Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

07/21 Links Pt1: Amb. Prosor: "When the villain is laughing, you know something is wrong"

From Ian:

Amb. Prosor: "When the villain is laughing, you know something is wrong"

Following the Security Council meeting on Non-proliferation (Iran), Israel`s ambassador to the UN, Prosor held a press briefing:
Ladies and Gentleman,
Today, you have awarded a great prize to the most dangerous country in the world.
I hate to be the one who spoils the party, but someone has to say that the emperor has no clothes. Today is a very sad day. Not only for the state of Israel, but for the entire world, even if at this moment, the international community refuses to see the tragedy.
It is a sad day because the international community is taking steps to lift the sanctions on Iran without first waiting to see if Iran complies with even a single obligation in the agreement.
It is a sad day because this agreement gives Iran a seat on the commission which will decide whether or not it has violated the agreement. This is like allowing a criminal to sit on the jury which will decide his own fate.
You haven’t changed Iran’s destructive ideology, which goes beyond proliferating deadly weapons and funding terror.

Amb. Prosor's Press Statement on Iran

There Is No Iran Deal: West, Iran Differ Sharply over Terms

The United Nations Security Council voted 15-0 on Monday to pass Resolution 2231, which endorses the Iran nuclear deal–“the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] signed in Vienna by the five permanent members of the Council, plus Germany, the European Union and Iran.” However, there are already sharp disagreements between Iran and the rest of the world as to what that deal actually means.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry claims, for example, that the deal does not actually cover its ballistic missile program, as advertised. Restrictions on ballistic missiles are to be ended after eight years, according to the JCPOA. However, Iran says, according to the Times of Israel, that the UN Security Council resolution and the deal do not apply to its own missiles because they “have not been conceived to carry nuclear weapons.”
Similarly, there is confusion as to whether the deal prevents Iran from accelerating its nuclear program after the deal expires, or whether that is just an option. Such (voluntary) restrictions would have to be approved under the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the Iranian parliament is supposed to ratify, but there is no deadline for it to do so; it could wait until deal expires, in theory.
Alan Dershowitz, who has worked on UN resolutions on the Middle East, suggests there may not have been a “meeting of the minds” on the Iran deal at all: “Is it a postponement for an uncertain number of years — 8, 10, 13, 14, 15 — of Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon? Or is it an assurance that ‘Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon?'”

Mudar Zahran: Will Israel save the world a third time?

As a Jordanian-Palestinian politician, I and many other Arab politicians and decision-makers have come to learn that Israel is vital for our own existence. In fact, Israel has saved us, and the world, from two global disasters.
The first time Israel saved us all was at the beginning of the 1980s, when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was one of the West's strongest Arab allies. He was against the Islamic Republic of Iran and was viewed as a necessary asset for Western governments and as a regional balance against Iran's might. The West was in love with Saddam to the point of allowing him a nuclear program, which he obtained with France's help.
Just as Iran does today, Saddam said his nuclear program was for "peaceful and civilian use." Saddam's nuclear reactor was built with the approval of the United States. Israel, however, did not buy Saddam's claims, and in 1981 sent its pilots on a mission -- which they were unlikely to return from -- to destroy Saddam's nuclear reactor. As reports confirmed, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was enraged by Israel's actions while President Ronald Reagan's first reaction to the news was, "Boys will be boys." Arab and Western governments condemned Israel's strike and some even spoke of action at the U.N. Unsurprisingly, Western media outlets grilled Israel.
Just nine years later, Saddam occupied Kuwait, threatened the entire Gulf region, and openly spoke of controlling "the Arabs' oil wealth," which could have brought the West to its knees. The U.S. and many Western states had to risk blood and money to get Saddam out of Kuwait, but they did not fear a nuclear attack from him or that he might use dirty bombs. Therefore Operation Desert Storm went smoothly. Had Saddam still had his nuclear program, the entire situation and its outcome could have been different. In fact, Saddam might have stayed in power until today were it not for Israel taking the risk of destroying his nuclear program.
In short, Israel saved the world from a power freak who came close to getting nuclear weapons.

According to the Action Group of Palestinians from Syria, so far 2,910 Palestinians have been killed in that conflict.

Hundreds died under torture in Syrian prisons. Scores haven't been heard from since they were abducted. Dozens of medical personnel have been killed.

You wouldn't know any of this from reading the mainstream media or "human rights" organizations' social media feeds.

But if Israel approves a single step of a multi-step process that may one day result in a Jew being allowed to build a house in his historic homeland, the media and NGOs get very interested.

Which goes to show that the world doesn't care about Palestinians. It cares about finding reasons to single out Jews.

Palestinians are not treated as victims - but as ammunition.

We've seen this pattern many times before - internal Palestinian issues stop fuel from going to the Gaza power plant, and people will find a way to blame Israel.

Gaza's sole power plant will stop running Monday evening asit is unable to cover taxes imposed by the national unity government, Gaza's energy authority said.
The unity government waved the tax in a show of good will in the four months to the end of Ramadan, but the Gazan energy authority said in a statement Monday that since the tax has been reinstated it can no longer afford to keep the plant running.

The energy authority added that it had only been able to cover the cost of maintaining the plant during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan and the Eid holiday by borrowing from local companies and taking loans from banks.

The tax imposed on fuel before it is sold to Gaza amounts to a 50 percent price hike on the price of fuel per liter, or 3.5 shekels ($0.91), the statement said.

But they still have to lie:

Although the power plant inside Gaza has a potential output of 120 MW, it has been unable to produce that much due to Israeli restrictions on fuel imports as part of an eight-year blockade.

Wrong. There are no Israeli restrictions on fuel. None at all.

Amnesty told me the same lie a couple of years ago:

When I asked [Amnesty researcher Deborah Hyams] specifically about why Amnesty was calling for Israel to lift restrictions on fuel when there are in fact no restrictions, she said that there are restrictions on some types of fuel. In fact, she told me, it was because Israel refused to provide industrial fuel for Gaza's power plant that Hamas was forced to smuggle regular diesel from Egypt. She did admit that price was a factor.

I explained to her my understanding that Hamas actually retooled the power plant to handle regular diesel smuggled from Egypt because they didn't want to pay Israel and they felt that with the Muslim Brotherhood in power they would have an unlimited supply of subsidized, cheap fuel from Egypt.

Hyams insisted that Israel has restrictions, today, on industrial diesel to Gaza. That is not my understanding and I told her that I've read COGAT reports since at 2009 where they said that they can pump heavy duty diesel for the power plant and Hamas has refused.

Immediately afterwards I called up Guy Inbar from the IDF COGAT unit and asked him if there were any restrictions on any specific type of fuel to Gaza - industrial, petroleum, cooking gas, anything. His answer was an unequivocal "no." The reason Gaza has no fuel is the PA/Hamas disagreements, not because of Israel.

I'm waiting for the staged photos of Gaza kids with candles with captions that blame Israel.

Amnesty outdoes Hamas in calling Gazans "civilians"

Amnesty International's Gaza Platform allows one to see, quite easily, that its database is worthless.

Here is the sum total of the number of people Amnesty says it has documented as being killed in their "research" and how many of them are civilian.

Amnesty is claiming that they have documentation from PCHR and Al Mezan of 1,991 deaths, of whom 1,667 are civilian - and only 324 militants.

Yet Amnesty knows this is a lie. They themselves tweet the (still wrong) UN figures as authoritative:

That's 205 people that this "research tool" claims as civilian who are actually militants, even according to the UN!

That is one large discrepancy, made even larger by the fact that Amnesty was only able to document 1991 deaths (although some of them are duplicates). In the end, the UN says that 65% of the casualties were civilian (out of 2251 total) while Amnesty's tool bizarrely claims 84%!

Even more incredible is that Hamas has admitted that 400 of their members were killed. Islamic Jihad admitted 135 more. That's 200 more militants admitted killed than Amnesty's application confidently reports. (Both those numbers are way too low.) The Gaza Platform is more biased in its casualty figures than terror groups are.

The reality, as documented by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, is that (based on their latest figures) about 51% of those killed were civilian, a spectacularly low number for urban fighting where the terrorists hide in and fight from civilian houses and mosques and schools.

This is yet more proof, as if more were needed, that the Gaza Platform is based on flawed, biased data.

07/20 Links Pt2: Hamas-linked UK group celebrated kidnapping of teens, today set to win UN status

From Ian:

UN Watch: Hamas-linked UK group celebrated kidnapping of teens, today set to win UN status

UN Watch revealed today that the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), a Hamas-linked group vying to win UN status today, celebrated the Hamas kidnapping of three Israeli teens, cheered Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, and threatened “punishment” for PLO President and Hamas rival Mahmoud Abbas.
Tweets from the official account of Tarek Hamoud, executive director of the London-based PRC, include:
1. PRC Cheers Hamas Kidnapping of Israeli Teens
Above: On July 14, 2014, two days after the Hamas kidnapping of three Israeli teens, PRC posted this symbol of three fingers to cheer the abduction of the boys who were later discovered to have been murdered.
A group that celebrates kidnappings violates the peace and human rights principles of the UN Charter and should not be granted NGO status.
[UPDATE: PRC chief Tarek Hamoud has just deleted this tweet today after this blog post was published.]

PMW: PA honors murderers of civilians

Palestinian Authority heroes:
The synagogue murderers
(Two terrorists who murdered 4 worshippers in a synagogue and a policeman, 2014)
Rabbi Yehuda Glick's shooter
(Terrorist who tried to assassinate the rabbi, 2014)
Terrorist who participated in kidnapping and killing
(1993)
The Savoy Hotel terrorists
(Eight terrorists who took hostages and killed 7, 1975)
The Palestinian Authority continues to present murderers as heroes to the Palestinian public. One of the two killers who murdered four worshippers in a synagogue with butcher's knives and guns and later a policeman last November in West Jerusalem, was honored as a "Martyr" in recent reports in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida and WAFA, the official PA news agency. The attack was referred to as "the synagogue operation":
"Large and reinforced occupation army forces invaded Jabel Mukaber today [July 1, 2015] after 3 a.m., and evacuated the home of Martyr (Shahid) Uday Abu Jamal (one of those who carried out the synagogue operation in November last year) [parenthesis in source] where the Martyr's father, mother, three brothers and sister reside." [WAFA (the official PA news agency), July 1, 2015]
Official PA TV also presented this killer in a sympathetic light, stating that his children were "served pain to drink" by Israel since their father, the killer, was "assassinated." PA TV did not mention that the "assassination" occurred as Abu Jamal was murdering innocent people praying in a synagogue:

Isis or al-Qa’eda? The Arab states have chosen the devil they know

Things are now moving fast. A relationship is evolving and formal talks between the Arab states and al-Qa’eda may soon take place without the West at the table. It’s a strategic decision: the Arabs regard an extremist victory in Syria as inevitable so they have decided to go with al-Qa’eda as the lesser of the two evils — especially if that evil is willing to resist Iran. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, since he came to the throne in January, has pursued a far more aggressive policy toward Iran and Syria. For the US and Europe it will be extremely difficult in terms of domestic politics and national security to strike a relationship with al-Qa’eda, but ultimately that may be the only choice, especially if the West’s Arab allies are going ahead.
Just a few years ago, the ‘war on terror’ was defined as extinguishing al-Qa’eda. Now, for many of our Arab allies, it means shoring up al-Qa’eda and praying that they’re not as bad as had once been believed. One thing in all this murky double-dealing is clear: the US and Britain are paying a bitter price for refusing to remove Assad when they genuinely had the chance four years ago. Acting has its risks, but failing to act has its consequences too — as we will all now find out.

From Tablet:

In the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq, located in the Lower Galilee, a set of mosaics that allegedly depict Alexander the Great meeting with a Jewish priest have been unearthed during an excavation of the remains of a synagogue that dates back to the 5th century. If the mosaic has been identified correctly, the discovery will apparently be the first ever depiction of a non-Biblical scene to be found inside a synagogue, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.

The team of archaeologists come from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and are led by Arts and Sciences Professor Jodi Magness, and co-directed by the Israel Antiquities Authority. According to a statement on the UNC-Chapel Hill website, Magness’s team has been digging at the ancient synagogue each summer since 2012. In 2013 and 2014, the team across a mosaic in the synagogue’s that

depicts three horizontal registers (strips) containing human and animal figures, including elephants. The top register, which is the largest, shows a meeting between two men, who perhaps are intended to represent Alexander the Great and a Jewish high priest. It was the first time a non-biblical story had been found decorating any ancient synagogue.

Tablet doesn't mention the actual Talmudic story of Alexander and the High Priest (and neither does the Daily Mail that reported this last week). Here it is:

[Shimon HaTzaddik, or Simeon the Just] was the “Kohen Gadol,” the High Priest of the Jewish People, during the reign of Alexander the Great, the world-conquering Greek Emperor. Yoma 69a presents a dramatic account of a confrontation between Shimon and Alexander. Alexander stood at the Gates of Jerusalem, with evil intentions regarding it, that caused the city’s inhabitants to tremble with fear. Shimon donned the “Bigdei Lavan,” the White Garments that he wore on Yom Kippur when he entered the Holy of Holies, and went out to meet Alexander.

When the great Emperor saw Shimon HaTzaddik, he dismounted and prostrated himself on the ground before Shimon. When his generals, very puzzled, asked him why he was bowing to the Jew, he replied that every night before a victory, he would see in a dream a figure that looked exactly like the Jewish High Priest, who would advise him on tactics to use the following day. And that advice had never failed him.

Shimon HaTzaddik took Alexander the Great on a tour of the Temple. Alexander, very impressed, requested that a marble image of himself be placed in the Temple. Shimon demurred, saying that it was forbidden for the Jews to have images, and certainly not in the Temple. He suggested an alternative way of memorializing the occasion of the Emperor’s visit to the Holy City of the Jews. That would be that all male babies born that year would receive the name “Alexander.” The Emperor liked the idea, and that is how the name “Alexander” became part of the set of names conferred upon Jewish male babies.

Alexander is still used as a Jewish name today.

"Gangs of Jewish settlers resumed storming Al Aqsa Mosque"

This is how the "moderate" Arab media reports Jews peacefully walking in their most sacred spot and Muslims intimidating and harassing them.

From the official Palestinian Authority Wafa news agency:

Gangs of Jewish settlers resumed storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Monday through the Mughrabi Gate along with special occupation police units.

The raids come the day after Al-Aqsa had been closed to settlers for a period of 13 days: the last ten days of Ramadan and the three days of Eid al-Fitr because of the intense and the large presence of worshipers of pure open minds.

According to our correspondent the raids were done with small groups carrying out provocative tours in the holy mosque, amid shouts of protest from worshipers.

07/20 Links Pt1: UNSC approves Iran deal; Iran Deal Empowers Enemies of Peace

From Ian:

UN Security Council unanimously approves Iran deal

The UN Security Council on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the Iran nuclear deal and paving the way to lifting longstanding sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The 15-0 approval of the Iran nuclear deal clears one of the largest hurdles for the landmark pact, which will now go before the US Congress where it may face an uphill battle for confirmation.
The UN vote came shortly after the European Union approved the nuclear deal, okaying the pact between the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Iran that lifts punishing economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for temporary curbs on nuclear activity.
Ambassadors from the so-called P5+1 touted the deal in a Security Council debate following the vote.
US Ambassador Samantha Power said the nuclear deal doesn’t change the United States’ “profound concern about human rights violations committed by the Iranian government or about the instability Iran fuels beyond its nuclear program, from its support for terrorist proxies to repeated threats against Israel to its other destabilizing activities in the region.”
She urged Iran to release three “unjustly imprisoned” Americans and to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who vanished in 2007.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards: UN resolution endorsing nuclear deal crosses Iran's red lines

A UN Security Council resolution endorsing Iran's nuclear deal that passed on Monday is unacceptable, the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammed Ali Jafari was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
"Some parts of the draft have clearly crossed the Islamic republic's red lines, especially in Iran's military capabilities. We will never accept it," he was quoted as saying shortly before the resolution was passed in New York.

Watch: Obama Eerily Echoes Clinton's Failed North Korea Deal Sound byte comparison shows

Not only has it been revealed that some of the very same American negotiators that sealed then-US President Bill Clinton's failed nuclear deal with North Korea in 1994 worked on President Barack Obama's similar deal with Iran signed last Tuesday - now it appears Obama even got the same speech writers.
The Washington Free Beacon on Monday released a compilation of public statements made by both presidents defending their respective deals, with an uncanny similarity noticeable between the two that would seem to bode ill for the Iran deal, given that Clinton's failed deal led North Korea to conduct its first nuclear test in 2006.
Clinton tried to get the Communist rogue state of North Korea to give up its nuclear program by giving it oil, nuclear technology and sanctions relief. Pyongyang took the benefits and ran all the way to a nuclear bomb, with Chinese experts warning it will have 40 nuclear weapons by next year.
As a result of the Clinton deal, North Korea was able to export nuclear technology to Syria and Iran as well.

From the San Francisco Examiner:

A San Francisco-based Arabic community group could be excluded from helping to create Arabic-language curriculum it championed to the school district earlier this year because of alleged discriminatory comments the organization and its leader made about Jews.

Last May, the Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution for the San Francisco Unified School District to explore implementing Arabic- and Vietnamese-language pathways programs for kindergarten through 12th-grade students, beginning in the 2017-18 school year.

The resolution also called for the district to work with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, among other community groups, to develop “culturally appropriate professional development opportunities” for teachers at certain schools. Incorporating community input is standard practice for the SFUSD when creating new curriculum.

But language used by AROC to allegedly “push a radical Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist agenda in San Francisco,” according to a June 17 letter from the Jewish Community Relations Council to school district leaders, has prompted local Jewish community leaders to urge the SFUSD to eliminate the group from the resolution.

“We fully support implementing language pathways in Vietnamese and Arabic. [The opposition] is of this group that has been named in the resolution [and] made these really ugly and divisive statements,” said Jeremy Russell, a spokesman for the Jewish council.

District officials have not confirmed whether the Arab group will remain listed as a resource in the resolution, and the Board of Education in the coming weeks intends to collectively respond to community concerns regarding the resolution.

“We are reviewing that,” Board President Emily Murase said of continuing to work with AROC. “A lot of information came to us after the resolution was passed. We’re in the process of evaluating partners. We want to do it in a very deliberate, thoughtful way.”

In the letter from the Jewish council to Superintendent Richard Carranza and Murase, examples of such discriminatory comments include a Tweet by @AROCBayArea on Dec. 15 saying: “Help us kick Zionism out of the Bay Area. Donate today.”

Other comments highlighted in the letter were purportedly made by Lara Kiswani, the group’s executive director, at a Nov. 12 forum on how organized labor can help Palestine: “Bringing down Israel really will benefit everyone in the world, and everyone in society”; “As long as you continue to be on that side, I’m going to continue to hate you.”

“Any group that espouses hatred really should not be a partner for the school district,” Russell said.

The Arabic group considers the Jewish council’s attempt to remove the group from the resolution to be little more than an intimidation tactic.

“We see this recent development consistent with the way that JCRC operates on a regular basis where they ignore the impact their actions have on children,” Kiswani wrote in an email to the San Francisco Examiner. “They are literally willing to take educational opportunities away from children in order to feed their need to defend the state of Israel.”

J-Weekly amplified AROC's hate:

The organization also helped lead a Block the Boat campaign in 2014, which twice sought to prevent the Oakland offloading of a cargo ship partially owned by an Israeli company, succeeding the second time. Referring to that campaign, the AROC website proclaimed that “business with the racist, exclusionary, Zionist state of Israel, which works alongside local and federal law enforcement to repress our communities, will not go unchallenged.”

Last December, AROC tweeted the message “Help us kick Zionism out of the Bay Area.”

The JCRC is as liberal an organization as you can find. It does not take a stand on the Iranian nuclear deal. It does not mention Israel on its homepage, and its activism for Israel seems limited to being against BDS. It participates in multifaith Iftar dinners. In no way, shape or form can you call this organization anti-Arab or anti-Muslim. It explicitly supports the idea of Arabic instruction in San Francisco schools.

The AROC, on the other hand, is highly political and anti-Israel. Its response to the JCRC letter is shrill, and it reveals that AROC fully intended to use this curriculum to poison the minds of children against Israel:

Who is JCRC? They are a well-financed group that furthers the interests of the apartheid state of Israel. Their objective is to challenge Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions work in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wherever they see an organization successfully supporting the Palestinian struggle for liberation, they attack.

Now, they are attacking both AROC and the opportunity for children in San Francisco to learn Arabic language and culture.

JCRC is attempting to convince the San Francisco Board of Education to revote on a resolution that the board passed unanimously on May 26, listing AROC and the Vietnamese Youth Development Center as community partners who championed the campaign to implement Arabic and Vietnamese language pathways in SFUSD. This initiative, born of an inspiring community effort, would expand the opportunity of Arabs and Vietnamese to have their languages and cultures better represented in the schools they attend.

What does JCRC really want? They want to discredit AROC because of our impactful work in support of Palestinian rights, and they want control of the Arabic pathway process so they can ensure there are no cultural elements to the curriculum that could “threaten” their conservative agenda.

Don’t let JCRC undermine Arab culture in our city to advance their harmful agenda.

This screed by AROC proves the JCRC is correct and that AROC is a most unsuitable partner for the San Francisco Board of Education.

If AROC only cared about Arabic language study, they would happily withdraw their name from the resolution, which would ensure Arabic language would be taught without controversy. But their claim that the JCRC is attempting to "ensure there are no cultural elements to the curriculum that could 'threaten' their conservative agenda" shows that this is indeed AROC's aim - to add their idea of "culture" to the public school system.

And to AROC, "culture" is to attack Israel and support terrorism.

Their tweets routinely refer to Israel as practicing "apartheid" and "genocide." They were active in supporting Palestinian terrorist Rasmeah Odeh.

Their idea of "culture" is to hijack Valentine's Day and turn it into a radical anti-Israel event called "Revolution is Love."

Just imagine what they plan to do in public schools under the guise of "culture."

AROC damns itself with its own words and actions.

(h/t JW)

Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture Team Members are Biased as Hell

(written by Bob Knot, edited by EoZ)

As we've seen over the past couple of weeks, Amnesty International is at the forefront of a coordinated political warfare against the state of Israel by numerous NGOs who want to see Israel investigated and brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged “war crimes”.

Amnesty’s current campaign started almost as soon as Israel responded to the massive rocket and missile attacks from Gaza with air strikes and ground invasion, accusing Israel of “war crimes” in Gaza during and a short while after last year’s war in Gaza and even calling for UN and international investigation against Israel for violations of international humanitarian law and promoting arms embargo on Israel .

Amnesty teamed up with Forensic Architecture to create what I called the “ bash Israel app ”, recycling provably wrong information by the biased Gaza based Al Mezan and Palestinian Center for Human Rights .

To put it simply, the “Gaza Platform” was created to make up for the lack of credibility on the part of the Arab political NGOs and for the lack of evidence to support the “war crimes” allegations.

That is also the case with the “Forensic” team; there is nothing such as fact-finding methodologies or technical tests in their scope of work, it is just a bombastic name and the end product is just an online data visualization app fed with unreliable data sources.

And that brings us to the Forensic Architecture team members:

Eyal Weizman is the project’s Principal Investigator.

Weizman is a former board member of B’Tselem. His anti-Israel agenda is well documented in a 2013 IsraCampus op-ed and in Goldsmiths College - Eyal Weizman Attacks Israel with 'Forensic Architecture' .

Weizman also signed a petition during Operation Cast Lead (2009), “ calling for the UN Security Council and the EU to impose sanctions on Israel ”. He is a signatory for “ Jews for Justice for Palestinians ” and for a Pro-Hamas Petition in the Jew-hating Counterpunch Magazine as well:

We the undersigned watch with horror yet another ruthless and criminal Israeli assault on the defenceless [Sic] people of the Gaza Strip. The assassination of the Hamas’ military commander, Ahmad al-Jabari, by Israel was intended to disrupt any chance for a permanent cease fire between the two sides and caused the current cycle of violence. For the last five years al-Jabari had been responsible for limiting rocket attacks on Israel.

.
And just in case anyone has doubt about his bias, Weizmann supports the BDS movement as well; Weizman is one of 65 academics, cultural and political figures backing the RIBA’s stance on the motion calling for the suspension of Israeli architects from the International Architects Union (UIA) .

Other examples of his anti-Israel political agenda can be found by his speaking at conferences ":
"Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine" and "The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories."

Francesco Sebregondi is the Project Coordinator.

His tweets and re-tweets from organizations such as "Free Gaza Movement", " Al-Haq", “Breaking the Silence”, "Electronic Intifada", "Palestine Solidarity Campaign", "Yesh Din", and "Palestine Legal" demonstrate his heavy bias against Israel. Some examples of the lies that he disseminates on Twitter and the animosity towards Israel that he stirs up include:

Palestine Shrinking Expanding Israel | new interactive visualisation https://t.co/A3y8S1gSqD
— Francesco Sebregondi (@FSBRG) May 15, 2015

Jacob Burns is the Research and Campaign Assistant at @Amnestyonline.

His Twitter profile is at https://twitter.com/JacobTBurns, an Instagram one is at https://instagram.com/jacobtburns. He “supports the Palestinian struggle for justice” as evident from a piece he published on anti-Israel Website Mondoweiss .

Jacob, just like his colleague, tweets and re-tweets the “Palestinian” narrative. Apparently, when it comes to Israel, fact-checking and giving audience to the Israeli side is not needed,

His bias against Israel is manifested in some of the photos he uploaded to Instagram, the captions are telling. To him, Palestinians have houses, Jews have colonies:

Because they are "colonists":

Jerusalem, of course, is not in Israel but in "Palestine" according to this "researcher":

And Jews asking for equal rights are a "source of tension" for this human rights advocate:

Apparently, this “great” researcher never heard of the Cave of the Patriarchs or maybe he believes that Jews have no connection to Hebron and have no right to pray there?

Impartial he is not and he seems to be suffering from an ICC for Israel obsession too. On 4 May 2015, he tweeted tens if not over a hundred “Breaking the Silence” “testimonies”.

I found this tweet of his unintentionally ironic and typical of Burns' bias:

Prompt & transparent investigation needed into killing of #Jenin man. IDF says he was throwing bomb, but initial reports often wrong in past
— Jacob Burns (@JacobTBurns) June 10, 2015

The entire Gaza Platform that he is working on is based on initial reports from biased sources that in many cases have been proven wrong!

These are the people who were behind Amnesty's Gaza Platform. They have an agenda, and it has nothing to do with objectivity.

I had thought that Forensic Architecture wrote the code for this tool. They didn't - it was written by a group called Tekja Data Visualization. So Amnesty didn't choose Forensics Architecture for its coding skills - they chose Forensic Architecture for their ability to come up with new, innovative ways to demonize Israel.

Watch John Kerry deceive interviewer about Iran

\

It takes about two seconds of thought to realize that there is no way on Earth to stop Iran from transferring money to Hezbollah or the Houthis.

And if you look at the UNSC resolutions against Iran, not one of them discusses transferring money.

Kerry lied in his answer, and his lie reveals that Iran will get a windfall that will help fund Assad, Hezbollah and worldwide terror.

(h/t Mike A)

The hypocrisy of the Left never fails to amaze me (Edinburgh Fringe edition)

Last year, fir the first time, a group was forced to cancel its show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival because of a group of people protesting its appearance there.

This is the first time that the Fringe, which is dedicated to free speech, kicked out a performing group.

The reason? Because the group was Israeli and accepts funding from the State of Israel.

Here is how the "peace protesters" acted:

On July 30 I watched as members of the public arrived to attend the performance of The City at the Underbelly Cow Barn and witnessed at first hand a level of menace, intimidation and coercion that I had previously thought impossible to witness on the streets of Edinburgh. A 14-year-old girl was yelled at so loudly and at such close quarters that the transfer of spittle from a protestor was evident.

Charlie Wood, director of the Underbelly, said..."The demonstrations pushed the meaning of 'peaceful', they were screaming at children walking past to see another show, saying 'you've got blood on your ticket.'

So of course there is a huge push by free-speech advocates to ensure that a group of thugs cannot repeat their censorship this year, right?

Um, no. Actually, the Left's response to censoring Israelis is to invite Israel's enemies to perform.

A fund-raising campaign founded by the playwright David Greig that arose out of the storm of protest has unveiled a line up of Palestinian artists paid for by £10,000 in public donations.

Greig set up the crowd funding campaign to provide financial aid for shows and artists, notably from Palestine, who otherwise find it hard to come to the Edinburgh festivals.

The initiative, called Welcome to the Fringe, has now unveiled a list of 12 artists supported by the campaign and events at two venues during this year's festival.

Greig was instrumental in setting up the initiative following the controversy that in 2014 engulfed a show called The City by Incubator Theatre.

The company was partially funded by Israel's Ministry of Culture and a series of cultural figures signed a letter urging the Underbelly venue to reconsider staging the show.

Following a furore and an inability to find a new venue, eventually the show was cancelled.

In the aftermath Greig established the funding initiative "to do something positive" and to aid Palestinian - and other - artists.

Because it wasn't quite one-sided enough to just censor Israeli voices - they have to invite Israel's enemies to have an uncensored venue for propaganda. (The Israeli show that was canceled was not political at all, I would be most surprised if the Arab artists being invited are not putting on anti-Israel pieces.)

Here's Grieg's kumbaya spin on his support for censorship for the "largest open access arts festival in the world"

He said: "It dispirits me knowing that my Palestinian theatre making friends are unable to come here and, it dispirits me to think that Israeli theatre makers who are brave enough to reject their government's sponsorship, might be unable to come here as well.

"In the light of all this, I felt the need to do something positive."

One of the many ironies is that Israel is shown to be far more liberal then the screeching Leftists like Grieg. As the Guardian reported at the time:

The company's artistic director, Arik Eshet, said that his government was not funding art for political reasons. "They fund art for art," he said. "It can be against the government, we are not censored. Every group that comes to the Fringe from other countries is unable to come without government help."

Israel doesn't censor Israel's critics - but Edinburgh Fringe censors Israelis no matter who they are as long as they are guilty of the heinous crime of accepting money from their government. which, incidentally, is a crime that the Edinburgh Festival is also guilty of. .

One more thing. Amnesty International has a big presence at the festival:

We were back at Edinburgh, the world’s biggest arts festival, with a full programme celebrating Freedom of Expression in all its forms.

Freedom of expression has always been a core part of our work and is closely linked to the right to hold opinions and the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

And:...

Amnesty International declared that 2014 had been 'Another amazing year for theatre with a human rights focus at the Fringe' as the organisation announced the winner of its prestigious annual Freedom of Expression Award which is given to an outstanding Fringe production carrying a human rights message.

How did Amnesty, for which freedom of expression is so important, respond to the censorship of a non-political Israeli theatre group?

They were there, they saw it - but they didn't utter a word of protest. Instead, they "celebrated" how much the festival supports freedom of speech!

Clearly only some types of speech.

The hypocrisy is staggering.

(h/t/ Ellis)