Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 13, 2016

05/13 Links Pt1: Palestinian Leaders and Child Sacrifice; Five mendacious myths make one false narrative

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Leaders and Child Sacrifice

The tragic death of three Palestinian siblings, killed in a fire that destroyed their house in the Gaza Strip on May 6, demonstrates yet again the depth to which Palestinian leaders will go to exploit their children for political purposes and narrow interests.
The three children from the Abu Hindi family -- Mohamed, 3 years old, his brother Nasser, 2 years old and their two-month infant sister Rahaf, died in a fire caused by candles that were being used due to the recurring power outages in the Gaza Strip.
The electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip is the direct result of the continued power struggle between the two Palestinian rival forces, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
In recent months, the crisis has deepened, leaving large parts of the Gaza Strip without electricity for most of the day. Hamas blames the Palestinian Authority for the crisis because of its failure to cover the costs of the fuel needed to operate the power plants in the Gaza Strip. The PA has retorted by blaming Hamas's "corruption" and "incompetence."
The Abu Hindi family resides in the Shati refugee camp, where Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other leaders of the Islamist movement live. But unlike the senior Hamas leaders, the Abu Hindi family could not afford to purchase their own power generator to supply them with electricity during the power outages. Instead, the tragedy-stricken family, like most families in the Gaza Strip, resorted to the cheapest alternative lighting method -- candles.
On that horrific evening, the Abu Hindi's three children went to sleep while the candles were burning. Hours later, the charred bodies of the three siblings were taken from the house while it was still on fire and engulfed with smoke.
In any other country, this incident would have been reported as a routine tragedy -- one of the kind that could happen in any city such as New York, London or Paris.
Here, however, the death of the three children is not just another personal tragedy. This was a case, rather, of child sacrifice: the Abu-Hindi children were sacrificed on the altar of the decade-long war being waged between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. And these children are far from the first or last such victims.

Caroline Glick: The fruits of subversion

From the perspective of democratic norms, the worst part of Dagan’s subversion is that he was proud of it.
By insisting his final interview be broadcast posthumously, Dagan showed that he wanted his subversion of the government to be his legacy. Dagan’s final act was to tell his countrymen that it is legitimate to place themselves above the law and above the lawful government and take independent actions that will obligate the entire country.
Ironically, there is no substantive difference between Dagan’s actions – or the generals’– and the actions of the so-called Hilltop Youth in Samaria whom the generals continuously condemn as the greatest threat to Israel.
Like the generals, right-wing extremist teenage outlaws reject the authority of the government. Like the generals, denizens of “the state of Judea” believe that they know how to advance Israel’s national security better than our elected officials.
True, the damage the generals cause the country by revealing state secrets to foreign governments and libeling the nation of Israel as Nazis is several orders of magnitude greater than the damage wrought by fanatical teenagers who vandalize Arab property. Indeed it is far greater than alleged acts of murder that a handful of Hilltop Youth stand accused of committing.
And by acting lawlessly and showing bottomless contempt for our elected officials, Dagan, Golan and their comrades tell the Hilltop Youth and the rest of us that the law is what they say it is.
Sixty-eight years ago, after declaring Israel’s independence, David Ben-Gurion set about dismantling the underground militias to ensure the survival of the state as a coherent political unit.
Sixty-eight years later, it works out there are still competing gangs trying to obligate the rest of us with their unlawful, anti-democratic and immoral behavior. If Israel is to survive for the next 68 years, we need to act firmly and forthrightly to end this state of affairs.

Martin Sherman: Five mendacious myths make one false narrative

Given the lies and distortions of Palestinian claims, what seems more credible: An offer to buy the Brooklyn Bridge or the Palestinian narrative?
Even a cursory analysis of historical events in this region will reveal that, in the case of Palestinians-Arabs, neither of these constituent elements exists: Not an identifiably differentiated people, desiring exercise of political sovereignty; nor a defined territory in which that sovereignty is to be exercised.
One need only examine the declarations and documents of Palestinians themselves to verify this, and discover that they have never really conceived of themselves as a discernibly discrete people with a defined homeland.
Accordingly, little effort is required to demonstrate that the Palestinian “narrative” – the ideo-intellectual fuel driving the demands for statehood – is nothing more than a motley mixture of multiple myths, easily identifiable and readily refutable. The inescapable conclusion is – or should be – that the entire edifice of Palestinian national aspirations is a giant political hoax, a massive sleight of political hand to serve a more sinister – and thinly disguised – ulterior motive.
What are the five constituent myths that comprise the noxious concoction of the Palestinian narrative?

Prof. Eugene Kontorovich at the House Committee on the Judiciary May 2016
examined how the Executive improperly ignored legislation pursuant to the Foreign Commerce Clause in implementing the Iran nuclear deal, also the funding of UN organizations.

UN FAO office curses at woman who complains about their antisemitic "goodwill ambassador"

An EoZ reader sent this email to the Washington DC office of the UN's FAO:

Hello:

I understand FAO has appointed Majida El Roumi as a Goodwill Ambassador. Is this correct? What type of vetting, if any, is done for candidate Goodwill Ambassadors?

I understand further that Majida El Roumi has publicly endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and stated that Zionists are responsible for the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels.

If FAO was not previously aware of Majida El Roumi's publicly expressed antisemitism, I submit that you now have notice thereof. Media clips of El Roumi's hate speech are archived and summarized here: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2016/05/un-fao-goodwill-ambassador-lebanese.html.

I call for Majida El Roumi to be removed from her position as Goodwill Ambassador immediately. Will she be removed from this position, and will you take the bold step to condemn her blatant antisemitism?

Thank you,

She called the same office later in the day. What happened next is explained in her email to one of the employees in that office:

Dear Genevie:

Thank you for speaking with me earlier. As I mentioned, I called the main line this afternoon and said that I would like to speak to someone re: the Goodwill Ambassador. The representative who answered said that she received my e-mail. I had not given her my name when I called, so it was unclear to me why your representative asserted that she received "my e-mail." I asked if she knew who I was, and she said "I do not give a shit who you are." She put me on hold and when I asked for her name, she hung up on me. Obviously this conduct is not appropriate for any public servant, much less those in the role of liaison.

I expect this individual to be reprimanded and I look forward to an earnest reply from UN FAO on the substantive issue below.

Best regards,

The FAO contact replied:

I am unsure who you spoke with but I’ve informed all staff that they are required to conduct themselves as proper International Civil Servants and to address telephone queries with utmost respect.

As for the protocol relating to UN Goodwill Ambassadors and their selection, the entire procedure and vetting process are undertaken by FAO headquarters (Rome, Italy). They reached at the following email address : GoodwillAmbassadors@fao.org.

My apologies for the delayed response.

Sincerely,

Genevie

The working day at FAO headquarters in Italy is now over, and there has been no response to my inquiry about their support of an antisemite.

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UNRWA keeps pushing Pallywood

This is the pinned photo that has been on the top of the Twitter feed of Raquel Marti, UNRWA's executive director in Spain, for months. She captioned it "Bath time in Gaza:"

The original photo was taken by Emad Nassar, with this description:

June 26, 2015 . Salem Saoody, 30, is getting his daughter Layan (L) and his niece Shaymaa 5 (R) in the only remaining piece from their damaged house, which is the bathing tub. They now live in a caravan near the rubble.

One minor question: Where did the water come from?

There is no rain in Gaza in June. The house does not appear to have running water. There is no hose visible in the picture.

What are the chances that Salem Saoody takes his daughters out of their mobile home and they carry over 100 liters of clean water with them to their former home to take a bath?

Emad Nassar saw the chance for a dramatic photo, so he staged it to win awards. And the girls were happy to play in a mini-pool on a summer day. So, it appears, Nassar and Saoody spent a morning carrying water to the old bathtub for the perfect photo.

The idea that the Saoodys are forced to give their girls a bath in their old bathtub does not pass any sanity test.

Last June, when this photo was taken, I noted that Hamas had turned the Shujaiyeh neighborhood into a showpiece to bring foreign reporters to show Israel's evil - even though thousands of Gaza homes were being repaired, Hamas left Shujaiyeh untouched. There were a series of such obviously staged photos published by Hamas-leaning and duped photojournalists. And while the terror group kept the neighborhood as a zoo for gaping Westerners, it was building tunnels underneath the very same area.

UNRWA has something in common with Hamas. Both groups wanted to keep families in Shujaiyeh homeless, and the rubble uncleared, for as long as possible so they could maximize its propaganda value and get more funds from credulous Westerners. UNRWA actually made an entire film of such staged scenes in the neighborhood last year,

Of course, if you want to paint Gazans as eternal victims and implicitly blame Israel at every opportunity, this staged photo and inaccurate caption is perfect for you - and perfect for UNRWA and its lackeys. UNRWA created an entire film of such staged scenes in this neighborhood and told kids there to act in ludicrous scenes such as creating a makeshift see-saw in the middle of rubble.

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Early this morning, Hezbollah's top commander in Syria, Mustafa Badreddine, was announced to have been killed in a large blast at a military installation near Damascus airport.

Early reports blamed Israel, but it is not that clear who was behind the assassination.

Hezbollah's statement described Badreddine as the ultimate jihadist:

In The Name of Allah, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful

"Of the believers are men who are true to that which they covenanted with Allah. Some of them have paid their vow by death (in battle), and some of them still are waiting; and they have not altered in the least" (Al-Ahzab, 23)

A few months earlier he said: "I won't come back from Syria unless as a martyr or a carrier of the banner of victory."

He is the great Jihadi leader, Hajj Mustafa Badriddine (Sayyed Zulfiqar), who came back today wrapped with the banner of victory which he established through his bitter fight against the Takfiri groups in Syria.

Following a life full of Jihad, captivity, wounds and great qualitative achievements , Sayyed Zulfiqar concluded his life with martyrdom.

But their next sentence indicates that Hezbollah is a very liberal social justice group.

He joined the convoy of martyrs, one of whom was his beloved and life-long companion, martyred leader Hajj Imad Moughniyeh.

I didn't know that Hezbollah was so tolerant!

What a romantic story, to see how this loving couple Badreddine and Mughniyeh have finally reunited to spend their afterlife together again. They can keep each other very warm.

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05/12 Links Pt2: Haaretz columnist calls for a military coup in Israel; UNHRC resolution an 'assault on Israel'

From Ian:

Haaretz senior columnist implicitly calls for a military coup in Israel

Israeli radical left Haaretz daily published on Wednesday, May 11, 2016 an article implicitly calling on the army officers to carry out a military coup in order to save the democracy.
The article was penned by Tzvi Barel, columnist, commentator for Middle Eastern affairs and a board member of Haaretz owned by Amos Schocken. Aluf Benn is the Editor-in-Chief of Haaretz.
Barel said that the military brass will have to determine what is the ultimate threat to the security and existence of Israel: “thousands of missiles and Palestinian stabbers or a government engineering the public to make them become a monster threatening to prey on the basic values of the Israeli democracy.”
According to Barel, Israel is not immune of a military coup and perhaps such a coup has already started. “The army will not be the instigator of a revolt if it happens. By pushing today the army into a spot in which it has to defend itself and its values, the political leadership is the one which will bring about the first Jewish military revolution,” Barel wrote.
Barel added that army does not have to conquer the Knesset (Parliament), the Prime Minister offices and the TV stations in order to carry out the military coup, because it enjoys the support of the Israeli people. (h/t Yenta Press)

Calling Israel an apartheid state is an insult to black South Africans (OPINION)

I am from Zimbabwe and grew up under the strictest regime of apartheid in South Africa. Today, I am an author and law student at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am an avid debater, ranked fourth globally and first in Africa in the World Universities Public Speaking Championship.
I have read the recent guest column in The Oregonian written by Alice Rothchild.
I understand that the Methodist and, later, the Presbyterian Church USA are considering proposals to boycott and divest from Israel.
I believe the Christian faith and the state of Israel are irrevocably intertwined. This is because the Christian faith flows naturally from the Judaic faith.
There are some who would seek to have the Christian churches distance themselves from the state of Israel. There is a call for the churches to join the boycott divestment sanctions (BDS) movement. It would be a big victory, indeed, for the Palestinians to convince some of the biggest allies of the state of Israel to remove their support.
This call is based on the claim that Israel is an apartheid state and, secondly, that negotiations have not been successful as a strategy for peace. These two premises are both incorrect. Allow me to elaborate.
Like Ms. Rothchild, I used to support the BDS movement, but I withdrew my support after I visited Israel and Palestine (the West Bank).

New Statesman: How 'the longest hatred' took root

Succinct analysis of the roots of antisemitism by Brendan Sims and Charlie Laderman, all the more remarkable for appearing the left-leaning New Statesman. Here is the extract from The Longest Hatred about anti-Semitism in the Middle East (with thanks: Lily):
5. Anti-Semitism and the left
As the heir of the Enlightenment and ideals of the French Revolution, the European left championed emancipation, equality and tolerance in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, it was regarded favourably by Jews. And yet hostility to Jews animated the world-view of some pioneering socialists. For instance, the late-18th- and early-19th-century utopian socialist Charles Fourier regarded Jews as “parasites, merchants, usurers”. They were agents of capitalism and commerce, personified most powerfully by the Rothschilds. Karl Marx, even though he was of Jewish descent, claimed that Jews had made money the “God of the world” and called for humanity to be emancipated from Judaism. It was these manifestations of anti-Judaism that led the German Social Democrat August Bebel to refer to anti-Semitism as the “socialism of fools”.
That Jewish leftists were heavily represented in the leadership of the socialist and communist movement, from Trotsky down, led right-wing racists to equate Judaism with Bolshevism. At first, the Soviet Union embraced this association. In 1931 Stalin declared that anti-Semitism was “the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism” and that “under USSR law . . . active anti-Semites are liable to the death penalty”. The USSR was the first state to grant de jure recognition to Israel, and supported it with arms during the 1948 conflict. However, it turned sharply against Israel and global Jewry from the 1950s onwards.
In the early 1950s, Stalin launched a major anti-Jewish campaign that culminated in the arrest of Jewish doctors accused of poisoning Communist leaders. In 1952, he told the Politburo: “Every Jewish nationalist is the agent of the American intelligence service.” America was the USSR’s principal enemy in the Cold War and its sizeable Jewish community was believed to be at the centre of a worldwide network that was doing the bidding of the new Israeli state, and which had operatives across the globe, including the USSR and communist-controlled eastern Europe.
This anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist campaign was taken up throughout the communist world. Its anti-Jewish nature was clear in the show trials of Jews and their removal from critical positions in local Communist Parties, accompanied by a barrage of openly anti-Semitic propaganda. The most notorious instance of this was the 1952 Slansky trial in Czechoslovakia, during which the state denounced the defendants, not all of whom were Jewish, as “Zionists”, “Jewish capitalists” and “Jewish Gestapo agents”.

Hamas member killed in family dispute; he's STILL a martyr

The al-Qassam Brigades announced Asalih Alian, 23, was killed by gunfire in a family dispute in the Maan area east of Khan Younis in Gaza last night.

Even though he was not killed doing anything remotely jihadist, Hamas still considers him a "shahid," or martyr.

Maybe because they didn't want to waste all of his martyrdom photos that he posed for, hoping for a much more glorious death at the hands of the Zionists.

The failed jihadist was married and had a two month old child, who will now lack a strong terrorist role model for a father. This is one of the tragedies of Gaza.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

On this 68^th anniversary of the independence of the modern Jewish nation-state, my thoughts naturally turn to the question of how long we will be able to keep that independence, purchased at such great cost.

It’s not an issue that occupies citizens of most other states to the same degree. Although the US has major problems in several areas, I don’t hear Americans talking about losing their independence. They settled that back in the 18^th century.

For us, it is never settled, despite international law and despite our successful defense of our homeland. Most of the world does not think that the Jewish people should have an independent state, in many cases because they don’t agree that there is a Jewish people (on the other hand, a ‘Palestinian’ people makes sense to them, or at least they pretend it does).

There is more than one way a sovereign nation can lose its independence. It can be conquered in war, as happened to Carthage in the 2^nd century BCE, its people killed, enslaved or dispersed, its wealth carried off and its land sown with salt. It can be invaded and then made into a colony or satellite, its people allowed to live but without self-determination, as happened to the Eastern European satellites of the Soviet Union after WWII. And it can allow its decisions to be influenced by a more powerful state or states, little by little giving up its independent volition to economic and political pressure, until it finds itself so dependent on its ‘patron’ that it has lost the ability to control its destiny.

Israel is threatened militarily today primarily by Iran and its proxies. It would be wrong to minimize the direct threat to our existence that they represent, and our government and the IDF do take it seriously and prepare for conflict.

But we are also at risk of a ‘soft conquest’ by another enemy, this one an alliance of supposedly friendly nations, led by one massively powerful country that is considered our greatest friend and supporter. And our leaders seem blind to this danger.

How does a soft conquest work? Here are some of the tactics:

1.       Create economic dependence by damaging the target’s relationships with rival partners.

2.       Create military dependence either directly by ‘protecting’ the target or indirectly by locking it in to you as a sole supplier of arms, ammunition or spare parts.

3.       Strengthen its enemies and weaken the target’s own self-defense abilities so that it will have to depend upon you when threatened.

4.       Take advantage of conflicts the target is involved in to demand further concessions that will weaken it. Prevent it from decisively defeating its enemies.

5.       Support politicians in the target who are friendly to you financially, and hint that if they come to power the relationship between the countries will improve. Attack less compliant politicians in the media, blame them for problems, and suggest that unless they are replaced you will lose patience and downgrade the relationship. Influence local elections.

6.       Support organizations working to destabilize the target and create internal and external conflict. The more problems it has, the more easily you can replace its government with a puppet regime; until then, the more leverage you will have with the existing government.

7.       Influence other nations to withdraw support from the target to increase their dependence on you.

8.       Work to weaken popular support for the target in your own country, so that when you apply pressure or withdraw support from the target, objections will be minimized.

9.       Support enemies of the target in your own country. They will do much of the work for you.

Does this sound familiar? It should, since every one of these tactics is or has been employed against Israel by the Obama Administration and its European allies.

Israel’s addiction to US aid is dangerous to our independence. One of the interesting things about our army is that it has perhaps the least hawkish General Staff in the world. Army brass have recently called for turning over security control in parts of Judea/Samaria to the PA and for increased aid to Gaza. In 2012, PM Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak wanted to launch an attack on the Iranian nuclear program, something the US was dead set against. The top generals were opposed. They may or may not have had good arguments, but I’m sure they were aware that going against the US might get the IDF’s budget brutally slashed. It is not surprising that they often tend to agree with the American point of view.

The US attempts to control Israeli military strategy with its aid. Money is available (at least it has been until now) for defensive weapons like Iron Dome, but not for the bunker busters or tanker aircraft that would enable an attack on Iran. The F-35 fighter aircraft presents a whole collection of problems, with performance and range issues, software/hardware bugs and dependence on US-based computer system. There are concerns that its non-transparent software might hide a backdoor that would allow the US to keep track of what Israel does with the planes or even force the abortion of a mission that the US didn’t like. Israel would prefer to buy more F-15s, but the Pentagon is saying that it is the F-35 or nothing.

I rarely hear mainstream Israeli politicians, either in the government or the opposition, taking the position that our dependence on the US is a bad thing or that the US is not wholeheartedly supportive of Israel. The opposition, in fact, generally claims that insofar as the relationship is less than perfect, it is the government’s fault for being insufficiently compliant on issues like settlements. And the government says that things have never been better, even while the US president’s spokesperson calls our PM “a chickenshit.”

Perhaps in private they understand the situation better, perhaps not. But the correct assessment must be that while Iran and Hezbollah pose a direct military threat, the US administration and Europe are also dangerous, even though their hostility is not expressed in the form of missiles aimed at us.

If this sounds like exaggeration to you, consider the effects on Israel of the release of billions of dollars to Iran, the inability to enforce the limitations on Iran’s nuclear program, and the acquiescence by the administration to almost any Iranian behavior in order to keep them from abrogating the entire (unsigned) deal. Are the Western powers’ actions more or less dangerous to Israel than Hamas?

The American people, by and large, are our friends. But this administration is decidedly not on our side, and we don’t know what the American political future will bring.

We can’t entirely prevent diplomatic pressure and attempts at subversion from our ‘friends’, and we can’t stop them from empowering our overt enemies. But we can reduce their leverage on us by maximizing our independence.

If defense against Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah is our top priority, then independence must also be near the top. We are investing 160 million shekels in a system to detect Hamas tunnels, but how much are we investing to become independent from US military assistance?

It’s always a temptation to put off dealing with long-term, complicated problems when you are facing immediate dangers. Try telling a combat soldier that if he doesn’t stop smoking, he’ll ultimately die from it. But Israel’s addiction to US aid can also be fatal in the long run.

Time for us to kick the habit.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

05/12 Links Pt1: Israel's First Independence Day; Fatah Celebrates 36th Anniversary Of Deadly Attack In Hebron

From Ian:

Israelis and their Independence Day barbecue, a symbol of nationhood and affluence

At 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, Israel’s 68th Independence Day, Yuval Iluz staked a claim on a square of picnic ground in the Charuvit Forest in the Judean foothills, surrounding his ad-hoc homestead with blue-and-white Israeli flag bunting, laying out woven beach mats for the “relaxation corner,” setting up a large, multi-level gas grill and blowing up a bouncy castle for the kids.
“I took on the responsibility of organizing it myself this year,” said Iluz, who owns an air conditioning company and has the equipment necessary for schlepping and setting up a three-meter-high (10-foot-high) bouncy castle to a national park located 22 kilometers (13 miles) from his home.
Iluz’s parents, three siblings and their families, some 25 people in all, will gather for the barbecue, and though they could easily gather in one of their backyards, or his, with its own pool, they choose to join the rest of the Israeli nation on Thursday, bringing along everything but the proverbial kitchen sink.
“We deliberately go to the national parks,” said Iluz, 45, who lives in Moshav Arugot, where he and his siblings were born and raised. “It has more of the atmosphere of a holiday, of being with the Israeli nation.”

Israel's First Independence Day

What was it like to experience Israel's independence day in 1948? Take from Israelis who were there: The incredible story of rising from the ashes of oppression and exile to the re-birth of the Jewish state.

Proud to be a Zionist (5776 edition)

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's version:

Every year, the State of Israel seems to be up against yet another unsolvable crisis. These have ranged from wars to suicide bombings to terror rockets to facing the prospect of nuclear-armed enemies. Over the past year she has faced multiple threats: A spate of stabbing and car ramming attacks that have been fueled by open incitement by the Palestinian Authority, Israel's greatest ally America working to allow a nation that threatens Israel daily to build nuclear weapons in less than 15 years, people who pretend to be "pro-Israel" and yet who spend every waking hour working to weaken her, and more efforts at all political levels to delegitimize Israel as a nation.

Yet, here she is, 68 years old and more beautiful than she was at birth.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and arguably more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during its war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, stabbed and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards are too high and end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keeps trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the people that the enemy is hiding behind. This is not done because of pressure from "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains incredibly high moral standards, which can be easily proven for anyone who wants to investigate the situation impartially. (People willing to do that are, regrettably, few and far between.) It would be so easy for Israelis to say that since the world will accuse them of atrocities anyway, then why bother with holding to such standards - but young Israeli soldiers do, day in and day out. The rare exceptions prove the rule.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war footing.

I am proud of how Israel responds to seemingly intractable problems. In the early days of the intifada there seemed to be no solution - but the IDF found one, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to practically none today. The most recent spate of religiously motivated attacks, prompted by words by the PA president himself, has largely died down because of Israeli defensive actions.

The enemy has not stopped trying, and if Israel hadn't acted decisively things would look like Iraq or Afghanistan today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Jews know something about being singled out, about being judged with double standards. We have been attacked for being too rich and too poor, too successful and too needy, too capitalist and too socialist, too religious and too secular, too insular and too integrated. These same wildly inconsistent attacks are now targeting the Jewish state. Israel will survive and thrive, just as Jews themselves have, despite these attacks.

And the best survival technique is success.

Israel has succeeded and continues to succeed in its many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, incredible leadership in high-tech and the environment, world class universities and culture. Practically every computer and mobile phone being built today includes technology and innovations from a single small Middle Eastern country. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its brains - and strength - to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

And they are indeed starting to dream. The internal struggles throughout the Arab world are, in many ways, a subconscious cry from Israel's neighbors to be more like the Jewish state. Despite the constant incitement against Israel in their media, ordinary Arabs know that Israel treats its minorities with more respect, and gives them more civil rights, than Arab nations give their own Arab citizens. One of the many ironies that is emerging is that both the most populous and the richest Arab nations are now openly on Israel's side on many matters, and the charge by their critics that they are "Zionist" - which used to be anathema - has lost its sting.

Zionists have every reason to be proud of the incredible achievements of the Jewish national movement.

The word "Zionist" is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

UN "FAO Goodwill Ambassador," a Lebanese singing star, is an antisemite

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization is dedicated to defeating world hunger. Over the years it has been criticized for being a bloated bureaucracy that was inefficient or even counterproductive, and it is in the fourth year of a large restructuring program.

To publicize its message, it has recruited famous stars from the acting, music and sports worlds to be "goodwill ambassadors" to spread its message about the importance of fighting hunger. Celebrities like Susan Sarandon, Raul, Pierre Cardin, Celine Dion and a few dozen others have been so designated.

One of these goodwill ambassadors is Lebanese singing superstar Majida El Roumi. Here is a poster for an upcoming concert at the Pyramids on May 20. Her YouTube videos have millions of views.

This UN FAO ambassador is also an antisemite.

Al Nilin reports on a press conference El Roumi had this week.

Majida responded to questions by the attendees of the conference without equivocation. She spoke about the Arab world conditions in which we live and discussed their causes. One is the idea of breaking up the Arab world and to realize the dream of "Greater Israel" from the Nile to the Euphrates. She said, "When I was fifteen years old, I read "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and what is happening today is mentioned in detail in those protocols. Any Arab who sees what is happening today in the Arab world, everything we see and we are seeing today, are mentioned in the book of protocols, which calls for destabilization of the Arab world to start, and it is not limited to the Arab world. What happened in the French capital of Paris and Brussels recently is a Zionist plot with the complicity of Arab and international worlds."

In this video of the same press conference, starting at 10 seconds, Majida says, "International Zionism behind the fragmentation of the Arab world, they have something in their minds called the world government, all of us were created on this land to serve them."

In 2014 she already had told the media that she had read the Protocols at the urging of her father, himself a famous musician, to understand history.

Given that another UN agency employs a singing star who openly supports attacking Jews, this is perhaps not nearly as startling as it should be. But the FAO should be asked why they want to be linked with an open Jew-hater.

(h/t Shawarma News)

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The "US Campaign to End the Occupation" started something new:

Tell Congress to Support Palestinian Children's Rights!

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Israel had held an average of 201 Palestinian children in custody each month since 2011. By the end of February 2016, there were 440 Palestinian children in the Israeli prison system, which means that the number of Palestinian child detainees have skyrocketed. This is a dire situation.

There is an urgent need for bold US leadership on this issue and we now have a rare chance to support an initiative to make this happen. Representative Betty McCollum (MN-04) has initiated a letter to President Obama urging him to appoint a Special Envoy for Palestinian Children.

Urge your Representative to sign on to this letter asking for a Special Envoy for Palestinian Children today!

The number of child detainees has indeed skyrocketed. From 178 in August to at least 438 in February.

Could it be because so many decided that they want to stab Jews to death in that timeframe?

No, that is not to be mentioned.

But Betty McCollum's letter does mention it in passing, if only to find a few more like-minded members of Congress who do not want to betray themselves as being so obviously anti-Israel. It is highly disingenuous, giving lip service to the idea that children are being recruited by terror groups but not saying that they should be protected from that. Not a single word about incitement. She mentions the 12-year old girl who was detained without mentioning that she intended to stab Jews.

The sole purpose of the suggested "Special Envoy to Palestinian Children" isn't to help children but to demonize Israel; if McCollum cared about children then she would try to protect them from the child abuse that causes them to consider stabbers to be heroes.

The "Campaign to End the Occupation" doesn't even pretend. It simply wants to find any means it can to pressure Israel, and Palestinian children are perfect pawns for that purpose.

Luckily, the vast majority of Congress knows that this is a scam. The "Campaign" says that last year McCollum got 18 representatives to sign on to that anti-Israel letter - which is about 4% of the members of Congress.

Palestinian children indeed deserve to be protected - protected from a sick society that encourages them to kill themselves in the attempt to hurt Jews.

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A forgotten Israeli diplomat's praise of his country from 1955

I could not find any mention of Yehudah Gaulan, consul general of Israel to Canada in the 1950s.

But I can help immortalize him. A minor speech he made to the local Rotary Club is still very relevant, and it is a shame that Israeli diplomats are not nearly as keen to invoke Biblical history as easily as Gaulan did.

From the Canadian Jewish Chronicle, January 28, 1955:

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