Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

The PLO's Prisoner Payment Ploy

The Palestinian Authority has been under pressure from international donors following Palestinian Media Watch's exposure of the PA's policy of rewarding terrorists with salaries. These salaries amounted to a total of $103 million in 2013 and will reach at least $130 million in 2014. Members of US Congress have recently suggested deducting the amount paid in salaries from US funding to the PA. Similarly, Norway and Britainhave been demanding clarifications and changes to their funding of the PA, and the Dutch Parliament passed a motion that its government must do something to stop the salaries.

In order to avoid this international pressure, the PA is planning a ploy to maintain the salaries but transfer responsibility for payments from the PA to the PLO. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is also the head of the PLO and he will continue to be directly responsible for the payments to the prisoners. (See below)

The PA expects that this ploy will work. The PA daily Al-Ayyam reported that "well-informed sources" stated that "turning the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs into an authority subordinate to the PLO" "would be a change of name and nothing more, which would in no way affect the roles and duties that the Ministry [of Prisoners' Affairs] fulfilled." [Al-Ayyam, June 1, 2014] Accordingly, US and European donor money will continue to flow to the PA, the PA will pass the money to the PLO, and the PLO will pay the salaries of the terrorists.

Palestinian sources specified that this move was in response to US and EU pressure not to pay salaries to terrorists with their donor money.

"The new situation would make possible the provision of new resources to support prisoners' issues, without allowing forces of the US Congress or some European parliaments to attempt to blackmail the PA or to take steps against it.' Furthermore, these sources predicted that prisoners "would not feel any change," but rather improvement of their situation would be the case, as the PA would be able "to act towards meeting their demands and defending their rights more efficiently and flexibly."

[Al-Ayyam, June 1, 2014]

PMW reported last week on what the PA daily calls "forces of the US Congress," who are against paying salaries to terrorists. During the testimony by Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson at a congressional Subcommittee Hearing, Congressman Weber asked:

"If the PA is paying for terrorists in prison, we ought to also be willing to hit them with some economic sanctions of that sort?"

Assistant Secretary Patterson answered:

"Frankly, I know that they're going to try and phase that out and we should give them an opportunity to do so." [House Committee on Foreign Affairs' website, April 29, 2014]

At the time, PMW wrote that the PA had never indicated that they would cut back payments to terrorists, and that in fact the payments were increasing in 2014. There had been no evidence of what Assistant Secretary Patterson referred to as the PA "phasing out" their salary payments to terrorists. It may be that this PA ploy - to keep the benefits and salaries at the same level but bypass Congressional pressure by moving it to the PLO - is what the PA presented to Patterson as a "phasing out" of the salary program.

Official PA sources confirmed that the purpose is to avoid pressure from donor countries who don't want to fund terrorists, and they stressed that the change is only cosmetic. PA Deputy Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Ziyad Abu Ein explained on PA TV that the massive funding of prisoners has been increased by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and that the money for prisoners under the PLO will also be administered by Abbas:

"Who else has elevated the cause of the Palestinian prisoners other than President Mahmoud Abbas? All the laws, the tenfold increase of the budget of the Ministry of Prisoners' [Affairs] - [all this] was done during the tenure of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and according to the wishes of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas...

If we go back to the source, which is the PLO, which will take care of the [prisoner] issue... we eliminate the international pressure and the attempts to tamper with this issue, so sensitive and holy to our Palestinian people. The [Palestinian] leadership wants to keep this holy issue away from the influence of the donor countries, the interference of the donor countries, and the occasional negative influence of the donor countries, by giving it [the prisoner issue] its holiness and assigning it to the leadership of the struggle of our Palestinian people. Who is the leadership of the struggle of our Palestinian people? The PLO... All the authority, all the laws, the budget, the officials and staff will be a part of the Prisoners and Released Prisoners' Authority, which will belong to the PLO, to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and to the Executive Committee of the PLO."

[Official PA TV, June 1, 2014]

Since the PA's budget is pretty opaque, the question is how much of the PLO budget comes from donor dollars earmarked for the PA. Originally, the PLO was funded exclusively by Arab and Muslim countries, but it has transferred many of its responsibilities to the PA which now gets funded by credulous Western governments who turn a blind eye to its support for terror. Chances are very good that now the Western donor dollars are being laundered back through the PA to the PLO. Since no one is talking about a budget windfall from removing $130 million from the PA annual budget. it seems pretty clear that there is no new source for the money to support terrorists and their families.

The "temporal division" of the Temple Mount becomes reality

For years, Muslims have been warning that Israel is planning a "physical and temporal division" of the Temple Mount, similar to how the Cave of the Patriarchs in divided between Muslim and Jewish sections and how at certain times of the year it becomes exclusively either Jewish or Muslim.

Since the idea of peacefully sharing a holy spot with the hated Jews is anathema, Muslims have been closely reading Israeli religious websites for any indication that Jews plan to ascend to their holiest spot and they then call on Muslims to "defend Al Aqsa" - to physically prevent the Jews from stepping foot in the entire area. Sometimes their riots are successful, and they congratulate themselves; other times Israeli police put restrictions on them and the Jews are able to respectfully tour the area without fear.

Tomorrow is the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, and - as usual - Muslims planned to riot to prevent Jews from entering the Temple Mount. This time, in what may be a first, Israeli police banned practically all Muslims from the area to allow the Jews to walk around without being attacked.

In other words, the "temporal division" is actually happening today and tomorrow, in a perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Temple Mount became Jewish again, at least for one day, on Tuesday. Temple organizations reported that about 400 Jews had ascended to the Mount in the morning hours, and that police allowed them in without undue delays.

Most of the gates to the Mount were closed, and Muslim worshippers, who often harass Jews on the Mount, are not being allowed in. This is happening because police and the Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet) have received intelligence about “malicious intentions” and Islamist incitement calling on Arabs to riot and prevent the Jews from entering.

Only a few elderly Musims could be seen on the Mount, reported Temple activists.

The Temple Mount will be open to Jews on Shavuot in the morning hours of Wednesday, from 7:30 to 11:00 a.m., and again from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.

Shavuot is one of the three annual pilgrimage festivals on which the Israelites were commanded to come to Jerusalem to celebrate, in Temple times. The others two pilgrimage holidays are Pesach and Sukkot.

Pesach on the Temple Mount was a mirror image of Tuesday's calm. Likud MK and Knesset Deputy Speaker Moshe Feiglin recently called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to investigate riots by Muslim extremists on the Temple Mount, and to take action to put an end to intimidation and violence against Jews on Judaism's holiest site.

Muslim and Arab websites are seething, from the most secular to the religious.

The Waqf is calling an "emergency press conference" soon to bitterly complain about those pesky Jews insisting on basic religious rights.

Cleveland convenience store features antisemitic murals

From Cleveland Action News 19:

At first glance, you may not notice what's painted on the side of Biggie's gas station and convenience store at the corner of E.55th and Cedar.

Amongst other religious and political commentary, is one image that's so disturbing, so grotesque, we have to blur it out in order to post it or use it on TV.

The picture shows a priest engaged in a sexual act with a baby. There's writing on top that says, "Talmudic priests in Church. Sex with minors permitted." It's an image that Biggie's owner Abe Auiad told us - flat out - he stands behind.

"That's a circumcision," says Abe Ayad.

The owner is trying to say that this is actually an image of a priest doing a circumcision on a baby. The problem is that the wording up above says, "sex with minors permitted."

It turns out that this Abe Ayad has been putting up offensive murals for years...and they are often nakedly antisemitic.

The owner of Biggie’s, Brahim “Abe” Ayad, a forty-something Palestinian-American who lives in North Olmsted, once explained to Douglas Guth of the Cleveland Jewish News that the murals represent his “protest against ‘evil-doing Zionists’ who, among other offenses, he claims, took away his Palestinian father’s land to make way for the state of Israel.” Ayad further explained that “[t]he shocking imagery on his walls are his way ‘of fighting fire with fire,’ and that ‘[i]f they want to insult me, they should know how it feels to be insulted.’”

Previous complaints about the murals have gone nowhere.

06/02 Links Pt2: Santa Claus and the Israel Lobby: Samuel L. Jackson at NY Israel Day Parade

From Ian:

Santa Claus and the Israel Lobby

If you believe AIPAC, it’s an incredibly effective organization. If you believe its enemies, AIPAC runs America and parts of Canada. It’s not an accusation that AIPAC denies too hard. Mall Santas don’t deny that they have flying reindeer waiting for them on the roof. AIPAC is a fat man in a rented red suit and fake beard trying to pretend that it can do anything. But AIPAC would have better luck making reindeer fly than countering the dominant power of the anti-Israel left and the Saudi lobby in Washington D.C.
And that’s because it doesn’t even try.
When the Democratic Party’s platform deleted the usual mention of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, removed a call to boycott Hamas and opposition to the “Right of Return” vocal protests came from Jewish organizations.
AIPAC was not one of them.

Israel Thrives: Defining pro-Israel

Before long, the primaries will begin for the campaign to succeed Barack Obama. One of the issues in the upcoming campaign will be who is good for Israel. This assessment might seem simple, but that would be deceiving. The reality is that no viable candidate will claim to be anything but pro-Israel. With everyone vying to claim the pro-Israel mantle, how should we determine who would support Israel when it counts and who would bail out?
One part of this assessment would be a review of Obama's record. For all the legitimate gripes we have about Obama's record on Israel, it is important to note that on any matter of providing military equipment or assistance, Obama has never let Israel down. Is this an attempt to exonerate Obama from the positions he has taken on Israel? No. Rather, this is an effort to bring in all the facts that a view of Obama's record on Israel needs to explain.
What Obama's military assistance to Israel shows is that when the Arabs wage conventional warfare or terror against Israel, Obama has Israel's back. We do not have to ask questions. However, those methods of attempting to destroy Israel are yesterday's war, corresponding to the Arabs' primary modus operandi from 1948-1973 and 1973-roughly 1995. Today's war, which started as far back as the 1960's but became more significant only recently, is the Arab effort to delegitimize Israel and thus gain international support to destroy Israel or at least to change the battlespace enough that they would be able to succeed in destroying Israel on their own through the previous two means. Obama's shortcomings come in his support, or lack thereof, for Israel in today's war.

‘Open Hillel’ Only Promotes Anti-Semitism

In other words, criticism of Israel is welcome at Hillel as long as that criticism does not call for the destruction of the Jewish state, hold Israel to an impossible double standard, or call for the boycott of the only Jewish state.
Therefore, by default, all ‘Open Hillel’ supports is the inclusion of these dangerous anti-Semitic messages at the Jewish student center. Again, this is true because Hillel already allows all other voices.
Delegitimizing and demonizing the Jewish state, as well as holding it to a double standard (which BDS does on a regular basis), is considered anti-Semitic even by John Kerry’s State Department.

From The Pittsburgh City Paper "Blogh":

Three days before the scheduled opening reception, The Mattress Factory abruptly canceled Sites of Passage: Borders, Walls & Citizenship, a show meant as a cultural exchange between artists from Israel, Palestine and the U.S.

According to the museum, the exhibit was canceled because the three Palestinian artists — Bashar Alhroub, Manal Mahamid and Mohammed Mussalam — withdrew their participation.

A statement on the museum's website also read, "The Mattress Factory and guest curator Tavia La Follette would like to make a public apology to all Palestinians everywhere for the misunderstanding of this exhibition."

But the circumstances surrounding the cancellation — and the precise nature of the "misunderstanding" — remain unclear.
...

Possible clues about reasons for the cancellation might be found in additional verbiage on the Filmmakers web page about the exhibit. It read: "Correction: An exhibition description concerning 'Borders, Walls, and Citizenship' was prematurely posted without the agreement or prior knowledge of the artists involved. … All participating artists, and those that withdrew are against racism, against occupation, and in support of self-determination for Palestinians and all people. This show was never intended to be about normalization."

"Normalization" is a controversial topic in Israeli-Palestinian relations; the word refers to the idea that the two states can relate to each other like any two other states. Rejection of that concept has helped fuel activist groups including the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. On its website, the group defines normalization in this context as "the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people."

The Mattress Factory's April press release for the show didn't use the term "normalization." However, it did say, "The artists have been working collaboratively as part of a yearlong exchange that has allowed them to manipulate and respond to each other's work in ways that may be impossible to mimic in real life due to the physical boundaries of the countries of conflict they reside in."

More details here:

The Israeli artists had pulled out of the show one day earlier in order to protect the Palestinians who had been threatened and accused on an Arabic-language Facebook page of “normalizing relations with Israel,” according to Tavia La Follette, the independent curator of the exhibit. La Follette is the founder and director of ArtUp, and an artist-in-residence at Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab.

The trigger for the threats, said La Follete, was the use of the words “collaboration” and “dialogue” within the exhibition’s announcements on the websites of the Mattress Factory and Filmmakers Galleries. But those words were never approved by La Follette or the artists in the exhibition, she said.

“There’s language that was put up on the websites that are words used in the land of art all the time,” she said. “In the art world, ‘collaboration’ and ‘dialogue’ are used all the time. But ‘collaboration’ means something completely different politically. That’s where the problem started.”

But La Follette, who had invited the artists to create works together and individually in response to issues and experiences surrounding the words “borders,” “walls” and “citizenship,” said the shows were “not about normalization and were never about normalization.”

“But we knew the artists would be getting flack at some time because people would be making judgments on what we’re doing,” she acknowledged.

After the Palestinian artists were accused on Facebook of normalizing relations with Israel, all three Israeli artists — Emmanuel Witzthum, Dror Yaron and Itamar Jobani — withdrew from the exhibition to allow the Palestinians to remain in the show, said La Follette, adding that what was supposed to be a celebratory party at her home last weekend, “turned into Camp David.”

“The Palestinian artists said, ‘We can’t be in this show,’ so the Israelis withdrew,” she explained. “The whole idea behind the project was to move it beyond political rhetoric. But we need to protect the Palestinian artists. It shows the integrity of the Israeli artists that they pulled out of the show.”

OK, so the Palestinian artists were threatened because they were working together with Israeli artists on an art project. Horrors!

Having the Palestinian Arabs withdraw because of threats to them by their fellow Arabs would be bad, so to stop that from happening, the Israeli artists offered to withdraw so the Palestinians could continue to participate.

That wasn't good enough.

The museum put out public apology to all Palestinians everywhere - not to art lovers, not to the artists who canceled for what they thought was the greater good, not to people who love to see cooperation and peace between the two groups. No, they apologized to Palestinian Arabs who are against any kind of peace with Israel - the most intransigent, anti-peace people on the planet who will not be happy until Israel is destroyed.

Did that make the Palestinian artists happy? Did they say that they were touched that their anti-Zionist Israeli art partners went to extraordinary lengths, endangering their own careers, to help the Arabs continue to spread their anti-Israel narrative to the world unimpeded, at the expense of their own viewpoint?

No.

One of the Palestinian artists, Mohammed Musallam, in a Facebook post written in Arabic blamed the city’s “Jewish lobby” for the cancellation of the show.

“It became clear to us that what we considered victory, eliminating Israelis from the exhibit, will be harshly used by the media against Palestinian artists, creating accusations against them and fictional accounts,” he wrote. “Because of these developments in the situation and concerned that the exhibit will continue with its Israeli and American participants, and feed additional lies and stories from the Zionist media in this state, we asked the museum’s management not only that we withdraw, which was easy, but strongly demanded the abolition of the entire exhibit, with the understanding that we are willing for future collaborations without any Israeli participation.”

Musallam with La Follette before he ruined her year

Instead of issuing a statement of regret, or saying that he hopes for a peaceful future with his fellow Israeli artists, or apologizing for his role in this mess, Musallam says that he wanted the Israelis to withdraw but decided that the Zionist-dominated press would make the Arab artists look bad for not deigning to exhibit
together with the hated Jews.

How much of this statement is self-preservation in the face of threats and how much reveals the artist's bigotry is unclear. According to comments on his Facebook page, originally Musallam defended the Israeli artists as people who are as pro-Palestinian as could be - before he turned on them.

But what is clear is that no matter how much the Israeli uber-left "peace camp" does to accommodate Palestinian Arabs as equals., no matter how much Westerners grovel to the Palestinian Arab cause, it will never be enough - as long as Israel exists.

It is actually embarrassing to see how much self-respect the Israeli artists and the museum were willing to throw away for the righteous cause of trying to appease the party in the Middle East conflict that has no "peace camp" - and that actively threatens anyone who can even be considered remotely peaceful.

Arabs hold antisemitic rallies in Israel and territories

Here is a video of a rally in Jerusalem where Arabs are chanting "We don't want Jews"

And here's an Israeli news report of a Hizb-ut Tahrir rally in Ramallah, where the chants include "The stones call to Muslims, saying 'Here is a Jew, kill him!' and exhortations to use the sword to destroy Israel.

In other news, there was a massive peace rally in Nablus, where hundreds of thousands of ordinaryArabs urged Palestinian leaders to do whatever is necessary to have a durable, permanent peace with Israel and to end the conflict once and for all.

Just joking! That only happens in Israel.

(h/t Yoel)

06/02 Links Pt1: Douglas Murray: They always come for the Jews; Danon: US Aid Funds Terror

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: They always come for the Jews

Firstly, there will be those who will claim that Mehdi Nammouche is a one-off. He is not. It is worth recalling, among other things, the case of French Muslim Mohamed Merah who two years ago went on a killing spree in Toulouse which targeted French soldiers and a Jewish school.
Doubtless there will also be those who will now say that if the West had intervened in Syria we would have been able to avoid the ‘radicalisation’ of people like Nemmouche. This is the purest ignorance. It is always worth remembering that a certain type of young Muslim claims that they were radicalised when the West intervenes somewhere and also when the West does not intervene somewhere. For instance some people may recall the case of the distinguished London School of Economics graduate Omar Sheikh, a British citizen who claimed to have been radicalised by the war in the Balkans among other things. Omar Sheikh was apparently not satisfied by the NATO intervention which stopped the massacre of Kosovar Muslims. Nor by the intervention to protect the holy sites of Islam from the armies of Saddam Hussein. In 2002 Omar Sheikh kidnapped and then cut the head off the Jewish American journalist Daniel Pearl.
Anyone who still doubts that the anti-Jewish aspect is a central driver for Islamic extremists might also recall the fact that the 2008 Mumbai terrorists, as well as targeting high-visibility targets like the Taj Hotel in Mumbai could not help themselves from entering the only tiny Jewish religious house in Mumbai, where they tortured and murdered a rabbi and his wife among others.

The Brussels Shooting and Why Europe Won’t Confront Islamic Jew-Hatred

Then there is the Israel factor. As much as critics of Israel like to stress that it’s Zionists and not Jews they take issue with, whenever Jews are attacked, liberals and liberal Europeans inevitably make the Israel connection and in so doing invalidate their own pretense that they view the two as being entirely separate. When Jewish children were mowed down by bullets as they made their way to school in Toulouse and the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton was obliged to concoct some words of sympathy, she stunned observers by using this event to note how, “we see what is happening in Gaza.” It seems that for people like Ashton, it is impossible to acknowledge Jewish victimhood without also footnoting Palestinian suffering, as if in some attempt to explain away whatever has just been done to the Jews in question.
European liberals delight in expressing horror and gleeful outrage at the sight of American Evangelical Christianity. They warn against reactionary Christian attitudes on any social issue that arises in their own country and they are always sure to castigate the Catholic Church whenever the opportunity presents itself (Pope Benedict’s visit to London was marred by large and angry protests). But if Europeans were really concerned about ultra-conservative religious extremism then they would act to prevent the proliferation of radical Islam in Europe. Similarly, if they were serious about ending racism then they would crack down on the only form of racism in Europe today that still kills people: Islamic Jew-hatred.

Pallywood Productions Present Beitunia

This 6 min video, however, has a nice deconstruction and presents just some of the problems with the video. Do watch toward the end where they show the various practices and run throughs that the actors and directors in this work of fiction had to go through before coming up with something to show the world.

Analysis of 2 palestinian kids shot

Albawaba is reporting that Saudi social media users are upset that the wife of the new coach of the popular Al Hilal club is said to be Jewish.

It reproduces a number of tweets from upset fans of the club who are raging against the coach, Lawrence Reghecampf.

His wife, Anamaria Prodan, is also a gambler, a model and a sports agent, who lives in Las Vegas.

A few days ago the first wave of controversy hit when it was revealed that she had posed for Playboy.

“The wife of al-Hilal’s manager works as club president, activist, agent and former addict. My comment is: a coach who is unable to control his wife, how can he control [al-Hilal player Nawaf] Al Abed,” writes Faisal al-Mohlaki (@faisalalmohlaki).

(NSFW photo gallery here.)

But the Jewish thing is beyond redemption.

As I looked further into this, I cannot find any proof that Prodan really is Jewish, and it appears that the rumor started because she had visited Israel and this photo of her waving an Israeli flag surfaced:

Interestingly, in all her photos from Israel she is covering her hair, albeit loosely. She also visited a Christian shrine so it seems doubtful that she really is Jewish - the trip to Israel was apparently for professional reasons.

Other Saudi sites are saying that Prodan isn't Jewish, but that Reghecampf is going to/already has converted to Judaism.

If one didn't know any better, one might think that Saudis have a problem with Jews.

El Badil is starting an entire series on mind control based on the works of Noam Chomsky and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well as another conspiracy-minded classic, Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.

A former Minister of Housing in Egypt is interviewed in Vetogate, where he says that the Arab spring is a "Zionist scheme for years targeting Egypt and Arab countries based on the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and 16 million Jews seeking to rule the earth, and the Zionist plan succeeded in sectarian sedition between Shiite Muslim and Sunni Muslim and Christian targets dividing Egypt and the Arab countries into small states."

That same theme of Israel being behind the Arab troubles and using the Protocols as their textbook is echoed in Al Watan Voice.

Finally, El Aosboa has an article that seems to say that Jews are behind all movies that have sex and nudity, which is explicitly spelled out in the Ninth Protocol on page 56 of the famous work.

Most of these newspapers are based out of Egypt. No skepticism about the veracity of the work is evident, as usual.

Hey, if I'm not going to keep track of how Arab media refers to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, who will?

Fatah-Hamas unity or not? People are missing the real point (UPDATE)

Even though Abbas keeps saying that there will be an official announcement of a "unity government" with Hamas in the next few hours, Hamas is saying that one part is non-negotiable:

Hamas will not agree to form a unity government that does not include a ministry and minister for prisoners' affairs, a spokesman said Monday.

Sami Abu Zuhri told Ma'an that Hamas has officially notified Fatah that the movement will not join a government that does not include a ministry of prisoners.

"Hamas movement won't agree to announce a unity government without a ministry and a minister of prisoners, and Fatah has already been notified of that irrevocable decision."

Abbas had earlier said that the ministry of prisoners would be replaced with an independent body, with other officials suggesting that the US could withdraw funding from the PA if the ministry was not dissolved.

The unity government is expected to be sworn in on Monday at 1 p.m. in the presidential headquarters in Ramallah.

Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya confirms this in Felesteen.

The idea that the US is pressuring Abbas over the ministry of prisoners seems new. I have not seen anything about that before; on the contrary I have seen more pressure from the EU about how the PA has been spending significant parts of its budget on paying prisoners, families of prisoners and families of "martyrs" - something that is sacrosanct, even if it is ultimately from Western funding.

Yet the EU does not seem to have a problem with Hamas as part of the "unity" government. Hamas and Fatah are trying to have it both ways - to have the PR benefits of unity internally along with assurances to the West that the government accepts all previous agreements, while Hamas continues to say in Arabic that they reject all previous agreements with Israel.

What the media (and, apparently, western officials) keeps missing is that the PA is an almost useless construct. It officially reports to the PLO, not to the people. The PLO is anything but democratic. The PLO is what makes all the major decisions, And while the PA has a "foreign minister," his duties are essentially ceremonial, as the PLO takes that entire role with Abbas, Erekat, and others. Look at the webpage of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department: they are the ones who are making the real decisions that the West cares about, not the ministers being announced today.

The PLO-NAD decides every major issue that the world cares about: security, settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, borders, water, economic relations, compensation, agriculture, tourism, health, transport, energy, telecommunications and even archaeology.

The important part of the unity agreement with Hamas isn't the appointment of technocrats in the PA. They have been carefully chosen not to give offense to the West and to get the EU and US to look the other way as Hamas gets mainstreamed.

The important part is phase 2, where Hamas joins the PLO. This will challenge the current doubletalk from the PLO of accepting Israel - doubletalk because Fatah supports terror against Israel just about to the same level that Hamas does. That is where the real political battle between the two groups will get very ugly, at least in private.

Yasir Arafat is smiling from his special place in hell, seeing how well his people have adopted his methods of telling the West what they want to hear and actively supporting terror at the same time. As we have seen, wishful thinking often trumps Western will. The real question isn't whether the new government supports terror - both Fatah and Hamas do even as they choose bland officials to pretend to be running their government.

The real question is whether the US and EU can see through the lies.

UPDATE: Get used to these sorts of things happening. Ma'an in English:

No minister for prisoners' affairs was announced, despite having been a key sticking point in reaching consensus on minister portfolios.

In Arabic:

Shawki Alissa named minister of prisoner affairs

Arab "expert" says all European Jews are spies for Israel

Albabwabh News, a pro-Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian newspaper, interviews "spy hunter" Fouad Hussein, a former Egyptian intelligence officer.

Besides discussing how the Mossad recruits Arabs via social media, he says that all Jews in Europe work with the Mossad, providing it with information about Arabs in Europe.

Sounds like he has been getting his intelligence from the same guy that feeds Richard Silverstein.

RS2000 reports that Palestinian Arab customs agents seized some 489 turkeys that were illegally smuggled from Jewish settlements to Bethlehem.

The crack customs officers noticed a man who was driving a car filled with turkeys, who tried to avoid being seen, and they immediately suspected that something wasn't, so to speak, kosher.

It is unclear what will happen to the birds. On previous occasions, Palestinian Arab officials made big public displays of destroying illegal Jewish contraband, but if they would do that here it might be reminiscent of a classic TV episode:

(h/t MtTB)

Turkish Muslims flocking to visit Jerusalem

Ma'an has an article on Turkish tourism to Jerusalem, and being Ma'an, they have to add in some anti-Israel spin:

Thousands of Turkish citizens are visiting Islamic religious sites in occupied East Jerusalem on a yearly basis despite the obstacles they face, and the numbers are only set to increase in coming years.

What are these obstacles?

Thousands of Turks visit the Al-Aqsa compound in particular each year, especially during Islamic holidays, despite the intensive and invasive searches they often face by Israeli security personnel.

Searches? Every Jew who visits the Kotel must go through checkpoints and metal detectors, and to go to the Temple Mount Jews and non-Muslims have to go through a much more complete search to use the single gate available to them. I was not allowed to bring up much of my camera equipment during my visit there. On the other hand, Muslims have a choice of a dozen gates, and the last time I looked there was no metal detector or searching for them to enter, just a couple of bored looking Israeli guards.

Around 3,000 Turkish citizens recently came to Jerusalem to celebrate the day in the Islamic calendar that marks the Prophet Muhammad's ascension to heaven, known as Isra and Miraj, a member of the Graduates' Committee of Turkey told Ma'an recently.

06/01 Links: French Police Arrest Suspected Gunman in Brussels Jewish Museum Shooting

From Ian:

Suspected Brussels gunman admitted on film to attack

Mehdi Nemmouche filmed a short video after the shootings in which he claimed responsibility for the May 24 attack, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said in a press conference. The film also reportedly showed the weapons used by Nemmouche throughout the assault, according to AFP.
The suspect was wrapped up in a white sheet scrawled with the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an extremist group fighting in Syria, Molins said. He said the suspect had spent about a year in Syria.
Nemmouche, a 29-year-old from the northern French town of Roubaix, was arrested Friday in Marseille in possession of a gun and an AK-47 assault rifle of the sort used in the attack.
Nemmouche is suspected of having jihadist links and had reportedly visited war-torn Syria in 2013. (h/t Yoel)

Jewish leaders hail arrest of alleged Brussels gunman

Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French citizen from the northern French town of Roubaix, was arrested Friday in Marseille in possession of a gun and a Kalashnikov assault rifle of the sort used in the May 24 attack that claimed the lives of four people, including two Israelis.
“We are very satisfied with the work of the French authorities in finding the perpetrator of the cold-blooded murders last week,” European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor said in a statement. “However, for too long authorities in Europe have acted speedily after the fact. it is now time for all to turn attention and set as the highest priority the prevention of these vicious crimes.”

Czech president: Radical Islam behind Brussels attack

President Milos Zeman made the statement last week, before the capture in Marseille on Friday of a suspect whom French authorities said had fought with jihadists in Syria and may be tied to the May 24 murder of four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels.
“I will not be reassured by claims that these are the actions of small fringe groups,” Zeman said at the Prague Hilton on May 26 about the shootings, which he called “abominable acts of murder.” He added: “I believe, by contrast, that this xenophobia, racism or anti-Semitism are at the very nature of this ideology, on which these fanatical groups rely.”

San Francisco State University Funds Hatred (Michael Lumish)

Michael Lumish, of the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under, continues his weekly column here at EoZ.

San Francisco State University is among the most racist universities in the United States today.

Last year my old alma mater funded student political organizations that called specifically for murder and presumably for the murder of Jews. At an event sponsored by the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), among a few other like-minded groups, honoring the late Columbia professor of the Humanities, Edward Said, signs were held aloft calling for the murder of "colonizers."

The people that I spoke to on campus all hold significant institutional positions at the university. They are people with their finger on the pulse of that campus, yet they seemed mystified about just who these "colonizers" in need of killing might be. Nonetheless, I feel reasonably certain that when hard-left students, who happen to be members of the General Union of Palestine Students, hold up signs that read, My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers, that they do not mean Rosicrucians or Rastafarians, they mean Jews.

The irony, of course, could hardly be more rich. The Arabs that flowed from the Saudi Peninsula in the seventh-century were among the greatest, most vicious, and most successful colonizers in human history. They conquered much of Europe and still often hold out hope for the reconquest of Al-Andalus, which you and I might know as the country of Spain. They also kept the Jews in a state of submission for thirteen centuries until the movement for Jewish liberation, Zionism, freed us from perpetual dhimmitude and persecution in the part of the world that the Jewish people have lived in for millenia.

Although last year's president of SFSU's General Union of Palestine Students, Muhammad Hammad, received considerable attention from press around the world due to his violent racism, his mentor, professor Rabab Abdulhadi, received considerably less.

This is because while Abdulhadi might share and encourage Mr. Hammad's disposition toward the Jewish people, as a university professor, she clearly has the wits not to hold up a knife on a social media website in order to discuss a desire to stab Jews.

I have her listed in my notes from the time, but I never wrote about her because, in truth, I find this whole nasty situation with SFSU to be unbecoming. I used to love that campus. I not only received a Master's Degree in History there, but I also met my wife in that department. Some of the happiest years of my life were spent at San Francisco State and arriving at that campus in the late 1990s represented a true turning point in my life.

Of course, I also distinctly recall walking past Malcolm X Plaza, in front of the Cesar Chavez Student Center, and witnessing the Palestinian organization at that time, presumably GUPS, in solidarity with the Pan-African student organization holding aloft a banner that replaced the five-pointed stars in the American flag with 50 little Stars of David.

It was just little racist reminder to the tiny Jewish minority on campus that they better keep in line.

In truth, it should not have taken me a full ten years after that moment to acknowledge the fact that the western left is very definitely no friend to the Jewish people.

So, when, the other day, I received an email from Tammi Benjamin of the University of California, Santa Cruz's AMCHA Initiative telling me that SFSU GUPS' advisor, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, took university funding to visit those who seek to murder Jews, I was only slightly taken aback.

The blood red on the fist that Abdulhadi proudly displays on her SFSU webpage reminds this Jew of the proud display of blood captured in the picture below taken directly after two young Jewish IDF members were lynched by an Arab-Muslim mob, after taking a wrong turn in Ramallah, upon the start of the Second Terror War (intifada) in 2000.

I wish that I could say that I was shocked but, of course, I was not.

This is what Benjamin writes:

Dear Friends and Supporters:

A California Public Records Act inquiry, requested by AMCHA Initiative, revealed that San Francisco State University (SFSU) Professor Rabab Abdulhadi received more than $7,000 from SFSU to fly to Jordan, the West Bank and Israel to meet with known a terrorist and individuals closely affiliated with terrorist organizations.

Abdulhadi claimed the purpose of her trip was for academic and University business-related reasons and she concealed the true nature of her trip - personal political activism - on at least four documents with administrators, including President Wong, who approved the trip. Evidence demonstrated that Abdulhadi had actually always intended to use the University-funded trip to build relationships with anti-Israel political activists to promote anti-Semitic academic, cultural and economic boycotts of Israel, and the meetings were set before Abdulhadi requested University approval.

This is the same professor who was the faculty advisor to the SFSU knife-wielding student investigated by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force. She was also caught on tape glorifying terrorism to SFSU students.

My initial reaction was to close my eyes and turn away because I simply do not want to deal with this.

I do not want to call down to that campus and, as an alumnus, complain about the fact that the university literally funds student groups that calls for the murder of Jews. What are we supposed to do? Call the office of SFSU President Dr. Wong and talk with some administrative assistant about how funding student organizations that spread violent hatred toward others is perhaps not in the university's mission statement?

I just do not want to feel that the university wherein I met my wife not only tolerates violent hatred directed towards us, but quite literally funds that hatred.

I have no intention of pursuing this story beyond this post - although I may - because I simply do not want to go through this again. If San Francisco State University wishes to gain a reputation as the most anti-Semitic campus in the United States, today, then there is very little that I can possibly do to dissuade them.

I would suggest, however, that the university administration might consider the notion that funding student organizations that call for murder, or funding their advisor's trip to visit with Jihadis, is not necessarily very good for the university's reputation.