Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

02/12 Links Pt2: A special thank you from Scarlett Johansson; Israel a Sanctuary for Migrating Birds

From Ian:

A special thank you from Scarlett Johansson to YOU

Thousands and thousands of you rose to the occasion and CCFP cannot express our thanks deeply enough. And we’re not the only ones. We have been given a note from Mr. Marcel Pariseau, Scarlett Johansson’s publicist, thanking her fans for their support. This note of appreciation is from Scarlett to all of you:

Scarlett would like to extend her most sincere thanks to the many thousands of people who have supported her these past weeks. Your emails, comments, and tweets have been truly overwhelming and inspiring. It has been wonderful to receive messages from people all over the world who firmly believe that peace is possible.
And a big thank you to Creative Community For Peace for building a bridge between Scarlett and her fans.
Marcel Pariseau
TRUE PUBLIC RELATIONS

Scarlett Johansson to receive honorary French Oscar

The American star, who is engaged to French journalist Romain Dauriac, will receive her “Cesar” at French cinema’s annual gala awards ceremony in the capital on February 28.
Johansson, 29, is being recognized for a career in which she has already made nearly 35 films, having first come to the world’s attention as a 14-year-old in Robert Redford’s “The Horse Whisperer.”

Major South American Trading Bloc Accepts Israel as Observer State

The Pacific Alliance is a bloc of five Latin American member states – Costa Rica just joined the initial four members of Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico – designed to promote economic growth specifically by focusing on trade liberalization. Geopolitically, it sits opposite another South American bloc – the “Common Market of the South” (Mercosur) group – which includes Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil, and which has political ambitions that often align poorly with American interests.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced today that the Jewish state has been accepted as an observer state of the Pacific Alliance. The move has benefits that go beyond the merely economic, and will see Israel strengthening its overall ties in the region: (h/t MtTB)

95% of world's nations refuse to congratulate Iran on anniversary

Here's the best list I could generate of countries that (according to reports) sent their congratulations on the 35th anniversary of Iran's revolution:

Turkey (an official spoke at a celebratory rally, not sure if official congratulations were sent)
Tajikistan
Kyrgyzstan
Azerbaijan (given by their transportation minister on behalf of the president)
Brunei
Armenia
Hungary
Tunisia (new ambassador, may have been shamed into it)
Venezuela
Afghanistan (second vice president)

That's it. Out of 192 nations in the UN, Iran apparently gets congratulated by only ten.

Some Hungarians are upset about being in such company, so they made this poster:

Hezbollah's congratulations are ironic given the weak list of countries that are friendly enough with Iran to send a form letter:

Islamic Revolution Has Made Iran Pivotal Country in Region, World

Top UN officials also congratulated Iran.

Iranian media, trying to make these pathetic numbers look more impressive, are printing messages of congratulations from "analysts" like this one in Pakistan.

(h/t Stanley)

Freedom, Turkish-style

There have been two interesting recent news stories from Turkey.

From Naharnet:

A Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced a group of protesters to two years in jail for chanting slogans deemed insulting to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, local media reported on Wednesday.

The decision comes as Turkey is being criticized at home and abroad for adopting new Internet restrictions seen as a fresh assault on freedom of expression.

Seventeen people in the city of Eskisehir were sued in 2012 for "insulting a civil servant" after chanting slogans during a small demonstration against the government's health policies, the newspaper Hurriyet said.

"Tayyip Erdogan: the servant of the IMF, the servant of the bosses," the group had chanted.

The court sentenced all 17 to two years in jail for "deliberately insulting the premier and not regretting their actions".

The defendants are not entitled to appeal the decision, Hurriyet said.

And from Hurriyet:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has acknowledged that he called a media executive at the height of the Gezi protests to order the removal of news content, days after an alleged phone transcript of the exchanged was leaked online, sparking anger over political pressure on the media.

“About the phone call from Morocco, yes indeed, I called. I only made some reminders. And those
individuals to whom I conveyed the reminders regarding the news ticker did what was necessary,” Erdoğan said Feb. 11 following a journalist’s question during a joint press conference in Ankara with visiting Spanish counterpart Mariano Rajoy.

“When such insults are made, I or my friends call to tell [newspaper executives] … I don’t know if it is wrong [telling them] this. But we have to teach such things because the insults that were being made were not ordinary,” Erdoğan said.

In the recording, Erdoğan is heard demanding that private broadcaster Habertürk’s executive remove a news ticker feed referring to a statement by Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli at the height of the Gezi Park resistance last June. In the news ticker, Bahçeli called on President Abdullah Gül to “do his duty” and intervene in the Gezi protests, and it was not clear to which “extraordinary insults” the prime minister was referring.

Erdoğan’s statements came after the editor-in-chief of daily Habertürk, owned by the same media group, also acknowledged regular phone calls from government officials, publicly claiming to be under constant political pressure.

Given how corrupt and dictatorial Turkey's leader is, I'm not so sure that a rapprochement from Israel with Turkey makes sense while he remains in office.

02/12 Links Pt1: Why does the EU fund anti-peace NGOs?; 200 Attacks on Rachel's Tomb in 2013

From Ian:

The BDS folly

There is, after all, something decent and intimate in the reciprocal relations imposed by the discipline of the market. The idea that businessmen produce tolerance as a by-product of their self-interested innovations might be an oversimplification of the situation. There are extremists – particularly on the Palestinian side but not only – who are bitterly opposed to any form of normalization between Palestinians and Israelis. And the conditions under which Palestinian businesses must operate are hardly conducive to economic growth.
BDS is not, however, the solution. If anything it is more economic cooperation and mutual development.
Any two-state solution will inevitably entail strong ties between Israel and Palestine. Fostering such ties could even be a means of moving toward a two-state solution organically, gradually and with mutual respect. BDS only hampers this process.

NGO Monitor: Why does the EU continue to fund anti-peace NGOs?

For years, the EU has been providing millions of euros to radical political advocacy non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that, as repeatedly demonstrated, promote the images of Palestinian victimization and Israeli oppression. In many cases, the reports and lobbying efforts of these NGO are central to EU policy formation, forming a closed circle in which biased anti-Israel narratives are reinforced.
Although claiming to support moral causes such as human rights, democracy and peace, these EU funding policies actively promote boycott and isolation of Israel.
And as a result, the Palestinians have an easy alternative to the “painful compromises” necessary for peace.

‘Nice country you’ve got there’ (UK FM) Hague gets a soft ride on BBC’s ‘Hardtalk’

Sackur also conveniently refrained from dissecting Hague’s cringingly transparent ‘equality’ chimera of EU or UK censure of the Palestinian Authority (the same body which was recently revealed to be holding explosives and weapons in a diplomatic mission on EU soil) should peace negotiations collapse. After all, as past experience shows, even when the PA actively sabotaged the Oslo Agreements by initiating and financing an unprecedented campaign of terror against Israeli civilians in 2000, the EU continued to fund that body and even raised its contributions to the tune of an annual average of 250 million Euros. Hence, there is little reason to anticipate an about-face this time around and just as little reason to anticipate any letting-up in EU and UK funding of anti-Israel NGOs or an end to the practice of paternalistic, diplomatically illiterate finger-wagging from the hand which still feeds sections of the BBC.

Patient from Gaza going to Israel

This story has been getting lots of play over the past couple of hours:

Israel has denied entry permits to some 50 Palestinian medical patients from the Gaza Strip because the words "State of Palestine" appears on the letterhead of their application, officials said on Wednesday.

Israel does not recognize a Palestinian state, whose creation it says should stem from peace negotiations. It voted against a U.N. General Assembly resolution in 2012 that gave de facto recognition to a sovereign Palestinian state.

"On Sunday (the Palestinians) filed a range of requests ... on a document that said 'State of Palestine'. On the spot, we returned it to them, saying they should refile the request on appropriate paperwork," said Major Guy Inbar, a spokesman for COGAT, the military-run authority that handles entry permits.

He said 10 Palestinians whose cases were urgent were allowed to enter Israel while about 50 others were not.

Israeli treatment for patients from the Gaza Strip - an enclave run by Hamas Islamists hostile to Israel - is arranged by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank.

Omar al-Naser of the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank city of Ramallah said the ministry had been using the "State of Palestine" letterhead for a year without any move by Israel to deny patients entry.

Gulf News adds:

The ban affects ill people using the Erez Crossing and has been labelled by Palestinians as “rude, barbaric, illegal” and “aimed at killing patients” for whom treatment, as the Israelis know, is not available in Gaza.

I spoke to the COGAT spokesperson for Gaza, and found out the real story.

For several months, the Palestnian Authority has been sending requests on the new letterhead. Every single time, COGAT rejected it, and each time they were resubmitted with the Palestinian Authority letterhead - and approved. This was not new, and the PA knows very well that this was the case.

As recently as Sunday, several patients whose requests were on the new stationery were rejected, and then the PA re-faxed the request the old way and they were approved.

Today's story is a propaganda ambush. Some 50-70 patients (apparently non-life threatening) were submitted on the new stationery at once, an unusually high number. As has been the case for months, they were rejected. But this time the story was leaked to the media. (There was a Haaretz story about this in January with only one patient, but it didn't get much coverage. Much better to use 50 or 70 if you want Reuters and AFP to take notice.)

Existing agreements are between Israel and the PA, not the fictitious "State of Palestine." It is obvious that the PA is trying to embarrass Israel and will happily use Gaza patients as a means to do so. It is equally obvious that the "State of Palestine" is a final status issue, and that Israel cannot act otherwise without jeopardizing its negotiating position.

As usual, instead of dealing with Israel directly, the PLO is passive aggressively using the media to demonize (and weaken) Israel on its behalf. And, as usual, the media is happy to play its part in this charade.

Mondoweiss really is hilarious sometimes

Only a week ago, Mondoweiss, along with many others, was crowing over the Sodastream stock price going down 3%, finding an analyst that said it was based on fears of the company being boycotted.

At that time, SODA's stock price was $35.34.

Since then, Wall Street must have forgotten all about that "analysis," because SODA opened today at around $44.00, an astonishing 24% gain in six days.

For some reason, the Mondoweiss drones have stopped cheering.

I found something even funnier there, from 2012:

Almost a year ago, this site ran a brief post titled “We need to find Americans an alternative to West-Bank-based Sodastream.” As it happened, I’d been doing research on that very problem, as part of the Economic Activism for Palestine project at Global Exchange in San Francisco, under the leadership of Dalit Baum of WhoProfits.org. So I responded to that post with a comment listing a slew of settlement-free home soda makers.

..On the negative side, a product I and several other commenters recommended last September, iSi’s Twist’n’Sparkle, has been recalled. It turned out that the plastic bottle included in the kit had a tendency to explode. If you have one, stop using it and call the recall hotline at (800) 645-3595 to arrange a refund. (When I called, the rep told me she knew of no plans for a new, safer version of the product.)

...On the upside, there’s now a better alternative – if you don’t mind an indirect connection to Israel: Primo Water Corp. of Winston-Salem, NC, has entered the market with not one but two Sodastream-like countertop machines, the Flavorstation 100 ($69.99) and the Flavorstation 120 ($79.99, in either black or white).

...[T]hat Israel connection? In 2011 Primo announced a “strategic alliance” with SDS-IC (“Sparkling Drink Systems – Innovation Center”), a small Israeli company that’s also taking on Sodastream. It was founded in 2009 by a couple of former Sodastream executives. Under the agreement, Primo and SDS-IC will distribute some of each other’s products and collaborate in R&D, marketing, and manufacturing. SDS-IC’s factory, however, is in China, not the West Bank.

And Mondoweiss has no moral qualms about buying products from China! But things built by well-paid, happy Palestinian Arabs when Israeli Jews might profit? No, that's immoral.

If you can’t stomach any connection to Israel, or if you don’t expect to drink soda water often, the “soda siphons” or other products listed on the Global Exchange page will probably meet your needs.

Or you could just drink plain water.

See? There is an alternative! Thanks for enlightening us!

Review: New Gaza Salafi group makes boring video threatening Israel

A new Al Qaeda-aligned Islamist group has announced itself in Gaza by releasing an unwatchably boring video filled with threats to Israel.

Nine masked members of "The Victory of the Islamic State of Jerusalem" group tried to act intimidating, by wearing suicide vests and showing off machine guns.

They attempted to make the video exciting by adding introductory graphics that we've all seen before. Frankly, that same style has already been used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad for years.

The director tried to make the video a little more bearable by changing camera angles every once in a while, but he couldn't hide the fact that it was essentially a guy reading a statement that said "Death to the Jews" over and over again in different ways. The spokesperson also reportedly criticized Hamas for not being sufficiently violent against "Crusaders and Arab tyrants and Shiites" which is slightly more interesting but ultimately still derivative of much better jihadi videos we've seen.

Finally, at 6:45 - way after most people will have moved on to YouTube videos of cute kittens frolicking - the nine terrorist wannabes chant something in unison that is meant to scare Jews who can't understand the non-subtitled work. Even this high point of the video isn't convincing; the terrorists appear to be just half-heartedly doing what is expected, in a performance that looks like it is phoned in.

Moreover, after this display we think that we will be treated to some juicy footage of shooting in the air or rocket launches - but no such luck, Instead, the director inexplicably shows the terrorists walking away from their grassy set, in slow motion, using a lens flare effect that does not match the scene.

Altogether, this is a poorly made video,. The handheld camera videos of previous years may have lacked professionalism, but they made up for it with their unpredictability and originality. This "Victory of the Islamic State of Jerusalem" video is a failure in every sense.

I am anxiously awaiting the explosive video that was made a couple of days ago in Iraq.
These guys can learn a thing or two about effective communication from that already legendary incident.

"Victory of the Islamic State of Jerusalem" - Zero stars.

Palestinian minister denies saying he would allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount

The Blaze reports:

The Palestinian Authority’s Religious Affairs Minister says there will be no peace agreement with Israel unless all territories Israel captured in 1967, including the Western Wall – Judaism’s holiest site – are moved under the sovereignty of a future Palestinian state.

“Every centimeter that was occupied in 1967 is part of the Palestinian state, including the blessed Al Aqsa mosque, including the Buraq Wall,” Minister Mahmoud al-Habash told Israel’s Channel 10 News on Monday night, using the Muslim name for the Western Wall.

“There will not be peace without Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. There will not be peace without an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. Every piece of land that Israel occupied in 1967 is Palestinian land that belongs to the state of Palestine,” Habash said.

Asked what about Jews who wish to pray at their holiest site, Habash said, “Welcome. Welcome. Without any problem, welcome. There will not be any limitations on freedom of worship. Worship is one thing, and politics are another.”

The Hebrew makes it clear that the question was about the Kotel, and not Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount.

Hamas seized on Habash's words, and harshly criticized him as saying that he would allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. The Mufti of Jerusalem also condemned the statement, calling it a "major crime."

So Habash had to clarify, He says he was only referring to the Kotel, which he stressed is Palestinian, but in which Jews would be allowed to worship just like Christians are allowed to worship in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, the Temple Mount is obviously off limits from his "Welcome!" quote - Jews aren't allowed up there.

Obviously, this is all a sham. Muslim Arabs will not allow any Jew to get near any holy site that Muslims stole. Either Jews will be banned outright, for example on the Temple Mount, or they would be banned when Muslims stage violent demonstrations against Jews visiting, which would cause "Palestine" to ban Jews "for their own safety" or "to keep public order."

I am reminded of a claim made once by Ray Hanania claiming that Jordan respected Jews' rights to visit the Old City between 1949 and 1967, and that they only restricted Israelis but not Jews. In fact, Jordan required visitors to the Old City to present baptismal certificates before they would allow them in!

The idea that a Palestinian Arab state, whose constitution says that Islam is the main source for its laws and that that it is the official religion, would offer full access by Jews to holy sites is fantasy. There would be restrictions and outright bans, as there has been under Islamic rule since Islam began.

But Westerners just cannot believe that these nice people wearing suits and ties could ever lie to their faces.

Oh, by the way - the entire Land of Israel is a holy site to Jews.

Nutty Iranian site makes fun of Jews by quoting nutty Christian site

One of Iran's PressTV's antisemitic columnists writes:

Will a Zionist apocalypse erupt during the coming two years?

Some Zionists seem to think so. They are predicting that an unusual series of lunar eclipses or “blood moons” expected in 2014 and 2015 augurs war and disaster on an epic scale.

One Zionist website warns: “It cannot be regarded as coincidence that all four blood moons of 2014/15 occur on religious festivals of Israel, together with two eclipses of the sun also on important days in 2015...According to NASA - Four 'blood-red' TOTAL lunar eclipses WILL fall again on Passover and Sukkoth in 2014 and 2015… the same back-to-back occurrences at the time of 1492, 1948 and 1967” (sic).

Meaning? “The events may involve war in the Middle East and a financial crisis around the world that will affect the land of Israel or the Jewish elite in New York City.”

These blood-moonbat Zionists think that 2014 or 2015 will go down in history alongside 1492 (the year that Jews, along with Muslims, were expelled from Spain), 1948 (the creation of the Zionist entity) and 1967 (the Zionist invasion and occupation of Jerusalem).

Citing a satanic Rothschild-financed hoax, the so-called Scofield Bible, these Zionists hope that 2014 or 2015 will bring a major Middle East war that will enable the Zionists to finish the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, demolish the al-Aqsa mosque, build a Zionist temple on the ruins of the mosque, and consecrate it with blood sacrifices – beginning with the slaughter of a pink heifer.

Are the Zionists insane? Obviously. But unfortunately, the ongoing influence of insanity on world affairs cannot be discounted.

If the Zionists believe blood moons bring war and financial crisis, they may just decide to plunge the world into war and financial crisis as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.

The source for this is a Christian webpage called "Pray4Zion."

The Talmud does mention that eclipses are bad omens, but this is one of those situations where - like Talmudic medicine cures - very few people take them seriously nowadays, even among the religious. As far as I know, eclipses that are coincidental with holidays are not considered any worse than any others. Certainly no one plans wars for eclipses!

Now, are there going to be lunar eclipses for both Passover and Sukkot in 2014 and 2015?

Keep in mind that in the Jewish lunar calendar, the first days of those holidays are always within a day of the full moon, and lunar eclipses always occur on the full moon.

NASA says that April 15, 2014 at around 7 AM GMT, there will be a total lunar eclipse visible in the Pacific and the Americas. it is the first day of Passover.

October 8, 2014 at around 11 AM GMT, is several hours before Sukkot.

April 4, 2015, noontime GMT, is the first day of Passover.

September 28, 2015, around 3 AM GMT, is the first day of Sukkot.

Consecutive lunar eclipses tend to occur around six months apart, so while this seems like an astonishing coincidence, it is really only a minor coincidence. If a total lunar eclipse is seen in April during Passover, the chances that it will occur in October during Sukkot as well are pretty high.

In 1967, the eclipse occurred several hours before Passover in Israel and North America. The other one did occur during Sukkot.

There were no lunar eclipses visible in Jerusalem or New York in 1948. 1492 did have two lunar eclipses in April and October but it is hard to see if they coincided with the holidays.

The real irony is that an Iranian website is accusing Jews of acting superstitiously to cause wars, when Shiite Islam seems to want to bring the 12th Mahdi by whatever means they can.

02/11 Links Pt2: Arab, Muslim and pro-Israel; David Draiman Supports Scarlett Johansson, Blasts BDS

From Ian:

Arab, Muslim and pro-Israel

I’m Abdel. I was born in Algeria and lived there for a little over a decade. During that time, I had the distinct pleasure to go through a brutal civil war where Islamists (supported financially and morally by Hamas, Iran and Saudi Arabia) where trying to take over the country to impose their worldview on everyone else. Friends and family members of mine were killed and the country almost went down the drain. My parents, who were executives at the time, were also involved politically. Specifically, they were leading political parties who’re trying to get religion out of politics– in the midst of an Islamic insurgency. You can only imagine how more problematic their personal and familial situation became: regular death threats, bullet proof door in our home, different itineraries and time to get to work, et cetera. In sum, it was a living hell. Oh, did I mention that I’m the VP communication for McGill Students for Israel?
Now, why? Why does a guy who’s born in a country that does not even recognize Israel come to support it? Below is the case for Israel from the perspective of someone who grew up and lived in a self-proclaimed Arab and Muslim country.

Disturbed Frontman David Draiman Blasts BDS ‘Harassment,’ Rips Emma Thompson for Siding With ‘BDS Nazis’

Jewish heavy metal rocker David Draiman took to Twitter Sunday, Feb. 9, to condemn the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for harassing one actress and then called out another star for siding with the global campaign.
“I support Scarlett Johansson’s endorsement of @SodaStreamUSA and condemn the BDS’ harassment of her,” he tweeted. He also uploaded a photo of himself that included text saying he supports the Her actress “against the haters.”
Earlier on Sunday, Draiman called British actress Emma Thompson a “boycotter of Israel” via Twitter and accused her of siding with “BDS Nazis.” The Saving Mr. Banks star and other British actors said, in a letter published by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, that they are seeking to boycott Israel’s Habima Theater troupe from performing later this year in a theatrical festival at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London.

Scarlett for Sec'y of State - and Israel: A Facebook Movie

Two items.

One is a great article from Bret Stephens in the WSJ. Since it is a pain to get behind their paywall, here's the whole thing:

Last month the Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic blew himself up as he tried to open an old booby-trapped embassy safe. When police arrived on the scene, they discovered a cache of unregistered weapons in violation of international law. Surprise.

Then the real shocker: After prevaricating for a couple of weeks, the Palestinian government apologized to the Czechs and promised, according to news accounts, "to take measures to prevent such incidents in the future."

As far as I know, this is only the second time the Palestinians have officially apologized for anything, ever. The first time, in 1999, Yasser Arafat's wife, Suha, accused Israel of poisoning Palestinian children. Hillary Clinton was there. Palestinian officialdom mumbled its regrets.

In other words, no apology for the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. No apology for the 1973 murder of Cleo Noel, the U.S. ambassador to Sudan, and his deputy, George Moore. No apology for the 1974 massacre of 25 Israelis, including 22 schoolchildren, in Ma'alot. No apology for the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, where 38 Israelis, including 13 children, were killed.

And so on and on—straight to the present. In December, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas posthumously bestowed the "Star of Honor" on Abu Jihad, the mastermind of the Coastal Road attack, as "the model of a true fighter and devoted leader." Dalal Mughrabi, the Palestinian woman who led the attack itself, had a square named after her in 2011. In August, Mr. Abbas gave a hero's welcome to Palestinian murderers released from Israeli jails as a goodwill gesture. And Yasser Arafat, who personally ordered the killing of Noel and Moore, is the Palestinian patron saint.

I mention all this as background to two related recent debates. Late last month Scarlett Johansson resigned her role as an Oxfam "Global Ambassador" after the antipoverty group condemned the actress for becoming a pitchwoman for the Israeli company SodaStream. Oxfam wants to boycott Israeli goods made—as SodaStream's are—inside the West Bank; Ms. Johansson disagrees, citing "a fundamental difference of opinion in regards to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] movement."

The second debate followed rambling comments on the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from John Kerry at this month's Munich Security Conference. Israel, he warned, faced a parade of horribles if talks failed. "For Israel there's an increasing delegitimization campaign that's been building up," he said. "People are very sensitive to it. There are talks of boycotts and other kinds of things."

So here is the secretary of state talking about the effort to boycott Israel not as an affront to the United States and an outrage to decency but as a tide he is powerless to stop and that anyway should get Israel to change its stiff-necked ways. A Secretary of State Johansson would have shown more courage and presence of mind than that.

But Mr. Kerry's failure goes deeper. How is it that Mr. Abbas's glorification of terrorists living and dead earns no rebuke from Mr. Kerry, nor apparently any doubts about the sincerity of Palestinian intentions? Why is it that only Israel faces the prospect of a boycott? When was the last time the U.S., much less the Europeans, threatened to impose penalties on Palestinians for diplomatic or moral misbehavior?

In 2011 the Palestinians defied the U.S. by making a bid for statehood at the U.N.; then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice warned there would be "adverse negative consequences" for the Palestinians. Of course there were none, and the administration fought behind the scenes to make sure there wouldn't be any. Type the words "Kerry condemns Abbas" or "Kerry condemns Palestinians" into a Web search and you'll get that rare Google GOOG +1.40% event: "No results found."

No wonder one Israeli government minister after another has taken to calling the secretary "insufferable," "messianic" and "obsessive"—and that's just what they say in public. The State Department has reacted indignantly to these gibes, but this is coming from the administration that likes to speak of the virtues of candor between friends. Its idea of candor is all one-way and all one-sided.

This is a bad basis for peace. If one expects nothing of Palestinians then they will be forgiven for everything. If one expects everything of Israel then it will be forgiven for nothing, putting the country to a perpetual moral test it will always somehow fail and that can only energize the boycott enthusiasts. It all but goes without saying that the ultimate objective of the BDS movement isn't to "end the occupation" but to end the Jewish state. Anyone who joins that movement, or flirts with it, is furthering the objective, wittingly or not. One useful function of an American diplomat is to warn a group like Oxfam that it is playing with moral fire.

Instead, the job was left to Ms. Johansson. How wonderfully commendable. "One gorgeous actress with courage makes a majority," said Andrew Jackson—or something like that. We could do worse with such a person at State.

And here is a very cute video from Jerusalem U:

Personally, I'd say that Israel joined in 1300 BCE....

(h/t Natan, Yoni)

"Zionists trying to hide Canaanite-Palestinian civilization"

You know how Israel is always accused of using archaeology to hide any traces of Muslim presence in the land (a charge that a simple visit to the Israel Museum would dispel)?

Well, that's passe. Now Israel is being accused of hiding the flourishing Canaanite-Palestinian civilization.

A Jordanian columnist says "The Zionist movement is trying hard to obliterate any trace of the existence of the Canaanite civilization in Palestine."

Given that the Torah says that the Canaanites existed, this is an interesting accusation. But, you see, it isn't the Canaanites they are hiding so much as the purported Palestinian ties to Canaan. You see, from this article we learn that the formidable giants that the twelve Israelite scouts encountered (Numbers 13:28) were, in fact, Palestinian!

You learn something new every day.

It is good to know that Palestinian Arabs are in fact descended from Canaanite non-Arabs.

Except for those named Erekat/Uraiqat/Areikat.

And the famous Husseini family of Jerusalem, who came in the 12th century. (The Shawishes come from the Husseinis.)

And the equally famous Nashashibis of Jerusalem, who are of Kurdish/Turkoman or Arabian peninsula origin.

And the Abu Ghoshes, who came around the time of the Crusades, possibly from Europe.

And the Barghoutis, who came from the Bani Zeid clan who arrived after the Crusades as well.

And the Al Khalil family, from Mecca.

And the Khazens, who are from Lebanon.

And the Nusseibehs, the oldest Arab family in Jerusalem, who arrived in the 7th century.

And the Qudwa and Arafat families, who came from Aleppo, Syria to Gaza in the late 17th century.

And the Ridwans, who came from the Ottoman empire to become leaders in Gaza.

And the Salibas, from Greece via Lebanon.

And the Touqans, from either northern Arabia or northern Syria.

And the Hammoudas from Transjordan.

And the Zeitawis who came from Mecca to Morocco to Gaza. They are related to the Zaghabs.

And the Ghassans, who came from Arabia to Lebanon.

And the Tamimis, who come from the Tamim tribe of Arabia.

And the Tarabins, who claim to originally come from the Bakom Valley east of Mecca.

And the Jabaris, who descend from an inhabitant of the Jabar castle on the Euphrates.

And the Matar family from Kuwait.

And the prominent Jerusalem family Nammari, who came to Palestine from Spain during the expulsion.

And the Adwans, who came from the Hijaz.

And the Dajanis, originally from Arabia but whose first resident came to Palestine from Spain and Morocco.

And even the Nabulsi family, who are named after the town of Nablus, but Nablus only got that Arabicized name in the 7th century.

The Murads came from Albania, and settled in Palestine in the 1500s.

The Al Hafi clan descended from Bishar al-Hafi who lived in Baghdad.

The Chehaybers are of Turkish-Arab descent.

Christian families from Bait Sahour named Abu Aita, Khoury, Yacoub, Ibrahim, Sous, Abdil-Masih Al-Hayik, Rishmawi and Hannouneh whose ancestors came from Turkey in the 17th century.

The Marashda, Khair, Bannoura, Awwad and Badra families who came from the Rashda area of Egypt in the 18th century.

The Kukali family which came from Syria around the same time.

The Tawil, Sa'ad, Gharub and Masa'ad families, descended from the Marashda family mentioned about.

And the Hejazis from Arabia, Mughrabis from Morocco, Masris from Egypt, Houranis from Syria, Turkis and Dogmushes from Turkey, Yamanis from Yemen, Jaziris from Algeria, Hindis from India, Kurdis from Kurdistan, Halabis from Aleppo, Trabelsis (Tripoli), Sudanis (Sudan), Faranjis (French), and Shamis (Syria).

But besides every famous Palestinian Arab clan, sure, everyone else must be Canaanites.

02/11 Links Pt1: PA Minister Claims Western Wall; PA's Human Rights Violations Ignored

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Authority Human Rights Violations Ignored by Media, West

That Hamas is responsible for human rights violations and assaults on freedom of expression should not come as a surprise to anyone.
But what is surprising is that the Palestinian Authority leadership, which often boasts that Palestinians living under its jurisdiction enjoy freedom of expression and democracy, is continuing to lie not only to its constituents, but also to the Western media and international donors about its human rights record.
The PA has been successful in diverting attention from these problems by putting all the blame on Israel. As far as the PA is concerned, Israel alone is responsible for human rights violations and assaults on freedom of expression and the media.
Evidently, most Western journalists, governments and human rights groups have chosen to endorse the Palestinian Authority's stance that the only evil-doers are the Israelis. And that is precisely why the ICHR report about the anarchy, lawlessness and human rights violations by the PA and Hamas will be completely ignored in the West.

The Palestinian Covenant Refutes the Palestinian Narrative

The Yishuv’s Jewish population in 1917 consisted of people from each of the three sources, but even if they all came from only one of them, the acknowledgement in the Palestine National Covenant that there were Jews there before 1917 disproves the current Palestinian narrative’s claim that the Land has been home “since time immemorial” to a thriving Palestinian culture. If the Jews are from the first source, then they predate the Palestinian arrival. The second source pre-supposes the existence of the first. The third source reflects Ottoman recognition that the Land was underpopulated and in need of a revival; i.e., whatever culture was there could hardly be described as flourishing.
The Palestinian narrative is thus hoist with its own petard: The Palestinian people’s founding document announces that its narrative isn’t true.

A reasonable alternative

In other words, a reasonable alternative will have to involve Arabs moving, not Jews.
It doesn’t have to be all the Arabs. Unlike them, we don’t require an ethnically pure state to live in. But we also don’t have to live alongside creatures committed to violence, as the members of the PLO and Hamas are.
We can hear the screaming of the Left, the Europeans, the academic community and of course the Muslim world all the way over here. How dare we suggest that Arabs might be displaced (of course, the idea that a ‘solution’ involves expelling every last Jew so ‘Palestine’ can be free of contamination is perfectly reasonable to them)! (h/t Bob Knot)

Cool new Israeli weapons: advanced drone and lightweight precision missiles

From I-HLS:

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) today revealed its new Super Heron heavy fuel Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

The Super Heron features a heavy fuel 200 horsepower engine and an advanced propulsion system, which enhance the UAS’s capacity, rate of climb and performance. Super Heron’s air speed exceeds one hundred and fifty KTAS (knots true airspeed).

The Super Heron’s systems feature advanced avionics, triple redundancy, advanced computerized systems, enhanced processing capabilities, increased electrical power and standard interface architecture, allowing for the simple integration of new payloads. The system consists of multiple proven operational configurations for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition & reconnaissance missions, maritime patrol and other missions.

Also:

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has recently successfully completed a series of demonstrations of LAHAT missiles firing from helicopters.

LAHAT (Laser Homing Attack) is an accurate lightweight missile, homing-in on a laser spot. It has a ground launch range of 8 km (10 km from helicopters) and can be supplied a variety of mission-customized warheads. The lightweight missiles and launcher do not adversely affect the helicopter’s effective mission time. LAHAT missiles, sold in significant quantities to various customers, serve as precision guided munitions, and may be launched from ships, vehicles and helicopters.

(h/t Yoel)

What's Iran up to with its warships?

This analysis by J. E. Dyer is a must read:

...To the escalating [anti-American] rhetoric, we can add two other circumstances that have not existed before, when Iran was issuing threats about the U.S. military. One is the voyage of Sabalan and Kharg to the Americas.

All things being equal, we wouldn’t necessarily expect Iran to add political freight to this expedition. In other respects, Iran is keeping it on the down-low, making no announcements about the task force’s progress around Africa, and celebrating no fraternal stops along the way (although these stops – for fuel – have to be occurring). That’s not normal. One of the purposes of sending your navy out to show the flag is to actually show the flag. But Iran’s not doing that.(1)

The possibility certainly exists that the Iranians want to keep as low a profile as possible until Kharg, the supply ship with the big hold, has discharged whatever cargo she may be carrying. The continued silence about the task force’s movements would tend to corroborate that theory. I have no doubt that U.S. intelligence knows where the two ships are (the Iranians may imagine that they are hiding the ships’ movements from the Israelis by avoiding publicity). But the seemingly furtive nature of the Iranian transit suggests that there might be something on Kharg that the U.S. wouldn’t like.

I’ve mentioned before that Kharg could be delivering missiles (or other weapon systems) to Iran’s pals in Central America. Shahab-3s for the missile complex reportedly being developed in northwestern Venezuela are one obvious possibility. Kharg would be used because of her immunity as a naval vessel from search and seizure. The U.S., or other nations in the region – such as Colombia and Panama – would care most about certain kinds of weapon systems, and would be more likely to try to intercept commercial cargo ships carrying them. But because Iran is under UN sanctions which prohibit exporting weaponry (in particular, UNSC Resolution 1747), a commercial ship could be stopped solely for that reason, even if it carried nothing more than small arms.

...If Iran is “preparing the battle space” by trying to surround Israel with threats, she will try to demonstrate to the U.S. that she can pose unacceptable threats to us, even if it’s through one-off, Hail-Mary-type actions. The little frigate, Sabalan, is probably not a player.(3)

That’s where the Kharg comes in. What is she delivering in the Americas – and where will she deliver it?

The possible answers are tied to the scenarios by which Iran could hold the United States at risk. There are two principal categories of scenario: terrorism, and missiles launched from other countries in the Americas. Kharg could be carrying cargo relevant to both.

Terrorism against American homeland targets could take a number of forms, for most of which there would be no need to deliver cargo via Kharg. Chemical and biological weaponry would be the most likely forms of terrorist tool Kharg could deliver. There are any number of ways the agents of Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Shabaab, or other terror groups known to operate in the Americas could move such agents into the U.S.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t really take Kharg to deliver these items, nor would it be as important to introduce them via a country like Venezuela, where Iran can be certain of official approval.

Kharg’s unique value is in being able to deliver large items that can’t be hidden from inspection with deceptive packaging. Medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and missile systems (including mobile launchers and command vehicles) are the obvious possibilities. The map shows threat rings for the extended-range Shahab-3 if launched from Venezuela, Nicaragua, or Cuba.

If we assume Iran does not yet have a nuclear warhead, the main option for making this threat a true deterrent, at least potentially, is the use of chemical warheads. Conventional high explosive warheads would be alarming to the public, but would not be a daunting enough threat. They would do comparatively little damage before triggering a response of some kind from the United States. Of course, chemical warheads delivered via ballistic missile would themselves have only limited effects in the area of impact. Missile delivery is not the way to achieve the most lethal effects with chemical weapons.

That said, two things are worth reiterating. One, the U.S. does not have a constant-ready missile defense network that would protect the central and southeastern United States from an MRBM threat emanating from the south. We are unprotected on this axis. Shifting to a footing of 24/365 alert and anti-missile protection – e.g., by deploying Patriot systems in the continental U.S. or Navy Aegis ships offshore – would constitute a new, un-resourced requirement. We’d have to cut back defense operations elsewhere to meet it.

Two, our ability to react against the “shooter” is limited by the forces we have ready today. We don’t have extra ships and aircraft to deploy for a deterrent presence in Central America. We could react after the fact with B-2 bombers, and possibly other conventional forms of attack, such as submarine-launched cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with conventional warheads. But we would have to attack to mount a response, in (most probably) Venezuela or Cuba, and that response would be inherently escalatory.

It’s quite possible that our current administration would view that as a bridge too far. Realistically, I think the military would view the prospect with strong disfavor. Our ready forces would not have such a preponderance of power, or such advantages of geography, that we could do it easily and without inconvenience.

Bottom line: MRBMs down south would constitute a material transformation of our security footing in the hemisphere. It’s a development we couldn’t live with.

But what would Obama do if the Iranians presented it as a fait accompli? The one thing we can count on is that he would not take decisive action to eliminate the threat. For Iran – and her potential henchmen in Central America or the Caribbean – that would be the important factor. They could very well calculate that getting MRBMs into the hemisphere could give them leverage over the U.S. in negotiations, as the missiles in Cuba did for Khrushchev and the Soviet Union in 1962.

There's lots more. Read the whole thing.