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A Middle East Cow Tale
Members of the Hamas terror group’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza in January 2017. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
JNS.org – The Jan. 14 edition of The Palestine Chronicle, edited by Ramzy Baroud, featured an English-language translation of a televised speech made by Abu Obeida, the military spokesman for the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades, on the 100th day of the Gaza war.
As the site notes, for nearly seven weeks, his messages were either audio recordings or written statements. At one point, he disappeared for weeks, raising speculations that he may have been killed.
Abu Obeida, whose real name is Huzaifa Samir Abdullah al-Kahloot, spoke of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation as “this historic and pivotal battle in the present of our people and our nation.” Israel was described as “Nazi” and a “most grotesque entity.”
He then explained that an Israeli “aggression” was being directed against Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa. And what was it? It was “the start of [the Temple Mount’s] actual temporal and spatial division, and the bringing of red cows as an application of a detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation in the heart of its Arab identity.”
Before analyzing his propaganda charge and preposterous excuse for massacring many hundreds of civilians, including women, children and the elderly, it should be illuminating to cast a look over to India, where Muslims face a “cow vigilantism” phenomenon.
The cow possesses a sacred status for Hindus. It became an object of veneration from the fourth century BCE, representing Mother Earth, as it is a source of goodness. There is a “cow holiday” called Gopastami. India was invaded by Muslims already in the seventh century, and as they slaughtered cows for their Eid al-Adha, a problem arose.
Cow protection societies were founded in 1882 as a “fundamental antagonism between Hindus and Muslims” arose, as SOAS Shabnum Tejani scholar has described it. There were cow-related riots in 1893, and major ones again between 1900 and 1947. Even Mahatma Gandhi championed cow protection. Multiple post-state riots in which the killings of Hindus and Muslims in the 1950s and 1960s occurred involved the trigger of cow slaughter.
Between 2010 and 2017, 28 Indians—24 of them Muslims—have been killed and 124 injured. In February last year, two charred bodies were found in a burnt vehicle in India’s Haryana state. They were Muslim men, killed by right-wing Hindus suspecting them of cow-smuggling.
All of this raises a question. If Muslims suffer needless acts of murderous violence for their religious beliefs in the Asian sub-continent, would they not be more empathetic to another religion and its cow-related theology?
And there is another parallel. Muslims are now engaged in a campaign for their right to pray in a cathedral in Spain. The church, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, had been established in the fifth century, turned into a mosque in the seventh century following the Muslim conquest and occupation of that country, but reverted to a Christian place of worship in 1236 after the Reconquista.
The Islamic Council of Spain had lodged a formal request with the Vatican to pray in the building. In 2010, eight young Austrian Muslims were acquitted of responsibility for an altercation when they prayed in front of the Qibla wall, which the church had forbidden. Perhaps fearful of the fate of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, where a Turkish court revoked its status as a museum and Muslim prayer practices have taken place therein, Catholic Church officials have resisted any change in Cordoba.
Again, cannot Hamas exhibit a less ferocious opposition to religious customs and the opposition to them that they themselves seek to promote? But let us now return to Jerusalem and the Hamas claim of concern over an aggression of red heifers and recognize that that is a reverse mirror-image of Cordoba and Istanbul.
Two Jewish Temples existed for 1,000 years on Mount Moriah. Then, in the seventh century, Muslims—following the Roman, Byzantine and Persian empires that ruled Judea under conquest and occupation—built a mosque on the site and prohibited any semblance of Jewish worship, a ban Israel’s governments have upheld.
Between the 13th and the late 19th centuries, no Jew could even enter the compound, where previously Jewish kings, priests and prophets, judges and millions of pilgrims were at home, worshipping their God and teaching the world morals and ethics.
At a news website published by Jordan United Press based in Amman, we learn that five red heifers were “imported from Texas,” placed “in a secret farm” and “kept for the imminent arrival of the Messiah and the subsequent construction of the temple on the Al-Aqsa mosque ruins.” These actions are “perceived as preparatory for the Gog and Magog battle.”
Besides the fact that for a period those cows were kept at the Ancient Shiloh site (very publicly and visited by thousands), this is probably the fifth time red heifers have been brought to Israel over the past three decades. Why the belated but bestial invasion now? Why the rocket firings and terror when there were no red heifers?
In 1929, the Mufti Al-Husseini claimed that Jews were intent on storming Al-Aqsa, so his hordes slaughtered more than 70 Jews. The 1948 war that the Arabs launched, as Israeli historian Benny Morris has researched, was carried out according to the Dec. 2, 1947 call of the ulama, the chief scholars of theology, of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University for a “worldwide jihad.”
Arab terror, apparently, requires no excuse. It will interpret any event to serve its ultimate purpose: the end of Israel and the death of Jews. Indeed, it possesses no human logic that can be assuaged, neither by man nor beast.
The post A Middle East Cow Tale first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months
The University of Toronto has received an injunction to dismantle the pro-Palestinian encampment on its property. The 98-page decision from Justice Markus Koehnen of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said that members of the encampment must take down the tents within 24 hours, by 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 3. Toronto Police will have […]
The post University of Toronto is granted an injunction to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment that has been on campus for two months appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal
Vandals in Canada targeted a Jewish cemetery. Photo: Screenshot
Vandals have targeted notable Jewish cemeteries in Cincinnati, Ohio and Montreal, Canada, sparking outcry and concern over mounting threats of antisemitism.
Vandals at Montreal’s Kehal Yisrael Cemetery placed memorial stones in the shape of a Nazi swastika on top of tombstones. Ones with the last names Eichler and Herman were targeted in the antisemitic attack.
Placing memorial stones on graves is an ancient Jewish custom to memorialize the dead. Jewish cemeteries oftentimes have stones nearby tombstones for mourners.
Canadian leaders decried the vandalism.
“It is absolutely abhorrent and revolting to defile the dead with swastikas,” Jeremy Levi, the Jewish mayor of a Jewish-majority suburb of Montreal, commented on X/Twitter. “This desecration at the Kehal Israel cemetery in Montreal is beyond contempt. [Canadian Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau, step aside and get out of the way so we can reclaim our country. May this Kohen’s neshama have an Aliyah on high.” One of the tombstones vandalized belonged to a Kohen.
The leader of the Conservative Party in Canada’s parliament and candidate for prime minister, Pierre Poilievre, lambasted Trudeau and denounced antisemitism. “We cannot close our eyes to the disgusting acts of antisemitism that are happening in our country everyday,” he posted on X/Twitter. “The prime minister must finally act to stop these displays of antisemitism. If he won’t, a common sense Conservative government will.”
Canada, like many countries around the world, has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile in Cincinnati, vandals targeted two historic Jewish cemeteries this past week, toppling and shattering ancient tombstones — some dating back to the 1800s.
According to a statement from the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, 176 gravesites in Cincinnati’s West Side were ruined “in an act of antisemitic vandalism.”
“Due to the extensive damage and the historical nature of many of the gravestones, we have not yet been able to identify all the families affected by this act,” the statement continued. “Our community [is] heartbroken.”
The Cincinnati Police Department and the FBI are investigating the incidents.
The destruction of monuments is the latest in a greater trend of antisemitic vandalism. In an incident over the weekend, vandals in Australia targeted war memorials dedicated to Australian veterans who sacrificed their lives in Korea and Vietnam with pro-Hamas graffiti.
A couple weeks earlier, vandals in Belgium defaced two memorials for Holocaust victims with swastikas and a phrase calling for violence against Israel. In Germany, meanwhile, at least seven stolpersteine, or stumbling blocks in the sidewalk meant to mark Jewish homes seized by the Nazis, were defaced with the message “Jews are perpetrators.”
The US, Canada, Europe, and Australia have all experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, and amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the B’nai Brith, antisemitic incidents in Canada more than doubled in 2023 compared to the prior year.
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UN Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Rapporteur for Allegedly Accepting Trip Funded by Pro-Hamas Organizations
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations has opened an investigation into allegations that its special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories accepted an all-expense paid trip to Australia from various pro-Hamas groups.
In November 2023, Francesca Albanese allegedly traversed around the Australian continent on a trip whose high price tag was covered by anti-Israel organizations, according to documentation acquired by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the UN.
Albanese initially landed in Sydney and subsequently enjoyed flights into Melbourne, Adelaide, and Canberra, as well as Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand. The glamorous excursion is estimated to have cost a staggering $22,500.
The UN Investigations Division of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) told UN Watch last week that it had alerted the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the allegations of financial impropriety levied at Albanese.
In a letter sent to UN leadership last month, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer outlined evidence based on multiple sources indicating that Hamas-supporting organizations funded Albanese’s trip to Australia, which has been experiencing an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA), an organization that lobbies Australian politicians on behalf of the pro-Palestinian cause, claimed on its website that it “sponsored Ms. Albanese’s visit to Australia” to speak at its annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture in Adelaide. During the lecture, Albanese thanked AFOPA for “organizing such a busy visit,” in which she met with numerous Australian politicians and foreign ministry officials.
Free Palestine Melbourne (FPM) and Palestinian Christians in Australia (PCIA) both claimed to have “supported her visit to Victoria, ACT [Australian Capital Territory] and NSW [New South Wales].” Both groups also publicly declare that they participate in explicit lobbying of Australian politicians in an attempt to “change their minds” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While on her visit, Albanese served as a keynote speaker at a PCIA fundraiser. FPM encourages politicians to endorse the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage economically and politically as the first step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN) said it was “honored to support” Albanese’s visit. The organization’s president, Nasser Mashni, openly endorses the terrorist group Hamas and has stated that the eradication of Israel is necessary to secure “the liberation of earth.” APAN states that it “facilitated a range of meetings” for Albanese with Australian parliamentarians.
Palestinians in Aotearoa Co-ordinating Committee (PACC) and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) both organized and likely bankrolled Albanese’s trip to New Zealand, according to UN Watch. At the behest of these groups, Albanese helped lobby a New Zealand sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel-linked companies.
Albanese outright denied that her trip was funded by Palestinian lobbying organizations, insisting that the UN footed the bill.
“Yet another trail of egregiously false claims agst me,” she tweeted. “My trip to Australia was paid by the UN as part of my mandate’s activities. Continuous defamation agst my mandate may be well remunerated,but won’t work. It just wastes time that should be used to help stop violence in [the Palestinian territories].”
Albanese did not present any documentation confirming that the UN paid for her travel and accommodations. Rather, she pointed at a statement from AFOPA reading, “Ms. Albanese was authorized by the UN to accept AFOPA’s invitation to deliver the Edward Said Memorial Lecture. The UN funded Ms. Albanese’s travel & accommodation costs. No Palestinian Solidarity group paid for this trip.”
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In April, Albanese issued public support for the pro-Hamas protests and encampments on American university campuses, saying that they gave her “hope.” She has also repeatedly falsely accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza and enacting “apartheid” in the West Bank without condemning Hamas’ terrorism against Israelis.
In February, Albanese claimed Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists at Israel. Last year, US lawmakers called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.
Additionally, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron calling Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”
Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.
Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.”
The UN did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
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