Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Gaza rocket tallies for the past two weeks

June 27: 6 rockets, 2 intercepted
June 28: 3 rockets, Sderot factory burned to ground
June 29: 4 rockets, 2 intercepted
June 30: 16 rockets
July 1: 5 rockets, several mortars, damage to vehicles and a major fire as a result, also mortars
July 2: 10 rockets, 9 mortars, 1 intercepted
July 3: 13 rockets, homes and a summer camp damaged
July 4: 25 rockets, several mortars, 3 intercepted
July 5: Over 20 rockets, including to Beersheva, several mortars, 3 intercepted, some damage and an injury
July 6: Over 25 rockets, some damage
July 7: Over 85 rockets, Hamas claimed to shoot 100 and Islamic Jihad claimed to shoot 60. 13 intercepted
July 8: At least 160 rockets, 7 intercepted, so far, some damage and injuries

This is the best I could do at the moment, but the figures are not definitive. Sources include this constantly updating Wikipedia page as well as Israeli and Arabic media.

BBC exposes Pallywood lies in #GazaUnderAttack Twitter hashtag

In 2012, BBC correspondent Jon Donnison tweeted this:

Only one problem: The photo was actually taken in Syria.

The BBC reporter reflexively assumed that a photo that accompanies a tweet is accurate - when it is anti-Israel.

The good news is that the BBC has now exposed the fact that this same type of purposeful anti-Israel photographic propaganda is happening all the time, today, under the "#GazaUnderAttack" hashtag that the Israel haters are using on Twitter.

Over the past week the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack has been used hundreds of thousands of times, often to distribute pictures claiming to show the effects of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

A #BBCtrending investigation has found that many of these images are not from the latest conflict and not even from Gaza. Some date as far back as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

Twitter is a wonderful tool, but it is an even better tool for propagating lies.

Amnesty re-interprets international laws specifically to damn Israel

Amnesty International, after the three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped but before we knew their fate, issued a statement that (after calling for the release of the Israelis) listed a litany of supposed Israeli violations of international law in the IDF's attempts to find the boys.

One of the supposed violations was this:

The Israeli authorities are also considering transferring Hamas officials or prisoners who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring or deporting people from an occupied territory.

An EoZ reader sent Amnesty a question about this:

In your [statement], you say that Israeli authorities are considering transferring Hamas officials or prisoners who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, and that this would be forbidden since the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring or deporting people from an occupied territory.

However, Amnesty International also claims that Gaza is currently belligerently occupied by Israel. If that is the case, transferring Hamas officials who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip is simply a reassignment of residence of persons within occupied territory that is explicitly permitted by article 78 of the Geneva Convention. In any event, transfer to Gaza could not possibly be a "deportation" from occupied territory.

Is Amnesty International now finally admitting that the Gaza Strip is not belligerently occupied by Israel?

For background, here is Article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions:

If the Occupying Power considers it necessary, for imperative reasons of security, to take safety measures concerning protected persons, it may, at the most, subject them to assigned residence or to internment.

The ICRC's 1958 commentary adds:

Unlike the Articles which come before it, Article 78 relates to people who have not been guilty of any infringement of the penal provisions enacted by the Occupying Power, but that Power may, for reasons of its own, consider them dangerous to its security and is consequently entitled to restrict their freedom of action.
The security measures envisaged are "assigned residence" and "internment", which have already been considered in detail in connection with Articles 41 and 42 .
It will suffice to mention here that as we are dealing with occupied territory, the protected persons concerned will benefit by the provisions of Article 49 and cannot be deported; they can therefore only be interned, or placed in assigned residence, within the frontiers of the occupied country itself. In any case, such measures can only be ordered for real and imperative reasons of security; their exceptional character must be preserved.

It sure looks like Amnesty must indeed consider Gaza to be a different territory than Judea and Samaria, and not part of the "occupied territories," for its reasoning to have any legal weight. Article 78 is quite clear.

My correspondent received a reply from Gordon Bennett, Supporter Care Team, Amnesty International UK. (I am making the assumption, supported by knowledgeable people, that Bennett's responses on behalf of Amnesty are considered on the record.)

Bennett wrote a condescending and, frankly, outlandish response that completely moved the goalposts to keep claiming Israel is violating international law, while abandoning Amnesty's main argument completely:

Hi XXX,

Nice try, but no. Like the vast majority of the world's governments, NGOs and international institutions, we recognise that Gaza remains under occupation, despite the removal of settlers and ground troops (excepting the regular incursions of course), as Israel retains effective control over the territory.

Assigned residence, like administrative detention/internment, is permitted under international law only when absolutely necessary. The way both assigned residence and adminstrative [sic] detention/internment are used by Israel far exceeds what is permitted under international law.

Regards,
Gordon Bennett

In other words, Amnesty is saying to ignore their previous statement. At first, they claimed that moving a Hamas member to Gaza was a violation of Article 49. They agree that there is no violation of the Geneva Conventions if Israel decided to transfer a Hamas member to Gaza. They now claim that Israeli behavior is illegal for a totally different and completely inconsistent reason - that it violates their quite novel interpretation of Article 78, and that same logic blows up their earlier assertion that it is a violation of Article 49.

Yet they write "Nice try," as if a mere letter writer cannot possibly have the same intellectual prowess as an Amnesty spokesperson - who just abandoned his own organization's previous legal reasoning.

Beyond that, Amnesty's original statement said "The Israeli authorities are also considering transferring Hamas officials..." In their response they say that "The way ...assigned residence [is] used by Israel far exceeds what is permitted under international law." How can Amnesty make such a statement when they themselves say that the idea is only speculation? It seems that Israeli officials' very thoughts are now considered to be gross violations of international law before any action is actually done, before anyone can evaluate whether the theoretical people being moved are indeed a security risk or not!

Amnesty (and others) have accused Israel of "excessive" behavior in the past without being qualified to and without knowing all the facts, which is bad enough. But here it is accusing Israel of excessiveness before Israel actually does anything.

Amnesty is the prosecutor, judge and jury in pre-emptively deciding Israel is criminal, and its legal reasoning is not nearly as important as the pre-determined result.

To call this outrageous would be an understatement. This is the exact opposite of objectivity.

Who is Gordon Bennett, the "Supporter Care Team" member of Amnesty UK?

While working at Amnesty, he was also a member of the International Solidarity Movement, the pro-Hamas organization that has actively aided terrorists,. He has taken part in anti-Israel, pro-BDS demonstrations in London. He is as far from objective as someone can be.

Not that he is the first person Amnesty hired as an expert on the Middle East who has a long record of anti-Israel incitement- and who makes up facts as they go along in order to convey a consistently anti-Israel message.

In a sane world, being a member of an anti-Israel organization would disqualify someone from being part of a "human rights" organization that claims to be objective.

For Amnesty, it may be a prerequisite.

(h/t Mike et. al.)

News from the new, moderate Iran

From AFP:

Iranian journalist Marzieh Rasouli said on Monday that she has been sentenced to two years in Tehran's notorious Evin prison and 50 lashes for publishing anti-regime propaganda.

Rasouli, respected for her work as an arts and culture reporter for leading reformist media outlets, including the Shargh and Etemaad dailies, was detained in January 2012 as part of a crackdown.

She was later freed on bail, but her incarceration -- shortly before a parliamentary election -- drew international condemnation led by the United States and France.

In a statement posted Monday on Twitter, Rasouli said she had been charged with "propaganda against the establishment and disruption of public order through participation in gatherings."

The first charge has been commonly used by Iran's conservative-dominated judiciary to convict activists and journalists since the disputed 2009 presidential election that triggered widespread anti-regime protests.

Rasouli suggested the sentence had been approved by an appeals court, without elaborating, only adding that "I have to go to prison tomorrow to serve my sentence."

From Al Arabiya:

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is contemplating a ban on vasectomies and other birth control measures in an attempt to rekindle the Islamic Republic’s falling birthrate.

The birth rate has dropped from 3.2 percent in 1986 to 1.22 percent now, according to the CIA World Factbook. At present fertility rates, Iran's median age is projected to increase from 28 in 2013 to 40 by 2030, according to U.N. data.

In his 14-point decree online, Khamenei said increasing Iran's 76 million-strong population would “strengthen national identity” and reverse “undesirable aspects of Western lifestyles.”

Khamenei is ambitiously calling for a population of 150 million.

In reaction, Tehran lawmakers passed a bill that would see the imprisonment of doctors for five years if found guilty of performing birth control procedures. The bill is yet to be ratified and will be scrutinized by a constitutional watch dog.

We knew Rohani would reform the Islamic Republic!

07/07 Links Pt2: Gideon Levy's hidden racism; Review-‘Making David into Goliath’ Israel and the left

From Ian:

Book review: ‘Making David into Goliath’ by Joshua Muravchik - Israel and the left

Why did so many progressives abandon Israel and Zionism? That's the question Joshua Muravchik sets out to answer in "Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel." Part polemic, part intellectual history, this thoughtful and timely study explores Zionism's shifting position in the progressive imagination, "from a redemptive refuge from two thousand years of persecution to the very embodiment of white supremacy," as Mr. Muravchik puts it.
The author, a fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, recalls how during its first two decades of existence the Jewish state attracted sympathy from broad swaths of the Western left. That support reached its apogee during the Six Day War, when some 3,700 academics signed a letter in the New York Times calling on the U.S. to militarily intervene in the conflict—on Israel's side. At the height of the war, the cause of Israel's survival united Hannah Arendt, Lionel Trilling, Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King, Pablo Picasso and Jean-Paul Sartre, among other progressive luminaries.
Yet 1967 would also prove to be a turning point. Around the same time, the Palestinians launched a war of ideas against Israel's legitimacy that persists to this day. Having redefined themselves as a nation separate from the Arabs, the Palestinians thenceforth articulated their struggle as one for national self-determination against a colonial power.

The hidden racism of Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy is one of the most recognised voices of Haaretz newspaper, and as such he's much more recognised outside of Israel, since Haaretz and it's flagman Levy are so keen on making easy money from sensational, slanderous anti-Israeli fabrications, nobody inside of Israel bothers to read. From manipulating statistical data to meet his own worldview, to simply making up horror stories about the Israeli border police, Levy's lies have been revealed countless times by a variety of bodies and journalists. From his most recent pearls you have Israel "ordering" the kidnapping of the Judea and Samaria schoolboys (the Hebrew headline, in fact, states just that), all for provocation sake. Of course, nothing of the sort can be found in the actual article, because nothing of the sort ever took place. What can be found in abundance is only the typical blaming of Israel for the acts of filthy terrorists.

Studying Muslim Anti-Semitism in America

Steven Baum is an Albuquerque-based clinical psychologist who has been in private practice for over 30 years. He developed an interest in the psychology of genocide and then focused on the psychology of anti-Semitism during the next decade. He has published numerous articles and books on anti-Semitism, genocide and hate, and is the founder and editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
“From the study, it became clear that the Muslims interviewed were more anti-Semitic than Christians in the United States and Canada. The average or mean test scores endorsing negative Jewish stereotypes – after statistically separating out anti-Israel sentiment items – were more than double those of North American Christians. When separating culture from religion, Arab Muslims came out as the most anti-Semitic. Arab Christians and Non-Arab Muslims from Bosnia and Pakistan were less so, yet still anti-Semitic. Mainstream North American Christians were not very anti-Semitic at all.

Rep. Gohmert Criticizes Textbook's Failure to Label Hezbollah, Hamas Terrorist Organizations

As TruthRevolt reported Wednesday, social studies textbooks currently being proposed for the Texas school system fail to label Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Thursday Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (R) told TruthRevolt he hoped that Texas would not adopt books promoting such “mis-education,” saying that truly educational texts should inform students of the reality of the dangers of terrorist groups, adding, “Only then will we have any chance of avoiding future mass attacks.”
"Hopefully, Texas will not adopt any textbook such as these that completely fails to educate students on which groups are terrorist organizations that actually want to kill them and destroy true liberty.
This type of mis-education would only set the students up for an incredulous shock when America gets hit with another 9-11 mass murder. Instead, true educating textbooks would make sure they knew substantially how eager the terrorist groups are to terrorize and kill innocent people like the students themselves. Only then will we have any chance of avoiding future mass attacks."
The new social studies textbooks and supplementary educational materials under consideration for adoption in 2015 will be used by 5 million students in the state. Due to its population, Texas is viewed by many states as the testing ground for educational materials.

Thousands of chickens killed by rocket - the UN will condemn this, right?

Back in 2010, the UN Goldstone Report spent countless hours researching and over 20 paragraphs discussing the destruction of the Sawafeary chicken farms during Operation Cast Lead:

On or around the night of 3 January 2009 Israeli troops arrived at a number of houses on al-Sekka Road in Zeytoun. The Mission interviewed four people who were direct witnesses to and victims of the events that occurred in the aftermath of their arrival. One witness was interviewed three times for a total of five hours and testified at the public hearings in Gaza. Another three were interviewed for an hour each. The Mission also visited the site of the Sawafeary chicken farms

...The Mission makes the same findings regarding article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and article 54 (2) of Additional Protocol I, article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and article 12 (2) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women as it made above in relation to the el-Bader flour mill. [e.g.]

The right to adequate food therefore requires the right to food security (through either self-production or adequate income) and the “fundamental” right to be free from hunger. That Israel has not created a state of hunger is the result largely of the external aid provided to the population of Gaza. It has, however, severely affected the ability of Gazans both to produce food and to purchase it.

Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that “in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.”

The right to adequate food is also reflected in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which requires State parties to guarantee to women “adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.”

The Mission finds that, as a result of its actions to destroy food and water supplies and infrastructure, Israel has violated article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and article 12 (2) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

See how seriously the UN takes the destruction of chicken coops, even during wartime?

So no doubt the UN will apply the same standards to Gaza terror groups, from where a rocket just destroyed a chicken farm and killed thousands of chickens this morning:

I'm sure Amnesty and HRW are also busily writing expansive reports all about this.

Oh, by the way - Hamas is now taking responsibility for the rocket attacks. From Felesteen:

The al-Qassam Brigades, military wing of the Hamas movement, on Monday evening announced it shot dozens of rockets towards towns and Israeli settlements in the south of occupied Palestine. The Brigades said in a press release that they "bombed sites in Netivot and Ofakim and Ashdod and Ashkelon, dozens of rockets, in response to Israeli aggression".

Hamas is part of the PA, so the UN should have no problem condemning the PA for attacking Israeli civilians - and chickens.

Unless you are playing a game of "disproportionate responsibility," where one side is always responsible and the other side isn't....

(h/t Yenta)

Molotov cocktails again thrown at Joseph's Tomb

Yesterday I noted that Arabs threw firebombs at Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus) on Saturday morning. There were no Israelis there; Jews who want to pray there only visit once or twice a month under heavy guard in the middle of the night.

Last night, the tomb was attacked again:

Dozens of Palestinian youths hurled Molotov cocktails at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus late Sunday, security officials said.

Palestinian security forces told Ma'an that youths gathered in the area after late prayers and hurled firebombs at the tomb, before being dispersed by security personnel.

The attack of a Jewish holy site is a purely antisemitic act. No "settlers," no Israeli flag, nothing remotely "Zionist" about it.

While the PA did try to protect it this time, I can find no condemnations of these acts that cannot be remotely construed as "anti-Zionist."

07/07 Links Pt1: Bibi: They consider murderers to be heroes. We don’t; There's No moral symmetry

From Ian:

No moral symmetry

Muhammad Abu Khdeir’s murder is well on its way to becoming a core building block in the pantheon of anti-Israel propaganda, a central plank in the false argument that Israelis are just as murderous as the Palestinians. That Israelis are no more moral than the Palestinians.
Without being too defensive, or in any way forgiving of the inexcusable kidnapping and gruesome murder of the young Arab boy from east Jerusalem, let it be said loud and clear: Comparisons that place Israeli and Palestinian societies on the same moral plane are evilly intended and utterly untruthful. No parallels can be drawn between Israel and the Palestinians when it comes to ethical standards. This is an asymmetrical conflict in every way: moral, political and ideological.
Israeli terrorists are few and far between. Over 100 years of conflict, they comprise a mere handful: Ami Popper, Jack Teitel, Yehuda Etzion, Baruch Goldstein, Yona Avrushmi and several others. This list of Palestinian terrorists fills fat ledger books across the globe, and the list of their victims fills even more.

After Jewish, Arab Murders, Netanyahu Compares Israeli, Palestinian Societies: They Name Public Squares After Killers, We Don’t

“I pledge that the perpetrators of this horrific crime, which must be resolutely condemned in the most forceful language. I pledge that the perpetrators of this horrific crime will face the full weight of the law,” Netanyahu emphasized.
“I know that in our society, the society of Israel, there is no place for such murderers. And that’s the difference between us and our neighbors. They consider murderers to be heroes. They name public squares after them. We don’t. We condemn them and we put them on trial and we’ll put them in prison.”
“And that’s not the only difference,” the PM continued. “While we put these murderers on trial, in the Palestinian Authority, there is continuous incitement for the destruction of the State of Israel. It’s a staple of the official media and the educational system.”

Netanyahu Tells PA: Find Teens' Murderers, Like We Found Khder's

Netanyahu was visiting the Frenkel family in Nof Ayalon. Their son, Naftali, 16, was murdered by Hamas terrorists along with Eyal Yifrah, 19, and Gilad Sha'ar, 16, by Hamas terrorists who are on the run.
"I am visiting today with my family, the families of Gilad, Naftali and Eyal, who were murdered by Hamas terrorists. I promised their dear families that we will continue to stand by them, even after the days of mourning," he said, with his wife Sarah standing at his side.
"We know exactly who kidnapped and murdered Gilad, Naftali and Eyal, and we'll get them. The murderers came from the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority; they returned to territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Therefore, the Palestinian Authority is obliged to do everything in its power to find them, just as we did, just as our security forces located the suspects in the murder of Mohammed Abu Khder within a matter of days.

Terrorists threaten "settlers of Beersheva" in new video

This video can be seen on the Islamic Jihad Palestine Today site today.

To the settlers of Beersheva:
Your leaders have killed our children.
Bombarding our houses.
And sentenced you to death.
Flee, before it is too late.

Combined with the Hamas statement this morning that they will not accept any ceasefire while Israel limits what goods can get into Gaza, and it sure seems like they want a war.

Also, notice that the word "settler" pretty much means "Jew" for Arab terror groups and their fans.

Palestinians jump on the "ISIS is Zionist" bandwagon

In the Arab world, the best way to insult your enemy is to declare him "Zionist." Sisi's supporters in Egypt call Morsi a Zionist, while the Muslim Brotherhood calls Sisi a Zionist. Syrians call the Islamist rebels Zionist while the rebels call Assad Zionist. Hamas calls Fatah Zionist and Fatah returns the insult.

One of the most prevalent themes lately in the Muslim world is that ISIS was created by Israel (and the West.)

Now, it looks like Palestinian Arabs have joined the party.

This (pretty funny) satirical video from Al Falatiniya TV shows ISIS members looking for excuses to kill every passerby for not being Muslim enough, with the punchline in the end that they happily greet an Israeli.

ISIS, naturally, responds to these slanders by calling for a new Holocaust against Jews to bolster its antisemitic bona fides.

(h/t MEMRI)

Thoughts about my open condemnation letter

Yesterday, I issued an open and unequivocal condemnation of the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, and invited bloggers and writers to sign on.

I had no idea how many would agree when I wrote it.

Within 12 hours, over a hundred people, including some very prominent writers and bloggers, had added their names to the letter. It was shared hundreds of times on Facebook. Many people wrote to say how appreciative they were that I put into words what they were thinking.

Zionist bloggers weren't alone in their condemnation. Major US Jewish and Zionist organizations roundly condemned the murder and expressed horror at the fact that the suspects are Israeli Jews.

As I've noted in the past, the anti-Israel crowd suffers from psychological projection. They assume, reflexively, that the hate they have for Israel is mirrored by Israelis and Zionists towards Arabs.

In the ten years I've been blogging, over hundreds of terror attacks, virtually every murder of innocent Jews was wholeheartedly and publicly embraced by the Palestinian public in their media and by their actions. Practically every time, dead Jews were roundly cheered, and it was literally impossible to find any Arabic-language voice opposing murdering Jewish civilians. At "best," they would define every Jewish man, woman and child in Israel as "settlers" and "soldiers" in order to justify the murders. (The lone exception was the murders of the Fogel family in Itamar in 2011, which seemed to make Arabs uncomfortable.)

The contrast with how ashamed nearly all Jews and Zionists are at even the possibility that other Jews murdered Mohammed cannot be starker.

The people that signed my letter run the gamut from progressive Jews to the most politically right-wing Jews you can find . The very people who the haters assume would be haters themselves have proven that they will not hesitate to flatly condemn the murder of an Arab even if it was done by a Jew. Moreover, the condemnation was not the Abbas-style "condemnation" that we have seen so many times, where the only reason given for the statement was that the terror act was bad for the Palestinian cause, and not because murdering civilians is immoral in and of itself. . And even Western darling Abbas does not hesitate to happily pose with murderers.

The signatures show as clearly as possible how different most Zionists are from their enemies.

But I am more than willing to be proven wrong. I would be thrilled to eat my words by seeing a similar letter written by pro-Arab bloggers or writers, using plain language, to flatly condemn the murders of Eyal, Naftali and Gil-ad - or the murder of Shelly Dadon: without qualification, without "contextualizing," without equivocation. Nothing would make me happier than to see major Arab organizations declare that murdering Jewish civilians in Israel is exactly as immoral as murdering anyone else.

I don't expect to see such an initiative any time soon.

When Arabs feel the same shame at their fellows' support for terror that Zionists do, then there may be hope for peace. But as long as the cheers for dead Israeli civilians echo in the streets of Gaza and Ramallah, all we can do is wait.

Some Arabs really want to start an intifada

Ma'an English reported:

Two Palestinian workers were killed Sunday after being run over by a truck in northern Israel, a police spokeswoman said.

The two were run over while they were fixing their car on the side of the road in Haifa on Route 70, Luba Samari said in a statement.

Samari called the incident "a horrific accident."

The victims were identified as Zahi Subi Abu Hamed from Qalqiliya, and Anwar Astal from Tulkarem, the statement said.

In Arabic, Ma'an calls the victims "martyrs."

Yet even Ma'an showed photos of the injured being helped by members of Zaka, a private ambulance service staffe by religious Jewish men.

Now for the incitement.

Egyptian secularist newspaper Al Wafd reported the incident this way:

Two Palestinians were killed on Sunday evening, crushed to death by Jewish extremist settlers in the main street in Haifa, while the third was wounded seriously injured.

The operation took place when three citizens were on the side of the road working to repair damage to their car, where they were run over by a truck driven by a settler, which resulted in the deaths of two on the spot, while the third was wounded seriously injured.

The General Federation of Trade Unions of Palestine said in a statement issued on Sunday evening that the Israeli government must take full responsibility for the death of Palestinian workers due to the truck driven by an Israeli in the street No. 70 in Haifa.

"The Martyrdom of workers Zahi Subhi Abu Hamid and Anwar Astal, who lives in the city of Jaffa, ..by the Israeli truck driver comes as a result of racial incitement and the hostile military atmosphere practiced by the occupation against the Palestinian people of all classes in all the cities and villages and towns and its camps in the Occupied Palestinian territories.

Their graphic for the article, showing what is probably a bunch of Chassidim celebrating Purim, couldn't possibly be considered antisemitic, right?

Two terrorists who were involved in shooting rockets to Israel were killed by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday evening.

Ma'an says:

Two members of al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, were killed as Israeli warplanes struck al-Bureij refugee camp.

The two were identified as Mazen al-Hadba and Marwan Salim.

Palestine Press Agency says they were members of the al-Husseini wing of the Fatah movement.

Palestine Today says that the Popular Resistance Committees stated that they survived a raid and managed to shoot some rockets at a "settlement."

UPDATE: Felesteen reports that seven Hamas terrorists were killed in a targeted attack by Israel early Monday morning.

No civilian casualties reported.

Gaza terrorists shot 25 rockets at Israel on Sunday. It may be time to bring back my Qassam rocket calendar.

UPDATE 2: The IDF denies striking the Hamas tunnel where the seven were killed and assumes it was a "work accident."

If true, then the number of Palestinian Arab killed by each other this year in work accidents, misfired rockets and executions is at 38.

(h/t Yenta)

UPDATE 3: Looks like an IDF operation from several days ago that resulted in the explosions last night. (h/t Bob K)

Hasbara = Propaganda? (Guest post)

From Orryia Kohen:

Hasbara is the term used to describe Israel's tragicomic efforts at public diplomacy, that is to say, attempting to convince the world that it's not the Nazi-Apartheid state. Israel has had very few successes on that front. While most of humanity collectively yawns at the latest development in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, those who do care about the conflict tend to be biased in favour of the photogenic locals. Hasbara, in the meantime, is still being associated with cherry tomatoes and drip irrigation. As Melanie Philips once put it so eloquently, Hasbara is a joke.

Regardless of its effectiveness, among anti-Zionists the word Hasbara was predictably seized upon as a synonym for propaganda. (See +972, Electronic Intifada and other classic hate sites). But it isn't limited to anti-Zionist circles either. If you use Google Translate, you'll receive "propaganda" as one of the results. And if you look at Wikipedia's definition:

"Hasbara means "explanation", and is also a euphemism for propaganda."

Since Wikipedia and Google Translate agree on this subject (not to mention other, more reputable sources), it seems like a universally accepted fact. But is this truly the case?

Part of the confusion appears to stem from the different ways the word "propaganda" is used in the academia and in the wide public. In the academia it seems to have a broader meaning, related to all forms of communication aimed at influencing the public perception, such as advertising and public relations. Certainly, those activities share much in common with Hasbara. However, this isn't the way the word is generally used by the masses. Nation branding, the practice of building and managing a country's reputation, is not automatically labeled as propaganda. That is because people don't think about advertisements for New Zealand's pastoral scenery when they speak of propaganda. They think of lies, gross oversimplifications and totalitarian regimes.

Although Wikipedia tells us that propaganda was originally a neutral term, nowadays it is used almost solely with negative connotations, and is strongly associated with manipulation, distortion and jingoism. I don't believe that the precise literary definition of "propaganda" is important, in this case. The way people use the word matters far more. People's view of the word is that it describes the spread of false information for the sake of promoting a blind belief in a certain ideology, or blind support of a regime.

In Hebrew, two words are used to translate propaganda. One is "propaganda" (פרופוגנדה), borrowed from English and sharing the strong negative connotations. The second is "taamula" (תעמולה), a word that comes from the root a-m-l (ע-מ-ל), which means labor. The original meaning of the word was about making an effort to spread an idea. It doesn't carry the same pejorative connotation of propaganda. Taamula can be used both in a negative context (Nazi taamula - Nazi propaganda), and a neutral one (electoral taamula - electoral campaigns, medical taamula - marketing of medical devices).

Rarely is Hasbara used as a synonym of propaganda, or of taamula. If you talk to a native Hebrew speaker of "Nazi Hasbara" or "electoral Hasbara", you are likely to be misunderstood. The term Hasbara simply doesn't translate well to propaganda. It can only mean Israeli propaganda.

Whether Israeli public diplomacy constitutes propaganda is a subject open to debate. That is not the question that concerns me. I'm interested in crucially different matter - the meaning of the word. To clarify the distinction, take for example the word "abortion". If someone says, "abortion is murder", he is merely stating his opinion, with which others may disagree. But if he says, "the word abortion means murder", he is stating a (supposedly) objective fact.

To find a word's meaning, one has to look at its root and the context in which it's commonly used. The word Hasbara literally means "explaining", and thus carries almost the opposite connotations of propaganda. A person who explains himself isn't telling the listener what to think. He doesn't want the listener just to agree with him, but to understand him as well. And that desire for understanding implies that he treats the other person as creature with a brain, capable of independent judgment. It is therefore not surprising that those who oppose the use of the term argue against its apologetic overtone.

Besides being used as a name for Israeli public diplomacy, Hasbara is mainly used in connection to information and education. The phrase "education and Hasbara", i.e. consciousness raising, is used regularly. There are Hasbara conferences on the subjects of fire prevention, employment programs, ageing and disability services, the rights of Holocaust survivors, etc. Hasbara campaigns about road safety, anorexia, recycling and veganism also occur periodically. The Israeli ministry of environment has many "education and Hasbara" centres all over the country.

Instances in which Hasbara is used as a euphemism for propaganda can be found. However, almost all cases will be by people who happen to believe that Israeli public diplomacy is propaganda. They are entitled to keep that opinion, but that's all it is in the end - just an opinion. As I hope I've demonstrated, Hasbara isn't used as a synonym for propaganda in any other context. It's not the plain meaning of the word. By claiming the contrary, the opinion of certain people (Hasbara is propaganda) has turned into a fact (the word Hasbara means propaganda).

No wonder Hasbara hasn't been very successful.

Today's antisemitic incitement in Arab media (update)

Al Hayat al Jadida. the official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, writes in an editorial:

[Israeli Jews] are repeating the ugly and disgusting Holocaust that burned their parents and grandparents in a repeat of Nazi history...What the world can do now, the free world, now that ... Israel is set to ignite a new Holocaust against the Palestinian people and to achieve the same goals of Nazism? ? ...What can the world do [about] bloody Israeli extremism has become more than clear, what it can do and the priests of racism want human sacrifices to sate their cravings and obsessive settlement ..?

Jihad al-Khazen, a widely read and syndicated writer at Al Hayat, writes "Netanyahu wants the liquidation of 1.5 million Palestinians, as the Nazis did to the Jews before him...The settler is the modern name of a Nazi of the twentieth century."

Magda Atallah, writing in Jordanian newspaper Assawsana, says "The Talmud says that any Jew who passes near a dwelling inhabited by non-Jews asks God to destroy it. Alternatively, if the building was destroyed, he thanks God for revenge!!! Corruption beyond corruption. Lying to kill the prophets of God. The violation of privacy. Distortion of heavenly books. Judaizing the country. Killing people."

Al Resalah, which published the blood libel as fact last week, says that a group of Palestinian Arab journalists supported the writer of the editorial.

Social media is even worse, with images like these: