French
German
Hebrew
Noruegan
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Polish
Portuguese
Eliezer Botzer Z’L – My Friend’s son Killed in Tzfat. His music and spirit live on.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=botzerIrish diplomacy in the Middle East: The record speaks for itself.
The government of Israel broke its relations in Israel, citing vicious policies of the Irish government towards the Jewish state.
Ireland asks Israel to allow the Irish embassy in Tel Aviv and the Irish representative office in Ramallah to remain open,citing their important work,
The best objective record of Ireland’s diplomacy record in the Middle East has been chronicled by NGO MONITOR:
Rededication
Chanukah marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its liberation from illegal foreign occupation forces.
Bear this in mind as the annual hoopla is about to get underway.
Somehow, this Jewish Festival has evolved over the years, and nowadays, in many places, its message is mixed. Is it something to do with its proximity to 25 December as it is this year or possibly as a result of increasing political correctness?
This time of the year has always presented a dilemma for assimilated Jewish families. Many will give their children presents for every day of the festival thus trumping the one day giving of gifts by their Christian friends. Others, especially in places where assimilation is rampant, will try to cover the field by incorporating Xmas trees/bushes in their celebrations. The end result is an emasculation of Chanukah and total confusion in the minds of young children.
Others will concentrate on gastronomic aspects such as sufganiyot (doughnuts) and latkes (potato fritters), which are reminders of the jar of oil that lasted eight days. Jewish observance has its unique dietary attractions, but when these are the sole symbols, the original message can be lost.
Another diversion is spinning the dreidel and receiving Chanukah gelt. These are pleasant enough activities in themselves but, again, somewhat divorced from the core of the holiday.
Until recently, the lighting of menorot in the Diaspora took place behind closed doors and drawn curtains. For many communities over the millennia, it was decidedly dangerous to light candles for eight days in places where they could be seen. The observance was either prohibited or guaranteed to attract physical attacks by those already imbued and incited with anti-Jewish hate.
Nowadays, Chabad spearheads public menorah lighting ceremonies. These usually take place in prominent places with the participation of local Jewish residents and often with some prominent non-Jewish personalities helping to light the candles. Needless to say, it has become an ideal opportunity for high-flowing rhetoric.
One wonders, however, what effect the current rising wave of hate will have on this year’s ceremonies. Will the threat of vandalism and violence cause these public displays to be either abandoned or scaled back?
Will politicians and other personalities who would normally jump at the opportunity to participate decline or pull out for fear of negative reactions from the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist mobs?
In many countries, open displays of Jewish symbols attract negative attention. Ironically, we are facing a situation that harks back to the recent past and which may force Chanukah lighting rituals to be once again performed behind closed doors and curtains.
This is not a problem in Israel, where households more often than not have outdoor menorot in front of their homes.
It is obvious that many VIP invitees, Jewish and non-Jewish in Diaspora communities, prefer to deliver messages which may be well intended but are, in fact, seriously astray when it comes to the real meaning behind Chanukah.
The two most important lessons of this festival may not be politically correct these days and are therefore ignored or glossed over.
The first is the fact that we rededicate ourselves to our faith and strengthen our commitment to Judaism. The Hasmoneans cleansed the Temple of its pagan desecrations and rededicated it. Concurrently, they led a return to its intended original purpose.
Importantly, they also defeated the illegal occupation of Jerusalem and reclaimed the Capital. It is this aspect which is more often than not deliberately ignored.
At a time when the Jewish People’s rightful claim to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, Judea, Samaria and indeed the rest of Israel is being delegitimized at the UN this festival’s main message should be proclaimed loud and clear.
At the time of the Chanukah episode ,there were no Islamic Palestinians because Islam had not yet been invented. Likewise, there were no Christians. Uncomfortable as it may be for those who have been seduced by historical revisionist mantras, Jews were the sole legal and rightful sovereign inhabitants.
It is, therefore, ironic that individuals who deny the Jewish connection to the Land and who vote against Israel’s sovereignty should be asked to participate in a festival that celebrates Jewish independence.
It is the antithesis of Chanukah.
Instead of meekly going along with this charade, Jewish participants should either have nothing to do with it or alternatively make their collective voices heard.
Chanukah’s strong assertion of Jewish independence rankles and upsets the legion of post-Zionists who strive to sever the connection. Aided by a media only too keen to throw doubts on Israel’s legitimacy one can read their bitter offerings on an almost daily basis. One such regular contributor to Israel’s most leftist newspaper recently penned these thoughts: “Israel’s fear campaign have made us think that everyone’s out to destroy us. We have ingested the fear with our mother’s milk. We have been subjected to the fear campaigns since the dawn of our youth.”
This amazing diatribe illustrates a blind ignorance of Jewish history. It dismisses the Passover and Purim genocidal plans against us. It ignores the Babylonian, Assyrian Greek and Roman campaigns and subsequent exiles. Church sponsored hate, inquisitions, expulsions, pogroms, blood libels are obviously of no consequence. Arab massacres in Hebron and Jerusalem before independence must be hallucinations. Arab campaigns to wipe out Jewish sovereignty in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and subsequent terror are a mythical “fear.” The pogrom of 7 October, rocket, missile and drone attacks, plus the Iranian desire to wipe out the Jewish State are all, according to this contributor, merely part of a fear campaign designed to brainwash gullible Israelis into believing that someone is out to get them.
It follows, therefore, that celebrating any Jewish victory over their oppressors is forbidden. How sick and self-loathing can one get?
Reports have arrived of a devastating cyclone in Mayotte. Most people have probably never heard of this island situated off the east coast of Africa with a population of 300,000 people. It caught my attention because it has been a French colony since 1843 and is today France’s poorest region. Can anyone explain why this remote Island, together with Reunion and New Caledonia, are still in the 2024 colonies of France? Macron pontificates about illegal Jewish settlements and condemns Israel for occupying fake Palestinian territory while his Government still occupies foreign territory and denies independence to the native inhabitants.
The hypocrisy is overwhelming but par for the course these days.
Turkey, which illegally occupies the northern half of Cyprus, is another example of prevailing double standards. Persecuting its Kurdish minority and occupying parts of Syria obviously do not harm its membership of NATO or its standing at the corrupt UN.
Chanukah is the perfect time to remind these hypocrites about realities.
Don’t let the distorters of Jewish history get away with their deceitful rhetoric and policies.
Claims of Hamas fighters in Gaza hospitals may have been exaggerated, says senior ICC prosecutor
(Guardian 12/11/24)
“Claims about the presence of Hamas fighters in hospitals in Gaza under siege by Israel’s military have been “grossly exaggerated”, a top prosecutor at the international criminal court (ICC) has said. Andrew Cayley, who is leading the ICC’s Palestine investigation, questioned the reliability of claims about military activity in Gaza’s hospitals which have been made to justify Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities in the territory…According to the latest figures published by the World Health Organization (WHO), of the 35 hospitals in Gaza it has evaluated only 17 are described as “partially functioning”. Five are “fully damaged” and 13 are categorised as “non-functional”…He said Gaza’s health system is now barely functioning. “Airstrikes, sieges, raids on hospitals. Add to that lack of fuel, electricity, food, medicine. That’s why the system has collapsed.”’ See also Palestinian rivals Hamas, Fatah agree on committee to run post-war Gaza (Al Monitor 12/3/24);
Israel’s Anti-UNRWA Campaign is Working
The IDF has gathered evidence that proves that dozens of UNRWA staff members took part in the atrocities — rapes, tortures, mutilations, murders — carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023. In addition, the IDF has gathered other evidence showing that more than 50 principals and senior staff at UNRWA schools and training centers in Gaza are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Furthermore, UNRWA schools have been used to store weapons and hide combatants, all with the knowledge of the UNRWA staff. The main command-and-control center for Hamas was built directly under UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza. Israel has disseminated this damning information on billboards in major cities around the world, and on social media of every kind. UNRWA, of course, is furious and accuses Israel of waging a campaign of deliberate “misinformation.” More on Israel’s efforts to spread the truth about UNRWA, and UNRWA’s attempt to subvert those efforts by branding those efforts as “hate speech,” can be found here: “UNRWA ludicrously claims that anti-@UNRWA ads are ‘hate speech.’” Elder of Ziyon, December 5, 2024:
- UNRWA’s latest press release shows that it simply cannot defined itself based on facts, so it is claiming that Israel is engaged in “hate speech.”
- Using commercial advertisement including billboards in several cities around the world and paid Google ads on multiple websites, the Government of Israel has stepped up its disinformation campaign against UNRWA.
- These ads are the latest in a series of a wider campaign against UNRWA by the Government of Israel, which continues to publicly call for dismantling the Agency.
- This latest global effort by a UN member state to label a UN agency as a terror organisation may amount to hate speech using corporations that are supposed to promote commercial products….
Why is noting the number of UNRWA senior staff who are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad “hate speech”? Why is reporting on the widespread use by Hamas of UNRWA schools to store weapons and combatants “hate speech”?
UNRWA wants to prevent Israel from disseminating the truth about its connections to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It calls the Israeli effort “disinformation,” but offers not a shred of evidence to support that claim.
So UNRWA is trying to pressure advertising companies to censor ads because they are “disinformation” and “hate speech.”
The Israeli information campaign must be effective, given the rage it has provoked in UNRWA. Using multiple media — from billboards to X (formerly Twitter) — the Israelis have provided the names and faces of UNRWA staff who are members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They have listed the UNRWA schools where Hamas weapons were found, and in some cases where Hamas fighters were hiding out, and from whose premises Hamas launched rockets into Israel. UNRWA is in a rage; it has labelled the evidence amassed by Israel as “hate speech” and “disinformation,” but has yet to provide a single example of either. Which means that the money spent on this campaign of truth-telling hasbarah should be expanded. At last the Israelis, whose hasbarah efforts were for decades deemed mediocre, and cause for alarm among the Jewish state’s supporters, have now learned to weaponize the truth. Late in the day, as Elder of Ziyon says, but better late than never.
I Am from The Land Of The Hebrews
In the course of interpreting the dream related by the “Sar HaMashkim”, Yosef reveals a small part of his own life story saying: “I have been stolen from the Land of the Hebrews” (Bereishit 40:15). The Rabbis perceived this seemingly insignificant statement to be an expression of greatness, showing Yosef’s superiority over none other than Moshe Rabbeinu.
The Midrash tells us that Moshe turned to G-d with a serious grievance: “Yosef’s bones were brought into the Land, whereas I was not allowed to enter it.” The Almighty said: “He who acknowledged (identifies with) his land is buried in his land, while he who did not acknowledge his land is not buried in his land.” From where do we learn that Yosef acknowledged his land? Yosef tells “Sar Hamashkim” that he had been stolen from the land of the Hebrews – therefore, he is buried in his land… Moshe, on the other hand, had not acknowledged his land and was, therefore, not buried there. For when the daughters of Yitro said (Shemot 2:19) “An Egyptian man saved us from the shepherds”, Moshe hears their description and remains silent. Thus, he does not merit to be buried within the Land” (Devarim Rabba 2:8).
Rabbi Meir Yechiel of Ostrovtza, one of the great Chasidic Rebbes in Poland, poses the following question: How can the Midrash deign to compare Moshe unfavorably to Yosef when their circumstances were so very different? Yosef had indeed come from Eretz Yisrael whereas Moshe was born and raised in Egypt! Were Moshe to have replied any differently would this not be an outright lie on his part? Rabbi Meir Yechiel answered that each and every Jew is always obligated to see him, or herself, as having come from Eretz Yisrael. Even if he was born elsewhere, he nonetheless belongs to the Land of Israel. When a Jew is asked: “Where are you from”? He must proudly respond: I come from Eretz Yisrael.
Rabbi Moshe of Coucy, the author of the “Sefer Mitzvot Gadol” and one of the Ba’alei HaTosafot, would sign his name: “Moshe from the Exile of Jerusalem who is in France.” It is true that I am in France, but I am from Jerusalem. When a Jew is asked: “Where are you from”, he must therefore respond: I come from Eretz Yisrael.
I am reminded of the life-story of a Russian woman I met back in the 90s. The woman’s husband was a Jewish man who had married her – the daughter of non-Jewish communists – despite her parents’ strong objection to their child marrying a “zhid” (pejorative for “Jew”).
When the couple decided to leave Russia and make Aliyah, like all other Soviet-bloc Olim of the time, they were screened and processed by the Jewish Agency in a way-station situated in Vienna. At this time, the couple made contact with some friends who had moved to the U.S.A. These friends presented them with fantastic opportunities, urging them to reconsider their plans and follow their own example by moving to the States. The husband was quickly convinced that they should make a detour to the U.S.A., while the wife refused. “I married a Jew who always spoke of making Aliyah to his homeland”, she said, “and I am going nowhere else!”
As the argument escalated out of hand, the couple found themselves in the divorce chamber of an Austrian judge. When queried about his religion, the husband replied that he had none, and when asked where he wants to live, he answered “America”. Presented with the same questions, the gentile wife, born into the communist “religion”, replied “I am Jewish, and I wish to proceed to the Holy Land”. I met this remarkable woman in an Absorption Center after she came on Aliyah alone with her two young children. Having divorced her husband and converted to Judaism she consulted with me as she was searching for proper religious schooling for her two children.
I can easily understand why a Jewish Russian man, raised without any religious background, would feel no special spiritual connection to the Holy Land. What I find much more difficult to relate to, is the American Jew who is drawn to the Holy Land, and perhaps has even studied and visited here on numerous occasions, and yet when pressed to make the ultimate identification – applying for a Teudat Zehut, he hesitates to take the leap! Is it not time to answer the question: “Where are you from?” with a loud and clear “I Come From Eretz Yisrael!
Rabbi Yerachmiel Roness
Ramat Shilo, Bet Shemesh
RABBI YERACHMIEL RONESS was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. After serving as a congregational Rabbi and as a Hillel Director in New York City, he made Aliyah in 1983 with his wife Dina and their five young children.
Ever since, Rabbi Roness has dedicated his life to promoting Aliyah. First, as Rabbi of the Jewish Agency’s Absorption Centers, and subsequently as the executive director of the Aloh-Naaleh organization.
This article was taken from Rabbi Roness’s new book: Aloh Na’aleh – Eretz Yisrael and Aliyah in the Weekly Parshah. The book is for sale on Amazon:
CILR presents Robert L. Meyer – Israel’s Original Land Title Deed: The Mandate for Palestine (1922)
2022. júl. 29.
Robert L. Meyer is a prominent Hong Kong-based businessman and retired lawyer. He attended Columbia Law School and joined the international law firm of Coudert Brothers in New York and Hong Kong. Among his many achievements, he co-founded “Kadima” at Columbia U and The United Jewish Congregation in Hong Kong. He is a Director of United Israel Appeal (HK) and is former Chairman of Jewish Times Asia. Mr. Meyer is a significant supporter of Israel. In this presentation, Robert explores this question – “The Jewish People: Legal Owners or Illegal Occupiers of The Land of Israel?” Click here to view this presentation with a Hebrew voiceover translation:
• Robert L. Meyer – Israel’
This was presented at the 100th Anniversary of The Mandate For Palestine put together by Canadians for Israel’s Legal Rights, titled “100 Years of Lies, Deceit and Untruth: Reclaiming Israel’s Legal Rights After The Mandate For Palestine”. You can view the entire event here:
• 100 Years of Lies,
‘Pure Make-Believe’ – Separating Divestment from Antisemitism
Letter-writer Paul Cunningham picked an especially dreadful week for Jews to proclaim that antisemitism is not tied to divestment from Israel, a divisive topic in his home state of Maine.
Tell that to the Jewish community as a school shooter in California, who once attended school near San Diego, was motivated by Palestinian deaths; an Australian synagogue was set afire; an anti-Israel mob clogged the lobby of a Canadian Parliament building; and an Israeli writer was treated like a hostage at a London airport.
So-called friends of the Palestinians seemed to ramp up antisemitic activities to a whole new level of terror rivaling that of Hamas, just as Cunningham’s letter appeared on the Portland Press Herald website last Friday.
Perhaps we should be comforted by Cunningham’s words: “Divestment from Israel is a political maneuver and has absolutely no connection to religious hatred. The assertion that divestment is inherently antisemitic is pure make-believe. Jews worldwide understand this.”
He adds, “The FBI reports that flourishing Nazi/white supremacist groups are the threat.”
Indeed, the FBI has warned that the most severe violence is committed by the right wing, but leftists also engage in violence such as occupying campus buildings. The leftists constantly violate the law by blocking roads and bridges, and harassing Jewish students. However, they went even further in recent weeks.
I understand that protesters approach the issue with various motives. Many of them have genuine concerns that Israel’s attacks killed thousands of Gaza civilians in its response to the Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter in southern Israel. However, anyone who states that antisemitism has “no connection” to divestment is a liar or a moron.
I know similar incidents are more widespread in places like Amsterdam and Paris, but I feel a more automatic connection when disturbing incidents happen in English-speaking countries.
Especially in America, where a gunman shot and wounded two children in the playground of a private Christian-affiliated school last Wednesday (Dec. 4) and then shot himself to death, according to Butte County authorities in Palermo, Calif., near Sacramento, The Algemeiner newspaper reports. The children, ages 5 and 6, were hospitalized in critical condition.
Gunman Glenn Litton, 56, left behind a note disclosing that the shootings were rooted in his objections to “America’s involvement with genocide and oppression of Palestinians.” What did two young children in northern California have to do with the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza?
Litton had a remote connection to the school, named the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists, as he attended a Seventh-day Adventist school near San Diego when he was a “young man,” and may have had a relative who once attended Feather River, authorities told CNN. Authorities added that they have not determined a “current connection” between Litton and the school where the children were wounded.
Nearly 8,000 miles from San Diego, masked arsonists set fire to a Haredi Orthodox synagogue outside Melbourne in Australia early last Friday morning. They were seen breaking windows, pouring a liquid accelerant on the floor inside the building and tossing firebombs into the building, according to reports from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the New York Times.
Damage was described as extensive at the synagogue, known as Adass Israel in the town of Ripponlea. Congregants gathered for morning prayers and fled into the streets when the fire broke out. One person suffered a minor injury. Political figures condemned the act, urged that the perpetrators be brought to justice and proposed increasing funding for security at synagogues.
There is no indication so far as whether the arsonists are from the left or the right. However, antisemitic incidents have quadrupled in Australia since Oct. 7, 2023.
Both Jewish and government leaders had to make clear that the fire was an act of antisemitism and it became a matter of debate as to whether it constituted “terrorism.” “Whatever we label it, it is an absolute outrage,” said senior federal minister Murray Watt, as quoted in The Guardian. “It should never have happened and the people responsible have got to be hunted down and pay a price for this.”
But it did happen. So did this: Australia’s one-time brother and sister colonists in Canada last week endured an hour-long anti-Israel demonstration inside the lobby of the Confederation Building in Ottawa, which houses offices of many Members of Parliament.
Demanding an embargo of arms to Israel, protesters were generous enough to allow the MP’s to pass through the clogged room, but the MPs would need to hear their demands first, according to CBC News.
Maybe that is why 14 protesters intercepted by Parliamentary Protective Services were released after being cited for trespassing. Surely Canada has stronger laws to apply to an incident that detains visitors, creates a captive audience, produces a disturbance and potentially delays paramedics and rescue crews in case of an emergency.
Can a trespassing charge be sufficient to deter future building occupations? The protest participants must be running scared now.
And in their former mother country, Israeli writer Alon Penzel – as a one-man captive audience – learned that Oct. 7 was just one incident and that parts of Israel were illegally occupied since 1948. At least, a security officer at Luton Airport in northwest London educated Penzel of this so-called history as the author was held there for an hour on allegedly trumped-up accusations of staging a pro-Israel protest.
UK Lawyers for Israel last week claimed that the security officer harassed and abused Penzel after forcing him “to be falsely detained for over an hour, in public, by a group of security officers, while they cross examined him and investigated (footage) to see if he had been in a protest.”
The airport likely violated the Equality Act 2010 by “creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him,” UKLFI said in a news release. It also asked the airport to punish the officer.
While Penzel was detained, the UKLFI stated, the officer “said October 7 was ‘only one incident out of many since 1948,’ implying that Israel was to blame for the massacre on 7 October.” He then “told him there had been illegal occupation since 1948, implying that Israel did not have a right to exist at all.”
Penzel was just leaving England after promoting his new book, “Testimonies without Boundaries: Israel October 7th 2023,” which includes first-hand accounts from Nova Festival survivors and medical and rescue volunteers. Perhaps the security officer had an excuse, however weak, for detaining Penzel, but he abused his authority when he lectured Penzel about Israeli history, correct or not.
It sounded like the brainwashing scenes in “The Manchurian Candidate.“
Unbelievable: Biden Admin Asks Israel to Approve Military Aid to PA
The Biden administration has privately asked Israel to approve an urgent request for U.S. military aid to Palestinian Authority forces, Arab, American and Israeli officials told Axios on Sunday night.
The request comes after the P.A. launched a rare counter-terror raid in Jenin, where Ramallah for years refused to act against Iranian-backed terrorist groups, in violation of its commitments under the Oslo Accords.
Ramallah launched its operation, dubbed “Defense of the Homeland,” following the Dec. 5 seizure by Hamas and Islamic Jihad of a P.A. vehicle and amid fears that terrorists in the Samaria city could attempt a coup inspired by the swift rebel takedown of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria.
According to Arab media reports, two Arab terrorists have so far been killed by the P.A., including Yazid Jaysa, a leader in the Islamic Jihad-led Jenin Brigades who was reportedly also wanted by Israel.
The ongoing operation “is a make or break moment for the Palestinian Authority,” one official in Ramallah told Axios. “Either [you] act like a state you say you are or go back to being a militant organization.”
P.A. and U.S. officials told the outlet that P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas’s office had briefed the Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump’s team ahead of the raid. U.S. security coordinator Gen. Mike Fenzel met with the Palestinian Authority police chiefs in preparation for the operation and went over their plans, the P.A. official claimed.
Ramallah reportedly gave Fenzel a list of equipment its forces urgently need, including ammunition, helmets, bulletproof vests, radios, night vision equipment, bomb disposal suits and armored vehicles.
The Biden administration reportedly also asked Jerusalem to release some of the P.A. tax revenues it has frozen so Ramallah can pay the salaries of its forces. The Israeli government has frozen the funds in response to the P.A.’s “pay for slay” policy in which it pays monthly stipends to terrorists and the families of slain terrorists.
Many members of Israel’s security brass support P.A. control over parts of Judea and Samaria as a “moderating force” opposed to Hamas and other Iranian-backed terror groups.
Members of Ramallah’s forces have a long history of carrying out terror attacks against Israeli soldiers and Israeli civilians. Last year, Abbas’s Fatah boasted that most of its “martyrs” had served in the P.A. Security Forces.
In addition, the Hamas terrorist organization has recruited dozens of PASF operatives, using them as terrorist combatants and for intelligence gathering, Israel’s Kan News public broadcaster reported in mid-2023.
On Sept. 2, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a “military arm” of Fatah, took responsibility for a double car bombing in Judea’s Gush Etzion region. The following day, the Brigades claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting that killed three police officers near Hebron, also in Judea.
The P.A.-linked terrorist group vowed that it would continue to “pursue the occupier [Israel] at every intersection, alley and neighborhood, until it is expelled from our land and our holy sites, Inshallah [‘God willing’].”
