Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Yet another Israeli TV show coming to the US

CBS has given a put pilot commitment to a single-camera comedy executive produced by Greg Berlanti. The project, based on the Israeli series Haverot (Little Mom), will be written by Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky who last season adapted another Israeli comedy for CBS, Mother’s Day, which went to pilot starring Debra Messing. The new project revolves around three moms who live in a Brooklyn high-rise help each other stay sane (or try to) as they juggle their friendships, marriages and kids. ...The original series, produced by Yoav Gross Prods. for Channel 10 Israel and distributed globally by Dori Media, was created by Gross, Lital Schwartz, Shay Ben-Atar, and Liat Shavit.

Here's a trailer (with subtitles) for the Israeli version:

Another Israeli show was picked up last week:

“Shkufim” )is based on the story of the assassination in Dubai of a senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Globes said. “It involves eight ordinary Israelis who wake up one morning and discover that their names, faces, and personal details have been splashed across the world’s media on suspicion of involvement in an international crime. What begins as an apparent case of mistaken identity, escalates into a psychological espionage drama,” the newspaper said. In the Fox series, to be called “False Flag”, the characters will be Americans, rather than Israelis.

Last week Variety discussed how Israeli shows are becoming smash hits on five continents.

Today's PalArab lie: "Israel gives highest prison sentences on Earth"

From Ma'an:

Palestinian organization Ahrar Center for Prisoners Studies and Human Rights revealed Wednesday that nine Palestinian prisoners currently being held in Israeli jails have the "longest sentences" of any imprisoned human being worldwide.

The organization's director, Fouad al-Khuffash, explained that "there is no other country on Earth that gives open-ended life sentences except the State of Israel, whose laws do not limit the number and length of life sentences given to Palestinian prisoners."

Al-Khuffash also listed the nine Palestinian prisoners with the longest prison sentences on Earth. Abdullah Ghaleb al-Barghouthy from Ramallah is currently holding the world's longest sentence. He was detained by Israeli forces on March 5, 2003 and was subsequently sentenced to 67 life sentences in prison.

Five minutes of web searching found:

Two Iranian conmen in 1969 when they were sentenced to 7,109 years in prison. One year for each of their transgressions.

The longest prison sentence ever handed down in US history is attributed to Dudley Wayne Kyzer. In 1981, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, he was found guilty for the murder of his wife. What lead the judge to sentence him to 10,000 years in prison? Apparently, the court decided that the brutality, with which he had slaughtered his spouse, more than merited such a long sentence.

The longest prison sentenced ever demanded by a court of law was given out in Spain, in 1972. Unlike other perpetrators on our list, who received sentences more befitting their crimes, the young Gabriel Grandos, age 22, was accused of fraud because of his failure to deliver a little over forty thousand letters. We understand that messing with the mail system is a serious offense, but a sentence amounting to nearly 400,000 years does seem a bit of an over-kill in this particular case.

It is also not unusual to give out consecutive life sentences for each murder one is responsible for. For example, Bobbie Joe Long of Florida was sentenced to 28 life sentences, 99 years sentence and 1 death sentence. He had raped more than 50 women and killed about half the number. In most cases they were raped before murder.

But killing 28 people is child's play compared to the list of terrorists in the Ahrar Center list, where the people responsible for killing as many as 67 people are reasonably expected to serve a life sentence for each life taken.

Unfortunately, people like Fouad al-Khuffash consider these monsters to be heroes. So who is more immoral - those who want to keep mass murderers in prison or those who want them freed and treated like heroes?

Yesha artists website

The last time I was in Israel, I spoke with a nice couple in Eli who were behind the "Orange Pages," a virtual marketplace for goods from Judea and Samaria.

They just started an affiliated English site that sells works from artists who also live in Yesha. Check it out here, before your country declares it illegal. (Of course, that will make the artwork more valuable!)

10/07 Links Part 2: Star of David Banned at Temple Mount, BDS - Same enemy, different dress

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: As Peace Talks Continue, Palestinian Terror Groups Prepare for Jihad

So while the Palestinian Authority is continuing to talk peace with Israel, it is at the same time telling Palestinians that they should not expect anything to come out of the negotiations.
If the Palestinian Authority itself is declaring day and night that the talks with Israel are a waste of time, why shouldn't the terror groups prepare for war? And it is no surprise that a majority of Palestinians are convinced that a third intifada is on its way.

Star of David Not Allowed on Temple Mount

A volunteer with the Magen David Adom first aid service was forced on Sunday to remove his jacket with the organization’s emblem before he was allowed to enter the Temple Mount. The emblem of Magen David Adom is a red Star of David.
The volunteer, Yonatan Tal, recalled the incident in a conversation with Arutz Sheva.
"I went up to the Temple Mount as I usually do. The weather was cooler so I put on my jacket [with the Magen David Adom emblem],” said Tal, who pointed out that the compound had been packed with tourists. As his turn came to enter, recalled Tal, he was called aside by a police officer who ordered him to remove his jacket. When Tal asked why he had to remove his jacket in order to enter the Temple Mount, the officer argued that this was the procedure.

JPost Editorial: Inhospitable Europe

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a body composed of five left-wing political organization that include the Socialist Group, the Alliance of Liberal Democrats for Europe and the Group of the Unified European Left, has identified circumcision as a violation of male children’s “physical integrity.”
Luckily, PACE, which has called “to adopt specific legal provisions to ensure that certain operations and practices will not be carried out before a child is old enough to be consulted,” is powerless to make binding laws.

Same enemy, different dress

But there are some lovely moments. Last month a beautiful young man wearing a BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) sweatshirt crossed over to us and said simply: “What’s your side?”
After listening in silence to my comrade Ben’s explanation, he returned to the BDS mob, pulled off his sweatshirt, dropped it at their astonished feet and crossed back to stand with us for a while before going on his way.
As for me, far from feeling that I’ve strayed a long way from my teenage beliefs, I just smile, wave my Israeli flag proudly and recall who I dedicated my first book to: Menachem Begin, when I was just 18 years old. I knew what I believed then, and I know what I believe now.
The enemy may dress differently, but in the faces of the BDS crowd, I see the same ignorance and evil as I saw in the faces of the National Front, all those years ago.

Hitler’s ally, Abbas’s hero, Netanyahu’s response

Nine months after the Abbas praise of the Mufti, on Oct. 6, 2013, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu chose the venue of a policy speech at Bar-Ilan University to respond to the adulation lauded on the Mufti by Abbas and by the official curriculum of the Palestinian Authority.
Israel’s Prime Minister quoted the protocols of the Hitler-Mufti pact, presented as evidence against the Mufti in the Nuremberg war crimes trials. The records of the meeting between Hitler and the Mufti explicitly state that Hitler would exterminate the Jews in Europe, while the Mufti would enlist Nazi aid to exterminate Jews in Palestine, so as to establish a “JudenRein” state of Palestine.
To that end, the Mufti ensconced himself in Hitler’s bunker, from where he recruited an Islamic unit of the Waffen SS, which actively engaged in the mass murder of Jews, while issuing Arabic language appeals on Nazi radio which incited Moslems to join the Nazi cause and to prepare for mass murder of Jews in Palestine.

Fighting for Israel on College Campuses

If HSJP (Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine) strove to convert students to their way of thinking, then they did the opposite of their goal: by lying, heckling, and bullying, they not only distanced me from their cause, but made me their staunch, determined, and active enemy. Now, I spend my days equipping college students with the facts.
The most important thing I have learned at CAMERA is to refuse to be meek and be quiet.
Israel supporters on campus and elsewhere must show the world that we will “not go gentle into that good night.”
As a wise colleague of mine once said, “The moment you allow a falsehood to go unchallenged, you legitimize the purveyors’ ridiculous claims. You allow them to win without even having to lift a finger.” HSJP taught me this truly valuable lesson: that those of us who care about truth — about Israel — should never let them win.

Northeastern University Finally Responds to ZOA Report of Anti-Semitism in the Classroom, But Takes No Action

Boston’s Northeastern University responded on Friday to allegations of rampant anti-Semitism from students by faculty on campus, after The Algemeiner pressed the school on why it hadn’t answered a formal letter from three months ago from the Zionist Organization of America, which helped the students make their case.
The 12-page report from the ZOA cataloged a litany of student horror stories, including intimidation, class harassment and teachers indoctrinating an alternative reality version of Middle East and Israeli history. The report focused on Professor of International Affairs Denis Sullivan, now Co-Director of Northeastern’s Middle East Center for Peace, Culture and Development, who did not respond to The Algemeiner’s requests for comment.

More evidence the Guardian got it wrong on Rouhani’s “Holocaust” remarks

The Guardian’s reliance on an evidently faulty translation is more than simply an innocent error, but is part of a larger pattern – which we’ve commented on previously – of engaging in selective reporting and omissions in order to advance the desired narrative of a new “moderate” Iranian president.
Evidence which makes a mockery of this narrative abound, and include Rouhani’s involvement in several deadly Iranian sponsored terrorist attacks against Jewish and American targets abroad, as well as his role in crushing pro-democracy movements at home.

Golden Dawn crackdown

The arrests of Golden Dawn members cannot be separated from the overall concern about anti-Jewish actions in Europe. Golden Dawn is a highly visible, nasty party, but the larger context is anti-Semitism that manifests itself not only on the Right, but also among the extreme Left and Islamists and in less pernicious but equally disturbing calls to ban circumcision and kosher slaughter.

Nairobi attack shakes sense of security for Kenya’s Jews

Albert Attias, the head of the Jewish community in the Kenyan capital and an Israeli military veteran, wanted to communicate with his wife by text message so she wouldn’t be overheard speaking Hebrew. Their Israeli connections were not something the couple were eager to advertise, even in normal circumstances.
“I was gravely concerned,” Albert Attias told JTA, recalling the first hours of the deadly attack and two-day siege carried out by Islamic militants at the upscale shopping plaza that began on Sept. 21. “I prayed she’d get out before dark because at night anything could happen.”

Man arrested for chanting ‘Yid’ at London soccer match

There was a heavy police presence at the West Ham United-Tottenham match as part of a crackdown on racism. Police threatened to take action against anyone who chanted the term for Jew, even if it was Tottenham supporters who use the term affectionately to deflect anti-Semitic abuse.
But the term, often used as a derogatory term for Jews, was sung with gusto by Tottenham fans and one was arrested at halftime for using it.

18 UK mosques 'agree to perform underage marriages'

Religious leaders appeared willing to agree to perform underage marriages at some mosques across the UK, an ITV Exposure investigation discovered.
Two undercover reporters called 56 mosques to ask whether they would perform the marriage of a 14-year-old girl.
Two-thirds of those contacted refused to perform the marriage but 18 of the respondents spoken to agreed.

Wearable ReWalk device finds an investor and strategic partner in Japanese robotics firm

A robotic exoskeleton that was demonstrated for President Obama earlier this year as one of Israel’s most cutting-edge inventions is getting a boost from a Japan-based robotics manufacturer.
Yaskawa Electric Corporation has invested in and formed a strategic partnership with ARGO Medical Technologies, which makes a device called ReWalk that enables individuals with lower limb disabilities such as paraplegia to walk.

Warren Buffet acquires Israeli electronics company Ray-Q

Electronic components company TTI Inc. an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of American billionaire Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, announced on Friday its acquisition of Israeli electronics company Ray-Q Interconnect.
"It's not often a company has the opportunity to add such longevity and superior technical value to their service offering. I am very pleased to be bringing the wiring and harness assembly expertise of Ray-Q to the TTI teams in Europe and Asia -- and to the benefit of our customers worldwide," TTI Europe and Asia President Gene Conahan said in a TTI press release.

Apple Pays About $40 Million to Acquire ‘Cue’ Start-Up Created by 21-Year-Old Israeli

Tech giant Apple, Inc. will pay some $40 million or more to acquire a start-up created by 21-year-old Israeli Daniel Gross, formerly of Jerusalem, and now living in California, tech media reported at the weekend.
Israel’s Calcalist website said Gross is a native of Katamon, Jerusalem, a yeshiva high school graduate and has been on pre-military leave. He planned to serve in the IDF after high school, but changed course after a small start-up he created generated interest in Silicon Valley.

40 Years Since the Yom Kippur War 1: The First Strike

40 years ago, during Yom Kippur, Israel faced one of the biggest challenges of its history. On October 6, hundreds of thousands of troops, thousands of tanks and fighter jets attacked simultaneously, surprising Israel at its northern and southern frontiers. Syria and Egypt were determined to get back what they had lost during the Six Day War. For the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, follow our series and learn about the major milestones of the conflict.

Does the UN consider Gaza legally "occupied"?

Ma'an says, at the end of an article:

Gaza [is] considered to be occupied by Israel according to the United Nations, as Israel controls the Gaza Strip's airspace, territorial waters and movement of people and goods.

This is false. Israel's control of airspace, waters and some of the borders is not a definition of occupation, and the UN has never made that claim - only clueless anti-Israel activists made that argument up, but it has no legal validity.

Ma'an, being the twisted news agency it is, swallows and regurgitates anti-Israel lies without bothering to check the facts.

Less than two years ago, UN Watch specifically asked the UN why it continues to refer to Gaza as "occupied" when under any sane interpretation of international law, it isn't. The UN replied:

Under resolutions adopted by both the Security Council and the General Assembly on the Middle East peace process, the Gaza Strip continues to be regarded as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The United Nations will accordingly continue to refer to the Gaza Strip as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory until such time as either the General Assembly or the Security Council take a different view.

Question: Can I follow up on that? It is the legal definition of occupation and why is Gaza considered occupied?

Spokesperson: Well, as I have just said, there are Security Council and General Assembly resolutions that cover this. For example, there was a Security Council resolution adopted on 8 January 2009 — 1860 — and that stressed that the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part of the territory occupied in 1967. And as you know, Security Council resolutions do have force in international law.

Furthermore, there is a resolution from the General Assembly from 20 December 2010, and while it noted the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank, it also stressed, in quotes, “the need for respect and preservation of the territorial unity, contiguity and integrity of all of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”. So just to repeat that the United Nations will continue to refer to the Gaza Strip as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory until either the General Assembly or the Security Council take a different view on the matter.

Note that the UN isn't saying that Gaza is legally "occupied." It is saying that Gaza must be referred to as "Occupied Palestinian Territory" - it is arguing nomenclature, not law. The Hague Conventions makes it clear that occupied territory refers only to portions of territory under control of another party, not that an entire territory is either occupied or not if only part of it is. Otherwise, Turkey would be considered to be occupying all of Cyprus, not only the northern part, since Cyprus is clearly a single territory. That is nonsensical.

At no point does the UN respond to UN Watch anything about control of borders or airspace - because it knows that it would be laughed out of court if it tried to make that claim. Ma'an is lying.

I discovered that the UN only started using the term "Occupied Palestinian Territory" formally in 1998, well after Oslo, but the UN website has been busily rewriting the titles of its documents to retroactively refer to "OPT" years before it started actually using the term.

Analysis finds EU guidelines on Judea and Samaria legally problematic

The Kohelet Policy Forum has released a paper showing that the proposed EU guidelines against funding "activities" in Judea and Samaria are problematic under international law, even if you regard the territories as occupied.

Here is the executive summary:

EU’s Israel Grants Guidelines: A Legal and Policy Analysis

The Israel Grants Guidelines adopted by the European Commission are singularly discriminatory against Israel. They contradict international law as established in U.N. documents and leading court cases, as well as the European Union’s own interpretations of international law.

The EU provides aid and financial cooperation to numerous countries that maintain settlements in what Europe considers occupied territory, such as Morocco, Turkey, and Russia. In none of these cases has the Commission imposed limitations on the aid akin to the Guidelines for Israel.

The Commission’s position that the Guidelines are mandated by international law are further belied by EU programs that provide grants specifically for settlers in belligerently occupied territory, such as the EU’s programs in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus.

Under international law, there are no prohibitions regarding organizations engaging in “activities” in occupied territories, yet the Guidelines bar funding solely on the basis of such “activities.”

In pretending that the Guidelines fulfill the requirements of international law, the Commission exposes the EU to legal challenge for EU funding of parallel activity in belligerently occupied territories around the world, such as Northern Cyprus, Abkhazia and Western Sahara, and exposes its businesses operating in such places to liability.

The Guidelines have no precedent in similar arrangements between the U.S. and Israel.

The Guidelines seek to undermine territorial arrangements that are established by existing Israeli-PLO agreements and foreclose issues that are preserved for negotiations.

The Guidelines do not advance the EU position on sovereignty because they do not relate to activities that legally establish sovereignty or constitute recognition of sovereignty.

The Guidelines are unlikely to be accepted by Israel in their present form. Non-discriminatory alternatives include borrowing language from scientific cooperation agreements with the U.S. and extending the Guidelines to all occupied territories with funding relationships with the EU.

Obviously the authors have forgotten the most important rule of modern international law: Israel is always guilty, and laws must be re-interpreted retroactively to ensure that result.

Once you understand that rule, then everything makes sense again!

Czech president floats idea of moving embassy to Jerusalem, Arabs freak

From UPI:

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Czech President Milos Zeman of attempting to undermine the Middle East peace process.

Zeman said last week he might move the Czech Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the official Czech news agency CTK reported.

Zeman made the statements while attending a Days of Israel forum in east Bohemia where he said he planned to try to persuade whoever becomes prime minister and foreign minister following coming elections to consider moving the embassy, CTK said. Currently there are no foreign embassies in Jerusalem.

Erekat said Zeman's statements impact questions related to the final status of Jerusalem and called on the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Non-Aligned Movement to discuss Zeman's remarks.

The Palestinians seek to name East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. By moving its embassy to Jerusalem, the Czech Republic would be viewed by Palestinians as officially recognizing Jerusalem the capital of Israel, complicating peace negotiations.

Assuming that the embassy would be in the undisputed part of Jerusalem, why does this freak out the "moderate" Erekat? (as well as Hamas and the OIC)

I guess Israel's "peace partners" regard all of Jerusalem as Arab and that the Green Line is not quite as much of a "border" as they pretend it is to Western media.

This Czech news site is very sympathetic to the idea of moving the embassy.

Briefly: The blame for how things are today can be attributed to the Arabs, who rejected the plan for the partition from the UN itself, which resulted in Arab aggression against Israel militarily. ....If Israel in the first war with the Arabs (1948-1949) had lost, it probably would not exist. By winning a war and gaining that part of Jerusalem, [Israel] could choose it as its capital. The fact that a third war with the Arabs (1967) allowed [Israel] to gain the remaining (East) section of the city is from this perspective essential. It is essential that the capital of Israel was (since 1949), is and will remain Jerusalem. It has all the attributes of the vast majority of the major capitals of the world: the seat of the head of state, government and parliament and other central authorities.

...The holy city became the capital of ancient Israel's monarchy three thousand years ago.

Yet we have see incredible absurdity. Jews are denied the right to freely choose their capital. Although the parliamentary process democratically chose Jerusalem, the vast majority of embassies are located in Tel Aviv. Including the Embassy of the Czech Republic. To this nonsense the Czech president wants to issue a red card - to move the mission of the Tel Aviv district administrative center to the capital of the host country. This effort deserves sympathy, recognition and support.

It is sad that one so rarely sees something that makes so much sense regarding Israel in the non-Zionist media.

10/07 Links Part 1: Fatah praises terrorist shooter of 9 year-old, 51 Dead In Egypt

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah praises terrorist shooter of 9 year-old

After a nine-year-old girl was shot in the Israeli town of Psagot in the West Bank yesterday, the administrator of an official Fatah Facebook page praised the terrorist shooter. He related the attack to a sniper attack that killed an Israeli soldier in Hebron two weeks ago. Writing on behalf of Fatah, the page administrator praised "the sniper of Palestine" who began his work in Hebron (the shooting of the soldier), passed through El-Bireh (the shooting of the girl), and - according to the Fatah Facebook page administrator - will continue in more places in the future: (h/t Yenta Press)

Terror victim's father says two centimeters saved his daughter's life

The life of Noam, 9, was saved because the bullet that hit her on Saturday night didn't move two centimeters to the left or the right, her father Yisrael Glick told reporters as he described the terror attack in his Psagot settlement home.
"It was a miracle," he said as he stood on Sunday morning in the hallway outside the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in the Sha'are Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem, where his daughter is being treated.

MK Chetboun: Releasing Terrorists Encourages Terrorism

Chetboun, who is currently serving on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, met with the town's officials and visited the family. The MK was also given a briefing by military and police officials. This was followed by a meeting with the head of the Binyamin Council, Avi Roeh, along with Binyamin Brigade Commander Lt-Col. Yossi Pinto.
“Terrorism is rearing its head, and it is impossible not to see this in the context of the two previous shootings in the past few weeks,” Chetboun said, referring to the shootings of two IDF soldiers by Palestinian Authority (PA) terrorists in recent weeks.

Fatah Official: Israel is to Blame for Psagot Attack

Speaking to Kol Yisrael radio, Jibril Rajoub was asked if he condemns the attack, to which he responded, “Listen, listen, I condemn everything that causes damage. I condemn it and I condemn those responsible for it. And those responsible for it are the Government of Israel and the prime minister of Israel.”
Rajoub went on to say that the Israeli government was responsible for the attack, in which nine-year-old girl Noam Glick was wounded, because it “incites and provokes by building settlements.”

BBC Watch: Nine year-old wounded in attack in Psagot: BBC silent

The day after the incident, October 6th, a message praising the attacker was posted on an official Fatah Facebook account. Despite the fact that the head of Fatah is also the president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the same PLO which is currently conducting negotiations with Israel, the BBC apparently does not find this story newsworthy.

CIF Watch: Is the Guardian unmoved by the recent terror attack on a 9-year-old Israeli girl?

Thus far, the Guardian has not devoted any coverage to the attack on Noam.
Their dearth of coverage regarding the attempted murder of a little Israeli girl stands in contrast to their coverage, in July, of a 5-year-old Palestinian boy who was briefly detained by Israeli troops after throwing rocks at cars near Hebron. Here’s a snapshot of the Guardian video report on the incident:

Erekat protests Czech president’s call to move country’s embassy to Jerusalem

Czech President Milos Zeman’s proposal to move the Czech Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem prompted Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator in the peace talks with Israel, to send a letter of protest to Prague stating that such a move would undermine the peace process.
Zeman publicly voiced his views on the subject at the opening of the annual Days for Israel forum in Hradec Kralove in East Bohemia last week.
According to the Czech news agency CTK, Erekat has asked the Arab League and other Arab organizations to call extraordinary meetings at the ministerial level to support the Palestinian stance.

Hamas to PA: Stop Talking to Israel

Hamas on Sunday called on the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, to stop peace talks with Israel. Instead, said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, the PA should work for national unity.
Abu Zuhri said that the remarks made by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his speech at the Bar-Ilan University, according to which negotiations with the PA are fruitless so long as the PA refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, require the PA to renounce the dialogue with Israel, implement the terms of the reconciliation plan between Hamas and Fatah and formulate a strategy agreed to deal with the “Zionist stubbornness and crimes,” as he put it.

Death Toll in Egypt's Bloody Sunday Stands at 51

More than 246 people were wounded during the day as Egyptian security forces clashed with supporters of ousted former President Mohammed Morsi.
Supporters of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement were protesting in several cities to show their displeasure of the military’s overthrow of the former president. The demonstrations took place as thousands took to the streets on the 40th anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel - known as the "Yom Kippur War" by Israelis, and the "October War" by Arabs.

The Muslim Brotherhood has not yet had the last word

Over the past few months, the Muslim Brotherhood’s brand of political Islam has suffered several blows. First, it lost power in Egypt. Second, the movement’s popularity in Jordan has weakened if not been put down by the Hashemite monarchy. Third, Muslim Brothers in the Syrian opposition have lost their standing to a stronger al-Qaeda. Fourth, Hamas is also losing its standing in Gaza in light of the tension with the current Egyptian regime. Fifth, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ally of the Brothers, is facing a popular protest, while another ally, North Sudan’s Omar Al-Bashir, has also seen violent demonstrations against his rule in the country.
And yet the Muslim Brotherhood is far from finished. Sunday underlined that.

Gunmen kill 6 Egyptian troops near Ismailia

Suspected militants killed six Egyptian soldiers near the Suez Canal and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a state satellite station in Cairo on Monday, suggesting an Islamist insurgency was picking up pace three months after an army takeover.

Huge explosion hits security HQ in Sinai

A massive explosion, possibly from a car bomb, hit the security headquarters in a southern Sinai town, killing three people and wounding 48, Egyptian officials said Monday.
The attack came hours after six Egyptian soldiers were killed by gunmen in an attack near the Suez canal. It was not immediately known if the incidents were linked.
Also Monday, at least two rocket-propelled grenades slammed into a compound housing the country’s main satellite earth station in a southern Cairo suburb, security officials said.

Israel's Final Warning on Iran

The coming weeks probably represent the last opportunity for Iran and the international community to reach an enforceable deal that will dismantle Tehran's nuclear weapons program, before Israel concludes that time has run out, that Iran has gotten too close to creating its first atomic bombs, and that the time for a military strike has arrived.
Despite Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's well-planned and deceptive charm offensive at the United Nations last week, so far not a single uranium-enriching centrifuge has stopped spinning in the underground nuclear facilities in Natanz and Qom. The heavy water plutonium facility at Arak is moving forward, and Iran has already amassed enough low-enriched uranium for the production of seven to nine atomic bombs.

What Would Be a Good Deal on Iran's Nuclear Programme?

There needs to be intrusive inspections, including to all sites which are suspected by the IAEA of being related to weaponisation research, such as Parchin, which the IAEA has been demanding access to for years.
The plutonium track needs to be solved. Once the Arak heavy water reactor (which is capable of producing weapons grade plutonium) becomes hot it will be impossible to stop it. Israel took out the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 before it went hot, and according to media reports, did the same with a Syrian reactor in 2007, so the situation is very dangerous.
There needs to be a strict timeframe. It would be best if during talks the Iranians freeze their programme, so the clock is stopped. If the Iranians insist on continuing their programme, there must be a very limited timeframe, otherwise they are just buying time until they reach a critical breakout capacity.
The heaviest sanctions should be left in place until it is clear the Iranians are serious.
If the major sanctions are lifted and then they fail to fulfill their obligations, it will be very difficult to regain the momentum and build up the pressure again.

Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei Says U.S. is ‘Untrustworthy, Self-Important and Breaks its Promises’

Iran’s Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, said he was “pessimistic about the U.S. government,” describing the administration of President Barack Obama as “untrustworthy, self-important and breaks its promises,” according to the UK Telegraph on Sunday.

As US touts thaw in Iran relations, Iranians spit on Obama image, prepare for ‘Death to America’ day

And while the Obama administration and U.S. media have generally portrayed the phone call and Twitter exchange between Obama and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani as evidence of warming relations, in September the website of the Quds cyber officers posted an image of Obama, wearing a Nazi field marshal’s uniform, surrendering with his hands on his head. The caption reads, “In the not too distant future…. One [Gen. Qasem] Soleimani is enough for all the enemies of this country.”

Kerry: WMD destruction a ‘credit to the Assad regime’

Kerry, speaking at a press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said the Assad regime deserves credit for its speedy compliance thus far with the UN Security Council resolution calling for the elimination of the weapons. However, Kerry stressed that Assad is not off the hook yet and needs to continue to comply with UN demands.
“I think it’s extremely significant that yesterday, Sunday, within a week of the [UN] resolution being passed, some chemical weapons were being destroyed,” Kerry said at a press conference Monday in Bali.

Forget Chemical Weapons. Assad Regime Uses Starvation as Tactic Against Rebels

With the threat of using chemical weapons now off the table, the Syrian regime has apparently turned to even more punitive actions to force rebellious citizens into submission: blockade-induced starvation. For months now the government of President Bashar Assad has encircled the rebel-aligned suburbs south and east of the capital Damascus, cutting off road access, telephone connections, water and electricity. But in the wake of the Aug. 21 chemical-weapon attack on the area, which rebels and the West blame on the regime, the government tightened the blockade even further, increasing fears that mass starvation might lead to even more deaths than the estimated 400 to 1,400 victims of the chemical attacks. Already six have died from malnutrition, according to activists, and as winter approaches, conditions are likely to worsen. One rebel brigade has dedicated its forces to breaking the siege in Moadhamiya, a town about 10 km from Damascus that has been under siege for more than six months.

Erdogan Embraces “Separate but Equal”

In the most recent German elections, Cemile Giousouf, a 35-year old daughter of a Turkish immigrant, was elected to the Bundestag as a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. That is good news. For too long, Europe has been a pot in which little has melted.
Alas, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan now seeks to keep it that way. He has now demanded that European countries teach the children of the Turkish Diaspora in Turkish, rather than the language of the land

Saudi Poet: I Would Pray for Hitler's Soul

In a diatribe against the Russians for supporting Bashar al-Assad's regime, Saudi cleric and poet Muhammad Al-Farraj praised Adolf Hitler for “barbecuing the Russians and the Jews through and through with gasoline.”

Saudi Cleric and Poet Muhammad Al-Farraj Lauds Hitler for "Barbecuing" Russians and Jews

News quiz

In which Middle Eastern country did a suicide bomber blow himself up in a playground yesterday, killing 13 children?

Which Middle Eastern country is building a 2-meter high wall along its border with Syria to stop refugees from crossing the border?

Which country reacted furiously to an Al Qaeda video threatening it, jailing a journalist who posted a link?

In which US Middle Eastern ally were 53 people killed yesterday by police?

In which Middle Eastern country was a German embassy security official killed this weekend? Hint: In the same country, a UNICEF official was kidnapped.

In which Middle Eastern country were 8 killed by mortar fire yesterday in a Christian neighborhood in its capital?

Which Middle Eastern conflict was recently singled out as "the main issue" in the Middle East by the French foreign minister?

Arab Christian describes Muslim bigotry, reveals more than he intends

I've given Ray Hanania both criticism and praise for his positions as an American of Palestinian origin. We exchanged insults over his support for Helen Thomas' bigotry. Even today he plays fast and loose with the facts. But this piece in Saudi Gazette is worth reading because it is a rare Arab critique of Muslim anti-Christian attitudes:

Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a rightwing anti-peace Zionist, met with a Christian Orthodox priest from Nazareth, Father Gabriel Nadaf, to discuss ways Christian Arabs could become more a part of Israel. The meeting enraged Muslim activists who denounced Father Nadaf as a “Christian Zionist,” and as a “Jew.”

I understand what Father Nadaf is doing. He recognizes that Christian Arabs live in a precarious world with Muslims. They believe that just maybe, Israel might be a better protector of Christian Arab interests. Christian Arabs are denounced for even raising this issue in public. We’re not allowed to talk about it. It’s haram! It’s a sin. But to Christian Arabs, it is real.

In truth, the relationship between Christian Arabs and Muslim extremists is worsening. But the real problem is that mainstream Muslims are doing nothing to confront these fanatics, and in fact they even refuse to see it as a problem that needs to be addressed. But the hatred by Muslim extremists against Christian Arabs is growing. It’s getting worse and many Christian Arabs believe that maybe Israel cares about us more.

This problem has to be viewed in a different, more complex context. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not a simple issue of two sides hating each other. Christians are in the middle. On the one hand, Muslims claim we are “brothers” in arms against Israel. But what happens to us when Israel is gone? Will Muslims respect us or, will Muslims merely resort to confronting us next.

There is an old Arab saying that I grew up with as a child that goes: “On Saturday the Jews. On Sunday the Christians.” We all know what that means. Once Israel is out of the way, Christian Arabs will be next.

...Their voices of rage and hatred should be confronted not by their Christian Arab targets but by the mainstream Muslim community. I shouldn’t be the one confronting him. Mainstream Muslims should be confronting these wild voices of hateful insanity.

It’s incidents like these that have many Christians today concerned about the real long-term goals of Muslims. Are Christian Arabs equal or are we just a short-term opportunity to be abandoned once Israel is destroyed by them.

This piece is notable for a different reason than the obvious of exposing Muslim bigotry in a Saudi publication.

Hanania takes it as a given that Muslim Arabs' major goal is destroying Israel, a viewpoint that he says he doesn't share. Yet even he says "when Israel is gone," not "if." To Arabs, moderate and extremist, Christian and Muslim, Israel is still considered a temporary blight on Arab land that cannot possibly survive; and as long as this attitude remains then real peace is impossible. This simple fact also undercuts Hanania's own thesis in the previous absurd piece I linked to - it is Israel's strategic strength that keeps things peaceful, not a "balance of power." See this previous post about how there really is no such thing as an Arab peacenik.

Christians can breathe relatively easy as long as Israel exists to act as a lightning rod for Arab hate. Too bad most Western observers don't realize what is self-evident to all Arabs.

As far as I can tell, this piece was not translated into Arabic anywhere, so the people who need to read it never will.

"Boycott Israel" - the music video

Very nice job:

However, I would have concentrated more on Western nations - how Canada and Australia treated natives, how European nations acted in Africa and elsewhere, how Switzerland and France take away rights from Muslims, and so forth. Israel's human rights record compares very well with everyone, not just Third World nations.

(h/t Leeor)

Bibi's Bar Ilan speech (video, text)

It starts at about 51:00 of this video:

JPost synopsizes:

There will be no peace with the Palestinians until they recognize the Jewish right to a homeland in Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday night at Bar-Ilan University.

“A necessary condition to getting a true solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian] conflict was and remains clear as the sun: ending the refusal to recognize the right of the Jews to a homeland of their own in the land of their fathers,” he said. “That is the most important key to solving the conflict.”

Netanyahu’s words came at the start of a conference marking 20 years since the founding of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, the site of Netanyahu’s famous “Bar-Ilan speech” from four years ago where he stated his willingness for a two-state solution.

Those who anticipated that he might use the same venue to again break new ground on the Palestinian issue were disappointed.

Rather then present a “vision” speech of where he thought the negotiations with the Palestinians were headed, Netanyahu used the opportunity to emphasize that a Palestinian recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people was a necessary condition to any agreement.

Since the first Arab attack on a home housing Jewish immigrants in Jaffa in 1921, the root of the conflict has not been the “occupation,” the “territories” or the settlements, but rather an Arab refusal to recognize the Jews’ right to a sovereign state in their historic homeland, he said.

Netanyahu said that the Arab revolutions of the past two years – which he called the most significant events in the region in 20 years – have laid to rest the “sacred cow” that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the heart of the instability in the Middle East.

Today, he said, it is “tough to say this without sounding absurd.”

It is now also the time, he said, to kill the “sacred cow” that the “occupation” was the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Netanyahu spent a number of minutes during his address, which lasted some 30 minutes, discussing the links of the head of the Palestinian national movement in the pre-state days – Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini – with the Nazis. He reminded his listeners that the mufti visited Adolf Hitler in 1941 and promised his aid in getting Muslims to enlist in the SS in the Balkan states, and in the Nazi propaganda efforts.

Husseini, he said, is still an admired figure among Palestinians.

“That is what needs to be uprooted,” he said.

Netanyahu brought up the mufti, however, more to refute comments Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made in New York two weeks ago than to slam the current Palestinian leadership.

During a television interview, Rouhani acknowledged Nazi crimes against Jews, though he would not use the word “Holocaust.”

Netanyahu pointed out that Rouhani then quickly pointed out that it was forbidden to let the Zionists exploit the Nazi crimes to oppress the Palestinians.

“Despite what Iranian representatives and others say,” the prime minister said, “Zionist leaders did not use the Holocaust to destroy the Palestinian national movement.

The opposite is true. The leader of the Palestinian movement at that time, Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, is the one who preached and worked to carry out the Holocaust to destroy the Zionist movement.

“And it almost worked,” Netanyahu said. “European Jewry was destroyed, with the help of the mufti, but Zionism was not destroyed; Israel was established.”

The goal of Iran today was to control the Middle East and beyond, and to “destroy the State of Israel. That is not speculation, that is the goal,” he said.

Repeating arguments he made last week at the UN, Netanyahu dismissed the notion that Iran was merely seeking nuclear energy for peaceful means, saying that countries that want to harness nuclear energy for civilian needs do not insist on enriching uranium and building plutonium reactors, elements not needed for civilian nuclear purposes but only to build nuclear weapons.

“The international community’s position toward Iran needs to be: We are willing to come to a diplomatic solution – but only one that will dismantle from Iran its capabilities to develop nuclear weapons. That means no centrifuges for enriching uranium and no plutonium reactor,” he said.

(h/t Josh K)

UPDATE: Algemeiner had the transcript:

“I recently read a hundred-page book by a wonderful American historian who passed away nearly 50 years ago. His name was Will Durant and he wrote many books. He wrote an eleven volume history of civilization, but at the end of his life, he wrote a hundred-page book, The Lessons of History. You should read it. Every line is carved from the stone of truth, and I will give you the bad news and the good news. The bad news is that when you finish reading this book, you understand that in history, greater numbers rule. They matter. But here is the good news. On page 17, if I am not mistaken, he mentions that there may be exceptions to this rule and that through the unification of a cultural force, that’s what he called it, the odds could be overcome. He gives the State of Israel as an example of such an exception. I think that we have proven in the 65 years of Israel’s existence that we are exceptional, but we must continue to be so, also by preserving our spiritual foundations. Two weeks ago, archaeologists found a gold medallion near the Western Wall. The archaeologists dated it to the beginning of the seventh century and there is a menorah on the medallion – our national symbol. On one side, a Torah scroll and on the other a shofar. The entire Torah on one medallion and of course, this was after 2,000 years of Jewish existence in the Land of Israel. This existence has lasted for nearly 4,000 years. Apparently there is something special about this exception of ours, in our unique combination of our past heritage and the way that we look to the future with our full force and talents and I would even say genius. There is no doubt that this university is part of our national and international effort to preserve our heritage and of course combine it with the future.

I thank you for your invitation to speak here, on the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Begin-Sadat Center. Many things have happened to us during those years. On the political front, we signed a peace agreement with Jordan. During all that time, exactly 20 years, we have been conducting negotiations with the Palestinians, trying to achieve a peace agreement, and despite ups and downs during these two decades, we managed to maintain the peace accords with Egypt. This is not insignificant. However, without a doubt, the most significant developments in the Middle East during this entire period are those of the past few years, and they overshadow all the rest when taking a broad view. Two of these developments include the historic unrest taking place in the Arab world – unrest that is at its height and far from over if such a thing can actually end; and of course Iran’s ongoing efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Iran’s goal is to take over the entire Middle East and beyond, and to destroy the State of Israel. This is not speculation; this is their goal.

Israel and the United States agree that Iran must be prevented from arming itself with nuclear weapons. Just days ago, the Iranian president said at the UN that Iran is only interested in civilian nuclear power. That’s what he said.

I do not believe him, but anyone interested in examining his statement should ask the Iranian regime one simple question – if you only want peaceful nuclear energy, why do you insist on centrifuges to enrich uranium and on plutonium reactors? Neither of these things is necessary to produce peaceful nuclear energy. There is no need for them; however they are the essential components for producing fissile material for nuclear weapons. This must be understood – they are not needed at all for peaceful purposes. Seventeen countries, including some of the leading countries in the world – Canada, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Indonesia with a quarter of a million people – and many others produce nuclear energy without centrifuges, without plutonium reactors.

Only someone who wants to produce fissile material for nuclear bombs insists on these components – not only insists, but is willing to inflict great suffering on his people because this insistence involves sanctions and dictates by the Security Council. Why do they do this? Perhaps they are lacking energy resources? They have gas and oil. I mention natural gas on purpose because it is immediately available for industry and for everything else. The have so many resources that they can provide for the needs of considerable areas of the world for many years with what they have, certainly for the needs of their own country. Therefore, the international community should take the following position vis-à-vis Iran – we are ready to reach a diplomatic resolution, but only one that dismantles Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons. In other words, no centrifuges or enriched uranium, no plutonium reactor. As long as Iran does not dismantle its centrifuges and plutonium reactors, the sanctions must not be eased at all. On the contrary, they should be increased. The truth is simple, it is clear, it cuts like a razor through the fog they are trying to create. If their intentions are peaceful, they will agree. If they are not peaceful, they will not agree. But perhaps the formula should be put simply as follows: they dismantle, they receive; they don’t dismantle, they don’t receive. And this is a difficult struggle because it is human nature to hope, to believe, to try – we are willing to try but not to conduct an open experiment without criteria and certainly not without a realistic and clear-sighted view.

Parallel with the attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear armament and preserve the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, we are interested in bringing the conflict with the Palestinians to an end. Achieving a genuine and secure peace, with real security and not just on paper but on the ground – for us, our children, our grandchildren – this is the greatest wish of all citizens of Israel. In order to bring about an end to the conflict, the root of the conflict must be understood.

I bring this up because, in my opinion, in all the discussions regarding the conflict with the Palestinians, at least one thing has been achieved and that is that whoever believed that it was the core of the conflict in the Middle East – well, now it is difficult to say such a thing without sounding absurd. It is not the core of the conflict – not what is happening in Libya or Tunisia or Algeria or Egypt or Yemen or Syria or Iraq and so on and so forth. But for years they told us that the core of the conflict in the Middle East was the Palestinian matter and… how shall I put this? That sacred cow is one of the victims of the Arab revolution.

However, there is a second sacred cow in equal measure. When people are asked what the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is – since if you want to provide a solution or fix a certain problem, first you must correctly diagnose the illness. Well, when asked what the root of the conflict is, people usually have an answer at the ready: the occupation, the territories, the settlements and so on – it is all the same. Israel “taking control of the territories”, the area of Judea and Samaria after the Six Day War, the settlements – this is what sustains the conflict, this is what created the conflict for the most part. And I ask, is it really?

In my opinion, if one must choose a process by which the conflict started in actual fact, I would set the date at 1921 on the day on which the Palestinian Arabs attacked the immigration hostel in Jaffa.

Many Jews were killed in this attack, including the well-known writer Y.H. Brenner. This attack was directed against Jewish immigration. My grandfather arrived in Jaffa, at that same hostel, the year before, as did many others. Clearly this attack was not about territory or settlements; it was against Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel. Later there were more attacks: In 1929, the ancient Jewish community in Hebron was brutally slaughtered. It had existed there nearly uninterrupted for close to 4,000 years. After that, there were attacks in ’36, in ’39 – what they called unrest. These were repeated and methodical attacks against the Jewish community in Israel. Later on there was the Partition Plan of 1947, wherein it was proposed that there be an Arab state – they didn’t say Palestinian state, but rather Arab state – and a Jewish state. The Jews agreed, the Arabs refused. Because the matter was not at that time, nor is it today, the question of a Palestinian state, but rather was and remains, unfortunately, the Jewish state. And even before 1967, for 19 years, they had us in a chokehold; there was a stranglehold around us with the sole goal of uprooting us, of extinguishing our lives. What was that about? There were no territories then either. There was no occupation, unless Tel Aviv is occupied and Jaffa is occupied. There were no settlements for 46 years, from 1921 to 1967, nearly half a century. We were excoriated by the Arab public unrelated to settlements, unrelated to what is presented as the historic heart of the struggle. I say these things because I can – well, so it ended there, but later everything changed. Later on, events developed as they developed. We withdrew from Gaza, every last centimeter. We uprooted communities and the attacks against us continued – approximately 10,000 missiles were fired at us from Gazan territory, from territories from which we withdrew. And when we ask those who launch the missiles and those who stand behind them: why do you fire at Jews? They say: in order to free Palestine. And what is Palestine? Judea and Samaria? No. Of course, they are part of it, but they say: Beer Sheva and Ashkelon, Majdal and Acre and Jaffa. Fine, those who say such things belong to Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but the more moderate elements in Judea and Samaria, the Palestinian Authority – it is true that they do not engage in terror and this is an important distinction. They do not engage in terror, but when they are asked to say: Well, do you recognize? Not in Judea and Samaria, not in the West Bank, but are you ready finally to recognize the Jewish state? They answer: We are prepared to recognize the Israeli people; we are ready to recognize Israel. I say, that is not the question I am asking: are you prepared to recognize the Jewish state, the nation state of the Jewish people? And the answer so far has been no. Why not?

During my speech here four years ago, I said that the solution is a demilitarized Palestinian state. The reason for demilitarization is clear to everyone in light of our experience – true and ongoing demilitarization with very clear security arrangements and no international forces. But a Jewish state – recognize the Jewish state. Why are you not willing to recognize the Jewish state? We are willing to recognize your nation state, and that is at great cost – it involves territories, our ancestral lands, which is not insignificant. And I say this as well – this is a very difficult thing. But you need to make a series of concessions too and the first concession is to give up your dream of the right of return. We will not be satisfied with recognition of the Israeli people or of some kind of binational state which will later be flooded by refugees. This is the nation state of the Jewish people. If they want, Jews immigrate to this country. Palestinian Arabs, if they want, will go there. Recognize the Jewish state. As long as you refuse to do so, there will never be peace. Recognize our right to live here in our own sovereign state, our nation state – only then will peace be possible.

I emphasize this here – this is an essential condition. There are other conditions important for concluding the negotiations – not for conducting negotiations, but for concluding them, but I mention this because the political process with the Palestinians involves resolving complicated problems. It will be deemed successful only if it is built on the foundations of truth, the truth of the present and historic truth and unfortunately, the truth that is under constant attack from our enemies and opponents. They try to undermine the ancient connection of our people with the Land of Israel and obfuscate the basic facts of the conflict between us and the Palestinians in the 20th century.

For example, several days ago, I heard Iran’s representative half-heartedly comment on the Nazi crimes – it is difficult for them to say Holocaust – but immediately he added vigorously that one shouldn’t allow the Zionists to take advantage of the Nazi crimes, i.e. the Holocaust, in order to harm the Palestinians. Iran’s representatives repeat time and again the familiar trope that the Holocaust occurred without any connection to the Palestinian question and only later the Zionist leaders came along and made use of the Holocaust to repress the Palestinians. Well, what are the facts? The undisputed leader of the Palestinian national movement in the first half of the 20th century was Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. The Mufti was the living sprit behind those same attacks I described, from 1921 in Jaffa through the Second World War. All this is known, but here are some facts about the Mufti’s activities that are less well known:

On November 28, 1941, the Mufti flew to Berlin and met with Hitler. He expressed to Hitler his readiness to cooperate with Germany in any way. And he did so – both by recruiting Muslim fighters to join the ranks of the S.S. in the Balkans and by broadcasting propaganda for the Nazis.

Here is a typical example of the propaganda broadcast by the Mufti in 1942. I quote, “If England is defeated and its allies overwhelmed, it will provide a final solution to the Jewish question, which in our mind is the greatest danger”. Between 1942 and 1944, he worked from his base in Berlin and tried to prevent Jews from being saved – in Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, Croatia – countries which, despite being enslaved to Hitler, allowed the Jews to escape to the Land of Israel and other places. The Mufti protested to the Nazis that they hadn’t provided enough resources to prevent the escape of the refugee Jews from the Balkans. In his testimony at the Nuremberg Trials on August 6, 1947, the German commander Wilhelm Melchers said, “The Mufti made his protests known everywhere, in the Bureau of the Foreign Minister and the State Minister and in other headquarters of the S.S.” On May 13, 1943, for example, the Mufti submitted a letter to the Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in which he objected to the understandings Germany made which allowed for the deportation of 4,000 Jewish children from Bulgaria. He asked to see, “everyone,” and I quote, “everyone wiped out”.

Eichmann’s deputy, Dieter Wisliceny, provided the following chilling testimony at Nuremberg: “The Mufti played a role in the decision to destroy the Jews of Europe. The importance of his role cannot be ignored. The Mufti repeatedly proposed to the authorities with whom he was in contact, first and foremost Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, to destroy the European Jews. He saw in that an appropriate solution to the Palestinian question”. Wisliceny even provided hearsay evidence that the Mufti was directly involved in the Final Solution. “The Mufti was one of the initiators of the methodical destruction of the Jews of Europe and was a partner and consultant to Eichmann and Hitler on how to execute the plan. He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and constantly pushed him to speed up the destruction. With my own ears,” he said, “I heard him say that he visited the gas chambers of Auschwitz anonymously in the company of Eichmann”.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As opposed to the things being said by Iran’s representatives and others, the Zionist leaders did not use the Holocaust to destroy the Palestinian national movement. On the contrary, the most senior Palestinian leader at the time, the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini preached and acted to implement the Holocaust in order to destroy the Zionist movement. It almost worked. European Jewry was indeed wiped out, in part because of the Mufti’s efforts, but Zionism was not wiped out and the State of Israel was established.

I mention these things here because these roots, this poisonous tumor, must be uprooted. The Mufti is still an admired figure in the Palestinian national movement. Go look at websites, go to schools, look at schoolbooks. This is the tumor that must be removed, this is the root of the conflict, this is what keeps it alive and the root of the conflict was and remains that which has been repeated for over 90 years – the profound objection by the hard core of Palestinians to the right of the Jewish people to its own country in the Land of Israel. In order for the current process to be significant, in order for it to have a real chance for success, it is essential that we finally hear from the Palestinian leadership that it recognizes the right of the Jewish people to its own country, the State of Israel. I very much hope that it will happen so that we can move toward a real resolution of the conflict.

There are many other subjects that we will of course have to resolve during the negotiations. First and foremost, there must be a real and sustainable solution to Israel’s security needs in the unstable and dangerous region in which live, because even if we do achieve this recognition, after years of incitement that still continues, we have no assurance that this recognition will filter down into all levels of Palestinian society and that is why we need very solid security arrangements, so that we will be able to defend the peace and defend ourselves if the peace is violated. This is a realistic and responsible approach, one that is ready to move forward but not blindly.

This reminds me of another issue. I think an essential condition for reaching a genuine resolution clearly was and remains the reversal of the refusal to recognize the right of the Jews to a nation state of their own in the land of their ancestors and this too is the most important key to resolving the conflict, recognition of this right.

I believe in the power of the people of Israel and I believe in the power of the State of Israel. What we have accomplished over the last 65 years is indeed wondrous. Today we mark 40 years since the Yom Kippur War. In the ensuing 40 years, the population of Israel has increased two-and-a-half fold. Israel’s GNP has increased 25 times. That is like taking 25 economies of the State of Israel and placing them side by side. We can mark achievements in all fields – in immigrant absorption, immigration, technology, freeing up the economy, developing the Negev and the Galilee, in the cyber city we are building in Beer Sheva, in the biotech city which will be established now in Safed, which is rising before our very eyes.

These are tremendous things. We did not wait for our neighbors in order to develop our country. We continue to do so. There is a connection between the two things – as long as we continue to grow our power, as long as we fortify our country, as long as we build our economy, as long as we strengthen our society, as long as we are strong – there is a chance that this change will also occur among our neighbors. We cannot give up on this – it is essential for safeguarding our future and ensuring our safety.

Thank you.”