Elder of Ziyon 03/02 Links Pt2: Israelophobia and the West: The Hijacking of Civil Discourse on Israel and How to Rescue It; An Imam at a Bernie Rally Had Called for the Destruction of Israel
From Ian: Israelophobia and the West: The Hijacking of Civil Discourse on Israel and How to Rescue It
The new Jerusalem Center publication Israelophobia and the West exposes and evaluates the parallel phenomena of unprecedented anti-Semitic assaults against Jews in the West while simultaneously demonizing the Jewish State. It further exposes the deceptive representation of anti-Semitic rhetoric as legitimate political criticism of Israel. A special dialogue: Prof. Alan Dershowitz - Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, Harvard Law School; Ben-Dror Yemini - Israeli journalist at Yediot Ahronot; Moderated by Dan Diker.
A 2014 survey of antisemitism by the US Anti-Defamation League (ADL) covered 100 countries. It found that all the countries in the top 10 most antisemitic locations were in the Middle East or north Africa region, with an overall figure of 73%. The West Bank and Gaza came at the top, with 93% of Palestinians expressing antisemitic views.
A smaller survey of 19 countries published by the ADL in the following year found that Muslim populations in general had the highest levels of antisemitism in Europe: For the first time, the ADL poll measured Muslim attitudes in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. An average of 55 percent of Western European Muslims harbored anti-Semitic attitudes. Acceptance of anti-Semitic stereotypes by Muslims in these countries was substantially higher than among the national population in each country, though lower than corresponding figures of 75 percent in 2014 for Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
In the United States, a 2017 report on antisemitism in general, identified much of the hatred as coming from the Muslim community, notably on college campuses: It is particularly disturbing that anti-Semitism appears to be relatively common in the American Muslim community, including among its leaders.
Muslim expression of anti-Semitic views has become especially common on American college campuses.
Several Muslim attacks on Jews, synagogues and more are listed in the report. Here, anti-Jewish prejudice is, as often as not, conflated with anti-zionist ideology and activism. Again, that distortion, in turn, leads many people, most often on the left, to indulge Muslim antisemitism, to join Islamic protests, and even, as Britain's Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn did for many years, to call Muslim terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah "friends".
Some anti-zionism is bolstered by the widespread rationalization that Palestinian resistance to Israel is in harmony with one's own secular political convictions. Palestinians and their supporters across the Islamic world are thought to be protesting and fighting for nationalistic, anti-colonial, and economic motives combined with an anti-apartheid pro-refugee set of priorities. Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization's leading party, for example, is proclaimed as a "secular, nationalist" entity. The first article in the PLO's 1964 Covenant reads: "Palestine is an Arab homeland bound by strong Arab national ties to the rest of the Arab Countries and which together form the great Arab homeland."
According to all elements of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, information received from the Israelis was unique in its detail and the subjects it shed light on, areas that for years were obscured from the West. Based on the intelligence provided, Washington was able to draw a detailed and fairly accurate picture of the structure and deployment of a substantial part of the Soviet Union's strategic missile divisions.[26]
How did the Israelis pull it off? Retracing the exact steps of clandestine activities is difficult, but one can reconstruct what likely transpired based on information made public after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Israeli agents who understood the Soviet bureaucracy in Eastern Europe became keenly aware of a major flaw in the system. The tendency to hoard information—itself a symptom of an obsession with secrecy—created an information glut in which untold numbers of paper-form military records were filed and stored. The more this information multiplied, the harder it became to keep track of. At the same time, Israeli spies managed to obtain the identities of several former members of the Soviet military and security establishments who had intimate knowledge of their government's missile capabilities. When these people were no longer in their positions—which undoubtedly meant the authorities paid less attention to them—it was easier for Israeli agents to convince them to share their technical knowledge. This was where Israeli intelligence reached its Cold War peak and aligned most closely with the intelligence goals of the West. Conclusion
For many years, the Soviet ballistic missile threat was relatively low on the list of Israel's immediate security priorities. After all, Moscow's weapons were not aimed at Jerusalem or Tel Aviv but at New York and Washington. Israel had always been more interested in the MiG fighter's maneuverability and the T-class tank's endurance. So the effort to collect data on Soviet missile capabilities marked an important shift. Israeli intelligence moved from tactical concerns to a broader strategic narrative as Jerusalem understood that its long-term security interests were achieved not by narrow intelligence collection but by undermining the country that acted as the patron and arms supplier of its enemies.
And while the Cold War is over, and Israel no longer finds itself trapped between two rival superpower blocs, it continues to provide first hand and invaluable lessons on waging war and preserving national defense.
Hollywood mustered its creative forces in the 1940s when Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany sought to conquer the world, with Humphrey Bogart standing up to the fascist regime in "Casablanca" and director Ernst Lubitsch mocking it and its dictator in "To Be or Not to Be."
More than 70 years later, an increase in hate crimes, emboldened white supremacists and political upheaval have prompted TV and film makers to revisit Nazism. The works are varied and their receptions mixed, but they share a goal: to use fiction to learn from 20th-century totalitarianism and its horrors, including the Holocaust that claimed the lives of 6 million Jews.
In Amazon's "Hunters," an unlikely group of 1970s New Yorkers target German Nazis who have brought their genocidal quest to America. HBO's "The Plot Against America" is based on Philip Roth's novel that posits a repressive early 1940s US government led by Charles Lindbergh, the real-life aviation hero and anti-Semitic isolationist. The Oscar-winning "Jojo Rabbit" is in Lubitsch's satirical mode, deepened by tragedy.
Preceding them was "The Man in the High Castle," the 2015-19 Amazon series based on Philip K. Dick's sci-fi novel of the same name about a fallen America ruled by WWII victors Germany and Japan.
The war has had other screen comebacks. During the political and social turmoil of the mid- to late-1960s, cynical and irreverent films including "King Rat" and "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?" were released alongside traditional battle epics such as the star-laden "Battle of the Bulge."
"We seem to have waves of interest in both the Holocaust and World War II, not always at the same time," said Sharon Willis, a film scholar and professor at the University of Rochester in New York. "I feel that, collectively, we return to these terrains when we have some kind of problem to work out that we think is related to them."
When Imam Omar Suleiman appeared at a Bernie rally in Mesquite, TX, the hateful Islamist cleric spoke in front of a backdrop of giant American flags and signs urging donations to Sanders. Before Bernie took the stage, he called for an, "America where we uplift our most vulnerable, celebrate our diversity."
The Imam did not mention, as he has before, that he believes that, "Zionists are the enemies of God."
By "god", the Imam meant Allah. The occasion for that hateful outburst was Operation Protective Edge which began after Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Jewish teenagers. One of them American.
Earlier in the conflict, Omar had tweeted, "God willing on this blessed night as the 3rd Intifada begins, the beginning of the end of Zionism is here. May Allah help us overcome this monster, protect the innocent of the world, and accept the murdered as martyrs. ameen #48kMarch #3rdIntifada."
He later tweeted, "The people of #Gaza made us proud. You refused to let terror break you and we refuse to let Zionist media silence you."
When Sanders announced that he was boycotting AIPAC, Imam Omar Suleiman rejoiced.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential nomination contest, plans to hold on Monday a joint rally with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN.), who has been accused of peddling anti-Semitism.
The next day, the Democratic Party holds its Super Tuesday contests, in which more than 10 states and territories will vote, including Omar's home state of Minnesota. The outcome of Tuesday's votes could reshape the entire race because of the high number of delegates at stake.
The Sanders campaign announced the appearance on Sunday, a day after the Vermont Jewish senator lost to former Vice President Joe Biden in the South Carolina primary.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) is scheduled to address the annual gala on Saturday as the guest of honor for the Missouri chapter of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).
Tlaib was the keynote speaker at AMP's annual national conference in November 2019, when she compared the situation at the US-Mexico border to that of Gaza and Israel, and said that she's advocating for clean water in her Michigan district and "fighting for clean water in Gaza."
AMP is an anti-Israel group that supports the BDS movement and was founded by Hatem Bazian, who co-founded Students for Justice in Palestine.
Tlaib is scheduled to be joined by the gala's keynote speaker, AMP National Policy Director Osama Abuirshaid, who has expressed support for the US-designated terrorist group Hamas and BDS.
A student at the University of Maryland (UMD) has been arrested for committing an antisemitic hate crime against a Jewish student, an email announcement sent to the campus community on Saturday said.
According to University Police, Muqarrab Ahmed Abdullah, 24, repeatedly sent antisemitic messages to a female student on December 10, 2019. The victim did not know Abdullah personally.
Abdullah has been charged with electronic communication harassment, telephone misuse, and a hate crime.
UMD diversity and inclusion vice president Georgina Dodge and student affairs vice president Patricia Perillo said in the email that the incident was unacceptable and "hate has no place on our campus."
They pledged to bring charges against all perpetrators of hate crimes on campus.
According to local Fox News affiliate Fox45, the two officials added, "To our Jewish friends, co-workers, fellow students, colleagues, and alumni, we stand with you."
"We aim to support you in the ways that you need," they said. "We will work closely with Hillel, university chaplains, and student groups to provide space and resources."
Breaking the Silence said it won't take part in Harvard's Israel Apartheid Week – or in any other apartheid week – in spite of what is publicized in a portal associated with the university.
According to the website thehub.college.harvard.edu, the second day of Israel Apartheid Week, which is scheduled to take place between March 30 and April 3, is going to feature a session by the Israeli NGO, which denied any involvement.
"Breaking the Silence is not taking part in any apartheid week events and never had any plans to do so. The event in question doesn't exist as far as we're aware," Achiya Schatz, spokesperson of Breaking the Silence, said. "However, we wouldn't be surprised if [New York Consul-General] Dani Dayan or other supporters of the 'Trump deal' would want to attend, as part of their efforts to 'make apartheid great again.'
"Our position has always been to differentiate between Israel's legitimate right to exist and thrive on the one hand, and the entirely illegitimate military dictatorship in the occupied territories on the other. We are concerned that apartheid week events create spaces where that distinction is easily blurred," he further noted.
"Having said that, Israeli officials are now actively promoting an apartheid reality which itself blurs the lines, and our position may therefore have to change in the future accordingly," Schatz said.
Palestinian homosexuals seek refuge in Israel because homosexuality is illegal in the Palestinians territories. https://t.co/CTwUs1RIuy
Duke University has a problem with academically-driven antisemitism. Its press, the Duke University Press, is once again promoting blood libels against Jews under the veil of criticism of Israel. Writing this off as pseudo-academic nonsense would be a mistake.
Duke University Press acts as the gatekeeper through which new "knowledge" attains the seal of academic approval, and is then dispersed as "fact" in classrooms at Duke and across the country. On a campus where the leaders are promoting and tolerating antisemitism, it now comes as no surprise that Duke also has a problem with students feeling threatened and afraid because they support Israel.
In 2017, Duke University Press published The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability by Jasbir Puar. Puar updated antisemitic blood libels when she alleged that Israel specifically targets Palestinian children to maim them and then profit from their incurred disabilities. Like other Duke University Press authors, Puar repeatedly compared Israelis to Nazis.
Now, three years later, Duke University Press has published a fawning review of The Right to Maim in its own Journal of Middle East Women's Studies. Reviewing their own publication by lavishing it with praise is not a good look for Duke.
In the review, Stephen Sheehi — Professor of Middle East Studies and Professor of Arab Studies at the College of William and Mary — makes the grotesque, thinly veiled comparison of Israel to the Third Reich when he suggests that Israel may wish to exterminate the Palestinians: "One seriously wonders if Israel would want to completely erase the Palestinian people (through death or displacement) if they could get away with it."
The interview followed a sadly predictable pattern, with Sackur failing to effectively challenge most of his interviewee's politically motivated talking points. Even when he did raise issues such as Hamas' staging of the 'Great Return March', the Hamas-Fatah feud and incitement in Palestinian school text- books, he failed to adequately challenge the inadequate responses given.
After the broadcast of the programme, the BBC News website chose to upload a clip to its 'Middle East' page under the headline "Mental health: Coping with the trauma of living in Gaza". The video's synopsis includes the following: "In 2014 Dr Jamei's family home was bombed in an Israeli strike and he lost a number of family members."
The clip itself begins with that event. Sackur: "I am very mindful that in 2014 your own family home was bombed, destroyed, by an Israeli military strike. Tell me how many members of your extended family were lost."
Abu Jamei: "Ah…well we live in an area that is the eastern side of Khan Younis and unfortunately my family endured the biggest loss when it comes to the number of people. You know every single life matters a lot to everyone, you know, but in that simple attack 27 people were killed including three pregnant women and I think seven…seven children. A three-storey building was levelled to the ground basically, you know…"
BBC audiences were not provided with any further context to that account.
The day after that incident – which took place on July 20th 2014, the political NGO B'tselem noted that:
"B'Tselem's initial findings indicate that the likely target of the attack was Ahmad Suliman Sahmoud, a member of Hamas' military wing, who was visiting a member of the family."
Sahmoud was identified as an Izz al-Din al Qassam Brigades commander.
Israel is groaning because of all the cutting-edge growth & innovation that's been happening all across the country, according to the New York Times.
Throughout the month of February 2020, twenty-one written or filmed reports relating to Israel and/or the Palestinians appeared on the BBC News website's 'Middle East' page, some of which were also published on other pages. Eleven of the 21 reports were carried over from the previous month, with ten of them relating to the US Administration's 'Peace to Prosperity' proposal.
As we see, 47.6% of the items appearing on the BBC News website's 'Middle East' page throughout February concerned the US administration 'Peace to Prosperity' proposal which had been released the previous month, with some of those items remaining available for an unusually long time. As ever, Israeli affairs received wider coverage than internal Palestinian affairs.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced several steps on Thursday aimed at providing safety, security and peace of mind to Jews and other minorities in the state as the number of hate crimes continue to swell nationwide.
Under the umbrella of "No Hate in Our State," the governor proposed legislation that would label hate crimes as domestic terrorism. People convicted of hate crimes could be sentenced to life in prison. If New York passes the law, it will be the first state in the country to equate the two.
The governor also proposed spending an additional $25 million for the security of "religious and nonreligious not-for-profit organizations that are vulnerable to hate crimes, and will expand the eligibility criteria to include houses of worship." That allocation would be in addition to an already allocated $45 million available through the state's "Securing Communities Against Hate Crimes Grant Program."
The "No Hate in Our State" initiative comes after more than 40 antisemitic incidents occurred in New York in the past few months. Those incidents include an attack in December during Hanukkah at the home of a rabbi in Monsey, NY in which a man with a machete stabbed and injured five people. The most serious of those injured was in a coma for more than 50 days and opened his eyes this week for the first time.
There is a "virus" of hate in America, stated Cuomo, acknowledging that "I thought New York would be immune from it."
He added that he was "almost in denial" about antisemitism in New York because "the Jewish community is such an integral part of New York, of our state, of community. New York would not be New York without the Jewish community."
A second carnival in Spain has referenced the Holocaust with Nazi and concentration camp prisoner uniform costumes. The theme was "the same."
The Holocaust-themed display at the February 23 event in Badajos occurred amid debate on the appropriateness of festive parades apparently making light of the murder of millions of Jews and Romanis by the Nazis. That was spurred by processions the same week in Belgium and in Campo de Criptana, a town about 80 miles south of Madrid.
In Badajos, which is about 200 miles southwest of Madrid, dozens of participants marched on the main street.
The earlier parades had provoked outrage and condemnations from the European Commission and Israel for similar imagery.
In addition to Nazi allusions, the carnival in the Belgian city of Aalst also had caricatures of Jews, including of ultra-Orthodox people dressed like insects. Both the Aalst and Criptana events were condemned as offensive to the memory of Holocaust victims.
The carnivals take place across the Catholic world during Lent, the 40-day period that precedes Easter.
The Vatican unseals the archives of history's most contentious pope on Monday, potentially shedding light on why Pius XII stayed silent during the extermination of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
Two hundred researchers have already requested access to the mountain of documents, made available after an inventory that took more than 14 years for Holy See archivists to complete.
Award-winning German religious historian Hubert Wolf will be in Rome on Monday, armed with six assistants and two years of funding, to start exploring documents from the "private secretariat" of the late pope.
Wolf, a specialist on the relationship of Pius XII with the Nazis, is anxious to discover the notes of his 70 ambassadors — the pontiff's eyes and ears during his time as head of the Catholic Church between 1939 and his death in 1958.
There should also be records of urgent appeals for help from Jewish organizations, as well as his communications with the late US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The unsealed archives additionally cover a post-World War II era, in which writers were censored and some priests hounded for suspected Communist sympathies.
The Vatican first published the essentials covering the Holocaust four decades ago, an 11-volume work compiled by Jesuits.
A rare piano that could fetch more than a million dollars at auction in Israel next week has a history as elaborate as the wood carvings adorning its frame.
The Piano of Siena's 221-year journey began in Turin, and has included stops in Paris, on a Second World War battlefield in North Africa, in New York and in Tel Aviv.
Moshe Porat, an Israeli piano tuner who has researched the instrument, told AFP that the light brown upright decorated with carvings of wingless cherubs, animals, flora, and other instruments was a "visual masterpiece."
"Soon the next chapter will begin with a new owner," Porat said, referring to the sale scheduled for Tuesday at Winner's auction house in Jerusalem.
Turin-based harpsichord maker Sebastian Marchisio started building the instrument in 1799, according to Winner's.
Marchisio died before completing it, but his descendants finished the initial build in 1825, giving it as a wedding gift to Marchisio's granddaughter Rebecca, who lived in Siena.
The unusually ornate instrument underwent several modifications before appearing at the 1867 World's Fair in Paris, after which it was gifted to Italy's then-prince and future king Umberto I.
The exact circumstances that saw the piano fall into Nazi hands are not clear.
But following the 1942 battle of El Alamein, as the British were looking to see what the defeated Germans had left behind, "the piano was discovered in a crate with a mine detector," said Porat.
The distribution and production company Cohen Media Group has acquired North American rights to the Holocaust-era drama "Persian Lessons" and plans to release the film in late 2020, Variety reported on Wednesday.
Set in 1942, the film is about a Belgian Jew in a German concentration camp who claims to be Persian to avoid being executed. The prisoner tries to save himself by agreeing to teach Farsi, a language he does not know and subsequently makes up, to a Nazi officer who hopes to open a restaurant in Iran after the war.
"Persian Lessons" had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 22.
The film, based on the story Erfindung Einer Sprache by Wolfgang Kohlhaase, was first written in Russian, then translated into English and eventually into German.
Ukrainian-born American director Vadim Perelman helped invent the fake Farsi spoken in the film. He said that his Jewish heritage drew him to the project, along with his goal of showing that the Holocaust transcends any one political or historical moment.
"It can happen in any country, at any time," he said.
The film's lead actor, Lars Eidinger, said, "it's very important that it's someone from the outside telling this story; they can do it better than a German." The actor was alluding to the idea that Germany is still afraid to confront a lot of its Holocaust past.
The US Food and Drug Administration cleared a standing wheelchair produced by an Israeli robotics company for sale in the US.
The mobility device from UPnRIDE Robotics is a wheelchair that brings quadriplegics from a sitting to an upright position, allowing them to be fully mobile in both positions, indoors and outdoors.
The standing wheelchair received FDA clearance for use in the US in September. The company now can market and sell the device in the US. It has one vendor, and is looking for others.
"The approval of our UPnRIDE standing wheelchair is another very important milestone in our mission to offer health benefits and improved quality of life to millions of people suffering from walking impairments," Dr. Amit Goffer, founder and president of the company, said in a Thursday statement.
"I have had a longstanding vision that all people confined to a wheelchair should have access to enhanced mobility and enjoy the many health benefits associated with the ability to perform everyday tasks in a standing position. With the introduction of UPnRIDE, this dream is becoming a reality," said Goffer, who is a quadriplegic himself.
The device is appropriate for use by quadriplegics, paraplegics, the elderly, and people suffering from multiple sclerosis, ALS, and other conditions that limit mobility.
Saudi Arabia, despite their horrible human rights record, attempted a bit of liberalization over the past decade sending female athletes to the Olympics. Saudi Sports launched their first women's soccer league last Monday but the cynic in me takes a wait and see attitude on its long-term viability. The WWE matches may be another sign that women will get further sporting opportunities in a country where equality has been a seemingly unattainable dream.
Yet, even more interesting was the end of the show featuring almost all of Mohammed Abdu Arena on the Boulevard cheering as Bill Goldberg won the WWE Universal Championship. That's right, hundreds of Saudi Arabian Muslims roared in approval as someone San Diego Jewish Journal once proclaimed "The Hebrew Hulk" captured one of the top prizes in WWE.
The irony is unmistakable. Judaism is not welcome in Saudi Arabia. There are no synagogues in the Kingdom and the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca once prayed for the destruction of all Jews. Yet, Goldberg was booked to win the belt in Saudi Arabia.
This raises an obvious question. Did WWE purposefully switch the belt onto Goldberg as a way to provide an avenue towards moderation in Saudi Arabia?
The answer is maybe, but probably not.
"If someone asked WWE, I could see their PR team pointing out that the company has been trying to help move things forward culturally, as that's the tag line when they have their female performers on the Saudi events," Mike Johnson from PWInsider.com told me in an email about Goldberg's win. "My gut feeling, however, is that the real reason the title switch was done there was based on one factor – financials. They likely wanted to slide Goldberg into their Wrestlemania plans ASAP. Wrestlemania is not sold out. Goldberg vs. John Cena and Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns, etc. Theoretically, those are big dream matches that the average person might be entranced in wanting to see and pay for. I think that's more of the big picture thought process there…"
Josephus Flavius documented the history of the Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans in real time (the first century AD), even as he was a participant, being the chief commander of the Jews in Galilee. In his two books The Jewish War and The Life of Josephus, he noted that when he arrived in the Galilee as its chief commander just prior to the outbreak of the Great Revolt, he fortified 18 of its settlements while the 19th was fortified by Yohanan Ben Levi. What do we know of these sites?
Five of the settlements that he claims to have fortified have been surveyed or excavated by archeologists. He mentioned Tiberias, Arbel, Caphareccho, (Kfar Ata), Acchabaron Rock (Akhbari), and Mero. One site – Kfar Ata or Caphareccho – remains unidentified but it fits the description of Huqok, a Jewish settlement recently excavated by Jodi Magness.
In his discussions of the five settlements Josephus describes the village fortifications as "very rocky", and mentions the "Arbel caves," and the fortification of "Akhbara Rock" (the Talmudic name and later the Arabic) with emphasis on the "rock". He also notes that "he provided with walls the caves in Lower Galilee in the neighborhood of the lake of Genesareth" (The War of the Jews II, 572-574), and that "I fortified …the villages of the Cave of Arbela" (The Life of Josephus, 187-188).
The common denominator of the five settlements is that they are next to, or near, steep cliffs full of natural caves. I suggest that hundreds of these caves served as one of the defense methods of the Galilean Jews during the Second Temple period. My assumption is that these provided one of the defensive means that Josephus was referring to when he came to "fortify the Galilee." My ongoing research aims to demonstrate that these caves are the very same that Josephus described.
It should be emphasized that Josephus, the person taking credit for the fortifications, lacked military experience and had little time available from his arrival in the Galilee to the time he was taken prisoner by the Romans – about seven months. Despite this, there is surprisingly ample evidence for fortifications of the type he described.
My research combines history and archaeology with an additional element – speleology, the study of caves.
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Here is the abstract of the academic article "Was Jerusalem Part of Palestine? The Forgotten City of Ramla, 900–1900" by Zachary J. Foster of Princeton University, published in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies in 2016:
When the Muslims conquered the Levant in the seventh century they at times changed the meaning of 'Palestine'. They preserved its erstwhile sense as a region but also came to see Palestine as synonymous with the city of Ramla. From the tenth to the early twentieth century, dozens of Muslim exegetes, travellers and chroniclers explained that Ramla and Palestine were the same place. Others thought Palestine was a small region based around Ramla, one that did not include Jerusalem, or that Palestine had much more to do with Ramla than it did Jerusalem. The association had much to do with the cultural tendency in the Arab Middle East to conflate cities and regions as well as the critical role Ramla played in Palestine for much of its history: it served as the capital of the District of Palestine for more than three centuries, its economic hub for many more and its imagined geographical centre up until the early nineteenth century.
The article brings large amounts of evidence from Arab geographers and writers that what they considered "Palestine" was really Ramla or the region around it, and Jerusalem was a completely separate place.
Most cities never came to mean the same thing as their parent regions. But Ramla was not like most cities. Ramla become the seat of the most powerful empire in the world when the seventh-century Umayyad Caliph, Sulayman 'Abd al-Malik (d.717) moved the seat of Islamic power from Damascus to Ramla. Soon enough, the city emerged as the political, geographic and economic centre of the District of Palestine during the Umayyad (661–750) and most of the Abbasid (750–1258) periods, for it lay at the crossroads of the key trading routes within the District of Palestine as well as the route connecting Damascus and Cairo. Although a massive earthquake in 1068 left some 15,000 people dead and the city in total ruins, Ramla recovered during the Crusader (1095–1291), Fatimid (909–1171) and Ayyubid (1171–1260) periods and remained the most important regional trading hub well into the Mamluk period (1250–1517). The town recorded steady population growth even after the Ottoman conquest in the early sixteenth century. (Jerusalem, by comparison, was a small and sleepy town for most of Islamic history. It had never been located on any major trading routes and its defensive walls were destroyed by an Ayyubid ruler in the early thirteenth century and only rebuilt in the 1530s by Suleiman 'the Magnificent'.) And so even though Ramla's population size, economic prosperity and political relevance diminished significantly from the late sixteenth century onwards, names have never been so easy to change. And so the city continued to be associated with Palestine; indeed, it continued to be known as Palestine as late as the eighteenth century if not later.
The Persian traveller Nasr Khusraw (d.1088) was the very first Muslim to say it explicitly. 'The city of Ramla is called Palestine in both Sham and the Maghreb', he wrote... Soon enough, a slew of other writers across the lands of Islam embraced the nickname. The Andalusian geographer and historian al-Bakri (d.1094) noted that Ramla was known as Palestine; the high official in Mamluk Syria Ibn Fadl Allah al-'Umari (d.1349) claimed that Filastin was also called Ramla in his definition of the Holy Land and commented elsewhere that Sulayman bin 'Abd al-Malik bin Marwan (d.717) founded the city (madina) of Filastin; the famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta (d.1369) also explained after his visit to Jerusalem and Ashkelon that he 'traveled to the city of Ramla (madinat al-Ramla), which is Filastin (wa hiyya Filastin)'.
...But we have more explicit evidence that Palestine may have been considered a small region based around Ramla, one that did not include Jerusalem. Consider that the great historian al-Waqidi (d.822) consistently listed Jerusalem and the Land of Palestine separately in his account of the conquest of the Levant as if they were separate places. ... Similarly, a number of other Muslims from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, including the famous biographer Ibn Khallikan (d.1282), Egyptian historian Ibn al-Furat (d.1405) and the Jerusalemite scholar and judge al-Din al-'Ulaymi (d.1522), described the Kingdom of the Kurdish Ayyubid Sultan al-Mu'azzam in the early thirteenth century as 'expansive, from Homs to al-'Arish, including the Islamic coasts, bilad al-Ghawr, Palestine and Jerusalem'. In this instance, there is no reason to assume that these writers meant Ramla only when they wrote Palestine, as this list included both cities and regions, leaving us with the impression that Palestine may have been considered a region based around Ramla that did not include Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was not even a part of "historic Palestine." It was Christian pilgrims who consistently associated Jerusalem as the most important city of what Christians considered Palestine, and that idea eventually influenced Muslims.
Finally, Foster notes that Palestinians consciously wanted to change history to de-emphasize Ramla and emphasize Jerusalem in the 20th century for purely political reasons:
In other cases there may have been wilful intent to delete Ramla from memory. The historian Muhammad al-Husayni wrote in his 1946 history book about Palestine that 'we have chosen to focus on Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis) because it has been, and remains, the political and religious capital of this Arab country since the Arabs and Muslims first arrived, save for a brief moment (burha wajiza) in which it was transferred to Ramla'. Whether or not we define the three and a half centuries that Ramla was the political capital of Palestine as brief, or the seven or eight centuries that Ramla was the most important regional economic hub as ephemeral, or the millennium of the linguistic and cultural role that Ramla played in Palestine as fleeting, al-Husayni probably wanted us to believe in Jerusalem's time-immemorial importance and Ramla's time immemorial irrelevance. But the record suggests that Ramla was a central part of Palestine's history...
...And Jerusalem was not.
This is not to say that Jerusalem was not considered part of the Muslim world - of course it was. But it was not part of what Muslims - even colloquially - called "Palestine" for most of the history of Islam. Jerusalem was not a place of pilgrimage and it was not treated as important by most Muslims throughout history.
The claim that Jerusalem is the "eternal capital of Palestine" is complete fiction.
Zachary J. Foster is not a Zionist by any measure - his Twitter account is quite anti-Israel and he even throws in a gratuitous and irrelevant anti-Israel comment in a footnote of this paper. Which makes his research in this area even more compelling - he has completely ripped apart any historic claims that Palestinians have for Jerusalem as their traditional capital.
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Sometimes people believe something so much that even once the belief is no longer viable, they can't quite let go of it, because it is now indistinguishable from their own sense of self. Case in point: I once asked a leader in the American Jewish community, a liberal Zionist, what he would think if the two-state solution were no longer possible. After a long pause, he responded, "That would be the end of my Zionism." And so, he continued, he could not give up on the two-state solution.
This may be where liberal Zionists are today. As a University of Pennsylvania political scientist and longtime scholar of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Ian Lustick writes in his excellent and provocative new book, Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality: "Two states for two peoples was a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is not a solution today." For many liberal Zionists, this is a hard pill to swallow. But it also might be true.
In many Jewish circles, when talk of two states commences, it often very quickly devolves into: "If only we had a partner for peace!" It is imagined that Israelis are generally willing, but the other side is not. Lustick wants us to shelve that reflexive, and convenient, abdication of responsibility, and look at the situation from a different direction. Whatever the foibles of the Palestinian side, he wants to explore this notion of two states solely from within the structures of Israeli governments and society from the 1970s until today. What he concludes is that the possibility of two states was never really viable on the Israeli side, not because Israelis weren't willing to try it—many were—but because the very structures of government and societal reactions to changes on the ground made sure it would not happen. In short, once the two-state solution emerged as a possibility in the early 1970s, it very quickly became obsolete.
Lustick begins his argument by suggesting that "two-state solution" or "one-state solution" are mistaken and obfuscating terms. Instead of "two-state solution," he wants us to understand the "two-state paradigm." And instead of "one-state solution," he suggests the "one-state reality." There is no one-state solution; but there is, from the river to the sea, one state. And that state is called Israel.
The United Kingdom has just passed emergency legislation that will stop the early release of convicted terrorists from prison. This decisive action comes on the heels of two recent terror attacks in London by jihadists who were released from prison earlier than the end of their sentences for terror-related crimes.
In November, Usman Khan, who had served eight years in prison before being granted an early release, killed two people and wounded three others in an attack near London Bridge. Khan was wearing a fake suicide vest when he committed the attack. Khan participated in a de-radicalization program. Clearly, the program did not guarantee that Khan was genuinely rehabilitated or would not re-offend.
The second attack came in February, when Sudesh Amman, 20, stabbed two people in the Streatham section of South London. Amman had been released from prison just a week earlier, after he had served about half of his 40-month prison sentence for a 2018 terror conviction.
Undercover police were watching Amman, but they were not able to stop his stabbing spree. He was shot and killed by police within a minute.
The legislation enacted Wednesday blocks early release for about 50 imprisoned extremists, a statement from the UK Ministry of Justice said. It requires that any inmate convicted of a terror-related crime, such as training for terrorism, membership in a terror organization, or disseminating terrorist literature, must complete at least two-thirds of his or her sentence before being considered for release. Even then, the release is not guaranteed.
"No terrorist should be released early only to kill and maim on our streets," said Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland. "Protecting the public is Government's first duty and our message is clear — enough is enough."
Former Vice President and presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Sunday that a two-state solution "is the best way to ensure a secure and peaceful Israeli future for the Jewish and democratic state of Israel."
In a recorded video speech to the audience at the AIPAC policy conference, Biden apologized that he could not attend the conference in person due to his preparations for Super Tuesday, in which residents from 14 states will cast their ballots. "Israelis wake up every morning facing an existential threat from their neighbors' rockets from Gaza, just like this past week," Biden said, "that's why I've always been adamant that Israel must be able to defend itself. It's not just critical for Israeli security. I believe it's critical for America's security. That's why I'm so proud of the Obama administration, unprecedented support for security, including the life-saving Iron Dome system."
He also emphasized the need to advance peace Israel and the Palestinians and criticized a possible Israeli move to annex settlements in the West Bank. "You don't have to be anti-Palestinian to be pro-Israeli," said the former vice president. "Israel and Palestinian children are equally deserving of safety, security, and an opportunity to pursue their dreams. We all need to work together to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza because there is a crisis and we're not going to achieve that future if we don't condemn steps on both sides that take us further from peace," he continued.
"Palestinians need to eradicate incitement on the West Bank. They need to end the rocket attacks from Gaza. They need to accept once and for all the reality and the right of a secure democratic and Jewish State of Israel in the Middle East," said Biden.
"And Israel has to stop the threats of annexation and settlement activity like the recent announcement of building thousands of settlements, in E-1," he added. "That's going to choke off any hope for peace. And to be frank, those moves are taking Israel further from its democratic values, undermining support for Israel in the United States, especially among young people of both political parties. That's dangerous. We can't let that happen. We can't let Israel become another issue that," he concluded.
Democratic US presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg attacked his rival Bernie Sanders on Monday for calling the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's conference a platform for bigots and for proposing the US condition aid to Israel on the nation's policies.
Addressing 18,000 pro-Israel advocates at the AIPAC confab, the former New York City mayor drew a sharp contrast between his approach to US-Israel policy and that of the current Democratic frontrunner, who has said he would "absolutely" consider slashing aid to the Jewish state.
"If I am elected president I can promise you I will always have Israel's back," Bloomberg told the crowd at the Walter Washington Convention Center in the nation's capital, "because Israel has a right to defend itself, by itself. And that means I will never impose conditions on military aid, no matter what government is in power."
"Israel is on the front lines of encountering American enemies in the region and sharing valuable intelligence and experience with us," he added. "So conditioning foreign aid would not only impair Israel's ability to keep itself safe, but our ability to keep ourselves safe as well. As president, I give you my word that I will never ever compromise on the safety and security of Israel."
He also called out Sanders for skipping this year's AIPAC conference. The self-declared democratic socialist had castigated the forum, saying it provided a platform to "express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights."
"Unfortunately, not all of my fellow Democrats in this race have attended an AIPAC conference," Bloomberg said. "One of them, Senator Sanders, has spent 30 years boycotting this event and as you heard by now he called AIPAC a racist platform. Well, let me tell you, he is dead wrong."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu castigated Democratic presidential frontrunner Bernie Sanders on Sunday for saying the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) offered a platform for bigotry, calling the charge "libelous" and "outrageous."
Addressing the pro-Israel lobby's annual conference via satellite, the Israeli premier urged the 18,000 to in attendance to push back against what he characterized as an attempt to diminish US-Israel ties.
"This year AIPAC was accused of providing a platform for bigotry. These libelous charges are outrageous," Netanyahu said. "The best way to respond to that outrage is to do what you have done — by gathering in Washington today, in full force, as Democrats and Republicans … You send a great message to all those who seek to weaken our alliance, that they will fail."
Sanders made the remarks when explaining why he would again skip AIPAC. Sanders, who is Jewish, has also been a sharp critic of Netanyahu for his policies toward Palestinians.
At the Democratic debate on Tuesday in South Carolina, Sanders labeled the Israeli leader a "reactionary racist" and said he'd consider reversing US President Donald Trump's move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Without naming the Vermont senator, Netanyahu cast him and other progressive Democrats pushing for an American foreign policy more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause as extremists.
Speakers at the annual gathering of pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Sunday offered veiled and open condemnation of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, an outspoken and frequent critic of the Jewish state.
The group's CEO Howard Kohr told attendees at the high-profile annual Policy Conference that he "must sound an alarm" about "an emerging threat" to the US-Israel relationship, appearing to point a finger at Sanders, who has publicly denounced the conference. "The work we have done and continue to do is at risk," Kohr said.
Noting that support for Israel has always been bipartisan, Kohr warned, "A growing, highly vocal, and energized part of the electorate fundamentally rejects the value of the US-Israel alliance. It is no longer on the margins — but instead has taken the spotlight of our political life. Its most radical views are bending the political conversation and commanding attention."
"And this movement has national ambitions," he warned.
"The leaders of this movement occasionally seek to mollify us with empty reassurances and hollow affirmations of Israel's right to live in peace," he went on. "The leaders of this movement say they support Israel's right to exist, but that's not up for debate. Israel exists, and it doesn't take a true friend to support that."
"These are not the things a friend would say or do," he said.
Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon was more forthright in his comments on Sanders. Referring to one of the senator's recent remarks about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said, "We don't want Sanders at AIPAC. We don't want him in Israel. Anyone who calls our prime minister a 'racist' is either a liar, an ignorant fool, or both."
According to AIPAC, more than two-thirds of Congress were in attendance at its annual policy conference this week. Senator Bernie Sanders was not among them.
Sanders' decision to skip AIPAC may not come as a surprise, but it smacks of the kind of cowardice and cynical opportunism that he has reliably used during his congressional career and presidential campaigns.
Much has been made — and much more will certainly be made if he wins the nomination — of Sanders and his wife Jane's 1988 visit to the Soviet Union. The images of a middle-aged Bernie "bro-ing out" with his apparatchik minders and coming home to sing the praises of a totalitarian regime then in its death throes are certainly cringe-worthy, and make him look ridiculously naïve.
But buried in those images are some laudable ideas, namely that the world is not entirely black and white, people are not all good or evil, and that by engaging with our enemies, we can learn something from each other and bridge divides.
Indeed, that was the whole purpose of the visit: to build a connection between two obscure cities separated by thousands of miles and plenty of political rhetoric. Ideally, Sanders would have returned with a more nuanced view, but one can't ask for everything.
Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon slams Bernie Sanders (Again) for calling Netanyahu a 'racist'
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) said Sunday he recognized the political risk of his battles with the pro-Israel lobby, saying it has a "lot of money" and "a lot of power."
Sanders and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee exchanged blows last month, with Sanders saying the group provided a platform for "bigotry," and AIPAC firing back that his attack was "shameful" and "odious."
Sanders, the current frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic nomination, acknowledged on Face the Nation that his criticism could have a political cost.
"They have a lot of money," Sanders said. "They have a lot of power. Look, I'm Jewish, and I'm very proud of my Jewish heritage…. I am not into [being] anti-Israel. I will do everything I can to protect the independence and the security and the freedom of the Israeli people. But what we need in this country is a foreign policy that not only protects Israel but deals with the suffering of the Palestinian people as well."
Sanders has repeatedly called Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "racist" and assailed Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. He often invokes the poor living conditions in the Gaza Strip, which is blockaded by Israel and Egypt due to its governance by the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
In the fall of 2008, I traveled with Senator Cory Booker to Chicago and presented him to the prestigious AIPAC summit. He then delivered a speech on the Torah portion of the week, Genesis. This speech, and many others that he delivered before AIPAC and pro-Israel audiences throughout the United States, would lead to Cory becoming one of the foremost recipients of pro-Israel donations in America.
But then came the Iran nuclear deal and Cory's utter betrayal of his convictions for political gain. Cory voted to give the murderous mullahs of Iran $150 billion, facilitating their murder of innocent people worldwide and their wholesale slaughter of political dissidents at home. Even as Iran threatened to annihilate Israel's six million Jews and bring about a second Holocaust, Cory refused to condemn their genocidal promises.
From there, he also voted against the Taylor Force Act that sought to forbid American funds from being used in pay-for-slay salaries to Palestinian terrorists; condemned the moving of the American embassy to Jerusalem; deleted any mention of Jewish influences or mentorship in his autobiography; voted against the Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act, which provided legal cover to state governments that seek to stymie the BDS movement; and infamously took a smiling photograph with Israel-hating BDS leaders, where a text read, "From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls must go." Of course, the wall in Israel has saved thousands of lives from terrorist attacks.
I was shocked to read that at AIPAC's most prestigious plenary session, taking place Monday morning, Cory Booker will follow Vice President Mike Pence as a keynote speaker.
But what has Cory done to deserve such a high honor, unless abandoning Israel's security, funding its genocidal enemies, condemning the United States for recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, and taking selfies with BDS haters counts?
The country of Azerbaijan carved out a historic role for itself by being the first majority Shi'ite country to have a cabinet level minister on Sunday deliver a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual policy conference to advance the troika of relations among the Caucasus nation, Israel and the US.
Samir Sharifov, the Azerbaijani finance minister, told a packed AIPAC crowd that "Cooperation with Israel is not limited to oil supply, we are interested in widening cooperation in defense and transfer of technology. "
He noted that Israel's one of the few "states that supported in Azerbaijan in need, with armaments."
In a second act of cutting edge history, Sharifov read remarks from Mehriban Aliyeva, the first vice president of Azerbaijan. "It is gratifying that our former compatriots of Jewish origin, living nowadays in the United States and Israel have maintained close ties with Azerbaijan and contribute to the strengthening of our relations with these countries, we are much grateful to them."
She delved into the history of Jews in Azerbaijan, noting "Azerbaijan had also embraced thousands of Jews who tried to escape Nazi oppression during World War II and became a second home for them."
When Allied Forces entered the concentration camps, they discovered more than the broken remnants of the Jewish people.
They found the men & women who still had the strength to help write the next chapter—a new and glorious chapter—of a three thousand year old story. #AIPACProudpic.twitter.com/ujePjkO9Eh
Israel's Google homepage has put up a Google doodle in honor of Israel's third elections in a year. The doodle has a box with an Israeli flag in place of the second "o" in Google, with a blank voting slip sticking out of the top of the box.
Clicking on the doodle causes Google to automatically search for "Israel Elections 2020," which also highlights the date of the elections. This is not the first time Google has put out a doodle for Israel's elections, with the search engine having put up a similar but visually different doodle for the September 17 and April 9 elections.
Palestinians said on Sunday they were not expecting real changes in Israeli policies after Monday's general election, regardless of who wins the vote.
While some Palestinians said they would be happy to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lose the election, others warned that his rival, Blue and White head Benny Gantz would endorse similar policies towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if he forms the next government.
Palestinian political analysts and officials stressed the need for the Palestinians to take matters into their own hands by ending the ongoing power struggle between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"Palestinians must take their destiny into their own hands and not wait for any changes in Israeli policies after the election, regardless of the nature of the government that will be formed," said Sufian Abu Zaida, a senior Fatah official and former PA minister. "The best way to strengthen the Palestinian stance and preserve our interests and dignity is by making order in our house and ending the division [between the West Bank and Gaza Strip]."
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Félix Tshisekedi announced on Sunday that he will appoint an ambassador to Israel for the first time in 20 years, AFP reported.
Speaking at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, Tshisekedi said that "After more than 20 years of inadequate representation, I will name an ambassador in the coming days."
Tshisekedi, who became president last year, credited his Christian faith for the decision, and thanked American Evangelicals for their support for the Jewish state.
Israel "is a source of inspiration," he said. "It teaches us what man can do in such a short span of time when he has drive, resilience and, especially, divine grace and favor."
The ambassador will be stationed in Tel Aviv, but a commercial section of the Congolese embassy will be based in Jerusalem. Currently, only the US and Guatemala have embassies in Jerusalem, recognizing the city as Israel's undivided capital.
The Israeli military struck a vehicle in the Syrian Golan Heights in response to an attempted cross-border sniper attack, the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday.
"A short while ago, IDF troops identified an attempted sniper attack in the northern Golan Heights area. In response, IDF troops targeted the vehicle involved in the attempted attack," the IDF spokesman said.
Syria's state news agency SANA reported that the IDF had fired a missile at a civilian vehicle "in the suburbs of Quneitra."
In response to the incident, Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennet said, "Even on election day, our enemies keep trying to hurt Israeli citizens and disrupt our lives, but we are going to stop them from doing that, like we do every day," according to Israel Hayom.
Israel's Health Ministry confirmed on Saturday that seven Israelis have so far tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), aka "coronavirus." Thousands of Israelis are currently under quarantine following potential exposure to the virus.
Three of the Israelis with COVID-19 returned from Italy last week. One of the returnees' spouses also has the disease. An additional two are under close supervision after being evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the coast of Japan. The seventh Israeli, who was believed to have been cured after being taken from the Diamond Princess to a Japanese hospital, was released to Israel on Friday and subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.
According to Israel's Channel 12 news, Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa and Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon were also preparing isolation wards to accept coronavirus patients.
According to a report by The Marker over the weekend, as of Sunday 4,582 Israelis were under quarantine for possible exposure to the virus, including 294 students and 28 preschool children. However, the report indicates that flight records suggest the number should be at least 10,000, including all returnees from Italy in the past two weeks.
El Al canceled a series of flights to European destinations on Monday, citing the need for "commercial adjustments" due to declining demand caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak.
"As a result of special circumstances due to the coronavirus incident, including instructions and recommendations made by the Health Ministry to the public, we have been forced to make commercial adjustments on certain flights," the airline said. "In this context, we are offering alternatives for travel on other flights. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience."
Passengers scheduled to fly on several flights to destinations including Vienna, Budapest, Brussels and Frankfurt were among those affected by the cancellations.
Bearing the brunt of the outbreak, El Al is preparing a plan to layoff up to a thousand of the company's 6,300 permanent and temporary staff. Last week, the airline said it expects revenues to drop by $50 million to $70m. between January and April as a result of the outbreak.
The carrier has already canceled all flights to China, Hong Kong and Italy, and is facing falling demand across its network. The scheduled launch of a nonstop route to Tokyo on March 11 has also been postponed. In an initial move to cut costs on Sunday, El Al fired 50 trainee pilots and an additional 14 pilots waiting to begin their training at the company.
According to Health Ministry instructions, a two-week home quarantine period is required from all Israeli nationals who visited Mainland China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau, South Korea, Japan or Italy in the last 14 days. Last week, the Health Ministry called on Israelis to reconsider all foreign travel.
Terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket toward Israel on Sunday night, which fell short of the border and landed inside the Palestinian enclave, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The military said the launch triggered alerts in open fields near the security fence.
The attack came less than a week after Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad fought a two-day battle in and around the Strip, in which over 100 rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israel and the IDF retaliated with airstrikes against the organization's facilities in Gaza and — in a highly irregular move — in Syria.
The launch also came less than 12 hours before polls opened in Israel for the country's 23rd Knesset elections.
Palestinian media reported that the rocket was fired from the Khan Younis area in the southern Gaza Strip.
Last Wednesday, Israel announced it would reopen its border crossings with the Gaza Strip, as well as the coastal enclave's fishing zone, marking a clear end to the fighting, as a ceasefire with Palestinian terror groups held after the violent exchange.
The families' calls for launching investigations into the death of their sons while in Hamas detention have been ignored not only by Hamas, but also by the international community, human rights organizations and media.
Al-Sa'afeen's mother emphasized that the Israelis treat Palestinians much better than Hamas does. "When the Jews arrest someone, they contact his family to say they are holding him... But Hamas refused to provide us with any information about the detention of my son or his health condition.... We told [Hamas] that he's sick and needs medicine, but they refused to give him any treatment. Until today, we don't know why my son was arrested."
When Palestinians die in Palestinian prisons, the murders are presumably regarded as the handiwork of supposedly savage Arabs, who are -- with racist contempt -- held to a lower standard of conduct than Westerners, and therefore regarded as unworthy of human rights, accountable governance, due process or equal justice under the law.
They are evidently considered "just" Palestinian families complaining about brutal torture in Palestinian prisons -- so international human rights organizations do not even notice them.
Leave it to @hrw BDS official to again mislead on Israel. He won't tell you the Palestinian President is in the 15th year of his 4 year term and in Gaza Hamas stole power in a coup.
The Jordanian Health Ministry confirmed the country's first coronavirus case on Monday, Al-Arabiya reported.
The infected person had returned from Italy two weeks ago, and was tested Sunday night for the virus along with another person who showed symptoms.
The first person tested positive for the virus; the second one tested negative, but will remain quarantined for 14 days as a precaution.
The infected patient's family members did not test positive for the virus. However, Jordanian Health Minister Saad Jaber added that those who were in contact with the patient will be quarantined for 14 days, according to Al-Arabiya.
He added that Jordan is fully prepared for the coronavirus outbreak and has the confirmed case fully quarantined and isolated. According to Jaber, the patient is stable.
The coronavirus outbreak, which started in Wuhan, China, has since spread worldwide and has infected nearly 90,000 people at the time of writing. Multiple countries in the Middle East, starting with the UAE, have reported multiple cases, with the vast majority of them linked to an outbreak in Iran. As such, many countries in the region have imposed travel restrictions with the Islamic Republic, as well as with China and Italy, where another major outbreak has sprung up and has resulted in thousands being infected.
Investigators for the UN-backed Human Rights Council said on Monday that they had found evidence of war crimes in Syria committed by nearly all sides in the conflict during the second half of last year and into January.
The investigators turned up war crimes by Russian forces, Syrian government troops, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and Turkey-backed Syrian fighters.
The Commission of Inquiry for Syria has been tracking and chronicling human rights abuses and violations since shortly after Syria's war began in 2011. It revealed the findings in their 19th regular report on Monday, this time covering July 11 last year until January 10.
That period was marked by several key developments in the war.
Starting in early December, a Russia-backed Syrian government offensive began pushing into Syria's last rebel stronghold in the northwestern Idlib province, which is dominated by al-Qaeda-linked militants.
The offensive led to a surge of nearly a million Syrian civilians fleeing the fighting amid harsh winter weather. It's the single largest wave of displacement in Syria's nine-year civil war.
The commission's members, headed by Brazilian lawyer Paulo Pinheiro, said Syrian women, children and other civilians face "unprecedented level of suffering and pain."
Pinheiro also said the commission found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Russian aircraft were involved in at least two strikes on a crowded market in July and on a center for displaced persons in August.
"In both incidents, the Russian Air Force did not direct the attacks at a specific military objective, amounting to the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas," the commission said, citing witness testimonies, video footage, data imagery, reports by flight spotters, flight communication intercepts and early warning observation reports.
B'nai Brith Canada is taking legal action against the Canadian government over not designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group following a parliamentary motion, unanimously approved in the House of Commons in June 2018, that called on the government to do so.
The notice was served in federal court last week after a Jan. 13 news conference where leaders of B'nai Brith, the Council of Iranian Canadians and the Justice 88 Campaign called upon the government to implement the motion within 30 days.
After the deadline passed, B'nai Brith took the legal action.
"We made it clear last month that no further delays by the government would be accepted by Canadians," said B'nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn in a statement. "Unfortunately, there is no alternative at this point to legal recourse. It is intolerable that 20 months have elapsed since this important motion passed, and no action has been taken by our government to implement it."
Mostyn said "poses a very serious security threat to Canadians," and that "listing it as a terrorist entity in this country is necessary to deter this threat and reduce its ability to do harm … our safety concerns are pragmatic, moral and urgent."
A member of a council that advises Iran's supreme leader died Monday after falling sick from the new coronavirus, state radio reported, becoming the first top official to succumb to the illness that is affecting members of the Islamic Republic's leadership.
The death of Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi came as Iran announced the virus had killed 66 people among 1,501 confirmed cases in the country.
Iran has the highest death toll in the world after China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Mirmohammadi died at a north Tehran hospital of the virus, state radio said. He was 71.
The council advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as settles disputes between the top cleric and parliament.
His death comes as other top officials have contracted the virus in Iran.
Those sick include Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known as "Sister Mary," the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis, state media reported. Also sick is Iraj Harirchi, the head of an Iranian government task force on the coronavirus who tried to downplay the virus before falling ill.
This year's Munich Security Conference may go down in history as the COVID-19 viral super-spreader "event of the century," if not in all of recorded history. That's because the Munich 2020 event took place from February Friday 14-Sunday 16, and Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif attended.
Unknown to apparently all the high security-minded attendees, FM Zarif was likely carrying much more than the dark secret that the COVID-19 virus had already begun rampaging through the highest echelons of the Iranian government and society. FM Zarif , or one of his minions, was likely carrying the actual COVID-19, and infected who knows how many of the world's highest and most influential politicians at the Munich event.
In fact, US Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, not only met FM Zarif, but met him in Zarif's hotel suite where there was likely a rat's nest of COVID-19. Unless drastic steps are taken, Sen. Murphy may become the Typhoid Mary of COVID-19, and infect the entire US Senate and House of Representatives.
As of February 28, 2020 there were officially 210 actual deaths in Iran. Unofficially, there have been over 500 reliably reported Iranian deaths. But, what is very unusual about the Iranian deaths is that a large number of extremely high ranking government officials in Tehran, the capital, have actually caught the disease and have died. The officially "First reported" Iranian case was on February 19. Working backward from the 19th, that means COVID-19 was likely already circulating in Iran from middle-to-late January when FM Zarif, or one of his staff, could have caught the disease.
The key part is the number of deaths. To go form "zero" to officially 210 deaths in four weeks likely means that there are a lot of undiagnosed carriers. Also, Iran is probably underreporting the death toll. Assuming the 500 COVID-19 deaths, and 1% death rate that means that there are about 50,000 Iranians who already have the disease, with a huge number in Tehran and the Iranian government itself.
2/ May 2010 - UN Watch leads 37 NGOs to oppose Libya's election to the UNHRC & with Freedom House hosts dissident Mohamed Eljahmi—whose brother was jailed, tortured & killed by Qaddafi—at UN press conference. "Libya does not belong on the UNHRC," he said.https://t.co/0jlzUHpThL
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