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Friday, November 30, 2018

11/30 Links Pt2: Bari Weiss: Europe’s Jew Hatred, and Ours; CNN Was Right to Fire Marc Lamont Hill; From 1947 to 2018 – the miracles of November 29; BBC history programme rekindles Arafat death conspiracy theory

From Ian:
Bari Weiss: Europe’s Jew Hatred, and Ours
Bigotry extends to the ballot box. The Alternative für Deutschland, led by a man who dismissed the Nazis as a mere “speck of bird poop” in Germany’s otherwise glorious history, is now the country’s third-largest party. The National Front in France, founded by a man who called the gas chambers a “detail in the history of World War II,” got 33.9 percent of the vote in the last presidential runoff elections. The Freedom Party in Austria, founded by ex-Nazis, is now part of the governing coalition. Then there is the rise of Law and Justice in Poland and Golden Dawn in Greece — developments cheered by those countries’ Jew haters.

But the story of European anti-Semitism isn’t simply a case of the resurgence of the neo-fascist right.

A large number of physically violent acts committed against Jews in Europe are perpetrated by radical Muslims. The incidents at the top of this article were not carried out by far-right goons but by Islamists, most of them young and some of them immigrants.

Now add a third ingredient to this toxic brew: the fashionable anti-Semitism of the far left that masquerades as anti-Zionism and anti-racism.

Get exclusive commentary from Nicholas Kristof and be the first to read his Thursday and Sunday columns.

No political leader in Europe embodies that sentiment more than Britain’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. He paid respects at the memorial of the Palestinian perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. He objected to the destruction of a street mural depicting despotic hooknosed Jewish bankers. He participated for over a decade in the activities of a group called Deir Yassin Remembered, which was led by a Holocaust denier. He publicly defended a virulently anti-Semitic vicar named Stephen Sizer. He invited an Islamist preacher who believes Jews use gentile blood for religious reasons to tea at Parliament. And so on.

And yet he adamantly denies being an anti-Semite, on the grounds that he has devoted his life to “exposing racism in any form.”

Anti-Semitism, though, isn’t just a brand of bigotry. It’s a conspiracy theory in which Jews play the starring role in spreading evil in the world. While racists see themselves as proudly punching down, anti-Semites perceive themselves as punching up.
From 1947 to 2018 – the miracles of November 29
When supporters of Israel worldwide think about November 29, they think about miracles.

In the year 1897, Theodore Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.

This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its national home.

November 29, 1947, marked one of the greatest milestones along the road to realizing the miracle of the modern Jewish state. On that day, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their state is irrevocable.

Subsequent events cemented this miracle, including how the nascent Jewish state proceeded to declare independence, and then to defy the odds by overcoming formidable Arab armies in the War of Independence. But the roots of miracle were planted at the UN on November 29.

I’ve dedicated both my career and personal life to appreciating, advocating for, and preserving this miracle. Now, quite fittingly on the date of November 29, I’ve added an even more personal layer as to my part in the sacred responsibility that we all share of securing this miracle.

On Thursday, I began my new role as world chairman of Keren Hayesod – UIA (United Israel Appeal). Born and raised in a religious Zionist environment in Miami Beach, I’ve long savored the realization of a modern Jewish state and the Jewish people’s miracle of sovereignty in their ancestral homeland. But even as I advanced in my career working on behalf of the State of Israel, it would have been hard to imagine that I would find myself at the helm of an organization that has the most direct connection possible to the state itself by serving as the fund-raising arm of the global Zionist movement.



CNN Fires Marc Lamont Hill After Jewish Groups Denounce UN Speech
CNN parted ways with contributor Marc Lamont Hill Thursday, after he delivered a controversial speech before the United Nations that was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations.

"Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN," a spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon.

In the Wednesday speech, Hill said that while he prefers nonviolence, standing with the Palestinian people meant supporting the use of violence as well.

Hill had been criticized previously for his history of meeting with and expressing admiration for Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader with a long history of anti-Semitism. His flirtation with Farrakhan goes back over a decade; on his now-deleted Myspace page, he listed the radical imam as one of the people "I'd like to meet," along with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and convicted cop killers Assata Shakur and Mumia Abu Jamal.

In a 2007 blog post, Hill called Farrakhan "a hero to Blacks of all religions."

"Although I have not always agreed with Minister Farrakhan, I have a profound respect for his love and sustained commitment to the struggles of Black people and his loyalty to the mission of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad," he wrote. "I also have a deep admiration for his willingness to admit mistakes, apologize for missteps, and sincerely attempt to heal wounds. Regardless of our differences with Farrakhan, it is difficult to deny that his growth and development are a testament to his faith and character."

"…I wish him continued peace, love, and joy on his journey," Hill concluded. "May Peace Be With Him."
ADL Responds to CNN Commentator Calling for a ‘Free Palestine from the River to the Sea’
Sharon Nazarian, the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) senior vice president for international affairs, told the Journal in an email, “Those calling for ‘from the river to the sea’ are calling for an end to the State of Israel.”

“It is a shame that once again, this annual event at the United Nations does not promote constructive pathways to ‘Palestinian solidarity’ and a future of peace, but instead divisive and destructive action against Israel,” Nazarian said.

Similarly, Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the Journal in an email, “Justice requires a ‘Free Palestine from the River to the Sea’? Marc Lamont Hill is a confirmed anti-Zionist ideologue. His extremist, anti-peace views merit coverage on CNN, not as a paid pundit but as a supreme propagandist unfettered by facts.”

Cooper added, “By the way Marc, where will you put the nearly 9 million Israeli citizens, nearly 20% of whom are Arabs? Any Palestinian entity we’ve been told will be Judenrein—only place left is… Mediterranean Sea.”
CNN Was Right to Fire Marc Lamont Hill
CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill accused Israel of denying “citizenship rights and due process to Palestinians just because they are not Jewish,” and expressed his support for boycotting Israel in a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday. He also noted that he thinks there needs to be “a free Palestine from the river to the sea.” The phrase “from the river to the sea” is often used by those who believe that Israel should be eliminated.

Would a supporter of racism be allowed on CNN? How about someone who openly calls for violence against the LGBT community? But racism and calls for denying the right of a people to live on a certain piece of land are apparently OK if they are directed at Israel and Jews.

And this isn’t anything new.

On June 7, 2016, Hill tweeted: “Israel is very much, by definition, an apartheid state.” An avid supporter of the BDS campaign, he also criticized New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s initiative to stop illegal American boycotts of Israel, and simplistically defends the movement by insisting that it doesn’t seek Israel’s destruction.

Hill, quite active on social media, says, “Blaming the Palestinian Authority for violence in the region is dishonest and unproductive,” noting that Jerusalem is occupied. Hill also believes that there is no religious component to the conflict.

During a CNN appearance on August 4, 2014, Hill complained that Israel’s defensive Iron Dome system takes away Hamas’ leverage over Israel.
Thanks Lamont – we needed this reminder
So the UN ran its annual hate-Israel dinner and dance gala and needed a speaker to wrap it up and go medieval on the Jews.

The shindig is called “The UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” …a day like any other day, actually.

Nothing new under the sun or at the UN.

More to the point, for three days they meet to polka and give every member a chance to really rub it in, and the Secretary General himself remarked that it is time to “create a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.” Everybody understands this for what it is – code for the destruction of Israel…the only thriving and glorious democracy in the entire Middle East.

To be replaced by “Palestinians” who exist in no history books…and never asked for Jerusalem until the Jews took it back.

The Bible never mentions them and even the Koran never heard of them. Even the Beatles, as we once wrote, preceded them on the scene.

They are a collection of tribes who came up with the word “Palestinian” because it sounded good, and then introduced hijacking, suicide bombing and lately murder by car ramming.

To name but some of their tactics which gained them the approval and admiration of every Secretary General, including this one.

This one read from something like Mein Kampf…to thunderous applause. The blood libels kept rolling, but they needed someone to sum it all up.

Someone really ugly.
Tlaib Defends Marc Lamont Hill After He’s Dropped by CNN, Praises Him for ‘Calling Out Oppressive Policies in Israel’
Congresswoman-elect Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) defended former CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill's remarks defending Palestinian violence against Israel at a recent United Nations speech, tweeting that "calling out the oppressive policies in Israel" was not anti-Semitic.

CNN dropped Hill from his contract on Thursday after he spoke at the U.N.'s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People a day earlier. A fervent critic of Israel, he used the Palestinian nationalist phrase calling for a "free Palestine from the river to the sea," which suggests the elimination of the state of Israel which sits between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, and said while peace should be prioritized, "we must not romanticize or fetishize it."

"Tactics otherwise divergent from Dr. King or Gandhi were equally important to preserving safety and attaining freedom," he said. "If we are in true solidarity, we must allow them the same range of opportunity and political possibility. We must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend themselves. We must prioritize peace, but we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing."

"To commit to political action, grassroots action, local action, and international action that will give us what justice requires, and that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea," Hill concluded, leading to applause.

"Resisting" is a common euphemism for defenders of Palestinian terrorist methods. The Gaza Strip, from which Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005, is now governed by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which has fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians.
Marc Lamont Hill's long, bizarre history of anti-Israel bigotry
Denial of Israeli legitimacy - on both sides of the Green Line

Aside from his associations with the Nation of Islam and Black Lives Matter - which excoriated “Israeli Apartheid” in its 2016 platform and sent protesters to Israel to demonstrate against the Jewish state – and his regular claims that Israel engages in Apartheid-like behavior or ethnic cleansing, Hill also has a long history of both refusing to condemn terrorist violence or to recognize Israel’s legitimacy on either side of the pre-1967 Green Line.

In 2017, Hill denied ever having been in Israel – a claim he repeated this week on Twitter – this despite a much-publicized 2015 trip to….Israel.

By his own admission, Hill has visited Jerusalem – Israel’s capital – as well as the Galilee in northern Israel.

While hostile Arab governments and other anti-Israel stalwarts may deny Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, no one, save perhaps the Ayatollahs in Iran, would argue that the Galilee is located within the borders of the State of Israel. It’s a fact.

And yet despite visiting Nazareth – which is very much in Israel – Hill said he had only visited Palestine, thus enabling him to continue the lie that he has never been in Israel.

The Galilee – again, well within the Green Line and recognized universally as Israeli territory – was described by Hill in 2015 as “Palestine” and “stolen” land. Hill said he would back the efforts there to “resist the occupation”, making it clear his view that even in pre-1967 Israel, the Jewish state is illegitimate.

“We came here to Palestine to stand in love and revolutionary struggle with our brothers and sisters. We come to a land that has been stolen by greed and destroyed by hate. We come here and we learn laws that have been cosigned by ink but written in the blood of the innocent. And we stand next to people who continue to courageously struggle and resist the occupation. People who continue to dream and fight for freedom. From Ferguson to Palestine, the struggle for freedom continues,” said Hill.
University refuses to drop commentator fired by CNN after anti-Israel comments
At least one person is somehow too polarizing for cable news, but apparently just fine for academia.

Temple University stood by Marc Lamont Hill on Thursday, the same day he was fired from CNN after he gave a speech at the United Nations in which he used language critics described as a dog whistle advocating the elimination of Israel.

Hill, a now-former CNN commentator, is also a professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University in Philadelphia. While the school doesn’t necessarily agree with Hill’s controversial rhetoric, it feels he has the right to speak freely.

“Marc Lamont Hill has been quoted extensively over the last 24 hours. Marc Lamont Hill does not represent Temple University and his views are his own. However, we acknowledge that he has a constitutionally protected right to express his opinion as a private citizen,” a Temple spokesperson told Fox News.
Following Contact from CAMERA, The Hill Changes Inaccurate Headline About Lamont Hill Firing
After contact from CAMERA, The Hill, a Washington D.C.-based publication that covers politics and international affairs, changed an inaccurate headline about Marc Lamont Hill’s firing.

In Nov. 28, 2018 remarks before the U.N., Lamont Hill called for the elimination of the Jewish state of Israel. As CAMERA has documented, the Temple University professor and then-CNN contributor has a long history of supporting antisemites like Louis Farrakhan. In his comments before the U.N., Hill echoed Hamas by calling for the elimination of the Jewish state in order to create a “Palestine from the river to the sea.”

CAMERA and other organizations contacted CNN asking that they reconsider their continued collaboration with someone who increasingly expresses bigotry and promotes violence. On Nov. 29, 2018, following the outcry, CNN announced that they were severing ties with Lamont Hill.

The publication The Hill initially tweeted “CNN cuts ties with Marc Lamont Hill after comments calling for boycott of Israel.” Yet, as CAMERA pointed out to the publication’s staff, Lamont Hill has long supported the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to single out Israel for opprobrium. Lamont Hill’s public support for BDS, which goes back to at least 2015, has not impeded his employment with CNN. Rather, it seems that CNN’s termination was likely based on Lamont Hill’s use of a Hamas slogan.


David Collier: When David met David, an evening with David Icke
In June, I saw an advert for a David Icke event due to be held this month in Watford. I didn’t think twice. In antisemitic circles, I have seen David Icke material shared more than any other. Icke is rancid and many of his vicious memes carry hard-core antisemitic images. If people are talking about conspiracies with Rothschild and Zionism and wish to present their case, it is David Icke they hold up. It is true that I could just read what he has to say by purchasing a book on Amazon, but an event is different. An event is multi-dimensional, and you can see both the manner of the man and the way the crowd reacts to him. There was no way I was going to miss the experience. On 27th June, almost five months before the event itself, I had already purchased my ticket.

It would be an understatement to say I am not a fan. The event lasted over four-and-a-half hours and for the last thirty minutes, I was screaming inside for it to end. However, it is also wrong to discard everything that Icke says. In two-hundred and seventy minutes, there is plenty of time for everything, razor sharp commentary, racism and bat-crazy theory alike. My role is never just to sit and wait for the headline. I need to get inside the argument. How can you challenge someone if you do not understand what they are trying to say? Simply ignoring them or calling them ‘cranks’ is not enough.

David Icke clearly resonates with some. That issue must be addressed if you ever seek to understand why people like David Icke can have a Facebook page with over 750k followers and a Twitter profile with another 193k. Why he can take the main auditorium at the Watford Colosseum and why people sit in silence for so long at his events. Don’t just look at Icke’s twisted answers, it is also because of *some* of the questions he asks, that he fills those seats.
Douglas Murray: The ‘Islamophobia’ problem
This is a good time to bury bad news. And sure enough it turns out that a cross-party group of MPs and peers that includes the failed MP Baroness Warsi has chosen this moment to try to persuade the government to adopt their own definition of ‘Islamophobia’.

Long-time readers will know that I have no sympathy for this term. The most succinct summary of the problem is often erroneously attributed to the late Christopher Hitchens. It is that, Islamophobia is ‘a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.’

That ‘Islamophobia’ was created by fascists is provable: the term was conjured up and pumped into the international debate around politics and religion decades ago by the Muslim Brotherhood. The claim that it is used by cowards slightly lets others of its users off the hook. For it is not only used by cowards. It is also used by sinister and sectarian figures who wish to protect their own religious patch from any and all discussion or scrutiny. That it intimidates cowards is evident from every day’s news.

But now, at a crucial juncture in this nation’s history, this group of MPs and Peers are attempting to push through an agenda of their own. As Tim Shipman described it in the Sunday Times the group is proposing a set of ‘tests’ of what is ‘Islamophobic’. Let us take them in turn:

– ‘Does it stereotype Muslims by assuming that they all think the same?
Illinois governor puts pressure on Airbnb West Bank decision
Gov. Bruce Rauner attempted Thursday to pressure Airbnb into reversing its ban on lodging listings in the disputed West Bank, calling for an investigation into whether the company is violating Illinois laws prohibiting backlash against Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

The Republican governor released a letter to the Illinois Investment Policy Board requesting a probe into whether the online lodging marketplace's action, which Rauner called "abhorrent and discriminatory," breaks a state law against aiding the Boycott, Divestment or Sanction movement against Israel.

The San Francisco-based company announced last week it would delist about 200 properties in the disputed territory's Israeli settlements. In 2015, Illinois became the first state to prohibit investment in BDS-friendly companies.

"If we show leadership and take decisive action and truly do a thorough investigation of Airbnb's practices and come to a thoughtful conclusion and recommendation, we can drive results for not only Illinois but other states in pushing back against companies that engage in discriminatory practices against Israel," Rauner said.
Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister: Irish Bill Criminalizing Settlement Imports a "Disgrace"
A vote in the Irish senate advancing a bill that would make it a crime to import or sell goods originating in settlements and east Jerusalem is a “disgrace and infected with antisemitism,” Public Security and Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said on Thursday.

Erdan, whose ministry is charged with combating the BDS movement, said the vote “gave a tailwind to contemptible boycott organizations that have links with terrorist organizations and cynically use the term ‘human rights’ for purposes of spreading hatred and deepening conflict.”

In order to pass, the bill – which has now passed two legislative hurdles – needs to pass another reading in the senate (Seanad Éireann), before going to the house (Dáil Éireann) for final approval. It will then need to be signed by the president.

Erdan said that if the legislation does pass, “We will work to expose the motivations behind it and act to legally prevent its implementation in accordance with international trade laws and in accordance with American legislation.”

Currently, 26 American states have anti-BDS legislation on the books, and that could be leveraged against Ireland since numerous US companies do business there.

The legislation, which is opposed by the Irish government, passed by a vote of 30-13. The bill calls for a fine of up to €250,000 or five years in jail for those found guilty of importing and selling products made in settlements.


The legislation would put Ireland at odds with EU law, since areas of trade are governed by the EU, and not the individual member states. The EU, which has mandated labeling products from the settlements, has not advocated a boycott of those products.
Pro-Israel Demonstrators Oppose Boycott Bill in Dublin
Israel supporters in Ireland have protested against the country’s new Occupied Territories Bill in Dublin, as politicians debated the would-be law’s merits.

Demonstrators led by the Ireland Israel Alliance (IIA) described the Bill as “immoral, discriminatory and illegal” but Irish politicians say it “gives effect to the State’s obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention”.

The Bill would make it an offence for someone “to import or sell goods or services originating in an occupied territory or to extract resources from an occupied territory in certain circumstances”.

Senator Terry Leyden said his Fianna Fáil Party supports the Bill, arguing that it “has merit in sending a message to Israel that we are not satisfied with developments in Palestine and not impressed by the oppression of the Palestinians and the way they have been treated like dirt in their own country”.

However, protesters have said the Bill “only targets Israel,” ignoring other disputed territories in the world, which may fall foul of US trade laws. Both Ireland’s Attorney General and the European Union Commissioner have questioned the legality of it.
Ireland's Deputy Head of Government Says Bill to Ban Goods from Territories Is "Not Legally Sound"
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said he will “not be bounced into anything I believe is the wrong thing to do” as he expressed his opposition to a Bill banning goods from Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

The Seanad on Wednesday passed the committee stage of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill which prohibits the importation or sale of goods or services in settlements condemned by the UN, EU and Ireland as illegal.

But Mr Coveney told Sinn Féin deputy leader Pearse Doherty that while he understood the political frustration that produced the Bill, “we do not believe it to be legally sound or capable of being implemented”.

Mr Doherty said Thursday was International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People and said that all parties bar Mr Coveney’s supported the legislation.

He said Fine Gael “urgently needs to get on board with what is a progressive and human rights-based legislative measure”.
IsraellyCool: NZ Hip Hop Artist Dean Hapeta Calls for War Against, And Death To, Israel
While accepting the Legacy Award at the 2018 Vodafone New Zealand Music Award (VNZMA) ceremony, Upper Hutt Posse frontman Dean Hapeta called for war against Israel and death “to all oppressors.”


Note the applause after this vile speech.

Genocidal hatred of Jews and Israel is truly back in style.
BBC WS history programme rekindles Arafat death conspiracy theory
The November 22nd edition of the BBC World Service radio history programme ‘Witness‘ was titled “The Last Days of Yasser Arafat” and visitors to the webpage were told that: [emphasis in bold added, emphasis in italics in original]
“The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in November 2004. French doctors treating him said he had an unidentified blood disorder. But some Palestinians claim he was poisoned.”

And:
“The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in November 2004. French doctors treating him at the military hospital in France where he died said Arafat had an unidentified blood disorder and gave the cause of death as a stroke. Since then there have been allegations that he was poisoned. Leila Shahid was the Palestinian ambassador to France in 2004, and was with Yasser Arafat during his final days. She’s been talking to Louise Hidalgo about that time.”

Leila Shahid is repeatedly described both by herself and by Louise Hidalgo as an ‘ambassador’ throughout the programme despite the fact that she did not represent a state.
Israel rejects ‘distorted’ BBC report on abysmal conditions of Thai farm workers
The BBC report, published last Friday, claimed many Thai agricultural workers in Israel are living in squalid conditions, are underpaid, and are exposed to work hazards from pesticides without proper protection.

Since 2012 there have been 172 deaths among Thai workers, the BBC report said, and noted that autopsies are rare with death certificates simply noting the cause as “undetermined.”

“The Ministry of Health received in recent years reports of sudden death of Thai workers during sleep,” the Israeli ministries’ statement said. “The issue was investigated by the Public Health Services in cooperation with the National Institute of Forensic Medicine. The investigation, which included the dispatch of a senior medical team to Thailand, confirmed the hypothesis of the sudden deaths as a result of Brugada syndrome.”

The genetic condition manifests as a disruption to the heart’s rhythm that can cause sudden cardiac arrest.
The Washington Post Ignores Antisemitic Attack in Los Angeles
The Washington Post has warned about a “rising tide of antisemitism.” But as CAMERA has highlighted, The Post’s coverage of antisemitism has frequently been selective and is often politicized. More recently, the newspaper even ignored a high-profile antisemitic attack.

On the night of Nov. 23, 2018 a Mogadishu-born man named Mohamed Mohamed Abdi used a rented car to try to run over two Jewish men outside of a Los Angeles synagogue. Authorities arrested Abdi who reportedly “made anti-Semitic remarks” at the Jewish men and made several U-turns in his attempts to target them.

Los Angeles Police and the FBI are investigated the incident as a hate crime. Several major U.S. news outlets, including ABC, Fox News, and others reported on the crime. Some, such as The Los Angeles Times, obfuscated on Abdi’s antisemitic motivations.

As the journalist Armin Rosen noted in Tablet Magazine:
“Readers had to hack through this thicket of self-contradiction that begins a Nov. 26 Los Angeles Times report on the incident: ‘Authorities are trying to determine the motivations and background of a 32-year-old Seattle man who allegedly tried to run down two men outside of a synagogue in Hancock Park last week in an attack that police have described as a hate crime.’”

The motivations, however, seem clear enough: Abdi had “yelled several expletives at the victims referencing their Jewish heritage,” according to the LAPD’s deputy chief.
Canadian Jewish Official: New Data Showing Sharp Rise in Antisemitic Hate Crimes in Country ‘Simply Too Stark to Ignore’
Newly-published data showing a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in Canada “is simply too stark to ignore,” the head of a major Jewish organization in the country said on Thursday.

According to the Statistics Canada report, Jews were the most targeted minority group in 2017 — with 360 hate crimes committed against them, a 63% jump from the 221 of the previous year.

Overall, there was 47% increase in hate crimes in Canada in 2017.

Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai B’rith Canada, stated the report “reiterates what B’nai Brith has been saying for years — that we need real and effective measures to extinguish this rise in hatred.”

“In early November, Canada’s prime minister apologized for the tragedy of the MS St. Louis in 1939, noting that antisemitism is still a major problem in this country and promising a concrete plan to combat it,” Mostyn added. “There can be no delay in fulfilling these commitments.”
IsraellyCool: Anti-Zionist-Not-Antisemite of the Day: Steven Fox (CEO and Founder of Veracity Worldwide LLC)
He’s the CEO and Founder of Veracity Worldwide LLC, and has quite the resume, including time as a former US diplomat!

Steven is the founder and CEO of Veracity. He regularly advises business leaders worldwide on political and corruption risk issues in emerging markets with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. He has extensive experience in the mining, energy, and telecommunications sectors and has presented at the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, and the Harvard Business School. In July 2013, his anti-corruption advisory work in Guinea was profiled in The New Yorker magazine. Prior to founding Veracity, Steven served as a US diplomat in Burundi, France, Washington, and Algeria. Steven holds degrees from Princeton, Cambridge, and INSEAD, and speaks French.

But Steven is not very diplomatic when it comes to Israel

Rivlin says Israel wants nothing to do with ‘neo-fascists’ who support it
President Reuven Rivlin on Thursday said Israel must not work with neo-fascist forces — even if they support the Jewish state — because it must take a clear stance against racism and anti-Semitism.

Responding to a CNN survey which raised serious concerns about European adults’ knowledge of the Holocaust and anti-Semitic notions, Rivlin told the network: “We must… work with the whole world to fight against xenophobia and discrimination, of which anti-Semitism is a variant.”

In the interview which was to be broadcast Thursday, the president said “There are neo-fascist movements today that have considerable and very dangerous influence, and sometimes they also express their strong support for the State of Israel.

“You cannot say, ‘We admire Israel and want relations with your country, but we are neo-fascists.’ Neo-fascism is absolutely incompatible with the principles and values on which the State of Israel was founded.”
Director Quentin Tarantino marries Israeli singer Daniella Pick
Film director Quentin Tarantino, known for "Pulp Fiction," "Inglorious Basterds" and other hit movies, has married Israeli singer and model Daniella Pick.

People magazine reported that the couple married in a small ceremony in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

The wedding came just days after Tarantino wrapped shooting on his latest movie, "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood," which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt and is slated for release in 2019.

Tarantino and Pick first met in 2009, when the director was in Israel to promote "Inglorious Basterds," and they announced their engagement last year. It is the first marriage for both Tarantino, 55, and Pick, 35, the daughter of beloved Israeli pop singer and songwriter Svika Pick.

Daniella Pick launched a singing career in the early 2000s as a duo with her sister Sharona, before striking out on her own solo career. The sisters were best known for their single "Hashir Hazeh" ("This Song"), which was written for them by their songwriter mother, Mirit Shem-Or.
Several Israel-themed films heading to Sundance
Several films touching on Israel are slated to premiere at The Sundance Film Festival next year, which is scheduled to open January 23 in Park City, Utah.

The feature film lineup for the much-anticipated event was revealed by the Sundance Institute this week.

Advocate, a joint Israeli, Canadian and Swiss production, will have its world premiere in the World Cinema documentary competition. The film, which is competing against 11 other documentaries, spotlights Leah Tsemel, an Israeli lawyer who has dedicated her life to representing Palestinian defendants in court. She has taken on both peaceful protesters and terrorists as her clients. The film is directed by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche.

Advocate will come up against an Irish-funded film called Gaza, directed by Garry Keane and Andrew McConnell. The movie is described as going “beyond the reach of television news reports to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters.”

In the special “kids” section of the festival, a Brazilian film titled Abe will also have its world premiere. The movie, starring Noah Schnapp (Stranger Things) in the titular role, focuses on a 12-year-old kid from Brooklyn who is known as Avram to the Israeli side of his family and Ibrahim to the Palestinian side. Abe escapes from a summer cooking camp and decides – aided by a Brazilian chef – to unite his family over a shared meal. Mark Margolis of Breaking Bad and Seu Jorge (City of God) also star.

And premiering out of competition at the festival is a documentary about the legendary sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer. The film, directed by Ryan White and titled Ask Dr. Ruth, is slated to present a portrait of the Holocaust survivor and Hagana veteran and her pioneering career path.
Wikipedia uploads 28,000 photos of pre-state Israel, for all to use
Wikimedia Israel, the local branch of online free information service Wikipedia, has published some 28,000 pre-Israel photographs taken in and around the region which would eventually become the Jewish state.

The images provide snapshots of life in the area. As they are all over 50 years old, the photos are copyright free and available for use by everyone, the organization said.

“These photos, which tell the history of the people who lived in this region between the years 1900-1946, are accessible for search, study, research, and use by the Israeli public and throughout the world,” Wikimedia said in a statement announcing the publication of the images earlier this month.

The images are on the Wikimedia Israel website (Hebrew).
Sodastream Uses Celebrities to Raise Awareness of Plastic Pollution
Standing on a plastic bottle-littered beach, a group of earnest young people led by Sarah Catherine Hook holds plastic water bottles and sings a silly song about harmony with the environment. Onto this scene strides Game of Thrones’ Thor “The Mountain” Bjornsson carrying a singing sea turtle — voiced by Rod Stewart – to re-educate the well-meaning group.

This video from SodaStream International garnered 10 million views in the first 48 hours after it went live on November 15.

The campaign clearly is promoting the Israel-based maker of countertop sparkling water machines with reusable bottles — recently acquired by PepsiCo — sold at more than 80,000 retailers across 45 countries.

But in tandem with the new SodaStream-sponsored FightPlastic.com website, the video also is promoting awareness of the massive marine damage caused by single-use plastic bottles. That’s a cause celebrities are comfortable promoting.

“I have a great love for our oceans and marine life and was happy to lend my voice and support to this campaign,” said Stewart. “If it helps raise awareness and effect simple changes like switching to reusable bottles, then I’m honored to be a part of it.”
Anatoly Altman, Soviet Jew who tried to hijack a plane to Israel, dies at 77
Anatoly Altman, a former prisoner of Zion who tried to hijack a plane to escape the former Soviet Union, has died.

Born in what today is Ukraine, Altman was a member of “Operation Wedding,” an attempt by several Jews who were arrested in 1970 at a St. Petersburg airport, where they had gathered to take the plane and fly it to Israel.

He died Thursday in Israel, in Haifa. Altman was 77.

As a defendant in the 1970 Soviet trial for “treason against the homeland” Anatoly declared: “Today is a very difficult day, but I’m happy, too. Because today I started my way home (to Israel) … And I’m sure, maybe it may take years in prison, but I’m sure I’ll get home to Israel, and from today until that time in the future, I say ‘Shalom to Eretz Yisrael.’”

Altman was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in the gulag. In 1979, he was released and immigrated directly to Israel, or made aliyah.
Violinist Itzhak Perlman Performs at Pittsburgh Concert Marking One-Month Anniversary of Synagogue Shooting
Award-winning Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman performed at a tribute concert on Tuesday night in honor of the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that took place last month.

Perlman, 73, took the stage as a guest soloist to perform alongside the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at a concert titled “A Concert for Peace and Unity.” The event, at the Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts in Pittsburgh, coincided with the one-month anniversary of the deadly attack, in which 11 people were killed.

Among the pieces Perlman performed were three songs from “Schindler’s List.”

“Music is one of the most beautiful products of humanity,” Perlman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette before the concert. “When you see something that represents the worst of humanity, you want to confront it with some of the best of humanity. That’s what this evening is about.”

“My response to the tragedy was plain horror,” the violinist added. “I just couldn’t believe it. Something as terrible as antisemitism, it’s not a thing of the past. It still exists. It’s not over. Hopefully education and coming together like this will bring people closer and encourage our society to become better than this. It has to be better than this.”


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11/30 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The lethal error in appeasing Iran; In the crane nation, Israel builds its future without a partner for peace; 'International consensus' on Jerusalem is baseless

From Ian:
Melanie Phillips: The lethal error in appeasing Iran
The Europeans’ eagerness to continue to trade with Iran is disgusting. The United States lists Iran as the world’s principal state sponsor of terrorism. The regime has been in a state of self-declared war against the West since it took power in 1979. It regularly denies the Holocaust and re-states its intention to wipe Israel off the map.

It is funding, arming and training Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, where more than 120,000 Iranian rockets are pointing at Israel; it supports the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, where there are now Iranian troops on Israel’s border; it is supporting the Houthis in the civil war in Yemen in order to attain unrivalled dominance in the region.

So it should simply be unconscionable to trade with Iran. Yet the Europeans are bending every sinew to continue to do so.

The behavior of France and Germany in spearheading the subversion of U.S. sanctions is particularly odious. France’s President Emmanuel Macron, the E.U. fanatic who by his own account is a cross between Napoleon and Jupiter and has taken to lecturing the world about the supposed evils of nationalism, runs a country in which Jews are being regularly attacked and murdered by Muslims.

His foreign ministry has said there is no doubt that Iran’s intelligence ministry was behind a foiled attack last June on an Iranian opposition group in Paris. Yet Macron opposes U.S. sanctions on the grounds that this would not improve regional stability. Instead, he is busy trying to enable the continued flow of money to prop up the Iranian regime. Is this what he means by improving regional stability?

Germany’s hypocrisy is stomach-turning. In 2008, its chancellor, Angela Merkel, came to Israel to say: “The Shoah fills us Germans with shame. I bow before the victims. I bow before the survivors and before all those who helped them survive.” Germany, she said, would always stand by Israel’s side; and she singled out Iran as the greatest threat to its security.

Yet although her foreign office condemned Rouhani’s remarks “in the strongest possible terms,” Merkel is now Europe’s principal champion of his regime.

In the words of Dr. Josef Schuster, president of the country’s Central Council of Jews: “It seems paradoxical that Germany—as a country that is said to have learned from its horrendous past and which has a strong commitment to fight anti-Semitism—is one of the strongest economic partners of a regime that is blatantly denying the Holocaust and abusing human rights on a daily basis. Any trade with Iran means a benefit for radical and terrorist forces, and a hazard and destabilization for the region.”

As Benjamin Weinthal recently wrote in Tablet magazine, the explanation may not lie merely in Germany’s huge export trade with Iran, worth $3.42 billion last year. It may also be a pathological refusal to forgive Israel for the Holocaust, as demonstrated by its preoccupation with turning Israel into a punching bag.

Germany’s pious memorializing of the Holocaust, he suggested, “can be a way for German politicians to inoculate themselves against criticism for their unwillingness to confront the lethal anti-Semitic Islamic regime in Tehran.”

Syrian regime and allies downplay 'airstrikes' after wild night in Damascus
On Thursday night social media accounts that follow Syria lit up with reports of airstrikes south of Damascus. SANA, the Damascus state media, claimed that “air defenses of the Syrian Arab Army responded to an aggression on the southern region” and had prevented the attack from achieving objectives. However Syrian state media and allies of the Syrian regime have downplayed the incident in the twelve hours after it happened. From wild claims that the air defenses had down rockets and even a plane, Syria’s allies now appear to want to sweep the incident under the carpet. This may be to protect the regime from embarrassment.

A variety of social media accounts that support the Syrian government were active Thursday night, but many now seem disinterested in the aftermath. This is also true of Iranian media, which supports Syria, and media that tends to be pro-Hezbollah. On Thursday night some of these outlets, such as Al Mayadeen, showed images purportedly of air defenses over Damascus. Reports began around ten in the evening and continued for more than an hour. By midnight it was all over and what appeared to be a serious incident had gone quiet. Most of these reports followed the message from Damascus. “Our air defenses met hostile targets over the area of Al-Kiswah” and had intercepted the attack.

What’s particularly interesting is that none of the media sought to point fingers at who the aggressor was. In the past the Syrian regime has blamed Israel and the US. One of the only major accounts that have kept on the story is Sputnik News in Arabic, a Russian channel. Russia supports the Syrian regime. On Friday Sputnik claimed that shrapnel from Syrian air defenses was found on the Golan Heights. It based its report on an announcement from Israel. Sputnik also noted that Syrian air defense had used the S-200, not the more advanced S-300 system that Russia supplied to Syria in October and which the Syrians are still being trained to use. Sputnik also reported that Syrian officials told them the S-300 was not used.

This was a major climb-down from Thursday night when the same news channel had tweeted reports that Syrian air defense intercepted four cruise missiles and a jet that was involved in the attack. By Friday morning, all those reports had stopped. Iranian media also did not report heavily on the incident. Tasnim entirely ignored it. Fars News did the same. PressTV claimed Syria had downed targets over Damascus. However PressTV also made sure to emphasize that it was unclear if the S-300 had been used and noted that a “military source [in Syria] did not specify the targets but dismissed reports that an Israeli plane had been downed.”
Army finds pieces of Syrian missile in Golan field after alleged Israeli strikes
Israeli troops on the Golan Heights on Friday found a number of fragments of a Syrian surface-to-air missile that was fired during an alleged Israeli airstrike on Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria the night before.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, the remnants of the missile were found in an open field on the Golan heights. The pieces have been taken in for further examination by the military and the police, the army said.

Also on Friday, the Syria Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said it identified several of the sites hit in what it said was an Israeli bombardment that lasted “for an hour.”

The Israeli military refused to comment on the raid, but denied a report in Russian media that an Israeli plane had been shot down. The Syrian military claimed its air defenses shot down all incoming “hostile targets” late Thursday. However, many security analysts believe Syria often falsely claims to have intercepted missiles that successfully penetrated its air defenses.

According to the director of the Syria Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, the Israeli bombardment hit two positions in the south of Damascus province, including an area believed to be an Iranian weapons depot near the capital.



Tehran-Beirut cargo flight sparks concerns Iran arming Hezbollah more easily
An Iranian cargo plane allegedly transporting advanced weaponry to the Hezbollah terror group was spotted flying directly from Tehran to Beirut on Thursday morning, hours before Israel allegedly conducted airstrikes on pro-Iranian targets in Syria.

Israeli and American security officials have long claimed that Iran has been supplying Lebanon’s Hezbollah with advanced munitions by shipping them through ostensibly civilian airlines, including the one that flew into Lebanon on Thursday: Fars Air Qeshm.

However, these cargo planes typically unload their materiel in Syria or stop there en route to Beirut, rather than flying directly into Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.

According to publicly available flight data, Fars Air Qeshm flight No. QFZ-9964 left Tehran shortly after 8:00 a.m., flew over Iraq, cut northwest into Syria and then landed in Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport some two hours later.

Later, the Boeing 747 jet flew to Doha in Qatar before returning to Tehran.

On Thursday evening, the Israel Defense Forces indicated that the plane had been carrying weapons into Beirut.

Without specifically mentioning the flight, the army’s Arabic-language spokesperson Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee tweeted that Lebanon should stop allowing Iranian planes to bring war materiel into the country, along with a black-and-white satellite photograph of Rafik Hariri International Airport.
Iran, facing off against Israel in Syria, now sending arms directly to Lebanon
Airstrikes in southern Syria on Thursday attributed to Israel were not necessarily indicative of the renewal of what were once routine Israeli attacks on Syrian territory, but rather a likely exception to the new rules imposed by Russia on the region.

Israel has almost completely halted these strikes over the last two-and-a-half months, since Syrian anti-aircraft fire — responding to an Israeli strike in Latakia — accidentally shot down a Russian reconnaissance plane, killing all 15 servicemen aboard in an incident Moscow has blamed on the Israeli military.

Since then, it turns out a number of things have happened simultaneously.

First, Russia sent a clear message to Israel regarding its anger over the strikes on Iranian-linked targets, including by dispatching S-300 aerial defense systems to Syria to complicate further such strikes.

Israel appeared to take the hint, with the number of airstrikes dropping considerably.

If Israel was in fact behind the extensive attack in Syria late on Thursday, it can be assumed the target of the strikes posed a clear-cut threat to Israel and that additionally, crucially, the existence of these targets in Syrian territory was not to the satisfaction of the Russians either.
US says seized weapons show that Iran is a regional threat
US officials on Thursday displayed military equipment they said confirms that Iran is increasingly supplying weapons to militants across the Middle East and is continuing its missile program unabated.

At a military hangar in Washington, Brian Hook, the US special representative for Iran, showed reporters a collection of guns, rockets, drones and other gear. Some of these had been intercepted in the Strait of Hormuz en route to Shia fighters in the region while others had been seized by the Saudis in Yemen, the Pentagon said.

Hook showed images of a Sayyad-2 surface-to-air missiles with the words “The Hunter Missile” in Farsi on its side, which he said was intercepted in Yemen by Saudi Arabia this year.

The advanced weapon, Hook said, was exported to aid the Houthi rebels, marking a violation of a UN resolution ban on exporting weaponry to the besieged country.
A Surface to Air Missile (Sayyad 2C) is displayed with a sign that reads “On Loan Fromm Saudi Arabia” at the Iranian Materiel Display (IMD) at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018. The presentation displays weapons and fragments of weapons seized in Afghanistan, Bahrain and Yemen that the US said are evidence Iran is a “grave and escalating threat” that must be stopped. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

“The conspicuous Farsi markings are Iran’s way of saying they don’t mind being caught violating US resolutions,” Hook said. He added that the material shows Tehran’s “relentless commitment to put even more weapons into even more of hands of even more of its proxies.”
Hook also showed reporters a display that included anti-tank missile systems that Iran was exporting to Yemen and Afghanistan, which he said revealed that the Islamic Republic’s intention to “undermine regional instability has expanded.”
David Singer: Jordan-Israel Peace Agenda Trumps PLO-UN War Agenda
Abbas has instead sought to advance the PLO’s stated aim to destroy both Israel and Jordan by using the United Nations as the Trojan horse to initially try to impose the creation of a second Arab state in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – over Israel’s objections.

The UN General Assembly recognition of the fictitious and non-existent “State of Palestine” as Chair of the 144 nation G77 bloc at the United Nations for 2019 indicates the lack of credibility and integrity to which an acquiescent and fawning United Nations is prepared to sink in supporting the PLO’s agenda.

Trump’s plan could represent the last chance to resolve the Jewish-Arab conflict peacefully. Should Jordan and Israel simultaneously agree to negotiate on its final terms – then the prospect of Trump actually pulling off “the deal of the century” becomes realistically achievable.

Redefining the boundary between two countries sharing a signed peace treaty is infinitely easier to achieve than creating a potentially-hostile third state between them that seeks both their destruction.
Jordan-Israel negotiations offer hope for an enduring peace.

The PLO-UN flight into fantasy promises war, chaos and upheaval.

In the crane nation, Israel builds its future without a partner for peace
The Star of David might be on the flag and the menorah and olive branch on the crest but the crane is the real emblem of Israel. Everywhere you go, giant steel jibs signpost a country under permanent development.

There are cranes over Tel Aviv, over Jerusalem, over Sderot — where they’re putting up houses at a rate that must tempt the odd Hamas rocket technician to throw in the towel.

There’s even one stretching over the Western Wall plaza right now. If the moshiach turns up any time soon looking to rebuild a temple, he’ll be spoiled for choice on contractors.

Earlier this month, I visited Israel for the first time as a guest of the government, mostly because I could no longer justify writing so extensively about a country I’d never set foot in.

As a Zionist of the non-Jewish variety, I worried that going would break the spell. They say you should never meet your heroes and maybe that rule applied to countries too.

But there are two Israels — the Israel that’s developing, innovating and inventing and another country, Bibination, the Israel that has grown sluggish about a resolution to the Palestinian conflict and testy towards those who point it out.
'International consensus' on Jerusalem is baseless
Canadian legal scholar Dr. Jacques Gauthier has devoted 20 years to the thorny question of the ownership of Jerusalem, and has concluded that Israel has unquestionable sovereignty not only over the whole city, but over Judea and Samaria as well.

On Aug. 20, 1980, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 478, which condemned a law passed three weeks earlier by the Knesset declaring Jerusalem Israel's "complete and united" capital.

The U.N. resolution said that declaring all of Jerusalem the capital of Israel was in violation of international law, canceled the validity of any steps by Israel as an "occupying power" to change the character of the "holy city of Jerusalem," and called on all countries that maintained embassies in Jerusalem to relocate them. The law passed by a margin of 14 votes and without the U.S. exercising its veto.

The resolution forms the basis of the "international consensus" that keeps most of the countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel from moving their embassies back to Jerusalem.

But Dr. Jacques Gauthier, a Canadian expert in international law, says there is a problem with that consensus: He says it is a blatant violation of the international law on which it is supposedly based.

Gauthier devoted his doctoral thesis to the issue of ownership and legal rights over Jerusalem. He has devoted 20 years to investigating the complicated legal questions and has made many visits to the city, as well as to other places where historic decisions were made that anchored in law Israel's legal right to sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, as well as Judea and Samaria.

"To understand it, one must go back to historical events that led to the Jewish people being granted the rights [over Jerusalem]," Gauthier tells Israel Hayom.
U.N.: Israelis, Palestinians must reaffirm 2 states based on ’67 lines
Israeli and Palestinian leaders must recognize a two-state resolution to the Israeli based on the pre-1967 lines with east Jerusalem as its capital, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday.

“I call on all actors, and first and foremost the leadership of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to take bold steps and restore faith in the promise of Resolution 181, of two states living side-by-side in peace and security, fulfilling the legitimate national aspirations of both peoples, with borders based on the 1967 lines and Jerusalem as the capital of both states – East Jerusalem being the capital of the Palestinian state,” Guterres said.

He spoke at a meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People that was held in advance of the day that UN holds is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

It marks the 71st anniversary of the US passage of Resolution 181, which called for independent Jewish and Arab states on territory that had been under British control since the end of World War I. At the time it was accepted by Jews and rejected by the Arabs.

Guterres said that the UN had created the day of solidarity 40 years ago to remind people of the unfinished task of resolving the Palestinian issue.
U.N. to disavow Jewish ties to Jerusalem, call for Golan withdrawal
The United Nations General Assembly is set to disavow Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and ignore Jewish ties to its most holy site, the Temple Mount in a highly publicized debate set to take place in New York late Thursday.

UN member states are also expected to call on Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights and boycott settlement activity.

According to the text of the Jerusalem resolution, likely to be voted Friday, the UN will call for “respect for the historic status quo at the holy places of Jerusalem, including the Haram al-Sharif, in word and in practice.”

The resolution also states that “any actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever.

Finally the text calls “upon Israel to immediately cease all such illegal and unilateral measures.”

The text on settlement boycott, calls on member states, “Not to render aid or assistance to illegal settlement activities, including not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used specifically in connection with settlements in the occupied territories, in line with Security Council resolution 465(1980).

It’s expected that during the meeting that starts Thursday and is likely to run into Friday that some six pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel resolutions will be passed.(h/t Yerushalimey)
The Ambassadors Series: Former Israeli Ambassador Discusses the Evolving U.S.-Israel Relationship
Hudson Institute hosted the Honorable Dore Gold, former Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel, Ambassador of Israel to the United Nations, and now the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, for a discussion on the current state of U.S.-Israel relations. The conversation was moderated by Hudson’s Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship Walter Russell Mead.

U.S.-Israel relations are characterized by long-standing strategic cooperation, and deep political, military, economic and social bonds. Israel’s security and stability in the Middle East remain critical for U.S. interests. President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocation of the U.S. embassy has strengthened relations between the two nations. At a time of renewed geopolitical competition between global powers, particularly between the U.S. and Russia, revisiting the U.S.-Israel partnership and its impact on regional stability is crucial.


Europe agrees to back UN resolution condemning Hamas terror group
The European Union agreed to support a US-sponsored United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Hamas, following negotiations with Washington, diplomats said Thursday.

The draft resolution will likely be voted on in the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, an official in Israel’s mission to the UN told The Times of Israel on Thursday.

After the US agreed to make some changes to the initial draft, the EU on Thursday agreed to support the text. All 28 EU member states are expected to vote in favor.

“All 28 members will support the US text,” a European diplomat told AFP.

If adopted, the resolution would be the first General Assembly vote to condemn the Palestinian terrorist group. The EU’s support dramatically increases its chances of passing, though it is unclear whether it will guarantee the needed simple majority among the UN’s 193 member states.

Earlier this week, European diplomats said there were disagreements on the proposed US text, notably including references to UN resolutions and to the two-state solution.

The Europeans had asked, and the Americans agreed, to insert a clause that states that a future Israeli-Palestinian peace deal should be “in accordance with international law, and bearing in mind relevant UN resolutions.”
UN members, Condemn Hamas Now!
Hamas has killed and wounded thousands of innocent people in hundreds of terror attacks targeting Israeli civilians, but NOT A SINGLE UN RESOLUTION has been passed, condemning Hamas. We call the UN to hold Hamas accountable for its terrorist actions once and for all and to condemn it NOW!


In sudden U-turn, Trump fights to keep some Palestinian aid alive
For two years, the Trump administration has unabashedly slashed US aid to the Palestinians. Now, amid signs it may finally roll out its long-awaited Middle East peace plan, the administration is scrambling to save what little remaining Palestinian assistance it provides.

The striking turnabout is the result of the belated realization that an obscure new law will likely force the US to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, including security assistance supported by Israel, by the end of January. Eliminating such aid, which totaled $61 million this year even as other assistance was being cut, would deal a blow to Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation that both sides value. The law would also require the Jerusalem offices of the US Agency for International Development to close.

To avert that possibility and remove a potentially lethal complication to the promised peace plan, the administration is rushing to find a solution. It will dispatch Army Lt. Gen. Eric Wendt, who serves as US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to Congress in the coming days to urge lawmakers to come up with a fix to the law, known as the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018, to allow the aid to continue.

Congressional aides said they expect Wendt and other officials to start making the case next week in the hope of securing a fix in the short time it has left in session this year. The House and Senate are set to adjourn on Dec. 13 and Dec. 14, respectively. If that fails, officials said they expect to redouble their efforts when the new Congress convenes in January.

The State Department, to whom Wendt reports, declined to comment on the effort but acknowledged the problem.
Frankfurt deputy mayor announces that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel
The powerful deputy mayor and city treasurer of the German city of Frankfurt announced at a pro-Israel conference that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and urged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration to cut ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Rogel Rachman, an Israeli diplomat at the Berlin embassy, tweeted on Sunday: “Uwe Becker, mayor of Frankfurt in the Israel Congress: ‘Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.”’

Uwe Becker, a prominent Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician, took a position in sharp contrast to his party’s chancellor and her government. The Jerusalem Post reported exclusively in November that Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis to not relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. Merkel, from the CDU, is believed to have launched a campaign to convince European heads of state to keep their embassies in Tel Aviv. Merkel declines to say if Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state.

Becker said, “We must freeze relations with Iran until it accepts the right of Israel to exist.”

Becker has established his pro-Israel credentials with strong actions against rising antisemitism, including the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign in Germany. Becker has termed BDS “deeply antisemitic,” saying it uses “the same language that National Socialists once employed to say ‘Don’t buy from Jews.’” He played a key role in securing language in the CDU platform that rejects BDS.
Police suspect terrorism as Jordanian assaults 2 Israeli co-workers in Eilat
A Jordanian national employed at the Eilat port in southern Israel was arrested Friday on suspicion of attacking two Israeli co-workers with a hammer.

The two Israelis were badly wounded in the assault, police said.

The Jordanian man was arrested following the incident. Several hours later police said an initial probe had increased suspicions that the attack was a nationalistically motivated terror act.

The suspect was handed over to the Shin Bet internal security service for further questioning.

In addition to the injured Israelis, who were brought to the city’s Yoseftal Hospital with head injuries, another Jordan worker who tried to restrain the attacker was lightly hurt.
Comprehensive Report Debunks 'Peaceful' Gaza Protests
In a comprehensive report, NGO Monitor, a project of the Institute for NGO Research, issued a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry (COI) detailing the events of the protests launched by Hamas from Gaza that have threatened Israeli sovereignty for months, and it’s a damning portrait of the Palestinian effort to ultimately topple the state of Israel. NGO Monitor also documented in detail human rights violations such as the use of explosives, Molotov cocktails, guns, rockets, and incendiary kites, as well as incitement and attempts to infiltrate through the border fence.

Some of the many quotes from Palestinian leaders indicating they sought the destruction of Israel: March 30, 2018: Hamas leader Yahya Al-Senawar stated, “The march of return will continue until the temporary borders are uprooted.” May 17, 2018: Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader, stated, “When we talk about ‘peaceful resistance,’ we are deceiving the public. This is a peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies, and enjoying tremendous popular support.” May 24, 2018: Khaled al-Batsh, a senior official of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, praised protestors, stating, “we will move our popular march toward the Israeli villages surrounding Gaza by cutting wire and other units operating in the settlements surrounding Gaza.”

And there was this: Al-Aqsa TV featured footage of the “Fence Cutters’ Unit. One of the members stated that “today, we cut the Zionist enemy’s main barbed-wire fence on the Gaza border...today we shall enter our occupied lands, and ignite a revolution against the Zionist enemy, in order to proclaim, loud and clear, that this enemy is destined for perdition, and that what was taken by force will be regained by force alone. We are about to liberate our blessed Palestinian land, which was plundered from us by the enemy by force, and from which the enemy will be driven out by force alone.”
10,000 Palestinians protest along Gaza border, 18 said wounded by IDF fire
Some 10,000 Palestinians protested along the Gaza border fence on Friday, with some burning tires and throwing rocks and firebombs at soldiers who responded with tear gas and occasional live fire.

The Hamas-run Gaza heath ministry said 18 people were wounded by live fire.

This was the third week in a row that Hamas security forces kept most demonstrators away from the fence following a ceasefire with Israel after a major flareup two weeks ago.

The IDF said Palestinians had not managed to breach the border fence and there were no injuries reported among Israeli forces.

Since March, Palestinians have been holding weekly “March of Return” protests on the border, which Israel has accused Gaza’s Hamas rulers of using to carry out attacks on troops and attempt to breach the security fence. Hamas, an Islamist terror group, seeks to destroy Israel.
Turkey changes US Embassy street name to Malcolm X
Turkey on Thursday changed the name of the street on which the new US Embassy will be located after the American black Muslim civil rights campaigner, Malcolm X.

The new American embassy is still being built in the Cukurambar district in Ankara, on what was formerly called 1478 Street. Construction contractors BL Harbert have said the new complex is expected to be finished by 2020.

The renaming comes after the Ankara city council’s decision last month to change the name to Malcolm X Street.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised the late campaigner’s daughters that the name of Malcolm X would “live on” in the Turkish capital.

Municipality workers changed the signs of the street on Thursday morning, as frenetic activity continued on the site.
Black Muslim leader Malcolm X is shown addressing rally in Harlem, New York on June 29, 1963. (AP Photo)

Malcolm X, one of the most influential African Americans in history, was an outspoken Muslim advocate of the rights of blacks and remains a hero today to many blacks and followers of Islam.
PreOccupiedTerritory: EU: Turkey Not Antisemitic Enough To Join (satire)
Officials in the European Customs Union shared concerns today that the Republic of Turkey lacks one of the principal qualifications for the membership in the union it seeks: a certain threshold of anti-Jewish rhetoric and behavior.

Representatives of the various organs of the European Union told reporters that Turkey’s application faces rejection because while Erdogan’s administration has a hand in Syrian violence, the entry of terrorist elements into Europe, political repression, and other demonstrations of suitability for inclusion in the European community, the country’s lackluster pursuit of antisemitic policies portends ill for its membership bid.

Speaking to journalists at a press conference outside the European Parliament building, the officials acknowledged Turkey’s support for anti-Israel terrorists, but noted that such policies fall far short of the behavior expected of a European Union member in good standing.

“Harboring Hamas operatives and endorsing a run of Israel’s Gaza blockade are well and good, but, I hate to say it, lame,” admitted a French delegate. “That’s amateurish. When’s the last time Turkey had a riot that threatened the country’s Jews? That’s the kind of indication we’re looking for, and frankly, it’s nowhere to be seen.”
Why did Lebanon's security chief praise terrorism during a counter-terror speech?
Lebanon’s General Security director praised terrorism during a conference that was supposed to discuss the defeat of terrorism in the Middle East and Africa. Speaking to representatives from a dozen African countries Maj.-Gen. Abbas Ibrahim reportedly praised Hezbollah’s “resistance” and distinguished its terrorism from other forms of terror.

The two-day event was titled “Defeat of Terrorism in the Region and its Impact on Africa” and was attended by African delegates from a swath of countries affected by terrorism in the Sahel region of Africa. That includes Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic. Diplomats from Tunisia, Oman, Egypt and Russia also attended according to the website Arab News. Ibrahim runs Lebanon’s General Security directorate, which makes him the “eyes and ears” of Lebanon according to and gives his agency power over a variety of local and foreign threats to Lebanon.

He has praised Hezbollah’s “resistance” in the past and was appointed in 2011 with influence by Amal, a Shi’ite party. At the conference, according to multiple reports at Lebanese websites Aliwaa.com and Aljoumhouria, he distinguished between two types of terrorism.

“Terrorism that terrorizes your enemy, and this is not only your right but your duty,” Ibrahim said. “Then there is [the second kind of] terrorism that intimidates innocent people.” The second kind he said was the “lowest level of moral decline and ideological decline.”

He said that Lebanon supports the “resistance,” which is a reference to Hezbollah and that “we are with our resistance and terrorism.” He claimed that even if others call that terrorism it was a source of pride.
German/French entities may be sanctioned for busting Iran sanctions, U.S. envoy says
The US government will contemplate sanctions against French and German entities that seek to evade sanctions on Iran’s clerical regime, US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“The US will consider sanctions on those entities participating in these tactics,” said Grenell, adding that the French and German activities “would not be a smart move.”

Grenell’s strong statements were in response to a Monday Wall Street Journal article, which reported that “France and Germany have joined forces to rescue a European effort to create a payments channel to keep trade flowing with Iran, defying US attempts to take the air out of the plan.”

The WSJ article cited senior diplomats as the sources for the French and German strategy to circumvent US sanctions.

The US government classifies Iran as the leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Special Report: How Iran Spreads Disinformation Around the World
Website Nile Net Online promises Egyptians “true news” from its offices in the heart of Cairo’s Tahrir Square, “to expand the scope of freedom of expression in the Arab world.”

Its views on America do not chime with those of Egypt’s state media, which celebrate Donald Trump’s warm relations with Cairo. In one recent article, Nile Net Online derided the American president as a “low-level theater actor” who “turned America into a laughing stock” after he attacked Iran in a speech at the United Nations.

Until recently, Nile Net Online had more than 115,000 page-followers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But its contact telephone numbers, including one listed as 0123456789, don’t work. A Facebook map showing its location dropped a pin onto the middle of the street, rather than any building. And regulars at the square, including a newspaper stallholder and a policeman, say they have never heard of the website.

The reason: Nile Net Online is part of an influence operation based in Tehran.

It’s one of more than 70 websites found by Reuters which push Iranian propaganda to 15 countries, in an operation that cybersecurity experts, social media firms and journalists are only starting to uncover. The sites found by Reuters are visited by more than half a million people a month, and have been promoted by social media accounts with more than a million followers.

The sites underline how political actors worldwide are increasingly circulating distorted or false information online to influence public opinion. The discoveries follow allegations that Russian disinformation campaigns have swayed voters in the United States and Europe. Advisers to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, and the army in Myanmar, are also among those using social media to distribute propaganda and attack their enemies. Moscow has denied the charges; Riyadh and Yangon have not commented.


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How Antisemitism Shows Up Today - and Even Plays a Key Part in Israeli Foreign Policy (Daled Amos)



This past week, 150 bloggers from 30 countries around the world came to Israel at the invitation of the Israeli General Press Office for the 3rd Jewish Media Summit, on the theme: Israel and the Jewish World Relationship: It's Complicated.

That doesn't mean that Israeli/Diaspora relations were the only topic.

On Monday, one of the topics was Antisemitism - discussed on a panel featuring Lior Weintrab (media advisor and former diplomat), Anshel Pfeffer (Haaretz), Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post, Maariv and Breitbart) and Efraim Zuroff (Israeli historian and Nazi Hunter). Haviv Rettig Gur of The Times of Israel moderated.



There were a number of insights, some of them cynical.

For example, Haviv Rettig Gur started the ball rolling with a comment on the difficulty that antisemite Linda Sarsour and her friends were having in distancing themselves from Farrakhan -- despite his best efforts to make easy.

Weintraub made the required comment that criticizing Israel in and of itself is legitimate.

Personally, it is unfortunate that we feel the need to even state this. But of course we do, because one of the common tactics antisemites use to fend off accusations of Antisemitism is to claim that the label is being used in order to defend Israel from criticism of any kind.

But what sets Antisemitism apart from ordinary criticism of Israel is the special standard used in order to single out Israel. This is where the non-legally binding, working definition of Antisemitism established by International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) comes in:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
By itself, this is a rather dry definition. The controversy enters with the examples, which include, but are not limited to:
o  Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

o  Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

o  Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

o  Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

o  Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

o  Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

o  Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

o  Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

o  Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

o  Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

o  Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
This is the meat of the definition and goes beyond the 3 D's definition of Natan Sharansky, which was not even mentioned during the discussion and perhaps has fallen into disuse despite its brevity.

But even the IHRA definition does not address what, if anything, is new about Antisemitism today and how it is different from Jew-hatred in the past.


That is where Caroline Glick came into the discussion, saying that hatred of Jews should be seen in terms of the prevalent Gestalt of the time.

Glick said that the term 'Antisemitism' itself is antiquated. It goes back to a time when Jew-hatred was based on race. It was a time when the eugenics was considered the height of science and Jews were hated as a people -- as opposed to an early time when Jews were hated as followers of a particular religion.

After periods when religion and then race were part of the Gestalt, now we have 'Anti-Zionism' -- a hatred of Jews in an era where globalization and post-nationalism are the influential sentiments.

What did not come up in the discussion, and perhaps should have, is that there has to be more to it than that, if for no other reason than the fact that Islam and the Islamic countries also stand against - and are resistant to - the same globalization and post-nationalism (unless we talk in terms of the Islamist goal of the globalization of Islam)

Glick referred to Airbnb, whose boycott of Israel she described as a big blow, and a big smack in the face. Airbnb decides that they cannot rent out a basement in Efrat on land bought lawfully, cannot rent out because they are Jews. That is the very definition of anti-Jewish discrimination.

Like Glick, Zuroff also went into how the definition of Antisemitism has changed. Classicly it is based on differences in religion -- a distinction which today is not considered politically correct. Today it has morphed into Anti-Zionism.

This he sees as the reason for the difference in reactions to the massacre in Pittsburgh on the one hand and the missile attacks on Gaza on the other. There is an outpouring of support for the former, but not for the latter. This is despite the fact that there are 500 rockets being aimed at civilians.
As Zuroff put it: "The world loves defenseless Jews."

And when Sarsour claims that some of her best friends are Jews, she means that is because they are the right kind of Jews. As Glick put it, according to the left, there are certain Jews who deserve to be hated. To me, that is reminiscent of Farrakhan's distinction between 'satanic Jews' and 'good Jews' -- as if he had been put in charge of deciding who fits in which category. The problem, as Glick put it, is that for those on the left to take a hard look at progressive Antisemitism is just "too ideologically expensive."

At this point, the abstract discussion of Antisemitism turned into a critique of Netanyahu's foreign policy.

As opposed to Western Europe, Eastern Europe may hate Jews, but they are beginning to profess a love of Israel. Zuroff was very vocal in his dislike of the overtures Netanyahu has been making to Eastern Europe, where during WWII they were not merely accessories but actively helped the Nazis kill Jews and went so far as to kill Jews on their own initiative.

Zuroff criticized Netanyahu for being silent about the past history, instead of using the "Holocaust card". One example is the friendship Netanyahu has extended to Viktor Orban, the far right Prime Minister of Hungary. A Hungarian blogger at the conference described it as Netanyahu giving the "kosher seal" to Oran, protecting him from the criticism that he is an Antisemite.

Here Rettig Gur explained Netanyahu's actions. They could be 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, and also joined with the Czech Republic and Romania to block an EU statement that criticized the US for moving its embassy to Jerusalem.

On a final point, Pfeffer differed from the rest of the panel. He insisted that Israel was doing a good job in Hasbara and went so far as to say that the EU was being maligned.

It actually makes a lot of sense that Pfeffer would hold such an opinion.

According to Pfeffer, Israel is violating international law in terms of the occupation and the settlements. That being the case, he sees eye-to-eye with the EU both in terms of the illegality and in terms of the measures the EU is taking against Israel. Since Pfeffer sides so heavily with the EU, he would see what few successes Israeli hasbara has as a clear measure of success.

But at least all 4 agreed that Antisemitism is a bad thing.
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