Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 03, 2014

10/03 Links Pt1: Leading Journalist Slams AP Claim That ‘Vast Majority’ of Gazan Dead Were Civilians

From Ian:

Leading American Journalist Slams AP Claim That ‘Vast Majority’ of Gazan Dead Were Civilians

A leading American investigative journalist and political commentator is going on the offensive against the widespread claim that the vast majority of the casualties in Gaza during the summer conflict between Israel and Hamas were civilians.
Forbes contributor Richard Behar is taking the Associated Press (AP) to task for its repeated assertion that the overwhelming proportion of Palestinian deaths during the conflict were civilian. “They report it without any caveats, or any skepticism, or any competing sources of data,” Behar said in a post yesterday on his Facebook page.
In an interview with The Algemeiner, Behar – whose August 21 column entitled “The Media Intifada” offered trenchant criticisms of American media coverage of the Gaza war – expressed grave concern about the AP’s reporting of the conflict. “AP has enormous power and influence in the media world, especially with the big media outlets who pick up their material all the time,” Behar said. “As long as they keep shooting this stuff out, they are doing damage. They should not be saying in their stories that the vast majority of casualties are civilians. They could at least mention that there are other sources reaching different conclusions.”

U.N. Debate: Hillel Neuer calls out Hamas for war crimes (h/t Sara)

Melanie Phillips: Fighting the battle while losing the war

Netanyahu’s attempt to educate the world about the hydra-headed global jihad appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Last Monday, the State Department said it did not agree with him that Hamas, Islamic State and Iran were all part of the same Islamist movement. For America, it said, Islamic State posed a different threat. But how can this possibly be worse than Iran? At Wednesday’s joint press conference with Obama, Netanyahu opened an ingenious new front. A “commonality of interest between Israel and leading Arab states,” he said, was now starting to emerge from the current turmoil in the Arab world.
He seemed to be suggesting a possible alliance by Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates not just against Islamic State but also against Iran. Just as Obama was persuaded to proceed against Islamic State only when he gained cover from Arab states, so perhaps Netanyahu hoped to persuade him he could act with similar Arab cover against Iran.
Even more sinuous was the hint that a similar alliance might pull off the prize Obama always hoped would crown his presidency: a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Clever stuff, this, turning Obama’s obsession from a malign threat against Israel to a win-win inducement. Whether it has the slightest chance, though, of shifting the US away from its headlong spiral of Iranian-appeasement is another matter.
The alternatives for the US and its allies are stark.
Either they support Israel in fighting Iran as the principal enemy of the West – or they crumble before Iran and thus inescapably empower its attack on the West. The free world can only hold its breath.

Caroline Glick: Netanyahu’s statements and policies

In light of Obama’s absolute commitment to the anti-Israel, PLO-centric policy model for dealing with the Palestinian rejection of Israel, for the next two years there will be no change in US policy on the issue.
Under these circumstances, Netanyahu’s task is to lay the foundation in Washington for support for an Israeli policy that abandons the PLO as a partner and moves beyond the failed two-state model. Here, Netanyahu’s statements at the UN and the White House indicate that this is the path he has embarked upon.
Unfortunately, while Netanyahu may prefer to lay the groundwork for a new policy indirectly and cautiously, Abbas’s bid to convince the US to support the passage of a Security Council resolution that would require Israel to withdraw from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem a week after the 2016 presidential elections will likely force Netanyahu present an alternative to the PLO-centric two-state plan sooner rather than later.
After the 2016 elections, Obama will be unconstrained by concerns for Democratic candidates.
Most of the Security Council resolutions against Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria were passed after the 1980 presidential elections when the then lame duck Jimmy Carter felt free to attack Israel at will.
To avoid a repetition of that experience in late 2016, Netanyahu will have to offer an alternative to the failed two-state plan ahead of the 2016 presidential nominating conventions.
Netanyahu’s statements in the US this week present us with a mixed picture of his leadership.
Netanyahu appears more resolute on the Palestinian threat than he has in the past. This is a good thing. But on the most pressing threat Israel faces today, his strong words rang hollow. The only way to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power is for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Until Israel adopts a policy for doing so, words will not suffice.

Iran kicks Israel out of the Middle East

I thought this was amusing:

TEHRAN (ISNA)- Iran officially opened the first bulletproof glass factory of the Middle East in Ardakan, Yazd Province, central Iran.

Since Israel manufactures bullet proof glass, I guess that Iran not only doesn't recognize Israel, but has managed to cut it completely out of the region!

Here's a 2010 demonstration of a different company's uni-directional bullet proof glass made in Israel. This way soldiers can be protected but can fire back if necessary without exposing themselves to enemy fire.

The Telegraph reports:

The editor of The Lancet has expressed his “deep regret” to Israeli doctors after his journal published a controversial letter in the wake of the Gaza war co-authored by two scientists who had previously circulated Ku Klux Klan material.

Addressing the physicians and staff at the Rambam hospital in the northern city of Haifa, Israel on Thursday morning at the end of his three-day visit to the country, Prof Richard Horton began by saying that he intended to “set the record straight” about his views and those of his colleagues.

Last month, The Telegraph published an article about the extreme opinions expressed by some of the authors of the British medical journal's ‘Open letter for the people of Gaza’
.
Two of the authors - Dr Paola Manduca and Dr Swee Ang - had previously circulated and promoted a link to a video clip featuring an anti-Semitic diatribe by David Duke, a white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard.

In the footage, Duke claims that “the Zionist Matrix of Power controls Media, Politics and Banking” and that “some of the Jewish elite practices racism and tribalism to advance their supremacist agenda”

“First, I deeply deeply regret the completely unnecessary polarisation that publication of the letter by Paolo Manduca did. [ ....] this outcome was definitely not my intention”, Prof Horton said.

“I was personally horrified at the offensive video by two of the authors of that letter. The world view expressed in that video is abhorrent and must be condemned and I condemn it”, he added, to the applause of the auditorium.

Prof Horton, who is editor-in-chief of The Lancet, added that he has made his views very clear “directly to those two individuals” - and said that he will publish “what I have just said in The Lancet next week”.

But Prof Horton made no mention of the other controversial aspect of The Lancet’s open letter, which wholly ignored Hamas’s role in the recent Gaza war - a fifty day conflict which was partly triggered by rocket fire on Israel from the coastal territory controlled by the Palestinian faction.

Following the publication of the letter, the staff of Rambam hospital were outraged and sent their own letter in response, which was not published by The Lancet, Prof Rafael Beyar, the Director General of the hospital told The Telegraph in an interview on Thursday morning.

“But we believed, and said ‘let’s invite him. It seems like he doesn’t know many facts about this region. Let’s invite the editor in chief of The Lancet to Rambam to see the reality of medical life [in Israel]”, Prof Beyar said.

“I will simply say the whole of my time, from landing here to being here today has been a turning point, for me in my relationship with this region - and I thank you for it”, said Prof Horton to the medics.

It is certainly good news to see that Horton has added to his knowledge of Israel, and that he is no longer defending the letter the way he did only a couple of weeks ago. But on the other hand, Horton is not saying anything about the content of that letter, only that he is upset at other things the authors have written. He does not seem to entertain the possibility that the letter itself is filled with lies. for example:

Entries of food and medicines into Gaza have been restricted and many essential items for survival are prohibited.

Not true.

Before the present assault, medical stock items in Gaza were already at an all time low because of the blockade.

Not true.

Likewise, Gaza is unable to export its produce.... agricultural products cannot be exported due to the blockade.

Not true.

(The footnotes to these claims go to the personal testimony of one of the authors of the latter!)

Horton, for all his apparent enthusiasm about what he learned during his visit, has not said a word (as far as can be seen) about the content of the offensive letter itself.

The Lancet's publication of this letter is not the most offensive thing that the previously prestigious journal has done in recent years. No, The Lancet is supposed to be a respected medical journal, and its bread and butter are scientific studies. And when it comes to Israel and Palestinians, it has published pieces that clearly went through no fact checking - the basic requirements for a medical or scientific journal..

In 2010, the Lancet published a pseudo-scientific study that blamed Israel for Palestinian Arab me beating their wives. yet an analysis of the people surveyed showed that the percentage that claimed to have had their homes demolished or land confiscated, or "made fugitives," or had family members killed by the IDF in a single year are so absurd, that it is obvious to anyone with the slightest knowledge of facts and math that the entire study was based on an extrardinarily flawed methodology - a methodology that was seemingly designed to come to a foregone conclusion.

Similarly, in 2009 The Lancet published the seemingly shocking statistic that 10% of Palestinian Arab children suffer from stunting. What they didn't say is that this is considered "outstanding" by The World Bank, and significantly better than almost all Arab nations.

Similar context free statistics were published in The Lancet about how 26% of Palestinian adolescents skip breakfast along with other statistics about overweight and underweight kids - without comparing them to other countries.

In 2011 The Lancet published the opinion of Palestinian doctors that “We cannot take care of health and education as long as we live under occupation”. This is again a ridiculous assertion, not least because Zionists managed to build major hospitals and universities under British occupation.

The Lancet also published the absurd claim that Israel has arrested 800,000 Arabs since 1967 - a number that has been completely made up by the Palestinian Authority and anti-Israel NGOs.

Palestinian medical researchers use bogus and out-of-context statistics to make political claims under the pretext of science (just like they politicize history and culture and cuisine and couture and literally everything else.) And so does The Lancet.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge, critical thinking and math skills would know that these articles are nonsense. But The Lancet is not acting like a scientific journal - it has been acting like a political journal for years with an anti-Israel agenda. And unfortunately, I do not see any indication from Horton's statements than anything is going to change.

UPDATE: Horton says explicitly that he will not publish a retraction. (h/t Jewess)

[N]o plans to, and indeed no grounds on which to, retract.

"Poisoning the atmosphere" (ElderToons)

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."