Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Women's rights update: Hymenoplasties in Tunisia and harassment in Egypt

It happens every April ahead of the summer marriage season, says Tunisian gynecologist Faouzi Hajri - desperate brides-to-be beg for surgery to make them "virgins" again for their wedding night.

Fearing rejection as "used" women in a conservative Muslim country where premarital sex is nevertheless common, Tunisian women are increasingly opting for the sort of surgery offered by Doctor Hajri.

But it doesn't stop them regretting the need to convince new husbands of their purity.

"A woman's honor shouldn't be determined by a few drops of blood," says Salima, a 32-year-old who admits she had the operation so that her "honor" was not in question on her wedding night.

It is easy for a woman to have her hymen surgically reconstructed in Tunisia.

The routine hospital operation takes around 30 minutes and costs from 400 to 700 euros ($550 to $960), with a less permanent version needing to be done within a week of the wedding, while the stitches hold.

"The number of women resorting to hymenoplasty or hymenorrhaphy (as the operations are known) has gone up a lot in recent years," says Moncef Kamel, a doctor in the southern island of Djerba.

The women he operates on -- around 100 each year, aged between 18 and 45 -- come with their faces hidden behind a scarf and dark glasses, "have a normal, active sex life", and generally hail from working-class backgrounds.

"It's a taboo subject, which explains why there's a lack of official statistics," says Doctor Hajri.

The Tunis-based gynecologist says he also treats about 100 women annually, including from neighboring Libya and Algeria.

...

Research by psychoanalyst Nedra Ben Smail indicates that just five percent of Tunisian young women are not worried about losing their virginity before marriage, while more than 75 percent of women appearing to be virgins on their wedding night have had the operation.

Meanwhile...

Last December, Egyptian academic Mariz Tadros wrote that women’s human security was not on anyone’s agenda. According to her research, the security breakdown since the Arab uprisings has led to a dramatic rise in incidents of sexual harassment due to the sense among perpetrators that, in the absence of law and order, they can get away with anything. Women’s mobility, including their ability to go to work, has been severely curtailed. This is not only true in Egypt. Tadros found that women working night shifts—for example, as doctors and nurses—in the Libyan city of Benghazi could no longer carry out their jobs.

... A 2013 survey conducted jointly by the United Nations, Egypt’s Demographic Centre and the National Planning Institute found that more than 99 percent of Egyptian women had experienced some form of sexual harassment. This is surely a fact that is unacceptable to all, regardless of where they fall in the harassment debate.

One way to begin to move the debate along and to restore women’s ability to go about their daily lives is to shift the focus onto the unacceptability of the sexual harassment of women full stop, and less on discussing the various justifications for it. This requires a social and political will to move towards a culture of mutual respect and acceptance between men and women. In a country still wrestling with itself over its future, it is unlikely that this will find itself at the top of a national agenda in the near future.

Download the EoZ Haggadah!

It has now been five years since I put together a bunch of rabbinic commentaries about Zionism and redemption with the text of the Haggadah.

The result was, IMHO, pretty good. I have printed it and use it at least one seder every year, and I still enjoy the insights.

Since the commentaries and translation are copied and pasted from various sources, I cannot sell a bound edition of this because of copyright issues. But you are free to download it and print it for your own sedarim!

Elder of Ziyon Haggadah 5769 by Eldad Tzioni

04/10 Links Pt1: The Crisis in the Peace Talks Was Pre-Planned by the Palestinians; Iran Fatigue?

From Ian:

The Crisis in the Peace Talks Was Pre-Planned by the Palestinians

Although Abbas repeats the mantra of a “peaceful struggle” in tandem with the diplomatic campaign, in practice terror continues, including attempts to murder both Israeli civilians and security forces. Furthermore, the PA signals unequivocal support for terror by demanding the immediate release of all the Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for their role in terror attacks and the murder of Israeli civilians, including suicide bombings. These terrorists are treated as heroes by the PA, which also provides them a very generous basket of economic and social benefits; their average salary while in prison is even higher than that of members of the security forces.
The PA revealed its true face when it officially requested the Islamic terrorist organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to participate in a meeting of the Palestinian National Council, which is supposed to elect a new Palestinian leadership to serve as a temporary government of the Palestinian state. The PA does not view Hamas and Islamic Jihad as terrorist organizations but, rather, as legitimate political groups that can be part of the Palestinian government.
The PA is preparing the ground in stages for de facto international recognition of a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines that is under “Israeli occupation,” and all that will remain is the official declaration of the state’s establishment.
The demand for full Palestinian sovereignty along the 1967 lines also entails Palestinian control over the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, with likely major implications for the stability of the Hashemite Kingdom, which has a Palestinian demographic majority. Paradoxically, Israel’s accommodation under the presence circumstances of the Palestinian demand for sovereignty over the border with Jordan would likely prompt U.S., European, and, of course, Jordanian pressures on Israel to avoid such a transfer of authority and maintain its military presence in the West Bank.

Respond Firmly to Palestinian Blackmail

Unilateral measures and threats should be answered in kind. After all, Israel is the stronger party and can inflict much greater pain on the Palestinians than the PA can inflict upon Israel. Perhaps the PA needs to be reminded of this. Raw power politics is what everybody understands in the Middle East. In this region, fear is a better political currency than compassion and fairness.
The Palestinian threats to challenge Israel at the UN and in international organizations are empty. Nothing can change the reality on the ground without the acquiescence of Israel. For example, the acceptance of Palestine by UNESCO did not change the lives of the Palestinians one iota. Israel should also stop fearing Palestinian accusations at the International Criminal Court. Regular concessions to the Palestinians for not taking this course of action expose Israel to continuous blackmail. It is time to call the Palestinian's bluff and make the PA face the consequences.
Hopefully, Israel's government will kick the habit of paying the Palestinians for their participation in sham peace talks. Rather it is high time to remind the Palestinians that decisions in Jerusalem, to a large extent, determine their fate, and that only real negotiations and compromise with Israel can give them the state they desire. (h/t Bob Knot)

Peace process peters out

Blessed are the peacemakers. But don't confuse peacemakers with peace processors. The latter think they can persuade the lion to lie down with the lamb. The former are realistic enough to grasp how perilous that is unless the lion has just had a big dinner and a couple of stiff drinks.
Sad to say, Secretary of State John Kerry has proven to be a peace processor, one loath to acknowledge that the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks have come to a very dead end. Actually, they never moved off the starting blocks.

Yemenite Jews with Shimon Peres - photo in Yemen media

A couple of Yemen news sites have published a relatively honest history of the Jews of Yemen.

In general, the tone is positive, describing the Jews who lived there more than 2000 years ago. Perhaps most surprising is that the article admits:

With the rise of Islam [the Jews were in an] unstable situation, although they enjoyed the status of dhimmis. ..What we know is that during the Middle Ages, the Jews of Yemen were under very difficult conditions. A king in that period named Abdul Nabi issued harsh judgments on the Jews. But Jewish philosophy and thought flourished in that period in Yemen more than ever before.

While they don't go into the details of the decrees of the king - he insisted that they convert to Islam or be killed - this is still a remarkable admission.

It also mentions a 1678 decree to expel all Jews from Yemen, that was later rescinded.

The article does skip other cases of persecution of Jews; as Wikipedia notes:

Active Muslim persecution of the Jews did not gain full force until the Zaydi clan seized power, from the more tolerant Sunni Muslims, early in the 10th century.

The Zaydi enforced a statute known as the Orphan's Decree, anchored in their own 18th century legal interpretations and enforced at the end of that century. It obligated the Zaydi state to take under its protection and to educate in Islamic ways any dhimmi (i.e. non-Muslim) child whose parents had died when he or she was a minor. The Orphan's Decree was ignored during the Ottoman rule (1872–1918), but was renewed during the period of Imam Yahya (1918–1948).[18]

Under the Zaydi rule, the Jews were considered to be impure, and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim's food. They were obligated to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk to the left side, and greet him first. They could not build houses higher than a Muslim's or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or a donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering the Muslim quarter a Jew had to take off his foot-gear and walk barefoot. If attacked with stones or fists by Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. In such situations he had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim passerby

Still, this is about as positive an article as I've ever seen in Arabic media. It mentions the very real problems that Yemenite Jews had in the 1950s in Israel but it doesn't dwell on them.

The article ends with brief profiles of famous Israeli singers who are of Yemenite origin!

With all the explicit antisemitism in the Arab media, articles like this are rare but when they are published they need to be highlighted.

Hezbollah brags about violating UNSC 1701. The UN doesn't care.

From Naharnet:

Israel has asked the United Nations to take action against Hizbullah after the party's secretary-general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said that his group was behind a blast that targeted Israeli troops last month.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council that Nasrallah’s admission is further evidence that Hizbullah continues to operate south of the Litani River in violation of Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war between the two sides.

"Yes, the explosion in the Shebaa Farms that Hizbullah has not claimed until now was the work of the resistance, which means the work of Hizbullah," Nasrallah told As Safir daily earlier this week.

"This was not the reply, but this was part of the reply," Nasrallah said.

The chances that the UN will issue a statement condemning Hezbollah is close to zero.

UNIFIL's mandate in South Lebanon includes to ensure Hezbollah has no weapons between the Litani River and the Blue Line. They have done nothing of the sort.

But they still congratulate themselves, as Officer-in-Charge of UNIFIL, Mr. Karen Tchalian said last month at a celebration marking 36 years of them being in the area:

Today, more than ever, UNIFIL is recognized as a force for the stability of the entire region. In spite of so much surrounding conflict, instability and uncertainty, the situation in our area of operations has remained calm. Thanks to the great work of our military and civilian personnel and the effective cooperation with the LAF, we have so far been successful in maintaining the cessation of hostilities between the parties and promoting respect for the Blue Line.

The mandate to keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon is ignored, tens of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel have been smuggled in the area, Hezbollah attacks Israeli troops - and UNIFIL is bragging about how wonderful a job it is doing.

From Fox News:

Brandeis University in Massachusetts announced Tuesday that it had withdrawn the planned awarding of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a staunch critic of Islam and its treatment of women, after protests from students and faculty.

The university said in a statement posted online that the decision had been made after a discussion between Ali and university President Frederick Lawrence.

"She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women's rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world," said the university's statement. "That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values."

Ali, a member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006, has been quoted as making comments critical of Islam. That includes a 2007 interview with Reason Magazine in which she said of the religion, "Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars."

David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy (WaPo) points out a bit of hypocrisy:

A few years back, Brandeis University awarded an honorary degree to Tony Kushner. This was controversial because Brandeis is a Jewish-sponsored (but non-sectarian) university that has historically had very close ties to Israel. Indeed, the university’s namesake, Justice Brandeis, led the American Zionist movement for some time. Kushner, meanwhile, was not only known for his hostility to Israel in general, but for making inflammatory statements such as “The biggest supporters of Israel are the most repulsive members of the Jewish community,” a direct insult to Brandeis’s many faculty, students, alumni, and donors who are strong supporters of Israel.

Despite objections, Brandeis went ahead with the award, with the university president explaining:

Brandeis bestows honorary degrees as a means of acknowledging the outstanding accomplishments or contributions of individual men and women in any of a number of fields of human endeavor. Just as Brandeis does not inquire into the political opinions and beliefs of faculty or staff before appointing them, or students before offering admission, so too the University does not select honorary degree recipients on the basis of their political beliefs or opinions.

It is always treacherous to compare two situations because the analogy is never perfect. Kushner was anti-Zionist but for some reason nowadays that is not so much of an offense as being "Islamophobic."

but I would submit that a more accurate comparison of someone that Brandeis awarded an honorary degree would be a famous Jew who made practically his entire career out of biting criticism of American Jews, a career that was so successful that he is now considered a demigod of American authors.

I am referring to Philip Roth, who received his honorary Brandeis degree in 1991.

Roth, it will be remembered, has written numerous books about how American Jewish men are sex-starved, shiksa-chasing hypocrites. Beyond that, one of his most notorious anti-Jewish works was "The Conversion of the Jews" where a schoolchild asks a basic question about religion that his clueless rabbi teacher cannot answer, resulting in a series of events where the kid forces the entire school to effectively convert to Christianity with a combination of his "logic" and threats to kill himself.

Between Roth's autobiographical critiques of American Jews and his absurdly naive critique of the fundamentals of Judaism, it can be argued that Roth is as critical of Jews and Judaism as Hirsi Ali is of Muslims and Islam.

I don't know if there was any controversy about Roth's award at all, the way there was about Kushner's. There is no doubt that he is a talented writer, and that is why he received his award - not because of his controversial views which people seem to have forgotten about between the '60s and the '90s.

But there is equally no doubt that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an important campaigner for women's rights, especially in societies where women are not well protected. She has put her life on the line, quite literally, for her beliefs. That is a greater accomplishment, by far, than any novelist can claim.

Ali's criticisms of Islam are not simple-minded nor borne out of hate. She is not a bigot. The worst that can be said is that she overly generalizes, but given her life experiences, that is a small infraction.

Most of her criticisms of Islam are really about political Islam, where the Islamic nations (and groups of thugs in places like Europe) can threaten, coerce and even murder those who don't toe the line. Muslims have skillfully managed to manipulate the West into being afraid of criticizing the immoral and unconscionable political aspects of Islam by conflating it with the (Western concept) religious aspects of Islam. Indeed, there is no daylight from within the Islamic framework between the two - Islam is as much political philosophy as it is a religion. As such, it can and must be criticized.

Simply put, Brandeis has once again caved to political correctness. Its claims about valuing all opinions and adhering to "core values" is proven to be a hollow sham.

Dave Zirin's last piece of anti-Israel evidence disappears

Remember Dave Zirin, sports reporter for The Nation who claimed in two separate articles that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian Arab soccer players?

In the second article, which our own Bob Knot ripped to shreds, Zirin self-righteously described how people didn't believe the first article (that Bob also destroyed.)

The part of the response that was truly jarring however was the numerous private queries I received from prominent members of the media. I am choosing to keep their identities private because their correspondence to me was private and I will respect that. The queries contained no curiosity about Israel’s possible expulsion from FIFA. They all instead openly doubted that the shooting of the two young men had even taken place. Was I sure this really happened? When I pointed to my initial sources, the response by numerous people was, “Do you have any sources that are not Palestinian?” One person, writing for a major sports website, sent me numerous queries that I did not respond to, and then when the facts of the shooting appeared in the Israeli paper Haaretz, said to me, “Forget previous queries. I see news of the shooting on Haaretz. Never mind.” The assumption of mendacity affixed to Palestinian sources spoke volumes.

Haaretz' reporting was the peg on which Zirin hung his cap of proof that the soccer players were innocent and shot in the legs, deliberately, by Israeli troops. What self-respecting journalist would doubt Haaretz' account? Zirin shows that unnamed sports reporters were swayed to his side of the story based purely on Haaretz' corroboration.

Only one problem.

That Haaretz article was not written by Haaretz. It was plagiarized from the well-known international affairs journal known as Inside World Football. And that "reporting" contradicted Haaretz' earlier reporting of the same incident!

As CAMERA reports, on Wednesday, Tamar Sternthal, director of CAMERA's Israel office, sent the following email to editors:

I am writing concerning the March 31 article ("Report: FIFA gives Israel until summer to improve Palestinians' soccer conditions"), which reports a disputed Arab claim as fact, and which is largely plagiarized from Inside World Football. (The byline on the Ha'aretz article is attributed to Ha'aretz.)

The Ha'aretz article reports as fact:

Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot by Israel Defense Forces soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram, in the central West Bank, on January 31.

At the time, Ha'aretz's Amira Hass covered this incident, and made it very clear that the Israeli border police maintained that the two Palestinians were about to throw a bomb -- they were not just innocently walking home -- when they were shot. Hass reported on Feb. 3 ("Wounded Palestinian teens dispute border police claims"):

Two Palestinians have been hospitalized in Jerusalem since Friday after they were shot and arrested by Border Police forces amid claims they were going to throw a bomb. The two Palestinians are under guard in Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, have been operated on for their gunshot wounds, and will remain there until their treatment is finished. They deny the claims made against them, and contend that the Border Patrol forces shot them, sent attack dogs to chase them, beat them with their rifle butts, and punched and kicked them.
Adam Jamous, 17, and Jawahar Halbiyeh, 19, are residents of Abu Dis, a town east of Jerusalem. Last Thursday evening they were en route to visit a friend in a neighborhood close to a Border Police base. An Abu Dis resident told Haaretz that before midnight, residents heard a lot of gunfire and saw dogs attacking the two men when they looked out the window. . . .
In response to inquiries, a Border Police spokesman said, “During operational activity, a group of individuals was seen just seconds before throwing bombs at security forces. When they saw the Border Policemen, the group attempted to run away and tried again to throw bombs at the policemen. The policemen initiated the protocol for opening fire in order to neutralize the threat. The suspects were apprehended, and a bomb was found on them, which has been deactivated.”
The response included a picture of the bomb, but did not include any answers to the claim that the suspects were beaten. (Emphases added)

Given that Ha'aretz has previously reported that according to the Israeli border police, the two were about to throw a bomb when they were shot, why does Ha'aretz now ignore this information? Have editors obtained information substantiating the Jamous and Halbiyeh's account, and disproving the Israeli spokesman's? If not, a clarification ought to be published making clear that the Israeli Border police dispute the Arabs' account that they were shot when they were doing nothing more than walking home. (We will be in touch with Inside World Football to request a clarification there as well.)

Additional contradictions exist between the March 31 Ha'aretz report and Hass' earlier report:

1) According to Hass' report, the two "were en route to visit a friend in a neighborhood close to a Border Police base." According to the later Ha'aretz account, "they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram." (The fact that al-Ram is 13.3 miles from Abu Dis -- not exactly walking distance -- further complicates the picture.)

2) According to Hass, the two were shot by Border Police. According to Ha'aretz's later account, they were shot by Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

3) According to the more recent account, "the two were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs." According to Hass' earlier version, their lawyer said "one of them . . .was hit by many bullets and had a bite wound on his arm."

On a separate matter, at least nine paragraphs of the March 31 Ha'aretz story is reproduced, almost word for word, from Andrew Warshaw's March 31 account in Inside World Football.

Thus, Warshaw wrote:

The Israeli security forces have accused the Palestinians of using football to hide the movement of terrorists and equipment within the region. The Palestinians have denied this and point to the inability to get footballers to training and matches which they say is a deliberate act of oppression.

FIFA have set up a mediation Task Force and Palestine football's leading figurehead Jibril Rajoub has already met with his Israeli counterpart Avi Luzon and FIFA President Sepp Blatter to try and resolve the long-term issue of access to and from Palestinian territories.

Blatter, who is due back in the region next month, wants Israel and Palestine to sign a formal co-operation agreement at or around the FIFA Congress in June but Rajoub has implied this is some way off while travel permit restrictions continue to be imposed by Israel on everyone from players to consultants.

Kemer, however, implied the debate has been far too one-sided.

"I don't think we will be expelled from FIFA because we are making good progress with the Palestinians," he said. "I would say we are on the right track."

Despite his comments, earlier this year two teenage Palestinian footballers were shot by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and were told it is unlikely they would play again.

Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot by Israeli soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram in the central West Bank on January 31. The incident served as a graphic reminder of the situation on the ground and was recently taken up by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali bin al-Hussein during a briefing with reporters.

"I am not promoting or defending any side (but) I am in a very difficult situation where I have to take two boys from Palestine at my own expense, for treatment in Jordan," said Prince Ali, head of the Jordanian FA.

"These are the two who were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs. Why is this happening? Under FIFA statutes you cannot say one country can do one thing and another country can do something else. All we are asking is to allow our young boys and young girls to play the sport."

The Ha'aretz account follows. All the text that is word for word identical with Warshaw's copy appears in red:

Inside World Football reported that Israel'ssecurity forces have accused the Palestinians of using soccerto hide the movement of terrorists and equipment within the region. The Palestinians have denied this and point to the inability to get soccer players to training and matches, which they say is a deliberate act of oppression.
FIFA has set up a mediation Task Force and Palestinesoccer's leading figurehead, Jibril Rajoub, has already met with his Israeli counterpart Avi Luzon and [Warshaw's account gives Blatter's full name and title here] Blatter to try and resolve the long-term issue of access to and from Palestinian territories.
Blatter, who is due back in the regionin April, wants Israel and Palestine to sign a formal co-operation agreement at or around the FIFA Congress in June, but Rajoub has implied this is some way off while travel permit restrictions continue to be imposed by Israel on everyone from players to consultants.
Kemer, however, implied the debate has been far too one-sided. "I don't think we will be expelled from FIFA because we are making good progress with the Palestinians," he said. "I would say we are on the right track."
Earlier this year, two teenage Palestinian soccer players were shot by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and were told they are unlikely to play again.
Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot byIsrael Defense Forces soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram, in the central West Bank, on January 31.
The incident served as a graphic reminder of the situation on the ground and was recently taken up by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali bin al-Hussein during a briefing with reporters.
"I am not promoting or defending any side [but] I am in a very difficult situation where I have to take two boys from Palestine at my own expense, for treatment in Jordan," said Prince Ali, head of the Jordanian FA.
"These are the two who were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs. Why is this happening? Under FIFA statutes, you cannot say one country can do one thing and another country can do something else. All we are asking is to allow our young boys and young girls to play the sport."

Ha'aretz's text is virtually identical to Warshaw's aside from minor changes like substituting "soccer" for "football," placing paragraph breaks in slightly different places, updating dates, and the like.

Again, we urge Ha'aretz to publish a clarification making clear that the Israeli border police have said that the two players were about to plant a bomb when they were fired. (Additional background information on this case, including Jawhar Nasser's affiliation with the DFLP, supports the Israeli spokesman's account.)

Thank you in advance for your follow up on these points.

As soon as Haaretz editors received this letter, they immediately deleted the article.

So Dave Zirin is left with nothing but a report written by a British sports reporter whose knowledge of the Middle East is minimal, who unquestioningly trusts one side of the story without researching the other side, and whose "reporting" is contradicted by Haaretz itself. This is besides the many facts that were published here that shredded the report and that no one has yet found a single problem with,

Guess what, Dave? The Palestinian Arab reports of the incidents really were mendacious lies. And over the years I have documented scores of similar, verified cases where the Palestinian media exaggerated or falsified facts, and even where "eyewitnesses" make things up. It happens all the time.

Zirin's righteous indignation that people didn't believe his first report is hypocritical, because now that every shred of his reporting has been shown to be false he does not have the intellectual honesty to admit his role in the libel. Worse still, he added to it with an entire encyclopedia of slander in his second article.

The question remains - will The Nation act appropriately?

04/09 Links Pt2: Dershowitz SLAMS J Street; Brandeis RESCINDS Hon.Degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali

From Ian:

Dershowitz SLAMS J Street

In a recently published video, Alan Dershowitz explains the issues he sees with J Street. The clip was recorded at the world premiere of the new film, The J Street Challenge.
Some highlights:
-In reference to Iran: "J Street is weakening both the United States' and Israel's position."
-"J Street cannot call itself a pro-Israel group when it takes positions that do not reflect any few of Israeli leaders."
-"J Street speaks out of both sides of it's mouth"
-"I analogize (J Street) to Jews for Jesus. They (Jews for Jesus) fool students, into thinking it is a Jewish organization and J Street fools students into thinking it is a pro-Israel organization."

HuffPo (CA)Jewish and Arab Refugees Must be Compared

A few weeks ago the Al-Jazeera Arabic channel carried a report on starving Palestinian refugees in a Syrian camp. In a sequence that must have slipped the editor's notice, an elderly man moaned in desperation to the camera: "Take us to the Jews. They will feed us!"
In that unguarded moment, two things were revealed: first -- Palestinian refugees are being deprived of a humanitarian solution to their plight. Second -- Arabs know full well that Israelis look after their own -- and not only their own -- but try and help others.
Nowhere is the contrast more stark than in the treatment of the two sets of refugees which arose out of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. A fair proportion of the 711,000 Arab refugees were left to languish -- and now starve -- in refugee camps as a longstanding reproach to Israel. Some 850,000 Jewish refugees were ultimately absorbed and given full citizens' rights in Israel and the West. (h/t Yerushalimey)

American Muslims for Palestine's Telling Choice of Heroes

In the American civil rights movement, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were among those who set the moral tone. They were champions of non-violence who believed in civil disobedience to generate change by casting light on unjust laws.
If Saturday's fundraising dinner for the group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is any indication, role models for their cause include an unrepentant killer, a woman directly responsible for two people's deaths in a grocery store bombing. Prosecutors say she is in America only because she kept that crime a secret from immigration officials.
In addition to its praise for Rasmieh Odeh, the dinner at a banquet hall outside of Chicago offered further insight into AMP's radical ideology. Other speakers included a man identified as a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Jordan who previously led a Hamas-propaganda arm in America and a man listed as a member of the Palestine Committee, the Muslim Brotherhood's umbrella organization of American-based Hamas-support groups.

Lebanese playing poker with Israelis "a betrayal of the homeland"

Last week, in Montenegro, the Lebanese Poker Cup was held.

Apparently, Lebanese poker is popular among Israelis, and a contingent of over 100 Israelis participated, along with players from all over the world.

Including, of course, Lebanon.

Al Hadath News is very upset at the idea of Lebanese and Israelis competing at the same table.

Despite the fact that the hosting country was not Lebanon, the competing with the enemy at the same table is no less than a betrayal of the homeland.... The historic conflict between Israel and Lebanon is a fundamental incentive to deter any contact with the enemy under any circumstances or event.

If I didn't know any better, I would think that the Lebanese are against a little more than the "occupation." One could almost think that hating Israel is an obsession.

But surely that cannot be true. I mean, wouldn't it be in the newspapers?

Anyway, since any contact with the Israeli enemy is anathema, that would mean that anything that Israelis tweet to Al Hadath News cannot be answered....

The small stories illustrate the Arab obsession with Israel

Egypt's West and Central Delta Writers Association held its 15th annual conference this week.

In its final session, this unimportant regional association released its list of resolutions.

One of them was to declare that "Israel is our primary and biggest enemy. All intellectuals must reject all forms of normalization and expose all dealings with the Zionist entity whether the purpose is trade or religion or politics."

There are plenty of NGOs and Western agencies in Egypt that supposedly help to foster human rights and other worthy causes. But when it comes to relations between Arabs and Israel, they don't even bother, because they know that the hate is a constant.

But they will spend millions of euros in Israel to fight supposed anti-Arab racism there.

And those NGOs put out a steady stream of reports to justify their existence about how horrible Israelis are.

And those reports get publicized in the media.

And causal consumers of the media don't even have the possibility of knowing what these NGOs know very well but won't ever report: that the hate that the Arabs have for Israel and Jews is orders of magnitude worse than the worst that you can say about Israeli opinions of Arabs.

Even people who want to research the truth about Israel and the Arab world do not have the means to find out about the crazed derangement that this small story illustrates, because the data is simply not out there for them. If there are no reports, then there is no evidence of a problem.

The entire system is rigged to make Israel look as bad as possible and to ignore endemic Arab hate.

04/09 Links Pt1: Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?; Iran admits it deceived the IAEA

From Ian:

Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?

As the New York Times reports:
"Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that Israel’s announcement of 700 new apartments for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem precipitated the bitter impasse in peace negotiations last week between Israel and the Palestinians.
While Mr. Kerry said both sides bore responsibility for “unhelpful” actions, he noted that the publication of tenders for housing units came four days after a deadline passed for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners and complicated Israel’s own deliberations over whether to extend the talks.
“Poof, that was the moment,” Mr. Kerry said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."
Poof? To say that this evaluation of the situation is disingenuous would be the understatement of the century. Kerry knows very well that the negotiations were doomed once the Palestinians refused to sign on to the framework for future talks he suggested even though it centered them on the 1967 lines that they demand as the basis for borders. Why? Because Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas wouldn’t say the two little words —“Jewish state”—that would make it clear he intended to end the conflict. Since the talks began last year after Abbas insisted on the release of terrorist murderers in order to get them back to the table, the Palestinians haven’t budged an inch on a single issue. (h/t Norman F)

Welcome to Pallywood. Land Day Edition

Welcome to Pallywood.
The star of our show, filmed on "Land day", March 30, is a rather large Palestinian woman. While the men surround her, cameras ready, she attacks an Israeli officer. There is nothing spontaneous about this- its completely planned and staged.
She tries to steal a weapon from the young officer
Eventually, she provokes a reaction, and is pepper sprayed. This was her goal.
This photo, by AP photographer Sebastian Scheiner was captioned " A Palestinian woman reacts after Israeli border police officers sprayed pepper spray during a demonstration marking the Land Day at the Damascus gate in Jerusalem's old city, Sunday, March 30, 2014"
Deliberately, or through negligence AP missed a whole lot of context there, giving free reign for the propagandists to talk about the brutality of Israel

Elliott Abrams: U.S.: The Great Problem That Needs to be Solved

At the White House the U.S. Administration still says "All options are on the table, and don't underestimate the president."
The only thing I can reply is, "I travel in the Middle East a fair amount, and talk to Arabs as well as Israelis. I think it's fair to say that from Morocco to Iran, there is not one single person who believes that." I don't think he has any real allies abroad. If you asked that question a year ago the White House used to say, "Erdogan." They don't say, "Erdogan" any more.
There are so many intractable problems and no intimation that Hamas is prepared to move on any of those. What do Kerry and his friends really see that gives them any optimism in this area? I think the only variable in his view is "me". "I'm John Kerry. I can do this," which is ludicrous.
And there is a lot more to be said about Iran. What is clear is that they are revving up. They are moving from the first generation to second generation centrifuges, which are much more efficient and productive. They are moving more materiel underground. They are attempting the plutonium route as well as the uranium route. And presumably they are working on a warhead. Of course, they can have a bomb without making the announcement and they can make the announcement without having a bomb.
Reagan came on the scene and with peace through strength -- three words, clarified and explained to Americans what American foreign policy stands for.

Anti-Israel hackers get PWNed by Israeli hackers

An Israeli hacker team managed to take over the PCs of at least 16 of the "#OpIsrael" hackers who targeted Israeli sites earlier this week.

The "Israeli Elite Force" remotely controlled the pseudo-hackers' machines and even took photos of them with their own webcams!

Many of their other social media accounts and passwords were revealed in a document the Israeli team published.

The #Opisrael hackers apparently are more than happy to click on links that allowed the Israeli hackers to take over their machines.

Too funny.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)