Thursday, August 28, 2014
Abbas aide Dr. Husam Zomlot: Israel 'fabricated' beheading of James Foley, the Holocaust
Hanan Ashrawi attacks Obama for acknowledging Jewish history
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA denies Israel's history, claiming the Jewish people never lived in the land of Israel before the Balfour Declaration, never built a Temple in Jerusalem, and more. These false claims form the basis for PA denial of Israel's right to exist.Hanan Ashrawi attacks Obama for acknowledging Jewish history
PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi: “Look at the most dangerous thing that Obama said to [NY Times journalist] Thomas Friedman. Once again, he [Obama] has adopted the discourse of Zionist ideology. He adopted it when he came to this region, speaking about the Jews' return to their land, and that this is a Jewish state, the Zionist dream, and so on. Obama’s adoption of the discourse of extremist Zionist ideology and his turning it into a basis for political decision-making is dangerous."
Egyptian Pres says Qatar & Turkey Inciting Chaos In Middle East
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said two of the leading state-sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood terror group -- Qatar and Turkey -- have unloaded millions of dollars in expenditures to incite upheaval in the Middle East.
“Qatar, Turkey and the international organization of the Brotherhood are currently establishing many companies, newspapers, and websites. They allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to spread chaos among the Arab nation, destabilizing Egypt and destroying the Egyptians,” Sisi said in a meeting with Egyptian newspaper heads.
Sisi talked about the role Egypt must have in ensuring the security of a Palestinian state. The Egyptian president has been a consistent critic of terror group Hamas -- the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood -- in its governance of the Gaza Strip.
Abbas Can’t Solve Gaza or Make Peace
As the revelations of a planned Hamas coup in the West Bank uncovered by the Shin Bet security service showed, the only thing keeping Abbas in charge in Ramallah is Israel and Palestinians know it. The notion that parachuting Abbas or his PA forces into Gaza will somehow stop Hamas from re-arming or using humanitarian aid to rebuild its bunkers and tunnels is a fantasy. So, too, is the idea that more Western or Israeli support will enable Abbas to govern either the West Bank or Gaza effectively with his corrupt and incompetent Fatah cadres.Reports: Funding Secured for New Gaza Flotilla
It is an unfortunate fact that Israel’s decision to leave Hamas in place rather than seek its elimination has, despite its clear defeat in the field, bolstered the Islamist group. But Netanyahu can’t compensate for that by empowering Abbas. The PA leader hasn’t the guns or the guts to face down Hamas in its Gaza stronghold and doesn’t dare try his luck at the ballot box even in the West Bank where conditions are more favorable to him.
The vast majority of Israelis know that any withdrawals on the West Bank would probably mean the creation of a larger and more dangerous version of the mess in Gaza. That is something no rational government of any kind would countenance. So while neither Israelis or their American allies are satisfied with a reinstatement of the pre-Gaza war status quo, even the dangerous uncertainty such a decision represents is better than repeating the Jewish state’s calamitous decision to withdraw from Gaza in 2005. Boosting Abbas at the expense of Hamas sounds logical, but it is part and parcel of the same fool’s errand diplomacy that brought the Middle East to the current impasse.
Qatar, a dedicated supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, will fund a flotilla to Gaza spearheaded by a Turkish group with reported terrorist ties, according to an Israeli media report.Summer in Sweden
A report by the Israeli news site NRG quoted in the Algemeiner stated that Qatar and IHH, the Turkish group that bills itself as humanitarian, signed a cooperation agreement on Monday.
The Jerusalem Post also reported on the cooperation agreement but did not state that a new flotilla was part of the agreement.
The last attempt to break Israel’s sea blockade of Gaza with a flotilla in 2010 failed when the Israel Defense Forces boarded the ship and killed nine members of the knife wielding crew.
Qatar has been a major funder of multiple terrorist groups including Hamas, although the Pentagon is still oblivious to this fact. It is also a funder of the Clinton Faoundation.
Summer is ending. The rain has washed summer away and the air is crisp and cool. You can almost feel the autumn sweeping in. You are walking to the local grocery store as you do every other day and suddenly everything is changed. The beautiful surroundings you find yourself in don’t match the hateful commentaries you get both from Jews and non-Jews on social media and elsewhere. They certainly doesn’t match the story of a Jew being attacked because of wearing a Magen David necklace some 500 meters outside your house. Who could imagine this could happen in the middle of Sweden?Stopping BDS’s Unlawful Intimidation
In a quarter that is heavily patrolled by police officers day and night? Once you were a Jew, now you are a baby-killer. Once you were a Swede, now you’ve become an Israeli. A long time ago you were accepted, part of society, now you are an outsider, once again. When you once came here you couldn’t reconcile the beautiful, perfectly-cut grass lanes and the tidiness of the street and the hard-working, marginalized people who surrounded you.
As the tactics of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israel have steadily become ever more aggressive and unlawful, so those seeking to counter it must realize that legal action must be pursued. If the opponents of BDS thought that the struggle with the boycotters was going to be simply about winning the moral argument, they are increasingly being proven wrong. As recent events in the UK demonstrate, the boycott campaign is gradually abandoning the effort to dissuade the public from buying Israeli goods. Rather than form a mass movement, something that BDS has been failing to do, a small shock force of activists are increasingly employing the tactics of intimidation and obstruction to terrorize those businesses selling Israeli goods.Columbia Boycotts Israel?
The shift in tactics on the part of BDS is partially a sign of desperation. Not only has this campaign failed to win any real public backing, but even in those countries where the effort has been underway for some time now—such as Britain—business with Israel has continued to increase. Not only did the first part of 2014 see a 6.5 percent increase in trade between the two countries, but the import of Israeli goods into Britain has grown even more dramatically.
I looked down the list of signatories, and mostly saw the usual suspects. Columbia, of course, is heavily represented. The boycotters include such tenured Columbia radicals as Rashid Khalidi, Nadia Abu El-Haj, Hamid Dabashi, Gil Anidjar, Mahmood Mamdani, George Saliba, Brinkley Messick, Timothy Mitchell, and Wael Hallaq. In fact, no university has more senior faculty boycotters signed on this letter than Columbia.Galloway Suing Activist Who Accused Him of Supporting Terrorism
But one name in particular caught my eye: Lila Abu-Lughod, professor of anthropology. I remembered that she had become director of Columbia’s Middle East Institute a few years back. Why is that significant? The Institute she directs is a Title VI U.S. Department of Education-supported National Resource Center (NRC) for the Middle East. An NRC is supposed to “maintain linkages with overseas institutions of higher education and other organizations that may contribute to the teaching and research of the Center.”
In a video filmed at the event which has gone viral on YouTube, Mr Frazer said of Mr Galloway and his audience “They hate Protestants; they hate British; they hate American people; they hate Israeli people. They hate everything that is good in this world... It’s people like this who encourage terrorism.Archbishop Tutu urges Dutch fund to divest from Israeli banks
“Israel has a right to exist. These people want to wipe Israel out.
“We’re not rolling over and laying down... We will challenge him. [People who support terrorism] will be challenged. The days of them doing it and getting away with it are over.”
No arrests were made at the protest.
Pointing to the fact that the IRA currently lies third on the Rich List of terrorist networks with its income of £450 million per year, Frazer also suggested that supporters of terrorism, including Galloway, are in it for the money.
During the video Frazer accuses Galloway of supporting the terrorists who beheaded James Foley last week, remarks which Galloway says “blatantly cross the line”, adding “My solicitor is dealing with it. Let the law take its course.”
ABP spokeswoman Jos van Dijk said that, while the United Nations had criticized Israel's settlements in the West Bank, the world body had not accused the Israeli banks of breaking any international laws.Brits for the Islamic State: Guardian publishes two pro-ISIS letters
"We have strict judicial criteria for disinvesting and many people act out of emotion, which is understandable, because everybody hates war," van Dijk said.
The fund does not invest in companies which violate the U.N. Global Compact, an international yardstick for ethical investment, in companies that manufacture cluster bombs landmines or in countries under U.N. sanctions, she said.
The appeal by Tutu, the retired Anglican archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, follows a decision in January by PGGM, another Dutch pension fund, to pull its investments from five Israeli banks, including the three named in the letter.
Based on a recent poll, 7 percent of residents in the UK support the barbaric jihadists of the Islamic State (ISIS), which, though incredibly disturbing in its own right, represents a far lower level of support than in France, where 16 percent expressed their approval.Missing yeshiva student’s body believed to have been found
While support in Europe for ISIS presumably comes mostly from Islamists in predominantly Muslim immigrant communities, the following letters, published at the Guardian on Aug. 27 (which were in response to an op-ed titled ‘Isis: an apocalyptic cult carving a place in the modern world‘) were penned by Brits in largely white, non-immigrant communities.
A body believed to be that of missing US student Aaron Sofer, 23, of Lakewood, New Jersey, was found near the capital’s Ein Kerem neighborhood, Hatzalah said in a statement Thursday. Sofer went missing last Friday while hiking with a friend in the Jerusalem forest.Shin Bet arrests 16 Israeli Arabs allegedly linked to drug dealings with Hezbollah
The body has been sent to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for identification, the statement added.
Police confirmed that a body had been discovered near the Jerusalem forest, though no further details were provided.
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), in coordination with the police, has scored a major bust of an alleged joint Israeli-Arab –Lebanese-Hezbollah narcotics ring which was also trying to import weapons, possibly for a Hezbollah-sponsored attack during Operation Protective Edge.Syrian rebels abduct 43 UN peacekeepers
Authorities said the operation, which also included the Israeli Border Police and police narcotics specialists, led to the arrests of the suspects on July 27 for engaging "in terrorist activity at the behest of Hezbollah,” the military censor permitted the local press to report on Thursday.
The suspects have been identified as A-Khalim Abbas, a resident of Nahaf; his brother, Iz a-Din Abbas, also a resident of Nahaf; Ahmed Mazariv, a resident of Beit Zarzir; and Riyadh Marariv, also of Beit Zarzir.
According to the a statement released by the UN, 43 soldiers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force were kidnapped by “an armed group” near the Quneitra crossing between Israel and Syria. Another 81 UNDOF peacekeepers were restricted to their positions near Ruwayhinah and Burayqah as a result of fighting between Syrian government forces and rebels, the UN added.Mortar Shells Continue to Pound Golan Heights
“The United Nations is making every effort to secure the release of the detained peacekeepers, and to restore the full freedom of movement of the Force throughout its area of operation,” the statement read.
The UN did not release the identities of the abducted soldiers, though the kidnapped peacekeeping force is understood to be composed of Philippine nationals, the Telegraph reported.
Earlier on Wednesday morning reportedly six mortar shells careened into Israeli territory from the Quneitra area, causing damage to several vehicles. In the same barrage stray gunfired lightly-to-moderately wounded an IDF officer.UN Calls for 'Restraint' Following Mortar Fire in Golan
In response to the mortar shells, IDF artillery fired at a Syrian military position.
"From what we know, opposition forces overran the Syrian regime forces on the Syrian side of the Quneitra crossing, some of those including the Al-Nusra Front, which ultimately leave the crossing in the opposition forces' hands," Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told AFP.
It is worth noting that Al-Nusra Front is an Al Qaeda-linked extremist group.
The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in Golan Heights observed a heavy fighting between the Syrian armed forces and armed members of the opposition in and around locations in the central part of the area of separation, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters, according to Reuters.Rebels’ seizure of Syria-Israel border crossing could herald new gains
"During the fighting, several mortars landed in or near United Nations positions," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing, adding, "The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retaliated with fire."
"The UNDOF Force Commander, Iqbal Singh Singha, remains in contact with the Syrian authorities and IDF to urge restraint and prevent an escalation of the situation," the spokesman said.
The capture Wednesday of the Quneitra crossing on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights takes Islamist rebels one step closer to controlling southern Syria and the country’s central airport in Damascus, said Maj. Gen. (res) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Syrian jets bomb rebels close to Golan Heights
A linkage between the rebel position in Dara’a and the Quneitra crossing on the Golan Heights “would be very significant,” Amidror said in a conference call Wednesday afternoon, because, although the Islamist forces would still have to fight through Jabal Druze, they could then “threaten Damascus International, which would put huge pressure on the regime.”
Amidror noted that, from an Israeli perspective, the seizure of the crossing had no bearing on the Hezbollah-Assad link and said that Israel cannot get involved in the conflict beyond its three red lines, which have been drawn to mandate Israeli intervention in the case of cross-border fire, the transfer of strategic weapons to Hezbollah, and the proliferation of chemical arms.
Syrian air force jets pounded rebel positions on Thursday near a border crossing with Israel that was seized by anti-government fighters the previous day and local authorities warned tourists and sightseers to stay away from the area.Eric Holder Asked to Extradite Hamas Official Involved in Murdering American Citizen
According to a Reuters report, local residents and fighters at the scene said the Islamist Nusra Front and other rebel groups were “holding ground” despite the heavy attacks.
Israeli civil rights attorney, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant AG Leslie Caldwell, requesting the Department of Justice extradite Hamas West Bank commander, Saleh al-Arouri, for his role in the kidnapping and murder of American citizen Naftali Fraenkel.Palestinians riot, throw stones at Gaza border fence
Al-Arouri, who runs the U.S. deemed terror group in the West Bank from Turkey, was seen on a video last week, addressing the fourth conference of the World Union of Islamic Sages in the Islamic Republic, and “boasting” that Hamas’ Qassam Brigades had carried out the June kidnapping and killing of Fraenkel and Israeli teenagers, Eyal Yifrach and Gil-ad Shaar.
According to The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center near Tel Aviv, “He read his speech, saying that he was speaking on behalf of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.”
Several dozen Palestinians rioted at the border fence with Israel in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, the IDF said.Saudi Foreign Minister: Time for Islamic World to Recognize Israel
The army said that forces arrived at the scene to disperse the rioters who began throwing stones. The soldiers called on the rioters to move back from the fence, eventually firing warning shots into the air when they refused to heed the calls.
The crowd dispersed and calm was restored in the area , the IDF Spokesman's Office said.
[UPDATE: Take this story with a large pinch of salt, it appears the source AWDnews is even less reliable than MSNBC]Effort To Provide Infinite Texting Causes Black Hole (satire)
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister said that now is the time to recognize Israel as a legitimate entity in the Middle East, stressing that the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, terror group Hamas, is responsible for fanning the flames of war between Israelis and Palestinians.
Speaking at the world assembly of Islamic scholars in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Saud bin Faisal Al Saud reiterated that the Arab world must also reject Hamas as the representatives of the Palestinian movement, AWDnews reports.
Saudi media has consistently been against Hamas in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. “[Meshaal], we are tired of defending the [Palestinian] cause that you have sold for cheap to an MB (Muslim Brotherhood) gang whose way you followed even though they have lost their [own] way,” Saudi commentator Abdul Hamdi Razaq recently wrote in a scathing rebuke of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.
Israeli cellular service providers Orange, Cellcom, and Partner, among others, have been pursuing a market strategy to entice customers with an infinite capacity to send text messages via their mobile devices, but scientists are warning that the measures necessary to reach the infinity threshold have sparked the formation of a black hole.Sinai terror group decapitates four alleged Mossad spies
A black hole is an object of such mass and density that the gravitational pull it exerts prevents even light from escaping its clutches. They are typically created by the collapse of the remains of an ultra-dense, massive star, and their presence can only be inferred or indirectly observed. Astrophysicists and cosmologists announced this week that the unpredictable nature of infinity inherent in the quest for unlimited text messages has already given rise to at least one such entity, which threatens to devour the solar system.
Already, say the scientists, the black hole is swallowing of certain types of data, leaving barely a trace. As an example they cite media coverage of terrorism perpetrated by Fatah, the faction ostensibly led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The various militias affiliated with Fatah continue to boast of how many rockets and mortars they launched at Israeli civilians during Operation Protective Edge, but that body of information keeps disappearing before it can hit the consciousness of any correspondent, editor, diplomat, or politician outside the Arab world, who continue to believe in Fatah as a moderating force to be engaged and empowered.
A Sinai-based militant group said on Thursday it had beheaded four Egyptians, accusing them of providing Israel with intelligence for an airstrike that killed three of its fighters.State Department: ISIS Is Al Qaeda
Four headless corpses were found in the Sinai Peninsula earlier this month, security sources said -- the first time that any decapitations had been made public in Egypt.
The men had been abducted by gunmen two days earlier while driving in the town of Sheikh Zuwaid, which is just a few kilometers (miles) from the Gaza Strip.
In a video released on Twitter, Egypt's most dangerous militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, said the four men had been spying for Israel's Mossad spy agency.
Wednesday on CNN, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran Brett McGurk said, "ISIS is al Qaeda" because he said there are many groups that have morphed from each other now all "competing" for the "global jihad mantle." And added the winner needed to hit harder than Sept. 11,2001, which poses an "extremely serious threat to us."Hagel: 7 Western Nations to Help Arm the Kurds
"ISIS is al Qaeda," McGurk said. "It's al Qaeda and it's a global jihadist organization. That's where the thousands of foreign fighters coming into Syria and Iraq, they're drawn to the global jihad. ISIS is reaching for the mantle of the global jihad. It is in competition with the leader of al Qaeda in Pakistan for that mantle. That's what its leader Abu al-Baghdadi -- that's his goal. This is an extremely serious threat to us. Extremely serious threat to the region and something we have to begin to confront with our partners in the region."
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel released a statement yesterday announcing that seven Western nations would be sending arms to the Kurds to help them fight off the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).Swedish-Algerian Journalist Yahya Abu Zakariya: The U.S. Invented Beheadings
Albania, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Italy, France and the United Kingdom “have committed to helping provide Kurdish forces urgently needed arms and equipment,“ Hagel said in a written statement as his spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby was describing the threat from ISIL as “only going to grow.”
Hagel said the resupply operations have already begun and will accelerate in the coming days with more nations expected to contribute.
“This is a serious threat from a serious group of terrorists,” Pentagon Press Secretary Kirby told reporters at a news conference. “And we need to stay mindful of doing what we need to do to protect American citizens at home and abroad.”
Expert: Increasing Risk of “Bad Nuclear Deal with Iran”
While most of the public discussion about the negotiations has focused on enrichment, Landau writes that this is less important than Iran coming clean about its past weaponization work.Iran says tested new nuclear enrichment machine, may irk West
"The most critical issue on the agenda – not least because it targets Iran’s narrative of nuclear “rights” – is the question of its weaponization activities. If the P5+1 were to insist on exposure of Iran’s blatant violation of the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], this would shatter Tehran’s long-held narrative. As a violator of the NPT, Iran could no longer profess innocence of any wrongdoing; it could not claim any “rights” according to the NPT, nor pronounce sanctions to be “illegal.” This could actually pave the way for greater P5+1 leverage vis-à-vis all of the dismantlement issues currently on the table.
Another crucial issue is the sunset provision – or how many years Iran will be required to adhere to the terms of a comprehensive agreement before it goes back to being considered an “ordinary” NPT member state. In fact, if Iran does not back away from its military aspirations, there is very little reason to accept that the provisions be short-lived or that restrictions be lifted."
Iran has conducted "mechanical" tests on a new, advanced machine to refine uranium, a senior official was quoted as saying on Wednesday, a disclosure that may annoy Western states pushing Tehran to scale back its nuclear programme.Episcopal Chaplain at Yale Blames Jews for Anti-Semitism
Iran's development of new centrifuges to replace its current breakdown-prone model is watched closely by Western officials. It could allow the Islamic Republic to amass potential atomic bomb material much faster.
Tehran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it produces low-enriched uranium only to make fuel for a planned network of atomic energy plants. If processed to a high fissile concentration, uranium can be used for nuclear weapons.
No, the best antidote to anti-Semitism would be a realization among cretins that “the Jews” are a group of people with very different opinions and desires, that they do not act in concert, and that individual Yale students, for example, of Jewish descent who are American citizens have zero responsibility for any policies of the government of Israel. Anti-Semitism is like racism: most racists don’t think of themselves as racists and most anti-Semites similarly don’t recognize their own twisted prejudice. Perhaps the chaplain at Yale should reflect on the passage in which a well known first century Jewish rabbi urged his followers to take the log out of their own eye before trying to take the splinter out of someone else’s.How About an Opera 'Why Michael Brown Deserved to Die'?
We hope the chaplain is as eager to explain to BDS activists and other misguided young people that it is anti-Semitic to claim that the Jewish people, alone among the peoples of the world, have no right to self-determination and that Israel is therefore illegitimate—and that it is anti-Semitic for non-Jews to hold Israel to a higher standard of morality than they hold other countries around the world. It is also a symptom of anti-Semitic hatred to wax disproportionately wroth about Israeli violations of Palestinian rights. We hope the chaplain has written many letters to the New York Times denouncing the much graver abuses of human rights that are so frequently committed in our sad and fallen world. We hope his emotions run just as hot and heavy when he reflects on the treatment of Christians in the Arab world and the wretchedly misnamed “Islamic Republic” of Pakistan, of Rohingyas in Burma, of Tamils in Sri Lanka and on and on and on.
What do you think? Do you think if I write a thought-provoking, probingly-artistic contemporary opera on the subject of Michael Brown’s untimely shooting, it will be met with critical acclaim?Boxing Superstar Floyd Mayweather Selling Star of David Hats on His Website
Maybe it will be performed by the New York Metropolitan Opera during its 2015 season, and will be described as “dialogue” on a difficult subject.
You don’t think so? I can’t imagine why.
It seems right in line with what the Met has planned this year with “The Death of Klinghofer.” You remember Leon Klinghofer, don’t you? He was the 69-year-old Jewish man who, in 1985, was pushed off the cruise ship Achille Lauro to his death by Palestinian terrorists. Pushed into the water in his wheelchair. Because he was Jewish.
Boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. is selling a Jewish-themed hat on his website.Israel’s tech start-ups ‘thriving’ despite unrest
Labeled ‘Star Power,’ the cap features three Star of Davids running around its crown.
“Star Power is a hat that represents an individual who embraces mind, body, and soul to achieve greatness,” reads the hat’s description on the site.
In spite of the country's reputation as a world-leading start-up ecosystem, strict conscription laws have pulled many Israeli businesses directly into the conflict.A novel tugboat for wayward satellites
But in a conversation with IT Pro, the minister of the economic and trade mission at the embassy of Israel in London, Nathan Tsror, insisted it has been “business as usual” for many of the country’s start-ups during the hostilities.
"The Israeli economy is remarkably robust. This was the case during the recent economic downturn, it was the case during previous conflicts and it has once again been demonstrated during Operation Protective Edge,” he said.
"Despite the fact that over 70 per cent of the country has been exposed to increased volumes of rocket attacks, the robust Israeli economy continues to operate as normal with very little impact from the conflict."
Wayward communication and navigation satellites – like the two European Galileo satellites that fell short of their intended orbit in late August — could be tugged into position by a novel Israeli microsatellite now under development.
“We could save them,” said Arie Halsband, founder and CEO of Israel’s first private space startup, Effective Space Solutions.
“This is exactly the sort of situation we’ve been anticipating. Our DeOrbiter is a uniquely capable microsatellite, which can also perform rescue missions for renegade satellites. We already performed initial analysis and verified we’re up to it.”
The DeOrbiter will use highly efficient ion propulsion thrusters and a patent-pending system to reach the satellites and move them into the correct orbit.
