Saturday Links

From Ian:

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Sarah Honig: Another Tack: The lesson of April 26

It was less than three weeks before David Ben-Gurion would proclaim Israel independent but the Arabs were already plotting their invasion of the yet-to-be-born state. On that April 26 Transjordan’s King Abdullah announced belligerently that “The only way left for us is war. I will have the pleasure and honor to save Palestine.”

Barry Rubin: How Much Did U.S. Policymakers Learn about the Middle East in Forty Years? Some Proof

“Israeli pessimism seems largely if not entirely unwarranted. It seems based on an extraordinary lack of understanding of what happened in the Arab world in the last year and a half. Rather than girding their loins for the fifth, sixth, seventh Israeli-Arab wars. The Israelis might examine more carefully than they seem to have done so far the alternative of a peaceful accommodation with the Arabs."
This is not a reference to the "Arab Spring." No, it's from a dispatch sent from the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, January 9, 1975. It concluded that the lack of peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict was Israel’s fault. That dispatch could be published—as we will see in a moment—word for word today, 38 years later, with just as little accuracy.

BDS – Belligerent, Disruptive and Silly

It is summertime in Israel and apart from expecting the influx of tourists who visit us every year, we are gearing up to welcome a plethora of famous faces that includes Depeche Mode, Cliff Richard, Alicia Keys, Rihanna and another lady you may have heard of (and in my opinion Jewish royalty) Ms Barbra Streisand. We are the start up nation – a natural investment haven for major technology brands like Apple, Google, Microsoft and others who see this as a R&D haven. But don’t take my word for it – ask Warren Buffett or Stephen Hawking…
Perhaps one of our fabulous start ups will invent some technology that will allow BDS activists to hear the anguished cries of our neighbours who wonder why nobody is paying attention to how their autocratic governments are trampling on their human rights…
Their failure to do so and their singling out of Israel for opprobrium just enforces the fact that they are belligerent, disruptive and downright silly!

Islamic Extremists vs. White Supremacists
We rightly condemn the KKK but fail to extend the judgment.

We do not hesitate to condemn utterly the behavior and the beliefs of the Ku Klux Klan (the perpetrators of this bombing and others) and their white-supremacist fellow travelers. We do not worry that reviling white supremacists and their grotesque deeds will somehow taint all white people. (Though some on the left won’t mind if you generalize about white people.)
But when it comes to other groups and other motives for the same kind of terrorism — we lose our moral focus. Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and Kathy Boudin have become honored members of the faculties at leading universities. Ayers is even a friend of the president of the United States. Regarding his own record of setting bombs that kill and dismember innocent people, Ayers told the New York Times on the ironic date of September 11, 2001, that “I feel we didn’t do enough. . . . [There’s] a certain eloquence to bombs, a poetry and a pattern from a safe distance.” So says a retired “distinguished professor” at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Canada’s train terror plot raises deportation questions

Raed Jaser, a Palestinian arrested over alleged al-Qaeda-backed scheme, had been spared deportation in 2004 after his arrest

Bulgaria conducts reenactment of Burgas bombing

Bulgarian authorities conducted a reenactment of the Burgas bus bombing which claimed the lives of five Israelis and a Bulgarian bus driver last July, Bulgaria's state radio reported Friday. The two suspects, Hezbollah operatives, are still at large.

Europol: Hezbollah linked to 2012 Bulgaria bombing

The European Union’s police body, Europol, said in a report that “indications suggest possible links” between Hezbollah and a deadly terrorist attack in Bulgaria last year.
The statement, published Friday by the news site EuObserver, suggests Europol has adopted the findings of a six-month-long investigation by Bulgarian security services into the July 19, 2012 bombing of a bus of Israeli tourists in Burgas that left five Israelis and a Bulgarian dead and dozens wounded. In February, a Bulgarian minister said the attack was carried out by agents of Hezbollah’s military wing with funding provided by the Shiite group.

Would-be NY Synagogue Bomber Gets 5 Years

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus said during the hearing, "The conduct contemplated is well beyond what can possibly be tolerated in a civilized society… That's especially apparent in light of recent arrests."

If Obama’s Syria Promises Mean Nothing, How Can We Trust Him on Iran?

With even ardent Obama supporters like Jeffrey Goldberg reminding the president he has made it crystal clear that chemical weapons use would be a red line that would trigger a strong U.S. response, what follows will not only tell us whether that promise would be kept. It will also illustrate just how seriously to take other pledges the administration has made, specifically its vow never to allow Iran to go nuclear. With the White House desperately trying to buy time before making a decision on Syria, it’s fair to ask why anyone should regard American rhetoric on Iran as anything more than an elaborate bluff if Obama won’t keep his word about Assad’s behavior.

Douglas Murray: Memo to Iran’s apologists: President Ahmadinejad has denied the Holocaust

Has President Ahmadinejad ever denied the Holocaust? David Morrison, co-author with Peter Oborne of a new apologia on the Iranian ‘government’, appears to think that he has not. In a bizarre and disgraceful interview with the Telegraph, alongside his co-author, Morrison recites the main claim of their book – which is that the Iranian regime is not pursuing nuclear weapons. Oborne’s Telegraph colleague Con Coughlin too kindly skewers that claim as ‘delusional’.

Parson Students Launch Petition Against Galliano Hire

The petition asks: “This is a person who was fired from Dior for his anti-semitic remarks, who Natalie Portman refused to work with because of his remarks, so why is Parsons The New School for Design hiring him?”

Azerbaijani FM: Negotiations underway to open embassy in Israel

Negotiations are under way on the opening of the Azerbaijani embassy in Israel, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said at a press conference on Friday.
"Azerbaijan will continue to develop relations with Israel and Palestine," Mammadyarov said commenting on the results of his recent official visit to the Middle East. (h/t Zvi)

Turkey honors Israeli company

Turkey's industry minister has awarded an Israeli company with a prize for an innovative project during a technological parks convention in Istanbul.
The company, Adam Elktronik, is based in the GOSB Teknopark – an industrial park built by Israeli businessman and philanthropist Stef Wertheimer in Turkey. (h/t Zvi)