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Friday, November 28, 2014

11/28 Links Pt1: Sick: BDS spreads photoshop of Concentration Camp inmates with anti-Israel signs

From Ian:

Sick: BDS groups spreads photoshop of Concentration Camp inmates holding anti-Israel signs
We are dealing with some really sick minds when it comes to the proponents of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement propaganda machine.
The latest is from a group with over 91,000 Facebook fans, called “I Acknowledge Apartheid Exists.”
That phrase is an integral part of the BDS movement, which falsely seeks to portray Israel as the equivalent of apartheid South Africa. That claim of Apartheid status was the founding propaganda principle of the BDS movement, which was started at the anti-Semitic 2001 Durban conference.
The group has posted a photoshop of Nazi concentration camp inmates holding anti-Israel signs, on its Facebook page. It’s unclear if the group created it, or is just promoting it.
The image is being spread by others as well, such as the Central NY Committee for Justice in Palestine:
To compare, as they often do, Israel’s response to Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket fire from Gaza to the systematic industrialized extermination of Europe’s Jewish population not only is grossly inaccurate, it reflects a commitment to demonizing and dehumanizing Israel beyond a political or military dispute.
This propaganda reflects the evil and sick nature of the people behind the BDS movement. While I’m all in favor of dialogue, I don’t know how you try to reason with people like that, who have lost all touch with reality and truth.
Caroline Glick: The storm over the teacup
The Right, like the majority of the public that supports it and votes for it, recognizes that the greatest danger to Israel’s democratic system and status as a Jewish state is the radicalized legal system. But today the Right lacks the power to pass the legislation required to curb the power of Israel’s unelected legal rulers.
Rather than doing the hard work of running a continuous, relentless campaign to accrue the requisite power to reform the system, politicians on the Right have embraced an unnecessary bill that will do nothing to protect Israel's future.
On the other hand, their counterparts on the Left have shown that the Israeli Left is today largely indistinguishable from the international Left which rejects Israel’s right to exist and rejects the Jewish people’s right to sovereignty and freedom in its homeland. With Haaretz acting as the conduit between the BDS movement and government ministers, politicians on the Left have become unmoored from the basic requirements of national life.
In other words, the current maelstrom over the draft Nation State bill shows that Israel’s political Right is far weaker than it needs to be and that Israel’s political Left is far more destructive than it ought to be.
Mordechai Kedar: A Western Tourist Hasn't a Chance in a Persian Bazaar
The Iranian bazaar was a resounding success, and the Western tourist – who doesn't know the rules – lost once again: he paid the price of granting the Iranians more time and did not get the merchandise he wanted, because he does not have an agreement and it is not certain that he will ever get one as Iran will have the bomb before then – in another seven months.
The West does not understand the most basic fact: there is only one thing that can pressure Iran and the West is not willing to do it: that is, threatening the continuation of Ayatollah rule. The West has never used that card to get its way, so why should the Ayatollahs pay for an agreement that they do not want?
Worst of all is that there were those that warned the Western powers that they would fall into the Iranian bazaar's pit. One of them was Binyamin Netanyahu, even before he became Prime Minister of Israel. Harold Rhode wrote about it clearly and so did the writer of this article. The problem with those who negotiated with the Iranians is that they thought they knew how Iranians behave, believed the lies of the consummate liars, and the deceptions of the professional deceivers.
History will sadly ridicule the story of how a wayward and stubborn country could pull the wool over the eyes of intelligent and well educated, powerful negotiators who were psychologically incapable of using their power, and ensnare them in a Persian bazaar trap where only someone who learns the rules can survive.



Policeman's widow to terror victims' families: I feel your pain
The families of the Har Nof synagogue terror attack victims met Thursday with the family of the Druze police officer who was killed while he tried to protect them.
During the emotional meeting, Rinael Saif, the widow of Staff Sgt. Maj. Zidan Saif, told the widows of Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, Aryeh Kupinsky, Rabbi Moshe Twersky and Kalman Levine: "There is no way to make this easier, no words that can offer comfort. I feel your sorrow."
Rinael Saif was in tears as she eulogized her husband, saying, "My love, you promised you wouldn't leave me, and you left. The love we shared was indescribable. Our love gave us the most precious daughter whom you loved so much.
"I am so angry at the fate that cut our love short. You were a hero in my eyes, and you will always be a hero."
MK Asks Terrorist Widow: Where's Your Mercy for 25 Orphans?
Deputy Religions Minister MK Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan (Jewish Home) responded Thursday to an appeal by the widow of Ghassan Abu Jamal, one of the perpetrators of the Har Nof synagogue massacre, not to tear down her home and expel her from Israel.
Referring to her three children, Nadia Abu Jamal told Channel 2 News: "As if it is not enough that they lost their father, now they will also lose the home they live in.”
"The wife of the terrorist who murdered five innocent people and left 25 orphans is crying over the fact that following a decision by the Interior Minister, her children will lose their home after they 'lost' their father,” wrote Ben-Dahan on Facebook.
"It is interesting that she does not exhibit a single drop of mercy to the 25 children whose fathers were murdered by the terrorist in cold blood," wrote Ben Dahan. "Shocking."
How Jerusalem Became Islam's 'Third Holiest City'
Typically, the Temple Mount is referred to as the “third holiest site” in Islam, behind the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Sometimes, that formulation is balanced by reference to the Mount’s status as Judaism’s holiest site (and also of immense importance to Christians), sometimes not at all, and sometimes with bogus formulations like CNN’s “one of the holiest sites in Judaism and Islam.”
But just how “holy” is the Temple Mount to Muslims historically? The answer is that its “third holiest” status is more a matter of political calculation and circumstance than an accurate statement of theology.
IDF chief rabbi: Dome of the Rock has no religious meaning in Islam
"The word Jerusalem does not appear once in the Quran; it is not even hinted at," Chief Military Rabbi Brig. Gen. Rafi Peretz told high-school students on Thursday during a lecture at the Atzmona pre-military boarding school.
"Ninety percent of Arabs don't know what is written in the Quran. I'm telling you," he said. "We know [the Quran] better than many of them. What is Al-Aqsa mosque, do you know? 'Build me a mosque on the edge.' On the edge of what? Of Mecca! On the edge of the Arabian Peninsula. The Dome of the Rock is not on the edge, which is why I said: It's all about honor. It has no religious meaning in Islam. They built it at the edge of the Temple Mount, but what direction do they face when they pray? Toward Mecca."
The chief military rabbi, who was quoted by the religious website "Kippa," concluded by asking, "So what are they doing on the Temple Mount?"
The IDF Spokesperson's Unit issued a statement saying that Peretz's words "were taken out of context and do not represent the views of the chief military rabbi. The rabbi apologizes if his words offended the Arab public."
PA Sniper Gunman Shoots at Jewish Driver on Highway 60 near Hebron
A Palestinian Authority gunman shot bullet holes in the door of the car of a Jewish motorist on Highway 60 near Hebron Thursday, but the driver, Israel Zaeera, escaped injury.
“A tremendous miracle happened here,” he said.
It was the second attempt by Arab terrorists to shoot and kill Jews in two days. As reported here yesterday, an Arab gunman took potshots at Jewish drivers in Samaria, and bullet shells were found in the area. No one was injured.
In both cases, the attackers fled.
IDF on Manhunt for Arab Terrorists Trying to Gun Down Jewish Drivers
Police and the IDF are conducting a massive manhunt Thursday for one or more Palestinian Authority Arabs who tried to gun down Jewish drivers in Samaria Thursday evening.
No one was injured in the attempted murders, but bullet shells were found in the area of the Doar Junction in the Binyamin region.
Despite the use of live fire, rocks still remain a popular way to terrorize drivers in the hopes of causing a fatal accident, as happened in the past. One of the favorite rock-throwing spots continues to be the village of Azoon, on the road between Kfar Saba and the communities of Ginot-Karnei Shomron and Kedumim in Samaria. Several rocks damaged passing cars on Thursday, but no injuries were reported.
Stabbing prevented at Tomb of the Patriarchs
A 17-year-old Palestinian girl carrying a knife was arrested Friday morning at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron after admitting she planned to stab Israeli security personnel at the site.
The girl arrived at a security checkpoint at the entrance to the holy site, sacred to both Jews and Muslims, at around 8 a.m., but refused to be searched. Police at the site told her she must either agree to be searched or leave the premises.
After a few minutes of arguing, the girl pulled a knife out of her bag and threw it on the floor. She was then detained and told officials she had intended to carry out a stabbing attack at the site.
Islamic Jihad: We Prefer to Attack from 'West Bank'
Judea and Samaria, widely known under the misnomer "West Bank," are the preferred locations from which to launch terror attacks on Israel, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad terror organization has explained to the Quds.net news agency.
The reasons for preferring Judea and Samaria to Gaza are that there is a temporary ceasefire between the terrorists in Gaza and Israel, and that Judea and Samaria are closer to the center of Israel, terrorist Hader Habib explained.
"The Zionist enemy is bound by the lull agreement to remove the blockade from Gaza and open up the passages, to allow in building materials for rebuilding the (Gaza) Strip, especially after the huge and unprecedented destruction caused in the last war,” he said.
Indictment filed against Palestinian who sought to kill FM
According to the indictment, filed in the Judea Military Court, Ibrahim Salim Mahmoud Zir, 37, a former convict who served time in Israeli prison for terror-related activities, “planned to buy an RPG with his own money and fire at the convoy, in order to make Israel stop its fighting in Gaza.”
Three days later, he measured travel times between points that Liberman’s convoy would have to pass through. He then met a man named Yousef a-Sheikh, and asked him to help buy the RPG.
A-Sheikh responded that he would look into it and get back to Zir.
Zir recruited his brother Ziad Salim Mahmoud Zir, 35, for the plot, as well as a local Palestinian man named Adnan Amin Mahmoud Zabih, 31.
Paris trial for Israeli hit-and-run death halted after lawyer attacked
The Paris trial of two Frenchmen accused of killing a young Israeli woman in a hit-and-run road accident in Tel Aviv was halted Thursday after a defense lawyer was assaulted during a break in proceedings.
An unidentified man punched Regis Meliodon, a lawyer for one of the defendants, in the face during a break in the trial and then fled.
The trial will pick up again on Wednesday with statements from the defence and prosecutors.
The assault underscored the strong emotions surrounding the 2011 tragedy, which sparked outrage in Israel after the pair fled to France.
IDF Ramping Up Field Intel Ops Along Syrian Border (VIDEO/PHOTOS)
The Israeli army’s Combat Intelligence Collection Corps “Vulture” battalion held week-long maneuvers in the Golan Heights, in concern that Syria’s internal carnage could involve Israel, Ch. 2 News said Thursday.
The army, anxiously following events on the other side of the hostile border, held the exercise in light of six months of sporadic cross-border gunfire, mortar shelling and two foiled infiltrations by hostile aircraft – one an armed bomber on a run against rebel forces close to Israeli territory.
While, of late, the Israeli-Syrian border in the Golan is relatively quiet – except for the transfer of the wounded to hospitals in Israel – the IDF is taking no chances.
Turkey establishing industrial zone in West Bank
Turkey plans to build a tax-free industrial zone in the West Bank city of Jenin, according to a memorandum of understanding signed on Wednesday.
“This will not only be an organized industrial zone, but a free zone as well, offering unique and massive advantages to all investors, whether they are Turkish, Palestinian or other,” Ahmet Sekeroglu, board chairman of TOBB-BIS, a Turkish industrial parks management company, told the Turkish Anadolu Agency. “Investors will not pay any taxes. Moreover, they will be getting significant support from Turkey, Germany and the US,” said Sekeroglu.
Exported products from the zone will not be subject to taxes or quotas to various countries, including the US, Germany, France, and Saudi Arabia, he said, adding, “the businesses will be insured by the World Bank, too.”
Amnesty pans Egypt’s ‘unlawful evictions’ on Gaza border
Jihadists have stepped up deadly attacks against Egyptian troops inside the Sinai since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
“Egyptian authorities must halt the arbitrary demolition of hundreds of homes and mass forced evictions underway in Rafah, North Sinai in order to create a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip,” said Amnesty.
They “have proceeded with the evictions completely ignoring key safeguards required under international law including consultation with residents, adequate prior notice, sufficient compensation for losses and granting alternative housing to those who cannot provide for themselves, rendering the evictions unlawful.”
More than 800 homes are being demolished and 1,100 families displaced to build the 500-meter wide, 13.5-kilometer (about eight-mile) long buffer zone.
Egyptian Buffer Zone Collapses Gazan Economy
The Egyptian buffer zone along the Sinai border with Gaza has sent prices soaring in the Hamas-ruled enclave, after the Nile state cracked down on illegal smuggling tunnels to Sinai that were reportedly used by Hamas to arm lethal attacks on Egyptian soldiers.
The price of cigarettes nearly tripled in Gaza, with local merchant Imad Shalbiya telling AFP "the tunnels from Egypt have been closed, hitting stocks of cigarettes in Gaza hard and sending prices soaring."
Egypt has been imposing a severe siege so as to cut down the flow of weapons and cash for Hamas in the tunnels; Hamas is a Gazan offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood group currently clashing with the Egyptian military-backed government. That siege was tightened last October after lethal attacks in northern Sinai.
The smuggling of building materials alone, which were used largely to construct terror tunnels into Israel, totaled over one billion euros ($1.2 billion) annually according to Ayman Abed of Hamas's economy ministry.
A refugee camp seethes with anger — against the PA
Dozens of people fill the streets. It’s not a holiday, just a day like any other. Overwhelming youth unemployment rates — 56 percent, according to Palestinian Authority statistics — explain why there are so many people idly wandering the alleyways.
The largest and one of most notorious of the camps, central to the anti-Israel violence and terrorism of the first and second intifadas, Balata sits only a few kilometers from the heart of Nablus. But the gap between the camp’s 30,000 residents and the city’s has never been greater.
Every time I’ve been here in the last 14 years, I have heard harsh statements against Israel, against the occupation. But this time, most of the complaints are directed against the Palestinian Authority and its head, Mahmoud Abbas. Even the Israeli occupation has lost its loathed primacy to the PA in the minds of the residents.
Hamas Embraces the Path of the Islamic State (ISIS)
The more the Islamic State carries out its secret subversion in the Palestinian street, the more Hamas tends to adopt the Caliphate’s terror methods.
In October 2014 Palestinian security forces arrested dozens of Islamic State supporters, some of whom had tried to set up secret cells and carry out terror attacks. The Islamic State-inspired vehicular and stabbing attacks won widespread Palestinian support.
Hamas does not openly back the Islamic Caliphate. Neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad, which are both dependent on Iran as a strategic ally, are free to express direct or indirect support for the Islamic State, the cardinal enemy of the regime in Tehran.
Hamas feels confident that Israel will refrain from attacking Hamas targets in Gaza due to the ceasefire.
Turkey denies allowing Hamas to operate in its territory
According to a report on the Ynet Hebrew news site, Israel has appealed to the NATO coalition — of which Turkey is a member – and to the US leadership to take steps against Ankara for enabling Hamas terrorists to operate and plan terror attacks against Israelis from its territory.
“It is unthinkable that a NATO member should host a terror organization that trains and prepares terror attacks in its territory,” sources in Jerusalem said.
Turkish officials vehemently denied the allegations, with diplomats calling the Israeli claims “lies and deceit,” Ynet reported.
“Turkey holds dialog with Hamas but would not under any circumstances allow a terror group to operate from its territory,” an official said. He ascribed the allegations to Israeli parties “who will do anything to torpedo efforts to settle the disputes between the countries and turn over a new leaf.”
Egypt Bracing for Islamist Protests on Friday
Egyptian authorities are bracing for potential violence on Friday, following calls by Islamists for nationwide protests against the government, Al Arabiya reports.
Islamists have called on their followers to carry copies of the Quran, during the protests. The tactic is seen as a way to portray potential attacks by security forces as attacks against Islam and its sacred text, the reported noted.
The Interior Ministry, however, was unfazed by the calls and said it has prepared special security units to deal with such new kind of protests.
The ministry also announced that it broke up a “terrorist” cell associated with the Muslim Brotherhood that was planning to spread nationwide unrest on Friday.
Two Egyptian officers killed ahead of planned protests
Two senior Egyptian army officers were killed early Friday morning as security forces arrested more than 100 Islamists ahead of planned anti-government demonstrations.
The officers were killed in separate shooting incidents by unidentified assailants in Cairo; two army conscripts were also injured. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. Interior Ministry spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif said seven bombs were dismantled around the country.
The Islamists’ call for nationwide rallies to topple the government and in defense of their religion is their first attempt in months to hold large protests in the face of an overwhelming crackdown since the military’s ouster last year of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.
Syrian Hackers Wish a 'Happy Thanksgiving' with Attacks
Syrian hackers on Thursday wished a Happy Thanksgiving by hacking the websites of British and North American media organizations and retailer Wal-Mart's Canadian unit.
According to Reuters, the attack was believed to have been carried out by the Syrian Electronic Army, an amorphous hacker collective that supports Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
Among media sites hit were London newspapers the Daily Telegraph, Independent and Evening Standard. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and New York Daily News also said they had fallen victim to the hack.
Users attempting to access certain parts of the attacked websites found a message that read "You've been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA)" and were then redirected to the group's logo, an image of an eagle bearing the Syrian flag and a message in Arabic.
ISIS Calls for Poisoning and Running Down Westerners
The seven-minute video, entitled, What Are You Waiting For, opens with a group of Francophone ISIS fighters denouncing the West and throwing their French passports into a campfire. French is the spoken language in the video, which also contains Arabic and English subtitles. One jihadi, known as Abu Osama Al-Faranci, states: “This is a message from your French brothers who have made Hijra, to the Muslims who are still living in the land of Kufr.” In other words, it is an appeal by ISIS fighters who have emigrated to lands controlled by the Islamic State to Muslims living in the land of the infidelity.
Though the fighters in the video mostly speak to Muslims living in France, they also have a broader audience in mind; for instance, Abu Maryam al-Franci addresses “those Muslims in France and elsewhere.”
The jihadis featured in the video implore Muslims to make “Hijra” and emigrate to lands controlled by the Islamic State. But if Muslims do not emigrate, Abu Maryam (holding a machine gun and a machete) reminds them, “Indeed you have been ordered to fight the Kafir [unbeliever/non-Muslim] wherever you find him” and encourages Muslims in the West to attack civilians in their home countries.
Iran's Supreme Leader: Israel Becomes More Insecure Day By Day
Khamenei also said the security of Israel, Tehran's arch-foe, would decline over time. "Know that whether or not we reach a nuclear agreement, Israel becomes more insecure day by day," he threatened, without elaborating.
Earlier this week Khamenei, who has on numerous occasions threatened to destroy Israel, referred to the extension of talks and said, “On the nuclear issue, the United States and European colonialist countries gathered and applied their entire efforts to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees but they could not and they will not.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hailed the extension of talks as a victory for his country, saying on Monday, "Our nation has emerged victorious and will be victorious. We have neither compromised over Iran’s nuclear rights, nor will ever do so, and there is no doubt that the Iranian nuclear technology will remain functioning."
Turkish President: The West Enjoys Seeing Muslim Children Die
The hardline president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared that the West doesn’t like Muslims and wants to see them dead in a Thursday address in Istanbul.
“Believe me, they don’t like us,” Erdogan stated at a meeting of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC), Agence France-Presse reports. “They look like friends, but they want us dead, they like seeing our children die. How long will we stand that fact?”
The Turkish president, who’s a noted Muslim fundamentalist and Western critic, further claimed the West and “foreigners” in general only want to exploit the Muslim world for its resources and intentionally spread conflict in the region.
“Only we can solve our problems. I speak openly; foreigners love oil, gold, diamonds, and the cheap labor force of the Islamic world. They like the conflicts, fights and quarrels of the Middle East,” Erdogan said.
He also attacked Western media for mocking his assertion that Muslims discovered the Americas before Christopher Columbus.
Turkey and the Kurds
For decades, that was Turkey's official policy: There are no Kurds – so there is no problem.
Denial was accompanied by state terrorism, carried out in massacres, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, unlawful arrests and, of course, torture.
In the 1990s, for instance, scores of Kurdish villages were razed and residents forcibly evacuated.
At least three million Kurds were displaced and left homeless, with 3,438 Kurdish villages destroyed and burned down by Turkish soldiers.
Even a Turkish parliamentary commission concluded that in the 1990s, more than 3,000 villages and farm settlements were burned, razed and emptied of their inhabitants, and some 378,000 people displaced.
Turkish Governor Apologizes To Chief Rabbi Over Synagogue Incident
A provincial governor of Turkey whose anger at Israel led him to call for turning a synagogue into a museum, has apologized to the country’s chief rabbi – though he claimed he was misunderstood.
Dursun Şahin, governor of the northwestern Edirne province, offered an “apology” that expressed “profound sadness” that his words were “distorted,” the office of Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva said in a statement.
Şahin told reporters on Friday that because of Israeli actions on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, he had ordered the historic Büyük Synagogue, built in 1907, to be turned into a museum. “When those bandits blow winds of war inside the al-Aqsa and slay Muslims, we build in their synagogues,” Şahin said, according to to the newspaper ‘Hürriyet‘.
“I say this with a huge hatred inside me. We clean their graveyards, send their projects to boards. The synagogue here will be registered only as a museum, and there will be no exhibition inside it.” (h/t MtTB)