Pollard Rushed to Hospital

Jonathan Pollard was rushed to a hospital emergency room near his Butner, North Carolina prison.

By Uzi Baruch

Jonathan Pollard, convicted of spying for Israel and serving a life sentence without parole for 26 years, was rushed to a hospital emergency room near his Butner, North Carolina penitentiary early Friday after suffering from extreme pain, sources close to him said Friday.

Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yonah Metzger called upon Jews around the world to pray during the Passover holiday for the health and freedom of Pollard, whose Hebrew name is Yehonatan Ben-Malka. President Shimon Peres will meet Sunday with MKs Uri Ariel and Ronit Tirosh who will hand him a letter for US President Barack Obama asking for the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

The letter bears the signatures of 80 Israeli lawmakers. Peres's office told Arutz Sheva that Israel's president is working hand in hand with the leaders of the Freedom for Pollard Committee to maximize efforts to secure his release.

Last week, Peres bureau chief Efrat Duvdevani and other senior staffers made arrangements for the President to receive and deliver the letter to Obama.

The President's Office noted that Peres will next meet with Obama in June to formally request Pollard's release on behalf of the citizens of Israel.

Peres also requested Pollard's release during his last meeting with Obama, following the AIPAC conference in early March.

Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy, has been serving a life sentence since 1987 for one count of conspiracy to deliver national security information to a foreign government. He was not allowed to attend the recent funeral of his father. Pollard's wife Esther warned that his health was deteriorating.

Wrongful eviction in Hebron

Op-ed: Why does story about Jews moving into house they bought make global headlines?

David Ha'ivri
Israel Opinion

Some Jews bought a house and moved in. “So what?” you might ask. If it were anywhere else in the world, little notice would be taken. But in this case, the home is in Hebron, and the last owner was an Arab. In this case, it is something covered by international media - a cause for governmental debate and military intervention. Sounds a little off the wall, doesn't it? The truth is that even with some background details, this story would be considered outrageous had it occurred anywhere else in the world. What is the story here? Hebron is one of three cities holy to the Jewish people: Shechem, Hebron and Jerusalem. It is the site of the burial place purchased by our father Abraham, founder of our faith, where he laid to rest his wife Sarah, mother of our nation.



Our two other sets of patriarchs and matriarchs - Itzchak and Rivkah, Yaakov and Leah - were also buried in the same family cave when they passed away. Our great King David sat on the throne in Hebron for seven years before he made Jerusalem the united capital of Israel.



Throughout the ages, the Jewish community thrived in Hebron. The pious came from afar to pray at the holy tombs and to study in the city's great houses of Torah learning.



In 1929, in response to incitement by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the Arabs of Hebron massacred, raped and mutilated their Jewish neighbors. Seventy-seven innocent Jewish residents of Hebron died that day, at the hands of Arab neighbors with whom they had lived at peace for decades. The British Mandate government instructed the Jewish survivors to relocate to other cities, leaving behind their properties, which they were unable to see again until after the victory of the Israeli army in June 1967.


Real Estate
Machpelah house settlers: We'll celebrate Passover here / Itamar Fleishman
After Netanyahu asks Barak to delay their evacuation from disputed Hebron house, settlers say they have no intention of leaving. 'Jews have right to settle anywhere in the Land of Israel,' they say
Full Story

Less than a year later, on the eve of Passover, Jews returned to live in the holy city. However, to this day, the rebuilding of the Jewish community in the city is a great challenge. Residents are continually pressured by the international community that wishes to facilitate the Palestinian goal of a land free of Jews.


Tornadoes in Hebron

Safety has always been a concern, with armed terrorists targeting even infants in their effort to again rid the city of Jews. But, thank G-d; the resilience of the Jewish community in Hebron can be an inspiration to Jews and friends of Israel everywhere.



Slowly but surely, the community continues to grow and set down strong roots in the city of our fathers. The Cave of Machpelah has again become a site of mass pilgrimage, with a constant flow of visitors who come from around the world to pray at the holy site. Weddings, Brit Milahs and other important events are held at this place of great significance.



Today, for a Jewish person to buy a home or property in Judea, Samaria or Jerusalem, from an Arab, is a very complicated procedure. Under the Palestinian Authority, capital punishment is the accepted policy for those who sell property to Jews. That being the case, these types of deals are very complex, and can take years of secret negotiations, during which time monies are transferred and agreements are signed.


Before the deal can become public, the Arab seller needs to relocate to another country, where he will be safe from assassins from his own community. After the deal goes public, the new Jewish owners take possession of the property and move their families in. At this point, in almost every case, some other Arab will publicly make claim to the property and state that no deal was made.



In the above case, there was an emergency meeting of the leaders of Israel's government, where it was decided that the new Jewish owners in Hebron would be given a few days to prove their claim before any action was taken.


However, Defense Minister Ehud Barak took matters into his own hands and acted in defiance of that government stand. Riot police forces were sent in to evict the Jews from their new residence in the city of Hebron, next to the Cave of Machpelah. Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu will have to decide where he stands.



My friend, White House Correspondent William Koenig, brought my attention to a most remarkable piece of information. It seems that at the same time that the Jewish owners of the Hebron house were being evicted, homeowners in another Hebron were also forced out of their homes.


A wave of between six and 13 tornadoes has struck in the region of Texas between Dallas-Fort Worth and Hebron, Texas. Thousands are stranded in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, over 100 planes are grounded and being inspected for damage, and at least 300 homes have been damaged.



Coincidence? Could be.



David Ha’ivri is the director of the Shomron Liaison Office. He and his wife Mollie live in Kfar Tapuach, Shomron with their eight children. You can follow him on Twitter @haivri

The Pathology of Jewish Anti-Semitism

Steven Plaut
Front Page

Jewish anti-Semitism. It sounds like a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron or a Jackie Mason joke. If only this were the case.

Jewish anti-Semitism is all around us, part of the political air we breathe, a modern disease. In the twenty-first century the world is experiencing an explosion of it, a virtual plague. Among the most malicious and venomous of all bigots, the Jewish anti-Semites are at the forefront of every smear campaign against Israel and every attempt to cow Jews of America and the West into guilty support for those in the Middle East who would like to annihilate them. Jews today are leaders in the campaigns to boycott and “divest from” Israel, and in the leadership of the “Solidarity with Terrorists” groups. They make pilgrimage to the camps of Hamas and the Hezb’Allah, cheering on terrorists and their atrocities against Jews. They pioneered the smear campaigns to paint Israel as an apartheid regime and to stigmatize it as the moral equivalent to Nazi Germany. Western campuses are crawling with Jewish anti-Semites. Some even hold leadership positions in Hillel houses. Many others are tenured professors. An anti-Semitic Jewish judge (Richard Goldstone) chaired a UN commission demonizing Israel. A Jewish member of Britain’s Parliament (Gerald Kaufman) compared Hamas terrorists to Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto and denounced Israel as a Nazi entity. Nor is this only an American phenomenon: a shockingly large number of Jewish anti-Semites are Israelis or ex-Israelis.

Most Jews dismiss such people as “self-hating,” but this term is misleading at best. These rogues do not hate themselves. Indeed they are narcissistic to the core. They hate other Jews and wish them harm. Nor are these Jewish anti-Semites simply assimilationists of Jewish descent who have lost interest in their heritage, become indifferent towards the history of their people and therefore casually alienated from Israel and its travails. On the contrary, anti-Semitic Jews are intensely involved in their “roots” and use them adroitly as protective coloration from which they advance their treasonous notions. In some extreme cases they collaborate with Neo-Nazis, Islamist terrorists, and even Holocaust Deniers.

Jewish anti-Semitism was once considered a bizarre irrelevance. It was touched upon gingerly in the ground breaking 1947 film, “Gentleman’s Agreement,” but long ignored as a marginal psychological disorder by the organized Jewish community. Modern Zionists expected that the very creation of Israel would put an end to any neurotic self-hatred that afflicted Diaspora communities. It was expected to end not only Jewish physical insecurity but also spiritual pathology. A strong and proud Israel, in other words, would shield Jews from a sense of vulnerability and empower them to throw off self denial. Alas, history had a surprise up its sleeve: the growth of a powerful and determined Israel committed to never again allowing Jews to become victims has also enabled some of the very worst Jewish anti-Semites on the planet, all of whom shelter in the radical fringes of the Israeli Left, its academic institutions and its “intelligentsia,” thriving under the protective umbrella of the Israeli Defense Force.

Among the most open Israeli promoters of anti-Semitic mythology today is Professor Shlomo Sand, a hardcore communist on the history faculty of Tel Aviv University. Sand last year published a book with a far-left anti-Israel publisher claiming to prove that Jews are not and never have been a “people.” Recycling myths popularized by Neo-Nazi web sites, Sand’s entire book is a sort of Protocols of the Elders of Anti-Zion, a pseudo-analysis that claims that most Jews today are frauds, converts from the Khazar Turkic tribe, impersonators of Jews. All real Jews, according to the learned professor, became Palestinian Arabs centuries ago. Hence Israeli “Jews” are not Jews at all, certainly none that have a right to their own state.

Sand travels the globe with Tel Aviv University funding to tout his book and advocate the extermination of Israel. He is surpassed in his anti-Semitism only by one other Israeli professor, now retired, named Ariel Toaff, who claimed to have evidence that Jews use gentile blood in religious ritual. Blood libel: one of the foundations of traditional anti Semitism now embraced by Jewish anti Semites. The concept of irony is not spacious enough to encompass such a development. (Other anti-Semitic Israeli academics are cataloged on the web site Isracampus.org.il.)

Just what makes Jewish anti-Semites tick is hard to explain. One of the few people to take a serious stab at doing so is Kenneth Levin, a psychiatrist at Harvard and an occasional contributor to these pages. He thinks of Jewish anti-Semitism in part as an attempt by some Jews to gain social acceptance in an environment that is hostile towards Jews. He also understands it as an infantile attempt to rectify a menacing situation by self-blame, a response seen in small children who have been abused. And he also considers it a kissing cousin to the notorious “Stockholm Syndrome,” whereby victims adopt the outlook and agenda of their victimizers.

Anti-Semitism is today the main common denominator that unites the far-Left with the Neo-Nazi Right in the United States and in Europe. Jewish anti-Semites thrive in the shadowy areas found at both ends of the political spectrum. In the American ultra-Left many serve as columnists for the extremist “Counterpunch” web magazine, published by the ex-Brits Alexander and Andrew Cockburn, sons perpetuating the work of their Stalinist father (and George Orwell enemy) Claud Cockburn. Counterpunch is so openly anti-Semitic these days that it goes well beyond merely calling for Israel’s extermination. It endorses anti-Semitic conspiracy “theories” (such as the morally imbecilic idea that Jews were behind the 9-11 attacks!) and increasingly publishes Holocaust Denier columnists. Some of its columnists moonlight as writers for Neo-Nazi web sites and organizations. Almost every literate Jewish anti-Semite writes for this publication.

On the cyber-pages of Counterpunch, Jewish anti-Semites cheer on the jihad and endorse anti-Jewish terrorism. It would be difficult to find Jewish writers in Counterpunch who are not making the de rigueur comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany. The University of Wisconsin’s Jennifer Loewenstein, for instance, published “Gaza Holocaust,” in which she writes: “Israel and its US Master have long since resided in the lowest circle of Hell for betraying the name of humanity.” She adds that Israel treats Palestinians as subhuman “Untermenschen,” reminiscent of German treatment of Jews in the Holocaust. Then, in a quote that could easily have been printed by the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer in the 1930s, she adds: “The Neo-Jewish Masters and their allies in the United States… have no intention of making a just peace with the lower forms of life in their midst.” In Loewenstein’s take on reality, Israel can engage in state terror because it operates a sinister cabal that enslaves the American government and dictates its policies. A new postmodern take on the old racist stereotype of Jews as cagey intriguers.

Another Counterpunch anti-Semite is Richard Falk, a retired professor from Princeton best known for serving on the UN commission that condemned Israel for “genocidal war crimes” even before it began its investigation of Israel’s Gaza operations. Falk is not only one of the worst collaborators in the academics warring against the Jews, he is also America’s leading practitioner of the Orwellian inversion of reality in which Israel is a terrorist aggressor, while the Arab terrorist aggressors are innocent victims and peace-loving progressives. For him, Israel is a Nazi-like country seeking genocide, while the Islamofascists of the Hamas and their backers are merely protesters against social inequality inside Israel. For him, terrorist aggression against Jews is really the pursuit of peace, while self-defense by Israel is genocide.

In 2007 Falk published, “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust,” in which he wrote that it was not an “irresponsible overstatement to associate [Israel’s] treatment of Palestinians” with the Nazi extermination of Jews:
“The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy.”

One of the regular contributors to Counterpunch is an ex-Israeli named Gilad Atzmon. He is a saxophone player living in the UK and closely associated with Neo-Nazi groups in Europe. While active in pro-terror organizations, Atzmon is so openly anti-Semitic that some of these anti-Israel groups shun and refuse to have anything to do with him. The well-known British writer Oliver Kamm has denounced Atzmon as an open Holocaust Denier. Atzmon has called not only for Israel to be annihilated but also for synagogues to be burned down. He heads a small clique of Neo-Nazi followers, mainly in Italy, for whom he serves as cult leader. Atzmon has repeatedly asserted that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a historically accurate documentation of the crimes by the Jewish people.

Paul Eisen, another anti-Israel Jewish extremist in the UK, is also an open Holocaust Denier. He has distributed an essay endorsing Holocaust Denial entitled “Holocaust Wars,” which claims – among other things – that the gas chambers of Auschwitz could not possibly have worked to the degree that they did. Among its “sources” are David Irving and the Neo-Nazi crank Ernst Zundel, deported by Canada and now in prison in Germany.

Several Jewish anti-Semites engaged in a bizarre form of Holocaust Denial on the anti-Semitic “ALEF” chat list that operates under the auspices of the University of Haifa in Israel. Members of that list debated at length whether Hitler was actually guilty of anything, concluding that he was probably not. Shraga Elam, a Swiss-based ex-Israeli and a member of the same “ALEF” list, published a sycophantic letter praising Holocaust Denier David Irving as a “brilliant researcher.”

The most venomous Jewish-born Holocaust Denier of all is Israel Shamir. An émigré from the Soviet Union, “Shamir” moved to Israel and later left for Sweden, where he changed his name to Adam Ermash and reportedly converted to Christianity. A vulgar Jewbaiter, he regularly attends Holocaust Denial conferences. As just one example of his poison, in an interview with the Islamist Mohamed Omar in August 2009, Shamir said:

“I think it is the duty of every Muslim and Christian to deny the Holocaust, to reject this belief, just like Abraham and Moses rejected idolatry. Every person who profess [sic] their [sic] faith to God should deny the Holocaust. I think it’s much more serious that people deny God, isn’t it?”

Within Israel, one of the most openly anti-Semitic Jews was the late Professor Israel Shahak, who taught chemistry for decades at the Hebrew University. He insisted that Judaism teaches Jews to worship Satan, to connive against non-Jews and to murder them. He stopped just millimeters short of saying that Jews use gentile blood for ritual purposes. He claimed that the Talmud is filled with calls to murder gentiles, and that Jews regard gentiles as subhuman. He collaborated with Neo-Nazis all over the world. Naturally he wanted Israel to be speedily destroyed, and he was one of the first Israelis to openly collaborate with Palestinian terrorism, long before the Oslo “process” commenced and produced so many others who have emulated him.

In an analysis of Shahak, the British writer Paul Bogdanor notes: “According to Shahak, the Jews think of nothing but making money for the benefit of the Jewish state … According to Shahak, the Jews plan to dominate much of the world through an Israeli empire …“extending [in Shahak’s words] from ‘Algeria or Morocco’ from the west to China in the east, and from Kenya or even South Africa in the south to the USSR in the north… According to Shahak, the Jews facilitate the spread of vice in order to enslave the masses (“Part of the motivation” must be “encouraging drug addiction and thus promoting political apathy”)….”

In other cases prominent Jews endorse Holocaust Deniers while carefully tiptoeing around explicitly endorsing Holocaust Denial itself. The best known of these is Noam Chomsky, an extremist anti-American and anti-Israel professor of linguistics at MIT.

Son of a Hebrew teacher at Gratz College in Philadelphia, Chomsky despises Israel almost as deeply as he hates America. He considers both countries worse than Nazi Germany. Chomsky has campaigned on behalf of the French Holocaust Denier Robert Faurisson and other European Neo-Nazis. He has said in his own defense that he only wants this hate to be protected under laws guaranteeing freedom of speech, but as Professor Werner Cohn has proven, Chomsky also endorses the contents of their speech: “But in fact we saw that [in addition to justifying] …Faurisson’s Holocaust-denial, we found Chomsky publishing his own books with neo-Nazi publishers, we saw him writing for a neo-Nazi journal, we saw that the neo-Nazis promote Chomsky’s books and tapes together with the works of Joseph Goebbels. It is this complex of anti-Semitic activities and neo-Nazi associations, not his professed ideas alone, that constitutes the Chomsky phenomenon.”

Only marginally less openly anti-Semitic is Norman Finkelstein, who had been on the faculty of DePaul University until he was fired three years back (and has been unemployed ever since). Finkelstein has built an entire career out of smearing Holocaust survivors as frauds and liars, and cheering on Islamofascist terrorism against Jews. His personal web site is a vulgar gutter of juvenile anti-Semitic catcalls. He claims that Zionists exaggerate the dimensions of the Shoah to steal money and invent Holocaust survivors to exploit Germany. He has made pilgrimage to the Hezb’Allah terrorists and was denied entry into Israel on grounds that he is a terrorist agent. Finkelstein’s book “The Holocaust Industry” has become a basic text used by all Neo-Nazis and Holocaust Deniers. He has praised Holocaust Denier David Irving as a great and reliable historian. (Irving, in turn, claims the entire Holocaust is a Zionist hoax and that no Jews were murdered in Auschwitz.)

While Finkelstein is a pseudo-academic and a fraud, dismissed as a crackpot by all serious historians, he is nevertheless celebrated by all other Jewish Anti-Semites. One Israeli academic in particular, Neve Gordon, an Israel-hating extremist who teaches political science at Ben Gurion University, has devoted much of his career to celebrating Finkelstein and his “ideas.” When he is not denouncing Israel as a fascist apartheid terrorist regime that needs to be eliminated, Gordon has even compared Finkelstein to the Prophets of the Bible.

The psychosis of Jewish anti-Semitism has no comparable analogue among the nations, making the Jews a therapist’s sui generis. The disease of Jewish anti-Semitism not only illustrates the absence of “normality” among 21st century Jewry, it threatens the very survival of Israel and of Jewish communities around the world. It is a growth industry and it puts a perverse stamp of approval on every genocidal plan conceived by every terrorist sect contemplating the glory that awaits those who murder Jews.

Israeli government and PLO agree: Jews cannot buy property in Hebron

Elder of Ziyon

AFP:

A Palestinian man suspected of mediating in the contested sale of a house in Hebron to Jewish settlers has been detained, Palestinian security sources told AFP on Thursday.

Israeli security forces on Wednesday evicted a group of settlers from a house in the West Bank city, a day after they were ordered to leave the property.

Six settler families had moved into the property a week ago, claiming they had legally purchased one floor of the building from its Palestinian owners.

Palestinian sources in Hebron said the property belonged to the Abu Rajab family, some of whom live on the first floor of the building, and that it was possible that a member of the family had sold the second floor of the house.

But the buyer was not settlers, rather a Palestinian man originally from the Gaza Strip, who is suspected of acting as a middle-man for Jewish groups involved in buying Palestinian assets, the Palestinian security sources said. This go-between, who worked for Palestinian national security in Ramallah before retiring, was detained earlier this week by Palestinian security forces, and was being held in Ramallah, the sources said.

They added that the member of the Abu Rajab family believed to have sold the asset to the middle-man had "escaped to Israel."

The Jewish Press has more detail:

At a press conference outside Machpelah House which had been evacuated Wednesday in Hebron, Shlomo Levinger and attorney Doron Nir-Tzvi told reporters that the purchase of Machpelah House had been in the making for some three years. The tenants had planned to patiently await government approval for their purchase of the house from a local Arab.

But the arrest of several Arabs by the Palestinian Authority on suspicion of selling real estate to the Jewish group – a crime which could be punished with death – changed the plan, and the group decided to move in despite the murky prospects of staying.

Knowing full well how hard it would be to establish residency in a newly purchased house—facing a hostile Israeli civil authority whose directive is to strictly limit the growth of the city’s Jewish community, the group of buyers was moving slowly and quietly, through intermediaries and straw men, forever remaining below the radar for three years.

At the press conference, Levinger said they paid four times the value of the house, which has been estimated at around $250 thousand. Earlier in the day, when the Jewish Press asked Levinger to confirm a rumor that they paid half a million dollars for the house, he said, “I wish it would have been that amount.”

The money for the purchase came from donations of Jews from Israel and abroad. “Every week we would travel to meetings in private homes, collecting one shekel after another,” Levinger said. “There were times when we came back with only a few single shekels, other times we’d pick up thousands. We spent days and nights collecting this money, faithfully and lovingly.

“Once the money had been collected, we embarked on the purchase deal. It was a Sysiphian labor. We knew that the Attorney General’s office would be looking everywhere for possible holes in the deal.”

According to Doron Nir-Tzvi, in Judea and Samaria, real estate deals are conducted in an anachronistic fashion, whereby a deal must first be completed before the buyers are permitted to apply for government approval (Heter Iskah). Therefore, once every last T was crossed and I dotted, the buyers planned to wait patiently for their deal to go through.

Sources in the Civil Administration were telling them they couldn’t find faults with the deal, that despite themselves they would end up having to approve it.

But then the PA arrested both straw men who had been carrying out different part of the bargain, followed by the jailing of their family members as well.

At this point, Levinger et al felt that their only recourse was to take possession of the property, or risk losing the deal altogether.

Both Levinger and Nir-Tzvi expressed concern for the jailed Palestinians. Levinger told the Jewish Press earlier that he was urging the Israeli government to demand their release of the Palestinian Authority.

It looks like no one is disputing that a sale occurred and it was legal. The Jews in Hebron say they have full documentation and video of the transaction.

But there are places in the world that Jews are not allowed to buy real estate because they are Jews. For example, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - and the ancient Jewish holy city of Hebron.

Jewish liberation is far from complete

Caroline Glick

Hamas terror boss Fathi Hamad is a notable figure. Hamad is both the director of Hamas's al-Aksa television station and the terror group's "minister" of the interior and national security. His double portfolio is a clear expression of the much ignored fact that for terrorists, propaganda is inseparable from violence.

Hamad's key posts make him a man worth listening to. His statements necessarily indicate Hamas's general direction.

On March 23, Hamad was interviewed by Egypt's Al Hekma television station. The interview was translated by MEMRI. Hamad made two central points. First, he claimed that the Palestinian war against Israel is the keystone of the global jihad. Second, he said the Palestinians are not a distinct people, but transplanted Egyptians and Saudis.

In his words, "At al-Aksa and on the land of Palestine, all the conspiracies, throughout history, have been shattered - the conspiracies of the Crusaders, and the conspiracies of the Tatars. At al- Aksa and on the land of Palestine, the Battle of Hattin was waged. The [West] does not want this noble history to repeat itself, because the Jews and their allies would be annihilated - the Zionists, the Americans and the imperialists.

"Thus, the conspiracy is very clear. Al-Aksa and the land of Palestine represent the spearhead for Islam and for the Muslims. Therefore, when we seek the help of our Arab brothers, we are not seeking their help in order to eat, to live, to drink, to dress, or to live a life of luxury. No. When we seek their help, it is in order to continue to wage Jihad."

Hamad next explained, "Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis. Who are the Palestinians? We have many families called Al-Masri, [Egyptians] whose roots are Egyptian. Egyptian! They may be from Alexandria, from Cairo, from Dumietta, from the North, from Aswan, from Upper Egypt. We are Egyptians."

What Hamad's interview tells us is that today Hamas - the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood - is more interested in unity with Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egypt than with Fatah. Whereas in the past it joined Fatah in obscuring the direct link between the jihad against the Jews and the jihad against the non-Muslim world, today it seeks to emphasize the connection. To this end, Hamas is willing to abandon the myth of Palestinian nativism and acknowledge that the Palestinians are an artificial people, invented for the purpose of advancing the global jihad in the key battlefield of Israel.

Hamad's statements underscore a widespread sentiment among Israelis about the revolutions now tearing apart the Arab world. That sentiment is that while the results of these revolutions will be catastrophic in the medium and long term, in the short term they bring respite to Israel. With Arab regimes - new and old - struggling to consolidate power, they have little time or energy to devote to their war against Israel.

In this situation, the thinking goes, Israel should be able to devote its attention to attacking Iran's nuclear facilities.

Unfortunately for Israel, while the Arab world is increasingly uninterested in the Palestinian war against Israel, Europe and the American Left are more than happy to pick up the slack.

Consider two recent events. First, two weeks ago the UN Human Rights Council voted to launch a commission whose goal is to criminalize Israel for the existence of Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

The council's decision to form a new kangaroo court to criminalize Israel was not the result of the Arab diplomatic war against Israel. It is the consequence of the European diplomatic war against Israel. It is Europe, not the Arabs that has barred Israel from caucusing with its UN regional group - the Western European and Others Group. By barring Israel from the caucus, the Europeans have denied Israel the ability to make its case to other UN member nations.

For its part, the Obama administration pays lip service to the need to end the Human Rights Council's obsessive war against Israel. But at the same time, it has effectively joined that war by legitimizing the anti-Israel council both by joining it, and by refusing to use its membership as leverage to coerce the council into abandoning its campaign against Israel.

Following the council's vote to form a new Goldstone-style commission to attack Israel, the State Department issued a statement in which it claimed that due in part to US membership in the council, the council had been spurred to "action on a series of important human rights situations around the world."

Then there was last Friday's Global March to Jerusalem, in which a consortium of protesters organized by Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran and the international Left intended to storm Israel's borders and fill the state with hostile foreigners.

As Ribhi Halloum, the coordinator of the march said last year, the goal of the GMJ was "to move the right of return possessed by Palestinian refugees from theory to practice."

In a press conference in Amman days ahead of the operation, Halloum said that organizers expected for two million people to mass at Israel's borders and attempt to breach them.

In the end, the GMJ failed to mount its planned invasion. The sum total of the day's events amounted to several violent local demonstrations by Palestinians in Judea and Samaria joined by foreign and Israeli leftists. Israel's borders were not breached.

The GMJ's failure to achieve its aims owed to the same pan-Arab distraction that Hamad tried to address in his interview with Egyptian television.

But while the Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese have more urgent business to attend to, the international Left has intensified its own campaign against Israel.

Leading anti-Israel, (and anti-Jewish) leftists including George Galloway, Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire, Noam Chomsky, Jeremiah Wright, Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin served as members of the GMJ's various organizing committees. These self-proclaimed human rights activists had no problem with the fact that the Iranian regime took a central role in organizing the operation or that the clear goal of the campaign's Muslim organizers is the destruction of Israel.

To the contrary, this goal is now openly shared by growing numbers of Western leftists. In an op-ed on the Guardian's online opinion forum, Sarah Colborne, a member of the GMJ's organizing committees and its national coordinator for the UK as well as the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the UK wrote, "The struggle for Palestinian rights is at the core of the global movement for social and economic justice."

Judith Butler, one of Colborne's American counterparts, has opined that "understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important."

So just as Hamas's Hamad claims that the jihad on Israel is the key campaign of the global jihad, Hamad's Western partners claim that destroying Israel is the key to the Left's campaign for socialism.

Disturbingly, the international Left is receiving indirect support for its goal of destroying Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem, (and through it, destroying Israel), from the US government. Just days before the GMJ failed to unravel Israel's physical control over Jerusalem, in a jaw-dropping exchange between State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland and AP reporter Matthew Lee, Nuland refused to say that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

The US has always been deeply hostile to Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem. Beginning in 1950 the State Department directed US diplomats to discourage other governments from establishing their embassies in Jerusalem. But while the US has always undermined its own alliance with Israel by aligning its policy on Jerusalem with Israel's worst enemies, under President Barack Obama, the US's willingness to express this hostility has been unprecedented.

This hostility has been demonstrated most famously by Obama's demand that the government stop respecting Jewish property rights in the city.

It has also been given graphic expression by the administration's decision to move the Consular Section of the US Consulate in Jerusalem from an Arab neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem to the site that Israel allocated for a new US embassy.

The site is located in the Jewish Arnona neighborhood in western Jerusalem.

Israel allocated the land to a future US Embassy after Congress passed the US Embassy Act in 1995 which obligated the US government to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The site was chosen, among other reasons, because its location in western Jerusalem put it outside the dispute regarding whether or not Israel will retain sovereignty over eastern, southern and northern Jerusalem in a hypothetical peace treaty with the Palestinians. The US government uses the non-resolution of the Palestinian conflict with Israel as its justification for refusing to accept Jewish property rights in those areas of the city.

The US Consulate in Jerusalem is not subordinate to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. It presents itself as the unofficial US embassy to the non-existent state of Palestine. By utilizing the site in western Jerusalem allocated for a future embassy as an extension office of the consulate, the Obama administration made clear its rejection of Israel's right to sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. And in light of the US law that recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital and orders the government to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem, the Obama administration not only indirectly legitimized the cause of those who seek the destruction of Israel.

It did so in contempt of US law.

****
In truth, there is nothing new about the West's rejection of Israel's right to sovereignty or even to its support and sponsorship for the Arab war for the destruction of Israel. Such animosity predates not only the 1967 Six Day War. It predates the establishment of Israel.

British Col. Richard Meinertzhagen, who served as an intelligence officer in wartime and post-World War I Mandatory Palestine, made this point clearly in his memoir Middle East Diary.

Meinertzhagen wrote that the first Arab terror assaults on Jews under the British military government were instigated by the British military. Just before Easter in 1920, British military authorities contacted future Nazi agent Haj Amin el Husseini and encouraged him to attack the Jews of Jerusalem.

They told him, "He had a great opportunity at Easter to show the world that the Arabs of Palestine would not tolerate Jewish domination in Palestine... and if disturbances of sufficient violence occurred in Jerusalem at Easter, [the British High Commanders] would advocate the abandonment of the Jewish home."

Today, the Jewish people begin their week-long celebration of Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom. This evening we will read in the Haggada that our fight for freedom is an eternal struggle.

When we assess the global nature of the current assault on Jewish freedom and sovereignty in our country, we see the truth of that message.

While our present circumstances give us much to celebrate, the work of Jewish liberation is far from over.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Friday Night is Seder Night

A7 News

The Holy One, Blessed be He, passed over the homes of the Israelites as he smote the firstborn of the Egyptians, from the son of Pharaoh to the son of the servants. Pharaoh was spared to see how G-d delivered His Chosen People from the hands of those who would destroy them, as He does in every generation. And the joyous holiday of Passover, in which we relive that redemption and sing "Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem", begins Friday night.

Arutz Sheva brings you a summary of the main aspects of the holiday in Jewish law and practice. For details on koshering a kitchen for Passover, click here and for Torah thoughts for the holiday from well known rabbis and religious scholars, click here and continue to read our Judaism section. Dates:

Passover (Pesach), called the Holiday of Our Freedom, will take place in Israel this year between sunset on Friday, April 6, (15th of Nisan) and Friday night, April 13th, but because of the Sabbath, will effectively end on Saturday night April 14th.

The first and seventh days are always marked as Sabbath-like holy days (Yom Tov) in which work is forbidden.Since this year, the holiday in Israel ends as the Sabbath begins, there are two holy days at the end of the holiday.

Jews outside of Israel observe an additional holy day in both the beginning and end of Pesach, which lasts eight days for them. Jews visiting Israel only for the holiday should refrain, on the eighth day, from activities not allowed on holy days, but do not have to perform specific commandments related to the holiday, such as extra prayers. There are differing halakhic decisions on the issue, with some rabbis saying that that visitors must keep the additional days as if they were in the Diaspora, including having a second Seder.

Jews are commanded to tell the story of leaving Egypt at the Seder as if it had happened to them personally and not as a mere historical event. This is in order to emphasize the importance of the hard-won and precious freedom that, due to G-d's deliverance, allowed the Jewish nation to be born.

In the time of the Holy Temple, every Jew came to Jerusalem on the 14th of Nisan and at dusk, each family offered a lamb or kid to G-d in remembrance of their forefathers' deliverance from bondage, then joyously ate of the offering together. Today, statistics show that almost every Jew in Israel attends a seder.

Preparation:

The government of Israel sells its “chametz,” leavened products, to an Arab before the holiday in order not to transgress the commandment of not owning any chametz during the holiday. This includes any food product that contains leavened wheat, oat, barley, rye, or spelt products.

Houses are thoroughly cleaned before Pesach and utensils and food containing chametz are sold to a non-Jew. After a search for remaining chametz in houses Thursday night, before which a special blessing is said, Jews burn it the following morning, several hours before Pesach begins. Both at night and in the morning they proclaim that any chametz left in their possession should be considered as dust.

Consult your local rabbi or an appropriate internet site for the time chametz should be burned, for the last minute one can eat chametz on Friday and when one can use it.

Dishes are changed for the holiday unless they have been made kosher for Passover through a procedure which depends on the material of which they are made. Not all materials can be made useable for Pesach.

In the absence of leaven, Jews will eat specially prepared unleavened bread, or matzah, on Pesach, as was done at the Exodus, when the Jews did not have enough time to wait for dough to rise before leaving Egypt. During their bondage, they ate matzah as well, called the "bread of affliction".

First-born males over 13 are required to fast on the day before Passover – in commemoration of the fact that first-born Jewish males were spared when first-born Egyptian males were killed during the tenth plague – but may be released of this obligation by participating in a halakhically mandated festive meal, like the ones that accompany the conclusion of study of a tractate of the Talmud or a circumcision, on the morning before Passover.

The Seder

The traditional Seder is held Friday night this year – Friday and Saturday nights for Jews outside of Israel. The guide for the Seder is detailed in the Haggadah, literally "narration," which relates the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and which has many commentaries, points of discussion and rousing songs that make for a lively evening..

A plate placed on the Seder table contains several special foods: a roasted egg, symbolizing the special holiday sacrifices which were brought in the Temple; a roasted shank bone, recalling the special Passover lamb offered and eaten in Temple times; a mixture of chopped apples, nuts, wine and cinnamon known as charoset, symbolizing the mortar that the Hebrew slaves in Egypt used to make bricks; sprigs of parsley and lettuce, symbolizing spring; a bitter herb symbolizing the bitterness of slavery; and nearby, a bowl of salt water, recalling the tears shed by the Hebrew slaves in Egypt.

Four cups of wine (or most of each cup) are drunk at the Seder, each symbolizing a specific verb used by G-d in the Exodus story; a fifth cup, symbolizing a fifth verb, is filled for Elijah the Prophet, harbinger of the Messiah in the hope that he will arrive at the Seder.

Three whole pieces of matza mark the division of the Jewish people into priests (Kohenim), Levites and the general population are also placed on the table. There are also other explanations for this custom, as there are for almost all of the customs.

During the course of the Seder, the Ten Plagues are recalled. When each of the Plagues is mentioned, each participant dips a finger into his/her cup of wine and removes a drop; even though the Jews were oppressed in Egypt, we are reminded that we must not rejoice over the Egyptians' suffering. Our cups of wine cannot thus be full.

One of the more popular Seder customs for children is the asking of the Four Questions, the reaction of a child who wonders at a totally different kind of evening than what he is used to seeing during holidays. Another concerns the afikoman, a special piece of matza that is the last food eaten during the Seder. The head of the household customarily hides the afikoman somewhere in the house, and the children then search for it. Once found, the afikoman is "ransomed," since the Seder cannot continue until the afikoman is eaten. This helps to keep the children focused on the Seder and to pique their curiosity regarding the entire Passover epic.

The Seven Day Celebration, the Counting of the Omer, Maimouna:

On the morning of Tuesday 19 April, festive prayers, including a prayer for dew during the spring and summer, and special readings, will figure prominently in synagogue services.

During the intermediate days, between the first and last days, special prayers also are recited in synagogue. In Israel, all of Pesach is an official holiday for schools and most government offices. The roads in Israel are clogged, as the entire country takes to wheels - and this year, lovely spring weather is forecast. In the Torah, the Jewish people are told: " Today you are leaving [Egypt], in the month of Spring".

Jewish tradition maintains that the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptian army occurred on the seventh day of Passover, but even though Passover celebrates the Exodus from Egypt, Jews nevertheless do not rejoice over the death of the Egyptians in the sea and only an abridged version of Hallel (Psalms 113-118) – a holiday prayer – is recited after the first day of Passover.

On the Sabbath that marks the first day of Pesach, the day's special readings will include the Song of Songs.

From the evening of Saturday night, April 7th, Jews will keep a nightly count of the 49 days (seven weeks), until Friday evening, May 25th, one day before the holiday of Shavuot. This count commemorates the Temple offering of the omer, or sheaf of new grain, in keeping with the Biblical injunction of Leviticus 23:15-16.

Maimouna – an informal, yet widely celebrated holiday which originated among the Jews of North Africa, particularly those from Morocco, and is believed to be in honor of Maimonides, the great Torah luminary who lived in Egypt – will be celebrated Saturday night, Arpil 14th. According to custom, families prepare elaborate tables with various sweets and baked goods, and host friends and family members. Whole neighborhoods often close as celebrations spill out into the streets and parks.

Courtroom Terror

Raymond Ibrahim
Gatestone Institute

http://www.meforum.org/3207/courtroom-terror

Apologists often try to explain away Islamic terrorism as a byproduct of something else. The usual argument is that, because Muslims are politically, socially, or militarily weak—the archetypal example often given is Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians—they have no choice but to resort to terror to strike at their stronger adversaries. In other words, they resort to terrorism simply to even the odds—hence the argument that terrorism is the "weapon of the weak."

Though this narrative is widely accepted, it is demonstrably false. Consider the following account that took place a couple of weeks ago in Muslim-majority Egypt: More than 300 Muslim lawyers inside and outside a courthouse in the southern Egyptian province of Assuit today [3/16] prevented defense lawyer Ahmad Sayed Gabali, who is representing the Christian, Makarem Diab, from going into court. Mr. Diab was found guilty of "Insulting the Muslim Prophet" and was scheduled today for a hearing on his appeal. Attorney Dr. Naguib Gabriell, head of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organization, said there was "terror in the Assiut Court today." He added that he was on his way to court when he was advised that Muslim lawyers have issued death threats to any Christian lawyers who attend the court session. "Makram Diab was assaulted by Muslim lawyers during his transfer from the courtroom and security failed to protect him." Peter Sarwat, a Coptic lawyer, said that Muslim lawyers representing the plaintiffs prevented the defense team from entering court: "They said no Muslim will defend a Christian. It was agreed that Christian lawyers would take over and two Coptic lawyers volunteered, but the Muslims decided later that even Christians would not defend him." Sarwat said the Muslim lawyers wanted to assault the chief judge but he managed to leave the court via a rear door [emphasis added].

The report goes on to explain how Muslim lawyers and activists went to court to defend Diab's right to a fair trial only to be assaulted by other Muslim lawyers: "They were assaulting us in a beastly and strange way just because we went there to defend a citizen who happened to be a Christian," said one of the lawyers, adding that exiting the court required security intervention: "We left court in a security vehicle which took us to Security headquarters, otherwise, we don't know what the outcome would have been for us."

More details include eyewitnesses reporting that the Muslim lawyers were "armed with clubs." Several, including reporters, were injured in the ensuing melee, and human rights groups were "forced out of the courtroom by the Muslims."

Was the condemned Christian's attorney right to categorize this incident as "terrorism"? According to Dictionary.com, the primary definition of terrorism is "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes." In other words, terrorism is not just limited to 9/11-type strikes, but involves intimidating, bullying, threatening, etc.—precisely what happened at this courthouse trial.

Some more key points to keep in mind:

Those making the death threats, physically assaulting others with clubs, and otherwise engaging in terrorist behavior were "more than 300 Muslim lawyers"; not jihadis or fugitives hiding out in caves, but lawyers.
The entire issue revolves around something that, by Western standards of freedom, would be a non-issue to start with: insulting a "holy" figure, Islam's Prophet Muhammad. In a Western court of law, the Christian "blasphemer" would not even be tried, but rather the terrorist "lawyers."
The attacks on fellow Muslim lawyers who merely sought to represent the condemned Christian is in keeping with Islam's doctrines of loyalty and disloyalty, which command Muslims always to side with fellow Muslims, while having enmity for non-Muslim infidels—certainly those perceived to have insulted their prophet.

The ultimate lesson emerging from this shameful fiasco is one of sheer predictability. Anyone familiar with the doings of the Islamic world—its history, its doctrines—cannot be surprised at any of the above: rage and violence in response to a non-Muslim insulting the prophet; rage and violence toward Muslim members of a legal system for trying to represent an "infidel"—these are quite standard, with ample precedent, regardless of whether the enraged Muslims are suit-and-tie wearing lawyers, or kalashnikov-toting jihadis.

Contrary to popular belief, then, and as this episode clearly shows, Islamic terrorism is not a byproduct of "weakness," but rather the typical approach to those who transgress the bounds of Sharia. Whether one man "blaspheming" Muhammad in a Muslim-majority nation (as in this example) or whether an entire nation existing on land perceived to be Islam's (as in the case of Israel)—terror is never far behind for those transgressing the bounds of Sharia.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

The Brain Dead Israeli Left

Daniel Greenfield
Apr 5th, 2012

The Israeli left is dead. It’s politically dead, conceptually dead and brain dead. But like the fabled Norwegian blue parrot, there is an industry dedicated to assuring us that it’s still alive and well, just pining for the peace process.

The left in Israel is one of the few in the world to exist on foreign subsidies. Without generous funds from the European Union, the State Department, George Soros and assorted members of the Shadow Party, the last remnants of the Israeli left would have packed up their suitcases, their degrees in art philosophy and their framed photos of Amos Oz and Leon Trotsky and moved to Paris or San Francisco. Israelis are about as eager to vote for the left as chickens are to saunter into a KFC restaurant. Israel’s equivalent of the Democratic Party, the once dominant Labor Party has shrunk to being only the fifth largest party in the country. Meretz, the Israeli equivalent of the Green Party, the vanguard of the left, has three seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Only the Arab parties seem to be doing well, led by Hadash, the Arab Communist Party, where Israeli leftists who think Meretz is too moderate go.

And just to remind Israelis of why they left the left behind, a few hundred left-wing activists gathered in front of the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv to protest against any strike on Iran. The old slogan of the left, “An entire generation demands peace” had given way to signs reading, “The nation demands Iranian friends”, which sounded more like a nursery school slogan. Equally idiotic signs read, “Social justice does not equal war with Iran” and “No to pre-emptive suicide”.

The entire event was a cliché complete with red banners, colored scarves and dopey participants who seemed to have no knowledge whatsoever of the world outside Tel Aviv. A number of protesters urged negotiations with Iran, apparently unaware that Iran does not recognize Israel as a country making any negotiations impossible. Iran’s Islamic leaders have repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map, which is not the behavior of a regime interested in negotiating anything.

The rally followed the even more ridiculous, “Israel Loves Iran” Facebook campaign which combined the grandiosity of social media with the empty mindless sentimentality which has characterized the rhetoric of the Israeli peace camp.

“Iranians We Will Never Bomb Your Country: We Love You”, read posters that looked like they were designed by teenage girls. There are photos of narcissistic young couples staring into the camera, Israelis kissing Iranians, Iranians kissing Israelis, Israeli hippies kissing other Israeli hippies and bored Europeans looking to fill a vacuum after the Arab Spring trying to join in the fun.

“Israel Loves Iran” turned out to be the perfect campaign for those too lazy to stand in front of the Habima Theater for an hour holding up a hand-lettered sign and made for excellent headlines. News stories reported on the 50,000 likes for the Facebook group, a small number even in a country as small as Israel, and much of the activity on the group appears to consist of German and Spanish language posters.
The Iranian responses have been more discreet. The star of a video titled “Iran Loves Israel” has his face covered reminding the more sensible participants of the futility of the whole affair. Iranians generally do not hate Israel, but they have no say in their government’s policy. After Ahmadinejad’s victory, it’s clear that they don’t have a choice in any element of their government.

The Israeli participants represent an even more marginal group that despite all the banners and signs reading, “The Nation” and “The People” hardly represent anyone at all. Haaretz, the lead organ of the left, was forced to concede that only a few hundred people had bothered to come in person to the rally. The Facebook campaigners have as little influence over their government as the Iranians do over theirs, but the reasons for that are different. The Iranian regime is not open or democratic. Israel is. The Iranian protesters may represent the popular voice, the Israeli protesters most certainly do not.

The best rebuttal to both sides comes from the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said four years ago, “It is incorrect, irrational, pointless and nonsense to say that we are friends of Israeli people… Who are Israelis… They are combatants at the disposal of Zionist operatives. A Muslim nation cannot remain indifferent vis-a-vis such people who are stooges at the service of the arch-foes of the Muslim world.”

After the stolen election and the consolidation of power, Iran’s nuclear bomb will be in the hands of the Supreme Leader. Ayatollah Khamenei will decide what to do with the weapon and he has already stated that, “We are on a collision course with the occupiers of Palestine.”

That collision course does not depend on Israeli action, it depends on Israeli inaction. Iran does not need Israel to attack it in order to justify an attack. The attack has already been justified countless times by the regime and by Islamic theologians. The only thing missing is the weapon that can finish the job and that is what Iran’s nuclear program is there for.

On Shimon Peres’ 80th birthday, Bill Clinton stopped by to serenade the godfather of peaceniks with a round of John Lennon’s Imagine. But yet even Peres delivered a speech recently in which he said, “A peace that is a dream for both of us, is a nightmare for the Ayatollahs in Iran. Iran is an evil, cruel, morally corrupt regime. It is based on destruction and is an affront to human dignity. Iran is the center. The sponsor. The financer of world terror. Iran is a danger to the entire world.”

Those simple ideas still escapes much of the Israeli left which insists on playing red-shirted Eloi, weaving flowers in their hair and pretending that hating their country and loving their enemies will make everything right.

But if Israel truly loves Iran then it will take out its nuclear program. Preventing the Ayatollahs from gaining nuclear capability will save millions of lives on both sides that would otherwise be lost in a nuclear exchange. The truest form of love for the people of Iran will be to save them from that fate so that the people of Tehran and Tel Aviv, including the red shirted sheep grazing around the Habima Theater will be able to go on living their lives.

The Lion of Justice

"The Lion of Justice" by Don Morris and Michael Toro

“The Lion of Justice” (ISBN 1463663692), a novel by Don Morris and Michael Toro, describes Islamic terrorists intent on spreading chaos with an attack in the San Francisco area and the efforts of an American-Muslim undercover law enforcement officer to stop them at any cost.

Jake Hakam and his team must hurry to discover the nature of the attack so that they can stop it, but the roots of the plan go deeper than they imagine. Sleeper cells have spent the last two decades infiltrating law enforcement, academia, government and local businesses, waiting for the signal from their sheik to strike. The local chief of police is too bogged down in procedure to do anything to help Hakam, leaving him and his small team on their own in fighting the coming destruction.
The novel demonstrates how a terrorist group with a strong ideological commitment could create, plan and execute a long-range scheme of horrendous atrocities,” says Morris. “It shows also how politically correct institutions contribute to such plans and how they actually assist in their execution.”
Morris and Toro bring their own experience in government and investigations in law enforcement to bear in a story aimed to engage, educate and spur action. The novel is an action-oriented thriller intended to keep readers on the edge of their seats.
“The Lion of Justice” is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.

About the Authors: Don Morris, Ph.D., is a university professor. His work within academia and government spurs him to raise some warning flags regarding terrorism. He is also a blogger and author. He currently shares his time between the U.S. and Israel.

Michael Toro worked in law enforcement investigating terror financing and working with local, state and federal agencies in promoting awareness of the threat international and homegrown terrorism posed to the American public. He continues to work to involve private security and law enforcement groups in raising their awareness. He also works with international security groups to increase awareness as it pertains to the threat of global radical Islam.

You may order the book direct from Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/3638569

MEDIA CONTACT
Don Morris
E-mail: thelionofjustice@gmail.com
Web: www.facebook.com/thelionofjustice
REVIEW COPIES AND INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE

Claims Conference Self-Aggrandizement

Isi Leibler
April 5, 2012
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=3997


"In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us. And The Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hands" (Passover Hagada)

Wishing all my readers a very Happy Passover

Chag Sameach,

Isi Leibler

The management of the Conference on Material Claims against Germany (Claims Conference) is ecstatic after having successfully forced two Israeli journalists to publicly apologize and praise them.

In 2008, Israeli TV aired a program titled "Moral Reparations – The Struggle Continues", which bitterly condemned the management of the Claims Conference for refusing to prioritize financial disbursements to ameliorate the desperate plight of aging Holocaust survivors unable to live out their remaining years in dignity.

The program was partly based on a report commissioned by the Jewish Agency from forensic accountant Yehuda Barlev, but never released after the Claims Conference stated that it would review its allotments towards the Agency. The Claims Conference sued the producers Orly Vilnai and Guy Meroz for libel, alleging that the program was" anti-Semitic" and presented "a cruel and distorted calumny". In order to intimidate future potential critics, they demanded the exorbitant amount of NIS 4 million in damages. Ultimately, presumably at the behest of the insurance company reluctant to remain engaged in lengthy and costly court proceedings, a settlement was negotiated for a much smaller amount - NIS 150,000 - which it was agreed would be donated to a Holocaust survivor fund chosen by the journalists. In addition, the Claims Conference obtained a written apology praising them for “acting tirelessly on behalf of the Jewish people” and its "unprecedented contribution to assisting Holocaust survivors".

However, while acknowledging that "in the course of our struggle to correct what we saw as a historical and inhuman injustice … we failed to present the whole picture", there was no acknowledgement by the journalists of any specific factual error in their film. Moreover, as part of the settlement, Vilnai and Meroz insisted on including a sentence stating that "the frustrating gap between the desire to help Holocaust survivors which is shared by the entire Jewish people, and the actual condition of Holocaust survivors requires criticism – on occasion harsh if deserved - directed at those who set policy in this area, as well as of those who implement it, since this is a sacred task".

The Claims Conference management is now exploiting this settlement as a means of diverting attention from the legitimate criticisms and increasing anger directed against them over recent years. Chairman Julius Berman forwarded memoranda to the media and Jewish organizations, exulting over the outcome, even praising by name, the senior officers conducting the costly legal campaign which had been in process for years. He did not disclose how much money the Claims Conference diverted from Holocaust funds towards this lawsuit.

In order to attempt to balance the equation, I would challenge Mr. Berman and his Chief Executive Officer to respond to the following issues which continue to concern Jews throughout the world.

1. In view of the pitiful state of the diminishing number of ailing survivors, many of whom continue to be denied a dignified life in their last remaining years and cannot even afford to pay for basic food, fuel and medical expenses:

a) Has there been an independent review of the existing allocations provided towards major charitable causes like hospitals and Israeli infrastructure which do not directly benefit survivors? Has consideration been given to prioritizing funds from these projects towards survivors?

b) Will the Claims Conference consider temporarily freezing allocations to all non-survivor related funds in order to at least partially improve the catastrophic living conditions of these hapless people?

2. In February 2010, it was revealed that there had been a massive theft of funds specifically earmarked by the German government for Holocaust survivors. The Claims Conference initially specified that the amount stolen was $350,000. But later it was reported that the theft was in excess of the staggering sum of $50 million. Last November Der Spiegel stated the sum had reached $57 million!

It was subsequently disclosed that six corrupt Claims Conference officials, including senior employees working out of their own New York head office, had been had been looting these funds for over fifteen years - under the very noses of the highly paid senior executives. Repeated warnings that a single part-time internal comptroller was absurdly insufficient for an organization handling billions of dollars were ignored until it was too late.

Nobody can dispute that it was the responsibility of the Claims Conference management to oversee the allocation of these funds. Yet as of today, not a single person has accepted accountability. The CEO even had the gall to insist that everything was in order because there was no deviation from standard procedures. The management adamantly refused to authorize an independent forensic audit in order to evaluate what took place, ensure that no theft had occurred in other areas and that appropriate precautions had been imposed to avoid a repetition.

The issue was raised at the last Claims Conference annual meeting and, after the chairman praised the manner in which his officers had dealt with the issue, the board responded by enthusiastically carrying a bizarre motion of confidence in their management.

It is inconceivable that any normal private or public institution would refuse to accept accountability and fail to demand resignations or at least censure of management after such a massive fraud has been perpetrated under their watch.

The public is entitled to demand that the management reveal the precise quantum of funds stolen and advise as to whether there is any intention of introducing a genuinely independent forensic audit to review the entire organization. Or has the question of accountability for failure to implement oversight over these funds now been permanently shelved?

3. The Board of Deputies of British Jews commissioned an independent review (the Gruder Report) following complaints from Holocaust victims that the Claims Conference lacked "transparency and accountability" and had behaved unethically in the sale of Jewish German properties. The report was highly critical of the Claims Conference’s moral conduct, suggesting that reprehensible efforts had been implemented to prevent heirs from recovering property stolen from their families. The matter was raised at the last annual board meeting - and dismissed by the chairman - who treated the request to review the situation with utter contempt. Is this the last word on this matter?

4. Is it acceptable for the largest charitable institution in the Jewish world, which has been responsible for the disbursement of over $80 billion of restitution funds, to continue to be headed by the same elected officers for over a decade, notwithstanding complaints that the chairman has inordinate powers and runs the organization like a personal fiefdom?

5. The board, which meets annually and whose directors have great difficulty in comprehending the complexity of the allocation of funds, has rarely, if ever, rejected a recommendation from the allocations committee and effectively serves as a rubber stamp for the management. This situation is exacerbated by potential conflicts of interest of directors whose organizations receive funding from the Claims Conference. Is it not now imperative to set up an independent committee to review the entire procedure of allocations in order to ascertain what can be done to ameliorate the tragic plight of the survivors - the greatest scandal of our time in the Jewish world?

The concerns related to above have been frequently raised previously. Yet, the Claims Conference management has arrogantly opted to deflect any criticisms by demonizing anyone challenging their policies.

What is needed is not self-aggrandizement, but genuine soul searching and even at this late hour, fulfilling the obligation to consider drastic initiatives to overcome the scandalous suffering of elderly Holocaust survivors living in penury.

The writer’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com

He may be contacted at ileibler@netvision.net.il

This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post

Some of my recent articles:

AIPAC at the Pinnacle of Success (March 28, 2012)

Israeli Arabs – Rights, Obligations and Loyalties (March 21, 2012)

Olmert Honors J Street – a Disgrace (March 19, 2012)

Putting Hamas on notice (March 13, 2012)

Can Obama be trusted? (March 12, 2012)

Kill Zionism They Chant

SHmuel HaLevi

At the core of the unJewish [Jews In Name Only-JINO] Galut [Diaspora] "communities" stands the basic fact that they realized that ZIONISM has been and is realized in Eretz Israel.

Jews in the Galut, who, after so many years opted to remain in living outside Israel's borders, desperately search for fantasies that would fit, so to speak, their failure to settle at home, in Eretz Israel.

Living and thriving in Israel is the true physical realization of Zionism. Being, built and believed in Eretz Israel. Nonexistent "partners" of Israel, distributing self justifying rubbish at the NYTimes, pseudo social TIKUN OLAM, in lieu of Torah, are hardly a substitute for reality.

Having failed, yes, failed, again and again, to define themselves within the value system, beliefs and Jewish Heritage framework, they finally understood that long distance, hotel lobby, social event or cheque book Zionism was not self maintaining.

Very much as in all interpersonal relations, out of sight, out of mind.

Following the realization of their failure they feverishly embarked on fabrications scaffoldings to deny Zionism, and/or destroying the Zionist enterprise, including Jews who live that reality around them and in Eretz Israel.

That is, my friend all there is to it.

So we do not get confused, IN Eretz Israel, also there are renegade and post Jewish infested cadres, who, in many cases hold on to power they usurp under false pretenses.

The Galut Jews, particularly former Jews or unJews in the US, do not want the Jewish State to survive. A living ZIONIST reality is deadly for them.

It is also deadly to the unJews in Eretz Israel and that is why they, by all means, conspire to destroy or abandon everything Jewish in their own land.

Bottom line.

Psychobabble is just a soft filling material to make their fall less painful.

I will not, nor should anyone with Jewish heart, let them get away with it. Either they cease to plot to destroy Zionism, Eretz Israel and Jews, here in Israel or, we will make sure that their fate follows what they plan for us.

Written from Eretz Israel

The Democratic Party and Jewish Anti-Semitism

Sultan Knish

There's a thin line between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism. That's true of Muslims and the left, but it's also true specifically of the Jewish left, whose hatred for Israel manifests itself in a general contempt for Jewish religion, culture and tradition.

Gilbert in the West Bank
Take the Jewbags case of Danielle Gilbert, a staffer for Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who had been appointed the DNC's Jewish outreach liaison. In a social media mishap, Gilbert posed along with her friends in a photo that she captioned "JEWBAGS" and that a friend of hers captioned as "Jew cash money team." This is the sort of incident that the hip crowd that thinks Heeb is a great name for a magazine and Jewcan Sam is hilarious will laugh off. But it's hardly the most offensive thing about Gilbert from a Jewish perspective. It's just a symptom of the problem. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has long been associated with J-Street, the Anti-Israel group, which has repeatedly worked to undermine Israel's fight against terrorism through a campaign of deception. When a delegation from J Street arrived at Schultz's office last year, they were received by Danielle Gilbert who posed with them for a photo. That wasn't the limit of Gilbert's involvement with J Street.

Danielle Gilbert's twitter feed suggests that she attended the J Street conference and she retweeted a call from the Anti-Israel group to freeze "settlements". Gilbert's own Anti-Israel background isn't casual. She attended the London School of Economics and Political Science and while there was part of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism.

Even before going to Yale, Gilbert had volunteered at Givat Haviva, a leftist group dedicated to Muslim pro-terrorist activism. Givat Haviva had a presence at the J-Street conference and has its roots in Kibbutz Artzi, which was far enough to the left that it identified closely with the Soviet Union and its leader eulogized Stalin who had engaged in the mass murder of Jews. The roots of Givat Haviva lie with Artzi's Arab Department whose goal was a one state solution.

Ilan Pappe founded and ran the Academic Institute for Peace in Givat Haviva. Pappe is a former member of Hadash, the Arab-Israeli Communist party, who supports the destruction of Israel via a One State Solution. An article on the Givat Haviva website features a photo of Danielle Gilbert with one of her friends, who writes about his support for the One State Solution.

Through Givat Haviva, Gilbert conducted interviews with the residents of the Muslim Bartaa village which straddles the Green Line and has become a cause celebre for the Anti-Israel left. Since then she has been a Jeremiah Fellow at Jews United for Justice, another left-wing group, which also participated in the J Street conference, and whose board members intersect with a number of Anti-Israel groups.

Gilbert with J Street members
In 2008, Gilbert wrote, "We cannot see Mumbai's events as anything less than the gruesome epitome of systematic terror. However, such a tragedy rightly makes us question our unequal treatment of minority cultures within larger communities," shifting easily to calling the brutal murder of the Holtzberg family and countless Indians by Muslims a "tragedy" that serves to call attention to Muslim suffering.

For Jews there is far more to be offended by in that than in Gilbert's use of a Jewish slur. There is also far more to be offended by in the fact that the DNC chose to elevate a woman aligned with J Street and that she then elevated someone like Danielle Gilbert to conduct outreach to the people they no doubt fondly think of as the "Jewbags".

If you want to understand why Obama thought he could treat Jews with such contempt, you have to remember that he thought Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was a normative figure and Schultz thought that Gilbert was a normative figure. In that echo chamber, a radical group like J Street seems mainstream and Gilbert's behavior seems equally mainstream.

Gilbert's politics and contempt for the Jewish people make her completely unsuitable to act as any kind of liaison to the Jewish community. And yet Danielle Gilbert is not extraordinary. There are plenty of Jewish boys and girls in D.C. with the same privileged background, the same formal trips to Israel giving way uglier detours, foreign policy fellowships and eventually a place in a left-wing think tank or in more mainstream politics. These are the people who show up to listen to J Street panels, break bread with members of the Muslim Brotherhood and denounce Israel. They are as banal as they are despicable.

In the last four years the Democratic Party has hardly bothered hiding its contempt for ordinary Americans. The same is true for the Jewish left which is hardly masking its contempt for the Jewish people anymore. This is not a new phenomenon, it dates back to the late 19th century, and the venom with which the Jewish left assailed the Jewish people eventually ended in the Gulags. Those who survived earned the privilege of participating in the Soviet Union's campaign to smear Israel.

The Post-Jewish left mirrors the Post-American left in its disdain for its roots and its radical and destructive identity. Its promotion of a counter-Jewish identity based on ridiculing Jewishness and hostility to Israel is once again splitting the Jewish community into two camps. By elevating Schultz, Gilbert and J-Street, the left is asserting its power to define what being Jewish means. The backlash to them is a reminder that the left does not have the power that it thinks it does.

Jewish Anti-Semitism is a very real phenomenon, but it's not self-hatred, no more so than Bill Ayers' desire to destroy America is self-hatred. The essence of the left is the rejection of the past in a perpetual war for a better future. The very nature of Jewish identity is built on a continuity of tradition and the nature of the left is to fly its progressive colors by showing contempt for tradition. There can be no balance between the two because to choose the one is to reject the other.

The more the Democratic Party moves in tune with the left, the more it mirrors the bigotry of European leftist parties toward Jews and Israel. This is an inescapable process and the further left the party goes, the more Anti-Semitic it will become. It will still have plenty of Jewish members, but that means very little. The Communist Party had quite a few Jewish members. So did Mussolini's National Fascist Party. Had Jews been allowed to join the Nazi Party, it would have had them too.

"Jewbags"
To join the left is to fragment your existing identity, whether it is Jewish or Christian, American or Australian, and adopt a new form of identity. The further the extreme, the greater the fragmentation becomes. Push harder and you go from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to Peter Beinart to Gilad Atzmon. It's a slippery slope greased with lies and self-deceptions that ends at the bottom of a charnel pit, a gulag, a death camp or a terrorist training camp.

The truly committed progressive sooner or later realizes that for the sake of the consistency of his new identity, he must kill that part of himself which is Jewish. He may kill it with tantrums of hate, with long essays questioning the nature of Jewish identity, with J-Street conferences or Jewbag jokes. The details of every suicide are unique and also uninteresting, and the conclusion is a leftist mind in a Jewish body.

Like every other form of Anti-Semitism, Jewish Anti-Semitism should be defied and exposed for what it is. It should not be tolerated or allowed to become normative. Instead it should be exposed foe what it is, the bigotry of those who have chosen the left and chosen to hate.

The Truth or Taqiyya?

Frank Gaffney

One of the most important challenges we face as a free people is understanding the true nature of - and threat posed by - a totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine its adherents call shariah. So, it would seem to be good news that a $3 million public education campaign is being launched nationwide to "clarify" what shariah is.

The question is: Will this campaign be truthful and helpful, or will it amount to an exercise in what is not only permissible under shariah, but obligatory: lying for the faith, or taqiyya in Arabic? Unfortunately, since the sponsor of this initiative is one of the most virulent Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the United States, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the shariah tour will assuredly be all taqiyya, all the time. As we are seeing in Egypt at the moment, the Brotherhood is fully prepared to lie about its repressive agenda until it is too late for its opponents to resist.

As the old saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

For the purpose of calibrating whether the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to fool us yet again - this time, here in the United States - consider a sample of the research compiled by the Center for Security Policy about the Islamic Circle of North America, its heroes, leadership and agenda:

•ICNA was founded in 1971 by leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, an anti-American, fundamentalist, Taliban-supporting organization also known as the Pakistani branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Jamaat's primary goal is the establishment of Islamic states worldwide, governed by the tyrannical, oppressive system of Shariah law.

•ICNA reveres the rabid American-hating Iranian cleric-turned-despot, Ayatollah Khomeini. After 9/11, ICNA ran an earlier PR campaign extolling the "Great Leaders of the last 100 Years." It featured Khomeini, leader of the violent Shiite revolution and totalitarian regime in Iran. ICNA's paean to this enemy of the United States remained on its website for years until it was removed prior to the launch of the organization's current PR effort aimed at promoting shariah in this country.

•ICNA also considers Sayyid Qutb and Sayyid Mawdudi - the Islamist ideologues who inspired a host of salafist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda - to be among the "Great Leaders of the last 100 Years."

•ICNA has featured the Muslim Brotherhood's current chief ideologue, Sheik Yussuf Al-Qaradawi. Among Qaradawi's many unsavory stances is his view that democracy is permitted only when it complies with shariah. Writing in the ICNA magazine, The Message, Qaradawi states: "What we seek is that legislations and codes be within the limits of the flawless texts and the overall objectives of the shariah and the Islamic Message."

•ICNA also identified the "Great Movements of the Last 100 Years." Not surprisingly given its association with the Muslim Brotherhood, this rosterprominently featured Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimeen (the Brotherhood's name in Arabic) and two other Brotherhood-inspired Pakistani jihadist groups, Jama'at-e-Islami and Tablighi Jama'at.

•A former ICNA president, Zulfiqar Ali Shah, was also president in 2005 of the South Asia Division of KindHearts, an Islamist so-called "charity" whose assets were frozen by the U.S. Treasury in the following year for its funneling of funds to Hamas. KindHearts is still contesting its listing by the U.S. Treasury as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization. Hamas, of course, is also officially identified as such a terrorist organization, one responsible for thousands of murders - including of American citizens.

•Also in 2006, ICNA and two spin-offs, ICNA Relief and ICNA Helping Hand, funded the Al-Khidmat Welfare Society and Al-Khidmat Foundation, which then gave Hamasnearly $100,000.

•ICNA's past Secretary General and Vice President Ashrafuz Zaman Khan, who was also a past president of the organization's New York chapter, is reportedly about to be indicted for war crimes by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal for the systematic execution of civilians during the civil war there. Bangladeshi groups claim Khan was a chief executioner for the al-Badr force, personally killing seven Dhaka University teachers in the city of Mirpur.

•A December 2001 ICNA South East Region convention had a special program honoring convicted murderer Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (a.k.a. H. Rap Brown), who is currently serving a life-sentence for killing a sheriff's deputy.

•The curriculum for ICNA's women's organization promotes jihad, shariah rule, hatred of Jews and Christians, and warns of the "dangers of secular Western thoughts and ideas."

In short, the Islamic Circle of North America is pretty much as unreliable a source as one can imagine for factual information about the unconstitutional - indeed, anti-constitutional - character of shariah, the real objectives of its adherents elsewhere and here, and the implications for a free society like ours of submitting to this brutally women-hating, intolerant and repressive doctrine. It would be nice to know who is putting up the $3 million for such an outfit to propagandize and mislead the American people.

We cannot afford to be fooled by Islamists any further, particularly about their ambitions for, to coin a phrase, fundamentally transforming the United States of America. We need the truth about shariah, not taqiyya.

'Ya'alon playing cheap politics over settlements'

AAKOV KATZ, JPOST.COM STAFF
04/04/2012

Barak comments follow Ya'alon push to remove his authority over evacuating Hebron apartment complex.


The Defense Ministry on Wednesday morning accused Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon of mixing political considerations with security issues, after he charged that Defense Minister Ehud Barak should be stripped of the authority to determine the fate of West Bank settlements. a'alon voiced this opinion after the IDF had ordered the evacuation of 15 families from an apartment complex they claim they legally purchased in Hebron.

Barak's bureau lashed back at Ya'alon saying, "the man who on Tuesday declared himself as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's successor, began his primary campaign by trying to enlist Feiglin supporters in the Likud."

"It is unfortunate that Ya'alon mixes cheap political considerations in defense establishment decisions, while undermining the responsibility of the government to protect democracy and the rule of law."

Ya'alon recommended transferring the responsibility over settlements in Judea and Samaria, where over 300,000 Jews have settled according to the IDF, to other ministers. The vice premier accused the defense minister of running an oppositional platform within the government regarding Jewish settlements.

"All he does is start fires instead of solving problems," said Ya'alon, whose comments reflected direct criticism from right-wing lawmakers of Barak over the issue.
Hebron evacuation 1 OF 13
Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post
Armed guard stands by while settler plays ball

An armed guard stands by Hebron home. MKs, security and residents were the only people allowed into the contested building.

Another Likud MK, Tzipi Hotovely, warned on Tuesday that Netanyahu must allow the families to remain or risk the collapse of the government.

From Jerusalem, MK Danny Danon (Likud) accused Barak of using the Hebron home to launch his reelection campaign.

Despite the vitriolic rhetoric emanating from the Right, Netanyahu insisted on Tuesday that he and Barak were "in coordination," but meetings between the two and other ministers ended without definitive decisions Tuesday night.

Legal officials said Wednesday morning that residents of the disputed Hebron home Beit Hamachpela must evacuate by April 25th, following the late-night meeting between Netanyhau, Barak and a small group of ministers. Still, Netanyahu and Barak were set to continue discussing the issue on Wednesday.

The IDF told the residents on Monday that they must leave by 3 p.m. Tuesday, or face a forced removal, because they lacked the necessary permits.

Late Tuesday night, 15 Hebron Jewish families held a small housewarming party in their newly purchased building, as the ministers met in Jerusalem to decide their fate.

Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar told Israel Radio Wednesday morning that as far as he understood the situation, the discussion over the home was not over, nor had decisions been made. Sa'ar said that if it is found that the home was purchased legally, the government should let the residents stay in the apartments since the government's position is that Jews should live in Hebron.

Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report

‘Jewbags’ and the Democrats’ Anti-Israel Liaison

Daniel Greenfield
Apr 4th, 2012

There’s a thin line between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. That’s true of Muslims and the left, but it’s also true specifically of the Jewish left, whose hatred for Israel manifests itself in a general contempt for Jewish religion, culture and tradition.

Take the “Jewbags” case of Danielle Gilbert, a staffer for Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who had been appointed the DNC’s Jewish outreach liaison. In a social media mishap, Gilbert posed along with her friends in a photo that she captioned “JEWBAGS” and that a friend of hers captioned as “Jew cash money team.” This is the sort of incident that the hip crowd that thinks “Heeb” is a great name for a magazine and “Jewcan Sam” is hilarious will laugh off. But it’s hardly the most offensive thing about Gilbert from a Jewish perspective. It’s just a symptom of the problem. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has long been associated with J-Street, the anti-Israel group which has repeatedly worked to undermine Israel’s fight against terrorism. When a delegation from J-Street arrived at Schultz’s office last year, they were received by Danielle Gilbert who posed with them for a photo. That wasn’t the limit of Gilbert’s involvement with J-Street.

Danielle Gilbert’s twitter feed suggests that she attended the J-Street conference and she retweeted a call from the anti-Israel group to freeze “settlements.” Gilbert’s own anti-Israel background isn’t casual. She attended the London School of Economics and Political Science and while there was part of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism.

Gilbert had volunteered at Givat Haviva, a leftist group dedicated to pro-terrorist activism. Givat Haviva had a presence at the J-Street conference and has its roots in Kibbutz Artzi, which was far enough to the left that it identified closely with the Soviet Union and its leader eulogized Soviet mass murdering dictator, Joseph Stalin. The roots of Givat Haviva lie with Artzi’s Arab Department whose goal was a one-state solution.

Ilan Pappe founded and ran the Academic Institute for Peace in Givat Haviva. Pappe is a former member of Hadash, the Arab-Israeli Communist party, who supports the destruction of Israel via a One State Solution. An article on the Givat Haviva website features a photo of Danielle Gilbert with one of her friends, who writes about his own support for the One State Solution.

Through Givat Haviva, Gilbert conducted interviews with the residents of the Muslim Bartaa village which straddles the Green Line and has become a cause celebre for the anti-Israel left. Since then she has been a Jeremiah Fellow at Jews United for Justice, another left-wing group, which also participated in the J-Street conference, and whose board members intersect with a number of anti-Israel groups.

In 2008, Gilbert wrote, “We cannot see Mumbai’s events as anything less than the gruesome epitome of systematic terror. However, such a tragedy rightly makes us question our unequal treatment of minority cultures within larger communities,” shifting easily to calling the brutal murder of the Holtzberg family and countless Indians by Muslims a “tragedy” that serves to call attention to Muslim suffering.

For Jews there is far more to be offended by in that than in Gilbert’s use of a Jewish slur. There is also far more to be offended by in the fact that the DNC chose to elevate a woman aligned with J-Street and that she then elevated someone like Danielle Gilbert to conduct outreach to the people they no doubt fondly think of as the “Jewbags.”
If you want to understand why Obama thought he could treat Jews with such contempt, you have to remember that he thought Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was a normative figure and Schultz thought that Gilbert was a normative figure. In that echo chamber, a radical group like J-Street seems mainstream and Gilbert’s behavior seems equally mainstream.

Gilbert’s politics and contempt for the Jewish people make her completely unsuitable to act as any kind of liaison to the Jewish community. And yet Danielle Gilbert is not extraordinary. There are plenty of Jewish boys and girls in D.C. with the same privileged background, the same formal trips to Israel giving way uglier detours, foreign policy fellowships and eventually a place in a left-wing think tank or as congressional staffers. These are the people who show up to listen to J Street panels, break bread with members of the Muslim Brotherhood and denounce Israel. They are as banal as they are despicable.

In the last four years the Democratic Party has hardly bothered hiding its contempt for ordinary Americans. The same is true for the Jewish left which is hardly masking its contempt for the Jewish people anymore. This is not a new phenomenon, it dates back to the late 19th century, and the venom with which the Jewish left assailed the Jewish people eventually ended in the Gulags. Those who survived earned the privilege of participating in the Soviet Union’s campaign to smear Israel.

The post-Jewish left mirrors the Post-American left in its radical and destructive identity. Its promotion of a counter-Jewish identity based on ridiculing Jewishness and hostility to Israel is once again splitting the Jewish community into two camps. By elevating Schultz, Gilbert and J-Street, the left is asserting its power to define a destructive form of Jewish identity. The backlash to them is a reminder that the left does not have the power that it thinks it does.

Jewish Anti-Semitism is a very real phenomenon, but it’s not self-hatred, no more so than Bill Ayers’ desire to destroy America is self-hatred. The essence of the left is the rejection of the past in a perpetual war for a better future. The very nature of Jewish identity is built on a continuity of tradition and the nature of the left is to fly its progressive colors by showing contempt for tradition. There can be no balance between the two because to choose the one is to reject the other.

The more the Democratic Party moves in tune with the left, the more it mirrors the bigotry of European leftist parties toward Jews and Israel. This is an inescapable process and the further left the party goes, the more anti-Semitic it will become.

To join the left is to fragment your existing identity, whether it is Jewish or Christian, American or Australian, and adopt a new form of identity. The further the extreme, the greater the fragmentation becomes. Push harder and you go from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to Peter Beinart to Gilad Atzmon. It’s a slippery slope greased with lies and self-deceptions that ends at the bottom of a charnel pit, a gulag, a death camp or a terrorist training camp.