September 2018 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Sunday, September 30, 2018

Chag Sameach! (Again!)

I wish all my Jewish readers a happy Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah!

I will not be blogging from Sunday night to Tuesday night.

You can see two of my previous articles on Simchat Torah flags here and here.

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09/30 Links: Wake up Europe; Democrats open the door to Congress for Hamas; Madrid is encouraging violence against Israel; Virulently anti-Semitic Malaysian PM welcomed in UK

From Ian:

Jpost Editorial: Wake up Europe

Appeasement might be a tough word and one that Netanyahu uses reluctantly, but he is right. Europe has turned a blind eye to what is happening in Iran and Lebanon for far too long. Sadly, it is unlikely that anything will really change due to Netanyahu’s speech, no matter how good it might have been.

Over a period of decades, Europe has shown that it prefers short-term quiet over confronting challenges and threats that present it and the rest of the world with long-lasting problems. The continent operates like a tactician as opposed to a strategist.

This is evident in the European Union’s continued support of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action the P5+1 reached with Iran in an effort to stop the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. While the EU might be right that the deal is working today, it will eventually expire and place Iran on the brink of nuclear weapons. And while it is true that Lebanon is today quiet, that will also change the moment Hezbollah decides to unleash a missile onslaught on the State of Israel.

Europe though doesn’t seem to care. While it knows all of this, it prefers not to take steps that could lead to an escalation, diplomatically or militarily. It sits quietly, enjoying the temporary quiet, no matter how much of an illusion it might be.

The problem is that Iran’s nuclear program is still a problem for the world. The same with Hezbollah. Neither are sitting quietly. Hezbollah has amassed an unprecedented missile arsenal that puts many countries to shame and Iran is simply playing the waiting game and will likely one day breakout toward a bomb when it assesses that the price it will pay will be the lowest.

Netanyahu explained that Israel does not need a wake-up call like Europe.

“Despite the best of hope, and there were many hopes around the nuclear deal, this deal did not push war further away. It brought war ever closer to our borders,” he said.

We hope that Netanyahu’s speech will serve as the wake-up Europe desperately needs. The time to act against Iran is now. A first step would be for the International Atomic Energy Agency to immediately visit the atomic warehouse and for Europe to take real steps that will bring change. Appeasement will fail.

The ground is burning

Israel developed a partial solution to the rocket problem and, with the help of the Iron Dome system, it has been able to mitigate the threats. Yet we've also been attacked with longer-range rockets and deeper underground tunnels. In a practical sense, the situation hasn't fundamentally changed over the past decade. The Gaza-area communities continue to suffer from Hamas belligerence and the south remains exceedingly unstable. On the diplomatic level, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi certainly helps narrow the scope of Hamas' initiatives, particularly by controlling the Philadelphi Route along their shared border and the Rafah crossing area, where Hamas' smuggling capabilities have dwindled. Again, though, taking a broader view, this hasn't dramatically changed the situation in the south.

Thus, since March, the IDF has used varying degrees of force to counter Hamas' ploys – whether these include protests, roadside bombs, and occasionally a 24-48 hour escalation consisting of rocket fire at Israeli civilians. Hamas has tried forcing Israel into another tahdiya although it appears this effort isn't bearing fruit. We can, therefore, expect another escalation in the near future and we will again have to ask: What's going to change?

The answer isn't surprising: Nothing will change unless this time Israel undertakes a massive operation to finally alter the situation on a fundamental level. Hamas needs to understand that the next confrontation will be its last. It will not provide hope. And Israel, for its part, needs to be ready to finish the job it left undone 10 years ago. The IDF is certainly ready and capable of this mission; the question is whether the will exists.

A compressive, far-reaching operation would unfold in several stages. The first will aim at isolating high-threat areas and cutting off escape routes for Hamas terrorists. The second will require a massive ground operation in these areas, including in Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah, and destroying the terror nests there. These two steps will require several weeks to complete and they won't be simple. Afterward will come the stabilizing phase, aimed at fully clearing the area of terrorists and their infrastructure and installing systems of governance and intelligence-gathering on the ground. This phase in its entirety should require no more than one year, but it will undoubtedly change the situation fundamentally. Ultimately, Israel will give itself a different array of capabilities to cope with any development, and it will be the one dictating the rules of the game, which is totally opposite the current situation of being captive to Hamas' whims.

'Madrid is encouraging violence against Israel'

Israel protested to the mayor of Madrid about the festive visit she organized for terrorist Ahed Tamimi, who was convicted of incitement against security forces and attacking IDF soldiers, for which she served eight months in prison.

Tamimi was accompanied by her family at the invitation of the city leaders and the Real Madrid soccer club at the stadium of the Spanish team, Bernabeu.

Real Madrid did not make do with a special tour played by former soccer star Emilio Butragueno, but also prepared a jersey with her name printed on it.

Daniel Kutner, the Israeli ambassador to Spain, sent a letter of protest to Mayor Manuela Carmena. "The move by the Madrid municipality encourages violence against Israeli civilians and undermines any attempt to create a genuine dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians," Kutner wrote.

Kutner added, "Ahed Tamimi is not an innocent fighter for peace, but an instigator of violence and terror. Any institution that welcomes her indirectly promotes violence and aggression instead of promoting dialogue and understanding."

It's always funny when Jordan says there should be a Palestinian state

King Abdullah of Jordan told the UN:

I am compelled to talk about this today because of the critical role of collective action in ending the serious crises in my region, and especially the key crisis—the long denial of a Palestinian state.

Every UN resolution since the beginning of this crisis—every resolution, whether from the General Assembly or the Security Council—recognises the equal rights of the Palestinian people to a future of peace, dignity, and hope. This is the heart of the two-state settlement, the only path to a comprehensive, lasting peace.

Only a two-state solution based on international law and relevant UN resolutions can meet the needs of both sides: an end to conflict, a viable, independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a secure Israel, fully part of its own region, recognised by Arab and Muslim states around the world.

But when Jordan controlled the West Bank, it was against any sort of Palestinian Arab state on the territory it claimed. Even the Palestinian Arabs didn't talk at all about creating a state in the territories - only in Israel.

And when Palestinians tried to turn Jordan into a Palestinian state in 1970, they were brutally attacked and their leaders forced out. Thousands were killed in the fighting.

It is always amusing to see how Jordan now is talking about how the UN wanted a Palestinian Arab state in 1947 and not a single Arab nation, including Transjordan at the time, supported the idea.

The desire for a Palestinian state is directly proportional to how much it will negatively affect Israel. Otherwise, no Arab is interested in such a state at all.

And they never were.

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Fatah celebrates anniversary of beginning of Second Intifada

The Second Intifada was a multiyear terror spree that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians.

It killed the Oslo peace process.

It convinced countless leftist Israelis that there is no actual partner for peace on the Palestinian side.

And Fatah, the party headed by Mahmoud Abbas, is celebrating the beginning of the terror spree that began 19 years ago.

They even mention that their own National Security forces, who were armed by the world to maintain peace, participated in the attacks on Israel.

Yet when Abbas speaks about "peace" to the UN, no one has the guts to ask him about why his own party celebrates terror and violence, every single day, in their own media.

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09/29 Links: Netanyahu was to reveal ‘third site’ in speech on Iran; Danon slams Abbas' 'imaginary initiatives'; Real Madrid's guest of honor is teen terrorist

From Ian:

Why this Christian Tory peer leads the fight in the UK against Holocaust denial

The British Labour party has become “a hotbed of bigotry and racism,” the country’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues said in a recent interview with The Times of Israel.

Eric Pickles, who was appointed to the House of Lords this summer, also accused Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn of encouraging “something rather base and horrid to come to the surface” in the party.

In the wide-ranging interview, Pickles, who served as a Cabinet minister under the Conservative party’s former prime minister David Cameron, hints that the UK may soon proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety and says he opposes Britain’s attempts to help salvage the Iran nuclear deal.

Pickles also says it was “utterly wrong” for Conservative members of the European parliament to oppose censuring the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán in a September 12 vote. Orbán’s government has been accused of deploying “vivid anti-Semitism” in its campaign against the Jewish philanthropist George Soros.

As the Conservative party begins its annual conference in Birmingham this weekend, Pickles launches a scathing attack on Corbyn.

Referring to the allegations of anti-Semitism which have dogged Labour under Corbyn’s leadership, Pickles asks: “How can anybody live with themselves with this great damage that they have inflicted on good community relations in this country?”

NGO Monitor: Statement on “Shrinking Space” Report

NGO Monitor is the only independent research organization in the world that critically examines the reports and activities of politicized NGOs, with a focus on the context of international development aid. Given the importance of civil society participation in conflict-ridden areas, transparency, accountability, and critical analysis are essential, and we take this work seriously.

We are aware of the concerted effort to discredit and silence all critical analysis. This pseudo-report funded by a German far-left political foundation is the latest example. Serious research, however, does not rely on fringe ideologues with obvious conflicts of interest, desperately seeking to protect their access to European state and EU budgets. NGO Monitor’s success in exposing the millions in taxpayer funds given annually, without transparency, to false human rights and development NGOs, some of which are linked to terror organizations and/or use antisemitic motifs, speaks for itself. Indeed, this smear campaign highlights the importance and credibility of our work.

We plan to vigorously enforce our rights against the many false and defamatory claims made in the report and by those who have disseminated the claims.

Real Madrid's guest of honor is teen terrorist

Real Madrid, a Spanish soccer club, on Friday hosted teen terrorist Ahed Tamimi.

Tamimi served an eight-month prison sentence for attacking IDF soldiers, and has since said that her goal is to "eliminate Israel."

Tamimi met with Emilio Butragueño, a former Real Madrid player.

She also received a soccer shirt sporting her name and the number 9.

Real Madrid welcomed Palestinian teenage activist Ahed Tamimi to the Santiago Bernabeu yesterday after spending eight months in prison for slapping an Israeli soldier in December 2017," the team tweeted Saturday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon tweeted, "The prestigious soccer club of Real Madrid embraces a terrorist inciting to hatred and violence. Shameful."

"Ahed Tamimi is promoting violence against Israeli citizens. @realmadrid-receiving a terrorist that incites hatred and violence is something that has nothing to do with universal football values."

09/28 Links Pt2: IAEA was told Iran site had ‘forbidden nuclear material,’ yet didn’t act; Haley: Palestinians should complain to Abbas, not Israel; The Logic of the West’s New Anti-Semitism Crisis

From Ian:

Israel: IAEA was told Iran site had ‘forbidden nuclear material,’ yet didn’t act

Israel told the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency about the existence and contents of the previously unknown Iranian nuclear site whose presence was publicly revealed at the UN Thursday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the atomic watchdog failed to act on the information, a senior Israeli official said.

According to the unnamed official, quoted Friday by Israel’s Channel 10 news, the “secret atomic warehouse” revealed by Netanyahu contained nuclear materials that Iran is not allowed to hold without declaring them to the IAEA. Yet the IAEA knew nothing about the site, the official said, and still failed to act when Israel informed both the IAEA and the US administration about it.

The official added that Israel knows exactly what was being stored at the facility after it was uncovered by the Mossad spy agency a few months ago, from which time the Israeli secret service kept the location under surveillance.

When the IAEA failed to act, the Israeli government apparently agonized over what to do with the information, and decided after discussions in the Prime Minister’s Office that Netanyahu would reveal it in his annual speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday in an attempt to goad the IAEA into taking action.

“There was no choice but to reveal this information, because the goal is to prompt the IAEA to take action,” the senior official said. “We wanted to wake up the world and pressure the IAEA to act against the suspected facilities in Iran.”

Channel 10 reported that the senior official revealed that the nuclear facility is under the supervision of a secret Iranian defense ministry department headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, named by Netanyahu in his April presentation of the seized nuclear archive as the Iranian physicist who heads the country’s nuclear program.

“Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” urged Netanyahu in April, showcasing the material that he said proved conclusively that Iran has lied when it says it has not sought nuclear weapons and that the 2015 nuclear deal was built upon “Iranian deception.”

Haley tells PM that Palestinians should complain to Abbas, not Israel

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Friday the Palestinian people should complain to their own leader and not to Israel, and urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace negotiations with Israel.

“We believe that the Palestinians are going to have come to the table. President Abbas is not helping the Palestinian people at all. He hasn’t acknowledged Hamas,” Haley said at a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Haley said she had no plans to meet with Abbas while he is in New York, where he addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

“The Palestinians, if they want to blame anyone, it shouldn’t be Israel,” the ambassador said. “They should be looking at President Abbas and saying, what are you doing for us?”

Speaking to the press before their bilateral meeting, Netanyahu thanked Haley for her staunch support of Israel at various UN agencies.

“With you, it’s better,” he said, after Haley asked him how things are going, referring to her strong pro-Israel stance at the world body, which has long been anti-Israel.

Wiesenthal Center: Don't allow terror-linked group to visit

The Wiesenthal Center has called on governments in the Americas scheduled to host a 10-member delegation from an Islamic political organization to cancel the programs and deny entry to its members, citing their terrorist ties.

Abdur Razzaq, deputy secretary-general of the the Jamaat-e-Islami, is scheduled to lead the Salafist group starting Oct. 9 in Washington, D.C., to meet with political leaders.

The Wiesenthal Center pointed out that Jamaat-e-Islami is linked to the Taliban, al-Qaida and ISIS.

In Washington, the delegation will meet with Democratic Congress members and think tanks close to Hillary Clinton and former US President Barack Obama.

On Thursday, the director of international relations for the Wiesenthal Center, Shimon Samuels, and the group’s Latin America representative based in Buenos Aires, Ariel Gelblung, requested the intervention of the Organization of American States and its secretary-general, Luis Almagro, to alert authorities from the host nations to the group’s violent background and terror ties.

The Wiesenthal Center called on the governments to deny the delegation’s entry at their borders.

Palestinians in Qalqilya forced to hold pictures to show support for Abbas

If you think Trump is an egomaniac, then what would you call a leader who forces his people to hold pictures of him at a staged rally?

In Qalqilya, hundreds of Palestinians watched Abbas' UN speech at an outdoor event with Fatah flags. The front row of people, many of them dignitaries, were obviously requested to hold photographs of Mahmoud Abbas just to make it look like Abbas has widespread support.

There is nothing spontaneous about this. On the contrary, some of them seem very reluctant.

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09/28 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Europe's appeasement of Iran; Ron Prosor: Forcing Iran's allies to face the truth; Palestinian in Germany caught planning chemical terror attack in Israel

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Europe's appeasement of Iran

Remarks this week about Iran by US National Security Adviser John Bolton contained some of the most ferocious language ever used by an American administration about a foreign state.

Bolton told the Iranian regime: “If you cross us, our allies or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay. Let my message today be clear: ‘We are watching, and we will come after you.’”

Earlier this year the US pulled out of the nuclear deal with Iran, re-instituting potentially crippling sanctions against the regime. At the UN, President Trump delivered a similar message. America, he said, would not allow “the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism” to possess “the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth.”

Bolton went further and threatened “terrible consequences” for those doing business with Iran. But Britain and Europe are intending to do exactly that.

Earlier in the week, the EU and the three European co-signers of the Iran deal – Britain, France and Germany – said they would set up a new payment system to allow oil companies and businesses to continue trading without relying on the US-led global market. Commentators agree this sanctions-busting ruse is unlikely to work.

Big companies are already pulling out of Iran because the US says they can trade with Iran or America but they can’t do both. The European maneuver is likely merely to antagonize the US. As its Secretary of State Mike Pompeo angrily said, the Europeans were now “solidifying Iran’s ranking as number-one state sponsor of terror” with “one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional peace and security”.

Ron Prosor: Forcing Iran's allies to face the truth

The United Nations is an organization where ‎democratic influences and the truth get sidelined ‎far too often, but addressing the General Assembly ‎on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood ‎before world leaders and spoke the truth. Not "his ‎truth" – just the plain, clear truth about Iran and ‎the Palestinian issue.‎

The evidence Netanyahu presented for the existence ‎of secret nuclear facilities in Iran and Hezbollah ‎missile bases in the heart of Beirut is the best ‎answer to Europe's appeasement policy vis-à-vis ‎Iran. This not only exposed Iran's true, nefarious ‎designs for the region but also exposed the ‎weakness of many European leaders and the ‎incompetence of the International Atomic Energy ‎Agency.‎

Despite being privy to detailed, verified and ‎accurate information on Iranian violations of the ‎‎2015 nuclear deal, the IAEA and EU have done nothing ‎to stop it. In their naivety and shortsightedness, ‎they are willing to gamble away the future of the ‎Middle East and the rest of the world, acting as if ‎Iran will one day relinquish its nuclear aspirations ‎willingly.‎

European leaders may opt to see no evil, hear no ‎evil and speak no evil, but Netanyahu reminded them ‎that Israel sees and hears everything and that it is ‎not wary of speaking or taking action wherever ‎necessary.‎

Now it is up to the Israeli government and the Trump ‎administration to demand that, confronted with ‎clear-cut ‎intelligence findings, Germany, Britain ‎and France explain why they insist on supporting the ‎Iran deal. ‎

US envoy urges world to join America in ‘being direct, frank with Palestinians’

US peace envoy Jason Greenblatt on Thursday defended the US administration’s drastic recent funding cuts to the Palestinians, arguing that billions given to this cause over decades have failed to significantly advance the cause of peace.

Rather, he said in a speech to a conference of international donors, it was time to “realistically evaluate what works and what does not,” and to embark on “a new, sustainable path.” While he declined to provide any details of the peace proposal he and other White House officials have been working on for months, he asked members of the international community to study it carefully and be open to new ideas.

“It is time to look at the situation realistically. We could continue the same pattern for years to come, but that would be folly,” Greenblatt told participants of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee’s annual meeting at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“Clearly, none of our financial assistance is getting Israelis and Palestinians closer to a solution.”

Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials also attended the conference.

U.S. Will No Longer Subsidize PA Anti-Normalization Campaign Against Israel

Speaking to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee of international donors to the Palestinians on Thursday in New York, U.S. Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt said efforts to improve life for Palestinians in the West Bank "are constrained by Palestinian Authority leaders who refuse opportunities to build the economy due to an anti-normalization prejudice towards doing business with Israelis. Such policies only harm the Palestinian people, leave them further and further behind, and cost donor countries more and more money."

"The Trump administration has closely watched the PA leadership thwart economic improvement for Palestinians in the West Bank and directly challenged them to change their destructive policies or lose American support....Clearly, none of our financial assistance is getting Israelis and Palestinians closer to a solution."

"We must all ask ourselves why we should keep struggling to raise money when everyone can plainly see the Hamas regime and the PA are squandering the opportunities our money provides for a better future for Palestinians....The United States will not use the hard-earned tax dollars of its citizens to subsidize anti-normalization."

"We care about all Palestinians - those in the West Bank, those in Gaza, and those languishing in refugee camps who have been used as pawns in a political game, and who should have started new lives years ago. We will not continue to invest in temporary solutions that only prolong the cycle of suffering and violence."

Blood libel in Qatari cartoon

From al-Raya (Qatar):

The Jew is drinking Palestinian blood.

I'm sure that Human Rights Watch's Ken Roth, who pretends to care so much about antisemitism, will comment any minute now.

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The New York Times, pretending to be even-handed as ever, writes:

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders gave diametrically different appraisals of their protracted conflict on Thursday, with speeches at the United Nations General Assembly that suggested the dispute is more intractable than ever.

But it doesn't point out the biggest difference between the two speeches: Netanyahu's was truthful and Abbas' was full of his usual lies.

So, a brief fisking of Abbas' speech (as written, not as delivered,), that the media refuse to do because it would make him look bad:

I have come to ask for the freedom, independence and justice of my oppressed people, who have been under the yoke of the Israeli occupation for 51 years.

You could have had freedom if you had accepted any of a number of peace plans.

I return to you today. This colonial occupation continues to undermine our efforts to build the institutions of our future State.

Funny - Jews managed to build the institutions of their future state under British rule, with British soldiers right outside the door. Israeli soldiers aren't in Ramallah.

We note, ladies and gentlemen, that Israeli settlers and even the Israeli army every day trample the sanctity of our holy sites, especially the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Resurrection.

I am not aware of any Jews hanging around any churches - since they are not built on Jewish holy spots. To say that no Jew can visit a Jewish holy spot that pre-dates the Muslim claim to it by a thousand years, and to claim that such a visit is "trampling its sanctity," is nothing short of antisemitism.

In July, Israel issued a racist law that went beyond all the red lines, which it called the "National Law of the Jewish People", negating the relationship of the Palestinian people to its historic homeland and ignoring its right to self-determination in its state, its historical narrative and the UN resolutions on the Palestinian issue.

It didn't. Perhaps it should have.

This law also discriminates against Arab citizens of Israel when it grants the right to self-determination in the State of Israel exclusively to Jews. Discrimination against these Arab citizens, who represent 20% of the population of Israel, as well as against non-Jews who have immigrated to Israel.

But Abbas does not believe Jews have the right to self-determination anywhere on the planet, since he denies there are a Jewish people to begin with. And his own constitution says Palestine is an Arab and Muslim state. But, who is asking for consistency from a liar?

We have dealt with the various initiatives of the international community to achieve peace between us and the Israelis, including the Arab peace initiative adopted in Security Council resolution 1515.

UNSC 1515 does not mention the Arab Peace Initiative. It mentions the Roadmap, which mentioned and welcomed the Arab Peace Initiative but did not endorse it as the basis of a peace plan.

I challenge the idea that we were once asked to sit at the negotiating table and refused.

That's a joke, right?

Peace in our region can not be achieved without the embodiment of the independence of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with all its holy sites.

Abbas is explicitly saying that every Jewish holy site is really Muslim and the Jew-hating Arabs should be responsible for them, to allow Jews or ban Jews as they wish. He is saying that without that there will be war and terror. This is a threat.

Yet he is called a peacemaker.

We will reject and reject the use of violence and force. We will reject all kinds of weapons and we will not accept the use of weapons anywhere else.

But when his people kill Jews with guns or bombs or rockets or knives, the murderers are heroes who get paid and who get buildings named after them. Wink, wink.

There is no people on this planet that does not enjoy the rights of self-determination. No? We are 13 million Palestinians in the world, why not give the right to self-determination? This is not against anyone, to build our independent state and to live side by side with the State of Israel.

But he does not say that he wants 13 million Palestinians to live in "Palestine." He wants them to move to Israel to destroy the Jewish state. Here is a video from the official PA news agency just this month:

As always, Palestinian leaders don't want to build a state for their people. They want to destroy Israel by any means available, and if the military option isn't there, they will choose political or terror or "return" or subverting international law.

There are agreements between us and Israel, from the Oslo Agreement to the Paris Agreement, all of which were overturned by Israel, and we call on Israel to reverse its breach of these agreements, or we will never abide by these agreements.

Oslo is what created the PA. Abbas is still president of the PA. Exactly how has this been abrogated?

Oslo also included the pledge by the PLO to abandon terror. Yet the PLO was behind the terror spree of the second Intifada, eight years later. Who abrogated the agreement?

Greetings to our noble martyrs and brave families, and to say to all the Palestinians: First, Israel considers these criminals, why? Why are there thousands of people who attack people and regard them as heroes? Why was Rabin's killer considered a hero and our prisoners are considered criminals? Greetings to our heroic martyrs and our heroic families, and I say to all that we are on a date soon with the dawn of freedom and independence and the darkness of the occupation to the end, God willing.

Abbas' praise of terrorists ended his speech - and the UN applauded.

That's really all you need to know.

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MSN lists Palestinians among worst refugee crises in history - by lying

I just came across this MSN (possibly AP) slideshow of the biggest refugee movements in history.

In order to pretend that descendants of Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 are "refugees," it simply has to lie.

The Israeli—Palestinian Conflict
Since the formation of the state of Israel In 1648, a series of seemingly intractable wars and incidents of ethnic violence have displaced at least 6 million people. Close to 1 million Jews fled predominantly Arab and Muslim nations, where they faced hostility over the establishment of a Jewish state In addition, more than 5 melon Palestinians are considered refugees after being displaced by the hostile events that followed Israel's creation.

Wars for Israel's existence displaced 5 million Palestinians?

Even if for some reason one can say that refugee's descendants will be considered refugees forever no matter what - even then the basic facts are wrong. About half of the Arabs who did flee in 1947-48 left before Israel was established.

This is the sort of false reporting that leads to anti-Israel sentiment worldwide. If only the media would note every time they mention 5 million "Palestinian refugees" that the number uniquely includes all of their descendants as well, no matter where they live, even if they become citizens elsewhere, people would start to realize that "Palestine refugees" are not refugees at all.

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09/27 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The destruction of Israel the signature cause of the British Labour party; At UN, Netanyahu reveals Iranian nuclear warehouse

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The destruction of Israel the signature cause of the British Labour party

The leader of Britain’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has told his party’s annual conference that if he becomes Prime Minister he will immediately recognise a Palestinian state. Immediately. Why? What kind of priority is this for a British Prime Minister?

Labour delegates also voted to condemn Israel’s use of force against violent riots on the Gaza border, urge more UK funding for UNWRA, the UN agency for Palestinians, and back a freeze on British arms sales to Israel. And in a veritable sea of hatred of the Jewish state, they waved Palestinian flags provided for them by the conference organisers as they debated “Palestine”, which delegates had voted was a priority issue ahead of the NHS, Brexit, social care and welfare.

How come that’s such a priority?

At a fringe meeting Len McCluskey, the Unite trade union leader who previously dismissed the party’s antisemitism scandal as “mood music”, spat his venom against Israel.

Unite represents mainly low-paid British workers in the service sector. Unite is obsessed by hatred of Israel. Why? What possible reason can there be for this? What impact does Israel have on the lives of such workers? None.

All this has made one thing crystal clear. Palestinianism is now the signature cause of the Labour party. Members don’t wave the flag of the potential state of Kurdistan, or Tibet, or identify any other foreign cause to be more important than British domestic issues.

So why has Palestinianism become the cause of causes? The answer is that the obsession is not with the fate of the “Palestinians”, whose lives in fact have been made wretched by their own leaders and the Arab world in general. The obsession is with the Jews.

UK: Labour loves Palestinians more than British citizens

IsraellyCool: What Do Palestinian Propagandists Actually Mean by “Peace”?

I saw this video on Twitter: a palestinian schoolgirlis talking about what they teach them in schools and what they mean by “peace” – and they don’t seem to mean that they want peace with others based on mutual understanding and co-operation. The girl is describing themselves taking everything and having “peace” between themselves, not with others.

A Palestinian girl's vision of peace. This is 13 year old Iman Zaher, from the village of Luban a-Sharqiya. pic.twitter.com/vV9zNSiUoI
— Imshin 💙 (@imshin) September 25, 2018

This kind of explains why those paraded as “peace activists” (like ‘Shirley Temper‘) don’t seem “peaceful” at all.

If that’s their definition of “peace”, this mindset sounds a lot like that of Islamists from the time of the Arab conquests in the Middle Ages (after they expelled non-Muslims from Arabia and later started expanding outside of Arabia and they even went to Spain). They declared areas that they didn’t rule “Dar Al-Harb” (translation: House of War), and started waging war on those around them and after violently subjugating, enslaving and expelling others, declared areas they conquered “Dar Al-Salam” (translation: House of Peace), even though they weren’t “peaceful” at all.

They seem to just redefine words to have some other meaning. For instance, they have tried to redefine the word “refugee” to have some other meaning that only applies to them and that no other country uses. Or how some propagandists try to redefine the word “coexistence” when referring to Spain under Islamic rule, even though historians criticize calling that “coexistence.”

Shu'fat Camp UNRWA health center very concerned over - obesity

Here are three posters that can be seen in the Facebook page of the Shu'fat Camp health center.

Shu'fat is the UNRWA camp in Jerusalem that Israel is considering dismantling.

If the biggest problem there is that the residents can't figure out how to choose healthy foods that are readily available, then that is probably a good idea.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

The World Bank says that the “economy” of the Gaza Strip is collapsing.

This is or should be about as shocking as the discovery that there is gambling at Rick’s café. The word “economy,” which implies at least some productivity, barely fits. Gaza has survived on UNRWA stipends that have supported 1.3 million people with Palestinian refugee status (out of a total population of 1.8 million), on payments from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to its tens of thousands of “employees” (who either do nothing or work for Hamas), and on other donations from Europe, the US, and the Arab world.

The World Bank notes that 70% of young people in Gaza are unemployed, and 54% of the population live below the poverty line (but next door to them live hundreds of Hamas-connected millionaires).

Now the cash spigot is being turned off. Some blame US President Trump, who has cut funds for the special Palestinian-only refugee agency UNRWA, but the underlying reason is the Malthusian fact that the international community can no longer afford to support a geometrically-increasing population of beggars.

The crisis will be discussed at a meeting this week of the “Ad Hoc Liaison Committee” of international donors and other interested parties under UN auspices and chaired by the Norwegian Foreign Minister. The bank “blamed a number of factors, including Israeli restrictions on goods and movement into Gaza and Palestinian Authority sanctions against the Hamas ruled enclave in an attempt to force Hamas to relinquish its authority there.”

Could there be a more blatant and absurd substitution of cause and effect?

Let’s look at the real reasons for the crisis. First there is the structural problem inherent in the “Palestinian Refugee” system set up almost 70 years ago, which guarantees an ever-increasing population of dependents who are kept that way on the chimerical assumption that someday they will “return” to “their homes” in what is today the Jewish state of Israel. They are both paid and educated to this end, and only this end.

Second, there is the political situation in Gaza, ruled by the internationally recognized terrorist organization, Hamas. Of the billions that the US and EU pump into Gaza via UNRWA, the PA, or directly, Hamas officials steal some for their personal use, and divert as much as they can of the rest into preparations for war with Israel, including digging very expensive tunnels which are shored up with concrete and iron imported for civilian purposes, and building rockets to fire at Israeli communities. Instead of working at the jobs that don’t exist, young Gazans participate in riots at the border fence with Israel, try to provoke IDF soldiers into shooting them, and launch incendiary devices into Israel.

Every few years they succeed in provoking a big enough reaction from Israel that whatever infrastructure they have left is severely damaged. Then they are given international aid to rebuild it, which promptly goes into more rockets and tunnels. This is repeated over and over.

The “Ad Hoc Liaison Committee” will doubtless propose new ways of providing aid, but it will not attack the fundamental causes of the problem. It will not propose doing away with UNRWA, abolishing refugee status for “refugees” that have never actually been displaced, resettling refugees in Arab countries, or educating them to aspire to independent lives in place of the dream that someday they will get revenge on the Jews. Neither will it propose replacing the corrupt, evil, Hamas regime. It will, almost certainly, blame Israel – the target of Hamas’ rockets and incendiary devices.

As a matter of fact, Israel is responsible to some extent, but not because it has malevolently strangled Gaza by its “blockade,” which is only an interdiction of militarily-useful goods and is permeable to food, medicine, and so forth. It is responsible – along with the rest of the world – for tolerating the unsustainable situation in Gaza. Israel finds it easier to continue with the status quo, even including the periodic wars to which it gives rise, than to deal with the nasty job of uprooting Hamas. It prefers that UNRWA continue to feed, house, and nurture the delusions of generations of Arabs than to deal with the chaos that would come from ending their dream of “return” once and for all.

This is cruel to both the Jews who are struck by the rockets and firebombs launched by Hamas, and to the Gazans who live under the thumb of the corrupt regime, and as “Palestinian refugees” are doomed to a life of statelessness and dependency.

It is ironic that the honored humanitarian experts of the world’s most humanitarian society ever, the European Union, leads this farce. It is ironic that recent American administrations and Israeli governments have all gone along with it, shouldering the lion’s share of the cost of the great Palestinian refugee scam.

But it is most ironic of all that it took an American president who is considered by those European sophisticates to be so beneath contempt that they would laugh at his General Assembly speech to begin the process of puncturing the sacrosanct Palestinian refugee myth; the same president who was supposedly too naïve to know that moving the American embassy to Jerusalem would “inevitably” lead to an explosion in the Arab world.

That explosion didn’t happen, and similarly there will be no explosion when UNRWA and the special status of “Palestinian refugees” are eliminated.

This may not be a sufficient condition for an end to the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, but it certainly is a necessary one!

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09/27 Links Pt1: 25 years after Oslo, PA and Fatah still don’t recognize Israel; Palestinian Textbooks Claim Entirety of Israel as Arab Land, Call Jews ‘Sinful and Liars’

From Ian:

David Singer: Trump’s PLO Shutdown Paves Way for Jordan-West Bank Reunification

President Trump’s decision to close the PLO mission in Washington, cancel the visas of the Palestinian ambassador and his family and order their bank accounts be closed – mark the PLO’s final humiliation for condemning Trump’s proposed peace plan before its contents have even been published.

Strangely however the United States still maintains that direct negotiations between Israel and the PLO are the only way forward.

The PLO will be fortified by this latest statement – mistakenly believing it:

remains in the box seat to stymie any peace plan Trump wheels out,

can blunt Trump’s reputation as a highly successful deal maker and

reinforces the PLO’s right to continue as sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs although Hamas governs Gaza and Jordan exercises sovereignty in 78 per cent of former Palestine.

Direct Israel-PLO negotiations on Trump’s peace proposals are a pipe dream.

Jordan remains the key to resolving – with Israel – Trump’s plans involving the future of the West Bank for the following reasons:

Transjordan occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967.

Transjordan and the West Bank were unified in 1950, the new entity was renamed “Jordan” and Jordanian citizenship was extended to the West Bank Arab population

Jordan continued to retain legal and administrative control and extend citizenship between 1967 and 1988 until King Hussein announced Jordan’s termination of its role in the West Bank in the PLO’s favour for the following reasons:

“Lately, it has transpired that there is a general Palestinian and Arab orientation which believes in the need to highlight the Palestinian identity in full in all efforts and activities that are related to the Palestine question and its developments. It has also become clear that there is a general conviction that maintaining the legal and administrative links with the West Bank, and the ensuing Jordanian interaction with our Palestinian brothers under occupation through Jordanian institutions in the occupied territories, contradicts this orientation. It is also viewed that these links hamper the Palestinian struggle to gain international support for the Palestinian cause of a people struggling against foreign occupation.
In view of this line of thought, which is certainly inspired by genuine Palestinian will, and Arab determination to support the Palestinian cause, it becomes our duty to be part of this direction, and to respond to its requirements…” …

PMW: 25 years after Oslo, PA and Fatah still don’t recognize Israel

While PA Chairman Abbas and other Palestinian leaders speak internationally about Israel as an accepted fact, it should be noted that the PA and Abbas' Fatah Movement still have not accepted the most fundamental commitment the PLO made when it signed the Oslo Accords 25 years ago: To recognize Israel's existence. Such a recognition has never happened.

The image above posted by Fatah on Facebook last week, shows a boy with a shirt in the shape and colors of the Palestinian flag, painting the following words across the PA's map of "Palestine" that includes all of Israel together with the PA areas:

"Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Sept. 20, 2018]

Behind the map are the names of different cities located both in Israel and in the PA areas, among them Israeli cities such as Acre, Jaffa, Be'er Sheva, and Haifa.

The text and image leave no room for the State of Israel in any borders.

For more than two decades, Palestinian Media Watch has documented that neither the PA nor Fatah recognize Israel when addressing their own people. In fact, the opposite is true. Both do their utmost to convince Palestinians that all of Israel was, is, and will remain "Palestine."

It is not surprising that Palestinians deny Israel's existence, since the message that all of Israel is "Palestine" comes from the top. The Palestinian Authority Minister of Education Sabri Saidam recently posed holding a sketch of the PA's map of "Palestine" that likewise presents all of Israel as "Palestine" at an event with NGOs working with the education sector. "Palestine" is written on the map in Arabic and English (on left). Saidam is also Deputy Secretary of Fatah's Central Committee.

Report: Palestinian Textbooks Claim Entirety of Israel as Arab Land, Call Jews ‘Sinful and Liars’

Palestinian Authority textbooks encourage children to view the entirety of Israel as Arab territory, and teach them to seek the land’s liberation even at the cost of martyrdom, according to a new report by a Jerusalem-based research group.

Palestinian nationalist and Islamist ideologies that reject Israel’s basic legitimacy saturate lessons for children as young as six, with various science, math, and humanities exercises all reinforcing this overarching narrative, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found.

The group studied grade 1–11 textbooks published for the 2017–18 academic year, and grade 12 textbooks that were inaugurated this August, following PA curriculum reforms first implemented in 2016. It released a preliminary review of the grades 5-11 curriculum in October.

“Palestine after the 1948 War.” Geography and Modern History of Palestine, Vol. 2, Grade 10, 2017, p. 8. Photo: IMPACT-se.

Israel is routinely referred to as the “Zionist Occupation” within the curriculum, including in contexts before the 1967 Six-Day War, in which it came to control the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and eastern portions of Jerusalem.

Various areas within Israel are described as Palestinian, with a geography textbook for 12th graders stating that the “Negev Plateau is located in southern Palestine,” while a entrepreneurship textbook for the same grade claims that the Israeli city of Nazareth is located in the “Palestinian North.”

European Parliament committee votes to freeze €15M to PA over inciting textbooks

The European Parliament Budgetary Committee voted to freeze over 15 million Euros from the Palestinian Authority if they do not remove incitement from their textbooks.

"The reserve will be released," the bill reads, "when the Palestinian Authority has committed to reform its school curriculum and textbooks to bring them in line with UNESCO standards standards for peace and tolerance in school education."

The bill, an amendment to the EU's draft budget proposed by Budgetary Committee chairwoman MEP Dr. Ingeborg Grässle, is expected to go to a plenary vote on October 24th.

If the bill passes the plenary vote, the EU will withhold €15,440,597 until the PA changes its textbooks. The European Union is the largest single donor to the Palestinian Authority.

The bill states: "The textbooks published by the PA in 2017, which are financed by the EU...contain, across all subjects, numerous examples of violent depictions, hate speech – in particular against Israel – and glorifications of jihad and martyrdom. As has already been pointed out by Parliament in its resolution on the 2016 budget discharge (par. 272), EU-financed teaching and training programs should reflect common values.”

The Quranic verse that Mahmoud Abbas quoted to Palestinian youth

PA president and dictator for life Mahmoud Abbas wrote a handwritten letter to Palestinian youth on their being steadfast until they control all of Palestine (and, of course, destroy Israel):

In the name of God the Merciful

"O you who believe! If you support Allah, He will support you, and will strengthen your foothold." This is a great truth of Allah.

Generation after generation, we have carried the trust that Allah has placed in our hearts. Generation after a generation, our veins continue to stand by the oath and the oath that we remain the protectors of this beloved homeland, steadfast in it, to preserve its identity and achieve its freedom and independence with the popular resistance in which all our sons and daughters are involved .

We have not been discouraged by sacrifice, but have increased our hardness, determination and resolve to continue our noble path no matter how long it takes.

And with the determination of youth we will raise the flag of Palestine over the walls and minarets of Jerusalem and its churches.

The initial verse is interesting. It comes from the Quran, 47:7.

Here is the context of the Quranic statement:

1. Those who disbelieve and repel from the path of God—He nullifies their works.

2. While those who believe, and work righteousness, and believe in what was sent down to Muhammad—and it is the truth from their Lord—He remits their sins, and relieves their concerns.

3. That is because those who disbelieve follow falsehoods, while those who believe follow the truth from their Lord. God thus cites for the people their examples.

4. When you encounter those who disbelieve, strike at their necks. Then, when you have routed them, bind them firmly. Then, either release them by grace, or by ransom, until war lays down its burdens. Had God willed, He could have defeated them Himself, but He thus tests some of you by means of others. As for those who are killed in the way of God, He will not let their deeds go to waste.

5. He will guide them, and will improve their state of mind.

6. And will admit them into Paradise, which He has identified for them.

7. O you who believe! If you support God, He will support you, and will strengthen your foothold.

8. But as for those who disbelieve, for them is perdition, and He will waste their deeds.

9. That is because they hated what God revealed, so He nullified their deeds.

10. Have they not journeyed through the earth and seen the consequences for those before them? God poured destruction upon them, and for the unbelievers is something comparable.

11. That is because God is the Master of those who believe, while the disbelievers have no master.

This message is anything but peaceful.

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The World Bank issued a series of reports on the dire situation in Gaza - and it reveals some interesting facts in its recommendations.

Restore transfer flows
1. Restore aggregate PA payments to Gaza (these have declined by $30 million per month from 2017). Priority should be given to social assistance payments, medical supplies, and salaries for PA employees who are working.
2. Reverse the decline in donor funding to key service delivery agencies such as UNRWA.

The cuts began around April 2017. $30 million a month since April 2017 comes out to over half a billion dollars!

For some reason, the US withholding funds from the Palestinians is big news. When other countries do it it is no big deal. (International support for the Palestinian budget has gone down by 2/3 since 2008!) And when Palestinian leaders themselves withhold huge amounts from Gaza no one at all reports it until it is buried as a parenthetical statement in a 37 page report.

And it might get much, much worse. The PA still sends $96 million a month to Gaza - and Mahmoud Abbas may cut that entire amount.

(h/t Irene)

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Billboard meant to celebrate Iran's soldiers actually showed Israeli soldiers

A hilarious item from Sputnik News:

In an embarrassing error, a billboard in the Iranian city of Shiraz meant to commemorate the country’s eight-year-long war with Iraq accidentally featured images of soldiers from the Islamic Republic’s more perennial rival: the Israel Defense Forces.

Iran is in the middle of its Sacred Defense Week, a week-long holiday meant to commemorate the Iran-Iraq War, fought between the two countries from 1980 until 1988. Unfortunately, one ad in Shiraz, a city in Fars that is Iran's fifth-largest, purported to show Iranian soldiers gazing out from a mountaintop at the horizon, but instead showed soldiers from Israel, a country revolutionary leader and Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called "the little satan" (compared to the United States' "big satan").

What's more, the original photo featured a female soldier, who was edited out for the Shiraz billboard, and clouds were put in to replace the original backdrop of a suburban locale. The soldiers' uniforms in the ad don't look like Iranian army uniforms, either.

Once the ad's true nature became known, it was quickly taken down.

Here's the billboard:

And here's the original photo of IDF soldiers who were looking out from a hill near Gush Etzion:

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09/26 Links Pt2: Linda Sarsour’s Blood Libel; Corbyn says UK will immediately recognize Palestinian state if he’s elected; Pat Condell: O Come All Ye Jew Haters

From Ian:

Linda Sarsour’s Blood Libel

When police officers in America shoot unarmed black people, Jewish hands lurk in the background — so says Linda Sarsour, perhaps the most visible Muslim political advocate in the United States. She was a co-chair of the national Women’s March, and is a campaign surrogate for politicians, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A program sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that takes American police officials to Israel for a week-long seminar is fueling police brutality, Sarsour said earlier this month at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)’s annual convention.

The ADL, she said in response to a question, “has been a purveyor of Islamophobia against our community,” and complained that the group still enjoys a positive reputation.

ADL officials “positioned themselves as somehow being part of the progressive movement,” she said. “But what they do is, I’ll give you an example of something that they do — if you are part of a criminal justice reform movement, if you believe in the idea of ending police brutality and the misconduct of law enforcement officers across the country, then you do not support an organization that takes police officers from America, funds their trips, takes them to Israel so they can be trained by the Israeli police and military, and then they come back here and do what? Stop and frisk, killing unarmed black people across the country.”

“That [statement] is so horrific,” says Nisi Jacobs. Jacobs is a co-founder of the Women’s March for All, a group that broke away from the national Women’s March because of antisemitism concerns about Sarsour and national co-chair Tamika Mallory. Among its activities, Women’s March for All has circulated a petition calling on Sarsour and Mallory to be replaced.

“It’s [beyond] anti-Semitic,” Jacobs said. “She’s lying to a bunch of gullible, hurt people. She’s like a horrible guru that just lies because she has her own agenda.”

IsraellyCool: The Bolt Report on Ari Fuld Murder and Eurovision Boycott Attempts

The wonderful Andrew Bolt recently spoke to Australian Jewish politician Michael Danby about the murder of Ari Fuld z”l, as well as BDS-hole hypocrisy towards Israel.

As usual, it is worth watching, solely for the fact that it is like watching a current affairs show from an alternate universe, in which Israel is portrayed accurately, and the real bad guys portrayed as bad guys.

Corbyn says UK will immediately recognize Palestinian state if he’s elected

The leader of Britain’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said Wednesday that he would immediately recognize a Palestinian state if elected to lead the country, while also acknowledging that his party has faced a tough summer grappling with the issue of anti-Semitism.

During his keynote speech at the annual Labour conference in Liverpool, Corbyn protested “the ongoing denial of justice and rights to the Palestinian people” and declared Labour was “united in condemning the shooting of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza by Israeli forces and the passing of Israel’s discriminatory nation-state law,” referring to recent Knesset legislation defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

“The continuing occupation, the expansion of illegal settlements and the imprisonment of Palestinian children are an outrage,” he said, referring to minors convicted by Israel of terror activities.

According to AP figures, more than 130 Gazans have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of weekly border clashes dubbed the “Great March of Return” at the end of March. Hamas, an Islamist terror group that seized control of Gaza in 2007 and seeks to destroy Israel, has acknowledged that dozens of the fatalities were its members.

What do you do when your beliefs and living where you do places your child in mortal danger? Some people would change their beliefs or move. Others would not, aware in some dim recesses of the mind that others think they are shirking their parental duty and risking the lives of their children. But what if it’s about your principles: about living in Eretz HaKodesh, the Holy Land?

We were proud of our 18-year-old son when he went out and got his first real job without any clout or help from us. But we were surprised to hear he’d gotten a job as a busboy at Greg, a café at Canion Harim, the mall at the Gush Etzion Junction. We’d expected he’d get a job locally, in our town of Efrat, or perhaps something in Jerusalem.

The issue was immediately apparent: how would he get to and from work? Especially when he stayed to close up, late at night? Would his job prove to be a liability, with my husband always driving him there and back, on call for this exclusive purpose?

Because while we feel safe enough at home, the Gush Etzion Junction is a known hotspot for terror. It’s not far from where the three boys were kidnapped and murdered, and Dalia Lemkus stabbed to death. It’s where Ezra Schwartz and my children’s beloved teacher Rabbi Yaakov Don were killed. And it’s where Ari Fuld was murdered only a week ago.

Ari Fuld (HY"D) collided with this glass door during the attack that took his life and it shattered on impact.

There have been other incidents. Stabbings and ramming attacks. And I always know when one is happening, because I can hear the sirens of the multiple ambulances and security vehicles speeding toward the scene. I can hear them in my living room. It’s a trick, something about the way the sound carries. And yet, we live that close, though we might as well be very far away: close enough to hear, far enough away to feel safe from harm.

I have never bought into the idea that the only place Jews are safe is in Eretz Yisrael. On the one hand, I know that statistically, even the Gush Etzion Junction is safer than a New York street corner. But that is cold comfort. The fact is, terror does strike at the Junction and has. On numerous occasions. I’d be a fool to pretend otherwise.

Makeshift memorial to Ari Fuld (HY"D) on the spot of the terror attack that took his life.

But I have always believed that Jews should live in every part of Eretz Yisrael. Use it or lose it. This personal precept was, in fact, something I shared with Ari Fuld, something I mentioned to a colleague who asked me for a personal anecdote about Ari for an article she was writing:

There was a pro-Israel bloggers meet-up last year. It was in "East" Jerusalem and anyway, I don't drive, so I asked if I could get a ride with Ari.
He took a route to Jerusalem that I hadn't taken since maybe the 1st intifada, a road considered "dangerous."
I was surprised and pleased. We talked about that, how important it is to travel in parts of Israel that are even dangerous. We had a meeting of minds on the subject.
I don't have too many friends who get that. So I knew he was the real deal.

I remember some years ago, the same son who took the job at Greg, was invited by a neighbor to take a day trip during the Sukkot festival to see a part of Israel that was off the beaten track. My husband initially said no: it was too dangerous. But when Dov told me about it, he was surprised to hear, after ascertaining that the father who was driving would be armed, that I thought my son should go. My true, deep feeling is that if we don’t own the roads of our land, don’t use them, they will become even more dangerous, so dangerous that it will be as if they no longer belong to us. They will become exclusively Arab.

Makeshift memorial in the shape of a Star of David at the site of Ari Fuld's murder (HY"D)

A hand-lettered sign memorializing Ari Fuld (HY"D) at the site of the murder by the people of Maale Michmash. It says, in part, "The eternal nation is not afraid of the long road ahead."

It is a mitzvah, a commandment, to travel in and see Israel. You get a brownie point for every four cubits you walk within the land. To me, this article of faith is not a myth but a fact. I believe it more deeply than I believe just about anything at all.

The sign on the Gush Etzion Junction felafel shop quoting its propietor.

And now I am being put to the test. Will I tell my son to quit his job, urge him to do so, when all his life I have demonstrated that I believe in traveling to parts of Israel that are even “a little dangerous” as I related in my anecdote about Ari Fuld?

So far, Dov has given our son rides where needed, and a co-worker has been generous enough to give him rides home late at night. My son knows that if he doesn’t have a ride, he can call home and my hardworking husband will get out of bed, get dressed, and go pick him up. I hope my son doesn’t hesitate to do so, worried about awakening his father.

Dov told him that if he becomes nervous, if it becomes too much, he can look for other work, and left it at that. The values with which we raised our son are now being put to the test. At 18, he’s a man. It’s now up to him to assume the mantle. Or not.

Next year he goes into the IDF where he takes with him everything we’ve poured into him to defend our people and our land. I could think of this as a delicate precipice where he leaves the shelter of youth to risk everything for others. Or I could think of it as a continuation of how we’ve always raised him: that security and safety are ephemeral. That what is true and right is our heritage: our God-given right to the land.

(Thanks, Leora Hyman and Dov Epstein for photos)

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