Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Jewish Voice for Peace call firebomb kites "popular protests for freedom"

Jewish Voice for Peace is placing this ad in The Nation, shown here in context (h/t Yisrael Medad):

Yes, JVP is calling the kites with firebombs, which have destroyed hundreds of acres of forest and farmland, "popular protests for freedom."

When Israel haters use the words "peace," "justice," "dignity" and "equality" they really mean terror, hate, incitement and war - against Israel.

"Jewish Voice for Peace" is not Jewish and doesn't want peace.

1984 is today, and most people are too clueless to realize it.

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Two PFLP terrorists apparently blew themselves up this morning as they were attempting to attack Israel, according to the terror group.

"The two martyrs are Ayman Nafez al-Najjar, 24, and Muhannad Majid Hamouda, 24, who arrived at the Indonesian hospital in scattered pieces," said Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza.

I do not recall the words "scattered pieces" being used before by the Gaza Health Ministry. It is almost poetic.

The PFLP said they were on a "combat mission" when they were "martyred."

It is a shame that the PFLP cannot afford to stage the "martyr photos" where their members pose in uniform with submachine guns in the case of their eventual deaths.

Unlike Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the PFLP is not an Islamist group but a secular, socialist group. Desire for "martyrdom" is universal among all Gaza terror groups, though, in the pursuit of killing Jews.

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07/28 Links: Israel Helps the West with Its Security Needs; When will the West Allow Israel to Defend Itself?; The ‘New Anti-Semitism’ in France: ‘They Spit When I Walked in the Street’

From Ian:

Israel Helps the West with Its Security Needs; When will the West Allow Israel to Defend Itself?

At the beginning of the month it was reported that an Iranian-backed terror plot in Paris had been broken up and several people, including an Iranian diplomat, had been arrested. Last week, the Israeli media reported that indeed, the Mossad, Israel’s external security agency, had provided security officials in Germany, France, and Belgium the crucial intelligence those countries needed to thwart the attack and arrest its suspected perpetrators.

The reports in the Israeli media are consistent with a claim that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made in January of this year in a meeting with NATO ambassadors, that Israeli intelligence helped foil dozens of major terror attacks across Europe.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that last week, Europol, Europe’s police agency, signed a cooperation agreement with Israel, its first with a non-European state, to fight crime and terrorism.

In these three examples, all occurring within the past month or two, Israel has demonstrated its indispensability to the security of the West.

Israel’s military and intelligence capabilities are especially valuable as it is a Western outpost in the Middle East. And those capabilities have been honed by being targeted by terrorism on its borders, as well as by Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. Being a small country in a hostile region has made improving its military and intelligence capabilities a necessity for survival.

That Israel can use these capabilities to help its Western allies fight threats to their citizens makes Israel an essential ally. It was nice to see so many of those allies acknowledge this much after the rescue of the White Helmets.

One can only hope that this appreciation of Israel’s capabilities into greater sympathy towards Israel when it identifies and defends itself against threats that don’t threaten others.

NYTs [$]: ‘They Spit When I Walked in the Street’: The ‘New Anti-Semitism’ in France

The solemn boulevards and quiet side streets of the 17th Arrondissement in Paris suggest Jewish life in France is vibrant: There is a new profusion of kosher groceries and restaurants, and about 15 synagogues, up from only a handful two decades ago.

But for residents like Joanna Galilli, this area in northwestern Paris represents a tactical retreat. It has become a haven for many Jews who say they have faced harassment in areas with growing Muslim populations. Ms. Galilli, 28, moved to the neighborhood this year from a Parisian suburb where “anti-Semitism is pretty high,” she said, “and you feel it enormously.”

“They spit when I walked in the street,” she said, describing reactions when she wore a Star of David.

France has a painful history of anti-Semitism, with its worst hours coming in the 1930s and during the German occupation in World War II. But in recent months, an impassioned debate has erupted over how to address what commentators are calling the “new anti-Semitism,” as Jewish groups and academic researchers trace a wave of anti-Semitic acts to France’s growing Muslim population.

Nearly 40 percent of violent acts classified as racially or religiously motivated were committed against Jews in 2017, though Jews make up less than 1 percent of France’s population. Anti-Semitic acts increased by 20 percent from 2016, a rise the Interior Ministry called “preoccupying.”

In 2011, the French government stopped categorizing those deemed responsible for anti-Semitic acts, making it more difficult to trace the origins. But before then, Muslims had been the largest group identified as perpetrators, according to research by a leading academic. Often the spikes in violence coincided with flare-ups in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, according to researchers. (h/t Zvi)

Busting Italy's myths about the Holocaust

Two coins in the fountain of the historical analysis of Italy's role in the Holocaust jostle for which one will be blessed. It remains controversial.

The familiar and prevalent view is a positive one of the "good", benevolent and generous Italians, who sheltered Jews in their country from the "bad" German Nazis.

This view is challenged in a brilliant and important, authoritative new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy, (Princeton University Press) written by Simon Levis Sullam, professor at the University of Venice. He regards the positive view as a myth and a misrepresentation of the reality.

He contrasts the increasing attention paid to the Italian Righteous, of whom Yad Vashem in Israel names 671, with the neglect of the story of Italian executioners of Jews which should be placed in the forefront of the narrative. His main aim is to direct attention to the role of Italians in the genocide of Jews in Italy.

Jews have had a long uneven history in Italy, with extended periods of persecution and discrimination. Simon Maccebeus sent an embasy to Rome in 139 B.C. to help the Romans in the fight against the Hellenistic kingdom. A Jewish contingent is said to have attended the funeral of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. However, with the rise of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, the position of Jews declined rapidly, especially during the papacies of Paul IV in 1554, Gregory XIII in 1577, and Urban VIII in 1625.

Jews were segregated and obliged to bear a yellow badge of identification. The Ghetto set up in 1556 was finally abolished only in 1870 after Napoleon's troops had opened it sixty years earlier.

Italy was the last Western European country to grant full civil rights to Jews. They became full citizens in 1861. Assimilated, they entered the professions and the military. In 1910 the Venetian Jew Luigi Luzzatti became prime minister. There were 50 Jewish generals in World War I, and a number of Jews were officials of the Fascist party.

French judge refuses to call "Allah akbar" murder of Jewish widow antisemitic

From TheJC:

On April 4, a 65-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman called Lucette Attal-Halimi and known by her Hebrew name, Sarah Halimi — a retired doctor and the head of a kindergarten — was attacked in the middle of the night at her home on Vaucouleurs Street, in Paris’ 11th arrondissement, apparently tortured to death and finally thrown out of a third-floor window.

At 4am, Kobili Traore, a 27-year-old of Malian Muslim descent living one floor below Sarah Halimi, went to the flat of an older relative, Diara Traore, on the third floor of the adjoining building on 30 Vaucouleurs Street.

Kobili’s behaviour was clearly problematic, since Diara Traore locked himself, his wife and children in one of the apartment’s rooms and called the police at 4.25am.

Three minutes later, a unit of the Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) — who happened to be patrolling the area — took up position in front of Diara’s door.

They heard Kobili Traore chanting Muslim prayers and Koranic verses. Unsure about the situation and the potential threats to the family, they asked for reinforcements. Additional policemen arrived quickly. However, for some unclear reason, the BAC unit still refrained from breaking in.

In the meantime, Kobili Traore put on new clothes and climbed out of the window to reach Sarah Halimi’s apartment, which was at the same level as Diara Traore’s.

He allegedly assaulted the Jewish woman and hit her mercilessly. From time to time he resumed Koranic recitation. Many neighbours, woken by the old woman’s screams or the assaulter’s religious chanting, called the police.

Some gave details about the exact location of the assault, the attacker’s identity, the fact he vilified his victim as a Jewish person and as “a Satan” while hitting her, or even — as far as the Muslim neighbours were concerned — the Koranic portions he chanted.

Yet the police still failed to storm Sarah Halimi’s apartment and rescue her. Eventually, Kobili Traore is claimed to have shouted that the woman was “mad and about to commit suicide”, and threw her out of the window.

He had time enough to climb back to Diara Traore’s apartment where he finally was arrested. His hands were covered in blood. There was blood everywhere in his victim’s apartment.

And now:

27-year-old Malian Muslim, Kobili Traore, has been charged with intentional homicide.

But this week a judge rejected a prosecution request to reclassify the case as a murder motivated by antisemitism, a crime that carries a heavier penalty.

The judge, Anne Ihuellou, also ruled Mr Traore's mental state meant he should be protected from the French Jewish community's "hostile" attitude towards him.

Yes, the murderer must be protected from the people he wants to murder. we need to 'understand" him, because he obviously was in a sort of mental state that means that he is the victim, not the woman he tortured, murdered and threw out the window.

Un-f-ing-believable.

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07/27 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Israel gets the nation-state right while the west fumbles with identity; The ADL Chooses Anti-Trump over Anti-Semitism

From Ian:

PM said to tell ministers of new ‘unprecedented’ diplomatic initiative in Gaza

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told senior cabinet ministers that a new initiative will soon be launched for a diplomatic solution in the Gaza Strip, Channel 10 news reported Friday.

Netanyahu reportedly said during private conversations that the efforts, led by Egypt and the United Nations and with Israel’s cooperation, have made significant progress.

A senior diplomatic official told the TV station: “Egypt and the UN are putting immense pressure on all sides. This is an unprecedented initiative, but it is still too early to say whether it will succeed. A lot is at stake.”

The plan was said to include rebuilding the enclave’s moribund civilian infrastructure, a return of the Palestinian Authority to the Strip and a long-term ceasefire.

A minister who is a member of the high-level security cabinet said Israel was willing to push a civil initiative in Gaza. “There is such an intention and hopefully Netanyahu will bring it before the cabinet for approval.”

Another senior minister told Channel 10 the ball was in the Palestinians’ court, and much depended on the Palestinian Authority’s willingness to reassert its responsibilities in Gaza and Hamas’s willingness to halt the violence.

“As long as that doesn’t happen there’s nothing to discuss. We want a solution in Gaza, but we won’t be pushovers.”

Melanie Phillips: Israel gets the nation-state right while the west fumbles with identity

Two utterly fundamental and seismic issues are threatening to tear apart Britain, Europe and America. They are mass immigration and national identity.

The majority of Jews in Britain and America are warmly disposed towards the former and terrified of the latter. They have got it precisely the wrong way round.

Diaspora Jews have a Pavlovian response to immigration. This is entirely understandable: the vast majority, myself included, are the descendants of immigrants and refugees.

Jews are also commanded in the Torah not to wrong or oppress a stranger “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” But what if the strangers in question want to turn your own country into Egypt?

For what’s happening today is not so much immigration as the mass movement of peoples from global south to north.

If unchecked, this will transform the developed world, overwhelm its public infrastructure, and forever alter the culture and identity of its constituent nations.

And there, of course, lies the neuralgic rub. For European and Western national identity, being historically white, is considered by the dominant liberal orthodoxy (which judges people by the color of their skin) to be intrinsically racist and thus illegitimate.

The dogma to be enforced instead is multiculturalism, or the equality in value of all cultures. If enacted, however, that would by definition destroy the Western nation. Which is the point of the exercise.

That’s why “open borders” is the core principle of the European Union. A nation without borders cannot survive as a nation. The driving idea of the E.U., though, is that the nation creates nationalism, and nationalism led to Nazism and the Holocaust. So the E.U. project is to create a trans-national superstate that would prevent nations ever going to war again because, in effect, there would be no independent nations in the first place.

I *can't believe* @AlJazeera — a network that threw a birthday party for a terrorist who smashed in the head of a 4-year-old Jewish girl — would be so rash as to publish this unhinged piece. Shocked. Shocked. pic.twitter.com/6Ap9ldnpz0
— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) July 27, 2018

Barry Shaw: Native Americans are being brainwashed by PA lies

Very recently, I was honored with a phone call from a native American tribal leader who was, perhaps surprisingly to many as it was to me, on a visit to Israel.

He told me of his passionate support for Israel. He rightly saw the Jews as the indigenous people of the land, something that appealed to his own tribal history. He also saw our modern history, including the return of the Jewish people to their land, as a confirmation of his biblical teachings.

He shocked me by what he told me next. The Palestinians have been conducting a well-orchestrated propaganda campaign to reach the hearts and minds of this ignored American community. My new contact informed me that much of the funding and organization of this anti-Israel jihad is based in Turkey. Sections of Hamas operates from there after becoming severely restricted in Gaza.

The campaign is based on strategic disinformation. Native Americans are reminded of a history of being indigenous natives of America who have had their land occupied by white colonial supremacists and about suffering centuries of oppression, which parallels the so-called history of the Palestinian people who have also been robbed of their land and suppressed by colonial white oppressors.

This simple message is having an effect, particularly as native Americans (and to a large extent, native Canadians) have been ignored by the Israeli government as if they do not exist. The battleground of thoughts, ideas, history, and facts have been left deserted, vacant for the false narratives of our adversaries ot take effect. This has to stop.

Most popular EoZ posts of the week

1. Tunisian Muslims barbeque in Jewish cemetery (photos)

2. Balloon terrorists mistranslate message to Jews: "Get out of our land before we do"

3. Newest libel: "Israelis chasing poor old Palestinian woman"

4. Should We Carpet Bomb Gaza?

5. The 1934 Turkish pogrom against Jews

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07/27 Links Pt1: Palestinian Authority TV Lauds President Abbas' Holocaust Denial PhD Thesis; UNRWA Complains About Funding While Training Children to Wage War

From Ian:

MEMRI: Palestinian Authority TV Lauds President Abbas' Holocaust Denial PhD Thesis, Terror Attacks Launched From Lebanon

The official Palestinian Authority TV channel broadcast a bio-documentary on President Mahmoud Abbas. The show presented his Ph.D. dissertation from the Russian Institute of Oriental Studies, claiming that he had "exposed the relations between the global Zionist organization and the Nazi regime." In a book, published on the basis of the dissertation, Abbas claimed that the number of victims in the Holocaust was less than one million. The PA TV program included an interview with Dr. Khadr Al-Zufairi, a personal friend of Abbas, who praised his oratory skills and said that Abbas had presented 93 documents to prove his claims. Later in the show, the channel lauded Dalal Al-Mughrabi, who led the 1978 Coastal Road terrorist attack in Israel, and other terrorists who launched "heroic operations" from Lebanon, saying that they "embodied the epitome of martyrdom in occupied Palestine." The program aired on July 20, 2018.

"When [Mahmoud Abbas] Headed The Palestinian-Soviet Friendship Foundation, He Was Working On A Ph.D. Dissertation, Which He Later Published As An Important Book, Titled: The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism And Zionism"

Narrator: "When [Mahmoud Abbas] headed the Palestinian-Soviet Friendship Foundation, he was working on a Ph.D. dissertation, which he later published as an important book, titled: The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and Zionism. In the book, Abbas presented documents exposing the relations between the global Zionist organization and the Nazi regime, and the agreements between the Zionists and the Nazis, especially the Haavara Agreement. The Hebrew word ['Haavara'] means 'transfer.'"

Khadr Al-Zufairi: "The dissertation committee consisted of 27 professors. There was an unexpectedly large attendance. People were asking one another: How come so many people have come? That dissertation was unusual – even its title was unusual for the Russians. Anyway, the custom is that when a student defends his dissertation, he is allowed to write three or four pages of notes to read from. Abbas had only one page, with the main points, and he started speaking. The translator was from the Institute of Oriental Studies. He was fluent in both Arabic and Russian. He lectured, defending his dissertation, improvising as he spoke... Abbas is a very eloquent and capable speaker. He defended his dissertation.

"Then the head of the committee of the Institute of Oriental Studies asked him: 'Do you have any documents that prove what you are saying?' [Abbas] picked up the documents next to him and said: 'I have 93 documents to prove what I'm saying.' He read out an abstract of the first document, then the next, and so on. He even had documents that he had managed to get from Israel. Anyway, he finished with distinction, and the Institute of Oriental Studies asked to print the dissertation as a book in Russian."

UNRWA Complains About Funding While Training Children to Wage War

Over the past month, reports have circulated that members of the US House of Representatives’ Middle East Subcommittee have raised concerns that humanitarian aid is not reaching the Palestinian population, especially in Gaza.

In response, the Center for Near East Policy Research (CFNEPR) contacted 44 donor nations that contribute humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population in Gaza through UNRWA in order to determine if any had cut back on their donations. With the exception of the US, which has cut back on 20% of its donations, every single donor nation responded emphatically that they are not cutting one penny in aid to UNRWA.

Therefore, UNRWA currently has $1.2 billion to spend on the people supposed to benefit from its health, education, and welfare programs in Gaza, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.

Despite this, UNRWA proclaims to the media that it is bereft of resources to provide basic services. The organization’s media adviser Adnan Abu Hasna declared that UNRWA lacks basic food products and the people of Gaza “have nothing to lose,” adding “we don’t know yet whether school will open in the coming year. … We’re talking about 300,000 students who need to go to school.”

So why does UNRWA claim that it does not have funds for humanitarian needs?

The answer may lie with Hamas, the terror group that has controlled the UNRWA workers and teachers associations in Gaza since 1999.

It was our turn in Adam

When the gunshots rang out we didn't panic, but for the wrong reasons. Every evening the sounds of gunfire bursts and firecracker explosions from the nearby Arab villages pierce the air. These villages are trapped between Jerusalem's municipal territory and the separation fence, and no one enforces the law in them. Thus, on Thursday evening when a few friends and I were mingling in the plaza outside the local synagogue, we didn't imagine that a tragedy had befallen the community of Adam.

The person I was talking to in that moment had lost his daughter just three weeks ago due to a rare amniotic fluid embolism. The daughter died, the baby granddaughter was saved, and the entire community, thousands of people, came to mourn and grieve with him. No one was thinking of terror or anything related. Around five minutes later, when a security vehicle sped past us, we understood something had happened. Even then, and perhaps it will sound strange, I assumed it was a criminal incident.

I ran home to the kids. One wasn't home but we soon learned he was with neighbors. We locked the doors and waited for things to unfold. My phone soon began vibrating with rapidly incoming reports and updates. A long hour later, we still couldn't get any information about who had been hurt.

The minutes passed and slowly the mind shifted to the realization that we too, in Adam, had come under a terrorist infiltration attack. For years we had been very worried about it. The community guard group had run hundreds of drills to defend against such an attack; they were rushed to the fence dozens of times due to infiltrations, which later emerged as criminal incidents or just a stray animal. This time it was real.

Jordan's Minister for Information Affairs spokesperson Jumana Ghneimat condemned "the continued tampering and illegal Israeli excavations in the Al-Buraq Wall area west of Al-Aqsa Mosque," meaning the Western Wall.

In a press statement published by the Jordanian news agency Petra on Thursday, Ghoneim expressed the kingdom's absolute rejection of the Israeli authorities' removal of the stone that fell this week from the wall.

"These grave and irresponsible Israeli actions constitute a flagrant violation of international law, in particular the provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Hague Regulations of 1907 on Land War, the Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954 and the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing Illegal Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property of 1970, Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972, UNESCO Recommendations and Decisions on the Protection of Cultural Heritage and those relating to Jerusalem. These actions also violate the feelings of Muslims and their sanctities," she said.

She stressed the need for the international community to act and to shoulder its responsibilities in pressuring Israel to stop its violations against the holy sites in Jerusalem.

If examining an ancient stone violates all those conventions, then then indiscriminate digging that occurs on the Temple Mount all the time, including the destruction of literally tons of priceless artifacts and historical objects, certainly violates those conventions and more.

Has Israel ever formally complained to the UN or UNESCO about the illegal digs on the Temple Mount by the Waqf?

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From The Jordan Times:

Activists on Tuesday organised a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Tourism to denounce “promoting normalisation of tourism with the Israelis”, demanding to sever ties with Israel at all levels.

“This sit-in is to condemn the Ministry of Tourism’s latest decisions to promote Israeli tourism to Jordan… we demand cutting the ties with the occupation forces completely at all levels,” said Mohammad Absi, head of the Etharrak anti-normalisation campaign.

“All the agreements for Zionists to enter Aqaba, Wadi Rum and Petra are to provoke the Jordanian people and to pressure them into gradually accepting the enemy,” Absi stated at the protest.

Despite several attempts by The Jordan Times, officials at the Ministry of Tourism were not available for comment.

Member of the Arab National Youth bloc Ahmad Ramahi said the protest is part of a series of events to denounce the normalisation of ties with Israel. “There is also the Israeli vegetable produce entering Jordan, which is not only unethical, but also negatively impacts the Jordanian farmers’ income,” he said.

“All these agreements attempt to change the people’s perspective on the Palestinian cause, whether by entering Palestine through an Israeli visa or an Israeli passport. Jordanians have sacrificed their lives for Palestine. Jordanian and Palestinian blood [is]united over one humanitarian cause over the years; these decisions will turn blood into water,” claimed Rakan Hiasat, member of Etharrak and the anti-Zionism and racism movement.

Remember, when they talk about "Israelis," they mean only Jews. Because Israeli Arabs are welcome in Jordan as "Palestinians."

So the apparent error referring to the "anti-Zionism and racism movement" is pretty accurate - anti-Zionism is racism (well, bigotry, but if they define Israel as racist, then antisemitism is racism too under their own definition.)

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Palestinian teen murderer praised as hero

The 17 year old who stabbed Yotam Ovadia to death yesterday and injured two others, is being hailed as a hero and a martyr in Palestinian media and social media.

Palestine Today and other outlets are praising his last post on Facebook, written an hour before the murder, where he complained that Palestinians were being silent in the face of Israeli crimes in Gaza and against Al Aqsa. "Remember that the children in Gaza suffer the most suffering ...Praise the heroes, and for those who betrayed their homeland and sold their land, let them fall, cowards, with the blood of your martyrs...The time has come for your consciousness. The time has come for the Great Revolution. By your blood, honorable ones, to bring back the Muslims of Gaza, a rush to keep away the oppression of the Jews from your people, did not the time of this revolution come? Oh God, forgive our negligence towards the Aqsa and the oppressed."

People are making martyr videos juxtaposing pictures of him with the scene in Adam.

Facebook pages with the story of his "martyrdom" are filled with praise for him.

As always with Palestinian terror attacks, the story isn't the universal praise that the murderers get from Palestinian society.

The story is that it is virtually impossible to find a single Palestinian voice - not one - who can publicly says that murdering a civilian father of two is wrong. Whether it is because of fear of retribution or because there are truly no moderate Palestinian voices, it doesn't matter. The lack of a single pushback to a horrible murder and to the canonization of the murderer says all you need to know about the disgusting pro-terror and antisemitic mindset of Palestinian society.

The reason that peace is impossible is not because of Israeli actions but because Palestinians simply love their murderers - they encourage them, they pay them, they honor them, and no one speaks out against them.

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07/26 Links Pt2: 3 wounded, 1 critically, in stabbing attack; Michael Oren: Israel’s ultimate battle: Right to exist; CUFI Summit Honors Haley, Slams Hamas and Palestinian Terror

From Ian:

3 wounded, 1 critically, in stabbing attack in settlement; terrorist killed

A Palestinian terrorist stabbed three Israeli men after entering the West Bank settlement of Adam, northeast of Jerusalem, on Thursday night, the IDF said.

Magen David Adom medics treated one man who was critically injured, another who was in serious condition, and a third male victim who was lightly injured.

The terrorist was shot dead at the scene, the IDF said. According to reports, he was shot by a resident of Adam.

The critically and seriously wounded men were evacuated to the Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem. The lightly wounded victim was taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, also in the capital.

A spokesman for the Binyamin Regional Council said the terrorist jumped over the settlement’s security fence near the entrance to the community.

Residents were ordered by local authorities to stay in their homes, lock their doors and shut their windows following the attack.

Guardian op-ed by Daniel Barenboim distorts nation-state law and Israel’s founding principles

In short, the declaration enshrines equality under the law for all its inhabitants, whilst stressing, as does the new Jewish nation-state law, that national self-determination is reserved for Jews.

Barenboim then argues that this part of the law represents “apartheid” as it “confirms the Arab population as second-class citizens”, a claim completely at odds with the truth, as the law doesn’t supersede the Basic Law on “Human Dignity and Liberty” which establishes “the fundamental rights granted to all Israeli citizens, Jewish or not.”

Interestingly, as Shany Mor pointed out in his letter in the Guardian, in response to Barenboim’s op-ed, the Palestinian constitution declares that Palestine is Arab, that Islam is its official religion, that Arabic is the official language and “recognises no other people as having a linguistic or cultural or political claim” to the state.

Would Barenboim, who also has Palestinian citizenship, characterise Palestine as a racist “apartheid” state?

Moreover, as International Law expert Eugene Kontorovich explained, the law’s declaration of Israel as a uniquely Jewish state, and declaring Hebrew the official language whilst protecting Arabic’s “special” status, is not inconsistent with liberal democratic constitutions of Europe.

The Latvian Constitution, Kontorovich explains, opens by declaring the “unwavering will of the Latvian nation to have its own State and its inalienable right of self-determination in order to guarantee the existence and development of the Latvian nation, its language and culture throughout the centuries.” Latvia’s population, Kontorovich adds, is about 25% ethnically and linguistically Russian. And, the Slovak Constitution, he notes, opens with the words, “We the Slovak nation,” possess “the natural right of nations to self-determination.”

The Spanish constitution states clearly that “national sovereignty belongs to the Spanish people”, not Catalans, Galicians or Basques.

Would Barenboim, or the Guardian, ever publish an op-ed suggesting that Spain, Slovakia or Latvia have “racist” constitutions?

Of course, employing such double standards against the Jewish state, by holding it to standards not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, can arguably be characterised as antisemitic based on the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism – a pattern of inconsistency in the expression of moral opprobrium which represents the most egregious element of the Guardian’s institutionally biased coverage of Israel.

Michael Oren: Israel’s ultimate battle: Right to exist

Asked why his forces killed thousands of innocent Arab civilians, the military spokesman replied, “When you have an enemy that uses noncombatants as collateral damage, it is difficult to completely avoid any casualties.”

Sound familiar? This could easily be the IDF Spokesman justifying our actions against Hamas in Gaza. But, in fact, the statement was recently issued by a US Army colonel fighting Islamic State in Syria. The explanations are identical, but while America’s is accepted by the world, Israel’s is almost universally rejected. Worse, it is condemned as a cover-up for war crimes.

The difference underscores one of the greatest dangers – and, to date, the most glaring failure – of our Gaza policy. The IDF is certainly prepared for any contingency, including reconquering the Strip. But Israel is not poised to win the ultimate battle – for our right to self-defense and even our right to exist.

That is Hamas’s goal. Beyond killing Israelis, its rockets are designed to get Israel condemned for killing Palestinians. For the same reason, Hamas sends children to break through the border fence and even pays them for every gunshot wound. Indeed, the demonstrator is the new rocket — cheaper, unlikely to trigger an Israeli military response, and immensely damaging to our legitimacy.

That damage is cumulative. Today, after three wars in Gaza, the vast majority of nations vote in favor of UN resolutions accusing Israeli soldiers of indiscriminately shooting peaceful Palestinian protesters. Hamas is not even mentioned. By contrast, Israel’s fundamental right to defend itself against jihadist terrorists who are hiding behind human shields is dismissed out of hand.

The erosion of Israel’s narrative certainly reflects an anti-Israel bias and even antisemitism, but it also results from our unwillingness to mount a comprehensive diplomatic campaign to convey the facts of Gaza. The result is painfully apparent, and not only in the UN.

Photos of four dead Hamas terrorists killed yesterday

No reason the Zionist side can't be just as proud of these photos as Hamas is!

The fourth that died was not killed by Israel. He drowned. But Hamas says he's a martyr too, and that's good enough for me!

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

If you read a history book or today’s newspaper, you will see certain kinds of conflicts that repeat themselves, time and again. There are economic conflicts, situations in which one group wants something – land or property – that another group has. And there are ethnic/religious/racial conflicts, conflicts based on the perception of members of a different group as an enemy, simply because they belong to that group.

Very often there is a conflict in which both kinds of motivations are mixed, but it seems to me that the ethnic part brings a special kind of viciousness and persistence that is not found in purely economic conflicts. A purely economic conflict can operate on a rational level, where benefits are weighed against costs, while an ethnic one can escalate through a kind of feedback mechanism so that even suicidal actions can seem justified if they hurt the enemy. And they can go on forever.

Sometimes the leaders of a group will encourage ethnic hatred in order to motivate their people to fight for primarily economic objectives. It’s an effective technique, but sometimes the inter-group hatred gets out of control and conflict continues long after the economic motive is gone.

Ethnic conflicts are found throughout history. I think of the Hebrews and Amalek, the Armenians and the Turks, and of course the Jews and the Arabs in the land of Israel. In fact, it seems to me that nothing is more characteristic of humans than inter-group suspicion, hatred, and aggression.

Human attempts to change this fundamental behavior have consistently failed. The South African reconciliation process was intended to short-circuit the continuation of conflict associated with the end of apartheid by rehabilitating the victims, exposing the abuses, and punishing or in some cases giving amnesty to the perpetrators. While it seemed to have had a certain degree of success, recent events suggest that racial animosity is welling up there again.

In the US, 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, the last major legislative achievement of the civil rights movement, feelings of animosity between blacks and whites are as strong or stronger than they were in 1968.

Need I add that antisemitism has reached levels throughout the world unmatched since the period prior to WWII? Or that conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims have broken out almost everywhere there is an interface between them?

It’s time to stop treating this kind of behavior as an aberration and to realize that ethnic, religious, and racial hatred and aggression is normal human behavior, probably biologically based. So how can we act to minimize the damage it does?

The liberal and social-democratic establishment in the world thinks it has a solution: it is to increase diversity; that is, to mix ethnic, religious, and racial groups in every possible environment so that the members of the various groups will get to know each other and understand that they are all humans. Once they understand each other (the theory says), animosity and mistrust will dissipate. At the same time, the economic status of all groups should be improved so that none will be worse off than the others. If people understand each other and don’t envy other groups, the argument goes, there will be no room for conflict.

Unfortunately, this same establishment has also been at pains to promulgate a world-view in which certain groups are defined as oppressed by other groups. They believe that “oppressed” groups should be compensated by being given special advantages over the “oppressors,” or even (as in South Africa) by being given property confiscated from “oppressors.” Naturally, any improvement in relations brought about by diversity is immediately overwhelmed by the resentment this creates – among both the “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups).

There’s a fundamental problem with diversity itself. In a diverse environment, each group tries to maximize its power and ownership of common resources. This expresses itself as political divisiveness along ethnic lines, the situation so familiar to us in the Middle East. These political groups then provide a focus for conflict. Thus the presence of Arab members in Israel’s Knesset doesn’t serve to improve relations between Jews and Arabs, but rather brings about political conflict as those representatives look for issues with which to set themselves apart from the Jewish Knesset members – and become even more extreme in order to distinguish themselves from the other Arabs.

Promoting diversity, in other words, increases tensions, which leads to conflict. But there is an opposite approach, which is to move in the opposite direction from diversity, and reduce conflict by separating antagonistic groups.

How does this apply to the situation of Israel and the Palestinians?

Ze’ev Jabotinsky understood the inescapability of ethnic conflict between Jews and Arabs. His solution was that the creation of a Jewish majority and the establishment of Jewish sovereignty should be carried out despite Arab opposition, by force if necessary. Once those things were obtained and it was clear to the Arabs that they would not be given up, it might become possible to reach a modus vivendi with them.

Meir Kahane also understood. But he believed that it was impossible for a sovereign Jewish state to contain a sizeable Arab minority and survive. According to Kahane, coexistence is not an option.

Both Jabotinsky and Kahane disagreed with the liberal conventional wisdom that diversity, dialogue, and economic improvements could end ethnic/religious/racial hatred. Recent history, in Israel and other places, has borne them out.

We must understand that we will never make the Palestinians like us, or even stop wanting to kill us. Understanding won’t help, and neither will generous aid. Separation from them is the best way to reduce conflict.

What that would mean in practice is a hard question. The Left wants us to chop off part of our homeland, find some unspecified magic solution to the security nightmare that this would create, and everything would be fine. Except there is no magic solution, and the nightmare would be a deadly reality.

Martin Sherman has suggested (Part I and Part II, also FAQ I and FAQ II) that we incentivize emigration of the Arabs from the territories to third countries, financially and otherwise. Perhaps the only truly rational answer, and one which would probably produce the least misery for everyone involved, Sherman’s ideas have not gotten any traction among decision-makers in Israel or the US, and certainly not among the Palestinians.

Why do they hate us? It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth arguing about who started it and who’s right or wrong, except as an academic exercise. What is important is that the conflict is not amenable to solutions that don’t involve one or the other party stepping aside. Let it be them.

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07/26 Links Pt1: Trump exposes UN hypocrisy on PLO, Hamas and Israel; Under the cover of a children's protest: Sniper injures IDF officer; Obama Admin Knowingly Funded an al-Qaeda Affiliate

From Ian:

David Horovitz: Hamas, the murderous neighbor that demands Israel give it the gun

A few years ago, an awful new neighbor moved in next door. An ex-murderer, unreformed.

Life became a nightmare. He claimed we were on his land. We weren’t. There’d been a dispute before he arrived, but we’d actually conceded.

He vowed alternately to force us out of the neighborhood and to kill us. He told anyone who’d listen that we had no right to be here and that he hated us. Unbelievably, some of the other neighbors supported him.

There were fights at the fence. We were scared to go outside. Life became a nightmare.

He tried to get a gun. He had friends who we knew would give him one. He said that if we didn’t let him get the gun, he’d keep on harassing and attacking us.

So we said okay. We let him get the gun. He killed us.

That ridiculous story is essentially the tale of what’s going on between Hamas and Israel. Except for the last part. That’s not going to happen.

David Singer: David Singer: Trump exposes UN hypocrisy on PLO, Hamas and Israel

President Trump has challenged United Nations (UN) member States to put their money where their mouths are in a hard-hitting speech delivered by US Permanent Representative to the UN – Ambassador Nikki Haley – at a UN Security Council Open Debate on the Middle East on 24 July.

Following Trump’s dressing down of NATO – Haley attacked UN member States who are full of words but short on money when it comes to supporting the Palestinian Arabs.

Haley did not mince her words:
Here at the UN, thousands of miles away from Palestinians who do have real needs, there is no end to the speeches on their behalf. Country after country claims solidarity with the Palestinian people. If those words were useful in the schools, the hospitals, and the streets of their communities, the Palestinian people would not be facing the desperate conditions we are discussing here today. Talk is cheap.

No group of countries is more generous with their words than the Palestinians’ Arab neighbors, and other OIC [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation – ed.]member states. But all of the words spoken here in New York do not feed, clothe, or educate a single Palestinian child. All they do is get the international community riled up.

Haley used members’ contributions to UNRWA to prove her case:
Last year, Iran’s contribution to UNRWA was zero. Algeria’s contribution to UNRWA was zero. Tunisia’s contribution to UNRWA was zero.

Other countries did provide some funding. Pakistan gave $20,000. Egypt gave $20,000. Oman gave $668,000.

Haley did not spare non-Arab and non-Islamic countries from similar naming and shaming:
Other countries talk a big game about the Palestinian cause. In 2017, China provided $350,000 to UNRWA. Russia provided two million dollars to UNWRA.

Haley contrasted America’s generosity:
Last year … the United States gave 364 million dollars… And that’s on top of what the American people give annually to the Palestinians in bilateral assistance. That is another 300 million dollars just last year, and it averages to more than a quarter of a billion dollars every year since 1993.

Israel Should Seek More from Hamas Than a Return to the Status Quo Ante

The fighting between Israel and Hamas has not yet abated, but it’s possible that this round of conflict is coming to an end. Yet even if Israel succeeds in deterring Hamas from further attacks, writes Amos Yadlin, the result will be what he calls an “asymmetric strategic tie.”

Hamas has been able to erode the Israeli deterrence that was established since Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, to breach the calm that prevailed in [Israel’s] south, and to try to define new “equations” and rules of engagement. To be sure, Hamas did not plan the March of Return or the kite- and balloon-based arson attacks, but it found in them attractive tactics and turned them into two central operational efforts. . . .

Israel has undoubtedly scored impressive achievements: its borders were not breached and its citizens were not harmed. Hamas weapons factories, training camps, and storage facilities were wiped out by the air force. Yet Hamas still has a sense of achievement. It has once again put the Gaza issue—both its humanitarian and political aspects—on the international agenda, damaged Israel’s image, undermined the sense of security among the Israeli population in the communities near the Gaza border, and challenged Israeli sovereignty in the Gaza environs.

In order to break this ongoing tie, Israel must adopt a proactive rather than a reactive strategy. It must take an approach designed to change the reality and not sanctify the status quo. . . . [First], efforts can and must be made to promote more modest understandings, namely, a limited hudna [Arabic for a temporary truce]. A fundamental condition for such an arrangement is a total halt of terror from Gaza and the return of Israeli civilians and bodies of the fallen soldiers held by Hamas. . . .

From the official Fatah news site:

The Fatah movement confirmed that Israel has prepared and has been implementing a plan to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque through continuous excavations under Al-Aqsa Mosque and tampering with its foundations and weakening it to make it a matter of time.

Spokesman for the Fatah movement, Osama al-Qawasmi, said in a press statement that the fall of a stone two days ago from the Islamic Wall of Buraq is a dangerous indication of what is happening in Al-Aqsa mosque and its surroundings. "We declare and affirm that the space of Al-Aqsa Mosque, above and below ground, and Jews have no right to it. What they do in the courtyard daily and continuous excavations underground is a crime against all religions, a blatant violation of the Islamic religion, and the promotion and encouragement of extremism and blind religious fanaticism and malicious planning by the Government of Israel to destroy any possibility of coexistence in the region.

Al-Qawasmi stressed that all Jerusalem is a purely Arab Palestinian state and that there is no peace or stability without an end to its occupation by Israel.

I recall Islamic clerics routinely making the charge that Israel has plans to demolish Al Aqsa, but I do not remember Fatah - the political party headed by Mahmoud Abbas - ever saying this before 2018. But this is the second time I have seen that al-Qawasmi has made this absurd claim - a claim that is pure incitement for Muslims to "do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem" and al Aqsa as Mahmoud Abbas himself said shortly before the car and knife intifada of 2015.

Claiming that Jews are destroying Al Aqsa is a reliable way to get Palestinian Muslims to riot and attack Israeli Jews, and it has been since 1920. It cannot be regarded as anything other than hate speech and incitement.

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