Tuesday, April 26, 2016

PASSOVER GREETINGS BY PUTIN AND OBAMA COMPARED


by Tom Gross - 24th April 2016

For the full article go to: http://tinyurl.com/jhbgtt4

Jews in Israel and around the world have been celebrating Passover these past two days.

It is, of course, remarkable given the course of anti-Semitism, “the longest hatred” as it is often called, that the presidents of the U.S. and Russia both now give official public Passover greetings.

However, what is being noted by Jews in Israel and elsewhere is that Putin’s message is specifically Jewish, whereas Obama chooses to use Passover to give a more universal message. There is a perception (whether fair or not) that Putin (whatever else his flaws) has in some ways been more friendly and understanding of Jewish concerns than Obama has. As was noted in this dispatch last year, Putin has gone out of his way to make sure Russia enjoys good relations with Israel:

“Putin has determinedly kept the channels to Israel open, making a point to personally visit Israel and in June 2012, Israel was the first country he visited after his election. He frequently speaks warmly about the Jewish state, expressing pride that it contains the largest diaspora of former Russian citizens. At the Western Wall, accompanied by Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, he donned a kippah, which would undoubtedly have made his Bolshevik predecessors turn in their graves. He also seemed quite indifferent to the rage this created among his Arab allies.”

Only last Thursday (April 21), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was again in Moscow holding consultations with Putin (mainly concerning Syria, Iran and Hizbullah), Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was also in Moscow only a few weeks ago, and Israeli leaders seem to be invited to Moscow more than to Washington these days. (Putin again invited Netanyahu to visit Moscow in June to mark 25 years since the reestablishment of diplomatic relations.)

While Obama has kept his distance from Israel, (he has made only one brief visit there during his two terms in office, he has been, for example, to Saudi Arabia four times and visited countries such as Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Myanmar more than once), Israel has been forging ever closer relations with countries in Asia (including some Arab ones), Africa and elsewhere.

Just this month, leaders from China and Singapore, among others, have visited Jerusalem. (U.S. Senators and other U.S. officials continue to visit Jerusalem regularly, just not the president.) I also attach below remarks made by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on his visit to Israel last Tuesday April 19 (which also include Passover greetings). Singapore has long enjoyed close relations to Israel, especially in the fields of business, water management, biotechnology, and cyber security.

Trade between the two nations reached $1.35 billion in 2015, which was greater than trade between Israel and most European countries. (Several senior Singapore government security officials have for many years subscribed to this Middle East email list.)

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Video of the week: Israeli Innovations in Life Sciences; http://tinyurl.com/grsxg42

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

ANGLO-JEWRY CONFRONTS LABOUR ANTI-SEMITIC SURGE


By Isi Leibler 13-4-2016
For the full article go to - http://tinyurl.com/hk3eaja

Ten years ago, I was accused of hysteria when I praised Melanie Phillips’ groundbreaking book, “Londonistan,” detailing the alarming growth of anti-Semitism in the U.K. and predicting further deterioration unless the British government drastically altered its approach.

Many British Jews, especially those living in Jewish enclaves, were in denial, simply unwilling to face reality. The Anglo-Jewish establishment has frequently been referred to as “trembling Israelites.” To quote a former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a policy was based on “Why must one shout when a whisper can be heard?” Their overriding concern was to avoid rocking the boat by minimizing public protest wherever possible.

Those who assailed Melanie Phillips as an extremist 10 years ago today would concede that her analysis has been absolutely vindicated, and alas, her predictions of intensifying anti-Semitism were understated.
Who then would have dreamed that the alternate government in the U.K. – the Labour Party – would not only be riddled with anti-Semites, but would elect a leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who praises Hamas; maintains that Hamas and Hezbollah are committed to peace; calls for a boycott of Israel; accepts Islamic demonization of Israel; and associates with Holocaust denier Paul Eisen, whom he defends as “far from a dangerous man”; and endorses Raed Salah, who employed the medieval blood libel to justify Palestinian terrorism?

It should therefore not be surprising that Corbyn refuses to purge the increasingly vocal anti-Semites from his party, despite widespread media exposure and repeated pleas from distraught members.

Jews are also shocked with the extension of this hatred which has penetrated leading universities, including Oxford. The depiction by Alex Chalmers, former head of the Oxford University Labour Club, of the anti-Semitism he encountered and the support of Hamas that obliged him to resign, is chilling. Not surprisingly, many Jewish students feel intimidated. To retain their social standing, a number choose to endorse the anti-Zionist chic, others recuse themselves. Some argue that Jewish student bodies should not even engage in Israel advocacy and should restrict themselves to religious, cultural and social activities.

Although Jews living in predominately Jewish areas are less affected, there has been an exponential growth of public anti-Semitic incidents, including acts of violence. Today in Britain there is open chatter that the creation of Israel was a mistake and there are intensifying calls to end the “apartheid Jewish state.”

These events have shattered the myth that anti-Semitism in the U.K. is restricted to Muslims and fringe indigenous elements. The BBC is not controlled by Islamists but its extreme bias and double standards have molded public opinion toward the demonization of Israel. Much of the anti-Israelism that initially emanated from Trotskyite elements has now become intrinsic to the DNA of many left-wingers.

Indeed, in some respects the situation is worse than the 1930s, when at least liberal and left-wing groups defended the Jews. Admittedly, the current prime minister, David Cameron, is a friend of Israel and the Jewish people, but opinion polls indicate that half the population considers Israel a rogue state. In a democracy, such trends ultimately impact on policy.
The current communal leadership is responding courageously, in contrast to its predecessors. Last year, the Board of Deputies elected as its 47th president, Jonathan Arkush, a traditional Jew and a passionate Zionist, who dismissed the “court-Jew” policy of relying almost exclusively on “silent diplomacy”.

He was, from the outset, respectfully outspoken in his condemnation of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to confront anti-Jewish bigotry in his party. Indeed, Arkush could well serve as a role model for many American Jewish leaders who in the past made a point of ridiculing British leaders for their timidity, but have been singularly silent in relation to President Barack Obama’s outbursts against Israel.
Last week, Corbyn defended his brother Piers who dismissed allegations of anti-Semitism as “absurd,” claiming that “Zionists can’t cope with anyone supporting rights for Palestine”. Corbyn’s defense of   Piers’ remarks is all the more problematic considering they were uttered directly in aftermath of the exposure of a number of incendiary anti-Semitic outbursts by Labour politicians.
For example:
•     Labour’s shadow Chancellor John McDonnell’s website was exposed as having ”paid tribute to suicide bombers,” shared links to websites promoting boycott of Israeli goods, compared Israelis to Nazis and posted an article stating that Israel should be “dismantled.” Only after media exposure did McDonnell withdraw the offending websites.
  • Labor MP, Vicki Kirby, implied that there was a sinister reason why ISIS failed to attack “the real oppressors”, Israel, stated Adolf Hitler could be regarded as a “Zionist God” and that Jews have big noses;
  • Labour MP Gerry Downing was expelled from the party for the second time, but only after Prime Minister Cameron drew attention to his views, which included re-opening “the Jewish Question” and stating terrorism was the legitimate response of the oppressed;
  • Former Labour mayor of Bradford, Khaddim Hussain condemned Holocaust education and accused Israel of arming ISIS;
  • A Labour councillor in Luton, Aysegul Gurbuz, last week referred to Hitler “as the greatest man in history” and expressed the hope that a nuclear Iran “would wipe Israel off the map.”
Arkush described Corbyn’s insistence that his brother was “not wrong “in dismissing allegations of anti-Semitism, as “belittling” the issue and “deeply disturbing.” He stated: “We cannot imagine any other minority’s concerns would be dismissed in this way. In the last few weeks, we have witnessed a stream of clear-cut cases of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party which can’t just be fobbed off as differences over Israel. Most of the Jewish community, Labour peers, and Labour’s London mayoral candidate are crying out for their leader to take action on anti-Semitism. It would be incomprehensible for Mr. Corbyn to remain inert and refuse to take this form of racism in his party seriously.” He stated explicitly that, “Frankly, most people in the Jewish community can’t trust Labour.”

One might hope that public exposure might shame Labour leaders into taking remedial action. Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, is pessimistic. He noted: ’If your politics are anti-imperialist, nothing else matters. So Mr. Corbyn happily describes Hamas and Hezbollah representatives as ‘friends’, despite their penchant for murdering Jews … and with the party leader openly – proudly – alongside these people, anti-Semites swarm to Labour, assured of a warm welcome from their fellow anti-imperialists. This isn’t political debate – it’s racism. And it’s Labour’s racism.”

According to the Daily Mail, over the past two decades, Jewish support for Labour has plummeted from 70% to 25%. In last May’s General Election, it was reported that Jews contributed a third of the 9.7 million pounds donated (approximately $13.7 million) to Labour by private donors. This year, no major Jewish donor contributed.

If Arkush has the support of the community and if the so-called “Jewish Leadership Council,” an unelected body mainly comprising wealthy Jews, which frequently undermines the representative role of the Board of Deputies, sets aside personal egos and backs the elected Jewish community leadership, Anglo-Jewry will act with dignity and maximize its ability to reverse the tide.

At the very least, the leadership will demonstrate to the next generation how, as proud Jews, they will not be intimidated or run for cover but stand up for their rights.

Video of the week: Flashmob in Tel Aviv; http://tinyurl.com/nco4cfx

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Thursday, April 14, 2016

INCONVENIENT-GENOCIDE


By Caroline Glick 7-04-2016
For the full article go to: http://tinyurl.com/jkxe53x
The Christian communities of Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon are well on the way to joining their Jewish cousins. The Jewish communities of these states predated Islam by a millennium, and were vibrant until the 20th century. But the Arab world’s war on the Jewish state, and more generally on Jews, wiped out the Jewish populations several decades ago.

And now the Christian communities, which like the Jews, predate Islam, are being targeted for eradication.

The ongoing genocide of Middle Eastern Christians at the hands of Sunni jihadists is a moral outrage. Does it also affect Israeli national interests? What do we learn from the indifference of Western governments – led by the Obama administration – to their annihilation? True, after years of deliberately playing down the issue and denying the problem, the Obama administration is finally admitting it exists.

Embarrassed by the US House of Representatives’ unanimous adoption of a resolution last month recognizing that Middle Eastern Christians are being targeted for genocide, the State Department finally acknowledged the obvious on March 25, when Secretary of State John Kerry stated that Islamic State is conducting a “genocide of Christians, Yazidis and Shi’ites.”

Kerry’s belated move, which State Department lawyers were quick to insist has no operational significance, raises two questions.

First, what took the Obama administration so long? Persecution of Christians in Iraq began immediately after the US-led coalition brought down Saddam Hussein in 2003. With the rise of Islamic State in 2012, the process of destroying the Christian community went into high gear. And now these ancient communities are on the brink of extinction.

In Iraq, Christians comprised 8 percent of the population in 2003. Today less than 1% of Iraqis are Christians. In Syria, the Christian community has lost between half and two-thirds of its members in the past five years.

Although precise data is hard to come by, it is clear that thousands of Christians have been slaughtered. Thousands of Christian women and girls have been sold as sex slaves in ISIS slave markets, subjected to continuous, violent rape and beatings. Nuns and priests have been enslaved, crucified, mutilated, kidnapped and held for ransom, as have lay members of Christian communities. Christians have been burned alive.

For years, the administration said that the persecution doesn’t amount to genocide because according to ISIS’s propaganda, Christians are allowed to remain in their homes if they agree to live as dhimmis – that is, without any human rights, and subjected to confiscatory taxation.

And as Larry Franklin from the Gatestone Institute noted in a recent article, the exodus of Christians from the Palestinian Authority is the direct consequence of deliberate persecution of Christians by the PA.

Given the prevalence of Christian persecution, why is the West – which is overwhelmingly Christian – so reticent about mentioning it? And why are Western leaders loathe to do anything to stop it? There are two ways to end genocide. First, you can defeat those conducting it on the battlefield.

If you destroy the forces conducting the genocide, then the genocide ends.

In other words, Middle Eastern Christians, whose communities predate Islam, are targeted because they are perceived as Western implants.

And the West ignores their suffering, because the Left in the West perceives them as Western implants.

In both cases, prejudices, rooted on the one hand in jihadist Islam, and on the other hand in Western self-hatred and post-colonialism, reach the same bigoted conclusion: the only “authentic” people in the Middle East are Muslims.

Everybody else is a colonial implant. And as such, they deserve what they get.

This then brings us back to Israel, and the Jews.

The same ideological prejudice that refuses to recognize that the Islamic State is Islamic, refuses to recognize that jihad is unique to Islam, refuses to recognize that Christians as religious minorities are being targeted for annihilation, and refuses to recognize that the Christians of the Middle East are ancient peoples who have lived in their communities since the dawn of Christianity, also refuse to recognize the rights of the Jewish people as the indigenous people of the land of Israel.

This is the reason that Western governments, led by the Obama administration, are unwilling to defeat ISIS. This is why they are giving preference to Muslim asylum-seekers, who they are incapable of screening, over Christians, who it is unnecessary to screen.

This is the reason that the same governments are far more willing to attack Jews for living beyond the 1949 armistice lines, in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria – the cradle of Jewish civilization and the heartland of the land of Israel, than they are willing to end their support for the PA which sponsors and celebrates terrorism. This is why the same governments eagerly embrace every allegation of Israeli racism, real or imagined, while they ignore, or even fund racist Palestinian efforts to deny Jewish history, a history which leads to the inevitable conclusion that the Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel.


Video of the week: Powerful words from Israeli Arab, http://tinyurl.com/h5a7bqh

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Thursday, April 7, 2016

THE UNITED NATIONS SANCTIFIES EVIL



By Isi Leibler 7-4-2016

For the full article go to: http://tinyurl.com/hp52b7q

The United Nations is an evil body dominated by Islamic nations and tyrannies.

Just last week, on March 24 in Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) concluded its session by passing five resolutions condemning Israel. This followed a series of blood libels accusing the only democratic country, in a region surrounded by barbarism, of engaging in a policy of deliberate murder of Palestinian children.

Indeed the Human Rights Council has passed more resolutions condemning Israel over the past decade than all resolutions criticizing other governments combined. This, despite the fact that countries leading the charges against Israel are themselves engaged in horrific human rights violations. And despite the fact that in Syria, Israel’s neighbor, hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions are trying to flee the country as President Bashar Assad’s army and ISIS butcher entire communities.

The reality is that the United Nations, with its subsidiaries, has morphed into an evil body dominated by Islamic nations, tyrannies and rogue states whose policies it legitimizes.

Freedom House, the independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy, maintains that 80% of UNHRC members are “not free” or only “partly free.” In this degenerate body, Saudi Arabia was elected last year to chair a key human rights panel.

The UNHRC has consistently appointed fiercely biased anti-Israel rapporteurs and commissioned numerous reports to demonize Israel and accuse the Israel Defense Forces of engaging in war crimes.

Last month, it passed a resolution to boycott produce and compile a list of businesses over the Green Line - clearly a first step in the direction of sanctions and an extension of the global anti-Semitic BDS movement.
Similar outrageous bias is also prevalent in the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council where demonizing, delegitimizing and attributing all the woes of the world to the Jewish state is reminiscent of Nazi propaganda or the Middle Ages when Jews were held responsible for all the misfortunes of mankind.

The initiatives of these efforts to demonize Israel emanate from rogue states that dominate the U.N.
A few examples:
  • Representatives of Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya and Qatar served as presidents of the General Assembly;
  • A representative of Iran served as a vice president;
  • Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who heads the world’s most virulent terror state, used the General Assembly to “condemn terror” while interspersing his statements with anti-Semitic remarks;
  • Iran, which stones women for adultery, was appointed to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women;
  • Assad’s Syria was elected to a UNESCO commission dealing with human rights and nuclear proliferation;
  • As recently as 2010, the UNHRC published a report praising the human rights record of Libya;
  • A representative of Sudan, whose president is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, was elected vice president of the Economic and Social Council, which regulates human rights;
  • North Korea was elected to chair the Conference on Disarmament;
  • UNESCO continuously condemns Israel and only once condemned Syria, and yet elected Syria to one of its human rights committees.
  • In 2015 the World Health Organization had the gall to pass a resolution, introduced by Syria, by a majority of 104 with 4 opposed and 6 abstentions, absurdly claiming that Israel was “targeting the health of Syrians in the Golan … injecting them with pathogenic viruses.” The WHO has never carried a single resolution condemning any other country.
Further examples abound of the hypocritical, corrupt and evil machinations of the U.N.

After the defeat of nazism, the founders of the United Nations endorsed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They never envisaged that the organization they created would subsequently be hijacked by dictatorships and tyrannies who would exploit it as a platform to promote evil, even including the endorsement of genocide.

Israel became the canary in the mine. Two decades after having endorsed the creation of the State of Israel, the U.N. initiated a concerted effort towards its delegitimization.

We have witnessed a dramatic downward spiral at the U.N. over the last 30 years. In the 1990s, the Security Council was disgraced by its failure to quash genocide in Rwanda, despite the fact that it had peacekeeping forces in the area. Likewise, the shocking blunder in Srebrenica, Bosnia, when a U.N. battalion -- in a U.N.-declared “free zone” -- handed 8,000 Muslim civilians to the Serb military, which promptly slaughtered them all. Nor was the U.N. able to deal with the genocide in Sudan or more recently the carnage in Syria.

Instead, it intensified its anti-Israel campaigns. What is morally despicable is that the Europeans, who initially displayed token resistance to some of the more outrageous attacks on Israel, have reverted to the role they played in the 1930s when they stood aside as the forces of darkness enveloped the Jewish people.

Video of the week – Kay Wilson; http://tinyurl.com/hvjmpnk
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