Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

I must have missed the riots when these prisoners died

Ma'an reported on April 1:

Sami Hamdan Qishta, 50, died on Monday of a heart attack in a prison in southern Gaza, the Hamas government in control of the enclave announced.

Qishta was detained in a Rafah jail on charges related to financial crimes, the Gaza ministry of interior said in a statement.

There was a similar story of a prisoner who died in a PA jail a month earlier.

Yet there were no deadly riots against Hamas and the PA for allowing its prisoners to die.

Funny, that.

Wednesday Part 1

From Ian:

Obama in Israel: the wrong apology

As displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as Hitler prepared to attack Poland without provocation in 1939, he dismissed objections by saying “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” setting the stage for the Holocaust. Ronald Reagan recognized this threat in 1981 when he said, “like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians, which followed it — and like too many other persecutions of too many other people — the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.”
More than 20 countries and 42 U.S. states already have recognized the events of 1915 as genocide. As Obama seeks to shape his Middle East policy and consider his legacy over the next four years, he should consider the promises he made as a young candidate and recognize a massacre that never should be forgotten.

Barry Rubin: Why “Progress” Toward Israel-Palestinian “Peace” Is More Likely to Bring Regional Instability

Secretary of State John Kerry has in his head every what-should-be-discredited cliché about the Middle East firmly ensconced in his head. Of course, he is not alone. I just briefed a European diplomat who came up with the exact formulation I’m going to deal with in a moment. What is disconcerting—though long familiar—is that Western policymakers hold so many ideas that are totally out of touch with reality.

Why #OpIsrael Was an #OpFail
Hackers threatened to ‘wipe Israel off the Internet.’ That so did not happen. Eli Lake talks to the hackers who launched the counter-offensive.

It was supposed to be a debilitating assault on Israel’s Internet. On Sunday—timed to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day—hackers affiliated with the collective, Anonymous, launched #OpIsrael, an attack that promised to “wipe Israel off the internet.”
A message purporting to be from Anonymous on the anti-secrecy website, Cryptome, threatened to expose the coordinates of “special buildings” in Israel so the next time Hamas fired missiles they “wouldn’t land in desert or ocean.”

U.S. Government Files Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit that Claims it Helps Fund Palestinian Terror

The 24 Americans now living in Israel who are the plaintiffs in the case filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for Washington, DC in November claiming that the State Department had ignored congressional safeguards and transparency requirements which govern financial assistance to the PA.

PMW: Fatah calls suicide bomber "Bride of Palestine"

17 year-old Ayyat Al-Akhras became the youngest female Palestinian suicide bomber, when she killed 3 and wounded 28 Israelis in a suicide bombing near a Jerusalem supermarket on March 29, 2002. On the 11th anniversary of the attack, Fatah chose to glorify her as a hero for Palestinians, calling her the "Bride of Palestine" on Fatah's Facebook page.

CAMERA: LA Times, Gaza Kitchen Cooking Up Falsehoods

In an enthusiastic Los Angeles Times review of The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, Carol J. Williams, together with the cookbook authors Laila Haddad and Maggie Schmitt, take the opportunity to brew up a number of false charges against Israel ("For Gaza cooks, it's two parts rice, one part defiance"). In the introduction to her interview with Haddad and Schmitt, Williams writes:

UN panel: Libyan weapons spread at alarming rate

Libyan weapons are spreading at “an alarming rate” to new territory in west Africa and the eastern Mediterranean including Syria and the Gaza Strip where they are fueling conflicts and increasing the arsenals of armed groups and terrorists, a UN panel said.

Egypt's Christian pope blasts Islamist president

Pope Tawadros II says recent attack on St. Mark Cathedral in central Cairo 'breaching all the red lines'; claims Morsi promised to protect it
Tawadros also warned that the state was "collapsing" and described Sunday's attack on the St. Mark Cathedral in central Cairo, which serves as the Coptic papal seat, as "breaching all the red lines."
He said Morsi had promised him in a telephone conversation to do everything to protect the cathedral, "but in reality he did not."

In Pictures: Savage Islamic Attack on St. Mark Cathedral Allowed by Egyptian Forces
Egyptian satirist leads choir in song

Youssef, known as Egypt’s Jon Stewart, could be seen on his “El-Bernameg,” or “The Program,” conducting a 20 person-strong choir in a song titled “My Qatar, my Qatar,” in which they ostensibly thank the oil-rich Gulf state for pouring money into the impoverished Egyptian economy.

Egypt’s revolutionary cleric suspended over sermon

Religious Endowments Ministry investigating the ‘preacher of the revolution’ for criticizing Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood

Syrian Rebels Sought Intel on Israel

Israeli Arab who fought with ‘Global Jihad’ says rebels wanted intel on Israel. Security experts warn of ‘dangerous phenomenon.'

Iranian Military Chief Vows to Defend North Korea from US

The Iranian commitment to stand with North Korea is another move in an escalating exchange of verbal hostilities - considered by many to be mostly posturing - and military maneuvers that North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. have engaged in over the past several

"Beat the Kikes" T-shirts worn at political rally in Ukraine

At an opposition rally in Cherkassy, Ukraine last Saturday, several people took off their jackets to reveal T-shirts that said "Beat the Kikes" in Ukranian:

A lawyer, Victor Smal, says that he was beaten when he objected to the T-shirts.

This video, however, seems to show that some people at the rally reacted strongly at the appearance of the anti-semites, ripping off their shirts, spraying them with a liquid and even beating one of them up.

Some are saying that this was a "false flag" operation to make a political party look bad.

Police questioned 36 people suspected of inciting ethnic hatred.

(h/t Vandoren)

Arab media says US ambassador called Egyptians "puppets" under mind control

In January I reported on a crazy rumor that US ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson said that the Jews are the real owners of Egypt, that King Tut was jewish, that Israel would take over the country in 2013 together with NATO, and some other nonsense.

The US Embassy in Cairo issued a categorical denial.

A couple of weeks ago, however, the rumor resurfaced, and it has been a fixture in Arabic media since then, with hundreds of articles making these same claims (the number of people Googling and finding my post skyrocketed.)

Today, a "human rights" lawyer is reported to have brought an official complaint against Patterson, with a new embellishment to the story. Now the rumor is that Patterson was drunk at a party in Egypt, and in her stupor she said that Egyptians are all puppets under mind control. Egyptian pundits are saying that this means that US satellites are sending some sort of mind control ray to Egyptians to get them to do the US' bidding.

Hold on, it gets better. You see, the US experimented with creating superhumans in the 1960s, and during the experiments some 90% of the subjects became unusually tall; 10% however had their growth stunted.

And Anne Patterson is one of those unfortunate people.

I think the article also says that the US stole some sort of Egyptian genius gene, but I'm not sure about that part.

I don't know how much these rumors are fueled by anti-American sentiment in Egypt and how much by misogyny, but it is probably a combination of the two.

YU/Cardozo update - Carter gave anti-semitic Bible lessons, NYT coverage, more

The story made The New York Times:

When editors of The Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, a scholarly publication from the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, decided to bestow this year’s International Advocate for Peace award on former President Jimmy Carter, they sought to honor his decades as a mediator and humanitarian. But in the process, they ignited a sizable conflict of their own.

That is because Cardozo is a part of Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish institution where support for the state of Israel runs high. And among supporters of Israel, there are few figures more controversial than Mr. Carter, who has repeatedly criticized Israeli policy toward Palestinians and described their circumstances as apartheid.

...“Part of being a law school is being an open and diverse community with a cacophony of ideas which people are free to express,” Dr. Diller said Tuesday. But, he added, “we are part of a Jewish institution and we stand for Jewish values and commitments, and part of that is support for Israel.”

Brian Farkas, the editor in chief of The Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, said that the decision to honor Mr. Carter had been mischaracterized.

He said he had spent the morning engaged in “respectful” discussion with members of the Jewish Law Students Association, and that plans were in the works for a future event that would offer differing perspectives on Mr. Carter’s work.

He added that Mr. Carter, who was not available for comment, had agreed to take questions from students after his address on Wednesday afternoon.

Perhaps one of the students can ask Carter about his Sunday school lessons that were first revealed by Phyllis Chesler):

As decades-old tapes from his Church Sunday school lessons reveal, former President Jimmy Carter’s bias against the Jewish state may come more from an old fashioned Christian animus toward Judaism than from concerns over the situation of Palestinians. Carter taught Christian students in Plains Georgia that Judaism teaches Jews to feel superior to non-Jews, that Jewish religious practices are tricks to enhance wealth, and that current Israeli policy toward Palestinians is based on these “Jewish” values and practices.

In a series of sermons Carter recorded between 1999 and 2003 that were published as a CD set by Simon and Schuster called “Sunday Mornings in Plains,” Carter attacks modern Israel by retreading ancient anti-Semitic tropes that go back to the early church fathers and the Judaism/Christianity schism that gave birth to a millennia of Christian persecution of Jews.

1. Jews hate and feel superior to non-Jews: In the tapes, one hears -- in Southern drawl -- his ancient animus: Jews hate non-Jews:

“…this morning I’m gonna be trying to relate the assigned Bible lesson to us in the Uniformed Series with how that affected Israel and how it affects us through Christ personally… It’s hard for us to even visualize the prejudice against gentiles when Christ came on earth. If a Jew married a gentile, that person was considered to be dead. … How would you characterize from a Jew’s point of view the uncircumcised? Non believer? And what? Unclean, what? They called them DOGS! That’s true. … What was Paul’s feeling toward gentiles in his early life as a Jewish leader? [Paul was not a Jewish leader. Ed.] Anybody? Absolute commitment to persecution! To the imprisonment and even the execution of non-Jews who now professed faith in Jesus Christ. … We know the differences in the Middle East. But the differences there are between Jews on the one hand who comprise the dominating force both militarily and also politically and the Palestinians who are both Muslim and Christians. …”

2. Jewish ritual sacrifice is a dodge that relieves one from taking care of one’s parents, while preserving one’s wealth:

“Corban was a uh prayer that could be performed by usually a man in an endorsed ceremony by the Pharisees that you could say in effect, ‘God, everything that I own all these sheep all these goats this nice house and the money that I have, I dedicate to you, to God.’ And from then on according to the Pharisees law those riches didn’t belong to that person anymore. They were whose? God’s! So as long as those riches were belonged to the person, that person was supposed to share them with needy parents right? But once it was God’s it wasn’t theirs and they didn’t have anything to share with their parents. So with impunity, and approved by the Pharisaic law, they could avoid taking care of their needy parents by a trick that had been evolved by the incorrect and improper interpretation of the law primarily designed by religious leaders to benefit whom? The rich folks! The powerful people! Because the poor man wouldn’t have all of this stuff to give to God. He would probably, in fact he might very well have his parents in the house with him or still be living with his own parents.”

3. Carter ties this Jewish feelings of superiority and religious malevolence to current Israeli policy:

“One reason is that the Israeli government headed now by Netanyahu has to depend on the ultra-right or fundamentalist Jews to give them a majority in the parliament which they call the Knesset, and the recent resignation of foreign minister Levy has left Netanyahu with only one vote margin in the parliament. So the ultra-conservative Jewish leaders demand always that they have total control over anything that relates to religion inside Israel, in particular in Jerusalem. Well, I’m not here to condemn anyone but to point out that even within ourselves, there is an inclination for, I’d say, a feeling of superiority. Wouldn’t you think so? Would you agree? I know I have it.”

Carter’s beef with the Jews is not simply a disagreement over how Israel should treat the Palestinians. His is a deep theological hatred of the type that most Christians (including the Vatican in the 1960s Nostra Aetate) have long disavowed. This is not the “new anti-Semitism: it’s the old. All the more indefensible for an orthodox Jewish religious institution to give this man an award.

As I've said in the past, I am reluctant to call people anti-semitic without serious proof. This is damning. (In the partial transcript, which I unfortunately can no longer find online but which was emailed to me, Carter at one point criticizes biblical Judah - but calls it "Israel.")

Carter's admitting his own feeling of superiority and self-righteousness is accurate, at least. After all, he calls his group of crotchety yentas "The Elders" (without the irony that some others might employ in using that title.)

Here is his wonderful group being used as a prop by Hamas underneath a huge poster showing a map where Israel doesn't exist.

That same group happily attended an anti-Israel protest a couple of years back that effectively meant that Carter and his fellow "conflict resolution" peers agreed that Israel's legal system is illegitimate.

Is part of "conflict resolution" to allow yourself to be used by extremists on one side - or to openly embrace one side?

I am told that my protest posters will be distributed by at least one group at Cardozo today. If anyone takes photos or video, I'd appreciate it!

Posters for Jimmy Carter protests at Cardozo

If anyone who plans to protest needs a poster...there's a Kinko's at Union Square.

If you don't know what a Gharqad tree is, you need to read the Hamas charter.

Tuesday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: Irish Teachers Teach Hatred of Israel

One could pile statistic upon statistic, but that would be a vain effort when it comes to minds like those of the members of the Teachers Union of Ireland, who voted unanimously on the boycott; not one soul had the wit or independence of mind to object or to question. One can only pity the poor Irish student who might think for himself or for herself, might wish to spend a term in Israel at a place like the Technion, and might not share in the biases of the teachers. The message from teachers to students is pretty clearly “shut up.” And meanwhile, of course, no mention (much less boycott) by the Irish teachers of China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba or anyplace else where students are “struggling for the right to education under extremely difficult conditions” that include repressive governments, no academic freedom, political tests for admission to higher education–and in the Saudi case greatly restricted opportunities for girls. What a lesson to their students: ignorance, bias, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, and anti-Semitism wrapped in self-righteousness.

Israeli filmmaker says he’ll file police complaint about assault in France

According to Horowitz, the French reactions to his side of the story shifted when Gaëlle Milbeau-Rhodeville, the General Delegate of the International Film Festival of Aubagne, as well as the mayor of Aubagne, shifted their message to the press, trying to “lessen” the direction of Horowitz’s accusations, he said, and asking him to retract his story.
“They said, ‘We know it wasn’t anti-Semites or Arabs,’” said Horowitz. “But how do they know?”

Isi Leibler: Candidly Speaking: Sanctimonious Jewish bleeding hearts

We are entitled to expect Zionists not to behave like the naïve “fellow travelers” who during the Cold War blindly endorsed communist peace petitions which ultimately only promoted the interests of the Evil Empire. It is unethical and unconscionable for bleeding-heart American Zionist “friends” to display disrespect and intervene to thwart the policies determined by the democratically elected leaders of Israel or offer them patronizing advice on how best to ensure their security.

Israeli leaders praise ‘staunch friend’ Margaret Thatcher

Israeli leaders and legislators on Monday praised the deceased former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, speaking to her strong character and calling her a friend of the Jewish state. Thatcher, known as the Iron Lady, piloted the UK government for 11 years. She died Monday morning of a stroke at age 87.
Thatcher “was truly a great leader, a woman of principle, of determination, of conviction, of strength… a woman of greatness,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “She was a staunch friend of Israel and the Jewish people. She inspired a generation of political leaders. I send my most sincere condolences to her family and to the government and people of Great Britain.”

Ex-British PM Margaret Thatcher dies at 87

MK Avigdor Liberman, the former foreign minister, noted that Thatcher was the first British prime minister to visit Israel. “I remember well the tears she shed on her visit to Yad Vashem and the empathy she expressed for our nation’s past and future challenges,” he said, calling her a great friend of the Jewish people. ”Margaret Thatcher was a strong and courageous leader and stateswoman, who showed great foresight and was not afraid to act in the interests of her country and people.”

Mini-UAS Training & Simulation Center for Finnish Defense Forces (FDF)

Simlat Ltd., an Israeli Company, has been awarded a contract to deliver its UAS Training and Simulation systems to FDF as part of Mini-UAS contract awarded to Aeronautics Ltd.

Ormat to build $245m geothermal power project in Indonesia

Israel’s geothermal company Ormat Technologies has signed a $245 million deal to provide geothermal energy in Indonesia. The Yavne-based company will design the Sarulla geothermal power station in Sumatra and supply its Ormat Energy Converters to the new power plant.

Munich 11 athlete inducted to Sports Hall of Fame

David Berger, a weightlifting team member of the Israeli delegation to the 1972 Munich Olympics will be inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame on April 21.
The American-born athlete won bronze and gold medals in the 1965 and 1969 Maccabia Games in Israel before he attended the Munich Olympic games and was part of one of the worst tragedies in Jewish history, where 11 Israelis were taken hostage and brutally murdered by Palestinian terrorists.

Israeli robot could be your next ‘milkman’

Israeli cows lead the world in milk production, and Israeli dairy companies have set up projects in far-flung places like Argentina and Vietnam to export Israeli know-how on feeding, milking, and raising cows. For many farmers in the developing world, Israeli know-how has fostered a revolution in milk production, enabling dairy farmers to triple or quadruple their output. Now, agritech start-up MiRobot is ready to bring the world the next big Israeli dairy farm innovation — a robot that will completely automate milk production, at a far lower cost than anything else available.

Oh crazy Israel! Rachel Johnson returns to the kibbutz where she and Boris worked

Almost 30 years ago I was a pale-skinned, fair-haired teenage girl visiting Israel for the first time with her even paler-skinned and fairer-haired older brother.
We'd come to work as volunteers at a kibbutz north of the Sea of Galilee, on the green banks of the Jordan river, just below the volcanic pointy hills of the Golan Heights and a few miles from Syria.

Stand With Us: 65 Things We Love About Israel in 65 Seconds

Also:

A Rock is a Bullet: The Consequences of Palestinian Rock-Throwing

Ahikam’s mother still keeps the rock that changed the trajectory of her son’s life and that of her family. “We always knew that rocks were weapons and we’ve been suffering from this rock for decades,” says Edna, holding the giant rock in her hand. “Because of this, one-third of my son’s brain is missing. He walks with a limp, has back problems, cannot feel with his right hand and suffers from a weaker right side. I take him to physiotherapy three times a week. I had so much hope for him when he was born, there was so much potential.”

Roger Waters hypocritically responds to 92Y cancellation

Roger Waters, the crazy anti-Israel musician who has been memorably described in the comment section here as a "Pink Floyd cover band member," was scheduled to give a talk at the 92nd Street Y in New York, a Jewish community center, on April 30.

After much pressure on the Y, the talk was canceled with no explanation.

Now, Waters has issued a statement:

There has been some chatter about the cancellation of my interview at 92Y. By way of clarification, here is what I know.

I was invited by 92Y to take part in an interview at the Theresa L. Kaufmann Concert Hall on the 30th April this year. ...

Things were complicated when the Opera House in São Paulo, Brazil requested my presence for four full productions of Ça Ira, my opera on the French Revolution, around conflicting dates. In the end, the date for the dress rehearsal of Ça Ira fell on the 30th April, and so, reluctantly and very apologetically, I asked the team at 92Y if my appearance could be re-scheduled. Assistant Director Jennifer Hausler, who had been helping all along, couldn’t have been more understanding, gave me some alternative dates in June and I accepted June the 19th. Everyone was happy. Well, perhaps not quite everyone.

On April 3rd, my publicist in NY received a phone call from Susan Engel, the Director of Lectures at the 92Y, cancelling my re-scheduled engagement without explanation. She did leave a telephone number which we called, but it was only an answering machine with the message that 92Y was closed for Passover. We left messages asking to talk to Susan Engel but have so far received no reply.

I have since been made aware of rumblings on the net suggesting that resistance in the local Jewish community to my coming engagement may have had something to do with its cancellation. If that be the case it saddens me. In these troubled times, opportunities for serious, measured discourse are too precious to be discarded on the altar of sectarian prejudice. Not to talk is not an option.

While the 92nd Street Y should have never have invited this Israel-hater to begin with, it should also have been forthcoming on the reasons for the cancellation. This was a bit passive-aggressive for my taste - it would have been far better for them to have stated that his simple-minded anti-Israel position establishes him as a person who could not be trusted to give any sort of serious talk on any topic.

Waters' hypocrisy shines through on his declaration, "Not to talk is not an option." As a person who supports "BDS," surely Waters knows that he is supporting the silencing of Israeli opinions worldwide. He supports boycotting Israeli universities, Israeli books, Israeli poems, Israeli music, Israeli dance and indeed Israelis giving talks in other countries. He supports the disgraceful displays of haters interrupting concerts, lectures and dances simply because the performers were Israeli, no matter what the content of their performances.

For a person like that to say "Not to talk is not an option" really means that Waters reserves the right for his drug-addled ramblings to be heard wherever and whenever he wants, but he will not extend that same right to anyone who is peripherally connected to the Jewish state. That is pretty much the definition of hypocrisy.

As far as I know, Waters never responded to this excellent open letter by an Israeli musician .So when he says he wants to talk, it means he only wants to talk - but he certainly doesn't want to listen. Waters, for all his high-minded babble about walls and talking is not really interested in dialogue, but in having a forum to spout his crazed thoughts to swooning fans without fear of contradiction.

It is best to leave the lunatic out of the Hall.

(h/t shmuckler )

"Long Live The Descendants Of Apes And Pigs"

MEMRI translated this amazing piece from Khalid Muntasir writing in Egypt's El Watan.

When the Jewish internet and social network magnates get together, put aside their competition and unite to declare a $33-million grant for medical research on incurable diseases that prolongs human life[3] – I cannot help but cry out 'long live the descendants of apes and pigs,' as they were described by [Egyptian President] Dr. [Muhammad] Mursi and his [Muslim Brotherhood] movement.[4] On the other hand, those who detonate bombs in the midst of the innocent, murder tourists and eviscerate them, assassinate politicians, thinkers and intellectuals, and accuse others of being infidels can go to hell, where they can continue indulging their sick taste for violence and blood.

The founders of Facebook and Google and the Russian billionaire [Yuri Milner] are the ones who truly love life, change it for the better, and have passion for freedom and creativity. They respect [true] scholars, as opposed to those whom we call scholars merely because they memorized 100 old books and can recite them without interpreting or even understanding them – scholars that could be replaced by a single DVD containing these books, which can be read at the stroke of a key on a keyboard costing less than $1. These emperors of the internet founded an organization that awards the world's biggest prize without any preconditions of age, faith or gender, and with no limit on the number of times you can win. Any scientist who achieves a major breakthrough in medicine and treatment by means of genetic engineering and brain cells will receive $3 million. This prize will surely influence the advancement of medical research, accelerate change, and push universities and labs to ramp up their efforts to discover new treatments for diseases that still cause death and confound doctors.

As I read the article on this organization, I also happened to watch a video sent to me by one of my friends, in which an important [Muslim] speaker lectured on the benefits of having a beard in treating impotence, and [explained] how the beard gives the man virility and strength. I closed the article, shut off the computer, sighed and said: It's no use. Free us [of your discussions] on whether it is permissible to eat the flesh of demons, whether a woman can disrobe in front of a male dog, and on treatments using camel urine, fennel flower, bee stings, etc. The voice of the sheikh in the neighboring mosque rose and echoed as he cursed the Jews, the descendants of apes and pigs, [wishing] that they would scatter in every direction and that their wives become widows and their children orphans, while the worshipers rejoiced in the mighty victory...

[As I said,] the podium at the award [ceremony] happened to feature three Jews. The first was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who predicted that in three years, Facebook would be the most populous 'state' in the world, overtaking China and India. Zuckerberg is one of the richest and most influential men in the world – a genius who shocked the world at 20 years old with this amazing invention called Facebook. The second was Google cofounder of Sergey Brin, of Russian origin, who owns the internet's largest and most famous search engine, which has not been surpassed thus far. The third was Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who abandoned his PhD in physics to become an internet tycoon, but never forgot his love of physics despite his estimated fortune of over $1 billion – so much so that he gave prominent physicist Stephen Hawking a $3 million prize late last year [2012].

By God! Who is more conscionable, moral, and loves life and his fellow man – is it these three Jews who contribute to science, health, happiness and the improvement of life, or [Al-Qaeda leaders] bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri and Al-Zarqawi, [Taliban leader] Mullah 'Omar, and those who display their pictures, kiss them, memorize their ideas and adopt them? Who does more good to humanity and the world, and even to Muslims –those who fly the flag of science, or [extremist Egyptian Sheikh] Abu Islam[5] and [the religious television show] Hatoli Ragel,[6] who hold up shoes [in a gesture of contempt for their enemies]?

The original article is here.

(h/t Ian)

Tuesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Abdullah and Abbas Playing the Jerusalem Card

To start, Jordan's "custodianship" over the Islamic sites in Jerusalem -- including Al-Aqsa mosque -- were granted by Israel. The peace treaty signed between Israel and Jordan in 1994 gave Jordan the privilege of overseeing and managing Al-Aqsa mosque and other Islamic sites in Jerusalem. Therefore, Abdullah has no right or entitlement to "exert any efforts to persevere Jerusalem from Judaization" -- as his agreement with Abbas claims.
Further, Abdullah seems to forget that the Hashemite rule over Jordan came into existence based on the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, signed in 1919 between Chaim Weizmann and the Hashemite Prince Faisal.

John Kerry’s plan: still missing a peace

Israelis have good reason to be skeptical about peace plans – but at the same time, to learn from the lessons of past failures and successes and go forward. While there is a cold peace with Egypt – now so fragile – and Jordan, more Israelis have been killed in the 15 years following the Oslo Accords than in the two previous decades of undeclared wars. Therefore the burden of proof is on those who deny that the Saudi plan offers something between dhimmitude at best and a staged dismantling of Israel as the Jewish national home – and turning a blind eye to genocidal terror and incitement to genocidal terror.

PA Refuses to Change ‘A Few Words’ for Kerry
Kerry’s latest “listening tour” is drawing the familiar echo of “no.” The Palestinian Authority boasts that Kerry asked it to change a “few words” in the Saudi Peace Initiative. Nice try. John.

In typical State Dept. tunnel thinking, he dug up the Saudi Peace Plan in an effort win the support of the Arab League and, according to senior PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, asked Ramallah to make a small compromise in the wording.
“Kerry asked us to change a few words in the Arab Peace Initiative but we refused,” Erekat told the Voice of Palestine radio station Sunday, according to the Washington Post.

'US softening opposition to Fatah-Hamas unity' By Khaled Abu Toameh

The US appears to have softened its opposition to unity between Fatah and Hamas, a top Fatah official in the West Bank said Monday.
Azzam al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee and a senior adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said that US opposition to the unity idea was “less strong.”

A 10-Step Process: How US Secretary of State John Kerry Could Bring Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to the Peace Table

Here is a suggested 10-step process for how the Hon. John Kerry could, indeed, conduct an inquiry about the readiness of the PA to assume a posture of peace.

Bigotry, ‘The New York Times’ and Israel

The New York Times’ coverage of Israel is increasingly a landscape of half-truths and worse, shaped not by where facts lead but by preconceived storylines.
Palestinian actions are cast as reactive to Israel’s, without autonomous motive and essentially without fault, while Israel is the main actor, the party that causes events, the one held accountable and very often the one indicted.
A comparison of two incidents reported by the Times underscores the pattern and the radically different treatment meted out to the sides in much of the coverage.

BBC claims US kept in the dark on 2007 Syrian nuclear reactor strike

The suggestion that the United States government was not aware of Israeli intentions regarding the Syrian nuclear reactor is of course at odds with the extensive account provided earlier this year in Commentary Magazine by former US National Security Council member Elliot Abrahams. According to that account, the US knew very well what was on the cards and hence the BBC’s statement is misleading and inaccurate.

Morsy’s Christian Problem

This is the same President Morsi that openly espoused anti-Semitic and hateful views on video and then claims to be taken out of context. This is the same president who during the constitutional crisis openly stated that he enjoys the support of 90% of all Egyptians and that the protesters were pushed by the church. This is the same president who during his reign , Beshoy Kamel was sentenced to six years for insulting “Islam and the president’s family” on Facebook, Alber Saber was arrested for “blasphemy” on Facebook , and 10-year-old Nabil Nagy Rizk and 9-year-old Mina Nady Farag from Beni Suef were arrested in October 2012 on charges of tearing up the Quran. The children were illegally arrested, and Morsi didn’t move a finger to release them. They were, after all, Christians.

Iran inaugurates new uranium mine, processing plant

Defiant Tehran marks ‘National Nuclear Technology Day’ after latest round of talks with Western powers fails to produce deal

Canadian FM: If Israel strikes, Iran will only have itself to blame

Still, John Baird stresses opposition to unilateral Israeli military action against the Iranians, who he calls the ‘biggest threat’ to world security

Anti-Semitic demonstration banned in Budapest

Hungary banned an anti-Semitic demonstration planned for the same day as a Holocaust memorial march.
An April 21 demonstration in Budapest by bikers called “Give gas” was banned on Monday. The annual March for Life Holocaust commemoration and anti-racist demonstration is scheduled to be held on the same day in Budapest, the Hungarian capital.

'Intellectual Exile' Demanded for Anti-Semitic Polish Historian

The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday called for the suspension of a Polish historian who wrote that Jews were also to blame for the Holocaust, weeks ahead of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising's 70th anniversary.
The leading Jewish human rights group, which tracks down Nazi war criminals, demanded the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) "suspend antisemitic member" Professor Krzysztof Jasiewicz who insisted that during the Holocaust, "Jews themselves participated in the murder of their own people..." in a recent article.

Also:

Honest Reporting slideshow:

Notes and Quotes from the Media War from HonestReporting

Jimmy Carter called Hafez Assad "a close personal friend" soon after 1982 Hama massacre

In February, 1982, Syria's president Hafez al-Assad murdered between 30-40,000 people in the city of Hama.

A year later, in March 1983, Jimmy Carter referred to the mass murderer as "a close personal friend" who he has a "special relationship" with. He expressed the hope that if Assad would come to the negotiating table, he could be on the same side as the Egyptians, Palestinians, Jordanians, and Americans in pressuring - Israel.

All of this was recorded in New York Magazine, June 6, 1983, and verified by Carter's friend and advisor, Kenneth Stein, who would later famously break with Carter over the lies he wrote in his 2006 book.

(h/t Ken Kelso)

UNRWA reopens in Gaza, re-closes in Rafah, can' t stop blaming Israel

Five days after it shut down all services in Gaza because of safety concerns, UNRWA announced that it would re-open its offices today.

Of course, even though Israel had nothing to do with this, UNRWA still had to throw in a false accusation against Israel in its press release:

Based on the assurances UNRWA in Gaza received from different local parties, the Agency will reopen its installations across the Gaza Strip effective today, Tuesday 9 April. UNRWA was forced to close its distribution and relief offices last week due to ongoing demonstrations that affected its operations, a regrettable decision that hindered the Agency’s ability to provide much needed services and relief supplies to Palestine refugees in Gaza. While UNRWA understands the frustration of the population, heightened by the tightened blockade on the Gaza Strip, and respects the right to peaceful demonstrations, UNRWA must ensure the safety and security of its staff. UNRWA in Gaza reaffirms that while it is re-opening these facilities now, if its staff or facilities are threatened or operations hindered by demonstrations in the future, it will again be forced to close those installations.

"Tightened blockade"? At least from Israel's perspective, more goods are going into Gaza than at any time in the past five years or so.

The chances that UNRWA is referring to Egypt as being behind the "blockade" are essentially nil, though. UNRWA has a pathological need to lie about Israel even when it is way off topic.

UNRWA did not respond to my email request for clarification. Chris Gunness hasn't answered any of my emails for a few years now.

Once the UNRWA centers opened in Rafah, Gazans closed the main distribution center down with renewed protests. UNRWA then closed the other offices in Rafah as well.

Others are protesting the agency that provides them with free food, education and medical services in Gaza City today.

A large reason that so many Palestinian Arabs feel so entitled to free food and services from the West is because agencies like UNRWA teach them that they are perpetual victims, entitled to being coddled for eternity.

Isn't it s shame that this is backfiring on them?

I have documented protests against UNRWA from as long ago as 1951.

The absolute best thing that could be done is to shut down UNRWA, tell the Arab world and the PA that these people are their problem (perhaps divert UNRWA funding to these entities), pressure Arab states to allow those born on their soil to be citizens of their states and force these perpetual fake "refugees" to actually start thinking about taking responsibility for their own lives instead of constantly blaming everyone else. It might take a generation to fix, but if this is not done now, things will only get worse.

Sec. Kerry: I want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for, first of all, his extraordinary hospitality yet again. We had an extremely friendly, very productive, long discussion last night. I think it's fair to say that we made progress, that we were pleased with the substance of the discussion and agreed, each of us, to do some homework. And we're going to do our homework over the course of the next weeks, and today we're going to continue some of that discussion with a view to seeing how we can really pull all of the pieces together and make some progress here.

And I want to thank the Prime Minister for his good faith efforts here. It's been serious; it's been focused; and I would characterize it as very productive.
We have been talking about some economic initiative, but I think both of us, and the Prime Minister just said this: we want to make it absolutely clear that whatever steps we take with respect to economics are in no way a substitute, but they are in addition to the political track. The political track is first and foremost; other things may happen to supplement it.

Secondly, with respect to Iran, I have reiterated to the Prime Minister, as I did yesterday to the President, President Obama could not be more clear: Iran cannot have and will not have a nuclear weapon. The United States of America has made clear that we stand not just with Israel, but with the entire international community in making it clear that we are serious, we are open to negotiation, but it is not an open-ended, endless negotiation. It cannot be used as an excuse for other efforts to try to break out with respect to a nuclear weapon. And we are well aware and coordinating very, very closely with respect to all of our assessments regarding that. But President Obama doesn't bluff. He's made that very clear to me, and we hope the Iranians will come back to the table with a very serious proposal.

PM Netanyahu: Thank you, John. It's good to see you again in Jerusalem and to work at our common goal for peace. I am determined not only to resume the peace process with the Palestinians, but to make a serious effort to end this conflict once and for all. This has economic components. We welcome any initiatives that you and others will bring forward in this regard, but it also has a political component – political discussions that will address a myriad of issues, foremost in our minds the questions of recognition and security. This is a real effort, and we look forward to advance in this effort with you.

We've been talking about several other issues, and I'll only mention two. First, we've been talking about Syria and the human tragedy there, but the fragmentation of that country is creating a situation where one of the most dangerous stockpiles of weapons in the world is now becoming accessible to terrorists of every shade and hue. This is of great concern for both of us, for both the United States and Israel, and we are talking about addressing this problem specifically.

And last and certainly not least, we've been talking about Iran. I think everybody understands that Iran has been running out the clock, has been using the talks to continue to advance its nuclear program. We've just heard by Iranian state television about a new production facility for nuclear material and two new extraction sites. I think we also understand what it means for the world to have rogue states with nuclear weapons. Iran cannot be allowed to cross into that world. It cannot be allowed to continue its nuclear weapons program, and we must not allow it to continue to do so in defiance of the entire international community.

These are the three most obvious subjects we have been talking about. You may not believe it, but we have actually talked about a few others as well, and it's good to see again, John.

Video by US Embassy, text by Prime Minister's Office

(h/t YM)

WaPo says Bibi's "red line" speech delayed Iranian enrichment

A very interesting Washington Post editorial:

THE LATEST round of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program was, by all accounts, a
disappointment. Tehran’s negotiators did not spell out a full response to a proposal by the United States and five partners for limiting its enrichment of uranium, and what they did say revealed a wide gulf between the two sides. In essence, the international coalition is offering Iran a partial lifting of sanctions in exchange for a freeze on the production of medium-enriched uranium, while Iran wants a complete lifting of sanctions in exchange for token steps that would leave its nuclear work unfettered.

The meetings left the diplomatic process in limbo; the Obama administration and its allies rightly refused Iranian requests to schedule further meetings. Yet for now, at least, there is no crisis: Neither Israel nor the United States is under pressure to consider immediate military action against Iran, and there is time to wait and see if Iran’s position will soften following a presidential election scheduled for June.

For that, proponents of diplomacy over war with Iran can thank a man they have often ridiculed or reviled: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr. Netanyahu’s government is not a participant in the talks with Iran, of course; Iran won’t parley with a nation it aspires to “wipe off the map.” But the Israeli leader’s explicit setting of a “red line” for the Iranian nuclear program in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September appears to have accomplished what neither negotiations nor sanctions have yielded: concrete Iranian action to limit its enrichment.

A host of commentators both in the United States and Israel scoffed at what they called Mr. Netanyahu’s “cartoonish” picture of a bomb and the line he drew across it. The prime minister said Iran could not be allowed to accumulate enough 20 percent enriched uranium to produce a bomb with further processing, adding that at the rate its centrifuges were spinning, Tehran would cross that line by the middle of 2013.

Iran, too, dismissed what its U.N. ambassador called “an unfounded and imaginary graph.” But then a funny thing happened: The regime began diverting some of its stockpile to the manufacture of fuel plates for a research reactor. According to the most recent report of international inspectors, in February, it had converted 40 percent of its 20 percent uranium to fuel assemblies or the oxide form needed to produce them. As a result, Iran has remained distinctly below the Israeli red line, and it probably postponed the earliest moment when it could cross that line by several months.

Mr. Netanyahu’s red line is only a partial and temporary check on the Iranian threat. The ongoing installation of a new generation of faster centrifuges could soon make it obsolete by providing a new means for Iran to quickly produce bomb-grade uranium. But the lesson here is twofold: The credible threat of military action has to be part of any strategy for preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon, and clear red lines can help create the “time and space for diplomacy” that President Obama seeks. Mr. Obama, who last year stiffly resisted pressure from Mr. Netanyahu to spell out U.S. red lines, ought to reconsider.

Iran is working more towards increasing its uranium mining and production, but the main point of the editorial is correct: clear red lines and a credible military threat is essential to slow down the Iranian nuclear weapons program. People who say that Bibi has been crying wolf about Iranian nukes for over a decade refuse to accept that his actions have helped to ensure that Iran does not yet have the Bomb.

Cyberwarfare and good old fashioned sabotage help a great deal, too.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)