Author: AFSI Staff

Americans For A Safe Israel awards a place in the Looney Tunes Hall of Shame to Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi for endorsing Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s bid for re-election. Instead of taking a stand against anti-Semitism, Pelosi’s backing of Omar gives full support to the ongoing and troubling trend to delegitimize Israel and the Jewish people.

Omar is well known for her virulent hatred of Israel and the Jews with anti-Semitic comments such as, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel” and “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.” Omar also backs the BDS movement.

Pelosi needs a refresher course on why she was elected to office in the first place and to be reminded that the USA, which she represents as a government official, does not stand for hatred and bigotry against any people. She needs to put aside her power hungry and selfish political agenda and bow her head in shame. Furthermore, she needs to be removed from office.

#AntiSemitismInTheUSCongress #ShameOnNancyPelosi

Source:
Shame on Nancy Pelosi for endorsing Ilhan Omar, by Farley Weiss. Jewish News Syndicate – July 19, 2020

“Demystifying the UNRWA approach to curriculum” is the title given by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) created for the “refugees” of the 1948 war in the Middle East (or, to be exact, their third and fourth-generation descendants). This is the heading of a two-page statement on its educational system issued in January 2020. This statement describes in detail the agency’s various supervision methods ensuring that the Palestinian Authority’s schoolbooks used in UNRWA schools meet UN standards. It also mentions a report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) that “affirms the unwavering UNRWA commitment to UN values.”

David Bedein, who has been at the forefront of exposing the problem with UNRWA textbooks, has read them and can personally attest to the falsity of this statement discussed this in detail in his Arutz Sheva OpEd yesterday.

#CloseUNRWA

Source:
What did you learn in school today, dear little UNRWA child of Gaza?, by David Bedein. Arutz Sheva – July 20, 2020

Americans For A Safe Israel applauds former opinion editor and writer Bari Weiss’ resignation from The New York Times earlier this week. AFSI commends Weiss for her forthright resignation letter posted on her personal website. This action exposed what we all know to be true about her former employer: The New York Times is intentionally and knowingly biased against the Jews and Israel.

Excerpts from Weiss’s letter:
They have called me a Nazi and a racist.
I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again.”
Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.

This letter has sent wide-reaching shock waves. Her exposure of The New York Times now serves as a wake-up call to all anti-Israel, anti-Jewish media disguised as fair and un-biased professionals.

A gut-rehab job across the media spectrum to expose the rot from inside that intentionally disseminates anti-Semitic, anti-Israel rhetoric has been sorely needed. We are not interested in having another “narrative” or a conversation about this either. The facts about anti-Semitism in the media speak for themselves. We demand ACTION be taken to hold accountable those who call themselves “journalists” at the expense of delegitimizing Israel and the Jewish people. ACTION also means a return to fact based, non-biased reporting.

While the truth about The New York Times was exposed this week by an insider, the decline in professional standards with this paper is nothing new. The New York Times has a long and troubled record of anti-Jewish reporting that goes back to its founding. Buried By The Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper (1996, by Laurel Leff) is an excellent book on this subject. News about the ongoing and increasing atrocities against the Jewish people before and during the Holocaust was literally buried in the back pages of the paper. This was due the paper’s Jewish publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger’s negative views about Judaism. Sulzberger also held virulently anti-Zionist views and was not in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state.

Since then, nothing has changed and The New York Times continues its biased reporting against Israel and the Jews. Arthur Gregg Sulzberger (AG), to whom Ms. Weiss’ letter was addressed, is the grandson of the above-mentioned Arthur Hays Sulzberger. AG took over the reins as publisher from his father, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. in 2017. The tradition of the JINO family continues, for now.

AFSI was an organizer of a protest in April 2019 calling out The New York Times for having published an anti-Semitic cartoon, which depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog on a leash led by a blind President Donald Trump. “Shame on the Times!” was heard loud and clear in front of The New York Times headquarters by many participating Jewish organizations and hundreds of pro-Israel activists. Together, we called out the “paper of record.” We know they heard us because less than two weeks after the protest they issued an apology.

“Silence is despicable!” ~Zeev Jabotinsky

AFSI congratulates Bari Weiss for not remaining silent and for the ACTION she took to expose anti-Semitism at The New York Times. Her letter spoke with a clarity, integrity, courage and truth that gives us hope for the future.

Just as AFSI advocates for educating the public on the truth about Israel, so too, has Bari Weiss spoken the truth about Israel and the Jewish people.

#SilenceIsDespicable #BariWeiss #TheNewYorkTimesExposed

The Knesset Land of Israel lobby presented a bill to apply Israel sovereignty in Judea and Samaria on Monday by lobby leaders MK Haim Katz (Likud) and Bezalel Smotrich (Yamina). They call for Israel to announce Sovereignty in areas of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, in accordance with wording that has been approved by the Likud Central Committee.

The bill also seeks to create a mechanism that would protect areas that do not fall under Israeli Sovereignty and prevent a Palestinian or international takeover of any territory in Area C to which the bill does not apply.

The mechanism would act to prevent illegal Palestinian construction in Area C; agricultural crime; and international infrastructure and activity in Area C that is not approved by the Israeli government. In addition, it will promote the regulation of land ownership, including in the parts of Area C that lie outside the Sovereignty map, and protect government-owned land through grazing, farming, or forestation.

#SovereigntyAllOverIsrael #JudeaSamaria #ApplySovereigntyNow

Source:
Land of Israel Lobby beats Netanyahu to the punch on sovereignty, by Ariel Kahana and Yehuda Shlezinger. Israel Hayom – July 14, 2020

After a months-long legal battle, the Civil Administration announced that it is taking steps to shut down the “corona dumping ground” created by the Palestinian Authority during the government shutdown at the start of the corona pandemic in the abandoned Tariffi quarry on Route 60. Thousands of cubic tons of raw waste were trucked from the nearby Arab municipalities of Ramallah and El Bireh, and unceremoniously dumped over the cliff into the quarry – creating a garbage mountain visible for miles.

“Better late than never. After weeks and weeks of dumping at the site, the Civil Administration has finally taken enforcement action and announced that it will ensure that Arab cities do not continue to dump their garbage into the quarry,” said Yakhin Zik, Regavim’s Director of Operations.

#NoIllegalPAGarbagDump #CoronaDumpShutDown

Source:
‘Corona landfill’ to be closed’, by Arutz Sheva Staff. Arutz Sheva – July 14, 2020

The European Union, Denmark and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement on Tuesday to build 16 infrastructure projects for the Palestinians in Area C. This is the fifth agreement of its kind.

Regavim stated in press release on Tuesday, “By funding construction and infrastructure projects that neither apply for nor receive permits from the Israeli Civil Administration – as required by international law and as stipulated in the Oslo Accords, to which the EU is a signatory – these “humanitarian” projects are nothing more than illegal land-grabs that target strategic areas of Judea and Samaria.”

“Oddly, the EU and its member states don’t find the housing, education, employment, water infrastructure or electricity grid in Areas A and B, the areas of Judea and Samaria under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction, worthy of similar investment,” Regavim’s Director General, Meir Deutsch pointed out.

As the EU and its cronies continue on their path to delegitimize the State of Israel, AFSI calls on Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu to declare SOVEREIGNTY NOW!

#NoIllegalLandGrabsInAreaC #AreaCUnderIsraeliControl

Photos courtesy of Regavim

Sources:
EU builds for Palestinians in Area C, FMs speak against annexation, by Lahav Harkov, Tovah Lazaroff, Omri Nahmias. Jerusalem Post – July 14, 2020

The European Union, Denmark and Palestinian Authority launch the agreement to build 16 new social and public infrastructure projects in Area C, by Shadi Othman and Inas Abu Shirbi. The Office of the European Union Representative – July 14, 2020

They built illegally in a nature reserve – and attacked the police officers and inspectors who came to enforce the law

Today (Monday), Nature and National Parks Authority inspectors, accompanied by a police escort, went to the Har Meron Nature Reserve to post court orders on illegal structures built in the protected area.

The inspectors quickly found themselves surrounded by a violent mob of residents of nearby Beit Jann, who pelted them with stones and physically assaulted them. The inspectors were extracted with great difficulty.

The video clip of the incident released by the Nature and National Parks Authority’s spokesperson shows the inspectors’ vehicle overturned and in flames.

Meir Deutsch, Director General of Regavim, reacted to the incident:

“The same criminals who have defaced the Har Meron Nature Reserve with illegal construction are now attempting to use violent means to prevent enforcement authorities from doing their job. They physical assault on state officials is an attempt to prevent the enforcement of the State of Israel’s Planning and Construction Law.

Enforcement officers should not find themselves in life-threatening situations, and the Israel Police must prosecute these criminals to the full extent of the law. We will monitor the investigation of this incident closely, and demand that those involved are brought to justice. Hooliganism of this kind cannot be rewarded.”

Source: Regavim Press Release, July 13, 2020

Yesterday, July 12, marked the 116th yahrzeit of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism.

Herzl was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1860, where he was educated in the secular Jewish-German enlightenment milieu. In 1878, following the death of his sister he moved with his parents to Vienna, where Herzl studied law, receiving his doctorate in 1884.

Although his death in 1904 meant that Herzl never saw the founding of the independent State of Israel, his convening of the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in August 1897 paved the way. The Congress ratified the goal of Zionism as being “to establish a National Home for the Jewish People in Eretz Yisrael, that will be secured on the basis of the Law of Nations.”

#Zionism #TheodorHerzl #EretzYisrael #FatherOfModernZionism

Source:
Remembering Herzl on his 116th yahrzeit. Herzl’s most famous quote stands as a testament to his tenacity: ‘If you will it, it is no dream.’, by Donna Rachel Edmunds. Jerusalem Post – July 12, 2020

One hundred years of practical Zionism and more than seventy years of statehood have proven that Zionism embodies a tremendous economic stimulus for the Jewish people. The Sovereignty Movement calls for Israel’s government to continue the Zionist strategy that characterized the Jewish people over recent decades. They believe it will constitute the basis for continued economic development that will steadily intensify in the future.

In order to reinvigorate the Zionist process, which, to date, has produced so much good for the Jewish people, the Israeli government must adopt a clear Zionist, nationalist policy in a variety of areas.

#SovereigntyNow #SovereigntyOverAllIsrael

Source:
Real Zionism Also Includes Economic Momentum, by Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar. Ribonut – July 13, 2020

Over the weekend, we got word from various sources that Presidential emissary Avi Berkowitz when in Israel on June 30, gave a list of “considerable concessions” of land that Israel is being pressured to grant to the Palestinian-Arabs. Berkowitz reportedly also called for the approval of Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi before any plans proceed. The American people after all elected Donald Trump – not Jared Kushner, and certainly not Mr. Berkowitz – to be their leader. Why now did Berkowitz fly into Israel to add conditions to the already negotiated (although not favored by many on the right or left in the Israeli public) plan for Sovereignty?

Adding concessions now is ABSOLUTELY unacceptable. The PA has already rejected the Deal of the Century. Additional concessions are not only uncalled for, but would only weaken Israel in the eyes of the Middle Eastern Countries. There, strength is admired, concessions show weakness. Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister has the strength and the will to serve ALL the people of the Jewish Nation State by giving them all equal protection under the law.

A country as small, crowded and threatened as Israel, is not in a position to make concessions. A whole Israel is absolutely necessary for the only Jewish nation in the world to survive with defensible borders. Every Palestinian Arab has ties to the Arab nations in the region which have 20 states available to live in. One, Jordan, is actually a Palestinian State.

We are extremely concerned about any talk about concessions and hope for a rapid clarification from the Trump Administration that the USA is not in fact demanding any concessions from tiny Israel, certainly not to the territorially well-endowed Arab nation.

#NoMoreConcessions #PeaceForPeace #NoMoreLandForPeace

~Americans For A Safe Israel