Saturday, August 19, 2017
Well-intentioned antisemitism
As long as Europeans continue to turn a blind eye to the egregious antisemitism that saturates Palestinian society – such as the Palestinian Authority’s payment of stipends to terrorists who murder civilians and their families – its explicitly antisemitic teachings proliferate.Palestinian killed trying to stab Israeli officer in West Bank
These include gems such as that Jews are descendants of “apes and pigs” that is ingrained in young Palestinian children from birth, the public embrace and praise of terrorists, the purposeful misinformation campaigns aimed at inciting violence against Jews, (note, not Israelis, but “Yahood”). As long as this continues and Europe ignores it, what evidence do we have that they’ve learned anything at all from the Holocaust? Many Germans, at least initially, wanted to see their country rise again after the disaster of WWI, possibly motivated not as much by racism as by the well-being of their country. They felt they had been given unfair treatment following the Treaty of Versailles and were taught the Jews were to blame. How is this different from what Palestinians teach their children? European governments continue to fund the PA, which utilizes many of the same dehumanizing tactics that the Nazis used.
It is these same tactics which made it far too easy for an entire country to ignore the murder of an ethnic group of six million people.
Why then should a Palestinian terrorist, who was raised to hate the same dehumanized group, have any hesitation about murdering them? Why shouldn’t he or she, when taught from birth that the Jews are to blame for all the terrible problems in Palestine? In German eyes, the country was unfairly treated following WWI and merely wanted to restore the “greatness” of Germany. How is that different from the mantra of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free?” Why on Earth should Palestinians make peace with Israel when this is what they’re taught? The hypocrisy when it comes to condemning the only Jewish state is no different from the well-intentioned antisemitism that led to the Holocaust. Europeans ought to be the first to condemn Palestinian antisemitism and the last to provide international and political support as it follows the path of repeating the sins of Europe’s past.
Border Police officers shot and killed a Palestinian as he tried to stab one of them at a flashpoint West Bank junction on Saturday, police and medics said. One officer was lightly wounded in the incident.
The Palestinian approached the officers standing at the Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank. When they called on him to halt, he pulled out a knife and tried to attack them. He was shot and killed, police said.
One officer was lightly wounded in the leg and was being treated by IDF medics and the Magen David Adom rescue service, the MDA said.
Medics initially said the officer, 21, had been stabbed, but later said it appeared that he was wounded by shrapnel from the shots fired. He was taken to the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah for further treatment.
The Tapuah Junction has been a frequent site of stabbing attacks in recent months.
Police said the attacker was a 17-year-old from the West Bank city of Tul Karem.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified him as Qutaiba Zahran. Channel 2 reported that he had left a note for his parents, saying that he had gone out to carry out a “revenge attack” and not to mourn him because he was now a “martyr”
Israel’s former counter terrorism chief warns: IS will carry out chemical attack
Islamic State is in its death throes but the worst is yet to come, the former head of Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau, Brigadier General Nitzan Nuriel, said Friday, warning that the terror group could carry out a chemical attack.
“Western society must get used to the fact that terrorism is part of our life,” Nuriel said, speaking to Israel’s Army Radio. “We must get used to this, not in the sense of sitting around waiting for the next attack, and not in the sense of stopping to go abroad or to stop living, but in the sense of seeing who can improve the actions or processes that may help push back the next attack and make it an attack that will not claim large numbers of casualties.”
Nuriel, a 30-year IDF veteran, was speaking in the wake of the Barcelona and Cambrils terror attacks. At least 14 people were killed and some 130 were wounded in the two attacks. Islamic State claimed responsibility.
Nuriel said that even though the group was in steep decline, it still had the ability to inflict great harm
“I, sadly, was among those who said, ‘I told you so,’ those who said that 2017 will be a bloody year in Europe,” he said.
“I think the worst is yet to come. What we are witnessing is the death throes of death of the physical infrastructure of Islamic State in the region, and these will regrettably be accompanied by many incidents of this kind and worse. I, for one, believe that a chemical terror attack is ahead of us,” he said, adding that “Islamic State has the knowledge, the capabilities and the means. I think they have already made the decision. All that remains is the operation in which this will happen.”
Finnish stabbings treated as terror, suspect 'targeted women'
Finnish police said on Saturday that an 18-year-old Moroccan man arrested after knife attacks that killed two people in the city of Turku appeared to have specifically targeted women and that the spree was being treated as terrorism-related.DOUGLAS MURRAY: If we don’t secure Europe’s borders then we will continue to fall victim to terrorist atrocities
The suspect arrested on Friday after being shot in the leg by police had arrived in Finland last year, they said, adding they later arrested four other Moroccan men over possible links to him.
"Due to information received during the night, the Turku stabbings are now being investigated as murders with terrorist intent," Crista Granroth from the National Bureau of Investigation told a news conference.
While the identity of the victims has not been disclosed by authorities, police said the attacker appeared to have targeted women during the stabbing spree in downtown Turku, a city of just under 200,000 people in southwest Finland.
"It seems that the suspect chose women as his targets, because the men who were wounded were injured when they tried to help, or prevent the attacks," Granroth said.
Both of those killed in the attack were women, as well as six of the eight wounded, she added. The two who died were Finns and an Italian and two Swedish citizens were among the injured.
In the days and weeks ahead, the Spanish police and intelligence officials will be piecing this together.DOUGLAS MURRAY FULL EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TUCKER CARLSON (8/17/2017)
They will be trying to work out who the terrorists knew, who they were in contact with and whether there are still more people waiting to do the same thing.
Politicians and others will remark not just on the tragedy but on the difficulty of stopping such attacks.
London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has described them as perhaps being just part of living in a big modern city.
Last year, then-French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France must “learn to live with” such terror.
But all this glosses over the errors of a generation of politicians.
It was not the citizens of Europe who asked for our borders to be dissolved.
It was not the citizens who suggested that European countries stop patrolling the soft underbelly of our continent.
And it was not the citizens who argued for European and NGO ships to become part of the people-smuggling networks bringing millions into Europe.
Even in the days before this attack, newspapers across Europe talked of the upsurge of migrants coming into Spain this year (almost 10,000 so far this year).
Most referred to these migrants being “saved” from the brief sea journey they take. Few recognised that these people are being “encouraged”, not saved.
And that from Spain to Italy and Greece, our continent has little to no idea of who these people are who are coming in.
Algemeiner Editor-in-Chief: No Room for Equivalency When It Comes to Condemning Neo-Nazis and KKK
When it comes to condemning neo-Nazis, the KKK and other far-right groups, there is “no room for equivalency,” the editor-in-chief of The Algemeiner said during an i24 News interview on Wednesday amid the ongoing controversy surrounding President Donald Trump’s response to last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.Chloé Valdary: 5 Reasons Richard Spencer Is Wrong About Israel
“These people have to be hammered down to the margins of society,” Dovid Efune told “Clearcut” host Michelle Makori.
However, Efune pointed out, some of the criticism Trump has been on the receiving end of this week has been politically motivated.
Efune also called for greater scrutiny of the far-left, particularly “those that would like to deny the Jewish right to self-determination.”
“Having said that, I would not say that our goal here should be to diminish criticism of the far-right, but to raise our criticism of the far-left at the same time as criticism of neo-Nazi groups is…being escalated,” Efune concluded.
A few days ago, one of the white supremacist leaders of the Charlottesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” rally, Richard Spencer, was invited onto Israeli TV. He compared his own nationalist platform to Israel. “As an Israeli citizen, someone who understands your identity, who has a sense of nationhood and peoplehood and history and experience of the Jewish people, you should respect someone like me,” Spencer said. “I care about my people. I want us to have a secure homeland for us and ourselves, just like you want a secure homeland in Israel.” He told the Israeli host that he sees himself as “a white Zionist.”Funeral crashers: how antifa became the new Westboro Baptist Church
An article in the Forward agreed. “Richard Spencer, whose racist views are rightfully abhorred by the majority of the Jewish community, is holding a mirror up to Zionism and the reflection isn’t pretty,” argued Naomi Dann.
Here are five reasons Dann is wrong.
- True nationalism is concerned with the self-determination of nations. Zionism is concerned with the self-determination of the Jewish nation. “White people” is not a nation, so Richard Spencer doesn’t know what he’s talking about. America is also not a Nation State, so none of his arguments make any sense within the context of America (or any other context for that matter).
- Moreover, an actual nation does have the right to privilege its citizens over another nation’s, hence why French citizens of France have certain privileges that English people from London do not have. Moroccan citizens have privileges in Morocco that Yemenites do not have. This is not rocket science; it is basic civics 101. It is a normal thing that Palestinian non-citizens of Israel would have less privileges than Israeli citizens of Israel. The dilemma lies in the fact that Palestinians don’t have a state and their current kleptocratic government does not afford them privileges of belonging to said state — which does not exist. This has literally nothing to do with Zionism but with certain actions of Arafat, Abbas, and if you really want to go into it, Jordan, Egypt and the larger Arab world.
No, liberals, the ends do not justify the means. There is no vindication for violence, despite your cause. The heartbreaking events in Charlottesville on Saturday are now being used as a smokescreen for those with an urge to resort to violence.Now The Vandals Are Attacking Statues Of Catholic Saints
Stop trying to put a gender, a race or face on hate. When hate meets hate, it stops mattering which direction it arrived from.
Heather Heyer died amidst the chaos in Charlottesville on Saturday. Anti-fascist activists arrived at the Paramount Theatre where Heyer’s funeral was being held on Wednesday. The mob of left-wing protestors, armed with purple shields and bats, decided they were justified in funeral crashing.
Can you imagine anyone feeling that was the right thing to do?
A woman inside the funeral ceremony began to shout out attacking Trump.
In what world did she think for one split second that was justified?
What ideological hideousness has become her reality?
As President Trump said, the totalitarian mob rule of removing statues people find offensive has a slippery slope descending into darkness.AFP Omits Israeli Victims In List of Car Ramming Attacks
On top of people calling for the removal of George Washington's statue and the Jefferson Memorial, vandals in California have pointed their crosshairs at recently-canonized St. Junipero Serra.
According to a CBS Local report, a photo circulating the rounds on Facebook shows that a statue of Junipero Serra alongside a Native American boy in a park across from Mission San Fernando was vandalized with red paint and the word "murder" written in white. The Native American boy had a swastika painted across his chest.
City officials could not confirm the photo's authenticity. However, when investigators went to the site, they did indeed see red paint on Serra's arm and a swastika painted on the child next to him, which means the neighboring Catholic mission apparently cleaned the statue as best they could to avoid drawing controversy.
That would make perfect sense, considering that whenever the Left gets their hands on controversy like this, they always show up to get their inner Bolshevik on.
A few hours ago, at least 12 people were murdered in Barcelona by a Spanish national of North African descent who drove a van into a restaurant. One news source in Europe reports that prior to the attack, the perpetrator posted anti-Israel propaganda on social media. Ninety people were injured in the attack; more deaths are likely.Was Stephen Bannon good for the Jews? A review
In its coverage of the attack, Agence France Press has included a list of car ramming attacks that have taken place over the past year, with the list beginning with an attack that took place in Nice, France in 2016. The language (which is in the screenshot above) used to frame the list is as follows:
Vehicles have been used as weapons of terror several times over the past year, often by by followers of the Islamic State (IS), attacking nations in the US-led coalition fighting the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.
The list includes car ramming attacks perpetrated in France, Germany, Sweden, and England. Predictably, AFP’s list omits car ramming attacks that have targeted Israelis.
There were at least three such attacks, probably others.
Stephen Bannon, whose advice to US President Donald Trump was that “darkness is good,” was thrust out into the light of the sunshiny day enveloping Washington, DC, on Friday: He is no longer Trump’s strategic adviser.HuffPost’s Bannon headline ‘Goy, bye!’ sparks backlash
It’s not clear yet what led to Bannon’s departure. He alone among Trump’s senior advisers favored the president’s decision to blame “many sides” for the violence last weekend when white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, a posture that has outraged Americans across the political spectrum. Bannon and Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, were always at odds.
Bannon conveys, perhaps unintentionally, the impression that he is manipulating Trump, an impression that Trump is known to hate. And Bannon told the American Prospect this week that there is no military solution to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, just as Trump and his national security team are ramping up claims that a military option is not off the table.
One thorny issue that kept coming up: Was Bannon, who made gutting the Iran nuclear deal a priority, the Jewish community’s best friend in the White House? Or was the man who embraced conspiracy theories about globalists the most Jewish-hostile White House presence since Richard Nixon stalked its halls?
Let’s review:
HuffPost chose a questionable headline for its article about White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon leaving his position.The Forward: Stop Smearing Sebastian Gorka
“Goy, bye!” read the homepage of the news site. The unusual choice of words was a combination of the Yiddish word for a non-Jew and a lyric in Beyonce’s “Lemonade” song in which the singer dismisses a lover with “boy, bye.”
That combination struck a bad note with several prominent Jews who called out HuffPost Editor-in-Chief Lydia Polgreen on Twitter.
ADL’s national director, Jonathan Greenblatt, said the headline was “poor taste at best, very offensive at worst,” while Julia Ioffe, a reporter at the Atlantic, told Polgreen she wished “you hadn’t gone with this headline.”
John Podhoretz, editor-in-chief of Commentary, called the headline “witless, stupid and offensive,” while The Jerusalem Post’s Washington bureau chief, Michael Wilner, asked “What is HuffPost thinking?”
White House counterterrorism advisor Sebastian Gorka has been the subject of severe criticism. With the departure of Steve Bannon from the administration, many are calling for Gorka to be fired next. A recent piece in Rolling Stone questioned the validity of Gorka's Ph.D. and labeled him something of a neophyte and an extremist. The Forward tied Gorka to a Hungarian secret society called Vitezi Rend.Missouri State Senator Shares Holocaust-Themed Tweet in Reference to Jewish Gov. Greitens
These stories make for great political attacks, but are they valid? Does the narrative of Gorka as a "bad hombre" fit the facts? And, perhaps more importantly, setting aside all of the charges against him, are Gorka's views on terrorism and how our nation should combat it prudent?
First, let's examine the accusations on anti-Semitism and secret societies. Gorka, on the record, has denied being a member of the Vitezi Rend. He was also called an anti-Semite, and a video used to incriminate him was conveniently edited to remove his condemnation of the world's oldest hatred. Still, he's gone on the record and denied this allegation, too.
There's no evidence that Gorka has ever expressed anti-Semitic views.
Whether one takes him at his word or not, there isn't any reliable evidence that Gorka has ever expressed any of the views he's accused of holding. And if there's real evidence that he's a member of a secret society, it hasn't been produced.
The questions raised about Gorka's qualifications seem suspect as well. He earned a Ph.D. from Corvinus University. Whatever the quality of that institution, its word was sufficient to land Gorka a position as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University and positions with a host of other respected institutions like the Marine Corps University Foundation and the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs (CENSA).
Democratic Missouri State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal retweeted a Holocuast-themed tweet on Thursday in reference to Missouri's Jewish Republican Gov. Eric Greitens.Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman Pen Antisemitic Letter to Jews Who Support Trump
Chappelle-Nadal, the state lawmaker who recently wrote she hoped President Donald Trump would be assassinated, shared a tweet that said, "Greitens should know where the Trump Train goes. At the end of the line is this place!" The tweet included a picture showing the gates of a Nazi concentration camp.
The tweet is no longer on Chappelle-Nadal's Twitter page.
The picture of the gate of the camp includes the sign with the words, "Arbeit Macht Frei," translated to "Work Sets You Free," a slogan often found at the entrance of Auschwitz and other concentration camps. The train comment is in reference to the fact that many prisoners were transported to Nazi camps in that way.
Greitens, a former Navy SEAL, is the first Jewish governor in Missouri's history.
Authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have penned an open letter to fellow Jews, warning them that if they do not oppose President Donald Trump, they will be labeled as Nazi collaborators and traitors to their people.EXCLUSIVE – Gaza Jihadist: Explosion That Killed Hamas Commander Likely Wasn’t A Suicide Attack
Chabon and Waldman, who were earnest supporters of President Barack Obama, and said nothing when he abandoned Israel and elevated the antisemitic Iranian regime, published their letter on Medium on Thursday.
Using classic antisemitic tropes, they address Jews who may support Trump because of “private business deals” or other personal interests — “You entered into negotiations, cut deals, made contracts with him and his government” — and urge them to turn against him.
Addressing casino magnate Sheldon Adelson directly, they turn up the antisemitic rhetoric, accusing him of calculating “that money trumps hate, or that a million dollars’ worth of access can protect you from one boot heel at the door.”
Chabon and Waldman also resort to blatant lies: “You have counted carefully as each appointment to his administration of an avowed white supremacist, anti-Semite, neo-Nazi or crypto-fascist appeared to be counterbalanced by the appointment of a fellow Jew,” they say, providing no proof whatsoever that Trump has appointed anyone that matches any of those descriptions. (h/t Sargon N)
The incident in which a Hamas terrorist commander was killed Wednesday night in the border area between Egypt and Gaza was not a planned strike against Hamas members, a senior Palestinian jihadist in Gaza associated with Islamic State ideology claimed to Breitbart Jerusalem.Hamas summer camp teaches youths to ‘liberate Palestine’
According to Abou Baker al-Maqdesi, two jihadists advanced toward the Gaza-Egypt border intending to infiltrate Sinai and join Wilyat Sinai, the Egyptian branch of the Islamic State.
“Two of our brothers encountered a Hamas roadblock and were asked to identify themselves,” said al-Maqdesi. “It isn’t clear what happened there, but probably in fear of being arrested by Hamas, one of our two brothers ignited an explosive device in his possession, leading to the death of the Hamas member.”
Hamas security officer Nidal al-Jaafari was killed in the incident, according to a Hamas police spokesman, after Hamas security forces stopped two suspects approaching the border. The spokesman confirmed that one of them blew himself up during a security check.
The spokesman said that the incident was a suicide terror attack, an unsurprising comment given the tense relations between Hamas and IS-supporting jihadists over the last year, tensions that led to the arrest of hundreds of jihadists by Hamas security forces.
Hamas held a closing ceremony in the Gaza Strip on Friday for a batch of the 120,000 boys and girls attending the Islamic terror group’s controversial summer schools.Fierce clashes rock Palestinian camp in Lebanon
The ceremony, for some 1,000 students who took part in camps in the southern city of Khan Yunis, was framed as part of Hamas’s plan to continue its armed conflict with Israel.
Boys between 15 and 18 years of age were put through military drills at the week-long camp, including shooting with live ammunition and training in scouting skills.
They also jumped through fiery hoops and went over obstacle courses.
Hamas official Ashraf Abu Zayed said the training came within the framework of “preparing for the liberation of Palestine.”
“We are trying to invest the younger generation and guide them towards the liberation project,” he told AFP, referring to armed struggle against Israel.
Palestinian forces on Saturday battled radical Islamist gunmen in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp near the southern port of Sidon, for the third consecutive day.Lebanon army launches offensive against IS on Syria border
The clashes first broke out Thursday when gunmen from the small Islamist Badr group opened fire on a position of a Palestinian force inside Ain al-Hilweh camp, a Palestinian source said.
Two people were killed in that fighting.
An AFP reporter said the clashes eased on Friday before intensifying again on Saturday, forcing dozens of families to flee the camp and seek shelter in Sidon mosques.
The sound of fierce gunfire and rocket fire could be heard outside the camp as black smoke billowed over Ain al-Hilweh, said the reporter.
The fighting shook the Al-Tiri district a few metres (yards) away from a Lebanese army position.
Lebanese troops on Saturday launched an offensive against the Islamic State group on the country’s eastern border with Syria, seeking to drive the jihadists from a long-time stronghold.MEMRI: Discussion Of Iranian Violations Of JCPOA Is Futile; The Inspection Procedure Designed By The Obama Administration Precludes Actual Inspection And Proof Of Violations
The operation came as IS faces multiple military attacks on territory it controls in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where it lost the city of Mosul in July.
IS fighters have long been active in mountainous eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria, where a bloody civil war has raged since 2011.
In 2014, jihadists invaded the border town of Arsal, capturing 30 Lebanese soldiers and police. Security forces in the region have since come under regular attack.
“In the name of Lebanon, in the name of kidnapped Lebanese soldiers, in the name of martyrs of the army, I announce that operation ‘Dawn of Jurud’ has started,” army chief General Joseph Aoun said Saturday.
The JCPOA's Inspection Procedure Precludes Actual Inspection And Proof Of ViolationsElliott Abrams: "Reform" in Iran
The public debate in the U.S. over the future of the JCPOA, amid media reports that President Trump has demanded that his national security team provide evidence of Iranian violations of the agreement by October 2017,[1] is a futile debate.
It will not be possible, neither in October nor at any other time, to prove that Iran is in violation of the JCPOA – even if the U.S. has intelligence that proves that it is. This is because the inspection procedure designed by the Obama administration precludes actual inspection – at Iran's military sites and at any other suspect site, with the exclusion of Iran's declared nuclear sites.
Accordingly, the demand that intelligence information on Iranian violations be presented as a condition for taking steps against the JCPOA is based on inadequate knowledge of what the JCPOA stipulates. This is because under the agreement, the obtaining of such intelligence information is only the beginning of a detailed and binding process, which delays and in actuality does not enable inspection of a suspected site at all. Instead of an inspection of a site being immediately triggered when such information is obtained, the JCPOA requires a series of preliminary steps before any such inspection will be permitted – if it is permitted at all. That is, under the JCPOA, the U.S. must:
a) Hand over the intelligence information and information on its sources to Iran for the purpose of clarifying "concerns," both in discussions between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran, and in discussions with the Joint Commission of the JCPOA – which in addition to the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and the IAEA includes Iran, Russia, and China – with the aim of clearing up the concerns via alternative ways that will not involve inspection of the site. The demand to reveal this information and its sources to Iran, Russia, and China is ridiculous and the U.S. cannot agree to it; since these are the conditions of the JCPOA, no further action is actually possible.
b) If no agreement on alternative ways not involving inspection of the site can be reached, there will be an additional discussion in the Joint Commission, where decisions on this matter are to be made by majority vote within seven days. Iran must comply with the decision within three additional days.
During June’s presidential election in Iran, many Westerners strongly hoped for a Hassan Rouhani victory. Rouhani, the incumbent president, was a “moderate,” the argument went, and during the campaign he had criticized the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and promised to have women and minorities in his cabinet.Did Rouhani Accidentally Admit to a Clandestine Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program?
Now it is mid-August, and it is already evident that there will be no reform, and that Rouhani’s promises were meant only to attract votes—not to bring about any change, liberalization, or reform in Iran.
Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy tells the sad story in a recent article entitled “Rouhani’s Road Already Taken.” There Khalaji notes that two of Rouhani’s rivals for the presidency have already been elevated by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to the Expediency Council, so that body actually has more hardliners than it did before the election. But that was Khamenei, defenders of Rouhani as a moderate might say. Khalaji notes that while Rouhani criticized the IRGC during his campaign, “he immediately toned down the rhetoric after winning.” Worse, in August his government backed in the Majlis new legislation directing 540 million additional dollars to the IRGC; in July it enlarged even further the IRGC’s hold on the Iranian economy by giving the IRGC-owned construction company (Khatam al-Anbia) the right to take over any project over $52.4 million in size, pushing aside any domestic or foreign competitor. As to having women or minorities in his cabinet Rouhani has simply not kept his promise.
After threatening to back out of the 2015 nuclear deal “within hours” if faced with new American sanctions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani added that if Tehran restarted its nuclear program, it would be “far more advanced” than it was before nuclear negotiations began in 2013.Steven Emerson: Goodbye and Good Riddance to Rasmea Odeh
The New York Times asserted on Tuesday that with a more advanced nuclear program, Iran “could start enriching uranium up to the level of 20 percent, a step toward building a nuclear weapon.”
But was Rouhani making a threat? Or did he accidentally admit that even now Iran is engaged in clandestine nuclear weapons research, in violation of the nuclear deal?
One of the weaknesses of the accord is that it doesn’t force Iran to reveal the full extent of its past nuclear research.
In December 2015, a month and a half before Implementation Day, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report that found that Iran had engaged in nuclear weapons research until at least 2009. The IAEA, which is the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations and is in charge of monitoring Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, couldn’t say for certain whether Iran had stopped seeking nuclear weapons because Iran withheld information.
In June 2016, the Obama administration acknowledged that traces of enriched uranium found at the Parchin military installation were likely the result of Iran’s nuclear weapons research.
In addition to the unresolved questions raised by the final IAEA report on Iran’s past nuclear work, a former Obama administration official told The New York Times in 2013 that “there has never been a time in the past 15 years or so when Iran didn’t have a hidden facility in construction.”
Odeh walked in the footsteps of other Palestinian terrorists who managed to hide in plain sight in the United States for years, aided by lies and the gullibility of Israel-haters.Michael Lumish: Possible Restraining Order
For instance, Sami Al-Arian is hailed as a free speech advocate and a peaceful proponent of the Palestinian cause. In reality, he was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s leadership, during the time that it used Iranian money to kill Jews. A Federal judge deemed him a “master manipulator.” He was deported to Turkey in early 2015.
The Dallas Morning News faced picket lines and faux websites because it dared to expose a network of Hamas supporters, including political leader Mousa Abu Marzook, in its community. When an arm of that network, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), was prosecuted for illegally routing $12 million to Hamas, well-meaning but ignorant protesters argued that “feeding widows and orphans is not a crime.”
It isn’t. But sending money to a designated terrorist group is, and the record shows that this is what HLF did. Marzook, who created a network of Hamas-support organizations that included the HLF, a propaganda arm called the Islamic Association for Palestine, and a think tank, was deported to Jordan 20 years ago — and remains a senior Hamas official.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas share certain goals and values. They each want to destroy Israel, and they each use violence and terrorism to kill Israeli civilians.
Rasmea Odeh bombed that grocery store before either group was created. Therefore, America has lost a pioneer in Palestinian terrorism. Take note of who grieves for that loss more than the loss of life that she caused.
Reem Assil has filed a request for a restraining order against me.Reemed in Oakland
The initial request was denied, but it's going before a judge in about a week, or so.
Previously
"You're lucky that you are in that wheelchair, motherf#cker!"Neil Macdonald Continues to Criticize Israel Using CBC’s Website
That is what a young, six-foot-plus, twenty-something supporter of Rasmea Odeh and Reem Assil of Reem's antisemitic restaurant in Oakland shouted at Robin Durbin at the recent pro-Israel / pro-Jewish rally put together by Faith Meltzer, Matthew Finkelstein, and Uncle Bernie supporter, Susan George, at the Fruitvale BART Station.
And so here the hostility comes again... even to a place as far away from Israel as the San Francisco Bay Area.
I have been aware of the rise of antisemitic anti-Zionism within the western-left for at least ten years - which makes me a late-comer, I know - but I honestly did not expect it see it banging on my door so closely and so quickly within my lifetime and certainly not here on the west coast of the United States.
Most of us who live in the Golden Land do not fathom that the swirling international whirlwind of manifold Muslim toxic bullsh!t can touch us.
To parse, Macdonald is guilty of his own moral equivalence by comparing frequent Palestinian terror attacks which intentionally target Israeli innocents, with very rare incidences of terror committed by Israelis. Nail-packed bombs don’t just spontaneously “erupt,” they are intentionally detonated by Palestinian terrorists whom Macdonald fails to identify, nor does he label them as “extremists”.Reuters Uses Ellipses to Downplay Al Jazeera Quote
When Palestinians commit terror, their leadership glorifies the attack and rewards the attacker (known as “pay for slay”). Very rarely do Palestinian terrorists get arrested by PA security services for their attempted or for their committed acts of terror. The only incitement going on is from Palestinian leaders (Hamas and PA alike) who encourage young Palestinians to attack Israelis.
In Israel, on the very rare occasions that Israelis intentionally commit an attack on an innocent Arab or Palestinian, not only are these attacks universally condemned by the public, government and media alike, the perpetrator is brought to justice to the full length of the law. These individuals and their families do not receive stipends to compensate them for their attacks. In sharp contrast, Israel educates for peace while Palestinians educate for hate.
To suggest, as Neil Macdonald has done, that Israel tacitly condones and incites terror is outrageous and is an unsubstantiated claim.
"Quotes are sacrosanct," Reuters says. When quoting someone, a journalist can replace a word with an ellipsis "only if the deletion does not alter the sense of the quote," the news agence explains.Activists protest in Germany against neo-Nazi vigil for Hitler ally
These guidelines appear in a Reuters handbook on journalism. But journalists don't need a handbook to tell them not to play with quotes. It's a self-evident tenet of ethical journalism.
And yet, after Israel announced plans to revoke the press card of Al Jazeera journalist Elias Karram, who has described himself as an integral part of the Palestinian "resistance," here is how the news agency covered the story:
Here it is again, as text:
A clip from the interview Karram gave to the little-known TV station shows him saying: "A Palestinian journalist working in occupied territory ... is no different to a politician or a teacher (resisting Israel's occupation).
"The journalist is doing his part ... with the pen, radio, voice or camera. You are part of this nation and you resist in your own way."
Why all the ellipses? And what are those parentheses doing in a quotation of spoken words?
The Associated Press's translation of Karram's words is more straightforward:
"The work of a Palestinian journalist in occupied territories, in territories of conflict, is inseparable from the work of the resistance, the work of the politician, the work of the scholar," Karram said. "The journalist fulfils his role in the resistance with a pen or a microphone or a camera. You are part of the people and you resist in your own way," he said.
Palestinians use the word "resistance" to refer to both violence against Israelis and non-violent opposition to Israeli policies.
Anti-fascist activists gathered in the Berlin suburb of Spandau on Saturday to protest against a vigil by about 250 neo-Nazis commemorating the 30th anniversary of the death of Nazi convict Rudolf Hess.State Dept. Report: Anti-Semitism Pervasive in Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar
The neo-Nazis planned a march from the suburb's station to the former Spandau Prison where Hess, an early ally of Germany's wartime dictator Adolf Hitler, served out the life sentence he was handed down at the post-war Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Far-right activists held up banners reading "I regret nothing" and hoisted the red, white and black flag of Hitler's Third Reich as about 1,000 police looked on.
Neo-Nazis commemorate the 1987 prison suicide of Hitler's one-time deputy every year, but this gathering has drawn more attention after a far-right march in Charlottesville, Virginia this month that led to the death of a young woman and drew international criticism.
Many anti-fascist protesters said the vigil in Germany should have been barred.
"It's appalling that in the year 2017, Nazis can openly go on the streets for this deputy of Hitler," said Gerhard Sattler, a protester. "This is impossible. The whole of German society must stand up against this."
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of State released its annual report on religious freedom in the world, which shows persistent levels of deep-rooted anti-Semitism in the Middle East, including in two neighboring Arab countries Israel has peace treaties with. The main sources of persecution vary among countries with Iran spearheading the group of regime-driven incitement against the Jewish people, while Jordan, Egypt, and Qatar face criticism for allowing widespread anti-Semitic sentiments in private and state-owned media with impunity.Israeli Company Uses Genetic Mapping to Customize Cancer Treatments for Improved Results
Regime-driven persecution: Iran
The Islamic Republic of Iran is classified as a “Country of Particular Concern” under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. Both the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom list Iran as one of the worst religious freedom violators in the world. Since President Hassan Rouhani assumed office in 2013, religious freedom in the country has continued to decline due to intensified harassment, imprisonment, and execution of religious minorities, including Jews.
Iran has the Middle East’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel with an approximately 20,000-member strong community, which faces harsh conditions in the Islamic Republic. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and state-run television continue to foster a climate of hatred, propagating anti-Semitic rhetoric and demonizing the country’s Jewish community for real or perceived ties to Israel.
Inside the NovellusDx lab in the Jerusalem Bio-Park, a team of 35 biologists, engineers, mathematicians and physicians recreate the genetic maps of real human individuals with cancer.Riding along with the lifesaving night owls of United Hatzalah
It’s not a research project but a personalized medical tool.
The NovellusDx team analyzes the cancer-driving mutations in each patient’s DNA to deliver actionable intelligence to oncologists, helping them choose the right cancer therapy for each and every one.
NovellusDx CEO Haim Gil-Ad explains that although genomic sequencing already is starting to be performed for cancer patients and is likely to become standard, sequencing can reveal tens or even hundreds of mutations but cannot annotate the exact eight to 12 driver mutations that are actually enabling the tumor to grow.
The Israeli company is filling this gap in knowledge.
“Every patient is different,” Gil-Ad tells ISRAEL21c. “Two 35-year-old women with breast cancer, living in the same place and having similar physical features, will have totally different oncogenic maps.”
NovellusDx uses genomic data sent to its lab by email—no actual patient samples are needed—to recreate the individual’s genetic map on a unique biochip.
Emergency services are by nature ready 24/7 and are often required at the most important events of people's lives, including weddings. Yes, weddings. Twenty minutes before my ride-along was supposed to begin, United Hatzalah sent out a press release stating that volunteers came to the aid of a groom in Rishon Lezion who injured himself while breaking the glass during his wedding ceremony. After the volunteers gave first aid to the man, who suffered a deep cut to his foot, the party continued. If this was the start of the evening, I knew I was in for one wild ride.Birth of a Fighting Force for Zionism
11:15 p.m. - "We had to stop on the way to treat four people at a car accident scene," the message from United Hatzalah volunteer Raphael Poch read as I waited in The Jerusalem Post's Tel Aviv office. "We're always late for life because we stop for emergencies, but we're always first to the scene."
Normally women hate to wait around for guys to pick them up for a night out, but I made an exception for the three United Hatzalah volunteers -- Raphael, Moshe, and Guy -- that took me on a crazy six-hour overnight shift all throughout the central district of Israel.
12:44 a.m. - To say we had a busy night is an understatement. The moment I got in the fly car -- a normal passenger car transformed into a emergency vehicle, basically the four-wheel version of Clark Kent turning into Superman -- the dispatcher was giving us directions to a crash scene in Holon.
One hundred years ago in August 1917, the London Gazette published an official announcement that “a Jewish regiment” had been established. Based on the international regiments of small oppressed nations in Europe that had fought in foreign armies against great empires during the 19th century, it heralded the Israel Defence Force in 1948. Its formation marked the success of attempts by Chaim Weizmann and Vladimir Jabotinsky to symbolise the rebirth of a Jewish nation.
Most Zionists did not wish to take sides during World War I as it was unclear who would be victorious. However Turkey’s entry into the war in November 1914 suggested that a British military force would probably invade Ottoman-controlled Palestine from Egypt. Weizmann and Jabotinsky understood that the presence of a Jewish army at the war’s end would be a bargaining-counter in the diplomatic tussle to secure a state of the Jews.
Within weeks of Turkey’s entry into hostilities, mainly Russian Jews were expelled from Palestine to Egypt since the Tsar was the ally of Britain and France. Many were housed at Gabbari camp near Alexandria. Jabotinsky and Yosef Trumpeldor, a Jewish officer who had served in the Tsar’s army, swiftly created a police force to ensure order. Many from this motley group placed their signatures on a document in March 1915 which stated: “At Alexandria, a regiment of Jewish volunteers has been formed. It places itself at the disposal of the British government in order to participate in the liberation of Palestine”.
