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Sunday, February 08, 2015

02/08 Links: Palestinian hijacker compares IS to Jewish extremists; Brian Williams on the Couch

From Ian:

Fighting the Satanic Jew for Palestine
The title of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s book on the resurgence of anti-Semitism in our time, “The Devil That Never Dies,” can also be read as a not-so-veiled allusion to the centuries-old demonization of Jews as devilish or satanic. What began in the Middle Ages was revived by the Nazis, and remains popular among today’s neo-Nazi Jew-haters.
Unfortunately, however, one doesn’t have to venture into the darkest recesses of the Internet to encounter the contemporary expression of this age-old demonization of Jews: prominent Palestinians are not ashamed to denounce Jews or Israelis as “Satan,” and neither are supposedly progressive “pro-Palestinian” activists.
One of the most recent examples emerged when campaigners for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at the University of California, Davis, celebrated a student government resolution to divest from Israel by harassing their opponents. Several reports on the incident highlighted the role of Azka Fayyaz, a member of the UC Davis student senate, noting that she had previously “helped display a poster likening Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler.”
Palestinian hijacker compares IS to Jewish extremists
Palestinian two-time plane hijacker Leila Khaled condemned Friday the burning to death of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State group, but also compared it to the murder of an Arab teenager by Jewish extremists last summer.
“Those people who burned him are the same as the Israelis that burned Muhammed Abu Khdeir in Jerusalem,” Khaled said in South Africa, making a reference to the Palestinian teenager kidnapped and burned alive in east Jerusalem in July last year by three Jewish extremists charged with murder. The attack was allegedly in response to the June kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by a terror cell linked to Hamas in the West Bank.
Now 70 and living in Jordan, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) member Khaled hijacked a Trans World Airlines flight from Rome to Athens in August 1969, and an El Al plane from Amsterdam to New York in September 1970.
She was arrested by sky marshals during the second attack and the flight was diverted to Heathrow. However, the British government released Khaled a month later in a hostage swap.
She is in South Africa to drum up support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement which is seeking to isolate Israel economically and politically.
She received a warm welcome from the ruling African National Congress — much to the indignation of local Jewish organisations.
“Comrade Leila, this is your home,” said ANC member and Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba, wearing a keffiyeh around his neck.
Brian Williams Over Israel: Rockets Passed ‘Just Beneath the Helicopter I Was Riding In’
Completely separate from the 2003 Iraq helicopter incident Brian Williams confessed to lying about this week, thanks to a Twitter user who alerted Ace Of Spades, we now have a 2007 video of Williams claiming he was involved in a hairy wartime incident involving a different helicopter during a different war. According to the NBC Nightly News anchor, during “the war with Hezballah in Israel, a few years back … there were Katyusha rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in.”
"It gets me to thinking, I’ve been very lucky the way my life has turned out, I’ve been very lucky to have survived a few things that I’ve been involved in, at a perception a few minutes ago, I was remembering something I tend to forget, the war with Hezballah in Israel, a few years back, where there were Katuyshka rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in. A few years before that, you go back to Iraq, and I looked down the tube of an RPG that had been fired at us and it hit the chopper in front of ours." (h/t jzaik)
Brian Williams on the Couch
The Weekly Standard’s Jeryl Bier tracked down this dispatch about the incident Williams refers to.
Technically, Williams is correct that Katyushas were flying down below, but they were off in the distance, and not “just under” Israeli Blackhawk. You won’t see any drama inside the chopper or signs of emergency evasive maneuvers. Williams would not have failed to include any of that.
Bottom line: I don’t see anything wrong with the report — everything’s there on film. But his description to Fitzmaurice is disingenuous and just a bit self-inflating to an understandably awed college reporter.
But the more seasoned journalists now probing Williams won’t be wide-eyed or so easily impressed. I’m giving the last word on the matter to New York University’s professor of journalism, Jay Rosen.
Jay Rosen : No desire to put Brian Williams on the couch but if we assume he wasn't maliciously faking the story what is left is anchorman psychology.



A month after kosher market attack, French Jews plan an exodus
Jewish residents of Saint-Mandé say the problem of Islamic extremism doesn’t exist here. But as they discovered Jan. 9, it’s not far away, either, lurking in the less-salubrious suburbs, where last month’s attackers had their roots.
“We can’t say that these are jihadists imported from Iraq or Syria,” said Marc Krief, rabbi at the Synagogue of Vincennes - Saint-Mandé. “They were French citizens. They grew up in the suburbs. They went to the local mosques. They learned their way of thinking from here.”
Krief said he has told his congregants that if they want to leave France for economic or cultural reasons, they should go ahead. But he does not want them fleeing in fear when the scourge of anti-Semitism is global.
“I don’t see a country in the world that’s safe enough,” Krief said. “In Israel, there’s war. In the United States, there could be another terrorist attack. It wouldn’t change anything to leave.”
And yet, given the lessons of Jewish history, the impulse to leave Europe amid increasingly ominous warning signs runs strong.
“Personally, I have faith in our community. I’m an optimist,” said Assouline, who intends to stay. “But whenever I say that, there’s always someone who reminds me, ‘In 1933, there were two types of Jews: the pessimists and the optimists. The pessimists left and went to the U.S. The optimists ended up in the death camps.’ ”
'We’re leaving Britain - Jews aren’t safe here any more’
London and Greater Manchester bore the brunt of the increase, with Manchester seeing a 79 per cent rise. One incident cited in the report involved the daubing of swastikas and the term “Jewish slag” on gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in Manchester. Greater Manchester Police says it has stepped up patrols.
The findings are borne out by the Goulds’ experience. “The other week, I was standing in the queue at a large supermarket in Manchester when the man in front of me said, 'F------ Jews, they’re all over the place. They’re thieves, they are taking over our property. They’re everywhere,’ ” says Honey. “I’ve no idea if he knew I was Jewish or not, but I was absolutely terrified, and fled.”
Then a Jewish neighbour’s son who was wearing his kippa (skull cap) was slapped in the street by a white Polish man, who “just sprang forward and hit him”.
Honey says: “I know there are plenty of people who simply want to live a peaceful coexistence. But there is so much anti‑Semitism in Britain, and it’s coming from all sides. Our local Jewish schools look like prison camps. They’re surrounded by wire fences. There are guards on patrol, some with dogs. On Saturdays, you see police walking the street with members of the CST. I don’t want to sit at home panicking when my husband goes to the synagogue. I just want to live in peace.”
PMW honored: Itamar Marcus to receive Abramowitz Prize for Media Criticism
This month, Palestinian Media Watch director Itamar Marcus will be awarded the Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism. Sponsored by Kenneth and Nira Abramowitz, the prize is awarded to Mr. Marcus by Israel's Media Watch, wrote Chairman of Israel's Media Watch Eli Pollak with Vice Chairman Yisrael Medad:
The goal of the Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism is to encourage journalists, pundits, public figures and organizations to contribute toward a critical review of the media... One of the topics that the Israeli media is loath to cover seriously is the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli media is dominated by those who believe that Israel's future depends on the realization of the two-state vision. Our pundits describe PA President Mahmoud Abbas as a relative moderate, with whom one may cut a deal. This may be true or not, but the public deserves to know whether the facts support it.
Is Abbas a moderate? Is the PA under his rule a model of moderation whose only interest is to create a Palestinian state within the June 4, 1967 demarcation lines? The media's job is to collect the necessary evidence and provide it to the public. Unfortunately, our media has consistently shied away from this issue... This is why Israel needs an organization such as Palestinian Media Watch. The organization, founded in 1996 by Itamar Marcus, has during the past two decades reported on the PA. Its material is available to all, yet the Israeli media is very loath to bring to the fore some of the egregious hate incitement in the PA, condoned by Abbas. This hate is not against the "occupation" per se, but is anti-Semitic. It encourages terrorism against Israelis and aggrandizes those who commit despicable crimes, such as killing infants in their beds, just because they were born to Israelis or "settlers."
Netanyahu vows to scuttle world powers’ Iran deal
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Sunday he would continue to try to defeat an expected agreement between the US and Iran over the latter’s nuclear development program as Washington predicted a handshake on the matter in the coming weeks.
“The [international] powers and Iran are racing forward with an agreement that will allow Iran to arm with nuclear weapons, something that will threaten the existence of the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said before the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu declared that he was ready to go head to head with US Secretary of State John Kerry in order to stop the deal.
“At the end of the week, Kerry and [Iranian Foreign Minister] Zarif announced their intention to complete the framework agreement by the end of March, and that is what gives rise to the urgency in our efforts to try and halt this bad and dangerous agreement,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue to act and to lead the international efforts against the arming of Iran with nuclear weapons and we will act in every way to foil the bad and dangerous agreement that would cast a heavy cloud over the future of Israel.”
Elliott Abrams: 'Calling out' Iran
The Obama administration is about to issue its formal "National Security Strategy," but ‎recent testimony by the new Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken actually gives deep ‎insight into what that strategy truly consists of.‎
Blinken's testimony gives the lie to the "strategic patience" excuse, as Hof so devastatingly ‎shows. Iran, which got away with helping kill thousands of Americans in Iraq, is now ‎helping kill hundreds of thousands of Syrians and has sent troops to fight in Syria. It is ‎deeply engaged in Yemen. It continues its support for terrorist groups like Hamas and ‎Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But don't worry: The United States "continues to insist," we've ‎‎"spoken to" Iran about all of this, raised our voices, and we've even "called out" Iran!‎
This administration has to date refused to provide any weaponry to Ukrainians fighting ‎what is the very clearest Russian aggression. We send them ‎blankets instead. And in the case of Iranian aggression and subversion, we call them out. ‎We raise our voices. These are grim days to be an American ally facing an aggressive and ‎hostile neighbor. You wait on the docks for the delivery of the latest American blankets and ‎perhaps copies of the speeches where we "call out" the aggressor.‎
Report: Iran tells West Rouhani at risk if nuclear talks fail
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned the United States that failure to agree on a nuclear deal would likely herald the political demise of President Hassan Rouhani, Iranian officials said, raising the stakes as the decade-old standoff nears its end-game.
Zarif pressed the concern with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at several meetings in recent weeks, according to three senior Iranian officials, who said Iran had also raised the issue with other Western powers. Zarif's warning has not been previously reported.
Kerry: No Iran talks extension without ‘outlines’ of a deal
“The only chance I can see of an extension at this point in time would be that you really have the outlines of the agreement,” Kerry said in the interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” taped Saturday in Munich.
Global powers have been struggling for more than a year to pin down a comprehensive deal to rein in Iran’s suspect nuclear program, after an interim accord was struck in November 2013.
Kerry met with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday and again on Sunday in Munich, where the top US diplomat stressed Washington’s commitment to seeing the deadline met.
After their meeting Sunday, Zarif appeared to rule out any new extension to tough negotiations with world powers.
ADL Joins Anti-Netanyahu Team, Says Cancel Speech to Congress
The White House has started bringing out the heavy artillery: The New York-based Anti-Defamation League is the latested to be recruited to pressure Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu into canceling his address to the U.S. Congress on March 3.
Yes. It’s another round of messing with Israeli politics, cloaked in the guise of harassing a prime minister over a speech to Congress. But it’s really about trying to rally enough bad blood to make Netanyahu look bad to people who know he’s probably one of the few in Israel who actually knows how to lead, mistakes notwithstanding.
Likud says Herzog ‘crossed red lines’ at Munich summit
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party on Sunday condemned Zionist Camp party leader Isaac Herzog for “recklessly crossing red lines” and undermining Israel’s international standing at a conference in Germany over the weekend.
Herzog on Saturday urged Netanyahu to cancel his March 3 Congress address on Iran, and held informal meetings with US Vice President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State John Kerry on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Kerry, Biden and President Barack Obama have all made clear they will not meet with Netanyahu when he flies to the US to address Congress next month, with Obama and Kerry citing the visit’s proximity to the March 17 elections, and Biden’s office saying he’ll be abroad.
Distancing itself from unilateral PA moves, Quartet says 'sustainable peace' requires negotiations
The Mideast Quartet principals met in Munich for the first time in a year on Sunday and came out against unilateral Palestinian efforts to get the international community to impose a solution on Israel.
Without mentioning the recent Palestinian efforts specifically, including the failed effort at the end of December to pass a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines within three years, a statement issued at the end of the meeting said that sustainable peace requires negotiations.
The meeting, which included US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, and UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson, took place against the backdrop of sharp tensions between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House over the premier’s scheduled speech to Congress on March 3.
What the CIA didn’t want Americans to know
For a year, Newsweek held a story on the assassination of top Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyeh at the CIA’s request, the magazine confirmed Friday — only to be scooped by The Washington Post last week.
The CIA made a forceful case for holding the story in conversations and a meeting at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va., and Newsweek honored that request, according to Editor-in-Chief Jim Impoco.
“In the geopolitical context at that moment, the CIA made a very persuasive case,” Impoco said in an interview – but declined to say what arguments the CIA made at the time. The CIA also declined to comment.
Mughniyeh was one of the most wanted terrorists in the world, responsible for orchestrating the deaths of Americans, Jews and Israelis in the Middle East and Argentina. In 2008, he was killed by a car bomb in Damascus, Syria, in what both Newsweek and The Washington Post reported was a joint U.S.-Israeli operation.
PreOccupied Territory: No Wonder The World Wants To Kill You People Obama By US President Barack Obama (satire)
I expect opposition from Republicans; that’s essentially their job. But you uppity Jews have no appreciation for the fact that I don’t squash you like bugs. I could, you know. I’m the one who gave that order to take out Bin Laden. I could do that to each and every one of you. When you don’t roll over and play dead, it’s perfectly natural for everyone to wish you were dead. It’s tradition. Jews understand tradition, so your agitation over this is confusing.
You’ve always been a bunch of troublemakers. When the rest of the world was perfectly happy to be venerating multifarious forces as competing gods, you had to go and insist everything is one. When the Romans, Byzantines, Almohads, Crusaders, and Tsars were trying to suppress your culture, you went and developed the richest intellectual and moral tradition the world has ever seen. Small wonder everyone resents you and wants to kill you. Nobody likes a goody-goody.
It hasn’t stopped in modern times, either. Hitler got closer than anyone else, and then bam, a few years later you built a state of your own. Then you go and become leaders in innovation and entrepreneurship, as if it’s important to work for the improvement of human existence. Don’t think I don’t know Israel is a leader in cheap generic alternatives to important drugs. I see you, Teva Pharmaceuticals. You think I admire you? I hate you. Everyone hates you.
PreOccupied Territory: Other Religious Wars Miffed Obama Didn’t Cite Them (satire)
More recent ideological conflicts lent support to the religious wars’ contentions, and called on Obama to retract his statement. “Aside from the invocation of a specific deity, we were as much a series of religious wars as the Crusades,” said the Cold War of the twentieth century. “The leaders on both sides simply used ideology to marshal and motivate their people, but it was all really about political influence and economic gain.” It also noted that the First World War, which sowed the seeds for the Cold War, took on much of he same Messianic flavor in the rhetoric that surrounded it, but was in its essence a struggle over control of various strategic areas.
“‘The War to End All Wars,’ indeed,” scoffed the Cold War. “You don’t get much more religious than that – it’s right out of Isaiah. But what was it really about? Hegemony. Resources. Power.”
The same goes for the Crusades, it continued. “The Medieval Catholic Church was an important temporal power in its own right. The split with the Eastern Orthodox forty years before the Crusades was in practical terms an economic and political blow, and the burgeoning population of Northern Europe provided the perfect source of mass discontent to harness toward reclaiming the ‘lost’ East, and reopening the Mediterranean trade routes,” said the Cold War. “The Crusaders sometimes allied themselves with Muslims, and didn’t save their violence for only Muslims – they took out anyone and everyone they could, and religion was just the pretext.”
“Except for the Jews,” interjected World War II. “Nobody even needs a pretext for killing Jews.”
“Except for the Jews,” agreed the Franco-Prussian War.
Palestinian attempts to run over troops in West Bank
A Palestinian driver attempted to run over soldiers near Bethlehem on Sunday.
The IDF opened fire at his car, and reportedly hit it, but the assailant or assailants fled the scene.
The incident took place at the Khader Junction on Highway 60 between Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of the capital.
The army was searching the area for the culprits. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Syrian Rebel Document Confirms Iranian-Hizbullah Military Presence in Syrian Golan Heights
The interrogation of an Iranian citizen apprehended by the Free Syrian Army reveals the military and terrorist infrastructure that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hizbullah have built on the Syrian Golan, which, according to the IDF’s intelligence branch, is also directed at Israel.
On February 3, 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, visited the Hermon Brigade and IDF outposts that keep watch on the Syrian and Lebanese border at Har Dov and on the Golan Heights. The newspaper Israel Hayom reported that during the visit Netanyahu addressed the military and terrorist threat to Israel that Iran has positioned at the Syrian border.1
The paper quoted him as saying, “I came here with the defense minister and IDF commanders to view the IDF’s deployment against the threats developing on the Golan Heights.” Netanyahu added that “Iran is trying to open a new front here, in addition to the fronts in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.”
More Gazans undergoing cosmetic surgery
The difficult economic and social situation in Gaza does not appear to be preventing Gazans from undergoing cosmetic surgery in search of happiness, which is difficult to find given the siege of Israeli occupation and recurring wars.
Dr. Salah Zaanin, a cosmetic and laser surgery consultant, started working in the field three years ago in a private hospital in Gaza City. The high demand for cosmetic surgeries, by men and women, led him to open his own clinic.
Zaanin told Al-Monitor that three years after returning from Greece and working in the Gaza Strip, he found that rapid progress had been made in this area and that the demand for surgery, despite the economic and other problems Gaza residents were experiencing, had increased. “We are a people who love life and beauty like all other people," he said. "Because of the psychological pressures, a lot of women began looking after their emotional and physical well-being, especially after learning of the advances in cosmetic surgery and the presence of modern equipment in Gaza.”
Zaanin said he has conducted hundreds of cosmetic operations in Gaza, all of which were successful. Some clients even began entrusting him with operations that used to be referred to the outside.
He said that the most common procedures in Gaza are liposuction, breast augmentation and “tummy tucks” for women. Tightening eyelids and removing bags under the eyes are popular as well. “In the past month, using Botox to fill and remove wrinkles in men and women rose by 600% in my clinic, indicating that despite the blockade and the stress, we are trying to be happy by looking better," Zaanin said. "In addition, there has been a 300% increase in lip augmentation and beautification.” (h/t Alexi)
Use Red Hand Day to raise awareness of the plight of Palestinian child soldiers
February 12 is Red Hand Day, a world wide initiative to raise awareness against the use of child soldiers
This could be an opportunity to raise awareness about the cynical use of Palestinian children as soldiers in the war to eliminate Israel. Instead, highly politicized group have blurred the message, claiming "Children are involved in numerous armed conflicts all over the world. Recent examples are Afghanistan, Chad, Centralafrican Republic, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), India, Iraq, Israel and the occupied territories, Myanmar (Burma), Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Thailand and Yemen. "
Are you active on social media?
You can held build awareness of the cruel use of children as soldiers in the Palestinian territories.
Use the hashtags #RedHandDay and #UNICEF, and tweet out photos and articles that document this egregious form of child abuse.
24 Groups Call on California to Investigate Professor’s ‘Boycott Israel Resource Page’
Twenty-four pro-Israel organizations have signed a letter to California Attorney General Kamala Harris demanding that she respond to evidence that California State University Northridge (CSUN) mathematics professor David Klein has illegally used taxpayer resources to promote anti-Semitic ideas.
“Many members of the Jewish community and concerned citizens of this state are appalled that a mathematics professor at a California state university is permitted to use the taxpayer-funded university website to post anti-Semitic material and promote an illegal boycott of Israel, and they are troubled that the state Attorney General is unwilling to even respond to these serious concerns,” the organizations wrote.
The letter, which was spearheaded by the AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit group dedicated to investigating and combating anti-Semitism at American academic institutions, accuses Klein of misusing tax dollars by using the CSUN web server to host his politically motivated “Boycott Israel Resource Page.” The pro-Israel organizations contend that aspects of the webpage “meet the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the U.S. State Department.”
The groups said that if Klein is found guilty, he should be “appropriately sanctioned” and have his webpage removed from the campus server.
Daphne Anson: From A Toxic Campus: Pro-BDSers at SOAS call for academic boycott
The haters at the School of Oriental and African Studies, an institution that's notorious as a toxic environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students, attempt to justify their hate
Tim Willcox-Exposing the true feelings of the media?
The now infamous Tim Willcox interview has unwittingly exposed what many in the mainstream media believe. To remind everyone what happened: in interviewing a Jewish woman at a solidarity rally in Paris, a few days after the attacks there, when she stated her very legitimate fear as a Jewess living in France, Willcox interrupted her and said:
“Many critics of Israel’s policy would suggest that the Palestinians suffer hugely at Jewish hands as well.”
It cannot be emphasised enough that Willcox specifically said “Jewish” rather than “Israeli,” thus effectively holding French Jewry responsible for the actions of Israel. This Freudian slip basically encapsulates, in one line, all the classic arguments that anti-Semites have brought against Jews throughout the ages:
Egypt court to consider lawsuit against Turkey
An Egyptian court has set Feb. 24 as the date to consider a lawsuit demanding that Turkey be designated as a “state that supports terrorism,” a judicial source has said.
“The court of urgent matters in the coastal city of Alexandria scheduled the first hearing in the case for Feb. 24,” the source told semi-official state agency Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity.
He added that a lawyer called Tarek Mahmoud had filed the lawsuit at the court, which made the decision to consider the case on Feb. 7.
The judicial source said Mahmoud had claimed in his case that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had supported the Muslim Brotherhood movement and criticized Egypt following the ouster by the army of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
The brotherhood, the movement from which Morsi hails, was declared a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government in December 2013.
Jordan conducts 56 air raids against ISIS in 3 days: 'We will wipe them off the face of the Earth'
Jordan's air force chief said on Sunday his country's jet fighters had conducted 56 bombing raids in three days against Islamic State militants in northeast Syria, targeting key bases and arms depots.
Jordan stepped up its bombing of the jihadist group on Thursday in response to the brutal killing by Islamic State of a captured Jordanian pilot, and continued until Saturday.
No new strikes were announced for Sunday.
"We achieved what we aimed for. We destroyed logistics centers, arms depots and targeted hideouts of their fighters," General Mansour al-Jbour, head of the Jordanian airforce, told a news conference.
Jordan has carried out nearly a fifth of the sorties of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in Syria to date, Jbour said. US aircraft joined the mission to provide intelligence, surveillance, a U.S. official told Reuters earlier on Sunday.
United Arab Emirates Will Help Jordan Fight ISIS
The United Arab Emirates will aid Jordan in its fight against ISIS after a horrific video emerged Tuesday of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive.
UAE announced Saturday that it will send a squadron of F-16 jets to aid Jordan, NBC News reports. The official government news agency also said UAE’s combat operations, which have been suspended since December, will resume “very soon.”
Jordanians were outraged by the death of pilot 1st Lt. Muadh al-Kasasbeh and have demanded that their government strike back. Jordan’s government released a statement saying there would be an “earth-shaking” response, and published a video online Thursday showing an F-16 fleet bombing ISIS. The new campaign will stretch from Syria to Iraq.
The world's stupidest terrorists: Social media users ridicule ISIS with videos of jihadists accidentally blowing themselves up
One fighter blows himself up when his rocket launcher backfires, while another accidentally shoots a comrade with a machine gun.
A third pulverises an entire room when he mistakenly detonates a bomb during a group photograph.
They are just some of the Islamic State jihadists who have died in calamitous circumstances on the battlefield in footage that could have come from hit satirical film Four Lions.
Now videos of their demise are now being circulated online as users hit back at the terror group after it released horrific footage showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive.
Al-Qaeda Condemns ISIS 'Deviance' After Jordanian Pilot-Burning Video
Al-Qaeda is condemning ISIS’s “deviance” following the burning of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh.
This rebuke comes after the groups reportedly severed ties a year ago. In early 2014, al-Qaeda disowned its Syria branch, then known as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, with leader Ayman al-Zawahiri stating that the older terrorist group was “unsatisfied” with the unruly jihadists waging war against President Bashar al-Assad.
As the Daily Mail reports, al-Qaeda added its voice to the chorus of Muslims, including violent jihadists, condemning the Islamic State for this particular murder. In a tweet from an account the Mail has identified as officially linked to the leadership of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula–the strongest branch of the group, based in Yemen–a representative of the group denounced the burning. The video depicting the killing of al-Kaseasbeh, the tweet stated, was “conclusive proof of ISIS’s deviance.”
Turkey's Bad Joke: Crocodile Tears for Victims of Holocaust
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was among the participants in Poland at the ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, on Holocaust Remembrance Day. And Turkey donated a modest sum of 150,000 euros this year as its contribution to the long-term preservation and restoration of the concentration camp.
Also, for the first time, International Holocaust Remembrance Day was marked in Ankara by high-level officials. Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek on January 28 addressed members of Turkey's tiny Jewish community and others at a Holocaust Remembrance Day event.
It all looks nice. It isn't.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry's statement looked like the bad joke of the year: "We observe that anti-Semitism, which formed a basis for the inhuman Nazi ideology, still survives today and therefore we believe in the importance of fighting tirelessly against this phenomenon."
The ministry was right to observe that anti-Semitism still survives today. Sadly, most powerfully in its own country, where no prosecutor has indicted a single one of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of social media users who, since last summer, have praised Hitler endlessly, claiming that the "Jews deserved it."
Under the nice wrappings of Holocaust Remembrance Day, there is the story of an entirely different Turkey.
Turkey’s President Erdogan Takes a Shot at Jewish Blessings
The barb came within what started out as a positive comment — as Erdogan’s barbs often do.
In accepting the “Great Roman” award on Feb. 6, Erdogan mentioned that he grew up in Kasimpasa, a neighborhood in Istanbul that was home to many Roma as well. “I know the Roma culture,” he said, and then began condemning racism, Islamophobia and discrimination, the Hurriyet Daily News reported.
“I am addressing to those who talk about women’s rights. Why don’t you raise your voice against the Jews who thank God in their prayers that they were not created as women? Was there any other understanding, a logic as demeaning for women as this one?”
The snide remark is a deliberate misinterpretation of one of the morning blessings recited by men — and women (the women’s version states praise to God that they were created as He desired) in recognition of their different roles and responsibilities in Jewish life.
German Judge: Torching of Synagogue not motivated by anti-Semitism
A German court in the city of Wuppertal convicted two German Palestinians on Thursday of an arson attack on a Synagogue but denied the crime was motivated by anti-Semitism, prompting Green Party deputy Volker Beck to urge the court to designate the act as anti-Semitic.
The Wuppertal court sentenced the two men, ages 24 and 29, to a suspended prison term of one year and three months. The two men, along with an 18-year-old juvenile, in July tossed Molotov cocktails at the synagogue in Wuppertal, a city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with a population of nearly 344,000. The court ordered all three to perform 200 hours of community service.
Beck said on Saturday the “attack on the Synagogue was motivated by anti-Semitism” and blasted the court for issuing a decision stating that the goal of the attack was to bring “attention to the Gaza conflict.” Israel, last summer, was involved a 50-day war in the Gaza Strip.
Woman to sue Kuwait Airways after she's denied entry to flight because of Israeli passport
A New York woman will sue Kuwait airlines for denying her entry onto a London bound flight because of her Israeli citizenship, the New York Daily News reported on Friday.
Taking the moniker of "the Rosa Parks of international air travel," Iris Eliazarov drew the civil rights comparison when recalling the November 1 incident.
"I take the strength from the experience of Rosa Parks", Eliazarov said in her sworn affidavit against Kuwait Airways.
Eliazarov, a pregnant mother of four from Queens, had used her Israeli passport when boarding the plane, but was denied entry and left stranded at the airport.
Medical innovation conference in Tel Aviv
Darned Israelis make it so inconvenient to launch and effective boycott.
The latest example of the creative energy and innovation of Israel that has the BDS'ers gnashing their teeth is MedinIsrael, scheduled next month in Tel Aviv.
Representatives from over 60 countries around the world will gather in Tel Aviv March 23rd -26th in a conference that will introduce the latest life-saving Israeli medical innovations.
More than 120 Israeli medical device and health information technology companies will be participating in the conference.
Israeli tech sweeps Verizon contest with $1.5 million in prizes
In a worldwide contest by US telecom giant Verizon to search out top technologies that can help people live better lives, Israeli start-ups swept three out of the twelve prizes awarded – including one of the top prizes, a million-dollar payout.
Oded Ben-Dov, the inventor of the winning Sesame Enable smartphone, plans to use the money his invention was awarded for a full rollout of the device, which lets individuals who cannot use their limbs due to the effects of conditions like ALS, paralysis, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries to make phone calls, surf the web, and send text messages, all with a slight movement of their head.
“It’s a very proud and happy day for the disabled, and for us at Sesame Enable,” said Ben-Dov upon hearing that he won a million dollars in the Verizon Powerful Voices contest. “Now we have the resources to continue our work, enabling the severely disabled to interact with the online world in a way that was impossible until now.”
The winners were announced last week at a special ceremony in San Francisco.
Shanghai Wants Jewish Quarter Made UNESCO World Heritage Site
Shanghai is looking to ensure the area where Jewish refugees were sheltered in WWII becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Shanghai is applying to have the Tilanqiao area of Hongkou District added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, according to Xinhua news service.
An estimated 20,000 Jewish refugees fled the Nazis for Shanghai during the war, resulting in a vibrant Jewish community.
The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum is working with the Hongkou district government to complete the application. As part of the application, the city completed the collecting of the refugee list, data bank, literary, video and audio material.
Shanghai also has announced plans to rebuild a cafe where Jewish refugees gathered during their time in the city. The Wiener Cafe Restaurant, opened in 1939, will be rebuilt using its original blueprints opposite the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. It was demolished in 2009 to expand the city subway system.