January 2014 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, January 31, 2014

01/31 Links Pt2: SodaStream plans to bring Johansson to Israel; Barghouti’s blood libel

From Ian: Why you should be proud Zionists Zionism’s astounding success in building a stable democracy makes it a symbol for democracy, not only in the Middle East, but all around the world. What do you oppose when opposing Zionism? There are many more values for which Zionism serves as an ambassador. However, these small examples can help give a clear message: Those who support the BDS movement and oppose Zionism should know that when opposing Zionism,...

Sometimes I tweet things that people like, but I don't blog them. Which makes me feel guilty. Yesterday, I saw posted on CUWI Facebook page an old, great cartoon that I cleaned up and tweeted - and it quickly became very popular: My SodaStream poster, which The Forward mentioned was going viral, made it to the UK: My #SodaStream poster makes it to the UK http://t.co/GsBAKOvJ0V...

01/31 Links Pt1: Kerry, the Palestinians and the Vietnam model; Fatah honors 2 suicide terrorists

From Ian: Kerry, the Palestinians and the Vietnam model After Yasser Arafat took over the PLO’s leadership in 1969, he went to North Vietnam to study the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare waged by Ho Chi Minh. This is also when the PLO started translating the writings of North Vietnam’s General Nguyen Giap into Arabic. Arafat was particularly impressed by Ho Chi Minh’s success in mobilizing sympathizers in Europe and in the United States....

Special Achievement Hasby Award for outstanding grassroots activism

This is a Special Achievement Hasby Award, given outside the normal nominations process, since I didn't have a category for this - and I should have. The Special Achievement Hasby Award for grassroots activism goes to.... ...

Arab SodaStream workers say they are against BDS

From the Christian Science Monitor: [T]hose most familiar with the factory – Palestinians who work there – largely side with Ms. Johansson. “Before boycotting, they should think of the workers who are going to suffer,” says a young man shivering in the pre-dawn darkness in Azzariah, a West Bank town cut off from work opportunities in Jerusalem by the concrete Israeli separation wall. Previously, he earned 20 shekels ($6) a day plucking and cleaning...

Over the past few days, Israel has been returning the remains of terrorists, including suicide bombers, to their Arab families. Here's how Ma'an reported the latest announcement: Israeli authorities will return next Sunday the remains of a young Palestinian woman held in a “numbered graves” cemetery for twelve years, Palestinian officials said Wednesday. A committee...

Hasby Award: Best Individual Example of Hasbara

The nominees for Best Individual Example of Hasbara are: Ed Klinger's note on the BDS MacBook Brighton BDS Counter-protest David G's NYT Op-Ed Index 2012 IDF Girls Gone Wild (parts 1, 2, 3) UN interpreter hot mic And the winner is.......

First photos of Jerusalem (1844)

These were in Smithsonian Magazine this month. They were taken by French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey. I found very high resolution images for most of these from a Russian site. Click to enlarge. Enjoy: (h/t Yerushalimey) UPDATE: Israel Daily Picture, as can be expected, has a link to the archives of all these images in France. (h/t...

01/30 Links Pt2: Mrs. Ashton and the invisible Jews; Scarlett Johansson's advert hits 5 Million views.

From Ian: Elliott Abrams: The EU's Mrs. Ashton and the invisible Jews It's becoming a habit. The EU's "foreign minister," High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, cannot seem to see Jews or anti-Semitism or to pronounce the word "Jew." In 2012 a terrorist murdered three Jewish children at a Jewish day school in Toulouse, France. Mrs. Ashton issued a statement saying that "when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we...

1980 UK SodaStream commercial plus more

Far out, man. This is actually a YouTube playlist so there are some other bizarre SodaStream commercials that just keep on coming if you choose "Play All."...

A "Law of Return" for Muslim Nazi sympathizers (1948)

This short JTA article from 1948 is just begging for a researcher to write a book or two: ROME (Feb. 20) Arab agents are today recruiting mercenaries to fight against the Jews in Palestine from among the Yugoslav Ustashi and Chetniks and the Ukrainians, Albanians, Circassians (former inhabitants of the northwestern area of the Caucasus) and other groups here who were on Hitler’s side during the war, and are now under the care of the International...

Hasby Award: Best Article

The nominees for Best Article are: Will we ever be forgiven the Holocaust? (Howard Jacobson) There is nothing remotely progressive in today's left wing loathing of Israel (Brendan O'Neill) An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: Wake up! (Hen Mazzig) And the winner is......

01/30 Links Pt1: The UNRWA Reform Initiative; Abbas world’s No.1 purveyor of anti-Semitism

From Ian: The UNRWA Reform Initiative It is universally understood that current talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will not lead to an end of the protracted Arab-Israeli war. However, there is no reason why at least one aspect of that war cannot be resolved: the continuing humanitarian crisis facing descendants of Arab refugees from 1948, who wallow in UNRWA refugee facilities under the notion they will “return” to villages from 1948...

When people talk about how a peace plan would look, "everyone knows" that Bethlehem and Hebron and much of Jeruslaem would be under Arab control, and the Jewish holy places there - the Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb - would be freely accessible because, well, there would be peace! Isn't that obvious? Sure, Jordan promised that Jews would be able...

Palestinian Arabs keep shooting themselves in the foot - and blaming Israel. Here's a new example: Dozens of shops in al-Jalazun refugee camp closed in mourning after a 22-year-old from the camp, Muhammad Mubarak, was shot dead by Israeli forces. When one man refused to close his restaurant, enraged Palestinian youths threatened to burn it down. PA security forces intervened...

From AP: Scarlett Johansson is ending her relationship with a humanitarian group after being criticized over her support for an Israeli company that operates in the West Bank. A statement released by Johansson's spokesman Wednesday said the 29-year-old actress has "a fundamental difference of opinion" with Oxfam International because the humanitarian group opposes all trade...

Hasby Award: Best Blog

Perhaps the category that generates the most interest. The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Blog are: Israellycool Israel Matzav This Ongoing War Jews Down Under Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers 5 Minutes for Israel IsraelSeen And the winner is... ...

01/29 Links Pt2: Confronting European funding for BDS; Man charged over Toulouse school 'quenelle'

From Ian: NGO Monitor: Confronting European funding for BDS The first step in confronting European governments that provide most of the funds for these organizations is to demand the implementation of democratic transparency principles in Europe. This would expose the sources of influence behind this NGO funding to independent analysis, and highlight the systematic abuse of European “soft power” for boycotts and demonization against Israeli democracy....

How Israel-haters use interview bias in SodaStream stories (updated)

The SodaStream story brings up an interesting point about journalism itself. So far, since last year, we have seen four different media outlets interview workers at the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumin. First, JTA last February: “Everyone works together: Palestinians, Russians, Jews,” a Palestinian employee named Rasim at the Maale Adumim site told JTA. Rasim has worked at the plant for four months and asked that his last name not be published....

PA foreign ministry condemns Holocaust - and then says Israel must be punished

Arabic media is reporting that the PA foreign ministry issued a statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day, saying that "The Holocaust was the greatest sin committed by the hand of man against all of humanity, and in an unendurable manner that is inconceivable, with ethnic cleansing, and genocide." Like Catherine Ashton, the statement (as published in the media) didn't mention Jews. However, the PA went further, saying "the journey of mankind...

Hasby Award: Best Pro-Israel Tweeter

A much-anticipated category! The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Tweeters are: Arsen Ostrovsky Margie in Tel Aviv CiFWatch No Camels William Daroff And the winner is: ...

01/29 Links Pt1: Obama Treats Ally Israel Worse Than Enemy Dictatorships; Kerry's Plan Leaks

From Ian: Obama Treats Ally Israel Worse Than Enemy Dictatorships Israel is expected to do things neither the U.S. nor its other allies would do. This month, the Obama Administration was critical of Afghanistan’s Karzai releasing of scores of Islamist “dangerous criminals against whom there is strong evidence linking them to terror-related crimes.” But last year, the Administration pressured Israel into releasing scores of convicted Palestinian killers...

The Forward went to the SodaStream factory in Mishor Adumim and spoke to the CEO, Daniel Birnbaum. Birnbaum is not at all a right wing fanatic. Far from it. He is as liberal a person as you can find. He does not support Israel's claim to Judea and Samaria. He would not have set up the factory in Mishor Adumim, but it was there when he took over the company. And he shows...

On Monday, it was reported that 9 Palestinian Arabs died in the Yarmouk camp in Syria on Sunday - 7 of them from starvation and lack of medicine and the others were killed. One was killed by a sniper while searching for food. On Tuesday evening, 6 more died, four from starvation, including a four-month old baby girl. Syria's siege of Yarmouk is now 179 days old. Thousands...

Did you know that the US wholeheartedly supports the occupation? Often forgotten among the current crises in the Middle East and North Africa, the unresolved territorial dispute over the Western Sahara has continued to impede closer cooperation among the countries of North Africa for more than 35 years. Approximately the size of Colorado, the territory is administered by...

Hasby Award: Best Pro-Israel Video

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Video are: Pat Condell - Patronizing the Palestinians "I'm an Israeli Soldier" (Latma) Naftali Bennett on CNN Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser And the winner is: ...

Algeria and Morocco trade accusations on Syrian refugees

Arab nations pretend to be terribly concerned about the human rights situation in Syria - but not concerned enough to actually want to help them. Morocco and Algeria, North Africa's two most powerful countries and biggest rivals, are accusing each other of mistreating Syrian refugees. Morocco's Interior Ministry issued an official statement Tuesday protesting what it said was the rise in expulsion of Syrian refugees onto Moroccan territory by Algeria. The...

01/28 Links Pt2: Why Europe blames Israel for the Holocaust; Shin Bet: terror attacks doubled in 2013

From Ian: Why Europe blames Israel for the Holocaust: Post-1945 anti-Semitism Sacha Stawski, an expert on anti-Semitism in the German media, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that “Israel-related anti-Semitism is probably the most common and most persistent form of anti-Semitism in all levels of society today.” Stawski, who is a German Jew and editor-in-chief of the media watchdog website Honestly Concerned, added: “Today it is no longer fashionable...

This AP article from 1974 interviews different Palestinian Arabs as to their ideas about the future of the Middle East. A few are pragmatic, others are hardline.The supposed "moderates" show themselves to be anything but. No one really expects Israel to continue to exist, certainly not for 40 more years. Some want a federation with Jordan and others a Greater Syria. Not...

Hasby Award: Best Watchdog (Arabic media or NGOs)

The nominees for Best Watchdog - Arabic Media or NGOs are: MEMRI Palestinian Media Watch NGO Monitor UN Watch And the winner is......

01/28 Links Pt1: Uncensored Scarlett Johansson Advert, Why the A-list shuns BDS

From Ian: Stand With Us: Why the A-list shuns BDS Yes, they may co-opt D-List celebs like Roger Waters to pressure others in the industry to join BDS. Thankfully, though, A-Listers and those around them are getting better acquainted with BDS, and when they see the antisemitism that surrounds the movement, including the giant pig with a Star of David on it hoisted at the concert of Roger Waters, they run a mile. And so to Scarlett Johansson’s classy...

From Palestinian Media Watch: Issa Abd Rabbo is one of the terrorist murderers that Israel was forced to release from prison in order for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to agree to start negotiations with Israel. Palestinian Media Watch reported that the day Abd Rabbo was released, Mahmoud Abbas called him a "hero" and raised his hand victoriously. Until his release, Issa Abd...