Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

10/11 Links Pt2: 100 Years Ago, a Jewish Heroine Became a Martyr for Human Rights; 60,000 March in Jerusalem

From Ian:

100 Years Ago, a Jewish Heroine Became an Early Martyr for Human Rights

When I was in the fourth grade, my class went on a field trip to Zichron Ya’akov, to visit the home of a woman named Sarah Aaronsohn. She, we were told, was a great Jewish heroine, although the particulars were left deliberately vague. She was some sort of spy, our teacher told us cryptically, and she died for our country.

That she did, exactly one hundred years ago this week. But her bravery remains singular, and her story, sadly, too rarely told: Aaronsohn was a committed feminist, a proud Zionist, and a witness to genocide who refused to remain silent in the face of atrocity.

She was born in 1890 to Romanian immigrants who, as Zionism’s earliest adherents, helped found Zichron Ya’akov. Growing up, she learned how to farm, how to ride horses, and how to shoot guns. In 1914, she married a wealthy merchant named Haim Avraham and followed him to Turkey, where he did business. But, unsatisfied with merely being someone’s wife, she left him and set out to return home to her parents’ farm. What she saw on the way changed her life.

“In front of her very eyes, she saw the Armenians being tortured by the Turks,” her brother, Aaron, wrote in his diary. “She saw hundreds of dead Armenians, lying on the ground, unburied, devoured by wild dogs.”

These sights shook her to the core. She vowed to fight the Turks by whatever means necessary, and sought to aid the British in their war against the Ottoman Empire. Her timing was perfect: Her brother and his friends had just started an underground movement dedicated to this very idea. Entitled NILY—Hebrew acronyms for Netzach Israel Lo Yeshaker, or The Eternal One of Israel Will Not Lie—the group was a spy ring that collected information on Ottoman military movements in Palestine and delivered them to the Brits. At first the handoff was done by hand, with one of the group’s members swimming to a small yacht off the coast of Atlit, delivering his information, and receiving funds collected by American Jews to help the starving and embattled Jews in the Eretz Yisrael. Soon, however, the Turks began to suspect that something was afoot, and warned Palestine’s Jews not to meddle in the war lest they meet the same fate as the Armenians. Most were cowered by the threat, but not Aaronsohn and her fellow fighters. With the coastline now closely watched, they switched to homing pigeons. The system worked well, until it didn’t: In September of 1917, one of their birds was intercepted. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

The Jews Will Have to Wait

On November 8, 1942, a full year-and-a-half before the Allies invaded Normandy, about 110,000 American and British troops invaded North Africa. They had set out in more than 850 ships from U.S. and British ports, sailed for up to 4,500 miles through treacherous Atlantic waters teeming with Nazi U-boats, and, once at their destination, put ashore in three landing zones spread across more than 900 miles of coastline, from south of Casablanca to east of Algiers.

This was Operation Torch, America’s first offensive operation in the European theater of war and, until Operation Overlord’s Normandy landings, the greatest amphibious attack in history. Today, it is all but forgotten. And yet, aside from rivaling Overlord in terms of its enormity, complexity, and peril, Torch was also vastly consequential, for it helped to determine the future course and ultimately successful conclusion of the war. If that weren’t significant enough, Torch also deserves to be remembered for the critical role it played in setting the terms of America’s long-term relationship with the rulers and peoples of the Middle East.

Among those peoples not least are the Jews, whose role in this story is central in more ways than one.

Yisrael Medad: Remember Article 9! Who Will Protest?

I am referring to Article 9 of the Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty.

Is that treaty not a commitment, to be honored?

Are Article 9's elements to be discarded?

Let's read the official Jordanian news agency Petra:

300 extremist settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque
Ramallah, Oct.10 (Petra)-- Some 300 extremist settlers early Tuesday stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram Al Sharif, according to a Palestinian source.

The General Director of the Islamic Awqaf and Al-Aqsa Affairs, Sheikh Azzam Al-Khatib, told Petra's reporter in Ramallah that Israeli settlers broke into the holy shrine from the Bab Al-Magharbeh gate under heavy protection of Israeli special forces and police.

Al-Khatib said that the settlers provocatively toured the Al-Aqsa yards.

Okay, that's Jordan's bad behavior.

But is there ever an Israeli protest?

10/11 Links Pt1: Israel exposes Russian spying US; Report shows Iran's nuclear program not stopped

From Ian:

Report: Israel exposes Russian hackers who tried to spy on US

Israeli intelligence officials monitoring Russian government hackers found they were using Kaspersky Lab antivirus software that is also used by 400 million people globally, including U.S. government agencies, media reports said Tuesday.

The Israeli officials who hacked into Kaspersky's network over two years ago had, at the time, warned their U.S. counterparts of the Russian intrusion, The New York Times reported.

That led to a decision in Washington only last month to order Kaspersky software removed from all government computers.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Israeli officials also found in Kaspersky's network hacking tools that could only have come from the U.S. National Security Agency.

Upon this discovery, the consequent NSA investigation found that these tools had been obtained by the Russian government, the report said.

Late last month, the U.S. National Intelligence Council completed a classified report that it shared with NATO allies concluding that Russia's FSB intelligence service had "probable access" to Kaspersky customer databases and source code.

That access, the council concluded, could help enable cyberattacks against U.S. government, commercial and industrial control networks, The Washington Post reported.

The New York Times said the Russian operation, according to multiple people briefed on the matter, is known to have stolen classified documents from an NSA employee who had improperly stored them on his home computer, which had Kaspersky antivirus software installed on it.

It is not yet publicly known what other U.S. secrets the Russian hackers may have discovered by turning the Kaspersky software into a sort of Google search for sensitive information, the report said. (h/t Dave4321)

Palestinian Normalization -- With Hamas, Not Israel

The most widespread conspiracy theory, which has been floating around for decades and can be heard in almost every coffee shop on the streets of Cairo, Amman, Ramallah and Beirut, is that Zionist Jews, together with American capitalists and imperialists, have a secret plan to take control over the Arab and Islamic countries and their resources.

How exactly are the "Zionists and imperialists" trying to "undermine" the Palestinian "national project"? And what, precisely, is this project? Is it the project of Hamas and many other Palestinians that seeks the destruction of Israel?

The corrupt Arab and Palestinian leaders spread such rumors to divert attention from problems at home, such as corruption and dictatorship. These leaders want their people too busy hating Jews and Westerners to demand reform, democracy and transparency from their leaders. Those valuables, of course, are what Arab and Palestinian leaders still refuse to offer their people.

Why do many Palestinians prefer peace with Hamas? Because they identify with Hamas's dream of destroying Israel and killing Jews. It may be an unpleasant a truth, but that is the bottom line.

Gatestone Institute: NOTICE

Gatestone Institute, its President and Board of Directors strongly condemn the defamatory campaign waged by Mudar Zahran (under his own name and through various fictitious accounts and names) against Gatestone Institute's Distinguished Senior Fellow Khaled Abu Toameh. Gatestone Institute wishes to note that it has warned Mudar Zahran in the past a number of times to stop his obsessive campaign. Although he promised and apologized, he had persisted with his campaign, and continues to make false and defamatory accusations and insinuations against one of our esteemed Fellows.

Gatestone Institute wishes to clarify that it terminated all ties with Mudar Zahran four years ago. Accordingly, he does not speak on behalf of Gatestone or any of its affiliates, constituents or participants.

The Al Aqsa test to make sure you aren't a sneaky Jew

From iNews (UK), a story of a Muslim woman who married a non-Muslim man (who converted to Islam for her) and how she was treated in the Arab world:

Although my ex-husband formally converted in Al-Azhar, he did not take a Muslim name. That was enough to render his faith as “questionable”. Shortly before midnight, after touring Damascus, we were interrupted in our hostel room by a rude wake up call – literally. An aggressive voice at the door said, “We are the night staff, we need to check your marriage certificate.” Although we had shown the precious certificate to the afternoon staff earlier, the night staffs were not convinced. They wanted to check it one more time – at around midnight. “This is a Muslim country, and you claim to be Muslim,” one of them said. The two hostel staff looked bemused and offended when I responded angrily, “Yes, I am Muslim, and I have the right to choose my husband.”

Even in my native country Egypt, officials, hotel employees and others we met on tour questioned his Islamic credential.

We had, however, a particularly challenging encounter at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. To enter the Dome of the Rock, my ex-husband was asked to perform ablutions (the ritual of washing before prayers), apparently to prove he was not a Jew. According to one of the guards, this was a necessary ritual because “Jews occasionally want to break into the sacred site.”

In England, the challenges and grilling continued. One night was particularly distressing when a well-educated, senior medical colleague of mine (a doctor) volunteered, “to educate me” about how God would punish me if my husband stopped performing his Islamic duties. This colleague then said, with no small degree of condescension: “I know a girl who made your stupid mistake; she was eventually punished by God who cursed her with a rare skin disease.”

(h/t Mike)

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Chag sameach! Again!

This is the final of this season's holidays. I won't be blogging from sundown on the US East Coast until Saturday night.

Israel once issued a series of stamps to celebrate Simchat Torah flags that children use in synagogue. Here they are:

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I love when Arabs pretend to love the Mizrahi Jews they persecuted

Al Jazeera has an op-ed by Susan Abulhawa, who claims that Israel is a racist country because of its treatment of Mizrahim (Jews from Arab countries) as second class citizens.

Yes, Al Jazeera has breaking news from 1954.

Obviously Alulhawa doesn't give a damn about Mizrahi Jews, or else she might have spared a word about how they have all been ethnically cleansed from Arab countries, as well as how badly they were treated by Arab Muslims and Christians for centuries.

Absurdity abounds throughout the article, as Abulhawa claims that the entire idea of Mizrahi Jews is a fake construct made up by Israel to take away their individuality:

Thus, the word Mizrahim, from the Hebrew and Arabic words meaning "those of the East," was popularised to lump all of these peoples of different nations into a single miscellaneous category that erased their individual ancient histories and cultures that spanned thousands of years of life and tradition, replete with countless and invaluable achievements in their respective nations.

What about the word "Sephardic"? Was that also an attempt to homogenize Jews who were not Ashkenazi?

And didn't Zionism do the same thing with Jews from Russia, Poland, Germany and Hungary, by lumping them all together as "Ashkenazi Jews"? Didn't they each have their own cultures and traditions that were also subsumed under the Israeli umbrella as Israel struggled to integrate every Jew to become a new nation?

Was that racism too?

Traditional Jews have maintained much of their culture, whether from the West or the East. And Israel has incorporated parts of Mizrahi culture into its society. The idea of Ashkenizi and Sephardi Jews intermarrying is utterly normal, and has been for decades, which is surprising from such a "racist" society (which has had a Mizrahi president too.)

But Abulhawa's real agenda is clear from this hilarious final paragraph:

Israel has moved away slightly from early Zionism's contempt for our part of the world. And while it remains a colonial project, bent on erasing the native Palestinian presence, their social efforts are more focused on "indigenising" themselves to the land. The obstinacy of Arab Jews in clinging to their cultural roots has provided a convenient avenue to lay claim to regional indigenous culture. So now, Arab foods (like falafel, hummus, shakshouka), traditional Arab clothing (like tatreez, galabiyas, keffiyehs), and Arab folkloric dances are all being rebranded as "Israeli," yet another phase of colonial renaming, and they use the rebranded Arab Jews to justify their claim.

It's always about the falafel.

Abulhawa's ridiculous attempts to smear Israeli Jews of European origin prove only one thing: She's the racist, not the Israelis.

The fact is that Jews from Arab countries were always second class citizens, much more persecuted than they ever were in Israel 60 years ago. And Abulhawa is quite OK with that.

(h/t Matan)

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19 Swiss MPs submit motion to remove UNHRC Agenda Item against Israel

A loose translation of a motion submitted to the Swiss parliament:

The Federal Council is instructed to propose to the UN Human Rights Council to delete item 7 of its permanent agenda.
The creation of the UN Human Rights Council in June 2006 must be attributed primarily to an initiative by Switzerland and Micheline Calmy-Rey, then Federal Councilor. Shortly after its work began, the Council established a permanent ten-point agenda, which has since been systematically followed at all sessions.

The agenda reads as follows:

Item 1. Organizational and procedural matters
Item 2. Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General
Item 3. Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development
Item 4. Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention
Item 5. Human rights bodies and mechanisms
Item 6. Universal Periodic Review
Item 7. Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories
Item 8. Follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
Item 9. Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, follow-up and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action
Item 10. Technical assistance and capacity-building

It was then decided by a majority of the voters that the human rights situation in the countries of the world would be dealt with under different agenda items. On the other hand, the question of Israel and Palestine is discussed in item 7, created specifically for this purpose. The situation prevailing in all the other countries is examined in points 4 and 10. In practice, point 7 is subject to one to two days of discussions each time, while Council has only granted only a few hours of its time to the situation in the rest of the world. Thus, since June 2006, it adopted 68 resolutions against Israel, and 67 concerning all the rest of the world.

Given the real human rights situation in the world, Switzerland, which had actively worked for the establishment of the UN Human Rights Council, would do well more than ten years later to propose that the Council to delete item 7, which specifically refers to Israel. It should be committed to promoting respect for human rights in general, rather than supporting the systematic piling on a single country.

What is insane is that the Western nations have never prioritized this, thereby telling the Arab world that they can do whatever they want without opposition.

(h/t UN Watch)

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10/10 Links Pt2: Tablet Mag Goes Full Antisemite; AJ planted undercover reporter in US pro-Israel groups

From Ian:

IsraellyCool: Tablet Mag Goes Full Antisemite

With the news of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s fall from grace clogging the news cycle, it was only a matter of time before we would see antisemitic articles stressing the fact he is Jewish, and somehow connecting it to his despicable behavior.

And none is worse than this article from Neo Nazi site The Daily Stormer.

Excerpt:
At first squint, Harvey Weinstein seems like a very familiar type. Isn’t he the old, same old, another rich, entitled, powerful man with a bad dye job abusing his might to coerce women into sex? Isn’t Harvey just like Roger Ailes, or Bill O’Reilly, or, for that matter, Bill Clinton? But look at the details of the case and you’ll see that the answer is no. Harvey is different. Harvey, sadly, is a deeply Jewish kind of pervert.

As despicable as you may find Ailes, O’Reilly, and the other grabby goyim, you’ll recognize their behavior fits a pattern as old as time itself, as trite as Fox’s complaints about the “war on Christmas”: Men crave sex, and the worst of them will obtain it by whatever means necessary. These despicable gents have power and influence, and they aren’t above promising a lucrative gig—or threatening to take it away—to get laid. In these transactions, women are nothing but objects, and any “consent” is just an illusion. Morally, the men are no better than the pimps who crowd into James Franco’s character’s bar on The Deuce, the new HBO show; psychologically, they are no more complex than the johns. Cash in, cum out. The women are collateral damage.

Only it was not really from The Daily Stormer. It is from Tablet Mag, an American-Jewish publication.

What makes this even more infuriating is I have always found Tablet to be proudly Jewish. We are not speaking about the Jewish Forward or Ha’aretz here, which are constantly providing grist for the antisemites’ mill. In fact, one of its writers, Yair Rosenberg, constantly writes about antisemitism and describes himself on Twitter as a “troller of Nazis.”

This article will no doubt be spread far and wide by the same Jew haters Yair Rosenberg likes to write about and troll. I call on the managing editor of Tablet to remove the article immediately and issue an apology to its readers and Jews everywhere.

Shmuley Boteach: A shameful attack on Elie Wiesel

Quite a few questions arise from Ron Rosenbaum’s twisted and shameful attack in Tablet magazine on Elie Wiesel, the most famous Holocaust survivor.

First, what was the motive of the magazine’s editors in publishing the piece? It would be one thing if the column was of high literary quality and rhetorical merit.

But endless repetition alone demonstrates how this was a thoughtless hit piece, designed to disparage Wiesel in the most degrading way possible. How many times do we have to hear Rosenbaum’s description of Wiesel as “a golem of grief,” a man with “eyes circled in gloomy Dantean darkness, the Man in Black, the Johnny Cash of the death camps,” or read about Wiesel’s endless “cloud of gloom.”

We get it Ron. You believe that one of the most revered personalities of the 20th century and the man whom President Obama – whom you claim to have supported – called the “conscience of the world,” was a charlatan who utilized a melancholic affectation to increase stature. And my, aren’t you clever with all your colorful descriptions.

The second question is why Rosenbaum decided to even write his piece, given how much he insists Wiesel doesn’t matter. Rosenbaum’s column hammers home how much Wiesel “had passed his moment of real relevance,” “fewer paid attention to his stoic mien,” adding, “He was no Simon Wiesenthal.”

Ouch.

A Misleading Picture of Today’s Anti-Semitism

There is an article running in this month's issue of JLife (Orange County Jewish Life) by Lisa Armony, who is the director of the Rose Project, a financial arm of the Jewish Federation and Family Services of Orange County (California). It is entitled, Anti-Semitism in Charlottesville. Beginning with the recent incident in Charlottesville, Armony gives us a recitation of the history of anti-semitism in the 20th century. It is not what is in Armony's article that I take issue with. It is what is not in the article.

I do not dispute the facts of what Armony writes. Furthermore, I have no intention whatsoever of coming to the defense of people like Richard Spencer, David Duke, the KKK or neo-Nazis. They are all despicable and should be rejected by every decent American. However, there is a glaring omission here. Armony fails to write one single word about Islamic anti-semitism and the role it plays in today's anti-semitism. I happen to know Ms. Armony, and I have personally told her what I write below. In fact, we had a conversation last January at the Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach when that synagogue hosted an interfaith event dedicated to fighting racism, anti-semitism and Islamophobia. The event was dedicated almost as much to bashing President Trump, his supporters, and the alt-right. Here is what I wrote about the event at the time.

As laid out in the above link, Ms Armony refused to present my written question to the panel during Q and A. The question asked who was responsible for anti-semitism at UC Irvine, where I formerly taught part-time. The correct answer would have been Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Union and their invited speakers over the past several years. Indeed, it is the pro-Palestinian lobby on college campuses all over the US which has made campus life an unpleasant experience for so many Jewish students. Though not Jewish myself, I have seen it first-hand and have spoken out about it for some ten years. When the above meeting was ended, I made it clear to Ms. Armony that the worst purveyors of anti-semitism today are not neo-Nazis or skin-heads; rather it is Muslims (not all, of course). Armony told me that this was not the time or place to bring that up. Of course not. Present at the event were some prominent Muslim leaders from Orange Country including Imam Muzammil Siddiqi, who, in recent years, has lent out his Islamic Center of Orange County for Muslim students from UC Irvine to assemble their mock "apartheid wall" for display at UCI during the annual anti-Israel week of events every May, a most inconvenient fact, which I brought to his (and everyone else's) attention during a followup event at UCI featuring many of the same people.

Smack dab in the middle of Yom Kippur, my left eye decides to let me know it is not at all happy. Of a sudden, it hurts.

It hurts bad.

Would I go to our local emergency treatment center or tough it out?

I tough it out.

That night, I make the first possible appointment with the eye doctor. The appointment is two days away, first thing in the morning. I am resigned to the idea that this is, after all, my eye, and cannot be ignored. Even though it is that crazy period between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, a whirlwind of work, building, shopping, and cooking.

My husband is able to give me a lift to town, a mercy, since this cuts my travel time in half. Not yet caffeinated, I load myself into the car and find my photosensitive eyes assaulted by the bright morning sun. The car's sun visor not being nearly enough, I fold a tissue into the top of my eyeglasses so that I resemble a Muslim woman, my face all covered up. My son, in the backseat, is mortified. Someone might see!

"Put on your sunglasses," he cries.

Well, okay. I can do that. Sleepily, I dig into my purse, locate my sunglasses, slip off my glasses, and put on my shades. Ahhh. Much better. Even if I can no longer see anything, since my sunglasses are not prescription sunglasses and I'm unfortunately myopic (not as a blogger, of course!).

My eyeglasses are now resting in my lap. I kind of know I will forget they are there. It's the nature of the beast. I hope I won't.

But I do.

What happens next is this: we are held up by traffic and I am definitely going to be late for my doctor's appointment. I am upset. My husband and son assure me the doctor is stuck in the same traffic jam, not to worry.

I call the medical center and explain, and the staff confirms that the doctor and nurses have not yet arrived.

Phew. A relief.

Still, I am super nervous about losing that appointment, and as my husband pulls up to the curb, I already have my hand on the door handle, ready to push down and fly out of the car to race my way over to the medical center. Which I do.

I am halfway up the street when I realize, "My glasses!"

I run back down to the curb, looking up and down the sidewalks, the sparse city greenery, beneath the parked cars, out onto the street. But I cannot see my glasses anywhere.

Had I slipped them into my bag and forgotten? Had they slid off my lap into the recesses of my husband's car? I race to my appointment, while simultaneously rummaging through my bag and leaving a Whatsapp voice recording for my husband and son to check the car.

I pay for my appointment on one floor, then wait on another for the doctor, imagining my glasses being ground into dust as a million cars roll over them. Another expense, replacing those spectacles, and with the holidays already so costly. I am upset with myself.

My son messages me that the glasses are not in the car, that I should go knock on doors, look on a ledge for them. I barely register the words. I can't go anywhere. I am stuck at the medical center, awaiting my turn for the doctor.

I continue rummaging through my bag, explaining to the only other person in the waiting room, a tired, careworn woman, that I have lost my eyeglasses. She calls out suggestions where I might look. She is kind.

My glasses are not anywhere in my handbag.

The doctor calls me in. I tried to concentrate on what he says about my eyes and the complicated treatment plan he prescribes. He hands me various papers listing things I must buy and the instructions for their use.

I run down to the bottom floor pharmacy, grab a number, and wait my turn, drumming my fingers, impatient to go seek out my lost eyeglasses. My number is called after 20 minutes.

The pharmacist looks at the papers, sighs, and apologizes. The doctor had used the wrong form. I have to go back up and get him to make out a new prescription. Apparently, he'd done this before.

Many times.

I run upstairs, still hoping to finish up quickly so I might go search for my glasses. Panting, I reach the doctor's office, and the door is closed. That means someone is inside. By now, many patients are waiting for him in the waiting room.

I explain about my prescription to the room at large and all the people are nice, saying I can go in ahead of them. The door opens. I hasten inside. Explain the mistake, what I need from him.

The doctor is annoyed. "Look," he says, pointing to the blank lines for name and date. "They won't take the prescription because you haven't filled in your name and date."

"No," say I. "They won't honor the prescription because it isn't the form used by this HMO."

He argues. I am firm. He begins to shout.

In English he says. "Fill it in! I will go with you DOWN."

"No. They aren't going to take it. It's the wrong fo--"

"I will go with you DOWN!"

I look at him, hold his gaze. He looks back at me; a staring contest.

He breaks first, swiveling in his chair to face the keyboard, where he might type out the proper prescription, as he should have done in the first place.

The printer spits out my prescription, and the doctor applies his stamper to the paper with some (angry) force. I jump and stammer, "It's not MY fault!" and then too worried about my glasses to wait for the elevator, I race down four flights of stairs, back to the pharmacy.

I catch the pharmacist's eye and she indicates that as soon as she finishes up with her customer, I can cut in. I get the stink eye from everyone waiting there. They urge me to take a number. I explain the business with the wrong prescription. They pretend they don't hear or understand.

All this time, throughout my doctor's appointment, through the wait for the pharmacist, a second wait for the doctor and then for the pharmacist again, my husband and son are messaging me on Whatsapp with advice about where to hunt my glasses.

The pharmacist finishes with her client. I race to the counter, squabble with someone whose number has come up at the same time, the pharmacist backing me so the stalemate is broken.

At last, my prescriptions filled, I race back to the spot where my husband had dropped me off what now seems like hours ago, perusing every nook and cranny of the street and sidewalk and peering into shrubs.

I go into the closest apartment building, my husband having suggested someone might have seen the glasses and brought them into their home or office. That residential building on a weekday morning on a busy Jerusalem street is like a ghost town. Empty, dark, dank, and dusty.

I sigh. No point even knocking.

I come back out, look all around. My glasses are nowhere. Near tears, I give up, and look for a place to rest my handbag, so I can dig out my sunglasses for the walk to the bus station.

I see a ledge and make to set my handbag there. As I lower my purse to the ledge, I realize I am about to crush my glasses

They are right there on the ledge. Right in the place where I'd been about to place my bag.

I am astonished, jubilant! I pick up my glasses to look them over. They are completely unharmed. I slip them back onto my ears and nose, where they belong.

Someone had seen my glasses on the ground, picked them up, and placed them on the closest ledge, out of harm's way, knowing that the owner would be sure to return to the area to look for them.

It is an Israeli thing, the ledge as lost and found.

In Israel, ledges are the homes of lost yarmulkes of all colors and fabrics, be they colorfully embroidered, crocheted, or plain black satin. Ledges are the homes of pink barrettes and small precious toys, pacifiers or even a shirt carelessly slipped off before a pick-up game, forgotten and left behind. In Israel, ledges are homes to lost items and stale bread, since a ledge is also the place where a Jerusalem pigeon might find something good to eat, it being a sin to toss bread into the garbage.

My glasses had been out in plain view all along, there on that ledge. And even if they hadn't been out in plain view, the first thing my husband and son had said to me over that protracted Whatsapp correspondence was: check the ledges.

But I'd barely registered the words. My mind had been too busy with life in Israel, to register life in Israel, which, a lot of the time, is not about clerical mistakes and otherwise good people yelling at each other, but about the ledges. People who care about people putting lost things on ledges where the owners will find them.

All along I'd been looking down at the ground.

When I should have been looking up.

The Israeli custom of placing lost things on ledges is, you see, a microcosm for just about everything.

And looking up to find things is a metaphor for life.

Moadim L'Simcha!

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Ma'an Arabic publishes this Land rover press release as a news item:

Ritz Motors, the exclusive Land Rover dealer in Palestine, has created a Land Rover driving experience and has opened the door for participants seeking a chance to have an adventure.

The Land Rover Experience Tour #TrailToNamibia offers guests the opportunity to test the legendary Land Rover capabilities through a series of fun driving activities while exploring drivers' skills through a range of dynamic driving challenges.

The event, held in Palestine, is one of Land Rover's driving experiences in the Middle East and North Africa region, where winners in each market move to the final event hosted by the Emirate of Dubai in April 2018.

During the event, participants are given the opportunity to test the latest Land Rover models including the Range Rover, Range Rover Vellar, the all-new Discovery and Discovery Sport, allowing them to test the brand's best cars.

The event includes a variety of driving activities that not only test the driver's skills but also highlights the efficiency, versatility and quality of the brand.

These activities include driving in natural terrain, obstacles designed to test off-road and mountain driving, as well as dynamic control and road driving.

Non-drivers also have the opportunity to test Land Rover as a passenger.

For the younger brand lovers, a range of activities have been set up for the children, making the Land Rover driving experience #TrailToNamibia the perfect day for the entire family.

"The experience of driving from Land Rover is one of the most exciting and interactive activities in the world," said Mira Abu Shousha, Marketing Director, Ritz Motors. "We are thrilled that the event has impressed audiences of all ages."

Hold on - there is a luxury car dealership in the most oppressed region on Earth?

You mean that normal Palestinians don't look like this:

...but like this?

Does Breaking the Silence include this on their tours of the West Bank where they show the searing oppression of Israeli "occupation"?

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10/10 Links Pt1: Fatah: Dying for Allah “will create the State of Palestine”; The united Jerusalem delusion

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah: Dying for Allah “will create the State of Palestine”

In a post on Facebook, Abbas' Fatah Movement encourages Palestinians to die for Allah. It is Palestinians dying for Allah, the spilling of "the blood of the Martyrs," Fatah says, that "will create the State of Palestine."

Fatah posted the following text together with a collage of photos of terrorists:
"#Palestine"
"From the sea of the blood of the Martyrs (Shahids)
we will create the State of Palestine"
"Fatah Movement - The official page" [Official Fatah Facebook page, Oct. 3, 2017]

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Fatah's student movement Shabiba at two different universities uses the same slogan, encouraging youth to adopt a path of violence and to become "Martyrs."

When Israel placed metal detectors at the Temple Mount entrances following an attack there in which 2 Israelis were murdered in July 2017, and Palestinians responded with violence and riots, Fatah encouraged Palestinians to "escalate" the riots and stated that "with our blood we will thwart the Zionists' plans."

How Palestine “Occupies” Itself

Of course, declaring a de facto state does not make it a reality. Nor will declaring that state to be “under occupation.” The reality is that both the essential non-existence and the victimized character of the Palestinian state represent a conscious decision to embrace failure. This will not change unless there are direct negotiations, a choice the PA has consistently refused.

While a functioning Palestinian state remains desirable, it is telling that the Palestinian leadership has refused to directly negotiate with Israel and uses bodies like the UN to endorse a “virtual” state with no viable institutions. Is the Palestinian goal a state of their own, or just the erasure of Israel? If the latter, it is to be followed by what? Insisting upon a Palestinian state must go hand in hand with reviving the moribund Palestinian political system and institutions that would support it, like a free press. But these are demands that should come first from Palestinians. When such demands come from Israel or Western countries, they collide with the narrative of “occupation.”

Palestinian nationalism has never seen the conflict as one between two national groups with legitimate claims and aspirations. Israel’s existence – indeed, Zionism itself, the very idea of Jewish nationalism – is regarded as wholly illegitimate. Palestinian acceptance of the two-state solution was a means of appeasing the West and its stated desire for all parties to live in peace according to democratic, national ideals. But for Arafat in his day and now for Mahmoud Abbas, the two-state solution was a mechanism with which to buy time until the Palestinians can finally overcome and defeat Israel. The language of “occupation” plays a key role.

Whether Palestinians think they are an “occupied state” or “Palestinian territories under occupation,” as long as Palestinians cling to the notion of being “occupied” and Israel remains the “occupier” we are destined to see more of the dynamics of the past and fewer possibilities in the future. Until we see more self-awareness, self-criticism, and a sense of accountability, Palestinian identity and statehood will remain occupied in perpetuity. Palestine is indeed “occupied” by shadows of its own making.

Barry Shaw: The united Jerusalem delusion

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week pledged to support a Greater Jerusalem bill that would annex places like Ma’aleh Adumim, Givat Ze’ev and villages in the Etzion Bloc and would allow their residents to vote in Jerusalem mayoral elections.

This bill would also create independent municipalities for Israeli-Arabs living within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries, but outside the security barrier.

Members of Knesset and mayors acclaim this move.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said that “applying Israeli law is the most important thing to make sure that everyone realizes that Jerusalem will remain united.”

Is Jerusalem united? Let me throw a bucket of icy water over those of our politicians who are in denial.

If Jerusalem were truly the undivided capital of Israel, how is it that at least 14 soccer clubs based in Jerusalem play under the auspices of the Palestinian Football Association, headed by Jibril Rajoub of the Palestinian Authority? As these clubs come under the PFA, which is a member of FIFA, the world governing body for soccer, these Jerusalem-based clubs are globally recognized as Palestinian, not Israeli. The Israel Football Association lost control of them decades ago.

Worse still, some of these clubs promote terrorism against Israelis as part of their footballing activities, with the full knowledge and approval of Rajoub. Some of these activities are supervised and funded by the PFA.

Welfare: aid in the form of money or necessities for those in need.
Websters Online

The Palestinian Authority's current "Pay for Slay" program to reward Palestinian terrorists for murdering Jews can be traced back as far as 1964, when Nobel Prize-winning terrorist Yasser Arafat first initiated the idea:

Arafat. Photo by Remy Steinegger -
originally posted to Flickr as Yasser Arafat -
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2001

Back then, a main goal was consolidating the power and influence of the PLO.

But it has continued and developed over time, but never intended to actually helping Arabs in need.

In an opinion piece for The New York Times, Matthew Levitt noted that during its iteration as the "Fund for Families of Martyrs and the Injured" the program was still not a part of any real welfare system:

According to the World Bank, “the program is clearly not targeted to the poorest households. While some assistance should be directed to this population, the level of resources devoted to the Fund for Martyrs and the Injured does not seem justified from a welfare or fiscal perspective.”

Matters have not gotten any better.

Eli Lake wrote last year that finally, the Palestinian reward system is getting attention:

For years the Israelis and the Americans didn’t do much on this issue. The Israel Defense Forces work closely with Palestinian security services to keep the peace in the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Bush and Obama administrations have pressed both sides to restart negotiations over a final status.

This is starting to change. On Friday, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced that he would begin withholding part of the tax revenue that Israel sends to the Palestinian Authority — equal to the amount paid to “martyrs.”

One aspect of the problem remains addressing this program for what it is.

Palestinian Media Watch has been a major source of information about this reward system and has been giving the impetus to various governments to recognize this practice for what it is and act accordingly.

PMW describes how the Palestinian Authority has institutionalized the stipends paid to terrorists and their families into law:

In April 2011, the Palestinian Authority Registry published a Government Resolution granting all Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel for security and terror-related offenses a monthly salary from the PA (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011). This new resolution, called PA Government Resolution of 2010, numbers 21 and 23, formalized what has long been a PA practice.

The PA defined which Palestinians would be considered "prisoners": "Anyone imprisoned in the occupation's [Israel's] prisons as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation" (Ch. 1 of Law of Prisoners, 2004/19, www.alasra.ps, accessed May 9, 2011)

According to the PA definition, more than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners (as of December 2012) serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients of PA salaries. This means that Palestinians convicted of crimes such as theft do not receive a salary, but Hamas and Fatah terrorist murderers do. [emphasis added]

That is one of the key points that is overlooked in confronting the continued Palestinian claim that the money is part of some humanitarian welfare fund. While the salary is targeted for criminals, it is intended for terrorists and their families alone.

This is not about a welfare system intended for the average family.

Another key point is that not only does this Palestinian law ignore the average needy family, the rewards it pays out to terrorists are as much as 5x what average Arab families are earning:

Watch the entire video:

A third proof that these are not welfare payments comes from the Palestinian Authority itself, as PMW notes:

These monthly payments to prisoners are paid from the PA’s general budget and income taxes are paid, as is the case with all other PA salaries (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011). According to the language of the PA regulation as well as PA economic reports on government salaries, the monthly salaries to prisoners range from 1,400 shekels to 12,000 shekels. The PA economic report listed the prisoners’ salaries as part of the PA general salary budget, which includes civil servants, military personnel and others. (Life and the Market, supplement to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 19, 2011). It was not listed as a social service payment. [emphasis added]

In fact, those stipends are still being described as "salaries" instead of "assistance":

Abbas calls terror stipends "salaries", not "assistance. Credit: Palestinian Media Watch

Thus far, Abbas has refused to stop paying the stipends -- though whether it is because of his own stubbornness or because he dares not stop such a popular measure.

The responsibility rests upon the West to refuse to provide any funding to the Palestinian Authority that goes toward paying any salaries, as long as the money goes toward encouraging terrorism.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

1872 researcher says explicitly that Palestine Arabs had no national character

As the centennial of the Balfour Declaration approaches, we will see more Arab propaganda about how Balfour destroyed the "Palestinian nation." For example, from Ramzy Baroud in Arab News

{Balfour] cared little about the fate of Jewish communities. His commitment to establishing a Jewish state on land already populated by a thriving and historically rooted nation was meant only to enlist the support of wealthy Zionist leaders for Britain’s role in the First World War.

I have looked for a long time for evidence of this "nation" without luck. I never found any element of culture or folklore that could be considered "Palestinian." But when I look for counter-evidence of this supposed nation, I came up with this article in a periodical from 1872:

THE ARAB FELLAHHEEN OF PALESTINE: WHO ARE THEY?

IT is impossible to live for any length of time, as the writer has done, in the Holy Land without being struck by the diverse character of its present inhabitants—that is to say, of the settled population, not including the annual pilgrims. In the various towns the inhabitants are more or less of various and of mixed race. In Jerusalem we find Jews, Moslems, and Christians of different sects and races. But all over the land in the rural districts the observer is met by the fact that in this small country are collected together people of various and distinct races as well as of diverse creeds.

Not now to dwell upon the peculiarities that distinguish from each other Samaritans, Maronites, and Druses, we pass on to the general rural population of Palestine, called Syrian or Arab, or, as by themselves, Fellahheen, i.e., "tillers of the soil."

They do not, properly speaking, form a nation. There is among them neither coherency nor spirit of patriotism. Just as the wild Bedaween are divided into distinct and generally hostile tribes, so the peasantry (Fellahheen) are divided into clans governed by their respective sheikhs. They speak a common, language, they possess a common religion; their manners and customs are generally the same all over the country. Yet of national unity there is absolutely none. They never combine for any purpose excepting when occasionally some clans aid each other in their faction fights. They are all classed, it is true, under the two great divisions of Yemeny and Kais, wearing white or red as the badge of these parties; but even then there is nothing among them approaching to the co-operation of patriots as a nation, ready and willing to join hand in hand for the mother country. The Turkish government well understand this important fact and take it into practical account in. their method of ruling the land. This state of things is in itself enough to explain in great measure the backward condition of the people at large. They have no national life. Every district lives in and for itself, and wages its own petty wars with its neighbours, but has neither interests nor action in common with any other.

The people of the various districts, moreover, differ considerably from each other, in outward appearance, in character, and in speech. They resemble each other just so far as to indicate descent from a common stock. They differ as the fragments of a nation may which has been broken up at an extremely remote period into distinct and hostile clans. All are Fellahheen, and yet all are apart from each other, independent and commonly at enmity.

Here is a person who lived in Palestine, who knows the land inside out (as the full article shows.) But he sees no evidence of a Palestinian people or nation.

It is a myth. But good luck teaching that at universities today.

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