Lebanese Priest: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" Called to Destroy Christianity

With all the obvious Muslim anti-semitism and how badly Christians are being treated by Muslims in the Middle East, it is easy to forget that Middle East many Christians hate Jews just as much as their Muslim tormentors do.

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Maronite priest Father Yousuf Mouannas, which aired on Al-Manar TV on October 7, 2012.

Father Yousuf Mouannas: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, especially in Basel, included a decision calling for the destruction of the family in general, the Christian family, the Catholic church, Jesus Christ, and belief in any faith – especially the faith of Christians and Muslims. This is all in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

I hate when there are unauthorized editions of my best-selling work.

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Egyptian tweets point out the differences between Egypt and a democracy

Egyptians showed some very sharp humor after the US election results came in, by tweeting fake news stories that mirror what happened in Egypt after their own presidential election.

Some examples:

"Hundreds of supporters of Romney demonstrate at Times Square to reject the election results"

"The Republican Party demands Obama resign from the presidency of the Democratic Party in order to be the president of all Americans, and Obama vows to cut ties with the Democratic Party"

"An unemployed man and his brother were shot in a fight between two families, one which supported Obama and the other one Romney"

"Obama purged the judiciary and dismissed the Attorney General, saying: "I am Barack Hussein Obama and I pledge to fully apply the law."

"Romney supporters marched in demonstrations in Washington, asserting that they do not recognize the election results and Obama does not represent them."

"Mitt Romney, after losing, insists on new American elections."

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Netanyahu congratulates Obama (video)

From the US Embassy in Israel:



The dual leadership of the Palestinian Arabs also commented:

President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday congratulated US President Barrack Obama after he defeated his Republican challenger.

Abbas expressed hope that Obama would continue his efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa reported.

In Gaza City, the Hamas government called on Obama to re-evaluate his foreign policy concerning Palestine, and end his bias towards Israel.

"We listened to the moderate speech by Obama in the wake of his first presidential victory, but his policy did not fit into this discourse and in front of him now is an opportunity to apply what he had promised the people of the region away from the pressures of the Israeli lobby," Taher al-Nunu said.

He called on Obama to build ethical policies to deal with the region's issues, and restore the rights of the Palestinian people.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Ma'an that any change in opinion by the Arab and Islamic world concerning the United States would depend on whether Obama rebalanced US foreign policy towards the region's issues.

Obama's re-election is a chance for him to abandon his biased policies towards Israel, Abu Zuhri added.

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UNRWA's self-serving agenda (MEF)

An important article from The Middle East Forum. Excerpts:

Of the three durable solution strategies employed by UNHCR—repatriation, local integration, and resettlement—protracted situations tend to be those in which repatriation is unfeasible, whether due to a continuing conflict within the prospective country of repatriation or to the demographic implications repatriation would entail.

Given UNHCR's successful implementation of local integration within diverse refugee settings over the course of several decades, on the one hand, and the overwhelming opposition in Israel to a large-scale migration of Palestinians to the country, on the other, local integration seems the best option. The alternatives, including continued suspension of durable solutions by UNRWA until the signing of a full-fledged Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement will make such an agreement progressively more difficult to achieve and, most importantly, will deprive UNRWA's beneficiaries of their right to become fully integrated and active citizens within the societies in which they now live.

But is local integration consistent with UNRWA's mandate? There are two levels on which to examine the question: procedural and substantive. For both, a strong case can be made that the agency is free to promote local integration if the commissioner-general chooses to do so.

As is true of most U.N. organs, the General Assembly resolutions pertinent to UNRWA are the primary source for determining the agency's mandate.[3] Yet specific activities need not be explicitly cited within such resolutions in order to be considered a legitimate domain of activity for an agency.

This conclusion was elaborated by none other than Lance Bartholomeusz, chief of UNRWA's International Law Division, who stated that the agency's actions themselves, simply by having been carried out—provided they are consistent with one or more of the U.N.'s goals—have a measure of legitimacy and essentially serve to define the agency's mandate. Furthermore, UNRWA considers the discretion of its commissioner-general, in consultation with the Advisory Commission, the ultimate arbiter of what its mandate entails: "The Assembly has provided UNRWA with a flexible mandate designed to facilitate, rather than restrict, the agency's ability to act as and when the Commissioner-General, in consultation with the Advisory Commission as appropriate, sees fit."[4]

The fact that a policy is not currently implemented by UNRWA cannot in itself serve as grounds for regarding it as outside the agency's mandate as noted by Bartholomeusz: "The Agency's mandate and its actual activities are distinct: UNRWA's actual activities at a given time are a subset of the activities within its mandate."[5]

This means that incorporation by UNRWA of lasting solutions, such as local integration or resettlement, would not necessarily require an explicit alteration in any of the pertinent General Assembly resolutions. If the commissioner-general were to decide on such activities, this would seem to suffice from a procedural perspective.

While Bartholomeusz argues that UNRWA "does not have a mandate as such to seek durable solutions for Palestine refugees," this assertion is belied by his own acknowledgment that "in its early years, it had a mandate to engage in activities that promoted the integration of refugees into their host country."

...Local integration is, thus, ultimately geared toward naturalization and is clearly consistent with a human development agenda, especially in relation to refugee matters. It is difficult to see how UNRWA's avowed commitment to ensuring that its beneficiaries "enjoy human rights to the fullest extent possible" can be interpreted other than entailing a willingness to at least make some efforts to promote Palestinian refugees' local integration in their current places of residence. The fact that the agency looks favorably upon the attainment of citizenship by most of its beneficiaries in Jordan suggests a tacit acceptance of the fact that a measure of local integration is indeed consistent with its mandate. Yet, the agency refrains from reaching the logical conclusion that naturalized individuals should no longer be considered refugees.

The fact that UNRWA did indeed work to integrate Palestinian Arab refugees into their host countries in the 1950s is no longer mentioned by UNRWA - but there is no reason why it cannot do it to help hundreds of thousands of people. Today.

The reason why it doesn't, which the article doesn't address, is twofold: UNRWA is mostly run by Palestinian Arabs who don't want to jeopardize their jobs by solving the problem that the agency is supposed to help with, and UNRWA is indeed a political organization which has been pushing the idea of "return" and teaching it to generations of children itself.

I discussed this in some detail at the end of this post. I'l repeat it here:

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UNRWA did in fact work towards resettling refugees, not just giving them aid. The W or UNRWA stands for "Works" and UNRWA's mandate was to create works programs so that refugees could support themselves and (implicitly) eventually integrate into their host countries. While it was not explicit in its mandate, the words "resettlement" were used often in early UN resolutions and documents regarding the refugees. 

For example, UNGA Resolution 393 from 1950, entitled "Assistance to Palestine Refugees":

The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949,
Having examined the report 2/ of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and the report 3/ of the Secretary-General concerning United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees,

4. Considers that, without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, isessential in preparation for the time when international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization of conditions of peace and stability in the area;
5. Instructs the Agency to establish a reintegration fund which shall be utilized for projects requested by any government in the Near East and approved by the Agency for the permanent re-establishment of refugees and their removal from relief;

All this was obvious in early UN documents. Only at the end of the 1950s did UNRWA give up on the idea of re-integration and turn itself into a wholly anti-Israel organization. UNRWA teachers taught generations of Palestinian Arabs that "return" was the only acceptable option. This was documented in a monograph that noted that in Lebanon in the late 1950s:

Children in the physical education classes at the UNRWA schools exercised to the chant of a-w-d-a (return)

A UNRWA principal in 1961 described his school's curriculum to journalist Martha Gellhorn:

In our school, we teach the children from their first year about their country and how it was stolen from them. I tell my son of seven. You will see: one day a man of eighty and a child so high, all, all will go home with arms in their hands and take back their country by force.

The difference between UNRWA in 1950 and in 1960 is astonishing, and deserves its own study. But what was once a well-meaning refugee agency that did try to solve the refugee problem - including through resettlement - turned in only a few years into a hateful, inciting and bloated bureaucracy whose only purpose was to perpetuate and increase the refugee problem in perpetuity.

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Midweek link stuff

From Ian:

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Wall St Journal Editorial: Israel under fire
Rockets keep coming from Gaza, not that the world notices

"Israel has been fortunate to suffer few fatalities so far from the Gaza attacks. Some of that owes to Israel's deployment of the Iron Dome air defense system, which recently intercepted eight rockets aimed at larger Israeli cities. But no defensive system is perfect and at some point a Palestinian barrage may take a large toll in lives, forcing Israel to respond in a major way.When that happens, Israel will be urged to show "restraint" by the usual diplomatic suspects. We're writing this as a reminder of how much restraint Israel has already shown."

Jordan's King Abdullah "Playing With Fire" by Khaled Abu Toameh

"The Muslim thugs would not have dared to attack the Halloween party if they thought that the Jordanian authorities would respond in a tough manner.
Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi thugs today feel secure enough to impose their will on any Jordanian. By releasing convicted terrorists from prison, the king is encouraging his rivals to pursue their efforts to destabilize the kingdom and create an Islamic state in Jordan."

Stand With Us: Yes, anti-Semitism is still a problem on campus

“StandWithUs was among the first groups that mobilized to empower students to defend Israel by providing educational materials, advocacy training, and support for their campus events. In many cases, the anti-Israel campaign backfired, producing pro-Israel student leaders motivated to teach their campus communities about Israel. Several organizations now work with these students. Some pro-Israel faculty have also stepped forward to insist on restoring academic and professional standards, and to sponsor Israel education events.
Despite the positive developments, we should not let misleading interpretations of the study or glib headlines lull us into complacency. The challenge remains, and we must do all we can to meet it. Israel and our pro-Israel students deserve no less.”

Told that Norway is the West’s most anti-Semitic country, diplomat lashes out at Israel
After bestselling author slams Oslo for anti-Semitism ‘on state level’ and alleged pro-Palestinian bias, deputy head of mission says the occupation is ‘defining factor’ of Norway’s relations with Israel

Leaders call to fight wave of anti-Israel agitation
Christian, Jewish leaders focus on countering anti-Israel sentiment within the large Protestant churches around the world.

According to Wilkinson, a propaganda campaign is being waged by the Palestinian Authority, the Islamic world and by the Protestant church including the Evangelical church, “propagating replacement theology and its new manifestations.”
“The big lie is Christian Palestinianism, the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian crusade going on in the church today that will say from one corner of its mouth ‘we love the Jewish people’ and from the other corner of its mouth ‘we hate Israel.’ That is not possible. You cannot love the Jewish people and hate Israel,” Wilkinson declared.

10 Border Guard officers injured in Shufat
Two officers sustain moderate wounds, eight sustain light injuries while arresting suspects in Palestinian refugee camp; teen who stabbed one of the officers injured during arrest

Zionist Entity to Be Sued over Abu Jihad Assassination

Two Tunisian lawyers plan to file a lawsuit against the Zionist regime for the 1988 assassination of the deputy of late Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat.

Syrian workers now drawing hostility from Lebanese hosts

“We’ve seen the army and the police detaining and roughing up a number of Syrian workers. Most recently, the Lebanese army beat up 72 workers; most of them were Syrian,” Houry said. “The Lebanese army rounded up the migrant men in the neighborhood and decided to ‘teach them a lesson’ instead of doing police work.”

Egyptian footballer says he may play for Israeli team
"Suleiman said that any player’s wish to play in the Israeli league is justified by the suspension of football activity in Egypt, criticizing "those responsible for resuming the activity in the country who do not think of the future of all the workers of the sports sector.”

[UPDATE: He now denies it. - EoZ]

Tennis superstar Williams vacations in Eilat
Serena, one of the top female players in the sport’s history, visits Israeli resort town

As demand for food rises, Israel doubles up on agritech
Israel’s capabilities in agricultural technology will help ensure that the world’s growing population has enough to eat, a top agribusiness executive says

The need for speed is just an illusion
Israeli psychologist invents a device to prove how little time drivers actually save by hitting the pedal to the metal.

Israel Daily Picture: Fez, Tarboush, Kaffiya -- Why the Arabs of Palestine Flipped their Ottoman Lids in the 1930s
As the accompanying 1920 picture of an Arab demonstration shows, most of the Arab men were wearing fezzes (tarboush) or turbans. Only a few were wearing the cloth kaffiya
and agal (the cord on top).

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Also:

8 year old boy donates money to Hezbollah to buy a drone

Israelis blowing up a house in 1968. Not what you think, though:

CiFWatch satire: Bowing to U.S. pressure, Abbas announces 10 month freeze on incitement & antisemitism

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Salafis in Egypt can pray anywhere - but they choose church land (updated)

The symbolism is hard to miss:

The diocesan headquarters of the Coptic church in Shubra Al-Kheima was stormed by Salafis on Monday after afternoon prayers. The group raised a banner reading “Rahma Mosque” and remained on the premises until prayers at dawn, when the Interior Ministry intervened and removed the group.

The Salafis took over an area of the diocese headquarters used for services, that had been governmentally licensed, and claimed it as a Muslim place of worship, said Bishop Morcos of Shubra in a telephone interview on Al-Tahrir channel. “We want to know what the government will do.”

“They claimed that the land is owned by a Muslim, despite the issuance of permits for the service building of the church,” said the Maspero Youth Union (MYU) in a statement.

“This episode is part of a series of attacks surrounding the role of Christian worship after the revolution,” the MYU said. The group blamed the government and security apparatus of being slow to act and sustaining their complicity in attacks on Copts and their churches.

Ironically, "Rahma" means "mercy" in Arabic. (h/t Al Gharqad)

Freedom of religion in Egypt is now little more than a slogan:

Mohamed Talaat didn't like the fact Christian music was being played at a party to promote interfaith harmony in the Egyptian town of Minya south of Cairo, so together with a group of like-minded Islamist hardliners, he showed up to put a stop to it.

It was simply un-Islamic to broadcast Christian songs, Talaat explained.

"Egypt is Islamic and so we all have to accept Islamic rules to halt any strife," he said by telephone.

Four months since Egypt elected veteran Muslim Brotherhood politician Mohamed Mursi as president, human rights activists say hardliners are trying to impose Islamist ways on society.

From the fatal stabbing of a young man who was out with his fiancée to the case of a conservative teacher who cut schoolgirls' hair because it was uncovered, the examples are stacking up.

Such actions have grabbed local headlines and fuelled the worst-case-scenario fears of moderates worried by the rise of Islamists who were tightly reined in by Hosni Mubarak but have emerged as a major force since he was swept from power.

Since a group of youths killed a young man while he was out with his fiancée in the port city of Suez in July, there have been a steady stream of reports in a similar vein.

This week, a Suez grocer filed a legal complaint against a group of Salafis, or ultra-orthodox Muslims, who had threatened to enact religious justice against his son by cutting out his tongue. The Salafis accused the boy of insulting religion, according to Gharib Mahmoud, the grocer.

Self-appointed "committees for the propagation of virtue and elimination of vice" have surfaced elsewhere.

In Kafr el-Sheikh, a town in the Nile Delta north of Cairo, one such committee handed out flyers in late October warning it would "use force against violators of its instructions". Similar acts of intimidation have been reported by Christians in the middle-class Cairo district of Shubra.

"We warn you Christian people to give up your filthy trade in filthy statues and paintings," read a letter warning Victor Younan, an 83-year old Christian shopkeeper, to stop selling images of Jesus. Eight other Christians told Reuters they had received similar notes.

The police did not get involved in Minya, where the organizers cancelled the interfaith celebration to avoid trouble. Planned for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, the October 28 event had been named "Light in Times of Darkness" and marked an effort to ease friction in the shifting political landscape.

Musicians at the event were playing both Christian and Islamic music, before Islamists ordered them to stop, said Alaa Kabawy, a Muslim who was one of several thousand attendees.

The "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood has been doing very little to protect the Christians of Egypt.

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Muslim Brotherhood meets with Jewish billionaire, Arabs upset

Shater

Al Masry al Youm reports that U.S. billionaire David Bonderman left Cairo on Tuesday after a one-day visit to Egypt where he met Khairat El-Shater, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Sources said that Bonder was seeking investment opportunities in Egypt.

AlArab Online, a London-based pan-Arab newspaper, says that the Muslim Brotherhood "revealed its true face" by meeting with a Jewish businessman. It raised questions about why Shater, who is not a member of the government, would be meeting with Bonderman, ranked #683 in Forbes list of billionaires. It accuses him of supporting Israel (I didn't see any particularly Zionist ties) and said that this shows that the Brotherhood will do anything to stay in power, even reaching out to "Israel."

AlArab continues to fume, reminding us that President Morsi gave a flowery note to Israel's president which it claimed was mere protocol. In fact, the newspaper continues, it would not be surprised if the Ikhwan actually believes that the Holocaust occurred, and it expects that they will now recognize Israel within the "1967 borders" just like they claim Hamas treacherously did - all to get their hands on filthy Western dollars.

Notably, Bonderman is apparently an Islamophile. He went to Cairo in 1966 after he graduated Harvard Law to study Islamic law, and he became a fluent speaker of Arabic.

He is also known for hiring The Rolling Stones, John Cougar Mellencamp and Robin Williams to entertain guests at his 60th birthday party.

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The people most interested in Palestinian Arab unity are - terrorists

Ever since the Fatah/Hamas split and violent Hamas takeover of Gaza, the rhetoric between the two sides has been sharp (and often entertaining.)

The most recent examples have been that Hamas is accusing Fatah of selling out on its commitment to destroy Israel via the "right to return," because of Abbas' misleading interview on Israel TV last week. Fatah responded that Hamas collaborates with Israel to destroy Fatah and Abbas' upcoming UN stunt. 

Hamas' police beating of peaceful woman protesters yesterday earned a sharp rebuke from Fatah as well, with it hilariously complaining about Hamas being against freedom of expression - when Fatah is at least as guilty of that itself.

Throughout the insults, one party has been keen on settling the differences:

The terror group Islamic Jihad.

Today, Islamic Jihad held a mini-summit in Gaza in its headquarters to encourage Fatah and Hamas to stop their "bickering and mud-slinging" in the media, especially in the run-up to Abbas' UN bid.

Westerners think of people who work for peace and unity to be inherently moderate. In the Middle East, however, the people who want "peace" are often those who also are behind the most heinous terrorist attacks.

The rules are different in that part of the world, and the most fatal mistake Westerners make is by projecting their own mindset onto people who do not share the same culture or values. It is a mistake made over and over again, by both politicians and the media, and the terrorists and their supporters are more than happy to take advantage of it.

Because they not only understand the Western mindset - they are constantly manipulating it.

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Shirley Temper - the movie

Fellow blogger and friend Israellycool made a very nice video piecing together video clips of the photogenic blonde Arab girl who likes to provoke Israeli soldiers, showing that she has been pushed to participate in these protests for months.

I thought that his name for her, "Shirley Temper," was brilliant, so I worked with him to create a shorter, more musical version of the video based on his original:



By the way, this same girl - A'hd Tamimi, the daughter of of the leader of the Nabi Saleh protests - has been given an award by Mahmoud Abbas for her stagecraft, and CAMERA noticed already last September how she was being used as a propaganda tool. It is a must-read article to understand the background of how children are indoctrinated in Pallywood.

The IDF also has a video about how this girl and others are cynically used.

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Morocco Muslims freak out over Belgium beauties

From Al Arabiya:

Pictures of candidates for Belgium Beauty Queen 2013 taken at Morocco’s largest mosque have stirred controversy in the North African kingdom, whose government is led by an Islamist party that won an election last year.

The pictures, being circulated online, raised questions about the responsible government agencies that granted the license for the photo shoot of the belles of Belgium in their tank tops and short shorts in the square of Casablanca's Hassan II Mosque.

Popular Moroccan news website Hespress quoted a source from the ministry of Islamic affairs denying any role for the ministry in the incident and pointing fingers at the mosque’s administration, which is in charge of the overall management of one of the world's largest Islamic landmarks.

Casablanca’s city council has also distanced itself from the incident. One of its members said the council did not authorize the photo shoot at the mosque.

Hespress quoted prominent religious preacher Sheikh Abdul-Bari Zamzami as holding the interior ministry responsible for the incident.

Some people saw the incident as unacceptable and called for the responsible parties to be held accountable. Others expressed disinterest stressing the mosque lacks serious religious significance because it was built as “tourist destination not as a house of worship.”

“I have never prayed in this Mosque and I do not qualify it as a real Mosque. We all know that this mosque has been forcefully built by robbing and stealing the pockets of million Moroccans under various authority threats,” one person commented on Hespress.

Another one said, “Farce after farce; does it make sense that such moral crimes take place in Morocco, especially under the rule of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.”

This is not an ancient, venerated mosque. It was built in 1993:

The Hassan II Mosque is a mosque in Casablanca, Morocco. It is the largest mosque in the country and the 7th largest in the world. Its minaret is the world's tallest at 210 metres (689 ft). Completed in 1993, it was designed by Michel Pinseau and built by Bouygues. The minaret is 60 stories high topped by a laser, the light from which is directed towards Mecca. The mosque stands on a promontory looking out to the Atlantic Ocean, the sea bed being visible through the glass floor of the building's hall. The walls are of hand-crafted marble and the roof is retractable. A maximum of 105,000 worshippers can gather together for prayer: 25,000 inside the mosque hall and another 80,000 on the mosque's outside grounds.

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Video: Hamas police - including women - assault female demonstrators

Women in Gaza held a peaceful demonstration for unity yesterday - and Hamas police, including policewomen, came in to break it up by hitting them with sticks.



The women represented a number of factions, including Fatah, the DFLP, and the PFLP.

One women and one man ended up in the hospital.

Hamas says they will hold an investigation into the matter.

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Some thoughts on Abbas' upcoming UN gimmick

Mahmoud Abbas is gearing up to upgrade the UN's status of "Palestine" from a "non-member entity" to a "non-member state"  later this month.

In reality, there does not seem to be any legal weight from such the change from "non-member entity" to "non-member state." The only difference between the two that I have seen is the possibility that the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over cases occurring within a "state", and from what I can tell "only a state that is sovereign in a particular territory can confer jurisdiction on the ICC in that territory." Obviously an "entity" is not a "state" so perhaps the non-binding UNGA resolution will have a slight legal weight in the ICC, if they decide that the PA is sovereign.

By the way, if the ICC does accept jurisdiction on "Palestine," that means that Israel will have the right to file complaints as well against that state - which would include Hamas rocket fire and terror attacks, for example.

According to Al Quds, Abbas' preference is to request recognition from the General Assembly on the 15th, which would be the 24th anniversary of Yasir Arafat's declaration of independence for a phantom state. If that doesn't work out, he wants to do it on November 29th, the anniversary of the UN partition resolution of Palestine.

In other words, Abbas' main goals of becoming accepted as a state are two-fold: the symbolism of the timing, and the perceived increased ability to prosecute Israel in international venues.

But there is another aspect of Abbas' gimmick that he makes very clear, and that the UN has no legal ability to deliver. Abbas has said repeatedly, "After returning from the United Nations and getting a non-member State on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, the way will be open for a return to direct negotiations to achieve security and stability on these grounds."

Abbas is positioning this UN bid as a way to have the UN declare the borders of "Palestine" to include everything behind the Green Line, which was never an international border and indeed which was explicitly defined as being something to be negotiated in UNSC 242.

So the thing to watch for in Abbas' UN bid is the exact language of the resolution. If the resolution includes a mention of borders and Jerusalem, and the UNGA rubber-stamps it as expected, that is more proof that the General Assembly is dismissive of international law when it comes to demonizing Israel.

And indeed, even though Abbas claims that this bid is not meant to delegitimize Israel, this language indicates that he is intending to use the UN to delegitimize Israel's legal claims to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

The language of the resolution will almost certainly make it apparent what a joke the UN has become.

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Tuesday links

From Ian:

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Anti-Israel Speaker Whitewashes Palestinian Terrorism in Harvard Talk

"Speaking on Palestinian terrorism, including rockets and suicide bombings, Buttu downplayed the lethality of Qassam rockets, claiming “Qassams don’t have an explosive head” and claimed that no “grad rockets were fired in 2008 and 2009,” according to CAMERA."

UN Watch: Ken Roth Flip-Flop: HRW Promised ICC Wouldn’t Target Israel, Yet Now Lobbies for It

"In 2001, when trying to convince Americans to buy into the ICC, Human Rights Watch promised one thing; now it actively lobbies for the opposite.
Today, Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth criticized a New York Times editorial that he says “ignores key effect of Palestine observer state: possibility of joining [the] ICC and deterring both sides’ war crimes.”

British TV show airs Israeli think-tank’s upbeat simulation of attack on Iran
Channel 4′s ‘Dispatches’ screens footage of recent ‘war game,’ raises questions about whether Israel’s top strategists are overly optimistic about the outcome of a strike

"An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities could set back the country’s nuclear program by three years — at least according to the scenario used as the basis for a “war game” conducted by a leading Israeli think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies, in late September."

Iran not cooperating with inspection of nuclear sites, IAEA chief says
‘We cannot conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities,’ Yukiya Amano warns

Iran says three Arab countries let Israel use their air space to strike in Sudan
Tehran’s foreign minister says countries were told in advance of last month’s attack on Khartoum munitions factory

Obama’s personal emissary holding secret talks with Iran, Israeli paper claims
Iranian-born special adviser Valerie Jarrett said to be negotiating with representative of Tehran’s supreme leader Khamenei

It's about time Cameron made an official visit to Israel
As a key trading partner, a key security partner and the only legitimate and inclusive democracy in the region, Cameron has an obligation to make an official visit to Israel

"After all, Israel is the UK's largest individual trading partner in the Near East and North Africa. We are ranked 1st in Europe and 3rd in the world for exports from Israel and have done so for a number of years.
Over the past 10 years, the value of bilateral trade in both directions has increased by 60 percent from £2.3bn to over £3.7bn and over the last three years, it has increased by 75 percent.

Why is David Cameron trying to sell weapons to Arabs and not Israelis?

Turkey tries Israeli commanders in absentia, seeks 18,000-year sentence
Jerusalem dismisses Mavi Marmara case as ‘show trial’ and ‘political theater’

3 soldiers injured by explosion on Gaza border
IDF troops attacked while conducting routine sweep near Kibbutz Nirim; Kassam rocket lands in south

Israeli ambassador demands UN intervention in Syrian truce violations
IDF on heightened alert on northern border due to spillover from civil war

"Israel’s ambassador to the UN sent a strongly worded letter to the secretary general of the UN and the UN Security Council president on Monday protesting a “grave violation” of the treaty between Israel and Syria.
Three Syrian tanks entered the demilitarized zone separating Israel and Syria on Saturday and on Monday an IDF jeep patrolling the Golan Heights was struck by gunfire from Syria."

Hanne Nabintu Herland’s lecture at JCPA in Jerusalem: How the Radical Left turned Norway into the most Anti-Semitic country in the West

"I believe, that were the Norwegian people given a balanced, just information from an informative objective angle instead of the dividing harsh propaganda from the Radical Left that has dominated the Norwegian public now for so long, we would see great change in public opinion. And at the moment, the majority of Norwegians push for political change in the next election in 2013."

Jewish Family Attacked in Marseille, France
The father of a Jewish family was badly beaten and the family home was completely trashed on Sunday by local youths in Marseille, France.

Churchill bust unveiled in capital
Bronze statue of wartime British PM installed opposite the Old City in recognition of his support for a Jewish state

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Arafat's Corpse for PA President!

On November 26, the bones of Palestinian Arab terrorist leader Yasir Arafat are being dug up.

Given the withering disapproval that Mahmoud Abbas has been getting for declaring that he would no longer want to live in Safed, this is an opportunity for another set of elections in the territories - and Arafat's bones should run.

Why not elect the skeleton of the only leader they ever had and who they romantically pine for? The bag of bones would win in a landslide!

There are other advantages to keeping Arafat's bones above ground.

He can be counted on not to make the same mistakes on TV that Abbas made. And his speeches will be less boring than Abbas'.

He is not in danger of being assassinated by Israel.

His political positions will never change, showing the strength of conviction that Arabs admire so much.

World leaders can invite Dead Arafat to their state dinners and UN events, just like the old days. He'll be praised as a moderate by New York Times columnists and "Middle East experts," just like the old days.

And Suha will get just as much love and affection as she did from him when he was alive.

No one will dare protest against such a revered figure, and Hamas would be rendered ineffective against the charisma of Arafat's corpse.

The new dead Arafat can no longer steal hundreds of millions of dollars from his beloved people.

There is a decent chance that he would win another Nobel Peace Prize.

From Israel's perspective, Arafat's corpse won't negotiate - but then again, neither did Abbas, so there is no change there. And new dead Arafat will not lie as much as either Abbas or the old Arafat. He also can't secretly mastermind terror sprees.

I think this is an idea whose time has come.

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AFP blames Gaza crocodile on - Israel!

Leave it to AFP to find an anti-Israel angle in this story:

Police in the Gaza Strip on Monday captured a crocodile that roamed the sewerage system of a town in the north of the enclave, the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers said.

"The Palestinian police were able to use a boat to catch a crocodile that was hiding in the sewerage system in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip," the Hamas interior ministry said in a statement.

"The crocodile, which was 1.7 metres long, was captured alive after intense and difficult attempts following complaints from residents that their lives were in danger," it added.

An official in the area said the crocodile was transferred to the Gaza Zoo.

Rajab al-Naqah, the head of waste water treatment in Beit Lahiya, said the crocodile had escaped two years ago, when it was still small, from a nearby zoo to take up residence in the facility, where it threatened people.

Witnesses said the crocodile had attacked cattle that grazed nearby.

Gaza's water sewerage system has deteriorated over the years, notably because of the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory and its devastating 22-day war on militant rocket fire launched in December 2008.

So the crocodile was able to slither around Gaza's sewers because of Israel's blockade?

Not only that, but Israel has allowed plenty of materials for Gaza sewage and waste treatment programs to be transferred to Gaza since Cast Lead, something AFP could have found out quite easily if they just made a phone call.

That last gratuitous paragraph shows that AFP simply cannot resist blaming Israel for literally everything bad that happens in the territories.

Even escaped crocodiles.

By the way, even Al Jazeera couldn't find an anti-Israel angle to the Gaza crocodile story.

Surprisingly, none of the Arab media has found out yet that the croc was a Mossad agent.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

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