Saturday, November 16, 2024
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Shamefully disconnected

By
Michael Kuttner
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Our annual Seder commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt has concluded for another year.

This time, however, our collective gatherings were tinged with anxiety and apprehension over the still unresolved fate of our kidnapped hostages held by the terror groups in Gaza.

At the same time, many families had loved ones missing as they were on active duty in the south and north of the country, making sure that for one night at least, the nation of Israel could peacefully observe the Seder.

We, like most other families, kept a place setting with an empty chair at the table to symbolize the hostages. It reminded us of the time not that long ago when we did the same as a message to the Soviet Union to let its imprisoned Jews go. That thankfully succeeded as the evil regime collapsed and its enslaved Jews made an exodus to freedom.

Incredibly, but unsurprisingly, many remained. This replicated those Hebrews who preferred to remain in Egypt rather than taking the opportunity to escape from a society which had no long term future for Jewish existence. The millions of dollars which are being poured into sustaining Jewish life may, in the short term, ensure some sort of continuity. However, given the inherent corruption and inbuilt animosity to Jews, their future security is highly doubtful. 

The same can be said for those Jews still remaining in the Ukraine where sooner rather than later they will be held as scapegoats for everything that will go wrong. Like Joseph in Egypt there will arise another generation who knew not Zelensky and then the same old story will repeat itself. It is not as though Ukraine has had an exactly clean record as far as Jew hate is concerned.

South African Jews who still cling to their illusory fortified mansions in Johannesburg, one of the crime capitals of the world, are another group rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Like those of our ancestors in the trek to the Promised Land they seem to believe that the illusory lifestyle in a failing country is preferable to any initial hardships in a more welcoming environment.

Europe’s Jews are doomed as Islamic jihadist violence and intolerance takes over. This continent was never in the long run a tolerant and sustainable place for Jews and in the not too distant future it will be yet another graveyard for not only Jews but also Christians and anyone who stands for religious freedom and tolerance.

Malmo in Sweden is a perfect example of what Scandinavian and Dutch Jews can expect to experience if they stay.

London’s Jews are already experiencing a foretaste of what will inevitably follow. The prospect of more Galloway and Corbyn supporters attaining positions of political ascendancy should be ringing loud warning bells. Once again, far too many are living in denial and maintaining a pretence that “it can’t happen again here.”

Even the “lucky country” of Australia is not immune to all these malevolent manifestations and given the disparity in growth rates between the Jewish and Islamic communities the electoral prospects do not look too promising.

At the moment the most glaring example of what the future holds is being played out in the United States.

This is where on Seder night one of the most shameful examples of communal disconnection occurred.

Misnamed “Jewish Voices for Peace” and other such self-loathing individuals advertised an “anti Zionist Passover Seder.” It was billed as an opportunity to “focus on Palestinian liberation.”

Yes, you read correctly.

While the rest of the Jewish world focused on the core reason for Passover which is the liberation of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage and their subsequent journey to Eretz Israel these disconnected Jews of today preferred to rewrite history. The Hebrews of Egypt were slaves to an oppressive regime. The fake Palestinians of today are slaves to an oppressive ideology which also seeks to deny the Jewish People any future in the Land which was promised to them and their future generations. When our ancestors faced military attempts to thwart achieving sovereignty in their historic homeland they fought back. The anti-Zionists of today would rather we surrendered to terror and meekly hand over the country. Their belief that those seeking our demise would be so grateful for this gesture that any remaining Jews would be allowed to live in tolerant tranquility is hallucinatory. The end result of their disconnected obsessions would inevitably be the abandonment of any sort of Jewish rights and rewarding latter day Islamic occupiers.

Where were these “voices for peace” when the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan banned Israelis and Jews from praying at the Kotel, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb?  Why was there nary a peep from these morally bankrupt groups when Arab terrorists murdered Israelis and Jews prior to 1967 before even one “settlement” was ever established? Why are they marching arm in arm with mobs shouting for the elimination of Jews?

The spectacle of individuals who only belatedly use some sort of tenuous Jewish connection to validate their loathing of the Jewish People’s return to Zion is of course fuel for the media. Nothing makes for better ratings than a group of disaffected individuals cloaking themselves in some sort of disconnect from the mainstream. Throw in some third-generation descendant of a Holocaust survivor, and you have a perfect weapon with which to bludgeon all supporters of Israel.

The agenda of these people is so warped that they would prefer to emasculate a religious observance in order to prove their anti-Zionist credentials.

The objective of the Exodus was the journey via Mount Sinai to a particular land. At Sinai we received our constitution and a set of laws which turned tribes into a nation. No doubt, if the followers of Neturei Karta and the secular self-haters had been alive, then they would have objected to this “Zionist” agenda.

The so called “wicked child” in the Haggadah recitation is according to the explanation of some commentators a Jewish person who deliberately severs his or her identification with the community. Those who are engaged in smearing Israel are a perfect example of this. We have been “plagued” with these types of individuals all through our long history.

As we celebrate Pesach in our sovereign Jewish State those of us who have made aliyah from the furthest parts of the globe can reflect on the historical significances which enabled us to reach this day.

For those living in the Diaspora where Jewish life is becoming untenable it is time to rethink and plan for a better Jewish future.

Moses and Joshua knew that establishing and securing Jewish sovereignty would be a long and, at times, a bitter battle.

Nothing has changed over the millennia.

That is why we must annually renew the pledge to strengthen our country and to ensure that never again will we be powerless and at the mercy of others.

UN report on UNRWA covers up the antisemitism, violence and hate that has poisoned the agency for decades

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chair of the House Global Human Rights and International Organizations Subcommittee, called the recently released report on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) “an absolute whitewash aimed at covering up the antisemitism, violence and hate that has poisoned the agency for decades.”

Smith, the author of legislation to ban US funding for UNRWA, said “the grotesque flaws in the report further underscore how UNRWA apologists have operated with impunity over the years trying to deceive and vindicate the actions of this appalling agency. No one should be fooled.”

Officially called the report of the Independent Review Group, the document is widely referred to as the Colonna report after its chief author.

“From the very beginning, the Colonna report never aimed to be anything but a total whitewash,” Smith continued. “Senior officials connected to the report repeatedly stated that their goal was to ‘reassure donors’ and ‘provide the donors with further cover.’”

“It’s no coincidence that the staff that conducted the review—from its leadership on down—was comprised entirely of individuals and organizations with long histories of dismissing concerns over UNRWA’s infiltration by Hamas and its blatant promotion and complicity in murderous antisemitism,” said Smith. “Naturally, they produced a ‘report’ that ignores grave abuses and proposes cosmetic reforms.”

“UNRWA remains an unreformable, terror-complicit agency that teaches Palestinian children to hate Jews and glorifies suicidal martyrdom and the evisceration of Israel as a state,” Smith said. “It is a child soldier factory—and no bogus report can change that fact.”

“It’s long past time for the US and the rest of the world to move beyond this Hamas-ridden UN agency and find an alternative that does not promote, espouse, or affiliate with entities or individuals that advance violence, terrorism and antisemitism,” said Smith.

Smith, who has chaired three congressional hearings over the past ten months on UNRWA’s unbridled antisemitism, is the author of the Stop Support for UNRWA Act (HR 7122)—which would permanently prohibit US contributions to UNRWA. Elements of Smith’s legislation were incorporated into appropriations legislation and signed into law in March to prohibit US funding for UNRWA for one year.

Hamas loses war in Gaza but wins it in US, West

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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The professor stood at the entrance to the university campus rattled by antisemitic protests. His employee entry pass, didn’t work. He was shocked. He knew the university was hostile toward him. He knew the atmosphere was charged. He knew Jewish students were afraid. He heard the antisemitic chants, “Jews, go back to Poland.” He heard calls for more and more acts of slaughter. And he was convinced that the university officials would deal with the hooligans and racists, not with those who were fighting against them. But he was wrong.

This didn’t happen in Munich in the 1930s, nor in Berlin. It happened at New York’s Columbia University last weekend. The professor is Shai Davidai, an Israeli-American, a lecturer at the prestigious university’s business school affiliated with the Ivy League.

A few weeks ago, we sat in Manhattan after a lecture I myself delivered at the same university. The small protest that awaited me, with security standing at the entrance to the building and the lecture hall, turned into a massive demonstration last week. Students set up tents in the heart of the campus.

An imam also came to proselytize in the campus’s center. Interestingly, he was allowed entry, but Davidai’s was denied. It didn’t end there. Similar solidarity protests, with tent camps, were set up on other campuses. Mostly prestigious ones.
Unmute
What on earth is happening there? Why did the university’s rabbi, Elie Buechler, have to send a letter to Jewish students telling them it’s better not to arrive in the coming days. The atmosphere is hostile. The police can’t help either.
I never understood what Jews in Germany felt in the 1930s, Davidai told me when we met. Now I understand. Was it really so overwhelming? I thought he was exaggerating. Weeks go by. What happened on Columbia University’s campus in recent days makes it clear that he was right. I was wrong.
The university’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Cass Holloway, stood at the campus’s entrance as Davidai attempted to enter. A group of students, brave and Zionists for a change, were there. Shame, they shouted. Holloway remained silent. He was asked to explain and retort. He didn’t utter a word.
Davidai’s struggle is important
You’re a great guy, Davidai wrote to him after the incident. “You were just doing your job. There are many like you. They’re afraid. They’re threatened by the supporters of terror who have taken over the campuses.” But,” Davidai added, “there were millions like you in Germany in the 1930s. They just followed orders. They were afraid. This is your opportunity to take a brave step. To oppose the supporters of terror.”
Davidai’s struggle is important. It’s a struggle of the few and the weak against the many hooligans. But there’s a difference between the University of Munich and Columbia University. Prof. Daniel Goldhagen wrote the book Hitler’s “Willing Executioners,” which describes Germans as those who willingly collaborated with the Nazis.
The book sparked intense debate. It’s doubtful whether most professors at the University of Munich participated in the Nazi’s antisemitic brainwashing in the years leading up to their rise to power. Today, things are different. A large portion of the professors at Columbia University are participating in pro-Hamas brainwashing. So, an intense debate won’t follow the next book, about Hamas’s willing supporters.
Years go by and it’s getting worse. Most humanities and social sciences academics are on Hamas’s side. They’ve been laying the groundwork for years. For years, they’ve been publishing biased statements against Israel. For years, they’ve been concealing fundamental facts from their students.
And on the same day of the most terrible massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, they accelerated. That’s what happens when freedom fighters break from the world’s largest prison, Hamas propagandists claimed. That’s false. It’s Hamas who preferred the lock down, when it rejected all proposals of aid and the opening of the border, in exchange for Gaza’s demilitarization, of course.
And there’s no bigger lie than the title “freedom fighters.” This is because Hamas’s ideology was and remains the elimination of Jews. And because Hamas is part of the global jihad that declares its goal as taking over the world to establish a dark Islamist imperialist vision.
Students on campuses don’t support the weak, the oppressed, the occupied, or the Palestinians. That might be what some of them think they’re doing. The naive among them. Because they’ve been brainwashed. Those leading the protests support genocide. “Burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” they shouted in recent days, adding, “Hamas, we love you, we support your missiles.”
In these protests, they started burning Israeli and American flags and waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, while supporting the Houthis and Iran. The axis of evil led by Germany didn’t have such great support in the West. The axis of evil led by Iran and jihad has wide support.
Columbia University called on the police, in an unprecedented step, to evacuate the protesters’ tents. Students were arrested. Many others received a notice of their suspension, which can be assumed to be a primarily symbolic move. One of the detainees is Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
It’s true that her mother came from Somalia, a country mostly destroyed because of jihadist terror. Between 350,000 and one million people were killed and slaughtered. Between two and three million became refugees.
But that doesn’t interest the mother and her daughter. They, like the protests’ leaders, want to impose a similar fate on the U.S., Israel, and the whole world. This is the essence of radical Islam. It’s true that 95% of its victims are Muslims. But let’s not confuse Columbia’s progressive students with minor facts.

Hamas’s useful idiots

Columbia University failed to take control of the protests. In an unprecedented step, it was decided classes would be held remotely. And it’s expanding. The protest is turning into a national crisis. Tuesday’s headline in The Washington Post read, “120 antiwar protesters arrested at NYU; Calif. students form barricade.”
The headline in The New York Post tells of “Anti-Israel protesters carry flares to march on NYPD HQ after over 130 arrested at NYU.” This is the main story in most American newspapers. The protesters are making it work. They’re in the headlines. They seem to think they want to stop the war. They’re only fueling it.
It’s possible a hostage deal could have been agreed on. But arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar looks at these students and enjoys every moment. Hamas may be beaten in the Strip. But it’s winning the battle of progress in the US and the West.
Never in history have so many turned themselves into useful idiots for an axis of evil and terrorism. They think they’re enlightened. They’re not. They’re causing more and more casualties. The protesters, naturally, want to return to the days of protests against the Vietnam War, which shook the U.S.
We’re in the midst of a crisis, and it’s doubtful Israeli leaders understand how dangerous it is. the alarm bells should be turned on in the U.S. and Israel and for anyone who wants peace and reconciliation, not war, jihad, and terror.
Because the free world was blind to the threat posed by the Nazi axis of evil once. Progressives in the free world may cause additional blindness. Tens of millions paid with their lives last time. It mustn’t happen again.

Stop the Mideast Money Fueling Campus Anti-Semitism

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Combating the anti-Semitism radiating from U.S. college campuses will require work on many fronts. Some of the drivers could take enormous effort to uproot—for example, the DEI culture that has reshaped K–12 and postsecondary institutions. A less frequently discussed factor is easier to address: U.S. universities should stop letting foreign entities shape campus intellectual life.

Centers dedicated to the study of the Middle East, many receiving lavish foreign financial support, do more to promote anti-Zionist and pro-Hamas narratives than virtually any other force on campus. Even a small number of biased faculty can have an outsize influence because the dominant intersectional ideologies leave students primed to embrace anti-Semitic attitudes.

In effect, U.S. campuses have been importing anti-Semitic propaganda for almost 50 years. As the New York Times reported in 1978, “Oil wealth from the Middle East is starting to flow onto college and university campuses throughout the country, bringing a bonanza of endowed chairs and new programs.” That initial flood of money—and specific concerns about gifts to Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies—led to the establishment of foreign gift-reporting requirements in 1986. To this day, Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires universities to report foreign gifts above $250,000.

Unfortunately, weak enforcement by the Department of Education allowed many universities to ignore the requirement. That changed in 2019, when Secretary Betsy DeVos initiated noncompliance investigations at several top schools. In 2023 congressional testimony, Paul Moore, chief investigative council at the Department of Education during the Trump administration, described the sea change that followed: “enhanced enforcement . . . produced dramatic results,” including the “disclosure of more than $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed foreign gifts and contributions.” The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which analyzed the updated disclosures for 2014–19, found that over $2.7 billion in gifts came from Qatari sources, $1.2 billion from Chinese entities, and over $1 billion originated in Saudi Arabia.

The Biden administration, pressured by the higher-education lobby, closed outstanding Section 117 investigations in August 2022. Later the same year, the Department of Education moved enforcement from the Office of the General Council to the Office of Federal Student Aid. Disclosures have dwindled since.

Foreign entities invest in U.S. universities for many reasons, including to gain access to sensitive technology and to exert influence over cutting-edge researchers. When it comes to shaping the campus marketplace of ideas, gifts to Middle East studies centers have paid off. A 2022 report by the National Association of Scholars, Hijacked, looked at more than 50 such centers and concluded that they produce “biased material that promotes the political interests of the donors.” A 2020 Education Department study noted that Saudi Arabia has advanced “Islamic ideology . . . through multimillion-dollar donations to elite Western institutions” since 9/11.

These centers are ground zero for Jew-hatred in the academy today. An AMCHA Initiative study of anti-Zionist and BDS-supporting faculty found that 70 percent are associated with ethnic, gender, or Middle East studies departments. (These departments sponsor almost 90 percent of events containing anti-Zionist or pro-BDS rhetoric.) Through their research, teaching, and the speakers they host, the centers demonize Israel and make anti-Semitic attitudes seem permissible, even respectable, to impressionable students.

The presence of anti-Zionist faculty, in turn, is associated with significantly higher levels of student-on-student harassment involving Jews, including “incidents that target Jewish students for harm.” The NCRI study reached the same conclusion, finding “a correlation between the existence of undocumented funding and incidents of targeted anti-Semitism.”

What can be done? The recent success in closing Confucius Institutes—funded by the Chinese government to spread propaganda on American campuses—proves that public and political pressure can force colleges to reject foreign money. Universities should refuse all gifts from entities with interests antithetical to this country’s, especially gifts related to academic programs. Programs built on foreign donations should be dismantled unless they are obviously worth supporting from the general fund. State lawmakers can pass legislation to forbid, or at least carefully scrutinize, partnerships and contracts at public institutions with countries of concern.

Federal policymakers can also act. The next administration should aggressively enforce foreign gift-reporting requirements. And Congress should consider new legislation that would lower the reporting threshold for foreign gifts and prohibit certain partnerships with entities of concern.

AJC Statement on the Report on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Following reports of the involvement of a number of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) employees in the October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel – and sixteen UN member states pulling economic support from the agency – the UN commissioned a report, released this week, on the agency’s management and adherence to UN principles.
While reaffirming the UN’s position that UNRWA is “indispensable,” the Colonna report validates concerns about UNRWA’s governance, politicization, and the hijacking of the agency, its facilities, and its mandate for Hamas-led purposes. It also confirms that stronger safeguarding mechanisms are necessary to ensure neutrality and includes a recommendation for the formation of a governance board (currently there is none, and donors do not play any governing role), and recommends regular reporting on neutrality issues.
UNRWA, like all UN agencies, is called upon to adhere to the humanitarian principle of neutrality. Neutrality dictates that humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious, or ideological nature.
Rare for a UN report on one of its entities, the Colonna report acknowledges problems with how UNRWA operates, including the permissive environment on problematic content in textbooks, supplemental material and teaching content, the politicization of staff unions and the need to better vet and train staff, and the “misuse” of UNRWA facilities – including an allusion to storing weapons, building tunnels, and other activities unrelated to a humanitarian mission. We also await the results of the separate investigation by the UN Office for Internal Oversight Services into the participation of UNRWA staff in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks.
Insufficiently addressed in the report, UNRWA publicly demonstrates clear partiality. In a recent example, on April 20, UNRWA tweeted: “A child is killed every 10 minutes in the Gaza Strip.” This isn’t just a hyperbolic and cynical exploitation, it’s factually absurd. Such misinformation is biased, harmful, and does nothing to advance UNRWA’s mandate.
As the International Crisis Group has deemed UNRWA the “unofficial substitute for the state [of Palestine] in areas where it operates,” its role in both advancing or limiting Palestinian self-governance and resolving or perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict extends beyond the questions posed by the Colonna report. Sadly, UNRWA continues to act like an entity seemingly conceived to perpetuate rather than resolve the status of 1948 Palestinian refugees.
Despite the challenges with UNRWA, American Jewish Committee (AJC) is keenly aware that currently some two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza depend on aid from UNRWA. Although the serious issues with UNRWA must be further investigated and remedied, continued delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza is essential, and next steps on UNRWA must be conducted in a manner that does not harm Palestinian civilians in need of humanitarian assistance. It is essential that the UN and the international community delineate between the emergency aid that UNRWA has provided since October 7 and the agency’s actual conduct and mandate.
UN Secretary General António Guterres accepted the Colonna report recommendations to improve UNRWA’s capacity to monitor and address neutrality issues. It is essential, for the credibility of the UN and for the future of the Israeli and Palestinian people, that these issues be fully and transparently addressed until a new framework for UN aid to the Palestinian people can be established, with a mandate, like that of other refugee programs, to facilitate the integration of the subject population in the lands in which they have settled.

Israel Tried To Warn Biden Admin About UNRWA. A Top US Official Declined the Meeting, Emails Show.

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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When Israel’s ambassador was denied a meeting with the Biden administration in May 2021, he was looking to raise concerns about American funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian aid agency, whose employees went on to participate in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror strike last year, internal government emails show.

Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), declined to take a meeting with Gilad Erdan, then the Israeli ambassador to the United States, when the Jewish state was locked in its 2021 conflict with Hamas, the Washington Free Beacon reported in February, citing internal USAID emails.

A new tranche of scheduling memos from that time shows that Power personally declined to meet with Erdan until the war with Hamas was over. The memos also show Power’s staff warned her that the Israeli ambassador would likely raise concerns about the Biden administration’s decision to restart funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The agency has been engulfed in controversy since reports showed that several of its employees helped Hamas kill more than 1,200 Jews.

The memos indicate that Israel was attempting to warn the Biden administration about UNRWA’s links to Hamas and signal concern with the aid group’s employment of individuals affiliated with the terror group. The United States restarted millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for UNRWA just weeks before Erdan requested the meeting with Power and the 2021 conflict with Hamas broke out.

In the previously unreported scheduling memo, Power says she wants to defer the meeting until Israel inks a ceasefire with Hamas, a move that increased pressure on the Jewish state to scale back its military operations in the Gaza Strip. The Biden administration has employed similar tactics in recent months as it again attempts to pressure Israel into ending its war on Hamas and begin pumping millions of aid dollars into the war torn Gaza Strip.

“Let’s revert after Gaza war (not before),” Power wrote in the margins of the memo prepared by her staff, who had recommended she take the meeting.

The memo informed Power that the Israeli ambassador may “voice concerns about [U.S. government] support for UNRWA,” which could have contributed to the USAID leader’s hesitance to discuss the issue.

Power’s staffers eventually informed their colleagues in the region that the meeting would not take place.

“The Administrator [Power] would like to take the meeting with the Ambassador but wants to hold until there is a ceasefire or resolution to the currently [sic] escalation of the conflict,” a scheduler in Power’s office wrote in a May 18 email.

That note, as well as the scheduling memo, was produced through a Freedom and Information Act request and provided to the Free Beacon by the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA), a government watchdog group.

CASA director James Fitzpatrick said the memo indicates the Biden administration did not want to address Israel’s concerns about UNRWA at a time when it was just starting to pour millions into the aid group’s coffers.

“Given that it has since been uncovered that UNWRA employees were involved in the Hamas attack on innocent Israeli citizens, it is extremely disturbing that Ambassador Erdan’s concerns were not addressed in a timely manner by USAID and Power,” Fitzpatrick told the Free Beacon. “The administration’s priority should be meeting and conferring with our allies about their concerns, whenever possible, not putting conditions on meetings when they are responding to terrorist attacks.”

Power played a central role in restarting American funding to UNRWA, which was frozen under the Trump administration because of the aid group’s anti-Israel bias and suspected links to Hamas.

Israel has been a vocal opponent of this funding, publicly and privately pushing the Biden administration to reconsider its financial support for UNRWA, which has totaled millions in recent years.

The United States froze UNRWA funding earlier this year, after it became clear that around a dozen of the aid group’s employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. Israel estimates that around 10 percent of UNRWA’s workforce is affiliated with Hamas.

Amid the funding freeze, the State Department has continued to work with UNRWA, saying the U.N. agency serves a “critical role” delivering aid in the Gaza Strip. Power said in February that the Biden administration “will not be abandoning UNRWA.”

USAID’s global funding initiatives have also been plagued by poor oversight.

The agency funneled nearly $1 million “to a terror charity in Gaza involved with the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh,” a watchdog group reported earlier this month.

USAID has faced Republican pressure in Congress for awarding taxpayer funds to groups with alleged ties to terrorism. The agency’s inspector general is reportedly investigating claims that at least $110,000 in funds were sent to a charity tied to Pakistani militant groups.

UNRWA – Special Report 2024

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Plagues – past, present and future

By
Michael Kuttner
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Why was this night different from all other nights?

Instead of a restful and peaceful night’s sleep, we were roused from our slumber at approximately 1.30am by a series of loud explosions. Looking out from our bedroom window, we beheld an eerie sight reminiscent of a Star Wars movie. Streaking across the night sky were innumerable illuminated orange objects which all seemed to disintegrate and explode. I guessed that they were the Iranian drones which had been launched from Iran. There had been reports earlier in the evening of a possible drone strike. 

Within a few minutes, the air raid sirens wailed, and unaware whether missiles were heading in our direction, it was a mad dash for our local communal air raid shelter only about 30 seconds from our home. The sirens ceased almost immediately which indicated that nothing was heading our way. Drones were still flying but obviously posed no lethal threat.

By this time, everyone in the country was up and monitoring the news, and needless to say, mobile phones were being used to check up on family and friends. Getting back to sleep proved to be a difficult exercise especially for those glued to the breaking news developments.

It was only the next day that one had time to think about the unfolding events and draw some conclusions.

I predicted that it would take no more than a couple of hours for all the usual crowd to warn Israel not to retaliate, to show restraint and allow “diplomacy” to deal with the terrorist regime in Iran.

Pesach (Passover) is, therefore, an ideal time to remember how our ancestors dealt with past tyrants whose agenda included ethnic cleansing, murder, enslavement, kidnapping and murder. The exodus from Egyptian bondage only occurred after an escalating series of plagues and diplomatic negotiations with Pharaoh. His attempt to kill all Hebrew male babies at birth failed thanks to the heroic efforts of the midwives who thwarted this pogrom. Moses and Aaron did try to negotiate an exit strategy but this failed in the face of a stubborn refusal to agree on the part of the Egyptian leader.

A series of afflictions still made no impression and it was therefore only after the final plague that the Hebrews were allowed to depart. They had hardly left when Pharaoh regretted his decision and pursued them with his entire army determined to finally wipe them all out. This of course ended in spectacular failure at the sea of reeds.

The lessons we should be able to draw are that negotiating with and appeasing dictators, tyrants and Jew haters is a lost cause and only results in worse disasters. So, it has been proven throughout Jewish history and is especially relevant in our time. Unfortunately, the rest of the world refuses to learn and still stubbornly clings to the illusion that kowtowing to thugs and bullies will buy peace.

The one plague that has survived millennia of mutations is hate for the Jewish People and its promised homeland. The Babylonians and the Romans did their level best to not only destroy Judea and Israel and exile its Jewish inhabitants but also to ensure that the very idea of Jewish sovereignty should be eradicated. Today’s anti-Israel/Zionist haters have the same agenda as recent events and realities have so dramatically demonstrated.

This brings us back to current developments and their potential outcomes.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Iran has been emboldened by the reluctance and refusal of the democracies to make it accountable and pay a heavy price for its headlong rush towards nuclear weapons. Despite a clear and unambiguous message of its intentions to destroy Israel, the international community led by the Biden Administration has engaged in appeasement mode policies.

Much is being made of the fact that the USA and UK joined Israel in helping to repel the drone and missile barrages. However, overlooked is the fact that this apparent act of solidarity carried with it a subsequent caveat. Listening to the frantic chorus of admonitions issuing forth from Western capitals, the unmistakable conclusion is one of terrified appeasers frenetically trying to distance themselves from any remote involvement in taking firm action to punish Iran.

What other conclusion can one reach when almost every leader of the democratic world warns Israel in the sternest language not to retaliate because by doing so world peace will be in peril? The delusion that so-called diplomacy will deter Iran from further terror attacks and halt its stampede to nuclear capabilities is so firmly embedded in foreign policy appeasers’ minds that no amount of proof to the contrary will alter their hallucinations.

Biden insists that the US does not want conflict with Iran and to prove this he showers the mullahs with billions of unfrozen funds. In case Tehran still does not get the message his Government makes it clear that Washington will not back any Israeli response. The Lord Cameron wags his fingers and warns Israel not to respond as do the French and others. For good measure, the UN Secretary General declaimed that “acts of reprisal involving force are barred under international law.” Not to be left out of the international chorus of the Munich appeasers’ chorus is the NZ Foreign Minister who piously declared that he expected both sides to now refrain from fuelling tensions.

The reaction to the Iranian attack by China and Russia is predictable especially as they are long time supporters of the Iranian Mullah regime and its evil intentions. It is nothing short of an amazing and delusionary act of craven moral cowardice that those who should be thwarting Iranian genocidal ambitions are instead running to the UN. This corrupted body has neither the will nor the ability to sanction Iran. Proof of this is the fact that Iran is currently chair of the UN Conference on Disarmament. What more glaring farce can one encounter?

Israel needs to ask Cameron if he would have demanded from Churchill that the UK not retaliate for the German blitz on the UK. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour would those who today demand Israel not retaliate have told Roosevelt the same? When Margaret Thatcher retaliated against the Argentinean invasion of the Falkland Islands did the UN convulse and was the UK dragged in front of the ICJ at The Hague?

In the face of a demand that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be banned the UK Prime Minister reportedly has dismissed this because “it would sever diplomatic ties with Tehran.” Will Australia use this same specious and cowardly excuse instead of actually having a moral backbone?

If all this sounds eerily reminiscent of the years leading up to the Shoah you would be right. Add in the convulsive tsunami of Jew/Israel hate now enveloping all parts of the world and you have a perfect brew for what lies ahead thanks to the craven cowardice of the morally bankrupt.

Every year there is a ceremony in Germany to commemorate the liberation of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. This year it has been delayed until a later date and Israeli representatives have been uninvited to speak. It is the height of irony but indicative of the way things are headed that Germany, of all countries, should surrender in the face of Nazi-type mobs.

This brings us back to the topic of plagues.

It was only after a series of escalating disasters that our ancestors were let go. The final humiliation for the Egyptians followed at the Reed Sea.

Every Seder, we remember how, in every generation, there are those who rise up to destroy us.

This Pesach, therefore, as our hostages remain captive and we face threats to our very right to live, we need to resolve to do what needs to be done in order to thwart and defeat the nefarious designs of our enemies.

May this year’s celebrations herald the beginning of our redemption and the fulfilment for more Jews of the pledge to be next year in a fully restored and united Jerusalem, our eternal Capital.

Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.

Behind the Scenes with David Bedein The Kenneth Timmerman Interview

By
David Bedein
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incisive VIDEO interview with Iran expert Kenneth Timmerman

Following Senator Warren’s assertion that the term “genocide” should be applied to the current war in Gaza

By
David Bedein
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Photo by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr

Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, recently became the first US politician to declare that it is appropriate to use the term “genocide” when referring to the current war in Gaza.

Having covered Hamas since its founding in 1988, I would venture to agree with Senator Warren’s observation. However, I would stress that the observation rightly pertains to the actions of Hamas – not to those of the Israel Defence Forces.

In this regard, note that the murderous October 7th attack on 22 Jewish communities was — amongst other obvious characterizations — illogical.

No nationalistic, political or military aspiration could be served by the random killing, torture, rape and kidnapping of Jewish men, women, children, babies and old people.
Senator Warren would do well to look at US law (Title 18 of the USC, Part I, chapter 50A), which defines genocide as:

“Whoever, whether in time of peace or in time of war and with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”
As the Arab attack deliberately targeted Jews of all ages, the Oct. 7 act qualifies as “genocidal” in intent.
The Israeli military operation in Gaza, regardless of the civilian death toll, cannot be defined as genocidal because there is no genocidal intent. The Israeli government’s goals for the war are the following:

1. Release the hostages.
2. Eradicate the Hamas terror organization.

As such, from a legal point of view, the Israeli war in Gaza is not genocide.

Apparently, Senator Warren failed to read the definition of genocide in US law.

The time has come for Senator Warren to learn about real genocide. Perhaps the quarter-million Jews who live in her state will involve themselves in the education of their Senator, to acquaint her with the lesson recited each Passover: “In every generation, an adversary arises to eradicate our people, yet God saves us them from their hands.”

A case in point; on Friday April 12, a 14-year-old unarmed Jewish shepherd, Binyamin Ahimeir went missing. When his sheep came home before Shabbat without Binyamin, his mother appeared on Israel radio and appealed for everyone to pray for her son. A few hours later, Binyamin was found dead, stabbed in all parts of his body. PBC radio, the VOICE OF PALESTINE, announced the execution of a Jew who intruded into Palestinian grazing land. If Binyamin’s kiĺlers are apprehended, PA law provides a salary for life for anyone who kills a Jew. That law was passed by the PA in August, 2015. This is that law:

Incentivizing Terrorism: Palestinian Authority Allocations to Terrorists and their Families

135 nations fund the PA, as does Israel. THERE IS NO RECORD OF ANY NATION THAT DEMANDS THAT THE PA CANCEL THAT UNPRECEDENTED LEGISLATED GENOCIDAL INCENTIVE TO MURDER JEWS.

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