Thursday, December 24, 2015

12/24 Link Pt2: Child killer - new Palestinian superhero; Has the anti-Israel BDS movement peaked?

From Ian:

PMW: Child killer - The new Palestinian superhero

Samir Kuntar who murdered a four-year-old Israeli by smashing her head with the butt of his rifle, is the newest PA - Fatah hero and role model
Samir Kuntar is a Lebanese terrorist who in 1969 infiltrated Israel and murdered four Israelis. Kuntar murdered his youngest victim, four-year-old Einat Haran, by repeatedly smashing her head with his rifle butt.
After being released from Israeli prison in 2006, Kuntar joined Hezbollah and was planning terror attacks against Israel when he was killed in Syria last week.
Child-killer Kuntar is the newest Palestinian Authority-Fatah superhero.
The following are 15 statements by PA and Fatah officials glorifying Kuntar and his “heroic” act of murder:

NGO Monitor: An Irresponsible Civil Society Harms Israel

NGOs that claim to promote peace and human rights are big business in Israel, with dozens of groups competing for money and headlines. One group, Breaking the Silence, or BTS, with a 2014 income of $1 million, may not be the country’s largest, but it’s been making the biggest waves.
With about 10 activists on staff, BTS publishes anonymous and unverifiable testimonies from Israeli soldiers who claim to have witnessed Israeli forces committing war crimes. Representatives of BTS travel the world repeating these stories, appearing in parliaments and before United Nations bodies, university campuses and in the media.
To audiences with no experience in combat with terror groups, the emotional claims of these soldiers can easily appear authentic. Many of the details in these accounts are unreliable or are later proved false. But the accusations go unquestioned, and the political damage is significant.
The bigger problem is that groups like BTS get most of their money, up to tens of millions of dollars, from European governments, including Sweden and Switzerland, either directly or indirectly. The European Union, for instance, is reported as BTS’s largest single donor of 2015. BTS is also one of about 20 similar groups that were built by the powerful U.S.-based New Israel Fund.

UCLA Student Whose BDS-Defeat ‘Meltdown’ Went Viral ‘Deeply Regrets’ Actions; Says Israel Is Great (INTERVIEW)

A University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) student whose angry outburst following the defeat of an anti-Israel vote went viral on the Internet has had a chance to educate herself better, she told The Algemeiner this week, after requesting an opportunity to express her change of heart.
“I don’t believe Israel is evil,” Danielle Dimacali said. “In fact I think it’s a great progressive country that offers a lot of freedom for its citizens.”
Dimacali, originally from the Philippines, was seeking to set the record straight about an incident that occurred in February 2014 during a meeting of the student council, where she still serves as a minutes-taker.
Dimacali attracted media attention at the time for weeping and cursing when a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) motion, initiated by the activist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), was rejected. A video of the proceedings and Dimacali’s subsequent “meltdown” was shared on social media and reported in this publication.
Dimacali said she was shocked by the angry response her disappointment generated, which was reflected in comments circulating on the web, and in hate mail and even death threats she received.
Dimacali said her intentions were “misconstrued.”

Legal Insurrection: This story’s ending gives me hope that anti-Israel campus hate is doomed

There have been other distrubing incidents at UCLA since then, such as the challenge to a student running for the Judicial Board on the ground that she was Jewish.
But the campus has seen a backlash against these SJP tactics. Last spring, the anti-Israel student slate of candidates was resoundingly defeated and its key members lost their positions in student government.
For me, Danielle Dimacali’s evolution on Israel is a hopeful sign that the anti-Israel venom on some campuses will not last, and that students drawn into it for all the wrong reasons will see the truth through learning.

Who pays for the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades weapons?

On the occasion of the upcoming 51st anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack from January 1, 1964, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades put out a music video:

The Al Aqsa Brigades are under the authority of Fatah, who dominates the PA government.

So where is the money coming from to fund these weapons?

In August JNS reported:

The Gaza-based military wing of the West Bank-based Fatah faction, which is headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, has reportedly asked Iran for money to help it fight Israel.

In addition, Fatah unveiled a cross-border tunnel that leads into Israeli territory during an appeal on Iran’s state-owned Al-Alam television channel, Palestinian Media Watch reported. Al-Alam interviewed a masked fighter from the Gaza branch of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades who showcased the new two-mile-long tunnel.

”We spend all our time trying to get money to fulfill our duty concerning our occupied lands and liberate them from the Zionist entity,” the fighter said.

“This is why we are asking [for money]… especially [from] Iran, which is a known long-time supporter of the resistance and the Palestinian cause,” he added.

The tunnel, according to the fighter, “is approximately 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) long and crosses the border between the Gaza Strip and the Zionist enemy. There are tunnels inside [Gaza] through which jihad fighters pass during war.”

It is unclear if Iran has paid Fatah money; their money usually has strings attached. But if Iran isn't funding them - who is?

I don't think that Gulf states are eager to fund the terror group. They are reluctant to pay their pledges to the PA itself.

The most likely explanation seems to be that some of the billions that go to prop up the PA are diverted towards Fatah which in turn bankrolls the Fatah terror groups.

This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

This week the new medium-range anti-missile system called “David’s Sling” was declared operational, and is expected to be deployed in 2016. It will join the existing Iron Dome systems for short-range rockets and the Arrow 3 system for intercepting ballistic missiles and satellites in space, to provide a multi-tiered missile defense for the country.

It’s great that we will have these systems. But it’s important to understand what they can and cannot do. In particular, they cannot allow Israel to replace its traditional doctrine of preemption with passive defense.

The systems themselves are astronomically expensive. Each Iron Dome system costs from $50-100 million; I expect that the other systems will prove to be at least equal in cost. The interceptors that they fire are also expensive: The tamir missiles used by Iron Dome cost around $50,000 each, and two are usually fired at a time. The ‘Stunner’ interceptor fired by David’s Sling costs about $2.7 million, and the ones used by the Arrow 3 go for ‘only’ $2.2 million each.

In comparison, Hamas’ short-range Qassams are estimated to cost up to $800 each. Hamas’ rocket warfare therefore has an economic dimension as well.

The greatest weakness of these systems is that they can’t be everywhere at once, and Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas have a massive quantity of rockets. It was estimated in 2013 that Hezbollah could launch “as many as 1,500 short- to mid-range rockets” every day for a month. Given the improvements in accuracy that Hezbollah has made to its rocket arsenal since 2006, it would be difficult to defend all of northern Israel with the 10 Iron Dome systems it presently has (15 are planned), especially if Hamas is firing rockets at the same time.

Israel’s enemies have fewer longer-range missiles, but their range means that there are a greater number of possible targets that need to be defended. Hezbollah has improved its concealment and fortifications for these weapons, so it will be harder to destroy most or all of them before they can be used, as was done in 2006. Hamas, too, has not been standing still.

A further ramification is that Hezbollah’s more accurate weapons will be directed at important military and industrial targets, like airfields, power stations and substations, oil refineries, military bases, radar and communications installations and command centers. These will need to be defended by antimissile systems, leaving civilian areas unprotected. Certainly Ben-Gurion Airport, the Kiriya in Tel Aviv, the nuclear installation in Dimona, and numerous other locations cannot be left unprotected.

It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the majority of our antimissile systems will be dedicated to protecting non-civilian targets. The population will need to depend on shelters for protection. In many areas shelters are inadequate, especially given the high density of fire that is expected. Property and infrastructure damage will also be extremely high.

These defensive weapons are not an unmixed blessing. One reason is that decision-makers could depend too strongly on them and reject (or postpone) the offensive or preemptive strategies that Israel has traditionally chosen. We could end up responding to an attack after it happens as in 1973, instead of preempting one as in 1967.

Another more subtle issue is that a tolerance develops, both in Israel and outside of it, for the provocations of our enemies. It’s often said that “no other country would accept” a rocket bombardment like southern Israel has absorbed from Hamas, but one of the reasons that Hamas has not yet been crushed is that Israel is able to manage its rocket bombardments.

Further, if Israel had not had Iron dome, then retaliation for Hamas rocket attacks – now pro forma – would have been made far more painful. Hamas is therefore encouraged to continue developing, stockpiling and even launching its rockets at Israel. It has little to lose from doing so. So in a sense, Iron Dome degrades our deterrent power instead of enhancing it.

Finally there are psychological effects from allowing bombardments to continue. For our citizens in the target areas, the stress and psychological damage is a serious problem even if all the rockets are intercepted. For the outside world, shooting at Jews becomes the everyday normal – it is nothing to get upset about, or even to report in their media.

The US has been generous in assisting Israel with the development of these antimissile systems, something which President Obama never fails to mention when talking about his “unshakable commitment” to Israel’s security. But he has been less forthcoming when Israel has asked for offensive weapons, particularly those that could be employed against Iran. Of course he has policy reasons for this, but I also believe this is a continuation of the historical tradition – and I mean the one that has persisted for millennia in both the Christian and the Muslim worlds – that a Jew does not have the right to actively defend himself.

I am not suggesting that Israel should not pursue development and further deployment of antimissile systems. Because of the country’s lack of strategic depth, they are absolutely necessary to protect its ability to fight. They can also provide a certain amount of protection for the population, especially in situations short of all-out war. They are an essential part of our strategic posture.

But Israel’s primary defense strategy should continue to be preemption. Because the IDF is numerically weaker and the country physically smaller than its enemies, the element of surprise and the ability to choose a time to fight when the enemy is unprepared are paramount in avoiding casualties among our forces and on the home front. Surprise is also important to provide enough time to achieve our objectives before our ‘allies’ can step in to end the conflict to our disadvantage.

The downside of preemption is that the world, including the aforementioned ‘allies’, will interpret it as ‘aggression’, and try to prevent Israel from obtaining military victory and even penalize us. Much of the world considers Israel’s preemptive attack in June of 1967 to be aggression, despite the blatantly offensive nature of the Egyptian buildup, the expulsion of UN peacekeepers and closing of the Straits of Tiran. And Golda Meir’s failure to preempt in 1973 – because of her fear of US reaction – almost resulted in Israel’s defeat in that war.

I view this, however, not as an argument against the strategy of preemption, which is still the best strategy from a military perspective, but as a reason to accelerate Israel’s efforts to reduce dependence upon the US. That is something that we should do anyway, for a multitude of political and strategic reasons.

In the specific case of Hezbollah, the decision to preempt will not be easy. Hezbollah has embedded its rockets and other targets in the civilian areas of Lebanon, a war crime. An attack on them without warning will doubtless kill many noncombatants. From a humanitarian point of view this would be tragic, and practically would result in worldwide condemnation, even though from a legal point of view these casualties would be Hezbollah’s responsibility.

On the other hand, if we wait for Hezbollah to attack, we will still have to bomb these targets, and in addition we will suffer our own casualties. It’s generally thought that Hezbollah will launch ground incursions (perhaps underground ones as well) as well as rocket and drone attacks, and who knows what else. A preemptive strike may defuse many of these and provide us a great advantage.

I understand that Hezbollah today is in trouble in Syria and does not desire a war with Israel. So maybe now would be a good time to give them one. Or should we wait until Iran’s financial windfall from the nuclear deal allows them to rebuild Hezbollah’s forces? Or until Iran has usable nuclear weapons?

The initial question that we must ask today is “is war with Hezbollah inevitable?”

If the answer is yes, then I think the only thing left to decide is when and how to strike first.

12/24 Link Pt1: Even Amira Hass Is too ‘Zionist’; PA attacking PMW repeatedly for “incitement”

From Ian:

Even Amira Hass Is too ‘Zionist’

To understand just how extreme a worldview is required to label Hass too “pro-Israel,” some background is in order. Hass is Haaretz’s longtime Palestinian affairs analyst, but she’s unique among the Israeli journalists covering this beat in that she doesn’t live in Israel; she has lived for over two decades among the Palestinians, first in Gaza and then in Ramallah. This isn’t merely out of journalistic dedication; it’s where her avowed sympathies lie.
She states explicitly that she isn’t a Zionist. As she put it in the above mentioned column, during a panel she moderated at last week’s Haaretz conference in New York, “The newspaper’s representatives made it clear that Haaretz is a Zionist publication, that its opposition to the occupation stems from Zionist principles. I found it appropriate to distinguish myself from this stance.”
In this same column, she wrote that overseas Jews who move to Israel “would be choosing to participate in another crime,” a message she said she has delivered at forums ranging from the Haaretz conference to meetings with South African Jews. As she correctly noted, this is the antithesis of Zionism, which “preaches in favor of the immigration of Diaspora Jews to Israel.” In contrast, she appears to favor letting Palestinians immigrate to Israel; at any rate, she devoted several paragraphs to decrying Israel’s refusal to let them to do so.
Moreover, she believes Palestinians have a “right” to kill Israelis; in a now-infamous column in 2013, she wrote, “Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule.” That those stones are lethal weapons whose victims are primarily innocent civilians – the list of Israelis killed by Palestinian stone-throwers ranges from infants through toddlers to senior citizens – evidently doesn’t cause her any moral qualms.
So what could Hass possibly have done to enrage those “pro-Palestinian activists” to the point of accusing her of the worst crime in their book – Zionism? In her own words, “The thing that apparently angered them most was that I dared claim that the use of weapons does not advance the Palestinians’ cause today.”

State Dept Unconcerned PA Recruits and Funds Arabs to Murder Israelis

Back to Lee, attempting to nail down for himself and other journalists how to characterize the response of the State Department to the Congressional Letter:
LEE: Okay. So if – tell me if I’m wrong then. The response to this letter is going to be: Thank you very much for your letter. No, we —
MS TRUDEAU: I can’t get ahead of that. What I’ll say is we will —
LEE: Well, what you just said is you think you would oppose —
MS TRUDEAU: What I’ll say is what our position is, which is we believe the PLO is an important partner in advancing the two-state solution.
Perhaps it is relevant that Trudeau does not even mention peace as part of the goal, just the creation of a Palestinian State.
LEE: Right. So – and you also said that you believe that the office – closing the office would be detrimental to your efforts to calm the situation.
MS TRUDEAU: Exactly.
LEE: So you’re opposed to this?
MS TRUDEAU: So we believe that the PLO has a valid place.
LEE: Right.
MS TRUDEAU: We’d like to see that office – and we’d oppose those efforts, yes.
The money line, finally, although still in the subjunctive mode (we would oppose? No, they will and do oppose), Trudeau ‘fesses up and gives permission for all the reporters to say the government opposes the Congressional effort.
LEE: Okay. Thank you.
MS TRUDEAU: That’s great.
That’s it. Lee was able to nail down the official response of the State Department to a Congressional effort to take an “affirmative step” to “calm the situation.” That completely insipid response was based on a characterization of the Congressional letter which completely ignores blatantly terrorist activity by the Palestinian Arab leadership.
It appears, based on this exchange, that the U.S. is not at all serious about promoting peace between Arabs and Israelis. Instead, it is only focused on empowering the Palestinian Arab leadership, no matter that it actively and intensively promotes the murders of Israelis. The sole goal of the State Department with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict is to create a Palestinian Arab state. The rest is empty window dressing.

PA attacking PMW repeatedly for “incitement”

As Palestinian Media Watch’s reports on the Palestinian Authority are growing in importance internationally, the Palestinian Authority is attacking PMW more frequently, accusing PMW of “incitement” against the PA and Mahmoud Abbas. Three times during the current Palestinian terror, PA officials or official PA media have attacked PMW.
Last week, the head of the press office of the PA Ministry of Information, Nida Younis, attacked PMW, telling official PA TV that PMW facilitates incitement by Israeli officials. She stated that Dore Gold, the Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry uses PMW’s findings for “incitement against the Palestinians and the Palestinian curriculum”:
Head of the Press Office, PA Ministry of Information, Nida Younis: “The Undersecretary of the [PA] Ministry of Information, [Mahmoud Khalifa], who found it necessary to produce a film about the Israeli incitement, especially now, when Dore Gold (Dir.-Gen. of Israel's Foreign Ministry) has intensified, for instance, through the PMW organization, the incitement against the Palestinians and the Palestinian curriculum.” [Official PA TV, Dec. 17, 2015]

PA Ministry of Information attacks PMW: “PMW” facilitates “incitement against Palestinians”

Israel is in an uproar over the airing of a video showing Jews at a wedding celebrating the deaths of innocent Arabs:

Footage released on Wednesday showed dozens of young Israeli right-wing extremists, said to be linked to the suspected perpetrators of the Dawabsha family murder, celebrating the killing at a wedding last week. The images in the clip immediately sparked wide condemnation.

The video, aired by Channel 10, shows revelers at the Jerusalem celebration waving knives, rifles, pistols and a Molotov cocktail during the wedding.

Amid the festivities, a photo of baby Ali Dawabsha, who was burned to death in the July 31 firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma, is shown being repeatedly stabbed.

The crowd in the video chants the lyrics of a song which include a verse from Judges 16:28, quoting Samson, blinded in Gaza, saying “let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes” — but changing the word Philistines to Palestine.

The video is indeed horrific and sickening. And already the Arab world is pointing to it as evidence that Israeli Jews are hateful, murderous bigots.

Every society has its fringe elements just as every Internet forum has its crazies. It is lazy and dishonest to point to one or five sick incidents as evidence of a society's attitudes. Not that they should be swept under the rug, but neither should they be used as proof.

But you can judge a society by how it reacts to such events in its midst.

...The video was met with harsh condemnation from across the political spectrum.

Minutes after the clip was aired, Zionist Union MK and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni got up before the Knesset and railed against the youngsters in the film, saying “this is the group that wants to destroy the Jewish Israel, to destroy this state from within, to destroy the government from within and sow hate.”

Pointing at Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich, Livni said: “These are the people you protest being interrogated by the Shin Bet.”

“My Judaism is not the Judaism of those dancing on the blood of babies,” she added on Twitter.

Smotrich condemned the “evil price tag ideology,” referring to right-wing attacks against Palestinians, but attempted to disassociate himself from the extremists, saying it “is not the way of religious Zionism, period.”

“The demonic dance with the picture of the murdered baby represents a dangerous ideology and the loss of humanity,” he said, according the Israel National News website.

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home), an outspoken supporter of the settlement movement, condemned the participants at the wedding.

“The clip published by Channel 10 news this evening is shocking and one cannot allow the activity of radical groups fueled by hate,” Ariel wrote on Facebook.

“Violence and support of violence deserve only condemnation. This is not the path of Zionism and this is not the path of the settlement movement,” wrote Ariel, who a day earlier had called for the Shin Bet to close down its division that deals with Jewish terror cases.

The video clip was also denounced by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau, who said it went against Jewish tradition. Other religious figures also spoke out against it.

And it isn't only politicians. Blogs, Facebook posts, and op-eds out of Israel are united in condemnation for this event - and not only because it makes Israeli Jews look bad, but because Israeli Jews are naturally horrified by it and want to rid themselves of such evil in their midst.

The contrast to how Palestinian society reacts to their own outrages could not be more clear. After months of stabbing, car ramming and firebombing attacks on innocent Jews, I have yet to see a single statement in any Palestinian news or social media outlet that condemns those actions for being immoral. Not one.

On the contrary, the universal reaction is to justify these attacks or even to celebrate them.

The Henkins murdered in cold blood - nothing.

The massacre of the Fogels - nothing.

The Har Nof synagogue massacre - nothing.

Except for the occasional pro forma and hypocritical "condemnation" by Mahmoud Abbas (which disgust the Palestinian street), there is never any moral outrage or soul-searching that follows every attack by Jews on innocent Arabs.

While Jews condemn, Palestinians celebrate. While Jews try to root out the evil in their midst, Palestinians name schools and sporting events after their "hero" murderers. While Jews distance themselves from crimes in their name, Palestinians embrace them and encourage their people to do more.

Zionist Jews are rightly sickened at the sight of seemingly religious Jews acting in such a disgusting manner. The day that Palestinian Arabs start to react the same way to their celebrations of murdering Jews will be the day that peace might actually be a possibility.

There is no indication that it will ever happen.

Egypt's Youm7 reports that an Egyptian professor at the University of Assiut has figured out the real story about the Jewish Temples.

Dr. Iman Tayeb says that her studies of the Prophets, Talmud, Maimonides and others points to the conclusion that the Temples were not built in Jerusalem, but much further north in the Galilee.

You see, she notes that the priestly families that served in the Temple lived in Tzippori which is quite a distance north from Jerusalem. How could they commute to Jerusalem to do their service? (The answer is that each family would travel to Jerusalem for a week, twice a year, during their designated watch.)

She notes that this could explain why there haven't been any ancient Jewish artifacts found in Jerusalem. Yep.

But she also says that when Egypt was powerful in the Levant, it would build large garrisons. After they left, these garrisons would often be converted to temples, so the real Jewish Temples were just converted Egyptian buildings somewhere in the Galilee.

Mahmoud Abbas issued his annual Christmas message yesterday. As he always does, he hijacked what should be a message of peace into an anti-Israel screed.

Here's the introduction:

It is a divine blessing that this year we are coincidentally celebrating the birth of Jesus and the birth of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon them, for the first time in centuries. On this day, billions around the world celebrate the birth of two great messengers of love, hope, justice and peace.

Jesus is a symbol for all Palestinians. Palestine and its people take pride in being the birthplace of Christianity and having the oldest Christian community in the world.

Christmas is a message of hope which should prevail even during the difficult times that our nation, and the world, are facing. In Bethlehem this year, Palestinians will celebrate Christmas surrounded by eighteen illegal settlements and an annexation wall, which are taking over their land. Over the past few months, we have seen how the Israeli government has continued to consolidate an Apartheid regime by accelerating policies which destroy the two-state solution. And yet, Palestinians continue to defy the daily oppression imposed by their occupier with steadfastness and love for their country.

Those stabbers are acting out of love!

Throughout the speech, Abbas relentlessly focuses on the anti-Israel theme. He praised churches that practice BDS. He pretends to speak on behalf of the dwindling Christian population to slam Israeli defensive actions near Bethlehem.

But at the end of a speech that is nothing less than hijacking Christmas to slander Israel, he says, "The use of any religion for political purposes is absolutely unacceptable and must be fought."

Except, of course, by Palestinian Arabs.

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah celebrates Wednesday's murderous terror attack

From the official Fatah Facebook page comes the message saying the two people who murdered Ofer Ben Ari and Rabbi Reuven Biermacher are "heroes" and "martyrs" who engaged in a "heroic operation" and who they say are now immortalized and filled with glory.

The party led by Mahmoud Abbas is very excited that they managed to kill a couple of Jews

I want to stress that yet again, I cannot find a single Arabic-language voice under PA rule - not one op-ed, not one article - that finds murdering Jews to be anything less than heroic.

12/23 Links Pt2: 2015 Dishonest Reporting Awards; Dermer sends settlement products as gifts

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: The 2015 Dishonest Reporting Awards

The year began with Islamic terror in Paris, but was dominated by the Iranian nuclear talks and strained US-Israeli ties. A wave of Palestinian stabbing and car-ramming attacks began with the Jewish new year. As 2015 draws to a close, Islamic terror has struck the West again, with Paris suffering even more bloodshed.
The 2015 Dishonest Reporting Awards
1. Best Reason to Handle Palestinian Sources With Care: The Gaza Flood Libel
2. Most Bigoted Journalist: Kitty Holland
3. Worst Abuse of Anonymous Sources: Haaretz
4. Smear of the Year: Fareed Zakaria
5. Most Unholy Row: New York Times
6. Great Moments in Self-Embellishing: Brian Williams
7. Dumbest Twitter Rant: Jim Clancy
8. Most Maddening Map Misrepresentation: MSNBC
And who is the overall Dishonest Reporter of 2015? We’ll announce that next week, so stay tuned! Without further ado, here are the runner-up winners.

NGO Monitor: Deck the Halls with Exploitation: How Anti-Peace NGOs Abuse and Misuse the Message of Christmas

Similar to previous years, many politicized NGOs and well-known charities have been exploiting the 2015 Christmas season with anti-peace campaigns, some of which glorify terrorism.
Groups such as Sabeel (funded by Sweden, via Diakonia, and the Netherlands via ICCO and Kerk in Actie), War on Want (funded by UK, EU, and Ireland), Adalah-NY, Kairos Palestine, and Amos Trust are again using religious and holiday themes to demonize Israel. These organizations utilize inflammatory and offensive rhetoric in their Christmas carols, holiday messages, appeals, and religious imagery.
At the same time, their messages strip the context, omitting references to deadly Palestinian terrorism and other violence against Israelis. They fail to condemn the escalation of attacks against civilians in the last quarter of 2015 – stabbings, car rammings, and drive-by shootings. For example, many of these so-called Christmas messages allege that the security barrier causes harm to Palestinians, while failing to mention its role in protecting civilians against terror attacks.
The abuse of Christmas messages is part of a broad international campaign of political warfare conducted against Israel in some churches. Palestinian Christian NGOs, such as Sabeel and Kairos Palestine, provide the theological and ideological frameworks for these attacks.

In Christmas message, Abbas calls on world to protect Palestinians from Israel

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday accused Israel of continuing to “consolidate an Apartheid regime by accelerating policies which destroy the two-state solution.”
Abbas’s latest accusation came in a “Christmas Message” in which he repeated other charges against Israel, such as the construction of an “Annexation Wall” and the uprooting of “historic olive trees” near Bethlehem.
“Jesus is a symbol for all Palestinians,” Abbas said. “Palestine and its people take pride in being the birthplace of Christianity and having the oldest Christian community in the world.”

Compare how Amnesty reports on Russia vs. Israel

From Amnesty International:

“Some Russian air strikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians. Such attacks may amount to war crimes,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

Compare that language with how Philip Luther described Israeli attacks on houses in a nearly parallel report issued last November:

“Israeli forces have brazenly flouted the laws of war by carrying out a series of attacks on civilian homes, displaying callous indifference to the carnage caused,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

“The report exposes a pattern of attacks on civilian homes by Israeli forces which have shown a shocking disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians, who were given no warning and had no chance to flee.”

Amnesty uses much more graphic and loaded language to describe Israeli actions.

It gets worse. Amnesty's report about Russia says that they found zero evidence of any military targets among the sites hit. But it admits that Israel did have some military targets even according to their biased investigation:

In several of the cases documented in the report, possible military targets were identified by Amnesty International. However the devastation to civilian lives and property caused in all cases was clearly disproportionate to the military advantages gained by launching the attacks.

As I have proven repeatedly, Amnesty was wrong about many of the targets because I was able to document valid military targets in nearly every single case Amnesty mentioned. And Amnesty was wrong about international law ("disproportionate") in the report on Israel.

But with Russia, where Amnesty cannot find a single military target, Philip Luther's language is far less critical and more clinical.

The bias is obvious. As usual.

(h/t Ben)

Galloway Seeks Return To Labor After Nazis Reject Him As Too Racist (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

London, December 23 - Firebrand MP and former Mayor of Bradford George Galloway expressed a desire to return to Labor, following his failure to join the Nazi Party, who dismissed him as too racially prejudiced.

Galloway, currently sitting in Parliament as a member of the Respect Party, was expelled from Labor twelve years ago, after calling on British troops in Iraq to refuse to obey their "illegal orders." He has cultivated a base of loyalists opposed to Israel and the West in general, and has expressed admiration and support for brutal dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi. He ran for Parliament following a failed reelection bid for the mayoralty of Bradford, and seeks the same office in London, but since his dismissal from Labor has yearned for an established party that better reflects his sensibilities. The Nazis, however, rejected Galloway, saying he was far too racially divisive for their tastes.

"Dude...no," said a Nazi representative, recalling his response to Galloway's application. The Nazi spoke to PreOccupied Territory on condition of anonymity, as he was too ashamed to be associated with the Galloway debacle.

While many of Galloway's statements and declared goals align with Nazi ideology, explained the representative, he simply holds views that are excessively racist. "The guy is a caricature of himself. No self-respecting party, regardless of its name, if it wants to be taken seriously, can accept that....thing in its ranks." He also noted the former mayor's distaste for military force, at least as applied by his own country, and said that such an attitude was incompatible with Nazism.

Labor chairman Jeremy Corbyn declined to rule out Galloway's return to the party, saying such a move should be decided by the party organs tasked with such a decision. The Labor leader expressed surprise that the Nazis had rejected his colleague. "I'd have thought George and the Nazis were a good fit, actually. Perhaps there's something they know that we don't regarding the suitability of certain people for public office."

Corbyn himself might not remain with Labor much longer, it is rumored, especially in light of recent developments in the Middle East. Aside from rank-and-file dissatisfaction with his hard-left leadership so far, a possible early election in Israel has politicians there voicing a desire to have him assume leadership of Israel's Labor Party.

12/23 Links Pt1: Why Palestinians Love Baby-Killers; Cruz: Close DC's PLO terror office

From Ian:

Why Palestinians Love Baby-Killers

Samir Kuntar murdered four Israelis. One of his victims was a four-year-old girl, Einat Haran. Kuntar smashed her skull. Kuntar was killed this week in Syria while helping President Bashar Assad commit war crimes against his own citizens.
Senior Palestinian official Sultan Abu Al-Einein evidently believes that murdering Jews is not a "despicable crime," but killing an arch-terrorist such as Kuntar is a "despicable crime."
When the Western-backed Palestinian Authority openly endorses terrorists and names streets, squares and schools after them, Palestinian leaders are sending a message to their people that murdering Jews is a noble and dignified act. This show of solidarity with a baby-killer is the direct result of ongoing incitement against Israel and Jews in mosques, the press and social media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In this sick, twisted society that the Europeans have bought and paid for, anyone who murders Jews is considered a role model. Anyone who supports peace with Israel is denounced as a "traitor."

Douglas Murray: The Establishment Is In Denial — Yet Again

Worst was in the wake of November’s atrocity in Paris when the story went around from the Wall Street Journal to the Huffington Post and the Daily Mail that one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France football stadium had been stopped and turned away by a Muslim security guard called Zouheir. The story was reported around the world and heralded across social media. Amid a night of bloodshed which allegedly had nothing to do with Islam here was a security guard who had everything to do with Islam saving hundreds of lives. This seemed such a good meme that it became one of the most popular “stories” of the night on Twitter. Except that it turned out — as the BBC was unusual in being good enough to concede — that the tale was fabricated. There was a guard in the stadium of unknown religion called Zouheir but he had been elsewhere on the night and had not seen any bombers. He had relayed part of a colleague’s story to a reporter. Why had this all become about him? For the simple reason that people wanted it to be.
The point is that all these things are varieties of self-distraction. They are things we have set up to stop us coming to the conclusions based on the evidence before us. Parliament discusses sending a few planes to bomb IS, but is aware that this minimal action could cause maximal pain at home. The media reports the terrorist attacks while scouring to find a news story that will show Muslims in a good light.
Many worthy sentiments may be mixed up in all this. But at the root of them, living through them and watching this doubt from the top to the bottom, it is hard not to reflect that we are living in the in-between years. At some point the atrocities will come here again and only then will we again be able to see that these years were largely wasted.

Ted Cruz to Obama: Shut Down DC's Terror-Supporting Palestinian Office

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is demanding that the Obama administration close the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) office in Washington for “celebrating the murder of Jews,” “glorification of terrorism,” and paying salaries to jailed Palestinian terrorists.
The United States government has an obligation to publicly denounce the PLO’s actions and should immediately revoke its waiver,” reads a letter signed by 30 Republican lawmakers and sent to Secretary of State John Kerry by Cruz and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC).
The letter, released Monday, further states that Israel has “seen a dramatic increase in deadly attacks carried out by Palestinians sympathetic to the message of hatred and intolerance proclaimed by leaders” of the PLO.
The PLO has been banned by Congress from maintaining a D.C. office. However, the legislation allowed the president to temporarily waive the requirement and since 1994 this waiver has been in effect.
But Republican lawmakers are insisting that the waiver be revoked due to a string of terrorist attacks “directly connected to the Palestinian government’s teaching of hate and glorification of terrorism.”

US State Department rejects lawmakers' calls to close PLO office

State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau confirmed that the department had received the letter and said Kerry would respond to it.
"We believe that closing the PLO office would be detrimental to our ongoing efforts to calm tensions between Israeli's and Palestinians, advance a two-state solution and strengthen the US-Palestinian partnership," Trudeau told reporters.
She said every US administration since 1994 had used the waiver to keep the PLO office open.
"We believe the PLO has a valid place ... and we'd oppose those efforts" to close the office," Trudeau said, adding that Kerry had condemned the attacks.