Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

06/17 Links Pt1: Rivlin: We don’t need to be fearful in our country; Chloe Valdary: Mad World

From Ian:

Once again the nation has been thrown into a collective state of trepidation. Once again terrorism, inspired by an extremist Islamist theology, has struck in the form of kidnapping.
For a time it seemed as though a relative qualm could be maintained indefinitely. There were, of course, incidents of rock throwing and firebombings. But the general impression was that the Palestinians had learned from the trauma of the second intifada that they could achieve nothing through terrorism. Violence would only be met with more violence.
Unfortunately, that was just an impression. Just under the surface there was a hotbed of terrorist activity. In 2013, according to Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, there were more than 30 kidnapping attempts foiled by our security forces. So far in 2014, 14 attempts have been prevented. In over 10 incidents, terrorists sitting in prisons helped organize the kidnapping attempts.

Khaled Abu Toameh: How the West Facilitates Hamas's Mission

The Obama Administration and those EU governments that rushed to welcome the alliance between Fatah and Hamas did not want to pay attention to the Islamist movement's announcements that it would take advantage of the unity government to move terrorism to the West Bank.
If it turns out that Hamas was indeed behind the kidnapping of the Israeli youths, it shows that the movement has kept its word to use the reconciliation pact with Fatah as a means to move its terror activities to the West Bank. Hamas's ultimate goal is to extend its control to the West Bank, and not merely get new jobs and salaries from Abbas.
The honeymoon between Fatah and Hamas now seems to be nearing its end as the two parties resume their rhetorical attacks on each other in the aftermath of the kidnapping. Abbas may now finally have realized that Hamas's real intention is to get rid of him and turn the West Bank into a battlefield against Israel.
It is obvious that all those who were quick to welcome the partnership between Fatah and Hamas -- the U.S. and Europe -- have emboldened and legitimized the Islamist movement, thus facilitating its mission to carry out terror attacks against Israelis as well as to take over the West Bank.

Chloe Valdary: Mad World

And, to add insult to injury, the world pays the salaries of the corrupt P.A.-Hamas government all while proclaiming to the Arabs that it would be a great idea if the P.A. and Hamas would continue to rule over them. Civil liberties be damned.
No one ever gives a crap about Palestinian Arabs. We just say we do. Because it sounds good and looks nice to write on our Facebook statuses. Actually, we just hate Israel. Because no one ever gives a crap about Jews. And this is a bit strange since the Jewish state is the freest state in the entire Middle East, with rights for women and other minorities.
But we already established that we don’t really give a crap about women either.
Apathy. Hypocrisy. Selfishness. Mad World.
Will you be the one who brings in the light?

Alan Baker: Palestinians and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

One may wonder how the UN Secretary General, the Swiss government and the 194 states parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Geneva conventions, as well as Abbas and his colleagues in the Palestinian leadership, will now relate to contractual obligations incumbent on the Palestinian pursuant to those agreements in light of the kidnapping and illegal hostage holding of three Israeli youths. Two of those youths fall within the age of children as defined in Article 1 – “under 18” – of the convention on the rights of the child.
Even more pertinent is how all the parties view the Palestinian abduction and hostage-taking of the Israeli children in light of the obligation pursuant to Article 34 of the Fourth Geneva convention (1949) according to which “The taking of hostages is prohibited.”

Knesset Committee on the Rights of the Child Calls on UN to Do More to Help Save Kidnapped Teens

In a statement on Saturday, Ki-Boon had condemned the kidnapping, expressing “his solidarity with the families of the abducted” and called “for their immediate release.”
But MK Orly Levi-Abekasis, Chair of the Knesset Committee on the Rights of the Child, asked the UN leader to take active steps to help return the three yeshiva students Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16.
Levi-Abekasis wrote: “The abduction constitutes a profound infringement of conventions and a blatant violation of the right of Israeli children to lead a peaceful, unthreatened life. These are not soldiers, nor were they engaged in battle – they are three young adolescents who should have been dividing their time between preparation for their final exams and their family circle.”

A couple of months after the Egyptian revolution, authorities arrested a Jordanian telecommunications engineer for allegedly directing international phone calls from Egypt to Israeli intelligence, as well as attempting to spread Zionist hair products that cause infertility through Egypt.

The trial of Bashar Abu-Zaid and, in absentia, a (probably fictional) Israeli Mossad agent, "Ophir Harary," has been postponed numerous times since 2011. Abu-Zaid sounds like he is not exactly sane, accusing an Egyptian billionaire of attempting to poison him and screaming at judges during the process.

This week he was sentenced to a year in prison for insulting the Egyptian judiciary, separate from his espionage trial.

An Egyptian newspaper reproduced the Egyptian prosecutor's arguments in the case.

Islam Hamad, head of the State Security Prosecutor's office, started the trial by quoting the Koran 16:118, which says "And to those who are Jews We have prohibited that which We related to you before. And We did not wrong them [thereby], but they were wronging themselves," explaining that Egypt has been faced with malicious Jewish plots for the past 60 years.

The prosecutor claims that Abu-Zaid looked up the names of Israelis on the Internet to contact them about selling the phone call information, and hooked up with this "Ophir Harary", the supposed Mossad agent.

Also, the prosecution claimed "that the accused volunteered to implement Zionist products to spread disease, cancer and infertility, and that he admitted so himself during the investigation, that the Zionist entity is afraid of manpower for the Egyptians, because their numbers are enormous and now exceeds 85 million people."

When Abu Zaid was arrested, he was also accused of importing Zionist hair products that supposedly caused infertility, with an ingredient called "creatine."

The idea that Israelis are attempting to sterilize Arabs has been popular for years, along with the contradictory claim that Israelis are attempting to make Arabs sex-crazy.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

"Operation Brother's Keeper" roundup

Families of the kidnapped teens came together to ask for prayers,

Afterward, flanked by the other parents, Racheli Sprecher Frankel, mother of Naftali Frenkel, told reporters outside the house that the meeting was “very significant.”

“We want… to strengthen security forces, who are working day and night, the decision makers, and the prime minister, who is in contact with us,” she said. “We pray that all the soldiers, and our children, will come home without injury. We send our thanks to all everyone participating in this extraordinary effort.

“During these days,” she continued, “we feel deeply embraced by the entire Jewish nation, which accompanies us throughout the day, which gives us so much support. We ask that the prayers continue… That’s it, all we want is to hug our children. Eyal, Gil-ad, Naftali, we love you, we miss you, be strong, be strong!”

The IDF raided terror nests in Nablus. From the IDF Blog:

IDF soldiers conducted an extensive operation last night, uncovering hundreds of weapons and explosives in Nablus. The forces arrested over 40 terrorist suspects and seized several Palestinian weapons caches. The mission continued Operation Brother’s Keeper, Israel’s extensive effort to find three Israeli teens kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.

Don't know how reliable this is, but there are reports that the kidnapping by Hamas has cause the PA to halt reconciliation with Hamas. An unnamed PA official said that if it is proven that Hamas was behind it then unity would be stopped.

Reprehensible terrorist-supporting MK Haneen Zoabi defends a war crime:

The kidnappers of three yeshiva students last weekend are not terrorists, MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) said Tuesday.

"They're people who don't see any way to change their reality and they are forced to use these means until Israel will wake up a little, until Israeli citizens and society will wake up and feel the suffering of the other," Zoabi said in an interview on Radio Tel Aviv, adding that the kidnappers live under occupation.

"So an Israeli MK is openly justifying the kidnapping of Israeli boys?" the interviewer, Sharon Gal, asked.

"I'm not surprised at all," she responded.

"I'm surprised you're still walking around freely," Gal said, and Zoabi hung up on him.

Her cousin Mohammed Zoabi, who has been outspoken in his support for Israel and has been receiving major coverage in Israeli and Arab media, has been receiving death threats - apparently from his relatives in Nazareth.

Palestinian Arabs have been posting photos of their children celebrating the kidnappings.

Newest "Apartheid?" Poster: Col. Ghassan Alian

Latest in my viral poster series....

English story about the proposed appointment last October here. The actual appointment happened earlier this month.

(h/t Kramerica)

Anti-BDS resolution passes at Western Washington U

I missed this remarkable story from last week. (Yeah, I know, Ian probably caught it because he doesn't miss much, but I have been really busy....)

Associated Students of Western Washington University (ASWWU) became the first North American university student government to pass a proactive resolution against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In a 7-0 vote, ASWWU resolved that it would not consider BDS resolutions based on national origin because of the “tensions between students related to foreign conflicts should be managed in a healthy and collaborative manner rather than be exacerbated.”

Additionally, the resolution noted that BDS campaigns could result in students being targeted based on their nationality and lead to “disrespectful bias, hostility, hate, or harassment.”

The initiative to pass the anti-BDS resolution was led by Western Washington University (WWU) student Alysa Kipersztok, who brought the resolution to the student government after hearing about how the boycott issue has sharply divided student bodies at other schools.

“I’ve seen how divisive anti-Israel BDS campaigns have been on campuses across the country. [WWU] is a warm, respectful, inclusive community,” Kipersztok said in a statement.

Here's the resolution:

WHEREAS, universities should foster an environment of peace and promotion of global welfare; and,

WHEREAS, Western Washington University is a liberal arts institution that values holistic and multi-faceted approaches to complex issues; and,

WHEREAS, it is the mission of Western Washington University to “bring together individuals of diverse backgrounds and perspectives in an inclusive, student-centered university”; and,

WHEREAS, inclusion is one of the core values of the Associated Students as expressed in the Strategic Plan; and,

WHEREAS, it is the duty of ASWWU to fairly represent the diverse interests and views of all students at Western Washington University and to foster dialogue, learning, and an inclusive campus environment; and,

WHEREAS, ASWWU has an obligation to focus its attention and resources primarily on addressing issues directly impacting the general welfare of the student body; and,

WHEREAS, to maintain a safe and inclusive campus environment, tensions between students related to foreign conflicts should be managed in a healthy and collaborative manner rather than be exacerbated; and,

WHEREAS, boycott, divestment, and sanction measures rooted in national origin or other identity-based features can cause students to be targeted on the basis of nationality; and,

WHEREAS, isolation of student groups can lead to the perpetration of disrespectful bias, hostility, hate, or harassment, against those groups; therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED, the ASWWU shall not take positions advocating divestment from, boycott of, sanctioning, or ceasing collaboration with companies, products, or organizations due to their nation of origin.

If BDS folks celebrate their victories as well as their defeats, how do they react to the complete crushing of their entire raison d'être?

06/16 Links Pt2: War of Independence isn't over; Starbucks uses wireless Israeli phone chargers

From Ian:

War of Independence isn't over

The difference between extremist Palestinians and Palestinians with whom we hold peace talks is an imaginary one created by the Israeli Left, which has tired of bearing the burden of maintaining the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. If a poll was taken of the Palestinian public, it is certain that the kidnappers would be seen as heroes at the forefront of the effort to realize the dream of removing the Jews from their homeland. The only difference between Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is that Haniyeh says what he really thinks, while Abbas masks his intentions with sweet words and doublespeak. It is a great shame that there are Israelis who have been captivated by the charm of the false rhetoric of Yasser Arafat's disciples, exalting the victims of the peace process.
While the Israel Defense Forces and other Israeli security entities are doing everything they can to find the kidnapped teens and the citizens of Israel are united in prayer and concern, some Israeli media commentators have rushed to explain that the kidnapping was the result of a lack of a political horizon and the fact that Jews live in Gush Etzion. This interpretation is an evil distortion of reality. The truth is completely different. The teens were kidnapped because they were Jews living in their historic homeland, regardless of the location of their place of study or residence. Jews were maliciously murdered in the past by Palestinian terrorists at the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv, a hotel in Netanya, a restaurant in Haifa and on the streets of Jerusalem. Only people with short memories have forgotten the history of our modern-day return to Zion, in which many Jews were killed for no reason, even before the Six-Day War and the liberation of our homeland.

Video: Arabs Attack Jews in Jerusalem's Old City

Jews were walking back from the mass prayer that was held at the Western Wall (Kotel) Sunday for the teens abducted by Hamas Thursday, when Arabs attacked with chairs and rocks. The Jews held their ground until police intervened.

Arabs attack Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem

Michael Lumish: Why Shouldn't They Kidnap Jews?

Within recent decades Arab and old Soviet propaganda convinced the well-meaning (and not so well-meaning) in the progressive-left that Jews are "Occupying" the innocent "indigenous" population of "historical Palestine."
The progressives - in the years since the 1967 war allegedly turned Jewish Israelis into "Goliath" - convinced the majority of diaspora Jews that Israel is somehow "illegally occupying" what is, in fact, the current and historical land of the Jewish people.
Jews are accused of illegally occupying the very land that we come from and many diaspora Jews unwittingly (or so one hopes) promote the notion.

From CBC News:

James ‘Jim’ Keegstra, a prominent Canadian holocaust denier and former high school teacher in Eckville, Alta., is dead at the age of 80, CBC News learned late Thursday night.

Keegstra made international headlines in 1983 when he was accused of teaching students that the history of the Holocaust was fraudulent, and that a Jewish conspiracy was responsible for many of the world’s problems.

It was alleged that Keegstra had been teaching his anti-Semitic views to his social studies class for 14 years before a parent complained to the local school board about his lessons.

In January 1984, Keegstra was stripped of his teaching certificate and charged with “wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group” under the Criminal Code of Canada.

At the time, no one had been successfully convicted under Canada’s hate propaganda laws enacted in 1970.

Keegstra was represented at trial by attorney Doug Christie, a political activist originally from B.C., who would go on to defend some of Canada’s most high-profile Holocaust deniers.

Keegstra was convicted at his original trial and fined $5,000. His lawyers appealed the decision, arguing that the law was unconstitutional and that it violated provisions on freedom of expression in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

After multiple trials and appeals the case eventually reached the Supreme Court of Canada, who in 1990 and again in 1996 upheld Keegstra’s conviction in a landmark ruling that found that the Criminal Code section on public incitement of hatred did infringe on Charter rights, but that infringement was justified.

Keegstra received a one-year suspended sentence, one year of probation, and community service.

Here are details from the 1990 Supreme Court proceedings, listed as the facts of the case:

Mr. Keegstra, a secondary school teacher in Eckville, a small town in Alberta, was convicted of unlawfully promoting hatred under s. 319(2). The evidence established that he had systematically denigrated Jews and Judaism in his classes. He described Jews by such epithets as "revolutionists", "treacherous", "imposters", "communists", "secret", "sneaky", "manipulative", and "deceptive". He taught that the Jewish people are "barbaric", "subversive", "sadistic", "materialistic", "money-loving" and "power hungry". He maintained that anyone Jewish must be evil and that anyone evil must be Jewish. Not only did he maintain these things; he advised the students that they must accept his views as true unless they were able to contradict them. Moreover, he expected his students to regurgitate these notions in essays and examinations. If they did so, they received good marks. If they did not, their marks were poor.

Naturally, Iran's PressTV offers a eulogy of sorts saying that Keegstra was a patriot who was unfairly attacked by those evil Jews. Upset over the story about his death in Sun News, the writer says:

While masquerading as defenders of liberty, the kosher talking heads of Sun News are little more than gatekeepers tasked with shifting the blame for the loss of civil liberties in Canada away from its true architects: the organized Jewish-Zionist community.

I love how antisemites defend antisemites by engaging in antisemitism - which Iran, of course, strenuously denies engaging in.

From USA Today:

U.S.-Iranian military cooperation to stem advancing Sunni extremists in Iraq moved a theoretical step closer Monday after Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington is "open to discussions" with Tehran over the idea and would not rule anything out.

"I think we are open to any constructive process here that could minimize the violence, hold Iraq together, the integrity of the country and eliminate the presence of outside terrorist forces that are ripping it apart," Kerry said in an interview with Yahoo! News. He said President Obama was vetting "every option that is available," including drone strikes.

My how things change. It seems only yesterday that the State Department was ferociously accusing Iran of supporting terror in Iraq.

But it wasn't yesterday. It was six long weeks ago, when it released its 2013 State Sponsors of Terror report.

Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran continued its terrorist-related activity, including support for Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and for Hizballah. It has also increased its presence in Africa and attempted to smuggle arms to Houthi separatists in Yemen and Shia oppositionists in Bahrain. Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and its regional proxy groups to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. The IRGC-QF is the regime’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.

...
Despite its pledge to support Iraq’s stabilization, Iran trained, funded, and provided guidance to Iraqi Shia militant groups. The IRGC-QF, in concert with Hizballah, provided training outside of Iraq as well as advisors inside Iraq for Shia militants in the construction and use of sophisticated improvised explosive device technology and other advanced weaponry. Similar to Hizballah fighters, many of these trained Shia militants then use these skills to fight for the Asad regime in Syria, often at the behest of Iran.

On January 23, 2013, Yemeni authorities seized an Iranian dhow, the Jihan, off the coast of Yemen. The dhow was carrying sophisticated Chinese antiaircraft missiles, C-4 explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, and a number of other weapons and explosives. The shipment of lethal aid was likely headed to Houthi separatists in Northern Yemen. Iran actively supports members of the Houthi movement, including activities intended to build military capabilities, which could pose a greater threat to security and stability in Yemen and the surrounding region.

Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa’ida (AQ) members it continued to detain, and refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody. Iran allowed AQ facilitators Muhsin al-Fadhli and Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and also to Syria. Al-Fadhli is a veteran AQ operative who has been active for years. Al-Fadhli began working with the Iran-based AQ facilitation network in 2009 and was later arrested by Iranian authorities. He was released in 2011 and assumed leadership of the Iran-based AQ facilitation network.

Iran remains a state of proliferation concern. Despite multiple UNSCRs requiring Iran to suspend its sensitive nuclear proliferation activities, Iran continued to violate its international obligations regarding its nuclear program. For further information, see the Report to Congress on Iran-related Multilateral Sanctions Regime Efforts (November 2013), and the Report on the Status of Bilateral and Multilateral Efforts Aimed at Curtailing the Pursuit of Iran of Nuclear Weapons Technology (September 2012).

So now the State Department is interested in allying with a state that has helped Sunni terrorists from Al Qaeda in order to...fight Sunni terrorists in Iraq. While at the same time it arms Shiite terrorists. Because they are so much better. The state terrorists are now wonderful people, because Shiites - like Hezbollah - are so much nicer than those mean Sunnis. Don't be overly concerned about the unintended consequences of supporting Shiite terrorists, just like you shouldn't worry about the unintended consequences of abandoning a nation before it had a chance to learn how to deal with terrorists.

And to be fair, Iran was only considered a state sponsor of terror from 1984 until, um, late April 2014. That was a long time ago.

Now that Iran's support of Shiite terrorists is in fashion, maybe the US will award them with less restrictions on building a nuclear weapon.. After all, you have to reward bloodthirsty jihadists when their interests appear to temporarily coincide with yours, don't you? It's the decent, human thing to do.

(h/t TIP)

06/16 Links Pt1: Abduction Roundup: News, Support, Sherri Mandel, #BringBackOurBoys

From Ian:

#BringBackOurBoys

Obviously, we know that posting pictures and news updates with the hashtag #BringBackOurBoys ISN’T going to bring back our boys. But it is going to do SOMETHING: In an online environment where so many people condemn Israel, where major international newspapers send out alerts about a freaking golf tournament (seriously) and NOT about these 3 kidnapped boys, where so many people are separated by continents and oceans and are longing for some kind of community as we wait and we wait and we wait, this hashtag helps.
And apparently, the parents of these boys notice, too, and they receive some measure of comfort from it. And that should be reason enough.

#Bringbackourboys goes viral

Israel’s digital diplomacy has already had an amazing success. Initiated by graduates of the University of Haifa’s Ambassadors Online program, the “Bring Back Our Boys” online campaign on behalf of the three kidnapped teenagers has attracted global attention.Over 79000 people have :liked” their facebook page.

Israeli Celebrities Join BringBackOurBoys Campaign to Free Kidnapped Kids

Popular singer Shai Gabso also joined in, posing with a photo of himself, hold his hand up with each of the words written with a marker on his fingers, adding the word “#peace.”
Legendary studio guitarist Avi Singolda posted a photo of himself with the hashtag written on a piece of paper stuck between the strings of his guitar.
Israeli basketball player, Omri Casspi, of the Houston Rockets, posted an Israeli flag with the hashtag and a sign reading “Am Yisrael Chai!” (“The people of Israel live!”) on his Facebook page. He also added a traditional ancient Hebrew prayer for the release of captives in text below the photo.

Watch: Israeli Hollywood Star Protests for Teens in Times Square

Israeli Hollywood actress and internationally renowned model Moran Atias protested in New York's landmark Times Square on Sunday, calling for the return of the three Israeli yeshiva students who were kidnapped by terrorists last Thursday night from Kfar Etzion, Judea.
Atias stood alone in Times Square, holding a sign with "three Israeli teens kidnapped from their homeland" written on it, with their names Eyal (Yifrah), Naftali (Frenkel) and Gilad (Sha'ar) written below.

Australian Jewry rallies for kidnapped teens

Jewish community members “felt something needed to be done and were looking for ways to help,” Rafi Lawrence, the head of Sydney’s Bnei Akiva branch, told the Times of Israel. “While it’s hard to bridge the physical gap between us, we can still try and help on a spiritual level.”
“All movements, madrichim [leaders] and chanichim [participants], as the active face of Zionism in Australia, are invited to attend and participate. This issue is very close to home — the people kidnapped are the same age as our chanichim,” he wrote in an email. The movements’ plight didn’t fall on deaf ears.

Watch: Kidnapped Teen Sings at Cousin's Wedding

A heart-wrenching YouTube video shows Eyal Yifrah, the 19-year-old yeshiva student who was kidnapped along with two other students last Thursday by terrorists, in happier times.
Yifrah can be seen in the video playing the guitar and singing at the April 10 wedding of a cousin of his. The video was posted to YouTube two days after the wedding as a present to them, and shared on Facebook on Monday by David Ha'ivri, a local activist and resident of Kfar Tapuach in Samaria.

Why peace is impossible, reasons #8270 and #8271

An image of a young Palestinian Arab boy celebrating the kidnapping of three Jewish teens:

That's not why peace is impossible.

The reason peace is impossible is because you cannot find any public voices of disgust in the Arab world at images like these.

While there is no shortage of Westerners, and Israelis, who will empathize with people who declare themselves to be the enemy, the number of Arabs who empathize with innocent people on the other side is essentially zero. There is an utter lack of ability to see things from the perspective of the other side.

Even worse, there is no desire to do so.

Without empathy, there can be no understanding or compromise. Peace is literally impossible.

The same Facebook page, of the Quds News Network, shares "The last picture of the kidnapped, two minutes before the abduction" - showing a stock photo of three dogs.

That's really the difference. To Israelis, Arabs are human beings who they desperately want to make peace with and to work with in the future as part of an integrated Middle East. They will protect themselves when necessary but they pray for the day when it is not necessary.

To Arabs, Jews are nothing more than dogs.

And almost no one - not "moderate" Arabs, not human rights groups, not "enlightened" Europeans and Americans - is willing to denounce the sickening hate that is at the root of the Arab world.

PLO says IDF attempts to #BringBackTheBoys are racist pretexts to oppress Palestinians

The Executive Committee of the PLO issued a statement saying that everything the IDF is doing to find the three boys kidnapped by Hamas in the West Bank is just a smokescreen for the real Israeli purpose of making life miserable for Arabs.

The official Wafa news agency reported it this way in English:

The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) condemned, in a statement Sunday, the “racist” campaign, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, against the Palestinian people and their leadership, under the pretext that ‘the three settlers, who disappeared on Thursday, were kidnapped’.

The committee, during a meeting headed by president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, rejected Nentyahu’s ‘foul accusations’, which it stressed aim to cover up his failure.

It warned of Israel’s clear intentions to expand settlements in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext of ‘intra-Palestinian reconciliation and the alleged kidnapping of three settlers.’

In Arabic, their statement goes further.

This is the method of Netanyahu government, to divert attention from the real reason behind the cycle of violence and their sponsorship of actual acts of terrorism carried out by "price tag" gangs and other killings and land grabbing, cutting of trees and plantings, and ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, and the violation of holy sites , especially the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Palestinian Authority does not give up its duties and responsibilities, but she refuses to be cast on the responsibility of the occupation crimes and violations practiced by including a poisoned atmosphere, through state terrorism which the occupation continues on our land in an unprecedented way.

You see, Israeli Jews are always looking for flimsy excuses to perform massive, expensive operations in hostile territory, simply because they hate Arabs that much. Kids scrawling graffiti on mosques (which the statement claims is Israeli policy) are the real terrorists - kidnapping a few Israeli boys isn't. If the boys were even kidnapped to begin with.

From reading bizarre statements like these, there is only one conclusion: Reality is just another enemy of the Palestinian people, and it must be fought tooth and nail.

Wiesenthal Center will boycott PCUSA conference, and their "tough love" of Israel

From the Wiesenthal Center website:

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, one of the largest Jewish human rights organizations, is urging the rank and file of the U.S. Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) flocking to Detroit this weekend for the group's national meeting to defeat the leadership's embrace of extreme anti-Israel positions, including a report that called Israel racist and Illegal.

"We are severing all dialogue with PCUSA, because of a pattern of malicious behavior on the part of church administration," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Center, pointing to Zionism Unsettled, a 74-page document released in December and sold on PCUSA's website. "This demonization of an entire nation and its supporters around the world is an outrage that makes further conversation with this church impossible. Zionism Unsettled does not merely attack Israeli policies, but calls the quest for a Jewish State racist and illegal. This invokes memories of the UN's notorious 'Zionism is racism' resolution of 1974—which was repealed in 1991 – but this time PCUSA has substituted theological language to dismiss the Jewish people's 3,500 year presence in and association with the Holy Land," Cooper added. "The long-standing protocols of interfaith dialogue have always demanded that no partner attack the core beliefs of the other. This document, and the cynical response of church leaders to criticism of it from other Presbyterians, is a frontal assault on the central place of the Jewish State in Jewish life and thought," the rabbi said.

From Yitzchak Alderstein and Abraham Cooper in JPost:

We will be sitting it out not because we wouldn’t be welcome. The laity and clergy of this church – whether they’ve agreed or disagreed –always welcomed us as observers, and we’ve been enriched by our dialogue. This Church’s administration has been quite a different story.

PCUSA was, in 2004, the first mainline church to adopt a resolution calling for divestment from Israel.

Immensely unpopular with the people in the pews, it was undone in 2006, but the minority pledged never to give up the fight. So every two years Jewish organizations squandered months of time, beating back the latest anti-Israel resolutions encouraged by the salaried and agendized “insiders” at corporate headquarters in Louisville. The good ordinary folks of the denomination, whatever their views on Israel/Palestine, were dismayed by the investment of valuable time on resolutions that didn’t bring the Middle East closer to peace, but alienated Jews and Presbyterians from each other.

Other denominations got it, and avoided incendiary moves. PCUSA’s leaders chose not to. After each defeat at a biennial General Assembly, they raised the ante, backing the anti-peace Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that openly seeks the eradication of the Jewish state – even though it flies in the face of the decades-long stated policy of the church. At each GA they pushed for ever more outrageous resolutions, forcing Jewish organizations to debate not Israel’s policies, but her very existence.

Enough! For years before, we tolerated double crosses, broken deals, deception. We watched as church officials had to resign after visiting with terrorist leaders. We participated in midnight meetings that brokered new “understandings” – only to learn weeks later that words were cheap to these church leaders. We saw crucial committees stacked with supposedly neutral but always pro-Palestinian “resource personnel” who were allowed unlimited time to testify (while we had 60 seconds to testify on the most complex conflict on the globe).

We saw real, unadulterated anti-Semitism on the webpages of the Israel-Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) – one of the radical groups behind the incessant anti-Israel resolutions. When we pointed this out, church leadership denied that IPMN spoke for the church – even as it continued to link to them from its own webpages and provided their IRS charitable organization status.

We recently witnessed a chairman of the committee scheduled to debate anti-Israel measures, a person known for his fairness and neutrality, summarily asked to resign because he had visited Israel on a Jewish-sponsored tour. No matter that the church pushes its own, carefully designed pro-Palestinian tours. We watched in disgust as they trotted out “Jewish voices” to allege that Jews themselves were now completely divided about Israel, despite the fact that those spokespeople were as representative of the Jewish community as flatearth advocates are of geographers.

The entire piece is possibly the best, single-article indictment of the PCUSA's actions.

Meanwhile, Israel-haters within and outside the church are pretending that the church leadership's antisemitism and single-minded hate for Zionism is merely "tough love."

Oh, so this is love?

Larry Grimm, a leading Presbyterian advocate of boycotting Israel, wrote a Facebook message that shows his "tough love" immediately before endorsing that article. He was quoted as saying "Come home to America, Jewish friends." He then followed up by saying "America is the Promised Land. We all know this. Come to the land of opportunity. Quit feeling guilt about what you are doing in Palestine, Jewish friends. Stop it. Come home to America!"

The irony of an American with a name that indicates German ancestry advocating that Jews should abandon their historic homeland and occupy Native American territory is apparently lost on most Presbyterian Church leaders.

Luckily, within the PCUSA there are prominent members who disagree with the direction the church is heading:

AS PASTORS AND LEADERS, we are deeply disturbed by the escalating conflict within the PC(USA) over the Church’s policies toward Israel/Palestine. Conflict over these issues, of course, is nothing new; what is new is the focus and tone of that conflict. For decades, the PC(USA) has argued passionately over how best to express our opposition to the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. But through all that time, we have consistently maintained that we oppose the occupation, not Israel.

This has now changed. With the publication of Zionism Unsettled, a “study guide” on Zionism produced by the PC(USA)’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network, and a series of overtures pending before the 2014 General Assembly that reflect its arguments, we are no longer debating how the occupation should end, but whether Israel should exist. Zionism Unsettled announces this shift from its opening section, saying: “put simply, the problem is Zionism.” It makes no distinction between different forms of Zionism, arguing that any form of Zionism is inherently discriminatory. Some forms of Zionism have been violent and exclusionary; the same is true of any form of nationalism (American, British, Chinese, Palestinian, etc.). But to argue that any Jewish desire for any form of statehood within their historic homeland is inherently discriminatory is not only patently false but morally indefensible. And the conclusion is obvious: if Zionism is the problem, then ending Zionism (i.e., Israel) is the solution.

It is telling that one of the earliest and loudest affirmations of Zionism Unsettled was by David Duke, perhaps the most notorious white supremacist and anti-Semite in the United States today, who said: In a major breakthrough in the worldwide struggle against Zionist extremism, the largest Presbyterian church in the United States, the PC(USA), has issued a formal statement calling Zionism “Jewish Supremacism” — a term first coined and made popular by Dr. David Duke.

The reality that David Duke would endorse a Presbyterian study guide available for purchase on the PC(USA) website is sickening to us, and should give all Presbyterians great pause in considering the arguments and language of this document and Zionism Unsettled’s ideological relationship to the overtures coming before the General Assembly.

Of course, they are being shouted down (and their points completely ignored) by those who pretend to want "peace" but are silent when Jews are attacked.