Just today, Israel’s special coronavirus cabinet decided to place new restrictions on people coming from the United Kingdom, Denmark and South Africa. Non-Israelis are prohibited from entering Israel while Israelis will be forced to spend two weeks in quarantine.
Israel joined Italy, Netherlands and Belgium in banning entry of people from the UK after a new more contagious strain of COVID-19 was detected in Britain. Israel has thus far been the only country to also add Denmark and South Africa to the banned country list. The 501.V2 mutant variety has been detected in those other countries as well, which seems to be more severe in young adults than the prior strain.
To date, Belgium and Italy have been the worst hit countries, with 1,597 and 1,139 deaths per million people, respectively. The UK and United States are both near the 1,000 deaths per million milestone, while Denmark and Israel are much lower at 178 and 335, respectively.
Israel’s “Anglo ban” has not yet produced the vocal outrage from progressives that happened when President Donald Trump placed a ban on China early in the coronavirus pandemic or in the early days of his administration when he blocked entry of people from seven Muslim-majority countries which did not have appropriate safety protocols to monitor terrorists, or in “building a wall” along the southern border to curtail the flow of illegal immigration. Maybe it is because these three countries are perceived to be “White.” Whatever the reason, a country that is often in the crosshairs of global condemnation will welcome the pause in criticism as it battles a severe spike in positive infection rates.
Progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continue to advocate for “open borders” and to “abolish ICE” in their desire to welcome millions of immigrants into the country to add to the physical working class and hopeful union members. Meanwhile, the reality of the need to be able to secure borders for the protection of citizenry has never been more apparent.
The Trump Administration moved the United States embassy to Israel to Jerusalem in 2018 in compliance with the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act. Since that time, the U.S. has encouraged other countries to move their embassies, and Guatemala moved theirs shortly thereafter. Honduras announced plans to have their embassy in Jerusalem by the end of 2020, and Serbia and Malawi announced their intentions to do move their embassies in the near future.
New U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. (Picture: Daniel Estrin/NPR)
A country establishes an embassy in a foreign country to facilitate in person meetings with that government’s people. Typically the vast majority are located in that country’s capital where most government buildings and offices are located. However, there is no obligation to set up an embassy in the capital city. For example, several countries (like Oman) have opted to not place their foreign dignitaries in Canberra, Australia’s capital, because it is a relatively small city in a pretty remote part of the world. There are also several countries (including Andorra, Comoros and Maldives) that locate their embassies to the U.S. in New York City rather than Washington, D.C.
A new Biden administration should continue to push all countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem for very practical and environmental reasons: it would take hundreds of cars off the road every day.
Currently, most countries have their embassies to Israel in Tel Aviv, about 42 miles from Jerusalem. Tel Aviv is is a great city on the Mediterranean Sea with fantastic restaurants and night life (often ranked with Barcelona among the greatest cities in the world) and is close to Israel’s major international airport. However, the hour drive to Jerusalem is often snarled in terrible traffic as is the route back. By relocating embassies to Jerusalem, not only will thousands of miles of unnecessary travel and wasted time be saved, but the burning of fossil fuel and amount of pollution will be dramatically reduced.
As there is no obligation to keep an embassy in a capital city, a relocation to Jerusalem is not a formal acknowledgement of the city as Israel’s capital, an action which may or may not accompany such relocation. What is without question, is that moving embassies to Jerusalem will improve the quality of life on the planet.
On December 16, 2020, The New York Times editorial board elected to give its entire opinion page to long-time journalist Thomas Friedman to discuss a topic he knows nothing about: rural America.
The one-time foreign affairs correspondent presented his bold idea that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris should become the czar of rural America and bring broadband to bridge the “connectivity gap.” He wanted this accomplished not so much for the benefit of rural America but to put on a show that Democrats care about these lagging Americans, so those red states might loose a touch of their rosy glow and prevent Democrats from getting trounced in the next election cycle.
What Friedman failed to understand and convey in the editorial was that the Trump administration committed billions of dollars to bring broadband to rural America.
Friedman further noted that Harris “is a natural bridge builder to a more inclusive America.” Maybe Freidman is not aware that non-partisan GovTracks observed that Harris was the least bi-partisan U.S. senator. She also scored as the most extreme leftist in her voting record, even more than proud Democratic-Socialist Bernie Sanders and closeted Democratic-Socialist Elizabeth Warren.
But don’t let history get in the way.
The Times will have its urban readers believe that rural Americans are waiting for Democrats to save them, but all Friedman’s editorial really showed was his ignorance and contemptible view that non-urban Americans are just pawns for progressive politics.
With the pandemic in its second full swing, the annual pilgrimage to try the great donuts and sufganiyot (filled donuts) in Brooklyn was not without controversy. Some people refused to join the outing due to fear so we decided to take a different approach:
only two people would make the trek- a parent and a teenager;
we would go in the early morning before the crowds;
only the teenager would enter the store in full hazmat attire;
all donuts would be brought back to base for consumption and ratings
The approach allowed for a wide sampling of bakeries, principally focused on Borough Park and Flatbush. The bakeries are listed in order of our route in case people want to replicate the tour:
Taam Eden Bakery, 4603 13th Ave
Weiss Kosher Bakery, 5011 13th Ave
Sesame – Boro Park, 5024 13th Ave
Gobo’s Cafe, 5421 New Utrecht Ave
Shloimy’s Bake Shoppe, 4712 16th Ave
Brooklyn Artisan Bakehouse, 1371 Coney Island Ave
Isaac’s Bake Shop, 1419 Avenue J
Ostrovitsky Bakery, 1124 Avenue J
Presser’s Kosher Bagels and Bakery, 1720 Ave. M
Patis Bakery, 1716 Ave. M
Schreiber’s Homestyle Bakery, 3008 Ave. M
Yes, that’s eleven bakeries. We’re that committed (in a bad mental health way).
We didn’t actually buy sufganiyot at the eleven stores. Gobo’s, the number one bakery of 2019, was closed both times we drove by, as was Brooklyn Artisan Bakehouse. Patis Bakery still had not received their shipment from New Jersey when we arrived around 10:00am. That still left eight bakeries to review for Chanukah. If one includes the free donut we got from Rachel Berger, the Kosher Dinner Lady (top score on presentation for the cookies and cream), we more than hit our calorie quota.
Taam Eden
In 2019, we got to Taam Eden last and the scores suffered due to our being well-sated and more than a tad over-sugared. We decided to start with that bakery in 2020 and hoped for a fresh assortment of interesting flavors. While they did have many unique flavors like Pina Colada, they weren’t always that good and the sugared toppings fell right off at first bite. Overall, they were also pretty flat and not puffy.
Taam Eden donuts. Blue flags denote dairy
Weiss Kosher Bakery
Weiss is an all around favorite bakery in our family. Yoely was nice enough to give us a free donut too. Unfortunately, the shelves were pretty bare when we arrived at 8:40am, so we missed out on their amazing chocolate horns. The chocolate sufganiyot were good but a bit too sweet. The custard was nice, especially for a pareve one.
Thanks Yoely!
Sesame
Sesame redoes the entire bakery just for Chanukah, and for good reason. The donuts are amazing. Full of rich flavor which is not too sweet with dough which has nice texture and flavor. I cannot believe how good the pistachio ones are. BTW, no masks in sight.
Shloimy’s Bake Shop
My teenage son was impressed by what he saw in Shloimy’s and came back with lots of choices. The taste varied. The salted caramel was simply not good while the cheese was very tasty and went perfectly with the texture and flavor of the dough.
A hazmat boy in a heimeshe bakery
Isaac’s Bake Shop
Isaac’s had the benefit of being the only bakery we visited where everything was fresh. We gobbled two onion bagels without any spread as we left the store – delicious. The sufganiyot we ate at home were non-complicated and tasty.
Ostrovitsky Bakery
If you want something a bit more ornate and shall I say… Hungarian? – try Ostrovitsky. The chocolate rosemarie are tops in the pareve category with great flavor. The chocolate mousse is very light – perhaps a bit too much relative to the texture of the dough. The Napolean flavor was also quite good.
Presser’s
Presser’s has a lot more appetizing in the store than donuts. We picked up a couple anyway which were pretty good.
Schreiber’s Homestyle
We always visit Schreiber’s to bring home a box of excellent lace cookies; hauling donuts is a plus. Skip the sufganiyot in the boxes in the front of the store and go to the back to select your own. This year we decided to try the dairy donuts – which run about $5 – quite a bit more than the pareve ones at around $2. There’s a reason. The dairy cheese and strawberry are remarkable. A must have.
Overall, none of the sufganiyot (other than Isaac’s) were fresh when we arrived. It felt like we were getting 6am baking at 9am. Sufganiyot don’t age well so we decided to try the other Sesame Bakery location in Flatbush to see if we could try one straight out of the oven. Unfortunately, it was packed at 11am and none of the baked goods were oven-fresh. We grabbed two and hit the road back home.
Below is a rating of the various spots. I would again put Sesame in the top category along with Schreiber’s dairy sufganiyot. Ostrovitsky’s got mixed reviews but I liked them.
We actually have a GoPro video of each store location. Subscribe to the blog and send a note and we’ll let you experience the shopping!
Both the political right and left are coming after the large social media platforms due to their powerful influence over society. The right has complained about the censorship executed by the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for silencing conservative voices while the left has voiced concern about these perceived monopolies destroying competition. The left has mostly been dismissive about the idea that the corporations have a left-leaning disposition, and if they do, they are nonplussed. If corporations are allowed to contribute to election campaigns (see Citizens United v. FEC which the left abhorred), they should similarly be free to share or block content.
As to the question of whether shadow-banning is real, consider this blog of FirstOneThrough which has a right-of-center orientation to American and Israeli politics.
On a typical week, Facebook would account for over 10 times the number of referrals to an article as search engines. That pattern was relatively consistent whether there were few or several posts.
But the pattern broke during the election cycle.
Weeks Ending
FB Average
Search Average
Ratio
Dec 13
672
58
13x
Nov 8
181
56
3
Sep 20
823
60
13
Aug 2
538
48
11
Jun 14
926
71
14
Impact of Facebook Shadow Banning on views of First One Through blog
During the seven week cycle before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the blog remarkably went from getting roughly 13 times as many views from Facebook than search engines to only 3 times as much. The change was completely the result of a sharp decline in Facebook readership, as the volume produced from search engines remained constant.
That meant that fewer people had a chance to read the analysis of a vocal Libertarian and Zionist leading up to an important election. Once the election passed, Facebook permitted viewership patterns to return to normal (as of the following five weeks).
How and why did this happen?
Did a liberal reader flag the October 1 article “Vote Harvesting,” a completely true first-hand account of watching how a local election official can influence who gets to vote? Did Facebook decide on its own that posts from a writer who penned on September 25 “NY Times Tries Hard to Paint Obama/Biden as Pacifists and Trump as Mercenary” is an opinion to be silenced? Did an anti-Israel agitator do their utmost to flag a blogger who wrote on September 27 about the vile anti-Semitic Hamas Charter and how former Democratic U.S. President Jimmy Carter backed the Hamas terrorist group?
Whatever the origin of shadow ban, it clearly happened.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Facebook and Twitter’s actions around the closely contested election on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, in Washington. | Bill Clark/Pool via AP
If Facebook wants to present itself as a biased platform like MSNBC or Fox News, that’s fine. A private platform can take whatever form it chooses. While it may be annoying when a media company like The New York Times pretends to be unbiased and not left-leaning, the tilt is well known and consistent. Only people living in a liberal bubble believe it to be a neutral and factual publication.
However, what kind of platform swings alt-left for just moments in time like during an election season? If the analysis presented by a blogger is offensive, then make it clear for that person to take their business and opinions elsewhere. Always.
What was done by social media in this instance was clear election-meddling, and on the grandest of scales due to the enormous power of social media. (\According to Pew research, 43% of Americans got their news from social media in 2018, a number that surely went up by 2020. That growing figure is despite a majority of people (57%) being skeptical of what they read.
In 2008, Barack Obama and his supporters were very effective in using social media, especially relative to John McCain supporters according to Pew Research. Obama voters surpassed McCain voters in posting content online (26% vs. 15%) and engaged politically on social media (25% vs. 16%) to yield a very successful outcome. But now, the social media companies themselves are keeping the gap in favor of Democrats by blocking the distribution of conservative posts.
Shadow banning in social media is very real and can easily tip presidential elections that are decided by less than one percent of voters in a couple of states. It is frightening and appalling that we no longer have to only fear the actions of foreign actors in the conduct of our democracy but the large social media platforms themselves.
It is a sad state of affairs when the media ignores the slaughter of innocents and brands such events in the nomenclature of the killers.
Consider the “Second Intifada” which Palestinian Arabs started in September 2000 when they refused to accept 98% of their desires in a peace deal with Israel. Palestinians went on multi-year rampages blowing up buses and pizza parlors full of kids and women. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed until Israel constructed a security barrier to stem the tide of murderers. Rather than call the event a “war” or a “pogrom,” the media calls it by the term Palestinians chose, “Intifada,” which means “uprising.” It’s shameful. It should be called the “2 Percent War.”
On December 11, 2020, The New York Times didn’t just adopt an Arab name to mask Arab sensibilities, it adopted an entire Arab narrative in rewriting history.
In an article about Morocco normalizing relations with Israel, the paper wrote the following:
“Today, Morocco has a Jewish population of about 4,000, said to Samuel L. Kaplan, the U.S. Ambassador to Rabat from 2009 to 2013. That is down from more than 200,000 Jews who lived in Morocco when Israel was established in 1948 but who then began responding to calls to immigrate to Israel.”
There were certainly some Jews who felt the Zionist urge to move to Israel but the vast majority fled their homes due to rampant anti-Semitism that overcame the Muslim world when Jews took control of what they deemed to be Muslim land.
After Israel’s declaration of independence in May 1948, two pogroms broke out in Morocco, in the towns of Oujda and Djerrada. The attacks killed 47 people, wounded hundreds and lefts hundreds homeless. Not surprisingly, 10% of the country’s Jews quickly fled the country.
After Morocco declared independence in 1956, an Arabization of the country commenced, cutting Jews off from parts of society. At the same time, the government prohibited emigration to Israel, which lasted until 1963. In 1961, roughly 90,000 Moroccan Jews had to be ransomed in Operation Yakhnin, bringing Jews to Israel. In the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, another 40,000 Jews fled to Israel.
Headline in NY Times in 1956, seemingly forgotten by the paper today
The number of Jews that fled persecution from homes they lived in for centuries in Muslim-majority countries was between 850,000 and 1 million people.
Algeria 140,000
Egypt 75,000
Iraq 135,000
Lebanon 5,000
Libya 38,000
Morocco 265,000
Syria 30,000
Tunisia 105,000
Yemen 55,000
This total of 850,000 Jews does not include the Jews who fled Iran and Afghanistan. It far surpasses the Palestinian Arabs who left Israel in 1948 when they waited for their Arab neighbors to destroy the nascent Jewish State.
The New York Times rewriting history that Arab Muslims are never anti-Semites coincides with its depiction that White Americans are always racist. It is no wonder that White Jews are dropping the paper.
Not long after Donald Trump assumed the presidency of the United States, he made overtures to the Palestinians in the hopes of brokering a peace deal. He invited the acting-President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to the White House on May 3, 2017. They discussed tackling terrorism and building economic prosperity for Palestinian Arabs and the promise of working together to build a better future for the region.
Shortly thereafter, on May 23rd, President Trump visited Abbas in Bethlehem and reiterated the need to confront terrorism, “Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded…. The terrorists and extremists, and those who give them aid and comfort, must be driven out from our society forever. This wicked ideology must be obliterated — and I mean completely obliterated — and innocent life must be protected.”
Just a week later, Trump handed a peculiar gift to Abbas: on June 1 he removed the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
ANO was part of the October 1997 initial class of FTO’s along with HAMAS and Hizbullah. ANO carried out roughly 90 hijackings, assassinations and kidnappings of diplomats, and attacks on synagogues during the period 1974-1992 killing about 300 people to earn the FTO designation. The group targeted people viewed as moderates – including Palestinians – who contemplated the ongoing existence of the Jewish State. When Abu Nidal died in 2002, the group went inactive.
Which begs the question of why Trump took a 15-year defunct group off of the FTO list, right after meeting with Abbas.
Terrorist Sabri al-Banna, better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Nidal
Abbas was (and remains) a very unpopular leader among Palestinian Arabs who have wanted him to resign according to each poll taken over the last many years, with 64% holding such opinion at the time of the Abbas-Trump meeting. Abbas polled to come in third in a theoretical three-candidate presidential race at that time!
So Trump threw Abbas a bone to boost his standing among Palestinians, to demonstrate that he could deliver results with the new U.S. President. It was arguably a meaningless gesture as the group was inactive, but it was symbolic in clearing the name of one of the most radical and notorious Palestinian terrorist groups.
In exchange for the Trump pardon of the ANO, Abbas advanced the idea of stopping the pay-to-slay program in which the PA paid the families of terrorists in Israeli jails. The proposal landed with a thud among the Palestinians, with a nearly unanimous 91% of Palestinians standing opposed to messing with the martyr-moolah.
Things then soured at the United Nations.
Abbas met with Trump on September 20, 2017 and voiced optimism regarding the efforts Trump’s team had made with over 20 meetings with Palestinian officials in the first months in office, but he then launched his habitual screed before the United Nations General Assembly with comments about Israeli Jews living in “East Jerusalem” which will “stir religious animosity and may lead to a violent religious conflict,… playing with fire … drag[ing] us into a religious war. This is dangerous, extremely dangerous for you and us,” in a not so subtle threat of a global jihad against Jews.
Abbas further threatened Jews and insulted Trump by declaring at the end of his speech “I salute our glorious martyrs and our courageous prisoners in Israeli jails,” to appease his Arab base. This embrace of terrorism and public challenge of Trump’s demand to stop rewarding terrorism was too much. Less than three months later, Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State.
Abbas squandered Trump’s gift of removing an evil jihadist group from the U.S. list of terrorist organizations to gain Palestinian support. Instead, he elected to boost his own jihadi bona fides and stood before the world glorifying Palestinian terrorists who killed Israelis and threatening a global jihad if Jews continued to live in their holiest city of Jerusalem. Trump’s reaction was swift in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Abbas’s political self-immolation continues to burn to this day.
For people looking to get a quick understanding of terrorist attacks, many turn to the global media companies like CNN’s ”Fast Facts” section. It is there that much of the world gets an alternative view of terrorism, sanitized of the evils of Palestinian anti-Semitism.
CNN has a section called “Terrorist Attacks by Vehicle Fast Facts” devoted to global car ramming attacks. The site leads with a story of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch calling for the use of cars as death machines in 2010 and ISIS doing much the same in September 2014. The website then pivots to a “Timeline” section which recounts 15 terrorist attacks using vehicles since 2006. There is only a single incident in Israel listed and there, CNN quotes the Palestinian terrorist’s family as denying the killer had any involvement with Hamas.
The untold reality is that, like airplane hijackings, Palestinian Arabs are at the forefront of this form of terrorism too.
The paucity of Palestinian terrorism on the site is particularly shocking because there were dozens of Palestinians using cars as weapons against Jews during the media company’s timeframe, along with the active incitement and encouragement of Palestinian leadership.
Fatah, the party of the acting-president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, posted on its Facebook page several cartoons encouraging Arabs to run over Israeli Jews in November 2014, shortly after a Palestinian Arab ran over and killed a few people at a bus stop.
Fatah website promoting running over Jews
The cartoon’s language of “Run over, friend, run over the foreign settler!” and “hit the gas at 199 [km/h] for al-Aqsa,” made the murderous motives abundantly clear.
The Palestinians loved the cartoons so much they began to make their own videos calling for car ramming attacks the following week. The song, “Runaway oh Zionist” is described by ADL:
“The song, preformed in Hebrew with Arabic and Hebrew subtitles, says, “Runaway oh you Zionist, Runaway…Minutes, and a car will run over you” and depicts a Jewish man singing about running away from cars. In the part of the video where the Jewish man gets hit by a car at a bus station and thrown into a cemetery, the lyrics are, “A car will attack you from each direction to give you a ride to the grave.” The song closes with “Runaway Zionists because you will be killed by all means.“
Screenshot of Palestinian video “Runaway oh Zionist.”
Another song circulated online at this time titled “Run-over this settler” was performed by a Palestinian duo with lyrics: “Ran-over a Jewish settler…did it, with his limited resources, for his country.” The song called upon Palestinians to “wait for them at the intersection, let the settler sink in the red blood. Terrify them don’t be merciful.” Jordan-based Al Yarmuk satellite TV station aired the song on its channel as well.
Fatah officials joined the chorus for vehicular homicide with statements like “We will pursue you [Zionists] with car rammings and kill you with rocks.” None of this was covered by CNN.
A thorough review of vehicular terrorism was conducted by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose University in November 2019 in a study called “Smashing Into Crowds” — An Analysis of Vehicle Ramming Attacks.” It’s an important work designed to review how transportation officials should prepare for acts of terrorism.
According to the report, 22% of global vehicular terrorist attacks on civilians since 2010 were committed by Palestinian Arabs. That figure EXCLUDED attacks on police and military personnel which approached 1,000 incidents according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It included all attacks by a broad range of individuals such as those suffering from mental health issues (the 22% Palestinian figure would be over 50% if just focused on jihadists). But, again, CNN could only mention a single occurrence by Palestinians and fail to describe any of their incitement.
The Mineta report captures the essence of car-ramming attacks by jihadists, especially for Palestinians:
“The emergence of groups inspired by religion-based ideologies contributed to the escalation of violence. The substitution of God’s will for political constituency eroded self-imposed constraints, such as killing large numbers of innocent civilians, including children. Religious fanatics count only on heavenly approval for their actions. Condemnation by those regarded as unbelievers or infidels matters little, and undiluted commitment guarantees paradise. Among religiously inspired terrorists, suicide attacks became common….
“The change in recruiting methods [using social media and online postings] produced changes in the local terrorist population and also affected tactics. The Internet attracted individuals—it did not create local groups. Terrorist campaigns were replaced by one-off attacks; there was no institutional learning, no improvement in operational skills over time. Instead, jihadists remained mostly unconnected individuals operating alone with limited resources. When they did reach out to join others, they risked being taken in by police undercover operations. Isolated jihadists could not sustain terrorist campaigns or inspire sufficient numbers to create a high volume of violence.
“The use of vehicles as weapons is an ideal tactic for today’s circumstances. Vehicles are a readily available “weapon.” Limited skill is required, and the ability to drive is widespread. Little preparation is required for an attack. Cities filled with people and vehicles provide ample targets which cannot easily be protected, and high body counts are potentially achievable. It is not surprising, then, that the number of car-ramming attacks has increased….
“Ramming attacks did not become a terrorist tactic until the 1990s when Palestinians started carrying out vehicular assaults in Israel. Many of the attacks targeted off-duty soldiers waiting at bus stops—a ubiquitous sight in Israel—but some of the attacks were directed against both soldiers and groups of civilians.
“Car ramming did not become a major feature of the Palestinian terrorist campaign until a decade later. The 2001 bus attack was the only vehicle ramming attack to occur during the Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005, during which there were hundreds of bombings, armed assaults, and rocket and mortar attacks. Occasional vehicle ramming attacks occurred during subsequent years, especially in the summer of 2008, but the sharp increase in Palestinian vehicle attacks did not begin until after 2014. Still, HAMAS and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were the only Palestinian groups to call for such attacks. By 2016, vehicle ramming attacks had evolved from a statistically rare event to reportedly become the second most common form of attack in Israel and the second deadliest form of attack carried out by Palestinians, behind only stabbing.
“The increasing difficulty of smuggling explosives into the West Bank after the construction of the West Bank Barrier built in response to the Second Intifada and increased border barriers and controls between Gaza and Egypt is offered as at least a partial explanation for the subsequent increase in car rammings by Palestinians. Car rammings increased as preferred modes of attack became more difficult. Palestinians may also have found inspiration in exhortations from global Jihadist groups like al Qaeda and ISIS.”
The report – which was not about Palestinian terrorism – had no difficulty clearly pointing out that the origin of car ramming terrorism came from Palestinians, that Palestinian leadership specifically calls on people to use vehicles to kill Israeli Jews who are treated as less than human, and that Palestinians are the leading users of such terrorist tactics – even more than all other jihadists around the world combined.
Yet CNN would have its readers believe otherwise.
Most people will not look up an 18-page report compiled by transportation experts at an American university to learn what actually happened around the world from jihadist terrorism and rely on readily-available media like CNN which, unbeknownst to viewers, attempts to sanitize the crimes against humanity executed routinely by Palestinian Arabs. Not only does truth die in the hands of mainstream media but innocent victims suffer a second-time from the failures of memory and justice.
Peter Beinart writes for the New York Times, is a contributor to CNN and serves as the Jewish mouthpiece to mask anti-Semitism as something less than anti-Semitism to the world.
In attempting to defend Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) of the accusation that she promotes the destruction of Israel when she says “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” Beinart offered the following:
“I get why many Jews find slogan “Palestine from River to Sea” frightening. Some have used it to disregard Jewish rights (1st Hamas charter, for instance). But @RashidaTlaib has been clear that Jews + Palestinians deserve equality. Suggesting otherwise is a smear“
Peter Beinart defends Hamas and Rashida Tlaib
The founding Hamas Charter in 1988 did not simply “disregard Jewish rights” as Beinart claims. It is a screed against Jews as evil creatures who have taken over Muslim land.
Opening: The text makes clear the problem is Jews: “they who have received the scriptures [Jews]… the greater part of them are transgressors… smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found.” The solution to the problem of Palestine is found in a religious war: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.“
Preamble: The preamble lays out the enemy and charge: “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. [Hamas] is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.”
Articles 1 & 2: Makes clear that the fight is a religious one: “The Movement’s programme is Islam… one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood.”
Articles 3 & 4: Is a call to “raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors, so that they would rid the land and the people of their uncleanliness, vileness and evils.” A call to expel all non-Muslims.
Articles 5 & 6: Hamas seeks to “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine… in the absence of Islam, strife will be rife, oppression spreads, evil prevails and schisms and wars will break out.”
Articles 7 & 8: States that the “struggle against the Zionist invaders… goes back to 1939,” well before the Six Day War in 1967, and should be fought by killing Jews: “Moslems fight the Jews(killing the Jews).”
Articles 9 & 10: Declared that evil arises wherever Islam is not in charge
Articles 11 & 12: Declare that “the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations,” and “Nothing in nationalism is more significant or deeper than in the case when an enemy should tread Moslem land” making non-Jews a national and religious offense and threat
Articles 13 & 14: Call for a religious war as there “is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad,” because diplomacy and “conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems.”
Articles 15 & 16: Declare that this is a religious war: “In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised…. the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis.”
Articles 17 & 18: Call for every Muslim man, woman and child to fight to “liberate” the land from Zionists who are “hostile to humanity and Islam“
Articles 19 & 20: Actually calls Jews by the names of the people who had slaughtered them: Jews are a “vicious enemy which acts in a way similar to Nazism… In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children… [Jews] attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money,” repeating an antisemitic canard.
Articles 21 & 22: Tout conspiracy theories which combine Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the forgery ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’- “With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein…. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.“
Articles 25, 26 & 27: Call for Arab and Muslim unity in the “the liberation of Palestine… our fate is one and the enemy is a joint enemy to all of us... Islamic Resistance Movement is a fighting movement.”
Article 28: Continues to label Zionists as contemptible: “The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion… using all evil and contemptible ways… infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations… aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion…. Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people.“
Articles 29 & 30: Call for the Islamic world to fight “the ferocity of the Zionist offensive and the Zionist influence in many countries exercised through financial and media control.”
Article 31: Calls for the supremacy of Islam, “Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam… It is the duty of the followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region… The Zionist Nazi activities against our people will not last for long.“
Article 32: Continues to build on the conspiracy theories found in Articles 21 & 22: “The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.… here is no way out except by concentrating all powers and energies to face this Nazi, vicious Tatar invasion. The alternative is loss of one’s country, the dispersion ofcitizens, the spread of vice on earth and the destruction of religious values… fight with the warmongering Jews.”
Article 33: A call to global jihad against the Jews, “everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty while loudly proclaiming: Hail to Jihad. Their cry will reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is achieved, the invaders vanquished.”
Articles 34 & 35: Are calls for a religious war, “Moslems were able to retrieve the land only when they stood under the wing of their religious banner… This is the only way to liberate Palestine… Nothing can overcome iron except iron.… confront the Zionist invasion and defeat it… rid themselves of the effects of ideological invasion.”
Article 36: Hamas are the “soldiers… against the Zionist enemy and its lackeys.”
That is the Hamas Charter which Beinart said simply “disregards Jewish rights.”
The United Nations disregards Jewish rights when it opposes Jews – and only Jews – praying in their holiest location. It disregards Jewish rights when it declares that Jews – and only Jews – cannot live in parts of their holy land.
Hamas doesn’t “disregard Jewish rights” as Beinart states; it denies the basic humanity and dignity of Jews and Judaism with vast conspiracy theories and calls to kill Jews and destroy Israel. To voluntarily and publicly defend the Hamas Charter in such way is outrageous and appalling. Beinart is as likely to defend the Nazi regime with such heinous sentiments, and underscores why he is so comfortable defending Tlaib.
Hamas is the rabidly anti-Semitic terrorist group which runs Gaza and touts itself as simply a “resistant group” while pro-Palestinian media calls it a “militant group.” The group actively tries to recast itself as a legitimate political party and voice of Palestinians as it won 58% of the parliament in elections held in 2007. Its supporters go so far to call it a “social justice” movement, so as to allow more funds to flow into its coffers, such as former head of the UK’s Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn who said:
“The idea that an organisation that is dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region should be labelled as a terrorist organisation by the British government is really a big, big historical mistake and I would invite the government to reconsider their position on this matter and start talking directly to Hamas and Hezbollah…”
The main governmental sponsors of Hamas are Iran, Qatar and Turkey. Iran makes no secret of its desire to destroy Israel, making its support understandable. Biden has made clear that he intends to reengage with Iran and end the crippling financial sanctions imposed by President Trump.
Saudi Arabia just previewed that it is going to resolve the blockade it imposed on Qatar as a “gift for Biden,” as described by an advisor in the region. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt had all cut diplomatic ties with Qatar due to its support for terrorism. That is seemingly coming to a close.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, March 9, 2016. (Flash90)
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas celebrated Biden’s win and said “We call on President-elect Joe Biden to make a historic correction to the discriminatory American policy toward the Palestinian people that has caused instability in the region and the world.” It would appear that Hamas is not just looking for direct aid from a Biden government but is very hopeful that indirect funds will flow via the terrorist group’s sponsors in Iran, Qatar and Turkey, and possibly even from the European Union which curtailed sponsoring Palestinian terrorism during President Trump’s term.
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