January 2017 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

01/31 Links Pt2: Replacing the UN with ‘The Covenant of Democratic Nations’; Playing politics with the US Holocaust Museum

From Ian: Edwin Black: Replacing the UN with ‘The Covenant of Democratic Nations’ For years, foreign policy critics, politicians and outraged members of the general public have been urging the US to defund and quit the United Nations. Some have advocated that a rival or successor organization should be established. Now there is a movement calling to “defund and replace” the troubled organization with a new world body: The Covenant of Democratic Nations....

Disabled Gaza man immolates himself to protest Hamas treatment

Islam Maquosi, a man in his twenties, died from burns suffered after setting himself on fire a few days ago in from of a charity for people with disabilities in the Bureij camp in Gaza Maquosi poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire to protest against how he has been treated. A few years ago, a Hamas jeep hit Maquosi, injuring him. Hamas refused to take responsibility for the accident that cause years of suffering to the young man. Just...

Hamas today honored the memory of Mohamed Zouari, who was assassinated in Tunisia on December 15, with a parade. Zouari was the engineer behind the Abadil drone that Hamas has used on occasion. At the ceremony, they unveiled a memorial statue for him. During the ceremony Hamas admitted that Zourani had visited Gaza clandestinely many times. Hamas has blamed Israel...

01/31 Links Pt1: Yitzhak Rabin's Vision of Defensible Borders for Israel; Iran tests ballistic missile, Netanyahu urges rethink of ‘failed’ nuke deal

From Ian: Yitzhak Rabin's Vision of Defensible Borders for Israel Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, almost everything has changed. Above all, new threats have emerged with a previously unknown military logic of their own. The Oslo idea, in its quest to end Israeli control over Palestinian citizens, was largely realized by 1996, when Israel concluded the withdrawal of its forces from the populated territories of the West Bank. Some 90%...

It is 1967. What would become known as the Six Day War has begun and Menachem Begin, invited by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to join an expanded emergency cabinet, has an idea. There is a meeting in the basement shelter of the Knesset and the news is announced that Jordan has decided to join Egypt and Syria in battle. Begin and Labor Minister Yigal Allon suggest that the...

From The Independent: Donald Trump’s ban on travel to the US from some Muslim-majority countries has been denounced by the UN's rights chief as “mean-spirited” and illegal under international human rights law. Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein said: “Discrimination on nationality alone is forbidden under human rights law." The UN Human Rights Council that al Hussein heads...

Refugees are in the news. People are pledging to help them any way they can. And UNRWA USA is trying to cynically make money off of the phenomenon - even though the organization does not want a single "refugee" under its mandate to ever move to the US and become a citizen. The entire point of the protests is to allow refugees to come and live safely in the US. The entire...

Some actual truth sneaks into a NYT article on "settlements." Blink and you'll miss it.

The New York Times has an article about Israeli discussions of annexing Maaleh Adumim. Buried in the article, not noticeable unless you really pay attention, are a couple of things that the media usually ignores altogether. Here's one, in paragraph 15: After eight years of little building, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just allotted 100 new building units to Ma’ale...

01/30 Links Pt2: Pseudo-liberal Jews cause great damage; Freedom of thought goes on trial in France

From Ian: Isi Leibler: Pseudo-liberal Jews cause great damage There is only one example in Jewish history to which such behavior can be compared. The ‎Jewish Bolsheviks also turned against their own people and ultimately the revolution ‎consumed them. Unfortunately, the vociferous anti-Trump Jewish activists are a far ‎greater proportion of the American Jewish community than ‎Jewish Bolsheviks were among Russian Jews.‎ It is clear that in the Diaspora,...

We've noted many times that Palestinians blame Israel for the many attacks by wild boars they experience. Mahmoud Abbas himself claims that Israeli Jews raise the animals (with rabbinic approval) just to train them to attack Palestinian Arabs and farms. Now we finally have proof. YNet reports that wild boars were found roaming around Bat Yam. Residents called police who...

"Rabbis for Human Rights' compares Bibi to Pharaoh, echoing antisemites who call Israel "Nazi"

It isn't only in America that criticism of leadership gets unhinged. I occasionally look at the "divrei Torah" from Rabbis for Human Rights, and the one from Parashat Shemot (Exodus 1) was a doozy: In these days of rock bottom in leadership in Israeli society (and perhaps not only here…) – it appears that there is no avoiding being suspicious and skeptical of leaders, and thinking of them in negative terms — for instance their pursuit of power,...

From Ian: Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians' Fort of Torture Because it is not Israelis who are perpetrating the abuse, the reports are ho-hum to these journalists. Hamas is an extremist Islamist movement that does not consider itself obliged to abide by international laws and treaties concerning basic human rights. Indeed, the concept of human rights simply does not exist under...

One of the things I remember vividly from years spent traveling in Europe (Eastern and Western) in the 1980s was the prevalence of soldiers everywhere I went. The machine guns carried by police in France and Italy certainly caught me by surprise (especially after a stint in England where bobbies still relied on their billy clubs). But it was large...

Mahmoud Abbas managed to get one of the keynote speeches at the African Union Summit happening now in Addis Ababa. His speech had little to do with Africa and was filled with Israel bashing. Excerpts: It is my pleasure, dear brothers and friends, for your kind invitation to us to attend your esteemed summit, here in Addis Ababa, and I highly value the support your...

From Times of Israel: After his girlfriend called him a “Zionist Jew” and a “Jew lover,” an Arab Israeli man allegedly carried out two shooting attacks, which left one man dead and another seriously wounded, in the northern port city of Haifa earlier this month, the Shin Bet security service said. On Monday, the suspect — 21-year-old Muhammad Shinawi — was charged with...

UNSG statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day was quite good. Guess why Palestinians are upset? (update)

From the UN website The new UN Secretary General, António Guterres, gave a very good speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Here it is: Today is a day to remember, reflect and look forward. We are here to honour the victims of the Holocaust, an unparalleled crime against humanity. We are together to mourn the loss of so many and of so much. The world has a duty...

From The JC: Baroness Jenny Tonge has claimed that she was “interrogated”, after taking part in an interview where she found it difficult to name any books she had read on the Palestinian conflict and had trouble explaining why she feels it is the job of the pro-Israel “lobby” to disprove her allegations that it bribes UK politicians. The Baroness, who was suspended and...

From Ian: JPost Editorial: The mouse that roars As suspense builds over whether US President Donald Trump will fulfill his campaign promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital, the Palestinian leadership is pressing panic buttons daily, appealing to the world community to agree with its absurd policy that the Jewish people’s capital for 3,000 years is...

Women's March poster (2017) Future historians may find the recent "Women's March" interesting for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that it nicely illustrates the tensions between the ideals of multiculturalism and universal human rights within contemporary western-left ideology. Whatever else the march may have accomplished, however, it definitely...