Friday, February 26, 2016

02/26 Links Pt2: Kontorovich: Obama’s conflation and obfuscation about Israeli settlement boycotts

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Obama signs Israel anti-boycott provisions into law, settlements and all

Congress recently passed the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. The massive trade and customs bill contains, inter alia, provisions designed to oppose boycotts and similar economic warfare against Israel. Yesterday, President Obama signed the bill into law.
While signing it, he made a statement, objecting to parts of the law that oppose boycotts of Jewish Israeli enterprises in the West Bank and Golan Heights. (The law’s anti-boycott protections apply to “Israel” and “Israeli-controlled territories.”)
The actual effect of the signing statement, however, is nil. It does not in any way limit the reach or finality of the law. Indeed, the statement does not even purport that parts of the law are unconstitutional or unenforceable. Nor could the president easily have done so: Congress in passing the law used core Article I powers that the president cannot unilaterally restrict — in particular, the powers to regulate foreign commerce and the federal courts.
Thus after Obama’s signature, the provisions of the law that apply to Israeli-controlled territory are as much binding legislation as the rest of the bill.

Eugene Kontorovich: Obama’s conflation and obfuscation about Israeli settlement boycotts

President Obama signed into law this week important measures opposing boycotts of Israel. While signing the law, he complained about its application to “Israeli-controlled territories.” He claimed the provisions were “contrary to longstanding bipartisan United States policy, including with regard to the treatment of settlements.”
In a previous post, I explained how the signing statement does not change, or purport to change, the binding legal force of the law. But it is more important as a political statement, and as such it is wrong on the facts. The law does not, as he complained, “conflat[e]” settlements with Israel proper. Indeed, it distinguishes sharply between them. The law speaks of two distinct areas: “Israel” and “Israeli-controlled territories.” That means that those “ territories” are something different from “Israel” — precisely the position of the administration. To be sure, the law opposes boycotts of both areas, but that is not conflating them, any more than opposing terrorism, or the use of foreign armed force, against both areas would be conflating them.
Rather, the law treats Israel and the settlements as distinct. However, in terms of certain foreign commerce issues, it applies the same legislative approach. Obama’s definition of conflation means that Congress is prohibited from enacting the same foreign commerce legislation for these two areas because the president does not like it on policy grounds — an absolutely unheard-of limitation on the foreign commerce power. Indeed, Congress has already given the same customs treatment to both, and otherwise applied identical rules to both, without any complaints about conflation.
The real conflation here is on the part of the White House — and J Street and Peace Now, which provided its talking points. They have conflated opposition to settlements with openness to using boycotts against them.

Oberlin Professor Claims Israel Was Behind 9/11, ISIS, Charlie Hebdo Attack

A professor at Oberlin College, one of the most prestigious institutes of higher education in the country, has written and shared a series of Facebook posts claiming that Jews or Israelis control much of the world and are responsible for the 9/11 and Charlie Hebdo attacks and the rise of ISIS.
Joy Karega, an assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition, shared a graphic shortly after the Charlie Hebdo shooting last year of an ISIS terrorist pulling off a mask resembling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The terrorist has a tattoo with a Star of David and the acronym “JSIL” – presumably a Jewish version of ISIL/ISIS. The picture includes graphic text implying that the murder of cartoonists was a “false flag” conspiracy designed to stop French support for Palestinians. In the accompanying status, Karega wrote, “This ain’t even hard. They unleashed Mossad on France and it’s clear why.” The Mossad is Israel’s national intelligence agency.
She wrote the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to the massive free-speech rally in Paris “uninvited and of course he went even when he was asked by Pres. Hollande (France) not to come. Netanyahu wanted to bend Hollande and French governmental officials over one more time in public just in case the message wasn’t received via Massod [sic] and the ‘attacks’ they orchestrated in Paris.” She neglected to mention that Netanayhu was in Paris to honor four Jews who were killed in a terror attack in a kosher supermarket that same week. Karega also wrote in November that ISIS was not really Islamic, but rather “a CIA and Mossad operation, and there’s too much information out here for the general public not to know this.”

Anti-Zionist Max Blumenthal jeered at Toronto event

A sold-out evening headlined by controversial Jewish anti-Israel activist Max Blumenthal went ahead as scheduled on Wednesday evening in Toronto, despite drawing heavy condemnation from Canada’s organized Jewish community.
He spoke to upwards of 500 guests at an event titled “Embattled Truths: Reporting on Gaza with Max Blumenthal.” It was organized by PEN Canada — a charity which advocates for free expression and other basic rights for writers — and hosted at the Toronto Reference Library in honor of Freedom to Read Week in Canada.
The talk, which featured a question and answer period, was marred by constant heckling and jeering from more than a dozen protestors who attended, most of whom from the far-right Jewish Defense League of Canada.
Blumenthal addressed the controversy surrounding his appearance, saying that pro-Israel groups attempt to make an example of him.

The Tower has an article that refers to a fascinating 2011 piece by Joel Fishman that shows that the idea of "Zionism is racism" started before "occupation" and was created by the Soviets specifically to fight against any UN resolutions against antisemitism.

Some relevant parts:

Many assume that UN Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism, originated in 1975. In March 1964, however, this analogy appeared in discussions that took place at the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities (a part of the Third Committee that dealt with social, humanitarian, and cultural matters).6 During these deliberations, Israel was outmaneuvered and never recovered the ground it lost. Yohanan Manor, former director-general of the Jewish Agency’s Information Department, capably recounted how this happened in his pioneering monograph, To Right a Wrong. Nonetheless, the subject needs to be revisited. What happened in 1964 and 1965 represents an essential piece of the story and therefore merits a careful second look.

In March 1964, the US, which was motivated by the needs of domestic politics, namely the presidential election campaign between Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater, proposed that the Third Committee of the UN recognize antisemitism as a form of racism, along with apartheid and Nazism.8 For its part, the Soviet Union was determined to prevent any discussion of the subject, not the least because the Soviets were antisemites. As a matter of official state policy, the Soviet Union used antisemitism to discriminate against, intimidate, and persecute Soviet Jewry. Seeking to remove the subject from the agenda, the representatives of the USSR at the UN warned the US that if the Americans did not drop the matter, they would submit their own amendment condemning Zionism and Nazism. In October 1965, when the final draft of the convention prepared by the Commission on Human Rights again came under discussion in the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, the US and Brazil introduced an amendment to condemn antisemitism. In turn, the Soviet Union called for the condemnation of “antisemitism, Zionism, Nazism, neoNazism, and all forms of the policy and ideology of colonialism, national and race-hatred, and exclusiveness and shall take action as appropriate for the speedy eradication of those misanthropic ideas and practices in the territories subject to their jurisdiction.” At this point, the delegates of Greece and Hungary proposed an amendment that broke the impasse by moving to drop all reference to any 77 Joel Fishman specific kind of discrimination. This proposal was accepted, and effectively the matter was dropped, despite an unsuccessful effort in 1967 to revive the issue.

Dr. Meir Rosenne, who served as consul of Israel in New York from 1961 to 1967, delivered an important address in 1984 at a World Zionist Organization Information Department seminar held at the US State Department. Later, in 1987, Judge Hadassa Ben Itto went on record with a solid interview. These first-person sources are valuable not only because of the facts they contain but also because the individuals who gave them possessed a broad perspective and understood the importance of this episode. Each of these accounts conveys a sense of the contemporary mood. In view of their significance, they are cited at length. Ambassador Rosenne explained:

Among my duties at the time was to serve as Israel’s observer in New York at various United Nations deliberations on human rights. In the context of human rights, our chief concern then was the plight of Soviet Jewry— which, I must insist, remains a high priority for us.

One of the UN organs—the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities—after weeks of bitter debate and negotiation drafted a “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.”
That forgotten episode ironically has a serious impact on the subsequent evolution of world opinion and international law regarding Israel and Zionism. This is how it happened.
Early in the discussions [c. March 1965], the Sub-Comission quickly agreed to adopt a special Article condemning apartheid as a form of racism as [were] Nazism and neo-Nazism.
Because the Holocaust was still fresh in the minds of human rights advocates—and also because of an appalling worldwide epidemic of antisemitic incidents in the early 1960s—the American representative [Marietta Peabody Tree] during the debate in the Human Rights Commission proposed the explicit condemnation of antisemitism in this draft UN Convention.
The Soviet representative, staunchly supported by the other East European experts, countered this move by submitting an amendment that would have added the word “Zionism” to the list of forms of racism to be condemned.
This gave rise to a bitter discussion that culminated in a compromise, to wit: References to all specific forms of racism (except apartheid) were to be dropped from the draft.
The very same exercise was repeated later that year [October 1965] in the Third Committee (the Social Committee) of the UN General Assembly.
With this clever tactic, the USSR for the first time injected its own ideology and propaganda on Zionism and Judaism onto a world stage. In this, Moscow won a double victory:
(1) It prevented the explicit definition of antisemitism as a form of racism— and thus succeeded in downgrading the moral, political, and symbolic weight that a condemnation of Jew-hatred would have carried throughout the world.
(2) It established the precedent for linking Zionism with Nazism, which led to the overwhelming adoption by the UN General Assembly, eleven years later, of the resolution that equated Zionism with racism [UNGA Resolution 3379 of November 10, 1975]. It is essential to remember this history and to keep the record straight: In 1975 it was certainly the Arab states that took the initiative with this resolution. But it is the Soviet Union that is the source of this evil doctrine.

Judge Ben Itto also witnessed this episode. ...In a 1987 interview, Ben Itto recounted the facts

...The Russians know that they are anti-Semites, and emphatically didn’t want antisemitism specifically pinpointed, “because they too would have to join that club of racists before the world.”
The Russians wanted not even the merest mention of antisemitism, but they wanted to accomplish this goal without having to vote on the issue. So they latched onto the idea as a technical maneuver of insisting that if antisemitism was named as a form of racism, then Zionism must also be listed as a form of racism.
…. Behind the scenes the Russians did not at all seriously argue the proposition that Zionism is racism—“it was almost a joke. They said that they were only suggesting the idea to get the Americans off their antisemitism kick.” Clearly, she says, at first the Russians knew full well that the idea that Zionism is racism is an indefensible proposition.

Here we see a direct, intentional link between the origins of calling Israel racist and unapologetic antisemitism.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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02/26 Links Pt1: Hamas is to blame for Gaza's terrible state; U.S., EU Fund PA Torture

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: Hamas is to blame for Gaza's terrible state, not Israel

The residents of the Gaza Strip – which has a 40 percent unemployment rate, hundreds of thousands of restless youth, no electricity during most of the daylight hours, polluted water that does not always flow, and a tightening blockade that has lasted for years – are indeed a powder keg.
It's enough to read the latest UN report, from September 2015, which says that the Strip will not be suitable for human habitation within five years. This is not propaganda. It is a realistic prediction. One should listen carefully to the head of IDF Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Herzl Halevi, who has been warning of this grim reality. The only relief comes in the form of hundreds of supply trucks that arrive daily from Israel. This is the last barrier that prevents hunger.
Don’t say its Israel’s fault. Because the day Israel left Gaza was supposed to be a turning point. For the first time in history, the Palestinians got independence and sovereignty over territory.
Egypt and Jordan, which controlled the Gaza Strip and West Bank, respectively, from 1949 to 1967, never dreamed of giving the Palestinians independence. An independent Gaza Strip was an opportunity for change. They could have become a model of welfare and prosperity. They could have sent a message to the whole world - and particularly Israel - that they can be trusted, that they can take responsibility for their destiny, that they were choosing a growth industry. This did not happen. They chose the industry of death and hate.

Khaled Abu Toameh: U.S., Europe Fund Torture by Palestinian Authority

A report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented 1,391 cases of Palestinians arbitrarily arrested by the two Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, in 2015.
Systematic torture in Palestinian prisons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was documented in the report -- at least 179 cases of torture in Palestinian Authority (PA) prisons in 2015.
The PA security forces are trained and funded by several Western countries, including the US. This establishes a direct line between these Western donors and the arbitrary arrests, torture and human rights violations that have become the norm in PA-controlled prisons and detention centers.
The report also revealed that the Palestinian Authority regularly disobeys court orders by refusing to release detainees, showing contempt for its courts and judges.
Before our eyes, two police states are being built: one in the West Bank and a second in the Gaza Strip -- in the face of talk by international parties of establishing an independent Palestinian state. But the last thing the Palestinians need is another police state.

JPost Editorial: Cameron’s slip

Admittedly, Cameron and his Conservatives do not have an easy time maintaining an overtly pro-Israel policy in the face of such a hostile political and international environment, which is hyper-critical of Israel while ignoring atrocities perpetrated by other countries.
But we would have expected more of Cameron.
Does the British prime minister truly hope that Jerusalem is “maintained the way it was in the past”? When the holy city was under Jordanian rule, Jewish places of worship were left in ruins; access to the Western Wall was denied to Jews; basic religious rights were trampled.
Obviously, that is not what Cameron longs for.
It is also not clear what Cameron is referring to when he talks of “what is happening in Jerusalem.” Apparently it is not the knifings, the vehicular attacks and the shootings being carried out by Palestinians. Nor is it the economic progress, the freedom and the cultural flourishing of the city since it came under Israeli control.
Jewish building, apparently, is the only obstacle to peace.
Cameron is a true friend of Israel. That’s why it is so frustrating to discover that even people like him have been affected by the unceasing campaign against Israel.
We hope the British prime minister returns to his old self soon and that his comments on east Jerusalem were just a slip.

Israeli flag moved to avoid offending an Arab

This video was posted at the Shehab News Agency, and I don't know where it was taken originally. it looks like a cafeteria on a college campus somewhere in the northern US.

Apparently, the cafeteria placed up the flags of many nations on its windows, and an Algerian was upset that Israel's flag was next to that of his country. So he complained to management, which quickly swapped Israel's flag with that of Canada, saying all the time that they fully understand why he was upset at the terrible idea of Algeria's flag being next to Israel's.

There is something seriously wrong when those offended by the existence of the Jewish state are treated with the same deference and respect as for those who are offended by racism or sexism.

The issue isn't to avoid offense. The issue is to fight for what it right. And too many people today, especially on campus, cannot tell the difference.

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"Justice for Omar Nayef Zayed" - yup, he got it all right

Fantastic news. From Times of Israel:

A fugitive Palestinian terrorist wanted by Israel was murdered in Bulgaria Friday morning, Palestinian media reported, in a killing some Palestinians have ascribed to the Jewish state, though Jerusalem denied involvement.

Omar Nayef Zayed, 51, was found dead in the yard of the Palestinian Embassy in Sofia. Bulgarian radio reported that he had fallen from the fourth floor.

A senior Palestinian Authority official said that Nayef “was discovered with serious torso injuries and died before emergency services arrived,” official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. PA officials said they were investigating the circumstances of his death.

Zayed, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) had been living in Bulgaria for the past 20 years. In 1986 he was convicted in the murder of yeshiva student Eliyahu Amedi — whom he stabbed to death in Jerusalem’s Old City — along with two other Palestinian assailants. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Four years after beginning his sentence, Zayed began a hunger strike and was moved to a Bethlehem hospital facility, from which he managed to escape. He fled to Bulgaria in 1994 and married a local woman with whom he had three children.

In December of 2015, Israel submitted a request to Bulgarian authorities to extradite him. Late last year Bulgarian authorities agreed to examine the Israeli request but a December 14 hearing was postponed because Nayef was not at his address, the Bulgarian interior ministry said.

He had fled to the Palestinian Embassy to seek sanctuary there, and had been staying there ever since.

Israel Radio quoted “a security source” as saying that “Israel has no interest in striking at an elderly terrorist, especially if it involves danger or committing resources.”

YNet adds:

According to Palestinian sources, after receiving Israel's extradition request for Zayed, Bulgarian authorities sought to arrest him for 72 hours in order to deliberate on the request, but he escaped to the embassy before they could get to him.

Bulgarian authorities then set Zayed an ultimatum to force him out of the embassy, but he refused. Meanwhile, Israel was holding a quiet dialogue with Sofia in an effort to bring the affair to an end.

Palestinian Ambassador to Bulgaria Ahmad Madbough set Zayed an ultimatum of his own, giving him 24 hours to turn himself in to Bulgarian authorities - to no avail.

Bulgarian news websites reported that at 7:35am Friday, emergency services received a call to the embassy for a man seeking urgent medical treatment after a "violent incident." Zayed, who was found at the embassy's outside garden with critical injuries to his upper body, was rushed to a local hospital in Sofia, where was declared dead.

The Palestinian deputy foreign minister, Tayseer Jaradat, said Zayed was not killed from the shooting in his direction, while PFLP claimed he was shot in the head. One of the reports in Bulgarian media claimed Zayed was pushed to his death from the fourth floor of the building. The Palestinian ambassador granted access to investigators.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned "in the strongest terms this heinous crime," and instructed a commission of inquiry to go to Bulgaria to uncover the circumstances of what happened.

While Abbas avoided pointing the finger at Israel, PFLP and the head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club and former minister Issa Karaka, did blame Israel for Zayed's death.

It's safe to assume, however, that the Palestinian claim the Mossad is behind Zayed's death is baseless. Israel would not dare get entangled with an assassination after filing an official request for his extradition, and certainly not while Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov is in Israel on a work trip, during which he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.

Sources involved in the affair said "there is no connection to Israel." They claimed it was more likely that Zayed angered Palestinian or local authorities.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said in response: "Israel did ask for the extradition of Zayed, who is a fugitive, but we heard the news of his murder in the media."

It seems unlikely that the Mossad did this, which means he was either killed by a Palestinian in the embassy or he committed suicide.

Either way, this is awesome.

While he was holed up in the embassy, Palestinian organization Samidoun went all out to support the murderer. One of its leaders wrote an article in Electronic Intifada trying to argue that the murderer was a "political prisoner" and as such did not deserve to be incarcerated. After all, he only killed a Jew "settler" which isn't a crime according to them, but a heroic act.

There was a rally in front of the Bulgarian embassy in London calling for his release. Four people attended:

Another interesting tactic they used, that out side can learn from, was to project their demands on the side of the BBC building:

But in the end, the haters demanded "justice" for Zayed.

And that is exactly what they got.

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Sometimes, news bias is so stunning that even I can't believe it.

Patrick Martin at the Globe and Mail reports on this week's Canadian parliament vote that overwhelmingly rejected attempts to boycott Israel:

Parliament has voted by a wide margin to condemn the growing international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign being waged against Israel for what is alleged to be the Jewish state’s failure to accord equal rights to Arabs in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Even this paragraph is biased - no country in the world accords non-citizens equal rights, and Arab Israeli citizens do indeed have equal rights.

But Martin decides, within the article, to do a pseudo fact check on what supporters of Israel say about BDS. Surprise! He finds them all to be lies!

Is the BDS movement anti-Semitic?

Jason Kenney, a former Conservative cabinet minister, insisted “the BDS movement represents a new wave of anti-Semitism, the most pernicious form of hatred in the history of humanity.”

Some BDS supporters, no doubt, are anti-Semitic, but most people and organizations have signed up in response to the movement’s goals stated in its 2005 manifesto, in which it calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel “until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.”

Specifically, the non-violent punitive measures are to be maintained until Israel ends “its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and [dismantles] the Wall” (a reference to the security barrier erected to cut off Palestinian communities from Israel); recognizes “the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality,” and protects “the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”

These goals are not dissimilar from Canada’s official positions on Israeli occupation, settlements and human rights, and are not, on the face of it, what most people would consider anti-Semitic.

So since the official BDS manifesto doesn't mention Jews, it cannot be considered antisemitic? The entire attraction to BDS is because it singles out the Jewish state way out of proportion to what every other nation does!

And Canada's official position does not call for the flooding of Israel with millions of fake refugees as the BDS movement interprets the (non-binding) UN resolution 194.

Does the BDS movement seek to destroy the State of Israel?

Mr. Kenney argued in the House that the new anti-Semitism “often takes the form of a kind of ideological fusion between movements of the extreme left and Islamist movements that seek, together, to obliterate the Jewish democratic State of Israel.”

The BDS movement is supported by many people, including Jews and Israelis who want to see Israeli policies toward Palestinians change and do not want to see the destruction of Israel.

Those who are legitimately concerned about the potential impact on Israel point to the BDS movement’s call for protecting the rights of Palestinian refugees under UN Resolution 194 to return to the homes and properties they left in 1948 in what is now Israel. The concern is that if all these refugees and their descendants (numbering in the millions) were to return, they would overrun the Jewish state, and Israel would cease to exist as we know it. Fair enough.

However, these rights have been understood in formal and informal negotiations between Israel and Palestinians to be ones that would be implemented only gradually and offered alongside alternative compensation, such as settling in the new Palestinian state or in a third country such as Canada.

Everyone in the Arab world as well as most supporters of BDS know very well that they regard UN 194 as a means to destroy Israel. That is the entire reason that the Arab world does not allow Palestinians to become naturalized citizens in their own states, unlike other Arabs. This has been Arab League policy since the 1950s, formalized in Arab League directive #1547 from 1959. BDS leaders know not to publicize that in order to gain wide acceptance, but they admit themselves that the goal is Israel's destruction - over and over again.

The important thing to note about the reference to UN Resolution 194 is that this resolution calls for “negotiations” with Israel over the terms by which the Palestinian rights to return would be implemented. The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative also refers to Resolution 194, even as it offers full recognition of Israel.

But is that what BDS leaders want? No. They explicitly say they want a one-state solution where Jews are the minority and lose their rights to self-determination, and Martin knows this.

“BDS is a non-violent human-rights movement that seeks to end Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid,” said Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian human-rights advocate and co-founder of the BDS movement, stressing the limits of the movement.

"Zionism is intent on killing itself. I, for one, support euthanasia." - Omar Barghouti

"Definitely, most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine." - Omar Barghouti

Yes - Martin quotes the very person whose published words contradict what Martin asserts about the BDS movement. How much more biased can you get?

Is it unfair to single out Israel?

This was another popular refrain in Parliament – that the BDS movement’s singling out Israel from among all nations is proof of its anti-Semitic nature.

Yes, the BDS campaign singles out Israel, quite naturally. It was started by a group of Palestinians, including Mr. Barghouti, to elicit help in dealing with Palestinians’ biggest problems. It was not intended to solve all the problems of the world. Just as the worldwide campaign against apartheid in South Africa did not address the ills of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, or the dictatorship in Somalia, this BDS movement is uniquely tailored to safeguarding Palestinian rights.

"Uniquely tailored"? This is an advertisement for BDS, not an objective look.

Martin also apparently makes up facts. He points out:

In 2014, foreign direct investment in Israel dropped 46 per cent from the previous year, in part, a United Nations report said, because of BDS efforts.

The UN report does not say a word about BDS, or indeed about any reasons for the decline. An Israeli economist interviewed by YNet said this as conjecture, pointing out other far more important factors. Martin even twists the basic facts in order to support his love for demonizing Israel.

See also Honest Reporting Canada's thorough fisking of this piece.

(h/t Roseanne)

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EoZTV Live 2/25

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02/25 Links Pt2: Bibi: terrorists would destroy Jerusalem’s holy places; The shame of UK students

From Ian:

Netanyahu to Cameron: If not for Israel, terrorists would destroy Jerusalem’s holy places

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waded into an escalating row with Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday, accusing him of “forgetting” that only Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem is keeping Islamic extremism at bay and safeguarding the city’s holy places from destruction by terrorists.
Cameron, long a firm public supporter of Israel, on Wednesday castigated Israel in remarks in the House of Commons for its “shocking” construction of Jewish homes in and around contested East Jerusalem, at the expense of the Palestinians.
Netanyahu, hitting back, said Cameron had evidently forgotten that “only Israeli sovereignty prevents Islamic States and Hamas from setting aflame the holy places in the city, as they are doing across the Middle East.”
Furthermore, Netanyahu added, “only Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem ensures the rule of law for Arab residents and for all.”
Netanyahu made his comments at a parlor meeting with a local council chief, rather than in an official statement, but ensured that they were recorded on camera, Israel’s Channel 2 reported. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had refused to respond to Cameron’s remarks throughout Thursday, because of the British prime minister’s long record of friendship with Israel, and because he had been answering a “provocative” question raised by a Muslim member of Parliament, the Israeli TV report said.

David Collier: Israeli Apartheid week: The shame of UK students

During these weeks across the UK, universities are holding ‘Israeli apartheid week’. I have sat and viewed with revulsion as images have emerged of students on campus being fed raw radical Islamic propaganda. It has turned into a show, with each of the universities trying to outdo each other. This year Cambridge received praise for placing a military checkpoint in the centre of the Sidgwick lecture site at the University. Did I just call it raw Islamic propaganda? Yes, I did, but more on that later.
Just last night (24th Feb) I was at SOAS to hear yet another incessant and libellous attack against Israel. The usual tales were told, replete with examples of how Israel is randomly shooting at people in the street. The evening started with the host boasting about being able to recognise Zionists in the crowd and deliberately not letting them have the microphone when questions are tabled. They actually took photos at one event on Monday of a person they identified as ‘Zionist’ who had his hand up constantly. What they did is take pictures of him and Photoshopped different things into his hand and shared it amongst themselves. What type of university believes this is acceptable? SOAS does, we know Kings does too. In Oxford we have seen claims of rabid antisemitism. In Cambridge they simply want to intimidate the Jewish presence into submission first. In Westminster and others across the land, I’ve spoken to Jews, Zionists and Israelis who hide their identity whilst in University. This is the ‘safe space’ that has been created on UK campuses in 2016; safe to intimidate, safe to scare, safe to shout down, safe to silence, safe to lie and safe to hate.

Likud MK: Revoke BDS founder's permit to live in Israel

Omar Barghouti, the founder of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, should no longer be permitted to reside in Israel, MK Nava Boker (Likud) wrote in a letter to Interior Minister Arye Deri Thursday.
“Barghouti spends most of his time lecturing around the world and calling to isolate Israel and boycott it,” Boker wrote. “I ask you to use your authority to revoke Mr. Barghouti’s permanent residence status.”
The Interior Ministry has, in recent months, revoked citizenship and permanent residence status from non-citizens who helped terrorists attack.
Barghouti, was born in Qatar, grew up in Egypt and married an Israeli Arab woman, gaining permanent residence status, studying at Tel Aviv University, and living in Jaffa and Acre, according to media reports.
He founded the BDS movement in 2005 and supports the end of the State of Israel and the creation of one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in which Palestinians from all over the world will have the right to live, and Jews will be a small minority. Barghouti often compares Israel to apartheid South Africa and the Nazis, and has refused to cooperate with Israelis who are sympathetic to his cause. In fact, he has accused Palestinians who engaged with Israelis of “moral blindness,” calling them “clinically delusional” in a 2005 article.

Mixed-sex bowling leagues - in Saudi Arabia!

I saw this photo and article in the Arab News (Saudi Arabia):

JEDDAH: As if its near-perfect grand slam feat last week was not enough Saudia Ice Cream became the first to repeat as Team of the Week during the 6th session in the FTBJ-ICBL 36th Conference bowling tournament at the Bowling City here.

A mixed-sex bowling league in Jeddah? And the women not wearing headcoverings? What is going on?

It turns out that this minor story points to a way to show how even the most repressive Arab governments can be pressured to bend their own rules when it is in their self-interest.

FTBJ stands for the Filipino Tenpin Bowlers of Jeddah. All the people in that league are Filipino. Filipinos love bowling.

And Saudi Arabia is heavily dependent on Filipino labor.

There are as many as 1.8 million Filipinos living and working in Saudi Arabia. They needed an infrastructure and the Phillipines government pressured Saudi Arabia into allowing them to have their own schools and social organizations.

Suddenly, the problems of uncovered women are not as important.

Knowing that, what would Saudi Arabia do if a female diplomat refuses to cover her hair? While there is an element of respect involved, that should be a decision made freely by the diplomat, not under coercion. And it is past time that people stop worrying about offending their Arab hosts. (In many cases the female diplomats indeed do not cover their hair.)

The Saudis might demand respect, but when they need the services of others they understand quite well.

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Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Recently, Palestinian human rights activist (really) Bassem Eid was threatened by anti-Israel demonstrators, and had to have a police escort out of a talk he gave at the University of Chicago. Caroline Glick noted this incident as more evidence that the goal of the supposedly pro-Palestinian movement is not to help Palestinians but rather to hurt Israel.

Eid was a researcher for B’Tselem, and founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHMRG). PHMRG has criticized Israel sharply on occasion. But it also attacks the PA and Hamas for human rights abuses of Palestinians, such as murder and torture of prisoners, executions of ‘collaborators’, suppression of journalists, and so forth.

Glick also mentioned that Eid was challenged by ‘Emily’, a Jewish member of J Street (probably the tamest of the Jewish anti-Israel organizations), who thought his message should have been about “occupation and settlements.”

None of this is new or surprising. But it made me ask this question: why are there so few Bassem Eids in the world and so many Emilys, especially in America?

One reason there aren’t more Eids is the very behavior of the Palestinian leadership that he opposes. In areas under the control of the PA or Hamas, dissidents to the official line are afraid for their lives and those of their families. Even in Arab towns inside the Green line, the influence of radicals makes it dangerous to speak out.

But in the US and other places where it is relatively safe, it is a rare – not unheard of, but rare – Palestinian, Arab or other Muslim who will admit that Israel bears anything less than full responsibility for the conflict. While I am convinced that they base their opinions on false history, made up facts and deliberate blindness, I admire their solidarity.

And I wonder what is wrong with so many Jews, who could cite true history and real facts to support a pro-Israel position if they wish, but who prefer to spit in the face of their own people.

They will tell you that it is because they are on the side of justice. But how did they decide where justice lies? The Arab narrative is not the only one that they are exposed to. The Jewish/Israeli one is accessible to them as well. They had to make a choice, and they chose to believe the Arab story and to align themselves with the Arab side, despite the fact that their liberal sensitivities ought to be outraged by the corruption, racism, sexism, homophobia and brutality that characterizes the Palestinian Arab culture.

In a recent essay, Richard Landes proposes a surprising answer. The motivator is shame.

Landes makes an analogy between the shame that makes an Arab father murder his own daughter in order to clear a stain on the family honor, and the shame felt by a progressive Jew when his family member, Israel, is believed by his community – the “global progressive Left” – to have sinned against progressive values:

The feelings stem not because of what Israel has (often enough not) done, and certainly not in comparison with the behavior of our neighbors, but because of “how it looks” to outsiders. Shame comes from looking bad – awful – in the eyes of people whose opinion matters. When it comes to the emotion, it matters little what actually happened. In the most toxic of honor-shame communities, men kill their daughters and sisters not because they did something shameful, but because others think it, true or not.

And the source of “how it looks” is what  he calls the “ferociously negative depiction of Israel in the global public sphere” today, the well-documented tendency of the media to distort news of the conflict to portray Israel as the villain in every incident, and in many cases, as being motivated by racism and hatred for innocent Palestinians.

But Landes doesn’t explain how it came about that progressive American Jews, the very antitheses of the honor killers of the Mideast, exhibit honor-shame behavior. In other words, why do they care so much about how they look to others in this respect? To understand this, we must consider the history of the European Jews that are the ancestors of most of those paradigms of modernity.

Those Jews lived in communities where they were at the mercy of the gentile rulers and majority populations. They faced periodic pogroms, expulsions and expropriations of their property. Those that didn’t try to assimilate – a choice that wasn’t even available in most cases until the 19^th Century – learned to get along, to appease, to buy off, to flatter. What they didn’t do was directly confront Jew-haters, because that would most likely have gotten them killed.

This  situation was recognized as both unsustainable and dishonorable by Herzl and other early Zionists. But the non-Zionists and anti-Zionists chose to continue the policy of appeasement. From the beginning of the Zionist movement, a sharp line was drawn between the fighters – the Zionists – and the appeasers.

These are the folks that supported Roosevelt’s policy of inaction during the Holocaust, and vilified the Zionists of the Bergson Group who tried to change that policy. And their grandchildren created J Street, which supports Barack Obama’s policy of forcing Israel into indefensible borders and preventing her from actively defending herself.

At the same time, these Jews grew up in America and have absorbed the American ethos of self-reliance and self-defense.

To this type of Jew, nothing is more embarrassing than the Jew that fights back, because they are still afraid that assertive behavior endangers the Jewish community, while at the same time they are ashamed of themselves for not  fighting back.

This is the source of the shame that drives the irrational and highly emotional hatred of Israel – the Israeli being the paradigm case of ‘the Jew that fights back’ – that characterizes the progressive Jews active in J Street, Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine.

If this is correct, then there isn’t much that Zionists can say to these shame-obsessed Jews. We are not only supporters of the country they are ashamed of, but ourselves objects of shame. No wonder they are so angry at us!

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02/25 Links Pt1: Jerusalem Mayor: E.Jerusalem better off now than under UK; Hamas: tunnels are defensive

From Ian:

Barkat slams Cameron: East Jerusalem better off now than under UK

Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat on Thursday slammed comments by British Prime Minister David Cameron in which he criticized conditions in East Jerusalem, questioning Cameron’s knowledge of the region and pointing a finger at the UK for its policies during the pre-state British Mandate.
On Wednesday, Cameron told Britain’s Parliament that Israeli construction in East Jerusalem was “genuinely shocking,” even as he insisted that he was a “great friend of Israel” and defined Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“I am well known for being a strong friend of Israel, but I have to say the first time I visited Jerusalem and had a proper tour around that wonderful city and saw what had happened with the effective encirclement of East Jerusalem, occupied East Jerusalem, it is genuinely shocking,” Cameron said during a weekly question-and-answer session.
Barkat said Cameron’s statements were “incorrect, based on a lack of awareness of facts and the reality on the ground,” in a statement released by the Jerusalem municipality.
The mayor rhetorically asked what it was that specifically shocked Cameron, highlighting investment in schools, infrastructure and community centers in East Jerusalem.

New video shows off-duty soldier’s fatal fight with Palestinian terrorists

A video released Wednesday evening documents the moments in which an Israeli off-duty soldier was stabbed to death last week while shopping in a supermarket near his West Bank home.
Security camera footage broadcast by Channel 2 News shows the attack in which 21-year-old Tuvia Yanai Weissman was fatally injured last Thursday in the Sha’ar Binyamin Industrial Zone, southeast of Ramallah.
In the video, Weissman can be seen running toward two Palestinian attackers who were stabbing another victim. As he sprints out of a shopping aisle, one of the terrorists surprises him from the side and stabs him in the neck.
The two wrestle for a few moments before Weissman falls behind a shopping trolley. An armed shopper then shoots the attacker, who also falls to the floor.
Weissman was unarmed. On a week’s leave from the IDF, he had asked to take his gun home with him, but was refused. Since his killing, the IDF has reversed that regulation, and ordered soldiers to take their guns with them when they head home from their bases for leave.

Netanyahu: World must condemn Iran for paying terrorists’ families

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday urged the world to condemn Iran for providing financial support to the families of Palestinian terrorists.
The prime minister also called on the international community to denounce Palestinian incitement, which he said is the “number one cause of terrorism.”
“Our fight against terrorism, which comes with the assistance and agitation of states and regimes, does not exist in a vacuum. Yesterday Iran announced that it will finance the families of the terrorists and murderers; this shows that Iran, even after the nuclear agreement, is continuing to aid terrorism, including Palestinian terrorism, Hezbollah terrorism and its assistance to Hamas,” Netanyahu said.
“This is something that the nations of the world must confront and condemn and assist Israel – and other countries, of course – in repelling,” he added.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fateh Ali, said Wednesday that Tehran would give $7,000 to the families of each Palestinian terrorist killed while attacking Israelis. Iran will also give $30,000 to Palestinian families whose homes have been destroyed by Israel because a family member carried out a terror attack, he told a news conference in Beirut.

Last week, Israeli police briefly detained Washington Post journalist William Booth - and the journalist community went nuts with articles about how Israel had no respect for freedom of the press, with the New York Times even comparing it to Iran's arrest and imprisonment of a reporter for 18 months.

Here's what Reuters reporter Luke Baker tweeted about it (among other tweets):

Now released, but the brief detention and questioning still seems wholly unacceptable https://t.co/16tYWcl8Ba
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 16, 2016

Today, Hamas detained Baker himself. Instead of saying that it was "wholly unacceptable," though, Baker seemed to enjoy the experience:

Briefly taken in for polite questions by Hamas security forces in #Gaza today. Interesting placard on the wall pic.twitter.com/Ducf05b5Mt
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 25, 2016

On questioning in #Gaza -- I was not reporting. Was called to one side while walking on the street and taken into a small headquarters 1/3
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 25, 2016

I was not escorted by anyone with guns. A major from the security services introduced himself by name and asked me a series of questions 2/3
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 25, 2016

I was never accused of anything. Was given coffee and then tea. All questions about what I was doing in Gaza and what I do for work, etc
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 25, 2016

Excuse me. Hamas could have given Baker a full day at a spa it wouldn't matter - a government detaining a journalist for no reason is a form of intimidation. Unless Baker could have freely refused to be questioned, he was being given a message that his actions in Gaza were being watched and that he should be careful not to upset the authorities.

In this case, there is no danger that Baker would ever say anything that would upset his Hamas buddies, and both Hamas and Baker know it. So he enjoyed his tea and chatted freely.

And no reporter's rights organization will say anything about this. If Baker didn't mind being given a clear message from Hamas to toe the line, why should anyone else?

Yes, Baker has double standards. In this case, it is clear that Baker sympathizes more with Hamas authorities who torture and murder people who they disagree with than he does with Israel which had a real reason to detain a reporter.

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List of things that shock David Cameron: Terrorism, air crashes, Jews building houses

Here is a brief list of things that British PM David Cameron has been shocked about over the past couple of years:

1. Malaysian air disaster, 239 killed
2. Peshawar school massacre, 141 killed
3. Nepal earthquake, 9000 killed
4. Tunisia terror attacks, 38 killed (31 British)
5. Paris terror attacks, 130 killed
6. Jews building houses in their historic capital.

Actually, his words about Jews building houses were even stronger than those of the other events, because that was the only one he termed "genuinely shocking."

Do you get the impression that world leaders, including those who call themselves Israel's friends, have a fairly twisted sense of priorities?

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We have noted the writings of Abdulateef Al-Mulhim in Arab News before, where he says things that are actually sane.

He has written another article about how Israel is being reported on in Arab media which is worth reading:

Does anyone in the Arab world know what is happening in Israel? Do we know what weapons systems their defense forces are acquiring or developing? Do we know who is who in the Israeli policymaking circles?

The answer to the above questions is: We don’t know. Yes, we really don’t because at present, we don’t see or hear much about Israel in the Arab media. Israel has almost disappeared from headlines and many people no longer consider Israel as a threat. This is a reality that we have to learn to live with.

The day the so-called Arab Spring erupted, Israel became invisible in the Arab media. Arabs are too preoccupied with so many issues plaguing their own lands. Today, we don’t read much about Israel in the newspapers or see any reports about the Middle Eastern country in the electronic media. This is not a case of sudden disappearance. From referring to Israel as the Zionist enemy, the Arab media changed the tone by calling it the Israeli enemy, then we became aware of the term “hostile Israel” and then it was referred to as state of Israel and now Israel has simply vanished from the Arab media. It appears to be no longer on our radar.

It is true that the Arab world has its hands full with other issues but there could be another reason for that. Simply put, some of the Arab leaders used the Palestinian issue just to portray themselves as heroes. Ironically, Israel is the one that invented many fake heroes and dictators in the Arab world. Just look at Lebanon’s Hassan Nasrallah who hijacked and destroyed Lebanon initially using anti-Israel propaganda. Similarly, we have seen Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syria’s Hafez Assad and many others who became instant heroes because they showed hostility toward Israel. They also (mis)used the Palestinian misery and in due process they simply forgot to build their countries and neglected improving the living standards of their people.

Now the Arab media is drawing comparisons between the devastation caused during wars with Israel and the current regional scenario particularly the events taking place in Syria — a country whose own people are bent on its destruction. People are asking as to why during full-scale wars with Israel, we never saw destruction of archeological, historical or religious sites. In the past, we talked about Palestinian refugees, now we are dealing with a new wave of refugees emanating from Syria and other parts of the region. The Arab media now has no time or space to talk about Israel and to raise the issue of Palestine or Palestinians.

Instead of reading about Israel, Arabs want to discuss ways to promote better education, improved health-care facilities, social equality and better infrastructure.

At the end of the day, no matter what we write about Israel, the Israelis don’t care. They know we are busy.

I think he is understating the case - I don't believe that the lack of coverage is due solely to being busy with other topics, but because the Arab world is really sick and tired of the Palestinian issue which has been shown to be trivial compared to the real issues happening.

There is a reason that the Arab world routinely pledges hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinian causes and then pays only a fraction of that money. (I've documented this phenomenon since at least 2008.) The leaders, still fearing a popular backlash, want to appear to care about the Palestinian cause but they don't want to actually put their money where their mouths are.

Things are definitely changing. Antisemitism will never allow full normalization with Israel, but it is entirely possible that the Arab states can be used to pressure Palestinians to be serious about concessions for peace.

Too bad that the West has not caught up with this reality.

(h/t Arnold)

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Artists tell Oscar nominees to #TaketheTrip to Israel

Today, the LA Times published a full page ad by Jewish Voice for Peace and another anti-Israel group urging Hollywood stars to not accept the free $55,000 trip to Israel that was being offered as part of an (unofficial) Oscar nominee "swag bag," claiming that Israel is an "apartheid state." It uses the hashtag "#SkiptheTrip.

Creative Community for Peace issued their own response:

The two messages cannot be clearer. The JVP wants the stars to get all of their opinions on Israel from people whose lives are consumed with hate for the Jewish state, while the real artists from CCFP treat Hollywood stars like adults who can make up their own minds and not slavishly believe what the haters say.

The bags are being offered to the nominees for best actor/actress, best supporting actor/actress, best director plus host Chris Rock.

Feel free to tweet this post/poster to the nominees. A directed campaign on Twitter and Facebook would get to the same stars, for a lot less money!

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.