Police spokesman Ayman al-Batniji said that Raeda al-Akhras, 42, was suffocated by her father, Mohammed Salem Al-Akhras, to protect his family's "honor."
There are many such murders of women in the Palestinian controlled areas every year, some explicitly said to be for "honor" and many more where the motivation is not explicitly admitted but invariably the murders are done by male relatives of the victim.
It is hard to imagine a more anti-female crime than honor killings. Yet Western feminists, who are overwhelmingly anti-Israel, will never talk about these crimes.
The notable exception is Phyllis Chesler, the only prominent feminist who is as consistent in her positions about crimes against women in the Middle East as she is about similar crimes in the West. (I read a recent book of hers about this very topic, a collection of articles she has written over the years, and it is amazing how Western media minimizes these crimes even when done in the West by Muslims.)
Why are the other feminists silent?
Apparently, their hate for Israel is so deep that they feel that sacrificing a couple of generations of Palestinian women is a worthwhile trade-off for their unrelenting focus on supposed Israeli crimes.
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This tweet from last September from a German journalist says it all:
She's a "peace activist!"
But just in case you are deluded and think that the Tamimis are dreaming of a one state where Jews have equal rights, here comes her aunt Najiah saying that there will be no peace until Palestine takes over all of Israel:
Not that the land will be shared between Arabs and Jews - but it is only Arab land.
That is the "peace" that the world is pushing when it publishes puff pieces on the Tamimis, like this piece by France24 yesterday and another by Financial Times.
By calling any Palestinian who does not directly call for suicide bombings "peaceful," the liberal world press is guilty of racism against Palestinians by giving them such a low bar to clear to be praised. It's like praising a pit bull for not tearing out anyone's throat.
Zionists aren't the ones who are dehumanizing Palestinians; it is the world that expects them to be violent and is pleasantly surprised when some of them pretend not to support bombing pizza shops - even though they still support the people who do.
(h/t Petra)
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Within hours of the Labour party giving its members wriggle room to defame Israel without any pushback, posters appeared on central London bus-shelters slandering Israel as a “a racist endeavour”.
The virus of left-wing antisemitism is out of control. Why is anyone surprised? None of this is new. Jeremy Corbyn may have made the poison more toxic but he didn’t release it. He is rather its most malevolent symptom.
I first experienced this in 1982. Colleagues implied that my real country wasn’t Britain but Israel. At the time, I’d never even been there and never wanted to go. All I’d done was stick up for it against the lies and blood-libels.
For that, I was instantly pigeon-holed as not fully British. During the following years, Jewish defenders of Israel like me were accused of dual loyalty.
So why was anyone surprised when Corbyn suggested that British Jews who supported Israel were a breed apart who couldn’t understand English irony?
Over the past few decades, Israel has been the victim of a campaign of demonisation and delegitimisation of a kind directed at no other country, people or cause.
Every accusation hurled at it is untrue. Displaced the indigenous people of the land: untrue. Acts illegally: untrue. Racist, apartheid, colonialist state: untrue. Disproportionately aggressive: untrue. Contemptuous of the lives of innocent Palestinians: untrue.
To these obscene falsehoods and more from the left, others have shrugged or, worse, nodded along. Even now, it’s not the lies about Israel that are provoking such horror. It’s the stuff about hook-nosed bankers or Jewish conspiracy theories or Jewish fascists.
Shocking and vile indeed. But this loathing of Jews is umbilically connected to loathing of Israel.
On August 2, 2018, a number of UN and European government officials attended an event that included a virulently antisemitic artwork display in the Area C encampment of Khan al-Ahmar.
Attendees included UNICEF-oPt’s Special Representative Genevieve Boutin; UNESCO’s Ramallah Office Senior Program Officer Sonia Ezam; Head of Mission at South Africa’s Representative Office in the State of Palestine Ashraf Suliman; the Representative of Norway to Palestine Hilde Haraldstad; and representatives from the German government’s development agency, the UK, and Italy’s Vento di Terra.
The event was hosted by the PA’s “Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.”
None of the UN or government officials walked out or expressed their protest about such overt antisemitism.
On September 7, 2018, Makor Rishon published an article exposing the event and its attendees. The article includes the following statement from UNICEF:
“Ms. Boutin visited Khan al-Ahmar many times and expressed her concern about the right to security and equality in education for 170 children aged 6-15 from this village and the environment in which they study. Ms. Boutin was invited to a concert held by children from the village at the invitation of the Minister of Education. However, before entering the concert in the village, Ms. Boutin was asked instead to accompany the inauguration of an art exhibition which she was not aware of before her arrival. Ms. Boutin’s impression was that the art exhibition was shocking and very inappropriate, especially because this exhibition was presented in close proximity to the school, and children should be protected from violence and not exposed to violent representatives or messages that promote hatred and intolerance”.
The failure of the government and UN officials to vigorously and publically condemn this incident stands in sharp contrast to claimed human rights agendas.
Ali al-Amoudi, writing in UAE newspaper Al Ittihad, says that this year's confluence of the New Years of three major religions portends good possibilities for tolerance:
The past few days have witnessed the beginning of a new Hijri year, a new Hebrew year, a new Ethiopian Orthodox year, and in stable communities of followers of the three heavenly religions, touching the splendor and beauty of tolerance and good coexistence.
In our region, for the past forty years, many societies suffer from terrorism, extremism and violence, fueled by sectarian tendencies, since the establishment of the Tehran mullahs, in which they found the greatest support. We witnessed the sectarian epidemic in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and when they tried to export it to Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, their terrorist schemes failed.
Today in brotherly Yemen, people suffer from the horrors of the Houthi militias, a coup d'état of Iran, after it turned on the project of building the new federal state agreed by the Yemenis in their national dialogue...
The Houthi coupists began their alliance with the "mullahs of Tehran" and their stronghold in Sa'ada to systematically expel the Jewish community. They launched a brutal war of extermination against their Sunni compatriots in Marran, rupturing the fabric of hundreds of years of coexistence and tolerance.
The article does not mention the word "Israel," but some Arabs are concerned that this article is a precursor to better relations between the UAE and Israel.
In a report that could be regarded as a prelude to what is to come, especially after the reports that revealed a great rapprochement between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, Al-Ittihad claimed that the Hebrew year that coincided with the new Hijri year is an example of tolerance and coexistence.
Observers confirmed that the report included normalization values with the occupation state when promoting it as a model of coexistence and tolerance. It is far from that, not because it occupies another people or territory, it oppresses the Palestinians, but because Tel Aviv is an entity based on racism and discrimination among Jews themselves Where Ashkenazi Jews are "Westerners" and Sephardic "Oriental" Jews.
The response article goes on to say how racist Israel is, of course. Yet the original article didn't even imply that Israel was tolerant.
Just the idea of saying that Jews should be tolerated is so radioactive in the Arab world that anyone who espouses that tolerance is automatically labeled a Zionist.
Which, incidentally, is proof that Arab anti-Zionism really is antisemitism.
It should be pointed out that in this case, it is entirely possible that the state-controlled UAE media really was trying to soften up its people to the idea of tolerating Israel as well as Jews as allies in its conflict with Iran.
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It was a morning like any other
here in Israel, the day that Ari was taken from us. A blue, cloudless sky, a
cup of coffee, Facebook. The making of lists, the folding of laundry, punching
the clock at work. You cannot know when you wake up, the nature of the day, the
evil it holds, and the holiness.
Until you know. Until the
family Whatsapp pings: “Everyone ok? Pigua
tzomet hagush* 2 injured.”
Telling your heart to be still,
you think: “My husband.”
You do a head count.
Then you know it’s not your
family, and the wondering begins. Who is it?
And it comes to you. You don’t
know why and you push it away, the knowledge. But somehow you know. It’s Ari
Fuld.
There is no reason to think it.
No reason this particular name comes to you. You don’t know why you know, but
you do.
(Later a friend tells me she
had the same premonition. “I had the same premonition but refused to voice my
suspicion. Instead I sent text messages to him that went unanswered and kept
watching the 'last seen at 11:02' line, hoping it would change.”)
Maybe I knew because always,
the best of us are taken. Because whom else would God take like that, a holy
martyr, but the best of the best?
And so it had to be Ari, a
voice of truth in a great wilderness of evil. Whom else would evil want to
still, squelch, silence, but Ari? Which meant that it was never his broad,
strong back that presented itself as a target, but goodness and light, the
truth.
After the fact, many spoke of
conspiracy, of targeted assassination. But I know in my heart it was not. The
Ari I knew would never have left himself open like that for so long. It was
meant to be, a cosmic battle.
Now it might seem to some that
evil won, because Ari was taken from us in a cruel and horrible way. And they
aren’t wrong. A terrible evil was unleashed, a precious gem fitting only for
the King’s crown stolen by blood-sullied hands.
But at the moment the awful
news filtered down to our nation, a greater force was unleashed, our nation was
seized with the knowledge of Ari’s holiness, his purpose, and we were as one!
Those of us who chose to be as
one.
A Kfar Etzion family set out a drinks table, knowing that the thousands who walked from all over to say goodbye to Ari, might get thirsty along the way.
And there are many of us.
Ari would tell you, if he were
here, that the forces of evil are great in our day, but while our numbers are
smaller, our impact is greater, more important. And you can know it with your
heart when you see the tidal wave of grief that has swept through our nation.
You know it at midnight as an orderly crowd sings quiet songs of faith as one,
brought together in a pine-scented space in the land Ari loved, he the Lion of
Judah, us now the inheritor of his torch, to light the way of truth, to never
give up.
To always love the land and own
it, and know deep down that God gave it only to us. To know that we are the
stewards of this land and that each and every one of us has a responsibility to
know this truth deep in our hearts.
Ari would want us to finally
glean the takeaway: The land is ours if we earn it and it is our duty to claim
it at every juncture and never weaken, to never give an inch. Not of land and
not of ideology.
Because this is important work:
the most important work there is. And it’s all about the truth and seeing the
truth, fighting for the truth in all its colors and clarity, a sparkling
brilliant thing.
Ari taught us that the truth
and the land are things to love. And the simple truth is that this beautiful land
is ours and always will be. The truth won last night, as Ari found his final
resting place where his bones and flesh would nourish the land he loved, and become
one with it.
Ari is now part of our land and
our truth. And we will carry him with us always as we fight the forces of evil
and keep desperate hold of what we are destined to hold and cherish. Ari lit
the way for us, made the path so clear, so simple. He fought with knowledge and
with truth, and when push came to shove, with his hands and feet and a weapon
of cold steel.
We too, must be ready to fight
with everything we’ve got. No matter what we’re called to do. No matter what
situation or evil ensnarls us, surrounds us, confronts us.
The truth is all that matters.
Ari knew that and he knew what he had to do. He was always encouraging others
to fight the fight in their own way, with their own special God-given tools.
It was never about him, what he
did, who he was. It was all for our nation, our people, our land. A single
thread of truth connecting all these strands. That’s who Ari was.
And when we lost him, we gained
the knowledge of just how holy he was, and the nature of his work as it had
been all along. Last night looking at the thousands who came to say goodbye to
Ari, I knew it and felt it: along with the great cloak of sadness that descended
on our people, a bright light of faith and holiness shone through. We knew as
one what we had lost, a national tragedy, and in our hearts, all of us pledged
faithfulness to God and to the way before us.
Ari had been stolen from us, but
the impact of his cruel, tragic murder had lit the way, revealing how he’d
lived his life and left a hero, a shining star to guide us, always there.
Forever.
Yehi zichro baruch.
*Terror attack at the Gush
Etzion Junction
(Video: Calgary United with Israel (CUWI) Edit: Igal Hecht)
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In a speech before the PLO Executive Committee in Ramallah on September 15, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas repeated the old libel that Israel was planning to establish special Jewish prayer zones inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Abbas claimed that Israel was seeking to copy the example of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where Jews and Muslims pray in different sections.
Abbas did not say what his lie was based on. He also did [not] provide any evidence of Israel’s ostensible plot against the Al-Aqsa Mosque . . .
Hours after reports were published of Abbas’s allegation, a 17-year-old Palestinian from the town of Yatta in the southern West Bank fatally stabbed Ari Fuld, a 45-year-old Israeli-American citizen and father of four, in a shopping center in Gush Etzion, south of Bethlehem.
According to Palestinian terrorist groups, the terrorist, Khalil Jabarin, decided to murder a Jew in response to Israeli “crimes” against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular and Islamic holy sites in general.
In other words, the terrorist was influenced by Abbas’s incitement, and this is why he decided to set out on his deadly mission. There is no doubt that the terrorist saw the reports quoting Abbas’s claim that Israel was planning to allow Jews to pray inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Yesterday, a Palestinian teenager, Khalil Jabarin, stabbed and murdered Israeli Ari Fuld in the parking lot of a supermarket. Before succumbing to his wounds, Fuld, together with another civilian, shot and wounded Jabarin, which led to his capture.
Today, the PA is portraying terrorist murderer Jabarin as a victim of an unprovoked Israeli shooting. The headline in the official PA daily indicated that he had not even attacked anyone:
Headline: "The shooting and wounding of the boy Khalil Jabarin, and his arrest claiming that he killed a settler next to 'Etzion'"
The report continued to insinuate this, stating that Jabarin "stabbed a settler according to the Israeli occupation's version," and even accused Israel of neglecting the injured terrorist, claiming he was "left bleeding on the ground for more than 20 minutes":
"The boy Jabarin was wounded by a number of bullets fired by the occupation's soldiers (sic., by two Israeli civilians, one of whom Jabarin had just stabbed and mortally wounded) next to the '[Gush] Etzion' Junction, and this was after he stabbed a settler according to the Israeli occupation's version. He was left bleeding on the ground for more than 20 minutes, and then was transferred to the hospital. Jabarin is an 11th grade student in a science study track."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 17, 2018]
This is a typical example of the PA's modus operandi whenever a terrorist is killed or injured while committing a terror attack. The PA routinely describes Israel's self-defense measures to stop the terrorist as an attack on the Palestinian terrorist who is portrayed as an innocent "victim." Palestinian Media Watch reported extensively on this PA tactic during the terror wave in 2015/16, when the PA and Fatah claimed that the many terrorists committing stabbing attacks were "innocent" victims.
A Palestinian cleric compared Israelis to rats, claiming Israel is excavating under the Al-Aqsa Mosque like "rats burrow under the ground only for evil and destruction." He also stated, in the interview on official Palestinian Authority TV, that due to Israel's digs the mosque has "no foundations now":
Sheikh Raed Da'na from the Religious Source of Authority in Jerusalem: "The blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque has no foundations now... Al-Aqsa is now empty of the rocks and that which supports it, due to the Israeli machine that is excavating under it (sic., Israel does not excavate under the Temple Mount), as rats burrow under the ground only for evil and destruction." [Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, July 23, 2018]
This statement is just one in an endless stream of false accusations by Palestinian leaders that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is "in danger" and that Israel is carrying out a deliberate plan to destroy it. At times, PA leaders have intensified the repetition of this libel in order to ignite fury among Palestinians and urge them to use violence and carry out terror attacks against Israelis. This was the case before and during the terror waves in 2014 and 2015/16 in which dozens of Israelis were murdered and hundreds wounded.
Therefore it is not surprising that Hamas was quick to justify yesterday's murder of Israeli Ari Fuld by a Palestinian teenager with the alleged "danger" to Al-Aqsa. Hamas presented "the heroic operation" as a reaction to Israel's "harming Al-Aqsa":
"While blessing this heroic operation, we emphasize that harming the Al-Aqsa Mosque is a red line, and that this operation is a response to warnings regarding the danger of what the occupation is currently doing, and what it intends to do at the Al-Aqsa Mosque." [Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, Sept. 16, 2018]
For decades, Palestinian leaders have alleged that Israel is destroying the mosque, and it is not the first time Palestinians have referred to Israel as rats or mice eating away at the foundations of the mosque.
I’ve always been curious whether certain words create their
own power or simply draw upon the power of that which they describe. The term “Holocaust,” which starts with soft
vowels implying vastness and ends with knife-sharp consonants, seems like it
would be evocative regardless of what it describes. Yet once this term came into general use to
describe the Nazi’s extermination of European Jewry, it drew upon the
massiveness of that event, eventually pushing out other terms (some foreign
like “Shoah,” some euphemistic such as “Final Solution” – a simple phrase which
itself can mean only one thing to today’s ears) to become synonymous with
history’s most horrific crime.
Fights over the term simply demonstrate its unique power to
move people emotionally. As horrific,
vast and mind-numbing as other historic mass murders have been (such as the
Armenian genocide, which many see as an historic “warm up” for other 20th
century ethnic exterminations), there is a reason we describe these as the
“Armenian Holocaust,” the “Rwandan Holocaust,” etc., rather than describing the
Shoah as the “Armenian genocide of the Jews.”
“Apartheid,” meaning “separateness”, resonates as a word,
even to those unfamiliar with the Dutch dialect used by South Africa’s white
Afrikaans population, implying as it does the English terms “Apart” and
“Hate.” And yet the ugliness of the system
it describes, a form of mass racial discrimination masquerading under formal
legalism, certainly contributes to this term becoming synonymous with bigotry
as state policy.
As with the term “Holocaust,” there are legitimate fights
over whether the term “Apartheid” belongs to the world, or just to those who
experienced the original phenomenon.
Anyone looking over the past century will see enough political murder
and racism to shake their faith in humanity.
But are all murders of any scale a “Holocaust,” and is all
institutionalized bigotry a variant on “Apartheid?” Many (but by no means all) Jews and South
Africans would argue that by allowing these terms to be used to describe
anything remotely smacking of large-scale killing or racism, one is not
universalizing them but draining them of any meaning whatsoever.
In the cauldron of debate over the Middle East, arguments
over the use or misuse of these terms are particularly acute. While some attempts have been made to
describe the Palestinian experience as a new “Holocaust,” this runs into a
problem when you realize that, unlike other historic genocides, the Palestinian
population has skyrocketed since Israel’s birth (especially in the
disputed/occupied territories that are supposed to be serving as stand-ins for
Hitler’s concentration camps).
“Apartheid” is by far the more frequent term of abuse hurled
at the Jewish state for its alleged “crimes.”
Thus the barrier built to stop mass bombing campaigns originating from
the West Bank is not a fence, a wall or even “the New Berlin Wall,” but the
“Apartheid Wall.” Jimmy Carter’s book
“Peace Not Apartheid” has basically been translated to the single phrase:
“Jimmy Carter says Israel is an Apartheid State,” (even if the author himself
has tried to weasel out of the implication of his chosen title).
Web sites with names like “It Is Apartheid” are dedicated
solely to the purpose of making Israel synonymous with Apartheid South Africa
(especially in the mind of people too young to remember the original), with BDS
itself simply a component of a wider “Apartheid Strategy” whose practitioners
believe that by replacing the term “Israel” with “Apartheid Israel” in all of
their communication and correspondence they can, over time, turn their
preferred version of reality into common wisdom.
But who gets to draw boundaries around where the term
“Apartheid” is used, even in debate over the Middle East? Some supporters of Israel have responded to
the “Israel Apartheid” slur by charging Israel’s accusers of practicing,
supporting or ignoring crimes of “Gender Apartheid,” “Sexual Apartheid” and
“Religious Apartheid” within the wider Arab world. And unlike some of the more fanciful charges
against the Jewish state, repression of women, homosexuals and religious
minorities by Israel’s neighbors is undisputable.
But who gets to decide if they are all variations on
“Apartheid?” If enough people started
using the phrase “Apartheid Saudi Arabia,” “Apartheid Syria” or “Apartheid
Gaza” in their daily communication, does that legitimize an accusation
masquerading as a descriptive phrase (a la “Apartheid Israel”)?
This is why the involvement of South Africa and South
Africans in this debate is so significant.
Absent the ability to characterize the Middle East conflict in Apartheid
terms, it becomes a less charged (and, as an aside, potentially more solvable)
political dispute. That being the case,
is it as clear as BDS advocates would like everyone to believe that South
Africans who participated in the fight against the original Apartheid see the
Arab-Israel conflict in the same terms as their own struggle?
To be continued…
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Palestine is Here, a project of Researching the American-Israeli Alliance (RAIA), is a database tracking Israeli military ties to American local government, police departments, corporations, and academic institutions. Using simple search algorithms to help activists expose the connections between American and Israeli state violence in their communities, the database works to support direct grassroots organizing to end US militarized trainings, academic collaborations, and technological exchanges with Israel.
RAIA is a bit more forthcoming about supporting BDS and destroying the Jewish state via "right of return" and its cynical use of "intersectionality" to build an alliance of people who hate Israel:
RAIA is a research initiative launched in 2017 dedicated to exposing the connections between American and Israeli state violence. Our work is grounded in the conviction that the ongoing dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people undermines the possibility of a viable homeland for both Palestinians and Israelis. Embracing the 2005 Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until Israel ends its Occupation, grants full equality to its Palestinian citizens, and honors the Palestinian right of return, RAIA is committed to conducting research for the movement for justice in Palestine in the United States....RAIA seeks to raise awareness of the close collaboration between the Israeli and American governments to displace, surveil, and control communities of color and other marginalized populations in order to suppress popular resistance.
The head of RAIA is a known and proven anti-Zionist Israeli Eran Efrati, formerly of Breaking the Silence and ICAHD. I revealed him to be an absolute liar a couple of years ago when he claimed, ludicrously, that religious Jews encouraged children to set fires to and urinate on, carpets in the second-holiest place in Judaism while it was packed with worshipers.
The Palestine is Here site is another in a long series of well-organized initiatives meant to turn the very word "Israel" into a viscerally horrifying term. There is nothing wrong with US police attending seminars given by Israelis, which is the "crime" that the site is most concerned with now. As I've pointed out before, each US police department is responsible for its own rules of engagement, and taking a seminar in Israel doesn't make them change their policies.
So far the site has listed over 250 US law enforcement groups that have had some exposure to Israeli teachers.
The funny thing is that when I read their entries, I'm generally quite proud of the things that RAIA wants us to think is abhorrent. For example here is much of the database entry on the Colorado State Patrol, not exactly an organization known for violence against minorities:
The State Patrol of Colorado is among the departments that have sent delegates to Israel. The Colorado State Patrol has sent at least 2 officials to train in Israel. James M. Wolfinbarger served as Chief of the Colorado State Patrol between 2009 and 2013. Scott Hernandez served as Chief of the Colorado State Patrol between 2013 and 2017. Chief James M. Wolfinbarger attended a training in Israel in 2009 with the ADL as a delegate of the NCTS. Chief Scott Hernandez attended an NCTS training in Israel with the ADL in 2015.
Chief Scott Hernandez’s training includes briefings by senior commanders in the Israeli police, military, intelligence and other security units. Chief Wolfinbarger’s training includes meetings with Israeli Brigadier Generals, police commanders and local government leaders, with visits to Israeli army command centers and holy sites. James Wolfinbarger is now in the private security sector, working as a Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) Solutions Consultant at ŽMotorola Solutions, which supports command centers and fusion centers with technology and predictive policing. According to the ACLU, fusion centers can employ officials from federal, state and local law enforcement and homeland security agencies, as well as other state and local government entities, the federal intelligence community, the military and even private companies, to spy on Americans in virtually complete secrecy.
One of the private companies that transfer technology to police departments is the Israel-based Cellebrite. Cellebrite is a “mobile forensics” firm that manufactures data extraction, transfer and analysis devices for cellular phones and mobile devices for law enforcement, military and intelligence, and corporate customers.
Colorado State Patrol is one of the departments that uses Israeli private-sector technology. Colorado State Patrol spent $26,216 to crack into phones using Israeli tech firm Cellebrite, according to public record requests by Motherboard. California Highway Patrol uses Cellebrite’s technology to bypass phone passwords and security mechanisms to retrieve call logs, text messages, and in some cases even deleted data. The way information moves in Israel is much more fluid than it is here. They have a remarkable exchange of information between all levels of government and private industry… [T]hat’s something we can build on here.” ~ Chief Wolfinbarger on the advanced collaboration between the Israeli private industry and Israeli government in “counter-terrorism” and how the ADL helped them start thinking about how to apply these techniques in their local police departments. This trip forges ˜forever relationships… [that] range from friendships to opportunities to discuss and share ideas on what we want to change in our particular work settings. ~ Chief Scott Hernandez
There is nothing that is illegal, immoral or even problematic in the slightest. Law enforcement is allowed to try to read information on the cell phones of suspects. It is allowed to listen to how other law enforcement agencies work.
"Palestine is Here" is a sick attempt to blame Israel to domestic US problems with the aim of ensuring that stupid liberals will link hating Israel, the most liberal state in the Middle East and one that can claim in many ways to be more liberal than many Western European democracies, with all the causes they hold dear.
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ToI’s Adam Rasgon reports that even PA President Mahmoud Abbas was “visibly angry” about the attack, telling a group of former Israeli lawmakers that he condemns violence after bringing up the stabbing at the beginning of a meeting in Ramallah, according to former minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of the Oslo Accords who was at the meeting.
Wonderful! Abbas is supposedly "visibly angry" at a terror attack! Peace is at hand!
Except that nowhere in Arab media is this supposed anger reported.
Bethlehem, 16-9-2018 (WAFA) - Israeli occupation forces on Sunday beat Khalil Yousef Ali Jabarin, 17, from Yatta village, south of Hebron, on the pretext that he was trying to carry out a stabbing near the Asion junction south of Bethlehem.
Security sources confirmed to our correspondent that the boy Jabarin was wounded and described as moderate.
The Fatah Facebook page showed a photo of Ari Fuld in front of an Israeli flag and an old photo of him in uniform, describing him as a "settler" killed in an "operation," which is as much justification of murdering him as one can find in the Arab world.
Fatah is led by the supposedly "visibly angry" Abbas.
However, the Fatah Facebook page - in trying to show that Fuld was a staunch Zionist and settler who deserved to be murdered - reproduced a video Fuld made in Jerusalem.
This video is as good an obituary as one can find for Ari Fuld. It shows his passion for Israel and for spreading the truth.
Fatah, in a backhanded way, has proven the difference between good and evil.
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Last week, while the Jewish community celebrated one of our most sacred holidays with friends and family, the Trump administration was busy continuing its assault on the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
By announcing that the US will close the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington, Trump and his team sent yet another clear signal that they are committed to bullying the Palestinians and advancing the agenda of the Israeli far-right -- not to mediating this intractable conflict.
Furthermore, we learned this week the appalling news that the administration has decided to cut funds to coexistence organizations that build people-to-people relationships between Israelis and Palestinians and foster coexistence -- groups like Kids4Peace and the Peres Center for Peace. That’s not just an attack on Palestinians -- it’s an attack on the very concept of peacemaking and reconciliation.
Whatever the wisdom of cutting aid to co-existence programs, J-Street doesn't mention a couple of salient facts that the media also ignores:
* As far as I can tell every single such coexistence program is initiated by Jews. I have yet to see one that was created by Palestinian Arabs, although there are some individuals who do care about real peace, like Bassem Eid. I have never seen J-Street mention this huge disparity, nor have I ever seen J-Street ever say a word of support for human rights activists like Eid.
* There are some coexistence programs, formal and informal, between Jewish "settler" and their neighboring Palestinians. J-Street does not support those programs. Their pretense to be "pro-peace" is a sham.
So spare us your lies that you support real peace and coexistence programs, Jeremy. You're only animating emotion is hate for those you disagree with, not the love that you pretend to support.
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The PA promotes teenage- terrorism and lauds teenage “Martyrs”:
“The families of the Martyrs and their relatives find themselves proud of the Martyrdom that their children achieved with the Creator... Sixteen [12-grade students] succeeded... for death as a Martyr is the path to excellence and greatness, and the path of those who know how to reach the great victory."
[WAFA (official PA news agency), July 11, 2016; official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 12, 2016]
It was a 17-year-old Palestinian teenage terrorist who this morning stabbed an Israeli man, Ari Fuld, in the back, and murdered him at the entrance to a supermarket. Ari Fuld was 45-years-old and the father of 4.
Teenage Palestinian terror is becoming commonplace.
Below is a list of 10 Palestinian teenage terrorist-murderers from recent years. The full list of Palestinian teenage terrorists, including those who attempted murder, is many times longer.
In 2007, at a joint press conference in the US Senate with Palestinian Media Watch, then Sen. Hillary Clinton expressed her horror at Palestinian Authority education. Observing the PA messaging to its children that PMW had shown her from PA schoolbooks and children's TV, Clinton said the Palestinian Authority was "profoundly poisoning the minds of its children."
The following list of 10 Palestinian teenage terrorists and the dozens of others like them were all in PA schools when Hillary Clinton warned that their minds were being poisoned by the PA.
These Palestinian teenage murderers are part of The PA-Poisoned Generation:
The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitism in the United States, has recorded a worrisome increase in anti-Israel activity on college campuses in recent years, doubling in the last year alone. Much of this is led by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, which has grown in eight years from being on 80 campuses to having a presence today on more than 200.
As expected, Palestinian groups and several liberal journalists were swift to criticize the move as an attack on free speech, and as an attempt by Israel advocates to stifle opposition.
Criticism of Israel is legitimate. The problem is when that criticism is motivated by hate and a desire to see the Jewish state disappear. Forms of criticism of Israel have long ago turned from legitimate acts of protest to antisemitic attacks. When Israeli speakers are heckled on campuses, when Israeli products are boycotted and when students wearing stars of David or shirts with Israeli flags are attacked, this is all part of a campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the State of Israel to exist.
What this means is that universities will need to start taking responsibility for what happens on their campuses. No longer will they be able to claim that every act of protest is part of a wider freedom of speech or right to protest. What allegedly happened at Rutgers University – the case that sparked the change by the Education Department – involved an anti-Israel organization which had equated Israel and Nazis, and then proceeded to demand an admission fee to the event from students it believed were Jewish. When students reported this to the university administration though, nothing was done.
For this new policy to be enforced, it will be important for college administrators to undergo training to be able to identify acts of antisemitism that until now have been disguised as legitimate political protests. Students have the right to protest and the right to free speech but they do not have the right to endanger other students or to discriminate against them because of their religion or their political beliefs. That needs to come to an end and that is hopefully what this change in policy will do.
Halioua’s next book will be on Sarcelles, the Paris suburb where she grew up, focusing on how its once vibrant Jewish community has declined as many Jews left for safer areas due to hostility from Muslim neighbors, a phenomenon occurring in other French cities as well. One of 15 journalists and authors to write a chapter in a recently published book titled “Le Nouvel Antisémitisme en France,” she is concerned by the impact on Jews.
“While promoting my book, appearing at events with Jewish audiences, I’ve seen a lot of fear among people,” says Halioua. “French Jews are terrorized by what’s happened in recent years and they’re looking for answers. They need answers. When you see the number of French Jews leaving for Israel or talking about it, you understand the degree of pessimism about the future.” Among those is Hiloua’s mother, who left for Israel two years ago.
French Jews arriving at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, Nov. 2, 2016. (JTA/ Courtesy of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews)
“Like many French Jews, my mother sees her future in Israel, not in France,” says Hiloua, who has visited Israel many times. “She feels as if France abandoned her as a Jew. It’s the same with many others who’ve left. It’s partly Zionism but also feeling abandoned by your own country.”
Halioua sees the plight of Jews as part of a larger problem.
“Anti-Semitism in France is also a question of the disintegration of the French model,” says Halioua. “The people who hate Jews also often hate France, too. That’s a fairly recent phenomenon. Looking at the bigger picture, you realize France itself is in danger due to this issue of anti-Semitism.”
Since that fateful phone call from Halimi’s brother 18 months ago, Halioua has thought long and hard about the murdered woman.
“The case has definitely changed me,” says Halioua. “It showed me in a difficult way that anti-Semitism is no longer theoretical. In becoming interested in this affair, Sarah Halimi’s suffering and the human dimension I confronted marked me very much. It didn’t change my view of the world or of the situation of Jews in France, but I now know it more profoundly and understand it better.”
This is not her fault, obviously, but for a person who describes herself as a "woman of color," Linda Sarsour is the whitest person that I have ever seen.
I am sure that it is terrible and racist and sexist and homophobic and ageist and Rastaphobic and transphobic and antisemitic for me to mention this -- and whatever else makes you happy -- but I am pretty sure that Linda Sarsour is about as White as White can get.
She is Whitey McWhiterson. She is so white that whenever she pops up on my social network feeds I have to go get the Visine so that I am not blinded by the glare.
And whatever anyone else may make of this particularly racist idiot, the fact that as a white woman she pretends to be non-white for the purpose of railing against Euros and Jews is... odd. In fact, it is straight-up nonsense, but it serves a purpose, nonetheless.
Linda Sarsour reminds us that this whole biochromatic way of viewing American politics is not just nonsense, but highly toxic nonsense.
Highly dangerous nonsense.
And it goes directly against the very foundation of the "progressive-left" view on ethnicity as described by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. I do not need to quote it directly because anyone likely to read this already knows the thesis. King's fundamental idea was to judge people as individuals, according to character, rather than as faceless examples of ethnic groups. It is not very complex. It means that when Linda Sarsour and her people shake their fists and scream that we must follow "women of color" it means that she and her people are throwing the legacy of Martin Luther King down the toilet, even as they claim to stand for that very legacy.
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