Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 10, 2013

Shabbat open thread (updated)

This was a very busy week at EoZ.

My "Israeli peacenik meets the reality of Palestinian Arab intransigence" article received a bit of attention, and for good reason. But that paled next to my other major post yesterday, "Why are human rights organizations silent about Arab and Muslim anti-semitism?", which received over 500 Facebook Likes and was republished in The Algemeiner. Lost in the glare of those two posts was my article, also Thursday, about B'Tselem's bias in their latest report.

Another notable post was about the BBC's biased headline on the apparent Israeli airstrike - a headline which ended up being changed because of all the complaints.

I wish the same could be said for my other post about extreme British media bias, where The Economist falsely claimed that some 400 Arabs were evicted from the West Bank. I emailed, tweeted and commented on their site multiple times, and yet they kept their erroneous statistic in the article. (Even an anti-Israel commenter at the site agreed I was right.) It is a shame that a prestigious magazine refuses to correct its glaring error. If anyone else wants to complain to them, feel free - even though it is way too late to make a difference to the readers, The Economist should know that it cannot lie about Israel with impunity. Right now, apparently, it can. (That post of mine was also reproduced in The Algemeiner.)

This week, one of my most-read posts was actually from 2011. It is gratifying to see that every time some idiot on Facebook posts "the map that lies," one of the good guys can easily find my post to debunk it.

Also this week I managed to squeeze in some history , some marketing and some more proof that lazy journalists often just play telephone with each other. And a few dozen other posts, besides.

Thank God for Shabbat!

Here's a very inside Shabbat joke/pun:

UPDATE: I just saw this nice Yom Yerushalayim video - on an Arab site, meant to make their readers angry at how much Jews love the city. (Apparently, they also had a rally for kicking the Jews out of Jerusalem on Friday morning, so this is a wonderful contrast:)

So who deserves the City of Gold more?

One thing is for certain: there were never any celebrations like this praising Jerusalem when Jordan occupied the city.

Friday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Latma: A song to Jerusalem and everything's really cool in Judea and Samaria

Blaming America

Those commentators who ascribe victimhood to the perpetrators of terror instead of its casualties share an essential idea with those responsible for the Boston bombings. Although one faction justifies its view with blood and the other with ink, their message is the same: that terrorism can be justified.
If there is one consistent response that should unite people across the Western world, it is that those who commit acts of terrorism or support terrorist groups are alone responsible for the murderous result. By painting such atrocities as a question of moral ambiguity, rather than as an outrage to be condemned and as a threat to be fought, these opinion writers and cartoonists only embolden terror and weaken the West's ability to defend its freedoms.

UN Watch: UN’s Richard Falk Again Calls Boston Attack “Resistance” to U.S. “Military Undertakings”

UN official Richard Falk, who was condemned for blaming the Boston terrorist attack on U.S. and Israeli policies, has once again justified the bombings as a form of “resistance” that was “bound” to result from U.S. “military undertakings,” in an interview he gave to The Daily Princetonian newspaper.

Anti-Israel UN human rights official can’t be fired, State Department says

Richard Falk, the United Nations Human Rights official who said last month that the Boston Marathon bombings were connected to the “American global domination project,” apparently can’t be fired from his position, according to the U.S. State Department.

Caroline Glick: NGOs vs those who serve
Support for those who serve in IDF, national service without reference to their religion, race or gender stymied by some NGOs.

A study completed this week by Im Tirtzu exposes the vast array of NGOs generously funded by the supposedly pro-Israel New Israel Fund as well as by foreign governments which are running a campaign to oppose Cpl. Joseph and her comrades – Arabs and Jews alike. Since 1999, these groups have been conducting a campaign to undermine Arab integration into Israeli society specifically and to demoralize and reduce the social standing of those who serve in the IDF, national service and IDF reserves generally. The campaign is being carried out on a dual track of discouraging Israeli Arabs from serving in the IDF or national service, and of opposing government benefits to IDF veterans, reservists and those who undertook national service by claiming that these benefits unjustly discriminate against Israeli Arabs.

Washington "Newseum" to honour Hamas terrorists

One think-tank is reconsidering its use of the much-loved "Newseum" in Washington DC after its decision to honour Hamas terrorists
The famed Newseum, the museum of journalism and news located in Washington, D.C., has found itself in the middle of a major argument over the honouring of two dead Hamas terrorists that some claim were simply journalists in the Palestinian territories.
The Newseum plans to add Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama to its "Journalists Memorial" which honours those killed while reporting the news. But the two men were cameramen for Al-Aqsa, Hamas's propaganda network, and thus qualify as Hamas operatives and therefore terrorists.

Israel's UK Ambassador Condemns Offensive Church Paper

Israel's ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, condemned on Thursday a report by the Church of Scotland that questioned the divine right of Jews to the land of Israel.

Israeli hackers ready to defend US sites, as #OpUSA flops
Anonymous had planned to follow up its #OpIsrael attacks with a mass hacking of American sites

It was supposed to be Anonymous’s glorious followup to #OpIsrael, but a scheduled May 7 “attack day” for Operation USA turned out to be a flop. Security experts prepared themselves for massive denial of service (DDOS) attacks, overwhelming banking, government and business sites with a flood of traffic. And Israeli “white hat” hackers were ready to lend a hand to deflect attacks on American sites, or to counter-attack sites in countries where the attacks originated.

Wiesenthal Center calls for zero tolerance for terror online

As terrorist groups expanded their presence on the Internet, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on social networking sites to adopt a policy of zero tolerance.

Harvey Weinstein to Elie Wiesel: Without You There Would be no ‘Schindler’s List’ (VIDEO)

“I think there would be no ‘Schindler’s List,’ no ‘Life is Beautiful,’ no ‘Reader,’ so many of the movies that us in the industry have been involved in about the Holocaust, came from that first seminal book which was ‘Night,’ which continues to inspire me,” said Weinstein.

Followup on Church of Scotland report

Last week I fisked a paper written by the Church of Scotland that denied any Biblical basis for the right of Jews to have a state in the Middle East.

Of course, I wasn't the only critic of the incredibly biased (and self-contradictory) screed.

Now, the Church is backtracking - slightly:

The Church of Scotland has moved to defuse a furious row with Jewish leaders and the Israeli government after agreeing to change a controversial report on Israeli settlements.
Senior figures in the church met Jewish leaders on Thursday after an official report entitled the Inheritance of Abraham?. suggested the church consider political action including boycotts and disinvestment in Israel in protest at illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
The church and society council, which is to present its report to this year's meeting of the Church of Scotland's governing body, the general assembly, later this month, has agreed to reword the paper's introduction to make clear the church has never challenged the right of Israel to exist.
The original report, which will be debated and then voted on by 723 general assembly commissioners, or delegates from across Scotland, has also been taken down from the Church of Scotland's website until it is rewritten.
The concession emerged after Daniel Taub, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, accused the church of perpetuating anti-Semitic views by challenging the basis of Jewish ties and belief in Israel, and distorting the basis of Zionism.
"This report not only plays into extremist political positions, but negates and belittles the deeply held Jewish attachment to the land of Israel in a way which is truly hurtful," Taub said.
"If a document of this nature is adopted by the Church of Scotland it would mark a significant step backwards for the forces of tolerance and peace in our region."
The Anti-defamation League in New York said the paper was "stunningly offensive" and "negated the beliefs of Judaism", while one columnist in the Jerusalem Post, Seth Frantzman, described it as a "vicious and defamatory text."
The newspaper said the report was distorting arguments about the Holocaust by "pretending Jews manipulate the Holocaust in order to make Christians feel guilty."

The problems with the report were far deeper than just what is mentioned here. A Christian blog destroys the Church's main arguments nicely:

Christians should not believe those parts of Scripture where God promised that a virgin would conceive: Isaiah 7:14 didn't really refer to a promised messiah: it was just about a general plan of salvation. And he wasn't born in the long-promised Bethlehem either - that's just a metaphor for anywhere, like Slough. And he didn't have to be a 'he' either - that's just a metaphor for all humankind. And his name didn't have to be Jesus (Mt 2:21) - meaning 'The Lord saves', because it could have been Brian or Steve: there's no real promise that the Lord will save us from our sins (Zech 3:9). He is not 'God with us' (Mt 1:23), and he didn't need to suffer (Is 53:7) because there's no real reward for obeying the word of God (Lk 11:27). Jesus isn't the visible image of the invisible God through whom all things were created (Col 1:15f) - that's just silly. He didn't reconcile us to himself through the cross (v20), and he's not the glory of the nations (Ps 96:3; 39:21). And when God promises that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8:35), he didn't really mean 'nothing' - he meant God's love is completely dependent on the which side of the bed he gets out of in a morning.

Oh, hang on. His Grace has got it wrong.

Sorry.

It's only the Jews who shouldn't take God's promises literally.

That's alright, then.

And neither should Christians when they relate to Jews and Israel. Ah, now it's becoming clearer.

If God makes a promise to Jews, it's a metaphor. If He makes a promise to Christians, it's literal except where it refers to the Jews and Israel.

Yes, that's right. According to a report by the Church of Scotland, 'Israel' and the 'Promised Land' is all just one big mushy metaphor for... well, something like the fuzziness of promises that aren't promises. God's promises are just pictures, without precise meaning, and certainly could never apply to matters of geography. The 'Promised Land' in Scripture is not a literal land - it's more 'a metaphor of how things ought to be among the people of God. This "promised land" can be found, or built, anywhere'.

Except, of course, in Israel.

(h/t JH)

Friday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians in Syria Killed, Injured, Displaced
Arabs, Human Rights Organizations, Media Yawn

The Arab League foreign ministers who recently met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington did not even bother to raise the issue of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes in Syria.
For these ministers and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, construction in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank is more urgent than the lives of thousands of Palestinians and Syrians.
But it is not only the Arabs and the Palestinian governments who are turning a blind eye to the mass displacement of Palestinians. Human rights organizations and the mainstream media in the West are also ignoring the plight of the Palestinians. This is, after all, a story that lacks an anti-Israel angle.

Sarah Honig: Another Tack: The inconvenient truth

Indisputably, no national collective can afford the lackadaisical lunacy of waiting till after its own death. Definitive proof supplied by our demise would be of little use to us posthumously. The unavoidable bottom line for a sovereign state can only be self-reliance. No one else will come to our aid, not when it still matters.
Some things never change. It may be an inconvenient truth but what was, still is. We still upset the fine sensibilities of European and American self-styled adjudicators of international morality. To paraphrase Weizmann, the Jewish state’s squawks about Iranian nuclear designs “are regarded as provocation. Our very refusal to subscribe to our own death sentence becomes a public nuisance.”

Fellow ALS sufferer to ‘hero’ Hawking: Reconsider Israel boycott

Photojournalist Esteban Alterman, who met and photographed the astrophysicist before a 2006 lecture in Jerusalem, says misguided decision undermines battle against their shared disease
An Israeli photojournalist who suffers from ALS, the same disease as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, has written a letter urging the professor, who he says was his hero, to reconsider his decision to boycott Israel.

UJS praises NUS vote against BDS

Today, a motion calling for the National Union of Students (NUS) to join the international Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) Campaign was voted down by the National Executive Council (NEC).
The voting record showed: 5 in favour, 15 against, 3 abstentions
The failure of this motion to pass reinforces the lack of support for the BDS within the student movement.

Cal. Univ. Pro-Israel Professor Harassed and Defamed
In the snake pit of academia, where unfashionable explicit Jew-hatred has morphed into enthusiastic and widespread over-the-top anti-Zionism, Professor Tammi Rossman-Benjamin stands out.

It is no longer remarkable that supporters of the most racist, misogynist, homophobic, intolerant, anti-free-speech and violent forces in the world today — for example, Hamas — take shelter behind Western concern for the complete opposite of all of those. They are expert at the game of political correctness (here is another example). At the same time, their behavior conveys veiled physical threats against their targets.

BBC Radio 4 programme on Jerusalem erases Jewish presence

In his diary account of the trip he made to Jerusalem in 1862, Albert the Prince of Wales recorded his meetings with Jerusalem’s Jews.
However, a listener to John McCarthy’s programme on Jerusalem from the series “In a Prince’s Footsteps” which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on May 8th (available here for a limited period of time) would have no idea that any Jews lived in the city at all when Prince Albert visited it in 1862 – or indeed before or after that date.

Radical Muslim Cleric in Gaza: 'Palestine' Was Never Jewish

Israel has no right to exist, a radical Muslim cleric visiting Gaza declared on Thursday, encouraging rocket attacks on the Jewish State.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi warned that nobody was allowed to cede "any part of Palestine" during his visit to the Hamas-controlled region, according to AFP.

Israel’s Game-Changer with Hezbollah

Israel’s recent strikes in Syria, then, are not just about preventing the transfer of game-changing weapons — they are about changing the rules of the game in how it engages with Hezbollah and Syria. Furthermore, the strikes represent an eye toward a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program in which Tehran may look to use Hezbollah as a tool in its arsenal.
Despite analyses to the contrary, Israel has not entered the conflict on behalf of any side. Israel has not attacked regime headquarters, its airfields and tank positions in a bid to assist the Free Syrian Army. The available intelligence does not suggest that Israel has attacked chemical weapons facilities in order to remove those weapons from the equation.

IHH president seeks at least $1 bln from Israel for flotilla victims

Turkey should demand a biting sum of $1 billion from Israel as compensation for its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid flotilla ship in 2010, according to the chairman of the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH).

The farce is complete – Gilbert too gets his commander of the Order of St. Olav

It really sucks, and I am quite frankly unwilling to conceal my disappointment that persons who have worked tirelessly to propagate foul lies and contributed greatly to anti-Semitic attitudes in the general Norwegian population.
Purportedly Gilbert has gotten his prize for his surgical prowess, a claim hard to believe since he has celebrated the attacks against the twin towers in 2001 and other very questionable attitudes, among them hiding armed combatants in a medical compound and allowing them to carry out acts of war from said compounds.

PalArabs prefer terror to negotiations 3-1

The latest Pew Research Global Attitudes report has this revealing statistic:

Three times as many Palestinian Arabs believe that terrorism is the best way to achieve a state than negotiations. Anther 22% believe that terror can work together with other methods, meaning that far more than half support terror as a key way to achieve statehood.

Of course, we cannot expect Western media to highlight this very important finding, can we?

(h/t PMB)

"Researcher" warns that Egypt may seek loan from a "Jewish bank"

Another day, another antisemitic diatribe in mainstream Egyptian TV...

Keshef Abdul Rahim, a "researcher," discovered that the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egyptian government was negotiating with JP Morgan Chase to secure a desperately needed loan for Egypt, in case the International Monetary Fund cannot provide a loan.

Speaking on Al Tahrir TV, Rahim darly wanred that JP Morgan is a "Jewish-controlled bank."

Rahim is apparently a secular opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he hates Jews just as much as the Islamists do. He also knows that antisemitism is a winning argument in Egypt.

Oh, JP Morgan is not owned nor controlled by Jews, although some neo-Nazi sites claim that its embattled chairman, Jamie Dimon, is a "crypto-Jew." (His wife is apparently Jewish, however.)

Sheikh Mohamed Mukhtar al-Mahdi, a prominent cleric and teacher at Egypt's Al Azhar University, said in his sermon today that war between Jews and Muslims is inevitable.

He said that all Muslims are affected by Israel allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount, and this will lead to the war, "and the Muslims will win," he stated.

Al-Mahdi stressed that Muslims must be patient, and ensure that they strengthen sufficiently before the ultimate battle, quoting Islamic sources on the virtues of patience.

The sheikh added that the Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to all Muslims and the responsibility lies on every Muslim to free it from "the Zionist abomination."

Al Azhar is considered a relatively moderate Islamic institution in Egypt.

UPDATE: It appears that this may have been part of an official anti-Israel rally organized by the Muslim Brotherhood:

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is staging an anti-Israel rally in Cairo to protest Israeli airstrikes in Syria and the detention of a Muslim cleric.

Chants of “the people want destruction of Israel” rang out Friday inside Al-Azhar mosque, the centuries-old seat of Sunni Muslim learning.

The rally is the first such protest by the Brotherhood, from which Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi hails, since it gained prominence after 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

Group officials say they are protesting the Israeli detention of top Palestinian Muslim cleric in the Holy Land in a rare crackdown on a leading religious figure that drew fierce condemnation from Palestinians. The demonstrators also were denouncing Israeli airstrikes in Syria that targeted alleged shipments of advanced Iranian missiles thought to be bound for Hezbollah.

(h/t Ian)

UPDATE 2: A different preacher in Egypt today said that it would be preferable to demolish the Al Aqsa Mosque than to let Jews pray there.

Group claims to have shot rockets at IDF positions in Golan

Arabic media are reporting that a group called the "Abdel Kader Husseini Martyrs Brigades" has shot a

series of rockets at a "Zionist radar station" in the Golan Heights.

The group, which says it is Palestinian, claims to have caused "casualties in the ranks of the enemy."

Apparently, the purported rockets came from Syria.

Some sources say they fired rockets; others that it was an RPG attack.

The unknown group promises to release a videotape within a few hours of the alleged operation.

UPDATE: Afternoon came and went, and no video.

Hebron Arabs meet with Jews to discuss co-existence - despite danger

YNet (Hebrew) reports on monthly meetings between yeshiva students in Efrat and Muslims from Hebron to discuss co-existence.

Ma'an translates:

“For a short hour, two completely different worlds would meet here. Young Palestinian men from Hebron and Jewish Yeshiva students from Efrat settlement have been involved in monthly meetings.

“However, to document these meetings was not an easy job as the participants at the beginning refused to let us take photos of them, and asked us blur their faces because revealing their identities may create serious problems within their societies,” the report said.

“The Palestinians have enough reasons to fear joining such meetings with settlers because such dialogue is illegal in the eyes of their society. If they are stigmatized as collaborators, they will be in real danger,” the report quoted chair of the Jewish organization of religious dialogue Yehuda Stolov as saying.

This is the sort of thing that should be celebrated by the so-called "progressive" Western liberals.

Instead it will be ignored, or worse, condemned as "normalization" - a positive word that has become as toxic in certain circles as "Zionism" itself.

People who live together wanting to cooperate. How awful!

Video can be seen at the linked sites.

Thursday Links Part 2

From Ian:

HRW Founder: Human Rights Must Focus on Arab Regimes’ Hate Speech

Human Rights Watch founder Robert Bernstein said that today's human rights advocates ignore the repression of basic freedoms across the Middle East and mistakenly call "free speech" and "advocacy' what is really state-sponsored hate speech.

PMW: Former advisor of Mahmoud Abbas praises terrorist who murdered father of five

Jordan Moves to Scrap Peace Treaty over Arrest of Jerusalem Mufti

World War III may have been close and may have been prevented on the Temple Mount, where the Jerusalem Mufti was arrested and then released for throwing chairs at Jews on Jerusalem Unification Day.

Despite Calls to End Peace, Israel Increases Water Flow to Jordan

According to Ambassador Eran, the Jordanian government is on very friendly terms with Israel, it’s only the vast population that wants all of us dead.
Now, here’s the zinger: according to Reshet Bet, Israeli sources have said that Israel has increased the amount of water it transfers to Jordan and the Palestinian Authority recently regardless of the increase in the number of refugees from Syria in Jordan.

What about persecuted Christians?

Here we go again. Christians are under attack in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, and yet another Christian deliberative body is gathering to talk about – who else – the Jews.

Hawking Boycott 'Slap in the Face to Academic Freedom'

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today criticized the decision by British professor Stephen Hawking to withdraw from the Israeli Presidential Conference on political grounds, calling it “a slap in the face to academic freedom.”

Will Hawking Boycott his own Voice Generator?

British physicist Prof. Stephen Hawking’s decision to support the academic boycott of the state of Israel is “quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his own intellectual accomplishment,” asserted Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center.
“His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel's Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet," said Darshan Leitner.

Opinion: Would Stephen Hawking Survive Under an Arab Regime?

Would Professor Hawking ever survive in any Arab country or under the Palestinian autocracy he shamefully defends?
While in the Arab world disabled people have been called “the invisibles,” because they are segregated and hidden from the public eye, Israel’s work with illness and disabilities would merit a book in itself.

‘Glory and disaster’ intertwine in Budapest’s historic Jewish quarter

The beauty and horror of the past merge with evidence of revitalised but wary community life along the cobblestone streets of District VII
The city’s Jewish timeline includes the births of Max Nordau (1849) and Theodor Herzl (1860); it holds Adolf Eichmann’s headquarters, from where he deported Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz (1944); and it boasts the Dohany Synagogue (built 1859) — the largest in Europe and one of the biggest in the world.

Harvey Weinstein to Elie Wiesel: Without You There Would be no ‘Schindler’s List’ (VIDEO)

“I think there would be no ‘Schindler’s List,’ no ‘Life is Beautiful,’ no ‘Reader,’ so many of the movies that us in the industry have been involved in about the Holocaust, came from that first seminal book which was ‘Night,’ which continues to inspire me,” said Weinstein.

Israel and China Sign $400 Million Trade Agreement

Israeli and Chinese officials signed a $400 million trade agreement during meetings on Wednesday, expanding trade between the two nations to $2.05 billion.

Facebook said ready to drop $1 billion on Waze

Facebook is reportedly in advanced talks to buy Israeli crowdsourced traffic and navigation app Waze. The price is said to be between $800 million and a billion dollars.

UN looks to Israel for advice on disabilities issues

UN’s Economic and Social Council says Israeli “knowledge and experience should be shared with the world.”

By the Law Among Nations, Jerusalem Belongs to Us

Contrary to the claims made by Palestinian leaders, various NGOs, and certain members of the international community, international law fully recognizes the Jewish people’s claim to Jerusalem, where they have historical roots dating back over 3,000 years and have been the largest ethnic group in the city since 1820.
Ernst Frankenstein, a British authority on international law said, for example, that the Jewish people have a right to their ancestral homeland and ancient capital city in Jerusalem based on the fact that the Jewish people never relinquished their historic claims to the area.

Video: Tens of Thousands Gather for Jerusalem Flag Dance

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem for the annual Rikudgalim (flag dance) in honor of Yom Yerushalayim.

Another child killed by a Hamas rocket during Pillar of Defense?

B'tselem today released a report on civilian deaths in Gaza. Yet there was very little independent investigation, and none on the ground - B'tselem relied on reports from others and people they spoke to on the phone to verify their facts.

There are a number of flaws in the report, as noted by NGO Monitor, and especially the disconnect between B'tselem's press release and the actual contents of the report.

Additionally, B'tselem does not give a list of all the people they are counting as civilian, so it is not possible to cross-check their statistics against the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report from December that showed that 101 terrorists were killed during the fighting. Indeed, the B'tselem report counts only 69 terrorists (62 fighters, 7 objects of targeted operations) while the ITIC report shows the photos, most in uniform, of 73 terrorists!

One of the fatalities they mention, of an 18-month old boy, is interesting in that it shows B'tselem's bias in assuming that the IDF is responsible for all deaths:

The extended Abu Khusah family lives in an isolated three-story house with a wall-enclosed inner-courtyard. The house, located in al-Bureij Refugee Camp about 1.5 km from the border with Israel, is surrounded by agricultural land which was bombed by Israeli planes during Operation Pillar of Defense. Therefore, the Abu Khusah children did not leave their home’s courtyard. B’Tselem’s investigation found that no member of the Abu Khusah family belonged to a Palestinian armed group. It was also found that no armed Palestinians had operated in the vicinity of the family's home.

On the morning of 18 November 2012, at around 8:00 AM, an Israeli plane fired into the courtyard. One-and-a-half-year-old Iyad Abu Khusah was killed by shrapnel that hit him in the head. Shrapnel hit his six-year-old brother Suhaib in the face and neck. His four-year-old cousin Sarah was hit by shrapnel in the abdomen and the lower torso.

For every other incident listed by B'Tselem, the IDF responded that either investigations were underway or that they determined that they acted within the bounds of the laws of armed conflict. This case was the only exception. Here, the IDF replied:

Why would the IDF deny this attack when they admitted involvement in many other airstrikes, including others that regrettably killed children? Clearly there is no more incentive to lie about this than about any other attack.

The only reasonable answer is that the IDF must not have shot the rocket that killed Iyad Abu Khusah. (The alternative is that the IDF has such poor record-keeping that it cannot account for all its missiles.)

B'tselem says that "no armed Palestinians had operated in the vicinity," which means that they were trying to find out if the IDF had aimed at rocket launchers near the family's expansive open area. (How they determined that is not clear.) Yet they didn't even consider the idea that an errant Hamas rocket - a Grad-style rocket, most likely, but maybe one of the larger Qassams - had misfired and killed the child. Keep in mind that the family lived near the Gaza border.

B'tselem is well within its rights to be skeptical about the IDF's investigations or methodologies. A flat denial that an attack even occurred, however, should cause an objective organization to step back and come up with alternative explanations. Instead, it states as fact that "an Israeli plane fired into the courtyard." No photos, no forensics, no proof outside of what the family said - and the family never even said it was a plane, only "a huge explosion."

We've seen the damage that a Grad rocket could do; clearly it can destroy a wall. Some Qassam-class rockets could, too, under the right circumstances.

Why didn't B'tselem even consider the possibility?

Either they know something about the circumstances of the episode they are not telling us - which seems unlikely because everything they know is second-hand - or they are so emotionally invested in blaming Israel that any counter-evidence is, by default, ignored.

To B'tselem, the terrorists that may have killed Iyad Abu Khusah are assumed innocent, and the IDF is assumed guilty.

MUST READ: An Israeli peacenik meets the reality of Palestinian Arab intransigence

Lital Shemesh is a young, liberal Israeli journalist, considered a rising star in the Israeli media who openly expresses her political aspirations.

She wrote a must-read article from Walla, translated by Baruch Gordon on his blog:

Peace? From the Palestinian Standpoint, There is a Past, No Future

by Lital Shemesh

I participated in the Dialogue for Peace Project for young Israelis and Palestinians who are politically involved in various frameworks. The project’s objective was to identify tomorrow’s leaders and bring them closer today, with the aim of bringing peace at some future time.

The project involved meetings every few weeks and a concluding seminar in Turkey.

On the third day of the seminar after we had become acquainted, had removed barriers, and split helpings of rachat Lukum [a halva-like almond Arab delicacy] as though there was never a partition wall between us, we began to touch upon many subjects which were painful for both sides. The Palestinians spoke of roadblocks and the IDF soldiers in the territories, while the Israeli side spoke of constant fear, murderous terrorist attacks, and rockets from Gaza.

The Israeli side, which included representatives from right and left, tried to understand the Palestinians’ vision of the end of the strife– “Let’s talk business.” The Israelis delved to understand how we can end the age-old, painful conflict. What red lines are they willing to be flexible on? What resolution will satisfy their aspirations? Where do they envision the future borders of the Palestinian State which they so crave?

We were shocked to discover that not a single one of them spoke of a Palestinian State, or to be more precise, of a two-state solution.

They spoke of one state – their state. They spoke of ruling Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Akko, Haifa, and the pain of the Nakba [lit. the tragedy – the establishment of the State of Israel]. There was no future for them. Only the past. “There is no legitimacy for Jews to live next to us” – this was their main message. “First, let them pay for what they perpetrated.”

In the course of a dialogue which escalated to shouts, the Palestinians asked us not to refer to suicide bombers as “terrorists” because they don’t consider them so. “So how do you call someone who dons a vest and blows himself up in a Tel Aviv shopping mall with the stated purpose of killing innocent civilians,” I asked one of the participants.

“I have a 4-year-old at home,” answered Samach from Abu Dis (near Jerusalem). “If God forbid something should happen to him, I will go and burn an entire Israeli city, if I can.” All the other Palestinian participants nodded their heads in agreement to his harsh words.

“Three weeks ago, we gave birth to a son,” answered Amichai, a religious, Jewish student from Jerusalem. “If God forbid something should happen to him, I would find no comfort whatsoever in deaths of more people.”

Israelis from the full gamut of political parties participated in the seminar: Likud, Labor, Kadima, Meretz, and Hadash (combined Jewish/Arab socialist party). All of them reached the understanding that the beautiful scenarios of Israeli-Palestinian peace that they had formulated for themselves simply don’t correspond with reality. It’s just that most Israelis don’t have the opportunity to sit and really converse with Palestinians, to hear what they really think.

Our feed of information comes from Abu Mazen’s declarations to the international press, which he consistently contradicts when he is interviewed by Al Jazeera, where he paints a completely different picture.

I arrived at the seminar with high hopes, and I return home with difficult feelings and despair. Something about the narrative of the two sides is different from the core. How can we return to the negotiating table when the Israeli side speaks of two states and the Palestinian side speaks of liberating Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea? How can peace ever take root in a platform which grants legitimacy to terrorism?

This is not the first time a group of Israelis who pine for peace have met with their liberal Arab counterparts - only to find that they have no counterparts at all.

(h/t Josh K)

Thursday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Barry Rubin: Demise of the Anti-Israel Card

For decades in the Middle East the most reliable political tool often seemed to be the Israel card, the idea that by condemning Israel, blaming it for the Arab world’s problems, and claiming that those who were insufficiently militant on the issue were traitors.
But the Israel card doesn’t work anymore, at least not in the way it used to do so. True, the rise of revolutionary Islamism has focused more hatred against Israel. Yet at the same time—and this analogy is imperfect—it is less of a single-issue movement. As revolutionary Islamists seek to destroy their rivals (nationalist, moderates, and each other) and fundamentally transform their own societies, they are kept pretty busy.

MEMRI: Tunisian Salafist Kamel Zarouq Talks of Future Conquest of Andalusia, Rome, and Jerusalem

NGO Monitor: B’Tselem Acknowledges Inability to Assess Palestinian Allegations
Condemnation of IDF in Press Release Not Supported by Accompanying Report

On May 9, 2013, the Israeli organization B’Tselem issued a 30-page report headlined “Human Rights Violations during Operation Pillar of Defense 14-21 November 2012.” This publication immediately received widespread coverage in the Israeli media, apparently based largely on an accompanying press release.
However, the claims in the press release are inconsistent with the actual report, creating false perceptions in the media. The press statement claims that the “report raises suspicions that the military violated International Humanitarian Law (IHL).” But these allegations are not demonstrated in the report; at best, they are the result of conjecture, as B’Tselem itself acknowledges in the report. Additionally, the claim to distinguish between civilian and combat deaths in this report, as in past B’Tselem statements, is based on manipulated definitions and speculation, and the application of existing legal standards would result in very different conclusions.

Missing Peace: EU contributes another 20 million Euro while corruption in PA continues

The announcement came a day after the publication of an article titled:’ Report Highlights Corruption In Palestinian Institutions’ written by the Palestinian journalist Hazem Balousha. His article summarized a report that was issued last month by the Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (known as AMAN in Arabic). This report deals with corruption in the PA but received close to zero media attention.

Palestinian woman shot dead by PA police

Clashes between Palestinian Authority Police and residents near Hebron as heavy-handed tactics escalate

Getting rid of Bashar Assad won't end Syria's civil war

Tehran's only hope of snatching some measure of victory from the jaws of defeat is a ceasefire in place and an interim power-sharing formula that will allow its proxies to remain armed — thereby subverting the ensuing political process, much as Hezbollah did after the 1975-1990 civil war in neighboring Lebanon.

Assad vows 'strategic revenge' on Israel, modeled on Hezbollah

Assad's comments, published by Al-Akhbar, appeared intended to refute any suggestion that last week's reported Israeli raids on Syrian targets would halt assistance to the Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon - Assad: Syria will "give Hezbollah everything."

Syria buying advanced Russian missile system, Israel says

US officials say they have been warned by Israel over the impending sale of an advanced Russian missile system to Syria, fearing it could hamper efforts for international intervention in the war-torn country.
Israel suspects that Russia plans to sell Damascus six S-300 missile batteries, as well as 144 missiles, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

9/11 Conspiracy Theorist Removed from UN Panel After B’nai B’rith Request

In addition to her views on 9/11, Machon is known for claiming the Israeli Mossad was behind the 1994 bombing of Israel’s embassy in London. “Her outrageous and offensive views do not deserve a prominent platform—let alone in the city most scarred by the horrific events of 9/11,” B’nai B’rith said in a statement after the announcement of Machon’s removal from the program.

Dusseldorf cancels Nazi Tannhäuser

Deutsche Oper am Rhein abandon controversial production on “medical grounds”.
Burkhard C Kosminski’s production of Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser that generated a furore of criticism for its use of Nazi imagery has been officially cancelled. The cast will perform a concert version on the remaining dates.

Anti-Semite's NY College Workshop Cancelled

Parsons School of Design has canceled a workshop that had been set to be taught by disgraced fashion designer John Galliano.

Israeli Soccer Star Victim of Anti-Semitic Abuse on Twitter

Israeli soccer star Yossi Benayoun, who currently plays for FC Chelsea in the English Premier League, was recently the victim of anti-Semitic abuse on Twitter.

Jewish refugees ignored by West, group tells Canadian MPs

Jewish refugees from Arab countries have been ignored by the Western world, the Canadian Parliament was told in its first-ever hearings on the issue.
"The expulsion of nearly 1 million Jews from nine Arab countries has had no political consequences," Gina Waldman, president of JIMENA, a nonprofit group dedicated to the preservation of Mizrahi and Sephardic culture, told the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on Tuesday.

Why are human rights organizations silent about Arab and Muslim anti-semitism?

In 2003, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a joint statement on antisemitism:

Recognizing anti-Semitism as a serious human rights violation, we also recognize our own responsibility to take on this issue as part of our work. It should not be left to Jewish groups alone to highlight this issue and to appeal to the international community to address it. We are firmly committed to joining their ongoing efforts and to helping to bring problems of anti-Semitism into the overall human rights discourse.

Now, in 2013, if you look through the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International websites, it is difficult indeed to find any condemnations of Arab or Muslim antisemitism. While they condemn anti-semitism in Western countries, I cannot find a single mention of the phrases "Arab anti-semitism" or "Muslim anti-semitism" on either of their sites. Their typical mentions of antisemitism are usually together with Islamophobia.

Given the daily antisemitic incitement in the Arab and Muslim worlds, this is yet another indication that "human rights" organizations have a significant blind spot and are anxious to judge Arabs and Muslims by quite different standards than they judge Westerners.

In the past two days I posted crazed Jew-hating diatribes shown on Lebanese TV, in a popular Egyptian newspaper. Also recently we saw two accusations of the medieval blood libel in Egypt, a newspaper series insulting Judaism in Jordan, as well as examples of antisemitism in the Iraq media, Saudi Arabia newspaper, a Palestinian Arab "human rights group" and "peace activist," and pan-Arab media, and many more.

It is endemic. But worse than that, the hatred is mass produced.

In 2001, a hugely popular 30-part Ramadan TV series aired in the Arab world based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was rerun in Egypt this year.

Iran released an antisemitic movie last year.

Scene during filming of upcoming Khaybar series

A purely anti-semitic TV series ("Khaybar") is being filmed now in Egypt and Morocco to be shown in Arabic TV will be used to incite hundreds of millions of people against Jews during Ramadan next year to the Arab world. The filming of the series gets regular coverage in Arab media, and they make clear that it is meant to demonize Jews. The director doesn't even attempt to hide the purpose of the film.

Naturally, "human rights" organizations are silent about that as well.

So where are the condemnations from the mainstream defenders of human rights who have said that antisemitism is a serious human rights violation? Or is it simply too touchy a subject for them?

Simply put, human rights organizations do not insist that Arabs and Muslims adhere to the same standards that the rest of the world must.

I think there is another reason why this issue is roundly ignored by the mainstream human rights organizations. They want to believe that if only Israel would offer more concessions, then peace is possible. They want to frame the Arab-Israeli conflict in terms of human rights and international law and fairness and other Western constructs. The Arabs happily take advantage of this blind spot and speak only in those terms to Westerners as well, so the cycle of self-deception is complete.

Publicizing the rampant Jew-hatred in the Arab and Muslim worlds, however, will show that the hate transcends any other claims.

The Arab goal isn't human rights. They want to destroy the Jewish state and have Jews revert to the second-class status (at best) that they held in the Middle East for the past 1400 years. The idea that Jews aren't meekly submissive to their more numerous cousins is what causes this pure hate, not land disputes or "settlements."

Once this realization sinks in, the Western liberal mind would despair. Peace, it would appear, isn't possible in such a toxic environment. But since peace is imperative, the thinking goes, all evidence to the contrary must be downplayed. Pretend it is a political problem with a political solution, and don't let anything get in the way.

The irony is that soft-pedaling Arab and Muslim antisemitism does no one any favors.

HRW, Amnesty, Oxfam and all the other human rights organizations can help the cause of peace immensely by shining light on this oldest hatred. Publicizing the issue is necessary for ridding the Muslim world of their hate - or at least opening up a debate about it, a debate that is all but silent. (I have rarely seen a talkback in Arabic condemning an article that denies the Holocaust or accuses Jews of drinking gentile blood on Passover.)

Peace is literally unthinkable when the Jewish people are viewed as evil incarnate. Human rights organizations have clout. Shining light on this problem is essential, and it is not an obstacle to peace - it is a prerequisite.

Right now, the human rights organizations have a chance to prove that they mean what they say. The Khaybar TV series is coming, and it is pure incitement against Jews. Denouncing this as a human rights issue - which it is, according to Amnesty's and HRW's own words - can show that these organizations are serious about their own stated purposes.

UPDATE: Sign the petition!

Cleric on Lebanese TV: "If only Hitler had finished them off"

Here's the latest in insane Muslim Jew-hatred from MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a religious program featuring Tareq Hawwas of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which aired on Al-Quds TV on April 18, 2013:

Tareq Hawwas: The Jews are among the true enemies of the Islamic nation. Their enmity began with the beginning of the call to Islam.

[...]

It is well established among Islamic scholars that the Prophet Muhammad died as the result of eating poisoned meat, given to him by that Jewish woman in Khaybar. She invited him to a feast, and she gave him poisoned mutton. She knew that he was partial to the shank, so she filled it with poison. When he tasted it, he was informed [that he was poisoned]. Some say that the lamb itself spoke, while others say that he had a revelation. The Prophet Muhammad got up, but some traces of the poison remained.

Thus, the scholars consider the Prophet Muhammad to be a martyr because he died from the poison given to him by the Jews. Before that, some of the Jewish tribes tried to throw a rock at him, and tried, more than once, to send people to kill him. These are not mere claims, but have been well established. These conspiracies began when the first light of Islam began to glow, and they surreptitiously try to conspire against Islam.

[...]

The Jews are the enemies of this nation, and they spare no effort in preventing this nation from gaining power. They have their ways. But before I go into that, anybody who knows what the Jews are like knows that this type of conduct is not out of character.

First of all, they are among the people most rejecting of Allah. None has attributed falsehoods to Allah more than the Jews. They said that Allah has a child, that He is poor, and that He is miserly. The Jews attributed to Allah all the negative traits that one should not even attribute to the most common of people. Thus, the Jews are among the people most rejecting of Allah.

[...]

In addition, they are the slayers of Prophets. How many prophets they have slayed! They butchered Yahya and Zakariya, and tried to kill the Prophet Muhammad. They are the ones who tried to kill Jesus. They are the slayers of the prophets.

Moreover, they are cowards. Allah said: "They will not fight you all except within fortified cities." What is happening in Palestine proves the cowardice of the Jews, and proves that they are the most cowardly of Allah's creatures. If not for the remote-controlled weapons, which they hide behind... By Allah, they are too cowardly to engage in direct combat.

They are the most miserly of all the peoples. Wickedness, trickery, and deception are engrained within them. The Jews – with only few exceptions – have a natural disposition toward treachery. The Jews think nothing of violating treaties. They have no respect for them. What has happened in Palestine from the beginning and to this day shows us that the Jews have never respected, for a single day, any international agreement or treaty that they signed.

The Islamic nation has suffered from the Jews' violation of treaties ever since the days of the Prophet Muhammad in Al-Madina. These traits are what makes them employ all means of trickery and deception. Therefore, they have ways and means to trick the Islamic nation, first and foremost, through the economy. They have a good understanding of finances, and therefore...

When they were dispersed throughout the world in the days of Hitler... Incidentally, most of what is said about the massacre is exaggeration and lies. If only Hitler had finished them off, thus relieving humanity of them. But Hitler was more merciful than they are themselves. They exploited this minor incident in order to extort the world. In short, their dispersal worldwide, their sense of being ostracized, and their feeling that they could not achieve anything without money led them to contemplate the economy.

They managed in the U.S. – and even beforehand, in Britain... The largest companies belonged to the Jews, so that back then, they would even lend money to Britain. They did the same thing in the U.S. Today, in the U.S., many of the largest corporations of all industries – such as the automobile, perfume, and airplane industries – belong to the Jews. They exploit the media. In short, their interest in the economy is clear and undisputed. They used the economy to buy loyalties and to achieve many of their goals.

They use sex against their opponents. The Jews are behind the greatest distributors of sexual products, because they think that this preoccupies the people. Thus, they can achieve their goals. Sex is the best bargaining chip they have. They use it against their opponents. They send them women in order to frame them, using sex. That [Tzipi] Livni, who ran for the premiership of the so-called Jewish state, said: "Yes, I used sex to achieve the goals of the Jewish state."

While these claims are quite popular in the Arab world, with very little pushback, I don't recall seeing such a close juxtaposition between "The Holocaust was a hoax" and "Too bad Hitler didn't murder them all" right next to each other before.