Showing posts with label unesco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unesco. Show all posts

Monday, September 18, 2023

Eugene Kontorovich found this while researching the latest UNESCO fiasco:


At least in Jericho, and presumably Area A at the very least, the Palestinian Authority government admits that "occupation" ended in 1994!

I didn't see this document online but I found a similar formulation in a United Nations Development Programme document about tax policy in the territories, saying, 
6.1 Taxes in the occupied Palestinian territory _ Israeli Occupation (1967-1994) 
6.2. The Palestinian Era
Earlier today we solved the "siege of Gaza" and now we've solved "occupation."  Not a bad day!




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, June 12, 2023




I'm in the middle of reading "Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership,"  collection of essays edited by Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser:

This book—perhaps the first devoted to this topic—documents the devastating failure of the Jewish establishment, including its leaders and major donors, to defend and protect American Jews as anti-Semitism surges across the country....Betrayed by their leaders, the essayists argue, American Jews require new, strong leadership.

While it is not an American Jewish organization, the World Jewish Congress - led by Ronald Lauder - may be a perfect example of this problem.

The World Jewish Congress issued this statement this morning:

World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder issued the following statement praising the return of the United States to UNESCO: 

“The World Jewish Congress welcomes the decision by the United States to rejoin UNESCO after a five-year absence.   

“Under the leadership of Director-General Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO has made an immeasurable impact on the world stage by safeguarding history amid tumultuous and complex global events, so that current and future generations can be exposed to and better understand the lessons of the past.   

“WJC, a longtime UNESCO partner on Holocaust remembrance and interfaith initiatives, is hopeful that the agency will now be able to share its critical work with even broader audiences.”
One of the themes of this site is Jewish unity, and infighting among Jews is one of the organized Jewish community's worst problems. I do not like to attack Jewish organizations. But this statement is outrageous.

The entire reason the US left UNESCO in 2017 was because if its anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias. That bias was consistent for years, with UNESCO regularly issuing biased reports and statements:

Denying any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and even the Western Wall
Deploring Jews visiting the Temple Mount
Ignored Israeli casualties in the May 2019 Gaza war
Complimenting Jordan's plan for rebuilding the public ramp to the Temple Mount while condemning Israel's
Calling Maimonides a Muslim named Moussa ibn Maïmoun and refusing to apologize

I'm not saying that there might not be good reasons for the US to rejoin UNESCO. After months of lobbying by current UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay where she tried to reassure Israel she won’t allow anti-Israeli bias in the organization, Israel told the Biden administration last year that it wouldn't oppose the US re-joining.  The US is concerned that China is now leading UNESCO in ways against US interests.

All this may be true, but: 

The WJC claims that it "protects Jews everywhere and constantly defends the State of Israel against these threats." But Jews and Israel are missing in this press release. Instead, it is cheerleading an organization with a history of horrifying antisemitism and anti-Zionism. 

How could it welcome the US decision, and praise UNESCO, without saying a word about UNESCO's antisemitic history? This is not the time for celebratory press release, but for a warning that UNESCO will be watched closely to see if there has been any significant change in its anti-Israel, antisemitic bias. 

But the WJC is not saying that UNESCO is on its radar. On the contrary, WJC is giving UNESCO a kosher certification. 

It is true that UNESCO has become less noxious under the leadership of Azoulay, but it has hardly ended its bias. Every year UNESCO reaffirms all previous resolutions minimizing the Jewish connection to Jewish holy sites (although it has returned to including the non-Muslim names of the Temple Mount, Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb) as it condemns every Israeli move at all those sites. All the bias and hate are still there, but "softer." 

This is hardly reason for celebration. 

This is not Jewish leadership. This is capitulation. This is giving the message to world Jewry that their self-appointed leaders care more about access to powerful people than actually fighting for Jewish interests. 

Real leaders tell the truth even if that will upset the powers that be. Ronald Lauder is a billionaire - he can say what he wants without any fear of personal consequences. This episode shows that he is no Jewish leader.

(Graphic courtesy of @iTil972)



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, April 27, 2023



This story from YNet did not get the publicity it should be getting:

A newly released study showed Egypt was successful in removing antisemitism and other hatred from its school books, The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found. The research and policy institute that analyzes curricula around the world through UNESCO-defined standards, has released its second full report on the Egyptian curriculum, from its London office.

This latest IMPACT-se report evaluated 271 textbooks from the Egyptian national curricula, published between 2018 and 2023. The study focuses on the Arabic language, Islamic and Christian religious education, social studies, values and respect for others, history, geography, philosophy, and more. Egypt has the largest education system in the Middle East and North Africa, with 25 million children currently enrolled in its schools - the largest in the Arab world.

"Our findings show major improvements in attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in the revised textbooks, part of the year-by-year reform of the Egyptian national curriculum between 2018-2030 across all grades, which has already reached Grade 5," IMPACT-se said. 

"Promisingly, elementary school textbooks rewritten since 2021 do not include traditional, harmful antisemitic stereotypes such as attributing evil deeds and negative traits like disloyalty, fraud, greediness, and violation of contracts to Jewish people. These were replaced with values of tolerance and coexistence between Islam and Judaism, highlighting common ground such as Islam's recognition of the Torah, and permission for Muslims to eat Kosher food."

Students are required to memorize the provisions of the peace treaty, and describe the “advantages of peace for Egypt and the Arab states.” A photograph of the peace treaty signing at the White House is shown for the first time. Passages such as “recognition of the sovereignty of each side in the conflict over its territory” were changed to “respect by each side of the other’s sovereignty and independence,” and establishing “normal relations” between the two countries, was changed to establishing “friendly relations.”
The article notes that it is not all great; older grades still use the older textbooks with explicit antisemitism, and even in the new ones students are taught that it is an Islamic duty to end the "occupation" which appears to include all of Israel based on the map they still use.

But even so, this is a very positive change. Egypt is just about the most antisemitic nation there is and the indoctrination in the textbooks is part of the reason why.

IMPACT-SE has not yet published the complete study




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, February 14, 2023


Arafat got the ball rolling.

In a 1997 online article on Azure, Yoram Hazony describes a 1996 festival staged by Arafat's Ministry of Culture, in honor of Ba'al:

Arab youths dressed in robes bearing ancient Canaanite figures brandished torches as they danced about the town square, packed with officials of the PLO’s administration and security services...On the stone stage in the middle of the square, a dramatic passion was acted out, with the Ba’al, god of the heavens and fertility in the pantheon of the ancient Canaanites, heroically struggling against Mut, god of the underworld...the narrator took the opportunity to pour praise on the loyal Palestinian-Canaanite nations, the Amorites, Girgashites, Jebusites and Perizzites, which had fought at his side in the battle against the Hebrew invaders from across the Jordan.
And Arafat kept the ball rolling. On March 30, 2000, Arafat declared during a 'Land Day' speech:
Our forefathers, the Canaanites and Jebusites, built the cities and planted the land; they built the monumental city of Bir Salim [Jerusalem]…

The previous year, his advisor and minister for Jerusalem affairs, Faisal Husseini, said in an interview with New York Times Magazine:

I am a Palestinian. I am a descendant of the Jebusites, the ones who came before King David. This [Jerusalem] was one of the most important Jebusite cities in the area…. Yes, it’s true. We are the descendants of Jebusites.

Similar claims by Abbas and Saeb Erekat are not new.

The Middle East Forum finds efforts of this falsification in 1978 in the Palestinian encyclopedia (Al-Mawsu'at Al-Filastinniya), 

which declared, "The Palestinians [to be] the descendants of the Jebusites, who are of Arab origin," and described Jerusalem as "an Arab city because its first builders were the Canaanite Jebusites, whose descendants are the Palestinians."The entry continued, "Ever since the destruction of the Temple, the link with Jews and Christians has been severed. Muslims alone have a right to the Temple."

No Palestinian claim is too absurd to be made -- after all, who in the West ever calls them out on such things. Here is Dr. Hayel Sanduqa on PA TV, on June 2, 2011, claiming that a famous Psalm was actually first said by a Crusader:

[The Israelis] have acted to change Jerusalem's character. Even the expression (Psalm 137:5) “If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth.” This statement said by the Frankish (Crusader) ruler of Acre shortly before he left – was borrowed by the Zionist movement, which falsified it in the name of Zionism.

Is the problem really that the West is unwilling to call out the Palestinian Arabs on their falsification of history, or is the problem really much bigger -- is the West actually complicit in this falsification?

UNESCO

Erasing Jewish history seems to be a UNESCO specialty.

In 2011, Elder of Ziyon pointed out how UNESCO identified the Rambam (Maimonides) as Maimouna Ibn Moussa, effectively claiming that the revered Jewish philosopher, legal scholar and leader of the Jewish community during the 12th century was a Muslim.

Other attempts by UNESCO to erase Jewish ties to their land just up to 2011 alone include:

o  November 7, 1974: voted “to withhold assistance from Israel in the fields of education, science and culture because of Israel’s persistent alteration of the historic features of Jerusalem.” 
o  November 20, 1974: voted to exclude Israel from its European regional group -- until 1978, after the US withheld $40 million in payments from the organization in protest.
o  1989: claimed “Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem” was destroying the holy city by “acts of interference, destruction and transformation”
o  1990: attacked the “irreversible” changes to Jerusalem's architectural heritage resulting from Israeli “occupation”  
o  1993: then-UNESCO director-general Frederico Mayor boycotted an international conference on science in Jerusalem
o  1995: When the UN celebrated its 50th anniversary, UNESCO refused to mention the Shoah in its World War II resolution
o  1996: organized a symposium on Jerusalem at the body’s Paris headquarters without inviting any Jewish or Israeli groups
o  1998: a delegation visiting Jerusalem refused to meet with Israeli officials. 
o  2001: UNESCO promoted the “Cairo Declaration Document for Jerusalem Antiquities Preservation,” accusing Israel of destroying Islamic antiquities on the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem’s Old City
o  2002: During the Second Intifada, condemned Israel for “the destruction and damage caused to the cultural heritage in the Palestinian territories” as “a crime against the common cultural heritage of humanity.”
o  2009: designated Jerusalem as a “capital of Arab culture”
o  2010: declared Rachel’s Tomb and Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs as “Muslim mosques.”
o  2011: called on Israel to stop all archaeological works in the Old City of Jerusalem

In the past, UNESCO also has also called for “financial sanctions against Israel” and passed hundreds of resolutions criticizing Israel’s activities in Judea and Samaria

According to the UN Watch Database:

Between 2009 and 2021, UNESCO adopted 82 resolutions against Israel; 9 on Crimea; 4 on Iraq; 2 on Syria; and none on Iran, Sudan, North Korea, or any other country in the world...UNESCO repeatedly denies the ancient Jewish heritage and culture of the holy cities Jerusalem and Hebron – which it has declared a World Heritage site of “Palestine.”

The Supreme Muslim Council in 1925

But when it comes to denying Israel's right to Jerusalem and its Jewish history, everyone wants to get in on the act -- which is ironic, considering how in 1925, the Supreme Muslim Council published A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which in addition to permitting non-Muslims to visit, explicitly recognizes the history of Solomon's Temple as being "beyond dispute" as the location where the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque stand today -- and quotes from the Book of Samuel to make its point. The guide goes on to mention in passing that in 637 Caliph Omar "occupied Jerusalem."


 

The Mosque of Omar, 16 miles southwest of Jerusalem, has an inscription dating back to the 9th or 10th century CE that refers to the Dome of the Rock as “the rock of the Bayt al-Maqdis -- literally "the rock of The Holy Temple."

Things have changed.

The BBC

Things have changed in the media as well. CAMERA UK has pointed out that while at one point the BBC recognized the Jewish historical ties by referring to The Temple Mount...


...in 2014, after the PLO warned international reporters not to use the term Temple Mount, the media obliged and perpetuates the Palestinian Arab narrative, the BBC among them. Last month, when Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, the BBC reported:

The hilltop site is the most sacred place in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of two Biblical temples, and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the site of Muhammad's ascent to Heaven. The entire compound is considered to be al-Aqsa Mosque by Muslims. [emphasis added]

The BBC includes a graphic that helpfully emphasizes the point:

By perpetuating this distortion, the BBC is aiding the Palestinian Arabs who undercut Jewish rights and Jewish history by increasing the number of mosques on the Temple Mount from 1 to 5 while deliberately destroying archaeological evidence of the ancient Jewish ties to the area.

Helping the Palestinian cause is the EU.

The EU

Back in December, a document came to light describing the EU's plan to help the Palestinians by undercutting the Oslo Accords and help Palestinian Arabs gain a foothold in Area C of Judea and Samaria.

The six-page document calls for mapping the territory in order to prove Palestinian rights to the land and monitoring Israeli archaeological activity, as ancient Jewish ties reinforce Israeli claims.

The document also recommends strengthening Palestinian infrastructure in Area C and supporting Palestinians with legal aid.
The article quotes Shlomo Ne’eman, head of the Gush Etzion Council and the Yesha Council who decries how "the allies of the State of Israel, the European governments, are actively working to change the borders of our country."  This is just taking the attempt to arbitrarily refer to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel and taking it to a whole new level.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia is doing its share to falsify history.

Wikipedia

An article on Wikipedia on Iran–Jordan relations, traces those relations back for "most of Jordanian history" -- in this case back to the Persians:

The article on Jordan itself tells you that "the oldest known evidence of hominid habitation in Jordan dates back at least 200,000 years."

You have to check out the Wikipedia article on Iraq-Jordan relations to get the straightforward history starting in the 20th century:


And now the Biden Administration has decided to play along with the Palestinian Arabs. 

The Biden Administration

According to a press release from the Manhattan DA's office:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., today announced the repatriation of an ivory cosmetic spoon dating back to approximately 800-700 B.C.E to the Palestinian Authority, marking the first time a cultural object has been returned to the Palestinian people from the United States... 

“We are proud to join our law enforcement and government partners in this moment. It is impossible to put a value on the cultural and historical significance of looted antiquities and I thank our talented team of attorneys and investigators who are continuing their incredible work of returning these objects to where they rightfully belong,” said District Attorney Bragg. [emphasisd added]

Rightfully belong?

As Johanna Markind pointed out at Legal Insurrection:

American law calls for repatriation of certain artifacts to Indian tribes, if “the requesting Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization can show that the object was owned or controlled by the Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization.” That is, the Smithsonian would return a qualified Cheyenne artifact to the Cheyenne tribe. It would not return a Cheyenne artifact to, say, the Pawnee.

According to the law, then, the artifact should have been returned to Israel. But that would have been a problem. After all, the spoon was originally looted from Hebron, so returning it to Israel would amount to admitting the Jewish ties to that area.

So instead, we are treated to an onslaught of government officials publically supporting the Palestinian Arabs in fabricating an imaginary history:

 Ivan J. Arvelo, a special agent in charge of US Homeland Security Investigations in New York, described the transfer of the spoon to the PA as a "historic repatriation”
o  George Noll, head of the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, described the spoon as “an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony.”
o  DHS official, Jeff Brannigan, claimed that, “This repatriation is representative of HSI’s commitment to ensuring the storied heritages of peoples around the world through the preservation and protection of cultural artifacts.”
The Biden Administration is pushing a falsified history -- much as Biden himself famously falsified his own history during the 1988 presidential campaign when he claimed:
 He graduated from Syracuse University’s law school in the top half of his class.
o  He received 3 undergraduate degrees.
o  He attended law school on a full academic scholarship
But this time, the media is unlikely to call him out on this fake history.







Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 


Tuesday, January 24, 2023






Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, December 29, 2022



UNESCO announced that it has launched a US-wide online professional training programme for school teachers, superintendents and principals to address antisemitism.

Their partners are the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Jewish Committee.

Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director General, said, "Antisemitism is an attack on our shared humanity. It must be confronted head-on, without naivety and with perseverance. This is the commitment of UNESCO, the UN agency mandated to promote education on the Holocaust and the prevention of genocide. We are proud to support American teachers to raise young people’s awareness of the nature and impact of this toxic hate speech and ideology that drive discrimination."

The name of the course is "Shine a Light." It does not mention too many details, just a general description: "Participants will develop their knowledge, skills and confidence to teach about antisemitism and to dismantle antisemitic stereotypes. They will also learn strategies to address antisemitic incidents in schools, and to respond effectively to conspiracy theories including Holocaust denial and distortion."

I am all for training teachers about how to combat antisemitism, but I fear that this is only addressing a small subset of the issue. The mention, multiple times, of Holocaust denial seems to indicate that the only flavor of antisemitism it will tackle is far-Right, neo-Nazi antisemitism. 

I don't see any indication that it will address false claims popular among Black antisemites that Jews controlled the slave trade or that Blacks are the real Jews and Jews are imposters. I don't see anything about left-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories involving the "Israel lobby." 

 The USC Shoah Foundation seems to be the driver of the training, and they have had a course for students on antisemitism since 2016, which defined it this way:

Antisemitism is the term for hatred of Jews as a group or a concept. Hatred of Jews has existed since ancient times, and in the nineteenth century it was being influenced by modern scientific ways of thinking. The word “antisemitism” was coined in Germany by political activist Wilhelm Marr to represent this newer way of thinking. “Semitism” supposedly expressed all things Jewish, since at the time national groups were frequently defined by their language and the traditional language of Jews is Hebrew, which is a Semitic language. Of course there is no such thing as “Semitism” and all speakers of Semitic languages never belonged to the same national or ethnic groups. Antisemitism may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews, their supposedly evil nature, or other negative ideas about Jews. It may include political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or other stereotyped views about Jews derived from racial or other ideologies.
I can find only a small hint that anti-Zionism may be linked to antisemitism in this handout, no longer online:
One would think after the Holocaust antisemitism would have disappeared. Unfortunately it has continued to exist. Today a constellation of antisemitic stereotypes and motifs still may be found, some elements with older ideas and some with newer variations, chief among them hatred of Jews linked to a demonic image of Israel and Zionism.
Given that UNESCO has adopted the Palestinian fiction that denies or minimizes the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and Hebron, it seems apparent that Arab antisemitism will not be covered by these courses. After all, Temple denial is no less antisemitic than Holocaust denial, but UNESCO spreads that lie, explicitly or implicitly.. It would almost certainly not want to accuse Arabs of antisemitism.

The American Jewish Committee, which has strongly condemned UNESCO in the past for its own Jerusalem resolutions, does embrace the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. On the other hand, the American Federation of Teachers is likely to only emphasize neo-Nazi style antisemitism and ignore or deny all others.

It is very unclear what this course is going to look like. UNESCO's involvement and its press release emphasis on Holocaust education and denial gives me pause. Holocaust education is crucial, of course, but today's youth cannot easily link Jews being herded into gas chambers with their view of Jews today as a successful, integrated group in the US. 

The entire point of a course on antisemitism should be that no group is immune to being infected hy it, and showing examples from across the board, from Alice Walker to Mahmoud Abbas, from Louis Farrakhan to Roald Dahl, from Richard Nixon to Ilhan Omar, from the murderer at Tree of Life to the murderers in Jersey City and those in Paris, from Henry Ford to Kanye West, from Osama bin Laden to Marjorie Taylor-Greene. The wide range is exactly the point, and if the Shoah is the main focus of the course, it will not achieve its goals. 





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, December 23, 2022

From Ian:

Report by UN Middle East envoy ignores Israeli terror victims
UN coordinator to the Middle East Tor Wennesland, reported to the Security Council on Thursday that more than 20 Israeli victims have been killed as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the beginning of 2022 – a number lower than Israeli estimations.

The Envoy reported 150 Palestinian casualties during the same time span, the largest number in recent years.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Wennesland relied on data taken from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which only recognized 19 Israeli victims in terror attacks in 2022.

According to Israeli estimations, 31 Israelis and foreign workers were killed as a result of terror attacks, while the UN claimed the cause of the additional 12 fatalities were inconclusive or their perpetrators remained at large.

The Foreign Ministry said the UN’s report ignored terror attack victims including Aryeh Shchupak and Tadese Tashume who were killed in a bombing attack in Jerusalem last November, Shulamit Rachel Ovadia who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist in September, Victor Sorokopot and Dima Mitrik who were killed in a terror attack in Bnei Brak last March.

Also not mentioned were Ivan Tarnovksy who was killed in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem in March, Rabbi Moshe Kravitsky, Laura Itzhak, Doris Yahbas, and Meha and Menach Yehezkel who were killed in a terror attack in Be’er Sheva also in March, and Border Police officers Shirel Abukarat and Yezen Falah who were killed in a terror attack in Hadera that same month.

Wennesland did not mention that out of the 150 Palestinians who were killed since the beginning of 2022, at least 80% were what the ministry called "terrorists," describing them as Palestinian civilians.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan’s appeals to the OCHA for the reevaluation of the data presented, have so far, remained unanswered.


Showing gratitude to the IDF, the modern-day Maccabees
As we reflect on the joyous holiday of Hanukkah, a commemoration of the notable and valiant fighting prowess of the Jewish people in ancient times, we also celebrate the unyielding resilience and determination of the Jewish people and our homeland.

From Maccabees to modern miracles
For this year’s Festival of Lights, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) organized a “Live the Miracle” campaign. On each night of Hanukkah, Jewish celebrities and influencers welcomed soldiers from the IDF into their homes to light candles together in a symbolic act of solidarity with Israel and the never-ending fight against the darkness that is antisemitism.

The candle lighting took place at the homes of Lizzy Savetsky, a social media influencer, matchmaker and unabashed Zionist activist; Alexei and Loren Brovarnik, stars of the hit series 90 Day Fiancé; Modi Rosenfeld, a stand-up comedian and actor; Tova Friedman, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor and recent TikTok sensation; Ashley Waxman Bakshi, a beauty, travel and fashion creator; Cathy Heller, an author and podcast host; Kosha Dillz, a rapper; and Noa Tishby, an Israeli actress, writer and activist.

In the face of social media attacks, these nine brave individuals stood up for morality, for dignity and for the young men and young women who are literally at the front line of humanity.

Hanukkah is the celebration of miracles, of right over might: of the small yet fearless Maccabee army’s defeat over the formidable Greco-Syrian forces and a tiny vessel of oil, enough to light the menorah in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount for 12 hours, that burned instead for eight days.

A group of educators, the Maccabees fought to defend the religious freedom and basic human rights of the Jewish people. Their victory over their imposing enemy ultimately emancipated the Jewish people so that they could live freely and exult each day in their fundamental humanity.

Wednesday, December 07, 2022



From Arab News:
UNESCO has included mansaf, the national dish of Jordan, on its list of intangible cultural heritage.

A file was submitted to the organization, “Mansaf in Jordan: A Ceremonial Feast and Its Social and Cultural Connotations,” in March 2021, in a bid to include the dish on the list, the Jordan News Agency reported.

Makram Qaisi, Jordan’s permanent representative to UNESCO, said that the addition was announced during the 17th session of the intergovernmental committee for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, being held in Rabat, Morocco, from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3.
Jordanian media has been celebrating UNESCO's honoring of mansaf.

Arabic media, though, adds a little bit of color about the legendary origins of the dish. From Al Jazeera:
The history of Mansaf dates back more than 3,000 years, according to historians, when the Moabite king Mesha asked his people in the 19th century BC (sic)  to cook meat with milk, contrary to the Jews who forbid cooking meat with milk or milk, and so that he could distinguish the sons of his people for the Jews.
This is a whitewash of the real story, which I discussed in 2014 based on an article in Jordan's Ammon News:

According to the article, some historians say that the name of the dish comes from the root NSF which means "blowing up", "blasting", "destroying." A legend is told of an ancient "Arab" Moabite king from 885 BCE, Mesha, who asked that this dish be created as a way of expressing his animosity towards the Jews, whom he knew were planning to betray him.

Mansaf is made of lamb cooked in a yogurt-based sauce and is not kosher because of the Jewish prohibition of eating meat cooked in milk. Therefore, the article claims, the dish was originally created to insult Jews.

The article says that the king of Moab created the dish as a "declaration of his people's hostility to the Jews since 885 BC. " His people enthusiastically responded, "knowing that this is nothing but a declaration of hostility against the treacherous Jews."

The article ends saying, "Jordanians enjoyed this food and continued to cook it to this day with optimism about victory, and everyone who inhabited the land of Jordan took Mansaf as their favorite food, in which they obligated their guests, feasted on them, acknowledged them and determined to do so, declaring their enmity towards the Jews until the Day of Judgment.

One commenter said, "If this is true, then eating mansaf is a sort of jihad against the Jews."

The origin legend is nonsense, but that isn't the point. The national dish of Jordan is meant to symbolize hate for Jews - forever.

It is not at all possible that the Jordanians who submitted this dish to UNESCO didn't know this; in fact is is highly unlikely that UNESCO itself doesn't know this. There are scores of articles that emphasize that mansaf was meant to insult Jews. 

And they see nothing wrong with honoring a dish that is literally a symbol for everlasting hate for Jews.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, September 14, 2022


The Jewish city and history of Beitar is remembered by observant Jews each time they break bread, for the fourth blessing of the Grace after Meals commemorates the massacre and the miracle that happened there in that place. The massacre occurred in 135 CE. Hundreds of thousands (some say millions) of Jews were slaughtered by the Romans, and the Jews were not allowed to collect the bodies for burial for many years. Today, there is a thriving Jewish city there of some 59,000 residents, Beitar Illit. But there is also an Arab village with fewer than 5,000 villagers, called Battir. In 2014, Battir was named a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site, and inscribed on the UNESCO website as “Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines — Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir.”

Battir lies directly northeast of “Khirbet el-Yahud,” Arabic for “Ruin of the Jews,” the archaeological site of the ruins of the ancient Jewish city of Beitar. The Arabs named it “Ruin of the Jews” because they know exactly what happened there, and that the city was Jewish. They know it was called “Beitar” and adopted it, corrupting the name to the more Arabic-sounding “Battir.” You can be sure that UNESCO knows these things, too. Which is why they were so desperate to rename the village, “Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines — Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir,” a name that erases the Jewish identity, character, and history of the place.

Ruined walls of the Beitar fortress, the last stand of Bar Kochba

UNESCO would very much like to disappear the Jewish history of this place that saw a massacre and a miracle, in the time of Roman Emperor Hadrian. Beitar, as it happens, was the base for the failed Bar Kochba rebellion against the Romans. After the Romans defeated Bar Kochba’s army, they avenged themselves by slaughtering the population of Jewish Beitar. The cruel nature of the Roman slaughter is gruesome and difficult to recount: babies’ heads dashed against rocks; horses drowning in rivers of Jewish blood.

Tragic, tragic. 

But not enough for the Romans, who then refused the Jews the right to bury their dead.

Remains of Hurvat Itri, destroyed during the Bar Kochba revolt

Years went by. Rabban Gamliel, along with his court, fasted and prayed for days on end, and then Gamliel laid waste to his inheritance, hoping to buy permission from the Roman despots to bury the dead of Beitar. All this time, the bodies of the slain remained where the lives of the victims had been cut short, out in the open in the fields. Each time a Jew passed Beitar, he would be sick at heart, knowing that there in that spot lay the unburied. It was a constant wound.

At last the Romans granted permission for burial, and when the Jews went to retrieve the bodies for burial, they witnessed a miracle: the bodies were not in the least degraded. They were still fresh, still whole, though out there in the wilderness there was and still is, no shortage of predators.

The profound nature of this miracle that happened to the Jewish people, inspired the rabbinical court to institute the aforementioned blessing thanking God for His double measure of goodness in both preserving the remains and allowing the dead their final honor (Brachot 48b).

It's a blessing that's used on a variety of occasions, for example on hearing good news, drinking a second wine, or when it rains in Israel after a drought. The main application for the blessing, however, is during the Grace after Meals, since a meal is always a part of Jewish celebration—and what better time than a festive meal to acknowledge God’s goodness after Jewish tragedy?

But back to UNESCO, which surely knows that Beitar was populated by Jews from the Iron Age until the second century CE, and the Bar Kochba revolt. The UN body would know this and be well aware too, of the massacre of the Jews at Beitar, after the fact. These are established, well-documented facts.

“Palestine,” on the other hand, was never and still is not an Arab state or country—which UNESCO also knows. By inscribing the Judean city as “Palestine” on its website, UNESCO once more betrays its antisemitic goal of erasing the Land and State of Israel and its indigenous people, the Jews. We all know of the UN’s constant resolutions against the democratic Israel, as compared to the paucity of resolutions against all the other UN member states, combined. This is just more of the same—the same antisemitism, that is.

How did “Battir” come to be protected by UNESCO? It begins in 2007, with the inception of the building of Israel’s security fence. At that time, Battir sued the Israeli Defense Ministry in an effort to force Israel to change the planned route of the fence, which they claimed would cut through a 2,000-year-old irrigation system, which Wikipedia helpfully notes is “still in use.” UNESCO no doubt helped Battir take Israel to court, and in fact, in 2011, also according to Wikipedia, awarded Battir “a $15,000 prize for ‘Safeguarding and Management of Cultural Landscapes’ due to its care for its ancient terraces and irrigation system.” 

In other words, $15,000 to help erase Jewish history.

This generous award naturally encouraged the Arabs to go further, and so, in May 2012, the Palestinian Authority sent a delegation off to UNESCO headquarters in Paris, to suggest they add Battir to its World Heritage list. At the time, the PA deputy minister of tourism, Hamadan Taha, announced that UNESCO wanted to “maintain [Battir] as a Palestinian and humanitarian heritage.”

But the thing is, since there was never an Arab state called “Palestine,” there is no such heritage. The place is specifically Jewish. To suggest otherwise is to express Jew-hatred through the denial of documented history—it's laughable. Hello: The Arabs call it “Battir” because it’s Beitar.

Roman inscription found near "Battir," which mentions the 5th and 11th Roman Legions.

Speaking of antisemitism and erasing Jewish history, let’s remember why that security fence, the pretext for the UNESCO inscription: “Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines — Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir,” was built in the first place.

From the Jewish Virtual Library:

Before the construction of the fence, and in many places where it has not yet been completed, a terrorist need only walk across an invisible line to cross from the West Bank into Israel. No barriers existed, so it is easy to see how a barrier, no matter how imperfect, won’t at least make the terrorists’ job more difficult. Approximately 75% of the suicide bombers who attacked targets inside Israel came across the border in the area where the first phase of the fence was built.

From September 2000 until the end of 2006, more than 3,000 terrorist attacks originated in the West Bank, resulting in the deaths of 1,622 people inside the Green Line. By comparison, since 2007, when most of the fence was erected, until mid-2022, 141 attacks killed 100 people.

Even Palestinian terrorists admitted the fence is a deterrent. On November 11, 2006, Islamic Jihad leader Abdallah Ramadan Shalah said on Al-Manar TV the terrorist organizations had every intention of continuing suicide bombing attacks but that their timing and the possibility of implementing them from the West Bank depended on other factors. “For example,” he said, “there is the separation fence, which is an obstacle to the resistance, and if it were not there, the situation would be entirely different.”

The Jewish history of Beitar was, by the way, the inspiration behind Vladimir Jabotinsky’s youth organization of the same name, in part because Bar Kochba was a Jew who fought back against foreign domination. The Etzel and also the Likud Party have their roots in the Beitar Movement. Prime ministers Begin and Shamir were both members of Beitar in their youth, and later, both were in the Etzel. 

The Beitar youth movement is named for the last stand of the Beitar warriors, and remains active today as a Zionist leadership group.

A cluster of papyrus containing Bar Kochba's orders during the last year of the revolt, found at the Cave of Letters in the Judean desert by Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin.

With all this Jewish history behind it, what should we think about the Arab village of Battir that is planted atop this site of Jewish massacre and miracle? How are we supposed to view UNESCO’s naked antisemitism in bribing the PA to assist them in wiping out Jewish culture of the place?

And why should we pretend that “Battir” is “Palestinian,” when it was and always will be Jewish Beitar? 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, May 30, 2022



On May 3, Reporters Without Borders released their annual rankings of World Press Freedom.

No one seems to have noticed that the abysmal record of the freedom of media in the Palestinian territories plummeted even further.

In the 2021 rankings, "Palestine" came in as #132 out of 180 with a score of 56.82.

In 2022, it fell to #170 with a score of 28.98.

Here are the countries that it is comparable to:

166 Saudi Arabia 33.71
167 Bahrain 30.97
168 Egypt 30.23
169 Yemen 29.14
170 Palestine 28.98
171 Syria 28.94
172 Iraq 28.59
173 Cuba 27.32
174 Vietnam 26.11
175 China 25.17

The media generally regards any news that comes out from China or Yemen or Syria or Saudi Arabia as being automatically suspect because everyone knows that those countries have heavy control of the media, both direct and indirect. Their official statements are treated like the propaganda it is.

Yet statements from the Palestinian Authority - the organization that controls and limits the media - are still treated respectfully. Their media is quoted as if they are Western-style liberal outlets when in fact they are suppressed and threatened if they say the wrong thing. And the readers of these Western articles that quote Palestinian sources are never told that the media is suspect.

Even worse, the prevailing atmosphere under both Palestinian Authority and Hamas rule is that everyone knows there are certain things they simply cannot say, as a reporter or to a reporter. In recent days I showed that Palestinian journalists and eyewitnesses are well aware that there were other militants in Jenin near where Shireen Abu Akleh was - but they will never say that to CNN or AP. Once the official narrative is established, you won't find anyone to publicly contradict it. I've documented dozens of cases of "eyewitnesses" who know what they are allowed to say and what they are not. 

Also not mentioned in the report is that even foreign media is threatened to toe the government line, especially but not only in Gaza.

Perhaps the most absurd part is that the EU and UNESCO marked World Press Freedom Day with the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate in Ramallah this year, barely mentioning how terrible the situation is - but quick to blame Israel for the majority of issues with Palestinian press freedom.

The Palestinians have a narrative of blaming everything on Israel and downplaying the complete lack of freedoms under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas  - and the world happily plays along, even when they know the truth. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

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