Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Shiite Houthis take over Yemen's capital. Their logo says "Damn the Jews."

Yemen's Houthi fighters have tightened their grip on the capital Sanaa after seizing much of the city in a lightning advance and signing an overnight deal to win a share of power, capping a decade-long uprising against the government.

On Monday, the heavily armed rebels raided the house of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and set up checkpoints across Sanaa, as the general and his allies fled and went into hiding.

They also raided the Suhail TV channel's headquarters in the capital, a day after the signing of a UN-brokered peace deal between the government and the Shia rebel group.

Here is the Houthi logo that they spray paint all over Yemen:

It says:

God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Damn the Jews, Power to Islam."

(Some translate the fourth line as "Curse the Jews.")

Isn't that lovely?

Yemen's president has long claimed that Iran was behind the Houthi insurgency. He said that this capture of Sanaa was a "conspiracy is beyond any imagination. We were stabbed, and we were betrayed. . . . It is a cross-border plot where many forces allied together.”

But they hate Al Qaeda, so they must be out allies!

09/23 Links Pt2: Judea Pearl denounces Klinghoffer Opera; SJP Rutgers Calls for an 'Intifada'

From Ian:

Taking on the Terror Trio: Israel’s Strategy vs. Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic State

Following Israel’s Operation Protective Edge this summer, Hamas continues to control the Gaza Strip and openly considers any truce with Israel as a time to re-arm for the next conflict. Across Israel’s northern border, Hezbollah has been fighting to preserve the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but still poses a danger to the Jewish state. Meanwhile, the Islamic State has exploded across Iraq and Syria in a spectacle of unprecedented brutality that could one day also knock on Israel’s door.
What should Israel’s strategy be regarding this triumvirate of terror groups? JNS.org took the pulse of three Middle East and terrorism experts on the issue.
Where things stand with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic State Hezbollah and Hamas “pose a very particular threat to Israel but also a very special dilemma,” said Natan Sachs, a fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Students For Justice In Palestine At Rutgers Calls For 'Intifada'

The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Rutgers University tabled in accordance with the "International Day of Action" against Israel and called for an intifada. Palestinian intifadas have included bus bombings, suicide bombers and the murders of hundreds of men, women and children by Islamic extremists.
The sign calling for an intifada read, "From Ferguson to Gaza, Intifada Intifada" while a second sign falsely accused Israel of being an apartheid state in the same vein as South Africa.
SJP's table on campus also encouraged the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel which attempts to isolate the Jewish state and strangle its economy.

Demonstrators protest Klinghoffer opera at Met season opening

Protesters calling for the Metropolitan Opera to cancel its production of “The Death of Klinghoffer” rallied outside the Met on its opening night Monday.
“We are going to be back here — everyone here and many, many more — every night of the Klinghoffer opera until the set is burned to the ground,” Rabbi Avi Weiss said in an address to demonstrators.
A coalition of groups in a statement called for the Monday afternoon protest at Lincoln Center, across from the Lincoln Center Plaza in Manhattan. Organizers say thousands are expected for the demonstration against a production that they contend promotes terrorism and anti-Semitism.
The opera depicting the 1985 murder by Palestinian terrorists of Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish-American man in a wheelchair, is set to premiere in October.
A letter written by Judea Pearl, the father of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered by militants in Pakistan in 2002, will also be read.
It reads, in part: “Choreographing an operatic drama around criminal pathology is not an artistic prerogative, but a blatant betrayal of public trust. We do not stage operas for rapists and child molesters, and we do not compose symphonies for penetrating the minds of ISIS [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as the Islamic State] executioners.”

Moderate Fatah group says "Death to Israel"

I spent a bit of time during the Gaza war pointing out that Fatah was shooting rockets at Israel just as enthusiastically as Hamas.

This is apparently a completely taboo subject. The Israelis don't want to embarrass Fatah leader Abbas, the media doesn't want to complicate their twin memes of "Israel vs. Hamas" and "Hamas bad, Fatah good."

But just in case you thought that there might be a slight difference between Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah members, here is what the cover image on the Fatah Abu Rish Battalions Facebook page was exactly one month ago, August 23:

"Death to Israel" in Arabic and Hebrew.

It doesn't quite sound like this moderate Fatah group accepts a two-state solution.

Will reporters ask Abbas any hard questions? Here are some.

Mahmoud Abbas is in New York this week. No doubt he will allow a couple of interviews.

Here are some questions that a decent reporter would ask this great pseudo-peacemaker (expanded from an earlier post of mine):

What, specifically, have you done to prepare your people for peace with Israel?

Followup: Twenty years after Oslo, 60% of your people say the five year goal of the PA should be the destruction of Israel. Isn't this from your own state-run media and school curricula?

Why does the PA name institutions after terrorists who targeted innocent civilians? Isn't that inconsistent with the message you are giving to the West?
Why is there still daily incitement on PA TV against Israel?
Do you believe, as Arafat did, that there was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem? Do you realize that this position is at odds with what Muslims said openly before 1967?
Describe your position on "normalization" with Israelis today. Can Israeli pro-peace groups visit Ramallah? Would you allow an Palestinian-Israeli sports camp?
Why did you threaten your citizens who dared to shop in a Jewish-owned supermarket that has low prices?
Recently you said that you believe that the Holocaust occurred. You wrote a book that claimed that it was exaggerated.Were you lying then, or are you lying now?
Do you really believe that Jews are raising dogs and wild boars and training them to attack Arab farms, as you have stated?
Do you really believe that Hamas would accept Israel's existence if you reconcile with them? Do you believe that Hamas still subscribes to its charter? Why or why not?
As leader of Fatah, why do the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group still exist? How do they get funded? Why didn't you denounce their shooting hundreds of rockets to Israeli civilians? Aren't you against that?

If they do not report to you, then why do you not distance yourself from them? And why did you say they were dismantled when they clearly weren't? Why did you allow them to hold an armed parade recently in Ramallah?

Do you agree with the Fatah platform that terrorism is legal under international law?
Why does some 6% of the PA budget go towards terrorist prisoners and released terrorists?
Do you consider the Mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated with Hitler to be a hero?
If you are so interested in peace, why did you go out of your way to meet with child-murderer Samir Kuntar?
You have publicly praised terrorists released from Israeli prisons, even embracing murderers. How do you reconcile that with your claims to be against terror?
Why did you, last week, praise a terrorist who targeted Jewish children at a circus?
What percentage of the PA budget goes, directly or indirectly, to Hamas?
Can you explain your statement in 2013 that "it's better [Syrian Palestinians] die in Syria than give up their right of return"? How many Syrian Palestinians have died because of that position?
Do you support the rights of Lebanese Palestinians, if they choose, to become citizens of Lebanon? Why or why not?
Why are there still Palestinian "refugee" camps in the West Bank? Do you not consider their residents to be full citizens of Palestine? Are you keeping them away from having permanent homes in your country for a reason?

In 1950, Israel told UNRWA that it would be insulted to have an outside organization be the primary support for refugees, and it mainstreamed Arabs into becoming full citizens within a couple of years, negating their need for perpetual UN support. Do you disagree with that sentiment?

Please send/tweet these questions to any New York based reporter who seems likely to interview Abbas. It is way past time the media stops giving him a free pass.

09/23 Links Pt1: IDF kill terrorists who murdered 3 Jewish teens; Arab Bank convicted of funding Hamas terrorism

From Ian:

Senators: Take Gaza Away From Hamas

Many Israeli politicians have begun pushing for slow-motion regime change in Gaza. Perhaps it’s a coincidence that the vast majority of the U.S. Senate now is in a similar mood.
Over the summer, the Obama administration supported a draft cease-fire plan that would have strengthened the Hamas position in Gaza. Now 88 senators are urging the Obama administration to take a very different approach to the group: gradual regime change. Over time, they want to hand Gaza over to the more moderate Palestinian Authority, which oversees the West Bank today.
In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry obtained by The Daily Beast, the 88 senators write, “we must support efforts to enable the Palestinian Authority to exercise real power in Gaza. Hamas has demonstrated conclusively both that it has no interest in peace with Israel and that it has no concern for the well-being of Gaza residents.”

PM Benjamin Netanyahu on ABC Australia
'We want to make peace' with Palestinians says Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu to ‘Post’: Saudi peace initiative is for a bygone era

The Saudi peace initiative of 2002 is no longer relevant in the much-altered Middle East of 2014, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu indicated this week, in a Rosh Hashana interview with The Jerusalem Post that will appear in full in Wednesday’s paper.
“The question is not the Saudi peace initiative,” Netanyahu said, asked if he would accept the proposal now.
“If you read it carefully, you’ll see it was set up in another period, before the rise of Hamas; before Hamas took over Gaza; before ISIS [Islamic State] took over chunks of Syria and Iraq, effectively dismantling those countries; before Iran’s accelerated nuclear program,” he said.
Obviously referring to the Saudi proposal’s call for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines, including returning the Golan Heights to Syria, Netanyahu noted that this plan was made “before the takeover of Syria by al-Qaida on the Golan Heights.”

US jury convicts Arab Bank of financing Hamas terrorism

In a landmark decision, a New York jury on Monday found the Jordan-based multinational Arab Bank liable on 24 counts of supporting terrorism by transferring funds to Hamas.
The verdict came after the jury deliberated for nearly two full days after a month-long trial at the eastern district court in Brooklyn.
“This is an enormous milestone,” said Gary Osen, a lawyer on the team representing around 300 American relatives and the victims of 24 attacks carried out in Israel and the Palestinian territories during the Second Intifada. The federal lawsuit was filed in 2004.
“For the first time a financial institution is liable for supporting terrorism. The question now is to see how other financial institutions, regulators will deal with their banks and this decision,” he added.

File photo

Yesterday, Mahmoud Abbas gave a speech at Cooper Union Hall in New York to hundreds of American students.

As usual, it was filed with his usual hypocrisy, as he pretended that the Palestinian Arab nationalism movement was an ultra-liberal initiative and that Israel was uniquely evil.

Here are some of the more outlandish things he said:

I come here today to convey to you the greetings of my people in Palestine who aspire for peace and justice. Palestine is a country in the heart of the Middle East, a country in the Middle East where Christians and Muslims live in harmony, a country in the Middle East, the birth place of Jesus Christ, in Bethlehem, where I pray with my follow Palestinian Christians three times every year, a country that hopes to live in peace and security side by side with its neighbor the State of Israel.

Christians in the West Bank have been fleeing ever since the PA took control. Muslims have forced Christians out of Bethlehem. Abbas has done nothing to help. In Gaza, Christians have been threatened and attacked as well. Abbas goes to church for his photo-ops but he has not lifted a finger to help Christians under siege, instead he blames their flight on Israel.

But today in Cooper Union I stand on the same place where Abraham Lincoln stood over 150 years ago and condemned the scourge of slavery, to state, loud and clear, that we the Palestinian people condemn terrorism, we condemn what happened on 9/11, we condemn the treatment of Christians and non-Christians by ISIS (Daaish) I am speaking on behalf of 99 percent of the Muslim peoples around the world Here, today, nearly in the shadow of Ground Zero, I state to the world: the barbarians of ISIS (Daaish) and Al Qaeda who kill innocent people are not faithful Muslims. And to the children and families of the victims of 9/11, I say as a Palestinian Muslim, I am sorry for your pain. These murderers do not represent Islam, we all stand against them to defeat their evil plans. At the same time we must work to end the Israeli occupation and establish a Palestinian state, for we cannot fight terror only by the gun.

We haven't forgotten that PAlestinians (and Arabs in general) celebrated 9/11. Quite publicly.

A poll this month showed 86% of Palestinians support and justify rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. That is terrorism. A 2003 poll found that 40% of Palestinians found suicide bombings sometimes justified, the highest percentage in the entire Muslim world.

The 99% figure is absurd. A survey in 2008 showed that fully 36% of Muslims worldwide thought that 9/11 was fully or partilly justified.

Abbas is a liar.

As you may know, Jews, Christians and Muslims have lived peacefully together in Palestine for centuries. So peace between religions runs through the heart of the most sacred City in the world, Jerusalem. Peace between the world’s religions runs through Jericho the Oldest City on Earth. Peace between the world’s religions runs through Palestine.

No, there was no peace. There was relative tolerance by Muslims of Jews and Christians as long as they didn't think of themselves as equals. But as travelogues from the 19th century showed, Jews were hated by Muslims and Arab Christians as well. Sometimes things got much worse. That is not peace.

On behalf of the brave Palestinian people, in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, I still come here to deliver a message of peace and justice to Israel and the rest of the world.

Most Palestinian Arabs say that their national goal is to destroy Israel. Abbas has done nothing to stop the incitement against Israel and Jews in his classrooms and newspapers. There is no desire for peace, there is no real denunciation of terror and this speech is a sick joke.

Abbas himself regularly praises terrorists who target children. He did it just last week.

I made a prayer for an America that is a real friend of Israel, not a false friend. And just as real friends do not let friends drive drunk, so too a real friend of Israel would not let them engage in the widespread killing of women and children, including bombing United Nations schools and hospitals, such as we just saw in Gaza.

Oh, please. His own Fatah members were shooting hundreds of rockets at Israeli women and children and he did not say a word against it. Abbas supports terror, at least tacitly.

Security requires justice and an end of occupation. We cannot understand how the Israeli government can be misguided as to fail to understand that the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza that kills thousands of women and children only sows more hate?

The official transcript says "hundreds of women and children" - Abbas changed it to "thousands." This is of course a deplorable lie.

Not to mention that Abbas' media and speeches in Arabic and statements by other officials who report to him are what creates the hate. While Israel spends hundreds of millions to save lives, Abbas doesn't really care whether his own people live or die as long as his cause is furthered. The cynicism is sickening.

In Maine every summer, young Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, Arabs, and others meet in a camp called seeds of peace, founded in 1993. They build the very world I am calling for in Palestine. It works. It's real. It's the future. To those who say peace between Israelis and Palestinians is impossible, I say, let them visit America. I say, let them visit Maine.

The hypocrisy here is incredible. Abbas is 100% against any similar programs for people under his rule - because these peace programs, such as the ones funded by the EU and sponsored by the Peres Center, are considered "normalization" with Israel. Even the most pro-Palestinian groups are barred from coming to Ramallah if they are Israeli. Supporting coexistence in Maine while opposing it in one's on backyard shows exactly how much Abbas cares to live in peace with Israel.

If you can stomach 35 minutes of lies, here is the video. The introduction by William Clark is especially risible, pretending that Abbas has been working for peace all his life. (No need to mention the Olympics massacre, is there?)

(h/t Miguel for a link)

Arab professor explains how the EU tried to help Hamas (video)

Dr. Bassam Tibi is Professor Emeritus of International Relations at the University of Goettingen and has served as Director of the Center for International Affairs established there in 1988. He also served as the A.D. White Professor at Large at Cornell University.

In 2009, he gave a lecture “The Islamist Challenge to America: Anti-Americanism and Antisemitism” for the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism . Within his lecture he gives an amazing, and very sobering, anecdote that is not well known.

He says that the EU was paying Gaza a half billion Euros per year before the Quartet said that Hamas must adhere to certain principles in order to be included in negotiations. But the Eu really, really wanted to continue to give this money to Hamas- run Gaza. So a top EU official EU asked Hamas to mouth the three principles at a press conference, adding "whether you comply with them or not, it's not our business": recognize Israel, accept the Oslo agreements and renounce violence.

If they did this, within a week, the money would resume.

Hamas replied that they can't do that. "They referred to their charter, they said that Palestine is property of God and (part of the Islamic waqf), we have no competence to negotiate over the property of God, therefore Israel has to go."

Tibi concludes, "People involved in appeasement are either naive or they don't know".

This little story illustrates that the EU was more interested in funding a terror group than they were in peace, even telling Hamas to pretend to be peaceful - something that would have made Israel look like the intransigent party, a clear pro-Hamas tilt. It proves that those who believe that Hamas can be appeased, or even be part of a peace process, are deluded. And it proves that the antisemitic Hamas charter, which many pretend is not really relevant today, is still the guiding document of the terror group.

Civilians reportedly killed in US airstrikes, and other Syria news

From CBS News, reporting on the US-led airstrikes this morning:

According to the Syrian Observatory, citing local activists on the ground, at least 30 Nusra fighters were killed in the strikes. The group said eight civilians, including two children, were also killed.

Practically none of the other mainstream media coverage of this top news story mentioned anything about civilian casualties.

Isn't it interesting that the media's focus on Israel's fight against radical jihadists, who were directly threatening millions of people with imminent rocket strikes, was centered on civilian casualties - and here no one really cares? We won't see any graphic photos of dead kids, except for those who read Syrian and Iranian propaganda news sites. There aren't hundreds of Western reporters on the ground in Syria eagerly camping outside hospitals in flack jackets to get some Pulitzer worthy footage of poor civilian victims.

Meanwhile Israel shot down a Syrian Sukhoi attack aircraft that came half a mile into Israeli territory. Here is alleged footage from the Syrian rebels.

But there was yet another story that came out of the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights:

Syria revolutionaries front and many Islamic battalions announced the beginning of the battle of " Nasron Mena Allah wa Fathon Qarib " which will be targeting the following::
- the UN hill which is taken over by Khan Arnaba Shabiha.
- Tal Ahmar " Ein al-Nouria hill " which is related to brigade 90.
- Taranja troop which is related to the 3rd battalion in the 90th brigade.
- Kataf tropp which is related to the 90th brigade.

the statement said that the strategic targets of the battle are " to liberate whats left of al-Quneitra land, and besiege Khan Arnaba and al-Ba'th city, which are the last bastions of the regular forces in al-Quneitra province .

It is interesting that both the Syrian warplane and the Islamists are concentrating on Quneitra - a town that is half in Israeli hands.

Are both groups trying to bring Israel into the conflict to gain support? Syria already said Israel's shooting down the fighter jet was “in the framework of (Israel’s) support for the terrorist (Islamic State) and the Nusra Front." I don't think that Syria would sacrifice one of its 19 Sukhois just for propaganda, but that is some pretty incompetent flying. But the rhetoric from the Islamists about Quneitra may be worth watching.

3 more fake "civilians" of the day

On July 14, PCHR said that Adham Mohammed 'Abdul Fattah 'Abdul 'Aal, 29, was a civilian.

The Fatah Al Nidal Brigades calls him a "mujahid martyr."

On July 20,PCHR implied, and Al Mezan said, that Mohammed 'Abdul Rahman Mahmoud Abu Hamad, 24 was a civilian.

Fatah's Nidal Brigades also call him a "mujahid martyr."

PCHR said on July 30 that Mohammed Mahmoud al-Astal, 25, was a civilian.

The same Fatah page describes him also as a "martyr mujahid."

His home had one of the families that B'stelem claimed Israel wiped out for no reason; B'Tselem did not identify him as a terrorist and his family as human shields.

(h/t Bob Knot for Hamad poster)

09/22 Links Pt2: Does HRW Understand the Nature of Prejudice?; Intel Invests $6Bil into Israel Plant

From Ian:

Does Human Rights Watch Understand the Nature of Prejudice?

A few days ago, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, tweeted the following statement: “Germans rally against anti-Semitism that flared in Europe in response to Israel’s conduct in Gaza war. Merkel joins.” Roth provided a link to a New York Times article about the rally, which took place in Berlin.
Roth’s framing of this issue is very odd and obtuse. Anti-Semitism in Europe did not flare “in response to Israel’s conduct in Gaza,” or anywhere else. Anti-Semitic violence and invective are not responses to events in the Middle East, just as anti-Semitism does not erupt “in response” to the policies of banks owned by Jews, or in response to editorial positions taken by The New York Times. This is for the simple reason that Jews do not cause anti-Semitism.
It is a universal and immutable rule that the targets of prejudice are not the cause of prejudice. Just as Jews (or Jewish organizations, or the Jewish state) do not cause anti-Semitism to flare, or intensify, or even to exist, neither do black people cause racism, nor gay people homophobia, nor Muslims Islamophobia. Like all prejudices, anti-Semitism is not a rational response to observable events; it is a manifestation of irrational hatred. Its proponents justify their anti-Semitism by pointing to the (putatively offensive or repulsive) behavior of their targets, but this does not mean that major figures in the world of human-rights advocacy should accept these pathetic excuses as legitimate.

Jennifer Rubin: Pushing back against the world’s oldest hatred

Meanwhile, as in Europe, U.S. college and university campuses are awash with anti-Israel rhetoric. However, on American campuses it gets dressed up as scholarship. (Singling out Israel and holding it to a different standard than any other country is classic anti-Semitism, as Natan Sharanksy pointed out. But for now let’s just called it anti-Israel propaganda.) The Chronicle of Higher Ed reports that, in a “joint statement issued on Wednesday, [several pro-Israel] groups argue that Title VI of the Higher Education Act, which provides funds to international-studies and foreign-language centers to educate the public and train security specialists, is being misused ‘to support biased, politicized, and imbalanced programs of Middle East studies.’ ” The groups argue that these “programs fail to satisfy Title VI’s intended purpose, flout Congressional intent, and thwart American national-security and foreign-policy interests.”
The groups point to two studies (the Amcha Initiative and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law) documenting the fixation some of these programs have on Israel, virtually all viciously critical of the Jewish state. The report notes: “The statement alleges that such abuses continue despite amendments to the Higher Education Act, enacted in 2008, that require programs receiving Title VI funds to reflect diverse perspectives. It urges Congress to amend the Higher Education Act to require recipients of Title VI funds to establish grievance procedures to handle complaints that their programs do not reflect a wide range of views. It also urges Congress to require the Education Department to establish a formal process to resolve complaints about the programs.”

Americans were too late in realizing Israel is not the problem

This delusional perception is a continuation of the decades-long approach that Israel is the root of all problems in the Middle East, a sort of almost anti-Semitic approach. Our conflict has been so inflated by politicians and academics, that over the years many have fallen into the trap of thinking that we really are the problem.
Now that same Kerry is trying to build a "coalition" to fight ISIS, and he didn't even bother to come to Israel, because what good can Israel do? Are we Sunnis or Shiites? Or maybe we are part of the conflict of Arab nationalism against radical Islam?
Indeed, he was very late in understanding that not only are we not an Archimedean point with which the problems of the Middle East can be solved, but that we have a very weak connection to these problems. Only now, the Americans have realized that our conflict is at the margins of the margins of the real problems in the region.

Open Letter to Henk Zanoli: the Dutchman who returned his Holocaust medal

I am truly sorry for the deaths of any and all innocent civilians, particularly the members of your family that were killed in the aforementioned bombing. I truly am. I am also saddened by any grief this may have caused you. That said I am concerned as to whether or not you are aware of the unfortunate connection certain members of this family have to Hamas, an organization with ideologies similar to those of the Nazis. Although the BBC made every effort to avoid telling this part of the story, your great-niece, the woman who married into this Palestinian family, has a brother-in-law who is a member of Hamas’ Al Qassam Brigades. This is a terrorist organization committed to the death of Jews to the same extent that the Nazis were when you behaved in the courageous and righteous fashion that you did so many years ago. My understanding is that her brother-in-law was in the house at the time of the bombing. It has also been reported that visiting the home on the day of the bombing was Mohammed Maqadmeh, also a member of Al Qassam. To put it in a different perspective, Al Qassam is to Hamas what the SS was to the Nazis. Brutal murderers with almost no conscience. Again let me say that you have my most sincere condolences for your loss, but I believe the presence of 2 terrorists on the premises at the time of the bombing is an important factor that can not be ignored.

Of course Muslims are attracted to ISIS because of Islamic theology

Israel's Mako has a stunning story of the first Israeli citizen to be killed after joining ISIS.

"P", an Israeli Bedouin physician, joined the ranks of ISIS and was killed three weeks ago by an US Air Force bombing raid on the Iraq/Syrian border 26 and single, he traveled to Jordan and studied medicine at the University of Amman, where he was considered an outstanding student. Upon his return to Israel he worked in a hospital.

Ten months ago, he and his cousin "O." decided to join ISIS due to its ideology to establish a Muslim state in the Middle East. With the assistance of another family member, they made contact with the organization and soon found themselves on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria. "He was an outstanding student in medicine," said a person familiar with the family. "We are shocked at all he enlisted in ISIS. He did not tell us anything about his intentions, perhaps we could have prevented , there were no early signs. He was religious but never showed extremist tendencies." he said.

P and his cousin took with them several thousand dollars, flew to Turkey last year and then crossed the border into Syria and joined ISIS. Sources close to the family say he served as a hospital's director of field organization on the Syria-Iraq border, tending to the wounded of the organization and responsible for the regional medical system. "He was in daily contact with us via Whatsapp. He sent us a message that he feels fine and there is nothing to worry about," said a source close to the family who added, "He was a good boy who was influenced by the ideology of the organization."

Three weeks ago, as mentioned, P. was killed along with dozens more of the organization's fighters. His cousin, who is in Syria, heard of the death and informed the family. Since then, the family is making efforts to retrieve his body to retrieve and bring it to Israel.

"When he did not answer the phone we realized something had happened to him," said the same source. "The family still can not believe he was killed. They find it difficult to believe that a person with a bright future in the medical world was killed in such tragic circumstances."

It should be noted that Israeli intelligence estimates some twenty Israeli Arab Bedouin have left to join the fighting.

So what attracted a bright young man to throw his lot with vicious Muslim extremists?

The reason is clear. While Westerners try to claim that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, obviously many Muslims disagree.

The fundamental problem, I believe, is that there is no generally accepted theology-based interpretation of Islam that convincingly shows that the beliefs of extremist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda are not Islamic. I'm not an expert, but I am not seeing any debates on actual Islamic theology going on, with the "moderates" putting on a convincing show that the "extremists" are flat-out wrong.

It isn't surprising that young Muslims who wholeheartedly believe in the religion will always seek the purest form of it. Some Muslims may be more moderate in practice, but Islamic theology does not seem to have kept pace with pragmatism. When idealistic, extremist Muslims who appear to be winning in their quest for a caliphate - something that most religious Muslims really do want but do not believe it is practical - then it is easy to see why they would be considered attractive.

Pride is a huge part of the Muslim psyche, and there is simply more honor in pursuing this pure Islamic agenda than in accommodating the desires of the non-believers. Add in the cult of martyrdom that Islam also encourages and the truly impressive PR job that ISIS is doing and you have the ingredients for a major, extremist, Islamic movement.

To ignore the Islamic elements of ISIS is extraordinarily naive. There are only two ways to fight it: defeating it decisively on the battlefield, which will take off the sheen of its power, and - more importantly - to have an alternate interpretation of Islam that soundly defeats that of ISIS.

I don't pretend to be an expert in Islam, but the impression I get is that if there was a theological debate between ISIS leaders and moderate Muslim leaders, ISIS would win hands-down. Young, smart and ideological Muslims seem to know this.

And no one is countering it.

The big question is - is there any theologically sound flavor of Islam that could win the ideological battle with ISIS fundamentalism that would convince young Muslims that ISIS is completely wrong?

Because if not, then the enemy really may be Islamic theology itself.

(h/t k)

12-year old Gaza boy, playing "resistance," dies digging a tunnel

Last night, a 12-year old Gaza boy died in Rafah as he was digging a tunnel in the sand there.

He apparently dug deep enough to get into the hole and then be suffocated by the walls collapsing on him.

The boy was pretending to be a Hamas member.

(h/t Bob Knot)

EoZ Rosh Hashanah Appeal

(This post will be on the top of the page most of the day. Scroll down to see newer posts.)

This quarter EoZ smashed all records, as many people came to visit during the Gaza operation. It looks like I will come close to a million pageviews just this quarter. While things calmed down a little this month, I have many new readers that have stayed.

For the blog, the war isn't over. I am still finding information and proof that the world was lied to during the war, especially with my series of Fake Gaza Civilians.

I also spent a lot of time proving without any doubt that Ken Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, is highly biased against Israel. I destroyed his sputtering arguments that he is equally critical of all human rights violations, as well as his absurd charges that all his critics are merely trying to silence him with accusations of antisemitism. With every new Palestinian human rights abuse I discover that he ignores, Roth is proven more and more to be a joke, and he doesn't even realize that his bias is directly hurting Human Rights Watch's reputation. The next step is to ensure that the HRW board of directors is aware of the damage he is causing and how he is trying to cover up for his excesses..

I created an e-book with my posts from the first two weeks of the war, and if I find the time I will revise it to include the entire war and the immediate aftermath.

I gave two talks to groups of young Jewish adults, posting one of them online. If you want me to speak to your group, let me know!

I gained over 4000 new Twitter followers. I passed the 20,000 post mark and had my tenth anniversary on the blog

Most recently I have been trying to show how hypocritical reporters are when it comes to being critical of Palestinian Arabs, ignoring stories that would be headlines in any other context. (And I only gave examples from a single week!)

I do need you guys to push these posts on Twitter, Facebook, bookmarking sites like Reddit and to directly forward them to pundits, journalists and politicians. Sometimes the truth gets out, but you never know which piece of information will filter to which major journalist or website and snowball from there. (A reporter for a major European paper contacted me last week about one of the bigger stories I discovered recently, and hopefully his article will show parts of the Gaza war in a completely different light than had been reported.)

I did get quoted by the New York Observer, The Blaze, The Volokh Conspiracy in WaPo, a Norwegian site, FrontPage, JPost, Arutz-7, International Business Times, Legal Insurrection, American Thinker, Washington Free Beacon , and more An article of mine was part of a presentation made to the UN. And this graphic of mine went viral.

As usual, Ian has done an outstanding job with the linkdumps, especially during the war, and I continue to include weekly columns by Mike Lumish and PreOccupied Territory.

All of this takes a very large amount of time, effort and money to keep things going. Please help contribute so I can keep getting you the news that you would not hear about otherwise.

Thanks as always to all of you!

09/22 Links Pt1: The West’s axis of evil friends; Turkey: What Ally?; The Mossad wants you!

From Ian:

The West’s axis of evil friends

Over the past six decades the US and its Western allies have fallen entirely under the spell of a few sheikhs who, in other times, would have been laughed off as characters conjured up by Dante or Euripides. It is madness, like watching a world turned upside down, to see the leaders of the free world bowing to people whose main accomplishment in life is getting religious police to hold down women to be whipped in public; whose main contribution to culture, philosophy and art are the blood stains on the ground following executions and whose bravest achievement is finding a way to confiscate the passports of foreign indentured servants and working them 12-hour days.
Americans teach themselves back home about Abraham Lincoln and democracy and the Bill of Rights and then proudly eviscerate every American value the second they search out foreign allies such as these. In the old days politicians in the West were concerned about working with despots, they actively campaigned against close alliances with the Turkish Sultan, “butcher of the Armenians,” or the Russian czar. Newspapers spoke out against injustices. But the West has become entirely inured to this today. Is it too much to ask of the leader of a democracy not to shake hands with the foreign minister of a country that lashes women for appearing in a dance video? That might jeopardize our relations with them and offend them? So what. Let them be offended. We are talking about regimes run by modern-day versions of the KKK, the Inquisition and Ray Rice... all rolled into one.
Will we never be rid of the cowardly foreign policies of countries that have become helpless democratic giants with no moral compass? The least we can do is continue to be shocked by the pandering to the abusers. It is like the Dark Ages. Yes, the world has become savage and full of abuses of humanity, but some people have to preserve the memory of what it could be and the knowledge that one day the men with dark sunglasses in Riyadh will meet with the fate that they so richly deserve.

How Independent is a Think Tank Funded by Hamas-Backing Qatar?

Although Indyk resigned from his Brookings post to assume the special envoy role, he returned to the think tank following the peace talks’ collapse. Critics say Indyk’s relationship with Qatar should have prevented his appointment by the State Department in the first place. Some also say Indyk was the source of leaks on the peace talks that were anonymously cited in media reports as coming from “a senior U.S. official” who blamed Israel for scuttling the negotiations.
Mark Rom, who worked for two years as a research follow at Brookings about 25 years ago, told JNS.org that Indyk should have considered that concerns over a conflict of interest would be raised before he took the job of U.S. special envoy.
“If someone at Brookings receives a lot of money from Qatar and then the person leaves and becomes a negotiator [in the Middle East], it’s hard not to see how that wouldn’t be perceived as a conflict of interest,” said Rom, who is currently the associate dean for academic affairs, co-director of undergraduate studies, and director of the MA in American Government program at Georgetown University. “I’m not questioning the integrity of [Indyk], but people of great integrity still can be in conflict-of-interest situations.”
A May 2013 Bloomberg View column by Jeffrey Goldberg challenged Brookings on its overly gracious treatment of the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. Goldberg described his attendance of a private, off-the-record dinner hosted by Brookings to honor Al Thani, writing that it was a “cringe-worthy” event.
“I went to the dinner that night embarrassed on behalf of Brookings, which, like many institutions in Washington, shouldn’t be taking money from despotic Middle Eastern regimes, yet does,” wrote Goldberg.

FIFA exec: World Cup will not take place in Qatar

Qatar will not host the World Cup in 2022, according to Theo Zwanziger, the German member on the executive committee of world football’s governing body FIFA.
“I think that at the end of the day the 2022 World Cup will not take place in Qatar,” Zwanziger said in an interview with Sport Bild Plus.
The former head of the German Football Federation cited high summer temperatures as the reason Qatar would lose the right to host football’s global showpiece.
“As Mr Zwanziger himself says, it’s his personal opinion,” a FIFA spokesman responded to AFP subsidiary SID when asked about the German’s statement.

UNHRC on Qatar: “I see no objection”

Die Welt has put together a pretty good case that Turkey is seeking to build nuclear weapons.

That Turkey is obviously working on nuclear weapons is hardly discussed publicly. The western intelligence scene, however, is largely in agreement about it.

The model for the strategy of the Turks is clearly Iran. Tehran seeks nuclear weapons by creating bomb material in secret under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. And Turkey has launched a large-scale civilian nuclear program in recent years. The official reason for this: The domestic economy is growing and needs more power.

In 2011 they contracted the Russian company Rosatom Ankara for 15 billion euros to build a large reactor complex on the Mediterranean coast, about 300 kilometers east of the tourist center of Antalya. Two years later, a similar agreement with a Japanese-French consortium for the price of 17 billion. Even more interesting than these figures are the contracts - and especially what is not in them.

When companies build a light-water reactor, they usually agree with the Government that the project will operate for 60 years and they will provide the necessary uranium for the operations and then take back the spent fuel. This was offered in the case of Turkey by both Rosatom and the Japanese-French consortium. So far nothing special.

But Turkey has waived in both cases to fix the supply of uranium and the disposal of spent fuel from the contract. She insisted on the contrary, to regulate this separately later. Ankara explains that this is not an unusual maneuver in the negotiations. But the intention behind it is easy to see: The Turkish leadership wants to keep these parts of the nuclear program in their own hands - and they are crucial to any State that wants to develop nuclear weapons.

First, there are the fuel rods: All over the world, the disposal of nuclear waste is discussed as a problem. Turkey on the other hand does not want to give up their spent fuel. The only logical explanation for this: they want to make preparations for the construction of a plutonium bomb.

And this is a civilian nuclear power plant so after burning off the bars they contain only 90 percent of waste, but in addition nine percent is permanently contaminated with uranium and plutonium. A plant that can isolate the plutonium from the highly radioactive material from the rods can be built within half a year and is about the size of a normal office complex. This has been shown in the United States system studies.

The fuel rods could theoretically be processed for reuse in a civilian reactor. But this is much more expensive than buying new. If Turkey still wants to keep the spent fuel rods, then there's just one reasonable explanation: She wants to gather material for a plutonium bomb.

The gaps in the contracts open yet another way to the bomb, namely directly with uranium. For Ankara uses the same technology that is also used to make the ore for a civilian reactor fuel available: uranium enrichment.

For the power plant operation, it must be enriched to 3.5 to five per cent, for nuclear weapons on at least 80 percent. The technical process is the same in principle. And so, it is a suitable cover for those who want to say that they are using it for power to in truth produce nuclear weapons.

According to the Federal Intelligence Service..., the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has already arranged in 2010 to secretly prepare for the construction of facilities for urainum enrichment. According to other intelligence findings Turkey already has a significant number of centrifuges. Where they come from, can be guessed, after all: Pakistan.

The Turks had a leading role in the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear smuggler who provided 1987-2002 Iran, North Korea and Libya with thousands of centrifuges. The electronics of all Pakistani assets came from Turkish partners. Khan temporarily had even the intention to relocate its entire illegal centrifuge production in Turkey. 1998 offered the then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif the Turks even a "nuclear partnership" in research.

Turkey had finally been helped in the construction of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program in the 80s. At that time many components, which could not be procured openly, were delivered via Turkey to Pakistan. Therefore it is not surprising that intelligence reports to date say there is brisk nuclear scientific exchange between the two countries.

But probably it's about more than this. AQ Khan has proven to give his customers not only the centrifuges, but also with complete blueprints for the construction of nuclear weapons [like he did with Iran, Libya and North Korea.]

Another important indication in the chain is the Turkish missile program.....

Tthere is the question of the meaning and purpose of such accelerated missile development. The answer is relatively simple: medium-range missiles are suitable, due to their low accuracy and payload, only for weapons of mass destruction. A program for their preparation is a strong - a very strong - indication of an ongoing nuclear weapons program.

But why exactly does the political leadership of Turkey want the nuclear option? Again, you have to know to read hints and omissions. In August 2011, the Turkish ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan, said: "We can not let Iran have nuclear weapons." Two years later, the then Turkish President Abdullah Gul clarified this position in an interview with the magazine "Foreign Affairs": "Turkey will not allow a neighboring country to have weapons which Turkey does not have."
...

Given the already established nuclear power of Israel and the nascent nuclear-armed Iran, the Turkish prime minister has no choice but to arm his country with nuclear weapons as well, if he wants to carry out his vision of building a great Turkish power. Because otherwise, Turkey remains to his understanding of secondary importance - and therefore Erdogan cannot and will definitely not be satisfied.

The author Hans Rühle was from 1982 to 1988 the Head of the Policy Planning Staff in the Department of Defense.