Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 05, 2019

08/05 Links Pt2: David Collier: Obsessive, radicalised, antisemitic – Corbyn’s Labour Party; Why Western leftists adore right-wing religious extremists abroad

From Ian:

David Collier: Obsessive, radicalised, antisemitic – Corbyn’s Labour Party

The accusation made here is that the election of Jeremy Corbyn created a toxic environment that has radicalised members of the party and this led to a growth of antisemitism in the UK. There is no need to overthink this. We know that Corbyn comes from a faction that has existed for decades on the fringes of the party. There is ample evidence that *some* of the new membership that joined to support him was antisemitic and extremist. These people were not ‘outsiders’ who ‘infiltrated’, but elements of the leaders own faction who joined to support the new leader.

The new leadership sought to protect its own support base. New media was set up to shield the Corbyn project. Facebook groups proudly shouted out his name. An online environment was created that evicted the dissenters. ‘Zionism’ is Corbyn’s enemy – so ‘Zionists’ were swiftly expelled. Jewish people complained and key Corbyn allies all screamed ‘smear’.

How is a loyal Labour voter to react – especially those who joined Labour because they truly believed in Corbyn as a force for change? As the Labour Party came under attack, ‘Corbynism’ retreated into an ever-shrinking virtual bubble. With a near total rejection of ‘Zionist’ mainstream media, they were reduced to feeding from the scraps of the Canary, RT Today, Press TV or some racist conspiracy junk site from the United States.

Does anyone really believe the average supporter had the working knowledge of Judaism, Zionism and Israeli history necessary to withstand the ideological onslaught?

The Telegraph just ran an piece on this report. The Labour Party responded with a meaningless regurgitated mess that didn’t address the report at all. A wise man would ask how an anti-racist party could dismiss a report on racism that it hadn’t even read properly? But that is not the territory in which this argument is taking place. This message of ’empty smear’ is the one they are deliberately sending to the membership and to the support base beyond. Like a drumbeat – their supporters have been repetitively listening to the ‘Jews are smearing us’ excuse now for over four years.

How we got here: The normalization of antisemitism

WHEN WE allow for the election of an antisemite we tell the radicals exiled to their houses that their Jew-hatred isn’t to be ashamed of, but rather grounds to have you elected to the mother of parliaments. The actions and lack of action by Corbyn’s Labour Party with regard to antisemitism have acted as a catalyst for racists to seep out of their holes and regain platforms to further incite their hatred.

The consequences go far and wide, and the normalization of antisemitism has spread to our campuses. From Nottingham to Bristol and countless places in between, student union officers have been found to be antisemitic by their universities’ investigations yet no action has been taken. After telling a Jewish student to “be like Israel and cease to exist,” Omar Chowdhury’s apology that came as a recommendation of the investigation was accepted as sufficient for Chowdhury to continue in his role as the University of Bristol Students’ Union’s Black and Minority Ethnic officer. Ridiculous right? But this is just one example. There are hundreds of incidents taking place on campus that get no coverage whatsoever because antisemitism is expected, and universities are reluctant to act. And why should they take it seriously when our own electorate and political leaders do not?

Only when we start taking a genuine zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism not just in name, but with substance, will we be able to start undoing all the damage that Corbyn’s Labour Party has instigated. That means not accepting every apology for antisemitism, it means removing antisemites from any position where they can further their agenda, and it means restoring our political discourse to that of civility and fact-based dialogue as we have had with the once proud Labour Party.

For our campuses, there is some hope. Universities Minister Chris Skidmore wrote to vice-chancellors stating that universities must do more to stamp out antisemitism on campus and adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. This is a necessary step in combating the atmosphere of antisemitism swamping our institutions, but this will ultimately depend on the innate nature of vice-chancellors and whether they choose to listen to such calls.

My own experience tells me that just like the cases at Bristol and Nottingham, our entrusted intellectual leaders will be reluctant to act and will hope for cases to blow over, mirroring the same action taken against the highest profile cases of antisemitism. Jeremy Corbyn’s platform to incite has made British society more hostile to Jews than at any other point in the modern era.

UK Labour anti-Semitism ‘fueled by a flow of anti-Semitic tweets,’ says watchdog

A small number of online social media accounts have driven the discourse on anti-Semitism in the British Labour party, a new study by a prominent Jewish watchdog group said.

According to the report, released on Sunday by the London-based Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism and provides security services for UK Jews, “the problem of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party over the past three years has been fueled by a flow of anti-Semitic tweets and posts on social media, done in the name of the Labour Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn.”

The report, entitled “Engine of Hate,” was conducted in conjunction with data science firm Signify.

The report identified what it said were 36 key pro-Corbyn Twitter accounts, which it collectively nicknamed the “engine room.” Each, it said, have “their own, overlapping, online networks that drive social media conversations about anti-Semitism” and “are responsible for encouraging the widespread belief that allegations of anti-Semitism are a smear against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.”

Those accounts frequently use content from a network of alternative media sites that “consistently claim that anti-Semitism is being weaponized as a smear” and “provide the fuel for an atmosphere in which allegations of anti-Semitism are denied, while leading and encouraging attacks against anyone who criticizes the Labour leadership for their record on the issue.”

Corbyn's Jewish Liaison's Toxic Record on Anti-Semitism

Jeremy Corbyn didn’t exactly fill the UK’s Jewish community with confidence when he appointed a Momentum activist and vocal Chris Williamson and Pete Willsman defender to his newly-created role of “Jewish Community Liaison Officer”. Heather Mendick claimed that anti-Semitism was being “weaponised against the Left” and joined the disgraced Chris Williamson for multiple events on his “democracy roadshow” – his campaign to deselect sitting Labour MPs. She also celebrated the notorious Pete Willsman’s re-election to Labour’s NEC, saying that the membership “aren’t buying the smears”…

So it wasn’t exactly a surprise when the CST’s latest report on the online networks behind Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis found that Mendick’s Twitter account was one of the 36 ‘Engine Room’ accounts most associated with online Labour anti-Semitism. Mendick has now deleted her account…

Guido has taken a closer look at some more of Mendick’s online history:

She also describes herself as a “paid up member of Jewish Voice for Labour” – the highly controversial Corbynista fringe group. Says it all that Corbyn thinks she’s the best person to build bridges with the Jewish community…

The "spontaneous" Friday riots, where we are told that ordinary Gazans just go on their own to protest (usually) Israeli policies, are being cancelled this week.

The reason given by the National Authority for Return and Breaking the Siege, which was published in Hamas newspapers, is because it is the day before Eid al Adha and they wanted their rioters to have a chance to prepare for the holiday.

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A Turkish "expert" pretends to teach us Talmud

A website called United World International, run by a Turkish "expert in Foreign Relations" Koray Gürbüz, has an article on President Trump's major strengths and weaknesses.

One of those weaknesses are his "strong pro-Israel positions":

In making foreign policy decisions, Trump acts on his own idiosyncratic logic – which just so happens to be consistent with Israel’s interests. This is why Trump recognized Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as part of Israel, his strong rhetoric around anti-Semitism, his the tough stance against Iran and his concerted attacks on Syria.

The problem is not that the senators are accusing him of being bought and sold by the Israeli lobby, as was the case during Trump’s debate with Ilhan Omar. Omar was switfly [sic] accused of anti-Semitism for her words.

The actual issue is that anti-Semitism has nothing to do with anti-Zionism. Zionist policy essentially denies Judaism, and violates the basic talmudic commandments — it is anti-religion. As long as a Zionist policy is in place in Israel, building a multipolar world will be a difficult task.

I love when self-declared experts tell Jews what Judaism is and isn't.

I believe the expression is "goysplaining."

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08/05 Links Pt1: Shocking Ethics Report Proves Trump Was Right To Defund UNRWA; Gaza ‘Victim’ Exposed With His AK-47; Daily Mail Fawns Over Bashar Assad’s Wife

From Ian:

Shocking Ethics Report Proves Trump Was Right To Defund UN Palestinian Refugee Agency

Given UNRWA’s ties to Hamas, it is unsurprising that UNRWA-funded schools systematically expose refugee children to a litany of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda, with their staff often engaging in Holocaust denial and spreading graphic imagery of Jews as apes and pigs. The curriculum at UNRWA-funded schools foments hatred and protects terrorists, only perpetuating the conflict UNRWA ostensibly seeks to mitigate.

“UNRWA is an institutional embodiment of the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias: special organization dedicated to keeping the Palestinian refugee issue from 1948 perpetually alive as diplomatic tool against Israel, long after Palestinian refugees themselves have gone,” said Eugene Kontorovich, director of the International Law Department at Kohelet Policy Forum and head of the Center for International Law in the Middle East at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.

Given that UNRWA was created in violation of general principles of refugee law and has helped promote lawless behavior, it is not surprising that the organization’s leaders consider themselves above the rules. And until Trump, this was all done at U.S. taxpayer expense.

When the Trump administration cut funding to UNRWA last year, it was widely criticized as part of a “dangerous” withdrawal from international institutions by a rogue, isolationist president. Now, given the recent allegations, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland have suspended payments to UNRWA also. The internationalists are now singing Trump’s tune.

As Ruthie Blum of Jewish News Syndicate retorted last week, “Nothing short of shutting down UNRWA will be satisfactory since its very existence is a criminal scam. But the likelihood of its closure in the near future is slim to zero. In the meantime, let us take some comfort in the agency’s well-earned public humiliation.” (h/t IsaacStorm)

You gotta feel bad for this couple. I mean, all they wanted to do was to personally thrive off the Palestinian cause the same way UNRWA had been doing institutionally for decades. One way was acceptable. One not. https://t.co/uyj2mprdtJ
— Jonathan Schanzer (@JSchanzer) August 5, 2019

Exclusive: Gaza ‘Victim’ Exposed With His AK-47

On August 4, HonestReporting critiqued a feature in The Sunday Times by advocacy journalist Sarah Helm. Given her track record of lies and distortions, it was not surprising that the article focusing on Palestinians injured at the Gaza border fence took a distinctly one-sided and biased approach.

Read the original critique here: Propaganda for Gaza in The Sunday Times

Upon further examination, the story is even more problematic than we initially realized. Helm focused on Bilal Masoud, a 29-year old Gazan who sustained crippling injuries after being shot during violence at the border fence at the Great March of Return.

Masoud, unable to live with his injuries and a lack of support from Palestinian authorities eventually commits suicide, setting himself ablaze with kerosene. Certainly a harrowing story and Helm clearly intends to elicit sympathy for Masoud who is consistently referred to by his first name throughout the piece.

Masoud is portrayed as someone who offered a very limited threat to Israelis or the IDF soldiers stationed on the other side of the border fence.

Bilal always took his slingshot: a piece of frayed nylon cord with a patch of Velcro for the stone, which Khalil now keeps. “It was part of him,” he says, demonstrating how Bilal, who was known as the “lion of the border”, would stand whirling the cord. I wonder whether “the lion” ever hit an Israeli soldier. Khalil shakes his head, saying he was lucky if he ever hit a watchtower.

This image of Masoud is taken from The Sunday Times article. This is how Sarah Helm wants you to picture Masoud before his injuries. A young man armed only with a simple slingshot.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Quick, Check Whether Any Dayton/El Paso Dead Are Jewish So We Can Pay The Killer by Mahmoud Abbas, President, Palestinian Authority (satire)

This office put out an official message of condolence to the people of the United States as soon as we heard of the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio over the weekend, but gentlemen, that does not absolve us of the responsibility to ascertain the religious or ethnic affiliation of the victims. Remember, if any of them happen to be Jewish we must give serious consideration to paying the perpetrator a lifetime stipend. Or his family, if he died in the attempt.

Get on this immediately, gentlemen. It will not do to have such an important issue suffer neglect. We cannot claim commitment to the Palestinian cause, to vow that not a penny of the payments to killers of Jews will be cut even in the face of economic pressure, not even when we must cut the salaries of our own employees or welfare payments to the most needy – we cannot claim such a commitment and then ignore when heroes of the same magnitude step forward beyond the official boundaries of the Occupation. That would constitute discrimination.

The father of our movement, Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, would suffer grave insult if we leave this avenue of investigation unexplored. He spent years of his life building alliances with Nazis and like-minded supremacists, working toward the day when he could implement the Final Solution to the Jewish Question here in Palestine. Now that white supremacists have boldly asserted themselves in a manner with which we can identify as Palestinians, we dare not withhold gestures of solidarity and support. By his afternoon I want at least a preliminary report on my desk with an examination of which, if any, of the dead from these shootings might be Jewish. We must not commit any errors of omission when it comes to rewarding those who share our goals. Our longstanding affinity and alliance with Nazis demands it.

When people think of visiting Israel, few consider going to Hebron. The city is depicted as contentious, dangerous and unpleasant. It is associated with “Occupation,” poverty and apartheid. Who would want to go there? Even most Israelis don’t consider Hebron a place they would want to visit, much less live.

This reality ironic, considering the profound significance of this unique city.

Hebron is called the City of Patriarchs and Matriarchs. The name is literal rather than figurative and points out the burial place of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Nation of Israel: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah.

Other nations have monuments and even mausoleums of their founding fathers. Can you think of any who have the mothers of their nation given the same amount of focus and respect? The founding fathers of America are perhaps the most famous group of men to be given that title – brilliant men who joined together to lay the guidelines for building a successful new nation. They were united by an idea. The patriarchs and matriarchs of Israel are united by family.

How many people know exactly where there great great grandparents are buried? Abraham bought the Cave of Machpela and surrounding field as a burial site for his wife Sarah 3,800 years ago. Since then Jews have not always been free to visit but we have always known that the parents of our People are buried there.

Jews were in Hebron even before Jews were in Jerusalem. Our first tie to this land is through family, even before taking on the law of God as a Nation, even before building the Temple and having a physical place where the People could visit the House of God on earth.

And perhaps the most critical element of this story is that although Abraham was offered the Machpela Cave as a gift, he refused, insisting on buying the field and the cave within it. This is land purchase is the first legal connection of the Nation of Israel to the Land of Israel – all of the land was later granted to the People by God but that is predated by the legal financial transaction between men.

Could it have been foreseen that foreigners would declare that the Nation of Israel usurped the Land, that we are “Occupiers”? There are three critical pieces of land whose purchase was documented in the ancient texts. Interestingly the enemies of Israel are most adamant in declaring that we have no connection to any of these:

1) Hebron - the resting place of our ancestors, the place that connects us to the land via family

2) Shechem - the resting place of Joseph who, before his death, made his brothers swear that they would carry his bones out of Egypt to be buried in Canaan. In Exodus we are told that Moses fulfilled the pledge and in the Book of Joshua we are told that: “The bones of Joseph, which the Children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, were buried in Shechem in a parcel of land Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem, for a hundred pieces of silver.” In the Jewish texts repetition is a sign of significance therefore we would must understand from this that both the insistence on the location of burial (Israel, not Egypt) and the fact that the land was purchased by Jacob are important.

3) The site of the Temple Mount, the place that connects the Nation of Israel to the God of Israel.

These questions are crucial to ask:

Why do you think the enemies of Israel are most adamant about these three locations?

Why are there so many fights in the UN to pass resolutions denying Jewish connection to Jerusalem?

Why have the Arabs changed the ancient name of Shechem to Nablus, declaring that theirs is the “real” name of the city and Jews have no right to pray at Joseph’s Tomb (Jews who want to pray there have to do so with IDF escorts for fear of being lynched). Most of Israel’s cities have the same names in Hebrew and in Arabic, signifying their Hebrew origin. Why do Shechem, Hebron and Jerusalem have different names?

Why do organizations like “Breaking the Silence” spend so much money and effort to convince the world that Hebron is a place of Jewish “occupation” and Israeli apartheid against Arabs?

Why do so few people go to actually see for themselves what is real and what is not? These organizations deviously take kernels of truth and build fantastic lies around them, creating a narrative that is completely disconnected from reality. For example, the selective footage shown of Hebron is usually of 600 meters of a kilometer long road that is blocked off to Arabs (because too many Jews were murdered there). There is no mention that the Arabs who own the stores that were shut down on that section of the road still live in the buildings above the shops and that they simply leave there homes from the other direction, on to a parallel street. The Arabs are depicted as trapped in poverty because of this situation and no mention is made of the fact the Jewish population cannot enter 97% of the city where the Arab population runs a booming economy. No one mentions the apartment buildings, streets full of cars or the luxurious malls where you can shop – as long as you aren’t Jewish.

Walking the streets of Jewish Hebron is a very different experience than what is portrayed by the media. Yes there are soldiers on guard. Too many Jews have been murdered for there not to be. There are also commemorative plaques in places where citizens were murdered.

There are areas where there few people and closed shops but that does not convey the reality of Jewish life in the city of our ancestors.

Heroes walk the streets of Hebron.

They are men and women who lived through periods of daily sniper attacks – and still went and played outside with their kids. They are mothers and fathers who, although they owned the property, were not allowed to build homes suitable to the size of their families – so they made their small homes warm and beautiful knowing that lack of space would teach their children to learn how to share better. They are people determined to live, love, laugh and be as close to normal as possible in a place that is far from normal.

Most of all they are parents who brought free and fresh Hebrews into the world. Jewish children who know no other reality than growing strong in their ancestral homeland.

The modern day Hebrews of Hebron live across from (and above) an archeological dig which has uncovered 4,000 year old artifacts, including an Israelite house dating, 2,700 years old where there were seals bearing the impression of a bird, or a beetle, with the word "LeMelech Hebron" meaning "belonging to the King, Hebron" in paleo-Hebrew.

Were the ancient Hebrews of Hebron to suddenly appear, they would find their descendants living in their neighborhood, speaking the same language, connected to the same values.

This is what it means to be an indigenous People, returned to our ancestral homeland.

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Jordan's antisemitism (and insecurity in its own history) on full display

As I reported Thursday, Jordan has closed the Shrine of Aaron the Prophet because a group of Jews prayed there.

Jordanian media is filled with paranoia about the incident, and the rumors and lies are off the charts. Moreover, Jordan has strengthened its antisemitic policies of not allowing Jews to enter the Kingdom with any religious objects - including kippot and tzitzit:

In an interview with Ynet, tour guide Roni Ayalon, who was with the group of tourists, described being subjected to humiliating treatment by Jordanian authorities.

“They just stripped down all of us,” he said. “They took off the women’s head scarves. All the boys’ yarmulkes were taken off. They took off everyone’s shirts to see if they had tzitzit (religious fringes) under their clothes and took [the tzitzit] off them. They confiscated any religious symbols they found on us.”

“If there was this kind of humiliation of an Arab on our side who wanted to enter Jerusalem and they would dare to tell him to take off his shirt or confiscate his Koran, there would be a world war,” Ayalon said. “All the Arabs would jump up. But they can do whatever they want to us.”

Jordanian media is flooded with photos of Jews at the site with wearing the tallit and tefillin and with a Torah - something that is literally impossible nowadays. The photos were taken in 2013 before the antisemitic rules went into effect when a group of Jews made a bar mitzvah celebration at the site.

There has been a perfect storm of events to highlight how the old fashioned Jordanian patriarchy, antisemitism and inferiority complex have been feeling under attack - and all centered in the archaeological site of Petra.

It started with a Netflix series, Jinn, about rich Amman high-schoolers who investigate the supernatural death of a classmate in Petra. That series was attacked for its depiction of teens kissing, as well as talking about sex and smoking pot. Jordanian ministers complained about the film and there were calls to censorship that failed. Jordanians said that the series was an attack on their "honor."

Then came the trumped-up accusations against another Netflix movie that was being produced in Jordan, named Jaber, which highlights what even the Quran admits - that Jews came from Egypt through today's Jordan before crossing the Jordan river. Pressure forced the director to abandon filming.

Part of the reason is that Jordan is convinced that Israel wants to take over their country. Old and absurd accusations of Jews going to Petra to plant old fake Jewish artifacts are being reported as fact again in Jordanian media. JBC News writes, "Jews believe that this place belongs to them, as they claimed to be the builders of the pyramids, after they failed to find any historical trace of the presence of their forefathers in Palestine, which led them to fabricate certain places."

There are now debates in Jordan's parliament about allowing the "normalization" of Jews visiting the kingdom.

Former tourism minister Maha Khatib is going on TV about how she found Jews trying to bury objects in order to claim Petra as a Jewish site, and how she heroically stopped them. It is taken as a given that Jews are attempting to take over Jordan.

Interestingly, Petra is in a southern area of Jordan that no one has ever thought of as being part of historic Eretz Yisrael - it was part of Edom. Much of the northern part was part of the Land of Israel in Biblical times, but for some reason I have not seen Jordanians worried about Israel claiming those lands. Their fears are always around Petra, because of the Biblical significance of it being a potential burial place of Aaron.

If Jordanians were secure in its own borders and history, they would laugh at any supposed Jewish attempts to take over. But they are so insecure that they see conspiracies at every turn of Jews taking over their land. It shows how little they believe their own narratives of an Arab people that pre-date the Jews in the region.

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There is a telling detail in Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades website where it brags about the 2014 Gaza war.

The Brigades of the Martyr Izz el-Deen al-Qassam, the military wing of the Hamas movement, , is celebrating the victory against the Zionist enemy during the [2014 Gaza war], and the enemy soldiers are still talking about the courage of fighters in the fierce battles on the threshold of Gaza, and of the fear chasing usurpers because of the rockets.

I doubt that any Israeli soldiers are talking about what fantastic fighters Hamas had.

But Hamas needs to believe that this is true.

When you live in an honor/shame society, the worst thing that can happen is to be publicly shamed. But the second-worst thing is to be irrelevant.

Hamas wants to be respected by Israel. It loves its rockets because Israel cannot ignore them. It causes Israelis to run to shelters, and Gaza terror groups love publishing pictures of Israelis running to shelter.

It makes them feel less irrelevant. Important, even. They have managed to make an impact in Israelis' lives!

Hamas' videos make their soldiers look as menacing as possible, because they want to be feared. The IDF doesn't fear them, and this drives them crazy. They threaten "new weapons" in order to get any sort of reaction from Israel. Every few weeks they'll issue a new threat to see if Israeli newspapers report on them.

In so many ways, Hamas acts like a spoiled kid who will do anything to get attention.

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Which Jewish voices are being silenced on Israel?

The reprehensible cartoonist Eli Valley, who loves to draw grotesque Zionists to look uglier than Nazis, was miffed at a recent Forward piece that he believed "tokenized" his tiny cohort of very vocal haters of Israel and Zionism:

Gut Shabbos to all my fellow "tokens," fuck you to the vile creeps dedicated to erasing Jewish voices. pic.twitter.com/X2nU7vNUvd
— Eli Valley (@elivalley) August 2, 2019

I'm always amused when people who manage to get an outsized amount of media coverage compared to their numbers complain that they are somehow being silenced or tokenized.

They dominate the Forward's entire site; they dominate the NYT's editorial and news sections, JTA gives them plenty of coverage.

But pointing out that they are only a tiny minority among Jews makes them very, very upset.

As I was thinking about this, I calculated that nearly 4% of all Jews alive today are "settlers." Not supporters of Israeli settlers, but actual people who chose to risk their lives in order to live in their ancestral homelands, knowing that the entire world is against them and regard them as illegal squatters and thieves.

This means that there are probably roughly as many Jewish "settlers" as Jewish anti-Zionists.

Now, how many headlines in the Forward or NYT treat them as normal human beings, as people whose opinion on Israel matters? The Times will have a token op-ed every once in a while by a "settler," mostly to make them look extreme and absurd. But in reality, do NYT or AP or Reuters reports ever treat them as regular people whose opinions matter?

Almost never. They are treated as outliers, as not representative of anyone - even though if you add their numbers to their supporters, there are far more people supporting Jews living in Judea and Samaria than Jews who oppose Zionism altogether.

Who gets more press, and who gets silenced?

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08/04 Links: Secret documents may help prove that the UK is paying terrorists with taxpayer cash; Propaganda for Gaza in The Sunday Times; Michael Lumish: Jews are from Judea

From Ian:

Secret documents may help prove that the UK is paying terrorists with taxpayer cash as government loses legal battle to keep files under wraps

The Government has lost a legal battle to keep back secret documents which may support claims that terrorists have been paid using British taxpayers’ cash.

UK foreign aid money is said to have funded ‘salaries’ to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails for terrorist acts.

The payments of between £400 and £2,000 a month came from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls the West Bank and has received hundreds of millions in British foreign aid.

Recipients reportedly include master bombmaker Abdullah Barghouti, who was jailed after attacks that left 67 dead. It is claimed that he has been given more than £100,000 by PA.

Campaigners including UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI) have long accused the Government of failing to come clean over the alleged misuse of cash, claiming that Ministers have potentially misled Parliament by saying that salaries for terrorists were simply welfare payments.

For the past year, campaigners going through the Information Commissioner’s Office have demanded that the Department For International Development release an audit of where UK aid given to the PA has gone. DFID told the ICO that releasing the audit would harm relations between the UK and PA.

But now the Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has ruled that there is a ‘significant public interest’ in the disclosure of the information. Between 2008 and 2015, Britain paid the Palestinian Authority £430.5 million. More than eight per cent of money from the PA Central Treasury was used to pay terrorists’ salaries, according to documents obtained in 2012 by Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch.

'Our children are buried while the terrorists celebrate'

Bereaved families are protesting this morning, Sunday, in front of Ofer Prison, regarding the conditions of terrorists' incarceration.

The families of the “Bochrim Bachayim” (“Choosing Life”) forum of the Im Tirtzu organization are protesting against the benefits and gratuities received by terrorist murderers from the prison service, at the expense of Israeli citizens.

Recently, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) revealed that there are fitness facilities in all the prisons for the welfare of the terrorists, and that every security prisoner is entitled to a daily newspaper subscription and one magazine subscription.

Meirav and Herzl Hajaj, whose daughter Shir was murdered in a ramming attack in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of Jerusalem, said: "We have come here to shout against the exaggerated living conditions those who murdered our precious children get. It is time for Minister Erdan to act immediately to approve the conclusions of the committee that he led and put an end to the festivities happening in prisons.”

''We came to hand out gifts and sweets to terrorists to show the absurd reality that the terrorists receive. We cry and they laugh. We are bereaved families of a different type, we will not be silent and will not rest until the prison parties stop," the parents promised.

Honest Reporting: Propaganda for Gaza in The Sunday Times

Advocacy journalist Sarah Helm has a history of lies and distortions when it comes to reporting on Israel. In recent years we’ve called her out for using a quote falsely attributed to David Ben Gurion and lying about Israel’s Gaza border fence in The Independent. We’ve also taken Helm to task for an opinion piece in The Guardian that was littered with bias and blatant falsehoods. Other examples of Helm’s bias have been cataloged at UK Media Watch.

So it’s hardly surprising that Helm has appeared in The Independent and The Guardian that regularly display overt hostility towards Israel. Unfortunately The Sunday Times, a more balanced media outlet, has now given Helm a platform to disseminate her anti-Israel bias. While this latest article is behind a paywall, thus limiting its reach, it is nonetheless worthy of a response.

Helm tells the story of Bilal Masoud, “shot in his legs and right arm by Israeli soldiers at the border fence separating Gaza from Israel. Now he was unable to do anything for himself or feed his birds.”

Even the way that Masoud and other Palestinians in the story are referred to by their first names is a deliberate attempt to elicit sympathy for their plight. Indeed, that Masoud eventually commits suicide is undoubtedly disturbing. It is also legitimate to feel some level of sympathy for Palestinians whose lives have been ruined as a result of reckless or violent behavior, incited by Hamas terrorists to riot at the Gaza border fence.

But Helm doesn’t bother examining what’s really motivating Palestinians like Bilal to risk their lives or even actively seek to end them.

Bilal rushed to the fence, knowing that Israeli troops would open fire if he got too close. He was badly maimed by the shots; his injuries so unbearable that ultimately he chose another way to end his life.

Bilal is one of thousands shot by Israeli soldiers since the Great March of Return protests began near the fence in March last year.
…
The Great March of the Return protests marked Palestinians’ desire to go back to their families’ former homes in what is now Israel.
So Israel is simply shooting thousands of Palestinians who merely “desire to go back to their families’ former homes.” This is a narrative that ignores the very violent intentions of many of those driving the weekly demonstrations at the border fence, least of all Hamas, which barely warrants a mention.

Last week I reported about a Jordanian film that was embroiled in controversy when one of its actors withdrew from the film, claiming that the script was "Zionist" and implied that Jews were the rightful owners of Petra.

In the film's plot, a Bedouin child finds a stone with Hebrew letters in Petra and it is seen as proof that it was the real site of the biblical Mount Sinai.

Since then, the director Mohyee-Deen Qandour strongly denied the actor's words, saying that he withdrew because he wanted a bigger role.

Beyond that, the Qandour said that even according to the Quran, Moses and the Jews were in Jordan before coming to the Land of Israel; it is not controversial to say that they were there. It doesn't imply any sort of ownership.

This defense of the film was all for naught. After a week of bizarre accusations, Qandour canceled all filming.

The "Jaber" film team decided to cancel the shooting following the wide controversy that its script raised on social media platforms.

The team decided to cancel the shooting after a state of controversy was raised upon the film, in order to prevent anything that would harm national unity or raise issues that may affect national security, Director of the film Mohy Al Din Quandour said in a statement on Saturday, August 3, 2019.

I'm sure that the Jews who were filmed praying in the area of Aaron's tomb this week helped fuel the conspiracy theories that killed this film.

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.

J. Lo vs. J-Street

Last week Jennifer Lopez and her fiancee Alex Rodriguez visited Israel last week and seemed to have a fantastic time.

Although she only tweeted about her visit a couple of times and he added a few more, it occurred to me that they had far more pro-Israel tweets in one week than the purportedly "pro-Israel" J-Street has had in eleven years on Twitter.

Amazing energy in Tel Aviv last night!! Over 50,000 strong!!! I love you so much 🌟🌟🌟🌟💕💕💕💕 The party continues... #ItsMyPartyTour pic.twitter.com/oRe21nHHI9
— Jennifer Lopez (@JLo) August 2, 2019

Mediterranean 🌊 pic.twitter.com/HbTHV9Bh1B
— Jennifer Lopez (@JLo) August 3, 2019

So excited to be in Israel for the first time for @JLo’s show!

How many of you living here are big baseball fans? What would you like to see @mlb do more of? Let me know!!
— Alex Rodriguez (@AROD) July 31, 2019

What an amazing time we are having on my first trip to Tel Aviv! The people have been wonderful and have such energy. I will definitely be back and recommend visiting this incredible country! ❤️

How many of you have been here and how was your experience? pic.twitter.com/tlKeB4In9X
— Alex Rodriguez (@AROD) July 31, 2019

This beats NYC traffic any day. #israel #scooter #mynewride pic.twitter.com/038hMzIiOv
— Alex Rodriguez (@AROD) August 1, 2019

Jerusalem, you are unforgettable. What a perfect finale to our first trip to this beautiful land. pic.twitter.com/XSqbdv2JIE
— Alex Rodriguez (@AROD) August 2, 2019

In contrast, I just searched through all of J-Street's tweets that mention "love" or "beautiful." Not one is aimed at Israel without qualification (there are many that claim that people who love Israel criticize it, not one that just says how much they love Israel itself or that Israel is beautiful.)

So J. Lo and AROD have shut-out J-Street and Jeremy Ben Ami in terms of who really loves Israel.

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.

IfNotNow lies (video)

It takes nearly 5 minutes to properly fisk 30 seconds of an absurd IfNotNow video. But someone's got to do it.

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.