Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 02, 2014

Did the US denounce new Arab housing in Jerusalem? (UPDATE)

Using uncharacteristically harsh language, Washington officials launched a coordinated attack on Israeli plans to push forward new housing in East Jerusalem on Wednesday, saying the move would distance Israel from “even its closest allies” and raise questions about its commitment to seeking peace with Palestinians.

The nearly identical comments from State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki and White House spokesman Josh Earnest came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrapped up a meeting with US President Barack Obama during which he pitched for the US and Israel to work together to boost other Arab states’ involvement in the Palestinian peace process.

Psaki said the US was “deeply concerned” over Israel’s approval last week to advance the construction of some 2,500 housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos.

“This step is contrary to Israel’s stated goal and it would send a very troubling message if they proceed with tenders or construction,” Psaki said, adding the move would “call into question Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement.”

“This development will only draw condemnation from the international community, distance Israel from even its closest allies, poison the atmosphere not only with the Palestinians but also with the very Arab governments with which Prime Minister Netanyahu said he wanted to build relations,” she said, calling her own language “strong.”

At the White House, Earnest echoed Psaki’s language and said the issue was discussed between Obama and Netanyahu.

Virtually all of the coverage of this story misses one important detail:

Many of the housing units approved are earmarked for the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa!

i24 is one of the very few outlets that mentioned this:

Jerusalem's municipality said the procedure is only a bureaucratic one and not a political decision. The municipality also argued that half of the 2,610 homes will be allocated to the Arab population and the rest to Jews.

I'm not sure if it is quite half, according to this anti-settlement organization about 900 units are meant to expand Beit Safafa. Even so, when all of the articles about this issue mention "more than 2600 housing units in Givat Hamatos," they aren't engaging in fact-checking.

So either the US is telling Israel that they must not allow Arabs in Arab neighborhoods to build, or the US is only objecting to houses meant for Jews.

Last year I interviewed Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat and he described how he responds to American officials who insist on a freeze in Jerusalem building, using this very point:

What do you really mean? Because we've just been investing over a half a billion shekels on infrastructure and roads (in the Arab sector.) We're building 500 classrooms in the Arab sector...And we're registering many, many buildings for the residents of east Jerusalem. My question was, what do you mean by 'freeze.' Freeze everything? Or, God forbid, is somebody hinting, 'Wait a minute. Before you give someone a permit, check him out. If he's Jewish, freeze him, if he is Muslim or Christian give him a license'? ...Is somebody hinting to us to look at the color of his skin, to look at his religion before we give him a permit and a license?
Usually I don't get any answers back.

The entire interview is very worthwhile if you want to learn what is really going on in Jerusalem, not the spin that the media uses.

UPDATE: When Jerusalem's municipality approved 2200 new housing units last month, no one denounced it - except to say that it was inadequate.

Because that was in the Arab neighborhood of Al Sawahra.

(h/t Bob K)

Israel helps Jordan dispose of old spy devices, plus...

From Ammon News:

Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Lit. Gen. Misha'al al-Zabin, on Tuesday, revealed that the recent excavations in Ajloun were carried out to unearth spying equipment and naturalize explosives planted by Israel at the spot way back in 1969.

The army chief was speaking at a press conference along with the prime minister, the minister of interior and the government spokesperson to clarify to the public the reasons behind the digs which were rumored to be in search of historical treasures.

Al-Zabin said a large amount of explosives were connected to the spying equipment and that the impact of detonating so much explosive through conventional manners couldn't be estimated. Therefore, he added, the army demanded the Israeli side to come and diffuse these by themselves to guarantee the safety of the surrounding area and buildings. He pointed out that controlled explosions were carried out late at night without any damage." Explaining how the army was able to locate the spot where the spying equipment and explosives were planted, the chief of staff said a 2013 explosion on the Mafraq-Khalidiah road led the army to investigate the incident, and as a result the army immediately made a complete survey of areas around the kingdom and found five sites where similar defunct espionage facilities had been buried.

He added that the Israeli side provided full information about these devices, their locations and the time when these were planted, besides the type and quantity of explosives. It also assured that there were no more similarly planted explosives.

He noted that the devices were planted at a depth of 1 to 2.5 meters and that the information provided by the Israeli side was totally compatible with the army's findings.

A nice story of cooperation between Israel and an Arab country. But then we are reminded that Jordan. after all, is an Arab country:

The army chief said he was dismayed by what had been rumored by media outlets and on social medial platforms that the excavations in the northern governorate were designed to dig up "treasures." He vowed that the army will go after rumor-mongers or anyone who would harm the nation's and the armed forces’ security.

Don't start rumors about the Jordanian army - or else!

10/01 Links Pt2: Post-Liberal Europe and its Jewish Problem; Muslim Zionist recalls his transformation

From Ian:

Natan Sharansky: Post-Liberal Europe and its Jewish Problem

Why should European Jews, or anyone for that matter, choose to hold fast to their particular identity in the face of so much pressure to abandon it? Because identity, Jewish or otherwise, imbues life with a meaning and purpose beyond mere material existence. It satisfies a basic human longing to be part of something bigger than oneself, an inter-generational community that shares a set of values and a sense of overarching purpose.
Of course, there is another basic human longing: the desire to be free, to think for oneself and choose one’s own path. But these two basic desires—to belong and to be free—can reinforce rather than oppose one another. Freedom provides the opportunity to cultivate one’s identity fully; but freedom must be defended, and identity gives one the strength for that task. Just as it is a perilous mistake to sacrifice freedom for the sake of identity, it is a potentially disastrous mistake to jettison identity in the name of freedom, as today’s European post-liberals have done in their belief that nothing is worth dying for.
Indeed, the real issue here is not the future of the Jews; as so often in history, Jews are a litmus test. What is really at stake is the future of Europe. The attempt to liberate itself from its history and its traditional institutions has made Europe decadent and weak. Now that Islamic fundamentalism, an identity violently at odds with liberalism, has moved into the heart of tolerant, multicultural Europe, the question is whether a society that has run away from its identity in order to enjoy its freedom can muster the will to fight, before losing them both.
As one who grew up in the darker corners of Europe, and who garnered from the great European liberal tradition the strength to struggle against oppression, I can only hope that the democratic nation states of Europe will rediscover the capacity to fight for their freedom. But my task as an Israeli citizen is simpler. I must make sure that every Jew in the world who feels homeless will be able to find a home here, in this small island of freedom in a great ocean of tyranny, in this small oasis of identity in a desert of post-identity anomie. To these Jews I say: welcome to the Jewish democratic state.

Europe's 'Other': A Response to Natan Sharansky

n a forthright article in Mosaic, Natan Sharansky does us a valuable service in explaining the roots of disdain in Europe for Jews in general and Jewish national rights in particular. He correctly points to a 'post-liberal' culture which derides national identity and ironically extolls the most anti-liberal and violent minorities. The voices he brings from Europe about what Jews can and can't do are very troubling to say the least.
Yet I believe Sharansky missed a key part of the puzzle of this phenomenon, one which he must be aware of: the disdain of Western and Northern Europe for the people in the rest of the continent. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

World Must Understand That Anti-Semitism is a Universal Problem, Israeli Envoy Tells The Algemeiner (INTERVIEW)

In a lengthy interview with The Algemeiner in New York, where he discussed his work with Jewish advocacy groups, academics and others, Behar was keen to talk about the impact of the recent Gaza war on Jewish communities abroad. “When we looked at what was happening in Europe, we noticed that in places like Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, there was no rise in anti-Semitism,” he said. “Those countries that were once communist didn’t experience the levels of anti-Semitism that we saw in western Europe.” While eastern Europe is certainly not free of Jew-hatred – at several points in the conversation, Behar talked with concern about Jobbik, the neo-Nazi Hungarian party that has grown markedly in popularity – he emphasized that in western Europe, there has been an alarming crossover between anti-Israel rhetoric and demonstrations, and violent attacks on Jews, often carried out by Muslims.
There are, Behar said, four principal sources of anti-Semitism today: the Arab and Islamic world, the neo-fascist right, the radical left and online – during Israel’s operation in Gaza, social media platforms and website comment sections bristled with anti-Semitic invective, often from anonymous contributors. Anywhere where there are acute social, economic or political problems, Behar argued, is fertile soil for anti-Semitism. That also applies to those countries, especially in Europe, which Behar described as undergoing an “identity crisis.” The spectacle of Hungarian fascists unveiling a statue of the country’s pro-Nazi wartime ruler, Admiral Miklos Horthy, as well as the images from Greece of supporters of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party offering Hitler salutes, suggests to Behar that Europe has not quite gotten over its deadly recent past.
How, though, can a phenomenon that surfaces from Venezuela to Turkey, and that has rightly been described by scholars as “the longest hatred,” be countered effectively? Behar is modest about what is possible and he doesn’t claim that anti-Semitism will eventually disappear. But its toxic influence can, nonetheless, be ameliorated – and education, Behar believes, is key.

In Vienna, Edelstein warns: Indifference to anti-Semitism is not an option

Indifference to anti-Semitism cannot be allowed, because it was a crucial component in bringing about the Holocaust, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein warned Tuesday at a ceremony posthumously honoring 11 Righteous Among the Nations in Vienna.
“The Holocaust did not start in Auschwitz, Treblinka, Babi Yar, or any of the other myriad Nazi killing grounds.
It began in cities when bricks were thrown through Jewish storefronts, when synagogues were desecrated, and when Jewish businesses were boycotted, and it spread because too many of those good people remained indifferent,” he stated.
Edelstein pointed to “clouds of anti-Semitism brewing over Europe,” including attacks on synagogues and well-attended rallies featuring anti-Semitic slogans.

More from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Woodmere, NY, October 1 - The Jewish communities of Long Island's Five Towns area are in an uproar over a local synagogue's initiative to link individual member families with specific inmates in Israel's prison system incarcerated for engaging in terrorist activities, an initiative under which the families would send gift packages and letters to the convicted terrorists.

The Young Israel of Woodmere announced the launch of its new program this past weekend over Rosh Hashanah, with attendance at capacity for maximum impact. The initiative, called the Quest for Understanding in Israel and the Levant via Initiatives for Niceness and Giving (QUISLING), allows each member family to randomly select a candidate from among the thousands of Palestinians currently imprisoned in Israel for politically motivated attempts to harm Israelis. But the synagogue administration did not expect the intensity of the backlash from community members and others in the Five Towns area.

The synagogue's Facebook page and Twitter account were saturated with disbelieving or outright hostile comments Tuesday, ranging from inquiries over the veracity of reports regarding the program to direct pronouncements that the Young Israel of Woodmere had effectively removed itself from American Jewry.

"Pack up and move to Gaza," wrote one user. "Show love for your own family first, traitors," submitted another. Synagogue administrators were forced to disable comment submissions on Facebook to stem the tide of venom and incredulity.

"We had no idea, honestly," said board president Harold Friedman. "American Jews pride themselves on their tolerance, so who could be against a program to promote more tolerance in the world? We've been shaking our heads at this since Saturday night when the first reactions came in. We thought people would jump at the chance to help get some reconciliation going, especially during the season of penitence," he added, referring to the forty days that end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, this coming Saturday.

Senior Rabbi Hershel Billet conceded that some negative response should have been anticipated. "We ran a small-scale program last year to get some of our teens studying in Israel for the year to try visiting some Palestinian prisoners and strike up a conversation," he recalled. "But the response was lukewarm at best - we got maybe two applicants, and one was probably a mistake. At the time we thought perhaps we didn't market that effort enough, so this time around we made sure everyone knew about it by putting it front and center during Rosh Hashanah. I even devoted a few minutes to its importance during my sermon on Saturday."

What Rabbi Billet and the administration neglected to consider, however, was the opposition from people less accepting of cultivating friendship with criminals convicted of murdering, or at least trying to murder, Jews, some of whom were close relatives of synagogue members and other area residents. On Monday a crowd of approximately 40 people demonstrated outside the Young Israel on Peninsula Boulevard to demand that the program be canceled and the people responsible for it be dismissed from their roles in the administration.

So far, eleven families have signed up. "I was kind of hoping to get the one surviving member of the group that kidnapped those three boys," said Ilana Kaganoff, a mother of three, referring to the June kidnap and murder of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer, and Naftali Fraenkel. "I have this great gluten-free, low-carb recipe that's so much healthier than the stuff they gave out in celebration over there when the kidnapping happened."

Yes, this is satire.

A number of Arabic sites have reported over the past few days that Hamas had put up fliers and posters in mosques calling on young people to join a "popular army" in the Gaza Strip, in preparation for any future war with Israel.

The Qassam Brigades said in a declaration that it will train the youths on the use of "different light weapons and some heavy weapons, such as mortars, and in the context of preparing for the defense of the Palestinian people in any future confrontation with Israel."

A source in the Al-Qassam Brigades told the Anatolian News Agency that the training began on Sunday and claimed thousands of young people belonged to the People's Army.

Today, Hamas sort of denied the story, saying the training was merely "in order to educate and interest the next generation and entrench in them a culture of resistance."

(h/t Bob Knot)

10/01 Links Pt1: In Iraq, Syria, US lifts rules meant to protect civilians; Apologize to Israel, Obama

From Ian:

In Iraq, Syria, US lifts rules meant to protect civilians

The White House revealed on Tuesday that its usually strict rules of engagement, intended to prevent civilian casualties of US airstrikes, have been relaxed in the current offensive against the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Yahoo News in an email that a much-publicized statement last year by President Barack Obama that US drone strikes would only be carried out if there is a “near certainty” of no civilian injuries would not apply to the US campaign against jihadi forces in Syria and Iraq.
Hayden wrote that the “near certainty” rule was intended “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.
“That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” she continued, but added that the strikes, “like all US military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”

Apologize to Israel, Mr. President

This summer, as Hamas was raining rockets on Israeli civilians, storing munitions in civilian buildings, and firing rockets from mosques, schools, and clinics, the Obama administration had the audacity to say that it was “appalled” by Israeli attacks that unintentionally killed civilians, even calling them “disgraceful.”
In response, I observed that the administration holds Israel to a higher standard than it holds itself, demanding stricter rules of engagement for Israelis than Americans.
Now, as we drop our own bombs in Syria (and civilians die), the administration is further exempting itself from its own standards:

UN Watch: Exclusive: Schabas’ own colleague, human rights icon Aryeh Neier, calls for him to quit UN Gaza probe due to prior statements

A top figure in the human rights world has called for William Schabas to “recuse himself” from the new UN probe on Gaza, undermining Schabas’ claim that the only people who believe he should go are critics of the UN.
The statement was made last week by Aryeh Neier, founding director of Human Rights Watch, former head of the ACLU, and President Emeritus of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, and revealed today in a Wall Street Journal interview with UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
In a lecture at the SciencesPo Paris School of International Affairs, where Neier teaches together with Schabas, the former said that commissions of inquiry are one of the few good things to come out of the UN Human Rights Council.
Turning to Schabas, Neier called him a well known and leading scholar. However, given Schabas’ statement on bringing Netanyahu to ICC, Neier said that “Schabas should recuse himself.”
Neier said that “any judge who had previously called for the indictment of the defendant would recuse himself.”
Schabas’ appointment gives Israel a perfect excuse to denounce the UN commission of inquiry, said Neier. “Why make it so easy for Israel to do so?” he asked.
Neier went on to say that the sheer quantity of resolutions against Israel at the UN Human Rights Council gives Israel the ability to cast the HRC as “anti-Israel” and therefore to “justify its own rejections of the HRC.”

NYT Robert Mackey's "dismissive contempt"

I wrote in my last post about Mairav Zonszein's insulting and inaccurate NYT op-ed last week.

At Tablet, Liel Leibovitz wrote a response that demolished Zonszein's examples that she claimed proved that Israeli society suppresses (leftist) dissent.

As I noted, the Zonszein op-ed wasn't a criticism as much as an insult. Leibovitz's response definitely reflects that he was insulted, and it insults the New York Times (and Zonszein) in turn for publishing an argument that can be so easily dismantled with simple facts and many provable counter-examples. But Leibovitz at least backs up his angry reaction with facts.

The Twitter thread that followed between leftist writer Lisa Goldman, Zonszein and the New York Times' Robert Mackey is a truly great example of echo chamber thinking.

OK, let's go through the logic.

Lisa Goldman and Robert Mackey are idiots. And I just proved it with that very statement.

You see, if Goldman and Mackey respond to that statement with "dismissive contempt," that is actually validation. If they contemptuously dismiss it by ignoring it, that is actually validation. If they try to prove me wrong, then it shows that I "touched a nerve" - which is actually validation.

So according to the brilliant Goldman and Mackey, there is no possible response to a baseless insult that can disprove it.

Of course, that logic doesn't make sense - unless you are Lisa Goldman and Robert Mackey, which just goes to prove that they are idiots!

QED.

The irony, of course, is that this entire thread is one of "dismissive contempt" for an emotional but devastating rebuttal of Zonszein's article - which again, according to the participants own appalling "logic", proves Leibovitz is correct!

In the real world, proof is based on facts. Zonszein's facts were shown to be quite wrong. Not one of her pals in this thread could manage to disprove a single one of Leibovitz' points. Mackey concludes that "there is nothing of substance in these partisan ramblings."

Projection much?

Goldman at least gets something right. There is a pattern that emerges, and that pattern brings clarity - from the side that doesn't bother to answer real criticism.

It should be troubling to the New York Times management that Mackey so cavalierly dismissed well-documented criticism of the piece. It shows, yet again, that the New York Times is as biased as possible, truth be damned.

(h/t Brightside)

Mairav Zonszein's hate for Israel

During Rosh Hashanah, the New York Times published an op-ed by Mairav Zonszein called "How Israel Silences Dissent." The op-ed goes through various alleged examples of how "Israel" - which may be the government, but mostly Israeli society- have "silenced" Israel's radical Left during the summer war.

One example that Zonszein uses illustrates the problem with this essay nicely:

In July, the veteran Israeli actress Gila Almagor performed at Tel Aviv’s Habima Theater even though she had received threats that she would be murdered on stage. In an interview in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot a few days earlier, she had expressed feeling ashamed after a 16-year old Palestinian, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped and burned alive by Jewish extremists.

Was the criticism of Almagor because she said she was ashamed?

On July 6, I published an open letter that unequivocally condemned the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir and included this sentence: "The idea that Jews could do such an act fills us with shame and horror."

I received essentially no criticism for the piece. I didn't receive any death threats. On the contrary, scores of Zionist bloggers, many of them the same right-wing Israelis that Zonszein is attempting to vilify, signed on to this letter.

That little fact is not very convenient for Zonszein's thesis.

What was the difference between Almagor's statement and mine?

Almagor was quoted in a Hebrew Yediot article as saying "I am ashamed to be an Israeli," which is a lot stronger than "feeling ashamed."

Whether the quote was accurate or not, the reaction of Israelis to this quote was not because they agree with the murder of Muhammed Abu Khdeir, as Zonszein disgracefully implies. It is because the Almagor was apparently saying that all of Israel is responsible for the murder - but she isn't, because she is above all that.

She insulted the entire Israeli people. (And, in reality, the Israeli Jews, because if an Arab had murdered Abu Khdeir she wouldn't have said anything like that.)

Obviously the death threat that she received is reprehensible and indefensible, but it was the act of a single hater, not an indication of how "Israel" silences dissent. And the larger reaction to the quote was an indication of how people react when they are insulted, not evidence of any supposed silencing.

As a Haaretz op-ed by a leftist notes, Israeli society heard plenty from all sides during the war, no one was silenced.

It turns out that all of Zonstein's examples of supposed silencing are equally cherry-picked or described inaccurately. The anti-leftist protests were organized by extremists that hardly represent Israel. She said that Gideon Levy "wrote an article criticizing Israeli Air Force pilots" but Levy's article was a bit more than criticism: he said that Israel's pilots were "perpetrating the worst, the cruelest, the most despicable deeds." Again, this is an insult to the country and its army, not mere criticism of the war. And it is not done out of love of Israel but out of hate.

Which is the entire point of Zonszein's piece. Like most in Israel's radical left, she is not interested in criticism of Israel out of love. No, Zonszein is saying that "Israel" and "Israeli society" themselves are guilty of repressing dissent, of silencing criticism, of only allowing the most right-wing opinions to be aired. By doing so, and by publishing this in the New York Times (where fact checking is a bit selective in anti-Israel op-eds,) Zonszein is placing herself above and outside Israeli society altogether. "Israel" is guilty of all these crimes - but Zonszein and her similarly thinking cabal are not. Israel isn't a flawed society that she wants to improve out of love, it is an evil society that she is better than.

A true lover of Israel would note that her examples don't even come close to representing Israeli society. A hater of Israel will choose examples that justify their pre-existing hate for Israeli society.

Israelis have no problem with self-criticism. In fact, that is the national sport. But to have self-righteous ideologues like Zonszein place themselves above virtually the entire Israeli public is to invite vitriolic criticism by that public.

Criticism that free-speech advocate Zonszein seems not to be too thrilled with.

The radical Israeli Left, represented by +972 magazine writers and others, always expresses frustration as to why Israelis don't seem to listen and to their arguments and take them to heart. The reason is simple: Like all humans, Israelis aren't going to listen to people who constantly insult them. They will not be receptive to those who act out of malice towards their own people.

There's a lesson there.

(A followup post is coming...)

A new poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows that while Gazans have grown more disillusioned with Hamas and terror over the past month, West Bank Palestinians are more enthusiastic about terror.

According to the summary provided by the center:

An overwhelming majority of 80% supports the launching of rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israel if the siege and blockade are not ended. Support for launching rockets drops in the Gaza Strip to 72%. This means that (if the poll weighted the populations of the two sectors properly) that the percentage of West Bankers who support rocket attacks against Israeli civilians is about 84%.

A majority of 57% believe that launching rockets from populated areas in the Gaza Strip is justified and 39% say it is unjustified. Among Gazans, belief that it is justified to launch rockets from populated areas drops to 48% while increasing in the West Bank to 62%.

Support for terror and armed conflict is still very high, but trending downwards, as disenchantment with Hamas grows. A large majority of 81% prefers "Hamas' way of resisting occupation." Support for Hamas’ way stood at 88% one month ago.

63% favor the transfer of Hamas’ armed approach to the West Bank and 34% oppose that. One month ago, support for this transfer stood at 72%. (I don't have details on the breakdown of populations for these questions.)

Other interesting findings:

The percentage of Gazans who say they seek immigration to other countries stands at 44%; in the West Bank, the percentage stands at 22%.

Only 23% say there is press freedom in the West Bank and an identical percentage say there is press freedom in the Gaza Strip.

Only 29% of the Palestinian public say people in the West Bank can criticize the authority in the West Bank without fear. By contrast, a larger percentage of 35% say people in the Gaza Strip can criticize the authorities in Gaza without fear.

The Western perception that Mahmoud Abbas' PA is more tolerant and liberal than Hamas is simply not reflected in these poll results.

Moreover, the relative intransigence of West Bank Palestinians compared to Gazans shows that the war didn't radicalize the Gazans as much as it radicalized the people who were not directly affected.

Saeb Erekat gets even nuttier (if that is possible)

From AFP:

A senior Palestinian official on Tuesday likened Benjamin Netanyahu to the leader of the Islamic State group, after the Israeli prime minister compared Hamas to the organization.

"Netanyahu is trying to disseminate fear of the Islamic State led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but Netanyahu forgets that he himself leads the Jewish state," said Saeb Erekat, the PLO's chief negotiator in peace talks with Israel.

"He wants us to call Israel the Jewish state and supports terrorist settlers who kill, destroy and burn mosques and churches... like Baghdadi's men kill and terrorize," Erekat told AFP.

Just as a reminder, the constitution of "Palestine" says "Islam is the official religion in Palestine."

By contrast, Israel has no state religion.

So by Erekat's definition, the PA is far closer in its laws to the Islamic State than Israel is.

(h/t Ronald)

09/30 Links Pt2: J Street's Beyoncé-Themed Anti-Israel Campaign; The Jewish Food Taste Test

From Ian:

In Depth: UK anti-Semitism continues unabated after Gaza war

The Israeli defensive war against Hamas in Gaza may have finished a month ago but its side effects are still reverberating abroad, not least of all in the UK.
While the range and level of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activity in Britain has not matched that seen in parts of continental Europe such as France, the UK Jewish community still felt its effects as never before, as illustrated by near record levels of incidents reported by the organization responsible for the Jewish community’s defense, the Community Security Trust (CST).
Their monthly anti-Semitism figures told it all. In July, the CST recorded more than 302 incidents, while the provisional figure for August is already more than 150. The statistics are incomplete as the CST anticipate receiving more detailed information about incidents from the various regional police authorities and other sources, many of which, due to their other responsibilities and priorities, take their time in submitting reports. Each and every incident reported has to be assessed and, where necessary, duplicated reports must be eliminated.
But the overall figures do not lie. The CST points to a comparison of the July total of 302 incidents with the 304 incidents registered in the six-month period from January to June 2014.

The NBA To Be Hit With Anti-Israel Protests?

In his commentary posted by the far-left magazine, "The Nation" called "Are Gaza Protests Coming to the NBA Preseason?" Dave Zirin uses the possibility of the NBA being hit by protests to make a one-sided argument declaring the evil nature of Israel and the IDF. Zirin also ignores that the groups threatening to protest are not simply against Israeli policies but call for the destruction of the Jewish State, and implies that the NBA is a tool of Israel.
From the first paragraph Zirin misleads the reader:
"When Israeli sports teams travel to Europe, they are often met with protest. Palestinian solidarity and human rights organizations, such as Red Card Israeli Apartheid, have argued that such spectacles “normalize” the military occupation suffered by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. They also argue that it is fantasy to pretend that these games do not carry a strong political as well as symbolic weight."
Israel left Gaza on August 15, 2005. The greenhouses and other industry starters Israel left when it disengaged were turned into terrorist launching pads and missile launchers.
After explaining Israel Maccabi's Euroleague championship earned the team its preseason tour, Zirin offers a one-sided commentary about the recent Gaza war. Using the words of an Israeli expatriate who uses the Hamas-supplied casualty numbers, "The Nation" commentator argues that this is no time for "hoops" as usual. He neglects to tell the reader the source of the casualty numbers, and never mentions the Hamas rocket attacks or their use of human shields.

Anti-Israel activists perform “blood bucket challenge” at Yad Vashem

If you thought the “blood bucket challenge” performed by Megan Marzec, President of the Ohio University student senate, was a disgusting politicization of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, just wait.
A group calling itself “Jews Against Genocide” just performed the stunt at various locations in Israel, including at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem.
The group’s Facebook page indicates it was formed in July 2014. That page also indicates it is a supporter of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement.
The stunt is promoted at the website of the anti-Israel The International Solidarity Movement where it is noted that the group claims inspiration from Marzec.

Israeli Socialist Movement Compares IDF to Nazis at Auschwitz

Parents of Israeli high school students from the coastal region were left furious, after a letter making the outrageous comparison between genocidal Nazi troops and IDF soldiers was read last week during an organized youth trip to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.
The letter was written by a 25-year-old educator and coordinator of Ha'ihud Hahakla'i (the Agricultural Union), a youth movement founded in 1978 from the socialist movement of the same name that has been active developing agricultural settlements since the 1920s. The movement on its website describes itself as "apolitical."
The coordinator of the socialist youth group sent the letter with several of the students in the high school class visiting Auschwitz who belong to the group. Reportedly after one of the students showed the letter to the teacher he was encouraged to read it to the class, which he did, according to Walla!.

Arabs terrorize Jewish kids next to Mount of Olives (video)

From The Jewish Press:

Terrified Jewish nursery school and kindergarten children were rushed into bomb shelters in Jerusalem’s Maaleh HaZeitim neighborhood after 10 masked Arabs attacked the Jerusalem neighborhood’s complex with Molotov cocktails, fireworks and stones on Tuesday.

The Arabs specifically targeted toddlers from a nursery “Mishpacton” who were playing outside.

The teachers rushed the children inside as the Arabs began throwing explosive and rocks at the children, an angry resident told JewishPress.com.

Two other schools also rushed their children indoors as explosives landed near the schools.

The neighborhood housing complex has 4 nursery and kindergarten schools.

The crying children were rushed into the school’s bomb shelters to protect them from the attack and the loud explosions.

The police took 7 minutes to arrive. But before responding, police asked residents if anyone was actually injured in the attack.

When they did arrive, the Arab attackers ran.

Arabs have been targeting Jews in the area, both dead and alive, quite a bit recently.

Maaleh HaZeitim is located across the street from the ancient, Jewish, Mount of Olives cemetery.

On Rosh Hashana, Arabs desecrated the Gur Hassidim section of the cemetery, destroying 40 graves.

Here's video of the attack:

Post by ‎אריה קינג - Arieh King‎.

I visited one of the apartment complexes the last time I was in Israel. You might wonder why Jews would want to live there, especially after looking at how the neighborhood looks from the angle of this video. But the view on the other side is what is stunning.

Here is a video of the view from one of the synagogues inside the complex:

The kids playing on the roof have an equally majestic view of Jerusalem:

(h/t Bob K, Ken K)

Villa Rouma is a film made by an Arab citizen of Israel. She tried to get funded by Arab sponsors, but they refused, so she got funded by the Israel Film Fund and the New Israel Fund:

Before film director and scriptwriter Suha Arraf approached the New Israel Fund (NIF) [sic - not the NIF - EoZ] to produce Villa Touma (2014)—her first fictional film as a director—she applied to a number of Arab corporations for funding, but didn’t even receive a reply.

“I knocked at many Arab and non-Arab doors. Had a single corporation responded, I would not have gone to that fund [NIF]. But what can I do? Arab donors seem to have no objection about me going to the NIF,” Arraf told Asharq Al-Awsat. She added: “As for the media, it is attacking the film aggressively for being funded by the Israeli state.”

This issue has affected other Palestinian film directors in the past, including Mohammad Bakri and Elia Suleiman. There seems to be no Arab cooperation or investment in Arab films directed by Palestinian filmmakers living in Palestine, yet there is a distinct readiness to accuse a film director of “selling themselves” for receiving Israeli funding.

It was shown in a number of film festivals, although Arraf insisted that it be called a "Palestinian" film rather than an Israeli film. Some film festivals decided to say that it did not come from any country.

Egypt, however, didn't like the taint of Israel that the film had:

Egyptian authorities have confiscated the film “Villa Touma” – which was written and directed by Arab-Israeli director Suha Arraf – preventing the film from being screened during the Alexandria Film Festival in Egypt.

The film was registered as Palestinian but was made with primarily Israeli public funds, including $400,000 from the Israel Film Fund.

“Egyptian Customs reserved the film’s copies, and we will not be able to display it within the festival,” said film critic and festival director Amir Abaza.

After the Alexandria Film Festival closed, officials explained its disappearance this way: "The festival's organisers were unable to secure a copy of Villa Touma by Israeli-Arab filmmaker Suha Arraf."

Meanwhile, the Israeli Film Fund is upset that a movie they funded is not being credited to their country, and they want their money back. Arraf argued back that she can define herself however she wants and that her tax dollars pay for the funding like any other citizen's.

(h/t Yoel)

09/30 Links Pt1: Kicking the PLO habit; PA honors murderers of 3 Israeli teens

From Ian:

David Horovitz: Bleak Netanyahu warns of militant Islam’s global ambition

There were no gimmicks. Few excruciating one-liners. Just a single visual aid: a photograph of three children in Gaza at play right next to a rocket launcher.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a no-nonsense address to the United National General Assembly on Monday — presenting himself as the leader of a “proud and unbowed” nation, charged with the “awesome responsibility” of ensuring his much-threatened people’s future in a brutal, unstable region.
It was not a speech entirely bereft of hope. He reached out “to Cairo, to Amman, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and elsewhere” and asserted that a rapprochement with Israel by such Arab players could in turn yield a peace agreement with the Palestinians, which, he also said, “will obviously necessitate a territorial compromise.”
But the outlook he presented was immensely grim, nonetheless. His bitter overview, he said toward the end of his remarks, “may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but it is the truth. And the truth must always be spoken, especially here in the United Nations.”
As spoken by Netanyahu, the truth is that “militant Islam is on the march,” that its ambitions are global, and that all its many, sometimes competing factions are “branches of the same poisonous tree.” Thus it is ridiculous and self-defeating for countries to support the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State but criticize Israel for tackling Hamas. If not stopped in its tracks, he indicated, Islamic extremism would come for everyone.

Caroline Glick: Kicking the PLO habit

The signs are everywhere that the time has come for Israel to abandon the PLO.
So long as the PLO remains in power, the lives of Israelis and Palestinians will only get worse.
PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s speech last Friday at the UN General Assembly where he repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide was not merely an abandonment of direct peace negotiations with Israel. Abbas abandoned the very concept of peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians.
Abbas called for the UN to pass a resolution that will require Israel to cede Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in their entirety to the PLO within a set period of time. No Israeli consideration can be taken into account. No Israel concern can be attended to.
As he put it, “Palestine refuses to have the right to freedom of her people, who are subjected to the terrorism by the racist occupying Power and its settlers, remain hostage to Israel’s security conditions.”
As is always the case, the immediate victims of Abbas’s blood libels are the Israeli Left. The politicians and media elite that have hitched their horse to the PLO were again left stuttering by the wayside.
For some, like Meretz chair Zehava Gal-On, stuttering is a fine option. So she pushed out an endorsement of Abbas’s genocide speech.

Mahmoud Abbas’s dangerous grandstanding

For several years Mr. Abbas has oscillated between half-hearted participation in peace talks and attempts to advance the Palestinian cause through unilateral action at the United Nations. The latter initiatives have no chance of substantive success and risk being self-defeating, as the Palestinians should have learned from Mr. Abbas’s last such gambit in 2012. Then their lobbyists were unable to win enough support for a U.N. Security Council resolution even to force a U.S. veto, and a compensatory symbolic measure in the General Assembly provoked Israel to impose painful financial sanctions.
Mr. Abbas nevertheless is trying the Security Council again, after refusing to respond to a U.S. framework for peace talks painstakingly developed by Secretary of State John F. Kerry. He proposes a resolution that would mandate the creation of a Palestinian state based on Israel’s 1967 borders in a set period of time; when it is voted down or vetoed by the United States, the Palestinians hint that they will seek a war crimes investigation of Israel by the International Criminal Court. That, in turn, would almost certainly prompt retaliatory sanctions by Mr. Netanyahu’s government and possibly by Congress, which supplies the Palestinian Authority with much of its funding.
Mr. Abbas has repeatedly rejected violence, and he has convinced a series of U.S. and Israeli negotiators that he has a realistic view of the terms for a Palestinian state. Yet he has now rejected platforms for a settlement on two occasions from two U.S. presidents. He persists in grandstanding gestures that he must know will only delay the serious negotiations that must precede the creation of a Palestinian state and that undermine those in Israel who support such talks. He has spoken for years of retiring but, at 79, he clings to his post four years after his elected term expired. Hamas has done the most harm to Palestinians and their cause in recent years. But Mr. Abbas has done little good.

Sudanese news site Al Nilin reports that head of the Sudan Fatwa Authority Sheikh Abdul Rahman Hassan Ahmed Hamed issued a scathing criticism to the Sudanese government for allowing a young chess player to compete against an Israeli at the World Youth Chess Championships held recently in Durban.

Omar Eltigani faced Israeli Matan Poleg on September 25.

Abdul Rahman said that the country is in a state of war with the Jews, and to play against an Israeli is a tacit recognition of Israel. Rahman added that a Sudanese playing against a Jew in one table means "reconciliation and tolerance," saying that the meeting was a great disservice to the Muslims and the Sudanese, because the situation requires "not mixing with Jews" as he put it.

He also said that chess was not a game for Muslims to play, according to most authorities, although a minority felt that it had value.

Poleg won the match.

Meanwhile, the president of the Sudanese Chess Federation Tariq Zarrouk resigned from his position in protest of the match.