Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Nah, this photo isn't staged at all (update)

A Palestinian woman looks from a window of her house in the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City on Thursday ahead of the commemorations for the 67th anniversary of the “Nakba”
(Mohammed Abed/AFP)

I'm sure that the photographer had nothing to do with staging this photo. He has ethics!

Why does her home look so bad? After all, it doesn't look like it was bombed. The Shati camp is fully under Palestinian Arab rule. There is no shortage of Western or Arab funds that could build fix this this poor woman's house. The amount of time it took to stage this photo could have been used to repair the shutter. So why is the window in such bad shape?

These are the questions that are not asked when Nakba Day rolls around. No, at that time, photographers need to illustrate the Nakba, and an old woman, looking forlornly towards her real home somewhere in Israel, living in a dilapidated house that could be easily fixed in a week, fills the bill.

It will be recalled that as far back as 1979, Israel tried to build real houses for people like this - and the UN condemned them for wanting to get rid of these dilapidated "refugee" camps which are so useful for photo ops of how bad Palestinian Arabs have it.

UPDATE: Another angle. Her fingers are in the exact same position, but our photographer asked her to move her head a little bit further in the house but to her left so it wouldn't be in the shadow:(h/t Bob Knot)

How to manipulate photos to tell an anti-Israel story (update)

From Ma'an:

Amateur photographer Ahmad Nazzal captured Israeli forces spraying 'skunk water' at a Palestinian child during the Kafr Qaddum weekly march in the occupied West Bank on Friday.

Five-year-old Muhammad Riyad appears standing in front of Israeli forces wearing a Palestinian Keffiyeh before the forces begin chasing him with skunk water, the boy eventually falling to the ground.

The foul-smelling liquid has been used by the Israeli military as a form of non-lethal crowd control since at least 2008 and can leave individuals and homes smelling like feces and garbage for weeks.

The poor kid is just standing there, minding his own business!

Too bad the photographer didn't show what else the little boy and his friends were doing for quite a bit of time while the soldiers did nothing. The boy in blue in this first clip looks like he isn't out of diapers yet.

And also that the skunk water was not aimed at the kid, but at the older stone throwers (The kid can be seen running on the left side while the water is clearly aimed at adult stone throwers on the right, Another video shows where he tripped):

Where are the parents? Obviously letting their little boys go out and throw stones at soldiers.

Don't expect Ma'an to issue a correction, but it might be fun to tell them just to see them remove the comments.

(h/t Bob Knot)

UPDATE: I posted a comment:

The full video of the event shows not only that the child was throwing rocks from close range, but the police did nothing. The video also shows that the skunk water was shot at adult rioters on the right, unseen here. Video at Palmedia YT page.
Ma'an owes its readers a correction and apology.

We'll see if it gets published along with the hate.

Palestinian girl shot in the head. Call the NGOs! Oh, wait...

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian girl was killed Saturday evening after she was accidentally hit by gunfire during wedding celebrations in Balata refugee camp east of Nablus.

Local sources said that Ilaa al-Araj, 16, was hit in her head by a bullet fired during wedding celebrations, which she had been watching from the roof of her home.

Sources said that the girl was taken to Rafidiya Governmental Hospital in Nablus but she was later pronounced dead.

Sources added that the shooter had turned himself into the Palestinian police, who have opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of the incident.

It is illegal in the occupied Palestinian territories to fire gunshots during celebrations, although it remains a common practice.

In 2006, after three young girls were accidentally killed by gunfire at a wedding in Jenin, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights issued a statement that said they were "extremely concerned over the continued falling of victims, mostly children, by gunshots fired during celebrations and weddings."

In 2010, a Bedouin groom was killed at a bachelor party in the Negev.

In 2011, a girl celebrating her college prep test results in Gaza City was killed by celebratory gunfire shot by her brother.

Six children and three women were injured from celebratory gunfire at Israel releasing terrorists in 2011.

In 2013, at a wedding in Yemen, a happy gunman killed three guests dancing to "Gangham Style" on video.

I have yet to see any European NGOs spend money on educating Arabs that firing weapons at celebrations is dangerous. Shouldn't they throw a few euros into saving Arab lives?

But if you find a way to blame Jews for the killings, then the EU money would flood in.

05/16 Links: Pope calls Abbas ‘angel of peace’; Jerusalem then and now: A journey in photos

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: The folly of the international community on the Palestinians

Pushing both sides into a forced settlement will lead to disaster, and a Hamas takeover in the West Bank; meanhile, the outrage over Shaked is entirely misplaced.
The formula is a familiar one: The more right-wing the government of Israel appears to the world, the easier it is for the anti-Israel campaigners to do their work. An increase in Israel in statements and incidents of an anti-Arab nature leads to a fall-off in support for Israel among Jewish students on US campuses, and the more organizations like Breaking the Silence and B'Tselem create the distorted impression that Israel is committing crimes on an ongoing basis, the easier it is for the BDS activists to tout their case.
The starting positions are problematic – not only due to the composition of the new Israeli government, but primarily in light of the geopolitical situation. The absurd thing is that under current circumstances, Israel's control over the territories is the lesser evil.
A hasty political settlement – to which the US administration and EU are leading, with the encouragement of a bunch of Israelis who support the Palestinian demand for unilateral recognition of statehood – would be a disaster for the Palestinians. A Hamas takeover would only be a matter of time.
This has nothing at all to do with the composition of the government. Isaac Herzog would encounter the same geopolitical situation; and Tzipi Livni, too, would encounter Palestinian opposition to any peace deal. After all, the Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert governments made very generous offers to Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas respectively – to no avail.

‘Nakba Day’ Footage Shows Riots in Jerusalem, Arabs Chanting ‘We Don’t Want Jews’

Arab residents of Jerusalem marched through the Israeli capital’s streets on Friday to mark “Nakba Day” — the Arabic name for the perceived catastrophe (nakba) of the creation of the Jewish state. Video footage of one demonstration showed the rioters chanting “We don’t want the Jews.”
In the video clip, a large group of Palestinian demonstrators is seen congregated across from the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva in Jerusalem. The rioters begin throwing glass bottles at yeshiva students, simultaneously calling out, “We don’t want Jews,” “by our souls and by our blood, we will redeem Al-Aqsa,” and “Allahu Akbar.”
Many yeshiva students hid inside the school fearing the protesters outside, according to Israeli news portal 0404. One student told the website that Jerusalem’s Arab residents “do whatever they want here.”
“They do not fear anyone,” he said, expressing hope that “one day someone will wake up in our country and make it clear to them who is boss in this country, and to whom Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong.”

Pope calls Abbas ‘angel of peace’ during Vatican visit

Pope Francis praised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as an “angel of peace” during a meeting at the Vatican.
Francis made the compliment Saturday during the traditional exchange of gifts at the end of an official audience in the Apostolic Palace. He presented Abbas with a medallion and explained that it represented the angel of peace “destroying the bad spirit of war.”
Francis said he thought the gift was appropriate since “you are an angel of peace.”
Abbas is in town for the canonization Sunday of two new saints from what was then Ottoman-ruled Palestine. It also comes days after the Vatican finalized a bilateral treaty with the “state of Palestine,” making explicit its recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Abbas, for his part, offered Francis relics of the two new saints. (h/t Bob Knot)

05/15 Links Pt2: Honig: A Delegitimization Called Nakba; Five Reasons to Celebrate Jerusalem Day

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: A Delegitimization Called Nakba

Whereas we celebrate our state’s Independence Day according to the Hebrew calendar, the Gregorian anniversary, May 15, is annually commemorated by Arabs as a day of lamentation for the Nakba. It’s the catastrophe according to their loaded terminology, which renascent Jewish sovereignty supposedly inflicted on the supposedly indigenous people of this land – the Palestinians.
The notion that Israel was born in sin is delegitimization in the most extreme sense.
Israel is painted as a wrong and righting the wrong means eradicating Israel. There’s no getting away from the conclusion to which this representation unavoidably leads. Israel is illegitimate both in its inception and subsequent survival. Peace can be restored only when the illegitimacy is removed.
It’s essential to remember this as we see our Arab neighbors – fellow holders of Israeli citizenship who enjoy all the perks and privileges thereof – bewail the fact that an Israel at all exists. Nakba Day is in fact Delegitimization Day. It lays the ideological groundwork for marking us as “worthy targets of violence.”
The delegitimization rests on two interconnected cornerstones – portraying Israel as the occupier-aggressor and portraying local Arabs as the hapless aboriginals overrun and oppressed by the occupier-aggressor.

Michael Lumish: Happy Nakba Day!

I love Nakba Day.
I understand that that many Arabs are not happy about the fact that the Jewish people escaped from the Islamic system that we call dhimmitude after thirteen centuries of second and third-class non-citizenship under Arab-Muslim imperial rule... but I could hardly be more pleased.
The Muslim Brotherhood is unhappy with Jewish liberation from Arab-Muslim imperial rule.
Hamas is unhappy with Jewish liberation from Arab-Muslim imperial rule.
The Islamic State is unhappy with Jewish liberation from Arab-Muslim imperial rule.
Islamic Jihad is unhappy with Jewish liberation from Arab-Muslim imperial rule.
Boko Haram is unhappy with Jewish liberation from Arab-Muslim imperial rule.
Speaking for myself, I could not be happier or more satisfied in the rightness and justice of the failure of Islamic rule over the Jews.
Nakba Day is one of my favorite holidays, but my favorite holidays are generally concerned with issues of liberation. I love Thanksgiving, for example, because it represents the roots of the United States and, thus, the liberation of millions of people from European authoritarianism and monarchy. I love Passover for much the same reason. It represents the freedom of the Jewish people from persecution by non-Jews, which is why we drink our wine in a lounging position.

Five Reasons to Celebrate Jerusalem Day

This Sunday is Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day).
The newest addition to the Jewish calendar, it’s held on the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar—six weeks after the Passover seder and one week before the eve of the holiday of Shavuot.
In June 1967, 28 Iyar was the third day of the Six Day War.
Yom Yerushalayim celebrates the reunification of Israel’s capital city, when Jewish forces brought Jerusalem “back to Jewish sovereignty”.
In Israel the holiday is marked with pilgrimages to Jerusalem with thousands of Israelis heading to the city for the annual Flag Parade.
But in many Jewish communities Yom Yerushalayim typically passes without a lot of fanfare.
Many Jews haven’t even heard of it.
REASON #1: Jewish holy places are liberated from an illegal Jordanian occupation.
REASON #2: The whole city of Jerusalem is reclaimed and reunited under Israeli sovereignty.
REASON #3: Jewish Jerusalem is reconstituted.
REASON #4: Jewish faithful have the legal right to pray on the Temple Mount.
REASON #5: Reaffirming a Jewish attachment to the holy city and to the land.

Boycott the Boycotters movement gains momentum

The movement to boycott those who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is gaining steam, particularly at the legislative level.
We previously highlighted federal legislation aimed at the European boycott movement, and the apoplectic reaction, Breaking! Anti-Israel boycotters don’t like being boycotted!:
The reaction is furious from the anti-Israel boycotters, as refleected in this Op-Ed in The Chicago Sun Times with this ironic title, Illinois has no business boycotting those who boycott Israel, which starts off with a fake Gandhi quote:
It’s almost laughable that the same people who support boycotting Israel, as well as the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign (over the non-hiring of controversial professor Steven Salaita) scream bloody murder when the boycott is directed at the boycotters.
Expect the “Boycott the Boycotters” movement to grow.

Zippy Porath's letters to her American family from besieged Jerusalem, May 15-16, 1948

Zipporah Porath arrived in Mandatory Palestine in Oct. 1947, as an American student, for what was intended to be a year of study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. But, caught up inIsrael's War of Independence, she served first as a medic in the underground Haganah defense forces, and then in the nascent IDF and the fledgling Israel Air Force. These volunteers from abroad were later recognized as part of the MACHAL volunteer corps.

The letters Zippy wrote to her parents and sister capture the historic events as they occurred. They are compiled in the book, Letters from Jerusalem 1947-1948.

The stamp that she used was issued before Israel had a name. It says "The Jewish State" and shows a picture of the 1947 Partition Plan - including, it appears, Jerusalem as a separate political entity. I had never heard of that stamp before.

Jerusalem,

May 15, 1948

Dearest Family,
It's the most incongruous and inexplicable feeling. I'm sitting with our soldiers, listening all hearts and ears to the proceedings at the UN Security Council over a broken down battery radio -- trying to find out who will recognize our new State. The room is lit only by a small kerosene lamp which throws eerie shadows on the wall and plays havoc with the imagination.

The voices fade in and out, the static is maddening and it is hard to hear who is speaking. At the moment, the "Representative from Canada" is saying something stupid -- it's difficult to catch more than a word here or there -- so I'll use his time to write a few words ....which may never reach you.
Awareness of the full impact of the significance of this day has been somewhat lost to me in the immensity of rapidly developing events that have gripped Jerusalem. The British are actually leaving. We are fighting desperately to take over their strongholds before the Arabs do. For the last three days we have been on full alert and this is ZERO HOUR.

We are waiting impatiently for the return of the contingents of boys dispatched for today's engagements. Many dear friends are among them. Somehow, that seems more important to me than what the "Gentleman from Canada" is jabbering about -- or is it the Egyptian now?

Egypt. Oh, yes. They are invading rapidly to assure "peace and order."

The faces around me relaxed a bit after hearing that America had recognized OUR STATE. I feel a bit redeemed. Everyone in the room pivoted around to look at me as if I had had something to do with the decision.

What am I doing here? I'm in charge of the first-aid post which has been whitened and brightened for the gruesome business it anticipates. The stretcher bearers are squatting nearby. One of them, a boy with dark curly hair, is resting his head against my knees and looking past the ceiling to the future. Everything we have is ready -- blankets, bandages, a bit of cognac, ready for... we don't know what. This afternoon, it was heavy mortar fire, 25 pounders or more. Tonight, it may be air bombardment.
When I first donned these overalls and learned to sleep with my boots on and one ear open, I felt like a character out of a Hemingway novel; a partisan -- one girl for every hundred men. Now, I'm into the role completely.

We are completely cut off. No mail service out of Jerusalem, but writing eases the anxiety of waiting and worrying. How many of our boys will make it back tonight?

I wish we could know what is going on. So close and so far from the overall picture....

Jerusalem

May 16, 1948

Hello Again,

Day two in the THE STATE OF ISRAEL. Had to abandon writing temporarily for more pressing business. It's a beautiful day, plenty of sunshine, flies and shooting.

My only American compatriot here, Herbert, dug up a pair of shorts for me to wear. He says the boys need it for their morale and never mind if Florence Nightingale never wore shorts. What an outfit for duty.

Everyone gets such a kick out of the fact that there are " Americans" in their midst. I'm actually the first American GIRL most of these men have ever seen. In fact, I'm becoming a legend here. They call me "Tzippy HaAmericait" (Zippy, the American).

There are about three hundred men at this base from all over the world but only two of us from the U.S. Anyhow, what we lack in numbers, we both make up for in other ways. For one thing, we are doing a fine job of public relations, having constantly to improvise with practically nothing at hand. Herbert set up a first class cafeteria in the mess and is demonstrating what American efficiency is all about. And I'm doing my best in the two fields at my disposal, woman and nurse. The sweetheart of the camp and all that. I also set up a very cozy infirmary, thanks to super resourcefulness.

Later...

Pardon the inconsistencies, but I'm constantly being interrupted by minor emergencies -- a scorpion bite, an attack of appendicitis, infections, a misdirected bullet, all in a day's work. In between, I serve sulfa and good cheer -- the best part of the job. Our soldiers are like no others I'VE ever seen. They don't have much to fight with besides guts and determination. No swagger, spit or polish. No drinking, no shirking. Doing the dirtiest jobs, they sing and joke -- even in the fiercest moments, and never with a "here today and gone tomorrow" attitude. TOMORROW is what it's all about.

I am grateful to be here with them. I have become one of them more than ever now. All my love -- thank God for the present -- and pray for the future...

Israel partition stamp - 1948 - Jewish State

.
PS

Don't part with this envelope if you ever receive it. The stamps were issued for 5 days only prior to the declaration of the State and were available only in Jerusalem. They'll probably be valuable to stamp collectors in a couple of years.

UNRWA's anti-Israel social media campaign

Today, UNRWA started a new hashtag campaign called #JustSolution, with an accompanying webpage.

The use of the word "just" is no accident. It means that unless Israel allows itself to be flooded with millions of angry, antisemitic Arabs, destroying the Jewish state, there is no "justice."

"Justice" has long been a keyword of the anti-Israel crowd. It is effective because who is against justice? What it really means is that the stateless Arabs are the judge and jury to determine what is "just." UNRWA's webpage even asks lots of Palestinian Arabs what they think would be "just." People who live in the territories say they want to live in their grandparents' homes in "their country," and only that would be "just."

The mandate that created UNRWA said that it had two goals:

7. Establishes the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East:
(a) To carry out in collaboration with local governments the direct relief and works programmes as recommended by the Economic Survey Mission;
(b) To consult with the interested Near Eastern Governments concerning measures to be taken by them preparatory to the time when international assistance for relief and works projects is no longer available;

That was originally meant to be 6 months, not 65 years.

But the Arab governments didn't cooperate. They didn't want to assimilate the Palestinian Arabs into their countries. UNRWA kept trying, for several years, to reduce the refugee population, and then in the face of Arab national intransigence they gave up.

And now they only blame Israel.

There is nothing just about the idea of a "Just Solution." It is not meant to solve any problem (as can be seen by the continued existence of UNRWA camps in areas fully governed by the PA and Hamas.) The entire campaign is designed to destroy the Jewish state demographically under the imprimatur of "justice."

Notice that UNRWA didn't start this campaign on its own anniversary. It started it on the anniversary of Israel's declaring independence.

That says volumes.

Previous essay on how anti-Israel activists misuse the word "justice" here.

05/15 Links Pt1: Glick: Israel’s peace fantasists in action; The Vatican channels war against Israel

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel’s peace fantasists in action

For more than 20 years, Israel’s policy-making community has been intellectually ensnared by the notion of peace. As a consequence, the concept of joint action based on shared interests has become almost incomprehensible.
Many senior officials believe that the only way for Israel to collaborate with its Arab neighbors is by first signing a peace treaty with the Palestinians. So long as such a peace treaty eludes us, no real cooperation is possible.
This is the why Labor head “Buji” Herzog and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid responded to the stunning support Israel received from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE during Operation Protective Edge, not with a simple nod and smile, but with the idea that what we all need to do to follow up with a regional peace conference where the Egyptians, Saudis and the UAE could join the West in condemning Israel for failing to cough up Jerusalem.
The problem is that the security establishment is committed to the notion that Israel’s international position is a function of the state of our relations with the Palestinians. If we appease the Palestinians, then people will develop ties with us. If not, they will blackball us.

Guy Bechor: Germany can keep its 'friendly advice' to itself

And as for security, an independent Arab territory in Judea and Samaria means the end of the Jewish state which Germany is allegedly so concerned for. Does the German foreign minister know that the border is supposed to pass two kilometers away from the Knesset, which will be threatened by snipers? That Abbas plans to bring hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions from Syria, Iraq and Lebanon into that territory? It's "the return," and these are the most dangerous terrorists, and their missiles will reach Ben-Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.
Will Mr. Steinmeier come to save us then? Did he work to save the hundreds of thousands of dead people in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Egypt? Is he working to save Ukraine? Israel's tiny size is the most dangerous of all these cases. Would he agree to divide Berlin with the Islamic State according to the quarters' demography? Jerusalem's unification was the example for Berlin's unification, so why does Berlin want to divide Jerusalem?
A reasonable person asks himself why are the Germans so obsessed with the Palestinians, when the latter are the only ones in our region who are living a good and protected life, under Israel's mercy. There is no occupation here, but rather a rescue, otherwise they would have already grabbed each other in the throat, like what is happening in the entire region around us, which has been destroyed. Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen – they have all been destroyed already, with some 10 million refugees and hundreds of thousands of dead people. And maybe this obsession is not with the Palestinians, but rather with the Jews?
When Germany talks about the Jewish state, it has no right to criticize, reprimand, or offer advice, but only to show some modesty. After all, it was Germany, and no other country, which carried out the cruelest evil in the history of humanity, against the Jewish people.

Melanie Phillips: The Vatican channels war against Israel

However many countries proclaim recognition of this spurious state does not alter that fact. The Vatican’s “treaty” is no more than a crude propaganda stunt assisting a war of extermination.
Recognition of a Palestine state is a ploy to bounce it into virtual existence by getting the world to agree it exists. The sole reason it does not in reality exist is that, resting on a wholesale denial of Jewish history in the land, the purpose of such a state is to create the platform for a devastating war on Israel.
By supporting this Potemkin Palestine, the Vatican has lined up behind those who disdain international law. In supporting the recognition gambit which tears up the Palestinians’ own treaty obligations under the Oslo Accords, the pope has now openly made Catholics complicit with reneging on promises and shattering bonds of trust.
And where exactly is this state of Palestine the pope has now recognized? For as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement reiterated on its Facebook page this week (according to Palestinian Media Watch): “Palestine means the entire national land, from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.” For good measure, the PA’s national security forces declared on Facebook that Mount Tabor was in “occupied Nazareth” and the Hippodrome in Caesarea was in “Palestine.” And of course, the PA’s maps of Palestine include all of Israel.
So it would appear that what the pope has actually recognized and endorsed is the open intention to destroy Israel and replace it by Palestine.
Why has he done this? One answer is realpolitik. It is hardly a coincidence that the treaty was finalized shortly before this Sunday’s ceremony in Rome, due to be attended by Mahmoud Abbas, to canonize two Palestinian nuns.

Another liar about the "nakba" - in Slate

Saleem Haddad writes in Slate:

My grandmother remembers clearly the night her family left. They were woken up in the middle of the night by loud banging on the front door. My grandmother’s cousins, who lived in an Arab neighborhood of Haifa, had arrived to tell them that Haifa was falling. The British had announced they were withdrawing, and there were rumors that the country was being handed to the Zionists. At the time, the German Colony had been relatively insulated from the incidents of violence in the rest of the country, which included raids and massacres of Palestinian villages by Zionist paramilitary groups. Yet the Haganah, a paramilitary organization that later formed the core of the Israel Defense Forces, saw the British withdrawal from Haifa as an opportunity and carried out a series of attacks on key Arab neighborhoods where my grandmother’s aunts and cousins were living.

“That night our Jewish neighbors told us not to leave,” my grandmother remembers. “And my father wanted to stay, to wait it out. But my mother … well she had 11 children, and of course she wanted us to be safe. And her sisters were leaving because of the attacks in their neighborhoods.”

The family debated all night. In the morning, they reached a decision. They each quickly packed a small suitcase and left the rest of their belongings. “We hid the most valuable things we couldn’t take in a locked room in our house, thinking it would be safe until we came back,” she tells me, chuckling.

As the women of the family packed, my grandmother’s older brother, who had once been employed by the British forces, struck a deal, allowing them to leave on one of the last British vehicles withdrawing from Haifa. With what little they could carry, my grandmother’s family travelled to the Lebanese border, hiding in a British army vehicle.

Does this sound like they were "expelled," or that they fled?

But only a few paragraphs later:

My grandmother’s story is not a unique one. ... An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes, and many who were unable to flee were massacred.

Two lies in one sentence. Relatively few were expelled, just like Saleem's family. And the idea that those that chose to remain behind were massacred is an outright lie.

Haddad notices the contradiction, and tries to reconcile it:

But as her memories made their way onto the page, I had a moment of self-doubt: In my grandmother’s recollection, she was clear that her family had made a decision to leave. Might this play into one of the myths used to justify the establishment of modern-day Israel on Palestinian land—the myth that, despite overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary, Palestinians left on their own free will?

“Are you sure you left voluntarily?” I ask my grandmother. “There was a war,” she replies.

“But no one kicked you out, yes? No one was directly attacking you?” I continue.

“Not us personally, but my mother was worried by the reports. We thought we would be gone for a few weeks at most.”

Could my grandmother’s memory of the Nakba bolster the false narrative that Palestinians voluntarily left, given that her family had not been physically removed form their home? As I considered this, my thoughts began to coalesce ... What constitutes voluntary displacement? On May 15, 1948, in the face of growing hostilities and the threat of a regional war, my great-grandmother did the only thing she knew to protect her children: She left. Does running away from an imminent war, with a small suitcase and plans to return, constitute a voluntary departure? And if so, is the departed then unentitled to the land and belongings they left behind, and forbidden from ever returning?

Well, yes, it is voluntary. Because you can contrast it with the Jews - who fought because they had no place to go. The Jews' choice was to fight or die. The Arabs had the choice to fight or flee - or stay. No one was on the radio calling for Arabs to be thrown into the sea. Rewriting the definition of "expulsion" is not an intellectually honest way to approach the question.

As far as his second question, yes, if you leave a country that you are not yet a citizen of in support of those who are trying to destroy it, you cannot expect that its immigration rules will allow you to pretend as if nothing had happened when you want to go back. Israel was happy to let a significant number of the Arabs who fled in support of Israels' enemies to return, in the context of a peace agreement. That didn't happen. Israel remained in a state of war for decades, and the Arabs who fled supported Israel's enemies.

Haddad is giving a very accurate description of what happened to the Jews who lived in the Old City of Jerusalem and in Gush Etzion, however. Every single one of them were either expelled or massacred, and the illegally annexed West Bank became completely Judenfrei.

Here is what the Jewish Quarter looked like in 1948:

That is what ethnic cleansing looks like. And that was emphatically not the case where the 160,000 Arabs who decided not to flee became citizens of the Jewish state.

The real nakba was that the Arab world has treated these refugees like dirt for 67 years.

Today, Lebanon and Iraq and Jordan are behaving admirably in accepting hundred of thousands of Syrian refugees, just as Arab nations accepted so many Iraqi refugees in the past couple of decades. But the exception to Arab hospitality has been the Palestinians - even today, they are putting refugees of Palestinian ancestry into separate camps and giving them fewer rights.

But you will be hard pressed to find any Palestinian Arab descendant mentioning how they were treated by their Arab brethren. Slate's bravery in publishing these stories doesn't extend to criticizing the so-called moderate nations of Lebanon and Egypt and Jordan concerning how they hate their Palestinian "guests." It won't even mention the small fact that there are "refugee camps" where tens of thousands live under Palestinian Arab rule. Because the commemorations of the "nakba" are not meant to improve the lives of Palestinians, but to be another weapon aimed at Israel.

And the actual stateless Arabs are treated by Arab nations as nothing more than cannon fodder.

(h/t @JedGalilee)

Breaking the Silence cares so much (ElderToons)

From an idea by Renato:

Every year, on "Nakba Day," Arab newspapers scramble to find old people who can act as eyewitnesses to the horrors of how Israel treated their people who would become to be known years later as "Palestinians."

Al Watan Voice published an interview with 80-year old Mrs. Kalhout, who lived in a village called Ni'ilya which was near Gaza.

She describes how her family fled the town - and makes an interesting admission.

Residents of the village and surrounding areas tried to prepare themselves battle. Leaders gave them clubs to go out and attack the Jews. But they didn't find any, and returned to their homes.

Then, she says, after hearing about the massacre by Israel in Deir Yassin and in other Arab towns and villages up north, home towns of the northern region and carrying out massacres there, everyone fled to Gaza without seeing a single Jew enter their towns.

In fact, this happened in November 1948, many months after Deir Yassin, and the IDF fought with Egyptian forces in the area. Mrs. Kalhout says that they thought they would be able to return after a day but they couldn't.

In fact, this was the pattern for the large majority of the Arab refugees - they left their homes based on wild Arab rumors or direction from Arab leaders, promising that they would return in no time. But the vast majority of Arabs who left what became Israel were not expelled and never even saw an Israeli soldier.

I don't recall ever seeing a first-hand account of Arabs who were told to or forced leave their homes by Israeli soldiers. It definitely happened in some cases, especially where the areas were critical for Israel's defense, but that was by far the exception rather than the rule.

And that goes as well for none other than Mahmoud Abbas, who admits that his family left Safed voluntarily:

"Until the nakba" (calamity in Arabic - the loaded synonym for Israeli independence), he recounted, his family "was well-off in Safed." When Abbas was 13, "we left on foot at night to the Jordan River... Eventually we settled in Damascus... My father had money, and he spent his money methodically. After a year, when the money ran out, we began to work.

"People were motivated to run away... They feared retribution from Zionist terrorist organizations - particularly from the Safed ones. Those of us from Safed especially feared that the Jews harbored old desires to avenge what happened during the 1929 uprising.... They realized the balance of forces was shifting and therefore the whole town was abandoned on the basis of this rationale - saving our lives and our belongings."

When people say that the Nakba is the anniversary of the Arabs being expelled from Palestine, they are lying.

Turkey's foreign trade with Israel keeps growing as its trade with Arab countries shrinks

From Foreign Affairs:

Hardly a week goes by without some barb or insult traded between Turkey and Israel. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly slights Israel on an almost daily basis to drum up domestic political support, for example asserting that Israel’s treatment of Gaza surpasses the brutality of the Nazi regime. Things weren’t always this way. The 1990s and most of the 2000s saw warm diplomatic and political ties between Israel and Turkey. But these days there seems to be a diplomatic standstill.

Even so, despite harsh rhetoric and a suspension of top-level diplomatic engagement, Israeli-Turkish trade has grown by 19 percent since 2009, while Turkey’s overall foreign trade for the same period grew by 11 percent. Since few nations with strong trade ties escalate conflicts to the point of going to war with each other, Israeli-Turkish economic ties may signal the prospects of improved bilateral relations. With the economic and political outlook remaining bleak throughout the Middle East, the two nations have more reasons than ever to resolve their political differences—or to at least separate them from economic relations.

Better ties with Israel are especially appealing to Turkey now that it has burned its bridges with the Arab world. Ankara’s failed “zero problems with neighbors” policy has resulted in Turkey having no ambassadors in Cairo, Damascus, or Tripoli. It only appointed an ambassador in Baghdad after former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was replaced by Haider al-Abadi in September 2014. Syria suspended its free trade agreement with Turkey in December 2011, when Bashar al-Assad became Ankara’s main enemy. Since then, trade between Syria and Turkey has dropped to half a billion USD in 2014, from almost two billion USD in 2011.

In Egypt, Turkey’s refusal to recognize Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the President of Egypt has hurt Ankara’s economic interests as well. For instance, Turkish exports to Egypt have shrunk by 10 percent between 2012 and 2014. Furthermore, Egypt did not renew the roll-on/roll-off ferryboat agreement, a trade route that circumvents expensive passage through the Suez Canal, after it expired this April, hampering the transportation of goods between the Turkish ports and Alexandria. This move cuts off Turkish goods from arriving at lucrative markets in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. This agreement also allowed Turkish companies to circumvent Syrian territory controlled by the Islamic State (also called ISIS) while also bypassing the Suez Canal and therefore reducing transportation costs.

Turkish relations in Libya, too, are in a dire state. Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani has accused Turkey of arming the ISIS auxiliaries in Libya, driving Turkish companies and expats out of the country. On top of this, Ankara’s recognition of the Islamist-controlled National General Congress over the democratically elected al-Thani government has cast a shadow over Turkish business interests in large parts of the nation.