Showing posts with label Linkdump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linkdump. Show all posts

Monday, January 29, 2018

From Ian:

Pierre Rehov: UNRWA: The UN Agency that Creates Palestinian Refugees
According to the UN's own definition, the status of "refugee" cannot be passed from generation to generation -- as it conveniently has been for the Palestinians. A Palestinian with a European, American or Jordanian passport has no reason to be considered a refugee. Except by UNRWA.

"Since the UN took them over, the Palestinians started burying their dead at night, without declaring them, in order to share their rations. As a result, for nearly 20 years, the official death rate in the camps was close to zero. In addition, there was a lot of movement between the camps. But these displacements were rarely recorded, so that a Palestinian could appear in several camps at the same time..." — Said Aburish, Palestinian Refugee and biographer of the late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat.

UNRWA is not just a humanitarian agency. Its political stance is evident at all levels of the organization. A report from the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, says that the 2016-2017 curriculum for elementary schools in PA, partly funded by UNRWA, "teaches students to be martyrs, to demonize and deny the existence of Israel, and to focus on a 'return' to an exclusively Palestinian country."
John Kerry Chamberlain, saving Israel from ifself...again
During President Obama's second term in office, Secretary of State John Kerry, like his boss and other members of the same peapod (Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, etc.), liked to warn Israel about such things as its isolation and alienation if it did not agree to Arab demands to return to its pre-'67 war, '49 armistice lines (they were never borders) which made it an over-sized ghetto, 9-15 miles wide at its waist, where most of its population and infrastructure are located.

President George W. Bush commented that Texas had driveways larger than that. I don't know about driveways, but I also don't doubt the size of some Lone Star ranches. And I'm pretty sure Mrs. Obama had to travel farther than that for shopping trips to Target.

Others, like President Jimmy Carter, supposedly worried/worry (and even wrote books) about Israel's soul and looming "apartheid nature" if it insists on the more secure, defensible, real borders that UNSC Resolution 242 promised in the wake of the '67 fighting--a war Israel was forced to fight after being blockaded by Egypt (a casus belli), shelled by Jordan, abandoned by the UN Emergency Force placed in Sinai after the '56 war (largely fought over another blockade and acts of terror), and other hostile acts and constant threats of annihilation.

All of 242's architects (Lord Caradon, Eugene Rostow, etc.)--and Presidents Johnson, Reagan, and others (including George W. Bush in his letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon)--agreed that Israel would never return to those pre-'67 Auschwitz lines.

That, dear readers, is what the "settlement" issue is mostly all about...besides Jews having both modern, religious, and historical connections to Judea and Samaria (only since the 20th century, called the "West Bank") for over three thousand years.
East Jerusalem-based NGO dissolved for financing terrorism
The Jerusalem District Court on Sunday ordered the dissolution of a nongovernmental organization based in east Jerusalem that was used as a front by a Palestinian terrorist group.

The illicit activities of Lajnat al-Amal al-Zarai, or the Committee of Agricultural Work, were first exposed by Israel Hayom in October 2016.

The group allegedly funneled millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Registrar of Associations in Israel initiated the NGO's liquidation process in the court, which ruled that the evidence presented supports the allegation that the organization was involved in donor fraud and terror financing.

The alleged donor fraud was uncovered by the International Legal Forum, a local advocacy group, in 2016. It found that the commmittee had defrauded foreign entities and individuals into thinking they were donating funds for humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza, but instead the funds were diverted to terrorist activities.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

From Ian:

NY Post Editorial: Amnesty International shows its anti-Israel bias yet again
The official excuse: Because Amnesty supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, “it would be inappropriate [for us] to host an event by those actively supporting” West Bank Jewish settlements.

By which AI specifically meant the watchdog group UN Watch — whose extremely effective executive director, Hillel Neuer, was to take part in the debate with a pro-UN advocate.

Worse, Amnesty suddenly claimed that allowing Neuer to appear at its building would put the work of its people “on the ground . . . at risk.”

By which it probably meant that some of its well-heeled supporters had raised objections. Or maybe the group simply got cold feet over the potential embarrassment of hosting a debate in which Neuer was sure to prevail.

None of this comes as any surprise: Amnesty International has a long record of opposing Israeli policies — but, worse still, of holding the Jewish state to an unfair double standard that would qualify AI for membership on that same Israel-bashing UN Human Rights Council.

Amnesty, like the rest of the left, has an obsessive and unbalanced interest in Israel. It routinely publishes reports denouncing Israeli actions while ignoring the Palestinian terror attacks — including missile fire — that provoke them.

It has demanded that Israel — but not Hamas — be prosecuted for war crimes. And its “people on the ground” have included at least one person who served as a “human shield” against Israeli troops.

Amnesty International has long failed to live up to its own media hype. Maybe its officials should reschedule that debate — and then stay to watch it.
PMW: PA attacks PMW for "wild incitement campaign" against PA radio
The Palestinian Authority has reopened its verbal attacks on Palestinian Media Watch. This follows PMW's repeated exposure of incitement to violence on official PA radio, including the broadcast of a recent song calling for Martyrdom for Jerusalem.

A few days after PMW reported that The Voice of Palestine station had broadcast a song encouraging Palestinians to "redeem" Jerusalem "with your life and blood", the station's Director-General Bassam Daghlas, accused PMW of "waging an incitement campaign" against the station.

"Director-General of [the official PA radio station] The Voice of Palestine Bassam Daghlas said that 'The incitement campaign that the Israeli center Palestinian Media Watch is waging against The Voice of Palestine radio station is not the first case, as it has been subject to similar attacks in the past.' ...
He also emphasized that 'Our media message is clear and will not change, and if they consider playing national songs incitement, they can think what they want."

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 25, 2018]

The PA Ministry of Information also attacked PMW, claiming PMW is waging a "wild incitement campaign" against The Voice of Palestine, and that PMW reports are "part of the deceptive Zionist discourse":

"The [PA] Ministry of Information believes that the wild incitement campaign that the Israeli center called Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) is waging against [the official PA] radio station The Voice of Palestine projects on the other... what happens within its own entity [Israel], and that it [PMW] already waged other attacks against the Palestinian, Arab, and international media... The ministry said that the repeated claims of the Israeli center [PMW] are part of the deceptive Zionist discourse - that is full of incitement and that is the sole sponsor of terror and the ugly racism."
[PA Ministry of Information website, Jan, 24, 2018, emphasis added]

The PA has attacked PMW for exposing PA incitement to hate and terror numerous times. Last year, PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi counted PMW among the "toxic organizations," accusing PMW of just waiting "to attack":
The UN’s horrid Holocaust hypocrisy
Thirteen years ago, the United Nations General Assembly designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an occasion for its member nations to commemorate Nazi Germany’s murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others. The UN also urged nations to use the occasion to educate their citizens about the horrors of the Holocaust to help prevent future acts of genocide.

Yet in the intervening years, across Europe and worldwide, we have seen the rise of extremist politics, from the National Front Party in France to extremist electoral gains in Austria, Greece, Hungary and the Netherlands, much of it fueled by anti-immigration rhetoric and intolerance, but also by neo-Nazism and the very same anti-Semitic language and tropes that gave rise to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

During the French elections last year, for example, National Front leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen denied France was responsible for the infamous 1942 roundup and deportation of 13,000 French Jews, reopening old wounds. In Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, who is increasingly allying with Iran, said that “Israel doesn’t kill in error, it kills in horror.”

Meanwhile, the European Forum on Anti-Semitism, a watchdog group founded in 2008, reported 767 anti-Semitic incidents across the continent in the first half of 2017, a 30% rise from the previous year and the highest number it has since recorded . In Caracas, Venezuela, Foreign Policy magazine reported increasing instances of graffiti with phrases like “be patriotic: kill a Jew.”

Many have raised their voices about this threat — but not the UN. The organization I founded 35 years ago, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has seen first-hand the impact of a resurgence in anti-Semitism.

Saturday, January 27, 2018

From Ian:

Through Jerusalem, Trump has changed the world
We don’t know what world leaders whisper about him, but love him or hate him, they know that President Trump has returned America to its standing as the world’s colossus.

At the economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump faces what are known as the elites, who never liked him much. But in Trump they’ll be facing the Lion in the room.

America once again strides the global stage and It started Wednesday, December 6, 2017, when from the White House, Trump announced the following: “I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” Since that moment, that big shining moment, nothing has been the same.

In reaction to those words – sweetness to lovers of Liberty and Zion, bitterness to the others -- tyrannies (like North Korea and Iran) trembled, alliances (between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority) were shattered, and more of our enemies went scattering for refuge among think-alike regimes, or anyone who would take them in from the cold.

They did not believe he would do it…but he did…with no thought to their “feelings.” They’d gotten so used to Obama, that imposter from Kenya, a weakling, a Quisling, that it came as a shock to find that here was a man. Here was a man who kept his word. Here was a man of action. Here was a man of honor. Here was a man who could not be played.

If he could do something so courageous to some, so outrageous to others – what else would he do, and to whom?

Trump’s Jerusalem bequest upended thousands of years of global politics. No wonder they were scared.
'Trump burst the Palestinians' bubble'
President Donald Trump “burst the Palestinian Arabs' bubble”, Middle East expert and regular Arutz Sheva contributor Dr. Mordechai Kedar said on Thursday.

“The Palestinians are very disappointed because they built an entire house of cards by claiming they will get a Palestinian state. Who will give them such a thing? Nobody. They dream about the 'return' of the 'Palestinian refugees' not to 'Palestine' but to the same villages in which they lived in Tel Aviv, in Netanya. These are all pipe dreams, and now Trump came and took out the Jerusalem card from the building, as well as card with the issue of the refugees which they kept alive for 70 years, and now the whole thing is shattered to pieces,” said Kedar.

“They've lost all direction, they have no idea what to do now, because they have no agenda. Everything in which they believed turned out to be nothing.”

“This frustration,” he opined, “will bring about the end of the Palestinian Authority.”

Asked if the current situation could cause Palestinian Arabs to carry out more terrorist attacks, Kedar said, “Terrorists never need another reason [to carry out attacks]. The mere fact that we Jews have a state made us a target. They don't really need Trump to encourage them to wage terror against us. We suffered terror during the 1990s and during the 2000s without Trump. Trump is only a fig leaf to cover the real motivation to wipe us all out from this country.”

“I support the move of not only the American embassy but of all embassies to Jerusalem because this will contribute to peace. When our neighbors – Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims – understand that they've lost the fight against us, peace will come,” Kedar declared.


Melanie Phillips: Trump, Brexit and diaspora Jews
Britain is the historic crucible of political freedom and tolerance; America is the greatest champion of those values in the world. Only by loving Britain and America will their people love Israel, the nation whose ancient culture gave Britain and America their foundational values.

Anti-Semitism never goes away. All such extremism erupts, however, not when people feel confident in their shared culture but when they feel it’s being taken away from them. That’s why Britain and Europe are witnessing the emergence of rampant anti-Semitism and the rise of some truly neo-fascist groups. And of course, the EU itself is deeply hostile to Israel.

The left’s animus against Israel goes hand-in-hand with its disdain for the idea of the nation. This is surely at root why Orthodox Jews support Trump: because Orthodox Jews identify as a nation.

As a result, they not only love Israel, but they also love America. They realize that both are under attack from the left, and they realize that Trump offers perhaps the only chance America has of surviving as recognizably itself.

British Jews labor under a different difficulty: their knowledge that British society thinks identifying as a Jewish nation is incompatible with loyalty to Britain.

Britain’s failure to grasp its deep connection to the Jewish people is one reason why the U.K. is in such deep civilizational trouble. Trump, by contrast, has joined up the dots and reaffirmed the spiritual bond between America and the Jews.

That’s the only way the West will be saved—and illustrates why, despite his manifold failings, Trump is probably the only person who can do it.

Friday, January 26, 2018

From Ian:

President Rivlin to foreign envoys: Israel ‘not compensation for Holocaust’
President Reuven Rivlin is not a lone voice in the wilderness when he insists the creation of the State of Israel was not compensation for the Holocaust.

He is supported in this belief by Prof. Dina Porat, the chief historian at Yad Vashem.

Rivlin was speaking on Thursday to foreign diplomats who braved the inclement weather to attend the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day event for the diplomatic corps at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Rivlin noted that his own family came to the Land of Israel well over a century before the Holocaust and said other Jewish families were already living here long before the arrival of his own ancestors. “The State of Israel is not a colonial project, and not compensation for the Holocaust,” he declared. “The State of Israel came into being from the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in its own homeland.”

Porat, in a video presentation, explained how Holocaust denial can be manipulated to delegitimize Israel’s existence. She said former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust ever happened as a pretext for saying if there was no Holocaust there was no legitimacy for the State of Israel.

Then, endorsing Rivlin’s contention, Porat stated: “The State of Israel did not come out of the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad ignores the fact that the State of Israel came out of Zionism that was there 70 years before the Holocaust.”
UK Parliament Passes Resolution Deeming Hezbollah in Its Entirety a Terrorist Organization
Members of Parliament on Thursday supported a non-binding resolution in the House of Commons to proscribe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization under UK terrorism legislation.

There was widespread support for the move to proscribe the political wing of Hezbollah. Currently, only the military wing is defined as a terrorist organization in UK law. The full text of the resolution said: “This House believes that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation driven by an antisemitic ideology that seeks the destruction of Israel; notes that Hezbollah declares itself to be one organisation without distinguishable political or military wings; is concerned that the military wing of that organisation is proscribed, but its political wing is not; and calls on the Government to include Hezbollah in its entirety on the list of proscribed organisations.”

During the debate, Labour MP Joan Ryan, who proposed the motion, said: “Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, driven by antisemitic ideology, which seeks the destruction of Israel. It has wreaked death and destruction throughout the middle east, aiding and abetting the Assad regime’s butchery in Syria and helping to drive Iran’s expansionism throughout the region. It makes no distinction between its political and military wings, and nor should the British Government.”

Ahead of the debate, the Labour Party sent a briefing note to Labour MPs urging them to oppose the motion, claiming it would hinder peace talks in the Middle East. The briefing made no mention of Hezbollah’s involvement in the ongoing conflict in Syria or its long history of carrying out terrorist attacks. The briefing said: “There is a balance between making absolutely clear our abhorrence of using violence to achieve political ends and at the same time encouraging organisations down an effective democratic path.”
The Photo That Never Saw The Light of Day: Obama With Farrakhan In 2005
A journalist announced last week that he will publish a photograph of then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D) and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan that he took in 2005 at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting, but did not make public because he believed it would have “made a difference” to Obama’s political future.

The photographer, Askia Muhammad, told the Trice Edney News Wire that he “gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy.”

“But after the nomination was secured and all the way up until the inauguration; then for eight years after he was President, it was kept under cover,” Muhammad said.

Asked whether he thought the photo’s release would have affected Obama’s presidential campaign, Muhammad said, “I insist. It absolutely would have made a difference.”

Reached by TPM on Thursday, Muhammad said a “staff member” for the CBC contacted him “sort of in a panic” after he took the photo at a caucus meeting in 2005. TPM has published the photo above with Muhammad’s permission.

“I sort of understood what was going on,” Muhammad told TPM. “I promised and made arrangements to give the picture to Leonard Farrakhan,” the minister’s son-in-law and chief of staff.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Holocaust Memorial Day Statement Leaves Out the Jews
Last January, Donald Trump infamously omitted mention of the Jews from his Holocaust Memorial Day statement, provoking a national scandal and withering criticism from liberals. Today, Jeremy Corbyn, the leftist leader of the U.K. Labour party, released his Holocaust Memorial Day statement—and did the exact same thing.

As has been widely reported, Labour under Corbyn has been rocked by escalating anti-Semitism scandals, leading to the suspension of dozens of officials, and extending all the way up to Corbyn himself. Before the 2017 U.K. election, just 13 percent of British Jews said they would vote for Corbyn’s Labour, the same as the percentage of Muslims who voted for Donald Trump. This Holocaust statement, then, offered Corbyn an easy opportunity to mend some fences with British Jews and show that he takes their concerns into account.

Instead, he managed to erase Jews from the story of their own genocide. Here is Corbyn’s statement in its entirety:

We should never forget the Holocaust: The millions who died, the millions displaced and cruel hurt their descendants have suffered.
We should understand the way fascism arose in Germany and the circumstances that gave space for the Nazis to grow.
At this, and at all other times, we should reflect and make sure succeeding generations understand the power of words.
Their power to do immense good and inspire; and their power to promote hate and division.
Let us use their power to educate to inspire but above all to build values of trust and respect.


Corbyn was seemingly unaware of the irony of calling for people to be circumspect in using their “power of words” while utterly effacing the Holocaust’s primary victims from his account of their murder. The Times columnist Hugo Rifkind, among others, expressed his disbelief: (h/t Elder of Lobby)

From Ian:

Amb. Haley Says Hate-Filled Speech by Abbas Shows He’s Not Ready to Make Peace
Referring to a recent “hate-filled” speech given by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which he declared the Oslo Accords dead, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council Thursday, “A speech that indulges in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace.”

Haley, who was addressing the Security Council during its monthly meeting to address the Middle East, said that she would “set aside her usual practice” of highlighting the Iranian threat to the Middle East and instead address what she called the “important element” of making peace, specifically “leaders who have the will to do what’s needed to achieve peace.”

Haley cited the example of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who addressed Israel’s Knesset and told Israel, “You want to live with us in this part of the world. In all sincerity, I tell you, we welcome you among us, with full security and safety.” The words, Haley said, made “Israel understand that it had a partner with whom it could make those painful compromises” that were necessary for a peace deal with Egypt.

In contrast, in his recent speech to the Palestinian Liberation Organization Central Committee, Abbas “declared the landmark Oslo Peace Accords dead. He rejected any American role in peace talks. He insulted the American President. He called for suspending recognition of Israel. He invoked an ugly and fictional past, reaching back to the 17th century to paint Israel as a colonialist project engineered by European powers.”

“A speech that indulges in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace,” Haley observed. And while she said that the United States “remains fully prepared and eager to pursue peace,” which would require compromise, but “hate-filled speeches and end-runs around negotiations take us nowhere.”
Nikki Haley to U.N. Security Council: Where is the Palestinian Anwar Sadat?


Nikki Haley to the Security Council: Where is the Palestinian Anwar Sadat? - Full Transcript

Trump: Money Will Be Cut Off to Palestinians if Leaders Don’t Engage in Peace Negotiations
Trump addressed the United Nations vote from December to condemn the planned embassy move in which only a handful of countries voted in favor of the U.S. decision. He noted that the United States was "out in the wilderness by ourselves."

"We give billions of dollars away every year to countries and in many cases those countries don't even support us, they don't support the United States," Trump said. "Israel has always supported the United States, and so what I did with Jerusalem was my honor, and hopefully we can do something with peace."

Trump went on to say that the Palestinians, who received hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aide and support, disrespected Vice President Mike Pence when their leaders said they would not meet with him during a recent visit to the Middle East.

"That money is on the table and that money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace," Trump said beside Netanyahu. "Because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace and they're going to have to want to make peace, too, or we're going to have nothing to do with it any longer."

Prior to Trump's remarks, Netanyahu also commented on the historic nature of the administration's commitment to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Pence announced on Monday the move is planned for 2019.

"I want to say, this is a historic decision that will forever be etched in the hearts of our people for generations to come," Netanyahu said of Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. "People say that this pushes peace backward; I say it pushes peace forward because it recognizes history, it recognizes present reality. And peace can only be built on the basis of truth."

The prime minister also said the Israeli people support Trump completely, especially regarding his stance on backing out of the nuclear deal with Iran if "fatal flaws are not fixed."



Thursday, January 25, 2018

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: Partisan Divide over Israel
That deeper element is worldview, exposed by 9/11 and exacerbated over time by increasing partisan bickering over Islamic terrorism. From 1978 through the Oslo Accord, support for Israelis declined while support for the Palestinians stayed approximately even. About as many Americans said they supported “neither party” or “both” as said they supported the Israelis. That’s because the United States faced virtually no threat from Islamic radicalism. After Oslo, support for Israel jumped, particularly as Israel was hit by wave after wave of Palestinian terrorism.

Then, after 9/11, support for Israelis jumped among Republicans and never stopped growing. Conservative Americans, who had been more likely to draw a moral equation between Israel and her enemies, identified with the Israelis — they saw Israel as an outpost of Western civilization in a region rife with Islamic terrorism. They saw Palestinians handing out candies as the World Trade Center towers fell, and they knew that Israelis had been facing down the same threat. The real, meaningful conflict between Islamist barbarism and Western liberalism was thrown into sharp relief.

Democrats, too, initially responded to 9/11 with more support for Israel. But as the war on terror progressed, Democrats began to see Western civilization as the provocative agent. Too many on the left saw Islamic terrorism as a response to Western cruelty — cruelty to which Israel was supposedly a party. Nowhere was this clearer than in the media coverage of the Gaza War, which glorified Hamas at the expense of Israel, even as Israel tried to avoid civilian casualties and Hamas tried to inflict them. The Obama administration reflected that viewpoint, which is why it pursued Iranian regional growth with alacrity. The West, Obama and the Democrats thought, had to withdraw from the Middle East in order to empower dispossessed Islamists (hence State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf’s asinine suggestion that ISIS be given jobs to help them avoid terrorism).

Unfortunately, the gap yawns ever greater. Republicans live in a post-9/11 world; Democrats live in a pre-9/11 world. That has dramatic, unfortunate implications for Israel: In a polarized political environment, the historic bipartisan support for the Jewish state is quickly eroding. That’s not a bipartisan problem. That’s a specifically Democratic problem, and one that should encourage Jews to examine whether the Democratic Party ought to re-evaluate its moral worldview in the Middle East.

Glenn Simpson, Conspiracy Theorist, Finds a Place for the Jews in his Trump-Russia Fantasia
In April 2017, Politico published “The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin.” How are they connected? Well, Putin is close to several Chabad supporters, as well as Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, Russia’s chief rabbi. Trump worked with some Russian emigres who are active in Chabad, including a convicted felon, Felix Sater. In Florida, Trump hosted the wedding of the daughter of a Chabad supporter he knows to an associate of one of the Chabad supporters who is close to Putin.

What does all this tell us about the alleged relationship between Trump and Putin?

“Their respective ambitions led the two men,” writes Politico, “to build a set of close, overlapping relationships in a small world that intersects on Chabad, an international Hasidic movement most people have never heard of.”

You see—they’re furtive. Almost no one has heard of them. The only people who appear to understand Chabad’s role in the secret Trump-Putin collusion conspiracy are the author of the story and Glenn Simpson, who came back to this insane theory again in his testimony before Congress. Yet this lunacy was evidently plausible enough to the editorial staff at Politico, whose headline is the only thing that actually connects Trump and Putin in a story insinuating a secret Jewish plot to undermine American democracy.

In the past, it was Russian intelligence that trafficked in disinformation operations tagging Jews as the engine of instability in Western countries. The most famous specimen was The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And previously, the ethics and institutional structures of the mainstream American press prevented conspiracy theories from polluting the country’s public sphere. Today, by contrast, American journalists congratulating themselves for their ever-vigilant stance against Russian encroachment on our democratic institutions willingly usher in updated versions of the Protocols. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Making peace with Israel
In all my discussions with the high-ups of the Pakistani security establishment, politicians and diplomats there is a high acceptance and willingness to engage with Israel. The problem is that nobody wants to take the lead and responsibility fearing a backlash from the right-wing religious hawks that wrongly put it as a religious issue. The result is that Pakistan’s foreign policy has continued to suffer due to its shortsighted and spineless leadership that fears mullah more than Allah.

Pakistan’s stale Israel policy reflects a deeper level rot in its governance, inability to change and non-strategic personalised foreign policy. Take for instance Pakistan’s bi-relations with Saudi Arabia. It’s more of a House of Saud and House of Sharif relation than a state-to-state level relation. The US-Pak relations are in reality Pakistan military and US relations. Same is the case with Pakistan’s relations with Turkey, Iran and the UK. Essentially, the ruling elite in Pakistan have used the state to garner and develop its personal interests at the expense of national interests — a tragedy that inhibits Pakistan from any real policy change.

Make no mistake; Pakistan’s Israel policy is not driven by any grandiose ideas of human rights or Muslim solidarity, and especially not out of any national interest. The senseless policy on Israel continues to exist because the elite don’t see any personal or institutional benefit in the relation. The day our leadership sees a personal financial or military benefit, no fear of mullah or Allah can stop. Until then, Pakistan will continue with its senseless policy expecting a different result in its global standing. (h/t Solomon2)

From Ian:

Trump: No more aid unless Palestinians accept that Jerusalem is ‘off the table’
In a freewheeling press availability on Thursday, US President Donald Trump said the US would no longer transfer monetary aid to the Palestinians unless they entered peace negotiations with Israel, and excoriated the Palestinian leadership’s reaction to his decision last month to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“That money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace, because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace, and they’re going to have to want to make peace, too, or we’re going to have nothing to do with it any longer,” he said.

Sitting alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before their bilateral meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump called Palestinian Authority officials’ unwillingness to meet with members of his administration — including US Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the region last week — “disrespectful.”

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has also recently sought to have European powers replace the United States as the primary mediator in Middle East peace talks.

“If you look back at the various peace proposals, and they are endless, and I spoke to some of the people involved. And I said, ‘Did you ever talk about the vast amount of funds, money that we give to the Palestinians? You know, we give hundreds of millions of dollars.’ And they said, ‘We never talk about it,'” Trump said. “Well, we do talk about it. When they disrespected us a week ago by not allowing our great vice president to see them, and we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and support, tremendous numbers, numbers that nobody understands, that money is on the table.” (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Full text: Netanyahu-Trump meeting in Davos

Washington said reexamining entirety of US aid to Palestinians
The US leadership is looking beyond its recent cuts to the the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, with the State Department reexamining the entirety of its aid budget to the Palestinian Authority, Hadashot news reported Wednesday.

According to the TV station, which indicated the report was based on US sources, the $100 million cut to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) earlier this month may well only be the start, as the crisis between Washington and Ramallah deepens.

A top proponent of further cuts is said to be US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who reportedly wants the Palestinian leadership to pay for its attitude towards the US government and President Donald Trump. Other officials are said to oppose further cuts.

There was no confirmation of the TV report.


Amid funding cut fears, PA purchases $50 million private jet for Abbas — report
Even as the Palestinian Authority faces major funding cuts from the US, it has purchased a new luxurious $50 million private jet to be used by President Mahmoud Abbas, Hadashot news reported Wednesday.

The report, which did not provide sourcing, said the plane was set to be delivered to Amman within weeks, and will be stationed there for use by the PA chief.

Funding for the plane was said to have been provided both from the PA budget ($20 million) and from the Palestinian National Fund ($30 million).

The report comes amid deep cuts to US aid to the Palestinians, and reports that further cuts may be coming.

When US President Donald Trump originally threatened to cut aid earlier this month, top PLO official Saeb Erekat said it would lead to starvation among Palestinian refugee children.

“Now, he is threatening to starve Palestinian children in refugee camps and deny their natural rights to health and education, if we don’t endorse his terms and dictations,” Erekat said, referring to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

From Ian:

NYTs: How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine
The choice facing Ivry on that day in October 1982 was only one example of a dilemma that has confronted many Israeli authorities over the course of the nation’s brief history — the violent and sometimes irreconcilable clash between the fundamental principles of democracy and a nation’s instinct to defend itself.

As a reporter in Israel, I have interviewed hundreds of people in its intelligence and defense establishments and studied thousands of classified documents that revealed a hidden history, surprising even in the context of Israel’s already fierce reputation. Many of the people I spoke to, in explaining why they did what they did, would simply cite the Babylonian Talmud: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” In my reporting, I found that since World War II, Israel has used assassination and targeted-killing more than any other country in the West, in many cases endangering the lives of civilians. But I also discovered a long history of profound — and often rancorous — internal debates over how the state should be preserved. Can a nation use the methods of terrorism? Can it harm innocent civilians in the process? What are the costs? Where is the line?

Increasingly, people want to talk. It was during a conversation in 2011 with a senior officer in a North Tel Aviv cafe that I heard for the first time about how Sharon had ordered that transport plane carrying Arafat to be shot down in 1982. He described everything in detail but set a stiff condition for publication of the story — another person had to describe the event on the record as well. Only by doing that could I publish the story. I went to see that person, knowing how difficult it would be to get him to speak about the episode. I approached in a roundabout manner before I touched on the relevant point. The man looked at me with his steely gaze, but then a softer and slightly sad expression came over his face. “For more than 30 years,” he said, “I have been waiting for someone to come and ask me about this story.”

No target thwarted, vexed and bedeviled the Israeli assassination apparatus more than Yasir Arafat, the charismatic P.L.O. leader who died in 2004. Sometimes he would simply escape, and sometimes the officials overseeing an effort would call it off because the target could not be confirmed or because the price in civilian lives was deemed too high. Time and again, the desire to kill Arafat placed Israel at the center of the ongoing debate about what a nation can and cannot do to survive. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
David Collier: Uni of Warwick – false accusations of aggressive & misogynistic behaviour
And it is important to remember that the issues mentioned are serious, but localised. After I released the last report, some press articles lost both perspective and context, painting Jewish existence at Warwick as an image of constant peril. Little could be further from the truth. As someone who constantly seeks context rather than headlines, and in support of Jewish students at Warwick, I need to address some of this here.

As a result of the exaggerated threat, Jewish students on Warwick released a statement that is worth reading. These students firmly believe that Warwick is one of the ‘greatest campuses’ in the UK for Jewish students. They remain proud of the growth and activity of the Warwick Jewish Israeli Society.

The facts speak in their favour. They firmly defeated the BDS motion, and passed a ‘Warwick Against Antisemitism’ motion in the students union, organising a ‘whole week celebrating the diversity in Israel and hosting holocaust survivors’. It was the BDS defeat that led to the small group of Faculty founding ‘Warwick for Justice in Palestine’ in the first place.

They accept they have issues with university support and individuals within the Student Union, but are insistent this does not reflect on their experience of Warwick as a whole. For them, most of the Faculty, and most of the student body are on-side and supportive. Anti-Israel activism is in general seen for what it is. Remember, only 10-15 students turned up for the event last Wednesday. On a campus that holds thousands.

This small group of activists are an issue, and whilst holding the greater picture in focus we must be allowed to deal with it. In context, and bearing in mind the real-life issues of the students. I am absolutely certain many of the Faculty on Warwick are appalled by the actions of the few. I am also certain over-exaggeration, confuses the issue, complicates life for all students on Warwick, and in many cases can be self -defeating.

What everyone deserves, is for the university to recognise the problem that does exist, and deal with it. The only question is – do they have the guts?

Abbas, May, Trump
Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the implications of Mahmoud Abbas ripping off his mask, as well as the pressure building for Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May to go and the May/Trump fiasco.


From Ian:

Trump in the Middle East: Note Who Curses America, and Who Blesses It
President Donald Trump has promised that in the Middle East under his presidency, “there are many things that can happen now that would never have happened before.” Two speeches of the last ten days offer dramatic confirmation of the emerging reconfiguration of America’s relationship with Israel and the Middle East under his leadership.

In a two-hour speech before the Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) last week, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, denounced the British, Dutch, French, and Americans for having conspired, ever since the 1650s, to create a Jewish colonial outpost that would “erase the Palestinians from Palestine.” As Abbas tells it, all this reached a climax on the eve of World War I, when the West realized that it was on the verge of collapse and that the Islamic world was “poised to inherit European civilization.” To put an end to this threat, the Western nations went about carving up the Muslim world so that it would be forever “divided, backward, and engulfed in infighting.” As for the United States, it has been “playing games” of this sort ever since then, importing, for example, the disastrous Arab Spring into Middle East.

Abbas summed up by demanding an apology and reparations from Britain for the Balfour Declaration and denying that the United States can serve as a mediator in the Mideast. Finally, he went to the trouble of cursing both President Trump and the U.S. Congress: Yehrab beitak (“May your house be razed”), he said.

I have been following the speeches of the PLO and its supporters in the Arab world for 30 years. Nothing here is new. These are the same things that Yasser Arafat, Abbas, and the mainline PLO leadership have always believed. It is a worldview that reflects an abiding hatred for the West, blaming Christians and Jews not only for the founding of Israel but for every calamity that has befallen the Muslim and Arab world for centuries.
Col Kemp: We must end this appeasement and ban Hezbollah
Hezbollah is the most powerful terrorist organisation in the world. Yet Britain has proscribed only part of it: its military wing. This Thursday the MP Joan Ryan will lead a parliamentary debate aimed at designating the whole organisation, as the US, Canada and the Netherlands already do. Her chances are slim. The film Darkest Hour has reminded us of British ministers’ penchant for appeasement and, like Churchill, that is what she’s up against.

Hezbollah, the creation of Iran, emerged onto the world stage in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 US Marines and 58 French paratroopers in the most devastating terrorist attack before 9/11. Since then it has attacked in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East and planned strikes from Cyprus to Singapore. Last summer US authorities charged two Hezbollah terrorists with planning attacks in New York and Panama. Hezbollah is fighting to keep Assad in power in Syria and maintains an arsenal of 100,000 rockets in Lebanon, pointed at Israel.

During the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hezbollah was involved in Iranian-directed bombings that killed well over 1,000 British and US servicemen. Despite this, in Britain and elsewhere in Europe Hezbollah can freely raise funds for terrorism. Its supporters flaunt their assault rifle-emblazoned flags on our streets. They maintain sleeper cells in this country: planning, preparing and lying in wait for orders to attack.

When I worked for the Joint Intelligence Committee I monitored Hezbollah’s activities. I knew there was no division into peaceful and warlike elements. The regional states don’t buy it either; the Arab League designates the entire organisation. Even Hezbollah’s leaders don’t make any such pretence. In 2009 its deputy secretary-general confirmed that it was one unified organisation.
One Raid Shows All You Need to Know About Israel’s Current Predicament
You wouldn’t think that one isolated Israeli counter-terror raid could explode every major myth about Israel’s conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. But last week’s raid in Jenin came pretty close to doing just that.

Overnight on January 17, Israeli commandos entered the city of Jenin in search of two particular Arab terrorists. When the operation was over a few hours later, the Israeli forces withdrew

Wait — the Israelis withdrew? But isn’t Israel “occupying” the Palestinians? That’s what J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace are always telling us. Just this week, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote that Israel is “ruling over millions of Palestinians.”

I guess that Rabbi Jacobs hasn’t been to Jenin lately. In fact, I would imagine that he hasn’t been there since at least 1995. That was the year when Israel withdrew all of its forces from the city (and the other areas where 98 percent of Palestinians reside), and a new power took over: the Palestinian Authority (PA). Counter-terror raids like the one in Jenin are the only occasions when Israeli forces enter PA-ruled cities.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

From Ian:

Maajid Nawaz: Human rights are universal, Amnesty. Even Jewish rights
It seems that officially partnering with pro-jihadists was not off limits for the once great and greatly admired Amnesty International, yet hosting Israeli speakers with whom they disagree is. If ever there was proof that the regressive left rot is spreading into the core of our liberal culture, look no further than the way it has politicised this once bright beacon of human rights.

This week, Amnesty UK cancelled a Jewish Leadership Council organised debate it was due to host between Fred Carver of the UN Association, and Hillel Neuer of UN Watch. Amnesty had initially agreed to join the panel debate, but withdrew their speaker months ago.

On Monday they went even further by denying use of their venue entirely. The reason ostensibly cited by Amnesty was that because they are “currently campaigning for all governments around the world to ban the import of goods produced in the illegal Israeli settlements” they do not “therefore, think it appropriate for Amnesty International to host an event by those actively supporting such settlements.”

Amnesty is well within its legal rights to permit or deny whomever it likes to and from its own venue. But the right to do something is very distinct from it being the right thing to do.

So let’s get this straight. Because Amnesty International opposes trading in goods produced in the occupied West Bank, in one clean sweep they’ve decided to extend this boycott to human beings who simply express an opposing view.

The average American is likelier than Europeans to defend Jews, experts say
It’s better here: That was the message of a panel of experts considering the rise of the extreme right and of antisemitism in the United States and Europe.

That was the good news at Monday’s forum, sponsored by Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. The less good news was that no one could quite pin down why Americans were more resistant to antisemitism than Europeans.

“It’s far from perfect,” said Ira Forman, until January the international antisemitism monitor for the State Department. “We do it now better than we did 50 years ago, there’s no guarantee we will continue to do it, and frankly, we do it better with antisemitism than with anti-Muslim rhetoric and with racism.”

Forman cited American communities that spontaneously rallied to counter antisemitism in their midst, like the citizens of Whitefish, Montana who a year ago demonstrated ahead of a planned neo-Nazi march targeting the town’s tiny Jewish community, and civic leaders who, in 2013, called on an Oklahoma lawmaker to apologize for using the phrase “jew down.”

In both cases and in many others, he said, the drive to counter anti-Jewish rhetoric came in communities with small Jewish communities and seemed driven more by non-Jews who were repelled by the rhetoric.
Partisan divide over Israel in the U.S. at historic level, poll finds
Never has there been a greater divide between Democrats and Republicans on the subject of Israel in forty years of polling, according to a new survey published on Tuesday.

The Pew Research Center findings show Republicans more sympathetic than ever toward Israel, with Democrats increasingly divided, now equally likely to support the Palestinian cause. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains a particularly divisive force.

The poll is released as US Vice President Mike Pence continues his tour of Israel touting the policies of the Trump administration, which 30% of Americans believe "favors Israel too much," according to the report.

Overall, 79% of Republicans sympathize with Israel in the survey compared to only 27% of Democrats.

Americans who are more favorably inclined to Israel are less likely to believe a two-state solution is possible than those inclined to the Palestinians. And belief in the possibility of peace is correlated with age: the younger you are, the more hopeful you are likely to be that an agreement can be reached.

"Since 2001, the share of Republicans sympathizing more with Israel than the Palestinians has increased 29 percentage points," the pollsters found. "Over the same period, the share of Democrats saying this has declined 11 points."

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Jordan’s King Abdullah Disrespects America — Because He Can
So long as majorities reject the values of liberal democracies generally, and hate the U.S. specifically, there is little chance of America leading a democratization movement that will result in anything positive. Minority regimes may make unreliable allies. But popularly elected regimes that embrace bigotry and reject the U.S. and democratic values will reliably be enemies.

In Abdullah’s case, while his dependence on the U.S. ensures his loyalty, his regime is inherently weak because he lacks popular support. To avoid widespread unrest, Abdullah proclaims and occasionally adopts extremist positions against Israel and the US and in favor of terrorists.

Abdullah benefits twice from his hostile policies. On the one hand, he keeps his opponents at bay by satisfying their anti-Americanism and hatred of Israel. On the other hand, by encouraging the public to hate America and Israel, he makes it less likely that any pro-American alternatives to his regime will emerge that could reduce U.S. and Israeli dependence on him personally.

To modify his behavior, the U.S. can and should demand that Abdullah bar anti-American and antisemitic incitement in his state-owned media. He should be required to extradite Tamimi to the U.S. and run programming explaining why she is a terrorist, not a hero.

Such steps can begin to move back the dial of anti-Americanism and antisemitism in Jordan, if only minimally.

Over time, such basic steps may diminish Abdullah’s perceived need to buy off the mob at his gates with pro-terror policies and reduce America’s need to accept his double-dealing, as Pence was forced to do on Sunday in Amman.

PMW: Abbas: "Israel is exporting drugs to the Palestinians in frightening amounts"
In his recent speech to the PLO Central Council, PA Chairman Abbas repeated the PA libel that Israel floods Palestinian society with drugs deliberately to ruin the young generation:

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "We have a plan to fight the drugs. Israel is exporting drugs to us in frightening amounts. We need to pay attention in order to defend our young generation and defend it from the drugs."
[Official PA TV, Jan. 14, 2018]

Palestinian Media Watch has reported that a host on official PA TV and the Palestinian Coordinator of the Project of the War on Drugs in Jerusalem accused Israel of being responsible for Palestinian drug problems:

PA TV host: "Jerusalem is probably the Palestinian district that suffers the most from drugs, [because] the occupation mainly targets young age groups in Jerusalem..."
Coordinator of the Project of the War on Drugs in Jerusalem, Issam Jweihan: "A war is being waged [by Israel] against Jerusalem. This is an unconventional war in which unconventional weapons are being used. The goal of the war is clear - to Judaize the city and empty it of its [Arab] residents. They are using unconventional weapons. The weapon that brings the best results for the Israelis is drugs."
[Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, June 21, 2017]


Fatah official: Trump stole from Arab nation, gave keys to Jerusalem holy sites to the Jews


Fatah official: Israel is “a racist and fascist occupation... a distorted model, even for the Nazis”


Monday, January 22, 2018

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: Palestinian Manipulation of the International Criminal Court
According to an Israeli television news report on January 9, 2018,[1] the Israeli prime minister’s National Security Council recently cautioned the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will likely open a formal investigation against Israeli officials and officers in response to Palestinian complaints regarding Israel’s 2014 “Protective Edge” operation in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s building of settlements in the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria.

According to this report, “The opening of an investigation has serious implications for Israel. It will be directed against people and could involve warrants for investigations and arrests.”

Conclusions
In light of the lack of any valid legal basis to the Palestinian claim to statehood, and in light of the fact that Palestinians’ status, and that the status of the territories are under ongoing dispute and negotiation, there can be no legal or logical foundation to accept “Palestine” as party to the ICC statute. Thus, there is no basis for extending the court’s jurisdiction over the territories under dispute, pending resolution of the dispute and the determination, by agreement, of their final and permanent status.

Lacking any legal foundation, the Palestinian complaints – regarding both the “Protective Edge” operation and Israeli settlements – must, therefore, be rejected by the ICC.

The ICC statute renders inadmissible any case that has been duly investigated[11] and, as necessary, prosecuted by the legal authorities of the state concerned.[12] The appropriate legal and law enforcement authorities in Israel maintain the highest international standards, in fitting with the norms and requirements set out in the ICC Statute.
Iranian brutality, European cowardice, US leadership
In March 1979, shortly after the mullahs grabbed power and dragged Iran into theocratic dictatorship, destructive wars and terrorism, Iranian women took to the streets to protest the forced hijab. “Freedom is not eastern, not western, it is universal,” they chanted.

Almost 40 years later, the Iranian people are still fighting the same tyrants. In the struggle for freedom, you would expect an institution like the European Union, defined by the universal character of liberty and democracy, to stand in solidarity with the oppressed against their oppressors.

So far Europe has sent the opposite message. “We are not going to sustain political and economic relations with a country engaged in the brutal oppression of peaceful protesters,” are the words Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, never uttered. Instead, she remained silent for six days.

When she finally broke her silence, Mogherini’s message was tainted by moral myopia. “We expect all concerned to refrain from violence,” she said, after Iranian security forces had already killed at least 22 people and incarcerated more than 3,000. The EU statement echoed earlier ambiguous messages from the British, German, French and Swedish governments.

The EU’s cowardly reaction contrasts with the strong response from the United States. Lawmakers from the left and right of the political spectrum – everyone from President Donald Trump and Marco Rubio to Bernie Sanders and Bob Menendez – responded to the call for freedom in Iran.

The businessman exiled for being Jewish
When Adam Ringer was forcibly removed from Poland simply because he was Jewish, he didn't think he'd ever be able to return to his homeland.

It was back in 1968 that Mr Ringer, 19 at the time, was made to renounce his Polish citizenship and kicked out of the country, during one of communism's darker episodes.

Just 23 years after the Holocaust, Poland's surviving Jewish population was targeted by an anti-Semitic purge officially sanctioned by the country's then communist authorities.

Branded an "anti-Zionist" campaign, Polish Jews were stripped of their jobs and deported, because of the government's - and the wider Soviet Bloc's - growing hostility towards Israel at the time.

An estimated 14,000 Poles of Jewish faith or ancestry were forced to leave the country, after each being given a document that stated that its holder was stateless and had no right to ever return to Poland.

Looking back, Mr Ringer says: "Many of my colleagues were arrested... my father was expelled from his job. We were all in shock and feared for the worst." (h/t Zvi)

From Ian:

Trump Dropped a Truth Bomb on the Middle East
The implications of unmasking Abbas are clear beyond any doubt. PLO never abandoned its goal of eradicating the Jewish state and rejects Jewish national independence within any borders. Israel and the international community have wasted 25 years and billions of dollars on a “peace process” with a corrupt and genocidal PLO leadership that refuses to let go of its fantasy of destroying Israel.

Since PLO, Hamas and UNWRA are obstacles to genuine peace between Arabs and Jews, they must be dismantled and replaced with a new Arab leadership committed to the welfare of its citizens and peace with Israel. PLO’s leadership are the pupils of Nazi, Communist and Islamist ideologies that are incompatible with genuine peace.

Time has come for Israel and the US to tell PLO that the game is up. With or without Abbas, PLO is a dead man walking and is in no position to demand anything from anyone. Only a mad megalomaniac despot living in fantasyland, issues threats to powerful nations like the US and Israel.

Just like peace in post-1945 Europe required the denazification of Germany, future Middle Eastern peace requires a denazification of the Arab world in general and the PLO-held territories in particular.

Humiliating defeat is never pleasant, especially for aggressors who got intoxicated with hubris and victories. Post-1945 Germany and Japan can attest to it. However, in the end, accepting defeat was the best thing that could have happened to the Germans and the Japanese. Their genocidal despotic regimes were replaced with genuine democracy and progress.

President Trump could become the Middle East’s nuclear Truth Bomb. Unlike the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, the truth bombs in the Middle East do not kill anyone, but force the Muslim Arab world finally to come to terms with reality and the permanency of the reborn Jewish state and its rebuilt ancestral capital Jerusalem.
Amb. John Bolton: time to 'stop playing charades' Give the West Bank to Jordan



PMW: Song on PA radio encourages Martyrdom for Jerusalem
A song on official Palestinian Authority radio encouraged Palestinians to "redeem" Jerusalem "with your life and blood":
"O Palestinian, Jerusalem is your name, your land, your heartbeat, and your mother. Redeem it with your life and blood, O [you] who raises my head in pride... O pained Palestinian, your head is lifted high with pride, the entire world hears your voice, only your resolve strengthens me... We are united, Muslims and Christians. So that Palestine will live, we must remain united." [Official PA radio station The Voice of Palestine, Jan. 1, 2018]

This song joins the similar messages Palestinian Media Watch has documented have come from PA and Fatah officials calling for "rage" and promoting violence since US President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Dec. 6, 2017.

The same ideal - to die as a "Martyr" for Jerusalem - was expressed by students belonging to Fatah's Shabiba Student Movement at Birzeit University. At an event, several participants wore mock bomb belts - imitating suicide terrorists - while masked in keffiyehs (Arab headdresses) and wearing yellow Fatah headbands. The participants in white held a Quran in one hand and held up one finger with the other signifying Allah. Other masked participants wore military uniforms and held Fatah flags with the Fatah logo that includes a grenade, crossed rifles, and the PA map of "Palestine" that presents all of Israel as "Palestine" together with the PA areas.
Song on official PA radio encourages Martyrdom: “Jerusalem… redeem it with your life and blood”


Sunday, January 21, 2018

From Ian:

Revlon Award Winner Has History of Anti-Semitism
Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, founder and editor-in-chief of MuslimGirl—an online magazine where “Muslim women talk back” to combat “misconceptions surrounding Islam”—made headlines last week when she turned down an award from multinational beauty giant Revlon because of the company’s engagement with Israeli actress Gal Gadot.

“I cannot accept this award from Revlon with Gal Gadot as the ambassador,” Al-Khatahtbeh announced in a statement on Twitter. “Her vocal support of the Israel Defense Forces’ actions in Palestine goes against MuslimGirl’s morals and values.”

The rejection, of course, is well within Al-Khatahtbeh’s rights, but it’s also an invitation to examine precisely what MuslimGirl’s morals and values truly are. A good place to start may be a piece, published by MuslimGirl in 2016, entitled “Israel’s Organ Harvesting and the UK’s BDS Movement”.

Written by “Yelena,” a mysterious doula from San Francisco, the piece is mostly a rehash of professional anti-Semite Alison Weir’s riff on the blood-libel—a conspiracy theory in which Israel occupies Palestinian territory in order to murder the locals and loot their body parts. But like all knockoffs, the piece’s craftsmanship is poor, so Yelena’s version is helpful in that it sheds Weir’s usual scrupulosness and directly cites anti-Semites as sources. What sources does “Yelena” offer to document the ghoulish crimes of which she accuses the Jewish state? These include Iran’s PressTV and 9/11 Truther Michel Chussodovsky’s conspiracist web site, GlobalResearch. Both are classic “fake news” media, distributing anti-Jewish conspiracy theories by the shipping container throughout the Internet. Most troubling, however, is the article’s quotation of retired Cal State psychology professor Kevin MacDonald, a darling of far-Right anti-Semites, who couches standard white-supremacist teachings about Jewish “white genocide” in trappings of evolutionary psychology. Here’s what “Yelena” took from MacDonald: “Organized American Jewish lobbying groups and deeply committed Jews in the media are behind the pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy that is leading to war against virtually the entire Arab world.”

The Forward: Why MuslimGirl’s Rejection Of Gal Gadot Is A Good Thing
New York Times on Israel’s “Biological” Racism?!
In the pages of The New York Times, columnist Roger Cohen concludes that Israel is a racist country.

His logic?

Shuhada, a road within Hebron, a particularly violent area in the West Bank, is closed except to those passing through security checks, and sometimes closed to the public entirely.

In almost every country and language in the world, this type of security arrangement is referred to as a “sterile area,” meaning that it is kept free of potential security threats. In fact, the term “sterile area” is used around the globe in airport security, domestic crowd control, and military operations.

But Cohen has unilaterally decided that in Israel, and only in Israel, that word means racism:

The Israel Defense Forces refer to “tzir sterili,” or sterile roads, because no Palestinian is allowed on them, whether in a car or on foot…. Jews did not go to the Holy Land to deploy for another people the biological metaphors of classic racism that accompanied their persecution over centuries. But the exercise of overwhelming power is corrupting, to the point that “sterile” streets, presumably freed of disease-ridden natives, enter the lexicon.

Presumably?

By Cohen’s logic, governments around the world presumably consider all air travellers to be “disease-ridden natives,” as well as football fans, local residents in military towns, anyone who attends a presidential speech, and more.

But no, Cohen’s presumptions apply only to Israel. Even when Israel uses exactly the same terminology as…well, everyone.

Saturday, January 20, 2018

From Ian:

Mordechai Kedar: Why Arabs and Muslims Will Not Accept Israel as the Jewish State
Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city dealt the Palestinian nationalist narrative a serious blow, and gave Israel a kind of insurance policy. This maddens the Arabs who flourished on the dream of destroying Israel during the Oslo years. It has now become clear that a very powerful nation, the US, does not see itself as a partner in that dream — and is even willing to act against it.

The Arabs in general, and particularly the Palestinians, can already see the dominos falling. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and other important states are considering moving their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in recognition that that city is Israel’s capital. In April 2017, even Russian President Vladimir Putin declared his recognition of Western Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city. There was no outcry in response to Putin’s declaration for one simple reason: the Arabs are deathly afraid of Putin after he made crystal clear to what lengths he is willing to go during the war in Syria, and they carefully refrain from reacting to his statements or decisions.

For both religious and nationalist reasons, the Arabs and Muslims are incapable of accepting Israel as the Jewish state that it is.

The question that Israelis, both Jewish and Christian, are forced to ask themselves is whether they are going to recognize the Muslim and Arab problem but tell them in no uncertain terms that Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, and that they are going to have to learn to live with it — or whether they are going to give in to the Arab and Muslim dreamers who refuse to accept the reality that the Jewish religion is alive and well.
MEMRI: Kuwaiti Writer: Israel Is a Legitimate State, Not an Occupier; There Was No Palestine


The BDS Movement Doesn’t Want Peace, It Wants to Destroy Israel
The anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement pretends to be working toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but in reality, many of its supporters want to destroy Israel as a Jewish state. For this reason, BDS has attracted support from terrorists, convicted killers and antisemites in the US and abroad.

In fact, at many of BDS demonstrations — like ones filmed by the Investigative Project on Terrorism — demonstrators make no secret of their aims. “And the people of Palestine will wipe the Zionist entity (Israel) off all the world maps” one demonstration leader shouts on the IPT-recorded video.

On the same video demonstrators chant: “We don’t want no two-state, we want 48,” referring to 1948, before Israel was created. And for good measure, they chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” meaning a new Palestinian state will go from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and swallow up all of Israel. And yet other chants include: “Death to the peace accords,” “smash the settler Zionist state” and “there is only one solution, intifada revolution.”

Law enforcement officials in the US should keep a close eye on demonstrators like these, knowing that inflammatory antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric often leads to violence. The New York City Police Department and other law enforcement agencies have investigated a number of plots directed specifically at Jewish citizens and institutions.

BDS seeks to isolate Israel from world, ostensibly to protest Israel’s presence in the West Bank and to call for the creation of a Palestinian state. BDS seeks a worldwide boycott against Israeli products, universities and cultural institutions; divestment from companies that provide equipment to the Israeli military; and international economic sanctions against Israel — among other things.

L’Oreal’s New Hijab Model Is Virulently Anti-Israel
The face of L’Oreal’s new hijab-friendly hair campaign is virulently anti-Israel.

Amena Khan, a blogger and model, was chosen by L’Oreal UK to model for the beauty company’s newest hair product campaign. The campaign features women in hijabs and argues that their products are still useful for people who do not show their hair in public.

“L’Oréal Paris UK are both proud and excited to be launching such a unique and disruptive campaign for the haircare market, a category which in previous years has been perceived as the cliché of beauty advertising,” Adrien Koskas, L’Oréal Paris UK general manager, said about the new campaign. (RELATED: L’Oreal’s New Hair Product Campaign Features Woman In Hijab)

However, a search of Khan’s Twitter account raises questions about the appropriateness of making her the face of the new campaign. Khan frequently espouses anti-Israel views, calling it a “terrorist” and “illegal” state.

“Remember: the brutal murder of Palestinians had been occurring MANY years before the formation of Hamas,” Khan wrote in July of 2014. “Israel’s excuses are blatant lies.”

“Well, under international law, Israel is an illegal state,” she wrote in the same month.

Friday, January 19, 2018

From Ian:

Enjoy the moment
The Western world embraced our book of books and 2,000 years of Christianity have been characterized by an obvious (though one-sided) competition for the title of "the chosen people" and disputes over how to interpret the Bible. But not in India. The Bible holds no significant presence in the history and practice of Hindu culture. They have their own sacred texts, a pantheon of gods and goddesses, their own intricate mythology, philosophy, religious faith, methods of worship and a way of looking at things that is, at times, radically different than ours.

One ancient culture that worships one god versus another ancient culture that sanctifies a vast plurality of gods. Each approach profoundly influences the way of life and character of a culture. That is why there is no anti-Semitic baggage in the history of the relations between our two peoples. The world does not distinguish between Israel and the Jewish people, contrary to what our enemies may mendaciously claim. They say that they "don't hate Jews" only "Zionists." But in India, conversely and positively, they actually don't make the distinction.

Listening to Modi speak, I often heard ancient refrains behind his iron words that echoed the sentiments expressed by our own exiled forefathers – "we were as dreamers" – when they spoke about returning to Zion.

"Then said they among the nations: 'The Lord hath done great things with these" (Psalms 126). In historical terms, "these," meaning us, were ashes and dirt just a moment ago, when we returned to Zion. Now, a nation of 1.3 billion people is actively seeking a partnership with us. Right before our eyes, Israel is turning into a world player.

In one of his speeches, Netanyahu noted our commitment not only to ourselves, but also to serve as a light unto the nations. The rest of the Psalms verse mentioned above talks about what happens to us after the nations express awe at our good fortune. "We rejoiced," the verse says. It is okay to rejoice at Israel's success in the world. For one short minute, let us set aside our well-known Israeli cynicism – the product of many disappointments – and enjoy the moment. We were as dreamers.
IN INDIA, A LATE THANKSGIVING FOR NETANYAHU
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loved every moment of his visit to India: from the warm welcome he received from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to the defense and business pacts they signed, to the visit to the Taj Mahal, to the food.

Yes, Netanyahu confessed repeatedly on the trip, he loves Indian food. He even revealed that his first date with his wife, Sara, 27 years ago, was at the Tandoori restaurant in Tel Aviv.

When Netanyahu comes back, he should celebrate by eating a good old-fashioned Thanksgiving meal – not just because turkey is called tarnegol hodu (literally, both Indian fowl and fowl of thankfulness) in Hebrew, but because he has so much to be thankful for.

This past week might have been the best for Netanyahu of his current term in office. He has had, of course, many, many other trips abroad this term, but none received as positive coverage in the mainstream Hebrew media. After past trips, Netanyahu complained that while he was accomplishing a lot for Israel, the media back home was focusing on minutia involving his family and criminal probes.

This time, Sara Netanyahu’s lawyers were in court while she was in India, but it wasn’t a top story. And Yair Netanyahu stayed home and skipped a trial date, but he was not on the front pages anymore.

Instead, even newspapers normally hostile to the prime minister gave prominence to pictures of him in India, leaving him nothing to kvetch about.

Moshe's Return to Mumbai


What is India's de-hyphenation policy toward Israel and why does it matter?
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, he instituted a policy toward Israel called de-hyphenation.

What that meant was simple: India’s relationship with Israel would stand on its own merits, independent and separate from India’s relationship with the Palestinians. It would no longer be India’s relationship with Israel-Palestine, but India’s relationship with Israel, and India’s relationship with the Palestinians.

This policy first became obvious when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Modi at the UN in 2014, soon after the latter’s election.

When it became clear that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would not be in New York at the same time, there was concern in Jerusalem that the Indians would call off the meeting with Netanyahu, to preserve a holy balance in its ties with Israel and its ties with the Palestinian Authority.

This “de-hyphenation” was even more apparent when Modi came to Israel last July, when Modi came to Jerusalem but did not go to the Palestinian Authority – he did not feel compelled to balance his trip to Jerusalem with one to Ramallah.

Similarly, he is scheduled to travel to the PA next month, and if does go ahead with that trip, he is not expected to visit Israel. Again, the idea is that relations which each side should stand on their own merits.

Hyphenating the ties with Israel – linking them to ties with the Palestinian Authority – essentially prevented India from pursuing a pragmatic policy of what was in India’s best interests.
Netanyahu meets Bollywood stars, ends event with Oscars-style selfie
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu attended a special gala event with various noted stars in the Indian film industry such as actress Sara Ali Khan, actor and producer Amitabh Bachchan and former Miss World contestant and actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

Netanyahu said that the rise of Bollywood is ''a part of India rising as a world power, which goes hand-in-hand with the ascent of Israel as a world leader in technology."

Netanyahu said that innovation is not limited to medicine or space but is also present in the arts. "I think that if we join our forces," he said, "magic will happen."

"We believe in Bollywood, we believe in India, we believe in the relations between India and Israel," he stated. Inspired by the Hollywood celebrities who took a selfie at the Academy Awards, the prime minister invited the Indian celebrities to take a shared picture with him on stage.

Netanyahu is wrapping up a five-day visit to India, during which he criss-crossed the country attending various events related to diplomacy, trade, technology, education and aid.

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Palestinianism is over – someone please tell the British
By recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, he explicitly acknowledged the unique historic connection between the Jewish people, Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.

That connection, which predated Islam and the short-lived Arab colonial occupation of the land, destroys the false claim of indigenous Palestinian entitlement upon which the war against Israel has rested.

Trump has also cut in half the funds the US provides for UNRWA, whose unique and false perpetuation of fictional Palestinian refugee status is key to the Arab war against Israel. And if reports are to be believed, his peace plan will offer something well short of a Palestine state.

No less crucially, Abbas realizes that the wider Arab world no longer cares about the Palestinians’ cause. Those Arabs have more urgent considerations, such as stopping Iran from taking over the region, and they need the US and Israel to help them.

The British government is reportedly dumbfounded by Trump’s decision to cancel his visit. Of course it is. Parroting the shallow and vacuous prejudices of the age, it has absolutely no grasp of the significance of the US president it so despises.

Britain now risks being left behind as the world shifts direction. Why should America continue to value its “special relationship” with a Britain that is still fighting the battles it fought so shamefully in 20th-century Palestine to help the Arabs suppress Jewish national self-determination – which even the Arab states no longer support? After that UN vote on Trump and Jerusalem, why should the US think Britain is on its side in the titanic battle for freedom, decency and Western values? And why should President Trump give preferential economic treatment to a country that believes he is quite insane while Mahmoud Abbas is entirely rational? Britain is the mother ship of political liberty and justice in the West. Tragically, though, it has slipped its moral moorings.

Until and unless it puts right its relationship with the Jewish people, it will continue to drift into the gathering storm
Caroline Glick: Israeli obstacles to peace
And then there is the fact that according to Palestinian surveys, more than a million Palestinians in Gaza, Judea and Samaria wish to emigrate. Whole villages around Ramallah are ghost towns because their residents live elsewhere. Why is this not relevant to the likes of Livni and Barak?

Why do the Israeli media fail to report these basic facts rather than make excuses for a tin pot dictator who spends his time inciting the murder of Israelis and pretending that the Palestinians are the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Jebusites and the Hittites, all rolled in one?

According to The Jerusalem Post, Trump intended to cut off US funding of UNRWA entirely this week. But US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster convinced to simply reduce it.

According to the Post, “Israel” sided with the trio. But other reports over the past several weeks made clear that whereas Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu supports ending US support for UNRWA, the IDF General Staff opposes the move. Likewise, the IDF has scuttled repeated congressional bids over the years to end US funding of the Palestinian Authority due to its funding of terrorism and its antisemitic incitement.

The arguments are always the same. UNRWA, like Abbas’s security forces, “stabilizes” the situation.

Is there no one else who might “stabilize” the situation better than they do? Where might the Palestinians be today if the US had cut off their terrorism-encrusted leaders 17 years ago? Is there no option other than empowering regimes and institutions that indoctrinate and work toward Israel’s destruction?

Netanyahu responded to Abbas’s diatribe by saying that in a way, Abbas did Israel a favor. He showed that he really doesn’t care how big or small Israel is. He rejects Israel’s right to exist and objects to its existence regardless of its borders.

Netanyahu’s insight is true as far as it goes. But so long as the same failed and vapid elites who gave us the PLO as our peace partner 25 years ago still call the shots, his insight doesn’t go very far at all.
JPost Editorial: Pressuring Hamas
Hamas’s cynical exploitation of a UN-sponsored cease-fire put in place out of humanitarian considerations enabled its terrorists to surprise and kill Lt. Hadar Goldin and St.-Sgt. Oron Shaul in the Gaza Strip in the midst of Operation Protective Edge.

Three-and-half-years later, Hamas is still taking advantage of Israel’s adherence to humanitarian rules as Hamas continues to disregard those same rules and regulations.

Hamas has no qualms about holding the remains of Shaul and Goldin as bargaining chips in direct violation of humanitarian principles. At the same time the terrorist group submits requests to Israel, many of which are approved, to admit Gaza’s residents – some of whom are relatives of Hamas terrorists – to receive medical treatment.

Hamas also expects Israel to allow visits by family and friends to Hamas terrorists incarcerated in Israeli prisons. And when Israel kills Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists, the expectation is that Israel will return these bodies.

The absurdity and injustice of this situation is unbearable for Simcha and Leah Goldin, the parents of Hadar.

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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 14 years and 30,000 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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