Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 16, 2014

01/16 Links Pt2: BHL: French Were Right to Ban Dieudonné, Israel Joins CERN, Israeli Chromebook

From Ian:

PA state-sponsored hate speech must stop, human rights expert says

Cotler later returned to Abbas and tried to convince him to end hate speech against Israel for domestic reasons, regardless of negotiations with Israel.
“Leaving aside the Israeli-Palestinian component, I told Abbas: ‘You should do away with hate speech because it is not only a threat to Israeli-Palestinian peace but it’s a threat to your own society. You want to bring up children not in a culture of hate but in a culture of respect for the other, for the inherent dignity of all people’.”
Non-democracies where free speech is prohibited, such as Iran or the Palestinian Authority, have an even greater obligation to prevent hate speech than free societies such as the US where all speech is protected, Cotler said.
“If it’s a non-democracy where there’s no opportunity for democratic free speech, then the state has a particular responsibility to ensure that hate speech does not fester. What’s happening in the Palestinian Authority is exactly the opposite; that hate speech is not only being permitted, it’s being encouraged.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy: The French Were Right to Ban Dieudonné’s Offensive ‘Performance Art’

Anti-Semitism has a history. Over the ages it has taken different forms, but on every occasion that form corresponded to what the spirit of the times could or would permit. And I believe that, for reasons that it would be impossible to get into here, the only form of anti-Semitism with legs today, the only form capable of taking in and galvanizing large numbers of people, is one that accomplishes the trifecta of anti-Zionism (Jews as supporters of an allegedly murderous state), Holocaust denial (an unscrupulous people who, in pursuit of their purposes, are capable of inventing or staging the slaughter of their own), and competitive victimhood (memory of the Holocaust as a screen to hide other massacres on the planet). Well, Dieudonné was in the process of tying these strands together. With his accomplice, French right-wing extremist Alain Soral, he was a sapper assembling his explosive device and preparing to set it off. And for that reason, too, because he was weaving together three themes that individually are incendiary enough but that, joined together in mutual reinforcement, would provoke a new wave of anti-Semitism, it was urgent to stop him.

Turkey reassured that NATO shield will not protect Israel

Turkey has accepted assurances a planned NATO missile defense system in which it is playing a part is not designed to protect Israel as well, the alliance's deputy secretary-general said on Wednesday.
Alexander Vershbow said objections by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government had resulted in part from confusion about a Turkish-hosted NATO radar. Ankara had been further assuaged by alliance Patriot anti-missile batteries assigned to protect its territory from Syria.
A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from 2010 described the Islamist-rooted Erdogan, under whom Turkey's once-solid ties with the Jewish state have deteriorated, as worrying that the NATO shield might provide cover for a threatened Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

Netanyahu saying Israel will keep Bet El, Hebron, Shiloh?

Arutz-7 reports:

While nothing is official yet, the settlement framework being developed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is likely to include a mechanism for Israeli retention of the so-called “settlement blocs,” the areas where the large majority of Jewish communities are located in Judea and Samaria....

In most discussions of the blocs, there are three that are generally mentioned – the Ariel bloc, which includes most of the towns of central Samaria; Maale Adumim bloc, encompassing eastern suburbs of Jerusalem; and the Gush Etzion bloc. But a report on Army Radio Thursday said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was demanding that Israel retain a fourth bloc – the area around Beit El, north of Jerusalem.

According to the report, Netanyahu told Kerry that Israel could not give up these areas, which played a major role in Jewish history. Shilo, for example, was the home of the temporary Sanctuary (mishkan) before the building of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, Nabi Samuel is the burial place of the Prophet Samuel, and Beit El itself was the site of the famous dream of the Biblical Jacob, in which he saw angels ascending and descending from heaven.

Haaretz reported this last week as well:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Likud Knesset faction on Monday that he opposes evacuating settlements like Hebron and Beit El, which are outside the major settlement blocs but are “important to the Jewish people,” MKs present at the meeting said.

Interestingly, two years ago I asked Danny Ayalon whether Bet El would be one of Netanyahu's "painful concessions for peace" that he always spoke about, and Ayalon denied that Israel would ever give it up. (It is hard to hear, starting at around 0:25:)

To be honest, I didn't believe him. It's not like he could answer any other way at a dinner for Bet El!

Arutz-7 continues:

In addition to demanding the fourth bloc, the report said, Netanyahu has nixed the idea of a “centimeter for centimeter” land swap, as the PA has demanded. At least part of the swap would come in the form of cash, or in the value of the land, cities, and industrial base that Israel would be surrendering to make the plan work.

The report said that PA negotiators have rejected both demands out of hand.

Let's hope that Netanyahu's government is as adamant about "red lines" as the PA has been.

It would have helped if the governments of Israel would have been saying this since Oslo, rather than first mentioning it, privately, at the eleventh hour.

Abbas hasn't gone a day since he's been in office without saying "Jerusalem, 1967 lines, right of return" to whoever is in earshot. Israeli leaders instead say defensive, nearly useless things like "the settlements aren't the problem." After a decade or two, along with Israeli governments that have offered to give away these sacred areas, who is the world going to side with?

French and Arabic media are reporting that a Jew named Rene Trabelsi is being tapped to be the Minister of Tourism in the new Tunisian government.

Trabelsi is Jewish, and is the CEO of a successful Tunisian travel agency. He is tasked with resuscitating Tunisia's tourist industry.

He has been a major player behind the annual Jewish pilgrimage to Djerba, which attracts tens of thousands of Jews every year.

Naturally, some Islamist parties are mounting opposition to this appointment. It doesn't look like they will get much traction, especially since the previous Islamist government destroyed the tourism sector and Trabelsi seems to be very competent from what I am seeing.

Tunisia seems to be doing the best of all Arab Spring countries.

01/16 Links Pt1: Kerry’s Moral Inversion on Terrorism, Aust. FM: settlements aren't illegal

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Kerry's Peace Process Double Standards

But while the U.S. Administration has been quick in issuing a response to the Israeli minister's statements, it continues to ignore remarks and demonstrations against Kerry made by Palestinians and other Arabs.
Palestinian officials representing various organizations, including the Palestinian Authority, have been denouncing Kerry almost on a daily basis over the past few weeks. But these condemnations do not seem to bother the State Department.
Among the officials who have been extremely critical of Kerry's role in the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is Yasser Abed Rabbo, the PLO's Secretary-General and one of the closest advisors to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Just last month, Abed Rabbo launched a scathing attack on Kerry, denouncing his latest proposals as unacceptable. "Kerry does not have the right to decide where our borders will be," the top PLO official said. "If the U.S. wants, it can give parts of California or Washington to Israel. Kerry's framework agreement is very dangerous."

Kerry’s Moral Inversion on Terrorism

Speaking yesterday at the Vatican, Secretary of State John Kerry let slip a comment so ludicrous that one has to wonder how much wider the gap between reality and Kerry’s worldview can yet grow. Following his meeting with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, in which the two discussed the violence in Syria and prospects for Middle East peace, Kerry delivered a public statement in which he remarked, “And so we have a huge common interest in dealing with this issue of poverty, which in many cases is the root cause of terrorism or even the root cause of the disenfranchisement of millions of people on this planet.”
In making such a claim, America’s Secretary of State commits a terrible moral inversion, one in which the terrorists are cast as the victims, driven to such desperate acts by poverty, while the people they murder, particularly when Westerners, are really the ones who are guilty–guilty of having allowed the great injustice of poverty in the first place.

Australia FM: Don’t call settlements illegal under international law

“I don’t want to prejudge the fundamental issues in the peace negotiations,” Bishop said. “The issue of settlements is absolutely and utterly fundamental to the negotiations that are under way and I think it’s appropriate that we give those negotiations every chance of succeeding.”
Asked whether she agrees or disagrees with the near-universal view that Israeli settlements anywhere beyond the 1967 lines are illegal under international law, she replied: “I would like to see which international law has declared them illegal.”
“Israel has to be ever vigilant against such tendencies on the part of the international community,” the minister said. While private organizations were free to boycott whomever they wanted, any Australian body that received state funding should be barred from calling for boycotts, she continued.
She also strongly condemned the global anti-Israel BDS movement: “It’s anti-Semitic. It identifies Israel out of all other nations as being worthy of a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign? Hypocritical beyond belief.”

Palestinian Authority fakes a Golda Meir quote

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information has released the first of a series of reports on what they call "Israeli Incitement to Racism against Palestinians." This one concentrates on Israeli media.

The report's sloppiness and brevity shows that it is clearly a slapdash response to the extremely well documented examples of Palestinian incitement that have been in the news. The PA apparently believes - with justification - that if they issue a press release proclaiming lies and point to a report that no one will read, then it will blunt the effects of Israel's actual facts.

After all, who would assume that a government is lying so blatantly?

Even though the report covers over a decade of supposed quotes from Israeli media that they say proves racism and incitement, it gives only a handful of examples. It's biggest quote comes from Haaretz describing Israelis as racist, commenting on a story that they badly misreported to begin with (saying that there were Jews-only bus lines in the West Bank, which is not at all true.)

In other words, their main proof of racism in Israeli media comes from Israeli media condemning supposed racism - which contradicts their entire thesis.

That, however, is nothing compared to this quote from this official PA report:

Golda Meir, the fourth Prime Minister of Israel said: “Every morning I hope I wake up without finding any single Palestinian child alive”...

This quote is a complete fabrication. It doesn't even exist on other anti-Israel or antisemitic websites - it was made up by the Palestinian Authority. (They link to an Arabic PA webpage which doesn't even have that quote.)

Their history of lying has not caused them any serious negative consequences so far - indeed, it helped them tremendously - so they've kept it up. But this is a conscious deception on their part, made of whole cloth. They didn't find the quote - it did not exist on the Internet before this report.

...she also said:”I will not forgive Palestinians as they force our soldiers for killing them”.

The second quote is a purposeful mangling of a real Golda Meir quote: “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”

This quote is the opposite of racism. It says Jews can forgive Arabs for killing them (when peace comes) but Jews have a natural aversion to killing and it is a terrible (but necessary) thing to be forced to kill to defend your land and family.

If you want to see a people who are enthusiastic about killing their enemies, you don't have to look far.

When the official Palestinian Authority government lies so egregiously in their official reports, how can anyone trust them for anything else?

Indeed, the only real examples of incitement, stereotyping and bigotry in the report are those against Israel. for example:

Israeli incitement isn’t limited to school curricula and further deteriorates into brainwashing that continues at different levels for all ages, beginning with kindergartens through primary schools and then high schools through college. When students come out of the circle of influence of the educational institution the role of the media comes, which completes the circle of hatred and incitement in a planned and systematic structure, which has its means and goals, to get at the end a brainwashed Israeli soldier who doesn’t hesitate to kill a Palestinian child and doesn’t care about a Palestinian woman when she is made to give birth while stranded at an Israeli roadblock without allowing her to proceed in her ambulance to hospital.

The official Palestinian Authority position is that all Israelis are raised from birth to become bloodthirsty killers of Palestinian children.

If that isn't incitement, what is?

I didn't check the veracity of their few other examples of anti-Arab racism in Israeli newspapers over the past decade, but even if they are true and in context - which is doubtful - it does not prove Israel is a racist state.

This one report does prove, irrefutably, that the Palestinian Authority itself lies, fabricates facts, and incites against Israelis.

Their conclusion is a picture perfect example of Palestinian projection:

Israeli incitement machine is still going forward due to the lack of Israeli desire to stop it. Besides the lack of an effective international mechanism is leading to the establishing an entire extreme society under the control of the Israeli incitement and this goes on generation after generation.
In the end, this explains the lack of readiness of Israel so far for a lasting peace despite the passage of 25 years since the start of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Wow...who does that sound like?

Arab discrimination and abuse against Palestinians since 1948

I have never seen a comprehensive list of examples of how Arabs have abused, mistreated and discriminated against their Palestinian brethren. Here is my attempt.

Please send me any other major examples I missed (anything affecting hundreds of people or more) so this can become a reference post.

All Arab countries except Jordan:

Palestinians are not allowed to become citizens of Arab countries, in accordance with Arab League Decree 1547 for 1959, "in order to preserve the Palestinian entity and Palestinian identity." Even in Jordan they can no longer become citizens. (There have been some exceptions: Palestinian Christians in Lebanon in the 1950s, Palestinians born from Egyptian mothers in 2011.)

Palestinians face severe travel restrictions throughout the Arab world. They do not receive passports and their travel documents are only accepted by a few countries.

Palestinians cannot vote or run for office in national elections.

Children born to Palestinians do not get citizenship in their host countries, violating Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Jordan:

1967: Jordan refused to allow Gazans who came after the Six Day War to become Jordanian citizens. Today some 165,000 Palestinians in Jordan cannot become citizens and get no government services.

1970: 3500-5000 Palestinians killed and 20,000 Palestinians expelled, their camps demolished, in the Black September events.

1988: Jordan revoked citizenship for millions of West Bank Palestinians as they declared "independence." As usual, this move was justified as being for their own good.

2010: Jordan continued to revoke citizenship for thousands more Palestinians

2012: Jordan passed an electoral law that effectively limits the number of Palestinian members of Parliament to less than 10%

2013: Jordan places Palestinian refugees from Syria in special camps that they cannot leave, separate from other refugees, and turns hundreds or thousands back to a dangerous future in Syria.

2014: Palestinians who are citizens are still denied equal rights in the military, and on getting college scholarships and being admitted to some public universities, among other areas.

Egypt:

1948: Placed all Palestine refugees that reached Egypt into camps, forced men to go back to Palestine to fight.

1949: Expelled all Palestinian from Egyptian camps into Gaza. Very few Palestinian Arabs were left in Egypt.

1950: Egypt refused any UNRWA presence on its territory, relegating it to Gaza.

1949 - 1956: Any Palestinians in Egypt were barred from schooling and employment.

2013: Hundreds of Palestinian refugees from Syria placed into jail as they try to enter Egypt

2013-now: Egypt has effectively closed the Rafah border with Gaza, even limiting hospital patients from traveling, effectively imprisoning 1.7 million Gazans.

Lebanon:

1950-58: Would only issue one-way travel documents for Palestinians to leave the country

1962: Palestinians classified as "foreigners":
73 job categories banned for Palestinians until 2010; now there are "only" 50 jobs off limits
They are still banned from working as physicians, journalists, pharmacists or lawyers.
They are not permitted to build new houses or own property, or even to repair their homes
Martial law imposed on refugee camps. Army stops people from entering and exiting.
Limitations on schools for Palestinian "foreigners"
Not allowed to live outside refugee camps, which in turn are not allowed to grow. Population of camps is now triple capacity.
Palestinians not allowed to create organizations.

1975-78: At least 5000 Palestinians killed in Lebanese civil war

1985-88: Thousands killed in "War of the Camps"

1995: Law prohibiting Palestinians from entering country without a visa; and visas weren't issued. Those expelled from Gulf states could not return to Lebanon. (Law repealed in 1999.)

2005: Specific laws prohibiting foreigners who are not "nationals of a recognized state" - Palestinians - from owning property. Those who owned it previously cannot pass it to their children.

2007: 31,000 Palestinians homeless because while Lebanese Army destroyed Nahr el Bared camp

2013: Some 50,000 refugees from Syria treated differently from other Syrian refugees; expensive temporary short-term visas effectively make them criminals

2013: Lebanon starts turning some Palestinian Syrian refugees away at the border

Kuwait:

1991: 400,000 Palestinians were harassed and forced out of the country.

Libya:

1994-5: Expelled 30,000 Palestinians, dismissed many from their jobs and confiscated their houses
Arab countries refused to take in the new refugees. Hundreds were stranded in the desert or the sea. Eventually Libya allowed some to stay but kept threatening to expel them again. In the end about 15,000 were forced to go to Arab countries they had documents for, Gulf countries, and Western nations.

2011: Palestinians were forced to pay a special tax of $1550.

2012: Many Palestinians lost their homes as properties were claimed by others in the wake of the revolution and the collapse of the judicial system.

Iraq:

Early 1950s: Expelled striking Palestinian workers, along with Saudi Arabia and Libya..

2005: After Saddam Hussein lost power, Palestinians in Iraq were subjected to abduction, hostage-taking, killing and torture from armed groups. Politicians derided them. About 15,000 were forced to leave Iraq. Thousands were stranded in camps in the desert between Iraq and Syria, where no Arab country would allow them to enter.

Qatar:

1994: Refused to grant Palestinians work visas.

Syria:

1970: Palestinians cannot vote, cannot run for office, cannot own farmland, cannot own more than one property..

2005-2008: Syria did not allow thousands of Palestinian Arab refugees fleeing from Iraq to enter the country.

2012-today: Some 2000 Palestinians killed so far in Syria's war. About 50 have starved to death as forces cut off all food and water to the Yarmouk camp.

MSNBC's Chris Hayes spins a Jewish lobby conspiracy theory

From Chris Hayes at MSNBC, especially from 3:05 on:

Hayes' arguments are naive and his description of the opposing viewpoint borders on the stupid.

But beyond that, his entire thesis that any Democrats only support the bill because of pressure from AIPAC is provably wrong. In fact, AIPAC has not put any pressure on the Democratic lawmakers Hayes is upset at.

Politico reports:

Despite growing support in the Senate for Iran sanctions legislation, Democratic leaders have yet to feel insurmountable pressure to bring the measure to the floor.

One major reason: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is mostly keeping quiet.

The powerful pro-Israel lobby has not engaged in a shoe-leather lobbying campaign to woo wayward senators and push Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to schedule a vote on the bill, according to several key senators and aides. While the group supports the bill — authored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) — it is not yet putting its political muscle behind a push for an immediate vote.

“I don’t know where AIPAC is. I haven’t talked to anybody,” said Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who opposes any vote for additional sanctions at this time.

As of now, the Menendez-Kirk bill has 59 public supporters, including 43 of 45 Senate Republicans. But dozens of Democrats remain publicly undecided on the bill and seem unlikely to cross the Obama administration and openly back the legislation at this time. And AIPAC isn’t yet twisting Democratic arms.

A number of senators on both sides of the sanctions debate said they’d heard little from AIPAC on the issue, suggesting that wavering lawmakers are feeling little pressure from the group. With its clout on Capitol Hill and ties to deep-pocketed Jewish donors, the group’s muscle could be enough to change the political calculation over how to proceed on the contentious issue.

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading defense hawk and strong supporter of getting a vote on the bill.

...California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Jewish Democrat, said she’s met with AIPAC “many times” on the issue of Iran. But asked if the group had been pressing her to support the Iran sanctions measure, she replied “not at all.”

“They respect my position, which is that sanctions are totally appropriate if this fails,” she said, referring to the diplomatic talks.

But other senators have not yet heard from the group and indicated they were entirely unaware of AIPAC’s activities on the Hill.

“I really have not talked to AIPAC about it,” said Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, a Jewish liberal and one of the few Senate Democrats publicly backing the Kirk-Menendez legislation.

Hayes is, at best, a fool. And he is now proven to not have done a modicum of research before spouting his idiocy. He simply assumed that it must be AIPAC acting as a puppeteer for his fellow Democrats.

At worst - well, what can you call someone who assumes that any Democrats who disagree with him are being controlled by a Jewish group?

(I don't watch MSNBC much, but it amazes me that Fox News gets slammed [correctly] for being partisan, but MSNBC gets far less criticism for their obvious partisanship, which this clip reveals quite obviously.)

(h/t CC)

Islamic Jihad accidentally compliments IDF defenses

Islamic Jihad newspaper Palestine Today has an article about the IDF's UAV, the Heron-1, that in many ways reads like promotional literature:

The Zionist enemy does not stop even for a moment its development of combat, technical, and technological capabilities in all fields of military, due to the fear that lives in his being; he knows very well that the Palestinian people will not give up their usurped rights, and that what was taken by force will be retaken by force eventually.

The Zionist air force recently introduced two reconnaissance-type "Heron 1" UAVs for field work, which increases the burden of the Palestinian resistance, which to this day has been able to overcome these technical modern military tactics and baffle new methods of military occupation.

An [Islamic Jihad] "Media War" reporter conducted an exclusive interview with one of the leaders of the military intelligence agency of the Al-Quds Brigades, "Abu Mohammed," to identify the new capabilities of the reconnaissance plane. He said, "The Heron 1 is an unmanned fourth generation reconnaissance aircraft which was developed by the Zionist aircraft industries (IAI), Department of Unmanned Aircraft (UAV)", pointing out that it... can have any work long hours in difficult weather conditions.

He added: "This aircraft was built with modern technology and is very advanced. It can take off and land automatically, and it covers a large area of land with high accuracy."

The Quds Brigades intelligence chief said that the Heron 1 used for reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting and directing fire at any moving target with high accuracy, stressing that the Heron has the ability to fly continuously for more than 52 hours at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

Abu Mohammed continued, "The plane is loaded with electronic sensors, including infrared sensors, and it has light sensors in addition to the various radar systems."

Abu Mohammed said that the Heron is able to connect to a permanent ground control station by linking to electromagnetic data waves directly or via Zionist satellite.

All the Mujahideen in all fields of jihad and the resistance on the blessed land of Palestine must take all degrees of caution and camouflage and follow all proper security methods to move away from the sensors and the other Zionist methods of spying and surveillance. Modern technology is used by the enemy to undermine the Palestinian resistance, so Mujahideen must comply with all security regulations to preserve their lives, so as not to be easy prey to the Zionist enemy that lurks on them day and night.

The page includes photos of the UAV that were taken off the Internet.

The Heron-1 is not new; the IDF bought them in 2005 and used them in Operation Cast Lead.

Islamic Jihad "inteligence" found nothing about the UAV that was not in the Wikipedia page about it.

Interestingly, the page shows that the Moroccan Air Force owns three of them!

01/15 Links Pt2: Law Frim- Drop ASA or face Civil Rights suit, Neil Young Tours Israel

From Ian:

Walt Disney’s Anti-Semitism, and Modern Day Bias Towards Israel

The irony is that while Meryl Streep was condemning Walt Disney for associating with extremists, she herself was doing the very same thing. The actress to whom she gave that award when she made her anti-Disney speech, her close friend Emma Thompson, is active in the anti-Israel boycott movement.
Streep hailed Thompson as “splendid, beautiful, practically a saint… a living, acting conscience.” Yet this ‘saint,’ together with other British actors, publicly urged a boycott of Israel’s Habimah theater troupe when it participated in a festival in England. Habimah, of course, has nothing to do with Israeli government policies or any political issues. Its only “crime” is that it’s Israeli.

Employment Law Firm: Drop American Studies Assn membership or risk Title VII liability

While over 190 university presidents have denounced the ASA academic boycott of Israel, many have decided either to keep the membership or to leave the decision to individual American Studies Departments. Some others are switching the membership listing to their American Studies Departments, rather than the full University name.
Anything other than a full termination of Institutional Membership, however, opens up the universities to legal liability for national origin discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
That potential liability is explained in a recent article by two attorneys at the Seyfarth Shaw law firm.

Has your Rep signed Congressional letter against Israel academic boycott?

I reported last Friday on the draft Bipartisan Congressional letter to denounce academic boycott of Israel.
As of Friday, there were 36 signatories. As of yesterday, the number had risen to 57.
The final signature list should be released later this week.

Pro-Israel Christians Protest Dutch Pension Giant’s Divestment From Israel

Hundreds of Dutch Christian activists demonstrated outside the headquarters of Dutch pension giant PGGM, to protest the pension company’s recent decision to divest from Israeli banks.
The protesters, members of the pro-Israel group Christians for Israel, held up Israeli flags and banners saying “Stop the Boycott of Israel.”

For some reason, the article I posted (copied from Simcha Jacobovici's blog) about the Deir Alla inscriptions has been getting lots of attention. Metafilter has a thread about it that is typical.

While the article said that this was a "cover-up" - as the original artifact is not displayed anywhere - I don't think Jacobovici is saying that this is being deliberately hidden by scholars. I certainly don't think so. After all, it is mentioned in Wikipedia and other places. What is interesting is that the amount of attention given to this find in the non-scholarly world seems to be disproportionately tiny compared to its significance.

My guess is that Jordanians are not nearly as interested in Biblical-era archaeology as Jews and Christians generally are. There is evidence that Muslim archaeologists tend to discount the importance of Jewish or Biblical-era artifacts (and vice versa.) This does not imply a deliberate cover-up..

Now, let's talk about its significance. Critics are saying that this is not proof of the Torah's authenticity. I agree, and never said it was.

However, this does not make the find any less significant. Right now there are headlines whenever an artifact is found that might bear the name of someone obscure mentioned once in the books of Chronicles or Kings. Anything found from the First Temple period or earlier is considered big news. The mainstream media certainly covered (much scantier) evidence of external evidence pointing to David or Goliath.

Here, though, is something that certainly refers to a major Torah figure, from hundreds of years prior to the era of the Prophets whose artifacts generate press today. The inscription was found in the same geographical area as the Biblical event. The chances that there are two famous prophets named "Balaam, son of Beor" in Jordan is essentially zero.

While it is hard to compare, one would think that this is roughly as important as the Mesha Stele, which also corroborated stories from the times of the Prophets.

(The Biblical story of Balaam is also interesting because it is, I believe, the only story in the Pentateuch from Exodus onward where the Israelites aren't the central characters. They have no idea of the drama happening near their tents. )

I couldn't find any contemporary references to the Deir Alla finds in 1967 newspapers.

So, yes, this seems to be bigger news than something that is relegated to university libraries. The popularity of the post shows this to be true. How you interpret it is up to you.

Iran still engaging in Holocaust revisionism

While Hassan Rouhani puts a (sometimes) friendly face on the Iranian regime, its state-controlled media is still filled with the worst kinds of antisemitism (and anti-American rhetoric), including Holocaust revisionism.

In English.

Here are excerpts from a not atypical PressTV article today:

Zionist perversion of history threatens world peace

The planet is being held captive by two rogue terrorist states: the United States and Israel.

Behaving like rabid dogs on the world stage, these two enormous threats to world peace are content to spread their imperial hubris throughout the globe, invading weaker countries and laying siege to millions of defenseless innocents while condemning those who resist Israeli-American imperialism as ”terrorists,” “threats to peace” and “rogue actors.”

..The creation of Israel was a war crime in and of itself, wherein at least 750,000 indigenous Arab Palestinians were either massacred or ethnically cleansed by Zionist gangs such as the Irgun, Haganah and Lehi.This murderous colonial project was sponsored in large part by Britain and the United States. The latter country was itself a by-product of British colonialism and harbours a damnable legacy even worse than that of Israel.

Less known is the role of Nazi Germany in helping the Zionists gain a foothold in Palestine. ...The German SS even provided the Haganah with weapons to do battle with Palestinian Arabs. ..This fact of history illustrates the farcical nature of Zionist-controlled Hollywood’s depiction of Hitler as a villainous demon, when in fact Zionist Jews themselves were Hitler’s most enthusiastic collaborators.

Upon close inspection, the official story of the holocaust crumbles into pieces. Anyone who has even a mild understanding of the facts cannot continue to believe in the myth of the “six million.” ... It turns out the Zionist fixation on the magical number of six million originates with Jewish religious mysticism in the Kabbalah.

...The “new world order” vision of the Zionist elite and their sinister collaborators is a world filled with tyranny and death, where unwanted thoughts and ideas are ruthlessly extirpated, and dissent is crushed with an iron fist. Those seeking truth and justice will be deemed “enemies of the state” and will be promptly executed or relegated to concentration camps, as per the Bolshevik method.

Nothing gets published in Iranian media without government approval.

01/15 Links Pt1: Abbas Applauds Jihad in Jerusalem Call, Oxfam cancels homophobic Hamas speaker

From Ian:

Left Foot Forward forces Oxfam climbdown over homophobic speaker

The ‘Gaza: Through my Eyes’ exhibition was due to be hosted by Oxfam and Ibrahim Hewitt, a trustee of Hamas-linked organisation Interpal who has called for the killing of apostates and homosexuals.
Mr Hewitt has previously referred to the “so-called Holocaust” and has demanded that homosexuals suffer “severe punishments” for their “great sin”.
The event was scheduled to take place at the East London Mosque, notorious for hosting a number of extremist speakers.
Speaking to Left Foot Forward, Oxfam said it was “strongly committed to upholding universal human rights” and would therefore be cancelling the event.

Abbas applauds after Minister calls for Jihad in Jerusalem

Jihadi fighters should not be fighting in Syria but should go to Jerusalem. This was the message of PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, in front of Mahmoud Abbas:
"Whoever wants resistance, whoever wants Jihad, the direction for Jihad is well-known and clear... Those who send young people to Syria or elsewhere to die for a misdirected cause must stop and understand that Jerusalem is still waiting. Jerusalem is the direction, Jerusalem is the address."
Al-Habbash was criticizing those who have sent Jihadi fighters from around the world to Syria to fight against Assad's forces. The Palestinian refugee camp in Yarmouk has been the scene of some of this fighting. Abbas, who was in the audience, applauded when Al-Habbash said that Jihadi fighters should not be sent to Syria but to Jerusalem.