01/14 Links Pt2: After Paris, Whither the BDS Movement?; Frankenstinians Unleashed

From Ian:

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Michael Lumish: Frankenstinians Unleashed

The Frankenstinian people have lived in Frankenstine since time immemorial.
When the Euro-French occupiers of Frankenstinian land marched onto their sacred soil and started ripping olive groves from the earth with their bare fangs they let loose a righteous wave of resistance that continues to this day.
The Euro-French imperialist invaders will not know a day of peace so long as they continue to oppress the native Frankenstinian population. The Frankenstinians are a noble and peaceful people who want nothing more than to tend their sacred olive groves and build a decent and prosperous life for themselves and their children, but they are living under a brutal occupation.
France must become a state for all of its people, not merely the Euro-French. The Euro-French racists in the illegal French Occupation Government (FOG) have created an unsustainable situation. The status quo, which enshrines the Frankenstinians as a permanent underclass under Euro-French law, cannot long continue. Nor should it.
The native population of Frankenstine have their rights and the French Occupation Government is responsible under international law to implement those rights. So long as the racist Euro-French government insists upon punishing an innocent people on their own land then they will continue to receive well-deserved scorn from the rest of the world community.

After Paris, Whither the BDS Movement?

Such uncaring, coming at this particular moment from anyone professing to be an activist working on behalf of universal values is deafening. As it happens, however, it beats the alternative.
That would be the attempt to hurry past the actual killings of actual human beings and milk the situation for every possible drop of bilious propaganda. Enter Ali Abunimah, one of the most vocal—and noxious—opponents of Israel and the co-founder of a website called The Electronic Intifada, a name that does very little to distance the site’s writers from the memory of the two violent Palestinian uprisings that claimed the lives of nearly a thousand Israeli civilians.
Observing the situation in France, Abunimah promoted a novel theory: Because the gravest danger we face is Islamophobia, and because Islamophobia feeds on a false belief that European Muslims aren’t trying hard enough to fit in, French Jews rushing to leave France in the wake of the Paris attacks are the real and unsung villains.
“[I]mmigrants and their European-born descendants from Muslim-majority countries are routinely accused by those who hate and fear them of ‘refusing to integrate’ in Europe,” Abunimah wrote, and therefore “those who say that Jews must leave Europe for their own safety are saying in effect that it is impossible for Jews to integrate and ever be safe in their home countries.” And that, Abunimah triumphantly concludes, is “a fundamentally anti-Semitic” idea.
In other words, when the victims scurry for safety, they’re really only digging their hole deeper and are therefore to blame for making a bad situation worse. And, of course, it’s all Israel’s fault: The title of Abunimah’s piece is “Israel Moves Quickly To Exploit Paris Attacks.”
To those among us unfortunate enough to follow the BDS movement closely, such vitriol is no news. But cataclysmic events have a way of rattling people into sudden awakenings. And so here’s a simple suggestion: before you engage in conversation with critics of Israel, take a moment and check their digital footprint from the past week. If they’ve taken the time and the trouble to condemn these horrific murders without equivocation, if they sound genuinely remorseful, proceed. But if all they can muster are musty cliches or steely dogmas, if they can’t take a moment away from their politics to be ordinary, feeling humans, and if they can’t miss an opportunity to see even this tragedy as yet another proof of the exceptional nefariousness of the Israeli regime, then they’ve proven that the true object of their vitriol is not the Jewish state but the Jewish people.

SA Jews blast BDSers for hosting double hijacker

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has announced that it will bring convicted terrorist Leila Khaled to South African next month for a speaking tour, drawing harsh condemnations from the country’s Jewish community.
Khaled, now 70, is a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and took part in two airplane hijackings between 1969 and 1970.
Arrested after the second incident, she was later freed in exchange for hostages held by the PFLP.
“By bringing Leila Khaled to South Africa, BDS aligns itself with savage gunmen who murder civilians in Paris, France, with terrorists who send 10-year old girls to bomb markets in Potiskum, Nigeria, and barbarians who butcher school children in Peshawar, Pakistan,” South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
In an email to supporters, the South African BDS movement termed Khaled an icon of the Palestinian struggle, showing an image of her clutching an automatic weapon and comparing her to late South African president Nelson Mandela.
“Many Palestinians including Leila Khaled are today considered terrorists like the ANC and Nelson Mandela were once classified as terrorists,” the group declared. “The picture of a young, determined looking woman with a checkered keffiyeh scarf, clutching an AK-47, was as era-defining as that of Che Guevara, Ruth First and other political figures from our recent past.”
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies responded by issuing a statement deploring the extension of an invitation to a “notorious plane hijacker” in the wake of terrorist attacks carried out in Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia.

Leila Khaled and the hijacking of human rights

So how should we respond?
For one, South Africa needs to draw a red line when it comes to harboring terrorists. A flippant attitude in this regard previously allowed Al-Shabaab terrorist, Samantha Lewthwaite (known as the White Widow), to take refuge in South Africa; now another terrorist is going to be allowed access to South Africa – only this time out in the open, with the audacious claim of being a human rights activist.
Leila Khaled should not be allowed to come to South Africa. Universities should ban her from their campuses – if not on principle then in the interests of ensuring a feeling of security for all students.
Secondly, there needs to be a much more severe backlash against the BDS movement, which is not only wholly undemocratic in its ideology and actions, but is a tangible danger.
BDS itself should be inspected for having close ties with open proponents of Radical Islam. Media Review Network is just one of these affiliates; its leader, Iqbal Jasset, recently justified the brutal massacre of the Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris. South African security authorities should cut out the Radical Islamic threat now, even in its infancy, before it grows to the proportions we are currently seeing in Europe.

Glorified Bastards

For a number of years into the Cold War, American presidents were occasionally troubled by the paradox that a democratic United States was supporting right-wing anti-Communist dictatorships abroad. Either Harry Truman, John Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson — or all of them — was supposed to have scoffed, in response to objections, something like the following, “He may be a bastard, but at least he’s our bastard.”
That realist cynicism has more or less remained the same. But now the ideology has flipped. Currently, the more that authoritarian thugs abroad position themselves as anti-American, the more that we seem to glamorize them. The new presidential sarcasm is, in effect, “He may be a bastard, but at least he’s an anti-American bastard.”
One of the most peculiar pathologies of Western elites is carrying on this apparent romance with non-Westerners who dislike the West, while spurning those who admire it. The feminist pro-Western critic of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, was recently disinvited from speaking at Brandeis University. Earlier, Columbia University had welcomed the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an unhinged anti-Jewish and anti-American theocrat. Apparently hating America made Ahmadinejad the more interesting speaker; liking America made Hirsi Ali suspect and certainly less romantically revolutionary. How odd that for campus communities, being the victim of forced genital mutilation makes one less sympathetic than a man who had ordered the deaths of female supposed adulteresses.

Huffington Post: The Real Threat Is the European Right

On Tuesday, The Huffington Post attempted to spin Islamic radicalism in Europe as a secondary threat to both Europeans and Jews. The primary threat? As their headline put it, “Far-Right Parties On The Rise Across Europe.”
Beneath the blaring banner, “A SPECTER IS HAUNTING EUROPE” – a direct quote from Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, which referred to communism as that specter – the Post placed a picture of Marine Le Pen, the head of the Front National party in France. The headlines beneath the picture then spelled out the horrors of this specter:
"Virulently Anti-Semitic And Anti-Muslim…Troubling Echoes of Fascist Past… Paris Attacks Boost Nationalists…More Than 50 Anti-Muslim Incidents In France Over Past Week…Firebombs, Pig Heads Thrown Into Mosques…Record Turnout At Dresden Anti-Muslim Rally…European Jews Feel Most Endangered Since WWII…"
This is perverse. Radical Muslims murder 12 people at Charlie Hebdo and go on to murder four Jews at a kosher supermarket — and the great threat is Marine Le Pen?
Of course it is. That’s because according to the Post and the rest of the left, any problem with the Muslim world is truly a problem with the West – and, more specifically, anyone who could plausibly be labeled “right-wing” in the West.

BBC response to Willcox complaints: he sent a Tweet

Below is the response received by a member of the public in reply to his complaint concerning remarks made by Tim Willcox during the BBC’s coverage of the January 11th march in Paris. Others have informed us that they have been sent the exact same reply.
It is worth noting once again that the majority of the millions of people who watched that BBC broadcast do not follow Tim Willcox on Twitter.
One of the problems with the response from BBC Complaints – and with Willcox’s Tweet – is that he was not asking a “poorly phrased question” at all. He in fact interrupted his interviewee to make a statement. And whilst Willcox may indeed have had “no intention of causing offence”, he did just that because the notion he found it so urgent to promote to viewers is based on the antisemitic premise that Jews anywhere in the world hold collective responsibility for the perceived actions of the State of Israel.
If Tim Willcox and the BBC do not understand why his statement – and the thinking behind it – constitutes a problem and why an apology in 140 characters or less repeated in a generic e-mail from BBC Complaints is unsatisfactory, then obviously there are considerably deeper issues here.
Willcox’s Twitter apology does not abrogate the need for an on-air statement from the BBC clarifying the issue to audiences who watched that programme.

Jewish advocacy group calls on CNN anchor to apologize for 'cripple'

A Jewish advocacy group's leader is calling on CNN International anchor Jim Clancy to apologize for using the word "cripple" in a derogatory way.
"If a news anchor had hurled a racial epithet, CNN’s response undoubtedly would have been swift,” said Jay Ruderman, president of the Ruderman Family Foundation. "The disability community expects CNN to extend the same sensitivity to people with disabilities as it does to other minority communities."
The Ruderman Family Foundation is a nonprofit that works toward "the inclusion of people with disabilities throughout the Jewish community," according to the group's website.
The matter started last week when Clancy tweeted about the deadly terrorist attack by radical Islamists on a magazine in Paris, known for publishing satirical cartoons sometimes offensive to Muslims.
As of press time, Clancy's tweets, including the "cripple" comment, have not been deleted.

The Modern Left? Human Rights And Freedom Of Speech For Me But Not For You

An article in New Matilda by Michael Brull which flawlessly demonstrates why the self described modern Left spun out of orbit a long time ago and has no worthwhile place in modern politics, the media or especially the universities and schools.
Brull, you might recall, is the guy who says that if you are an advocate for women's rights and liberation in Muslim lands then you must be a racist or Islamophobic or something. Even if you are a Muslim. Or a woman. He says this without the slightest hint of self awareness of how deeply offensive and racist it is.
What is this? Basic human rights in the West. But not for Arabs in Muslim lands?
Brull's article is about the attack on Charlie, freedom of expression and tolerance. This is what is most notable about the article and the discussion thread:
* there is no mention at all of the attack on the kosher shop in Paris in the article and virtually none in the comment thread. It is as if it is an entirely unrelated event that didn't happen or it is so irrelevant it can be safely ignored as not fitting the narrative. The sole comment is so asinine it is laughable.

Where Was MSNBC's Interception of Intercept's Jeremy Scahill?

The notion that Israel has killed Palestinian journalists, even specifically targeted them, because of their offensive or even anti-Israel work, is completely unfounded. The large majority of those said to be Palestinian journalists killed by Israel were killed in the course of violent conflict between Israel and Hamas, both in the summer of 2014 and in November 2012.
Many of them were later identified as members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or other terror groups. They include Abdulla Murtaja of Hamas, Islamic Jihad leader Ramez Harb, Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama of Hamas, and Ezzat Salama Duheir of Islamic Jihad.
Neither host Ed Schultz nor Steve Clemons of The Atlantic, the segment's other guest, challenged Scahill's assertion that Israel is an enemy of free speech. (Anyone who reads Israel's Haaretz on any given day knows how off the mark he is). But Clemons did take on Scahill's similarly unfounded allegation that Islam, and Mohammed, had been uniquely lampooned by Charlie Hebdo.

The Real Threat in France? Don’t Ask the NYT

The test of a first-rate intelligence, as the man once famously said, is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in one’s mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. In case you needed any more proof that there’s very little by way of first-rate intelligence at the New York Times these days, the paper of record’s latest editorial about Paris should do the trick.
“Perhaps the greatest danger in the wake of the massacres is that more Europeans will come to the conclusion that all Muslim immigrants on the Continent are carriers of a great and mortal threat,” it reads. “Anti-immigrant sentiments were already at a dangerous level, making it essential for national and pan-European leaders in coming days to underscore that extremism is not inherent to the Muslim faith, and that the Islamists themselves are hardly a single entity.”
Elsewhere in the same newspaper, in the sections that still, presumably, concern themselves with facts, we learn that there may be another danger at hand, and that it may be even greater than unkind sentiments towards Muslims: the danger of Jews being murdered by radical Islamists. To counteract this threat—which is manifested in reality, not the preening sentiments of newspaper editors desperate to seem sensitive—the French authorities had assigned 4,700 police officers to guard the country’s 700 Jewish schools and institutions. It is yet unclear how many armed guards were posted in the streets of Paris and Marseille and Lyon to protect feelings from being hurt.

Seek and You Shall Find: Bias in Europe

Responding to a New York Times call to European readers, especially Muslims, to answer questions including what kind of anti-Muslim bias they have experienced, Dr. John Cohn, CAMERA's 2003 Letter-Writer of the Year, wrote to Margaret Sullivan, the paper's public editor:
Dear Ms. Sullivan,
While on the Times website I came across the following pages, with the caption, "Share your experiences as a Muslim in Europe, The New York Times would like to hear from Europeans, particularly Muslims, about their experiences." The link took me to a page with preloaded questions, such as:
What types of anti-Muslim bias, if any, have you experienced or witnessed in your daily life?
If you are Muslim, how comfortable are you practicing Islam in Europe?
In the aftermath of the attacks, how might your life change, if at all?
This led me to wonder if the Times had similarly solicited information from Christians in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran or Iraq, or gays, women or Christians in Gaza. Has it?

NY Times Editor: Charlie Hebdo Cartoons 'Innately Offensive' to Muslims

In a story titled, “New Charlie Hebdo Cover Creates New Questions for U.S. News Media,” editor Dean Baquet says the image is “innately offensive” to Muslims.
At The Times, which republished some Charlie Hebdo cartoons in its coverage of the attack, but not the ones that mocked Islam, an editorial decision was made in its online coverage to provide a link for viewers to click should they wish to see the new Muhammad cover. But the image will not be published in the print edition.
“Actually we have republished some of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons including a caricature of the head of ISIS as well as some political cartoons,” Dean Baquet, executive editor of The Times, said in a statement. “We do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities. Many Muslims consider publishing images of their prophet innately offensive and we have refrained from doing so.”

NY Times Attorney In Pentagon Papers Case Blasts Paper For Not Publishing Charlie Hebdo Cartoons

Floyd Abrams is a constitutional attorney who has argued some of the most famous First Amendment cases in recent history, including arguing for Citizens United in their case against the FEC, as well as representing the NY Times in the Pentagon papers case New York Times Co. v. United States. Abrams wrote a letter to the Times expressing disappointment in his former client's decision not to run any of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
To the Editor:
The decision of The New York Times to report on the murders in Paris of journalists who worked for Charlie Hebdo while not showing a single example of the cartoons that led to their executions is regrettable. There are times for self-restraint, but in the immediate wake of the most threatening assault on journalism in living memory, you would have served the cause of free expression best by engaging in it.
FLOYD ABRAMS
New York, Jan. 8, 2015
The writer, a First Amendment lawyer, represented The Times in the Pentagon Papers case.

David Cameron defends Charlie Hebdo's right to publish new Prophet Mohammed cartoon

David Cameron has defended Charlie Hebdo's new Prophet Mohammed cartoon by saying while he finds mockery of his own religion "unpleasant" it is simply part of living in a "free country".
The Prime Minister dismissed concerns British stores selling the magazine's latest edition could be targeted in retribution attacks during an impassioned defence of freedom of speech.
Mr Cameron said that you cannot "appease" a "fanatical death cult of Islamist extremism" and said newspapers should be free to publish whatever they wanted.

CNN: "West Jerusalem." Where's That?

We ended up watching the quadruple funeral of the four Jewish victims of the Arab terror attack in the Parisian Kosher Supermarket on CNN. The broadcast was seriously marred by the fact that the announcer kept saying that they were in "West Jerusalem." I didn't hear or find it on the site, but I can't get it out of my ears.
There is no such place. What a disgrace to the memories of the victims, innocent French Jews who were shopping in a kosher store before the holy Sabbath.
It's a credit to the families of the dead victims of Arab Muslim terror that they came to Jerusalem to bury their loved ones in our Holy Land. They wouldn't defile them in French soil.

Decades after Muslim Murders in His House, Kareem Says Paris Attacks Not About Islam

Forty-two-years ago this Sunday in Washington, D.C., the property that the Hall of Fame center purchased for his Islamic teacher’s use served as a stage for terrorism every bit as shocking as the ghoulish performance at Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office. The Time article by the UCLA and Lakers great strangely never mentions the sectarian bloodbath that occurred under his roof.
The abridged version is that a crew of Philadelphia-based Nation of Islam (NOI) members invaded the home, murdering several adults and children execution style. They drowned a newborn baby in a bathtub. In slaying the children, a ringleader reasoned that “the seed of the hypocrite is in them.” The “hypocrite,” Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, had called NOI leader Elijah Muhammad “a lying deceiver” and judged his followers criminals disgracing the name of Islam in letters imprudently sent to numerous mosques.
Like the Charlie Hebdo murders, the assailants sought to avenge an insult to a venerated religious leader. Like the Charlie Hebdo murders, the assailants executed innocent, defenseless people, including five children ranging from a few days old to a fourth grader. Like the Charlie Hebdo murders, religion, not money or sex or power, primarily motivated the attacks.

Blame the writers, Bossypants, blame the writers

Without meaning to, Tina Fey, who recently hosted the Golden Globes, may have misinformed her audience about the professional achievements of Amal Clooney (ne Alamuddin).
In a funny take down of Amal's husband, actor George Clooney (who was receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes ceremony) Fey listed some of the achievements of his wife Amal, which truth be told, are probably a bit more demanding (but less lucrative), than George's. "So tonight, her husband is getting a lifetime achievement award."
During her joke, Fey reported that Amal "was selected for a three-person UN commission investigating rules of war violations in the Gaza strip."
She was offered a seat on the panel, but turned it down.

Goodwill Hunting? Ben Affleck Connected to Anonymous Charlie Hebdo Posters Displayed Outside Golden Globes

While the anonymous “artists” offered no explanation of the words on the placards, a likely explanation of the phrase’s origin can be connected to the 1997 Oscar-winning film, Goodwill Hunting, which was co-written by Ben Affleck.
The original magazine cover that is plastered on the posters features an Egyptian man being killed in a hale of gunfire, reports The Wrap. Holding a copy of the Koran as a shield from bullets, a translation of the words on the cover reportedly reads, “The Koran is s–t” and “It can’t even stop these bullets.”
The imagery and timing of the displays, as well as the area in West Los Angeles where they were exhibited, near the home of Ben Affleck, likely means that the words are not a call for goodwill. They are more likely a play-on-words to the title of the film, and a dig at the star.
Affleck recently made headlines for an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, where he appeared visibly disturbed by a panel conversation when Maher and guest author Sam Harris voiced their critical opinions on Islam.

Canadian Paper Prints Draw-Your-Own Muhammad 'Connect-the-Dots'

A Canadian newspaper has a new answer to the thorny editorial question of whether to reprint controversial cartoons of Muhammad, such as those that appear in France’s Charlie Hebdo: invite readers to “connect the dots” and draw Muhammad themselves.
The Journal de Montreal printed an editorial cartoon Tuesday under the heading: “Des caricatures de Mahomet dans le prochain Charlie Hebdo” (“the Muhammad cartoons in the next Charlie Hebdo). A half-finished drawing of Muhammad follows, with 32 dots that the reader is invited to connect, in implicit solidarity with the victims of last week’s terror attack: “Vous joindrez votre crayon aux leurs” (“You will join your pencil with theirs”).
The genius of the cartoon, by Marc Baudet, is that it allows the editors and readers of the Journal de Montreal to have it both ways: if they do not wish to offend Muslims, they do not need to finish the drawing; if they want to make a stronger statement, they may do so.

False Solidarity: Major News Outlets Refuse to Publish Charlie Hebdo Cartoon

FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC never displayed the cartoon on air. FOX showed the cartoons once, but told The Washington Post the network “has ‘no plans’ to show further examples.” CNN “cropped out” any image of the cartoons. NBC told Buzzfeed the “NBC News Group Standards team has sent guidance to NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC not to show headlines or cartoons that could be viewed as insensitive or offensive.”
Rosie Gray at BuzzFeed reported that Al Jazeera bosses told their journalists “it is ‘absolutely out of bounds’ to publish images” of the newest Charlie Hebdo issue. The Associated Press claimed the publication “has a long-standing policy of refraining from using provocative images.”
The Washington Post, however, did publish the new Charlie Hebdo cartoon– the first depiction of Mohammed to appear in the newspaper.

British Media Wimp Out Of Printing Charlie Hebdo Front Page

The Daily Express used a montage of some of those killed in the terrorist attack along with some of the less controversial front pages.
The Times’ offering was even more bizarre, appearing to have almost no relevance to the article’s subject whatsoever. Instead they ran a picture described as “Tributes to the victims of the recent terror attacks in France adorn the reliefs surrounding the monument at Place de la Republique”.
The Daily Mail published an article explaining the front page of Charlie Hebdo but they too did not show their readers the cover itself.
Both The Independent and The Guardian did choose to publish the front cover but did not lead with the picture. Instead the depiction of Mohammed was buried deep down in their articles.
Perhaps surprisingly none of the ‘red tops': The Sun, The Daily Mirror, or The Daily Star reprinted the front page.
The Daily Telegraph was perhaps the weakest of all the papers. It printed the headline and the background of the magazine but cropped the picture so that readers could not see the picture of Mohammed.

MSNBC Blurs Charlie Hebdo Cover During Interview With Hebdo Contributor

MSNBC blurred the cover of an issue of Charlie Hebdo during an interview with a contributor to the magazine, sticking to its policy of not airing cartoons of Muhammad which Muslims might deem offensive.
More embarrassing for the news network, Caroline Fourest, the Charlie Hebdo contributor, predicted during the interview that the network would blur the cover, a decision which she called “the saddest news” she’s heard as journalists around the world rally around the satirical magazine.
Two Islamic terrorists killed 10 Charlie Hebdo employees and two policemen last week in Paris. The killers claimed they were outraged over Charlie Hebdo’s recent publication of cartoons satirizing Muhammad. Most major news networks, including NBC and CNN, have said they will not air Charlie Hebdo covers with those cartoons.

'Did the Americans plan the Paris terror attacks?' asks leading Russian tabloid

American intelligence services carried out the Charlie Hebdo terror attack to punish France for considering dropping sanctions against Russia – or at least, that's the version of events presented in one of Russia's leading newspapers today.
The front page splash in Komsomolskaya Pravda, which asks "Did the Americans Plan the Paris Terror Attack?", is just the latest of a series of bizarre conspiracy theories put forward by some of the Russian press in the wake of last week's tragedy.
The headline relates to a page 7 interview with a political scientist called Alexander Zhilin, who links the murders of 16 people at Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher supermarket to disagreements between western governments about how to deal with sanctions against Russia.
The trigger, he claimed, was Francois Hollande's suggestion on January 5 that sanctions imposed against Russia should be reconsidered.

Jerusalem begins diplomatic fight against UN Commission inquiry on Gaza

Israel this week launched a campaign to thwart the UN Commission of Inquiry on Gaza, directing its diplomats to ensure that a majority of the 47 countries on the UN body that established the commission do not endorse its report.
The commission, headed by William Schabas, is due to present its findings to the UN Human Rights Council on March 23, just six days after the elections. A vote on the findings will be held a few days later.
According to a Foreign Ministry cable sent to Israel’s representatives abroad, the goal of the campaign is to get “as many countries as possible – with the hope that at least 24 will not approve the committee’s findings – to either vote against, abstain or not show up [for the vote].”
The cable said while Israel does not have diplomatic relations with 11 countries on the council, and the battle in a number of other countries is already lost, “with proper diplomatic activity it is possible to influence not a small number of members.”
Israel is refusing to cooperate with the commission, and the committee is therefore gathering testimony using technological means or through interviews done from Jordan.
Part of the campaign against the commission will be to discredit its head, Canadian international law professor Schabas, who in 2012 said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be his “favorite person” to bring to the International Criminal Court.

Former ICC top prosecutor: Israel must investigate IDF's alleged war crimes to avoid ICC probe

Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Former International Criminal Court prosecutor, dropped a bombshell on the Israeli debate over war crimes investigations into last summer’s Gaza war.
In the red-hot debate over the court’s possible involvement in prosecuting IDF personnel for alleged war crimes, he said late Monday night that the IDF could only avoid ICC involvement if it fully investigated the allegations itself.
Ocampo also said that Israel would need to do “damage control” on the West Bank settlements to avoid ICC prosecution that could go after those involved in the communities for war crimes as well.
The spirit of Ocampo’s post in the highly acclaimed Just Security law blog was to make helpful suggestions to Israel to improve its security and reduce the likelihood of prosecution by the ICC.
But the post was also an unmistakable warning shot to Israel about going to easy on investigating its personnel by the founding prosecutor, who still looms large in the arena of public opinion of international law experts.

Obama reassures Netanyahu on Iran, PA war crimes bid

US President Barack Obama spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday night, telling him he opposed the Palestinians’ move to join the International Criminal Court to pursue war-crimes charges against Israel. Obama also spoke of American efforts to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.
The White House said Obama told Netanyahu that the Palestinian Authority wasn’t yet a state and wasn’t eligible to join the court. Obama said the Palestinians’ application to the court wasn’t constructive and undermined trust with Israel.
The US is reviewing its aid package to the Palestinians because of their bid to join the court.

US Consulate Training and Arming Arabs for Judea and Samaria Guard Details

The US Consulate in Jerusalem is training Jerusalem Arabs as armed security guards to escort American diplomats in Judea and Samaria, according to reports in Yediot Achronot and Arutz-7.
The report states that 7 Israeli guards were recently fired and 3 more Israeli guards quit in protest, following the appointment of the Consulate’s new security officer, Dan Cronin, and his new policies.
Cronin is reportedly hiring 35 Arab guards and sending them for training in Jericho and the US.
According to some of the former Israeli guards, a number of the Arab guards already hired have previously been arrested for stone throwing attacks and have relatives with terror records.
The former guards also describe a secret arsenal in the US Consulate, consisting of machine guns, rifles and shotguns — all without permission or coordination with Israel.

Senate bill seeks to force embassy move to Jerusalem

Senators Dean Heller (R-NV) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) ushered in the new Congressional session by proposing legislation Tuesday to force the Obama administration to change longstanding US policy and move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The bill, which stands little chance of surviving both Congress and the presidential veto pen, nonetheless represents the opening shots from a newly Republican Congress that has vowed to challenge presidential authority on key foreign policy questions.
It also comes as the Supreme Court readies to rule on a high profile case which could determine Congress’s ability to shape foreign policy and force the State Department to change course and recognize Jerusalem’s status on passports of Americans born in the city.
The Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act of 2015 seeks to force the executive branch to uphold the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which calls for the relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv to the Israeli capital, but has been pushed off by pro forma presidential measures since.

Israel's facing worsening international isolation, warns Foreign Ministry paper

Classified document lists possible consequences of diplomatic deterioration, including tighter economic and academic boycotts, restricted security imports and loss of US support.
Israel's worsening position on the world stage is expected to decline further in 2015, claims a Foreign Ministry report, which warns that more sanctions could be on the way.
The classified document, sent by the Foreign Ministry to Israeli missions worldwide, warns of possible diplomatic damage to Israel due to "moves to mark settlement products, stop the supply of replacement parts; debates on sanctions against Israel; demands for compensation for damage caused by Israel to European projects in the Palestinian territories; European activity in Area C, under Israeli rule; and more."
The significance of a worsening diplomatic situation is clear: European states will not only continue to advance diplomatic steps such as recognition of a Palestinian state, but will at the same time wok on an economic level to hurt the Israeli economy.

Is Intel in Bed With an Anti-Semite?

Recently, Intel announced at CES 2015 that they were planning to invest three hundred million dollars to improve diversity within the tech field. This money will go to actively support hiring and retaining more women and “under-represented minorities” along funding programs to support more positive representation within both technology and gaming industries. Alongside this announcement, Intel also put forward the groups that they would be working with to create new programs (or enhance them) for this particular initiative. However, one of those groups, online show Feminist Frequency, may be hiding an anti-free speech, anti-capitalism, anti-Semite by the name of Jonathan McIntosh.
Jonathan McIntosh states that he is a “pop culture hacker” and “transformative storyteller.” One of his claims to fame are viral YouTube videos called “Buffy vs Edward” and “Donald Duck meets Glen Beck.” The latter video was actually addressed by Beck, calling it the “best propaganda he had ever seen.” To be more direct to McIntosh’s efforts and life, he has his finger in many pies. He sits on the board of the New Media Rights group, is an advisor to Silverstring Media (which has been linked to many major video game sites such as Destructoid, Giant Bomb, Kotaku, and Polygon), and also is the writer and video producer for the aforementioned Feminist Frequency series of videos.
He is also vehemently anti-Israel. Over the years, McIntosh has been at many anti-Israel rallies, using his photography skills to put forward an anti-Israel message. His work can be seen on Boston Indymedia, The Electronic Intifada, and a .PDF file from endtheoccupation.org. Each one credits McIntosh, and the Boston Indymedia and Electronic Intifada link back to an old site of McIntosh’s called capedmaskedandarmed.com. McIntosh has taken the site down recently, but it didn’t stop the citizens of the internet to archive his website, proving that it is the same McIntosh from Feminist Frequency that is attending these anti-Israel rallies.

Historic Aircraft Used to Rescue Iraqi Jews to be Brought to Israel

A Curtiss C-46 Commando transport aircraft used in 1947’s clandestine Operation Michaelberg, during which 100 Iraqi Jews were rescued and brought to then-British Mandatory Palestine, will soon return to Israel after being saved from a metal scrap yard in Argentina.
During the mid-1940s, concerns grew for the fate of the Jews of Iraq due to increasing persecution by their Arab neighbors. The British denied the Jewish community’s petition to allow Iraqi Jews to enter Israel legally, leading to the decision to mount a clandestine rescue operation and smuggle them into the country. The rescue operation was designed by the Aliyah Bet group, which operated as part of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization that operated in Israel in defiance of the British Mandate. The secret operation was carried out in August and September 1947.
Former Israeli Knesset speaker Shlomo Hillel, one of the individuals involved in Operation Michaelberg, recently learned of the whereabouts of the historic plane and that its current owner had planned for it to be scrapped. Hillel and Israeli businessman Meshulam Riklis successfully negotiated with the C-46’s owner, and the plane is scheduled to arrive at its new home—the Atlit Detention Camp Museum, which is dedicated to the history of pre-state Israel immigration efforts—in several weeks.

IDF Blog: How Do Passenger Airplanes Fly Through Rockets?

Taking off and landing a huge commercial aircraft filled with hundreds of passengers is not an easy task for any pilot. Doing the same while rockets are flying overhead, that seems impossible and risky. Yet during Operation Protective Edge while Hamas fired rockets at Ben Gurion International Airport, Israeli forces managed to keep passenger air traffic safe.
Hamas declared that shutting down traffic at Ben Gurion International Airport was one of their top objectives during Operation Protective Edge. The terror organization fired tens of rockets towards Ben Gurion and sent out daily emails to international flight companies threatening to attack the airport. “Shutting down Ben Gurion would have been a huge achievement for Hamas,” explains Shmuel Zakai, the Director of Ben Gurion International Airport.
“It’s almost impossible to explain to people who live outside of Israel how you can maintain a normal and safe civilian flight environment in a reality where rockets are being fired at us,” Zakai continues. “No other airport in the developed world has to deal with this kind of threat. There is a terrorist organization openly declaring that its goal is to cut Israel off from the world by targeting the airport.”

Joan Peters and the Perils of Challenging the Palestinian Narrative

The death last week of author Joan Peters recalls one of the most intense and bitter literary controversies in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Her 1984 book From Time Immemorial set off a memorable scuffle between both Israeli and Arab writers. But like many such controversies the ultimate impact of the discussion did more to obscure the truth about the origins of the conflict over historic Palestine that she had set out to illuminate than shedding light on it. The moral of the story is that while Peters’s book was flawed, it might have prompted an important debate about one of the key assumptions of Israel’s critics. Instead, the angry pushback her volume received from liberals and Arab apologists served only to demonstrate that anyone who seeks to challenge the Palestinian narrative of dispossession by the Jews does so at their own peril.
Peters’s intention was to write a book sympathetic to the Palestinian refugees. But in the course of her research, she stumbled across an important fact that had hitherto received no notice from Westerners who opined about the Arab-Israeli conflict: though the Arabs claim to have possessed Palestine for many centuries, a significant percentage of their population in 1948 could trace their origins to immigrants who crossed into what is now Israel during the last years of Ottoman rule and during the era of the British Mandate for Palestine.

Injured 11 Year-Old Thanks Public for Prayers

Ayala Shapira, 11, who was badly injured by a Molotov cocktail thrown by terrorists on the family car near Ma'ale Shomron last month, asked to distribute a letter of gratitude to the public Wednesday morning.
"All the people of Israel, I thank you all for praying for me and thinking of me so much," Ayala wrote.
Since the attack, Ayala has been hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, suffering from burns to the face and upper body. Ayala said in her letter that the great encouragement and support the people of Israel have shown her "makes me feel special. I have no words to explain how much it moves me."
Ruth, Ayala's mother, said on Tuesday evening that "Ayala is healing slowly and in stages, she suffers pain and takes medicine to ease things for her. She speaks with lip movements and explains herself very well."