Ron Dermer: Stop demonizing Israel for defending itself
Hand it to Hamas. As this week’s events in Gaza showed, the terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction can still manipulate the media into demonizing Israel for the legitimate actions it takes to defend itself.Israel Needs to Protect Its Borders. By Whatever Means Necessary
Hamas’s four-step formula for success is by now familiar. First, get a media that is largely hostile toward Israel, simply ignorant or both to ignore Hamas’s genocidal goals and excuse its terrorism. Second, put Palestinian civilians in harm’s way. Third, force Israel, while defending itself, to kill some of those civilians. Fourth, rely on that same hostile and ignorant media to blame Israel for these deaths.
In Gaza, step one began some seven weeks ago. Hamas called for tens of thousands of Palestinians to join a weekly “March of Return” — effectively, the flooding of Israel with millions of the descendants of Palestinian refugees from the War of Independence (which five Arab nations started, promising to throw the Jews into the sea).
The March of Return was to culminate in a mid-May march on “Nakba” day, which Palestinians mark each year to remember the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation.
Palestinian “marchers” were told to break down the security fence separating Gaza from Israel, a clear and present danger to all those living in Jewish communities only hundreds of yards from that fence.
Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, could not have been clearer about his goals: “We will take down the border and tear out their hearts from their bodies.”
But as thousands of Palestinians showed up to achieve that murderous goal, the media was determined to tell another tale. Press reports insisted that the march was “against the occupation” and “for humanitarian relief” in Gaza. Such nonsense continued even as rioters destroyed the very infrastructure that enables Israel to deliver food, medicine and supplies into Gaza.
This week, the media narrative shifted. Despite all evidence to the contrary, suddenly we were told that the riots in Gaza were against the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. “Marches over embassy move take on violent edge” read a headline in The Post, one of many similar headlines around the globe.
The media also insisted that these riots had been peaceful protests, or “mostly” peaceful, whatever that means. Apparently, grenades, molotov cocktails, fire kites, explosive devices, guns and machetes don’t quite hit the media’s bar for what constitutes Palestinian violence.
Of course, it does not benefit the Palestinians who dream about “returning,” or in other words, about eliminating Israel. But it is the only way forward for those who have more realistic expectations. The people of Gaza are miserable. They deserve sympathy and pity. But looking for Israel to remedy their problems will only exacerbate their misery. Expecting Israel to solve their problem will only lead them to delay what they must do for themselves.
There are two reasons for that. First, denying Hamas any achievement is the only way to ultimately persuade the Palestinians to abandon the futile battle for things they cannot get (“return,” control of Jerusalem, the elimination of Israel) and toward policies that will benefit their people. If Hamas is rewarded for organizing violent events, if the pressure on it is reduced because of the demonstrations, the result will be more demonstrations — and therefore more bloodshed, mostly Palestinian. Second, only an Israel that has the ability to feel secure about its borders could engage in any serious talks with the Palestinians. As Ehud Barak, a former prime minister and a critic of Israel’s current government, put it, “Those who believe in having separation from the Palestinians, getting into a peace agreement, having borders — you have to make clear that borders are respected.”
The Jewish sages had a famous, if not necessarily pleasant, saying that went something like this: Those who are kind to the cruel end up being cruel to the kind. As harsh as this sounds amid the scenes from Gaza, as problematic as this seems to good-intentioned people whose instinct is to sympathize with the weaker side in every conflict, sometimes there is no better choice than being clear, than being firm, than drawing a line that cannot be crossed by those wanting to harm you. By fire, if necessary.
PMW: The PA: US embassy in Jerusalem is a ticking bomb
Continuous hate speech against the US is being published in the official PA daily in response to the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem. The cartoon above depicts the embassy as a ticking bomb. It shows three domes in Jerusalem: (left to right) the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock, and the new "US Embassy" as a large hand grenade. [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 16, 2018]
An op-ed in the same official daily called the embassy itself "an American military base" and its opening of it "a war crime":
"How can it be that Israel's future will be full of shining promises of peace, as [US Presidential Advisor Jared] Kushner said while representing his President Trump at the inauguration of an American military base (sic., the US embassy) in occupied Jerusalem? Those who were present at the inauguration ceremony of Trump's embassy in Jerusalem are partners in a war crime ..." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 15, 2018]
Another said the embassy was an "outpost" to be "uprooted" and that the US is now "the enemy":
"[US President] Donald Trump, who issued the ominous Jerusalem declaration... continues in his unparalleled stupidity to talk about peace... The US has no place in the Middle East peace. It has lost its position, qualification, and credibility. Donald Trump, who transformed it [the US] from a mediator into an enemy, is leading the hostility...
This outpost (i.e., the US embassy) that Trump has established in our Jerusalem will be uprooted, and what will remain is the face of free Palestine." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 16, 2018]
The Truth About Hamas and Israel
An op-ed by the Spokesperson of the Israel Defense Forces, Brigadier General Ronen Manelis in the Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-truth-about-hamas-and-israel-1526841445US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman: Liberal media sides with Hamas over Trump
Sami Abu Zuhri is the spokesman for the extremist group Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization funded by Iran. Hamas controls Gaza and has killed innocent Israeli, American, Brazilian, Kenyan, British, French and Chinese civilians. As chief intelligence officer of the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza division from 2012-14, I came to know Mr. Abu Zuhri and other Hamas spokesmen from a distance. Their method of action is simple: Lie. Their lies support the stated goal of Hamas: the delegitimization and destruction of Israel.
For weeks the international media has reported on violence on the border between Gaza and Israel. Hamas has continued to lie to the world, which is why their rare acknowledgments of truth are especially revealing. Hamas spokesmen raced to the press last week to lament the death of innocent civilians . But a senior Hamas leader, Salah Bardawil, said in a May 16 interview with a Palestinian TV station: “In the last round of confrontations, if 62 people were martyred, 50 of them were Hamas.” Hamas itself has confirmed that 80% of those killed in their violent riots last Tuesday were members of a terrorist group, not innocent civilians. Several more of the fatalities were claimed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On May 13, Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, a co-founder of Hamas, said in an interview with Al Jazeera: “When we talk about ‘peaceful resistance,’ we are deceiving the public.” You can only trust Hamas when they admit to their lies.
The Hamas spokesmen orchestrated a well-funded terrorist propaganda operation. Behind the theatrics was a plan that threatened Israel’s border and civilians. Hamas provided free transportation from throughout the Gaza Strip to the border for innocent civilians, including women and children. Hamas hired them as extras, paying $14 a person or $100 a family for attendance—and $500 if they managed to get injured. Hamas forced all of their commanders and operatives to go to the border dressed as civilians, each serving as a director of an area—as if to direct their own stage of the operation.
The audience was the international media. Hamas gave anyone with a video camera front-row access to the show and free Wi-Fi. The IDF had precise intelligence that the violent riots were masking a plan of mass infiltration into Israel in order to carry out a massacre against Israeli civilians. Hamas called it a “peaceful protest,” and much of the world simply fell for it. It wasn't fake news, it was simply fake.
Some 60 Gazans, the overwhelming majority of whom were known Hamas terrorists, lost their lives because Hamas turned them into a collective suicide bomb. They were neither heroes nor the peaceful protesters they were advertised to be.Melanie Phillips: EVIL AND HUMAN DEPRAVITY – AND THEN THERE’S HAMAS TOO
At least not before the liberal media entered the scene. Desperate for a narrative to discredit the president’s decision to move our embassy to Jerusalem, they broadcast the opening ceremony on a split screen simultaneously displaying the Gaza riots, and condemned the insensitivity of the ceremony’s participants to the carnage that seemed next door on TV but which in actuality was occurring 60 miles away!
The next day, the liberal media vilified everyone associated with the embassy move and glorified the poor Hamas terrorists. Failed diplomats who never brought peace or stability to the region were pulled out of mothballs to regurgitate their calcified thinking. And the most deranged even accused the administration of having blood on its hands. Tellingly, not a single pundit offered a less-lethal alternative to protecting Israel from being overrun by killers or its soldiers from being within range of pistols, IEDs or Molotov cocktails.
Let there be no mistake. Every life is equally precious, whether Jewish, Palestinian or other. But no nation should ever be called upon to sacrifice its own citizens to preserve the lives of aggressive infiltrators intent on murder and mayhem.
Ironically, Hamas had recently woken up to the fact that most responsible journalists were on to its game and Hamas was considering ending its suicidal assaults on the Israeli border. But seeing the opportunity to curry the front page or the A Block from reporters willing to shed a negative light on our president, Hamas enthusiastically launched its youth back into the fire. So who really has blood on their hands?
Its abusers aren’t just the Arabs and Muslims who continuously try to murder Jews and steal their country; they are also the BBC, Britain’s Channel Four News, America’s NBC, Canada’s CBC and numerous newspapers throughout the West.Jonah Goldberg: The Tribe’s Useful Idiots
But there’s a second awful feature that these two forms of abuse share. Tragically, the sexually abused child believes the reason she was abused must be something really bad she herself has done. Otherwise, why else would she have been attacked?
In exactly the same way, Jews over the centuries have asked why the world hates them with such unique ferocity—and the answer reached by a distressing number is that it must be because of something uniquely hateful in them.
Today, such Jews turn against Israel, swallowing and regurgitating the disgusting falsehoods and distortions perpetrated by the enemies of the Jewish people. And some of those Jews, in both the Diaspora and Israel, shamefully took part in this week’s anti-Israel verbal auto-da-fé.
The unanswerable question, though, is why Israel is abused like this. Plausible factors such as anti-colonialist ideology or plain ignorance don’t begin to explain the unique virulence of this hatred, and its obsessional and paranoid nature.
The essence of it is the refusal to view Israel as victimized. And the essence of that is the unhinged belief that the Jews are all-powerful. So if Israel exercises its undoubted military power—even though it only ever does so to defend its citizens’ lives—this gives traction to the ancient anti-Semitic trope.
Hence the obscene outrage voiced by some that no Israelis were killed at the Gaza border—imbecilically offered as proof of Israeli aggression. The fact that the Jews can now defend themselves is considered unacceptable.
So these Israel-abusers champion instead those who send flaming kites decorated with swastikas to incinerate Israel and its people, while describing the Jews defending their country as latter-day Nazis.
It isn’t just the Hamas who are evil. There’s a profound moral and spiritual sickness in the West, too.
I’ve always been fascinated by useful idiots — and I don’t mean interns who are good at fetching coffee or pumicing my feet. I mean “useful idiots” in the Leninist sense (even if Lenin may not have in fact coined the term). Useful idiots, according to lore, were the Western intellectuals who could be counted on to defend or apologize for Bolshevik or Soviet barbarisms and other crimes.I agree with Hamas, says MARK REGEV, Israel's Ambassador to the UK
The Soviet effort to cultivate, feed, and support useful idiots is an absorbing tale in its own right. But the fascinating part is how the real heavy-lifting was done by the Western intellectuals themselves.
I’m reminded of Randolph Bourne’s famous line about the receptivity of progressive intellectuals to the First World War. Describing a “peculiar congeniality between the war and these men,” Bourne said that it was “as if the war and they had been waiting for each other.”
As I took in snippets of the coverage from the Gaza–Israel border this week, it was as if the bloodshed and the usual suspects had been waiting for each other. It wasn’t so much a case of the facts on the ground not mattering as it was a case of only certain facts mattering a great deal — and others not at all. Israelis were shooting Palestinians; the rest was commentary.
Another apocryphal quote, which I first heard ascribed to Rodin — that’s with an “I” for the artist not an “A” for the daikaiju monster — goes like this:
Q: How do you sculpt an elephant?
A: Simple. Take a block of marble and remove everything that isn’t an elephant.
This is how so much coverage of Israel seems to work: Take an event and remove all the facts that don’t fit the desired final product. By now, the examples of what I’m talking about should be familiar enough: the Palestinian cripple who could suddenly walk; the confession — from Hamas itself — that nearly all of the “innocent victims” of Israeli “murder” were in fact terrorists; the admissions from the Hamas cannon fodder that their intentions were violent. But none of that mattered. Nor did it catch the media’s attention that there was no rioting in the Fatah-controlled West Bank, but only in Hamas-controlled Gaza. That Hamas has been fomenting this macabre publicity stunt for weeks didn’t seem to matter either.
The articles hadn’t been written but the plot had already been agreed upon.
I agree with Hamas. You would not normally expect the Israeli Ambassador to agree with a terrorist organisation guilty of murdering his people and committed to destroying his country. But it’s true, I do.Michael Lumish: Gazan Waves
I agree with Hamas when its founder Mahmoud Al-Zahar admitted publicly that its strategy of labelling events in Gaza as ‘peaceful protests’ was a deliberate ‘deception’.
He is right, because there is nothing peaceful about knives, machetes, guns, pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails and improvised explosives: all of which the Palestinians used in their ‘peaceful protest’.
I agree with Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, when he says that the purpose of the ongoing violence is to breach the frontier and indiscriminately murder Israelis living in communities nearby. Mr Sinwar proclaimed, ‘We will tear down the border’ and ‘tear out their hearts’.
Video footage from last Monday shows a masked man who had just broken through the fence, carrying a machete while shouting: ‘O Jews, we’re coming to slaughter you!’ This was indeed Hamas’ goal.
Everyone who cares about the Jewish people and the well-being of Israel is writing about the Hamas Embassy Riots.What If Israel Didn’t Shoot?
We are doing so because Western media people are, yet again, yapping against Israel on cue from the vicious antisemitic ding-bats in Gaza like trained seals yelping for sardines.
We've known for so long about Western media bias against Israel, but this seems even worse than usual. They are honestly portraying a massive Hamas assault with upwards of 50,000 people against the Jews of Israel as an Israeli aggression against innocent Palestinian protestors and their children.
This means that CNN, MSNBC, the Daily News, and the New York Times are, yet again, responsible, in some measure, for violence against Jews around the world because they always portray Israel as the aggressor. They almost never provide any meaningful historical context or treat Palestinian-Arabs as anything beyond unruly children in need of a pat on the head and a chocolate chip cookie.
This lethal journalism -- as American historian from Boston University, Richard Landes calls it -- will result in international blowback toward Israel and toward Jewish people around the world, and that is the Gazan Wave. But this is nothing new and let us just hope that the coming flood is not among the worst.
Imagine the scenario.Israel TV: Confident Hamas planned victory rallies for its leaders inside Israel
It’s been a month now since the Israeli government made its controversial decision to stop shooting back at the Palestinian mobs surging toward the Gaza fence. Let’s see how things turned out.
At first, of course, Israel’s leaders insisted that they had a right to defend the border. But eventually, international pressure got to be too much: All those editorials in The New York Times accusing Israel of brutality. The constant hectoring by the hosts of cable TV’s “Morning Joe” and “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” The condemnations by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The UN resolutions.
Then American Jews jumped on the bandwagon. At first, it was just the predictable groups — Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street. That’s what they do. But then, Rabbi Rick Jacobs started squirming when the pundits on his favorite MSNBC talk show began criticizing Israel, and soon his Union for Reform Judaism was proclaiming how “alarmed, concerned and profoundly saddened” it was about the deaths of all those Gaza rioters. Not much alarm, concern, or sadness about the border kibbutzim being devastated as flaming kites set their crops ablaze. But never mind all that.
The Anti-Defamation League, increasingly resembling the Obama administration for which its national director once worked, chimed in with “concern” of its own. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations dithered, unable to reach a consensus on what position to take. Right-of-center groups issued their usually verbose, over-the-top press releases that nobody took seriously. No wonder the Israelis felt so alone. They really were.
Though it has sought to portray weeks of violent demonstrations along the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel as popular protests, Hamas has been heavily involved in planning the clashes and provided instructions to participants on desired behavior, Israel’s Hadashot TV news reported Friday.
The terror group disseminated detailed directives via social media ahead of Monday’s violent clashes at the border, the TV report said. These directives went so far as to inform protesters in which Israeli community each terrorist leader would be delivering victory speeches after the protests had achieved their stated goal of breaching the border.
“Ismail Haniyeh will speak in Nahal Oz, Khalil al-Hayya in Kfar Aza and (Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader) Nafed Azzam in Be’eri,” Hadashot quoted the instructions as saying. “After the victory speeches, celebrations will begin throughout Palestine.”
Protesters were told that tractors would seek to bring down the fence, and were urged to arm themselves with “a knife or a handgun” for use after the border was breached, the report said. “Seek to drive (Israeli) snipers from their positions,” the instructions added.
The directives were reportedly accompanied by detailed maps, and included the Israeli communities to which Palestinians were encouraged to rush.
Col. Kobi Heller, the commander of the IDF’s Southern (Gaza) Brigade, told the TV station that this information corresponded with the military’s own material on what has been playing out at the border.
Statements by Hamas officials, campaign organizers indicate that Return March was sponsored by Hamas, aimed at breaching border fence.https://t.co/2y3hrjaOyT pic.twitter.com/UFwmm1zWJ9— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 18, 2018
Israel Should Be ‘Commended’ for Saving Palestinian Lives on Gaza Border, Former UK Military Commander Tells UN Meeting
A former commander of British military forces in Afghanistan told the UN Human Rights Council on Friday that IDF troops should be commended for saving the lives of Palestinians during the violent rioting on the Israel-Gaza Strip border earlier this week.Col. Kemp to UN Gaza session: “Hamas seeks destruction of Israel and murder of Jews everywhere”
“If Israel had allowed these mobs to break through the fence, the IDF would then have been forced to defend their own civilians from slaughter and many more Palestinians would have been killed,” Col. Richard Kemp told a special meeting of the UNHRC in Geneva on the Gaza clashes.
“Israel’s actions therefore saved lives of Gazans, and if this council really cared about human rights, it should commend the IDF for that, not condemn them on the basis of lies,” Kemp continued.
Kemp — who also served with the British army in Iraq and the Balkans, and is an expert in counter-terrorism strategies — accused Hamas of having “sent thousands of civilians to the front line — as human shields for terrorists trying to break through the border.”
He added: “I ask every country in this council: You have all been telling us that Israel should have reacted differently. But how would you respond if a jihadist terror group sent thousands to flood your borders, and gunmen to massacre your communities?”
Israel, US Seek to Head Off UN Security Council Resolution Imposing International Force in Gaza
Israel and the United States are seeking to prevent the passage of a UN Security Council resolution creating an international force in Gaza.Israel says it won’t cooperate with UN human rights council probe of Gaza deaths
According to the Hebrew news site YNet, the resolution introduced by Kuwait in collaboration with the Palestinians seeks to protect civilian demonstrators in areas of armed conflict. It is in reaction to the ongoing riots on the Gaza border, in which Israel has used live fire against attempts to storm the border fence and commit acts of terrorism.
The US and Israel hope to prevent the resolution from gaining a majority in the 15-seat council. YNet notes that the current makeup of the council makes this unusually difficult. If the resolution passes, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has promised to use the American veto to block its implementation.
If this takes place, the Palestinians have pledged to take the resolution to the General Assembly, where they have an “automatic majority.” However, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding on member states.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon blasted the resolution, saying, “The cynicism and attempts to distort reality have reached a new low. Israel will continue to defend its sovereignty and the security of its citizens against Hamas’ murderous terrorism and violence. This shameful proposal supports Hamas war crimes against Israel and against the residents of Gaza, who are sent to die for the sake of preserving Hamas.”
Israel said Friday that it will not cooperate with an investigation ordered by the UN Human Rights Council into the IDF’s killing of Palestinians in violence on the Gaza border this week.Israel rebukes Spanish, Slovenian envoys for backing UN Gaza probe
The US, one of two countries to vote against the investigation, called the move “another shameful day for human rights.”
The UN’s top human rights body voted through a resolution calling on the council to “urgently dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry” after the deaths of some 60 Palestinians — the council’s highest-level of investigation. Almost all of the dead were members of Hamas, the terror group has acknowledged.
“We have no intention of cooperating,” Israel’s deputy foreign minister said.
The council voted 29 in favor and two against with 14 countries abstaining. Australia and the US were the two countries to oppose the decision. The council also condemned “the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Israeli occupying forces against Palestinian civilians.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned the Spanish and Slovenian ambassadors to Israel for a dressing down over their respective countries’ support for a UN probe into the IDF over the deaths of Palestinians on the Gaza border last week.Palestinian Authority foreign minister to press ICC on war crimes probe
Both countries were among the 29 to overwhelmingly support the Human Rights Council-led investigation into the border violence, in which over 60 Palestinians were killed and which Israel has blamed on Hamas.
The Belgian envoy to Israel will be reprimanded on Tuesday, the ministry said.
The UN’s top human rights body backed a resolution on Friday calling on the council to “urgently dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry” — the council’s highest-level of investigation. Almost all of the dead were members of Hamas, the terror group has acknowledged.
Palestinian Authority foreign minister Riyad al-Malki was to arrive in The Netherlands later Monday ahead of talks on pressing charges against Israel with the chief prosecutor of the world’s only permanent war crimes court.Al Jazeera interview re ICC investigation into Gaza
Malki will meet with prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Tuesday morning a week after dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire during clashes on the border with the Gaza Strip. Since March 30, tens of thousands of Palestinians have taken part in weekly protests, which Israel says are orchestrated by the ruling Hamas terror group in Gaza and used as cover for attempted attacks and breaches of the border fence.
On Wednesday, a Hamas official said 50 of the 64 killed on Monday and Tuesday were members of the group and the Islamic Jihad terror group claimed another three as its members.
Malki will update Bensouda on the situation in the Palestinian territories and also “submit a referral” on the issue of Jewish settlements during their talks at the International Criminal Court, the Palestinian embassy in The Hague said in a statement.
Afterwards, Malki will hold a press conference outside the court. He will also meet later Tuesday with Dutch counterpart Stef Blok.
Bensouda vowed last week that she was watching the unrest in Gaza closely and would “take any action warranted” to prosecute crimes.
Police chief says pro-Gaza Haifa protest was not legitimate because of rioting
Police commissioner Roni Alsheich on Monday said that a Gaza solidarity protest in Haifa over the weekend that disintegrated into clashes between demonstrators and police was not legitimate because violence shown by protesters turned the “sidewalk into a battleground.”NYC public school observes 'moment of silence' for Gaza rioters
Twenty-one people were arrested when the demonstration was dispersed Friday, and activist Jafar Farah sustained a broken knee in the aftermath of his arrest and was hospitalized. On Monday a Haifa Magistrate’s Court judge ordered all of those still held by police to be released.
“There was the most violent rioting, chairs were flying, the sidewalk became a battlefield, [with] stones thrown at police officers,” Alsheich said at a police ceremony in Beit Shemesh. “That is not a legitimate protest, even in a democratic and tolerant state.”
Commenting on Farah, who claims a police officer broke his knee while he was in police custody, Alsheich suggested that perhaps the injury was sustained during the street clashes.
A Manhattan public school sparked controversy last week, after it requested that students observe a moment of silence in honor of Gaza rioters killed last Monday while confronting Israeli security forces in a bid to breach Israel border fence.Over 10,000 Moroccans protest Gaza deaths, US embassy move
Some 60 rioters were killed last Monday, as 35,000 Gazans clashed with IDF forces stationed on the Israel-Gaza border to prevent a breakthrough into Israeli territory.
While Hamas identified 50 of those killed as members of the terror group, an elite New York City public high school in the Hell’s Kitchen area of Manhattan declared a moment of silence Tuesday in honor of the Gaza rioters.
According to a report by The New York Post, the Beacon School observed a moment of silence Tuesday to honor the rioters killed on the Gaza-Israel frontier the day before.
The move sparked outrage among some students and parents.
“I am extremely upset because I did not send my child to a New York City public school to pray for Hamas operatives,” one Jewish parent told the Post.
A mass protest was held on Sunday in Morocco against the relocation of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and against the Jewish state’s policy in Gaza, with more than 10,000 people attending.IsraellyCool: WATCH: Responding to Linda Sarsour’s Latest Propaganda Video About Gaza
Demonstrators chanted “Death to Israel” during the rally in Casablanca, which was organized by four parties, including the powerful Islamist organization al-Adl Wal Ihsan, Reuters reported.
Many protesters carried Palestinian flags and some had signs saying “Al Quds [Jerusalem] Palestine’s eternal capital.”
Others made a display depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shooting a Palestinian protester holding a slingshot, with an IDF soldier and Netanyahu himself being “killed” afterward by the demonstrators.
Now This has come out with a propaganda video of Israel hating faux feminist Linda Sarsour doing what she does best: lie.
You didn’t think I was going to let her lies stand, did you?
USA: Protesters hold Nakba rally in New York City
Gaza Gunfire Sends David Brooks Into New Embrace of New York Times’ Israel-Bashers
It’s one thing for Prime Minister Netanyahu to take a beating from the news columns of the New York Times, or from a staff editorial, or even from the usual Bibi-bashers of the op-ed lineup, such as Roger Cohen, Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof, or the late and in some ways great Anthony Lewis.
But it’s another thing for David Brooks to join the Bibi-bashing. Until the arrival of Bret Stephens, Brooks was the closest thing around these days to a house Zionist at the New York Times op-ed page, someone in the tradition of the late, great William Safire or A.M. Rosenthal. Brooks had a son in the Israeli military. He regularly quotes Jewish scholars like Erica Brown and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik.
So it comes as something of a betrayal for Brooks, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, to come out with a column turning against Israel.
Instead of investing in peace, the terrorist group Hamas is encouraging young Palestinians in Gaza to infiltrate Israel with the aim of destroying it. It's insanity. Watch me explain the situation on MSNBC. pic.twitter.com/WgVzkJyAcK— David Keyes (@DavidKeyesPMO) May 20, 2018
Associated Press Labels Hamas Border Assault as ‘Mass Killing of Palestinians by Israel’
In yet another example of biased news media coverage of events here, a widely circulated Associated Press article referred to Hamas’s orchestrated, violent assault on Israel’s borders as “this week’s mass killing of Palestinians by Israel in Gaza.”Laurel and Yanny Mideast Style (satire)
The article further smeared the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) by claiming that Israel used “disproportionate live fire against unarmed protesters, killing dozens.”
The distorted piece was written by London-based Tamer Fakahany, who serves as AP’s “global news manager.” It was titled, “Mideast conflicts connected by vying powerbrokers.”
The article seeks to outline the different powers vying for regional control and their connections to recent events.
The paragraph that mentions the Hamas assault states:
The ongoing wars in Syria, Yemen, this week’s mass killing of Palestinians by Israel in Gaza, Turkish-Kurdish hostilities, and the potential for an all-encompassing war sparked by an Iranian-Israeli conflagration in Syria or Lebanon, all have tentacles that reach across borders and back again.
A number of similar phrases have been identified in the Middle East, including “We will take down the border and we will tear their hearts from their bodies” , which many hear as “we will display banners and sing Kumbaya”, “not peaceful resistance“ heard as “peaceful resistance” and “Fifty Hamas members” heard as “Innocent Civilians”.Hamas Officially Changes Name to ‘Unarmed Protestors’ (satire)
While “Yanny” appears to be heard most by younger people and people with hearing deficiencies, the alternate versions of the Mideast examples are most heard by the UN and media outlets.
The scientific explanation however is the same – pathological inability to hear certain information, and intentional distortion of actual information.
Similarly, optical illusions have become more common, such as the the image of thousands of burning tires seen as camp-fire sing along, swastika flags seen as peace symbols, and airborne incendiary devices seen as children simply flying kites.
The name change comes after Hamas admitted that most Palestinians killed last week on the Gaza border were members of the militant group, contradicting claims in publications like the Washington Post as well as from politicians including Bernie Sanders. Media and other organizations that had criticized Israel for killing dozens of unarmed protestors complained that Hamas had made them look foolish.Pompeo Slams Iran Nuclear Deal, Describes Path Forward
“We felt terrible that we had let down our supporters at the Guardian and other publications,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh explained. “Then we thought, ‘What if there was a way that we could make what they had said technically true, and save them from having to issue a correction.”
Islamic Jihad, another Gaza militant group, agreed to go along with the plan, calling itself ‘innocent civilian.’
“We are lucky to know that when we disregard reality and report solely based on our preconceived views, groups like Hamas have our backs,” Al Anstey, the editor-in-chief of Al Jazeera English, told The Mideast Beast. “The Jews would never do that for us.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the Iran nuclear deal on Monday, describing a new course of action for the United States.
Pompeo spoke at the Heritage Foundation about Iran's nuclear program following President Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear deal the Obama administration negotiated with China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, Germany, the European Union, and Iran.
Pompeo said the U.S. would be imposing new sanctions on Iran and they would be the toughest yet, noting Iran's Revolutionary Guard became wealthy when the deal was put in place and sanctions were eased.
"We'll continue to work with allies to counter the regime's destabilizing activities in the region, block their financing of terror, and address Iran's proliferation of missiles and other advanced weapons systems that threaten peace and stability," Pompeo said. "We'll also ensure Iran has no path to a nuclear weapon–not now, not ever."
Pompeo said the new strategy will be multi-pronged but increased sanctions will play the lead role.
Netanyahu hails tough new US strategy on Iran as ‘the right policy’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday applauded the United States for its pledge to impose “the strongest sanctions in history” on Iran, unless the regime changes its ways, while calling on other countries to follow Washington’s lead.J-Street condemns Pompeo speech
“No enrichment, tough sanctions and Iran should get out of Syria — we believe that it’s only policy that can ultimately guarantee peace. We call on all countries to follow America’s lead here,” Netanyahu said at a Foreign Ministry reception in honor of Paraguay’s embassy move to Jerusalem.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier on Monday laid out a laundry list of American demands for a new Iran nuclear deal, in his first major speech outlining Washington’s strategy for curtailing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions and its “malign” regional behavior.
Pompeo said a stronger pact should require that Iran stop enrichment of uranium, which was allowed within strict limitations under the previous deal. Iran would also have to walk away from core pillars of its foreign policy, including its involvement in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
“This list may seem long to some, but it is simply a reflection of the massive scope of Iranian malign behavior,” Pompeo said. “America did not create this need for changed behavior. Iran did.”
J-Street, the left-wing advocacy group which bills itself as "pro-Israel and pro-peace," condemned the speech by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in which he laid out the Trump Administration's Iran policy.Israel's spy chief: It is a great pleasure to steal from the Persians
“Let’s be clear: Today, it’s the US alone that is in violation of the historic JCPOA arms control agreement.. Under the guidance of his new war cabinet, the president has demanded Iran’s complete and unconditional capitulation on a maximalist list of demands – an approach that is a recipe for confrontation and war," said Dylan Williams, J-Street's vice president of government affairs.
“The only way now to ensure that a profoundly unfit president and his regime change-obsessed advisers cannot bring about another costly and bloody war of choice is for Congress to exercise its constitutional duty to act as a check on the president,” Williams added. “Congress must make clear that the president does not now have its authorization for the use of military force against Iran.”
AIPAC, the mainstream pro-Israel lobby, welcomed Pompeo's speech,
“We welcome @SecPompeo’s important speech on Iran today, in which he outlined a comprehensive US policy to prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon and to confront its regional aggression," AIPAC wrote on Twitter.
Mossad Director Yossi Cohen made an unusual comment on Saturday, all but conceding that his agency was responsible for the recent daring raid on Iran's nuclear archive.Netanyahu eulogizes Bernard Lewis as ‘great scholar, robust defender of Israel’
Speaking at an event marking the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, Cohen said, "It is a great pleasure to steal from Persians," Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported.
Cohen was referring to the televised revelation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 30 that Israeli intelligence had obtained a large trove of documents – amounting to 55,000 printed pages and 183 compact disks of data – detailing Iran's nuclearization efforts over the years.
In his presentation, Netanyahu made the case that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was based on Iranian lies because the documents showed Iran had never actually abandoned its efforts to seek a nuclear bomb and had kept its archive to maintain its expertise and capabilities.
According to The New York Times, the operation was carried out by the Mossad in January, about two years after the agency discovered that the archive was stored in a small, nondescript warehouse outside Tehran.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday eulogized Bernard Lewis as one of the greatest Middle East historians of the era, following the longtime Princeton professor’s death at 101.Bernard Lewis RIP – “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people”
“Bernard Lewis was one of the great scholars of Islam and the Middle East in our time. We will be forever grateful for his robust defense of Israel,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
“I will always feel privileged to have witnessed firsthand his extraordinary erudition and I gleaned invaluable insights from our many meetings over the years. I was also deeply moved by his wide ranging conversations with my late father, Professor Ben Zion Netanyahu,” he added.
“Professor Lewis’s wisdom will continue to guide us for years to come.”
Historian Bernard Lewis died yesterday at age 101.The Human Parade: Bernard Lewis
The accolades are rolling in.
Jay Nordlinger tweeted:
Bernard Lewis was the dean of Middle East scholars — and one of the greatest scholars of our age. One of the most useful too, frankly. Like countless others, I learned a great deal from him. You might like to spend an hour in his company, via this video.
This 2006 profile at The Weekly Standard also provides good background, The Last Orientalist:
IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT the United States isn’t easy on its scholars and public intellectuals–that they are not accorded the prestige and respect that they are given in the Old World. This complaint, usually made by left-wingers struggling against the tide in the United States, isn’t totally without merit. A good literary scholar or classicist in the United States perhaps doesn’t quite have the same social cachet as would a similarly accomplished scholar at Oxford or the Sorbonne. But when scholars do make it in the United States–and there certainly seem to be vastly more European scholars hoping to make it in America than Americans trying to snag a sinecure in Europe–there is simply no comparison in the eminence, influence, and renown that they can achieve. Since arriving in the United States in 1974, the British historian of the Middle East Bernard Lewis has become one of America’s–and thus the world’s–most famous academics.
For those of us seriously interested in the Middle East–and since 9/11 that has become a rather large crowd–Lewis, who will celebrate his 90th birthday on May 31, has attained a stature in the field and with the general reading public unrivaled by any historian, living or dead, of the Middle East and Islam. His range of writings–from the pre-Islamic period, through Islam’s classical and medieval ages and its premodern “gunpowder” empires, to today’s Muslim nation-states–is simply unparalleled by any other scholar, even from the golden age of Islamic studies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the field’s terrifyingly erudite, multilingual European founding fathers–the much despised “orientalists”–bestrode the earth. Lewis is the last and greatest of the orientalists–an awkward, geographically imprecise name for those who gave birth to the disciplined study of Islamic civilization. To borrow from Shiite Muslim legal scholarship, Bernard Lewis is the marja-e taqlid, “the source of emulation,” the scholar to whom on the great questions one must make reference. He has joined that elite group of academics–the economists Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith come to mind–who have decisively shaped public discourse, if not always government policy, on their subjects.
JCPA: The Sunni-Shiite Split and the Iranian Threat - Prof. Bernard Lewis interviewed by Dan Diker
‘Trump peace deal to make Jerusalem suburb Palestinian capital’
The Abu Dis neighborhood bordering east Jerusalem will be the capital of a Palestinian state in US President Donald Trump’s planned peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid said Monday.Gaza Riots Won’t Prevent Messi’s Argentinian Soccer Team From Playing in Israel
“Over the weekend, different sources began saying that in the American paper that will be presented next month, Abu Dis will be mentioned as the capital of Palestine,” Lapid said at a Yesh Atid faction meeting.
Lapid argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must know about this plan and agreed to it.
“This brings up two questions,” Lapid said. “One, is the two-state solution back on the table with the prime minister’s agreement? Two, is Abu Dis acceptable to Netanyahu as the future Palestinian capital?
“I know that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t give interviews, but there’s a limit to his vagueness. If it’s true, the Israeli public needs to know,” Lapid said.
Word has been circulating Washington since January that Trump’s Mideast peace team— led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special representative for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt — was eyeing Abu Dis for a future Palestinian capital. At the time, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas referenced the rumor as yet another reason why he had dismissed the US administration as biased and aloof.
The possible nixing of a friendly soccer match between the Israeli national team, led by Tel Ben Haim, and the Argentinian national team, headed by Lionel Messi, has been averted, according to a report in Hebrew media on Wednesday.Netanyahu at Paraguay embassy opening: Israel has no better friend than Paraguay
Organizers of the last practice before the World Cup were considering cancelling the trip due to security concerns fueled by Palestinian violence in Gaza, according to the Ynet news website, but the June 9 game will go on as scheduled. A final decision about whether it will be played in Jerusalem or will be moved to Haifa is expected on Friday.
Argentinean President Mauricio Macri is scheduled to arrive in Israel to attend.
Following the match, the Argentinian team will fly directly to Russia to participate in the World Cup.
The announcement is seen as a blow to the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which tried to pressure Messi’s team to cancel the match.
Israel remembers its friends, and has no better friend than Paraguay, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday at the opening of Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem.PA slams Paraguay embassy move as 'act of aggression'
Netanyahu, attending his third embassy opening ceremony in the capital in a week, pledged that now is the time for Israeli-Paraguayan cooperation to “flow like water.”
Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes, who arrived in Israel Sunday evening, opened the embassy along with Netanyahu in the Malha Technological Park, the same building in which Guatemala opened its embassy in the capital last week. The US transferred its embassy to its consular section building in Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood last Monday.
Netanyahu, who called Cartes “a great friend of Israel and a great personal friend of mine,” said that Cartes – who will be leaving office in August – has “done much” for Paraguay, and is now “doing something for both our countries.”
“This is a great day for Israel, a great day for Paraguay, and a great day for our friendship,” he said.
The prime minister recalled that Paraguay helped Jews escape Nazi Germany both before and during the Holocaust, and also took in refugees after the war.
The Palestinian Authority castigated Paraguay Monday, shortly after the South American country unveiled its new embassy in Jerusalem.
In a statement released by via the PA mouthpiece WAFA on Monday, the PA’s foreign affairs department called the embassy move an “illegal, illegitimate… act of aggression”.
“Paraguay’s moving of its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is illegal, illegitimate, an act of aggression against the Palestinian people and their rights, a violation of relevant United Nations resolutions and international law and submission to American and Israeli dictates and bribes.”
The PA last week blasted the Trump administration and government of Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales for the relocation of the US and Guatemalan embassies to Jerusalem.
Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes vowed to follow suit, promising to move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem before his term ends in August.
U.K.-Based Palestinian Academic and Muslim Brotherhood Activist Azzam Al-Tamimi: Embassy Move to Jerusalem No Big Deal, Since Tel Aviv Is Also Part of Palestine pic.twitter.com/TLO256etkK— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 21, 2018
Israeli army cadet sparks controversy at Auschwitz
A cadet from an Israeli officers’ academy sparked an international row last week, when he displayed a sign criticizing Poland’s behavior during the Holocaust.What Happened to Yad Vashem’s Picture of Haj Amin Al-Husseini and Hitler?
According to a report Sunday evening by Army Radio, the cadet had traveled to Poland last week as part of the “Witnesses in Uniform” program to visit Holocaust-related sites, including the Auschwitz concentration camp.
During the visit to Auschwitz, the cadet carried a sign in Polish reading “You were also responsible”, referencing the recently-passed law in Poland which bans the phrase “Polish death camps”, as well as claims Poland bore partial responsibility for the Holocaust.
Polish guards at Auschwitz filmed the cadet carrying the sign, and demanded he stop.
The cadet was not arrested during his stay in Poland.
According to an IDF spokesperson, army officials will investigate the incident and respond appropriately. The spokesperson said the incident occurred last Thursday, while the delegation was taking a group photograph.
On November 28, 1941, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, met with Adolph Hitler. At that meeting, the Mufti thanked Hitler for supporting the “elimination of the Jewish national home,” and let Hitler know that “the Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists.”Abbas’s condition improves a day after being hospitalized, officials say
A rumor began spreading last night, started by an article in Maariv, that the famous picture of that meeting has been hanging in the halls of Yad Vashem — and that Yad Vashem had quietly taken the photo down. It caused a wildfire of anger among Israelis, and quite a bit of excitement and concern within the halls of Yad Vashem.
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The JewishPress.com sent out an inquiry to Yad Vashem, as well as inquiries through informal channels at Yad Vashem, and have determined that the rumor is false.
The unofficial channels told us that the famous photo of Amin Al-Husseini and Hitler was never hung up at Yad Vashem in the first place, so Yad Vashem could not have quietly taken it down.
So to answer the question, what Happened to Yad Vashem’s Picture of Haj Amin Al-Husseini and Hitler?
The answer is apparently, absolutely nothing.
JewishPress.com was told that other pictures of Amin Al-Husseini are still there.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s condition improved on Monday, two Palestinian officials said, a day after the 83-year-old leader was hospitalized for the third time in a week.Seething at Gaza leadership, Palestinian youth sets himself ablaze
Abbas underwent surgery on his left ear last Tuesday at the Istishari Hospital in Ramallah, according to the official PA news site Wafa.
He returned to the same hospital on Saturday night to follow up on the results of the surgical operation and again on Sunday for what doctors only described as “checks,” Wafa reported.
The Palestinian officials said that Abbas was suffering pneumonia and a high fever.
“The president had a high fever, but after doctors gave him antibiotics intravenously, it went down and his condition stabilized,” one of the Palestinian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Jerusalem Post. “I hope that he will be released from the hospital in the next day or two.”
Other Palestinian officials did not say Abbas was suffering from pneumonia, but rather an ear infection.
A 20-year-old Palestinian father of two from Gaza set himself on fire Saturday night in the city's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, all while cursing the strip's Hamas rulers who he apparently blamed for his family's poverty and the dismal economic situation in Gaza.Catastrophic destruction as Syrian regime pounds Palestinian refugee camp
The young man, Fathi Harb, survived the self-immolation, and is currently in moderate condition.
Eye witnesses saw the man dousing himself in flammable liquid shouting "damn the government" before lighting himself up. Video footage of the incident shows the young man burning alive and screaming in agony with passersby rushing to put out the flames.
Fathi's family and associates emphasized that he does not suffer from mental illness, but noting he was distraught over his brother's injury in one of the "March of Return" demonstrations at the border with Israel, which are organized and promoted by Hamas.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of cynically using its civilians' suffering to mount international pressure on it, choosing "death over peace" and refusing to cede power to the Palestinian Authority necessary to keep its reconciliation agreement with it alive. (h/t jzaik)
Amid scenes labeled “apocalyptic” and a “crime against humanity,” the Syrian regime continued its offensive on Sunday to retake the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, a neighborhood in south Damascus.11 said killed, dozens hurt in blasts at Syria’s Hama air base, cause unclear
Most of the area is held by Islamic State and tens of thousands of Palestinian residents fled years ago, but thousands remain under a brutal siege.
The scenes from Yarmouk on Sunday looked like Stalingrad in 1942 or Berlin in 1945, during the Second World War: bombed-out buildings as far as the eye can see; roads turned to rubble; alleyways turned into canyons of destruction, gutted, gray and slumping from air strikes. There doesn’t appear to be anything left of many city blocks that were once a thriving community, the home of more than 200,000 people in 2011 when the Syrian civil war broke out. Now only a few thousand remain. Those who do are reported to be starving under the regime’s siege.
Since the middle of May, the regime has focused its firepower on the stronghold. It signed agreements with the local rebels so it could focus on destroying ISIS in southern Damascus, in an area held for years by the extremists. With support from Russia, according to numerous online accounts, the regime has sent tanks and planes to root out what remains.
Massive explosions rocked the Hama military air base in western Syrian early on Friday afternoon, killing at least 11 pro-Assad regime fighters, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Turkey bans Wikipedia for noting it supported ISIS in Syria
Syrian state media confirmed that blasts were heard coming from the base, but made no comment on casualties or the cause of the explosions.
There were conflicting reports as to what set off the blasts, which sent a huge plume of grey smoke into the air above the base.
“The explosions struck several regime depots of weapons and fuel at Hama military airport,” the Observatory said.
Syrians in Hama reported hearing at least five successive blasts, likely indicating that fuel depots and weapons caches had been hit by the blast, setting off a daisy-chain of explosions.
At least 11 members of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s coaltion were killed and dozens more were wounded in the mysterious blasts, according to the monitor.
Turkish Transportation Minister Ahmet Arslan said a ban on online encyclopedia Wikipedia will remain in place in Turkey as long as it does not remove content showing Turkish support for ISIS, reports the Turkish Minute. Turkey blocked access to Wikipedia in April 2017.MEMRI: Turkish Newspaper Prints Antisemitic Cartoons Depicting Jews As Vampires, Vultures, And Butchers
“As long as it [Wikipedia] shows Turkey, which has rendered more than 3,000 terrorists ineffective, as a supporter of DAESH (ISIS), it will not be allowed to operate in Turkey,” said the minister in a statement on Friday.
The Ankara 1st Criminal Court of Peace ordered a ban on the website after Wikipedia reportedly refused to remove two English-language pages that claimed Ankara supported jihadists in Syria, said TM.
Wikipedia, while noting that "Turkey faced one of the highest number of ISIL (ISIS) attacks among European countries," and that "Turkey claims to have been the first country which designated ISIL as a terrorist organization," it does note that "Turkey has faced numerous allegations of collaboration with and support for ISIL in international media."
The online encyclopedia says that "Turkish opposition commentators and politicians in September 2014 again accused their government of implicitly supporting and funding ISIL, pointing to Turkey's decision to not allow the United States Air Force to use the highly strategic İncirlik Air Base for their military intervention against ISIL."
İbrahim Özdabak is a Turkish cartoonist whose personal website includes cartoons dating back to 2005 covering many subjects relevant to Turkish society and politics.[1] Many of his cartoons have antisemitic themes, depicting Jews as blood-soaked butchers, vultures circling over Palestinian land, and vampires drinking Palestinian blood. These cartoons present the same images of Jews as those circulated in the antisemitic tabloid Der Stürmer and other Nazi-era publications. His cartoons are printed in the Turkish daily newspaper Yeni Asya ("New Asia"), which sold 11,245 copies during the week of April 9, 2018, making it the 29th most popular print newspaper in Turkey.[2] The Yeni Asya newspaper is connected to a subsect of the Nurcu movement by the same name. The Nurcu movement comprises the followers of the Kurdish Sunni Muslim theologian Said Nursi, whose writings many of Özdabak's comics praise.Ken Livingstone resigns from Labour
This report presents some of Özdabak's antisemitic cartoons on Jews and Israel published over the last two years.
Corbyn statement:Appalling claims of Israeli “false flag operations” at JVL, PSC, NUT and Stop the War Coalition event at Student Central
“Ken Livingstone’s resignation is sad after such a long and vital contribution to London and progressive politics, but was the right thing to do.”
Sad? Did he want him to stay?
UPDATE: Tory vice chairman James Cleverly:
“I’m relieved that Ken Livingstone has resigned from the Labour Party but why had it taken so long and why didn’t Corbyn deal with this months ago?
“Livingstone’s repeatedly offensive comments should have been dealt with ages ago.
If Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party were serious about tackling anti-Semitic racism within the party they would have kicked out Livingstone two years ago.
All Jeremy Corbyn could muster was that it was sad that Ken had chosen to go.
“When will Corbyn take proper action and ensure labour members and activists who express racist views are given the boot. Enough is enough.”
In a shocking event hosted at Student Central in London, Alex Kenny of the National Union of Teachers joined a panel including Professor Jonathan Rosenhead of the so-called Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), author Ghadaq Karmi, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition. Activist Rob Ferguson also spoke. Members of our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit were on hand to capture all that was said.Al Awda orders. Jewish Voice for Peace Complies
The event included a wide array of outrageous and sometimes claims. It started with Ghada Karmi’s accusations that the Jewish community have created an “artificially whipped-up witch hunt” claiming that “there is only one way to deal with it: no appeasement.” She accused Jeremy Corbyn of “appeasement” in commissioning the whitewash Chakrabarti report, and merely for meeting Jewish community organisations at all, saying “he should never have met them, having met them, he should have thrown them out straightaway.” Dr Karmi finished by turning on those MPs who attended a rally condemning antisemitism in the Labour Party, demanding that Labour “get rid of those MPs.”
Dr Karmi’s speech was followed by Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, a leading figure in the so-called Jewish Voice for Labour. Previously Professor Rosenhead has been heard promoting the debunked theory that modern-day Jews are imposters from ‘Khazaria’ and defending Ken Livingstone. This time, Professor Rosenhead questioned the legitimacy of claims of Labour antisemitism, going as far as to blame Israel for the issues of antisemitism plaguing the Labour leadership and activists. He said: “If I was the Israeli government, I’d be running all sorts of false flag operations, getting people to post, and they have hordes of them in Israel doing this sort of stuff on the internet, saying things which will then discredit Jeremy Corbyn.” Attacking the MPs who have defended Ruth Smeeth in the disciplinary case of Mark Wadsworth “accused of antisemitism at the antisemitism launch of the Chakrabarti Committee because they wished to undermine the report by staging this.”
Al Awda orders. Eyad Kishawi of Al-Awda orderd the shut-down of Israeli peace activistAnti-Israel Activists Try to Shout Down Lebanese Christian at UCLA
Jewish Voice for Peace complies.
Jewish Voice for Peace members were among those arrested at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center for attempting to silence former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
From the J Weekly: Speaking May 16 to a near sellout crowd at the JCC of San Francisco, Barak said the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies are “embarrassing,” and that they have “locked the door on the two-state solution, which is the only viable and sustainable one.”
In town as part of a book tour in support of his newly published memoir “My Country, My Life,” Barak was scheduled to speak the next day at the Commonwealth Club. At the JCC, he said many things that would please progressive observers of Middle East politics, such as harshly criticizing Netanyahu’s support of Jewish settlements deep in the West Bank.
Not progressive enough for more than a dozen anti-Zionist protesters in attendance, part of a larger group protesting outside. They noisily interrupted Barak three separate times, chanting slogans, such as “Palestine will be free,” and calling Barak — a former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces — a war criminal.
Pro-Palestinian students at UCLA attacked a Lebanese Christian sharing the story of his grandparent's survival of the Armenian genocide for "white supremacy."Honest Reporting: The Rotten Onion: When Parody Crosses the Line
Police had to be called to a student event celebrating indigenous peoples Thursday evening, where members of Students for Justice in Palestine stormed the room and ripped down Armenian and Jewish flags.
Students Supporting Israel at UCLA hosted an event, "Indigenous Peoples Unite," bringing together three speakers from the Armenian, Jewish, and Kurdish communities to talk about "these peoples' efforts in battling controversy, oppression, and revisionism."
One of the panelists, Dario Ouliguian, a second-year UCLA linguistics major, shared his perspective about being a descendent of a survivor of the Armenian genocide. Ouliguian also heads the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies Student Advisory Board.
Activists from the anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine interrupted Ouliguian's story, with one student walking up to Ouliguian, ripping down the "mother f—king" Armenian flag, and throwing Ouliguian's notes away.
Other anti-Israel activists then surrounded the room, armed with blow horns and whistles, yelling, "Palestine will be free!" When a female student tried to diffuse the situation, the group only got louder.
"Israel is a terrorist state!" they yelled, and then took down the flag of Israel.
When Ouliguian tried to return to the microphone to talk about Armenia, the group started screaming, "F—k white supremacy!" (h/t jzaik)
The death of a baby is no laughing matter. Neither is portraying an Israeli soldier as a deliberate baby killer.UKMW prompts Times of London correction to claim 1st Hamas suicide bombing was retaliation for Cave of Patriarch massacre.
Given that plenty of Israel’s enemies are seeking to create just such a reality, The Onion’s item is no longer a parody but a blatant blood libel that plays to the baying hordes.
As The Times of Israel’s New Media Editor Sarah Tuttle-Singer says:
this kind of “satire” turns the Jewish people into pernicious, blood lusting monsters. It’s a tale as old as time, going back centuries.
And make no mistake: it is one of the nastiest, ugliest faces of antisemitism, and dangerous and evil.
There’s certainly a place for satirical news and freedom of expression, even when it may be offensive. In this case, however, The Onion’s “parody” is beyond the pale.
Our colleague Shlomi Ben Meir also clarified to columnist, in a subsequent tweet, that the first such Hamas suicide attack actually took place 10 months before the Hebron attack, on April 16, 1993 in Mehola Junction in the West Bank, killing the terrorist and a Palestinian bystander.Guardian falsely suggests that Hamas has “softened” its call for Israel’s destruction
The timeline is important because the way the original paragraph was worded would suggest that Hamas’s decision to launch a campaign of suicide bombing, which, as Aaronovitch framed it, led to the 2nd intifada and a derailing of the Oslo Peace Process, was arguably ignited by the fanatical Jewish settler.
Whilst the original language claimed that “the first Hamas suicide bombing…was supposedly in retaliation for this attack”, the new language qualifies the words to note that the the 1994 suicide bombing of a school bus he’s referring to was the first such attack “causing [Israeli] fatalities”. But, this admission completely undermines Aaronovitch’s argument, as the previous Hamas suicide attacks – again, before Baruch Goldstein’s attack – were of course also designed to cause Israeli fatalities, even if they were ‘unsuccessful’.
So, Hamas’s sadistic tactic of launching Palestinian suicide bombers to murder Israeli men, women and children, the timeline now shows, had nothing to do with Baruch Goldstein’s act of terror.
In May 2017, we posted about multiple British news sites – including the Guardian – which misled readers about a new Hamas political document, falsely characterizing it as a sign of the group’s new ‘moderation’. We noted that nothing could be further from the truth, as the document – despite a few sentences suggesting they’d accept a state on ’67 borders for the time being – still called for violence to liberate Palestine from the ‘River to the Sea’.Syrian who attacked kippa-wearing man in Berlin charged with assault
A new Guardian report by Oliver Holmes on recent border violence included the following paragraph in the penultimate paragraph:
In May last year, Hamas presented a new charter accepting the idea of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, not all of historical Palestine, a move that was seen as a softening from the militant faction’s founding charter that advocates Israel’s destruction.
However, the Guardian, as they so often do, is cherry picking a few sentences from the document to support the risible idea of the radical group’s new ‘softening’, whilst ignoring other passages clearly indicating they’re still committed to violence and Israel’s destruction.
CAMERA’s backgrounder explains the following about the new Hamas document.
- It does not replace the original charter;
- It does not accept the existence of Israel in any borders;
- It continues to embrace the goal of trying to destroy Israel; and
- It does not repudiate violence, including against civilians.
A Syrian man living in Berlin was charged with assault after he attacked an Arab Israeli man wearing a kippa.Jewish siblings in Australia assaulted in suspected anti-Semitic attack
The alleged attacker, a Syrian Palestinian living in Germany since 2015, was identified as Knaan Al S, due to German privacy laws, according to The Associated Press. He was charged on Friday with causing bodily harm and slander. He turned himself in two days after the April 17 attack.
During the attack, the assailant lashed the man with his belt and repeated the Arabic word for Jew, “Yahudi.” The victim, Adam Armouch, an Arab Israeli, filmed the attack on his cellphone. He was accompanied by a 24-year-old man also wearing a kippa who reported being accosted verbally by three men.
Armoush, 21, who is not Jewish, told the Deutsche Welle news agency that he had grown up in an Arab-Christian family in Haifa, Israel, and said he put on the kippa as an experiment to see “how bad it is to walk Berlin’s streets as a Jew today.”
A Jewish woman and her brother were assaulted Saturday in a Melbourne suburb in a suspected anti-Semitic attack.Brazilian synagogue damaged in arson attack
The 25-year-old woman and her 22-year-old brother were standing outside a home in Caulfield North when they were attacked by an unknown assailant.
The man was treated at the scene for a minor head injury while the woman was taken to the hospital after sustaining cuts to her shoulder and cheek from an unknown object. Her injuries were not life-threatening.
The attacker fled the scene.
The two were wearing religious clothing when they were attacked, the Herald Sun reported.
“If this assault, which is shocking on many levels, was in fact driven by anti-Semitism, it should be investigated as a hate crime,” Anti-Defamation Commission head Dvir Abramovich told the paper.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this ugly and violent attack on individuals who were visibly identifiable as Jews, and our thoughts are with the victims,” he added.
Vandals set fire to a synagogue in southern Brazil after painting threats to the Jewish community on its walls.IsraellyCool: WATCH: Man Who Mocked Hasidic Boy Volunteers at Kosher Soup Kitchen
Flammable material was poured under the main entrance door of the Israelite Society of Pelotas building on Thursday and set alight causing minor damage. The criminals also wrote pro-Palestinian messages on the wall as well as threats to the Jewish community, which should “wait” for an “international intifada.”
Local Jewish leaders said the attack was “an insult to democracy and freedom of speech and religion,” and called for the involvement of federal authorities.
The synagogue’s wooden door and furniture, glass windows and the electric installations were damaged.
We already saw how Quaishawn Stewart, the man who mocked a young Hasidic boy for his haircut in a video that went viral a couple of weeks ago, posted a heartfelt apology. And he’s now shown just how genuine his apology truly was, but backing it up with action.Israeli Minister Invites Arab States to Next Year’s Eurovision Contest in Jerusalem
What a mensch.
I’m with grandma on this.
Grandma said i make her proud ❤️ pic.twitter.com/9ukEp5tZUs— Quai James (@quaijames) May 19, 2018
Israel’s Communications Minister has invited several Arab states to take part in next year’s Eurovision song contest in Jerusalem.
Israeli singer Netta Barzilai won this year’s contest with the song “Toy.” Traditionally, the winner’s country hosts the next year’s event. Barzilai concluded her victory speech by saying, “Next year in Jerusalem.”
According to Israel’s Channel Two, Communications Minister Ayoub Kara told Israeli television, “We will invite Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States — Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and also Tunisia to participate in the Eurovision contest. Why not? If they just request it.”
The statement is an indication of the warming relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as the other Gulf states. However, Channel Two notes that these countries would likely not be eligible for the contest.
According to the contest’s rules, countries must be members of the EBU, which sponsors the event, which Saudi Arabia and the others are not. In addition, they are ineligible because countries that wish to join must broadcast the contest the year before they wish to participate.