Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 23, 2014

01/23 Links Pt2: UK MP again diminishes Holocaust Memorial Day, David Baddiel on the "Quenelle"

From Ian:

David Ward MP *again* diminishes Holocaust Memorial Day

This time last year, David Ward MP was censured by his own party, the Liberal Democrats, after claiming that, “the [liberated] Jews” were inflicting similar atrocities on the Palestinian people. Ward at the time continued to dig deeper, and has landed himself square in an anti-Semitic hole, having issued many statements over the course of the last year to similar effect.
His comments about Israel not lasting forever saw him suspended from his party, while recently, and bizarrely, he gave a brief history lesson on Twitter, stating as if it were a new fact, that the Palestinians were not responsible for the Holocaust.
So little wonder that today, Ward took a stand once again, in great offence to the memory of those millions killed during the Holocaust, to somehow juxtapose the political point of the Palestinian right of return, with Holocaust Memorial Day, officially observed in Britain on Monday 27th January this year.

Israeli song a hit in Yemen

A song from an Israeli singer with Yemenite roots – but who has never visited the country – has become a surprise hit in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, the Economist reported on Tuesday.
Zion Golan's song "Sana’a al-Yemen" is frequently heard blaring from stereos and minibus speakers. "Come with me to Sanaa," Golan sings in Yemeni Arabic. "Sanaa, my home, you'll like it."
But although the lyrics refer to Sana’a as home, Golan has never been there. As an Israeli Jew he is forbidden to travel to Yemen.

Saudi Columnist: The Number of Ariel Sharon’s Victims is Nowhere Near That of Arab Rulers

Saudi Arabian columnist Khalaf Al-Harbi recently published an article in the Saudi government daily Okaz, claiming that despite the “horrific acts of massacre” former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon carried out, the number of Arabs he killed is nowhere near that of those who died at the hands of Arab rulers, especially since the onset of the Arab Spring, according to MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, on Wednesday.
MEMRI said the article was published on January 13, on the occasion of Sharon’s funeral. In the article, as well as pointing out the great number of Arab deaths due to Arab rulers, in Syria and Lebanon, Al-Harbi said that Zionists who had once claimed “Arabs as a barbaric people” were proven right by “a reality that exceeds imagination,” including “decapitations, bombing houses with explosive barrels, the rape of women, and the expulsion of millions of innocent civilians.” (h/t dabney_c)

Fisking Jeff Halper's diatribe at St. James

A few weeks ago, when St. James Church in London held their wall stunt, I posted an eyewitness account by Amie of the debate that was held there between Alan Johnson of BICOM and Jeff Halper, extreme anti-Israel leftist:

Alan Johnson of Bicom spoke brilliantly; cogently articulating the case for the wall as a security issue. His rhetorical devices were masterly, as he spoke of the realities of the actual wall as against the never never world of the pretend wall, which in turn facilitated the calcification of the intellectual wall which refused to recognise the reality of the need for the real wall.

He cited famous harrowing instances of bombing and terror.

He showed graphs of how the level of terror decreased dramatically after the wall.

He cited last week's abortive bus bombing where the terrorists had got through a breach in the wall, from Bethlehem.

When he finished, (to a good round of applause from the substantial pro Israel presence there.)

Jeff Halper, the next speaker, opened his mouth wide and bellowed: This wall has NOTHING to do with security.

And without his having to say a single thing more to back up or verify this bellow, the hall erupted into cheers and applause.

Since then, Amie has gotten the recording of the session and of Halper's accusations against Israel and his frantic attempts to change the topic however he could.

Her fisking of Halper is at Harry's Place. Here are some highlights:

For starters, Halper was having none of Alan Johnson’s complexity: After his klaxoned opening that the wall “has nothing to do with security, he declared: there’s no both sides here, there’s no complexity”. What then, is his simple truth?

“I reject the idea of complexity, I think it is absolutely clear there is an occupation.. “

Alas for Alan Johnson’s warning against reductivism, Halper’s reductivism wows the crowd. But then comes something more insiduous than reductivism. It is what I once termed the Tonge manoeuvre. ... just to mention something is to establish something; provided it is the favoured person doing the mentioning. I now have Halper’s exact words, thanks to the transcript:

The wall – and if you want to talk about terrorism – you talk about cluster bombs used by Israel – you talk about anti-personnel weapons, you talk about tungsten based weapons that melt your insides, if you want to talk about Palestinian children with wounds that even doctors can’t figure out, talk about Flechettes – they’re like little razors like swords thousands of them going through the air and chopping limbs off. You wanna talk about terrorism, well let’s talk about terrorism, let’s talk about state terrorism..

Note the choice of “talk about” delivered in an unbroken demagogic outpouring, rather than facts in context. The mere enumeration of these dread weapons raises the spectre that Israel must have used them, and must have used them in the worst possible way. At best, crowds are unreceptive to critical thinking and this crowd, hothoused in a week of demonisation, greets this readily with untroubled cheers.

For what it’s worth, it is left to us keyboard Casaubons to sift drily through the chaff in search of facts. This we do, fully aware that this tuquoque tactic of Halper in no way addresses the barrage of assorted armaments, outlawed or otherwise, from Gaza which gave rise to the need for the security barrier.

Amie then looks at each of Halper's accusations and finds that he is lying about every single one. Read the post for details.

As for Halper’s actual arguments:

If the wall had been built for security first of all, .. they would have built on the border. No one can have a problem with the wall including the international court of justice in the Hague had it been built on the border....
...During Q&A he was asked by the chair: Is the wall not there to prevent terrorism?

Halper: “There is no internationally accepted definition of terrorism! I prefer to use Human Rights language. Terrorism is violence against civilians. What about State terror? You hear about Al Quada, Palestinians, Hamas: what about States? Human Rights language means it prohibits the killing of innocent civilians.”
He then spoke about how it was impossible to have a Jewish State. This seemed to discomfit the chair, who queried this assertion.

Halper: “You can’t have an ethnically Jewish state in the 21stC. There must be a One State solution. We need to reframe the discussion. The issue is not security and terror. The issue is: the wall is a border. That is really why they built a wall.”

He's even contradicting himself - at first he says that a wall at the Green Line would be OK, but then he tells the truth - he doesn't want Israel to exist altogether and for it to be replaced by yet another Arab state, wall or no wall, on the border or not.

It is worth reading the whole thing as a case study in how the Israel haters will throw out lies and half-truths to a crowd that eats it all up, truth be damned. Halper comes across as even more extreme and deceptive than I had thought he was - he isn't against house demolitions, he's against Israel defending itself - actually, against Israel existing altogether.

Bolivia working with Iran on nuclear program?

BBC reports:

Bolivian President Evo Morales has announced plans to build the country's first nuclear reactor.

Mr Morales said the development of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes has become a strategic priority for his country.

Speaking to members of the Bolivian Congress, he said that Iran, France and Argentina had volunteered to help with the development of the project.

In fact, Iran's vice chancellor for European and American affairs, Mayid Ravanchi, visited Bolivia right beforehand and praised the country for being "always being on the side of the revolutionaries".

This article notes that the nuclear issue was discussed between Morales and Ravanchi, and that Morales said that Bolivia "has enough raw material" for a nuclear plant, which confirms the existence of large mineable uranium deposits in the country.

Which Iran would no doubt be interested in.

(h/t Emmanuel)

01/23 Links Pt1: Glick discusses 2-state solution, Fatah threatens to bomb Tel Aviv into a "ball of fire"

From Ian:

Fatah publicizes threats to bomb Tel Aviv on its official Facebook page

Once again Fatah has chosen to post threats of terror against Israel on its official Facebook page. Yesterday, the movement posted a video in which Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, threatens to turn Tel Aviv into a "ball of fire":
"We swear to you that we will turn the beloved [Gaza] Strip into a graveyard for your soldiers, and we will turn Tel Aviv into a ball of fire."
These threats are made by a masked man in uniform standing in front of a group of other masked men, all of whom are holding weapons. The full video is eight minutes long and shows footage of masked men in military training, arsenals of weapons, missiles being launched, as well as footage of Israelis running for shelter during missile attacks.

Only the Jewish State survives

To close; Israel’s existence comes down to the need for a Jewish state. It is a need generated by years of persecution, pogroms, and hatred; The persecution of the Jewish people is an incredibly deep contrast to the purity of the Jewish veneration of life. The history of the Jewish people but also the land of Israel, is written and bound in blood- yet what is written in that blood reads ‘hope’. If the Palestinian people, if not least their elected representatives, cannot end their hope for a demographic annihalation of their Israeli neighbours, any peace created out of those circumstances is impure and bound to fail. Peace should be, and will be achieved only when Israel is accepted as what it has always been- the only Jewish state in the world. Then and only then, is the time that friendship can come from enmity, and the hope of peace can come alive.

Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick discusses 2-state solution (starts 2m40s)

Mohammad Shtayyeh, one of the PLO negotiators who resigned in November, said the negotiations with Israel side are going to fail, and will not be extended past April 29, saying they are heading towards a "one state" solution.

During a conference called "Palestine and international law", in Jericho on Wednesday, he said "negotiations will be a failure, and then we will say goodbye to the two-state solution."

He said, "No deal is a thousand times better than a poor deal," explaining that the Palestinian Authority cannot continue afterwards and must change into a posture of resistance.

Shtayyej said that the Palestinian leadership will go to the United Nations to prosecute Israel for its crimes after the talks and called for the establishment of an international conference similar to the Geneva conference with Syria and Iran on the Palestinian issue.

He added that Israeli society is turning more extreme and that the next prime minister could be a settler.

"We must correct the error, which occurred when the Palestinian leadership chose not to go directly to the institutions of the United Nations immediately after the vote .. we should have directly to sign international agreements and join the Geneva Conventions, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice after the vote on Palestine non-member State .. we should have done that, and we will correct this error."

He wants to internationalize the Palestinian issue so that bodies like the UN will impose a solution that would be better than anything the PLO can negotiate.

In other words, the current negotiations were never serious. The PLO used them to force Israel to release over 100 terrorists but had no intention to give anything up. They clearly have no desire for a state or for independence; the desire is to use the international community to destroy Israel for them, since Israel is not volunteering to destroy itself.

The PLO still insists on the Jewish Quarter and the Kotel being in "Palestine"

The PLO Negotiations Affairs Department put out a document last August detailing their specific demands on Jerusalem.

The introduction is filled with inaccuracies:

The June 4, 1967 border (the green line) is the internationally recognized border between the occupied State of Palestine and the State of Israel. This line separates the territory occupied by Israel during and since the June 1967 War, an occupation that has been condemned by the international community time and again, through resolutions such as UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 that taken in the Nakba of 1948 and the ICJ advisory opinion in 2004 on the illegality of the Wall and Settlements.

The 1967 borders of Palestine include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Jordan Valley, the Latrun area, the northern shores of the Dead Sea and Palestine’s capital, East Jerusalem -are all an integral part of the 1967 border.

This boundary was established through the signing of armistice agreements between Egypt and Jordan on the one hand, and Israel, on the other, following the Nakba in 1948, and the subsequent creation of the State of Israel on 78% of historic Palestine.

In 1988, the PLO declared the independence of the State of Palestine on the basis of UNGA 181 and UNSC 242, two states, living side by side on the 1967 border, or the “Green Line”. The Palestinian acceptance of the 1967 border, which includes East Jerusalem, is a painful compromise: It is the acceptance of the State of Palestine over only 22% of historic Palestine.

...Jerusalem has always been and remains the political, administrative and spiritual heart of Palestine. Occupied East Jerusalem is the natural socio-economic and political center for the future Palestinian state given its historical signiﬁcance, wealth in religious and cultural heritage sites, its commercial vitality, and its geographic centrality connecting the northern and southern parts of the occupied State of Palestine.

The Green Line was never a "border." UN 242 and 338 do not condemn Israel, and the word "condemn" is not found in the ICJ opinion, either.The boundaries of British Mandate Palestine have nothing to do with "historic Palestine" - but parts of Jordan and Lebanon are within historic Palestine. And Jerusalem was never the political, administrative or spiritual heart of any Arab or Islamic entity, except perhaps as the Sanjak of Jerusalem district under Ottoman rule for several decades, roughly equivalent to a county seat.

Within the document we see the details of how the PLO insists Jerusalem look after a "peace agreement:"

Palestine’s vision for Jerusalem is rooted in deep historical, political, cultural, social, religious and economic ties to Jerusalem that span centuries. Pursuant to our vision, East Jerusalem, as deﬁned by the pre-1967 municipal boundaries, shall be the capital of Palestine and West Jerusalem the capital of Israel, with each state enjoying full sovereignty over its respective part of the city. East Jerusalem’s connections to the remainder of the occupied Palestinian territory should be fully restored and the city should be fully integrated into the territory of the State of Palestine.

Each city should have its own municipality taking responsibility for and managing municipal and daily affairs. The open city concept, however, is an essential element to ensure the prosperity and centrality of the city. In the spirit of peaceful coexistence and cooperation, a joint development council, composed of an equal number of representatives from both sides should be established by the parties to oversee cooperation between Israel and Palestine in both parts of Jerusalem, including with respect to planning and zoning, water, waste water and the environment, roads and industrial zones. A central objective of such cooperation should be to minimize practical impediments to the free movement and access of people, vehicles, services and goods arising from the existence of an international boundary running through the city. Notwithstanding this cooperation, each state shall enjoy full sovereignty over
its respective part of Jerusalem.

So this is what Abbas means when he says Jerusalem would be an "open city" - it means that Jews must depend on Arab largesse to walk to the Western Wall. I wouldn't be surprised if "Palestine" would destroy the plaza in front of the Kotel to rebuild the slum of Arabs from Morocco ("Palestinians") that was there before 1967. (h/t Gideon, I had never seen the video where they actually say that.)

We already know that the PLO says that no Jews can live in "Palestine" so the Jewish Quarter would have to be ethnically cleansed, not to mention dozens of Jewish neighborhoods.

The chances of Jews being allowed to visit the Temple Mount would become exactly zero. The chances that Jews could visit the Kotel would slowly drop to zero within a couple of years - for "security" reasons. The best that Jews could hope for would be the way they can visit the Tomb of Joseph in Nablus today - once or twice a month in heavily armored buses in the middle of the night.

The document does not admit any concessions that the PLO supposedly made in negotiations in 2000, 2001 or 2007. It does not hint at compromise.

Here's the document:

PLO's official position on Jerusalem

PA arrests man for naming his son "Mohamed Morsi"

Ma'an Arabic reports that a resident of the Jalazoun refugee camp was arrested on Wednesday because he named his new baby as "Mohamed Morsi," after the former Egyptian President and Muslim Brotherhood figure.

Sources confirmed to Ma'an that the PA's General Intelligence Services summoned Abdel Halim Ghannam to investigate the event.

Ghannam was a prisoner in Israeli jails for more than 7 years. He was released 10 months ago, and has been summoned several times for interviews with the PA's GIS since.

Ghannam has a Facebook page showing lots of photos of his son Mohamed Morsi, who was born at the end of December. He makes no secret that he is a Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood supporter.

His mother complained bitterly about the detention, saying "Is it not enough for my son to spend years in the prisons of the occupation? My son has Irritable Bowel Syndrome and takes several medications, and we lived with the bitterness of detention time and again, is it not our right to live safe and secure lives like the rest of the people?"

(h/t Bob Knot)

Obama's "balanced" idiocy on Arab and Jewish bigotry

In a New Yorker interview, Barack Obama gave his 50,000 foot view of the Arab Israeli conflict. And he gets it very, very wrong.

“With respect to Israel, the interests of Israel in stability and security are actually very closely aligned with the interests of the Sunni states.” As Saudi and Israeli diplomats berate Obama in unison, his reaction is, essentially, Use that. “What’s preventing them from entering into even an informal alliance with at least normalized diplomatic relations is not that their interests are profoundly in conflict but the Palestinian issue, as well as a long history of anti-Semitism that’s developed over the course of decades there, and anti-Arab sentiment that’s increased inside of Israel based on seeing buses being blown up,” Obama said. “If you can start unwinding some of that, that creates a new equilibrium. And so I think each individual piece of the puzzle is meant to paint a picture in which conflicts and competition still exist in the region but that it is contained, it is expressed in ways that don’t exact such an enormous toll on the countries involved, and that allow us to work with functioning states to prevent extremists from emerging there.”

First of all, as I have documented many, many times, Muslim antisemitism is not merely "decades" old. Obama seems to be saying that it is a reaction to Israel's existence, not something that has been part of Islam and the Arab world since Islam began. I've shown books and other proof from eyewitnesses in the Islamic and Arab world who saw how badly Jews were treated in Arab countries for centuries.

If Obama cannot understand that Muslim antisemitism is independent of Israel's existence, he doesn't know the basics. If Obama's conception of history doesn't go beyond the twentieth century, then he is shallow indeed.

But more outrageous is his attempt to say that there is a symmetry between Muslim/Arab hate of Jews and Israel's opinion of Arabs.

Yes, Israelis fear terrorism. But they are not Islamophobic nor are they bigoted in general. Arabs in Israel do not live in fear of being attacked as they walk down a street with Jewish residents, but a Jew walking through certain Arab neighborhoods is literally risking his life. In Israel.

There is some bigotry, as there is in every country on the planet, but anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe is much, much worse than it is in Israel. There are no burqa bans in Israel. There are no laws outlawing minarets.

But symmetry between Arab bigotry and Israeli bigotry? The idea is not only ridiculous, but insulting.

Israel's Ministry of Justice just put out a commercial to fight bigotry in Israeli society. It is very powerful.

This commercial shows the vast gulf between how Israeli Jews think about Arabs and how Arabs think about Jews. It is inconceivable that any Arab country would release a commercial like this.

In Israel, bigotry might exist - but it is looked down upon and shamed. In the Arab world, antisemitism is in the daily newspapers and taught to schoolchildren.

Comparing the two is obscene.

Israel has dozens of organizations dedicated to building bridges with the Arab world, to mutual understanding, to fighting bigotry. How many Palestinian Arab organizations exist to understand Jews or Israelis? How many Arabs even want to understand Israel's viewpoint?

There is no equivalence. The Israeli reticence towards a peace agreement has nothing to do with anti-Arab attitudes - it has everything to do with Israelis wanting to live in peace and security in their own country and being skeptical about whether Palestinian Arabs want the same thing. Those exploding buses were a signal that Palestinian Arabs were not to be trusted after they promised to abandon terror in 1993. Given the daily anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian Arab media today, during "peace" talks, Israelis have every reason to be concerned.

Obama is dismissing Israel's very real concerns about how much Abbas and his gang want peace and instead pushing a theory of Israeli bigotry that is stopping the peace process. This is an outrageous lie, and it reveals how little the leader of the free world - who has dedicated countless hours on this very topic - truly understands.

If Obama thinks that this interview would make him seem more sympathetic to Israel, he's clueless. He doesn't even realize how insulting and patronizing his words are.

(h/t Ian via MtTB via Daily Caller)

01/22 Links Pt2: Obama claims Muslim anti-Semitism only recent, Pinkwashing counter protest.

From Ian:

Muslim anti-Semitism is only decades old, Obama claims

“Anti-Semitism is hard-wired into Islam,” from its origins before 700, said Andrew Bostom, author of three books about Islam, including “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism,” which lists centuries of anti-Semitic hatred, murders, pogroms and apartheid-like discrimination.
Intellectuals, politicians and diplomats are loath to admit the centrality of anti-Semitism in Islamic beliefs, because it fuels conflict with Israel and the West and it can’t be fixed by Westerners, Bostom said. ”You’re dealing with an intractable situation, and people hate intractable situations,” he said, adding “diplomats are the worst.”
In an interview with The New Yorker magazine, Obama described the Muslim hatred of Israel as byproduct of recent fights, not as a consequence of Islam’s doctrinal objection to any Jewish government. (h/t MtTB)

UNESCO looks to hold Land of Israel exhibit in June

UNESCO, on its website and in letters to the Center, had always said the exhibit was postponed. The absence of an alternative date, however, gave the impression that the exhibit had been canceled.
On Tuesday, UNESCO posted a note on its website in which it reaffirmed that the exhibit had only been postponed, but not canceled.
“UNESCO is in discussions with the Simon Wiesenthal Center to finalize the last points and inaugurate the exhibition in the month of June,” it said. (h/t Bob Knot)

UNESCO Fiasco Explains Why ME Talks Fail

The reason that the exhibit was necessary in the first place was to correct the depiction of the state of Israel purveyed by the Palestinians and their international cheerleaders as a colonial error in which Jews were dumped on Arab territory in order to compensate for the Holocaust. If Jews are seen as having connections and a presence in historic Israel/Palestine millennia before 1948, it undermines the canard—a staple of Palestinian Authority propaganda and incitement—to delegitimize the notion that Jews have any right to sovereignty anywhere in the Middle East, making peace talks pointless.
That is exactly the sort of delusional perspective the State Department should be working hard to oppose. But the American decision to distance itself from the project sent an unmistakable message that the Obama administration views any talk about Jewish ties to the land as too controversial to warrant its involvement. So long as the Palestinians are enabled by both the UN and the U.S. to continue denying Jewish history, the peace process that both Bokova and the State Department claim to take so seriously has no chance of success. (h/t NormanF)

If there is an escalation in Gaza, terrorists plan to kill "spies"

From Islamic Jihad's Palestine Today:

Informed security sources of the Palestinian resistance say they will executed a number of spies during any future Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.

The sources said in a statement that the Zionist threats against the Gaza Strip to wage war to deter resistance will force internal operations to deter spies for the Zionist intelligence by accelerating the vigilante killing of his agents in the sector.

The sources pointed out that during the next operation Gaza will see an increase in the occurrence and frequency of public executions of the spies, as has already occurred, stressing that the general attitude of the Palestinians is in favor of this because it deters espionage and hurts the enemy.

He pointed out that a number of security suspects are still under security surveillance, and they will be dealing with them on the ground in the event of any future war.

The Palestinian resistance has executed a number of spies during the war in the year 2008-2009 in public in front of people, in addition to the execution of six other spies during the eight-day war in 2012.

Remember that the Gazans gruesomely executed during Pillar of Defense were already in jail when they were taken out and one was dragged in the street behind motorcycles. And at least one of them was not a spy at all but a political rival of Hamas.

This article essentially is announcing that Gaza groups are planning to kill a bunch of Arabs, using any Israeli action as an excuse, thinking that this will deter Israel from defending itself from rockets.

I wonder if any human rights groups (or people who pretend to care about extrajudicial killings when Israel targets a terrorist before he can attack) will condemn a gleeful pre-announcement of public extrajudicial executions of Arabs.

Ha!

Hezbollah baby! (video)...and bonus Fatah kids!

From MEMRI:

Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV recently reported on a baby born in a Lebanese hospital, filmed dressed in the military fatigues of Hizbullah. "Military fatigues were the first garment to touch his tender body," said the reporter, adding that Mahdi "is a potential resistance fighter from the first hours of his life."

Following are excerpts from the report, which aired on January 18, 2014:

Reporter: Mahdi welcomed us in his own special way. He did not wear the clothes usually reserved for newborn babies. Military fatigues were the first garment to touch his tender body. He is a potential resistance fighter from the first hours of his life.

Mother of newborn Mahdi: Nothing could be better than him becoming a soldier of Imam Mahdi. This reflects the continuation of the path of the Islamic resistance, one generation after another.

Reporter: Mahdi was the only baby born in Rasul Aatham Hospital today. His family received an exemption from all hospital bills, and their baby was awarded a gold necklace, inscribed with the name of the Prophet Muhammad.

Meanwhile, on Fatah's official Facebook page we see this:

Someone responded with this:

Notice the iPad that the poor, depraved Palestinian Arab kid has.

If only Israel would compromise more, then members of these psychotic terrorist murder cult will make peace.

If not this generation...then the next.

From the IDF:

Last night, IDF forces found an improvised firearm during a search in the Jordan Valley. The Palestinian suspect had concealed the weapon in a child’s bookbag, which the forces discovered inside of his vehicle.

Late Tuesday evening, a battalion from the IDF’s Kfir Brigade discovered an improvised firearm and ammunition inside of a Palestinian vehicle during a routine inspection in the Jordan Valley. The weapon was found inside of a child’s bookbag at a checkpoint not far from the driver’s home. “The driver aroused suspicion after a preliminary search,” said Captain Sefi Mor, an IDF company commander involved in the inspection. “He seemed anxious, so we decided to perform a comprehensive search of the vehicle.”

Each day, thousands of people pass through the checkpoint, which is located on a major traffic artery in the Jordan Valley. Because of the high potential for terrorism and weapons smuggling, IDF forces stationed at the checkpoint are constantly on alert for threats. Last night, the same battalion detained another suspect who attempted to pass through the checkpoint.

About a month and a half ago, forces at the checkpoint discovered an explosive device in another Palestinian vehicle. “A large number of people pass through the checkpoint to get to work in the Jordan Valley, and we check anyone who seems suspicious,” Cpt. Mor said.

During the past several months, the Kfir battalion has been stationed in the Jordan Valley. In addition to their work at the checkpoint, the soldiers have carried out several arrests and weapons searches in the area. “It’s clear to the battalion’s fighters that their mission is to defend civilians and allow them to sleep safely at night,” Cpt. Mor added.

According to the calculus of Israel's critics, the inconvenience of these checkpoints is much more important than IDF accomplishments like these.

Because, you understand, these critics are so damn moral, as opposed to the monstrous IDF, which is merely saving lives.

01/22 Links Pt1: IAF airstrike kills Gaza terror chief, Waqf Blocked Harper over Jewish Bodyguards,

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: 2014, the UN Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Palestinians, and their undemocratic UN cohorts, are off to a roaring start for 2014, the UN Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
Last week UNESCO tore down an exhibit on the Jewish people’s ties to the land of Israel, just before it opened to the public, because it offended Arab states. Unfortunately, the move was only the tip of the UN iceberg.
All visitors to UN Headquarters in New York, including school children from across America, walk off the elevator straight into the “Palestine” exhibit. (h/t NormanF)

Douglas Murray: Middle East Peace Process: America's Wishful Thinkers

For let us not forget that the premise upon which Mr. Kerry's peace plan, indeed anybody's peace plan, must built, is the presumption that the talks are between two parties who are sincerely and demonstrably committed to peace and not on the determination of one to annihilate the other. That is the presumption from which Mr Kerry is starting, surely? So how to explain that on the Palestinian side there appears to be, not exactly for the first time in living memory, a certain number of problems of trust which are going unaddressed by Washington?

Peace Of Cake (h/t Israely Cool)

SodaStream shows the toxic hate - and hypocrisy - of leftists

Sodastream as a microcosm of Israel:

My first-ever holiday party was going great until someone in the living room wanted club soda for his vodka. It’s not that I wasn’t prepared. I was in the kitchen, overseeing eggnog, and I handed my co-host a bottle of seltzer made for the occasion with my SodaStream countertop carbonator. He’s the one who told me what happened next.

“Enjoy your Palestinian blood cocktails,” the left-wing reporter said to the vodka drinkers.

This wasn’t the first objection I'd encountered to SodaStream, which turns a bottle of tap water into sparkling with three pumps of a recyclable carbon dioxide cartridge. SodaStream is an Israeli company with a manufacturing plant in occupied territory in the West Bank, a fact that enrages a politically informed, far-left segment of the liberal-yuppie demographic the product is marketed to. By bringing environmental foodie-ism into conflict with humanitarianism, SodaStream has turned the most inoffensive of soft drinks — Sustainable! Sugar-free! — into a political liability for civilians and celebrities alike as they attempt to buy and endorse the correct products.

...For non-famous SodaStreamers, beverage diplomacy is a question of etiquette. At a Thanksgiving with college friends, the appearance of SodaStream’s distinctive, reusable bottles was met with similar tut-tutting. “Blood bubbles,” someone called them. Defending herself, the hostess said the machine had been a gift. Now I say that too, even though I bought mine myself.

Others will sacrifice SodaStream’s sleek countertop design in order to save face. “A lefty journalist friend of mine in Tel Aviv has a machine he keeps under his kitchen sink so that he doesn’t get embarrassed when other lefties come over for dinner,” said Ali Gharib, a reporter covering Middle East issues.

...Even the most fervent anti-Zionists will admit that, for seltzer addicts, SodaStream’s competitors leave something to be desired. iSi’s Twist’n’Sparkle was recalled after a series of dangerous bottle explosions. The Primo Flavorstation — now teamed up with Cuisinart — is a near fit, but its gas cylinder refills are harder to locate. So some fans devise elaborate work-arounds. After Gharib informed his SodaStream-owning cousin of the product’s settlement origins, the cousin began a “subversive campaign” to undermine SodaStream’s business model by using the gas cylinders, then mailing them back to the company claiming they’d been defective and receiving free replacements in return. “This went on for a year,” Gharib said.

Novelist and Code Pink activist Nancy Kricorian uses similar rationale when confronting friends about their SodaStreams. “The bulk of the profit comes not from the machine but from the refill,” she said. “If you can find an alternative source for the CO2 you can decrease your guilt by about 75 percent.”

Those brave leftists - insisting that everyone else boycott a product that they secretly love.

This is similar to the reaction that Cornell "Students for Justice in Palestine" had when it was pointed out they were using Israeli technology for their webpage. Insist that everyone else boycotts Israel, but use Israeli products yourself if it would inconvenience you otherwise.

How principled they are!

The leftist Jewish Daily Forward, also advocating boycotting SodaStream, grudgingly admits

To be clear, SodaStream’s factory is not located in a radical settlement; it is located a 10-minute drive from Jerusalem in an industrial park next to one of the largest settlement blocs — Ma’aleh Adumim — which will likely be incorporated into Israel in any future deal.

More to the point, if the boycotters would have their way, hundreds of Palestinian Arabs would be out of a job:

On a recent afternoon, women wearing hijabs hurried to their shifts at the plant located in Ma’ale Adumin, a suburban settlement about 15 minutes west of Jerusalem. Some 500 West Bank Palestinians work at the site, in addition to 400 Arabs from eastern Jerusalem and a mix of 200 Israeli Jews and foreign workers, including refugees from Africa.

The Maale Adumim factory has an on-site mosque and a synagogue, and Jewish and Arab employees share the same dining hall. SodaStream has two other facilities in Israel, in Ashkelon and the Galilee town of Mount Tabor. The Galilee factory employs several hundred Israeli Arabs.

“Everyone works together: Palestinians, Russians, Jews,” a Palestinian employee named Rasim at the Maale Adumim site told JTA. Rasim has worked at the plant for four months and asked that his last name not be published. “Everything is OK. I always work with Jews. Everyone works together, so of course we’re friends.”

For SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum, treating Arabs and Jews equally is a doctrine, not a convenience.

“We practice equality and full cooperation both on the job and off it,” Birnbaum told the Arab publication Al Monitor in a recent interview.

But the Israel-haters don't worry about such things - because it doesn't affect them, only the Palestinians they claim to love.

“SodaStream has always been a target of the BDS movement, and has developed into a major campaign since late 2011,” a BDS spokesperson told Al Arabiya News.

“We reject any suggestion that the reality that Palestinians are sometimes left with no choice but to work in illegal Israeli settlements is a reason not to take action to end international complicity in human rights violations,” the spokesperson added.

"We reject the suggestion" - what more proof do you need? Meanwhile, hundreds more Arabs, who get significantly higher salaries than those who work in PA-controlled areas, would be jobless.

The Forward, trying to justify its anti-SodaStream position, linked to a study by a rabidly anti-Israel group named Who Profits that claimed that Sodastream exploits Arab workers, but even that study admits that the problem was cleared up years ago. I've shown previously that Who Profits only fights against Jewish-owned factories in the territories, not those owned by Israeli Arabs. In other words - they are antisemitic and their objectivity is close to nil.

But the leftists will keep trying to find reasons to justify their hate after the fact, and if a study by an antisemitic group says that something was bad in 2007, well, damn, that's enough reason right there to hate it!

Here's a company that employs hundreds of Palestinian Arabs, treats them well, in an area that will undoubtedly remain a part of Israel in any peace agreement. A company whose president publicly berated Shimon Peres for not treating his Arab employees with respect. Instead of treating Arabs as helpless children, as leftists do, Sodastream empowers them. SodaStream does more to actually help Arabs than any NGO does.

And the leftists, filled with bile, dismiss its products as "blood bubbles." Their positions are never about their supposed support for Palestinian Arabs, but rather about their hate of Israeli Jews.

Make no mistake - the psychology behind an irrational hatred of everything Israeli is exactly the same as any other bigotry. The same brain chemistry that is behind racism and sexism is behind the crazed, visceral loathing of anything Israeli.

The only difference is that the leftist hate is accompanied by a smugness that their hate is somehow righteous.

Jordanian paper upset that Arabs don't hate Jews enough

An article in Jordan's Assawsana is upset over reported secret ties between Israel and some Arab countries.

It starts off with "I would not be surprised in the coming days to see Israelis wearing the Arab turban and robe, sitting in the palaces of the oil sheikhs without fear or shame as if they were the owners of the land, and not trespassers of sacred Islamic and Arab land who displaced and killed our family and still wreak havoc by bombing Gaza and arresting people in the West Bank and filling their prisons with detainees.

How can the Arab countries deal with an occupier of Islamic lands, while at the same time, these countries claim to support the right of the Palestinian people to return home and live in peace? Quite simply these countries cooperate with representatives of Israel the aggressor Palestinians as the victim are a supporting actor. How can the mind to accept such a contradiction??????

Facts confirm this contradiction even with those countries which do not have a treaty with Israel....Several months ago the defense minister of Israel went on a visit to Dubai for military industries; the Zionist minister with a high-level delegation participated in the exhibition to coincide with the time when his Zionist military Zionism was killing the sons of the West Bank under the direct orders of the same minister. Which contributed to create the impression of the West and the world of the legitimacy of the death and destruction that Israel is doing to the Palestinians without condemnation from the Arab host.

It is a fact that is no longer hidden of the presence of Israeli security companies offering their services in most countries of the Arabian Gulf and who find a viable market in those countries.An announcement by some Israeli newspapers recently notes that one of the indicators adopted internationally to signify the strength and durability of the relations between states is the presence of security coordination between them and that is exactly what we have seen in some Arab countries, relations with the Israeli entity.

Then came the Dubai Film Festival, where the Israeli film was about the the non-eligibility of the people of Palestine to return to their land and their towns and villages. To display such poisonous cultural material is to blow up the march of struggle and resistance for more than sixty years that has killed martyrs that fell from all Arab and Islamic nationalities. How could any Arab view this film in an Arab country, claiming his support for the Palestinian cause.????

These relations recently culminated with an official visit carried out by Silvan Shalom, the Israeli minister at the head of an economic delegation of businessmen Israelis at the official invitation of the government of the UAE, to participate in an economic conference held in Abu Dhabi. It is natural to find Zionists using the opportunity to market their investments and exploit opportunities to increase the strength of their economy, which in turn strengthens their hold on state territories. Linking economic agreements with Arab countries is no less dangerous to Arab security that from non-traditional weapons.

...Israeli politicians roam about in the Gulf states and investigate their goals without the need to announce their relationship with the embassies and consulates as is the case in international relations; they and consider it politically foolish to declare their presence in these countries and reveal their relationship in public so they can implement what they want from behind the curtain.

Israel's policy in the next phase its exercising hegemony is to extend its policy on the Arabs continuing the current fragmentation and weakness with the infighting and rivalry for power going on currently in the Arab countries, without a doubt Israel had the biggest role in the creation and adoption and sponsorship of this infighting to enable them to achieve the dream of Greater Israel and the realization of their verse, "your land, O Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile."

But Jewish Zionist ambition at this stage has grown to change the motto to "Your Land, O Israel, from the Atlantic to the Gulf."

The conspiracy theory that Israel is behind the Arab spring and infighting has become accepted fact in Arab media over the past couple of years. The idea that Israel is planning the dissolution of Arab states into smaller parts has been around for a while but is getting lots of play lately.

It is notable that the idea of peace between Israel and Arab states is so heinous to so many Arabs, while it is what Jews dream of. You would think that the Western nations might have noticed this little pattern after 65 years.

Jews of Judea and Samaria fighting boycott with website (plus video)

The New York Times reports:

ELI, West Bank — Among the most ardent advocates of labeling products made in Israeli settlements are Gedaliah and Elisheva Blum, American-born religious Jews raising four children high on a hilltop here, in the heart of what most of the world envisions as the future Palestinian state.

The Blums have since 2009 run a website promoting small businesses — mechanics, real estate brokers, caterers, etc. — in the settlements generally viewed as illegal under international law, and last fall they unveiled an online boutique selling settler art. Their approach is an attempted antidote to the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement that has been gaining ground lately — buy local, invest, celebrate.

“We wanted to use that same tool everybody else is using against us, for us,” said Mr. Blum, 35.

...Their operation is admittedly small bore and symbolic. The “Orange Pages” — the color is taken from the campaign opposing the 2005 evacuation of Gaza Strip settlements — gets 1,000 hits a day. It lists 2,000 businesses, 700 of which pay about $14 a month for more prominent play. Mrs. Blum, who is 30, said some settler leaders told her “don’t promote us, just keep quiet,” but that only a handful of companies had ever declined to be listed.

The new art boutique has sold a dozen prints and one original, totaling $4,500. Profits are put into the Orange Pages — as Mr. Blum put it, “a man from Alabama buys a painting from Hebron and enables a plumber from Shilo to get more exposure.”

Like many settlers, the Blums think Israel should annex the West Bank.

“If you created a time machine and you went back 2,000 years, the center of Jewish life was here, it was Judea and Samaria, it wasn’t Tel Aviv,” Mr. Blum said, using the biblical names for the territory. “If we don’t want to fight for this land — I mean fight as in living and building — we’re erasing our history.”

Mrs. Blum moved at age 5 to Efrat, a settlement south of Jerusalem. Mr. Blum grew up secular in New Jersey, and came to Israel in 2000 on the first free trip for young diaspora Jews run by Birthright. When he came back with Birthright in 2003, she was one of two Israeli volunteers greeting the plane with rugelach from the famed Marzipan bakery. He decided that day they should marry.

They run the websites from their modest home, where Mrs. Blum’s paintings — of an archway in Safed and a Kabbalistic interpretation of creation — adorn the walls and the children, ages 2, 4, 6 and 8, wander in and out.

“The message for our children is, you see something wrong, you fix it,” she said. “We saw a boycott, we see injustice, then you do something about it. Even if it’s just one little baby step.”

OK, so now I feel guilty.

Because I interviewed the Blums nearly a year ago and I had never edited the video for the blog! (Although I did mention them last October when the English version of their website went online.)

Now that they are newsmakers, it is only right for me to try to make up for it.

Here they are in a house in Eli that they were renting at the time, talking about what life is like as Jews living in Judea and Samaria.

01/21 Links Pt2: Lies, bigotry and silence: Britain’s Stain, MLK: Israel a great outpost of democracy

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Lies, bigotry and silence: Britain’s permanent stain

British Jews who care about this sort of thing have had the disturbing experience of observing not one but three examples of public, home-grown anti-Jewish bigotry over the past few days.
First off the block was the former Labour Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who in an article in the Independent repeated not only his inexplicable belief that his idol, Iran’s President Rouhani, was ushering in a new world order of peace and harmony, but also that the benighted Israelis were buying up Washington in order to frustrate this nirvana (I paraphrase, but you get the general idea).

Britain’s Anti-Jewish Parliamentarians

Yet, this deep dislike of Israel stems not only from Israel’s alliance with America and the West, but also from the fact that it is a Jewish state. For the decidedly post-nationalist British left, Zionism is an anathema–the idea that a people as cosmopolitan as the Jews would have set themselves on the wrong side of history by establishing a nation of their own. The Jews were once favored by the left, when they were poor and widely discriminated against. But as Britain’s Minister for Education Michael Gove has explained of the left’s mentality, “when Jews are successful, assertive, self-confident or, worst of all, conservative, then they move, metaphorically, beyond the pale.”
Given the way in which those such as MP Grahame Morris would so casually associate the Israeli flag with Nazis, it would appear that there is a sense of growing confidence among the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish fringe in Britain’s parliament. But with such views flying around among lawmakers, there must be concerns about the future diplomatic relations between the two countries. And more than that, the questions about the future of the British Jewish community become ever more troubling.

Labour and Hamas UK

The Labour Party’s public position is that it has no truck with Hamas, or with those who seek the destruction of the State of Israel. As Ed The reality is somewhat different. Prominent Labour MPs continue to support high profile Hamas activists in the United Kingdom, and are happy to speak at the same rallies as Jenny Tonge.
This weekend, you could have attended a demonstration in support of Gaza which was addressed by Jenny Tonge and Labour’s shadow Justice Minister, Andy Slaughter MP.

Palestinians Divided Over Boycott of Israeli Universities

A professor in the College of Pharmacy at Al-Quds, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue, said more than 50 Palestinian professors were engaged in joint research projects with Israeli universities, funded by international agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development. He said that, without those grants, Palestinian academic research would collapse because “not a single dollar” was available from other places. He rejected the call for a boycott as having no practical value.

As for travel restrictions on foreign academics seeking to enter the Palestinian territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza, Mr. Palmor acknowledged that access to and from “Hamas-controlled Gaza” is now rarely possible via Israel, but he said Israel had played no part in the tight control of Gaza’s other border crossing, via Egypt.
For the West Bank, he said, academics are not routinely denied entry. “There is no ban on the entry to the West Bank of any lecturer, professor, or researcher. There never was.”

Iran still trying to unite (and lead) all Muslims in its superpower quest

Back in 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first entered office, I wrote a post that explained Iran's goal and strategy.

In short, Iran intended for many years to become a world superpower, and it wanted to use a combination of scientific expertise, military strength, and fearmongering to reach that goal. But above all - Iran intended to become the undisputed leader of the Islamic world, to move the center of the world's power from the US to Islamic lands.

While I made some mistakes - not realizing at the time how limited the powers of Iran's president were, and how Ayatollah Khamanei was really pulling all the strings, as well as underestimating the hatred that Sunnis and Shias have for each other - the analysis holds up pretty well for an 8-year old editorial.

Reading the tweets from Iran's Supreme Leader today one can see that this strategy has not changed at all.

Khamenei is, of course, pushing Islam as the enemy of the West and a liberator from Western ideas:

But he has also been spending a lot of time lately trying to heal the Sunni-Shia rift by emphasizing what they have in common and berating those who try to keep their conflict going. He even attended a recdnt pan-Islamic conference.

Of course, the evil US and UK are the ones behind the 1300-year old rift to begin with:

You can see that Iran only wants unity under its leadership, because unity is not meant to heal Islam, but to entrench Iran as the undisputed leader of Islam.

Given that the Shiite-Sunni divisions have only grown over the past couple of years, it seems unlikely that Khamenei will make any headway. But an Iranian nuclear weapon - or clear demonstration that it could build one at will - would change the calculus of the region tremendously, especially since Sunni Gulf states are no longer feeling like the US is protecting them.

Note also how Khamanei creates a cult of personality around himself, with every single graphic featuring - him.

Just like every other autocratic dictator.

Arab countries worried about having to naturalize their Palestinian "guests"

Assawsana (Jordan) reports that Jordan's trade unions are worried that John Kerry's frequent visits indicate that he intends to "liquidate the Palestinian cause at the expense of the people of Jordan and other Arab countries."

The trade unions rejected "any solutions which threaten the security of the homeland and do not give Palestinians the right to return to their homeland in addition to compensation, " stressing that the "right of return" is a sacred, legitimate right and may not be bargained or waived.

Is this because they love the Palestinians so much?

Oh, please. They say Kerry's supposed plan is "not a conspiracy against Palestine and its cause, but a conspiracy against Jordan."

Now, most Palestinians in Jordan are already Jordanian citizens, so what is the problem?

There are apparently two problems. One is that they don't want even the Palestinian Jordanians to stay in Jordan - they want an excuse to send them over the river!

The other one they hint at: "Resettlement and naturalization could empty the West Bank of the population and this is part of the liquidation of the Palestinian issue."

They are worried that if Arab countries tear up their existing bigoted laws discriminating against Palestinians and allowing them to become citizens, then the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank might just decide they don't want to live in Palestine anymore, and move across the river or to other Arab countries.

If "Palestine" fails as a state, which is extremely likely given how incompetent and corrupt the PA is, then Arab countries will not only have to worry about their existing Palestinian "guests" - but they will face the prospect of five million more Arabs leaving Palestine to move their families to somewhere more stable.

To the Arab countries, the "right of return" really means "the right to keep our nations free of Palestinians." But they will swear up and down that they only mean to save the "Palestinian cause."