Declaring “enough is enough,” Prime Minister Theresa May vowed on Sunday to conduct a sweeping review of Britain’s counterterrorism strategy after three knife-wielding assailants unleashed an assault late Saturday night, the third major terrorist attack in the country in three months.
At least seven people were killed and dozens more wounded, including 21 who remained in critical condition, as the men sped across London Bridge in a white van, ramming numerous pedestrians before emerging with large hunting knives for a rampage in the capital’s Borough Market, a crowded nightspot.
It is a terrorist attack. Even the NYT video accompanying the story calls it that.
Almost exactly a year ago, there was a very similar attack at a Tel Aviv cafe in the Sarona Market.that, like Borough Market, also was the latest in a series of deadly attacks. Here's how the NYT reported that:
Two Palestinian gunmen posing as restaurant patrons opened fire on civilians in a popular Tel Aviv cafe on Wednesday night, killing four people and reigniting fears of terrorism in Israel just as a recent wave of Palestinian attacks had seemed to be waning.
Dressed in black suits, the two men sat down and ordered food, according to witnesses, before embarking on a shooting rampage. They did not seem to have aroused much suspicion at first, despite the warm spring weather: An Arab bartender at the restaurant, Yusuf Jabarin, told Israel’s Channel 2 television network that they looked “like lawyers.”
Then the men pulled assault rifles out of their bags and aimed at the patrons, causing mayhem. Video footage showed customers fleeing in panic and a security officer repeatedly firing at one of the gunmen in a nearby street.
Tel Aviv has suffered a number of deadly attacks since a wave of Palestinian assaults began last October in Jerusalem and the West Bank and spread to cities around Israel. More than two dozen Israelis and two American visitors have been killed in those attacks. Most were killed in stabbings, though there have also been several shootings.
They are "gunmen" and "attackers" - but the New York Times does not call them terrorists nor does it refer to Sarona as a terrorist attack, part of a wave of terror attacks, as it clearly calls the Lomdon attacks without scare quotes. In fact, the terror attack in Tel Aviv only was only "reigniting fears of terrorism" - but was not considered terrorism itself.
The New York Times does not consider Palestinian attackers whose methods are mimicked by pro-ISIS terrorists to be - terrorists.
Now, why might that be?
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Sunday, 4 June 2017), delivered the following speech at the ECOWAS Africa-Israel Summit in Monrovia, Liberia:
I am deeply honored to be here today, and I want to thank you for your great hospitality in inviting me. This has been a dream to come here to this organization in West Africa. And there is so much, so much that we can do for the betterment of our peoples.
And yet, when I landed here after a long flight from Israel, I found that a somber cloud hangs over this glorious day. This is the cloud of terrorism that has claimed the lives of so many innocent Africans, most recently in Niger and Mali. And in recent hours, another terrible attack was launched on innocent people in the heart of London. We condemn it. We send our condolences to the British people and we pledge our commitment to fight this scourge – this scourge that knows no bounds.
These terrorists worship death. They murder indiscriminately, but they will not frighten us. They will not terrorize us. They will only harden our resolve to defeat them. And together, together here in Africa, in the Middle East, in Europe, everywhere – together, we will defeat them faster.
But our goal here is not merely to join forces to fight the bad, but to work together to advance the good, and in this spirit, I come here as an expression of a simple truth: Israel is coming back to Africa, and Africa is coming back to Israel.
I believe in Africa. I believe in Africa, I believe in its potential – present and future. It is a continent on the rise. Its people are diverse and talented. I have made strengthening our relations one of our top priorities – national and international priorities of the State of Israel. It’s the reason I became the first Israeli prime minister to visit Africa in decades. Well, one thing I can assure you – it won’t be decades until an Israeli leader visits Africa again. It won’t be five years. It’ll be a few months.
Africa and Israel share a natural affinity. We have, in many ways, similar histories. Your nations toiled under foreign rule. You experienced horrific wars and slaughters. And you’re still fighting to get out of the past into the future, valiantly, in efforts that I deeply admire. With determination and conviction, you won your independence. You healed the wounds of the past to chart a future of hope for your people.
This is very much our history. Our people too were denied independence for far too long. Our people too suffered the indignity of bondage, slavery and dispossession. Our people too experienced unimaginable horrors of mass death and genocide.
But we never ever gave in. We fought for our independence and won. We established a thriving democracy in the heart of the Middle East. We developed one of the world’s most dynamic economies. We became a world leader in agriculture, water, cyber technology, technology of communications, security and much more.
Today we seek to share our experience with the governments and peoples of Africa. ECOWAS’ mission is to increase peace and prosperity by harnessing Africa’s vast resources.
I came to Africa last year, to East Africa. I saw these resources first-hand. I saw diversity and richness. I saw passion and productivity. I saw young African entrepreneurs who are building companies harnessing the power of the digital age. Africans are seizing the future. Israel wants to seize this future with you. You truly have no better partner for this mission than Israel, because Israel is a world leader in technology, in all areas of technology.
And because… It has to be understood that the distinction between hi-tech and low-tech is rapidly disappearing. Every field, every field without exception, is becoming technologized. And unless you absorb this technology and apply it to the various areas of critical life, then you will fall behind. But if you seize it, if you seize it, you jump forward.
The simplest example that all of us know is in cellular phones. Look at what possibilities accrue to the people of Africa from the use of cellular phones. Enormous possibilities. But if we had to develop this communication network by laying pipes and lines and so on, these benefits would never accrue. It’s the use of technology that allows you to leap forward over generations. And this is the leap that Israel can and wants to do with you.
Though small in size, Israel is a world leader in so many fields: in energy, in agriculture, public health, water management, water creation – just creating water literally from thin air – and of course, in the vital area of security. Our cows – as an example, our cows produce more milk than any other cow on Earth. It’s a matter of some pride. You’d think – and no offense, Federica – you’d think it would be a Dutch cow or a French cow, maybe an Italian cow or even an American cow. But it’s not. It’s an Israeli cow. Because every moo is computerized, and the results are tremendous productivity.
And this is why countries like Russia, China, India, are doing all these programs with us, and the benefits that Israel gives to them are the benefits we want to give to the people of Africa. We are the number one country in the world in water recycling. A statistic: We recycle nearly 90% of our waste water, 90%. The next country is Spain, 17%. So it gives you a feeling for the possibilities inherent in technology. It changes the world. Our intelligence has helped stopped terror attacks – dozens and dozens of terrorist attacks all across the world, including in Africa.
And this is why the leaders of many countries – President Trump has just visited Israel. Before that, I visited China and Russia, and Mr. Modi, the prime minister of India, is coming to Israel in a few weeks. When I met President Xi in Beijing, he said to me, 'You know, we’re crossing now 1.4 billion people.' And I said, 'Well, we’ve just crossed eight million.' And he said to me, 'Yes, but you’re a world power in innovation.' A world power. And therefore, China made a special arrangement with Israel and also with Switzerland – two countries – to work on innovation, to advance innovation.
At the UN last year, I met with many African leaders. It was a spectacular visit, because young Israelis showed what they’re doing in Africa. Not what they will be doing, but what they are already doing. And one of the leaders said something that I’ll never forget. He said to me, 'We have problems; you have solutions.'
A young woman there, a young Israeli technologist, comes to the podium and she shows how they’ve solved the problem of an African village, where a typical woman would go eight hours to get a gallon of water. And they solved it by making water out of thin air. And another showed how they make energy out of the sun, out of the air too. And another showed how they’re working to stop the spread of AIDS with miraculous results. In every field, in every field, our technology is there, it’s ready to work with you to provide solutions to some of the most pressing problems of Africa. We want to help your soil become more fertile, your water reusable, your cities safer, your air cleaner.
The foundation for cooperation we lay today will last many decades into the future. Today, Israel and the countries of ECOWAS are in advanced stages of cooperation on joint projects in agriculture, in energy, education. Six months ago, agricultural ministers from your countries gathered in Israel, together with our extraordinary development agency, Mashav, which is doing incredible work in Africa. Mashav was established in the ‘50s, worked here in the ‘60s and then was discontinued and now it’s coming back with full vigor. And it’s coming back for one reason alone – to help Africa achieve its rightful place among the peoples and nations of the Earth. This is something we deeply believe in.
I hope that we will advance two important agreements that will deepen our cooperation even further. Israel is opening two new trade missions – one in West Africa, one in East Africa – to significantly increase trade between our countries. We will hold later this year an African-Israel summit in Togo. I want to thank you, Mr. President, which I hope all of you will attend. We are prepared to send technology survey teams to every one of your countries, and to look and see, together, what is the best way that we can cooperate. Those of you have already experienced our teams and our capabilities can attest to the wisdom of such a move. I invite all of you, without exception, to do this.
Our growing bilateral relations should also be reflected, I believe, in international forums. Israel should once again be an observer state of the African Union. Now, it’s clearly – and I say this openly, especially with my great sympathy and affinity for Africa. It’s definitely in our interest. But, ladies and gentlemen, I fervently believe that it’s in your interest too, in the interest of Africa. And I hope all of you will support that goal.
You see, many nations, many nations, are changing their attitudes toward Israel very rapidly. And I have to say that nowhere, nowhere, is this happening so dramatically and so rapidly than in the Arab world. Many Arab countries no longer see Israel as their enemy. They see Israel as their ally, I would even say, their indispensable ally in the fight against terrorism and in seizing the future of technology and innovation.
And this change in the Arab world is new. And I believe it’s the best hope for peace, not only between Israel and the countries in the region, but ultimately between Israel and the Palestinians. This is what changes minds and hearts. I ask for your support in rejecting anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, and in bodies such as the General Assembly, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council.
President Sirleaf, you once said, 'The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.'
Well, Israel is a small nation that dreams very, very big. Let us work together to realize big dreams for all our peoples. Let our dreams be so audacious that few people would think them possible today. But just as those who doubted Israel were proven wrong, let us ensure that the skeptics who doubt Africa are also proven wrong.
The founding fathers of ECOWAS spoke of creating this organization to promote love and respect for one another. Israel is a nation which loves and respects all. Israel seeks peace with all its neighbors and has done so from its first days. In Israel, Jews, Christians and Muslims live side by side as equal citizens. This is the real Israel. Diversity in Israel isn’t tolerated; it’s celebrated. I hope you see in Israel what Israel sees in the countries of Africa – a vibrant nation that seeks cooperation for the benefit of all.
So I want to thank you for the great honor of addressing you here today. I wish the best of luck to the incoming Chairperson of ECOWAS, the President of Togo, President Gnassingbe.
And I want to close by inviting all of you, with a traditional prayer that the Jewish people have had throughout the centuries across the world. It was, 'Next year in Jerusalem.' But I have to say, why wait for next year? You’re all invited this year and you will be received with the greatest friendship and the greatest respect.
Thank you. Merci. Thank you very much. Shalom.
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Speaking in an Al-Aqsa Mosque address, Palestinian cleric Sheikh Muhammad 'Ayed, known as "Abu Abdallah," cited the fraudulent "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," saying that the Jews cause all the killing, slaughter, and destruction and are behind all the strife in the world. He further said that the Caliphate would "clip the nails" of America and then chop off its hands and feet. "After it can no longer remain here, we will march upon it," he said. The address was posted on a YouTube account dedicated to Al-Aqsa Mosque addresses on May 30.
Palestinian Cleric in Al-Aqsa Mosque Address: The Caliphate Will Clip America's Nails, Chop off Its Hands and Feet, Then March upon It pic.twitter.com/2muSTt5P5p
Listen to what one of the Jewish schemers said - one of the Elders of Zion, whose name was Oscar Levy.
In the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Oscar Levy said, as is written on the cover of the second edition of the Protocols, "We, the Jews, are none other than the masters of the world and its corruptors." He admits that they are the masters of the world and its corruptors, and that they are behind all the strife in it and are its executioners too.
They are behind all the strife in the world. They cause all the killing, the slaughter, and the destruction everywhere.
Allah says about them and about the polytheist Christians of their ilk: "the Jews and Christians will never be pleased with you, unless you follow their religion."
...First the Caliphate will clip America's nails and then move on to chopping off its hands...and then we will chop off its feet and drive it out of our countries. Then, after it can no longer remain here, we will march upon it, and its fate will be the same as that of the Persians and the Byzantines in the past.
Surprisingly, Oscar Levy was a real person from the early part of the 20th century who was a fanatic fan of Nietzsche and who ascribed the world's ills to Judaism and Christianity. He aligned himself with a British anti-semite who would later become a Nazi sympathizer, George Pitt-Rivers. Levy indeed said, referring to Jews:
We who have posed as the saviours of the world, we, who have even boasted of having given it 'the' Saviour, we are to-day nothing else but the world's seducers, its destroyers, its incendiaries, its executioners.... We who have promised to lead you to a new Heaven, we have finally succeeded in landing you in a new Hell.
Levy however hated Nazism when it appeared, considering it yet another outgrowth of Judaism.
(h/t Petra)
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Air Force One had barely lifted off carrying US President Donald Trump to the next stop on his recent peace mission when the Palestinian town of Burka proudly declared it would ignore mounting requests to cease its incitement against Israel by naming a women’s center after a terrorist murderer.
The glorified murderer in question was Dalal Mughrabi, who was one of the killers in what was then the worst terrorist atrocity in Israeli history – the Fatah attackers killed 38 civilians (including 13 children) and a soldier, and wounded 71 others – in the horrific bus hijacking known as the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978.
Palestinian Media Watch reported that the village council of Burka would not budge from its decision to name its center after Mughrabi. Council head Sami Daghlas hailed Mughrabi as a hero, another “holy martyr of the resistance.”
He told reporters she was chosen by the villagers to commemorate a Palestinian hero “who sacrificed herself for her country, and therefore they have no intention to change its name regardless of the price.”
According to a May 15 report by Ma’an, which claims to be an “independent” Palestinian news agency, the center will focus on presenting the history of the “Martyr Dalal Mughrabi” to youth groups. Ma’an declared further that this constitutes “the beginning of enrichment activities regarding the history of the Palestinian struggle.”
Deif and his “supervising minister” Sinwar — both of whom are considered radical even by Hamas standards — are cautious and in no hurry to start a war with Israel. This, despite the worsening situation in the Gaza Strip, the ongoing closure of the Rafiah border crossing, and the PA’s threats to force tens of thousands of officials into retirement and cut the salaries of the ones staying on.
As far as the old-new Hamas headed by Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Deif is concerned, the main goal, at least for now, is not another war with Israel, but rather the survival of Hamas’s regime in Gaza and a future takeover of Palestinian power centers — the West Bank and the PLO — in their entirety.
Adapting
One reason Hamas is not eager for another conflict just yet is that Gaza’s population has had its fill of war and catastrophe. The inhabitants of the Strip have adapted to the new situation of prolonged power outages, salary cutbacks, and so on, and, as always, have learned to survive.
For example, after the iftar and the tarawih — the evening break-fast meal and the prayer service afterward — the young people hurry off to Gaza’s famous cafés, such as Gahwetna, on the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood’s polluted beach, and Habiba. The nargila is the item most in demand there, along with coffee, tea, and fruit juice. These establishments are for the young men — the shabab — only. Other places — such as the Al-Deira Café (on the Rimal beach), the adjacent Roots, and Level Up, on the eleventh floor of a building in the Rimal section — have a mixed clientele.
The threats by the PA in Ramallah to decrease fund transfers to Gaza continue to loom. T., for one, is sharply critical. “I don’t know what Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is trying to accomplish with the cutbacks and reducing the payments for electricity. He wants to punish Hamas, but he’s actually punishing two million Gazans.”
With Britain battered by three terrorist attacks in three months, and its security services having thwarted five more in the same period, Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday morning set out the specifics of her intended strategy “to take on and defeat our enemies.”
May’s succinct and determined statement, delivered hours after three terrorists killed at least seven people in a central London murder spree, raises two questions: Does her government have the will to fight back in the way she specified, and, with general elections on Thursday, will it be given the opportunity?
Watching her from Israel, which has for so long been forced to grapple with the Islamist death cult, May gave every indication of having internalized what she, Britain, and the rest of our free world are up against.
What “bound together” the stream of terror attacks in the UK, she declared, was “the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism.”
Terrorism was now breeding terrorism, copycat style. The situation had become intolerable. Enough was enough. “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are.”
Strikingly, she added: “There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country, so we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society.”
To fight back, May called for an overhaul of Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy. She also demanded that terror groups be tackled on the ground in the Middle East. And she sought to battle them and their ideologues in cyberspace — to “turn people’s minds away from this violence.”
It probably won’t be the last time I shake my head at how the US Reform movement (I’m including the much smaller liberal branch of the Conservative movement) has replaced Judaism with progressive politics – they call it “social action” or “tikkun olam” (repairing the world) although it is always political action on behalf of the causes of the Left – but it is the first time I have understood that it is a survival strategy for them.
The last few generations of liberal American Jews joined a synagogue because they wanted their children to grow up with an idea that they were different in a special way from the majority of non-Jews among which they lived. They wanted them to have bar and bat mitzvahs and to go to Jewish camp, so they would have Jewish friends and maybe ultimately marry a Jewish person. There was still a concern that it was important to belong to the community and not to abandon it. But these Jewish parents had also grown up in liberal or almost secular households and had little Jewish literacy, and certainly no inclination to become observant.
So liberal synagogues catered to their needs. They made it clear that nothing would be expected of them in terms of knowledge or observance, and they moved back and forth on the spectrum of ritual, from “classical Reform” which resembled Lutheranism, to something closer to traditional Jewish worship, looking for a happy medium. But what primarily drew the congregants into the temples and encouraged them to pay the high dues needed to support well-compensated Reform rabbis was the feeling of obligation to provide some Jewish connection for their children.
In recent years this model started to fail. The blandness of the attenuated, content-free Judaism served up bored both the parents and the children. The newer generations didn’t remember their immigrant ancestors’ Judaism. Intermarriage was common and the “interfaith family” became a thing. Kids didn’t have time or head space for religious education; there were organized sports and academic pressures that were far more important to them. Sometimes the perceived spirituality in eastern religions and even – despite the strong taboo – Christianity, pulled them away. In particular, it was almost impossible to recruit the 20-somethings that in a few years would become the heart of the community and its leadership.
Liberal Jewish community members asked themselves why they should pay thousands of dollars a year for – what, exactly? It became harder and harder for Reform congregations to keep the lights on and to pay the “Jewish professionals” – rabbis, cantors and “cantorial soloists,” educators – that a liberal congregation needed. Many congregations merged and some closed their doors. The movement itself suffered a financial crisis as the flow of dues from affiliated congregations dried up. It was forced to cut its staff and activities drastically.
The Reform movement selected the charismatic Rabbi Rick Jacobs as president to rescue it. He made administrative changes, he emphasized camp and social activities for the children – there is no better way to get adolescents interested in something than to provide them opportunities to interact with others of the opposite sex – and, although it had been moving this way for decades, he placed the major emphasis in the movement on “social action.”
There is no theological problem for them. Unlike traditional Judaism in which commandments are obeyed because they are commandments, Reform Jews place the moral intuition of the individual above the literal (written and oral) Torah. This leads to a distinction between “ritual” and “social” commandments, in which the former are optional and only the latter are obligatory. They consider this “prophetic Judaism” and argue that it is grounded in the Torah and Prophets, but the fact that only those “prophetic” principles that correspond to 21st century progressive ideology are honored reveals that their actual moral standards are based on something outside of Jewish tradition. Isaiah’s isolationism or Samuel’s uncompromising violence clearly don’t fit today’s Reform ideology.
Rabbi Jacobs’ maneuver has been spectacularly successful, both for the Reform movement and for other liberal groups. A recent article by Debra Nussbaum Cohen characterizes it as a reaction to the election of President Donald Trump, but the synagogue wouldn’t provide a focus for anti-Trump expression, were it not for its metamorphosis into a political action organization.
Since the presidential election, 45 new households have joined Shir Tikvah Congregation in Minneapolis, said Rabbi Michael Adam Latz. “Trump may be bad for the world, but he’s great for shul membership,” quipped Latz, whose synagogue is Reform.
“We have people in their 20s and 30s with pink mohawks and people in their 60s and 70s joining who are saying they were never interested before, but now ‘want to be part of something good that is bigger than ourselves.’”
Latz is an outspoken social justice advocate and Shir Tikvah has become a sanctuary congregation, ready to offer concrete support to immigrants being threatened with arrest by the Department of Homeland Security.
That’s part of the orientation young Jews find attractive, said Gabriel Glissmeyer, 23, who recently joined Shir Tikvah. There are “definitely more people attending since the election, and more young people especially. When I started, there were seven or eight of us consistently going. Now there are 15 to 20,” he said.
“We definitely saw a surge in January and February, and are still seeing more traction among young folks in their 20s and 30s,” said Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie at Lab/Shul. “They are looking for community and action.” His is a “pop-up,” unconventional and independent congregation.
Yet the phenomenon is also visible at establishment places of worship. The wait list to join New York City’s Central Synagogue has more than doubled since the election, from 250 families to over 540. Friday night service attendance is also up, said Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, spiritual leader of the Reform congregation. “I don’t know if this is a Trump bump or not,” she told Haaretz, “but it is quite noticeable.”
And in Berkeley, California, 20 new households have joined Congregation Netivot Shalom since January 1, said Rabbi Menachem Creditor, who is active in many interfaith social justice initiatives.
“In the immediate aftermath of the election, there was an enormous increase in attendance,” said Creditor of his 400-household Conservative congregation. The way people recited the “Prayer for Our Country” also changed: “There was a change in the volume, in a fresh and urgent way,” he said. Though he’s not sure he can attribute the increased attendance to Trump’s presidency, “there are more people praying and more intense prayer,” he noted. …
Congregants have been galvanized around social justice work, even where there hasn’t been a lasting increase in attendance, said some.
For years, I’ve been predicting the demise of the Reform movement in the US. I’ve agreed with those who said that it would fade away from a combination of irrelevance and assimilation. But it didn’t occur to me that its leftist politics would save it!
A particular target for Rabbi Jacobs’ “tikkun olam” is Israel, which he believes is in great need of repair because the reality here doesn’t correspond to an ideal liberal society in the sense loved by American progressives. In his public pronouncements, he often notes that his movement is the largestJewish religious group in the US, and suggests that he speaks for American Jews, particularly in respect to Israel. His views, unfortunately, are closer to those of J Street than to those of the Israeli government and the majority of Israelis, and he is not shy about wanting to impose them on us.
Those of us who are concerned about Israel’s welfare and who do not think that the worldview of progressive Americans is appropriate for survival in the Middle East find this singularly unhelpful, even dangerous.
That is a very strong statement to make. I am not sure we want to say that a million or so Reform Jews are actually practicing “another religion” (which, incidentally, might disqualify them from aliyah under the Law of Return). But maybe the truth is that we should see the movement simply as a political group, which has stopped being about religion at all.
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For American politicians, electoral and campaign finance incentives still dictate a baseline of unconditional support for Israel. The United States has given more than $120 billion to the country since the occupation began, spent tens of billions of dollars backing pro-Israel regimes ruling over anti-Israel populations in Egypt and Jordan, and provided billions more to the Palestinian Authority on condition that it continue preventing attacks and protests against Israeli settlements. And those expenditures do not reckon the cost to American security interests of Arab and Muslim resentment toward the United States for enabling and bankrolling the oppression of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
What exactly are the costs of those American security interests? What terror attacks have been directed at America because of the "oppression" of Palestinians that would not have happened if Israel withdrew from the territories? This is simple fiction.
And there has hardly been "unconditional support for Israel" from the US over the past five decades. The US has withheld money and arms from Israel several times over the past 50 years when Israel's policies upset the US administrations.
Or this:
Initially, the threat was of an attack by the Arab states. But that soon crumbled: Israel made a separate peace with the strongest one, Egypt; the Arabs proved incapable of defending even sovereign Lebanon from Israeli invasion; and in recent years, many Arab states have failed to uphold even their longstanding boycott of Israel.
Wasn't there a very costly war against Israel in 1973 where the Sinai Peninsula that was gained in 1967 gave Israel a buffer and precious time to defend itself?
And here:
The only real fallout from continued occupation are major increases in American financing of it, with Israel now receiving more military assistance from the United States than the rest of the world does combined.
I know from speaking to people who have been involved that the New York Times subjects pro-Israel op-eds to excruciating fact checks before allowing them to be printed. But for anti-Israel op-eds, as we see here, anything goes.
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Gadot’s origins landed in headlines this week when Lebanon banned the film from theaters just days before it was scheduled to premiere. The movie had passed the country’s usual guidelines, but pressure from the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel–Lebanon prompted the government to pull its approval at the last minute. (Gadot’s IDF service overlapped with the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, which resulted in, according to Human Rights Watch, “at least 1,109 Lebanese deaths, the vast majority of whom were civilians, 4,399 injured, and an estimated 1 million displaced.”)
When one looks at the link to the HRW report, which pretends to be a comprehensive study of deaths in the Lebanon war, here is its entire research that concluded that the "vast majority" of deaths in that war were civilian:
During the course of five months of research in Lebanon and Israel, Human Rights Watch investigated in depth the deaths of over 561 persons during Israeli air and groundstrikes, and collected information about an additional 548 deaths, thus accounting for a total number of 1,109 deaths (approximately 860 civilians and approximately 250 combatants[196]) from the 34-day conflict. Our research is the most comprehensive available documenting how, and why, civilians died during the conflict.
Both sides have revised their figures of Lebanon's war dead. The latest Lebanese and AP counts include 250 Hezbollah fighters that the group's leaders now say died during Israel's intense air, ground and sea bombardments in Lebanon -- more than triple the 70 they acknowledged during the war. Israel initially said 800 Hezbollah fighters died but later lowered that estimate to 600.
HRW ignored Israel's estimate and fully embraced Hezbollah's estimate even though everyone knows that Hezbollah lied in claiming initially that the number of fighters killed was only 70. Yet HRW and AP were not the least bit skeptical about its "revised" estimate of 250.
UN officials believe that Hizbollah will not want to reignite the conflict, at least for a while. The organisation's culture of secrecy has disguised the true number of its casualties - funerals of "martyrs" are being staggered to soften the impact of the losses. Some were interred without ceremony for re-burial later. A UN official estimated the deaths at 500, 10 per cent of the force Hizbollah is thought to muster, not all of whom are front-line fighters.
There's a very big difference between claiming that some 77% of the dead were civilian and the truth that the percentage is around 50%.
Here's an example of how Human Rights Watch parroted Hezbollah propaganda, and yet its report is considered so accurate over ten years later as to be quoted uncritically.
Of course, HRW would never revise its report, because fact-checking is not what that organization is about: it wants to inflate civilian casualties to pump up its own importance, so it will accept whatever numbers that would increase its fundraising efforts.
(h/t Yoel)
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A top Palestinian official said Saturday that the Palestinians recognize the Western Wall as a Jewish holy site that must remain under Jewish sovereignty.
The comments from Fatah Central Committee member Jibril Rajoub constitute a departure from the formal Palestinian position that brands all of Jerusalem’s Old City as occupied territory which must become part of a Palestinian state, and run counter to the Palestinians’ long-running campaign to deny a Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem.
Speaking to Israel’s Channel 2 TV, Rajoub, who is also head of the Palestinian Football Association, was praising US President Donald Trump’s efforts to reach a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians and commenting on his visit last month to Israel and the West Bank.
“He went to the Western Wall, which we understand is a holy place to the Jews. In the end, it must remain under Jewish sovereignty. We have no argument about that. This is a Jewish holy place,” said Rajoub, who is sometimes touted as a successor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
But Rajoub now denies that he meant that Israel should have any control over the Kotel.
In an angry missive on Facebook, he denies the story completely and says that he never said the word "Israel" in his interview as to who should control the area. Presumably he means that under Palestinian rule they would allow Jews to have some sort of access to the site, but not that Israel should have sovereignty. He insults the reports that say otherwise comparing them to barking dogs.
Hamas had strongly protested the original reports that Rajoub was allowing for Israeli control of the Jewish holy site.
It is just another example of Palestinian double-talk, and one would have thought that Israeli reporters would know by now to parse these liars' words more strictly and not assume that when they say something, they actually mean what they are making it sound like.
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That would suggest an outside-in approach to Arab-Israeli peace: a rapprochement between the Sunni state and Israel (the outside) would put pressure on the Palestinians to come to terms (the inside). It's a long-shot strategy but it's better than all the others. Unfortunately, Trump muddied the waters a bit in Israel by at times reverting to the opposite strategy – the inside-out – by saying that an Israeli-Palestinian deal would "begin a process of peace all throughout the Middle East."
That is well-worn nonsense. Imagine if Israel disappeared tomorrow in an earthquake. Does that end the civil war in Syria? The instability in Iraq? The fighting in Yemen? Does it change anything of consequence amid the intra-Arab chaos? Of course not.
And apart from being delusional, the inside-out strategy is at present impossible. Palestinian leadership is both hopelessly weak and irredeemably rejectionist. Until it is prepared to accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state – which it has never done in the 100 years since the Balfour Declaration committed Britain to a Jewish homeland in Palestine – there will be no peace.
It may come one day. But not now. Which is why making the Israel-Palestinian issue central, rather than peripheral, to the epic Sunni-Shiite war shaking the Middle East today is a serious tactical mistake. It subjects any now-possible reconciliation between Israel and the Arab states to a Palestinian veto.
Ironically, the Iranian threat that grew under Obama offers a unique opportunity for U.S.-Arab and even Israeli-Arab cooperation. Over time, such cooperation could gradually acclimate Arab peoples to a nonbelligerent stance toward Israel. Which might in turn help persuade the Palestinians to make some concessions before their fellow Arabs finally tire of the Palestinians' century of rejectionism.
Perhaps that will require a peace process of sorts. No great harm, as long as we remember that any such Israeli-Palestinian talks are for show -- until conditions are one day ripe for peace.
In the meantime, the real action is on the anti-Iranian and anti-terror fronts. Don't let Oslo-like mirages get in the way.
Op-ed: It’s been 50 years since Israel gained control of the territories, and figures show that the Palestinians have actually experienced a major improvement over that period. In most areas, their situation is much better than that of Arabs in neighboring countries. The lies about a genocide and destruction must therefore be shattered.
The lies must be refuted
It’s been 50 years since Israel gained control of the territories, and figures show that the Palestinians have actually experienced a major improvement. In most areas, their situation is much better than the situation of Arabs in neighboring countries. So the lies about Auschwitz and the destruction and the mass killing must be shattered.
That doesn’t mean there is no injustice. That doesn’t mean there is no room for criticism, even profound criticism, against certain actions committed by Israel. That doesn’t mean that there are no hooligans in the territories, even if they are a small minority. That doesn’t mean that the settlement enterprise should be justified. And that definitely doesn’t mean that the occupation should be perpetuated or that we should march with our heads held high towards the disaster called one big state or a binational state.
All it means is that we must refute the lies about what the Palestinians have experienced in the past 50 years under Israeli rule. That will only work to advance the discussion on the proper agreement, both for the Palestinians' sake and for Israel’s sake.
UN Watch today demanded that UNRWA chief Pierre Krahenbuhl apologize for using images of a girl in a bombed-out Syria building in a major global campaign to raise money for the organization by pretending the girl is a Gaza victim of Israeli actions.
UNRWA is now running the above photo on Facebook and Twitter ads. It is also now UNRWA’s cover image. Imagine being cut off from the world – for your whole life. That’s reality for children like Aya. The blockade of Gaza began when she was a baby, the occupation in the West Bank before her parents were born. Now she is eleven, and the blockade goes on.
Aya’s childhood memories are of conflict and hardship, walls she cannot escape, and the fear that the only home she knows, however tiny, could be gone when she returns from school.
This Ramadan, please help support children like Aya who have known nothing but conflict and hardship.
Yet neither the girl nor the bombed-out building are in Gaza; it’s an old photo from Syria, dating apparently to 2014.
Here is UNRWA tweeting the original image in a January 2015 story on Syria:
If you ask Palestinians in either Gaza or the West Bank who’s responsible for their suffering, most would probably say Israel. But what would they say if they were safely overseas and no longer needed to fear their own governments? That’s not a question reporters, diplomats, or nongovernmental organizations usually bother asking. We now have an answer to it, at least with regard to Palestinians who fled Gaza. They left not because of anything Israel did, but because of persecution by Gaza’s Hamas-run government
There are numerous UN agencies ostensibly devoted exclusively to helping the Palestinians, while human rights groups allocate disproportionate attention to this issue. In both cases, their only real interest in Palestinian suffering is finding some way to blame Israel for it. They couldn’t care less about protecting Palestinians from the abuses of their own government. That’s why they keep issuing reports accusing Israel of being the “key cause” of Palestinian suffering, as one UN agency put it this week, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Yet their blatant bias often obscures a larger problem that affects even well-meaning journalists, NGOs, diplomats and almost everyone else involved in telling the world about what’s happening in the West Bank and Gaza–a failure to understand the way fear affects what people say in nondemocratic societies. For Palestinians, blaming anyone other than Israel for their problems risks serious repercussions from either their own governments or vigilante groups affiliated with both governments. And that’s true not just in Hamas-run Gaza, as people like Ayman and Naji discovered to their sorrow, but also in the Fatah-run West Bank, where journalists, businessmen, and Palestinian security officers have all suffered arrest and financial sanctions for daring to criticize the Palestinian Authority or its president, Mahmoud Abbas. Blaming Israel is always the safest solution, even in cases where it’s patently untrue.
Responsible journalists, NGOs, and diplomats would take this fear factor into account and try to dig a little deeper to try to get at the truth. They would also recognize that the very fact that Israel is the one party no Palestinian fears to criticize is in itself a potent refutation of Palestinian claims that Israel is an oppressive regime. People who truly live under an oppressive regime are generally afraid to go on record criticizing it.
Instead, these opinion shapers take everything they hear from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza at face value and parrot it uncritically. That does nothing to better the Palestinians’ lot, but a great deal to bolster the Palestinians’ own repressive governments by absolving them of all scrutiny and pressure to reform.
The testimony of these Gazan refugees in Greece provides a rare opportunity to hear what Palestinians say when they’re out of reach of their own repressive governments and can speak freely. It thereby offers a glimpse at the true source of much Palestinian suffering – and a rebuke to all the journalists, diplomats, and NGOs who have collaborated with both Palestinian governments to hide this truth from the world.
He thinks he can use the issue as leverage -- for now.
Donald Trump's presidency so far has followed a pattern of disruption. He snubs European allies. He tweets in atrocious grammar. He pulls out of international agreements. He shakes things up.
But in one important respect, Trump's presidency appears entirely conventional. That is in the Middle East. Like his recent predecessors, he promised during the presidential campaign to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. And like his predecessors, he violated that promise now that he is in office.
So why did Trump do it? "To maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians," according to a White House statement issued Thursday on his decision to sign a waiver of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, that would have set in motion the process for the U.S. moving its embassy to Israel's capital. It doesn't get much more conventional than that. What modern president hasn't tried to maximize the chances of that ever-elusive peace deal?
It would be easy to end the story there. But in this case, Trump has left open the possibility that he will eventually keep his campaign promise: "As he has repeatedly stated his intention to move the embassy, the question is not if that move happens, but only when," the White House statement also said.
Sources on the ground in troubled Bradford West think the Corbyn surge could help save Labour’s Naz Shah, who is facing an increasing threat from independent Salma Yaqoob. Yaqoob – of Respect and Stop the War fame – is running a professional campaign and so far two other independents have stood down to back her. At a tumultuous hustings on Wednesday Shah was shouted down for expressing support for Israel’s right to exist. After Shah says “I continue to stand by my statement that I believe in Israel’s right to exist” an audience member can clearly be heard shouting “Jew, Jew, Jew“. Aisha Ali-Khan, who was at the hustings, told Guido: “I was horrified at the conduct some of those in the room.” Yet more disturbing stuff in Bradford…
Naz Shah MP Called "Jew" at Hustings for Saying Israel Has the Right to Exist
Lebanese authorities banned the new "Wonder Woman" movie Wednesday hours before it was due to premiere in the capital and following a campaign against its lead actress, Gal Gadot, who served in the Israeli army, a security official and activists said. On its front page Wednesday, the leading al-Akhbar newspaper had a column titled: "The Israeli soldier. She has no place in Lebanon." The column featured a picture of Gadot carrying her Wonder Woman shield.
That's how to boycott someone: put a photo of her on the front page!
The article also notes:
But many in Lebanon mocked the decision as censorship or a waste of time, pointing out the film could be viewed online.
"Liberating Palestine one movie at a time. #LiveLoveCensorship," wrote the Stop Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon group, which promotes freedom of expression.
- 'In typical Lebanese fashion' -
Blogger Elie Fares accused the government of inconsistency, pointing out that several of Gadot's movies have aired in Lebanon in past years.
"In typical Lebanese fashion and because we definitely have our priorities in order, Lebanon's government decided to rise up from its slumber and resist, even though the movie has been announced for over three years now," he wrote on his "A Separate State of Mind" blog.
"The fact of the matter is that if you have a problem with the content of a movie, the actor or actress leading it or anything pertaining to it... Simply don't go watch it," he added.
"Call for a boycott, but you sure as hell have no right in making sure no one else gets to watch it too."
Even though Lebanon enjoys a greater margin of freedom of expression than other countries in the region, with a thriving arts scene, prior censorship remains in place, particularly with content relating to Israel, religion and homosexuality.
But its interior ministry's censorship bureau occasionally bans content considered to incite confessional dissent, attacking morals or state authority, or to reflect Israeli propaganda.
So far, Lebanon appears to be the only Arab country to order a ban on Wonder Woman, which remains scheduled for release across the region including in Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia later this month.
The movie - and Gal Gadot - are getting great reviews across the board.
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The issue has flared up at recent Radiohead concerts, including their show at the Greek Theater Berkeley where a large banner was held up chastising them for playing the "apartheid" state of Israel. The situation puts Nigel Godrich in an particularly awkward position, as the longtime Radiohead producer also produced the latest album for Waters, the loudest and most passionate voice of the BDS movement.
Here is Yorke's response:
I'll be totally honest with you: this has been extremely upsetting. There's an awful lot of people who don't agree with the BDS movement, including us. I don't agree with the cultural ban at all, along with J.K. Rowling, Noam Chomsky and a long list of others.
There are people I admire [who have been critical of the concert] like [English film director] Ken Loach, who I would never dream of telling where to work or what to do or think. The kind of dialogue that they want to engage in is one that's black or white. I have a problem with that. It's deeply distressing that they choose to, rather than engage with us personally, throw shit at us in public. It's deeply disrespectful to assume that we're either being misinformed or that we're so retarded we can't make these decisions ourselves. I thought it was patronizing in the extreme. It's offensive and I just can't understand why going to play a rock show or going to lecture at a university [is a problem to them].
The university thing is more of a head fuck for me. It's like, really? You can't go talk to other people who want to learn stuff in another country? Really? The one place where you need to be free to express everything you possibly can. You want to tell these people you can't do that? And you think that's gonna help?
The person who knows most about these things is [Radiohead guitarist] Jonny [Greenwood]. He has both Palestinian and Israeli friends and a wife who's an Arab Jew. All these people to stand there at a distance throwing stuff at us, waving flags, saying, "You don’t know anything about it!" Imagine how offensive that is for Jonny. And imagine how upsetting that it's been to have this out there. Just to assume that we know nothing about this. Just to throw the word "apartheid" around and think that's enough. It's fucking weird. It's such an extraordinary waste of energy. Energy that could be used in a more positive way.
This is the first time I've said anything about it. Part of me wants to say nothing because anything I say cooks up a fire from embers. But at the same time, if you want me to be honest, yeah, it's really upsetting that artists I respect think we are not capable of making a moral decision ourselves after all these years. They talk down to us and I just find it mind-boggling that they think they have the right to do that. It's extraordinary.
Imagine how this has affected me and Nigel’s relationship. Thanks, Roger. I mean, we're best mates for life, but it’s like, fuck me, really?
[Godrich responds: "I don't believe in cultural boycotts. I don't think they're positive, ever. And actually, I think that it's true to say that the people you'd be denying [the music] are the people who would agree with you and don't necessarily agree with their government. So it's not a good idea. Thom and Roger are two peas in a pod, really, in certain respects. They just have a disagreement about this, but they've never even met. I think Thom feels very protective of Jonny, which I completely get. But I'm not in the middle of Thom and Roger. Fucking hell, I wouldn't like to be in the middle of those two. No.]
All of this creates divisive energy. You're not bringing people together. You're not encouraging dialogue or a sense of understanding. Now if you're talking about trying to make things progress in any society, if you create division, what do you get? You get fucking Theresa May. You get [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, you get fucking Trump. That's divisive.
(h/t Slava)
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Weekend long read
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1) The ITIC reports on ‘The “Resistance Axis” and the Israel-Iran War’. “In
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1) The ITIC reports on ‘The “Resistance Axis” and the Israel-Iran War’. “In
ITIC assessment, Iran will now be forced to invest significant resources...
T...
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Sunday, June 04, 2017
Elder of Ziyon
