Thursday, May 22, 2014
Survivor Recounts 1972 PFLP-Red Army Terror Attack at Tel Aviv’s Lod Airport
Ros Sloboda, a wounded survivor of the 1972 terror attack at Israel’s Lod airport in Tel Aviv said, “I was just waiting for the next bullet to hit me, because I was convinced that would kill me,” in a chilling interview on the BBC program ‘Witness’ that aired on Wednesday.Robert Mackey, Portrait of a Propagandist
In May, 1972, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine recruited three gunmen from Japan’s Red Army terror group to carry out the airport attack to avenge the killing of two Arab hijackers earlier that month.
The three Japanese students arrived on an Air France flight from Paris. Once their luggage came through, they drew automatic weapons and hand grenades, and began shooting at people indiscriminately, killing 26 people and injuring more than 70 others. One of the terrorists killed himself, another was shot by airport security guards and the third was arrested.
Consider Robert Mackey’s recent column in “The Lede” concerning a violent Palestinian protest where two demonstrators were killed. A video, released by the pro-Palestinian group “Defence (sic) for Children International Palestine” purports to show the killing of two seemingly innocent people moseying along on a placid street. The article’s headline says it all; “Video Shows Killing of Palestinians on ‘Nakba Day.’” There you have it, Israel is guilty and the video proves it. Of course no one has scrutinized the heavily edited video and it still has to undergo an authentication process but Mackey, turned judge, jury and executioner accepts the Palestinian narrative without reservation or equivocation and has turned an allegation into fact. By contrast, other publications that covered the incident featured headlines that treated the story as an allegation or claim that had yet to be proven.We've seen this before
Mackey has even been known to discount Israeli positions when those positions are supported by UN findings as was the case in November 2012 when an errant Palestinian rocket fell short (of its intended civilian target) and landed on a Palestinian house killing an infant. Israel was initially blamed but in one of those rare instances of UN lucidity, a subsequent UN investigation revealed that the cause of the blast was likely Palestinian rocket fire. Mackey went through torturous lengths to cast doubt on the UN report. Despite overwhelming evidence exonerating Israel, Mackey gives credence to the notion that Israel was to blame and this proved too much to bear for many of his readers who, in the talkback section, offered scathing criticism of his skewed take. In fact, one commentator, noting some glaring omissions in Mackey’s reporting, actually forced Mackey to revise the article and include the omitted material. Aside from the noted correction, Mackey struck a defensive tone when responding to his detractors and attributed the criticism to petty partisanship. Now if that’s not the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is.
On numerous occasions, the Palestinian propaganda machine has produced edited or staged films to incriminate Israeli soldiers. But even though we have seen this script before, the Israel Defense Forces has an obligation to conduct a thorough probe to uncover the facts, as in past similar incidents. Such is the case when human lives are cut short.
The world is hypocritical when it comes to the desire of the Jews to live in peace and security. In Syria, hundreds of people, women and children among them, are being killed every day. Since the Syrian uprising began three years ago, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been slaughtered, including by chemical weapons, but the world is silent. In Nigeria, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, east Asia and many other places around the globe, heinous crimes are committed, and the world says nothing. But when Israeli soldiers try to protect themselves from violent rioters, the world cries out.
Real Refugees
Palestinian nationalism is deeply embedded in, and derived from, Jewish history in the Land of Israel. Without Zionism as their primary source of inspiration Palestinians would lack a historical narrative of their own. According to Columbia history professor Rashid Khalidi, an expert on Palestinian identity, “Palestine” did not exist in the Arab imagination before World War I. Local Arabs neither perceived “Palestine” as a distinct country nor themselves as “Palestinians.” Shortly before the birth of the State of Israel Arab historian Philip Hitti acknowledged: “There is no such thing as Palestine in history.”The Rubber Man Meets the Peace Process
To compensate for their missing past, Palestinians plunder Jewish texts and history, and Zionist nation-building, to frame their own national identity. They claim the Canaanites as their ancestral people. They demand recognition of the burial sites of the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people as their own holy sites. They frame their naqba as the real “holocaust” that Israel inflicted on them. Copying Israel’s Law of Return (1950), which granted to all Jews the right to settle in their ancient homeland, they insist upon the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees.
As I noted yesterday, there’s no lack of evidence that even “moderate” Palestinians aren’t interested in ending their war on Israel. Yet most of the world will go through contortions worthy of the rubber man rather than admit it. A classic example is the interview a “senior American official” (widely reputed to be special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian talks Martin Indyk) gave to Yedioth Ahronoth earlier this month.Meretz chair: Barghouti is only possible successor to Abbas
The official spent about 3,000 words blaming the talks’ breakdown on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and specifically its authorization of settlement construction during the negotiations. Only then did he describe what actually happened during those crucial final months when Secretary of State John Kerry was trying to broker a framework agreement:
“In February, Abbas arrived at a Paris hotel for a meeting with Kerry … He rejected all of Kerry’s ideas. A month later, in March, he was invited to the White House. Obama presented the American-formulated principles verbally – not in writing. Abbas refused.”
Then, in the very next sentence, came this astonishing defense: “The claim on your side that Abbas was avoiding making decisions is not true. He wasn’t running away.”
Barghouti, 55, who headed Fatah’s militant Tanzim offshoot and speaks fluent Hebrew, consistently receives high approval ratings in Palestinian polls and has even told Israeli journalists in 2012 that he sees himself as a future Palestinian president. Abbas, for his part, has voiced his interest in seeing Barghouti freed along with other Palestinian leaders with the relaunching of peace negotiations with Israel.Isi Leibler: Candidly speaking: Have they no shame?
During a radio debate with Housing Minister Uri Ariel in March, Gal-on supported a deal in which the US would release Israeli-American spy Jonathan Pollard in return for Barghouti in order to boost talks.
The campaign against Israel Hayom is beneath contempt. It emanates from Noni Mozes, the publisher of Yediot Aharonot which, prior to the advent of Israel Hayom, totally dominated the Israeli mass media.Bill to Ban Free Israeli Newspapers Sparks Outcry
Israel Hayom was established by billionaire philanthropist Sheldon Adelson, a friend of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and who is also probably today the greatest financial donor to Jewish and Israeli causes. The paper is politically center-right and its editorial policies basically support the Netanyahu government. Yet it prides itself on opening up its pages to opposing viewpoints – ironically including op-eds from some of the MKs now seeking its closure. In contrast, Yediot is notorious for excluding any dissenting opinion while frenziedly promoting supporters, such as discredited former prime minister Ehud Olmert.
The far-left post-Zionist Haaretz newspaper, in a crude political outburst by one of its writers, Sefi Rachlevesky, did not even seek to camouflage its bigotry: “Israel Hayom is no newspaper. Israel Hayom is an anti-newspaper that exists to destroy the free press. Israel Hayom is illegal. If existing laws were enforced, it would have been shut down long ago.”
With the Summer Assembly of Israel’s 19th Knesset now in session, a highly controversial bill has drawn the ire of many from a wide range of professional fields and political backgrounds, including Members of Knesset (MKs), legal experts, media watchdog organizations, free speech activists, and journalists.Fellow Teams Up with BDS Group to Thwart Israeli Visa Bill
A measure describing itself as the “bill for the promotion and protection of the printed media in Israel,” but informally known as the “anti-Israel Hayom bill,” is set to be brought before Israel’s powerful Ministerial Committee for Legislation in the coming weeks. The proposal seeks to outlaw daily newspapers in Israel whose business model includes free distribution to the general public.
A fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP) Leadership Institute was scheduled to moderate a congressional briefing Wednesday on ways to kill a piece of legislation that makes it easier for Israelis to obtain U.S. visas.Rabbi Yehuda Glick Arrested for Temple Mount Contraband
The briefing, held on Capitol Hill in a Senate office building, was organized by the group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and was to include remarks from an official of the group U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, one of the leading sponsors of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The groups seek to stop Congress from passing a bill that would relax regulations and allow Israelis to more easily get U.S. travel visas.
Israel Police arrested Temple Mount activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick at the Western Wall (Kotel) Plaza on Thursday.Anti-Semitic 'Evolution of Jews' in Arab Technion Student Work
Glick was charged with ‘peddling.’
The police claim Glick, who has a full-time job, was selling bangles at the Kotel.
Printed on the stretchy bracelets were the words, “The Temple Mount is in our hands!” – the famous phrase coined by IDF General Motta Gur when he liberated the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967.
A Jewish female student at the Technion in Haifa was shocked and pained, a few days ago, when her class visited an architecture class, in order to view submissions for an “architectural intervention” project intended for a neighborhood in Haifa.Shin Bet reveals alleged plot to kidnap Israeli
The project contained an image that appears to show the four-stage evolution of a Jew in hareidi garb, from an ape.
The image reminded many viewers of the Muslim curse againt Jews, which calls them “the descendants of pigs and apes.”
A relative of the Jewish student uploaded a photograph of the picture to his Facebook page and mused: “I wonder what would have happened at the Technion if the person depicted had been wearing a keffiyeh and not a shtreimel? This is better than Goebbels' campaigns, is it not?”
The Shin Bet security service and police have arrested a former Palestinian security prisoner who allegedly plotted to kidnap an Israeli citizen in the northern town of Avtalion, the Shin Ben announced on Thursday.Mother, Daughter Suing PA for Six Million NIS over Ambush
The former prisoner is also suspected of attempting to carry out several attacks on civilians in the Misgav regional council and planning to set fire to a forest near Carmiel in northern Israel.
According to a Shin Bet statement, Murad Mahmoud Hassan Ali Hassin, 25, admitted he had entered a home in Avtalion on April 19 armed with a knife, in an attempt to kidnap one of the household’s members.
Hassin said he planned to use the kidnapped individual as a bargaining chip for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
TV Channel 2's website, Mako, reported that the attack took place on the last day of the IDF's eight-day counterterror action in Gaza, Operation Pillar of Defense, which was mounted in the second half of November, 2012. The mother and daughter were driving on Jerusalem's Tunnel Road, and were ambushed as they passed through the Arab village of Husan.Abbas's Rival Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison
A rock crashed through the windshield, hitting the mother's face and leaving her critically wounded.
According to the lawsuit, the daughter, who was not directly hit by the rocks, “was left alone for 26 minutes, that seemed like an eternity, as she blocked the mother's bleeding and prayed that she was still alive. The terrorists returned to their village, cheering joyously.”
Mohammed Dahlan, the longtime rival of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, has been sentenced in absentia by a Ramallah court to two years in prison, The Associated Press (AP) reports.Hamas Official: The Only 'Peace' will be via Ethnic-Cleansing
The sentence against Dahlan was handed down back in March but was not made public until Wednesday, in the official PA newspaper. There was no explanation for the delay.
Senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil called peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) "a disgrace Palestinian political conduct" this week, insisting that the Israeli "invaders" must leave "Palestine" to establish peace.Children on PA TV: All of Israel will be replaced by "Palestine"
In an interview with Palestinian news agency Quds Press, Bardawil said that Hamas leader's Khaled Mashaal's speech to mark the 66 years of "Nakba" does not imply any intention to agree to negotiations with Israel.
"Hamas's platform is known to everyone and is not unambiguous," Bardawil said. "Any referral to handling the Palestinian issue through peaceful means implies the cleansing of Palestine from foreigners who entered in 1948, before and after this time."
Bahraini Cleric: Jews and Christians Try to Destroy Muslim Women, Families
Syrian al-Qaida reach foothills of Golan Heights
Atop the hill of Tel Ahmar just a few kilometers from Israeli forces on the Golan Heights, Syrian Islamist fighters hoist the al-Qaida flag and praise their mentor Osama bin Laden.New Reports Emerge of Syrian Chemical Weapons Atrocities
One of the men, a leader of al-Qaida's Nusra Front, compares their battlefield - a lush agricultural region where dead soldiers lie on the ground near a charred Soviet-era tank - with the struggle their comrades waged years ago in Afghanistan.
Al Arabiya was careful to note that the authenticity of the videos could not be verified.Top Iranian Officials: Syrian Campaign an Extension of Iran’s War with U.S.
The reports nonetheless come at a time when Western analysts have openly concluded – and Western diplomats have all but openly agreed – that the regime has made a strategic decision to deploy weapons proscribed by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in areas where it has had difficulty dislodging opposition groups.
The White House has been criticized by conservative critics and others – and that criticism became more pitched at the end of last week – for failing to signal U.S. intentions should it be established that Assad has again deliberately deployed CWs, after Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that “raw data” indicated that exactly that scenario was unfolding.
Eskandari’s statement is the latest in what has become a series of open boasts by top Iranian military officials declaring that Tehran is using Syria and Lebanon as front lines for proxy battles with the West. Last week Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, told The Guardian that “[w]e have won in Syria… [t]he regime will stay. The Americans have lost it.” Two weeks ago Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had described southern Lebanon as Iran’s “foremost line of defense,” declaring that “our strategic depth has now stretched to the Mediterranean coasts and just to the north of Israel.” Recent reports have had Iran bribing Afghan refugees to fight on behalf of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, supplying chemical weapons to Damascus, and allegedly even providing its Syrian proxies with drones.UN Watchdog: No Sign of Breakthrough on Iranian Weapons Transparency
Iranian foot dragging on its obligations to “come clean” have recently emerged as a central sticking point in negotiations, with Reuters having specifically reported last week that functionally no progress had been made in compelling Tehran to account for tests involving Explosive Bridge Wire detonators, which the outlet noted was “seen as a litmus test of its readiness to begin cooperating with a long-stonewalled investigation into what the Vienna-based U.N. body calls the possible military dimensions (PMD) of the country’s nuclear program.”Erdogan Unhinged
The issue goes beyond the symbolic, and into the viability of any deal designed to put Iran’s nuclear program beyond use for weaponization. David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini – respectively the president and a research analyst at ISIS – had been blunt that any agreement that did not include Iran accounting for “the past and possibly on-going military dimensions of its nuclear program would undermine the verifiability of the deal, and thus the credibility of a comprehensive deal, in addition to the credibility of the Obama administration.”
The German government’s publicly expressed discomfort with a visit by Recep Tayyip Erdogan–Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian, anti-Semitic premier–will be familiar to those who have covered Erdogan’s career or followed his exploits. Germany has no issue with Erdogan’s visit per se as much as they don’t like the idea of him giving an address to the country’s Turkish diaspora.Turkish PM Accuses BBC of Hiring Actors to Play Family Members of Mining Victims
Turkey is a NATO member and, if you ask European Union officials on the record, a perennial candidate for eventual EU membership (though an obviously unrealistic one). So why is a European country eschewing the standard multiculti fare and worrying aloud about the Islamist leader’s speech? Because Erdogan is a loose cannon, whose public profile has always had to be managed carefully by party leaders lest the world hear a set of Erdogan Unplugged and come to the conclusion that the Turkish leader is a raving maniac.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the BBC of hiring two actors to pose as relatives of miners killed in the Soma mining disaster. In a news report filed by BBC Turkey journalist Rengin Arslan, the two veiled women are shown claiming they have previously voted for the ruling AK Party, but have now changed their minds.The Jews Use Conspiracy Theories To Control You by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan(satire)
International Business Times reports that Erdogan made the allegations at a party meeting following the broadcast, accusing the women of lying about their connection to the miners and deceiving the international press.
BBC Turkey has responded by issuing a statement calling the allegations "unfounded" and stood by the video.
To combat these machinations, the first essential tool is a critical eye, to distinguish reliable reports from deceitful ones. Do we accept at face value all of the so-called facts of a story? Are headlines designed to sensationalize and provoke emotion, rather than to inform? Have the reports been corroborated by multiple reliable sources? And what constitutes a reliable source? These are all important questions to consider if we seek not fall into the trap that the conspiracy-theory-mongering Jewish cabal lays for us anew each moment.The culture of extreme violence
Even reputable outlets can be taken in by such deception. When a major Turkish daily called the recent mine disaster the result of a Zionist plot, who called them on it? Who questioned whether publishing such a story played into the hands of the Jews who want to keep the Muslim mind from developing the critical attitude necessary to develop a thriving society? By promoting the view that our world is run by a sinister group of geniuses bent on profit and domination, that newspaper unwittingly makes its readers vulnerable to the Jewish cabal that seeks to keep us subjugated and controlled.
It is time for the world to wise up and stop falling for ridiculous notions of such conspiracies. If we don’t right our thinking, we’ll never be able to resist the efforts of the Elders of Zion.
There is no other region in the world with so much concentration of violence as the Middle East is. Blame Cold War politics or simple ignorance, the fact remains that with or without the Soviet Union, with or without the aggressive style of President George Bush or the not so-aggressive style of President Barack Obama, extreme violence continues unabated and unstoppable.
While many highly intelligent analysts and observers could explain the extreme violence in the region using complex historical perspectives to include religious and social imperatives, I am a much simpler man. I blame the violence on our apathy towards men of violence. I blame the political machine, that believes either it can strike a deal of convenience giving al-Bashir of Sudan a free pass, or believes that terror is a grey area that serves somebody’s political career and legacy.
As long as the Arab and the Muslim masses see their leaders benefit from violence and terror, there is no reason for anyone to obey the Rule of Law. With al-Bashir of Sudan and Assad of Syria committing horrific atrocities against humanity and continue to lead as part of a political scheme of convenience, why should anyone in the West expect any behavioral change from the common man on the street? Violence, terror, and crimes against humanity pay huge dividends in the Middle East.
