Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 31, 2014

Arab SodaStream workers say they are against BDS

[T]hose most familiar with the factory – Palestinians who work there – largely side with Ms. Johansson.

“Before boycotting, they should think of the workers who are going to suffer,” says a young man shivering in the pre-dawn darkness in Azzariah, a West Bank town cut off from work opportunities in Jerusalem by the concrete Israeli separation wall. Previously, he earned 20 shekels ($6) a day plucking and cleaning chickens; now he makes nearly 10 times that at SodaStream, which also provides transportation, breakfast, and lunch.

As a few dozen men in hoodies and work coats trickle out of the alleys to the makeshift bus stop where they wait for their ride to the factory, another adds, “If SodaStream closes, we would be sitting in the streets doing nothing.”

Speaking anonymously on a largely deserted street, with no Israeli SodaStream employees present, all but one of those interviewed said they opposed the boycott, given the lack of alternative job opportunities in the West Bank. That underscores Israeli claims that a boycott would be counterproductive, undermining the cooperation and prosperity that could boost peace prospects in the region.

Omar Jibarat of Azzariah, the father of a newborn, is one of those who works in Israel, leaving home well before 6 a.m. for a construction job in Tel Aviv. Though he makes good money, he spends four hours in transit every day and would rather work at the SodaStream factory 15 minutes away.

“I would love to work for SodaStream. They’re quite privileged. People look up to them,” Mr. Jibarat says. “It’s not the people who want to boycott, it’s the officials.”

That’s a common refrain among the SodaStream workers who show up after Jibarat catches his ride.

Leaning up against the cement half-walls of the bus stop, jackets pulled up over their cold hands and faces and cigarette butts glowing in the dark, they blame the PA for failing to create jobs while taking a political stand against Israeli business that do.

“The PA can say anything it wants and no one will listen because it’s not providing an alternative,” says one man, a 2006 political science graduate of Al Quds University bundled in a jacket bearing the SodaStream logo. As for reports that the company doesn’t honor labor rights, that’s “propaganda,” he says. “Daniel [Birnbaum, the CEO of SodaStream,] is a peacemaker.”

The writer did find one disgruntled employee, bolstering my thesis of the interview bias employed by Reuters' Noah Browning and Electronic Intifada's "reporter" who found possibly that same disgruntled employee (his statement sounds a lot like what EI's employee said):

One of the workers waiting for the SodaStream bus this morning says he hates the fact that he’s working in an Israeli settlement, and lies to people when they inquire about his work.

“I’m ashamed I’m working there,” he says. “I feel this is our land, there should be no [Israeli] factory on this land.”

He feels like a “slave,” working 12 hours a day assembling parts – drilling in 12,000 screws a day, he adds.

The Christian Science Monitor is hardly pro-settlement, and plenty of the article explains the viewpoint of the Israel-haters, which gives this account far more credibility.

My update to my previous post about this showed that NPR also found employees at the plant were happy. Which means that JTA, NPR, CSM and The Forward all agree that workers at SodaStream are happy, and the only ones who disagree are Reuters' Noah Browning and EI - both of which have records of, frankly, lying.

Again we see the difference between how real journalists work and how dishonest, advocacy "journalists" work. Electronic Intifada and Reuters' Noah Browning should not be trusted as being honest about anything in the Middle East.

(h/t Benny)

Israel returning bodies of suicide bombers to its "peace partner" (updated)

Over the past few days, Israel has been returning the remains of terrorists, including suicide bombers, to their Arab families.

Here's how Ma'an reported the latest announcement:

Israeli authorities will return next Sunday the remains of a young Palestinian woman held in a “numbered graves” cemetery for twelve years, Palestinian officials said Wednesday.

A committee tasked with retrieving “martyrs’ bodies” confirmed Wednesday that remains of Ayat Muhammad Lutfi al-Akhras from Duheisha refugee camp near Bethlehem will be delivered to her family at Tarqumia checkpoint to the southwest of Hebron on Sunday evening.

Six bodies have been returned recently out of 36 Israel pledged it would return.

According to the committee, freeing al-Akhras’ body brings the overall number of dead Palestinians retrieved from Israel to 100. On the other hand, remains of 281 Palestinians killed in confrontations with the Israeli forces are still held in “numbered graves” in Israel, the committee believes.

In addition, 65 others are considered missing.

Al-Akhras was killed on March 29, 2002 after she detonated an explosive belt in west Jerusalem killing two Israelis. She was 18 years old.

Why is Israel returning the bodies?

It appears that an Israeli "human rights" organization took the case to the Supreme Court - and won:

Salim Khillah, a spokesman for a committee to retrieve Palestinian remains from Israeli custody, told Ma'an on Jan. 17 that Israeli authorities had decided to return the remains of 36 Palestinians held in Israeli "numbered graves."

Khallah said Israel had agreed to return the remains as a gesture to encourage the PLO to continue with peace negotiations.

But a spokesman for an Israeli human rights group told Ma'an Thursday that the delivery of the remains was the result of a Supreme Court decision.

A spokesman for HaMoked said that the decision came in response to the organization's demands for the release of the remains of every Palestinian currently held in Israel's custody.

Reuters also says that this was a Supreme Court decision. However, commenter Yenta Press points out that there has been no such decision. Apparently, the Israeli government just decided to give the bodies back, and it is unclear if they received anything in return.

This is not how things are done in the Middle East.

Dead people don't have human rights, so presumably HaMoked sued to return the bodies to help eliminate the anguish of the relatives of the terrorists. This way they can get the honor and glory for the terror acts all over again, as is traditional.

The human rights of the relatives of the Israelis blown up by terrorists, who have to relive the attacks, don't seem to be on HaMoked's radar.

(UPDATE: Blue text.)

Hasby Award: Best Individual Example of Hasbara

The nominees for Best Individual Example of Hasbara are:

Ed Klinger's note on the BDS MacBook

Brighton BDS Counter-protest

David G's NYT Op-Ed Index 2012

IDF Girls Gone Wild (parts 1, 2, 3)

UN interpreter hot mic

And the winner is....

First photos of Jerusalem (1844)

These were in Smithsonian Magazine this month. They were taken by French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey.

I found very high resolution images for most of these from a Russian site. Click to enlarge.

Enjoy:

(h/t Yerushalimey)

UPDATE: Israel Daily Picture, as can be expected, has a link to the archives of all these images in France. (h/t Ian)

01/30 Links Pt2: Mrs. Ashton and the invisible Jews; Scarlett Johansson's advert hits 5 Million views.

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: The EU's Mrs. Ashton and the invisible Jews

It's becoming a habit. The EU's "foreign minister," High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, cannot seem to see Jews or anti-Semitism or to pronounce the word "Jew."
In 2012 a terrorist murdered three Jewish children at a Jewish day school in Toulouse, France. Mrs. Ashton issued a statement saying that "when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in different parts of the world, we remember young people and children who lose their lives." It was beyond her to acknowledge what had just happened: the murder of Jewish children in Europe for the crime of being Jewish.
She has, amazingly enough, just done it again. Her statement this week on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day did not mention Jews. That's worth repeating: She puts out a statement to honor Holocaust Remembrance Day that does not mention Jews -- thereby advancing the project of forgetting the Holocaust and robbing it of meaning.

Sarah Honig: Moral Obtuseness

It’s highly doubtful that Ashton’s lapse is inadvertent.
Not everything can be plausibly ascribed to unintentional slip-ups. The bizarre homage Europe’s spokesperson paid to “every one of those brutally murdered in the darkest period of European history,” without even minimal reference to their identity, constitutes too great a strain on the commonsense.
Perhaps Europe in general and Ashton in particular find Holocaust Remembrance Day a troublesome, even a disagreeable onus. Hence Ashton obscured the Jewish context with a short collection of hackneyed platitudes on tolerance and human rights.
This is a cogent example of how Holocaust history is increasingly watered down, especially in Europe. Yesteryear’s physical destruction is followed up by today’s distortion of remembrance. (h/t Bob Knot)

Sorry to burst your bubble, BDS. Scarlett Johansson has parted ways with Oxfam

In response, social media erupted with the inevitable "Even when we lose, we win" announcements.
Her Sodastream debut will be during Super Bowl -Sunday Feb. 2.
Its been out for two days, and its been viewed over 4[now 5] million times. I'd call that a BDS fail.

1980 UK SodaStream commercial plus more

Far out, man.

This is actually a YouTube playlist so there are some other bizarre SodaStream commercials that just keep on coming if you choose "Play All."

A "Law of Return" for Muslim Nazi sympathizers (1948)

This short JTA article from 1948 is just begging for a researcher to write a book or two:

ROME (Feb. 20)

Arab agents are today recruiting mercenaries to fight against the Jews in Palestine from among the Yugoslav Ustashi and Chetniks and the Ukrainians, Albanians, Circassians (former inhabitants of the northwestern area of the Caucasus) and other groups here who were on Hitler’s side during the war, and are now under the care of the International Refugee Organization.

Able-bodied men, both inside and outside the I.R.O. camps, who are between 22 and 32 years of age, and who accept the Arab terms of payment–their fares to the Middle East and maintenance of their families in exchange for their pledge to serve in the Arab forces for at least one year–are being given visas by the governments of Egypt, Syria and Transjordan. Where the mercenaries are of Moslem origin they are being officially resettled by formal negotiations between the governments concerned and the I.R.O. which, however, disclaims any knowledge of what use the individuals are put to on arriving in the Middle East.

So the Arab nations did once want to accept and naturalize refugees - as long as they shared Hitler's goals for the Jews.

Hasby Award: Best Article

The nominees for Best Article are:

Will we ever be forgiven the Holocaust? (Howard Jacobson)

There is nothing remotely progressive in today's left wing loathing of Israel (Brendan O'Neill)

An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: Wake up! (Hen Mazzig)

And the winner is...

01/30 Links Pt1: The UNRWA Reform Initiative; Abbas world’s No.1 purveyor of anti-Semitism

From Ian:

The UNRWA Reform Initiative

It is universally understood that current talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will not lead to an end of the protracted Arab-Israeli war. However, there is no reason why at least one aspect of that war cannot be resolved: the continuing humanitarian crisis facing descendants of Arab refugees from 1948, who wallow in UNRWA refugee facilities under the notion they will “return” to villages from 1948 – which no longer exist.
In that context, the Center for Near East Policy Research, which has conducted news investigations and produced films on UNRWA for the past 25 years, has launched the UNRWA Reform Initiative (URI) to facilitate a policy change at UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
While UNRWA long ago adopted the slogan “Peace Starts Here,” UNRWA’s working mantra could easily be described as “War Starts Here.” UNRWA’s schools educate half a million students with the notion that they must prepare to take back their homes in what is now Israel – by force of arms.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas, Islamic Jihad Gunmen Now in West Bank

The participation of Fatah gunmen in a Hamas and Islamic Jihad rally shows that the PA and Abbas continue to face a serious challenge from their own loyalists. Moreover, it shows that there is coordination between Abbas's Fatah gunmen and Hamas and Islamic Jihad militiamen in the West Bank.
If anything, the rally that saw Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah join forces in a rare show of power means that Abbas's claim that he is fully in control of the situation in the West Bank is baseless.
Yasser Arafat allowed Hamas to operate freely in the Gaza Strip until Hamas drove the Palestinian Authority out of the area. Abbas is now committing the same mistake and could lose the West Bank to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The question is whether this will happen before or after the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Prosor calls on Security Council to recognize the signs of genocide

Prosor noted that this pattern of “defamation, degradation, and bloodshed” visibly repeated itself in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and Darfur, and despite the warning signs, nothing was done.
“We cannot tolerate governments brutalizing their people,” he said. “We cannot rest while barrel bombs are falling on Syrian citizens, executions are on the rise in Iran, and sexual violence is rampant in the Central African Republic.”
He went on to speak about the growing anti-Semitism throughout the Middle East, including in textbooks and on state-sanctioned TV channels.
“War is not inevitable. It is not a force of nature, nor is it part of human nature. It can be prevented. But only if we stand together to denounce indifference and defend peace,” he said.

Does anyone seriously think the PLO would allow Jews to visit holy places?

When people talk about how a peace plan would look, "everyone knows" that Bethlehem and Hebron and much of Jeruslaem would be under Arab control, and the Jewish holy places there - the Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb - would be freely accessible because, well, there would be peace!

Isn't that obvious?

Sure, Jordan promised that Jews would be able to visit their holy place when they illegally annexed Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in 1949 - and they lied.

But now is different, right? The PLO will promise free access to holy places, and that's good enough, right?

Ma'an reports:

Israeli forces escorted seven buses carrying Israeli settlers to the tomb to perform Jewish rites, witnesses said.

Youths began to throw stones and empty bottles at the military forces, with Israeli soldiers firing tear gas canisters and stun grenades at the demonstrators and nearby houses.

Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, the site was to remain under Israeli control. But the Israeli army evacuated the premises in October 2000 shortly after the start of the second intifada, or uprising, and it was immediately destroyed and burnt by the Palestinians.

The restoration of the tomb was completed recently, and following improved security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, the army allows Jewish worshipers to make monthly nocturnal pilgrimages to the site.

The IDF has to protect Jews - who are forced to visit only once a month, in the middle of the night - on their visit to Joseph's Tomb.

What would the Palestinian Arab security forces do when Jews wanted to visit their holy spots and Arab "youths" decide to shoot guns and throw stones and Molotov cocktails?

If they don't join in the attack themselves, they would solemnly announce that - for the Jews' own safety, of course - all future visits must be banned. The mere sight of Jews on holy Muslim land hurts Arab feelings and their delicate psyches must be protected from this assault. You understand, right? I mean, they are holy Muslim sites as well, we cannot just allow Jews to visit anytime they want and cause disturbances, right?

And, just like in 1949, the world will shrug. Because, for "peace," everyone knows that Jews must be tolerant of Arabs but Arabs cannot be expected to be tolerant of Jews.

PalArabs threaten shop owner for not closing - just like 1947

Palestinian Arabs keep shooting themselves in the foot - and blaming Israel. Here's a new example:

Dozens of shops in al-Jalazun refugee camp closed in mourning after a 22-year-old from the camp, Muhammad Mubarak, was shot dead by Israeli forces.

When one man refused to close his restaurant, enraged Palestinian youths threatened to burn it down.

PA security forces intervened and clashed with the youths.

Mubarak was killed while engaged in a shooting attack against Jews, a small detail that Ma'an refuses to mention.

These shops weren't closed "in mourning" - like many other times, it was a strike. Using a mentality that has been around since at least the 1930s, some self-appointed Arab leaders think that by closing shops they somehow make a statement that would hurt the Jews. And the people who don't go along with their plans become their enemies, too.

This incident is reminiscent of the "boycott bombs" before the rebirth of Israel. In 1946, the Arab League declared a boycott of Jewish (not "Zionist") products. Normal Arabs of Palestine were not happy since this move was hurting them far more than it hurt the Jews, and many of them ignored the boycott.

So these wonderful Palestinian Arab "leaders" decided to start bombing any Arab shop that sold Jewish items!

October 1947

This self-destructive mentality remains, today. Arabs are hurt far more than Jews by the decisions being made for them by self-appointed "leaders."

Today, it is not only Arab leaders who have no problem throwing Palestinian Arabs under the bus to further their anti-Israel agendas - it is another group of self-appointed leaders, the BDSers.

This editorial from the Palestine Post in 1946 about the boycott against Jews could have been written today:

Notice that the current BDSers are following the playbook of the 1946 Arab boycott perfectly - they claim victories that don't exist, they don't care about who they hurt for their cause, the cause itself turns into a sort of religion for these fanatics where nuance and logic are thoroughly ignored,, they will attack innocents who don't agree with them - and the boycotts are utterly ineffective.

The World Bank spends a lot of time and effort trying to quantify how Israeli policies hurt the PA economy. Do you think they ever spent a minute on how BDSers, Arab boycotters, strikers and thugs are hurting that same economy?

Nah - no one is interested in that.

From AP:

Scarlett Johansson is ending her relationship with a humanitarian group after being criticized over her support for an Israeli company that operates in the West Bank.

A statement released by Johansson's spokesman Wednesday said the 29-year-old actress has "a fundamental difference of opinion" with Oxfam International because the humanitarian group opposes all trade from Israeli settlements, saying they are illegal and deny Palestinian rights.

"Scarlett Johansson has respectfully decided to end her ambassador role with Oxfam after eight years," the statement said. "She and Oxfam have a fundamental difference of opinion in regards to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. She is very proud of her accomplishments and fundraising efforts during her tenure with Oxfam."

Johansson is clearly more moral than Oxfam is.

While Oxfam never officially said it supports boycotting all Israeli products - like all humanitarian NGOs, it has to put up a pretense of objectivity - Oxfam has no problem with one of their other ambassadors pushing for the destruction of Israel via BDS. That ambassador is the hateful Desmond Tutu, who happily associates with members of Hamas.

There was never any hand-wringing at Oxfam over Tutu.

Similarly, Oxfam lies about Israel all the time. In a bizarre press release in 2012, Oxfam said "Israeli restrictions on fuel supplies via the overland crossings, imposed in 2007, caused massive shortages, leading the authority in Gaza to seek alternate solutions in fuel supplied through the tunnels." No, Hamas didn't want to pay Israel market prices for fuel nor taxes to the PA so it decided on its own to illegally smuggle fuel instead. Oxfam, simply, lied to protect Hamas and blame Israel even though Israel was not restricting fuel at all.

Another example of how immoral Oxfam is comes from a comparison between how it publicly disagreed with ScarJo regarding SodaStream - but it did everything it could to cover for Palestinian NGO Miftah when it published an article saying that Jews drink the blood of Christians and supported suicide bombers. Yeah, a factory employing hundreds of Arabs is much worse than a blood libel, right?

Johansson is right and it is brilliant that she decided to end her relationship with Oxfam. After all, she has a reputation as a humanitarian that was in danger from associating with an organization that is obsessively against Israel and tolerant towards terrorists and antisemites.

Hasby Award: Best Blog

Perhaps the category that generates the most interest.

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Blog are:

Israellycool

Israel Matzav

This Ongoing War

Jews Down Under

Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers

5 Minutes for Israel

IsraelSeen

And the winner is...

01/29 Links Pt2: Confronting European funding for BDS; Man charged over Toulouse school 'quenelle'

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Confronting European funding for BDS

The first step in confronting European governments that provide most of the funds for these organizations is to demand the implementation of democratic transparency principles in Europe. This would expose the sources of influence behind this NGO funding to independent analysis, and highlight the systematic abuse of European “soft power” for boycotts and demonization against Israeli democracy. On this basis, Israeli and European officials can negotiate mutually acceptable guidelines for funding political advocacy NGOs, which would prevent grants to groups that promote double standards, the discriminatory singling out of Israel, lawfare based on “war crimes” and similar false allegations, and the denial of the right of the Jewish people to sovereign equality.
While these measures will not bring an immediate end to BDS and political warfare, they constitute the essential first steps towards a viable counter-strategy.

Scarlett Johansson Applauded for Standing Up to BDS Movement, Invited to Visit Israel

Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson was lauded by Jewish groups for her support of SodaStream, an Israeli company that has come under fire from anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) groups that aim to harm Israeli companies.
“We salute Scarlett Johansson’s statement explaining clearly and directly the reasons for her association with SodaStream, and commend her principled opposition to those who have sought to use her relationship as a celebrity spokesperson for SodaStream to promote a divisive and highly politicized campaign designed to cause economic harm to the company and its hundreds of employees,” said Anti-Defamation League National Director, Abraham Foxman, in a statement.

SodaStream wins boycott case in France

Israeli drink manufacturer SodaStream won a legal battle in France against an organization seeking to impose a boycott on its products. The court's verdict ruled that the "origin of the product," in this case an Israeli settlement, does not justify the call to boycott.
The group calling for the boycott, the Association France Palestine Solidarité, was told to cease and desist its activities against SodaStream and take down its digital media equating SodaStream with fraud. (h/t Herb Glatter)

How Israel-haters use interview bias in SodaStream stories (updated)

The SodaStream story brings up an interesting point about journalism itself.

So far, since last year, we have seen four different media outlets interview workers at the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumin.

First, JTA last February:

“Everyone works together: Palestinians, Russians, Jews,” a Palestinian employee named Rasim at the Maale Adumim site told JTA. Rasim has worked at the plant for four months and asked that his last name not be published. “Everything is OK. I always work with Jews. Everyone works together, so of course we’re friends.”

This was followed by the Electronic Intifada hate site, referring to the video that Sodastream put out about its Arab workers:

“I feel humiliated and I am also disgraced as a Palestinian, as the claims in this video are all lies. We Palestinian workers in this factory always feel like we are enslaved,” M. said.

...When asked if there was discrimination between black and white Jews, M. replied, “Yes, for sure. You will not [find] white Jews wearing yarmulke [a skull cap] doing the hard work or ‘hand work.’ The supervisors who run the factory are mainly Russian and they are managed mainly by the white Jews, and we are ‘Palestinians,’ only workers.”

Then came the article from The Forward that I referred to previously:

During discussions between a Forward reporter and about a half-dozen of these Palestinian employees, conducted out of earshot of Israeli managers, none complained of labor abuses, or of receiving pay below the Israeli minimum wage. Asked about the calls by anti-occupation activists to boycott SodaStream, one spoke about the dearth of jobs in the Palestinian Authority economy.

That was followed by a new Reuters piece written by Noah Browning:

One mid-level Palestinian employee who spoke to Reuters outside the plant, away from the bosses, painted a far less perfect picture, however.

"There's a lot of racism here," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Most of the managers are Israeli, and West Bank employees feel they can't ask for pay rises or more benefits because they can be fired and easily replaced."

I have pointed out in the past that Noah Browning is a very poor reporter with a definite anti-Israel bias.

So we have a case study here. Four reports, two contradicting the other two. Which is accurate?

Obviously, Electronic Intifada has no journalistic integrity whatsoever. It is literally impossible to believe that their reporter would ever admit that some Arab employees are happy. If she interviewed ten workers and only one was critical, that would be the one quoted.

I've shown that Noah Browning is biased. I would not be surprised if he called up EI and asked for the name of the person they interviewed last year to save himself some effort of finding a disgruntled employee himself.

JTA and the Forward are both Jewish publications. But both are very left wing and anti-settlement. They are both highly critical of the Israeli government. The Forward just published an op-ed from Peace Now advocating boycotting SodaStream. It would be difficult to say that they are biased towards finding workers who would sing the praises of SodaStream. Yet - that's who they found.

So who is more credible? The answer is obvious.

If SodaStream was treating its workers like slaves, they would be leaving and finding other jobs. That does not seem to be the case here.

I'm not saying that the person (or people) interviewed by Browning and EI is lying. Every company has disgruntled employees. Any reporter can, and often does, play the game of finding just the right person to support the reporter's pre-existing bias. This is how journalists can lie with facts.

And this is almost certainly what we are seeing here from Reuters and Electronic Intifada.

UPDATE: If you need any more proof that Browning and EI are fudging the truth, this is from NPR:

In the factory, workers on 12-hour shifts make about seven dollars an hour, a hair above Israel's minimum wage and three times higher than the average Palestinian wage.

We didn't want to quiz employees under the boss's eye. But in a minimart in the nearby Palestinian town of Eizariyah, a SodaStream employee who had worked at the company for three years showed us his ID. But he didn't want his name used.

"It's an excellent place to work," he said. "It provides a good salary and they treat us very well. At SodaStream, they do not discriminate between Arabs, Jews or any ethnic group."