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It is time for my quarterly appeal and review of things that have happened on the blog since my last roundup. .
A week or so ago, I wrote the 19,000th post in this blog.

My most popular post over the past quarter was, hands down, my updated poster page for "Apartheid Week." Over 50,000 views for that page alone, showing that many people were looking to counter the Israel-haters and found these posters to be among the most effective debunking of the myth.

Among the other popular posts were my exposure of the lies behind the St. James Church wall stunt in Piccadilly,  the Meltdown Girl post, the PLO minister admitting "If Jews have a history in the land - then we don't," my Great news from the Arab World post, my Sodastream poster which went viral, my proof that Saeb Erekat's family came from Howeitat, not Palestine, "I was wrong. There really were a Palestinian people," and the secret ASA conference at NYU.

On my sidebar are three additional posts that my readers voted as being among my best this year: Why HRW is racist, Belgium's new poet laureate not happy I called him an antisemite, and "Zionists trying to hide Canaanite-Palestinian civilization."

Of course, I also made posters, infographics and videos, including one I copied from Facebook that went viral.

I was reprinted or quoted in The Jewish Press and the Algemeiner many times, The Blaze a few times, The Forward, The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Golden Gate Express, JTA, Jweekly, Commentary, and others.  It looks like a version of this post from last night may be published in a Boston Jewish newspaper as well.

I also have over 6500 followers on Twitter now.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the superb job Ian does with the linkdumps every day. The blog is worth reading just for that; no one puts together as good a collection of daily articles like he does.

I also want to thank the quarters' occasional guest posters. Zvi always has a great perspective and "Bob Knot" did an amazing job of investigative journalism that no "real" reporter bothered to do, debunking a libel that was widely reported.

The blog takes lots of time and some money. But it gives a lot more than it gets. I get emails regularly from people who say that they use this blog often to show people the truth about Israel and her neighbors.

If you find value in EoZ, please donate or consider a monthly subscription.  PayPal is the easiest (click buttons in upper corner of the webpage, or just at the end of this post) but you can also email an Amazon gift card if you prefer.

Thanks again for your support, your comments, your emails, your FB Likes and your retweets!

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03/19 Links Pt2: The Problem with Judith Butler; Two Year Anniversary of the Toulouse Murders

From Ian:

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The Problem with Judith Butler: The Political Philosophy of the Movement to Boycott Israel

When American Studies Association President Curtis F. Marez gave his absurd “one has to start somewhere” answer to a New York Times reporter’s question as to why one should single out Israel’s universities for a boycott, one might have thought he had set the gold standard for empty boycott advocacy. But soon a still more vacuous contestant arrived. At the pro-boycott session on January 9 at the Modern Language Association’s 2014 annual meeting, University of Texas professor and panelist Barbara Harlow offered her own concise answer to the “Why boycott Israel?” question: “Why not?”
With advocates like these, one might think the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel would need no opponents. Certainly the public image of the humanities is not enhanced by remarks of this sort. But in truth many boycott supporters do not look for adequate reasoning. They want their existing passions inflamed still further. Palestinian BDS entrepreneur Omar Barghouti, who lectures regularly on US campuses, is adept at generating moral outrage in susceptible audiences. But the BDS movement also has more sophisticated spokespersons at its disposal. Judith Butler, who has become the movement’s premier philosopher and political theorist, is perhaps the foremost among them. Her work, which carries significant authority among humanists, helps us get to the heart of the movement’s guiding principles. The critique I will offer thus addresses the theoretical framing of the whole BDS movement by way of Butler’s approach to Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She has complained that pro-BDS arguments do not receive detailed analysis. I will make every effort to provide that here.

Zionism is moral and necessary

Finally, Mahmoud Abbas also wants a nation-state, for the ‘Palestinian people’. It’s pretty clear that, like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there would be no Jews in ‘Palestine’. The proposed constitution for Palestine states that “Islam is the official religion of Palestine.” I have never heard Levy or anyone else on the Left object to this, or compare the Palestinians to Nazis. Even the usual concerns for human rights (don’t forget women, gays, etc.) are elided where the Palestinians are concerned.
The Left’s vision of a borderless world in which every nation is a “democratic state of all its citizens” is being tried now, in Europe, and it is failing badly, economically, socially, and — most important — demographically, with native fertility rates far below what’s needed for the society to survive. Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is a healthy 2.8, well above the replacement rate of 2.1. Perhaps Israel’s social and economic vitality has something to do with the national pride and religion that still exist there, despite what is written in Ha’aretz?
Without Jewish nationalism, that is, Zionism, there would be no Israel, and no reason for one — which is why psychopathic Jew-hater Gideon Levy advocates against it.

Leaked report: Israel acknowledges Jews in fact Khazars; Secret plan for reverse migration to Ukraine (satire)

Followers of Middle Eastern affairs know two things: always expect the unexpected, and never write off Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has more political lives than the proverbial cat.
Only yesterday came news that Syrian rebels plan to give Israel the Golan Heights in exchange for creation of a no-fly zone against the Assad regime. In an even bolder move, it is now revealed, Israel will withdraw its settlers from communities beyond the settlement blocs—and relocate them at least temporarily to Ukraine. Ukraine made this arrangement on the basis of historic ties and in exchange for desperately needed military assistance against Russia. This surprising turn of events had an even more surprising origin: genetics, a field in which Israeli scholars have long excelled.

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Blonde hair and pink clothes nearly cause riot at Cairo U

From Al Arabiya:

A video of a young Egyptian woman with long blonde hair being aggressively sexually harassed by a group of university law students has sparked country-wide controversy.

In the video, the female university student can be seen with long, platinum-blonde hair wearing a pink top, matching pink shoes and fitted jeans, quickly attracting the attention of scores of male students.

While the woman appears to be walking fast to get away from the growing group of men following her, a shot of her face is not available.

Cairo University guards escorted the student off campus after she hid in the toilets from the dozens of male students who were allegedly trying to remove her clothes.

The bellicose harassment at one of Egypt's largest universities sparked outrage after the video went viral on social networking sites and was picked up by local media.

Fathi Farid, found member of the anti-sexual harassment group “I saw harassment,” said male students had verbally attacked the woman and attempted to undress her, AFP reported.

Last year an actor dressed up as a woman to see how bad sexual harassment in Egypt really was.

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How Abbas looks at the "negotiations" (ElderToon)

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03/19 Links Pt1: Kerry: I Was for a Jewish State Before I Was Against it; Yaalon: US Projecting Weakness

From Ian:

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Obama Setting Israel Up to Take the Blame

Abbas’s refusal to take the steps necessary to make peace is nothing new when you consider that he and his predecessor Yasir Arafat have already turned down three Israeli offers of peace and statehood. This has been a consistent pattern for the PA. As the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl noted on Sunday, Abbas thinks he can get away with this because the Obama administration has no intention of pressuring him or holding him accountable for Palestinian incitement, terror connections, or diplomatic intransigence.
If the president were genuinely interested in pursuing peace he would be hammering the Palestinians for their behavior and making it clear they would pay a high price for saying no to Kerry’s framework. Instead, he has given Abbas carte blanche to maintain the same obdurate stance he has taken since he took over the PA from his longtime boss Arafat.
What will this accomplish? It won’t advance the cause of peace. But it will make it easier for Israel’s critics to blame Netanyahu for the inevitable collapse of Kerry’s effort and serve to rationalize the violence and the boycotts the secretary threatened the Jewish state with. All Obama is doing is setting up Israel to take the fall for a fourth Palestinian “no” to peace.

Caroline Glick: Do Palestinians Really Want to Live Next to Israel? (Starts 1:50) (h/t Daphne Anson


J.J. Goldberg Attempts To Bully Caroline Glick- J Street Chimes In

On March 17th, J.J. Goldberg opined in The Forward that Caroline Glick's appearance at Hillel violates the National Hillel Guidelines for Campus Israel Activities due to her right-wing views on Israel. In an article titled “N.J Hillel Hosts right-wing views of Israel 1-Stater. Relax, She’s Right-Winger,” he labels Glick as a “militant one-stater” who is a “fiery right-winger.”
After labeling Glick and portraying her as extreme, Goldberg attempts to argue against her new book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East:

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An Israeli leftist's lonely search for a moderate Palestinian Arab

From Einat Wilf in Al-Monitor:

I was born into the Israeli left. I grew up in the left. I was always a member of the left. I believed that the day that the Palestinians would have their own sovereign state would be the day when Israel would finally live in peace. But like many Israelis of the left, I lost this certainty I once had.

...But one of the most pronounced moments over the past several years that has made me very skeptical toward the left were a series of meetings I had with young, moderate Palestinian leaders to which I was invited by virtue of being a member of Israel's Labor Party.

I had much in common with these young Palestinian leaders. We could relate to each other. However, through discussion, I soon discovered that the moderation of the young Palestinian leaders was in their acknowledgement that Israel is already a reality and therefore is not likely to disappear. I even heard phrases such as, "You were born here and you are already here, so we will not send you away." (Thank you very much, I thought). But, what shocked and changed my approach to peace was that when we discussed the deep sources of the conflict between us, I was told, "Judaism is not a nationality, it's only a religion and religions don't have the right to self-determination." The historic connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel was also described as made-up or nonexistent.

Reflecting on the comments of these "moderates," I was forced to realize that the conflict is far deeper and more serious than I allowed myself to believe. It was not just about settlements and "occupation," as Palestinian spokespeople have led the Israeli left to believe. I realized that the Palestinians, who were willing to accept the need for peace with Israel, did so because Israel was strong. I realized that, contrary to the leftist views in Israel, which support the establishment of a Palestinian state because the Palestinians have a right (repeat: right) to sovereignty in their homeland, there is no such parallel Palestinian "left" that recognizes the right (repeat: right) of the Jewish people to sovereignty in its ancient homeland.

...So, it was somewhat ironic when, just several months ago, I received an email from the Israeli-Palestinian meeting's organizer to write a response to one of the program's core funders as to whether the program had an "impact on anything or anybody." I was asked to "reflect back a few years" and to write whether the program "had any impact on you — personally, professionally, socially, politically … " Naturally, I responded. I wrote that the program had a "tremendous impact on my thinking and I continue to discuss it to this day in my talks and lectures." I shared the above story with the organizer, recognizing that "it is probably not a perspective you want to share with your funders."

In response, the organizer sent me an email saying that there are "many, not one, grass-roots and political Palestinians who truly believe that Jews have a right to part of the land." I responded enthusiastically that meeting even "one Palestinian who believes that the Jewish people have an equal and legitimate claim to the land would be huge for me," and that "I've been looking for someone like that ever since I participated in the program many years ago."

...I was then asked to write precisely what would convince me that we have a true partner for peace in the Palestinians. So, I drafted the following phrase:

"The Jewish people and Palestinian people are both indigenous to the Land of Israel/Palestine and therefore have an equal and legitimate claim to a sovereign state for their people on the land." I added that this sentence could be expanded to say, "Both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people around the world have an equal and legitimate claim to settle and live anywhere in the Land of Israel/Palestine, but given the desire of both peoples to a sovereign state that would reflect their unique culture and history, we believe in partitioning the land into a Jewish state, Israel, and an Arab state, Palestine, that would allow them each to enjoy dignity and sovereignty in their own national home." I would also add here that it should be clear that neither Israel nor Palestine should be exclusively for the Jewish and Palestinian people respectively and both should accommodate minorities of the other people.

The organizer promised to get back to me. Weeks and months passed, and I was about to publish this piece, opening up the conversation, hoping to find partners who share my belief, so that I could rekindle my hope that peace is possible. At the last minute, I was contacted by professor Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, the head of American Studies at Al-Quds University and founder of the Palestinian centrist movement, Wasatia. All he asked was to change the word "claim" to "right," and "partition" to "sharing," saying that "right" was more positive, and "partitioning" had in the deep psyche of the Palestinians the negative connotation of the 1947 UN partition plan recommendation. He emphasized that 67 years later, he hopes that Palestinians would realize that sharing the land by a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, as envisioned by the UN resolution, was "the right thing to do" in 1947, since both people do have a legitimate right to the land, and remains "the right thing to do" today. I found these changes wholly acceptable and welcome. So the statement we share now reads as follows:

"The Jewish people around the world and Palestinian people around the world are both indigenous to the Land of Israel/Palestine and therefore have an equal and legitimate right to settle and live anywhere in the Land of Israel/Palestine, but given the desire of both peoples to a sovereign state that would reflect their unique culture and history, we believe in sharing the land between a Jewish state, Israel, and an Arab state, Palestine, that would allow them each to enjoy dignity and sovereignty in their own national home. Neither Israel nor Palestine should be exclusively for the Jewish and Palestinian people respectively and both should accommodate minorities of the other people."

Who else will join us in our journey to find true partners on both sides?

So after months of searching, Wilf found a single Palestinian Arab willing to concede that Jews have a right to live in the land. At that rate, with no natural growth in the Arab population, it will only take 250,000 years to gain a significant minority who believes in real peace.

Wilf is not stupid - she recognizes the prevalence of the Israeli "self-flagellating left" and she is a member of NGO Monitor's advisory board (an infraction that led to her being banned from speaking at the Peace Now conference last year.) And there is nothing wrong with trying to find real Palestinian Arab partners for peace and to encourage them. It would be wonderful  if European governments would fund Wasatia rather than the BDS-supporting NGOs they seem to favor.

But the Wasatia movement that Daoudi founded in 2007 gets essentially zero coverage in the Arab media. The existence of Daoudi (and his brother) is not an encouraging sign - it is a clear indicator that probably more than 99% of Palestinian Arabs disagree with the idea that Jews have rights.

Finding a dollar bill after searching for months in a ton of manure is not exactly a cause for celebration. It means that it may be time to re-evaluate the best way to spend one's time.

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Jordanians warn that "Jordan option" for Palestinians already being implemented

Al Monitor shows yet again how much Jordanians hate their Palestinian majority.

A delegation from the Jordanian Council on Foreign Relations visited Lebanon from March 9-11. The delegation, comprising representatives of a number of leftist, secular and nationalist parties in Jordan, visited Lebanese officials, before heading to Damascus where they met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The delegation then returned to Beirut to voice its concerns and raise the alarm: Jordan, as an independent state, is facing an imminent risk. The displacement of Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories has indeed begun and is auguring an impending change in the region’s map. What information and facts have led them to raise the alarm?

Al-Monitor met with the members of the Jordanian delegation, among whom were representatives of political parties, former members of parliament, retired officers, academics and unionists. According to them, Jordanian identity may be threatened by a "Jordan option" that may already be in process. The country’s population is 6.5 million people. According to official figures, while the inhabitants are Jordanians, 43% of them are of Palestinian origin. This phenomenon is the result of the historical intertwining between the Emirate of Transjordan and neighboring historical Palestine. Since this first started, half of the population of Palestine developed a different identity and national cause as the result of the loss of their territories and homeland. Yet, they practically became citizens of the Jordanian state.

"Practically"? They have been full citizens since 1949! Yet they are still considered to be second-class citizens even though they have lived in Jordan since it was renamed Jordan.

After the establishment of the Jordanian state, and notably after the Arab-Israeli wars that took place from 1948 to 1967, the displacement of Palestinians in Jordan continued, until Jordan was hosting around half a million Palestinians who are not included in the statistic of 43%, as mentioned above. This means they were not official Jordanian citizens and were placed in camps built on Jordanian territory.

This is flat-out wrong. The Palestinians who decided they didn't want to live under Jewish rule in 1967 were already Jordanian citizens, except for tens of thousands - not close to half a million - Gazans who were not given citizenship. Jerash camp is the most well-known and it only has 24,000 people.

They noted that all information and facts indicate that the process of transforming Jordan into an alternative homeland for Palestinians has started. They believe that the principle of Israel as a Jewish state is now being carried out at the expense of Jordan as a state. The members of the delegation affirmed that Jordanian official statistics showed that a regular displacement from the occupied Palestinian territories to Jordan has been registered over the past few years, at a rate of 70,000 displaced Palestinian per year, due to economic hardships and the attempts of Palestinians to find jobs and make a living. According to the members of the delegation, there is a far worse and more dangerous scenario, which is the systematic and clandestine Israeli-Jordanian plan to move all Arab citizens of Israel — who number 1.4 million Palestinians — into Jordan in the coming years.

I don't know about the 70,000 Palestinians moving to Jordan a year. Even if it is true, saying that this is part of an Israeli conspiracy is lunacy.

But even crazier is the idea that Israel and Jordan are colluding to move Israeli Arabs into Jordan. Yet Jordanian "representatives of political parties, former members of parliament, retired officers, academics and unionists" are making this bizarre claim.

What is their proof of this conspiracy?

In this context, the representatives of the Jordanian parties revealed what they deemed dangerous indications of the implementation of this plan. The first indication is the new measure ratified by the Jordanian government a week ago, allowing those who live in Jordan and do not have the Jordanian nationality to be granted temporary passports for five years. According to the delegation, this measure underlines a silent and gradual process of nationalizing and settling Palestinians in Jordan. The second indication is adopting new measures facilitating the process of Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians granting the Jordanian nationality to their children knowing that this measure, which has a humanitarian aspect, means granting nationality to a large number of Palestinians. The third indication is the talks about passing new laws for municipal and parliamentary elections, which are observing the possibility of granting non-Jordanian residents and those who have temporary passports certain electoral rights. This means that they would have new civil and political rights, which would eventually turn them into official citizens.

Jordan has stripped citizenship from thousands of Palestinian Jordanians in recent years. There is zero chance that they will offer citizenship to additional Palestinians.

The delegation is also lying about the proposed law for Jordanian women married to Palestinian Arab men. The law would provide limited rights to their children, but not citizenship.

The hate that "native" Jordanians have of Palestinians is built into Jordanian society. It is real apartheid, as Palestinian Arabs make up the majority of Jordan's citizens according to many estimates.

But since there are very few Jordanians who are campaigning for Palestinian rights - and the ones that do are threatened by the king himself - no one talks about this.

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UNRWA official implies that Israel should be forced to buy goods from Gaza

The Huffington Post published an article a few days ago by Robert Turner, Director of UNRWA in Gaza.

He makes the incredible claim that Gaza is not getting enough media coverage. Turner admits he wants the media coverage of poor Gazans in order to raise more money:

It is impossible not to be touched by the apocalyptic scenes emerging from the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus, besieged and cut off for months. The images are at once epic and personal....While the cameras have followed the conflict as they ever do, aid budgets have followed the cameras. International funding abhors a news vacuum. Donors like their cash to be in the news headlines and so UNRWA's appeal to the international community to fund our emergency work in Syria to the tune of over 400 million U.S. dollars, has found a generous response among donor governments. That's the relatively good news and we are grateful.

The bad news is that UNRWA works in other places where, like Syria, there are emergencies that have become protracted, but from where, unlike Syria, the cameras have moved on. Gaza is one of those places.

Google News search for the past month finds Yarmouk mentioned about 5000 times in the media. Gaza is mentioned 128,000 times.

...While there are no images from Gaza as compelling as those from Yarmouk -- nor is the situation that desperate -- the people here having been living under siege-like conditions for more than six years.

Yes, Turner is trying to compare Gaza with Yarmouk.

You know...the Gaza that we can see in this video from two weeks ago:





Turner isn't interested in the truth, of course - he wants to grab a larger chunk of limited worldwide aid money, money that would otherwise go to people who are really starving, who are really being slaughtered, people who are truly poor.

Besides the obvious lies, Turner says something that reveals a bit more about how anti-Israel NGOs like UNRWA think:

Until the blockade is lifted and access to Gaza's traditional markets -- the West Bank and Israel -- is secured, any sustainable recovery of the local economy remains elusive.

Turner is saying that Gaza cannot be economically viable unless it is allowed access to Israel and the WB markets.

I don't have numbers from Gaza specifically, but in 2005, Israel was by far the PA's biggest market - some 88% of all PA exports went to Israel. It can be safely assumed that the vast majority of Gaza goods were sold to Israel then, and the amount of trade between Gaza and the WB was probably limited.

Israel, of course, decided that buying goods from Hamas -ruled territory is not in its best interests.

But UNRWA seems to be saying that Israel must buy Gazas' strawberries, tomatoes and other produce - goods that Israeli farmers also grow - if Gaza is to become economically viable.

He's not saying Egypt or Jordan or France must buy Gaza goods - but Israel must!

The demands on Israel by NGOs and governments and the media have always been out of whack compared to anywhere else. But this is a new one.

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Boston Jewish organizations sponsor student trip to Arafat's grave

The Boston Jewish community sponsored a tour of Israel for Harvard University students called Israel Trek:

The inaugural Harvard College Israel Trek (Spring Break, March 14th- 23rd) will bring 50 Harvard undergraduate students to Israel in hopes of facilitating a nuanced first encounter with the country, its history, narratives, culture, politics and people. Student participants represent diverse religious, national, and cultural backgrounds, and are all leaders in various capacities on campus.

The Trek is being led by a dynamic team of Israeli undergraduates, and will draw on the narratives of its participants and leaders, placing a special emphasis on fostering meaningful personal relationships. This component will add a unique and personal dimension to this particular Israel experience.

Students will learn about Israeli history, culture, and politics. Some of the topics explored will include the hi-tech industry, the emerging cultural landscape, questions regarding religion and state, the peace process and Israel’s geopolitical position in the region.

Israel Trek is made possible by the generous contributions of a number of family foundations and Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies. The Trek is supported by Harvard Hillel.

Sounds great, right? It is wonderful to give students the opportunity to see the side of Israel that they wouldn't otherwise be exposed to. The students are led by Israelis - Arabs and Jews - who know the country. The students who are on the trip are a very diverse group of undergraduates.

So why the hell did this trip, sponsored by Jewish organizations and Harvard Hillel, take the students to pose at the grave of a mass murderer of Jews?

Its wonderful to expose people to both sides of the story, but it is stupid to embrace the side of the story that wants to see you gone.  Israel Trek could have arranged for a few hours with an Arab tour guide in Judea and Samaria, or they could have given students a free day, or any number of other options. But to have supposed Jewish organizations arrange for a visit to a terrorist who was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the gruesome murder of thousands - and to take a photo of students smiling in the presence of such disgusting filth - is beyond belief.

News bulletin: People respect you more when you have some self respect. Telling the students that they are free to do what they want, but that the leaders of the trip find the idea of  paying respects to a terrorist is repugnant, is far preferable to promulgating the "all narratives are equally valid" idiocy that passes for enlightened opinion nowadays.

This is a sickness.

(h/t Daniel Mael at TruthRevolt)

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03/18 Links Pt2: Israeli Arabs debunk apartheid myths; Purim Obama hoax fools Dutch media

From Ian:

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Israeli Arabs help to debunk apartheid myths

Bader, a 23-year-old Tel Aviv University student studying for his bachelor’s in computer science and economics, said he met a number of people at U of T who were shocked to learn that Arabs live in Israel.
“I said, ‘I’m living proof,’” he said, going so far as to converse with them in Arabic to convince them further.
“I’ve travelled a lot, and I’ve been called [names] when they learn that I’m from Israel,” said Bader, a member of Israel’s 125,000-strong Druze community.
“I see how Israel is misrepresented in the media… They’re accusing Israel of apartheid… and you know it’s not true, but if you don’t stand up and say it’s not true, a lot of people are going to believe these lies.”
Heeb and his fellow WordSwap participants attended an IAW event last week at U of T, where he said he witnessed first hand that IAW organizers aren’t interested in dialogue.
“I asked them a lot of questions, but they didn’t answer any of them. They wanted to boycott Ben-Gurion University, so I said, ‘Listen guys, Ben-Gurion University has the most Arab girls, Bedouin girls, studying there, more than [schools in] Arab countries.’ I told them I was from the University of Haifa. I’m Arab. I’m doing my master’s, and my faculty would not be able to exchange the knowledge that we have. But they didn’t answer [me],” Heeb said.

Judy Feld Carr: If Jews Hadn’t Left Syria it Would Have Been a Slaughter

Canadian humanitarian Judy Feld Carr, recognized last year in The Algemeiner’s ‘Jewish 100′ list for her work in rescuing Syria’s Jewish community, told the Daily Beast that if Jews were stuck in Syria today, they would have been slaughtered.
“If they were there now, what would have happened? I know what would have happened. It would have been the slaughter of the Syrian Jewish community, that is for sure,” Feld Carr said in an interview published on Monday.
For 28 years, Feld Carr worked secretly to smuggle some 3,228 Syrians out of the country to freedom. In addition to her operation, there was an airlift in 1992 organized by New York’s Syrian Jewish community, with as many as 5,000 Syrian Jews flown out of Syria secretly. Feld Carr said that by 2001, when she concluded her work, there were only about 30 Syrian Jews left in the country; today that number is believed to be 11.

Former Lebanese President: Mideast Christian Exodus ‘Approaching Biblical Proportions’

Gemayel, a Maronite Christian who served as president from 1982-1988 after taking over for his brother Bashir, who was assassinated during the bloody Lebanese Civil War—said at a speech sponsored by Christian Solidarity International that Middle East Christians in particular are fleeing the region “in an exodus approaching biblical proportions.”
Specifically, Gemayel highlighted “church burnings, physical assaults and killings” in Egypt, “an onslaught of murder” in Iraq, and “a bloody-minded reign of terror” from “ultra-radical Islamists in regions of Syria where they have imposed their rule.”

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Comparing Israel's and "Palestine's" national anthems (Zvi)

From Zvi, as a comment to this post:

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It's very easy to see the difference between how Israelis / Jews and Palestinian Arabs feel about Israel, Jerusalem, the holy sites, freedom, democracy, humanity, hope and hatred.

Simply consider the two national anthems.

Israel's national anthem is Hatikva, The Hope. It contains the words (rough translation),

As long as in the heart,
a Jewish soul still yearns,
and on toward the east
an eye still looks toward Zion,
our hope is not lost,
the hope of 2000 years,
to be a free people in our land,
the land of Zion and Jerusalem.
…
Go, my people, return in peace to your land.
The balm in Gilead, your healer in Jerusalem,
your healer is God, the wisdom of His heart.
Go, my people, in peace; healing comes.

This song expresses the factual - historical and modern - personal, national, and spiritual relationship between Jews and the Land. It expresses this deep relationship, almost as a love song, rather than expressing a desire to harm others. It enshrines the desire to be "a free people in our land", to come in peace, to heal. It says nothing about preventing others - Druze, Arabs or others - from standing with Jews as free people in the land. It says nothing about weapons, and is not about war.

The Palestinian "national anthem" is entirely different. It is called "Fida'i", or "My Redemption". It contains a lot of violent nonsense. For example:

With my determination, my fire and the volcano of my vendetta
[a vendetta is "a very long and violent fight between two families or groups" or "a series of acts done by someone over a long period of time to cause harm to a disliked person or group"]
With the longing in my blood for my land and my home
[Actually, a huge flood of Arabs came as illegal immigrants during the British mandate, after the influx of Jews had begun to revive the local economy. They became squatters on land to which they did not have real titles, regardless of whether they have found a key somewhere. Many who claim "my land" and "my home" have little or no association with either.]
I have climbed the mountains and fought the wars
I have conquered the impossible, and crossed the frontiers
[This is silly, murderous nonsense. What mountains did the Palestinian Arabs ever climb? What have they conquered? The Palestinians have been on the losing side in ever single war that they fomented and in every single war in which they joined as junior partners. The only frontiers that Palestinian gunmen have ever crossed have been frontiers of morality: airplane hijacking, suicide bombing, bare-faced baby murdering and so on. ]
With the resolve of the winds and the fire of the weapons
[More violent nonsense. Notice that again, it's all about killing other people. The land itself means nothing, except as a prize to be gained. It is simply an endless battlefield, not a place to live in as free people, not a place to love, to heal, to bring to life.]
And the determination of my nation in the land of struggle
Palestine is my home, Palestine is my fire,
[Palestine is your delusion, your suicide bombing, your work accident. It is the altar on which you hysterically worship death. It is the place where you shoot Grad rockets at Israeli hospitals, even as these hospitals are working hard to heal Syrian, Jordanian and Palestinian Arabs. It is the place where you send men to murder babies, where you throw rocks at ambulances as they speed to save Arab lives, where you commit every sin in every holy book of every people on earth and then try to blame it on the Jews.]
Palestine is my vendetta and the land of withstanding.[Again with the vendetta. And withstanding? ]

The Palestinian national anthem is not about loving the land, not about building a state, not about olives growing or waters flowing or craftsmen working or builders building. It is about destroying the Jews because you hate the Jews. Without the Jews, the land has no value to you.

Why do you hate the Jews so much? Because the Jews - with love of life, with love of land, with an ancient lineage and modern skills, with a democratic government and a flourishing country, with a strong arm and a strong sense of ethics, with a love of healing and a love of truth, with real honor built from the ground up and respect long-earned among the wise - the Jews hold up a mirror to the worthless, violent, twisted, death-worshipping, terror-loving, libelous, corrupt, kleptocratic, ineffectual, hate-mongering, bigoted, vendetta-based, dishonorable society that you have built, step by step, over the last few decades under the leadership of some of the worst and most disgusting terrorists in the modern world. It's no wonder you, the Palestinians, prefer puffed-up fiction; you don't like to face the reality that every one of your travails stems from your vendetta, the fact that instead of loving the land and seeking ways to heal it, you hate the Jews and seek ways to murder us.

Your obsession is evil, and everything that grows from it will be evil, and any society founded upon this obsession will become more and more evil, from one generation to the next. Stop this madness, before it rips you apart. The Jews cannot rescue you from yourselves.

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"Madonna flirting with the Jews from the toilet" - Arab media

For Purim, Madonna had dressed up as the Mother of Dragons from 'Game of Thrones" on Instagram with the message "Happy Purim!!!!! All Hail All Queens! ##certainty".

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It seems to have gone over the heads of some people.

From Erem News:

A Picture of Madonna Flirting with the Jews from the Toilet

The American singer dresses up in strange clothes on the Jewish festival of Purim and published her picture on Instagram.

The global(ly famous) American singer Madonna flirted with her Jewish and Israeli fans with a picture on her personal account on Instagram, dressed up in strange clothes while sitting on the toilet.

...Strangely enough, that image impressed the media, especially the Jewish media, considering it a new idea that reflects the significance of their festival, as she offered her thanks to congratulate them on their holiday.

No, "toilet" was not a mistranslation of "throne."

Other Arab media copied the story as well.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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