Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 16, 2017

03/16 Links Pt1: Israel: Hiding Evidence of Its Own Innocence; PMW: Fatah Votes for Terror

From Ian:

I’m not naïve enough to think that better PR would solve all of Israel’s international relations problems. But there’s no question that incompetent PR makes its situation much worse. As one example, consider Tuesday’s shocking revelation: Within about 24 hours of the most high-profile civilian casualty incident of the 2009 Gaza war, Israel had obtained evidence casting doubt on its responsibility for that death. But it sat on this evidence for more than eight years, finally releasing it only as part of a defense brief in a civil suit by the victims’ father.
The incident in question took place on January 16, 2009, when Israeli troops fighting in Gaza came under sniper fire. The troops fired two shells at an observation post that seemed to be directing the snipers. The observation post was located on the third floor of a building which, unbeknownst to the soldiers, was also the home of a well-known doctor, Izzeldin Abuelaish. Three of Abuelaish’s daughters were killed, along with one of his nieces; several other family members were wounded. Abuelaish, who worked in Israel, maintained good relations with Israelis and advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace, later became famous worldwide when he published a book about this incident and his response to it, called I Shall Not Hate.
Israel was blamed worldwide for the Abuelaish casualties and never publicly challenged the assumption of its guilt. Yet it now turns out that within a day after the incident, it had evidence indicating that its shells may not have caused the carnage.
The evidence came in the form of laboratory tests conducted on six pieces of shrapnel extracted from the two casualties treated in Israel (the other wounded weren’t brought to Israel, nor were any of the dead, so no shrapnel from the other victims was available). The tests showed that alongside traces of various explosives used by both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas, at least one fragment contained an explosive called R-Salt, which isn’t used by the IDF but is commonly used in improvised explosive devices in Gaza. Moreover, all six fragments contained potassium nitrate, another substance not used in IDF weaponry that is used in Hamas’s homemade Qassam rockets.

PMW: PMW Releases Report in US Congress: Fatah Votes for Terror

Palestinian Media Watch's founder and director Itamar Marcus is presenting PMW's new report Fatah Votes for Terror to the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East today, Thursday March 16, in Washington D.C. The report documents that Fatah and many of the leaders who were elected to its Central Committee at the Seventh Fatah Conference openly support terror, and did so actively during the terror wave of 2015-2016.
PMW Special Report: Fatah Votes for Terror
Special Report on Members Elected to the Fatah Central Committee in December 2016
Click to view full report in pdf
Introduction
The Seventh Fatah Conference ended in December 2016with elections for the 18-member governing body, the Fatah Central Committee. Twelve members were reelected and six new members joined the committee. In addition, Mahmoud Abbas was reelected separately as chairman, and he also has the right to appoint four additional members. This report examines Fatah's attitudes to terror during the wave of Palestinian terror 2015-2016, and focuses on the attitudes of those elected members of the Central Committee who have spoken publicly, including Mahmoud Abbas, as well as Fatah leaders who were Central Committee members during the terror wave, but were not reelected at the Seventh Fatah Conference.
This report documents how the Fatah Movement responded to individual Palestinians murdering Israeli civilians in stabbings, shootings, and car ramming attacks, during the terror wave from September 2015 to mid-2016. 40 people were murdered in these attacks (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans, and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded.
The report also includes Fatah's responses to the terror on the Fatah-run TV station Awdah and its official social media.

The Palestinian Economy Is a Protection Racket Financed by International Donors

While the current state of the Palestinian economy is nowhere near as bad as one might think from reading the Western press, writes Hillel Frisch, it is beset by serious problems:
According to the standards of the World Bank, West Bankers are middle-class and Gaza residents lower-middle-class. [But] it is a matter of serious concern that neither in Gaza nor in the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority is [there] a functioning domestic economy. By far the most important element propping up Palestinian economic welfare levels is financial aid [from] donors such as USAID, the EU, and church-related organizations, which underwrites roughly one-third of the [Palestinian] gross national product in the West Bank and considerably more in Gaza. . . .
[T]he substantial economic aid the PA receives from the EU, USAID, and individual EU member states enables it to reward incarcerated terrorists, terrorists released from prison, and the families of terrorists both living and dead with generous stipends and financial support. . . . Such support acts as an incentive to commit acts of terrorism and lowers deterrence against those who would commit such acts even without incentives.
Yet the problem is even broader. The most important group of actors on the Arab side—the PA, its militia Fatah, and Hamas—have perfected a deadly political economy rather than built a functioning one. It is the use of force, or the threat of the use of force, that assures the flow of aid from international actors, many of whom want to pacify the situation. The [donors] thus become accessories to a form of protection racket that demands, “Support me or I’ll attack Israel and its Jewish citizens.” The EU, anxious lest Israel retaliate and create a refugee problem whose imprint will be felt in Europe, plays the game and pays up.

As mentioned, on Tuesday night I hosted a symposium in Jerusalem on the topic, "Donald Trump: Good for the Jews?"

Here is my second video from the event showing Brian of London energetically defending Trump and fending off questions from skeptical critics.

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Aldous Huxley once said, "Several excuses are always less convincing than one."

Jordan's Al Ghad newspaper quotes a former president of the Jordanian Bar and current MP in the House of Representatives, Saleh Armouti, as to exactly why Jordan cannot extradite terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the US for her role in the murder of two Americans.

He gave multiple excuses:

* She already served a prison sentence for her acts and it is not acceptable for her to go on trial again.

* Jordanian law says that any action taken against a citizen must be approved by the National Council (I think he may be saying that the Jordanian parliament never ratified the extradition agreement signed with the US under the Clinton administration, but I'm not sure)

* The US only unsealed the indictment after Donald Trump was president so this is a political ploy, and not an act to seek justice.

But there is one real reason he gives as to why Jordan will never extradite a confessed, unrepentant child murderer: because she is not guilty of any crime to begin with, and in fact she is a heroine:

"The liberated prisoner Ahlam Tamimi had the legitimate right to resist the occupier, as the United Nations laws stipulates the right to self-determination, which includes the right to resist the occupation,"says Armouti.

Arabs have pretended for years that international law supports murdering Jews as long as you can call it "resisting occupation." And as soon as someone uses that in an argument, you know that you are dealing with someone who doesn't care about the law any more than they care about the lives of Jewish children.

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Iran has trotted out their token Jews to show that they aren't antisemitic at all, only anti-Israel.

Iran's token Jewish MP, Siamak Mareh Sedq, called Benjamin Netanyahu an "insane vampire" for comparing the desire of the Persian empire to destroy all Jews in the Purim story with the desire of the Iranian entity to destroy the Jewish State today.

He added that anti-Semitism and racism have never been witnessed in the Iranian culture.

In completely unrelated news, the Supreme Leader of Iran tweeted:

Despite constant invasions by all superpowers & Zionists' media empire, Iranian nation is advancing in any areas after Revolution.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) March 9, 2017

See? Nothing antisemitic about saying that "Zionists" control the media.

He has also in the past called the Holocaust a "myth."

But he's not antisemitic. The person he holds hostage as the official court Jew says so!

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The UN's and Richard Falk's stupid "Israeli apartheid" report denies Jewish right to self-determination

The UN's Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) asked Israel-hater Richard Falk to write a report to paint a pseudo-legal face on their accusation that Israel practices apartheid under the definition of the term in international law.

Look at the members of this group:

Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

The 74-page report has one purpose: to give Israel-haters something to point to in order to pretend that their hate is based on logic. Of course, for both Falk and his sponsors, the verdict is written first and the reasoning shoe-horned in later.

Throughout the document one can find things that to the ignorant sound legitimate but which could be burst in seconds. For example:

The question arises as to whether Israel has deliberately pursued fragmentation of
the West Bank into an archipelago of Palestinian cantons, divided by intervening
Jewish-only areas (the Bantustan model). Certainly, this geography will
permanently enfeeble any putative Palestinian sovereignty, preserving the
prerogative of Israel to administer intervening land for the Jewish people. Oslo II,
paradoxically, facilitated this “grand” strategy by establishing borders for the
Palestinian autonomy enclaves. The comparison with South Africa helps to clarify
an essential observation: with Israeli Jewish-national domination over an area
dotted with Palestinian autonomy zones, apartheid is expressed as fully in a
partition strategy as it is in a unified State.

But Israel offered the Palestinians their own state that would be contiguous in the West Bank. Several times! So much for that argument.

Falk makes the argument constantly that Israel, by defining itself as a Jewish state, is inherently discriminatory against its Arab citizens. Yet every Arab state defines itself as such, with no such complaints by Falk.

He also argues that since Arab citizens cannot legally challenge Israel's self-definition of being a Jewish state, that is discrimination against Arabs. This is deceptive, because Israel does not have any problem with its many Arab citizens who accept Israel as a Jewish state. Similarly, leftist Jews who want to change the character of the state has the same roadblocks as the anti-Israel Arabs do. So the Jewish state does not inherently discriminate against Arabs; it discriminates against people who want to change the character of the State, Jew or Arab.

Falk pretends to answers objections to calling Israel an apartheid state:

Objection 1: Consistency with international practice: The Israeli doctrine of maintaining a Jewish majority, enabling the Jewish people to have its own nation-State, is consistent with the behaviour of States around the world, such as France, which express the self-determination of their respective ethnic nations. It is therefore unfair and exceptional treatment — and implicitly anti-Semitic — to target Israel as an apartheid State when it is only doing the same.

Falk:This common argument derives from miscasting how national identities function in modern nation States. In France, for example, anyone holding French citizenship, regardless of whether they are indigenous or of immigrant origin, are equal members of the French nation and enjoy equal rights. According to the Supreme Court, Israel is not the State of the “Israeli nation” but of the “Jewish nation”.86 Collective rights in Israeli law are explicitly conferred on Jews as a people and on no other collective identity: national rights for Jews, embedded in such laws as the Law of Return and the Citizenship Law (discussed above) do not extend to any other group under Israeli rule. Hence, racial-nationalist privileges are embedded in the legal and doctrinal foundations of the State. That is exceptional and would meet with opprobrium in any other country (as it did in apartheid South Africa)

Germany's naturalization law includes "A foreigner who is ordinarily resident abroad may be naturalized... if ties with Germany exist which justify naturalization."

This doesn't extend to people who do not have any ties with Germany. So, by Falk's definition, Germany's law that gives preference for people of German heritage to become citizens even if they are not residents is apartheid, and should meet with opprobrium.

Has it?

Objection 2. The standing of Palestinians as foreigners: Palestinian residents of the occupied Palestinian territory are not citizens of the State and so the State does not owe them rights and treatment equal to that accorded to Israeli Jewish citizens and settlers.

Falk: The similarities between the legal situation in Palestinian territory under Israeli occupation and in Namibia under South African occupation have already been noted. Israel has denied Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory Israeli citizenship because they are not Jews. ...

Yet Israel offers citizenship to Arabs of Jerusalem in areas that Israel has effectively annexed. If Israel denies citizenship to Arabs because they are not Jews, how can Israel offer citizenship to those Arabs? Obviously the motivating factor is whether the land they live on is part of Israel, just as Israel offered citizenship to Arabs in Israel in 1948.

The entire tedious report is filled with examples like these. And, yes, it is antiemitic, because the fundamental premise behind Falk's thesis is that Jews have no right to self determination.

If anyone ever takes it seriously it wouldn't be difficult to write up a formal rebuttal of every one of Falk's points, but it is doubtful that anyone outside hardcore Israel haters will take it seriously to begin with.

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03/15 Links Pt2: Roseanne Barr fires back at anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour; The unforgivable shame of Mondoweiss. Protecting hatred of Jews

From Ian:

David Collier: The unforgivable shame of Mondoweiss. Protecting hatred of Jews

Last month I published a report investigating hard core antisemitism within the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). Despite focusing on those pushing Jewish conspiracy tales or Holocaust denial, Mondoweiss, and other anti-Zionist Jewish forces, felt compelled to attack me for it.
The report into antisemitism was clear cut, and I am sure alarm bells rang throughout PSC HQ. Although I have not yet received an official response for saving them time and highlighting bucket loads of antisemitism within their organisation, the PSC can thank me later.
When I compiled the report, I attempted to remove all references to the Israel / Arab conflict and focus on classic antisemitic tropes. I also sought to ensure that only real activists would be included (impossible to seal hermetically, but I certainly tried). I tried only to catch serial offenders.
Despite the research receiving wide coverage, there was no public comment from the PSC, or indeed from any of the anti-Israel activists. Privately however, there were some dark days and I received numerous threats. Then, last week, someone called Jonathan Ofir wrote a piece published in Mondoweiss attacking the report. Following this, the UK based group ‘freespeechinisrael’, reposted the piece. So happy were the Jewish anti-Zionists in the UK, that the URL of their page reads ‘ofir-demolishes-david-collier’. Demolishes? Wow.
This entire response by these anti-Zionist Jews is sickening. Not because of the attack itself, but because of what they felt compelled to protect – hard core, rabid, Jew hatred.

Roseanne Barr fires back at anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour

Outspoken comedian and actress Roseanne Barr said in 140 characters what many American Jews are thinking.
Pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour recently went on the record stating that ‘feminism and Zionism are incompatible’. Sarsour, who is also one of the leaders of the left-wing, grassroots ‘Women’s Movement’ sweeping across the US and around the world was once hailed by the Obama administration as a ‘champion of change’.
A favorite among many American Democrats, Sarsour’s fierce anti-Israel views haven’t gone unnoticed by the Jewish community.
Outspoken comedian and actress Roseanne Barr said in 140 characters what many American Jews are thinking. Taking to Twitter, Barr fired back at Sarsour, “Is it even possible to be a pro-Palestinian feminist?”
As a long time friend a supporter of Israel and the Jewish community, Barr has been an advocate for swift action against rising antisemitism in the US and around the world.

Linda Sarsour, you are not my friend

Or, to be totally cynical about this: It’s one thing to care about the graves of Jews.
But living Jews, in a Jewish state …
We should not be surprised. This has become the Palestinian’s M.O.
It’s called hijacking.
The PLO got real good at it in the late 1960s, when they began hijacking airplanes.
And when that didn’t work, they got around to hijacking every movement on the Left.
I first noticed this in 1973, right after the Yom Kippur War – how every left wing rally that I attended had an anti-Israel message velcroed (well, there was no Velcro in those days) onto it.
The Palestinians did that with the women’s movement as well.
It goes back at least as far as 1980.

Last night, Elder of Ziyon held a symposium in Jerusalem entitled Donald Trump: Good for the Jews?

Elder and 4 bloggers, Brian of London, Gidon Shaviv, Adam Levick, and I tackled related topics.

Here is the written text of my remarks:

How many times have you heard someone say, “Trump is the most pro-Israel president, ever.” Or maybe it was even you who said that to others.

But if you ask people why they believe Trump the most pro-Israel president ever, the answers are less than persuasive.

“Because his daughter and grandchildren are Jewish.”

Well, let’s look at that. Chelsea Clinton’s husband is Jewish and Michelle Obama’s cousin is Rabbi Capers Funye, whom the International Israelite Board of Rabbis declared the “titular head of a worldwide community of Black Jews” of the United States, the Caribbean, South Africa, Uganda and Nigeria, the first black chief rabbi of the 21^st century.

So. The heck. What.

Did Chelsea’s husband’s Jewishness make Hillary pro-Israel?

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Did Michelle Obama’s cousin make her husband pro-Israel?

Is there some blood quantum to this equation? Trump has more Jewish relatives than the Clintons and Obamas—four, counting Jared, to just one in-law for Hillary, and one wife’s cousin for Barack Obama—so that exponentially increases his love for the Jews and Israel?

I can’t really do this sort of math so instead I press Trump supporters to explain to me why Trump’s Jewish relatives make him automatically pro-Israel. “He wouldn’t hurt his own grandchildren,” they say.

But what does that mean? Trump would have to know that his actions hurt his grandchildren in order to refrain from them. Why would he think that hurting Israel would necessarily hurt his grandchildren, whom he likely sees as 100% red-blooded Americans?

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The answer is, he wouldn’t. He’d figure they are safe in America, that those missiles and terror attacks he reads about can’t touch them, so why should he worry what happens to something that’s more of an idea to his grandchildren than a home?

Even more to the point, the infamous Pew poll of 2013 found that only 30% of American Jews feel “very” attached to Israel. I grew up in a very different America where every Jew I knew felt very attached to Israel. Today, over 70% of American Jews identify as liberal. These are the Jews who have a love/hate relationship with Israel. They love Israel, but Israel embarrasses them, because they believe the lies of intersectionality. They believe that Israel is the big bad wolf, and has turned from oppressed to oppressor.

There is no longer this automatic, knee-jerk American Jewish loyalty to Israel that was the background music of my childhood in Pittsburgh and the key to the fact of my Aliyah at age 18. Therefore, it wouldn’t seem like Trump would make the association in his mind that Jews are to Israel as Americans are to apple pie.

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Of course, the Kushners identify as “orthodox” as do two of Trump’s inner circle, namely Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, both of whom I’m willing to stipulate are pro-settlement. And orthodox Jews are Trump’s Jews.

While 71% of American Jews voted for Hillary, fully half of American Orthodox Jews voted for Trump. On the other hand, the Jews have been no more than 2-4% of the total electorate for the past 20 years. Did Trump have to please the Jews that care about Israel in order to gain a toehold on the presidency? Does he have to please them to stay there for 8 years? Probably not.

But he did and does have to please the Evangelical Christians who voted in numbers 15-20% more than they did in 2012 and did so, it is believed, because they felt Trump would be good for Israel. The white born-agains constitute 26% of the electorate and 81% of them voted for Trump. Since Israel is an important issue to this sector, Trump would be wise to effect a pro-Israel policy.

But there’s a funny thing about Trump and that’s the fact that he also attracts the alt right. This group is marginal. So marginal that no one knows exactly what percentage of the electorate they represent. Some say 1%, if that many. But these gun-totin’ Jew-hatin’ folks are loud and visible on the internet. They wouldn’t want Trump to make Israel the centerpiece of his policy and Trump wouldn’t want to alienate them, since they are so vocal in his favor. He likes that.

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So okay, we’ve got the background: who’s a Jew, who’s in his inner circle, who voted for him, and how all of this relates to Israel. What about Trump himself? What have his words and actions said about Israel?

Well, on October 27, Trump spoke to AIPAC. “We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.”

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But in January he told Sean Hannity that he didn’t want to talk about moving the embassy “It’s too early,” he said.

Now he says, “I’m thinking about it. I’m learning the issue and we’ll see what happens. It’s not an easy decision. It’s been discussed for so many years. No one wants to make this decision, and I’m thinking about it seriously.”

He’s gone from “We’re moving the embassy” to “Whether we should move the embassy.”

Then there’s the problem of how Trump has related to antisemitism. His removal of any reference to the Jewish people in his International Holocaust Day speech. The weak and mild statements made on his behalf by his press secretary about the vandalism at Jewish cemeteries. He’s “disappointed.”

On March 7, every single member of the Senate called on the president to “swiftly act” against the bomb threats, cemetery vandalism, and other expressions of antisemitism. Now why should such a call be necessary? It’s necessary because there’s a perception that Trump isn’t doing enough about the perceived rise in antisemitism. It’s likely he doesn’t want to alienate the alt right, in my opinion, as I can see no other reason for his timidity in this matter.

In Trump’s first address to Congress, on February 28, he opened with remarks about blacks and Jews and a white supremacist shooting. “Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week's shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms,” and that was that. Jews didn’t even merit their own sentence, let alone a paragraph.

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It also bears mention that while you’ve got the Jews in Trump’s inner circle, you’ve also got Mattis. Mattis believes that the U.S. friendship with Israel harms America. He said, “I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CentCom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and... moderate Arabs who want to be with us... can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t show respect for the Arab Palestinians.”

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Mattis also said that if Jews keep building in their ancestral lands Judea and Samaria, Israel will become an Apartheid state. After becoming Trump’s defense secretary, Mattis appointed pro-PLO anti-Israel Anne Patterson as his undersecretary of defense for policy. And though the appointment has since been withdrawn, in 2014, Patterson gave testimony to Congress, defending the PA for paying salaries to terrorists and their families. “They need to provide for the families,” she said.

When Mahmoud Shalan, an Arab terrorist with American citizenship was shot and mortally wounded while attempting to murder Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint, Patterson called Israel out on the carpet, demanding an explanation for Shalan’s death. Steven Flatow, whose daughter Alisa was murdered by Arab terrorists noted that Patterson did not demand an explanation from the PA as to why Shalan, a resident of PA territory, went out to murder Israelis.

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So much for Mattis.

What about David Friedman? Well so far, he’s recanted every strong right wing view he has in the past voiced about Israel just to get through the hearings. It is only natural that he would say he may believe one thing but will act as Trump’s servant, but it isn’t very comforting to those of us who looked at his hopefully soon-to-be confirmed role as US ambassador to Israel. We actually have no idea at this point whether he’ll have any impact on Trump. Still, as my follower Herb Glatter says, “The fact that Trump nominated Friedman speaks volumes to me, hope he is approved.”

This is similar to another follower’s comment on my recent article about Richard Gere, “Hollywood people should be ignored. I hope this will be one outcome of the Trump presidency,” to which I responded, “It’s only gotten worse!”

Then there’s Nikki Haley, Trump’s appointee as UN ambassador who has already said great things that have never been said and needed to be said in the UN, for instance, “I just put out to the members of the Security Council to help me understand: When we have so much going on in the world, why is it that every single month we’re going to sit down and have a hearing where all they do is obsess over Israel?”

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But then she walked back Trump’s walk back of the two-state solution. Seriously? Who needs more of this tired old unworkable idea that pleases neither side? And she said it in Trump’s name.

And I look at the way Trump surprised Israel’s right wing by asking Netanyahu to hold off on settlement building. It was completely unexpected by the Israeli government and they’ve been thrown for a loop. According to the Jewish Press, Israel Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer said, “Trump’s request to restrict settlement expansion caught us by surprise.”

Bibi didn’t expect it. Bayit Yehudi didn’t expect it. And now they’re all between a rock and a hard place. Which is ridiculous. They don’t want to alienate Trump so they’re not going to build. Meantime, there was no way to UN alienate Obama, but they didn’t build for 8 years.

When does Israel get to act like a sovereign nation and build because it needs to build? Because Jews need homes. Because homes are not provocations or obstacles to peace, but only living spaces for Jewish Israelis. It’s ridiculous.

Now there are media reports that Trump told Abbas he sees him as a legitimate leader. You know, the guy whose term in office ended 8 years ago? Trump also told Abbas that he supports a deal that would expand the PLO’s control over Judea, Samaria, and bits and pieces of Jerusalem. During the same call, Trump invited Abbas to the White House for an official visit. The next day, Trump’s administration moved $250m in taxpayer money to the PA.

Apparently because Trump knows he’s seen as pro-Israel, he bolstered his credibility with Abbas by icing plans to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. This is also the apparent reason Trump told Bibi not to build homes for Jews on state lands in their indigenous territory, Judea and Samaria. The next thing Trump did was send Jason Greenblatt to Jerusalem to pressure Bibi not to build a new Jewish settlement in Samaria. While he’s here, Greenblatt will also lay out the framework for another sure-to-fail round of negotiations with Fatah, then off he’ll go to Ramallah to spend quality time with Abbas.

Oh, and by the way, Trump’s orthodox Jewish daughter and son in law are also planning to cozy up to Abbas in Ramallah with a charming little afternoon tête-à-tête during their upcoming visit to Israel.

So here’s the thing: Trump ran on a platform of making America great again. Supposedly this means he doesn’t want to give money to foreign entities. He wants to improve the American economy. Yet he just enriched PLO coffers. Meantime, he talks about the Iran deal being the worst deal ever, yet continues to provide material support to Iran, including, according to Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon, airplanes. I quote:

“The Trump administration's Treasury Department informed the Free Beacon on Monday that it would continue to grant licenses to companies such as Boeing so that they can pursue multi-billion dollar deals with Iran.

“This policy, started by the Obama administration as part of the nuclear deal with Iran, is opposed by many on Capitol Hill and runs counter to campaign trail promises by President Donald Trump to end such agreements.”

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Republican lawmakers are supposedly furious but the White House is remaining mum. Some say it’s about the slow changeover of Treasury and State Department staff positions. But who really knows?

Which is why I didn’t vote for Trump to begin with. He’s uncouth. He has no experience in government and no one actually knows what he will do in office, despite the messianic fervor of his die-hard supporters. I almost voted for Hillary to keep him OUT of office. I figured that with Hillary, we’d get the devil we know. With her, we knew we’d be getting more of the same. No surprises.

With Trump? So far he’s taken Israel by surprise in asking us not to build. We don’t know what the future holds. In fact, we’re still walking on egg shells with him every bit as much as we did with his predecessor in the Oval Office, for all the protestations of Jew-love and friendship.

Bibi and Trump made for a great photo op, but what have we really to show for that trip? More airplanes to Iran. And no homes for the people of Amona.

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Wonka Loses Kosher Certification Over Refusal To Admit Human Inspector (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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: Credit: LateralusAD via Wikimedia Commons

New York, March 15 - The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the world's largest provider of supervision and certification for food products deemed to adhere to Jewish dietary law, has withheld its approbation from the renowned confections of manufacturer Wonka Enterprises over the latter's insistence that no human enter the plant to conduct the necessary oversight.

A spokesman for the OU, as it is generally known, told reporters that talks with Willy Wonka had broken down over the requirement that the organization's inspector be granted access to all parts of the manufacturing process for the products it would certify as kosher. Wonka, he explained, refused to compromise on his policy of allowing only his Oompa-Loompa staff and select trained wildlife to enter the compound.

"Kosher certification is based on complete transparency of the manufacturing process and the provenance of the ingredients used in that manufacture," explained Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of the OU's Kashrut Division. "Without direct visual access to all relevant sections of the production facility, we cannot certify that any Wonka products meet the criteria for kosher certification. All of our mashgichim maintain strict confidentiality, such that industrial espionage, which Mr. Wonka has previously indicated he views as a paramount concern, remains irrelevant. At this time we have no choice but to withhold our certification of any Wonka products as kosher."

Rabbi Genack declined to comment on the substance of the talks, but alluded to the main sticking point. "In keeping with Jewish law and the character of evidence it accepts, we are unable to train Oompa-Loompas to serve as mashgichim. While doing so might allay Mr. Wonka's espionage concerns, the laws of kashrut do not permit non-Jews, who are not bound to adhere to it, to attest to the kosher or on-kosher status of food," he continued. "Furthermore, engaging as a mashgiach someone already beholden to the entity under supervision constitutes a conflict of interest that negates his reliability."

Official word on the product lines under consideration for kosher status was not forthcoming, but an OU staffer with knowledge of the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity, disclosed that the first line would include the Scrumdiddlyumptious bar, the Everlasting Gobstopper, Television Chocolate, and Square Candies That Look Round, with later additions to the roster to include edible buttercups and grass, lickable wallpaper, and Fizzy Lifting Drinks. Difficulties with meat-milk mixtures, as well as the intricacies of kosher meat, preclude certification of three-course-meal gum as kosher.

No comment was forthcoming from Wonka Enterprises, which cultivates a reputation for reclusiveness and secrecy.

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03/15 Links Pt1: The diabolical PA/EU plan for Area C; Does Iran Really Respect Jews?

From Ian:

The diabolical PA/EU plan for Area C

Now I don’t want to ruin anyone’s vacation, but the next time you are heading for some R&R at the Dead Sea via Jerusalem, pay close attention to the scenery on the sides of the road.
Over the past decade there has been a huge upsurge in the number of structures going up in illegal Beduin villages and encampments on both sides of Highway 1, from the entrance to the city through what is known as the “E1” area between Jerusalem and the “Adumims” all the way down the mountain toward the Dead Sea.
So why should some illegal Beduin structures spoil your trip? Because these aren’t just small herding communities as they would appear, but strategically placed mini-towns set up by the Palestinian Authority and financed by the European Union to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros, with the explicit goal of taking over strategic lands in Area C with the aim of creating a de facto Palestinian state.
This plot is clearly outlined in a lengthy 2009 policy paper by then Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad. Known as the Fayyad Plan, the logic was that by creating substantial facts on the ground, the PA with the support of the international community would lay claim to those areas, and demand that they be part of “Palestine” in any future negotiations with Israel.
And that’s where the EU comes in – to serve as the key financier of the project. Over 1,000 illegal structures – including houses, bathrooms, storage spaces, etc., with more being erected nearly daily throughout Judea and Samaria, now proudly bear the EU flag. The EU’s false claim is that it is involved in these building endeavors for “humanitarian purposes” to provide for the Beduin in these areas.
Ironic though, that the EU symbol can only be seen on structures in Area C; none can be found in areas A or B, nor can they be found in Beduin communities throughout the rest of the Middle East. It makes you wonder.

Does Iran Really Respect Jews?

Praise for having a Jewish representative in parliament is just as misplaced. When I attended synagogue as a student in Iran, members of the Jewish community did not trust the representative. His sole purpose seemed to be to pass pronouncements from the government to the synagogues and to be cited to deflect attention from Iran’s fairly horrendous human rights record.
Beyond that, though, is Iran safe for Jews? It depends. Pogroms—as vicious as any in Eastern Europe—characterized nineteenth century Iran. Then there were the restrictive rules: In 1889, for example, the government prohibited Jews in Isfahan from going outside on wet days lest rainwater spread their impurity. Jews were also forbidden from touching food, speaking loudly, or purchasing any goods in the market. (Daniel Tsadik provides an excellent account of modern Jewish history in his 2007 book, Between Foreigners and Shi‘is; Habib Levy’s Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran remains a masterpiece).
It is true that, at times, Iran was a relative haven for the Jews. The irony here, though, is that it was the regime that Zarif represents not only overthrew an Iranian state that allowed its Jewish minority to thrive, but also sought to close the door on the laudable regimes of the distant past. Zarif now presumes to cite that history for the expressed purpose of demonizing the democratically-elected leader of a state whose existence Zarif refuses to recognize and whose genocidal enemies he arms and encourages.
There is something very wrong in the world when Zarif is taken seriously on matters of communal harmony and religious peace.

Iran’s Jewish lawmaker: Netanyahu an ‘insane vampire’

The Jewish member of Iran’s parliament called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “insane vampire” for saying that Iran seeks the annihilation of the Jews, just as ancient Persia did in the Purim story.
“Netanyahu is an insane vampire drowned in crimes from head to toe, and the recent remarks made by the racist Israeli prime minister is not surprising to me,” Siamak Mareh Sedq, who represents the Jews of Iran in the government, said Tuesday during an open session of parliament, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
Mareh Sedq also asserted that in contradiction to Netanyahu’s statements against Iran, anti-Semitism and racism have never been witnessed in the Iranian culture.
On Saturday night, the start of the Purim holiday, Netanyahu visited an Israeli synagogue, where he told children celebrating Purim that Iran seeks to kill the Jews just as the Persians did.
Netanyahu: Iran is responsible for more than 80% of Israel's security problems (credit: GPO)
Mareh Sedq followed his nation’s foreign minister in castigating Netanyahu.
“To sell bigoted lies against a nation which has saved Jews 3 times, Netanyahu resorting to fake history & falsifying Torah. Force of habit,” Mohammed Javad Zarif tweeted in English on Sunday.

Last night I hosted a symposium on the topic, "Donald Trump: Good for the Jews?"

The four panelists who gave talks were Brian of London from Israellycool, Varda Meyers Epstein from EoZ, and well-known media analysts Gidon Shaviv and Adam Levick.

I was fortunate to have in the audience famous British journalist and author Melanie Phillips, who made some cogent points in the discussions.

There was some spirited discussion between the panelists as well as between panelists and the audience of around 35 people who came.

Here is my introduction, where I frame the discussion and say some of my own opinions of Trump. When I get a chance I'll post the other segments but probably not until next week,

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From YNet:

Six North African bloggers and journalists have arrived in Israel as guests of the foreign ministry at the invitation of the Deputy Spokesman for Arab Media, Hassan Kaabiya.

This is the sixth such initiative undertaken to bring Arabic-language media representatives to Israel.

Until now, journalists from Morocco have come to Israel, but this is the first time journalists from Algeria and Tunisia have paid a visit.

Members of the delegation visited the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount Monday as part of their tour. Additionally, they visited Yad Vashem and are expected to tour the foreign ministry, the Supreme Court and the Knesset on Tuesday.

Arab newspaper Rai al Youm is very upset. It coverage of the story starts off with the lament,

It seems that Arab normalization with Israel has become the rule, while considering it a rogue state is the exception. It is not limited to the Arab regimes at peace with Israel but beyond that, with media missions from Arab countries that have no diplomatic relations. ...Unlike in the past, the Arab media visits to Israel are done openly, and Arab journalists who arrive in Tel Aviv agree to publish their pictures in the official sites of the Jewish state, and specifically on the social networking of Facebook pages and Twitter.

The article goes on to say that IDF's Unit 8200 has soldiers making contact with Arabs worldwide in order to convince them that Israelis are normal people, or, as the article describes it, "psychological warfare."

Based on this article, it is working!

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Let's wish Abu Al-Hawa Ahmad a Mazal Tov

I saw this posted on a bulletin board in the hotel I'm staying in:

"Mazal Tov, 13-3-17, Abu Al-Hawa Ahmad."

Presumably Mr. Ahmad was getting married, or perhaps his son was. (I don't think it is a birth announcement because I saw this sign a few days ago before March 13.)

Jews are wishing a Mazal Tov to their Muslim co-worker.

And it is not the least bit strange - unless you get all your information about Israel from the mainstream media.

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