Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 05, 2017

04/05 Links Pt2: Sweden and the safe enemy; AI Takes Part in Apartheid Week South Africa

From Ian:

The Obama Administration Allegedly Spied on Pro-Israel Activists. Did They Do the Same to Trump?

This is familiar territory. In spying on the representatives of the American people and members of the pro-Israel community, the Obama administration learned how far it could go in manipulating the foreign-intelligence surveillance apparatus for its own domestic political advantage. In both instances, the ostensible targets—Israel and Russia—were simply instruments used to go after the real targets at home.
In order to spy on U.S. congressmen before the Iran Deal vote, the Obama administration exploited a loophole, which is described in the original Journal article. The U.S. intelligence community is supposed to keep tabs on foreign officials, even those representing allies. Hence, everyone in Washington knows that Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer is under surveillance. But it’s different for his American interlocutors, especially U.S. lawmakers, whose identities are, according to NSA protocol, supposed to be, at the very least, redacted. But the standard for collecting and disseminating “intercepted communications involving U.S. lawmakers” is much less strict if it is swept up through “foreign-foreign” intercepts, for instance between a foreign ambassador and his capital. Washington, i.e. the seat of the American government, is where foreign ambassadors are supposed to meet with American officials. The Obama administration turned an ancient diplomatic convention inside out—foreign ambassadors were so dangerous that meeting them signaled betrayal of your own country.
During the long and contentious lead-up to the Iran Deal the Israeli ambassador was regularly briefing senior officials in Jerusalem, including the prime minister, about the situation, including his meetings with American lawmakers and Jewish community leaders. The Obama administration would be less interested in what the Israelis were doing than in the actions of those who actually had the ability to block the deal—namely, Senate and House members. The administration then fed this information to members of the press, who were happy to relay thinly veiled anti-Semitic conceits by accusing deal opponents of dual loyalty and being in the pay of foreign interests.
It didn’t take much imagination for members of Congress to imagine their names being inserted in the Iran deal echo chamber’s boilerplate—that they were beholden to “donors” and “foreign lobbies.” What would happen if the White House leaked your phone call with the Israeli ambassador to a friendly reporter, and you were then profiled as betraying the interests of your constituents and the security of your nation to a foreign power? What if the fact of your phone call appeared under the byline of a famous columnist friendly to the Obama administration, say, in a major national publication?

The safe enemy

By disproportionately covering this attack and ignoring other, weekly, incidents, the media is perpetuating a myth that the main threat facing the Jewish population is a massive Nazi insurgence, and that when it is squashed, the Jews are once again fair game.
The reason the first incident in Umea was not covered by the national press was that the left-leaning media had no interest in an issue where the political left had hijacked a Jewish day of remembrance to drive their personal cause, and the villains of the story were too close to home and far too close for comfort. So the media kept quiet, and failed not only the Jews of Umea but also their entire profession by choosing to become party to the proceedings.
I feel for the Jewish community in Umea, but I also fear for all of us. This is the thing about us Jews: not even our sorrows are our own. Our victories are celebrated but we remain whatever the world wants and needs us to be. Umea saw their Kristallnacht memorial stolen for political purposes and now I fear their last days will be stolen, too.
I am thankful for the attention being showered on the Jews of Umea, and for all the pledges and promises made by politicians and leaders in support of our cause. But it is tomorrow, not today, that these pledges will be put to the test. When the next attack hits and the other shoe drops, will they still love us then? Will they stand by us even when the attacker doesn't fit the bill? I hope so, I pray so, but I won't be holding my breath.

'Sweden's anti-Semitism has crossed all red lines'

After a Jewish center in Sweden closed in response to anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi threats, World Zionist Organization Vice President and Department for Countering Anti-Semitism Head Yaakov Haguel said "all red lines" had been crossed and the Muslim community was "chasing after Jews."
"This is just a continuation of the previous plots," Haguel said. "Sweden's anti-Semisim has crossed all red lines. The recent events are only the latest in a long line of incitement and blood libels. People are sowing an unjust fear of Jews, and the government is closing its eyes to everything which relates to Jews and israel.
"Jews are running from here, because they're scared of he rising anti-Semitism. There are anti-Israel campaigns which focus on libels claiming Jews steal and sell Palestinian limbs. There have been incidents in which local Muslims literally chase after Jews. And the government supports an anti-Israel stance, unequivocally supporting the Palestinians and Islamic countries.
"All of these should make us do some soul-searching with regards to our relationship with this counry.
"I call on the Swedish government to take responsibility and ensure the safety of its citizens," Haguel concluded.

Chocolate spread. It’s made out of not much more than cocoa and fat. And it’s the most Israeli sandwich spread there is.

Kids love it. Parents love the convenience, but hate the lack of nutritional value. They sigh and give in, especially on Passover, when you can spread it on matzoh to make it taste less like cardboard and more like, well, CHOCOLATE.

My 16 year-old still likes chocolate spread, but he always cautions us to only buy the Hashachar brand chocolate spread. The one with the yellow cap (there’s also a Hashachar chocolate spread with a white cap). That’s why it got our back up when Sarah Tuttle-Singer, the new media director at the Times of Israel, shared an article from Haaretz, calling the spread “racist” and urging her followers to boycott the company.

The Haaretz article, written by Roger Alpher, reads:

“What could be more Israeli than matza with Hashachar Ha’ole chocolate spread on top?” asks a Passover ad for this veteran brand, known to anyone who grew up in Israel.

Even though the ad immediately replies with a list of national symbols such as the flag, the anthem, a chain with a Star of David, as well as cultural symbols such as TV Channel One and popular Israeli melodrama films, it’s obvious that the advertisement assumes that public consensus considers Hashachar Ha’ole to be one of the consumer products most identified with Israeliness. However, it’s patriotic and nostalgic air is tainted: This is a company that donates tens of thousands of shekels a year to the settlements.

“I believe in a Greater Land of Israel, which you call ‘the occupied territories,’ and I wish I could donate even more,” CEO Moshe Weidberg told Haaretz in December 2015.

Regarding the option of donating to human rights group B’Tselem, he said he’d rather go bankrupt. Weidberg devotes part of his company’s profits to financing the occupation and the apartheid regime in the territories, along with its blatant violation of human rights. He espouses an ideology that makes him an enemy of democracy and a supporter of a benighted ultra-nationalistic regime that squelches any criticism. His opposition to any criticism of the occupation is so fierce that he’d rather go bankrupt (not a trivial matter, considering that his is a family business that’s been around since 1955) than donate to an organization that works to end the occupation.

It’s a declaration that’s commendable for its directness, honesty, openness and transparency. Weidberg has no problem with being political and annoying potential customers who oppose the occupation. Good for him. His clear political standpoint should be countered with a no-less clear and strong political stance.

Anyone opposing the occupation should boycott Hashachar Ha’ole, otherwise his or her ideology is meaningless. It’s a moral duty to exact this small price from Weidberg. It’s unseemly that a person objecting to the occupation should continue purchasing his products in the knowledge that he is thereby contributing to the settlements and submitting to Weidberg’s destructive and immoral ideology.

Hashachar Ha’ole is, regrettably, no longer Israeli. Apparently, there is no chocolate spread anywhere in the world more fascist and racist. Weidberg should be forced to face the ramifications of the ideology he is so loyal to. The fact that his products are identified with the occupation and the persecution of left-wing groups should be advertised.

He prefers to go bankrupt over donating to B’Tselem? The required response is that supporters of B’Tselem immediately cease, this Passover, being his customers.

Otherwise, in their apathy and lassitude, they are almost as bad as he is since their money will go to the settlements.

Instead of buying Hashachar Ha’ole products, one may as well directly contribute to the Ateret Yerushalayim yeshiva in the Old City and to the seminary in Elon Moreh. That, at least, will circumvent the self-deception.

“I wish we could give more,” declared Weidberg. Thus, advertisements for purchasing his products this Passover can be viewed as a collection of donations for the settlements.

It’s time Hashachar Ha’ole (the Rising Dawn in Hebrew) turned to dusk.

In other words, Weidberg is a patriot who supports Jews settling their indigenous Jewish territory. No wonder Haaretz is upset. No wonder Sarah Tuttle-Singer is upset. Supporting the building of homes in Jewish indigenous territory?? Unthinkable, when your entire goal is to bring the State of Israel crashing down upon our heads.

Both would have you believe that Jews living in Judea and Samaria are stealing Arab land. Both love to listen and cry big fat crocodile tears as Arabs lie to them, recounting their invented humiliation at being forced to live under the thumb of the oh-so-oppressive Jews. This is what the Roger Alphers and Sarah Tuttle-Singers of the world care about most.

It’s what they write about. They write about the poor Arabs. They write about the need to call out injustice when they see it, about the “occupation.”

They write blogs excusing terrorists.

You know what they don’t write about?

They don’t write about Ayala Shapira’s brave speech to the European Parliament this week. Ayala was on her way home from her gifted math class when an Arab went up to the passenger seat of her father’s car, where she was seated, and threw a firebomb at her window. The Arab well knew that father and daughter always came home around this time. He timed the attack. He planned it. He knew a little girl was sitting there on that side of the car.

Ayala sustained burns on 30% of her face and body. Her face is disfigured. But when she spoke to the European Parliament last week she said, “I can't say, 'I want to be beautiful,' because it means that today I'm not beautiful, and that's not true.”

This was something that didn’t interest Sarah Tuttle-Singer enough to tweet about it, write about it on her Facebook page, or blog about it at the Times of Israel. No. She was too busy writing about the suffering hearts of terrorists and how we shouldn’t kill them. She was just deeply absorbed in writing about boycotting anyone who supports settlement in Judea and Samaria. And when she wasn’t using her writing and her clout as an internet star to work toward bringing down the State of Israel, she was writing about the cute way her kids played with her vibrator.

My kids found my vibrator. I told them it was a back massager. They've spent the last 30 minutes rubbing my back with it.
— (((TuttleSinger))) (@TuttleSinger) March 31, 2017

I always wonder why these people live in Israel in the first place. Why do they live in Israel if they think this constitutes “occupation?”

The answer must be that they are attempting to undermine us from within, to infiltrate. They’re working for the other side. Because how could a Jew possibly find anything wrong with Jews living in their ancestral lands? It makes no logical sense. And a Jew calling to boycott other Jews’ businesses?

Unthinkable. Sick.

But that’s okay. Because in addition to these traitors, we have heroes. People like Ari Fuld. The minute he heard about Sarah Tuttle-Singer and Roger Alpher, he went out and started buying up Hashachar chocolate spread like there was no tomorrow. He bought it to give out to IDF soldiers to help make their Passover celebrations a little sweeter, more festive.

Ari kept us updated.

And of course, with his actions, Ari prompted a wild buying spree. Everyone suddenly had to buy Hashachar chocolate spread. Because that is the only patriotic thing to do! That is, if you care about Israel. Love it with all your heart.

One friend’s daughter took her patriotism and love of Israel one step further. She named her new son Shachar!

Shachar Bakish (photo courtesy Tamar Rubin)

Shachar. It means “dawn.”

Maybe someday, it will dawn on the Roger Alphers and Sarah Tuttle-Singers of the world that they aren’t ever going to succeed at bringing down the Jewish State.

Not as long as we’ve got people like Ari Fuld and Ayala Shapira on our side.

Dawn? We say yes. It's time. Wake up and smell the chocolate.

Buy blue and white. And brown. Definitely brown. Hashachar HaOle chocolate spread. For Passover.

It's good.

h/t Dov Epstein for the heads up on this story.

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Archaeologists Find Remnants Of Obama Red Line On Syria Chemical Weapons (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Damascus, April 5 - Scientists digging in the outskirts of the Syrian capital have discovered fragments of what appear to be one of former US President Barack Obama's "red lines" warning Basher Assad not to use chemical weapons, the excavation leaders reported today.

A team of archaeologists exploring historical features of Syria came upon the pieces of red line, and, based on contextual and chemical indicators, pinpointed the date of the fragments at the latter half of 2014 CE, during Obama's second term. They also utilized analytical tools that gave them what they described as near-certainty" that the original red lines, of which there must have been at least three, came from Obama himself.

"We're confident we have identified the origin of these red line fragments, and have determined that their purpose was a series of ultimatums from President Obama to President Assad, to the effect that deployment of chemical or biological weapons by Syrian regime forces would prompt an immediate and severe US military reaction," explained team leader Linie Roth of the University of Munich.

What remains unclear, noted Roth, is whether the fragments the team has collected and identified all come from a single red line or from several. "When Assad crossed Obama's red lines, it's not completely certain what happened to those lines. Contemporary records indicate that the lines still existed after having been crossed, but the record runs dry by the end of 2014, and the only mentions of red lines are in reference to lines that once existed, presumably these three. We need to examine these specimens closely, and perhaps continue digging to shed light on what became of Obama's red lines on Syrian chemical weapons."

Compounding the difficulty is the Obama administration's own subsequent attempts to conceal or otherwise reduce the identifiability of the red lines it had established. "Unconfirmed accounts from the period place administration personnel in the vicinity of the red lines with deflection, concealment, and denial tools, and the vague picture we have at the moment is consistent with efforts to fudge the record, so we are still cautious," added Roth. "Non-echo-chamber sources are of course held as less credible than those who towed the presidential line, a fact that poses challenges to gaining a coherent picture."

Obama's red lines in Syria are only a fraction of the red lines the previous president laid down, according to scholars. "Accounts from the time of Obama discuss various ultimatums regarding Ukraine, Iran, and something called 'ISIL,'" observed John Kerry, a former US Senator. "None of those red lines, when violated, appear to have triggered anything. I'm at a loss to explain it."

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04/05 Links Pt1: Livingstone’s words have emboldened anti-Semites; A Nobel Prize for al-Qaeda?

From Ian:

UK’s Labour suspends Livingstone for year over Hitler-Zionism comments

The UK Labour Party on Tuesday suspended former London mayor and senior party official Ken Livingstone for one year for comments about Hitler supporting Zionism that a disciplinary committee found “grossly detrimental” to the party.
Jewish groups, who had been calling for Livingston to be expelled, called the move “deeply disappointing” and said it would erode the fractured trust between the party and its Jewish members.
“Given that Ken Livingstone has been found guilty, we are deeply disappointed at the decision not to expel him from the Labour Party. A temporary suspension is no more than a slap on the wrist,” the Jewish Leadership Council said in a statement.
“Livingstone’s antagonistic attitude towards the Jewish community has been longstanding and has had a huge impact on Jewish people,” the group said. “This decision makes us question if the Labour Party wanted to repair its historic and long-standing relationship with the Jewish community.”
Those sentiments were echoed by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. “Relations between the Labour Party and the Jewish community have reached a new all-time low,” said President Jonathan Arkush.

Ken Livingstone’s words have emboldened anti-Semites

A bottled punishment
The Labour National Constitutional Committee (NCC) panel that heard the case should at least be congratulated for the correct ruling, but predictably, they bottled the punishment. Livingstone has brought the party into disrepute and emphatically so, but it does not end there. He has continued, unapologetically, to dig himself into a further hole and in doing so is damaging the Labour party.
In the wake of this bottled decision, I have been receiving emails from those most emboldened by it. I have been asked how much the Jewish lobby will be remunerating me by, why Jewish votes are so priceless and congratulated for “not cringing to…subhumans”.
A cursory search of Twitter and one will find similar comments with Holocaust denial and other foul racism. One supposedly Labour-supporting group posted a message on Facebook stating the decision to further suspend Livingstone was “manufactured in Tel Aviv” a comment straight out of the far-right handbook. The Labour party should be a force for good but what happened yesterday has inspired racists and antisemites. We will have to act.
Gaslighting
This type of revisionism seeks to demean or undermine what happened to Jews and others at the hands of the Nazis. Decent people will rightly be horrified by it. Attempts by Livingstone or others to gaslight what he said must be resisted.
He said Hitler was supporting Zionism. Look up Zionist in the dictionary and you’ll find it explained as a supporter of Zionism. This claim is part of a pernicious form of anti-Jewish hatred. Antisemitism should not be treated differently to any other form of racism.
There is no choice. The leadership of the party must respond and review the decision. I call for anyone that has ever supported Labour to join, step forward and speak out in order to demand the quick change that we need.

Douglas Murray: In defence of Ken Livingstone

As the historian Paul Bogdanor showed in a scholarly article last year, Brenner imbibed his ideas from the well of Soviet propaganda. As opposed to far-right Holocaust fabrications (which either claim that it did not happen, or downplay the numbers), Soviet-inspired anti-Semites tend towards claims that the Jews were themselves involved. Brenner, who was involved in the 1980s with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), clearly helped dig this well, from which Livingstone drank deeply. In Livingstone’s own 2011 memoirs he credited Brenner’s books with having ‘helped form my view of Zionism and its history’.
On international affairs — an area in which he has mercifully never had a meaningful role — Livingstone’s views are a hodge-podge of learning from quacks. But all good quacks lean on nuggets of truth. In the case of Jews in the 1930s, it is true that a small number of Labour Zionists had meetings with Nazi officials in 1933 about helping German Jews emigrate to what was then Palestine. But these were not ‘clandestine’ meetings, as Brenner and Livingstone claim. And their aim was not to cooperate, much less find mutual interest in the creation of a Jewish state, but rather one small part of a desperate scramble to get some people and possessions out of Germany.
Brenner and Livingstone’s take is classic crackpot history. And like Livingstone’s frequent citings of Mosaddegh and the CIA in discussing the wider Middle East, it isn’t that what he’s saying didn’t in any way happen. It’s just that what happened doesn’t remotely support the conclusions he comes to.
Many observers, especially British Jews, wonder why Livingstone wants to keep raking over all this. Is it a demonstration of anti-Semitism? Or senility? Both seem possible. But it is also possible that, armed with his little learning, Livingstone has chosen his version of history, as many people do, and is sticking with it.
He is wildly wrong, of course. If he had any power, his proselytisation on behalf of his theory could be dangerous. But Ken has no power, and his crazy insistence on arguing every inch of ground has instead allowed a public debate about a corner of left-wing pseudo-history that might never otherwise have had a light shone on it to allow for such mainstream debunking.

From Express Tribune (Pakistan):

A Malaysian lawmaker has caused outrage after he suggested rape victims should marry their attackers in order to lead a good life and help solve social problems.

Shabudin Yahya, the MP for the ruling coalition party United Malay National Organisation, said: “The thing is they have an opportunity – with a marriage they can lead a healthy and good life.” The MP’s statement came during a debate on Child Sexual Offences Bill in parliament.

“For a woman that was raped, if she can marry [that person] she would not go through such a bleak future. At least she has someone who can become her husband. So this will be a remedy for social problems,” Shabudin said.

He further went on to defend rapists by saying it was not fair to assume that a person who committed a sexual offence will continue to be a bad person. “Maybe he repents, or regrets. It’s better to have people who regret rather than people who do not regret. So in this case, let us not put an assumption that the person will remain bad. [Marriage] can be an exit clause for this problem,” he said.

He even said girls aged between 9 and 12 can be married off as they hit puberty at that age and the physical state of their body is already akin to them being 18 years old.

There is a secondary story here.

This story is widely covered in English-language Asian media outlets, and Shabudin's statements have been condemned across the board by Muslims and others.

But even though Reuters picked up (and watered down) the story, most Western news outlets have stayed away from it.

The probable reason is that they are afraid to post it because of "Islamophobia" - even though most Muslims on the record are angry at the MP.

This is another dimension of media bias - what the media doesn't report is often as indicative of bias as how they report the stories they do publish.

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Overwhelming number of Palestinians are against teaching their children peace

Mosaic has a must-read article surveying hundreds of Palestinian public opinion polls to find out how interested Palestinians are in peace with Israel.

Answer: They aren't.

[I]n June 2014, the Washington Institute’s David Pollock commissioned and supervised a survey of West Bank and Gaza residents. In the poll, respondents were presented with three choices for the main Palestinian national goal over the next five years. Working for “a one-state solution in all of the land: a state in which Arabs and Jews will have equal rights in one country, from the river to the sea” garnered 10-percent support. “End the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to achieve a two-state solution” was backed by 27 percent of respondents. The runaway first choice, selected by 60 percent of respondents, was “to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea.”

In June 2015, another poll by Pollock and the Washington Institute, this time in conjunction with the PCPO, asked about the main Palestinian goal for the next five years, and again the option of “reclaiming all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea” was the most popular choice. This result is particularly astounding given that participants were not asked about a long-term dream, but about what they saw as the goal during the next half-decade.

We have reported on these results in the past. But there is one other question that Palestinian pollsters have asked over the years.

When asked on sixteen occasions if they would be willing to “adopt [a] school curriculum in the Palestinian state that recognizes Israel and teach school children not to demand return of all Palestine to the Palestinians,” a massive majority, 88 percent on average, said no, and only 9 percent said yes.

This question about whether Palestinians want to teach their children about peace is arguably more damning than the others. It shows that there is no desire for long-term peace with Israel for the vast majority of Palestinians.

We've seen the fruits of such an attitude with the outbreak of Palestinian youth attacking Israelis that we've seen over the past 18 months. They aren't attacking because of "desperation" or "occupation." They attack because their parents teach them that the Jews are a temporary blight on their land and it is the job of the next generation to get rid of them.

The answers to this question are so damning to Palestinians, apparently, that this question has not been asked since 2008 when only 13% of Palestinians polled supported a curriculum advocating peace with Israel.

(h/t Yoel)

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We have noted for years that most of the Palestinian Authority workers in Gaza are being paid to do nothing, after Hamas took over, to show that the PA did not accept Hamas' political leadership.

Of course, these salaries come from Western funds.

The EU finally woke up with a report in 2013 noting how much money was being wasted, and this year the EU finally said that it would cut the salaries for PA workers in Gaza who do nothing.

It looks like something happened.

Gaza do-nothing employees of the PA are bitterly complaining about a cut in their salaries to stay home and twiddle their thumbs. The salaries have been reduced by about 30% according to Arab media articles.

Fatah leaders in northern Gaza offered their resignations over this issue.

This is part of the Palestinian culture of entitlement, where so many people believe that the world owes them everything and they have no responsibility for their own actions. In this case the PA was partially at fault for instructing their employees not to work for Hamas in 2007 and saying that they would be paid indefinitely. A huge portion of the PA budget goes towards Gaza salaries.

Perhaps the most interesting reaction to the salary cut came from Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group,
which issued a statement saying "we pledge to use all available means in order to stop these measures against the backbone of the Palestinian National Authority employees."

I don't think there is an immediate danger of civil war within Fatah - the Al Aqsa Brigades are mostly based in Gaza, so there is only so much they can do - but this is one of those stories that the West ignores until something explodes.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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04/04 Links Pt2: Rasmea's exit, stage left; Linda Sarsour: NYC’s queen of hate; A BDS Defeat at Columbia

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Leaving the big tent

The divide between Israelis and American Jews seems to be growing. Indications of the widening gap came last week with reports of a confrontation between an American Jewish activist and four members of Knesset, from across the political spectrum, at a synagogue near Boston.
As reported at The Algemeiner, at the end of a forum at Brookline’s Congregation Kehillath Israel, an audience member named Shifrah told the four Israeli lawmakers, “You are losing me and you are losing many, many people in the Jewish community... I cannot look the other way when three Israeli teenagers are brutally murdered and the response is to kill 2,300 Palestinians [in Operation Protective Edge in 2014]. I want to know what you are doing to make peace with the Palestinians. I want to know what the government is doing to make peace.”
Despite the general fractiousness of Israeli politics, the lawmakers, who spanned the Right-Left spectrum, rejected the woman’s claims. Not one of them was willing to accept her view that Israel was morally impaired for defending itself from Hamas’s terror war against it. Each in his or her own way pointed out that the woman’s question exposed a callous indifference and utter ignorance to the actual situation in Israel.
Speaking last, Likud MK Amir Ohana noted that Israel didn’t enter into its war with Hamas three years ago because of the execution and abduction of the three youths by Palestinian terrorists. Israel went to war against Hamas in Operation Protective Edge because the terrorist regime in Gaza began pummeling Israel with tens of thousands of mortars, rockets and missiles.
And as Ohana noted, “Each and every one of them [was] targeted to kill us.”
Ohana concluded, “If I will have to choose between losing more lives of Israelis, whether they are civilians or soldiers, or losing you, I will sadly, sorrowfully, rather lose you.”

Ruthie Blum: Rasmea's exit, stage left

To add insult to injury, Jewish Voice for Peace pressured the management of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, ‎the venue rented for the hate-filled conference, not to allow a pro-Israel group to rent a separate ‎room in which to hold a memorial service for Odeh's victims. This is a classic case of what renowned ‎law professor Alan Dershowitz calls "free speech for me and not for thee."‎
Yes, as long as Jewish Voice for Peace and its non-Jewish counterparts -- such as Students for Justice in ‎Palestine and Black Lives Matter, which use it as a cover for their anti-Semitism -- have the microphone, ‎anything goes. Even glorifying cold-blooded murder. But when an organization like StandWithUs wants ‎to present an opposing viewpoint, any underhanded tactics to prevent it from doing so are kosher.‎
Ultimately, StandWithUs prevailed and conducted a vigil for Kanner and Joffe during the conference, ‎albeit in a different building of the Hyatt complex. But it was a quiet ceremony, unlike that of Jewish ‎Voice for Peace, which cheered Odeh when she said, "We need you to continue resisting Trump's ‎agenda and to continue challenging the Zionists and to continue providing your solidarity and support ‎to the Palestinian and Arab national movement."‎
Odeh, who was 21 when she played a key role in the terrorist attack, failed to mention that if not for ‎Israeli policy, she would have spent the rest of her life behind bars. Instead, she has been a liberated ‎woman since the age of 32. The now 69-year-old also left out the fact that the U.S. justice system -- ‎yes, in Trump's America -- can take credit for her ability to trade jail for Jordan, where she will ‎undoubtedly be hailed as a heroine. ‎
Good riddance, Rasmea; too bad you can't take your sycophants with you. But, as you surely know, ‎Jordanian law forbids Jews from becoming citizens.‎

Linda Sarsour: NYC’s queen of hate

Women’s March co-organizer Linda Sarsour said in her speech to a Jewish Voice for Peace conference in Chicago on Sunday that she’s “providing a service . . . that I’m allowing the Jewish community to have the real hard conversation that it always needed to be having” about whether it should support Israel.
Thanks! Let me return the favor and encourage Sarsour to have a hard conversation about how she is preaching hatred while claiming to be fighting for equality, and putting women down while saying she’s trying to lift them up.
The Brooklyn-born Sarsour, daughter of Palestinian immigrants, shared the dais Sunday with another darling of the feminist “resistance,” Rasmea Odeh — convicted in Israel of killing two Hebrew University students in a 1969 terrorist attack and of planning an attack on the British Consulate. After her release, Odeh was able to immigrate to the United States by hiding her crime. She’s now being deported to Jordan.
Odeh has become a leftist hero. Sunday night, she and Sarsour embraced, and Sarsour gushed to the audience about feeling “honored and privileged to be here in this space, and honored to be on this stage with Rasmea.”
It’s a curious embrace of terrorism and anti-Semitism from a recipient of a $500,000 taxpayer grant from Mayor de Blasio, as Sarsour’s group, the Arab American Association of New York, was last year. Sarsour, in fact, has been an important ally of de Blasio’s since his election — a role she’s sure to reprise in the mayor’s bid for a second term.

Ran Shelef is the head of the Arson and Explosion forensics crime unit of the Israel Police.

In an interview with Mida magazine (Hebrew), Shelef says that of the large wildfires that swept through Israel last November, 90% were terror acts.

He decided to go public because many news articles and politicians were saying that calling the fires arson was "incitement" against Arabs.

"Yes, this was a terrorist arson", he says. "There is not any dilemma and there's no doubt. All the towns that were burned were Jewish, all those arrested or had charges against were Arab, and of a thorough survey we have conducted [looking for similar events] anywhere else in the Middle East, including among the Palestinians, none have experienced a wave of fires of the magnitude we have experienced."

"Weather does not recognize borders," Shelef said. "Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and the rest of the neighboring countries have seen nothing compared to what we went through. We checked [the PA] as well. During that period they continued to start trash fires as they always do, but it was supervised in designated places, not a huge fire like ours."

Shelef went on: "Before I determine if an event is arson or not, I sample the area with dozens of different points so there would be no doubt. In Nirit for example, we found the focus of the fires came from two tires 300 meters from each other. In Zichron Yaakov we have detected a large amount of gasoline. In Neve Tzof-Hallamish the arsonists lit toilet paper to light the fire. In Nataf, the second fire (which burned down a restaurant) was caused by Molotov cocktails thrown from a nearby village. Lucky that it stopped at the restaurant; if the wind was going in a different direction - there goes the town. I can continue to elaborate about every occasion and event. I'm in this business for thirty years, for the police and fire department. I know my job. "

(h/t Yoel)

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J-Street U fantasizes that BDS wouldn't exist if it wasn't for "occupation"

J-Street sent out an email from Brooke Davies, president of J Street U, after the anti-BD conference at the UN last week.

She writes:

Two days ago, I was part of a J Street U delegation attending a major summit at the United Nations dedicated to confronting BDS. We went because we too oppose the Global BDS Movement and wanted to offer a serious, effective alternative to the failed right-wing pro-Israel advocacy that we see every day on college campuses and around the country.

Really? Because J-Street is practically invisible in the fight against BDS on campus. A couple of years ago I asked for a single example of a picture of a J-Street booth or table at any campus in the US handing out anti-BDS literature. Maybe something has changed since then, but I have yet to see it. Someone, please find me some literature that J-Street U passed out during this year's "Israel Apartheid Week".

On the other hand, groups like Stand With Us and grassroots individual campus groups like Calgary United For Israel - which would be considered "right-wing pro-Israel advocacy" by J-Street - are hugely effective. Those are the groups that have been in the forefront of turning back BDS on campus, not J-Street U.

Instead, the event perfectly encapsulated why the Jewish community is losing the fight against BDS -- and turning many young people off of Israel entirely.
When we conveyed the message that effectively confronting BDS requires opposing the occupation, we were met with scorn and abuse.

She returns to this theme a number of times.

Opposing BDS means also opposing the occupation....There’s no way to fight BDS without fighting the occupation. Most support for the Global BDS Movement stems from very real concerns about human rights violations in the West Bank and the threats the occupation poses to Israelis and Palestinians.... I couldn’t help but think that if the Jewish establishment spent as much time fighting for peace as they do fighting against BDS, it would soon be a thing of the distant past -- and Israelis and Palestinians might be much better off....We know that the most effective way of opposing BDS is supporting a two-state solution and opposing the occupation.

How exactly does that work? A BDSer says "Boycott Israel because they occupy Palestinian territory" and J-Street U answers, what, exactly?

Do they say "We agree with you that the occupation is the source of all evil in the Middle East so please don't boycott Israel"?

Do they say "We would prefer that you boycott the settlements and leave Green Line Israel alone"?

Exactly what argument does a J-Street U that says they agree with the official stance the boycotters say they have for boycotting Israel? I can't think of any consistent J-Street argument that wouldn't strengthen the BDSers.

After some searching, I found J-Street U's arguments against BDS used at Vassar College last year:

- BDS is NOT the only way to be pro- Palestinian and anti- occupation
- BDS does NOT support a two state solution
- BDS supports academic boycotts
- BDS disempowers students and orgs from making their own decisions on this issue
- BDS silences the anti-occupation Israeli left
- Our academic environment should be committed to exploring all narratives in an issue, not siding with one
- BDS silences student voices and activism on campus

Notice that J-Street U is not arguing against divesting from Israel, boycotting Israel or placing sanctions on Israel. They are arguing against the BDS movement, not against boycott/divestment/sanctions against Israel! Except for the implication that an academic boycott is wrong, they cannot come up with a reason why people shouldn't boycott Israeli goods or why campuses shouldn't divest from Israeli investments!

This list of reasons to oppose BDS given by J-Street U is a smokescreen for the fact that J-Street U, by accepting the "occupation is evil" argument, cannot defend Israel. They cannot brag about any Israeli accomplishments because they would be targeted for "X-washing the occupation." The same logic that claims that Jews have no rights whatsoever to Judea and Samaria can be easily used to say that Jews have no right to Tel Aviv and Netanya.

J-Street U can't even bring itself to support a Jewish state, instead saying that "Israelis" have the right to self-determination, not Jews.

Of course, J Street U's premise that two states would defang BDS is absurd. Asthe Vassar list shows, even J-Street U knows that BDSers don't care about "occupation;" they want to destroy Israel and they've made that clear over and over again. "Occupation" is an excuse. After all, Arabs boycotted Israel before "occupation" and they brought arguments that were meant to be just as attractive to Western progressives while, in Arabic, they were clear what the real goal was.

If Israel would sign a peace agreement with the PLO tomorrow, next week there would be a new push for "right of return" and UN resolutions stating that "Palestinians who are Israeli citizens are living under apartheid" and a half dozen other arguments that are only meant to justify, ex post facto, the desire to destroy Israel.

Rather than being an effective fighter against BDS, J-Street U's demonization of Israel gives oxygen and ammunition to the BDSers.

In the end, J-Street is an organization that is dedicated to demonizing Israel in the name of "peace." I have yet to see a substantive argument that J-Street has ever given to defending Israel, even at their own conferences.

J-Street cannot say anything nice about Israel.

Just like JVP.

And just like the BDS movement itself.

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04/04 Links Pt1: Over 100 killed in chemical attack in Syria; Disgraced UN agency equates Israeli 'occupation' to US slavery

From Ian:

Over 100 killed in suspected chemical attack in Syria

A suspected chemical attack in Syria's northern Idlib province Tuesday killed over 100 people and wounded over 400 others, Syrian opposition groups reported. The Syrian government has denied using any such weapons on civilians.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 11 children were killed in the attack. The group said an airstrike by Syrian government or Russian jets that pounded the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idib, adding it had serious concerns the number of casualties will continue to grow.
The strikes caused many people to choke, leading to suspicions that the substances dropped was chlorine gas.
If inhaled, chlorine gas, a deadly agent widely used in World War I, turns into hydrochloric acid in the lungs, which can lead to internal burning and drowning through a reactionary release of water in the lungs.
Syrian opposition activists described Tuesday's attack as among the worst poison gas attacks in the country's six-year civil war.
Photos and video from Khan Sheikhoun that surfaced on social media show limp bodies of children and adults. Some are seen struggling to breathe; others appear foaming at the mouth.

Rocket Hits Syrian Hospital Treating Victims of Deadly Chemical Attack

President Bashar al-Assad has been accused of a sarin gas attack in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib that killed 100 civilians, including at least 11 children, on Tuesday.
Doctors treating victims at makeshift hospitals in the area say dozens of victims from Khan Sheikhoun are showing signs of sarin poisoning, including foaming at the mouth, breathing difficulties and limp bodies.
Moments after the attack a projectile hit a hospital in the area, bringing down rubble on top of medics as they struggled to treat victims.
Syrian opposition activists have claimed the chemical attack was caused by an airstrike carried out either by President Assad's forces or Russian warplanes. Russia's military said its planes did not carry out any strikes near the town.
It is believed that another 400 people were injured after being exposed to toxins the attack.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said those killed had died from suffocation and the effects of the gas. The monitor could not confirm the nature of the gas, and said the strike was likely carried out by government warplanes.

Israeli leaders urge action, condemn Syria gas ‘massacre’

Israeli leaders called for the international community to take action Tuesday after a gas attack in Syria killed at least 58 people and injured over 200, many of them children.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “sharply condemned” the attack and called on the international community to complete the process of removing all of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles.
“When I saw pictures of babies suffocating from a chemical attack in Syria, I was shocked and outraged. There’s no, none, no excuse whatsoever for the deliberate attacks on civilians and on children, especially with cruel and outlawed chemical weapons,” he said in English at a memorial service for president Chaim Herzog.
Netanyahu also said the lack of action proved the international community was not to be trusted to come to Israel’s aid.
“This terrible war underlines our main imperative– we will always defend ourselves with our own strength, against any enemy and any threat,” he said.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Being Propped Up By Iran And Russia Is Totally Not Going To Be Shameful For My Regime By Basher Assad, President, Syrian Arab Republic (satire)

We Arabs are a proud people. Honor is perhaps the strongest value in our culture, often trumping life itself. It is a point of pride for an Arab nation to attain self-sufficiency, and a source of ongoing shame that few, if any, Arab states can hold their own without some kind of support – military, economic, or otherwise. But that will totally not be a problem for Syria in the long term as it becomes necessary to rely in greater and greater measure on the non-Arab military and economic support from Iran and Russia just to keep my regime intact, I promise.
Perhaps the greatest source of shame is our collective inability to oust from our midst the Zionist entity, which, by all assessments, we should have swept aside like so much detritus in 1948. They were ragtag Holocaust survivors (not that I’m accepting the historical reality of the Holohoax, but you understand the rhetorical angle here) who shouldn’t have lasted a week against our mighty warriors. Instead we found ourselves outfought even when we weren’t outgunned. Our continued impotence against the Jews only grew worse in 1967 when we lost the Golan Heights, from which we used to spend time taking potshots and lobbing artillery shells at Israeli kibbutzim. Good times.
In the years since, as Israel has emerged as a regional powerhouse whose economy is larger than all of ours combined, you can imagine how shameful the whole things has become for us. This Western colonial enterprise, as we call it, has consistently humiliated us on every front, driving home the reality that we Arabs simple cannot compete with the advancement and influence of the non-Arabs.

Back in 2003, an Egyptian legal scholar claimed he was going to sue Jews around the world for allegedly having stolen gold during the Jewish exodus from Egypt. The scholar, Nabil Hilmy, even figured out a methodology for determining how much world Jewry should pay:

“If we assume that the weight of what was stolen was one ton,” Hilmy said, its worth “doubled every 20 years, even if annual interest is only 5%… hence after 1,000 years it would be worth 1,125,898,240 million tons… This is for one stolen ton. The stolen gold is estimated at 300 tons, and it was not stolen for 1,000 years, but for 5,758 years, by the Jewish reckoning. Therefore, the debt is very large.”

While nothing came of Mr. Hilmy's lawsuit, his example seems not to have gone unnoticed.

When the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) came out with a report last month accusing Israel of an apartheid policy against the Palestinian Arabs, it was condemned by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the report was withdrawn and ESCWA head Rima Khalaf resigned in protest.

But that wasn't the end of the matter.

ESCWA has a more ambitious project against Israel, outlined in a paper dated from August. The aim of the report is to put a dollar amount on the 50 years of Israeli control over the areas the Palestinian Arabs claim for their own state. In fact, the report may be timed to come out during the 50th commemoration of the Six Day War. The fact that no methodology exists for such calculations will not stop the group, which has announced that it has formulated "an innovative methodology." Based on South African apartheid, slavery in the US and Greece's request that Germany pay for Nazi massacres during WWII, ESCWA plans to come up with a framework for future reparations.

Here is a sample model illustrating some of the elements of Israeli control which would serve as a source for calculating reparations.

ESCWA Sample Model for Determing Reparations from Israel

Items on the chart such as access to water, access to education and living standard indicate from the start the bias that we can expect from the report. After all, as Ephraim Karsh points out, along with the problems, Israeli control brought advantages to the Arabs:

The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the astounding social and economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli "oppression." At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors.

The point is not to use the positives as an excuse to ignore the problems. Rather, the point is that converting positives into negatives seems to be part of ESCWA's "innovative methodology."

The suspicion of bias is only confirmed by the presence of the separation barrier ("the wall") -- which reduced fatalities caused by Palestinian terrorism -- listed on the chart as something for which Israel should pay reparations. Similarly, the blockade to prevent weapons from reaching Gaza is portrayed as a negative. It's probably too much to hope for that Israel's provision of supplies to Gaza will be referenced at all.

The whole idea of comparing Israel to South Africa and the US in terms of apartheid and slavery also makes another issue conspicuous by its absence.

The history of the Arab slave trade makes one question why ESCWA points to slavery only in the US, unless it is in response to the US condemnation of ESCWA's previous report.

The point though is not to play US slavery against Arab slavery.

In the chapter The Roots of Muslim Rage, in his book From Babel to Dragomans, Bernard Lewis writes:

The accusations are familiar. We of the West are accused of sexism, racism, and imperialism, institutionalized in patriarchy and slavery, tyranny and exploitation. To these charges, and to others as heinous, we have no option but to plead guilty -- not as Americans, nor yet as Westerners, but simply as human beings, as members of the human race. In none of these sins are we the only sinners, and in some of them we are very far from being the worst.

...Slavery is today universally denounced as an offense against humanity, but within living memory it has been practiced and even defended as a necessary institution, established and regulated by divine law. The peculiarity of the peculiar institution, as Americans once called it, lay not in its existence but in its abolition. Westerners were the first to break the consensus of acceptance and to outlaw,first at home, then in the other territories they controlled, finally wherever in the world they were able to exercise power or influence, in a word, by means of imperialism.

The US is being targeted for slavery, just as the West is accused by the Arab world of imperialism, while the long history of Muslim invasions, conquests, and occupation is forgotten.

Ignoring the US role in the abolition of the slavery in the same way as disregarding the numerous benefits Palestinian Arabs get from Israel, reveals the one-sidedness of this "report" as well as its dishonesty. Will the report take into account the reparations owed by Hamas for the rockets fired and the wars it started? Will it take into account the incitement by Abbas againsts Israel?

The report just taking for granted that the West Bank is occupied, when there has never been any such official legal determination, is an indication that Nikki Haley is going to have her work cut out for her. The fact that this report will be even more bizarre than the previous one will not necessarily make it easier to dismiss.

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