Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 13, 2013

Newseum takes terrorists off honoree list

As those who read Ian's linkdumps know:

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.

Hamas is listed as a terrorist organisation in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Jordan, Japan, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

"Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama were Hamas operatives and cameramen for Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television network, which regularly features programming that encourages and praises attacks on Israeli civilians. The IDF targeted Al-Kumi and Salama on Nov. 20," says the Israel Defense Forces website. Palestinian media confirm that the two men were indeed Hamas operatives.

There was a large backlash from many quarters, pointing out that honoring terrorists is hardly honorable. Even if they were not actively fighting (and that is by no means a given,) there should be a difference between a legitimate journalist and someone who peddles terrorist propaganda.

Even though it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference.

The good news came this morning:

A few minutes ago, the Newseum’s manager of media relations sent out this statement:

Serious questions have been raised as to whether two of the individuals included on our initial list of journalists who died covering the news this past year were truly journalists or whether they were engaged in terrorist activities.

We take the concerns raised about these two men seriously and have decided to re-evaluate their inclusion as journalists on our memorial wall pending further investigation.

Terrorism has altered the landscape in many areas, including the rules of war and engagement, law, investigative and interrogation techniques, and the detention of enemy combatants. Journalism is no exception.

To further our First Amendment mission to provide a forum where all may speak freely, the Newseum will establish a new initiative to explore differing views on the new questions facing journalism and journalists.

The names of the two Al-Aqsa TV ‘journalists’ have also been removed from the Newseum website.

I previously discussed how terrorists use journalists as cover here.

Now is a good time to repost my video about one of Al Aqsa TV's programs, Pioneers of Tomorrow, with its curiously short-lived mascots:

Ahmadinejad to get 74 lashes for election law violation?

Probably not, but the idea is attractive, isn't it?

After accompanying his former chief of staff to register for June’s presidential vote, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may face punishment if charged with breaking electoral

rules, the country’s electoral watchdog said.

The president had accompanied Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie on Saturday to register at the Interior Ministry.

Photographs in the Iranian media showed them gripping hands and making peace signs.

Abbas Ali Kadkhodai, a spokesman for the Guardian Council, said the council’s supervisory board unanimously agreed “the...actions of the president in introducing an individual as an election candidate constituted a violation and were criminal,” according to Khabar.

“We reported the facts to the judiciary,” Kadkhodai said.

The Guardian Council, a body of clerics and jurists, vets all candidates for elections.

Iranian electoral law forbids the use of state resources on behalf of or against any candidate, and bans individuals from supporting candidates in an official capacity.

A conviction could bring a maximum punishment of six months in jail or 74 lashes, according to local press reports.

For years Ahmadinejad has claimed that Iran's human rights record was better than that of any Western nations, so he should volunteer to be flogged just to prove how wonderful Iran's justice system is.

Abbas calls Jews visiting Temple Mount "attacks against Al Aqsa"

The "moderate" president of the Palestinian Authority has made it crystal clear that he would not tolerate freedom of religion in his purported "state."

At his opening speech at the PLO Executive Committee meeting last night, Abbas said that "attacks on the Al Aqsa Mosque cannot be tolerated."

Abbas added that it is unacceptable for such "attacks" to continue, and that "if Israel is dreaming as such daily attacks that attack the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy sites can change the situation on the ground they are disillusioned."

"East Jerusalem as our capital, and Al-Aqsa is ours, and the Church of the Resurrection is ours, and we will not allow them" to perform these "attacks."

Abbas ended by saying "we call upon the Arab and Islamic countries and the international community in general to act to stop these tragedies perpetrated in the name of the Israeli occupation."

Keep in mind that during Jordan's brief period of sovereignty over the Old City, Jews were barred from praying not only on the Temple Mount but at the Kotel as well. Not Israelis - Jews.

This is the "status quo" that Abbas would consider ideal, along with a Judenrein Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and a Tomb of Rachel that is converted into a mosque.

Yes, under any "peace plan" this most moderate of all Palestinian Arab leaders in history would grudgingly allow limited busloads of Jews to occasionally visit some specific sites for short periods of time, but inevitably those visits would cause riots and he would stop even this allowance. For "security" reasons.

Every clear thinking person knows that this is the best that can be expected under a Palestinian Arab state. Yet no "human rights" group seems to mind that freedom of religion for Jews would simply not be tolerated under the Palestinian Arab state they believe is the key to "peace."

And the Western media will refuse to publish that their "moderate" hero is openly lying about peaceful visits to Judaism's holiest site and trying to get them banned, today.

Stephen Hawking is only a symptom

As Zionists gnash their teeth over Stephen Hawking's embrace of BDS, and Israel-haters celebrate their victory, it it worthwhile to take a step back to understand how Hawking might have come to such a position.

After all, as smart as Hawking is, his ability to access original information about the Middle East is quite

limited. Almost certainly a large percentage of his time online is simply dealing with email, and his assistants are almost certainly filtering even that. It is not like Hawking can take a few weeks off to double-check the veracity of articles about the Middle East in British media, or even the many emails he was probably bombarded with from the BDSers when it was announced that he would attend a conference in Israel.

Hawking is a product of his environment, and his ability to go beyond the conventional wisdom in anything besides physics is severely constrained. Which means that Hawking's knowledge of Israel is filtered through the conventional wisdom of Britain.

In the most recent Pew Global Attitudes poll, we see that 44% of the British have an unfavorable attitude towards Israel, and only 34% have a favorable attitude.

When asked which side they sympathize with more, 19% were on the Israeli side and 35% sympathized more with the Palestinian Arab side. Even more telling, in 2002, while Israelis were being blown up every couple of days from suicide bombs, the British were only 17% sympathetic towards Israel compared to 28% for Palestinian Arabs.

A most telling episode occurred in 2001, when the French ambassador to England referred to Israel during a dinner party as "that shitty little country." The British, rather than being upset at the ambassador, tended to rally around him, with an op-ed in the Independent supporting the statement and other in the Guardian and the Observer all far more angry at the Jewish woman who revealed the comment than the French ambassador who made it.

This was hardly an anomaly. Only days after 9/11, Richard Ingrams wrote in The Observer:

The mountain of words and pictures last week mirrored the piles of rubble in New York. Like the rescue workers there, one waded in trying to find something that was alive, that would illuminate and explain what had happened.

Noticeable was the reluctance throughout the media to contemplate the Israeli factor - the undeniable and central fact behind the disaster that Israel is now and has been for some time an American colony, sustained by billions of American dollars and armed with American missiles, helicopters and tanks.

Such has been the pressure from the Israeli lobby in this country that many, even normally outspoken journalists, are reluctant even to refer to such matters. Nor would you find anywhere in last week's coverage, any reference whatever to things I have mentioned here in recent issues of The Observer: the fact, for example, that Mr Blair's adviser on the Middle East is an unelected, unknown Jewish businessman, Lord Levy, now installed in the Foreign Office; the fact that this same Lord Levy is the chief fundraiser for the Labour Party; unmentioned also would be the close business links with Israel of two of our most powerful press magnates, Rupert Murdoch and the newly ennobled owner of the Telegraph newspapers, Lord Conrad Black....

Yes, Ingrams' first reaction to the 9/11 attacks was that it must obviously be Israel's fault.

There is no shortage of writings about British anti-Zionism and, yes, the related British anti-semitism. From the pages of The Guardian to members of the Church of England, virulent anti-Israel and more subtle anti-semitic statements have been becoming more and more mainstream and accepted. The fact is that the environment in Great Britain is turning increasingly toxic against anyone showing sympathy, or empathy, with the Jewish state.

No doubt, the genesis of this hate is complex, from historic British antisemitism through antipathy towards Zionist Jews during the last years of the British Mandate of Palestine, plus the increasing influence of socialism and its concomitant anti-Zionism.

In a nation that has embraced the false themes of unlimited Israeli evil and absolute Palestinian Arab victimhood, can we expect people to suspect that they are being fed a diet of lies? Finding out the truth takes time; it takes effort, and it takes commitment, all resources that most people cannot be bothered with. If their newspaper says that Israel is the intransigent party, who will spend the time to research the other side? Who would even consider that there is another side?

We read reports about British anti-Zionism and think that it is a shame, but they are abstract. It takes a Stephen Hawking for us to realize that the torrent of lies and half-truths about Israel does affect and poison the minds of real people, even smart people.

In such an environment, how could we expect Stephen Hawking to think differently? Why would he doubt the hundreds of emails he probably received, many illustrated with seemingly authoritative maps showing Zionist expansionism and fake quotes showing Zionist depravity? He simply has little or no exposure to anything but anti-Zionism and no real ability to check the veracity of the propaganda he and his fellow countrymen have been force-fed for decades.

Hawking isn't the problem. His decision is the result of a much bigger problem, of an entire nation - actually, an entire continent - that cannot be bothered with the truth because of years of being brainwashed with simplistic and false notions of an evil Jewish Goliath and the saintly Arab David.

South Africa haters upset that students who disrupted concert are being charged

Remember the concert by pianist Yossi Reshef that was stopped by Israel-haters who broke into the concert hall and jumped on the stage? A reminder:

Guests and the audience arriving for the concert, were manhandled, shoved by the student protesters and utterly traumatised - some were in tears and shaking.

What values do we espouse at Wits? We talk glibly about freedom to express oneself. A protest does not mean freedom to smash windows to get into the basement, nor does it mean breaking the door to the Atrium, so that a mob can break through into the hall where a civilised classical music concert was in progress.

The music department was assured that the public and the students at the concert would be protected. A group of wellmeaning but utterly helpless security guards could not control the mob.

Our music students were traumatised by the swearing, threats and intimidations in the Atrium when the mob burst in screaming and with vuvuzelas and went berserk.

Is this the kind of freedom for which Wits stands? Is this the kind of message that Wits sends out to the public - that if we don’t like something we are entitled to disrupt and destroy it? Of course the concert had to stop. This was not a political rally - it was a concert.

The haters, naturally, are being brought up on charges by the university for their crimes. But their comrades seem to feel that violently stopping a pianist from playing is considered "free speech" and is something to be admired!

From Business Day Live (South Africa:)

CONGRESS of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on Friday added to a call for the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) to drop charges of violating its code of conduct against students who disrupted a concert by an Israeli pianist.

Hundreds of protesters gathered on the Wits campus in Johannesburg on Friday to demand that the university’s management call off disciplinary hearings, scheduled for next week, against 11 current and former members of its Students’ Representative Council (SRC) who disrupted an on-campus concert by Israeli pianist Yossi Reshef in March.

The concert, which took place during international "Israeli Apartheid Week", was cancelled after 15 minutes after students from, among other organisations, the SRC and the African National Congress Youth League took to the stage in solidarity with Palestinians.

Speaking at the protest, Mr Vavi said that former president Nelson Mandela "would be shocked to hear that students were harassed and now charged by this university". Wits had a proud history of not being intimidated by the apartheid regime and now risked being an instrument of "Zionist racists", he said.

Protesters on Friday handed over a memorandum demanding an immediate end to the charges to Wits management.

In Vavi's memo, we see a master of Orwellian rhetroric:

We stand here, in a free, democratic and post-apartheid South Africa, to affirm our unequivocal support for the right of all people to engage in peaceful resistance in defence of their rights and those of others.

We therefore condemn in the strongest terms the fact that Wits University has charged 11 students (9 of them SRC Members) for participating in an SRC-led protest at the Israeli Embassy-sponsored piano concert in which an Israeli (publicly admitted Zionist) was performing. [The concert was not sponsored by the Israel Embassy, by the way - EoZ]

This concert, and the protest, happened during the Israeli Apartheid Week campaign, which the SRC participated in and endorses. Now, the charges have left our comrades in great fear of being expelled and thus losing their careers. Students learn not only academically, but also through their active participation in extra-mural and political or social mobilisation for the cause of the greater society in which they live. They can't isolate themselves from the conditions surrounding them and their people, within and outside their own immediate boundaries.

The university seeks to demobilize the growing BDS movement and opposition to its silence and complicity with Israel and its actions. We should applaud the student leadership of their bravery and conviction to defend and fight for justice, in particular their opposition to Israeli Apartheid, and voicing their frustration when any complicity is shown by the university authorities on their own campus.

We condemn the university's response of targeting student leadership by charging them. This is not only wrong and undermines the fundamental right to protest, but an indication that the university dismisses the legitimate claims and demands of the students.

Get that? Israelis, and Zionists, have no right to speech, to play music publicly or indeed to be treated like human beings. The students who broke through police lines, broke windows and doors to force themselves in, violently disrupted the concert, intimidated the audience and guests, and terrorized the artist should not only not be charged - they should be admired! But they must not suffer any consequences for breaking the law. That would be wrong.

How liberal!

Luckily, some students at Wits are not falling for this hypocrisy:

Dear Wits Student

I love my University , but I do not love what is happening to it.....

I love my University so much I spent two years homeless and hungry trying to raise money to continue my education, and now I am worried about this great institution, I am sure you are too....

The student representative council, has chosen to ignore the 'R' in SRC, they have chosen to turn our University into their political playground at the expense of our issues.

To be blunt, I do not care about Israel and or Palestine, I am a hungry poor black man and I have more immediate issues that bother me, issues like my inability to buy text books, my inability to raise printing money, issues such as the crowded libraries with few computers, issues such as the Kudu buck machines with no coin slots for the poor students.

I have not heard the SRC speak of these issues for the past three months, all they have been making noise about is the Israel Palestine issue, which is not immediate to me.

Other students have different issues,...

Today the SRC tells us they are fighting for us, for the right to protest, yet the truth is they are telling half the story. They may have a right to protest, but the jewish students also have a right to congregate without being bullied or disrupted. JEWS ARE STUDENTS TOO, THEY DESERVE REPRESENTATION TOO....

Representation requires listening and speaking for all students!

The SRC is not the toy of political parties to be used to divide us and to advance your personal ambition. Your job is not to serve some of us , but all of us.

You do not represent yourselves, or only the palestinian students, your job is to represent all of us....and you have not done that. ...

As a student I feel unrepresented by you, I feel ignored by you, but more importantly I feel like you have come to harm the institution I have sweated blood and tears to be a part of....

You have eroded unity, you have disrupted peaceful gatherings and caused commotion at our University....and you have done this in my name as a student....but I NEVER GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO ....

With love
a Concerned Wits student

We live in a Bizarro world where up is down, black is white, free speech is oppression and violent oppression is freedom.

I have a feeling that the students will not be punished at all. Bullying Jews and Zionists will be considered a human right in parts of South Africa.

Kristallnacht cannot be far behind.

(h/t StevenZ)

Arab Muslim girls enjoying river rafting in Israel (poster)

Latest in my "Apartheid?" poster series:

(h/t Israel Muse)

Fifth anniversary of the death of a woman who saved thousands of Jewish lives

Exactly five years ago today, Irena Sendler passed away at the age of 98.

If you have never heard of this remarkable woman, here is a description from AP upon her death:

[Irina] Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker with the city's welfare department when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, launching World War II. Warsaw's Jews were
forced into a walled-off ghetto.

Seeking to save the ghetto's children, Sendler masterminded risky rescue operations. Under the pretext of inspecting sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, she and her assistants ventured inside the ghetto -- and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and in trams, sometimes wrapped up as packages.

Teenagers escaped by joining teams of workers forced to labor outside the ghetto. They were placed in families, orphanages, hospitals or convents.

"Irena was truly a noble lady and a great humanitarian who helped save thousands of children," said Stanlee Stahl, executive vice president of the New York-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.

Records show that Sendler's team of about 20 people saved nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and its final liquidation in April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.

"Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory," Sendler said in 2007 in a letter to the Polish Senate after lawmakers honored her efforts in 2007.

In hopes of one day uniting the children with their families -- most of whom perished in the Nazis' death camps -- Sendler wrote the children's real names on slips of paper that she kept at home.

When German police came to arrest her in 1943, an assistant managed to hide the slips, which Sendler later buried in a jar under an apple tree in an associate's yard. Some 2,500 names were recorded.

"It took a true miracle to save a Jewish child," Elzbieta Ficowska, who was saved by Sendler's team as a baby in 1942, recalled in an AP interview in 2007. "Mrs. Sendler saved not only us, but also our children and grandchildren and the generations to come."

Anyone caught helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland risked being summarily shot, along with family members -- a fate Sendler only barely escaped herself after the 1943 raid by the Gestapo.

The Nazis took her to the notorious Pawiak prison, which few people left alive. Gestapo agents tortured her repeatedly, leaving Sendler with scars on her body -- but she refused to betray her team.

"I kept silent. I preferred to die than to reveal our activity," she was quoted as saying in Anna Mieszkowska's biography, "Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Story of Irena Sendler."

Zegota, an underground organization helping Jews, paid a bribe to German guards to free her from the prison. Under a different name, she continued her work.

After World War II, Sendler worked as a social welfare official and director of vocational schools, continuing to assist some of the children she rescued.

"A great person has died -- a person with a great heart, with great organizational talents, a person who always stood on the side of the weak," Warsaw Ghetto survivor Marek Eldeman told TVN24 television.

In 1965, Sendler became one of the first so-called Righteous Gentiles honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for wartime heroics. Poland's communist leaders at that time would not allow her to travel to Israel; she collected the award in 1983.

Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said Sender's "courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the innate goodness of mankind."

Despite the Yad Vashem honor, Sendler was largely forgotten in her homeland until recent years. She came to the world's attention in 2000 when a group of schoolgirls from Uniontown, Kan., wrote a short play about her called "Life in a Jar."

It went on to garner international attention, and has been performed more than 200 times in the United States, Canada and Poland.

Amazingly, this isn't everything. Even before the Warsaw Ghetto, at the outbreak of the war, Sendler created some 3000 false documents to save Jews.

Her story was dramatized in this movie:

The story of the play about her, Life in a Jar, written by high school students in Unionville, Kansas who researched her in the 1990s, is also very worthwhile reading. Here is a 2002 news report about the play:

The Irena Sendler Project which includes information about her life and the play is funded by the Lowell Milken Center.

Sunday Links

From Ian:

Barry Rubin: If You Think America Should Go to War in Syria You Haven't Been Paying Attention

Don’t get me wrong. On balance, I’d like to see the Assad regime fall and to see an end to the suffering of Syrian civilians. From a strategic standpoint, though, the fact that the Sunni and Shia Islamists—who both want to destroy U.S. interests and wipe Israel off the map—are battling in Syria may not be the worst thing in the world.

Prosor warns UN to rein in Hezbollah

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor on Friday warned that the transfer of “game changing weapons” from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon threatens to “plunge the entire region into instability and violence.”
Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on counter-terrorism, Prosor further lambasted several European countries for refusing to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, saying that “one does not need to be Mother Theresa to realize that [Hezbollah] is not a social organization.”

EU threatens pullout of south Lebanon peacekeepers

The European Union has threatened to remove its troops from UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, unless the Lebanese government improves the security situation in the area.

UN says 4 peacekeepers held by Syria rebels freed

Syrian rebels on Sunday released four Filipino UN peacekeepers they abducted last week, a military spokesman in the Philippines said.
The four, seized Tuesday, were apparently unharmed, but will undergo a medical checkup and stress debriefing, said Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan.
Al-Jazeera reported on Sunday that the men were transferred to Israel.

Galloway: Israel supports Al-Qaeda
British Member of Parliament chirps up conspiracy crackpottery from his Press TV pulpit

Apparently, Israel is working with Al-Qaeda to help bring down the Assad regime. Yes. Apparently Israel is stupid enough to arm a terrorist group that would arguably work much harder to wipe the Jewish state off the map than Assad's lot ever did.

IRS Punished Conservative Non-Profits, Perhaps Also Pro-Israel Groups

After repeatedly denying it was targeting conservative groups for unfair treatment, the IRS admitted it was treating politically conservative groups in inappropriate ways. A pro-Israel group sued the IRS in 2010 for the same (and worse) conduct.
For example, in 2010, the passionately pro-Israel organization Z STREET filed a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming it had been told by an IRS agent that because the organization was “connected to Israel,” its application for tax-exempt status would receive additional scrutiny. This admission was made in response to a query about the lengthy reveiw of Z STREET’s tax exempt status application.
In addition, the IRS agent told a Z STREET representative that the applications of some of those Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

Soldiers: We've Capitulated to Rock Throwers
Report: number of soldiers injured by rocks is soaring but they are not allowed to open fire.

Writing in the web magazine Mida, Erez Tadmor says that in the past week, since the grave injury of Yaakov Zlatkin at the hands of an Arab mob, he has spoken with dozens of officers and soldiers who all said the same thing: The health and security of Jews who live in Judea and Samaria, as well as those of the soldiers who are supposed to guard them, have been left to the mercy of the enemy.

American stabbed in Cairo for "Being American" identified as lefty anti-zionist academic Chris Stone

Stone is a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and writes frequently against Zionism

Cairo says thwarts suicide attack on embassy

Egyptian security forces thwarted an al-Qaida-linked group's plan to carry out a suicide attack on a foreign embassy and captured several militants, the interior minister said on Saturday.
Mohamed Ibrahim, speaking in a televised news conference, declined to say which embassy had been targeted. He named three suspected members of the cell now under arrest.

Turkey arrests nine in connection to deadly bombings

46 reported dead and 50 still hospitalized from Saturday blasts; Turkish officials blame Syrian intelligence for attacks; Syria denies allegations

One arrested as plot to assasinate Patriarch Bartholomew uncovered

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation into an alleged plot to assassinate Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I on the 560th anniversary of the conquest of İstanbul by the Ottomans, with police arresting one suspect and still seeking two others.

To get money, Marmara families must drop demands

Turkish Deputy PM says negotiators are trying to get up to 20 times the amount requested in court, but victims must waive civil suits

"Business Insider" names 20 hottest Israeli start ups

"Business Insider" yesterday listed Israel's 20 hottest start-up, and praised the country's developed start-up industry. "By some counts, Israel is home to 4,800 startups today. It's also home to least two dozen accelerator/incubator programs in the Tel Aviv area, alone, including some run by Microsoft and Google," it says, adding, "As a startup hub, Israel is second only to Silicon Valley

SodaStream raises guidance on strong Q1 results

SodaStream has raised its full-year revenue guidance to $554.1 million (27% growth over $436.3 million revenue in 2012) from $545.4 million ($25% growth over 2012). The company also raised its non-GAAP net profit growth forecast to 27% from 25%, to $63.5 million from $62.5 million, compared with a net profit of $50 million in 2012.

Morgan Freeman Presented With The Jake Eberts Key Of Knowledge Award By Canadian Friends Of The Hebrew University Of Jerusalem

Event raised $2 million for Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada
Last night Academy Award-winner Morgan Freeman was honoured with the Jake Eberts Key of Knowledge Award at a gala reception hosted by Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (CFHU). The award celebrates Freeman's dedication to combating racism and promoting knowledge and education worldwide. The gala was held at the Toronto Centre for the Arts and was attended by more than 700 guests.

Siege! Hamas blocks human rights workers from leaving Gaza

From PCHR:

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the decision of Internal Security Services (ISS), stationed at Beit Hanoun Crossing (Erez), to prevent lawyer Eyad al-Alami, PCHR's Deputy Director for Legal Affairs, and lawyer Mohammed Bseiso from traveling to the West Bank this morning. The two lawyers were leaving for an official mission related to PCHR’s Legal affairs. PCHR calls upon the government in Gaza to intervene in order to put an end to these illegal measures and unjustified decisions which restrict the constitutionally guaranteed right of civilians to freedom of movement, and to ensure respect for the right freedom of movement. PCHR also calls upon the Government to allow people to move freely, especially, in light of restrictions imposed on Palestinian civilians’ movement by the Israeli forces.

At approximately 11:00 on Sunday, 12 May 2013, Mr. Eyad al-Alami and Mohammed Bseiso arrived at the checkpoint of the Ministry of Interior near Beit Hanoun crossing, in the northern Gaza Strip, and handed their ID cards to an officer in order to complete the procedures of traveling to the West bank. Al-Alami and Bseiso were on their way in an official mission related to following up legal cases of victims of the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip; prisoners held in Israeli jails; medical referrals of patients from the Gaza Strip for treatment abroad, and; other humanitarian cases. The aforementioned officer asked the PCHR’s staff members to wait. After approximately half an hour he told them that they were prevented from traveling and that they had to refer to the Ministry of Interior in Gaza for obtaining a travel permit.

The evil Israelis gave them permission to travel through Israel to visit the West Bank. The "democratically elected" Hamas leaders of Gaza blocked them.

The "Free Gaza" movement is, naturally, silent.

VIDEO: Lebanese TV shows Gaza luxury, slams Hamas (EoZ exclusive)

Lebanon's OTV is owned by a Christian party that is allied with Hezbollah, so this very interesting video shows Iran's displeasure at Hamas' non-support of Bashir Assad's regime in Syria.

The report apparently aired May 9. It was publicized in anti-Hamas Palestinian Arab media.

Reporter: Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that it has Movenpick, Rotana, and other expensive hotels. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that Western Union, Money Express and other financial and banking services are available for Gazans on every street. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that some fishermen have changed the flags from those of Palestine to those of Qatar. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that the price of some apartments in the Rimal neighborhood are the same as the price of an apartment in the Rauche neighborhood in Beirut (an upscale neighborhood in Beirut).

Woman in car: They came/returned from Syria and Lebanon.

Reporter: Here all pre-conceived notions are gone.

Reporter to worker: Where are those goods from?
Worker: Israel.
Reporter: You mean from occupied Palestine.
Worker: Yes, occupied Palestine.
Reporter: What are those goods?
Worker: Poultry.
Reporter: How does it arrive? Is it brought by Palestinian, “Palestinians of ‘48” [Israeli Arabs] or what?
Worker: No, directly from the Jews.
Reporter: Maybe they poisoned it.
Worker: No, no, no.
Reporter: What guarantees that they didn’t poison it?
Worker: We checked it.
Reporter: You "checked it” (sarcastic)

Reporter: Their cars, currency, their food and much of the things they need come from the factories of the Israeli occupier enemy, and they don’t object, and they don’t have a choice.

Reporter: You use shekels only?
Man: Yes. That’s what is used.

Reporter: Those who haven’t visited Gaza which is ruled by Hamas, haven’t seen the “shahids” and the people killed who died in Syria fighting the regime which protected, embraced and provided weapons to and helped Hamas previously. The Syrian regime has become a target which (Hamas) fights, while it promised the (Muslim)Brothers of Egypts to uphold the ceasefire with Israel.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Antisemitic rant in Gulf News op-ed (in English)

Usually one only sees these in Arabic, but Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman, the editor of the "Palestine Encyclopedia," wrote an article about the highly ineffective "Russell Tribunal on Palestine"in the Gulf News and segued into a crazed rant against Rabbinic Judaism:

Abusing the Torah, they [the "Rabbinic Council" of Israel] managed to turn its teachings into a real-estate book with ‘Divine Entitlements’ to possess Palestinian lands by Jews only as “the chosen people of God”. Such egotistical doctrine being taught to Israeli youth brings back to memory the doctrine of “the master white Aryan race” which ignited “the Holocaust” The racist mentality prevailing in Israel has deep roots entrenched and nourished by the Ashkenazi (western) Talmud written to explain the Torah by Ashkenazi Rabbis who abandoned the Sephardim Talmud written by the Arab Jews who originally came from Arabia representing the real Hebrew community. The Ashkenazi conservative rabbinic council excommunicated the sect of ‘reform Jews’, mostly Americans, for abandoning the Ashkenazi Talmud which is now considered by these Rabbis more holy than the Torah itself. Abandoning the Ashkenazi Talmud by “the reform Jews” of America was for the overwhelming “tone of racism”, which declares the Jews as superior to all races and “other races were solely created to serve the Jews” as the chief Rabbis of Shas declared in the news media in Israel. The reform Jews of America could not be the vanguard of combating racism in America against Jews and blacks which equated “dogs with Jews” while keeping a racist book, the Ashkenazi Talmud, as a sacred book in their houses. The “reform Jews” in America and Europe still support Israel, but not the racist mentality that has transformed the secular Zionist state into a Talmudist religious state. They have now come together forming the new lobby of “J Street” to stop the Israeli colonists who adhere to a racist doctrine, especially after becoming the real power in the current Israeli government, which is adamant on transforming Israel into “a Jewish state” that negates the presence of all non-Jews especially the Palestinian Arabs.
during the Nazi regime. Codifying apartheid in enacted laws in Israeli parliament and in Rabbinic religious edicts, respectively, has no relation, whatsoever, to a democratic civil state nor to Judaism. Such practice has rightly changed the code name of Israel from “the only democracy in its neighbourhood” to “the last apartheid state still existing”.

"Professor" Rahman, after putting "the Holocaust" in scare quotes, makes up a bizarre history of Judaism.

I confess, I never heard of the "Sephardim Talmud." Sephardim learn the same Talmud that Ashkenazim do. [There were two main Talmuds written, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. The Babylonian is considered more authoritative but both are studied and used by both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews.)

Shas is a Sephardic party! If the "Sephardim Talmud" reflects the true Torah, then how did they become such "racists"?

The idea that any rabbi considers the Talmud "more holy" than the Torah is beyond absurd, as the Talmud itself shows countless times.

And, once again, it needs to me mentioned that if the idea of a "Jewish State" is racist and negates the presence of all non-Jews, than every single Arab state, without exception, as well as "Palestine," are racist states that negate the presence of non-Arabs (and, for most, non-Muslims" based on the wording in their own constitutions.

Keep in mind that this writer is considered an intellectual in the Arab world, and he doesn't have the ability to do the slightest amount of research. His hatred of Jews trumps any facts. The chances that the Gulf News would reprimand him for making things up range from remote to zero.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

Hamas compiling photos of Israeli soldiers

There have been a few incidents in recent years of IDF soldiers getting in trouble for posting information on Facebook that could compromise security or embarrass the IDF.

In 2010, the IDF announced "In response to the latest incident the army's Information Security department issued a letter to soldiers warning: "Enemy intelligence scans the Internet in search of pieces of information about the IDF, information that could sabotage operations and endanger our forces."

It turns out that the English-language Qassam website has been quietly compiling photos of IDF soldiers that originated on Facebook. The photos are not all on the same section of their site, and the captions do not help to understand why they are doing this. While their goal is unclear, but all potential scenarios - kidnapping, lawfare, or whatever - are not appealing.

(h/t Irene)

Egyptian Coptic teacher charged with "blasphemy"

Is your teacher too strict? Giving you too much homework?

Just accuse her of insulting Islam, and they'll take her away!

From Amnesty:

A Coptic Christian teacher detained in Egypt on charges of “defamation of religion” must be immediately released and the criminal case against her dropped, said Amnesty International today, ahead of her appearance in court on Saturday.

Dimyana Obeid Abd Al Nour, 24, has been in custody since 8 May, when she went to the public prosecution’s office in Luxor to respond to charges of “defamation of religion”. The case against her is based on a complaint lodged by the parents of three of her students alleging that she insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad during a class.

The alleged incident took place at the Sheikh Sultan primary school in Tout, Luxor Governorate, on 8 April during a lesson on “religious life”. Dimyana Obeid Abd Al Nour has been teaching at three schools in Luxor since the beginning of this year.

“It is outrageous that a teacher finds herself behind bars for teaching a class. If she made some professional mistake, or deviated from the school curriculum, an internal review should have sufficed,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“The authorities must release Dimyana Obeid Abd Al Nour immediately and drop these spurious charges against her.”

According to the information available to Amnesty International, some of the students alleged that Dimyana Obeid Abd Al Nour said that she “loved Father Shenouda”, the late Patriarch of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, and touched her knee or her stomach when she spoke about the Prophet Muhammad in class. She has denied the charges, and maintained that she stuck to the school curriculum.

This is better than calling in a fake bomb threat!

Daily Mail shows photo of Israeli police restraining Orthodox Jews - while talking about Palestinian Arabs

From Edgar Davidson's great blog:

Douglas Murray is one of the UK's finest political commentators. He is also a staunch defender of Israel. But in an otherwise excellent article he has written in the Daily Mail about Stephen Hawking's boycott of Israel he has provided the opportunity for a bizarre blunder by the Mail's editors. Because Murray decided (wrongly in my view) to 'balance' his criticism of the boycott with comments like these:

I acknowledge that there are those who are concerned about Israel’s approach to the Palestinians
the Editor (I assume) decided it was an opportunity to smear Israel even in a pro-Israel article by posting a picture showing Israelis 'mistreating Palestinians'.

Hence we have this picture captioned

There are those who are concerned about Israel's approach to the Palestinians, but if these academics think a boycott is the right way to address those concerns they are profoundly mistaken
Except that the women in the photo, including the one being held back by an Israeli policeman, are clearly orthodox Jewish women.

Indeed, the photo is from AFP, and shows Israeli police stopping a protest after the murder of Evyatar Borovsky.

The rest of Davidson's piece is worth reading as well.

Saturday Links

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Stephen Hawking Endorses Iranian and Chinese Repression

The only logical conclusion that can be derived from Stephen Hawking’s decision to join the academic boycott of Israel, coupled with his enthusiastic visits to Iran and China, is that he actively endorses and supports the repression practiced by the Iranian mullahs and the Chinese party bosses. Why else would he single out the world’s only Jewish state for his academic boycott?

'Chomsky pushed Hawking to boycott Israel event'

Chomsky joined British academics in telling Hawking they were "surprised and deeply disappointed" that he had accepted the invitation to speak at the conference in Israel," according to the Guardian.

Douglas Murray: How can a man as brilliant as Hawking boycott Israel when it makes the microchip that enables him to talk?

For with supreme irony, the speech device which enables Hawking to communicate with the world and relate his fascinating thoughts to us is a computer Intel Core i7-based communication system. Which runs on a chip designed by Israel.
Perhaps Professor Hawking should reflect on what it would mean if he truly committed himself to a boycott of Israel.
The conference will be the poorer for his absence. But in the meantime those of us who admired this man and cherish the true principles of freedom are left speechless ourselves — at the extent of his naivete.

CAMERA: Economist Joins BDS Whitewash

Equally euphemistic is demand three, which envisions the influx into Israel of millions of Palestinians born abroad, the descendents Palestinian refugees from 1948. This would lead to Barghouti's dream of rewinding history so that the Jewish people are forced back to the dark era in which being a Jew meant everywhere being an ethnic minority.
If the BDS movement's leaders are willing to tell the truth about the movement, why does The Economist insist on hiding that truth?

Profs on Boston Bombing: Blame Right-Wingers, ‘Islamophobia,’ and Blowback

Clearly, the specialists cited above are using their knowledge not to clarify, but to conceal; not to explain, but to apologize. When they serve as a source of propaganda rather than elucidation, the professoriate becomes a barrier to understanding. Moreover, the insistence that bigotry is endemic to the American character only promotes the very hysteria and division they decry. In turning to such “experts” in times of crisis, the media and the public at large are ill-served and often misled.

'Mounting Evidence' Boston Bombers Involved in 2011 Triple Murder

Massachusetts investigators have developed what they call "mounting evidence," bolstered by "forensic hits," that point to the possible involvement of both Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar in a gruesome, unsolved triple homicide in 2011, law enforcement officials told ABC News.

Susan Rice: Attacks on Israel at UN undercut peace

“But the UN isn’t at its best when it comes to Israel. In fact, it’s sometimes at its worst,” Rice continued. “Anyone who cares about the international system has to be concerned when one member state is unfairly singled out.”
Rice described Israel as enduring “a barrage of obsessive, unbalanced, and relentless criticism” at the United Nations.

Think Tank Slams Newseum’s Plan to Honor Hamas Faux ‘Journalists’

“We just learned about this last night, and we are eager to learn more. FDD’s president, Cliff May, has a call in to the CEO of the Newseum. As a think tank that has done significant research on terrorist media, we are obviously deeply concerned,” Schanzer said, while adding, “We would have a hard time understanding why anyone would choose to honor anyone working for a terrorist propaganda outfit.”
The Newseum, a journalism museum in Washington, is honoring journalists who were killed on the job this past year in a ceremony on May 13. Two of those being honored, Hussam Salama and Mahmoud al-Kumi, were killed in Gaza in November and worked for Al-Aqsa Television, a Hamas-funded outlet, which itself has been designated a terror organization by the U.S.

Newseum Puts Journalists at Risk by Honoring Terrorists

One lesson in all this was the bias and unconscionably low standards of both the press and activist organizations that cover Israel. But another–and very important–lesson was this: Allowing terrorists to masquerade as journalists and then celebrating their “work” in war zones will almost surely put all journalists at much greater risk by blurring the lines that should keep them safe and treating terrorists as media martyrs.

PA Warns Against Qaradawi's 'Fake Palestinian Passport'

The PA urges world countries to take legal action to seize the passport given by Hamas to radical cleric Yousef al-Qaradawi.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Holds Massive Anti-Israel Rally

The anti-Israel rally, the first of its kind by the Muslim Brotherhood since the Islamist party took power from Egypt’s military nearly a year ago, protested Israel’s recent brief detention of the Mufti of Jerusalem and its purported airstrikes in Syria.

Davutoglu: Tests on Syrians Show Signs of Chemical Weapons

Turkey's FM: tests conducted on wounded Syrians suggested use of chemical weapons.

Cagey Russia defends possible Syrian anti-aircraft missile deal

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says international law doesn’t restrict sale of S-300 defense system to Bashar Assad

Lebanese Director: Arab League Trying to Ban My Film

Lebanese director whose film was banned in his home country because it was made in Israel, points accusing finger at the Arab League.

Israeli technology to keep disconnected, when necessary

In today’s hyper-connected world, it’s all too easy for secrets to seep out. Meetings, sensitive research in labs, courtroom trials, and so many other formerly private or closed events and venues are now open to the world, with proprietary information or tenuous negotiations threatened by the tweeting or facebooking of sensitive data that could ruin hard-won progress, or further complicate already tangled legal proceedings.