Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 10, 2017

04/10 Links Pt1: The Myth of the Palestinian Mandela; Rocket from Sinai hits greenhouse hours before Passover

From Ian:

Dexter Van Zile: The Myth of the Palestinian Mandela

I got a clear sense of just how far Palestinian elites are from following Mandela’s example during the first night of the 2014 Christ at the Checkpoint Conference in Bethlehem. More than 400 Christians from Europe and North America attended the event, which is held every two years at the Bethlehem Bible College. On the day the conference began, Amnesty International published a report saying the inhabitants of a Palestinian refugee camp in Yarmouk, Syria had “been brought to the brink of starvation, forced to forage for any food that they can find” as a result of a siege imposed by the Assad regime. Despite the differences I had with the organizers and speakers at the CATC event, I was glad that Palestinian leaders who addressed the crowd would get an opportunity to draw attention to the plight of their fellow Palestinians in Yarmouk.
But they said nothing, not one word about their compatriots starving to death less than 200 miles away. No responsible group of leaders truly interested in the welfare of the people it leads would miss an opportunity to draw attention to what was happening to Palestinians in Yarmouk, but that night they did. Organizers of the event spoke about the unfolding catastrophe the next day, after I drew attention to their failure about the issue. Mandela would have addressed the suffering in Yarmouk up front, not as an afterthought. By failing to ask for aid to their countrymen, Palestinian political and religious leaders chose to demonize Israel to the exclusion of pursuing the welfare of the people they lead.
This has been a problem for decades. Instead of following the example of Mandela, who demanded that his followers think seriously about their future and what they needed to do to prosper as a community, Palestinian elites promote a backward-looking revanchism that has condemned several generations of Palestinians to death and suffering. By making themselves opponents of Jewish efforts to flourish in their homeland, Palestinians throw away any hope of flourishing in a state of their own. That is the choice they have made.
Clearly, Mandela’s great accomplishment was to turn violence and hatred into the generous desire for peace and reconciliation. A Palestinian Mandela would have to do the same. He would have to show the willingness and the ability to get Palestinians to abandon their efforts to murder, demonize, insult, humiliate, and intimidate Israeli Jews into leaving their homeland or, barring that, submit to Arab and Islamic dominance over their lives. Thus far, the Palestinian leadership has shown an unwillingness, to say the least, to do so, and Barghouti is no exception.
It is time to stop using the image of Nelson Mandela as a club to beat Israel and start using it as a yardstick to measure Palestinian efforts for peace.

Daniel Pipes: The Israel-Palestinian Peace Process Has Been a Massive Charade

Daniel Polisar of Shalem College in Jerusalem shook the debate over Palestinian-Israeli relations in November 2015 with his essay, “What Do Palestinians Want?” In it, having studied 330 polls to “understand the perspective of everyday Palestinians” toward Israel, Israelis, Jews, and the utility of violence against them, he found that Palestinian attackers are “venerated” by their society—with all that that implies.
He’s done it again with “Do Palestinians Want a Two-State Solution?” This time, he pored over some 400 opinion polls of Palestinian views to find consistency among seemingly contradictory evidence on the topic of ways to resolve the conflict with Israel. From this confusing bulk, Polisar convincingly establishes that Palestinians collectively hold three related views of Israel: it has no historical or moral claim to exist, it is inherently rapacious and expansionist, and it is doomed to extinction. In combination, these attitudes explain and justify the widespread Palestinian demand for a state from “the river to the sea,” the grand Palestine of their maps that erases Israel.
With this analysis, Polisar has elegantly dissected the phenomenon that I call Palestinian rejectionism. That’s the policy first implemented by the monstrous mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, in 1921 and consistently followed over the next near-century. Rejectionism demands that Palestinians (and beyond them, Arabs and Muslims) repudiate every aspect of Zionism: deny Jewish ties to the land of Israel, fight Jewish ownership of that land, refuse to recognize Jewish political power, refuse to trade with Zionists, murder Zionists where possible, and ally with any foreign power, including Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, to eradicate Zionism.
The continuities are striking. All major Palestinian leaders—Amin al-Husseini, Ahmad al-Shukeiri, Yasir Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and Yahya Sinwar (the new leader of Hamas in Gaza)—have made eliminating the Zionist presence their only goal. Yes, for tactical reasons, they occasionally compromised, most notably in the Oslo Accords of 1993, but then they reversed these exceptions as soon as possible.

Would Palestine Fail?

This underlines the paradox inherent in the international community’s policy on this issue: The world calls for Israel to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state, but according to its own data and statements, the PA lacks the foundations for viable statehood. The UN warns, “The full socio-economic development of the [occupied Palestinian territory] … will only take place when there is an end to the occupation.” But the urgent need for such development is precisely why ending the occupation would be so dangerous. Israel cannot expect a fragile Palestine to bear these risks by itself. Given its small size and proximity to Israel, any destabilizing fallout would inevitably spill over into Israel and provoke renewed conflict.
If the international community wants Palestinian statehood to be a success, it should focus on investing in the foundations for a viable state, while urging the parties not to take any steps incompatible with the two-state vision. If Israel is serious about Palestinian statehood as an ultimate goal, it needs to demonstrate how rapid development can be achieved without a military withdrawal. Israel is not a passive spectator, but a key actor in shaping what a Palestinian state would look like. And if the Palestinians face the painful conclusion that Israel cannot allow itself to withdraw in the short run, and be given meaningful guarantees that the hope of statehood is not extinguished, they can cooperate in building these foundations, instead of postponing difficult decisions like refugee resettlement to a later date.
A Palestinian state needs transparent institutions, functioning infrastructure, the rehabilitation of refugees, the disarmament of militias, a sustainable economy, and robust human rights. The assessment that a state without these fundamentals risks endangering international peace and security does not require a fortune teller—only a political scientist.

How did I miss that ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a rabbi!

I was just reading a conspiracy column in Ammon News by Asaad Aezzona where he says that he is 100% convinced that there was no Muslim or Arab behind the church bombings in Egypt, but Jews from the Mossad.

All of that is barely worth reporting, since stupidity like that is as predictable after a terror attack as night follows day, but he also claimed that ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is really Rabbi Elliott Shimon.from Israel!

Now, this was interesting.

So a little searching found that a rumor started in 2014 from Veteran's Today "according to sources reputed to originate from Edward Snowden, an actor named Elliot Shimon, a Mossad trained operative" as Veterans Today reported. They buttressed it with a supposed article that claimed that Iranian intelligence traced al-Baghdadi to this "Elliot Shimon."

No less than National Vanguard debunked this story (I'm not linking to VY or NV but they are easy to find.)
The neo-Nazi site said that while finding Jews in power is important, unfounded rumors hurt their cause.

Aezzona seems to have added the "rabbi" part, in the time honored tradition of the Arab conspiracy theories that keep getting more and more absurd with each retelling.

Wikipedia tells that Baghdadi was born in Iraq and includes sources, plus a quote from friends who knew him growing up in Iraq.

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Found here:

10. Passover Knight--He's always different from all other knights.

9. MatzahMatzahMan--Within 18 minutes, this superhero can flatten himself and escape anything, even Pharaoh!

8. KarpasGirl-She makes any veggie taste as good as ice cream--primarily because you're so hungry.

7. Betty Catwoman--her elliptical pupils open and close so quickly, she can see the tiniest speck of hametz in the dark.

6. Man-ishtanah--His Wi-Fi enhanced brain links him invisibly to the Internet so he can "google" the answer to all FAQs.

5. Eli-yahoo--An invisibility cloak allows him to enter any home he chooses without being seen.

4. Napkin Nelly--Every cell in her brittle body absorbs stray liquid, especially wine and food stains on fancy tablecloths.

3. The Bitter Herb--This is your uncle Herb who never stops asking, "When do we eat?"

2. Wonder Woman-This is what we call your mom after doing so much work for the Seder!

1. AfikoMan-He disappears instantly, but when you find him, you've got all the power in the world!

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Yemen news says Israel benefits from Arab problems, implying Israel is behind them

Yemen-24 says that Israel is the beneficiary of all Arab problems. It doesn't make the next logical leap to say that Jews are behind all those problems, but of course its readers are familiar with the Protocols - they don't have to be told.

Here are the Arab problems that supposedly benefit Israel:

The chemical weapons massacre in Idlib: Israeli politicians protested the chemical weapon attack very publicly, therefore making Israel look moral by comparison.

Wow.

Next: Israel benefits from the split between Fatah and Hamas. Obviously.

Third: The Islamic State in the Sinai. "The existence of terrorists in the Sinai to serve Israel's interest directly, but also indirectly ..because Israel wants to wear down the Egyptian army."

Fourth: Chaos in Yemen. This "created an opportunity for Israel to exploit the situation in order to smuggle 17 Jews from Yemen to the Jewish state."

Fifth: Iraq. Israel is supposedly helping Kurds "massacre Muslims" and export oil to Israel.

Oh, here's the picture to illustrate the story, although it came from an Illuminati conspiracy theory site.

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There is no news story that Palestinians don't try to twist to be about them.

Saeb Erekat, the secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said that the bombings that targeted churches in the cities of Alexandria, Tanta were "terrible crimes."

Then he said that they were aimed at Egypt and Egypt's principles, including Egypt's support of Palestinians.

This is especially ironic since Palestinian officials, including Erekat, routinely claim that terror attacks like these wouldn't happen if it wasn't for "occupation" and other Israeli policies. In other words, usually they claim that IS terror attacks are in support of Palestinians, albeit misguided; but when it is in their interest they will claim that IS attacks are actually against Palestinians.

The ironies multiply because Erekat has also justified unprovoked attacks on civilians as "self-defense." Furthermore, he has said that the PLO will never consider Hamas, well known for its own bombing attacks against civilians, to be a terrorist organization.

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Egyptian paper claims Israelis trying to steal Nile water

Major Egyptian newspaper Youm7 has an article accusing Israel of systematically trying to steal Egypt's water from the headwaters of the Nile.

The article starts off this way:

"There is a water deficit to Israel. Because of its plans to receive more Jewish immigrants, it takes large amounts of water from the Jordan and Auja rivers, and the Lebanese Litani River. Israeli statistics show that the water deficit in Israel had reached more than 800 million cubic meters in 1978, and it was getting worse because of the continuous increase by development and natural increase of the population requirements, and plans for the displacement of Jews to Israel, including the Falasha transferred from the Ethiopian Jews "...this is an important issue raised by the book" Egypt and the problem of the Nile water: the Renaissance Dam crisis" by Dr. Zaki Behairy, issued by the Egyptian General Book Authority.

Behairy can be quickly seen to be an Israel-hater, as this 2011 interview of him shows an obsession with Mossad spies in Africa supposedly aimed at destabilizing Egypt.

Quoting a book by Egyptian scholar Dr. Zaki Behairy, the article accuses Israel of being the main driver of the Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia whose only purpose seems to be to hurt Egypt.

Just another day in Egyptian media.

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Seven new Passover music videos (update)

This Y-Studs video may be the most impressive Jewish video I've ever seen in terms of production quality:

Six13 - Seder Crew:

Maccabeats - Mah Nishtana:

Pinny Schachter - Ma Nishtanah:

Shir Soul:

Boys Town Jerusalem:

Roar Post:

UPDATE: Shtar (h/t Micro)

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04/09 Links: PA defies US, raises Martys payments; Bassem Tamimi denied Australian visa

From Ian:

PMW: PA defies US, will raise payments to Martyrs' families

In defiance of the US, which is demanding that the Palestinian Authority completely stop financial rewards to families of terrorist "Martyrs" (Shahids), the PA is now raising the payments to the "Martyrs'" families. These PA payments include lifetime monthly allowances to families of suicide bombers, and other murderers who were killed during or after committing their crimes.
Muhammad Sbeihat, the Secretary-General of the National Association of the Martyrs' Families of Palestine, which is the PLO organization dealing with the PA's payments to "Martyrs'" families, explained last week:
"In the upcoming period the allowances of the Martyrs' families will be linked to the cost of living index, which will cause an improvement in these allowances, if only slightly." [Al-Quds, April 4, 2017]
The fact that the PA is raising the amount of the allowances to Martyrs' families, even slightly, at this time is in direct defiance of the United States. Palestinian Media Watch exposed in 2011 that the Palestinian Authority pays salaries to imprisoned terrorists and allowances to families of terrorist Martyrs, and in 2016 exposed that the PA was lying when they claimed to have stopped payments to prisoners.

Visa of Palestinian activist Bassem Tamimi revoked hours before travel to Australia

The Immigration Department has refused to comment on exactly why it blocked the visa of a prominent Palestinian activist, but has argued it has a responsibility to protect the community from abuse or danger.
Bassem Tamimi, 50, had his visa cancelled hours before he was due to travel to Australia, on the grounds his opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could provoke anger in the community.
He had been given permission to travel to Australia on Tuesday, but the following day the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) revoked his visa.
The ABC asked Immigration Minister Peter Dutton about the exact nature of that new information and whether the cancellation was an example of curbing freedom of speech, and the DIBP responded on his behalf.
"The Australian Government supports freedom of speech and freedom of religious and political beliefs," a DIBP spokesman said.
"The exercise of this freedom does involve a responsibility to avoid vilification of, inciting discord in, or representing a danger to, the Australian community.
Mr Tamimi had been invited to Australia for a speaking tour by the Palestine Action Group in Sydney, the Friends of Palestine in Perth and the Socialist Alternative's Marxism Conference in Melbourne.
He has previously lobbied for an "intifada" against Israel during speaking tours in the United States.

PALM SUNDAY ATTACKS 43 dead, over 100 injured in ISIS bombings at 2 churches in Egypt

At least 43 people were killed and more than 100 injured in two separate Palm Sunday attacks at Coptic Christian churches in Egypt, each carried out by the ISIS terror group.
The first blast happened at St. George Church in the Nile Delta town of Tanta, where at least 27 people were killed and 78 others wounded, officials said.
Television footage showed the inside of the church, where a large number of people gathered around what appeared to be lifeless, bloody bodies covered with papers.
A second explosion – which Egypt’s Interior Ministry says was caused by a suicide bomber who tried to storm St. Mark's Cathedral in the coastal city of Alexandria -- left at least 16 dead, and 41 injured. The attack came just after Pope Tawadros II -- leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria -- finished services, but aides told local media that he was unharmed.
At least three police officers were killed in the St. Mark’s attack, the ministry told The Associated Press.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks via its Aamaq media agency, following the group's recent video vowing to step up attacks against Christians, who the group describes as "infidels" empowering the West against Muslims.

Israel extends condolences to Egypt, urges united front against terrorism

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office released a statement on Sunday extending Israel's condolences to Egypt and the victims of a deadly blast that occurred earlier in the day at a Coptic church in the Nile Delta town of Tanta.
"The world must unite and fight against terrorism everywhere," the statement read.
In addition, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely condemned the incident as a terrorist attack, saying it served as a reminder that Egypt is also under attack by terrorists.
Hotovely, in the first Israeli response to the Palm Sunday attack, said that terrorism does not stop at Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Berlin, London or Jerusalem.

J-Street, along with some other leftist groups, released another Haggadah that proves yet again that they are anything but "pro-Israel."

The Haggadah does not symbolize a celebration but an apology (or worse) for Israel's very existence. Excerpts:

[Israel] is mighty in arms, but iniquitous in its treatment of its neighbors, the Palestinians, and too much driven by greed rather than justice in economic and political life.

The Haggadah reminds us that the Land of Israel is not promised to us by inheritance or by right, for our forefathers were idolaters in Babylon. Canaan is not the inheritance-land of our forefathers, and we have a connection to this Land only by dint of God’s promise to Abraham who, God attests, will command his children “to do righteousness and justice”. This is indeed an eternal covenant, but it is always conditional on our moral behavior.

The next time an Israeli leader speaks of Amalek, remember the Rabbis’ hysterical fantasies.

Many of the people of the land fled before the armies of Israel and became refugees abroad. Their brethren were defeated once and again, and those who remained behind in the land became like slaves under Israel. And the heart of some of the Israelites hardened and they say: This is the will of the God of Jacob. And we, in this evening of the Festival of Freedom, say: our freedom is no freedom unless it is a freedom shared by the other people that dwells in the land of Zion. And Al-Quds became their holy one, Palestine their dominion. Let both peoples celebrate their liberty in their fatherland, and peace shall come onto the land.

The subjugators are subjugated no less than their slaves. The subjugation of another people is also self-subjugation. A long period of subjugating others is liable to lead to the most terrible of all, the striking down of the first-born, the fall of an entire generation. “In every single generation one must see oneself as though one has come out of Egypt”: We must come out of the Egypt of the subjugated and out of the Egypt of the subjugators. We must rescue our others and ourselves. We must liberate and thus be liberated. We must cry out to the pharaoh within us: LET OUR PEOPLES GO!

Oppressors are oppressed, beaters are beaten When will this madness finally end? And what’s become different for you, what has changed? I have changed, I’ve become different this year. I was once a serene lamb and a kid — Today I’m a predatory tiger and wolf. I’ve been a dove and I’ve been a gazelle — Today I don’t know what I am.

Israel isn't the only target of this Haggadah. J-Street and its cohorts claim to be more moral than God Himself.

The ten plagues have always been an embarrassment for Jewish liberals and leftists. Why does God harden Pharaoh’s heart when he could have softened it, set the Israelites on their march much sooner, and avoided the terrible suffering of the Egyptian people?
So we dip a finger and spill the wine in order to reduce our pleasure in Egyptian pain. But it would be better to focus on the pain and think about the possibility of a different deliverance. History is not determined. Imagine a God who knew the Geneva Convention and directed his plagues only against Pharaoh and his officials. Imagine a Pharaoh who fell under the influence of his adopted son Moses. Imagine a general strike of the Israelites, joined, perhaps, by other inhabitants of the “house of bondage.” There are many ways out of a bad situation, many alternatives for both the oppressed and the oppressors to think about.

But there is a fifth child:
A caring one.
What does the caring one say?
“What is God that He is moved only by the suffering of the Israelites and not by the suffering of the Egyptians?”

I think that the people who put together this sick excuse for a Haggadah fit quite well as one of the other sons listed there. After all, who is separating themselves from the nation more than the people who pretend to be more moral than everyone else?

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From Iran Front Page:

Iran’s top security official says the Tuesday chemical incident in Syria’s Idlib province was definitely caused by a third party in an effort to pave the way for the US strike on the Syrian airbase.

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani discussed the recent US military strike on Syria’s al-Shayrat airbase with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev.

The two sides conferred on the issue during a telephone conversation on Saturday, according to a Farsi report by ISNA.

During the phone call, Shamkhani underlined the need for the establishment of an independent international committee to investigate the suspicious chemical incident in Idlib.

Syria’s chemical weapons had been destroyed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in previous years, Shamkhani noted.

Therefore, he added, the Tuesday chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun was definitely launched by a third party in an attempt to create a pretext for a military attack on Syria.

What third party could he possibly be referring to?

A real mystery.

It is interesting that Iran is pivoting from claiming that the rebels' chemical weapons were responsible to this new, time-tested formula of blaming Israel for anything evil.

Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad said "The American raid on Syria came at the instigation of Zionism in order to divide and dismantle and weaken the countries of the region in favor of Israeli hegemony."

(h/t Alexi)

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Video of moment of Coptic church bombing in Egypt

From AP:

A bomb exploded in a church north of Cairo that was packed with Palm Sunday worshippers, killing at least 21 people and wounding 38 others, officials said.

The attack in the Nile Delta town of Tanta was the latest in a series of assaults on Egypt’s Christian minority, which makes up around 10 percent of the population and has been repeatedly targeted by Islamic extremists. It comes just weeks before Pope Francis is due to visit Egypt.

CBC TV showed footage from inside the church, where a large number of people gathered around what appeared to be lifeless, bloody bodies covered with papers. Magdi Awad, the head of the provincial ambulance service, confirmed the toll.

There was live TV coverage of the Palm Sunday services at the time. The video cuts out as you hear the explosion but the screams of the worshipers can be plainly heard.

Here was the chaotic scene outside the church.

And here the bloody scene inside:

Previous bombings of Coptic churches have been claimed by Islamic State terrorists. Under the previous Muslim Brotherhood-led Egyptian government, many churches were burned and destroyed.

In contrast, the current Egyptian government tweeted this:

Terrorism hits Egypt again, this time on Palm Sunday. Another obnoxious but failed attempt against all Egyptians #united_on_PalmSunday
— Egypt MFA Spokesman (@MfaEgypt) April 9, 2017

It is no wonder Christians are fleeing the Middle East as fast as they can.

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Download the Elder of Ziyon Haggadah

In 2009 I put together a Haggadah which included commentaries on the themes of Zionism and redemption taken from various sources.

Many thousands of people have viewed it and downloaded it since then.

It includes the entire text of the Haggadah, most of it translated to English as well. It can be downloaded and printed.

One day I'll update it, but for now...here it is and it is still free.

Elder of Ziyon Haggadah 5769 on Scribd

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