Tuesday, October 20, 2015

From Ian:

Brendan O’Neill: According to the left, Israeli citizens deserve to be murdered
Leftists are far more alarmed by Israel’s response to the stabbings than they are by the stabbings themselves. They’ve castigated Israel for putting more soldiers on the streets and for making it easier for citizens to buy guns (nothing freaks out the left more than a Jew with a gun). They seem to expect Israel to leave its citizens open to attack.
Echoing Haaretz writer Rogel Alpher, who wrote a demented column expressing his surprise that a Palestinian has never grabbed “a saw or a hammer and murdered me”, some Western radicals are not only glorifying the stabbings but are condemning those who have the temerity to protect themselves from being stabbed. Why won’t Jews let themselves be killed?
It’s so depraved. Whatever you thought of the PLO’s guerrilla activity in the 1970s, these stabbings are clearly very different. It’s anti-Semitism. That some Westerners are trying to present it as something else — a natural outburst of despair — says more about their busted moral compasses than it does about what’s happening in the Middle East.
Strip away the euphemisms, pick apart the talk of a “knife intifada”, and there’s no escaping the fact — the horrific fact — that some Westerners are defending the stabbing to death of people for being Jewish.
This is such a sad day for the left. What happened to that left which was the heir to the warriors of Enlightenment who helped liberate Europe’s Jews from their ghettos? That left which railed against the anti-Semitic “socialism of fools”? That left which, even in the darkest moment in human history — the Holocaust — risked life and limb to help Jews? It is dead. And that is a tragedy of epic proportions.
The stabbings in Israel haven’t only exposed an ugly new Islamism in the Middle East. They have also exposed the moral disarray of those in the West who pose as progressive. The universalist, tolerant left that was sensitive to the scapegoating of Jews for the world’s problems is no more. And so it is left to Jews to defend Jews, bereft of left solidarity, the West merely shrugging its shoulders.
NGO Monitor: On Europe, terrorism and demonizing Israel: Time for a reset
If nothing else, European officials at least get credit for consistency. For decades, in war and peace, terror and calm, they have not flagged in the belief that they can engineer their vision of peace for Israel.
Having failed in so many previous attempts, the European move is another step in the effort to impose its preferred policies, via the labeling of products from the post-1967 “occupied territories” in order to create economic pressure on Israel. The next step would be to ban these products, and then to single out all Israeli items. (As perpetual victims, Palestinians are deemed to be exempt from contributing to peace, real or imagined.)
In this context, the claim by the European Union’s ambassador in Tel Aviv that labeling Israeli goods from beyond the Green Line isn’t a big deal was disingenuous. “You seem to be very proud of your own settlement enterprise,” Lars Faaborg-Anderson said in an interview with journalist Raphael Ahrens, “so why is this such a big problem?” His condescension was, to put it mildly, out of line.
The marking of products from beyond the 1949 armistice lines goes far beyond another awkward EU attempt to impose its ideas on Israeli democracy. Product labeling is the embodiment of a strategy to delegitimize Israel and the right of the Jewish people to sovereign equality. It is central to the political war embodied in BDS — boycott, divestment and sanctions — whose stated objective is not peace, but rather “the complete international isolation of Israel.”
Petitions: MSNBC Must Fire ‘Terror Denier’ Reporter
A day after MSNBC was forced to apologize for factual errors made during a controversial report about Israel, supporters of the Jewish state are demanding in a series of petitions that the cable news network’s longtime Middle East correspondent be fired as a result of several inaccurate and highly biased reports wrongly accusing Israel of murdering innocents.
Ayman Mohyeldin, an NBC News foreign correspondent and MSNBC anchor, has come under fire for claiming on the air last week that he saw Israeli authorities shoot an unarmed Palestinian individual.
This turned out to be incorrect. The terrorist was holding a knife in his hand and attempting to murder Israelis.
Mohyeldin, a former Al Jazeera reporter, has long faced criticism for what many say are his efforts to portray Israel as an aggressor and dismiss Palestinian terrorism. He also has given speeches before anti-Israel organizations.
MSNBC’s pattern of biased reporting about Israel has prompted multiple petitions demanding that Mohyeldin be removed from the Middle East beat and fired.



Douglas Murray: The Secret Awfulness of Saudi Arabia
Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr, arrested in Saudi Arabia at the age of seventeen, has been sentenced to beheading and crucifixion.
Last week, two Saudi human rights activists were sentenced to jail for illegally establishing a human rights organization, questioning the credibility and objectivity of the judiciary, interfering with the Saudi Human Rights Commission (one can imagine what that is like), and describing Saudi Arabia as a police state.
Karl Andree, a 74-year-old British grandfather and a UK citizen who has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for the last year, is due to receive 350 lashes for unpardonable crime of being caught with some homemade wine.
British Justice Minister Michael Gove has now reportedly insisted that the UK could not possibly enter into a contract to train Saudi prison guards.
The naïve Western leaders are those who expect our countries to carry on with "business as usual" with a regime that sentences our citizens to flogging, and that beheads and crucifies political dissidents.
The naïve politicians are those who think the publics of the West do not know what a human rights sewer Saudi Arabia is, or think that we will put up with it. If that were ever the case, that time is over.
Sir Winston Churchill would say: “I told you so!”
When I was conducting my research for my first book “They Have Conspired“, I came to the conclusion that at the current rate (2000-2005) of Muslim immigration and birthrate, Europe would probably become a continent with a majority of Muslims by 2050. I was not counting on the current mass exodus that has been taking place for the last few months. I do not think that it will take another 35 years for the scale to be tipped. Of course, we have to also take in consideration that many European countries are seeing their natives immigrate to other countries. What I am saying here is no different that what I said 10 years ago except for the fact that things are speeding up in front of our eyes.
Several European countries are on the verge of economic collapse. Greece is already there. The migrant crisis is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is also a cultural crisis, a financial crisis and a political crisis. It looks like Europe is letting the fox inside the chicken coop. In the meantime, there are plenty of countries that could welcome some of the refugees but won’t. Many of them in the Middle East and the Gulf States, a place where culture, ideology, language and religion are already familiar to many of the refugees.
The very fabric of Europe and even of Western Civilization is about to change forever very quickly, and I am not sure that it is for the better! It might surprise you but look at what Sir Winston Churchill said it in 1899: “Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
If he was around today, he would look at the European leaders take a puff off his cigar and say: “I told you so!”
Congress members, Jewish groups rally against UNESCO resolution
Amid an angry outcry from Jewish organizations worldwide as well as from Israeli officials over a UNESCO resolution that would declare the Western Wall a Muslim holy site, two members of Congress called Monday evening on the US envoy to the UN body to quash the resolution.
Democratic Representatives Nita M. Lowey and Ted Deutch sent a letter Monday urging US ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Crystal Nix-Hines, to block the draft resolution that Jewish groups had castigated for asserting that the Western Wall is part of al-Aqsa Mosque.
Six Arab states on UNESCO’s Executive Board – Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates are expected to introduce the resolution for a vote as early as Tuesday.
“As members of the United States Congress committed to promoting peace in Israel and the Palestinian territories through direct, bilateral negotiations aimed at achieving a two-state solution, we urge you to use the voice and vote of the United States to prevent this draft resolution from advancing,” the two wrote to Nix-Hines.
According to the proposal, the Western Wall is a part of al-Aqsa Mosque, and is actually called “al-Buraq Plaza.” The proposal also urges that Israel be condemned for the excavations near the Temple Mount and in the Old City of Jerusalem, and for what is termed the “aggression and illegal measures taken against the freedom of worship and access of Muslims to Al-Aqsa Mosque and Israel’s attempts to break the status quo since 1967″.
UNESCO chief ‘deplores’ bid to name Western Wall part of Al-Aqsa
The head of the United Nations cultural agency said Tuesday that she “deplores” a proposal to recognize the Western Wall as part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount above it.
The move, Irina Bokova warned on UNESCO’s website, “could be seen to alter the status of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls and incite further tensions.”
The executive board had been scheduled to vote Tuesday on a resolution submitted by Arab states that would officially recognize the Western Wall as part of the Muslim holy site, but Bokova postponed the vote until Wednesday. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sources say a number of countries are attempting to postpone the vote beyond Wednesday. (h/t Bob Knot)
Kerry pushes for US leadership role at UNESCO
Kerry made the case for US re-election for another four-year term on the board to a gathering of UNESCO’s 195 member states and nine associate members as he traveled between meetings in Italy and Spain.
The bid ahead of next month’s vote is likely to run into resistance as the US stopped paying its dues to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization following the body’s decision to admit Palestine in 2011. As a result of that the US lost its vote in UNESCO’s general assembly in 2013.
US law prohibits it from providing contributions to international organizations that recognize Palestinian statehood. Before 2011 the US contributed about 22 percent of UNESCO’s annual budget. Its arrears now total more than $300 million. The Obama administration has unsuccessfully tried to persuade Congress to restore the funding for several years.
Kerry said the US remains determined to resolve the funding issue and that continued U.S. presence on the executive board would actually make it easier to convince lawmakers in Washington to come to an arrangement.
The Judean People's Front: The Palestinian Hijacking of @UNESCO
First, the idea that anyone could submit a proposal to anything, let alone UNESCO, about the Western Wall and Temple Mount and fail to mention any connection to Judaism and Jewish history is disgusting. This is like having a discussion about the Vatican without mentioning Catholicism. It would have been incredibly easy for this proposal to include both the Hebrew and Arabic terms for these places and explain the importance they hold for both religions (any Christianity). Had it done so, this proposal would deserve support. However, the goal of the Palestinian proposal is not to recognize Muslim history but rather only to rewrite history in a way that removes any reference to Jews, Judaism and Israel.
Second, the proposal itself actually complains about archaeological digs being done by Israel near the site. This is duplicitous for two reasons:
1. Any UNESCO resolution should welcome archaeological digs that seek to uncover and preserve history. But as we've already established, this is anathema to the Palestinian bid.
2. The main archaeological digs being condemned here include The Temple Mount Sifting Project that goes through mounds of destroyed archaeological debris that was illegally removed from the Temple Mount by the Waqf! The Waqf and Palestinian Authority have been carrying out unauthorized destruction of irreplaceable artifacts on the Temple Mount for years and instead of stopping it and provoking a violent reaction (clearly this is working!) Israel has allowed this to continue and makes the best of a horrible situation by sifting through the destruction. If this wasn't enough, the Palestinians are openly complaining that Israel is trying to undo their illegal destruction of history!
Yehuda Glick: I'm Here to Say Thank You
A year after being shot four times at point-blank range by an Islamic Jihad terrorist and fighting for his life, Temple Mount rights campaigner Yehuda Glick returned on Sunday evening to the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, where the assassination attempt took place.
Just moments before last year's shooting he had given an impassioned speech in support of Jewish prayers rights on the Temple Mount. Despite being Judaism's holiest site, Jews and other non-Muslims are prevented from praying there due to pressure and threats of violence from Muslim groups.
Despite his grave injuries, Yehuda Glick survived the shooting, and has since gradually returned to his work struggling for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount.
“Many times, we call on people and say, ‘We’re in great need. Please pray’, but we forget to say thank you,” Glick told Arutz Sheva. “Here we decided that this year, one year exactly after my life was saved, I’m back here at the same place to say thank you to G-d almighty. Thank you for saving my life.”
“[The terrorist] tried to kill me because I symbolized the connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem. And not only did he not succeed in murdering me, but ever since that moment the connection between the people of the world and the Temple Mount is strengthening and strengthening,” he added.
Ex-defense official gives US, Israel 5-year window to unite against Iran
The recently completed deal between Iran and the P5+1 will set Iran’s nuclear program back for five years. But the US and Israel should use the time in the interim to improve coordination and present a united front on Iran, a former senior Israeli defense official said Sunday.
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin, the former head of Military Intelligence and IDF attache to Washington and current director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) said the nuclear deal — which went into effect as he spoke — would entail major challenges for Israel, which would need to be addressed with Washington.
“A responsible prime minister will come to the president of the United States and come up with a plan for how to deal with Iran,” he said, explaining that Israel needs to talk with the US to see how they can “compensate for the not-so-good inspections” and other problematic aspects of the deal.
Israel, Yadlin emphasized, “cannot live with Iran, with this regime that calls to destroy Israel, this same regime in 15 years with nuclear capabilities.”
President Rouhani: Iran Supports All Anti-Zionist Countries
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, commonly touted as a moderate in the West, said that Tehran supports all anti-Zionist countries which are at the forefront of fighting Israel, Iran’s Islamist dissemination mouthpiece Mehr News Agency reported on Monday.
Rouhani made his comments in a meeting with Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, praising Lebanon for being a source of “regional stability,” due to its presence on the front line of “resistance against Zionist invasion.”
Rouhani stressed that when Iran considers which countries to support, it gives priority to those countries, like Lebanon, which are at the forefront of the fight against Israel, and reaffirmed Tehran’s backing of Lebanon’s “resistance movement,” a euphemism for Hezbollah.
Rouhani also said Israel is the root cause of many disasters in the Middle East, calling the Jewish state one of the three main problems plaguing the region, the other two being “foreign countries’ interference in the internal affairs of the delicate Middle East region, as well as violence and terrorism.”
Iranian Guardian Council Spokesman Ebrahimian: JCPOA Not Approved by Majlis or Guardian Council
Iranian Guardian Council Spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian: The JCPOA Was Not Approved by the Majlis or the Guardian Council
In a recent press conference, Iranian Guardian Council Spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian said: "Neither the Majlis nor the Guardian Council approved the steps detailed in the JCPOA." He further said that the JCPOA was "merely a political document and cannot be considered a legal binding document for the parties." His statements aired on IRINN TV on October 18, 2015.


Obama Admin. Will HELP Iran Modernize A Nuclear Reactor
The Department of Energy agreed to help modernize Iran’s Arak nuclear reactor as part of the deal struck between the Obama administration and the Iranian government.
The Energy Department will collaborate with Chinese and Iranian officials to modernize the Arak reactor as part of a Joint Comprehensive Plan that was agreed to earlier this year. The modernized reactor will not produce weapons-grade plutonium, but will be redesigned to a lower power level to produce smaller quantities of plutonium that won’t be weapons grade. Lower quality plutonium, however, could still be used to make low-tech nuclear explosives often called “dirty bombs.”
The Arak reactor is a natural uranium-fueled heavy-water reactor originally designed for making weapons-grade plutonium that could be used for nuclear weapons. Spent fuel from heavy-water reactors contains plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb. If allowed to become fully operational, Arak could produce 10 to 12 kilograms of plutonium a year — that’s enough weapons-grade material to produce 1 to 2 nuclear weapons annually, according to research. Arak’s stated purpose, however, is to make radioisotopes for medical and agricultural purposes
Olmert, Sharon, and Barak built more in settlements than I did, Netanyahu says
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told delegates at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem on Tuesday that his administrations have built less settler homes beyond the Green Line than his three predecessors - Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Barak.
The premier rejected suggestions that Israeli expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is responsible for fueling the recent wave of Palestinian violence.
On average per year, Netanyahu said, "When Barak was prime minister, he built 5,000 units [in the settlements], Sharon built 1,900 units, and Olmert built 1,700 units."
"In light of the circumstances, the average number of housing units built during my latest terms in office dropped to 1,500 per year," the premier said.
"We can have a discussion about this another time, but facts are facts," Netanyahu said. "These numbers are precise. So instead of seeing a rise in settlement construction, there has actually been a drop."
Kerry Rejects Call for International Presence on Temple Mount
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry rejected calls for an international presence on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount holy site.
“We don’t contemplate any change, but nor does Israel,” Kerry told reporters in Madrid. “Israel understands the importance of that status quo. What is important is to make sure everybody understands what that means. We are not seeking some new change. We are not seeking outsiders or others to come in.”
“We need to have clarity,” he added.
France recently introduced a proposal at the United Nations to have an international presence on the Temple Mount to ensure the status quo at the site. But both Israel and Jordan rejected the move.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian fatwa rejects French proposal to deploy international monitors in Jerusalem
The head of the council, Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, who previously served as the Palestinian mufti, made the ruling in a new fatwa (Islamic religious decree).
The Supreme Islamic Council is the highest religious authority for Muslims in Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories.
The latest fatwa states that it is religiously prohibited for Muslims to accept the “internationalization” or “Judaization” of Jerusalem.
In his fatwa, Sheikh Sabri pointed out that the idea of turning Jerusalem into an international city had been proposed over the past few years, but without success.
The fatwa refers to a recent French idea calling for the deployment of international monitors at the Temple Mount.
PreOccupiedTerritory: This Time Peacekeepers Won’t Rape Anyone, We Promise By François Hollande, President of France (satire)
After all, the UN is a serious organization that conducts serious reviews of its agencies and fixes problems where they occur. Some organizations have recently focused their attention on UNRWA employees who violate the agency’s mandated neutrality by making posts on social media that call for violence against Israel or deny its right to exist. But the agency’s response – and that of the UN as a whole – actually proves my point: several weeks from now, those Facebook pages, posts, and statuses will no longer be visible, because they have been taken down. UNRWA will continue to encourage its employees to remove such content. We can count on them.
By the same token, reports that any members of this new peacekeeping force have committed some sort of sexual violation will be similarly deleted from the record. UN agencies have proved exceptional at addressing problems in that fashion, and I see no reason not to place in their trust the compound holy to three major faiths.
If trouble does occur, the force can do exactly what UN peacekeepers did in the Golan Heights last year: hightail it into Israeli territory and beg the IDF for protection. Worst comes to worst, the situation goes back to the way it was before the UN got involved, and Palestinians go back to rioting at the thought of letting anyone else set foot near Al Aqsa. Then it won’t be our problem anymore.
Hold on, the ghost of U Thant is texting me…
Argentine court seeks arrest of Hezbollah man for ’92 bombing
Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice issued an international arrest warrant against Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman, a Hezbollah member who is being investigated for his involvement in the 1992 attack against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.
The attack, which came two years before the bombing of Jewish organization AMIA in Buenos Aires, killed 22 people and injured more than 200. The court on Thursday also reiterated the warrant to arrest Jose Salman El Reda Reda, also as a suspect in the deadly attack.
Suleiman was arrested in Jordan in 2001 and confessed that in 1991 he traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, later transporting to Buenos Aires the explosives used in the deadly blast.
The ruling from Argentina’s highest court said, “Since 2005, this Court has been investigating Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman as an operative agent of the Hezbollah terrorist organization and a member of the Islamic Jihad.”
The ruling added that: “Recently, in September, 2015, the Israel Embassy in Buenos Aires, through the Foreign Affairs Ministry, confirmed the information and thus the international arrest warrant was issued on the named.”
On Friday, Israeli officials welcomed the ruling and confirmed its role in the investigation.
Argentine murder mystery
Initially, Mrs. Kirchner alleged that Nisman had committed suicide. Later, she and her allies said he had indeed been murdered but perhaps by a jealous lover or a rogue Argentine intelligence operative whose motive was to discredit her. In her address at the U.N. last week, Mrs. Kirchner said only that “prosecutor Nisman” had “passed away.”
To prevent the truth from passing away, Mr. Taylor went to Argentina where he quietly — he didn’t inform authorities — interviewed journalists, opposition politicians and anyone else brave enough to tell him what they know. As the film shows, Argentines have gathered by the hundreds of thousands to protest what they see as their government’s capitulation to terrorists. Some have carried signs reading: “Islamic Fundamentalists Killed Nisman.”
In a conversation immediately following last week’s screening, Mr. Taylor was asked if he had made the movie to influence opinion about President Obama’s nuclear weapons agreement with Iran. When he began the project, he replied, he was not even aware of that controversy. But the film does serve, he added, as “a guide to what happens when you do deals with Iran.”
He pointed out that the AMIA bombing and the murder of Nisman started “with a nuclear deal” — an agreement Argentina made in the late 1980s to provide Iran with nuclear technology and assistance. Eventually, under pressure from the United States, the Argentine government did not give Iran’s revolutionary theocrats what they wanted.
One plausible theory — in essence, Nisman’s theory — is that the attack was Iran’s way of sending a message and a warning: “This time we kill Argentine Jews. Disappoint us again and who knows what our targets will be?”
Argentine President on Defensive after Claims About Ally of Murdered Prosecutor Disproved
Reporting on the diplomatic row between Fernández de Kirchner and the U.S., The Washington Post noted that Stiuso’s significance lies in the fact that he is “a figure at the center of the most sensational murder investigation in recent Argentine history.” A recent statement from the Argentine Foreign Ministry asserted that Fernández de Kirchner had “complained” at the UN “about the lack of cooperation from the US government in an issues very closely linked to international terrorism as was the 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires (which killed 85 and injured hundreds).”
But given the sustained allegations against Fernández de Kirchner that she and her government colluded with Iran to exonerate the Tehran regime and its Hezbollah proxy of responsibility for the AMIA bombing, along with the widespread belief that Nisman was murdered, there is good reason to believe that her anxiety over Stiuso is motivated by self-interest.
“CFK made a song and dance at the UN about the Americans and Stiuso,” Tower contributor Eamonn MacDonagh commented. “Now it turns out, rather unfortunately for her, that Stiuso left Argentina legitimately. Given her statements since then, he was probably wise to have gotten out of there.”
Argentine Jewish Community Asks US for Information on Former Intel Official Who Fled Following Attorney Nisman’s Strange Death
Representatives of Argentina’s Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) hand-delivered a letter to the U.S. ambassador in Buenos Aires requesting information from the U.S. about former Argentine intelligence official Antonio “Jaime” Stiuso, a man wanted in Argentina for questioning over the puzzling death of attorney Alberto Nisman earlier this year, Merco Press reported.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner has accused Stiuso of duping Nisman into fabricating allegations of her government’s involvement in a scandal to cover up Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish community center that killed scores and left an indelible mark on the country’s Jewish community.
Nisman was found dead in his apartment in January just hours before he was set to testify against Kirchner for covering up Iran’s role in the devastating bombing, and Stiuso apparently fled the country shortly thereafter. According to Argentina’s Security Ministry, Stiuso fled shortly after appearing before prosecutor Viviana Fein, who was tasked with investigating Nisman’s death.
Liberal American Jews Send Millions To Anti-Israel Organization
For those still unsure whether the New Israel Fund is aligned with factions devoted almost exclusively to seeing Israel weakened, and worse, eliminated from the world stage, this week Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked made the point even sharper.
Shaked noted in an interview that prior to meeting foreign elected leaders, she reviews their contributions to NGOs, and when she meets them, she urges them to stop supporting Anti-Israel NGOs – amongst them three grantees of the New Israel Fund (NIF): Bimkom, Breaking the Silence, and Hamoked.
Shockingly, these groups are amongst the many funded by NIF at the tune of $30 Million annually by American Jews, including the President of UJA-Federation, Alisa Doctoroff and the President of the Jewish Communal Fund, Karen R. Adler. Israel fights terrorism, the Israeli Minister of Justice asks for foreign nations to stop giving to anti-Israel organizations, yet extremist American Jews help Israel’s enemies. Shameful.
Bimkom, an Israeli NGO actively pushes the “apartheid rhetoric”, against Israel, and ties it into the BDS effort – as if to make the comparison to the former anti-apartheid boycott campaigns against South Africa. Breaking the Silence, an Israeli NGO founded with the purpose of criticizing Israeli policy, pushes “war crimes allegations, lobbying the EU and UN.” Its goal is to see Israeli soldiers and officials brought before war crimes tribunals and arrested if they should travel abroad. Then HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, an Israeli human rights organization with a main focus assisting Palestinians of the “Occupied Territories” whose rights they believe are violated by Israel, also pushes the apartheid rhetoric and legal actions against Israel – which brings it back to promoting BDS.
Shaked is confronting world leaders who may be giving without knowing that some groups harm Israel, but believe they are giving to a “human rights organization.” As she clarified, these are anti-Israel groups. While the European ministers she speaks with may not know the intricacies of the harm being caused by these groups, the same cannot be said of the New Israel Fund, its leadership and its donors.
Left Outraged Over Motion Favoring Judea and Samaria Products
Knesset Members from the left are outraged over a discussion planned for Tuesday in the Knesset’s House Committee on a motion submitted by MK David Bitan (Likud) stipulating that companies from Judea and Samaria will be prioritized in procurement tenders of the Knesset.
"It is the duty of the Israeli parliament to stand alongside citizens," Bitan, who chairs the House Committee, said on Monday.
"We have to pass the message to Europe that no agreement can be reached between us and the Palestinians through boycotts," he continued. "The Israeli industry in Judea and Samaria provides a livelihood for thousands of Palestinian families that the Palestinian Authority is unable to sustain due to its government corruption."
Indeed, the European Union is planning a series of measures against Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, having recently approved a motion to label products from the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria (Shomron) as "settlement products".
South African Chief Rabbi: ANC Welcome to Hamas’ Mashal is Disgrace to Memory of Mandela
South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein deplored on Monday a meeting between the country’s ruling ANC party and Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, warning that inviting members of the internationally designated terror group “endangers Africa and the world.”
“For the ANC to welcome Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to South Africa is a moral outrage, and disgraces the memory of Nelson Mandela,” said Goldstein, chief rabbi to South Africa’s sizable Jewish community since 2005.
“Hamas openly promotes the most brutal violence as a religious ideal and is an ideological ally of Boko Haram, which wreaks unspeakable horror and suffering on the African continent. Welcoming such an ideology endangers Africa and the world,” Goldstein told The Algemeiner.
South Africa, BDS’ frontline state
The Republic of South Africa, by virtue of its geography and history, may soon become the southernmost country on the continent to make its Jewish citizens think about leaving. Last week, the ruling African National Congress party urged its citizens not to travel to Israel except to promote “solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.” Before commentators and analysts could accommodate the notion that this was just another bout of demagoguery of the sort the ANC indulges in to deflect from its dismal record as a government, the party hosted a delegation from Hamas, led by billionaire Khaled Mashaal. While Jerusalem fumed and summoned South Africa’s deputy ambassador, South African mining magnate Bongani Mbindwane opined that this shocking visit could turn the tide. I will return to Mr Mbindwane’s opinion piece shortly.
By this gesture, South Africa will be joining Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, whose policies precipitated the departure (or aliyah) of nearly a million Jews from North Africa. She will be joining the ranks of Sudan, which has restrictions on travel to Israel. However, while these countries acted out of solidarity with the Arab/Muslim world, South Africa’s actions are out of sync with the rest of Africa, Islamic or otherwise. They are more inspired by the international BDS Movement, and its affiliation to western socialist and left-leaning groups, and Muslim activists.
For a casual observer, it is very easy to form an image of a South Africa where, as in North Africa, anti-Israeli (and anti-Semitic) sentiments permeate the society. The reality is very different. In much of Africa south of the Sahara, attitudes towards Israel and the situation in the Middle-East range from change-the-channel indifference to a Christian-inspired belief that anyone who curses the Jews is evoking the wrath of the Lord Himself. Christians comprise about 80 percent of South Africa’s population.
Obama's 'Cool Clock' Muslim Boy Gets Award From Jihad-Tied CAIR
The jihad-linked CAIR advocacy group has declared the Texas “cool clock” boy, Ahmed Mohamed, as the “American Muslim of the Year.”
The political award bypassed accomplished Muslims in America — and was also protested by other Muslims — but it did highlight the incendiary claim by the Council on American–Islamic Relations to its overseas supporters that Muslims in America are threatened, and must be aided by overseas Muslims.
The award by the CAIR group — which a judge has concluded is tied to the Jew-hating HAMAS jihad group — is an embarrassment to President Barack Obama, who has invited the boy to the White House for an Oct. 19 science event.
The award also came four days after the boy hugged Sudan’s Islamic, theocratic and genocidal dictator, who has been charged with war-crimes. The boy was escorted to the dictator by his Sudan-born father, who is trying to promote himself in Sudanese politics.
Daily Beast Columnist Raises Funds for HAMAS-linked CAIR
Dean Obeidallah, one of The Daily Beast’s regular columnists, is working this weekend as a fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The CAIR group is so closely entwined with Islamists and with jihadis that court documents and news reports show that at least five of its people — either board members, employees or former employees — have been jailed or repatriated to the United States for various financial and terror-related offenses.
The record highlighted by critics also shows that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas-based criminal effort to deliver $12 million funds for the Jew-hating HAMAS jihad group, that it was founded with $490,000 from HAMAS, and that the FBI bans top-level meetings with CAIR officials. “The FBI policy restricting a formal relationship with CAIR remains … [but] does not preclude communication regarding investigative activity or allegations of civil rights violations,” said an email from FBI spokesman Christopher Allen.
In 2009, a federal judge concluded that “the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR… with Hamas.”
Gravestones toppled at Czech Jewish cemetery
Some 20 tombstones were knocked over at a Jewish cemetery in a southern Czech town.
The vandalism discovered earlier this month occurred in Safov, about 120 miles southeast of Prague, the local media reported. The estimated cost of the damage is about $2,500, according to Jaroslav Klenovsky of the Brno Jewish community, which administers the site.
“Over the last three years, we have erected all the tombstones that were lying on the ground. But when I visited the cemetery earlier this month, I found that around 20 of them had been damaged and knocked over,” Klenovsky told the Znojemsky denik newspaper, adding that he had filed a criminal complaint with the police over the incident. There are no suspects.
SILENT EXODUS by Pierre Rehov ( updated 2015 ) ( h/t IsraellyCool)
They were more than a million Jews. Between 1946 and 1974, this million is the number of forgotten fugitives, expelled from the Arab world, and whom history would like to forget, while the victims themselves have hidden their fate under a veil of modesty. The Jews have been living in Arabic lands for thousands of years and seemed to accept their fate forever, some even considering their survival as a miracle.
But 1948, the beginning of their exodus, was also the birth of the State of Israel.
And, while the Arab armies were preparing to invade the young refugee-country, while the survivors of the Shoah were piling up in dangerous boats to fulfill at last the return to the land of their dreams and their prayers, a few hundred thousand Arabs from Palestine were getting ready to flee their home, convinced that they would return as winners and conquerors.
They were soon going to fill up the refugee camps built on their brothers’ land, and – because of their refusal to integrate – pass on their refugee status to the next generations.
The Jews did not get any special status. They had just returned to the Land of their fathers
And if they came from Aden, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Morocco, Tunisia or Libya, if they had lost everything and sometimes even relatives, memories and cemeteries, it is in Israel and the west that they were ready to rebuild their lives. Without ever asking for any compensation, any right to return, or even wishing that their story be told…


WATCH: The new Jewish state is formed
Haganah troops march through the streets of Haifa, United Nations delegates recognize the new state of Israel, and crowds dance outside Washington’s Jewish Agency in this footage of both the United States and Israel from May 1948.
On screen, a UN delegate from the United States acknowledges the provisional government of Israel as the de facto authority in the area. “In a tense atmosphere, the assembly hears a statement of momentous importance,” the announcer declares. “With United States recognition, the new Jewish state is launched.”
In another shot, a young boy hoists the new flag of Israel out the window of the Jewish Agency for Palestine in Washington.
“After 2,000 years the Jewish nation once again exists,” the narrator concludes. “And while there is a rattle of gunfire in the Holy Land, there is cheering in Washington and Hebrew dances of joy for the Jewish homeland that has been reborn.”


ADL honors Matisyahu for standing up to anti-Israel boycott
The Anti-Defamation League honored the American Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu for standing up against an anti-Israel boycott.
Matisyahu performed his anthem “Jerusalem” on Thursday at the ADL annual meeting in Denver.
In August, he was slotted to play at the Rototom SunSplash reggae music festival before BDS activists pressured the event’s organizers to disinvite him because of his support for Israel. Matisyahu, refusing to comply with the demand of organizers that he issue a statement in support of the Palestinian national movement and against Israel, was dropped from the program.
After a backlash from Jewish organizations and the Spanish government, the festival organizers apologized and reinvited Matisyahu. He performed before a crowd that included people waving Palestinian flags, including “Jerusalem,” which stresses the Jewish biblical connection to the land of Israel.
“It is my honor to stand here today as head of ADL to recognize you for having the courage to stand up against those forces of ignorance and intolerance,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO, who presented the performer with a paper cut made in Israel and inscribed with the words “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself” in Hebrew and in English.
“Thank you for standing with us here today, and thank you for standing up against the forces of bigotry, hatred and intolerance.”
‘When we told them we were Jews from Israel, they kissed us’
The group, sailing off the coast of Turkey, pulled 11 refugees from the water, in addition to a dead infant.
After hearing faint cries for help while boating between the Turkish town of Kas and the Greek island of Kastellorizo, members of the Ashdod-based Poseidon Sailing Club noticed an approximately 11-year-old Syrian boy floating in the water alone.
“We pulled him out of the water and he told us his brother was missing and probably dead,” the yacht’s captain, Shlomo Asaban, told the Ynet news website.
The crew began to search for members of the boy’s family who had been aboard the sunken boat. “We rescued 12 people in all, including a dead infant,” the captain said.
“The mother said she had cradled her infant son’s body all night,” Asaban told the Hebrew-language news site.
“We realized they were Syrian and Iraqi. We gave them water and cellphones so they could contact their families, Asaban recounted. “Afterwards, we told them we were Jews from Israel, and they kissed us and said ‘Thank you,'” he added.


This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.



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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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