Friday, October 16, 2015

10/16 Links Pt1: The Obama Intifada; Kerry should resign; PA Tries to Claim Western Wall at UNESCO

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Kerry, Israeli Arabs and the separation delusion

Israel’s political leaders have rightly expressed anger at the US State Department’s hostile characterizations of the Palestinian terrorist onslaught. Secretary of State John Kerry’s claims, parroted by his spokesmen, that Israel is either entirely to blame for Palestinian terrorism or shares the blame equally with the Palestinians, are baseless lies.
Kerry and his spokesmen have alleged that the current Palestinian convulsion of murderous violence is a product of “a massive increase in settlements.” Yet as Haaretz reported this week, Israel has built fewer homes for Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria since 2009, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (and President Barack Obama) entered office, than it had since 1995. The steep increase in the Jewish population in the areas is almost entirely the result of Jewish women having babies.
The other accusations the State Department has leveled against Israel – that it incites violence and engages in terrorism – are so obscene that there is no point in trying to set the record straight. Quite simply, an administration comfortable with libeling Israel in this way doesn’t want to know the truth.
While at this point it is abundantly clear that Kerry like the administration he serves has an unpleasant, irrational obsession with the Jewish state, it’s hard to shake the conclusion that there is more going on here than simply opposition to Israel.
For instance his claim this week that “Unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody,” is more an assault on reality generally than on Israel in particular.

PA Tries to Claim Western Wall at UNESCO

In an attempt to gain international legitimacy for its rewriting of history, the Palestinian Authority (PA) will submit a resolution to UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) next week claiming the Kotel (Western Wall) as its own.
The proposal calls to have the Kotel in Jerusalem - which is an outer wall of the Temple Mount that is the holiest site in Judaism - recognized as part of Al-Aqsa Mosque located on the Mount, reports Yedioth Aharonoth on Friday.
The PA is not a member of the UNESCO Executive Council, and therefore the proposal will be submitted for a vote next week on its behalf by the six Arab member states of Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Senior Israeli sources revealed that the PA is working in parallel to have the proposal submitted at the UNESCO plenum, where the PA is recognized as a state.
In response, Israel is working behind the scenes to rally opposition to the proposal, although there is an automatic Muslim majority making its adoption all but certain.

The Obama Intifada

How coddling Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas led to terrorism in Israel
Obama won’t hold the Palestinians accountable because that might jeopardize his policy of daylight between America and Israel. A policy that was intended to improve U.S. credibility in the Muslim world and thereby denuclearize Iran, disarm and remove Bashar al-Assad, and establish a peaceful Palestinian state. A policy that has instead destabilized the region, formalized the Russian-Iranian-Syrian axis, enriched and empowered the Shiite theocracy, rattled our allies, and done nothing to curtail Palestinian intransigence.
Even the carrot Obama offered Israel as part of the Iran deal—interdiction of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah—has been exposed as an illusion. Russia has a no-fly zone in Syria and is arming Syrian regulars and presumably Hezbollah, too. How else to explain Netanyahu’s sudden visit to Moscow last month? Hezbollah with a nuclear umbrella was something the Iran deal was supposed to prevent. Now Hassan Nasrallah benefits from the Russian nuclear umbrella, in addition to the Iranian one that will be unfurled a decade hence. Great job Obama.
So here we are: Palestinians no closer to statehood, Israel terrorized, Jewish and Arab lives being lost, and an atmosphere so rife with revisionism and paranoia that the New York Times is questioning the history of Jews on the Temple Mount. All because President Obama forgot that daylight ends in darkness.

State Dept. Deletes Tweet Calling Israel Attacks ‘Tragic, Outrageous’

The State Department on Thursday was caught deleting a tweet that had referred to the recent spate of terror attacks against Israel as “tragic” and “outrageous.”
The tweet was then replaced with a more subdued statement referring to the attacks on Jewish people as “recent.”
Secretary of State John Kerry “addresses the tragic, outrageous attacks on civilians in Israel and West Bank,” the State Department tweeted from its official account.”
That tweet was quickly deleted and replaced with a new tweet omitting references to the attacks as “tragic” and “outrageous.”
The first tweet says Kerry addressed the “tragic, outrageous” attacks on Israel. It was promptly deleted and replaced. The second tweet just calls the attacks “recent.”

Jordanians upset over preacher who denounced stabbing Jews as "barbaric terror"

A moderate Salafi preacher in Amman caused a firestorm when he spoke out against Palestinian terrorists stabbing Jews.

Sheikh Omar Ibrahim Abu Talha called the stabbings a "barbaric act of terrorism" and said that the Palestinians who were killed while trying to stab Jews were not martyrs.

The full audio in Arabic is here.

Jordanians were incensed at the preacher.

Reports say that they reacted during the speech and he Abu Talha had to be escorted out of the mosque.

A group appealed to the Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) to prevent not only Abu Talha but all similar moderate Dalafi preachers from being able to give speeches in public.

(h/t O)

Hidden camera video proudly reveals how much Algerians hate Jews

Diga Man, an Algerian team known for making hidden camera prank videos, has produced a new one of which they are particularly proud.

One of the members put on a yarmulke and asked Algerians on the street for help in finding the Jewish cemetery.

They called the video "A Jew in the Streets of Algeria: What happens?"

Here are the results:

Algerian raising his hand to hit the "Jew"

The first group of people hit and kicked the "Jew." A second group completely ignored him. Then a group of youngsters, after ascertaining that he was Jewish, started to attack him and chased him down the street..

The filmmakers then proudly say how Algerians will always support Palestinians. They say " "Palestine is always in our hearts, it has to be supported, no matter if they are oppressed or are the oppressors" based on a hadith that quotes Mohammed as saying that a Muslim must support all Muslims no matter if they are the oppressed or the ones doing the oppressing.

The video became popular when it was released, until controversy broke out when several commenters pointed out that Arabs are not supposed to hate Jews, but only Zionists, and the actor in this video did not do anything indicating he was Zionist or Israeli.

The filmmakers then went into damage control mode, changing the name of the video to "A Zionist in the Streets of Algeria: What happens?" and turning off comments on YouTube. They then claimed that they only intended to show how much Algerians hate Zionists. But the video shows plainly that this isn't true, even with a caption in Arabic and English about the episode with the schoolboys says "Junior hate Jews."

The group told CNN Arabic that they did not intend to incite anyone against Jews, only Zionists. Even CNN pointed out that their excuse was lame since the video clearly shows otherwise.

Not surprisingly, CNN has not bothered to report this story in English as of this moment. The enlightened liberal media.refuses to cover stories about the widespread and easily seen antisemitism among Arabs and Muslims.

Because that would be Islamophobic.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Everything you need to know about the Israeli-Arab conflict you can learn from Joseph's Tomb

Overnight, Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus) was set on fire by a mob of Arabs.

Whether or not it is historically the real tomb of Joseph, it is certainly a major Jewish shrine.

It is the most important Jewish holy place under Palestinian rule. There are some important synagogues and sites but none associated with a Biblical figure that I am aware of.

Under every agreement between Jews and Arabs, holy places were to be protected and free access allowed. Lists of holy sites for all religions were compiled by the UN. But Jewish holy sites under Arab rule have never been protected by Arabs; Jordan destroyed dozens of synagogues and did not allow Jews to enter the Old City. Not Israelis - Jews.

Joseph's Tomb is the exception that proves the rule. It is the only Jewish shrine that Israeli Jews have been allowed to access under Arab rule, but that access was severely restricted - only once a month, in the middle of the night, with the IDF protecting the worshipers from Arabs that riot every single time.

If the world community had its way and Israel would withdraw to the Green Line, the situation at other Jewish holy sites like Rachel's Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs would be like that has been at Joseph's Tomb at best. Access would be very limited, accompanied by riots at the very idea of Jews entering "Muslim holy sites."

Yes, by a massive coincidence, every Jewish holy site is also an Muslim holy site. It just so happens that Mohammed chose the Western wall of the Jewish Temple to tether his flying donkey, thereby superseding Jewish rights. The Cave of the Patriarchs was converted to the Ibrahimi Mosque. Rachel's Tomb very recently became a venerable old Muslim mosque called the Bilal Bin Rabbah mosque. Samuel's Tomb is also claimed by Muslims as their own.

Joseph's Tomb is no different. While Muslims generally associated it with the biblical Joseph, more recently mny have claimed that it is the tomb of an altogether different person, a sheikh coincidentally named Yusuf.

Yet if it was really a Muslim holy site, why are Muslims setting it on fire?

A similar situation happened several months ago, when Muslims set fire on the southern wall of the Temple Mount, in an attempt to draw Israeli forces there. Besides that, they have used the Al Aqsa Mosque as a weapons depot, they practice soccer and volleyball and parkour on the supposedly sacred grounds (I've never seen them do that at the Kaaba in Mecca.)

If these sites were really holy, they would be venerated, not desecrated.

Either they are not really holy sites, or the idea of burning a Jewish holy place is far more important than the holiness they supposedly have for Muslims.

The overnight fire has, as of this writing, received next to no international coverage. Suspected arson of Muslim and Christian holy sites by Jews is reported widely and is used as evidence that all Jews or "settlers" are bigots, but this fire that was openly set by a crowd of dozens of men will not be used to demonize all Arabs - even though the number of Arabs who support free Jewish access to their holy sites is far lower than the corresponding number of Jews supporting Muslim access to their own holy places. Equal rights to Jews is simply not a remote possibility for Palestinians.

Lately, the State Department has been talking about the importance of maintaining the "status quo" at religious sites. Yet no one has ever heard anyone accuse Arabs of violating the status quo. Burning a religious site and heavily damaging it is a very serious violation of the status quo. While I expect that the State Department will perfunctorily condemn this act, it will not use that magic phrase when discussing this incident.

From early accounts of the fire, the PA put it out and is not suspected of setting it. However, clearly there was little protection of the building. Nevertheless, when mainstream media report this incident on page 17, they will take pains to say that this was only an angry crowd of youths, but not representative of Palestinians in general. Jews who are suspected of violent acts, on the other hand, are generalized to all Israelis or- more often- "settlers" even if they don't live across the Green Line.

Moreover, Arabs love to claim that Jews routinely desecrate holy places by merely walking around. Will any media accurately report this as a desecration?

Similarly, Arabs say that they are convinced that Jews want to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though they could do it whenever they want. But this is not the first time that Joseph's Tomb has been set on fire in reality. The psychological projection is perfect, but no one reports it.

Finally, there will be inevitably calls from supposedly liberal Westerners and left-wing Israelis to ban Jews from Joseph's Tomb altogether, just as they are now calling on Jews to stop visiting the Temple Mount. The thinking is that if Muslims act so extremely as to set fires or stab people using their bogus claims on their bogus holy sites as their excuses, then it is better to remove the excuse. In these cases, freedom of religion for Jews can always be vetoed by Arab violence and threats.

Joseph's Tomb teaches a lot about the conflict. It is too bad that most people refuse to learn.

10/15 Links Pt2: Between Ankara and Jerusalem: A festival of incitement and blood

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: Between Ankara and Jerusalem: A festival of incitement and blood

It doesn’t matter if we are talking about ISIS leader Abū Bakr al-Baghdādi, Hamas leaders Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh, or Islamic Movement leader Raed Salah. Wherever they are, their preaching of incitement leads to a festival of blood. It's not that someone has really changed something in the Holy Basin. But Salah the instigator, head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, has succeeded in spreading the plot and fanning the flames. A huge achievement.
The most important conclusion is that the instigators must be silenced. The fact that Salah continues to spread his venom clarifies that sometimes, only sometimes, defensive democracy fails, and the instigators turn freedom of expression into a tool for harming democracy, reconciliation, a chance for peace.
Reckless incitement which leads to bloodshed is not part of the freedom of expression. If Salah is not silenced, what happened on Saturday in Ankara will happen in Tel Aviv. Salah must be silenced under the law. And if there is a problem, the law should be changed. It should have been done years ago. There was no need to wait, because it was clear that it would happen.
And we should remember another common denominator of every place in which the Islamist instigators succeed in igniting an outburst: The victims, at the end of the day, are mostly Muslims. So I would like to say to my good friends in the neighboring religion: Don’t get too enthusiastic. Calm down. Snap out of your illusions, Jews will be hurt, but you will be hurt much more, and that's not a cause for celebration.

Andrew Bolt: Pilger’s sick conspiracy theory

Syria is a dictatorship that has used poison gas against its people.
Iran is a fascist theocracy which sponsors terrorism and threatens to wipe Israel from the map.
Russia is a thugocracy that has invaded Ukraine, stolen the Crimea and shot down a passenger jet.
But for John Pilger, none of that is enough to explain why sensible democrats of the West might be critics of those regimes:

To the rulers of the world in Washington and Europe, Syria’s true crime is not the oppressive nature of its government but its independence from American and Israeli power — just as Iran’s true crime is its independence, and Russia’s true crime is its independence, and China’s true crime is its independence. In an American-owned world, independence is intolerable.
The idea that the US and the emasculated Europe are “rulers of the world” is risible. The suggestion that the issue here is “Israeli power” is sinister. The assertion that opposing dictatorships, theoocracies and communist oligarchies is just a ploy to keep the world “American-owned” is paranoid.
Pilger’s world view is one that would sell our freedoms to autocrats and thugs. Yet he’s a sage of the Left.

Terror Supporter Donated £5,000 to Corbyn’s Leadership Campaign

Jeremy Corbyn accepted a £5,000 donation from a man who claimed Palestinians have a “moral right” to terrorism. Prof. Ted Honderich, who donated the money to Corbyn’s leadership campaign last month, wrote in a 2011 letter to the Guardian:
“Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism within historic Palestine against neo-Zionism”
Honderich went on to describe Palestinian terrorism as “based on true humanity“:
“Terrorism, as in this case, can as exactly be self-defence, a freedom struggle, martyrdom, the conclusion of an argument based on true humanity”
In an interview with Iranian state television channel Press TV, Honderich is quoted as repeating his comments:
“What is happening in Palestine, what is being done by neo-Zionism is such that it gives Palestinians, I happen to believe this and it’s gotten me into trouble, a moral right to their terrorism against neo-Zionism within all of historic Palestine.”
In 2002 Honderich wrote a book called “After the Terror“, which was withdrawn from sale in Germany after Holocaust Centre director Micha Brumlik alleged it was anti-Semitic.

.@UNRWA workers glorify stone throwers

Two UNRWA workers with similar profile photos:

Saleh Mohsen from Gaza:

Ribhi Tomalieh of Ramallah:

"Oh pulse of the West Bank, do not calm down,

announce a revolution,

shatter your chains,

make your flesh the bridge for Return,

Oh pulse of the West Bank, do not calm down"

Yes, this is what UNRWA employees exhort their friends - and probably their students - to do.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

If you are a regular reader of Elder of Ziyon, you may know how many terror attacks have been perpetrated against Israelis in the last couple of weeks, how many have been murdered or maimed. For myself, I’ve lost count.

Here in Rehovot we’ve been lucky. So far we haven’t experienced what they are undergoing in Jerusalem, or even Ra’anana. There’s still plenty of anxiety. When my daughter was very small and we read her the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she expressed concern about wolves. We reassured her that there were no wolves anywhere near where we lived. “Do they have feet?” she asked. Terrorists have feet, cars, and the ability to ride buses and trains like anyone else.

When something bad happens, we should make it a learning experience. What do we know about this latest murder epidemic and what lessons can be learned?

Some terror attacks seem to be organized by groups like Hamas, and some are spur-of-the-moment attacks by amateur terrorists, young women, university students, municipal employees, telephone installers, and 13-year old boys. All you need to do is take a stout kitchen knife with you in the morning. If you see a Jew, come up behind him and bury it in his neck. Anyone can do it. Someone may shoot you, but martyrdom is part of the appeal.

It seems to be extra points to get a soldier (female soldiers are sometimes softer targets), but visibly religious Jews also seem to be singled out.

Many have noted the cold hatred, the lack of empathy that characterizes the terrorists and those that cheer them on. Odel Bennett, whose husband Aharon was murdered and her son injured in a vicious stabbing attack in the Old City, reported that local Arabs laughed and spat at her as she bled from her wounds.

Some Israelis and other Westerners have difficulty understanding the motivation of the murderers and the apparent ease with which they can approach a stranger and try to slaughter him or her in cold blood. It seems to me that there are three important explanatory factors.

One is ideology, closely intertwined with the second, Islam. And the third is Arab culture.
When Israel made the historic mistake of reintroducing the poisonous PLO and particularly Yasser Arafat into its own body, the very first thing Arafat did was take control of the mosques, media and educational system of the territories. Imams, teachers or journalists were required to follow the PLO line, and anyone who did not was removed. They were instructed to teach the myth of an indigenous ‘Palestinian people’ who were dispossessed from their ancestral land by the subhuman Jews from Europe, and to aspire to the ultimate ‘liberation’ of all of ‘Palestine’.

Part of what they learned is that as an oppressed people they have the right to use any means necessary to achieve liberation. The choice of terrorist violence, peaceful protest, lawsuits, diplomacy or all-out war is entirely based on the efficacy. Whatever works is good.

Every subject taught in the schools, every sermon in the mosques, radio and television programs, summer camps, everything was utilized to carry the message of Palestinian victimization and ultimate vindication, along with generous helpings of anti-Jewish themes taken from Islamic and European sources, and countless stories of how the Jews have stolen from, humiliated, raped and murdered Palestinian Arabs.

Jews are not seen as individuals, with personalities and families. Jews are Zionists or ‘settlers’, representatives of the forces of oppression.

This is what I refer to as ‘ideology’, and you can hear it echoed in the speeches of the Arab members of the Knesset. Every ‘Palestinian’ believes this to a greater or lesser extent, and much of it is taught in Israeli schools in the Arab sector.

The influence of Islam is important: the constant humiliation of Muslims living in a state where the sovereign power is not only non-Muslim but Jewish; the availability of triggers for furious action, like the always-effective lie that “Al-Aqsa is in danger,” which has been used to provoke riots and murder at least since the 1920s; and the appeal of martyrdom, especially for young or especially susceptible Muslims.

Traditional Islamic Jew-hatred is invoked in the mosques of the PA and Hamas, where Jews are dehumanized as descended from apes and pigs. So not only are Jews not individuals, they are not even people.

Today the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Islamic Movement in Israel are saying over and over that Israel plans to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and build a third Temple on its ruins. Some are explicitly calling on Muslims to become martyrs in its defense.

Finally there is the Muslim-Arab culture, with its honor-shame motivators. Every day that an Arab allows the humiliations and thefts to stand takes away from his honor and adds to his shame. The honor must be regained and the shame wiped out – and the only act powerful enough to do this is a violent one, the bloodier the better.

I must also note their familiarity with the slaughter of animals – every year on the holiday of Eid Al-Adha, mass public slaughterings of cows, sheep and goats take place (videos too disturbing to link), and Palestinian children participate in slaughtering animals at home. In general, Palestinian Arabs are exceptionally cruel to animals by Western standards.

We can put this together: the ideology provides a reason for violent acts and a justification for them, Islam ignites their anger and provokes action, and culture demands that the action draw blood. And their particular relationship to slaughter makes plunging a knife into living flesh – especially if that flesh belongs to a being that is less than human – a comfortable, or at least familiar, act.
Westerners, including most Israelis, may be able to understand the ideology, but the religious motivations are harder to grasp, particularly the veneration of martyrdom. The honor-shame concept is also alien in the West. And how many of us have slaughtered an animal with a knife, or could do so?

All this contributes to our latest learning experience.

In 2000-2002, we learned that the Arabs, led by the PLO and Hamas, didn’t want their own state; they wanted ours. In 2005, we learned that withdrawal from any part of the land of Israel brings war and not peace.

In the short term, this uprising will have to be put down by force. There is no one to negotiate with about it. The inciters will have to be stopped as well as the terrorists themselves, something that has never been tried. Maybe now we are beginning to learn how important that is. That’s the first lesson of 2015.

The second lesson, which is nothing new and is really just being reinforced, is that the conflict isn’t about borders or anything concrete. It’s about Arabs denying our right to be here, arrogating our indigenous status and ownership of the land to themselves. It’s about Muslims who won’t live under Jewish sovereignty and who will only tolerate us in a subordinate role. It’s about lost honor that can only be regained by murder.

There is another lesson from all this. That is that there is no way we can change to make it possible to coexist with them. Either they must change or one or the other side will disappear.
I promise it won’t be us.

10/15 Links Pt1: Terrorist Abbas said ‘executed’ by Israel shown alive in hospital; Kerry Flip-Flops

From Ian:

Terrorist Abbas said ‘executed’ by Israel shown alive in hospital

Clips and images were published Thursday of a 13-year-old Palestinian terrorist who was hit by a car while fleeing from police earlier this week, disproving claims by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who said Wednesday he was “executed” by Israel.
The pictures, distributed by the Government Press Office, show Ahmad Manasra awake and sitting in a bed at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.
In one picture he is seen making a hand gesture some have interpreted as an Islamist symbol.
Manasra is accused of carrying out a stabbing spree on Monday with his cousin Hassan Manasra, 15, seriously injuring a 13-year-old boy and 25-year-old man. Hassan Manasra was shot and killed after charging at police with a knife, while Ahmed Manasra was injured after being hit by a car while fleeing.
On Wednesday night, Abbas accused Israelis of “executing our boys in cold blood, as they did with the boy Ahmed Manasra and other children in Jerusalem and other places.”
Other Palestinian officials and relatives have also claimed that Manasra and his cousin were not involved in an attack.
The Prime Minister’s Office quickly issued a statement after the PA president’s speech saying he was spreading “lies and incitement.”
“The boy he is referring to is alive and hospitalized in Hadassah after stabbing an Israeli child who was riding his bicycle,” the statement said.

Don't believe Abbas' lies, see it for yourself

Contrary to Mahmoud Abbas' distorted statement on the terror attack on 12 October in Jerusalem, the 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra is alive and is being treated in an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem. Ahmed and his 15-year-old cousin went out with knives on a killing spree searching for Jewish victims. As a result, two Israelis were seriously injured, among them a 13-year-old Jewish boy.

Exposing Palestinian LIES! See what really happened

PLO issues revised English version of Abbas' 'execution' speech

The Palestine Liberation Organization on Thursday released a different version of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech, which was broadcast on Palestine TV on Wednesday night.
The new English version quotes Abbas as talking about the “shooting of our children in cold blood as they did with the child Ahmed Manasrah and other children from Jerusalem.”
The modified English version was released by the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department, which said this was a “full translation” of Abbas’s speech.
However, the Arabic version of Abbas’s speech does not talk about “shooting.” Instead, Abbas is quoted as talking about the “execution of our children in cold blood, as they did with the boy Ahmed Manasrah and other children in Jerusalem and other places.”
PLO officials did not offer any explanation as to why they chose to change Abbas’s statement about Manasrah.

The full text of the [delivered] speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

From yesterday's State Department briefing:

QUESTION: All right. And then the visit to Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif by Israelis, is that – does the Administration consider that to be visits to there – does the Administration consider that to be incitement?

MR KIRBY: I’m not going to be able to characterize every single act with terminology. What the Secretary has said and stands by is that we want to see the status quo restored, the status quo arrangement there on Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount, and for both sides to take actions to de-escalate the tensions. So incitement can take many forms. Again, I’m not going to – I’m not going to go through a laundry list of what is or what isn’t. I mean, the Secretary spoke specifically about incitement yesterday, and we recognize that incitement can go both ways here. But it’s the – whether it’s action or rhetoric, it’s things that encourage others to continue this cycle of violence, it’s just not helpful and not going to get us to what we really want to see there.

QUESTION: Is it the Administration’s position that the status quo at the Temple Mount has been broken?

MR KIRBY: Well, certainly, the status quo has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence.

...QUESTION: So I just have two extremely brief ones, so we can move on after that. You said in answer to my question on the status quo whether – at the Temple Mount whether it’s been broken or not, you said that it has not been observed and that is what has led to – I think. I’ll go back and look at the transcript, but I think you said it had not been – it was not – has not been observed and that is what has led to a great deal of the violence. That certainly sounds like you’re affixing some kind of blame to Israel if this is, in fact, what the Administration believes has led to the violence – the visits by – visit by Israelis to --

MR KIRBY: Well, it’s not about believing it, Matt. I mean, you just looked at what’s been happening in that – on Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount recently. I mean, just if we’re looking at this in acute – through an acute lens, I mean, the activity there, the status quo not being observed, has led to violence. There’s – that’s indisputable. That’s not a belief; that’s a fact.

QUESTION: Okay. But that --

MR KIRBY: Now, but it’s not about – but it’s not about affixing blame on one side or the other. There’s a status quo there. There’s a status quo --

QUESTION: It certainly sounds like it, no?

MR KIRBY: No, there’s a status quo there that we want to see restored, and the status quo has worked in the past in keeping things calm.

When the words "status quo" are used in relation to the Temple Mount, it is always an accusation on Israel. No one outside Israel has accused Arabs of violating the status quo, even though they have done it numerous times, including building an entire huge mosque underground while destroying priceless Jewish artifacts.

There is no doubt as to the meaning of these words.

And after people called him on it, spokesperson John Kirby retracted on Twitter:

Clarification from today's briefing: I did not intend to suggest that status quo at Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif has been broken.
— John Kirby (@statedeptspox) October 15, 2015

But it is worse than that, because it sure sounds from the first paragraph quoted above like the State Department is saying that Jews visiting their holiest spot is a form of incitement, as is one of those "things that encourage others to continue this cycle of violence, it’s just not helpful and not going to get us to what we really want to see there."

From CNN:

One strategy being tried is checkpoints.

Israeli forces have shut down access to some Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem by setting up checkpoints and putting more police on the streets.

"These police actions and operations are intended to fairly respond to the wave of terror and knifing, within the framework of trying to return law and order to all citizens of the state," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

Human Rights Watch condemned the new security measures.

"Locking down east Jerusalem neighborhoods will infringe upon the freedom of movement of all Palestinian residents rather than being a narrowly tailored response to a specific concern," said Sari Bashi of Human Rights Watch.

"The recent spate of attacks on Israeli civilians would present a challenge for any police force. But exacerbating the punitive policy of home demolitions is an unlawful and ill-considered response."

Bashi's inability to find a better solution is reiterated on Twitter:

#Jerusalem mayor's call to close Palestinian neighborhoods- punitive, disproportionate response to tough security problem.
— Sari Bashi (@saribashi) October 13, 2015

Attacks are real challenge for Jerusalem police. But closing off Palestinian neighborhoods blocks freedom of movement of all residents.
— Sari Bashi (@saribashi) October 14, 2015

Bashi is admitting that Human Rights Watch cannot come up with a single idea of how Israel can defend Israelis from being stabbed by random Arabs.

But HRW's official position is that dead Jews are a small price to pay to avoid inconveniencing the people from whose neighborhoods the murderers come.

Meaning that given a choice of the rights of Jews to live, or the rights of Arabs to not have to spend an extra couple of minutes to go somewhere, the Arab rights win.

Given the choice of an admittedly imperfect disincentive for young Palestinians to stab Jews, and allowing Jews to be stabbed, HRW chooses to let the Jews die.

It isn't a question of human rights for Palestinians. It is a question of competing human rights between two groups of people - one of which, by and large, wants to see the other dead.

But in the twisted calculus of HRW, Arab rights to move freely (a right that Jews do not have either in Israel) are far, far more important than the right for Jews to live.

Which is a curious position for a supposed "human rights" group to take.

I should note that to my knowledge, HRW has never said a word against constant Arab incitement to kill Jews or Arab antisemitism or Arab officials justifying the murder spree. They claim that they are against the stabbings but in practical terms, HRW supports them. Their pretense of caring about Jewish lives is never backed up by any concrete call for action on the parts of those who call the murderers heroes and martyrs.

From the NYT:

“East Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine,” Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official, said on Voice of Palestine radio. “If they think that they can reach security with these measures, they are wrong. The Palestinian people will continue to defend themselves.”

The bolded sentence is a direct threat - Israeli defensive measures are useless, Erekat is saying, because Palestinians will always be able to break through the defenses and kill Jews.

But his next sentence defines these stabbings as "defend[ing] themselves."

The reason is clear:

Erekat knows that this current unrest is making Palestinian Arabs look bad,

He cannot deny that there have been many stabbings, car rammings, shootings and stonings against innocent Israelis.

So he needs to cast the terror spree as "self defense." Because self defense is justifiable.

Saeb Erekat is saying that Arabs have the fundamental human right to murder random Jews in Israel.

Too bad no reporter ever calls him on statements like these.

Hey, it's been a solid couple of weeks since I last caught him lying. But this time he is accidentally telling the truth - he, and the Palestinian Arab leadership, really support the terror spree as moral even if they don't want to suffer the consequences.

Palestinians claim Jews photoshopped knife on terrorist

An UNRWA teacher named Maen Dajani linked to a photo from the official Facebook page of Ramallah City pretending to prove that the 15-year old who was killed after attempting to stab an Israeli was really not holding a knife in the photo that was distributed.

Because they couldn't see the shadow of the thin knife on the ground.

Actually, if you look closely you can see the shadow of the knife, but just for kicks, I downloaded the video that the frame was taken from (made by MSNBC, hardly a Zionist video outlet, and showed within minutes of the event) and slowed down the parts where the knife was most clearly visible.

That's some Photoshop!