Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 02, 2014

10/02 Links Pt2: Antiwar Activists, 9/11 Truthers Gather In Tehran For Anti-Zionist Conference

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Free Speech: A Motorway Pile-Up of Moral Confusion

Who has the "right" to talk about Islam? The question arose thanks to the response of a Muslim student society at an American university.
Last week saw the latest in the apparently interminable efforts to make the Somali-born human-rights activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali into some kind of pariah. Readers will recall the atrocious treatment of Hirsi Ali by Brandeis University earlier this year, when the "liberal arts university" invited Hirsi Ali to speak and then withdrew the invitation at the behest of certain Muslim students and anti-free-speech activists among the university's faculty staff. As said at the time, the university's dropping of Hirsi Ali was a classic case of dropping a firefighter in order to appease arsonists.
The latest round has already kicked off. The William F Buckley Jr Program at Yale University actually asking Hirsi Ali to speak and did not rescind the invitation. On this occasion, an American university managed to hold firm and not bar Hirsi Ali, but the reactions of two types of students were especially intriguing.

Mordechai Kedar: The Middle East Masquerade Party

The Middle East is one big masquerade party, and all those taking part in it wear masks that are intended to project a false image to the outside world. Each participant changes his mask in accordance with the masks worn by the others around him, acts and speaks as the others do, even if he said and did entirely different things a day earlier – because today he is wearing a new mask. The truth remains hidden, and can only be exposed by expending much effort on research. There are some participants who wear multiple masks, one on top of the other, until they fall off and reveal the true face hiding beneath them.
The most striking example and largest mask of all is that of the "Pan-Arab Nation". Every Arab will tell you that there is a vast Pan-Arab Nation, characterized by a deep feeling of togetherness, based on a common language, a glorious past and joint aspirations. This is the premise behind the founding of the Arab League and its activities.
Except that the reality is very different. The idea of the Pan-Arab Nation never succeeded in replacing the loyalties of many Arabs to traditional, secondary frameworks such as the tribe, religion (Muslim, Christian, Yazidi, etc.) or sect (Sunni, Shiite, etc.). Outwardly, they claim "we are all Arabs", but within, behind the masks, Arabs battle one another, murder one another due to tribal, sectarian and religious differences as well as for reasons of self-interest. The Arab League's weakness derives from the shallowness of the Pan-Arab idea, from the fact that it is nothing but a thin, transparent and easily cracked mask.

Antiwar Activists, 9/11 Truthers Gather In Tehran For Anti-Zionist Conference

A number of American and European antiwar activists and conspiracy theorists have gathered in Tehran for a conference aimed at addressing supposed Zionist control of the United States, according to Iranian press reports and the Anti-Defamation League.
Code Pink chief Medea Benjamin, journalist and former Cambodian genocide denier Gareth Porter, conspiracy journalist and 9/11 truther Wayne Madsen, and PressTV contributor Kevin Barrett are all reportedly at the conference. Other reported attendees include Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, the anti-Semitic French comedian whose performances have been banned in several French jurisdictions, several Holocaust deniers, and former congressman Mark Siljander, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to being an unregistered foreign agent for an Islamic charity that the government said was connected to terrorism.
According to a PressTV article about the conference, the gathering’s “goal is to unveil the secrets behind the dominance of the Zionist lobby over US and EU politics.” The conference’s chairman is Nader Talebzadeh, an Iranian state TV host who previously organized a conference about “Hollywoodism” as a response to the movie “Argo.”
PressTV’s video report from the scene includes interviews with Porter, who is also shown addressing the audience, and with Madsen, as well as Art Olivier, a former California mayor who is a 9/11 truther.

ADL slams Iranian 'hatefest' promoting anti-Semitism

A conference denying the Holocaust and bashing Israel will take place this year in Tehran with a number of foreign guests, despite its cancellation by the Iranian government in 2013.
The 2nd New Horizon Conference bills itself as a "conference of independent thinkers & film makers" while focusing on topics such as the “similarities [between] Nazism and Zionism, America and the Zionist crimes in the world, Hollywood and the Israel lobby … .”
"A disturbing new element in this anti-Jewish gathering is the appearance on the guest list of a few high-visibility US anti-war and anti-Israel activists who claim their positions are not motivated by anti-Semitism," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.

From Ma'an:

Thirty tons of sweet potatoes were exported from Gaza to Europe for the first time since Israel imposed a siege on the Strip, the Ministry of Agriculture said Monday.

Ministry official Tahsin al-Saqqa said "this small quantity" of potatoes were exported after it was permitted by Israeli authorities.

Also from Ma'an:

Israel has agreed to allow Palestinians to export vegetables and fresh fish from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank for the first time since 2007, the head of the Palestinian crossings authority said Wednesday.

Nathmi Mhanna told Ma’an that Israel also agreed to let 450 units of heavy equipment including trucks, tractors, forklifts, buses, diggers, cement pumps, and rollers into the Gaza Strip.

I had asked COGAT last year why they hadn't allowed exports from Gaza to the West Bank, and honestly their answer wasn't very good.

If anything explodes in Palestinian Arab territory, you must blame Israel

A couple of weeks ago Ma'an "reported:"

Three Palestinians were killed and two were injured on Friday when an unexploded Israeli bomb blew up in the Shujaiyya neighborhood of eastern Gaza City.

A Ma'an reporter in Gaza said that a huge explosion was heard in the Shujaiyya area and ambulances rushed to the area immediately.

Spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza Ashraf al-Qidra said that two Palestinians were killed in the explosion.

Interestingly, the Gaza Ministry of Health didn't blame any Israeli ordnance for the deaths; they referred to it as a "mysterious explosion" which is what they call "work accidents."

All three killed were men in their 20s.

This isn't proof that it wasn't really from an unexploded Israeli bomb, but the news articles all assumed it was without any factual basis. (At the time I commented on Ma'an about this, and they didn't publish it.)

Now there is a similar report, from near Bethlehem:

Two Palestinian boys were injured on Tuesday when an unexploded Israeli ordnance blew up as they were pasturing sheep in the Bethlehem district, relatives told Ma'an.

Malik Muhammad Abu Dayyah, 12, and his 11-year-old brother Ali were tending to their father's sheep in the village of al-Manshiya when the ordnance exploded, family members said.

Malik sustained serious wounds to the thigh and Ali sustained minor burns. They were taken to an infirmary in the nearby village of Tuqu and Malik was later transferred to al-Ahli hospital in Hebron.

Israeli forces often enter al-Manshiya overnight, sometimes firing tear gas and stun grenades during clashes with locals. The Abu Dayyah family believes the ordnance that injured their sons was a grenade.

If the IDF routinely enters al-Manshiya for no apparent reason, Ma'an sure doesn't report it. A search for that village name over the past 8 years finds only a handful of mentions, none of them about Israeli forces.

However, there is some unexploded ordnance in the Bethlehem area reported once by Ma'an - old Jordanian minefields:

A US-based organization Roots of Peace on Friday launched a campaign to clear mines from fields near Bethlehem.

The initiative was announced at a press conference in Husan village, west of Bethlehem, where a 1.5-acre minefield has claimed four lives and injured 10 people since 1967.

The organization plans a large-scale campaign to remove 1.5 million landmines and unexploded ordnance from the West Bank, a statement said.

1.5 million!

Lots of opportunities to blame Israel for kids that get blown up!

10/02 Links Pt1: White House ‘appalled’ no more by civilian casualties; Why the Mullah is Smiling

From Ian:

Jennifer Rubin: White House ‘appalled’ no more by civilian casualties

Don’t get me wrong. The current U.S. practice is entirely legitimate. It is hard to argue with the assertion that “like all U.S. military operations, [airstrikes on the Islamic State] are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.” However, this does underscore how misguided and unfair U.S. condemnation of Israel was. Perhaps Ben Rhodes, the politically minded national security official who took it upon himself to lecture Israel, should finally apologize.
There is something else to be said here about the choice of airstrikes as the main U.S. tactic. The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for pursuing an air campaign that cannot possibly destroy the Islamic State. If that is a strategy with limited efficacy, what is the moral argument for continuing to employ it when civilian casualties result? It is one thing when a strategy is well-designed to achieve a specific military objective (e.g. destroying Gaza terrorists’ tunnels and rockets), but quite another when it is not. Imagine if Israel had conducted bombing raid after bombing raid resulting in civilian casualties rather than send in ground troops at great risk to them in order to strike with precision. I’m sure the Obama administration would have been appalled.

The irony of endorsing Palestinians while bombing ISIS

Even while bombing ISIS, aka the Islamic State, Mr. Obama continues to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, a plainly jihadist country that would inevitably be run by some adversarial combination of Hamas and the PA. Somehow, Mr. Obama doesn’t want to acknowledge that any Palestinian Arab state would promptly exhibit the very same jihadist tendencies as our own current terrorist targets in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Why, it is time for him to inquire, should we be fighting Islamist terrorists in one part of the Middle East, and simultaneously supporting distinctly similar others, just a short distance away?
Where are we now heading? At some point, if they can finally reconcile, the PA and Hamas will declare the existence of a fully sovereign Palestinian state. Any such state, however, whatever its theoretical “self-determination” rationale, and whatever its finally agreed-upon administrative form, would enlarge the risks of terrorism and war.
Already, Palestinian orientations to aggression are very easy to decipher. Official PA maps identify Israel as merely a part of Palestine. In essence, both the PA and Hamas have agreed upon a cartographic destruction of Israel proper — not a “two-state solution,” but rather a conspicuously “final solution.”
Any Palestinian state could have a directly detrimental impact on American strategic interests and, of course, on Israel’s physical survival. After Palestine, Israel, facing an even more expressly formidable correlation of enemy forces, would require greater self-reliance. Any such enhanced self-reliance would then call for a more coherent and more openly disclosed nuclear strategy, one focusing comprehensively upon deterrence, pre-emption, and war-fighting capabilities; and a corollary and interpenetrating conventional war strategy.

Edelstein: While Islamic State slaughters, West is focused on building in Jerusalem

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein blasted the West for criticizing Israel for building homes in Jerusalem when there are more pressing security issues, in a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Vienna Thursday.
Edelstein slammed Western leaders' "Pavolovian reaction" to the anticipated construction of 2,700 homes in the southeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, which was planned two years ago, but Peace Now released a report on the topic Wednesday.
"It's too bad that while the Islamic State is slaughtering, murdering and threatening the West, everyone is interested in a few homes being built in Jerusalem," he stated. (h/t MtTB)

William Schabas participated in "Russell Tribunal" after Goldstone said it was a kangaroo court

In 2011, Richard Goldstone wrote in the New York Times:

One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.

While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.

The head of the newer iteration of the Goldstone commission, William Schabas, said about Goldstone on his blog, "The world should be thankful that we have people like Richard Goldstone. He had better be on next year's Nobel short list."

Yet after Schabas' idol Richard Goldstone condemned the Russell Tribunal, William schabas participated in that sham. Not only that, but he identified with the members of the "tribunal" to the point that he referred to Zionists as "our enemies."

Schabas chose to side with a washed up rock star and a firm believer that shape-shifting aliens control our minds from the moon - instead of his former idol Goldstone.

No wonder his own colleague called on Schabas to recuse himself from this commission due to his bias.

Some lessons from a Hamas sermon

Here is a sermon given by Halil al-Hayya, member of Hamas' Political Bureau, on September 12. In it, he declares that Israel will never be part of the region, as it has been predestined by Allah to vanish.

While the rhetoric is familiar, there are a couple of interesting points.

The verse he quotes, from the Quran 17:7, actually refers to the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans, not a future destruction of Jews in Israel:

[Speaking to the Jews:] So when the second of the warnings came to pass, (We permitted your enemies) to disfigure your faces, and to enter your Temple as they had entered it before, and to visit with destruction all that fell into their power.

This is obvious both from the context of the chapter and from the fact that no one is building a new Temple. Unless the Quran predicts the building of the Third Temple, which it doesn't.

Interestingly, this online translation of the Quran adds the words "in Jerusalem" after the word "Temple." of course, the word Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Quran. but this shows that Muslims know very well that the Temple was there before the Al Aqsa Masque - but they won't admit it to Westerners.

Another point of this sermon is that, contrary to new Hamas claims that it is a national liberation movement, al-Hayya says that Palestine is the "spearhead of the nation." Not the "nation" but a "spearhead - for the entire Muslim 'umma, or, in current parlance, the Caliphate.

(h/t B)

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

Times of Israel reports:

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.