Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Alan Dershowitz: The media's misplaced sympathy for the Hamas lynch mob
As evidence mounts that Hamas intended to murder Israeli children, women and men after breaching the border fence to Israel, Hamas apologists must ask themselves why they are on the wrong side of morality.
The recent border attack and attempted invasion of Israel by Hamas was anything but a peaceful protest. It was a lynch mob targeting Israeli day care centers, schools, and homes. The goal of the lynchers, according to Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas political leader, was to “take down the border” and “tear their hearts from their bodies.” According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, “Hamas posted maps for their operatives showing the quickest routes from the border to Israeli homes, schools and day care centers near the border.”
Yet many in the media, and many Hamas sympathizers on the left, insist on portraying this invasion as a peaceful demonstration, comparable to those conducted against the Ku Klux Klan by Martin Luther King and his fellow civil rights demonstrators.
I was part of those demonstrations back in the 1960s, and it is a gross insult to the memory of King and his followers to compare his peaceful tactics to the murderous goals of Hamas. One of Hamas’ co-founders, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, recently told the truth in an interview with Al Jazeera: “When we talk about ‘peaceful,’ we are deceiving the public.”
Many in the public seem all too eager to be deceived because Hamas has succeeded in portraying themselves as the civil rights demonstrators protesting against the Israeli Ku Klux Klan. But in reality, the roles are reversed. Hamas is the Ku Klux Klan, violently rioting to break down the protective barrier so they can lynch innocent Jewish children and other civilians, the way the Klan lynched innocent black citizens.
The Gaza hypocrites
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo organized by former (and perhaps future) presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the group demanded that the Trump administration address the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. They described the “return” march as a response to the blockade of the strip being conducted by Israel and Egypt. It specifically and repeatedly mentioned the actions of “Israeli snipers” and cited inflated casualty figures produced by Hamas. But at no point did it reference the terrorist group or acknowledge its responsibility for what happens in Gaza, in addition to noting the ongoing international sanctions on an area that even the Europeans know is a terrorist haven with which normal commerce is impossible.PMW: At championship dozens of terrorist murderers honored by Fatah, tournament named after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad
Just as outrageous, the 13 Democratic senators—a list that included Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Edward Markey (Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Thomas Carper (Del.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Tom Udall (N.M.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.)—also demanded that the United States restore funding to the United Nations Relief Works Agency, a body that has not only existed solely to perpetuate rather than solve the Palestinian refugee problem, but which has been infiltrated by and exploited by Hamas as part of its ongoing military campaign.
Why did so many Senate Democrats deliberately ignore Hamas’s role in an effort that, as its name indicated, had as its purpose an attempt to wipe out 70 years of history and destroy the Jewish state? Why did they seek to blame only Israel and call to end Gaza’s isolation? Opening the border to Gaza wouldn’t really help Palestinians, who can have no hope for a better life while they are still being ruled by terrorist theocrats who “govern” the strip like tyrants. The only possible outcome of their appeal would be an influx of Iranian weapons and material that would allow Hamas to strengthen its fortifications and its ability to carry on its fight against Israel.
The unfortunate answer is that within the Democratic Party, there is now a faction that not only fails to think clearly about terrorism and the reality of Hamas-run Gaza. This group also seeks to appeal to the intersectional left leading the “resistance” to U.S. President Donald Trump, and which falsely claims a connection between the Black Lives Matter movement and the Palestinian war on Israel.
Fortunately, not all Democrats agree, and this struggle will play out as America heads towards the 2020 presidential race, in which the party’s left wing will seek to assert its control of the party. If the Democrats are to remain a pro-Israel party, those who care about Israel’s survival must speak out against these senators and others on the left who serve as Hamas’s dupes.
As much as Democrats are currently focused on “resisting” Trump, giving Sanders and his friends a pass for a stand that undermines any hope for progress towards peace, as well as undermines U.S. security, will compromise the integrity of their party. Contrary to the assertions of Israel’s left-wing critics, the Sanders’ letter and the left-wing hypocrites who support it show that the coming battle will be not so much for the soul of the Jewish state as it is for that of the Democratic Party. Those who care about Israel can only hope that sane moderates will step up and ensure that Sanders, Warren and their allies don’t prevail.
Arch-terrorist Abu Jihad (Khalil Al-Wazir), who organized terror attacks in which 125 Israelis were murdered, has been made into one of the greatest heroes by the Palestinian Authority. One of the PA and Fatah's ways to promote Abu Jihad as a role model to Palestinians is by naming sports tournaments after him.
Thus Fatah's Bethlehem branch organized the
"Martyr Khalil Al-Wazir [Abu Jihad] and Loyalty to the Bethlehem District Prisoners [Futsal] Championship"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, May 1, 2018]
At this tournament, in addition to glorifying arch-terrorist Abu Jihad, Fatah also glorified other terrorists and murderers from the Bethlehem district who are serving numerous life sentences for murdering over 100 people. The terrorists' families were invited to a ceremony and given honorary posters with pictures of their imprisoned terrorist relatives.
The terrorist prisoners who were honored by Fatah at the Abu Jihad Championship in the Bethlehem district included:
[All photos are from the Facebook page of the independent Palestinian news agency Al-Hadath, May 1, 2018]
Ali Abu Hleil - Palestinian terrorist involved in two suicide bombings on buses in Jerusalem - one on Gaza Street on Jan. 29, 2004, in which 11 were murdered, and one on Emek Refaim Street on Feb. 22, 2004, in which 8 were murdered. Over 100 people were injured in the two bombings. Abu Hleil is serving 21 life sentences.
On Abu Hleil's poster is also written: "Heroic prisoner Ali Abu Hleil - life sentence"
Seth Frantzman: Five takeaways from Pompeo’s Iran speech
In a half-hour speech at The Heritage Foundation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to chart the way forward after the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. He pointed to Israel’s intelligence operation that showed Iran has been lying about a nuclear weapons program. Pompeo’s Iran speech is supposed to be part of a larger US strategy against Iran. Here are several takeaways:No guns blazing, Pompeo demands Iran’s unconditional surrender
The US made a “losing” bet on the JCPOA
In criticism directed at the former administration, he said the US had gambled that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the "Iran deal," would curtail Iran’s rogue activities. Instead, Pompeo showed how Iran’s tentacles have spread across the region, fueled by the deal. In Syria, 11 million Syrians have been displaced by war, at least in part due to Iran’s militias. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is emboldened. In Yemen, Iran is supporting the Houthi militias, he said. In Iraq, the Ayatollahs are also supporting Shi’ite militias. He also claimed Iran was supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Pompeo’s list of Iran’s nefarious activities was long. He mentioned US citizens held in Iran and accused Iran of being the world’s “largest sponsor of terror.” This was a speech aimed initially at showing how the JCPOA was a failure and justifying the US decision to withdraw.
“It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu famously warned in 2006.Elliott Abrams: The Palestinian National Movement Has Reached a Point of Crisis
In that vein, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s landmark speech Monday, in which he insisted Iran embark on a “fundamental strategic shift,” was reminiscent of the 1943 Casablanca Conference, where US president Franklin D. Roosevelt declared he demanded nothing less than “unconditional surrender” from the Axis powers.
Everyone knows how World War II ended: both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan surrendered unconditionally about two years later.
How the American standoff with Iran will end is still entirely open. Supporters of the US administration’s new hardline position argue that only the stick will get the ayatollah regime to change its evil ways. Others wonder whether there is a Plan B should Tehran reject Washington’s maximalist demands and new sanctions fail to have the desired impact.
In Israel, support for Pompeo’s requirements for Iran — including entirely abandoning its nuclear program, ending support for Hezbollah, ceasing the sponsorship of terror and threats of Israel’s destruction, withdrawing all troops from Syria — and his threat of “the strongest sanctions in history,” is a matter of consensus.
“We believe this is the right policy. We believe it’s the only policy that could ultimately guarantee the security of the Middle East and peace in our region,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday evening in Jerusalem, mere moments after Pompeo delivered his speech at the The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC.
With Hamas having failed to achieve anything through several weeks of demonstrations and violence, and Mahmoud Abbas reduced to giving rambling anti-Semitic speeches, Palestinian aspirations seem to have hit a brick wall. Elliott Abrams explains:Caroline Glick: Endgame for the U.S.-Turkey Relationship
[Neither] Fatah [nor] Hamas offers Palestinians a practical program for national independence. . . . [The current situation] leaves Palestinians high and dry, with no way forward at all. Whatever the criticism of the “occupation,” Israelis will certainly not abandon the West Bank to chaos or to a possible Hamas takeover. Today the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state is simply too dangerous to Israel and to Jordan to be contemplated. . . . There are only two other options. The first is the “one-state solution,” meaning union with Israel; but that is a nonstarter that Israel will reject no matter who is its prime minister. The other option is some kind of eventual link to Jordan.
In polite diplomatic society, and in Palestinian public discourse, such a link cannot be mentioned. But younger people who visit there, Palestinians have explained to me, can see a society that is half-Palestinian and functions as an independent nation with a working system of law and order. Jordanians travel freely, rarely suffer from terrorism, and [can vote in regular] elections, even if power is ultimately concentrated in the royal palace. The kingdom has close relations with all the Sunni states and the West, and is at peace with Israel.
The fundamental question all this raises is what, in 2018, is the nature and objective of Palestinian nationalism. Is the goal sovereignty at all costs, no matter how long it takes and even if it is increasingly divorced from peace, prosperity, and personal freedom? Is “steadfastness” [in refusing to compromise with Israel] the greatest Palestinian virtue now and forever? These questions cannot be debated in either Gaza or the West Bank. But as Israel celebrates 70 years and the “occupation” is now more than a half-century old, how much longer can they be delayed? . . .
On Monday, NATO ally Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Washington. The severe step is meant to punish the U.S. for opening an embassy in Jerusalem on Monday.Caroline Glick: 'Support for Trump continues to grow'
Also Monday, Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador to Turkey. It had already withdrawn its ambassador from Tel Aviv.
In a speech at Chatham House on Monday, Turkish President Reçep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel a “terror state,” and accused Israel of carrying out a “genocide.”
Indicating his view that the U.S. is also responsible for the so-called “genocide,” Erdogan said, “I condemn this humanitarian drama, this genocide, from whichever side it comes, Israel or America.”
Turning his attention to Washington, Erdogan accused the U.S. of violating international law by recognizing Israel’s capital and moving its embassy to Jerusalem. He insisted that following the embassy move, the U.S. can no longer mediate the Palestinian conflict with Israel.
As Erdogan was condemning Israel and the U.S. in London, protesters in Ankara were burning Israeli and American flags at a mass rally. One speaker at the rally referred to the American people as “dogs.” The rally was organized by Turkey’s Islamist IHH group. IHH, which is aligned with Hamas and al Qaeda, has close relations with the Erdogan regime.
Caroline Glick, editor and senior columnist at the Ma’ariv and the Jerusalem Post newspapers, explained on Thursday how the inauguration of the American embassy in Jerusalem created a new reality that has not yet been seen in Israeli-U.S. relations.Gaza and the Fallacy of Moral Equivalence
"There is a change here in the American policy which had been based on denial of facts and today is based on facts and this is a wall-to-wall change," Glick told Arutz Sheva. "For 70 years they acted as if our capital was not in Jerusalem for a variety of reasons, be it to appease the Arabs at the expense of the most basic rights of the State of Israel, or to use the Israeli currency while buying Arab support.”
"All this was not necessary because the Arabs need the Americans much more than the Americans need them. That was true in 1948, in 1967 and remains true to this day, but that's how they operated and it did not lead them anywhere good and it clearly did not help us in any way either,” she continued.
Now, said Glick, the facts speak for themselves. "Now that their policy says they accept reality as it is, that is that Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel, and this will be the basis of American policy, especially of this administration, it will also affect any future administration that will be unable to build a policy toward us and towards the Arabs which has no basis in reality."
Glick estimated that hostile governments will find it difficult to return the embassy to Tel Aviv, saying, "When the embassy was in Tel Aviv, there was no American recognition of our basic right as a sovereign state to determine our capital city to be wherever we want it to be.”
Rarely does the photo, four columns wide, of a dead baby appear on page one of The New York Times as it did on May 17. The sorrowful death of Layla Ghandour became, for the Times, “fodder for competing narratives.” But, in fact, a dead Palestinian baby is grist for a newspaper eager to blame Israel first.NGO Monitor: NGO Statements to the UNHRC Following the Gaza “March of Return” Riots
The accompanying article was written by Times Cairo bureau chief Declan Walsh. He told the poignant story of an eight-month-old Gaza girl with sparkling eyes that he actually never saw. Held “in the arms of her grandmother when a cloud of tear gas engulfed them” at Monday’s Gaza protest, when 50-plus Palestinians were killed as they attempted to breach the border with Israel, Layla supposedly inhaled “acrid gas.” Dying several hours later, her story “shot across the globe, providing an emotive focus for outrage” not directed at the politically zealous family members who brought her there but, predictably, at Israel.
Layla’s photo was taken by Gaza photographer Mahmud Hams, who described his specialty as “shots of children crushed in the rubble. Parents weeping beside lifeless little bodies. Death. Destruction. Funerals of men, women, children, sometimes very young children.” It is, by implication, always Israel’s fault. Walsh describes “the pressures of life” in Gaza under “an Israeli blockade” that contributed to Layla’s death.
But he inadvertently describes a family’s tragic, zealous dysfunction. Layla was dozing at home when the call sounded from a nearby mosque that a bus awaited passengers heading to the Gaza border fence. Her 12-year-old uncle, assuming that her mother was already on board, took Layla with him. Later that afternoon, when she began to cry, the boy carried her toward the border to find her grandmother, who was busy shouting at Israelis across the fence. Tear gas fell nearby, an hour later Layla died.
On May 18, 2018, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) held a “special session of the Human Rights Council on the deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” Many of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that participated in the session condemned Israel for allegedly committing “war crimes” and denied the legitimacy of Israel’s right to self-defense. These NGOs accused Israel of committing “crimes against humanity,” “apartheid,” “collective punishment,” acting with “impunity,” and pursuing “colonial” policies, while also calling for sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel. The NGOs similarly urged the international community to push for an independent commission of inquiry to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as part of the wider NGO campaign to exploit international legal frameworks as a weapon against Israel.Palestinian Authority takes Israel to task at ICC over alleged war crimes
The NGO statements show a consistent pattern of erasing the violent context of the events along the Gaza border, including Molotov cocktails, explosive devises, and arson, as well as attempts to breach the border fence with Israel. These statements similarly ignore the Palestinian use of human shields and the central role of terror organizations, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in orchestrating the violent protests. Furthermore, the NGOs ignore that the majority of deaths were of members of terror organizations.
These developments closely resemble previous UN inquiries into Israeli military responses to Gaza violence. NGO claims, submissions, and reports are central in the current UNHRC initiative, just as they were in Palestinian appeals to the ICC, the Goldstone Report on the 2009 Gaza war, as well as the UN’s Schabas-Davis commission that reported on the 2014 Gaza war. In these previous cases, Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations- often funded by European governments- shaped the results of the commission of inquiry.
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki met with International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda at The Hague on Tuesday and said that further delay to decide on the alleged war crimes issues would allow Israel impunity.
Maliki and the PA are accusing Israeli soldiers and officials of war crimes relating to the IDF's killing of over 100 Palestinians on the Gaza border during the crisis there over the last six weeks. The complaint also relates to the 10,000 new units in the West Bank and east Jerusalem that are part of the settlement enterprise and the 2014 Gaza War.
While Maliki was said to be giving new information to Bensouda regarding these issues, no major new specifics were shared with the media at a press conference beyond references to what has been publicly reported to date.
Israel's Foreign Ministry hit back at the PA, saying it views the push for an ICC war crimes probe "with great severity...and as a cynical process with no legal basis."
"The PA continues to exploit the ICC for problematic political purposes in place of acting to advance the diplomatic peace process," a ministry statement said.
Further, the foreign ministry said that, "it is preposterous that the Palestinians are doing this when they continue incitement to terror and to use women and children as human shields as camouflage for their violent attempts to harm the security of the citizens of Israel."
Palestinian Authority announces it is taking Israel to the International Criminal Court. By US law, this triggers closure of PLO office in DC & expulsion of @hzomlot. Admin is supposed to be weeks away from announcing peace plan. pic.twitter.com/H4KF4cvvvg
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) May 21, 2018
The Western Nakba: Hating Israel
After the clashes in Gaza that cost the lives of 62 Palestinians Arabs (a Hamas official, Salah Bardawil, said on television that 50 of the victims were members of the terrorist group), a series of diplomatic crises have taken place. While the African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa, compared Israel to Nazis, Turkey humiliated the expelled Israeli ambassador at the airport.Israelis Respond to Biased Coverage of Gaza Riots
However, another rift between Israel and European public opinion is being defined on Gaza.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung, the best-selling newspaper in Germany (one million copies), has published a cartoon with Benjamin Netanyahu dressed as Netta Barzilai and in military boots, a missile in his hand and the star of David instead of the “V” of Eurovision - and a cloud saying “next year in Jerusalem”. After the clamor, the newspaper published the apologies by the director Wolfgang Krach, according to whom the cartoon was a “mistake”.
Britain's The Guardian came out the day after the events in Gaza with a cartoon by Steve Bell. You see an Israeli tank who goes fishing, except that in the net instead there are dozens of Palestinian bodies.
The Volkskrant, one of the most important Dutch newspapers, has published the cartoon of an Israeli soldier wearing sunglasses and a star of David, shooting against unarmed masses of Palestinians on the border of Gaza to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the independence of the Jewish State. After putting a disarmed Palestinian to the wall, the Israeli shoots a burst to write “Happy Birthday to me”.
A couple of weeks before the Gaza riots began, the pro-Israel media watchdog CAMERA put up across from the New York Times building a massive billboard: "The New York Times At it AGAIN: Defaming Israel with distorted ‘news.'" Although its strategic location made it impossible to miss, Israelis nearly universally agree that the Old Gray Lady didn't get the message—and that the Times is but one of a slew of global media outlets copying from the same script, according to which IDF soldiers randomly kill peaceful protesters.Palestinians cross Gaza fence, set fire to empty IDF post
While the Israeli public is accustomed to anti-Israel bias in the international media, coverage of the Gaza riots appears to have a struck a nerve, perhaps because foreign coverage of "peaceful protests" is so at odds with what Israelis see on their local TV. On Israeli TV they see swastika-painted kite bombs setting alight Israeli fields, bullets lodged into the window sills of nearby Sderot homes, Hamas fence-cutting units crying "Khaybar, Khaybar"—a battle cry referring to the Muslim massacre of Jews in that Arabian town in 628 A.D. When these aspects of the story don't make it to Western media outlets, Israelis are understandably aggrieved.
Nizar Amer, a deputy spokesperson at Israel's foreign ministry, says that from the Israeli government's point of view, most of the coverage in the international media fails to provide the full picture. "You didn't see many media outlets saying that Hamas led and organized this campaign. There's a gap between what's happening on the ground and what the media is reporting." A pundit on Israel’s Channel 20, a news channel with a nationalistic bent, argued that the country should start ejecting journalists who print falsehoods about Israel. Amer says given the importance of freedom of the press, he doesn't see Israel doing that.
A group of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip breached the security fence on Tuesday morning and set fire to an empty IDF position on the other side, the army said.
In response, an Israeli tank fired on a nearby Hamas observation post, the military said.
The suspects got through the fence east of the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The target of their arson attack was a tent that had been used by Israeli snipers during recent riots along the border.
The army said it had been monitoring “the event since it began.”
The suspects fled back into the Gaza Strip after setting fire to the position.
No injuries were reported.
With few exceptions, Israel holds the Hamas terrorist group, which rules Gaza, responsible for all violence that emanates from the coastal enclave, regardless of who carries it out.
Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh: The Blood Shed by Gazans Has Led to an Intifada in Arab World, Europe, the West pic.twitter.com/aKho31sDjJ
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 22, 2018
Egyptian Professor Amr Allam: Israeli Violence Is in the Jewish Genes; TV Host: Jews Have Exploited the Holocaust pic.twitter.com/Ih4joyuF8N
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 22, 2018
Erdogan says Turkey may ban some Israeli products over Gaza events
President Tayyip Erdogan has hinted that Turkey might consider imposing a ban on imports of some Israeli goods over the killing of Palestinian protesters by Israeli forces on the Gaza border, media reported on Tuesday.In bid to buy influence, Turkey gives out money in east Jerusalem
Erdogan, who is campaigning for re-election in June, last week hosted Muslim leaders who condemned the events in Gaza and the opening of the United States embassy in Jerusalem.
Speaking to reporters on a return flight from Bosnia on Sunday, Erdogan said the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) had recommended that a boycott be imposed on Israeli goods.
"I hope that OIC member countries implement a boycott decision in line with the recommendation. Consequently, no product should be brought from there any more. Naturally we will assess this situation in the same way," Hurriyet newspaper reported Erdogan as saying.
A declaration by the OIC on Friday repeated a call for countries to ban "products of the illegal Israeli settlements from entering their markets," referring to goods produced in the West Bank and Golan Heights.
It did not seek a ban on all Israeli goods.
The declaration also called for "economic restrictions (on) countries, officials, parliaments, companies or individuals" who followed the United States and moved their embassies to Jerusalem.
The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency has handed out about $420,000 in $500 checks to east Jerusalem merchants and residents in recent days as a gift for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, Israel Hayom discovered Monday.Are Gaza Gunmen "Protesters"? NY Times Refuses to Say
The move exacerbates already tense relations between Israel and Turkey, which on Friday called for Israel to be tried at the International Criminal Court for its use of force to deter violent weekly demonstrations along the Gaza border.
TIKA is an agency within the Turkish government.
In addition to the money, TIKA, which takes pride in its involvement in Jerusalem, also handed out Turkish flags with the name of the organization printed on them. After taking the handout, some east Jerusalem store owners hung the flags at the entrances to their businesses.
This comes at a time when Turkey, under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is waging a campaign to defame Israel at every opportunity.
The agency's activities in Jerusalem are part of the "dawah," an Islamic concept that means "calling," specifically to Islam. Activities that fall under the dawah include preaching, proselytizing and other forms of "silent" jihad.
After repeatedly insisting that "Israeli soldiers killed 60 protesters" during clashes last Monday, May 14, the New York Times is refusing to clarify whether its count of supposed protesters includes the eight armed Hamas fighters who, according to the Israeli army, opened fire on on Israeli soldiers.Nick Ferrari sustains blood libel against Israel in clumsy attempt at 'even handedness'
A Times article first published on May 15 reports that 60 Gazans were killed during the classes, attributing that number to Palestinian officials. It goes on to say that, according to the Israeli army, "eight of the dead … were armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes who tried to storm the fence in northern Gaza and attacked Israeli forces with grenades and pipe bombs before being killed in a shootout" while another three were killed "while laying an explosive device." So far so good.
But if at least 11 of those killed were reportedly armed fighters engaged in hostilities, why do subsequent New York Times pieces claim that "60 protesters" were killed that day?
When CAMERA asked about this apparent misuse of language, the Times insisted that its reporting on the events is accurate. When asked to clarify whether that means its reporters concluded, contrary to Israel's assertion, that none of the 60 killed were in fact shooting at Israelis or planting explosives, or if not whether it means the newspaper feels comfortable describing armed militants among the 60 dead as "protesters," editors declined to comment.
Nick Ferrari is the commentator beloved by Britain's 'official Jews' because they claim he is a 'friend of Israel'. Anybody following this blog will know how nonsensical this claim is (see links below). Now, several days after the 'baby killed by Israel gas' blood libel was completely debunked he is still pushing the same narrative (and stretching it to to include the nonsense 'seven other children killed'). The fact that this is a clumsy attempt at 'even handedness' - suggesting that the parents should not have taken the children to such a demonstration - does not excuse the fact that he is still promoting the 'Israel kills babies in Gaza' narrative.World Council of Churches Gets It Wrong On Gaza
Of all the 'official Jews', including, for example, those who invited Ferrari to host the recent Israel 70th celebration event at the Savoy Hotel, is there not one able to inform him of the fact that at least 54 of those 62 claimed to have been killed at the border were members of terrorist organisations and that this includes two who were 16 and 17 (i.e. the 'children killed by Israel')? If Ferrari wanted to be even handed why did he not use his column to inform his readers that the terrorist organisations themselves are the ones who have stated that it was their members who were killed. This would have been extremely helpful given that the main stream media has been careful to keep these claims quiet as it contradicted the lies in their previous reporting.
Tveit’s statement, titled “WCC calls for a just peace and an end to impunity in the Holy Land,” is yet another example of the WCC’s corrupt witness when dealing with issues related to the Jewish state. Like many other Christian statements about the conflict, the text expresses more animus toward efforts to protect Jewish safety and welfare than it does toward efforts to place Jews in danger.EU to give 30 million euros to reconstruct Kerem Shalom crossing
The text, declares that the “protesters” who gathered at the barrier between the Gaza Strip and Israel were “exercising their civil rights to express their objection at the current situation for them as Palestinian people.” The text also declares that “unarmed civilians — including children — are shot at with live ammunition, even killed and many injured — cannot be defended legally or morally as an expression of “the right to self-defense of a state.”
The WCC got it wrong and egregiously so. How do we know this? Because leaders of Hamas, the terror group that organized the riots, said so. In the days after the WCC issued its statement, these leaders issued a number of statements that indicated that the “protests” were not intended to be peaceful. In fact, one Hamas expressed the hope that Palestinians would be killed in the confrontations.
The EU announced Friday it will provide 30 million euros to reconstruct the Kerem Shalom crossing—the main passage of diesel and other fuels into the strip—following it being set ablaze by Palestinians last week.Gazans Officially Run Out of Things to Set Fire To (satire)
Following weeks of protests and riots along the Gaza border with Israel as part of their “March of Return”, one Hamas spokesman has announced that Gaza has officially run out of things to set fire to, and has declared a state of emergency.PreOccupiedTerritory: As A Gaza Protester, I Don’t Know How Actual Injured People Use These Crutches By Hussein Jabari (satire)
“It’s official”, the spokesman said in a statement, “we’ve literally run out of things to burn. We’ve got nothing, zilch, nada. Frankly, this is a disaster as it will leave tens of thousands of Gazans even more unemployed than they were before, as the closest we ever got to providing mass employment out here was encouraging people to set fire to things. Like Fahrenheit 451, but with more rock throwing.”
It is understood that Hamas is looking for flammable alternatives but is facing problems doing so. “We’ve used up all the tires we could find, and our kids are still crying about the fact that we took all their kites away to set them on fire and fly them into Israel”, one Hamas source has revealed. “Then we went for the fuel pipelines which come into Gaza from Israel. In fact, we set fire to those three times, but those bastard Israelis keep repairing them, so that’s no fun. One operative suggested we resort to hurling flaming kittens over the fence but even though we’re a genocidal organization which deliberately puts children in danger in periods of conflict, we’re not that heartless. Those critters are just so goddamn cute. Plus you get lot more bang for your buck with donkeys.”
I’ve been lugging these crutches around for days, participating in staged incidents that purport to showcase Israeli brutality against innocent Palestinians – I play the role of a wounded youth; thus the accessories – and I have to tell you: I have no idea how people who genuinely need crutches handle the damn things.David Singer: Israel Condemns PLO Lies as Trump Contemplates PLO Demise
At first I thought it would be a cinch: you just rest the top part in your armpit and maneuver the crutches with your hands. But it turns out that’s not such an easy thing to accomplish when you’re negotiating unpaved ground as I have. I keep losing my concentration and using my “bad” foot by mistake, and that ruins the entire effect we want to generate for the cameras.
On top of that, some nitpicker decided that fake injury or not, it’s a bad idea to put any weight on the armpit, because of pressure on nerves or something, and has been bugging me to adjust the crutches to a shorter setting, and that means learning how to use them all over again. I’d rather concentrate on hobbling in a convincing manner away from the tear gas, burning tires, and general mayhem to participate in creating a picture of Israeli-inflicted misery that can be neatly packaged as atrocities by the BBC, CNN, the Guardian, and the New York Times.
For Israel – it was just the latest shot in a litany of lies that had its genesis in the 1964 Charter of the PLO – subsequently revised in 1968 – which still remain unamended despite false claims to the contrary.
The 1964 Charter had stated in Article 24:
“This Organisation does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organisational, political and financial fields.”
Yet the 1968 Charter deleted this clause after Jordan and Egypt’s 19 years-occupation of these territories was ended in 1967.
The PLO had suddenly discovered an inalienable right to regional sovereignty in every square meter of these areas. Amazingly this claim has been swallowed hook line and sinker by the United Nations.
Such a recent claim is certainly novel and now must be weighed against Israel’s claim – whose roots in these territories were established 3000 years ago and can be visibly verified in 2018.
JCPA: The Mystery of Mahmoud Abbas’ Health
Abbas was hospitalized on May 20 for the third time in Ramallah after undergoing an operation on his ear last week.Security threat to the 70th birthday celebrations in New York
The al-Hayat newspaper published in London claimed on May 21, 2018, that according to knowledgeable Palestinian sources, Mahmoud Abbas is suffering from severe pneumonia. His temperature was above 40 degrees, and his doctors are trying to bring it down. He is conscious, but he was breathing on a respirator.
Nonetheless, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the PLO’s steering committee, stated on May 21 that Abbas’ medical condition is good and he will be discharged soon.
Abbas, aged 83, is also suffering from severe heart problems. Although he has had three catheterizations, he remains a heavy smoker.
Over the past few months, Abbas has begun to prepare for his retirement from Palestinian politics and has taken two significant steps in this regard.
1. He passed a resolution before the Fatah’s Revolutionary Committee that if he were to become incapacitated, his vice-chairman, Mahmoud al-Aloul, would replace him for 60 days as the chairman of the movement until primaries and the election of a new chairman could be organized.
2. He passed a resolution before the Palestinian National Council (PNC) allowing the transfer of the PNC’s authority to the PLO Central Committee, which has 115 members, turning it into the body for making the most important decisions, including the election of a new PA chairman. This way, Mahmoud Abbas has pushed Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Legislative Council (parliament) out of the struggle over the succession, leaving it within the Fatah movement only, which is the backbone of the Palestinian Authority.
Security officials at the Israeli consulate in New York have forbidden representatives of the Foreign Ministry and official Israeli emissaries from New York to attend a festive event marking Israel's 70th anniversary, which will take place next week at Times Square, News 2 reported.Nation’s defense firms to lose over $1b. annually with U.S. aid deal
According to the news report, security officials fear that the presence of the representatives at the event will increase the security risk, and that they could be targets for terrorist attacks or violent protests.
The security officer of the Israeli Consulate in New York wrote to diplomats and other Israeli emissaries that "this is a very sensitive incident at a very sensitive time. The security team has no security responsibility for the external event.
"We prohibit any participation and any presence of the emissaries and employees at this event, which is a very sensitive event with no adequate security response, and the NYPD, including the highest echelons, stresses that this is a very high risk event," wrote the security officer.
The Israeli arms industry is expected to lose $1.3 billion in revenue each year and as many as 22,000 workers could lose their jobs when the latest agreement for military aid from the US kicks in at the end of this year, the Defense Ministry warned at a Knesset Finance Committee meeting on Monday.Media Fail: Majority Support U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital
Committee chairman Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) called to renegotiate the 10-year aid agreement with the US, because it “will increase aid, but our society will crumble from the inside.”
The Memorandum of Understanding negotiated between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-US president Barack Obama’s administration changed the previous terms of military aid. Until now, up to 26% of the aid, adding up to billions of shekels each year, could be spent inside Israel. In the new deal that will gradually be phased out beginning at the end of the US’s government’s Fiscal Year 2018 (i.e., on October 1, 2018), until all American military aid will have to be spent in the US, resulting in losses for local industry.
The estimated loss is NIS 4b. per year in defense purchases, which could lead to the closure of 130 factories, many of which are in the periphery.
Gafni expressed concern about the MoU’s “severe ramifications for the delicate fabric of the State of Israel, harming its security.
“We won’t let something like this pass,” he added.
The latest Rasmussen poll shows that a majority side with President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital despite the best efforts of America’s establishment media to depict last week’s opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem as a debacle.Panama says not opening a Jerusalem embassy
Moreover, the trend lines in the poll clearly show that Trump won the national debate on this issue against a vast media and establishment propaganda campaign to portray it as an amateurish mistake that would explode the Arab world.
Late last year, when Trump announced the move, only 40 percent of those polled supported the president’s decision, while a near-equal number of 36 percent were opposed. Basically, the country was evenly split.
Today, however, that division has evaporated. While a majority of 51 percent support the move, only 29 percent disagree.
Panama has no plans to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem even though it holds that west Jerusalem is part of Israel, its President Juan Carlos Varela told The Jerusalem Post.Panama's president says terrorism behind 1994 plane crash
“Panama is keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv,” said Varela, whose three-day trip to Israel from Wednesday to Friday was sandwiched between the more high profile ones from the leaders of Guatemala and Paraguay, who both opened Jerusalem embassies in the last week.
Varela’s country is known as a friend of Israel and is one of only four Latin American nations that have not recognized Palestine as a state. It was one of the 37 nations that supported Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949.
It has, however, no intention of making history twice by following in Guatemala and Paraguay’s footsteps with regard to a Jerusalem embassy.
Panama's president said on Monday a 1994 plane explosion in the country that killed 21 people, most of them Jewish, was the result of a terrorist attack and called for the case to be reopened.Kosovo Jails Eight for Plotting to Attack Israeli Soccer Team in 2016
President Juan Carlos Varela told reporters that Israel provided reports late last year about the plane crash, whose victims included prominent Jewish Panamanian businessmen and which stirred suspicion of hate-motivated sabotage.
The 1994 crash came soon after a bomb at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires killed 85 people, raising concerns that Jews worldwide could increasingly become the targets of militants amid tense peace talks in the Middle East.
Varela told reporters he will ask Panamanian and Israeli authorities to reinvestigate the incident.
A court in Kosovo jailed eight men on Friday for plotting to attack the Israeli national soccer team in Albania in a World Cup qualifying match in 2016.Israel the first in the world to conduct strikes with F-35 jet, army says
The court in the capital handed the defendants, who are all from Kosovo, jail terms ranging from 10 years to 18 months, totalling more than 35 years.
A ninth defendant was ordered to pay a fine of 2,500 euros.
The prosecution said the group had planned to attack the Israeli team with explosives and automatic rifles.
The plan was thwarted when Kosovo police got wind of the plot and tipped off Albanian authorities who moved the game from a stadium in Shkoder, near the border with Kosovo, to a town closer to the Albanian capital, Tirana.
The prosecution said some of the defendants received orders to carry out an attack from Lavdrim Muhaxheri, a prominent Islamic State member from Kosovo and the self-declared “commander of Albanians in Syria and Iraq.”
Muhaxheri was killed in Syria, police and family members say.
Israeli Air Force commander Amikam Norkin revealed on Tuesday that the F-35 fighter jet conducted airstrikes on at least two occasions, which he said made Israel the first country to use the American-made stealth aircraft operationally.US lawmakers look to block sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey
“I think that we are the first to attack with an F-35 in the Middle East — I’m not sure about other areas,” Norkin told a conference of air force chiefs visiting Israel from around the world.
The Israeli military later went further, saying that this was the first operational use of the fighter jet in the world, not only in the Middle East.
“The Israeli Air Force has twice carried out strikes with the F-35, on two different fronts,” Norkin said.
The air force chief did not specify when those two attacks took place, but said the F-35 did not carry out strikes during Israel’s massive bombardment of Iranian targets in Syria on May 10.
Incoming Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin salutes during a ceremony at the Tel Nof Air Base on August 14, 2017. (Israel Defense Forces)
Norkin revealed the F-35’s operational uses while showing the visiting air force officers a photograph of the stealth fighter jet flying over the Lebanese capital of Beirut, in what could be seen as a tacit threat to the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror group. (The army refused to release the picture to media outlets.)
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has introduced a motion to stop the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, arguing that Ankara is growing “increasingly hostile and authoritarian by the day” and expressing fears that the country was growing closer to Russia.IAF commander: Iran launched 32 missiles toward Israel in early May
Congressman David Cicilline, a Democrat of Rhode Island, filed the bill along with six colleagues from both parties last Thursday, saying the US “cannot turn a blind eye to Turkey’s thuggish, reprehensible behavior.”
Turkey, a key US ally in the Middle East, is slated to purchase more than 100 of the ultra-high tech aircraft.
“The Turkish regime, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has grown increasingly authoritarian in recent years, cracking down on dissent and free speech. They have even held American citizens in captivity in order to use them as bargaining chips with the US Government,” Cicilline said in a statement.
“There have to be consequences for any regime that commits such horrific human rights abuses and constantly steps out of line with our own interests,” said Cicilline, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Israel Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen.Amikam Norkin said Tuesday that Iran launched 32 missiles toward Israel in early May.PMW: PA Mufti: Prosecute everyone who eats in public during Ramadan
“Iran launched 32 missiles and we intercepted 4 of them and the rest fell outside Israeli territory,” Norkin said at the IAF senior Air Force Conference in Herzilya on Tuesday.
The IDF had said earlier that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s Quds Force had launched 20 Fajr-5 and Grad missiles towards Israel’s front defensive line in the Golan Heights.
According to Norkin, Syria fired over 100 anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli jets and in response Israel destroyed the anti-aircraft batteries.
Israel struck 50 mainly Iranian targets in Syria in an operation called “House of Cards.”
According to Norkin, Israel has been “managing a campaign against Iranian forces, especially on Israel’s northern border” for the past two years.
Israel had been preparing for a direct attack from the Quds force since mid-April in response for a strike allegedly carried out by the Jewish state against an Iranian operated airbase in Syria which killed seven IRGC soldiers.
As Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, has just begun this week, the Palestinian Authority Mufti has called to "go after" everyone who eats in public and "put them on trial":
"[PA] Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories and [Palestinian] Supreme Fatwa Council Chairman Muhammad Hussein called to preserve the sanctity of the month of Ramadan (i.e., Muslim month of fasting).
In a statement yesterday the grand mufti demanded that the owners of the restaurants and cafés close them during the daytime hours of the month of Ramadan in order to preserve the sanctity of the month. He called on the responsible parties to go after anyone who publicly breaks the fast and put them on trial."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 15, 2018]
This instruction is similar to calls by the highest religious PA authority in previous years. Palestinian Media Watch reported in 2017 that the mufti called on the PA police "to act against anyone who breaks the fast in public, in preparation for legal steps against them." Likewise, the PA's Supreme Fatwa Council announced that "breaking the Ramadan fast in public is one of the greatest sins." The council quoted Islam's Prophet Muhammad:
Hamas Leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar: We Are Coordinating with Hizbullah, Iran on an Almost Daily Basis pic.twitter.com/9lqKbkQ9xO
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 22, 2018
Iran Calls on Muslims to Revise Trade Ties With US After Jerusalem Move
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday urged Muslim countries to revise their economic ties with the United States in response to its relocation of its embassy to Jerusalem.
“I call on countries to totally cut their relations with the Zionist regime (Israel) and also to revise their trade and economic ties with America,” Rouhani said in a speech at a summit of Muslim nations in Istanbul, broadcast live on Iranian state TV.
