Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 18, 2016

08/18 Links Pt1: PA TV song: Palestinians are “thorn in the throat of Zionism”; Abbas' channel has been closed for years

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: "No Room for the Zionist Entity in the Region"

"The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Wakf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except Jihad." — Hamas Charter.
Hamas's decision to participate in the upcoming local and municipal elections will further strengthen the movement and pave the way for it to extend its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.
"The Zionist entity will not be part of this region. We will continue to resist it until the liberation of our land and the return of our people." — Musa Abu Marzouk, senior Hamas official.
How precisely Hamas intends to "serve" the Palestinians by running in the elections is somewhat murky. Abu Marzouk did not talk about building new schools and parks for the Palestinians. When he talks about "serving" the people, he means only one thing: recruiting Palestinians to Hamas and jihad against Israel and the Jews.

PMW: PA TV song: “We are a thorn in the throat of Zionism”

A song with an upbeat tune broadcast twice on PA TV celebrates that Palestinians are “not afraid of the enemy [Israel],” are “a thorn in the throat of Zionism” who “have given them [Israelis] a taste of grief.” The song identifies the “Palestinians” as people from cities of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the cities of Israel. As the names of cities are sung, different people, adults and children, respond “We are!” while raising their arm with a clenched fist.
While singing the words "in place of one [prisoner] here are ten" - the singer points to the young boy he is holding: He is the "one" future prisoner who will be replaced by ten others.

PA TV song: Palestinians are “thorn in the throat of Zionism”

Liberman unveils ‘carrot and stick’ policy to combat terror, weaken Abbas

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman unveiled a new plan on Wednesday to punish Palestinians who support terrorism, while making life easier for those who don’t.
Under the proposal, known as “The sticks, the hits and the carrots,” Liberman also intends to take some of the power away from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whom Israel has long accused of recalcitrance over the peace process.
Palestinian villages in the West Bank from where attackers regularly emanate, which are marked in red on Liberman’s map, will face a series of consequences — which he referred to as “the burden of security” — including additional IDF presence in the area and increased enforcement of pre-existing laws.
The project is expected to cost NIS 400 million ($105 million) over the next two years, but Liberman said that was necessary in order for both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace.

Abbas' channel has been closed for years

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been irrelevant for years. He has no influence on the ground, and he will make every effort not to hold elections, understanding that he would lose to Hamas. The Israeli Left placed a great deal of hope in this Holocaust-denier and, in an absence of existential logic, claims that given the alternative, a deal with Abbas is preferable. There are only two problems: The day Abbas signs a deal is the day he will be killed, and no Palestinian will honor such an agreement.
It seems there is some wisdom to Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's proposal to look for alternative channels to Abbas, a channel that has been closed for years. There is room for discussions with other officials in the area, and anyone who knows Judea and Samaria knows that the Palestinian entity, which never existed, is anything but unified -- rather it is divided along familial, tribal and geographic lines. In addition, it is important to encourage the rational actors among the Palestinians and make it clear that anyone who extends even a finger out to peace will get a warm handshake in return, and anyone who turns to terror and war will contend with the strong arm of Israel's security forces.
The solution for our complicated environment will not come as a result of diplomatic cocktails in the halls of the U.N. or the marble rooms of the White House. If there is in fact a solution to be found -- an assumption that in itself needs to be examined -- it will be on the ground.

Al Bawabh News is warning that the remake of the movie Ben Hur, being released this week in the US, is Zionist propaganda.

The movie synopsis, on the Arab site, is that it is about a fictional Jewish prince during the time of Jesus who is unjustly accused of a crime, and who vows revenge and to return to Jerusalem. This is simply an allegory for Jews returning to the Promised Land, according to the site, and falsifies Jewish history in the land of Israel. The film's release is simply "a new episode in the series of promotions for the Jews and what they claim are historical rights to the land."

"Ben -Hur lives as a slave for years after he was a rich merchant, but he vows to return to Jerusalem and revenge. Perhaps the story is meant to relate to the immediate situation of the Palestinians and the Jews and is trying to justify what the Israelis promote with their idea of their rights in Jerusalem and to return to it, and the Promised Land."

We are helpfully informed that the Hollywood studios releasing the film, Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, were founded by Jews.

The actual plot of the movie is very Christian, as Ben-Hur learns from Jesus the power of forgiveness. But the revenge plot-line seems to have resonated more with the writers at Al Bawabh.

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In 1993, the official Jordanian Fatwa Council was asked a question: Is it allowed for Palestinians to move to Oman since they are being oppressed by the Zionist infidel enemy? After all, Mohammed fled from Mecca when he suffered oppression and felt he was in danger. Does the same logic apply today?

The answer was, no, it is forbidden to leave Palestine under any circumstances.

The Council stresses that it is not permissible for the people of Palestine to migrate and they may not vacate the holy land to the Jews, as the Council emphasizes that staying in their own land is Jihad for the sake of Allah, and to show opposition to the enemy with jihad in the name of Allah gets the reward of the Mujahideen.

The council then outlines some differences between how they suffer injustice from the Jews compared to what forced Mohammed out of Mecca.

It gave a number of differences, but the fourth reason is interesting:

4-The Jews do not prevent Muslims from practicing their religion and stopping them from performing acts of worship, but the infidels of Mecca prevented the Mujahideen of the Islamic Jihad from performing their rites.

So one of the reasons why Muslims must not leave Palestine is because the Jews treat them too nicely and allow them to worship and practice their religion freely!

The fatwa ends with support for violent jihad against Jews and other oppressors of Muslims:

The Council supports the jihad of our people in Palestine and our brothers in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in every Muslim country and bless their positions overseeing and invite all Muslims to support and support with all their power and capabilities.

Which is funny, because the same Council yesterday forbids driving against a red light.

Because it could endanger lives.

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After years of Hamas employees being paid half salaries, Qatar has started to make up the shortfall by paying Hamas members their full salaries.

But nearly 2900 Hamas members are not receiving anything from Qatar, causing protests in Gaza from those who didn't receive the money they felt they were entitled to.

Hamas has blamed Israel, saying that Qatar has been getting lists of terrorists from Israel and refusing to pay them. This seems possible but unlikely. While Qatar does speak to Israel, and Israel allows Qatar to work with Hamas on Gaza reconstruction, it does not appear that Israel is providing the list to Qatari officials on who not to pay.

According to Fatah-linked media, the PA is behind the decision not to pay many Hamas militants. And the reasons have nothing to do with Israel, but with the PA.

The sources say that the PA refuses to allow Qatar to pay anyone involved in the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007.

Furthermore, according to the sources, Hamas agreed to this limitation in order to make the majority of its employees happy.

Qatar is one of the few Arab states that is paying its pledges to reconstruct Gaza so Hamas doesn't want to jeopardize its relationship with the nation.

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"Jewish Voice for Peace" supports someone who calls for war

The definition of "peace" at "Jewish Voice for Peace" is very, shall we say, flexible.

They have a video and website supporting a Palestinian poet named Dareen Tatour who wrote a poem inciting to violence and genocide against Jews in the Middle East, and who was arrested as a result. JVP decides to say that she just supports "resistance."

Here are excerpts of what she wrote, translated into English:

Resist, my people, resist them.
In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows
And carried the soul in my palm
For an Arab Palestine.
I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,”
Never lower my flags
Until I evict them from my land.

I cast them aside for a coming time.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the settler’s robbery
And follow the caravan of martyrs.

Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist, my people, resist them.

This is a call to violence and war. It is incitement. And incitement is not protected speech. In fact, on the contrary, it is explicitly prohibited under human rights law!

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 20, paragraph 1, states it as clearly as possible: Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.

It doesn't say that it "may" be prohibited. It says that it shall be prohibited.

Tatour's poem calls to violently evict Jews from Israel, and to die while trying. That is what she means by "resistance."

So why would an organization called "Jewish Voice for Peace: support someone who is violating human rights law by calling for war?

It must be that "Jewish Voice for Peace" cares as little about peace as it does about, well, Jews.

Even more incongruous is that the JVP petition on her behalf was signed by over three hundred people who pretend to care about Palestinians under the guise of human rights, and hey are supporting someone who explicitly renounces human rights for Jews as well as someone who calls for them to be ethnically cleansed. Tatour is a criminal under human rights law, yet all these people who signed - including some prominent academics, writers and entertainers - are supporting violations of human rights!

(h/t EP)

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08/17 Links Pt2: Germany’s State-run Broadcaster Peddles Anti-Israel Water Libel; Has the ADL lost the plot?

From Ian:

A Soros Plan, a Marginalized Israel

Funding groups like Breaking the Silence is not an accident. As the 2013 leaked report says: "Our theory of change was based on strengthening the advocacy efforts of civil society organizations and platforms in order to maintain sustained and targeted international advocacy that would oblige the international community (mostly Europe and America) to act and to hold Israel accountable to its obligations under the international law."
In Obama's first term, this meant pushing for Israelis to be "held accountable" for the 2008-9 Gaza War, when Israel barraged Hamas positions interspersed in the civilian population. The foundation's Washington office arranged meetings in 2010 with Richard Goldstone, the author of a report that said Israel may have sought out civilian casualties. Goldstone recanted in 2011, saying the report was used to demonize Israel.
In this respect, Open Society is treating Israel the way it treats autocratic countries like Russia or Iran, as an adversarial abuser of human rights. In the case of Iran though, the group has also supported Obama's outreach to the country. "Human rights defense work remains an important priority for the Iran Program," a 2014 program summary says. "But should not be pursued to the exclusion of all other work, including work on supporting better policy outcomes such as support for a nuclear deal with Iran." In 2009, the Open Society Policy Center in Washington worked with other groups to open relations with Iran, and in 2015 the nuclear deal was signed.
There has been little progress on Open Society's goal of pressuring Israel. Eight years into the Obama administration, the organization has certainly not isolated Israel as a rogue state, and it's unclear what the threat of doing so has accomplished. While Obama has been more public than any of his predecessors in condemning Israeli settlements, he has also strengthened the U.S.-Israeli military bond. The U.S. today is close to signing a new 10-year extension of the defense subsidy to Israel. Obama's advisers promise it will be the most generous aid package in U.S. history. Meanwhile, the peace process has been dormant for more than a year.
This is not to say Israel doesn't have its problems. It faces boycotts on college campuses and frosty relations in Europe, and some businesses are wary of investing in the West Bank. But in a Middle East upended by civil war and revolution, the region's one open society has not become a pariah or ended its occupation of the West Bank. Despite the best efforts of George Soros and his foundations.

Isi Leibler: Has the ADL lost the plot?

I rubbed my eyes with incredulity when I read the bizarre statements emanating from Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the most powerful American Jewish organizations whose principal mandate is to combat anti-Semitism.
A few months ago I was drawn into a heated dispute with Greenblatt after criticizing an address he delivered to J Street students which included implicit criticisms of Israeli government policy and a failure to urge J Street to cease demonizing Israel and canvassing the US government to intensify pressure against the Jewish state.
Instead, he should have encouraged them to engage in the battle against the mushrooming anti-Semitism proliferating on campus. Greenblatt responded that he was “impressed” with these students and felt that they were “the future Jewish leaders of our community.”
But more recently, Greenblatt appears to have entirely lost the plot, behaving as though he remained employed by the Obama administration.
He was entirely out of line in his condemnation of the Republican platform as “anti-Zionist” for omitting reference to a two-state solution.
One can disagree about a two-state policy, but for an American Jewish organization which must remain bipartisan and should be concentrating on anti-Semitism, to issue such a statement breaches all conventions. It is totally beyond the ADL’s mandate to involve itself in such partisan political issues.

Zionist-Hating Young Labour Chief Pictured Brandishing Gun

Young Labour’s International Officer Abdi-Aziz Suleiman sparked a furore over the weekend when he appeared on the Iranian state-run Press TV to defend Corbyn. He has previous. In another Press TV interview, Suleiman rails against “dedicated Zionists” and rants about Israel. When he was called out, he responded by arguing Israeli media should be boycotted instead. What does the Momentum-backed Corbynista get up to in his spare time? The above image of Suleiman brandishing a gun, finger curled around the trigger, has been circulating in Labour circles. He reassures Guido he was just on holiday in America. Glad to hear he’s not taking the whole Jezbollah thing too seriously…

Why is Pollard being Forced to Violate the Jewish Sabbath? (Judean Rose)

I am pleased to announce a new columnist, Varda Meyers Epstein, winner of this year's Hasby Award for Best Social Media Advocate for Israel.

by Varda Meyers Epstein

There was always something wrong about the Pollard case, a cloud of hovering stench. Pollard was punished for giving critical info to an ally; info the U.S. was bound to give that ally (Israel) according to signed agreements between the two countries. But still, the U.S. called it "spying" and put Pollard behind bars for life, the same sentence given Aldrich Ames for the treasonous act of sharing critical U.S. defense secrets with the enemy.

Pollard was no threat to anyone, and still, the powers that be didn't let him attend his father's funeral. He was dangerous to no one and still the powers that be let him waste away without proper medical treatment. Lame duck presidents running out their final days in office could have pardoned Jonathan Pollard, but did not do so.

One might suppose that Pollard was the Jew behind bars, a captive proxy for all the ways U.S. presidents wanted to slap Israel's hands for being too uppity. And now that he's been sprung, they're still slapping him around, the Jew Pollard. They have taken away the thing that is dearest to him, his observance of the Jewish Sabbath.

And they won't give it back.

Here is how they make Jonathan Pollard break Shabbos:

By the terms of his parole, Pollard is forced to wear an electronic tracking device on his wrist, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The device cannot be removed and must be recharged by Pollard's own hand. This can only be accomplished by Pollard plugging the device into an electric socket and sitting immobile for several hours a day. It is a violation of the Jewish Sabbath to plug an electric device into an electric socket.

Now when fully charged the transmitter lasts, at most, 24 hours, that is as long as Pollard is sitting still at the base station. If he moves outside the range of the receiver, however, the device begins to track his location, which uses up the battery faster.

Since the duration of the Sabbath is 25 hours (not to mention Jewish holidays which are twice as long), even if Pollard were to sit absolutely still at the base station, he'd need to plug in the device to recharge it at least once during this time, thus violating the Sabbath.

But there's more: in addition to being forced to violate the Sabbath, Pollard is unable to attend Sabbath services where he might be able to pray with the prescribed quorum of 10 men (a minyan). At an earlier hearing, Pollard's lawyers argued that, “Courts have held that ‘an opportunity to worship as a congregation by a substantial number of prisoners may be a basic religious experience and, therefore, a fundamental exercise of religion.’”

Perhaps the most irksome part of all of this is the fact that Pollard's right to observe the Jewish Sabbath was sacrosanct as long as he remained in prison. From the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) website:

Courts have also found that restrictions requiring prisoners to violate the Sabbath or other religious duties violate the First Amendment. McEachin v. McGuinnis, 357 F.3d 197, 204-05 (2d Cir. 2004) (intentionally giving Muslim prisoner an order during prayer may violate First Amendment); Love v. Reed, 216 F.3d 682 (8th Cir. 2000) (failure to provide inmate with food from the prison’s kitchen on Saturday for his consumption on Sunday violates the Establishment Clause where the inmate’s sincerely held religious belief prevented him from leaving his cell or working on the Sabbath, or eating food prepared by others on that day); Hayes v. Long, 72 F.3d 70 (8th Cir. 1995) (requiring Muslim prisoner to handle pork violated First Amendment); Murphy v. Carroll, 202 F. Supp. 2d 421, 423-25 (D. Md. 2002) (prison officials’ designation of Saturday as cell-cleaning day violated Free Exercise rights of Orthodox Jewish prisoner).

While in prison, Pollard could keep Shabbos to his heart's content. Having been "set free" however, his conditions are actually more, and not less onerous. The question is "why?"

It is widely accepted that the information Jonathan Pollard shared with Israel has been long ago rendered moot and therefore harmless. Releasing him to such harsh conditions in which he cannot leave the house to seek gainful employment or observe his most basic religious rights seems to be gratuitous and cruel: retributive. Of U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest's recent decision to keep these restrictive parole conditions in place, Nachman Shai, head of the Knesset's Pollard Caucus, said, “It is frustrating to see that the unmerciful pursuit of Pollard by American authorities continues,” Shai said. “We have been saying ‘enough is enough’ for so long, and the response has been insensitivity and inflexibility. He should be allowed to live a normal life, but he can’t when he is stuck to his house and prevented from working in a manner that has passed all limits of what is reasonable. They let him leave jail, so they should have let him have a longer string.”

One has to wonder whether there is something darker to the decision to deprive Pollard of his civil liberties, just as there was something dark about keeping him imprisoned for so long. Oft-quoted essayist Ahad Haam said that "More than Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews." It is no exaggeration to say that remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy ensured Jewish survival, helping the Jews outlive enemy after enemy over a two-thousand year span. It is what set the Jews apart from the others, helped us stay what we were and still are, so many years later. It kept us alive as a people, a nation.

And maybe that's the problem, from the perspective of those who insist on taking this cherished right, the right to keep the Sabbath, away from one man, Jonathan Pollard.

Our efforts to honor Sabbath day despite the Crusaders, despite the Inquisition, despite the Holocaust makes it rankle all the more that the courts have played fast and easy with this, our cherished observance. They have deemed our Jewish Sabbath not important enough for them to stop playing this game with Jonathan Pollard, in which they rob him of everything he cares about, by making him break Shabbos.

Or maybe it's the complete opposite of that: they want to break him.

If you look at the photos of Jonathan Pollard, you can see it happening. He is no longer a cunning New York Jew in a whole mess of trouble, but a kindly-looking meek man, afraid of his own shadow.

All he has left, it seems, is his Yiddishkeit and his love of Israel.

Which is why they'll never let him have those things. They'll never let him observe his Jewish religion or live in the Jewish State.

That would be letting him win, the Jew. The Jew Pollard.

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This video, of Hebrew University professor Moshe Sharon, has been going around Muslim websites as proof that a Jewish professor accepts Islam as the perfect religion, that Mohammed was the best prophet after a long line of Muslim prophets starting with Adam, that Islam is a universal religion meant for everyone on Earth, and that it is the job of Muslims to spread their religion.

It is laughable because it is obvious that the snippet is showing Sharon describing how Muslims interpret Islam, not what he believes. I found the original video - from Arutz-7 in 2011 - and while this one isn't edited much, the context is missing. As A7 says:

Professor Moshe Sharon, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, took part on Sunday in the Holy Temple Conferences held by the Movement for Temple Renewal with the participation of leading temple-oriented organizations.

During the conference, which took place in the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, Prof. Sharon warned against Islamic revisionist history, and explained the Islamic worldview of history and geography.

In fact, Professor Sharon is quite critical of Islam. Here are excerpts from a 2003 article he wrote:

Peace in Islam can exist only within the Islamic world; peace can only be between Moslem and Moslem.

With the non-Moslem world or non-Moslem opponents, there can be only one solution - a cease fire until Moslems can gain more power. It is an eternal war until the end of days. Peace can only come if the Islamic side wins. The two civilizations can only have periods of cease-fires. And this idea of cease-fire is based on a very important historical precedent, which, incidentally, Yasser Arafat referred to when he spoke in Johannesburg after he signed the Oslo agreement with Israel.

Let me remind you that the document speaks of peace - you wouldn't believe that you are reading! You would think that you were reading some science fiction piece. I mean when you read it, you can't believe that this was signed by Israelis who are actually acquainted with Islamic policies and civilization.

A few weeks after the Oslo agreement was signed, Arafat went to Johannesburg, and in a mosque there he made a speech in which he apologized, saying, "Do you think I signed something with the Jews which is contrary to the rules of Islam?" (I have obtained a copy of Arafat's recorded speech so I heard it from his own mouth.) Arafat continued, "That's not so. I'm doing exactly what the prophet Mohammed did."

Whatever the prophet is supposed have done becomes a precedent. What Arafat was saying was, "Remember the story of Hodaybiya." The prophet had made an agreement there with the tribe of Kuraish for 10 years. But then he trained 10,000 soldiers and within two years marched on their city of Mecca. He, of course, found some kind of pretext.

Thus, in Islamic jurisdiction, it became a legal precedent which states that you are only allowed to make peace for a maximum of 10 years. Secondly, at the first instance that you are able, you must renew the jihad [thus breaking the "peace" agreement].

In Israel, it has taken over 50 years in this country for our people to understand that they cannot speak about [permanent] peace with Moslems. It will take another 50 years for the western world to understand that they have got a state of war with the Islamic civilization that is virile and strong. This should be understood: When we talk about war and peace, we are not talking in Belgium, French, English, or German terms. We are talking about war and peace in Islamic terms.

What makes Islam accept cease-fire? Only one thing - when the enemy is too strong. It is a tactical choice.

Sometimes, he may have to agree to a cease-fire in the most humiliating conditions. It's allowed because Mohammed accepted a cease-fire under humiliating conditions. That's what Arafat said to them in Johannesburg. When western policy makers hear these things, they answer, "What are you talking about? You are in the Middle Ages. You don't understand the mechanisms of politics."

Which mechanisms of politics? There are no mechanisms of politics where power is. And I want to tell you one thing - we haven't seen the end of it, because the minute a radical Moslem power has atomic, chemical or biological weapons, they will use it. I have no doubt about that.

Now, since we face war and we know that we cannot get more than an impermanent cease-fire, one has to ask himself what is the major component of an Israeli/Arab cease-fire. It is that the Islamic side is weak and your side is strong. The relations between Israel and the Arab world in the last 50 years since the establishment of our State has been based only on this idea, the deterrent power.

The reason that we have what we have in Yugoslavia and other places is because Islam succeeded into entering these countries. Wherever you have Islam, you will have war. It grows out of the attitude of Islamic civilization.

What are the poor people in the Philippines being killed for? What's happening between Pakistan and India?

Furthermore, there is another fact that must be remembered. The Islamic world has not only the attitude of open war, but there's also war by infiltration.

One of the things which the western world is not paying enough attention to is the tremendous growth of Islamic power in the western world.

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You Can't Tell People The Truth About Me! That's Slander! By Ashraf Hakimi,SJP (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

You Can't Tell People The Truth About Me! That's Slander!

By Ashraf Hakimi, Students for Justice in Palestine

I've had enough of pro-Israel propagandists harming the Palestinian Muslim cause by taking my exact words, in context, and making them public, which results in people considering me a bigot and supporter of violence. You can tell the truth about me! That's slander.

The Palestinian cause will never make the inroads it needs to make in American society if the public gets the wrong idea about our movement - which is to say, exactly what our movement is about. It will not do to have Americans realize we stand for all the things they oppose: religious and ethnic discrimination, genocide, violence, dehumanization of Jews, and sundry other Palestinian values. If Americans get the impression that we are exactly who we are, we don't stand a chance of garnering enough sympathy to affect policy. So it's not fair, and probably immoral, to have these facts exposed where everybody can know them. It's damaging to our cause, and therefore slanderous.

Yes, technically, slander refers to untrue statements, but since my cause by definition represents truth - it is, after all, the one I choose to promote - then other things that happen to be true in terms of facts and the like must not get in the way of advancing that cause. All you have to do is redefine truth, and you can redefine slander to mean what we want. We do it all the time. Look at what our movement has done with "peace," "Apartheid," and the term "Palestinian" itself. That was a masterstroke, that last one.

But I digress. The point is, when my allies and I get filmed calling for the murder of Jews, or excusing it, that cannot be allowed to see the light of day. Similarly, it is slanderous - remember, we're using my definition of it - to take posts or comments any of us make on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, and show them to people outside our movement. They just won't understand. They'll get all caught up on the fact of our trampling free expression by shouting down anyone who disagrees, or of our engaging it what they would consider slander, and miss the real message, which is that Israel has no right to exist, Jews are ape-pigs, Jews control the media and banks, there's a genocide of Palestinians, our culture is being erased, we were always there, and other truths that inconveniently don't have the facts to support them.

It's slanderous, I tell you.

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08/17 Links Pt1: It’s a bad day for Anjem Choudary – and a good day for secular law; Is the US Complicit in UNRWA-Hamas Cooperation?

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: It’s a bad day for Anjem Choudary – and a good day for secular law

So farewell then Anjem Choudary. At least for a few years. Britain’s biggest loudmouth Islamist has finally been convicted in the UK for encouraging support for Isis. He now faces up to ten years in prison.
There have been reporting restrictions on his conviction for several weeks now, as we waited for the conclusion of the trial of his associate Mohammed Mizanur Rahman. But now it’s over. At least for a while. There is much to say, but allow me one particular reflection for now.
Like his mentor and predecessor Omar Bakri Mohammed, Anjem Choudary was always a subject of enormous interest in Britain and abroad. Indeed you could argue that for some years now he has been Britain’s most famous Muslim. Most Muslims understandably hated this, but so did everybody else. I once ground my teeth hearing him introduced by a foreign interviewer as ‘leading British Imam Anjem Choudary.’ He was regularly invited onto television and gave other media interviews liberally, as it were.
Which was understandable because he was the perfect go-to guy. Where others ‘ummed’, ‘ah-ed’ and talked of ‘context’ Choudary could be relied upon to give his fundamentalist views straight up. Yet as a trained solicitor he knew where the lines were and carefully stepped away when he felt you encouraging him over them. This was always done in the mutual awareness that his views lay a long way over that line. Whenever people – especially Muslims – assured me that Choudary was merely a joker I always reminded them that in that case he was a joker with a particularly unfunny contacts book.
But all of this presented a problem for the media. You couldn’t avoid him – as some people insisted the media do – not least because (as with the murderers of Lee Rigby) he had a tendency to know the terrorists who were the story. But each non-avoidance of course also made him grow, which among other things risked further flagging him up for anybody attracted to his kind of extremism. But could someone so outspoken seriously be at the centre of anything? Surely every movement and word was listened into by someone?

Web of hate: How Anjem Choudary's sermons inspired a generation of home-grown terrorists while he played cat and mouse with the police for two decades

The hate-filled circle around Anjem Choudary has been a breeding ground for the Islamic extremism which has plagued Britain in the last two decades.
Former law-student Choudary, who previously called for adulterers to be stoned to death and branded UK troops 'cowards', has always hidden behind free speech rules whenever challenged by the authorities.
But the group he helped to set up have been linked to a series of terrorist attacks, as easily-influenced young men became inspired by his twisted vision of jihad.
The best known of his disciples was Muslim convert Michael Adebolajo, who, along with Michael Adebowale, attacked Fusilier Lee Rigby with a meat cleaver in Woolwich in 2013 in a murder which shocked the country.
Adebolajo was a supporter of Choudary's al-Muhajiroun group and was pictured standing behind the hate preacher in 2007.
After the incident, Choudary said Adebolajo was 'a practising Muslim and a family man' who he was 'proud of'.
But he denied encouraging the killer to carry out the attack, insisting he was 'channeling the energy of the youth through demonstrations and processions'.

Diaa Hadid in the New York Times has written some surprisingly good articles in recent weeks. Earlier this week she wrote one about how Israeli doctors, through the Save a Child's Heart program, saved the life of an Afghan boy in Pakistan with a heart defect.

I've written about SACH in the past and even visited them. It is a great organization that is happy to help whenever it can. It is not political and does only good.

For the most part, Hadid's article is positive, describing how the child, Yehia, managed to get to Israel and be helped. She give background on the organization:

Yehia — whose father spoke on the condition that the family name not be published for fear of a backlash if it became known he had taken the boy to Israel for treatment — is the first Afghan treated by Save a Child’s Heart in its 20 years of operations. About half the charity’s 4,000 patients have been Palestinian; 200 others were children from Iraq and Syria, and the roster includes patients from Tanzania, Ethiopia and Moldova.

But she cannot resist finding someone to accuse the dedicated doctors of SACH of "med-washing:"

Tony Laurance, head of a group called Medical Aid for Palestine, said that while providing children “world-class surgery” was “an unequivocal good,” it should not obscure the broader impact of Israeli policies on medical care for Palestinians. Gaza hospitals are perennially short of medicine, equipment and well-trained staff because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, and many Gaza residents struggle to get exit permits for care outside the territory.

“What gets up my nose,” Mr. Laurance said, “is that it presents an image of Israel that betrays the reality.”

Israeli doctors saving Muslim lives "gets up his nose" because it "betrays reality"? Laurance is saying that positive articles about Israel must not be published because they blunt the impact of the unrelenting anti-Israel propaganda that he and his organization pushes.

Laurance's idea of "reality" is that Gaza suffers shortages of medicine and equipment because of Israeli policies, a statement that Hadid does not check. It is unequivocally false. While a tiny percentage of medical equipment going into Gaza may be delayed because it could be considered dual-use, if it is legitimate it gets through. And there are no restrictions on medicines altogether. Teh medicine restrictions are because of infighting between Hamas and Fatah, plus Hamas stealing aid. It has nothing to do with Israel.

Laurance lied, and Hadid allowed the lie to be published unchallenged in the New York Times.

Even his statement about "many Gaza residents struggle to get exit permits " is skewed. I have no doubt that there is paperwork to complete and approvals involved, but they are traveling to another country - the restrictions are not any worse than with most international travel. Beyond that, Mr. Laurance conveniently decides not to say a word about that other country that borders Gaza, an Arab country, that refuses virtually all patients from entering. Which calls into question the true interest he has in Medical Aid for Palestinians (the actual name of the organization) - how much of it is altruistic and how much is political?

There was no reason to include his mini-diatribe in the article, and in fact it is a jarring departure from the tone of the rest of the article. But what is worse is that the casual reader would think that the NYT agrees that Israel restricts medical aid to Gaza.

(h/t EBoZ)

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Saeb Erekat wrote an article in Newsweek that is the usual mix of half-truths, lies and omissions.

Israeli government officials have announced further measures against nonviolent actions by civil society. During the First Intifada, the Israeli occupation authorities deported non-violent activists and tried to prevent any peaceful demonstration against the imposed and oppressive policies. Nowadays, Israel, with some international support, is trying to quash a growing solidarity movement with the Palestinian cause for freedom and independence.

Over the past year, the Israeli government and other organizations have conducted a campaign against any expression of disapproval of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, its crimes and its racist policies. Palestinian human rights organizations, such as Al Haq, have been victims of orchestrated efforts aimed at jeopardizing their funding, including vicious attacks and hateful incitement that has led to death threats against some of their employees.

Regrettably, this campaign against Palestinian civil society and partners has been somehow accepted and even encouraged by some members of the international community. We were astonished to see an official European Union presence at two anti-BDS conferences, with the EU representative to Tel Aviv not only praising Israel for its “human rights record,” but also by publicly stating that “settlement products are welcome in European markets.”

The PLO is clearly panicking over anti-BDS moves in Europe. And Erekat is happy to publicly support BDS, which supports the destruction of Israel.

Erekat doesn't want readers to know that the point of BDS isn't peaceful protest against Israeli policies but a campaign to destroy Israel itself, as its leaders admit. No other nation faces such a challenge, which is the reason that the EU has been backtracking on its support for BDS. Europe's anti-BDS moves are based on existing EU anti-discrimination laws, something else Erekat doesn't want the readers to know.

Another thing that Erekat doesn't want Newsweek readers to know is that BDS is against any peaceful cooperation between Israel and Palestinians. The movement condemns any joint sports programs, peace seminars or any other contact between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs - in direct opposition to the EU, which pours money into such programs to help establish an atmosphere of peace in the region. BDS is fundamentally against a two-state solution that the EU supports.

BDS rules would prohibit any nation from competing against Israel in the Olympics, and it supports athletes from refusing to compete and refusing to shake hands with their Israeli opponents. That is something else Erekat desperately wants people not to know.

The biggest omission is the statement from Mahmoud Abbas himself in 2013:

“No, we do not support the boycott of Israel,” the Palestinian leader told a group of South African reporters on Monday. “But we ask everyone to boycott the products of the settlements. Because the settlements are in our territories. It is illegal.

“And the Israelis should first of all stop building in our territories, should stop everything in our territories,” he stated, according to South African media outlet The Star.

“But we do not ask anyone to boycott Israel itself,” he reiterated. “We have relations with Israel, we have mutual recognition of Israel.”

That reluctance to publicly associate the PA with BDS continues to this day.

Erekat most certainly doesn't want Newsweek readers to know that - because it undercuts his entire thesis that such boycotts help the cause of peace.

It is interesting that Erekat has chosen the very time that BDS is failing as the time to try to prop it up, against the PA's own policies. Either it is another example of spectacularly bad timing on the PLO's part, or an attempt by Erekat to bolster his own chances to succeed Abbas as the PA and PLO leader.

(h/t Dan P)

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