In an interview with TBN that airs in full Tuesday night, a preview of which has been released exclusively to The Daily Wire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed President Trump’s decision to target Iran’s top military leader, Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force. The removal of Soleimani, said the Israeli leader, is a “tremendous achievement” that accomplished two key priorities at once.
Asked how Soleimani’s death will “change the Middle East,” Netanyahu told TBN Television Networks President Matthew Crouch that he believes that, first of all, &#8220;it sends a message of American determination and American strength — it’s a deterrence, a very powerful one.&#8221;
“Secondly, Soleimani himself was the architect and the generator of Iran’s empirical [goals], the Iranian empire,&#8221; Netanyahu continued. &#8220;Iran is predominantly Shiite. [Soleimani] would go into a neighboring country, say Iraq, and he would find Shiites and would create Shiite militias … manned by Iraqi Shiites but commanded by his own officers, Iranian officers. The same he would do in Syria, same he would do in Yemen.&#8221;
“He was beginning to choke the Middle East,” the prime minister stressed. “He wanted to conquer the entire Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and ultimately destroy Israel. He was beginning to push his forces right next to Israel in Syria — and we responded to them very forcefully, we hit back.”
“But it is important to understand that Iran’s expansion into this horrible empire that brings misery and death to untold numbers of people in the Middle East—by the way, Jews and Arabs alike, Christians Muslims Jews, everyone,” said Netanyahu. “This man was an engine of destruction and conquest and subjugation. And his removal, I think, helps roll back these forces of tyranny.”
“It’s a tremendous achievement,” the prime minister added. “It both strengthens American deterrence but also pushes back Iran’s aggression.”
Video of Netanyahu’s comments below (full interview airs on TBN Tuesday night at 8/7c):
<iframe title="PRAISE | Israel Special Report | Tomorrow Night at 8/7c" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vb-rj7OwANU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
According to a press release issued by TBN Monday, in the 24-minute interview Netanyahu discusses a wide range of topics, including &#8220;Israel’s role as the Middle East’s sole democracy, its determination to aggressively defend itself against Iran and others intent on its destruction, and the important commitment of President Trump and America’s conservative and Christian community to stand in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people.&#8221;
In response to the Trump-ordered strategic airstrike that took out Soleimani, Iran targeted two Iraqi bases where U.S. personnel were stationed. The next day, President Trump gave a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-addresses-nation-after-attack-no-lives-lost-iran-appears-to-be-standing-down">televised address</a> in which he announced that the strikes resulted in no U.S. or Iraqi deaths and that Iran had signaled that they were “standing down.” In the address, Trump reiterated his commitment to pushing back against Iran’s aggression in the region, particularly as orchestrated by Soleimani.
“As long as I am president of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump declared. “I am pleased to inform you, the American people should be extremely grateful and happy: No Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases. Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned, and a very good thing for the world.”
“For far too long, all the way back to 1979, to be exact, nations have tolerated Iran’s destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East. Those days are over,” Trump stated. “Iran has been the leading state sponsor of terrorism, and their pursuit of nuclear weapons threatens the civilized world. We will never let that happen.”
&#8220;As the head of the Quds Force, Soleimani was personally responsible for some of the absolutely worst atrocities,&#8221; the president explained. &#8220;He trained terrorist armies, including Hezbollah, launching terrorist strikes against civilian targets. He fueled bloody civil wars all across the region. He viciously wounded and murdered thousands of U.S. troops, including the planting of roadside bombs that maim and dismember their victims. Soleimani directed the recent attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq that badly wounded four service members and killed one American, and he orchestrated the violent assault on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. In recent days, he was planning new attacks on American targets, but we stopped him.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/iran-sent-messages-through-three-back-channels-to-u-s-after-attack-to-say-they-were-done">Iran Sent Messages Through ‘Three Back Channels’ To U.S. After Attack To Say They Were Done</a>

Benjamin Netanyahu

WATCH: Netanyahu On Trump Taking Out Soleimani: ‘A Tremendous Achievement’ That Accomplished Two Key Goals

Donald Trump

Iran

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps

Israel

Qassem Soleimani

We in the pro-Israel community are certainly accustomed, by now, to the myriad of pro-Palestinian activists and political leftists who engage in rank hypocrisy when it comes to the Jewish state. In fact, the U.S. State Department&#8217;s <a href="https://www.state.gov/defining-anti-semitism/">working definition of anti-Semitism</a> actually includes such hypocrisy as one example of anti-Semitic behavior: &#8220;Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.&#8221;
Alas, someone ought to notify the folks at far-left <a href="https://www.hrw.org">Human Rights Watch</a>.
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-selective-opponent-of-settlers-11579046287?mod=opinion_lead_pos9">Writing today</a> at The Wall Street Journal, international law expert and law professor Eugene Kontorovich — scholar at the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem, professor at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School, and director of that law school&#8217;s new <a href="https://cilme.gmu.edu">Center for International Law in the Middle East</a> — opines that Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, &#8220;promot[es] boycotts and international prosecution [of Israel] for the supposed crimes of occupation and settlement,&#8221; but &#8220;elsewhere &#8230; strongly supports settlements in occupied territories.&#8221;
&#8220;The settlements Ms. Whitson supports are in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that was within the borders of post-Soviet Azerbaijan until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war,&#8221; the international law scholar continued. &#8220;Since then, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has actively encouraged the movement of settlers into the area. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as their historic homeland. But the United Nations, international courts and the U.S. all consider it occupied Azeri territory.&#8221;
Kontorovich then unraveled the precise nature of Whitson&#8217;s hypocrisy. In response to Kontorovich asking Whitson about her work with Armenian National Committee of America, which Kontorovich labels a &#8220;pro-settler charity,&#8221; Whitson responded to the professor: &#8220;My personal support for Armenian diaspora organizations pertains to their charitable and educational work in Armenia and their efforts to advocate for recognition of the Armenian Genocide.&#8221;
But having none of it, Kontorovich then ripped Whitson for trying to have it both ways.
&#8220;This explanation is at odds with [Human Rights Watch&#8217;s] approach to Israel, where the group calls for boycotts of entire companies — including unrelated divisions — because some of their work is in settlements,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;It is also at odds with the record: Ms. Whitson’s fundraising appeals for pro-settlement groups are in no way limited to educational issues. She has celebrated the work of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, which supports new settlement construction to encourage &#8216;young families to set down their roots.&#8217; She specifically <a href="https://agbu.org/news-item/sarah-leah-whitson/?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-reader-unique-id="15">praised the group for helping Syrian Armenians who have &#8216;resettled in Armenia&#8217;</a>; many or most such refugees have been resettled in the occupied territory.&#8221;
&#8220;If [Human Rights Watch] were serious about its opposition to &#8216;settlers&#8217; and &#8216;occupation,&#8217; it wouldn’t have a supporter of them heading its Middle East division,&#8221; the professor continued.
Reached by The Daily Wire for exclusive comment, Kontorovich elaborated on leftist hypocrisy on the nexus of Israel, international law, and the law of &#8220;occupation.&#8221;
&#8220;It is not news that progressives, in the name of international law, target Israeli obsessively and exclusively for boycotts and delegitimization,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. &#8220;But they dismiss such observation as &#8216;whataboutism,&#8217; saying their efforts to enforce international law must start somewhere.&#8221;
&#8220;My revelations show that Rashida Tlaib [who is co-sponsoring a bill to normalize relations with Armenian settlements], Sarah Leah Whitson, and others are not simply ignoring situations of occupation around the world — they are promoting them, without having their progressive bona fides revoked. All of their talk about enforcing international law is just a euphemism for creating a Judenrein zone in Judea and Samaria.&#8221;
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-trump-administration-is-absolutely-correct-to-call-israeli-settlements-legal">The Trump Administration Is Absolutely Correct To Call Israeli &#8216;Settlements&#8217; Legal.</a>

Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW

HYPOCRISY: Human Rights Watch Opposes Israeli ‘Settlements,’ Supports Settlements Elsewhere

Foreign Policy

Lawfare

Middle East

Palestinians

&#8220;In the Soviet Union, the important thing was to overcome the fear.&#8221; That is what former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky told me over tea in a Jerusalem cafe.
In the totalitarian, atheist Soviet Union, Jewish identity was forcibly submerged. &#8220;The only Jewish thing that was in my life,&#8221; Sharansky says, &#8220;was anti-Semitism!&#8221; That was until 1967. Israel&#8217;s victory in the Six-Day War, Sharansky says, changed the way the Soviets viewed Jews, and changed the way Soviet Jews viewed themselves. They were now, to friend and foe alike, part of something larger than themselves, connected to the Jewish state and to Jews the world over. With this knowledge, Soviet Jewish dissidents were no longer afraid and had the courage to confront the Evil Empire.
Sharansky has told this story many times before, but faced with the rising tide of anti-Semitic attacks and libels against Jews worldwide, I asked him about an often forgotten aspect of the crusade for human rights in the Soviet Union. There were many dissident groups with different goals, but the group that was best organized and had the most reliable contacts with the outside world were the Jewish “Refuseniks” (Soviet Jews who were denied the right to emigrate to Israel).
Sharansky, their spokesperson, was happy to help others. And that included many, many persecuted Christians.
Reports about the abuses suffered by Christians in the Soviet Union made their way through Sharansky&#8217;s network to the Western press and human rights groups. With each new revelation, demands on the Soviets to respect freedom of religion increased.
The importance of this channel wasn&#8217;t lost on Christians. &#8220;A group that I helped to establish their first contacts to reach the foreign press and to speak to the world were Pentecostals. I was very pleased later to find out that when I was arrested, there were tens of thousands of Pentecostals in Siberia who were fasting in solidarity with me.&#8221;
When the Soviets arrested Sharansky and sent him to the Gulag, his communist tormentors thought they might break him by placing him in a cell with a Christian activist. A religious Jew and a religious Christian would surely tear each other apart, they thought. But it did not turn out that way.
&#8220;You discover in prison [that] you can never know who is an informer and who is not. (That&#8217;s what you discover in general in Soviet life.) But what you discover is that with people with strong identities, there is less chance that they will be informers. Because, exactly as you have other values than physical survival — you have your identity you want to be a part of — they also have their own identities.&#8221; Strong identities give people values worth fighting for. &#8220;And that&#8217;s why if he was [an] activist, like Pentecostal or Christian activist, you knew that the chance that he [was] KGB [was] much less.&#8221;
Sharansky&#8217;s closest friend in the Gulag was a Christian activist named Vladimir Poresh. &#8220;I describe in this book,&#8221; he says, pointing to my copy of his 1988 memoir Fear No Evil, &#8220;ecumenical readings of the Bible, which we called &#8216;Reagan&#8217;s readings.&#8217; Because in 1983 it was in the Soviet press that Reagan called it the &#8216;Year of the Bible.'&#8221;
I recalled that in Fear No Evil, he describes going on a hunger strike so his friend can get back his Christian Bible. &#8220;Oh yeah! It was a very long hunger strike!&#8221; he said. When I expressed my amazement at this, he said that the fact that they were of different faiths was not an issue. &#8220;It was all about our rights to be free people and live in accordance with our conscience. And then you feel at this critical moment that, after all, we all have one God.&#8221;
The Soviet Union was a regime that depended on fear and control. When people found the courage to speak out, control would slip a little more, and more people would then find their courage. It was a death spiral, and the strain became too much for the regime to bear.
Here in the United States, the land of the free, Jews should not have to live in fear of being attacked. Christians must stand with them. The bonds of brotherhood between Jews and Gentiles should not require the Gulag to bring to the surface.

Natan Sharansky

EXCLUSIVE: Soviet Dissident Recalls Jews And Christians Stood United Against Fear

Anti-Semitism

Communism

Judaism

Russia

Soviet Union

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jeopardy-rules-bethlehem-is-in-israel-not-palestine">reported</a> this morning, the judges of popular game show &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; recently deemed that the Christian holy city of Bethlehem, which is located in the southern suburban outskirts of Jerusalem, is located in Israel — and not in so-called &#8220;Palestine.&#8221; Located roughly six miles south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem is located in Judea and Samaria (i.e., the &#8220;West Bank&#8221;) — a technically disputed portion of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to which Israel has the unambiguously superior claim under <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-trump-administration-is-absolutely-correct-to-call-israeli-settlements-legal">all relevant principles of international law</a>.
As read by famed host Alex Trebek, the viral $200 clue in the “Jeopardy!” category of “Where’s that church?” read: “Built in the 300s A.D., the Church of the Nativity.”
The first contestant to buzz in, defending champion Katie Needle, responded with, &#8220;What is Palestine?&#8221; Trebek deemed that to be incorrect. A second contestant, Jack McGuire, then buzzed in and responded with, &#8220;What is Israel?&#8221; Trebek deemed that to be correct and, since it was the final clue of the round, then took the show into commercial break.
Watch it here:
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Could be one of my favorite Jeopardy moments of all time <a href="https://t.co/2gpVLpDWlR">pic.twitter.com/2gpVLpDWlR</a>
&mdash; Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) <a href="https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1216132460649598977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In the aftermath of this fairly anodyne exchange, many Israel-hating <a href="https://twitter.com/SanaSaeed/status/1215852493290332160">leftists</a> have gone <a href="https://twitter.com/OmarBaddar/status/1215850195038150656">berserk</a>. The moral midgets at Code Pink have even <a href="https://www.codepink.org/today_tell_jeopardy_the_correct_answer_is_palestine">organized a petition</a> entitled, &#8220;Tell Jeopardy! the correct answer is PALESTINE!&#8221;
Faux outrage much?
In an exclusive, The Daily Wire was able to speak with McGuire, who provided more details and context as to what exactly happened both on- and off-camera. The Daily Wire spoke with McGuire exclusively.
McGuire explained that, following Trebek guiding the program into commercial break, there was a significant huddle on-stage — perhaps around eight minutes, McGuire estimated — between the show&#8217;s compliance, legal, and stage manager officers. The &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; judges decided to scrap the clue and return the two players’ scores to what they had been immediately before. They then re-ran the segment with a new clue (which McGuire also answered correctly): &#8220;Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.&#8221;
Curiously, on the version of the show that aired for viewers over the weekend, the original clue of &#8220;Church of the Nativity&#8221; aired and the substitute clue of &#8220;Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe&#8221; was nowhere to be seen. McGuire expressed bemusement as to why this might have happened. Interestingly, McGuire also noted that there was another clue in the category of “Where’s that church?” whose answer was located in an arguably geopolitically contested city: La Sagrada Familia, which is in Barcelona and is therefore claimed by both Spain and the Catalonian independence movement.
As for McGuire&#8217;s politics himself, he says he is a registered independent with libertarian and conservative leanings. Though he says he isn’t always in agreement with every action of the Israeli government, when it comes to the Jewish state’s right to exist and act in defense of that right, McGuire says he &#8220;firmly stands with Israel, now and for all time.&#8221; He also mentioned that he is a fan of The Daily Wire and Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro.
As for Needle&#8217;s politics, her quite public social media presence speaks for itself.
&#8220;Palestine should be free,&#8221; Needle tweeted on Friday, also adding an emoji of an ostensible flag that The Daily Wire was unable to identify as that of a confirmed geopolitical entity.
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Thanks! Palestine should be free 🇵🇸
&mdash; Katie Needle (@katieee817) <a href="https://twitter.com/katieee817/status/1215859142394548224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
On Friday, Needle also promoted an article in the &#8220;Journal of Palestine Studies,&#8221; which The Daily Wire was also unable to identify as a periodical devoted to the study of a confirmed geopolitical entity.
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Check out <a href="https://twitter.com/jeannetteeee12?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jeannetteeee12</a> ‘s new article in the Journal of Palestine Studies <a href="https://twitter.com/PalStudies?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PalStudies</a> about US policy in Palestine <a href="https://t.co/LTyoFl8w11">https://t.co/LTyoFl8w11</a>
&mdash; Katie Needle (@katieee817) <a href="https://twitter.com/katieee817/status/1215867992585785346?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
However, McGuire confirmed that he and Needle get along very well, and that he thinks very highly of her as a &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; champion. Not only did Needle generally handle the controversy with aplomb and fail to raise a fuss, but McGuire described her to The Daily Wire as a &#8220;thoroughly wonderful person.&#8221;
Alas, she seems to be a wonderful person with an unusual affinity for legally fictitious geopolitical entities. One can only assume she feels the same way about Narnia, Mordor, and Tatooine.
Today, &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; released an <a href="https://www.jeopardy.com/jbuzz/news-events/correction-jeopardy-bethlehem-clue">official statement</a> on the faux controversy:
<blockquote>In the process of taping this clue, “BUILT IN THE 300s A.D., THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY” we became aware that the clue was flawed as written and that determining an acceptable response would be problematic. In accordance with our rules and in the interest of fairness, we voided the clue and threw it out. We restored Katie’s and Jack’s scores to what they were prior to the clue. The outcome of the game was not affected. We then continued the game with this replacement clue.
Unfortunately, through human error in post-production, the uncorrected version of the game was broadcast. We regret the error and we will make every effort to ensure this never happens again.</blockquote>
The famous game show also released a YouTube clip of the &#8220;Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe&#8221; substitute clue.
<iframe title="Correction to Jeopardy! Bethlehem Clue" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5mgCViI6o1E?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Jeopardy! Power Players Week

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Jeopardy!’ Contestant From Viral ‘What Is Israel?’ Video Tells Full Story

Code Pink

jeopardy

As seen in a clip that went viral over the weekend, the judges of popular game show &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; deemed that the Christian holy city of Bethlehem, which is located in the southern suburban outskirts of Jerusalem, is located in Israel — and not in so-called &#8220;Palestine.&#8221;
As every Christian and many religiously or historically aware non-Christians know, the holy Church of Nativity — recognized in the Christian tradition as the birthplace of Jesus — is in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is roughly six miles south of Jerusalem and is technically on the Palestinian-Arab side of the so-called 1967 &#8220;Green Line&#8221; — meaning it is located in Judea and Samaria and is still disputed by Israelis and Palestinians.
As read by famed host Alex Trebek, the viral $200 clue in the &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; category of &#8220;Where&#8217;s that church?&#8221; read: &#8220;Built in the 300s A.D., the Church of the Nativity.&#8221;
&#8220;The first contestant to buzz in, Katie Needle, responded: &#8216;What is Palestine?'&#8221; Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/jeopardy-church-of-the-nativity-clue-controversy">reported</a>, &#8220;but Trebek rejected her answer, saying, &#8216;No.'&#8221;
&#8220;Another contestant, Jack McGuire, buzzed in with the reply, &#8216;What is Israel?'&#8221; Fox News continued. &#8220;Trebek ruled him correct.&#8221;
Needle, the contestant who first buzzed in incorrectly with &#8220;Palestine,&#8221; then smirked obliquely and poignantly as Trebek guided the program into a commercial break.
Reaction on Twitter was naturally mixed, with one&#8217;s view of the &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; judges presumably dictated by one&#8217;s over-arching views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself.
&#8220;Could be one of my favorite Jeopardy moments of all time,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1216132460649598977">captioned</a> the New York Post&#8217;s Jon Levine.
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Could be one of my favorite Jeopardy moments of all time <a href="https://t.co/2gpVLpDWlR">pic.twitter.com/2gpVLpDWlR</a>
&mdash; Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) <a href="https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1216132460649598977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Her face throughout this is priceless,&#8221; he <a href="https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1216132959406841856">continued</a>.
On the other hand, Omar Baddar, the deputy director of the <a href="https://www.aaiusa.org/why_i_accused_israel_of_cultural_genocide">anti-Israel</a> group Arab American Institute, was clearly triggered. &#8220;Unacceptable!&#8221; he <a href="https://twitter.com/OmarBaddar/status/1215850195038150656">bemoaned</a>. &#8220;Bethlehem is in the Palestinian territories which Israel illegally occupies (Katie Needle got the correct answer &amp; was robbed).&#8221;
Actually, Baddar might want to get his facts straight. To be more specific, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently pronounced that Israeli &#8220;settlements&#8221; in Judea and Samaria are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-trump-administration-is-absolutely-correct-to-call-israeli-settlements-legal">not, per se, illegal under international law</a>.
&#8220;The Trump administration is reversing the Obama administration’s approach towards Israeli settlements,&#8221; Pompeo said on November 18, as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-administration-announces-major-policy-shift-toward-israel-no-longer-views-israels-west-bank-settlements-as-violation-of-international-law">reported</a> at the time by The Daily Wire. &#8220;U.S. public statements on settlement activities in the West Bank have been inconsistent over decades.&#8221;
&#8220;In 1978, the Carter administration categorically concluded that Israel’s establishment of civilian settlements was inconsistent with international law,&#8221; Pompeo continued. &#8220;However, in 1981, President Reagan disagreed with that conclusion and stated that he didn’t believe that the settlements were inherently illegal.&#8221;
&#8220;After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan,&#8221; Pompeo stated. &#8220;The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law.&#8221;
Baddar and contestant Katie Needle, alas, are hardly the only ones who have recently been confused about Bethlehem&#8217;s fraught position in the crosshairs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As I pointed out and corrected last moth, left-wing Vox recently wrote a piece about the post-Oslo Accords modern history of the city of Bethlehem that was, in the accurate words of one venerable pro-Israel Twitter user, so radically biased as to be &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/AG_Conservative/status/1209497608122703872">inexcusably dishonest</a>.&#8221;

Alex Trebek of Jeopardy!

‘Jeopardy!’ Rules Bethlehem Is In Israel, Not ‘Palestine’

Christianity

Jesus Christ

Mike Pompeo

Stunning images and photos emerged on Sunday from the protests inside Iran showing demonstrators attacking images of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani while also refusing to walk on American and Israeli flags.
The latest round of protests come after Iran admitted that it shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane last week, which killed all 176 people on board, after falsely claiming for several days that they were not responsible for what happened.
BBC reporter Ali Hamedani tweeted a video that showed student protesters refusing to walk on a giant American and Israeli flag that were painted on the ground, writing, &#8220;At the height of the Iranian establishment anti Americanism, Tehran Beheshti university’s students refused walking over the US and Israel flag while participating in #IranProtests. They all grew up to hate the two countries but seems like the revolutionary ideology is failed.&#8221;
WATCH:
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At the height of the Iranian establishment anti Americanism, Tehran Beheshti university’s students refused walking over the US and Israel flag while participating in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranProtests?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IranProtests</a> . They all grew up to hate the two countries but seems like the revolutionary ideology is failed. <a href="https://t.co/ABQY3GzWMo">pic.twitter.com/ABQY3GzWMo</a>
&mdash; Ali Hamedani (@BBCHamedani) <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCHamedani/status/1216343386401075200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, tweeted: &#8220;Watch how Iranian students refuse to step on American &amp; the flag of Israel. This should embarrassed Iranian regime &amp; their propaganda funeral for #Soleimani where people were told to chant &#8216;Death To America&#8217;. Now people in Iran chanting &#8216;Death to Islamic Republic dictatorship.'&#8221;
WATCH:
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Watch how Iranian students refuse to step on American &amp; the flag of Israel.
This should embarrassed Iranian regime &amp; their propaganda funeral for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Soleimani?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Soleimani</a> where people were told to chant “Death To America”. Now people in Iran chanting “Death to Islamic Republic dictatorship.” <a href="https://t.co/hTxDuxZeaB">pic.twitter.com/hTxDuxZeaB</a>
&mdash; Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1216340850227150848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) tweeted: &#8220;Students at Beheshti University of Tehran Refuse to Walk Over U.S., Israel Flags, Boo People Who Do&#8221;
WATCH:
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Students at Beheshti University of Tehran Refuse to Walk Over U.S., Israel Flags, Boo People Who Do <a href="https://t.co/hVPMONwwve">pic.twitter.com/hVPMONwwve</a>
&mdash; MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) <a href="https://twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1216358709892407297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Other videos that circulated on social media showed Iranian protesters tearing down posters of Soleimani, who was a terrorist responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers.
WATCH:
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No caption needed <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranProtest2020?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IranProtest2020</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IraniansDetestSolemani?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IraniansDetestSolemani</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/davereaboi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@davereaboi</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DonaldJTrumpJr</a> <a href="https://t.co/fqi0PxmU2u">pic.twitter.com/fqi0PxmU2u</a>
&mdash; Saghar Erica Kasraie (@SagharKasraie) <a href="https://twitter.com/SagharKasraie/status/1216465994639605762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Iran&#39;s people hated Soleimani. They want regime change.
Scene of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IranProtests?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IranProtests</a> in Tabriz tonight. The MEK report protests in Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, Ahvaz, Shadegan, Kermanshah, Sanandaj, Karaj, Sari, Babol, Amol, Semnan, Shahroud, Qazvin, Zanjan, Shiraz, Urmia, Gorgan &amp; Arak. <a href="https://t.co/c1iviS4FDR">pic.twitter.com/c1iviS4FDR</a>
&mdash; M. Hanif Jazayeri (@HanifJazayeri) <a href="https://twitter.com/HanifJazayeri/status/1216450858017349634?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The stunning images out of Iran come after the American mainstream media, figures in Hollywood, and members of the Democratic Party have appeared sympathetic toward the terrorist leader.
Far-left filmmaker Michael Moore wrote on Twitter regarding Soleimani&#8217;s funeral: &#8220;Just wondering – is there an American General for whom millions of us would turn out for his funeral? Mad Dog? Kelly? Colin Powel? William Westmoreland? Can anyone even name the chair of the Joint Chiefs? We all support those who serve but would we pour into the streets like this?&#8221;
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Just wondering &#8211; is there an American General for whom millions of us would turn out for his funeral? Mad Dog? Kelly? Colin Powel? William Westmoreland? Can anyone even name the chair of the Joint Chiefs?We all support those who serve but would we pour into the streets like this? <a href="https://t.co/L1Y5Bb9iys">pic.twitter.com/L1Y5Bb9iys</a>
&mdash; Michael Moore (@MMFlint) <a href="https://twitter.com/MMFlint/status/1214881961564606464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Moore was promoting pro-Iranian propaganda from the Islamic regime, which forced people to attend the funeral service.
Before Soleimani&#8217;s funeral, Alinejad <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/06/dont-believe-iranian-propaganda-about-mourning-soleimani/">wrote</a> in The Washington Post :
<blockquote>But what to make of the crowds of flag-waving mourners streaming across TV screens? Without doubt, Soleimani had support among hard-liners and regime loyalists. The regime is not taking any chances, though. In the city of Ahvaz, where large numbers of people turned out to mourn Soleimani, the government has forced students and officials to attend. It provided free transport and ordered shops to shut down. According to videos sent to me by people inside the country, the authorities are making little kids write essays praising the fallen commander. First-graders who didn’t know how to write were encouraged to cry for Soleimani.
Some Iranians have compared the funeral services for Soleimani to those held for the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, killed by Allied agents during World War II.</blockquote>
Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ocasio-cortez-promotes-pro-iran-propaganda-from-russian-state-media-on-twitter">promoted</a> pro-Iran propaganda on Twitter from Russian state media, which falsely claimed that Iran does not kill civilians, which is a blatant lie as the Islamic regime was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-protests-specialreport-idUSKBN1YR0QR">estimated</a> to have killed 1,500 protesters in November alone.
Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-ilhan-omar-attacks-trump-for-killing-top-iranian-terrorist-promotes-conspiracy-theory">attacked</a> Trump for killing Soleimani, saying that she was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ilhan-omar-im-outraged-trump-killed-iranian-terrorist-who-killed-hundreds-of-americans">&#8220;outraged,&#8221;</a> while far-left Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) falsely claimed that the lawful military strike was an assassination and said America would be <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1215342665300152321">&#8220;a safer place&#8221;</a> if Soleimani was still alive.
Journalist Yashar Ali, whose family is from Iran, noted how leftists suddenly quit caring about what was going on Iran since they can&#8217;t use the protests to attack President Donald Trump now that the demonstrators were protesting on different issues.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve gone through some of the most active and prominent liberal Twitter accounts and none of them mentioned the Iran protests today. These same people were actively tweeting about wanting to avoid war and attacking Trump for his decision. What happened?&#8221; Ali wrote. &#8220;In this context, Iranians are being used by certain people on the left (i didn&#8217;t say all) as a tool to attack President Trump. But these same people don&#8217;t seem to care to to support their right to protest?&#8221;
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10. And that&#39;s why I tweeted this earlier today. In this context, Iranians are being used by certain people on the left (i didn&#39;t say all) as a tool to attack President Trump. But these same people don&#39;t seem to care to to support their right to protest?<a href="https://t.co/M1wLT4Lv3B">https://t.co/M1wLT4Lv3B</a>
&mdash; Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1216252086154776576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;It seems to me the protests were inconvenient for some of these folks today,&#8221; Ali continued. &#8220;They were placing the blame on the Iranian leadership who lied repeatedly about what happened. They weren&#8217;t blaming President Trump&#8230;so it wasn&#8217;t worth it to bring attention to or support them?&#8221;
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11. It seems to me the protests were inconvenient for some of these folks today. They were placing the blame on the Iranian leadership who lied repeatedly about what happened. They weren&#8217;t blaming President Trump&#8230;so it wasn&#8217;t worth it to bring attention to or support them?
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1216252086817452032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
Grabien founder Tom Elliott released a video last week that showed numerous American journalists reporting on Soleimani&#8217;s death by taking a sympathetic tone toward the terrorist.
Perhaps the most egregious example came from CBS’s Holly Williams, who described Soleimani as a “revered figure,” a “war hero,” and “an inspirational military leader.”
WATCH:
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Montage: Media mourn loss of Iranian terror leader <a href="https://t.co/RKrLOcBZqY">pic.twitter.com/RKrLOcBZqY</a>
&mdash; Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1214351300382597120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 7, 2020</a></blockquote>
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WATCH: Iranian Protesters Refuse To Walk On U.S., Israel Flags; Attack Soleimani Posters

Protest

Qasem Soleimani

Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) defended her support of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on Thursday by claiming that it was &#8220;very different&#8221; from the U.S. government sanctioning Iran, which she fiercely opposes.
On Wednesday, Omar <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-ilhan-omar-laughs-while-colleague-talks-about-u-s-casualties-in-iraq/">attacked</a> the Trump administration for announcing new sanctions against Iran, which is the world&#8217;s leading state sponsor of terrorism, in response to Iran&#8217;s missile attack on U.S. forces in Iraq.
“This makes no sense. Sanctions are economic warfare,” Omar tweeted. “They have already caused medical shortages and countless deaths in Iran. You cannot claim to want deescalation and then announce new sanctions with no clear goal. This is not a measured response!”
Later at a press conference Omar doubled-down: “Since he got into office, the president of the United States has been angering Iran into war, first he canceled our best shot at avoiding armed conflict: the Iran nuclear deal. Then he announced crippling sanctions to starve the innocent people of Iran.”
Omar, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ocasio-cortez-omar-tlaib-take-democrats-anti-ryan-saavedra">documented</a> anti-Semite who was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ilhan-omar-named-anti-semite-of-the-year">named</a> 2019&#8217;s &#8216;Anti-Semite Of The Year,&#8217; was slammed by critics who noted her hypocrisy because of her avid support for BDS, which is designed to destroy the state of Israel.
Omar was pressed on the issue on Thursday by a reporter in Washington, D.C., who asked Omar about her blatant hypocrisy.
&#8220;The BDS movement is a movement that is driven by the people,&#8221; Omar said. &#8220;The sanctions on Iran, are sanctions that are being placed to create maximum pressure by a government. That&#8217;s very different.&#8221;
WATCH:
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I asked Rep. Omar what her response is to those calling out her support for BDS against Israel while criticizing sanctions against Iran. She said it&#39;s &quot;very different&quot; bc BDS is by the people, while Iranian sanctions is by a gov to create maximum pressure.<a href="https://t.co/3TVNGFpWy1">https://t.co/3TVNGFpWy1</a> <a href="https://t.co/e2kC3qfllD">pic.twitter.com/e2kC3qfllD</a>
&mdash; Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) <a href="https://twitter.com/Julio_Rosas11/status/1215420550786490368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The blog Legal Insurrection responded to Omar&#8217;s comments by writing, &#8220;BDS activists try to get governments to boycott Israel. So she&#8217;s just a liar, but she remembered her talking points.&#8221;
Critics on Twitter mocked Omar for her failed attempt to explain the difference between BDS and the U.S. government&#8217;s sanctions on Iran.
One Twitter user wrote, &#8220;this makes no sense when you consider she wanted to pass a pro-BDS resolution but sure ok @IlhanMN&#8221;
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this makes no sense when you consider she wanted to pass a pro-BDS resolution but sure ok <a href="https://twitter.com/IlhanMN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IlhanMN</a> <a href="https://t.co/riX5orHFXq">https://t.co/riX5orHFXq</a>
&mdash; Ashley ✡️ (@ashleyblair21) <a href="https://twitter.com/ashleyblair21/status/1215428923472928768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Another popular account on Twitter wrote, &#8220;Lmfao&#8230; she’s a f***ing moron To be fair, all antisemtic garbage are f***ing morons.&#8221;
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Lmfao&#8230; she’s a fucking moron 
To be fair, all antisemtic garbage are fucking morons <a href="https://t.co/GQV8ChW2Oo">https://t.co/GQV8ChW2Oo</a>
&mdash; Jay Malak (@KobbeMalak) <a href="https://twitter.com/KobbeMalak/status/1215421689355309056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Congressional Leadership Fund Rapid Response Director Matthew Foldi wrote: &#8220;By &#8216;very different,&#8217; @IlhanMN is referring to the fact that BDS is a bunch of racist anti-Semites whereas government sanctions have nothing to do with bigotry.&#8221;
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By “very different,” <a href="https://twitter.com/IlhanMN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IlhanMN</a> is referring to the fact that BDS is a bunch of racist anti-Semites whereas government sanctions have nothing to do with bigotry <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MN05?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MN05</a> <a href="https://t.co/rlSh430ee4">https://t.co/rlSh430ee4</a>
&mdash; Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1215433076437811200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Seattle based radio host Jason Rantz wrote: &#8220;Actual difference: BDS targets Jews and Ilhan Omar is a vicious anti-Semite.&#8221;
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Actual difference: BDS targets Jews and Ilhan Omar is a vicious anti-Semite. <a href="https://t.co/x8MayGhhaK">https://t.co/x8MayGhhaK</a>
&mdash; (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonrantz/status/1215437678742659072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Last week, Omar attacked President Donald Trump for ordering the drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, which is a designated terrorist organization.
Omar <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-ilhan-omar-attacks-trump-for-killing-top-iranian-terrorist-promotes-conspiracy-theory">suggested</a>, without evidence, that Trump may have launched the strike to distract from his Senate impeachment trial — a conspiracy theory that was quickly debunked as Trump has repeatedly called attention to the Senate trial by tweeting about it.
The next day Omar <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ilhan-omar-im-outraged-trump-killed-iranian-terrorist-who-killed-hundreds-of-americans">said</a> that she was &#8220;outraged&#8221; by the strike that killed Soleimani, who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans.
Omar later <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tlaib-attacks-trump-after-killing-of-iranian-terrorist-omar-solicits-donations-attacking-trump-on-iran">solicited</a> donations off of her attacks on the president for going after Iran.

Ilhan Omar

‘She’s A F***ing Moron’: Omar Tries To Explain Difference Between BDS, Iran Sanctions

Perhaps the greatest misconception involving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that, while the Palestinians may be more morally wrong, it is Israel who must do more to usher in peace. Truth is, nothing Israel offers will suffice, because Palestinian leadership has never wanted peace — nor even a two-state solution. It’s time the world acknowledges the true motives of Palestinian leadership: Either a “Judenrein Palestine” (a Jew-free Palestine) or sustained conflict that inspires the foreign aid that enriches the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) coffers.
For the entirety of its existence, Palestinian-Arab leadership has championed anti-Semitism and violence — antitheses to peace. Cue Hajj Amin al-Husseini, an infamous <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-Grand-Muftis-Nazi-connection-347823">Nazi collaborator</a> and the first to spearhead Palestinian-Arab nationalism. As the grand mufti of Jerusalem, al-Husseini stopped at no cost to undermine Britain’s control over Mandatory Palestine. Al-Husseini allied with the Nazis and even <a href="https://timeline.com/nazis-muslim-extremists-ss-6824aee281d2">recruited</a> for the SS. He <a href="https://youtu.be/WghqmG4sn_A?t=1973">saluted</a> Hitler, had a “<a href="https://youtu.be/WghqmG4sn_A?t=2060">close relationship</a>” with SS Chief Heinrich Himmler — who masterminded the Holocaust, and <a href="https://timeline.com/nazis-muslim-extremists-ss-6824aee281d2">proclaimed</a>, “kill the Jews wherever you find them.” According to <a href="https://youtu.be/WghqmG4sn_A?t=2400">Professor</a> Gilbert Archcar, al-Husseini even reached out to European leaders and “advocat[ed] that the Jews be sent to concentration camps instead of … Palestine.” Al-Husseini was complicit in Jewish genocide — and he championed those perpetrating it.
Yasser Arafat echoed support for al-Husseini and his agenda. Arafat <a href="https://youtu.be/WghqmG4sn_A?t=2902">regarded</a> al-Husseini as a “hero,” and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Arafat-is-not-a-hero-463150">observed</a>: “We plan to eliminate … Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews …” Arafat also <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2004/11/11/the-father-of-modern-terrorism-the-true-legacy-of-yasser-arafat/">chaired</a> the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). An organization whose “single purpose” was <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2004/11/11/the-father-of-modern-terrorism-the-true-legacy-of-yasser-arafat/">Israel’s destruction</a>, the PLO has <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/palestine-liberation-organization-plo">killed</a> “thousands of civilians.”
Mahmoud Abbas, the current president of the PA, has continued his predecessors’ anti-Semitism and jihadism. He has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-blood-of-martyrs-spilled-on-temple-mount-is-pure/">referred</a> to Jews as “dirty,” and has incited murder, exclaiming, “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-blood-of-martyrs-spilled-on-temple-mount-is-pure/">Every</a> drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every [martyr] will reach paradise.” And in 2018, the PA under Abbas directed <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/think-tank-terrorists-to-be-paid-as-pa-allots-nis-1-2b-for-inmates-martyrs/">$330 million</a> to the PA Martyrs Fund, which sponsors stipends to terrorists and their families. Abbas&#8217;s anti-Semitism also includes Holocaust denial, the very <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/palestinian-leader-abbas-apologizes-speech-condemned-anti-semitic-n871336">focus</a> of his dissertation: The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism And Zionist Movement. Abbas has also <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/palestinian-leader-abbas-apologizes-speech-condemned-anti-semitic-n871336">blamed</a> “hatred against Jews” as a result of “their social profession.” He is undeniably anti-Semitic.
Other political influences deserving mention are Hamas and Marwan Barghouti. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">Hamas</a>, which governs Gaza, is a terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction. Hamas won the last Palestinian elections in 2006, and in late 2018, was regarded as the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-shows-hamas-leader-would-defeat-abbas-to-win-palestinian-elections/">favorite</a> to win the next elections. Further, Hamas has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-shows-hamas-leader-would-defeat-abbas-to-win-palestinian-elections/">fought</a> three wars with Israel since 2008, and has fired <a href="https://www.aipac.org/-/media/publications/policy-and-politics/aipac-analyses/one-pagers/mountingthreatstoisraelhamas.pdf">17,000</a> rockets in that span. And <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Is-Marwan-Barghouti-planning-to-run-for-PA-president-612370">polling</a> suggests that Marwan Barghouti, <a href="https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Issues/Pages/On-Marwan-Barghouti-s-murder-record,-political-maneuvering-and-exploitation.aspx">founder</a> of the militant al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and convicted murderer of <a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/palestine/marwan-barghouti.htm">26</a> people, would win the next Palestinian election if selected as the candidate for Fatah — Abbas&#8217; party.
Hence, anti-Semitism and violence have corrupted Palestinian leadership. Peace is the last thing it wants, the first being Israel&#8217;s destruction and a Judenrein state — which is why PA law allows the <a href="https://apnews.com/b3d04486484046a388b30356a92ff6fb">death penalty</a> to be imposed upon Palestinians who sell land to Jews. But if the PA cannot achieve Judenrein, it will settle for sustained conflict, which inspires the foreign aid that enriches the PA and allows it to expand its power.
Sadly, Israel has demonstrated more commitment to a Palestinian state than has Palestinian leadership itself. Since 2000, Israel has <a href="https://journals.indexcopernicus.com/api/file/viewByFileId/405763.pdf">proposed</a> or accepted four land-for-peace <a href="https://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/pressroom/2002/pages/response%20of%20fm%20peres%20to%20the%20decisions%20of%20the%20arab.aspx">proposals</a> that would have created an independent Palestinian state. The PA has refused all proposals, despite one being so <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/bill-clinton-defends-his-and-hillarys-israel-record-spars-with-heckler-over-gaza/">generous</a> as to include all of Gaza, East Jerusalem, and 97% of Judea and Samaria. Palestinian self-sabotages at achieving statehood have been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-vox-lies-about-israel-again">so in vain</a> that Bill Clinton once <a href="https://www.jpost.com/US-Elections/Bill-Clinton-I-almost-killed-myself-trying-to-give-Palestinians-a-state-453947">lamented</a>, “I killed myself trying to give Palestinians a state.”
The PA&#8217;s motive, instead of statehood, is corruption — which “thrives” as conflict exists. Conflict fuels international attention and the foreign aid that the PA has exploited to line its pockets and fortify its bureaucracy. In 2015, it was reported that the PA had received <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6353/palestinians-us-aid">$25 billion</a> in foreign aid since 1994. Yet <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6353/palestinians-us-aid">Palestinians</a> “saw no improvement in their living conditions.” This sum should startle: Palestinian foreign aid, when assessed on a per capita basis, exceeds that designated for the Marshall Plan by <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3979/unrwa-dilemma">25 times</a>. Unlike the Marshall Plan, which propelled Europe’s reconstruction in <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-palestinians-lost-marshall-plans">four</a> years, the “<a href="https://journals.indexcopernicus.com/api/file/viewByFileId/405763.pdf">Palestinian Project</a>” has now lasted over a quarter of a century without any end in sight.
So where has the money gone? Corruption. Arafat amassed <a href="https://nypost.com/2002/08/14/hes-billion-dollar-arafat-got-rich-on-aid-for-palestinians-israel-general-says/">$10+ billion</a>, “[t]he main source” of which was “the approximately $6 billion contributed … as financial aid.” Further, Arafat’s financial advisor accumulated <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3066/how-much-is-mahmoud-abbas-worth">$500+</a> million, having had access to “hundreds of millions of [the PA’s] dollars.” Abbas also amassed approximately $<a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3066/how-much-is-mahmoud-abbas-worth">100 million</a>, despite being a career politician, and his two sons are millionaires who <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-palestinians-aid-abbas-exclusive-sb/firms-run-by-president-abbass-sons-get-u-s-contracts-idUKTRE53L2R020090422">operate</a> foreign aid contracting businesses. The PA suffers from systemic venality.
Palestinian-Arab leadership has long realized that conflict must exist for it to receive aid. Thus, in 2018, it distributed $<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/think-tank-terrorists-to-be-paid-as-pa-allots-nis-1-2b-for-inmates-martyrs/">330 million</a> worth of stipends to thousands of terrorists and their families, thereby inspiring future generations of terror. PA leadership also realizes that its power remains dependent on keeping the Palestinian people dependent on its reign. Hence, in <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/324951520906690830/text/124205-WP-PUBLIC-MAR14-5PM-March-2018-AHLC-Report.txt">2016</a>, “[m]ore than half” of the PA’s spending on Gaza was “spent on wages to PA employees.” Further, between 1999 and 2007, the <a href="https://www.meforum.org/1926/does-foreign-aid-fuel-palestinian-violence/#_ftn16">PA</a> recruited 70,000 new government officials, while spending 70% of the Paris Conference foreign aid package on government salaries in 2008, and 58% of its entire foreign aid for 2001 on PA salaries. Through inciting violence and dependency culture, the PA exploits conflict to preserve its power and wealth.
In sum, Palestinian leadership has long been disingenuous. It wants not peace, but either a &#8220;Judenrein Palestine&#8221; or a conflict that will enable its corruption, power, and raison d’etre. If the world really wants a solution, it must stop blaming Israel, which has actually tried to establish a Palestinian state, and condemn the true motives of Palestinian leadership.
&nbsp;
Jordan Cope is currently a law student at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also completed his undergraduate degree. Having graduated with a B.A. in international relations, Jordan also minored in Middle Eastern studies and can speak Arabic and Hebrew. He has also published research on the security implications of Palestinian foreign aid. He can be followed <a href="https://twitter.com/JordanCope12">@JordanCope12</a>.

Yasser Arafat

COPE: The True Motives Of Palestinian Leadership, Corruption, And Ethnic Cleansing

Twenty-five thousand people marched in New York City on Sunday under the banner “<a href="https://forward.com/news/437752/photos-from-new-yorks-no-fear-no-hate-solidarity-march/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://forward.com/news/437752/photos-from-new-yorks-no-fear-no-hate-solidarity-march/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEdxXniI836EDbYLXaD_1sLKEoQig">No Hate, No Fear</a>,” ostensibly targeting anti-Semitic violence directed at recognizably-Orthodox Jews. Only two things were missing: Printed signs with the words “anti-Semitism” or “Jews,” and more than a smattering of recognizably-Orthodox Jews.
The two phenomena are related.
Hateful violence emerges from a hateful ideology. The march was not merely useless, but from my perspective it was actually counterproductive; it provided cover for those spreading bigotry to proclaim, “look, we love Jews!”
In reality, it is not difficult to understand why attacks are happening at an alarming rate. Classic anti-Semitism is not merely spreading on college campuses across the nation, but is even welcomed in the halls of Congress.
The classic beliefs of the anti-Semite are simple: That the Jews constitute a supremacist cult who believe themselves entitled to take advantage of others, and most commonly do so by theft, fraud, and deceit. In 3,300 years of Jew-hatred, there hasn’t been an anti-Jewish trope that didn’t trace its roots to this basic idea.
Mark Twain noted, while reporting on Austro-Hungarian battles in the 19th century, that the Jews were opposed by all sides — even though they largely tried to avoid the conflict and keep their heads down. It is no different today.
To white supremacists, the Jews are “International Enemy Number One.” Neo-Nazi website Stormfront.com has a discussion thread entitled “Jews are dangerous,” which since March 2016 has garnered over 715 pages of hate.
Yet anti-white racists tar Jews with “white privilege”; the fact that Jews obviously suffered at the hands of European whites more than any other people escapes them. They include even Jews expelled from Syria, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere across the Middle East; they are still claimed to have “white privilege,” while those who drove them out, who have identical skin tones, are “people of color.” It is pure racism.
And by far the most popular current form of this bigotry is the modern invention of a purportedly unique &#8220;Palestinian&#8221; people, from whom we are told the Jews have ostensibly stolen land.
The proofs are legion. Until 1964, “Palestinians” actually referred to Jews living in British Mandatory Palestine. In 1922, the British divided modern-day Jordan from the rest of Mandatory Palestine, and even current Palestinian Authority chieftain Mahmoud Abbas says that Jordanians and Palestinians are “one people living in two states” — putting the lie to the notion of a homeless Palestinian.
Every indigenous people has its own name, such as the Apache, Pueblo, and Iroquois. They do not call themselves by the foreign term “Native Americans” — nor, of course, do they claim that the borders of particular U.S. states delineate their homelands. Yet the “Palestinians” appropriate their name from Roman imperialists, and have a homeland which, just coincidentally of course, precisely traces the borders of modern Israel.
And in case you still don’t get it, a “Palestinian” is anyone — <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/12/palestinian-relations-israel-druze-community-army.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/12/palestinian-relations-israel-druze-community-army.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEPKoy7m3b6gdWycicgEQSG0x-jdA">Druze</a>, <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/resources/special-focus/palestinian-bedouins" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.palestine-studies.org/resources/special-focus/palestinian-bedouins&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGivEiX4mLiUyA5ocNKQqaslGowFw">Bedouin</a>, Muslim, or <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/31/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestinian-christians-that-nobody-is-talking-about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/31/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestinian-christians-that-nobody-is-talking-about/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFEaXtRYS9FlIAN42-hnt0z0kzHgQ">Christian</a> — whose family ever lived in the ancient Jewish homeland. Rather, the &#8220;Palestinians&#8221; are defined by what they are not: The Jews who constituted the majority of Jerusalem’s populace prior to the advent of modern Zionism, and who never left the so-called “occupied” territories except due to deliberate ethnic cleansing — such as that conducted by Arab mobs in both 1929 and 1948.
Notice that these hateful tropes precisely correspond to what reporters heard on the streets of Jersey City and Brooklyn when they interviewed other residents after the hateful attacks there. Residents spoke about Jews unfairly buying them out, not renting to them, and driving them away. These lies are all rooted in the same animus as is the popular modern “Palestinian” narrative — which, in reality, is indeed far older than even Roman Palestine.
It is not mere happenstance that the machete-wielding thug who attacked people at a Chanukah celebration searched online not only for “Hitler” but for “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/nyregion/jewish-attacks.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/nyregion/jewish-attacks.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEkU392rry2GSMNaWT0let4P20pAg">Zionist Temples</a>” before attacking largely non-Zionist Hasidic Jews in suburban New York. Again, hateful violence emerges from a hateful ideology.
This hate will not be resolved by marching alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who, by her own admission, knows <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TJK1a8OHyw" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D4TJK1a8OHyw&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGDYPykbd-Strnhxd-vSk0bZpicTw">nothing about the Middle East</a> except that the Jews are (surprise, surprise) &#8220;stealing land&#8221; (in &#8220;Palestine&#8221;) and being unfair to others. It will not be fixed by the bigots of <a href="https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/2020-platform" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/2020-platform&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFjBpsnMOCNuBxgGntQEii02LkRrQ">IfNotNow</a>, who claim that Jewish refugees of Arab ethnic cleansing are “occupying” Arab land in the eternal homeland of the Jews.
It will be helped if universities finally acknowledge that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a hate group that <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/03/22/nyc-students-for-justice-in-palestine-pay-social-media-tribute-to-martyrs-killed-while-carrying-out-terrorist-attacks-against-israelis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/03/22/nyc-students-for-justice-in-palestine-pay-social-media-tribute-to-martyrs-killed-while-carrying-out-terrorist-attacks-against-israelis/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFmzgJzxBwGkw4Fso1d-wD6_CdnQw">honors almost exclusively</a> those who have committed <a href="https://dailynorthwestern.com/2017/05/16/campus/organizer-rasmea-odeh-speaks-at-northwestern-for-sjps-israeli-apartheid-week/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://dailynorthwestern.com/2017/05/16/campus/organizer-rasmea-odeh-speaks-at-northwestern-for-sjps-israeli-apartheid-week/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFn9UlTllaQBsAL2sPZ4P_oN_qREg">murderous, barbaric acts</a> against Jews both <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/far-left-students-praise-palestinian-terrorist-group-leader-at-liberation-event" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.foxnews.com/us/far-left-students-praise-palestinian-terrorist-group-leader-at-liberation-event&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHuZnEtXpCSJTWQAetp1M2T5YFTiA">in and outside Israel</a>. Today, the same universities that would deny funding to a KKK chapter sickeningly honor SJP as a <a href="https://nyunews.com/news/2019/04/10/president-service-award-palestine-israel-divest" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://nyunews.com/news/2019/04/10/president-service-award-palestine-israel-divest&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGphZ56j8cr7z3aNOiAvbmLKRKuSg">“human rights” cause</a>.
And it will be helped when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recognizes that an outstanding anti-Semitic bigot like Rep. <a href="https://www.stopantisemitism.org/anti-semite-of-the-week" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.stopantisemitism.org/anti-semite-of-the-week&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593602493000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFDAjYGdrBCwxgWCk9QIP5VbnWxHA">Ilhan Omar</a> (D-MN) does not belong on the Foreign Affairs Committee — or, indeed, anywhere else in Congress.
Until this hatred is repudiated, these attacks will not stop — yet on the progressive Left, this hateful ideology is supported, while it is the opposition that is censored. Those infected with this mindset cannot be part of the solution, as they are themselves part of the problem.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the managing director of the <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593164733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHLN2_sFEnPCsMZZCT1wIePVktmOg">Coalition for Jewish Values</a>, and co-editor of the Orthodox Jewish journal <a href="https://cross-currents.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://cross-currents.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1578593164733000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHDWEFT_osCyA6CYu82vPnKoRactA">Cross-Currents.com</a>. Opinions are his own.

New York City Jewish Solidarity March

MENKEN: To Stop Hateful Attacks On Jews, Oppose The Ideology Behind Them

New York City

Students for Justice in Palestine

Zionism

Iran&#8217;s leaders announced late Sunday that the country will no longer abide by the 2015 nuclear deal it inked with the Obama Administration after a strategic airstrike in Baghdad killed the head of its violent Quds Force,  Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The rogue nation, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-nuclear-deal-limits-abandoned-soleimani-airstrike">Fox News reports</a>, told European officials that it remains open to negotiating with the European Union and other nations, but will abandon several &#8220;key provisions&#8221; of the agreement that limit how much uranium Iran is allowed to stockpile as it pursues nuclear weapons.
“The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has in a statement announced its fifth and final step in reducing Iran’s commitments under the JCPOA,” Iranian state-run television reported Sunday night, using the official acronym for the 2015 agreement. “The Islamic Republic of Iran no longer faces any limitations in operations.”
&#8220;Iran&#8217;s state TV cited a statement by President Hassan Rouhani&#8217;s administration saying the country will not observe limitations on its enrichment, the amount of stockpiled enriched uranium as well as research and development in its nuclear activities,&#8221; according to Fox News.
In a contemporaneous missive, Iranian officials again threatened retaliatory action for Soleimani&#8217;s death, suggesting that the country plans to attack U.S. troops stationed abroad, but, this time, adding that it believes Israel and Israeli interest are also fair targets.
Although Iran&#8217;s departure from the nuclear deal was treated as a major development by most mainstream news organizations, it has never been clear that Iran was abiding by the limitations placed on it by the Obama Administration, or that Iran had abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons following the 2015 meetings. At best, it seems, Iran considered its nuclear ambitions delayed and the provisions ordering the shutdown of Iran&#8217;s nuclear centrifuges and uranium enrichment operation mere suggestions.
The United States, under President Donald Trump, withdrew from the 2015 Iran deal back in 2018, citing a number of violations on the part of Iran&#8217;s leadership, even though the IAEA, which monitors rogue nations&#8217; development, storage, and use of &#8220;weapons of mass destruction&#8221; disagreed with the Trump Administration&#8217;s assessment of Iran&#8217;s nuclear capabilities.
As if to prove Trump right, just one year later, Iran&#8217;s leadership withdrew from several key provisions of the 2015 deal, announcing in June of 2019 that the country planned to increase the amount of enriched uranium it had on hand in spite of the deal&#8217;s limitations.
“We will go further from that ceiling, not only that but we will also increase production drastically. After we pass the limit of 300 kg, the pace and the speed of enriched uranium production at the lower rate will also increase,” the head of Iran&#8217;s Atomic Energy Organization <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/6/17/18681752/iran-nuclear-deal-uranium-trump">said last year</a>.
Iran then said European nations could forestall the development if they gave Iran access to global markets and allowed it to trade. European nations, of course, said no.
Since then, it&#8217;s been unclear how determined Iran was at abiding by any of the agreement&#8217;s limitations.
On Sunday, Iranian officials simply jettisoned the agreement altogether, making those questions moot. Several members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were also clear, Sunday, that the universe of Iran&#8217;s potential targets has expanded to include Israel, whom the Iranians blame for obtaining and leaking information about Soleimani&#8217;s whereabouts.
&#8220;Rest assured we will level to the ground Haifa and Israeli centers so that Israel will be wiped out,&#8221; the leader of Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guard said in an address to mourners gathered in Tehran Sunday evening. &#8220;The issue is very serious for the Iranian nation. You hit us and you should get hit. You attacked us and it is the Iranian nation&#8217;s right.&#8221;

IRAN-POLITICS-NUCLEAR

Iran Announces That It&#8217;s Done With 2015 Nuclear Deal After Baghdad Airstrike

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Nuclear Weapons

Eight months ago, following the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/opinion/rabbi-chabad-poway-antisemitism.html">lethal shooting</a> at the Chabad of Poway, California, I called for American Jews to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-jews-simply-must-arm-themselves-now-josh-hammer">immediately arm themselves</a> en masse.
After the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-man-accused-of-anti-semitic-mass-stabbing-attack-may-be-connected-to-another-anti-semitic-attack-report-says">horrific events</a> of this past weekend, it is now time to renew — and to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/remer-its-time-for-jews-to-take-up-arms">amplify</a> — that call.
It is no secret that non-<a href="http://www.amimagazine.org/2019/12/19/trumps-support-among-orthodox-jews-is-at-89-percent-poll-2/">Orthodox</a> American Jews tend to disproportionately support the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">Democratic Party</a>. There are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5IqH7oJ9h4">numerous reasons for this</a>, with the bastardization of Torah-true Judaism into <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Heal-World-Corrupts-Judaism-Endangers/dp/1250160871">&#8220;tikkun olam&#8221;</a>-inspired social justice claptrap chief among them. Accordingly, American Jews — who also disproportionately live in geographically tight-knit urban or suburban areas — tend to be among the least-armed members of the American polity. A 2005 American Jewish Committee <a href="https://www.jewishdatabank.org/content/upload/bjdb/617/AJC_JewishDistinctivenessAmerica_TS_April2005.pdf">study</a> revealed that just 13% of Jewish homes reported owning a gun — less than one-third of the percentage of non-Jewish homeowners.
Contemporary American Jewish disdain — perhaps outright hostility — to gun rights is deeply ahistorical, as Second Amendment activist Yehuda Remer explained earlier today <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/remer-its-time-for-jews-to-take-up-arms">here at The Daily Wire</a>. As Yehuda wrote, &#8220;Jews have a long and storied history of being fierce warriors — not vulnerable sheep.&#8221; The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-lesson-of-chanukah-is-deeply-relevant-in-2019-heres-why">story of Chanukah</a>, a holiday that ends this evening, certainly comes to mind. Ditto the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/10/the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-armed-jews-vs-nazis/">Warsaw Ghetto Uprising</a>. There are a myriad other examples.
But history lessons aside, the collective lack of American Jewish intimacy with firearms is also a moral travesty. And it is a travesty that simply <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/experts-suggest-6-firearms-that-will-fit-in-your-tallit-bag/2019/12/30/">must be remedied</a>.
A Jew who is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/here-what-you-need-know-about-ar-15-toting-josh-hammer">trained, armed, and proficient</a> in the use of firearms is necessarily a Jew who the anti-Semites fear the most — which makes this Jew the very best kind of Jew. This is a Jew who is ready, willing, and able, if need be, to heed the <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.72a.4">Talmudic principle</a> that one must rise to take the life of someone who is trying to take his/her own life. This is a Jew who, while praying in shul, is trained and prepared to act like the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/texas-church-hero-delivers-powerful-message-owned-gun-range-appears-to-be-nra-supporter-report-says">Texan heroes of West Freeway Church of Christ</a>. This is a Jew who is physically capable and emotionally prepared to take down an active shooter, if need be.
It is the Jew who fought back against the SS shepherding Jews to their deaths via cattle car. It is the fighting Jew — the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-lesson-of-chanukah-is-deeply-relevant-in-2019-heres-why">Maccabean Jew</a>.
I live in Texas, and it is hardly the least bit unusual for Jews here to pack heat while attending synagogue or attending any other kind of Jewish-themed event. But the reality is that even for Jews who live in blue state jurisdictions with heavy gun regulations, it is oftentimes still possible to secure a coveted concealed carry permit — or at least purchase a weapon to secure home and hearth. I personally know people who obtained carry permits while living in Chicago. Legally purchasing a firearm in Rockland County, New York, home to the recently besieged Monsey, also does not appear to be <a href="https://twitter.com/beyondreasdoubt/status/1211152659153117184">too terribly burdensome</a>.
It is wholly appropriate for us to demand concrete action, and not mere grandstanding, from <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/29/how-liberals-are-allowing-anti-semitism-to-flourish/">those politicians</a> who have allowed this despicable resurgence of the world&#8217;s oldest bigotry to fester under their watch. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio should both be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for their tepid responses, to-date, for what is rapidly metastasizing into a full-blown epidemic.
But ultimately, the imperative is on each individual Jew to be the guardian of his/her own security. Why on Earth would Jews, the most systemically persecuted group of humans to have ever lived, delegate responsibility for their own lives to third-party actors?
As I wrote back in April: &#8220;Jews, who for millennia have been demographic minorities in every land except for the modern State of Israel itself, ought to be uniquely willing and eager to take advantage of the protections secured by the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment">Second Amendment</a> of the U.S. Constitution. &#8230; Jews who were properly armed instead of forced to live at the behest of gun-grabbing tyrannical oppressors could have better resisted any number of pogroms and atrocities committed throughout history.&#8221;
Do not be a Hellenized Jew; be a Maccabee. Do not be a sheep; be a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar1WygVl_Vg">sheepdog</a>. Do not be a victim; be a hero.
Arm and train yourselves. Now.

concealed carry handgun

HAMMER: An Armed And Trained Jew Is The Best Kind Of Jew

Gun Control

Gun Laws

Guns

Second Amendment

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in America: Shootings, stabbings, swastikas painted on buildings and sidewalks, and a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">Democratic Party that condones anti-Semitic views</a> constitute the new normal in what was once an incredibly safe country for Jews.
Two weeks ago, there was a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jersey-city-shootout-assailants-kill-police-officer-3-orthodox-jews">targeted shooting in New Jersey</a>, which claimed the lives of two Jews. This week, a man walked into a Chanukah party in Monsey, New York and stabbed numerous Jews. Attacks, especially in the Tri-State area, are happening in what <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/29/how-liberals-are-allowing-anti-semitism-to-flourish/">seems like a daily occurrence</a>.
However, it’s apparent that far too many American Jews are merely waiting for the wolves to strike.
Unfortunately, many American Jews believe that anti-Semitic attacks will not — simply CANNOT — happen to them. They don’t believe a murderous gunman will enter their synagogue. They don&#8217;t expect to be stabbed or beaten on the streets. They don’t expect it — but it’s happening with increasing frequency.
So, I ask this question to the Jews of America who think this way: When did we become sheep? What happened to our David versus Goliath mentality?
Jews have a history of being fierce warriors and not backing down from a fight. Here are some biblical examples:
<ul>
<li>Abraham battled four kingdoms and was victorious.</li>
<li>The Jews fought the Amalakites and were victorious.</li>
<li>The campaigns of Joshua.</li>
</ul>
You don’t like the biblical ones? Here are some more modern-day Jewish heroes.
<ul>
<li>Mordechai Anielewicz (leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising).</li>
<li>Abba Kovner (leader of the Vilna Partisans).</li>
<li>Eli Cohen (Mossad spy).</li>
<li>Mickey Marcus (American colonel who helped win the 1948 war for Israel&#8217;s independence).</li>
</ul>
There are numerous examples of Jews standing up to adversity and not being afraid of a fight. Jews have a long and storied history of being fierce warriors — not vulnerable sheep.
Jews around the world just finished celebrating Chanukah, which is not merely a holiday about presents, oil, dreidels, and latkes. Chanukah, fundamentally, is a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-lesson-of-chanukah-is-deeply-relevant-in-2019-heres-why">holiday about liberty</a>. It’s a celebration of a band of freedom fighters who won back our religious freedoms from a larger and highly trained military. This holiday is celebrated because Jews took up arms, fought for their Jewish identity, and won.
In other words, we defeated the anti-Semitism of the Seleucid Empire.
It is well past time for modern-day Jews to follow in the footsteps of their forebears and take up arms. Jews need to fall in line, not to the gas chambers, but under the banner that reads “Second Amendment supporters.” It is time to embrace and take advantage of the right enshrined in the Second Amendment. Purchasing a firearm, learning to use it, and training with it will help ensure you and your family or community are safe.
Don’t rely on the police or government to protect you. Don’t rely on the security guard standing in front of your synagogue. Be your own guardian.
Let’s take it one step further with what may sound controversial to some: STOP RELYING SOLELY ON PRAYER!
There is a famous latin phrase that reads, “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, prepare for war.
How did Jacob prepare for his encounter with his brother, Esau?
He sent gifts and prayed. He also prepared for war.
Jacob split his family into two different camps in order to spare one if Esau were to attack. What can we learn from this? You must put in the hard work and find the appropriate balance between personal effort and trust in God!
I’m a Jew who carries a firearm. I write about guns for a living. I know many Jews from all walks of life who hate firearms and believe that guns have no place in society.
But how is exercising my Second Amendment right to help ensure my family&#8217;s safety any different than what Jacob did?
The answer is that there is no difference.
When Goliath threatened the Jews, a young David took up arms. David explained to King Saul that as a shepherd, God delivered him from the “paw of a lion and the paw of a bear”; and now, God will deliver him from Goliath. Although David prayed to God for deliverance, he also prepared for battle.
It says in <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15846/jewish/Chapter-17.htm">I Samuel 17:40</a>: “And he took his staff in his hand, and he chose for himself five smooth pebbles from the brook, and he placed them in the shepherds&#8217; bag which he had, and in the sack, and his slingshot was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.”
Good conquered Evil.
Another example is seen in<a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15861/jewish/Chapter-1.htm"> II Samuel 1:18</a>, after the death of Saul. David laments, “And he said to teach the sons of Judah the bow. Behold it is written in the book of the just.”
David understood that with Saul gone, the Jews would need to learn how to fight if they were to survive.
We can’t rely solely on prayer to ensure our safety. Don’t take that to mean that I don’t believe in prayer. On the contrary, prayer isn’t only important, but is integral to survival. We must pray constantly that we be delivered from evil.
But God gave us the natural right to self-defense that is constitutionally enshrined in the Second Amendment. It’s time for Jews to embrace it.
Get a firearm and learn how to use it.
There is a very famous phrase that states, “God made man, but Samuel Colt made them equal.” Firearms are equalizers. I understand that many Jews are afraid of firearms and don’t want them around. But it’s time that you educate yourself. Lastly, it’s time to stop believing that it can’t happen to you; it can happen in your synagogue, on the streets, or in your local market.
Arm yourself. Train. Become proficient. Survive.
“Never Again” means nothing if you are not willing to do something about it.
&nbsp;
<a href="http://yehudaremer.com/">Yehuda Remer</a> is an author of numerous children’s books on Second Amendment education and the founder of <a href="http://thepewpewjew.com/">The Pew Pew Jew</a> Brand.  You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/thepewpewjew">@thepewpewjew</a>.

praying at Western Wall

REMER: It&#8217;s Time For Jews To Take Up Arms

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is a constitutional attorney by training, has the following op-ed today at the <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/29/the-icc-has-some-nerve-to-target-israel/">New York Post</a>.
Among the institutions of the so-called international community, anti-Israel bias is so prevalent and obvious, it’s taken for granted and almost funny. The year-end statistics from the U.N. General Assembly tell nearly the whole story: Of the 25 condemnatory resolutions passed this year, 18 targeted the world’s sole Jewish state.
As I said, almost funny.
But now a more serious threat looms. The United Nations, for all its institutionalized anti-Semitism, remains a toothless body. Not so the Hague-based International Criminal Court, whose judgments can make life miserable for Israeli leaders and soldiers, rendering them vulnerable to arrest abroad.
On Dec. 20, Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian who has served as the ICC’s chief prosecutor since 2012, announced her intention to formally investigate the “situation in Palestine” and alleged Israeli war crimes that “have been or are being committed there.”
Bensouda served as a prosecutor and later justice minister under Gambia’s iron-fisted former dictator Yahya Jammeh. Speaking ­before a Gambian truth-and-reconciliation commission, one dissident accused her of “masterminding” the torture he suffered. (Bensouda has denied knowledge of this torture.)
No wonder she is bent on making a scapegoat of Jews. Specifically, she wants to probe Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip during the last full-scale war against Hamas, in 2014. She also plans to investigate the Jewish state’s response to Hamas’ attempt last year to infiltrate the border fence that separates Israel from the terrorist-run territory.
Bensouda’s prosecution is utterly lawless. As a political matter, the West must push back against this encroachment on the sovereignty of a democratic nation-state.
For starters, the ICC is structurally biased against Israel. As international-law expert Eugene Kontorovich noted when the Palestinian Authority sought formal ICC membership in 2015, the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, included language at the behest of the Arab states specifically designed to ­demonize Israeli “settlement” activity in the West Bank.
That should have given away the ICC game. But even under the ICC’s own terms, Bensouda’s attempted prosecution doesn’t pass muster. It lacks jurisdiction.
Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can go ahead with a prosecution in a country only if the state has delegated jurisdiction to the ­international court. But which state could delegate jurisdiction to the ICC in the case of the Palestinian territories? Certainly not the fictional “State of Palestine,” which even the United Nations doesn’t formally recognize as a state.
Plus, if Israel is a nefarious “occupier” of Palestine, as Palestinian propaganda constantly claims, then it means that the “State of Palestine” isn’t sovereign over its own claimed territory and therefore can’t delegate jurisdiction to the ICC.
An ICC prosecution, moreover, would flout the Oslo Accords, which call for direct negotiations between the parties to reach a final political settlement and under which Israel ­retains full civil and military control over the majority of the West Bank territory
<a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/29/the-icc-has-some-nerve-to-target-israel/">Read the rest of the piece here.</a>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-vox-lies-about-israel-again">Vox Lies About Israel. AGAIN.</a>

Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal

Hammer At The ‘New York Post’: The ICC Has Some Nerve To Target Israel

Africa

human rights

Judiciary

Lawsuit

The oh-so-very conscientious Middle East historians at Vox, who once landed themselves in hot water barely three months after website launch with the <a href="https://freebeacon.com/blog/in-praise-of-vox-media-max-fisher-and-zack-beauchamp/">dissemination of laughable fake news</a> about a purported <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2014/07/17/voxs-motto-should-be-explaining-the-news-incorrectly-repeatedly/">land bridge</a> connecting the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">Hamas</a>-controlled Gaza Strip with the biblical Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria (i.e., the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-yes-palestinian-state-far-more-dangerous-josh-hammer">&#8220;West Bank&#8221;</a>), are apparently <a href="https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2019/12/24/rashida-tlaib-would-no-doubt-be-very-pleased-with-voxs-inexcusably-dishonest-reporting-on-israel-and-israeli-jews/">up to it again</a>.
As highlighted by <a href="https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2019/12/24/rashida-tlaib-would-no-doubt-be-very-pleased-with-voxs-inexcusably-dishonest-reporting-on-israel-and-israeli-jews/">Twitchy</a>, Vox has written a piece about the post-Oslo Accords modern history of the city of Bethlehem that is, in the words of one venerable pro-Israel Twitter user, &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/AG_Conservative/status/1209497608122703872">inexcusably dishonest</a>.&#8221; And it is.
Seven years following 1993&#8217;s <a href="https://honestreporting.com/the-second-intifada-israeli-society-terrorized/">fateful</a> signing of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_I_Accord">Oslo I</a> between the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the late Palestinian-Arab unrepentant jihadist Yasser Arafat, Vox informs its readers, &#8220;tourism in Bethlehem &#8230; took a nosedive when the Israeli military invaded many of the West Bank’s major cities that were under Palestinian jurisdiction.&#8221; Vox continues: &#8220;As a political stalemate and expanding Israeli settlements led to the bloody Second Intifada, or uprising, the devastation and Israeli curfews kept tourists away; hotels closed and restaurants went out of business.&#8221;
This is not merely historical revisionism or tendentious distortion. It is an outright lie.
In reality, it was the terrorist Arafat who was singularly responsible for commencing the bloody Second Intifada — a four-plus-year sustained jihad during which over a thousand Israelis paid the ultimate price and thousands more were also wounded.
Although Arafat strategically waited to launch the Second Intifada until after then-Likud party prime minister candidate Ariel Sharon had the oh-so-shocking temerity to visit the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, in September 2000, it is now commonly known that Arafat had been planning the civilizational jihad at least since he rejected then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak&#8217;s <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/bill-clinton-palestinians-were-offered-temple-mount-in-2000/">exceedingly generous</a> &#8220;two-state solution&#8221; offer (96% of Judea and Samaria) at the U.S.-hosted Camp David Summit two months prior. The U.S. government&#8217;s own <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-mitchell-report-may-2001">Mitchell Report</a> on the subject, overseen by former Sen. George Mitchell (D-ME), made this quite clear (emphasis added):
<blockquote>&#8230; [T]he immediate catalyst for the violence was the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations on July 25, 2000 and the &#8220;widespread appreciation in the international community of Palestinian responsibility for the impasse.&#8221; In this view, Palestinian violence was planned by the PA leadership, and was aimed at &#8220;provoking and incurring Palestinian casualties as a means of regaining the diplomatic initiative.&#8221; &#8230; The Sharon visit [to the Temple Mount] did not cause the &#8220;[Second] Intifada.&#8221;</blockquote>
Lest there be any doubt as to which party was to blame for the negotiation breakdown at Camp David in 2000, furthermore, let us defer to then-U.S. President <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/israel3">Bill Clinton</a>: &#8220;[Arafat] did not negotiate in good faith; indeed, he did not negotiate at all. He just kept saying no to every offer, never making any counterproposals of his own.&#8221;
In short, the unrepentant terrorist Arafat deliberately tanked the Camp David negotiations and used his own destruction of the possibility for a sustained peace as an excuse for launching a years-long bloody jihad to murder as many Israeli Jews as possible. Contra Vox&#8217;s despicable lying, all subsequent Israel Defense Forces (IDF) incursions into Palestinian-Arab strongholds in Judea and Samaria were in direct response to Arafat&#8217;s preplanned war. In short, it was Arafat&#8217;s deliberately beginning to kill Israeli civilians en masse that prompted the IDF&#8217;s military response.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Vox apparently wants readers to think Israel invaded Bethlehem out of nowhere, and suggests the second intifada *followed* the invasion. 
Of course, that &quot;uprising&quot;—ie the murdering of Israeli civilians in cafes, buses, and markets—prompted the invasion of West Bank cities. <a href="https://t.co/lkMCaEvUho">pic.twitter.com/lkMCaEvUho</a>
&mdash; Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) <a href="https://twitter.com/GileadIni/status/1209496422778900480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Second Intifada was a uniquely harrowing time to live in Israel. Here is how Matti Friedman, who lived in Israel during part of the jihad, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/opinion/israel-election-netanyahu.html">described</a> it at The New York Times in September:
<blockquote>No single episode has shaped Israel’s population and politics like the wave of suicide bombings perpetrated by Palestinians in the first years of the 21st century. Much of what you see here in 2019 is the aftermath of that time, and every election since has been held in its shadow. The attacks, which killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, ended hopes for a negotiated peace and destroyed the left, which was in power when the wave began. Any sympathy that the Israeli majority had toward Palestinians evaporated. &#8230;
I remember standing at a bus stop when I heard a suicide bomber blow himself up and murder 11 people one street over, at Café Moment. My mother passed through the Nahariya train station right before a suicide bomber struck there, and my sister was in a cafeteria at the Hebrew University campus when Palestinians blew up a different cafeteria. I’ve got many more memories like that, all of them standard for the time.</blockquote>
There are a <a href="https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2019/12/24/rashida-tlaib-would-no-doubt-be-very-pleased-with-voxs-inexcusably-dishonest-reporting-on-israel-and-israeli-jews/">myriad other problems</a> with Vox&#8217;s duplicitous holiday season smear job about Israel and Bethlehem. But outright lying about how the Second Intifada started — in contravention of the U.S. government&#8217;s own review of the facts, no less — stands atop the sordid list of Vox&#8217;s falsehoods.
Of course, what else might we expect from the folks who once claimed Israel restricted Palestinian-Arab &#8220;traffic&#8221; on a &#8220;land bridge&#8221; connecting Gaza to Judea and Samaria? &#8220;Fake news&#8221; is very, very real.

Israeli flag Old City Jerusalem

HAMMER: Vox Lies About Israel. AGAIN.

Bill Clinton

Fake News

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

Media

Media Bias

Murder

The Jewish holiday of Chanukah — that&#8217;s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/06/the-fascinating-contrast-between-president-obamas-and-sen-cruzs-hanukkah-chanukah-greetings/">properly spelled</a> &#8220;Chanukah&#8221; and not &#8220;Hanukkah,&#8221; by the way — began last evening. At some point over the past century, as American Jewry grew in both rank and number and as a politically correct strain of egalitarianism ascended in our culture, Chanukah came to represent for many little more than a commercialized &#8220;Jewish Christmas.&#8221;
Over the same time period, the once-ubiquitous <a href="https://www.prageru.com/video/ep-113-just-say-merry-christmas/">&#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221;</a> greeting became largely subsumed into a meaningless &#8220;Happy Holidays&#8221; salutation. Town squares across America, operating under a Supreme Court-imposed legal regime that has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-bladensburg-cross-memorial-case-supreme-josh-hammer">misconstrued</a> the First Amendment, now routinely feature Chanukah menorahs alongside nativity scenes. And so forth.
As a proud American Jew, I of course welcome the <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135">long tradition of philo-Semitism</a> that has characterized America <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-dallas-jewish-monthly-religious-liberty-for-all-is-good-for-jews">since its Founding</a>. But there is also a serious downside to peddling unvarnished American Jewish assimilationism under the guises of inclusivity or radical egalitarianism. Simply put, such a sentiment bastardizes the very message of Chanukah itself.
Every year around this time, I <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1208773303269281792">tweet out a link</a> to a terrific piece that former Daily Wire writer Elliott Hamilton wrote for this site a few years ago. Elliott <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/real-story-chanukah-and-what-it-should-mean-jewish-elliott-hamilton">masterfully explained</a> the enduring meaning of our festival of lights:
<blockquote>What most American Jews do not realize about the story of Chanukah is that it was more than just a story of the Jewish people fighting against the oppressive Seleucid Empire. It was also a story of a civil war between two camps of Jews: One who believed that the Jewish people should maintain their Halachic [Jewish law] traditions and the other who wished to assimilate with their oppressors. It serves as a lesson to the importance of Jewish unity in troubling times where the Jewish people’s very existence is threatened by evil. Despite the challenges that the Jewish people fared, the Jewish people managed to prevail not only against anti-Jewish oppressors but also the divisions within their own community. &#8230;
[O]ur community remains deeply divided and it will most certainly not change any time soon. &#8230; [The lighting of the menorah] should also serve as a reminder that it never helps the Jewish people to side with those who openly seek to destroy us. Instead, we should do everything to fight back against our oppressors and all who wish to submit us under tyrannical rule.</blockquote>
I think back frequently to Elliott&#8217;s piece.
There have been three <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jersey-city-mayor-assailants-targeted-jewish-school-with-50-kids-before-kosher-grocery-massacre">murderous anti-Semitic shootings</a> in America in barely over <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-jews-simply-must-arm-themselves-now-josh-hammer">the past year</a>, and anti-Semitism around the liberalized world is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/">increasingly on the rise</a> like nothing we have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/politics/antisemitism-europe-corbyn.html">seen in decades</a>. Anti-Semitic incidents on the American university campus have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-how-pro-israel-students-campus-can-fight-josh-hammer">risen tremendously</a>. One of America&#8217;s two <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">major political parties</a> now has prominent elected officials who traffick not merely in rote &#8220;anti-Zionism,&#8221; but in the type of outright conspiratorial Jew-hatred that has been the bane of our people for millennia. The man who was on the precipice of becoming prime minister of the erstwhile leader of the free world is an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/nov/26/corbyn-refuses-to-apologise-to-british-jews-in-bbc-interview-video">unapologetic</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/opinion/uk-elections.html">Jew-hating bigot</a> whose would-be reign was passionately warned against by his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/world/europe/chief-rabbi-labour-jeremy-corbyn.html">nation&#8217;s own chief rabbi</a>. At this point, mass vandalism of Jewish cemeteries dotting the European landscape barely raises any <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/jewish-cemetery-vandalized-in-northern-slovakian-town/2019/12/17/20549bd6-20d5-11ea-b034-de7dc2b5199b_story.html">media attention</a> at all.
Against this backdrop, there are two options for American Jews: (1) Be a Maccabee and defiantly <a href="https://twitter.com/willscharf/status/1208899599982845952">tell the world</a> that, against all the odds, we are still here and that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hill-the-jewish-nation">our nationhood</a> will never be extinguished; or (2) be a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hellenized-jews-ifnotnow-protesters-disrupt-josh-hammer">Hellenized Jew</a> and a <a href="https://twitter.com/The_Bear_Jew18/status/1208916871380119553">fifth column</a> that forsakes the uniqueness of Jewish identity at the sacrificial altar of pseudo-&#8220;inclusive&#8221; progressive secularism.
The lesson of Chanukah — the tale of Judah the Maccabee&#8217;s <a href="https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/3874565/jewish/Judah-Maccabee-at-West-Point.htm">great military triumph</a> — provides a resounding answer to that question. Against any would-be foe, both &#8220;foreign&#8221; and &#8220;domestic,&#8221; always remain proud of both the Jewish people and the Jewish state of Israel. As the light of the menorah provides a light unto the neighborhood, so must you help us all provide a &#8220;<a href="https://www.aish.com/tp/i/oai/Light-Unto-the-Nations.html">light unto the nations</a>.&#8221; But that light can only shine if we remain proud Jews and Zionists.
Abraham Lincoln, a biblically intimate statesman who viewed Americans as an &#8220;<a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/trenton1.htm">almost chosen people</a>,&#8221; said the following about America during his famous <a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm">Lyceum Address of 1838</a>: &#8220;At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.&#8221;
The destruction of the Jewish people would similarly never come from &#8220;abroad,&#8221; but only from within. And such a destruction could only transpire if the Maccabees relent to the tyranny of the Hellenizers.
Always be a Maccabee.
Happy Chanukah to all.

Chanukah menorah with candles

HAMMER: The Lesson Of Chanukah Is Deeply Relevant In 2019. Here’s Why.

President Trump’s recent executive order is a significant step forward in combating the anti-Semitism faced by vulnerable Jewish students on college campuses across America. Unfortunately, this act of good policy does not come without detractors.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act already prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in institutions receiving federal funds. However, the Civil Rights Act is almost never enforced against one of the most prevalent types of bigotry, even as statistics show anti-Semitic incidents are to record levels on university campuses. A flaw in the classification of victims of these incidents has, until now, thwarted efforts by university administrators to eradicate the threat: A failure to recognize that Judaism is not just a religion. The new executive order sets the record straight — in no uncertain terms.
The fact that Judaism is a religion is widely accepted; but the concept of the Jewish people as a nation has been challenged by those who seek to establish a semantic distinction that would enable them to continue discriminating against Jews with impunity. The Bible is certainly clear on this matter: At the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the Jewish nation was born, with its religious character being introduced shortly thereafter. Thousands of years later, this multifaceted identity remains strong among the Jewish people.
There are Jews who do not identify with their Jewishness as a matter of religious faith or adherence, yet they self-identify as Jews nevertheless.  That is because Jewishness is an identity that transcends religious belief. This dynamic defines the identity and experience of many Jews who continue to relate through celebrating communal aspects of Jewish holidays/traditions, supporting Israel as the Jewish national homeland, working toward a vision of the world based on “social justice,” or even enjoying special Jewish lifecycle events and foods.
In her website “<a href="http://www.jewfaq.org/judaism.htm">Judaism 101</a>,” Tracey Rich explores the question:
<blockquote>“What is Judaism? What does it mean to be a Jew? Most people, both Jewish and gentile, would instinctively say that Judaism is a religion. And yet, there are militant atheists who insist that they are Jews! Is Judaism a race?  If you were to say so, most Jews would think you were an anti-Semite! So what is Judaism? &#8230; The most traditional Jews and the most liberal Jews and everyone in between would agree that these secular people are still Jews, regardless of their disbelief. Clearly, then, there is more to being Jewish than just a religion.”</blockquote>
It seems that many Jews in America have been led to believe that if Title VI protections under federal law are applied to those who support Jewish self-determination, then ultimately American Jews will thereby be accused of harboring dual loyalty to Israel. The dual loyalty canard has a well-known history in America, including its recent invocation by figures such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). It is indeed a legitimate sensitivity. However, with that in mind, it is important to understand that the executive order does not actually reclassify Jews as a nationality. Rather, what it does is clarify that those who persecute Jews are oftentimes actually targeting Jewish peoplehood — characteristics that extend beyond their status as a religious group. This is merely a statement of the obvious.
We applaud President Trump’s executive order for affirmatively seeking to combat the rising tide of anti-Semitic crime and discrimination head-on. We are confident that its full implementation will be a meaningful step in identifying and eradicating this “oldest hatred” on university campuses.
&nbsp;
Ron Machol is the COO of Zachor Legal Institute, an organization using the law to oppose antisemitism. Joseph Sabag is Executive Director of IAC for Action.

Trump yarmulke White House

MACHOL &#038; SABAG: Trump’s Executive Order Rightly Recognizes That Jews Are More Than Just A Religious Group

Trump Administration

The United Nations General Assembly (GA) doesn’t take itself seriously. Unlike U.N. Security Council resolutions, GA pronouncements have no enforcement mechanism and often serve only to permit countries to vent — mostly at Israel. But this travesty helps determine the allocation of general U.N. funds — American tax dollars among them, albeit fewer under the Trump administration. So, it is worth parsing the activity of the GA last week.
Thirty-five resolutions were proposed in the GA by the U.N. Special Political and Decolonization Committee. The Committee, which includes Syria, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Bolivia, and Venezuela, has no North American, Western European, or Scandinavian members. Twenty-seven resolutions used general language and named no specific country; eight targeted Israel.
If you thought this would be a good time for the U.N. to recognize the <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2019/11/18/has-the-iranian-empire-overreached/">desperate efforts</a> of the people of Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran to throw off repressive and kleptocratic governments — and specifically, to rid themselves of the destructive machinations of the mullahs of Iran — the GA didn’t agree with you.
If you were waiting for the U.N. to condemn horrific violations against the people of Syria by its own government and aided by Russia and Iran, or to stand up for the Rohingya who have been forced out of Myanmar, or to consider the plight of the Muslim Uighurs of China herded into camps, you’re still waiting.
Slave labor in Qatar; Venezuelans reduced to eating garbage; North Koreans with no discernible human rights; Palestinian-Arab children taught that the highest form of life is death — their own and that of as many Jews as possible; civil war in Libya; increasing repression of the press and of dissent in Russia — all ignored. Turkey, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and Saudi Arabia — ignored.
OK, actually Syria was mentioned — in the context of Israel’s “illegal occupation” of the “Syrian Golan Heights.” Ninety-five countries voted for Israel to stop “repressive measures against the population of the occupied Syrian Golan” and return the territory to Syria. <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12220.doc.htm">Nine countries voted against</a> and 65 abstained. How many Arab Druze residents of the Golan do you suppose would have voted to be returned to Bashar al-Assad’s rule?
UNRWA, the <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2018/01/08/free-palestinians-end-unrwa-funding/">intergenerational jailor</a> of Palestinians in various countries, was mentioned in four resolutions, one of which extended its mandate until 2023. That passed 167–5 with 7 abstentions. There was no mention of the <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/report-alleges-ethical-abuses-at-un-agency-for-palestinians">serious allegations</a> of financial corruption and sexual assault against its inmates.
One resolution related to a “Special Committee” investigation on Israeli human rights practices, one was on houses for Jews where the U.N. doesn’t want them (156–6 with 15 abstentions), and one was on “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people” (154–8 with 15 abstentions).
There are some “good guys” here. The United States, which changed its vote from “abstain” to “no” on the settlement resolution, and Israel. Then, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, and the United Kingdom voted “no” on one or more resolutions. The <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12220.doc.htm">representative of Brazil</a> expressed support for less biased texts, noting that human resources should not be used to promote biased views.
Bravo, all.
But what about all those abstentions? Israel has very good relations with Cameroon, Togo, Rwanda and Vanuatu, for example — all of which abstained on at least one resolution and voted for the others. Much of Western Europe abstains and pretends — like the GA itself — that it doesn’t matter. It matters because of the money — but more important, it matters for countries to be honest and honorable, and it matters in the end because GA resolutions can be defeated. The particularly nasty resolution about “Israeli practices affecting the human right of the Palestinian people” passed by a vote of 82–11 with 78 abstentions. If the abstainers had voted “no,” the vote would have been 89–82 AGAINST a U.N. travesty.
The U.N. is a pit. The Trump administration has chosen to deal with it by withdrawing from and withholding money from specific U.N. entities that are particularly awful — <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621435225/u-s-announces-its-withdrawal-from-u-n-s-human-rights-council">the Human Rights Council</a>, UNRWA and the <a href="https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2017/11/16/the-paris-agreement-and-federalism/">UN Climate Pact</a>, for starters — and stating the American case forcefully within the building.
It is probably the right call.
Israel has been asked an infinite number of times why it doesn’t just throw in the towel and leave, but Ambassador Danny Danon told inFOCUS Magazine in an interview:
<blockquote>There is a gap between the public U.N. and the private U.N. Publicly, they will condemn Israel, but privately they admire Israel … in every bilateral meeting I have with a head of state, I say, “We want to see the great bilateral relations or trade relations that you have with Israel reflected when it comes to a vote in the U.N.”</blockquote>
To the extent Danon is successful, there is a path for America and Israel to persevere and convince abstainers to vote their consciences — and reality.
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Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Magazine.

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BRYEN: The U.N. General Assembly Is A Joke. But Let’s Take It Seriously.

United Nations

As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/traditional-rabbi-group-blasts-house-democrats-over-false-and-misleading-letter-on-israeli-settlements">reported</a> last month, 106 House Democrats sent a <a href="https://andylevin.house.gov/sites/andylevin.house.gov/files/112119%20Letter%20to%20SecState%20on%20Israeli%20settlements%20FINAL.pdf">scathing letter</a> to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that expressed &#8220;strong disagreement&#8221; with the Trump administration&#8217;s recently promulgated <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-administration-announces-major-policy-shift-toward-israel-no-longer-views-israels-west-bank-settlements-as-violation-of-international-law">legal assertion</a> that so-called Israeli &#8220;settlements&#8221; in the biblical Jewish homeland of Judea and Samaria do not per se violate international law.
The House Democrats&#8217; hysterical letter accused Pompeo of &#8220;ignoring international law&#8221; and &#8220;undermin[ing] America&#8217;s moral standing.&#8221; The congressmen continued: &#8220;If the U.S. unilaterally abandons international and human rights law, we can only expect a more chaotic and brutal twenty-first century for Americans and our allies, including the Israeli people.&#8221;
Conservative Zionists quickly and assertively pushed back against the tendentious missive. The <a href="http://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/">Coalition for Jewish Values</a> (CJV), which identifies as &#8220;the largest rabbinic public policy organization in America,&#8221; wrote its own <a href="https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/191126-Letter-to-Rep-Levin.pdf">powerful letter</a> that deconstructed the House Democrats&#8217; misleading claims. Frequent Daily Wire contributor and CJV Managing Director <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/author/rabbi-yaakov-menken">Rabbi Yaakov Menken</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/traditional-rabbi-group-blasts-house-democrats-over-false-and-misleading-letter-on-israeli-settlements">told The Daily Wire</a> at the time: &#8220;Word to the wise: If you claim to be pro-Israel, and sign a letter regarding Israel along with Reps. Omar, Tlaib, and Ocasio-Cortez, you’re fooling no one but yourself. It’s amazing to see congressmen telling the administration to ignore Acts of Congress. All the more so when those Acts prevent U.S. tax dollars from being spent to encourage terrorism.&#8221;
Now, as <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Pompeo-slams-Democrats-settlement-fixation-calls-claims-foolish-611116">reported</a> by The Jerusalem Post, Pompeo has powerfully responded himself to the House Democrats&#8217; letter. Pompeo excoriated the Democrats&#8217; letter as &#8220;foolish,&#8221; and he hit the anti-Israel presidency of Barack Obama in no uncertain terms: &#8220;The Obama-Kerry departure from America’s historic support of Israel has done nothing to make peace more attainable.&#8221;
&#8220;While I appreciate your interest in this important issue, I couldn’t disagree more with those two foolish positions,&#8221; Pompeo continued. &#8220;While you are free to fixate on settlements as a barrier to peace, you are simply wrong in referring to that view as being subject to bipartisan agreement.&#8221;
Pompeo then blasted &#8220;the erroneous positions of international law that have gained favor in the past decades&#8221;:
<blockquote>&#8220;We approach the issue pragmatically and diplomatically. But we eschew the erroneous positions of international law that have gained favor in the past decade. … The State Departments’ recent determination that the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se illegal is an important step in the peace process, and we are confident that it creates the right platform for further progress.&#8221;</blockquote>
The full copy of Pompeo&#8217;s letter can be viewed at <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Pompeo-slams-Democrats-settlement-fixation-calls-claims-foolish-611116">the Post</a>, which also quotes U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman as expressing strong agreement with Pompeo&#8217;s letter: &#8220;In his response to the 106 congressmen, Secretary Pompeo lays to rest the criticism that the [Trump a]dministration’s determination with regard to Israeli settlements was contrary to law or inconsistent with bipartisan policy. Indeed, the administration’s decision, in reversing [S]ecretary Kerry’s unfortunate statement in support of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, restores the United States to its historic and appropriate role in mediating the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.&#8221;
In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-trump-administration-is-absolutely-correct-to-call-israeli-settlements-legal">Daily Wire op-ed</a> last month, I wrote approvingly of the Trump administration&#8217;s recently announced position with respect to Israeli &#8220;settlements.&#8221;

Secretary Of State Pompeo Holds At Press Briefing On Iran At The State Department

Pompeo Blasts House Democrats For &#8216;Foolish&#8217; Stance On Israeli ‘Settlements’

Democratic Party

Obama Administration

State Department

U.S. House of Representatives

On Sunday, the UK Special Envoy for post-Holocaust issues informed the International Institute for Strategic Dialogue’s conference in Jerusalem that the new Conservative British government led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson would pass a law making it illegal for public bodies to engage with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, as <a href="https://www.jpost.com/International/Boris-Johnson-to-pass-anti-BDS-law-official-says-611044">The Jerusalem Post</a> reported.
Eric Pickles stated, &#8220;BDS is anti-Semitic and should be treated as such.” He also stated that the blowout loss inflicted on the Labour Party by the Conservative party proved the British people hate anti-Semitism, asserting, “Antisemitism is an attack on the British way of life and British identity. Without our Jewish citizens we would be a lesser nation. Without our Jewish citizens, we should be a lesser nation.”
In November 2015, when he was mayor of London, Boris Johnson’s trade visit to Israel included some meetings with Palestinians that were canceled after the Palestinians took issue with Johnson’s remarks about the BDS movement, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/11/boris-johnson-forced-cancel-palestinian-events-pro-israel-remarks">The Guardian</a> reported.
According to <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/anti-semitism/boris-johnson-bds/">Commentary Magazine</a>, Johnson told an Israeli reporter:
<blockquote>I cannot think of anything more foolish than to say that you want to have any kind of divestment or sanctions or whatever or boycott against a country that, when all is said and done, is the only democracy in the region, is the only place that has, in my view, a pluralist, open society – you know, why boycott Israel? And by the way, I think there’s some misunderstanding of it over here about it, but the supporters of this so-called boycott are really just a bunch of, you know, corduroy-jacketed academics from, you know, lefty – not that there’s anything wrong with wearing corduroy jackets, I hasten to say! – but they are, by and large, lefty academics who have no real standing in the matter and I think are highly unlikely to be influential on Britain. And this is a very very small minority in our country who are calling for this, so bear that in mind.</blockquote>
Johnson was supported in an op-ed in <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11982492/Mayor-of-London-calls-for-stronger-technology-trade-links-with-Israel.html">The Telegraph</a>, which wrote in part:
<blockquote>Those who have taken umbrage at Mr. Johnson’s remarks are clearly lacking a sense of irony. One cornerstone of a democratic society is free speech, the willingness to allow someone to say things with which you disagree, without penalty or punishment. Refusing to talk to Mr. Johnson over a difference of opinion may thus lend weight to the argument that parts of Palestinian society fall short of the democratic standard set by the state of Israel …  Mr. Johnson is quite right in his admiration for Israel and his contempt for those advocating a boycott. And given that he is a political member of David Cameron’s Cabinet, perhaps the Government should make clear that, in this, the mayor speaks for Britain.</blockquote>
Johnson has also compared Israel to the iconic 20thcentury leader of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, asserting, “If we look at the history of modern Israel there is no doubt that the comparison can be extended, and that there is something Churchillian about the country he helped to create. There is the audacity, the bravery, the willingness to take risks with feats of outrageous derring-do … When Churchill wrote his 1922 white paper that paved the way for accelerated Jewish entry into Palestine, Churchill imagined Jews and Arabs living side by side, with technically expert Jewish farmers helping the Arabs to drive tractors.”
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Mayor Of London Boris Johnson Visits Israel

Boris Johnson’s Government Will Make It Illegal Engaging With Anti-Israel BDS Movement, Report Says

Boris Johnson

Last night, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who frequently opines on issues pertaining to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44424/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">Jewish politics</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43388/hammer-anti-semites-ilhan-omar-and-rashida-tlaib-josh-hammer">anti-Semitism</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50850/hammer-yes-palestinian-state-far-more-dangerous-josh-hammer">Israel</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA0r40BP1DQ">joined</a> &#8220;Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler&#8221; on One America News Network to discuss the horrible reality that the mainstream media and large swaths of the Left have greatly politicized anti-Semitism in America. As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-the-lefts-grotesque-politicization-of-anti-semitism">wrote</a> yesterday, the media and Left only seem to care about assaulted or murdered Jews when the identities of perpetrators fit their preconceived intersectional narrative:
<blockquote>Here’s a quick rule of thumb: If you only want to have a conversation about anti-Semitism when you can blame anti-Semitism on your political opponents, you don’t care about anti-Semitism. &#8230;
The [Black Hebrew Israelite] identity of the [Jersey City] shooters meant that the media Left was eager to ignore the case. And indeed, within 24 hours, it was no longer trending on Twitter. No broad discussions of left-wing tolerance for anti-Semitism, particularly in minority communities, ensued. &#8230;
Anti-Semitism isn’t a game. You don’t get to cite it when convenient and ignore it when convenient. Those who do exacerbate the problem. Unfortunately, these days, that phenomenon is increasingly common on the political Left.</blockquote>
Hammer joined Wheeler to discuss the media and Left&#8217;s outrageous politicization of anti-Semitism, and initially focused on one particularly galling example: Freshman Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib&#8217;s (D-MI) false assertion that the anti-Semitic Jersey City shooters earlier this week were white supremacists, her subsequent deletion of a tweet stating as much, and her further subsequent dead silence on condemning the Black Hebrew Israelite perpetrator.
Hammer began by condemning the supremacist fringe group that is the Black Hebrew Israelites and then lampooning Tlaib in no uncertain terms:
<blockquote>Liz, I&#8217;m not sure how many of your viewers are familiar with the Black Hebrew Israelites. I&#8217;ve actually been personally pretty familiar with them — I used to walk by them in the sidewalk literally every day on the way to work. This is a very, very, very vicious, vile group. They stand on the sidewalk, they bang gongs and drums loudly, they shout out expletives, they curse at people. And their quote-unquote &#8220;theology,&#8221; obviously, is nuts &#8230;
But as far as Rashida Talib is concerned, what happened here is insane on multiple levels. First of all, she issued this tweet after every news outlet imaginable had gotten the identity of the culprit correct — so by the time she tweeted this, her staff damn well should have known who exactly committed this horrific atrocity in Jersey City. Second of all, what I really want to know is, after she deleted the tweet, say something! I mean like, you can opine — you can weigh in. &#8230; You can say like, &#8220;Okay I had the facts wrong, which is inexcusable, but conceding that I had the facts wrong, I condemn this regardless because innocent Jews were slaughtered.&#8221; Why has she not done that yet? I have no idea. there&#8217;s no rational answer for that whatsoever.</blockquote>
Later in the discussion, Wheeler and Hammer discussed the mainstream media&#8217;s burying of anti-Semitic attacks and crimes, more generally.
WATCH:
<iframe title="The Media Hides Left-Wing Antisemitism" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YA0r40BP1DQ?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hammer OANN screen grab 12.12.19

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: The Media And Left Politicize Anti-Semitism

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