Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

04/14 Links Pt1: Hamas:‎ We bring our kids up “on love of Jihad and Martyrdom-death”‎

From Ian:

PMW: Hamas:‎ We bring our kids up “on love of Jihad and Martyrdom-death”‎

Hamas does not intend to foster peaceful relations with Israel. Hamas' Ministry of Interior posted a photo on its Facebook page of a little boy, no more than five years old, posing in military uniform and holding an automatic rifle. The text beside the photo explained that children under Hamas rule grow up learning "the love of Jihad" - religious war for Islam - and aspire to die as Martyrs for Allah:
"These are our lion cubs.We have brought them up on the love of Jihad and Shahada (Martyrdom-death)"
[Facebook page of Hamas' Ministry of Interior, April 10, 2015]
Hamas' Ministry of Interior is part of the unity government formed between the PA and Hamas last year. However, in practice, the PA and Hamas have been acting independently in the last few months.

The Middle East Turmoil and Israel's Security

The turmoil in the Arab world is also changing the strategic landscape in the Eastern Mediterranean basin, where elements of radical Islam are gaining control. Tunisia, Libya, Sinai in Egypt, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey all play host to groups with Islamist tendencies, thereby threatening the currently unrestricted access to this area by Israel and the West.
Approximately 90 percent of Israel's foreign trade is carried out via the Mediterranean, making freedom of navigation in this area critical for Israel's economic well-being. Moreover, its chances of becoming energy independent and a significant exporter of gas is linked to Israel's ability to secure free passage for its maritime trade and to defend its newly discovered hydrocarbon fields, Leviathan and Tamar. These developments require greater Israeli efforts in the naval arena. Indeed, Israel is engaged in building a robust security system for the gas fields and has procurement plans for additional vessels.
As with other parts of the Middle East, the assessment in Jerusalem is that the key factor in the developing regional balance of power is Iran's nuclearization. This would be a "game changer" that only Israel has the capability to prevent. Netanyahu's recent electoral victory left in power the only leader that might have the political courage to order a military strike to obstruct the Iranian progress towards acquiring nuclear weapons. Indeed, his victory was quietly welcomed in the capitals of the moderate Arab states that are terrified of Iran and have little time for Obama. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are good examples.
Accordingly, Israel is watching with growing bewilderment the endeavor of the Obama administration to implement a "grand bargain" with Iran. This puts Jerusalem on an inevitable collision course with its most important ally. Israel continues to benefit from a large reservoir of sympathy among the populace of the United States, and most notably within the Republican controlled Congress.
Yet, while Obama is not popular, as president he can extract heavy costs in the military, diplomatic and strategic arenas. The remaining 22 months until he leaves office must be weathered with minimum damage to the American-Israeli strategic partnership, particularly if Israel chooses to make good on its threat not to allow Iran to become a nuclear power. With this in mind, the American-Iranian nexus is the most dangerous challenge for Israel's national security in the near future.

A recent poll by the Yesodot Center reveals that a vast majority of Israelis prefer either for every religious group be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount at any time, or for there to be separate but equal times for the Mount to be open for adherents of major religions.

Based on a sample of 500 adults, 37 percent agreed that there should be free access to adherents of all religions who wished to pray at the Temple Mount, and another 36% said that specific prayer hours should be established for different religious groups.

Just as many self-described secular Jews supported equal rights for Jews on the Mount as religious Jews who answered the survey.

And practically no one liked the idea of the Muslim Waqf maintaining control over the holiest site in Judaism.

Predictably, this poll has caused a firestorm of criticism in Arab media, with headlines like "Israeli poll urges desecrating Al Aqsa."

The PLO's Department of Jerusalem Affairs denounced the poll, saying that it "supports the storming and desecration of the Jews of the Al-Aqsa Mosque" and that "a large proportion of Jewish extremists are in favor of the establishment of Talmudic prayers inside the Aqsa Mosque."

By the way, the PLO Department of Jerusalem Affairs website is filled with the most bizarre articles warning of "Talmudc rituals" and saying that Israel is waging war on the entire Muslim world because of a couple of Jews walking on the Temple Mount or praying outside one of its gates.

Their "history" of Jerusalem says that it was not considered important by anyone until the Persian Empire took it over at the request of Queen Esther, thereby skipping any mention of Kings David or Solomon even though they are in the Quran.

It would be a different world if NGOs would spend 10% as much effort on reporting on Hamas' role in Gazans' misery as they do falsely blaming Israel.

Today there is another story that NGOs like Gisha will ignore (unless this post embarrasses them into reluctantly mentioning it.)

Hamas just imposed a new tax on fruit in Gaza, demanding 100 shekels per ton of fruit. As a result, Gaza's fruit dealers are not willing to import produce that they will not be able to sell.

20 trucks of fruit are stuck at the Kerem Shalom crossing since yesterday because of this decision.

Hamas has previously restricted imports of fruit directly.

Oxfam and other NGOs lie, blame Israel for restrictions on Gaza rebuilding that don't exist

I mentioned yesterday that a series of NGOs released a report about Gaza that was filled with anti-Israel lies.

Further research using their own sources reveal more examples.

From Oxfam's press release:

Six months since donors pledged $3.5 billion towards Gaza's recovery, many people are worse off and not a single one of the 19,000 destroyed homes has been rebuilt. 100,000 people are still homeless and many are living in makeshift camps or schools.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam, said: "The promising speeches at the donor conference have turned into empty words.There has been little rebuilding, no permanent ceasefire agreement and no plan to end the blockade.The international community is walking with eyes wide open into the next avoidable conflict, by upholding the status quo they themselves said must change."

Only 26.8 percent of money pledged by donors six months ago has been released so far. Even when funded, many reconstruction projects have not yet begun due to restrictions on essential material under the blockade.

Tony Laurance, CEO of MAP UK, said: “The world is shutting its eyes and ears to the people of Gaza when they need it most. Reconstruction cannot happen without funds, but money alone will not be enough. With the blockade in place we are just reconstructing a life of misery, poverty and despair.”

If 26.8% of $3.5 billion has been released, and there has been little rebuilding, then what is the money going towards?

This report from the Shelter Cluster tells us, and the numbers show that somehow, tens of thousands of Gazans have managed to rebuild their homes with building materials that we are incessantly told are restricted from entering Gaza.

We see that some of the money has gone to building temporary shelters and providing rent money for Gazans who cannot move into their homes. But we also learn that there are plenty of Gazans who have rebuilt their partially damaged homes.

The report says that 144,000 homes were damaged during the war. Of those homes, nearly half - 70,700 homes - have been fully repaired.

If 49% of the homes have been repaired while the international community has only paid 27% of their pledges, clearly Israeli restrictions are not the bottleneck. In fact:

As of 15 March, over 73,000 individuals requiring ABC materials for shelter repairs have been cleared to purchase materials under the GRM. Of these, over 59,000 homeowners have procured full or partial quantities of their allocated construction material to date.

What about new homes? Why haven't any been completed? The Shelter Cluster tells us the answer to that as well:

Permanent construction of new houses can take several months and would include several stages such as design proposal, building permit approval, mobilisation of contractors and funds, construction and handover of the final build.

The homeowners are receiving the material and cash for rebuilding, but Gaza's bureaucracy is what slows them down, not lack of building materials.

The lying doesn't end there.

There is a real-time page for the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism that describes exactly what is happening. As of this morning, 87796 beneficiaries are participating in the GRM. Here is their breakdown:

Not a single person is listed as being unable to receive construction material because of Israeli restrictions. 43,000 families have the ability to purchase more building material today but they haven't done so.

Of course, the report doesn't mention that the reason many Gazans have not bothered to rebuild is because they are selling their construction materials on the black market while they take advantage of temporary shelters, some of which can last for years. Some of that material is going to Hamas to build terror tunnels.

Every single NGO that signed onto this report, including major ones like Oxfam, is willingly lying about Israel when they claim that Gazans cannot rebuild.

Here's the list of NGOs behind the lies:

ActionAidAlianzapor la Solidaridad

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

Asamblea de Cooperaciónpor la Paz (ACPP)

CARE International

CCFD-Terre Solidaire

CCP Japan

Christian Aid

Church of Sweden

Council for Arab-British Understanding

Cooperazione per lo SviluppodeiPaesiEmergenti (COSPE)

DanChurchAid (DCA)

Diakonia

GVC

Handicap International

Heinrich Böll Foundation

HelpAge International

Horyzon - Swiss Youth Development Organization

Japan International Volunteer Center (JVC)

KinderUSA

Medical Aid for Palestinians (Map – UK)

Medicos del Mundo MDM-Spain

Médecins du Monde France

Médecins du Monde Switzerland

Medicos del Mundo MDM-Spain

medico international

medico international schweiz

Mennonite Central Committee

Norwegian Church Aid (NCA)

Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA)

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)

Overseas

Oxfam

Première Urgence – Aide MédicaleInternationale

Quaker Council for European Affairs

Rebuilding Alliance

Save the Children

Secours Islamique France

Secours Catholique - Caritas France

Terre des hommes Foundation

Terre des Hommes Italy

The Carter Center

The Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation

The Lutheran World Federation

The Swedish Organization for Individual Relief/ IM - Swedish Development Partner (SOIR)

United Civilians for Peace, Netherlands

The Arabs who fought with the Nazis

We knew about Muslims who were recruited to fight with the Nazis, but some Arab Muslim in North Africa apparently joined Hitler's cause as well.

From YNet:

The Nazis recruited Muslim soldiers to the Wehrmacht during World War II, but did not trust the Free Arab Legion with any major tasks, according to Stefan Petke of the Technical University of Berlin, who says the Arab units did not participate in the extermination of Jews, or guard the labor camps in North Africa.

Petke uncovered rare footage which documents the Nazi army's Arab units, which, he says, were a complete failure in the battlefields of Tunisia in 1943, leading the Nazis to take their weapons and using them as "working soldiers," away from the frontlines.

Ynet spoke to Petke about the role the Free Arab Legion played in World War II and the newly uncovered footage.

(h/t Yoel)

04/13 Links Pt2: Why Hasbara is Necessary; Which British Political Party is the most anti-semitic?

From Ian:

Why Hasbara is Necessary

The director of CAMERA's Washington office, Eric Rozenman, has written a prescient article, "The Theory and Practice of Hasbara" that was published by the Jewish Policy Center in inFocus magazine. Rozenman emphasizes the important role played by Hasbara not only in countering immediate misinformation but in reversing the pervasive influence of the Palestinian narrative that portrays "Zionists as imperialists, Jews as colonialists, and Palestinian Arabs as oppressed, indigenous people."
Rozenman recounts that in September 2000, when the Second Intifada broke out, the Israeli government's media arm was caught flatfooted. Nothing exemplified this more than the Mohammed al-Dura affair. This was the incident where a Palestinian boy was caught on video tape pinned against a wall with his father during a gunfight between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian terrorists and allegedly shot and killed by Israeli fire.
According to Rozenman,
Images of the "martyred" youngster, Mohammed al-Dura, traveled across the globe. They turned up as partial, implicit justification in an al-Qaeda montage of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York City's World Trade Center, in images of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's beheading and in mass marches in European cities that featured "Down with Israel" and "Death to the Jews" banners.
Much later, after independent examinations cast doubt on the French television account and even whether al-Dura had been present during the firefight, an IDF re-enactment concluded that if any bullets struck the child and his father, they quite likely had been fired by Palestinian gunmen. This was far too late.
Since then, Israel has taken significant steps to improve its response to opposing propaganda. Rozenman describes the "nearly real-time checks instead of indefinite 'we'll get back to you' handling of press queries" and rapid web postings along with utilization of social media releases and battlefield video showing the IDF calling off attacks when civilians were present. In this way anti-Israel charges ranging from exaggerations to inventions were not allowed to "take on lives of their own" in the media.

Columbia Prof. Who Says Zionists Supported Nazis Speaks at Cornell: Israel Has No Right to be Jewish State

Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad, a controversial speaker who in the past has written and spoken about alleged Zionist-Nazi collaboration and the “Anglo-American gay agenda,” delivered a speech at Cornell claiming Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, and recognizing it as such is equivalent to recognizing Israel as a “racist state.”
In fact, this claim is a step back from Massad’s previously quoted contention in a 2002 speech at Oxford University that Israel has no right whatsoever to exist: “The Jews are not a nation… The Jewish state is a racist state that does not have a right to exist.”
Massad concluded his speech by remarking: “It is the end of the Zionist colonial adventure, especially the removal of all the racist, legal, and institutional structures that Israel has erected, that is the precondition for lasting… justice and peace for all the inhabitants of Palestine and Israel.”
Massad, a professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History, spoke on Wednesday evening to a crowd of about 35 for an event entitled “Palestinians and the Dilemmas of Solidarity: Is the Two-State Solution Viable?” Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) sponsored the event.

IsraellyCool: BDS Blumen Fail

Max Blumenthal – the notorious Israel hater, Hamas supporter, toilet stall aficionado, and alcohol smuggler – is an advocate for BDS.
But in his case, it is easier said than done. For Max has created his personal website using Wix.
Made. In. Israel.
Perhaps he got a recommendation for it from fellow BDSholes Code Pink?
Either way, looks like Max found something else to fail at.

AFP says that the West Bank is "blockaded"

AFP, reporting on the latest NGO attempt to slam Israel, writes:

Six months after donors pledged billions of dollars for devastated Gaza, most of the money remains blocked, and reconstruction efforts are painfully slow, a coalition of aid groups said Monday.

The report also condemned the international community for failing to help open the blockaded Palestinian territories up to each other, to broker a lasting ceasefire with Israel and to hold the two sides accountable.

AFP is now claiming (beyond the biased report) that the West Bank and Gaza are both "blockaded."

The word "blockade" has a specific legal meaning, and it routinely used incorrectly in referring to Gaza although Israel does enforce a legal naval blockade of Gaza.

I had missed this one, from Dr. Moustafa El Leddawi, writing in both al-Bayan and Moheet as well as his Facebook page. His profile says he is from Gaza but his timeline on Facebook says he is writing from Beirut.

Palestinians hate the Jewish holiday of Passover, which falls in the month of April according to the ancient Hebrew calendar old. At a time when Jews rejoice, and exchange greetings, and eat and drink blood, and they meet and dance and play, and hold seminars, and hold celebrations, while they sentence the Palestinians to death, and impose on them the siege, and shut their gates and crossings, and impose on them a curfew, and prevent them from traveling and moving, do not allow them to enter or leave, even if they are students or patients...

The suffering and the pain have always been associated with the Jewish Passover holiday, it is an old ritual, and it was their Christian neighbors in the past who suffered and feared the feast of Passover, not wishing to sojourn, and fear what may occur.

The Jews were keen in every holiday to hunt for an immaculate innocent Christian child, who did not know the taste of the wine, and placed them in a barrel of needles, and put underneath a large platter on which to pour the Christian child's blood and to distribute it to large numbers,and then drink four cups of grape wine, and sing to their children, and dancing daughters...

Jews have not forgotten their past bloody deviant rituals; they they used to look for a Christian child to gather his blood, and make from it a pie to rejoice with their children, and their young and their elders ate it; today they killing every Palestinian child, and targeting every boy and girl, killing them in cold blood.

Settlers compete in the mass killing of Palestinian children, in the forms of torture, nothing has changed with the Jews, and none of their habits have changed, Their bitter hatred has taken root and grown...with mechanisms of murder and torture.

There's plenty more, but you get the idea.

(h/t Shawarma News)

04/13 Links Pt1: Netanyahu sets out terms for ‘better’ Iran deal; Fatah is the Problem

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Gaza: Egypt Responsible For Weapons Shortage

President Sisi has now decided to combat Hamas's smuggling tunnels also through legal means. This week, he signed a new law, according to which anyone who digs a tunnel along Egypt's borders would face life imprisonment.
The new law came amid reports that some anti-government jihadists from Sinai had received medical treatment in hospitals inside the Gaza Strip. The reports confirm fears of Egyptian government officials that the jihadists in Sinai are working together with Hamas to undermine security and stability in Egypt.
The new law followed another bloody day, when five people were killed and some 30 injured in bomb blasts outside a security installation, in the Sinai town of El Arish. Earlier, another terrorist attack on security forces left seven soldiers killed near Sheikh Zuweid, a town in northern Sinai near the Gaza Strip border.
Sisi has shown real guts and determination in his war to drain the swamps of terrorists. The tough measures he has taken along the border with the Gaza Strip have proven to be even more effective than Israel's military operations against the smuggling tunnels.
That the Gaza Strip is facing a weapons shortage is good news not only for Israel and Egypt, but also for the Palestinians living there.
It is hard to see how Hamas will rush into another military confrontation with Israel -- where Palestinians would once again pay a heavy price -- at a time when Sisi's army is working around the clock to destroy smuggling tunnels, and the prices of rifles and bullets in the Gaza Strip are skyrocketing.

HRW 'Lies' About Abuse of Palestinian Minors at Jewish Farms

The Jordan Valley regional committee head rejected reports on Monday by the leftist NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), which claimed that Palestinian Arab children were being abused working on Jewish farms in the Jordan Valley.
HRW alleged that "hundreds of children," some as young as 11, work for low wages and in "hazardous" conditions in Jewish farms.
"Israel's settlements are profiting from rights abuses against Palestinian children," HRW's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson claimed. "Children from communities impoverished by Israel's discrimination and settlement policies are dropping out of school and taking on dangerous work because they feel they have no alternatives, while Israel turns a blind eye."
The report is based on the statements of 38 Palestinian Arab children and 12 adults who said they worked on Jewish farms, with it claimed that minors worked over 60 hours a week at times.
Jordan Valley head David Elhayani, himself a former farmer, thoroughly debunked the claims while speaking with AFP.
"They've made up lies. The entire goal of this organization (HRW) is to sully Israel's image. If they'd show me a farmer employing a child, I'd report it to police immediately," said Elhayani.

Fatah is the Problem

Hamas is Fatah without the act, without the sheep's clothing. Fatah is Hamas with political spin. Hamas is the stick, Fatah is the carrot. The goal is only Jihad, not the betterment of their people. The conquest of all land West of the River Jordan, without real concern over what happens to the people after their benefactors in Israel are gone.
But the people know. There have been reports of a dual sentiment among individuals who were interviewed. They want the PA to take over, yet they also want to be a part of Israel. Why is that contradictory phenomenon occurring?
Innocent Palestinians Arabs in the territories want the PA to be successful ,but mainly for sentimental reasons. Like someone voting for a person of their race who runs for political office, even if they do not like their policies. The media does not report there is palpable fear in Arabs of the territories in their daily existence under Fatah rule and also over what happens the day after a potential Israeli withdrawal. On such a day, when the only government that truly is concerned for their social welfare, Israel, is no longer part of the picture.
Palestinian Arabs are keeping their heads low and trying to stay out of the way of the Palestinian Authority. They turn to their local leaders and hope they need not rely on the corrupt and vindictive national leadership of Fatah's Palestinian Authority.

Good Pope. Evil Israel.

Sheesh:

Since becoming pope in March 2013, Francis has made a habit of inserting himself into delicate foreign policy issues, usually in the role of broker. Last June, after visiting the Holy Land, he played host to the Israeli and Palestinian presidents at a “prayer summit” at the Vatican. However, that failed to produce a diplomatic breakthrough, and soon afterward, Israeli troops began an assault against the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip.

Even sooner afterwards, Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers. And Hamas shot scores of rockets towards Israeli civilians.

But the New York Times just can't help itself in portraying Israel as an aggressor, spitting in the face of Pope Francis with its violent response to his efforts to bring peace to the region.

(h/t Ronald G)

NGOs insist that Israel help Hamas build tunnels

The Association of International Development Agencies is a consortium of dozens of NGOs, including CARE International , BBC Media Action, Oxfam GB, Diakonia, Save the Children and The Carter Center.

It just released a report urging the international community to step up efforts to rebuild Gaza. But, naturally, it slams Israel.

The report pretends to be even-handed. For example:

All parties should immediately resume negotiations for a long-term ceasefire that addresses the need for sustainable reconstruction, tackles the root causes of the conflict and can deliver long-lasting security for both Israelis and Palestinians. Negotiations should include all concerned parties, particularly women, in keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

Both the Government of Israel and Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, must abide by international humanitarian and human rights law in the conduct of hostilities.

The international community must demand an end to violations of international law, and push for greater accountability of all parties, including guarantees of non-repetition.³

Sounds like it includes Hamas, right?

But that tiny footnote 3 refers to:

Articles 30–37 of the International Law Commission Draft Article on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, 2001. http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/9_6_2001.pdf, read with Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions Elaborated at p. 12 below, “Accountability For IHL Violations”

A draft article, never ratified into law, that only applies to states - and not Hamas!

The draft document says that states that illegally attack others must pay restitution, so AIDA is saying that israel's defending itself from Hamas rockets is against international law.

This sort of bias pervades the document. But one more example will do.

AIDA's recommendations include Israel giving Hamas the unlimited ability to build bunkers in Gaza and terror tunnels into Israel.

The report says:

To date, the international community has failed to put forth a plan of action that effectively pressures Israel to lift the blockade; choosing instead to work around it.

The clearest example of "working around the blockade‟ is the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM). Introduced just before the Cairo conference, the GRM was presented as away to address Israel‟s security concerns while allowing the import of cement and other construction materials.

Israel has often stated that the enforcement of the blockade is necessary for controlling the import of cement and other items that they label as "dual use‟. It should be noted that, under the Wassenaar Arrangement,82 dual-use items are defined based on clearly agreed criteria, in particular, their inclusion in the globally accepted munitions list and "the ability to make a clear and objective specification of the item‟ for military purposes. Aggregate, steel bars and cement (ABCs), which are essential for largescale reconstruction, are not listed as prohibited materials, yet Israel continues to define these and many other essential goods as "dual-use‟ in order to restrict their entry into Gaza.83

Since the materials that Hamas uses to build tunnels meant to kidnap Israelis and hide weapons caches underneath civilian structures are the same materials used to build buildings, AIDA is recommending that there be no restrictions on those materials.

Not surprisingly, the entire report does not mention tunnels once - even though they were a major military objective of Operation Protective Edge. And even though the entire purpose of those tunnels is to commit war crimes.

Instead of embracing a mechanism that allows Israel to restrict materials to terror groups, or even attempting to improve that mechanism, AIDA says that all restrictions of materials to Hamas be lifted.

Israeli civilians are not worthy of protection, except maybe from rockets as long as Israel doesn't target rockets that are launched near civilian buildings, which is why Hamas does exactly that with impunity.

AIDA also includes spurious research in its demand that Israel open up all crossings to and from Gaza:

Even if the GRM is able to keep up with the demand for ABCs, it is not clear if Kerem Shalom, the sole crossing for goods between Israel and Gaza, has the capacity to meet supply. According to one senior UN source, „Even if GRM works perfectly, the Kerem Shalom is not enough, even if it operates 24/7‟.⁸⁷

The source?

AIDA interview with UN official conducted in Jerusalem, 26 March 2014

No statistics, no numbers, no name. Some UN official makes a statement and it is accepted as fact.

Of course, one reason Israel has created the huge Kerem Shalom complex was to ensure its security while making it large enough to supply all of Gaza's needs should it need to. But AIDA didn't ask Israeli officials to give them any statistics on its capacity and growth potential, instead relying on an anonymous UN official. Which they footnoted as if there was any credibility to his opinion.

This is what the entire report is like. It pretends to be fair but its bias is obvious if you scratch the surface.

Haaretz columnist praises obscure anti-Israel conference - without revealing his conflict of interest

From Gideon Levy at Haaretz:

...A completely unusual event was taking place at the National Press Club. At a conference on Friday titled “The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the U.S.? Is It Good for Israel?,” cosponsored by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, remarks the likes of which are rarely heard in the United States were made.

Attendees included members of the U.S. Congress, former diplomats and intelligence officials, Palestinian student leaders, Jewish activists from the left and academics. This was not the Saban Forum, nor the AIPAC Policy Conference: This was the other America. “Welcome to another Israeli-occupied territory: Washington,” someone on the stage half-joked. At a time of a new zenith in Israeli interference in the U.S. capital and a new and inconceivable nadir in American groveling before Israel, the anger, the insistence, the fear and perhaps also the hatred of the few was heard clearly at the conference. If their voice is set to grow, then Israelis should be aware of it.

...Paul Findley, 93, a Republican U.S. Representative from Illinois (from 1961-1983), mentioned a senior diplomat friend of his who knew it was impossible to criticize Israel to the secretary of state through the usual channels, only in one-on-one conversations. There are hundreds of people in the Administration whose salaries are paid by the U.S. taxpayer and who believe their sole mission is to defend Israel, even by destroying freedom of expression, Findley added. His voice shook when he said the conference was a rare opportunity to express such ideas. He spoke of the paralyzing fear of criticizing Israel, lest one be labeled an anti-Semite. It’s not the politicians who run this country; it’s the lobbyists, including the Jewish lobby, Findley said. His remarks were echoed by Nick Rahall, who served as a Democratic U.S. Representative from West Virginia for 38 years and who said American democracy had been hijacked by wealthy businessmen like Sheldon Adelson.

Paul R. Pillar, formerly a senior member of the U.S. intelligence community, explained in a brilliant lecture the advantages of the nuclear agreement with Iran, and argued that Israel’s opposition to it stemmed from the fear that, in its wake, the occupation would become the main issue.

There is, as far as I can tell, there was no English-language* news coverage of this conference anywhere except in this column by Levy in Haaretz. The videos of the conference do not show the size of the crowd so we don't know how many people actually showed up; I would be surprised if more than fifty people attended based on the sound of the applause on the videos and the size of the venue.

But Levy didn't mention a salient fact:

Levy was one of the honored speakers at this anti-Israel hatefest.

Yes, Levy's effusive praise was for a conference which highlighted his own speech there!

This conflict of interest would be required to be revealed in any normal journalistic outlet. But - this is Ha'aretz, where the normal rules for journalism do not apply.

Ha'aretz' ethical standards are as high as their editorial standards.

*While there wasn't any English-language coverage, Arab newspapers gleefully quoted Levy's column "reporting" that former members of Congress say that the Jewish lobby controls America.

Once again, Haaretz has contributed to worldwide antisemitism.