Sunday, August 01, 2021

08/01 Links: Artistic gymnast Artem Dolgopyat wins Israel’s 2nd-ever Olympic gold; Glick: How Putin understands the Lapid-Bennett government; A call to put a stop to Israeli failure in Area C

From Ian:

Artistic gymnast Artem Dolgopyat wins Israel’s 2nd-ever Olympic gold
Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat won Israel’s second-ever Olympic gold medal Sunday, beating out tough Spanish and Chinese competition in the artistic gymnastics floor exercise competition to take the top spot on the Tokyo 2020 podium.

Dolgopyat, a 24-year-old two-time world championship silver medalist who immigrated to Israel from Ukraine at the age of 12, was considered Israel’s best hope for a gold medal at this year’s games.

His final round routine Sunday impressed judges, scoring him 14.933, giving him a total ahead of Spain’s Rayderley Miguel Zapata, who took silver and China’s Xiao Ruoteng, who won the bronze medal.

After Russian team gold winner Nikita Nagornyy was marked down after over-rotating and stumbling on his trademark triple pike tumble, Zapata looked destined for the title.

But Dolgopyat turned the Spaniard’s gold into silver when his routine matched Zapata’s score of 14.933, and with their execution mark also the same, it went down to the difficulty level, with Dolgopyat taking the title by just 0.100.

Dolgopyat had ranked first in the qualifying event after scoring 15.2.

The gold medal is only the second in Israeli history, following windsurfer Gal Friedman’s 2004 win in Athens.
Who is Artem Dolgopyat, Israel's Olympic gold medalist?
Artem Dolgopyat won Israel the second gold medal in the nation's history on Sunday in the discipline of artistic gymnastics. The 24-year-old qualified for the Tokyo Games by winning a silver medal in the floor exercise at the 2019 World Championships held in Stuttgart, Germany.

Artem's passion for gymnastics goes back to the tender age of six when he first signed up to attend his local club in Dnirpo, Ukraine, as he followed in the footsteps of his father, who was a gymnast himself. In 2009, Dolgopyat’s family moved to Israel and settled in Tel Aviv, where he quickly became a standout at the Maccabi sports club.

Dolgopyat continued to compete at the top youth competitions and finally broke through in 2017 when he won a silver medal in the floor exercise at the World Championships held in Montreal, Canada.

That same year saw him also win medals at the Maccabiah Games with led him to medals in floor exercise both in 2018 and 2019 at the European Championships.

At the 2020 European Championships held in Turkey, Dolgopyat captured gold in the floor exercise and bronze in the vault as expectations were raised up a bar. He finally reached the pinnacle of his career on Sunday, winning a gold medal in Tokyo.




CEO of Israel Gymnastics Federation Talks Artem Dolgopyat's Gold Medal Win



At Munich massacre memorial in Tokyo, widow lauds Olympics’ long-awaited tribute
An official memorial was held Sunday in Tokyo for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics, days after the opening Tokyo Olympics ceremony included, for the first time, an official commemoration of those who died in the terror attack nearly 50 years ago.

The ceremony at Israel’s embassy in Japan on Sunday was attended by Israeli athletes participating in the Tokyo games, family members of the victims, and the president of the International Olympic Committee.

“Even though 49 years have already passed, the tragedy is still engraved in our collective memory and will always be,” said Israel’s Ambassador to Japan Yaffa Ben-Ari. “The memory of our victims serves not only as a reminder to the leaders of the State of Israel of the imperative to take care of the lives of the Jewish people, but also reminds the leaders of the world that in order to fight against evil we all have to stand together and condemn terrorism.”

Ankie Spitzer, widow of the slain Israeli fencing coach Andre Spitzer, profusely thanked IOC President Thomas Bach for the gesture at the opening ceremony, calling it a “glorious moment” to “finally realize that our 11 loved ones were recognized as members of the Olympic family, that they were no longer ignored because they were Jews and Israelis.”

“Sometimes it only takes one man to make a difference,” she said, after making an emotional blessing of thanksgiving, Shechiyanu, at the start of her remarks.

“Our deep wounds of the Munich Olympics will never heal, but life looks different today — much brighter and hopeful,” she added.
Adidas chooses an American-Israeli Orthodox mom as the face of a new campaign
In 2016, Beatie Deutsch placed sixth in the Jerusalem half marathon. Watching Deutsch, an Israeli born in the United States, you would have never guessed that she had taken up running only four months earlier. The following year she ran the Tel Aviv Marathon while seven months pregnant with her fifth child.

Even while running, the Haredi Orthodox Deutsch dresses modestly, following Jewish laws. She wears a headscarf, elbow-length shirt and a knee-length skirt covering her leggings — unlikely attire for a star athlete.

Just a few short years after her first race, Deutsch placed first in the 2018 Jerusalem Marathon. In 2019, she won Israel’s National Championships Marathon in Tiberias, and she quickly became the Israeli national champion in the marathon and half marathon. Most notably, she qualified for the 2020 Olympics by ranking among the top 80 women runners in the world.

Many women, particularly those who are religious, see Deutsch as a role model for observant Jewish athletes.

“We don’t have a lot of female athlete role models in Israel,” she says. “I want to see more girls becoming athletes and pursuing that passion. My ultimate goal in life is to share the beauty of Judaism and impact people to spread light in that way because I did not dream about being an athlete, ever. I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, when I grow up, I want to be a professional runner.’ I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

And though she became famous for her speed and positive spirit, disappointments soon arose. First, due to the pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics were postponed until 2021. When that happened, the women’s marathon was moved from a Sunday to Saturday — meaning that Deutsch needed to convince the International Olympic Committee to switch the date, or else she could not compete in the race, as it coincided with the Jewish day of rest.


Refusal to compete with Israelis at Olympics is discrimination - analysis
This refusal to even shake the hand of Israelis surpasses Nazi actions at the Olympics in the 1930s. Brainwashing people to hate Jews and Israelis in the region goes far beyond being a national issue. Athletes are encouraged not to see Israelis as people, which is about not seeing Jews as people.

There is only one Jewish state, and it is not a coincidence that this is the one state to which this is done.

This is the result of growing up in a region where some people hear that Jews are “sons of pigs and apes,” enemies are accused of being “Jews,” and chants of “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahud” (Jews, remember Khaybar), referring to an ancient battle against Jews, is common.

Iranian-backed groups, such as the Houthis, shout: “Curse the Jews” and “Death to Israel.” There is no other group they “curse.”

While new inroads to coexistence are being built across the region, some holdouts still discriminate against Israel and Jews. While one hopes this will be reduced by the next Olympics, the propaganda in some regional media continues to push discrimination.

In 2016, an athlete refused to shake the hand of an Israeli, insinuating that Israelis, as Jews, are beneath others. Only Israelis get this treatment systematically. There is simply no other example of such unsportsmanlike behavior.

That is part of the unique discrimination that exists at the Olympics, driven by the far-right nationalist press and media linked to pro-Palestinian causes that depict those who refuse to compete with Israelis as heroes and mock those who do.


Caroline B. Glick: How Putin understands the Lapid-Bennett government
While Netanyahu's claims were persuasive, Putin was only willing to hear him out because Netanyahu – and Israel – had earned his respect six months earlier.

When Netanyahu decided to accept the Republican Congressional leadership's invitation to address a joint session of Congress in March 2015 and set forth the reasons he opposed the nuclear deal Obama was then negotiating with the Iranian regime, Israel's security brass, the media, and the political Left led by then-opposition lawmaker Yair Lapid, all feverishly opposed the move which they insisted would destroy Israel's ties with the US.

But the speech was a strategic masterstroke. The day after Netanyahu's address the world looked at Israel differently. The day before Israel had been a spurned, isolated US client state. The day after, Israel was a regional power. Far from isolating Israel in the US, Netanyahu rallied the American public to Israel's side and against the deal that gave Iran an open road to a nuclear arsenal and regional hegemony. Putin saw the speech and decided that Netanyahu was a serious player and Israel was a serious nation.

Although the Abraham Accords were only formally released four years later, to a large degree, they were born the moment Netanyahu stepped into the Congressional gallery. The Saudis, the Egyptians, the Emiratis – and the Iranians – became convinced that day that they could trust Israel to block Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed regional hegemon.

This brings us to the present day.

Now that the Russians have abrogated the Putin-Netanyahu deal, the men who ousted Netanyahu from power face the same bleak scenarios Netanyahu confronted with the arrival of Russian forces in Syria. But unlike Netanyahu, neither Prime Minister Naftali Bennett nor Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have the ability to fly to Russia and convince Putin to reinstate the deal. This isn't because of anything that Putin or Netanyahu did. It is because of something that Lapid and Bennett have done.

Shortly after Bennett and Lapid took office, Lapid spoke on the phone with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and announced that he had committed Israel to a policy of "no surprises" vis-a-vis the Biden administration. This commitment devastated Israel's international standing. If Netanyahu's speech to Congress ended the international perception of Israel as a second-rate power and a US client, and transformed Israel's standing to that of a regional power; Lapid's "no surprises" commitment downgraded Israel back to its previous status.

With the threats arrayed against it, a unilateral Israeli move that limits its operational freedom by committing it to provide the US with prior notification of its operations makes no sense in the best of times. It is downright irrational when the Biden administration is feverishly trying to reinstate Obama's nuclear deal as a means to reinstate his strategy of abandoning US support for Israel and the Sunni Arab states and realigning the US towards Iran.

From Riyadh to Gaza, Abu Dhabi to Tehran, from Beijing to Brussels to Moscow world leaders understand what happened. The strategic blow Israel took from Russia this week will doubtlessly be followed from many. Israel's allies and enemies will assess their options in light of the Lapid-Bennett government's embrace of dependence on a hostile administration in Washington.
A call to put a stop to Israeli failure in Area C
This illegal construction is strategically designed to both choke off existing Jewish communities and grab land reserves which could be used for future Jewish communities.

With everything, including the Corona outbreak, on Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's plate, and considering the composition of his coalition government, it is not clear to me how many building permits he can get Defense Minister Gantz to approve.

But the illegal Palestinian construction in Area C may be something else.

Netanyahu's 12 year total lack of action in Area C is no excuse for failure today.

The law is squarely on the side of action rather than complacence.

No. I am not claiming that it will be easy. But I firmly believe that if Naftali Bennett sets his mind to it that he will find a way, despite the composition of his ruling coalition, to stop the illegal Palestinian construction in Area C, funded in the main by the EU.

And if he does succeed, the fact that a government which includes Meretz and an Arab party is acting against illegal Arab construction in Area C may turn out to be easier to "sell" among some circles overseas than if the same action had been taken by a right wing government.

To quote a BESA article by Edwin Black written back in 2009:

"Area C, which makes up about 60% of the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria (also known as the 'West Bank' since their illegal1950 occupation by Jordan,and over which area the Oslo Accords granted sole Israeli juridiction, so that all Jewish communities are located there while only 4% of the 'West Bank' Arab population lives there, ed.), is making news these days. This time, the hot button issue is the illegal Palestinian Arab settlements that are sprouting up across the region. These settlements shred the last scraps that remain of the Oslo Accords, which propelled the idea of the “two-state solution” for a generation.

The funding for these illegal Palestinian Arab settlements, which amounts to hundreds of millions of euros annually, comes from the EU. According to the Oslo Accords, only Israel can issue construction permits in Area C. In joining forces to promote the rapid expansion of illegal Palestinian settlement in Area C, the EU and the PA have dispensed entirely with any coordination with Israel, in direct contravention of the Accords."


Israel-Iran war reaches deadly new level - analysis
During his tenure as defense minister, he said he had been working to escalate Israel’s steps against Iranian forces in Syria with the aim of getting Tehran to withdraw all of its troops from Israel’s northern borders.

But Iranian troops are still there; and now there are two dead civilians in the maritime MABAM between the two countries.

Israel’s strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets largely occurred at night in an attempt to reduce casualties, senior officials have said. Nevertheless, it is a war. And in war there are casualties, mainly fighters belonging to Hezbollah, Iran’s IRGC Quds Force, or from Shi’ite militias like the Afghani Fatemiyoun brigade.

Israel has also been blamed for several cyber attacks targeting Iranian infrastructure, from its nuclear program to its ports to Iran’s train system that caused chaos, and even listed the phone number of the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for passengers to complain.

While the MABAM has destroyed an immeasurable amount of advanced weaponry in Syria and has placed Iran on the defensive in the war-torn country, Israel should look again at its maritime operations targeting Iranian ships carrying oil and weapons to Syria.

How much do Israeli strikes against Iranian vessels contribute to stopping Iran’s entrenchment in Syria or stopping its nuclear program? Are they enough to risk Israeli-owned vessels and civilians on the high seas where the Israeli Navy cannot secure them?

Israel’s Navy is relatively small compared with other IDF corps, and while it does have the ability to send its submarines far from its coast, it is unable to truly safeguard ships like the MV Mercer Street in places where Iran is able to send drones or carry out other attacks using limpet mines or fast boats.

Iran knew that targeting the ship would not lead to Israeli casualties, but it was signaling that it had escalated its side of the tit-for-tat strikes.

No ship remotely linked to Israel is safe from Iranian attacks, even with the US 5th Fleet nearby.

Unlike the MABAM taking place in the dark in Syria, Israel has to take that into consideration; and take into consideration that Iran has no qualms about targeting and killing more civilians.
Use attack near Oman to pressure Iran
This is where Israel's opportunity lies. Iran may have identified the ship as "Israeli" because of the citizenship of its owners, but for all intents and purposes, this was a Japanese-owned ship sailing under a Liberian flag. Iran may claim Israel was the first to engage in maritime terror when it attacked various ships carrying out its work but the difference is clear: While the activities attributed to Israel targeted the smuggling of weapons and illegal oil, Iran is harming commercial ships solely for their indirect and sometimes nonexistent ties to Israeli businesspeople.

Israel would be wise to use all of the diplomatic tools at its disposal to put the spotlight on Tehran. This provides Israel with a rare opportunity. Ahead of the signing-in of the new and radical President-elect Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran and with nuclear talks in Vienna at a dead end, the attacks should be leveraged to exert international pressure on Tehran.

At the same time, Israel must consolidate a clear policy on how it intends to respond should Iran continue these attacks. It must not accept the creation of a new deterrence equation in which everything Israeli or with ties to Israel around the globe becomes a target for attack, nor should it accept any limitations the Iranians try to impose on the air force's offensive operations against their weapons smuggling in Syria.

Israel should synchronize this new policy with our friends in the West. In recent days, Europeans have sounded increasingly assertive due to Iran's refraining from rejoining the nuclear accord. Some in Europe have even agreed in closed talks that additional sanctions should be imposed on Tehran. It goes without saying then that Israel should exert all the pressure possible on the US administration to enlist its support as well. Obviously, this will be the central focus of US President Joe Biden's first meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett later this month.
Latest attack exposes Iran's empty toolbox
The attack at sea exposed Iran's toolbox as empty. If the Iranians attack a Japanese-owned civilian vessel, sailing under a Liberian flag, with crewmen from across the globe, in response to Israeli attacks in Syria, and kill citizens from the United Kingdom and Romania, it certainly illustrates the Islamic republic's inability to harm Israel. It's important to understand, commercial ships sailing around the world operate a satellite-based automatic identification system (AIS) that transmits their location, such that their precise location can be known at all times. Additionally, the ships can report being under attack to warn other vessels – hence, if an initial attack has failed, the Iranians could immediately receive that information and then know to launch a secondary drone. Employing a suicide drone to hit a ship of this sort is a relatively easy operation that doesn't require complex intelligence gathering or preparation.

In the past, according to foreign sources, Israel has attacked Iranian oil tankers to prevent the transfer of funds to Hezbollah, essentially igniting a maritime campaign where Israel doesn't hold an advantage. Israel hasn't operated at sea for quite some time now, thus the Iranian attack was viewed as a surprise. The Arab world, for which maritime freedom of movement and commerce is extremely important, cannot stand idly by and will respond to this attack through the diplomatic channels at its disposal. The Iranians will likely suspend further attacks on vessels around the world, thus ending the campaign on this particular front.

Israel must not respond at sea so as not to escalate the situation in this arena. Israel has a clear and consistent policy of preventing Hezbollah from acquiring sophisticated weapons for its precision missile project and preventing Iranian from establishing a foothold in Syria. In this campaign, which has persisted for many years already, Israel has the upper hand. Israel has an organized plan to continue acting against Iran's entrenchment in the area within the framework of the so-called "war between the wars." Israel must continue impairing Iran's effort to establish a presence in Syrian and Hezbollah's precision missile project through clandestine avenues. It seems this campaign is bearing fruit, is exceedingly problematic for the ayatollah regime in Tehran, and is impeding its efforts to establish a foothold in our region.
Seth Frantzman: Proving Iran was behind past drone attacks has been difficult - analysis
This means countries around the region, including the US and Saudi, have access to pieces of Iranian drones. They can be compared to drones that were shot down in February 2018 and this May near Beit She’an, as well as to components of Hamas drones downed this May. Pieces from the recent attack on the ship off Oman can also be used, depending on how much of the drones were destroyed at impact.

Drones also may leave behind other evidence, such as flight paths recorded on radar or on other sensors. Modern counter-UAV systems often use a combination of radar, optics and other methods, such as jammers, to detect and stop drones. In a complex area like the Gulf of Oman, with naval warships in the vicinity, someone may have information about the drones’ flight path.

However, this will leave other sensitive questions. Were the drones guided or preprogrammed? If they were preprogrammed, how did they find the exact area to strike a ship when the ship is moving on water? Ships tend to move. Drones need coordinates, unless a pilot is sitting in a container guiding them in.

Could Iran have guided them by other methods, such as an IRGC “mother ship” of the type Iran is thought to use? Iran has put drones on many ships in recent years. Could Iran or its proxies in Yemen have been responsible for the guidance or programming of the drones’ flight path? These are key questions. Combined with the physical evidence, indications of where the drones came from is key.

This may involve signal intercepts or signal intelligence collected by local or Western militaries and other types of classified and sensitive intelligence. For instance, Iran was blamed for the attack on Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia, but aspects about it, such as the flight path, remain shrouded in mystery.

In addition, in the past, the US has not showcased evidence from Iraq regarding drone strikes by pro-Iran groups. This information may help. Finally, Iran mined boats in the Gulf of Oman in 2019. But the attacks went unpunished, and few details emerged, except for what the US released.

It remains to be seen whether Israel, working with the US, UK or others, can find the drones’ smoking gun.
UK working on 'concrete response' over 'likely' Iranian maritime aggression
He said British assessments had concluded it was "highly likely" that Iran attacked the tanker using one or more drones.

"The UK is working with our international partners on a concerted response to this unacceptable attack," he said.

The Israel Defense Forces' Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi spoke with his British counterpart on Sunday.

Kohavi and Britain's Staff General Nick Carter "discussed recent events in the region and common challenges faced by both countries," the IDF said. The statement did not elaborate nor specifically cite the MV Mercer Street incident.


Unexploded bazookas found at site of Six Day War battle in Jerusalem
Two unexploded bazookas were unearthed on Sunday at Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill, the location of a fierce battle between Israeli and Jordanian troops during the 1967 Six Day War.

The pair of shells, labeled as having been manufactured in December 1956, were found during infrastructure work at the site, police said.

Police officials said the rockets were likely used by the Jordanian Army during the fighting on June 6, 1967, the second day of the war.

Thirty-six Israeli soldiers and 71 Jordanian soldiers were killed in the Battle of Ammunition Hill.

“This is a moment when things come full circle,” a police spokesperson said. “The weaponry was found between Ammunition Hill and the then-police academy. Today, 54 years since the brave battle fought by Israel Defense Force soldiers, sappers from Israel Police returned to the site to handle the two bombs from that conflict.”


PMW: The PA’s extreme measures to reward terrorists
Last month, Palestinian Media Watch exposed that the Palestinian Authority had initiated a new system to pay its monthly terror salaries using ATM machines. PMW found that a company called BPC Banking Technologies provided the technological infrastructure used by the PA to facilitate its banking system. Fearing that BPC was unaware of the PA’s illegitimate usage of its technologies, PMW contacted BPC. To its credit, BPC responded swiftly to PMW, updating that it had sent PMW’s report to the PA to “officially clarify” the situation. Having received the requested clarification, BPC provided a comprehensive response to PMW. While clearing BPC of all involvement, active or passive, in the PA scheme, BPC’s response exposed the extent to which the PA is willing to go in order to continue is “Pay-for-Slay” terror reward policy.

Alongside providing technical details of the “out-of-scope” contractual arrangement between BPC and the PA, in its response BPC included a quote from a letter it had received from the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA) following PMW’s report.

According to the response, the “PMA confirmed by official response to BPC Group dated July 26th that “ATM machines installed at the post offices are not connected to the switches, banking network and any of the banks supervised and regulated by PMA”.

When the PA launched the new payment system, the PA Minister of Communications and IT Is’haq Sidr said:
“We have activated an entire banking mechanism here that is a cash management system that transfers data between us and the ATMs. We have installed 20 ATMs in the residential areas where the beneficiaries of these services are located, and Allah willing we will reach 30 ATMs in the coming days.”

When combined with the PMA answer to BPC, what this means is that the PA knew and understood that it could not use any existing banking infrastructure, and that when Sidr said the PA had “activated an entire banking mechanism here that is a cash management system that transfers data between us and the ATMs,” he was speaking literally.
12% of terrorist prisoners are PA Security Forces members, brags Fatah official

Praise to the Martyrs! – Children taught to glorify dead terrorists at Fatah summer camp

JCPA: Hamas’ Advanced Weaponry: Rockets, Artillery, Drones, Cyber
Hamas is now manufacturing a large part of its own weapons, expanding its research, and developing drones and unmanned underwater vehicles, engaging in cyber warfare, and on the cusp of graduating from unguided rockets to precision GPS-guided drones and missiles.

“Hamas, with Iranian and Hizbullah logistical support, has mastered the art of sneaking in critical shipments coming from Libya or transiting via Sudan, using generous cash payments to tribes or even bribes to Egyptian military officers,” Hamas expert Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib reported in June for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The IDF identified a Hamas naval commando base with a tunnel extending dozens of meters into the sea. An investigation showed that the beach base containing the tunnel was financed with funds siphoned from the UN Development Agency. For many years, weapons for Hamas have been dropped into the sea in sealed capsules miles off the coast of Gaza.

In the 11 days of the 2021 war, Hamas launched 400 rockets a day, nearly four times the daily average number of launches in 2014. Hamas also launched six suicide drones during the war. All were intercepted by Israel, some by classified means.

During the 2021 war, the IDF destroyed an autonomous underwater vehicle carrying 50 kg. of explosives. The IDF noted that Hamas has “unmanned submarines that operate autonomously and navigate using GPS.”

Hamas established electronic warfare units that sought to neutralize Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and disrupt IDF communications. One of these units was based in the Jalaa building in Gaza City, which also housed the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. Israel struck at least 10 Hamas cyber and electronic warfare targets during the war.
Ismail Haniyeh Reelected to Another Term as Hamas Leader
Ismail Haniyeh has been reelected to a second term as chairman of the Hamas political bureau in Gaza as part of the terrorist organization’s internal elections, Ynet reports.

Haniyeh in 2017 replaced Khaled Mashal in the position. His second term will last until 2025.

During the elections, which have now concluded, Mashal was elected to head Hamas’s diaspora office; the terrorist Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades founder Saleh al-Arouri was elected leader of Hamas in the West Bank; and Salameh Katawi was elected to the role of Hamas leader in Israeli prisons.

Haniyeh recently visited several Arab countries to meet with leaders following the terrorist group’s 11-day conflict with Israel in May.

He met with fellow terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah in Beirut along with Lebanese government officials, including Lebanese President Michel Aoun.

The Hamas leader visited Morocco and Mauritania before Lebanon.

A trip to Iran was also reportedly planned although no reports have surfaced as of yet of Haniyeh visiting the Islamic Republic.


Hezbollah member assassinated at wedding, funeral attacked
Ali Shibli, a member of the Hezbollah movement, was shot and killed during a wedding on Saturday evening in the town of Jiyeh, south of Beirut, with initial reports indicating that the assassination was carried out as revenge for a murder that took place last year.

On Sunday, Chebli's funeral procession came under fire, with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire targeting the mourners. Three people were reported killed in the incident, according to Reuters.


Ben and Jerry: Deluded Men of “Peace”
Absolutely. But this is an obvious cliche that no one would argue with. Indeed there is no government in the world so widely criticized by its own citizens, by Jews, and by non-Jewish outsiders, as well as viciously vilified by its enemies, as Israel.

This opening salvo – to which they will return (below) actually has nothing to do with what Ben and Jerry in their “proud Jew” mode have done. But it has a lot tto do with something far more worrisome, the fact that some criticism of Israel is indeed antisemitic, both in its moral sadism (Israel is apartheid, racist, genocidal, Nazi-like), and in the way it empowers some of the most delirious genocidal haters on the planet today, people who – #shocker – hate free Jews more than any of the many categories of people they hate.

As such, we unequivocally support the decision of the company to end business in the occupied territories, which a majority of the international community, including the United Nations, has deemed an illegal occupation.

Now we get to the beginning of the folly. The majority of the “international community,” really means the “Human Rights NGOs” the progressive journalists, and the folks at the United Nations (to which the pair apparently give great respect). This vast consensus has repeated without any critical acumen the position of Israel’s most devotedly implacable enemies for at least two decades now.

Do Ben and Jerry really want to invoke an institution like the UN, whose “human rights” commission is run by the biggest violators of human rights on the planet? Or don’t they know this? And if they don’t, what are they doing shooting their mouths off on the NYT editorial page? (A couple of years ago, I would have said “and what’s the NYT doing publishing it, but that’s not even a question anymore.)

As for the notion that the territories in question are “occupied,” that they (already do or should) belong to the Palestinian people (in the original statement from B&J it was “Palestinian Occupied Territories”), is a classic misreading. The 1949-67 “borders” were never recognized by the Arabs (or the Palestinians); they make Israel dangerously vulnerable to Arab attack (Abba Eban called them Auschwitz Borders); they give the entire Jewish quarter of the Old City to the Arabs (who, when they seized it in 1948, ethnically cleansed Jews who had been living there for millennia and destroyed all the synagogues); and they deserve, in any decent, fair discussion of what should be done with the territories in question, to be considered “disputed” until that dispute is resolved. To resolve it in advance by calling it “occupied” is to give the Palestinians lands they have no serious claim to, and indeed, have no business claiming as theirs.
Ben & Jerry’s Boycott Violates US Law, HonestReporting Takes Legal Action
HonestReporting Formulates Legal Response

In response to Ben & Jerry’s boycott, Israel warned the Unilever Group that it was considering a legal response. In addition, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price repeated the US government’s line against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that “unfairly singles out” Israel.

We at HonestReporting are no strangers to taking legal action when appropriate. For example, in 2018 we responded swiftly to Airbnb, Inc’s announcement that the popular online hospitality service planned to “remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.” In 2012, we launched legal proceedings and successfully forced The Guardian to reverse its policy of claiming that Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel.

And now we are launching proceedings once again: this time via the United States Office of Antiboycott Compliance (the “OAC”) that enforces America’s numerous antiboycott laws.

If found to be in violation of the relevant laws, Unilever, United States, Inc. could be subject to significant fines, tax consequences or even criminal action. Through its illegal acts, the consumer goods giant is even risking its ability to continue doing business in the United States.
Ecuador’s Largest Grocer Takes Ben & Jerry’s Off the Shelf
Ecuador’s largest supermarket chain, owned by El Rosado Group, has announced that it will no longer sell ice cream manufactured by Unilever, which owns Ben & Jerry’s.

The company has over 180 stores across Ecuador and is joining other supermarket stores worldwide that are protesting the decision by Ben & Jerry’s not to sell ice cream beyond Israel’s pre-1967 Green Line.

“For us, [the] decision is worrying and scandalous,” El Rosado Group CEO Johnny Czarninski wrote in a letter to Unilever. He also contacted Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked to let her know about the decision after she approached him on the matter.

Unilever is also receiving blows in the United States, with Illinois having announced last week it intends to place sanctions on the company. Illinois joins other states — like Texas, New York, and New Jersey — which have already proposed similar measures.
New York Times Publishes Two Defenses of a ‘Shameful Surrender to Antisemitism’
So what’s the attraction? I have a theory. Times readers and probably some editors want to give themselves permission to boycott Israeli Jews without acknowledging that it’s antisemitic to do so. This is a tough circle to square, because, after all, both the elected government of Israel and the mainstream American Jewish leadership reject Ben & Jerry’s action. Analogies to other persecuted minority groups may help explain what an awkward situation it is: imagine the Times turning over space to a corporate executive to explain why his company is going to stop selling its product in a Black neighborhood, or a gay neighborhood, even though the organizations set up to protect those groups are protesting and say the decision is discriminatory. Most Israelis, and most American Jews who have any familiarity with the issue, understand that the Jewish quarter of the Old City is not being surrendered by Israel anytime soon, and rightfully so. They may be open to eventual compromise on other parts of the West Bank, but they aren’t eager to have it turn into a terrorist-state-missile-and-rocket-launching-pad the way that Gaza did after Israel withdrew.

Neither Ben nor Jerry nor Mairav Zonszein explain how refusing to sell ice cream to some Israelis or to West Bank Palestinians is going to advance peace. What they do instead is drench themselves in self-congratulation. Ben and Jerry talk about “justice and human rights,” while Zonszein talks about “international norms.” Zonszein has written elsewhere, “As an Israeli and a Jew, I do not challenge Israel’s right to exist, but I do challenge its right to exist as the Jewish supremacist, undemocratic, violent state that it is. That does not make me an antisemite, and neither does solidarity with the call for BDS.” Likewise, Ben and Jerry write in the Times that they are “proud Jews” and “that we support the company’s decision is not a contradiction nor is it antisemitic.”

Israel’s foreign minister Yair Lapid said, “Ben & Jerry’s decision represents shameful surrender to antisemitism, to BDS, and to all that is wrong with the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations describes the decision as discriminatory. The announcement comes amid a surge of antisemitic violence in America — a stabbing outside a Jewish school, attacks on synagogues — which the Times has egregiously downplayed. Instead of condemning the decision for what it is — hateful bias — the Times has given a platform to those who excuse it. When the New York Times op-ed page is telling you that boycotting Israelis is an act of justice, and the Israeli foreign minister is telling you that the action is a shameful surrender to antisemitism — well, who are you going to believe?
Protestors in New York cry ‘Globalize the intifada’ at demonstration
Several hundred protesters took part in a pro-Palestinian rally on Saturday in Brooklyn, using inflammatory rhetoric and messaging against Israel. They lauded “intifada” uprisings and called for taking control of Israeli territory, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

During the protest, organized by an organization called “Within Our Lifetime – United for Palestine,” demonstrators marched behind three large banners: “Globalize the intifada,” “Zionism is terrorism,” and “We will free Palestine within our lifetime.”

Intifada is an Arabic word meaning uprising or rebellion. During the Second Intifada from 2000-2005, Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and some affiliated with Fatah, carried out hundreds of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and security personnel, killing more than 1,000.

During Saturday’s rally, marchers chanted, “We don’t want no two states, we want all of it,” referring to the two-state solution that has formed the basis of peace proposals.

A Twitter account was deleted on Sunday afternoon after it posted video footage of demonstrators chanting, “We don’t want no two states, we want all of it.”

Among the demonstrators’ other slogans were: “If we don’t get no justice, then they don’t get no peace,” “Intifada, intifada,” “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” “Mobilize the intifada,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”


BBC Propaganda Highlights Image of Gaza Girl Posing on Rubble of Tower…That Belonged to Hamas
Is the BBC once again peddling Palestinian propaganda?
On July 29, the British broadcaster ran a story titled, “Gaza photographer hopes digital art boom can help raise aid money.” The article, written by BBC Arab Affairs editor Sebastian Usher, highlights a widely shared photo taken during the 11-day war between the Israel Defense Forces and Gaza-based terror groups.

According to the BBC‘s description, “[Palestinian photographer] Shaban El Sousi photographed Celine as she sat in the ruins of a tower block in Gaza City.”

Clearly, the BBC is tugging at the emotional strings of its readers and, in fact, the picture need never have been if not for Hamas’ genocidal ambitions.

Indeed, all human suffering, especially that of children, is tragic. As the article frames it:
The photo of Celine holding a doll in the ruins of the tower block that was brought down by Israeli air strikes next to her family home – which was also hit – clearly struck a chord…. He [El Sousi] says that he took the photo in order to renew a sense of hope for the future.”

However, the piece conveniently omits essential context; that is, the “tower block” lying in ruin housed members of Hamas. In reality, then, the Palestinian terror group — and not Israel — is to blame for the building’s destruction because it was being used for military purposes despite its location in a populated area.
BBC News recycles outdated report on Palestinian Corona vaccinations
Much of the information promoted in that filmed report – which appears in the written article without readers being told that it is over six months old – is of course no longer relevant.

Since then, the Palestinian Authority has received some 236,400 Corona vaccine doses from the COVAX project (some of which were transferred to the Gaza Strip) as well as additional supplies from other sources. Separately, the Gaza Strip has received some 60,000 additional doses of vaccine from the UAE and Israel has vaccinated over 105,000 Palestinian workers.

As of July 29th, 414,022 people in PA controlled areas and the Gaza Strip are fully vaccinated and 173,371 are partially vaccinated.

In June the Palestinian Authority passed up the opportunity to inoculate at least as many people as are now vaccinated when it refused to accept over a million doses of the Pfizer vaccine from Israel.

One must therefore ask why the BBC continues to promote an undated six-month-old report that was part of a political campaign to which the corporation self-conscripted at the time and which does not provide its audiences with accurate information concerning the current situation on the ground.


Indy corrects claim that construction materials are not allowed in Gaza
In June, we complained to the Independent about an op-ed (“‘We came here to redeem a land and we end up contaminating it’: Israel’s pollution problem in Palestine”) that included several false claims, including the following:
“Any materials Israel considers ‘dual purpose’, ie materials that can be used for either civilian or military purposes, including basic construction materials such as cement, is not allowed in the Strip.”

We argued in our complaint that such dual-use items, such as construction materials, are indeed subjected to processes to lessen the likelihood that it will be used by Hamas for weaponry. But, under schemes such as the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, instituted after the 2014 war, literally billions of tonnes of such materials have freely entered Gaza.

We recently noticed that, many weeks after our complaint, editors did correct the sentence, which now reads:
Any materials Israel considers ‘dual purpose’, ie materials that can be used for either civilian or military purposes, including basic construction materials, is subject to severe restrictions and scrutiny, which delay and sometimes make repairing damaged infrastructure impossible

Of course, what the op-ed, including the revision, omits is that Hamas consistently uses such putatively civilian materials, including cement or even water pipes, for military purposes – such as rockets and terror tunnels. (In May, for instance blogger Elder of Ziyon shared a video published by Hamas showing its men digging up rockets and converting them into rockets.)
Antisemitism increasingly politicized in 2020 US media coverage – study
US media coverage of antisemitism last year left clear indications that the issue has become politicized, according to an Israeli study released on Sunday.

“The Discourse on Antisemitism in the United States as Reflected in the Mainstream Media—Review of 2020,” by Lior Sirkis of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, found that “the two sides of the political map accuse the other of being responsible for the phenomenon. The right blames the left for being responsible for antisemitism and anti-Zionism, while the left attributes it to white supremacists on the right.”

The political divide reflects a split within the US Jewish community, wrote Sirkis, which leads to difficulty in agreeing on the definition of antisemitism, its causes and how to combat it.

This political divide is also apparent in Israeli coverage of antisemitism in the US. Israel Hayom published five opinion columns about antisemitism on the left that year, while Haaretz did not cover the issue at all. It did, however, write about antisemitism among right-wing Americans.

The report was part of an ongoing INSS series on antisemitism in the US

Media coverage of antisemitism in 2020 initially focused on two deadly antisemitic attacks in Monsey, New York, and Jersey City, New Jersey, in December 2019. Beyond the incidents themselves, the coverage addressed the new security measures taken by Jewish communities in the wake of the attacks.
100-Year-Old Former Death Camp Guard to Go on Trial in Germany — Report
A 100-year-old former guard at the Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp near Berlin will face trial in the autumn, 76 years after the end of the Second World War, German weekly Welt am Sonntag reported.

The district court of Neuruppin admitted the charges of accessory to murder in 3,500 cases and the trial is slated to start in October. The defendant should be able to stand trial for 2 to 2-1/2 hours a day, a court spokesman told the paper.

The court was not available for comment at the weekend.

The accused, who was not named in accordance with German media laws concerning suspects, was said to have worked as a camp guard from 1942-1945 in Sachsenhausen, where around 200,000 people were imprisoned and 20,000 murdered.

While the number of suspects in Nazi crimes is dwindling, prosecutors are still trying to bring individuals to justice. A landmark conviction in 2011 cleared the way to more prosecutions as working in a concentration camp was for the first time found to be grounds for culpability with no proof of a specific crime.
Treblinka: The Uprising the World Forgot
In some ways, we’re more aware of the Holocaust than ever before. Memorials to it stand in cities around the world. Oskar Schindler and Anne Frank are familiar names to school children across the United States. There’s a cottage industry of novels, TV shows, and movies set in Auschwitz.

Why then does the anniversary of the Treblinka uprising, one of the war’s most extraordinary events, go virtually unnoticed almost every year?

Treblinka was a Nazi death camp in eastern Poland that operated for 13 months between July 1942 and August 1943, with one purpose: to murder Jews.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 925,000 people died there. The Nazis who ran it kept a small slave labor force of about 1,000 prisoners. A resistance movement was eventually formed among these prisoners. The odds were against them from the start. No slave laborer survived for long, and they had to deal with constant losses of members and leaders. Most of them were civilians who’d never used a weapon. And even if they took control of the camp, what next? They were deep in the Polish countryside, far from shelter or anyone who’d help them.

But they persevered regardless.

Around midday on August 2, 1943, in sweltering heat, they started quiet raids on the camp’s storerooms, arming themselves with axes, grenades, guns, and wire-cutters. They sprayed wooden buildings — already parched by the sun — with gasoline.









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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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