Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Miftah

Showing posts with label Miftah. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Hanan Ashrawi's NGO MIFTAH calls raping Israeli women "self defense"

The Palestinian Miftah NGO, which highlights women's rights, has an article from one of its English-speaking employees, Joharah Baker.

This world that really is callous, watching the slaughter of innocent men, women and children without blinking an eye. Or worse, they justify the rivers of Palestinian blood as “concerning” but immediately follow this up with the hackneyed phrase: “Israel has the right to defend itself,” or, “…but Hamas.” Where is the argument for the Palestinians’ right to self-defense against a brutal military occupation that has stripped them of rights and dignity for decades? Does that never calculate into the equation? Apparently not.

To moral midgets like Baker, the "calculation" of rape is justified by a fictional occupation of Gaza that ended nearly 20 years ago.

The same Baker was outraged when singer Bono expressed sadness at those slaughtered at the Nova Music Festival on October 7:

My 20-year old heart is broken. Since October 7, I have been glued to the television, to my computer and my phone, watching the news, video clips and Tiktoks. To my chagrin, I happened upon a video of Bono, the lead singer of U2, my most loved rock band back in the 90s. Socially and politically conscious, hailing from Dublin, Ireland, I loved them, not only for their incredible music and lyrics, but for the fact that they come from a place that knows what longing and fighting for freedom means.

This paper-mâché image was abruptly torn to pieces, splintering into a million shards of disappointment. During a performance in Las Vegas on October 9, Bono broached the topic of the hour. ‘Our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed”, he said.

But he was not talking about Gaza. He barely mentioned it actually, except in the context of ‘what is happening in Israel and Gaza.” Instead, he sang for the “beautiful kids at that music festival’, in reference to the Israelis killed in “Re’im”, adjacent to the Gaza border, on October 7

It blows my mind, really. ... How could he not mention the ‘beautiful kids” who were born and raised under a brutal, military siege and a colonialist occupation that has cut them off from the rest of the world for their entire lives?

This "human rights" NGO - which is no fan of Hamas when it fights Fatah, or when it treats Gaza women poorly - is suddenly siding with Hamas when they murder and rape Israeli women, to the point that Miftah is angry at anyone who even expresses sympathy for Israelis.

I could not find a single word on Miftah that even said "Of course we condemn Hamas' brutality against Israeli civilians but...." No, to them, Hamas' massacre, kidnapping and sexual abuse of Jewish civilians was justified self-defense.

And this group gets funded by European countries.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Another antisemitic Miftah article says "Jews demand our submission," claims Ben Gurion wanted to expand Israel to Syria, Jordan and Egypt

Miftah, the NGO founded by Hanan Ashrawi and that is in the news for both is historic antisemitism and its offer to sponsor the Ilhan Omar/Rashida Tlaib aborted visit to "Palestine," still has many offensive and ahistorical articles on its site from over the years.

John Paul Pagano found another one, named "America's Tar Baby," (archived here), written by a humanities professor and conspiracy theorist named Clara Rising, where she says things like "Jews demand our complete submission" and finds justification for suicide bombing:

By what historical stranglehold do the Jews demand our complete submission to their unapologetic brutality to their Arab neighbors? From 1948 until the present year 2001—for half a century—they have chanted, like some mesmerized tribe in a jungle, the magic mantra of Security. Security from what? Yasser Arafat no longer has an army. He has no air force. No tanks. He is not bulldozing Israeli houses or invading neighborhoods with armed troops or firing from helicopter gunships. He has a desperate people who have produced suicide bombers, young men driven almost mad by the despair of living in a bottle like those drugged roaches—which is what the West Bank and Gaza have become.

The entire article is vile and filled with bizarre conspiracy theories, which is perhaps fitting, because the author had President Zachary Taylor exhumed to prove her theory that he was assissinated with poison. (Experts found no such evidence.)

Rising includes number of debunked Zionist quotes, but I found this one interesting:

According to the Zionist agenda, Palestine would be just the first step toward a "Greater Israel," which would ultimately include Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and even Iraq. If this sounds preposterous, one need only go back to the beginning, in 1948, when the first prime minister of Israel, Ben-Gurion, addressed his General Staff. Confident—largely because of American money which had secured Israel’s military superiority—Ben-Gurion told them: "We should prepare to go over to the offensive with the aim of smashing Lebanon, Transjordan and Syria….When we…bomb Amman, we will eliminate Transjordan too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight on, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria, and Cairo."

The entire paragraph is insane - remember, this is written after Israel had given up the Sinai to Egypt and much of the West Bank to the PLO - but who can even consider that Ben Gurion had designs on the entire Levant in 1948?

The quote comes from Noam Chomsky, in his 1983 book The Fateful Triangle, republished and updated a number of times since then:

Although the Chomsky book includes hundreds of footnotes, it provides none for this quote.

Every other place on the Internet that quotes this refers to Chomsky, not to any primary source.

It appears to have been a complete fabrication.

Which makes it perfect for an antisemitic professor to publish in the antisemitic Miftah.

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Yet more Miftah antisemitism: Claiming Jews poison Arab wells

Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah organization has spread every single popular antisemitic meme from millenia of Jew-hatred.

This means that it must have accused Jews of poisoning the wells of Palestinians, right?

Of course!

From a 2007 article by Elias Akleh published on Miftah:

The first lesson an Israeli child learns is the most racist, chauvinist, prejudiced, religiously extremist, homo-phobic lesson of the persecuted (prejudice) God’s chosen people in God’s Promised Land. The Israeli child discovers that he has the Jewish divine birth right of being God’s chosen, and that this divine privilege comes with the envy, the anti-Semitic hatred, and the persecution the others (the Goyim; other people) inflicted on him. He learns that these Goyims are mere animal souls incarnated in human bodies for the service and pleasure of the God’s chosen people.

God is still talking to Israeli Rabbis to direct Israel in its war against the Arabs. Israeli Rabbis publish religious decrees sanctifying Israelis’ aggression against Palestinians. Rabbi “Murdachai Eliahu”, Israel’s previous Chief Rabbi, published religious decrees calling for genocide of all Palestinians as a religious duty. Rabbi “Eleazar Malmid” published religious decrees encouraging Israelis to steal and burn Palestinian crops, to kill their farm animals, and to poison their water wells.

Obviously none of this is true. Mahmoud Abbas made a similar accusation and only walked it back when the Western media called him on it.

It is yet another example of antisemitism in Miftah, and in Palestinian society as a whole.

Miftah is one of the more moderate Palestinian NGOs. Palestinian antisemitism is baked in from birth, but the West is loathe to mention it, as if telling the truth is too shameful. Much easier to keep blaming Israel for all the problems of the region, which strengthens Palestinian hate for Jews.

(Another offensive article was also discovered, proposing that Jews in Israel all relocate to Russia's Birobidzhan.)

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New Miftah outrage: Article claims Israel steals organs of Haitian, Ukrainian kids. (Peter Beinart defends Miftah.)

John-Paul Pagano found this amazing article at Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah that claims Israel steals the organs of children.

Helping the victims of disasters has become now an occasion for launching public relations campaigns or achieving hidden political and military objectives. People still fall victim to earthquakes, disasters, occupation, oppression and terrorism. They also fall victim to campaigns which use their tragedy to achieve other purposes which have nothing to do with the value, importance, sanctity and dignity of human life.

After the Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom wrote about the Israeli army killing Palestinian youth in order to harvest their organs, there were other media reports about Israelis stealing Ukrainian children in order to harvest their organs. Once again there are documented reports from Haiti that organs are being stolen by Israelis without international justice intervening to put an end to such criminal practices against innocent vulnerable people.

The author, Bouthaina Shaaban, is a media adviser to Syrian dictator and mass murderer Bashar Assad.

Today, Peter Beinart defended Miftah and its head, Hanan Ashrawi, in a meltdown performance on CNN, pretending that there is no real problem with a group that publishes pure antisemitism sponsoring the trips of US members of Congress.

Rich Lowry asked Beinart, quite sensibly, whether Ashrawi should be held responsible for antisemitism and support for terror that has published many times. Beinart didn't answer that, even though any NGO would be held to a much higher standard than Miftah is.

Even funnier, Beinart went to Twitter to defend Miftah - and instead of linking to their fake apology for posting the original blood libel article I found, he linked to their attack on me that justified the blood libel article as just part of Palestinian "open dialogue."

The disclaimer at the opening of the “News and Analysis” section clearly states that, “The views represented in [News and Analysis] are solely those of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of MIFTAH, but rather fulfill its mandate for open dialogue.”

The entire reason Miftah justified the blood libel posting back in 2013 is because, to the people who work there, antisemitism is part and parcel of their lives. Claims that Jews drink Christian blood, steal organs of Haitian and Ukranian kids and and control the media are what Palestinians are taught all the time. This is why they are so tone deaf to these articles - because they don't see anything wrong with them!

Hanan Ashrawi is of course responsible for how her NGO acts. People like Beinart who praise her in light of repeated outrages like this are clearly on the side of the antisemites.

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.@Miftah_org and @DrHananAshrawi refuse to condemn antisemitic and terror supporting articles

Miftah is Hanan Ashrawi's organization that I have exposed in a series of articles between 2013 and 2016 as having published a blood libel, having consistently supported terrorism and praised terrorists, having published a neo-Nazi screed against Jews that is not about Israel at all, directly attacking Judaism, and for being against any kind of peace-building initiatives between Israel and the Arab world.

In the wake of Miftah's intention to sponsor Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar's trip to Israel, its history of antisemitism and support for terror is now being reported in the media.

This caused Miftah to issue a statement that screeches as if it is the victim, ignoring every single example of outrageous posts except the one it belatedly apologized for in 2013:

It has come to the attention of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, MIFTAH, that it is being targeted by extreme pro-Israeli hasbara groups and individuals who are propagating unfounded accusations and fabrications. We strongly condemn and reject these libelous allegations, which are nothing short of contemptible, against an organization that has been dedicated to global dialogue, good governance and democracy in Palestine for over 20 years. The example used as “evidence” of what is being called MIFTAH’s support for anti-Semitism was the result of a misstep by a junior staffer who inadvertently posted an outside article in Arabic on the organization’s website back in 2013 without having it reviewed. Once MIFTAH’s senior management became aware of the offensive article, they immediately removed it and issued an apology despite the fact that a disclaimer on its website clearly states that articles posted from other sources do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the organization. Nonetheless, a widespread smear campaign instigated and obsessively pursued by vicious hate-filled groups continued against MIFTAH and its founders. This hackneyed campaign is now being rehashed in an orchestrated manner with clear malicious intent.

MIFTAH is and has always been a respected organization both in Palestine and abroad and is known for its contributions to good governance, the empowerment of women and youth, to maintaining open, inclusive and democratic dialogue and to the exchange of ideas. We will not tolerate any attempts at the misrepresentation and defamation of MIFTAH’s good name.

Nothing is being misrepresented. Everything I have reported and is now being noticed is fully documented - and many of the posts are still on their site, today, including posts with fabricated quotes from Israeli leaders.

So, Miftah, if you want to defend your neo-Nazi post or your praise for terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi, at least have the guts to defend them and not to pretend that these accusations aren't true. And if you are going to call me and others liars for posting your own articles, it just proves that you are the liars.

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Who is the antisemite: Stephen Bannon or Hanan Ashrawi?

It's been four days since I publicized neo-Nazi material on Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah site. It was tweeted to Miftah by dozens of people.

It is still there.

Objectively speaking, the materials on this Western-funded NGO site are far worse than anything ever published on Breitbart. Yet publisher of that site Stephen Bannon came under withering criticism for antisemitism that is essentially non-existent on that site (and the many philosemitic articles on Breitbart have been ignored.)

Ashrawi's Miftah has hosted articles that featured the blood libel, adoring profiles of people who murdered Jews and neo-Nazi material. And the people who pretended to be so offended by Breitbart's supposed antisemitism have nothing to say. There is no outrage.

Is it because they only care about antisemitism when it is politically advantageous to them?

Is it because Arabs are given a pass for Jew-hatred?

Is it because Ashrawi is considered a "moderate"and they are afraid that exposing her responsibility might drive her to become an extremist?

Who knows? Either way, it stinks. If Bannon is responsible for the Jew-haters who love Breitbart despite its philosemitism (don't trust me - do your own search on every Breitbart article that mentions Jews), then Ashrawi is far more responsible for the hateful and bigoted articles that have been and remain on her website.

Anyone who claims they are offended by Bannon's purported antisemitism, and who does not have anything bad to say about media darling Ashrawi, is a hypocrite. Period.

By any yardstick, there are multiple outrages here: Miftah's habitual posting of antisemitic materials, Miftah's refusal to take it down, the Left's double-standards on antisemitism by those they support, and Miftah's funders willingly sweeping this under the rug as they continue to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into an organization that hosts hate materials.

The double standards here are disgusting.

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Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah NGO hosts and publishes neo-Nazi material

Back in 2013, I found that the Miftah NGO, founded by Western media darling Hanaa Ashrawi, had published the blood libel of Jews drinking Christian blood for Passover as fact, along with explicit support for terror and terrorists.

Even today, the website includes explicit antisemitism in Arabic.

Now it has been discovered that Miftah even has an article (cached here) from the neo-Nazi "National Vanguard " site with classic Judeophobic tropes in English!

Entitled "Who Rules America - The Alien Grip on Our News and Entertainment Media Must Be Broken", the article ends off with this call to arms against "alien" Jews in the US:

The Jew-controlled entertainment media have taken the lead in persuading a whole generation that homosexuality is a normal and acceptable way of life; that there is nothing at all wrong with White women dating or marrying Black men, or with White men marrying Asian women; that all races are inherently equal in ability and character -- except that the character of the White race is suspect because of a history of oppressing other races; and that any effort by Whites at racial self-preservation is reprehensible.

We must oppose the further spreading of this poison among our people, and we must break the power of those who are spreading it. It would be intolerable for such power to be in the hands of any alien minority, with values and interests different from our own. But to permit the Jews, with their 3,000-year history of nation-wrecking, from ancient Egypt to Russia, to hold such power over us is tantamount to race suicide. Indeed, the fact that so many White Americans today are so filled with a sense of racial guilt and self-hatred that they actively seek the death of their own race is a deliberate consequence of Jewish media control.

Once we have absorbed and understood the fact of Jewish media control, it is our inescapable responsibility to do whatever is necessary to break that control. We must shrink from nothing in combating this evil power that has fastened its deadly grip on our people and is injecting its lethal poison into their minds and souls. If we fail to destroy it, it certainly will destroy our race.

Let us begin now to acquire knowledge and to take action toward this necessary end.

The article is from 2001, but its age does not acquit Miftah of antisemitism. On the contrary, the fact that Miftah decided that this article is worth spreading before anyone investigated their history of hate, and that the well-funded organization didn't remove it after worldwide publicity over its blood libel article, proves that Jew-hatred is part and parcel of the organization itself. This article, together with the other articles we've unearthed, proves that Miftah is an organization where antisemitism is a fundamental belief, and any so-called apologies issued in English are not a reflection of what Miftah members believe but of a desire not to jeopardize their sources of funding.

Those sources, deplorably, turn a blind eye to this overwhelming evidence of naked Jew-hatred at Miftah because they believe that Miftah is a moderating influence on Palestinian society. Instead of using their funds to make a fundamental change in Palestinian society, they use them to protect their precious NGOs whom they do not want to antagonize.

It is way past time that Western NGO and nations end writing automatic checks to people who push the worst forms of hate and pretending that somehow their funding advances peace.

NGO Monitor lists Miftah's funding sources:

2013 budget of $1,194,627, of which $1,005,304 was donated by foreign governments and entities.
2012-13 donors include: International Republican Institute (United States), Norway, NGO Development Centre, United Nations Development Programme, Ireland, United Nations Population Fund, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (Germany), National Endowment for Democracy (US), UN Women, Oxfam Novib (Netherlands), Arab Fund (Kuwait), U.S. Consulate and the British Council.
In 2014-2016, Miftah received $330,000¹ from the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (joint funding by Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands) in core funding.
In 2013, Miftah received EUR 70,000 from Ireland.

The US Consulate started its funding of Miftah after I exposed their spreading the blood libel.

(h/t מיכאל)

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Hanan Ashrawi's hypocrisy, illustrated

Here is what Hanan Ashrawi said about the terror attacks in Nice:

“The Palestinian leadership and people stand in solidarity with France and remain committed to nonviolence; we are opposed to any acts of extremism or terror targeting innocent civilians.”

Yet Ashrawi's Miftah organization praises suicide bombers:

Palestinian women have also participated in the resistance. As the conflict grew more intense and young men were recruited to carry out military operations against Israeli targets, several young women also decided to join the ranks of the resistance movement. In January 2002, 28-year-old nurse Wafa Idrees, detonated a bomb in Jerusalem’s Jaffa Street, killing one Israeli and injuring 150 others. She was also killed in the blast.

This marked the beginning of a string of Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause. Over the next two years, seven other women carried out similar operations, the most deadly of which was carried out by Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old attorney from Jenin. Hanadi detonated explosives strapped to her body in a busy Haifa restaurant, killing 19 Israelis and injuring 50 others.

Miftah also published on its website, without any caveat, a report on the "General Arab Conference to Support the Resistance" which extols suicide bombers by referring to the "Blessed Al Aqsa Intifada."

Miftah condones terror today (cached here):

Resistance in all forms against the armed colonial settlers and the army of occupation is a legitimate form of the struggle for freedom...Suicide bombing is the ultimate cry of help....

13-year old Hillel Yaffe Ariel, murdered in her bedroom, was one of those "armed colonial settlers" Miftah is referring to.

Miftah has also published an article calling terror attacks "a moral duty" - an article that is still on its website today as well: (cache)

Many of our efforts to defy the arbitrary rules of the occupier are reflexively dismissed as “terrorism,” and we are always expected to apologize for and condemn Palestinian resistance—despite the lack of agreement on a definition of terrorism, and the fact that the right to self-determination by armed struggle is permissible under the United Nations Charter’s Article 51, concerning self-defense.

There also is a trend among those who oppose Palestinian resistance to use the term “jihad” as a synonym for terrorism. In doing so, they reduce the meaning of jihad to mere death. Jihad is a rich concept which includes struggling against one’s lesser self, the effort to do good deeds, actively opposing injustice, and being patient in times of hardship. It is not about violence against God’s creatures, or not fearing death in defending the rights of God’s creations. Violence can, however, be a rational human’s means of defense. When a woman reacts violently when threatened with rape, that is a form of jihad.

Moreover, jihad is an Islamic value—and not all Palestinian fighters are Muslims. The reason why young, sincere altruistic Palestinians blow themselves up is a secret they take with them to the grave. Perhaps it is the strange fruit of revenge growing in the fertile soil of oppression and occupation, or their profound protest against merciless cruelty; or a desperate attempt at attaining equality with Israelis in death, since it is impossible for them in life.

Blowing oneself up to kill Jews is poetry.

Even though Miftah says that of course they are against killing innocent civilians, their website sure seems to bend over backwards to make those who do that seem as wonderful as possible.

And this is Hanan Ashrawi's organization, still including these paeans to terrorism on its website three years after I first exposed them.

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EU chief to combat antisemitism meets with Ashrawi, whose Miftah pushes antisemitism

The EU coordinator on combating anti-Semitism, Katharina von Schnurbein, met with one of the leading purveyors of antisemitism in the PLO, Hanan Ashrawi, where she was told that Israeli Jews are the real racists.

Yes, this really happened.

One day after a meeting in the Knesset where von Schnurbein said that she recognized that anti-Semitism often lies behind anti-Zionism, she met with Exhibit A.

And Ashrawi didn't disappoint, going on a rant about "the racist culture of hatred that is being fed by the occupying power."

It will be recalled that Ashrawi's Miftah organization had articles on its website that said that Jews eat matzoh made with Christian blood on Passover, and defended it, calling me names for exposing it, before the world media started to notice it and Miftah then "apologized" (but only in English, while the antisemitic article was in Arabic.)

After that I discovered that Miftah also questioned whether there were any Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, that it supported terror attacks and glorified suicide bombers, It also condemns any sort of programs that encourage dialogue between Palestinians and Israeli Jews as "normalization," in direct opposition to the EU which funds several such programs.

But years after I exposed these antisemitic articles, and after the US and EU continue to fund Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah, is there still antisemitism on their website?

Of course there is!

This article says "History has taught us that the culture and mentality of Judaism is a culture of complaint and accusation against the other (goyim)"

The article goes on to say that the Talmud is a racist work, but the quotes it uses to prove that actually show how the Palestinians do not want to accept Jewish history. The article quotes the Talmud as saying "Why is Israel compared to an olive tree? To learn that just as the olive tree does not lose its leaves in the summer or in the winter, so too the children of Israel will never disappear completely from this world or the next." You can see how that would be offensive!

Or similarly, a medrash that says that God compared all the cities of the world to place the Temple and He chose Jerusalem. This is another example of "Jewish racism" which in fact reveals that Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept historical facts of the Temples in Jerusalem and the Jewish nation.

Oh, and it praises Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.

This article castigates the US for passing a bill to monitor antisemitism, saying that the Arabs are the only Semites.

This article falsely says that major Israeli rabbis routinely call for genocide against all Palestinians. They sometimes call for God to destroy terrorists and those who want to see Israel destroyed, but not "genocide against Palestinians."

So, yes, the EU's official in charge of fighting antisemitism decided that it would be useful to get the perspective of someone whose organization has been responsible for spreading antisemitism.

And as the photo shows, the visit was not meant to be ironic.

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Simon Wiesenthal Center calls on US to stop funding Miftah and other anti-peace NGOs

It's always nice when my research gets recognized.

From Algemeiner:

Rabbi Cooper

A leading US-based Jewish human rights organization cautioned the US government on Tuesday against donating funds to Palestinian NGOs with a history of antisemitism.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was responding to a report by pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon that Miftah, a Ramallah-based non-profit organization founded and headed by long-time Yasser Arafat loyalist, Palestinian Legislative Council member and former peace process spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi, has been receiving a hefty annual sum from the US Consulate in Jerusalem.

“The question that needs to be asked is: Where should US diplomatic and funding efforts be concentrated when it comes to the ideas and values propagated in Palestinian society? The answer is: It should go to those NGOs committed and contributing to the idea of two peoples living side by side in peace and tolerance,” Cooper told The Algemeiner.

Miftah was forced to remove an antisemitic blood libel from its Arabic website two years ago, following exposure by Elder of Ziyon. In March 2013, the watchdog noted Miftah’s publication of an article claiming that Jews use the blood of Christian children for their Passover matzah.

This caused Miftah first to defend itself — accusing critics of conducting a “smear campaign” — and then days later to take down the piece and issue an apology in English, part of which was devoted to distancing Ashrawi from its author and his ideology.

Elder of Ziyon’s current report — based on Miftah’s financial statements and the US Congressional Research Service – shows that in 2013 and 2014, the US Consulate was added to the NGO’s list of donors, among them Oxfam, NED, Norway, Austria and the Anna Lindh Foundation.

The annual sum given by the US to Miftah, according to the financial records, is $175,000.

Rabbi Cooper posited that a litmus test has to be applied to any Palestinian organization receiving funds from the US and Europe. “There should be no automatic checks signed over,” he told The Algemeiner. “The bottom line is, don’t tell me that [Miftah] hasn’t spread blood libels lately, and therefore it’s okay to give it money. The point is to examine whether, as a voice in the Palestinian Authority, it is contributing to civil society or not. If so, maybe $175,000 is too little a sum. If not, we shouldn’t be giving it a nickel.”

...This is a good time, he concluded, to revise the criteria for the allocation of American aid where the Palestinians are concerned.

“Our tax dollars should only go to efforts against violence,” he said. “That’s where we should be investing our money.”

How many recipients of Western aid in the territories have explicitly condemned the current wave of knifing and car ramming attacks?

I am not aware of a single one, but I'm more than willing to be corrected.

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.

US started funding Miftah AFTER I exposed its antisemitism and extremism

In March 2013, I revealed that Miftah, a Palestinian NGO, founded and headed by Hanan Ashrawi had published an Arabic article that said that Jews use the blood of Christian children for Passover matzah. After the issue was publicized Miftah took it down and eventually apologized in English after defending it and attacking me for publicizing it.

Of course, the blood libel is not the only problem at Miftah. I documented that they supported terror attacks and they are explicitly against peaceful coexistence with Israel.

Miftah is also one of the signers of the original 2005 Call for BDS.

At the time, Miftah enjoyed monetary support from Oxfam, NED, Norway, Austria, the Anna Lindh Foundation and others.

But since I exposed their hate and lies, they have gained another funder.

The US Consulate.

The very year that Miftah was in the newspapers for pushing the blood libel is when the US decided to give them $175,000, paying that sum over two years.

This was noted in a recent report about BDS from the Congressional Research Service (I could not find it online):

US taxpayers are funding a hate organization.

Miftah site has numerous fake Ariel Sharon (and other) quotes

In the wake of Ariel Sharon's death, some are publishing fake quotes attributed to Sharon. And there are plenty of them.

Miftah, the EU-funded Palestinian Arab NGO founded by Hanan Ashrawi which I have exposed for its antisemitism and naked support for terror, has a list of quotes on its website from 2003 that are generally either fake, out of context or otherwise dubious.

They were informed that some of the quotes were fabrications shortly afterwards. Yet these fake quotes are still on their website, today.

Here are the fake Sharon quotes that Miftah lies about:

"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.

Complete fiction.

I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal. What you don't understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it. Ariel Sharon to Amos Oz, editor of Davar, Dec. 17, 1982

Again, never happened. Amoz Oz made up a fictional interview with someone named "Z" and Israel haters changed it.

"I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him. With one hit I've killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah in 1956). I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as the Palestinian women is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do." Ariel Sharon, In an interview with General Ouze Merham, 1956.

"I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child’s existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger." Ariel Sharon, In an interview with General Ouze Merham, 1956.

There is no such person as "General Ouze Merham." This is complete fiction. (In 1956, Israelis wouldn't have referred to Arabs as "Palestinians" anyway.)

Miftah knows these are lies. But Miftah isn't interested in the truth. And, apparently, neither are the EU NGOs that fund it.

(h/t Bob Knot)

Miftah is against peaceful co-existence. Do its funders know that?

Among the organizations that are funded by the Anna Lindh Foundation are The Abraham Fund, "to promote coexistence and equality among Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens." It also funds PeacePlayers International, which "uses the game of basketball to facilitate positive relations and peaceful coexistence between Israeli and Palestinian communities – in short, to bridge divides, change perceptions, and develop leaders who will advocate for a shared future."

The Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation is associated with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and is meant "to deepen the knowledge and understanding of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel through conferences, public lectures and workshops, as well as research studies, publications and documentation."

A UNESCO paper on "The influence of education on conflict and peace building" quotes an Israeli study: ‘A series of quasi-experimental studies carried out with Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian youngsters revealed that despite the ongoing violence, participation in various programs yield positive attitudinal, perceptual and relational changes manifested in, for example, more positive views of "peace,” better ability to see the other side's perspective, and greater willingness for contact.'

The Government of Norway strongly supports co-existence programs, as this 2006 speech by their Foreign Minister emphasizes:

So, what opportunities do we have for peaceful coexistence?

I believe the key tool in our globalised world is dialogue. Dialogue based on a firm understanding of values, human rights and mutual obligations.

Some say that dialogue and compromise are signs of weakness.

I strongly disagree. I believe that dialogue and compromise are essential if we are to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Opening a dialogue does not mean giving up conflicting principles or values. It is a way of managing fundamental differences. Dialogue can be seen as a value – as a success – in its own right. And dialogue and engagement are ancient tools of diplomacy – ancient and at the same time modern. Those who believe solely in military intervention are just ancient – and not modern at all.

What do all of these organizations have in common, besides a clear commitment to the benefits of coexistence?

They all fund an organization that is explicitly against coexistence!

Miftah, which we have already exposed for pushing the anti-semitic blood libel and for explicitly supporting terrorism, now has stated that it is against any program that supports Jewish-Arab dialogue for peace.

This week, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy held a special meeting of the Palestinian Youth Network entitled “Normalization” as part of its “Empowerment of Palestinian Youth Leadership” program in partnership with NDC.

MIFTAH hosted university professor Dr. Abdel Rahim Al Sheikh, who first offered a definition of normalization, its various forms and the position the society towards it in order to develop methods and mechanisms for dealing with this issue. He said that normalization includes the following: participation in any project, initiative or local or international activity designed specifically to bring together (whether directly or indirectly) Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (whether individuals or institutions) and which do not clearly aim at resisting the occupation and exposing all of its forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people, in addition to establishing projects or activities aimed at “achieving peace” without agreeing on inalienable Palestinian rights according to international law and the conditions for justice.

...Dr. Al Sheikh pointed to the danger of meetings organized between Palestinian and Israeli youth within the framework of getting to know one another and spreading a culture of peace and dialogue in an ordinary fashion that considers both sides as equals in the conflict.

The participants expressed their viewpoints on the subject, stressing on the need to denounce all normalization activities and projects, which did do not serve the Palestinian cause or its people.

Miftah is saying that it is adamantly against dialogue with any Zionist, with any Israeli, or with any Jew who does not a priori denounce Zionism and say that he or she supports "resistance."

That isn't a dialogue - that is a monologue.

It is crystal clear that Miftah is diametrically opposed to the examples of coexistence that are supported by the Anna Lindh Foundation, UNESCO, KAS, the Government of Norway and other Miftah funders.

Which makes one ask - why do these organizations send money to an NGO that is on the record as being against co-existence and dialogue? Don't they care that their money is going to an organization that opposes some of their key programs?

Perhaps it is time to ask them.

The Anna Lindh Foundation info@euromedalex.org Facebook TWITTER - @AnnaLindh
Konrad Adenauer Foundation - Palestinian Territories Info.Ramallah@kas.de TWITTER - @KASOnline
UNESCO - English media editor r.amelan@unesco.org TWITTER - @UNESCO
Representative Office of Norway repram@mfa.no TWITTER @NorwayMFA

Plus the other funders of Miftah who no doubt would be surprised that they are giving money to an organization that is against the most basic requirement for peace:

Oxfam UK enquiries@oxfam.org.uk Facebook TWITTER - @OXFAM
Secretariat for Consulate of Italy in Jerusalem segreteria.gerusalemme@esteri.it @FarnesinaPress
Heinrich Böll Foundation info@boell.de Facebook Arab Middle East FB TWITTER - @boell_stiftung
Austrian Development Agency oeza.info@ada.gv.at
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ireland contact page List of Twitter contacts TWITTER - @dfatirl
International Republican Institute webpage contact TWITTER - IRIGlobal

Miftah illustrates how to turn a good UN resolution into a weapon against Israel

Here's how the UN describes UN Security Council Resolution 1325, from 2000:

The Security Council adopted resolution (S/RES/1325) on women and peace and security on 31 October 2000. The resolution reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security. Resolution 1325 urges all actors to increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts. It also calls on all parties to conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, in situations of armed conflict. The resolution provides a number of important operational mandates, with implications for Member States and the entities of the United Nations system.

The UN documents associated with this initiative are meant to help women vote and increase their participation in their own local and national politics.

So when Miftah, the NGO that pushed an antisemitic blood libel and has supported terrorism multiple times, created a workshop on UNSC 1325 last week, what was their primary purpose? To help include more women in the PA to be involved in the moribund peace process? To empower women in Gaza to take on more important roles in the Hamas government?

No, of course not. This is Miftah. Here is their major goal:

In a general session on UN Security Council 1325 held by MIFTAH in recently Nablus, participants focused on the need to work through the resolution in order to document Israeli violations against Palestinians, especially women and to spread awareness among them, especially in villages that are flashpoints with the Israeli occupation.

The entire purpose of the resolution is being subverted to further a specifically anti-Israel goal.

Which is pretty much what most NGOs in the territories do, when it comes down to it - use the language of the UN and human rights not to improve their own lives but to create ever new weapons against a single state.

This Miftah initiative, by the way, was funded by the UN Development Programme.

Miftah deliberately ignored PA incitement and delegitimization - and supported terrorists as heroes

Miftah, the Palestinian Arab NGO that has published a blood libel and has extolled terrorism (but deleted the offending articles when they were made public), has another initiative that has been dormant for a few years but is still very enlightening.

It is called the Media Monitoring Unit, and its goals are set forth as:

Monitoring Palestinian Media.

Research and advocacy activities aiming to reduce incitement, dehumanization and delegitimization of "the other"

Educating the public to become more critical media consumers

Fostering professionalism in the Palestinian media

In fact, Miftah teams with an Israeli organization, Keshev, an organization that monitors Israeli media from the Left. Keshev would look for bias and anti-Arab incitement in Israeli media and Miftah's unit would purportedly look for the same in Palestinian Arab media.

Miftah's part of the initiative seems to have only been active from 2008 to 2010, and some ten reports were written and released during that time period.

Amazingly, during those two years, Miftah could not find a single example of anti-Israel or antisemitic incitement in Palestinian Arab media. No delegitimization! No dehumanization!

While a couple of the reports would imply that newspaper use of the word "martyr" to describe suicide bombers is not strictly accurate, Miftah never said that this glorification of terrorism in the media reaches the level of incitement. Moreover, the many cases of pure antisemitism and maps that erase Israel in the print and broadcast media - well documented by Palestinian Media Watch - are uniformly ignored, by the very unit that is supposedly meant to search for it and fight against it!

If a map of "Palestine" that erases Israel is not an example of delegitimization, then what is?

The steering committee of the Media Monitoring Unit included Hanan Ashrawi and Joharah Baker.

In what can only be considered a massive waste of Western money, this unit was funded by the EU and the Ford Foundation.

Even worse, in the cases that incitement was found and publicized by Israeli sources, Miftah would tend to deny that any incitement existed, and would defend the PA's honoring of terrorists. Here is Miftah's Joharah Baker in an official Miftah editorial, "Let Us Honor Our Own":

When Palestinians named a square after Dalal Al Mughrabi, a Palestinian fighter who was killed during a military operation against Israel in 1978, Israel was up in arms, claiming the Palestinians should not be allowed to name streets or squares after “terrorists.” Israeli watchdog groups and the Israeli government play on the fact that Palestinians have named streets after Abu Jihad (Khalil Al Wazir) and Yehya Ayash. The prisoner stipends are just the latest episode in the drama.

...Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are a whole other ballgame. These men and women are not imprisoned for stealing cars, or for selling drugs. They are there because they are resisting a belligerent military occupation of their land, which has oppressed them and their people for decades. The PA’s allocations to prisoners and their families is in no way an endorsement of “terrorism and violence” but rather a means of helping mostly young men and women and their families to resume a life that has been interrupted by an occupying authority. Any other country would have done the same.

Besides, countries should not interfere in the internal affairs of others. If the Palestinians want to name a street after one of their national heroes, regardless of how this person is perceived by Israel, that is their business.

Instead of promoting peace and fighting incitement, Miftah defends incitement and supports the terrorists as national heroes. (Notice how even Dalal Mughrabi, responsible for the deaths of 13 children, is considered a heroine by Miftah.)

If Mughrabi is a national hero, then Miftah can' t be too serious about being upset that newspapers refer to terrorists as "martyrs." Indeed, their objection to that is seen to be more from the perspective of accuracy rather than incitement and nationalistic support of terrorist acts.

The media review unit seems to have run out of funding. Considering that it spent more time obfuscating Palestinian Arab incitement and dehumanizing Israelis rather than exposing it, this is probably a good thing.

When will the remaining funders of this NGO that promotes incitement against "the other" realize that their money is being used for the exact opposite of what they intended?

Miftah's double standards for Jews and everyone else

Miftah, the Western-funded NGO that refuses to condemn the medieval Jewish blood libel in Arabic, has another article filled with lies - this one about Jerusalem:

Looking at the state of Jerusalem’s eastern sector today, it is understandable why Israel would not want UNESCO or anyone else walking around the Old City, especially the Palestinian-populated parts of it. Because anyone who does, will see the devastation that Israel and its settlers have wreaked on one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in the world.

Devastation? United Jerusalem today is more beautiful than at any time since 70 CE. So what is the devastation?

Excavation works are being conducted in and around the Aqsa Mosque to make way for more Jewish construction at the place where Waqf authorities say Ottoman and Abbasid artifacts have long been tucked away.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the subject knows that the Israel Antiquities Authority bends over backwards to save ancient artifacts - belonging to any religion. The Waqf, on the other hand, lies whenever it is convenient to do so, and has purposefully destroyed thousands of priceless ancient Jewish objects.

Condemning Jews acting responsibly to save antiquities while condoning Muslims destroying them is a bit of a double standard. There might be a term for that.

A Muslim graveyard is being dug up just outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, to build – ironically – a museum of tolerance.

Besides the small fact that there haven't been any graves in the area being dug for quite a while, Miftah's writer seems unaware that, in 1946, the Supreme Muslim Council approved the building of an office park directly on top of the cemetery - and their own offices would have been housed there! They justified it by citing Islamic precedent.

To Miftah, only Jewish actions are to be condemned.

There might be a term for that.

Today, two stores were forcefully taken over by Jewish settlers in Al Hakari, one of the neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter and every day, it seems that more and more homes are either being demolished by Israeli municipality authorities or being taken over by Jewish settlers.

Miftah seems to believe that Jews should be forbidden to buy buildings in Jerusalem. Yet Arabs move to Jewish neighborhoods, and that is not a problem.

There might be a term for that.

The “Judiazation” of Jerusalem is a term many Palestinians and Arabs use for what Israel is doing in the city. In a nutshell, it is the long-term plan Israel is gradually carrying out to change the Arab Palestinian character of Jerusalem. This means demolishing old and historical structures, displacing Palestinians, handing over their homes to settlers and trying to erase the Palestinian or Arab history of the city.

I am not familiar with any demolition of historic Islamic structures since 1967.

Miftah's lies go beyond that, by pretending that Jerusalem has a primarily "Arab Palestinian character." They might want to explain exactly why there were no synagogues in the Old City between 1948 and 1967. I'm sure they can figure it out, even if they approve of the actions that burnt them down.

Sheikh Jarrah, one of the more affluent Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is now pierced with Jewish flags waving from homes that have been wrestled from their Palestinian owners, and Israel’s light rail train cuts right down through Palestinian neighborhoods outside of the city center.

Legally buying buildings at hugely inflated prices is, in Miftah-speak, "wrestling." Even when the Shimon HaTzaddik portion of that neighborhood was built by Jews who were violently attacked and ethnically cleansed in 1948.

And somehow Jerusalem's light rail, which serves Arabs and Jews equally, has only taken land from Arabs in its construction. Amazing!

On Shavuot, Israeli settlers and extremists poured into the Old City, singing loudly, banging on the shop doors and waving huge Israeli flags. The sight was disconcerting to say the least. However, the afternoon of that same day, at Damascus Gate, passersby were met with a completely different scene. Palestinian flags waved in determined Palestinian hands under the threatening eye of heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers. The youths were fearless, demanding freedom, with strong, unrelenting voices.

Jews walking around with Israeli flags are "settlers" and "extremists." Arabs waving Palestinian flags - not being interfered with by the Israeli police - are "fearless" and "determined." Why is one group described as heroic and the other in a derogatory manner, when they were doing the same thing?

There might be a term for that.

Miftah attacks Judaism

In a highly offensive article on its website, the Western-funded Palestinian Arab NGO Miftah is not really certain that there were ever any Jewish Temples in Jerusalem and denies that Jews have any rights to pray or even visit their holiest site:

With each passing day, more and more right-wing extremist settlers and Israelis insist on entering the Aqsa Mosque Compound. They walk the grounds, try to conduct Jewish prayers and always do so under the protection of the Israeli army and police. Muslims meanwhile either bite the bullet and hope the unnatural visits end quickly or, more often than not, they protest....

The fact of the matter is that Israel’s official narrative – that this is the exact place where the second temple was built and where the third one will eventually be reconstructed, has become a given for so many. The premise is that Jews have every right to enter and pray in Al Aqsa because the temples came first and this is ostensibly the holiest site in Judaism. The thousands of years of history and religious significance for Muslims around the world are made completely irrelevant not to mention that the Israeli narrative can always trump anyone else’s, especially the Palestinians. The seemingly religious aspect of the argument is actually entirely political at its core.

I wasn't aware that a religion that is, according to its own calendar, 1,434 years old, has "thousands of years of history and religious significance." I also wasn't aware that the many Jewish sources about the religious importance of the Temple site that pre-date Islam are actually political. I guess because the rabbis really knew that some guy named Mohammed would say that he flew a winged horse to "the farthest mosque" which would be interpreted a century later as being the third holiest site in (Sunni) Islam.

Miftah dismisses thousands of years of Jewish practice, Jewish prayers, Jewish legal texts and the Torah itself - all of which predate Mohammed's birth. And it claims that the Jewish ties to the site are - get this - political!

Miftah, a supposedly progressive and liberal NGO, is saying explicitly that Jews do not have the right to pray at their unquestioned holiest spot. But Muslims, who have stolen numerous Christian and Jewish holy places, should have complete and exclusive rights to places they usurped. Muslim rights to stolen holy sites, according to Miftah, are paramount; Jewish and Christian rights to these sites are non-existent.

It would be an understatement to call this article hypocritical.

Once again, Miftah's interest in the truth is nonexistent. Now we see that they publish screeds that are highly offensive to Judaism as well.

Let's make this clear:

Questioning the Jewish right to even visit, let alone pray at, the holiest site in Judaism is unspeakably offensive.
Questioning well-established facts of Jewish history in order to push a much later claim on that spot is nothing less than an insult to Judaism and to generations of Jews who have cried over the destruction of the Temples.
To imply that Muslims playing soccer is a more appropriate use of the Temple Mount than Jews respectfully visiting is sickening.
To demand Muslim exclusivity over that site is bigotry, pure and simple.

The fact that these lies about Judaism and Jewish history are accepted as fact among many bigots does not make this any less reprehensible. Even worse is that this article explicitly supports religious discrimination.

A Western-funded NGO must be judged by the standards of the West and the standards of truth and accuracy and fairness it claims to adhere to itself, not the lowest common denominator in the Arab world.

Yet Miftah still get funded by clueless European NGOs.