"Israel as a Gulf state"

Malcolm Lowe at Gatestone has a thought-provoking essay that argues that the EU is a lot more pro-Israel than it seems, and things will only get better:

It is a longstanding complaint that Israel is unfairly harassed in those international forums that deal with human rights. On the other hand, countries that are too big to harass, such as Russian and China, or that are oil rich, such as the Gulf states, get away with anything. Well, here's news: Now that Israel has discovered vast offshore deposits of natural gas and even some oil, it can aspire to the status of a Gulf state. Not quite geographically, but in terms of the scruples that others can brush aside in their eagerness to do business.

This applies above all to the European Union (EU). According to a recent report, "Valeria Termini, vice president of the Council of European Energy Regulators, has held talks with senior Israeli Energy and Water Ministry officials" on the proposal to link Israel's natural gas fields to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. The EU would benefit from reduced dependence on Russian natural gas, while the cost to Israel of marketing the gas would be greatly reduced, since there would be no need to liquefy the natural gas (LNG) and ship it on tankers. "An LNG terminal is estimated to cost between $7 billion to $10 billion while a pipeline to the European network can be built for $2 billion-$3 billion."

Yet Israel is not putting all its gas eggs in the EU basket. Another report tells us: "In July 2012 President Vladimir Putin visited Israel, largely to discuss the gas fields. The Russian Gazprom has signed a deal with Israel on the future distribution of the large Israel gas resources, and plans to build a floating facility off Cyprus to convert the product to LNG." The reason given was that the civil war in Syria has frustrated an earlier Gazprom project to pump gas from Iran to the Lebanese coast. In other words, Israel is being courted by both Russia and the EU and can choose what to award to either of those suitors. "Human rights" issues are off that agenda.

Now, there has been a lot of fluttering of feathers over the recently publicized EU guidelines on Jewish settlements across the "green line." We shall turn to that in a moment, but it should not distract our attention from a series of remarkably friendly gestures toward Israel, emanating from Europe in recent months.

Precisely at the last meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, the EU took vehement exception to Special Rapporteur Richard Falk's most recent report, aka baseless diatribe against Israel. It denounced the report in these words: "The EU continues to regret the unbalanced mandate of the Special Rapporteur and is also concerned that parts of the report include political considerations. In the past, the EU emphasized that future reports should be based on a more factual and legal analysis, and we regret to see no genuine progress in that direction. The council needs to be provided with accurate, factual information and solid allegations to fulfill its role and address the human rights situation in occupied Palestinian territory." In short, please stop trying to fool us with fictions about Israeli human rights violations.

There's lots more, read the whole thing.

I'm not so certain I agree with his optimism.

There are two tracks in Europe: a business/pragmatic track that wants to be as close to Israel as possible, and an "activist" track that wants to pollute the European mind with the idea that Israel is a genocidal regime.

The first is not a counter to the second; it simply ignores it for as long as it can.

But the worry is that there will come a tipping point in the future where anyone who publicly backs any aspect of Zionism will be marginalized and berated. It already is happening with a few clueless entertainers who are more worried about appearances than other people, but the entire point of BDS is to create an atmosphere throughout the world that would equate Israel with the worst human rights violators in history. By extension, it would paint anyone who doesn't condemn Israel as evil themselves. Right now the idea is marginal but the single-minded haters behind BDS have patience and a strategy.

The existence of business ties with Israel will dampen any economic consequences to these actions, but if businesses perceive that their own reputations are being damaged to a larger extent than the benefits of working with Israel, they will act in self-interest.

Look how one anti-Israel group responded to the Pet Shop Boys' decision to play in Israel, pictured to the right. 99% of the Europeans who read that Israel kills one child every three days or jails two children a day would have no problem believing it, even though these are outright lies. This is because there is no decent hasbara campaigns in Europe to expose the lies and the hate behind the BDS crowd. They are far more guilty of blind hatred and bigotry than Israel could ever be - yet they suffer no consequences from baldfaced, bold-faced lies. Their campaigns of distortions and slander will continue to gain traction among the clueless, as indeed most people are.

The BDS drones are happiest when Palestinian Arab kids are killed because that gives them more ammunition. One Israeli screw-up that results in too many civilian deaths can be a major tipping point towards the haters.

Yes, it is true that Bahrain and other Gulf states can shrug off human rights accusations because of their economic power, but on the other hand there has never been a systematic anti-Saudi or anti-Bahraini campaign in Europe demanding boycott or divestment. Is such a thing really so impossible to imagine?

I admit, and have even argued in the past, that the most effective thing Israel can do to combat the delegitimization campaigns is indeed to build up its economy so that it is indispensable to the world. That doesn't mean that Israel should sit back and allow the haters free reign to lie and poison the minds of millions. Complacency in the face of concerted, directed campaigns against the Jewish state is not smart.

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The elephants in the room, 2013

Now that US has successfully pressured Israel and the PA to attend talks, it seems to be a good time to revisit the list of "elephants in the room" that are still being mostly ignored. The list, sadly, has not changed much since I last did this in 2010.

Elephant 1: Hamas controls Gaza

Every peace plan includes Gaza in a Palestinian Arab state, and none of them has any provision on how to handle the fact that Gaza is a terrorist haven, in much worse shape since Israel uprooted the settlements there, controlled by a terrorist group that is consistently and wholeheartedly against Israel's existence.   Peace is impossible with this elephant, so it is easier to pretend it isn't there. (See also Elephant 11.)

Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs elected a terror government

In the only fair, democratic elections in the territories, the Hamas terrorists were chosen by the people. Poll after poll shows that Palestinian Arabs support terror in Israel itself. (Over 40% still support a violent intifada in 2013.) The elections proved that the conventional wisdom was wrong - and the conventional wisdom proceeded to ignore it.

Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected

This corollary to Elephant 2 means that the current people negotiating for the Palestinian Arabs do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. The current PA president is well past his term of office, and the current and previous prime minister were never elected (in fact, he received a tiny percentage of the vote when he did run for election.) Negotiating with the PA is, literally, meaningless.

Similarly, the unelected PLO is the real power behind the PA. The PA officially reports to the PLO, and all negotiations are done by the autocratic, Fatah-dominated PLO, not the PA.

Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power - and no respect

Outside of Ramallah, the Fayyad/Abbas government has little popular support and little power. Hamas is a very real threat to the PA in the West Bank and is quietly building its base. The attitudes that forced the PA to abandon Gaza - a lack of passion by people for its positions - could very well play out in the West Bank as well.

Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers - but if they would slash the payroll, the people on international welfare would revolt. So the very basis of the organized Palestinian Arab workforce is a fiction being kept barely alive by ever-increasing infusions of cash with no real plan to fix the problem. (The bulk of the PA budget goes to Gaza, and much of that goes to workers being paid not to work.)

Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA

Despite the recent claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. The PA might arrest Hamas members in the West Bank, but there still remains - today - terrorist groups that report to Fatah. Here's the webpage of one of them. There has been no serious move by the PA to dismantle their own terror groups.

Elephant 7: The first - and second - stages of the roadmap were never implemented

The entire point of the road map was to slowly build confidence, starting with the end of terror and incitement on the Palestinian Arab side, afterwards building a "provisional" state and only then going to final-status negotiations. Abbas and his team simply threw out phases I and II. By skipping to Phase III as if the other two phases were already in place, the entire exercise is simply a joke. Incitement remains at full blast and the lull in terror is tactical, not a sea-change in Palestinian Arab attitudes. 

Even though the US has made statements against Palestinian Arab incitement, it hasn't moved to stop it. 

This is not so much an elephant anymore quite so much as it is a proof that terror works. Before the second intifada, the world was not fully behind a Palestinian state; autonomy was still considered an option. The world never demanded 1 to 1 land swaps based on the 1967 lines - but after the terror spree they now do. And the demands of the road map to slowly build confidence before granting a state has likewise been thrown out the window. 

Terror pays.

Elephant 8: The PA's goal remains the destruction of Israel

Whether it is by "right of return" or not changing the Fatah charter or by printing map after map showing no Israel, even the most moderate Palestinian leader clings to the idea of destroying Israel, and looks upon a Palestinian Arab state as only one stage in the process. One only needs to look at the maps of "Palestine" in official PA documents and schoolbooks. 



A 2011 poll that remains criminally under-reported proves that when Palestinian Arabs say they want a two-state solution, it is only a stage towards their real goal of destroying Israel. 



Elephant 9: Jerusalem

Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of ("east") Jerusalem as the capital of a Muslim state. The positions are not compatible and a compromise will not reduce the chances for violence - it will increase it.

Elephant 10: What happened to Gaza

Forgetting Hamas for now, the time period between Israel's dismantling settlements in Gaza and the Hamas takeover is instructive as to how Palestinian Arabs take advantage of territory they gain. They didn't build new houses or communities to reduce the "refugee camp" population, no schools or hospitals. They destroyed the greenhouses purchased for them by American Jews; they turned beautiful former settlements into training camps for terror - in other words, Israel's last major concession not only didn't help achieve peace, it ended up encouraging terror. Any claims that something similar wouldn't happen in the West Bank is the triumph of wishful thinking over experience.

Elephant 11: Palestinian Arab "unity"

Related to Elephant #1. No peace plan can work unless Hamas and the PA/Fatah reach some sort of unification agreement. This is not possible in the foreseeable future. Moreover, Hamas is powerful enough that any such agreement must include a hardening of PLO positions that would be completely incompatible with the basic Quartet demands for peace - renunciation of terror, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements.

Elephant 12: The Palestinian Arab "diaspora" and Arab intransigence

Any final peace agreement would mean that Arab countries could no longer justify keeping Palestinian Arabs in "refugee camps" nor could they justify their continued refusal to discriminate against Palestinian Arabs from becoming citizens of their countries should they want to stay. The millions of PalArabs in the Middle East becoming citizens would not be accepted by many Arab countries as it would endanger their own tenuous holds on power. 

Elephant 13: Economics

Some 16 years after Oslo, the economy in the territories is still close to non-existent and wholly dependent on foreign aid. Not only is there no free market, there is no incentive to build one as the very mentality of Palestinian Arabs and their leaders is one of welfare rather than responsibility. All the plans to create a Palestinian Arab state do not consider Day 2 and how such a state would be able to sustain itself. The expected influx of hundreds of thousands of people from "refugee camps" would make it even worse. It would take at least a generation to turn the poisonous attitude of entitlement around.

Elephant 14: Gaza demographics

Gazans have no room to expand as their numbers continue to grow at among the fastest rates in the world.  Theoretically they could move to the West Bank but only a small percentage would. This is another Day 2 powder keg that is being ignored in the interests of a "solution" of a "Palestinian state." 

Elephant 15: Palestinian Arab leaders never showed interest in independence

The West assumes that the goal is an independent Palestinian Arab state where Arabs no longer have to live under "occupation." But the actions and words of Palestinian Arab leaders have never borne that goal out; they have not worked towards building the institutions and infrastructure that would be necessary in an independent state. Their insistence on "right of return" and "Jerusalem" as issues that must be resolved before independence betray their thought processes - inconsistent with independence (neither of which require those two issues to be resolved) and consistent with a desire to destroy Israel in stages.

Elephant 16: A unilateral Palestinian Arab state would be militarized

There is no way that a new Palestinian Arab state would remain demilitarized for any length of time. The Palestinian government could invite a friendly Muslim nation to position anti-aircraft weapons within its territory; to shoot missiles at El Al planes landing a few miles from the Green Line, or to get a few thousand tanks poised to cut Israel in half.

Iran already effectively controls Lebanon and Syria and is working to ensure Gaza comes back under its orbit. They would use the nascent state of Palestine to position themselves on the West Bank as well. Just like the PA ran away from Gaza at the first sign of trouble, so would they abandon their state to Iranian proxies and Islamic terrorists.

The PLO's will to defend themselves is not nearly as strong as their will to destroy Israel, a desire that has been inculcated in them for generations. Palestinian Arab nationalism is a fundamentally weak and externally-imposed construct. Iran is poised and anxious to take advantage of the chaos that would follow a unilaterally declared state, even if at the moment they are distracted.

But the West is ready to risk Israel for that elephant as well.

Elephant 17: The so-called "right to return"

The PA is showing no interest in integrating the Palestinian Arabs outside of the territories into their state. On the contrary; the "refugee camps" in PA controlled territory continue to grow, rather than shrink. Clearly, the PA expects the bulk of the  "diaspora" to go to Israel, not a Palestinian Arab state, and decades of incitement both within and without the territories have brainwashed generations of Arabs to not accept anything less than a "return" to a land that most of them have never stepped foot in. (UNRWA has been a major promulgator of this lie.)

Elephant 18: The tension between being pro-West and pro-Arab

The biggest Western success story in the Palestinian Arab territories is the existence of the "Dayton forces" that have been helping crack down on Hamas in the West Bank. 

However, most Palestinian Arabs regard those forces as puppets of the West. Not only do Hamas and Islamic Jihad hammer away at this point, but ordinary Palestinian Arabs do as well. The more cooperation between the PA and Israel/US, the more the PA government is delegitimized in the eyes of its people. 

Elephant 19: Corruption and human rights abuses are still endemic in the PA

Despite the publicized successes, the PA remains mired in corruption, hardly a model for an independent state. The 2008 Global Integrity Report rated the West Bank as close to the bottom in its corruption ratings. Press freedom remains low; the justice system is improving but hardly competent, and whistle-blowers are forced to go to the Israeli press to expose corruption. The success that the PA has had in weakening Hamas in the West Bank has come at the expense of massive human rights violations, including torture. 

Elephant 20: Palestine would be Judenrein

Statements by PA leaders make it clear that their state of Palestine would not have any Jewish citizens allowed within. Jews whose ancestors have lived in Judea and Samaria, whether for decades or for millennia, will be legally barred from living in Palestine - an extraordinary display of state anti-semitism that is completely at odds with the Western standards that the nascent state of "Palestine" is attempting to live up to. 

Elephant 21: The Muslim world's antipathy towards Israel

Even if all of the preceding elephants could somehow vanish, the Arab world and the Muslim world remains implacably against the idea of a Jewish state in the midst of supposedly Muslim lands. Iran remains in de facto control of southern Lebanon and Gaza; ordinary Jordanians and Egyptians remain among the worst anti-semites in the Arab world. The best "peace" would be bitter cold; it will not include any real normalization, and the threat from radical Islam remains potent in Arab and Muslim states. Furthermore, any tension between Israel and any of its neighbors - Hezbollah or Hamas or Syria - would result in even the moderate Arab world solidly behind Israel's enemies, no matter what. The best peace plan would result in Israel being exactly where it is today - surrounded by enemies, with less of a land buffer, and Israel relying on US money to prompt Arab neighbors to keep radicals in check. 

That is not peace, and that is not security. 

Elephant 22: The Arab Spring

We now see how tenuous is the hold of Arab leaders on their nations. The chances of a similar upheaval in the Palestinian Arab-controlled areas is not small. What would happen to the "peace agreement" then? 

Besides that, Abbas has no successor. Poll show that if elections were held today, the new president of the PA would be a convicted terrorist now in Israeli prison. Any piece of paper signed by Abbas would be next to worthless after he is gone.

 It is true that Egypt has, despite rhetoric, kept the Camp David accords, but that is out of self-interest. The entire point of Palestinian Arab nationalism has been to destroy Israel, not to achieve statehood - so their self-interest coincides with taking any Israeli concession and then reneging on their end.

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Egyptian liberal, secular party accuses the US of being a Nazi state

Being completely bonkers is not only the domain of the Islamists. Even the "good guys" are crazy.

Al Wafd, the newspaper of the liberal Wafd party, has already been shown to report a bizarre story about a US medical research center in Egypt that, they claim, is creating pathogens to kill Egyptians and cause birth defects, among other horrendous things.

On the lighter side, al Wafd also reported that Madonna was helping Zionist take over the world.

Now, the newspaper publishes an extended rant that says, repeatedly, that the US is a Nazi state, that it supported the Muslim Brotherhood, that it funds sedition, and that it supports terror groups and calls it a War on Terror. These terror groups are meant to take over Egypt.

The facta are crystal clear .. Egypt will not accept to be a field for experiments in failed U.S. policy .. We will not leave the future of our country, to an America anomaly that has fallen under the influence of the World Zionists .. It has also become clear to everyone that Egypt would not retreat from fighting terrorism .. terrorists and their presence in Egypt is unacceptable ..

Egypt imposes closure of ports from people coming from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Palestine and Yemen .. Egypt's security is more important than anything...

Those who chant slogans "To Jerusalem we go ... [martyrs in the milions]" are a Trojan "donkey" for the implementation of the Zionist scheme of transfer and the evacuation of Arab land to Jews ..

How can any Western country navigate an Arab world where each group is nuttier than the next? Especially when they seem to make it a competition!

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It's his life and he'll do what he wants (#BDSFail)

From Times of Israel:

After caving to threats and canceling a gig in Israel, aging rocker Eric Burdon will play here after all, Hebrew media reported Monday.

Burdon, the former lead singer of ’60s British band The Animals, last week canceled an August 1 concert in Binyamina because he had been receiving daily threatening emails, his manager said.


However, on Monday the concert was back up on Burdon’s website and was again listed among the concerts at the Zappa Shuni Amphitheater in Binyamina. No reason was given for the cancellation of the cancellation.

Then:



And now:

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7/29 Links Part 2: Guardian Whitewashes The Ethnic cleansing of Jews, The PA's “radio terrorism"

From Ian:

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The Guardian AGAIN whitewashes the ethnic cleansing of Jews

But, not only does Sherwood suggest, without evidence, an Israeli attempt to purge the city of Palestinians, but when in the course of her narrative there’s an opportunity to provide balance and context, and detail the expulsion of Jews from eastern Jerusalem in 1948, the Guardian reporter merely writes the following:

at the end of the war following the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948, Jerusalem was divided, with the Old City on the Jordanian-controlled eastern side of the armistice line, known as the Green Line. The Jewish population within the ancient stone walls sank to zero.

Why the Jewish population “within the ancient stone walls” magically “sank to zero”, she of course doesn’t say.
Readers aren’t told that on May 28, 1948 the Jewish Quarter of the Old City fell to the Arab Legion and upon its capture Jews were expelled from eastern Jerusalem and barred from returning, or even visiting Jewish holy places – and that the Jewish Quarter of the Old City was all but destroyed.

BBC downplays Palestinian terrorists’ crimes yet again

The BBC is apparently afraid to tell its audiences the truth about these men. It whitewashes their crimes with euphemisms such as “militant attacks”, never mentioning their victims or details of their crimes and never informing its audiences of the effect that their release will have upon family members of those victims.
Clearly, to tell BBC audiences the accurate and impartial truth about these terrorists and the full meaning of their release would undermine the existing narrative on the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict which the BBC has long gone out of its way to promote.

Majority of missile fire from Gaza Strip ignored by BBC

In other words, the majority of missile attacks targeting Israeli civilians continue to be ignored by the BBC, as was the case in the months before Operation Pillar of Cloud. It is of course difficult to imagine such patchy BBC reporting were those missiles directed at British citizens.
If and when Israel is forced to respond to the renewed attacks, BBC audiences will yet again lack the background information which would enable them to put the news into context.

Officials: If PA Doesn't Act, IDF Will Close Down Radio Stations

Israel threatened on Sunday to take military action if needed to protect its skies from PA “radio terrorism.” In a statement, the Communications Ministry said that it “took a very dim view” of the PA's attempts to wreck Israeli aviation at Ben Gurion Airport by not closing down illegal radio stations. The Ministry has filed an official complaint with the PA.
On Sunday, officials at Ben Gurion Airport said that they had experienced significant interference in communications with incoming planes, to the extent that some landings would have been dangerous had weather conditions been less stable. If such interruptions occur again, the officials said, they would have to shut down the airport, preventing planes from landing or taking off.

Egypt’s dilemma

Today Egypt has two major political and economic actors who are well organized but inexperienced at operating within democratic structures. On the one side there is the secular army and on the other the Muslim Brotherhood. Between these two extremes is the popular majority of moderate Egyptians who simply want political freedom and equal economic opportunities. This majority is well connected through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, useful social networks for organizing protests. But these online social networks have been unable to build a viable platform with political vision and leadership that can receive a mandate from the people and command real political power. Until that happens, Egypt’s future remains fragile.

Attack on Minya churches repelled by residents, security forces

Muslim youth and security forces protected Al-Azraa and Anba Ebram churches from attacks by alleged Morsi supporters in Minya on Saturday, spokesperson of the archbishop of Mawas monastery Amgad Ezzat has told state-owned MENA agency.
“They threw molotov cocktails at Al-Azraa and Anba Ebram churches but were not able to break in as nearby Muslims and Christians were securing the churches,” said Ishak Ibrahim, researcher at Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). He added that the protesters tried to storm in El-Eslah church but were prevented. “However, both El-Eslah church and an annex of the Catholic church were raided before, on 3 July,” he said.

The Region: How the Syrian civil war really affects Israel

Finally, Syria has done something momentous in regional terms. It has broken the myth of the “Israel card” or “linkage.”
You can still argue that an Arab ruler can make political capital by blaming Israel, or that solving the Arab-Israeli or Israel-Palestinian conflict will fix everything in the region, but no one in the region will take you seriously. No one, that is, except US Secretary of State John Kerry on his frequent, short but useless junkets.

One-upping EU, Gulf states blacklist all of Hezbollah

Six days after the European Union placed Hezbollah’s military wing on its list of terror organizations while leaving cooperation with the party’s political branch unaffected, a union of six Arab Gulf states has begun officially blacklisting all of Hezbollah.
The Gulf Cooperation Council, a political and economic umbrella organization encompassing Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, has begun implementing a decision adopted by its foreign ministers on June 2 to place financial and security restrictions on Hezbollah, “making no distinction whatsoever between its military and political arms,” the Saudi daily Al-Watan reported on Sunday.

Turkish Airlines investigated for alleged tax fraud in Israel

Turkish Airlines' Israeli office is currently being investigated for alleged tax evasion amounting to over 1.5 million shekels ($418,000), a statement by the Justice Ministry said Monday.
According to the statement, the Tel Aviv District Prosecution's Taxes and Economics Department is considering pressing criminal charges against the company as well as the head of its local office, Fatih Dogan, for failing to meet Israel's Tax Authority guidelines for foreign companies operating in Israel. The decision is pending a hearing before the head of the Taxes and Economics Department, attorney Mina Zamir.

NGO Monitor: How many Palestinians received medical care in Israel in 2012?

Almost 220,000 patients and their companions.
Political medical NGOs who condemn Israel are guilty of moral and informational malpractice. See NGO Monitor's monograph, NGO Malpractice – The Political Abuse of Medicine, Morality, and Science

IDF Blog: From the NYT Best-Seller List to the IDF

Best-selling American author and entrepreneur Harvey Mackay recently visited the IDF Home Front Command, where he discussed the importance of the IDF’s objectives, training and life-saving missions abroad, in an exclusive interview.

Cancer patient thanks Birthright for saving his life

"As far as I'm concerned, I received a gift in being able to participate in Taglit Birthright and now I am paying that gift forward," said 23-year-old Matthew Putterman from Houston, Texas after donating bone marrow to Michael Wiesner, a 65-year-old Jewish man from New Jersey, saving his life.
The two met for the first time on stage at a Taglit Birthright event held Wednesday evening. Participants of the program, which brings young Jews to Israel, are asked to give a blood sample to the Gift Of Life Jewish bone marrow database.

Max Brenner on US top milkshake list

The milkshake of Max Brenner, a restaurant chain owned by Israel's Strauss company, has been chosen as one of the best of its kind in America.
The chain has four restaurants and chocolate bars in the United States: In New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Las Vegas. Its fifth branch is expected to open next month in Bethesda, Maryland.
The USA Today daily has ranked the shake served at the company's New York restaurant as one of America's top 10 milkshakes.
The newspaper conducted a special examination of the popular ice cream drink, selecting 15 restaurants which serve the best milkshakes in the US. Getting "chocolate by the bald man" (Max Brenner's logo) was defined in the article as a New York experience.

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Anti-Israel postage stamps from Jordan

In 1964, Jordan issued a stamp showing...Greater Jordan. It included all the land of a certain state that wasn't recognized. No "pre-1967 borders" in this stamp:

In 1969 there was a series of stamps about the "Tragedy of the Refugees" and the "Tragedy in the Holy Land."

This 1973 stamp commemorated the 1968 Battle of Karameh between Israel and Jordan/PLO. Israel destroyed the camp which was responsible for terror attacks but Jordan considered this a victory. Ironically, the battle led to the rise of Black September, which Jordan had to battle and kill thousands of Palestinian Arabs.

Palestine Week, 1973, with map of "Palestine" erasing Israel:

This 1983 series depicted, sometimes gruesomely, the Sabra and Shatila massacres. The stamps falsely say that the massacres were done by Israel.

In 1984, Jordan issued a surprisingly colorful series about Israel's attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor:

In 1991, Jordan commemorated the first intifada showing a hand throwing a rock - and a peace dove. Again, Israel is erased from the map.

If one violent uprising is worth a stamp, certainly the second one must be worth an entire series. Here are two 2001 stamps celebrating the second intifada:

Jordan also had a series dedicated to the death of Mohammed al Dura that was falsely attributed to Israel:

(This is part of a series on anti-Israel stamps in the Arab world.)

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Stand With Us creates a new petition against Khaybar

As an adjunct to the petition that I created to pressure human rights groups to condemn the antisemitic Ramadan TV series "Khaybar," Stand With Us created their own petition.

Unlike the limited focus of my petition, the SWU petition is addressed to "key decision makers within the U.S. and foreign governments, ambassadors, human rights organizations, and international media."

We, the undersigned, join in expressing our deep concern about Khaybar, a television series airing in the Middle East. While it is just one of the many anti-Semitic programs broadcast during Ramadan, it is particularly disturbing. The show is named after a seventh-century event during which Mohammed and his armies attacked and massacred the Jews of Khaybar in Arabia. Even today, over 1,300 years later, the term “Khaybar” is often used in chants calling for the murder of Jews. Recently, Gaza flotilla participants and activists in New York and Paris shouted in Arabic, “Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa yahud,” which translates as “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.” Its chilling association is one of bloodshed and terror.

As one actor in Khaybar stated, “Through the events of the show, we will discover how this category of humans (the Jews) represents one of the ugliest groups that appeared in history.” The television series builds on a long tradition of dehumanizing Jews and hatemongering.

Go there and sign it now. It already surpassed my petition in number of signatures.

We are still following up with my petition and pushing for a response from HRW and Amnesty.

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7/29 Links Part 1: Peace Talks Roundup

From Ian:

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Jpost Editorial: Too high a price

Israel should not have to foot the bill for the failure of the Palestinian leadership to prepare its people for peace with the Jewish state. And no Israeli who has already experienced the unfathomable pain of knowing that another person intentionally killed a loved one should be forced to endure the additional torture of seeing that murderer go free in exchange for the dubious prospect of a renewed peace process.
What’s more, by caving in to the Palestinian demand to pardon terrorists convicted of murdering innocent civilians, Israel blurs the clear differentiation that must be made between legitimate political activity used by Palestinians in pursuit of self-determination and the illegitimate use of terrorism to further their political goals.

Can Netanyahu go all the way in peace talks? And does it matter?

There is ample reason to believe that the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, getting underway Monday in Washington, will end in failure, well before the nine months slated for them are up.
But analysts say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on going into talks and seeking to reach a deal, bluff or not, may well leave Israel in a commanding position if the negotiations do indeed fail.
Conventional wisdom says that the “direct final status negotiations,” as they are referred to by the US State Department, are doomed to fall apart because the maximum Netanyahu can offer is far less than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can accept.

Releasing terrorists is obscene

We are constantly told that: “One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”. It may have become a moral relativist mantra, but that doesn’t make it true. On the contrary, it is a fallacy designed to whitewash atrocities. A terrorist is a terrorist, is a terrorist. Mohammed Atta, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Adam Ibrahim Juma are terrorists by anyone’s standards, irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or politics. If indeed there are those that consider them “freedom fighters” – then they are themselves criminal minds.
The very notion of Palestinian preconditions before even reaching the negotiating table, to enter a process in which they would be the potential beneficiaries – is utterly absurd. But when it involves the release of some of the most vicious terrorists of our time, it becomes obscene. And that obscenity has been made possible by none other then the US Secretary of State.

Shin Bet Head Warned Ministers: Don't Release Terrorists

Cohen explained that the release of terrorist prisoners would diminish security “both in the immediate threat to the public, and because of the erosion in deterrence.”
"The chance that the prisoners will go back to terrorism is relatively large,” he said. Experience shows that as the years pass from the terrorists' release, they tend to go back to the activity that landed them in jail, he added.

Netanyahu Said: Freeing Terrorists Strengthens Terror

"The government decided to release terrorists and I ask, why? In return for what? What have we received? This crossing of a line, of releasing murderers, is dangerous in the struggle against terror."
These words were spoken just five years ago, when the Kadima government released 200 terrorists as a “gesture” to Mahmoud Abbas. Only two of those had blood on their hands.

MK: Let's Just Shut Down Shin Bet

In a Knesset debate on the budget, MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) expressed her frustration with the government's decision to release terrorist murderers, by proposing that the budget for the Shin Bet intelligence services, and military courts be slashed, alleging that they are unnecessary anyway.

Terrorist to be Released: There Will be More Intifadas

"As long as there is no political horizon there will be a third, fourth, fifth and sixth intifada," declared the terrorist, Nasser Abu Srour, who was interviewed by Channel 2 News as part of a special project which showed the excellent treatment of terrorist prisoners by Israel.
Abu Srour, who murdered Shin Bet agent Chaim Nachmani in 1993, told the channel, “"I was a soldier in the army of Palestine. What do soldiers do? Fight.”

While Abbas Talks 'Peace,' PA TV Continues Hate Broadcasts

As Israel and the Palestinian Authority prepare to sit down yet again for another round of talks, PA television has been broadcasting the latest in its long string of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic programs and songs.
In a “music video” first released in 2011 and re-released over the past several days, and monitored by Palestinian Media Watch, Israel is called “the snake's head” which needs to be crushed by Arab rifles. It comes only days after another PA program honored arch-terrorist Abdallah Barghouti for his role in the murder of 61 Israelis in a string of atrocities.

Cabinet approves referendum bill on relinquishing territory

The cabinet approved on Sunday a bill that requires a public referendum on any future peace deal with the Palestinians that would have Israel give up sovereign territory.
The bill covers all of Israel, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem, but does not relate to the West Bank, which was never annexed by Israel.

Report: Palestinians claim Kerry vowed to reject Israeli bid for interim deal

According to Al-Hayat, Kerry promised PA President Mahmoud Abbas that Washington would oppose any Israeli attempt to avoid a final-status deal in favor of an interim arrangement. The senior Palestinian official was also quoted as saying that Ramallah would initially aim to come to agreement with Israel on the contours of a Palestinian state.

Indyk to be named head US negotiator, says report

Martin Indyk is expected to be named the head of the American delegation to peace talks between Israel and Palestinians, possibly as early as Monday, a US source familiar with the matter has said.
The source, cited by Reuters, confirmed rumors floated early last week regarding the two-time US ambassador to Israel. Indyk, born in London and educated in Australia, currently serves as the director of foreign policy for the Brookings Institution, an influential DC-based think tank.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Iran Enters the Peace Process

With the support of Iran, Hamas will step up its efforts to foil any attempt by the Palestinian Authority to regain control over the Gaza Strip. And with Iran's backing, Hamas and other Palestinian groups will do their utmost to foil any attempt to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel.
Some Palestinian Authority officials expressed fear that Hamas, on instructions from Tehran, would try to initiate a confrontation with Israel in an attempt to embarrass Abbas and thwart US Secretary of State John Kerry's effort to resume the peace negotiations.

BBC misrepresentation of Resolution 242

There are many other examples which also clarify the fact that the wording of resolution 242 was in fact deliberately very precise and intended. It is therefore unfitting that the BBC should chose to misrepresent it in this disingenuous manner and the fact that it does so clearly contravenes BBC guidelines on accuracy and impartiality as well as deliberately misleading BBC audiences.

Christian Israel-Backers Blast Obama on Peace

Christian evangelical supporters of Israel sent a strong message of opposition to President Obama on Iran and the renewal of Mideast peace talks as they convened last night for their annual Washington conference.
A series of speakers who took the stage at the conference, which hosted 4,200 members of Christians United for Israel from across the nation, stressed Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran by taking military action and spoke out against attempts to force Israel to accept a peace plan based on the 1967 borders.

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PLO negotiator openly calls for destruction of Israel

Aussie Dave at Israellycool notes the cover photo on the Facebook page of Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh, one of the major PLO negotiators in Washington today to kick off "peace" talks.

Yes, that is a map of all of British Mandate Palestine, filled with Arabic, and no room for a Jewish state.

Yet even though his goals are exactly the same as the goals of Hamas, he is being honored and respected as a moderate peacemaker.

His page also features this:

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Islamists force Jews off of the Temple Mount

According to Arabic media, an Arab mob forced a group of Jews, led by Yehuda Glick, off of the Temple Mount on Sunday.

The videos posted that document this are unclear; they appear to be mostly taken after the Jews left:

The articles say that the existence of Jews on the Temple Mount "provoked the feelings" of the Muslims.

To give you an idea of how much of an "extremist" Glick is....

Here is a video of Yehuda Glick on an Muslim TV show saying that Judaism has a lot in common with Islam and that he wants to share the Temple Mount in peace with Muslims. He even quotes Koranic verses in Arabic. 

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Report: Rami Hamdallah apologized for his resignation as PA PM

Remember Rami Hamdallah, the appointed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority who resigned only two weeks into his term?

As a reminder, here are the two tweets he sent out in that position:

Al Quds al Arabi is reporting that Hamdallah has apologized for his hasty resignation, and Abbas is considering allowing him to continue on as prime minister.

 I believe that he has been the caretaker prime minister since his early resignation, meaning he has been a caretaker PM far longer than he was actual PM.

Meanwhile, the last prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has been active on Facebook, acting as if he is not out of politics at all.

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Hamas forges letters from Fatah (update)

Hamas claims to have gotten copies of letters from Fatah and the PLO, allegedly proving that they are behind the incitement against Hamas in Egypt.

I found a high resolution version of one of the letters, and it is obviously fake. And this is clear even without understanding the Arabic.

There is a handwritten signature on this letter - but the rest of the letter itself could not have been scanned. It is way too perfect, especially when zoomed in.

Scans always leave artifacts, whether the text is slightly skewed, or dust on the scanner, or cracks in the toner on the dark parts, or something. Here we cannot even see the edges of the paper.

Some Hamas member got a copy of the signature of some Fatah member as well as letterhead, and simply Photoshopped them around a letter that could say whatever the accuser wants it to say.

In other words, this letter cannot possibly prove anything.

Again, here is another indication that Hamas is running scared with the loss of its Muslim Brotherhood patron, and its increasingly hysterical attempts to blame its problems on its enemies.

UPDATE: Fatah responded also by saying they are forgeries - and points out that even the letterhead shown above is a forgery. While in English it says "Foreign Relations Commission" the Arabic says "Arabic Media Commission."

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