Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 27, 2014

Hasby Award: Best Mainstream Media Watchdog

The week-long online Hasby awards continue, with a popular category:

BEST MAINSTREAM MEDIA WATCHDOG

CAMERA

BBC Watch

CiF Watch

Mideast Media Sampler at Legal Insurrection

Huffington Post Monitor

And the winner is:

01/27 Links Pt1: Sharon’s Legacy Haunts Obama And Kerry, Lancet M.E. Map erases Israel

From Ian:

David Singer: Sharon’s Legacy Haunts Obama And Kerry

Any attempt by Obama and Kerry to resile from or circumvent Bush’s Congress-endorsed commitments to Sharon will torpedo any prospects for success in the current negotiations – leaving Obama and Kerry with no one but themselves to blame for bringing the current negotiations to an ignominious end.
The idea that any American President would not consider himself bound by the written commitments of a former President – as endorsed by Congress – would undermine America’s very democratic foundations.
Disavowing the Bush commitments would prejudice the integrity of American diplomacy world wide – ensuring any political decisions by the current administration would not be worth the paper they are written on.
Sharon has left behind a bitter pill – which Obama and Kerry must reluctantly swallow.

Ya'alon: Palestinians see destruction of Jews as realistic possibility

Speaking at an event to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the defense minister lashed out at the Palestinian Authority for claiming to seek peace on one hand yet encouraging "efforts to boycott Israel."
"In the Palestinian Authority, whose leadership presents itself as one that is striving to reach an agreement with us, the brutal, insufferable incitement against the State of Israel and the Jewish people continues," Ya'alon said.
"This incitement is manifest in the education system and the media, where the hatred and poison ought to be an affront to any human," he said. "It is creating another generation of Palestinian children who are taught to look at the expulsion and destruction of the Jews as a realistic possibility instead of educating them toward a culture of peace and co-existence alongside Israel."

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians' New Enemy: Tzipi Livni

This Palestinian escalation of rhetoric does not bode well for the future of the peace talks. The Palestinians were first unhappy with Kerry, whom they accused of being biased in favor of Israel. Now they are angry with Livni for daring to criticize Abbas. In the end, Israel and the U.S. will be blamed for the failure of the peace process. This is exactly what happened after the botched Camp David summit in 2000, when Arafat held Israel and the U.S. fully responsible for the failure of the peace process. A few weeks later, the Second Intifada erupted. The same scenario is likely to repeat itself unless the Palestinian Authority leadership stops putting all the blame on others.

Holocaust Memorial Day shenanigans in Europe

Here is the entire statement put out by the EU's Catherine Ashton on the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day:

Today the international community remembers the victims of the Holocaust. We honour every one of those brutally murdered in the darkest period of European history. We also want to pay a special tribute to all those who acted with courage and sacrifice to protect their fellow citizens against persecution.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must keep alive the memory of this tragedy. It is an occasion to remind us all of the need to continue fighting prejudice and racism in our own time. We must remain vigilant against the dangers of hate speech and redouble our commitment to prevent any form of intolerance. The respect of human rights and diversity lies at the heart of what the European Union stands for.

Can anyone find the word that Ashton manages to avoid using?

Oh, yeah - the victims.

By generalizing the Holocaust into a vague historical example of prejudice against some unnamed groups, Ashton is trivializing it. Most cases of prejudice and racism don't end up with the victims ashes going up chimneys. There is a reason the term "genocide" was coined - to distinguish it from ordinary racism. Ashton apparently can't bring herself to think about that. It's a lesson for us, the victims will be honored, the heroes are great, hate speech is bad (except for Arab hate speech against Jews, which the EU cannot criticize), rah rah rah, let's celebrate.

This story, from Stand For Peace, is unbelievable:

Hassan Farooq is a a “senior member” of the Newham Dawah Team, an East London-based organisation which attempts to spread the message of Islam. Newham Dawah Team is part of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) Network, and its officials regularly liaise with iERA officials such as Abdurraheem Green. The iERA is an extremist Salafi group, some of whose officials have been banned from the UK. Abdurraheem Green talks of a Jewish “stench” and advocates the killing of homosexuals.

Hassan Farooq was chosen to speak at the 2013 Holocaust Memorial Day event in City Hall, in front of politicians and London officials, including Jennette Arnold AM, Mayor of London Boris Johnson and the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

Was Hassan Farooq a worthy speaker?
After taking a look at Farooq’s social media postings, it would seem most definitely not:

Yes, an admirer of Hitler spoke on Holocaust Memorial Day.

And there's more.

This happened yesterday.

A protest march against French President Francois Hollande held in Paris on Sunday took an ugly anti-Semitic turn, ending with clashes between police and protesters.

According to Agence France-Presse, the "Day of Anger" march was organized by a group of some 50 small and mainly right-wing organizations, which were able to bring out several thousand people. Organizers claimed 120,000 people participated in the march, but Paris police sources pegged the number much lower, at approximately 17,000.

According to Israel Radio, demonstrators soon departed from shouting anti-Hollande slogans in favor of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli chats, such as "Jews go home," and "Jews, France is not your country."

Some used the "quenelle" anti-Semitic gesture, which was invented by controversial comic Dieudonné M'bala M'bala.

According to the report, some chanted the anthem of the Nazi collaborators during World War II, shortly before they began clashing with security forces, who used tear gas to disperse several hundred youths who lobbed police with bottles, fireworks, iron bars and dustbins.

While Europeans like Ashton mouth words of remembering the Holocaust's lessons, it appears that Europeans haven't learned a thing.

(h/t Orna, Sam, Yisrael M)

PalArab "journalists" say Israel looking for excuses to attack mosques

A few days ago, Israeli media (undoubtedly given a briefing by the IDF) reported that Hamas is hard at work on getting ready for the next war:

Hamas is increasingly using sensitive civilian facilities in Gaza to protect its military assets from being targeted by Israel, ahead of a further round of conflict. It is also digging dozens of “terror tunnels” into Israel, The Times of Israel has learned.

Gaza’s Islamist rulers have been placing rocket launching pads next to water reservoirs, and attaching reconnaissance cameras to mosque minarets and water towers, The Times of Israel was told, in a bid to avoid IAF airstrikes during an upcoming round of confrontation.

The response from the Forum of Palestinian Journalists is interesting:

The forum of Palestinian journalists (FPJ) warned against the gravity of the media campaign that was launched recently by the Israeli occupation to prepare the world's public opinion to accept its justifications to bomb civilian areas and structures in any intended war on the Gaza Strip.

In a press release on Sunday, the forum said that this campaign included alleged press remarks made by Israeli military officials and unnamed sources, amplifying the military capability of the Palestinian resistance and claiming that it uses mosque minarets to set up surveillance cameras to monitor the movement of the Israeli army in border areas.

The resistance is also propagated to cache its rockets and weapons in places beneath residential buildings and use civilian areas for its resistance activities, among other claims intended to justify Israel's intents to bomb mosques, populated areas and civilians.

Of course Israel wants to destroy mosques! That's why there are so many mosques in, um, Israel!

Hamas had of course used mosques for storing weapons and shooting at Israelis. Here's a video of weapons found in a mosque in 2009:

This video shows massive secondary explosions when the IDF hit an arms depot hidden in a mosque:

Hamas (through the FPJ) is trying to make sure that their weapons mosques are off-limits in any future war. They never explained these videos, though.

Who says there is no unity between Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad?

The three terror groups held a memorial service over the weekend for an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was killed by the IDF in the house of a Hamas member in Jenin in December.

Masked gunmen from Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades and Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades all eulogized Rafie al Saadi and fired weapons in the air.

According to Palestine Today, this is the first public appearance of armed Hamas terrorists in the West Bank in years.

All three terror groups chanted slogans for "unity of the Palestinian factions in the face of the Zionist entity."

Islamic Jihad's representative said that "the blood of the martyr al-Saadi will remain fuel for resistance, and the Jenin refugee camp will remain a thorn in the throat of the occupation."

Hamas' official at the ceremony said "resistance is the only way to liberate Palestine and avenge the martyrs."

This was the first public appearance of all the major terrorist groups in the West Bank since 2007, and they fired shots in the air together.

Israel bombed Russian missiles in Latakia?

TOI writes:

Loud explosions were reported to rock the coastal Syrian city of Latakia late Sunday night, with reports of a possible airstrike on the Alawite stronghold.

The Palestinian Zamnpress news website reported Monday that Israeli planes carried out the attack on S-300 missiles, citing Western sources.

According to the Local Coordination Committees in Syria, residents reported “a huge explosion” in the Shekh Daher neighborhood of Latakia.

There was no immediate indication of the cause of the blast.

Zamn Press cites Western media sources - but doesn't mention a single one.

Which means that the report that S-300s were the target is pure rumor from an unreliable Palestinian Arab website.

The explosions are confirmed, though, as happening at 12:20 AM Monday morning.

Haaretz is the only major outlet to show skepticism:

The Israel Air Force bombed a Syrian base in the Latakia airport in the north of the country on Sunday, Lebanese media reported Monday morning. There are currently no other confirmations of this report.

Israeli security sources refused to confirm or deny the claims and there are serious doubts as to whether Israel in fact carried out the attack. In such cases in the past, information leaked was corroborated by the American government. They have not commented on this incident.

Hezbollah's Al Manar says that Israeli planes were breaking the sound barrier over the Bekaa Valley Sunday night, but if the IDF attacked Latakia, is seems unlikely that they would go through Lebanon.

If a bunch of advanced missiles were targeted, then of course chances are very good that the IDF did perform the raid. But right now we know nothing about the target, and the sources that "confirm" that this is from Israel so far have a very poor track record of distinguishing truth from fantasy.

Belgium's new poet laureate not happy I called him an antisemite. Too bad.

Last week, I reported that the new designated poet laureate of Belgium, whose pen name is Charles Ducal, is an antisemite, and I posted a couple of his poems to prove it. I introduced it with a story from the Antisemitism blog which saw the story in the Philosemitisme blog.

He wrote an email to the Philosemitisme blog, the Anti-Semitism blog and me but for some reason he didn't bother to find out our email addresses; he sent them to an independent investigative reporter who wanted to find out their reactions on the articles and their contents and he forwarded it to me.

Here is the (auto-)translation of his (lawyer's?) vaguely threatening email:

We demand the immediate cessation of the following accusations of anti-Semitism in relation to Charles Ducal and require immediate rectification of the coverage of Charles Ducal in:
- http://antisemitism-europe.blogspot.be/2014/01/belgium-new-national-poet-is-rabid.html
- http://elderofziyon.blogspot.be/2014/01/new-poet-laureate-of-belgium-is.html .

Please find your claims about his alleged anti-Semitism below refuted by Charles Ducal (pseudonym of French Dumortier ) :

There is an article on the blog of "Elders of Zion" accusing me of anti-Semitism. It is further alleged that my moral outrage it exclusively on the Jews and for example I have never written anything about the atrocities of the Belgians in the Congo.

As you, consciously or unconsciously, create confusion between the concept of "criticism of Israeli policy (anti- Zionism)" and " hatred of Jews ( anti-Semitism )" , for clarity , the following :

* I, like any reasonable person , make a distinction between Jew , Israeli and Zionist. I first of all have respect for the Jewish religion and great respect for what Jewish people in all times have performed in the fields of science, art and philosophy around the world. Since I come from a Flemish family who risked their lives to hide Jewish children from the Nazis, I have a deep sense of compassion for the Jews during the Holocaust. The Poetry Gazette No. 6 of 2012 has two poems of mine , entitled " Somewhere in Poland ," which unequivocally express this compassion. These poems will also be found in my collection to appear in March. Second, I cherish no hostile feelings towards the people of Israel and have never so much as a word has given rise to suspicion in that direction . Third, I'm an opponent of the Zionist policy of the Israeli government towards the Palestinian population , as described in dozens of well-documented books , such as " A cry for justice ' Dries van Agt , former Prime Minister of the Netherlands and former ambassador to the European Union, Japan and the U.S.. On this basis, one may call me " anti- Zionist" . I do not deny this point for those who strongly disagree with me, but the label "anti-Semite " is an expression of bad faith, defamation and slander .

• The poetry cycle "After Auschwitz " was written based on "The ethnic cleansing of Palestine" , a book written by an Israeli historian Ilan Pappe based on Israeli military archives. It is your right to disagree, as it is also my right in that study contributes to see in the uncovering of the historical reality .

• In 2010, appeared in Knack a series by my hand on the occasion of 50 years of Congolese independence, a series of the colonization and plundering of the Congo and the state of war today. These poems are included in my new collection to appear in March . I furthermore have poems written in response to the Iraq war and injustice in the world (poverty , war , etc. ) in general , as can be verified in my anthology published in 2012 . The argument that I let my moral outrage only for 'hatred of the Jews ' is this adequately refuted, I suppose.

• Finally, I would like to ask you whether you fully realize the severity of your accusation directed at me and the moral damage caused by the dissemination through social media. To turn the tragedy of the Jews under the Nazis into an instrument of cheap invective is hopefully for you due to a flurry of levity and not the result of a vulgar opportunism , which every righteous man ( Jew and non - Jew ) would be ashamed of.

I do not speak Flemish, so I will take him at his word that he has written against colonization of the Congo. This was in the part that I quoted from the Philosemitisme blog.

However, I stand behind the parts that I wrote.

Ducal says that he took his information about Israel from Ilan Pappe, the notoriously fraudulent "historian," Be that as it may, that does not excuse the form and words of his poems, which are by any sane definition antisemitic.

It is Ducal, not me, who takes the Holocaust and cheapens it in his attempt to tarnish today's Jews of Israel.

The poems I quoted were not obviously equating today's Israeli Jews with Nazis (except for the first "After Auschwitz" poem which is a Biblical quote, implying that Israel's justification for ethnic cleansing is Biblical, and the title is meant to be an ironic counterpoint to the Holocaust.)

Here are two of the other "After Auschwitz" poems:

AFTER AUSCHWITZ 1
When I heard that the house I called mine
was stolen, I asked the authorities who
the owner was. They said: “Your head is full of ash,
you’re still weak, you know nothing of the fight.”

When I heard that the owner was alive
and carried the key in his pocket, I sent
the locksmith away. He went to the authorities.
Then the locks were changed.

On memorial days, called to remembrance
my fellow downtrodden roamed in my head.
Beneath the ash, the issue smoldered, unsaid.
But the owner never came. It slowly went dead.

AFTER AUSCHWITZ 2

Even Auschwitz was nothing special, of course.
Many survivors came to this place,
a little despised but usable, and
received a monument to retrieve

from history the transportation to the camps
and to form the grindstone of a nation.
It was the horror of all ages, of course,
but as such became exclusive, ownership

of pain transformed into ownership of land.
Who lived in this street, in this house?
Who drew water from this well?
Who sold his goods at this market?

Who, about Auschwitz, could have any doubt?

To compare Jews in Israel to Nazis is antisemitic, period.

To misrepresent the idea of "Chosen People" as if Jews torment others using that as an excuse, is antisemitic.

To misrepresent Jewish scriptures as if it is used as justification for a fictional ethnic cleansing today is antisemitic.

This is exactly what Ducal does, in the most disgusting and sickening way.

Ducal is worse than Ilan Pappe. Pappe only lies; Ducal turns slander against Jews into art.

I am quite sensitive to the differences between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. This poetry isn't a dispassionate criticism of Israel - it is criticism of Israel whose entire power rests on attacking Jews, attacking Jewish symbols and making obscene comparisons to Jewish suffering. Ducal is claiming that Jews are using both the Holocaust and the Torah to justify the crimes that he reads in Pappe's novels and he sneeringly mentions "chosenness" and "Auschwitz" and Jewish suffering throughout the ages in order to evoke the exact same trite and perverted moral equation that other Jew-haters use: "Jews are doing to Arabs what Nazis did to Jews."

That is antisemitism.

I think that it is reasonable to call someone who writes such nauseating anti-Jewish propaganda an antisemite, despite his statements of sympathy for dead and suffering Jews of the Holocaust. It is easy to feel sorry for the dead and the survivors - Ducal seems to want credit for that. He claims that his writing of a poem (that I have not read) sympathetic to Holocaust victims should inoculate him from accusations of antisemitism. What he doesn't get - or he is purposefully ignoring - is that his poems that equate the Holocaust with the events of 1948 means he doesn't know the first thing about the Holocaust and he is equally ignorant about the "Nakba."

Denying the Jewish people the right of self determination is also antisemitic. And so is misrepresenting Israel's history by claiming that Jews used the Holocaust to become "exclusive owners" of Israel. The number of lies and misrepresentations in these poems is huge, and all of them - by sheer coincidence, I suppose - make Jews look like hypocrites and monsters. Imagine that.

These poems of his should be exposed. If he is fine with what they say, well, all I'm doing is giving people the opportunity to read them for themselves and make their own decisions.

I believe that the antisemitism is clear and I have no problem saying so.

Hasby Award: Best English-Language Pro-Israel Online Media Outlet

The nominees for

BEST ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PRO-ISRAEL ONLINE MEDIA OUTLET;

are:

Algemeiner

Israel HaYom

Jewish Press

Tablet

JPost

The Tower

Israel21c

Another tough category.

The award goes to:

We've been reporting on the UNRWA workers' strike in the West Bank.

It isn't only schools that are affected, but also sanitation.

Garbage is piling high, making roads inaccessible, and the kids - out of school - are playing in the trash, according to Palestine Today.

Health centers are also closed, and there is danger of disease from the lack of garbage pickup. In the early days, residents volunteered to take care of the trash themselves, but they seem to have stopped.

The strike is now 54 days old, and the mainstream media is still ignoring it - because no one can blame Israel for it.

As soon as they figure out an Israel angle, though, then we can expect lots of coverage.

Hasby Award: Best Pro-Israel Media Outlet/Writer Not Exclusive to Israel

This is the first Hasby award of 2014. I will be presenting these all week.

The nominees for

BEST PRO-ISRAEL MEDIA OUTLET/WRITER NOT EXCLUSIVE TO ISRAEL

are:

Douglas Murray

Melanie Phillips

Gatestone Institute

Charles Krauthammer

Walter Russell Mead

Bret Stephens (WSJ)

This is a very tough category, because every nominee is great. But the award goes to:

01/26 Links: The UNs relentless delegitimization campaign, SodaStream Scores Another SB Rejection

From Ian:

Confusing The World With the Facts on "Palestine"
Palestine is a geographical area, not a nationality.

Palestine was and is solely a geographic name. Therefore, it is not surprising that in modern times the name ‘Palestine’ or ‘Palestinian’ was applied as an adjective to all inhabitants of the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River – Palestine Jews and Palestine Arabs alike. In fact, until the 1960s, most Arabs in Palestine preferred to identify themselves merely as part of the great Arab nation or citizens of “southern Syria.”
The term ‘Palestinian’ as a noun was usurped and co-opted by the Arabs in the 1960s as a tactic initiated by Yasser Arafat to brand Jews as intruders on someone else’s turf. He mendaciously presented Arab residents of Israel and the "Territories" as indigenous inhabitants since time immemorial. This fabrication of peoplehood allowed Palestinian Arabs to gain parity with the Jewish people as a nation deserving of an independent state.

UN Propaganda Campaign Against the Legitimacy of Israel Reaches Epidemic Proportions

The UN propaganda campaign against the legitimacy of Israel has now reached epidemic proportions. On January 20, 2014 the UN organized its first Solidarity Year event for "civil society." In one of the UN's main galleries, it conducted a public screening of the film "Where should the birds fly?" and sponsored a subsequent discussion with Palestinian filmmaker Fida Qishta and journalist Laila El-Haddad. Here is just some of what the film included: Mona Samouni (age 11 or 12): "The Israeli soldiers were shooting at the people, as if they were not human, as if they were chickens or mice. For the Israeli army this is something without meaning. But the victims were very precious to us, even though they didn't consider them human." Fida Qishta: "Even the presence of international observers does not prevent daily random Israeli gunfire. The Israelis seem to be playing a deadly game with Palestinians who are just trying to work and live, taunting them and intimidating them, sometimes killing them." At the close of the UN afternoon of portraying Israelis as Nazi-like wanton baby killers, the Chairman of the UN working group that organized the affair, Maltese diplomat Bernard Hamilton, asked the crowd to do their utmost to promote the film.

Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei Denied Holocaust
MEMRI Disproves Iranian FM Zarif's Claim To ABC That Khamenei's Statements About Holocaust 'Myth' Were 'A Bad Translation'; Khamenei Also Praised French Holocaust Denier Roger Garaudy

In a September 29, 2013 interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, in which Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was questioned about Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's statements that the Holocaust is a "myth," Zarif claimed that Khamenei is not a Holocaust denier and that the statements – which can be found in English on his official English-language website – were a "bad translation" and "out of context." Khamenei had made the statements in a February 2006 speech to Iranian Air Force officers.[1]
However, a MEMRI investigation reveals that FM Zarif's claim is false; in Khamenei's original statements, which can be accessed on Khamenei's official Persian-language website, Khamenei did indeed call the Holocaust a "myth."

SodaStream Scores Another Super Bowl Rejection

The fix is easy. SodaStream can just remove those four words. After all, having Johansson on board is too big an asset to squander on a banned commercial. Then again, knowing SodaStream, it couldn't have scripted things any better. SodaStream will be able to milk the publicity of another banned ad. The uncensored version will blow up on YouTube, just as last year's nixed spot did. Over the next few days it can argue that Fox doesn't care about the environment, favoring the promotion of Coke cans and Pepsi bottles. Other ads have called out the competition by name in the past, and SodaStream can rule by being the exception.

Khamenei's Tweets of the Day

The English language Twitter feed of Iran's Supreme Leader is often unintentionally funny.

Here he decides to pray to the Twitter gods to take the hate out of his heart, which sounds like a suicide wish to me, since there would be nothing left: