Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 05, 2019

05/05 Links: At least three Israelis dead, dozens wounded after barrage of rockets; A premeditated Ramadan offensive; US may review ties with countries deemed anti-Israel

From Ian:

At least three Israelis dead, dozens wounded after barrage of rockets

Three Israelis have been killed and dozens have been wounded since Hamas and Islamic Jihad began sending non-stop barrage of rockets into Israel over the weekend.

A rocket was fired towards Ashkelon on Sunday afternoon, hitting a factory in Ashkelon, injuring three people. One was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and later died of his wounds. Two more people are still considered to be in critical condition.

A 60-year-old man was directly hit by a Hamas rocket and killed Sunday in the southern city of Sderot, near KIbbutz Yad Mordechai. The man was driving in his car and the rocket hit his vehicle just as a bus full of soldiers were passing by.

The man was evacuated to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, where he was pronounce dead - two others were reportedly injured in the attack. Following the death, the road the driver was traveling on, Route 34 as well as Highway 232 have been shut down to traffic.

The direct hit took place as President Reuven Rivlin was touring Gaza border communities.

"When we arrived, we saw a vehicle completely crushed after it was hit by a rocket, a 60-year-old man was lying next to the car unconscious," said Ravit Martinez, a Magen David Adom paramedic.

"He suffered from a shrapnel wound in the thigh and lost a lot of blood. We attempted to give him life-saving medical treatment...on the way we had to perform CPR and evacuated him to the hospital as he was in critical condition," the paramedic said.

A premeditated Ramadan offensive

The fact that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired some 300 rockets toward Israel even as their senior leadership convenes in Cairo for talks shows that this latest escalation premeditated. It began with the trickling of rockets early last week, followed by incendiary airborne devices, provocations along the Gaza Strip fence, and then the latest barrage.

As Hamas prepares for the holy month of Ramadan, which begins this week, it would like to extract more concessions from Israel and present them to Gazans a victory vis-à-vis Israel. Its chief goal is to make Israel transfer more cash from Qatar so that it can pay its employees running the Gaza Strip.
The fact that the Qatari intermediary has not shown up in the region proves that funds have already been transferred. But Hamas wants more funds, and Israel has so far vehemently refused.

Senior Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar, unlike Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, knows how to read Israeli society, having spent decades locked up in an Israeli prison. He knows Israel will shy away from a full-fledged confrontation in the Gaza Strip just before Independence Day and the Eurovision Song Contest. That is why Sinwar took a calculated risk by telling his operatives to launch rockets on Israel even while he was away in Cairo.

It is still unclear how this latest escalation will end, but what is clear is that Israel’s killing of two Hamas operatives on Friday after two Israeli troops were shot on the Gaza fence, was not the trigger for the massive rocket barrage.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad started a fire

The Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization – the second largest armed faction in Gaza – is responsible for the latest escalation in Gaza and Israel.

In recent weeks, PIJ, whose rocket arsenal is larger than that of Hamas, has conducted a string of attacks that it did not take responsibility for. The goal of these attacks appears to be the sabotage of Egyptian-led efforts to stabilize Gaza.

PIJ’s attacks include the launching of a rocket on April 29, which exploded in the Mediterranean Sea near a southern Israeli city. More recently, on May 3, the PIJ conducted a sniper attack on Israel Defense Forces soldiers on the Gaza border, during a Hamas-organized border riot. That shooting wounded an Israeli officer and a female soldier. It is that event that triggered the current flare-up. Starting on Saturday, hundreds of rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza.

Israel accused the PIJ’s commander in northern Gaza, Bahaa Abu Al Ata, of being behind the April 29 rocket attack, which no group took responsibility for.

One possibility is that PIJ’s Syria-based radical secretary-general, Ziad Nakhala, who is extremely close to Iran and a frequent visitor to it, passed along orders to the faction’s commanders in Gaza to keep attacks on Israel going.

Egypt has worked hard to push Gaza away from the brink – efforts that the PIJ, Iran’s direct proxy, is apparently trying to undo.

MEMRI and the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported on Friday about an obscene presentation at the Muslim American Society in Philadelphia where kids wearing Palestinian scarves sang: "Glorious steeds call us and lead us [to] the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us... Flow, oh rivers of martyrs!" A young girl read a poem: "We will defend [Palestine] with our bodies... We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque... We will subject them to eternal torture."

Local Philadelphia media, and Fox News, picked up on the story. The Muslim American Society responded with two "clarifications" - both of which are not plausible in the least.

The first one, from MAS Philly:

The Muslim American Society - Philadelphia Center rejects a statement made at an event held in April at a local community center in Philadelphia. The center celebrated “Ummah Day” where children sang songs from their cultural traditions. While we celebrate the coming together of different cultures and languages, not all songs were properly vetted. This was an unintended mistake and an oversight in which the center and the students are remorseful. MAS-Philadelphia Center will conduct an internal investigation to ensure this does not occur again.

First of all, it wasn't only songs - it was songs and poems. Multiple adults were there, applauding, not to mention the ones who taught the kids, trained them to do their hand motions in sync with the songs, and so on. This was no oversight, and the only remorse is that they were caught.

Secondly, if you take this statement at face value, that means that some Muslim "cultural traditions" include calls to behead Jews in Israel.

Now, a new statement has been released that contradicts the earlier one, from MAS headquarters in DC:

Our investigation revealed that the school that organized the event on April 17, 2019 is a separate entity renting space from MAS Philadelphia. The school board has informed us that it has taken immediate actions and dismissed the person in charge of the program. In addition, they will form a local commission to aid in sensitivity training and proper supervision for future programs.

Unfortunately, the video from the school was uploaded to the chapter’s Facebook page without verifying the content of the video for appropriateness and making sure it conforms to our hate-free policy and values. The chapter will take further steps in assuring strict adherence to publishing and posting policies.

This is not plausible in the least. MAS Philly wouldn't upload dozens of photos and videos for an event from a school only renting the space.

This Facebook post from MAS Philly makes it obvious that they organized and hosted the event:

The backdrop at the front of the auditorium is the same as the one in the MEMRI video, so it wasn't two separate Ummah Day celebrations.

Not only that, but the photos from the post listed here includes a bunch of displays of famous Muslim historic figures, including this one:

Look a little closer:

"Islam is under obligation to gain power over all nations."

I am afraid that the few journalists that reported on this story will not bother to push back on the obvious falsehoods that were given in "explanation." They wanted some sort of excuse that they can print and end the story there, to avoid being accused of Islamophobia. Who will be brave enough to point out that the "apology" was a bunch of lies in an attempt to end the story?

But the children who repeat the words of Ibn Khaldun, that Islam is obligated to subjugate every non Muslim nation, know the truth of what they are taught.

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JPost reports:

In a bold move, a Palestinian businessman from Hebron announced over the weekend the establishment of a new party that calls for focusing on economic prosperity for Palestinians.

The founder of the party, called Reform and Development Party, is Ashraf Jabari, 45, who belongs to a prominent clan from Hebron.

Palestinian Authority officials claimed that Jabari is working with the US administration to undermine the PA. They said that the timing of the announcement of the party was linked to US President Donald Trump’s upcoming plan for peace in the Middle East, also known as the “deal of the century.” The PA is strongly opposed to the plan on the pretext that it aims to “liquidate the Palestinian cause and national rights.”

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Jabari said that he has long been thinking of establishing a party that would offer hope to Palestinians. “Three days ago, I launched my new party together with many people,” he said. “We’re not offering ourselves as an alternative to anyone. We just want to focus on the economy and ensure a better future for our people. The status quo can’t continue.”

Jabari, who previously worked for the Palestinian Authority security forces, said that his party’s platform supports the idea of a one-state solution “because the two-state solution is no longer viable.”

The Palestinians, he said, are anyway living under Israeli rule. “We are all living under Israeli military rule,” Jabari added. “Even the Palestinian Authority, which is a self-rule authority, is under Israeli control. The Palestinian Authority is not a state; rather, it’s a self-rule authority. Israel controls everything. The ID cards the Palestinians hold are written in Arabic and Hebrew. Besides, Israel has full control over the borders.”

Jabari said that Palestinians prefer to live under Israeli sovereignty. “We want to have the same rights of Palestinians living under Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem,” he explained. “Of course, it would be better for Israel if it accepted an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. But no Israeli prime minister would dare to accept such a solution. On the other hand, no Palestinian leader can give up Jerusalem or make concessions.”

Last February, Jabari participated in an Israeli-Palestinian economic conference in Jerusalem, where US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was the key speaker. In his speech, Friedman described Jabari as a “man of courage and vision who is practical but committed to peace and to coexistence.” The US administration, Friedman said, “couldn’t ask for a better partner in this effort. I’m proud to call you my friend.”

Naturally, the Palestinian Authority and Fatah are very upset, and are threatening Jabari and his party.

TheMarker reports that on May 1, the same day Jabari announced the party, Fatah issued a leaflet warning the residents of Hebron against even any contact with his Reform and Development Party.

The flyer accused the heads of the new party of supporting normalization with Israel and mentioned that they recently met with Israelis in Tel Aviv.

"Fatah will not allow such parties to stand up because they call for normalization with Israel and try to bypass the Palestinian legitimacy and the national factions, and it will eliminate the existence of the party within 48 hours," the flyer said.

Jabari claims the party has some 5,000 activists throughout the West Bank.

The Jabari clan is well known to have a good relationship with Israel and withJews in Judea and Samaria, and it is also heavily armed, so Fatah is seeking ways to undermine it in public opinion.

Of course, no mainstream Palestinian media is reporting on the founding of this party, because they don't report what Fatah doesn't want reported.

(h/t Yoel)

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Israel allowing fuel into Gaza even now?

Ma'an quotes Israeli media as saying that Israel is still pumping fuel into Gaza for its power plant even while hundreds of rockets are being shot from Gaza to Israel.

I couldn't corroborate it yet.

If true.....it is bizarre.

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05/04 Links: 250 rockets fired at Israel; IDF bombs 120 Gaza sites, including attack tunnel; Israel's first Ethiopian-born woman Knesset member describes her journey

From Ian:

250 rockets fired at Israel; IDF bombs 120 Gaza sites, including attack tunnel

The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday bombed more than 120 targets in the Gaza Strip, including a cross-border attack tunnel, an underground rocket factory and a six-story building used by Hamas’s military intelligence, in response to the hundreds of rockets and mortar shells fired at southern Israel throughout the day, the army said.

The army said it was prepared to continue conducting airstrikes if the attacks from the Strip continue.

Terror groups in Gaza made similar threats, saying they were prepared to attack deeper into Israel, including toward the city of Beersheba, if the IDF continued its strikes on targets in the enclave.

The fresh exchange began on Friday evening when Palestinians in the Strip shot two soldiers on patrol near the border in southern Gaza. A male soldier was moderately wounded, and a female soldier was lightly hurt, the IDF said. In response, the Israeli military bombed a Hamas post, killing several of the terror group’s operatives.

On Saturday morning, terror groups in the Strip began launching rockets and mortar shells at Israel. As of Saturday night, over 250 projectiles had been fired, most of them at the towns closest to the Gaza border, but some reached as far as Rehovot and Ashdod. At least two Israeli civilians were wounded in the attacks.

In response, the military launched a series of strikes from air and land, hitting targets throughout the coastal enclave connected to Hamas, which rules Gaza, and the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

200+ rockets rained down on the homes of Israeli families today. WATCH: pic.twitter.com/XZoqPabuQ6
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 4, 2019

RAW FOOTAGE: Incoming rocket fire from Gaza at Israeli civilians, as filmed by the Israeli civilians that Hamas is targeting. pic.twitter.com/Kz1d1KwCle
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 4, 2019

After 2 soldiers shot, IDF checks whether Gaza sniper targeted senior officer

The army was investigating the possibility that a Palestinian sniper targeted a senior Israel Defense Forces officer during riots on the Gaza border Friday.

The army’s Gaza division would conduct an investigation into the shooting, which injured two soldiers who were part of a patrol near the border in the southern Gaza Strip, the Walla news site reported.

One soldier was moderately wounded in the attack and a female soldier was lightly hurt, the IDF said. Both were evacuated by helicopter to the Soroka hospital in Beersheba. Media reports said the male soldier, an officer and a tracker, had a gunshot wound in the thigh, while the female soldier was hit by shrapnel.

In response to the shooting, an IDF aircraft attacked a nearby Hamas post, the army said.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said two people were killed in the strike and two others were wounded. The ministry identified the two killed as Abdullah Ibrahim Mahmoud Abu Salouh, 33 and Alaa Ali Hasan al-Boubli, 29.

Hamas, an Islamist terror group, confirmed the two men killed in the airstrike were members of its military wing and pledged to respond to what it called an “Israeli aggression.”

Attack tunnel discovered and destroyed as IDF strikes hit Gaza

IDF tanks and helicopters began attacking terrorist targets belonging to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, managing to destroy a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) attack tunnel entering Israel from the southern part of the strip, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit reported on Saturday.

The tunnel was, until Saturday, under surveillance by the IDF. It was destroyed by fighter planes. The tunnel was dug by members of the PIJ in order to carry out a terror attack inside Israel. It was over 20 meters deep with several entrances.

"The resistance is always ready to respond to the crimes of the occupation," the Hamas Spokesperosn in Gaza said, while the Islamic Jihad claimed that "We are committed to protecting our people and to deter Israel at all costs and under all circumstances."

Islamic Jihad Deputy Khalil al-Hayya added that "There is no escape but that the occupation will be committed to understandings and to break the siege. The resistance has tools capable of forcing Israel to maintain the understandings reached."

The Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Ata was invited to Cairo and immediately left Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. Israel has threatened to kill Abu al-Ata more than once, since he is responsible for the launching of many rockets into Israeli territory.

Since the beginning of the weekend, five Palestinians have been killed according to Palestinian sources. The Gaza Health Ministry, however, reports that one was killed and nine injured.

Gaza Factions Launch Dozens of Rockets at Israeli Territory

Once again, world media assumes baby probably killed by Hamas rocket was killed by Israel (update)

We've seen this happen so many times before.

On Saturday evening, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry reported that a 14-month-old Palestinian child, Saba Mahmoud Hamdan Abu Arar, had been killed and her mother, Falastin Saleh Abu Arar, when an Israeli airstrikes hit their house in Gaza City. Several hours later, the ministry said that Falastin had succumbed to her wounds.

On Twitter, the Israel Defense Forces’ Arabic-language spokesman said the mother and child did not appear to have been killed in an Israeli attack.

Adraee indicated that the deaths may have been caused by a failed rocket attack against Israel, noting that many of the projectiles fired at Israel were launched from within populated areas.

“There are more and more indications reaching us from the Gaza Strip that put serious doubt on the truth of the statement from Hamas’s healthy ministry about the death of the baby Saba Mahmoud Hamdan Abu Arar and her mother Falastin Saleh Abu Arar,” Maj. Avichay Adraee wrote in a tweet.

“According to these indications, the death was caused by terrorist activities by Palestinian militants and not by an Israeli strike,” he said.

But AFP headlines the story, "250 rockets fired from Gaza, Israeli response kills four including baby."

The Independent wrote "A pregnant mother and her 14-month-old baby girl have been killed by an Israeli airstrike, as cross-border violence continues near Gaza."

ITV: "Palestinian baby and pregnant mother killed in Gaza airstrikes."

CNN: "250 rockets fired from Gaza at Israel; 1-year-old child among those killed in retaliatory airstrikes."

Reporters have made this mistake before. I listed a bunch of them a few years ago in an open letter to journalists on not making assumptions during these flareups in Gaza:

Mistake #1: Assuming that all Gaza casualties are the result of Israeli airstrikes

Traditionally, the number of Gaza rockets that fall short and never reach Israel, or that explode as they are fired, is over 35% -and sometimes as high as 80%!.

Between June 12-25 (2014), terrorists fired 41 rockets at Israel, of which 24 exploded in Gaza, killing one child and injuring six more children. That is a 58% failure rate.

At least three Gaza civilians have been killed this year by terrorist rockets.

Egyptian politician kissing dead baby killed by Hamas

During Operation Pillar of Defense, the media was fooled at least twice - and possibly three times - with false Arab reports that children were killed by Israeli airstrikes when they were killed by errant terror rockets from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Even schools have been hit by terrorist rockets.

Also, several civilians have been killed from gunfire during funerals of terrorists.

When terrorists are firing rockets hurriedly, as they are now, the chances for misfires is even greater. Not to mention "work accidents" (which have killed dozens this year [2014] alone) are probably more likely to occur in Gaza weapons workshops and laboratories.

Also Gaza spokespersons are known to lie and blame Israel for deaths caused by internal explosions.

For all these reasons, journalists must be especially careful when reporting on civilian deaths in Gaza.

The rule of thumb is that if the IDF denies an airstrike in an area where people were killed, the people were not killed by an Israeli airstrike.

Journalistic standards go out the window when reporting on Israeli airstrikes, and reporters conveniently forget the many times that Hamas and islamic Jihad rockets have killed Gazans over the years.

I see in Arab media photos of the targets that Israel admits, and those buildings are flattened. I have not yet seen any photos of the building that this mother and baby were in. An AFP reporter said it was heavily damaged, but I don't know what that means. If we had photos we could know with more certainty. But even without it, the reports indicate that the Gaza Health Ministry is lying, because "witnesses" are contradicting themselves:

“The Israeli plane fired a missile near the house and the shrapnel entered the house and hit the poor baby,” Seba’s aunt said.
“They were sitting at the yard in their house with their mother.” said Abu Nidal Abu Arar, a relative living next door.
“They were shocked by a missile landing on them. This occupation is criminal.”

If it was shrapnel, then there must be a huge impact crater or a collapsed building right nearby. No one is claiming that.

It sure looks like a Hamas rocket so far.

UPDATE: Gaza News Agency - not a fan of Hamas nor of Israel - says flatly it was a Hamas rocket.

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05/03 Links Pt2: The Attacks On Jews We Aren’t Talking About; BDS-backed Twitter bot network is targeting Eurovision; Corbyn's dog whistle apology; Israel reaches another milestone as population crosses 9 million

From Ian:

The Attacks On Jews We Aren’t Talking About

Much of this has taken place in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. According to the NYPD, assault and robberies on Jews in Crown Heights went from two in 2017 to 10 in 2018. The attackers tend to be African-American, and they sometimes yell out anti-Semitic slurs. There have been at least three such attacks so far this year. You can see a lot of this violence in recovered surveillance footage, but not much of it makes it to the front pages of major newspapers.

And it’s not just happening in Crown Heights. On Tuesday morning, Rabbi Uriel Vigler was heading to his synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when he was accosted by a black man calling him a “f***ing Jew” and “the devil.” The man fled when he saw a security guard. Vigler captured some of the aftermath on video.

These incidents aren’t talked about much because they have no political utility. There’s no fake soul-searching because the attacks have nothing to do with Israel. And there’s no finger-pointing because they have nothing to do with Donald Trump and white nationalism.

There are still other reasons that black-on-Jewish hate crime is largely ignored: Democrats would rather not speak of it because they’re hyper-sensitive about offending African-American voters (and not too worried about losing Jewish ones). Some on the left are so frightened to address this kind of anti-Semitism that they’ve decided it isn’t anti-Semitism at all. An article in the Forward last December more-or-less chalked it all up to the effects of gentrification. And if Republicans bring it up, they’ll immediately be called racists, as they are when they point out Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism.

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite new moderate, Pete Buttigieg, just earned his official Democratic presidential-candidate badge by going up to Harlem to get the nod from the mellowing elder statesman of black anti-Semitism, Al Sharpton. Any genuine reflection on the left would surely end the ritual of seeking blessings from a man who said, in in the wake of a murderous pogrom in 1991, “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.” But Democrats still stand in line every four years to kiss his ring.

Most hate crimes reported in New York City are anti-Jewish, police say

More than half of all hate crimes in New York City reported in 2018 and so far in 2019 targeted Jews, authorities said Thursday.

According to New York Police Department figures released Thursday, of the 145 hate crimes reported in January through April 2019, 82 incidents – nearly 57 percent – were anti-Jewish.

In 2018, there were 353 total hate crime complaints, up from 325 in 2017, and the NYPD made 149 arrests. Of these hate crimes, 186 – or nearly 53% – had anti-Jewish bias, up from 151 in 2017.

The NYPD tally is of reported complaints and arrests, not convictions.

Three precincts with large Hasidic populations, all in Brooklyn, reported the most anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2018. The 71st Precinct, which encompasses part of Crown Heights, reported nine anti-Jewish hate crimes, the most of any precinct. Precincts including Williamsburg and Borough Park each had seven.

Sixty-nine – or 37 percent – of 2018’s anti-Jewish hate crime reports resulted in an arrest. Forty of the alleged perpetrators were white, 25 were black, two were Hispanic and two were Asian.

Synagogue asked for security funds a year ago; they arrived days before attack

The Chabad of Poway synagogue, where a gunman on Saturday fired his semi-automatic rifle at Jewish worshipers, had applied for a federal grant to install gates and more secure doors to better protect that area. The $150,000 was approved in September but only got awarded in late March.

“Obviously we did not have a chance to start using the funds yet,” Rabbi Simcha Backman told The Associated Press.

Backman, who oversees security grants for the 207 Chabad institutions across California, declined to provide details on the planned security enhancements or to speculate whether they might have changed the outcome of Saturday’s attack.

The shooter killed a woman and wounded an 8-year-old girl and two men — one of them the rabbi presiding at the service on the last day of Passover.

Backman said the synagogue north of San Diego is considering asking authorities to allow some of the money be used to hire security guards, which it doesn’t have now.

Muslim children in Philadelphia sing of martyrdom; girls read about chopping off (Jews') heads to redeem Al Aqsa

No, this isn't Gaza or Ramallah.

This is Philadelphia.

The children are at an event for the Muslim American Society Islamic Center in Philadelphia (MAS Philly).

From MEMRI:

Child Narrator: Those who accept humiliation – what is the point in their existence? Those who reject oppression are the ones who assert their existence, and they eliminate the injustice from the land of the Arabs.

Children Singing: Rebels! Rebels! Rebels! Glorious steeds call us and lead us onto paths leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us. Paradise needs real men!

The land of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey is calling us. Our Palestine must return to us. Oh Saladdin, your men are among us – shame will be washed away!

[You need] force and the Quran, oh free people! We must persevere no matter what happens, and with the help of the Omnipotent Lord, day will follow night.

Take us, oh ships, until we liberate our lands – until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones!

Blow, oh winds of Paradise – flow, oh rivers of martyrs! My Islam is calling, who is going to heeds its call? Rise, oh righteous ones!

Girl 1: Our martyrs sacrificed their lives without hesitation. They attained Paradise, and the scent of musk emanates from their bodies. They compete with one another to reach Paradise. Will Jerusalem be their capital city, or will it be a hotbed for cowards?

Girl 2: We will defend the land of divine guidance with our bodies, and we will sacrifice our souls without hesitation. We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will lead the army of Allah fulfilling His promise, and we will subject them to eternal torture.

Here are some more excerpts:

(h/t Ari)

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05/03 Links Pt1: Israel Will Not Be Forced to Pay for the Murder of Its Own Citizens; From Philasteen to Philadelphia: Muslim Youth Taught to Hate Israel; Polish bishop delivers thinly veiled anti-Semitic sermon

From Ian:

Israel Will Not Be Forced to Pay for the Murder of Its Own Citizens

The Palestinian Authority is again crying wolf over the financial crisis it is currently facing. Let there be no mistake: this is a fake, self-created crisis that is a direct result of the PA's "pay for slay" policy. Since its creation, the PA has paid monthly salaries to imprisoned terrorists and allowances to the families of dead terrorists. These are not dependent on social need but are simply financial rewards for terrorism. Moreover, if a terrorist spends five years in an Israeli prison, he is entitled to a guaranteed "pension" for life.

In 2018, Israel passed legislation according to which any sum expended by the PA on "pay for slay" during a given year would be deducted from the tax revenues Israel transferred to it the following year. Accordingly, in February 2019, the Israeli cabinet decided to deduct $11.7 million a month from tax transfers to the PA - the sum the PA had publicly admitted to paying to terrorist prisoners.

While this monthly deduction was no more than 6.2% of the total amount to be transferred, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas decided to plunge the PA economy into the abyss by refusing to accept any tax revenues. True to form, instead of castigating the PA for squandering billions on incentivizing and rewarding terrorists, French President Macron, the EU and the UN are pressuring Israel to capitulate to Abbas' blackmail and find a way to give the PA all the funds.

Abbas Is Trying to Scare Israel and the World

The Palestinian Authority is refusing to accept any funds transferred from Israel because Israel has begun deducting the value of stipends the PA pays to terrorists and their families. As a result, the PA is now telling the world it faces economic collapse. PA President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to scare Israel and the world community into believing the result will be chaos and terror. The PA leadership is emulating Hamas' behavior by threatening that a humanitarian disaster will ensue unless more financial aid is rendered.

One way to reject the forthcoming American peace proposal and yet not be blamed is to engineer an economic crisis that diverts attention from continuous Palestinian intransigence regarding any and every attempt at peacemaking.
Israel is doing more than its share to bolster the Palestinian economy - providing jobs to Palestinians in the Israeli labor market; supplying water, electricity and health services to Palestinians; and keeping Hamas from overthrowing Abbas' PA.

While it is best for all concerned to ensure a decent standard of living for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, it is highly unlikely that the PA will collapse since it is a source of significant income for Abbas and his coterie.

Dr. Martin Sherman: Let the PA collapse

PA collapse as an opportunity, not a threat

In this regard, there should be a sea-change in the prevailing perception of the significance for Israel of the collapse of the PA and with it, of the entire mendacious Oslowian edifice.

After all, if the only way for the PA to endure is for Israel to collaborate in the financing of the slaughter of its own citizens by transferring “pay-to-slay” funds to perpetrators of terror, grave doubts must be cast on the prudence—indeed, the sanity—of sustaining this state of affairs.

Moreover, for Israel to back down on this issue would not only greatly undermine its credibility—and hence its deterrence capabilities—but would constitute a sharp slap in the face for its staunch allies in the US Senate, who passed the Taylor Force Act to curtail American support for the PA—unless it halts payments to perpetuators of terror and/or their families.

It is generally considered that the imminent financial collapse of the PA comprises a threat to Israel, heralding increasing instability and security problems.

Although this may be true to some extent in the short run, it must be rejected as a long term constraint on Israeli strategic thinking. Indeed, rather than a threat, the impending collapse of the PA should be perceived as an opportunity to extricate the nation from the hazardous cul-de-sac into which the deceptive Oslo process lured it.

In December 2006, Iran held the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust." Attendees included Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, white nationalist David Duke, and a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, named Shiraz Dossa, who presented a paper there.

Dossa defended his attendance, and the conference, by stating that only 6 of the 33 papers given at the conference explicitly denied the Holocaust. Otherwise, he says, it was a very serious conference.

While Dossa is not a Holocaust denier, his views are just as toxic and antisemitic as those of any Holocaust denier.

In 2012, he wrote a paper he named "Auschwitz's Finale: racism and holocausts" where his abstract is filled with straw man arguments: "This article dissects the Auschwitz discourse and its denial of other holocausts. It critiques the claim that it was the only ‘real’ genocide. It advances a contrary thesis on colonialism, racism and holocausts in history. I clarify the affinity between colonialism and fascism and Israeli tactics in Occupied Palestine. It is undeniable that Auschwitz fuels anti-Arab anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism. "

The paper includes this almost unbelievably antisemitic paragraph:

The ‘uniqueness’ of the Holocaust flows from Ashkenazi pride in their racial superiority. Its corollary is not denied but defended: non-Jews count for very little, which can be traced back to the Old Testament thesis on the acceptability of the Canaanite genocide because Yahweh willed it. Israel’s killing of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims since its founding has been similarly justified. Suffice it to mention the 1200 civilians killed in Lebanon in July 2006 and the 1400 civilians (including 400 children) killed in Gaza in January 2009. It is evident that the chosen Jew–unchosen non-Jew divide has been globalised. It is even accepted by many ‘Third world’elites, including Saudi, Jordanian and UAE Arab leaders who endorse the US–Israeli agenda without demurral. Its legitimacy, its ‘truth’ has long been settled. The dissenters among Jews are aberrations.

Dossa has a bit of an obsession with Ashkenazic Jews, whom he usually defines as "white Jews." In a footnote he blames a researcher's racism on his being an Ashkenazic Jew. "Lemkin held a racist view of Africans; he labelled them ‘savages’ and ‘cannibals’ and even blamed them for killing fellow Africans on the orders of their Belgian masters. It testifies to the resilience of chauvinism in Ashkenazi culture that a man like Lemkin could succumb to its vile charms."

This is an academic, today.

It is curious that when Professor Jason Hill writes an article that is pro-Israel, his faculty coworkers censure him, but no one at St. Francis Xavier University says a word condemning Shiraz Dossa for his naked Jew-hatred masquerading as scholarship.

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The disgusting Holocaust hypocrisy of Linda Sarsour @lsarsour

I cam across this video clip of Linda Sarsour passionately saying that America must take responsibility for its refusing to accept Jews fleeing from the Nazis in the 1940s.

Yes, the US and the West needs take ownership for their complicity in not accepting the Jews trying to flee to save their lives.

But Sarsour wants to make this into a "white" problem.

Arabs in rioted throughout the 1930s to stop Jewish legal immigration into Palestine. After enough deadly riots, the British decided that giving in to their demands was easier than saving Jewish lives, and they stopped virtually all Jewish immigration to Palestine - dooming not thousands but hundreds of thousands who could have escaped Nazi Germany and who wanted to return to their ancestral homeland.

If the US is complicit in the deaths of Jews during the Holocaust, the Arabs of Palestine are a thousand times more complicit.

It wasn't only the Palestinian Arabs, either. I noted yesterday a ship of Jews who were turned away from Egypt and Turkey as well. Those Muslim countries - and others - could have saved the Jews as well, and refused.

Sarsour wants to pretend that only white people historically oppose immigration, and people of color - or faux people of color, in her case - have been nothing but victims. She won't talk about how Arab nations refuse to naturalize Palestinians and keep them stateless and in camps, 70 years after they left Palestine. And she definitely won't talk about how Palestinian Arab leader Amin al Husayni was a proud Jew-hater who worked with the Nazis.

The stupid Americans listening to her and applauding her don't know enough history to challenge her revisionist history.

Linda Sarsour's cynical use of the Holocaust to promote her own political opinion is disgusting and perverted.

(h/t Deborah Friedman)

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No, @NYTimes,. the Muslim Brotherhood does not oppose violence (@ddknyt)

This week, the New York Times had an article asking "Is the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group?"

And it answered, flatly, "no."

Part of the reason was given here:

Even experts critical of the Brotherhood agree that the organization does not meet the criteria for a terrorist group.

Under the British-backed monarchy in the 1940s, the Egyptian Brotherhood was one of several factions to create paramilitary wings. In 1948, a 23-year-old veterinary student who belonged to the group assassinated the prime minister. Two weeks later, another member of the outfit was arrested for attempting to bomb a courthouse.

Mr. al-Banna denounced the perpetrators and their actions. “They are neither Brothers nor are they Muslims,” he said.

In the 1960s, a small circle of Muslim Brothers were arrested for plotting to reestablish an armed wing. That is when the Brotherhood formally codified its opposition to violence in a tract titled, “Preachers, Not Judges.”

From reading this onegets the impression that the Muslim Brotherhood is opposed to all forms of violence by Muslims.

However, that is clearly not the case. Its website has numerous articles about Hamas attacks on Israel, both attacks on the IDF and on civilians, and it supports every single Hamas activity. There is no daylight between how Hamas looks at violence against Jews and how the Brotherhood does.

Here is an example from January 2018 where the Brotherhood approvingly quoted Hamas' support of the murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach.

I don't know whether the Brotherhood still engages in violence, directly or indirectly. Nor do I know whether declaring it a terror group is a good idea or not. But the New York Times and others that claim that the Brotherhood has opposed terror for decades are clearly wrong.

As long as you believe that killing innocent Jews is terrorism, that is.

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