Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 11, 2020

Now @UNRWA even brags that American citizens are "Palestine refugees" with USA propaganda campaign

Last year, UNRWA-USA - the American fundraising arm of UNRWA - started a "UNRWA Alumni" program to get people who grew up in the Middle East, going to UNRWA schools, to proudly say that they are "Palestine refugees."

The video is terrible and hard to understand, but each of the people speaking identify themselves as "Palestine refugees" - and are American citizens.

It just points to the absurdity of UNRWA considering anyone descended from people who lived in Palestine in 1948 to be forever "refugees" and forever eligible for UN benefits.

UNRWA-USA even admits that its agenda is political:

Dr. Yassine Daoud is a Palestine refugee now living in Maryland, but more than that, he is a successful medical doctor, caring father, and supportive husband to award-winning Palestinian author and public speaker Laila El-Haddad. As our country discusses who refugees are and what refugees looks like, this family has taken it upon themselves to help reshape that narrative, through participating in charitable events, giving back to their American and Palestinian communities, and sharing their own story.

There is a further irony in UNRWA using its fake "refugees" as a means to change American attitudes towards real refugees, as can be seen from this other story of a successful UNRWA graduate:

Today, Nada Kiblawi is a successful entrepreneur and businesswoman living in northern Virginia, alongside her husband and three adult children. The now retired founder and co-owner of NHK Consulting, Nada provided engineering services to some of the world’s largest and most reputable companies.

Born and raised in this camp and in poverty, Nada sadly recalls that she was deprived of a normal, happy childhood. “I’m at a loss of words when I think back upon my childhood years,” she says. “All children born refugees are deprived a childhood. My land, home, and youth, were stolen from me and those of the fourth generation of refugees born into and raised in camps. "

Why is no one pressuring Lebanon to treat their hundreds of thousands of Palestinians like human beings? Why are they still in disgusting camps after for generations? Because UNRWA exists! As Kibwali shows, generations of kids grow up to blame Jews for "stealing" land they have never seen and that many families had not even been there for as long as they have been in Lebanon. But if it wasn't for UNRWA, Lebanon would have been forced to take responsibility for the refugees, the way every other country has to. Because of UNRWA, the issue can be pushed off another few generations, with more kids being taught incitement against Israel and Lebanon, which literally has apartheid laws against Palestinians, is not mentioned by UNRWA or UNRWA-USA.

UNRWA instills this sort of antisemitism and it keeps people of Palestinian ancestry in these terrible conditions by virtue of its very existence.

The propaganda continues with the story of Mohammed Eid:

I grew up in a 200-square-foot house, with five siblings and our parents in Rafah Camp in Gaza. The street was my living room, my study area, and where I played. As a child, I had never seen a baseball field, a swimming pool, or the cinema.

Baseball field in Gaza?? Well, Gaza has some very nice soccer fields. And swimming pools.

And it used to have cinemas, but Hamas outlawed them.

Now, the question is, why Mohammed Eid, who was an toddler when the Palestinian Authority was created, grew up in a "refugee camp" at all? Israel tried to move Gazans into real houses - but the UN passed resolutions against it and those who tried to take advantage were threatened. Yet under PA and Hamas control, these camps still exist. People who live in their own country under their own rulers are not refugees. Why is Eid's family treated like one?

Because UNRWA exists. Because it has brainwashed generations to say that their homes are in Israel and they cannot live as equal citizens in a Palestinian state next to Israel.

UNRWA-USA is engaged in a massive propaganda campaign to extend the "refugee" problem forever. And it takes only a little effort to look at the words of their star propagandists to see how this works.

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Last week, under Israeli pressure, some Arab banks doing business in the territories stopped paying stipends and salaries to former prisoners and families of current prisoners.

Today, the Palestinian prime minister responded to the news in his speech at the opening of his weekly cabinet meeting.

Mohammad Shtayyeh opened his remarks by saying that "The occupation is launching a campaign of terror about the payments to the prisoners using a legal attack against banks. The payments to the prisoners is sacred to us and we will not accept Israel's actions....We are looking for solutions that protect the payments to prisoners on the one hand and protect banks from the threat of occupation on the other."

Interestingly, a poll done earlier this year showed that Palestinians are not nearly as supportive of paying prisoners and their families as they had been in the past. A February survey by the Washington Institute showed that 68% of Palestinians in the West Bank agree that prisoners do not deserve extra payments from the government, a huge increase from the 43% who held that opinion last year.

The bad news is that Israel has restored all the money withheld for prisoner payments - and more - last week, with a 800 million shekel loan to the PA to help its economic crisis. These loans are generally not expected to be repaid. So while Israel doesn't want an unstable PA, which is understandable, the PA is saying explicitly that it will continue to prioritize paying terrorists over any other need, including fighting COVID-19.

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Israel provides jobs, health insurance, PPE and extensive regulations to keep Palestinian workers healthy - and Israel haters spin it as evil

Last week I gave a high level overview of what Israel agreed to do to protect returning Palestinian workers while keeping them healthy and COVID-19 free.

I found a much more detailed list of the obligations given to Israeli employers of Palestinians by Israeli legislation:

On May 4, 2020, the government approved a legislative amendment that requires the employers of Palestinian construction, agriculture and industrial workers, needed to stay continuously in Israel due to the Corona crisis, to insure them in Israeli health insurance. The amendment ensures that Palestinian workers can receive health care in Israel when needed.

According to the emergency regulations, Palestinians who come to work in Israel are required to stay in Israel for three consecutive weeks, without the possibility of returning to their home. Legislative regulations were also determined for health and lodging conditions in a way that will allow the return of thousands of the required workers to the construction sector in Israel. At the end of March, the Knesset's Welfare and Labor Committee demanded that the matter be regulated, and the Kav LaOved, Association for Civil Rights, and Physicians for Human Rights organizations petitioned the High Court demanding that it will be implemented.

The living conditions currently defined in the regulations forbid to lodge more than six workers in a room and stipulate that you must provide each worker with personal space of at least 4 square meters, a bed, bedding, and blankets. The accommodations must be ventilated, separated from the workplace in a way that protects workers from physical hazards and accidents. Also, they must include a sink and stove for every nine workers, kitchenware in the necessary amount, and a refrigerator – except in cases where the employer is the one providing the workers' meals. In the building, you must provide a room or place designated for eating with a separate seat for each worker. Furthermore, employers are required to provide lighting, electricity, bathroom, showers with hot water sufficient for the number of workers, washing machines, a supply of drinking water and sewerage, and to take care of clearing sanitation hazards.

The regulations also specify that during the Corona period, government employees who are inspectors on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Construction and Housing will be authorized to assist in the supervision and to enforce the regulations. These are additional inspectors to the existing inspectors of the Ministry of Labor and Administration of Population that is already authorized to supervise and implement the fulfillment of the obligations to an employer of a foreign worker by law.

"The issue of regulating the Palestinian workers' conditions was coordinated with us, and I am glad that the contractors accepted most of the State's requirements to allow the entry of migrant workers. It was requested that workers who come to work in Israel receive at least medical insurance," Chairman of the Construction and Wood Workers Union-Histadrut, Itzik Moyal, said to Davar. "We are in contact with the Palestinian workers who arrive and provide them with protective gear – masks and gloves. Together with the joint safety headquarters, we also go to check the workers' residence and make sure it meets the standards set by the Ministry of Health. In this period, it is most important to us that the workers feel that they have an address. Every problem that will exist, we will do everything we can to help them."

The pro-worker NGOs got what they asked for. Israel's still powerful Histradut is ensuring adherence. The Palestinian workers agreed to these conditions and some of them like health insurance, they demanded.

It is critical to minimize worker travel because they are more likely to get the coronavirus in Israel than at home, and if they commute they can easily infect many others before knowing they have the virus.

All of this is to help tens of thousands of Palestinian workers get back to work as safely and securely as humanly possible.

So, of course, anti-Israel idiots are spinning this as Israeli oppression:

The only alternative is for these 67,000 workers to remain unemployed. There is no safe way to allow them to move back and forth every day. And the workers agreed to this!

In short, even when Israel does the most socialist, liberal, lifesaving work humanly possible, Israel haters will say it is terrible.

And look who retweeted this absurdity:

Sari Bashi, formerly of Human Rights Watch, doesn't like the joint Israel-Palestinian plan to protect workers either.

Once again, we see that people who pretend to love Palestinians actually only hate Israel - so much so that they would prefer that Palestinians contract infect their communities with a potentially fatal virus, just so they can self-righteously say that Israel is "exploiting" them.

They are all hypocrites.

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No, @NYTimes. There haven't been 750,000 Palestinian prisoners since 1967. Not even close. And I can prove it.

The New York Times reported:

The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank under the Oslo accords, sends stipends each month to as many as 12,000 families of current and former prisoners, some of whom have been convicted of killing Israelis. More than an estimated 750,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned by Israel during the 53 years of the occupation, according to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s negotiation affairs department. Many Palestinians revere the current and former inmates as national heroes.

I've been chasing down that statistic for over ten years. And it is bogus.

Proof #1:

It was originally stated by the Addameer NGO, as 650,000 prisoners in 2005. They never gave a source for this statistic.

The burden of proof should be on the people who make the claim, and the numbers should not be quoted without any whiff of a source.

Proof #2:

Addameer raised it to 750,000 prisoners in 2009. B'Tselem counts an average of perhaps 7000 prisoners at any time between 2005-2009, which means that for there to be 100,000 new prisoners in those 4 years, there must be an astonishing turnover of the entire prison population.

Of course, there wasn't. The PCHR NGO keeps track of all arrests, and the average number of monthly arrests (from taking a random sample) was between 200-400 in that time period. Even if every person arrested ended up in prison, that would be at the very most 5,000 new prisoners a year, not 25,000. (And in reality it is far less.)

So we already know Addameer was either lying in 2005 or in 2009. And the answer is, they were lying in both. Because that would mean a huge number of prisoners between 1967 and 2005 - some 17,000 new prisoners a month over 38 years, then increasing to 25,000 a month by 2009.

These numbers are absurd. They don't line up with prisoner counts, they don't line up with arrests. They have no source. They are lies.

Proof #3:

Newer Addameer numbers (and PLO numbers) raise the number of prisoners to 800,000 (2014) and one million (2016.) Every single cited number is arbitrary and unsourced. And the newer ones are even more absurd, as the number of prisoners have been steadily declining over that time to less than 5000 now.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society claim of a million prisoners by 2016 contrasts with their claim of 850,000 in 2015, meaning an additional 150,000 imprisoned in that one year - a year where we know the number of arrests was less than 5000.

So everyone, not just Addameer, was making up numbers. Yet they were quoted by the UN, by Jimmy Carter, by untold NGOs who cannot believe that Palestinians would lie so easily.

Proof #4:

If the PLO has a policy of paying salaries to prisoners and former prisoners, why aren't they paying 750,000 people or a million people?

Every Palestinian is aware of "pay for slay." Mahmoud Abbas has bragged about it and said that he would never reduce it by a penny. If so many Palestinians were eligible for the payments, there would be riots in the streets from the former prisoners (and since there are only 4200 prisoners now, that means nearly all of the "750,000" or "million" are former prisoners.)

Proof #5:

When Addameer says this statistic, they often add another one: that this number represents some 40% of the total adult male population of Palestinians who have been in prison.

40%!

In a survey of Arab women in 2011, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics asked a large sample of women "Has [sic] any of your family members been arrested/detained by the Israeli occupation" - within the previous 12 months or any time before that.

3.6% answered yes for the previous 12 months, and 20.8% said it had happened in the years before that.

Not counting the fact that great number of people imprisoned had been in prison previously, that is a maximum of 25% of male family members who had been in prison - if there is only one adult male per what the woman considers family. However, given Palestinian family sizes, one can assume that there are at least four adult males related to every woman surveyed on the average: husbands, fathers, adult sons, brothers. If my estimate is correct on 4 male relatives (and I am being conservative - they might include uncles and cousins) then that would mean more like 5-7% of adult males have been in prison. Adults are a little more than half the population, men are half of that, so this would mean that less than 100,000 men had been in prison at least once. (I am not counting the very real possibility that more that one male relative could easily have been in prison, but I am well overestimating in my other assumptions, so less than 100,000 seems far more reasonable.)

At any rate, there is no way to make those numbers add up to 40% of adult males or 750,000 men.

I emailed the Israel Prisons Service asking if they have any actual statistics, we'll see if they answer. But the overinflated numbers given by the PLO and Addameer, and parroted by the New York Times, has zero basis in reality.

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EoZTV: Interview with Kay Wilson

Kay is an amazing woman, and this interview proves it.

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05/10 Links: Refuting NYTimes Op-Ed against sovereignty in Judea and Samaria; Three Gulf states seek partnership with Israel to fight coronavirus

From Ian:

Refuting Daniel Pipes’ NYTimes op-ed opposing Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria

Daniel Pipes’ has written a fallacy-filled New York Times op-ed opposing Israeli legally valid sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley which sounds like it came from the hostile-to-Israel far left. Instead, it came from Pipes, a well-known pro-Israel rightist who is also a “never-Trumper.”

For starters, Pipes’ op-ed uses the leftwing misnomer “annexation” – which implies that Israel is taking lands to which she has no right. The accurate description is: “Israel’s exercise of her sovereignty over historic Jewish lands to which Israel is entitled under binding international law,” or “extending Israeli law to Judea and Samaria,” or “exercising her sovereignty.” International agreements, including the British Mandate and San Remo resolution, guaranteed the Jewish people’s rights to resettle and reconstitute the Jewish state on these lands.

Pipes also wrongly writes that “annexation” was a “fringe” idea prior to publication of President Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan in January 2020. In fact, polls show that the overwhelming majority of Israelis have favored exercising sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, since well before the Trump peace plan was announced. In January 2017, the Maagar Mochot Interdisciplinary Research Institute poll found that Israelis opposed a Palestinian-Arab state and favored Israeli sovereignty by 10 to 1. Prominent mainstream journalists have been writing about the advantages and inevitability of Israel exercising her sovereignty for years.

Notably, an Al-Monitor article posted in Arutz Sheva by respected security expert Efraim Inbar, directly contradicts Pipes’ op-ed. The article explains: “Netanyahu’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley is not just a far-right wish, but the fulfillment of long-standing Israeli security objectives. . . .”

Pipes’ assertion that “annexation” achieves nothing is ludicrous. Exercising sovereignty is a long-overdue step that will promote the security of Israel and its people; firmly assure that Israel maintains defensible borders; and end the decades-long limbo of the 500,000 Jews who live in Judea-Samaria.

Again, Pipes’ op-ed is contradicted by the Inbar article, which explained: “The Jordan Valley is the only available defensible border on the eastern front, and the closest to Israel’s heartland — the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv-Haifa triangle. This area holds 70% of Israel’s population and 80% of its economic infrastructure. The distance between the Jordan River and Jerusalem is only 30 kilometers (19 miles). . . .”

Pipes in fact offers no valid reasons for his anti-“annexation” stance. Five (out of six) of Pipes’ anti-“annexation” arguments simply consist of Pipes’ speculation that: basically “Annexation will make some people angry.” That’s a pitiful and dangerous rationale for Israel refraining from exercising her legally valid sovereignty.

Don’t Bank on Media to Hold Terror Payments to Account

If you want to have a conversation about the merits of the Martyrs Fund and Israel’s measures against it, you’ll need more information than what you would have seen in coverage from the Associated Press, Reuters and New York Times.

By 2017, the payments to prisoners and the families of the so-called “martyrs” equaled half of the PA’s foreign budgetary aid, or a whopping seven percent of the overall PA budget.

The most recent figures indicate that in 2019, the PA spent NIS 619 million ($176 million) on stipends in 2019 just for incarcerated Palestinians. Figures on what was paid to the families weren’t available because the PA isn’t transparent about the Martyrs Fund’s finances. This prompted Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser to argue that if the PA lacks the funds to fight the coronavirus, it should stop paying salaries to terrorists .

Another facet to the story of interest to American readers, but omitted from the coverage is the Taylor Force Act. This was passed by Congress and signed into law following the murder of Taylor Force, a 28-year-old US army veteran and Vanderbilt U. graduate student killed in a 2016 Palestinian stabbing rampage in Jaffa. Eleven other people injured in the indiscriminate attack including a pregnant woman, an Arab Israeli, and a Palestinian illegally residing in Israel.

The Wall Street Journal reported that relatives of Bashar Masalha, the Palestinian terrorist killed by responding police officers, “now receive monthly payments equal to several times the average Palestinian wage.”

Australia and the Netherlands similarly cut back aid in protest against the stipends.

HonestReporting director Daniel Pomerantz debated with PLO executive committee member Mustafa Barghouti.

Context provides a frame of reference for us to make sense of the news. A lack of background information distorts our ability to understand and critically judge developments like this.

It’s important that the media convey the full context behind important stories.

Yesterday's NYT lede framing the Israeli army's battle against COVID-19 as a break from its habit of "killing people" was a psychological tell.

Today's piece on Palestinian payments to prisoners is everything wrong with the paper's coverage over time. It's this balanced: pic.twitter.com/xBaX17tDQp
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) May 9, 2020

The New York Times, Haaretz and the death of reporting (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

In May 2014, readers of Haaretz saw a plea from publisher Amos Schocken, asking them to subscribe to the online edition.

He assured them that by doing so, they would have access to all of Haaretz's online content.

But more than that

By doing so, you will become a partner in the ongoing effort to shape Israel as a liberal and constitutional democracy that cherishes the values of pluralism and civil and human rights. You will become a partner in actively supporting the two-state solution and the right to Palestinian self-determination, which will enable Israel to rid itself of the burdens of territorial occupation and the control of another people.

...Influencing the way Israel evolves is a daily effort of news gathering, reporting developments and creating editorial positions and sometimes campaigns to prevent negative outcomes and encourage positive ones. [emphasis added]

Haaretz has never hidden their liberal position, nor do they hold back on what they think of Netanyahu and his actions.

But for Schocken to go out of his way and proclaim that the goal of Haaretz itself, and not just its editorial columns, is to influence Israel -- that seems to be a bit much.

Since Haaretz is sometimes known as “the New York Times of Israel” -- what about The New York Times? Does it see also see itself as influencing the US, outside of the realm of reporting the news?

Last year, The New York Times came out with its "1619 Project," an examination of slavery in the United States on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia, with the message that the real founding of America began with the arrival of 20 slaves in Virginia in 1619.

According to the lead article by Nikole Hannah-Jones "our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written," "Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country" and:

Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. [A later correction notes it was "some" not all of the colonists]

This is more than a single article; it led to further articles, a multi-media presentation and a curriculum.

A curriculum!?
Why didn't Haaretz think of that?

It is one thing for a newspaper to come out with an almanac. An almanac if full of facts and figures, which you would expect a news organization to have at its fingertips. But a curriculum is an ambitious, and in this case self-serving, way for a news media company to directly shape American opinion and influence how it evolves.

In his column, The ‘1619 Project’ is filled with slovenliness and ideological ax-grinding, George Will runs down other historical errors in the "1619 Project," concluding:

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Has this, the slogan of the party governing Oceania in George Orwell’s “1984,” supplanted “All the news that’s fit to print” as the Times’s credo?

The New York Times may be no less ambitious as Haaretz.

Maybe part of the problem is that newspapers don't hire reporters anymore.
They hire journalists.

What's the difference?

In the good old days, when Jimmy Olsen was a cub reporter for the Daily Planet, he would run around with notepad in hand, get the facts, and report them.

Journalists can report the news too, but not necessarily.

According to Webster:

After all, news is a business.
And journalists, and the news media companies that hire them, are getting more and more ambitious, wanting not only to report the facts, but also let their readers know what they think and frame the story accordingly.

This growing subjective side to journalism was evident when the usual NewYork Times anti-Israel bias was on display again last week.

Maybe David Halbfinger has not heard of pioneering, cutting-edge technology like Iron Dome, David's Sling and Light Blade (designed to shoot down weaponized balloons aimed at fields and children).

In a lecture first published in 1995 as "The Other Middle East Problems," Bernard Lewis noted:

Thanks to this open society [in Israel], a large press corps is able to maintain a continuous supply of detailed and sometimes even accurate information about what is going on. It is possible to interview various parties and to hear complaints and grievances. After all, where else in the entire Middle East and North Africa is it possible to get an opponent of the government on television to denounce the government as conducting a police state? You may infer from this that Israel is the only police state in the region, or you may find another explanation. [included in his From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting The Middle East, p. 340-1; emphasis added]

The New York Times does not have to publish a curriculum in order to influence how its readers view Israel. The way it keeps slanting the news and framing the story is sufficient.

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New academic paper justifies teaching terrorism to Palestinian kids

Palestinian textbooks have always encouraged terror and extolled martyrdom. For example here is a poem from a third grade textbook about dying for the cause of annihilating the Jews in Israel:

The Land of the GenerousI vow I shall sacrifice my blood, to saturate the land of the generous
And will eliminate the usurper from my country, and will annihilate the remnants of the foreigners.
Oh the land of Al-Aqsa and the Haram, oh cradle of chivalry and generosity
Patient, be patient as victory is ours, dawn is emerging from the oppression.
(Our Beautiful Language, Grade 3, Vol. 2, 2016–17, p 64. )

A new academic paper in Settler Colonial Studies by Nadia Naser-Najjab of the University of Exeter justifies such lessons taught to children - and condemns any attempt by Europe or Israel to eliminate the incitement to terror in such textbooks as a colonialist attack on Palestinian society.

The paper, "Palestinian education and the ‘logic of elimination’", includes doubletalk like this to condone teaching terrorism (which she whitewashes as "resistance"):

I seek to make it quite clear that what is at stake is not the upholding of values of objectivity and neutrality but rather the desire – which is barely concealed – to disallow or delegitimise Palestinian resistance....

I place Israel’s attempts to control Palestinian education in historical, political and, perhaps most crucially of all, colonial, context. I argue that these interventions are part of a conscious and deliberate attempt to deny the legitimacy of resistance to occupation....

I instead propose to focus upon the question of incitement, with the intention of demonstrating how this links into Wolfe’s ‘logic of elimination’. I suggest that the proposition that Palestinian education should be detached from the material realities of occupation is in many respects a denial of Palestinian narratives of resistance and struggle and, by extension, a denial of the Palestinian right to exist.

Palestinians are required to distort and even disown their history and narrative in the name of ‘peace’....Under these circumstances, ‘peace’ takes on an Orwellian significance and works in the service of an unsustainable status quo.

According to Nasser-Najjab, asking that Palestinians stop teaching kids that their ultimate goal is to die trying to kill Jews is an unacceptable colonialist demand to change pure and holy Palestinian culture.

Which means, of course, that Palestinian culture is to encourage violence and death.

In the disgusting moral universe of today's Middle East studies, asking people to stop teaching kids to glorify terrorism is a worse crime than the suicide bombings themselves.

This might all sound outrageous and sickening, but the justifications for terror presented as academic research today becomes accepted narrative by politicians and journalists tomorrow.

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Palestinians again lie about "settlers cutting down olive trees" on the Sabbath

Palestinian media has dozens of stories about "Jewish settlers" cutting down some 40 olive trees in Al Mughayir, north of Ramallah.

The "settlers" were said to come from nearby Shiloh - on Saturday morning.

Shiloh is a religious Jewish community, and its residents wouldn't cut down trees on the Sabbath. (Cutting down 40 olive trees would take a great deal of time and effort.)

Not one of the articles showed any uprooted or damaged trees that were not archive photos. In an age when literally everyone carries a camera in their pocket, it is inconceivable that there would be no photos of this massive destruction.

And if the Palestinians are lying about this destruction of trees, how many other times are they lying about it as well?

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05/09 Links: Republicans threaten to sanction Jordan for not extraditing terrorist; Elected officials, social media fan flames of anti-Semitism in Lakewood

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: The US administration's effective peace work in Israel

On May 14, 2018, the US embassy was officially inaugurated in Jerusalem, and a double standard applied to Israel in the US for 70 years finally came to an end.

The moving of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem not only recognized Israel’s capital as it had seen it since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, but also removed a myth from any future negotiating table. Jerusalem, the United States determined, was non-negotiable. It was Israel’s capital.

“We were applying [until then] a double standard to Israel, relative to every other country in the world,” US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told The Jerusalem Post last week. “We were telling Israel, you don’t have the right to choose your capital city.”

That changed with the moving of the embassy even as some critics claim that beyond the symbolism of the move, it didn’t achieve much more. Other countries did not follow suit and the fact is that peace negotiations seem no farther away today than they were before.

Friedman did not agree. Don’t, he said, underestimate the power of symbolism.

“Americans who support Israel understand the significance of Jerusalem,” he said. “It’s what the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, Plymouth Rock and Valley Forge are. We understand symbols are more than symbols. Every nation that made a mark on this world stood for something. Nations that stand for something stand for deep historic principles. Because America was founded on those types of principles, Americans profoundly understand the importance of Jerusalem to the State of Israel.”

We agree. The moving of the embassy not only put an end to a historic travesty but also made clear to the world something everyone anyhow already knew – Jerusalem is not for sale. While the Palestinians can still lay claim to parts of the eastern side of the city, Jerusalem is Israel’s capital as it was 3,000 years ago when designated so by King David.

With that said, peace is not made between Jerusalem and Washington DC. It needs to be made between Israeli and Palestinian leaders and sadly, for the last three years of the Trump administration, when it comes to direct talks, there has been no tangible progress.

Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to swear in his fifth government in a few days, has served as Israel’s prime minister for 14 years. The thought that in his 15th year as prime minister he will suddenly change his policies and engage with the Palestinians in ways he has not until now also seems unlikely.

Republicans threaten to sanction Jordan for not extraditing terrorist

Seven Republicans in Congress warned Jordan that the United States was now in a position to sanction that country unless it extradites one of the terrorists who plotted the 2001 bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria.

“The potential seriousness of these sanctions provisions reflect the deep concern of the Congress, the administration and the American people,” said the letter sent April 30 to Jordan’s ambassador and released this week by EMET, a pro-Israel group lobbying for the letter.

Why it matters: The letter was initiated by Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., and signed by Congress members known for their closeness to the Trump administration. That signals an increase in pressure on Jordan to extradite Ahlam Al-Tamimi, who facilitated the bombing of the Sbarro restaurant that killed 15 people, including two Americans.

Jordan, a key ally to the United States and Israel, gets $1.7 billion in U.S. assistance.

The United States has sought Al-Tamimi’s extradition for years, but the law allowing the State Department to leverage aid to demand extradition did not go into effect until late last year.

Al-Tamimi was sentenced to life in Israel but released in a prisoner exchange with Israel in 2011. She has since become something of a celebrity in Jordan.

The parents of one of the victims, 15-year old Malki Roth, have led an effort to make Al-Tamimi face U.S. charges under American laws that allow the prosecution of terrorists who have harmed Americans overseas.

US Secretary of State Confirms Israel Trip Next Week, Says Ties Have ‘Never Been Stronger’

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed on Friday he would travel to Israel to next week, in what will be his first overseas trip since the coronavirus crisis began.

Pompeo will be in Israel next Wednesday, May 13, and he will meet in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Benny Gantz “to discuss US and Israeli efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as regional security issues related to Iran’s malign influence,” a State Department statement said.

“The US commitment to Israel has never been stronger than under President Trump’s leadership,” the statement added. “The United States and Israel will face threats to the security and prosperity of our peoples together.”

“In challenging times, we stand by our friends, and our friends stand by us,” it concluded.

One issue that could be on the agenda during Pompeo’s visit is the possible Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank in the near future.

Pompeo himself said last month that such a move was up to the Israeli government.

Masks, virus tests, closed meetings: How Pompeo will visit Israel amid pandemic

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo next week will become the first senior foreign official to visit Israel since it put in place strict travel restrictions to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Pompeo’s visit will require medical precautions to prevent infections, which were coordinated with Israeli officials, Israel’s Channel 13 reported Friday.

Dr. William Walters, the US State Department’s deputy chief medical officer, said Friday that everyone flying with Pompeo will be tested for the virus one or two days before the flight, will be checked for symptoms before boarding, and will wear face coverings during the trip.

Pompeo and his small traveling party will be exempt from Israel’s virus restrictions that bar foreign visitors from entering and require returning Israelis to self-quarantine for 14 days. Pompeo is currently undergoing daily checks by medical personnel, Walters said.

Pompeo will be on the ground in Israel for only several hours on Wednesday before returning to Washington from his first overseas trip since making an unannounced visit to Afghanistan in March.

Everyone who meets with the US team during the trip will be checked for COVID-19 symptoms. Pompeo’s movements will be strictly controlled and limited to working meetings and the airport, and he will not meet with anyone in public settings.

"Jewish Voice for Peace" calls Israeli innovation "dirty tech" - while tweeting from an iPhone partially designed and built in Israel

I knew this would happen.

The socialist Israel-hating Left, pretending to be moral, looked at the New York Times article I mentioned this morning (great article, awful tweet) and declared that any Israeli innovations used to fight and control the coronavirus is "dirty tech" - because the Israeli defense industry is helping coordinate lots of different public and private initiatives to defeat COVID-19.

Imagine. "Jewish Voice for Peace" hates Israel SO MUCH that they would rather not see Israel come up with tools to fight the pandemic. They would never use such "dirty tech" even if it can save their lives. Now, that's conviction!

But wait...what's this? They tweeted their principled message from their iPhone.

Apple's iPhone is partially designed and assembled in Israel, by Israelis who have been in - gasp! - the IDF!

But JVP, like all hypocrites, tell everyone else what moral standards they need to live up to. Just like the BDSers who use Israel's Wix to design their webpages, Just like the (supposed) founder of BDS going to Tel Aviv University.

Their pretense of morality is for others, not for them, if it inconveniences their lives at all. That'a why they make a big deal over boycotting Sabra hummus and Caterpillar tractors and high end linens - because those are easy to boycott without any sacrifice.

Not exactly the Gandhis they pretend to be.

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05/08 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Israel still suffers virus of hate even as it saves Arab lives; Coronavirus Nazi Comparisons Dishonor Memories of Holocaust Victims; Latma 2020, Ep5 & 6 !!

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Israel still suffers virus of hate even as it saves Arab lives

While countries around the world struggle to get on top of the Covid-19 crisis, Israel’s achievement so far has been remarkable.

Its mortality rate from the virus has been vastly smaller, in proportion to its population, than the rate in countries such as Britain, Sweden or the United States. That’s largely because it tackled the virus with the kind of bold, strategic approach with which it defends itself against its physical foes.

This week, with new cases reduced to a few dozen, it started to lift a wide range of restrictions on public activity. Many are fearful, however, that the country’s exit from lockdown is too fast and incoherent, and may send the infection rate soaring again out of control.

That said, Israel’s defense against this invisible enemy has also highlighted something positive that previously wasn’t fully appreciated.

Thousands of Israeli Arab health-care professionals have been putting their own lives on the line by treating virus patients alongside their Jewish colleagues.

There could scarcely have been a more graphic demonstration of equality and indispensability, and it will have been noticed by Israel’s Jews and Arabs alike. It vividly illustrated the prominence of Israeli Arabs in the country’s health system, in which they make up 17 percent of its doctors, 24 percent of its nurses and 48 percent of its pharmacists.

This may have profound political consequences in a society where the status of Israeli Arabs, who form some 20 percent of the population, is a sensitive source of mutual suspicion, exaggeration and denial.

Sharren Haskel MK: Sir Mick simply hasn’t been paying attention

I welcomed Mick Davis’s article in Jewish News last week as an important voice on Israel-Diaspora relations. However, to my great sadness, I strongly contest his grossly inaccurate assertions. Of course, he is welcome to his opinion. If he were an Israeli citizen he would be welcome to vote accordingly. I’m saddened that someone who has held such high office in an important Diaspora community feels it appropriate to publish such distortions.

As a current MK, allow me to answer his accusations. Sir Mick claims Israel needs “a vision for its future with the Palestinians”. He will be pleased to know we have one.

While the vision of the Clinton Initiative has failed time after time for the past 30 years, we continue to stand firm in the face of the ongoing terrorism against the people of Israel. Hours before Sir Mick published his piece, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed a 62-year-old woman as she was shopping in my home town, Kfar Saba. The day before, another Palestinian terrorist deliberately ran over a policeman at a junction in Judea and Samaria. These are not isolated incidents or caused by Israeli policies.

They are born of the same hatred that led to the massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929 – even before the state’s founding.

They are part of an ongoing trend of hatred and violence supported by the Palestinian Authority which continues joyfully to promote anti-Jewish vitriol in their schools, media, and mosques, and proudly pay murderers for the Jewish blood they spill.

Yet, at the same time, we do continue to pursue a peaceful end to the conflict. Without a partner for peace, the current plan led by President Trump offers the Palestinians levels of autonomy, economic development and a higher standard of living than enjoyed by most peoples in the region.

And yes – it offers Israel the chance to establish sovereignty over core areas of Israel.

Sir Mick suggests that Israel’s political echelons have decided that the relationship with the Palestinians can be ignored. Let’s be clear. When we send our children to school, they have an armed guard at the gate. Our shopping malls have metal detectors.

When we send our children to the army, we do so knowing they may well see battle.

Israel is not ignoring the relationship with the Palestinians, we are palpably aware of the situation. But Israel has long made the decision – as have many of our neighbours – that there can be progress on a range of issues, including regional affairs, even in the absence of a resolution to the conflict with the Palestinians.

World Needs New Perspective on Israel

On a recent Zoom call with Jewish National Fund-USA (JNF-USA) in Chicago, The New York Times contributor, Matti Friedman, lamented the immense gap in perceptions between how the world and Israelis see Israel.

"The uninformed perceive Israel as a conflict zone or a place that's unsafe to visit," said Friedman. "This is because whenever there's any instance of violence, it automatically receives saturated press coverage. When I was a correspondent for AP, the size of the bureau covering Israel was 40 people. This was significantly more than their office in China at the time."

Friedman highlighted the media's disproportionate focus on Israel and noting that according to his calculations, seven people in Jerusalem died in violent circumstances in 2019, while in cities of similar size such as Indianapolis, 179 homicides took place garnering little coverage.

"Looking at fatalities is a crass way of doing things," admitted Friedman, "however, it's telling. We can sometimes forget that Israel's conflict is small in terms of global conflict."

Friedman also discussed the often-overlooked differences between the left- and right-wing movements of the U.S. and Israel. "Political terminology in the US is different," said Friedman. "Being on the 'left' in Israel is different from being on the 'left' in the U.S. – and the same is true for the 'right'. Israel's 'left' and 'right' are defined by their respective stances and approaches to dealing with the conflict. The majority of Israelis, throughout the left and right, are in favor of gun control, abortion, public healthcare, and government education. On all these issues, Netanyahu would be considered a Democrat."

Ultimately, Friedman believes the way to bridge the perception gap cannot be done through arguing about press coverage. "We shouldn't get upset. Rather, we need to establish a real connection with the actual country [Israel]. It means getting involved with Jewish National Fund-USA – an organization that is perhaps more involved in the everyday life of Israel than most. The other way to get around it is to get on a plane and spend time here in Israel (when international travel resumes). What's accurate and inaccurate will be resolved by visiting here."

Latma 2020, Episode 5

this time expanded to 15 minutes. The unhinged parents’ Zoom song, meeting of Hendel and Hauser’s immense Derech Eretz faction, Story Time and EU representative Johann Phlegmat’s first guest appearance on the new Latma. Enjoy! (h/t Yerushalimey)

Latma 2020, Episode 6

Latma 2020, Episode 6 with the Judgefather as chief arbitrator, attempts to see the money promised by the Treasury to the self-employed, and the organizer of the Alternative Memorial Day talks about her plans for the future (h/t Yerushalimey)

Insane academic paper of the day

Published in Mediterranean Politics in April:

Rethinking justice beyond human rights. Anti-colonialism and intersectionality in the politics of the Palestinian Youth Movement

This article discusses the politics of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) – a contemporary social movement operating across a number of Arab and western countries. Unlike analysis on the Arab Uprisings which focused on the national dimension of youth activism, we explore how the PYM politics fosters and upholds an explicitly transnational anti-colonial and intersectional solidarity framework, which foregrounds a radical critique of conventional notions of self-determination based on state-framed human rights discourses and international law paradigms. The struggle becomes instead framed as an issue of justice, freedom and liberation from interlocking forms and hierarchies of oppression.

This movement sounds very intellectual and woke!

Here's one of the photos on PYM's Facebook page:

Wow, VERY woke.

Number of times the paper mentions Palestinian violence: Zero
Number of times the paper mentions Palestinian terror: Zero
Number of times the paper mentions "struggle:" 24

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05/08 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: The 'legal' landmine on the road to sovereignty; Bibi 'Houdini' does it again; 15 policy challenges for the new head of UNRWA

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The 'legal' landmine on the road to sovereignty

There is a landmine on the road to Israeli sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria. It must be defused before it blows up Israel's efforts to secure its national interests and takes President Donald Trump's peace plan, and US-Israel relations along with it.

The landmine is not an actual explosive charge but the clique of unelected lawyers at the top of Israel's legal system. Members of the clique have arrogated the power of the government to themselves to advance their radical, legally unsupported political views about Judea and Samaria.

Since 1967, the State of Israel has carefully left its position on the legal status of Judea and Samaria ambiguous to avoid unnecessary confrontations. At the same time, Israel has assiduously refused to make any concessions about its actual sovereign rights to the areas.

Since 1967, Israel has administered the areas through a military government and even agreed to do so in accordance with the prescriptions of the Geneva Accords and Hague Convention. However, as the Military Advocate General during the 1967 Six-Day War, and later Supreme Court President Meir Shamgar said at the time and throughout the intervening years, Israel has acted out of goodwill, not legal compulsion.

In other words, the State of Israel's longstanding position is that its control of Judea and Samaria does not fit the international legal definition of "belligerent occupation." Israel is not the "occupier" of the areas. Various Israeli jurists have presented various factual legal arguments over the years to back this position. Among them is the doctrine of "uti possidetis juri" which makes clear that as the heir to the British Mandate, Israel inherited the borders of the League of Nations Mandate, which included Judea and Samaria.

Israeli jurists have also explained that since the Jordanian occupation of the areas from 1949-1967 was illegal, Israel's assertion of control over the areas in 1967 was not a belligerent occupation.

Then too, since the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan ended the state of belligerence between them, there is no state of belligerence in Judea and Samaria, which Jordan illegally took control over during its illegal war of aggression against the Jewish state in 1948-49.

David Collier: Those pesky Israelis just can’t stop disappointing diaspora Jews

Some UK Jewish papers have already opened the ‘annexation front’, criticising Israel for unilateral action it may be about to take. I promised myself I would stay quiet on this until July – when I expected to be forced to stand up against an uproar from some of the small-but-vocal quarters of the diaspora community. It seems they are so eager to make a noise, they started early.

Most of those troubled by the annexation are also those deeply disappointed that Netanyahu successfully navigated every obstacle that he had to face. Fooled by the insane political analysis of those who actually believed their own hype, they somehow thought a coalition could be built to depose the right-wing block. For months they performed mathematical and ideological summersaults, building neverthere coalitions and putting numerous ideological enemies together in some farcical political alliance. Father Christmas had more chance of appearing in the halls of the Knesset.

According to certain elements in the Diaspora, those pesky Israelis just keep voting the wrong way. Oh, how they wish the Israelis were as clever or ‘woke’ as they are.

The ‘annexation’
To some, Israel assuming sovereignty over the Jordan Valley is merely an assertion of existing rights over highly strategic land, originally intended to be part of the Jewish homeland. To those still stuck in the mud of Oslo this is a blasphemous way of thinking. For them the Jordan Valley is in the ‘West Bank’ and therefore part of the future Palestinian state. If Israel is to hold onto it, it can only do so as part of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. If there are no talks – Israel must do nothing. They refer to this inaction as the ‘status quo’ and consider it holy.

This holiness only counts when it works in their political favour. When the Palestinians lobby the ICC to bring Israelis to the Hague or push the UNHRC to have companies operating in the ‘settlements’ named and then boycotted, they do not shout in protest. Some even applaud. Only Israel’s position vis-a-vis the ‘status quo’ must be maintained at all costs.

The land up for annexation comes as no surprise. In one of his final speeches to the Knesset, Yitzchak Rabin made it quite clear the Jordan Valley would remain in Israel:

jordan valley The original idea for annexation of this area had been put forward by Minister Yigal Alon to Levi Eshkol’s government as early as July 1967. All these people were on Israel’s political left. Control of the border with Jordan is of major strategic importance. Should Israel learn no lessons from its withdrawal from Southern Lebanon and Gaza, now both terrorist run enclaves. The failure of Oslo because of Arab violence taught Israel a hard lesson and has a cost – and that includes the necessity of Israel controlling the key border with Jordan.

Bibi 'Houdini' does it again - analysis

This is, afterall, an emergency government. True, there is Iran in Syria to worry about, an increasingly volatile situation in Lebanon, Gaza, and that issue of whether or not to extend Israeli sovereignty over 30% of the West Bank before the US elections in November, but recovering from the virus is why this unusual government was set up in the first place, and which will be its main focus of attention.

One of Netanyahu’s top priorities now will be to ensure that the country is prepared so that if the virus makes a comeback in a few months, as most assume it will, Israel will be able to cope without having to lock down the entire country to ensure that the understaffed, underfunded and under-equipped health system is not overwhelmed.

The country's mood coming out of the lockdown is decidedly sour. Netanyahu, whose political ambitions extend beyond the next 18 months in the Prime Minister's Office, will labor intensively to change that mood, hoping that that the public will then be grateful to him for doing so, and show that appreciation the next time elections roll around.

Netanyahu has given no sign that his next stint in power will be his last – even if he is forced to switch seats with Gantz in the middle of a term, and even if he is standing trial.

And those who believe the prime minister must be in his last act are underestimating his unparalleled political staying power and durability.
In February, just before the last election, Yisrael Beytenu head and Netanyahu nemesis Avigdor Liberman famously declared “the Netanyahu era has ended.” But look where Netanyahu is, soon to be sworn in again as prime minister, and where Liberman is – on the opposition backbenches – and draw the conclusion: don't count Netanyahu out. Ever.

On this day 48 years ago, 4 terrorists hijacked Sabena Flight 571 with 100 passengers on board.

This is what happened: pic.twitter.com/QCRu6LXvtX
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 8, 2020

The @NYTimes can't resist insulting Israel

On Thursday afternoon, David Halbfinger wrote a remarkably good article for the New York Times about how Israel is innovating and coming up with creative ways to fight COVID-19.

The article goes through how Israeli technology is using novel methods to tackle the diagnostic and logistics challenge of the pandemic. For example, a useful technology to screen people quickly at airports or malls:

NanoScent, a company whose technology uses arrays of sensors to detect and digitize odors, says that the proliferation of virus cells among the microorganisms that inhabit the noses of Covid-19 patients produces what is believed to be a distinct smell. And it is training its artificial intelligence to detect that smell.
“It’s not a definitive test,” said Oren Gavriely, NanoScent’s chief executive and co-founder. “But you’d come, you’d blow into a special bag that we’ve designed, you’d have a 30-second test, you’d expose it to the sensing device, and you’d get a result: Either you’re clear or you’re suspected to have something.”

The first paragraph was the only problematic part:

The Israeli Defense Ministry’s research-and-development arm is best known for pioneering cutting-edge ways to kill people and blow things up, with stealth tanks and sniper drones among its more lethal recent projects.

Anyone who is even slightly familiar with Israel's defense industry knows that most of the money is spent on saving lives, not ending them. The stealth tanks mentioned are meant o allow effective defense in urban warfare instead of using large tanks that destroy houses just going down the street - the exact opposite of blowing things up. The sniper drones are meant to kill a single terrorist without hurting innocent -or not so innocent - people nearby, as a mortar or small missile might.

That is one paragraph out of 26.

When the social media team at the NYT blurbed the otherwise great article, here is how they described it:

They took away even the context Halbfinger put in, and framed the story in an entirely different way: a vicious killing machine is ironically now engaged in saving lives.

No, the Israeli defense industry is always engaged in saving lives - saving lives of the Israelis it is sworn to defend, and of Arabs as well. It could use much cheaper and lower tech methods to keep the world's 4 to 1 ratio of civilians to combatants instead of investing hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man hours to minimize the chances of killing the innocent.

Anyone who frames the IDF as a bloodthirsty army, as this tweet does, is showing their own ignorance and bias.

And this is unfortunately the default position for most people who work in the media.

I understand the desire to put something unexpected in a social media post, to draw people in. But it could have been done much more effectively and accurately. For example:

"Israel's Defense Ministry's R&D is normally engaged in cutting-edge ways to fight Israel's enemies and protect its citizens. Now it is using that technical and logistical expertise to fight COVID-19."

Accuracy. Is that too much to ask for?

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