Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 03, 2014

02/03 Links Pt2: French Jews Hold Massive Pro-Israel Rally; ASA panic over NY anti-boycott law

From Ian:

JCPA: Erekat Is Wrong. The Jewish Presence in the Land Dates Back for Millennia

In effect, Erekat was promoting the well-known Palestinian narrative that they are the native population, while the Jews are latecomers who only arrived in the last hundred years. Since the Muslim Arab conquest of Palestine occurred only in 634CE, the credibility of this Palestinian claim is questionable, to say the least.
At the same time, there is documented proof of a Jewish presence in the land dating back millennia. In Jericho itself, the Shalom al Yisrael (Peace unto Israel) synagogue with its magnificent mosaic was discovered in the 1930s and dates back to the Byzantine period. Not far away is the Wadi Kelt synagogue which dates back to 75 BCE, from the time of the Hasmonean monarchy, making it the oldest synagogue to have been discovered. (h/t Bob Knot)

Sharansky’s guide to the region’s human rights dilemmas

I thought Natan Sharansky — the former Soviet dissident and icon of the Soviet Jewish emigration movement, briefly Israeli journalist, later party leader and government minister, and today Jewish Agency chairman — might have some insights into the innumerable human rights dilemmas facing Israel and this stormy region. And so it proved, in an interview Wednesday at Sharansky’s office in the Jewish Agency building.
We talked about Israel’s obligations regarding African asylum-seekers (limited), the government’s obligations to Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Arab citizens in the Galilee triangle (profound, in both cases), President Barack Obama’s obligations regarding the ayatollah-dominated people of Iran (dismally unfulfilled), and a great deal more besides. (He preferred not to discuss the soon-to-be-vacant spot of state president.)

Scarlett Johansson split with Oxfam 'may deter celebrity charity work'

Responding to the split between the Hollywood actress and the charity, for which she has worked for almost a decade, Mr Neilson told The Independent on Sunday: "Now, the celebrities, actors, athletes, people who are the focus of our celebrity-obsessed culture, will be less likely to become philanthropic."
He added: "The biggest asset that Scarlett Johansson has is her fame, and if people like her are scared of using their fame to make the world a better place, no one wins."
Oxfam said Johansson's promotion of SodaStream was "incompatible" with her being its ambassador.
Mr Nielson thinks the charity could now struggle to recruit celebrities, saying that it is "unrealistic" for any charity to expect celebrity supporters to agree with it on everything. "It's not as if Johansson was working with Oxfam on the West Bank issue; she was working with them on extreme poverty. Do you have to agree with an NGO on all issues in the world in order to work with it on one issue?" he added.

In Tablet, there is a book review of Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang Schwanitz. The reviewer, David Mikics, makes what appears to be some valid points disputing the book. However, one point he makes - that became the title of the review - has no evidence behind it:

Rubin and Schwanitz make the astonishing claim that al-Husaini is nothing less than the architect of the Final Solution. Rather than being a garden-variety pro-Nazi, they say, the mufti had so great an influence on the fuehrer that he might as well have authored Nazi Germany’s most demonic project, the mass murder of European Jewry.

The claim that al-Husaini was the hidden hand behind Adolf Hitler is implausible, even silly. Rubin and Schwanitz are historians with a political agenda: They want to show that eliminationist anti-Semitism animates the Islamic Middle East, and so they paint al-Husaini as so devilishly anti-Semitic that he can contend with Hitler himself.

Yet Rubin and Schwanitz’s claim also has serious, troubling implications. Where did al-Husaini’s passionate hatred of Jews come from? Indisputably, from the Jewish colonization of Palestine. So, if you follow Rubin and Schwanitz’s logic—as they themselves fail to do—Zionism is responsible for the Holocaust. No Zionist colonization of Palestine would mean no Arab anti-Semitism, which means no al-Husaini, which means no Final Solution. The authors use a historical life to advance their political reading of the Arab-Israeli conflict—without thinking through the risks of loading their political agenda onto historical analysis.

Mikics insists - and says that it is indisputable! - that Arab antisemitism only exists because of Zionism.

This is, to put it mildly, crazy.

The Mufti was by any account a rabid antisemite. Mikics agrees:

That al-Husaini was a radical anti-Semite is not the real news in Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East. We knew that already. Though al-Husaini was put in power by Britain, he eagerly embraced Nazism and rivaled Hitler in his fanatical anti-Semitism—and frequently proclaimed that the Middle East needed to rid itself of its Jews.

So why does he assume that Husseini's antisemitism would not have existed if Zionism hadn't existed? It's not like every anti-Zionist Arab pushed for genocide of the Jews of Europe. It is an astonishing theory that a anti-Zionism alone can make a person want to wipe out all Jews, or that somehow virulent antisemitism as a result of anti-Zionism is understandable.

The idea that Arab antisemitism was a result of Zionism is completely unsupported. The Mufti himself worked hard to ensure that Jews would have no access to the Kotel - does that sound anti-Zionist or antisemitic?

The Mufti wrote for the journal Suriyya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria) in 1919. In that year, the British suspended the publication of that journal for a month because it was stirring up "race hatred." Not because it was anti-Zionist, but because it was antisemitic.

Of course, Arab antisemitism predates Zionism by centuries, as I have documented many times. It is anything but "indisputable" that the more recent anti-Zionism spawned antisemitism.To be sure, Zionism sharpened existing Arab antisemitism and gave it more of a focus, but it existed and was rampant way before Herzl and Rothschild.

It is a shame that such a ridiculous charge be published on the day that Barry Rubin passed away. His rebuttal would have been fun to read.

I mentioned last week that Israel was returning the bodies of terrorists, including suicide bombers, without any obvious quid pro quo for the gesture.

Here is a description of one of the attacks:

On 29 March 2002, during the afternoon, a Palestinian 18-year-old female suicide bomber approached the Kiryat Yovel supermarket in Jerusalem. The supermarket at the time was full of customers shopping for the weekend.

Haim Smadar, the 55-year-old security guard who guarded the entrance to the supermarket and spoke Arabic, became suspicious after two Arabic women who usually sold vegetables outside the shop entrance had been warned by Akhras to leave. Akhras detonated the explosives at the entrance to the store while struggling with Smadar, killing him and Rachel Levy, a 17 year-old Israeli girl. In addition, about 30 people were injured in the attack. Smadar managed to forcefully keep her away from the crowd, thus preventing a larger loss of life had the attack taken place inside the store.

After the attack, it was discovered that the suicide bomber was also carrying an unexploded mortar bomb. When news of the bombing reached Dheisheh, some of the residents celebrated, handing out candies and firing guns in the air.

Hamas claimed responsibility although Akhras trained with Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

At the time of the bombing, Newsweek disgustingly compared the terrorist and the victim.

Several years afterwards, an idealistic Israeli filmmaker did the same. She tried to get the mothers of Rachel Levy and Ayat Akhras together to see if they could unite in their respective grief. In the end, they could only speak by satellite. Here, we see the difference between the two sides: while Mrs. Levy tried to find something in common with the other mother, Mrs. Akhras could only speak about how justified the terror act was.

Now Ayat Akhras' body has been returned, and her mother is just as enamored of terror as she ever was.

She is happy that her daughter's remains are returning and she can bury her in a plot that has been waiting for twelve years. The Palestine Today article is sympathetic with her, of course. The mother proudly mentions how passionate her daughter was in her hate of Israel.

The last paragraph of the story:

Today Aayat returns to her mother as a bride, like she [hr mother] always wanted to see her... She returns in times of failure and defeat in order to emphasize through her death, life and martyrdom that "Between us and our enemy there are only funerals", the funerals of our martyrs and their dead.

Thousands attended the double funeral of Akhwas and another suicide bomber whose body was returned. (The other bomber injured four Israelis in Neve Dekalim but didn't kill anyone.)

Huge banners of Ayad Akhwas were set up along the funeral route.

There is truly no comparison between the monsters who raise children to kill others and those who raise their children to live their lives productively.

None of the hundreds of NGOs in the territories, and certainly not the PA government, are doing a thing to change the mentality of Palestinian Arabs away from worshiping at the altar of this death cult. No peace agreement can ever change the attitude of those who openly celebrate terror, and none of the so-called liberals and progressives in the area are doing a thing to change these attitudes. On the contrary, they often identify with them. The official PA news agency refers to Akhwan as a "martyr".

Incitement is a major issue, but the lack of any initiative to change the basic value system of Palestinian Arabs from making terrorists into heroes is even worse. UNRWA claims to have a "human rights" curriculum in the schools but I do not believe at any point do they attempt to humanize Zionists, meaning that it is not making a dent in the hate.

Their self-appointed leaders will pretend to the West that they are liberal and democratic and support human rights, but in the end the majority still are closer in worldview to Ayat Akhras' sickening mother than to Rachel Levy's.

As long as this is true, any peace agreement is doomed before it starts. Those who recklessly push such an agreement before Palestinian Arabs are truly ready to believe that Israelis are human beings are perpetuating and worsening the conflict, not solving it.

02/03 Links Pt1: Soft bigotry, Secretary Kerry, and the PLO; Kerry Abandons UNSC 242

From Ian:

PMW: PA schools named after terrorists raise terror-admiring youth

The Palestinian Authority educates its children to view terrorists who have murdered Israelis as role models. One of the prominent ways the PA glorifies this terror, as documented repeatedly by Palestinian Media Watch, is by naming schools, cultural events, sporting events, streets and more after terrorists.
The educational impact of this practice on Palestinian youth was confirmed in a program on PA TV about a PA high school for girls named after the female terrorist Shadia Abu Ghazaleh. Many students interviewed said they admired the bomb-maker and saw her as a role model. Abu Ghazaleh was active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization and involved in many attacks against Israel. She was preparing a bomb intended for an attack in Tel Aviv in 1968, when it accidentally detonated and killed her.

Elliot Abrams: Soft bigotry, Secretary Kerry, and the PLO

Bush once noted the "soft bigotry of low expectations" in our domestic context, and the term is useful here. For it is bigotry to believe that more cannot realistically be expected from the Palestinians. And it is very damaging to any hope for a decent, democratic, independent state some day. Neither the political culture nor the institutions of democracy can be built this way. That was the great error of the Clinton administration, which dealt with Yasser Arafat as if he would one day be the George Washington of Palestine instead of the corrupt terrorist he was. The error is being repeated now, as we ask Abbas for one thing only -- to sit at the table -- and overlook all else.

My letter to Reuters about SodaStream

Not that I expect anything to be done, but when they know people are watching them, they tend to be a little more careful.

Dear Editor,

In the story "Israeli settlement factory sparks Super Bowl-sized controversy," writer Noah Browning interviews a worker at the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumim:

One mid-level Palestinian employee who spoke to Reuters outside the plant, away from the bosses, painted a far less perfect picture, however.
"There's a lot of racism here," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Most of the managers are Israeli, and West Bank employees feel they can't ask for pay rises or more benefits because they can be fired and easily replaced."

I've noted on my blog that Browning has shown serious anti-Israel bias in the past, and this story appears to add to that list.

The fact is that there have now been nine articles in the media interviewing workers at the plant, and only two of them exclusively found a worker that was disgruntled. Every single other outlet found that the workers were happy and against any boycott of SodaStream.

For documentation, see my articles here, here and here.

Given Browning's record and the anomalous nature of his reporting here - the only media outlet that agrees with him is virulently and openly anti-Israel - this story and his reporting reflects poorly on Reuters, and indicates a serious problem with interview bias done by Browning in order to push an agenda rather than reflect the truth of the situation.

Please review Browning's Middle East articles in general, especially the ones I noted, as well as this article in particular. How many people did he interview altogether? Did he only choose the one interview that jived with his biases? Did he purposefully seek out the same employee that Electronic Intifada interviewed? It is astonishing that 7 separate, independent media outlets find that virtualy all employees agree with each other that they are happy, and only Browning and EI found the counter-examples.

Thanks,

Elder

Barry Rubin, a true scholar and wonderful man, passed away this morning after a battle with cancer. He was 64.

Barry was a staunch defender of Israel. His writings were accurate, clear and powerful. He didn't mince words.

Rubin was also the director of the Gloria Center in Israel. Last year, I believe after his diagnosis, Rubin did the unthinkable - he placed 13 of his books on the website of the Gloria Center to be freely downloaded.

Just looking over some of the older articles I've quoted from him on this blog over the years shows that they haven't aged at all - they are all still spot on in their analysis.

I had the privilege of meeting Barry a few years ago in Tel Aviv, and he was just as nice a man in person as he was formidable in his writings.

A long time ago, I wrote what I thought was a piercing analysis of Syria. After I posted it, I sent a copy to Barry, since he has written a book I admired on the topic. Within a half hour, he responded with a devastating fisking of my piece - a fisking that was so good that I appended it to my post.

Another time, Barry thought I should write something for the Jerusalem Post, so I wrote up an op-ed. Again, within less than an hour, he completely rewrote my piece and made it orders of magnitude better.

People might compliment me, but whenever there is a danger of those compliments going to my head, I think of Barry - because he was in a different league.

Barry Rubin's clarity of thought and encyclopedic knowledge was unmatched. He dedicated his life to pursuing and spreading the truth, no matter how politically incorrect or uncomfortable it may be. We should all follow in his footsteps.

Barghouti's BDS Kumbaya in the NYT

Omar Barghouti, in the New York Times, characterizes BDS as "a nonviolent movement anchored in universal principles of human rights." His punchline is:

Would justice and equal rights for all really destroy Israel? Did equality destroy the American South? Or South Africa? Certainly, it destroyed the discriminatory racial order that had prevailed in both places, but it did not destroy the people or the country.

Likewise, only Israel’s unjust order is threatened by boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Although he doesn't write it in this op-ed, Barghouti is arguing for a one-state solution with the "right of return" - meaning he is arguing for a new Arab state to replace Israel. He is couching this dissolution of Jewish national rights and the right to self-determination in terms of "human rights."

Barghouti is arguing that this is not a problem, because the new state would give equal rights to all and Jews would not have to worry about being persecuted as a minority under the benevolent Palestinian Arab leadership that would be democratically elected.

These assumptions are not spelled out explicitly, but they are hiding behind the soothing phrases "human rights" and "equality" and "democracy" and "non-violence."

Let's talk about these concepts and how well they would apply to a single state.

Human rights - in Egypt, Copts are second-class citizens by any definition. I just posted about an Egyptian TV show where the way to insult Islamists was by saying that they are even worse than Christians and Jews.

Similarly, Palestinians are second-class citizens in Jordan, fearful of losing their citizenship. They are treated like dirt in Lebanon. Kurds are reviled throughout the Arab world.

We don't even need to speak about human rights in Syria or Iraq or Yemen.

Even within the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah are still at loggerheads, and they had a civil war not too long ago. Journalists are threatened. Christians are intimidated.

The only place in the Middle East with decent human rights for all its citizens is Israel. It isn't perfect, but it is a far sight better than in any Arab country. But Barghouti is trying to fool the West into thinking that Arabs will certainly grant equal rights to Jews when they cannot even grant Arab minorities a modicum of right.

Equality - Every single Arab nation, and this includes the PA, has a constitution that declares that they are Arab, which means (according to the logic that declares a Jewish state inherently apartheid-like) that they discriminate against non-Arabs. (Indeed they do, for example in immigration policies.) Most of them declare that they are Muslim nations with a legal system based on the Quran.

Minorities in Arab nations are not treated equally in any real sense (although there is guarded optimism about Tunisia.)

Once again, the only Middle Eastern nation to come close to treating all its citizens equally is Israel. To think that an Arab majority state would treat Jews equally is to ignore the entire history of the Middle East.

Democracy - the most moderate Palestinians are clearly the leaders of the PA, who at least pretend to be against violence (forgetting that the Fatah platform supports violence explicitly.)

Mahmoud Abbas just started the tenth year of his four year term. You know, the one that he promised to retire after.

This is all despite Jimmy Carter's solemn promise that the last elections (which really were probably the last elections, ever) were totally great and democratic.

The prime ministers of the PA weren't even elected to begin with - they were appointed.

Yet again, the only place with a functioning democracy in the region is Israel. And Barghouti wants to end that.

Non-violence - Barghouti and the BDS crowd don't like Abbas and company. They believe that they aren't radical enough. They believe that Abbas' non (explicit) support of terror isn't authentic and that terrorism is a human right. Really!

BDS is a non-violent tactic, but BDSers - and particularly Barghouti - believe in "all means of resistance" being legitimate - and that includes suicide bombing.

He will never tell that to the New York Times, but he has said it in speeches for years. And other "progressive" critics of Israel share that belief.

Readers of the NYT op-eds don't realize that they are being subjected to half truths and doubletalk meant to destroy the Jewish state.All they see are the soothing words of Barghouti hijacking democratic concepts to create another failed Arab state. But that's not his goal - it is to destroy the only Jewish state, which - while not perfect - is closer to the ideals of democracy, human rights, equality and even non-violence than any Palestinian Arab state could ever be.

It is worth looking again at how the Arab nations pretended to want a democratic Arab-majority state as a last chance effort to frustrate the UN partition vote in 1947. They also pretended to care about democracy
and human rights, but it is obvious that their real goal was to stop any Jewish state from ever existing. Then, as now, the nice words were a sham meant to fool the West. (They even demanded to go to the International Court of Justice!)

Their most important requirement in this "democratic" state was to curtail all Jewish immigration.

Barghouti is the modern equivalent of the Arabs of 1947.

(h/t EBoZ)

"Muslim Brotherhood women worse than Jews, Christians"

A female Egyptian expert named Suad Saleh advised a man during a TV show to break up with his Muslim Brotherhood fiancee.

The reason? Because Muslim Brotherhood women are even more vicious and harmful to the community than Jews and Copts. She said, "At the moment, under the difficult conditions seen in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is more dangerous than Jews and Christians, because they are shedding blood, and consider themselves to be exclusively right."

Saleh, who is a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al Azhar University and is apparently some type of advice guru, told the young man that if he breaks up with this undesirable girl, he will earn many good deeds from God, and will maintain the stability of the family.

It must be super comforting for Jews and Copts to know that they are no longer the most hated people in Egypt.

Hasby Awards 2014 press release

Here is the press release announcing the winners of all of the 2014 Hasby Awards.

PRLog (Press Release) - Feb. 2, 2014 - NEW YORK -- The Elder of Ziyon blog has announced the winners of the annual Hasby Awards, given to the best examples of hasbara (explaining Israel's viewpoint) for the year.

This year awards were given in ten categories.

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Media Outlet/Writer Not Exclusive to Israel were Douglas Murray, Melanie Phillips, Gatestone Institute, Charles Krauthammer, Walter Russell Mead and Bret Stephens. Melanie Phillips was the winner, "for per clear vision, consistency and volume of output. "

The nominees for Best English-Language Pro-Israel Online Media Outlet were Algemeiner, Israel HaYom, Jewish Press, Tablet, Jerusalem Post, The Tower and Israel21c. The winner was The Tower, "a very attractive, well-done news site, and for that alone it deserves kudos - but one of the reasons it won was because of the great things happening at its parent organization, The Israel Project."

The nominees for Best Mainstream Media Watchdog were CAMERA, BBC Watch, CiF Watch, Mideast Media Sampler at Legal Insurrection, and Huffington Post Monitor. The winner was CAMERA, which "had a stellar year with dozens of articles showing bias in the New York Times alone (and forcing many corrections)."

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Commentator Exclusive to Israel/ME were Caroline Glick, Martin Kramer, Daniel Gordis, Evelyn Gordon, Sarah Honig and Khaled Abu Toameh. The winner was Sarah Honig, who "contextualizes today's headlines in terms of history, much of which she witnessed firsthand."

The nominees for Best Watchdog (Arabic Media or NGOs) were MEMRI, Palestinian Media Watch, NGO Monitor and UN Watch. The winner was Palestinian Media Watch, because "PMW has made inroads this year into bubbling up the issue of Palestinian Arab incitement to the masses."

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Video were Pat Condell - Patronizing the Palestinians, "I'm an Israeli Soldier" (Latma), Naftali Bennett on CNN and Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser. The winner was Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser/Here Is Israel, "a fresh take on an old (but still valid) argument, pointing out the hypocrisy of the boycotters. "

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Tweeter were Arsen Ostrovsky, Margie in Tel Aviv, CiFWatch, No Camels and William Daroff. The winner was No Camels, "dedicated to good news from Israel, especially in covering high tech."

In the much-anticipated Best Blog category, the nominees were Israellycool, Israel Matzav, This Ongoing War, Jews Down Under, Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers, 5 Minutes for Israel and IsraelSeen. The winner was Israellycool, which "has always been a tremendous blog, with great analysis and a wonderful sense of humor" and a "must read daily."

The winner for Best Article was "An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: Wake up!" by Hen Mazzig, writing in The Times of Israel. The article was "the best example of hasbara in the classic sense: explaining things to readers they might not know about, heightened by the first person account of his experiences." The other nominees were Howard Javobson and Brendan O'Neill.

The winner for Best Individual Example of Hasbara went to Ed Kilnger's note on a BDS MacBook, a photo that went viral, which "struck a chord in thousands of ordinary people, seeing how hypocritical the Israel-haters are."

Finally a special achievement Hasby Award for grassroots activism was given to Sussex Friends of Israel. As EoZ wrote, "As far as I can tell, this is a completely grassroots effort. There is no help from the organized British Jewish or Zionist community, and one gets the impression that the lack of an organized response is what helped create SFI."

All of the details, with links to the nominees and the full awards, can be seen athttp://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/search/label/Hasby%202014 .

Elder of Ziyon, a popular pro-Israel blog in its tenth year, congratulates all the winners.

Iranian media says Israel's Golan field hospital is only for "Syrian terrorists"

Times of Israel reports on the Channel 2 report on the field hospital in the Golan to treat victims of the Syrian civil war:

On Friday evening, Channel 2 News aired footage of the fenced Golan Heights facility, which has treated over 700 Syrian patients since it was established less than a year ago.

The hospital, staffed by soldiers in uniform, includes an emergency room, an intensive care unit, an operating theater, a mobile laboratory, a pharmacy and an x-ray facility. It treats Syrian patients who cross the border regardless of creed – or of where their loyalties lie.

Col. Tarif Bader, commander of the hospital, said that while the decision to administer humanitarian aid to populations outside of Israel was always a dilemma, in this case, it was “the right choice” – one he was proud to be a part of.

He added that most patients suffered from “serious battle wounds.” Among them were men as old as 83, as well as young children, who another staff member described as strong and communicative. ”They don’t look frightened,” he said.

Now look how Hezbollah and Iranian media reports this:

The Israeli army has set up a field hospital on the Golan Heights to treat injured militants who belong to the terrorist groups in Syria.

These groups have treated over 700 of its injured militants in that hospital, according to Israeli media outlets, Al-Manar reported.

The report mainly focused on the Israeli intentions behind treating the militants, clarifying that the Israelis aim at strengthen and deepen their relations with the terrorist groups in Syria in order to keep the calm and stability which now prevails between these groups and Israel at Palestinian-Syrian borders.

The report also included interviews with a number of the militants who stated that "Zionism is not macabre as it has been portrayed by the Syrian regime."

"The regime used to force us to believe that our enemy is all the surrounding world, yet after the beginning of the revolution, we recognized our real friends and real enemies."

FARS illustrates the article with this photo, meant to show the Israelis treating an al-Qaeda terrorist:

In fact, this photo was originally captioned (in October) this way:

One 15-year-old patient at Ziv [a different facility - EoZ] was riding in a tractor with his younger brother when the tractor ran over a land mine. Both boys were brought to the Israeli border by their distraught father. “We need peace,” the Syrian boy said of his homeland.

02/02 Links: SodaStream Shows that BDS is the Real Obstacle to Peace; Oxfam's friends

From Ian:

When an Israeli Ambassador Debated a British Historian on Israel’s Legitimacy—and Won

The setting is Montreal, where the famed British historian Arnold Toynbee, a specialist in international affairs, delivered a controversial lecture to students at McGill University. And the story didn’t end with an exchange of op-eds, press releases, and public apologies. Instead, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Yaacov Herzog, responded by challenging Toynbee to a public debate, just five days after his initial comments. On Jan. 31—53 years ago today—the two squared off at McGill’s Hillel House for an exchange that was broadcast live across the country and later that evening in Israel.
Shimon Peres has called the ensuing disputation “one of the most dramatic debates in the history of our people.” Last week, in welcoming Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Israel, Herzog’s nephew Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog, cited the event from the Knesset podium. Yet as the years pass, fewer and fewer have even heard of it.

10 brands you'll have to give up if you're boycotting Israel

Since 2005, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) has called on the international community to pressure Israel economically as "a form of civil resistance to Israeli occupation, colonialism, and apartheid."
That would mean significant lifestyle changes for some consumers. Here are 10 brands that BDS supporters have urged others to boycott, not to mention thousands of other products that contain or use Israeli-developed technology, including iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, Skype, computer firewalls, and Microsoft XP.

Palestinian workers praise SodaStream - and Scarlett Johansson
It's time to stop faulting Israel for all our problems, Palestinian worker says.

Several years ago, added Mitnick, the Palestinian Authority launched a major campaign to encourage Palestinians to boycott Israeli products from the settlements, but it largely failed.
"Truth be told, the SodaStream workers and local Palestinians were downright peeved when asked about the efforts of solidarity activists and their own government to boycott SodaStream," wrote Mitnick, "That could cost the hundreds of Palestinians wage earners salaries that are significantly higher than what they would make at home."
What does Besharat think about the Palestinian Authority’s declared desire to stop Palestinians from working in settlements? “If they make other opportunities in the Palestinian areas, they can, but they need to make jobs and ensure good pay for workers.” (h/t Bob Knot)

Honest Reporting: SodaStream Shows that BDS is the Real Obstacle to Peace

The message is clear: boycotting a company like SodaStream has real impact on the Palestinians.Calling a company like SodaStream a negative element that needs to be boycotted is a myopic viewpoint that people are starting to see through.
And that’s the real problem with the entire Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. It seeks only to destroy, without concern for the human consequences. And ultimately, nothing good is going to come from that.

Jordanian sheikh: Allah gave the land of Israel to the Jews (update)

Al Quds and other Arab media outlets published this amazing article this weekend:

Sheikh Ahmad Adwan, who introduces himself as a Muslim scholar who lives in Jordan, said on his personal Facebook page that there is no such thing as “Palestine” in the Koran. Allah has assigned the Holy Land to the Children of Israel until the Day of Judgment (Koran, Sura 5 – “The Sura of the Table”, Verse 21), and “We made the Children of Israel the inheritors (of the land)” (Koran, Sura 26 – “The Sura of the Poets”, Verse 59).

"I say to those who distort their Lord’s book, the Koran: From where did you bring the name Palestine, you liars, you accursed, when Allah has already named it “The Holy Land” and bequeathed it to the Children of Israel until the Day of Judgment. There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in the Koran. Your demand for the Land of Israel is a falsehood and it constitutes an attack on the Koran, on the Jews and their land. Therefore you won’t succeed, and Allah will fail you and humiliate you, because Allah is the one who will protect them (i.e. the Jews).”

The sheikh added: “The Palestinians are the killers of children, the elderly and women. They attack the Jews and then they use those (children, the elderly and women) as human shields and hide behind them, without mercy for their children as if they weren’t their own children, in order to tell the public opinion that the Jews intended to kill them. This is exactly what I saw with my own two eyes in the 70’s, when they attacked the Jordanian army, which sheltered and protected them. Instead of thanking it (the Jordanian army), they brought their children forward to (face) the Jordanian army, in order to make the world believe that the army kills their children. This is their habit and custom, their viciousness, their having hearts of stones towards their children, and their lying to public opinion, in order to get its support.”

It is worth mentioning, that the above mentioned sheikh visited Israel and met Jewish religious scholars. The “Israel in Arabic” site conducted an interview with him, in which he said that the reason for his openness towards the Jewish people “comes from my acknowledgment of their sovereignty on their land and my belief in the Koran, which told us and emphasized this in many places, like His (Allah’s) saying ”Oh People (i.e the Children of Israel), enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned unto you” (Koran, Sura 5 – “The Sura of the Table”, Verse 21), and His saying “We made the Children of Israel the inheritors (of the land)” (Koran, Sura 26 – “The Sura of the Poets”, Verse 59) and many other verses.

He (Adwan) added: “(The Jews) are peaceful people who love peace, who are not hostile and are not aggressors, but if they are attacked, they defend themselves while causing as little damage to the attackers as possible. It is an honor for them that Allah has chosen them over the worlds – meaning over the people and the Jinns until the Day of Judgment. I made the reasons for Allah’s choice clear in my books and pamphlets. When Allah chose them, He didn’t do so out of politeness, and He wasn’t unjust other peoples, it is just that they (the Jews) deserved this.”

The Israel in Arabic site, which appears to be an Israeli site, has a much fuller interview in Arabic.

When Adwan visited Safed (Tzfat), it was covered by Israel's Orot TV:

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: A friend contacted Mudar Zahran, the famous Zionist Jordanian, and he wrote that from what he could find out, Adwan is a fraud:

Sheikh Majed Al-Odoan, chief of the Odoan tribe, tells the media that "Sheikh" Ahmad Al-Odoan [who made pro-Israeli comments] has never been a member of the Odoan tribe", and that the tribe "does not even know who he is in the first place", our sources confirm the man is a retired Jordanian Postal Service ministry officer, with no history of him being a tribal "Sheikh" nor an Islamic "Sheikh".