Friday, July 18, 2014
Melanie Phillips: How the West is complicit in Islamic Jew-hatred
It is astounding that neither the media nor any Western leader has sounded the alarm over this epidemic anti-Jewish madness in the Islamic world. But neither political nor cultural leaders want to join up the dots.Sarah Honig: A War Against All Jews
Partly this is due to the cultural confusion over “Islamophobia” and third world-ism. But mainly it is because anti-Semitism is now the prejudice that dare not speak its name. It’s the big one, the crime of crimes, the knockout blow. If the Muslim world is driven by anti-Semitism, all the excuses being used by Western leaders to appease that world and limit the push-back against it are invalidated.
It would mean it is being fueled by something which is utterly immune to reason or negotiation. So it would mean there could be no half-measures against it. It would have to be identified as a source of evil in the world and utterly defeated.
But of course, that hardly sits with the dominant Western narrative that says the Palestinians are entitled to a state and that Israel is to blame for the conflict. So the Jew-hatred pouring out of the Islamic world is simply ignored.
Worse, all those in the West who trumpet their progressive support for the “oppressed” Palestinians are thus tacitly supporting this frenzied anti-Semitism.
Hardly any anti-Semites nowadays admit they hate Jews. The accepted guise for Judeophobes is to claim that they harbor no ill-will toward Jews and that they are merely anti-Zionist or oppose given Israeli policies. Yet on occasion their words and actions offer a glimpse into the sinister darkness behind the cynical politically-correct façade.Sarah Honig: Blackout Waiting to Happen
So it was last Sunday in Paris during a demonstration against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge. Some of the marchers broke off and made a beeline for two centrally located Paris synagogues.
The worst incident occurred at the Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue on the Rue de la Roquette (in the heavily Jewish 11th arrondissement of Paris). A mob donning keffiahs, waving jihadist flags and wielding clubs (and chairs grabbed from nearby sidewalk cafes), converged on the synagogue, attempted to storm the building and attack the worshippers trapped inside. They were thwarted by police and Jewish security volunteers. Injuries were reported both among the Jewish defenders and the officers.
It was almost poetic justice – a rocket which Hamas fired at Israel Sunday night knocked out a high-voltage line that supplies electricity to some 70,000 Gazans. This was a blackout waiting to happen. Literally biting the hand that feeds it, Hamas persistently aims at the very Ashkelon power plant upon which Gaza depends for its electricity. Israel has refrained from switching the power off lest it incur censure from abroad.Protesters Continue Demanding Power Cutoff to Gaza
Neither Gaza nor the Ramallah half of the Palestinian Authority pays for the power consumed. Gaza alone, it’s estimated, owes the Israel Electric Corporation NIS 220m (out of the staggering NIS1.5bil unpaid Palestinian debts).
The downed electricity line is one of a dozen high-tension lines with 120 megawatts per hour transmission capacity. Its loss means that the entire area between Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah has been plunged into darkness.
The damage is reparable but there’s no quick fix. In the best of times this job could take a long time. As things stand, with more rockets flying out of Gaza, no IEC employees would be willing to risk life and limb and expose themselves to Gazan predations just in order to restore electricity to Gazans. Moreover, no one asks them to.
While the government pushes for a cease-fire in the current round of fighting with Hamas, Israelis around the country took to the streets Thursday demanding a more definitive ending to Operation Protective Edge – at the very least turning off the electricity in Gaza in order to bring about a fall of Hamas control of Gaza.
“We cannot tolerate a situation where we continue to supply Gaza with electricity while they fire rockets at us,” say organizers of the protests. “It is immoral, unjust, and illogical for Israeli citizens to be paying for the electricity being used to develop and fire rockets on innocent citizens. Gaza has not paid for its electricity for a long time, and now owes Israel NIS 220 million in unpaid power bills. If you or I miss a month or two of payments, they turn off the electricity in our house, but Hamas chisels its way out of the Gaza bill with no consequences.”
Hurriyet Daily News: Sorry to remind you ‘once’ again (but Golda Meir was right) – Part I
But would, for instance, Erdoğan, who thinks a 15-year-old boy is a terrorist and should be shot by a gas canister, tolerate over 500 rockets over Turkish skies? Would he advice restraint if any group, party or country declared that all Turks are legitimate targets? Would he ignore it if any group, party or country pledged to fight down right to the last Turk?Sorry to remind you ‘once’ again (but Golda Meir was right) – Part II
But he has finally exhibited some honesty and admitted that: “We are never neutral when it comes to the Palestinian cause.” Thank you, prime minister, for confirming this columnist when he wrote in 2009 that Turks as honest brokers between Arabs and Israelis sounded much like Greeks as honest brokers between Turkish and Greek Cypriots.
All the same, Mr. Erdoğan’s rhetoric was not equally honest when he said “there were no rockets fired into Israeli territory because there were no Israeli deaths.” Was Mr. Erdoğan denying Hamas, who says it happily fires scores of rockets? The fact that there are no Israeli casualties does not mean Hamas does not want to kill; it just means Hamas, for the moment, cannot kill.
Jihadists keep on saying that “they love death more than we love life.” Good for them.5 Reasons Israel Is Good and Hamas Is Evil
Then there is the proxy jihadists. In 2012, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that “Iran provided the Palestinian organizations the technology to produce Fajr-5 and other missiles, and they can now produce these missiles themselves in large quantities.” Apparently, Iran will fight Israel down to the last Palestinian. And so will Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the Sunni mullah. It’s one of the rare qualities Sunni and Shiite Islamists feature: They have an obsession about fighting Israel at times when their Sunni and Shiite militants are not busy killing each other.
Israel's military operation into Gaza has brought out the usual chorus of outrage from anti-Israel voices in the left-wing press. CNN’s headline: “Cease-fire effort fails as rockets, airstrikes continue.” Huffington Post, in its typical, even-headed tone: “Headless Bodies. Screaming Children.”Understanding UNRWA
However, with Hamas’s rejection Wednesday of a possible cease-fire agreement with Israel and its killing of an Israeli civilian, it should be clear to the world that Hamas represents the villainous party in its battle with the Jewish State. Thanks to the disreputable work of the media, however, that pertinent fact remains buried – headlines today from many major media ignored Hamas’ rejection of the ceasefire.
Only the left media could miss the obvious moral narrative. Here are the top five indicators that Hamas, along with its unity government allies the Palestinian Authority and Islamic Jihad, represents evil, while Israel represents western morality:
The game was apparent early on. In May 1952, the Foreign Office received a remarkable report forwarded by British diplomat Sir Edwin Chapman-Andrews that noted “Everything has been sacrificed to [UNRWA director John Blandford’s] lone effort to “sell” the three-year plan to the Arab states—and SYRIA in particular—while measures which might influence the success of the negotiations are left undone.”Key UN Statements on Current Gaza-Israel Conflict
The report lamented UNRWA’s lack of educational and vocational training programs, the lack of a public-relations effort, or any successful agricultural programs in Jordan. Refugee relief was well-organized, but anything related to reintegration was subject to “stagnation, waste and misuse of money and manpower.”
The report concluded, “much stress has been laid by the Director on how the three year plan should be described. It has been called successively ‘Reintegration,’ ‘Resettlement,’ ‘Self-Support,’ … The play with words hoodwinks nobody…” Everything not related to relief was understood as “settlement”—that is, relocating Palestinians to Arab states.
Monday, July 14 UNWRA Commissioner-GeneralUN adopts resolution condemning Israel for the "destruction of orchards"
“I urgently call on the Israeli Security Forces to put an end to attacks against, or endangering, civilians and civilian infrastructure which are contrary to international humanitarian law. Israel’s illegal blockade has deepened poverty levels and youth or female unemployment levels (at 65% and over 80% respectively)… How long will it take before it is recognised that only a political solution will allow to move beyond the endless cycles of violence and destruction that repeatedly affect the population of Gaza and beyond.”
The current Palestinian terror campaign from Gaza, now affecting 4 million Israelis daily, hasn't caused the UN Israel-bashing machinery to skip a beat.New York Times Op-Ed Blames Israel for Hamas Violence
On July 16, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a resolution entitled "Economic and social repercussions of the Israeli occupation on the living conditions of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan."
The text accuses Israel of "destruction of homes and properties, economic institutions and agricultural lands and orchards in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as well as in the occupied Syrian Golan." The UN mob adopted the resolution with 44 votes in favor, 2 against (Canada, United States), and 2 abstentions (Republic of Congo, Panama).
Before and after the vote several states took the floor to express their delight at the outcome. The Palestinian Authority representative accused Israel of "state terror and war crimes". The Syrian delegate said that Israel exercises "the worst occupation known by humanity."
And nobody laughed.
There is a school of thought that sees Palestinians as perennial victims, free from responsibility for any actions or decisions that they may take. For advocates of this way of thinking, it is always Israel that is to blame.Media's misdirected blame game
No surprise then that the New York Times has given op-ed space to Nathan Thrall from the International Crisis Group whose analysis of the current situation beggars belief.
Regarding the unity government, did Thrall really expect Israel to reward Hamas for what was a barely aesthetic change? Was Hamas really attempting to follow a peaceful path but was blocked at every turn by Israel? According to Thrall, the answer is an unequivocal yes:
The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.We are left to wonder exactly what world Nathan Thrall is living in and, indeed, what would possess the New York Times to publish such tripe. But then, the New York Times is merely following a pattern of blaming Israel for Palestinian terrorism.
Ultimately, Thrall cannot tell the difference between cause and effect. It was Hamas violence that prompted Israel to blockade the Gaza Strip, not Israel’s actions that caused Hamas to initiate what has now escalated into a full-on Israeli ground incursion.
PSC director Sarah Colborne acknowledged that social media sites and demonstrations had been used by anti-Israel activists to "peddle hatred and intolerance" towards Jews.CTV News Presents Anti-Israel Activist as “Freelance Journalist”
Ms Colborne said: "We disagree fundamentally with any attempts to compare actions of the Israeli government to the Holocaust. The PSC has responded as fast as we can to remove, ban and report comments which violate our Facebook policy."
She also claimed PSC Facebook feeds had been hijacked by people wanting to cause "incitement to violence and hatred against Palestinians".
It is disturbing that the PSC's "humanitarian" appeals on behalf of the Palestinians are often compromised by anti-Jewish racism - an aspect of the pro-Palestinian movement which the UK media routinely ignores.
In an interview with Jacqueline Milczarek, Mr. Catron was described by CTV as a “freelance journalist” from Gaza several times, yet, he is far from that. Instead, he’s a hard-core anti-Israel activist.Mira Bar Hillel Minimizes Hamas Rockets, Ridicules Terrorism
The website Mondoweiss notes the following about Catron: “About Joe Catron: Joe Catron is a US activist in Gaza, Palestine, where he works with Palestinian groups and international solidarity networks, particularly in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and prisoners’ movements.
Mira Bar Hillel is the Property and Planning Correspondent for London’s Evening Standard. But that’s not why she has written four consecutive opinion pieces attacking Israel in The Independent during this month alone.Top Six Gaza Media Myths
You see, Mira is an expatriate Israeli who hates the country of her birth so much that she writes about how she is on the brink of burning her Israeli passport. She has even admitted that she is prejudiced against Jews.
But being able to speak “as a Jew” or “as an Israeli” makes Mira that much more compelling for The Independent, a newspaper that makes little effort to hide its disdain for Israel.
With Israeli ground action in Gaza now underway, in response to ceaseless Hamas attacks, the usual media myths and misrepresentations about Gaza are being recycled, with some new ones thrown in.Crossing the red (nose) line
Here are some of the key myths, gleaned from present and past coverage:
Myth: Because far more Gaza residents than Israelis have been killed, the Israeli actions are "disproportionate.
Almost two years ago Jon Stewart came close to being awarded the clown’s red nose for a gormless and badly misinformed attempt to explain Gaza’s economic problem.Anti-Israel Political Cartoonists Pounce on Israel
It takes an extraordinary amount of ignorance combined with an inflated sense of moral superiority to win the coveted award. Stewart persevered and convinced the judges (OK me). He is the (un)worthy winner of Five Minutes for Israel’s latest Red Nose Award.Fisking
As Five Minutes for Israel refuses to link to material that can be used to denigrate Israel and I don’t have the technical chops to label a video as garbage you will have to accept the less graphic means of a fisking.
No sooner does Israel forcefully defend itself from attacks on its civilians coming from Gaza, than the Israel haters crawl out of the woodwork to spew their condemnation. Witness some of the recent political cartoons that have appeared in various media outlets.Fauxtography Of The Day: Tool And The Toys Edition
Meet Jürgen Todenhöfer, German executive, author and former politician.Lebanese Journalist: Arab League Praying Israel Will 'Get Rid Of Hamas Once and For All'
He is also a hater of Israel, as evidenced by this Facebook post of his.
Notice anything strange about the photo?
Yep, you guessed it (or not). Those toys look mighty clean next to all of that rubble. And what a coincidence all of them happen to be on top, readily photograph-able.
On July 14 Lebanese journalist Abd Al-Bari Atwan said "the vast majority of the countries participating in (the Arab League) summit...pray" Israel will "get ride of rid of Hamas once and for all."CNN Reporter Calls Israelis 'Scum'
According to The Middle East Media Research Project, Atwan also said the countries taking part in the Arab League summit "support the Israeli planes bombing the Gaza strip." But he did make clear that they support the Israeli planes "under the pretext of getting rid of Hamas and stopping the missiles."
Atwan went so far as to say the Arab League took its time convening a meeting on the topic in order to give the Israelis "the opportunity to invade Gaza and destroy the resistance." Participating countries wanted "Israel to destroy the resistance once and for all."
Reporting from Gaza, CNN’s Diana Magnay had a busy morning watching the mounting military action and interviewing onlookers. However, she also had time to jump on Twitter to call Israelis "scum" – purely as a "reporter," of course.Why We Should Embrace #Freepalestine
During her on-air report, Magnay pointed out the trail of rockets that could be seen leaving Israeli positions to take out Hamas. "I think you can probably see there are lots of Israelis gathered around who are cheering when they see these kinds of Israeli strikes," she noted. It was a scene that was "macabre," Magnay insisted.
#freepalestine from the tyranny of bearded zealots who refuse any offer of ceasefire and who revel in using civilians as human shields and sacrificing innocent lives for cheap and noxious public relations gains.Fisking the Media
#freepalestine from the leadership in Ramallah, incurably corrupt, focused only on petty political calculations, and devoid of any vision of the future that doesn’t involve blaming Israel for all the world’s ills.
And finally, #freepalestine from its inane advocates, here and elsewhere, who champion tactics Palestinians themselves find unacceptable and who never hesitate to destroy the necessary tenets of democracy in pursuit of their misguided cause.
Let’s all of us get on Twitter, then, and join RiRi et al in their rightful demand. For everybody’s sake, #freepalestine right now.
Well, what do you expect from the Guardian, I guess. But Seumas Milne's article is so poor and tendentious, beginning with factual "errors" that are most likely deliberate lies and concluding with outright support for Palestinian terrorism, that it cries out for a response. In fact, there's so much wrong with it that this will need to be broken down into a series of posts.JVP An Accessory to the Spread of Antisemitism in U.S.
Normally I spend my time defending the Jewish state and its supporters from false accusations, but today I am leveling a charge at a Jewish organization.Which came first, occupation or conflict?
My charge is this: Jewish Voice for Peace helps promote antisemitism in the United States.
JVP does this by giving cover to a coalition of anti-Zionists and antisemites, who, if left unchecked, will turn the public square in the U.S. into a battleground where violence against Jews and their supporters is commonplace, as it is in Europe.
"The Palestinian Rothschild" is just one of Munib al-Masri's colorful nicknames. A longtime adviser to Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, al-Masri is today an 80-year-old billionaire with interests in everything from telecommunications to construction to agriculture. The patriarch of a large and distinguished family, he lives in an elegant West Bank mansion inspired by Palladio's Rotonda in Vicenza, Italy.As Israeli Civilians Crouch Under Rockets, New Yorkers Must Rise Up
At the Saint George Hotel in Jerusalem, a short walk from the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, he tells me that he has one overriding interest: peace. He leads an organization called Breaking the Impasse, a forum of "prominent Palestinian and Israeli businesspeople and civil society leaders who believe in the urgency of reaching a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along a 'two states for two peoples' solution."
I'm impressed. I ask him what is required to achieve this dream. He disappoints me. He doesn't say that Hamas needs to stop firing missiles at Israeli population centers. He doesn't say that Hamas needs to delete from its charter its vows to obliterate Israel and kill all the Jews. He says nothing about Hamas' insistence that there "is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad" and its unequivocal rejection of "so-called peaceful solutions." Nor does he offer any criticism of "moderate" Fatah for joining with Hamas in a "unity government."
Instead, he asserts that the only way to resolve the conflict is for Israel to "end the occupation" and shut down the "settlements."
As Israel is being criticized by a swarm of nations, it is imperative that the Jewish people of New York and elsewhere express their appreciation and admiration for their country. From Ashkenazi to Sephardi, the Jewish people must once again gather in unison to end the war on Israel.When Even the UN Begins Condemning Palestinian Terrorists, You Know Israel is Right
Israel’s adversary in the current conflict that has waged on for decades sees Judaism as its final causality. For Hamas will not be satisfied until Israel is obliterated, a message Hamas leaders have no shame to publicly exclaim. So all Jews must too publicly display their resistance to this hate.
Golda Meir once famously said: “The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.”
Israel is the United Nations’ greatest bugbear. We know it from following websites such as UNWatch for many years, and it was most pertinently highlighted by the UN translator who said the organisation’s focus on Israel was a “bit much, no?”Allen West: Brandeis Professors More Bigoted Than Donald Sterling
In 2013, the interpreter was caught via a ‘hot mic’ saying, “I think when you have… like a total of ten resolutions on Israel and Palestine, there’s gotta be something, c’est un peu trop, non? [It’s a bit much, no?] I mean I know… There’s other really bad shit happening, but no one says anything about the other stuff.”
Laughter ensued, but it was nervous laughter and the interpreter was apologised for. Sweep that under the rug, quickly.
Now it appears that even the United Nations Relief Works Agency, the only UN body in the world dedicated to ensuring the ‘rights’ of Palestinians, has come out in support of what Israel has been saying for years.
The Guardian reports:
"The UN agency for Palestinian refugees is investigating the discovery of 20 rockets hidden in one of its vacant schools in the Gaza Strip."
Lieutenant Colonel Allen West weighed in on Thursday, slamming a number of the faculty as worse than Donald Sterling. When the Los Angeles Clippers owner was discovered to have made blatantly racist statements to his mistress, there was a national outcry and the National Basketball Association ultimately forced him out of the league.UC Board of Regents Confirms Avi Oved as Student Regent-Designate
“It still perplexes me how a university named after a Jewish man, Louis Brandeis, a 23-year associate justice on the Supreme Court, finds itself allied with an Islamist group,” wrote West in reference to Brandeis’ decision to disinvite human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali from an honorary degree in April. “Then again, Justice Brandeis was a prominent figure in the early American progressive movement. And so it just may be understandable that the university is accommodating to a group like CAIR.”
West then highlighted TruthRevolt contributor Chloe Valdary’s article in which she analyzed the bigotry featured in many of the emails.
The UC Board of Regents confirmed UCLA junior Avi Oved as the 2015-2016 student regent at its meeting Wednesday, with only one opposing vote from current student regent Sadia Saifuddin, just after about a dozen public commenters voiced their concerns about his potential political conflicts of interest.Israel Thrives: A response to Jeremy Ben-Ami
Oved's confirmation has been hotly contested in the last several weeks, after a document presented June 28 at a University of California Student Association's meeting alleged that Oved received funding for his 2013 student government campaign from Adam Milstein, a pro-Israel supporter who also co-founded the Adam and Gila Milstein Foundation.
“As the student regent-designate, my only allegiance is to the students,” Oved said at the meeting. “We're at a critical juncture in the UC. While our campuses grow in prestige, we still have a lot of work to do.”
In Jeremy Ben-Ami's response to the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers, the most important message is that we should see the Palestinians' point of view so that we will not fill with hatred against them. Ben-Ami has a kernel of truth to his point. Our tradition teaches us that we should emulate the ways of the Lord. When it comes to provocations, Ashkenazim say to G-d during the unetane tokef on the High Holidays, based on Ezekiel 33:11, "You do not desire the death of the condemned man, rather that he shall repent and live." It continues, "You will wait until he dies."On J Street’s Failure to Acknowledge Reality
What this teaches is that our preferred aftermath of the atrocities that the Islamists commit against us should be that the Islamists will repent and allow us to dwell securely in our land which even their book recognizes as ours, and that is what we should pray for. The issue becomes what should be our secondary preference, that is what if they do not repent. Ben-Ami is implying that we should just turn the other cheek until they do. Such a position has no support, particularly in what follows in the passage in Ezekiel.
In light of the growing trends against it, J Street released a crafty statement in regards to Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s latest counterattack against the terrorist group Hamas following its indiscriminate rocket fire. Its intent, from first glance, was to look even-handedly at the situation between the Palestinian-Arabs living in Gaza and the Israelis. It even condemned Hamas for its continuous rocket fire. However, J Street fails to acknowledge this very important fact: Hamas solely rules over the Gaza Strip and it has a say in any diplomatic means to end this escalation. One cannot call to pursue diplomatic solutions while simultaneously dismantling the terrorist infrastructure of the ruling party. In addition, it is irrational to negotiate with a terrorist entity that neither has ambitions for the two-state solution, or fully ceasing its hostilities against the Jewish state.Israel Now Criticized for Wanting Peace
Israel tried to get a ceasefire–not just a temporary humanitarian ceasefire, but a cessation of the current round of violence–on Tuesday, but couldn’t get Hamas to sign on. They tried again, and the Palestinians accused Israel of leaking news of an agreement in order to pressure Hamas to accept the truce. The Israelis, in other words, stand accused of being too aggressively peace-minded.Israeli citizen among 298 killed on downed Malaysian plane
There was a similar complaint, though concerning a different era, in the July 12 edition of the Economist. The magazine ran a book review on Ahron Bregman’s latest history of the post-1967 conflict. According to the review, Bregman–who served in the Israel Defense Forces during its first Lebanon war and subsequently left Israel “unhappy about the country’s policy towards the Palestinians,” according to the Economist–accuses then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak of manipulating the U.S. and Yasser Arafat into the peace process.
Itamar Avnon, who served in the IDF as a lone soldier, boarded the ill-fated plane from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur Thursday, in what would have been the first leg of a journey back to Australia.Bulgaria identifies airport bus bomber as Lebanese-French national
“Unfortunately, my son Itamar was on the plane that crashed over the Ukraine. He was on his way back to Australia after a trip to Holland. He served in the paratroopers and fought in Operation Cast Lead but died in a plane crash,” his father, Dov Avnon, wrote on Facebook Thursday, according to Ynet.
"The identity of the perpetrator of the bomb attack at Burgas airport is firmly established following DNA tests...," Bulgaria's security agency and prosecutors' office said in a joint statement.U.S. Firefighters Arrive in Israel to Combat Rocket-Induced Fires
"The perpetrator, who used a fake driving licence under the name Jacques Felipe Martin, (was) in reality Mohamad Hassan El Husseini."
He was born in Lebanon in 1989, had Lebanese and French citizenship and had two accomplices, also of Lebanese origin, who remain at large, the statement added.
"It is known that relatives of Husseini published praise of his death as a 'martyr' on social networks," it said.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington connected with an initiative called the Emergency Volunteer Project to arrange to bring the senior firefighters and officers from Los Angeles, Washington, DC and Texas.Arab teen burned alive by Jews recognized as terror victim
“We were all part of the massive tragedy that was 9/11. There we undertook search and rescue missions. When we heard that hundreds of rockets are falling on Israel, we decided to join forces and come and help,” said firefighter 51-year-old Billy Hearst of Texas, reported Yedioth Ahronoth.
Hearst called the situation facing southern Israeli communities ”insufferable.”
A Jerusalem Arab teen who was murdered by Jewish Israelis in retribution for the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli youths in June has officially been recognized as a victim of terrorism in an announcement by the Defense Ministry on Thursday.Will the BBC correct its insinuations of a ‘two-tier justice system’ in Israel?
A 29-year-old man from the settlement Adam and two 16-year-old youths from Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh were indicted in the Jerusalem District Court on Thursday for the abduction and murder of Muhammed Abu Khdeir, 16, from Shuafat.
It fails to inform readers however that the Defence Ministry’s decision means that the victim’s family will receive monthly benefits from the state and that Mohammed Abu Khdeir will be included in the list of names on Israel’s Memorial Day for victims of terror attacks.Pope demands justice for Argentina terror attack
Earlier in the month, during the four days which passed between the murder and the arrests, some BBC journalists promoted the notion of a ‘two-tier justice system’ in Israel, suggesting that Palestinians receive inferior treatment.
Pope Francis is demanding justice for the victims of Argentina's worst terrorist attack, using what is increasingly becoming his signature way of communicating: an amateur smartphone video message, recorded on the fly by a visiting friend in the comfort of Francis' Vatican hotel room.UAV ‘eye in the sky’ protects Jerusalem light rail
To be aired Friday during the official commemoration of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, the video is the latest evidence that Francis has no qualms about circumventing the Vatican's media machine to get his message out -- for better or worse.
After riots in two Arab neighborhoods spilled onto the tracks of the city’s light rail system, Jerusalem’s mayor thought long and hard about how to prevent future incidents of danger to life and property. Then the answer came to him — from the sky.Indictment: Arabs Attacked Vehicle, Driver in Jerusalem
“We in the city had made use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for various purposes recently, and we thought this would be an excellent opportunity to make use of the technology,” Mayor Nir Barkat told The Times of Israel. “With UAVs, you get great high-resolution images taken from a birds-eye perspective, giving you the flexibility to zero in on any potential trouble spots in a way that ground level cameras cannot accomplish.”
The Jerusalem District Attorney's Office filed an indictment against Muhammad Dabash, 29, and Yousef Adwallah, 22, of Sur Baher on Friday, on charges of racially-motivated aggravated assault, rioting, and sabotage.Strangers in their own Holy Land
According to the indictment, which was filed in the Jerusalem District Court, the two attacked a Jewish couple near Jerusalem's Armon HaNetziv neighborhood two weeks ago, at roughly 12:30 am.
Yet, among the Pope's core constituency, the local Christians, there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm for the visit.PA Claims US Plotting to Torpedo Middle East, ISIS is Jewish
"The Pope is not coming for us, a shopkeeper tells me bitterly, dozens of strings of the rosary beads he sells jangling on his wrists. "He is coming for the Muslims. He gives them legitimacy, not us, by coming here. I'm going crazy here, I don't like it. Tell me, why doesn't the Pope give legitimacy to us?"
What possible legitimacy could be needed for the Christians who live in the town celebrated every Christmas by church congregations and choirs the world over? The reality for Christians in the West Bank today is far removed from greetings card images. For one thing, they are disappearing.
It then bizarrely claims that the ISIS - the Islamist sect conquering Iraq in an Islamic turf war deemed "too extreme" for Al Qaeda - is "led by Jewish extremism, as represented by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor] Liberman."The Ten Plagues of the Palestinian Authority
"Not even Hitler, Pinochet and Nero - nor the ISIS in Syria, which kills whoever doesn't know the correct number of times to kneel and bow during the morning prayer - ever reached this level," it asserts, linking the ISIS with the murder of 16 year-old Arab teen Mohammed Abu Khder.
The article then swings back to the "Jewish roots" of ISIS Islamists.
"In an attempt to undermine the resolution of the [Fatah-Hamas] rift, the US engaged the Jewish ISIL to attack Gaza - not just in order to commit crimes, kill and destroy, but also to stir up an inter-Palestinian civil war, in an attempt to deepen the rift and Gaza's separation from the rest of the occupied homeland, to prevent the establishment of the independent [Palestinian] state," it accuses.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) acts as the representative of the Palestinian people. For nearly two decades, the PA has acted in an abysmal fashion, causing the hardship of its people through corruption, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The United States of America, as it stands now, intends to fund $440 million in foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority. We call upon the United States to stop funding the Palestinian Authority immediately, as the following ten “plagues” of the PA do not represent the future interests of regional peace.Palestinians threaten to join International Criminal Court over Gaza
If accepted to the ICC, the “State of Palestine” would be able to sue Israel for war crimes, but would in turn be exposed to similar lawsuits itself.Missile "Diplomacy"
“We have a decision to accede to the Rome Statute,” PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi told The Times of Israel. “All we need to do is send the letter… If this assault continues and doesn’t stop, you can see it sooner rather than later.”
Ashrawi refused to say when exactly the Palestinians leadership would submit the application, a move that would greatly anger Jerusalem and probably be met with harsh retaliatory measures.
There is presently concern that programs to prevent short- and medium-range ballistic missiles from reaching Europe will be delayed under pressure to make concessions to both Russia and Iran, to secure a deal on Iran's nuclear program,A Call for Justice in Vienna
Once deployed, an adversary's long-range missiles could be used for coercion, terror or blackmail. It would seem more prudent to anticipate such threats before they become a reality.
While urging the Israeli government to exercise “restraint” as its population is barraged by rockets, Secretary John Kerry is in Vienna making nice with the greatest terrorism empire in the world – the Islamic Republic of Iran, the very entity that supplies Hamas with munitions for use in these terror attacks. In breaking with previous U.S. policy, the Obama Administration legitimized and embraced the Islamic Republic of Iran, turning a blind eye to the regime’s vast and reprehensible terror network (not to mention its despicable human rights record, its preaching and facilitation of mass genocide, and its repeated intransigence and deception).City of Tehran’s female workers fired 'for own well-being'
While the Obama Administration seems willing to turn a blind eye to Iran’s terror network – we must not.
A number of female employees were recently fired by the Tehran municipality, reportedly for their own “well-being.” Both the sudden decision and its motivation shocked many at the Tehran City Council and officials managing women’s affairs in the administration of President Hassan Rouhani.Malaysia: Hitler might have been right, says ex-mufti
Farzad Khalafi, media affairs deputy for the Tehran municipality, told Iranian Labour News Agency July 13, “Secretarial work and office management is time consuming and lengthy, and for the comfort and well-being of women, this decision was adopted that the office manager and secretary be a gentleman.”
Popular religious scholar Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin has waded into the Adolf Hitler controversy today, writing in an opinion piece that the Nazi dictator “might have been right” in exterminating the Jews.Rand Paul Scrubs Anti-Israel Student Reading List from Website
Despite admitting that not all Jews are bad, the former Perlis mufti insisted that Jews in general have a bad record, as proven by their many trickeries and betrayals, including against Prophet Muhammad.
“We are not anti-certain races, or blindly anti-Semitic like Hitler or previous Europeans. But if we see the betrayals and wicked acts of the Israeli Jews, those are not a new or odd thing for them.
“There might be truth behind Hitler’s belief,” said Mohd Asri in his article on news portal Astro Awani.
While most of the recommended titles focus on economic policy, the list also included books that claim the “Israel Lobby” controls U.S. foreign policy, call for the United States to cut ties with the Jewish state, and argue that support for Israel is anti-Christian and anti-American.U.S. Holocaust Museum Opens Major Archive
One of the recommended titles, Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency by Patrick Buchanan, has been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for containing “anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
In the book, Buchanan accused “the Beltway Likud” of plotting the war in Iraq “long before 9/11.”
Buchanan also compared former Bush adviser Richard Perle with “Fagin,” the villainous, anti-Semitic caricature in Oliver Twist.
Another book on the list, A Foreign Policy of Freedom by former Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas), described President George W. Bush’s foreign policy as a “Christian-Zionist-oil crusade against the infidels.”
For the first time, documentation of the offenses of thousands of World War II criminals is being made public. According to the AP, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. has acquired a copy of the U.N. War Crimes Commission archive. For the past 70 years, the digital archive has been held under restricted access at the United Nations. Now, the archive will be available for viewing in the museum’s research room.Tech sector continues surge with nearly $1B quarter
The collection includes approximately 500,000 digitized microfilm images with more than 10,000 case files on individuals identified as war criminals. The files, written in a range of languages, not only list the crimes of high-powered Nazi officials, they also document thousands of lesser-known crimes from across Europe and Asia. A central registry of war criminals and suspects lists 37,000 names.
Israeli high-tech firms raised $930 million in the second quarter of 2014, the sector’s strongest quarter in more than a decade.Israel Bonds Not Just a Charity Anymore
The figure, drawn from a survey by the Israeli Venture Capital Research Center and financial firm KMPG, was the highest quarterly figure since 2000 and an increase of 109 percent from one year ago.
Combined with the results from the first quarter of this year, Israeli high-tech firms raised $1.6 billion in the first half of 2014, which the research center calls “the strongest capital raising period on record for Israel’s high-tech industry.”
Facing a constant barrage of rockets from Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Israel’s economy is proving just as dependable during the current crisis as the much-acclaimed Iron Dome missile defense system, helped in part by capital investments made internationally through the work of organizations like Israel Bonds.New App Gives New Yorkers Unlimited Coffee for a Flat Fee
A product of the Development Corporation for Israel, an American-run brokerage and retail firm, Israel Bonds has long been a financial boon for the Jewish state’s economy. Now, the bonds are increasingly seen by both individuals and institutions as a sound investment, not just a charitable gift—on par with or better than sovereign debt securities of other well-known, financially stable countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and European Union member states.
When the Israeli app CUPS was launched in Tel Aviv in 2012, its founders were right to be optimistic. A subscription service that provides users with the privilege of drinking unlimited cups of coffee at selected cafés, the app became a popular fixture among Tel Aviv consumers. Israelis aren’t the only ones who cherish their cappuccino, however, and CUPS has taken off overseas."Happy" IDF Soldiers
Launched in April in New York City, it’s been beefing up the Big Apple’s independent coffee shops and small franchises — such as Beans – which haven’t been able to hold a candle to mega-chains Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. So far, CUPS is partnered with more than 50 shops in Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan, and aims to spread to midtown and other boroughs. It is also in the process of negotiating with coffee shops elsewhere in the United States. The user-friendly app lists member coffee shops according to the user’s location – with the closest cafés at the top of the menu, and the distance to each clearly marked. When you enter one of these shops, you order your coffee and click “checkout” on the app. The server then enters a code on your smartphone.
