icwv.org

JULY 2022

A look at what Palestinian Authority schools teach about Jews, Israel

kaart.jpg

The three fundamentals are delegitimizing Israel's existence and the presence of Jews, demonizing Israel and Jews, and inciting against Israel and Jews.

Palestinian Authority schoolbooks feature three fundamentals:

1.   Delegitimization of Israel’s existence and the Jews’ very presence in the country, which includes denial of their history and the existence of any Jewish holy places there.

2.   Demonization of both Israel and Jews, with implications regarding the Jews’ image in the eyes of children who hail from a traditional society.

3.   Incitement and the absence of a call for peace with Israel. Instead, there is a call for a violent struggle for the liberation of the whole country.

Delegitimization

  1. Israel’s Jewish citizens are considered foreign colonialists: “We will think and discuss: I will compare the tragedy of the Indians, America’s original inhabitants, to the tragedy of the Palestinian people.” (Social Studies, 2020, Grade 8, Part 2, p. 34)
  2. The country’s Jewish history is denied, including the existence of archaeological items proving that “the conqueror has built for himself an artificial entity that derives its identity and the legitimacy of its existence from tales, legends and fantasies and has tried in various ways and means to create live material evidence for these legends, or archaeological architectural proofs that would determine their truth and authenticity, but in vain.” (Arabic Language, 2020, Grade 10, p. 68)
  3. Existence of Jewish holy places in the country is denied, including the Western Wall. “The Al-Buraq Wall has been named after Al-Buraq [the divine beast] that carried the Messenger [of God, i.e., Muhammad] during the Nocturnal Journey [from Mecca to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, according to Islamic belief] and the Ascension [to Heaven]. The Al-Buraq Wall is part of the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Aqsa Mosque, including the wall, is Palestinian land and an exclusive right of the Muslims.” (Islamic Education, 2020, Grade 5, Part 1, p. 63)
  4. Having been considered foreign settlers, Jews in the country are not counted as legitimate inhabitants, and the cities they built, including Tel Aviv, are absent from maps in the textbooks used in PA schools. One PA school map, titled “Map of Palestine,” does not show any Jewish city, except Eilat, which appears under its Arabic name, “Umm al-Rashrash.” (Social Studies, 2020, Grade 6, Part 1, p. 6)
  5. Jews’ historical and religious ties to Jerusalem are ignored. According to PA textbooks, Jerusalem was built by the Palestinians’ Arab ancestors (i.e., the “Arabized” Canaanites and Jebusites): “Jerusalem is an Arab city built by our Arab ancestors thousands of years ago. Jerusalem is holy only to Muslims and Christians.” (National and Social Upbringing, 2020, Grade 3, Part 1, p. 29)
  6. A short historical description of the city’s names features a huge gap of 1,000 years between the Jebusites and the Romans, that is, the Jewish historical period. The name “Jerusalem,” with its various forms used in hundreds of languages around the world, is completely absent: “The city of Jerusalem was known as ‘Jebus’ after the Arab Jebusites who built it 5,000 years ago. When the Romans occupied it they named it ‘Aelia.’ Later on it came to be known as ‘Al-Quds’ or ‘Bayt al-Maqdis’, after the Muslims had conquered it at the hands of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab in 637 CE.” (Geography and Modern and Contemporary History of Palestine, 2020, Grade 10, Part 1, p. 43)

Read more @The Jerusalem Post

Closed IDF base guards world's largest Torah collection

Military Rabbinate researches and preserves over 400 Torah scrolls, some of which are centuries old and many of which came from Jewish communities that no longer exist.

Hundreds of Torah scrolls, some more than 700 years old, are housed at a surprising location – a closed IDF base. Israel Hayom was allowed a rare look at the enormous storeroom at the IDF Rabbinate's Shura where over 400 Torah scrolls are being safeguarded.

Lt. Col. Shoham Orkaby, head of the Military Rabbinate's Halacha (Jewish law) department, says "There's nothing like this in the world. The sense inside is as if you've gone down a time tunnel through the history of the Jewish people."

Because the scrolls are sacred, they cannot be displayed in a museum, and because they are housed on a closed military base, the general public cannot see them.

"We're happy to tell the story of the largest holy ark in the world through you [Israel Hayom], Orkaby says.

Read more @ Israel Hayom


JANUARY 2022

UAE textbooks promote tolerance, but leave Israel off maps – study

UAE-schools-1

Report on Emirati school lessons gives high marks for urging respect toward Jews and showing trend away from negative portrayals of Israel, but some remain.

Textbooks in the United Arab Emirates promote peace and religious tolerance toward Jews, but Israel is still missing from maps, according to a study released Thursday.

The report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), titled “When Peace Goes to School: The Emirati Curriculum  2016-21,” examined 220 Arabic-language textbooks in government schools in grades 1-12, covering civics, history, Arabic literature, and Islam.

The curriculum “praises love, affection, and family ties with non-Muslims,” read the report. “Interfaith relations, particularly with Christianity, are evident along with expressions of tolerance toward Judaism. The report did not find examples of antisemitism or incitement.”

Read more @ Times of Israel


DECEMBER 2020

Hanukkah Lights Brighten Arabian Nights in the United Arab Emirates

Hanukkah-Dubai-Chanukah-Flickr-640x480.jpg

photo: Chabad-Lubavitch / Flickr

For the first time in history, a giant public menorah has been raised in the United Arab Emirates. The 12-foot metal menorah was designed and constructed locally and stands at the foot of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, for all eight nights of Hanukkah.

“The menorah is an age-old symbol of religious tolerance and a beacon of hope for all of humanity,” says Rabbi Levi Duchman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the UAE and the country’s rabbi since arriving in 2015. “There is no more appropriate sign of the respect the Jewish community of the UAE has received here, as well as this country’s spirit of coexistence, than the menorah, so this is exciting for all of us here.”

The desert country has in recent decades transformed from a sleepy backwater into a sleek metropolis, with gleaming new towers, glass malls and a string of artificial islands (including the world’s largest) rising from the turquoise waters. Gaining inspiration from the modern marvels that surround them, the UAE’s Jewish community is planning nightly Hanukkah concerts and celebrations, each evening topped off with the lighting of their new menorah. Some 500 Jews—both locals and tourists alike—are expected to join the celebrations each night, which will take place at the Armani Hotel adjacent to the Burj.

Read more @ Chabad.org


Jewish community ‘emerging from the shadows’ in Dubai

A Jewish community in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is “emerging from the shadows” after flights to and from Israel began following this summer’s détente.

New prayer facilities have been springing up across Dubai and some kosher caterers said they had taken on new staff members to meet demand, as the Abraham Accords signed between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain ushers in change.

Speaking to France 24, Rabbi Levi Duchman said: “The Jewish community here comprises Jews from all over the world – Europe, Australia, America, New Zealand… Our community is really mixed.”

After the UAE lifted the ban on Israeli passport-holders entering the country, dozens of bilateral business deals have been agreed and relations have blossomed. 

Jeremy Cohen, a French citizen living in Dubai, said: “These agreements have changed everything. We’re less afraid to show ourselves.”

The arrival of the first Israeli tourists has led to hotels creating kosher kitchens as well as a sense of friendship. Solly Wolf, UAE Jewish community president, said: “People in the street now shout ‘Shalom, how are you?’”

Read more @ Times of Israel


How Hanukkah returned to Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall decades after the Holocaust

chanoeka.jpg


chanoeka1.jpg

Beelden uit de trailer van concertgebouw.nl

There’s a huge pipe organ where the Torah ark should be, but otherwise this city’s Royal Concert Hall looks, sounds and feels like a synagogue for one night each year.

That’s because since 2015, this 132-year-old establishment, one of the world’s most prestigious music venues, has hosted an annual cantorial Hanukkah concert. 

A tradition that had been paused for 70 years after the Holocaust, its resumption is helping to unite and revitalize a dwindling and divided community with its glorious past.

The program ranges from traditional numbers like “Maoz Tzur,” a 13th-century poem, to “Al Kol Eleh,” an Israeli hit from 1980. The predominantly Jewish audience sings and clapsalong — a major faux pas at almost any other concert here — as those unaccustomed to singing in Hebrew struggle to pronounce the words correctly in an evident attempt to connect with their roots.

Read more @ JTA.org


AUGUST 2020

Hagia Sophia and Cathedral of Córdoba: The Jihad Factor

hagasofia.jpg

Turkey's leading imam, Ali Erbaş, brandishes a sword during his July 24 Friday sermon in Hagia Sofia


What's ours is ours; and what's yours is ours, as well. This is one of the primary messages coming from Muslims following the recent decision to transform the Hagia Sophia museum—which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as a Christian cathedral—into a trophy mosque again. (. . .)

The message is clear: If the Hagia Sophia, which everyone knows was built and served as a cathedral for a thousand years can, without challenge, be transformed into a mosque—with sword waving imams to boot—surely the Cathedral of Córdoba, formerly the Grand Mosque, should be returned to a mosque.

But was it, in fact, originally built as a mosque, as so many claim, or was it, too, originally a conquered church?

In a recent Catholic World Report interview devoted to this question, Darío Fernández-Morera, an associate professor at Northwestern University, and author of The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, provides much evidence to support the conclusion that "not only was the [Grand] mosque built on a Christian site, but it was also built using materials from the sixth century Christian building destroyed by Muslims in the ninth century."

The interview is worth reading in its entirety, as it gives lots of detailed information on Islam's historic treatment of churches.

Read more @ Middle East Forum


FEBRUARY 2020

Outrage as UK school curriculum asks how Israel could be seen as cause of 9/11

understanding.jpg

A Key Stage 3 history textbook has been removed from sale after it was revealed that UK pupils were being asked to consider “how it could be argued” the creation of Israel was a long-term cause of the 9/11 attacks.

Elsewhere in the chapter it says that Al-Qaeda targeted the USA because “they believed it was leading a Christian-Jewish alliance to destroy Islam”.

The book, entitled “Understanding History: Key Stage 3: Britain in the Wider World, Roman Times–present,” was published by the Hachette UK-owned Hodder Education Group and was written for pupils aged 11 to 14.

The suggestion that Israel may be linked with the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre is an anti-Semitic trope often peddled by conspiracy theorists.

Read more @ cufi.org.uk


DECEMBER 2019

Plaque honoring teen suicide bomber at entrance to PA high school for girls

Sign-pa.jpg

Every day when Palestinian girls enter their high school in Bethlehem the Palestinian Authority reminds them that the suicide bomber who was their age, 17-year-old Ayyat Al-Akhras who murdered 2 and wounded 28, is their role model.

At the entrance to this PA school is a sign in memory of the “Martyrs” of the PA terror campaign (the second Intifada, 2000-2005) in which more than 1,100 Israelis were murdered, many in suicide bombings. The memorial, which was established in cooperation between the Education Directorate under the PA Ministry of Education and Fatah’s Shabiba Youth Movement, specifically names suicide bomber and Fatah member Ayyat Al-Akhras who blew herself up near a Jerusalem supermarket on March 29, 2002: 

Text on sign: “This memorial was established in cooperation between the Education Directorate (i.e., branch of the PA Ministry of Education) and the Fatah Shabiba [Youth Movement] organization, in order to commemorate the Martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada at the Bethlehem High School for Girls for the anniversary of the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution Jan. 1, 2003.
Martyr Ayyat Al-Akhras (i.e., suicide bomber, murdered 2, wounded 28)
Martyr Nida Al-Izza (i.e., Palestinian who apparently was accidentally shot by Israeli soldiers)”

Promoting terror in this PA school is likewise found in the school activities. At a school exhibition honoring former PA chairman Arafat, Fatah’s Shabiba Youth Movement glorified several terrorist murderers by prominently displaying their pictures. These included: Dalal Mughrabi – who led the murder of 37, 12 of them children, Abu Jihad, responsible for the murder of 125, Marwan Barghouti, convicted of planning three terror attacks in which 5 people were murdered, and Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, responsible for the murder of hundreds in Hamas suicide bombings.

Bargouti exibition.jpg

PMW has documented that the PA and Fatah have turned both arch-terrorist Abu Jihad, who killed more than 125, and Dalal Mughrabi, who led the murder of 37, among them 12 children, into role models for Palestinian society, including naming schools and sporting events after them.

Read more @ PMW


French parliament to vote on whether hate of Israel is anti-Semitic

frenchparl.jpg

Photo: Dennis Jarvis

The lower house of France’s parliament is scheduled to vote on a draft resolution that calls hate of Israel a form of anti-Semitism.

The 577 members of the National Assembly are set to vote Tuesday on the draft, which also calls on the government to join other European nations in adopting the definition of anti-Semitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

The IHRA definition states that some forms of vitriol against Israel, including comparing it to Nazi Germany, are examples of anti-Semitism, though criticizing Israel’s policies is not.

Lawmaker Sylvain Maillard of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling LREM centrist party with his draft resolution has touched off weeks of debates in the French media.

Read more @ JTA


Study shows most supporters of ‘Palestine’ at UC Berkeley can’t find it on a map

Palestine.jpg

Many students who claim to support the Palestinian cause actually know very little about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, according to a recent survey conducted at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ron E. Hassner, the Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies at UC Berkeley, conducted a survey of 230 students at the university. Despite most of the respondents purporting to care “deeply” about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, “75% of those students cannot locate those territories on a map and 84% cannot name the decade (let alone the year) in which that occupation began,” Hassner wrote in an essay detailing the results.

Shockingly, 25 percent “of these students placed the Palestinian Territories west of Lebanon, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea,” added Hassner.

Most students also had no idea how many people actually lived in Israel. Only 17 percent of the students gave the correct answer, while others made guesses that ranged from 100,000 to 150 million.

Read more @ Israel Hayom


SEPTEMBER 2019

Canadian Orthodox Priest Fired for Praying for Israel, Calling Out Christian Anti-Semitism

fathervladimir.jpg

An orthodox priest in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia says he was forced to resign after giving a sermon about the importance of honoring the Jewish roots of Christianity and praying for Israel.

The Canadian Jewish News (CJN) reports that on August 12,  Father Vladimir Tobin,  the head priest of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Church in Halifax, was told he must leave the church due to the "Jewish twist in your ministry."

Tobin told CJN he received the letter calling for his resignation from Orthodox Church in America Archbishop Irénée, the archbishop of Ottawa and Canada.

"I've always been straightforward," Father Tobin, 77, told CJN. "Have always spoken my mind."

Tobin's grandmother was Jewish but he was baptized into orthodox Christianity. He earned a doctorate in Egyptology at Jerusalem's Hebrew University in 1985. He recently visited Israel in May for the first time since he graduated more than 30 years ago.

During his time in ministry, Father Tobin refused to ignore the anti-Semitism he saw in the church.

"I was happy in Orthodoxy, but felt there was some anti-Jewishness there. I wrote a piece for publication, but was told by my superiors that it was 'too Jewish.' That increased my determination that Christianity grew from Judaism. My own theology recognized a faith that started with Abraham and grew through the centuries through Christ," he said.

Father Tobin received a letter from Archbishop Irénée in April telling him to resign after hearing complaints that he regularly prayed for Israel during his church services.

Read more @ CBN News


AUGUST 2019

“Our Boys” vs. “Their Boys”

ourboys01.jpg

An experienced Hollywood screenwriter and film director in Israel shows how the directing and producing of the "Our Boys" series purposefully created a blatantly prejudiced anti-Israel movie.

In addition to laudably denying Democratic congresswomen who hate Israel to enter the country, the Israel Ministry of Interior should consider revoking the Israeli citizenship of the Israel haters who made the HBO TV movie series, “Our Boys,” which deliberately twists the events surrounding the 2014 kidnapping and murder of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer, and Naftali Fraenkel, into an anti-Israel propaganda film.

The 10-episode movie, skillfully crafted by a team of Jewish and Arab filmmakers, will surely aid the enemies of Israel in arousing world sympathy for the Arab struggle against the so-called "oppressive Israeli occupation" of "Palestine.”

But for the purposes of this article, I would like to focus not on the unquestionable injustice committed against the victimized Jewish families, but rather on the production itself, from the point of view of an experienced Hollywood screenwriter and film director in Israel.

The first thing a screenwriter and director must do is to decide where to start their story. This is a very deliberate decision which will shape the rest of the drama. In “Our Boys,” the creative team decided not to begin the story in the natural chronological place - following the life of the Jewish families and the three innocent yeshiva boys, leading up to their kidnap and killing. Instead the filmmakers chose to begin their account after their disappearance.

Following the young Jewish boys would have created sympathy for the Jews as victims of a horrible triple murder. Dramatizing the agonizing worry of the families during the almost three-week search for their children would have also automatically created overwhelming empathy for their plight.

All of this, the very heart of the drama, is purposefully omitted.

In addition, absolutely nothing is shown about the Arab terrorists who committed the crime. They are never seen or mentioned.

Read more @ Arutz Sheva


Sbarro Terrorists Have Received $910,823
in Pay-For-Slay Funds in 18 Years

Sbarro-IED--Police-OpenDay-040.jpg

A model of the Palestinian IED, hidden as a guitar, that was used in the Sbarro suicide boming terror attack in Jerusalem 2001, Israeli Police Open Day in Rishon LeZion. Photo: MathKnight


Eighteen years ago, on August 9, female terrorist Ahlam Tamimi smuggled a bomb in a guitar case into Jerusalem and led a suicide bomber to the crowded Sbarro pizza shop in Jerusalem’s city center. 

Suicide terrorist Izz Al-Din Al-Masri ate a slice of pizza and then blew himself up, murdering 15 people, seven of them children, and wounding close to 130 others.

“I have no regrets,” Tamimi told Channel 1 TV in an interview that was recently rebroadcast on Palestinian Authority TV. “No Palestinian prisoner regrets what he or she has done.”
 Since that fateful day, in which two Americans – Malki Roth and Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum – were among the murdered, the PA has paid the seven terrorists who helped orchestrate the attack as well as Al-Masri’s family $910,823 (3.2 million shekels), according to a report released Thursday by Palestinian Media Watch.

These payments include monthly salaries paid to the terrorists in prison; payments to the family of the dead terrorist; and payments to the terrorists, like Tamimi, who were released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal, brokered between the Israeli government and Hamas.

Today, the PA pays $7,321 (NIS 25,800) per month to the Sbarro terrorists and their families, according to PMW.

Al-Masri’s family has received a total of $53,689, PMW reported. The bomb maker, Abdullah Barghouti, has received $213,848 and Tamimi received $51,836 until she was released and fled to Jordan.

Read more @ The Jerusalem Post


JULY 2019

Correlating anti-Semitism with Islamophobia
is dangerous

by Melanie Phillips

IlhanOmar.jpg

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota)


Islamophobia, like much Muslim discourse, is based on an appropriation and inversion of Jewish experience and precepts.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), the Somali-born congresswoman, who has made a number of anti-Semitic remarks, is currently embroiled in controversy over her marriage history. When claims against her of bigamy and immigration fraud first emerged in 2016, Omar accused the journalists involved of “Islamophobia.”

Omar has also made a claim being heard more and more: that Muslims are called anti-Semites only because they are Muslim. In other words, anyone who calls out Muslim anti-Semitism is Islamophobic.

This twisted claim is a way of making Muslim anti-Semitism unsayable. The claim is being heard alongside the message that Islamophobia is the equivalent of anti-Semitism – an equation made by the leadership of Britain’s Jewish community, as well. This is dismaying because it’s a morally bankrupt and dangerous equivalence.

While some people are truly prejudiced against Muslims – just as some hate or fear anyone not like themselves – Islamophobia was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood as a way of silencing legitimate discussion of any fault in the Islamic world.

A relentless campaign is currently being waged to outlaw Islamophobia in the West – and thereby shut down that vital discussion. The United Nations is working with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to prohibit all speech that Muslims consider offensive.

A few days ago, Pakistan ramped up the pressure. Backing the UN’s initiative, Pakistan’s Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi said Islamophobia was “today the most prevalent expression of racism and hatred against ‘the other.’”

This is totally untrue. Apart from the fact that Islam is not a race but a religion, the true hatred of “the other” that really is most prevalent today is anti-Semitism. And those principally spreading this poison are the political left in tandem with the Muslim world.

Read more @ IsraelHayom


Romania finds ‘many’ more human remains
near site of Jewish mass grave

Pogrom Monument.jpg

Iași Pogrom Monument, Iași (Iassy), Romania, photo: Rgvis


Remains, along with a grenade and 82 mm caliber gun-mortar, found near area where, in 2010, archaeologists discovered a mass grave for over 100 Jews killed by Romanian troops during World War Two.

Archaeologists have unearthed "many human remains" in northeast Romania near an area where, in 2010, they discovered a mass grave for more than 100 Jews killed by Romanian troops during World War Two, military prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The archaeologists, who are supported by the Elie Wiesel Institute and have been scouring the area since 2010 for other possible mass graves, also discovered a grenade and an 82 mm caliber gun-mortar at the site.

"Notified by the Elie Wiesel Institute... we launched a criminal probe regarding the June 29 unearthing of many human remains during archaeological research work in the proximity of an area where a mass grave was found in 2010," the prosecutors said in a statement.

The site has been cordoned off but no further details were immediately available.

The mass grave discovered in 2010 was located in a forested area called Vulturi, some 400 km (250 miles) north of Bucharest, through which Romanian and German troops advanced at the start of their invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

An international commission headed by Nobel laureate Wiesel had concluded in 2004 that between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed in Romania and areas it controlled during World War Two as an ally of Nazi Germany.

Read more @ IsraelHayom


Lessons from the Golan

by Ambassador David Friedman

golan.jpg

photo: avishai teicher 

History will reflect kindly upon President Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. America’s stature in the world has risen and the security of its ally Israel had been enhanced.

This past Sunday I was privileged to have been invited to a meeting of the cabinet of the government of Israel. The meeting – convened in an open field on the Golan Heights with pure air and breathtaking views – had a single item on the agenda: a proposed resolution to authorize a new community at that site under the name “Ramat Trump” (“Trump Heights”).

The resolution passed unanimously. It was the first time since Harry Truman (1949) that an Israeli village was named for a sitting American president. The resolution was a fitting tribute to President Trump’s bold and courageous decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

In the aftermath of President Trump’s momentous proclamation of March 21, 2019, many rose to applaud while words of criticism emanated from the usual corners. But as the noise dissipated and the sun rose the next day, two new realities were beyond dispute: America’s stature in the world had risen and the security of its ally Israel had been enhanced.

Read more @ IsraelHayom


JUNE 2019

More than half of Arab world’s young adults want to leave - survey

Lack of trust in Islamist governments, spike in non-religious identity are among chief reasons, report finds. 

The results of a recent survey in the Arab world show that more than half of the region’s young adults are considering emigrating, and an increasing number of people are identifying as “non-religious.”
The Big BBC News Arabic Survey, a joint assessment by BBC News Arabic and Arab Barometer, a Princeton University-based non-partisan research network, is the largest in-depth survey ever carried out in the region. Over 25,000 people in 10 countries and the Palestinian Territories participated in face-to-face interviews for the study between October 2018 and April 2019.
    

Read more @ The Jerusalem Post

MAY 2019

Postcard discovered of David Ben-Gurion writing, ‘State of Israel has been born!’

bg-card.jpg

A postcard written and signed by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, just one day after officially declaring the State of Israel’s independence, was recently discovered. Dated on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Iyar in the Jewish year 5748 (May 15, 1948), it was sent to the founding father of the kibbutz movement, Shlomo Lavi.

In a letter inscribed on the back of the postcard, Ben-Gurion wrote: “The people of Israel have attained the pinnacle of their existence—the State of Israel has been born.”

Read more @ JNS

Germany issues an ‘early warning’ report about rise of Islamist anti-Semitism

brochureantisemitismus-im-islamismus.jpg

The top intelligence agency in Germany has written what is being called its most comprehensive analysis of rising anti-Semitism by Islamist extremists.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or BfV, described its 40-page brochure as a tool for educators, social workers, police and others who work closely with recent Muslim immigrants or refugees.

Titled “Anti-Semitism in Islamism,” the recently published report represents a leap forward in terms of the agency’s focus on the topic, spokeswoman Angela Pley told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a telephone interview.

She said the agency has never published such a comprehensive analysis of the subject based on empirical data.

Read more @ JTA


DECEMBER 2018

A BDS Christmas Gift from The UK

Amnesty-International.jpg

Amnesty International activists delivered a “special Christmas gift ” to the UK Foreign Office earlier this month, to highlight campaigners’ demand for a ban on Israeli settlement produce.

The gift was stocked with olive oil, wine, dates, and oranges marked with “Delicious but tainted” stickers.

According to Amnesty, “these items are just some of the thousands of products from illegal Israeli settlements that end up on our shelves in the UK.”

In addition to the hamper, Amnesty activists also submitted a petition “urging the UK government to ban Israeli settlement goods”, which more than 50,000 members of the public had signed.“For over 50 years, Palestinians have been forced from their homes, detained and killed – all to make way for more illegal Israeli settlements”, Amnesty stated. “Products from those settlements often make their way into UK markets and onto our shop shelves.

These products are made on stolen land, with stolen resources, and profit from human rights abuses,” the group added. Amnesty also said that in 2019 there will be a new campaign launched “targeting some businesses that are profiting from human rights abuses in illegal Israeli settlements,” the petition said.

Read more @ JOL


My year in the Palestinian Authority territories

vandiggele.jpg

Interview with Els van Diggele: 'I concluded that there was a century of stagnation, destruction and a power battle which was fought on the back of common Palestinian Arabs.'

“My first book appeared in 2000 and discussed Israel’s internal conflicts regarding the state’s identity. The Dutch title translates into English as 'A People that Dwells Alone.' I published my next book in 2007 which deals with the divisions between Christians in Israel. The title translates as 'Holy Quarrels'.”

Els van Diggele was born in 1967 in the Dutch village of Warmond. After her history studies at Leiden University she followed a postdoctoral journalism course at Rotterdam’s Erasmus University.

“I wanted to complete a trilogy by writing about the Palestinian Arabs. I resided in the Palestinian Authority region, carefully looking for people who would dare to tell the truth. Otherwise I would only hear: ‘Everything is fine. The Israeli occupation is the problem.’

“My first insight occurred when a Palestinian Arab asked me: ‘Do you write about our occupation? We are occupied by our leaders. The Palestinian occupation starts in our family with our father and uncles. Afterwards we are occupied by our boss and our leaders. The individual does not exist.’ He added: ‘That is our greatest real problem and explains our society’s stagnation.’

“I lived for a year in the Palestinian Authority territories. I did not register as a journalist with the authorities. I was not hindered by the authorities in any way, though there have been people who suspected me of being a spy.

“In Gaza I also did not encounter any hindrance. Interviewing there was even easier than in the 'West Bank.' In Gaza people are also fearful and society is very hierarchical. Yet the people were more open, perhaps because they are poorer and more desperate. It became clear to me that there is no historical unity between the 'West Bank' and the Gaza Strip. It is as if living in different worlds.

Read more Arutz Sheva 


OCTOBER 2018

Jordanian Law Permits the Murder of Israelis

memorial-to-the-seven-israeli-schoolgirls-murdered-by-ahmad-mussa-dakasma-photo-via-wikipedia-300x215.png

Memorial to the seven Israeli schoolgirls murdered by Ahmad Mussa Dakasma, photo via Wikipedia

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Jordanian soldier Ahmad Musa Dakasma, the notorious murderer of seven Israeli schoolgirls, was recently released from prison after serving 20 years. His name is back in the headlines following a series of posts he wrote recently encouraging the murder of Jews inside Israel. Dakasma claims that such incitement is consistent with Jordanian law, citing an addition to the State Security Law of 2013. Israel should demand that Jordan immediately abolish this addition to the law and stop Dakasma from inciting the murder of Jews.

Jordanian soldier Ahmad Mussa Dakasma, the murderer of seven Israeli schoolgirls in Naharayim on March 13, 1997, was released from prison in March 2017 after serving only 20 years for the heinous massacre. Many Israelis well remember the kneeling of King Hussein during his visit to the families of the murdered.

If you thought the liberated murderer had repented, or at least come to regret his actions, you are wrong. Dakasma’s name has been in the headlines again in recent days after he wrote a series of posts inciting the murder of Jews and encouraging people to carry out attacks inside Israel.

On October 2, he posted this on Facebook: “Every time I’m sad I remember that I murdered a few Zionists [the Israeli girls], and then I feel calm and my conscience is quiet, and sadness leaves me.” The post was removed following many requests from Israelis. On the same day, he wrote in another post: “Anyone who calls for resistance and can enter Israeli territory even as a tourist – and does not carry out an attack against the Zionists – is just a talker.” This post has not been removed, despite complaints. In another post that was removed, the terrorist called for the murder of Israeli children on the grounds that when they grow up they will serve as security guards.

Read more BESA


Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff responds to EU court’s ruling that speech insulting Muhammad is prohibited

EJCR.jpg

European Court of Human Rights building © Ralf Roletschek

On October 26, 2018, Jihad Watch covered the troubling ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that “an Austrian woman’s criminal conviction and fine for her statements accusing the Prophet Muhammad of pedophilia did not breach her right to free speech.”

Insulting Muhammad is now forbidden, according to the ECHR, which has conceded to Sharia imperatives. This ruling is important not only for the “Austrian woman” who was not even named in the Daily Sabah article, but for all who support free speech. The next step for the expansion of Sharia provisions in Europe will be the prohibition of all speech that is considered to be broadly offensive to Muhammad’s established religion — Islam.

Robert Spencer wrote:

This is clearly the case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who was fined and given a jail sentence for calling Muhammad a pedophile. He married a six-year-old and consummated the marriage when she was nine, but “the Austrian courts had held that ES was making value judgments partly based on untrue facts and without regard to the historical context.

I had the privilege to meet Elisabeth in Warsaw last month at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Human Dimension Implementation Meetings. The Center for Security Policy states:

For the last decade, a civil society delegation led by Austrian patriot and freedom fighter Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff has attended ODIHR meetings to express concerns that especially European countries were potentially unwittingly facilitating these Sharia-compliant practices, to their great and increasingly obvious detriment.

Elisabeth is a powerful advocate for freedom. The ECHR ruling on her case bears grave implications for everyone worldwide who supports human rights. Elisabeth sent me her statement on the ECHR ruling this morning. We owe her much gratitude and support for her fight for the freedom of speech, the hallmark of democracy:

“On Thursday, 25 October the ECHR ruled that my conviction by an Austrian court for discussing the marriage between Prophet Mohammed and a six year old girl, Aisha, did not infringe my rights of freedom of speech.

I was not extended the courtesy of being told of this ruling. Like many others, I had to read it in the media.

The ECHR found there had been no violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights and that right to expression needed to be balanced with the rights of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.

In other words, my right to speak freely is less important than protecting the religious feelings of others.

Read more @ JihadWatch



SEPTEMBER 2018

Jerusalem: Why Palestinian Leaders Say Don't Vote

ramadan dabush.jpg

Arab Jerusalem candidate Ramadan Dabush at a recent visit to Israel’s Knesset.
(Arutz 7 screenshot)

  • Palestinian leaders do not want to see any improvement in the lives of the Arabs in Jerusalem so that they can continue to incite against Israel and accuse it of discriminating against its Arab population.
  • Palestinian leaders and their religious clerics do not want to see Arabs live a comfortable life under Israel. They are afraid that the world would see that Arabs can have a good life under Israeli sovereignty.
  • They are also afraid that Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will start envying the Arabs living in Israel -- and then demand from their leaders similar conditions.

Ramadan Dabash wants to help the residents of his village of Sur Baher in particular, and east Jerusalem in general, improve their living conditions. He wants them to receive better services from the Jerusalem Municipality. The 52-year-old businessman and social activist, however, has been facing a campaign of threats by several Palestinian leaders and administrative bodies over his decision to run in the municipal election, slated for October 2018.

Recently, Dabash announced his decision to run in the upcoming election at the head of an Arab list called Jerusalem for Jerusalemites. He has repeatedly made it clear this summer that his decision is not politically motivated and that his only intention is to seek improved municipal services for the Arab residents of Jerusalem. Dabash has also called on Arab voters to end their boycott of the municipal election because they are the only ones who stand to lose from such a move.

Read more Gatestone


AUGUST 2018

Hysteria over nation-state law

by Isi Leibler

It is inevitable – and laudable – that there are debates and differences over most new legislation. However, that does not justify the global hysteria generated over the recently passed nation-state law, which the clear majority of Israelis support.

Many critics simply did not read the law, which is purely declarative and in no way detracts from the existing rights of minorities. Others merely echoed the exaggerated criticism in the press.

On the other hand, had the government not made certain mistakes, much of the criticism could largely have been pre-empted.

It should have accepted MK Benny Begin’s amendment, which included two phrases: “full equality of rights for all its citizens” and “Jewish and democratic state.” In practical terms this was repeating the obvious but would have made it more difficult for those seeking to slander Israel.

The second error was the failure to informally consult minorities, especially the Druze whom Israeli Jews genuinely love and admire. Many Druze have been deceived; the new law in no way discriminates against them. Because of the affection for them prevailing throughout the nation, some are cynically exploiting the situation and making demands. The government is highly unlikely to alter the law but will try to placate them by providing other sweeteners that would have been unnecessary had it consulted in advance with Druze community leaders. If the Druze persist in seeking to extort the government unreasonably, this will disappoint many Israeli Jews who heretofore have had only admiration for them.

Read more WordfromJerusalem.com


JULY 2018

The Secret Reason Arabs Reject the Jewish Nation-State Law

The hypocrisy of the leaders of the Arab citizens of Israel, who are now crying foul over the new Jewish Nation-State Law, has, in the past few days, reached new heights.

These are the same leaders whose words and actions for the past two decades have caused serious damage to relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and to the interests of their own constituents, the Arab citizens of Israel.

bahloul.jpg

Zouheir Bahloul, an Arab Member of Knesset, is the last Arab citizen of Israel who is entitled to complain about discrimination. For decades, he was one of Israel's most popular sports journalists, revered by Arabs and Jews alike. He has always enjoyed a comfortable life in Israel -- one he could never have dreamed of experiencing in any Arab country. (Photo: Knesset Spokesperson)


Israeli Arab leaders, specifically the Knesset members, say they are outraged not only because the law defines Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, but also because the new legislation does not include words about full equality of rights for all citizens.

If there ever was a tempest in a teapot, this is it. It would have been redundant to add those words: the new law does not rescind any previous law or Israel's Declaration of Independence, which already encompass all that. In Israel, there are also other Basic Laws that guarantee equal rights to all. For example, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, passed in 1992, stipulates:

"The purpose of this Basic Law is to protect human dignity and liberty, in order to establish in a Basic Law the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state."

...

"Fundamental human rights in Israel are founded upon recognition of the value of the human being, the sanctity of human life, and the principle that all persons are free; these rights shall be upheld in the spirit of the principles set forth in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel."

Israel's Declaration of Independence from 1948, which obviously is not affected by the new Jewish Nation-State Law, also promises equality to all citizens, irrespective of their religion or color or race. It states:

"The State of Israel will foster the development of the country for all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations."

So, as Israel's pre-existing laws and its Declaration of Independence remain unchanged and guarantee equal rights to all citizens, what exactly is behind the Israeli Arab leaders' fierce attack on the Nation-State Law? Is it really because they are worried about equality or is it something else? The answer can be found in their own statements: they are basically opposed to the idea of Israel being the homeland for the Jewish people. They know very well that the Nation-State Law does not affect the Arab citizens' status and rights as equal citizens of Israel.

Read more Gatestone



MAY 2018

Why Does the Media Keep Encouraging Hamas Violence?

by Alan M. Dershowitz

gazacartoon.jpg


If this were the first time that Hamas deliberately provoked Israel into self-defense actions that resulted in the unintended deaths of Gaza civilians, the media could be excused for playing into the hands of Hamas. The most recent Hamas provocations -- having 40,000 Gazans try to tear down the border fence and enter Israel with Molotov cocktails and other improvised weapons -- are part of a repeated Hamas tactic that I have called the "dead baby strategy." Hamas' goal is to have Israel kill as many Gazans as possible so that the headlines always begin, and often end, with the body count. Hamas deliberately sends women and children to the front line, while their own fighters hide behind these human shields.

Read more Gatestone



I was at the Gaza border, we did all we could to avoid killing

gaza1.jpg

I'm writing this for my good friends, my moral humane friends, and for all those who are concerned and angry over the Palestinians killed and injured on the border with Gaza. 

In the biblical Exodus from Egypt, when the Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea just before overtaking the Israelites, our sages say that God prevented the angels from singing and rejoicing, scolding them with the words “my creations are drowning in the sea and you are singing?!”

I write these words with great caution, and from a sense of mission. I can understand and identify with all of those good and moral Zionists who fear that the many Palestinian victims may be our fault, the result of mistakes made by our side. I’m writing because I am one of the few who was there, in uniform, in the reserves, but I was there. Yes, right there on the fence where the demonstrations are happening. It was last Friday, but I saw it with my own eyes; I was on our side of the fence but I could see and hear and understand everything. I want to testify from my firsthand knowledge, not a theoretical point of view. Because I was there.

I want to testify that what I saw and heard was a tremendous, supreme effort from our side to prevent, in every possible way, Palestinian deaths and injuries.

Of course, the primary mission was to prevent hundreds of thousands of Gazans from infiltrating into our territory. That kind of invasion would be perilous, mortally dangerous, to the nearby communities; would permit terrorists disguised as civilians to enter our kibbutz and moshav communities, and would leave us with no choice but to target every single infiltrator. That’s why our soldiers were directed to prevent infiltration, in a variety of ways, using live ammunition only as a last resort.

The IDF employs many creative means of reducing friction with Gazans and uses numerous methods, most of which are not made public, to prevent them from reaching the fence. In addition, over the past few weeks there have been serious efforts to save the lives of children and civilians who have been pushed to the front lines by the Hamas, who are trying to hide behind them in order to infiltrate and attack Israel.

Read more Times of Israel



Dead Sea Scroll fragment unveiled in Israel
may point to an unknown manuscript

deadsea2.jpg

Preservation work of a Dead Sea Scroll fragment.
(Shai Halevi, The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library)


At Jerusalem conference on Dead Sea Scrolls at Seventy, hitherto indecipherable pieces of texts from Qumran cave revealed after being placed in cigar boxes in 1950s.

Previously unseen Dead Sea Scroll fragments, which had been stored in cigar boxes since archaeologists unearthed them in the 1950s, were identified and unveiled at an international conference on Tuesday in honor of the 70th anniversary of the scrolls’ discovery in Jerusalem.

deadsea.jpg

A Dead Sea Scroll fragment containing Psalm 147:1. The advanced imaging equipment exposed the writing.
(Shai Halevi, The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library)

The tiny fragments, all thought to be taken from Qumran’s Cave 11, are game changers and provide new puzzle pieces towards completing the picture of known published scrolls, experts said.

Read more Times of Israel



Netanyahu on Abbas: “The Holocaust-denier is still
a Holocaust-denier”

tweetfriedman.jpg

After US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman slammed Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’ anti-Semitic rant, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the international community to condemn the Palestinian leader’s speech.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday following the Palestinian leader’s anti-Semitic rant from earlier this week. “Apparently, the Holocaust-denier is still a Holocaust-denier,” he said in a statement.

“Abu Mazen gave another anti-Semitic speech. With utmost ignorance and brazen gall, he claimed that European Jews were persecuted and murdered not because they were Jews but because they gave loans with interest. Abu Mazen again recited the most contemptible anti-Semitic canards,” he added. “I call on the international community to condemn Abu Mazen's severe anti-Semitism; the time has come for it to pass from the world.”

Read more @ Jerusalem Online


APRIL 2018

Palestinians: A March to Destroy Israel

gaza-protestc3.jpg


On March 30, an attempt by tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to infiltrate the border with Israel launched a six-week campaign of mass protests -- called the "March of Return" -- organized by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other radical Palestinian groups.

The groups encouraged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to head to the areas adjacent to the border with Israel. The protesters were also encouraged to try to infiltrate the border, thus putting their lives at risk.

Hamas and its allies told the protesters that the "March of Return" marked the beginning of the "liberation of all of Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River." In other words, the Palestinians were told that infiltrating the border with Israel would be the first step toward destroying Israel.

Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yehya Sinwar, who joined the March 30 mass protests along the border with Israel, did not hide the real goal behind the "March of Return" -- to destroy Israel and thwart US President Donald Trump's yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East.

Read more Gatestone


MARCH 2018

What Is a “Refugee”? The Jews from Morocco
versus the Palestinians from Israel

by Alan M. Dershowitz

morocco.jpg

The Jews who came to Israel from Morocco many years ago are no longer refugees. Nor are the Palestinians. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.


A visit to Morocco shows that the claim of Palestinians to a "right of return" has little historic, moral or legal basis.

Jews lived in Morocco for centuries before Islam came to Casablanca, Fez and Marrakesh. The Jews, along with the Berbers, were the backbone of the economy and culture. Now their historic presence can be seen primarily in the hundreds of Jewish cemeteries and abandoned synagogues that are omnipresent in cities and towns throughout the Maghreb.

I visited Maimonides's home, now a restaurant. The great Jewish philosopher and medical doctor taught at a university in Fez. Other Jewish intellectuals helped shape the culture of North Africa, from Morocco to Algeria to Tunisia to Egypt. In these countries, Jews were always a minority but their presence was felt in every area of life.

Now they are a remnant in Morocco and gone from the other counties. Some left voluntarily to move to Israel after 1948. Many were forced to flee by threats, pogroms and legal decrees, leaving behind billions of dollars in property and the graves of their ancestors.

Today, Morocco's Jewish population is less than 5,000, as contrasted with 250,000 at its peak. To his credit, King Mohammad VI has made a point of preserving the Jewish heritage of Morocco, especially its cemeteries. He has better relations with Israel than other Muslim countries but still does not recognize Israel and have diplomatic relations with the nation state of the Jewish People. It is a work in progress. His relationship with his small Jewish community, most of whom are avid Zionists, is excellent. Many Moroccans realize that they lost a lot when the Jews of Morocco left. Some Israelis of Moroccan origin, maintain close relations with their Moroccan heritage.

Read more @ Gatestone


Shocking media headlines omit “Israel” from Prince William’s visit – mention only Palestinian Territories

UKMedia.jpg

The BBC, SkyNews and other media outlets across the UK shockingly omitted Israel from their headlines about Prince William’s visit, despite the future king being set to make the first official Royal Family to visit Israel. He will also be visiting Jordan and the Palestinian Territories, but in an example of blatant bias by the media, many headlines only highlighted his visit to the “Palestinian Territories”.

Some of the press went even further by referring to Palestinian Territories as Occupied.

Read more Christians United for Israel


FEBRUARY 2018

Report Slams Queens Museum Director
Over Cancellation of Israel Event

The United NationsGeneralAssemblyvotesNov29-1947jpg.jpeg

The United Nations General Assembly votes on Nov. 29, 1947, to partition Palestine into two states, one for the Jews, which became the state of Israel. (Israel Government Press Office)


The director of the Queens Museum was a supporter of the boycott-Israel movement and used her views to cancel a prestigious event last year by the Israeli government marking 70 years of the United Nations’ recognition of it as a state, according to a scathing report issued Wednesday by the museum’s board.

The report, prepared by an independent investigation, also accused Laura Raicovich, the president and executive director of the museum, as well as her deputy, David Strauss, of lying to the board after they unilaterally cancelled the event.

Raicovich, the report said, “showed immediate hostility to hosting the event at the museum even before consulting with the board and then, together with Mr. Strauss, sought reasons why the board should not agree to the event.”

Israel’s U.N. office booked the museum months in advance since the city-owned property was the home of the United Nations General Assembly at the time of the historic Nov. 29, 1947, vote recognizing the state of Israel.

But in August, as word of the event became public, Raicovich began expressing concern in the media about feedback she was receiving from “Palestinian friends of the museum.” She ignored phone calls from Israel’s U.N. ambassador for several weeks, before notifying him that she was reversing the decision and would no longer agree to host the event. She cited a board decision not to hold a “political event.”

The event was rapidly reinstated after an outcry by New York City elected officials and the two museum leaders were forced to resign last month. Raicovich said at the time that she “just felt that my vision and that of the board weren’t in enough alignment to get that done.”

Read more @ Hamodia


The plot against Israel by the Queens Museum’s ex-boss

Queens Museum.jpg

It’s pretty clear that Laura Raicovich, the ousted executive director of the Queens Museum, doesn’t like Israel, not one bit.

Her anti-Israel politics are her right, but it was not her right to go rogue and use her office to try to kill a November ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the 1947 United Nations vote to establish a Jewish state, back when the museum building was the UN headquarters.

Nor was it her right to lie to the museum’s board of directors when they started asking necessary questions.

UN-plaque.jpg

After an August cancellation, outcry and immediate rescheduling of the event, the board knew something fishy was afoot, and so, asked a law firm to conduct a pro bono probe into what happened.

It was far worse than they, or we, thought. This wasn’t a case of botched communication. It was all about one woman’s animus and a torrent of falsehoods to try covering it up.

Read more @ Daily News


JANUARY 2018

Muslim Antisemitism in Germany

burning-israelifl.jpg

German political correctness has led to the cover-up of antisemitism — in both its classic and anti-Israeli types — among Muslim immigrants. Suddenly, a tipping point seems to have been reached. This has probably been caused by the public burning of self-made Israeli flags by Muslims after President Trump announced that the US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The video of the Berlin flag burning was seen around the world.

While flag burning is far from the most severe type of antisemitism in contemporary Germany, it called up powerful associations with the book burning in 1933, when the Nazi party came to power after a democratic election. Suddenly, leading politicians have started to speak out against antisemitism among immigrants. Some have even been more explicit, using the term “Muslim antisemites.”

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, said that the responsibility of Germany for its history knows “no limits for those who were born later and no exceptions for immigrants.” He added: “This is not negotiable for all those who live in Germany and want to live here.”

Read more @ The Algemeiner


Germany: Berlin's Police Problem

police.jpg

Berlin's local government has come under fire after reports of frequent, habitual and sometimes criminal misconduct by Berlin's police cadets. According to the reports, such misconduct, especially by those with a migrant background, is rampant in the Berlin-Spandau police academy.

The scandal was revealed when a private WhatsApp voicemail was leaked to the public. The author, a paramedic who had given classes in the academy, complained:

"Today I held a class at the police academy. I've never experienced anything like it. The classroom looked like a pigsty. Half of the class [are] Arabs and Turks, rude as hell. Dumb. Could not express themselves. I was about to expel two or three of them because they disturbed the class or were actually sleeping. German colleagues related that some of them had threatened to beat them. ... [Some students] speak virtually no German. I am shocked, and afraid of them. The teachers ... believe that when they expel them, they will destroy the cars on the street. ... These are not our colleagues, this is the enemy among us. I have never before felt such hatred expressed in the classrooms. ... They throw punches during class -- you cannot imagine that."

The paramedic sent the voicemail to several people, one of whom brought it to the attention of Berlin's Chief of Police, Klaus Kandt.

The first reaction came from police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf, who acknowledged that there were "frequently problems" at the police academy; he also admitted that some of the cadets committed crimes -- but "they are immediately expelled." Neuendorf then attacked the paramedic by saying that "the tone and the form" of his criticism had been "inappropriate". Moreover, Neuendorf said, the paramedic should have reported these things only to his superior.

At the same time, it emerged that Berlin's police commanders and the Senate had been aware of problems with cadets "of migrant background" long before this exposé.

The newspaper Die Welt quoted from the leaked minutes of a high-level police meeting, according to which the staff of the police academy complained about problems that "developed in the course of hiring officers with a migrant background (currently 30%)." Some of them could not swim, even though this was a requirement for employment. Many police candidates had a "lack of professional ethics". Some candidates showed "condescending behavior toward female employees, whom they treat like cleaning women."

Read more Gatestone


West Bank: Ancient sites destroyed
‘as ISIS did in Syria and Iran’ 

ancientruins.jpg

Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90.

According to an Israel News Company report, ancient archaeological sites in the West Bank are filled with holes and trash - a phenomenon at a multitude of these sites. The archaeological sites are reportedly deserted allowing Palestinian robbers to destroy and rob from the historical establishments.

Read more Jerusalem Online

DECEMBER 2017

Ignoring Exile of Jews, NY Times Approvingly Notes
East Jerusalem “Was Exclusively Arab in 1967”

oldcity.jpg

Arab Legion people at the Jewish synagogue they blew to pieces
to flush out the Jews from Jerusalem, May 21, 1948.


Amidst some questionable journalism about the American move to acknowledge the location of Israel's capital, a passage in yesterday's New York Times editorial stands out as particularly stunning and perverse.

The editorial, titled "Does Trump Want Peace in the Middle East," effectively ratifies the cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem's Old City and other formerly Jewish areas of Jerusalem during the 1948 Independence War.

In a paragraph criticizing the return of Jews to what the newspaper describes as "settlements" in those parts of Jerusalem, the editorial bases its disapproval on the fact that "East Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967."

It is true that this section of Jerusalem was exclusively Arab in 1967. This is because Jews, long a majority and plurality in these parts of the city, were forced out in 1948, when the area was seized by Jordanian troops. Jerusalem neighborhoods like the Jewish Quarter, Shimon Hatzadik, and Silan indeed became Jew-free, their synagogues razed and their cemeteries desecrated.

To consider the 19-year period during which Jews were exiled from the Old City and surrounding areas as the starting point of history, and to use it as a bludgeon to attack Israel and delegitimize the presence of Jews in eastern Jerusalem, effectively communicates the newspaper's acceptance of the expulsion of the Jews and seeming endorsement of an ethically cleansed eastern Jerusalem.

Read more Camera


Why Trump Is Right in Recognizing Jerusalem
as Israel’s Capital

by Alan M. Dershowitz

trump-jerusalem.jpg

President Donald Trump displays the signed "Presidential Proclamation Recognizing Jerusalem as the Capital of the State of Israel and Relocating the United States Embassy to Israel to Jerusalem," on December 6, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Image source: White House video screenshot)


President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital is a perfect response to President Obama's benighted decision to change American policy by engineering the United Nations Security Council Resolution declaring Judaism's holiest places in Jerusalem to be occupied territory and a "flagrant violation under international law." It was President Obama who changed the status quo and made peace more difficult, by handing the Palestinians enormous leverage in future negotiations and disincentivizing them from making a compromised peace.

It had long been American foreign policy to veto any one-sided Security Council resolutions that declared Judaism's holiest places to be illegally occupied. Obama's decision to change that policy was not based on American interests or in the interests of peace. It was done out of personal revenge against Prime Minister Netanyahu and an act of pique by the outgoing president.

It was also designed improperly to tie the hands of President-elect Trump. President Trump is doing the right thing by telling the United Nations that the United States now rejects the one-sided U.N. Security Council Resolution.

Read more Gatestone Institute

NOVEMBER 2017

In 1986 letter, Prince Charles blames
‘foreign’ Jews for Mideast turmoil

brief.jpg



In correspondence to a friend, the heir to the throne also laments the unwillingness of US presidents to take on the 'Jewish lobby.

In a newly revealed letter from 1986 , the UK’s Prince Charles implied that the “influx of foreign, European Jews” to Israel was to blame for fueling the Israeli-Arab conflict, and lamented that US presidents were unwilling to take on the American “Jewish lobby.”

Read more Times of Israel

OCTOBER 2017

Exclusive interview @ Arutz Sheva: ‘Son of Hamas,’
the speaker who shocked the UNHRC

yousef.jpg

“Hamas, which I know well, is an ideological political organization that views extreme violence as a means to achieve its political ends. In the 21st century an individual or group that tries to achieve its goals by violent means should not be legitimized by anybody. In my definition, Hamas is a terror organization. 

“I have seen how radically different the behavior of democratic Israel is from that of Hamas and Fatah. Hamas is still living in the 7th century, something Europe cannot even understand. Over the years I have realized that due to their religious views, Hamas cannot make peace with Israel. Their interpretation of Islam requires that cease fires alone are possible with infidels, not peace. Such a cease fire can last no more than 15 years. No political solution will ever satisfy Hamas in the long term. It is not about borders but who believes in their God and who does not. Hamas’ target is not just Israel, but for Islam to gain control over all non-believers.”

Read more Arutz Sheva 


SEPTEMBER 2017

Barbie's Newest Doll: Jenna The Hijabi

barbiehijabbarbie.jpg

The newest Barbie doll made her appearance this week in a look that would be unrecognizable to the original. Jenna, created by a French Muslim mother, is a hijabi Barbie. 
In tradition with Muslim customs, Jenna wears an abaya, a modest dress that covers her collarbone and that stretches to her wrists and ankles. She comes with a matching scarf meant to be wrapped around her hair as a hijab. In addition to looking the part of a Muslim, Jenna will play it as well: she has the ability o recite 4 Quran verses. 

Read more The Jerusalem Post


Despite Protests, US to Return Trove of Jewish Artifacts to Iraq

bible-venice.jpg

A Hebrew Bible printed in Venice in 1568, recovered from the Iraqi Jewish Archive. (Courtesy)

The United States will return to Iraq next year a trove of Iraqi Jewish artifacts that lawmakers and Jewish groups have lobbied to keep in this country, a State Department official said.

A four-year extension to keep the Iraqi Jewish Archive in the US is set to expire in September 2018, as is funding for maintaining and transporting the items. The materials will then be sent back to Iraq, spokesman Pablo Rodriguez said in a statement sent to JTA on Thursday.

Read more Times of Israel


AUGUST 2017

Palestinian Propaganda Is Infiltrating US Public Schools

camera.jpg

Six years ago, a teenager in Newton, Massachusetts — Shiri Pagliuso — asked her father if it was true that Israel tortures and murders women activists in the Palestinian resistance movement.

Then a high school freshman, Shiri had learned the information from her textbook — the Arab World Studies Notebook, a 540-page volume so riddled with unabashed bias that it had garnered a scathing 30-page report from the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

Back in 2011, Shiri’s father — Tony Pagliuso — wasn’t yet aware of the AJC’s report. But he knew outright propaganda when he saw it.

He contacted his daughter’s teacher, the head of the high school’s history department, the principal, and eventually the superintendents — who all defended the Arab World Studies Notebook as essential for sharpening critical thinking skills. They also praised the book for providing a “balanced perspective” and an “Arab point of view.

Pagliuso realized that he was being stonewalled, which got him thinking: If he looked at Shiri’s other course materials, what other dreadful stuff would he find?

Determined to expose the extent of the problem, a bitter multi-year battle ensued that pitted Pagliuso — who was soon joined by a group of other parents and Newton residents — against a shockingly hostile school district.

Together, the parents and residents fought to get school officials to acknowledge their legitimate concerns, provide access to all the curriculum materials as required by law, and to pull the Arab World Studies Notebook and other academically unsuitable materials.

Now, in a new study by CAMERA (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), researcher Steven Stotsky carefully traces how these partisan materials — many with scant scholarly value — seeped into a nationally prominent public school system.

The 108 page monograph, Indoctrinating Our Youth: How a U.S. Public School Curriculum Skews the Arab-Israeli Conflict and Islam, is the most comprehensive analysis to date of the Newton curriculum controversy.

Read more The Algemeiner

JUNE 2017

Ramallah movie theater follows Lebanon,
bans Wonder Woman film

WonderWoman.jpg

After Lebanon decided to ban the new superhero film Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot, a cinema in Ramallah has now chosen not to screen the film, which has become a global hit.

The IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Major General Yoav (Poli) Mordechai, posted on his Facebook page in Arabic that the movie theater Berg Palestine in the city of Ramallah decided to refrain from screening the film for what appear to be political reasons.

Read more Jerusalem Online


MAY 2017

Hatra’s embattled history, from the Romans to ISIS

Hatra.jpg

The liberation of most of Mosul from the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) made global headlines in April. Largely lost in the coverage of the conflict was the recapture of another significant site at the end of the month: the Roman-period city of Hatra. On 26 April Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces announced they had recaptured the site from ISIS after fierce fighting.

Hatra rises out of the desert some 90 kilometers south of Mosul in the midst of a network of usually dry wadis. Its forlorn location belies its once fabulous wealth. Caught between the twin superpowers of the Roman and Parthian Empires, Hatra was well positioned to make a fortune by taxing trade caravans looking to take a shortcut across the desert.

Read more Apollo Magazine


Returning to Jerusalem: The Yemenite synagogue of Shiloah

Expelled from their homes during Arab riots in 1938, the Jews of Shiloah were promised they would return home. Now, it's finally happening.

Yemenite Beit Knesset(2).jpg

In preparation for the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, Arutz Sheva, together with Ateret Cohanim, are presenting a special project that will focus on the renewal of Jewish presence in eastern Jerusalem, the Old City and the village of Shiloah (bordering the Kidron Valley outside the Old City walls).

In this, our third episode in the series, we focus on the restoration of the old Jewish community of Shiloah, in the neighborhood today better known by its Arabic name, Silwan.

Shiloah, adjacent to the ancient City of David and the Old City of Jerusalem, was, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, a thriving community of Yemenite Jews.

Established in 1882, Shiloah was built on a barren hillside; the area today referred to as Silwan, at the time utterly bereft of inhabitants.

Like other Jewish communities, the heart of the Yemenite village of Shiloah was the synagogue. Named Ohel Shlomo, the synagogue was completed in 1885, three years after Shiloah was established.

For more than half a century, Shiloah was a center of Yemenite Jewish life in the Land of Israel, and Ohel Shlomo the center of life in the village.

But in 1938, in the midst of the Arab Revolt against the British Mandate and the wave of massacres against Jews, the British administrators evacuated the residents of Shiloah – with promises that they would one day return.

It seemed, however, that the Jewish return to Shiloah was not to be. That promise went unfulfilled for decades, with the Jordanian army occupying the area in 1948.

Read more Arutz Sheva 


APRIL 2017

Why Does the West Keep Colluding with Terrorists?
by Douglas Murray

Ayaan.jpg

Only a fortnight after a vehicular terrorist attack in Westminster, London, another similar attack took place in Stockholm, Sweden. On one of the city's main shopping streets, a vehicle was once again used as a battering-ram against the bodies of members of the public. As in Nice, France. As in Berlin. As so many times in Israel.

Amid this regular news there is an air of defeatism -- a terrible lack of policy and lack of solutions. How can governments stop people driving trucks into pedestrians? Is it something we must simply get used to, as France's former Prime Minister Manuel Valls and London's Mayor Sadiq Khan have both suggested? Must we come to recognise acts of terror as something like the weather? Or is there anything we can do to limit, if not stop, them? If so, where would we start? One place would be to have a frank public discussion about these matters. Yet, even that is easier said than done.

There is a terrible symmetry to this past week in the West. The week began with the news that the Somali-born author and human-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali had been forced to cancel a speaking tour in Australia. "Security concerns" were among the given reasons. A notable aspect of this issue, which has been made public, is that one of the venues at which Hirsi Ali was due to speak was contacted last month by something calling itself "'The Council for the Prevention of Islamophobia Incorporated". Nobody appears to know where this "incorporated" organisation comes from, but its purported founder -- Syed Murtaza Hussain -- claimed that the group would bring 5000 protestors to the hall at which Hirsi Ali was scheduled to talk. This threat is reminiscent of the occasion in 2009 when the British peer, Lord Ahmed, threatened to mobilise 10,000 British Muslims to protest at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster if the Dutch politician Geert Wilders were allowed to speak. On that occasion -- as on this one -- the event was cancelled. Promises to mobilise thousands of angry Muslims can have such an effect. But the long-term implications often get lost in the short-term outrage.

Read more Gatestone Institute


MARCH 2017

Banksy: Safe Under Israeli Protection

banskyhotel.jpg

Famous British street artist Banksy has opened his new nine-room Walled Off Hotel facing the security wall that Israel erected between Bethlehem and Jerusalem to stop Palestinian suicide bombers from blowing up buses and cafes in the Israeli capital. 

But Banksy doesn't care why Israel erected this wall. Detached as he is from reality, and protected by his anonymity, Banksy opened the hotel "with the worst view in the world" to convince Israelis and Palestinians that their bloody struggle is nothing more than a pillow fight between two immature adults.

Speaking to The Guardian, Banksy explained that “it’s exactly 100 years since Britain took control of Palestine and started rearranging the furniture – with chaotic results. I don’t know why, but it felt like a good time to reflect on what happens when the United Kingdom makes a huge political decision without fully comprehending the consequences.” 

One of Banksy's works featured in the hotel depicts Lord Balfour signing his famous 1917 declaration designating mandatory Palestine as the Jewish home. Balfour is seen sitting in an office resembling an English gentlemen’s club from colonial times.

For Banksy, the West Bank and Gaza are the largest prisons in the world. And the walls, well, for one who has no idea what it's like to lose relatives to a suicide bomb, "the segregation wall is a disgrace."

The truth is that Israelis have long been fed up with these types of self-righteous artists who think for whatever reason that they have the right tell us how to live our lives. Little wonder that Reuven Berko, considered one of Israel's top experts on Arab affairs, pulls no punches in addressing Banksy's latest propaganda stunt. 

Writing in the Hebrew daily _Israel Hayom, _Berko reports:

"[Banksy's] people explain on Facebook that he 'found the most charged scenery and turned the hotel into an anti-occupation presentation … the artistic boutique creates a different reality which invites going out of the automat while melting the walls with courage and wisdom.' These are lofty intellectual words for describing an anonymous and cowardly antisemite … who came from England to work against the Jews. Someone with really courage will notice upon exiting this trippy hotel that it's built in an area safely under Israeli control. What the hypocritical artist most wanted was security. Had he built the hotel deeper inside Bethlehem, Banksy knows well the hotel would have had a different kind of 'ugly view': the ghostly remnants of the once large Christian community that has since been raped, robbed and decimated by terrorist militias."

source: http://www.israeltoday.co.il/Newsheadlineslist.aspx


FEBRUARY 2017

Archaeologists get set to dig at Masada, after 11-year hiatus

Masada

For the first time in over a decade, archaeologists are commencing new excavations atop Masada, studying previously untouched areas of the legendary desert mountain fortress, including the residences of Jewish rebels who met their doom in 74 CE. 

A Tel Aviv University team, headed by Roman-period archaeologist Guy Stiebel, will conduct a month-long excavation at the UNESCO World Heritage Site starting on February 5. It will be the university’s first expedition at the site, and the first expedition overall there since 2006.

Masada is a rugged crag in the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. Herod, the first-century BCE king of Judea — perhaps best known for building Jerusalem’s Temple Mount complex — constructed a fortress and palace on the mountain. The elaborate waterworks channeling seasonal rainfall allowed the royal redoubt to have a more plentiful supply than Jerusalem, according to ancient accounts.

Read more Times of Israel


JANUARY 2017

‘Trump Restaurant’ in Syria's Kobani: Kurdish gratitude to US

Trumpres

A Syrian Kurd opened a small eatery for falafel sandwiches last week in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani and named it after the US President-elect Donald Trump.

Waleed Shekhi, the owner of Trump Restaurant, told Kurdistan24 on Saturday his new business was a result of the current war in his country.

“Keeping peace with the current situation in Syria and the US, I decided to name my restaurant after the new US president,” he said.

Regarding the purpose of the name “Trump” for his business, Shekhi said it was an opportunity to express “gratitude as a Kurd to the US for supporting them in the fight against [the Islamic State (IS)].”

Additionally, Shekhi said the difficult living conditions in Kobani lead him to embark on the new business.

“After the liberation of our town from [IS] two years ago, I had to try many hard jobs for my family, but in vain,” he said.

“I am hopeful I will make a profit from this small eatery because my wife and I serve delicious sandwiches, and moreover the name is attractive,” he said laughing.

In September 2014, Kobani was a battleground between IS insurgents, People’s Protection Units (YPG) forces, and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ).

On Jan. 26, 2015, the YPG, along with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Peshmerga reinforcements, and US-led airstrikes, successfully liberated Kobani.

Read more Kurdistan24


_________________________________

Most older material has been moved to the various "debate" pages, focused on Islam, Israel, Antisemitism, Western Values, and Democracy & Nation State.

Click here for the GENERAL ARCHIVE.



LINKS :: EVENT



CONTACT :: ABOUT :: DONATE :: DISCLAIMER :: © 2015-2018  International Center for Western Values :: All rights reserved :: info@icwv.org