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Wednesday, February 03, 2016

From Ian:

Border Police officer, 19, dies after Jerusalem terror attack
A Border Police officer succumbed to wounds suffered during a shooting and stabbing attack near Jerusalem’s Old City Wednesday, after efforts to save her life at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus failed.
The woman was identified as Hadar Cohen, 19, from Or Yehuda.
Cohen was rushed to hospital in critical condition after she was wounded in the attack shortly after 2 p.m. local time. Paramedics who treated her at the scene said she was fighting for her life.
Hospital officials said she was shot in the head. “We succeeded in stabilizing her condition for a time, but her head wound was so severe she never had a chance,” a hospital spokeswoman said.
Another policewomen was in serious but stable condition at the hospital, with wounds all over her body, including her head, the spokeswoman said.
After attack, Jerusalem mayor urges residents to ‘engage’ terrorists
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat told residents of the capital not to fear “engaging” with suspected Palestinian attackers, after three Palestinians carried out a shooting and stabbing attack, killing one border policewoman and wounding another outside the city’s Damascus Gate on Wednesday afternoon.
Officials said the quick response of security forces in shooting and killing the terrorists prevented a much larger attack by the three.
“I spoke to the brave fighters who were not afraid to engage,” the mayor said of the team of Border Police officers who shot and killed the three Palestinians attackers within moments of the attack.
“The preparedness of the policemen is what led to the engagement and saved lives. The residents of Jerusalem need to open their eyes, and in a case like this, not to fear engaging [the attackers]. This vigilance is what will thwart attacks.”
A Mosque as Extremist Megaphone
Despite Al Aqsa’s importance to Islam—it is considered the religion’s holiest site outside Saudi Arabia—few Westerners are aware of the content of the sermons, lectures and lessons offered there. Many of these sermons are posted on the mosque’s two official YouTube channels and have been translated from the Arabic by my organization, the Middle East Media Research Institute.
What we have found at Al Aqsa is a steady stream of calls for jihad and martyrdom, venomous attacks on Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims, and praise for al Qaeda, Islamic State, or ISIS, and other jihadist groups.
Calls for the destruction of the U.S. and the West, including promises that Islam will take over the world, are other common themes. On July 24 last year, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Dweik—a frequent lecturer at the mosque and Palestinian cleric, like the other religious leaders quoted here—said: “The caliphate will come to be, and the nuclear bomb will be produced,” adding that this future Islamic caliphate—will “fight the U.S. and will bring it down” and “eliminate the West in its entirety.”
On July 6, 2015, Sheikh Muhammad Abed, known as “ Abu Abdallah,” declared that from “the land of the Prophet’s nocturnal journey”—a reference to Jerusalem—“armies will set out to conquer Rome, to conquer Constantinople,” and then he added to the list “Washington and London.”
In an Oct. 27 address at Al Aqsa, Sheikh Khaled Al-Maghrabi called for the annihilation of the Jews all over the world, providing justification by quoting the well-known hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) of the stone and the tree: “Oh Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” Earlier at the mosque, on May 29, Sheikh Al-Maghrabi explained why Jews were killed in the Holocaust. “On Passover,” he said, the Jews “would knead the dough for these matzos with children’s blood. When this was discovered, the Israelites were expelled across Europe . . . It got to the point where they were burned in Germany.”

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

From Ian:

The emotional post that conquered Israelis' hearts overnight
Dafna Meir's young daughters win second, third place in gymnastics competition - then break down in tears after returning home.
Natan Meir, the husband of terror victim Dafna, published an emotional Facebook post last night, which has already received numerous shares and reached Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Dafna Meir was recently murdered in her Otniel home.
"My sweet daughters, Noa (11.5) and Ahava (10.5) competed in an internal gymnastics competition in Otniel today. They both won medals for second and third place. Two mothers, loving neighbors, escorted them and greatly cheered them up," he wrote.
"When evening came, so did the tears - their mother wasn't able to see this achievement. Where is her hug? Why isn't she here to see? I suggested that I would post a picture of them with their medals so they could receive a warm embrace and love from the entire Jewish People."
Caroline Glick: The IDF's misplaced trust in the PA
In the past, both Abbas and his predecessor Yassir Arafat assessed at various points that they were better off cooperating with Hamas against Israel than with Israel against Hamas. Their decisions in 1996, from 2000 to 2007, and intermittently ever since, have had little to do with Israel's positions. Indeed, their shifts from Israel to Hamas have often occurred at times when Israel did the most to support them.
As for Abbas's control over his forces, this too can change on a dime. For years, Palestinian sources have insisted that these forces feel no intrinsic loyalty to Abbas. They stay with Abbas because he pays them.
Ideologically, these men under arms are free floaters. Nothing they believe is a bar for shifting their loyalties to Hamas. More to the point, all the US financial transfers to the PA security forces won't stop any of the US-trained Palestinian forces from moonlighting as Hamas, Fatah or Hezbollah terrorists. They've done it in the past and they will do it again.
The instrumental, and necessarily temporary nature of Palestinian security cooperation with the IDF tells us three things.
First, the IDF needs to ditch its current counterterror strategy which is based on the wrongheaded assumption that we can rely on the PA security forces. Central Command needs to develop contingency plans for neutralizing these forces. These contingency plans don’t need to be made public. But to the extent that aspects of the plans can be quietly implemented, they should be implemented as quickly as possible.
Second, IDF commanders need to stop praising these hostile forces. At some point in the not so distant future the IDF will be required to fight these forces. When that day comes, the IDF's enthusiastic tributes to their great cooperation with these terror-supporting forces will come back to haunt us. How will we be able to explain why our actions are necessary to allies to whom we have praised these hostile forces? This brings us to the final thing we need to recognize about these Palestinian forces. It was a major strategic blinder for Israel to support the US's decision to train them. By supporting the US training program, Israel has given the US an incentive to deny the hostile nature of these forces.
Even worse than guaranteeing that the US will be unwilling to accept that in training these forces its military built a terror army, is that threat these forces pose. Today seven US-trained Palestinian combat battalions are deployed close to Israel's major urban centers. Their fighting skills far surpass anything Israel has had to deal with in campaigns to date against Palestinian terror onslaughts.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas: The "Merchants of War" Who Seek to Destroy Israel
The myth that Hamas uses tunnels to smuggle food and other necessities to the "besieged" Gaza Strip has been buried under the rubble of the tunnel that collapsed last week east of Gaza City.
The incident, in which seven members of Hamas's armed wing, Ezaddin Al-Qassam, were killed when the tunnel they were working in collapsed, provides further proof that the Islamist movement has stayed true to its charter, which calls for the total destruction of Israel.
The Hamas men who were killed in the tunnel collapse belonged to the movement's elite "Tunnel Unit." According to Ezaddin Al-Qassam, the men were busy repairing one of the tunnels (damaged during the 2014 war with Israel) when it collapsed due to severe weather conditions.
Contrary to popular belief, the tunnel was not being renovated to allow Palestinians to smuggle basic goods from Egypt to the Gaza Strip. This was one of many tunnels that Hamas has dug over the past few years to infiltrate Israel and carry out terror attacks.
Hamas makes no secret of the goal of its renovations. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar readily admits that the tunnels are being rebuilt to target Israel.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: UN fails to learn lessons of Holocaust. It focuses on showmanship
Analogizing Palestinians to the Jewish victims of the Nazis: that’s how the UN is marking this week’s “International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.” The epicenter of modern antisemitism on a global scale is not somewhere over there, but in the middle of Turtle Bay.
For public tour groups, and their busloads of impressionable American students from around the country, the UN ‘s permanent “Palestine” exhibit has now been arranged to be within a few feet of the UN’s permanent Holocaust exhibit.
This week’s activities follow suit.
On January 25, 2016, a temporary exhibit called “Holocaust by Bullets” was opened in the UN visitors’ lobby. The painstaking research of the French organization Yahad-In Unum substantiates how two million Jews were shot to death in the presence of normal folks all over Europe.
But “Holocaust by Bullets” follows the UN’s December exhibition, which is titled “Palestinian Children: Overcoming Tragedies with Hope, Dreams, Resilience and Dignity.” That month-long display in the visitors’ lobby consisted of scenes of Palestinian children suffering from “devastating” wanton, unprovoked Israeli “operations.”
Father Patrick Desbois opened Yahad-In Unum’s exhibit by explaining that his team locates the bodies of Nazi victims and then honors the dead. He is driven to ensure that Europe does not bury “all its values” by building its future on unacknowledged and unvalued human beings in mass graves.
Palestinian UN representative Riyad Mansour opened December’s exhibit with a different set of values – incitement for Palestinian children to kill more Jews. As Mansour explained: “we are so proud that in this popular uprising, the backbone of this uprising are the youth of Palestine.”
Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt: We have gone back to the Middle Ages and face religious war with the fascists of radical Islam
If the 20th century could be characterised as a battle between territories, then I believe the 21st century has seen a return to the religious wars of the Middle Ages. The rise of Isil has followed fifteen years since 9/11 where Islamic religious terrorism has become the premier menace to democracy. In fact, the attacks on 9/11 ended the 20th century, in which secular totalitarian ideologies, such as Nazism and Communism challenged the existing world order and world peace.
One of the many challenges this new war poses is that it goes against the tolerant, inclusive society that has developed in the Western World over the last fifty years. For that reason, the first reaction of many is to divorce terrorism from religion. Many feel that the only way to protect religious freedoms is to deny radical elements. We need to understand the fact that there are radicalised aspects within many faiths, in particular Islam. Its fascist offshoot, Isil, is a strain of Islam and must be treated as such. These interpretations of Islam must be denounced but we must realise that we have now entered a religious war.
Islam, as it is practised today in some parts of the Middle East, is similar to Christianity in the premodern times, it has not yet developed or learnt to integrate into society. Therefore, by definition, it is entirely medieval and contrary to the basic tenets of a liberal state or democracy. But it would be ridiculous to assume that more than one billion Muslims are radical and dangerous. Instead we need to learn to differentiate between those strains that have developed and those strains that are a genuine danger to the developed world.
MEMRI: For International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei Publishes Holocaust Denial Video
Today, January 27, 2016, International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published on his official website a three-minute video clip titled "Are The Dark Ages Over?" In it, he expresses doubt about whether the Holocaust actually happened, rages about Europe's ban on public questioning of the validity of the Holocaust, and hints at a conspiracy on the part of Western Europe and the U.S. – which champion freedom of speech yet at the same time prevent open discussion of whether the Holocaust happened, and rages about Europe's ban on denying the Holocaust.
Khamenei attacks what he calls the hypocrisy of the West that champion the value of freedom of speech yet prevent any discussion of whether the Holocaust actually happened. This silence about the Holocaust that is imposed by the West on their citizens, he hints, is a conspiracy by the Western countries and the Zionist regime, aimed at establishing falsely, justification for Israel's existence, as it expels the Palestinians.
He then calls on the Muslim ummah, in a religious message, to come together to fight Israel and her Western patrons, because it is they who are perpetrating the real "Ignorance" – Jahiliyya – a reference to the era of ignorance that preceded the advent of Islam.
The clip also features images of leading European Holocaust deniers such as Roger Garaudy, Robert Faurisson, and David Irving, and highlighted the alleged persecution of them by Western authorities.
Supreme leader of Iran marks Holocaust Memorial Day by publishing Holocaust denying video
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, has marked Holocaust Memorial Day by publishing a Holocaust denying video on his official website.
While nations around the world remembered the millions of people who were killed in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, Iran’s hardline leader questioned whether the Holocaust “is a reality or not”.
Khamenei's website promotes the video with a banner across its homepage, featuring a montage of images, including one of Adolf Hitler.
Wednesday was also the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland where more than one million people were killed during World War Two. The majority were Jews and the former extermination camp is the world's biggest Jewish cemetery.
Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis attempted to annihilate all of Europe’s Jews. In one of the largest genocides in history, approximately six million Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its collaborators.
Khamenei's message comes as President Hassan Rouhani tours Italy and France, attempting to drum up trade and diplomatic links after his country signed a historic deal to limit its nuclear ambitions.

Monday, January 25, 2016

From Ian:


Palestinian twin sisters accused of making bombs for attacks
Israeli security forces arrested 18-year-old bomb-making twin sisters from Shwaika, outside the Palestinian city of Tulkarem in the West Bank last month, the Shin Bet security service announced Monday.
Israel Defense Forces soldiers and Shin Bet officers discovered pipe bombs and other explosive materials in the home of Diana and Nadia Hawila in late December 2015, officials said.
In addition, they found knives, Hamas headbands and “equipment for riots,” the Shin Bet said in a statement, though it did not claim that the twins were, in fact, Hamas members.
“This investigation again shows the motivation to carry out terror attacks, especially among those who are not a part of terrorist organizations, including women,” the Shin Bet said.
In interrogation, Diana Hawila admitted that she had purchased the fertilizer and other chemicals necessary to create the explosives.
She learned how to create bombs by watching instructional videos online, according to the Shin Bet. Diana also watched Islamic extremist videos that encouraged women to take part in terror attacks against Israelis and Jews, which “strengthened her decision to act,” the Shin Bet said.
Teen stabber had ‘urge’ to act, says relative
A relative of a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, who was shot and killed on Saturday when trying to knife a security guard at a West Bank settlement, said she had an “urge” to act and was influenced by other terrorists.
At the same time, other family members of Roqaya Abu-Eid questioned why she had been killed rather than subdued. Her father said there had been no need to kill her.
Abu-Eid was shot by a civilian security guard at the entrance to Anatot, near Jerusalem, when she rushed at him with a knife, police said. She lived in the nearby Palestinian village of the same name.
Israel Police said after an initial investigation that the girl had fought with her parents and stormed out the family home with the knife, declaring that she wanted to die, a claim rejected by her family.
A teenage relative told Channel 2 on Sunday that she had been inspired to carry out the attack by seeing other incidents.
Israel strikes Hamas terror target in Gaza in response to rocket fire
The Israel Air Force struck a Hamas military compound in the center of the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Monday in retaliation for a Gazan rockets fired on the Southern region of Israel.
The rocket was fired from the Gaza strip at southern Israel on Sunday evening setting off the color red sirens in the Sha'ar Hanegev region, sending local residents fleeing for cover.
The rocket exploded in an open area, failing to cause injuries and there was no damage, the army said.
In the response a few hours later, IAF aircraft struck a Hamas military installation, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said.
On Saturday night, Gazan terrorists fired a rocket towards Israel. The rocket landed inside Gaza in open territory. The color red siren was not sounded.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

From Ian:

PMW: ‎“Hitler was not morally corrupt, he was daring” says Fatah leader
"Hitler was not morally corrupt, he was daring," according to Fatah leader and Central Committee Member Tawfiq Tirawi. After these words the moderator on independent Ma'an TV stopped the interview saying: "Let's drink some tea and take a break. It would be a pity to be put in jail because of this interview."
Fatah Central Committee Member Tawfiq Tirawi: "There is a difference between an officer's discipline and loyalty to a leader. The leader could be morally corrupt."
Ma'an host: "And how would you know?"
Tawfiq Tirawi: "You have to know. Is there anyone who does not know his leader?"
Ma'an host: "The German people did not know that Hitler was morally corrupt."
Tawfiq Tirawi: "He was not morally corrupt."

Ma'an host: "The French think that de Gaulle was half a prophet. Churchill, I don't know what his story was, but people see him as one of the most important statesmen."
Tawfiq Tirawi: "Let us talk logically. Hitler was not morally corrupt. He was daring."
Ma'an host: "Is that the way to talk? I say: Let's drink some tea and take a break. It would be a pity to be put in jail because of this interview. We will drink tea and take a break. Let's leave Hitler."
[Ma'an TV, independent Palestinian channel, Jan. 16, 2016]
Senior Fatah official:‎ "Hitler wasn't morally corrupt, he was daring"

Khaled Abu Toameh: Netanyahu in Otniel: Boundless Palestinian hatred caused by incitement
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the town of Otniel, south of Hebron, on Tuesday morning and slammed the Palestinian Authority for the incitement that propelled a 15-year-old boy to murder a 38-year-old mother of six there.
“Whoever wants to see the truth about the roots of the conflict between us and the Palestinians should come to Otniel and see here a wonderful family that only wants coexistence and peace,” he said, after paying a shiva (mourning period) call to the family of Dafna Meir, murdered on Sunday by the 15-year-old terrorist arrested earlier in the day.
“They should see the young people, inflamed by incitement, who come to murder women here, a mother of six, and in Tekoa, a pregnant woman; they come to murder them and say, ‘We will destroy you all, in Tel Aviv and Jaffa as well,’” the prime minister continued.
On one side there is “humanity and a desire for coexistence, and on the other side boundless hatred,” he added. “That hatred has an address: it is the incitement of the Palestinian Authority and other actors, such as the Islamic Movement and Hamas. The time has come for the international community to stop its hypocrisy and to call the child by its name.”
Two More Middle East Martyrs
That’s a lesson the Obama administration has steadfastly refused to learn in its seven years in office. More than any other of his predecessors, President Obama beat up on Israel over the presence of Jews in the West Bank and broke new ground by also stigmatizing the Jewish presence and the building of homes in Jerusalem. The Obama administration sent the message that Jews in the West Bank were illegitimate and the result is that the Palestinians haven’t been forced to reassess their obsession with driving them out of their homes and instead make peace. Worse than that, they’ve refused to understand that the Palestinians make no real distinctions between the “occupation” of the West Bank and the “occupation” of pre-1967 Israel.
Unless and until Palestinians stop seeing the murder of Jews, whether in Tel Aviv or in the Hebron hills, as not merely defensible but laudable, there will be no peace and their lives won’t get better. That’s because, so long as they are trapped in the mindset of a century-long war on Zionism, they will continue to allow their political leaders to refuse to make peace and to mire their society in hate and corruption.
Until then Israelis, even the majority that would happily trade land for true peace, know that any more territorial concessions will only lead to more terrorism and death as the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza did. So long as Palestinians prefer to make martyrs — a true martyr in the form of a woman who died defending her children and a false on in the form of her heartless murderer — to making peace the rest of the world should refuse to play along with their propaganda demonizing the Jews of Otniel or those of Tel Aviv. Instead, they should realize that the hate that drives these Palestinian murderers is no different from the Islamists that murdered the people of Paris and San Bernardino.

Monday, January 11, 2016

From Ian:

Why Sanctions Are Pointless: Or, How Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs and Coca-Cola Broke the Arab Boycott
Everyone loves sanctions. But privileged Russians still enjoy imported French cheeses, and Iran’s Republican Guard is profiting handsomely from running a black market in sanction-busting imports. Even BDS may not be the dire threat that both its fevered proponents and its enemies like to imagine. Why? Because the truth is that sanctions are not really that hard to evade, and boycotts are not that hard to break. I know, because I helped to break the Arab boycott of Israel with the reluctant leverage of the Coca-Cola Corp. and the enthusiastic support of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs.
I was trained as an economist, and in 1964 the government of Israel asked me to take a leave from the daily Maariv, then Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, to serve at our consulate in New York City on finding ways around the refusal of any Arab country to trade with our new nation. It had been almost a quarter of a century since I had enjoyed “The pause that refreshes” while visiting Beirut with my parents, so a thirst for Coca-Cola was hardly a habit with me or my countrymen. We all lived on short rations. Supplies of imported food and other essentials were limited during the struggle to build our nation, defend ourselves, and absorb millions of immigrants. When Coke first applied to open a bottling plant only a year after we gained our independence in 1948, it was refused as an unnecessary luxury.
But our soft drink companies yearned for a local franchise to bottle and sell Coca-Cola. This was regarded worldwide as a license to print money and usually ended up in the hands of someone with a great deal of political pull—in Hebrew protexia, or in the vernacular “Vitamin P.” Thus I became aware of the taste for Coca-Cola only after I arrived in arrived in New York to join the Israeli Economic Mission with the rank of consul.
Our mission was to convince American businessmen to ignore the Arab threat to seal off their much larger market from any company that did business with us. We also tried to drum up foreign investment in Israel, another move that would trigger the boycott. We asked Jewish-American importers to pressure their foreign suppliers to sell to Israel by warning that they would offend their customers if they refused to do business with Israel.
Douglas Murray: Germany Just Can't Get It Right
The late Robert Conquest once laid out a set of three political rules, the last of which read, "The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies." This rule comes in handy when trying to understand the otherwise clearly insane and suicidal policies of Chancellor Merkel's government in Germany. These policies only make sense if the German government has in fact been taken over by a cabal of people intent not on holding Germany together but on pulling it entirely apart. Consider the evidence.
There can be few other explanations for why Chancellor Merkel's government last year let in more than one million people (about 1.5% of the current German population) without having any idea of who they were, where they came from or what they think. No democratic leader could possibly push through such a startling measure. How else can you explain why a country that in the 20th century had such a gigantic anti-Semitism problem, would import so many people from those areas of the world which, in the 21st century, now have the same gigantic anti-Semitism problem?
A document that was leaked late last year from the German intelligence service warned that the country is "importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples..." How to explain a government and security service policy which allowed this to happen? Or a Chancellor who, when asked a very lightly critical question about all of this by a concerned German citizen, responded with a long disquisition that failed to answer even one part of the pertinent point?
More up-to-date, it is worth considering events since New Year's Eve. As the world now knows, that was when around 100 women were subjected to rape, harassment and sexual molestation by a huge crowd of migrants in the centre of the city of Cologne. It has now emerged that the first response of the Cologne police to this major incident was to hold back information about the identity of the attackers. Whether the police thought they could get away with that or not, this lie has now poured fuel onto the flames of public anger by demonstrating that the police, like the government and much of the media, are intent on misinforming the public about what is going on in their country, rather than keeping them truthfully briefed about it.
David Collier: When human rights no longer matter to NGO’s
As soon as the program was broadcast, the backlash started. On the programme itself, Illana Dayan, the shows anchor, had invited Gideon Levy, a frequent commentator on human rights to respond, and rather surprisingly, Levy’s main concern seemed to be that the show had been broadcast at all. Levy has since written an article in Haaretz saying that the show ‘should be ashamed of the report it aired which depicted human rights activists as dangerous, while ignoring the occupation.’ Rather incredibly, Levy begins to suggest the entire piece is taken out of context and ending in rather dramatic and ironic fashion, he suggests that by highlighting these actions to the world, the show has done a disservice. Here is Gideon Levy publicly claiming that some people assisting human rights abuses should not be put on TV.
And Gideon Levy is far from alone. 972 Magazine, an online outlet that spends its entire existence knocking Israel and talking up human rights, suddenly becomes blind to actions that clearly contravene the UN’S Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today (10/1) they ran a piece by Haggai Matar, attacking those who publicised the actions of the activists. Suddenly, when analysing the words of a man who seemed to be rejoicing at the violent fate that would befall the land seller, there is a ‘but’ and an ‘however’. Incredibly, the criticism is reserved for the source of the recording, rather than the men who conspired to perhaps have someone killed. It seems that for these left wing ‘moralist thinkers’ that when it comes to human rights, some people’s rights are more important than others.
These are not the only two examples. Ever since the broadcast, the show has been attacked endlessly from sources desperate to protect the image of the NGO’s, movements that propose their very raison d’être is to protect human rights. But it isn’t just those making noise that we should focus on, it is those remaining quiet. Groups who describe themselves as being on the far left of the political spectrum, those that frequently hide behind or use the material provided by these NGO’s have temporarily stopped posting and tweeting. They have nothing to say. Media outlets like the Guardian and Independent, who would have been banging down the doors if the situation was reversed, are ducking under cover until the furore dies down. They do not want to attack ‘their own’.
We have always known this hypocrisy existed. We are well aware that these groups, these media outlets, these individuals, work in unison and are driven by personal bias and hatred towards Israel rather than a true sympathy for the Palestinians. It would have been nice to see one, just one, stand up and give the unequivocal condemnation they always demand of others. Instead we are left with those attacking the messenger, weak attempts at diverting focus and an entire part of the political spectrum simply disappearing for a while. No, this is not a surprise, but it is solid evidence that the hatred we see directed towards Israel every day, is simply that, blind hatred. Hatred that emanates from a bunch of very vocal but equally morally deficient hypocrites. It is worth remembering that next time you see one of their reports.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

From Ian:

Police open criminal investigation of far-left Israeli activist
The Israel Police have opened a criminal investigation into a far-left activist who was shown on an investigative journalism TV program last week boasting about how he helps Palestinian security forces find Palestinians who sell land to Jews.
In the hidden camera footage aired by Channel 2’s “Uvda” on Thursday night, Ezra Nawi can be seen boasting about how the Palestinian land owners are tortured and later killed after taken into custody by the Palestinian Authority’s Preventative Security Service.
“Straight away I give their pictures and phone numbers to the Preventive Security Force,” Nawi is heard saying in reference to the Palestinian Authority’s counterintelligence arm. “The Palestinian Authority catches them and kills them. But before it kills them, they get beat up a lot.”
The footage was part of a segment on Uvda about a group of Israelis who posed as far-left activists in order to infiltrate Israeli human rights NGOs working in the West Bank.
Guardian once praised Israeli ‘activist’ who helps kill Palestinians selling land to Jews
In 2009, the Guardian published an official editorial titled ‘In Praise of Ezra Nawi’.
Nawi is a Jewish Israeli ‘human rights activist’ with the group Ta’ayush, a “grassroots movement of Arabs and Jews working to break down the walls of racism and segregation”.
Prior to the editorial, the Guardian had published an op-ed by contributor Neve Gordon which was even effusive in its praise of the “pro-democracy, human rights activist”.
Fast forward to 2016.
Uvda, a respected news magazine on Israel’s Channel 2, just revealed that two Israeli “human rights activists” – including Ezra Nawi – bragged, in an exchange caught on film – that they “entrapped” Palestinians interested in selling land to Jews and subsequently turned them in to the Palestinian Authority.
Remarkably, they turned these Palestinians in even though they acknowledged – in the video secretly recorded by another NGO – that they likely faced torture or murder by the Palestinian secret police.
Haaretz outs IDF hero who infiltrated B'tselem, Ta'ayush
The Haaretz newspaper has exposed the alleged identity of the young man who infiltrated leftist groups as part of an investigative report that was aired on Channel 2 last week.
The man, who was planted in the leftist groups by a group called Ad Kan, recorded the most damning documentary materials aired on the show, by use of a hidden camera. His identity was kept secret on the show, and the IDF, too, refrained from making it public when he was awarded the Chief of Staff's citation for his courage in Operation Protective Edge.
According to the Channel 2 report, the man – who was referred to by the pseudonym "Arik," was the one who asked the IDF to keep his name secret, in order to make it possible for him to continue to infiltrate the leftist groups.
The investigative report has severely damaged the groups' image as being concerned with "human rights," by exposing that senior members of B'tselem and Ta'ayush have been informing on Arabs in Judea and Samaria who wish to sell land to Jews, in the knowledge that this leads to their arrest and torture by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which issues death sentences to people who sell land to Jews.

Friday, January 08, 2016

From Ian:

Reporter Calls Out Obama Admin for Living in Foreign Policy 'Fantasy World'
Discussing North Korea's recent claim that it tested a nuclear weapon, Lee posed this question to State Department spokesman John Kirby:
“Every time this happens, we hear from people in this administration, and other governments as well, that we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. And yet it is. You also say this about other things too. You say you will never accept Crimea as a part of Russia. And yet it is. Isn’t it time to recognize these things for what they are and not live in this illusion or fantasy where you pretend that things are, are not?”
Kirby astonishingly responds that "The short answer is no."
"It's preferable to live in a fantasy world?" Lee counters.
Kirby stumbled for a long awkward stretch before finally saying, "At this level of foreign policy, you know, you... you have to make choices. And uh, you don't have to accept everything, even at face value."
"You have to accept reality," Lee interjected.
"No. We're not going to accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. We're not going to recognize that. We are, however, going to deal with -"
AP’s Lee Calls Out Obama Administration For Living In A Fantasyland Of Their Foreign Policy Failures


Melanie Phillips: Turning enemies into friends and friends into foes
Last Tuesday, Iran unveiled a new underground missile depot, with state television showing Emad precision- guided missiles weapons that the US says are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Like its ballistic missile tests last October and November, these violate UN Security Council resolutions.
For this and other flagrant breaches of trust, the Obama administration has done nothing. Having suggested it would implement sanctions against the bodies it held responsible for aiding the missile program, it promptly retreated after a reported intervention by the State Department following Iranian objections.
Iran is confident that Obama will lift sanctions whatever the regime may do, since if Iran walks away from the nuclear deal this would strip away the figleaf of progress and destroy Obama’s presumed legacy. Consequently, the only binding part of this non-deal deal has become the lifting of sanctions. Obama has effectively become Iran’s hostage.
As a simultaneous consequence of this farce, the US has also lost its leverage over Saudi Arabia which almost certainly will now seek to develop or buy nuclear weapons of its own. To defuse this powder keg, the US should now cancel the Iranian nuclear deal. This would start to rein in Iran and bring Saudi Arabia down from the tree up which it has climbed.
It is said that Obama thought strengthening Shia Iran would produce a regional balance of power with Sunni Saudi Arabia, and usher in an era of peace and stability. Instead, he has pushed Iran and Saudi Arabia to the brink of war with each other, ushered in a nuclear arms race between the two and brought the world much closer to the edge of the apocalypse.
Awarding polemics
Olof Palme was a charismatic and well-spoken Social Democrat who became prime minister of Sweden in 1969. Palme was known for being both anti-American and anti-capitalist; and throughout his political career he fostered a close relationship to the Palestine Liberation Organization and became a personal friend of Yasir Arafat's, whom he invited to Sweden for numerous official visits. During Palme's time as prime minister, Swedish foreign policy was laced with a staunch anti-Zionism, and from then on, the Swedish government has given generous Swedish aid to the PLO.
After Palme's death in 1986, an award was created in his name, and every year the Olof Palme Prize, and the accompanying $75,000, is given to someone who is said to have done good work for human rights and democracy in the world. This year, the Palme Prize was awarded to Israeli journalist Gideon Levy and Palestinian Lutheran Bishop Mitri Raheb, for their "fight against occupation and violence," according to the jury.
Levy is a journalist at the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, and his attacks on Israel and the IDF are often published in Swedish media as a representation of middle-of-the-road sanity. Raheb is a pastor in the Lutheran church in Bethlehem who is known for preaching the so-called "replacement theology," wherein Christianity is believed to have replaced Judaism, making the Jewish faith -- and its claim to the Jewish homeland -- obsolete. Raheb is known across the world for his hate-propaganda toward Israel and the fact the he preaches a theology that nullifies any Jewish religious or historic heritage, including that of the land of Israel. These two men are being honored for their "courageous and indefatigable fight against occupation and violence, and for a future Middle East characterized by peaceful coexistence and equality for all," as the Olof Palme Memorial Fund phrased it in a statement released on Thursday. (h/t Yenta Press)

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Responsible for Torture
For the mainstream media and human rights organizations, human rights violations are news only when they come with a "made in Israel" sticker on them.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has used international aid funds to build prisons and detention centers in the West Bank where torture has become the norm.
Dr. Ammar Dwaik, Director General of the Independent Commission for Human Rights, a Palestinian group, revealed that his group received 782 complaints regarding torture -- 168 in the West Bank and 614 in the Gaza Strip.
Both Hamas and the PA each fears that in a free election it could lose some of its power. Why hold an election if you are not sure about the results?
Needed desperately: scrutiny of Palestinian society by international media and human rights groups -- beginning with Palestinian prisons. Anyone stepping up?
How not to help Palestinian children
Quite perversely, the PA nurtures an environment where children learn that attacking Israelis is somehow a noble cause. Palestinian youths grow up in streets bearing the names of Palestinian killers, and attend football stadia named after terrorist murderers. Terror groups instil hatred by indoctrinating children to achieve their political goals, whilst recruiting from amongst the young. Terrorists impress upon these malleable children their murderous and twisted ideology.
We must ask questions of the Israeli government on this issue and encourage them to make further improvements and where, as much as possible, ensure that the judicial system in the West Bank, mirrors that of the civilian system in Israel. Those are legitimate questions to ask and ones that will be willingly acknowledged in democratic Israel.
It is also important, however, to take an active role in encouraging Palestinian society to promote positive role models for children. Too many of those who take part in this debate have nothing to say on these issues, they never mention Palestinian incitement, and they refuse to hold the PA to account for its failings.
So long as advocates continue to ignore these issues, they are not helping Palestinian children. These children will just continue to be subjected to a poisonous stream of incitement and hate that manifests itself in 13 and 15 year old Palestinians walking the streets of Jerusalem with knives intent on stabbing innocent Israelis. This is an ideology that teaches children that if they die trying to killing innocent Israelis then they will be heroes, and possibly honoured with a school in their name! If those who claim to care about Palestinian youth really want to help then they must start asking tough and searching questions of the Palestinians, just as they do of Israel. Simply relying on the binary ‘Israel bad, Palestinians victims’ narrative risks condemning the next generation of Palestinians to a further cycle of hate and violence.
Tel Aviv gunman shot and killed in northern Israel
Nashat Milhem, the gunman who killed three Israelis last week in Tel Aviv, was shot and killed by Israeli forces in an exchange of fire in northern Israel on Friday afternoon.
He was located near his home in the Arara area. Initial reports said he had been “neutralized.” It was later confirmed that he had been killed.
Milhem was tracked down to the building where he was hiding out, and attempted to flee. During the chase, he opened fire on the forces, and was shot dead, Israeli security officials said.
Channel 2 reported that the Israeli forces, from an elite police unit, had sought to capture him alive, but were fired upon by Milhem, who was using the same weapon he used for last Friday’s shootings.
Channel 2 said he was tracked down to a building where his family had lived in the past.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and other Israeli leaders praised the security forces for the operation.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

From Ian:

US spied on Netanyahu during Iran deal talks, WSJ reports
The U.S. administration continued to spy on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even after U.S. President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program on friendly heads of state, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The NSA's foreign eavesdropping included phone conversations between top Israeli officials and U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing current and former U.S. officials.
White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Netanyahu's campaign against the nuclear deal with Iran, according to the unnamed officials cited by the Journal.
According to the report, NSA eavesdropping suggested to the White House that Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations, which they learned through Israeli spying operations.
The Journal reported that the NSA's "targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups."
Asked for comment on the Journal report, a White House National Security Council spokesman said: "We do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose. This applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike."
Israel: We don’t spy on US, and expect US not to spy on us
Intelligence and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz on Wednesday maintained that Israel does not spy on the US and said it expects Washington to uphold the same standards.
The Likud minister was responding to a report in The Wall Street Journal that said the White House instructed US spies to eavesdrop on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials earlier this year in an effort to counter campaigning against the Iran nuclear deal, despite having promised to curtail listening in on foreign leaders.
The National Security Agency’s spying dragnet was cast so wide it caught conversations Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders had with US officials and Jewish American leaders. This led to what one source called an “oh shit moment,” because of fears that “the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress,” according to the report.
“Israel does not spy on the US, and we expect that our great friend, the US, will treat us in a similar fashion,” Katz told the Ynet news website. “If the information on the subject turns out to be true, Israel must file a formal protest with the American government and demand it stop all activities of this kind.”
Nonetheless, Israel’s former ambassador the US Michael Oren said Wednesday that Israel assumes that the US, and others, attempt to spy on it. “It’s not very nice, but that is the assumption,” Oren, now a Kulanu MK, said on Channel 2.
If he had something absolutely confidential that he had to convey to the prime minister, Oren added, “I got on a plane.”
LISTENING IN: Congress reportedly caught up in NSA spying on Israelis
According to the paper, the enhanced monitoring of Netanyahu began, with the assent of lawmakers from both parties, late in Obama's first term out of concerns that the Israeli leader would pursue a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
The sweeping up of conversations between Israeli officials and U.S. lawmakers began in earnest earlier this year, ahead of a March visit to Capitol Hill by Netanyahu to speak out against the developing Iran nuclear deal, and continued through this past September, when the deadline for Congress to block the deal passed.
The Journal, citing U.S. officials, reported that Netanyahu's office repeatedly attempted to learn details about changes in U.S. positions during the sensitive nuclear talks. Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ron Derner, was described as coaching unnamed Jewish- American groups to press members of Congress, especially Democrats, to oppose the deal.

Monday, December 28, 2015

  • Monday, December 28, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
Hamas' Qassam Brigades announced that field commander Abdul Rahman Saleh, 29, of Khan Younis, was killed today after the collapse of a "resistance tunnel."

Here he is in happier times:


"Resistance tunnels" usually mean either tunnels under Gaza cities where weapons and explosives are hidden or tunnels being built towards Israel for kidnap operations. There are still a few tunnels that are used to smuggle weapons from Egypt, though, despite the crackdown by Egyptian authorities.

(h/t israelftw)


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Friday, December 25, 2015

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel’s homegrown enemies
Wednesday, as Israel’s entire rabbinical and political leadership stood as one and condemned the wedding guests who glorified Jewish terrorists on the video, Fatah – the terrorist group and political party led by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – published a post on its Facebook page praising the terrorist murderers who the same day killed two Israelis and critically wounded a third outside the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.
For counterterror and law enforcement bodies, fighting Jewish terrorism poses the same challenges as fighting Islamic terrorism. In both cases, the central challenge is to target and arrest terrorists and infiltrate their networks while continuing to respect the civil rights of the surrounding population.
In both cases, when investigators are contending with active terrorist networks, they are sometimes compelled to use unpleasant interrogation techniques.
As numerous courts, ministerial oversight committees and the Knesset have determined, these techniques are not torture. They are legitimate interrogation methods and they are used sparingly and only when they are required to protect the public from terrorists who target the innocent.
This brings us back to the wedding video and the difficulty we experience in accepting that Jewish terrorism exists, support for Jewish terrorism exists, and both need to be dealt with.
There can be little doubt that Jewish terrorism would be far easier to fight today if the Shin Bet and the state prosecutors had not made malicious use of agent provocateurs to demonize the national religious camp in the 1990s. So too, if IDF commanders and the civil administration were less quick to support anti-Israel European-funded NGOs against Jewish communal interests in Judea and Samaria today, community members would have less trouble believing the worst about Jewish extremists at the fringes of society. Indeed it would be far more difficult for overzealous defense attorneys to convince anyone that suspected terrorists have undergone torture.
But while the public has legitimate grounds for suspicion, it is no longer possible to dismiss the allegations of Jewish terrorism. There are members of the nationalist camp that wish to destroy Israel.
They are willing to commit terrorist attacks against Arabs as well as Jews to achieve their goals.
As a consequence, just as the vast majority of the public demands that the government take all necessary measures to destroy Palestinian terrorist groups, so the public must demand that the government destroy Jewish terrorist groups.
Just as we decry apologists for Palestinian terrorism, so we must shun apologists for Jewish terrorism.
 JPost Editorial: 100 days of terrorism
A number of media outlets have pointed out this week that we have marked 100 days since the beginning of the present wave of terrorism – some would call it an intifada.
On Rosh Hashana Eve, Alexander Levlovich, 64, of Jerusalem was murdered. Palestinians threw rocks at his car as he was on his way home from a festive dinner. He lost control and died of his wounds.
Ever since, vehicular attacks, rock throwing, firebombings, stabbings and shootings have murdered at least 24 Israelis and wounded at least 260. And no end is in sight.
On Thursday there were several incidents: One Israeli was lightly hurt in an attempted car-ramming near Adam junction; two security guards were wounded, one seriously, in a stabbing in the Ariel industrial park; and soldiers were attacked by a Palestinian wielding a screwdriver in Hebron.
No deterrents seem to exist to stop these lone-wolf Palestinians terrorists, many of whom are very young. At the beginning of this present wave many in the security establishment hoped that potential terrorists could be deterred. The thinking was that if the young Palestinian man or woman contemplating carrying out a terrorist attack were to know that there was a nearly a 100 percent certainty that he or she would be killed either before, during or immediately after the knifing or car-ramming, he or she would refrain from carrying out the attack. Politicians, police officers and IDF officers called on Israelis with guns to carry them and to shoot to kill if they happened upon a terrorist attack. They believed this would strengthen deterrence.
Unfortunately, over the past 100-plus days it has been made abundantly clear that this thinking was hopelessly unrealistic.
2015: A turning point in WWIII
Islamism tested its fire before 2001, with bombings of American and French targets in Beirut in 1983 and of the Paris metro in 1995, but those were not clearly part of a quest to seize history and subdue the world. The September 11 attacks were.
Having that day taken its attack as deep into enemy territory as it could possibly imagine – crossing the ocean and reaching for the sole superpower’s political, financial and military nerve centers – Islamism soon kindled fires around the globe: from Madrid (2004), London (2005) and Moscow (2010), to Bali (2002), Ottawa (2014) and Timbuktu (2015).
In this regard, the elapsing year’s 11 attacks in France, Denmark, Australia and the US; a 12th on a Russian civilian flight; and about a hundred others in Nigeria, the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan, don’t constitute a turning point, since they merely intensified what had been long under way. Rather, the turning point was psychological.
The year that began with the murders of journalists in their Parisian office and ended with massacres of Californian health workers and Parisian rock fans, pedestrians and café sitters has made millions this side of the war understand their role in it: they are targets.
This realization was underscored by the war’s procession from the air, where it was announced in 2001, and the land, where it subsequently spread, to the sea, where a Muslim multitude fleeing a burning Middle East now approached Christendom’s shores.
Conspiracy theories, that this migration was masterminded by Islamist strategists, are far-fetched. Moreover, the exodus is the historic fault of post-colonial Europe, which ingratiated the Arab autocrats who let their societies degenerate and their economies rot.
In 2015 the victims of this legacy came knocking on Europe’s doors only to be suspected as agents of the Islamist wrath that European passivity had helped breed.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: The 2015 Dishonest Reporting Awards
The year began with Islamic terror in Paris, but was dominated by the Iranian nuclear talks and strained US-Israeli ties. A wave of Palestinian stabbing and car-ramming attacks began with the Jewish new year. As 2015 draws to a close, Islamic terror has struck the West again, with Paris suffering even more bloodshed.
The 2015 Dishonest Reporting Awards
1. Best Reason to Handle Palestinian Sources With Care: The Gaza Flood Libel
2. Most Bigoted Journalist: Kitty Holland
3. Worst Abuse of Anonymous Sources: Haaretz
4. Smear of the Year: Fareed Zakaria
5. Most Unholy Row: New York Times
6. Great Moments in Self-Embellishing: Brian Williams
7. Dumbest Twitter Rant: Jim Clancy
8. Most Maddening Map Misrepresentation: MSNBC
And who is the overall Dishonest Reporter of 2015? We’ll announce that next week, so stay tuned! Without further ado, here are the runner-up winners.
NGO Monitor: Deck the Halls with Exploitation: How Anti-Peace NGOs Abuse and Misuse the Message of Christmas
Similar to previous years, many politicized NGOs and well-known charities have been exploiting the 2015 Christmas season with anti-peace campaigns, some of which glorify terrorism.
Groups such as Sabeel (funded by Sweden, via Diakonia, and the Netherlands via ICCO and Kerk in Actie), War on Want (funded by UK, EU, and Ireland), Adalah-NY, Kairos Palestine, and Amos Trust are again using religious and holiday themes to demonize Israel. These organizations utilize inflammatory and offensive rhetoric in their Christmas carols, holiday messages, appeals, and religious imagery.
At the same time, their messages strip the context, omitting references to deadly Palestinian terrorism and other violence against Israelis. They fail to condemn the escalation of attacks against civilians in the last quarter of 2015 – stabbings, car rammings, and drive-by shootings. For example, many of these so-called Christmas messages allege that the security barrier causes harm to Palestinians, while failing to mention its role in protecting civilians against terror attacks.
The abuse of Christmas messages is part of a broad international campaign of political warfare conducted against Israel in some churches. Palestinian Christian NGOs, such as Sabeel and Kairos Palestine, provide the theological and ideological frameworks for these attacks.
In Christmas message, Abbas calls on world to protect Palestinians from Israel
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday accused Israel of continuing to “consolidate an Apartheid regime by accelerating policies which destroy the two-state solution.”
Abbas’s latest accusation came in a “Christmas Message” in which he repeated other charges against Israel, such as the construction of an “Annexation Wall” and the uprooting of “historic olive trees” near Bethlehem.
“Jesus is a symbol for all Palestinians,” Abbas said. “Palestine and its people take pride in being the birthplace of Christianity and having the oldest Christian community in the world.”

From Ian:

Why Palestinians Love Baby-Killers
Samir Kuntar murdered four Israelis. One of his victims was a four-year-old girl, Einat Haran. Kuntar smashed her skull. Kuntar was killed this week in Syria while helping President Bashar Assad commit war crimes against his own citizens.
Senior Palestinian official Sultan Abu Al-Einein evidently believes that murdering Jews is not a "despicable crime," but killing an arch-terrorist such as Kuntar is a "despicable crime."
When the Western-backed Palestinian Authority openly endorses terrorists and names streets, squares and schools after them, Palestinian leaders are sending a message to their people that murdering Jews is a noble and dignified act. This show of solidarity with a baby-killer is the direct result of ongoing incitement against Israel and Jews in mosques, the press and social media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In this sick, twisted society that the Europeans have bought and paid for, anyone who murders Jews is considered a role model. Anyone who supports peace with Israel is denounced as a "traitor."
Douglas Murray: The Establishment Is In Denial — Yet Again
Worst was in the wake of November’s atrocity in Paris when the story went around from the Wall Street Journal to the Huffington Post and the Daily Mail that one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France football stadium had been stopped and turned away by a Muslim security guard called Zouheir. The story was reported around the world and heralded across social media. Amid a night of bloodshed which allegedly had nothing to do with Islam here was a security guard who had everything to do with Islam saving hundreds of lives. This seemed such a good meme that it became one of the most popular “stories” of the night on Twitter. Except that it turned out — as the BBC was unusual in being good enough to concede — that the tale was fabricated. There was a guard in the stadium of unknown religion called Zouheir but he had been elsewhere on the night and had not seen any bombers. He had relayed part of a colleague’s story to a reporter. Why had this all become about him? For the simple reason that people wanted it to be.
The point is that all these things are varieties of self-distraction. They are things we have set up to stop us coming to the conclusions based on the evidence before us. Parliament discusses sending a few planes to bomb IS, but is aware that this minimal action could cause maximal pain at home. The media reports the terrorist attacks while scouring to find a news story that will show Muslims in a good light.
Many worthy sentiments may be mixed up in all this. But at the root of them, living through them and watching this doubt from the top to the bottom, it is hard not to reflect that we are living in the in-between years. At some point the atrocities will come here again and only then will we again be able to see that these years were largely wasted.
Ted Cruz to Obama: Shut Down DC's Terror-Supporting Palestinian Office
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is demanding that the Obama administration close the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) office in Washington for “celebrating the murder of Jews,” “glorification of terrorism,” and paying salaries to jailed Palestinian terrorists.
The United States government has an obligation to publicly denounce the PLO’s actions and should immediately revoke its waiver,” reads a letter signed by 30 Republican lawmakers and sent to Secretary of State John Kerry by Cruz and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC).
The letter, released Monday, further states that Israel has “seen a dramatic increase in deadly attacks carried out by Palestinians sympathetic to the message of hatred and intolerance proclaimed by leaders” of the PLO.
The PLO has been banned by Congress from maintaining a D.C. office. However, the legislation allowed the president to temporarily waive the requirement and since 1994 this waiver has been in effect.
But Republican lawmakers are insisting that the waiver be revoked due to a string of terrorist attacks “directly connected to the Palestinian government’s teaching of hate and glorification of terrorism.”
US State Department rejects lawmakers' calls to close PLO office
State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau confirmed that the department had received the letter and said Kerry would respond to it.
"We believe that closing the PLO office would be detrimental to our ongoing efforts to calm tensions between Israeli's and Palestinians, advance a two-state solution and strengthen the US-Palestinian partnership," Trudeau told reporters.
She said every US administration since 1994 had used the waiver to keep the PLO office open.
"We believe the PLO has a valid place ... and we'd oppose those efforts" to close the office," Trudeau said, adding that Kerry had condemned the attacks.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

From Ian:

The United States and Islam: What Is Going On?
The irony is that no major power in recent history has gone out of its way as has the United States to help, respect, please and, yes, appease Islam. And, yet, no other nation has been a victim of vilification, demonization, and violence on the part of the Islamists as has the U.S.
The politically correct crowd has turned Islam into a new taboo. They brand any criticism of Islam as racist, ethnocentrist or simply vile, all crammed together in the new category of "Islamophobia." Is it Islamophobia to question a religion whose Middle East leaders often preach "Death to America" and hatred for Western values?
More prevalent than Islamophobia is Islamophilia, as leftists treat Muslims as children whose feathers should not be ruffled. The Islamophilia crowd invites Americans and Europeans to sacrifice part of their own freedom in atonement of largely imaginary sins against Muslims in the colonial and imperialist era.
Many Muslims resent the kind of flattery that takes them for idiots at a time that Islam and Muslims badly need to be criticized. The world needs to wake up and ask: What is going on?
Why Western Leaders Refuse to Call Jihadist Terror by Name
Above all, we should never say that upholding Western values like universal human rights, even by force in some cases, is sometimes desperately needed by those many Others who suffer oppression, violence, terror and genocide.
Ask Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a Yazidi woman who recently testified before the UN Security Council about her unimaginably brutal treatment at the hands of the Islamic State. She pleaded with the council to intervene. I doubt that Taha would agree with gender theorist Judith Butler that jihadi movements like, say, Hamas, should be considered part of the “global left.”
Some observers – many in Israel – believe that now that terrorism has struck Paris and California, the West will wake up and realize that democratic values need active defense. But it’s doubtful whether such optimism is warranted. When the democracies’ immune systems are so slow to wake up from their beauty sleep, democracy’s enemies fill the vacuum. When the political left and center are so preoccupied with cleansing their own conscience, the extreme right rises in their stead.
This is true in the international arena, where reactionary powers like Russia and Iran are filling the void that the Obama administration has left in the Middle East. Meanwhile, in domestic politics, people like Marine Le Pen or Donald Trump are poised to reap the sour fruits of public fears.
Those who have been so careful not to criticize the Other because of their inflated fears of being labeled bigots have opened the door to real bigots. It’s doubtful whether they have rendered good services either to themselves or the Others they proclaim so loudly to care about.
PMW findings used to confront PA officials
A delegation of Australian and British politicians visiting Israel and the Palestinian Authority used Palestinian Media Watch's findings to challenge and question PA officials. After confronting the PA officials, Australian MP Glenn Sterle "strongly recommended a briefing from Palestinian Media Watch before any meetings with the PA," The Jerusalem Post reported.
The Australian and British delegation had heard a presentation by PMW director Itamar Marcus, which, among other things, documented the PA's practice of glorifying terrorists who have killed Israeli civilians. After the PMW presentation, the delegation met with PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and PA Minister of Education Sabri Saidam. The British and Australian delegates confronted and questioned the PA officials about the PA practice of naming schools and sporting events after terrorists and their educating Palestinian children and youth to hate Israelis and Jews.
PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah denied that any schools in the West Bank are named after terrorists, despite the fact that PMW has clearly documented this. Hamdallah even "defend[ed] the practice of 'honoring' terrorist-suicide bombers," Australian MP Glenn Sterle said. Hamdallah had further told the delegation to "check their information." [The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 15, 2015]
After the meeting with the Australian-British delegation, the PA Minister of Education Dr. Sabri Saidam said that he "was surprised by the group's 'explosive, blunt and rude' questions about Palestine's education system." "There was a lot of incitement I would say on behalf of the delegation meaning or implying that the Palestinians are the ones terrorizing Israel," Saidam said. He complained that Australian Federal Industry Minister Christopher Pyne had not discussed education with him but instead about "political difficulties." Minister Saidam stated that Minister Pyne "had a list of questions and they were misinformed." [SBS News, Dec. 16, 2015]

Thursday, December 17, 2015

From Ian:

More Lies from Abbas about The "Intifada"
We still have never encountered even one case where a terrorist complained about the absence of a two-state solution. Also, contrary to Abbas's claim, none of the terrorists has ever complained about checkpoints or settlements. This latest wave of terrorism is not about "despair," unemployment, poor living conditions or freedom of movement. Instead, it is another attempt by Palestinian "youths" to eliminate Israel, again using the false excuse that Jews are "desecrating" and "destroying" Islamic holy sites.
A review of the Facebook accounts of most of the terrorists shows that their main intention was to murder as many Jews as possible in order to become "martyrs" -- to impose a reign of terror Jews, to force them to leave Israel.
Abbas is well aware that the "youths" are not complaining about the "occupation." The "occupation" these " youths" have a problem with is the one that began with the creation of Israel in 1948.
A new generation of Palestinians has once again been deceived into believing that the Jews are plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Al-Aqsa Mosque stands, as always, unharmed in its place.
UN Watch: Paris attacks: UN official blames US, West & Israel; “They came to us because we went to them”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the UN ambassadors of the U.S., UK, France, and Germany, must condemn a UN Human Rights Council official for his offensive and morally perverse essay blaming last month’s Paris attacks on the U.S., Western colonialism, capitalism, and “Israeli settlers” — and implicitly justifying them as “a response to grave injustices and ongoing abuses perpetrated by the dominant, primarily developed countries, against populations of less developed countries.”
Leading figures at the United Nations need to condemn the remarks. Indeed, the UN chief had done so in a virtually-identical case in 2013, when in a blog post former UN expert Richard Falk similarly blamed the Boston Marathon terror attacks on “American global domination” and “Tel Aviv.”
The UN Secretary-General must publicly reject Mr. De Zayas’ highly offensive comments, and clarify that no grievance, real or imagined, could ever justify the horrific terrorist attacks that killed 130 innocent people in Paris, wounding hundreds more. To grant even the slightest exoneration to the Islamic State and its criminal perpetrators is to insult the memory of the victims.
The UN Secretary-General must remind all special rapporteurs of the need to understand that while they have independent status, their public comments — when the so-called attempt to “understand” terrorism crosses the line into moral exoneration — can undermine the work and credibility of the United Nations.
Sadly, with the Human Rights Council’s democratic credentials about to sink to the lowest level ever — only 38% of the incoming 2016 membership will be free democracies — we fear more appointments of UN rights experts who will serve as apologists for dictators and terrorism, adding to existing figures like De Zayas, Jean Ziegler and Idriss Jazairy.
Saudi Shura Council Member Al-Buleihi: Arab Culture Immersed in Violence and Hatred of the Other
In a recent TV interview, Saudi Shura Council member Ibrahim Al-Buleihi said: "We produce this kind of people [who carried out the Paris attacks and 9/11], this kind of hostility." "We are immersed in this violence, because we are immersed in the hatred of the other," he said in the interview, which aired on December 5 on Al-Arabiya TV. While the West is not perfect, "the Westerners are apologizing today for what their forefathers did, whereas we are still praising the conquests and raids [of early Islam]," said Al-Buleihi.


Wednesday, December 09, 2015

From Ian:

Terrorist privilege
Two people take 14 lives in California.
Fourteen beautiful people: A woman from Iran, another woman whose family fled Vietnam, a Mexican man. They slaughter the diversity that makes America great. These victims did community service and cared for others.
And what happens? The murderers almost become the victims in the narrative.
No one protests against the extremism and hatred the perpetrators had for others. No one is particularly angry at them. People are outraged at gun laws.
Newspapers run editorials about guns.
A newspaper bashes politicians for offering prayers. US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump makes an outrageously discriminatory remark about Muslim immigrants, and suddenly he is accused of being the reason that “jihadists demonize the US.” There is more anger about climate change and the rise of Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Front Nationale in France than there is hatred for the perpetrators and ideology behind the Paris attacks.
Douglas Murray: ‘Victim blaming’ after terrorist attacks is a pernicious new trend
The term ‘victim blaming’ is most commonly used to describe people who claim that a woman walking out in a short skirt is ‘asking to be raped.’ But even this claim is not quite as gut-wrenching as the claim that some people are ‘asking to be killed’ or once killed are effectively ‘guilty of their own murder.’
This most malicious form of ‘victim blaming’ was rolled out in the American press at the weekend by the interestingly named Linda Stasi. In a column in Saturday’s New York Daily News Ms Stasi wrote about one of the 14 people massacred in an Isis-inspired attack in San Bernardino, California (a terrorist attack so terrible that it has made even President Obama admit that a certain type of terrorism might exist. Anyhow – Ms Stasi’s piece is a quite remarkable exhibit on the moral insanity of our time.
Last week after having apparently pledged allegiance to Isis, a husband and wife called Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook walked into a party at Farook’s own workplace in San Bernardino and began gunning down the guests. The couple – now designated as ‘terrorists’ by officials – were then killed in a shoot-out with police. A subsequent search of their home turned up an arsenal of weaponry. So far so bad. But these are strange and confusing times for some people, and Ms Stasi is perhaps the most confused of all.
Little girl demonstrates art of stabbing: “Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!”
Palestinian Media Watch documents the Palestinian Authority and Fatah leadership's messages to its population, showing both the PA ideology as well as how it directs the population to act. The current Palestinian terror wave is an excellent example of how the Palestinian population has responded to the leadership's message. Mahmoud Abbas and other PA leaders sparked the current terror and violence by frequently reiterating the PA libel that Israel is planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and they called on Palestinians to "defend it," "bless[ed] every drop of blood spilled" for it, "congratulated" the murderers and much more. Responding to the call, and following the praise and support from PA and Fatah leaders, among them Abbas, who referred to stabbings as "peaceful popular uprising," Palestinians are - independent of the leadership - inciting to murder on social media, including encouraging people to slit the throats of Jews, and committing murder themselves.
The following are examples of social media murder promotion by Palestinians on Facebook.
One video shows a little girl glorifying stabbing. She is asked:
Man: "What do you tell [Palestinian] youth in the West Bank?"
Girl demonstrates with a long knife: "Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!"

[Facebook page of the Jerusalem Intifada's Young People Coalition, Nov. 12, 2015]
Video on Palestinian Facebook page - Little girl encourages stabbing Jews


Sunday, December 06, 2015

From Ian:

Why does the British Royal Family visit Saudi Arabia but not Israel?
A trip to Jerusalem by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1994 illustrates some of the difficulties.
His mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, is buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and Prince Phillip went to visit her grave.
The princess is revered in Israel because she opened the doors of her Athens palace to a Jewish family seeking refuge from the Nazis during the Second World War.
She is counted as one of the "Righteous Among Nations", an Israeli title given to those who saved Jews from Nazi death camps. Today, she is honoured at Israel’s national Holocaust memorial alongside Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who rescued hundreds of Jews and inspired the film Schindler’s List.
But despite Israel’s warm feelings towards his mother, Buckingham Palace said the Duke’s visit was private and he was not there in an official capacity.
The contorted explanation mirrors Jerusalem’s own tortured geography. The Mount of Olives is in the eastern side of the city, which Israel captured in 1967. Israel claims East Jerusalem as part of its “complete and united” capital, but Britain considers the area to be occupied territory.
Any Royal visit would also have to be balanced by meetings with the Palestinian Authority, which brings a new set of sensitivities. Boris Johnson discovered the possible pitfalls last month when he was forced to cancel meetings in the West Bank after angering Palestinians by denouncing calls for a boycott of Israeli goods.
Some Israelis have long believed that the Foreign Office blocks any Royal visits because of its supposed domination by Arabist diplomats.
Legal Insurrection: Matisyahu rocks Ithaca – Huge Win for Artistic Freedom
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has been targeting American Reggae musician Matisyahu because he is Jewish and refuses to denounce Israel.
In the summer of 2015 an international firestorm of controversy erupted after BDS succeeded in getting Matisyahu banned at the Spanish Rototom Reggae festival. The ban was reversed only after an international outcry, including denunciations by the Spanish government and a leading Spanish newspaper that the action amounted to religious discrimination.
So when Matisyahu booked an appearance in Ithaca, NY, as part of his world tour, it was not long before the local BDS crowd, including our own BDS “star,” sought a boycott of the event and planned a protest.
But it didn’t work.
There was a substantial backlash in favor of artistic freedom. Ithaca resident Linda Glaser wrote a powerful op-ed in The Ithaca Journal, Let Jewish artist perform in Ithaca:
Artistic freedom is the right of every American, as it is based on the First Amendment right of freedom of speech. The Ithaca Coalition for Unity and Cooperation in the Middle East (ICU-CME) supports the right of American musician Matisyahu to perform and to be heard free from intimidation at the State Theatre of Ithaca.
Untrue statements are being spread by the Ithaca Committee for Justice in Palestine about Matisyahu to justify their discrimination against him. Because he is a prominent Jewish artist who refuses to take an anti-Zionist position, BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) supporters around the world are attempting to block his cultural and artistic expression.
As Matisyahu has said, “I have always believed in the power of music to unite all people, regardless of religion, politics or geography.”
We urge the Ithaca community to stand for artistic freedom and reject the boycott of American musician Matisyahu.

I attended the concert last night, and it was great.
Mordechai Kedar: There is a partner
In addition, Israel has to remain in control in the villages and surrounding areas of Judea and Samaria in order to prevent the formation of a terrorist contiguity uniting the discrete city-emirates, but Israel can then offer citizenship to the residents of these villages who make up only about 10% of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria. The other 90% can stay in their independently run city-states.
These are the broad parameters of a program based on the "partner" to be found in each city-emirate, the natural, traditional leadership of the large clans in each city. Israel must negotiate with each emirate and reach an agreement with each one on the issues of electricity, water, waste, roads, industry, agriculture, traffic, security, the use of ports and airspace, and the boundary lines of each. If the emirates wish to form a federation, so be it. That doesn't pose a problem as long as their territories are not allowed to be contiguous.
The PLO, the organization that runs the Palestinian Authority, never agreed to the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state, and is therefore not a partner for peace. Israel, however, has a partner in each Judea and Samaria city. Israel must bring about the collapse of the PLO and PA, the two entities preventing a lasting peace agreement with the residents of Judea and Samaria, who will then be able to establish thriving emirates on the lines of Dubai, if not even better.
The PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad want only wars, death and destruction, while peace between Israel and the Emirates will lead to growth and prosperity.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

From Ian:

PMW: Palestinian women are unique, make "cries of joy" upon son's death, says PA minister
The Palestinian Authority Minister of Women's Affairs, Haifa Al-Agha, who is herself a woman, recently praised Palestinian women pointing out their "uniqueness" compared to all the other women of the world because they rejoice upon the news of the death of their sons:
"[PA] Minister of Women's Affairs Haifa Al-Agha... noted the Palestinian woman's uniqueness, which differentiates her from the women of the world, as [only] she receives the news of her son's Martyrdom with cries of joy." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 7, 2015]
This official PA promotion of Martyrdom (Shahada - Death for Allah) as an ideal and the praise of mothers who do not show sorrow but make "cries of joy" when their sons die, was voiced by the PA minister during the current wave of terror attacks. Many young Palestinians have been killed as they stabbed or attempted to stab Israelis. By praising mothers for their "cries of joy," Minister Al-Agha is sending a message to PA society to attack Israelis without fear of death because Martyrdom for Allah is said to be the highest value and highest achievable status.
The minister also added that Palestinian women are noteworthy not only because they celebrate death but because they fight as well:
The death knell for Women's Studies
The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) has just voted to support a boycott of…ISIS.
No, just joking. The boycott is against Israel - only.
The recommendation was developed in 2014 by Feminists for Justice in Palestine and draws on a “transnational, intersectional feminist framework” which emphasizes an “indivisible sense of justice.”
Please don’t ask me to explain such self-important and obscure language.
The good news: Although NWSA claims that, in 2014, 2500 of their members “stood in unison in support of freedom and justice in Palestine,” in late November of 2015, only 35% of the voting membership (or 653 members) bothered to vote.
JCPA: Amb. Alan Baker: 10 Things to Know about the UN Partition Vote of November 29, 1947
1. It was a historic resolution that expressed the then-prevailing view of most of the major states of the United Nations, which voted in favor of it.
2. It established the principle of two states for two peoples.
3. It recognized the uniqueness of Jerusalem and the Jewish people’s bond to the city.
4. Had the Arabs agreed to live with the resolution as the Israelis did, despite its drawbacks from the standpoint of both sides, we would be in a different situation today with far fewer bereaved families on both sides.
5. Because of the Arabs’ rejection of it and in light of their decision to fight its implementation, the resolution has not assumed any validity except for the historical symbolism of its basic content.
6. The significance of its nonimplementation is that all the previously existing historical and legal rights as recognized by the Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate, and the San Remo Resolution have remained in force.
7. From that time to the present, negotiation mechanisms prescribed by Resolution 242 (1967), the Camp David accords (1979), and the Oslo agreements (1993-1999) have not been completed and no solution has been agreed upon.
8. Therefore, all the claims about Israel’s rights (and also, of course, about the Arabs’ rights) are still valid and remain unchanged until agreement on a permanent settlement is reached.
9. Therefore, any assertion by the United Nations and the Europeans about the territory belonging to the Palestinians in fact contravenes the symbolic basis of the partition resolution.
10. The time has come for the states to recognize this and stop contravening that symbolic basis.

Friday, November 27, 2015

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Lessons from the Pollard saga
It warns us that while secretaries of state proclaim their eternal concern and friendship for Israel, there are officials whispering in their ears that Israel is the source of instability in the Middle East and that due to the support Israel enjoys from American Jewry, America’s ability to secure its interests in the Middle East is impaired. The weaker both US Jewry and Israel are, the better off America will be, they are told.
Unfortunately, more often than not, when Israelis aren’t pretending that these forces don’t exist, they tend to view them as all-powerful.
So it is that the same Israeli officials – again, predominately on the Left – who insist that Israel can trust US security guarantees because the US will never waver in its commitment to Israel, also insist that Israel must never act in opposition to the US. So long as the US opposes destroying Iran’s nuclear installations, Israel, they insist, must not raise a finger against them.
So long as the US supports a Palestinian state, they insist that Israel must carry on as if the so-called two-state solution is possible, let along good for Israel.
Obviously, both positions are simplistic and wrong. For the past 30 years, as Pollard suffered in prison, and Israel’s position in the US remained under constant assault by its opponents in the bureaucracy, Israel’s relations with the US expanded and deepened. The level of US popular support for Israel has grown from year to year.
Pollard’s story tells us that we need to grow up. The US is a great ally, but our alliance with America is no substitute for national power.
As an ally, we should take US concerns into account where we can, and act independently where we must. Pollard’s case was a great victory for our enemies in Washington. And they will score additional ones in the future. But so will our friends. And so will we.
November 29: The Day the UN Stands With the Palestinians and Demonizes Israel
There is no other UN subsidiary committee or UN day of solidarity specifically designated to advance the political cause of one people over another. This committee is yet more proof such double standards against Israel persist and are sanctioned by an official UN event in New York.
The Day is also a catalyst for highly politicized non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to amplify their support for anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestments, and sanctions) movement and other hostile campaigns. Many of these NGOs, which receive extensive funding from European governments, also regularly exploit UN forums and judicial processes to accuse Israel of “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity,” and other alleged violations of international law.
For example, in 2013, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which prides itself on seeking to create “a wedge” within the American Jewish community over support for Israel, marked the occasion by escalating efforts to boycott Israeli company SodaStream. Similarly, Palestinian NGO Al Mezan co-signed a letter accusing Israel of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” while calling on “UN member states to vote in favor of any resolution that would recognize Palestinian statehood.” Al Mezan is funded, directly and indirectly, by Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, the European Union, Norway, Germany, the UN Development Programme, and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund.
In 2012, a dozens of NGOs including Al Mezan, Al-Haq, Badil, Defence for Children International-Palestine — all of which are heavily funded by European donors — participated in a World Social Forum entitled “Free Palestine” held in Brazil. The four-day forum, which overlapped with November 29, included panels on “the right to return,” “international law and human rights,” “popular resistance,” and “the case of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.” Tellingly, the conference did not center on obtaining Palestinian statehood, but rather lamented the “narrowing of the Palestinian struggle to the West Bank only.”
While November 29 recalls the implications of UN resolutions from 40 and 70 years ago, we should also bear in mind another momentous event from the Fall of 1945. On October 24, the UN was founded at Lake Success, New York, to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.” As the UN and NGOs prepare to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians by demonizing Israel and denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination, they and their donors should consider the extent to which they contribute to the exploitation of sacred and universal principles.
On November 30, Remember the Jewish Refugees Expelled from Arab Lands
On June 23, 2014, the Israeli Knesset passed a law designating November 30 as an official date in the calendar to remember the uprooting of almost one million Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran.
The date was chosen to recall the day after the UN passed the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine. Following bloodcurdling threats by Arab leaders, violence erupted against Jewish communities all across the Mideast. The riots resulted in the mass exodus of Jews from the Arab world, the seizure of their property and assets, and the destruction of their millennarian, pre-Islamic communities. In 1979, the Islamic revolution resulted in the exodus of four-fifths of the Iranian-Jewish community.
Refugees are much in the news these days. Until the mass population displacement caused by the wars in Iraq and Syria, however, the world thought that ‘Middle Eastern refugee’ was synonymous with ‘Palestinian refugee.’ Yet there were more Jews displaced from Arab countries than Palestinians (850,000, as against 711,000 according to UN figures.)
The Jewish refugee issue is more than simply a question to be resolved at the negotiating table. It is a symptom of the Arab and Muslim world’s deep psychosis — an inability to tolerate the non-Arab, non-Muslim Other.
Today, both Muslim sects and non-Muslim minorities are being persecuted in the Middle East, but people are apt to forget that the Jews were one of the first. As the saying goes, “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.” And it does not stop there. A state that devours its minorities ends up devouring itself.
PreOccupiedTerritory: UN: Jacob Used Excessive Force In Encounter With Angel (satire)
The United Nations Human Rights Council ordered an investigation into the behavior of the patriarch Jacob this afternoon, saying that evidence raises serious questions over his use of what appears to be unnecessary force in an episode of combat with a man who turned out to be an angel.
In a unanimous vote, the Council decided to conduct an inquiry into the violent encounter, which occurred after Jacob crossed back over the Yabbok River to retrieve some remaining possessions from his family’s previous camp location. The Council noted that it was unnecessary to keep fighting all night, since, as it turned out, the angel only wanted to hurt Jacob’s thigh.
“Defending himself for hours and hours, as alleged – until dawn, according to documentary evidence – constitutes a violation of the principle of proportionality,” said a statement by the Council. “The fact that Jacob’s opponent had to beg to be released at dawn appears to indicate that Jacob used unnecessary force. The goal of self-defense would have been equally well served without the patently vindictive tactic of restraining the angel when he had all but surrendered.”

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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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