Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Divestment fails at UW by lopsided 59-8-11 vote

Last night, the University of Washington voted on their version of a divestment resolution, which said in part:

WHEREAS, the state of Israel, in its ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands , violates International Law and Human Rights…

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: THAT, the ASUW requests the University of Washington to examine its financial assets to identify its investments in companies that provide equipment or services used to directly maintain, support, or profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, including a) the demolition of Palestinian homes and the development of illegal Israeli settlements; b) the building or maintenance of the Separation wall, outposts, and segregated roads and transportation systems on occupied Palestinian territory, and c) illegal use of weaponry and surveillance technology by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilian populations, and that those findings be shared with the ASUW…

THAT, the ASUW requests the University of Washington to instruct its investment managers to divest from those companies meeting such criteria within the bounds of their fiduciary duties until such companies cease the practices identified in this Resolution.

The resolution was co-sponsored by Peter Brannan, a 31-year old senior (not a typo, he graduated high school in 2001) and an Arab of Palestinian descent named Amira Mattar.

The main organization pushing the resolution was SUPER-UW, which put together a 68 page booklet with letters of support from dozens of academics and other Israel haters across the country. The initiative was started on Passover to steamroll over objections of Jewish students who actually care about the holiday. They got Seattle alternative newspapers to write articles in their favor. As usual, supporters of Israel had to organize quickly to counter a well-planned campaign of lies.

Here's what happened:

As the Senate plodded through new business, the tension in the room was palpable. By 7:00 pm the AAA committee met in the foyer to hear final arguments and questions. After a brief pro and con and questions session, the committee voted to deliver the resolution to the senate “unfavorably”. This means that the AAA committee frowned upon the legislation but nevertheless was presenting it to the full senate.

At around 7:20 pm the senate reconvened. Those who wished to advocate for the resolution were told to gather in the right aisle, those in opposition to the left. For the next hour and a half the room was subject to a whiplash of perspectives. The pro students offered the usual BDS arguments, mired in stories of personal anguish “my grandfather can’t get his transfusions because of the wall”, Matrix style stories “Arabs and Jews are assigned different bio-metric cards courtesy of HP and Motorola”, and outright lies “The reliable website Mondoweiss reported today that the Israelis ripped out 15,000 dunams of Apple and Pear trees”. One of the most far-fetched assertions of many was the description of huge Caterpillar Tractor war machines (“15 times bigger than a regular tractor”) armed with offensive missile batteries.

There were at least as many students representing the pro-Israel side as there were BDS supporters. The pro-Israel students prepared well and their arguments seem to have resonated with the senators. One student expressed frustration at the unwillingness of the BDS side to enter into dialogue.

“We all support human rights, justice, and fair treatment for all people. I support fair treatment of Palestinians. But this resolution is one-sided, it does nothing to bring the parties together for dialogue. It actually opposes dialogue. And though we’ve tried to talk to the other side, the other side has refused to talk with us.”

One of the highlights of the evening was an articulate statement against the resolution made by UW Sociology professor,Paul Burstein. The professor was the only pro-Israel speaker who called out the BDS resolution as anti-Semitic. He suggested the resolution framers were less than honest as to their goals, and that their true intention was the end of Israel as a Jewish majority state. Pointing out that the resolution demanded nothing tangible of the students or the university, he described it as just an easy way to manipulate the students to appear to support the sponsor’s twisted agenda.

The debate wound to a close around 9:30pm as the President of the senate suggested that the maintenance staff would soon need to service the auditorium. Final tally 59 against, 8 in favor and 11 abstentions.

There was some scattered applause as the final tally was counted, but no gloating came from the pro-Israel side. Most merely heaved a sigh of relied that the battle for now, was won.

As students exited the auditorium, 27 BDS supporters, signs in hand stood outside the auditorium exit in a semi-circle, forcing attendees to walk through their gauntlet as they stood in silent, mournful disapproval.

This wasn't just a defeat - this was a rout.

This year was supposed to be the year of divestment. The BDSers planned to pass many resolutions at universities across the country, and they targeted the most liberal and sympathetic campuses they could. In nearly every case, they lost.

The fact that it happened in one of the most leftist areas of the country, near where Rachel Corrie lived, speaks volumes on how BDS has lost steam in places it formerly appeared to be dominating.

US soldier shot and killed in Jordan

From Stars and Stripes:

A 19-year-old American infantryman deployed to Jordan died in an Amman hospital Saturday of a gunshot wound, said a spokeswoman for Fort Carson, Colorado, where the soldier was based.

Spc. Adrian M. Perkins of Pine Valley, California, was shot at a Jordanian military base and died at the King Hussein Medical Center, spokeswoman Daneta Johnson said.

No further information about the circumstances of the incident was provided.

“The cause of death is under investigation,” Lt. Col. Steve Wollman, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement.

In a news release, the Pentagon described Perkins’ injuries as “noncombat-related” and said he was in Jordan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

Jordan has more than 1,000 military personnel deployed to Afghanistan, according to the International Security Assistance Force, the top NATO command in Afghanistan.

At the same time, roughly 1,000 U.S. personnel are stationed in Jordan “to support our mutual objectives, develop capacity, and provide military assistance to the Jordanian armed forces,” Wollman said.

Perkins, who entered the Army in August 2012 as an infantryman, deployed to Jordan in October as a member of Fort Carson’s 1st Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. His awards include the Army Achievement Medal and decorations related to his service in the Army and overseas.

Doesn't it sound like there is more to this story?

He was killed Saturday. If it was an accident, either self-inflicted or from another soldier, it should be pretty clear by now what happened. If it wasn't an accident, this is not the sort of story that should be buried. (Suicides are also often classified as "death from non-combat related injuries".)

You can be sure of one thing: if a US serviceman was killed in Israel, this would be all over the news. Not to mention accusations of a cover-up over waiting 2-3 days to release the news, and rumors that Israel did it on purpose.

05/20 Links Pt2: 74% of French Jews mulling emigration; Did Indian election eviscerate BDS?

From Ian:

Recognition of Jewish indigenous rights to Eretz Yisrael

Last night, I learned some great lessons. I learned them from my dear friend, Ryan Mervin, who spoke to us about his impressions of Israel where he has just spent a couple of weeks.
Ryan is a Canadian. More precisely, he is a Meti or what he defines himself as, a member of Canada’s indigenous population. Ryan crystallized to many of us here why it is important for us, Jews, to recognize, define and proclaim ourselves as the Indigenous population of Eretz Yisrael (The Land of Yisrael, AKA Palestine, its arbitrary name, by some).
What struck me most about Ryan’s lecture was the fact that the term “indigenous” is not just about blood quantum which is the amount of blood used to determine an individual’s tribal affiliation and legal rights. According to him, it is also determined, among some other factors, by the preservation and management of Holy sites. And if there is one aspect of our indigenous status that we Jews are good at, it is certainly the way we revere and manage our Holy Sites, some of which are thousands of years old.

74% of French Jews mulling emigration, poll shows

The survey, whose results were released Monday by the Paris-based Siona organization of Sephardic French Jews, encompassed 3,833 respondents from the Jewish community of France, Siona said.
Of the 74.2 percent of respondents who said they are considering leaving, 29.9 percent cited anti-Semitism. Another 24.4 cited their desire to “preserve their Judaism,” while 12.4 percent said they were attracted by other countries. “Economic considerations” was cited by 7.5 percent of the respondents.
In total, 95.2 percent of all respondents to the online survey conducted by Siona from April 17 to May 16 said they viewed anti-Semitism as “very worrisome” or “worrisome.”

Did Indian election eviscerate BDS?

Keep reading. The second-most populous nation in the world will be rapidly expanding trade with Israel and looks to Israel as a political model.
The anti-Israel Mondoweiss website has the same analysis Shalom Modi: India and Israel look to deepen ties following victory of the Hindu right.
The Indian election was accompanied by news of expanded Israel-China academic research ties.
The heart of BDS is in Europe. But Israel’s economy increasingly is looking East, not West. Europe still matters tremendously, but it will be less so in the coming decade.

From Haaretz:

In the dysfunctional state of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the “nuclear option” for the Palestinians would be joining the International Criminal Court as a member state and exercising that membership to launch war crimes investigations against Israel. At least, that’s the view of many in Israel, which, like the United States, is not a member of the ICC.

But to judge by comments made by the ICC’s former chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo — who, even two years after leaving his post in The Hague, remains the controversial court’s most persuasive advocate — Israel has little to worry about.

Last week, on his first visit to Israel, Moreno-Ocampo was full of praise for the local legal system and eager to point out that joining the ICC could backfire for the Palestinians. “Being here in Israel is not liking talking about international justice in Boston or Sweden,” said Moreno-Ocampo, who was here as a guest of the Fried-Gal Transitional Justice Initiative at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s law school. “The issues here are not academic.”

But he isn’t at all sure that if the Palestinian Authority were to join the ICC — or if Israel were to join, for that matter — the international court would actually play an active role in the conflict.

The ICC’s job is to investigate and prosecute only in cases in which the local legal system is not performing. “In a dictatorship they can make you disappear and kill you,” said Moreno-Ocampo. “But here, even if the situation is awful, you cannot disappear; you have the rule of law.”

Eugene Kontorovich, in an essay in NRO last year, expands on this:

The ICC has never accepted a situation referred by a member state against a non-member state. Moreover, the ICC has been understood to be a court for dealing with the world’s worst atrocities. Thus it has never pursued crimes that did not involve large-scale murder and extreme brutality. Finally, no international criminal tribunal, from Nuremberg on, has ever prosecuted anyone for settlement activity, despite an abundance of potential targets from Morocco to Indonesia. Thus an ICC investigation, let alone an actual prosecution, would be unprecedented and mark a significant departure from the practice of the court.

Moreover, the ICC simply does not have jurisdiction under the terms of its statute. Since Israel is not a member state, the court could have jurisdiction over its officials only if the settlements were on Palestinian sovereign territory. They are not.

The borders of Palestine, like those of Israel, remain uncertain and disputed. Even the General Assembly’s statehood resolution did not purport to establish borders (which is not part of statehood recognition anyway), and in fact recognized that the territory of Palestine remains to be negotiated. Even if there is territory over which the Palestinian government has clear control (Ramallah, for example), all the settlements fall in the most disputed territory, with the vast majority of construction taking place within a few miles of the 1949 Armistice Line.

..Finally, the court can pursue only “grave” instances of the crimes within its jurisdiction — the worst of the worst. This has thus far been confined to contexts of mass atrocities, involving at least thousands of innocent victims. Settlements may be internationally reviled, but they are not massacres of civilians, or the use of little kids as cannon fodder, crimes with which the ICC has dealt thus far, and it would both trivialize and politicize the ICC to treat them as such. To be sure, some activists have argued for loosening the gravity requirement to include actions upsetting to the international community — specifically to facilitate the prosecution of Western nationals. If the building of houses for civilians constitutes a grave crime, surely a series of errant drone strikes could qualify (Afghanistan is already a member).

A newspaper known to support Turkish president Erdogan is claiming that Jews are behind the disaster that killed hundreds of miners last week.

Yeni Akit, an Islamist paper, says it has revealed Jewish connections with a number of officials of the company that runs the mine.

It says that the original names of some of the members of the Asafra family that are involved in the company were originally Jewish, and they changed them to sound more Turkish (for example, Izak changed to Izzet.)

Some other equally tenuous connections to Jews are mentioned, such as business relationships between company officials and Jews.

None of this would make headlines unless the publisher assumes that Turkey is an antisemitic country.

(h/t Yoel)

05/20 Links Pt1: Pope to meet anti-Jewish PA Mufti; Palestinians Unite to Preserve Corruption

From Ian:

Jpost Editorial: Still on the map

Nevertheless, it is difficult to ignore the celebratory atmosphere that has taken over the nation since last night’s upset. Israel is once again “on the map,” to borrow from Tal Brody’s legendary statement after the 1977 victory over CSKA. President Shimon Peres called to congratulate Maccabi’s players, joking that they nearly gave him a heart attack. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu urged Blatt to stay on as Maccabi’s coach. Thousands converged on Rabin Square to celebrate. Bars across the nation were packed. Shouts of joy pierced the air in nearly every neighborhood in Israel. Thousands who normally do not follow Israeli basketball rejoiced out of a sense of solidarity with their fellow sports fans.
While it is always pleasant to win, Israel is not in need of a basketball victory to serve as a reaffirmation that the Jewish state is “on the map” and is “staying on the map, not just in sports but in everything,” as Brody so memorably declared 37 years ago. Over the past 66 years Israel has made tremendous contributions to humanity in nearly every field, from science and technology to culture and sport. It has rejuvenated Jewish life and constructed a society with one of the highest standards of living in the world. And it has done this and more while facing formidable challenges.
If it takes a victory by an Israeli basketball team to remind us of all this and inject a dose of patriotism into the country’s citizens, then bring on some more victories.

Rabin Square turns yellow and blue to celebrate Maccabi

Showing remarkable resourcefulness on short notice, the Tel Aviv Municipality on Monday launched a full-fledged street party to celebrate Maccabi Tel Aviv’s clinching of the European Championship in Milan the night before. Revelers, clad in the team’s trademark blue-and-yellow and brandishing flags, vuvuzelas and their children on their shoulders, began flowing into Rabin Square at 7 p.m., just as the players themselves were arriving at City Hall for a reception with Mayor Ron Huldai.
By nightfall, the crowd had swelled into the thousands and was packed into not just Rabin Square but the surrounding boulevards of Ibn Gvirol and Sderot Chen. Police barricades had blocked the area to traffic and local vendors and restauranteurs had set up sidewalk stalls peddling beer, hot dogs and piping-hot pastries to keep the partygoers fueled.

Lebanon-to-Israel run ends with call for peace

Speaking at a reception at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, he said that when he crossed from Aqaba into Israel, he saw “the innovation of the Israeli people,” who have turned “deserts into oases.” In the Palestinian territories, too, he said, warnings of possible danger proved unwarranted, and he encountered only good will.
Later, speaking to The Times of Israel, Farmer singled out Haifa, Jaffa and Byblos, in Lebanon, as three particular “beacons of hope” where he said runners of all religions joined up and ran sections of his route along with him.
On a West Bank section of the run, however, a group of Israeli runners — organized jointly by the Yesha Council, an umbrella settlers’ group, and Regavim, a right-wing legal nonprofit — were asked to leave the run because the Palestinian contingent accompanying Farmer had fallen back and stopped running in protest at their participation.

How a single settlement apartment can be counted EIGHT TIMES by the media

In the Washington Post, Jimmy Carter wrote another of his ridiculous op-eds where he describes Hamas as the greatest thing since peanut butter while Israel is unequivocally evil.

Others have ripped it apart, but I want to concentrate on one of his factoids:

During the previous nine months of negotiation, 14,000 new Israeli settlement units were approved, more than 3,000 Palestinians were arrested and 50 were killed, provoking troubling examples of Palestinian retaliation, including the deaths of three Israelis.

Notice how in Carter's funhouse mirror universe only Israel is the aggressor and the Palestinians only "retaliate."

But let's look at the part that really gets the world upset: "14,000 new Israeli settlement units were approved." We've seen these numbers in the media as well.

Is it true?

Well, no. It depends on what you mean by "approved." Peace Now counted tenders for 4,868 units and "promotion of plans" for 8,983 units.

What exactly does this mean?

Peace Now helpfully explains it in another link.

Tenders:

A Tender is one of the last procedures before a construction can get started. The tender, which comes only after the approval and validation of a plan, is actually the governmental publication of a call for proposals to buy the rights to build the project. After the bidding process is completed and the contractor is elected, then he or she would apply for a construction permit from the municipality and after getting the permit, they can start the works.

However, not all tenders get turned into housing. Many of them don't go through. Peace Now says that 1,235 additional tenders during the nine-month period were re-issued because no one bid on them.

But when we talk about "approvals" or "promotion of plans" we really get into fuzzy math.

In West Bank settlements, almost every stage of the approval by the Civil Administration Planning Council must be approved by the Minister of Defense. There is no need for any Ministerial approval for plans in Israel or in East Jerusalem.
1) Approval at the local municipality committee - this stage is significant only in Israel and East Jerusalem. After this approval the plan is sent to the Regional Committee for Planning and Construction of the Ministry of Interior in Israel and in East Jerusalem or, in West Bank settlements, to the Settlement Subcommittee of the Higher Council for Planning in the Civil Administration.
2) Approval for “depositing” – the decision of the Regional Committee (in East Jerusalem) or of the Higher Council for Planning of the Civil Administration (in West Bank Settlements) to allow the publication of the plan for public objections. Takes few months until the plan is ready to be published – usually the committee will ask to make some changes before the publication. The Minister of Defense must approve that the plan will be discussed by the Higher Council for Planning of the Civil Administration.
3) Depositing - Publication an ad in three newspapers (two in Hebrew and one in Arabic) announcing that the plan is subject to public objections for 60 days. The Minister of Defense must approve the publication of plans that are deposited for West Bank settlements.
4) Discussion of the Objections – the Regional Committee (in Israel and in East Jerusalem) or the Settlement Subcommittee of the Higher Council for Planning in the Civil Administeration (in West Bank settlements) hears the objections and recommends whether to make changes in the plan or to reject it or not. Here too, the Minister of Defense must approve the Higher Council to convene.
5) Approval for validation – after all the changes are made, the Regional Committee (in Israel and in East Jerusalem) or the Settlement Subcommittee of the Higher Council for Planning in the Civil Administration (in West Bank settlements) again discusses the plan to allow its validation. The Minister of Defense approve the Higher Council to convene.
6) Publication of validation – a publication of an ad in three newspapers (two in Hebrew, one in Arabic) that the plan is valid. The Minister of Defense must approve the publication. 15 days following the final publication the plan is valid. Only after these publications can the plan be implemented.

Any one of these stages is considered "approvals" for the media. Peace Now claims that "in many cases " they are all done at once, but whether that means 20% or 80% of the cases they don't say.

There is another stage too:

When a plan is valid, any initiator who got the rights to build (either by winning a tender or by a private purchase), can apply for a construction permit from the Local Municipality. This is mainly a bureaucratical procedure - to make sure that the construction is according to the approved plan and that all safety, environment, infrastructure etc. requirements are met. Obtaining a construction permit might take a few months, and then the construction may begin.

How about this strange phrase "promotion of plans"?

In the media discourse almost all of the above stages can be described as: “the plan was approved” – sometimes it’s approved to be deposited, sometimes approved to be validated or approved at the local committee. Although the practical meaning of each stage is different, the political significance of each stage is the same: the plan is promoted, and that demonstrates an intention to move forward.

OK, let's count: how many times can a single apartment unit be "approved" or have "promotion of plans"?

According to Peace Now's own documentation, as many as 8 approvals go into every unit (including tenders.)

And not all tenders go through either.

But there is one number that cannot be disputed - the number of units for which construction actually began. Given that Netanyahu has been in power for a long time now, you would think that the pipeline of approvals has been pretty consistent, so the number of actual housing starts should be a bit more accurate than the double, triple and octuple-counting that left-wing Israeli groups are using. If there are 14,000 units "approved" over a nine month period, one would expect that certainly, say, over 10,000 would get built over the same time period several years later, right?

How many units were actually started? For the second half of 2013, Peace Now says the number was only 828.

Peace Now says that the amount of settlement development is "unprecedented." Yet from 2001-2007, some 10,000 units were built - about the same rate as now, and in percentage growth terms the earlier ones were much higher.

To do some back of the envelope calculations: If we generously assume 6 people per unit, and 1500 housing starts in 2013, this means that the rate of units built last year was only half the rate of the Jewish population growth in Judea and Samaria (based on 3% increase from 2009 to 2010).

In other words, the anti-settlement crowd will purposefully inflate the numbers, count a single unit multiple times, and downplay the true amount of construction to grossly exaggerate the idea that the settlers are taking over the West Bank.

But don't take my word for it. Just read the fine print in Peace Now's own reports.

Pallywood again? IDF denies using live fire during "Nakba Day" demonstration (updates - new videos)

Yesterday, a security video was released that seems to show the two Palestinian Arabs being shot and killed during "Nakba Day" demonstrations near Ofer Prison in Bitunia:

The ~~first~~ second one shot was Mohammed Udeh, wearing a green Islamist flag. Here are some close-up photos of him before and after the event, plus a video of him throwing rocks beforehand: (These photos are from AFP.)

I cannot figure out how the second photo above, which must have been taken in the two seconds before he was swarmed by people, lines up with any frame of the video. Similarly, in the video he is taken away immediately, while the photos indicate that he was lying there for at least a minute. (UPDATE: I mixed up the two people in the CCTV video. The videos and the photos are largely consistent.)

Here is video of him beforehand, according to Al Watan Voice. He is clearly seen at 0:17:

This heavily edited jumble of a video purports to show IDF soldiers shooting, but the editing does not allow anyone to determine if that portion was even taken that same day. The green-clad victim is also seen in this video.

Here are photos of the first victim:

Again, I cannot line up these photo with the CCTV video. I don't see the masked man above with the backpack, for example. At no point in the video is he alone, seemingly motionless, with his hand over his chest.

The inconsistencies between the photos and the video indicate that at least one of them was staged.

I see I mixed up the two, the video does seem to track the photos.

Now, the IDF has denied using any live fire that day: (received via email from CiFWatch)

Last Thursday, several violent demonstrations took place throughout Judea and Samaria. In the Bitunia area, a violent demonstration of approximately 150 Palestinians began in which acts of violence took place including the burning of tires and rock hurling.

Security forces arrived to disperse the demonstration using rubber bullets and riot dispersal means.

During the day it was reported that two Palestinians were killed by security forces. An initial investigation revealed that no live fire was discharged during the day.
The incident remains under an ongoing investigation.

The video which has been circulating online in the past hours has been edited and does not reflect the full incident, including the extent of the violence of the rioters in the demonstration.

One more thing: note that the demonstrators in the second video I show are throwing stones in the opposite direction of where the first person is supposedly shot in the CCTV video.

It is beginning to look like there is some serious Pallywood being done here. Where did the shots come from and where were the soldiers?

(h/t Joseph for pointing out my mistake)

UPDATE: Another video that expands on the second one above:

Also, I asked DCI-Palestine (who released the CCTV video) if they would release the entire unedited version, They replied that they gave the unedited version to news agencies.

UPDATE 2: B'Tselem released the entire video, along with the same scenes from the opposite angle. There is no apparent rock throwing at the time, only a burning tire in the street.

The fast reaction to the first incident, with the victim being carried away within seconds towards an ambulance that is only arriving immediately after he is shot in the second CCTV video is very strange (h/t Joe)

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

UPDATE 3: Some footage I hadn't seen yet:

UPDATE 4: Yenta Press identified where the incident occurred on Google Maps:

UPDATE 5: Found one more video taken that day, heavily edited. I'm still trying to figure out where the IDF soldiers were, there are no videos showing them at the same time as any protesters or obvious landmarks. We can see the direction that the stones are being thrown but no idea of distance.

(All posts on this topic here.)

JPost reports:

The Jewish people will be allowed to pray freely at their holiest site, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, according to a controversial bill proposed by Labor MK and former Jerusalem city councilman Hilik Bar.

Currently, Jews are allowed to enter the Temple Mount but are watched closely to ensure that they do not pray there so as to not violate the status quo of the site as a Muslim prayer area with two large mosques. Visits to the mount by rightwing politicians have led to rioting and arrests.

“The love for the Jewish religion, the Torah, historic and Zionist values, and for Jerusalem and its holy sites is not the property of the Right even if sometimes tries to paint that picture,” Bar said. “The Right was allowed to take ownership of Zionism, Judaism and the attachment to Jerusalem for too long.

"Labor and I are part of the Zionist Center-Left that sees our holy sites as the basis of our existence and the essence of our history.”

Bar said Jews and Muslims praying at the same site was part of the coexistence and religious freedom that the Left believes in. He said the bill could be implemented gradually and carefully to allow people to adjust to it, noting that the Supreme Court had ruled that Jewish prayer should not be limited without concrete warnings of an immediate security risk.

“The time has come once and for all to neutralize the explosive political issue of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount,” Bar said. “There is no reason that every time a rightwing MK ascends the mount to pray there will be a political drama with a third intifada threatened. There needs to be a new order in which everyone respects the rights of the other side.”

Regev said Jews should be allowed on the mount with prayer shawls, phylacteries, and the four species on Succot.

Labor leader Isaac Herzog said he opposed the bill and would try to persuade Bar not to advance the legislation.

This is being heavily reported in Arabic media, which add that the bill would also allow Jews to ascend through other gates besides the Mughrabi (Rambam) gate that they use today.

Times of Israel says:

The Palestinian Authority response to a proposed Knesset bill that would allow Jewish prayer on Temple Mount may exacerbate the already fraught issue by apparently misrepresenting the bill as a bid to allow Jewish worship inside the Al Aqsa Mosque

Palestinian officials attacked the bill as an attempt to change the status quo inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque — a structure dating back to the seventh century and considered the third-holiest site in Islam — and warned of grave repercussions if such a law were to pass.

Mohammad al-Madani, chairman of the Palestinian Committee for Interaction with Israeli Society and a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, said in a message sent to journalists on Sunday that any permission Israel granted Jews “to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque would direly escalate the situation in the region and may lead to fierce confrontation not only between Israel and the Palestinian people, but also between Israel and the Arab and Islamic worlds.”

“The Palestinian people as well as the Arab and Islamic worlds strenuously reject all Israeli violations of the sanctity of Islamic and Christian holy places,” the message read.

...Fayez Abbas, a spokesman for the Palestinian president, denied that the bill was being misrepresented by Palestinian commentators as referring to Jewish prayer inside the mosque rather than in Temple Mount as a whole. He said that the term Al-Aqsa is simply used by Palestinians as shorthand for the entire plaza, known in Arabic as Al-Haram A-Sharif.

“They mean the entire plaza,” he asserted.

It is funny how Arabs who are so eager to talk to the West about "rights" suddenly change their tune when the rights being talked about are Jewish rights.

It is also funny how so-called "human rights" NGOs will never, ever promote the simple right of Jews to worship in their own holiest spot - even though international law would seem to clearly support such a right.

PA police beat up - and then charge - BDS activists!

Human Rights Watch says:

Shortly before a scheduled performance on April 12 in Ramallah’s Al-Kasaba Theatre by a dance troupe visiting from India, a political activist, Zeid Shuaibi, 25, stood up in the audience and criticized the event. Shuaibi works with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, a group that advocates a cultural boycott of Israel by foreign artists. Fifteen other protesters were also in the audience. Shuaibi told the audience that the committee had asked the Palestinian Ministry of Culture to cancel the performance because the dance troupe had performed in Tel Aviv, and criticized the Culture Ministry for allowing the performance to proceed, he and several witnesses told Human Rights Watch.

For 10 to 15 minutes, several other protesters voiced similar criticisms. Some audience members not affiliated with the protest voiced their agreement and some walked out of the theater. Other audience members objected to the protesters’ speeches, but no one used insults, harsh language, or violence, witnesses said.

Shuaibi said that men in civilian clothes ordered him to leave, then were joined by a policeman who restrained him while the other men beat him. Three of Shuaibi’s friends who were in the audience, only one of whom said he was involved in the protest action, tried to accompany him and shouted at the security officials to stop beating him, whereupon the officials assaulted them as well, they said.

Police put the four men into one of the three police vehicles parked outside the theater, they said, and assaulted a woman who tried to accompany them to the police station. The woman, Dr. Dima Amin, 43, a gynecologist who is not affiliated with the boycott activists, told Human Rights Watch that she was attending the performance with her husband and 6-year-old daughter and that police assaulted her when she tried to intervene.

In a statement published on April 13, the Culture Ministry accused the protesters of “violence” and using “insulting language,” and said police removed them to maintain “order and public safety.” The participants and other witnesses Human Rights Watch interviewed denied these claims. No violence or abusive language appears in two videos, viewed by Human Rights Watch, in which members of the audience and protesters filmed the incident on their mobile phones.

The four men said that the police drove them to the main Ramallah police station, where they saw several of the plain-clothes officers who had beaten them in the theater. For two hours, police officers refused to answer the men’s questions about whether they were under arrest and whether they had broken any laws. After midnight, the men said, the deputy director of the police detective unit told the men that they would be released if they signed pledges “not to violate Palestinian laws or participate in disobedience,” on pain of an unspecified fine. The men refused, seeing it as an admission of guilt, they said.

The police detained the men overnight and took them the next morning to Ramallah Magistrates Court, where a prosecutor charged the men with disturbing the peace and provoking a riot under the Jordanian Criminal Procedure Code, in force in the West Bank, according to the men and local news reports.

This happened over a month ago, yet the worldwide BDS movement has been strangely silent about their activists being beaten and charged by the people they pretend they are supporting.

(h/t Irene)

05/19 Links Pt2: The unorthodox priest who stands with the Jews; Why Modi matters; plus Basketball

From Ian:

The unorthodox priest who stands with the Jews

Speaking casually about the reasons for his call to service, Naddaf called the army “the melting pot” of Israeli society and “the ticket” to full integration. He talked about Christian mothers having to pay the same price as Jewish mothers and the need to equitably “share the burden” of service. But his quest goes well beyond integration.
Naddaf wants to carve out a new identity and a separate community. He believes that in the coming years he can rally 50,000 Arabic-speaking Christians in Israel to align themselves with the Jewish people and with Israel. The first order of business on the path toward that new identity, he said, was “breaking the fear” that has gripped the community. He likened the Arabic-speaking Christians in Israel, the minority of the minority, to the Jews of the Diaspora: good grades, pretty good jobs, few troubles. “Hostages,” he said, adding, “the only time they feel free to identify as Christians is when they are castigating me.”
In fact, he defined his religion as Jewish, his faith as Christian, and his citizenship as Israeli. Christians, he said, “have a bond with the Jews. We have an allegiance with the Jewish people; with the Muslims we are neighbors. There is no covenant there. None at all.”
This was brought into focus by the Arab Spring. Two hours north from Nazareth, he said, extremists are eager to kill Jews and Christians alike. “If the devils there would come in, you would be on Saturday and we would be on Sunday,” he said.

Of Nakbas, fools and fingers

Nakba week is over. The demonstrators have gone home. The Palestinian Authority have delivered their speeches and sounded their sirens. The Arab and ‘liberal’ western press and media have duly commiserated.
But while Palestinians marked the 66th anniversary of the ‘catastrophic’ mass flight of Arab refugees from Israel in 1948, the French historian Georges Bensoussan, on a visit to London, was focusing on a different nakba. He was asking a packed audience the rhetorical question: why do people, even when presented with incontrovertible proof, persist in their denial of the mass post-war exodus of Jews?
It was at the height of the second intifada in 2002, when two Jews a day were being beaten up on the streets of France, that Bensoussan decided to write about Jews from Arab countries. The antisemitism sweeping France then, as now, was being blamed on the Arab-Israel conflict. But Bensoussan, who left Morocco with his family as a six-year-old, had a nagging feeling that the problem had deeper root-causes.

The Audacity of Protesting Anti-Semitism

In their efforts to vindicate the Palestinians and other Muslim nations, Nevel and Neimark are forced to set the bar for anti-Semitism so high as to rid the term of all meaning. Indeed, in their article the authors complain of the ADL survey, “many of its questions are pointedly designed to skew the results because they have little to do with revealing actual anti-Semitism.” But overall the writers hardly give the sense of being genuinely concerned by whatever they consider “actual anti-Semitism” to be. In the wake of the precedent set by the Nazis, it seems that many are under the impression that if it doesn’t involve the mass extermination of the Jews, then it doesn’t really pass for serious anti-Semitism. In viewing the matter this way they risk legitimating the very demonization that makes such extermination possible.
Yet, demonizing Jews via the ADL is precisely what Nevel and Neimark are apparently prepared to do. Dismissing the severity of rising global anti-Semitism, and accusing the ADL of instigating paranoia, the authors reference a survey showing that there is more bias against Muslims and Roma in Europe than Jews, although it seems the authors were too pleased with the results of that survey to raise the formerly worrisome matter of leading questions. They then go on to level their final allegation: that the ADL shouldn’t simply concern itself with anti-Semitism, but rather all prejudices.

AP writes:

Despite years of security concerns and a harsh debate over Israeli passports, officials said Sunday the number of Jewish pilgrims taking part in an annual rite in Tunisia is up dramatically for the first time in years.

Rene Trabelsi, who helps organize the trek to the Ghriba synagogue, Africa's oldest, said 2,000 people, including 1,000 from abroad, took part in the three-day pilgrimage ending Sunday.

"The pilgrimage of 2014 has definitely been a success. It is a great day," he said, thanking security forces for protecting the event.

The pilgrimage to the island of Djerba, site of the synagogue, was canceled in 2011 after the revolution and in subsequent years there were only hundreds attending, down from a peak of 7,000 in 2000.

In 2002, al-Qaida militants set off a truck bomb near the synagogue, killing 21 people, mostly German tourists — and badly jolting the now-tiny Jewish community

This year was the first time that Israeli pilgrims have been allowed to use their passports rather than a special document issued by the Tunisian government, prompting an outcry among some lawmakers. Tunisia has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Tunisian tourism minister says that 2500 Jews arrived, compared to 350 last year. and hopes that in the coming year some 5000-6000 Jews will come.

Tunisia pulled out all the stops for this event, hoping that a successful pilgrimage by Jews will encourage other tourists to visit the country without fear. Tourism is a small but important component of Tunisia's economy and necessary for it to recover from the setback that occurred after the revolution.

In March, Tunisian authorities did not allow Israeli passengers to come ashore from a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship, causing the line to cancel all stops in Tunisia. The government responded with more liberal policies allowing Israelis to come to the country which led to this year's pilgrimage allowing Israeli passport holders to attend for the first time.

Palestinian Arabs once claimed to be...Amalekites!

We've heard Palestinian Arabs claim to be Canaanites, Natufians, Jebusites, Philistines and of course Arabs, which none of those other groups were.

It turns out that this historical revisionism has a long history - at least to 1921.

This book, quoting an out of print Yehoshua Porath book, says:

In an open letter to Winston Churchill on 16 March 1921, the Palestinian newspaper clearly stated: "The first to settle in Palestine in the earliest antiquity were none other than the Amalekite Arabs, our early ancestors."

It goes on to say

However, in official reports, the Palestinians admitted that Arabs had only settled in Palestine since the Muslim conquest in 634.

This was not an isolated incident. Here is a 1970 description of an annotated edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion published in Arabic in 1967 that makes the same point:

Well, they sure act like Amalekites!

(h/t EG)

05/19 Links Pt1: Chloé Valdary: "Nevertheless"; Want Peace? Change UNRWA's Refugee Policy

From Ian:

Chloé Valdary: "Nevertheless" - the Illness and the Remedy

I recognize that there are those who will still disagree with my position on this issue who say that it is “impossible” to seek alternative methods to negotiating with the PA because they are the lesser of the two evils. I seek to persuade the reader that this is not the case. It is also important to note, however, that the lesson of Zionism rejects the notion that anything is impossible.
There is nothing impossible for a people who have turned the desert into an oasis.
There is nothing impossible for a people who went to battle against seven conquering armies and defeated them all.
There is nothing impossible for a people who, with the help of the Almighty, crawled out from under the tyrannical clutches of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Spanish, Germans, British and Arabs to fashion once more for themselves their glorious nation-state.
This people has accomplished wonders before. Surely, they can accomplish wonders again.

Khaled Abu Toameh: The New Palestinian "Journalists"

The attack on Issacharoff and his friend did not come as a surprise to those who have been following the campaign waged by some Palestinian journalists against their Israeli colleagues during the past year.
The campaign began last year when some 200 Palestinian journalists signed a petition calling on the Palestinian Authority leadership to ban Israeli newsmen from entering Palestinian territories.
In April 2013, Gatestone ran an article about the campaign against the Israeli journalists. The article was entitled, "Palestinian Journalists Declare War On Israeli Colleagues."
This item, however, was ignored by the mainstream media in the West and even by most Israeli media outlets.
Israeli journalists explained back then that they preferred not to report about the threats against them so as not to escalate tensions with their Palestinian colleagues.

Want Peace? Change UN’s Refugee Policy

One aspect of this problem is the sheer inconsistency of international standards with regards to different kinds of refugees. In 1948, the Palestinians were counting on defeating and/or wiping out the Jewish community in the Mandate and therefore rejected the UN partition resolution that would have created the independent Palestinian state they now clamor for. Were they treated like other groups whose leaders gambled on aggression and lost—the millions of Germans who were brutally forced out of their homes in Eastern Europe come to mind after 1945—the Palestinians would have been helped to find new homes in the rest of the Arab world. Instead they were kept in place to continue to fuel the war against the one Jewish state in the world. Significantly, the roughly equal numbers of Jews who fled or were forced to flee their homes in the Arab and Muslim world after 1948 were given no such sympathy or UN aid. Those refugees were resettled in Israel and the West by Jewish groups and are now ignored when talk turns to restitution for the Middle East conflict.
Aside from the double standard here, the net effect of this policy is that in doing so UNRWA is serving to fuel the conflict rather than to seek its solution. UNRWA’s manifold problems—including education programs that foment hate against Israel and employees who aid terrorists—are well known. But so long as the Palestinians believe they have the support of the world in their effort to undo the verdict of the war they launched in 1948, the millions who call themselves refugees will never give up their goal of eradicating Israel’s existence. During the last 15 years the Palestinians have rejected three offers of independence and peace from Israel as well as walking away from a fourth such initiative this year. It’s clear the leaders of the Palestinian Authority do not think they have the support of their people for any treaty that will recognize the right of a Jewish state to exist no matter where its borders are drawn.

The Simpsons Jewish Imperialist Conspiracy reaches even deeper!

A couple of weeks ago this story came out of Egypt:

The Simpsons was well known as a source of entertainment for generations worldwide, but in Egypt, a TV station has now claimed that a scene in the sitcom animation is showing that the Arab Spring is an American conspiracy.

The Tahrir TV anchor Rania Badwy presented evidence that “suggests what is happening in Syria today was premeditated.” All is set amidst conspiracy theories taking hold of society after three years of post-revolution turbulence and paranoia.

Badawy presented a 75-second clip of a Simpsons episode that first broadcast in 2001, showing a scene of soldiers dressed as Arabs, standing next to a jeep painted with a picture of a flag which is similar to the one used by the opposition Free Syrian Army during the ongoing civil war in Syria.

“The flag that appeared on the vehicle on which the bombs were dropped is the flag of the Syrian opposition. This is from 2001 – before the existence of the ‘Syrian opposition,’” the anchor commented on the clip in her report aired on Al-Tahrir TV on 4 May 2014.

“The flag was created before the opposition exists in reality. In 2001, there was no such thing as the flag of the Syrian opposition.” Badwy says “The appearance of the flag raises many question marks about what happened in the Arab Spring revolutions and about when this global conspiracy began.”

In response to the ridicule heaped upon her even in conspiracy-obsessed Egypt, Rania Badwy doubled down, claiming that the Simpsons' writers are also influential members of Washington think tanks and, naturally, the Jewish lobby, so they definitely were preparing the Syrian revolution since 2001.

TV Host Rania Badawi: To all those who conspire against our country, I say: we will not be intimidated by the terrorism of your media. We exposed your schemes, so you directed your poisoned arrows against us. We exposed your destructive Arab Spring conspiracies, so you devoted articles and TV shows to abuse us. Your attacks and criticism will never deter us from our path. Beware of the people who have shed the stupid subjugation, which has harmed us for so long. We shall continue to challenge you, for we do not fear the rustling of the trees in your jungles. Know that your autumn will forever be our spring.

[…]

[The Simpsons] is a very influential TV series in the U.S. This animated series is an American production, behind which are basically-Jewish lobbies. I'd like to tell you that this animated series is for adults, not children. It deals with political, social, international, and local issues through its animated characters.

Even more important is the fact that the writers of this series belong to groups of think tanks. They are not written by regular people, using their imagination and their dramatic ability. Instead, they are written by think tanks, by people working in research. They write this series, which is highly influential in America.

I can spend a week proving that Badwy is correct about the Simpsons being part of the worldwide Jewish conspiracy, but these examples will have to do: