Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

After Sodastream: Another Israeli company is advertising in the Super Bowl

After last year's smash hit Sodastream ad, another Israeli company - Wix - is preparing a Super Bowl ad this year with 30-second spot in the fourth quarter.

Wix allows anyone to make attractive websites. Here is how they describe their Super Bowl plans:

While we can’t give away too much… we certainly can’t keep all the details to ourselves. The ingredients go a little something like this: it’s 5 parts NFL legends, another five parts quirky small businesses (to be revealed soon), one part TV star (can you guess who?) and some laughs thrown in for good measure.

We don’t mean to name drop but Brett Favre, Terrell Owens, Emmitt Smith, Larry Allen and Franco Harris just happen to be our new BFFs. They also just happen to be proud owners of brand new businesses that just may surprise you.

We could go on and on, but we think we’ll just let Terrell Owens and his friend Matty Matheson give you a taste of what they’re baking:

OK, the message isn't exactly as clear as Scarlett Johansson's

Will there be a groundswell of BDSers going crazy over Wix this year? Well, ask Cornell University Students for Justice in Palestine, who proudly use the Israeli technology in Wix - and hilariously justify it.

I also found a number of other BDS sites and anti-Israel sites who rely on Wix for their webpages.

Good old BDS hypocrites. They hate everything to do with Israel - until they want to use it themselves.

2015 Hasby Award: Best English Language Pro-Israel Media Outlet

This year's nominations for Best English Language Pro-Israel Outlet are:

Algemeiner

Israel HaYom

Jewish Press

Tablet

JPost

Israel21c

Mosaic Magazine

YNet

Arutz7

(Previous winners: Times of Israel and The Tower)

And the winner of the Hasby Award goes to....

01/20 Links Pt1: UN, EU Think Oslo Accords Bind Only Israel; Fighting Hamas and The Hague

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Iran and Hezbollah

Imagine that the sword-rattling speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that aired Friday on Lebanon TV was backed up by an Iranian patron with an atomic bomb.
Nasrallah bragged about Hezbollah’s ability to strike every inch of Israel with advanced, long-distance rockets that were not in its possession back in 2006. What if these missiles were placed under Iran’s nuclear umbrella? Iran with a nuclear-weapon capability would radically change Israel’s military calculations. Operations like the one carried out on Sunday would have to be reconsidered in light of a whole new set of dangers. Even if Iran never used a nuclear weapon, the very fact that it had one would transform its international status.
Even a country like North Korea, that has a tiny, failed economy and a starved population, gains the attention of the world solely because it has a nuclear weapon. In the case of Iran, not only would possessing nuclear arms mean power – it would mean the empowerment of madmen like Assad, who used chemical weapons against his own people, and Nasrallah, who dragged Lebanon into a pointless war with Israel.
Israel’s reputed air strike in Syria and the potential for fallout is a diversion from the real challenge: preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

JCPA: The Attack in the Golan Exposes Iran's Growing Presence along Israel's Borders

In an official statement, Hizbullah threatened that its response “would be painful and unexpected.” Hizbullah’s media outlet, al-Manar, reported: “Tel Aviv is playing with fire which would threaten the security of the whole Middle East.” Unidentified sources quoted by the Lebanese daily al-Safir, assessed that the response would be “controlled and would stop short of an escalation leading to an all-out war.” In parallel, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Muhammad Zarif condemned the operation attributed to Israel but he refrained to issuing a concrete threat against Israel.
Ayatollah Mahari, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s personal representative, called upon the world and its religious authorities — including the Sunni center of al-Azhar — to condemn the attack against “the heroes of Hizbullah.” Mahari stressed that the attack exposed Israel’s failure to thwart the Iranian achievements in the nuclear negotiations by means of a provocation against Tehran. Mahari expressed his hope that Hizbullah would respond wisely. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Iranian National Security Council, promised that Hizbullah would respond at a convenient time and place.
The fact that at least three high-ranking IRGC officers were killed in the attack highlights once more that Iran perceives Syria and Lebanon as Tehran’s first line of defense against Israel. Iran has repeatedly demonstrated its steadfastness towards Syria and Hizbullah as it enjoys the strategic-military and political benefits arising from maintaining its ongoing radical military and political presence in Syria. Assistance to Syria and Hizbullah and an active ground presence in both countries are seen as additional expressions of Iran’s national defense doctrine. This is meant to distance the Iranian homeland from any threat and to conduct the campaign against Israel and the West in areas distant from Iran’s borders.

Slain Iranian was planning Hezbollah missile base — report

The Iranian general who was killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike near the border with the Golan Heights on Sunday was a ballistic missile expert who was visiting Syria as part of a project to set up a missile base near the border with Israel, according to a Tuesday report.
General Mohammed Ali Allahdadi, whom Tehran acknowledged was killed in an Israeli missile strike near the Syrian city of Quneitra along with several Hezbollah fighters, was tasked with building four new Hezbollah missile bases near the Israel-Syria frontier, the London-based Times reported.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed that Allahdadi was ostensibly dispatched to Syria “provide military advice to Syrian government and nation in their war with Takfirist and Salafist (radical Sunni) terrorists, and provided valuable analysis and advice in neutralizing the plots of this Zionist-backed conspiracy in the Syrian soil.”

Karen Armstrong is a historian and "religion expert" who is a consistent apologist for radical Islam, and a frequent guest on TV programs. She has a lucrative career speaking and writing about religion.

In a recent interview, she makes this outrageous claim:

We’re piling all the violence of the 21st Century on the back of religion, sending it away, saying we have nothing to do with religion. While we still have to deal with the political situation. The supermarket attack in Paris was about Palestine, about Isis. It had nothing to do with antisemitism; many of them are Semites themselves. But they attempt to conquer Palestine and we’re not talking about that. We’re too implicated and we don’t know what to do with it.

Are the kosher-consumer French Jews guilty because they support Jews living in their historic homeland, or because most of them will end up moving to Israel because of these types of attacks on their stores and schools and synagogues that have nothing to do with anyone hating Jews?

OK, maybe the "they" in that sentence referred only to Jews in general, or unnamed "Zionists." Her use of the incredibly stupid "they are semites themselves" argument shows that Armstrong has no intellectual honesty whatsoever.

Who knows what goes through her mind as she tries to justify widespread Arab antisemitism and incitement (as I have documented time and time again)? Clearly, Armstrong doesn't care about the human rights of Jews to make a statement like this.

When you use "scholarship" to consistently justify terrorism and tear down others, then it isn't scholarship.

(h/t Yair Rosenberg)

An article by Dr. Azh Ahmed Heikal in Al Wafd starts with Shakespearean antisemitism and then goes downhill from there.

The Shylock character in «The Merchant of Venice» by William Shakespeare is the finest embodiment of the Jewish character, which reflects his greed and hatred and desire for bloody revenge better than any other...

The famous comedy shows how Europe dealt with the Jews until they reached Hitler's alleged Holocaust in World War II but there was a [real] Holocaust when global Zionism united in the land of Palestine, claiming it was the Promised Land. Zionism managed to penetrate the world economy and media in European countries, in the US and through US policies in banks and the stock exchange and satellite channels owned by the largest Zionist families who act like Shylock to cut the flesh of innocent people and shed blood, a triumphant and euphoric endeavor under the glare of all international and global organizations that have passed laws to prevent and punish anyone who dares to refute the Holocaust deny it as if it was a holy book. There is woe and punishment, war and imprisonment for anyone thinking anything bad or rude in words or hints of any Shylock or any Jewish Zionist from near or far ...

...Pictures of Netanyahu Prime Minister of the global Jewish state of Israel, wearing a yarmulke and his fellow Jews, who have declared a war against Semitism and Islam and Islamists who are the real enemies of the Jews and humanity while Jews are peaceful always ..
As the Holocaust was a gateway to more blood on the land of the Arabs, the Charlie incident will be an excuse to Western intervention in the Arab world after the Arab Spring has failed and the growing influence and power of religious militias, which appeared even give Israel the political justification and legal cover in the creation of the Jewish religious state in the occupied Arab Jerusalem under international cover...

This is only a sample. But even this doesn't go quite as far as Palestinian Arab Hisham Munawar in Al Quds, who goes through an elaborate conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the terror attacks in France to begin with.

As usual, the enlightened Western intelligentsia is silent about the unbridled antisemitism and incitement that comes out of the Arab world, incitement that directly leads to murders of Jews in Paris and Toulouse and elsewhere. It is how Arabs are expected to act, and they happily live up to those expectations.

A few years ago the Arab world was a little embarrassed to be publicly antisemitic, even in Arabic. They paid lip service to pretending that they hated only Zionists, not Jews, in their media.

Those days are long gone, and that is partially because "human rights" groups don't give a damn about real antisemitism and incitement that results in the slaughter of Jews.

But if you can find any condemnation by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch of Arab antisemitic incitement, by all means, share it with me.

I was on Voice of Israel today on the Yishai Fleisher show, which airs 9 AM EST/4 PM Israel time.

It was taped yesterday.

I talked about the Jim Clancy story as well as some general topics on news blogging and how the West misunderstands the Arab world.

Here is the extended interview.

Pallywood in Hebron: Elderly Arab woman cries on cue for cameras (UPDATE)

So heartbreaking! From the Christian Peacemaking Team in Hebron:

Today Israeli forces welded Aamal Hashem Dundes front doors shut. Living in a rented apartment across the street, her family had owned these two houses for centuries on Shuhada Street, most of which is closed to Palestinians.

Aamal sat on a chair, at times crying, as she, her daughter, Palestinian residents, activists and journalists, and internationals from CPT and ISM questioned the soldiers who were carrying out the illegal act. At one point she picked up her chair and sat in front of her house in an act of resistance, before she was forced to move.
Soldiers soon began pushing the crowd back across the street and away from the houses, violently shoving a CPTer who was taking photographs. Meanwhile, settlers were allowed to stand close and antagonize the crowd.

Aamal has high blood pressure and diabetes, and after fainting was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Aamal asked that a CPTer accompany her in the ambulance, but the IDF prevented the CPT from joining Aamal. By 1:30, the soldiers had finished welding the doors shut, and a few remained with a settler, who was seemingly in a jovial mood.

From Algemeiner:

In a striking illustration of the belief held by many Israelis of slanted, pro-Palestinian media reporting, footage uploaded on Monday by the 0404 News site shows a Arab mother in Hebron bursting into tears on cue for a group of press photographers as soldiers seal up the door of a nearby home.

Two weeks ago, Palestinians hurled two firebombs at Israelis living in nearby Beit Hadassah from within the nearby abandoned building, which had been unoccupied for several years due to a military order, according to the Srugim website.

One of the flaming devices ignited the exterior of a mobile home where Jews were living. The residents of the structure were lucky, however, and there were no injuries in the attack, which caused only minor damage.

However, when an IDF team on Monday came to seal off the entrance of the previously unoccupied building, a group of pro-Palestinian foreign and Israeli agitators quickly arrived – including the woman and her daughter – and began to harass the welding crew.

“Did you see?! He [a waiting photographer] asked her to cry during the photography, and she cried [on cue] – I can’t believe this,” one shocked Israeli man said, as he himself filmed the scene from behind the press gang, dubbed by some observers as “fauxtography.”

“And here’s her daughter instructing her to ‘cry, cry’ … she’s laughing as she tells her mother to cry,” the Israeli viewer noted with astonishment.

“Just take a look at this scene!” he exclaimed. “She [the daughter's] laughing as she tells her mother to cry,” as a photographer goes for a closeup shot.

Spokesmen for the ancient contested city’s Jewish residents said the incident was an glaring example of a trend by extreme left-wing squatters to take over such structures.

We report, you decide.

(h/t Bob Knot)

UPDATE: The final edited video product, courtesy PalMedia, with tight shots of the woman as well as pictures of her being placed into the ambulance that she obviously doesn't need.

Even in this video, at one point she looks up from her "crying" as if to ask "Is that good enough?"

The marketplace of ideas, Turkish Islamist style

One group wants free speech, the other wants the right to attack the first group. It is all very even-handed..

A group of Islamists at Ankara University have clashed with another group of students who were commemorating both the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was killed eight years ago.

Both groups gathered at Ankara University’s Cebeci campus on Jan. 19. According to the Doğan News Agency, stones and bottles were thrown after one of the groups attempted to release a press statement in favor of the Charlie Hebdo victims and Dink.

Police dispersed the groups by using tear gas.

The students, who had announced the Jan. 19 demonstration earlier through Ankara University’s Facebook page, were threatened by Islamist students on the same platform. Referring to the students who had pinned posters that said “Je Suis Charlie” and “We Are All Hrant,” an Islamist student had written on Facebook that the campus “would see unprecedented violence” if the posters were not taken down.

"If you peacefully rally for free speech, then we have the right to violently attack you."

I shouldn't make fun of the hateful, violent Islamists like this. It might be considered Islamophobic.

01/19 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Not afraid? What planet are you on?; Miss Israel Responds

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Not afraid? What planet are you on?

Apparently, civilisation is saved! Some 3 million people took to the streets of Paris last Sunday to declare "Je suis Charlie" and that they would fight off the threat to freedom just like the French resistance. "We are not afraid," shouted the crowd.
Oh, but they are. If anyone really thinks the Paris march means Europe is now going to save itself, they are living on a different planet. Virtually nobody is Charlie, because virtually nobody will publish a condemnation of Islam. Some papers gingerly reproduced this week's cover of Charlie Hebdo with its cartoon of a tearful Mohammed holding a "Je suis Charlie" sign. Others refused, out of fear.
Virtually no mainstream media has analysed, let alone condemned, the threatening doctrines and assumptions in Islamic religion and culture. They are not going to start now.
Yes, it was heartening that so many turned out to protest their attachment to freedom of speech. But surely, the real issue is barbaric slaughter?
True, the demonstrators also mourned the slain police officers and Jewish shoppers. But if all 17 victims had been Jews gunned down in that kosher deli, does anyone really think 3 million would have marched through Paris declaring "Je suis Juif"?

Micahel Lumish How does it feel to be targeted for genocide?

When I take a gander at a place like Daily Kos, which simply represents typical left-leaning blog space, it indicates a disinclination to actually focus on the murderers in favor of focusing on the crimes of the murdered. They cannot very well blame the Jews at the kosher grocery for being Jewish, so they generally ignore that aspect, or twist it into something to do with Israel in order to place blame on the victims. Generally, however, they simply leave the Jews out of it and place the blame for Jihadi aggression on western “racism” of the type allegedly published in Charlie Hebdo.
It is for this reason that while almost the entirety of Paris was claiming “Je suis Charlie” many Kossacks were insisting “I am not Charlie.” Rather than condemning the source of the Parisian attacks, which is political Islam, the western left generally prefers to blame other westerners who they consider politically incorrect or not sufficiently progressive to avoid the wrath of justifiably angry Jihadis.
In any case, how does it feel to be targeted for genocide?
Not only do many of our supposed allies actually think that the Jewish people deserve whatever beating we get, but they even refuse to acknowledge the reality and vitality of the political movement doing the genocidal threatening and beating.
It is truly a remarkable thing to see the leadership of many tens or hundreds of millions of people literally screech for the blood of the Jews and then see our western “friends” either blame Israel or simply turn their backs.

Gerald Steinberg: Can Mogherini Repair EU-Israel Relations?

The need for a radical change in the EU approach was recently highlighted by Dennis Ross, the primary American expert on Arab-Israeli peace efforts. Ross pointedly criticized the counterproductive role of Europe through fervent support for the unilateral Palestinian statehood strategy, and for the obsessive focus on condemning Israel. Instead, Ross called on Europe to “focus on how to raise the cost of saying no or not acting at all when there is an offer on the table, rather than backing the Palestinians as they seek to avoid mutual concessions with their UN and ICC gambits.” Mogherini should heed Ross, and start to map out these changes.
Indeed, the EU’s role in the Palestinian campaign to “bring Israel to the dock” at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is another destructive policy. This strategy did not suddenly arise out of Palestinian “frustration” at the failure of the peace talks, the setback at the UN Security Council, or other recent events, and many European pundits speculated. Rather, this line of attack was explicitly adopted during the negotiations of the Rome Statute that led to the establishment of the ICC, and has been moving steadily since then. In 1997, towards the end of this process, the members of the Arab League pushed through language that stretched the definition of war crimes to cover issues related to occupation and population transfers. The purpose was clearly to prepare the grounds for exploiting the ICC for “legal warfare” (lawfare) to target Israel. At the time, Europe could have opposed this maneuver to single-out Israel, but Brussels as well as the EU member states went along.
Since then, this lawfare has been joined by a powerful army of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), largely funded by Europe. While the NGO allocation processes in the European Union under frameworks such as the EU Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) remain top-secret and exempted from Freedom of Information laws (another sore point in relations with Israel), the annual total for anti-Israel campaigning related to lawfare and demonization of Israel is estimated at approximately 100 million Euros.

Amer Abdel Moneim, an Egyptian journalist, weighed in on Facebook about the Jim Clancy story, and his opinion was picked up on at least one news site.

The story is described this way:

Journalist Amer Abdel Moneim writes on the resignation of Jim Clancy, anchor of CNN after he commented on the attack against Charlie Hebdo and he accused the Zionist entity of being behind the publication of cartoons of the Messenger of Allah bless him, stressing that the Jews and their Masonic constituencies are behind wars and strife on Islam.

Abdel Moneim wrote on Facebook today: that the US TV station expelled the broadcaster, because the Zionist hegemony over the money, media and politics imposed a state of fear that prevents them from talking, and he dared to speak.

He added that the role of the Jews is destructive not only in Europe and America , but in Muslim countries as well. Manipulative Masonic rulers created a religious war, pointing out that the Jews are the ones who have the media in our country, and they make the politicians and media haters to their own nations and their religion, and there are hidden business and political links to implement the Jewish agendas.

He continued, saying that the Muslims are waging a constant battle with the Jews until the Day of Resurrection, and the Jewish hatred and hostility against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad is eternal, it is important for Muslims to understand who the enemy is and what the nature of the battle is and the facts about the conflict so as not to fall into the trap of Jewish Freemason cunning.

He might have nailed Clancy's point of view perfectly!

In 2010 video, Jim Clancy says Twitter reveals one's true personality

There are some great parts in this 2010 interview of Jim Clancy, but here I edited the best part:

"I think more personality does come out in the social media, and in many ways, that's a good thing."

Thanks for revealing yours, Jim!

(h/t Ian)

01/19 Links Pt1: Six Iranians killed in Israeli strike in Syria, including Revolutionary Guards general

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: Doing the Islamic terrorists' job

The master of history deceives us. There was a time when Jews had to be protected from Christians. Today the Christians are the ones protecting the Jews from the Muslims. Not all Muslims. Not even the majority of them. Far from that. But the threat is there. Sometimes it materializes.
In the past few decades, after the Holocaust, Europe was kind to the Jews. They integrated. They prospered. But the old anti-Semitism was in the background, joined by the new anti-Semitism – the new anti-Semitism of some of the anti-Zionist elites and the new anti-Semitism of some of the Muslims. The former turn Israel into a monster. The latter want to crush the monster's head. According to them, Europe's Jews are also part of the monster.
While the international community is forced to defend itself, and the Jews, against Islamic terror with one hand, its other hand is busy pointing an accusing finger at Israel through the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Hamas welcomes this situation. It's the same Hamas which calls for the annihilation of Jews, which carries out attacks against Jews and which welcomes every terror attack against Jews.
When Jews need protection, when the international community points an accusing finger at Israel, and when Hamas welcomes it – the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly can smile from their graves. They won. The enlightened Europe is doing their job for them, intentionally and unintentionally.

Report: Six Iranians killed in Israeli strike in Syria, including Revolutionary Guards general

The air strike attributed in foreign media reports to Israel which killed six Hezbollah agents in Syria on Sunday also killed six Iranian soldiers, including commanders, AFP quoted a source close to Hezbollah as saying on Monday.
"The Israeli strike killed six Iranian soldiers, including commanders, as well as the six members of Hezbollah. They were all in a convoy of three cars," the source said.
An Iranian semi-official news site reported that an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general was among those killed in the strike.
"Following the Zionist aggressions against the resistance in Syria, General Mohammad Allahdadi, a former commander of the Sarollah Brigade of the Revolutionary Guard, was martyred along with Jihad Mughniyeh and three others in the same car," the Dana news website said, referring to the son of Hezbollah's late military leader Imad Mughniyeh.

Footage released allegedly showing aftermath of Israeli attack in Syria

Syrian rebels release video of Quneitra area after IAF helicopters reportedly fired missiles at two armed vehicles
Opposition groups in Syria released video footage on Monday purporting to show the moments immediately following a reported Israeli air strike in Syria that killed six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranian soldiers.
The footage appears to show a large cloud of smoke allegedly caused by the two missiles fired from IAF helicopters at two armed vehicles.
A man is later seen fleeing from the scene of the alleged Israeli attack.

Saudi Sheikh Mohammed Al-Barrak, member of the Muslim Scholars Association, said that believers should rejoice over the the death of Jihad Mughniyeh in Syria, "even if the killer is the Israeli occupation," reports Sabr.cc.

Al Barrak has a series of tweets on the matter, slamming Hezbollah and the Syrian regime. He points out that far more Arabs have been killed by Syria in four years than by the Jews in 66 years.

He also asks Allah to allow Hassan Nasrallah to join Mugniyeh in hell, and he thanked Allah that the "oppressors of Muslims" have been destroyed.

Meanwhile:

Sources in Hezbollah said on Monday that retaliation for an alleged Israeli airstrike that killed several of its members was inevitable, but would be restrained enough to not provoke a war.

The Lebanese daily As-Safir, which is identified with Hezbollah, cited sources close to the Shiite terror group as saying that it would choose a time and place to hit back, but would do so in a manner that wouldn’t cause an escalation in the conflict.

The attack would “draw a painful and unexpected response, but we can assume that it will be controlled and beneath the level that could escalate into all-out war,” the Hezbollah sources told As-Safir, and recalled a roadside bomb attack in October 2014 that injured two IDF soldiers.

At the time, Hezbollah claimed the bombing was revenge for the killing of one of its members, Hussein Ali Haidar, in a September 5 explosion that Lebanese officials claimed was caused when Israel destroyed one of its own surveillance devices that had been uncovered inside Lebanon.

“Even though Hezbollah doesn’t intend to up the ante, the organization is planning for a worst-case scenario in which Israel decides to venture into Lebanon,” the Hezbollah sources were quoted as saying.

There have been rumors that Hezbollah has built a series of attack tunnels into Israel as Hamas had previously. I'm not sure that an attack by tunnel wouldn't be considered by Israel to be a major escalation, though.

Abbas says he would turn down free land if it wasn't claimed by Israel

Mahmoud Abbas gave an interview yesterday to an Egyptian paper where he explained how things are in his alternative universe.

He claims that Israel and Hamas had an agreement with Egypt's Mohamed Morsi to give some Sinai land to Hamas and allow Hamas to declare an Islamic Emirate in the enlarged Gaza.

Really.

Here are some excerpts:

- What if Israel decided to directly negotiate with Hamas, bypassing the Palestinian Authority which Tel Aviv and Washington now consider uncooperative?

I've already had to sit down with Hamas about the famous project 'Igor Island', of a Palestinian state in Gaza, plus on Egyptian land, and give up Jerusalem, the right of return, and an end to the Palestinian issue completely, and my information is that Hamas has already signed with Israel on the approval of the project, and only a single obstacle stood in the way, namely, Egypt agreeing to this framework and granting alternative land.

President Mohamed Morsi had no objection to the achievement of this demand for Israel and Hamas, but said he was only waiting for the right time to implement it. what about President al-Sisi, Did you discuss this matter with him?

President Sisi has already informed me, during my discussion with him about it, and I told him that Hamas and Israel has already agreed, and he told me literally 'Not one Egyptian, as well as the President of the Republic, would grant a single centimeter to Hamas or Israel,' and I replied him that we in Palestine also would 'never establish a Palestinian state on one centimeter of the territory of another Arab country. '

- We have heard about Turkish mediation between Hamas and Israel, is to do with the 'Igor Island' project?

Yes, Hamas is still dreaming of an independent state, an Islamic Emirate in Gaza, and this is a risky path, and it tempts a lot of countries that do not want to do good, not to Palestine and the region as a whole.

Even though this entire thing is a figment of Abbas' imagination (at best, he is grossly mis-stating the Ben Arieh land swap plan between the Negev, Gaza and the West Bank) notice how vehemently he rejects the idea of having Palestine expand into Arab countries - even if the land is given to them for free.

There has been remarkable consistency of the Palestinian Arab position on its territorial objectives throughout the years: it only desires whatever Jews control. As soon as the British divided up the mandate between Palestine and Transjordan, and promised Palestine to the Jewish nation, Palestinian Arabs have considered the arbitrary British borders assigned to Jews to be sacrosanct as their land - even though no map of Palestine before 1917 includes the Negev, and every map included large parts of today's Jordan and Lebanon.

Except for the time period between 1948 and 1967. During that time, no Palestinian Arab leader said that they wanted an independent state to include Egyptian-held Gaza and the Jordanian-held West Bank. In fact, the PLO charter of 1964 specifically excluded those sections:

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

Since 1967, of course, that PLO exclusion went away, since Jordan lost the land it had seized illegally in 1948 and Egypt lost its Palestinian Arab concentration camp in Gaza, where they forced every Palestinian to live.

Remember, if Abbas considers the British Mandate boundaries to be the borders of "historic Palestine," it means that he is admitting that there is no Palestinian Arab history from before 1923.

But more importantly, this side statement of Abbas' proves that he is not interested in a viable state by any means, but only in finding more and more excuses to destroy Israel in phases - the 1974 plan that Abbas still subscribes to.

Abbas wants Gaza's population to explode. He wants things to get more and more crowded. And he wants to make sure that it never spills over into Egypt, but only adds more pressure to Israel.

It is a strategy to destroy a state, not to build one. Its remarkable consistency over the years proves not only that the goals have never changed, but also how much Western wishful thinking trumps clear and consistent counterproofs.

What would MLK think of a Muslim-only drinking fountain?

For Martin Luther King day, we should remember how bad discrimination used to be:

It is a good thing that no one today would be so crass as to try to stop people from drinking water out of a fountain because of their race or religion, right?

From the Temple Mount, yesterday:

Yes, the Muslim woman is so incensed at the thought of a Jew drinking water out of the same fountain where Muslims wash their feet that she physically pushes him.

If you view this video and feel sympathy for the woman, you just might be a racist yourself.

(h/t YMedad)