Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, March 16, 2015

03/16 Links Pt2: Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?; BDS, Anti-Semitic in Intent if Not in Effect

From Ian:

Should the ABC (Australia) have given advocacy journalist Sophie McNeill the keys to its Jerusalem bureau?

There are serious questions that must be raised about whether Sophie McNeill, who has recently been appointed the ABC’s exclusive Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, can comply with the obligations contained in ABC’s Code of Practice.
Interviewed by her former professor Victoria Mason in 2011, McNeill said that the journalism she wanted to do was to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering” in a situation. Both the examples she offered referred to Palestinians.
McNeill has acted on her self-proclaimed sympathy for the Palestinians by appearing on a panel at two pro-Palestinian events, including one sponsored by Palestinian groups and speaking alongside two other speakers who called for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the movement to sever all economic, educational and cultural ties with Israel. She has also written for Electronic Intifada, an extremist website that routinely publishes screeds calling for the destruction of Israel and justifying Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.
How could the ABC give such a candidly agenda-motivated journalist the exclusive job of Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, with extensive autonomy?

Anti-Israel Efforts Are Anti-Semitic in Intent if Not in Effect

Yet not without precedent did the academic boycott lobby inside the MLA select their strategy of largely meaningless, if vociferous, denunciation of Israel in particular. Cleverly, like the United Nations itself in this way—no doubt the MLA activists were aware that three-fourths of all UN resolutions that single out a lone country for criticism by the General Assembly have been aimed at the Jewish state—the professors of various literatures knew just where to begin healing the world, by piling on with the “language.” Moreover, not just the UNGA, but a smaller and less important MLA sister organization—the American Studies Association (ASA)—had also recently decided on a similarly cowardly course of action, and even went as far as voting to endorse the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. While the problems with a corrupt General Assembly are no secret (its motives for attacking Israel, mostly symbolically and out of all proportion, are well understood by that institution’s observers), the ASA’s weird decision to pick now to get in on the Israel-bashing phenomenon of many years raised a question. Why?
Which in turn gave rise to an answer.
As explained by ASA President, Professor Curtis Marez, in what quickly became an infamous joke—although/because he really was serious (he actually said it), “You have to start somewhere.”

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?

For half a century, memories of the Holocaust limited anti-Semitism on the Continent. That period has ended—the recent fatal attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are merely the latest examples of rising violence against Jews. Renewed vitriol among right-wing fascists and new threats from radicalized Islamists have created a crisis, confronting Jews with an agonizing choice.
The French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, the son of Holocaust survivors, is an accomplished, even gifted, pessimist. To his disciples, he is a Jewish Zola, accusing France’s bien-pensant intellectual class of complicity in its own suicide. To his foes, he is a reactionary whose nostalgia for a fairy-tale French past is induced by an irrational fear of Muslims. Finkielkraut’s cast of mind is generally dark, but when we met in Paris in early January, two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he was positively grim.
“My French identity is reinforced by the very large number of people who openly declare, often now with violence, their hostility to French values and culture,” he said. “I live in a strange place. There is so much guilt and so much worry.” We were seated at a table in his apartment, near the Luxembourg Gardens. I had come to discuss with him the precarious future of French Jewry, but, as the hunt for the Charlie Hebdo killers seemed to be reaching its conclusion, we had become fixated on the television.
Finkielkraut sees himself as an alienated man of the left. He says he loathes both radical Islamism and its most ferocious French critic, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s extreme right-wing—and once openly anti-Semitic—National Front party. But he has lately come to find radical Islamism to be a more immediate, even existential, threat to France than the National Front. “I don’t trust Le Pen. I think there is real violence in her,” he told me. “But she is so successful because there actually is a problem of Islam in France, and until now she has been the only one to dare say it.” (h/t Herb Glatter)

From Al Arabiya:

Canadian superstar rapper Drake brought his “Would You Like a Tour?” show to Dubai on Saturday, wowing a 15,000 strong crown with a medley of his hits.

“Excited to be performing for the first time ever in Dubai on March 14th at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium,” he wrote on Twitter on Monday, before taking to the stage to declare he wanted to buy a home in the city.

With more No. 1 songs in the U.S. billboard chart than any other rapper, Drake performed hits such as “Find Your Love,” “Headlines” and “Best I Ever Had.”

Drake is Jewish. I don't think he has ever visited Israel, though.

I didn't see any Arabic news sites mention his religion.

"Mitzvah Tantz" video goes viral on Arabic websites

The Mitzvah Tantz, as described by Wikipedia:

[T]he Hasidic custom of the men dancing before the bride on the wedding night, after the wedding feast. Commonly, the bride, who usually stands perfectly still at one end of the room, will hold one end of a long sash or a gartel while the one dancing before her holds the other end.[1] There are times when one of the leading rabbis, usually her father or grandfather, will dance with her as well. The dance is usually a highly charged emotional moment, wherein the dancer prays silently for the couple's success in life.

For some reason, a lively mitzvah tantz video has gone viral on Arab websites, usually with the headline "Oddity of Jewish weddings." Over 70,000 have watched this video since it was uploaded on Saturday:

Most Arabs don't seem to like it, with far more dislikes than likes on YouTube. Many websites include comments like "May Allah curse the Jews."

None of the articles I've seen so far make an attempt to explain the tradition.

03/16 Links Pt1: The anti-Israel network behind UN's Gaza investigation; Hillary’s Hezbollah Donor

From Ian:

Gerald Steinberg: Revealed: the anti-Israel network behind UN's Gaza investigation

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is one of many organisations that use moral-sounding language as a façade for the opposite. Its officials and activities are controlled by regimes with abysmal human rights records - including Russia, China, and Middle Eastern dictatorships. It is not surprising that Israel is the main focus of "investigations" and condemnations.
Among its other faults, the UNHRC is very secretive - its reports are characterised by a lack of transparency, often written by unidentified persons with a worrying lack of political impartiality. For years, the secret authors of the 500-page document condemning Israel for "war crimes", published as the Goldstone Investigation in 2009, were hidden. (Judge Richard Goldstone showed little grasp of the content, and later acknowledged that the allegations were baseless.)
Recently, however, Hillel Neuer, the head of UN Watch, published the results of detailed research showing that it was Grietje Baars who assembled the text of the Goldstone report (primarily from questionable NGO claims). Ms Baars, who teaches human rights at City University in London, is a radical Marxist and an important figure in a network that seeks to exploit international law to target Israel.
Like others in this network, Ms Baars is closely linked to powerful anti-Israel NGOs, such as the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and Swedish development charity Diakonia, helping them in campaigns to prosecute Israeli soldiers and officials.
Diakonia is mainly funded by the Swedish government (about £30m annually), implicating them in this moral corruption. The charity submitted a lengthy "report" to the Goldstone Commission, thereby suggesting that the appointment of Ms Baars gave rise to a conflict of interest.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Israelis prepare to vote; Palestinians prepare to fight

For some Palestinians, the election is not about removing Netanyahu from power. Rather, it is about removing Israel from the face of the earth and replacing it with an Islamist empire.
Kerry's statement about the revival of the peace process shows that he remains oblivious to the reality in the Middle East, particularly with regards to the Palestinians.
Kerry is ignoring the fact that the Palestinians are today divided into two camps; one that wants to destroy Israel through terrorism and jihad and another that is working hard to delegitimize and isolate Israel with the hope of forcing it to its knees.
As Kerry was talking about the revival of the peace process, Hamas announced that it has completed preparations for the next confrontation with Israel.
Abbas will come to the talks with the same demands he and his predecessor have made over the past two decades, namely a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. And when Israel does not accept all his demands, he will again walk out and demand international intervention to impose a solution on Israel.
Talk about the resumption of the peace process is nothing but a silly joke.

Hillary’s Hezbollah-Friendly Donor

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from a former deputy prime minister of Lebanon known for defending Hezbollah, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
Issam Fares, a Lebanese billionaire who has established himself in the United States as a prominent philanthropist, has given between $1 and $5 million in donations to the Clintons’ foundation with donations coming as recently as last year, according to a public donor disclosure list on the foundation’s website.
Fares was a part of the pro-Syria government of Prime Minister Omar Karami during his tenure as deputy prime minister between 2000 and 2005.
“It seems the Zionist lobby in the United States and its agents in the region were displeased and worried that certain Lebanese and Arab personalities have a friendly relationship with some senior officials of the new American administration,” Fares was quoted as saying in a 2001 statement after questions were raised about his relationship with incoming U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Fares decried comparisons drawn between the terrorist organization al Qaeda and Hezbollah after the September 11 terror attacks.
“It is a mistake to make a comparison between the [Al Qaeda] network … which Lebanon has condemned, and Hezbollah, which Lebanon considers a resistance party fighting the Israeli occupation,” Fares told Agence France-Presse. “Hezbollah did not carry out any resistance operation against American interests in Lebanon or abroad and did not target civilians in its resistance activities as happened on Sept. 11 at the World Trade Center.”

The third holiest karate demonstration on Earth

Yesterday, on the Temple Mount:

Of course, such a show would never be tolerated in the courtyards of the mosques in Mecca and Medina.

Most of the comments talk about how great it is that these kids are preparing for victory over the Jews.

(h/t Bob Knot)

A Tunisian court banned two planned tourist flights to Amman, Jordan where the travelers planned to visit Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho .

Lawyer Nadia Alorga, on behalf of a group called the "Tunisian Association of Arab Resistance to imperialism and Zionism" known as "Resist," filed a suit to stop the trips, saying that they were a form of "normalization" with Israel.

The Tunisian Constitution under the new "Arab Spring" government does not criminalize "normalization"with Israel, but the lawyer Alorga based on her legal claim on the idea that the constitution provides for the support of the just causes in the world and there is no more just cause than the Palestinian cause.

This is ironic, because the PA leadership is on the record to encourage such visits from Arab and Muslim countries.

This is the first time that the Tunisian judiciary intervened in the political controversy since the rule of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Some Tunisian political activists have been claiming that Zionist activity has been penetrating Tunisia using US funds through "suspicious private associations" operating in the framework of "civil society."

National Intelligence Estimate no longer lists Iran, Hezbollah as terror threats

From TOI:

An annual report delivered recently to the US Senate by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of terrorism threats, after years in which they featured in similar reports.

The unclassified version of the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Communities, dated February 26, 2015 (PDF), noted Iran’s efforts to combat Sunni extremists, including those of the ultra-radical Islamic State group, who were perceived to constitute the preeminent terrorist threat to American interests worldwide.

In describing Iran’s regional role, the report noted the Islamic Republic’s “intentions to dampen sectarianism, build responsive partners, and deescalate tensions with Saudi Arabia,” but cautioned that “Iranian leaders—particularly within the security services—are pursuing policies with negative secondary consequences for regional stability and potentially for Iran.

Here is the evolution of how the NIE regarded Iran as a terror threat in recent years (this is separate from their nuclear program):

2012:

The Threat from Iran

The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials-probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei-have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime. We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against US or allied interests overseas.

Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the Ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of US threats against the regime.

2013:

Iran and Lebanese Hizballah

The failed 2011 plot against the Saudi Ambassador in Washington shows that Iran may be more willing to seize opportunities to attack in the United States in response to perceived offenses against the regime. Iran is also an emerging and increasingly aggressive cyber actor. However, we have not changed our assessment that Iran prefers to avoid direct confrontation with the United States because regime preservation is its top priority.

Hizballah’s overseas terrorist activity has been focused on Israel—an example is the Bulgarian Government’s announcement that Hizballah was responsible for the July 2012 bus bombing at the Burgas airport that killed five Israeli citizens. We continue to assess that the group maintains a strong anti-US agenda but is reluctant to confront the United States directly outside the Middle East.

2014:

Iran and Hizballah

Outside of the Syrian theater, Iran and Lebanese Hizballah continue to directly threaten the interests of US allies. Hizballah has increased its global terrorist activity in recent years to a level that we have not seen since the 1990s.

2015:

(Nothing.)

This is an amazing evolution of thinking. Even as the NIE was noting that Iran and its proxy Hizballah was increasing their global terror activity over the years against US allies, it no longer sees it as a threat against the US itself (despite the 2011 attack on the Saudi ambassador), so it is no longer even worth mentioning.

Also amazing is that the near simultaneous Iranian attacks on three separate Israeli diplomatic missions in 2012 are not mentioned at all, even though the FBI at the time said "Quds Force, Hezbollah and others have shown they both have the capability and the willingness to extend beyond that [Middle East] region of the world and likely here into the homeland itself."

The NIE is not supposed to be politically motivated, but it is hard to escape two conclusions.

One is that as part of the Obama strategy to embrace Iran as a potential ally against Sunni extremism, the idea of Iranian backed terror is inconvenient to mention.

The other is that Iranian terror attacks against Israeli targets and other US allies are irrelevant in determining if Iran is a terror threat to the US itself, a truly shortsighted analysis.

The NIE remains on the fence as to Iran's nuclear designs even as it notes that it is working on building ICBMs that can carry nuclear warheads worldwide:

We continue to assess that Iran’s overarching strategic goals of enhancing its security, prestige, and regional influence have led it to pursue capabilities to meet its civilian goals and give it the ability to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons, if it chooses to do so. We do not know whether Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.

We also continue to assess that Iran does not face any insurmountable technical barriers to producing a nuclear weapon, making Iran’s political will the central issue. However, Iranian implementation of the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) has at least temporarily inhibited further progress in its uranium enrichment and plutonium production capabilities and effectively eliminated Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium. The agreement has also enhanced the transparency of Iran’s nuclear activities, mainly through improved International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access and earlier warning of any effort to make material for nuclear weapons using its safeguarded facilities.

We judge that Tehran would choose ballistic missiles as its preferred method of delivering nuclear weapons, if it builds them. Iran’s ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering WMD, and Tehran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. Iran’s progress on space launch vehicles—along with its desire to deter the United States and its allies—provides Tehran with the means and motivation to develop longer-range missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

There is no strategic thinking here, and it is frightening that the US makes strategic decisions based on an analysis that appears to be more interested in furthering political interests than soberly assessing true threats.

More on how Arabs treated Jews in 19th century Palestine

From Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land, Volume 2, by John Lloyd Stephens, 1849:

I cannot leave this place, however, without a word or two more. I had spent a long evening with my Jewish friends. The old rabbi talked to me of their prospects and condition, and told me how he had left his country in Europe many years before, and come with his wife and children to lay their bones in the Holy Land. He was now eighty years old; and for thirty years, he said, he had lived with the sword suspended over his head; had been reviled, buffeted, and spit upon; and, though sometimes enjoying a respite from persecution, he never knew at what moment the bloodhounds might not be let loose upon him ; that, since the country had been wrested from the sultan by the Pacha of Egypt, they had been comparatively safe and tranquil; though some idea may be formed of this comparative security from the fact that, during the revolution two years before, when Ibrahim Pacha, after having been pent up several months in Jerusalem, burst out like a roaring lion, the first place upon which his wrath descended was the unhappy Hebron ; and while their guilty brethren were sometimes spared, the unhappy Jews, never offending but always suffering, received the full weight of Arab vengeance. Their houses were ransacked and plundered; their gold and silver, and all things valuable, carried away; and their wives and daughters violated before their eyes by a brutal soldiery.

This is the Hebron massacre of 1834. Unlike 1929, it was not the Jews' neighbors in Hebron who preformed the massacre this time but the Egyptians - even though the Jews had not done anything against them. Some say that the Jews were assured of their safety, which is why they didn't flee the oncoming soldiers as their Muslim neighbors did.

7 Jewish men were murdered and 5 Jewish girls raped before being killed.

The narrative shows that the Jews felt themselves to be on the lowest rung of the social ladder, always in danger from whatever event happens.

Terrorists bless +972 writer for supporting United (Arab) List

At Arabic site Bokra.net, Noam Sheizaf - a writer at +972 Magazine - explains why he will vote for the (Arab) United List in the upcoming Israeli elections.

The Al Qassam Brigades, the "military" wing of Hamas, has been active on Twitter trying to tell Arab Israelis to vote for that same group. (I'm assuming that this is not a fake account; it looks legit but one never knows.)

@AnkeJulieMartin @afagerbakke We had democratic elections. @Ayman_Odeh_TJL, @Ahmad_tibi , @haneenzoabii will help the liberation
— Ezzedeen Al-Qassam (@qassamenglish) March 15, 2015

#AskHamas who do we support in the Zionist election? @Ayman_Odeh_TJL, @haneenzoabii, @Ahmad_tibi and all those who will help the liberation!
— Ezzedeen Al-Qassam (@qassamenglish) March 13, 2015

So the terror group is ecstatic at the Jewish useful idiot who is so far left that he has turned around and supports the choice of the most misogynist, antisemitic Arabs:

@sfrantzman @nsheizaf Allah bless him
— Ezzedeen Al-Qassam (@qassamenglish) March 15, 2015

What do 21st century "progressive" Jews have in common with Muslims who want the world to roll back to the 7th century? Hating Israel!

From Ma'an:

The military wing of Hamas on Saturday said that it had rebuilt a number of military bases near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip, asserting that it had recovered from Israel's summer offensive and was "not afraid" of confronting the occupation again.

"No sooner has the war come to an end, than the al-Qassam Brigades started a new stage of the conflict in preparation for the battle of liberation," a report on the official website of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades said.

The report said that fighters from the group had rebuilt military training sites near the border in the north, east, and west of the Gaza Strip, giving lie to Israeli claims that "Operation Protective Edge" in July-August 2014 had caused the group serious damage.

You will recall that the far-left Gisha NGO recently said that no houses were rebuilt since the war.

The chances that Gisha or HRW or Amnesty will condemn Hamas for prioritizing its military build-up over rebuilding damaged homes is roughly zero.

I love how Hamas claims not to have anything against Jews

One of the funnier parts of the #AskHamas Twitter campaign is how Hamas insists that it has nothing against Jews, only Zionists.

@Robbythecoolcat We protect all people even Jews. We do not discriminate, there're are Jews among us and enjoy all freedom #AskHamas
— Huda Naim (@HudanaimMP) March 13, 2015

. @irish4israel To Hamas, a free Palestinian state will be open to and welcome & give equal rights to all regardless of religion #AskHamas
— Huda Naim (@HudanaimMP) March 13, 2015

.@ZoroastrianFunk Respect for all religions is our strong belief and life long policy.
— Rawhi Mushtaha (@RawhiMushtaha) March 14, 2015

. @AnarchoZionist 1) Hamas and Palestinians have no problem with Jews. We are occupied by zionists. #AskHamas
— Rawhi Mushtaha (@RawhiMushtaha) March 14, 2015

. @AnarchoZionist 2) When Palestinians speak about 'Jews', the context is ALWAYS about those who occupy us and kill us. #AskHamas
— Rawhi Mushtaha (@RawhiMushtaha) March 14, 2015

So let's take a trip down MEMRI (and PMW) lane:

Kids rapping at a Hamas rally:

Hamas TV host:

Hamas preacher:

Hamas TV kiddie show:

Hamas MP al-Astal, referring to Jews:

Top Hamas official Osama Hamdan:

These are only some of the antisemitic statements on Hamas media in just the past year! You can click on the links to see the full context, and it is obvious they are not only talking about "Zionists."

It is also interesting to see Hamas' Western groupies happily retweeting the lies as if Hamas' word is gospel.

03/15 Links: This is no debate but a rally of hate directed at Israel; LATMA Ep6

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: This is no debate but a rally of hate directed at Israel

EARLIER this month we once again saw what hotbeds of extremism and hatred some of our university campuses have become.
The fact that Mohammed Emwazi (aka “Jihadi John”) had been a student at Westminster university could have surprised no one.
Nor could the discovery that on the very night Emwazi was unmasked his university was due to host a radical preacher who preaches the most hardline versions of sharia.
In the same week as a new video revealed commonplace anti-Jewish hatred on Britain’s streets, the Cambridge University Union Society once again chose to debate the motion “Israel is a rogue state”.
The Cambridge Union – the oldest in the country – enjoys debating that motion more than any other. It is a fixture in its termly schedules.
And once again last week the students of Cambridge decided to hold Israel guilty among the nations. Needless to say there is no record of Cambridge students debating whether Pakistan (created in the same year as Israel) is a rogue state. Despite there being far more reasons to do so.
Nor does the Cambridge Union annually denigrate any of Israel’s neighbours in the Middle East. During last week’s Cambridge debate the notorious anti-Israeli activist and discredited academic Norman Finkelstein explained to the students that Israel is worse than North Korea.
The students agreed with him. Next month the University of Southampton will become the latest university to fix its position on this bandwagon of hate.

Edwin Black: Los Angeles Conference Confronts BDS Financing and Tactics

The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement is said to have ignited in earnest in 2005. It was propelled by significant funding from the Ford Foundation, which poured millions of dollars into anti-Israel NGOs working in Durban, and later by the New Israel Fund (NIF), which financially backed such pro-boycott groups as the Coalition for Women for Peace.
Experts say the BDS modus operendi wields systematic distortion of international law, history, and general fact about the Israel-Palestinian conflict to rally public support. While BDS advocates claim to seek political and economic justice, their actions are increasingly trailed by anti-Jewish actions such as swastika graffiti at Jewish locations, challenges to Jewish student based on their religion, and a general air of anti-Semitic hostility on campus. Today, the BDS Movement stands merely as the leading edge of growing anti-Semitic agitation and anti-Israel mobilization, attracting pure hate elements to their message.
BDS employs such guerrilla tactics as street actions, student harassment, campus disruption, physical assaults, and duplicitous coalition building in moves eerily resembling a Brownshirt playbook. Disarmed and dismayed by the swelling assault, fragmented attempts by Israeli and American Jewish leadership to counter the movement, mainly by assembling bone-dry fact sheets and lifeless statistical arguments, have proven ineffectual.
Now, a number of Jewish organizations are pooling resources and comparing notes to more cohesively combat BDS. To this end, several hundred individuals will gather March 21-23, 2015 in a Los Angeles hotel at the International anti-BDS Conference convened by the leading pro-Israel group, StandWithUs. The diverse list of speakers include famed attorney Alan Dershowitz, Bassem Eid of the pro-co-existence Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, David Renzer of the Creative Community For Peace, Richard L. Cravatts of the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, as well as this writer, bringing insights into financial investigations of BDS groups funded by tax-exempt charities.

LATMA: We'll be the Judge, episode 6
The six episode of the Israeli satire program "We'll be the Judge," from the creators of Latma's Tribal Update, Israel Channel 1, March 12, 2015.