Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, March 16, 2014

03/16 Links: Johansson hails SodaStream as a ‘model’; Eight Crucial Questions for Abbas

From Ian:

Johansson hails SodaStream as a ‘model,’ slams politicized Oxfam

Johansson was vigorous in her response, however. “I stand behind that decision. I was aware of that particular factory before I signed it.”
“Really?” the interviewer interjected, apparently surprised or disbelieving.
“Yes, and… it still doesn’t seem like a problem,” Johansson said. “Until someone has a solution to the closing of that factory to leaving all those people destitute, that doesn’t seem like the solution to the problem.”
When the interviewer then put it to her that “the international community says that the settlements are illegal and shouldn’t be there,” Johansson said: “I think that’s something that’s very easily debatable. In that case, I was literally plunged into a conversation that’s way grander and larger than this one particular issue. And there’s no right side or wrong side leaning on this issue.”

Eight Crucial Questions for Abbas (and One for President Obama)

There seems to be a double-standard when it comes to how Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian Authority's erstwhile President, Mahmoud Abbas -- now in the tenth year of his four-year term -- are treated by the Obama White House, as well as by many journalists. While Netanyahu is humiliated, insulted, threatened, and told that he must make "painful concessions" for peace, such as releasing more than 100 terrorists merely to get the Palestinians to come to a negotiating table, Abbas – a facilitator and supporter of these terrorists – is treated with kid gloves, and with Obama virtually begging him to visit.

Eugene Kontorovich; "Israel's Borders in International Law"

Kerry frustrated at peace framework between Jews and Amalekites in Persian Empire

Achashtranim News Sevice (ANS) SHUSHAN - Secretary of State John Kerry is preparing to return to the Persian Empire to defuse the escalating tensions between the Jews and the Amalekites in that Middle Eastern kingdom.

Secretary Kerry thought that he had a framework agreement hammered out between the two parties, including that Jews should be allowed to live "freely and peacefully in the Empire." But Parshandata, spokesman for the Amalekites, refused this condition, saying "International law is on our side."

"The King specifically passed a decree saying, and I quote, 'to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.' The UN and international laws upholds the right of kingdoms to make up their own decrees and to enforce them, This is a local Persian issue and there is no reason for Secretary Kerry to get involved."

Mordechai, a Jewish activist from Shushan, disagrees. "The Amalekites and Agagites are suggesting no less than genocide against an entire people," he said, as he led a small protest outside the King's gates wearing sackcloth and ashes in a media stunt..

Parshandata vehemently denies Mordechai's statement. "There is no such thing as a Jewish people. The idea of Jewish peoplehood is incompatible with the facts of history. They are nothing but criminals, and they have no right to live freely and peacefully."

Mordechai, the Jewish leader, continues to insist this language be included.

Aridata, an Agagite leader and head of the "Brutally Decapitate Semites" (BDS) movement, charged that the Jews were poised to take over the entire kingdom and must be utterly destroyed. While sharpening his sword, he stated, "They already illegally occupy the capital, and many other cities and villages have gathering places where they get together and scheme to dominate everyone else. I hear rumors that there is a Monica Lewinsky situation going on in the King's palace itself, and that the king is being held hostage by a Jewish woman who is blackmailing him!"

Secretary Kerry, not wanting to upset either of the parties in this delicate time for negotiations, and showing frustration that his plan could unravel without an agreement, backtracked on the "live freely and peacefully" condition. He told Congress this week that insisting on the "freely and peacefully" language would be a "mistake for some people to be, you know, raising it again and again as the critical decider." However, in a move that may upset the Amalekites, Kerry insisted that the United States does not want to see the Jews "perish" on the 13th of Adar. "We would strongly protest any mass murder, if it comes to that," Kerry said.

Amnesty International refused to take any sides in the matter. Deborah Hyams, Amnesty researcher on Middle East issues, said, "We are of course against genocide, but the Amalekites have a point when they say that Jews are not a people and killing them all would not constitute 'genocide'. Also, the language of the decree does not sanction mass murder explicitly, but only 'to cause to perish,' which may mean to allow Jews to have the human rights to kill themselves if they so choose.

"We have more important issues to deal with, such as the illegal building of Jewish homes in Judea by the minority who remain there illegally after their alleged Temple was destroyed."

(expanded from an idea by Soccer Dad with his permission)

The Na-Nachs (video)

From NPR:

Natan Gabbay takes a gulp of clear liquor and warms up on his shofar, the ram's horn trumpet that is sacred in Judaism. He's a member of a whimsical Orthodox sect known as Na Nach. Tonight, about a dozen Na Nachs have been hired as an entertainment act for a fancy wedding outside Tel Aviv. It's a surprise — the guests have no idea what's in store for them.

"We barge in, all of us together, and start to dance with them," Gabbay says. "The people in the wedding will see a different kind of happiness. This is happiness with holiness, together."

They slip the DJ a special CD of their music. Suddenly, a dozen young men with big beards, stiff dress clothes and long, curling sidelocks rush the dance floor.

Electronic dance tracks begin to pump from the speakers, and the Na Nachs jump around like teenagers at a music festival. With heavy bass drums and hard-edged synthesizers, the soundtrack isn't much different from those of the wild trance parties Israel is famous for — save for the lyrics, which all concern God and the Torah. The religious themes don't stop the secular wedding guests from joining in and having a good time. After 15 minutes, the Na Nachs rush out as suddenly as they came, leaving big grins on everyone's faces.

Na Nachs make merry at weddings for money, but they're more than a novelty act. They're a growing religious movement with a distinct vision of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.

Na Nach took off about 30 years ago as a countercultural offshoot of the Breslovers, a Hasidic sect that follows the mystical writings of 19th-century Ukrainian rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Their central belief is that happiness is key to a rich relationship with God, and that it's their spiritual duty — a mitzvah — to spread that happiness to others.

"Rabbi Nachman says that when you're happy, you keep the Torah better," says Zohar Ginsberg, a 24-year-old member of the sect. "So you have to do whatever you can to be happy. Dance. Sing. Jokes. Nonsense."

For the Na Nachs, dancing to electronic music is actually a matter of the soul. That appealed to Ginsberg: He grew up in a religious family, but found himself slipping away from Judaism as a teenager. When he came across Nachman's teachings, it was a revelation.

"You have to find a way to connect with love," Ginsberg says, "not to feel like it's just a bunch of rules that you do and it makes your life better. You want to feel like it's something that gives you liveliness and happiness."

In a sense, the Na Nach are very traditional. They keep strict religious rules about diet and modesty, for example. But in most other ways, their religious style diverges from other Hasidic groups. Shaul Magid, a scholar of Hasidic Judaism from the University of Indiana, says while most Orthodox movements focus on reading and studying, the Na Nachs are more interested in having intense, personal and ecstatic experiences with God.

"Prayer, joy, celebration: This becomes the core of religious living for the Na Nach," Magid says.

The Na Nachs' interest in dancing and ecstatic experiences leads Magid to compare them to another subculture: ravers.

"Rave culture is very big in Israel," Magid says. "And in some way the Na Nach people are replicating a particular certain kind of rave culture within the norms of ultra-Orthodox Judaism."

The group has attracted lots of younger Israelis who grew up in secular families and find themselves interested in Orthodox Judaism. In fact, many of them are former ravers who decided to trade in the party life for a more spiritual lifestyle.

Those rave culture roots show themselves in the Na Nachs' famous joyrides that happen every week in cities all over Israel. A few days after the wedding, Zohar Ginsberg and his buddies pile into a colorful van covered in stickers and drive through Jerusalem's curvy streets, blasting music from a speaker system strapped to the roof. They play house and trance music, but also Torah-themed reggae, rock and even mizrahi ("Eastern" pop).

"Hopefully people will get a little happy when we pass by," Ginsberg says, "and they'll get the light of Rabbi Nachman."

At red lights, the Na Nachs jump out and dance around in the intersections, bringing an instant, religious-tinged rave party wherever they go. What's more remarkable is what happens next: Some pedestrians drop whatever they are doing for a few moments and dance along.

"I just felt acceptance and welcoming. And love," says Gabriella Wernick, a passerby who found the good vibes to be contagious.

Secular Jews like Wernick often like the Na Nachs. Magid thinks that's extraordinary when you consider that tensions are high between secular and religious Israelis.

"The Na Nachs are really just interested in proselytizing joy," Magid says. "So in that sense, they're really a breath of fresh air for a lot of the secular Jews. They allow for a certain kind of exposure to traditional Judaism that secular Jews would never have because they would never have that sort of contact with the ultra-Orthodox community."

(h/t Zvi)

Last week's escalation with Islamic Jihad saying it shot 130 rockets at Israel (about 60 seem to have landed) continue to have reverberations, as the terror group continues to use it to buttress its image in Gaza.

An article in its newspaper Palestine Today interviews the closest thing Palestinian Arabs have to royalty - the families of "martyrs." Those families, especially the mothers, are said to have been ecstatic at the volley of rockets.

The mother of the martyr Abu Muammar confirmed for Palestine Today that from the first moment of the death of her son, Abdel Shafi decided to sit alone, especially since her husband died a short while ago, and she said: "I sat in the room and only looked at the picture of Abdel-Shafi and to the image of his father... and feeling very sad at their passing. "

Um Omar said "I was crying so much on losing him, but I feel proud of the martyrdom of Abdul-Shafi..."

She said that her tears dried up after she heard the sound that one always wishes to hear to deter the Israeli occupation, when the Al-Quds Brigades launched the process of "Breaking the Silence" with dozens of rockets and missiles, saying: "I felt great joy because the blood of my son was the fuel for resistance that ignited Champions of Saraya in the operation that was long-awaited by Mothers of martyrs. "

And the mother of the martyr Abdel-Shafi gave thanks and appreciation to the heroes of Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, headed by the Secretary General of the Movement, Dr. Ramadan Abdullah Shallah...

The brother of another "martyr" was quoted as saying "We are very proud of the heroes of the resistance in Gaza which helps our heads to be raised high and heals our hearts, assured that the operation of "breaking the silence" will put an end to the Zionist enemy and confirming that our people are not afraid and alone, but the Zionists are shivering in horror of missiles of the Al-Quds Brigades."

This micro-war will help Islamic Jihad recruit hundreds of new potential "martyrs."

Meanwhile, Hamas is trying to remain relevant to the bloodthirsty demographic of Gaza by trying to bask in reflected glory:

Head of the political bureau of Hamas movement Khaled Mishaal said that the Gaza Strip was always targeted but will always adhere to the option of resistance.

Mishaal stressed that all the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, 1948 territories and in the Diaspora have always been ready to make sacrifices to protect their country and are committed to the strategy of resistance as the only option to defend their cause.

He said on Friday evening in Qatar that his movement and all the resistance factions will not stop the resistance until liberating all of Palestine and al-Aqsa Mosque, achieving the right of return and freeing all the prisoners from the Israeli jails.

The Hamas leader has also hailed Qatar's leadership and people for their continued support for Palestine and the people of Gaza.

Islamic Jihad has now eclipsed Hamas as the ideological leader of Gaza.

Which is reason #9345 that peace is impossible.

List of most popular and notable EoZ videos

Here are all the videos I have made that have over 10,000 views that I am aware of, in order of most popular:

Title	Views		Category	Type
Disgusting Turkish shampoo commercial starring Hitler	233000	-	Original	News
"Peace activists" stabbing IDF soldier	188000	-	Recopy	News
The Humanitarian Crisis of the Gaza Mall	98000	-	Original	Humor
"Peace activists" on Mavi Marmara attacking with metal batons	44500	-	Recopy	News
Cute Arab kid hugs an Israeli soldier who is giving him food	46000	-	Recopy	News
Women fight on Egyptian cooking show	35000	-	Recopy	Offbeat
A tour of the main Belzer Synagogue in Jerusalem	35000	-	Original	Education
Hamas throwing Fatah member off roof in Gaza	29000	-	Recopy	News
Two minutes on the Land of Israel	28000	-	Translation	Education
Iranian video simulating a nuclear attack on Israel	21000	-	Recopy	News
BDS Professor at Penn explains how to teach anti-Israel propagand	13700	-	Original	Hate
Egyptian sore loser refuses to shake hands with Israeli at judo match	13500	-	Recopy	News
Saturday's Hunter anti-semitic Iranian film trailer	13000	-	Recopy	Hate
Ahmed, the Palestinian burning- flag salesman	12500	-	Translation	Humor
How Will He Die? - Hamas mascot death watch	12000	-	Original	Humor
Hamas imam says "KIll all the Jews"	11300	-	Recopy	Hate
Rachel Corrie - the song parody	10000	-	Original	Humor

A large percentage received lots of hits because they were topical; I would grab a video from a news source and upload it to YouTube so everyone could see it. Some of my original pieces did quite well, though.

Here are some of my more notable videos that did not reach the 10,000 hit mark yet - but should. (I had to guess on the numbers for some old videos that had been lost when my original YouTube account went away.)

Anti-Israel, anti-semitic Arab cartoons on the eve of the Six Day War	8200	-	Original	Hate
Hello Martyr, hello Fatah	6500	-	Original	Humor
The truth about Christians in Bethlehem	6500	-	Modified	Education
"Peace" - Palestinian style	5500	-	Original	Education
Save the Gazans	5000	-	Original	Humor
If Israel made cheesy Hamas-style videos....	4000	-	Original	Humor
The horror of Palestinian Arab refugee camps	4000	-	Modified	Education
Weeds	4000	-	Original	Education
Jerusalem in Jewish and Islamic culture	4000	-	Original	Education
PaHamas Pajamas!	4000	-	Original	Humor
Gettin' Mighty Crowded	4000	-	Original	Humor
"Civilians"	3400	-	Original	Education
What would a Palestinian State mean?	3000	-	Original	Education
Nothing's Changed: Arab/Israeli Conflict as seen in 1956	2000	-	Original	Education

The humorous ones might be fun to watch on Purim, but the humor is often very dark.

Altogether, I've created and uploaded over 160 videos.

A Zionist interpretation of "ad d'lo yada"

EoZ fan Scott came up with a very interesting interpretation of the concept on Purim of drinking "ad d'lo yada," until one doesn't know the difference between "Blessed is Mordechai" and "Cursed is Haman."

It clearly does not mean to drink until one cannot tell the difference between Haman and Mordechai. That is impossible. People have tried.

So the actual issue is to drink until one doesn't know the difference between "Blessed is Mordechai" and "Cursed is Haman." In other words, one must be able to distinguish between blessing your own side and cursing the other side.

In terms of Israel, it is the difference between building up a nation and wanting to destroy your enemies.

Clearly, Israel-haters are in a constant state of "ad d'lo yada." They have no interest in building a Palestinian Arab state or helping Palestinian Arabs altogether; their entire lives are dedicated to destroying Israel. Arab leaders and "intellectuals" in particular look at the situation as a zero-sum game where hurting Israel is somehow deemed equivalent to helping the Arab cause. They have enshrined "ad d'lo yada" as policy.

Israel, in the meanwhile, keeps on building, keeps on creating, keeps on improving and keeps on moving forward. That is the difference between cursing your enemy and blessing your allies.

This is a much trickier distinction to make when one is drinking.

Maybe I'll post some real Purim Torah tomorrow...

03/15 Links: Egyptian leader of 2011 Eilat terror attack, killed by own bomb; Anelka Sacked

From Ian:

Egyptian who led 2011 terror attack near Eilat killed by own bomb

Egypt’s deadliest terrorist group said one of its founders, who led a 2011 terror attack in Israel, has been accidentally killed by a bomb.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which has spearheaded a low-level insurgency against Egyptian soldiers and police, said Tawfiq Mohamed Fareej was killed last week when a car accident set off a bomb he was carrying.
The group, whose name means “Partisans of Jerusalem” in Arabic, has claimed some of the deadliest attacks on Egyptian security forces since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohammed Morsi last July.
One of the group’s founders, Fareej was the “field commander” of an August 18, 2011 cross border terrorist raid into Israel that killed 8 Israelis, the group said in a statement on Friday.

The bitter fruits of Bibi’s Bar-Ilan blunder

During the half-decade since that fateful lapse at Bar- Ilan, Netanyahu has consented to a series of far-reaching, previously inconceivable concessions – conveying that once any issue, no matter how pernicious or perilous, is raised, Israel will eventually give way.
His dramatic about-face on Palestinian statehood was soon followed by his aforementioned, unprecedented, and largely futile decision to freeze construction in Judea-Samaria – which was unreciprocated by the Palestinians, and unappreciated by the US and the international community.
This was merely a harbinger of things to come.

Mondoweiss & the Far Right?

Mondoweiss, the fanatically anti-Zionist website run by Jews, has many open and demonstrable links (unsurprisingly) with the extreme Left, especially with the Center for Economic Research and Social Change (CERSC), which publishes the International Socialist Review and sponsored the “Socialism 2012” conference.
Significantly, Mondoweiss now appears to be developing links with the extreme Right. A blog posted by Philip Weiss (co-editor of the site, for whom it is named) on 9 March this year, headed “Conservatives for Palestine” , gave an account of the “National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel Special Relationship”, which he attended and addressed.
The Conference was apparently wholly the work of extreme conservatives, ranging from neo-isolationists and old line “Foreign Office Arabists” to out-and-out ultra-right antisemites and Holocaust deniers.

A new incident on the Lebanese border

From Naharnet:

The Israeli army said it shelled a Hizbullah position in southern Lebanon on Friday after an explosion targeted an Israeli patrol on the border, as the Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reportedly claimed responsibility for the bomb attack.

Agence France Presse quoted a Lebanese security source as saying that Israel shelled southern Lebanon after an explosion on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

The Israeli army confirmed that report, saying that it had acted after a border patrol was attacked with explosives.

The Lebanese source said "10 Israeli rockets hit an uninhabited border area" and that "there were no casualties."

"In response to the explosive device activated against IDF (Israeli army) soldiers, the IDF fired towards a Hizbullah terror infrastructure in southern Lebanon. A hit was confirmed," the Israeli army said in statement.

Earlier, the Israeli army radio said "artillery fired at southern Lebanon in retaliation for the explosion of a concealed device targeting a patrol."

"The device exploded near soldiers on the border in the Har Dov area," the statement added, using Israel's term for the occupied Shebaa Farms.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said “a 107 mm rocket struck an Israeli army post on the al-Ramta Hill inside the occupied Shebaa Farms.” It did not elaborate and it was not immediately clear if it was referring to the same attack on Israeli forces.

Media reports later said that the Qaida-inspired ISIL claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on the Israeli patrol.

The ISIL claim would seem to be nonsense, but there have been rockets to Israel in the past that were claimed by Sunni terror groups. I would think that Hezbollah is the more likely culprit.

But this incident, together with the similar on on the Syrian border last week and the Islamic Jihad rocket escalation, indicates that Iran is directing its satellite terror groups to keep Israel on edge. It is not clear why; perhaps to divert attention from what is happening in Syria (there have reportedly been heavy Hezbollah losses recently). If Israel attacks Hezbollah, then Iran might be gambling that public opinion would swing towards Hezbollah and against the Sunnis fighting in Syria.

Haaretz' Amos Harel thinks that this is a deliberate response to Israel's last airstrike on the Lebanon/Syria border.

Friday's incident in Har Dov points to a gradual change in the rules of the game on the northern front, after years of almost complete calm. Slowly, Hezbollah and the Assad regime are taking the gloves off in their struggle against Israel. The attacks they both attribute to the IDF are answered with terror attacks from the other side, even if for the time being the targets are limited and the operations are low-profile, and no public claims of responsibility are voiced in their aftermath.

Last December, shortly after the mysterious assassination of Hezbollah commander Hassan al-Laqis in Beirut, an IDF jeep was targeted by an IED in an area controlled by the Syrian Army around Mt. Hermon. In early March, immediately after a Hezbollah convoy was attacked in Lebanon, rockets from Syria were fired toward the Israeli side of the Hermon. Last week the IDF thwarted an attempt to plant an IED on the Syrian border, hitting Hezbollah operatives or militants loyal to Assad. The incident on Friday is the latest in this series of events.

It is possible that this is a face-saving gesture, but it seems a stretch that even Arab pride would think that these tiny attacks are any sort of retaliation.

Anyway, things are heating up in Lebanon, slowly, and Hezbollah knows quite well that it can be a wild card in whatever happens.

03/14 Links Pt2: Israelis don’t care that we hate them. But they’d like to know why

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: Israelis don’t care that we hate them. But they’d like to know why

‘The lesson many in the West took from the Holocaust is that nationalism is bad; the message Jews took from it is that nationalism is necessary.’
This cuts to the heart of today’s fashionable disdain for little Israel. What many Westerners seem to find most nauseating is that Israel is cocky, confident and committed to preserving its national sovereign rights against all-comers. In short, it’s a lot like we used to be before relativism and anti-modernism. I think that Israel reminds us of our older selves, our pre-EU, pre-green days, when we, too, believed in borders, sovereignty, progress, growth.
Now that it’s de rigueur in the right-thinking sections of western society to be post–nationalist and multicultural, to be fashionably uncertain about one’s national identity, the sight of a border-fortifying state offends and outrages us. In the words of George Gilder, author of The Israel Test, Israel is now hated more for its virtues than for its political or militaristic vices. It’s hated for remaining devoted to ‘freedom and capitalism’ when we’re all supposed to be snooty about such things.
If Israel is unofficially being made into a pariah state, it isn’t because of its foreignness, or even necessarily its Jewishness, but rather because it is too western for our liking. We loathe it because we loathe ourselves.

Italian MEP Raises Tough Questions over Anti-Semitism in the Arab World

Fiorello Provera, the EU's Vice Chairman on the Committee on Foreign Affairs has written to the European Commission and its High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, to express his concerns about anti-Semitism in areas of interest to the EU.
Provera wrote yesterday: "In 2012 during the 8th Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean, which was held in Morocco, a demonstrator outside the parliament in Rabat dressed as an orthodox Jew rode a person wearing a donkey’s head. It was supposed to symbolise the subservience of Arab regimes to Jews. Unfortunately there is a widespread belief in many Arab countries that Jews play a role behind the scenes when it comes to politics and economics. In Morocco, for example, the secretary general of the Istiqlal party, Hamid Chabat, claimed that the Arab Spring was the result of a Zionist conspiracy, comparable to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

The hell with peace

Mr. Black is currently promoting his latest book Financing The Flames of Hate. While he was speaking, at a breakfast meeting, organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, about the content of his book, here is what went through my mind:
Political narcissism is cancer,
The result of forgetting the word truth, the world is experiencing stannic control,
Anti-Semitism is now in abundance… anti-Semitism means that Jews must not have a state of their own and thus must never have genuine human rights… the anti-Semites of today are all in cahoots to bring the Jews back to the exilic status from which they got freed 66 years ago, LAST,
Western societies are willingly paying to kill Jews and the outcome, the more Jews killed the richer the killer and his family become.
To understand that sickening phenomenon, here is what I heard and share, some in Mr. Black’s own words: (h/t Bob Knot)

Purim music video: "What Does Haman Say?"

Cute:

)

(h/t Yerushalimey)

03/14 Links Pt1: Abbas Rejects U.S. Plan; What Obama furtively furthers; A pilot in Noah's Ark

From Ian:

Abbas Uses Fatah Speech to Reject U.S. Plan

The day after the speech, Fahmi Zaarir, vice-chairman of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, stated on Radio Palestine on March 11 that Abbas had reported on “a framework plan to perpetuate a number of principles in a final agreement,” and that Abbas remains faithful to Fatah’s founding principles. Zaarir did not quote Abbas directly, but said, “Everyone knows what these principles are: Palestine’s borders from the Jordan River to the 1967 lines and no compromise regarding all of Jerusalem based on the ’67 lines.” Regarding refugees, “They themselves will agree based on UN decisions and the Arab Initiative.” Abbas spoke of the “right of return” of refugees – of all refugees – into the State of Israel itself. Even those who elect not to move to Israel would all receive compensation, Zaarir said. States which housed the refugees – Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria – would also be compensated for their hospitality. Zaarir emphasized that Abbas repeated emphatically that he would under no circumstances accept the “Jewish state” principle and that he would bring any agreement – if one was reached – to the entire Palestinian people, wherever they may be, for their approval. (h/t Bob Knot)

Elliott Abrams: Abbas and 'right of return' will defeat Kerry

By making the "right of return" a personal right for each Palestinian, Abbas is saying the PLO has no right to negotiate over it and no right to sign a agreement that defeats or even limits that "right." If that's really the PLO position, there will never be an agreement.
Second, if Abbas doesn't really mean it, he is narrowing his own negotiating room to near zero and obviously not preparing his own people for the compromises peace will entail.
Third, his definition of "refugee" is as broad as it could possibly be. According to Abbas, a Palestinian who left Israel in 1948 or 1967 has the right to move to Israel or to decline, but his "no" does not even bind his own foreign-born children. His son, and presumably grandson, who have never set foot in Israel and may well have citizenship in (for example) Canada have their own separate rights to move to Israel. Five million separate choices, says Abbas.

Sarah Honig: What Obama furtively furthers

One outrageously insolent remark was remarkably ignored in the hullaballoo generated by US President Barack Obama’s Bibi-bashing interview on the eve of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s latest White House visit.
Wedged into the presidential malarkey was a new allegation against the Mideast’s sole democracy. Obama accused Israel of no less than continuing to “place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions.”
Huh? Really? What restrictions? And does Obama now also presume to pass judgment on what are indisputably our domestic affairs? Is there no limit to his meddling and hubris?

The best shadchan in the world

This comes from a 1990 Usenet post by the late Dr. Eliot Shimoff, who had one of the best senses of humor of anyone I have (virtually) known. Around Purim time every year, he posted many great jokes, and this is one of them.

(Shadchan=matchmaker, shidduch=match, shtetl=small Jewish village)

The shadchan in a small shtetl went to the wealthiest man in the shtetl and offered to arrange a shidduch (match) for the man's son. The wealthy man was scornful: "I am the wealthiest man in this entire shtetl, and in the surrounding four shtetlach. I have four cows and a horse, and my own barn. I need someone like you to make a shidduch for my son???!!!"

The shadchan explained: "This is not just any young lady. The girl I have in mind is Baron Rothschild's daughter."

The wealthy man was suddenly interested: "If you can arrange that, it's worth 100 rubles!"

The shadhan then went to Paris. After great difficulty, he finally got an appointment with Baron Rothschild himself. "Baron, I have a wonderful shidduch for your daughter."

"Ha," the baron exclaimed, "I need a shadchan like you from some tiny shtetl to get a shidduch for my daughter? I am Baron Rothschild; my daughter can have her choice of young men from any major city on the Continent!"

The shadchan replied: "Ah, Baron, this is not just any young man. The young man I have in mind for your daughter is a vice-president of Chase Manhattan Bank." The Baron replied: "If you can arrange that, it would be suitable, and worth thousands of francs."

So the shadchan traveled to New York. Again, after great difficulty, he managed to get an appointment with David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan Bank.

"Mr. Rockefeller, I have a wonderful candidate for a vice-presidency of your bank."

Rockefeller was shocked. "I have executive training programs, and recruitment programs, and one of the finest personnel offices in the entire finance industry. Do you think I need suggestions from some shmendrik from the shtetl?"

"Ah," replied the shadchan, " this is not just any young man I am proposing to you. This is Baron Rothschild's future son-in-law!"

And that, my friends, is the definition of a good shadchan.