Friday, October 23, 2015
Shmuley Boteach: Global silence as Jews are stabbed, slashed and murdered
Every day Jews are stabbed, slashed, shot, and murdered on the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Beersheba. And every day the world lies about “violence on both sides,” as if Netanyahu and Israel are calling for Jews to take knives and stab Palestinians. John Kerry will blame Israel for the murder of its own citizens because of settlements.Palestinian deformative years
There can be only one conclusion. Jewish blood is cheap and getting cheaper by the day. I know of no other ethnic or religious group on Earth who face daily incitement to genocide with the world making not even a peep of an objection.
A friend of mine who is an elected official took issue with my sharp denunciations of the Iran nuclear agreement. He said it was the only way to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. I said that even if he believed that, surely he could have demanded of the president to postpone all negotiations with Iran by a month every time they threaten Israel with annihilation.
Iran was desperate for the deal. They would have stopped. And if they didn’t, at least Congress could disabuse itself of the notion that Iran had anything on its mind other than the extermination of the Jews.
But the administration’s refusal to even once condemn Iran’s threats to murder all of Israel’s Jews is an immoral omission destined to forever live in infamy, especially when Iran violates the agreement, which they have already begun to do.
Lord Michael Grade and former Communities Secretary Sir Eric Pickles nailed it this week when they accused the British media and Foreign Office, in turn, of “promoting equivalence between the Palestinians perpetrators and their victims” and “turning a blind eye to the Palestinian propagators of vile ideology.”UNRWA Suspends Employees for Anti-Semitic Facebook Posts
Can we fix it? Well, probably no, we can’t. It’s always been this way. From early childhood, Jews are made the object of hatred and disgust, responsible for the failures in the Muslim world. It was as true before 1948 as it is today. Palestinians are not taught to hate Israelis because of Israel. They are taught to hate Jews because they are Jews.
Golda Meir, one of the founders of the State of Israel, knew this half a century ago, when she said: “Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”
Of course Palestinians are entitled to a country of their own -- even one that will, inevitably, like other Arab states, persecute other faiths and gays and women who drive and people on Twitter. A state like Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Libya, Oman, Algeria, Iran and 10 more where Israelis are forbidden.
It will be tyrannical, oppressive and pose a clear and present danger to the region. But, yes, the Palestinians deserve to call it their own. Israelis know and respect this. Because you have to be a grown up to make compromises, to see the bigger picture and plan for the future. You don’t throw tantrums and stones. You make adult choices.
At ominous times like this, with Israelis forced to use umbrellas and selfie sticks to defend themselves from brainwashed savages -- and incidents of Islamic anti-Semitism across Europe at record levels -- wishy-washy responses to Jew-hate and distorted media coverage of Israel’s plight only serves to fan the flames of ignorance and intolerance in this interminable conflict.
The United Nations has taken disciplinary action against at least 22 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) who used social media to promote anti-Semitism, the watchdog organization UN Watch reported Thursday. The employees’ misconduct was initially exposed in reports published by the watchdog organization in September and October.Abbas’s brother-in-law gets life-saving heart surgery in Israel
The spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon quietly announced on the UN website that UNRWA employees have, “in a number of cases,” [been] subject to disciplinary action, including suspension and loss of pay, following an investigation that verified evidence published by UN Watch — in one report last week, and another in September — of incitement to anti-Semitic violence committed by at least 22 UNRWA employees.
UN Watch noted that the disciplinary actions, which were communicated within a transcript of a press briefing and not a standalone announcement, were taken despite several vehement denials of misconduct by UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.
In light of the above, UN Watch is now demanding a full apology from UNRWA spokseman Chris Gunness for his McCarthyite tirade against what he called UN Watch’s “baseless allegations about antisemitism.”
Blogger “Elder of Ziyon,” working in parallel, uncovered many similar instances of UNRWA employees posting anti-Semitic material on their social media pages and inciting violence against Jews. In one instance, he found that a UNRWA employee changed his profile picture on Facebook into an image of the “Like” icon superimposed on a knife.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s brother-in-law underwent life-saving heart surgery at a private hospital in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Hebrew media reported Thursday.
He was hospitalized at the Assuta Medical Center in northern Tel Aviv’s Ramat Hachayal neighborhood. The surgery was successful and he was said to be recovering in intensive care.
Despite recent tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel approved the entry of Abbas’s wife’s brother to receive treatment in Tel Aviv, Walla reported. The report didn’t name Abbas’s brother-in-law. (h/t Bob Knot)
Vic Rosenthal: The world’s hate affair with the Jewish people
It’s interesting the way the Palestinian issue, of all the possible grievances – including others involving Arabs or Muslims – that the UN could deal with, has managed to capture so much of the UN’s time, resources and personnel. No other issue has as many committees, working groups, divisions, or “special rapporteurs” devoted to it; and no other issue by far is the subject of as many reports and resolutions of the UN’s multifarious fora and agencies. And of course nothing soaks up as much money. This is despite the numerous wars and genocides that have occurred since the UN’s founding which the UN has been unable to prevent.'Islamic site'? Thousands of Jews pray at Rachel's Tomb
It has gotten to the point that the UN is so dysfunctional that it no longer has a reason to exist. I have on several occasions suggested that those agencies which still provide useful functions (possibly WHO, ITU, and a few others) and haven’t become simply branches of the Palestinian cause be spun off as independent entities and the UN abolished. This would save billions of dollars, probably promote peace, and improve the parking situation in Manhattan immeasurably.
But it has occurred to me that the UN is only one example of a more general phenomenon: that of Palestinism invading and occupying almost any kind of institution, monopolizing its resources, and preventing it from fulfilling its originally intended function. Instead, affected organizations pass BDS resolutions, sponsor anti-Israel events and speakers, support bogus ‘research’ and ‘academic’ studies, and in general engage in pro-Palestinian anti-Israel political advocacy.
Early vatikin prayers held at dawn on Friday morning saw thousands of Jews visit Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, Judea, where the Jewish matriarch is buried.WATCH: Islamic State threatens Israel in new Hebrew video
The special visit comes a day ahead of the day of Rachel's passing, Marcheshvan 11 in the Jewish calendar, which falls this Saturday.
Giving a special poignancy to the prayers is the fact that UNESCO just this Wednesday passed a Palestinian Authority (PA) resolution, listing Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of Machpelah in Hevron - where the rest of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs are buried - as "Muslim sites."
The motion also condemned Israel for excavations near the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the site of the First and Second Temples.
Driving the PA's attempt to claim Rachel's Tomb is the recent Muslim revision according to which the tomb is the grave of Bilal ibn Rabah, a companion of Mohammed, who was never in the Land of Israel.
An initial draft of the resolution had also called for the Kotel (Western Wall) to be listed as an Islamic site - or more specifically as an "extension of the Al Aqsa Mosque" - but that detail was hastily withdrawn after widespread condemnation, including from UNESCO's own Director-General.
In its first-ever Hebrew-language video, which was posted online this week, the Islamic State terror group addressed an Israeli audience, warning that “no Jew will be left [alive]” once its fighters conquer Jordan and arrive at Israel’s borders.Danny Danon: There is no cycle of violence. There is terrorism
“This is a message to all the Jews, who are the Muslims’ No. 1 enemy,” says a masked man in green fatigues in fluent, if slightly Arabic- and French-accented Hebrew.
“The real war has not even begun and everything you have experienced so far has been child’s play — [it is] nothing compared to what will happen to you soon enough, inshallah [God willing],” he warns.
“We promise you that soon, not one Jew will be left [alive] in Jerusalem or across Israel and we will continue until we eradicate this disease [Judaism?] from the world,” he goes on.
Following is an edited version of the first address made by Ambassador Danny Danon to the UN Security Council on Thursday. The people of Israel seek to live in peace and to see their children prosper. For the Jewish People, who have suffered centuries of exile and persecution, our dream can be summed up in the words of our national anthem, “to live as a free people in our land.”Ambassador Danon's first statement at the Security Council
Tragically, since the establishment of the State of Israel, every Israeli in every generation has been touched by war and by terror.
My own father, Joseph Danon, was severely injured by terrorists during his reserve duty. After sustaining critical injuries, he eventually passed away after a long and painful struggle.
We all hope and pray for peace with our neighbors, and we will do all that we can to achieve this noble goal, but we will never compromise the security of the Jewish state.
Today, I address this chamber at a time of great difficulty and pain in my country and for my people.
This is not how I envisioned my first address.
“Israel opposes any change in the status quo on the Temple Mount, and that the place where the status quo needs to change is at the UN. If the UN is truly interested in calming tensions and bringing peace to the region, it must end its usual practice of calling on both sides to show restraint, and state clearly that there is only one side that is instigating a wave of terror.”
Watch Ambassador Danon make his first statement at the Security Council today.
Danon chides France in maiden UN speech
Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Danny Danon, addressed the Security Council for the first time, in a meeting about the situation in the Middle East.Israel opens Temple Mount to all as Palestinians call for ‘Day of Rage’
Ambassador Danon responded to the French initiative which called to consider stationing international observers on the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, and said: “Israel will not agree to an international presence on the Temple Mount. If the international community wishes to be constructive, it should focus on ending the incitement. No nation represented in this chamber would accept the presence of international forces in their capital.”
Ambassador Danon turned to the French representative and said: “we know that your country wants to see peace in our region. We too want peace, but the only way to peace is with direct talks between the parties.”
The Ambassador emphasized that: “Israel opposes any change in the status quo on the Temple Mount. The place where the status quo needs to change is here at the UN. If the UN is truly interested in calming tensions and bringing peace to the region, it must change its default settings. The UN must end its usual practice of calling on both sides to show restraint, and state clearly: there is one side that is instigating a wave of terror.”
Israel lifted age restrictions for the main weekly prayers at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Temple Mount on Friday, in an apparent bid to ease tensions over the site that sparked a surge in violence.The Palestine Solidarity Campaign Mugs For The BBC
The decision, which allowed all Muslim worshipers to attend Friday prayers at the Al-Aqa Mosque compound on the Mount, and increasing diplomatic efforts to restore calm, came as Palestinian political parties called for a “Day of Rage” with protests to be held after Friday prayers in Gaza and the West Bank.
It also came a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the current round of violence. Kerry said after the meeting that he was “cautiously optimistic” that tensions would ease.
The Quartet of Middle East peacemakers — US Secretary of State John Kerry, his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and UN chief Ban Ki-moon — were to hold talks on the escalating violence later Friday.
That mendacious set of four maps (you know the one!) has made an appearance on mugs sent to various members of the BBC's staff by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign!Dry Bones: I Love Israel mugs
Clicking on the relevant link we read, inter alia among the predictable Israel-demonising nonsense:
'The BBC’s head of news and current affairs, and some of the organisation’s most senior presenters, have received innovative reminders this week that the Palestinians are an occupied people whose land is still being stolen from them.How anyone could possibly consider the BBC, with that coterie of reporters that includes Bowen, Donnison, Guerin and Knell, to be biased in favour of Israel strikes me, and countless others, as truly baffling and bizarre.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign has sent its mugs, printed with maps showing just how much of their land Palestinians have lost to Israel since 1948, to BBC Broadcasting House in London.
James Harding, the BBC’s Director of News and Current Affairs, Evan Davis, presenter of Newsnight, Today presenters, John Humphrys, Mishal Husain, Sarah Montague and James Naughtie, and News at Ten anchors, Fiona Bruce and Huw Edwards, were sent the mugs this week, along with letters reminding them who is the occupier and who is the occupied....'
We've been flooded with emails from Dry Bones fans who feel isolated by the anti-Israel bias of the media and the world's "leaders." So the LSW (Long Suffering Wife) and I decided that we all needed something to make us all feel the connection we have with each other. What we came up with was . . . I LOVE ISRAEL mugs!Parents, 3 children hurt in West Bank firebombing
The idea that sipping our favorite beverage in our own kitchen every morning would bring us together with you, (and other Israel-lovers around the world) was a real turn-on. We came up with three designs but couldn't decide which we liked the best, so we're doing all three. They cost $15.39 each. They are 11 oz. ceramic mugs with comfortable easy-grip handles. They are dishwasher and microwave safe. Click on the photos below for more info, to take a peek at the other sides of the mugs, and perhaps to buy one.
Two Israeli parents and their three young children were wounded Friday in a firebombing attack on their car near the settlement of Beit El, north of Jerusalem.Israeli soldier stabbed in West Bank, shoots attacker
The family members suffered burns at various degrees. The youngest girl, aged four, was moderately hurt. Her brother, 12-year-old sister and mother and father were lightly injured.
The five were treated at the scene by Magen David Adom medics and were to be evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital for further treatment.
Clashes were reported Friday afternoon throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with several Israelis and Palestinians injured in the confrontations.
In the West Bank, riots were reported in the Bethlehem and Hebron areas as well as near Qalqilya, Tulkarem and Ramallah. Palestinian protesters engaged security forces while throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the troops. These responded in turn with riot dispersal measures.
An Israeli soldier was stabbed and lightly to moderately wounded Friday morning in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, south of Jerusalem.Alert locals lead to capture of East Jerusalem man hiding a knife
According to the Hebrew-language Maariv website, the victim, a 26-year-old man, was stabbed in the shoulder. The attacker was shot and wounded by the soldier.
The soldier was conscious after the attack and received medical treatment at the scene before being evacuated to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, the Magen David Adom rescue services said.
According to an initial investigation, the soldier was guarding an olive harvest near the settlement of Neve Michael — near the checkpoint in the area of Tzomet Gvaot in the West Bank — when he was attacked, Channel 2 reported. The soldier shot his assailant in the shoulder. When the attacker tried to flee, other forces in the area shot him in the knee in order to stop him.
Israel’s Walla news website said the attacker was a 16-year-old resident from the village of Surif, in the Hebron region of the West Bank.
According to the police, Border Police officers on patrol in the area of the Nof Zion neighborhood received notification from local residents that a suspicious man was scoping Jewish homes.East Jerusalem kids planning knife attack arrested
The force arrived at the site and found the man standing with his right hand hidden behind a wall.
Keeping a safe distance, the officers ordered the man to display his hand. The man exposed his hand but refused to unclench his fist, despite the officers’ request. Instead, he insisted that they return him to his home in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber in East Jerusalem.
The police insisted on seeing what was in his hand, in order to ensure that he was not carrying a weapon or other suspicious items, and eventually brought him to the ground to check what he was holding. Their search revealed that he had concealed a knife inside the sleeve of his right arm.
The man, a 21-year-old from Jabel Mukaber, was taken in for questioning. He told investigators that he had planned to carry out an attack, the Hebrew-language NRG website reported.
Four schoolboys from East Jerusalem have been arrested on suspicion that they planned to carry out a stabbing attack at the Damascus Gate in the capital’s Old City, Israel Police said Friday.IDF shoots two Palestinians trying to cross into Israel from Gaza
The four were caught smuggling a backpack with knives into the city, which they had allegedly intended to use to attack Israelis.
According to spokeswoman Luba Samri, Border Police on Thursday morning spotted a boy of about 14 behaving suspiciously near a one-way turnstile entrance to the Shuafat refugee camp.
The boy, on the Shuafat side of the gate, was carrying a backpack which he handed over to another boy, around 12 years old. Police also identified two other boys who were serving as lookouts as the transfer took place.
The younger boy handed the older one a slip of paper which officers later found was a pass to enter Jerusalem. He then started walking off towards the west of the city.
IDF troops shot and wounded two Palestinians trying to cross the security fence from Gaza into Israeli territory on Friday.Soldier wounded in rock attack north of Jerusalem
The incident occurred at the Erez Crossing, which is the main transit point between the northern Gaza Strip and Israel.
According to Palestinian media reports, the two men were moderately wounded.
An IDF soldier was struck with a large rock and lightly wounded on Friday afternoon, amid clashes between Arab rioters and security forces.Heroic Border Policeman to Return to Active Duty Following Miraculous Recovery From Massive Stab Wounds
The clashes took place adjacent to Givat Assaf, in the Binyamin district of Samaria just north of Jerusalem. Reports indicate that an IDF checkpoint was targeted by the rioters.
The soldier was evacuated by a Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance to Shaare Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem.
The surge in stabbing and other attacks in Israel since the Jewish New Year last month may have caused some members of the public and media to forget that acts of terrorism were carried out regularly before that as well.Ramat Beit Shemesh Residents Terrified in Wake of Stabbing Attack
One Israeli who will not forget that fact is Raz Bibi, an IDF soldier with the Border Police, who nearly lost his life on June 21, when he was stabbed in the neck by a Palestinian terrorist.
In spite of his life-threatening wounds, Bibi – who was on duty at the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem — managed to shoot and kill the terrorist before collapsing.
Magen David Adom paramedics who arrived at the scene had to perform CPR on the soldier, who was placed on life support when he arrived at the hospital – along with the terrorist.
Residents of a city near Jerusalem are living in fear for their safety, following a terrorist attack in one of its neighborhoods, the Israeli website nrg reported.Poll: Israelis Avoiding Arab Businesses
The attack took place in Ramat Beit Shemesh (in Beit Shemesh) on Thursday morning. Due to the presence of a large number of illegal Palestinian workers, many of whom have been squatting in construction sites near pre-schools, residents of the area are extremely anxious.
Their anxiety is exacerbated by the absence of police in the neighborhood. According to nrg, its police station resembles a glorified outpost, in a dilapidated, abandoned building, and therefore cannot adequately service the neighborhood’s tens of thousands of residents.
Thursday’s terror attack was carried out by two Palestinians who initially attempted to board a school bus, but were repelled by the driver. They then continued down the street, where they stabbed an 18-year-old man outside the Kol Yehuda synagogue.
They were later shot by security forces at a nearby bus stop.
The business sector is also suffering from the wave of Arab terror in Israel, Channel 10 reports Friday, eroding mistrust between Jewish and Arab business partners.High Court freezes demolition of terrorists' homes
Some 60% of Israelis polled by the New Wave Economic Institute stated they have refrained from buying from Arabs or being in touch with Arab-owned businesses since the terror wave began last month.
One-third of respondents said they have switched to Jewish business owners on a permanent basis or turned elsewhere to avoid dealing with Arab businesses.
Surprisingly, caution regarding Arab businesses is only second-highest in Jerusalem; 70% of Jerusalem residents polled have stopped business transactions with Arabs over the past month - a close second to the Sharon area, where 72% of residents have boycotted Arab businesses.
57% of Tel Aviv area residents and Golan Heights/Galilee residents have also avoided business with Arabs, followed by just 51% of Negev-area residents.
The High Court of Justice issued an injunction Thursday temporarily freezing the demolition of the homes belonging to the families of the terrorists who murdered Malahi Rosenfeld, Danny Gonen and Eitam and Naama Henkin.Israeli Leader Says American Jewish Liberal Org Reached Peak Of Israel Hatred Today
The temporary injunction was issued in response to a petition filed to the High Court to prevent the demolitions, scheduled for Thursday.
The injunction is in effect pending the court’s hearing of the state’s response to the petition.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that destroying the homes of the families of terrorists is one of the most effective tools to deter suicide attackers and he hopes that the High Court of Justice will come to a decision on the matter swiftly.
“Our problem is the disconnect between the act and the consequences of the act,” Netanyahu said. “Therefore, we want to minimize the time and I hope that the the High Court will make its decision as quickly as possible.”
He added that “if they decide, and usually they decide yes to demolish, it’s better to do so close to the incident, within a number of days rather than weeks or months.”
The New Israel Fund (NIF) – the extreme left-wing organization based in NY – funds an Israeli NGO, Hamoked, which today successfully petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to postpone the demolition of terrorists' homes who have recently carried out attacks killing Israelis.US House resolution accuses PA of anti-Israel incitement
While Israeli policy across the political spectrum believes that deterring terror matters, the radical NIF has given $720,301 to this group in the past six years – funds which help to file petitions for the families of Hamas terrorists that killed Israelis.
American-tax deductible dollars are going to help the families of terrorists who kill Americans.
Destroying the homes of terrorists may make them think their families will suffer when they go to “jihad” – and Israel’s Minister of Education, Naftali Bennett today said The New Israel Fund had "reached a new peak of Israel-hatred with yet another one of its organizations, which filed the motion to the High Court."
Deterrence of terror matters greatly.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday debated and passed a resolution that would condemn the Palestinian Authority for “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement.”US sends 'message' to Abbas with $80 million aid cut
The non-binding resolution, drafted by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) and Congressman Ted Deutch (D-Florida), lists a host of statements from PA leadership made since 2013 that its authors consider inflammatory. Noting that the Oslo II agreement, signed in 1995, forbids such rhetoric, it condemns PA President Mahmoud Abbas for praising the killers of Israelis as “heroes,” for labeling Jews a “contaminating” presence on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) and for encouraging bloodletting in Jerusalem.
The resolution urges Abbas and PA officials “to discontinue all official incitement and exert influence to discourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement in Palestinian civil society” and directs the State Department “to regularly monitor and publish information on all official incitement by the Palestinian Authority against Jews and the State of Israel.”
In a hearing on the matter on Thursday, the chairman of the committee, Ed Royce (R-California), said the international community – and the United States – has a responsibility to contend with a “deep-seated hatred” against Israel.
“It doesn’t help when those in the media – or the secretary of state for that matter – give this incitement a pass,” Royce said. “Yes, there are many complexities in the Middle East, but there can be no moral equivalency when children as young as two are being stabbed.”
The hearing, titled “Words Have Consequences: Palestinian Authority Incitement to Violence,” featured testimony from Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and David Makovsky, formerly of the State Department and now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Obama administration is cutting aid to the Palestinians by $80 million in what congressional sources describe as a "message" to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.Outrage in Israel: UN chief praises PA president
The State Department notified lawmakers on Sept. 25 of its intention to reduce economic aid for the West Bank and Gaza Strip from $370 million to $290 million in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Al-Monitor has learned. The news of the 22% cut from the department's initial request follows mounting criticism from Congress about Palestinian "incitement" in the rash of stabbing attacks that have left at least 10 Israeli civilians dead over the past three weeks.
"We need to dial up pressure on Palestinian officials to repudiate this violence," said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The committee voted unanimously Oct. 22 on a resolution taking Abbas and other Palestinian leaders to task for "incitement" of violence against Jewish Israelis, both for recent statements that Israel wants to change the status quo on the Temple Mount and for longtime hate-mongering in Palestinian schools and media. While some Israeli right-wingers such as Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel have advocated for more Jewish access to the controversial site, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has largely maintained the status quo.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, praising what he called efforts "to lower tensions and end the hostilities," despite the fact that the Palestinian leader has yet to condemn recent terrorist attacks.New Zealand to demand UN intervene in Israel
Abbas has even offered his condolences to the families of attackers who were killed by security forces after stabbing Israelis.
At a news conference with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Ban denounced "hateful discourse" on both sides and singled out Israel's response to Palestinian knife attacks on innocent civilians as having "added to the already difficult challenges of restoring calm."
In his comments after meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, and again after meeting Abbas, Ban emphasized the need to reinforce the status quo at the Temple Mount, where non-Muslim prayer has been banned for centuries.
Meanwhile Israel has not changed the status quo and has stressed that it does not intend to do so.
Deploring a failure of diplomacy, New Zealand said Thursday it will present a draft UN resolution to try to revive "peace talks" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), despite the ongoing Arab terror wave and after a French measure fell flat.MEMRI: Social Media As A Platform For Incitement – Part III: Posting Pictures Of Small Children Wielding Knives As Praise, Encouragement For Terrorism
Foreign Minister Murray McCully told the Security Council he hoped the measure would help "stimulate a level of debate" on the way forward as Israel and the Palestinians sink deeper into violence.
"The events of recent weeks cry out for council action," said McCully. "While we remain ready to support any other reasonable proposals for progress, we will, over the coming days, share the text of a draft resolution."
New Zealand's initiative came after France circulated a draft for a council statement that failed to win agreement, highlighting difficulties to forge a consensus in the 14-member council.
The draft French text would have condemned the violence and called for maintaining the status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The call echoes false PA claims that Israel is changing the status quo, according to which the Jordanian Waqf maintains de facto control and bans Jewish prayer.
On the backdrop of the wave of terror attacks sweeping Israel, there have been many expressions of sympathy and praise for the attacks on social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. As part of this, users have been posting photos of small children holding knives, with captions that glorify and encourage the ongoing stabbing attacks against Jews.Radical cleric to Jordan: Annul the peace treaty with Israel
The following are examples.
An account called "Stab" featured the photo below, with the caption, "Teach your children to love Palestine and take up knives, Oh people of Palestine. The next generation will be the generation of stabbings and slaughter."
Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement, is continuing his incitement against Israel, this time calling on Jordan to annul the peace treaty with Israel.'Stabbing Jews for Peace' Posters Skewer Pro-Palestinian Campus Group
Salah claimed on Thursday that Israel is taking advantage of the treaty with Jordan to impose a division of the Al-Aqsa Mosque which will allow for Jewish worship at the mosque.
In a letter to the Jordanian government, the content of which was published in the Hamas-affiliated newspaper Palestine, Salah wrote that the clauses of the peace agreement grant permission to each of the parties to enter places of religious and historical importance, and on this basis, Israel is claiming that it has an implied consent to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
He called on the Jordanian government to clarify that any interpretation of the clauses of the treaty which are contrary to the exclusive and perpetual right of Muslims to all of Al-Aqsa is annulled, even if it means canceling the entire peace treaty with Israel.
The University of Chicago was the scene this week of a "poster debate" about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the mysterious appearance of posters skewering a pro-Palestinian student group, according to DNAinfo.com.PreOccupiedTerritory: Palestine Agriculture Ministry Growing Bigger Fig Leaves To Justify Terror (satire)
Zach Taylor, student leader for the radical nationwide campus group Students for Justice in Palestine, said he believes the anonymous posters accusing the group of lying and supporting the current stabbing intifada in Israel were a response to a poster campaign that his group started last week that was critical of the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli security forces, DNAinfo reports. One of their fliers, for example, accused security forces of murdering an innocent 13-year-old.
Soon thereafter, anonymous posters began appearing, hitting back at the SJP posters. "Why is SJP lying?" they read.
Then on Monday, a poster appeared brilliantly satirizing the SJP logo and acronym, substituting the words “Stabbing Jews for Peace" - an obvious reference to the recent spate of stabbings of Israelis by Arab terrorists.
Horticultural breeders are hard at work in this hillside village, trying to produce a variety of fig tree with leaves big enough to help provide rhetorical cover for Palestinian violence.Yisrael Medad, Eli Pollak: Mahmoud Abbas’s supporters
Figs have grown in this region for thousands of years, with sources as ancient as the book of Genesis mentioning them. But the size of the plant’s foliage has remained relatively constant since then, with modern fig leaves bigger than their ancient ancestors by only a modest amount. In recent times, however, the need for bigger specimens has grown exponentially as Palestinians and their allies look for an increased capacity to provide legitimacy for increasingly egregious acts of terrorism against Jews.
“Back in the day it was perfectly reasonable to defend Palestinian attacks on Israel as acts of resistance,” said Ali Te’ena, whop cultivates figs, pomegranates, and grapes. “But as a fig leaf, that justification has worn thin, since Palestinians have had ample opportunity to achieve national determination by other means, and to build a society around something other than killing Jews. At this point we’ve also worked the ‘Al Aqsa is in danger’ trope past death, so we’re looking to develop more robust fig leaves to provide a semblance of a pretext for trying to kill as many Jews as possible.”
Te’ena has been trying to breed fig trees with larger leaves for several seasons, so far without success. The first eight specimens produced the familiar fig-leaves of “settlements” and “1967,” which offered nothing novel or more credible, given the arboreal dubiousness of those leaves in the context of attacks on Jews who have little to do with either. A promising second batch at first looked different, but in the end produced age-old stereotypes that, while they could theoretically be used to justify action against certain Jews, offered precious little cover against the charge of antisemitism unconvincingly dressed up as anti-Zionism.
There is a revolt in the ranks of Fatah’s younger generation against him. But Abbas can still depend on significant elements within Israel’s media to express admiration for his leadership.PLO Stats and New York Times Hacks
Avi Issacharoff was for seven years the Palestinian and Arab affairs correspondent of Haaretz. Presently, he is the Middle East analyst for The Times of Israel and the Walla website. In 2012, he predicted that the next president of the PA will be Marwan Barghouti, the convicted murderer of five Israelis who is serving multiple life sentences in Israel. The Geneva Initiative likes Issacharoff, especially after he wrote articles with titles such as “There is no one to talk to? This is not the reality.” In a Walla article from December 5, 2013, Issacharoff writes: “There are no easy solutions. The problem is that Netanyahu’s narrative... [that] there is no one to talk with is far from representing reality. It puts Israel is a dangerous position in which escalation in the West Bank is only a question of time.”
Issacharoff’s narrative with regard to the current violence we are experiencing is that right-wing politicians such as Uri Ariel are using the Temple Mount for political purposes.
In an October 8 op-ed in Walla, titled “The Temple Mount in the hands of the pyromaniacs,” he wrote: “It may be that the Israeli public and the media have tried to forget the sequence of events, but the latest terror wave started after the ascent to the mount of Minister Uri Ariel and a few dozen Jews, on the eve of Rosh Hashana. This was not the central reason for the outburst but certainly the spark that lit the flames.” In Issacharoff’s eyes, the Jews take the blame: they should know better than to ascend the Temple Mount. But worse is the fact that Ariel’s ascent came after several days of Wakf-supervised anti-Jewish violence.
Issacharoff’s and Amos Harel have authored two books together. Harel is employed by Haaretz where since 2014 he has been the paper’s military and defense analyst. Harel is a professional journalist who received Tel Aviv’s Sokoloff’s Prize for print journalism in 2015.
Graphics are typically used to clarify issues that could be confusing or drive home a point that may be lost in plain text. However, a graphic in the New York Times (based on information partly from the PLO) does neither. Instead, it supports the claim that the current wave of terrorism is actually best understood as disproportionate attacks against Palestinians.BBC tells audiences location of centuries-old Jewish habitation is an ‘illegal settlement’
The graphic shows where recent terror attacks against Israelis have taken place. The top caption says that seven Israelis have been killed. Underneath, we find the number of Palestinians who have been killed. For those who cannot grasp the number 37, the Times felt it necessary to show a bar graph with a big red bar representing Palestinian casualties this month.
Rather than helping readers understand the situation in Israel, the graphic confuses and misleads.
The millions of people who visit the BBC News website on a regular basis have been told on countless occasions throughout the years that:Andrew Bolt: The ABC justifies the Intifada against Israel
“The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.”
In breach of its own editorial guidelines on impartiality, the BBC consistently fails to advise its audiences that the view promoted in that frequently used mantra is just one of several legal opinions on the issue and never presents them with any alternative views.
Concurrently, the BBC repeatedly avoids informing its audiences of the fact that some of the communities it brands as ‘illegal settlements’ are located on land purchased by Jews even before Israel came into existence and that Jews lived in those areas until the Jordanian invasion in 1948.
Thus, according to the BBC’s narrative, is completely irrelevant that Jewish communities were expelled during an unprovoked act of aggression by the Jordanian army in 1948 and that the places in which they lived were placed under Jordanian occupation (unrecognised by the international community) for 19 years. Rather, the BBC promotes the narrative that any area conquered by Jordan (or any of the other Arab countries which took part in the military campaign to destroy the nascent Israeli state) is “Palestinian land”.
But then came this:
So far dozens of Israelis and Palestinians have been killed on buses, at bus stops and at checkpoints.
Wait. The Palestinians were actually killed as they stabbed and ran down Israelis, so why are they listed as if among the victims?:
Then:
Just hours ago, Israeli security forces shot two more Palestinians after they tried to board a school bus south of Jerusalem.
But why were they trying to board the bus? To go to school?
Why were they shot? For just being Muslims?
In fact, the two 20-year-old terrorists - who wearing Hamas t-shirts - later stabbed an 18-year-old man outside a synagogue before being shot.
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