11/05 Links Pt2: The Anti-Zionist Civil War on the Left, 'Open Zion' Closes, Philistine Boars

From Ian:

---

Peter Beinart leaving Daily Beast for The Atlantic Media Company, Haaretz

Peter Beinart, the liberal Jewish blogger, is leaving The Daily Beast for The Atlantic Media Company, where he will serve as contributing editor for both The Atlantic and National Journal. Beinart will also join the Israeli newspaper Haaretz as a senior columnist.
Beinart, a former New Republic editor, joined the Daily Beast in November 2008 and in 2012 launched "Zion Square" -- later changed to "Open Zion" -- a blog dedicated to "an open and unafraid conversation about Israel, Palestine, and the Jewish future." Formerly a fixture on the AIPAC speaking circuit, he has in recent years become a hero on the Israeli left -- and a pariah on the right -- for advocating against Israeli settlements and in support of a two-state solution.

The Anti-Zionist Civil War on the Left

To give you a taste of how outrageous this book is, Blumenthal even has the nerve to recount a conversation with Israeli author David Grossman who has been an important figure in the peace movement in which he lectured the Israeli about the need for the state to be dismantled and for its citizens to make their peace with the need to rejoin the Diaspora rather than to cling to their homes. Grossman responds to Blumenthal by walking out and telling him to tear up his phone number. Blumenthal attributes Grossman’s reaction to Israeli myopia.

Film: Relations between Israel, UK tarnished by Mandate period

Melanie Philips, a British author and publisher, said the film told the “story of the utmost treachery and malice, as the British upended their international treaty obligation” under the mandate. She argued that the British public is besieged with anti-Israel propaganda that obscures the history of British action during the mandate.
“It is essential that people understand this history, in order to show them that, contrary to what they believe, Israel stands for law, history and justice,” she said.

The uncomfortable silence of British Jewry

In what’s becoming a regular and predictable occurrence, yet another leading British politician attacked Israel and the American Jewish lobby. This time it was MP and former Foreign Secretary and Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw. Speaking of Israeli “theft” of Palestinian land and “Germany’s obsession with [defending] Israel,” Straw lamented the “unlimited funds available to Jewish organizations … used to divert American policy and intimidate candidates.”

Israel’s wild pig population was originally from Europe, researchers say

In a country where the two main religions, Judaism and Islam, both forbid its consumption, researchers say that Israel’s feral pig population was originally European, likely arriving with the Philistines more than 3,000 years ago.

By An Odd Coincidence The Top 10 Worst Countries In The World For Women Are Muslim Majority Nations

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 10 nations that received the worst score in the World Economic Forum’s 2013 Global Gender Gap Report. Each country was graded based on its score in four key areas: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment. Countries scored worse by each measure when the gap between men and women for that measure was the widest.

Islamic University Dean Supports Stoning

The rector of the Islamic University of Rotterdam (IUR) values stoning as an appropriate punishment, NRC Handelsblad newspaper reported Thursday. The Lower House is demanding clarification from Integration Minister Lodewijk Asscher.

Anti-Zionism: the "big" ideology

Anti-Zionism explains history in terms of the struggle of Jews to control the world. The chosen weapon is not force but conspiratorial games. Jews are clever ‘Elders of Zion’ type manipulators. They rely not on their own physical power but on that of others: political powers and the media do their bidding.
Zionists twist those powers to get special treatment for Israel. They get what they want by pushing the right knobs, manipulating the right leaders, hijacking American foreign policy; playing the Holocaust card for all its worth. Their behaviour is “beyond chutzpah” in the words of Norman Finkelstein, a member of the anti-Zionist priestly caste.

Academic Boycott of Israel Will Not Bring Peace

Today, however, academic freedom is incorrectly equated with unrestricted faculty free speech and the “correlative obligations” or presenting “divergent opinions” have been swept away. As the late Gary Tobin put it, “Academic freedom has evolved from protection against political influence to job security — an employment contract rather than an intellectual contract.”
Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel and Israeli academics.
Here academics have taken the lead in attempting to condemn and restrict access to an entire country through vilification, through lies and exaggeration, and by efforts to restrict the free speech of others.

Report: EU Diplomats Participating in PA Incitement Activities

Diplomats and parliamentarians, mainly from European countries, have actively participated in popular resistance events and activities initiated by Palestinian Authority Arabs in Judea and Samaria, a report released by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) has found.
The report has found that in isolated cases, these European diplomats and parliamentarians also participate in activities on the ground which defy Israel. The report cited as an example the French diplomat who was documented as she physically attacked an Israeli soldier during a demonstration in support of illegal Bedouin squatters.

Israelly Cool: How To Deal With BDSholes

Props to the quick thinking person who posted this note on the Apple computer belonging to a BDShole at Oxford.

BBC correspondent compares anti-terrorist fence to Berlin wall, fails to mention terrorism

Beyond its multiple accuracy failures, this broadcast is clearly no more than a politically motivated polemic which adopts both its theme and its language from the repertoires of anti-Israel campaigners. What it certainly does not do is to provide BBC audiences with any “insight” (as claimed in the programme blurb) into why the anti-terrorist fence had to be built or why its presence is still a regrettable necessity. Gebauer’s total abstention from any serious mention of the subject of Palestinian terrorism indicates that he did not intend to inform his audiences at all: his frankly repugnant ‘moral’ posturing and his co-opting of childhood memories are merely a vehicle for the promotion of an all too transparent political standpoint – in clear breach of BBC guidelines on impartiality.

Missile attack on Israeli civilians not a ‘flare-up’ for the BBC

Despite the fact that the incident began when the Israeli soldiers were attacked, the BBC puts the deaths of Hamas terrorists first in its order of reporting, leading the average reader to understand that chronologically, the injuries to Israeli soldiers came after the terrorists were killed.

Irish Times: Graphically Illustrating Bias

The Irish Times has a habit of confusing journalism with activism when it comes to reporting on Israel. Last year, the newspaper didn’t just report on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in Ireland, it told its readers how they could join in the boycott.
Now, the Irish Times has produced a puff piece of a story that reads like an advertorial for an anti-Israel organization. “Graphic illustration of Palestinian concerns” begins (emphasis added):

The first infographic produced for the website Visualising Palestine, published in February 2012, was sensational. It showed what happens during hunger strikes, giving examples from history and featuring Palestinian administrative detainee Khader Adnan, who persevered for 66 days before Israel agreed to free him.

Stephen Sizer: "Zionism's Awful Anti-Christian Legacy"

An article in Israel Today, a pro-Israel Christian magazine, focuses on a pastor called Lynne Hybels, who is evidently not a Christian Zionist. Lynne Hybels need not concern us here, but the article concludes by saying:

"While certainly not an anti-Semite, she is guilty by close association with those who accuse Israel of everything from genocide to deicide. Perhaps unwittingly, she is carrying on Christianity’s awful anti-Semitic legacy."

In response, Stephen Sizer has left the following comment on Facebook: "No, Israel Today is carrying on Zionism's awful anti-Christian legacy."

'Kristallnacht' ad for German health spa sparks outrage

A health spa triggered controversy with an advertisement on its website to enjoy a “long romantic Kristallnacht,” ahead of this week’s anniversary of the night Nazi forces burned synagogues and murdered Jews across Germany in 1938.
The health spa, Kristall Sauna-Wellnesspark mit Soletherme, is located in Bad Klosterlausnitz in the eastern German state of Thuringia.

Jewish group: Germany complicit in concealing looted Holocaust art

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said the government was informed "several months ago" about the case. He said authorities in Berlin were supplying "advice from experts in the field of so-called 'degenerate art' and the area of Nazi-looted art."

Kafka’s Hebrew notes go on display

Pages from the notebook used by Czech Jewish author Franz Kafka for his Hebrew language classes will be available for public viewing this week at the National Library in Jerusalem. The display is part of the Open House Jerusalem 2013 program taking place this weekend, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported Sunday.
Kafka, who wrote in German, is regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He planned on moving to Israel, and began looking for a Hebrew tutor. He was introduced to one Puah Manchel, who had moved to Prague from Mandate-era Jerusalem to study at the Charles University in Prague.

Israeli start-ups set to make a splash in UK, again

London doesn’t lack a start-up scene, but that won’t stop the city from importing dozens of Israeli start-ups for the second annual Innovate Israel, the largest Israel business conference outside of the Holy Land. This year’s event promises to be even bigger than last year’s, with over 500 attendees expected at the one-day event on December 4. Attendees representing some of Europe’s largest companies and investment houses, along with government and tech industry figures, will hear from senior figures from companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Virgin.

Crowdfunding grows up, as giant GE fund gets involved

Crowdfunding, an investment model that lets small investors become venture capitalists with as little as $10,000 to put into a start-up, has come of age. On Monday, OurCrowd, an Israel-based crowdfunding platform started by veteran Israel tech investor Jon Medved, announced that it had entered into a co-investment agreement with GE Ventures, the US company’s corporate venture capital unit.
Under the deal, GE Ventures will be able to co-invest with OurCrowd in select early-stage companies in the areas of energy, healthcare, software and advanced manufacturing.

Read More

Questions the Methodist Church didn't ask in their survey

Last month I noted that the Methodist Church was issuing a survey asking for people's opinions about boycotting Israel. Even though the questions indicated that the decision had already been made, I felt it was a good idea to encourage people to respond anyway.

(One particularly good response was written by Maurice Ostroff, and NGO Monitor wrote a comprehensive paper in response, and Dexter Van Zile also had a nice one [h/t WATAL]. )

I received a different kind of response from Avi Bell. Instead of answering the questions, he suggests that Methodists should answer some additional questions:

What do you understand to be the motivation/inspiration behind the UK Methodist Church's call for boycotting, divesting from and imposing sanctions upon the world's only Jewish state?

What do you understand to be the motivation/inspiration behind the UK Methodist Church's silence regarding terrorist groups that have murdered thousands of Jews in Israel in service of an explicitly anti-Semitic agenda including the denial of a Jewish right of self-determination in the historic Jewish homeland?

Do you consider it odd that the Methodist Church frets about the imperfections in the world's only Jewish state while ignoring the much more troubling imperfections in all the world's non-Jewish states? Do you consider it troubling that the Methodist Church has adopted a harsh moral standard for judging the world's only Jewish state, and a forgiving one for all the other states in the world, including those seeking to destroy the Jewish state?

In your view, how can the Methodist Church credibly contribute to Arab-Israeli peace efforts when it has spent recent years promoting conflict by supporting the delegitimization of the Jewish state, while maintaining silence about moral outrages committed against the Jewish population of Israel?

In your view, how can the Methodist Church be viewed as engaged in sincere reflection about its anti-Israel views when the Church publicly solicits only further anti-Israel opinions?

Do you support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from part of their homeland? Do you support the ethnic cleansing of Jews from part of their homeland? Do you support boycotts in order to promote such ethnic cleansing? What message do you think the Methodist Church sends by promoting the ethnic cleansing of Jews from part of their homeland?

What message do you think the Methodist Church sends by flirting with mass boycotts of the world's largest Jewish population? Does historical Church-promoted anti-Semitism affect this perception? How do you feel the Church's moral authority will be impacted if it promotes boycotts against Jewish Israeli thinkers and artists?

What do you think is the impact of the Methodist Church's public assumption that its campaign against the Jewish state and the world's largest Jewish population center is moral? How do you think the Church's moral authority is impacted by its request for public and political support of its campaign against the Jewish state?

Read More

11/05 Links Pt1: Abbas- All of Israel is occupied Palestine, EU Countries Wall Off Turkey

From Ian:

---

Caroline Glick: It’s time to reassess Israel’s strategic assumptions

So here we are, three for three. All of Obama’s second term foreign policy goals are harmful to Israel. Everything that is good for Obama is necessarily bad for Israel.
It is easy to understand why our leaders insist on holding on to strategic assumptions that are no longer valid. The region is in a state of flux. In stormy seas, our natural inclination is to go back to what has always worked. Since 1968, the conviction that a strong Israel is consonant with US global interests has guided US policy in the Middle East. It’s hard to accept that this is no longer the case.
But we have to accept it. By clinging to our now outdated strategic assumptions, not only are we engaging in dangerous behavior. We are blinding ourselves to new strategic opportunities presented by the chaos in neighboring countries.
True, the new opportunities cannot replace our lost alliance with the US or Europe as a trading partner. But they will get us through the storm in one piece.

Abbas' speech: All of Israel is occupied Palestine

All of Israel is "occupied Palestinian land" was part of the message of a speech by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas at a memorial this month. Delivering "the speech of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine," member of Fatah Central Committee Jamal Muhaisen stated that "not an inch of the land of Palestine" has been "liberated," including the "1948 lands," which is a term the PA and Fatah use to refer to Israel within the Green Line:

"All our holy places are still under occupation, and so far we have not liberated one inch of Palestinian land. All Palestinian land is occupied - Gaza is occupied, the West Bank is occupied, the 1948 lands (i.e., Israel) are occupied and Jerusalem is occupied."

Abbas: Israel's claim it wants Jordan Valley for security is a lie

The statements were published by Abbas’s office on the eve of his meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Bethlehem to discuss the crisis in the peace talks with Israel.
Abbas said that Israel wants to retain a presence in the Jordan Valley for economic and not security reasons.

Netanyahu: PA's position unchanged since 1993

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas expressed pessimism Monday, ahead of their Wednesday meetings with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, saying the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians seem to be treading water.
"I see no real changes in the Palestinian position since 1993," Netanyahu said in Monday's Likud-Beytenu faction meeting, referring to the year in which the Oslo Accords were signed.

Time to get ready for a third intifada

Yes, in Livni's skewed view, the fact that Bennett voiced strong opposition to the release of bloodthirsty Palestinian murderers from Israeli jails makes him more of a threat to peace than Abbas, who is proud of their accomplishments.
The good news here is also the bad news.
No matter what Kerry does or Livni says or Israel agrees to, a third intifada is on its way. Abbas says we can count on it.

Akunis: Arrogant PA Wants to Break Off Talks After Releases

The entire incident is just another example of PA “double talk,” Akunis said in the Knesset Monday evening. Israel, he said, had agreed to free terrorists as its “gesture” to encourage the PA to join the talks. Israel had never agreed to a building freeze. “We do not need anyone's permission to build in our land,” Akunis said. “We have built, we are building, and we will build in all parts of Israel.”
What really angers him, Akunis said, was that the PA was now looking for ways to pullout of the talks, after most of the terrorists it had demanded be released have been sent home. “It is the height of arrogance for them to be trying to break up the talks after these detestable terrorists have been released, he said.

Poll: 54% of Palestinians support two-state solution

The poll also showed that 58% of Palestinians support non-violent means “to end the occupation” as opposed to 47% of Gaza respondents who believe that armed resistance is the best method to achieve independence.
But while a majority of 60% believe a third intifada is possible in the near future, only 29% said they would support such a development, the poll showed.

Report: Fewer Rockets Fired on Israel in 2013, Hamas 'Afraid'

According to Maariv, while over 200 rockets were launched at Southern Israeli cities in 2012, only 40 have been fired so far in 2013. IDF officials have stated that Hamas has been "intimidated" by Israeli military might after successes in last year's Operation Pillar of Defense, which killed top Hamas officials like Ahmed Jabari, the mastermind behind the Hamas takeover of Gaza who also played a significant role in the 2006 Gilad Shalit kidnapping.

Fuming Arab MKs storm out of debate on Temple Mount

The subject on the docket was an amendment to the longstanding policy banning Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Judaism and Islam. Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Eli Ben Dahan (Jewish Home) remarked that while the Chief Rabbinate traditionally upheld the ban, since the inauguration of new chief rabbis earlier this year, “I sought to put the possibility before them to recognize the reality that there’s a large [portion of the] public whose rabbis permit them to ascend the Temple Mount.”
Enraged by the prospect of a policy change, Arab MK Jamal Zahalke (Balad) interjected, “There is no such thing as the Temple Mount, there is only the al-Aqsa Mosque,” setting off a shouting match between members of the Jewish and Arab parties.

Israeli MK: I am Proud to be Araffat's Friend



'Organized' Firebomb Attack on Bus Carrying Knesset Member

Five firebombs were thrown at a bus on Egged's 160 line from Jerusalem to Hevron at midnight, Monday evening, as it passed the Judean Jewish community of Karmei Tzur. IDF troops immediately arrived at the scene to search the area for the perpetrators; forces found additional bottles ready to be thrown. No one was hurt.
Bayit Yehudi MK Orit Struk, who was returning home from a Knesset session on the bus, commented on the severity of the attack, saying that the ambush appeared to have been "planned in advance."

Compelling Evidence of Serious Maltreatment in Gaza Strip of Cattle Imported from Australia and Israel

The treatment of cattle and the Halal slaughter practiced in the Gaza Strip constitute a blatant violation of Australian law, which stipulates strict standards for maintaining the health and welfare of animals, and slaughter practices minimizing and shortening suffering.
To illustrate this case, on June 7, 2011, the Australian minister of agriculture, fishing and forestry ordered the suspension of export of animals for slaughter to Indonesia, after receiving evidence that in several slaughterhouses in that country maltreatment of animals is the norm.

Hamas appoints female writer as Western media spokesperson

The new spokeswoman has many plans to change the stereotypes affiliated with Gaza, as well as plans to present the regime in Gaza to Israeli media. "I will address Western and Israeli media," she said in an interview, "and I will work on changing the media discourse, painting a different picture of Palestine and Gaza. The West does not understand religious discourse."
It may be that Al-Mudallal is unaware that the Hamas administration has ordered to ban all Israeli media and journalists over a year ago, but the discrepancy was apparently amended as she has now aligned with the policy and refused to speak with Ynet.

Israeli PM Netanyahu: U.S. Should Hear Iran Chants of ‘Death to America’ and ‘Give No Discounts to Tehran’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out on Monday that while world powers negotiate with Iran in Geneva over its nuclear capabilities, the regime’s supporters in Tehran are marching to commemorate the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy.
“America and the P5+1 should listen to the chants of ‘Death to America’ in Tehran and give no discounts to Tehran,” Netanyahu said at a formal reception honoring the visit of Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.

Netanyahu presses visiting Chinese, Polish leaders on Iran

Meeting on Monday with Meng Jianzhu, a member of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Political Bureau, Netanyahu told Jianzhu that the pressure on Iran must not be relaxed.
Netanyahu also said Iran must not be allowed to retain centrifuges and a heavy water reactor, which are used to produce nuclear weapons, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Hagel: Israel’s pressure pushed Iran to negotiations

“It’s true that sanctions — not just US sanctions but UN sanctions, multilateral sanctions — have done tremendous economic damage,” Hagel said in an interview with Bloomberg journalist and pundit Jeffrey Goldberg. “Even many of Iran’s leaders have acknowledged that. And I think that Iran is responding to the constant pressure from Israel, knowing that Israel believes them to be an existential threat. I think all of this, combined, probably brought the Iranians to where we are today.”

Nobel laureate to EU, US: Ban Iran from TV satellites

Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi on Monday called on the European Union and United States to ban Iran from using US and European satellites to broadcast what she described as the Islamic Republic's propaganda.
Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and former judge who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting human rights in Iran, also accused Western powers of focusing too little attention on rights abuses as they pursue a deal with Tehran aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions.

‘West may offer Iran cash for halting nuclear program’

Iran could be offered a one-time cash payment from its frozen oil revenues as part of a plan reportedly being explored to give the Islamic Republic some immediate relief from crippling economic sanctions.
The money would come in exchange for a complete halting of Iran’s nuclear program while negotiations with Western powers continue, reported the London Times.

Iranian MP Boasts of Hundreds of Troops in Syria

The MP, Javad Ghoddousi Karimi, reportedly boasted that hundreds of Iranian battalions are fighting in Syria, where they are fighting alongside troops loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad.
Syrian commanders, backed by Iranian forces, are announcing the army's victories against rebels fighters, he added.
The announcement came hours after it was reported that Muhammad G'malizda, a senior commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was killed in the Syrian civil war.

Intelligence Between Turkey, Iran in ‘Very, Very Good State’ – Iranian Ambassador

The intelligence cooperation between Turkey and Iran is in a “very, very good state,” Iranian Ambassador to Turkey Alireza Bigdeli told Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News Monday.
Bigdeli openly mocked Western powers, and Israel, saying they were bothered by the fact that Iran and Turkey’s intelligence cooperation was at a level that reflects the two countries being “strong neighbors and brothers,” Hurriyet reported.

Greek, Bulgarian fences along Turkish border draw criticism

Plans by Greece and Bulgaria to build a fence along the Turkish border have drawn criticism in Turkey as it is widely perceived as the EU's hidden intention to build a wall to mark its borders.
Plans by Greece and Bulgaria to build a fence along the Turkish border have drawn criticism in Turkey as it is widely perceived as the EU's hidden intention to build a wall to mark its borders.

Read More

Good news: Iran only wants to kill millions of Americans, not all of them!

Rouhani's moderation pays off!:

TEHRAN (FNA)- Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces General Hassan Firouzabadi underscored that the slogan “Death to the US” chanted by Iranians is meant at the 1% capital holders and Zionist Americans ruling the world's unjust system, and not the American people.

“The slogan “Death to the US” doesn’t mean death to the 99% of the US people,” Firouzabadi said, addressing a national meeting of police commanders here in Tehran on Monday.

“When we say “Death to the US”, we mean death to those one percent who are arrogant, capitalist and Zionist Americans,” he added.

His remarks came as Iranians in different cities across the country took part in massive rallies on Monday chanting "Death to the US" to mark the anniversary of the US embassy takeover in 1979.

Tens of thousands of Iranians from all walks of life, including school and university students, commemorated the National Day of Campaign against Global Arrogance and the National Student Day.

Participants in the annual rally in front of the former US embassy in Tehran known by the Iranians as "the den of spies" vowed to follow the path of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, and renewed allegiance to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

See? They don't want to murder 300 million Americans - only those that are arrogant, capitalist and who support Israel, which he estimates is only 3 million!

Unfortunately, the latest Gallup poll finds an all-time high of 64% of Americans who are sympathetic towards Israel, which comes out to 200 million Americans who deserve to die. But still - this is a great improvement over the previous Iranian demands of death to all Americans. Those 114 million of Americans who might survive Iran's selection process should be enough to give Rouhani a Nobel Peace Prize next year.

This also gives great hope to the Roger Cohens and Max Blumenthals and Walt/Mearsheimers in the US who are trying their hardest to end up in the privileged minority of American Jews whom Iran would allow to live.

Read More

Once again, protesting Palestinian Arabs shut down a UNRWA office

When there are rumors that the billions of dollars of free services might get slightly curtailed, Palestinian Arabs know what to do - attack the people providing them with the free services:

The popular committees of the Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank will shut down UNRWA's offices Tuesday protesting reductions in services provided to Palestinian refugees in the region.

The decision came after UNRWA decided to end the UN Money for Work program in Jenin district in the northern West Bank. The program offered temporary job opportunities to 23,000 family providers across the West Bank suffering dire economic conditions.

The popular committees of Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank added that the UNRWA decided suddenly to end the program in villages and cities by the beginning of 2014. The program will continue for a few months in 2014 but only in the West Bank refugee camps "in an attempt to somehow calm the angry refugees."

More than 50 coordinators who worked on the program were discharged "under the pretext that the UNRWA doesn’t have enough money to employ them."

UNRWA was originally meant to find real jobs for Palestinian Arabs so that they would no longer need handouts. In recent decades UNRWA itself became a major employer of Palestinians since Arab countries didn't want to give them jobs. This program was not intended to provide real jobs.

Here is an example of the "Money for Work" program in 2011, showing both how the program itself was a joke and how UNRWA is - against its own mandate - an anti-Israel political organization:

The outgoing director of UNRWA operations Barbara Shenstone on Monday planted olive tree saplings on land slated for confiscation in the northern Palestinian Bank.

Shenstone joined Palestinian beneficiaries of the UN Money for Work program to plant 360 saplings in an attempt to save over 30,000 square meters of land in the the village of Burin, south of Nablus.

Participants considered Shenstone's attendance a message reflective of the UN agency's continuous support for Palestinian refugees and farmers to help them protect their lands.

Palestinian Authority ministry officials and EC humanitarian aid representatives were also present.

Shenstone said planting olive trees was a way to protect Palestinian lands from confiscation by Israeli settlers. The activity would also recruit international attention to the village, she added.

The PA isn't paying its people to execute a land grab in a disputed area - UNRWA is.

Good riddance to "Money for Work."  Instead, do what is needed to get real jobs for Palestinian Arabs - like lifting restrictions on jobs they can have in Lebanon.

Read More

"Marriage to Saudis" - Fascinating State Department document circa 1996

In the thread about the American woman who was married to a Gazan, commenter Bill alerted me to this fascinating document written by the US State Department warning American women of what to expect if they marry Saudis.

From Middle East Forum, Winter 2003:

[This] eight-page brochure entitled "Marriage to Saudis," ...was published and distributed by the consular bureau of the Department of State, from the mid-1990s.

The document is an advisory to American women contemplating marriage to Saudi men, based on the long experience of U.S. consular personnel in the kingdom. It is remarkable for its undiplomatic and anecdotal tone, so distant from the department's standard bureaucratic style. For prospective spouses, "Marriage to Saudis" constituted an official tutorial in Saudi culture; for others, it served as a fascinating example of practical anthropology, school of hard knocks.

The straightforward and talkative frankness of "Marriage to Saudis" also led to its retraction by the department. The Saudis themselves were not perturbed by the document. But when the brochure went up on the department's website, the American Muslim Council demanded its removal, calling it "hurtful," "derogatory and biased." In February 2000, the department removed the document from its website for "revision," but it was never replaced.

No subsequent revision could supersede "Marriage to Saudis," a minor classic by an anonymous diplomat determined to tell it straight.

The following advice and guidelines for women considering marriage to Saudi nationals were culled from interviews with women well known to our Embassy for their embattled relations with their Saudi spouses, from anecdotes from women whose husbands are well known to the Embassy because of their positions in government or business, as well as conversations with women happily or tolerably married to middle and lower class Saudis.

American spouses fall into two broad categories: those who are married to well-off, westernized Saudis, and those who are married to not-well-off and non-westernized Saudis. Both meet their husbands when they are students in the U.S. The former tend to maintain homes in the Kingdom and in the West, they socialize with other dual-national couples, they send their children abroad for college education (sometimes high school), travel frequently, and while in the Kingdom have the luxuries of drivers, servants, and villas separate from where the Saudi in-laws reside. Their husbands permit them to appear before men to whom they are not related, accept—if not encourage—their desire to find employment and generally do not require them to veil fully (i.e., cover the face with one or more layers of cloth) while in public. The women are allowed to travel separately with the dual-national children. The women may or may not have converted to Islam; their conversion may or may not be sincere. These represent the minority of dual-national marriages.

Most American women fall in love with westernized Muslim traditionalists, leery of the West and its corrosive ways, and eager to prove their wives' conformity to Saudi standards. The husbands are not "Arab princes" of western folklore; rather, they are part of the vast majority of Saudis who "get along" with the help of extended family members and marginal expectations. Their American citizen wives are often from the South/Southwest (where many Saudis prefer to study), they have virtually no knowledge of Saudi Arabia other than what their fiancés have told them, and do not speak Arabic. When they arrive in the Kingdom, they take up residence in the family's home where family members greet them with varying degrees of enthusiasm and little English. Typically, their only driver will be their husband (or another male family member), their social circle with be the extended family, and they will not be permitted to work or appear uncovered among men to whom their husband is not related. Initially, the American citizen spouse will be almost entirely isolated from the large western community that resides in the Kingdom. Gradually, the spouses who survive form a network with other American citizen women married to Saudis. The majority of American citizen spouses fall into this category.

The Myth of the Westernized Saudi

Inevitably, American citizen spouses characterize their Saudi husbands during their school days in the United States as being completely "westernized"; drinking beer with the best of them, chasing after women and generally celebrating all the diversities and decadence of a secular society. Women married to Saudis who did not fit the stereotype of the partying, or playboy/prince, are careful to point out that their spouses nevertheless displayed a tolerance toward all of these diversions and, particularly, toward them. In other words, the Saudi-American relationship virtually always blossoms in the States, in a climate that allows dating, cohabitation, children out of wedlock, religious diversity, and a multitude of other Islamic sins which go unnoticed by Saudi relatives and religious leaders thousands of miles away.

American citizen wives swear that the transformation in their Saudi husbands occurs during the transatlantic flight to the Kingdom. There is the universal recollection of approaching Riyadh and witnessing the donning of the black abayas and face veils by the fashionably dressed Saudi women. For many women, the Saudi airport is the first time they see their husband in Arab dress (i.e., the thobe and ghutra). For those American women reluctant to wear an abaya (the all-encompassing black cloak) and for those Saudi husbands who did not make an issue of the abaya prior to arriving, the intense public scrutiny that starts at the airport—given to a western woman who is accompanying a Saudi male—is usually the catalyst for the eventual covering up. Since the overwhelming majority of American citizen wives never travel to the Kingdom prior to their marriage, they are abruptly catapulted into Saudi society. When they arrive, their husband's traditional dress, speech, and responsibilities to his family re-emerge and the American citizen wife is left to cope with a new country, a new language, a new family, and a new husband. Whether a Saudi has spent one year or eight studying in the United States, each must return to the fold—grudgingly or with relief—to get along in Saudi society and within the family hierarchy that structures most social and business relations.

Social pressures on even the most liberal Saudi are daunting. Shame is brought upon the entire family for the acts of an American citizen wife who does not dress modestly (e.g., cover) in public, who is not Muslim, who associates with men other than her extended relatives. Silent disapprobation from family and friends is matched by virulent public disapproval by the Kingdom's religious proctors (Mutawwaiin) and vigilante enforcers of the faith. Several American wives, fearing the latest round of religious harassment, have started fully veiling; not to do so, they discovered, meant public squabbles with the Mutawwaiin who vociferously oppose dual-national marriages. The experience of all dual-national couples is that voluntary and involuntary compromises are made or simply evolve. The sum of these compromises is quite often a life very different than the one imagined and speculated upon in the safety of the United States.

What to Expect and Consider

Quality of Life. Life in a desert kingdom that prides itself on its conservative interpretation and application of the Qur'an (Koran) requires that couples talk about very basic lifestyle issues.

How cosmopolitan is the Saudi husband's family? All American wives encourage prospective brides to meet the Saudi family before arriving in the Kingdom as a married woman. (Most Saudi families will travel to the U.S. during the course of their sons' studies, if only to attend graduation.) While it is no guarantee of acceptance, a family that regularly travels abroad or one in which the father has been stationed abroad is generally more broad-minded when it comes to their son marrying a Westerner. It is the parents who can be the greatest source of pressure on a dual-national marriage, and it is important to divine their opinions on what an American wife can and cannot do while living in the Kingdom.

With whom will you live? Many newly married couples move in with the groom's parents, in a sprawling villa which may house several other siblings and their wives and families. Privacy is elusive and tensions with family members who for one reason or another resent the presence of an American wife often make this living arrangement difficult. In a more affluent family, a couple may inhabit one of several homes that comprise a small family compound. Some Saudis live separately in villas or apartments. While that resolves the issue of privacy, many American wives find themselves completely isolated during the day, surrounded by neighbors who only speak Arabic, with no access to public or private transportation.

One tolerably married American citizen wife is not permitted to step out on the apartment porch since the risk is too great that an unrelated male would be able to see her....

With whom will you socialize? Saudis socialize within the family. Expatriates who have lived and worked for years in the Kingdom may never meet the wife of a close Saudi friend and, according to custom, should never so much as inquire about her health. For an American wife, a social life confined to her husband's family can be stultifying, particularly since few American wives speak, or learn to speak, Arabic. Whether the Saudi husband permits his wife to socialize with men to whom they are not related determines how "normal" (i.e. how western) a social life they will enjoy. Several American wives have difficulty even visiting the American Embassy for routine passport renewals since their husbands are opposed to their speaking to a male Foreign Service Officer. Because of the segregated society, Saudi men naturally spend much of their time together, separate from wives and family. (Even Saudi weddings are segregated affairs, often held on different evenings and in different locations.) Only the most westernized Saudi will commit to socializing with other dual-national couples.

What freedom of movement will you enjoy? Women are prohibited from driving, riding a motorcycle, pedaling a bicycle, or traveling by taxi, train, or plane without an escort. All American wives were aware that they would not be able to drive while in the Kingdom, but few comprehended just how restricted their movements would be. Only the relatively affluent Saudi family will have a driver on staff; most American women depend entirely upon their husbands and male relatives for transportation. While most expatriate western women routinely use taxis, an American spouse will be expected to have an escort—either another female relative or children—before entering the taxi of an unrelated male.

Will you be permitted to travel separately from your husband? Travel by train or plane inside the Kingdom requires the permission of the male spouse and the presence of a male family escort. Travel outside the Kingdom is even more restricted. Everyone leaving the Kingdom must have an exit visa. For an American spouse, this visa must be obtained by her Saudi husband. The Saudi spouse must accompany his wife to the airport to assure airport officials that he has given his permission for his wife to travel alone or with the children.

One American's marriage contract specified that "she stated that she shall never request to travel from Saudi Arabia with any one of her children unless with his prior consent."

Most American wives believe that the U.S. Embassy can issue exit visas in a pinch. This is not the case. The U.S. Embassy cannot obtain exit visas for American citizens. Passports issued by the Embassy are worthless as travel documents without the mandatory Saudi exit visa. While some more affluent American relatives offer to pay for the American wife to travel independently, this often meets with disapproval from the Saudi husband or family.[6]

Will you be permitted to work? There are two hurdles an American wife must overcome before finding work outside the home: the disapproval of the family and the paucity of employment opportunities.

Most husbands will not approve of a wife working outside the home if it entails contact with unrelated men. One American wife, who was a teacher in the U.S. during the entire five years of her courtship with her husband, was shocked when her husband threatened her with divorce when she requested to return to the U.S. to finish up one quarter of classes in order to qualify for a state pension. Now that she was married, the Saudi husband could not tolerate her being in the presence of other men. However, even if the husband is willing, the jobs are few. Employment is generally restricted to the fields of education (teaching women only) and medicine. Unfortunately, there is a tremendous social bias against the nursing profession and Saudi husbands would not approve of a wife working with patients, except in the position of a physician.

Will your husband take a second wife? Among the younger generation, it is rare for a Saudi to have a second wife but it does occur. A man is legally entitled up to four wives, with the proviso that he is able to financially and emotionally accord them equal status. One American wife discovered that her Saudi husband had married her best friend, also an American, while he was on vacation in the U.S.

Religion

In principle, all Saudi men must marry Muslims or converts to Islam. In practice, many American women blur the issue, participating in a Sharia wedding ceremony but never actually converting.

The pressure to become a Muslim, or to be come a sincere Muslim, is enormous and never-ending. There is no separation of church and state in Saudi Arabia, and at the popular level there is simply no comprehension of religious freedom, of the desire to remain Christian or undecided. One American wife, approaching her tenth wedding anniversary, has been terrorized by relatives who insist that the King has ordered that all women who don't see the light after ten years must be divorced and deported. For another, the pressure comes mainly from her children who are mercilessly teased at school for having a foreign, non-Muslim mother. (Half-hearted converts to Islam find that their children are ridiculed for having mothers who pray awkwardly or not at all.) One Saudi teacher informed the children of an American citizen mother, who has sincerely converted to Islam, that their mother could never be a Muslim since "only Arabs can be Muslim." Women who don't convert must accept that their children, through hours of Islamic education a day at school and under the tutelage of the family, will be Muslim. Women who do convert must understand that their conversion, particularly in the aftermath of a divorce, will be suspect and their fidelity to Islam perceived to be less than their husband's.

Read More

Israeli ambassador to Jordan in minor car crash, residents "terrified" by security

From Ammon News:

Citizens told Ammon News on Sunday that an Israeli ambassador's car collided with a Jordanian car in Jordan Valley. No injuries has been reported.

The incident occurred last week when a diplomat car collided with another vehicle in Kafrain district, nearby Jordan valley.The locals approached the scene to help when security men began to surround the car, pulling their weapons out in front of the residents, terrifying them.

It was later discovered that the car belonged to, Daniel Nevo, an Israeli ambassador in Amman, who was transferred from his vehicle immediately to the security car.

The security guards acted appropriately, of course, since car crashes are a standard way to kidnap people.

Read More

Terrorist prisoner with leukemia dies; Arabs try to whip up riots (updates)

We've seen many times that it only takes a small event to capture the imagination of the so-called "Arab street." We've also seen that Arab leaders will try to manipulate the people to act in ways that are politically expedient for them.

Such a confluence may be happening now:

Palestinian prisoner Hasan Turabi, 22, from a Nablus-area village died Tuesday morning at Afula Medical Center in northern Israel, according to local Palestinian sources.

Sources from the village of Sarra in the northern West Bank told Ma'an that the Israeli prison service officially notified Turabi’s family of his death.

Turabi, according to lawyer Hiba Masalha of the Palestinian Authority ministry of prisoners affairs, was suffering from leukemia. She warned recently that he was in real danger after a blood vessel burst.

She added that Turabi was vomiting blood and was moved to the intensive care unit where medics found that he had blood clots in the neck, the chest and the abdomen.

Israeli forces had transferred Turabi from Megiddo prison to Afula Medical Center for medical treatment.

Palestinian Authority minister of prisoners' affairs Issa Qaraqe responded to the report saying that Israeli prison service is responsible for the death of Turabi and accusing them of "negligence."

Qaraqe said that the negligence had started at Megiddo prison, point out that ten days before Turabi was transferred to Afula hospital, he had severe bleeding and started to vomit blood.

"Prison medics treated the case recklessly and did not give him any medicine until he collapsed and lost consciousness on March 16, 2013."

At that point, added Qaraqe, the Israeli prison service released Turabi and transferred him to Afula Medical Center where he fell as a "martyr."

Qaraqe described the case as a new "war crime" committed against Palestinian prisoners.

So the official PA position is that a prisoner who died after his blood vessels burst is a victim of a "war crime."

But Islamic Jihad, the group that Turabi was a member of, has no less than nine articles about Turabi on the front page of its Palestine Today newspaper. They are also calling him a "martyr" due to "medical negligence." They say that there was a riot at Megiddo Prison when the prisoners there heard about his death, and that many prisoners were injured. They report that Hamas is demanding that negotiations between Israel and the PA be stopped because of this. Prisoners declared a hunger strike. Doctors who never saw Turabi are being interviewed so they can assure the Arab world that he died from "medical negligence."  The last video of Turabi in the hospital was released. The Department of Prisoners Affairs announced that their lawyers will boycott all court cases today in protest.

One article actually quotes Turabi's [Israeli] doctor as saying that they have no idea why his body is shutting down - they took biopsies of his liver, spleen and esophagus; he wasn't sure if the blood vessel ruptures were a leftover side effect of his leukemia or of the medicines he took to treat it or something else. That article shows that the hospital was trying very hard to cure him!

This is all only a few hours after Turabi died. Clearly some Arab leaders want this to snowball into an international incident, and so far none of them are calling for calm.

His funeral might be the spark that some people have been hoping for to start a new terror war.

UPDATE: Turabi had thrown a Molotov cocktail at an IDF patrol a year ago.

Ma'an Arabic is referring to him as a "martyr." His body was handed over to his family.

Read More

"The Jewish revolution vs. the Arab revolution"

Al Wafd (Egypt) has an op-ed that compares Jewish accomplishments against Arab backwardness. Excerpts:

Jews have revolutions in science, while Arabs have revolutions in tragedy - this is a painful truth...

The Israeli Foreign Ministry on its front page on Facebook reveals three alarming news items.

First, students at a secondary school in Netanya have succeeded in the development of unmanned aircraft, which uses a mathematical equation to determine how much fuel is left in the plane....

Not only this but this Israeli school has 31 scientific projects in the implementation phase, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The second news item is that Tel Aviv is celebrating with technical pioneers all around the world and the opportunity will be made ​​available for the winners of a competition of the founders of start-up companies from around the world to meet with companies and technology experts and founders of start-up companies, designers, artists, scientists, investors and promoters of culture from Israel and abroad...innovators from Britain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Latvia, India, China, Korea, Mexico and Colombia will be guests in Israel to gain experience of the [start-up] eco-system in Tel Aviv

The third news item celebrated by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, is that while the Arabs are mired in the cycle of violence and infighting, is that the owners of this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry are all Jews and two of them are of Israeli national origin, and in physics the Belgian winner was also Jewish! Meaning that four out of five chemistry and physics Nobel winners are Jews who Muslim clerics every Friday call them the descendants of apes and pigs!

They chose progress and we chose underdevelopment, they chose creativity in chemistry equations and theories of physics, we chose creativity in the fatwas of "jihad marriage."

Read More

11/04 Links Pt2: BDSer admits he's racist, How anti-Semitic is Germany? GM's Self-Driving Cars

From Ian:

---

£1bn haul of art treasures seized by Nazis found in squalid Munich flat

The 1,500 works by such masters as Picasso, Renoir, Matisse and Chagall were said to have been lost to the flames when Allied aircraft bombed Dresden in 1945.
They had been taken from their owners, many of them Jewish, by the Nazis, who regarded the Impressionist, Cubist and Modernist pieces as ‘degenerate’, and never seen again.
Their astonishing rediscovery nearly 70 years on in a rundown apartment in Munich came about because of a chance customs inspection of a man returning to Germany by train from Switzerland.
The man turned out to be Cornelius Gurlitt – the reclusive son of Hildebrandt Gurlitt, the art dealer who in the run-up to the Second World War had been in charge of gathering up the so-called degenerate art for the Nazis. (h/t Bob Knot)

UN Watch: What's wrong with U.N.'s human rights council by Hillel Neuer

Supporters of a credible and effective Human Rights Council – be they member states, U.N. officials, or human rights NGOs – must act now to prevent the council from meeting the same fate as its discredited and now-defunct predecessor. They need to honestly address the council’s strengths and weaknesses; call out abusive regimes by submitting resolutions even if they will be defeated; and expose and confront council appointees who bring the good name of the United Nations into disrepute.
The election next month of so many repressive regimes will only serve to escalate the council’s credibility crisis, while complacency will only lead it down the same ignominious path as the old commission. Only if we act now, with conviction and alacrity, will the world’s highest human rights body have any chance of improving on the fortunes of its predecessor – and, more importantly, helping those who for too long have had their voices stifled.

Im Tirtzu: University of Haifa legal clinics are politicized

The Im Tirtzu organization has published a new report concerning what it describes as the "severe politicization" of legal clinics at the University of Haifa.
The report focuses on three clinics in particular, the Clinic for Prisoners' Rights, the Clinic for Human Rights in Society and the Clinic for the Rights of the Arab-Palestinian Minority.
The report says that these clinics have become anti-Zionist, radical organizations that "cooperate with organizations that oppose the existence of the State of Israel as a democratic state." (h/t Yenta Press)

Almagor to Haifa U: What About Helping Victims of Terror?

Indor was reacting to a report by the Im Tirtzu organization, which found that the legal clinics at Haifa University devote most of their resources to helping non-Jews, with a special preference for Muslim-Arab terrorists.
One of the cases handled by the clinics reportedly involved the demand by a man convicted of cruel acts of rape to receive festive meals on the Muslim holidays, and not just the sweet dessert that prison authorities hand out.

Holocaust Remembrance: New Tool for Anti-Semitism?

The Anne Frank Museum, writes Meotti, has "sanitized Anne Frank's story of almost all its Jewish references ... The result is that the public is now completely desensitized to the unique catastrophe that was the destruction of European Jewry. The Museum has also turned into a powerful source of criticism of Israel in Europe." "Israel," the Anne Frank Foundation wrote in a report, "pushes Palestinians economically into a corner and humiliates them psychologically."
In 2004, an exhibition in the Anne Frank Museum compared former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolf Hitler. The former Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, then a Israeli government minister, reacted indignantly , saying the museum was "showing contempt for the memory of the six million who were murdered in the Holocaust."

Israel boycotter admits protest is against Jews, not just Israelis

The video, recorded by Simon Cobb of the Sussex Friends of Israel group, shows two men interviewing a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigner who says that he doesn’t not believe in the two-state solution (i.e. wants the destruction of the State of Israel) and who falsely claims that Palestinians employed by Israeli companies are paid at a lesser rate than those who are not.
But the crucial part of the video [1 minute 25 seconds] comes when Cobb and his fellow interviewer ask the man why he is boycotting Ecostream in Brighton, a shop which is Jewish and Israeli-owned, and if the man would boycott a Muslim, or Arab-Israeli owned shop.

Anti-Israel activists refuse to wear poppy to honour war dead

Self-styled “pro-Palestinian” activists outside the Ecostream store were repeatedly quizzed as to whether or not they would wear a Royal British Legion poppy, which serves each November to commemorate the lives of those lost fighting in World War I, and against the Nazis in World War II.
Unfortunately, as you can see below, no BDS activists would wear a red poppy, claiming they opposed war, and therefore the poppy was not for them.

German TV: How anti-Semitic is Germany?

The German public television station ARD broadcasted last week a documentary film about modern anti-Semitism at the heart of German society.
Close observers of contemporary anti-Semitism showered praise on the film for not shying away from showing anti-Semitism in all walks of life in Germany.
The 50 minute film – titled Anti-Semitism Today: How hostile is Germany toward Jews? – was created by Ahmad Mansour, an Israeli Arab, and two other Germans, Kirsten Esch and Jo Goll. Mansour is a policy advisor to the Brussels-based European Foundation for Democracy. He has lived in Berlin since 2004 and studied Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology at Tel-Aviv University. VIDEO no subtitles

Hungarian demonstrators protest statue of Hitler ally

On Sunday, protesters wore yellow Stars of David and chanted “Nazis go home” at supporters of Miklos Horthy, who was regent of Hungary from 1920 to 1944.
The unveiling was organized by a pastor with far-right ties, the French news agency AFP reported.

S. Africa would be wise to ponder its Israel stance

The South African government has resisted domestic pressures to cut diplomatic relations and Nkoana-Mashabane made clear this is not being planned. Instead, as she said, South Africa will "slow down and curtail senior leadership contact with [Israel] until things begin to look better."
The direct effect on Israel is likely to be minimal. South Africa will suffer far more. It is struggling with deep seated problems and by reducing contact is depriving itself of opportunities to gain access to invaluable Israeli expertise in areas such as agriculture, use of water, health and education.

South African Jews slam campaign to free Palestinian prisoners

Launched late last month by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 of his 27 years’ imprisonment by the apartheid government, the Free Marwan Barghouti campaign’s support committee includes five Nobel Peace laureates, among them Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
The South African Zionist Federation, or SAZF, said in a statement that Barghouti had been jailed for terrorism and the murder of Israeli civilians and it was an insult to struggle leaders such as Mandela to compare him with them, the daily Cape Times reported.

Report: Turkey’s Zorlu Enerji in Talks to Build Gas Pipeline to Israel

Turkey’s Zorlu Group, which holds an indirect stake in an Israeli power plant, has begun talks with Israeli companies to finance a pipeline that could export gas from the Jewish state’s Leviathan and Tamar offshore fields to Turkey, Reuters and Turkey’s Hurriyet daily reported on Friday, citing industry and diplomatic sources.
The report also cited Ömer Yüngül, chief executive of Zorlu Holding, the owner of Zorlu Enerji, as saying, “Turkey is a very suitable route for Israeli gas. I can even say it is the most suitable,” although he would not confirm the talks.

Israel is the go-to address for cyber-security

As the global threat of cyber-attacks grows exponentially, so do companies that develop software to fight them off. Some of the world’s oldest and best-trusted players are headquartered in Israel (beginning with Check Point Technologies, founded in 1993), or have R&D operations here.
“Everybody understands that you buy Swiss watches from Switzerland and information security from Israel,” says Udi Mokady, CEO of CyberArk Software, Israel’s largest private cyber-security company since IBM’s recent acquisition of Israeli financial data security firm Trusteer. IBM now plans to open a cyber-security software lab in Israel.

GM Using Israeli Technology to Create Self-Driving Cars

Israel is home to a significant amount of the technology General Motors (GM) is using to create the cars of the future, which will include features such as self-driving capability.
“The technologies that will power autonomous vehicles include smart sensing, vision imaging, human machine interface, wifi and 4G/LTE communications, and much of that is being done at our Herzliya facility, in conjunction with GM’s other R&D facility in Silicon Valley,” said Gil Golan, director of GM’s Advanced Technical Center in Israel, the Times of Israel reported.

Hebrew University Professor wins German Literary Prize

Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Otto Dov Kulka, professor emeritus at the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, is the winner of the Geschwister Scholl Prize for 2013.
Kulka’s book, Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. Auschwitz and the Limits of Memory and Imagination, was chosen as the winner of the annual 10,000-euro prize.

Paula Abdul On Visit to Israel: ‘Most Magnificent Trip I’ve Ever Taken’

“I’ve traveled the world touring and things like that but I don’t get the chance to see much of wherever I’m at,” she said. Abdul described the visit as “the most magnificent trip I’ve ever taken … magical and emotional.”
An official guest of Israel’s ministry of tourism, Abdul has been touring the country on a 10-day visit, which has included a meeting with President Shimon Peres, a trip to the Western Wall—where she reportedly celebrated her bat mitzvah—and other sites throughout the country.

IDF Blog: Meet 4 Pro Athletes Who Double as IDF Soldiers

Young Israeli athletes who reach the age of enlistment in the IDF have a difficult decision. Remaining a world-class athlete means maintaining a strict training regimen and competition schedule — not so easy to do as a soldier. And yet, the IDF has many young professional athletes who, though hungry for success, report for basic training nevertheless.

Shaare Zedek Medical Center-Jerusalem: It's All in Our Hands (finally with English subtitles)

Read More

How an American woman escaped her Gaza husband

From USA Today:

Gunfire cracked all around Sara Rogers as she climbed to the roof of her high-rise home in Gaza. The year was 2005, and Israeli soldiers were fighting Palestinian gunmen to stop rocket attacks and destroy smuggling tunnels.

Rogers closed her eyes. "Just let one hit me in the head," she begged. "And make it quick."

It was not the months of violence of the Second Intifada that made the Italian-American college graduate ache for death. It was her virtual enslavement by one of the most feared families in the Middle East.

Days later, Rogers was in a taxi with her five children, praying her husband wouldn't catch her and their five children before she reached the Israeli border.

Rogers is not the first Western woman to marry an Arab man and find out how few rights she had once removed to a Middle East country that abides by sharia, or Islamic law. But some are working to make her among the last.
...

When such kidnappings do occur, it often appears as a surprise to women as it was to Rogers, a bright multicultural studies student from upstate New York.

Rogers was living with her mother in Las Cruces, a city on the Rio Grande in New Mexico, when she became enchanted by a soft-spoken Arab man working at the Middle Eastern cafe where she'd often study.

"I was the feminist, the rebel, everything you could imagine," she said. Hatem Abu Taha proposed to her three days after they met. They were married soon after.

"The morning after we wed, my husband got up to meet his friends," she recalled. "I was like, 'What? We're newlyweds.'"

"He just told me he was doing guy things and I could do woman things," she said in an interview at her home outside Boston.

Rogers worked as a nurse assistant but hoped for better. She completed a master's degree and was preparing to write a book. Her husband rarely worked. He spoke often of his native land.

The couple had three children and were expecting a fourth when Taha said it was time they traveled to the Middle East to visit his Palestinian relatives. It was 2001.

Taha's family lived in Rafah, a city on the border with Egypt from which Palestinian militants launched Qassam rockets into Israel.

Rogers was surprised to see that Taha's family appeared to be well off. They owned, he told her, Gaza's only cigarette patent. She was also not ready for what happened to her husband.

Taha was ultra-patriotic, she said, and passive to the will of his family who were hostile to the American in their home. After two weeks, Rogers said her kids were "breaking down." Her eldest son was suffering anxiety attacks. Her 2-year-old daughter had contracted dysentery.

When they arrived two weeks before, carpenters were building a third-floor addition to the family home. Taha told Rogers it was for his brother and his wife. But when the work was done, Taha told her the unit was where she would live.

Rogers was distressed and said she wanted the family to return home to the United States.

"He just laughed: 'You have no embassy here. You have no family. No one.' I was in shock," she said.

Her mother-in-law was the cruelest, she said, patrolling the downstairs so Rogers didn't escape. The children were called "Yehudi"(Jews) and bullied constantly at school. Her husband told her the children were his and that she was nothing but "a vessel."

"I did not exist as a person," she said.

There was worse to come. Rogers said Taha struck her and broke her jaw for not cleaning the refrigerator properly. And she was suspicious that her in-laws weren't just involved in cigarette trading.

They would have lengthy conversations with members of Hamas, the Palestinian terror group whose urban warfare tactics Rogers witnessed firsthand.

"The Palestinians would get inside a local school and start shooting from the windows," she said. "And the Israelis would just fire back. Then you'd see people holding up dead Palestinian kids."

When Rogers pleaded to move away from the perilous border with Israel, her father-in-law refused, claiming it would be an honor for them to be "martyred." It was soon clear the family was active in terror networks. Israeli aerial attacks were common.

"We could hear the helicopter coming a mile away: tick, tick, tick, tick," Rogers said. "Then it would drop the bomb."

Rogers' eldest son was injured by an Israeli tank shell. Her newborn son chewed holes in his feet because of the stress. One night, Taha and his nephew Yahya didn't return from a trip.

"On the BBC was a report that two Palestinians from Islamic Jihad had claimed an attack and a young man and his wife were dead," said Rogers. "My sister-in-law came up the stairs crying happily, saying that Yahya was now a martyr and in heaven. I had to get out."

On a trip to Gaza City to meet a family friend, Rogers slipped away while the men were at afternoon prayers. In her burka, she had heard that illegal taxis brought people from Gaza to Israel and pleaded with a local store owner to call her one.

"I asked the cab driver how long it took to Erez and he said half an hour. I said, 'If you can make it in 15 minutes, you can have every bit of gold I have.' He got me to the border."

Rogers said that speaking about her life in Palestine helps ease the pain. But it will be a long time until she recovers. "I try to take the positives from everything," she said. "I meet good people and everything makes me grateful."

"My kids are smart, funny, you'd never have guessed what they went through," she added. "I tell them that it was a bad thing but that it was given to them for a reason. They can make their lives count."

This is not such an unusual story.

There are organizations in Israel that try to help Jewish women who were similarly seduced and then abused by their Muslim husbands, and to warn girls about the dangers before they fall in the trap.. There are unfortunately scores of cases of girls who fall for their charming Arab paramours, who then turn into monsters as soon as they marry them.

And wouldn't you know it - the Israel haters regard the people who try to save these women as "racists."

Human rights of women are far less important to these hypocrites than being able to label Israeli Jews as evil.

(h/t MtTB)

Read More

In the 19th century, the third holiest mosque in Islam was....The Mosque of Quba.

According to A Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopædia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs, Together with the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan Religion by Thomas Patrick Hughes (1885):

MASJIDU 'T-TAQWA. Lit. "The Mosque of Piety." The mosque at Quba', a place about three miles south-east of al-Madinah. It was here that it is said that the Prophet's camel, alQaswa rested on its way from Makkah to alMadinah, on the occasion of the Flight. And when Muhammad desired the Companions to mount the camel, Abu Bakr and • Umar did so, but she still remained on the ground; but when 'Ali obeyed the order, she arose. Here the Prophet decided to erect a place for prayer. It was the first mosque erected in Islam. Muhammad laid the first brick, and with an iron javelin marked out the direction for prayer. The Prophet, during his residence at al-Madinah, used to visit it once a week on foot, and he always made a point of praying there the morning prayer on the 17th of Ramazan. A prayer in the mosque of Quba' is said to be equal in merit to a Lesser Pilgrimage to Makkah, and the place itself bears rank after the mosques of Makkah and alMadinah and before that of Jerusalem. It was originally a square building of very small size, but the Khalifah 'Usman enlarged it. Sultan 'Abdu '1-Hamid rebuilt the place, but it has no pretensions to grandeur. (See Burton's Pilgrimage, vol. i. p. 890;)

The encyclopedia dedicates the following amount of space to these important mosques:

Mosque L' Haram (Mecca) - 21 columns
Mosque N' Nabi (Medina) - 5 columns
Mosque T-Taqwa (Quba) - 1/2 column
Mosque Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) - 1/3 column

It appears that the Al Aqsa Mosque was not considered the third holiest spot in Islam until the 20th century.

Read More

11/04 Links Pt1: Fatah- Murderer is Palestinian "nation's symbol", Morsi- Egypt Crisis ‘serves Israel’

From Ian:

---

Fatah: Murderer of two is Palestinian "nation's symbol"

Until he was released by Israel last week, murderer Issa Abd Rabbo was serving two life sentences for murdering two Israeli university students. Ron Levi and Revital Seri were hiking south of Jerusalem on Oct. 22, 1984, when Issa Abd Rabbo attacked them, tied them up at gun point and put bags over their heads. He then shot and murdered them both. He was released in October 2013 as one of 104 prisoners to be released by Israel, which was the PA's precondition for renewing negotiations.
The Fatah movement, headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas, sees this murderer as:

"One of our nation's symbols and one of our greatest leaders"

Guardian columnist compares Israel to an autistic child

So, to conclude, Fraser posits that Israel is not unlike a child – with arrested cognitive development – who doesn’t play well with others!
Of course, only someone suffering from the most pronounced political myopia could fail to acknowledge that it has been Israel’s neighbors – through 65 years of war, terrorism, antisemitic indoctrination, boycotts, and other forms of racist violence and exclusion – who have been guilty of “not playing nicely with others”.
Perhaps Fraser can write a follow-up post, psychoanalyzing Arabs (and Palestinian Arabs) who clearly prefer wallowing in their malign obsession with Israel (and their own sense of victimhood) than learning to accept (and benefit from) a normal relationship with the Jewish state.

BBC suggests failure to convene Syria peace conference will be Israel’s fault

Confusingly for readers, the BBC does not seem to be able to decide how many previous air strikes it wishes to attribute to Israel. Whilst in the body of the latest version of this article it is stated that “[t]his is believed to be sixth Israeli attack in Syria this year”, the side box by Kevin Connolly states that “[t]his is thought to be the fifth or sixth such attack this year”. Another side box cites four “[a]lleged Israeli strikes on Syria” whilst earlier versions of the article used the number three, which was also the number the BBC was citing two months ago.
That confusion is of course a symptom of the fact that the BBC has no concrete information to offer its audiences on this subject and so its reports are based entirely on hearsay and conjecture. Whatever the actual facts behind this incident, it is difficult to understand how such speculative reports can be claimed to conform to editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.

Netanyahu: Refusal to Recognize Israel as Jewish State ‘at the Root of the Conflict’

Marking the 96th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which recognized the right of the Jewish People to a homeland in then-British Mandate Palestine, Netanyahu reiterated the demand of his government that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as the Jewish state in any final status agreement between the two sides.
“In order for there to be peace between us and our Palestinian neighbors, they must recognize the right of the Jewish People to a state of its own in its homeland. This means that in a permanent agreement they will drop their national demands, including the right of return and any other national demand on the State of Israel,” he said.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has continually stated that the PA will not recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

Netanyahu: PA Creating Artificial Crisis'

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected the Palestinian Authority (PA) contention, that recent decisions on construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria contravene agreements reached at the outset of negotiations between Israel and the PA, three months ago.
He said that the Palestinians knew full well when the talks began that Israel acepts no limitations on construction beyond the “Green Line,” which demarcates Israel's 1949 armistice borders.

US 'Will Force' Israel-PA Deal

MK Zehava Galon (Meretz) was quoted as saying Monday that senior US officials told her the US offer would be presented in January of 2014. PA sources also cited January as the month in which the US intends to propose, or impose, its plan.
The US moves comes after three months of talks between the sides which have reportedly made very little headway.
The US plan reportedly is similar to the Clinton outline, offered by President Bill Clinton in late 2000, which is based on an Israeli retreat to 1949 Armistice lines, and some swaps of territory.

Hamas Gives No Credit to Abu Mazen for Prisoner Release

While Hamas is resolutely opposed to the ongoing talks with Israel, the movement has also advocated stridently on behalf of Palestinian prisoners and made their release a priority. It would therefore be expected that it would welcome the prisoners returning to Gaza, at the very least. This is especially true considering that each of those prisoners had been sentenced to decades in prison for terrorist attacks against Israelis. In other words, their deeds align well with the Hamas worldview.
But the returning prisoners were not welcomed with a festive ceremony. Instead, Hamas chose to ignore their return, and even worse, to hide it. Hamas TV, which broadcasts from Gaza, did not report on the prisoner release, Palestinian journalists were forbidden from going to the Erez crossing point to document the newly released prisoners’ return, and those same prisoners’ families were asked to “celebrate quietly and discreetly.” Once again, Hamas gave a very public sign of the enormous crisis it is facing as a movement.

Obama Should Free Pollard Immediately

In 1985, the U.S. government discovered Pollard’s actions. At the request of both the Israeli and American governments, Pollard entered into a plea bargain agreement. He cooperated fully with the prosecution and was never convicted of harming the United States, compromising American agents or committing treason (which is legally defined as spying for an enemy state). Pollard was merely charged with passing on classified information to an allied country on one occasion.
Even though the average sentence for spying for an allied country is merely several years, Pollard was given life imprisonment. For example, Abdul Khader Helmy, who spied for Egypt, served only four years in prison after passing on information that assisted Iraq with improving the accuracy of their ballistic missiles. Michael Schwartz, who spied for Saudi Arabia, never served a day in prison out of consideration for Saudi sensitivities. He was merely reprimanded and given a dishonorable discharge. There are many such examples.

IDF officer injured in tunnel blast regains consciousness

An engineering corps officer who was seriously wounded Thursday night in an encounter with gunmen in the Gaza Strip regained consciousness Sunday after intense efforts by doctors to save his life and his eyesight. Second Lieutenant Ahiyah Klein was taken off a respirator and was able to interact with his surroundings.
Klein was seriously injured when soldiers operating to destroy part of a tunnel east of Khan Younis, just inside the Gaza Strip, were targeted by Hamas. Five soldiers were wounded when an explosive device planted by Hamas detonated, the IDF said in a statement.

On Iran, a decisive two months

And they reason that if, at the end of those two months, the US and the other P5+1 countries have sealed or are closing in on the only deal that Iran would conceivably take — one that leaves the regime with enrichment capabilities, however constrained, and thus the capacity to attain nuclear weapons; precisely the type of “bad deal” that the US has promised it will not approve – any subsequent Israeli military intervention would constitute an act of open, all but untenable defiance of the entire, US-led international community.
In contrast to the United States approach, Jerusalem does consider that there is a military solution — a last-resort military solution, it must be stressed — to Iran’s nuclear weapons drive. No, Israel does not believe that it can destroy the rogue Iranian nuclear program once and for all. Rather, it is confident that it could, if all else failed, thwart the Iranians for now. And if and when the Iranians started up the program again, they could be thwarted, again. And again. And again.

Obama just paying ‘lip service’ on Iran military option, says top MK

When Netanyahu threatens the use of force if all else fails to stop Iran, said Hanegbi, “he’s not making empty threats.” By contrast, “When the speaker is [Secretary of State] Kerry or the White House spokesperson, or even the president and other people, you see that they’re just paying lip service.”
The Americans are full of “good intentions,” they have military systems prepared and deployed for tackling the Iranian nuclear program, and it’s clear that Obama understands that the way Iran’s rogue nuclear program is handled will be central to his legacy, Hanegbi told The Times of Israel. Nonetheless, he said, that did not guarantee that the US would show the necessary decisiveness in negotiations with the Iranians.

Chanting ‘death to America,’ Iran protesters rally against US

Such protests occur every year outside the former embassy compound to mark the anniversary of its 1979 takeover following the Islamic Revolution. A total of 52 US hostages were held for 444 days by a group of Iranian students who took control of the compound.
But Monday’s rally was the largest in years after calls by groups such as the Revolutionary Guard for a major showing, including chants of “death to America” that some of Rouhani’s backers have urged halted.

Iran Talks Move Ahead Despite N. Korea Cooperation

However, reports from the day before (Saturday) reveal that Iran has pledged to continue cooperation with North Korea on its nuclear missile program, bringing the validity of nuclear talks into question as anything more than a mechanism to buy time.
Sherman, the State Department's third-ranking official, said in an interview with Israeli television's Channel 10, that there is a "great deal of mistrust on both sides," reaffirming that President Barak Obama's position is to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Syrian opposition sets preconditions for Geneva talks

The US and Russia have been trying to bring the Damascus government and Syria’s divided opposition to the negotiating table for months, but the meeting has been repeatedly delayed.
The Western-backed Syrian National Coalition said Sunday that it will attend only if there was a clear time frame for Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power, adding that Iran’s presence at the conference was unacceptable.

Palestinians lose more than most in Syrian exodus

Palestinians Mahmoud and Ahmed fled Syria last month for Egypt, where they paid smugglers to bring them to Europe. Once at sea, they were robbed at knifepoint and herded onto an overloaded boat that sank, pitching over 100 into the sea.
The brothers made it back to shore while others drowned, then to be deported in days from a volatile Egypt where anti-Palestinian sentiment runs high. Now at the Lebanese camp of Ain al-Helweh, they face as Palestinians restrictions on their lives far more severe than any other refugees from Syria.

Russia Sends Most Powerful Ships to Mediterranean

On Saturday, Russian news agency RT reported that the "Varyag," flagship of Russia's Pacific Fleet, and "Pyotr Veliky" ("Peter the Great"), the nation's most powerful nuclear-powered battleship, were moved into the Mediterranean Sea.
The Varyag, which has been dubbed the "aircraft carrier killer," will perform a number of maneuvers, some in coordination with the Russian naval forces currently stationed on the Mediterranean.

Turkish president: Syria may become ‘Afghanistan on the Mediterranean’

Speaking to the British daily The Guardian, the Turkish president warned that the Syrian crisis posed a serious security threat to Turkey as well as to Europe, and lamented the disappointing response of the international community to the civil war taking place in the country.
“I don’t think anybody would tolerate the presence of something like Afghanistan on the shores of the Mediterranean. For that reason, the international community must have a very solid position with respect to Syria,” Gul told The Guardian.

Judge halts Morsi trial after protests by defiant ex-president

The trial will resume January 8, giving defense lawyers time to review documents.
Morsi told the court trying him for inciting violence and murder that he remains the “legitimate president” of the country.

Morsi says situation in Egypt ‘serves Israel’

“[Israel] does not have our best interests at heart at all,” Morsi said, according to transcripts of conversations published by the daily al-Watan Sunday, a day before his trial was set to begin. ”It’s possible that in time it may prove that they are behind the predicament we are in now. It’s possible, and I have no certain information to accuse anyone, that the situation serves Israel.”
In a separate excerpt, Morsi stated that “your children will pay the price” and later clarified that this statement was directed at “your children in the conflict between us and Israel,” in light of the strained relations between the two countries.

Read More