Goodbye Mahmoud Abbas

September in New York means the United Nations General Assembly is in session and the maniacs of the world show their colors.

Acting-President of the Palestinian Authority, a man who has refused to hold elections and is a decade past his expiry date, took the to floor of the UN for his annual address. He effectively called for a religious war for the Old City of Jerusalem and said that he would never stop paying money to the families of terrorists, while peppering his remarks about non-violence and legitimate rights.

Proudly announcing the funding of terrorism and inciting terrorism at the floor of the United Nations is the answer to Abbas’s own question about why the PA cannot be allowed to become a country in its current orientation.

It is also an answer as to why he should never be allowed onto the floor of the United Nations again.

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Mahmoud Abbas’s Particular Anti-Zionist Holocaust Denial

Abbas’s Harmful East Jerusalem Fantasy

Abbas’ European Audience for His Rantings

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Ayman Odeh Doesn’t Speak for Arab Israelis, Jewish Israelis or Peace

Member of Knesset Ayman Odeh received prime real estate in the Op-Ed page of the September 23, 2019 print edition of The New York Times. He aired his personal wish list of a neutered Jewish State, at odds with the wishes of both Arab and Jewish Israelis.

“We call for repealing the nation-state law that declared me, my family and one-fifth of the population to be second-class citizens.”

There is no “we” in that statement. A July 2018 poll taken of Israeli Arabs shortly after passing Israel’s Nation-State bill showed an incredible 84.8 percent approval rating for recognizing Israel as the state of the Jewish people. That was even more than the 61.9 percent approval by Israeli Jews.

“The morning after the exclusionary “nation-state” law was passed, I drove my children to school and thought about raising them in a country that has repeatedly rejected Arab Palestinian children. Israeli governments have made this rejection clear time and again, from the years of military rule imposed on Arabs in Israel from the founding of the state until 1966.”

When Israel was founded in 1948, it gave every person living in the land Israeli citizenship. Over 160,000 Arabs became citizens on that day, quite the opposite reaction of Odeh’s “brothers and sisters” who went to war with Israel, evicted every Jew from the land they seized, and forbade any Jew from becoming citizens. To say that Arabs in Israel lived under military rule, is not simply fake history, it suggests that Odeh views the nation in which he serves as a member of parliament as completely illegitimate from its founding.

“The Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel…”

Israel permits dual-nationality for its citizens with many countries, but Israel does not recognize any country called “Palestine,” so why does Odeh call himself by such title time and again? He is an Israeli Arab, given citizenship and rights to vote, work and participate in government like millions of others. The government in which he serves clearly rejects such nomenclature.

“Our decision to recommend Mr. Gantz as the next prime minister without joining his expected national unity coalition government is a clear message that the only future for this country is a shared future,”

Odeh is seemingly very confused. He claims to desire a shared future but refuses to join in such shared future. It is a similar call to the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) who call on Israel to do everything, but do not act constructively to bring about a shared future.

“We will continue our work toward a better, equal future, and our struggle for civil rights, rooted in our national identity as Palestinians. There is room enough for all of us in our shared homeland,”

If Odeh would like to define his “national identity as Palestinian” then he can move to such a country when and if it is created. If he truly believes that there is “room enough for all,” then he should stop protesting when Jews move to Judea and Samaria, in lands east of the invisible Green Line. The two state solution he endorses is really a 1.5 state solution: a Palestinian Arab state devoid of Jews and non-Jewish egalitarian state for both Arabs and Jews.

Odeh’s endorsement of boycotting Israel, even going so far as refusing to attend a meeting located on the same floor as the Jewish Agency, are well known. Lesser known are his comments for violence against Israel “I can’t sit in my house in Carmel and tell the Palestinian people how to fight. I think that my people will choose how to fight, will choose its path.”

Ayman Odeh’s statements are at direct odds with the entire notion of two states for two people as called for at the United Nations for one hundred years, and against the stated desire of Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews. His goal is to destroy the Jewish State from within, not to advance peace inside and outside of Israel.

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On Accepting and Rejecting Donations

The head of the MIT Media Lab, Joichi Ito, was forced to resign when people learned that he accepted donations from Jeffrey Epstein after he had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. Ito also resigned from several other boards in short order.

While institutions need donors’ money to exist and operate, they are becoming reluctant to be associated with certain types of individuals – in this case, taking money from someone who committed crimes against minors.

This is part of a growing trend of considering the source of donations, particularly among not-for-profit institutions.

Consider The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which stated it will no longer accept donations from the Sackler family. While the Sacklers were not convicted of a crime, the Met felt that the owners of Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyCotin, were responsible for “the ensuing public health crisis surrounding the abuse of these medications.” While the proper use of the drug helped many, the abuse of the drug became an epidemic causing the Met to conclude that the association with the Sacklers was toxic to the image and values that it wanted to portray. The simplified math was the Sacklers equaled Purdue equaled OxyCotin equaled opioid overdoses and death which should never equal the Met. Goodbye Sackler dough.

In June 2019, the University of Alabama decided to return the largest donation in its history after the donor called for a boycott of the State of Alabama and the university for passing a very restrictive abortion law. The university said that it did so because of the donor’s “ongoing attempts to interfere in the operations of the Law School.”

The cases above highlight institutions returning donations because the donor either tarnished the institution’s brand image or actually sought to harm operations.

Some politicians have similarly returned donations from people who are associated with “sinful” activities like e-cigarettes. Sometimes the action is spurred by activists demanding that an institution return donations from companies who profit from actions deemed harmful, like immigrant detention facilities or, on the opposite side of the coin, demand a donor recall a personal donation or risk a massive boycott of their businesses.

In short, cash donations are no longer considered neutral currency of exchange but a binding seal between giver and recipient.

So what is one to make of noted Israel-basher Linda Sarsour raising money for Jewish causes, like repairing vandalized Jewish cemeteries? Are her vile comments about Israel and activists like Ayaa Hirsi Ali as well as association with anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan reasons to reject her funds? Many Jewish groups want her to be banned from speaking at forums or even entering Canada, while others are content to take her funds and ignore her more evil inclinations.

Universities are typically the most likely to turn the cheek while they open their pockets.

The New York University and many other colleges take in millions of dollars from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a country that openly executes minors as well as people who convert from Islam (apostasy), a fundamental human right. Yet no one batted an eyelash, until the Saudi government was accused of murdering a journalist. Suddenly, it became common knowledge that several U.S. universities had taken over $600 million from the Saudi government and Saudi companies. Those universities, not coincidentally, had become hotbeds for anti-Israel activity, including Columbia University, Tufts University, and the University of Southern California with each school receiving at least $1 million and George Washington University receiving $12 million in 2017. MIT received $78 million from the Saudis between 2011 and 2017.

Saudi Arabia’s funding of American universities paled compared to Qatar, which gave over $1 billion between 2011 and 2017. Qatar openly funds Hamas, a U.S. State Department designated foreign terrorist organization, and an openly anti-Semitic organization. No matter. Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, and Northwestern established satellite campuses in the small country.

Curiously, there is virtually no public outcry about universities taking hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Without a protest, it is highly unlikely that these institutions of “higher learning” will do anything.

Consider the situation when Islamic antisemitism went into global overdrive in mid- 2000 just before the start of the Second Intifada, pushing money and narratives of Jews and Israel as enemies of the entire world, most notably manifest in the 2001 Durban Conference about Racism. In July 2000, the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, donated $2.5 million to the Harvard Divinity School to endow the Sheik Zayed Al Nahyan Professorship in Islamic Religious Studies. Within a short period of time, the Zayed Center became a noxious fountain of anti-Semitic screed complete with Holocaust denials and blood libels. It took the non-profit group The David Project and a student at the Harvard Divinity School, Rachel Fish, to loudly protest the donation and Center itself. Harvard did nothing for years, but ultimately returned the gift in July 2004, but not before hosting speakers like former president Jimmy Carter and former Vice President Al Gore.

Jeffrey Epstein and Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan: too hot to handle

For the most part, Qatar and Saudi Arabia’s funding of terrorism and anti-Semitism has not irked the American public. Organizations only started to return funds to Saudi Arabia – like the Endeavor talent agency – after the murder of the journalist in October 2018. It would appear that the well-being of journalists ranks much higher than of children or Jews.

The dirty money does not only go towards research or new Islamic study departments at American universities. Oftentimes the money is for paying for scholarships to send tens of thousands of Muslim students into American campuses.

In the 2017/18 school year, Saudi Arabia had over 44,000 students studying in American universities – the fourth largest total in the world and as much as every country in South America COMBINED (a population 13 times as large). That total was actually down from the 2016/17 school year when there were over 52,000 Saudi students, and lower then the incredible 61,287 in 2015/16 – an astounding one Saudi student in the United States for every 537 people from that country. To give that figure context, that’s the equivalent of 610,000 American students studying in a single country, while the actual number of US students studying abroad, all over the world, was 330,000.

The enormous number of students coming from Saudi Arabia was the part of the Obama Administration’s outreach to the Muslim Middle East. The United States permitted greater numbers of students from Muslim countries than anywhere else in the world. That policy reversed course under the Trump Administration, as seen in the table below showing the annual change in the number of foreign students in the U.S.

Year	Middle East	Europe	Asia	Latin America
2012/13	25.6%	0.5%	7.3%	3.8%
2013/14	21.4%	1.2%	8.1%	8.2%
2014/15	11.9%	4.3%	10.3%	19.4%
2015/16	4.5%	1.4%	9.9%	-1.7%
2016/17	-8.4%	1.0%	6.5%	-6.2%
2017/18	-9.0%	-0.2%	3.2%	0.3%

NYU, Harvard, Columbia, MIT and many other universities have been taking hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of students from corrupt Islamic regimes who finance terror and spur antisemitism. As many American institutions have begun to return tainted money from the likes of the Sacklers and Jeffrey Epstein, it is similarly time to send the money and students back to their point of origin.

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Anti-Semitism Is Harder to Recognize Than Racism

America’s “call-out” culture has seemingly had a very easy time identifying racism, but a much more difficult time seeing anti-Semitism.

Consider a new potential cast member for Saturday Night Light, Shane Gillis, who was found to have made off-color comments in the past. He was terminated this week before his first day on the job and the media was clear that his racist jokes were the cause:

• “SNL fires new hire Shane Gillis after recent homophobic and racist slurs surface” read the headlines from Vox
• “Saturday Night Live Drops Shane Gillis After Backlash to Racist Remarks” was the headline for Slate
• “Comedian Shane Gillis will not be joining “Saturday Night Live” over racist and homophobic videos” was the feature of CBS News
• NPR ran with “Comedian Shane Gillis Fired From ‘Saturday Night Live’ For Racist Remarks“
• USAToday went with “‘SNL’ fires Shane Gillis over racist comments, four days after hiring him“
• The New York Times lead with “Shane Gillis, New ‘S.N.L.’ Cast Member, Used Racial Slur in Podcast“

The list goes on.

Every headline made it clear that Gillis made racist remarks. They were not “perceived as racist,” “allegedly racist” or people “claimed they were racist” or “objected to the comments.” For the racist jokes – meant for amusement, not malice – the media was definite in calling it out without condition.

But the same cannot be said of antisemitism.

The founders of the Women’s March repeatedly smeared Zionism and said that Jews who back the Jewish State are sinister. The female founders stated that they were proud of their association with the vocal anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farrakhan. No matter. In commenting about three of the four founders stepping down from their post this week because of their comments and associations, the media made their comments very conditional:

• The New York Post headline was “Women’s March cuts ties with Linda Sarsour, other leaders after anti-Semitism claims“
• Salon led with “Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour out at Women’s March following allegations of anti-Semitism“
• NBC News ran with “Three founding Women’s March leaders leaving board after anti-Semitism accusations“
• The Washington Post article was titled “Women’s March replaces three original leaders, after anti-Semitism accusations, with 16 board members“

Carmen Perez, Bob Bland, Tamika D. Mallory, and Linda Sarsour attend the TIME 100 Gala on April 25, 2017, in New York. CHARLES SYKES / INVISION / AP)

For the media, the antisemitism was not so clear. The women were simply accused of antisemitism, but did not necessarily say anything antisemitic. Even while the intent of the women was to vilify, demonize and dehumanize, the media opted to bracket and condition the antisemitism, while doing nothing similar for Gillis’s racist jokes which were meant to entertain.

Even the most clearly vile and noxious antisemitism spewed from the mouth of the leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, got a pass from the press.

• The Associated Press headline was “Farrakhan delivers insult while denying he’s anti-Semitic.” Why would the AP write that he delivered an “insult” and then leave readers of the headline with the orientation that he is not insanely racist and antisemitic?
• The Guardian headline was a bit more clear, but still gave the denial of antisemitism a lead, in the headline “Louis Farrakhan denies antisemitism – then refers to ‘Satanic Jews’“
• The Hill wrote “Farrakhan refers to ‘satanic Jews’ while denying anti-Semitism allegations“

Shane Gillis also denied that he’s a racist and was just trying to be funny, but his protest did not make it into the headlines.

When the anti-male and anti-White comments by New York Times Asian female columnist Sarah Jeong came to light including “White men are bullshit,” “#CancelWhitePeople,” “white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants” and “Oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men,” the Times pardoned her comments and let her remain on staff.

So we are left to question the disparity.

Is the source of the comment the differentiator? Are the racist comments from white men perceived as worse than those coming from women or minorities?

Consider a leading white male politician in the United Kingdom who has made antisemitic and anti-Israel comments as matter of ritual. The antisemitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn has become so intense, that many Jews have left the party and the parliament itself. Still, the press conditioned the accusations against the Corbyn and the party:

• The BBC had an article titled “A guide to Labour Party anti-Semitism claims.” That same qualifying word – “claims” – offering it as a point of view rather than a point in fact.
• Reuters got a step closer to truth with “More than 60 British lords criticize Labour’s Corbyn over anti-Semitism,” but still left it as a charge, rather than fact.
• The Financial Times wrote “Labour insiders allege Corbyn team interfered in anti-Semitism inquiries“
• Politico went with full denial “Jeremy Corbyn: It’s ‘offensive’ to call me anti-Semitic“
• Time wrote “U.K. Labour Party Members Take Out Newspaper Advert Accusing Leader of ‘Allowing Antisemitism to Grow’“

This liberal white male was given the soft-touch by the media.

He was not alone.

When acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas said that Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust because of their behavior, and that Europeans have hated Jews for centuries because of their “function,” the press was tepid in labeling his outrageous statements as anti-Semitic.

• BBC wrote “Holocaust row: Abbas accused of anti-Semitism“
• The Washington Post article laid out simple facts “Palestinian president says Jewish behavior caused the Holocaust, sparking condemnation,” without calling the statement antisemitic.
• CNN headlined that “Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas accused of anti-Semitic speech“
• The Guardian covered the story as “Netanyahu accuses Palestinian president of antisemitism“
• While The New York Times ran with “Palestinian Leader Incites Uproar with Speech Condemned as Anti-Semitic.” Condemned by who? By Zionists? Why not just state clearly that IT WAS anti-Semitic?

The media is uniquely adept at clearly identifying and calling out racist speech while it contorts itself around antisemitism, noting that some people (you know who those pesky critters are, the media keeps telling you they’re racists) might possibly consider certain comments as problematic and allege antisemitism. Such manipulations makes room for the hatred and gives it air.

That action itself is antisemitic as well.

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Empowering Women… To Murder

There are many differences between the sexes. Beyond the biological, there are statistically significant differences between the jobs men and women take and associated pay. It is even more true about delivering death, whether in murder, suicide rates or enlisting in the armed forces.

Armed Services

The enlistment in armed forces in many cases is a function of the traditional roles of women being maintained in countries around the world. Years ago, when weapons of war were not as sophisticated as today, physical strength was imperative. However, today there is no particular advantage to raw power when flying a fighter jet. Technology has leveled the field between men and women.

In the United States Armed Forces, women constitute roughly 16 percent of the fighting force and 18% of the officers. The highest percentages are in the Air Force and Navy where they account for nearly 25% of the officers, while making up only 10% in the Marines.

In Israel, women make up roughly 20% of the standing army. While Israel remains the only country where national service is compulsory for women, they are allowed to take a variety of roles to strengthen society not involved in combat. The Israeli national service called Sherut Leumi remains very popular among women, while men not who don’t enter combat units more typically go into intelligence or logistical roles in the army.

Suicide

In the U.S., suicide rates among men are 3 to 6 times the rate of women for every age group. In 2017, there were more than twice the number of suicides (47,173) than homicides (19,510) and it is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 34 years old.

Women are actually more likely to attempt suicide but choose less violent and effective methods than men who often use guns. Approximately one-third of U.S. men own guns while only 12% of women do and its higher ownership rate among men may account for some of the disparity in suicide rates between the sexes. Overall, firearms account for half of all suicides.

Murder

Unlike the armed services or suicide, murder is the deliberate taking of another civilian life. It is viewed as the most heinous crimes around the world.

In the U.S., women commit roughly 15% of the murders even though they account for half of the population. Women killed an intimate partner or family member in approximately 60% of cases, while men killed non-family members in 80% of their murders. As victims, women were more than twice as likely to be killed by a spouse or intimate acquaintance than a stranger.

The statistics are clear: men are more violent and commit many more murders than women, especially of strangers.

Empowering Women… To Murder

The subject of “women empowerment” is often used around the world. In some countries like Saudi Arabia, women lack basic rights like leaving the house without a male consent or driving a car. In other countries women can’t vote or work in certain professions. The more liberal countries would like to see such policies change and women achieve more rights and equality with men.

But not in murder. Most civil societies do not want to see their young girls grow up to murder innocent civilians the way that men do.

Most places are not the Palestinian Authority (PA) territories.

The Palestinian Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) is based in Ramallah, down the road from the headquarters of the PA. It’s stated mission and goals are to empower women, to develop their skills and competencies and erase stereotypes about women’s roles in society. On its surface, these seem noble goals, until one applies the competencies to the murder of children.

On May 15, 2017, the WATC helped open a new women’s center in the Samarian town of Burqa, near Nablus. They opted to name the center the Dalal al-Mugrahbi Women’s Center, named for a terrorist who killed 37 Israeli civilians, including 12 children in the infamous Coastal Road Massacre in 1978.

Palestinians inaugurate a square to commemorate Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist who killed dozens of Israeli civilians in a 1978 bus hijacking in Israel, seen in portrait, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on March 13, 2011.
(AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

It was reported that at the center’s inauguration ceremony, Rim Haja, a member of the Burqa village council, said the center would focus on the history of the struggle of the shaheed (martyr) Dalal al-Mughrabi and on presenting her “heritage” to youth groups. She added that naming the center for Dalal al-Mughrabi led the way for other “enrichment activities” dealing with the history of the Palestinian “struggle.”

When news of naming the square after a terrorist got out, various sponsors began to withdraw their support, including the government of Norway and the United Nations which said it “disassociated itself from the Center once it learned the offensive name chosen for it and will take measures to ensure that such incidents do not take place in the future.”

The head of the official PA-owned news outlet Wafa, Sami Daghlas said that “the center has no intention of caving in to the pressure and changing its name,” and will continue on its mission “to serve and empower young women in the village and to help them develop them to become active members in society.” The question is of course, “active” in what way?

Over the following months, additional agencies and governments withdrew their funding support. When the European Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, a joint donor program sponsored by Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, pulled support from the WATC for its support in the center, Samia Bamya, the chairperson of WATC issued a statement:

“Despite the damage resulting from the cessation of funding, we will never make concessions as far as our principles and national and community role are concerned for the sake of receiving conditional funding.”

Amira Haroun, the undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Women’s Affairs added her own thoughts to the defunding of the WATC stating:

“All of the women institutions working in the Palestinian territories are acting in accordance with Palestinian national strategies that support the Palestinian cause and preserve the history of our struggling people. Therefore, any foreign funding that does not go in tandem with these objectives is refused… Claims whereby reviving the names of our fighters by naming Palestinian centers, squares and streets after them fall under the category of incitement to violence. They are false claims and a distortion of the truth. Israel is the one inciting countries against us and killing our people continuously.”

It is part of an ongoing travesty in which Palestinians name schools and camps after the killers of children and teach the youth to emulate the murderers. Using terrorists as role models is a crime against humanity.

While much of the world seeks to empower young women to achieve equality in education, career opportunities and freedom, the Palestinians seek to empower their young women to become murderers of Israeli children.

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The New York Times All Out Assault on Jewish Jerusalem

The week before Israeli elections always brings out the bile in the anti-Zionist New York Times. This election, scheduled for September 17, was no exception.

The front page screed (not worthy of being called news) on September 14, 2019 called “A Challenge to the Essence of Old Jerusalem, Coming by Cable Car,” was written by Michael Kimmelman, an architecture critic, leading a reader to imagine a piece covering the “essence” of Jerusalem’s architecture and the proposed modern cable car. While the article did touch on those points, the observations were drowned out by the paper’s anti-Jewish narrative of Judaism’s holiest city.

Front page and page A8 of the September 14, 2019 New York Times

The opening paragraph directs the reader that Jerusalem is a city of Muslims and Christians and… well, there aren’t any Jews.

“At a glance, Jerusalem’s Old City and its surroundings still look pretty much as they must have looked centuries ago. The Old City’s yellow walls still read in silhouette against an ancient landscape of parched hills and valleys. The skyline is still dominated by the city’s great Muslim and Christian shrines: the gold, glistening Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus was said to have been buried.”

Has Kimmelman even visited the city? The “parched hills and valleys” are dotted with modern apartment buildings and hotels. The Old City skyline includes the newly rebuilt Hurva Synagogue (2010), reconstructed now for the third time, first built in 1694.

Jerusalem’s Old City with a mix of Muslim, Christian and Jewish sites
(photo: First.One.Through)

The article’s second paragraph showed ignorance in addition to blindness.

“But this is about to change. Israeli authorities have approved a plan to build an elevated cable car to the Western Wall, the holiest site in the Jewish world, by 2021.”

The Western Wall, the Kotel, is not the holiest site in Judaism; that is the Temple Mount. The Kotel is only a retaining wall of the Temple Mount where Jews have been relegated to use since Suleiman I kicked the Jews off of the Temple Mount in the 16th century.

With bona fides of ignorance established, the author leaned into his bias, pointing a finger at “right-wing Israeli leaders” as the promoters of a plan which “has provoked howls of protest from horrified Israeli preservationists, environmentalists, planners, architects and others who picture a global heritage site turned into a Jewish-themed Epcot.”

This is the “essence” of the article.

Israelis enjoy a full-throated democracy and opine on everything. Such a new visible transportation system would obviously prompt outcries, mostly on the basis of aesthetics, which is presumably why it was an architecture critic penning the article. But The Times’ anti-Israel politics quickly overwhelmed the story.

The article stated that the cable car proposal is being advanced by “right wing” leaders and opposed by many Israelis. The “global heritage site” – which readers were just educated has no Jewish ties – will be transformed by the radicals into a Jewish Disneyland (ie. fake and cheesy to bring in tourist dollars). Even fellow Jews were nauseated. The Arabs must be apoplectic.

Queue the Times’ right-wing racist Prime Minister Netanyahu theme music.

Moving quickly from the architecture of the site, Kimmelman went full-politics describing Netanyahu’s announcement of annexing “nearly a third of the occupied West Bank.” This diversion from transportation and architecture into politics went to the heart of the author’s view: the cable car is a Jewish takeover of Arab sites and heritage. Tying those themes together Kimmelman continued:

“The cable car project is an example, illustrating how Israel wields architecture and urban planning to extend its authority in the occupied territories. Whatever its transit merits, which critics say are negligible, the cable car curates a specifically Jewish narrative of Jerusalem, furthering Israeli claims over Arab parts of the city.“

For the Times, the environmentally-friendly approach of helping bring the over 2.4 million tourists visit the Kotel in the cramped ancient city had little to do with tourism or transportation, but served as yet another example of Israel’s right-wing government turning Arab lands into Jewish assets. The article never mentioned that Jews have been a majority in Jerusalem for 150 years, that two Jewish Temples stood at the center of the Temple Mount, nor that Jerusalem is the focus of prayer for Jews around the world.

Instead, the article continued on a theme that Jewish fanatics were forcing Arabs from their homes and entrenching an illegal occupation.

“From Mount Zion, the cars will land near the Western Wall, on the rooftop of what is to be multistory center for a right-wing Jewish settler organization called the City of David Foundation, in the midst of a Palestinian district of East Jerusalem called Silwan. The City of David oversees archaeological excavations centered on uncovering biblical Jewish remains in an effort to cement an ancient Jewish connection to a contested site. Israel considers East Jerusalem annexed, but international law considers it occupied territory.”

A paragraph so rich in alternative facts and fake history, it deserves to be unpacked:

• The City of David Foundation is not a “right-wing settler organization” but a foundation which promotes archaeological discovery and tourism, something that people of all religions and political persuasions enjoy.
• The City of David does not “oversee” excavations; they help fund the work which is performed by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
• The area of Silwan was originally founded by Jews from Yemen in early 1880’s. It is not a “district of East Jerusalem.” East Jerusalem was a blip in history that lasted for only 19 of Jerusalem’s 4,000 years, which ceased to exist over 50 years ago. Further, it is not “Palestinian,” but a predominantly Arab neighborhood which also includes Jews.
• The notion that the only reason that Israel is doing excavations is to “cement an ancient Jewish connection to a contested site” is vile and disgusting. Israel has archaeological excavations all over the country – do Jews need to validate their history everywhere in the holy land? Uncovering the unified Jewish capital city of King David and King Solomon from 3,000 years ago is an exciting discovery for the entire world and each discovery is a celebration for anyone who has read the bible. But not for Kimmelman, who added “Archaeology works hand in glove here with settler efforts to press Jewish claims to the land.“

Remarkably, the article descended into further conspiracy theories from there.

Kimmelman wrote that Israelis treat Arabs as invisible and are forcibly evicting them from their homes to make way for this attraction. The goal is to give tourists a “Jewish version of the city’s history” from a time when “there were no Christians or Muslims.”

The author leaves the reader with the feeling that it is also the current intent of the right-wing settler government of Israel to see a city devoid of Muslims and Christians, as “the cladding of East Jerusalem’s settlements in Jerusalem stone, the architectural uniform traditionally worn by buildings in Jewish West Jerusalem, helps spread the image of a single Jewish city.”

For the New York Times, the “essence” of the Old City of Jerusalem is its Arab character navigated via narrow walkways, now being violated by right-wing Jewish invaders changing and scarring its demographics, character and approach. Especially at election time, the Times wants to warn everyone that the “essence” of this Israeli government is racist colonial Jewish supremacists.

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Will Bernie Sanders Push Birth Control in Gaza?

The CNN Town Hall discussions on climate change had a little something for everyone. When it came to the poorest places in the world, Bernie Sanders was thinking birth control.

In response to a question about human population causing climate change, Sanders pushed beyond the questioner’s point of education, to introducing the notion that abortion is a solution which the United States should aid, particularly among the poorest countries, saying:

“the Mexico City agreement, which denies American aid to those organizations around the world that allow women to have abortions or even get involved in birth control to me is totally absurd. So I think especially in poor countries around the world where women do not necessarily want to have large numbers of babies and where they can have the opportunity through birth control to control the number of kids they have, is something I very, very strongly support.”

There is one place in the world which is not only poor and crowded with high birth rates but has thousands of United Nations feet on the ground already managing the health of the population: Gaza.

Poverty: According to a Palestinian Authority report, the 2016 GDP per capita in Gaza was $1,822. That would place the region as number 147 of 194 countries. The unemployment rate for people over 15 years old was 43.9 percent, around the same rate as the failed states of Venezuela and Yemen, the highest in the world.

Crowded: There were 1.9 million people in Gaza in 2017 in an area of 365 square kilometers, or 5,205 people per sqkm. That would rank the strip as number 6 behind the wealthy enclaves of Macau, Monaco, Singapore, Hong Kong and Gibraltar.

High birth rates. In Gaza, approximately 41.7 percent of the population is under 15 years old and the average household has 5.6 people. The high percentage of young people is a phenomenon found in poor African countries (Gaza rank #24) while the large average family size is found in the Middle East, North and western Africa. The fertility rates of the women in these countries are the highest in the world, in sharp contrast to the lowest fertility rates found in the small, densely-populated wealthy countries of Singapore and Hong Kong mentioned above.

Gaza has the poverty and birth rates of large African countries in a compact area that is typical of wealthy capitalistic enclaves. But Gaza has the advantage relative to the African countries of having a large United Nations presence – 13,189 in UNRWA staff as of January 2019 – to service them.

UNRWA provides free health services to the Gaza population which identify as refugees, and services close to 100 percent of all pre-natal and post-natal visits. Yet the use of contraception in the West Bank and Gaza stood at only 56.5 percent according to the UN, even though UNRWA has complete access to the population and provides free services. Additionally, as abortions are banned by the Palestinian Authority, women would have to seek regular means of seeking birth control as provided by UNRWA, or travel to Israeli hospitals for the procedure.

Which all brings us back to Bernie Sanders’ comment about allowing US funds to flow into poor countries to facilitate abortions and actively promote birth control.

Sanders is known as a foreign policy lightweight, never delving much into the issue during his decades in Washington, D.C. Now, for his presidential-run education, he has surrounded himself with pro-Palestinian voices like James Zogby and Linda Sarsour who have made Gaza a central theme in his short script.

So, will Bernie spend US dollars on getting the Palestinian Authority to legalize abortion and actively push birth control in one of the poorest and compact regions? Does his allegiance lie with with his climate change clientele or with his Arab activists?

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Bilhah and Zilpah Get Their Due

A satire.

Rabbi Jonina Jett finished the last refrain of her song and put the guitar down alongside the holy ark which held the temple’s two torahs. She fixed her pink and white tallit which had slipped down her black leather jacket and moved towards the microphone to address the one hundred or so worshipers.

Her congregation at Sisters of Tikkun Olam in California were used to passionate sermons from their outspoken life minister, but she was clearly more agitated that Saturday morning.

“My dear sisters,” Rabbi Jett began, “today is World Population Day, the day when we all must speak loudly about the real threat of the human population growing wildly out of control. It is a growing risk which has exacerbated climate change and threatens our planet and our very existence.”

She paused to survey her lesbian Jewish parishioners. A few began to nod in agreement, so she leaned in a bit more.

“Bernie Sanders told the world the truth: that we need to think about radical population control to save our world. It is the very essence of tikkun olam, repairing the damage that we have caused.” The very mention of Sanders brought the whole congregation together and everybody nodded in agreement. A few womyn even clapped.

“We are not living in the totalitarian world of “The Handmaid’s Tale” where almost everybody is infertile! It’s the very opposite, where only a few of us holy sisters are taking action with our bodies and choosing to NOT have children while much of the world falls under the weight and might of the patriarchy!” Pay dirt. The call of “patriarchy” brought the crowd to its feet.

Her point made, Rabbi Jett pivoted the speech.

“Yes, yes! We have taken responsibility for our lives and our planet! Each of us has acted in noble ways in our homes. But today I want to talk to you about something we should do as a community, right here in our sanctuary, in our liturgy. I want all of you to open your prayer books to the Amidah, the silent prayer.”

The audience became a congregation again and took their seats, flipping open the prayer books until the found they right page.

“Decades ago, feminist and progressive rabbis altered the opening lines of this central prayer to add the names of the matriarchs of Judaism: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel. They broke with the mold of a male-dominated history and connection to God. But they did not do enough.” Becoming emotional, she cleared her throat and took a sip of water before continuing.

“Like all of you, I have watched “The Handmaid’s Tale” several times. I have been shaken to my core at a world that actually does NOT seem so different from our own. A world where women’s bodies are treated as possessions, in which society decides the fate of our beings and our offspring. We must all internalize that this dystopian world is not just a creation of fiction, but has basis in fact. In our own religion.

“Our own matriarchs and patriarchs used women as breeding machines. Four of the twelve tribes were brought into this world by the handmaidens of Rachel and Leah. One-third of the Jewish people.” She paused to let the point sink in. “And we have erased these mothers. Their bodies are not buried in Hebron. We do not speak their names.

“But they have names, and it is time to recognize the dark side of our history.

“There is a pen in front of each of you and I want you to take it and write the names of ‘Bilhah and Zilpah‘ right after our treasured matriarchs. These women are part of our story too. We owe it to them, to the modern day sexual slaves around the world, and to ourselves to remember them each and every day.”

As the congregation dutifully inscribed their prayer books, Rabbi Jett removed her jacket and showed everyone the new tattoos of “Bilhah” and “Zilpah” inked in Hebrew letters on her left forearm. “Let us never forget our fellow women, or we will be doomed to follow their fate.”

While her face was cold and determined, Rabbi Jett smiled to herself as she watched her flock follow her lead mouthing the names of “Bilhah’ and ‘Zilpah’.

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“Occupation”-Washing Honor Killings

“Occupation”-washing, the defense of any of the vile attitudes and actions of Palestinian Arabs by portraying them as victims of Jews living and controlling their holy land, took another turn this week as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives claimed that Arab men kill women in their families because of Jews.

Israa Ghrayeb, a 21-year-old Bethlehem resident, was reportedly tortured and beaten to death by her male relatives after posting an Instagram video showing her with her fiancé. The post incensed her family members, who regarded Israa’s being seen with a man before marriage as dishonorable.

Noted anti-Zionist and Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) tweeted in response that the heinous murder stemmed from “ever-present toxic masculinity” and linked to an article which opened that “Honor killings are not Muslim and they are not Arab. This is a universal phenomenon which takes places in nearly all corners of the globe, from the United States to Europe.”  The comment was clearly designed to reorient the analysis to one about men generally, rather than men from the Muslim world.

According to the United Nations, roughly 5,000 women each year are killed in “honor killings,” the act of killing a female family member because they did something that was perceived to bring dishonor to the family. Roughly 40% of these killings occur in India and Pakistan. The vast majority of all of the world’s honor killings come from around southeast Asia – not “the United States and Europe” mentioned above – in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and the Palestinian territories, as well as people who come from those regions but now live in other countries, including the United Kingdom.

It cannot be a coincidence that the men from these same southeast Asian countries pour acid on women’s faces and cut off their noses and ears if they “dishonor” or embarrass men. Men from Pakistan now living in England raped 1,400 girls over 13 years, in a systematic attack on women which was not prosecuted by police because of direction that this was a matter of culture.

There’s a similar matter of female genital mutilation, which is practiced in 29 countries in Africa as well as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and the Palestinian Authority territories.

The “ever-present toxic masculinity” which Tlaib called out is over-weighted in Muslim-majority lands (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and the Palestinian Authority-ruled territories) as well as southeast Asian neighbor India (majority Hindu and 15% Muslim). But the redirection towards “the United States and Europe” was more soul-soothing to fellow Muslims than pointing the finger at the male preachers of radical Islam like those from the Taliban and Hamas.

The article’s deflection was followed by a defense, using the time-dishonored poisoned Kool-Aid of “occupation”-washing. For Tlaib, the grotesque crimes committed by Palestinian men is because they too are victims: a poor, subjugated group who have suffered under 500 years of foreign occupation dating back to the early 1500’s when the Ottomans took over Palestine:

“Now, here’s why Isra’s murderers stand to walk away from this untouched by the law. In Palestine, our legal system is the result of a century of occupation and political turmoil. It is a combination of Ottoman, British, Egyptian (in Gaza), Jordanian (in the West bank), and even no system (Area C). Despite various and continued efforts over the last decade, there has been very little reform to this outdated and dysfunctional legal system for two reasons: Israeli military occupation and a corrupt Palestinian Authority both hinder any legal, economic, and social progress…. Right now there are Arabic articles (this story has rightfully taken the Arab world by storm) and doubtless some Hebrew articles being published by some Zionist news outlets to try and pink-wash occupation (again lol).”

Palestinian toxic masculinity and violence against women is excused. These Palestinian men would be peaceful and wonderful husbands and fathers, if it weren’t for colonial invaders. Why isn’t the problem as bad in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq which were also under the mandate system? Please don’t ask. The Taliban probably only cuts the ears and noses off of women because of the Russian and US invasions of their lands according to the twisted logic.

Perhaps one could defend Tlaib by noting that the United Nations engages in “occupation”-washing all of the time, even on the issue of violence against women.

In March 2018, the U.N. held a session titled “Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls,” but only issued a paper for women in one part of the world: Palestinian women who suffer from Israeli “occupation.” The paper noted that:

Palestinian Arabs place a “high value placed on “honour”, with 47 percent of men and 38 percent of women believing that women and girls deserve punishment from their families when “honour” is perceived to have been breached. Thirty-five percent of men and 22 percent of women also indicated that “honour” killings should not be punished by law. In addition, one third of men and one quarter of women surveyed believed that some violence against women can be justified, and the majority of men and women believed that women should tolerate such violence.”

However, the 17-page report made clear that the over-riding issue for the suffering of Arab women was not their internal cultural background, but external factors, especially their new Jewish neighbors.

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“Occupation”-washing has often been used to defend Palestinians from the charge of widespread antisemitism and the murder of Jews. It has now become mainstream to use it to excuse Muslim-Muslim family violence.

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Jizyah for Jews in Jerusalem

The predominantly Christian town of Jifna in Palestinian Authority-controlled Area A of the West Bank was an opening scene from a horror movie in late April 2019. Members of Fatah, the major political party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, stormed into the town firing guns into the air and demanded that the Christian Arabs be forced to pay jizyah, an annual fee which non-Muslims pay to be allowed to live in Muslim-majority lands.

Town of Jifna

The incident is a continuation of the assault on the Christian population in Palestinian Authority-controlled towns and cities since Israel handed some lands to the PA.

Unfortunately, many well known Christian cities in the holy land are no longer Christian.

Nazareth, a city which was once majority-Christian, is now 70% Muslim. The Islamic influence changed things large and small, such as at Mary’s Well, the site where the angel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary according to Catholic tradition. Until the year 2000, there was a large sign describing the name and Catholic views of the site. The Muslims removed the sign and renamed the location ‘Nazareth Stream’ to remove any Christian orientation.

A similar story played out in Bethlehem, where the Christian population has dropped from around 86 percent in 1950 to just 2 percent today. In Gaza, a rapid Christian exodus is happening post the Hamas takeover, with a decline from 5,000 Christians in 2006 to only 1,100 today.

Meanwhile, in Israel, the Christian population has remained relatively constant at around 2 percent of the overall population, about 165,000 people.

If the Palestinian Authority is given more Israeli territory, what will that mean for the non-Muslim populations? Will Jews and Christians be forced to evacuate their homes either be direct order or discriminatory policies?

What is the going jizyah rate, and when would it be forced upon the Jews and Christians in a PA-controlled Jerusalem?

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