Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

What's the Palestinian Cabinet up to this week?

If you need more proof that the entire purpose of a Palestinian state is to attack Israel and not to actually build a state, here are all the statements that came out of this week's Palestinian Cabinet meeting.

Not too much about anything internal - practically everything about Israel (and getting more money.)

During its weekly meeting held in Ramallah, today [Tuesday], the Palestinian Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Dr. Rami Al- Hamdallah, condemned the latest Israeli escalation against Al-Aqsa Mosque, and considered it part of the plans of the occupying power to Judaize Jerusalem, alter its historical features, and obliterate its Arab and Palestinian identity. This escalation coincides with the latest settlement and forced displacement plans against Khan al-Ahmar and other areas of the West Bank, the repeated threats of aggression against the Gaza Strip, and the adoption of the racist Jewish Nation-State Law.

In this regard, the Cabinet called upon the international community, Arab and Islamic states to intervene to stop the Israeli escalation against the Palestinian citizens, to provide international protection for the Palestinian people and their holy sites, and to end the Israeli occupation and its measures that violate all international laws, treaties, and conventions.

The Cabinet also denounced the recent Israeli announcement by the Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, which approves establishing new 400 settlement units, aiming at expanding “Geva Binyamin, Adam” settlement, southeast Ramallah, in a step backed up by the American Trump Administration. In addition to that, the Cabinet criticized the decision of the Israeli government to approve the construction of 270 settlement units in the so-called “Neve Daniel” settlement, near Bethlehem.

The Cabinet considered such plans a blatant challenge to the international community, and a clear attack against the Palestinian land and rights, in a manner which prevents the possibility of establishing an independent, sovereign State of Palestine based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This requires a firm stance, by the international community, to compel Israel to cease its illegal settlement activities in the Palestinian territory, foremost of which is the occupied city of Jerusalem.

Moreover, the Cabinet deplored the recent Israeli incitement campaign, led by Israeli right-wing and settler organizations, against Palestinian civil society institutions, which affected the image of Palestinian NGOs before the international community through linking such national institutions with terrorism.

The Cabinet stressed the importance of the role played by such institutions and its integration with the efforts of different ministries and government bodies. Of this, the Cabinet noted that civil society institutions work in accordance with the Palestinian Basic Law and all relevant international laws, and are a major advantage and form of support for the Government in meeting the needs of its citizens, especially in the so-called “Area C”.

The Cabinet called upon world countries to stand with Palestinian civil institutions against Israeli right wing and settler organizations that call for seizing more Palestinian land, destroying homes and facilities and attacking citizens’ capabilities, which violate all international and humanitarian laws.

In another context, the Cabinet hailed the United Nations Economic and Social Council for adopting a law regarding “the social and economic consequences of the Israeli occupation” in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. This law condemns the devastating effects that the Israeli occupation leaves on both the Palestinian economy and society, and the arbitrary policies aimed at destroying the Palestinian economy.

Thus, PNN reports, the Cabinet expressed its gratitude to the Group of 77, and China, for meeting their legal and moral obligations through voting in favor of the resolution.

Furthermore, the Cabinet commended the UN Human Rights Council for appointing three experts to the Commission of Inquiry into Israeli violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, upon the Council’s decision, at its special session held last May, to establish an independent international commission investigating Israeli violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Above all, the Cabinet expressed its deep concerns over the financial crisis and severe budget deficit facing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The cut-offs in the $100 million US contributions to the UN emergency program, may lead to catastrophic consequences on more than one million Palestinian refugees receiving food, education and health assistance from the UNRWA.

Therefore, the Cabinet is appealing to the international community and donor countries to provide financial support to the UNRWA, to ensure that it continues to provide services to Palestinian refugees until achieving a just solution for their cause.

Furthermore, the Cabinet showed its gratitude to the World Bank for providing a $90 million grant to the Palestinian people, aimed at empowering the private sector, as well as financing infrastructure projects. Similarly, the Cabinet highly praised the Canadian financial support of $37 million to increase economic opportunities and prosperity for Palestinians, especially women and young people, through supporting economic empowerment programs, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities.

Also, the Cabinet congratulated Ahed Tamimi and her mother, on their release from Israeli prisons and held the Israeli Government fully responsible for the safety and life of Palestinian prisoners and for the racist violations, it commits against them. Consequently, the Cabinet renewed its calls upon the international community to shoulder its responsibilities to protect Palestinian prisoners in defense of international resolutions and UN conventions, to save their lives, maintain their basic rights, and meet their demands.

The Cabinet, thereupon, stressed the importance of the efforts exerted by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, along with the Palestinian Government to stop the inhumane measures practiced against Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli prisons. These efforts also attempt to compel Israel to respect all international and humanitarian laws in treating Palestinian prisoners, until they are released unconditionally from Israeli prisons and detention centers.

Finally, the Cabinet approved the recommendations of the Minister of Local Government to hold elections for nineteen local communities that lost their legal status as a result of the resignation of the majority of their members on Saturday, 22/09/2018.

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Mondoweiss takes money from and promotes writings of someone who says "Jews pray to Satan"

Ron Unz is a former businessman, failed politician and now publisher of an anti-Israel website, The Unz review.

His latest article shows that he is also an unabashed antisemite.

This 7800 word article includes the most absurd lies about Jews and Judaism, mostly taken from the writings of antisemite Israel Shahak.

Unz claims that "The enslavement or extermination of all non-Jews seems an ultimate implied goal of the religion."

He writes that under Jewish law, "Jewish lives have infinite value, and non-Jewish ones none at all."

Unz goes on: "religious Jews apparently pray to Satan almost as readily as they pray to God, and depending upon the various rabbinical schools, the particular rituals and sacrifices they practice may be aimed at enlisting the support of the one or the other."

And: "Indeed, many deeply religious Jews utter a prayer each and every day for the immediate extermination of all Christians."

And for good measure: "It appears that a considerable number of Ashkenazi Jews traditionally regarded Christian blood as having powerful magical properties and considered it a very valuable component of certain important ritual observances at particular religious holidays. "

Of course the Jews hide all of this from Gentiles: "If the Gentile population became aware of these Jewish religious beliefs and the behaviors they promote, major problems for Jews might develop, so an elaborate methodology of subterfuge, concealment, and dissimulation has come into being over the many centuries to minimize this possibility, especially including the mistranslation of sacred texts or the complete exclusion of crucial sections."

Even more: "Naziism could best be described as 'Judaism for Wimps' or perhaps Judaism as practiced by Mother Teresa of Calcutta."

Every one of these is a blatant antisemitic lie.

Unz, unsurprisingly, also is quoted approvingly by and donates to a number of anti-Israel personalities and organizations. Here are the recipients of his money in 2012, including Mondoweiss and Norman Finkelstein:

Unz has paid anti-Israel site Mondoweiss at least $80,000 over the years.

Mondoweiss has returned the favor by linking to Unz' writings on a number of occasions.

The ADL in 2014 said that "Though Unz does not appear to be an anti-Semite, he provides support to extreme anti-Israel ideologues and his writings resonate with and are regularly cited by anti-Semites."

This evaluation must be changed, and Unz' crazed hate for Jews and Judaism must be exposed.

(h/t Petra)

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Amman University has offered a full scholarship to Ahed Tamimi, recently released from Israeli prison for attacking a soldier.

The invitation was offered by the head of the university's directors, Dr. Maher Hourani, on Tuesday, to attend their law school.

Tamimi had said that she wanted to study the law so that she could prosecute the Israeli occupation before international courts.

According to Jordanian media, Hourani said that the university also decided to offer free housing to "Shirley Temper."

Jordan already hosts and protects Ahed's cousin, the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who was responsible for the Sbarro pizza massacre and who the rest of the Tamimi family openly admires and supports while they tell gullible Western media that they support only non-violence.

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07/31 Links Pt2: Carter Blocked Begin’s Citizenship Offer to Palestinians; Indy promotes Noam Chomsky’s charge on “Israeli intervention in US elections”; WikiLeaks made antisemitic remarks in private chats

From Ian:

Carter Administration Blocked Begin’s Citizenship Offer to Palestinians

Commemorating nearly 40 years since United States President Jimmy Carter initiated the negotiations that led to Israel’s surrender of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, the Center for Israel Education is incrementally releasing sensitive memoranda from the Carter administration archives detailing conversations during those negotiations.

The fourth memo in a 10-part series highlighting the Carter administration’s involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict unveiled a March 1978 meeting in Washington between Carter’s team and an Israeli delegation led by Prime Minister Menaḥem Begin.

The conversation from that meeting shows an American administration intent on forcing Israel to relinquish not only Sinai, but also most of the West Bank, Gaza region and the Golan Heights.

In response to the American pressure, Begin expressed his willingness to offer Palestinians the option of full Israeli citizenship with equal rights but would leave the choice in the hands of individual Palestinians themselves.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, rejected Begin’s offer of citizenship for Palestinians on the grounds that Israel would then retain control over the West Bank, revealing that from the perspective of American interests, an Israeli withdrawal was more important than addressing the actual needs of Palestinians.

Indy promotes Noam Chomsky’s charge on “Israeli intervention in US elections”

The Independent legitimised the warped political views of linguist Noam Chomsky today, in a column by their US editor, Andrew Buncombe. The article, titled “Israeli intervention in US elections ‘vastly overwhelms’ anything Russia has done, claims Noam Chomsky”, highlighted a charge made by the American academic in an interview with the fringe radical left show ‘Democracy Now’.

Here’s the Chomsky quote highlighted by the Indy journalist:

“Israeli intervention in US elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done, I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies – what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015.”

Buncombe then contextualises Chomsky’s views by uncritically citing the (widely discredited) views of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt:

The power of the pro-Israel lobby has long been one of the contentious, and disputed, issues in Washington. In 2007, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, published The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, which described the lobby as “loose coalition of individuals and organisations who actively work to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction”.

A self-declared leftist wages war on the Palestinian ‘right of return’

Former Labor MK Einat Wilf believes the Palestinians are not ready for peace. They are, in fact, miles away from accepting the idea of dividing the land and are still hoping Israel will soon disappear, she asserts in a new book.

And yet, she insists she’s a leftist.

But the peace camp must sober up, she says, and start realizing that peace will not come as long as the Palestinians cling to their demand to “return” to areas now belonging to Israel.

“If you truly want peace, rather than just feel good about wanting peace — and there are a lot of those — and if you actually understand that at the end of the day they [the Palestinians] are the ones with whom we have to live and share the country, you need to be realistic about where they’re coming from,” she told The Times of Israel during a recent interview in a Jerusalem cafe.

“The War of Return,” which she co-authored with former Haaretz journalist Adi Schwartz, provides an in-depth analysis of the Palestinian refugee problem. It notes that immediately after the 1948 War of Independence, Arab leaders were opposed to the return of those who had left their homes in what had become the State of Israel, as this was considered a tacit recognition of Israeli sovereignty.

But a short while later, Arab leaders changed their strategy and demanded that the “refugees” return to their old homes, Wilf and Schwartz write, citing countless historical documents to prove their point.

Yesterday I visited a young widow grieving the death of her husband, murdered last week by a Palestinian terrorist. I was heartbroken by her tears and those of her in-laws who had lost their only son. Today, the PA Foreign Ministry condemned my visit. Nothing more to say.
— David M. Friedman (@USAmbIsrael) July 31, 2018

The latest "massacre" in Gaza is done by - UNRWA?

From Al Jazeera:

Currently, the blockaded strip suffers from a 44 percent unemployment rate. Last Wednesday, the agency fired a further 113 employees, all because of the United States' 80 percent budget cut.

Furthermore, UNRWA announced the contracts of 1,000 of its employees in the Gaza Strip - Abu Hashim among them - will not have their contracts renewed. This includes the termination of the mental health programme, which employs 430 people.

"This is a massacre against the employees," Amal al-Batsh, deputy chairman of the UNRWA'S staff union, told Al Jazeera. "The solution to the crisis should not be at the expense of the staff providing services to the tens of thousands of refugees in the Gaza Strip."

Palestinian are very accustomed to using hyperbole in order to whip people up into a frenzy as well as to cow Westerners into doing their will (because normal people wouldn't talk that way unless there was really a huge catastrophe looming.)

A thousand people losing their jobs is something that happens every day all over the world. UNRWA's model of an ever-increasing budget for an ever-increasing population was known for decades not to be sustainable, yet no one wanted to change it as long as the money was flowing. This sort of thing was going to happen, inevitably.

It is not a tragedy. It is not a "massacre." It is the result of a deliberate policy of perpetuating a problem.

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Netflix giving racist, antisemitic Farrakhan a platform

From Twitter:

On August 1st, watch the premiere of my music documentary “My Life’s Journey Through Music” on @netflix.https://t.co/gxZwHNPhkI #LetsChangeTheWorld pic.twitter.com/t7UHZvDsQE
— MINISTER FARRAKHAN (@LouisFarrakhan) July 31, 2018

This is pretty outrageous. I cannot imagine Netflix giving a platform to Richard Spencer - why do they give one to Farrakhan?

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07/31 Links Pt1: Syrian activists: 'Ahed Tamimi lucky not to be imprisoned by Assad'; IDF Message to Gaza: Hamas Sends You Every Week to Die on the Fence

From Ian:

More horror than heroism: Ahed Tamimi

My sweet-natured daughter Malki, brimming with empathy and generosity toward others, always with a smile on her face, was 15 when she was murdered in the Sbarro pizzeria massacre 17 years ago this week.

The experience of losing her, of trying to re-balance my life and my family’s and of trying to make sense of the reactions of other people, has shaped much of what I believe about terrorism.

We know who plotted the Sbarro barbarism. It was not Ahed Tamimi. But when her clan, the Tamimis of Nabi Saleh, get together to celebrate it, as we know they do, she is an enthusiastic participant.

In a village where almost everyone is related by blood and (yes, and) marriage, Ahed is a cousin of one of the attack’s perpetrators, Ahlam Tamimi, in multiple ways. Ahlam now lives free in Jordan. She boasts that she chose the site for the explosion, seeking to kill as many Jewish children as possible, and that she planted the human bomb. Via social media, public speeches and (for five years) her own TV program, she urges others to follow her lead.

When Ahlam married Nizar Tamimi – also a murderer from the village – a few months after both walked free in the Gilad Shalit prisoner-exchange deal, Ahed was there to dance and gaze adoringly at the bride.

But neither her gaze nor her ideas are the problem – it’s what others do with them.

Ahed’s parents make a living from propagandizing against Israel. They fashioned and groomed Ahed, leveraging her blondness, pushing her into staged conflicts with Israeli soldiers from when she was 10, deliberately putting her at real risk on a weekly basis for years – long before she had the ability to discern what was being done to her.

Syrian activists: 'Ahed Tamimi lucky not to be imprisoned by Assad'

“Israel released Ahed Tamimi full of health and without a scratch,” wrote Syrian activist and photographer Yasser Wardh, contrasting her leaving prison “while thousands of Palestinians are killed in prisons of the Assad regime.”

Nedal al-Amari, a journalist from Deraa, also contrasted the brutality of the Syrian regime with Tamimi’s treatment. “The difference between Israel and Bashar al-Assad. Ahed Tamimi lucky girl because it was in Israel’s prisons, not Assad’s prisons.”

Dozens of similar tweets in Arabic mentioned her alleged “9 kilos” weight gain. “She was not tortured. She was not raped. Her weight increased by nearly 9 kilos. Her hair and face are more beautiful,” wrote Mahdi Majeed.

Iman Kais, who has 100,000 followers on Twitter, also contrasted Tamimi’s experience with Arab prisons. “She says she learned to love life, whereas those imprisoned in our Arab countries can reach a stage where they wish their mother didn’t give birth to them.”

Many tweeted photos of Tamimi next to a dead Syrian woman, trying to draw attention to the difference. “If people in Deraa and the south were detained by the Zionist occupation and they come out 9 kilos more, instead of arrested by the Assad occupation every day a list of the souls of the martyrs, more than 3,000 now,” one wrote. This was a reference to the thousands of names of those murdered in Assad’s prisons. The regime has recently released lists of those who have disappeared or been killed in the last seven years, many of whom died in prison.

Ahed Tamimi to be honored by Nelson Mandela’s grandson

Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela will invite Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi to South Africa to receive a special reward “for bravery, resistance and being a symbol of hope for millions.”

Tamimi, who was jailed for eight months after being videoed provoking and slapping an IDF soldier last year, was released on Sunday.

According to several South African media outlets and the Afro-Palestine Newswire Service, Mandla made the comments during a celebration to commemorate his late grandfather’s 100th birthday. He reportedly promised Tamimi that he will “continue to support and rally others to join in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] campaign to isolate Apartheid Israel until Palestine is free.”

Mandla then saluted Tamimi as “a symbol of Palestinian resistance.”

Many of South Africa’s leaders, including the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, have been vocal about the incarceration of Tamimi.

Earlier this year, Ramaphosa, during a response to questions following his state of the nation address, called for the speedy release of Tamimi.

“At this moment, we wish to express our deepest concern about the continued imprisonment of Palestinian children in Israeli jails,” he said in reference to Tamimi. The comment received thunderous applause in the country’s parliament.

Netanyahu vs Trump on Social Media - No Contest (Daled Amos)

There was a time when Social Media was considered a boon to organizing mass protests. This culminated in the Arab Spring in general and in Egypt in particular with the protests in Tahrir Square in 2011.

Protests in Tahrir Square in 2011. Credit: Mona Sosh

Wael Ghonim, a Google employee at the time, was one of the administrators of the Facebook page, "We are all Khaled Saeed", which was credited with helping to spark the revolution in Egypt that eventually led to the fall of Hosni Mubarak. Back then, Time magazine included him in its "Time 100" list of 100 most influential people of 2011, and the World Economic Forum selected him as one of the Young Global Leaders in 2012.

In the end, though, it turned out that the Muslim Brotherhood was equally adept at using social media to organize its followers -- Facebook and Twitter were not necessarily the powerful tools of revolution people thought they were.

But maybe it depends on how those tools are used and for what purpose.

President Trump, for instance, has been very successful with Twitter -- if his goal is to get a lot of attention, stir things up and annoy his enemies.

His use of Twitter actually became a legal issue when he tried to do what everyone else does on Twitter: block people from his account. A judge ruled that Trump could not block users from his account just because he did not agree with them because the president's account qualified as a public forum and blocking them infringed on their First Amendment rights.

Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei also enjoys using Twitter, and uses it to poke his enemies as well:

After negotiations, in Zionist regime they said they had no more concern about Iran for next 25 years; I�d say: pic.twitter.com/dBA7oAbFPX
� Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) September 9, 2015

Khamenei's tweets also garner media attention but don't make the same kind of splash. He can make veiled, and some not so veiled, threats against Israel without eliciting much of a response from the Twittersphere. In an article in The Hill about Khamenei's tweets, Trolling becomes new trend in international diplomacy the article considered this to be nothing more than "Iran's supreme leader tweeted criticism of Israel."

Twitter is actually very popular in the Middle East:

Twitter is an increasingly favored form of official communication in the Middle East. A 2018 study conducted by the public relations company Burson Cohn & Wolfe ranked King Salman of Saudi Arabia as the most influential global political figure on Twitter�although he uses the service infrequently, each of his posts over the past year was retweeted more than 150,000 times on average. King Abdullah of Jordan has also made Twitter a key communication method, ranking fourteenth among global leaders in the same metric. And the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are the second and third most-followed foreign ministers in the world.

Though the article makes no mention of either Israel nor Netanyahu, the Prime Minister does appear in a chart embedded in the article:

Netanyahu is nowhere near being the leader in the number of followers among leaders in the Middle East, but he may be one of the most creative. Recently, he has been active in trying to reach out to the Iranian people.

And some of the Iranian people have reached back.

As an iranian citizen I never saw a palestinian express friendship to iranian people but israelian citizens have sent messages several times about love
Israelian people believe that the true people of iran have no hostility to you??#WeStandWithIsrael pic.twitter.com/h0YEWUikTo
� ???? ??? (@dadaj_kayko) June 8, 2018

Netanyahu has not limited himself to Twitter and so far has 24 "Direct Addresses" on YouTube, a number of which address the Iranian people directly.

Some of the videos are merely friendly while pointing out the problems suffered by the Iranian people under the regime.

Others offer help and advice on dealing with the current problems and scarcities in Iran.

Journalist Eli Lake is not impressed with this "YouTube Diplomacy". He sees Netanyahu's approach not so much as an attempt to bypass the Iran regime in an attempt to address the Iranian people directly, but rather as "geopolitical trolling."

All this gets to the contradiction underlying Netanyahu�s public diplomacy, and for that matter U.S. policy as well. On the one hand, the message is correct. Israel, America and Iran�s people share a common foe: the mullahs. On the other hand, the U.S.�s current strategy is to cut off Iran�s chief export, oil. This strategy will no doubt hinder Iran�s efforts to spread terror in the Middle East, but in the process millions of Iranians will also suffer.

Instead, Lake advocates targeting individuals and institution, though it's not completely clear how targeting Iranian institutions would not still adversely affect the Iranian people.

However you want to see Netanyahu's Iran campaign on social media, it does fit in with his general policy -- and success -- addressing other countries and reinforcing, as well as creating, allies. That is no small feat for a country isolated within the UN. Obviously, all of this helps Netanyahu at home as well and helps him to continue his political future. And Netanyahu does this with a level of subtlety and with a degree of professionalism lacking in Trump's rants on Twitter.

The Israel Prime Minister is not the only one using social media.

In response to another of Khamenei's tweets threatening Israel, the Israeli Embassy responded with a tweet of their own.

pic.twitter.com/1dRRE7Nv1s
� Embassy of Israel (@IsraelinUSA) June 4, 2018

The Embassy's tweet went viral:

If the Israeli-Iran war will be fought via Twitter likes, Jerusalem is the clear winner � the embassy�s tweet had close to 18,000 likes by Tuesday compared to just under 4,000 for Khamenei.

In addition to the tweet itself, screenshots of the interaction between the two accounts also garnered thousands of likes. Yashar Ali, a writer for New York Magazine and The Huffington Post website with more than 270,000 followers, tweeted a screenshot with just the word �OMG� � and received 10,000 likes.

The article concludes with a comment from a representative of the Foreign Ministry, saying that the tweet was a "nice idea" but as the article put it, would not say whether it represented 'a new Israeli approach to digital diplomacy'.

It certainly is in line with Netanyahu's use of social media - and represents a use of it beyond what was imagined during the Arab Spring.

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Dr. Dana El Kurd, who received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Texas, responded to a tweet:

You have no understanding of history or the long-term impacts of Israel then. Assad is a monster today, but Israel's presence has destabilized the entire Middle East since its inception. Terrorism, ethnic cleansing, wiping out entire cities & camps - you name it, they've done it.
— Dr. Dana El Kurd (@danaelkurd) July 30, 2018

Let's see if Israel really has destabilized the region.

Wikipedia lists all the modern Middle East conflicts over the past century. It lumps all of the Arab Israeli wars as a single conflict, but even if you divide it up into (let's say) 10 wars.

Outside of those it lists about 90 conflicts in the Middle East that have nothing to do with Israel.

The casualty count for the Arab-Israeli conflict is about 80,000 on all sides.

The casualty count for all non-Israeli Middle East conflicts is over 7 million - nearly 100 times the number of those killed in Israel-related conflicts.

Far, far more people have been killed in conflicts involving tiny Yemen than Israel since 1948.

What about the claim that Israel destabilizes the Middle East? Is she really claiming that Syria, Yemen and Lebanese conflicts today have anything to do with Israel?

And Israel has been involved in only two international wars since 1973, both in Lebanon. At the same time, dozens of conflicts have broken out not involving Israel.

El Kurd's claptrap passes for sober analysis - she has written for a Washington Post blog - but she is thoroughly, completely and provably wrong.

The problem is that the media and the NGOs and the world governments indeed spend 99% of their time talking about a conflict that is only 1% as important in terms of actual victims, so El Kurd's lies don't sound quite as absurd as an actual analysis shows they are.

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Palestinian Authority, which has been strangling Gaza, takes credit for its reconstruction

I cannot recall an official government video as transparently false and cynical as this one.

The Palestinian Authority issued a statement and video called "Office of the Prime Minister - Government Achievements in the Gaza Reconstruction Profile, 29 July 2018."

It looks at the rebuilding of Gaza done by international NGOs - and takes credit for it.

Keep in mind that the PA has been actively working to hurt ordinary Gazans over the past year by limiting salaries, fuel, electricity and medicines.

For them to issue a (terrible) video claiming to be responsible for how wonderful things are in Gaza is Pravda-level propaganda.

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07/30 Links Pt2: Facebook Still Allows Anti-Semitic, Holocaust-Denying Posts; Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘Existential Threat’; Here’s how Birthright guides talk about the Palestinians

From Ian:

Report: Facebook Still Allows Anti-Semitic, Holocaust-Denying Posts

The Holocaust was a lie, Anne Frank’s diary was a fake, and Jews are barbaric and unsanitary: All those are posts that are still available on Facebook despite being reported to the social media giant.

According to an investigation by the British Times, “scores of examples of material designed to incite hatred and violence against Jews” still remain on Facebook. “Some of it,” the newspaper reported, “had already been flagged to the company. When the material was highlighted to Facebook yesterday some was taken down but several antisemitic posts and pages remained up last night.”

In part, that’s because the company’s guidelines designate anti-Semitic posts as hate speech that is slated for removal, but does not view Holocaust denial the same way. Earlier this month, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg sparked a controversy when he said in an interview that he believed Holocaust deniers were making nothing more than an honest mistake.

“I’m Jewish,” he said, “and there’s a set of people who deny that the Holocaust happened. I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong.”

After critics and Jewish communal organizations criticized Zuckerberg’s comments, his sister and former Facebook executive, Randi Zuckerberg, rushed to his defense and applauded him for “navigating this incredibly difficult new world where the notion of free speech is constantly changing.”

As the Times‘s investigation shows, however, navigating anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial on Facebook means little more than simply letting vile and violent expressions stand. Responding to the newspaper’s report, several Members of Parliament blasted Facebook for its inaction. Yvette Cooper, chairwoman of the home affairs select committee, said: “Facebook are providing people with a huge global platform to incite racial hatred and to deliberately spread lies that fuel antisemitism. They can’t just shrug their shoulders and pretend it has nothing to do with them. What is the point of them even pretending to have community standards or social responsibility if they turn a blind eye to the promotion of violence and extremism?”

Here’s how Birthright guides talk about the Palestinians

When Samuel Green talks about Israel’s West bank security barrier with the Birthright groups he guides, he first explains the Israeli view that the barrier was built to prevent Palestinian terrorists from breaching Israeli territory and that Israelis generally feel it has saved lives.

But then he’ll talk about what the barrier – which is part wall, part fence – means for Palestinians: how it cuts into West Bank territory, how it has separated people from their farmland, how they see it as an imposing wall.

“It’s a disservice to the people in front of me to leave out such information,” Green said. “So if you’re trying to understand why there’s conflict, you have to understand why people are annoyed. It’s important to talk about.”

That approach contrasts with the one viewed by 2.7 million people in a viral Facebook video taken by activists of IfNotNow, a group of young American Jews who oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. In the video, a Birthright tour guide spars with a participant on a Birthright bus over the status of the West Bank.

Rather than aim to present a range of views on Israel’s control of the territory, the guide says “Israel sees the West Bank as part of Israel” – a misleading claim that does not accord with the legal status of the territory or encompass the variety of ways Israelis see it.

Soon after the bus argument, several participants on that Birthright trip staged a walk-off from the tour and visited Palestinian areas. It was one of three such walk-offs conducted in recent weeks – all organized by IfNotNow – to protest what the group calls Birthright’s silence on Israel’s occupation.

The walk-offs have sparked a debate over whether Birthright – a popular 10-day free tour to Israel for young Jews — has a responsibility to grapple with Israel’s control of the West Bank. Some 40,000 young Jews, mostly from North America, go on Birthright every year. For some it is their first exposure to the country.

But Birthright tour guides say the debate is unnecessary. While acknowledging that they speak from an Israeli perspective, the guides said they make an effort to represent a range of opinions on the tour – including Palestinian views – and are happy to answer any questions.

Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘Existential Threat’

In a week when three of Britain’s Jewish newspapers have united in a joint front page that warns of the “existential risk” of a Corbyn government to British Jews, some might answer that the existential risk applies to Britain as a whole. One doesn’t have to share this apocalyptic viewpoint to see that the underlying concern revolves around how, precisely, a Corbyn government would behave towards those opposed to its program.

As resilient as the structures of British democracy are, Corbyn might well try to borrow from the political playbook of his hero: the late Venezuelan socialist dictator Hugo Chávez. In times of both boom and bust in this oil-rich, historically stable nation, Chávez found that antisemitism — a phenomenon that was virtually unknown in Venezuela — had its political uses. Chávez asserted himself as the lynchpin of the global alliance against imperialism with repeated attacks on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, deploying the imagery of the Jews as “crucifiers” that he calculated would resonate in the deeply Catholic country. Taking that position did not advance the Palestinian cause, nor did it alter Israel’s strategic advantage, but it did contribute to the majority of Venezuela’s Jewish community of 20,000 fleeing Chávez and his successor Nicolas Maduro for safety abroad.

I am not saying that exactly the same process will unfold in Britain should Corbyn come to power. But it is notable that there has been, once again, a rise in discussion among British Jews about whether they have a future under a government led by Corbyn. The fear that he has normalized antisemitism in the Labour Party, coupled with unwavering loyalty to the Palestine solidarity activists who have dragged Labour into the mire of Jew-baiting, leads many to conclude that what has already happened in the party will unfold next in the country.

My own view is that it is too soon to draw such a conclusion, although I certainly understand why others do. The possibility remains that the scandal of Labour antisemitism will backfire badly on Corbyn, as a growing number of Britons express disbelief at the amount of time he spends on the job fighting with a community of 300,000 souls, when they know that an opposition leader serious about securing power would be focused on sweeping away the most divided and unstable British government this century. On this front, Corbyn has yet to convince.

UNRWA keeps saying free education paid for by the world is a human right

I received this fundraising email from UNRWA USA:

Due to the US government's holding back of $300 million to UNRWA, as of this week UNRWA has been forced to cut jobs in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem).
UNRWA is a lifeline for 5 million Palestine refugees, providing food, healthcare, education, and jobs. In fact, 99% of UNRWA's doctors, teachers, and other staff, are refugees themselves.
Despite relentless efforts to attain new funding from other countries and donors, UNRWA still needs $217 million to sustain its work for 2018. As a result, UNRWA's 700 schools may not open this September.

And why would that be a bad thing?

Education is the single biggest budget item for UNRWA - over $400 million in 2017, triple the budget for health services.

It is largely unnecessary.

For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the regular public schooling should be sized to include so-called "refugees." Treating them as different from other Palestinians is absurd and discriminatory. It is abhorrent that somewhere in the PA government, people are saying they don't have to educate hundreds of thousands because they get their education for free from UNRWA. It is the PA's responsibility, not the world's.

Similarly, in Jordan, the vast majority of Palestinians are citizens. Why on earth should the government of Jordan treat them like anything other than citizens?

In Syria and Lebanon, while there are obviously problems, children born in those countries should be able to access local education. Yet even if we say that UNRWA should provide education for them, they are a small percentage of the total number of children being taught for free by UNRWA.

It is way past time that we should consider the "UNRWA education is a human right" idea to be discarded as the lie it is. The budget shortfall would magically disappear without that false idea.

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.