Monday, March 03, 2014
Elder of Ziyon
I once made a poster about Dr. Masad Barhoum.He spoke at the AIPAC conference about treating Syrians in his hospital. It is worth watching.
(h/t David G)
The Fury of “Chunk” Cenk Uygur
13 hours ago
Monday, March 03, 2014
From Ian:
Amnesty International Is a Great PR Firm for the Palestinians
Amnesty International Is a Great PR Firm for the Palestinians
Amnesty International is a great PR firm for the Palestinians. Muslims living in the West Bank can consider themselves well served by a recent paper submitted by the London based human rights group Amnesty International. The report: Trigger-happy, Israel’s Use of Excessive Force in the West Bank takes a one-sided view against Israeli treatment of Palestinians. The report cites 22 deaths and 27 more wounded at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) between January 2011 and December 2013. Amnesty’s report gave the false impression that Palestinians youths were only practicing the right of peaceful protests when IDF forces exercised overwhelming restraint.NGO Monitor: The European war on Israel’s courts
In the introduction of the 74 page report, meant to create a certain shock value among the unsuspecting reader, Malek Murrar, 16, offered testimony of the death of Samir Awad on September 20, 2013. Malek comes off as being coached by an Amnesty worker or by someone within the Palestinian Authority eager to employ a public relations smear against the Israelis. (h/t Bob Knot)
It is inconceivable that the UK, the EU, Norway, or any other European country would countenance mass foreign state funding for hundreds of lawsuits in their courts on the most contentious policy and security issues. The appropriate and ethical way for officials to address their concerns to the Israeli government is via direct diplomacy.A new 'course' at UC Davis: Boycotting Israel
It does not require much imagination to depict the reaction of the British government, for instance, if it learned that Germany or France was providing tens of millions of euros to the IRA to finance hundreds of lawsuits in British courts challenging its policies in Northern Ireland.
The British government would see this as an outrageous form of legal warfare against the UK. But, it is precisely this form of lawfare that the UK – as well as the EU and Norway – is funding in Israel.
In what could be another attempt to make the delegitimization of Israel more mainstream, a pro-Palestinian group at the University of California, Davis, is now offering a new 'academic course' on the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Students for Justice in Palestine said the course would cover the meaning of anti-Israel boycotts and tactics for conducting them.
Hadas Buskila, the representative for the Jewish Agency for Israel at UC Davis, told Israel Hayom that the course, which does not currently count toward academic credit, is already gaining popularity.
Monday, March 03, 2014
Elder of Ziyon
If you read the literature from anti-Israel Christians, one of their themes is that Israel is illegitimate because it is acting more like a tyrannical Pharaoh than like a "light unto nations." They are saying that Israel's actions make it illegitimate as a nation since it is not fulfilling its Biblical mandate. (See the essay on this page by Stephen France, for example.)
This is of course wrong for many reasons. One is that they are saying that Israel falls short of standards that no nation has ever lived up to, but Jews must act to a standard that anti-Israel Christians define and therefore will inevitably fall short.
However, I would submit that Israel is a light unto nations, just people who hate Israel don't want to be bothered with the facts.
This amazing article from Israel21c lists 22 ways that Israel has been helping Africans in recent years.
To the haters, this is not merely irrelevant - it is vital that such news be minimized or ignored. The haters invariably pretend that hundreds of projects like these do not reflect well on Israel but in fact are evil themselves, as they are meant to whitewash Israel's supposed crimes, which is its main reason for existence.
In reality, the true evil lies in the hearts of the haters. Even Christians who pretend that they are demonizing Israel out of their abundant love.
(Ian had put this in a linkdump.)
This is of course wrong for many reasons. One is that they are saying that Israel falls short of standards that no nation has ever lived up to, but Jews must act to a standard that anti-Israel Christians define and therefore will inevitably fall short.
However, I would submit that Israel is a light unto nations, just people who hate Israel don't want to be bothered with the facts.
This amazing article from Israel21c lists 22 ways that Israel has been helping Africans in recent years.
1. Malaria, the most devastating disease in sub-Saharan Africa, claims the life of a child every 30 seconds. Researchers at the Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are dedicated to helping Africa wipe out this disease just as Israel did in the 1940s.
In December 2013, the university’s Hadassah Braun School of Public Health hosted an international conference of malaria experts to formulate a new strategy for African nations. Representatives from Gabon and Zanzibar were there to see what conclusions they could bring back home, where anti-malaria efforts have been only partially successful.
2. In 2011, a team of Israeli neonatologists went to Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest city, to train local doctors and nurses in advanced, low-cost methods to address the city’s high infant mortality rate. The doctors, sent by the Alliance for Global Good in cooperation with MASHAV, also established two new neonatal units in Kumasi’s sole hospital.
3. An Israeli-built emergency room at Kisumu East District Hospital in Kenya was put together in less than a month by Israeli engineers and medical specialists in 2011. It is the hospital’s first fully-equipped ER and serves a region of six million people.
4. Israel has been instrumental in the drive to provide voluntary circumcision to African men as a proven method to reduce the risk of contracting HIV infection.
A circumcision clinic for Zulu men set up in 2011 by Israeli doctors in the AIDS-stricken province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, has treated thousands of men. PrePex, a non-surgical circumcision device from Israel’s Circ MedTech, was prequalified last summer by the World Health Organization (WHO) for use in 14 African nations with high rates of new HIV infections.
5. Nurse-educators at Jerusalem’s Herzog Hospital lead videoconference classes for healthcare personnel at a Christian hospital in rural Ghana in topics such as diabetes prevention and treatment. The live-streaming video setup was donated by Rotary International’s Jerusalem chapter and a partner chapter in Windsor, Ontario (Canada). Diabetes has been dramatically increasing in Africa, with four million cases in Ghana and rising.
6. The Israeli nonprofit Eye from Zion brings Israeli ophthalmologists to volunteer their expertise in developing countries including Ethiopia. In 2012, they performed 160 free cataract surgeries in a portable operation room donated by Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. One patient, a 10-year-old Ethiopian girl, was later brought to Israel for lifesaving eye surgery.
7. For the past six years, Prof. Zvi Bentwich of the Center for Emerging Tropical Diseases and AIDS at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has been working toward ridding Ethiopia of common parasitic infestations that contribute to AIDS, tuberculosis epidemics and other serious health problems particularly in children. Israelis in his NALA Foundation distribute anti-worm tablets and educate hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians on prevention.
8. Israel is planning to build a model agricultural village in South Sudan to teach local farmers how Israel’s breakthrough agricultural methods and technologies can help the fledgling African nation boost its vegetable output. The idea took shape when former Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon met South Sudan Minister of Agriculture Betty Ogwaro at the Agritech 2012 expo in Tel Aviv.
9. GrainPro markets a simple, inexpensive product developed by Prof. Shlomo Navarro in Israel, intended to help farmers keep their grain market-fresh by sealing out water and air. About 50 percent of every grain and pulse harvest in the developing world is lost to pests and mold, but the GrainPro bags are bringing that number down in Africa and Asia.
10.In 2012, the Foreign Ministry signed a cooperation agreement with Kenya and Germany to bring advanced Israeli fish-farming technologies and training to aid the millions of Ugandans, Kenyans and Tanzanians whose livelihoods depend on the catch from Lake Victoria. Back in 2009, Hebrew University Prof. Berta Sivan spearheaded a multiyear project to reintroduce nutritious carp to Ugandan fish farms on the lake.
11. After fighting the oil industry, 20,000 Nigerian “rebels” received free land for developing farms. But where could they learn agricultural and farm management skills? At the Galilee International Management Institute in northern Israel, a nonprofit institution that has trained cohorts of Nigerians in many different skills over the past 20 years. In 2011, one-month agricultural training courses were devised for several groups of former rebels.
12. When the Central Bank of Kenya sought a partner to do an eight-month training program for students in the Kenya School of Monetary Studies, they turned to Israel’s Galilee International Management Institute. That’s because many Kenyan bank managers were already graduates of its twice-yearly program in international banking management. The 2012 program also provided in-depth analysis services that helped the bank formulate better policies on pensions, training and human resources management.
13. The Israeli company Nova Lumos devised small mobile solar systems for Africans to charge phones, lights or small appliances – paid for in affordable increments. This solution eliminates so-called “power pimps” who charge fellow rural Africans exorbitant prices for the privilege of charging their phones. The system provides access to green energy, a practical off-grid solution and a good business opportunity for African mobile providers.
14. A similar model for small business has been introduced to residents of rural villages in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda and South Africa by Innovation: Africa , an award-winning non-profit project founded by Sivan Ya’ari to use sustainable Israeli technologies to improve lives in developing African nations.
15. Following a gas-line explosion in September 2011 that sent more than 100 Kenyans to Kenyatta National Hospital with burns, Israel sent 360 kilograms of supplies including bandaging equipment, infusion sets, ointments and painkillers. The aid package was coordinated through the Israeli ambassador to Kenya and MASHAV.
16. An advanced mobile app for emergency responders developed by Israel’s NowForce was adopted last year by Nigeria to dispatch and coordinate police, firefighters and other public-safety agencies. It locates and alerts individual team members wherever they are. Like many African nations, Nigeria has more mobile than land lines.
17. An IsraAID team went to South Sudan in 2012 to inaugurate a social-worker training program on sexual violence in cooperation with the Israeli NGOs FIRST and Operation Blessing-Israel. Counselors from Confident Children out of Conflict, an organization that provides a safe house for more than 400 abused, abandoned or at-risk girls from the South Sudan slums of Juba, learned to identify and address gender-based violence such as rape and forced marriage.
18. The Kenya Ministry of Education sought MASHAV’s help in promoting and implementing education for sustainable development (ESD) in Kenya. The Institute for Education for Sustainable Development at the David Yellin Academic College of Education in Jerusalem developed the curriculum, and teacher training sessions were held in Kenya and in Israel.
The first ESD project launched in August 2013 at the Joel Omino Mixed Secondary School, where children are learning technology and physics through water purification; science through organic agriculture; economics and entrepreneurship through establishing an organic bakery; history and traditional society by building traditional Luo-tribe houses; and conservation by utilizing recycled materials for art work. Demonstration centers will be set up to serve as training sites for other schools throughout Kenya.
19. Jerusalem science teacher Amir Yechieli began a small company, Yuval Mayim, to build rainwater catchment systems on school rooftops to conserve and reuse the water. Last year, he flew to Kenya to help build a similar system for some 600 villagers without running water. The Jewish National Fund gave him money to develop a rainwater catchment system at Kampala University in Uganda, where he expects to halve the monthly $15,000 water bills.
20. Energiya Global, the Israeli affiliate of Gigawatt Global Coöperatief, recently secured $23 million in financing and about $710,000 in grants for an 8.5-megawatt solar energy plant in Rwanda. This will be East Africa’s first utility-scale solar field, and is expected to supply eight percent of the country’s energy needs.
21. Israel’s Paulee CleanTec was hailed at the World Toilet Summit in South Africa in 2012 for its revolutionary toilet that needs no water and leaves no waste. The World Toilet Organization reports that one in three South African households lacks access to proper sanitation and 40 percent of households globally face the same problem.
22. Former Israeli diplomat Ornit Avidar is taking Israel’s “soft” water solutions — decentralized, simple to use and maintain, consuming little energy — and applying them all around Africa through her company Waterways, a channel for Africans to access Israeli technology.
Among the Israeli partner companies she is introducing to various African countries are SunDWater, which cleans water in off-grid locations using condensation made from solar rays; water resources management company Tahal and Anyway Solutions, a global leader in providing soil stabilization products to the infrastructure and development sectors.
To the haters, this is not merely irrelevant - it is vital that such news be minimized or ignored. The haters invariably pretend that hundreds of projects like these do not reflect well on Israel but in fact are evil themselves, as they are meant to whitewash Israel's supposed crimes, which is its main reason for existence.
In reality, the true evil lies in the hearts of the haters. Even Christians who pretend that they are demonizing Israel out of their abundant love.
(Ian had put this in a linkdump.)
- Monday, March 03, 2014
- Elder of Ziyon
From Iran's FARS news agency:
Except for this:
Just in case you aren't convinced, here is an amusing anecdote from when he was arrested for hate crimes in 2012:
The poor guy is just being persecuted over his criticisms of Israel! Not an antisemitic bone in his body.A veteran Canadian author and editor says that Canada is home to one of the largest Israeli lobbies in the West, and there are numerous Jewish advocacy organizations that pursue the interests of the Israeli regime and have long launched a massive campaign against freedom of speech in the name of combating “anti-Semitism”.
According to Arthur Topham, the major mission of these organizations is to advocate for any and all things Jewish and anything connected with Israel and with maintaining the status quo mindset which includes ongoing propaganda and advocacy related to the Holocaust Myth, pushing the whole “anti-Semitism” and “racism” issues in order to gain political points with whatever government is in power and also a strong focus on maintaining and strengthening Canada’s “hate crime” laws which act as a major defense against the Canadians who try to expose the crimes of Israel against the Palestinian people and who criticize the Zionist ideology and all the related issues connected with Jewish financial and media and corporate power around the world.”
Arthur Topham is a 67-year-old writer, gold miner and publisher of the Radical Press (www.radicalpress.com), an alternative internet news and opinion website which has been in continuous operation in British Columbia since June 1998.
Since 2007, Topham has been accused by the Canadian government of spreading anti-Semitic sentiments and promoting hatred against “people of the Jewish religion or ethnic group.” He has been arrested and jailed once for publishing materials which were critical of the Israeli regime’s treatment of the Palestinian people. He is currently being investigated in a court and if found guilty, he could receive a two-year jail sentence and be prohibited from publishing.
“It’s important for readers to understand that all the so-called “hate crimes” which we hear constantly being spoken and written about in the Jewish-controlled mainstream media are products of the efforts of the Zionist lobby groups here in Canada and elsewhere to manufacture legal mechanisms that could be used by either “human rights” commissions and tribunals or the criminal code of the Canadian judicial system to control and censor the fundamental right to free expression or “freedom of speech”, especially as it now is being applied to the internet here in Canada,” said Topham in an exclusive interview with Fars News Agency.
Except for this:
To answer your question about why the Israeli lobby is so powerful and dominant in Canada I suspect that the reasons are no different than what you would find were you to ask that same question of any western nation where the Jews have settled in numbers prior to and since the turn of the 20th century. One of the primary sources for the dispensing of their disproportional power and influence has been their secretive masonic organization known as B’nai Brith, a Rothschild-funded, occult hierarchical system founded in the USA in 1843 and now having thousands upon thousands of lodges and chapters around the world. The first Canadian B’nai Brith masonic lodge was established in Toronto back in 1875 and by the beginning of the 1900s the Jews were already well established in Eastern Canada with sizeable communities in Montreal and Toronto.
Just in case you aren't convinced, here is an amusing anecdote from when he was arrested for hate crimes in 2012:
Police arrested Mr. Topham and questioned him on May 16. According to a transcript of his police interview that was posted online, he asked the investigating officer, Det. Const. Terry Wilson of the B.C. Hate Crime Team, whether he had been trained in Tel Aviv or whether Mossad had come to Canada to train him.
He lectured the officer about how Jews “control what you’re doing” and said they had “created the unit you’re working for.” He asked the officer if he was a Christian and scolded him for what he was doing.
“These guys have spent the last 2,000 years trying to destroy our religion, and you like a Judas are out here like a, like one of their dogs chasing down people who are trying to defend the Christian religion,” he said. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
From Ian:
Amb. Alan Baker: Ten Fundamental Facts Underlying the Peace Process
Amb. Alan Baker: Ten Fundamental Facts Underlying the Peace Process
1. There is no such thing as the “Palestinian territories.” Such an entity has never been determined as such in any binding international document, agreement, or resolution. The final status of the West Bank is still an agreed-upon negotiating issue and should not be prejudged by any political declaration or statement.JPost conference preview: Ron Prosor on Israel and the United Nations
2. The territories are “disputed,” not “occupied.” International law relates to occupation of foreign territory from a prior legitimate sovereign. The area of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) is not foreign, and has, from time immemorial, since at least 1500 BCE, been part of the indigenous Jewish presence in the area, which has been internationally acknowledged historically and recognized in international documents. (h/t Bob Knot)
But just above the portrait with Angelina is the perhaps the most noteworthy and largest photograph in the room. On side of the picture stands then-prime minster of Israel Yitzhak Rabin, his hands folded tensely in front of him, his eyes focused off to the side, his face furious. In the center of the picture stands former PLO leader Yasser Arafat, face twisted away from the camera, surrounded by Russian foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev, King Hussein of Jordan, American secretary of state Warren Christopher, then-foreign minister of Israel Shimon Peres with his finger in Arafat’s face — an uncharacteristic gesture for Peres, Prosor says — and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak who has just said to Arafat, “You kalb ibn kalb, you dog son of a dog, I am the host! What do you think you’re doing!”The West is led by the weaklings the Left wanted
“I call it ‘The Middle East Without Words,’” Prosor explains. The seminal picture was taken three minutes after the pictured world leaders, who had gathered in Cairo in 1994, learned that Arafat had refused to sign the maps of Jerusalem for the Oslo accords. “They find out he’s refused to sign, they’re on live TV, onstage about to make the announcement, and everything goes into chaos,” Prosor explained.
Quite what they're complaining about isn't clear. In Barack Obama they have precisely the "Leader of the Free World" they always wanted. He embodies all that they stand for, and all that they are.
He does not believe in the primacy of Western values. Neither do they. He therefore sees no reason to show leadership around the world. Neither do they. He has downgraded and diminished the U.S. military as a consequence. The Left applauds. He shows weakness to the mullahs in Iran. The Left praises him for his diplomacy. He worships dictatorship-friendly bodies like the UN. The Left cheers him as a peacemaker.
You can't have it both ways. If you want a weak-kneed, apologetic, bleeding heart Western leadership don't feign surprise when the likes of Vladimir Putin fail to take you seriously.
- Monday, March 03, 2014
- Elder of Ziyon
On Sunday, a few dozen Jews quietly and respectfully visited the Temple Mount. This happens virtually every weekday besides Fridays.
Usually, it is the Arabic media (especially from the PalArabs, Jordan and Egypt) that freak out and say that "Extremist settler Jews stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque." But this time, the English version of Al Arabiya - one of the more moderate Arab publications - has jumped on the "storming" bandwagon:
Al Arabiya chose to illustrate the story not with photos of the Jews (not "settlers) peacefully walking on the Mount, because that would not work with the hysterical tone of the story. So they dug up a photo of an Israeli policeman arresting a rioter last Friday.
Remember, this is one of the most liberal Arab media outlets
Usually, it is the Arabic media (especially from the PalArabs, Jordan and Egypt) that freak out and say that "Extremist settler Jews stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque." But this time, the English version of Al Arabiya - one of the more moderate Arab publications - has jumped on the "storming" bandwagon:
Protected by the Israeli police, about 75 Jewish extremist settlers, who were led by a radical rabbi, have stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday, a news agency reported.I don't know what they refer to as the Al Rahmeh gate, but Jews are only allowed to enter through the Moroccan (Mughrabi, or Rambam) gate and they generally leave through the Qatanin (cotton market) gate. I doubt very highly that they entered any mosque, as Israeli police would never allow that.
The flashpoint compound sits above the Western Wall plaza and houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
It is also one of Judaism’s holiest place as Jews believe it is the site of the first and second Jewish temples. Al-Aqsa mosque is also known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary.
“The settlers stormed the complex through Al-Magharbeh Gate, passing through the Qibali and Marawani mosques, as well as Al-Rahmeh and Qatanin gates,” guard Naser Qous told the Turkish Anadolu Agency.
If he indeed said that, which seems unlikely, it was probably because they were trying to "storm" him personally.
Qous described the rabbi Yehuda Glick, who is the head of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, as shouting “racist chants” against Muslims.
The guard said Glick told the Israeli police: “Keep these vandals away!”
The rabbi’s sentiment led to a row between the Jewish settlers and the Muslim worshippers inside the holy compound.
The intrusion was denounced by the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage.
It said that the storming of the complex was meant to “intimidate and scare the Palestinians,” sounding the alarm over the Israeli police “tightening its security procedures on Muslim students within Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.”
Remember, this is one of the most liberal Arab media outlets
- Monday, March 03, 2014
- Elder of Ziyon
Here is a flyer from Students for Justice in Palestine about an "Israel Apartheid Week" event this Thursday at Brooklyn College:
According to this flyer, the Sociology Department and Political Science Department are co-sponsoring an event meant to destroy Israel.
And the Political Science Department Facebook page confirms it.
But if you look at the small print - not even readable in the image on the SJP page - the PoliSci Department tries to have its cake and eat it too:
"'Co-sponsor' does not imply endorsement of any viewpoints expressed at the event."
So what exactly does it mean? Usually it entails giving money towards the event's expenses, so it means that Brooklyn College department budgets are going to pay Ali Abuminah to push his vision of a world without Israel.
This tiny, almost unreadable disclaimer is meaningless. Sponsoring means that these departments believe that the message being offered deserves to be listened to, under their aegis. I somehow doubt that these same departments would offer a platform to David Duke with a similar disclaimer.
And they are even less likely to sponsor Moshe Feiglin.
Last November, when the same departments "supported" Ben White, the college also said that it does not necessarily endorse the viewpoints of those it sponsors. As absurd as that explanation was, this case is even worse, because these departments are associating themselves not only with specific anti-Israel speakers but with a specifically anti-Israel event whose very name is meant to be libelous. These departments are not just sponsoring a hater - they are supporting the entire concept of "Israel Apartheid Week."
Sorry, Brooklyn College. You are clearly showing your support for the unconscionable, notwithstanding pathetic attempts to pretend otherwise.
(h/t David L)
- Monday, March 03, 2014
- Elder of Ziyon
President Obama plans to channel Peace Now in his talk with Binyamin Netanyahu today, in this interview by Jeffrey Goldberg:
When the problem is not defined correctly, one cannot find a solution. The reason that there is no peace is because the vast majority of the Western world defines the problem incorrectly.
1) "Changes in demographics" - this argument has been around since at least the 1970s. Yet every Israeli-proposed peace plan, as well as the Clinton parameters, ends this issue completely. In fact, even if Israel annexes the entire Area C and the 40% of the remainder of the West Bank is turned over to the PLO - obviously not a viable solution either, but for argument's sake - the demographic issue is dead, since 96% or more of Palestinian Arabs live in Areas A and B.
In other words, the demographic argument is not the correct frame of reference. The correct frame of reference is to answer a very simple question: Why have Palestinian Arabs have rejected all previous peace plans that would have given them a state?
2) "What's been happening with settlements" - As I have noted before, Israel has officially allowed a grand total of three new settlements since 1990, under the Shamir government and years before Oslo.
The idea that Israeli settlements are expanding inexorably is one of the biggest lies of the Middle East, and it is one that even the President of the United States believes. Sure, the Jewish population has been growing, inside Area C, which is allowed under existing agreements signed by both parties. But essentially all that population growth has been accompanied by no growth in area.
Abbas knows this fact far better than Obama does, and apparently far better than Jeffrey Goldberg does. Because if the settlements really were inexorably growing, then Abbas would be panicking that time is not on his side, and he would compromise and accept far less than the unreasonable demands he is making. However, his thoughts on the matter were crystallized in 2009, when Abbas said that he is willing to wait for everyone else to come around to his way of thinking. "I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements. Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." Erekat that same year made much the same points.
3) "We do not know what a successor to Abbas will look like."
Now, who suffers the most when Palestinian Arabs are willing to wait until Washington pressures Israel to give up a couple of percentage points of more land?
The Palestinian Arabs who live in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East, that's who. They are in limbo while Abbas waits. Over 2000 have been killed in Syria while Abbas waits. Those in Lebanon are choking in their overcrowded camps while Abbas waits. Those in Jordan - even those who are citizens - are living second class lives and nervous about their status while Abbas waits.
If Mahmoud Abbas, Obama's great hope for peace, doesn't feel a sense of urgency to help his people in Arab countries, what does that say about his priorities? What does that say about his leadership?
More importantly, what does that say about his strategy?
If Israel says that Jerusalem is a red line, that a Jewish presence must remain in Hebron and Bethlehem and elsewhere to ensure safe, continuous access to holy sites, and if the borders are created to reflect all of that, there is no demographic problem. Time is no longer an issue. But, as Obama says, there has to be a plan that "the Palestinians can accept." If they are the weaker party, why are they acting like they are the ones that can dictate terms of the agreement? Why, specifically, is Jerusalem necessary for a viable Palestinian Arab state when it was never the capital of any Arab state in history?
There is only one way to explain all these anomalies: why Abbas is willing to wait, why he doesn't care about his people, why he insists on Jerusalem, why he insists on "1967 lines," why he insists on "right of return," why he adamantly refuses to accept a Jewish state.
The reason is because he is not interested in a permanent peace, but he is trying to implement the PLO's "stages" plan to destroy Israel piece by piece. Obama (and Goldberg) might be deluded and think that a piece of paper can ensure that this long standing PLO plan cannot come to be, but it is clearly still the strategy that Abbas and Fatah are following. And it is the narrative that Abbas has been teaching his own people, in Arabic. Instead of preparing them for permanent peace with Israel the majority of Arabs all see any peace plan as only the beginning of the destruction of Israel.
They are willing to wait to accomplish this. but they are not willing to accept any plan that stands in the way of that goal. And that is why accepting any Israeli proposed peace plan, one that ensures the permanent existence of a Jewish state, is anathema to them.
When looking at a large set of facts, any analyst must try to find consistency. Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah's actions are utterly inconsistent with the desire to have a permanent peace with Israel and completely consistent with the PLO's plan to destroy it in stages. Positioning Abbas as the most reasonable alternative when his goal is identical as Hamas' does no one any favors.
If there was any real indication of good faith on the part of Abbas - if his schools would teach real peace, if his media would stop incitement, if Israeli Jews could trust him enough to believe that when they want to visit holy sites under his control that his own people won't try to kill them - then peace would be at hand. The reason that Israelis don't accept his words is because they see the divergence between what he says in English and how he acts with his people.
This is the message that Israeli leaders have been terrible at conveying, possibly because they don't want to insult Abbas when the West loves him so much. But at some point diplomatic niceties need to yield to cold facts, and the reason there is no peace is because everyone is ignoring the facts, and how they fit together.
Obama implies in this interview that Bibi is not interested in a peace plan. This is absurd. he is interested in a peace plan that ensures Israel's future. And for all his communication skills (Obama still talks about how Israel is continuously building settlements, for example) he has not been able to communicate this simple fact.
(h/t EBoZ)
John Kerry, somebody who has been a fierce advocate and defender on behalf of Israel for decades now, I think he has been simply stating what observers inside of Israel and outside of Israel recognize, which is that with each successive year, the window is closing for a peace deal that both the Israelis can accept and the Palestinians can accept -- in part because of changes in demographics; in part because of what's been happening with settlements; in part because Abbas is getting older, and I think nobody would dispute that whatever disagreements you may have with him, he has proven himself to be somebody who has been committed to nonviolence and diplomatic efforts to resolve this issue. We do not know what a successor to Abbas will look like.This is the crux of Obama's arguments. And Israel has been terrible at countering them.
When the problem is not defined correctly, one cannot find a solution. The reason that there is no peace is because the vast majority of the Western world defines the problem incorrectly.
1) "Changes in demographics" - this argument has been around since at least the 1970s. Yet every Israeli-proposed peace plan, as well as the Clinton parameters, ends this issue completely. In fact, even if Israel annexes the entire Area C and the 40% of the remainder of the West Bank is turned over to the PLO - obviously not a viable solution either, but for argument's sake - the demographic issue is dead, since 96% or more of Palestinian Arabs live in Areas A and B.
In other words, the demographic argument is not the correct frame of reference. The correct frame of reference is to answer a very simple question: Why have Palestinian Arabs have rejected all previous peace plans that would have given them a state?
2) "What's been happening with settlements" - As I have noted before, Israel has officially allowed a grand total of three new settlements since 1990, under the Shamir government and years before Oslo.
The idea that Israeli settlements are expanding inexorably is one of the biggest lies of the Middle East, and it is one that even the President of the United States believes. Sure, the Jewish population has been growing, inside Area C, which is allowed under existing agreements signed by both parties. But essentially all that population growth has been accompanied by no growth in area.
Abbas knows this fact far better than Obama does, and apparently far better than Jeffrey Goldberg does. Because if the settlements really were inexorably growing, then Abbas would be panicking that time is not on his side, and he would compromise and accept far less than the unreasonable demands he is making. However, his thoughts on the matter were crystallized in 2009, when Abbas said that he is willing to wait for everyone else to come around to his way of thinking. "I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements. Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." Erekat that same year made much the same points.
3) "We do not know what a successor to Abbas will look like."
Now, who suffers the most when Palestinian Arabs are willing to wait until Washington pressures Israel to give up a couple of percentage points of more land?
The Palestinian Arabs who live in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East, that's who. They are in limbo while Abbas waits. Over 2000 have been killed in Syria while Abbas waits. Those in Lebanon are choking in their overcrowded camps while Abbas waits. Those in Jordan - even those who are citizens - are living second class lives and nervous about their status while Abbas waits.
If Mahmoud Abbas, Obama's great hope for peace, doesn't feel a sense of urgency to help his people in Arab countries, what does that say about his priorities? What does that say about his leadership?
More importantly, what does that say about his strategy?
If Israel says that Jerusalem is a red line, that a Jewish presence must remain in Hebron and Bethlehem and elsewhere to ensure safe, continuous access to holy sites, and if the borders are created to reflect all of that, there is no demographic problem. Time is no longer an issue. But, as Obama says, there has to be a plan that "the Palestinians can accept." If they are the weaker party, why are they acting like they are the ones that can dictate terms of the agreement? Why, specifically, is Jerusalem necessary for a viable Palestinian Arab state when it was never the capital of any Arab state in history?
There is only one way to explain all these anomalies: why Abbas is willing to wait, why he doesn't care about his people, why he insists on Jerusalem, why he insists on "1967 lines," why he insists on "right of return," why he adamantly refuses to accept a Jewish state.
The reason is because he is not interested in a permanent peace, but he is trying to implement the PLO's "stages" plan to destroy Israel piece by piece. Obama (and Goldberg) might be deluded and think that a piece of paper can ensure that this long standing PLO plan cannot come to be, but it is clearly still the strategy that Abbas and Fatah are following. And it is the narrative that Abbas has been teaching his own people, in Arabic. Instead of preparing them for permanent peace with Israel the majority of Arabs all see any peace plan as only the beginning of the destruction of Israel.
They are willing to wait to accomplish this. but they are not willing to accept any plan that stands in the way of that goal. And that is why accepting any Israeli proposed peace plan, one that ensures the permanent existence of a Jewish state, is anathema to them.
When looking at a large set of facts, any analyst must try to find consistency. Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah's actions are utterly inconsistent with the desire to have a permanent peace with Israel and completely consistent with the PLO's plan to destroy it in stages. Positioning Abbas as the most reasonable alternative when his goal is identical as Hamas' does no one any favors. If there was any real indication of good faith on the part of Abbas - if his schools would teach real peace, if his media would stop incitement, if Israeli Jews could trust him enough to believe that when they want to visit holy sites under his control that his own people won't try to kill them - then peace would be at hand. The reason that Israelis don't accept his words is because they see the divergence between what he says in English and how he acts with his people.
This is the message that Israeli leaders have been terrible at conveying, possibly because they don't want to insult Abbas when the West loves him so much. But at some point diplomatic niceties need to yield to cold facts, and the reason there is no peace is because everyone is ignoring the facts, and how they fit together.
Obama implies in this interview that Bibi is not interested in a peace plan. This is absurd. he is interested in a peace plan that ensures Israel's future. And for all his communication skills (Obama still talks about how Israel is continuously building settlements, for example) he has not been able to communicate this simple fact.
(h/t EBoZ)
Sunday, March 02, 2014
- Sunday, March 02, 2014
- Elder of Ziyon
Last week was a pretty good week for EoZ.It started with the news that the "Khazar" theory was thoroughly debunked by the same people whose data was misused by a publicity-seeker who set out initially to prove the stupid theory before even gathering the evidence. The excellent PreOccupied Territory site, which is quickly becoming a Zionist Onion, even made fun of me for posting it!
Then I had my scoop about the "secret" ASA meeting at NYU this week. That story made it to JTA and was published in Times of Israel and elsewhere, and others ran with it.
Given that this was the first of who knows how many "Israel Apartheid Weeks," I added to my viral poster series, which is still getting more hits daily than my other articles.
I was one of many who went after US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power for her idiotic Daniel Pearl tweet, although I may have been the first to write an article about it.
Another scoop was finding out about State Department official Shaun Casey, who made a silent trip to the Middle East and met with some very anti-Israel figures. The State Department responded, badly, with generic diplospeak. But the more I and others look at this story, the worse it gets.
I went after Haaretz for exaggerating the number of Israelis who boycott some Israelis.
I went after Peter Beinart for demanding right wing Zionists do things that leftists would never do.
I went after AP for its bias.
And I went after Amnesty International for their clear and provable anti-Israel bias.
There were also two historical pieces about previous boycotts of Jews in the region, and how they worked out.
The most popular post of the week was UCLA Meltdown Girl, and while it was funny (to most,) it teaches a serious lesson.
I exposed a major new UN document that is almost laughable in how it embraces Arab lies.
Finally, I revealed a most disgusting and hushed-up facet of Palestinian Arab society, the phenomenon of "honor hysterectomies," where families tell doctors that their daughters are mentally ill in order to sterilize them. Besides how disgusting this practice is, the contrast between how this story is ignored and how lies about Israel are publicized is insane.
Not too shabby. No wonder I am making Israel haters nervous.
- Sunday, March 02, 2014
- Elder of Ziyon
A bunch of Gazans put a video camera on a small remote-controlled helicopter. Here's what Gaza City looks like from between 50 and 200 meters up.
Just for fun, I'd love to compare this footage with, say, Yarmouk in Syria, or the Central African Republic, or any of the scores of places around the world that are getting less attention than Gaza does.
(h/t O)
Just for fun, I'd love to compare this footage with, say, Yarmouk in Syria, or the Central African Republic, or any of the scores of places around the world that are getting less attention than Gaza does.
(h/t O)
From Ian:
Why Liberals Must Repudiate the BDS Movement
Why Liberals Must Repudiate the BDS Movement
Like the far-Leftists who failed to recognize the evils of the Soviet Union, many Americans today—including some of its most influential editors—can’t see what’s wrong with anti-Israel activism. And liberalism itself is in now in danger.Convicted terrorist who blew up Israeli students was once hired as Obamacare navigator
Indeed, as many have already noted, the Palestinian Authority itself does not support a boycott of Israel, and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said so quite explicitly. Even some among the extremists have admitted that many tactics used by the anti-Israel industry, and BDS in particular, are counterproductive. Norman Finkelstein, who has accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust for their own and Israel’s gain, has nonetheless described the BDS movement as “a hypocritical, dishonest cult” led by “dishonest gurus” who want to “selectively enforce the law” by posing as human rights activists. Noam Chomsky, who for decades advocated dismantling Israel in favor of a “binational” state, has said that any movement that targets Israel alone can be attacked as anti-Semitic and “unfortunately, this [characterization] is with justice.” He has also said that the BDS movement’s “hypocrisy rises to heaven,” criticizing Barghouti, the movement’s founder, for advocating a full boycott of Israel despite having studied at Tel Aviv University.
All this points to the immense importance of the media’s coverage of anti-Israel extremism: By refusing to report accurately on it, media outlets enable forces that fundamentally oppose any genuine reconciliation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They help empower extremists—some too extreme even for their fellow extremists—who use bullying and sometimes unethical tactics to marginalize and silence precisely those voices who might help bring about reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. And more than anything else, they give hope to those who will never accept a Jewish state and, in refusing to do so, make peace impossible.
When the Illinois Department of Insurance (IDI) conducted a background check on Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who murdered two Hebrew University students and wounded 10 others in a grocery-store bombing in 1969, they found a clean record — the Federal Bureau of Investigation had no information on Odeh. (RELATED: Sebelius: It’s possible for convicted felons to become Obamacare navigators)Mainstream charities have donated thousands to Islamic group fronted by terror suspect
But the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Michigan brought Odeh’s crimes to light, prompting the IDI to terminate Odeh in late November and issue a disciplinary report on the ordeal, according to National Review.
Unsurprisingly, Odeh, who used as many as nine aliases to evade authorities, ”failed to reveal the conviction on her [navigator] application,” IDI found.
A controversial Islamic rights group fronted by a man charged with attending a terror training camp in Syria is being bankrolled by two mainstream British charities, including a foundation set up in the name of Dame Anita Roddick.
CagePrisoners, an organisation founded by Moazzam Begg - who has just appeared in court on terror charges - has been given £120,000 by the Anita Roddick Foundation, which distributes part of the former Body Shop owner’s £100 million fortune.
A second charity, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, a Quaker-run fund set up by the chocolate-maker and philanthropist a century ago, has also paid CagePrisoners £305,000 over six years.
Last week, Begg, 45, who became director of CagePrisoners after his release from Guantanamo Bay in 2005, was one of four suspects picked up in Birmingham over alleged links to terrorism in Syria.
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