Palestinian creativity, Iranian genius

Palestinians who wage war to destroy the world's only Jewish state will not give up their dream. They will work until they  win--or die.

They understand their enemy. Israel is very stubborn. It won't go away.

Over the decades since Israel's rebirth, Palestinians and their friends have slowly and painfully created a plan. The plan is, they won't attack Israel outright--at least, not yet. Instead, they will create a terror menu to destroy Israel with "a thousand cuts'. Here's a brief portion of that menu: 

-fire rockets at Israel's civilians.

-use their own (Palestinian) citizens as human sacrifices, so that when Israel retaliates because of Palestinian rocket attacks, Palestinian civilian deaths will enrage powerful anti-Israel forces around the world.

-go to the UN after it sacrifices its own citizens in this manner. There, it will use its influence to get Israel labeled as a brutal killer of 'innocents'.

-incite Palestinian children to attack individual Israelis. 

-pay a Palestinian--or his surviving family--for killing Israeli Jews (the infamous 'pay-to-slay' program)

-employ a vicious propaganda program to demonize the 'demon Zionist'. 

-create an entire series of extraordinary murderous tactics against Israel's Jews, including knife attacks, car rammings, suicide bombs, stone attacks, fire kites, arson, and--perhaps most creative of all--flaming condoms (here). 

-burn thousands of acres of Israel's farmland and nature preserves.

-go to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to charge Israeli soldiers and politicians as war criminals.

-create a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) program to convince the world to stop doing business with Israel.

The creative energies used to develop this extraordinary 'terror menu' is powerful enough to figure out how to construct a new sewage treatment plant or a new jobs program. But construction, treated sewage and jobs don't interest these Palestinians. What interests them is killing Jews.

That's where their creative energies get directed.

This creativity, however, pales beside the genius of Iran. Iran is interested in  more sophisticated ideas. Apparently, Iran is smarter than Palestinian leaders.  

Iran wants the US to help destroy the Jews of Israel.

How can Iran do that? Didn't you catch this Iranian genius at work last week? It was very impressive: Iran demanded that the US must force Israel to denuclearize (here).

Of course, the rabidly anti-Israel Iran regime would love to see Israel denuclearized. Iran wants nuclear weapons for itself, ostensibly to use against Israel. It calls almost monthly to destroy Israel (at least, it certainly seems that Iran calls monthly to destroy Israel). Now, it demands the US to strip Israel of its ability to defend itself--so that the soon-to-nuclearize Iran will be able to attack Israel with no fear of retaliation. 

Don't you just love the chutzpa of it? It's pure genius--far more sophisticated than the Palestinian-generated ideas we've seen.

Iran wants the US to defang an Israel that has never threatened to destroy anyone so that Iran can destroy Israel with its own soon-to-be-acquired nuclear weapon. 

Certainly, an Israel without its nuclear fangs would be the perfect target for Iran. Under such a circumstance, I have no doubt Iran would attack Israel the instant it acquired nuclear capability. 

Palestinians and Iranians amaze the world. They will expend every drop of creativity and genius they have to kill the Jews of Israel.

The war against the Jews--the 'Zionist entity'--has no end. 
The drive to create ever-new ways to attack the Jewish state has no limit.

What kind of future do you want?

(Last update: June 27, 2018)


The Middle East is an incubator for creative ideas. These ideas aren't just applicable in the Middle East. They have the power to impact everyone in the world. 

These new-born ideas come primarily from just two places in the Middle East: Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

You may already know that Israel is the 'start-up' nation, where technologies straight out of science fiction become reality. But did you know about the creativity of the PA?   

Here are a couple of short lists for you to consider. Perhaps they can illustrate how both Israel and the PA create ideas that can change your life.

First, a short list from Israel: 

-Abigail Klein Leichman, "Israeli team says new test takes uncertainty out of prostate cancer  screening", timesofisrael, February 27, 2018: a new prostate cancer screening process, called Celldirect Technology, is being developed by the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, Israel. Development is in the early stages, but results so far are very encouraging (ibid);

-Abigail Klein Leichman, "Novel process removes mercury from factory emissions", israel21c, February 25,  2018: a unique made-in-Israel process can remove  up to 95 percent of mercury emissions from coal-fired factories and power plants (ibid). The process can be installed into new plants or as a retro-fit. It produces no waste byproducts (MercuRemoval, homepage); 

-Abigail Klein Leichman, "Israelis build first dairy farm in  Papua New Guinea", israel21c, February 20, 2018: until 2017, when an Israeli company completed building the very first dairy farm in Papua New Guinea, residents of this South Pacific nation had to import all its milk. Because Israeli dairy farms are the most productive in the world (ibid), Israel has been given the opportunity to set up one of its signature high-productive farms in Papua New Guinea. Israel has done the same thing for China, England, India, Mexico, Namibia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Romania, South Africa and Vietnam (ibid); 

-Danny Lewis, "The contentious history of the cherry tomato", smithsonianmag,  June 20, 2016: people may disagree over who brought the first cherry tomato to market. But Israel was, apparently, the very first to figure out how to breed a cherry tomato that could be packed, shipped and sold before they spoiled (ibid);

-Matt Buchanan, "Object of interest: the flash drive", newyorker, June 14, 2013...The first US patent for the invention of the USB flash drive was filed by an Israeli company. 

If, in addition, you want to see more lists of Israeli inventions that have had world-wide impacts, go to Abigail Klein Leichman , "Israel's top 45 greatest inventions of all time", israel21c, September 26, 2011; and, Abigail Klein Leichman, "The top 12 most amazing Israeli medical advances", israel21c, October 15, 2013.

Israel has sent out into the world literally dozens of innovations and inventions which have made all of our lives easier, better, safer and healthier. Israel is a true incubator for extraordinary innovations.

If you also want to look for similar lists from the Palestinian Authority, good luck. There aren't any.

 But there is a list of innovations and inventions which have come from the Palestinian Authority. Here's a partial lists of the Palestinian innovations: 

-the car intifada

-the knife intifada

-the child intifada

-the stone intifada 

-Border fence riots

-firebomb kites

-Days of Rage

-flaming condoms (here)

Here's the point of these two lists: if you stand with Israel, and help Israel to survive, you're destined to see in your future a lot of high-tech wizardry, innovation and medical advancements. You'll see an Israel that benefits mankind. These benefits may even save your life.

But if you fight for the Palestinian Authority--for what some call, 'Palestinian justice'--you're destined to see a lot of new ways to kill people, some of which might come to your own city. You will see, in other words, a Palestinian productivity that does nothing to benefit mankind. One of its innovations may even, one day, kill you or someone in your family.

Which side will you choose?

To answer this question, you must first answer another question: what kind of future do you want for yourself--a world of innovation and advancement, or a world of Rage, firebombs, border riots and flaming condoms?

It's your future. It's your choice.

How to use a Jewish-Israel success to create an anti-Israel lie

Here's what I call a wonderful story about bigots who hate Israel. It comes to you via the blog, elderofziyon. I have it for you today, unedited.

This story reminds us of a strange truth: those who love to hate Israel cannot abide truth. The reason is simple: only lies consistently lend themselves to the demonizing of the hated Jew-state. The truth is too unwieldy for such a task.

This story below illustrates the first half of this point--that lies are the best way to attack Israel. This story also suggests that Israel-hate has no interest in the successes of the Jewish Israel. The only thing Israel-haters seem to care about is how to  misrepresent the Jewish narrative in order to abuse the Jewish state. 

Indeed, this story may prompt you to wonder: if this is what Israel-haters have to do to make their anti-Israel case, maybe they have no case to make.

If you look closely at the post below, you'll see that the 'Israel-hater' in this tale is something called, BDSsouthafrica.

Take a look. Have a laugh. Draw your own conclusions: 

• Friday, June 22, 2018
• Elder of Ziyon

Anti-Israel COSATU illustrates "Palestinian refugees" with picture of Jewish refugees

Here's a photo of Jewish refugees in an Israeli absorption camp in 1950. About 80% of the residents of these camps were Jews who were forced to flee from Arab countries.

The picture symbolizes how Israel took in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees and integrated them into Israeli society as full citizens.

This is in marked contrast with how Arab nations treated Arab refugees and other Arabs who fled Palestine in 1947 and 1948. Those people were not welcomed, not integrated into their host countries, and are to this day used as political pawns.

Wednesday was World Refugee Day. The viciously anti-Israel Congress of South African Trade Unions, posted on Twitter [this] photo of the Jews who are no longer refugees to illustrate the fate of Arabs who the world still calls refugees - still using them as pawns for political purposes:

Dozens of people pointed out to COSATU that the photo was not of Palestinian Arabs. They didn't care, because to the people who hate Israel, the truth is not important  - the propaganda is.

--

The point of these 'Palestinian' refugee pictures is to 'show' the world--or to suggest--the supposed brutality of Israel--for supposedly having caused the problem, when she didn't (here). Those who attack Israel (like BDSsouthafrica above) certainly do not want anyone to see the Jewish success in gathering in Jewish refugees because that could provoke an embarrassing question: if the Jews solved their refugee problem, why couldn't the 'Palestinians'/Arabs? 

There's another angle to this Jewish 'refugee success'. Those who hate Israel render themselves stupid. They accomplish this by resenting truth. They won't talk about how (in contrast to Arabs to whom 'Palestinians' turned), Israel after 1948 gathered in its Jewish refugee brothers and sisters, and used their talents and efforts to make Israel great. Israel-haters, by contrast, choose not to solve the 'Palestinian' refugee problem all, but to perpetuate it. 

They won't study the Jewish refugee success as a model for their own refugee effort. They'd rather ignore, steal, twist and otherwise misrepresent Israel's refugee success to make/suggest a case against Israel. 

If that's how these people must operate to attack Israel, they fail. If anything, these kinds of twisted arguments have an opposite effect: they suggest that the only way they can attack Israel's legitimacy is to lie.

That doesn't make them look like moral giants. It makes them look like fools.

Trump-haters, Netanyahu-haters: what's going on here?

Look at the madness that swirls around both US President Donald Trump and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Do you see the similarities? 

The Trump situation in the US focuses on Trump's personality, his tweets and public pronouncements. He's considered so outrageous he appears to have accomplished an amazing feat, if you can call it that: he's succeeded in provoking the wrath of the Left, the mainstream media and (at least some) on the Right.

It's a cold day in Hell when you can pull off that trick.

The complaints--and the attacks--against Trump began way before the US election in November 2016. Now, some 19 months later--June, 2018--the complaints and attacks seem only to have increased. 

In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has also been attacked by mainstream media and politicians. As with Trump in the US, Netanyahu in Israel has also been attacked by both Left and Right.  

The Left wants him gone because, it says, Netanyahu is too tough against Palestinians.The Right goes after  him because it  says, he's not tough enough against Palestinians. 

This is the first--perhaps least compelling--similarity between them.

In America, the weekly hate-fest against Trump focuses on four complaints: (1) he's a womanizing sexist, a crude male chauvinist pig whose sexual appetite is out of control; (2) he's stupid as a stone, truly capable of accidentally blowing up the US or, alternatively, he's stupid enough to spark some kind of accident that destroys the entire Western world; (3) he's the world's biggest liar, unfit to be President; and (4) he's the most obnoxiously arrogant human, ever. 

Take a recent Trump 'trigger' to anger his haters. Perhaps because the mainstream media in the US has practically guaranteed Trump will be indicted for something, Trump has triggered an outrage with the declaration that, in essence, it doesn't matter if he's indicted. He doesn't care. Why? Because, he says, 'I'm President of the United States...I have the power to pardon myself' (Conor Beck, "Trump: 'I Have the Absolute Right to Pardon Myself’", washingronfreebeacon, June 4, 2018). 

The anti-Trumpers of America have just about become blind with rage over this comment. They can't believe Trump believes he can immunize himself against illegal actions he's been accused of taking.

One way of describing this outrage is to say that his haters are not only left speechless by his effrontery. They're also unable to stop him. And they know it. 

This knowledge drives them deeper into despair--and rage. 

The outrage over this 'I can pardon myself' announcement ran from, 'let me remind you of something...you are not a king' (here) to 'a self-pardon' could be 'outrageously improper' (here). But these were just the more judicious reactions.

The less judicious reactions began with, "The president is considering pardoning himself as a way to avoid a Department of Justice investigation into his electoral campaign? This is theatre of the absurd" (ibid). Then, there's this reaction: "Only if President Trump believes that he may be guilty of a crime would he be interested in pardoning himself. This is not the behavior of an innocent man" (ibid).

Finally, with Trump, the haters always find a conspiracy theory to explain his supposed madness. This outrage is no exception: Trump was talking 'pardon' (some have suggested) to send a message to everyone caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation into allegations that Trump sought help from Russia to win the 2016 election; the message was simple: stay loyal to me and I'll pardon you--or, as one wage put it, Trump was advertising a get-out-of-jail-free-card (Caleb Ecarma, "CNN's New Day says Trump's D'Souza's pardon is signal to Russia Probe targets: 'Get out of jail free card'", mediaite, June 1, 2018).

Unfortunately for Trump-haters, the current legal bottom-line here seems to be that, while many would question a president's ability to self-pardon, this scenario (Trump actually pardoning himself) is nonetheless untested legal waters and--most outrageous of all to those who hate Trump--such a claim would certainly "not get laughed out of court", as some have suggested (here).

Trump-haters want to nail the man to a tree. Trump just laughs. Trump-haters sputter maddeningly.  

What's worse for those haters, is this political anomaly: the crazier Trump appears to get, the more popular he seems to get.

How maddening is that?

In Israel's, Netanyahu-haters are pulling their hair out in clumps. Of  course, no one in Israel says Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is crazy. No one claims he's an idiot. No one claims he appears so incompetent he could blow up Israel.  

The haters here in Israel simply claim he's corrupt. They claim his wife is corrupt. They claim one of his adult children (Yair) is not just corrupt, he's an arrogant racist. One recent Netanyahu-hater went so far as to call Yair 'the family's monkey' ("During lawsuit, Abie Binyamin says, 'Yair Netanyahu is the Netanyahu family's monkey",  arutzshevanewsbrief, June 5, 2018, 1722 pm). Whatever that means.

Those who hate Netanyahu claim he must be indicted. It's the only way they can unseat him. 

He should be indicted for bribery. Or, maybe he should be indicted for corruption. Or, at the very least, he should be indicted for something called, 'breach of trust'. They say he belongs in jail--for something.

These aren't new claims. They've been hitting the news in Israel for some two years--perhaps longer.

And yet, just as with Trump, the longer the accusations against Netanyahu keep getting repeated in the media, the greater his popularity becomes. His growing political strength drives his haters to distraction.

In the US, haters suggest Trump stumbles around the country giving speeches like a drunk with both feet in his mouth. His audiences love it. His haters gnash their their teeth.

Netanyahu isn't Trump. When he travels, it's to go around the world to hit political home-runs with international leaders. His supporters love it. His haters gnash their teeth.

There's yet another similarity. Both men face personal attacks against family members. Trump's wife, Melania, daughter Ivanka and son Donald Jr have been criticized, perhaps at times savaged, by Trump-haters. Netanyahu-haters in Israel, meanwhile, have gone after his wife, Sara and his son Yair. 

In the past, in both countries, when leaders have been heavily investigated, the repeated promise that indictments are imminent have been enough to get a national political figure literally tossed overboard. That hasn't happened (so far) with either Trump or Netanyahu. Why not?

Do you know what's going on here? I certainly don't.

Stay tuned. 

Jerusalem: where I go to understand Apartheid

In my household, Wednesday is Shuk day. The 'Shuk', as it's commonly known, is a marketplace similar to your local (non-Israeli) summertime 'farmers' market'. However, there is a difference between a modern Israeli big-city shuk and your own local summer farmers' market. 

First, the vendors of a shuk do not typically sell their merchandise from the back of a truck. Second, shuk vendors don't work only during the summer months; they work year-round at the same location. Third, the shuk vendor doesn't work from a temporary work environment, as most vendors do in a typical farmers' market environment.

The modern ,big-city Israeli shuk is housed within or under a permanent structure where vendors work side-by-side in permanent rectangular cubicles that vary in size from an average of 8/12 feet by 15/20 feet. Of course, some such 'cubicles' are smaller, others larger. Also, in a big-city Israeli shuk, there are literally hundreds of vendors selling fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, olives, cheese, wines, baked goods, nuts, religious items, clothing, kitchen utensils etc.

For our family shuk days, we travel into Jerusalem, Israel's biggest city. The trip, door (home) to door (the shuk), takes about 45 -50 minutes each way. The cost for each one-way trip is (for retired folk) app $1.70 USD per person (cost in dollars depends upon exchange rate). The trip requires one to switch mid-way from a bus to a light rail train. But the use of a free transfer means we pay that app $1.70 USD only when we begin the trip.

Often, we take 'the long way'. This means we get off early in Jerusalem and walk through Jerusalem's downtown to the shuk. This allows us to shop (or window-shop) a variety of retail stores--or, at our discretion, to stop for lunch on our way to the shuk. 

We eat only kosher food. But in Jerusalem, that's not a problem. Wherever we walk in Jerusalem, the restaurants all appear to be strictly kosher. 

It is this stroll through Jerusalem's downtown on our way to the shuk that brings me face-to-face with what I call the reality of Apartheid. But what I see in Jerusalem is not the Apartheid you're thinking of; when I see Arabs walking freely in the Jewish Jerusalem, I wonder at how many Jews walk as freely in the Arab city of Ramallah. 

That's where the thought of Apartheid hits me--with Ramallah. 

When a visitor to Jerusalem sees Arabs and Jews together on the city's streets, he (the visitor) sees two different peoples supposedly at war with each other walking peacefully in public--and shopping peacefully together. This Apartheid-free experience means that  Arabs--the minority population--truly walk freely in the Jews' Jerusalem. In the eight years I've been here, I've seen no nasty anti-Arab scenes on these Jerusalem streets. I've seen no Arab in Jerusalem get spat upon, verbally abused or punched by a member of the majority population (the Jews). 

I've seen no hint of the so-called Apartheid the world accuses us of embracing.

Arabs who walk on the sidewalks of Jerusalem practically cheek-by-jowl with Jews are often easily identifiable as Arab. They don't try hide being Arab--or attempt to look 'Jewish'. Quite to the contrary, many Arab women on these Jewish sidewalks seem to delight being dressed up in either (in my uninformed opinion) a form of dress close to traditional Arab women's wear. This means the woman's face and hands are uncovered, with everything else covered by a street-length toga-like often-belted dress, or light full-length coat that looks to me like an American raincoat, but isn't. Younger Arab women dress handsomely in a more modern dress format with hair fully covered with a large, sometimes elaborate  scarf/head-wrap, combined with modern ladies pants (sometimes tight) and athletic shoes.

Younger Arab men typically dress as many secular Israeli men do for downtown Jerusalem--very informally. This means jeans, t-shirts, athletic shoes. Older Arab men often appear in Jerusalem more 'formally' dressed, with a white-collar shirt, dress pants and dress shoes. 

The point of this experience in Jerusalem is that it's so 'normal'. There is not one hint of Apartheid.

Because it's not there. Arabs can shop like this, so freely and peacefully, precisely because there is no Apartheid (institutionalized state-mandated discrimination against the minority population) in Israel. One shopping tour in downtown Jerusalem proves it. 

This experience of freedom reminds me of Apartheid because it makes me wonder what it's like for a Jew to walk in the Muslim Ramallah.  

I think of Ramallah because both the Jewish Jerusalem and the Muslim Ramallah have something in common. Both cities are considered to be 'capital cities'. Both Jews and Muslims see Jerusalem as cosmopolitan, and many Muslims see Ramallah as cosmopolitan. When you spend time in either city, you can see why people speak this way: there's  music, art, museums, entertainment, culture and restaurants--and an active nightlife.
                
 Now, while Ramallah is said to be a cosmopolitan city, I can't confirm that because Jews are discouraged from going there. It's simply too dangerous. Arabs, on the other hand, have no such concerns regarding Jerusalem.

Some Jews do live in Ramallah. But the number is extremely small, perhaps less than 40. From what I gather from reading about them (here), they like Ramallah. It is, they say, a pleasant place. I have no reason to doubt them.

But these Jewish residents of Ramallah are careful. They travel cautiously (ibid). They watch who they say things to (ibid). They don't flaunt their Jewishness--and they don't do anything that would identify them as Jews (ibid).

This is one of the main differences between the open, free Jerusalem and the Apartheid Ramallah. While Arabs in Jerusalem seem to enjoy dressing up in traditional garb in Jerusalem--helping one easily to identify them as Arab--Jews in Ramallah don't dress in any way to suggest they are 'Jewish'. 

The 'Apartheid' angle here is that an Arab is completely free to self-identify as Arab in Jerusalem. But a Jew wouldn't dare show 'Jewish' in Ramallah.

The second 'Apartheid' element is that you will see hundreds, if not thousands, of Arabs in Jerusalem's downtown between 8 am and 8 pm almost every workday. In a very real sense, in Jerusalem, Arabs are visible everywhere in downtown Jerusalem. 

It's not that way for Jews in Ramallah. Pleasant as the city might be, it is, basically, Jew-free, just as you'd expect to see in an Apartheid environment. This means that, during those same hours (8am - 8pm) in Ramallah, you will be hard-pressed to identify even one Jew. 

Whenever I walk through Jerusalem on my way to the shuk, I think about Apartheid because the freedom of Jerusalem makes me think of the relatively Jew-free Ramallah. As I walk, I can see the faces of Arabs mixing freely and peacefully with Jews in the Jewish Jerusalem all the while knowing that Jews cannot do the same in Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem--or in any other city in the Palestinian Authority.

That's what bothers me when I walk in Jerusalem--the anti-Jew Apartheid of the Arab as s/he walks happily in the Jewish Jerusalem, unmolested and free.

There's a reason Israel doesn't defend itself

Here’s a ‘guest’ essay. The original is from the website, abuyehuda: Vic Rosenthal, "Why don't we defend ourselves?", June 18, 2018. I've done some light editing.

“Great swaths of land in the Negev desert near the Gaza strip, agricultural land and nature preserves formerly the habitats of numerous endangered plant and animal species, have been reduced to ash and smoke by Palestinian fire-kites and balloon-borne incendiary devices during the past few weeks. The entire area is blackened with the smoke from fires that are being set faster than Israeli firefighters can put them out.

Our powerful army dithers, ever pursuing its apparent goal of fighting wars without hurting anyone. Today I understand that a car belonging to one of the leaders of the bombing campaign was destroyed by an “airstrike,” probably a drone-launched missile. The car was parked and empty. That’ll teach him.

Israeli officials are afraid of the legal consequences of taking effective action against those who are launching the kites and balloons. They are afraid that they will be dragged into the International Criminal Court [if the army kills any of the “civilians” that are burning our country (even though Israel did not sign the treaty creating it and does not consider itself bound by its decisions). Those under the age of 18 are counted as “children,” and as you know, one of the themes of anti-IDF propaganda is the false claim that we deliberately target children.

Purposely burning agricultural land is a war crime. Attacking from heavily populated civilian areas and employing child soldiers are war crimes. Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) don’t care... Their whole strategic plan is to take advantage of the fact that Israel considers herself bound by the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions and other treaties, while they permit themselves to do anything that will kill Jews.

They don’t do it by themselves. They have help.

Israel is always required to fight an n+1...war, with n representing the enemies that are shooting at us (Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah, etc)...while the additional one is the international diplomatic and legal system, led by our “friends” in the European Union.

In the past week, two Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria have been partly demolished, because homes have been found to be built on “private Palestinian land.” This means that – regardless of whether the land was considered state land when the homes were built – a Palestinian claim, sometimes not even by an individual owner, that the land was at one time used for agricultural purposes by Palestinians, has been accepted by Israel’s Supreme Court. The remedy is invariably that any structure that encroaches on such land will be demolished in toto.

Recently, the Knesset passed a law (the “Regulation Law”) that allows the state to financially compensate the Palestinian “owners” when the land was not considered private at the time the structures were built, instead of bulldozing the buildings (this can be tricky, since there usually are no records that might prove ownership in the sense familiar to those living in normal countries). This law didn’t apply in these cases, because the Supreme Court had ordered the demolitions some months ago, before the law was passed. The Court has now frozen the law awaiting its decision on various petitions against it.

Naturally, our European friends and home-grown champions of Palestinian rights were scandalized by this law. “It’s legalized land theft,” they say. This is quite an exaggeration, since the law calls for the Palestinians to be paid above-market value for the land, which they are not using and may not have used for decades (if ever). Eminent domain proceedings in the US, in which an owner can be evicted from property where he is living or using for business, are far harsher. But my guess is that despite this, when the Supreme Court rules on the petitions filed against it, they will overthrow the law.

Now you may wonder who files these petitions, the ones against the Regulation Law and the ones claiming that Israeli structures have been built on “private Palestinian land.” The answer is that there is a whole industry in Israel of “human rights” non-governmental organizations that employs a battery of expensive and dedicated lawyers to fight the State of Israel. Thanks to Israel’s extraordinary system in which any citizen may petition the Supreme Court on almost any matter, regardless of whether he or she is affected by it, left-wing groups like Peace Now, Yesh Din, and others can and do involve themselves in these matters.

But who supports the organizations, pays their staffs and their lawyers? Probably no more than a few percent of Israelis support what most see as their extremist ideology. And yet left-wing NGOs are everywhere, filming and trying to provoke IDF soldiers doing their duty, finding Palestinians who will testify that their grandfathers worked the land on such-and-such a hill where today an Israeli settlement stands, and filing petition after petition in the Israeli courts, particularly the Supreme Court.

The money does not come from Israel. It doesn’t even come from the Palestinians, whose leaders are happy to skim millions from the aid they get from the US and Europe, primarily to live well or put into their Swiss bank accounts. It comes, unsurprisingly, mostly from European governments, where millions of Euros are funneled into organizations like Peace Now, Yesh Din, B’tselem, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Breaking the Silence, Adalah, and many others. Somewhat less important donors include the American New Israel Fund and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

These foreign-funded NGOs are active in the Israeli and international legal arenas, as well as the international propaganda campaign to demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel. Some explicitly support BDS...

Today the NGO Monitor organization, which keeps track of anti-Israel NGOs and their funding, released a report showing that the European Union has given large grants (hundreds of thousands of Euros) to several NGOs to press war crimes accusations against IDF officers and soldiers and other Israeli officials in foreign courts. This sort of thing may in part explain the timidity of the IDF to take effective action against the arsonists of Gaza.

While our Arab and Iranian enemies have had little success in damaging our Jewish state with wars and terrorism, our European ones have succeeded with their Euros to roll back settlement activities in Judea/Samaria, resulting in the expulsion of Jews from their homes. They have fought tooth and nail against our government’s efforts to deport illegal migrants, whom it rightly considers a demographic and social threat. They have hamstrung the IDF’s response to arson terrorism from Gaza, and turned the main concern of the IDF from defeating our enemies to avoiding legal entanglements.

The message this sends to the terrorists of Hamas, the PLO, and the PIJ is simple: you have a green light – the Jews are too weak to fight back.

There are solutions to these problems. Two years ago, the Knesset passed a relatively weak transparency law requiring some NGOs to report contributions from foreign governments. It needs to be strengthened – in fact, there is no reason for Israel to permit foreign governments to intervene in our domestic affairs at all. Opponents will tell you, precisely inverting the truth, that limiting the influence of foreign-funded NGOs is “anti-democratic,” as if democracy requires subverting the will of Israeli voters! But there is only one reason that such legislation is opposed in the Knesset, and that is because some members are themselves treasonously sucking at the European teat. That has to stop.

The Supreme Court has far too much power and zero accountability. No other democratic country has such a situation. The balance of power between the branches of government must be restored.

The other necessary change is a change of attitude. The more Israel refrains from self-defense because of fear of the legal consequences, the more she will be threatened with such consequences. 

The cycle must be broken, both because it prevents us from acting and because it broadcasts weakness to our enemies. The arson kites need to be met with deadly force, not endless debate. Jewish residents of the territories should have at least equal rights as Arabs, and not be evicted from their homes as a result of legal catch-22s. Illegal migrants should be deported…

The legal and diplomatic decks are stacked against us today, partly because of our own actions. We need to get over it and defend ourselves.”[all emphasis is mine].

Racism--and Europe’s five-step plan for suicide

When we look back at Europe's modern history, we can see that the 9-10 million Jews of pre-World War Two Europe have for the most part been replaced by at least 25-26 million Muslims (Pew Research). This population replacement may help explain why Europe today looks like it's destroying itself. 

This European suicide appears to have developed across 5 steps. Here are those steps:

STEP ONE: Mein Kampf: this book, written by Adolph Hitler (1925/1927), describes the Nazi goal of creating a new, Jew-free, ‘greater Germany’ (here).  In speeches and in writings, Hitler was clear: destroying the Jew would make Germany healthy again (here).

Mein Kampf was the basis for Nazi ideology (here). It was the basis for the ugliest and most sophisticated form of racism the world has ever seen.

But destroying Jews had a down-side. The ideology to which it was attached destroyed Europe.

Hitler failed. He did not create a grander Germany. He did, however, kill more Jews than anyone else in history.

At the end of World War Two (1945), there were only 4 million Jews (or less) remaining in Europe. That's when Europe began Step Two. 

STEP TWO: More anti-semitism. Unlike Mein Kampf, which served as a kind of blueprint for the Nazi's anti-Jew beliefs, post-war Europe had no deliberate anti-Jew blueprint regarding Jews. Instead, Europe's post-war anti-semitism was driven by a latent, residual anti-Jew racism that had survived the war (here, here).

This step developed slowly. It remained nearly invisible. It included both polite and not-so-polite anti-Semitism. 

It worked. By 2010, the number of Jews remaining in Europe had dropped by a greater percentage than during the Hitler years. By 2010, less than 1.4 million Jews remained in Europe (here).

(There are certainly other factors that have influenced the decline of Europe's Jewish population. However, anti-semitism played a very important role in that process, even as many in Europe deny that. Indeed, for modern Europe, when it comes to Jews, denial is everywhere).

STEP THREE: Immigrants. At the same time post-war anti-Semitism pressured Jews in Europe, Europe welcomed immigrants. Over time, this influx brought with it an increasing sense of distrust/conflict between newly arriving Muslims and resident Europeans. This distrust/conflict led to Muslim complaints of unequal treatment. 

Concerned about this conflict, Europe created a plan. Europe would erase the reason for such an inter-group conflict. Since this conflict often derives from a majority group feeling of, 'I'm better than you' (referring to the minority group), Europe aimed to forestall such feelings by making everyone equal (for a description of how this idea is supposed to work, see Tuvia Brodie, "European  multiculturalism: beautiful fantasy, ugly reality". tuviabrodieblog, June 15, 2018, plus here, here, here).

   

This plan was called, ‘multiculturalism’.

It failed (here, here, here, here). There are many reasons for this failure. But one issue stood out: immigrant Muslims weren’t interested in becoming equals with infidels (here).

STEP FOUR: the ‘good life’. This fourth step towards Europe’s suicide also began after WW2. It, too, wasn’t planned. It simply evolved out of Europe’s delight in the increasing wealth it experienced after the war’s devastation.

Europeans after WW2 enjoyed this new wealth. But they decided they weren’t wealthy enough to afford both the benefits of wealth and children. 

They had to choose—the good life or children. They chose the good life.

Birth rates dropped. By 2012, the EU was clearly on its way to being unable to renew its population through childbirth (here). In some European places, almost three people died for every baby born (ibid).

A dropping birth-rate today means a smaller workforce tomorrow. A smaller future workforce threatens the good life: in theory, if you want your country to build a 'good life' for the future, your country needs an increasing national productivity--and to get that productivity, your country needs an increasing population that is capable of feeding the national workforce.

A dropping birth-rate short-circuits that goal.

STEP FIVE: The ‘open door’. Europe's elites understood that not having enough babies born today will hurt tomorrow's good life. So they designed another plan--which has also backfired. 

The plan was simple. If enough babies weren’t being born in Europe, Europe would import them. Simple enough, right?

Wrong. 

The basic idea was to bring in young people who would have the babies needed to do the future’s work. This is one reason Germany was so happy to welcome Muslim immigrants in 2015 (here). It’s why the EU Parliament still wants open borders.

But while this idea seemed to work at first, the most recent migrant flood into Europe brings with it a dark side no one anticipated. The Muslim refugees who have recently entered Europe seem uninterested in integrating into Western society (here). They do not join the workforce; the employment rate among the new Muslim migrants is only 17% (Gary Chazzan, "Most refugees to be jobless for years, German Minister warns", financialtimes, June 22, 2017). These new immigrants appear uninterested in integrating into Europe's Western culture--and primarily interested in maintaining their own Islamic, non-Western culture (here).

For many Europeans, this Muslim-preferred culture is anti-West, anti-Christian, anti-woman, anti-Jew (ibid). It seems to reject all that Western Europe holds dear (ibid).

As a result of these five steps, Europe now stands at the threshold of destruction through a population substitution (here, here, here). This isn't a Muslim-Jewish substitution. That substitution is well on its way to being completed. This is a different, more destructive substitution. It’s the replacement of the West‘s liberal culture with an anti-West Islamic culture (here, here).

Here’s a statement that’s a paraphrase of what is most likely a racist, fake news story. I’ve edited the original so as to delete what’s objectionable (here). It could summarize Europe’s fate:

 “In Auschwitz, Europe burned a culture. Europe destroyed ‘chosen people’--truly chosen because what they produced changed the world for the better. The contributions of this people are felt in all areas of life: science, art, medicine and above all, as the conscience of the world [sic].

These are the people we burned. And now, because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism (that killed the chosen), we have opened our gates to millions of people who reject everything we stand for. These millions seem intent upon destroying everything the chosen people taught us”.

In 1933, European racism enabled the killing of Jews who, arguably, may have done more to help Europe thrive than any other group. Today, there's an additional, newer racism in Europe. This new racism could sweep away Europe itself (here).

This new racism is double-edged. On the one hand, an already anti-Jew racist Europe appears to behave as if it also entertains an anti-Muslim racist notion that Muslims are too stupid and/or incompetent to help themselves. They can be saved only by coming to Europe--to save Europe's workforce shortages.

But this kind of 'soft' racism brings to Europe millions who are themselves often more racist than Europeans. This new racism has little regard for Western beliefs. It prefers Sharia law, not freedoms, rights or equality. For some, it prefers to conquer Europe (here), not become a large minority in Europe.

Racism: It’s why Europe once tried to kill all its Jews. It’s why Europe now commits suicide.