Thursday, August 20, 2015

  • Thursday, August 20, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Iran's Mehr News:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday referred to mosque as the house of the nation which should avoid party orientations.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the international conference on World Mosque Day, President Rouhani described mosques as places to discuss major social, political issues, regional and international developments, problems of the Islamic world and the risks the arrogance imposes on the Muslim world not a place for political parties.[1]

August 21 marks the anniversary of the 1969 al-Aqsa Mosque fire, the origins of which are still being disputed [2] over 40 years after the incident occurred. The day is titled World Mosque Day in remembrance of the event.

Commemorating the occasion, President Rouhani asserted that the bitter memory of the 1969 al-Aqsa Mosque fire would not be forgotten.

Rouhani underlined that al-Aqsa Mosque fire demonstrates the true nature of usurper Zionist regime and calls for awareness and consciousness of Muslims to preserve the Muslim identity.[3]

“The incident indicates that the Zionist regime not only continues to murder and rape innocent women and children, but it also has no respect for a mosque [4], the first Qibla of Muslims and a land that is completely respected by other religions as well,” President Rouhani said.

[1]  Does this mean that Iran is against raising the Hamas flag at Al Aqsa Mosque?

[2] There is no dispute that the attack was done by a deranged Christian from Australia, but if Rouhani admits that then there isn't much reason left for World Mosque Day.

[3] Isn't it interesting that Iran is worried about a billion Muslims losing their identity. Something is behind this, and it is worth researching.

[4] The construct of "not only X, but Y" means that according to Rouhani, Jews walking around the Temple Mount is a worse crime than raping babies.

What does this say about Rouhani's morality?

Remember - he is a "moderate."

Israel's Channel 10 has reported on my findings that many UNRWA teachers have been posting antisemitic, pro-terror and even pro-Nazi photos and posters on Facebook.

Arutz-7 summarized the Hebrew report:

Teachers working at United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon and Jordan have received no disciplinary action for supporting anti-Semitism and terrorism on social media, the Elder of Zion [sic] blog has revealed in an ongoing investigative report.

According to the blog's findings, the teachers often published Facebook posts against the Jewish state and in support of terrorist activity. Even a director of one of UNRWA's schools was complicit, praising a terror attack carried out in 1978.

Other questionable uploads include a picture from Oday Al Masri, an UNRWA teacher in Jenin, featuring a swastika.

The organization responded by telling teachers to tone down the hate-fueled posts, concerned more with its reputation than the terrorism and anti-Semitism its employees were promoting.

In response, several teachers removed their affiliation with UNRWA on their Facebook accounts and/or changed their privacy settings. Several pages, as well as an UNRWA teacher's group featuring jihadist videos, were also taken down.

However, no teachers have been dismissed or even reprimanded for their actions.

In light of Elder of Ziyon's recent update to the scandal, a UNRWA spokesman told Channel 10 that if the reports prove credible, the organization would see the guilty parties were punished.

"If there are any charges, and if this is true, then it's a very big issue and we'll take care of it. If there is a suspected breach of neutrality on the part of employees, we will investigate and take significant steps, including dismissal," the spokesman claimed.
Chris Gunness - the spokesperson here - is lying, as he always does.

We know that UNRWA is aware of my reports about this from last year, and that they pressured teachers to remove their posts or to stop identifying themselves as UNRWA employees. There is no other explanation as to why so many of the posts disappeared right after I would write about them. But now that Israeli media picked up on the story, Gunness is pretending that UNRWA will "investigate and take significant steps, including dismissal."

If there had been any disciplinary action, Gunness would have said so. And if any teacher would have been fired for posting antisemitism on Facvebook, there would have been protests in the UNRWA schools - after all, there was a teacher's strike when UNRWA once tried to suspend a single Hamas member.

So of course UNRWA is aware of this and has ignored it, hoping that no one from the media would contact them.

There is some deja vu here, because in 2013 I also revealed an UNRWA dean of education posting Hitler quotes on his Facebook page. The Washington Free Beacon contacted Chris Gunness who responded very similarly.  And he knows very well that most reporters will not follow up to find out if what exactly UNRWA did to fix the problem.

In that case, as now, the Hitler poster was taken down but the dean still has his job.

In other words, this is another example of an UNRWA coverup of how its teachers regularly flout its own written standards. Gunness and his bosses are not interested in solving the problem, they spend their efforts into getting reporters to go away.

I did speak to the reporter about my findings of antisemitism in UNRWA's own websites, but he decided not to include that.

Here is the video of the Hebrew report, including a short audio clip from me:



Arutz-7's video is here:



Wednesday, August 19, 2015

From Ian:

UN to let Iran inspect its own alleged nuclear activity site
Iran, in an unusual arrangement, will be allowed to use its own experts to inspect a site it allegedly used to develop nuclear arms under a secret agreement with the UN agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press.
The revelation is sure to roil American and Israeli critics of the main Iran deal signed by the US, Iran and five world powers in July. Those critics have complained that the deal is built on trust of the Iranians, a claim the US has denied.
The investigation of the Parchin nuclear site by the International Atomic Energy Agency is linked to a broader probe of allegations that Iran has worked on atomic weapons. That investigation is part of the overarching nuclear deal.
The Parchin deal is a separate, side agreement worked out between the IAEA and Iran. The United States and the five other world powers that signed the Iran nuclear deal were not party to this agreement but were briefed on it by the IAEA and endorsed it as part of the larger package. (h/t djcelts)
Why is the Red Cross holding seminars for Hamas?
This past Sunday, The New York Times ran a story encapsulating all that is wrong with the Western world’s approach to extremist Islamic fundamentalism.
In a report appearing in its first section, the paper revealed a startling bit of news: “Red Cross offers workshops in international law to Hamas.”
That’s right. The global institution, which claims that it works “to prevent suffering by promoting and strengthening humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles,” is busying conducting seminars for terrorists in Gaza on how they can be, umm, more humanitarian when attacking Israel.
What’s next? Teaching table manners to the Taliban? The Times article goes on to describe the three-day seminar that the Red Cross conducted for Hamas last month. It included role-playing and case studies, noting that “one exercise involved an armed group firing on an invading tank from the garden of a civilian home near a hospital.” How educational! Mamadou Sow, head of Red Cross operations in Gaza, breezily noted to the Times that earlier this year, when he presented Hamas leadership with a critique of their conduct during last summer’s Gaza war, they “welcomed it” and “indicated that they are a learning organization.”
The article does not indicate whether Sow was able to maintain a straight face while uttering such inanity.
But lest you suspect that Hamas’ indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets at Israel may indicate that it is somewhat indifferent to the value of human life, Red Cross leaders went out of their way to stress that “they have seen an increasing commitment from Hamas leaders and linemen alike” to respect international humanitarian law.
Huckabee: Israel has more of a connection to Shiloh than Americans have to Manhattan
Republican presidential candidate made no apologies Wednesday at a Jerusalem press conference for holding a fundraiser a day earlier in the West Bank settlement of Shiloh.
"I would happily go to Shiloh anytime" he said.
"I think it is very important that as Americans we show support for Israelis in their capacity to build their neighborhoods in their own country."
Huckabee, who stressed he did not see Judea and Samaria as occupied, said Israel - - with a 3500 year historic tie to Shiloh -- has more of a connection to lands in Judea and Samaria than Americans have to Manhattan, which goes back only 400 years.
"I feel like it is the right thing to stand with Israel in making sure they have the right to secure their homeland with safe and defendable borders, he said.
"It is interesting to me that our government has put more pressure on the Israeli government to stop building bedrooms in their own neighborhoods, than on Iran to stop building bombs."

From JPost:
Hamas announced on Wednesday that underwater "frogmen" commandos operating just off the coast of the Gaza Strip managed to stop a dolphin that it claims was spying for Israel.

Officials in the Palestinian Islamist organization say that the dolphin was equipped with a surveillance device.

Hamas said that its naval commandos managed to track the dolphin weeks ago.
Dolphins now join the club of animals that Israel-haters claim are trained in espionage or vandalism.


I once made a comic for their exciting adventures.


I need to come out with new editions.











  • Wednesday, August 19, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory

Check out their Facebook page.


Plains, Georgia, August 19 - Former US President Jimmy Carter announced last week that he has been diagnosed with metastatic cancer, and, in a follow-up announcement today, added that he would be traveling to the Gaza Strip to receive medical care so as to ensure that no Jewish doctors are involved in his treatment.

Carter underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his liver, but his doctors discovered that the cancer had spread to other parts of his body, and that a cure was unlikely at this stage. Undaunted, the former chief executive decided to fight the disease anyway, choosing his therapeutic path based on what he knows of medical care around the world. Carter settled on Gaza as the ideal location for the treatment once he determined that the coastal enclave boasts the resources to provide treatment, because Israel allows unlimited medical supplies into the territory, while at the same time guarantees that no Jewish hands will be involved in his care, in keeping with his stance on pressuring Jews through boycotts in order to wrest concessions from Israel.

A Carter spokesman told reporters that the former president would depart late next week for a series of innovative treatments only available in Gaza. "Mr. Carter's good friend is a Norwegian physician who has spent quite a bit of time in Gaza, and assured him that the place is teeming with radioactive fragments from Israel's profligate use of depleted uranium artillery and ground-attack shells," said the spokesman, referring to Dr. Mads Gilbert. "According to the doctor that radiation places Gazans at risk for elevated levels of cancer, but in this case it might be of help in treating the disease," he added.

The spokesman, Goober Nobel, said that the anticipated treatment regimen will include elements of the former resident's late sister Ruth Carter Stapleton's faith-healing practice, but that those heavily Christian elements will have to be discreetly practiced in Islamic Gaza. "In keeping with Dr. Gilbert's example, Mr. Carter will push aside his own Western sensibilities to accommodate his hosts' convictions, if necessary," he explained. That would entail suppressing both overt displays of Christian faith and any sense of honesty or consistency.

Shifa Hospital Chief of Surgery Dr. Nakba ibn Itbach stated, “We will excise this outsider, this invader and foreign usurper of all that is holy. We will bring it to its knees so that it will crawl to all of its brothers and sisters and call them out to the open where we will lay them low with stones. For on that day they will call out to us, ‘Ye men of faith, elevate us through enjoining us in death as holy martyrs to the cause.’” He declined to elaborate on the medical specifics of the procedure to which he referred.
From Ian:

‘Europe Lacks the Willpower to Confront Evil That Iran Represents,’ Says Former British Commander (INTERVIEW)
Europe is a “very weak continent lacking the willpower to stand up and confront the evil that Iran represents,” declared the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp on Monday.
Speaking to The Algemeiner, Kemp called the nuclear deal struck by world powers including the U.K., France and Germany, and Iran, “appeasement,” comparing the situation to 1930’s and and 1940’s Europe, where a series of treaties between world powers ultimately led to the outbreak of World War II.
He said there is a “deafening silence” in Europe and a lack of leadership to stand up to Iran — which he predicted would undoubtedly move to acquire nuclear weapons — and noted an overwhelming “fear of hawkishness” throughout Europe, especially among politicians and military leaders, which Kemp said includes individuals “who should know and understand the realities of the Middle East.”
But European military officials “are in a deluded world,” he continued. “Many of them don’t understand Iran.”
Stating that in Europe “we hear virtually no dissent” to the deal, Kemp claimed there has certainly been political pressure on military officials who are opposed to the July 14 agreement announced in Vienna to remain mum: “The last thing [politicians ] want is influential military leaders speaking out against the deal.”
He said he had spoken “to some generals and senior retired officials, and they’d rather just pretend the problem [posed by Iran] does not exist.”
Khaled Abu Toameh: What Are Palestinians Doing With U.S. Money?
Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah did not tell the visiting U.S. Congressmen that the $4.5 billion the Americans invested in promoting Palestinian democracy went down the drain or ended up in secret Swiss bank accounts. Nor did he tell the Congressman that the Palestinians do not have a functioning parliament or a free media under the PA in the West Bank or under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And, of course, Hamdallah never told the Congressman that for Palestinians, presidential and parliamentary elections remain a remote dream.
The refusal of the international community back then to hold Arafat accountable was the main reason a majority of Palestinians were driven into the open arms of Hamas. Palestinians saw no improvement in their living conditions, mainly as a result of the PA's corruption. That is why they turned to Hamas, which promised them change, reform and an end to financial corruption.
The Americans and Europeans are therefore responsible for Hamas's rise to power.
One does not have to be an expert on Palestinian affairs to see that the billions of dollars have neither created democracy for the Palestinians nor boosted the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The "investment" in Palestinian democracy and peace with Israel has been a complete failure because of the refusal of the U.S. Administration to hold the Palestinian Authority fully accountable.
Unless Western donors demand that the PA use their money to bring democracy to its people and prepare them for peace, the prospects of reviving any peace process will remain zero.
Spanish festival flipflops on ban, re-invites Matisyahu
The new invitation asks Matisyahu – the stage name of the ex-ultra-Orthodox artist whose real name is Matthew Miller – to perform in his originally planned slot on the festival’s Main Stage.
“We respect the Jewish community and sincerely apologize for what happened,” the festival organizers said in a statement, according to the Spanish news site El Mundo.
“Rototom publicly apologizes for canceling Matisyahu’s concert and announces that he has been invited to perform on Saturday, August 22 at the festival, as originally scheduled,” it says.
The statement blamed the local anti-Israel group BDS País Valencià, which campaigned to cancel Matisyahu’s invitation, for “pressures, threats and coercion” efforts that threatened to “seriously disrupt the normal functioning of the festival” and “prevented the management of the situation with clarity.”
In a hint that the festival may be facing legal troubles for singling out the Jewish performer, the festival said it “reaffirms its commitment” to each person’s freedom of belief as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Spanish Constitution. (h/t Think of England)

  • Wednesday, August 19, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
A senior Iranian official has stated that Iran has been having problems paying Palestinian Arab terror groups, but now things should be getting much better.

The Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s International Affairs Department, Hussein Shaykh al-Islam, said in an interview that Iran would not welcome Mahmoud Abbas to Iran but would love to host Hamas leadership, saying that while funding was deficient in recent years due to sanctions, Iran "will spare no effort in providing this support in the future."

Al-Islam also said that reports that Mahmoud Abbas was visiting Tehran were a "lie."

He said: "They asked to visit Iran more than once and we did not accept, and recently they demanded again but we did not respond to them in a positive way," adding: "Iran is keen to support the resistance."

He stressed that no one in the world could spoil the friendship between Tehran and the Palestinian resistance, "first and foremost Hamas", praising Iran's relationship with the group as "strategic".

Shaykh al-Islam further denied there was any disagreement with Hamas, and said that they are past their dispute over Syria, and they woul strongly welcome any visit by Hamas leadership.

He also said that there was no tension between Iran and Islamic Jihad, as had been reported.

AL-Islam said that his country has come under pressure during the nuclear talks to link the agreement with political issues, including severing relationships with terror groups and linkages to actions in Syria and Yemen, "but that Tehran refused to do so."

He continued that "we reject any Israeli presence in this world."
  • Wednesday, August 19, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
Middle East Monitor reports:

Communication officers of the regional offices for boycotting Israel are to hold their 89th meeting in the Arab League headquarters on Tuesday, alamatonline.net has reported.

The Arab League official with responsibility for the occupied Palestinian territories, and the general commissioner of the head boycotting office, said on Monday that the officers meeting in the conference would spend three days discussing ways to activate an Arab boycott of Israel. Mohamed Sbeeh indicated that a number of issues are related to different Arab-owned companies which violate the boycott rules, and ways to impose sanctions on them. A number of US companies with branches in Israel will also be considered for sanctions. He indicated that they would discuss the modification of the general boycott principles in order to reactivate them.
The 89th meeting? Three days? for "communication officers of the regional offices for boycotting Israel"?

When the Arab boycott started in 1946, of course, they didn't say it was against Israel or Zionists. They said it was against Jews.

This committee has been meeting for decades. The question is whether Saudi Arabia sent a representative - because they had to abandon the boycott in order to join the World Trade Organization in 2005.

The people at the actual Arab League meeting this week didn't really give a damn about Israel or Palestinian Arabs. They spent their time talking about IS terrorists in Libya.


An EoZ reader wrote to Amnesty International with a series of questions. An excerpt:
I can see that the information provided in the [Gaza] platform has been collected from Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and yourselves. Could you not at least have pretended to be in any way balanced by providing input from the most left-leaning Israeli groups such as B'tselem when putting this data together? If you really had wished to take an impartial look at these incidents, you could have also included data from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre who have looked through various war crimes allegations in Gaza last year and provided a different version of events to what Al Mezan and the PCHR have claimed. I must also refer you to the Elder of Ziyon blog which has consistently highlighted claims of war crimes on “innocent civilians” (many included in the platform) where it is known that terrorists were present at that location and time. Here are some of these documented cases:

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/todays-amnesty-deceptions-and-lies.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/bashing-israel-amnesty-has-app-for-that.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/amnestys-true-colors-revealed-with-fake.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/amnestys-blood-libel-against-idf.html#.VaLdTNJVhBc
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/another-lie-by-amnesty-international.html

In short my questions are:
1) Why has Amnesty decided to spend so much time and resources focusing on the Jewish state, but are unable to pass a resolution focussing on combating antisemitism in the UK?
2) Why is Israel implicated by yourselves as having systematically committed violations without any conclusive evidence?
3) Why is Hamas not mentioned at all in your press release here?: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/07/launch-of-innovative-digital-tool-gaza/
4) Why have you based the platform only on information from Palestinian groups who cannot be trusted to reflect the full picture of what happened?

I think I already have the answer, but I would be only to happy to have a response from you with your answer.

Looking forward to your response.
Here was some of their response (sent a couple of weeks ago):
Our latest report that you have seen documents Israeli attacks last year that caused huge loss of civilian life and destruction of civilian infrastructure.

A further report is due to be issued tomorrow on intensive attacks on Rafah, in the South of the Gaza strip, from 1-4 August last year, in which 135 Palestinian civilians including 75 children were killed, during a massive bombardment of civilian areas following the capture of an Israeli soldier.

Amnesty's findings are in accordance with those of other human rights organisations, including B'Tselem, and I'm not sure why you would quote B'Tselem as if their findings were different from ours. B'Tselem's findings on Israeli violations are very much in line with our own, eg see here: http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/gaza_201407_operation

We would not deem elderofziyon a credible source.
Amnesty's response did not address the research done by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre which exhaustively documented hundreds of terrorists, many of which Amnesty's Gaza Platform called "civilian." The UNHRC quoted the Meir Amit Center a number of times in their report but apparently it is too unreliable for Amnesty.

B'Tselem also noticed militants that Amnesty pretended didn't exist. I documented one, Ahmad Sahmoud, here, Although the Gaza Platform did count him as a militant, Amnesty quoted family members as saying that there were no militants in the area without pointing out that they were lying - and Amnesty knew they were lying.

But there are other examples of B'Tselem being more honest than Amnesty:
  • Amnesty says Amjad Zaher Moussa Hamdan was a civilian. B'Tselem reported he was a militant. (GP event 1190)
  • Amnesty says that Mohammed Mahmoud al-Maqadma was a civilian. B'Tselem knew he was a militant. (GP event 2264.)
  • Amnesty said that Yazid al Batsh was a civilian. B'Tselem reported him as a militant. (GP event 1619.) Six other from that family were also terrorists, as I have shown.
  • Amnesty said Wissam 'Abdul Raziq al-Ghannam was a civilian,. B'Tselem knew he was a militant. (GP event 1405.)
  • Amnesty says Ashraf Mahmoud Al Astal was a civilian. B'Tselem knows he was a terrorist. (GP event 2584.)
(There were a couple of others that B'Tselem identified that I couldn't find immediately in Amnesty's Gaza Platform.)

So the letter writer was right - Amnesty ignored even B'Tselem's reports that shows some of their "civilians" were terrorists.

All of this information was published by B'Tselem over a year ago. Amnesty's researchers did not deem it important enough to incorporate into their Gaza Platform.

Now, Amnesty's dismissal of my research is interesting. In order for them to say I'm not credible, they must have read my research and pretended that my facts, all with supporting evidence in the form of links to source materials in militant websites or videos, are not true.

This proves that Amnesty is familiar with my articles and cannot argue with them. They cannot find any fault in my facts. So they try to discredit me without giving an iota of proof.

This letter proves that Amnesty is not interested in the truth, and that they will defend their lies even when they know that they are lying..

I've proven that Amnesty is not credible with transparent research that anyone can check. They call me non-credible without a single example..

Now a new clock is ticking. Will Amnesty correct the Gaza Platform for the five people I just documented that B'Tselem identified as terrorists? After all, Amnesty-USA claims that they would correct any errors. Sure it's been a week since I sent some to them, but maybe photos of terrorists with RPGs and uniforms isn't enough proof for Amnesty.  But surely B'Tselem's research should be enough to force them to correct their platform, right?

We'll see.

The letter writer followed up pointing out how poor Amnesty's answer was and how my facts were backed up by easily verified facts. He never received a response.

(h/t RS)

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

From Ian:

Matisyahu: Spanish festival ban is ‘appalling, offensive’
Posting on his Facebook page on Monday, Matisyahu wrote that, “the festival organizers contacted me because they were getting pressure from the BDS movement. They wanted me to write a letter, or make a video, stating my positions on Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to pacify the BDS people.”
The singer said he supported “peace and compassion for all people,” since music “speaks for itself” and “has the power to transcend the intellect, ideas, and politics, and it can unite people in the process.”
The festival, he said, “kept insisting that I clarify my personal views; which felt like clear pressure to agree with the BDS political agenda. Honestly it was appalling and offensive, that as the one publicly Jewish-American artist scheduled for the festival they were trying to coerce me into political statements. Were any of the other artists scheduled to perform asked to make political statements in order to perform? No artist deserves to be put in such a situation simply to perform his or her art. Regardless of race, creed, country, cultural background, etc, my goal is to play music for all people. As musicians that is what we seek.”
Also Monday, Jewish groups protested the festival’s cancellation of the performer.
The Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities condemned the decision as cowardly, Reuters said. The organization characterized the festival’s behavior as unjust and discriminatory.
World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder was outraged by the decision, and urged Spanish authorities “to take appropriate action against those responsible for it.”
Matisyahu ‘expelled’ even as Spain says it’s making nice to Jews
The Spanish government passed a headline-grabbing law on June 11 bestowing Spanish citizenship upon descendants of Sephardic Jews. The high-profile effort, lauded as a historic measure “correcting” sins from a 500-year past, is set to be implemented by October and is expected to potentially draw some 90,000 applicants.
But the law stands in stark contrast to a proliferation of anti-Semitism in the country in which anti-Israel efforts are finding fertile ground, as seen this week in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s successful campaign to cancel an August 22 show by US-born reggae-rapper Matisyahu.
The Rototom Sunsplash festival in eastern Spain, which said it was canceling Matisyahu’s performance after the Valencia chapter of the BDS movement had described him as a “lover of Israel” and asked organizers to request that he “clarify” his political views — is only the latest target of the 10-year-old Israel-delegitimizing BDS movement, a diffuse grassroots campaign whose founders’ self-stated goal is the eventual elimination of the State of Israel.
According to the Anti-Defamation League’s 2015 figures, some 29 percent of Spaniards harbor anti-Semitic sentiments and 59 percent think Spanish Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Spain.
Marking 100 Years Since the Lynching of Leo Frank
In the early hours of Aug. 17, 1915, a 31-year-old man took his last breath as the table beneath him was kicked out and the short rope hung from an oak branch snapped his neck.
The man hanging from that tree was an American Jew by the name of Leo Frank. Although Frank was the only Jew in the history of America lynched by a mob, his death had a profound and lasting impact on American Jewry.
Earlier, Leo Frank, a superintendent at a pencil factory in Atlanta, had been sentenced to death on questionable evidence for murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan in 1913. She had worked at the factory. His trial was a foregone conclusion; Frank had already been convicted in the court of public opinion.
The Northern Jew was the obvious target of the people’s rage. A hate-infused trial ensued, and Frank was portrayed as the insidious Jewish infiltrator, taking what he pleased.
A conviction quickly came, and Frank was sentenced to death.
As he went from appeal to appeal, the case against him began to fall apart. Even some of his accusers conceded that Frank had not murdered Mary Phagan. After his appeals had been rejected by the Supreme Courts of both Georgia and the U.S., Georgia Governor John M. Slaton investigated the body of evidence and, taking a bold stand, commuted Leo Frank’s sentence to life in prison. Slaton did not believe the accused had been guilty of the crime.
But this did not sit well with a community longing for justice but blinded by bigoted rage. After he arrived at the Milledgeville State Penitentiary, Frank’s throat was slit by a fellow prisoner. He survived this attempt on his life, yet the wound had barely healed when on Aug. 16, 1915, a well-oiled mob of 25 rolled up to the prison gates, removed Frank in less than a half hour without firing a shot, and brought him to Marietta, Mary Phagan’s hometown.
After being badly beaten, he was hanged from a tree at 7 a.m.

  • Tuesday, August 18, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
Out of UNRWA's $100 million deficit that threatens to delay the school year, $28 million comes from Jordan.

That covers the costs for 120,000 students in 175 schools taught by 5,500 teachers throughout Jordan for four months.

This means that the annual budget for educating Jordan's students of Palestinian origin is $70 million.

Nearly every one of these students is already a Jordanian citizen.

Jordan says that it cannot afford to educate these students, relying instead on UNRWA, even though this means that the kingdom has two separate school systems with two separate bureaucracies, two separate transportation systems, two separate administrations.

So why not just redirect the money earmarked for UNRWA to Jordanian schools directly?

Western nations should be happy to get rid of Jordanian apartheid where Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens. They can and should be mainstreamed into Jordanian society, something that should have happened decades ago.

By no definition can they be considered "refugees." So why continue to treat them that way?

A five or seven year program to fund Jordan's existing education (and medical) system to accommodate Palestinians, and phase out the current apartheid system for two million so-called "refugees,"  is something that everyone who cares about equal rights should support.

And Canada could be in the forefront to kickstart such a program.

In 2007, Canada gave $32 million to UNRWA. As it soon realized that UNRWA is not aligned with Canadian values, the nation dropped its support to zero, redirecting some of it to various specific PA projects.

UNRWA is at a crossroads. It cannot continue to fund fund its ever-growing "refugee" population without a plan to reduce the number of people on its rolls, as it was originally intended to do. There is no rational reason for Jordanian citizens who happen to have Palestinian ancestry to be considered "refugees." The only reason UNRWA exists in Jordan is as a crutch to help Jordan's budget (besides the political reason of inflating the number of "refugees" to pressure Israel forever.)

It is past time to force UNRWA to change its working definition of "refugee" to be more aligned with that of the UNHCR and to phase out aid to the fake "refugees' who are citizens of Jordan. This budget crisis gives the world a chance to do exactly that, by using limited aid funds smartly and at the same time to eliminate two million "refugees."

The same can be done in the West Bank and Gaza, two other places that Palestinians cannot possibly be called "refugees" by any sane definition. Since most countries recognize "Palestine" as a state, pay the PA to take responsibility for their own people - with a deadline.

The money saved can hep the stateless Arabs of Palestinian origin wasting away in Lebanon and Syria, where UNRWA aid is most urgently needed until a more permanent solution is found.

Enlightened nations like Canada and Australia and the US would also be happy to replace the current UNRWA dinosaur with a real plan to reduce its budget while directing funds at those who need them most.

Now is the chance to accomplish something useful before UNRWA implodes and its current welfare recipients are left with nothing but anger.

  • Tuesday, August 18, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon



On Friday the almost 611,000 individuals entitled to vote for the next leader of Britain’s Labour Party received their initial ballot papers.  A preferential system of voting applies, so that if none of the four candidates obtains 50 per cent of the votes cast, the lowest-ranking candidate is eliminated, and his or her second preference votes are redistributed among the remaining candidates.  Should no winner then emerge, the candidate with the least number of votes will drop out, and their votes redistributed amongst the two survivors.  Votes can be cast either online or via the mail, and must be in by 10 September.  The suffrage extends not only to the almost 300,000 full party members and the almost 190,000 affiliates of the trade unions, but to the 121, 295 persons who, under a recent change to the voting regulations, registered to vote by paying £3 each to party coffers.  Many of these johnnies-come-lately appear to be people, many of them young, who have been attracted to the contest owing to the presence among the four candidates of the veteran MP for Islington East, the deceptively softly-spoken left-wing firebrand Jeremy Corbyn, who is widely expected to win.  The result will be announced on 12 September.

First elected to Parliament in 1983, 66-year-old Corbyn, who had been a fulltime official for the National Union of Public Employees, now part of Unison, and is a far leftist, belonging to the parliamentary Socialist Campaign Group.  A perennial backbencher, he’s a serial rebel on virtually every issue, and is committed to abolishing Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system. He’s  Chairman of the Stop the War Coalition and a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).  His election to the Labour Party leadership is, not surprisingly, something that most of the Anglo-Jewish community fears, since he is widely known as a vociferous critic of Israel and even suspected of being, by some observers, a closet antisemite.

Readers of Richard Millett’s blog will recall some of Corbyn’s past shenanigans, including this classic (http://ukmediawatch.org/2010/07/30/richard-millet-and-jonathan-hoffman-banned-from-parliament/).  More recently, Corbyn’s anti-Israel stance has extended to such canards as claiming that there are settler-only roads (see http://ukmediawatch.org/2015/07/22/jeremy-corbyn-perpetuates-the-myth-of-settler-only-roads-in-the-west-bank/) thus fuelling the “apartheid” trope.

Following recent claims and revelations (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3191393/Jeremy-Corbyn-defended-controversial-vicar-banned-social-media-promoting-clearly-anti-Semitic-material.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3191679/Jeremy-Corbyn-caught-video-calling-Muslim-hate-preacher-honoured-citizen-inviting-tea-terrace-House-Commons.html ), the Jewish Chronicle has declared that “although there is no direct evidence that he has an issue himself with Jews, there is overwhelming evidence of his association with, support for – and even in one case, alleged funding of – Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright antisemites” and that, in consequence, if the man now deemed the most likely to lead the Labour Party “is not to be regarded from the day of his election as an enemy of Britain’s Jewish community” it is incumbent upon him to answer several key questions which the newspaper had put to him (but received no response).  These questions involve allegations that he donated to notorious (Jewish-born!) Holocaust Denier Paul Eisen’s overtly antisemitic group Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR), which even the PSC eschews;  that he has regularly attended DYR’s conferences; that he is due to speak at a conference next week alongside infamous antisemitic cartoonist Latuff (Corbyn has since cancelled that appearance); that earlier this year he contacted the Anglican authorities to defend Rev Stephen Sizer – whom the Bishop of Guildford banned from social media over his despicable Facebook post linking Israel to 9/11 – to suggest that Sizer was “under attack” because he  “dared to speak out against Zionism”; that Corbyn associates with Hamas and Hezbollah and terms them his “friends”; that he has neglected to condemn the antisemitic placards and banners that characterise the annual Al-Quds Day Rally sponsored by the Stop the War Coalition under his chairmanship; and that he described as an “honoured citizen” Palestinian hate preacher and blood libeller Sheikh Raed Salah  (http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/142144/the-key-questions-jeremy-corbyn-must-answer). (See also https://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/corbyn-slams-israel-at-jw3-admits-he-met-hamas/ )

But Corbyn continues to have droves of devoted admirers, seemingly nonplussed by such controversy.  Recent encomiums to him in The Guardian’s correspondence columns have come from a posse of co-signing academics, many of whom are leftist economists, some from – and I assume this is mere coincidence – that hotbed of campus anti-Israel activity in Britain, London’s School of African and Oriental Studies.  A couple of the signatories, Emeritus Professor Susan Himmelweit and Professor Roger Seifert, are associated with Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP), an organisation not so benign as its name suggests, as is (unless he has a namesake) Walter Wolfgang, vice-chair of Labour CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) whose letter endorsing Corbyn’s leadership ambitions was in the same issue of the paper. (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/14/the-labour-party-stands-at-a-crossroads). 

Susan Himmelweit, incidentally, is a trustee of the Lipman-Miliband Trust, self-described as “a progressive charity whose mission was to help support the practice and dissemination of socialist education and research.” Last month the Lipman-Miliband Trust, along with the PSC, War on Want, and Campaign Against the Arms Trade, published a report, Arming Apartheid: UK complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, which calls on the “UK government to implement an immediate two-way arms embargo to end all arms sales to and purchases from Israel”.  As NGO Monitor relates  (http://www.ngomonitor.org/article/arms_embargo_report_funded_by_lipman_milibrand_trust more links at site),  ‘In addition to funding the report, the Trust has funded a 2013 War on Want “awareness campaign” to “Stop Arming Israel,” a 2012 project of +972 Magazine (Advancement of Citizen Journalism), a 2011 “Exhibit of destruction policies” organized by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), a 2010 ICAHD conference in the UK, and the Russell Tribunal in 2010.’

Comments below the line on the online press reports and others that shine a spotlight on Jeremy Corbyn’s alleged associations with antisemitic figures include those that are antisemitic or Jew-baiting themselves.  Such, alas, is the nature of much of the Left today.  This left-wing moral bankruptcy is highlighted by the (non-Jewish) Labour MP John Mann, a blunt honest Yorkshireman who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism.  The latest Sunday Express quotes him as saying “I have very serious concerns about Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters.  I’ve received some vicious anti-Semitic abuse and I’m expecting the Labour Party to take action against this… I’ve received more than 40 emails and a few Tweets since Jeremy Corbyn became significant in the Labour leadership campaign. I know they’re from Corbyn supporters because they all express this openly… I have been described as a servant of the Israeli Prime Minister, a Nazi Zionist, a Zionist scumbag… I know people may argue he [Corbyn] can’t be held responsible for what his supporters do but it is Corbyn’s failure to distance himself from anti-Semites that’s creating the space for these vile attacks.  He has to ask himself why are these vitriolic racists joining the Labour Party to support him.”  (http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/598661/Corbyn-trolls-abusing-me-Jewish  )

Indeed, almost as soon as that press report was posted did antisemitic comments start to pour in.  This, for instance: “The Daily [sic] Express continues its trolling against Corbyn - now it's bringing the jews out to publically [sic] announce Corbyn as anti-semitic… I want to know why we have so many jews in parliament - they are very, very over represented for the number we have living in the UK and something does need to be done about that I think.”

Little wonder that a Jewish Labour MP, Ivan Lewis, who’s Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has announced (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/08/i-cant-all-conscience-vote-jeremy-corbyn-i-will-be-using-all-my-preferences-stop ): “I can't in all conscience, vote for Jeremy Corbyn – I will be using all my preferences to stop him … I will not be voting for Jeremy Corbyn because on too many issues he advocates solutions which belong to the past and will not equip the country or the Labour Party with the vision and policies which can rise to the challenges of the future. I fear his leadership would prevent us rebuilding the mainstream majority support of working and middle class voters, which is essential if we are ever to win an election. Some of his stated political views are a cause for serious concern. At the very least he has shown very poor judgment in expressing support for and failing to speak out against people who have engaged not in legitimate criticism of Israeli governments but in anti-Semitic rhetoric.  It saddens me to have to say to some on the left of British politics that anti-racism means zero tolerance of anti-Semitism, no ifs, and no buts…

As the Jewish Chronicle observed in posing those “key questions” to him, “It is difficult not to see a pattern in Mr Corbyn’s associations, and his refusal at any point to answer the fears of the Jewish community raised by these associations.  In a nation where, thank heavens, racism and extremism are now regarded as beyond the pale, it is little short of astonishing that a man who chooses to associate with racists and extremists is about to become leader of one of our two main parties and could conceivably become Prime Minister.”

Our consolation, however, is surely that so far left a figure as Corbyn is will probably prove so divisive to the Labour Party, and such a gift to the Conservatives, that, by the time the next General Election rolls around (it could be as late as May 2020) the Labour Party may well have ditched him as leader, realising that he is, as many cool counsels are predicting now, that as far as the wider British electorate is concerned he is in fact unelectable.



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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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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