Peace Index Poll: 80.5% of Israeli Jews oppose return of any Palestinian refugees to Israel

Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:  
The interesting question missing from this poll is if Israelis think that we would ultimately suffer more economically from the consequences of actually making a deal with the Palestinians than from
sanction for failing to make a deal.

The Peace Index – January 2014
(N=608)
28-29.1.2014

1. What is your position on holding peace negotiations between Israel and
the
Palestinian Authority?
    Jews
1.   Strongly in favor    33.9
2.   Somewhat in favor    27.5
3.   Somewhat opposed    14.0
4.   Strongly opposed    19.4
5.   Don’t know / Refuse    5.2

2. Do you believe or not believe that negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority will lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinians
in the coming years?
    Jews
1.   Strongly believe    6.7
2.   Somewhat believe    19.6
3.   Somewhat don’t believe    21.3
4.   Don’t believe at all    50.0
5.   Don’t know / Refuse    2.3

3. In your opinion, to what extent is it important or not important that, in
a framework agreement with the Palestinians, they recognize Israel as the
state of the Jewish people?
    Jews
1. Very important    62.6
2. Moderately important    14.4
3. Not so important    7.6
4. Not important at all    13.2
5. Don’t know/ Refuse    2.2

4. (only for those who answered “Very important” or “Moderately important”)
Why, in your opinion, is it important that the Palestinians recognize Israel
as the
state of the Jewish people; is it mainly because:
    Jews
1.  Such recognition entails recognizing the basic principle of Zionism
40.8
2.  Such recognition is a fair recompense for Israel recognizing the
Palestinian state as the state of the Palestinian people 19.4
3.  Such recognition would enable Israel to deal in the future with demands
to change Israel into a state of all its citizens    28.8
4.  All to the same extent    4.3
5.  None of those; something else    3.7
6.  Don’t know/ Refuse    3.1

5. Cabinet ministers and security officials have been talking a lot about
anti- Israeli incitement in Palestinian education and propaganda. Some claim
there is no point in continuing the peace talks because such incitement
proves that the Palestinians are not at all interested in reaching an
agreement. However, some claim that there is a reasonable chance that if
there is incitement, it will abate and perhaps stop completely after an
agreement is reached that is acceptable to the Palestinians. With which of
these two claims do you agree more?
    Jews
1.  With the first claim—that there is no point in continuing the talks
because the incitement proves that the Palestinians do not want peace
54.0
2.  With the second claim—that it can be reasonably assumed that if an
agreement is reached that is also acceptable to the Palestinians, the
incitement will abate or even stop    40.8
3.  Don’t know/ Refuse    5.2

6. Do you support or not support the proposal by Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman that, in an agreement with the Palestinians, Israel would annex
the large settlement blocs while the Triangle and Arab-populated part s of
the Galilee would be annexed to the Palestinian state?
    Jews
1. Strongly support    18.7
2. Moderately support    24.4
3. Don’t support very much    19.0
4. Don’t support at all    32.1
5. Don’t know / Refuse    5.8

7.What, in your opinion, are the chances that Lieberman’s proposal would be
accepted by the Palestinian Authority?
   Jews
1. Very high chances    1.9
2. Moderately high chances    5.4
3. Moderately low chance    25.4
4. Very low chances    61.0
5. Don’t know / Refuse    6.3

8. And what are the chances that most of the Israeli Arabs would accept
Lieberman’s proposal?
    Jews
1. Very high chances    1.3
2. Moderately high chances    7.4
3. Moderately low chances    23.0
4. Very low chances    62.1
5. Don’t know / Refuse    6.2

9. And if the Americans soon present a framework agreement that is an
outline for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement, will or will this not
affect the position of Netanyahu and his government in the context of the
negotiations with the Palestinians?
    Jews
1.  It will not have a significant effect because the Israeli government
will always uphold the principles that are important to it, and it makes no
difference what the Americans say 23.8
2.  It will have a significant effect because Netanyahu cannot allow himself
to ignore the U.S. position or world public opinion by disregarding such an
agreement 66.9
3.  Don’t know / Refuse    9.2

10. If parties currently in the government, such as Bayit Yehudi or Yisrael
Beiteinu, threaten to bolt the government if Netanyahu accepts the framework
agreement that the Americans present, what are the chances that he will
allow them to leave and work for a new government with other parties, such
as Labor and the haredi parties, that currently are in the opposition?
    Jews
1. Very low chances    19.5
2. Moderately low chances    23.0
3. Moderately high chance    31.1
4. Very high chances    17.4
5. Don’t know / Refuse    9.0

11. Recently there have been more and more calls in Europe and the United
States to impose economic and other sanctions on Israel and force it to curb
the building in the territories and moderate its positions on the terms of a
peace agreement with the Palestinians. What, in your opinion, are the
chances that this trend will intensify and harsh sanctions will be imposed
on Israel, including a full boycott of the export of products from Israel?
    Jews
1. High chances    21.2
2. Moderately high chances    28.7
3. Moderately low chances    29.9
4. Very low chances    17.1
5. Don’t know / Refuse    3.0

12. If such harsh sanctions were to be imposed on Israel by Europe and the
United States, to what extent, in your opinion, would Israel be able or
unable to cope with them successfully and maintain the same positions on the
settlements
and the negotiations?
    Jews
1. I’m sure it will not be able    16.0
2. I think it will not be able    30.2
3. I think it will be able    27.5
4. I’m sure it will be able    21.7
5. Don’t know / Refuse    4.6

13. In return for a final peace agreement, in your opinion should or should
not Israel agree to the return of a limited number of Palestinian refugees
to Israel?
    Jews
1. I’m sure it should    2.5
2. I think it should    13.7
3. I think it should not    17.9
4. I’m sure it should not    62.6
5. Don’t know / Refuse    3.4

14. In return for a final peace agreement would you support or oppose Israel
acknowledging its partial responsibility for the suffering that was caused
to the
Palestinians, for example, in creating the (abovementioned) refugee problem
   Jews
1. I’m sure I would not agree    51.9
2. I think I would not agree    22.2
3. I think I would agree    16.2
4. I’m sure I would agree    7.1
5. Don’t know / Refuse    2.7

15. In a few more months President Peres will end his tenure and elections
will be held for a new president of the state of Israel. Would you prefer
that the new president come from the political world, the world of science
and the humanities, or the world of economics and business?
    Jews
1.  From the world of economics and business    14.5
2.  From the world of science and the humanities    39.8
3.  From the political world    29.8
4.  It does not matter    9.1
5.  Other    1.6
6.  Don’t know / Refuse    5.1

16. Whom would you prefer to elect the president?
    Jews
1.  As currently practiced, the members of the Knesset    16.1
2.  A public council that would be specially formed for this purpose of
people with a recognized public status in various fields 19.6
3.  The general public    58.6
4.  Other    1.5

5.  Don’t know / Refuse    4.2
------


The Peace Index: January  2014
Date Published: 04/02/2014

Survey dates: 27/01/2014 - 28/01/2014

The impact of an American framework agreement: Amid reports that the Americans will soon present a “Kerry outline,” that is, a framework agreement for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement, we looked into whether the Israeli public thinks such an outline will or will not affect the stance of Netanyahu and his government in the negotiations with the Palestinians. The findings reveal that a large majority of the Jewish sample (67%) foresees a substantial impact, since they do not believe Netanyahu can allow himself to ignore the U.S. stance and worldwide opinion. The gaps on this question between the political camps—the right, the center, and the left—turned out to be small.

The impact on the coalition of accepting the framework agreement: The responses to this question show that the Jewish public is divided on whether Netanyahu will work to form a new government with parties such as Labor and the haredi factions if the Bayit Yehudi and Yisrael Beiteinu parties will threaten to bolt the coalition if Netanyahu accepts the framework agreement. Some 48.5% see the chances that he will try to form a new government as high, while 42.5% view them as low. Those interviewees who located themselves on the right side of the spectrum are more or less split regarding the chances of forming a government with other parties, while in the center and on the left the majority sees high chances that this will happen.

The chances of stepped-up sanctions on Israel: The Jewish public is also more or less divided regarding the chances that various elements in Europe and the United States will step up the demand for economic and other sanctions on Israel, leading to a comprehensive boycott of Israeli exports aimed at forcing Israel to curb construction in the territories and moderate its positions in the peace talks with the Palestinians. Fifty percent see the chances of such measures as high while 47% regard them as small. When it comes to assessing this risk, the disparities between the political camps are very large: on the right, 42% see the chances of boosted sanctions as high; in the center that figure comes to 52%; while on the left 71% see high chances of such a development.

Israel’s resilience: Here too, on the question of whether Israel will or will not be capable of coping successfully with major sanctions if imposed, and whether it will or will not alter its positions on settlements and the talks as a result, the map of responses is not clear-cut. Of the Jewish sample, 49% think Israel could manage with the situation; 46% are sure or think it could not. Not surprisingly, here too there are large disparities by political camp: only a minority of those on the right (32%) think Israel would have trouble withstanding the pressure without revising its positions, compared to 56% of those placing themselves in the center and 67% of those who locate themselves on the left.

In return for a peace settlement, could Israel agree to the return of a certain number of Palestinian refugees? The survey shows widespread opposition in the Jewish public (80.5%) to the idea that, in return for a permanent peace settlement, Israel could agree to the return of even a limited number of Palestinian refugees.

Taking responsibility for Palestinian suffering: Likewise, 74% of the Jewish respondents did not agree that, in return for permanent peace, Israel could acknowledge even partial responsibility for the suffering that was caused to the Palestinians—for example, in creating the refugee problem.

Recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people: An overwhelming majority (77%) of the Jewish sample responded that it is important to them that as part of the settlement, the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Out of these respondents, 41% say this is important because it entails recognition of the basic principle of Zionism; 29% consider such recognition as important because it will enable countering future demands to make Israel a state of all its citizens; while 19% view such recognition as a fair recompense for Israel’s recognition of the Palestinian state as the state of the Palestinian people. A segmentation of the responses by political camp shows that all along the political spectrum a majority ascribes importance to Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, but in different majorities: 63% of those who situate themselves on the left, 84% in the center, and 77% on the right. Particularly interesting is the discrepancy in reasons for favoring such recognition. Whereas those placing themselves on the left primarily view such recognition as a fair recompense for recognition of a Palestinian state, in the center and on the right the main consideration is that such Palestinian recognition means recognizing the basic principle of Zionism. 

The importance of incitement in Palestinian educational materials: We asked: “Cabinet ministers and security officials have been talking a lot about anti-Israeli incitement in Palestinian education and propaganda. Some claim there is no point in continuing the peace talks because such incitement proves that the Palestinians are not at all interested in reaching an agreement. However, some claim that there is a reasonable chance that if there is incitement, it will abate and perhaps stop completely after an agreement is reached that is acceptable to the Palestinians. With which of these two claims do you agree more?” A majority of the Jewish interviewees (54%) agreed more with the first claim, only 41% with the second. On this question the gaps between the political camps are huge: on the right, 77% agree with the first claim, compared to 42% in the center and only 21% on the left.

Territorial swaps: The Jewish sample is divided in its reactions to the proposal of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that, in the context of an agreement with the Palestinians, the large settlement blocs would be annexed to Israel while the Triangle and Arab-populated parts of the Galilee would be annexed to the Palestinian state. Forty-three percent support this proposal while a (small) majority of 51% opposes it. The rate of opponents on the right stands at 52.5%, in the center at 45.5%, while reaching 67% on the left. In any case, it appears that both supporters and opponents of the proposal are aware that it is not feasible, with the large majority (86% and 85%, respectively) seeing small chances that it would be accepted by the Palestinians or the Israeli Arabs.

From the political-security issue we moved on to a domestic Israeli issue: the upcoming election for the presidency of the country. How would the public want the president to be elected, and from which world would they prefer that he come?

How should the president be elected? Not surprisingly, in light of the low level of trust in the political institutions, a clear majority (59%) of the Jewish interviewees expressed a preference that the president be elected by the general public, 20% prefer that he be elected by a specially constituted public council of people with a recognized public status in various fields, and only 16% favor the present system where the president is elected by the Knesset. In all the political camps the majority or the highest rate prefers election by the general public, but in different proportions: 62% of the right, 59% of the center, and 49% of the left.

Which world should the president come from? Out of three worlds, 40% of the Jewish interviewees said they preferred that the elected president come from the world of science and the humanities, 30% from the political world, and only 14.5% prefer that the president come from the economics and business domain. This question, too, turned up substantial gaps between the political camps. On the right, the rate who prefer that the president come from the world of science and the humanities (33.5%) is the same as the rate who prefer that he come from the political world (35%); in the center, and all the more so on the left, there is a clear preference for the world of science and the humanities over the political world (respectively, in the center, 46%-30%; on the left, 60%-19%).
Negotiations index: Jewish sample—43.8

Graph of the month: What, in your opinion, are the chances that harsh sanctions will be imposed on Israel including a comprehensive boycott of its exports, and what are the chances that Israel will be able to withstand such sanctions without changing its policy? (%, high chances, by political camp)

The Peace Index is a project of the Evens Program for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute. This month's survey was conducted by telephone on January 28-29, 2014, by the Midgam Research Institute. The survey included 609 respondents, who constitute a representative national sample of the adult Jewish population aged 18 and over. For technical reasons, the data for the Israeli Arab sample will not be published this month. The maximum measurement error for the entire sample is 4.5% at a confidence level of 95%. Statistical processing was done by Ms. Yasmin Alkalay.
source

Cheering a new ‘I Hate Israel Handbook’

Coinciding with last weekend’s 75th anniversary of the “Kristallnacht” pogrom by the Nazis, several institutions in Berlin, including the Jewish Museum, organized an “International Conference on Current Phenomena of Antisemitism in Europe.” Given that the focus of the conference was supposedly on “current” manifestations of antisemitism in Europe, it was not at all promising that the keynote speaker – Oxford University philosopher Brian Klug – has made a name for himself by arguing that the demonization of the Jewish state is not “necessarily anti-semitic.” And while Klug has spent much energy opposing the notion that there is a “new antisemitism” that targets Israel, he seems eager to embrace the relatively new concept of “Islamophobia.”

When critics of Klug published a dossier detailing their objections to his views, the Oxford professor immediately hinted that he might take legal action, because his “attorney…confirmed that the dossier is defamatory.” That left me wondering if Klug (and his attorney, of course!) feels there is anything “defamatory” about the fact that he is being enthusiastically defended and cheered on by a site like Mondoweiss, which has often been accused of publishing antisemitic material.

In recent weeks, one of the biggest stories at Mondoweiss was the publication of a new book by Max Blumenthal, one of the site’s heroes. As one critical reviewer elsewhere noted, Blumenthal’s “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel” is really a “I Hate Israel Handbook” brimming with implicit equations of Israel with Nazis, which “could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed) without a single word change once it’s translated into Arabic.”

Unsurprisingly for those of us who are less sophisticated about antisemitism than Brian Klug, there is a big market for a new “I Hate Israel Handbook.” The Israel-haters at theElectronic Intifada jubilantly announced that the book was at one point “the number one seller on Amazon.com in the category of Israeli history.” So perhaps we can imagine that just as Brian Klug shared his thoughts on “Current Phenomena of Antisemitism” with his audience at the Berlin conference, some Mondoweiss (and Brian Klug) fans and other Israel-haters were savoring Blumenthal’s screed – and perhaps they even happened to read the chapters on the Israeli-run concentration camp and the Israeli-perpetrated Kristallnacht?

It is arguably no coincidence that a site like Mondoweiss would champion both Oxford philosopher Brian Klug and anti-Israel propagandist Max Blumenthal. Indeed, the fairly impressive endorsements Blumenthal has been able to get for his screed could be seen as the fruit of Klug’s endlessly repeated mantra that there should be precious few red lines when it comes to criticizing Israel. In one of his first articles on this subject Klug wrote some ten years ago:

“In his book, The Case for Israel, Alan Dershowitz argues that when criticism of Israel ‘crosses the line from fair to foul’ it goes ‘from acceptable to anti-semitic’.

People who take this view say the line is crossed when critics single Israel out unfairly; when they apply a double standard and judge Israel by harsher criteria than they use for other states; when they misrepresent the facts so as to put Israel in a bad light; when they vilify the Jewish state; and so on. All of which undoubtedly is foul. But is it necessarily anti-semitic?

No, it is not.”

Let’s imagine for a moment how Professor Klug would feel about this version:

“when critics single Islam out unfairly; when they apply a double standard and judge Islam by harsher criteria than they use for other religions; when they misrepresent the facts so as to put Islam in a bad light; when they vilify the Muslim religion...[this] undoubtedly is foul. But is it necessarily Islamophobic?

No, it is not.”

Of course, one could try this with Blacks, Roma, gays, or whatever other group or entity one would like to vilify while claiming the authority of Oxford philosopher Brian Klug to argue that none of this means that one is “necessarily” bigoted.

However, as we all know, the Klug-definition for bigotry is considered acceptable only when it comes to Israel. So Max Blumenthal and many others can apply double standards and judge Israel by harsher criteria than any other state; they canmisrepresent the facts so as to put Israel in a bad light; and they can freely vilify the Jewish state without risking to be denounced as “necessarily anti-semitic.”

Now let’s have a look at some of those who were happy to endorse Blumenthal’s “I Hate Israel Handbook.”

The top editorial endorsement featured on the book’s Amazon page is unsurprisingly from The Guardian: “Goliath…shows in forensic detail the reality of the Israeli mainstream’s embrace [of] blatant racism against Arabs and Africans.” It is noteworthy that The Guardian is saying here that the vast majority of Israelis are blatantly racist: the rightwing is racist by definition (certainly by The Guardian’s definition), and since the mainstream is also racist, only a small minority of far-left Israelis are perhaps not racist. It’s also safe to assume that The Guardian is only talking about Jewish Israelis here – so at least Arab Israelis may not be racist…

Ironically enough, another warm endorsement for Blumenthal’s screed comes from The American Conservative (TAC), nicely illustrating that when it comes to the evils of Israel, a supposedly “progressive” publication like The Guardian and a paleoconservative publication like TAC can see eye to eye.

Then there is an endorsement from Stephen Walt – with his full institutional affiliation: Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Walt praises Blumenthal’s “[b]rave reporting,” adding: “Makes me wish he wrote for the New York Times." Given that earlier this year, Walt served as guest contributor for the Hamas mouthpiece MEMO, it is arguably not surprising that he would happily endorse a book that “could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club.”

Another high-profile academic endorsement for Blumenthal’s screed comes from Rashid Khalidi, though the Columbia professor apparently didn’t want his institutional affiliation displayed. Khalidi praises the book because he feels it “lifts the carefully maintained veil concealing the reality of Israel as it actually is today” and he deplores that this reality “is elided in most reportage from the region.” Obviously Khalidi has a point: with all the bad press Israel is getting, the ‘unveiling’ of its concentration camps and Kristallnachts is still something that is usually found only on the lunatic Jew-hating fringes.

Needless to say, Blumenthal also made sure to collect endorsements from some well-known Jews. Charles H. Manekin, Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland, likes to describe himself as a “cultural Zionist” – that is to say, a “Zionist” who cares about Jewish culture but not about a Jewish state (– and non-philosophers might think that makes him an anti-Zionist…). His enthusiasm about Blumenthal’s “I Hate Israel Handbook” was such that he professed: “I would like to send a copy…to every Jew I know.”

In addition to these endorsements from academics, there is much praise from writers who work or worked for influential publications: Glenn Greenwald, who has just left The Guardian, apparently found it “stunningly insightful” to read about Israel’s concentration camps and Kristallnachts; David Hirst, also affiliated with The Guardian, worries that Israel will be destroyed by the “virulence of a cancer, both institutional and popular, which [is….] essentially of its own racist and colonialist making;” award-winning formerNew York Times reporter Chris Hedges considers Blumenthal’s screed one of the most “fearless and honest books ever written about Israel;” and long-time Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar also couldn’t help feeling impressed by Blumenthal’s relentless demonization of Israel.

Naturally, Blumenthal’s “I Hate Israel Handbook” was also warmly praised by his trusted comrades from Mondoweiss and The Electronic Intifada. And unsurprisingly, Blumenthal’s work is also much appreciated by the Jew-haters at  David Duke’s website:

“Blumenthal’s writings and videos are extremely valuable in the study of Jewish extremism, as he is not shy about using his Jewish name and looks to gain access to Jewish extremists in order to document the ugliest side of Zionism…as it pertains to Israel.”

While this is an endorsement Max Blumenthal chose not to quote on his Amazon page, I think that this is exactly the company the people who praised Blumenthal’s screed deserve. But I have no illusions that any of them would feel embarrassed by the fact that a propaganda tract they endorse is also praised by far-right antisemites. Moreover, even those who have prestigious academic positions know that, thanks in part to efforts like those of Oxford philosopher Brian Klug, there is no price to pay for cheering the vilification of the Jewish state – and therefore inevitably the Jews who sustain it – in ways that would be completely unacceptable if any other group with a long history of persecution and discrimination was the target. 

PA: Arafat was poisoned by Jews like Islam's Prophet Muhammad

They just never give up.

 

PA Minister of Religious Affairs:
"They [Jews] killed him.
Even Allah's Messenger [Muhammad] -
they (i.e., the Jews) murdered him with poison"

In a recent sermon broadcast on official PA TV, the Palestinian Authority Minister of Religious Affairs compared Arafat's death to that of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, saying both were poisoned and murdered by Jews.

According to the Hadith (sayings and practices attributed to Islam's Prophet Muhammad), a Jewish woman in the Jewish town of Khaibar served Muhammad poisoned meat. On his deathbed three years later, Muhammad told his wife Aisha that the pain he was experiencing was caused by the poisoned meat that he was given by the Jews.

In his sermon, PA Minister of Religious Affairs Al-Habbash preached that Arafat was murdered in the same way as Muhammad, repeating three times that Muhammad died from poison given to him in Khaibar - a town known for being Jewish in Islamic tradition:

"Yasser Arafat died a Martyr (Shahid) - we don't have the slightest doubt that they (i.e., the Jews/Israelis) killed him. One way or another, they killed him. Even Allah's Messenger [Muhammad] - they (i.e., the Jews) killed him with poison. When he was dying, he said to his wife Aisha: 'I feel the same pain I felt from the poison that I ate at Khaibar (Jewish village).' Poison that he ate at Khaibar. He continued to feel the pain until he died. 'I feel the same pain I felt from the poison that I ate at Khaibar.'"
 

Click to view

In 2012, the PA decided to take samples from Arafat's remains to test if he had been poisoned. Recently, a Swiss and a Russian team have published the results of these tests. The Swiss team concluded that the tests were "coherent with a hypothesis of poisoning." However, a member of the team also stated that "our study did not permit us to demonstrate categorically the hypothesis of poisoning by polonium." The Russian report concluded that "there was insufficient evidence to support the theory that Yasser Arafat died in 2004 by polonium poisoning." [Reuters, Nov. 8, 2013]

Nevertheless, PA Minister Al-Habbash concluded his sermon as follows:

"They killed him. Even Allah's Messenger [Muhammad] - they (i.e., the Jews) killed him with poison... Be satisfied, oh mighty one, oh Martyr Arafat, that you were killed the same way Allah's Messenger was killed... We have no doubt, and I don't think there is a single one among us who has the slightest doubt that Arafat was killed. Deep inside we all know who killed him."
 

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA has accused Israel of killing Arafat for years.

The following is from PA Minister Al-Habbash's sermon:

"Yasser Arafat died a Martyr (Shahid) - we don't have the slightest doubt that they (i.e., the Jews/Israelis) killed him. One way or another, they killed him. Even Allah's Messenger [Muhammad] - they (i.e., the Jews) killed him with poison. When he was dying, he said to his wife Aisha: 'I feel the same pain I felt from the poison that I ate at Khaibar (Jewish village). Poison that he ate at Khaibar. He continued to feel the pain until he died. 'I feel the same pain I felt from the poison that I ate at Khaibar.'
Be satisfied, oh mighty one, oh Martyr Arafat, that you were killed the same way Allah's Messenger was killed... We have no doubt, and I don't think there is a single one among us who has the slightest doubt that Arafat was killed. Deep inside we all know who killed him."

[Official PA TV, Nov. 8, 2013]

It should be noted that in response to reports about Arafat being poisoned, The Independent wrote the following:

"A leading British biomedical scientist says it is 'highly unlikely' that former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in a French hospital in 2004 from a lethal dose of radioactive polonium... Professor Nicholas Priest, who formerly headed the biomedical research unit of the Atomic Energy Authority in Britain, told The Independent that, while poisoning by polonium 'cannot be totally ruled out,' the symptoms were very different from those of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006... He pointed out that polonium would be naturally produced in the bones of anyone buried as a by-product of the bones absorbing lead from the soil, a point, he said, that 'the authors of the report understand but the journalists do not'... Professor Priest said it was 'far too dangerous and scientifically unjustified' to calculate how much polonium was in Arafat's body on the basis of 'such tiny concentrations of polonium.'"

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/british-expert-says-its-highly-unlikely-arafat-was-

poisoned-8929762.html?origin=internalSearch

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

First robbed of their books, now robbed of their history

 Times of Israel have been writing about,  an exhibition has now opened at the National Archives building in Washington D.C. featuring the highlights of a collection of 2,700 Jewish documents.

These documents were miraculously discovered, rescued from a waterlogged Baghdad basement in 2003, shipped to the US and painstakingly restored. They call it the Iraqi-Jewish Geniza: school records, prayer books, precious Bibles, letters, official documents - a unique record of an extinct community. However, controversy stalks the archive: it was stolen by the dictator Saddam Hussein and seized from its Jewish owners. Its return to Iraq would be tantamount to returning looted artworks to the Nazis.

Pleading in the New York Times for the archive not to be sent back to Iraq, Cynthia Kaplan Shamash begins by describing the 1941 Farhud, "the forgotten pogrom of the Holocaust". The murder of over a hundred Jews, seven years before the establishment of Israel, caused Iraqi Jews to conclude that they had no future in the country.

Cynthia's family, however, stayed in Iraq on until the 1970s. She was eight years old when an officer accused her of being a spy. Her doll was taken apart to see if it contained a bugging device. She still has the doll. In their desperation to escape Iraq's anti-Jewish human rights abuses, the family had to leave behind almost all their other possessions. The archive represents essential "lost luggage": it reconnects them with the life they left behind.

In December, a historian called Orit Bashkin is scheduled to give a talk as part of a programme of events associated with the National Archives exhibit. Ms Bashkin is the ‘new kid on the block’ in the field of the history of the Jews of Iraq. Her book “New Babylonians“, “chronicles the lives of these Jews, their urban Arab culture, and their hopes for a democratic nation-state. It studies their ideas about Judaism, Islam, secularism, modernity, and reform, focusing on Iraqi Jews who internalized narratives of Arab and Iraqi nationalisms and on those who turned to communism in the 1940s.”

The blurb on the book jacket of “New Babylonians” continues:

”The ultimate displacement of this community was not the result of perpetual persecution on the part of their Iraqi compatriots, but rather the outcome of misguided state policies during the late 1940s and early 1950s. From a dominant mood of coexistence, friendship and partnership, the impossibility of Arab-Jewish coexistence became the prevailing narrative of the region.”

Let’s run that again, Ms Bashkin.

‘Late 1940s and 1950s’ implies that the Iraqis reacted to the establishment of the state of Israel by making their Jews suffer. Ms Bashkin makes these ‘misguided’ policies sound incoherent, bumbling, almost accidental. Until the late 1940s. Bashkin views Iraqi Jews as ‘patriots’ building the new independent state of Iraq – or seeking a universalist solution in Communism – until Zionism tore their relationships with their Muslim partners asunder.

After the vast majority of Iraqi Jews had voted with their feet, joining the airlift to Israel, how does Orit Bashkin explain why Iraq continued its ‘misguided policies’ against the few thousand Jews, including Cynthia Shamash and her family, who remained behind? From the mid-1960s, these Jews were forced to carry special ID papers, were not allowed to travel or leave the country, had their bank accounts frozen and their telephones cut off. Such was the anti-Jewish campaign of terror unleashed by Saddam Hussein and his thugs, that the Jews were compelled to risk arrest by escaping the country. If this is not ‘perpetual persecution’, what is?

By pegging the start of the Jews’ troubles to the late 1940s and early 1950s, Bashkin downplays the deleterious effects of the 1941 Farhud.The rising influence of Nazism in 1930s, resulting in the sacking of hundreds of Jewish public servants, quotas and restrictions and a deadly antisemitic cocktail of propaganda and incitement culminating in the 1941 pogrom, hardly feature in Ms Bashkin’s book. For her, the Farhud was most notable for the numbers of Muslims who saved the lives of Jews from the raging mob, demonstrating age-old friendship and shared coexistence.

In reality, the Jews of Iraq had a sense of foreboding about their place in an independent Iraq as soon as the British had marched into Iraq after the defeat of the Ottomans in World War l. Between 1918 and 1921 a delegation of Baghdad Jewish notables visited Sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner, on three occasions. They requested British nationality, fearful of what Arab rule might bring. This significant episode barely rates a mention in Bashkin’s book.

There persists a real disconnect between how individuals such as Cynthia Shamash experience events and how academics, in their ivory towers, interpret them. As evidenced by a recent conference at the Yale Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Ms Bashkin is not alone, but one of a new crop of rising young stars in the field of Middle Eastern Studies. These scholars emphasise the points of connection between Arab and Jews, while erasing from the historical record, or glossing over, politically-incorrect human rights abuses. Some are eagerly redefining the identity of Jews in Arab countries as ‘hyphenated’ Arab-Jews, conflicted by the Arab-Israeli dispute, itself an aberration after centuries of peaceful coexistence. So desperate are post-modern academics to believe in the pre-Zionist ‘dominant mood of coexistence and friendship’ between Jews and Arabs, that they are willing to give ideological, Nazi-inspired, Arab Muslim antisemitism a free pass.

Thus, while the National Archives exhibit presents the West with a stark reminder of how Iraqi Jews were robbed of their books, they are simultaneously being robbed of their history. And the culprits in this case, are not the thugs of a despotic Middle Eastern regime, but our very own, mild-mannered academics.

blogs.timesofisrael.com

Protect Christians and Jews, says major Christian - Jewish conference

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A major conference between the Catholic Church and leading Jewish representatives in Madrid called Thursday for both communities to support efforts at ending anti-Christian persecution and anti-Semitism in the Middle East and Europe.

The 22nd International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee meeting, which closed Thursday, brought together the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, as it has since 1971.

The joint statement released after the meeting called on the two groups to work together to combat anti-Christian persecution, and “to support efforts to guarantee full citizenship to all citizens regardless of religious or ethnic identity in the Middle East and beyond.”

Persecution of Christians has spiked in the wake of the upheaval in the Arab world. Syrian Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, say they are particularly vulnerable to the violence sweeping the country of 22 million people. In Egypt, there has been a backlash against Christians by Islamist militants for their activism against former president Mohammed Morsi, ousted by the military on July 3 after a wave of massive protests against his rule.

“We encourage efforts to promote the well-being of minority Christian and Jewish communities throughout the Middle East,” the statement read.

The Liaison Committee, or ILC, called for restrictions to be dropped, and addressed “moves to interpret ‘secularity’ and ‘secular society’ in ways that marginalize religious groups and individuals,” biblical scholar Murray Watson said, using recent moves in Quebec to forbid public servants from wearing religious garb in government offices or public settings as an example.

Watson, an expert on Catholic-Jewish relations, told The Times of Israel that the conference saw the fates of Jews and Christians as linked.

“I think that there is a growing awareness that whatever impacts on one community will almost inevitably have an impact on other communities,” he said.

The conference, themed on “Challenges for Religion in Contemporary Society,” took place as a European survey was released in which a quarter of the respondents — Jews from nine countries — said they avoid visiting places and wearing symbols that identify them as Jews for fear of anti-Semitism.

Calling it a sin, the conference’s statement said that the upcoming 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate in 2015 is an opportune time to reaffirm its denunciation of anti-Semitism.

The key point of reference for Catholic relations with the Jewish people, the 1965 declaration — which grew out of the Vatican II conference — stressed the religious bond shared by Jews and Catholics, reaffirmed the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people, and called for a halt to attempts to convert Jews.

“We urge that anti-Semitic teachings be eliminated from preaching and textbooks everywhere in the world,” read the statement Thursday.

For a variety of reasons, Catholic outreach toward Jews and changes in the Church’s attitude toward Jews since Nostra Aetate are not widely taught in Jewish schools. The conference recommended that both Jewish and Catholic seminaries educate their students about the subject.

“As a new generation of Jewish and Catholic leaders arises, we underscore the profound ways that Nostra Aetate changed the relationship between Jews and Catholics. It is imperative that the next generation embrace these teachings and ensure that they reach every corner of the world,” the statement read. “We Catholics and Jews renew our commitment to educate our own respective communities in the knowledge of and respect for each other.”

The ILC is the official forum for dialogue between the Church´s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations.

The organization was formed after the first international meeting between Catholics and Jews in 1970, and met the next year in Paris. It has convened regularly since, including meetings in Jerusalem around the Vatican’s recognition of Israel in 1994.

According to Watson, a member of the Canadian Christian-Jewish Consultation, the conference provides an international forum for Jewish and Catholic leaders to discuss issues of particular concern to each side, such as anti-Jewish or anti-Christian violence.

“[It] allows both sides to better and more accurately understand the faith-perspective of the other group, to seek clarifications…and to testify to the world community about the possibilities for dialogue and collaboration between differing religious groups,” he said.

Times of Israel

Medieval Jews Fleeing Persecution Took Refuge in Ottoman Empire

Turkey became home to Jews expelled from Hungary in 1376, from France in 1394, and from Sicily in the early 15th century.

With the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s numerous anti-semitic statements, one often forgets that relations between the Jewish people and the Turkish nation used to be very different. However, there was a time in history when Ottoman Turkey, the predecessor of the Turkish Republic, was a safe haven for the Jewish people, while certain nations in Christian Europe were massacring, issuing blood libels, torturing, expelling, and discriminating against their Jewish populations.

The Jews of the Byzantine Empire were heavily persecuted, especially after Christianity was declared to be the official religion by Theodosius 11 (408 – 450), who excluded Jews from the basic rights of citizenship and prohibited the building of new synagogues. His successor, Emperor Maurice, was even worse. He transformed all synagogues within his empire into churches and forcefully converted Jews to Christianity. The situation deteriorated even further as the Byzantine Empire declined.

Thus, when the Ottoman Turks captured Bursa in 1324, they discovered a heavily oppressed Jewish community. The Jews of Bursa treated the Ottoman Turks as their saviors. Sultan Orhan gave the Jews who previously couldn’t build synagogues permission to build the Etz Ha-Hayyim (Tree of Life) Synagogue. Indeed, the liberation of the Jews of Bursa in 1324 from the yoke of the Byzantines represented the beginning of the Turkish-Jewish friendship.

Starting in the early 14th century, Jews fleeing oppression began to settle in the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Turkey thus became the home to Jews expelled from Hungary in 1376, from France in 1394, and from Sicily in the early 15th century. In the 1420’s, Jews living under Venetian controlled Salonika also migrated to the Ottoman Empire. In 1453, Sultan Mehmet II started to actively encourage Jews to settle in Ottoman lands. He issued a proclamation to all Jews stating, “Who among you of all my people that is with me, may his G-d he with him, let him ascend to Istanbul, the site of my imperial throne. Let him dwell in the best of the land, each beneath his vine and beneath his fig tree, with silver and with gold, with wealth and with cattle. Let him dwell in the land, trade in it, and take possession of it.”

This statement was issued at a time when Jews across Europe were in great distress due to the persecutions they endured and were greatly in need of a safe haven. Thus, Rabbi Yitzhak Safarti sent out a letter to the Jewish communities of Europe soon after the Byzantine Empire collapsed completely in 1453, “inviting his co-religionists to leave the torments that they were enduring in Christendom and to seek safety and prosperity in Turkey.” Not too long after this letter was sent, in 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain expelled the Jews from their country, which along with the Spanish Inquisition that followed it was arguably one of the most traumatic events in Jewish history prior to the Holocaust.

That same year, Sultan Bayazid II issued a proclamation ordering his officials to accept the Sephardic Jews into his country. Around 250,000 Jews came to settle in Ottoman lands, with most heading towards Istanbul and Salonika, which absorbed a total of 100,000 Jews. Immanual Aboab claimed that Bayazid II asserted that “the Catholic monarch Ferdinand was wrongly considered as wise, since he impoverished Spain by the expulsion of the Jews, and enriched Turkey.”

With the arrival of the Sephardic Jews in Ottoman Turkey, the Jewish people would witness a revival similar to the Golden Age that they experienced in Spain which lasted for 300 years following the Expulsion of 1492. Rabbi Joseph Caro wrote the Shulchan Aruch, the standard code of Jewish law in Safed, Israel, under Ottoman Turkish rule. The Lekhah Dodi prayer which Jews to date traditionally sing in the Friday evening synagogue services around the world, was composed in medieval Israel by Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz under Ottoman Turkish rule. Similarly, Rabbi Jacob Kuli’s Me’am Loez, an extremely popular Torah commentary written in the Ladino language, as well as Rabbi Avraham ben Isaac Asa’s translation of the Tanakh into Ladino, were also published under the Ottoman Turks.

Yet the Golden Age of the Jews of Ottoman Turkey expanded far beyond religious scholarship. David and Samuel Ibn Nahmias introduced the printing press into the Ottoman Empire, in 1493 when they established the first Hebrew Printing Press. Joseph Nasi was appointed Duke of Naxos, while Aluaro Mandes was named Duke of Mytylene and Salamon ben Nathan Eskenazi arranged the first diplomatic ties between the Ottoman Turks and the British Empire. Gracia Mendes, a wealthy Sephardic Jew who moved to Ottoman lands, arranged with the Turkish sultan to purchase the city of Tiberius with the intention of making it an independent Jewish city state and her plan almost succeeded. This was several hundred years before the rise of the Zionist movement. And Esther Kyra exercised enormous influence in the Ottoman courts. Indeed, Ottoman Turkey was truly “enriched” by the arrival of the Sephardim.

The Jewish Press

Arab Breaks Chair on Elderly Jew's Head

Scenes reminiscent of 1920s and 30s becoming commonplace in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

Another day, another story of a brutal attack by Arabs against Jews. And as usual, most news outlets will not cover this news.

A large-bodied Arab man attacked an elderly Jew in Jerusalem's Old City last Saturday. The victim's daughter, Tali Hoffman, told Arutz Sheva that her father was making his way to Shacharit prayers, as he does every Sabbath, from his home in the Muslim Quarter to the Kotel.
When he arrived at HaGay Street, just a few dozen meters from the Kotel, the Arab man stepped out of a falafel shop and tried to knock him down by shoving a chair toward his legs. Having failed to knockdown the Jew, the Arab then threw the chair at Hoffman's head.

The chair broke from the force of the blow. Hoffman's father suffered a deep cut in his arm, which he had used to protect his head. The Arab escaped and other Arabs who were present did nothing to help the  bleeding Jew. Border Policemen who had been nearby escorted the Jew to the Kishle station, where he received first aid and lodged a complaint.

Hoffman noted that 15 years ago, her husband was murdered close to the spot where the attack took place. Her father lives in the house that his murdered son-in-law had built, in the Muslim Quarter. The house had been a stable and had belonged to Jews.

Hoffman said that her father did not want to talk about the incident. She explained that he had experienced the Holocaust and that people of his generation did not like to talk about things of this nature.

Brutal attacks against Jews have become increasingly commonplace in Israel, wherever Jews and Arabs live in proximity. Readers of Arutz Sheva are painfully aware of the situation, which is becoming reminiscent of the Arab Rebellion and popular terror of the 1920s and 30s, but other news media peddle a different narrative.

Whereas there was no Jewish police or army in the 1920s and 30s, they do exist today, but have been hamstrung by leftist subversion in the universities media, courts and political system.