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Sunday, January 31, 2016

EoZTV: Amnesty can't fight antisemitism but can buy an ad for the Terror Clown

Last year, at Amnesty International's annual conference, the only resolution to be voted down was one calling to fight antisemitism.


Yet Amnesty had no problem spending an estimated $10,000 to buy an ad to support a Palestinian clown in administrative detention - a clown who happens to feature terrorists and support for ethnically cleansing Jews on his Facebook page.

This story is discussed in the latest edition of EoZTV, along with the rallies supporting the Terror Clown throughout Europe.




(There were some sound problems with my microphone, so a few of my words are lost. Not sure why.)
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Hasby Awards - Best Speech

The Hasby Award for Best Speech of 2015 goes to....

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Poster: Why does the media ignore Pal support for terror? (poster)

A poster I posted on Twitter last week that got shared fairly widely:




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01/31 Links: Ban Ki-moon is Justifying terrorism; Where Providing Water Is a Crime

From Ian:
JPost Editorial: Justifying terrorism
The Anti-Defamation League demanded a clarification from Ban of his remarks, which it called “highly disturbing.”
CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Ban’s remarks were “incredibly short-sighted.”
Like Lauder, Greenblatt warned of the likely consequences of Ban’s statement: “These comments will not only serve to further embolden Palestinians seeking to attack Israeli civilians, but also undermine the global struggle against terrorism by making inappropriate distinctions and rationalizations.”
Ban did not speak in his own defense, but his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, briefed reporters in New York on Wednesday. “Anyone is free to choose what they like or dislike from the secretary-general’s speeches. Words can continue to be twisted, but the grave reality cannot be obstructed,” he announced.
Moreover, Dujarric added, Ban “stands by every word” in his address to the Security Council. “He condemns the stabbings, vehicle attacks and shootings by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians,” Dujarric said, repeating that dubious restriction about “targeting Israeli civilians.”
He added, apparently in Ban’s name, that “nothing justifies terrorism.” But this is precisely what his boss attempted to do. Since his spokesman has invited us “to work together to fight the sources and the causes that fuel that terrorism,” we should join the UN in the worldwide campaign it should launch to wipe out anti-Semitism.
David Collier: A letter to the University of Kent – antisemitism on campus
I wish to register a formal complaint against the university of Kent for allowing and promoting antisemitism within campus. In your university I heard mention of the ‘Elders of Zion’. A 100-year-old fake text that details the minutes of a non-existent meeting where Jewish leaders discussed their goal of global Jewish hegemony. It is a forgery responsible for spreading the disease of antisemitism and played a pivotal role everywhere that Jews were persecuted or slaughtered.
Hitler referenced the ‘Elders’ in Mein Kampf and it was taught as a factual document in Nazi schools. It has been claimed that the forgery served as the Nazis’ “warrant for genocide”. You can no more wave the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in my face than you can wave a swastika. There is no ‘context’ that allows for it. What I heard at an event on your campus was raw antisemitism.
Amira Hass said was that what we see today is the result of deliberate planning by a hidden group of Jews called the ‘Elders of Zion’. It was all planned. In a liberal democracy that bends to the will of the elected government, the idea of hidden plans and puppet masters is the stuff of conspiracy theorists. This is a conspiracy about Jews and secret plans for domination. You can listen to the comment itself here:


Richard Millett: I ask my question to Israeli Arab MK visiting London through a torrent of abuse.
So with two minutes left I rose and spoke. I just about managed to ask Dr. Yousef T. Jabareen how could he accuse Israel of oppressing its Arab citizens, of being undemocratic and of so underfunding the Israeli Arab education system when he himself was a Member of Parliament, a lecturer at the University of Haifa and Tel-Hai Academic College, had studied in Washington and was now here in London verbally attacking Israel?
I received such loud boos, hisses and abuse as I stood there that I swiftly took my seat. Needless to say I would have asked the same of Dr Durgham Saif, Professor at Al-Quds University in Abu-Dis, who also studied and lectured in Washington and who is a member of the Israeli Bar Association.
But by then I had already been shouted at by the Baroness for “disrespecting the meeting”.
In fairness to Dr Jabareen he listened to my question and answered, albeit unsatisfactorily. He simply complained that he was not allowed to visit the Al Aqsa Mosque and that many Israeli Arab leaders were banned from leaving Israel.
Meanwhile P21 itself is quickly becoming a hub of hate with constant anti-Israel lectures to the wider public. During the Q&A a young Romanian woman said she loved Jewish culture but not what Israel was doing to the Palestinians and she asked what she could do to help. Malia Bouattia said she should join the BDS movement.
One audience member did ask why we don’t hear from the other side to which Ben White, laughably, responded that Israel’s message is dominant in the media so there is no need to have any balance at events like today’s.

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White Man's Burden... Lloyd (Michael Lumish)




burdenOne of the most hysterical aspects of this political moment in the West is the phenomenon of blatant left-leaning racists who self-righteously claim to stand against racism.

The hypocrisy is both obvious and rich.

The most racist political movement in the West today, aside from political Islam, is western-progressivism, a political movement allegedly, and ironically, grounded in anti-racism. The western-progressive variety of racism, however, is not the old-timey, outright racism of the early-middle twentieth-century. It is not your grandfather's racism. It is not the racism of the Klan or the Nazis, but of what Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld dubbed in 2012 "Humanitarian racism."

Contemporary humanitarian racism is something akin to late nineteenth-century imperial racism wherein the American elite, and others of the wealthy and white-skinned persuasion, told themselves that they had a moral obligation to take care of their "little brown brothers." They called it "white man's burden," Lloyd.

Gerstenfeld writes:
The basic views of humanitarian racists are very similar to those of the ugly type. They may claim, for example, that most contemporary problems of African states result from the colonial period, even if these countries have been independent for many decades. This in fact means that Africans cannot be responsible for their actions. The humanitarian racist’s worldview is as distorted as that of the ugly racist. It is not stated explicitly, but only implicitly in his words.

The humanitarian racist’s conclusion differs, however, from that of the ugly racist. He or she considers that as the non-white or weak cannot be held responsible for their acts, one should look away as often as possible even if they commit major crimes. Ugly racists fortunately can no longer get articles published in mainstream media, but humanitarian racists unfortunately are welcomed by them.
Not only are humanitarian racists welcome in western publishing houses, they are also welcome at the highest levels of western governments, including the White House. The Obama administration, for example, is determinedly racist. Not only is Barack Obama deeply skeptical of Jewish self-determination and self-defense on historically Jewish land, but he also considers people "of color," aside from Jews, to be mere victims of white colonial oppression and, therefore, like small children, not really responsible for their words and behavior.

How else to explain the fact that Obama pats the Iranians on the head, while giving them hundreds of billions of dollars, even as their leadership screeches for the death of America and the genocide of the Jews? How else does one explain the fact that the Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood economically, militarily, and diplomatically, despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood not only called for the conquest of Jerusalem, but is the parent organization of al-Qaeda, and thus the grandparent of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)?

And now we have the ongoing spectacle of one of the most anti-Semitic presidents since the UN's recognition of the State of Israel in 1948 constantly telling Jewish people how much he appreciates us and cares for us even as he perpetually kicks Israel in the teeth. This is a president of the United States who, much like Italian princes during the Medieval period, honestly believes that he has every right to tell Jewish people where we may, or may not, be allowed to live.

It is entirely outrageous, obviously anti-Semitic, and almost never commented upon.

And now this racist president of the United States has the temerity to stand up before the international Jewish community, at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on a day set aside for commemoration of the Holocaust, no less, and declares that "we are all Jews."

Well, that is very sweet, but not everyone seems to agree. Writing at Israellycool Varda Epstein tells us:
He was there to commemorate the Holocaust on a day the UN chose to be International Holocaust Day. Just as the President throws Israel under the bus but proves his love for the Jews by giving a speech at a place associated with the Jewish State, so too, the UN created a day to prove its empathy for Jewish victims, while thumbing its nose at Israel, by way of ignoring Israel’s chosen date for this celebration, Yom HaShoah.

And of course, the President’s speech on this day said one thing and meant another. He said:

“We are all Jews, because anti-Semitism is a distillation, an expression of an evil that runs through so much of human history, and if we do not answer that, we do not answer any other form of evil.”

To those who defend the President, these words mean that he identifies with the plight of Jews and is staunch in the fight against antisemitism.

But to people whose critical thinking skills remain intact, the president is saying, “Jews are nothing special. They are no different than anyone else. Antisemitism is not special or unique. It’s just another kind of racism, just a garden variety evil, no different than any other.”
The fact of the matter is that Barack Obama is neither a friend to the Jewish people nor a friend to the Jewish State of Israel. He is, in fact, a racist, but not merely toward Jews, but also toward non-white people, particularly those of the African or Middle Eastern varieties.

Toward us his racism is more traditional and what Gerstenfeld refers to as the "ugly variety." Toward other groups Obama's racism, like western-left racism, more generally, is of the "humanitarian" variety.  There is, however, one thing that Obama's racism toward Jews and toward non-Jewish people "of color" have in common.

They are both characterized by treacly condescension.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.
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The reason that Israeli drone footage could be intercepted - it wasn't encrypted!



Last week came the bombshell news that Israeli air footage was being intercepted by US and UK intelligence for years:

The United States and Britain have monitored secret sorties and communications by Israel's air force in a hacking operation dating back to 1998, according to documents attributed to leaks by former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Israel voiced disappointment at the disclosures, which were published on Friday in three media outlets and might further strain relations with Washington after years of feuding over strategies on Iran and the Palestinians.

Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth daily said the U.S. National Security Agency, which specializes in electronic surveillance, and its British counterpart GCHQ spied on Israeli air force missions against the Palestinian enclave Gaza, Syria and Iran.

The spy operation, codenamed "Anarchist", was run out of a Cyprus base and targeted other Middle East states too, it said. Its findings were mirrored by stories in Germany's Der Spiegel news magazine and the online publication The Intercept, which lists Snowden confidant Glenn Greenwald among its associates.
The article in The Intercept that describes how they did it shows a shocking fact - Israel didn't really encrypt the communications. It merely scrambled them in a way that could be unscrambled using public domain tools.
According to GCHQ Anarchist training manuals from 2008, analysts took snapshots of live signals and would process them for “poor quality signals, or for scrambled video.”

The manuals stated that video feeds were scrambled using a method similar to that used to protect the signals of subscriber-only TV channels. Analysts decoded the images using open-source code “freely available on the internet” — a program known as AntiSky. The attack reconstructed the image by brute force, allowing intelligence agents to crack the encryption without knowing the algorithm that had been used to scramble the video.
Encryption is encoding information that cannot be seen without a "key" (or an error in the encryption algorithm.)

But Antisky (named because the original scrambling algorithm was used by UK's Sky network) doesn't decrypt in the real sense of the word. It figures out how to reproduce video scrambled with an algorithm caled Videocrypt. As its documentation describes:
Videocrypt rotates individual lines, or in other words, every line is cut at a secret point in two parts and then both parts are exchanged. I.e. if an original line in the pixtures was

0123456789

(each digit represents one pixel), then the rotated version (here with offset 3) looks like

7890123456

What the first step of the ANTISKY algorithm is doing is only to compare this rotated line in all 10 offsets

7890123456
6789012345
5678901234
...
9012345678
8901234567

with the previous line. The measure of how good this line compares in one particular offset to the previous one is the sum of the products between pixels in the same column. In the output picture, consecutive lines are rotated relative to each other, so that this measure is maximized. The first line is not touched.
Since virtually every line in a video is very similar to the line above it, the Antisky program reshuffles each line of video until is matches as closely as possible the previous line.

This is compute intensive which is why it cannot be used to descramble the signal in real time, but individual shots can be decoded with the right equipment in a few minutes. The leakers published a short manual on exactly what operators need to do to descramble signals using both Antisky and ImageMagick.

What this comes down to is that the Israelis relied on an old technology (at least from 1994) to obfuscate, but not encrypt, the video signals coming from the drones

There is one other leaked document from 2010 that seems to indicate a different method of extracting the signals that had been upgraded to digital, not the analog signals from the earlier drones (and other equipment.) But although that document indicates that they had not been fully successful at decoding all the signals, they were able to decode multiple video streams from the same drone, again indicating that there was no encryption of the signal - the analysts just had to figure out what algorithms were being used to digitize the data, and therefore how to extract each video from a larger data stream.

This is a major screw-up on Israel's part.

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Unapologetic supporter of Palestinian terror honored by City of London

From BBC:

Two men who were sentenced to life imprisonment alongside Nelson Mandela in South Africa have received the Freedom of the City of London.

Ahmed "Kathy" Kathrada and Denis Goldberg were both jailed because of their activities during the Apartheid period.

Lord Mayor Jeffrey Mountevans said the honour was a "tribute to the noble and fearless fortitude" of the men.

They received the accolade with their defence team at the Guildhall.

The City of London said the men were awarded in recognition of their fight for freedom and racial equality.
Ahmed Kathrada is an unapologetic supporter of Palestinian terrorism, as this 2014 excerpt from BBC's Hardtalk shows:



Speaking in the context of bus bombings and the terror crimes of Marwan Barghouti, Kathrada says that if the Palestinian leaders (which presumably includes Hamas as well as Fatah,) "If they, in their wisdom, resort to violence,  as the only method, I'll support them. ...My support is wholehearted."

 Kathrada also says that, in all the years of Palestinian terror, he has not seen a single thing to criticize them about.

This is what is considered a hero by the world nowadays.

(h/t SpotlightingSA)

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Saturday, January 30, 2016

EoZTV: The State Department and labeling "settlement" goods

The latest edition of EoZTV, about the State Department's claim that the regulations that were just published are nothing new...






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01/30 Links: The apartheid myth, “My Truth” Breaks The Silence; Ironic end to 'tunnel martyrs' funeral

From Ian:
Ben-Dror Yemini: The apartheid myth
Despite the slanderous propaganda against Israel, the Palestinians not only have a parliament, but also higher education institutions, a police force, security forces, a justice system and prisons. Is this apartheid? Thanks to Israeli rule, they're number 1 among university graduates in the Arab world. Is this oppression?
A Kabbalat Shabbat was supposed to take place at the Chicago LGBTQ conference last Friday, but it was canceled by the organizers, and after being hit with criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, the cancelation was canceled. Except that when the Kabbalat Shabbat began, hundreds of hooligans from the forces of progress barged in. It happened, among other reasons, due to the participation of a representative from the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, Sarah Kala-Meir. The cries of "apartheid" were joined with, as always, the leading slogan: "From Jordan to the sea, Palestine will be free."
The useful idiots, gays and lesbians donning keffiyehs, have never seemed more pathetic. After all, each and every one of them would have been thrown off a tall building, like a bag of potatoes, in nearly every single one of Israel's neighboring countries. But their problem is with Israel.
VIDEO: Ceiling collapses on Palestinians during funeral for Hamas tunnel diggers
Problems appear to be coming in spades for the Islamist group Hamas and its followers in the Gaza Strip.
During a mass funeral for seven Hamas operatives who died after the tunnel in which they were digging collapsed due to the heavy rains that pounded the region earlier this week, a number of Palestinians required medical treatment when the ceiling of a kiosk in Gaza City collapsed under the weight of a number of people who were standing on the rooftop.
The number of people injured was not confirmed. Medical crews rushed to the scene to administer emergency treatment.
The video was taken from Arab sources and posted by 0404, a Hebrew-language Internet news site.
BBC News sidesteps the real issues in Hamas tunnel collapse story
The BBC News website’s reporting of that story – in a January 28th article titled “Gaza: Hamas militants die in tunnel collapse” – focused readers’ attentions on factors other than the core issue of Hamas policies and actions which will inevitably lead to an additional round of conflict.tunnel collapse art
The article fails to adequately distinguish between the smuggling tunnels in the area of the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt and the offensive tunnels constructed under the border with Israel.
“Palestinian militants have used tunnels on Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt to launch attacks on Israel, transport weapons or smuggle goods.”
Despite the fact that the tunnel in this particular story has no connection to smuggling, a relatively large proportion of the article is devoted to that topic.
Once again BBC audiences are steered towards the inaccurate impression that smuggling tunnels are a product of the “blockade” when in fact they pre-date the border restrictions. No effort is made to provide audiences with appropriate context concerning the fact that the restrictions imposed by Israel in 2007 came about because of Hamas’ terrorist activities.
Neither is any effort made to clarify the issue of how Hamas acquired the materials necessary for the rehabilitation of its network of offensive tunnels: an omission which is particularly glaring in light of the fact that the BBC has devoted considerable air-time and column space to the topic of the import of construction materials into the Gaza Strip since the end of the 2014 conflict.

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France says it will reward Palestinian intransigence (ElderToons)

Friday:
France warned Friday that it will recognize a Palestinian state if its imminent efforts to end the deadlock in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians end without result.

“France will engage in the coming weeks in the preparation of an international conference bringing together the parties and their main partners, American, European, Arab, notably to preserve and make happen the solution of two states,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

France, Fabius said, has a responsibility as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to sustain efforts to reach a two-state solution.

Should efforts to breathe life into the moribund peace process fail, France would move to unilaterally recognize Palestine as a state, Fabius made clear. “And what will happen if this last-ditch attempt at reaching a negotiated solution hits a stumbling block?” he said. “In that case, we will have to live up to our responsibilities and recognize a Palestinian state.”
In other words:


Amazingly, the terror supporters in the PA love this idea!
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday welcomed a French plan to recognize the state of Palestine should a fresh push for peace talks fail, and warned that his people would no longer accept Israel’s occupation or settlements.

“We have to establish a sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” he said, according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa. “We won’t accept interim or temporary solutions.”

“We won’t return to negotiations just for the sake of negotiating and won’t continue to unilaterally implement previous agreements,” Abbas told the summit. Nor will the Palestinians “accept the theft of our natural resources, and the non-utilization of our lands or investment in them,” he said.


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Friday, January 29, 2016

01/29 Links Pt2: Amira Hass invokes "the Elders"; Anti-Israel Academics Face Pushback by the Truth

From Ian:
David Collier: The ‘Elders of Zion’ reborn at the University of Kent
Yesterday, 28/01/2016, I was at the University of Kent to hear a talk by Amira Hass titled ‘Israel and the Palestinians: Colonialism and Prospects for Justice. The event itself was a collaboration between The Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies at Kent University and the Palestine Centre at SOAS, University of London. One of these universities, SOAS, is already a notorious hotbed for extremism, the other, Kent, seems to be desperately trying to catch-up.
Dr Bashir Abu-Manneh is the head of the centre for Postcolonial studies at Kent, like other academics of his type, it can be seen from his own activity that he has long lost sight of what academia and critical thinking is about. This event, following one just the evening before attempting to create BDS activists on campus, is simply a sign of a deteriorating environment.
Amira Hass is an Israeli columnist at the Haaretz newspaper. For the last 20 years she has lived in the Palestinian areas, originally in Gaza, but more recently moving to Ramallah in the West Bank. Amira is an example of one of those Israelis nobody should have heard of. Standing for politics that receive no support in Israel, Amira’s opinions reflect none but a handful of oddballs. Every nation has people like Hass hidden in the shadows. What makes her ‘special’, what makes her a marketable commodity, are hundreds of millions of people outside of Israel that simply want Israel gone. The audience of Amira Hass are not peacemakers, but warmongers.
Hass had stepped back in time to explain the perpetual occupation, to present a reason why after 49 years, no movement had been made towards peace. Without Palestinian violence, Israeli actions become irrational, with Israeli democracy, they become inexplicable, and someway, somehow, this illogical unreasonable position needed to be explained away. All that is left is conspiracy. This is what she said:
“And I ask myself did the Elders of Zion really sit together at the beginning of the Seventies and then during the nineties, and plan, and have all these military orders, all these changes? I believe that they knew for sure that they don’t want to give back the land and in the Nineties, my conclusion is that they wanted to do everything possible to stop the two state solution.”
Beyond Israeli democracy, beyond the will of the voters, beyond the desires of peacemakers like Rabin and Peres, there are invisible Jewish decision makers. They planned from the early 1970’s, never to let the territories go, they manipulated, they connived, they controlled as puppet masters do. A conspiracy of a Jewish cabal that places the profit to be won from the occupation above the will of the electorate and the lives of innocent children. And it is called the ‘Elders of Zion’.
Cary Nelson: Anti-Israel Academics Face Pushback by the Truth
At their annual meeting in Atlanta earlier this month, members of the American Historical Association voted down a factually flawed resolution condemning Israel. The resolution claimed that Israel refuses "to allow students from Gaza to travel in order to pursue higher education abroad."
Opponents marshaled evidence to prove this was untrue. Egypt, not Israel, controls the Rafah crossing that Gaza students and faculty heading toward universities abroad have used for decades.
After Egypt closed the Rafah crossing in October 2014, Israel increased the flow of students leaving Gaza through the Erez crossing into Israel to the north, and on to Jordan for flights abroad.
But Jordan, which once issued transit visas in 10 days, now takes several months or longer because of increased security concerns about students from Gaza.
The resolution also condemned Israel for an air attack on the Islamic University of Gaza during the 2014 Gaza war. But it failed to mention that the campus housed a weapons development and testing facility, a valid target under the laws of war.
Activists in certain humanities and interpretive social-science fields have convinced themselves they have their hands on the levers of history and can delegitimize the State of Israel. But they are more likely instead to discredit their academic disciplines.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Holocaust Remembrance Day and UN Chief Ban Ki Moon’s cowardly act Rabbi Abraham Cooper
Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, who, as he has done each year on this day, will preside of the international organization remembrance of 6 million dead Jews.
Yet he chose the eve of this hallowed anniversary to bestow a moral and political blank check to Palestinian terrorists who this week alone buried knives into mother of 8 (6?), a pregnant woman and a beautiful young woman buying groceries for her grandparents.
According to Ban, the current Intifada by knife, gun, and vehicle “is a reaction to the fear, disparity and lack of trust the Palestinians are experiencing.” He went on to explain that "Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and the paralysis of the peace process," he said, blaming "the occupation" for causing "hatred and extremism."
"As oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism."
Powerful words and imagery: fear, lack of trust, frustration, and humiliation.
What a tragedy that Mr. Ban lacked the courage to use this Holocaust Remembrance Day as a teachable moment for Palestinians and other “frustrated” and “humiliated” young Arabs and Muslims.
He should have told them, “instead of embracing the culture of death of ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Shabab, why not read Eli Wiesel’s 'Night,' or Victor Frankel’s 'Man's Search for Meaning'?
Alex Salmond rebukes Israelis over Holocaust speech
Alex Salmond has come under attack for using his new role representing the UK in Europe to issue a rebuke to the Israeli parliament on Holocaust Memorial Day.
The former First Minister told the Council of Europe that it was “inappropriate” for a senior Israeli representative at a Holocaust commemoration service to criticise the presence of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in France.
But his dressing down came the same day as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, published a video questioning whether the Holocaust “is a reality or not”.
The Ayatollah’s website promoted the video with a banner across its home page, featuring a montage of images, including one of Adolf Hitler.
Mr Salmond, who recently returned from a trip to Iran, told the Strasbourg meeting that there was a “time and place for international politics” and the Israeli government should not have issued the criticism “during a solemn commemoration service.”
He last night defended his actions, telling the Telegraph that everyone he had spoken to who also attended the council’s commemoration service on Wednesday morning agreed that the “political” attack in the Israeli speech was wrong.
However, experienced figures from other parties questioned his judgment on the international stage and claimed his comments created the impression of him being an unofficial spokesman for the Iranian regime.

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A new fictional number from the PLO on BDS

Palestine News Network quotes the Secretary General of the Palestine National Movement, Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, as saying that the amount of losses that hit Israel due to BDS is estimated by "economists" to be $31 billion.

This figure is being quoted all over Arab media today.

I found another quote of Barghouti saying that BDS has cost Israel $20 billion so far, with another $11 billion expected this coming year alone.

I can't find any such study. The closest I could find comes from CNN last June, which said:
Israel's economy will take a $15 billion hit from BDS and similar nonviolent resistance, largely because of the success of the movement in Europe, according to a new study from the RAND Corp. titled "The Costs of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict."

The study also said the Palestinians will lose about $2.4 billion.

But Barghouti said the price is worth it.
Here's the thing: Even if that number is true (the RAND study was no longer online when I looked for it), it doesn't describe the whole picture.

In 1946, Arabs decided to boycott the Jews in Palestine. The Jews "lost money" from the boycott but used it to pivot to increase trade with Europe, more than making up for the shortfall.

And now Israel's pivot towards the largest markets in the world, in China and India, will make these supposed losses from the EU much less than they seem.

But the cost to Palestinians of BDS will not be ameliorated nearly as much.

So it seems likely that the main people being hurt by BDS will remain the people who are supposedly meant to be the beneficiaries.


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01/29 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: Hope is not a strategy; US, UK spied on IAF for 18 yrs

From Ian:
Caroline Glick: Hope is not a strategy
The lesson from these miserable experiences is clear enough. Since Israel is going to be attacked no matter what it does, we might as well do things that advance our interests.
Since we will be vilified for building “settlements” even when the government freezes construction, we might as well build settlements.
Since the price for expanding existing buildings is the same as the price for building new neighborhoods and communities, there is no reason to pay full price for a fraction of the benefit. Indeed, since the Obama administration and the EU plan to attack us no matter what we do, we might as well go ahead and apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and Gush Etzion.
Likewise, since the same forces will viciously condemn us for advancing legislation that will do nothing to curb their funding for Israeli agents or curtail the hostile actions of those agents, we might as well get viciously attacked for doing something to curb their funding and curtail their actions. Given the ferocity of the criticism Israel is enduring over the Shaked bill, it makes sense to redraft the bill and turn it into something useful.
We get it. The Obama administration and the EU aren’t attacking Israel because we did something wrong. They’re attacking us because they want to hurt us. That is their goal. Recognizing this sorry truth, the public elected the Likud and its coalition partners to defend our interests and our rights. Hope is not a strategy. Building new communities and neighborhoods, expanding the writ of Israeli law and curtailing the activities of subversive foreign agents is a strategy. And a good one.
In huge Israeli intel breach, US, UK have spied on air force for 18 years
US and British intelligence services have spied on the Israeli air force for at least 18 years, after cracking the IDF’s special encryption system for communication between fighter jets, drones and army bases, Israel’s military censor approved for publication Friday, after reports of the spying operation appeared in two overseas publications.
The two countries have reportedly used this access to monitor IDF operations in Gaza, watch for a potential Israeli strike on Iran, and keep tabs on the drone technology that Israel exports. Israel said later Friday it was disappointed but not surprised by the revelations.
Based on documents and photos leaked by US intelligence whistle-blower Edward Snowden, which had previously been classified, the news reports said the US and Britain have for years been able to track the transmissions of Israeli aircraft, and effectively view images and videos broadcast to IDF commands during drone operations in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and near the Jewish state’s northern border.
The tracking has been done from a Royal Air Force installation in the Troodos Mountains, near Mount Olympus, the highest point on the Island of Cyprus, according to The Intercept, which, along with German newspaper Der Spiegel, first published the documents.
Israel ‘disappointed, not surprised’ by massive US, UK spying exposé
Israel said it was disappointed, but claimed not to be surprised, by the revelation that the US and British intelligence services have spied on its air force operations for at least 18 years. The intel breach was described by one Israeli security source Friday as “an earthquake… the worst leak in the history of Israeli intelligence.”
The US and UK cracked the IDF’s special encryption system for communication between fighter jets, drones and army bases, Israel’s military censor approved for publication Friday, after the long-term spying operation was reported in two overseas publications. The two countries have reportedly used this access to monitor IDF operations in Gaza, watch for a potential Israeli strike on Iran, and keep tabs on the drone technology that Israel exports.
Israel’s Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz claimed Friday that he was not surprised by the exposé, because Israel is aware that “the Americans spy on the whole world, and also on us, also on their friends.”
“But still,” added Steinitz, a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “it is disappointing, inter alia because, going back decades already, we have not spied nor collected intelligence nor hacked encryptions in the United States.”

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Fatah, Hamas exchange insults after fatal tunnel collapse


Fatah has caused a stir by insulting Hamas and the seven dead militants who were killed in a tunnel collapse.

On the official Fatah Facebook page, it described Hamas leaders as "group of warlords and who know nothing about life except how to bury their youth with sand."

"When will they stop messing around with the talents and dreams of our youth oppressed in Gaza? And when will they recognize that making our children targets for Israeli weapons in any coming confrontation will not change the fact they accomplish nothing but adding numbers to the lists of martyrs?" Fatah's statement said.

"Who here is not convinced that Hamas might actually prefer losses in Gaza to taking any steps towards Palestinian reconciliation? [Who doesn't believe- that Hamas is trying to get out of its internal crisis through new missions that bury young Gazans dying in new tunnels which are made out of the newly displaced aid?"

Hamas responded by saying that Fatah is "trying to compromise the blood of the martyrs who pay the blood price of the freedom and dignity of our people."

The Gaza-based terror group also called this "an attempt to undermine the martyrs of the program and the resistance" and said that "it is a continuation of the crime of collaboration with the enemy in the name of security coordination... an attempt to hurt all the pride and dignity for our people and the laying of the foundation of surrender and normalization and to obey the Israeli entity."

"Stop this disgraceful behavior and speech, which only serves the occupation and the enemies of our people," Hamas concluded.


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The purpose of the 1995 US product labeling regulation was for Arab goods, not Jewish goods (update)

YNet, among others, reports:
US Customs passed recently issued a reminder notice to importers in the US to not label products that come from the West Bank as "Made in Israel" and made it clear that those who do not comply would be sanctioned, according to a Channel 1 News report.

This is not a new guideline, but rather a reissuing of one from 1995 - which is a byproduct of the Paris Agreement and the Oslo Accords - that set different customs regulations for Israel and the West Bank. Human rights groups complained to US Customs that it was not enforcing its own guidelines, so that products from the settlements are sold in the United States under label "Made in Israel".

US Customs issued a message last week to all US importers under the title "West Bank Country of Origin Marking Requirements. The message reads: "The purpose of this message is to provide guidance to the trade community regarding the country of origin marking requirements for goods that are manufactured in the West Bank.

Per Treasury Decisions goods produced in the West Bank or Gaza Strip shall be marked as originating from ‘‘West Bank,’’ ‘‘Gaza,’’ ‘‘Gaza Strip,’’ ‘‘West Bank/Gaza,’’ ‘‘West Bank/Gaza Strip,’’ ‘‘West Bank and Gaza,’’ or ‘‘West Bank and Gaza Strip.’’ It is not acceptable to mark the aforementioned goods with the words ‘‘Israel,’’ ‘‘Made in Israel,’’ ‘‘Occupied Territories-Israel,’’ or any variation thereof. Goods that are erroneously marked as products of Israel will be subject to an enforcement action carried out by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Goods entering the United States must conform to the U.S. marking statute and regulations promulgated thereunder.
But if you look at the actual 1995 regulation, it is clear that the intent was to only label goods that were produced under the Palestinian Authority after Oslo, because they had a new and different tariff system and it no longer made sense to label Palestinian Arab products as "made in Israel" as had been done before 1995.



It is obvious that anything produced outside of areas that were under Palestinian Authority control were not meant to be included in this regulation. Unfortunately, that exception was not explicitly stated, because in 1995 it was assumed that a peace agreement was coming soon where Israeli-controlled areas would no longer be referred to as "West Bank."

This regulation was not ignored up until now - it was enforced in the way it was meant to be, to give recognition to the PA as the effective governing body in Areas A and B.

This re-issuance of the guideline is therefore not simply a repeat of a forgotten policy. It is a deliberate re-interpretation of a guideline meant separate the PA-ruled areas from Israeli-ruled areas into a new anti-Israel

To claim that this is simply a restatement of existing policy is deceptive. It is a new policy by the Obama administration dressed up as a legacy regulation that was meant to encourage Palestinian autonomy, not to penalize Jewish settlements.

This is pure politics.

UPDATE: Another indication that settlement goods were not intended to fall under this program comes from this memo released a few weeks earlier than the 1995 guideline in the same US Customs Cargo Systems Messaging Service:

                                 5086071                                 
                              MARCH 27, 1995                              

CATEGORY:  GSP                          CO:TP  LAC                        

TO     :  DISTRICT DIRECTORS                                              

FROM   :  DIRECTOR                                                        
          TRADE PROGRAMS DIVISION                                         

RE     :  PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION 6788, DESIGNATING WEST                
          BANK AND GAZA STRIP AS A BENEFICIARY OF THE                     
          GENERALIZED SYSTEM OF PREFERENCES                               

PASS TO:  IMPORT SPECIALISTS, INSPECTORS AND OTHER INTERESTED             
          PARTIES SUCH AS BROKERS AND IMPORTERS                           

     ON MARCH 17, 1995, PRESIDENT CLINTON SIGNED PRESIDENTIAL             
PROCLAMATION 6788 (60 FEDERAL REGISTER 15455), DESIGNATING THE            
WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP AS A BENEFICIARY OF THE GENERALIZED              
SYSTEM OF PREFERENCES (GSP).                                              

ACTION:                                                                   

1.   EFFECTIVE WITH RESPECT TO ARTICLES ENTERED OR WITHDRAWN FROM         
     WAREHOUSE FOR CONSUMPTION ON OR AFTER APRIL 7, 1995, GENERAL         
     NOTE 4(A) TO THE HTS IS MODIFIED BY INSERTING "WEST BANK AND         
     GAZA STRIP" IN ALPHABETICAL SEQUENCE IN THE ENUMERATION OF           
     NON-INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES.  NOTE THAT THE            
     WEST BANK AND THE GAZA STRIP ARE TREATED AS ONE ENTITY FOR           
     PURPOSES OF THE GSP.                                                 

2.   THE EXTENSION OF THE GENERALIZED SYSTEM OF PREFERENCES               
     PROGRAM TO THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP PURSUANT TO THIS             
     PROCLAMATION APPLIES ONLY TO GOODS PRODUCED IN THE AREAS FOR         
     WHICH ARRANGEMENTS ARE BEING ESTABLISHED FOR PALESTINIAN             
     INTERIM SELF-GOVERNMENT, AS SET FORTH IN ARTICLES I, III,            
     AND IV OF THE DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES ON INTERIM SELF-             
     GOVERNMENT ARRANGEMENTS.

This is not specific to the labeling regulations but it shows what the intended scope of those regulations were.
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EoZTV: Remember to vote for Best Speech #Hasby Award!

The newest edition of EoZTV takes a look at video snippets of most of the speeches up for the Best Speech Hasby Award. Mrs. Elder and I briefly discuss the speeches.



The nominees for Best Speech Hasby award are:


Mayor Giuliani's speech at Iranian American Community of Arizona event 
Marco Rubio Speech on Obama's Assault on Israel 
The Reason I'm an Israeli-Arab Diplomat Not a Palestinian Refugee - George Deek  
Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp "The Amoral Revolution in Western Values, and its impact on Israel" (text)

Due to technical difficulties, we were not able to show snippets of the last two speeches, and Ron Dermer's speech is text-only.

Vote now!






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Thursday, January 28, 2016

World Medical Association head seems sick of BDS lies

Last week:
A group of 71 doctors in the United Kingdom are pressuring the World Medical Association to remove the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) from the global body’s membership, an IMA representative said at the Israeli Knesset this week.

“The professional British journals have adopted the idea of letters to the editor that libel Israeli doctors,” Dr. Ze’ev Feldman, IMA’s chairman, said Jan. 20 during a Knesset Science and Technology Committee meeting, Israel National News reported. “They claim our doctors perform medical torture on Palestinian patients.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote to the head of the WMA with concern that such an initiative filled with lies could occur.

Although the response from the head of the WMA was written diplomatically, the tone seems to indicate that he considers the BDSers to be irritating jerks.


Just as with BDS resolutions on college campuses, and international forums that Palestinians try to flood with anti-Israel initiatives,  these haters just want to make it appear that there is a groundswell of opposition to Israel - and they are upsetting the members who hate to see their institutions hijacked by these bigots.


UPDATE: Here are the 71 doctors (plus Jenny Tonge):

> Dr Chris Burns-Cox Physician Wotton-under-Edge (lead signatory)
> Sir Iain Chalmers James Lind Library Oxford
> Baroness Tonge House of Lords London
> Dr Pauline Cutting OBE Emergency Medicine Consultant Bangor
> Professor Sami Timimi Child Psychiatry Lincoln
> Dr Ben Alofs General Practice Bangor
> Dr Derek Summerfield Psychiatry London (convenor)
> Dr Swee Ang Orthopaedic Surgery London
> Dr Zeyn Green-Thompson Psychiatry Cambridge
> Dr Mostafa Mohanna Psychiatry Lincoln
> Dr David Halpin Orthopaedics & Trauma Newton Abbot
> Dr Philip Thomas Psychiatrist Hebden Bridge
> Dr Tia MacGregor General Practice Oxford
> Dr Sukaina Hirji General Practice Watford
> Dr Alex Scott-Samuel Public Health Liverpool
> Dr Daniel McQueen Psychiatry London
> Dr Tom Gilberthorpe Psychiatrist London
> Dr Maha Elias Anaesthetist Weston Super Mare
> Prof. Marco Chiesa Psychiatry London
> Dr Chris Evans Psychiatry London
> Dr Alison Payne General Practice Coventry
> Dr Numan Shah Trauma & Orthopaedics Leeds
> Dr Suman Fernando Psychiatry London
> Dr Kamilia El-Farra Gynaecologist Bishops Stortford
> Dr Nik Husain Anaesthetist Kingston-Upon-Thames
> Dr Pam Wortley General Practice Sunderland
> Dr Catherine Houghton Respiratory Medicine Bury
> Dr Sonia Allam Anaesthetist Larbert
> Dr Nuri Gene-Cos Psychiatry London
> Dr Suheib Abukmeil Psychiatry Northampton
> Dr A Ravalia Anaesthetist Kingston-upon-Thames
> Dr Ala Jebreel Ears, Nose, Throat Sheffield
> Dr Maged Agour Psychiatry Doncaster
> Dr Assaddullah Reha Psychiatry London
> Dr Coral Jones General Practice London
> Dr Brian Robinson Psychiatry Milton Keynes
> Dr Charles Essex Paediatrics Leamington Spa
> Dr Colin McKean General Practice Liverpool
> Dr Tim Paine General Practice Bristol
> Dr Felicity de Zulueta Psychiatry London
> Dr Walid Abdul-Hamed Psychiatry Chelmsford
> Dr Sushrut Jadhav Psychiatry London
> Dr Katy Briffa Psychiatry Tavistock
> Dr Rhodri Huws Psychiatry Sheffield
> Dr Duaa Saeed-Chesterman Histopathology London
> Dr Khalil Hossenbux Internal Medicine London
> Dr Sylia Chandler General Practice Evesham
> Dr Jo Moncrieff Psychiatry London
> Dr Mamdouh El-Adl Psychiatry Northampton
> Dr Tomasz Pierscionek Psychiatry Newcastle
> Dr Neil Wellappili Psychiatry London
> Dr Rukyya Hasssan Psychiatry Manchester
> Dr Aneesa Peer Psychiatry London
> Dr Tessa Harris Population Health Research Institute Reading
> Dr Musa Sami Psychiatry Kent
> Dr Ghada Karmi Public Health London
> Dr Eric Windgassen Psychiatry Manchester
> Dr Bob Johnson Psychiatry Isle of Wight
> Dr Sandra Oelbaum General Practice Liverpool
> Dr M Makhdum Psychiatry Colchester
> Dr Jane Hamilton Perinatal Psychiatry Stirling
> Dr Ian Kerr Psychiatry Stirling
> Dr Roger Allen Dermatology Nottingham
> Dr Stephen Ginn Psychiatry London
> Dr Norbert Andersch Psychiatry/Neurology London
> Dr Carine Minne Forensic Psychiatry London
> Dr Betty Gordon Surgery London
> Dr Hisham Al-Qassab Physician London
> Dr Anna Livingstone GP/medicolegal reporting London
> Dr Estela Welldon Forensic Psychiatry London
> Dr Brian Martindale Psychiatry Newcastle

 (h/t Spotlighting)
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