Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

07/07 Links Pt2: EU negotiator on Gaza resolution is married to UN inquiry member; RyanAir €30 to Eilat

From Ian:

EU official who negotiated on UN Gaza resolution is married to UN inquiry team member

A European Union official involved in negotiating on behalf of the EU over the text of Friday’s UN Human Rights Council resolution that condemned Israel for last summer’s Gaza War is married to a staff member of the UNHRC commission that investigated the war.
The link between EU policy officer Jérôme Bellion-Jourdan, who was tasked with reviewing the Gaza war report and helping advise EU representatives on how to vote on it, and McGowan Davis Commission staffer Sara Hamood was known to the EU but not made public.
David Harris, the head of the American Jewish Committee, protested what he called a “conflict of interest.” Harris told The Times of Israel on Monday that he took particular exception to the failure of the EU to disclose the marital connection between one of its key officials involved in dealing with the UNHRC report and a UNHRC staffer who worked for the commission.
Only on Tuesday, in response to a Times of Israel question, did the EU publicly acknowledge the connection for the first time. It denied there was a conflict of interest. (h/t Yenta Press)

9 Successful Anti-Academic BDS Strategies to Defeat Academic BDS

In recent weeks and months, I have watched academics, students, major donors and Israel advocacy organization leaders in Israel and in the Diaspora try to counter the growing menace of both overt and silent academic boycotts. Several well meaning, but misguided, efforts are apparent to me, as one who had significant success in helping Israeli scholars and academic institutions thwart academic boycotts from Europe, Canada, South Africa and elsewhere the mid-2000s, long before American Jewish leaders believed there was a crisis.
I would like to share some successful strategies based on successes of the past, prior to BDS reaching America’s shores, to the relative newcomers to this struggle, since this has been an ongoing international struggle since 2003 when a UK faculty union first started boycott campaigns against targeted Israeli universities. My suggestions fly in the face of the way most big donors and mainline Jewish groups operate, but these are ways which have deflated academic BDS before and could once again be successful.
1) Develop anti-academic BDS strategies around academic principles and not ideological pro-Israel strategies. There is precedent for this from such prestigious groups as the American Association of University Professors whose anti-academic boycott position is articulate and clear as well as the statement crafted by Alan Dershowitz, myself, Nobel Laureates Steven Weinberger and Roger Kornberg and a committee of distinguished academics serving the now-defunct, but very successful, SPME BDS Task Force which was signed by 44 Nobel Laureates.

Clinton issues missives against Israel boycott movement

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton expressed concern regarding efforts to boycott Israel in letters to Jewish leaders, calling for legislative action to support the Jewish state.
Writing to Israeli tycoon Haim Saban and Jewish communal leader Malcolm Hoenlein, Clinton asked for their help in devising a plan to counter the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
“I am seeking your advice on how we can work together […] to reverse this trend with information and advocacy,” the former secretary of state wrote in identical letters last week.
Clinton said she was concerned by attempts to compare Israeli policies to South Africa’s apartheid regime, which was successfully boycotted by the world community in the 1980s in a campaign seen as an inspiration for Israel boycott advocates.
“Particularly at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise across the world — especially in Europe — we need to repudiate forceful efforts to malign and undermine Israel and the Jewish people,” she wrote.

Hillary: George Soros is NO Friend of Israel

While Hillary Clinton is claiming that she will be better for Israel than President Obama was, its noteworthy that George Soros, the world’s most dangerous billionaire donated $1 Million this week to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC dedicated to supporting Hillary Clinton in her Presidential bid. Soros is someone who has long supported causes which are harmful to the State of Israel.
Soros is a prominent donor to J Street, and made a speech in front of the Jewish Funders Network where he said “European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States.” He has said that “America is the gravest threat to world freedom” and generally stands against many Western interests.
Let’s review further what George Soros did during World War II which has sparked controversy, courtesy of an interview on ‘60 Minutes’
Former United States Senator Joe Lieberman has said that Soros’s views on America are “so negative, so critical, and so often anti-American.” Simply, this man who is a major funder of Hillary is no friend of Israel. Hillary must dis-associate from the world’s most dangerous billionaire.

The double standards of Gaza and Yemen continue

The NYT reports that more civilians have now been killed in Yemen this year than were killed last year in Gaza, even according to the UN's inflated Gaza figures:

Yet Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, which flatly and repeatedly declared Israel's actions in Gaza last year to be violations of the laws of war, are still reluctant to say the same about Saudi Arabia.

I've previously shown comparisons of how HRW described Israel in much harsher and categorical terms when reporting on airstrikes then they did for Saudi Arabia. But even this past week, HRW and Amnesty continued to put caveats around calling Saudi actions illegal.

HRW:

While many coalition airstrikes were directed at legitimate military targets in the city, Human Rights Watch identified several attacks that appeared to violate international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, and resulted in numerous civilian deaths and injuries.

Coalition attacks struck at least six residential houses not being used for military purposes. One attack killed 27 members of a single family, including 17 children. The airstrikes also hit at least five markets for which there was no evidence of military activity. Aerial attacks on an empty school and a crowded petrol station appear also to have violated the laws of war.

Amnesty:

These eight cases investigated by Amnesty International must be independently and impartially investigated as possible disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks. The findings of any investigation must be made public, and those suspected of responsibility for serious violations of the laws of war must be brought to justice in fair trials.

On the other hand, Amnesty declared after only a couple of weeks of the Gaza war that Israel was guilty of "serious violations of international humanitarian law [and] serious human rights abuses" as it called on the US and other countries to suspend all shipments of weapons to Israel.

In both Yemen and Gaza, these NGOs do not have access to information from the army commanders have, and that information si essential to knowing whether there were violations of the laws of armed conflict. When Amnesty and HRW flatly declare Israel violated those laws, they are lying. But when Saudi Arabia acts with less precision, less care and more lethality, suddenly these organizations are sticklers for accuracy.

It really is a sickening double standard.

(h/t Yoel)

As many of Elder’s readers will be aware, London lawyer Herbert Bentwich (1856-1932), the son of a jeweller and rabbi from Eastern Europe, was an early and lifelong Zionist, active in, among other organisations, Chovevei Zion and – until he flounced out owing to a perceived snub – the English Zionist Federation. The uncle, incidentally, of Sir John Monash’s Australian mistress Lizzie Bentwitch [sic], he was involved in the talks at Whitehall that culminated in the Balfour Declaration.

His son, Norman de Mattos Bentwich (1883-1971), also a lawyer, authored a memoir of Herbert and an autobiography, as well as other works relevant to Zionism. From 1918-22 Norman was Legal Secretary to the British Military Administration in Palestine, and from 1922-29 Attorney-General in Mandate Palestine. Professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1932-51, Norman also served as Director of the League of Nations High Commission for Refugees from Germany (1933-35).

In my previous column on this site, I quoted from his article in the Jewish Chronicle of 31 December 1948, pertaining to Israel’s safekeeping of discarded Arab books. Below, as foreshadowed, I quote the remainder of the article, entitled “Arabs in Israel,” which is not as well-known as it might be.

In printing it, the Jewish Chronicle observed that the non-partisan "strictly factual account" was "a much needed corrective to the tendentious reports which the traducers of Jewry have so widely circulated".

Here’s what Norman Bentwich had to say, with no further comment from me, except in square brackets:

‘The attention of the world has been drawn to the plight of the half-million Arab refugees from Israeli territory and from Jerusalem. But little attention has been paid to the treatment of the 70,000 (or, according to later reports, 100,000) Arabs who have remained in Israel or who have returned to their homes. Yet the story is worth telling. For the young Israeli Government is setting an example of care for its minorities. As soon as it was constituted, it set up a special Ministry of Minorities with the function of securing equal rights for all citizens and freedom of religion, language, education, and culture. The Minister is a native-born Jew from Tiberias, from an Oriental family; he was for many years an officer in the Palestine Administration, first in the Police, and then a magistrate. Mr Shitreet* is at the moment also the Minister for Police, but he gives his heart and mind to his other portfolio.

[*Bechor (or Bekhor) Shitreet – sometimes transliterated Shitrit – was born in Tiberias in 1897 to a long-settled Sephardi family of Moroccan background. A rabbi by training, he taught in the Alliance Israélite Universelle school in Tiberias, joined the police in 1919, and became head of the Tel Aviv police force in 1927. A future Mapai Party member, he was a signatory to Israel's Proclamation of Independence, and from 1948 until 1966, the year before his death, he sat in successive Israeli Cabinets.]

Of the Arabs who are in Israeli territory, the majority are in the northern area. They live partly in towns: Haifa, 6,000; Acre, 4,000; Nazareth, 5,000; etc, and partly in the villages of the occupied territory of Western Galilee. In the south, three to four thousand are in Jaffa, a smaller number in Ramleh, and Lydda, which was captured in July, some thousands of Beduin [sic] in the Negev, who have given their promise of loyalty, and a few hundreds [sic] in the Jewish-controlled part of Jerusalem.

In the towns of mixed population and in places near the front line, the Arabs are restricted for security reasons to one area, and can only move outside it with a permit. In fact, they are still narrowly confined. In the villages they are much less restricted. The stress of war has led to the occupation of many Arab homes, which were quite deserted, and of whole quarters of outer Jerusalem. Those homes and quarters have been largely occupied by the new immigrants, who are entering the country with amazing rapidity. One of the tasks of the Conciliation Commission of the United Nations will be to aid in bringing about some settlement of the displaced persons of both nations.

The Ministry of Minorities is concerned with the well-being of the Arabs who did not flee, or who returned from flight, and with the assurance of their political, economic, and cultural rights. The Arabs who registered in the census will be entitled to vote in elections for the Constituent Assembly, and may, if they wish, have their own candidates and their own electoral list. So far, only the combined two Communist parties have put forward Arabs as well as Jews. In one municipality, Haifa, the Arabs still remain members of the Municipal Commission with the Jews, and in Nazareth an Arab magistrate has been appointed. Arabs who are willing to work on the roads or in other public enterprises are employed by the State, and receive the same wage as a Jew doing that kind of labour. The simple labourer gets a wage of nearly thirty shillings a day, which is far higher than anything he had in the days of the British Administration, even allowing for the great rise of prices. A few Arabs who are regarded as trustworthy are in the Israeli Army. The Ministry has been concerned in the last months to bring Arab port workers from Acre to Jaffa, where they are needed; and also to organise the Arab cultivators (fellahin) for the gathering of the orange crop. It has, too, encouraged other fellahin to cultivate vegetables, of which there has been a great scarcity in the country.

The Health Ministry, working with the Minority Ministry, has established a clinic for Arabs in the southern and northern areas, and has carried out recently a vaccination of all the Arab population in order to check an epidemic of smallpox which threatened. A few Arab doctors who remained in the country are employed; and there is a demand that more shall be given the opportunity.

Perhaps the most striking work in the Ministry is its effort to develop cultural life, in the midst of the uneasy truce, for the Arab population. It has already established some fifty primary schools in the towns and villages, with free education. A former Jewish Inspector of the Mandatory Education Department is in charge of the schools; another, an Oriental Jew, with a thorough knowledge of Arabic, assists him. The Ministry has also established one or two Arab clubs for reading and recreation, and has promoted a daily Arabic newspaper, El Yom (The Day). This is the first Arabic daily to appear in Israel. Several of the staff are Arabs, who have full freedom of expression; and some educated Arabs write to the Palestine Post, the English daily, voicing grievances about rent and employment, and the like…

It is notable that the proportion of Arabs to the total population of Israel (one-tenth) is about the same as the proportion of the Jews to the total population of Palestine in 1920, when the British Mandate was given. It is to be hoped that the protection and well-being of the minorities, which is inevitably conditioned by the circumstances of the war, will become more and more a constructive activity of the Government of Israel, and so prepare the way for happier relations. What is being done today is in striking contrast to the treatment of the Jewish minorities in Arab states.'

07/07 Links Pt1: The Iran Delusion - A Primer for the Perplexed; Obama has become Iran’s Lawyer

From Ian:

Michael Totten: The Iran Delusion: A Primer for the Perplexed

The chattering class has spent months bickering about whether or not the United States should sign on to a nuclear deal with Iran, and everyone from the French and the Israelis to the Saudis has weighed in with “no” votes. Hardly anyone aside from the Saudis, however, seems to recognize that the Iranian government’s ultimate goal is regional hegemony and that its nuclear weapons program is simply a means to that end.
The Middle East has five hot spots—or “shatter zones,” as Robert D. Kaplan called them in his landmark book, The Revenge of Geography—which are more prone to conflict than others, where borders are either unstable or porous, where central governments have a hard time keeping everything wired together, and where instability is endemic or chronic.
Gaza, where Hamas wages relentless rocket wars against Israel, is one such shatter zone. The Lebanese-Israeli border, where Hezbollah does the same on a much more terrifying scale, is another. Yemen, which is finally falling apart on an epic scale, has been one for decades. Syria and Iraq have merged into a single multinational shatter zone with more armed factions than anyone but the CIA can keep track of.
What do these shatter zones have in common? The Iranian government backs militias and terrorist armies in all of them. As Kaplan writes, “The instability Iran will cause will not come from its implosion, but from a strong, internally coherent nation that explodes outward from a natural geographic platform to shatter the region around it.”
That’s why Iran is a problem for American foreign policy makers in the first place; and that’s why trading sanctions relief for an international weapons inspection regime will have no effect on any of it whatsoever.

Has the Obama Administration Become Iran’s Lawyer?

The smart money here in Vienna is on the likelihood of a nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran being finalized at any moment. Maybe it will happen today with the White House showing the good manners to wait until after Americans have returned from their July 4 vacations to announce that they’ve cleared the way for Iran to get a bomb. Or maybe the Iranians will get the bomb in a little more than a decade, as the president of the United States has explained, but it will probably happen much sooner. And when the clerical regime does finally break out, the chances are they’re the Iranians will be the ones who are going to let the American public know because our elected officials seem to be keeping information from us and our allies when it comes to all things Iran.
Indeed, it looks like the Obama administration has become Iran’s lawyer. In both making Tehran’s case to U.S. allies (from the White House’s P5+1 negotiating partners, to Middle East friends like Israel and Saudi Arabia), and shaping public perception of Iranian actions, the White House has made itself an indispensable friend to the clerical regime. Iran doesn’t have to worry about justifying its behavior—like its failure to meet obligations under the interim nuclear agreement and its outright lies—because it knows the administration will do all the heavy lifting.
Consider how the White House has managed to explain away Iran’s illicit nuclear activities. In the first place, the Joint Plan of Action is a somewhat weak document. It fails to prohibit the sorts of things you might expect to be banned if Iran’s program was really “frozen,” like the White House says. For instance, even though there are UN security council resolutions regarding Iran’s procurement of parts and equipment for illicit nuclear work, the JPOA has sidestepped the issue. The resulting framework is that when the Iranians get caught violating those resolutions, the State Department can declare that Iran is not in technical violation of the JPOA.
There’s also the issue of Iran coming clean about its past nuclear activities in order to disclose the possible military dimensions of the program. Despite the fact that the Obama administration has repeatedly assured skeptics that Iran would address the question of PMDs, the IAEA has reported that Iran fails to address outstanding questions or allow inspections of certain sites. But since PMDs are not in the JPOA, the State Department can brush away such concerns.

Dennis Ross: On Iran, Worry About the Deal, Not the Deadline

Just as June 30 turned out not to be a true deadline for the Iranian nuclear talks, it would be wise to treat July 7 — the extended deadline — much the same way. The Obama administration should make clear that it is prepared to conclude a deal at any time, provided it is fully consistent with the framework understanding from April; anything less, and there will be no deal. If the Iranians insist on trying to walk back or redefine the framework understanding, they will not only stretch out the negotiations but will lead us to harden our own position and impose new conditions.
Taking such a stance is all the more critical now, with Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, seemingly laying down conditions that are inconsistent with the framework understanding — no access to military sites or scientists, immediate sanctions relief upon signing of the agreement, no limits on research and development, and rejection of any restrictions on its program lasting 10-12 years. Was the supreme leader signaling that he does not want a deal? Was he posturing so his negotiators could seek more concessions? Was he playing domestic politics and trying to assuage hard-line opponents of a deal?
My bet is on posturing. Of course, his revolutionary ideology and hostility toward the United States, as well as the reality that there are hard-line opponents of an agreement, mean that he might not only be posturing to influence the negotiations. It may, in fact, be difficult for him to conclude a deal. Still, Khamenei has allowed these negotiations to continue and permitted his negotiators — whom he continues to defend — to conclude the framework understanding. Clearly, he decided Iran has much to gain from an agreement. And the fact is that an agreement consistent with the framework understanding offers Iran a lot.

Egypt dictates that reporters don't use word "Islamic" when describing ISIS. David Cameron agrees.

CBS News reporter Alex Ortiz reveals on Twitter that Egypt's Foreign Ministry is imposing its nomenclature on reporters:

Egypt's Foreign Ministry issues foreign press corps a style guide for how we should describe terrorist groups. pic.twitter.com/AAn9MNcLxC
— Alex Ortiz (@azortiz) July 4, 2015

Ironically, Ortiz himself uses the word "terrorist groups" instead of the usual "militants" to describe ISIS, indicating that he is acquiescing to Egypt's demands to some extent.

Last week's attacks on the Egyptian army in the Sinai was generally described as being done by "militants" in the world media, only Egyptian and some Israeli media referred to the groups as "terrorist."

These are not only recommendations. Restrictions on press freedom are becoming Egyptian law.

Egypt Independent reports:

The draft anti-terrorism law approved by Egypt's cabinet last week includes "dangerous articles" which threaten media and press freedoms, the press syndicate said on Monday.

The syndicate's board discussed the draft law during a meeting on Monday, when it stressed that it stands by the armed forces in its fight against "terrorist attacks".

The cabinet passed the draft on Wednesday and referred it to the State Council, after militants in Sinai escalated their attacks on security forces in the peninsula.

The syndicate's board said in a statement issued after the meeting it would contact with other syndicates, political parties and civil society organisations to agree on a unified stance to "face the articles which restrict press freedoms" in the draft. The syndicate listed five articles in the draft as such.

Among the most controversial articles is Article 33, which punishes by a minimum of two years in prison the publishing of "false news or data" which contradict official data on "terrorist operations".

Heneidi said the article would come into effect only if four conditions are met: if the case is related to "terrorism", if it is deliberate, if it involves publishing false news, and if such news contradicts official data.

This means, for example, that if Egyptian forces kill civilians and blame terrorists, reporters could go to jail for reporting it.

Amazingly, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and other UK pols seem to agree with Egypt's anti-media mindset:

Prime Minister David Cameron recently joined the growing chorus of British politicians who argue that the name "Islamic State" is offensive to Muslims and should be banned from the English vocabulary.

During an interview with BBC Radio 4's "Today" program on June 29 — just days after a jihadist with links to the Islamic State killed 38 people (including 30 Britons) at a beach resort in Tunisia — Cameron rebuked veteran presenter John Humphrys for referring to the Islamic State by its name.

When Humphrys asked Cameron whether he regarded the Islamic State to be an existential threat, Cameron said:

"I wish the BBC would stop calling it 'Islamic State' because it is not an Islamic state. What it is is an appalling, barbarous regime. It is a perversion of the religion of Islam, and, you know, many Muslims listening to this program will recoil every time they hear the words 'Islamic State.'"

Humphrys responded by pointing out that the group calls itself the Islamic State (al-Dawlah al-Islamiyah, Arabic for Islamic State), but he added that perhaps the BBC could use a modifier such as "so-called" in front of that name.

Cameron replied: "'So-called' or ISIL [the acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] is better." He continued:

"But it is an existential threat, because what is happening here is the perversion of a great religion, and the creation of this poisonous death cult, that is seducing too many young minds, in Europe, in America, in the Middle East and elsewhere.
"And this is, I think, going to be the struggle of our generation. We have to fight it with everything that we can."

I have no problem with the media choosing to call Islamic terrorists "militants" but when governments start to tell the media what to do, then that is a major problem. Not only because of the intimidation that accompanies such demands, but also because readers will not know that the coverage is being slanted by the government. This happened countless times in Gaza, in Lebanon and elsewhere, and the media refusing to push back and publicize these efforts to muzzle them makes it complicit to some extent.

Bashing Israel? Amnesty has an app for that (update x2)

Tomorrow, Amnesty plans to officially release a graphical tool that has no purpose except to bash Israel.

From the leaked press release:

An investigative online tool mapping Israeli attacks in Gaza during the conflict of July and August 2014 has been unveiled by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture today. Its purpose is to help push for accountability for war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law.

The Gaza Platform enables the user to explore and analyse data about Israel’s 2014 military operation in Gaza. The preliminary data currently plotted on the Platform, which will be updated over the coming months, already highlights a number of patterns in the attacks by Israeli forces that indicate that grave and systemic violations were committed.

“The Gaza Platform is the most comprehensive record of attacks during the 2014 conflict to date. It allows us to piece together more than 2,500 individual attacks, illustrating the vast scale of destruction caused by Israel’s military operations in Gaza during the 50-day war last summer,” said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“By revealing patterns rather than just presenting a series of individual attacks, the Gaza Platform has the potential to expose the systematic nature of Israeli violations committed during the conflict. Our aim is for it to become an invaluable resource for human rights investigators pushing for accountability for violations committed during the conflict.”

The platform is a map of Gaza where you can graphically zoom in on many Israeli strikes, or search for names or specific types of attacks.

The data comes from PCHR, Al Mezan Center and Amnesty.

We've already documented many cases where all of those groups defined people killed in Gaza last summer as civilians even when terror groups have claimed them as fighters.

Which means that this is putting a pretty face on biased, flawed and often lying data.

But its slick interface means that causal users will not doubt that the actual research behind it is based on lies.

For example, Amnesty says that Israel struck the house of Alaa Barda without saying that he was a Hamas terrorist.

And the only purpose for the huge investment by Amnesty into this project is to flatly accuse Israel of war crimes - something that even the biased UNHRC Davis commission was careful not to say:

While a vast amount of multimedia information, including testimony, photos, videos and satellite imagery, is still being processed, the Gaza Platform currently shows that more than 270 Israeli attacks were carried out using artillery fire during the 2014 conflict, killing more than 320 civilians. The repeated use of artillery, an imprecise explosive weapon, in densely populated civilian areas constitutes indiscriminate attacks that should be investigated as war crimes.

The press release also includes this howler:

“We see this project as a first step towards more effective conflict monitoring efforts, supported by collaborative platforms that facilitate the sharing of data between witnesses on the ground, organizations, and citizens worldwide.”

Yet Israel is always the first and usually only target of these "innovative" tools. Will Amnesty do the same research into Saudi airstrikes in Yemen? Of course not, because they don't put the same resources into Yemen, and it is more dangerous to be there than it was to be in Gaza last summer.

Unless Amnesty incorporates data that comes from the Meir Amit Terrorism Center and from the IDF that responds to these accusations of indiscriminate attacks, it is nothing bu a propaganda tool. Amnesty is not interested in the truth - all the data comes from biased, anti-Israel sources and there is no mechanism to impartially investigate them. As Amnesty itself says, they have already determined that Israel is guilty, now they are working hard to manufacture slick presentations to fool people into thinking that their Israel bashing is based on real science and statistics and not hate.

One more thing: earlier this year, Amnesty decided that they can't mount a campaign against antisemitism because, well, they don't have the resources to campaign on everything. But they have the money and time to spend on a slick anti-Israel application that is based on data that is inherently and provably biased.

(h/t Daniel)

UPDATE:
Amnesty's tool says:

At approximately 21:00, an Israeli warplane launched a missile at a number of Palestinian civilians in Khuza’a village, east of Khan Yunis, killing 2 of them: Mohammed Barham Abu Draz, 24; and ‘Essam Ibrahim Abu Ismail, 23.

This is Mohammed Barham Abu Draz, a member of the Al Qassam Brigades:

UPDATE 2: Here's Amnesty's video touting the product:

Their assertion that the Gaza Platform "proves' Israeli war crimes is another lie. It adds no new information to what has been known and it parrots flawed information.

The only thing it proves is that Amnesty is knowingly dishonest.

Yesterday, a small group of Jews ascended to the Temple Mount, most sacred spot in Judaism. A huge group of Muslims chanted and blocked their way from going beyond the Moroccan (Rambam) Gate and police forced them to exit immediately through the neighboring Chain Gate.

Today, the Temple Mount is closed to all Jews until July 20, "Eid al-Fitr.".

Some Arab media say that it is closed to all non-Muslims, others say it is closed to Jews only. The Arab media freely admits that the Muslims were "deployed" to stop all Jews from entering the Mount.

While the area of the Jewish Temples is now Judenrein, Hamas terrorists and their supporters are free to visit.

On Friday, Hamas flags were prominently displayed on the Temple Mount without a word of protest from any "moderate" Muslims.

The ban on Jews corresponds with the beginning of a three-week period that Jews mourn for the destroyed Temples that have been replaced with Muslim supremacist structures.

People who pretend to support peace in the Holy Land are consistently silent about the discrimination against Jews and open support for terrorism on Judaism's holiest spot.

To them, "peace" means that Jews may not assert any of their rights while extremist Muslims must be allowed to use intimidation and threats to impose their antisemitic agenda..

PLO ambassador claims "Protocols" are real, says no such thing as Jewish people

This is PLO Ambassador to Chile, Mr. Imad Nabil Jada'a, speaking on May 15 in Santiago to the "Conference for Peace in Palestine and Israel."

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" PLO Ambassador to Chile, Mr. Imad Nabil Jada'a, June 2015 from ISGAP on Vimeo.

Until 1896 when a group of academic intellectuals, financial advisers, majority being non-Jewish Europeans, decided to create the Zionist movement with one pretext/excuse; the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people. Although the truth is that this (the goal) is to protect their plans of dominating life in the entire planet. According to the book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” published in 1923, discovered by Lenin after the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was over. In that book they mention the destruction of the moralities of other religions. In that book they put plans of the manipulation of all the apparatus of the financial, economic and industrial of the entire world. They discuss about the manipulation of the local political forces from all different countries.

Apparently his use of the term "non-Jewish Europeans" is invoking the Khazar myth.

More:

"Denial of Jewish Existence" PLO Ambassador to Chile, Mr. Imad Nabil Jada'a, June 2015 from ISGAP on Vimeo.

About the hatred we have against the Jewish people. As Palestinians, first, we don’t have hatred. Second we don’t recognize the existence of the Jewish people-there is no Jewish people. This is not my personal analysis. Here we can refer to the Jewish Israeli professor from the University of Tel Aviv, Dr. Shlomo Sand, in his book “The Invention of the Jewish people.” A Jew with Israeli passport announces that, the so-called Jewish nation is a made up invention. Because a religion cannot be a people.

I have previously documented that denial of Jewish peoplehood is official PLO policy.

I've also proven Shlomo Sand to be a liar.

So there you have it: "Palestine"'s ambassador to Chile is an antisemite who believes that the Protocosl of the Elders of Zion was a blueprint for Khazars to take over the world and that Israel is following that blueprint.

Note that this happened in May, and no one in the audience thought the ambassador's Jew-hatred was a problem.

(h/t Josh K)

07/06 Links Pt2: Oren’s Assault on the Liberal Narrative on Israel; Gay Muslim Zionist Experiment

From Ian:

Michael Oren’s Assault on the Liberal Narrative on Israel

The last six years of Israeli-American relations have been characterized by both a deepening security partnership and—at the same time—acrimonious, occasionally personal, and often public disagreements on political issues.
A prevailing orthodoxy has emerged to explain this, one that creates very little dissonance for Americans whose views are basically liberal and not explicitly anti-Israel. The orthodoxy holds that the tensions between Washington and Jerusalem are the fault of an Israeli government that prioritizes settlements over peace and interferes in domestic American politics in an attempt to sabotage a diplomatic opening with Iran. The explanation for this is found in Israel’s “increasing rightward shift” and the personality of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is an orthodoxy championed by the likes of New Yorker editor David Remnick and assumed implicitly by The New York Times.
This orthodoxy is easy for American liberals to accept, particularly the bulk of American Jewish liberals. It also has a veneer of credibility, as Israel’s government has at times appeared to prefer policies that privilege the settlement enterprise over Israel’s more pressing security needs. At other times, its prime minister has publicly acted in ways that make him seem a bit too close to some of President Obama’s nuttier domestic opponents.
But this is not the entire story or even most of it, and the memoirs of Michael Oren, who was Israel’s ambassador to Washington during the crucial years of 2009-2013, will force a complete rethink of the orthodox narrative.

There is no room for surprise anymore as this administration moves forward with its opening to Iran and its risky gamble on the Iranian nuclear program. Pro-Obama, pro-Israel liberals have lived in a dissonance-free zone as long as they embraced the prevailing orthodoxy of Netanyahu’s malfeasance. Oren’s book does not in any way exonerate Netanyahu from responsibility for allowing the settlement issue to limit Israel’s policy options or from misunderstanding a changing American domestic political landscape. But no serious reader from the camp that Oren is trying to address can close this book and still be free of that dissonance.
If that dissonance sparks a more robust and honest conversation about U.S.-Israel relations, and in particular about the problems of the last six years, this book will have made an enormous contribution. If it is mistakenly received as an anti-Obama Right-wing screed, embraced by the President’s conservative foes and caricatured and dismissed by everyone else, we will all be poorer for it.

JPost Editorial: Targeting Petrenko

Even before it was announced that Russian-born Kirill Petrenko was appointed to take over in 2018 from Sir Simon Rattle as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Petrenko’s Jewishness became a hot issue in Germany.
The notion that Europe has not rid itself of its ancient hate generates reactions of indignant scorn. The corollary suggestion that European anti-Semitism is not only rearing its ugly head again but actually grows by leaps and bounds is met with near-hysterical righteous resentment.
This is nowhere more so than in Germany – smug and intolerant of reminders of its past. Apart from scant obligatory lip-service from its leaders, the German mainstream is “fed up” with Jewish annoyances. From its point of view, the slate is wiped clean and Germans have no cause to be apologetic in any sense.
No one in the German political hierarchy much bothers anymore to remonstrate against pro-Arab demonstrators who shout “Jews to the gas” (as in an Essen rally last summer, replete with Nazi salutes). This is either blamed on Muslims (who presumably are not bound by the same codes as the rest of society) or on ruffians who are painted as the unrepresentative dregs of society.
But those who chose to target Petrenko’s Jewishness come from the urbane cultural elite, from the refined ranks of those who presumably know better. The Petrenko case exposed the nasty dark underside that belies the spic-and span German façade.
That is particular cause for concern, unsurprising though it is to anyone who follows the changes in German attitudes both to Jews in general and to the Jewish state in particular. The two go together and are indeed inseparable.
The perception of Israel is tinged with precisely the same bigotry as evinced toward individual Jews such as Petrenko.

Orim Shimshon: The Gay Muslim Zionist Experiment

I decided to go to the gay parade with an agenda. Since the mainstream media spreads lies about Israel and hardly mentions the persecution of minorities in the Islamic world particularly gays, I seized the opportunity to take the chance and go with a sign that read “I’m a gay Muslim. Remember two things. Islamic world = no gay rights. Israel = 100% gay rights.” Needless to say, I was a little nervous about the presence of the police. However the highlight was the wonderful response I got from most by passersby and attendees – with the exception of few hypocritical anti-Israel bigots who took issues with my Israeli flag.

The Gay Muslim Zionist Experiment

AFP reports:

Hamas authorities yesterday reopened the offices of the Gaza Strip’s only mobile telephone company, five days after closing them on accusations of tax-dodging.

A statement from attorney general Ismail Jaber’s office said that he had “ordered the reopening” of telecom provider Jawwal in Gaza City, but it did not give reasons.

“All Jawwal offices and stores have reopened,” a company executive said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Police in the coastal territory, which Hamas controls, shut Jawwal’s Gaza City office on Tuesday and posted notices saying the closure for “tax evasion” was on Jaber’s orders.

Jawwal director Ammar al-Eker said in a statement yesterday that his company “always met its fiscal and financial obligations”.

Some observers have said that Jawwal is probably paying taxes to the Palestinian Authority and not the Hamas authorities in Gaza.

Fatah media, however, claim that Hamas used this as a pretext to have Jawwal allow Hamas to spy on the phones of Gazans.

Unnamed sources said that Jawwal agreed to cooperate absolutely with Hamas in "security and criminal cases in the Gaza Strip" and to grant Hamas access to phone records for those who may be affiliated with rival factions to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The sources also claim that Jawwal agreed to pay millions of dollars to Hamas under the pretext of buying medicines for the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

From Iran's PressTV:

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan says the West, including the US, is not safe from the threats of the Israeli regime.

The Iranian official described the Tel Aviv regime as a symbol of terrorism, infanticide, occupation, aggression and genocide.

Dehqan made the remarks on Monday ahead of International Quds Day, which falls on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

He said that the Israeli regime, backed by the US, seeks to create divisions, wars and bloodshed among Muslims to disunite them, stressing that the upcoming Quds Day rallies can foil Israeli plots and further foster unity among Muslims.

Today, the bloodthirsty Zionist regime, which is in possession of hundreds of nuclear warheads as well as weapons of mass destruction, is the “world’s center of evil, espionage and warmongering” and neither Islamic countries nor the Western ones and even the US will be safe from its threat, the Iranian official said.

Yes, this comes from a country whose parliament chanted "Death to America" as recently as two weeks ago.

Dehqan was also reportedly personally involved in Iran's taking hostages from the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and in the creation of Hezbollah, possibly even involved in the murders of hundreds of US soldiers in Beirut. His appointment as defense minister was seen as an indication that Iran's global strategy is to continue to use terror and proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen to achieve their goals to achieve global hegemony.

Meanwhile, Israel celebrated America's Independence Day.

Dehgan's statements cannot be dismissed as another joke, though. Clearly Tehran sees the intense desire of the White House to ally with Iran as a means to widen the rift between the US and Israel. Propagadists know that planting seeds today could pay off in ten or twenty years.

After all, many of the things accepted as fact today sounded equally absurd a few decades ago.

Propaganda is a strategic weapon, and the West is as vulnerable to it as it is clueless in how to use it for its own purposes.

07/06 Links Pt1: Will Samantha Power Be the First American UN Ambassador to Abandon Israel?

From Ian:

Shmuley Boteach: Will Samantha Power Be the First American UN Ambassador to Abandon Israel?

Last week, mega-philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, co-founder of Birthright Israel, which has brought 500,000 young Jews to Israel, joined with our organization The World Values Network, in a full-page New York Times ad about Ambassador Samantha Power. In the ad Mr. Steinhardt reminded the Ambassador of her commitment at her Senate confirmation hearings, “I will stand up for Israel and work tirelessly to defend it” at the United Nations.
At the AIPAC Annual Policy Conference in Washington, DC, in March, Samantha avowed, “It is a false choice to tell Israel that it has to choose between peace on the one hand, and security on the other. The United Nations would not ask any other country to make that choice, and it should not ask it of Israel.”
Ambassador Power, of course, was correct – security is the foundation of any sustainable peace framework in the Middle East. To its credit, the United States has long stood for justice and served as an essential check against overreach, anti-Semitism, and double standards by Arab and European nations at the UN.
Yet statements in April by Ambassador Power refusing to rule out supporting UN resolutions that target Israel, added to recent claims by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, have raised serious questions about the specter of betrayal by the United States and Ambassador Power during the UN General Assembly in September. Reports have emerged that France plans to put forth a resolution before the UN Security Council that will call for an immediate resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with a hard-cap of 18 months for a final deal. Under the French proposal, if no deal is reached in 18 months, the UN would recognize the Palestinian state, effectively granting legitimacy to an organization that has consistently proven incompetent, corrupt, hostile to democratic values, and openly supportive of terrorism. While the global Jewish community has come to expect little from France, Hamdallah said that France and the U.S. are “coordinating” together on the diplomatic catastrophe. There also exists the possibility that should Israel refuse to accept a UN Security Council Resolution authorizing a timetable for the unilateral creation of a Palestinian State, economic sanctions could be levied against the Jewish State.

Khaled Abu Toameh: When Palestinians Die in Jail

Three Palestinian men were found dead in their jail cells in the West Bank and Gaza Strip this past week.
But their stories did not attract the attention of the international media or human rights organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Nor was their case brought to the attention of the United Nations or the International Criminal Court (ICC).
By contrast, the case of 17-year-old Mohamed Kasba, who was shot dead north of Jerusalem by an Israeli army officer as he attacked the officer's car with stones, received widespread coverage in the Western media.
The UN even rushed to condemn the killing of Kasba, and called for an "immediate end" to violence and for everyone to keep calm. "This reaffirms the need for a political process aiming to establish two states living beside each other safely and peacefully," said UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Maldenov.
The UN official, needless to say, made no reference to the deaths that occurred in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas jails. He did not even see a need to express concern over the deaths or call for an investigation. Like the mainstream media in the West, the UN chooses to look the other way when Palestinians torture or kill fellow Palestinians.
The reason the case of the three detainees will not interest anyone in the international community is because the men did not die in an Israeli jail. Instead, the three men died while being held in Palestinian-controlled jails.
Had the three men died in Israeli detention, their names would have most likely appeared on the front pages of most leading Western newspapers. The families of the three men would have also been busy talking to Western journalists about Israeli "atrocities" and "human rights violations."

IsraellyCool: Proof 17-Year-Old Killed By IDF Was A Terrorist

Last week, I posted about the death of 17-year-old palestinian Muhammad al-Casba, killed while attempting to murder Col. Israel Shomer. Brian later posted about the Irish Times skewed coverage of his death, which referred to him as merely a “17-year-old Palestinian protester.”
A number of Israeli sites have since posted some photos purporting to be of the young “protester”, which if correct, show what type of “protesting” he was involved in. Not to mention what kind of future he had lined up for himself.
My initial reaction when seeing such photos is “Is this really proof? After all, this is an Israeli site. Seeing these photos on a palestinian, Arab, Muslim site – now that would constitute proof.”

Now compare to the photos of the young man with the gun and the intense look of hatred in his eyes.
I think we can all agree this 17-year-old was a terrorist whose aim was to murder, and not merely a young protester trying to ruin someone’s car.
Thank you to the big-mouth Israel haters for confirming what we already suspected.