Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 09, 2014

Jordanian paper publishes antisemitic conspiracy theory - in English

From Jordan's Ammon News:

Could gaining control of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI) be one of the main reasons that Iran is being targeted by Western and Israeli powers?

...Some researchers are pointing out that Iran is one of only three countries left in the world whose central bank is not under Rothschild control. Before 9-11 there were reportedly seven: Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. By 2003, however, Afghanistan and Iraq were swallowed up by the Rothschild octopus, and by 2011 Sudan and Libya were also gone. In Libya, a Rothschild bank was established in Benghazi while the country was still at war.

..The Rothschilds exert powerful influence over the world’s major news agencies. By repetition, the masses are duped into believing horror stories about evil villains. The Rothschilds control the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements. Also they own most of the gold in the world as well as the London Gold Exchange, which sets the price of gold every day. It is said the family owns over half the wealth of the planet—estimated by Credit Suisse to be $231 trillion—and is controlled by Evelyn Rothschild, the current head of the family.

Objective researchers contend that Iran is not being demonized because they are a nuclear threat, just as the Taliban, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qadaffi were not a threat.

What then is the real reason? Is it the trillions to be made in oil profits, or the trillions in war profits? Is it to bankrupt the U.S. economy, or is it to start World War III? Is it to destroy Israel’s enemies, or to destroy the Iranian central bank so that no one is left to defy Rothschild’s money racket?

It might be any one of those reasons or, worse—it might be all of them.

The article was written by Pete Papaherakles, a right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theorist. However, Papaherakles is usually careful not to mention "Jews." He'll just emphasize things like "George Soros' birth name is Schwartz" (wink, wink.)

His readers know exactly what he means.

The funny thing is that this article was written at least a year ago at the nutty site American Free Press. Here is the illustration for that version. Note the Star of David on the book.

From Al Arabiya:

As Riyadh declared four new deaths from the MERS coronavirus and 18 new infections on Thursday, a Saudi cleric has claimed that he has found a cure for the deadly virus, prompting ridicule on social media.

Abdullah al-Amrani told al-Hayat newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that he had “succeeded” in finding an herbal cure derived from Islamic medicinal practices.

“I am confident of its effectiveness and [its] ability to cure stubborn diseases and viruses including MERS,” Amrani said, adding that he tried his medicine one two patients - one with AIDS and the other with Leukemia - and both were relieved of their ailments.

The original article is here.

Which reminds me - I haven't heard much lately about the Egyptian army invention that completely cures AIDS and hepatitis C.

05/09 Links Pt1: Blaming Israel for the Failure of Talks; Zero Tolerance for Incitement to Genocide

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas' "Gift" To Israel on Independence Day

The new video released by Hamas should also be seen as a response to Abbas's recent claim that the unity government with Hamas will renounce violence and accept Israel.
Hamas leaders have repeated over the past few days that the unity deal with Abbas's Fatah faction does not mean that their movement will ever recognize Israel's right to exist. They have also emphasized their intention to pursue terrorist attacks against Israel.
Abbas and the Palestinian Authority have chosen to ignore Hamas's ongoing threats to destroy Israel and continue terrorist attacks. Instead, Abbas is obviously determined to pursue his efforts to achieve unity with the terrorist movement, while at the same time trying to persuade gullible Westerners that the radical Islamists are marching toward moderation and pragmatism.
Even worse, Abbas is now seeking to expose Palestinians in the West Bank to Hamas's poisonous messages. Earlier this week, the Palestinian Authority leader issued an order permitting all newspapers published in the Gaza Strip, including those belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to be distributed in the West Bank areas under his control.

Michael Lumish: Blaming Israel for the Failure of Talks

The bottom line is that the Obama administration has taken the racist Arab view that Jews should not be allowed to live in any "Palestinian" state and therefore if we build housing for ourselves on traditional Jewish land it somehow prevents Abbas and Netanyahu from drawing a line on a map.
From a strategic stand-point Obama administration policy has been a wretched failure in the Middle East for the obvious reason that it has not seriously encouraged the Palestinian-Arabs to come to a peace agreement with the Palestinian-Jews. This is bad enough, of course, but from an ethical stand-point Barack Obama and his people are encouraging the notion that the Palestinian-Jewish minority are malicious trespassers on their own land.
And that is considerably worse because it encourages ongoing malice and violence toward the Jewish people, more generally.
At this point Obama simply needs to get out of the Middle East because he clearly has no idea what he is doing.

Sarah Honig: Now Livni is livid

Our Justice Minister and chief peace negotiator, Tzipi Livni, has just served notice on a far-from-enthralled nation that, regardless of what we may believe, she is somehow the boss. She put herself in charge of our collective conscience. She is the ultimate arbitrator of what’s proper and what’s not.
And in that capacity she denounced Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s intention to enshrine in law Israel’s status as the nation-state of the Jewish people. We might of course expect that she’d cheer Netanyahu’s initiative. After all, she enthusiastically extolled the 2005 Disengagement as ensuring the Jewishness of Israel. She never retracted her words, not even when unilateral retreat proved an unmitigated disaster.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Senior Obama administration officials have escalated a secret media war to discredit Israel in the press, providing highly critical anonymous quotes and negative information about the Jewish state in a bid to blame it for the recent collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Multiple sources in both the United States and Israel confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon that Middle East envoy Martin Indyk again served as the anonymous source for a recent interview in the Israeli press that lambasted Israel, blamed it for the failure of peace talks, and predicted that Israel needs to face another wave of Palestinian terrorism before it will make peace.

Indyk was first identified by the Free Beacon as the anonymous source for a series of anti-Israel stories planted by the Obama administration in April.

The targeted leaks have sparked anger among top officials in Jerusalem who believe that Israel is being attacked with unfair and negative press stories while the Palestinian side escapes blame from the Obama administration, according to these sources.

“There was a general ban on leaks, and it was more or less enforced,” said one senior official with a leading pro-Israel group. However, “Indyk and his team were the exception.”

“The result was that you had this constant stream of anti-Israel talking points from anonymous U.S. officials and nothing to balance them out. The Israelis would go to the Americans and ask them to correct the record, and the Americans would refuse—because of the prohibition against leaking!” the source said.

This is nothing new for Indyk. IMRA notes a letter written in 2000 by Israeli MK Uzi Landau to Bill clinton, complaining about Indyk's attempts to manipulate and pressure Israel even then:

19 Elul 5760
September 19, 2000

The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Clinton,

As Chairman of the Knesset State Control Committee (the equivalent of the U.S. Senate's Committee on Governmental Affairs) and former Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, I would like to bring to your attention a serious incident involving United States Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk that I believe warrants your immediate intervention.

According to a September 16, 2000 report in the Guardian of London, ".the U.S. Ambassador to Israel yesterday urged Israel to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians. Mr. Indyk said: 'There is no other solution but to share the holy city.." Ambassador Indyk was similarly quoted by the Associated Press, The Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz. The timing of the speech and the political context in which it was delivered leave no room for doubt that Ambassador Indyk was calling on the Government of Israel to divide Jerusalem. Indeed, the Guardian correspondent described the remarks as "a sharp departure from Washington orthodoxy in recent years."

In addition to his remarks concerning Jerusalem, Ambassador Indyk offered his views regarding secular-religious tensions in Israel and the role of the Reform and Conservative movements in Judaism. He also intimated his tacit support for Prime Minister Barak's so-called secular revolution. As a commentator in the liberal daily Ha'aretz noted, "readers are urged to imagine what the Americans would say if the Israeli ambassador to Washington were to come to a local religious institution and say such things."

As a veteran Knesset member who has consistently supported closer ties between our two nations, I wish to strongly protest Ambassador Indyk's blatant interference in Israel's internal affairs and democratic process. I am sure you would agree that it is simply unacceptable for a foreign diplomat to involve himself so provocatively in the most sensitive affairs of the country to which he is posted. If a foreign ambassador stationed in the United States were to involve himself in a domestic American policy debate regarding race relations or abortion, the subsequent outcry would not be long in coming.

Ambassador Indyk's remarks about Jerusalem are an affront to Israel, particularly since he made them in the heart of the city that he aspires to divide. By needlessly raising Arab expectations on the Jerusalem issue, rather than moderating them, Ambassador Indyk has caused inestimable damage to the peace process. It is likewise inexplicable that Ambassador Indyk would choose to interject his private religious preferences into the debate over secular-religious tensions in Israel.

I wish to point out that this is not the first time that the American Embassy in Israel has interfered in our internal affairs. In February, I wrote to you in the wake of media reports that Embassy officials were lobbying Israeli Arab leaders regarding a possible referendum on the Golan Heights. My fear is that such interference in Israel's affairs is rapidly becoming routine.

In light of the above, I request that you recall Ambassador Indyk to the United States and I urge you to disavow publicly his undiplomatic remarks. I am confident that such measures would help to remedy the damage done by Ambassador Indyk to the relations between our two peoples.

Sincerely,

Uzi Landau
Member of Knesset

(h/t Y Medad)

Of course Israel should teach about the Nakba

Last week, Haaretz wrote an editorial saying the Nakba should be taught in Israeli schools:

The dispute over the degree of Israel’s responsibility for the emigration, expulsion and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the War of Independence is a matter for historians. It does not negate the fact that a national and human disaster befell the Palestinians. This disaster must be studied and understood, not merely to fathom the political and diplomatic motives of the Palestinian leadership as they negotiate with us, but as a cultural and human obligation. All the more so when this disaster affects a fifth of the state’s population and millions of Palestinians with whom Israel seeks to end the historic conflict.

The Israeli government must, therefore, make the history of the Palestinians an integral part of every school curriculum. It must cease its systematic disregard of the Nakba (the Palestinian term for the “catastrophe” they suffered upon Israel’s founding), arrange a program for touring the ruins of villages that were destroyed, encourage exchange visits and instill in the curriculum the message of the historic partnership between the two nations. This is the road that will lead to understanding and mutual recognition.

Shlomo Avineri rightly responds:

But one need not be a historian to know that there will continue to be more than one school of thought on this dispute, and that proposing that it be left to historians is actually an evasion — a refusal to deal, here and now, with indisputable historical truths. Even the cautious (not to say euphemistic) language of this sentence, which speaks of “emigration, expulsion and displacement” and avoids using the word “flee,” which was certainly part of the complex reality of Israel’s War of Independence, already demonstrates that the editorial does not exactly leave the decision to historians.

Some facts of history really ought not to be left to historians. The attempt to ignore them is morally flawed — and morality is, rightfully, the driving spirit behind the editorial. It is a fact — one that should not be “a matter for historians” — that in September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and not the other way around. It is a fact that on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States and not vice versa. It is also true that what is called the Nakba is the result of a political decision by the Palestinian leadership and the Arab states to reject the United Nations partition resolution, to try to prevent its implementation by force and to attack the Jewish community in the Land of Israel before and after the state’s establishment. Of this, the editorial says nothing.

Thus, the context of the founding of the State of Israel is presented in the editorial exactly as it is presented in Palestinian and Arab political discourse — with total disregard of the political and historical reality in 1947 and 1948.

I dealt with this issue in 2010. Here is an updated version:

It seems to me that only one thing needs to be taught to Israeli students: the truth. If Israeli schools completely ignore talking about some 600,000 Palestinian Arabs having left their homes, some of them (but far from the majority) forced out by the Haganah and IZL, they are failing. If they teach the skewed Palestinian Arab narrative of forced dispossession and unending massacres, they are failing worse.

Yes, teach the Nakba - but teach what really happened. Of course it was a catastrophe for hundreds of thousands of people, but the continuing catastrophe of what has happened to them since 1948 at the hands of their Arab brothers needs to be taught as well.

There were some massacres - usually exaggerated but still true - and Israel should regret some of the excesses of war. But there was also heroism, there were also miracles, there was also the overriding moral imperative to survive and beat back an onslaught that was literally meant to be genocidal.

Teach about how Palestinian Arab nationalism was weak to nonexistent in 1948. Teach how Jordan and Egypt's occupations of "Palestinian" land were not protested. Teach the history of the Mufti, his Nazi activities and his terror sprees against Jews (not Zionists - Jews.) Teach about how Arab refugees in Israel were integrated into society while those in Arab lands were treated like garbage, and still are. Teach about how UNRWA has ensured that the "refugee" problem will fester until Israel is destroyed. Teach about how the first people to lose their homes in the conflict were Jews, not Arabs.

This week there were protests centered around Lubya, a town the Arabs fled in 1948. Right nearby is a town called Tur'an, which is still there and thriving with a population that has swelled about 800% since 1948. An email correspondent this week wrote:

If you ask the older generation in Tur'an about Lubya, you get some very revealing answers and learn that they're happy that the village formerly known for its thieves, bandits and its participation in the '48 war and the violence before it no longer exists.

All of these need to be taught. It doesn't mean that Israeli youngsters shouldn't feel the appropriate sorrow for the suffering of their enemy, but it also doesn't mean that they should forget that they were still the enemy, and the moral imperative is to ensure your own survival before worrying about that of those who tried, and most still desire, to destroy you.

For an example of what must be taught, here is an article that I have quoted before, from Dorothy Bar-Adon in the Palestine Post, August 17, 1948 (click to enlarge). In it she discusses how she feels bad over the fact that her neighboring Arab village fled - but also says exactly why they cannot return. It strikes the perfect balance between humanity and self-preservation. Acknowledging the fact that 1948 was a disaster for Arabs in Palestine is not a violation of the Zionist narrative; it should be part and parcel of it - but it must be put in the proper context of the time and the place.

Because the alternative was unimaginably worse.

One more "Apartheid?" poster

I saw this photo tweeted by Avi Mayer, so how could I resist?

Israeli paramedic receives Presidents Award - for saving Syrians

Meet Noga Erez, a paramedic in the IDF who works in the field hospital on the Syrian border.

On Yom Ha'Atzmaut, Nioga received The President's Award for Excellence for her outstanding service.

As the IDF blog notes, "Every year, out of thousands of candidates, the President of Israel honors the most outstanding soldiers in the IDF. These soldiers are an inspiration to their peers, acting as leaders and demonstrating the highest degree of excellence."

What other nation on the planet would give one of their highest honors for someone who saves the lives of people from an enemy country?

Here's her story:

(h/t Shlomo HaLevi)

05/08 Links Pt2: Khaled Abu Toameh wins Daniel Pearl prize; One Synagogue, 20 Victims of Terror

From Ian:

Abu Toameh wins 2014 Pearl prize for journalistic courage

Khaled Abu Toameh, a reporter for The Jerusalem Post who has covered Palestinian and Arab affairs for the past three decades, is the recipient of the 2014 Daniel Pearl Award.
The award, named for Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002, recognizes courage and integrity in journalism.
“Khaled Abu Toameh has been telling us, with courage and objectivity, what life is like in the West Bank and Gaza,” said Judea Pearl, father of the dead journalist. “Rarely has a reporter been so successful in penetrating a conflict so complex and remaining consistently and definitively on the side of truth.”

Mike Lumish: University of California Cancels Nonie Darwish Speech

Nonie Darwish is among the prominent anti-Jihadists writing today and should therefore be supported.
Progressive western Jews must get beyond the cowardly fear of being called “racist” or “Islamophobic” if they oppose the movement of political Islam. Islam is Islam and so long as it does not seek to impose itself upon the rest of us then I have no grievance, but when Islam is the heart of a political movement – which it most certainly is – then it becomes a problem for all of us who are not both Muslim and male.
This is why Barack Obama’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood is such a betrayal of his own alleged values, not to mention a betrayal of the United States, itself, given the fact that the Brotherhood is also the parent organization of both Hamas and al-Qaeda.
The late, great Barry Rubin certainly understood this

A perverse Leftist racism against black women?

Aging radical leftists still fighting the Vietnam War and extreme Islamists fighting any hint of criticism of their religion triumphed in two battles in US universities against two extraordinary black women who happen not to be leftists -- Condi Rice, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali
One wonders if the Rutgers protestors are interested in anything of real importance in the world, especially abuse of women. At the time of their outbursts against Rice a more imperative incident affecting young black women was occurring. At least 276 schoolgirls, 16 to 18 years old, who are mostly Christians but including some Muslims, girls eager to become teachers or doctors, were kidnapped from their school, an all Girl’s Secondary School in Chibok in northeastern Nigeria, by a fanatical Islamist group Boko Haram, a murderous group with a five-year record of atrocities, that is strongly against the education of women.
The intention of the group is to sell the girls into sexual slavery to Muslims in Chad and Cameroon. The women Muslim students at Rutgers have not at this point registered sit-in protests against this barbarism.
One brave young girl has made her protest. This is Malala Yousafzai, who was shot at the age of 15 by a Pakistani Taliban fighter in October 2012 because she advocated education for girls. She joined the protest in London against the abduction of the schoolgirls.
By contrast, the Muslim students at Rutgers have remained silent on the cruel action of the Islamists. One knows they will not learn the virtue of tolerance from the aging revolutionaries in the faculty.

Father Gabriel Naddaf is the leader of the movement to encourage Christians to join the IDF. As Fox News reported last December:

Some Arabic-speaking Christians in Israel are well aware that they live in the region’s only safe haven for their faith. And they have decided to do more than give thanks.

They want to defend their homeland, and a number of them have chosen to take action. Not only do they want to serve in the IDF, but they also are forming a political party and seeking reforms in Israel’s educational system, insisting that its curriculum include Christian history alongside that of Judaism and Islam.

Father Gabriel Naddaf leads this movement. He is articulate, bold and outspoken. He explained to the Jerusalem Report (Oct 7, 2013). “We want to be fully integrated into Israeli society... This land is holy to us too, and we are partners in it. We live under its protection and we should protect it along with its citizens.

“Given all that is happening in the region,” he says emphatically, “the time has come to discuss this. Now.”

As a result, Naddaf has been threatened and his son attacked.

Now, he is being stripped of his role in the Church by the West Bank-based Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III.

Theophilos' spokesman, Father Issa Musleh, said that as a result of Naddaf's political activities, he will no longer be allowed to perform his pastoral and ecclesiastical duties.

He said, "We have asked several times for Father Gabriel Naddaf, priest of the Church of Jaffa, Nazareth, to retreat from positions that call for recruitment in the army of occupation, as we reject it. "

Musleh said Naddaf cannot work with any church in Palestine (which includes, clearly, Israel.)

He also said that Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II contacted the Patriarchate about this issue and support the decision.

This shows how frightened the Palestinian Arabs are of the still small initiative to recruit Christians to the IDF. In 2013, the number of recruits tripled.

It remains to be seen if any Christian leaders of other denominations will criticize this heavy handed interference by Palestinian Arab churches into Israeli clerics and churches.

UPDATE: The story was denied.(h/t Ian)

Fatah's terror wing says it won't give up its weapons

Is there any real difference between Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and Hamas?

Once again, the answer is no.

Just like Hamas said that its Al Qassam Brigades will not give up its weapons in any "unity" agreement, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades of Fatah has said exactly the same thing.

Abu Mohammed, spokesman of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades Nidal division which operates in Gaza, said, "I do not think that the weapons of the resistance will be a roadblock on the subject of Palestinian reconciliation. On the contrary, Palestinian reconciliation will unite the Palestinian rifle against the enemy, both at the political level and at the military level."

The spokesman added, "We in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades will not allow anyone, whether The current government in Gaza or the Ramallah government or a government of national unity to withdraw weapons of the resistance because they are legitimate weapons and directed against the enemy."

Abbas, of course, told gullible Westerners that he had dismantled the al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in 2008. He lied.

Here they are, today:

And they are in the West Bank as well as Gaza.

As far as I can tell, they are on Fatah's payroll, and very possibly getting indirectly financed by Western governments who bend over backwards to pretend that Mahmoud Abbas and his party are the moderate, peaceful guys.

You would think that people would have caught on to the "good cop, bad cop" routine by now. Because the Fatah and Hamas terrorists are laughing every day at the stupidity of the West.

05/08 Links Pt1: Palestinian Magical Thinking; Jordan is Eastern Palestine

From Ian:

Palestinian Magical Thinking

The Palestinian elite and their children live comfortable and privileged lives in Ramallah and elsewhere in the region and beyond it. Combining this with diplomatic and political activity can be pleasant and rewarding. Combining it with military activity, by contrast, could be harmful and has already been proven not to work.
So expect more furious and pathos-filled denunciations of Israeli crimes from various UN committees largely staffed by the representatives of sundry dictatorships.
Expect Saeb Erekat and the others to come up with yet more inventive reasons as to why Islam and Arabic are “indigenous” to Jerusalem while Judaism and Hebrew represent foreign implants. And so on, and so forth.
And at the end of all this, expect more failure, more bewilderment and a pause until the next alternative to a negotiated peace is stumbled upon. This is the nature of the magical thinking that lies at the core of Palestinian Arab politics.
This politics, in its various manifestations, exists to reverse the verdict of the war of 1948. It has no other purpose.

Ex-ICC prosecutor warns Palestinians on anti-Israel war crimes effort

The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, on a visit to Israel, urged the Palestinians to proceed with caution as they consider pursuing war crimes charges against Israel. He said it would be preferable for the two sides to work out their differences directly.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the Palestinians should not rush ahead with a case against Israel, saying they could expose themselves to the same accusations.

White House Escalates Secret Media War Against Israel

Indyk, a longtime Middle East hand and peace negotiator, has for years personally disliked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to these sources.
“It’s been going on for many years,” said one former Israeli diplomat, referring to Indyk’s leaks to the press. “He was defending the Palestinians. That is a long time story. His antipathy to Netanyahu is also a very long story. It’s not recent. It goes back years.”
Indyk has enjoyed a long relationship with reporter Barnea and has used those ties to leak stories critical of Israel and Netanyahu, the source said.

Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty field investigator, wrote an interesting article about the challenges of fact finding in war situations.

One of her main points is that eyewitnesses are often unreliable. For example:

In Gaza, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, and other places I interviewed civilians who described what they thought were artillery or bomb strikes being launched by far away government forces and striking near their homes – whereas in reality the loud bangs and tremors were caused by mortars or rockets being launched by opposition fighters from their positions nearby. For the untrained ear it is virtually impossible to distinguish between incoming and outgoing fire, and all the more so for those who find themselves close to the frontlines.

Another factor she mentions:

Even if they disregard it, investigators must be alert to the fact that disinformation and misinformation can contribute to shaping the perception of events, the narrative surrounding the events, and the behaviour of people who take it in good faith and internalize it, including victims, witnesses, and others potential sources.

Here Rovera is referring to lies that spread quickly and then become widely believed - including by "unbiased" NGOs - before anyone has a chance to investigate. How many times have we seen that?
She gives a specific example from Gaza:

Fear can lead victims and witnesses to withhold evidence or give deliberately erroneous accounts of incidents. In Gaza, I received partial or inaccurate information by relatives of civilians accidentally killed in accidental explosions or by rockets launched by Palestinian armed groups towards Israel that had malfunctioned and of civilians killed by Israeli strikes on nearby Palestinian armed groups’ positions. When confronted with other evidence obtained separately, some said they feared reprisals by the armed groups.

Meaning that "eyewitnesses" will often claim that there was no terrorist activity in the area of an airstrike and Israel wantonly and indiscriminately killed people for no reason.

This gets wholly believed and parroted by the UN and other NGOs. The Goldstone Report has many such examples.

Unfortunately, in many cases the NGOs themselves are part of the problem. Rovera admits, a little elliptically:

Conflict situations create highly politicized and polarized environments, which may affect even individuals and organizations with a proven track record of credible and objective work. Players and interested parties go to extraordinary lengths to manipulate or manufacture “evidence” for both internal and external consumption.

It is a shame that Rovera didn't include Amnesty International itself as being guilty of this, and she ascribes the lack of objectivity almost only to fake evidence that is created by one side rather than to the ideological desire to find war crimes when none exist.

They might strenuously deny it, but Amnesty and HRW have systemic biases against Israel. This article, while a step in the right direction, only scratches the surface of how NGOs themselves contribute to the culture of lies in order to issue their reports and maintain their funding without doing basic fact checks.

And while Rovera notes that some "eyewitnesses" act out of fear, she doesn't go far enough. At least in the territories, the lies about Israel are repeated so often that the witnesses will often tell Western reporters and researchers what they expect to hear rather than what happened. This isn't necessarily out of fear; it is part of their culture to ensure that Israel is always blamed no matter what. It saturates their media. I cannot count how many times "eyewitness" accounts were found to be complete fiction, and fear didn't enter into the equation. However, many of the "witnesses" happen to work for the largest employer in the West Bank - the PA - which lies constantly.

Not to mention that many anti-Israel activists that will knowingly repeat the most outrageous lies to further their own agenda.

Lets hope that this article can at least open up the discussion of how inaccurate much of the reporting and research is about Israel, even from NGOs that pretend to be objective.

(h/t Sara)

He wears a tie so he's a moderate

Taleb Abu Arar, a Knesset member under the United Arab List, has said that Jews have no claim on the Kotel or the Temple Mount.

He issued a statement saying "no matter how Zionists try to falsify history, they will not succeed. The Jews do not have any right to the Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Buraq Wall Buraq, and there is no statute of limitations [on this issue.]"

Speaking from the Temple Mount in a meeting with the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation, Abu Arar added that "Zionism is trying hard to defraud, and this is recognized by Jewish rabbis, who deny the Jewish Zionists claims in their right-to Aqsa and the Wailing Wall as invalid."

He said that the Jews who visited the Temple Mount on Yom Ha'Atzmaut "in the shadow of the Nakba" intended to change Israeli public opinion towards building a Temple on the Mount.

"The presence and the leaders of the Islamic movement in al Aqsa are here today... to deal with the break-ins and tackle the extremists trying to enter the Haram and who threatened to storm al Aqsa."

A Palestinian group that calls itself a "Human Rights Center" counted 1300 Jews and Israeli soldiers who went up to the Temple Mount in April, calling each visit a "violation."

Because, of course, Jews have no human rights.

Small children performing Talmudic rituals at the Temple Mount!

The Aqsa Heritage Foundation scours Jewish websites to find photos of evil Jews "desecrating" the "Al Aqsa Mosque" this week. They came up with this:

What they missed is that these children were performing those nefarious Talmudic rituals!

The original webpage that shows these photos of Jews at the Temple Mount on Yom Ha'Atzmaut includes this picture:

The kids are drinking water at the Muslim washing station.

But the caption in the Hebrew site says that the children, before drinking the water, naturally said the appropriate Hebrew blessing that is said before eating or drinking anything.

Out loud!

The formula of the blessings was codified in Talmudic times, so this is clearly a Talmudic ritual!

Then again, the adults managed to sneak a few prayers in before police could stop them:

Here's another photo that caused much angst among the Jew-haters - MK Tzipi Hotovely posing with an Israeli flag, with the Dome of the Rock in the background, declaring that she would love to see the flag fly over the Temple Mount:

It doesn't get much worse that that!

Administrivia: Mailing list is back

After a couple of weeks of looking for a way to restore my daily email digest, I finally found a solution that seems to work. (The first solution had severe limitations on number of emails per month.)

Hopefully everyone that had subscribed to my emails have resumed receiving the emails every day.

Unlike some of the other services I looked at, this one emails the entire article, not just the first paragraph. Photos also get sent (although not videos.)

GMail users may find that the digests are going to the spam folder, so you need to mark them as not spam to get them into your mailbox.

You can subscribe to the Daily EoZ Digest by clicking here or by using the Subscription form on the left sidebar.