Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 03, 2014

My letter to Reuters about SodaStream

Not that I expect anything to be done, but when they know people are watching them, they tend to be a little more careful.

Dear Editor,

In the story "Israeli settlement factory sparks Super Bowl-sized controversy," writer Noah Browning interviews a worker at the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumim:

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've noted on my blog that Browning has shown serious anti-Israel bias in the past, and this story appears to add to that list.

The fact is that there have now been nine articles in the media interviewing workers at the plant, and only two of them exclusively found a worker that was disgruntled. Every single other outlet found that the workers were happy and against any boycott of SodaStream.

For documentation, see my articles here, here and here.

Given Browning's record and the anomalous nature of his reporting here - the only media outlet that agrees with him is virulently and openly anti-Israel - this story and his reporting reflects poorly on Reuters, and indicates a serious problem with interview bias done by Browning in order to push an agenda rather than reflect the truth of the situation.

Please review Browning's Middle East articles in general, especially the ones I noted, as well as this article in particular. How many people did he interview altogether? Did he only choose the one interview that jived with his biases? Did he purposefully seek out the same employee that Electronic Intifada interviewed? It is astonishing that 7 separate, independent media outlets find that virtualy all employees agree with each other that they are happy, and only Browning and EI found the counter-examples.

Thanks,

Elder

Barry Rubin, a true scholar and wonderful man, passed away this morning after a battle with cancer. He was 64.

Barry was a staunch defender of Israel. His writings were accurate, clear and powerful. He didn't mince words.

Rubin was also the director of the Gloria Center in Israel. Last year, I believe after his diagnosis, Rubin did the unthinkable - he placed 13 of his books on the website of the Gloria Center to be freely downloaded.

Just looking over some of the older articles I've quoted from him on this blog over the years shows that they haven't aged at all - they are all still spot on in their analysis.

I had the privilege of meeting Barry a few years ago in Tel Aviv, and he was just as nice a man in person as he was formidable in his writings.

A long time ago, I wrote what I thought was a piercing analysis of Syria. After I posted it, I sent a copy to Barry, since he has written a book I admired on the topic. Within a half hour, he responded with a devastating fisking of my piece - a fisking that was so good that I appended it to my post.

Another time, Barry thought I should write something for the Jerusalem Post, so I wrote up an op-ed. Again, within less than an hour, he completely rewrote my piece and made it orders of magnitude better.

People might compliment me, but whenever there is a danger of those compliments going to my head, I think of Barry - because he was in a different league.

Barry Rubin's clarity of thought and encyclopedic knowledge was unmatched. He dedicated his life to pursuing and spreading the truth, no matter how politically incorrect or uncomfortable it may be. We should all follow in his footsteps.

Barghouti's BDS Kumbaya in the NYT

Omar Barghouti, in the New York Times, characterizes BDS as "a nonviolent movement anchored in universal principles of human rights." His punchline is:

Would justice and equal rights for all really destroy Israel? Did equality destroy the American South? Or South Africa? Certainly, it destroyed the discriminatory racial order that had prevailed in both places, but it did not destroy the people or the country.

Likewise, only Israel’s unjust order is threatened by boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Although he doesn't write it in this op-ed, Barghouti is arguing for a one-state solution with the "right of return" - meaning he is arguing for a new Arab state to replace Israel. He is couching this dissolution of Jewish national rights and the right to self-determination in terms of "human rights."

Barghouti is arguing that this is not a problem, because the new state would give equal rights to all and Jews would not have to worry about being persecuted as a minority under the benevolent Palestinian Arab leadership that would be democratically elected.

These assumptions are not spelled out explicitly, but they are hiding behind the soothing phrases "human rights" and "equality" and "democracy" and "non-violence."

Let's talk about these concepts and how well they would apply to a single state.

Human rights - in Egypt, Copts are second-class citizens by any definition. I just posted about an Egyptian TV show where the way to insult Islamists was by saying that they are even worse than Christians and Jews.

Similarly, Palestinians are second-class citizens in Jordan, fearful of losing their citizenship. They are treated like dirt in Lebanon. Kurds are reviled throughout the Arab world.

We don't even need to speak about human rights in Syria or Iraq or Yemen.

Even within the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah are still at loggerheads, and they had a civil war not too long ago. Journalists are threatened. Christians are intimidated.

The only place in the Middle East with decent human rights for all its citizens is Israel. It isn't perfect, but it is a far sight better than in any Arab country. But Barghouti is trying to fool the West into thinking that Arabs will certainly grant equal rights to Jews when they cannot even grant Arab minorities a modicum of right.

Equality - Every single Arab nation, and this includes the PA, has a constitution that declares that they are Arab, which means (according to the logic that declares a Jewish state inherently apartheid-like) that they discriminate against non-Arabs. (Indeed they do, for example in immigration policies.) Most of them declare that they are Muslim nations with a legal system based on the Quran.

Minorities in Arab nations are not treated equally in any real sense (although there is guarded optimism about Tunisia.)

Once again, the only Middle Eastern nation to come close to treating all its citizens equally is Israel. To think that an Arab majority state would treat Jews equally is to ignore the entire history of the Middle East.

Democracy - the most moderate Palestinians are clearly the leaders of the PA, who at least pretend to be against violence (forgetting that the Fatah platform supports violence explicitly.)

Mahmoud Abbas just started the tenth year of his four year term. You know, the one that he promised to retire after.

This is all despite Jimmy Carter's solemn promise that the last elections (which really were probably the last elections, ever) were totally great and democratic.

The prime ministers of the PA weren't even elected to begin with - they were appointed.

Yet again, the only place with a functioning democracy in the region is Israel. And Barghouti wants to end that.

Non-violence - Barghouti and the BDS crowd don't like Abbas and company. They believe that they aren't radical enough. They believe that Abbas' non (explicit) support of terror isn't authentic and that terrorism is a human right. Really!

BDS is a non-violent tactic, but BDSers - and particularly Barghouti - believe in "all means of resistance" being legitimate - and that includes suicide bombing.

He will never tell that to the New York Times, but he has said it in speeches for years. And other "progressive" critics of Israel share that belief.

Readers of the NYT op-eds don't realize that they are being subjected to half truths and doubletalk meant to destroy the Jewish state.All they see are the soothing words of Barghouti hijacking democratic concepts to create another failed Arab state. But that's not his goal - it is to destroy the only Jewish state, which - while not perfect - is closer to the ideals of democracy, human rights, equality and even non-violence than any Palestinian Arab state could ever be.

It is worth looking again at how the Arab nations pretended to want a democratic Arab-majority state as a last chance effort to frustrate the UN partition vote in 1947. They also pretended to care about democracy
and human rights, but it is obvious that their real goal was to stop any Jewish state from ever existing. Then, as now, the nice words were a sham meant to fool the West. (They even demanded to go to the International Court of Justice!)

Their most important requirement in this "democratic" state was to curtail all Jewish immigration.

Barghouti is the modern equivalent of the Arabs of 1947.

(h/t EBoZ)

"Muslim Brotherhood women worse than Jews, Christians"

A female Egyptian expert named Suad Saleh advised a man during a TV show to break up with his Muslim Brotherhood fiancee.

The reason? Because Muslim Brotherhood women are even more vicious and harmful to the community than Jews and Copts. She said, "At the moment, under the difficult conditions seen in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is more dangerous than Jews and Christians, because they are shedding blood, and consider themselves to be exclusively right."

Saleh, who is a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al Azhar University and is apparently some type of advice guru, told the young man that if he breaks up with this undesirable girl, he will earn many good deeds from God, and will maintain the stability of the family.

It must be super comforting for Jews and Copts to know that they are no longer the most hated people in Egypt.

Hasby Awards 2014 press release

Here is the press release announcing the winners of all of the 2014 Hasby Awards.

PRLog (Press Release) - Feb. 2, 2014 - NEW YORK -- The Elder of Ziyon blog has announced the winners of the annual Hasby Awards, given to the best examples of hasbara (explaining Israel's viewpoint) for the year.

This year awards were given in ten categories.

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Media Outlet/Writer Not Exclusive to Israel were Douglas Murray, Melanie Phillips, Gatestone Institute, Charles Krauthammer, Walter Russell Mead and Bret Stephens. Melanie Phillips was the winner, "for per clear vision, consistency and volume of output. "

The nominees for Best English-Language Pro-Israel Online Media Outlet were Algemeiner, Israel HaYom, Jewish Press, Tablet, Jerusalem Post, The Tower and Israel21c. The winner was The Tower, "a very attractive, well-done news site, and for that alone it deserves kudos - but one of the reasons it won was because of the great things happening at its parent organization, The Israel Project."

The nominees for Best Mainstream Media Watchdog were CAMERA, BBC Watch, CiF Watch, Mideast Media Sampler at Legal Insurrection, and Huffington Post Monitor. The winner was CAMERA, which "had a stellar year with dozens of articles showing bias in the New York Times alone (and forcing many corrections)."

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Commentator Exclusive to Israel/ME were Caroline Glick, Martin Kramer, Daniel Gordis, Evelyn Gordon, Sarah Honig and Khaled Abu Toameh. The winner was Sarah Honig, who "contextualizes today's headlines in terms of history, much of which she witnessed firsthand."

The nominees for Best Watchdog (Arabic Media or NGOs) were MEMRI, Palestinian Media Watch, NGO Monitor and UN Watch. The winner was Palestinian Media Watch, because "PMW has made inroads this year into bubbling up the issue of Palestinian Arab incitement to the masses."

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Video were Pat Condell - Patronizing the Palestinians, "I'm an Israeli Soldier" (Latma), Naftali Bennett on CNN and Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser. The winner was Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser/Here Is Israel, "a fresh take on an old (but still valid) argument, pointing out the hypocrisy of the boycotters. "

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Tweeter were Arsen Ostrovsky, Margie in Tel Aviv, CiFWatch, No Camels and William Daroff. The winner was No Camels, "dedicated to good news from Israel, especially in covering high tech."

In the much-anticipated Best Blog category, the nominees were Israellycool, Israel Matzav, This Ongoing War, Jews Down Under, Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers, 5 Minutes for Israel and IsraelSeen. The winner was Israellycool, which "has always been a tremendous blog, with great analysis and a wonderful sense of humor" and a "must read daily."

The winner for Best Article was "An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: Wake up!" by Hen Mazzig, writing in The Times of Israel. The article was "the best example of hasbara in the classic sense: explaining things to readers they might not know about, heightened by the first person account of his experiences." The other nominees were Howard Javobson and Brendan O'Neill.

The winner for Best Individual Example of Hasbara went to Ed Kilnger's note on a BDS MacBook, a photo that went viral, which "struck a chord in thousands of ordinary people, seeing how hypocritical the Israel-haters are."

Finally a special achievement Hasby Award for grassroots activism was given to Sussex Friends of Israel. As EoZ wrote, "As far as I can tell, this is a completely grassroots effort. There is no help from the organized British Jewish or Zionist community, and one gets the impression that the lack of an organized response is what helped create SFI."

All of the details, with links to the nominees and the full awards, can be seen athttp://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/search/label/Hasby%202014 .

Elder of Ziyon, a popular pro-Israel blog in its tenth year, congratulates all the winners.

Iranian media says Israel's Golan field hospital is only for "Syrian terrorists"

Times of Israel reports on the Channel 2 report on the field hospital in the Golan to treat victims of the Syrian civil war:

On Friday evening, Channel 2 News aired footage of the fenced Golan Heights facility, which has treated over 700 Syrian patients since it was established less than a year ago.

The hospital, staffed by soldiers in uniform, includes an emergency room, an intensive care unit, an operating theater, a mobile laboratory, a pharmacy and an x-ray facility. It treats Syrian patients who cross the border regardless of creed – or of where their loyalties lie.

Col. Tarif Bader, commander of the hospital, said that while the decision to administer humanitarian aid to populations outside of Israel was always a dilemma, in this case, it was “the right choice” – one he was proud to be a part of.

He added that most patients suffered from “serious battle wounds.” Among them were men as old as 83, as well as young children, who another staff member described as strong and communicative. ”They don’t look frightened,” he said.

Now look how Hezbollah and Iranian media reports this:

The Israeli army has set up a field hospital on the Golan Heights to treat injured militants who belong to the terrorist groups in Syria.

These groups have treated over 700 of its injured militants in that hospital, according to Israeli media outlets, Al-Manar reported.

The report mainly focused on the Israeli intentions behind treating the militants, clarifying that the Israelis aim at strengthen and deepen their relations with the terrorist groups in Syria in order to keep the calm and stability which now prevails between these groups and Israel at Palestinian-Syrian borders.

The report also included interviews with a number of the militants who stated that "Zionism is not macabre as it has been portrayed by the Syrian regime."

"The regime used to force us to believe that our enemy is all the surrounding world, yet after the beginning of the revolution, we recognized our real friends and real enemies."

FARS illustrates the article with this photo, meant to show the Israelis treating an al-Qaeda terrorist:

In fact, this photo was originally captioned (in October) this way:

One 15-year-old patient at Ziv [a different facility - EoZ] was riding in a tractor with his younger brother when the tractor ran over a land mine. Both boys were brought to the Israeli border by their distraught father. “We need peace,” the Syrian boy said of his homeland.

02/02 Links: SodaStream Shows that BDS is the Real Obstacle to Peace; Oxfam's friends

From Ian:

When an Israeli Ambassador Debated a British Historian on Israel’s Legitimacy—and Won

The setting is Montreal, where the famed British historian Arnold Toynbee, a specialist in international affairs, delivered a controversial lecture to students at McGill University. And the story didn’t end with an exchange of op-eds, press releases, and public apologies. Instead, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Yaacov Herzog, responded by challenging Toynbee to a public debate, just five days after his initial comments. On Jan. 31—53 years ago today—the two squared off at McGill’s Hillel House for an exchange that was broadcast live across the country and later that evening in Israel.
Shimon Peres has called the ensuing disputation “one of the most dramatic debates in the history of our people.” Last week, in welcoming Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Israel, Herzog’s nephew Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog, cited the event from the Knesset podium. Yet as the years pass, fewer and fewer have even heard of it.

10 brands you'll have to give up if you're boycotting Israel

Since 2005, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) has called on the international community to pressure Israel economically as "a form of civil resistance to Israeli occupation, colonialism, and apartheid."
That would mean significant lifestyle changes for some consumers. Here are 10 brands that BDS supporters have urged others to boycott, not to mention thousands of other products that contain or use Israeli-developed technology, including iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, Skype, computer firewalls, and Microsoft XP.

Palestinian workers praise SodaStream - and Scarlett Johansson
It's time to stop faulting Israel for all our problems, Palestinian worker says.

Several years ago, added Mitnick, the Palestinian Authority launched a major campaign to encourage Palestinians to boycott Israeli products from the settlements, but it largely failed.
"Truth be told, the SodaStream workers and local Palestinians were downright peeved when asked about the efforts of solidarity activists and their own government to boycott SodaStream," wrote Mitnick, "That could cost the hundreds of Palestinians wage earners salaries that are significantly higher than what they would make at home."
What does Besharat think about the Palestinian Authority’s declared desire to stop Palestinians from working in settlements? “If they make other opportunities in the Palestinian areas, they can, but they need to make jobs and ensure good pay for workers.” (h/t Bob Knot)

Honest Reporting: SodaStream Shows that BDS is the Real Obstacle to Peace

The message is clear: boycotting a company like SodaStream has real impact on the Palestinians.Calling a company like SodaStream a negative element that needs to be boycotted is a myopic viewpoint that people are starting to see through.
And that’s the real problem with the entire Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. It seeks only to destroy, without concern for the human consequences. And ultimately, nothing good is going to come from that.

Jordanian sheikh: Allah gave the land of Israel to the Jews (update)

Al Quds and other Arab media outlets published this amazing article this weekend:

Sheikh Ahmad Adwan, who introduces himself as a Muslim scholar who lives in Jordan, said on his personal Facebook page that there is no such thing as “Palestine” in the Koran. Allah has assigned the Holy Land to the Children of Israel until the Day of Judgment (Koran, Sura 5 – “The Sura of the Table”, Verse 21), and “We made the Children of Israel the inheritors (of the land)” (Koran, Sura 26 – “The Sura of the Poets”, Verse 59).

"I say to those who distort their Lord’s book, the Koran: From where did you bring the name Palestine, you liars, you accursed, when Allah has already named it “The Holy Land” and bequeathed it to the Children of Israel until the Day of Judgment. There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in the Koran. Your demand for the Land of Israel is a falsehood and it constitutes an attack on the Koran, on the Jews and their land. Therefore you won’t succeed, and Allah will fail you and humiliate you, because Allah is the one who will protect them (i.e. the Jews).”

The sheikh added: “The Palestinians are the killers of children, the elderly and women. They attack the Jews and then they use those (children, the elderly and women) as human shields and hide behind them, without mercy for their children as if they weren’t their own children, in order to tell the public opinion that the Jews intended to kill them. This is exactly what I saw with my own two eyes in the 70’s, when they attacked the Jordanian army, which sheltered and protected them. Instead of thanking it (the Jordanian army), they brought their children forward to (face) the Jordanian army, in order to make the world believe that the army kills their children. This is their habit and custom, their viciousness, their having hearts of stones towards their children, and their lying to public opinion, in order to get its support.”

It is worth mentioning, that the above mentioned sheikh visited Israel and met Jewish religious scholars. The “Israel in Arabic” site conducted an interview with him, in which he said that the reason for his openness towards the Jewish people “comes from my acknowledgment of their sovereignty on their land and my belief in the Koran, which told us and emphasized this in many places, like His (Allah’s) saying ”Oh People (i.e the Children of Israel), enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned unto you” (Koran, Sura 5 – “The Sura of the Table”, Verse 21), and His saying “We made the Children of Israel the inheritors (of the land)” (Koran, Sura 26 – “The Sura of the Poets”, Verse 59) and many other verses.

He (Adwan) added: “(The Jews) are peaceful people who love peace, who are not hostile and are not aggressors, but if they are attacked, they defend themselves while causing as little damage to the attackers as possible. It is an honor for them that Allah has chosen them over the worlds – meaning over the people and the Jinns until the Day of Judgment. I made the reasons for Allah’s choice clear in my books and pamphlets. When Allah chose them, He didn’t do so out of politeness, and He wasn’t unjust other peoples, it is just that they (the Jews) deserved this.”

The Israel in Arabic site, which appears to be an Israeli site, has a much fuller interview in Arabic.

When Adwan visited Safed (Tzfat), it was covered by Israel's Orot TV:

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: A friend contacted Mudar Zahran, the famous Zionist Jordanian, and he wrote that from what he could find out, Adwan is a fraud:

Sheikh Majed Al-Odoan, chief of the Odoan tribe, tells the media that "Sheikh" Ahmad Al-Odoan [who made pro-Israeli comments] has never been a member of the Odoan tribe", and that the tribe "does not even know who he is in the first place", our sources confirm the man is a retired Jordanian Postal Service ministry officer, with no history of him being a tribal "Sheikh" nor an Islamic "Sheikh".

Nutty Arab rumor of the day: Kerry threatened to poison Abbas "just like Arafat"

British Arabic newspaper Al Rai reports on contentious negotiations between John Kerry and Mahmoud Abbas, with Abbas resisting Kerry's insistence on a limited "right of return" and larger land swaps than he wants.

A source claimed that Abbas left the meeting angry and saying that Kerry told him that if he does not accept the framework proposals, his fate will be no less than that of Arafat.

Palestine Today runs with that, saying that Arafat was murdered by the Israeli prime minister and defense minister coordinated with the US after he refused to sign a peace agreement under the Clinton parameters.

The story has already hit Al Watan Voice, JordanZad, and Palestine News Network, who attributed the claim to member of the Central Committee of the Fatah Jamal al-Muheisen.

Al-Muheisen added that the PLO should go to the International Criminal Court to prosecute Kerry for his threats, and that this threat proves that the US gave Israel the green light to kill Arafat.

Let's flesh out the rumor a little more:

Erekat's latest lie: "My family was in Palestine for 9000 years". They are really from Arabia.

From the Times of Israel:

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator over the weekend again ruled out the notion of Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Speaking at a Munich conference, on a panel with his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni, Erekat said the demand was unacceptable: “When you say ‘accept Israel as a Jewish state’ you are asking me to change my narrative,” he claimed, asserting that his ancestors lived in the region “5,500 years before Joshua Bin-Nun came and burned my hometown Jericho.”

Joshua lived about 3,300 years ago, so Erekat is claiming that his family was in the region for nearly 9000 years.

Is this true?

Not even close.

Erekat was born in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem. I found an interview with another Erekat who was born in Abu Dis, named Hussein Mohamed Erekat. He says that his family actually comes from the Huwaitat region of the northwestern Arabian Peninsula.

Indeed, this article about the dialects and clans of Saudi Arabia confirms the existence of the Erekat (sometimes spelled Areikat or Ariqat) families in Huwaitat, and they are one of seven clans that ended up in Palestine.

Is Saeb a member of this clan? Yes, he is.

This Facebook page of the Erekat family traces the Erekat family history, and this article confirms that the family came from the Huwaitat region, and it also mentions prominent Erekats - including Saeb.

That article also says that before Huwaitat, their ancestors emigrated from Medina.

All of the Erekats are related. Most of their most prominent members have held positions in Jordan's government or armed forces, but three PLO diplomats are from the family, including Saeb, the US representative of the PLO Maen Rashid Areikat, and the PLO's delegate to the Ukraine Khaled Erekat.

(Saeb is also implying that he was born in Jericho, but he wasn't.)

Saeb Erekat is, once again, lying. Just as we caught him lying many, many times before.

And after all these years of documented lies, no one in the media has had the guts to confront him. Because, you see, he may be a liar, but he is a moderate liar, and therefore deserves everyone's uncritical support.

And why should Israel have a problem signing a peace agreement with liars?

UPDATE: Erekat actually said "I am the proud son of the Canaanites who were there 5,500 years before Joshua bin Nun burned down the town of Jericho."

Antisemitic "Khaybar" miniseries to be distributed to more Arab channels

An actor in last Ramadan's antisemitic "Khaybar" miniseries says that it is being distributed to many more Arab satellite channels in coming months.

Helmy Fouda said it is important for people to watch the series because it helps them understand how conspiratorial Jews are and helps viewers know how to think about Jews.

Although the miniseries did not do well in the ratings, it won an award for Best Historical Film and he hopes that it will attract many more viewers.

When it first aired, I was involved in creating and delivering a petition for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to condemn a clear example of antisemitic incitement.

Although they claim to be against antisemitism, both of them refused to acknowledge the petition, and to this day they have never said a word against Arab antisemitism.

02/01 Links: "Pro-Palestinians” Vs. Real Palestinians; Philly City condemns academic boycott

From Ian:

“Pro-Palestinians” Versus Real Palestinians

Birnbaum [SodaStream CEO] is concerned about real live Palestinians whose families need to eat. That’s a concern noticeably absent among the usual “pro-Palestinian” types, who couldn’t care less about ordinary Palestinians’ welfare unless it happens to serve their primary goal of attacking Israel: See, for instance, the shocking indifference by “pro-Palestinian” groups to the literal starvation of Palestinians in Syria (since Israel can’t be blamed for it), or the Dutch and German governments’ efforts to halt sewage treatment and landfill projects that would primarily benefit Palestinians because Jewish settlers would also benefit. But it’s a concern ardently shared by ordinary Palestinians themselves, as a 2010 poll showed: By an overwhelming majority of 60 percent to 38 percent, Palestinians opposed the idea that they themselves should refuse to work in the settlements. Real Palestinians care about feeding their families, and they don’t want to be barred from jobs that enable them to do so.

Philadelphia City Council condemns anti-Israel academic boycott

A Resolution passed yesterday by the Philadelphia City Council is a good reflection of how deeply the pushback against the American Studies Association academic boycott of Israel has reached in American civil and political society.

Condemning the American Studies Association’s academic boycott against Israeli academic institutions and urging the Department of Education, the State System of Higher Education and all colleges and universities in Pennsylvania to reject the academic boycott.
This is not the first time the City Council has weighed in on the boycott of Israel. It did so in 1965 as well

Stand With Us: Thank You to Scarlett Johansson for Standing up to Bigotry!

Please write a quick thank you note to Scarlett Johansson.
The boycott movement against Israel (BDS) has failed to place pressure on Scarlett to boycott Israeli goods. She will be on during half time, for the Sodastream commercial.
Read the StandWithUs statement here, issued yesterday (1/30/14).
The Creative Community for Peace (CCFP) has been in touch with Scarlett's representatives and CCFP is telling us that Scarlett would like to hear from us!

I've been keeping a tally of articles about Arab SodaStream workers, and two more have appeared.

Both of them again find that the workers are happy and against any boycott, utterly demolishing the lies of Electronic Intifada and Reuters' Noah Browning.

From The Telegraph:

“We have no problems working here”, said one Palestinian employee, as others nodded in agreement. “The relations with the others are good, the pay is fine. But the way home is sometimes very long”.

One outside contractor who regularly visited the plant added: “It’s rare to see a company like this. Everyone sits together, works together. If you ask me, there should be a thousand SodaStreams in this area.”

Several of the SodaStream employees interviewed point to the schism between politics and their everyday lives in terms of relations between Israelis and Palestinians.
“It’s only segregated at the top level, between the Israeli and the Palestinian governments”, says an Arab cook from East Jerusalem working at the SodaStream canteen.

“The politicians, they make all kinds of a mess between Jews and Arabs. But the people here, the Palestinians and Israelis, they are working together, they talk to each other, there’s no problem. But at the political level, there are many issues.”

A Palestinian worker from East Jerusalem is waiting at the bus stop, talking into his mobile phone. “I like working here. The relations between people are good, what can I say?”

From Gawker:

In a Huffington Post blog post last week defending her association with SodaStream, Johansson said she's "proud of the...quality of their product and work environment," and said the factory places Israelis and Palestinians together side-by-side in cooperation. That frankly sounds too kumbaya to be true, but a similar sentiment was actually volunteered without prompting by the Palestinian workers here.

"Hell yeah, I'm happy. We're like family. We have fun,'' said Mohammed Yousef, 22, from the Palestinian village of Jaba. "We are Jews and Muslims here. We are here peacefully. We have no problems. Everyone is complaining about settlements here and everywhere, but SodaStream is different.''

The workers here say they take home about $1,200 monthly–anywhere from double to triple common wages in the territories. The company also provides pensions and some medical insurance.

Truth be told, the SodaStream workers and local Palestinians were downright peeved when asked about the efforts of solidarity activists and their own government to boycott SodaStream. That could cost the hundreds of Palestinians wage earners salaries that are significantly higher than what they would make at home.

"Prostitutes are better than politics. Politics doesn't bring me bread,'' said one 34-year-old packaging worker who declined to give his name. "Leave me alone with the Palestinian state. If they close the plant, where will I go?''

Siam, who eventually checked out the Johansson commercial on YouTube, told me he liked it, especially the dig at Coke and Pepsi. "That was so cool.'' That said, Siam said he understood the objections of the pro-Palesitnian activists who denounced his company's ambassador.

"I talk a lot to friends abroad. They say, 'You are an Arab. How can you work there?'" he said. "Nobody knows there are 1,000 people and their lives will be turned upside down by the [boycott]. You are killing them, so stop it.''

Right now, 6 independent news articles find SodaStream workers are satisfied with their jobs and how they are treated, with only two disagreeing - and those two happen to have been written by those with known extreme anti-Israel bias, Electronic Intifada and Reuters' Noah Browning. It is more and more obvious that those two cherry picked interviews to agree with their biases.

(By the way, if you want to have an idea of how "unbiased" Browning is, his Twitter handle is "@SheikhNB". Can you imagine a wire service reporter with the handle @RabbiX ever being taken seriously?)

(h/t Josh K and Gidon Shaviv)

UPDATE: One more. Score is 7-2.

"Those who seek to help the Palestinians end up hurting us," said Nabil Bashrat, 40, resident of Ramallah who works at the factory.

"(The factory) provides income to hundreds of families, entire villages. Peace is what happens here inside, and not outside. Those who are abroad don't understand the relations and actually sabotage the process. The factory draws us closer. Even in times of instability, as was during the war in Gaza, everything was as usual here."

UPDATE 2: 8-2.

“I’ve been working for a long time alongside the Jews and Palestinians,” one department manager, a Palestinian, tells me. “Everyone does everything together, we eat together, we come to work together. Everyone is treated equally, there’s no difference. I see it as a small contribution [to peace].” Should foreign companies operate factories in the West Bank? I ask. “Yes, of course,” he says. “There’s valuable opportunities here because the Palestinian Authority can’t create enough jobs.”

01/31 Links Pt2: SodaStream plans to bring Johansson to Israel; Barghouti’s blood libel

From Ian:

Why you should be proud Zionists

Zionism’s astounding success in building a stable democracy makes it a symbol for democracy, not only in the Middle East, but all around the world.
What do you oppose when opposing Zionism? There are many more values for which Zionism serves as an ambassador. However, these small examples can help give a clear message: Those who support the BDS movement and oppose Zionism should know that when opposing Zionism, they are in fact opposing the principles of justice, freedom and democracy.
Their fight against Israel’s right to exist is a fight for a world without these great values.
Those of us who believe in these values should join together and defend Israel against this new strategic threat.

Academic extremism threatens democratic values

It is the obligation of all academics everywhere to recognize and challenge claims that have no basis in fact or logic. Instead of ignoring historical revisionism or common sense gone awry, they should respond vocally and forcefully. Not only can offensive speech and conduct be constitutionally confronted and condemned, but responsible administrators, faculty and students have a moral imperative to do so.
Meanwhile, we must continue to confront those seeking to draw a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
As Martin Luther King famously wrote: "What is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the globe. It is discrimination against the Jews … because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism. The times have made it unpopular in the west to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the anti-Semite must constantly seek new form and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerade. He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist!'"

Barghouti’s blood libel

Indeed, it is favorite trope of the Arabs and their supporters to say that Israel deliberately targets civilians and especially children, although careful research based on mortality data [2002] shows that the exact opposite is true.
The lie that Israel targets children is a specialty of anti-Israel ‘journalists’ like Gideon Levy and Amira Hass of Ha’aretz and anti-Zionists like Alison Weir. It has particular resonance in the West, whose emotional buttons it pushes.
But like most of what comes from the mouths and keyboards of Barghouti, Levy, Hass and Weir, it is a vicious lie. (h/t Bob Knot)

Tweets and administrivia

Sometimes I tweet things that people like, but I don't blog them. Which makes me feel guilty.

Yesterday, I saw posted on CUWI Facebook page an old, great cartoon that I cleaned up and tweeted - and it quickly became very popular:

My SodaStream poster, which The Forward mentioned was going viral, made it to the UK:

My #SodaStream poster makes it to the UK http://t.co/GsBAKOvJ0V pic.twitter.com/iFtj3ayfn3
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) January 29, 2014

The Forward said it was inaccurate, and I answer them in the update to that post.

Today, I retweeted a 2011 post of mine that is relevant again, as the BDSers keep saying that "Palestinian civil society" overwhelmingly supports BDS. It turns out that "Palestinian civil society" doesn't representvery many Palestinians at all.

Yesterday I tweeted this:

Scarlett Johansson's #SodaStream commercial already has 5 million YouTube views: http://t.co/Lwewcavzxg BDSers heads explode
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) January 30, 2014

Well, now it has about 7 million and counting, much more than the previous SodaStream commercial that was censored in the 2012 Super Bowl.

Meanwhile, the most popular post of mine for past several weeks has not been a recent one, but my "Apartheid?" poster page. Over 1000 hits yesterday alone! I haven't been publicizing them yet this year.

Apparently, a lot of people are preparing for this year's "Apartheid Weeks" on college campuses and they are finding my posters through search engines. It is by far my most popular post ever, with about 50,000 views on this blog alone, and countless others via emails and from people who are taking the posters (often taking off my name!) and posting them to Facebook.

Partially as a result of that (plus a couple of very popular articles this month, not to mention the online Hasby Awards) this is the biggest month for EoZ since Operation Pillar of Defense.

Shabbat Shalom!