Friday, April 21, 2017

  • Friday, April 21, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the BDS Movement website:
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has defined normalization specifically in a Palestinian and Arab context “as the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.” This is the definition endorsed by the BDS National Committee (BNC).
Oh well:
In a bid to improve the climate between Israelis and Palestinians, US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the peace process on Thursday hosted a video conference with officials and businessmen from both sides to discuss ways to boost the Palestinian economy.

“The discussion followed up on recent US consultations with Israeli and Palestinian business representatives, as well as with Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials, and focused on concrete private sector initiatives which would create new opportunities for growth, and meaningfully improve the Palestinian economy and the quality of life for Palestinians, thereby helping to foster an atmosphere more conducive to peace,” according to a readout provided by US Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Led by Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, the American delegation to the video conference also included National Security Council staff and State Department officials.

Israeli and Palestinian “private sector leaders” and officials participated in the event, which was billed as “part of the Trump Administration’s broader efforts to advance a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”
This violates not only BDS guidelines, but Palestinian Authority demands as well that their people have no contact with Israelis outside of anti-Israel activities.

What happened to their principles?




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From Ian:

Exploited by the enemy
Two Gazan women were caught on Wednesday smuggling explosives from Gaza into Israel for Hamas. The sisters hid the weapons in medical supplies they had been given in Israel, after one had been treated here for cancer.
Last month, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan revealed that Hamas was using Gazan cancer victims as mules to smuggle money and gold into Israel to finance terrorist operations.
Everyone remembers Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, the 21-year-old Palestinian woman from Gaza who in 2005 was caught wearing 10 kilo of explosives in her underwear, en route to blowup Soroka-University Medical Center in Beersheba where she was being treated for burns.
She admitted to being recruited by Fatah’s Aksa Martyrs Brigade, and added that she had wanted to kill as many Israeli children in the hospital as possible.
Despite the security risk, Israel annually allows tens of thousands of Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in Israel (and in the West Bank and Jordan).
I know this firsthand. For a decade I served as a public affairs and development officer at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, the largest hospital in the Middle East. At any given time, one-quarter of all patients in that institution’s Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital are Arabs from Gaza.
Barry Shaw: When Palestinians Kill Palestinians
A frustrated Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s defense minister, criticized the United Nations in a recent phone call with its Middle East envoy, Nikolay Mladenov, for ignoring the ongoing issue of Palestinians killing Palestinians, while “on the other hand, condemning Israel’s justified actions against terrorism.”
Lieberman was referring to the recent killings in Ein El-Hilweh — a predominately Palestinian enclave in Lebanon that has become a battleground for a power struggle among intra-sectarian rivals.
Earlier this month, fighting between the Palestinian Fatah party and a Sunni Islamist group in Lebanon left at least four people dead, and dozens more wounded. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas executed three men for allegedly collaborating with Israel — a ploy regularly used by Hamas to dispose of rival faction members.
To be fair, Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, did say that those murders “were carried out in breach of Palestinian’s obligations under international law…which places stringent conditions on the use of the death penalty,” and even Mladenov issued a statement saying that he was “deeply concerned” by the growing tensions in Gaza.
But the fact remains that when Palestinians are not killing Israelis, they are killing each other.
Caroline Glick: Turkey and Trump’s unpredictability
As Friedman explained, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded modern Turkey after World War I on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire and its caliphate, he recognized that he couldn’t change the way that his people viewed the world.
Rather than reform Islam, Atatürk repressed it. The secular democratic regime he created rested on the coercive power of the military, not on the consent of the governed.
Erdogan’s rise to power, in contrast was predicated on popular support for his anti-secular, Islamic worldview.
To secure that support, Erdogan periodically signaled his intentions.
For instance, as mayor of Istanbul, in 1997 Erdogan recited a poem at a political rally that included the lines, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”
For doing so, Erdogan was arrested, tried and convicted of inciting religious hatred. He was imprisoned for four months. His party was outlawed and he was banned from politics for life.
For Westerners, the regime’s treatment of the mayor of a major city was inconceivable. All he did was read a poem, after all.
But for the Turkish secularists, the move against Erdogan made perfect sense. The lines he recited were an encapsulation of a plan to undermine the secular regime and replace it with a totalitarian Islamic one.
Due in part to the West’s response to his arrest and conviction, Erdogan has used the US and Europe as allies in his bid to win and consolidate power.

  • Friday, April 21, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon


When Ahlam Tamimi admitted, with a smile on her face, to her part in the Sbarro massacre -- 15 killed and 140 injured -- what did Sharia law have to say about that?

Does Sharia commend terrorism?

In his book, Understanding Islamic Law, Raj Bhala posits that unlike the American definition of terrorism -- which incorporates motivation as part of the definition -- Islamic law, as defined for example in the 1998 Arab Convention, states that motivation does not matter and defines terrorism as:
Any act or threat of violence, whatever its motives or purposes, that occurs for the advancement of an individual or collective criminal agenda, causing terror among people, causing fear by harming them, or placing their lives, liberty or security in danger, or aiming to cause damage to the environment or to public or private installations or property or to occupy or to seize them, or aiming to jeopardize a national resource.
The problem with a definition that ignores motivation arises in Bhala's own attempt to describe terrorism:
Islam takes a strong position against terrorism, and like the modern American legal regime, is grounded in Criminal Law. What would be called "terrorism" today is a crime against the public order (hirabah), i.e., an act that threatens the security of society. Such acts include highway robbery (kat' al-tarik), but are not be [sic] limited to that example.
Is highway robbery an appropriate example of terrorism?

Going a step further, Bhala quotes a passage from the Koran (5:33), to support his contention about Islam's opposition to terrorism:
Those who wage war against God and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land should be punished by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot, or banishment from the land: a disgrace for them in this world, and then a terrible punishment in the Hereafter, unless they repent before you over power them: in that case bear in mind that God is forgiving and merciful.
The passage is at best problematic.

Is "terrorism" what the Koran has in mind when it speaks about spreading corruption? It may well describe highway robbery, but not the kind of attacks that we have in mind when we talk about terrorism.

More jarring is Bhala's own description, where he writes "In brief, the punishment for the spreading of mischief and terrorism is severe..."terrorism," understood in the Qur'anic sense of spreading mischief through the land, never is condoned..." Mischief is an appropriate term for harm or trouble, but seems to fall short for the topic of terrorism.

More importantly, a key element that is missing here is the focus of the attack. The Koran seems to focus internally on Muslim vs Muslim violence. In the context of Islam, when we discuss terrorism we are referring to Muslim vs Non-Muslim violence.

Bernard Lewis addresses this issue in his 2003 book The Crisis of Islam, especially in terms of the approach taken by the religious leaders who justify the terrorist attacks of Al Qaeda, fundamentalism of the Saudis and institutionalized revolution of Iran:
All these different extremist groups sanctify their action through pious references to Islamic texts, notably the Qur'an and the traditions of the Prophet, and all three claim to represent a truer, purer, and more authentic Islam than that currently practiced by the vast majority of Muslims and endorsed by most though not all of the religious leadership. They are, however, highly selective in their choice and interpretation of sacred texts. (p. 138)
photo
Bernard Lewis. Credit: Wikipedia

Going from generalities to specifics, Lewis addresses the problem with suicide bombers, applicable to the terrorist who blew himself up in the Sbarro restaurant:
Those who are killed in the jihad are called martyrs, in Arabic and other Muslim languages shahid...The Arabic term shahid also means "witness" and is usually translated "martyr," but it has a rather different connotation. In Islamic usage the term martyrdom is normally interpreted to mean death in a jihad and reward is eternal bliss, described in some detail in early religious texts. Suicide, by contrast, is a mortal sin and earns eternal damnation, even for those who would otherwise have earned a place in paradise. The classical jurists distinguish clearly between facing certain death at the hands of the enemy and killing oneself by one's own hand. The one leads to heaven, the other to hell. Some recent fundamentalist jurists and others have blurred or even dismissed this distinction, but their view is by no means unanimously accepted. The suicide bomber is thus taking a considerable risk on a theological nicety. (p38-39 emphasis added)
Beyond issues of theology, Lewis points out that Sharia law addresses who can be targeted:
Because holy war is an obligation of the faith, it is elaborately regulated in the sharia. Fighters in a jihad are enjoined not to kill women, children, and the aged unless they attack first, not to torture or mutilate prisoner, to give fair warning of the resumption of hostilities after a truce, and to honor agreements.
And because of the issue of who can be targeted, Islamic law also discusses what constitutes proper weapons:
...The medieval jurists and theologians discuss at some length the rules of warfare, including questions such as which weapons are permitted and which are not. There is even some discussion in medieval texts of the lawfulness of missile and chemical warfare, the one relating to mangonels and catapults, the other to poison-tipped arrows and the poisoning of enemy water supplies. On these points there is considerable variation. Some jurists permit, some restrict, some disapprove of the use of these weapons. The stated reason for concern is the indiscriminate casualties that they inflict. [emphasis added]
These are issues that more than theoretical. The terrorist who blew himself up at the Sbarro restaurant is dead.

The terrorist who masterminded the terrorist attack, Ahlam Tamimi, is alive and has found haven in Jordan.

None of the issues outlined above were of any concern to her:



But what about Jordan's King Abdullah?

What are his thoughts about the Islamic attitude towards terrorism?

We can get an idea of King Abdullah's thinking on terrorism by looking at The Amman Message:
The Amman Message started as a detailed statement released the eve of the 27th of Ramadan 1425 AH / 9th November 2004 CE by H.M. King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein in Amman, Jordan. It sought to declare what Islam is and what it is not, and what actions represent it and what actions do not. Its goal was to clarify to the modern world the true nature of Islam and the nature of true Islam.
According to the summary, the apparent consensus that was reached:
thus assures balanced Islamic solutions for essential issues like human rights; women’s rights; freedom of religion; legitimate jihad; good citizenship of Muslims in non-Muslim countries, and just and democratic government. It also exposes the illegitimate opinions of radical fundamentalists and terrorists from the point of view of true Islam. As George Yeo, the Foreign Minister of Singapore, declared in the 60th Session of the U.N. General Assembly (about the Amman Message): “Without this clarification, the war against terrorism would be much harder to fight.”
So far, so good.

In the full text, the Amman Message addresses the issue of terrorism as follows:
On religious and moral grounds, we denounce the contemporary concept of terrorism that is associated with wrongful practices, whatever their source and form may be. Such acts are represented by aggression against human life in an oppressive form that transgresses the rulings of God, frightening those who are secure, violating peaceful civilians, finishing off the wounded, and killing prisoners; and they employ unethical means, such as destroying buildings and ransacking cities: Do not kill the soul that God has made sacrosanct, save for justice. (6:151)

We condemn these practices and believe that resisting oppression and confirming justice should be a legitimate undertaking through legitimate means. We call on the people to take the necessary steps to achieve the strength and steadfastness for building identity and preserving rights.

We realize that over history extremism has been instrumental in destroying noble achievements in great civilizations, and that the tree of civilization withers when malice takes hold and breasts are shut. In all its shapes, extremism is a stranger to Islam, which is founded upon equanimity and tolerance. No human whose heart has been illumined by God could be a radical extremist.

At the same time, we decry the campaign of brazen distortion that portrays Islam as a religion that encourages violence and institutionalizes terrorism. We call upon the international community to work earnestly to implement inter-national laws and honor the international mandates and resolutions issued by the United Nations, ensuring that all parties accept them and that they be enacted without double standards, to guarantee the return of rights to their [rightful] holders and the end of oppression. Achieving this will be a significant contribution to uprooting the causes of violence, fanaticism and extremism. [emphasis added]
On the one hand, terrorism is condemned in the context of "resisting oppression," with an emphasis on pursuing justice as "a legitimate undertaking through legitimate means." On the other hand, the International Islamic Fiqh Academy met in Jordan just 18 months later and issued Resolution 154: Islam’s Position on Extremism, Radicalism, and Terrorism, linked to from the Amman Message site itself, which states:
There is a distinction between terrorism and legitimate resistance to occupation through legally accepted means, because the latter is for the purposes of removing tyranny and reclaiming lost rights. This is a right recognized by law and by reason, and is affirmed by international treaties...We reaffirm what has already been mentioned above in this resolution, namely that struggle (Jihad) to defend Islamic belief, and to protect or liberate one’s country from foreign occupation is not terrorism, so long as that struggle follows the rulings of Islamic law..
This appears to leave the door open for terrorism when framed as "resistance" withing the same Islamic law that supposedly condemns terrorism.

Similarly, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross writes in his analysis of the Amman Message, The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam
Most significant, the circumstances under which the use of force is justified-self-defense, the protection of sovereignty, and "in defense of all innocent people"-are never explained. Are roadside bomb attacks against coalition forces in Iraq justified defenses of sovereignty? What about suicide bombings in Israel? Some very prominent Islamic scholars would answer yes to both questions-and, unfortunately, there is reason to believe that their ranks include signatories of the Amman Message's takfir document.
He points to King Abdullah's comments to that same International Islamic Fiqh Academy that issued resolution 154, where King Abdullah appeared to endorse the use of terrorism against Israel:
We believe that the grief which affects us will affect you, because in Amman you are close to the grief of Iraq to the east, as the people of Iraq undergo a great struggle, and you are close to the grief of the Palestinians to the west, as the blessed al-Aqsa mosque, the first qiblah and third in the triad of Holy Places, suffers under occupation.

photo
King Abdullah addressing the Opening Plenary session of the
World Economic Forum in 2008. Credit: World Economic Forum

Gartenstein-Ross also notes the absence in the Amman Message of a definition of non-combatants -- a point relevant to defining the approach of Sharia Law to the Sbarro massacre. He points out that while the document hints that non-combatants are not legitimate targets of war, Yusuf Qaradawi -- who signed the document -- has claimed that all Israelis are legitimate targets due to conscription in Israel, so that there are no "civilians" in Israel.

Apparently Qaradawi does not apply the same logic to Gaza, where little children are encouraged to sing about killing Israelis and act out attacks and killings with a goal towards training to do the real thing.

The apparent lack of a united Muslim opposition to Islamic terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians is evident elsewhere as well.

Buzzfeed ran an article last year praising Heraa Hashmi, a 19 year old student who developed a Google spreadsheet to prove that Muslims condemn terrorism. If you open her Worldwide Muslims Condemn List and do a search for Israel, you will find that other than links to articles accusing the Simon Wiesenthal Center of desecrating the Mamilla cemetery in Jerusalem, there is a broken link to Leading Muslim Scholars Condemn Racism and Intolerance at the Durban II Conference available elsewhere. The article does refer to Israel, twice. However, the condemnation to racism and intolerance is a general one.

The website created from the spreadsheet, Muslims Condemn lists 20 popular searches -- none of them having to do with Israel. A search for "terrorism" gives a very long list that seemed endless. A search for "Israel" turns up 8 hits: 4 links to the Mamilla cemetery, 1 to ISIS, 1 to Climate Change and 2 to condemnations of Terrorism. A search for "Israel" and "terrorism" turns up just those 2 links. While clicking on hits tend to provide genuine links, for these 2 hits, clicking on them leads to a page giving as the "source" not a link to an article but just the text "Acommonword"

No doubt there have been condemnations, but the vast majority are directed to terrorist attacks other than those against Israeli civilians.

This tends to corroborate Raymond Ibrahim, who in his 2008 article Studying the Islamic Way of War, contradicts what Bernard Lewis writes about the Islamic attitude towards war and non-combatants:
For instance, based on the words and deeds of Muhammad, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel: the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammad’s seventh century context; hijacked planes or WMD today); the need to always deceive the enemy and even break formal treaties whenever possible (see Sahih Muslim 15: 4057); and that the only function of the peace treaty, or “hudna,” is to give the Islamic armies time to regroup for a renewed offensive, and should, in theory, last no more than ten years. [emphasis added]
So where does that leave us today regarding Sharia Law and terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians in general -- and particularly the attitude of Islamic law towards Ahlam Tamimi's masterminding of the massacre at the Sbarro restaurant?

It turns out that theree is no single authoritative statement in Sharia law that clearly condemns terrorism, no matter where it occurs.

However, we know that Jordan abided by its extradition treaty with the US in 1995, when it handed over the terrorist who drove a van full of explosives into the garage of the World Trade Center in 1993. If King Abdullah, whose father King Hussein, saw to it that Jordan respected that treaty, really wants to demonstrate that Islam condemns terrorism, his choice is clear. Muslim condemnation of terrorism as long as it does not occur in Israel turns those Muslim condemnations into a sham.

In order to send a clear message that Sharia law today condemns the murder of women and children by Ahlam Tamimi and condemns terrorism in general, King Abdullah must extradite Ahlam Tamimi to the United States.



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  • Friday, April 21, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
Amnesty International has a report that was released to coincide with this hunger strike, yet not one of the prisoners' demands are listed by Amnesty as being a violation of international law. (Amnesty does claim that having the prisons in Israel instead of the territories is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, but relocating the prisons is not one of the prisoner demands. One can imagine the outcry if Israel would build prisons in the territories!)

What may be more interesting was  Amnesty's choice to highlight this pull quote in their report:


Since the title of the report is "Israel must end ‘unlawful and cruel’ policies towards Palestinian prisoners," anyone glancing at this page and this featured quote would assume that a prisoner is claiming that Israel is torturing them. An unsubstantiated quote of that sort would be egregious enough if that is what this was.

But if you bother to look at the nearly unreadable grayed-out source, you see that this accusation of "torture" is not by a prisoner, but from a prisoner's sister, saying that Israeli restrictions on her visiting her brother is "torture" and punishment.

It is obvious that calling restrictions on unlimited visits "torture" is ludicrous. To highlight that accusation as a key takeaway in the report is massively deceptive.

Clearly, Amnesty had next to nothing to accuse Israel of, and instead it went to its usual Plan B, to quote anonymous people who accuse Israel of horrible things without Amnesty having to actually verify anything. It pushes lies and propaganda while avoiding lying outright.

Just another reason that Amnesty has no credibility as a moral force.



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  • Friday, April 21, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
Al Jazeera characterizes the demands of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike as "basic rights."


The article itself mentions that the conditions are dire:

"They have central demands and will continue to fast until they achieve them. The prisoners see hunger striking as the only door they can knock on to attain their rights," Amina al-Taweel, the centre's spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.

"Even though it is one of the most dangerous and difficult decisions, they are only making this choice because conditions [inside the prisons] have reached a new low," said al-Taweel.

What are these "basic rights" that the prisoners are demanding?

They include:

Adding satellite channels "tailored to the needs of prisoners"
Restoring classes at Hebrew University
Installation of a public telephone in all prisons to allow communication with relatives
Allowing second-degree relatives to visit
Allowing children and grandchildren under 16 to visit
Increasing duration of the visits from 45 minutes to 90 minutes
Allowing prisoners to take photographs with their families every three months
Installing air conditioners in prisons
Restoring kitchens for use by prisoners under the exclusive supervision of the prisoners themselves
Allowing detainees to keep their own books, newspapers and clothes that families bring
Ending solitary confinement

"Basic rights."







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Thursday, April 20, 2017

Peter Beinart tries to snow his readers in his latest piece for the Forward. See if you can spot his sleight of hand as he describes Israeli political reaction to the New York Times publishing an op-ed by Marwan Barghouti:

[Michael Oren believes] because Barghouti was convicted of terrorism, his cause is illegitimate, even monstrous. The problem with this argument is that it doesn’t only explain why Marwan Barghouti isn’t Nelson Mandela. It explains why Nelson Mandela isn’t Nelson Mandela either.

A decade earlier, when the Oslo Peace Process began, [Barghouti] had declared the era of military resistance over. “The armed struggle,” he claimed in 1994, “is no longer an option for us.”
...
Barghouti’s shift, which led him to play an active role in the second intifada, constituted a tragic mistake, even a crime, against both Palestinians and Israelis. I’m not justifying it. But he’s not the only national leader to have embraced armed struggle after losing faith in non-violence. Mandela did too.
Beinart, whose parents were born in South Africa, knows very well that the analogy doesn't hold water - so he tells half-truths to create it.

Mandela was imprisoned in 1964 for sabotage against South Africa's power grid and plotting to overthrow the government. No one was injured, let alone killed, by his actions.

Yes, he supported violence against the state. Yes, sometimes ANC violence killed civilians. But Mandela was not a murderer and the ANC that he led never claimed to target civilians.

Barghouti, on the other hand, has been convicted of five murders - and more.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs summed up Barghouti's record:
Barghouti was convicted in a criminal suit in Israeli district court on five separate counts of murder of innocent civilians.
·       Crimes orchestrated by Barghouti include: The murder of Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus in Jerusalem on June 12, 2001; the murder of Yoela Hen in Jeruslaem on January 15, 2002; and the murder of Eli Dahan, Yosef Habi, and Salim Barakat in Tel Aviv on March 5, 2002.
·       He was acquitted of 21 counts of murder in 33 other attacks, due to lack of sufficient evidence.
·       Barghouti was the founder and senior official of the designated terrorist group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which was responsible for massacring dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and shooting attacks during the Second Intifada (2001-2005).
·       Barghouti also served as the head of the Tanzim, an armed faction in Fatah that carried out attacks on Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada.
·       During his trials, Barghouti showed no remorse for the murders he committed.
There is a big difference between the two.

Furthermore, the New York Times, knowing Barghouti was a murderer, didn't let that influence its decision to publish his accusations against Israel (of torturing him, for example) as if they were factual. He clearly lied about prison conditions and about Israel arresting 800,000 Palestinians since 1967.

Why should a murderer be believed to write the truth in any venue, let alone in the pages of the major US newspaper?

Moreover, Mandela clearly changed from his support for violence when he became a political leader. Barghouti is not a leader and has not showed any remorse for his murders.

Beinart's article is actually far worse. He knows that despite Mandela's history of supporting violence, he is viewed nowadays (rightly or wrongly) as a near-saint. And Beinart's intent is to make the reader feel the same way about Barghouti that most Westerners feel about Mandela. See how Beinart ends his article as he pretends that his sickening argument has gone full circle:
“I was called a terrorist yesterday,” Mandela once said, “but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists.”

Do you hear that, Michael Oren? He’s talking to you.
There is no other way to read this than to say that Peter Beinart is trying to whitewash the actions of a terrorist who is responsible for the murders of many people, directly and indirectly.

Despite his halfhearted caveats and perverted downplaying of Barghouti's murderous terror as "a tragic mistake" - as if his victims died in car accidents -  this essay shows that Peter Beinart is an apologist for terror.

(h/t EBoZ)





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From Ian:

Scientists Take a Stand Against Academic Boycotts of Israel
More than 100 Boston-area researchers in health care and life sciences released a statement April 13 in defense of “the liberal ideals which have shaped our democracy” and in support of “the free flow of ideas and information” that is central to their work. Why affirm something so obvious? To stop academic blacklisting by the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement, which targets Israeli universities and scholars.
Attempts to isolate Israel and its educational institutions aren’t new. In 1945 the Arab League declared that all Arab institutions and individuals must “refuse to deal in, distribute, or consume Zionist products of manufactured goods.” The original boycott soon extended to entities that traded with Israel. This did great economic and political damage until the U.S. Congress in 1977 prohibited American companies from cooperating with it, as some were doing. Only U.S. prohibition of the prohibition had the force to guarantee free international trade.
In 2002, a group of professors from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were among the first academics to advocate divesting from Israel. Two years later the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was founded with the explicit purpose of isolating Israeli academics and institutions. Its goal was to deny Israeli scholars access to scholarly conferences, journals and employment opportunities. The boycott also includes keeping unwelcome speakers and information from campus to maintain Israel as the permanent object of blame.
The campaign’s efforts paid off in the U.S., where the American Studies Association and the National Women’s Studies Association approved boycotts in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Academic associations that have so far voted such resolutions down—the American Anthropological Association, Modern Language Association and American Historical Association—introduce new ones every year. Only through a concerted effort by school administration can universities remain free spaces. Jewish students should not be expected to bear the full brunt of attack by those who import the Arab-Muslim war against Israel into the American campus.
Nikki Haley urges UN to shift its criticism from Israel to Iran
It’s high time the United Nations Security Council set its sights on Iran, rather than Israel, United States Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said Thursday during the Security Council’s monthly meeting on “the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.”
“Every month the Security Council convenes a meeting on the Middle East. We have lots of meetings on specific countries and conflicts in this region but this debate is our opportunity to talk about the Middle East as a whole. Regrettably, these monthly meetings routinely turn into Israel-bashing sessions. That’s the way the Security Council has operated for years. It’s a formula that is absurdly biased against one country. It’s a formula that is painfully narrow in its description of the conflicts in the region,” said Haley, who is this month’s president of the Security Council.
In her remarks before the 15-member council, Haley condemned Iran, which she said is responsible for regional tumult, from meddling in Yemen and Syria, to its support of Hezbollah.
“Iran is using Hezbollah to expand its regional aspirations. That is a threat that should be dominating our discussions at the Security Council,” she said.
Since Haley assumed her post in January with the promise that there “is a new sheriff in town,” she has repeatedly chastised the UN for what she says is its Israel obsession and anti-Israel bias.
Rabbi Sacks on The Mutation of Antisemitism
In recent months and years we have seen the return and rise of antisemitism across Europe and around the world. But how has antisemitism mutated over time? And why does its return today present a danger not just for Jews, but for all who care about our common humanity? Please watch and share my new whiteboard animation and this important message.


  • Thursday, April 20, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon

From Times of Israel:

A tiny satellite built by Israeli high school students flew into space Tuesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on its way to study the atmosphere as part of an international research project.

The Duchifat-2 (Hoopoe) is one of 28 nanosatellites from 23 countries participating in the European Union’s QB50 thermosphere research program, but it’s the only one constructed by high school students.

Over 80 pupils in grades 9-12 at schools in Herzliya, Ofakim, Yeruham, the West Bank settlement of Ofra, and the Bedouin town of Hura helped to construct Duchifat-2, which weighs just 1.8 kilograms (four pounds), and is just 20 centimeters (eight inches) tall and 10 centimeters wide. Due to its small size, the satellite has no motors and instead uses the earth’s magnetic field to gently keep itself correctly aligned in space.

An Atlas V supply rocket carrying the payload of satellites along with over three tons of supplies blasted off from Florida and headed for the International Space Station, which it will reach after approximately two days of travel. Astronauts inside the orbiting space station will release Duchifat-2 and the swarm of other nanosatellites into space in about six weeks’ time.

Fourteen students from Herzliya and Hura traveled to Florida to watch the launch live.

The Israeli satellite will study the plasma density in the lower thermosphere, a layer of the atmosphere that begins at about 85 kilometers (53 miles) altitude and continues up to about 300 kilometers (185 miles).
Where else in the Middle East can Arab students have such opportunities? Specifically, where else can Arab girls work on science projects of such high caliber?

Here are the bright students, Arabs and Jews, at NASA.


(h/t Zvi)




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 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

This isn’t the first time I’ve written this, and it won’t be the last unless something changes.

Marwan Barghouti is in the news again, calling for a hunger strike to “resist” the “abuse” of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. The New York Times also made news by publishing an op-ed by Barghouti with a note that he is “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” but failing to include the fact that he was imprisoned after a conviction for five terrorist murders. He was accused of being involved in many more, but the state chose to prosecute him only for the ones for which the evidence was strongest. After all, five life sentences should be enough to keep him off the street, shouldn’t they?

Israelis can be excused for being skeptical. After all, 16 of them weren’t enough to keep Ahlam Tamimi, mastermind of the 2002 Sbarro Pizzaria bombing, behind bars (she was released in 2011 as part of the ransom for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit). Tamimi has a flourishing career as a broadcaster in Jordan, which has refused her extradition to the US (some of her victims were US citizens). Yet again in 2013 Israel agreed to release 104 prisoners, most of whom were convicted of murder, “in order to move toward renewed peace negotiations.” Some 78 were released before the doomed negotiations fell apart.

Although the Knesset passed a law in 2014 establishing a life sentence without possibility of parole in less than 40 years and without eligibility for release for diplomatic purposes, the pressure that can be placed on Israeli officials when a person, especially a young soldier, is in the hands of the enemy can be immense. In any case, the law doesn’t apply to terrorists already in prison, nor to military courts where many cases which occur in Judea and Samaria must be tried. I am not aware of any terrorist that has yet received this kind of sentence.

Barghouti and Tamimi are popular Palestinian heroes, because nothing makes a bigger Palestinian hero than killing Jews. There is agitation from the Israeli Left and foreign circles to release Barghouti, who is considered a possible “moderate” Palestinian political leader and even (and this is insane) “the Palestinian Nelson Mandela.”

The only thing Barghouti shares with Mandela is the fact that he is in prison, something that could also be said of Charles Manson, and nobody calls him the American Mandela. But I could easily imagine circumstances under which Barghouti (unlike Manson) would be released.

There should be no question of releasing Barghouti and no need to try to extradite Tamimi. These options should have been foreclosed from the start. Both justice and our national interest demand that these murderers and others like them should be dead. 

Let’s look at some of the reasons that Israel should implement a speedy and sure death penalty for terrorist murder.

1.       Fewer terrorists means less terror. As I’ve said above, life sentences are often cut short. Many of the prisoners who were released went back to terrorism, including some that murdered again. At least 6 Israelis have been killed since 2014 by prisoners who were released in the 2011 deal that freed Ahlam Tamimi. They would be alive today if their murderers had received the death penalty. Laws to limit prisoner exchanges are unlikely to be enforced when the next soldier or child is kidnapped.

2.       The presence of high-profile terrorists in prison encourages attempts to kidnap Israelis in order to free them.

3.       It is a deterrent. A terrorist knows that if he survives his attack, he will be imprisoned under good conditions with other security prisoners, he can earn academic degrees, and his family will be compensated. He might even be released early. Yes, some terrorists are suicidal but many are not. A death penalty, if it is swift and sure (as it is not, for example, in the US) does deter other potential terrorists.

4.       How can we ask soldiers and police to risk their lives trying to capture terrorists when they know they will receive de facto light sentences? And how can we punish them if, out of frustration, they kill a terrorist that they could have captured alive?

5.       Honor and deterrence demand that Israel kill terrorist murderers. This is possibly the most important consideration of all. In Arab cultures, a clan that does not retaliate for the killing of its members loses its honor and its power of deterrence. Even if the folks in North Tel Aviv think that we are too civilized to kill our enemies, the Palestinians are certain that it’s because we are too weak, as a culture, to do so. They take this as a sign that their struggle is succeeding and are encouraged to continue it.

There will be objections. What about mistakes? Death is so final. But in the case of terrorist murderers, the evidence is often very strong – they are often caught quite literally red-handed. So there is no reason we can’t insist on a very high standard of proof before imposing the death penalty.

Executions, it is objected, create martyrs. But an imprisoned Barghouti or Tamimi is a martyr already, a living one. In life they continue to work against us, probably more effectively than if they were only names on Palestinian schools, streets and soccer fields. Dead martyrs are no worse than living ones.

But, they say, most civilized countries don’t have death penalties. Yes, but most civilized countries haven’t faced (until recently, anyway) the sheer volume of terrorism that we have.

Israel actually has a death penalty on the books, which was applied in Adolf Eichmann’s case. When the Fogel family was brutally murdered in 2011, prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty, but in the end did not do so. A law requiring the death penalty for murder by terrorism was introduced after the last election by Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party, but it did not pass. It should have. Jewish law would probably approve of a death penalty for especially heinous terrorist acts, with a high standard of proof. For example, Barghouti, Tamimi and the Fogel murderers might qualify.

Why has Israel drawn back, even in cases of murder as horrible as the Fogel case, in which five members of a family, including a three-month old baby, were slaughtered by terrorists who were proud of their handiwork? I think the reason is that – as in so many other cases – Israelis feel the need to appease the non-Jewish world, to meet the (supposed) ethical standards of “enlightened,” post-Christian European society.

That’s an attitude appropriate to a subject people living under foreign rule, not a sovereign state. I’ll get into that in my next article.




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From Ian:

Michael Oren: We’re turning a blind eye to Iran’s genocidal liars
The Australian, April 19, 2017 - In responding forcibly to North Korean and Syrian outrages, President Trump has taken a major step towards restoring America’s deterrence power. His determination to redress the flaws in the JCPOA and to stand up to Iran will greatly accelerate that process. The US, Israel and the world will all be safer.
The US has signed agreements with three rogue regimes strictly limiting their unconventional military capacities. Two of those regimes — Syria and North Korea — brazenly violated the agreements, provoking game-changing responses from Donald Trump. But the third agreement — with Iran — is so inherently flawed that Tehran doesn’t even have to break it. Honouring it will be enough to endanger millions of lives.
The framework agreements with North Korea and Syria, concluded respectively in 1994 and 2013, were similar in many ways. Both recognised that the regimes already possessed weapons of mass destruction or at least the means to produce them. Both ­assumed that the regimes would surrender their arsenals under an international treaty and open their facilities to inspectors. And both believed these repressive states, if properly engaged, could be brought into the community of nations.
All those assumptions were wrong. After withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Pyongyang tested five atomic weapons and developed ­intercontinental missiles capable of carrying them. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, less than a year after signing the framework, reverted to gassing his own people. Bolstered by the inaction of the US and backed by other powers, North Korea and Syria broke their commitments with impunity.
Seth Frantzman: 'With Syria in pieces, it’s time to recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan'
Michael Oren says it is time for the world to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel.
In contrast to negotiations with the Palestinians, there is no Syria to negotiate with, Deputy Minister for Diplomacy in the Prime Minister’s Office Oren said on Tuesday.
“Without Israel there [in the Golan], the region would be jeopardized. ISIS would be on the Kinneret,” he said, adding that other states in the region are glad Israel is on the Golan. This is one of several important outcomes of the 1967 war still felt today.
Israel annexed the Golan in 1981 in a decision that was never recognized internationally.
Oren was speaking at a Jerusalem seminar hosted by The Israel Project and the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research. The seminar – one of a series that runs through June – is focused on the impact of the war of 50 years ago, domestically and geopolitically, with special emphasis on Jerusalem.
JPost Editorial: Strike Out
The hunger strike by Palestinian terrorist prisoners that began this week, as explained by convicted murderer Marwan Barghouti in an op-ed in The New York Times that identified him as “a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” was a last resort to protest “Israel’s illegal system of mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners.”
The uninformed reader might ask why this hunger strike is different from all other Palestinian hunger strikes.
While some might be inclined to accept Barghouti’s motives at face value, there is ample evidence that his action is nothing more than a cynical attempt to exploit his fellow prisoners in a bid at succeeding Mahmoud Abbas as leader of the Palestinian Authority – despite his imprisonment.
According to Barghouti, Palestinian prisoners and detainees have suffered from torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, and medical negligence. “Some have been killed while in detention. According to the latest count from the Palestinian Prisoners Club, about 200 Palestinian prisoners have died since 1967 because of such actions,” he wrote.
But there remains an aspect of unreality about this strike. All one has to do is take a look at some of these conditions in prisons being decried by the Palestinians, some of which have actually been improved over the years. In the early days of Palestinian terrorism following the Six Day War, convicted terrorists were denied pencil and paper. By 2012, their privileges extended to obtaining remedial education behind bars, including academic degrees from the Open University.

  • Thursday, April 20, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon

This story came out, and was widely reported, last week:
Marvel artist Ardian Syaf will face “disciplinary action” after it was revealed over the weekend that he promoted an anti-Christian and anti-Semitic verse from the Koran in one of its books.

Superhero fans know the X-Men as a team of “mutants” that fights against intolerance. The newest issue of “X-Men Gold,” however, included a reference to Indonesian politics and the Koranic chapter and verse QS 5:51. The surreptitious messaging spread on Reddit and entertainment websites on Saturday before the company took action.

“O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies,” one translation of the text reads. “They are, in fact, allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you — then indeed, he is one of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.”

The Koranic reference was printed on a main character’s clothing in a story where a Jewish woman becomes the team’s leader.

A “212” and another “51” appeared elsewhere in the book, both references to a day of Muslim protests in December over claims that Jakarta’s Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, insulted Islam.
“The mentioned artwork in X-Men Gold #1 was inserted without knowledge behind its reported meanings,” Marvel said in a statement released Saturday. “These implied references do not reflect the views of the writer, editors or anyone else at Marvel and are in direct opposition of the inclusiveness of Marvel Comics and what the X-Men have stood for since their creation. This artwork will be removed from subsequent printings, digital versions, and trade paperbacks and disciplinary action is being taken.”
The reaction from the artist:
In an interview with local Jakarta newspaper Jawa Pos published today and translated by Coconuts, Ardian stated that he had tried to explain his side to Marvel. “But Marvel is owned by Disney. When Jews are offended, there is no mercy.”
There is an irony here from a Muslim artist who doesn't like Jews.

Back in the 1940s, the first Muslim comic book hero was created. He was called Kismet, Man of Fate. An Algerian, Kismet eschewed alcohol, used phrases like "By the beard of Allah!" and fought Nazis in Nazi-occupied France, although he would try not to kill anyone.


Kismet was supposedly created by "Omar Tahan," but that was a fiction. In fact he was conceived, written and drawn by Jews. And considering that comics in that time period were routinely blatantly racist, Kismet - despite the stereotypical catchphrases - was someone who was clearly a good guy.

The comic book house that created Kismet, Bomber Comics, was owned by two Jews, including a woman, Ruth Roche, who probably wrote the Kismet stories.

So we have Jews who created a very respectful (if short-lived) Muslim comic book hero 75 years ago when racism and bigotry was widespread, and today we have a Muslim artist who inserted anti-Jewish messages in the modern form of the same medium.





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  • Thursday, April 20, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon


In 2005, this encouraging news was reported:

The University of Maryland is planning to use private grants to have a fully functioning studies program by 2010 dedicated to Israeli culture, not just the nation's conflict with Palestine.

Though there are Israeli studies programs at other universities — including Wesleyan University, American University and the University of Pennsylvania — many of them focus only on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said associate professor Hayim Lapin, director of the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies. In contrast, this program will offer classes on language, literature, sociology, economics and ecology, he added.

"The way Israeli studies gets played out is it becomes extremely politicized," Lapin said. "We don't have that problem right now. There are plenty of people with very strongly held political views, but we don't have a highly politicized program in one way or the other."

Here is a description of every course being offered by the Israel Studies program at UMD for this coming fall semester:

ISRL289I The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict: Fundamental Questions 
Why are Palestinians and Israelis unable to resolve their conflict? Will they ever? Using insights and methodologies from a variety of disciplines and contrasting interpretations of history, this course will examine why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues, why it has become so central in world politics and how it connects with other global issues.

We can't know the specifics without a syllabus, but claiming that the conflict is "central in world politics" is already an indication of the bias in this course.

ISRL329E Special Topics in Israel Studies; Israel and the Arab Spring 
This course will explore and analyze the political, diplomatic, and strategic effects of the Arab Spring and its continuing after effects on the State of Israel, using that as a lens to study the contemporary Middle East. It starts with a preliminary study of Israel's foreign policy and then examines the effects of the Arab Spring on its domestic politics: relations with other regional actors, the Palestinians, and the United States; and Israel's strategy towards non-state actors such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIS.

This could be an interesting course, but either way it is clearly political.

ISRL329F Special Topics in Israel Studies; The History of Economic Policy in Palestine/Israel
 This course examines economic policy in Palestine/Israel from 1999 (under Ottoman rule [sic]) through the British Mandate (1922-48) until 1988, when the current neo-liberal economic policy began. It will examine how the governments and society dealt with issues such as growth versus equality (distributive justice); ideology versus praxis; local original policy versus imported policy; and politics versus academic economics - who decides and under what circumstances?
I could be wrong, but the term "distributive justice" seems to indicate that this is an anti-Israel (and anti-free market) course.

ISRL349Q Investigating Topics in Israel Studies; The Self and the "Other" in Israeli Culture: Literature, Film, and Television 
Modern Israel includes people of many different faiths, ethnicities, languages, and cultures, but, Jews of European origin have generally dominated its political and cultural climate. Through literature and film, we will explore how the sense of the "self" is constructed and how the "other" is imagined in Israeli culture. "Others" include Palestinians, Sephardim, Mizrahim, non-Zionists, women, and Eastern Europeans who do not relinquish their ties to the past, as well as other individuals who resist the collective ideologies of a nation constructing itself.
 The topic is worthwhile; the presentation looks highly biased. A lot would depend on whether this course looks at contemporary Israeli culture or if it will be dominated by the admittedly problematic aspects from the 1950s.

ISRL349Z Investigating Topics in Israel Studies; Beyond Black and White: Jews and Representations of Race
An examination of Western constructions and representations of 'race' from medieval times to the modern rise of Zionism and the founding of Israel, with a focus on how Jews utilized the racial discourses of each period to negotiate their position within Western history.
I cannot see any way that this course is not problematic given the politics around race on college campuses nowadays.

ISRL448M Seminar in Israel Studies; The Israeli War Discourse, 1967-2017 
Recommended: Some knowledge of Israel or a previous Israel Studies course. This online course focuses on a unique Israeli phenomenon, 'war-normalizing discourse', a set of linguistic and cultural devices that blur the various characteristics of war by transforming it into a "normal" part of life. We will examine the reciprocal relations between this discourse, Israeli culture and society, and foreign policy.
When war is part of life, how can "war-normalizing" be avoided? This looks highly biased from its conception.

ISRL448T Seminar in Israel Studies; Israel's Occupation at 50 
Now in its fiftieth year, Israel's occupation of the West Bank is the longest continuous military occupation in the world. This seminar will examine its history, the radical transformation of Israeli policy towards Palestinians over five decades, and its impact on the daily lives of Palestinians struggling with the ongoing military and settler presence in their land. The seminar will conclude with a discussion of continued Palestinian resistance to military occupation, including the use of terror against civilians.
This one is obviously anti-Israel. even the course description cannot avoid bias.

It is possible that there is a lot more nuance here and that my skepticism is misplaced. Mitchell Bard, who is an excellent analyst, praised this UMD program last year.

I fear, based on these descriptions, that the UMD Israel Studies Program has not lived up to its original goals, and based on what little we can see here, it may have been largely subverted to be a subset of the traditionally anti-Israel Middle Eastern Studies programs that infest academia today.

(h/t MKG)




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