Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

06/14 Links Pt1: World in Chaos, Israel Gets Singular Focus at UN Rights Body; Report: ISIS leader Baghdadi killed?

From Ian:

World in Chaos, Israel Gets Singular Focus at UN Rights Body

Wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Enforced disappearances, torture and extremist attacks infringe on human rights worldwide. Tyrannical, autocratic leaders and their allies from Belarus to Burundi repel dissent with an iron fist.
But while human rights abuses are legion in these troubled times, only one country has its record inspected at every single session of the United Nations Human Rights Council: Israel, over its policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel, which trumpets its bona fides as a democracy in a difficult neighborhood full of enemies, is crying foul. And it is not entirely alone: Other critics, notably the United States, also decry what they see as an entrenched bias in United Nations institutions and an obsession with the Palestinian issue at the expense of other crises around the globe.
As the council convened Monday in Geneva for its second, weeks-long session this year, "Item 7" considers the human rights implications of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. The standing item at the 10-year-old council has come to exemplify the spotlight on Israel in a number of U.N. bodies.
"I don't know whether it's fair or unfair, but it's obvious that the majority of members want to continue to focus on the situation of Israel and Palestine," council president Choi Kyong-lim told The Associated Press.
Of 233 country-specific HRC resolutions in the last decade, more than a quarter — 65 — focus on Israel. About half of those are "condemnatory." Israel easily tops the second-place country in the infamous rankings: Syria, where since 2011 at least 250,000 have been killed, over 10 million displaced, and swaths of cities destroyed, was the subject of 19 resolutions.

Anne Bayefsky: UN-happy anniversary to the Human Rights Council: The anti-Israel body makes a mockery of its responsibilities

Coinciding with Ramadan, the United Nation's top human rights body — the Human Rights Council — has been celebrating its tenth anniversary in Geneva starting on Monday. Council members like human rights stalwarts Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, along with President Obama's delegation, will be singing the Council's praises — accompanied by a mandatory cacophony of rumbling bellies.
Here are four reasons that UN bosses & their government cohorts are celebrating — and human rights advocates and victims are not.
3. The Council has a Jewish problem. One-third of all its resolutions and decisions critical of a country for violating human rights are directed at just one state — democratic Israel. That's three times as many condemnations of Israel as its nearest competitor — hellish Syria’ 10 times more than the Al Qaeda vacation spot of Libya and thirteen times more than the execution-per-capita capital of the world, Iran.
As for the millions of women experiencing modern slavery in Ramadan-compliant Saudi Arabia, the millions in Crimea "freed" by Russian tanks, and the billions in China who've never known civil liberties: zip.
4. The biggest and most important fan of the Council is none other than the United States. The Bush administration refused to join or to pay for the Council on the grounds that a human rights body where decision-makers don't respect human rights might not be in sync with American values. But the first major foreign policy decision in 2009 of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to jump on the UN bandwagon and throw taxpayer money at it.

Caroline Glick: Is ISIS a GOP franchise?

Is Islamic State opposed to gay marriage? Was anger at the US Supreme Court's decision mandating recognition of homosexual marriage what prompted Omar Mateen to massacre fifty Americans at the gay nightclub in Orlando on Saturday night? What about gun control? Is Islamic State, to which Mateen announced his allegiance as he mowed down innocents like blades of grass, a libertarian group that abhors limitations on private ownership of firearms? In other words, are Islamic State and its fellow jihadists from Iran to Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram and al Qaida adjuncts of the Republican Party? Is Omar Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph at the helm of ISIS a social conservative, a libertarian and a card carrying member of the GOP, or just one of the three? Because President Barack Obama seems to think that this is the question most Americans should be asking. In his statement on the massacre on Sunday, Obama placed Mateen's action in the context the partisan debate on gay rights and gun control.
With regard to the former, Obama said that the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which was the site of the attack was more than a mere nightclub. It was, "a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights." In other words, Obama intimated, the victims were murdered because Mateen opposed all of those things, specifically.
Turning to gun rights, Obama said, "The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well." So as the president sees things, if you oppose limitations on firearm ownership, then you're on Mateen's side.
To say that Obama's behavior is unpresidential is an understatement. His behavior is dangerous. It imperils the United States and its citizens.

Ninth anniversary of Hamas coup

Today, Fatah is taking a rare break from its normal non-stop demonization of Israel to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the violent Hamas takeover of Gaza.

Here is video of Samih Madhoun, one of the senior leaders of Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, being murdered by members of Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades in the Nuseirat camp in Gaza.

The Fatah Facebook page includes "martyr" posters of many other Fatah members who were murdered by Hamas on June 14, 2007.

This image of Hamas members stepping on a photo of Arafat in the Gaza PA offices seems to incense the Fatah members more than the murders.

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The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

The head of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas spoke about the need to stop violations against Al Aqsa Mosque, stressing that it is a red line that can not be tolerated in the face of the suffering of daily attacks and violations by the occupation forces and settlers.

The PA Ministry of Information says that any Jews that visit the holiest spot in Judaism are doubling their "terrorism" by visiting during Ramadan, that Israel is "waging war on holy sites" and is disregarding the feelings of Muslims by entering the site. The ministry requested that UNESCO put pressure on Israel to stop its "religious terrorism" and "prevent the establishment of Talmudic rituals in the Haram al Sharif."

Nothing is being said against Christians peacefully visiting the site. Only Jews must be banned, and now Abbas is saying that such a ban on Jews is a red line before any peace agreement is made.

Abbas is demanding that the world support his antisemitism as a prerequisite for "peace."

This joins his demand that Israel release all Arab terrorists from prison before any "peace" agreement could be signed.

Which means that Abbas is telling the world that the state that he is demanding will enforce terror-supporting and antisemitic policies.

And still not one Western nation or major Western media outlet is willing to publicly call their "moderate peacemaker" out for what he explicitly says.

The Ministry of Information also complained about the fact that during the Shavuot holiday, Muslims are not allowed to visit the "Ibrahimi Mosque" in Hebron. This is a long standing agreement where the Cave of the Patriarchs is used exclusively by either Jews or Muslims for an equal number of days every year, and the spaces are divided between Jews and Muslims the rest of the year.

When Abbas says he wants a return to the "status quo" on the holy sites, he means the status quo of when Jordan didn't allow a single Jew to visit any of Judaism's holy sites in Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem or elsewhere.

Antisemitism is part and parcel of the Palestinian Authority's official policies.

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Last week EoZ was the only English-language outlet to report about how the "Western European and Others" group had unanimously nominated Israel to be the head of the UN's Legal -Sixth Committee, and how the Arab states were freaking out over it.

Things got even more interesting since then:

The chairmanships of the GA main committees are allocated on a rotational basis and are usually confirmed without a vote. In this case, however, Yemen, on behalf of the Arab Group, challenged Israel’s nomination and asked for a vote.

Syria and Kuwait, those paradigms of human rights, also demanded the vote.

This is apparently the first time in UN history that such a vote was requested for a committee chair.

The representative of Norway, speaking on behalf of the Western European and other States Group, expressed regret that the Arab Group had requested a vote, she said, noting that never before had any Committee Chair been elected by a vote. Today’s proceedings would set an unfortunate precedent, she said.

Turkey was the only state in the Western European group that did not agree to Norway's statement of regret.

The secret ballot supporting Israel passed:

In Monday's secret ballot election in the 193-member world body, Israel received 109 "yes" votes. Nobody voted against Israel but there were 23 abstentions, 14 invalid ballots, and 43 votes for other countries in the Western European and Others group which nominated Israel to chair the assembly committee dealing with legal issues.

Other states known for their human rights records whined about the vote afterwards:

The representative of Yemen, speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, said Israel violated the United Nations Charter, international laws and United Nations resolutions. Israel had considered itself to be “above the law”. He regretted to say that there had been no alternative candidate and reaffirmed the Group’s rejection of Israel’s nomination. The representative of Iran said the secret ballot would go down in history. Israel had violated international law, humanitarian law and many United Nations resolutions and had denied those actions, rejecting calls made by the international community. The decision to elect Mr. Danon undermined the credibility of the United Nations

It is interesting that a secret ballot supported Israel's chairing the committee. Presumably, if the ballot had been open, many countries would have voted against Israel simply because of their fear of backlash or consequences from Arab nations.

The entire episode shows that despite the rare welcome outcome, the UN remains a joke populated by clowns.

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06/13 Links: Orlando: Terror is terror is terror; Kontorovich: Boycotting Israel isn’t free speech

From Ian:

Nawi-Gate: the self-immolation of the Israeli far-left

Israeli TV broadcast extraordinary claims by a far-left Israeli activist: that he had delivered to the Palestinian Authority the names of Arabs who wished to sell land to Jews and that he anticipated they would be tortured and killed. What happened next poses profound questions for a much broader segment of the Left.
When the human rights community is confronted with inconvenient facts, there develops cognitive dissonance between these facts and the desire to end the Occupation. When the dissonance is resolved in favour of the latter, this discomfort is suppressed through resort to the coping mechanisms so embarrassingly displayed here: deflection, apologism and denial.
Whistleblowers and watchdog groups play an irreplaceable role in free societies. They test the openness of an open society, exposing to sunlight what some may wish to sweep under the rug. Liberal democracies need them. And so when they give an easy ride to perpetrators of human rights abuses for reasons of political expediency, they do not just shoot themselves in the foot – they injure the polity to which they belong.
As the Israeli left digests the consequences of these revelations, there are flares of clarity through the moral smoke. If the Left is to meet Shavit’s demands of becoming ‘realistic, moral, democratic, liberal and decent,’ it will have to examine where it went wrong as the start of a conversation of where it can go right. Its prophets will have to devise credible solutions for engaging with the Israeli public that exists – not the one that they would prefer exist. As ‘Nawi-gate’ suggests, however, that is going to require picking up the broken pieces and rebuilding atop the ashes.

Eugene Kontorovich: Boycotting Israel isn’t free speech

Gov. Cuomo’s recent executive order requiring state agencies to divest from companies that boycott Israel has led boycott proponents to claim he’s violating the First Amendment, which safeguards free expression, and particularly political speech.
Cuomo’s order comes as numerous states have passed anti-boycott legislation in the past year. As these legislators understand, there is no free speech problem here. States have a right to refuse to spend their money on what they view as bigoted or improper conduct.
The First Amendment protects speech, not conduct. The Supreme Court unanimously held, in a case called Rumsfeld vs. FAIR, that the government can deny federal funding to universities that boycott military recruiters. Even though that boycott was based on political considerations, that did not make it protected speech.
Similarly, the act of boycotting Israel does not in and of itself express any political viewpoint. Companies may boycott Israel to prevent further harassment from the BDS movement, to curry favor with Arab states or out of mere anti-Semitism. Unless the company or institution explains its actions , those actions have no message. That is why refusals to do business are not speech.
Indeed, federal law already bans participation in certain kinds of boycotts of Israel — those sponsored by foreign countries — and no one has ever doubted the constitutionality of these measures.

Chag Sameach!

The holiday of Shavuot starts on Saturday night and (outside of Israel) it lasts two days. So I will not be posting anything until Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Have a great holiday!

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06/10 Links Pt2: Who Is Threatening Israeli Journalists and Why?; When a truth-teller confronts Diaspora Jews

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel rises in the East

Unlike Britain, which was seamlessly replaced by the US as the leader of the free world in the aftermath of World War II, the US has no clear successor. Moreover, despite its self-destructive tendencies, the US remains the world’s biggest economy and most powerful nation. The significance of America’s loss of the will to lead the world is not that the US will disappear. Rather, it will share the stage with other, rising, powers.
For Israel, this means that while maintaining the US as its primary strategic partner, Israel cannot continue to place all of its eggs in America’s basket. As Netanyahu is doing with Putin as well as with China and India, recognizing America’s new limitations, Israel must diminish its dependence on Washington, while developing noncompeting alliances with other powers, based on shared interests.
What Israel’s attractiveness to other world powers makes clear is that as America’s power wanes, Israel needn’t and oughtn’t seek to replace it with another superpower patron. Israel today is fully capable of fending for itself.
Putin courts Netanyahu because Israel is strong. And the stronger it is, the more leaders will beat a path to our door.
The failure of France’s “peace” conference, on the one hand, and the success of Netanyahu’s fourth visit to Moscow on the other hand, were poetic bookends of the week because they were a vivid exposition of Israel’s true diplomatic and strategic position today. Israel is neither weak nor isolated.
It is embraced by the rising powers. And the waning ones that scapegoat the Jewish state are leading their countries into economic and cultural decline and security chaos.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Who Is Threatening Israeli Journalists and Why?

Palestinian journalists are spearheading a campaign against Israeli reporters. They have been taught that any journalist daring to criticize the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Hamas is a "traitor." They expect Israeli and Western journalists to report bad things only about Israel.
"It is very sad when you see that your colleagues on the other side are inciting against you and doing their best to prevent you from carrying out your work. This is harmful to the Palestinians themselves because they will no longer be able to relay their opinions to the Israeli public." — Israeli reporter who has been covering Palestinian affairs for nearly a decade.
For Palestinian journalists, to be seen in public with an Israeli colleague is treasonous.
Many Western journalists turn a blind eye to assaults on freedom of the media under the PA and Hamas. They know they will be unwelcome in these places if they write any story that reflects negatively on Palestinians. Besides, the campaign against Israeli journalists is being waged by Palestinians, and not Israelis. To them, this fact alone makes it a story not worth reporting.

VIDEO: The Death of Free Speech in Europe

Across Europe, cartoonists, artists and writers are forced to live under police protection, and also often face criminal prosecution -- all for the "crime" of offending Islam. "'Respect' means, for them, submission." It starts with censoring cartoons... Here is Gatestone Institute's Giulio Meotti in our latest video:

Benjamin Balthaser is associate professor of English at Indiana University - and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace/Chicago.

He wrote an op-ed for Crain's Chicago Business:

Of all the strange, self-defeating crusades undertaken by Gov. Bruce Rauner in recent months, banning 11 businesses from operating in a state already hemorrhaging jobs and people has to be one of the strangest.

The Illinois legislature, at Rauner's insistence, passed a 2015 bill that forbids the state's pension fund from investing in foreign companies that boycott Israel over its human-rights record. This ban passed by the state legislature also includes companies that boycott "territories controlled by the state of Israel”—a euphemism for illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Until now, the legislation was vaguely understood. What does it mean for a company to comply with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement? Do the shareholders have to take a vote to support international law, back the right of return or demand an end to illegal settlements? What if they decide a company doing business in the occupied West Bank is a poor trading partner?

It's clear now that if a company breaks relations with Israel, it'll end up on the state's blacklist. In the twilight zone that is our state government, our very laissez-faire governor will force companies to continue business with Israel—even in West Bank settlements—whether profitable or not.

No, the bill says no such thing. Only companies that submit to BDS pressure or that admit to following BDS would be ineligible from being invested in by the pension fund.

The governor is not "banning 11 businesses from operating" in Illinois. The bill says nothing like that.

One would think that a professor of English would understand English.

The Middle East may be complex, but the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and international law, are not: Ethnically cleansing territory under military occupation is illegal, and boycotts are protected speech.

Correct. But this academic fraud thinks that a state divesting from companies whose positions it doesn't agree with violates the First Amendment. It doesn't.

He thinks that Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the territories. It isn't, unless you employ a definition of "ethnic cleansing" that ensures that the population grows unhindered.

The D of BDS stands for "divest." Yet Balthaser is now claiming that divesting from companies for their political positions is a violation of the First Amendment!

Oh, I forgot. The rules that apply to Israel don't apply to anyone else.

I shudder to think of what the future will hold for the Holy Land should all routes for peaceful protest be banned.

Well, perhaps Dr. Balthaser can think about what happens in the territories when real peaceful protests - you know, the type where people go into the street with signs - are violently broken up by both Fatah and Hamas. He is more bothered by his fake concern of the First Amendment than the real oppression being faced by the people he pretends to care about.

Which is just more evidence that Balthaser has no academic integrity whatsoever.

What can explain an English teacher who doesn't understand English and who resorts to half-truths and lies to demonize Israel?

Perhaps because he also teaches creative writing.

(h/t YMedad)

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06/10 Links Pt1: Explaining Palestinian “Heroes”; Tel Aviv Terror Attack Shatters Five Myths; #Stupid_CNN

From Ian:

Explaining Palestinian “Heroes”

The status quo has continued not because more houses or apartments are being built in existing Jewish communities in the West Bank or Jerusalem (almost all of which are in places that peace processers conceded would remain in Israeli hands even if there were an agreement with the Palestinians). Nor does it continue because hard-hearted men who don’t want peace lead Israel. If Palestinians wanted a two-state solution, they could have had one many years ago. They refuse because the price of Israeli acceptance of a Palestinian state is Palestinian acceptance of the legitimacy of a Jewish state alongside it no matter where its borders might be drawn. And that price remains too high for any Palestinian leader or the Palestinian public to accept.
Terrorism against Jews didn’t begin in June 1967. The Palestinians have been waging a century-long war on Zionism and that struggle has become inextricably linked with their sense of national identity. That’s why they cheer people who commit indiscriminate murder against Jews and call them heroes. They were doing that long before the Six Day War, let alone the two intifadas, and it is not illogical to suppose they would continue to do so even if Israel were so foolish as to withdraw its forces from the West Bank as it did in Gaza.
While some Israelis search their souls in vain for enough guilt about winning wars launched against them that would have ended the “occupation” of Tel Aviv, this is a futile quest. The status quo will change when the Palestinians stop thinking of people who kill random Jews as heroes and when they are ready to accept peace with the Jewish state.
That is why it is important that the world react to crimes such as yesterday’s murders by avoiding statements calling on both sides to show restraint or use it as an excuse for more pressure on Israel to make concessions. For too long, Palestinians have been led to believe that they could prevail against Israel if they had enough patience or were willing to shed more blood. When a sea change in the political culture of the Palestinians makes a change in their thinking possible, they will find Israelis willing to accept a deal. Until then, they will continue cheering terrorists and doom themselves to pursuing a hopeless effort to eliminate Israel that keeps a status quo neither side wants in place.

Tel Aviv Terror Attack Shatters Five Myths

The June 8 terrorist massacre in Tel Aviv exposed all five of the major myths that cloud discussions of Israel and the Palestinians.
Myth #1: “The problem is the settlements”
Myth #2: “It was a reaction to the occupation”
Myth #3: “The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack”
Myth #4: “Ordinary Palestinians are against terrorism”
Myth #5: “The major American news outlets are staffed by objective, professionally trained journalists; if their coverage of Israel is unflattering, that’s because of Israel’s own policies, not because of media bias”

Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Calls for Solidarity With Israel Following Deadly Tel Aviv Terrorist Attack (VIDEO)

The host of Fox News‘ “On the Record” called for the international community to show support for Israel in response to Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, which claimed the lives of four people and wounded several others.
“Israelis stand always with us. It’s time to make sure they know we do the same,” Greta Van Susteren wrote on Facebook, shortly after it was revealed that two Palestinian terrorists went on a deadly shooting rampage at the restaurant-laden Sarona compound before being neutralized by security guards.
Van Susteren also posted online an “off the record” video, in which she called the terrorists “evil, evil people full of hate.” She also expressed sorrow for the “innocent Israeli victims” who were at the Sarona Market “just out on a nice summer eve in Tel Aviv.”
Van Susteren reminded viewers of Israel’s immediate response to help in international crises, and said she hopes nations around the world will “stand with the Israelis, because they stand always with us.”

The Huffington Post has an article by an ACLU official:

Gov. Cuomo’s BDS Blacklist Is An Affront To Free Expression

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order this week requiring state agencies and authorities to divest from any company or institution that supports the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. The order not only threatens to punish constitutionally protected political speech but also requires the state of New York to create a blacklist of allies of the movement, which BDS supporters describe as an effort to ensure human rights for Palestinians.

“It’s very simple: If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you,” Cuomo said when he announced the order.

The directive requires all agencies and departments over which the governor has executive authority as well as certain public benefit corporations, public authorities, boards, and commissions to divest funds from any company or institution supporting BDS. The entities are also banned from investing in those companies in the future.

The order itself makes clear that the activity the governor wants to punish is political in nature. But, as the Supreme Court made clear, government can’t penalize people or entities on the basis of their free expression, and political boycotts are a form of free expression.

What is the Supreme Court ruling that the ACLU is citing?

In 1966, the NAACP called for a boycott of some white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Mississippi. The businesses sued the NAACP in 1969 for their lost revenue over the boycott. The Mississippi High Court rejected two of the three arguments for the lawsuit but upheld a third, that black citizens were intimidated into boycotting the stores with threats of violence. Some NAACP members actually engaged in violence and others stood outside the stores to record the names of any black customers.

The Supreme Court said that non-violent free speech cannot be penalized on First Amendment grounds, and that the NAACP cannot be held responsible for the violent or threatening acts by some of its members, so the lawsuit against the boycotters was dismissed.

In short, the Supreme Court ruled that the state cannot penalize people for engaging in nonviolent free speech.

But choosing not to give government contracts with, or invest in, a business that boycotts Israel is not in any way, shape or form a violation of people's right to free speech. There is a huge difference between forcing people to pay a financial penalty for their non-violent speech and saying that you won't financially support their speech. States have the right to decide how to spend and invest their money, and that does not violate the right to free speech. Not until they prosecute someone for what they write on a blog or say on a street corner.

Freedom of speech does not mean the right to be paid for your opinions. It is not the right to have your opinions be respected as much as all other opinions. It is not the right not to feel uncomfortable when others disagree with your ideas.

The BDSers are not being stopped in any way, shape or form from expressing their opinions. Being exposed as idiots and liars is not a violation of their right to be idiots and liars.

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Here are the number of retweets for recent Amnesty International tweets from their @AmnestyOnline account:

-Ireland’s ban on abortion violates human rights – ground-breaking UN ruling - 174
-I fled war in Syria, was attacked in #Germany: Report on failure to tackle hate crime rise - 127
-GOOD NEWS! Torture survivor Yecenia Armenta now free in Mexico - ends 4 years of injustice - 113
-Bahrain shatters façade of reform with persecution of opposition leader @ariel_plotkin oped - 109
-UN: Shameful pandering to Saudi Arabia over children killed in Yemen conflict - 154
-Nowhere safe: Refugee women on the Greek islands live in constant fear - 60
-Malawi: Killing spree of people with albinism fuelled by ritual practices/police failures - 260
-Two Syrian refugees are first at risk of forced return to Turkey under #EUTurkeyDeal: Tell @imouzalas to STOP this! - 124
-Evidence counters UK claims that no British-made cluster munitions used in recent Yemen war - 219

It is very clear that AmnestyOnline can count over a hundred of its followers to pretty consistently retweet nearly every tweet of theirs, no matter how obscure the topic.

With one exception.

Amnesty released a fairly strong statement about the Tel Aviv bombing (although it also couldn't stop itself from warning against Israel engaging in "collective punishment." How many people retweeted that statement from this account since yesterday?

Israel/OPT: Tel Aviv attack displays total disdain for human life - 37 retweets

Amnesty International's Twitter followers apparently care far less about Jews being murdered than any other human rights issue on Earth.

This is not the first time that Amnesty's followers showed a marked indifference to dead Jews. Last November Amnesty tweeted a similar message against killing Israelis, and it received only 46 retweets. Yet a general anti-Israel tweet in the midst of the knife attacks weeks earlier received nearly triple that amount.

During the Gaza war, an Amnesty tweet against the US providing Israel with fuel gathered over 1500 retweets. The daily tweets that Amnesty did last summer on events that happened in Gaza a year earlier routinely gathered 100-200 retweets.

The pattern is consistent: Not only does Amnesty tweet far more against Israel than against people trying to kill Israelis, but its fans don't give a damn about dead Israelis the few times that Amnesty decides to pretend to be "even handed" and condemn the terrorists.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that most of Amnesty International's active online fans either don't care about dead Jews or that they feel that slaughtering Israeli civilians is justified and should not be condemned as much as, say, Bahrain persecuting an opposition leader.

(AmnestyUSA's fans does not show the same overt bias as its international Twitter account followers do, the AmnestyUSA tweet about the attacks garnered 148 retweets, which is about average for that account.)

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This Arab dramatization of the Tel Aviv attack, based on false early reports that the shooters were disguised as religious Jews, was produced and released less than 24 hours after the murders.

It uses the hashtag "Ramadan operation."

Unlike apologists for Palestinian terror speaking to gullible Westerners, this video for Muslim audiences doesn't try to justify murdering Jews in a restaurant as being because of "occupation" or "oppression." The video juxtaposes the murderous rampage with the Ramadan iftar meal and a visual of the Dome of the Rock. it shows that it is religion, not politics, that animates these terror attacks.

Hamas openly associates Ramadan with religious war against Israel. But no analyst at the New York Times or CNN would dare say that.

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