Europe's Jihad against Israel by Salim Mansur

Europe's Jihad against Israel

by Salim Mansur  •  January 20, 2017 at 5:30 am

• Resolution 2334 was as sickening a surrender to the Arab-Muslim jihad in the name of "peace," as was the surrender of UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to Adolf Hitler at Munich in September 1938.
• The UN before 1967 did not refer to the West Bank and Gaza as "occupied" territories when they were "occupied" by Egypt and Jordan after the 1948-49 war, which the Arab states launched against Israel. The Arab states then were the "occupiers" of parts of Jewish Palestine west of Jordan until 1967, and rejected any notion of Jews having a historic connection with Palestine, which they claimed was an integral part of Arab lands.
• From the time of the Balfour Declaration and the League's Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine aka The Land of Israel as Agreed by the Supreme Allied Powers at the 1920 San Remo Conference; until the UN Resolution 181, which is non-binding and has no legal standing (1947), reference to Palestine meant land with historic connection to the Jewish people. It was on this basis that the Jews' (Zionist) claim to reconstitute their national home was given legal recognition by the Supreme Allied Powers and implemented by League, which the UN, as its successor, was legally bound to protect.
• From the Arab perspective of religion and politics there never was a Arab "Palestinian" people, or nation, distinct and separate from Arabs as a people or nation. The jihad called by the Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini against Jews in Palestine after 1921 was in the name of "Arabs" and Islam, and it has so remained since. According to the Hamas charter, "the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Trust] upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection."
• Jerusalem, its principal city, was built by King David, a Jew, some ten centuries earlier.
• For the past nine decades and more, however, Arabs and Muslims, with 56 Muslim states in the OIC, have been waging jihad to destroy the one and only state of the Jews. And Christendom, as if oblivious of its own shameful past history of anti-Semitism, has even more shamefully supported the falsification of history. Now, with Security Council Resolution 2334, the UN, with the enthusiastic the backing of Europeans and the prodding of U.S. President Barack Obama, is complicit in this jihad against Israel.

UN Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted as a result of the United States abstention, on the instructions of outgoing President Barack Obama, confirmed the historic bigotry against Jews and Israel entrenched within the United Nations, just as it was within its predecessor, the League of Nations. As previously indicated, Arab and Muslim states could not move a single anti-Israel resolution in the Security Council without the complicity of the Western powers, representing the historically Christian nations.

The collusion of the Western powers and the Islamic countries against Jews and Israel is now ostentatious, without any subterfuge. Resolution 2334 was as sickening a surrender to the Arab-Muslim jihad in the name of "peace," as was the surrender of UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to the Adolf Hitler at Munich in September 1938.

Europe’s Jihad against Israel  

By Salim Mansur, GATESTONE INSTITUTE

• Resolution 2334 was as sickening a surrender to the Arab-Muslim jihad in the name of “peace,” as was the surrender of UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to Adolf Hitler at Munich in September 1938.
• The UN before 1967 did not refer to the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied” territories when they were “occupied” by Egypt and Jordan after the 1948-49 war, which the Arab states launched against Israel. The Arab states then were the “occupiers” of parts of Palestine west of Jordan until 1967, and rejected any notion of Jews having a historic connection with Palestine, which they claimed was an integral part of Arab lands.
• From the time of the Balfour Declaration and the League’s Mandate for Palestine until the UN Resolution 181 (1947), reference to Palestine meant land with historic connection to the Jewish people. It was on this basis that the Jews’ (Zionist) claim to reconstitute their national home was given legal recognition by the League, which the UN, as its successor, was legally bound to protect.
• From the Arab perspective of religion and politics there never was a “Palestinian” people, or nation, distinct and separate from Arabs as a people or nation. The jihad called by the Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini against Jews in Palestine after 1921 was in the name of “Arabs” and Islam, and it has so remained since. According to the Hamas charter, “the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Trust] upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection.”
• Jerusalem, its principal city, was built by King David, a Jew, some ten centuries earlier.
• For the past nine decades and more, however, Arabs and Muslims, with 56 Muslim states in the OIC, have been waging jihad to destroy the one and only state of the Jews. And Christendom, as if oblivious of its own shameful past history of anti-Semitism, has even more shamefully supported the falsification of history. Now, with Security Council Resolution 2334, the UN, with the enthusiastic the backing of Europeans and the prodding of U.S. President Barack Obama, is complicit in this jihad against Israel.

UN Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted as a result of the United States abstention, on the instructions of outgoing President Barack Obama, confirmed the historic bigotry against Jews and Israel entrenched within the United Nations, just as it was within its predecessor, the League of Nations. As previously indicated, Arab and Muslim states could not move a single anti-Israel resolution in the Security Council without the complicity of the Western powers, representing the historically Christian nations.

The collusion of the Western powers and the Islamic countries against Jews and Israel is now ostentatious, without any subterfuge. Resolution 2334 was as sickening a surrender to the Arab-Muslim jihad in the name of “peace,” as was the surrender of UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to the Adolf Hitler at Munich in September 1938.

The gathering in Paris on January 15, at the invitation of French President François Hollande, was further evidence of appeasing the Arab-Muslim world’s jihad against Israel.

The timing of the Paris gathering – five days short of the 75th anniversary of the notorious Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942, held in the suburbs of Berlin, in which top-ranking Nazi officials finalized the preparation for the “Final solution to the Jewish problem” in Europe – could not have been more overtly insulting to Israel. Members of the European Union plotted shafting the Jewish state in accordance with the wishes of their Arab and Muslim friends of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – 56 Muslim states, plus “Palestine,” and the biggest bloc at the UN.

“Fake news” and writing “fake” history have long been the modus operandi of tyrants; nothing new. The “big lie,” repeatedly broadcast so that people might succumb to believing it, was an art that Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister for propaganda, practiced to devastating results. The most notorious Arab ally of Hitler, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, as an admiring student of Goebbels, passed on the art of “fake” history and “big lie” to his allies.

It is grotesque and criminal that the EU and the UN, together in “ganging up,” insist that Israel comply with their resolutions – Israeli withdrawal to pre-June 1967 boundaries – without having shown any attempt to have the “Palestinians” of the so-called “occupied territories” end their jihadi terrorism.

It was not an oversight in the Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967 that there was no mention of “Palestinian” people, or “Palestinian Arabs,” or “Palestinians.”

In the decades after the passage of Res. 242, there was a systematic push by the OIC states in the UN, supported by the EU and its predecessor, the European Community (EC), to refer to disputed territories taken by Israel in a defensive war initiated by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan as “occupied” territories. The Egyptians had closed the Strait of Tiran at the mouth of the Red Sea, an act that was a casus belli, legal cause for war.

The UN, before 1967, did not refer to the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied” territories when they were “occupied” by Egypt and Jordan after the 1948-49 war, which the Arab states launched against Israel. The Arab states then were the “occupiers” of parts of Palestine west of Jordan until 1967, and rejected any notion of Jews having a historic connection with Palestine, which they claimed was an integral part of Arab lands.

The entire jihad of Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini, and since, is based on the argument that Jews have no historic rights.

From the Arab perspective of religion and politics, there never was a “Palestinian” people, or nation, distinct and separate from Arabs as a people or nation. The jihad called by Husseini against Jews in Palestine after 1921 was in the name of “Arabs” and Islam, and it has so remained since. According to the Hamas charter, “the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Trust] upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection” (Article 11).

Hence, that there ever had been a “Palestinian people” was a “big lie,” pushed by Arab states after 1967, and that the Western nations unquestioningly swallowed.

“Palaestina” – in a still earlier effort to strip the area of its Jewish roots, this time by the ancient Romans – was the name the Emperor Hadrian gave to territory on both sides of the River Jordan – Judea and Samaria – after crushing the Jews in the Bar Kokhba Rebellion in 135 CE.

Jerusalem, its principal city, was built by King David, a Jew, some ten centuries earlier.

In the seventh century CE, Arabs seized “Palestine” from the Christian Byzantine Empire and it became part of the Arab, later Ottoman Empire.

The Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, and subsequently the surrounding area, to establish the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the twelfth century. Arab armies evicted the Crusaders from Palestine at the end of the thirteenth century. For the next six centuries, in the name of Islam Arabs, then Turks under the Ottoman Empire, ruled over Palestine until 1917, when the British Expeditionary Forces arrived during World War I.

The defeat of the Ottoman Empire left its former Arab territories between Egypt and the Persian Gulf, including Palestine, under the control of the victorious Allied Powers, Britain and France. In the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, the British government committed itself to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” while noting that this should not “prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities” therein.

At the San Remo Conference of April 1920, the Allied Powers agreed that Britain, under the authority of the League of Nations, would be the Mandatory Power over Palestine. The League officially handed the Mandate for Palestine to Britain as a trust in London on 24 July 1922.

The Balfour Declaration was incorporated into the Palestine Mandate; the twenty-eight articles of the Mandate stipulated how Palestine would be governed until, as everyone understood, the Jews were capable of “reconstituting their [Jewish] national home” – meaning the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. There was no mention of a “Palestinian” people in the Balfour Declaration or in the Palestine Mandate, since speaking about Palestine primarily meant everyone there. Everyone born there at the time – Jews, Muslims and Christians – were Palestinians; that was what was stamped on everyone’s passport.

From the time of the Balfour Declaration and the League’s Mandate for Palestine until the UN Resolution 181 (1947), reference to “Palestine” meant land with a historic connection to the Jewish people. It was on this basis that the Jews’ (Zionist) claim to reconstitute their national home was given legal recognition by the League, which the UN, as its successor, was legally bound to protect.

Britain’s record as the Mandatory Power in Palestine between the two world wars was nothing short of shameful. British administrators of the Colonial Office, sent to Palestine, devised policies limiting Jewish immigration and favoring Arabs, as the first of a series of decisions that undermined the primary objective solemnly pledged in the Balfour Declaration and incorporated into the Mandate.

The subversion began with Sir Herbert Samuel, an English Jew, appointed the High Commissioner for Palestine in 1920, after the San Remo Conference. As the author William B. Ziff, documents in The Rape of Palestine – published in 1938 to the consternation of the British – Britain’s “stiffing” of Jews under the specious policy of treating the demands of both Jews and Arabs “equally” was in effect deliberately prejudicial against Jews.

The British historian of the Middle East, Elie Kedourie, born in Baghdad, Iraq, also documented in The Chatham House Version (1970), how Samuel’s policy, designed to conciliate Arabs, increasingly hurt Jews. Similarly, Pierre Van Paassen, a Dutch-American Unitarian minister, documented in The Forgotten Ally, (1943), the “stiffing” of Jews in Europe by the Western nations, and especially Britain as the Mandatory power in Palestine.

Britain’s perfidy over Palestine took root with the election in 1921 of a known felon, Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, a younger brother of the deceased Mufti (religious head) and known to be a rabble-rouser, as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

Husseini, despite the notoriety surrounding him, was the preferred candidate of Samuel for the position. The Grand Mufti, when World War II began, enthusiastically embraced the Third Reich, Hitler and his “Final Solution” for the Jews, and found his way to Nazi Berlin.

The poisonousness of Samuel’s choice of Amin al-Husseini as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, however, was exceeded by his role in creating the Emirate of Transjordan (present-day Kingdom of Jordan) at the expense of the Palestine Mandate. This was done at the behest of the Colonial Office under Winston Churchill, reputedly the most ardent English friend and supporter of Zionists, to appease Arabs.

In 1922, the chunk of Palestine east of the River Jordan, amounting to about two-thirds of the Mandated territory, was sliced off and gifted to Abdullah, son of Sharif Hussein of Hejaz, under whose name the flag of the 1916 “Arab Revolt” against Ottoman rule was raised.

After the 1922 partition of Palestine, which gave most of the land promised to the Jews to Transjordan, the substantially reduced Mandated territory remained only west of the River Jordan. Transjordan, as an Arab state, became closed to Jewish immigration.

Consequently, the policy of allowing Jewish immigration, according to the formula of “absorptive capacity” adopted during Samuel’s tenure in Palestine, turned increasingly restrictive. Arab opposition, with incitement to violence against Jews by the Mufti and his supporters, escalated, and Britain’s appeasement of the Arabs became routine.

The sordid legacy of Britain, as the Mandatory authority in Palestine, was the restriction of Jewish immigration from Europe when it turned out to be most urgently needed. As the desperation of European Jewry mounted after Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, the response of the Western powers was completely to deny entrance to Jewish refugees who had started fleeing the Nazis.

Finally, a meeting of the Western nations to consider the Jewish plight was called at the initiative of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. Thirty-eight countries attended this meeting in July 1938, known as the Evian Conference, held in France.

The Evian Conference was doomed even before it convened. Among the countries attending, not one – not even Canada, Argentina or Australia, with vast open spaces – was prepared to accept Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany. Even worse, the United States and Britain refused to open their doors to Jewish refugees from Hitler, while at the same time Britain also prohibited Jews from entering Palestine.

The Evian Conference was the last gasp of Western powers to lend assistance to a people threatened with extinction by their enemies. The spectacle of the Evian Conference as a charade, according to the historian Robert Wistrich, could only have firmed the resolve of Hitler to proceed with his plans for the “Final Solution.” In his book, Hitler and the Holocaust, Wistrich wrote:

“If Nazi Germany could no longer expect to export, sell, or expel its Jews to an indifferent world that plainly did not want them, then perhaps they would have to do something even more drastic.”

After the defeat of the Nazis, and after their crimes against Jews were no longer disputed or hidden, the Western powers, through the UN, could have established Israel, as justice demanded, in what was left of the Palestine Mandate on the entire territory west of the River Jordan.

But the subsequent history of Palestine, approached by the Western powers with a second partition under the UN resolution of November 1947, turned out predictably as sordid as that of the Mandate under Britain’s supervision during the period 1922-48.

The Arab states, in failing to achieve their objective of defeating Israel during the 1948-67 period, adopted the unconventional means of jihadi terrorism backed by the repeated broadcast of the “big lie” that the Western nations, or Christendom, willfully accepted. The “big lie” is that the “Palestinians,” as a people under a supposed “occupation” by Israel – to which the Arabs had agreed in the Oslo II Accord (section: Land) – deserve a state of their own.

The state for the “Palestinian” people (Muslims and Christians) in two-thirds of Palestine was created arbitrarily by Britain in creating Transjordan in 1922. The “two-state” solution in Palestine therefore has been in existence for the past ninety-five years.

For the past nine decades and more, however, Arabs and Muslims, with 56 Muslim states in the OIC, have been waging jihad to destroy the one and only state of the Jews. And Christendom, as if oblivious of its own shameful past history of anti-Semitism, has even more shamefully supported the falsification of history. The first time it was done by UNESCO, in calling ancient Biblical sites (including Jerusalem) Islamic, when Islam did not even exist at the time.

Now, with UN Security Council Resolution 2334, the UN, with the enthusiastic manipulations of U.S. President Barack Obama and the backing of most European leaders, is complicit in this jihad against Israel.

Salim Mansur is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He teaches in the department of political science at Western University in London, Ontario. He is the author of “Islam’s Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim” and “Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism.”

Europe’s Jihad against Israel

by Cameron Slater on January 22, 2017 at 3:30pm

A summary of some important parts of history that politicians gloss over

• The UN before 1967 did not refer to the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied” territories when they were “occupied” by Egypt and Jordan after the 1948-49 war, which the Arab states launched against Israel. The Arab states then were the “occupiers” of parts of Palestine west of Jordan until 1967, and rejected any notion of Jews having a historic connection with Palestine, which they claimed was an integral part of Arab lands.
• From the time of the Balfour Declaration and the League’s Mandate for Palestine until the UN Resolution 181 (1947), reference to Palestine meant land with historic connection to the Jewish people. It was on this basis that the Jews’ (Zionist) claim to reconstitute their national home was given legal recognition by the League, which the UN, as its successor, was legally bound to protect.
• From the Arab perspective of religion and politics there never was a “Palestinian” people, or nation, distinct and separate from Arabs as a people or nation. The jihad called by the Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini against Jews in Palestine after 1921 was in the name of “Arabs” and Islam, and it has so remained since. According to the Hamas charter, “the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Trust] upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection.”
• Jerusalem, its principal city, was built by King David, a Jew, some ten centuries earlier.
• For the past nine decades and more, however, Arabs and Muslims, with 56 Muslim states in the OIC, have been waging jihad to destroy the one and only state of the Jews. And Christendom, as if oblivious of its own shameful past history of anti-Semitism, has even more shamefully supported the falsification of history. Now, with Security Council Resolution 2334, the UN, with the enthusiastic the backing of Europeans and the prodding of U.S. President Barack Obama, is complicit in this jihad against Israel.

The Arab states, in failing to achieve their objective of defeating Israel during the 1948-67 period, adopted the unconventional means of jihadi terrorism backed by the repeated broadcast of the “big lie” that the Western nations, or Christendom, willfully accepted. The “big lie” is that the “Palestinians,” as a people under a supposed “occupation” by Israel – to which the Arabs had agreed in the Oslo II Accord (section: Land) – deserve a state of their own.

 The state for the “Palestinian” people (Muslims and Christians) in two-thirds of Palestine was created arbitrarily by Britain in creating Transjordan in 1922. The “two-state” solution in Palestine therefore has been in existence for the past ninety-five years.

For the past nine decades and more, however, Arabs and Muslims, with 56 Muslim states in the OIC, have been waging jihad to destroy the one and only state of the Jews. And Christendom, as if oblivious of its own shameful past history of anti-Semitism, has even more shamefully supported the falsification of history. The first time it was done by UNESCO, in calling ancient Biblical sites (including Jerusalem) Islamic, when Islam did not even exist at the time.

Now, with UN Security Council Resolution 2334, the UN, with the enthusiastic manipulations of U.S. President Barack Obama and the backing of most European leaders, is complicit in this jihad against Israel.

– Salim Mansur, Gatestone Institute

The hateful whispers that make me want to move from London to Tel Aviv

There’s a train of thought among right-thinking people in London at the moment that Israel is culpable; that it is responsible for all the ills of the Palestinians, all the woes of the Middle East. If it weren’t for Israel, they say, the world would be a better place. If you go to a dinner party you can hear things that wouldn’t have sounded unfamiliar in 1930s Germany. They say they’re just ‘anti-Zionist’ but to be anti-Zionist is to be anti-Semitic. No one is anti- any other country. No one questions, say, Iran’s right to exist.
I’ve voted Labour in the past, but these days people in the Labour party all too often say things about Jews having big noses, or controlling the media, or somehow engineering the attack on the World Trade Center. Israel is behind Isis, they say. At demonstrations people hold up placards that say Hitler was right. Those words, exactly. Much of Labour barely raises an eyebrow.
If only those people who wish ill on Israel, on Jews, could know what it’s like to hear their hatred — to live in London and hear that Jews are the puppet-masters of the world, that Israel only helps in disaster zones to harvest organs. My father would have known. He spent time in the 1940s in Nazi concentration camps, because he was Jewish. His parents and sister were murdered for the same reason. My father would feel the same dread chill, and know — first-hand — where all this blame and hatred of Jews leads. If you think I exaggerate, then tell me; where do you think it leads? It may be only the first ugly murmur, from stupid people, but it won’t end there.
I’ve been to Tel Aviv four times in five years, and it seems to me a place of positive things: hope, investment in the future, strength and patience and humour. This is why I’m thinking of moving.

David Collier: Helpless before the hatred at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL)

This was my first anti-Israel university event of 2017. The start of an extremely busy time in the annual calendar. Apartheid Week, an intensive period of vicious anti-Israel activity on campus is only a month away. To highlight this intensity, this was one of only three events taking place I could have chosen. The other two were at SOAS, and Salisbury.
It was also my first event since Al -Jazeera launched a visible attack on British Jews, via an undercover operation driven from within a deeply antisemitic paradigm. As I pointed out at the time, even though sane people watched the show and saw nothing, for the antisemite, the show was the delivery of proof of Jewish conspiracy. So how would this play out on the UK campus?
The event itself was at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) campus, ‘discussing the BDS movement, its impact and importance’. Hosted by the QMUL Friends of Palestine Society, it was a Friends of Al Aqsa (FOA) event, and a bag of FOA material was handed out to all attendees.
On the panel was Ben White, Malaka Mohammed, Prof. Moshe Machover and Shamiul Joarder. The range of hate that lines up against Israel. Islamic thought, the Palestinian, the Marxist Jew, and well, the other, the British guy who attaches himself to Islamic thought and Jewish Marxists, to push a highly dubious and quintessentially hypocritical humanitarian cause.
The evening began with a short clip. I have provided just 10 seconds below, all that is needed to highlight the disgraceful distortion of history that is behind the BDS campaign:

Europe's Jihad against Israel

Resolution 2334 was as sickening a surrender to the Arab-Muslim jihad in the name of "peace," as was the surrender of UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to Adolf Hitler at Munich in September 1938.
The UN before 1967 did not refer to the West Bank and Gaza as "occupied" territories when they were "occupied" by Egypt and Jordan after the 1948-49 war, which the Arab states launched against Israel. The Arab states then were the "occupiers" of parts of Palestine west of Jordan until 1967, and rejected any notion of Jews having a historic connection with Palestine, which they claimed was an integral part of Arab lands.
From the time of the Balfour Declaration and the League's Mandate for Palestine until the UN Resolution 181 (1947), reference to Palestine meant land with historic connection to the Jewish people. It was on this basis that the Jews' (Zionist) claim to reconstitute their national home was given legal recognition by the League, which the UN, as its successor, was legally bound to protect.
From the Arab perspective of religion and politics there never was a "Palestinian" people, or nation, distinct and separate from Arabs as a people or nation. The jihad called by the Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini against Jews in Palestine after 1921 was in the name of "Arabs" and Islam, and it has so remained since. According to the Hamas charter, "the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Trust] upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection."
Jerusalem, its principal city, was built by King David, a Jew, some ten centuries earlier.

This is a very ancient hatred, dating back to Abraham's illegitimate son Ishmael by the Egyptian maidservant Hagar, and his jealousy and loathing of Isaac, Abraham's legitimate son by Sarah his wife, to whom God gave the birthright - as detailed in Genesis. Ishmael also received an inheritance and his pagan descendants subsequently formed the Arab nations who, through countless generations, raided and attacked the Israelites after they settled in the land promised to them so long ago. Canaan had NEVER been theirs in the first place. This is the situation from the point of view of descendants of Isaac today - the Jews:

This is the essence of the existential test we face. We must fight for the right to survive as Jews. To want to fight, we must desire to survive. To desire to survive we must believe in our own uniqueness to an extent that makes the self-sacrifice required for survival seem worthwhile. Many of us are tempted to say it just isn't worth the price.

To successfully pass this test we must face it properly without false illusions. We must appreciate that the opposing power is Ishmael. He is not a person who will sit with us to negotiate peace so that he can get on with his work and earn his right to an independent country. He is waiting for Israel to be handed to him by the international community on a silver platter.

Ishmael is threatening to accomplish the most incredible turn of the tables in human history. The thief is attempting to persuade his intended victim that he is morally wrong for not giving him voluntarily the asset that that he wants to steal. He has managed to make a considerable number of Jews feel that it is an act of theft to hang on to what rightfully belongs to them.

http://www.aish.com/jw/me/4888...

Thanks to our secular society our politicians seem to be completely unaware of the significance of this piece of real estate, not only to the Jewish people but to Christendom - and, more importantly, to God HImself. Mr English, Mr McCully - are you paying attention? In the words of Jesus, "They know not what they do".

South Africa Cannot Claim Ancestral Land Yet Deny Jewish People the Same Right

I have supported the ANC for decades, and thus far resisted the temptation to call out the organisation with regard to its foreign policy towards Israel, but now my silence borders on sinful. The policy is disturbing because it disregards the fundamental prerequisites of foreign policy – clarity, transparency and consistency.
It has become the norm to publicly castigate Israel as a reliable scapegoat and thus redirect the public’s attention elsewhere, which is exactly what transpired soon after the ANC’s January 8 statement.
The ANC’s view on Israel is divorced from history and reality; and this is surprising, given our own recent history of dispossession.
Any people that have ever felt the yolk of colonialism should understand the plight of the Jewish people in Israel. Colonial empires thrived on dispossessing indigenous people of their land, and the only difference between us Africans and the Jews is that we were internally displaced, while the Jewish people were dispossessed and exiled.
Is it illegal or undesirable for Jewish exiles to return to their ancestral homeland, and do exiles forfeit their right to do so because they fled persecution? In the case of Israel, the world deems this undesirable – but then how is it possible for our president, Jacob Zuma, and others in the liberation movement to return from exile in 1990, yet condemn Israel for settlements and occupation?
The ANC singles out Israel for special attention based on a false pretext, yet it endorses the One China Policy – which treats Taiwan and Tibet as mere provinces of China. The Dalai Lama has been in exile since 1959, yet both the ANC and our government do not support the aspirations of the Tibetan people. The same applied when Russia annexed Crimea.

Caroline Glick: Netanyahu's shameless opponents

Over the past week, Israel was subjected to the diplomatic equivalent of a lynch mob in Paris. It received unexpected assistance from Britain, which twice in two days departed from its traditional anti-Israel stance and blocked the Paris conference’s anti-Israel declaration from being adopted as the official position of the European Union.
Also over the past week, outgoing US President Barack Obama, outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry and outgoing UN Ambassador Samantha Power used their final appearances in office to blast Israel.
On the other hand, President-elect Donald Trump and his team played a key role in bringing about Britain’s change of heart toward Israel.
While these events have been widely covered by the foreign media, they have barely been mentioned in the Hebrew broadcast media, from which the majority of Israelis receive their news.
Instead, led by Channel 2 with its monopoly ratings share, the local media spent the past week covering almost nothing but the criminal probes being carried out against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Divest This: In With the New

While America is Israel’s most important ally, it is not her only one. Fretful news stories of Israel’s impending isolation ignore that the nation’s diplomatic position is stronger today than it’s been in years, even among sworn enemies who understand the real threats to their regimes (not to mention their necks). Similarly, Israel’s growing success beyond politics (in areas like business, technology, medicine, academia and the arts) means that alliances now reach well beyond politics: into commerce, science, the academy and other important components of civil society. Indeed, it is only because of Israel’s success that there are so many products the BDSers can boycott, and so much investment they’re fighting to end.
So in addition to increasing support within the different branches and levels of American government, Israel must continue to expand friendships and relationships across the planet, regardless of how things play out in American politics (over which Israel and her supporters have little to no control) over the coming years.
With regard to what we can and cannot impact, remember that Israel’s greatest achievements and triumphs (the creation of the state, in-gathering of exiles, victory against overwhelming odds in the wars of 1948 and 1967) all took place before the current alliance with the US came into being in the 1970s. This is not to diminish the criticality of that alliance for a small nation still targeted by much larger and more powerful enemies. But it does point out that things tend to go best for the Jews when we count on ourselves, rather than others, and take responsibility for our own history – if for no other reason than our own self-respect.

Despite detente, ancient Hebrew text ‘proving’ Jewish ties to Jerusalem set to stay in Istanbul

Jerusalem and Ankara may have restored diplomatic relations in 2016, but the long-awaited thaw won’t see the return anytime soon of one of the most important ancient Hebrew inscriptions, found in Jerusalem and currently held in Istanbul, Israeli officials say.
The Siloam Inscription, a 2,700-year-old ancient Hebrew text that provides concrete historical support for a Biblical event, is one of three ancient Jewish inscriptions unearthed in the Holy Land currently owned by the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
Despite an emphatic speech in October proclaiming the Siloam inscription’s significance to Jerusalem and the Jewish people, and the newly restored diplomatic relations with Turkey, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken no steps to secure the artifact’s repatriation, his office confirmed to The Times of Israel.
The ancient Hebrew text was discovered in 1880 in a tunnel hewn into a limestone hillside outside the Old City sometime in the late 8th century BCE.

JPost Editorial: Pollard’s time

By the time US President Barack Obama reads this editorial he will be winding up the last few hours of his presidency. During his last days in office, Obama has used his clemency power to commute the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, a former US Army analyst who was convicted of espionage in July 2013 by a military court after she turned over a massive cache of defense and diplomatic records to the organization WikiLeaks.
Obama has granted a total of 1,385 commutations, establishing himself as the most clement president in recent history. Obama has issued the most combined commutations and pardons of any president since Harry Truman, and more than Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes combined.
We are asking Obama to consider one more commutation – that of Jonathan Pollard, a US Navy civilian intelligence analyst who spied for Israel over a span of 18 months in the 1980s.
Pollard has paid his price. Before being paroled in 2015 and placed under highly restrictive conditions, he spent more than 10,000 days in a series of maximum and medium-security prisons. After being sentenced, he was incarcerated in a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where he was reportedly “routinely deprived of his clothing and his eyeglasses in attempts to humiliate and ‘break’ him.”
In 1988, he was transferred to a maximum security prison in Marion, Illinois, where he remained in solitary confinement until 1993, when he was moved to a medium- security facility in Butner, North Carolina.
What’s more, Pollard was never tried in a court of law.

President Trump puts fight against ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ at heart of inauguration speech

In a forceful, uncompromising inauguration address, US President Donald Trump placed the battle against Islamic extremism at the heart of his foreign policy as he took office on Friday, vowing to work with allies to destroy the jihadist threat.
“We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones, and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth,” he declared.
That focus conformed strongly with the mindset of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who tweeted his congratulations “to my friend President Trump” even before the 45th president had been sworn in.
Trump’s predecessors George W. Bush — who invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban regime — and Barack Obama — who ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden — also fought extremism. But Trump has gone further than both in his use of language, suggesting that he sees the fight as a civilizational battle between America and a threat springing from the Islamic faith itself.

Report: The UN is occupying State-owned Israeli land

An investigation by the Regavim organization, which works to ensure that Israeli sovereignty is enforced over State-owned land, has revealed that part of the UN compound in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of Jerusalem lies on State-owned land, and that, therefore, the government can cancel the UN’s permit to reside there any time that it wishes.
The organization presented aerial pictures which prove that the UN compound infringes on about 8 acres of State-owned land which are not part of the original compound granted to the UN for its use. The Jerusalem municipality has confirmed that there are deviations at the site from the original plan, and that Police are checking the matter.
Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Environmental Protection Zeev Elkin said this morning during an interview with Radio Tel Aviv: “I ordered a check, and it appears that there is a problem there. The time has come for Israel to stop allowing itself to get beaten up by the UN, including the option of [evicting the UN from the premises].”
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely promised: “The matter will be checked in the Foreign Ministry with respect to possible steps that can be taken against the UN agencies, following the Security Council decision against settlements.”

San Diego Student Says Her View of Israel as ‘Akin to Apartheid’ Completely Changed After Visiting Jewish State

A California student who previously believed Israel was “akin to an apartheid state” had a complete about-face after visiting the country, San Diego State University’s independent student newspaper The Daily Aztec reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, SDSU political science and international security and conflict resolution senior Erin Gonzalez said she had expected the worst before her trip, but discovered the place wasn’t at all as she had envisioned. Rather, she encountered a society that embraces all religions and cultures, she said.
Gonzalez, who is not Jewish, traveled to Israel as part of a “Fact Finders” program, hosted by the school’s Hillel chapter, to enable SDSU students to experience the country and learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Gonzalez told The Daily Aztec that the experience also totally altered her perspective on Israeli settlements.
“Although the global community, and recently the United Nations, condemned [them] as both internationally illegal and an impediment to peace, I no longer see it that way,” she said, adding that she was surprised to discover that many Palestinians benefit from the settlement community, through employment opportunities and government benefits.

BDS and the New ‘Anti-Normalization’

In early December, Professors Cary Nelson and David Greenberg wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about the “anti-normalization” tactic that has been widely adopted by proponents of the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel (“BDS”). As they explained, the tactic consists of preventing pro-Israel or anti-boycott arguments from even being heard, and includes shouting down speakers, or preventing speakers from even appearing on campus.
That’s what we saw when a CAMERA event at University College London last fall was disrupted, with one BDS leader present admitting that his true goal was to prevent future pro-Israel speakers from coming to that campus.
While the rationale provided for utilizing these measures is to reject any contacts between Israelis and Palestinians that “treat both parties as having legitimate grievances and aspirations,” this argument is specious. It’s illogical to ask people to take it on faith that Israelis have no legitimate grievances or aspirations. Equally striking is the fervor with which Nelson and Greenberg reported that the new BDS strategy is being pursued.
As I’ve written on CAMERA’s In Focus blog, only one conclusion can be drawn from these actions: that those setting the BDS agenda understand that the only way they win the argument is when the pro-Israel side does not have an opportunity to present its case.

Following Paris Peace Summit, Largely Forgotten 2013 French Court Ruling That Israeli Settlements Are Legal Receives Renewed Attention

A largely forgotten landmark 2013 French court ruling has received renewed attention this week following the international diplomatic summit held in Paris last Sunday at which Israeli settlements were portrayed as illegal.
In an editorial published on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “The conference was a failure, but the conferees could have helped themselves by first checking what French courts have to say about those settlements before scoring Israel again…In 2013 the French Court of Appeals in Versailles ruled that, contrary to Palestinian arguments, Jewish settlements don’t violate the Geneva Conventions’ prohibition against an occupying power transferring ‘its civilian population into the territory it occupies.’ The law, the court held, bars government efforts to transfer populations. But it doesn’t bar private individuals settling in the disputed territories.”
The Wall Street Journal was referring to the ruling on a lawsuit — detailed here — that was filed by the Palestinian Authority against two French companies that took part in the construction of the light rail line in Jerusalem — which traverses areas the Palestinians hope will be part of the capital city of their potential future state.

The intersectionality of fools

Over the last decade, the numbers of Chinese and Indian students at American universities have substantially increased. At the same time, faculty and students have campaigned to boycott China and India over the status of Tibet and Kashmir, to reject Chinese and Indian funding, and to shun collaboration with individual Chinese and Indian researchers. There have been organized assaults upon Chinese guest speakers and propaganda campaigns inciting students to purge universities of Chinese or Indian “influence,” including that of American citizens with a Chinese or Indian background. When students of Indian background object, they are informed that, wittingly or not, they are part of a global Hindu conspiracy.
Of course, none of this has happened. It is almost inconceivable that any of it would happen. All of this, however, has been directed against the State of Israel, and against American Jewish students, since the inception of bds, the campaign for “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” against the Jewish state. This dubious selectivity is one unique aspect of bds. Another is the scale of its ambition. Generally, the introversions of Social Justice stop well before the water’s edge. There are global issues, most notably and vaguely the environment, but bds is the only form of campus activism to attack a single state internationally—and a single group domestically.
bds activists seek to curtail the freedom of others.
bds seeks to transform the atmosphere of university intellectual and social life, in order to effect changes in government and business policy. bds activists seek to control the intellectual environment, to create a “safe space” for the indoctrination of a biased and often false view of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, the practice of bds tends towards the abuse of free speech, in that bds activists frequently seek to curtail the freedom of others.

Emergency Motion for Protection of Jews at UK University With Notoriously Anti-Israel Atmosphere to Be Brought Before Student Union

An emergency motion aimed at protecting Jews at a British university notorious for its radical anti-Israel activism will be brought before the school’s student union on Tuesday, its initiator told The Algemeiner.
Avrahum Sanger, president of the Jewish Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, explained that the resolution he drafted seeks to tackle “issues that concern the welfare of Jewish students or make it difficult for them to both practice their religion and fully participate in university” – due, for example, to a lack of kosher food; scheduling that conflicts with Shabbat and Jewish holidays; and the silencing and marginalization of Jewish voices on campus.
Sanger recently told UK’s The Evening Standard that his peers at the school are “scared” to be recognizably Jewish, and refrain from wearing stars of David or speaking Hebrew in public. Sanger said that the intensely politically active student body is decidedly anti-Israel, promoting views that — as The Algemeiner has extensively reported — the US State Department has defined as antisemitic.
A spokesperson at SOAS said that the school is “very concerned to hear that any student is afraid to openly express their faith or belief.”
“We aim to be inclusive of all students of faith and we welcome suggestions about how to best achieve this,” the spokesperson told The Algemeiner.

Stupidity takes hold of another students’ union

I had never heard the acronym Soas before I started work at the BBC, almost 30 years ago. But as a very young producer at the corporation I was asked to fix up a story about something appalling happening in Africa — I can’t remember exactly what. Famine or cannibalism maybe. Or perhaps one mitigated by the other. The senior producer told me to get someone from Soas to explain it all. What’s Soas, I asked?
‘The School of Oriental and African Studies,’ I was informed. ‘It’s in London. It’s basically a place where we try to work out what on earth the natives are up to now.’
It was a different BBC back then. I was based in the old Broadcasting House, at the top of Regent Street. An eight-floor building — the first seven floors pretty much exclusively white. But then loads of black people working on the top floor — that was the canteen. By the time I left the BBC in 2004 things had changed markedly. The canteen was still staffed almost exclusively by black people. But now there were lots of black people several floors lower down, not serving food at all — in the ‘Community Affairs Unit’. Progress, then, of a kind.
I suspect Soas has changed quite a bit, too. As far as I can discern, it now seems to be a place for castigating whitey and especially British whitey. Fair enough — I suppose we need castigating, and it’s good for the soul. But it has got itself in the news recently as a consequence of the demands of its students’ union, which has outflanked even the students’ unions of Oxford and University College London in the cretin stakes. Which takes some doing.

Miami Officials Blast “Anti-Semitic” Israel Boycott After Vandals Target Jewish Stores

Six elected officials from the Miami area on Wednesday harshly condemned recent acts of vandalism committed near local Jewish businesses by supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which they blasted as an “anti-Semitic and anti-Israel” ploy to undermine peace prospects.
In a letter to Miami Police Commander Albert Guerra, officials including Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, Bal Harbour Mayor Gabriel Groisman, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez, and Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez denounced the defacement of public property in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood with hundreds of spray-painted “BDS” stamps, which were first spotted on November 15. The letter was also signed by Sharona Whisler, executive director of the Zionist Organization of America’s Florida chapter.
The stamps were concentrated in an area with many Jewish-owned businesses, including some with mezuzot on their doorways, and were reported to the Miami Police Department by local businessman and activist Joe Zevuloni. A video taken by Zevuloni and embedded below shows some of the stamps sprayed in front of an Israeli-owned store.
The incident is being investigated as a hate crime, a decision the officials said they “strongly support.”

 LA Times Fanning The Flames Of Antisemitism

The caption reads:
A historic high-rise and symbol of modernity, the 17-story Plasco was built by Jewish plastics tycoon Habib Elghanian.
I cannot find a reason to mention he is Jewish in the caption besides implying his guilt in this affair. And even if that wasn’t the case, mentioning it will certainly help with the proliferation of the usual kinds of conspiracy theories.
The report actually mentions he was executed back in 1979..for guess what.
It also stood out for its builder: a Jewish plastics tycoon, Habib Elghanian, who was executed in the months after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s ruling mullahs accused Elghanian, the head of a prominent association of Jewish Iranians, of spying for Israel, which triggered an exodus of Jews from the country.
I’m willing to bet the theory that this “Zionist” somehow rigged the building to kill people will gain traction.

BBC’s Yolande Knell touts the ‘1967 borders’ illusion on Radio 4

Predictably, Knell’s response had the history of the millennia-old city beginning just fifty years ago, with no mention of the preceding 19-year Jordanian occupation of parts of Jerusalem.
Knell: “That’s right and Jerusalem has proven time and time again to be one of the most explosive issues; one of the most difficult issues to solve in this decades-old conflict, not least because of its holy sites for Jews, Muslims and Christians. And of course Israel captured the east of the city – which includes the Old City – in 1967 in the Middle East war. It went on to annex East Jerusalem, declare all of Jerusalem its united, eternal capital – although that’s never been recognised internationally. And the Palestinians are basically saying that any move for a US embassy – bringing it from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – would kill the two-state solution; this long-standing goal of international policy on this conflict. It’s enshrined in UN resolutions: the idea of creating a Palestinian state to live peacefully alongside Israel. It will be based in Gaza, the West Bank and have East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Stourton: “I think I’m right in saying the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has been in the Vatican this weekend. He’s been talking about some of this, hasn’t he?”
In her response to that question, Knell introduced the falsehood of “pre-1967 borders” – a concept which not only does not exist, but was specifically and deliberately rejected by the parties to the 1949 Armistice Agreement.

Compromised BBC backgrounder surfaces again

On January 16th the BBC News website published an article titled “Egypt court upholds ruling halting transfer of islands to Saudi Arabia“. Included in that report was an insert of background information titled “Why the Red Sea islands matter”, which previously appeared in an article concerning the same story in June 2016.tiran-art-jan-17
The insert includes the following context-free information:
“Israel captured the islands in 1956 and 1967, subsequently returning them to Egypt both times”
As was noted here over six months ago:
“The BBC did not bother to inform readers why that was the case.
“In 1949, Egypt established itself on two small and deserted islands in the straits that had never belonged to it – Tiran and Sanafir. Later, they were leased to it by Saudi Arabia. In January 1950, Egypt assured the United States Government that the occupation of the islands was in no way intended to interfere with shipping in the waters of the gulf. But soon Egypt broke its word, fortified the entrance to the straits and blockaded Israel.

FBI probing wave of fake bomb threats to US Jewish centers

Twenty-seven Jewish community centers in 17 U.S. states reported receiving false telephone bomb threats on Wednesday, prompting evacuations and an FBI probe into the second wave of hoax attacks to target American Jewish facilities this month.
The Jewish Community Centers Association of North America, a network of health and education centers, said the threatened organizations were working with police and many had resumed operations after no bombs were found nor injuries reported, as was the case after the earlier series of threats on Jan. 9.
No one claimed responsibility for the calls on Wednesday nor nine days ago, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has not named any suspects nor described a likely motive.
The FBI and the Justice Department are investigating possible civil rights violations in connection with threats, the FBI said in a statement.
"The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and will ensure this matter is investigated in a fair, thorough and impartial manner," the statement said.

ADL urges US Jewish institutions to be alert following bomb threats 

The Anti-Defamation league on Thursday issued a security advisory to Jewish institutions across the US, after a series of bomb threats to some 30 Jewish community centers in 17 states.
It was the second wave of such mass disruption in two weeks.
The NGO said that while the threats did not appear to be credible, it nonetheless urged communal establishments to take serious measures.
The ADL received reports of bomb threats at community centers in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
“We are recommending that Jewish communal institutions review their security procedures and remain in close contact with law enforcement,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO. “While each incident needs to be taken seriously and investigated closely, thus far we are not aware of any of these threats being substantiated.
“Federal authorities and local police departments should be commended for their rapid response to these incidents,” he added. “We remain in close contact with law enforcement and are offering our support and resources to local community centers.”

Belgian court upholds two-month sentence for anti-Semitic comic

A Belgian court on Friday upheld French comedian Dieudonne's two-month jail sentence for incitement to hatred over anti-Semitic comments during a show in Belgium, a lawyer said.
Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, who has faced similar court cases in France, also had his 9,000-euro ($9,566) fine confirmed by the appeals court in the eastern city of Liege, said Eric Lemmens, a lawyer for Belgium's Jewish organizations.
"The appeals court in Liege upheld the verdict from criminal court in Liege," Lemmens told AFP.
He said the court warned the comedian he would be sentenced to "three extra months in prison if he fails to pay the fine."

Yolocaust What happens when you do yoga on top of a Holocaust memorial

Hundreds of thousands of selfies featuring smiling, yoga-posing, laughing people, all while visiting the 2,711 concrete slabs at the Holocaust Denkmal Berlin memorial have recently surfaced on multiple social media platforms.
The pictures in question are part of Yolocuast, an artistic initiative led by Shahak Shapira, an Israeli satirist and author who takes the images, all publicly posted on social media such as Facebook and Instagram, and edits the back drop to Nazi extermination camps.
Shapira's project serves as an artistic critique of individuals who visit sites commemorating the genocide of six millions Jews during World War II and then proceed to post pictures of themselves smiling and appearing to have a good time.
The artist named his project "Yolocaust" in an ironic word play on the word Holocaust and the term YOLO, short for "you only live once," a popular, life-affirming message people often add to their social media posts in the form of a hashtag.
The Yolocaust site describes the project as exploring "commemorative culture by combining selfies from the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin with footage from Nazi extermination camps."

Whitefish Police Force’s Wonderful Display Of Solidarity With Jewish Community

A few weeks ago, I posted about the planned Neo Nazi march in Whitefish Montana, with a Hamas-hole as a keynote speaker.
It turns out, the hater trying to organize it was unable to secure a permit (perhaps because he spelt his name wrong on the application form?), and will try again for next month.
But out of this story comes some light. The Whitefish police force has performed a wonderful gesture of solidarity with the Jewish community by having a mezuzah affixed to the outside door of the police station.
Bonus: the mezuzah is from Jerusalem, made of Jerusalem stone!

Tributes held two years after mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor

Two years after the death of Alberto Nisman, organizers of tributes to the deceased prosecutor appear hopeful that the circumstances of his death will be clarified.
Tributes were held both in Argentina and Israel on Wednesday for Nisman, who was found dead at his home in the Argentine capital in January, 2015, in the midst of his investigation into the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center.
“There is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel,” prosecutor German Moldes said Wednesday at a vigil in Buenos Aires. Moldes was one of the three speakers who addressed a crowd in front of the prosecutor’s unit that Nisman had led.
Moldes said that his colleague, Eduardo Taiano, who is leading the investigation into Nisman’s death, has received death threats over the ongoing investigation.
“We must continue working for the truth. How we will give up if Taiano who receives threats on his life does not give up,” Moldes told the crowd of more than 1,000 people.

Charting Israel’s aid overseas on the Israel Aid Map

For almost 15 years, ISRAEL21c has been writing stories about the incredible international aid work that Israel carries out overseas.
Whether it’s in response to an earthquake or other natural or manmade disaster, Israeli aid volunteers from the government, the army and nonprofit NGOs have been quick to respond, often reaching the disaster area before relief teams arrive from other nations.
Despite its tiny size, Israel is also involved in long-term educational, environmental and healthcare missions in countries including Kenya, Nepal, Japan, China, Vietnam, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Turkmenistan, Haiti, and Papua New Guinea.
Israel even helps the citizens of some enemy nations, treating refugees across the world, helping Syrians wounded in the civil war, or bringing children to Israel for lifesaving surgery.
And yet despite so many missions, little is known about the incredible aid work carried out by Israel. A year ago, ISRAEL21c decided to do something about that and created the Israel Aid Map. It’s a phenomenal way to show people the extent and breadth of aid from Israel.

WATCH: Gene Simmons: “Middle East Needs Israel To Exist”

We already knew KISS frontman Gene Simmons was a staunch supporter of Israel. So no surprises he would come out and say these things on Varney & Co earlier this month.

Ishmael and Israel's Existential Test

Our reoccupation of our own land cannot be called theft by anyone who supports the Jewish right to exist as a separate, distinct people.

Jewish history is dramatically distinct from the history of other peoples. It has an aspect of inevitability. Whereas the histories of other nations can only be written after events unfold; indeed, the very meaning of the word history is the study of the past, Jewish history has the unique distinction of having been written by the Torah before it ever happened.

In the master plan of Jewish history as set forth in the Torah, the period we are currently experiencing is known as the "labor pains" associated with the birth of the Messiah. The non-Jewish prophet Bilaam's cry of anguish -- "Alas! Who can survive God's devastation" (Numbers 24:23)-- was a specific reference to our era. Jews have certainly never experienced a century so full of suffering.

The Zohar points out (1:119a) that this devastating era of Jewish history is specifically associated with the struggle over Jerusalem with the nations led by the descendants of Ishmael (i.e. the Arabs).

What is the association between the labor pains of the Messiah, the devastation associated with it, and how all this relates to the descendants of Ishmael?

The key lies in our understanding of the purpose of exile.

EXILE

Rabbi Dessler explains that every exile has to be viewed as an existential test whose successful survival automatically corrects a basic flaw in the Jewish sense of identity and self-awareness. If there was no such character flaw, or if it was corrected internally by Jews themselves, the exile would be superfluous. In this sense, every exile is associated with sin.

But the goal of exile is positive, and it represents a very powerful existential corrective tool. It is precisely because of this correlation between exile and Jewish character development that the Torah was able to write Jewish history in advance.

Every exile exerts a powerful pressure to assimilate on the Jewish people -- and herein is where the test lies.

Objectively, there is never any justification for persecuting Jews. They look the same as other people physically, and they are often the most productive social group in relation to their numbers. We have only to think of the disproportionate numbers of Jewish Nobel prize winners, authors, doctors etc. Thus it always appears to the Jew that his problems stem from the fact that he is perceived as different. Assimilation is always the logical solution to the problem of exile.

Assimilation is always the logical solution to the problem of exile.

If the Jew nevertheless resists the temptation to assimilate, it is only due to the fact that he decides that to be Jewish is fundamental to his being. If the solution to his persecution problem is the voluntary surrender of his Judaism, it is too high a price to pay. The resistance of the temptation to assimilate that is presented by exile thus existentially reinforces his commitment to his Judaism.

Let us now attempt to apply Rabbi Dessler's theory of exile to our own particular era. To do so, we must familiarize ourselves with Ishmael and understand what sort of temptation to assimilate is associated with the exile he imposes on us.

ISHMAEL

Abraham and Sarah were a childless couple. Sarah had an Egyptian maid Hagar whom she presented to Abraham as a concubine so that Hagar might bear a child that they could raise.

When Hagar became pregnant, she understood this as an elevation in her status and was no longer willing to be subservient to Sarah. Sarah reasserted her authority over Hagar by treating her quite harshly. Hagar ran away.

God sent an angel to persuade Hagar to return. The angel advised her that she would bear a son, Ishmael, who would be a great power in the world. In describing his greatness the angel said:

He will be a wild man. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him. Still he will dwell undisturbed among all his brothers. (Genesis 16,12)

Rashi explains this concept of "hand against everyone" as a reference to theft -- Ishmael will have a predilection to theft (Tanchuma, Exodus 1).

The association of Ishmael with theft crops up again:

God came from Sinai, having shone forth to them from Seir, having appeared to them from Mt. Paran (Deut. 33:2) When God was about to give the Torah to the Jews, he went around to the other nations to see if any of them would also like to accept it. Among others he went to the nation of Ishmael [whose home base was the Mt. Paran referred to in the verse] God said to them, "Are you interested in accepting the Torah upon yourselves? They asked God, "What is written in it?" God answered, "Among other things it says, 'don't steal'". They answered, "But this is the very blessing that our forefather bestowed on us, as it is written, He will be a wild man, whose hand is against everyone while everyone's hand is against him. As the Torah forbids theft how could we possibly accept it?" (Yalkut Yisro, 286)

How can we understand this? Surely the law of Ishmael prohibits theft, as this law is a part of the criminal code of all civilized nations! Indeed, Moslem religious law treats thieves with exceptional severity. Why would the commandment against stealing prevent Ishmael from being able to accept the Torah? How can theft be considered a source of "blessing"?

To answer these questions, we must understand the concept of theft in a much broader context, totally unrelated to the act of stealing.

THE MEANING OF BENEVOLENCE

Ishmael was Abraham's son. Abraham's chief character trait was the pursuit of benevolence. He went around the world teaching that God is endlessly benevolent and good and is the source of all blessing in the world. God does not practice benevolence as a response to human behavior, He simply does good because He is good. The world is founded on pure benevolence. (Psalms 83:3)

Of course, there is another side to this teaching as well. Abraham went on to say that the essence of this good that God doles out for no return is the provision of an opportunity. God offers man the opportunity to attain true good by perfecting himself spiritually through his own efforts and elevating himself to the point that he earns the right to become attached to God.

When one internalizes the complete message Abraham delivered to the world, he realizes that God's great goodness really amounts to a challenge: to take advantage of the opportunity provided by God's infinite goodness to earn his reward through his achievements. The world may have been founded on pure benevolence, but it was intended to end in pure justice.

Ishmael internalized only the first half of Abraham's message. He was more than ready to be the recipient of God's infinite goodness, but was not prepared to take up the challenge attached.

In Ishmael's view, man inhabits a world where God supplies everything without the expectation of any sort of return. In such a world where God supplies everything out of pure benevolence even when it is unearned, the relationship between work and ownership simply breaks down. When all human beings are given everything they have as a matter of benevolence, theft does not stand out as a great moral evil. After all, as no one needs to earn anything, no one is deserving of anything. Need, not right, becomes the central moral standard. Thieves are generally needier than their victims. Their need supplies them with the moral right to steal.

ARAB AIM

In all the wars Israel has had with Ishmael since the reestablishment of the Jewish state, the fear of losing was never a major source of anxiety for the Arab side. The Arabs could never be seriously harmed by defeat as they would always enjoy the protection of the international community. Whenever the Arabs started to lose too badly on the field of battle, the international community could be relied upon to spring to their aid and impose a cease-fire.

War for the Arab nations was always a win-win proposition. If they won well and good, and even if they appeared to lose the war, they would still have managed to weaken Israel's determination and commitment to hang on to its territory by inflicting casualties without substantial risk to themselves. From the Arab standpoint, perhaps the major aim in all these wars was to drive home to the Jewish people the message that hanging on to Israel would always involve the high price of willingness to shed Jewish blood.

War for the Arabs was always a win-win proposition.

The Arabs that engage in terrorism do so with impunity for the same reason. After all, there is never any fear of massive retaliation. They understand full well that Jews will not deliberately set out to slaughter innocent people. They can keep testing Jewish resolve indefinitely by spilling Jewish blood, free of the threat of retaliation against their own civilian population.

The ability to harm others without needing to consider the logical consequences of one's actions is the essence of theft.

Every thief applies a standard of behavior towards others that he would never allow to be applied to himself. But he believes that he won't be caught. Thus the character of the thief rests on two axioms:

• he has the moral right to inflict the harm because of his need, and
• he is clever enough to escape retribution.

The Arab policy toward Israel is built on the same two axioms. They need the land and feel they are morally justified in inflicting any sort of harm in order to get it. They will never have to face the consequences of inflicting such harm.

This is the blessing the Arabs inherited from Ishmael. They succeed without the need to apply effort; it doesn't take a great deal of effort to engage in wars with little concern about losing them, or to use terrorism against innocent defenseless civilians. For this lack of effort or achievement, they reap the reward of world approval even as they engage in behavior that is abhorrent to all men. Others that would resort to these tactics would get nowhere. The descendants of Ishmael bask in the sun.

Even their strategic importance to the world stems from the oil that lies under their soil, not from anything they produce by the sweat of their brow or the genius of their ideas. In short, the success that Ishmael's descendants enjoy is not due to any sort of achievement of theirs. They truly live in a world of pure benevolence.

THE EXISTENTIAL TEST

But what is the existential test to the Jews that is provided by this situation, this exile?

The very first Rashi commentary in Genesis supplies the key to the answer:

Rabbi Yitzchak said: "As the Torah is a book of laws it should have begun with this month for you shall be the first of the months (Exodus 12:2) for that was the first commandment given to the Jews as a people. Why then did it begin with the narrative of creation? The reason was to establish the sovereignty of God over the earth. He declared to his people the power of His works in order to give them the heritage of the nations (Psalms 111:6). If the nations accuse Israel of banditry for seizing the lands of the seven nations of Canaan, Israel will tell them: 'The entire universe belongs to God. He created it and He granted it to whomever was fit in His eyes. It was His desire to give it to them and it was His desire to take it from them and cede it to us.'"

The mind boggles at Rashi's prophetic genius. Writing in the darkest gloom of the Middle Ages, when the idea of Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel was an impossible pipe dream, he foresaw the burning dilemma of the Jewish people in the 21st century.

For that is precisely our problem. The fact that the world regards us as interlopers in our own country is to be expected given the way we have been regarded by the nations throughout history.

The shocking phenomenon of our era is that a large part of the Jewish people is sympathetic to this view.

RIGHT TO BE

The existential problem we face as a people is precisely this. Do we have a right to be here in Israel or are we thieves who have stolen someone else's land and justified our theft on the basis of our need?

If we do have such a right and it is our land, than we should be able to solve our problem. We certainly have sufficient military might and economic clout to suppress the Palestinian opposition to our presence here. What we do not have is the inner belief in the justice of our cause.

Many of us have bought the Arab message that we have actually stolen this land.

Many of us have bought the Arab message that we have actually stolen this land and really do not have the right to be here at all. Lacking the clear sense of being in the right we are much too ready to give away large parts of our tiny territory for absolutely no return. As we don't feel easy about the possession of our own land our posture is much too defensive. Only when the immediate rescue of Jewish lives requires the application of force do we feel entitled to apply any of our might and even then only in precisely measured amounts. This uncertainty about the moral right to be in our own land is the real source of our anguish and is the focal point of this particular exile.

The existential test of the exile we are undergoing is directed at the entire Jewish people. To successfully meet this test we must have the information at our disposal that demonstrates conclusively our right to be here. What information is there at the disposal of the entire Jewish people that could help it to know that it did not steal the land of Israel from the Arabs?

There is no doubt that Israel was the Jewish homeland at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple. There is no doubt that we were driven out of it by force. Josephus Flavius, and other Roman and Greek historians, whose writings form the basis of everything we know about the ancient world, testify to the truth of both these propositions. The usurpers who settled here did so at their own risk. We always said that we would be back. We are not thieves.

But our right to Israel is based not only on local factors. Let us look at the broader picture presented by Jewish history in this context as well.

For two thousand years we wandered about the world and no nation was willing to provide us with more than a temporary home. We were repeatedly expelled from almost every "civilized" country we were ever in. We were tortured, oppressed, and persecuted. When the world finally seemed to change in 1848 -- and we gained emancipation -- this freedom also proved to be short lived.

Within less than a hundred years we were slaughtered once again by the millions. Those who sought to escape from the jaws of the murderers were refused asylum by all the "civilized" nations of the world. No one wanted to face inundation by Jewish refugees in large numbers.

NO RIGHT TO LIFE?

Therefore, if we have no right to live in Israel, than we Jews effectively have no right to live anywhere as Jews at all. History amply demonstrates that we have nowhere else to go.

Our right to Israel is equivalent to our right to survive. Our reoccupation of our own land cannot be called theft by anyone who supports the Jewish right to exist as a separate, distinct people.

Jews know that their right to Israel is equivalent to their right to survive.

If, in spite of such knowledge, many Jews still doubt their right to Israel, that means they doubt their right of continued existence as a distinct people. The only option to a Jewish country is to disappear as Jews altogether in the melting pot of the other nations.

This is the essence of the existential test we face. We must fight for the right to survive as Jews. To want to fight, we must desire to survive. To desire to survive we must believe in our own uniqueness to an extent that makes the self-sacrifice required for survival seem worthwhile. Many of us are tempted to say it just isn't worth the price.

To successfully pass this test we must face it properly without false illusions. We must appreciate that the opposing power is Ishmael. He is not a person who will sit with us to negotiate peace so that he can get on with his work and earn his right to an independent country. He is waiting for Israel to be handed to him by the international community on a silver platter.

ISHMAEL'S STRENGTH

Ishmael is threatening to accomplish the most incredible turn of the tables in human history. The thief is attempting to persuade his intended victim that he is morally wrong for not giving him voluntarily the asset that that he wants to steal. He has managed to make a considerable number of Jews feel that it is an act of theft to hang on to what rightfully belongs to them.

Ishmael's strength lies in his ability to think well of himself in the face of the paucity of his real achievements. He is entitled, and God and the nations must supply his needs out of pure benevolence. There is no point of weakness where crippling self-doubt can enter.

When Ishmael looks closely at us Jews he finds himself looking at a nation who is unsure of its right to be at all. He sees through the façade of Israel's great military might and the genius of its high-tech. Achievements only give strength to a people who take pride in being who they are. They are not substitutes for a sense of self.

Ishmael is unimpressed by the enormity of Jewish achievements. Only self-confidence impresses him. The only way to defeat him is by being proud of who we are and asserting our basic human right to resist the thief and protect our hard-earned property. We, the Jewish people have to apologize to no one. We have never stolen anything from anyone.