have been any other motivation for Jefferson to own a copy of the Koran?

Joshua E. London, author of the book "Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation" wrote an article back in 2005 about that part of US history in an article, "America’s Earliest Terrorists Lessons from America’s first war against Islamic terror."

Some background from Mr. London:
The Barbary states, modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, are collectively known to the Arab world as the Maghrib (“Land of Sunset”), denoting Islam’s territorial holdings west of Egypt. With the advance of Mohammed’s armies into the Christian Levant in the seventh century, the Mediterranean was slowly transformed into the backwater frontier of the battles between crescent and cross. Battles raged on both land and sea, and religious piracy flourished.

The Maghrib served as a staging ground for Muslim piracy throughout the Mediterranean, and even parts of the Atlantic. America’s struggle with the terror of Muslim piracy from the Barbary states began soon after the 13 colonies declared their independence from Britain in 1776, and continued for roughly four decades, finally ending in 1815.In 1786, a meeting was arranged in London for Thomas Jefferson and John Adams with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Tripolitan ambassador to Britain in order to negotiate a peace treaty protecting the US from the threat of Barbary piracy.

During the meeting
These future United States presidents questioned the ambassador as to why his government was so hostile to the new American republic even though America had done nothing to provoke any such animosity. Ambassador Adja answered them, as they reported to the Continental Congress, “that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”London emphasizes that this all happened long before Western colonialism made its way to Muslim lands -- before oil interests drew the US in and long before the re-establishment of Israel.

There is more to that copy of the Koran than an intent to convert Muslims.

Here is 4-minute video with more background on why Jefferson actually read the Koran:



You cannot argue about the Crusades without noting the conquests of the Islamic empire into Northern Europe. Similarly, you cannot properly appreciate the complexity of the symbolism of Jefferson's Koran without noting the history of the Barbary pirates and their jihad against the United States.

You need the balance from both sides of the story in order to appreciate just how complex and multifaceted a symbol Jefferson's Koran really is.


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In my last post, I wrote about the Democracy Index for 2017, compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Looking at its evaluation of Israel gave an opportunity to contrast 2 very different views of what the index revealed about Israel.

But the Democracy Index also evaluates "Palestine" and Iran, for example

Which raises the question: How do those two jive with this description of "democracy," from the report?

most observers today would agree that, at a minimum, the fundamental features of a democracy include government based on majority rule and the consent of the governed; the existence of free and fair elections; the protection of minority rights; and respect for basic human rights. Democracy presupposes equality before the law, due process and political pluralism.Looking at how the report evaluates those countries reminds us of the bias of the West when it comes to the Middle East in general, and these states in particular.

Here is a composite of the scores for Israel as compared with "Palestine" and Iran.

The Middle East and North African (MENA) section consists of 20 countries. Not surprisingly, Israel ranks first.

And guess who ranks 5th out of 20 countries.


In the area of Electoral Process and Pluralism, they rank low --  as you would expect.
But when you read the report, you find that of the 12 questions used to determine the ranking in that category, 9 relate to having elections.

Now we all know that tracking how long Abbas has been president after his 4-year term ended in 2009 is practically a spectator sport. There have been no elections, neither for president nor Parliament. Of the remaining questions about the freedom to form political parties, by no stretch of the imagination would they get full credit.

Also, "Palestine" is classified as a "hybrid" as opposed to a Democracy or Authoritarian. Hybrids are countries where:
Elections have substantial irregularities that often prevent them from being both free and fair. Government pressure on opposition parties and candidates may be common. Serious weaknesses are more prevalent than in flawed democracies—in political culture, functioning of government and political participation. Corruption tends to be widespread and the rule of law is weak. Civil society is weak. Typically, there is harassment of and pressure on journalists, and the judiciary is not independent.But in the West Bank, they don't have "election irregularities" -- they don't have elections at all!

Contrast the definition of 'hybrid' with the definition of 'authoritarian' government:
In these states, state political pluralism is absent or heavily circumscribed. Many countries in this category are outright dictatorships. Some formal institutions of democracy may exist, but these have little substance. Elections, if they do occur, are not free and fair. There is disregard for abuses and infringements of civil liberties. Media are typically state-owned or controlled by groups connected to the ruling regime. There is repression of criticism of the government and pervasive censorship. There is no independent judiciary.And in the category of "Political Participation," "Palestine" comes in with a score of 7.78, tied for second place with Tunisia behind Israel. Add to that how the Palestinian score of 7.78 in Political Participation ties with Canada and exceeds the US score of 7.22 and it appears clear that different standards apply to different areas of the world -- the soft bigotry of low expectations.

As it turns out, the Index uses criteria that The Economist has decided are not really all that important:
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index is based on the view that measures of democracy which reflect the state of political freedoms and civil liberties are not thick enough. They do not encompass sufficiently, or, in some cases, at all, the features that determine how substantive democracy is. Freedom is an essential component of democracy, but not, in itself, sufficient. In existing measures, the elements of political participation and functioning of government are taken into account only in a marginal and formal way.Yet the report claims that "the condition of holding free and fair competitive
elections, and satisfying related aspects of political freedom, is clearly the sine qua non of all definitions [of Democracy]."

The report also claims "freedom of expression is a sine qua non of democracy"

We have 2 areas that constitute a "sine qua non" of democracy, areas where "Palestine" is clearly deficient, yet it ranks 5th in the Middle East.

This mirrors how Europe bends over backward trying to find excuses not to label Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and why a corrupt terrorism-sponsoring dictator like Abbas is always welcome in Europe and gets standing ovations.

Apparently, some elements of Democracy are judged to be less important than others when it comes to the Middle East, provided that the country is Muslim or Arab.

The report also expresses its concern numerous times that "anti-terror laws have also been widely criticised for curbing the exercise of freedom of expression in the name of protecting public order and national security." Oddly, there is no indication in the report that those states which commit acts of terrorism lose points at all, which mirrors the EU's general lack of an outcry in response to Abbas's habit of paying stipends to terrorists.

Also, while "Palestine" is included in the list, nowhere is there any indication how "Palestine" is being defined -- does it include Gaza with its Hamas terrorist leadership -- an issue that those calling for a two-state solution never get around to addressing.

Another example of the superficial nature of the evaluations in the report is its rating for Iran, which claims:
an improvement in Iran’s score in 2017, which saw it climb four places to 150th globally as a result of consistently high voter turnout in recent elections.But according to the American Enterprise Institute, the reason for the large turnout may have nothing at all to do with political participation:
One correspondent explained that the government also stamps birth certificates at polling stations when the presidential ballot is collected. Those stamps are necessary for university admission, bank loans, or state employment. What reportedly happens is that many voters outside the capital and major cities pick up the presidential ballot in order to qualify for such benefits. The state counts the ballot, and the “voter” spoils the presidential ballot since their interest is local only and they do not wish to legitimize the broader regime.At a time when the media, traditional as well as social, is understood to have its own biases and agenda, their reports and articles require a critical eye, now more than ever.



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With the passing of its Nation-State Law this year, the issue of Israel as a democracy continues to be a topic of debate, and at times becomes even more pointed.

But last week we were reminded that for all the debate and the claims that Israel was revealing its fascist colors, Israeli democracy is alive and well:



The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index measures the categories of Electoral process and pluralism, Functioning of government, Political participation, Political culture and Civil liberties.  -- and taking all of that into account, Israel maintained its 2016 ranking of 30 in a field of 167 countries:

Israel rated 30th as a democracy, among 167 countries - tied with Estonia
Interestingly, with the perpetual accusations each year that Israel under Netanyahu is descending into the depths of fascism, this same Democracy Index indicates the opposite. During Netanyahu's second stint as Prime Minister from 2009 to date, (his first term being from 1996-1999), Israel's democracy rating has been on an upswing -- at least until 2017:


Who knows what rating Israel will get for 2018 in light of the Nation-State Law?

Israel had a mediocre score for both Function of government (which is understandable to anyone who has watched the Knesset in action) and Political culture.

"Function of government" is determined by such things as partisanship, corruption, accountability, checks & balances, levels of political engagement and confidence in government.

"Political culture" is based on levels of popular confidence in democracy, and environment where "the losing parties and their supporters accept the judgment of the voters and allow for the peaceful transfer of power."

The biggest drag on Israel's score was in the area of civil liberties. It is the reason Haaretz's Anshel Pfeffer rails against Israel's "High-functioning Illiberal Democracy," noting that "the country’s strong showing is marred by the Chief Rabbinate’s hegemony and the way Israel treats the Palestinians and other minorities."

On the issue of religion in Israel, one can argue the point.

In their book, #IsraeliJudaism: A Portrait of a Cultural Revolution, based on extensive surveys with more than 3,000 respondents in Israel, one of findings of Shmuel Rosner and Camil Fuchs is that
you get a new picture of Israel’s Jewish society and of Israel’s Jewish culture. It is a society that moves away from religion and from religious coercion, but does not move away from Jewish traditions. It moves away from the control of rabbis and the mandatory observance of certain practices, but does not move away from voluntary, relaxed, widespread Jewish practice.According to Rosner and Fuchs, the claim that Israel is becoming a theocracy is a myth.

For that matter, one can ask how Pfeffer derives an implied condemnation of the Chief Rabbinate from the Democracy Index to begin with.

On the more pressing issue of the rights of the Arab minority, according to a report issued this month by the Israel Democracy Institute:
More than two-thirds of the Arab respondents (67 percent) said they did not think that the Israeli government treats its Arab citizens democratically. Among Jewish respondents, however, only 23 percent thought that Arab citizens suffer from discrimination. Still, more than half the Arab respondents (51 percent) said they were proud to be Israeli (compared with 88 percent of Jewish respondents), even though this was lower than in recent years. About two-thirds of both Jewish and Arab respondents said that they believed that Arab citizens want to integrate into Israeli society.There is potential there for improvement, but obviously with a lot of work ahead. According to that same report by the Israel Democracy Institute, respondents this year rank tensions between left and right as being a greater problem than Jewish-Arab relations, though whether that means that Jewish-Arab relations have improved slightly or left-right tensions are worse is unclear.

Writer Zev Chafets takes a different view of the Democracy Index, writing that Israel’s Version of Democracy Is in Good Health. He quotes from a 2002 decision by former Israeli chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court Aharon Barak regarding, on the one hand, the minimum definition of Israel as a Jewish state:
“At their center stands the right of every Jew to immigrate to the State of Israel, where the Jews will constitute a majority; Hebrew is the official and principal language of the State, and most of its fests and symbols reflect the national revival of the Jewish People; the heritage of the Jewish People is a central component of its religious and cultural legacy.”and on the other hand, the minimal requirements for Israel as a democratic state, consisting of:
recognition of the sovereignty of the people manifested in free and egalitarian elections; recognition of the nucleus of human rights, among them dignity and equality, the existence of separations of powers, the rule of law, and an independent judiciary system. [emphasis is Chafets']According to Chafets, Israel fulfills all of Barak’s requirements for a Jewish state -- and lacks one of his criteria for a democratic state: full equality for its Arab citizens. That is because while the Arabs are guaranteed the same civil rights as all other Israelis by Israel’s Basic Law, only Jews have the right to immigration and citizenship.

He explains:
This discrimination is foundational. Israel was created to be the one place where the Jewish people have self-determination, and the chance to rebuild its culture after a hiatus of two millennia. Israel is for the Jews. The great majority of Jewish Israelis, including many champions of egalitarian civil liberties, understand and accept this. Roughly 90 percent vote for political parties that regard the Law of Return as sacrosanct. [emphasis is Chafets']We have already seen, from the reaction to Israel's Nation-State Law, that many in the West (and in Israel) see things differently.

With elections scheduled for April, we don't have long to wait before getting an idea of what Israelis really do think about Israeli democracy.








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Last month, UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti was interviewed on an i24NEWS program called The Rundown. At one point, starting at 3:33 and extending to 4:40, Tenenti described just what UNIFIL's mandate is:



So, according to Tenenti:

• UNIFIL's job is limited to monitoring
• UNIFIL has no mandate to disarm Hezbollah
• UNIFIL is not allowed to search private property

UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti. Video screengrab

At first glance, Tenenti seems to be right.


In 2006, when UNIFIL took on its new mandate, the commander in charge of UNIFIL, Major-General Alain Pellegrini set the limits on UNIFIL's mandate:
Pellegrini made it clear, however, that UNIFIL's mission, even with the new rules of engagement, does not include disarming Hezbollah. "It's not my job," he said. UNIFIL's role, he said, is to assist the Lebanese army in guaranteeing state authority over all Lebanese territory.That was on September 3.
Three weeks later, Pellegrini gave an exclusive interview to The Jerusalem Post:
In his first interview to an Israeli paper since the war in Lebanon, Pellegrini revealed that last week a Syrian weapons convoy on its way to Hizbullah was intercepted by the Lebanese army near the Lebanese-Syrian border. While the new rules of engagement set by the UN allowed the new UNIFIL force to open fire in order to implement resolution 1701, Pellegrini said he would not automatically order his troops to open fire on Hizbullah guerrillas if they were spotted on their way to the Blue Line to attack Israel. The job of the new multinational force, he said, was to assist the Lebanese army and not to disarm or engage Hizbullah or even to prevent its attacks.Pellegrini's admission that UNIFIL is allowed to use force to implement Resolution 1701 contradicts Tenenti's claim that UNIFIL's role is just to monitor. That Pellegrini goes on to turn around and then claim that their role is to assist the Lebanese army and not to disarm, engage or prevent attacks is puzzling.

It also contradicts the text of Resolution 1701, which:
authorizes UNIFIL to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind, to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security Council, and to protect United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel, humanitarian workers and, without prejudice to the responsibility of the Government of Lebanon, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence; Again, this assigns to UNIFIL more than just a monitoring role.

Now, what about a mandate to disarm Hezbollah?

Back to the text of Resolution 1701, which:
Requests the Secretary-General to develop, in liaison with relevant international actors and the concerned parties, proposals to implement the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), including disarmament...Who are the relevant "international actors" who are supposed to implement disarmament?

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appears not to have gotten the memo -
Annan angered Israeli officials when he told Channel 2 on Tuesday that "dismantling Hizbullah is not the direct mandate of the UN," which could only help Lebanon disarm the organization.Resolution 1701 implies an orchestrated effort; the only proposal that Annan seems to have developed was to keep the UN as far away as possible. But if UNIFIL is supposed "to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind," how is it supposed to maintain that kind of control without having the authority to disarm Hezbollah at some level?

The last point Tenenti makes is that UNIFIL has no authority to search private property.

But according to the Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1701, that is not exactly accurate either:
In accordance with its mandate, UNIFIL does not proactively search for weapons in the south. UNIFIL cannot enter or search private property unless there is credible evidence of a violation of the resolution, including an imminent threat of hostile activity from that location. In situations in which specific information is received regarding the illegal presence of armed personnel, weapons or infrastructure inside its area of operations, UNIFIL, in cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces, has remained determined to act with all means available within its mandate and capabilities. Again, instead of maintaining just a monitoring mode, UNIFIL does have a mandate to search homes when there is evidence of violations. More than that, the text clearly states that when the illegal presence of weapons is detected, UNIFIL not only has the authority to search but also to act "with all means available" -- meaning that it can disarm.

There is, in fact, a documented case of UNIFIL doing a search of private homes in 2010, using sniffer dogs and resulting in villagers retaliating by grabbing the weapons of a UNIFIL patrol, throwing stones at them and blocking the road.

In this case, it was UNIFIL that was disarmed.

The bottom line is that clearly, the role of UNIFIL was not intended to be as passive as Tenenti claims, limited to monitoring.

• UNIFIL is allowed to use force
• The issue of disarming Hezbollah is a hot potato everyone is trying to avoid, but there is no clear indication that UNIFIL cannot disarm Hezbollah in specific circumstances "to prevent hostile activities"
• UNIFIL is allowed to do searches when there is evidence of a violation

The fact that Hezbollah was able to dig multiple tunnels into Israel is just one more reminder of UNIFIL's failure to do its job.
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Ken Roth is entitled to his opinion.

And Ken Roth thinks the Israeli settlements are illegal.

So far, so good.

But Ken Roth is also the executive director of Human Rights Watch



When Roth tweets, he is tweeting as the head of HRW, not as a private person -- and he does not even include the usual "retweets are not endorsements" disclaimer on his Twitter profile.

The halo effect that surrounds Human Rights Watch extends to Ken Roth, and he appears not to mind that.

That's OK too.

But Ken Roth does seem to throw around that claim of illegality an awful lot.

When he Tweets about Airbnb


And when he writes about the Gaza riots:


Using his position as executive director of HRW to support his Tweets condemning Israel for alleged illegal acts appears to imply that Roth is not merely offering an opinion, but is offering an assessment based on actual expertise and knowledge that he has.

Does Ken Roth actually have that kind of expertise?

It depends on where you look.

According to Wikipedia, Roth does have expertise:
His biography on the HRW website says he has "special expertise on: issues of justice and accountability for atrocities committed in the quest for peace; military conduct in war under the requirements of international humanitarian law; counterterrorism policy, including resort to torture and arbitrary detention; the human rights policies of the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations; and, the human rights responsibilities of multinational businesses."Wikipedia indicates its source is the 2011 version of Ken Roth's bio on the Human Rights Watch website.

As recently as last year, in his book "International Law and the Use of Force against Terrorism", Shadi Adnan Alshdaifat writes in a footnote:


As far back as 2009, Roth has been credited with having this 'expertise':
On the HRW website, Roth is listed as having ‘investigated human rights abuses around the globe’, with ‘special expertise’ on issues of justice and accountability for atrocities committed in the quest for peace; military conduct in war under the requirements for international humanitarian law etc.But when you actually take a look at his bio on the Human Rights Watch website, Roth's CV is more modest:
Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 1987, Roth served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington, DC. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world. He has written extensively on a wide range of human rights abuses, devoting special attention to issues of international justice, counterterrorism, the foreign policies of the major powers, and the work of the United Nations. [emphasis added]Roth's background in law is as a federal prosecutor. He has conducted "investigations" and "missions" on human rights and he has even written on issues of international justice -- but no, there is nothing in Ken Roth's background that makes him an expert in international law.

That has not stopped Ken Roth from regularly presenting his personal opinion on Twitter as legal fact.

This is reminiscent of the Marc Galasco controversy. Galasco resigned because of the optics of an avid collector of Nazi paraphernalia accusing Israel of war crimes. But there were questions about Galasco's expertise as well.

NGO Monitor has noted about Galasco:
Although the level of his expertise and experience are obscure, Garlasco consistently presents himself and is presented as an “expert” on weapons and military technology. He has no combat experience, and his various Pentagon positions were apparently not concentrated on dealing with the details of weapons systems. This has not prevented him from making public statements and authoring reports that project the pretense of both a detailed knowledge of weapons such as unmanned drones and white phosphorous, and an understanding of the implications of their use under international law.Even the most basic qualification, that of critical objectivity, seems to be lacking at Human Rights Watch.

A report from NGO Monitor about Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's director of its Middle East and North Africa [MENA] division, finds that:
“Whitson’s soft approach towards totalitarian regimes clearly is counterproductive and immoral, as in the Libya cover-up” adds Herzberg. “She met with Hamas in May 2010 to reassure the terrorist organization that HRW’s reports were ‘objective and impartial,’ while at the same time promising that HRW’s next report would denounce Israeli violations of international law. Prior to that, she solicited funds in Saudi Arabia to combat so-called pro-Israel ‘pressure groups.’ Instead of confronting human rights violators, the MENA division under Whitson has helped sustain their power.”

During a November 2010 trip to Lebanon, Whitson praised “the Lebanese sophistication for human rights,” contradicting HRW’s own Lebanon Director, Nadim Houry, who condemned the lack of effectual and accountable state institutions, the absence of political will to implement change, and the problems created by the country’s political “confessionalism.” Shortly after Whitson’s assessment, Hezbollah overthrew the Hariri government in a bloodless coup.Whitson's lack of objectivity may be explained by her background.

According to Whitson's biography on the HRW website:
Before joining Human Rights Watch, Whitson worked in New York for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School.David Bernstein of The Volokh Conspiracy notes what the HRW website omits about Whitson:
What the official bio doesn’t tell you is that Whitson was an active member of the New York chapter of the American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee. She had served on the Steering Committee (source: ADC Times, Apr 30, 2002). When HRW hired her, she was serving a two-year term on the new Board of Directors, which replaced the Steering Committee (Source: ADC Times, Jan. 31, 2004).

The ADC styles itself as a civil rights organization, but like the Jewish organizations on which it is modeled, it also involves itself in Middle East issues, specifically by supporting the Arab and Palestinian cause against Israel. Local chapters are often more active on foreign policy issues than is the national organization.

...when HRW hired Ms. Whitson to be its Middle East director, it was hiring someone that was in the middle of serving what amounted to a second term on the Board of Directors of an organization that was firmly and openly on the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli conflict. And she had personally engaged in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activism while serving in that position. I don’t know whether she resigned her position when she started working for Human Rights Watch; if she didn’t, it was a clear conflict of interest. Regardless, it should hardly come as a surprise that one of her first acts at Human Rights Watch was to involve the organization in political action, supporting the campaign to get Caterpillar to stop selling tractors to the Israeli Army.Human Rights Watch is not big on either expertise nor objectivity.


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One of the last speakers to address the Jewish New Media Summit 2 weeks ago was Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He spoke on the topic of "Israel and the Media: Challenges and Opportunities."

Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Image cropped from video
The New Media
Nahshon noted that there are between 250 and 300 foreign journalists posted in Israel on a permanent basis, even while the nature of media in the 21st century is changing. "Classical" media is in a battle with social media, and losing its importance.

This change impacts on how the Foreign Ministry now does business. As Nahshon puts it:

“Talking to journalists is one thing, but conducting public diplomacy on social media is something totally different”In this new environment, there is a change in the way that Israel is being perceived.  Though we tend to think that the image of Israel in the world is not necessarily positive, Nahshon believes that actually, the reality is a little bit different -- it depends on where and how you look.

Israel's New Image
He noted that in major parts of the world, Israel is actually perceived in a positive way. The key is that there are people who look at Israel not only through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but in a larger way. This is especially true in areas such as Latin America, Africa, India, China, and Eastern Europe.

The Foreign Ministry conducts public opinion polls regularly, asking people in those areas what comes to mind when they hear the name Israel, and they usually give positive responses, such as:

• Water management
• Desalinization
• Agriculture
• Security
• High tech
• Medicine
• Literature and art

Nahshon's point, about changing the prism through which people see Israel, from one of conflict to one of Israel's achievements, was suggested 10 years ago.

In 2008, an article in The Canadian Jewish News described a new effort in "branding" Israel, outlined by Ido Aharoni:
Aharoni said the ministry has conducted market research over the past few years that showed “Israel is viewed solely through the narrow prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict… Israel’s personality is 90 per cent dominated by conflict-related images and some religious connotations,” he said. “Those of us who know the brand intimately are disturbed by the divergence of brand and the perception.”

...aspects of Israel are worthy of promotion, including its culture and arts; its accomplishments on environmental matters such as water desalination, solar energy and clean technology; its high-tech successes and achievements in higher education; and its involvement in international aid, he added. [emphasis added]Apparently, the branding effort has been a success.

The Remaining Challenge
According to Nahshon, the biggest challenge facing Israel is in Western Europe and some of the media outlets in the North American continent. Just because Israel has a relatively positive image in Africa and Latin America does not mean it can ignore the negative media in those areas, where Israel is viewed mostly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This view of Israel persists there, despite the best efforts to explain that Israel is more than just that conflict, and that conflict is not at the heart of the existence of Israel.

The reason some do see the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict as the heart of what Israel is about is because the foreign media assigned to Israel tends to report mostly on the issue of the conflict. They see the issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the ones the editor will want to publish and that the public will want to see.

There remains a lot of work to be done to change that perception. Changing this perception of the media is something that Matti Friedman addressed when he spoke at the Summit.

He said it couldn't be done.

Nahshon says he explains to foreign journalists that there is more to see in Israel - not in an effort to hide the conflict, but to show there is more to Israel.

But the journalists are not interested. There seems to be a very rigid mind-set among journalists that the context has to be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that solving it will bring peace. As if the responsibility for tensions is on Israel’s shoulders, and if only Israel would do x or y, things would be wonderful.

On the contrary, solving the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis will do nothing more than solve the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

Israel's Success in the Arab World
In parallel to its efforts in other parts of the world, the Foreign Ministry is working with social media in the Arab world and keeping track of the perceptions of Israel in the Arab world and in Iran.

In the last few years, this perception is becoming increasingly positive.

The Foreign Ministry does polls in the Arab world via international companies and there is a changing perception whose beginnings can be traced back to the Arab spring.

This change in perception can also be tied to the advent of smartphones, which Nahshon describes as a big instrument for change because they enable the free flow of information.

As he puts it: if you are a young Arab person “no one can tell you lies about Israel anymore because you can check it personally."

(This may be a bit too optimistic, seeing how there is nothing to stop the free flow of lies -- as we regularly see on Facebook and Twitter.)

Israel's Foreign Ministry invests a lot of time, effort and energy on developing contacts with the Arab world via social media and has millions of followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The idea is to reach young people, without telling them what to think or what to do.

According to Nahshon:
“We have abandoned any concept of propaganda...a long time ago”Instead, the goal is to present the Israeli reality in all of its complexity, but also all of its beauty. He says the results are extremely convincing and extremely positive and that people are happy to receive Israeli videos and posts on Facebook. They understand that Israel is not only not the problem in the Middle East, but Israel is part of the solution.

This change in perception is the basis of the recent major diplomatic developments:

• Netanyahu visiting Oman
• Gradual normalization with the Gulf states
• Possible changes we may see with Saudi Arabia

When the president of Chad visited Israel, he did not visit because he suddenly became a Zionist. Rather, he understands that Israel is able to provide the means to help his own country, with expertise in the area of agriculture, water management, and security.

That is why Arab countries want closer ties with Israel.

But also, the Arab Street is no longer brainwashed against Israel -- because, going back to his earlier point, the Arab leaders understand that brainwashing is no longer a viable option: they can no longer tell their people lies, because they can see the truth for themselves.

According to Nahshon, we are just at the beginning of a revolution, a major change.


Nahshon certainly paints an optimistic picture, even while admitting the problems that remain. Judging by developments in the relationship between Israel and the Gulf states, it is hard to deny that there is something to what he says.

Yet it is hard not to see social media as a two-edged sword. If it can be used as a tool to enhance Israel's image in the world, it can be -- and has been -- used as a weapon to damage that image as well.

The New Media still presents challenges as well as opportunities.








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An employer who agrees not to discriminate against any employee or job applicant because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, physical or mental disability, or age
Definition of 'Equality Opportunity Employer', Merriam Webster
Nor on the basis of "politics."

In 2004, then-Commissioner-General of UNRWA Peter Hansen was interviewed on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and said that UNRWA hiring Hamas terrorists is not a big deal:

Hansen said he believes there are Hamas members on UNRWA's payroll, but they have to follow UN rules on remaining neutral."Oh I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another," Hanson told CBC TV.

"We demand of our staff, whatever their political persuasion is, that they behave in accordance with UN standards and norms for neutrality," he said.UNRWA logo

Well, isn't that reassuring?

In 2006, when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was giving $25million to UNRWA, The Toronto Sun made clear
UNRWA has, according to various experts, been infiltrated by Hamas members and sympathizers. Hamas is an Islamist terrorist group, as designated by the Government of Canada.And better yet, Hamas does not restrict membership to leadership positions on the basis of being a member of UNRWA either.

Just last year, AP reported U.N. agency suspends Gaza staffer amid alleged ties to Hamas
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees suspended a Palestinian staffer Sunday, a spokesman for the U.N. agency said as Israel alleged the employee was elected to a leadership position with the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Chris Gunness of UNRWA said Suhail al-Hindi, the chairman of the UNRWA Palestinian workers’ union in Gaza and the principal of a UNRWA elementary school, was suspended due to “substantial information” received by the agency.

...The agency temporarily suspended al-Hindi in 2011 for participating in events with Hamas officials.The AP helpfully adds that "The U.N. agency forbids its staff from holding political office." [emphasis added]

Considering the connection between the UN and Hamas, is it any wonder the lengths the UN will go in order to protect the terrorist organization from any kind of criticism in the UN, most recently in the sudden requirement for a two-thirds instead of majority vote to condemn Hamas for terrorist attacks on civilians?

And what about UNIFIL, which operates in Hezbollah's back yard?

UNIFIL logo

As it turns out, UNIFIL is no slouch either when it comes to the integration of the local populace either.

Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes how despite its mandate to keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon -- UNIFIL has all kinds of time on its hands:
Both the LAF and UNIFIL share the same objective of not disturbing the status quo, which is to say, not to cross Hezbollah’s red lines. In turn, this raises a question about the point of underwriting this arrangement altogether, while pretending UNIFIL is doing something that it clearly cannot and will not do. Instead, UNIFIL has become more akin to yet another UN aid agency. It clears minefields, and works “together with the Lebanese authorities, in creating the conditions conducive for the population to build their future.” It also “works closely with many municipalities and local authorities to strongly support their communities.” It even hires Hezbollah members and supporters! [emphasis added]Here is Badran's source, Google-translated from the French:
The Lebanese Shiite organization has always suspected Blue Helmets spying for Israel. On the other hand, it does not hesitate to infiltrate Finul [UNIFIL], whose civilian staff numbers 585 Lebanese. "Some employees do not hide from belonging to Hezbollah," admits a Finnish commander. Another anomaly: some UN battalions are from countries that do not recognize Israel. "I can assure you that Indonesian peacekeepers are constantly reporting Israeli movements to various Lebanese actors," said the senior officer. [emphasis added]All of which raises the question: in the fight against terrorism, which side is the UN on?



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Of the topics that came up during the Jewish New Media Summit in Israel 2 weeks ago, one thing that was not discussed was what exactly we were doing there.

That of course was taken for granted, though not all of us necessarily had the same goals in mind.

Jewish New Media Summit 2018 logo

There were approximately 150 bloggers and journalists from about 30 different countries attending. The bloggers outnumbered the journalists.

In his critical article of the event, Gary Rosenblatt -- of the Jewish Week -- asked the question, What Was The Goal Of The Jewish Media Summit In Israel: Advocacy Or Access. He also delved into the answer, with the distinction that:
there is a difference between journalists, whose mandate is to strive for facts and fairness, and bloggers, whose goal is opinionated engagement.That is the standard answer, and generally still valid.
But there are qualifications.


Unlike in the world in general, when it comes to Israel the distinction between journalism and blogging is not necessarily iron-clad.

There is arguably no country in the world whose very existence, policies -- actually, almost every move -- are attacked as vociferously in both the old and new media as is Israel. Under the circumstances, it would be understandable for the Israeli government to see such a summit as an opportunity to strengthen its defense in the media. But as one of the attendees pointed out at the end of the summit, he bristles at the idea of being an "ambassador" for Israel -- and no wonder. An ambassador by definition defends the country he represents and is expected to never criticize it, at least not publicly. What blogger wants to be hemmed in like that?

So no, being a blogger does not mean leaving pointed and critical questions at the door and the tension resulting from such an expectation was palpable. Jenni Frazer pointed out in When journalists asked Benjamin Netanyahu whether he considered a role in Ukrainian cinema that
it is hard to expect diaspora Jewish journalists to take Israel seriously, and vice-versa, if it insists on treating them as an extension of its public relations arm, a practice long derided by communities around the world.Yet when discussing Israel, we seem to enter a Bizarro world where journalists are the ones who are opinionated (if not outright jaundiced), while it is the bloggers defending Israel who often respond with facts, and pointing out what often appears to be a lack of fairness and balance on the part of the journalists.

Glenn Greenwald was prescient, if not a cause, of the current state of journalism, sometimes referred to as "fake news". Back in 2013, Greenwald decried how
this suffocating constraint on how reporters are permitted to express themselves produces a self-neutering form of journalism that becomes as ineffectual as it is boring...all journalism is a form of activism. Every journalistic choice necessarily embraces highly subjective assumptions — cultural, political or nationalistic — and serves the interests of one faction or another.This may have signaled the first manifestations of "blogger-envy" by journalists, abandoning objectivity for subjectivity, though you need to keep in mind that Greenwald's own roots are in blogging -- and old habits die hard.

This touches on comments that Matti Friedman made to the group, as described by Judean Rose in her post, Framing the Narrative: Matti Friedman on the Israel Story on what encourages this bias and how it exhibits itself in the media. Friedman explained that the goal in countering this bias is educating the journalists, which sounded encouraging when he said it. But rather than addressing how to do this, he later conceded that this was nearly impossible and that the bloggers in the audience should content themselves with working towards making Israel a better place.

For myself, I did not see a tension between being informed and being persuaded. The former made be better equipped to do the latter by being better armed with facts and background material.

The fact that other bloggers had different goals and a different threshold of subjectivity was simply a function of the wide spectrum of blogs they represented.

At the very least, being at the new media summit was a source of food for thought.
And resulted in this post.






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If your child came home from college and said she was challenged by a classmate who claimed that Palestine is Arab land stolen by the Jews, could you provide her with a response?
That is the question Douglas Feith asks in the article he recently wrote for Tablet Magazine. Based on a speech he gave to the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, Feith offers a helping hand to his fellow Jews - who really should not be having such a tough time arguing for the Jewish right to Israel:
The campaign to delegitimate Israel has been scoring successes. The efforts to counter that campaign have often proven inept. That too I find astonishing.

In the arena of argumentation, the Jews are practiced, having continuously honed their debating skills since Abraham questioned God about Sodom. They should be formidable in explaining why Israel is not colonialist and refuting other calumnies. Yet they’re often beaten into retreat by anti-Zionist polemicists. There’s no excuse for it.He then goes on to outline a response.


What he writes is not new, but still bears repeating --

• During the 400 years leading to World War I, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire -- was owned by the Turks, not by the Arabs living in Palestine.
  
  
• There was never a country called Palestine.
  
  
• Palestine was never ruled by its own Arab inhabitants.
  
• Therefore, it is not accurate to say that Palestine was a country, or that it was Arab land.
  
  
• And neither the Jews nor the British stole it from the Arabs.
  
  
• The original Zionists who came to live in then-Palestine did not come as colonists, nor with the backing of an imperialist or colonialist power. Jews bought the land on which they settled.

Rabbi Moses Porush (c.) and Arab Landowner holding deed for a large tract of land
that Rabbi Moses Porush and Rabbi Joseph Levi Hagiz purchased from the Arab.
Credit: Wikipedia. Public Domain
Feith does give context to the situation during WWI that is generally overlooked.

The British invasion of Palestine in World War I was precipitated by the Ottoman Turks, who joined Germany and attacked the Allied forces. When the British war cabinet approved the Balfour Declaration on October 31, 1917, -- it was already more than 3 years into World War I.

And the war was not going well for the Allies.

It was one of those rare occasions when the exaggerated belief in Jewish power and influence actually worked to the benefit of the Jews. The British saw an opportunity to gain support in Russia and the US.

As for Palestine itself,
colonialism didn’t bring Britain to Palestine. Britain didn’t seize Palestine from an unoffending native population. It conquered the land not from the Arabs, but from Turkey, which (as noted) had joined Britain’s enemies in the war. The Arabs in Palestine fought for Turkey against Britain. The land was enemy territory. [emphasis added]The British view of Palestine, and of the Arabs living there, was taken in the context of the area as a whole. Palestine was just a small part of a huge region the British forces conquered from the Turks -- and even though most Arabs had fought for the Turks, the Allies were ready to set the Arabs on the path to independence and national self-determination. However, the small piece of land that was the "Holy Land" had a unique status, of special interest to Christians and Jews around the world.

And the Arabs already living in Palestine?
The idea that a small segment of the Arab people – the Palestinian Arabs – would someday live in a Jewish-majority country was not thought of as a unique problem. There were similar issues in Europe. After World War I, new nations were created or revived: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary, for example. Inevitably, some people would have to live as a minority in neighboring states. Seven hundred thousand Hungarians would become a minority in Czechoslovakia, almost 400,000 in Yugoslavia and 1.4 million in Romania. Where they were a minority, they would have individual rights, but not collective rights. That is, ethnic Hungarians would not have national rights of self-determination in Romania, but only in Hungary.

The principle applicable to European minorities applied also to the Arabs of Palestine. In any given country, only one people can be the majority, so only one can enjoy national self-determination there. The Arab people would eventually rule themselves in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Arabia. They were going to end up in control of virtually all the land they claimed for themselves. They naturally wanted to be the majority everywhere. But then, the Jews could be the majority nowhere. The victorious Allies did not consider that just. The British were actually taken by surprise by the accusation that they were being unjust to the Arabs, especially considering the actual history of Palestine, what the British had sacrificed for the liberation of the Middle East from Ottoman control and the fact that the Arabs fought on the side of the enemy.

Feith quotes from a speech Balfour gave in 1922 on the issue:
“Of all the charges made against this country,” he said, that “seems to me the strangest.” It was, he recalled, “through the expenditure largely of British blood, by the exercise of British skill and valour, by the conduct of British generals, by troops brought from all parts of the British Empire . . . that the freeing of the Arab race from Turkish rule has been effected.” He went on, “That we . . . who have just established a King in Mesopotamia, who had before that established an Arab King in the Hejaz, and who have done more than has been done for centuries past to put the Arab race in the position to which they have attained—that we should be charged with being their enemies, with having taken a mean advantage of the course of international negotiations, seems to me not only most unjust to the policy of this country, but almost fantastic in its extravagance.”Arthur Balfour. Source: Wikipedia. Public Domain

This is all part of the Zionist history that Feith believes Jews need to know in order to respond to the claim that the British stole Palestine and just gave it away to the Jews.

The problem, of course, is that the "other side" is not arguing from facts, nor are they appealing to logic. Just look around. On social media, people do not make logical arguments and they have no interest in history -- facts just make their eyes glaze over. Meanwhile, on college campuses, Jews are not being engaged in debate, they are being harassed by groups who want to eliminate debate and the free speech of their victims while isolating them.

Yes, we do need to know about our history and our birthright.
But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Israel is the subject of a debate.

Israel is the target of an attack.
And we are still on the defensive.

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On March 19, 2004, a man was shot to death while jogging in French Hill in Jerusalem, Israel.
And Fatah was profuse in its apologies.

Why?


The man killed was 20-year-old George Khoury, a Christian Arab and son of a well-known attorney, Elias Khoury of Beit Hanina.

He was killed by Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (after all, what peace partner doesn't have their very own terrorist group?)

Ironically, in 1975, George Khoury's grandfather, Daoud Khoury, was killed, along with 12 others, when a booby-trapped refrigerator set up by Fatah exploded in Jerusalem.

In a statement, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades apologized and said that the killing of Khoury was a case of "mistaken identity" -- they thought Khoury was a settler. They went on to say that as far as the terrorist group was concerned, Khoury was a shahid, a martyr.

The most recent Palestinian Arab victim of Palestinian terrorism is Mahmoud Abu Asba, a construction worker in Ashkelon. He was killed this past Monday when one of Hamas' hundreds of rockets hit the apartment building where he was staying while working in Israel.

In Mr. Abu Asba's case, there has yet to be an apology from Hamas.

And what about Abbas?

Abbas has been vociferous in his defense of his payment of stipends to the families of Palestinian terrorists who have murdered Israelis. In the past, as an equal opportunity supporter of terrorism, Abbas has paid stipends to the families of Hamas terrorists as well.

Will Abbas be as quick to dispense a stipend to the family of Mahmoud Abu Asba, who was murdered by Hamas?

For that matter, just how many innocent Palestinian Arabs have been killed by terrorist groups like Hamas and Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade?

Back in 2014, Yisrael Medad wrote a post, "Of Course Hamas Kills Gaza Civilians" and links to a report that can still be found, archived here. The website for the group no longer exists.



In a later post, Does Hamas Really Kill Its Own Civilians?, Medad followed up and found for the first 4 months of 2014:

• 9-22 January: out of 36 Home Made Rockets (HMRs)/Mortars, 19 landed in Gaza. 
• 23 January-5 February: 50% fell inside Gaza. 
• 6-19 February: no mention. 
• 20 February-5 March: 6 dropped in Gaza. 
• 6-19 March: 24 out of 64 firings dropped short/exploded on-site. 
• 20 March-2 April: 9 civilians injured and 1 death due to accidents involving explosive devices and unexploded ordnance. 
• 3-16 April: 3 fatalities and 6 injuries due to accidental explosions. 
• 17-30 April: 8 rockets dropped short out of 24.

In an article in The Syndey Morning Herald in 2014, Gregory Rose, a specialist in International Law, wrote in "How Gaza became one big suicide bomb":
About 5 per cent of Hamas rockets misfire and land on Gazan targets, such as one in a hospital and another in a market last week. Three rocket caches at three UN schools have been discovered in the past fortnight. Ironically, in each case, the rockets were handed by UN employees, who are mostly locals, back to Hamas, which is the local government authority with which the UN co-operates.In July, 2014, Gabriele Barbati tweeted -- after leaving Gaza -- about Gazan children killed by a faulty Hamas rocket
Even Amnesty International noticed that one:
Amnesty International said Thursday Palestinian rocket fire during the 2014 summer war in Gaza had killed more civilians in the Gaza Strip than in Israel.

...In the deadliest such attack, "13 Palestinian civilians -- 11 of them children -- were killed when a projectile exploded next to a supermarket in the crowded Al-Shati refugee camp," the report said.

Palestinian witnesses blamed the attack on the beachside camp on an Israeli F-16 warplane, but the army denied that, accusing militants of misfiring their own rockets.

Amnesty said "an independent munitions expert who examined the available evidence... concluded that the projectile used in the attack was a Palestinian rocket."

Army figures released after the war ended on August 26 showed Gaza militants fired 4,591 projectiles at Israel.

Of those, 3,659 struck Israeli territory and 735 were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defence system, leaving another 197 falling short and landing inside the coastal enclave.All of which raises questions:

• How many Hamas rockets have misfired and landed in Gaza?
• How many Gazans have been injured by Hamas rockets?
• How many Gazans have been killed by misfired Hamas rockets?

There is no real way to know.

Hamas is not about to admit to how many of their own people have been killed, and there is no free press to report on what is happening.

But the murders of people like George Khoury and Mahmoud Abu Asba are a reminder that Palestinian terrorists also kill their own people.


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"All of this isn’t to say that hate speech doesn’t matter. It does. But white supremacists are not joining the Nation of Islam, not now nor ever."
"Deciding Who We Throw Away," Cassady Fendlay, Communications Strategist, Writer, and Editor

Actress Alyssa Milano made a welcome point when she criticized the Women’s March leaders for not condemning the Antisemitism of Louis Farrakhan. Findlay's evasion of the issue took the form of a personal attack on Milano and anyone associating with her:
Alyssa Milano and all the white women lined up behind her are actually enforcing the power of white supremacy through their misguided attempt to challenge hate speech.But what is interesting is Fendlay's apparent ignorance of the history of the Nation of Islam and how it has affiliated with white supremacists over the years.


According to an article in the Pittsburgh Courier:
Malcolm X admitted publicly that he met with the heads of the Ku Klux Klan [in 1960] to negotiate a land deal for Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm said, “They had some very responsible persons in the government who were involved in it and who were willing to go along with it. They wanted to make this land available to him so that his program of separation would sound more feasible to Negroes and therefore lessen the pressure that the integrationists were putting upon the White man. I sat there. I negotiated it. I listened to their offer. And I was the one who went back to Chicago and told Elijah Muhammad what they had offered.”The following year, on June 25, 1961, ten members of the American Nazi Party, including their leader, George Lincoln Rockwell, arrived at a Nation of Islam rally in Washington, DC. The Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad was supposed to be the keynote speaker but ended up canceling because of illness.

Instead, Malcolm X spoke, and afterwards led an appeal for donations. Rockwell contributed $20, for which Malcolm X thanked him:



Rockwell spoke too:
You know that we call you niggers. But wouldn't you rather be confronted by honest white men who tell you to your face what the others all say behind your back? Can you really gain anything dealing with a bunch of cowardly white sneaks? The yellow-liberals who tell you they love you, privately excluded you every way they know how. I am not afraid to stand here and tell you I hate race-mixing and I will fight it to the death. But at the same time, I will do everything in my power to help the Honorable Elijah Muhammed carry out his inspired plan for land of your own in Africa. Elijah Muhammed is right -- separation or death! [p.30, footnote 86]In addition to Elijah Muhammed and Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan has also found White Separatists useful.

The New York Times reported in October 1985 of Farrakhan and a former head of the KKK working together:
The former head of the Ku Klux Klan in California said today that he headed a ''white nationalist'' delegation that attended a speech here last month by Louis Farrakhan, leader of a Black Muslim group, and that talks between the black and white groups have been going on for a year.

The former Klan leader, Thomas Metzger of San Diego, said that he and nine members of his organization attended the Farrakhan rally here Sept. 14 as guests of Mr. Farrakhan and that they contributed $100 to support the Muslim's cause.At the time, Metzger described himself as the head of the White People's Political Association, which he described as a ''white nationalist'' organization.

Last year, in 2017, the ADL noted a meeting of the minds between the alt-right and the Nation of Islam. A tweet by Farrakhan in favor of creating their own nation met with approval from the alt-right, not only from white supremacist Richard Spencer and Neo-Nazi Mike Enoch, but also from white supremacist Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance:

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Farrakhan responded in turn. Though stopping short of accepting dialogue, he did not repudiate these white supremacists either. Instead, he referred to them as "white people of intelligence":
“Do you know white people of intelligence feel the same way? Somebody told me that the alt-right, Mr. Trump’s people, had a tweet or something – we kinda like what Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam is saying, we with them to separate in a land of their own. I said: very good, alt-right, ya’ll want to talk about it? Talking has been done, nothing to talk about because now it’s either separation or death.”And why should Farrakhan repudiate them?
After all, they are unified in their hatred of Jews.

But why work together?

In his article in Vice magazine, Sam McPheeters suggests what the Nation of Islam and Rockwell's American Nazi Party saw in each other:
Rockwell and Muhammad saw each other as authentic, as people willing to speak the truth—their versions of it—no matter the cost. Their marketing to their constituencies depended on this image, and each man drew legitimacy from the appearance of being a straight shooter. Rockwell's existence was useful to the NOI as a recruiting tool, his physical presence a testament to Muhammad's own authenticity.Following the success of Martin Luther King using non-violence, Rockwell doubled down on his hate while Malcolm X softened his tone.

And as for Farrakhan and his connection with Metzger on the one hand and his refusal to condemn the white supremacists who offer dialogue on the other, maybe Elijah Muhammed understood Farrakhan best:
"We cannot ignore him," Mr. Muhammad said, adding that he feared that undue attention could fuel Mr. Farrakhan's movement because "it is not only the media that have to live off sensationalism."

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