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Sunday, January 05, 2014

01/05 Links: The end of dhimmitude, London 'Peace' Festival Organized by Terrorism Advocates

From Ian:

The end of dhimmitude
We are now witnessing one of the most dramatic developments in the historic configuration of relations among Jews, Christians and Muslims. Christians in Israel’s Galilee are courageously promoting their pre-Islamic non-Arab identity as an old-new collective Aramean/Aramaic-speaking Oriental narrative. This is a cultural and political game-changer with revolutionary significance, for Israel, the Middle East and the global scene.
Under the leadership of Father Gabriel Nadaf, an Orthodox priest from Yafia near Nazareth, and Shadi Khalloul, a Maronite activist and army reserve officer from Gush Halav, the Christian Recruitment Forum has been established. While all non-Jews in Israel, excepting the Druse and Circassians, are exempt from the military draft, a new promotional effort has been undertaken to further encourage Christian youth to voluntarily enlist. This initiative expresses both a desire to serve the state and integrate into Israeli society, conveying that Christians are committed to the security and welfare of the Jewish state of Israel.
London "Peace" Festival Organized by Terrorism Advocates
Interpal was an inaugural member of the Union of Good, a coalition of charities that manages the financial support required by Hamas for its terrorist activities.
These links, which have been comprehensively detailed before, include recent Palestinian news footage showing Interpal's primary trustee, Essam Mustafa, attending a press conference hosted by Hamas to honor Interpal's work.
Interpal's other trustee, Ibrahim Hewitt, has referred to the "so-called Holocaust." In a pamphlet written by Hewitt, 'What Does Islam Say,' he advocates the killing of apostates and adulterers, and demanded that homosexuals suffer "severe punishments" for their "great sin."
Richard Millett: Israel’s “beautiful resistance” to suicide bombers: A response to Lucy Winkett
Moreover, St James’s Church’s Bethlehem Unwrapped festival has attracted antisemites, Holocaust deniers, those campaigning for the destruction of Israel and those who condone violence to that end.
This may not have been St James’s Church’s intention but this is what has happened and for this Rector Winkett should apologise to Britain’s Jewish community which is bearing the main brunt of the backlash.
The biggest irony is that St James’s Church itself is protected by a security fence; a tall metal fence that contains a locked door. When the door is unlocked it is heavily guarded. Some may call this a checkpoint.



In London, BDSers Target Cirque du Soleil (video)
Outside London's Royal Albert Hall, on 4 January, the opening night of the Canadian Cirque du Soleil's appearances there, a squad of Israel-demonisers (seemingly mainly female) protest Cirque du Soleil's planned appearance in the Zionist Entity (or the Zionist Project, as more and more Western Israel-haters are terming valiant Israel nowadays).
Ah, if only these ladies, young and not-so-young, who promote the "Apartheid State" slur, were half as zealous in protesting the misogyny of countries where members of their gender are treated as little more than trash.
Reuters, Garbage and Shuafat
And now, thanks to a Ha'aretz article late last week, we have learned of an error of omission concerning garbage disposal in Shuafat. Browning reported that residents:
"pay municipal taxes which bring some health care and insurance benefits, but enjoy few city services, which means locals must burn their trash and dig their own sewers."
He does not bother to inform readers, however, that the municipality and UNRWA have an agreement in which the UN refugee organization provides services to Jerusalem neighborhoods on the other side of the barrier, and that UNRWA recently suspended these services due to a labor dispute. It is for this reason that garbage is piling up and residents are forced to burn it.
Netanyahu Lectures Thumb-twiddling Kerry On Unapologetic Palestinian Terror Tactics VIDEO
A few days ago in Ramallah, President Abbas embraced terrorists as heroes. To glorify the murders of innocent women and men as heroes is an outrage. How can President Abbas says – how can he say that he stands against terrorism when he embraces the perpetrators of terrorism and glorifies them as heroes? He can’t stand against terrorists and stand with the terrorists. And I’m wondering what a young Palestinian would think when he sees the leader of the Palestinian people embrace people who axed innocent men and women – axed their heads or blew them up or riddled them with bullets – what’s a young Palestinian supposed to think about the future? What’s he supposed to think about what he should do vis-a-vis Israelis and vis-a-vis the state of Israel? So it’s not surprising that in recent weeks Israel has been subjected to a growing wave of terrorist attacks. President Abbas didn’t see fit to condemn these attacks, even after we learned that at least in one case – I stress, at least in one case – those who served and are serving in the Palestinian security forces took part in them. Transcript
'If We Withdraw from the Jordan Valley, Hamas Will Take Over'
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon believes that the proposal to withdraw from the Jordan Valley, if accepted, could not only add to a general rise in terror attacks against Israel: it could also enable Hamas to take power in other Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled areas, Walla! reports Sunday.
PA Prime Minister to Israeli Media: ‘No Palestinian State Without Jordan Valley’
In an extremely rare interview, given to Israeli media over the weekend, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah declared that, “There will be no Palestinian state that doesn’t include the Jordan Valley,” Israeli daily Ma’ariv reports.
'Palestinian Authority under Abbas is Anti-Semitic'
Minister for Strategic Affairs, Yuval Steinitz, said Saturday that the Palestinian Authority (PA), with which Israel is engaged in peace talks, does not really want peace.
Speaking at a live interview panel in Nes Tziona, Steinitz said: “We see the bitter incitement and the anti-Semitism of the Palestinian Authority under Abu Mazen (a.k.a. Mahmoud Abbas) as a primary obstacle on the way to an agreement. My impression is that Abu Mazen wants a Palestinian state, without peace, without security and without a real end to the conflict.”
Shin Bet: Bat Yam terror cell was ‘days away from second attack’
Security forces said on Thursday that following intensive intelligence efforts, backed by police and IDF, the Shin Bet arrested four members of a terrorist cell led by brothers Shahada Muhammad Ta’amri, 24, a former security prisoner, and Hamdi Muhammad Ta’amri, 21, a Palestinian Authority policeman who was in a commanders’ training course.
Harimi was arrested four days after the attack, on December 26, in Bethlehem.
He informed the Shin Bet of plans to carry out another major bombing in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area in the coming days, but the plot was disrupted by the arrest of the terrorist cell.
IDF thwarts Palestinian knife attack in Gush Etzion
The suspects were spotted by lookouts in an army control room. A Kfir infantry company dispatched to the scene located the suspects, and found three knives and an improvised weapon in their possession.
“The suspects were en route to the community to carry out a terror attack, which was prevented due to the rapid identification by the lookouts, and the speedy arrival of the force. The suspects have been taken for questioning,” the IDF said.
Report: Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad barred from anti-Zionist meeting
Tunisian sources said authorities opposed allowing "people affiliated with the resistance" into Tunisia.
The anti-Zionist conference hosts political groups from across the Arab world. It calls on Muslims worldwide to support canceling the 1978 Camp David Accords, to bolster Palestinian resistance against Israel, and to work toward "ending the global war" on Syria.
New Iranian Foreign Policy Head ‘Approved’ 1994 Terror Bombing
An Iranian politician known for his role in planning and approving the deadly 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina has officially been appointed to helm Iran’s top foreign policy shop, a posting formerly held by current President Hassan Rouhani.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a longtime regime insider who serves as a senior foreign policy adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was recently selected to head Iran’s Center for Strategic Research (CSR), a think tank closely tied to the country’s Expediency Council, a powerful governing body that reports directly to Khamenei.
Al-Qaeda group in Syria claims Beirut bombing
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant made the claim on Saturday in a statement posted onto a website page used by Sunni militants. It said that it had penetrated the “security system of the Party of Satan [Hezbollah]… and crush its strongholds… in a first small payment from the heavy account that is awaiting those wicked criminals,” according to a translation by AFP.
There was no independent confirmation of their claim, but AFP quoted the Lebanese military saying that DNA evidence linked a man from northern Lebanon to the attack.
Senior Lebanon terror chief dies of kidney failure
A Lebanese army general on Saturday said the leader of an al-Qaeda-linked group which has claimed responsibility for shooting rockets into Israel has died of kidney failure.
Analysis: Has the Geneva agreement undercut sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear program?
Finding Geneva a hard sell, in no small measure because Israel and US’s Arab allies in the Gulf see gaping holes in the sanctions relief provided to Tehran, a range of Middle East experts voiced new warnings on Sunday in the course of interviews with The Jerusalem Post.
Avarice-driven conduct by Western businesses will help Tehran develop a nuclear weapon and repress its population’s human rights, according to experts.
Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University, said, “After Geneva, and without any significant change in Iranian behavior, the gold rush is on to resume business as usual."
"The claims made by President Obama and European leaders to the effect that they can simply restore sanctions whenever the Iranian leaders resume production of nuclear weapons looks increasingly hollow.”
How China Is Behind the Nuclear Program of Iran—and Every Other Rogue State
So, Pakistan and North Korea have done Beijing’s bidding. Will Iran be tomorrow’s dagger for China? Whether or not the Chinese proliferate nuclear technology through the Iranians, there is one thing we know. “There is a circle of countries that want nuclear weapons,” says Rick Fisher, a leading analyst of the Chinese military, “and in the center of that circle of evil is China.”
Despite what Beijing would have us believe, China has not stopped playing “the proliferation card,” its most powerful tool for accomplishing its most important strategic objectives. And as much as we would like to think otherwise, the Chinese are willing to risk nuclear winter to get their way in the world. Today, they see the mullahs as a tool, so we should not be surprised that Beijing is arming them, even though they lead what could be the world’s most dangerous rogue regime.
Israeli tech to revolutionise farming of fresh-water prawns
A fresh-water prawn (scampi) farming project, which is based on a new bio-technology method developed in Israel and has the potential to triple the production of this variety in India, has started running commercially in Kerala with the support of Marine Products Export Development Authority (Mpeda).
Developed by Professor Amir Sagi of Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, the new method allows farmers to grow all-male prawn population, which will grow three times larger than the female ones over a six-month period, without genetic modification or using chemicals or hormones.
"While fresh-water female prawns grow to 15g to 25g in size over a period of six months, male prawns will grow to 80g to 130g during the farming season," said M Shaji, deputy director of Kochi-based Mpeda. The agency had been running test projects at Manikonda, near Vijayawada, in collaboration with Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture (RGCA), and the results were quite promising.
Israel’s ‘Epilogue’ wins big at India film fest
The film, from director Amir Manor and producer Assaf Amir, is a quiet and touching look at the life of an aging couple struggling to cope with the realties of modern Israel. Much in the style of Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” which last year won both an Oscar and the Cannes Palme d’Or, it is a simple, character-driven story featuring excellent performance by its two leads (Yosef Carmon and Rivka Gur).
“Epilogue” picked up BIFF’s Netpack award in the Asian Cinema category of the festival, which closed on Wednesday after screening more than 150 films in the capital city of the Karnataka State of India.
Triumph of ‘Master Chef’ Contestant Blinded by Terror
Nearly 11 years ago, Shafri Shapira’s world was turned upside down when a suicide bomber blew up a bus in Haifa next to her car. The attack murdered 17 people, most of them children and teenagers, and cost Shapira her eyesight.
Now, despite her disability, Shapira has found success as a cook, and has become one of the contestants on the Israeli version of Master Chef, which is broadcast on Channel 2.