Thursday, November 01, 2018
MEMRI: Articles In Palestinian Press Condemn President Trump And His Administration: Neo-Hitlerism Aspiring To Global Hegemony – According To Instructions Of Rothschild Family
In the wake of the crisis in relations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the PA press has published numerous articles condemning the Trump administration and President Trump personally. Inter alia, they called the administration "the most bullying U.S. administration in modern American history" whose racist, colonialist and "neo-Hitlerism" policy "heralds terrifying catastrophes for mankind." They also said that Trump was acting deliberately to bring down the global order and the UN institutions in order to force complete American hegemony on the world and bring it back to the law of the jungle. One columnist in a PA daily even accused the Trump administration of aspiring to change the world order according to instructions by the global government headed by the Rothschild family.
Some of the articles were addressed, in particularly harsh tones, against President Trump himself, calling him a "gang leader," a "highway robber," a "new cowboy," a bully who wants to turn America into the world's "sheriff," and more.
The following are excerpts from the articles.
Columnist In PA Daily: Trump Is Acting According To Guidelines Of The Rothschild Family World Government – To Dismantle And Reassemble The World
'Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, a columnist for the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, wrote that the Trump administration is acting to destroy the UN because it is unwilling to obey the international law and heed the positions of other countries, especially poor ones. He added that the capitalist U.S. administration follows "the guidelines of the global government headed by the Zionist Rothschild family," and aims to achieve global hegemony:
"The U.S. under Trump is pursuing a tycoon-like policy of dismantling and reassembling the world map, after it could no longer tolerate the UN system that it itself founded upon the ruins of the League of Nations… as though it no longer believes in the goals [the UN] is expected [to achieve]. [This is] because the other major international forces and the poor countries represented in the UN pulled the rug out from under its feet based on the norms of international law... which the gang [in the U.S. administration] refuses to accept and acts to change and eliminate.
"What the U.S. administration is implementing is America's [preferred] choice: creating a vortex of global chaos or creative chaos, in accordance with the guidelines of the global government headed by the Zionist Rothschild family, and [also in accordance with] Trump's slogan of 'America First.' The [American] struggle in the various arenas thus [corresponds to] the tycoon [Trump's] decision to persecute the [other international] players in order to take back the reigns of decision-making and global policy..."[1]
PMW: Fatah supports Islamic edict prohibiting land sales to "enemies"
Abbas' Fatah Movement endorses the PA's fatwa, or religious edict, prohibiting the transfer or selling of land to Israelis/Jews and encourages Palestinians not to violate it.Omani FM: Israel Is Part of the Region; The Torah And Israelite Prophets Emerged In The Middle East
Fatah has announced that selling land to Israelis/Jews constitutes "high treason against the religion, the homeland, and the people." Thereby the movement repeats the PA Mufti's ban on selling land documented by Palestinian Media Watch. Fatah, which is supposedly a secular movement, also used religious language, warning that violating this prohibition would even have implications after death, in "the world to come":
"The Fatah Movement emphasized that the sale of properties and lands to the occupation or their illegal transfer to dubious sources constitutes high treason against the religion, the homeland, and the people, and that 'whoever does this decrees upon himself shame and disgrace in this world and in the world to come.'"
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 14, 2018]
A Fatah official went even further, stating that "the occupation's contemptible agents" who sell or transfer land to Israelis/Jews are "bats of the night" and the opposite of those Palestinians "who are sacrificing their lives for Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque":
"Fatah Revolutionary Council member and [Fatah] Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi said: 'There are those who are sacrificing their lives for Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque and in order to defend its status and its Arabness, and on the other hand there are bats of the night - the occupation's contemptible agents - who sell their conscience and their religion and betray Jerusalem for money, which will turn into a curse on their heads.'"
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 14, 2018]
Speaking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies' (IISS) 2018 Manama Dialogue, Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah said: "Israel is one of the countries in the region… Maybe it is time that Israel had the same privileges and duties as other countries." Bin Abdullah said that the Torah and the Israelite prophets emerged in the Middle East and that there had even been Jews in Medina. He stated that improved relations between Israel and its neighbors can be accomplished and that such relations would bring stability to the Middle East while serving both Palestinian and Israeli interests. Earlier in the Manama Dialogue, Bin Abdullah had expressed his support for the "Deal of the Century." Bin Abdullah made these comments in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's October 26 visit to Oman. The video was uploaded to the Internet on October 27, 2018.
The Omani way of solving Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Oman has a unique method to resolve conflicts called Sabla. This is essentially a way of mediating between the two sides seated opposite each other, which allows them to present their arguments and demands, and helps them to reach an agreement. The meeting of Sultan Qaboos bin Said—the ruler of Oman—with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Friday, is an attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the method of Sabla.Giant leap for Israel-Gulf ties can’t shatter Palestinian glass ceiling
Indeed, Netanyahu arrived in Oman for a brief visit after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited the country a few days earlier and presented his position on the issue. Oman's Foreign Minister Yusuf Bin Alawi, views Netanyahu's visit as "completely natural." According to Bin Alawi, the prime minister had asked the Sultan whether he could present his position on the conflict as well, and they replied: “Yallah tefadal, come.”
There are courts in Oman, but the residents prefer the Sabla method. That is how they end financial disputes, arguments between ordinary citizens and the government, as well as conflicts with neighboring countries.
When Sultan Qaboos bin Said came to power 40 years ago (after his father was ousted from power), he extended the authority of the Sabla system to be used as a conflict resolution method outside of the Sultanate: between Iraq and Iran, between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Now, the Sultan and his foreign minister want to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table through the means of Sabla, and they are working together with the United States. The Palestinians can boycott the US and Trump, but they can not brush off the Sultan of Oman.
Israel’s ties with the Arab world took a giant leap forward in recent days, with a series of dramatic — even historic — events that seemed to indicate that some of the Jewish state’s neighbors are at long last accepting it as a legitimate member of the family of nations.Israel's Foreign Affairs Min: Persona Grata Podcast - Episode 1, It's Personal
Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates made important gestures toward Israel over the last few days, despite the fact that Israel’s relations with its closest neighbors, the Palestinians, remain dismal.
A peace agreement is as elusive as ever, yet today it can no longer be denied that some Sunni Arab states are slowly but surely opening up to Israel. This seemingly disproves the hypothesis, advanced by some, that no further dramatic normalization with the Muslim world can take place in the absence of significant progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yet, despite the abundance of good news in Israel-Gulf relations, the peace process is still a glass ceiling that must be shattered before full normalization can take place, several analysts warned this week.
On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was warmly welcomed in Muscat by Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said, becoming the first Israeli official to publicly visit the country in more than two decades.
“These were important talks — both for the State of Israel and very important talks for Israel’s security,” Netanyahu said Sunday, vowing that there “there will be more” visits to Arab countries.
Our first guest is Emmanuel Nachshon, Israel MFA's Spokesperson, who discusses some of the challenges diplomats and spokespeople encounter when dealing with the press both online and offline.
MEMRI: Palestinian Columnist In Qatari Daily Calls For Armed Struggle Against Israel
On October 31, 2018, following the meeting of the PLO's Palestinian Central Council, at which it was decided to end the agreements with Israel, Samir Al-Barghouti, a Palestinian columnist for the Qatari daily Al-Watan, wrote that the way to attain freedom is through armed struggle against Israel. In the column, headed "Open the Weapons Depos," he criticized Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas and his associates for abandoning the armed struggle and therefore failing to realize the Palestinian dream. He called on Fatah to take up arms, and on Hamas to expand its struggle against Israel to the West Bank and the Palestinian diaspora.BBC WS radio framing of Israeli PM’s Oman visit
The following are excerpts from his column:
"Open the weapons depos before [Israeli] embassies [start] appearing in the Arab countries, and before a public relations campaign is launched for accepting Israel as a member of the Arab League. [Open them] in light of the revolutionary decisions taken by the Palestinian Central Council, headed by the fighter Abu Mazen [Mahmoud 'Abbas], to revoke the PLO's and PA's commitment to all the agreements with the occupation regime (Israel), and first and foremost [the decisions] to suspend the recognition of the state of Israel until it recognizes the state of Palestine on the June 4, 1967 borders , with East Jerusalem as its capital... to suspend the security coordination, in all its forms, and to sever the economic [relations with Israel]... These decisions were revolutionary and vital...
"Hamas, which explained its absence [from the Central Council meeting] by citing the ongoing siege [on Gaza], must take these decisions seriously and announce a new phase in the struggle, [to be carried out] not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank and the diaspora.
"Fatah must open up its weapons depos and start implementing the decisions [it took], in order to thwart the Deal of the Century. The PLO must launch a diplomatic campaign, first of all in the national [Arab] capitals and then in Moscow and China. They must [also] visit the Palestinians in the diaspora and form a young leadership to direct the [new] phase.
"I think Abu Mazen and his associates [should] resign, for they did their jobs and failed to realize the Palestinian dream... You have decided to oppose the occupier in [all] legitimate ways, and weapons are a legitimate [way], gentlemen. The oppressive occupation murders our children and young people every day, and what encourages it to do so is [your] withdrawal from the armed struggle. This needs to be said. Resistance is the path of those seeking freedom; there is no freedom without resistance."
While that news did not receive any coverage whatsoever on the BBC’s English language website, it was reported in Arabic.Logic Dictates that Pakistan Should Re-examine Its Attitude toward Israel
The evening edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour‘ on October 26th included a five-minute account of the story in which listeners heard a trip which had not been public knowledge until a few hours beforehand described as a “high-profile, very public visit by Netanyahu to Oman”.
Presenter Jon Donnison introduced the item as follows:
Donnison: “The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu famously likes to say he grew up in a tough neighbourhood, his country surrounded – as he would see it – by Arab enemies.”
Despite having done a stint in the Middle East Donnison is apparently unaware of the fact that five Arab armies invaded the nascent Jewish state seventeen months before Netanyahu was born and tried to repeat the exercise twice before his 24th birthday.
Rumors about a secret Israeli visit to Pakistan have provided us with the opportunity to publish this piece that we have been holding back on for nearly a year.How Should We Read the American Press? In Arabic
Like many of their Arab and Muslim brethren, Pakistanis view Israel as the enemy. Geopolitics, however, is anything but an emotional exercise; rather it is the art of skillfully pursuing the national interest.
Pakistan's policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue remains frozen in time, while many Arab and Muslim states have assumed a pragmatic attitude towards the issue. Israel is not the one shunning Pakistan. It is the other way around. It is high time that Pakistan re-examine its stance.
There is no evidence that Israel has ever acted against Pakistan. The Israeli motivation for forging ties with India is because it needs all the allies it can get, and close relations with the world's soon-to-be most populous nation is something that the Jewish state will logically pursue.
The largest Arab state, Egypt, normalized relations with Israel since the 1978 peace treaty. In 1994, Jordan formalized its long behind-the-scenes relations with Israel. Pakistan's closest Middle Eastern ally, Saudi Arabia, is also openly moving towards a relationship with the Jewish state.
The common denominator in all of these relations is that they have been forged on the basis of their respective national interest. If Saudi Arabia has altered its position because of its own national security concerns, what is stopping Pakistan from doing the same?
In his last column for The Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi explained how the lack of a free press has impoverished the Arabs.Report: Hamas to suspend violent protests along Gaza border until Sunday
“A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche,” he wrote, “and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change.”
Khashoggi might have also been describing the current state of the U.S. media. Over the last several years, the press here has repeatedly joined with government officials, including intelligence officers, to wage operations influencing the American public to obtain political goals, just like Middle East media.
Take Turkey, for example. As The Washington Post explained, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used leaks about the Khashoggi affair, some true some not, as a political instrument to target Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the Trump administration.
What the Post failed to disclose was that it played a role in Erdogan’s campaign. Indeed, in the last few years, a whole swath of the U.S. press and foreign policy establishment that had been openly hostile to the Turkish government suddenly began publishing almost everything the Erdogan-allied media gave them, relaying anonymous leaks from Turkish officials, often secondhand, to American audiences for the purpose of damaging a Trump ally.
Turkey has jailed more journalists than any other country in the world, thus most of what’s left of the Turkish press are journalists aligned with the president or wary of crossing him. In other words, the Turkish press is not a separate and independent institution but is instead one of the Turkish government’s political weapons.
The U.S. media meshed seamlessly with Turkish information operations because our journalists have become habituated to their new role as political assets. For two years the press has been breathlessly reporting thousands of stories sourced to unnamed U.S. officials and promising that the latest development—Russiagate, Stormygate, etc.—was certain to topple President Donald Trump. Whether you admire or disdain the so-called #resistance, the fact is that a press labeling itself as such on Twitter is one less interested in reporting facts than shaping political outcomes.
In the Khashoggi case, the press was playing the part of the pro-Iran echo chamber, originally built to sell the Iran nuclear deal. For Barack Obama, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was a geopolitical instrument realigning U.S. interests with Iran, while downgrading the 75-year-old U.S.-Saudi relationship, along with the U.S.-Israel alliance. One of Trump’s first moves in office was to restore Riyadh to its privileged place as regional partner. The echo chamber used the Khashoggi affair to target Riyadh in an effort to preserve Obama’s pro-Iran policies.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have temporarily agreed to halt their violent attacks against Israel until Sunday, including the Friday riots along the border fence, the launching of incendiary balloons and attempts to infiltrate Israel, Ynet reported.Police clear kindergarten in south after suspected Gaza balloon bomb found
But the weekly protests that have been held by the border will continue without the violence from past weeks and it will be set some 500 meters away from the barrier.
Last week some 16,000 Palestinians protested by the barrier.
The cessation of violence is to allow Egypt and the United Nations to continue their efforts to restore the situation to what it was prior to the start of the Great March of Return on March 30.
Both Egypt and the UN hope to create a long term understanding, or even a ceasefire, that would ease the humanitarian situation for the 2 million people living in Gaza and prevent further outbreaks of violence between the IDF and Hamas.
As part of those efforts, Israel has facilitated the shipment of Qatari funded fuel into Gaza for its power plant. As a result Gaza residents are now receiving more than eight hours of electricity a day, instead of the four they had been receiving.
A kindergarten in southern Israel was evacuated Thursday morning after a teacher spotted a suspicious object in the playground that was later found to be an explosive device, apparently flown into Israel from the nearby Gaza Strip, officials said.Member of Hamas military wing killed in ‘accidental explosion’
Sappers were called to the scene to remove the device from the kindergarten in the Eshkol region, a local government spokesperson said.
“The object was collected by security officers and handled by them,” the Eshkol spokesperson said.
In a separate case, a security jeep caught fire in Kibbutz Alumim, some four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Gaza border, because of an airborne incendiary device from the Strip, according to the fire department.
“The incident is under control, and there are no injuries,” said the spokesperson for the fire department’s southern district.
“The fire was sparked when the vehicle went over an incendiary balloon. The small blaze that was under the car sparked a fire in a pipe in the fuel system, which caused the fire to spread to the front part of the car and caused significant damage to the vehicle,” he said.
A member of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, was killed on Thursday in an “accidental explosion” in the northern Gaza Strip, the terror group said.In Gaza, tire shortage hits motorists but not protesters
Daoud Jneid of Jabalia in northern Gaza “was martyred in an accidental explosion,” the Qassam Brigades said in a statement on its official website.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry said Jneid was 37. The Qassam Brigades said he was 39.
The explosion took place at a site that belongs to an armed group in Gaza, the Hamas-linked Palestinian Information Center reported, citing local sources.
The report did not say to which armed group the site belongs.
“He passed away on the path of struggle and resistance and in the field of honor and might,” the Qassam Brigades statement added.
Palestinians in Gaza have coped with shortages of many products in more than a decade of border closures — from chocolate to medicines to fuel and building supplies. Now, six months of protests against an Israeli-Egyptian blockade have added an unexpected item to that list: car tires.British media blame Israel for Gaza’s economic woes. Gazans blame Hamas and the PA
Tires are a favored item by demonstrators and rioters during the weekly protests — they are set on fire, then thrown toward Israeli troops across the border.
In response, Israel has halted tire imports into the Strip, sending prices skyrocketing and forcing Gaza motorists to find creative solutions to keep their vehicles on the road.
Taxi driver Khaled Hamad has no spare tire in his trunk. His tires are worn down, but he could only afford to change two, replacing them with secondhand ones that aren’t even the standard size recommended by the manufacturer.
“Even when they were cheaper, upgrading my tires was expensive,” Hamad said as he kicked a bald front tire that still needs to be changed. “I make 40 shekels ($11) a day these days. Business is down.”
British media reports about economic problems in Gaza are as predictable as they are ubiquitous, with most outlets attributing the Palestinian controlled territory’s poverty – and the slow pace of reconstruction – solely to Israel’s “crippling blockade”. We’ve often noted that this myopic Israel-centered explanation denies Palestinian agency, and conflates the true cause of Gaza’s woes (Hamas’s decision to use scarce resources to import weaponry, produce rockets, build attack tunnels and launch terror) with the effect of that decision (the Israeli and Egyptian blockade).A BBC contributor’s ‘particular viewpoint’
This narrative has been woven into coverage of the weekly border riots known as The Great Return March. Despite the fact that stated goals of the Hamas organised violence is to achieve the Palestinian ‘right of return’ to Israel, more often than not reporters tell news consumers that the unrest is driven in large measure by opposition to Israel’s blockade.
The following paragraph, in a Sept. 29th Guardian report on two Palestinians killed during “protests”, is typical:
Palestinians have protested weekly since 30 March in what they call the “Great March of Return”, demanding that Arabs who fled or were expelled around the time of Israel’s creation in 1948 to be allowed to return to their homes. Demonstrators have also focused on a crippling decade-long Israeli-Egyptian blockade that has trapped much of the strip’s population and devastated its economy.
Well, it turns out that the Guardian reporter’s failure to even mention Hamas’s role in Gaza’s ‘devastated economy’ would likely elicit criticism by a majority of Gazans, according to a new poll released by Bethlehem-based Palestine Center for Public Opinion.
All too often, however, BBC audiences are not given the required insight into the “particular viewpoint” of an interviewee which would allow them to put his or her contribution into its appropriate context.Greenblatt returning to Israel for more peace plan meetings
One such example was seen last December when a contributor to a BBC World Service radio item concerning what was at the time still a potential announcement by the US president concerning Jerusalem and the US embassy in Israel was introduced as follows:
“We’ve been getting opinions from Israel, from America: now for a Palestinian view of the implications. We’ve been speaking to Professor Saree Makdisi. He’s based in California. He’s the author of ‘Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation’. So, Professor Makdisi, how significant is this move?”
As noted here at the time, listeners were not informed that the US born professor of English literature is a proponent of a bi-national state – and the resulting elimination of the Jewish state – and a supporter of the BDS campaign.
In the wake of the recent lethal attack on worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Makdisi had several comments to make.
The people Makdisi claims were killed “in Gaza” on the evening of October 28th were in fact approaching the border fence, in the dark, with a suspicious object.
“Three Palestinians were killed Sunday during an IDF airstrike near Khan Yunis after they were identified placing a suspicious object, believed to be an explosive device, on the border fence.
The Palestinians were spotted by a Gaza division observation post while they were crawling in the dark towards the security fence with the suspicious object.”
Makdisi however equated that incident with the deadly attack on Jews in the Pittsburgh synagogue by disingenuously claiming that both cases come under the heading ‘racial violence’. He equated an anti-Semitic murderer with members of the armed forces tasked with protecting civilians from cross-border attacks which have been going on for seven months.
US President Donald Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, returns to Israel this weekend for continued talks on the administration’s upcoming peace plan.Abbas-Sissi meeting planned for this weekend, Palestinian official says
No revelations are expected from the meetings, but Greenblatt and his team, led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, say they are essentially finished with their plan for a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Trump has said he wants the plan published by the end of the year or shortly thereafter.
“Looking forward to being back in Israel this week as part of our commitment to productive engagement,” Greenblatt wrote on Twitter.
While his formal role at the White House has been to spearhead the peace effort day to day, Greenblatt was also sent by the president earlier this week to represent the administration in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after a mass slaughter of Jews in a synagogue there last weekend.
Greenblatt, who is Orthodox, wrote an op-ed on his experience. “There is a culture of hate that is multiplying,” he warned.
Arrangements are being made for a meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi in Sharm al-Sheikh this weekend, a Palestinian diplomat said on Thursday.Israeli envoy urges UN to condemn Hezbollah's missile efforts
The last known time Abbas and Sissi held a bilateral meeting was some 10 months ago.
“Arrangements are ongoing to hold a meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and his brother President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi about the latest developments in the Palestinian issue and matters of mutual interest,” Palestinian Ambassador to Cairo Diab al-Louh said in a statement posted to the embassy’s Facebook page.
Abbas will be attending the World Youth Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, a government-organized conference, at the invitation of Sissi, Louh added. The PA president also attended last year’s conference.
Egypt has recently made efforts to revive the reconciliation process between Hamas and Fatah, meeting with leaders from the two rival parties for separate talks in the past several weeks.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon on Wednesday called on Secretary General António Guterres to denounce Hezbollah for its armament efforts in the Middle East.Massive European study finds large gap in East, West acceptance of Jews
During his Sept. 28 address to the U.N. General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that the Lebanon-based Shiite terrorist group, which is heavily sponsored by Iran, was building at least three weapon-production sites in the heart of Beirut, with the aim of turning its arsenal of missiles into precision-guided projectiles.
Israel intelligence indicates that Hezbollah possesses at least 100,000 rockets and missiles of varying ranges.
The latest intelligence suggests the new facilities are being built near Beirut's international airport, under a soccer field, and in the vicinity of a densely populated residential area, all with aim of protecting them from potential airstrikes by deliberately placing civilians in harm's way.
"Any country whose citizens take flights that land in Beirut should be anxious about Hezbollah's activity in the region," Danon wrote in a letter addressed to Guterres. "Ignoring this places them [passengers] in harm's way."
The ambassador further urged the international community and all U.N. member states "to condemn the blatant violation of international aviation laws," asserting that "Hezbollah has deliberately placed its missile production sites in the heart of large civilian population centers in Beirut, with the aim of using them as human shields for its malicious military activity."
Eastern Europeans are far less willing to have Jews in their families or as their neighbors than their Western European counterparts, a gap that is even more pronounced when it comes to attitudes toward Muslims.Netanyahu urges EU to end its ‘hypocritical and hostile stance’ toward Israel
According to an analysis of a series of surveys by the Pew Research Center carried out from 2015 to 2017 among some 56,000 adults in 34 European countries, the gap between Europe’s two halves is significant.
The figures are also largely unchanged among young adults, aged 18-34, suggesting that current attitudes are likely to remain constant for the foreseeable future.
Only 40 percent of Russians said they “would be willing to accept Jews as members of their family,” and just 35% of Greeks, 43% of Ukrainians, 51% of Czechs and 57% of Poles.
Among Western European nations, meanwhile, the figure was 69% in the United Kingdom and Germany, 76% in France, 79% in Spain, 89% in Belgium — and was at its highest in the Scandinavian countries: 92% in Sweden, 92% in Denmark and 95% in Norway.
Only 5% or less in Scandinavian and northern European countries said they would reject Jews as their neighbors, with the highest figure in Western Europe being 12%, in Italy.
The corresponding figures given for Eastern Europe were divided by religious affiliation within each country. Rejection of Jews as neighbors was as high as 33% among Armenia’s Christian Orthodox and 30% among that population in Romania. In Lithuania and Ukraine, 24% and 21% of Catholics, respectively, said they wouldn’t accept Jews in their neighborhood.
The East-West gap is even more pronounced when it comes to Muslims, who are less liked than Jews in every European country except Muslim-majority Bosnia.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took off Thursday to Bulgaria for meetings with political leaders from Balkan nations, which he said would focus on strengthening diplomatic ties and pushing for a change in the European Union’s “hypocritical and hostile stance” toward Israel.Elbit wins drone contract for up to $68m to help monitor Europe coast
In Bulgaria, Netanyahu will attend an international summit and meet with the prime ministers of Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Serbia, which is not a member of the EU.
The premier said the purpose of the visit was to strengthen Israel’s relationship with each of those countries, but also to promote his agenda with the European bloc, which he has long chastised for what he claims is an anti-Israel bias.
“This is not just a meeting of friends, but it is, of course, to strengthen relations with each of these countries,” he said. “Yet it is also a bloc of countries with whom I want to promote my policy, to change the hypocritical and hostile attitude of the EU.
Israel defense contractor Elbit Systems Ltd. said Thursday it has won a framework contract to provide maritime unmanned aircraft system (UAS) patrol services to the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), to help monitor vast swaths of sea and long coastlines and identify suspicious activities and potential hazards.Brazil's president-elect vows: Israel can count on our vote
The European agency services countries in the European Union.
The contract, which will be executed together with Portugal-based engineering firm Centre of Engineering and Product Development (CEiiA), is for a two-year period, with an option for additional two, single years. The full value of the contract, including the options, is €59 million (some $68 million).
Under the contract and in cooperation with CEiiA, Elbit will lease and operate its Hermes 900 Maritime Patrol system — a long-range unmanned surveillance system tailored for the sea and coastlines — and its ground control station.
The system will be equipped with maritime radar, an electro-optic payload, satellite communication and an automatic identification system (AIS) receiver, Elbit said in a statement.
“Having been selected by the European Union authorities is yet another vote of confidence in the Hermes 900 by following additional contract awards for this UAS in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Israel,” said Elad Aharonson, general manager of Elbit Systems ISTAR Division, in the statement.
Jair Bolsonaro gives his first foreign media interview to Israel Hayom, says he will promote cooperation with Israel • As a sovereign state, Israel is the only one that can decide its capital, he says • I love the Israeli people and Israel, he declares.Russia warns of 'provocation' in Syria, hints at Israeli 'hot heads'
Q: You've said several times that you intend to relocate the Brazilian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Will you? And do you intend to change the status of the Palestinian Embassy in Brasília?
"Israel is a sovereign state. If you decide on your capital city, we will act in accordance. When I was asked during the campaign if I'll do it [relocate the embassy] when I was president, I said yes, and that you're the ones who decide on the capital of Israel, not other people.
"As for the Palestinian Embassy, it was built too close to the presidential palace. … No embassy can be so close to the presidential palace, so we intend to move it. There's no other way, in my opinion. Other than that, Palestine first needs to be a state to have the right to an embassy."
Q: Can Israel expect fairer, more supportive votes from Brazil in international forums, such as the U.N., on matters involving Israel?
"You can count on having our vote in the U.N. I know that often the vote is almost symbolic, but it helps to define the position a country intends to take. Rest assured that you can depend on our vote in the U.N. on almost all the issues having to do with Israel."
Russian sources confirmed Thursday that a Defense Ministry briefing warning against “provocations" in Syria was directed towards Israel.Report: PA using agriculture to usurp land in Judea and Samaria
Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the ministry, warned Wednesday against “hot heads” provoking Syria and intimated that the S-300 had been deployed to defend against such action. Although Israel wasn’t mentioned, the reference to the S-300 clearly is pointed at Jerusalem.
The statement, also tweeted by the Russian embassy in Israel, appears to reference the downing of a Russian IL-20 aircraft in Syria in September during an Israeli airstrike, an incident that led to a brief crises with Moscow.
The wide-ranging Defense Ministry presentation focused on the situation in northern and eastern Syria. Russia claimed that Syrian rebel groups in Idlib may be preparing a “false flag” chemical weapons attack. In mid-September Russia and Turkey signed a deal that prevented a battle in Idlib and called for extremists to withdraw from a demilitarized zone in the northern province that has been held by Syrian rebels for five years.
Turkey is a key backer of some of the rebel groups and has sought to prevent a massive flight of refugees from Idlib. Moscow now says that the “Turkistan Islamic Party," a rebel group, is preparing a “false flag” attack. Russia says that the Idlib agreement has gone well so far.
A new report presented to the Knesset's Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria on Thursday claims that the Palestinian Authority is using extensive EU-funded agricultural activity to take over lands in the area.The Washington Post Covers Human Rights Abuses Committed by Palestinian Officials
The report was compiled by Regavim, a nongovernmental organization that describes its mission as seeking to "ensure responsible, legal, accountable and environmentally friendly use of Israel's national lands."
The findings claim that the PA's activity follows a specific plan that focuses on Area C of Judea and Samaria, which under the 1993 Oslo Accords is under full Israeli control, with aim of setting facts on the ground so that such agricultural lands would be recognized as Palestinian in any future peace deal.
The report also criticizes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's for his decision to postpone the eviction of Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village that was illegally built some 6 miles east of Jerusalem.
The High Court of Justice cleared the way for the village's eviction, but international uproar has given the government pause and it was eventually decided to defer the move.
The report slams the government's response to the "Palestinian takeover" of the area where Khan al-Ahmar is located, between the Israeli communities of Maaleh Adumim and Kfar Adumim, calling it "weak to nonexistent."
The answer, seemingly, is that the newspaper and other media outlets, including The New York Times, covered the abuses solely because Human Rights Watch—which itself has a history of overlooking such crimes—belatedly decided to detail them in a report. As noted above, numerous other organizations—many of them Palestinian—have been detailing allegations of mistreatment by the PA and Hamas. But this failed to spur the level of media attention that has occurred after HRW’s report.Illicit Procurement Network Used Firms in China, Portugal, and Turkey to Supply Iran
As CAMERA has pointed out, HRW has a long history of anti-Israel bias. HRW has even used the criticism that it receives from “pro-Israel pressure groups” to get funds from wealthy Saudi donors (“Minority Report,” New Republic, April 27, 2010). HRW’s own founder, Robert Bernstein, repudiated the group in a Oct. 19, 2009 New York Times Op-Ed that noted the non-profit organization was guilty of “helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”
For its part, The Washington Post has frequently relied on HRW as a source—often uncritically quoting the organization on Israel, despite its documented bias against the Jewish state.
Further, The Post’s recent attempt to report on Palestinian human rights abuses was incomplete. The paper failed to detail Hamas’s use of human shields, a double war crime and terror tactic that HRW has often obfuscated on. Additionally, The Post has yet to cover the PA’s “escalation of actions those who sell land and property to Jews,” as documented in an Oct. 24, 2018 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) report. JCPA analyst Yoni Ben Menachem noted that “as part of this campaign, a Palestinian realtor with dual Israeli and U.S. citizenship was abducted to Ramallah were he is held in an interrogation cell.” PA forces imprisoned the realtor, whom, according to Arab-language media reports, is named Isam Jalal Akel, several days before The Post’s report (“For Palestinians, Selling Land to Jews is Punishable by Death,” Algemeiner, Oct. 22, 2018). Under PA law, it is illegal to sell or rent property to Jews.
Perhaps if The Post and other media outlets didn’t rely so heavily on anti-Israel organizations and had a greater diversity of sources they could’ve reported the story of Palestinian human rights abuses at an earlier date. Tragically, Palestinian leaders repressing their own people is nothing new. It is, however, newsworthy.
A recently unsealed indictment provides details on Iran's use of deceptive practices to procure export-controlled items with military applications from the U.S. and elsewhere. The indictment details an elaborate, multi-year conspiracy directed by Iranian-born Canadian Ghobad Ghasempour, Chinese national Yi Xiong, and Iranian national Reza Rejali, to procure such items for an Iranian firm, with help from co-conspirators in China, Portugal, and Turkey. Ghasempour was sentenced to 42 months in prison on August 20, 2018.Pakistan: Asia Bibi Acquitted After Years Awaiting Death for "Blasphemy"
Using a network of agents and front companies, the conspirators were able to falsify shipping documents and mislead U.S. manufacturers by claiming that the procured items were intended for end users in Portugal and Turkey. Furthermore, this network enabled the Iranian end users to pay for the items and finance the scheme using Chinese front companies.
Asia Bibi was sentenced to death in 2010 because she is a Christian and because she was thirsty. Today, justice was served when her conviction was overturned.
Now, Bibi may be targeted for assassination when she is released. Islamists have placed a bounty on her head of 50 million rupees ($375,000). Salman Taseer, a brave Muslim who was governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, was murdered just for expressing support for her. Pakistan's federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, was also murdered for defending Bibi.
Lawyers defending Christians and others accused of blasphemy are sometimes murdered as well.
In the ultimate irony, just a few days ago, the so-called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld this same blasphemy law. The ECHR ruling is unspeakable. It is time to remove the unelected judges of that unaccountable and unappealable court.
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