Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, October 05, 2014

"Open-air prison" news: 1500 Gazans going to Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem this week

1500 Gazans are going to Jerusalem on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to celebrate Eid al Adha at the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. 500 are going each day.

They are leaving Gaza via the Erez crossing and being transported to Jerusalem. The pilgrims are all over 60 years old.

When there, they may see this banner on top of the "religious" site, erected on Yom Kippur,

It says:

Our next war - the War of Independence.

The Islamic Movement in the Haram gives blessings to the Islamic nation in general, and our Islamic movement in Palestine in particular,

Because of the blessed Eid Al-adha, Allah will return to us and liberate us, and Al-Aqsa.

Allah accepts the obedient. Gaza won, and the truth won out over power!

Here's video of the benner being placed and the cheers from the crowd:

(h/t Bob Knot)

Major Muslim clerics write theological-based denunciation of ISIS

A couple of weeks ago, I asked,"Is there any theologically sound flavor of Islam that could win the ideological battle with ISIS fundamentalism that would convince young Muslims that ISIS is completely wrong?"

The good news is that this seems to have happened.

120 Muslim scholars, including the Grand Mufti of Egypt, the dean of Sharia and Law at al-Azhar University, director of the Fiqh Council in the US, and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem published an open letter to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi decrying his state’s un-Islamic behavior in three languages: Arabic, English and German.

The letter is here.

I find it interesting that some of their arguments against Al Baghdadi seem also to apply to Hamas and many other terror movements that are considered praiseworthy by avergae Muslims, such as a the prohibition of killing innocents, that Jihad is meant to be defensive war only, the prohibition to mistreat "people of the Scripture" (Muslims and Jews,) the prohibition to deny women and children their rights, and the prohibition against torture.

That little bit of hypocrisy might weigh against people believing these scholars. But it is definitely good news that this happened, and the response will be worth following.

Notably, the scholars only call on Al Baghdadi to repent.

UPDATE: Robert Spencer shows that the "moderate" clerics are not exactly moderate by normal standards. Even so, I like to see jihadis put on the defensive from their own people; the problem of Islamism altogether is a much bigger issue and one that is not at all addressed by this letter. (h/t Henrik)

Peace Now founder's company invests in "settlements"

Dani Dayan reports, from a NRG story, that a founder of Peace Now actually profits from "settlements."

Tzali Reshef is one of the founders of the anti-settlement group Peace Now. He is also CEO of . Arledan, Ltd, "one of Israel's leading investiment companies," which boasts on its home page:

1. Real Estate and Construction - Arledan acts as a developer with regard to properties it owns, and also rents out various commercial and residential properties, primarily in the city of Jerusalem. Some of the projects Arledan has successfully developed over the years include residential projects in the neighbourhoods of French Hill, Gilo, Givat Oranim and Mevaseret Zion, as well as residential and commercial projects in downtown Jerusalem.

French Hill and Gilo are considered "settlements" and have been denounced by Peace Now. This is a map from a presentation on their website showing all these awful, "illegal" Jewish neighborhoods..

And its founder profits from them!

Don't you just love people who are so principled?

Last week I noted that the New York Times mindlessly repeats lies propagated by Peace Now.

(h/t Bob Knot, Yoel)

10/05 Links: Navy intercepts weapons bound for Gaza; IDF fires on cell crossing from Lebanon

From Ian:

Navy intercepts weapons-building material bound for Gaza as Hamas bids to rearm

The Israel Navy has intercepted multiple attempts to smuggle weapons manufacturing material into Gaza since the end of the war in August, a senior navy commander told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Cmdr. Eli Soholitski has commanded the navy’s Squadron 916 for two years. Squadron 916, the navy’s largest formation, is responsible for defending the whole sector from Ashdod to the Gaza Strip, and was involved heavily in the 50-day conflict with Hamas and Islamic Jihad last summer.
He is about to take command of Squadron 32, a missile-ship formation, that secures the northern naval sector.
“Our vessels are ready to go into offensive missions at any time. There have been more than a few attempts to infiltrate the naval closure. We’ve conducted activity against vessels that violated the closure,” Soholitski said.
Hamas fires rockets into the sea every few days, as part of its weapons upgrade program. The launches are used by Hamas arms designers to experiment with various projectile models.
The experiments naturally have attracted the attention of the Israel Navy.
“They are doing experiments and checking their rockets.
This is a part of their domestic weapons production. We did not doubt, at the end of the war, that their focus would be on building more weapons. We monitor every such launch, noting the quality of the rocket and its range,” Soholitski said.
This type of naval intelligence forms a central component of the IDF’s ability to map out future threats, he stated. “We won’t fight Operation Protective Edge again. The next war will be different. On any given day, we have intelligence-based targets that we can attack.”
“We continue to see attempts to smuggle weapons or material to build them. The sea is a very convenient platform for smuggling.

IDF opens fire on cell crossing into Israel from Lebanon

The IDF opened fire on a cell trying to infiltrate into Israel from Lebanon on Sunday.
The IDF said a unit dealing with operational border security identified the cell crossing the Israeli-Lebanese border (the Blue Line).
The unit opened fire with small arms fire, apparently striking one of the suspects.
"The cell fled back into Lebanese territory," the IDF added. "The circumstances of the incident are being checked. The IDF will continue to guard the state of Israel's sovereignty in the border region," it said.
According to Lebanese media reports, Israeli cross-border fire struck and injured a Lebanese soldier near Kfar Shouba.

Jerusalem court: Palestinian Authority must compensate families for 2001 terror attack

The Jerusalem District Court came out with a decision on Sunday that found the Palestinian Authority liable to pay compensation to the families of three people killed in a terror attack in 2001.
In 2009, the estates of Yaniv and Sharon Ben-Shalom, and that of Sharon's brother Doron Yosef Svari, who were killed in a shooting attack on highway 443 in August 2001, sued the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.
Justice Moshe's Drori's decision on Sunday held that the PA was legally obligated to pay damages to the victims' families and to those wounded in the attack.
Two daughters of Yaniv and Sharon Ben-Shalom were infants in 2001 and were wounded in the attack. The children have been adopted by their uncle.
"The weapons and the funding were transferred from the Palestinian Authority to the commanders in the terrorist organizations, and the PA knew and understood the purpose for these transfers," Drori stated in his decision that spanned some 1000 pages.

IDF Blog: Eleven Years Since the Maxim Restaurant Suicide Bombing

Eleven years have passed since Islamic Jihad terrorists attacked the Maxim Restaurant in Haifa. A suicide bomber exploded herself, indiscriminately killing Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.
On October 4, 2003, two days before Yom Kippur – the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – several families gathered at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa for lunch. The restaurant was regularly described as the symbol of diversity in the metropolitan city of Haifa because Jewish and Arab Israeli customers frequently sat and dined together.
The day took a drastic turn as an Islamic Jihad terrorist armed with an explosive belt entered the restaurant and detonated the device. Twenty-one people were killed, including 3 children and a baby, and four Arab restaurant employees. Dozens of Jewish and Arab Israeli civilians were injured in the explosion.

The Obama administration has decided that while the Jews of the Middle East must put up with genocidally anti-Semitic barbarian Jihadis directly upon their doorstep, the United States has every right to bomb their ideological brothers half a world away, despite the fact that the Islamic State poses no direct threat to the United States.

The hypocrisy could hardly be more glaring.

It was the Obama administration, in the figure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that inserted itself between the IDF and Hamas in the 2012 heinous go-around, known as Pillar of Defense, thereby ensuring that Hamas would live to fight another day... as it just did. This decision resulted in the deaths of thousands of Gazans even as it bolstered the influence of political Islam. And despite the fact that the western-left and its allies in the PLO and Fatah condemn Israel for committing a "genocide" in Gaza, the Gazan's themselves declare victory!

The Gazans and the other local Arabs cannot declare that Israel has committed a genocide upon them even as they rejoice in victory. Someone needs to let them know that it simply does not work that way. Hamas and its western allies need to get their stories straight if they wish for anyone who cares about rationality, not to mention Israel, to take them the least little bit seriously.

Responding to Benjamin Netanyahu's recent speech before the United Nations, US State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki made it very clear that if Israel wishes to defend its citizenry from Jihadi attack it will receive only pro forma support from the Obama administration, if that. In fact, as we have seen in the last two Gaza engagements, the Obama administration pressured Israel to spare the Islamists from the natural and foreseeable consequences of their own racist aggression against the Jews.

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Michelle Malka Grossman, tells us this:

The U.S. State Department said Monday in a press conference that it disagrees with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s assertion during his UN speech on Monday that “ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree.”

“Obviously, we’ve designated both as terrorist organizations, but ISIL poses a different threat to Western interests and to the United States,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “And that’s just a fact.”

Of course, it is a fact.

There is simply no question that Hamas and the Islamic State pose different threats to "Western interests" and the United States than they do to Israel. Hamas poses a direct and immediate threat to Israelis, including Muslim and Christian Israelis, while the Islamic State is primarily a security irritant to the United States and to "Western interests." Hamas is right next door to Israel and Gazans favor genocidal violence against Jews, while the head-choppers in the Islamic State have to mainly content themselves with slaughtering other Muslims because they have little capacity to get at Americans, or Israeli Jews, who do not come to them.

The real problem, however, remains Obama's failure to square the Jihadi circle.

The Obama administration favored the Muslim Brotherhood, while opposing al-Qaeda. It defended Hamas twice, by demanding Israeli ceasefires, yet it bombs the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. And it had, from the beginning, a schizophrenic view on the rise of political Islam. It continues to suggest that there are somewhat reasonable Jihadis, like the Muslim Brotherhood, and entirely bad Jihadis, like al-Qaeda.

This is false, yet in Ynet we read the following:

Psaki also rejected Netanyahu's assertion that Hamas, ISIS, Iran, Hezbollah, Boko Haram and other militant Islamist groups all want the same thing – a Muslim caliphate dominating the world.

Obama believes in good Islamists and bad Islamists. But the fact of the matter is that all of these groups wish to impose al-Sharia upon all of us and that means the caliphate. It means all non-Muslims as servile dhimmis, all women as servants, and all openly Gay people as dead.

Even as I write this Islamists are chasing Christians out of the Middle East .

The fact is, Benjamin Netanyahu is correct and Barack Obama and his Department of State are mistaken. While Obama keeps trimming Jihadis, like the Brotherhood, into the "reasonable" camp, Netanyahu, as someone who lives in the region, understands that while the desire to impose al-Sharia may take different shapes and forms throughout that part of the world, it is unquestionably part of the same violently racist and sexist theocratic project that all liberals and "progressives" should oppose.

Meanwhile, as the Jihad arrives in America, the Obama administration and its friends in the mainstream media pretend that the recent head-chopping in Oklahoma was merely a case of "work place violence." It was, we are to believe, something akin to the popular non-sectarian 1990s fad of "going postal," except with a brand-spanking-new, emphatically non-Islamist twist to it... just for spice.

In a piece for the Washington Post by Mark Berman entitled, After a beheading in Oklahoma, debate over what to call it, we read:

Yet these officials also said that the FBI had found no link to terrorism. They also said there was no indication that Nolen was copying the beheadings of journalists in Syria carried out by the Islamic State. Instead, the officials said, they are treating this as an incident of workplace violence.

The FBI found no link to terrorism.

Did Nolen not screech Alahu Akbar loud enough as he brutally separated Colleen Hufford's head from the rest of her body before her horrified and flabbergasted co-workers? Head-chopping is a form of theocratically-based ritual murder associated with the Jihad. We all know this. It goes back to the Koran and its injunction to follow "the Prophet" in all manners of behavior and we all know what a fan of head-chopping Muhammad was.

We also know that Nolen was a convert into the faith and that he extolled the virtues of Holy War on his Facebook page. To pretend that this grotesque act of Jihad was anything other than Jihad is to be either dishonest or ideologically blinded.

This was not only an act of Jihad, it may be the very first high-profile Jihadi head-chopping in the history of the United States. We've seen Jihadi head-chopping in Europe for awhile, now, and Jihadi-style head-chopping in the Middle East is something of a national sport, but Americans aren't so familiar with this particular religious-political tradition. Neither are Canadians, nor Australians, I feel reasonably certain.

The problem, of course, is that because we are all so terrified of words like "racist" or "Islamophobe" we tend to keep our mouths shut and just look the other way. We just whistle past the proverbial graveyard. To be a counter-jihadi in the United States takes bravery because one's reputation will always be dragged through the mud by politically-correct cowards and there is always some chance of violence coming at you from out of the blue. To be a counter-Jihadi in Europe, on the other hand, is to risk one's life entirely. The example of Theo van Gogh is lost on no one and while the Jihadi who killed him failed to take his head, it was not for lack of trying.

All through the Clinton years I assumed that talk of terrorism and Jihad was just so much political smoke and blather and primarily right-wing political smoke and blather, at that.

Prior to 9/11 I considered Osama bin Laden to be a living contemporary equivalent of Emmanuel Goldstein, the target of George Orwell's famous two minutes of hate from Nineteen Eighty-Four. Even after 9/11 I was part of the American ten percent who still despised George W. Bush as a populist con-man in a cowboy hat.

There comes a point, however, wherein we must acknowledge the obvious.

The obvious in this case comes in several packages. In one package we have the obvious fact that Islamism is the single most significant rising political movement in the world today and it has taken over large swaths of the Middle East, even as it nurtures our newly home-grown, lone Jihadis like Alton Nolen. In another package we have the ugly, but also obvious fact that president Obama actively assisted the rise of political Islam when he threw his weight behind the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

In doing so he legitimized the Jihad.

I, as a former Democrat who voted for him in 2008, will not forgive him for it.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

B'Tselem admits its researcher denied the Holocaust

In August, Israeli journalist Tuvia Tenenbaum released a video where he pretended to be a German leftist to hear what Palestinian Arabs would say to him when they were among "friends."

One of the people he spoke with was Atef Abu Roub, a researcher for B'Tselem. At the 5:50 mark you can hear him say that the Holocaust was a "lie."

B'Tselem just admitted on their Facebook page that the story is true.

When the organization asked Abu Roub whether the video was accurate, he answered that he was merely quoting someone else that denied the Holocaust, but he wasn't saying it himself. Then the interview in context was released, and it was clear that not only is Abu Roub a Holocaust denier, but also a liar.

Post by Lilac Sigan.

Perfect qualifications for "human rights" activists!

Keep in mind that these are the kinds of researchers B'Tselem relies on to tell them the truth about what is going on in Gaza. B'Tselem is one of the organizations that the UN relied on for statistics of how many "civilians" were killed in the war over the summer.

B'Tselem said that it is disgusted by the incident and will investigate the matter.

This is far worse than when Human Rights Watch researcher Marc Garlasco was discovered to be a Nazi memorabilia enthusiast. If B'Tselem doesn't fire Abu Roub, and soon, it tells us more about B'Tselem than about Abu Roub.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv, Bob K)

Infiltrating an anti-Israel conference in San Diego

J.J. Surbeck, the Executive Director of T.E.A.M. (Training and Education About the Middle East) and others managed to attend the annual "End the Occupation" conference in San Diego last month.

Their report has just been released, and it sheds a lot of light on the lies that the haters like to tell themselves.

For example, Rabab Abdulhadi, “Senior Scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora
Initiatives” at San Francisco State University, said that the tunnels meant to kidnap Israelis were "a lifeline for the Palestinians."

Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada tried to have it both ways, getting cheers for saying that "some of them [those killed in Gaza] were resistance fighters fighting heroically… a heroic and legitimate battle" before saying that the vast majority of those killed were innocent civilians.

Report on the 13th annual "End the Occupation" conference

Video: Bull meant to be slaughtered for Eid tramples people in Rafah

Here's a scene from Saturday morning in Rafah, as a bull that was meant to be slaughtered (usually in the street) makes a run for it.

There were several light to moderate injuries.

Here's a photo of some of the Gaza cows that are essentially being stabbed as a public religious ceremony:

Last month, a PETA activist tried to convince Muslims in Bhopal to not eat meat during Eid. Her audience turned violent at the idea. .

10/04 Links: Israelis Mark Yom Kippur With Prayers for Peace and Life; Bibiyonce? Not so fast, says PM

From Ian:

Israelis Mark Yom Kippur With Prayers for Peace and Life

On the eve of Yom Kippur, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel after speaking to the international community at the United Nations this past week.
“I went out on a national mission on behalf of the citizens of Israel,” recounted Netanyahu. “I told our truth on the UN podium, at the White House and at other meetings that I held,” he said after landing at Ben Gurion Airport on Friday morning.
The prime minister also wished a “Gmar Hatima Tova to all the citizens of Israel,” the traditional blessing for the successful sealing in the “Book of Life” during the days leading up to Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people that entails praying and fasting.

Michael Lumish: Obama's Veiled Threats

The Obama administration just keeps doubling-down, again and again, on precisely the very same mistake that it failed to learn out of the gate in 2008. He still thinks that peace is dependent upon making sure that Mahmoud Abbas gets a veto over where we may be allowed to live on the very land where our ancestors come from. Not only is Obama's policy racist toward Jews, and not only does it justify Abbas' insistence upon ethnically cleansing Jewish people from Judea and Samaria, but it also plays directly into Arab settler intransigence.
If Jews insist on living in Judea, and if Obama agrees with Abbas that they should not be allowed to do so, then naturally Abbas can refuse a negotiated conclusion of hostilities and blame it on those Jews with Obama's blessing.
From a strategic standpoint, the Obama administration's obsession concerning where Jews live in Israel was a monkey-wrench in the works from the very beginning and is partly responsible for the failure of the peace process during his tenure.
For him to continue to throw the very same monkey-wrench into the very same gears year upon year is beyond foolish.
What do you suppose accounts for it? While I do not believe that Barack Obama is half so intelligent as they kept telling us he is, he certainly not dumb. He is at least of average intelligence, and probably above-average, so how could he not comprehend that trying the same thing over and over again, and failing each time, might indicate counterproductive policy?

While Refusing to Support Hong Kong's Democracy, Obama Strongly Condemns Israel

Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrators protesting China’s attempts to quash their rights to self government appear to be only the latest pro-Western group forsaken by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, its high volume criticism of Israel continues unabated.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was again forced to downplay harsh criticism against the Jewish state leveled by President Obama and other members of the administration during their White House visit Wednesday. Media reports claim that Obama harshly condemned the recent issuance of building permits for 2,610 apartment units inside the Israeli capital city, without seeming to understand that those decisions are made at the local, not the national level.
A Jerusalem real estate developer recently purchased seven apartment buildings in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Silwan and purchased advertising to encourage Jewish families to buy them.
Netanyahu pushed back hard against the President’s condemnation. He told Spanish language Univisión TV that “Jews buy apartments in Arab neighborhoods. Arabs buy apartments in Jewish neighborhoods. I wouldn’t dream of interfering with that, and couldn’t even if I wanted to." "It is a municipal issue,” he said.
Pointing out President Obama’s hypocrisy of siding with those who seeking to prevent Jews from certain neighborhoods in Israel’s capital city, Netanyahu pointed out “there would be an uproar” if neighborhoods in the US, Mexico, or anywhere but Israel tried barring Jews from moving in. In comments that also appeared aimed at the Obama Administration, Netanyahu seemed to chide the White House and State Department for thinking they were empowered to micromanage the Jewish state down its most granular bureaucratic level: “It would be worth at least learning the correct information before jumping to take a position like that.”

G'mar chatima tovah 5775 - גמר חתימה טובה

(Early post for readers in Europe and Israel)

This is an update my Yom Kippur message of previous years.

I unconditionally forgive anyone who may have wronged me during this year, and I ask forgiveness for anyone I may have wronged as well.

Specifically (as enumerated in previous years, courtesy of The Muqata from a few years back):

If you sent me email and I didn't reply, or didn't get back to you in a timely fashion -- I apologize. It is sometimes hard for me to answer everyone as I get busier, but I am sorry.
If you sent me a story and I decided not to publish it or worse, didn't give you a hat tip for the story -- I'm sorry. (I sometimes get multiple tips for the same story and I usually credit the first one I saw, which is not always the earliest. And I cannot publish all the stories I am sent, although I try to place appropriate ones in the linkdumps, or tweet them. Whether I like it or not, I am an editor, as well as a writer, graphic designer, video producer, layout editor....so I really can't post everything.)
If you requested help from me and I wasn't able to provide it -- I'm sorry.
I apologize if I posted without the proper attribution, with the wrong attribution, or without attribution at all.
I'm sorry that I don't give hat tips on things I tweet.
If I didn't thank you for a donation, I'm very, very sorry.
I'm sorry if any of my posts offended you personally.

May this be a year of life, peace, prosperity, happiness and security.

I wish all of my readers who observe Yom Kippur an easy and meaningful fast.

10/03 Links Pt2: Palestinians: We Hate You, Even If You Support Us; Where is the Muslim Outrage at IS?

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: We Hate You, Even If You Support Us

In Nablus, the largest Palestinian city, students rioted in protest against a visit to their campus by U.S. consular officials. According to Palestinian sources, the officials had come to An-Najah University as part of continued efforts to support educational and cultural activities on campus.
Dozens of students, chanting anti-U.S. slogans, surrounded one of the U.S. vehicles and tried to prevent it from entering the premises of the university. Eyewitnesses said that campus security personnel used excessive force to disperse the protesters.
One student, Mohamed Abu Awwad, was later admitted to hospital with a broken arm.
The clash that erupted at the Palestinian university has enraged many students and human rights advocates. "The university administration does not have the right to disperse a civilized and democratic protest and beat up participants," said Mohamed Dweikat, a political activist from Nablus.
Hazem Abu Hilal, a human rights activist, said that the problem was not with the assault on the protest, but that the university had banned the protest on campus. "Universities are supposed to serve as a podium for freedom of expression," he said.
But this incident is not about freedom of expression as much as it is about extremism and hatred for the US. The protesters did not want US officials on their campus because, they argued, "the U.S. supports Israel." They were also protesting what they called "U.S. backing for Israel" during Operation Protective Edge.
These students have been told that the U.S. is an enemy because it supports Israel financially and militarily. It does not matter whether the U.S. officials came to Nablus to help Palestinians. They were attacked because they represent a country that is viewed by many Arabs and Muslims as an enemy because of its support for Israel's right to exist.

Chloe Valdary: Lies, Lies And More Lies As The Rutgers Univ. Paper Publishes Racist Article

I’m starting to wonder if the Rutgers University student paper, the Daily Targum, actually reads the pieces submitted to it before accepting them. Its latest piece, by freshman student Hamzah Raza is so woefully absurd, so patently racist, and so annoyingly amateur in its recycling of bigoted diatribes, I almost mistook it for a script for a homemade reality show entitled ‘David Duke Wannabees gone wild.’
Raza first illustrates his morally obtuse position by suggesting that Islamism — that doctrine whose adherents decapitate children and rape adolescent brides — is comparable to the Declaration of Independence. Yes, that’s right. Thomas Jefferson’s code of ethics detailing the rights of humanity is exactly comparable to a doctrine which posits that all of humanity should be wiped off the face of the earth if it doesn’t bow to Allah.
But Raza doesn't stop there in his inane musings. He continues to suggest that Hamas and ISIS aren’t actually Islamists — a word he defines as “an advocate … of a political movement that favors reordering government … in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.” This is weird since Hamas and ISIS both are political movements favoring laws, um, prescribed by Islam. But constructing intellectually consistent ideas isn’t Raza’s forte. After all, he goes on to assert that Hamas is perhaps only angry with Israel because there are aboriginal Jews occupying space there, an obviously egregious offense which can only be met with rockets and Hitlerian calls for another Holocaust.
Racism, you say? Oh, no; resistance of the highest noble order.

The Jewish Voices

NY Times again discards facts in anti-Israel editorial

From yesterday's NYT:

In what has become a depressingly familiar routine, Israel has given final approval for construction of 2,610 housing units in geographically sensitive parts of East Jerusalem that will make it harder, maybe impossible, to reach a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

The timing of the decision, which came shortly before a meeting on Wednesday between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, also seems familiar: another in a string of calculated embarrassments that over the years have undermined American efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. These decisions inevitably raise tensions between Israel and its main ally, and did so again this week.

Funny: Peace Now, who the New York Times relies on for its information, characterized the decision in December 2012 as "final approval." How many "final approvals" does Peace Now count for every plan? Hard to day, but they pretend that every single stage in the process - sometimes as many as 8 - is a dire emergency.

As far as the New York Times' description of the ad about the development as being deliberately timed to happen right before Netanyahu's trip to the US, the ad was placed on September 24, as can be seen in the photo, in a relatively low-circulation newspaper. The timing and method was clearly not meant to discomfort the White House.

On the other hand, Peace Now didn't say a word about this until October. In other words, it sat on the information in order to embarrass the head of the state that it is supposedly loves so much.

The New York Times is ascribing malice to Israel, when in fact it is Peace Now that is acting maliciously.

Building those units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos would create a continuum of Jewish settlements, blocking Palestinian neighborhoods in South Jerusalem from Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank where Palestinians hope to establish a state.

Again, the Times is relying on Peace Now's assertions without checking the facts.

Here is their map:

Wow, Givat Hamatos goes right next to Gilo!

Now look at Honest Reporting's map:

Hold on - there is a significant chunk of Arab neighborhood Beit Safafa in the way, which ensures no contiguity between Givat Hamatos and Gilo. How can that be?

For one thing, Peace Now is discounting the fact that about one third of the housing in this plan is being given to residents of Beit Safafa - earmarked for Arabs! I'm not sure which portion, but clearly Peace Now does not want the world to know that 900 or so of these "settlement units" under this plan - and illustrated by them - are in fact Arab.

For another, the Peace Now map includes all phases of the Givat Hamatos plan, including those that were not approved yet.

It is clear that Peace Now is engaging in large scale deception, all in order to get people like clueless NYT editors to swallow their lies.

When a nine-month, American-led effort on an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal collapsed in April, American officials put a lot of the blame on Israel for barging ahead with settlements that undermine trust and shrink the land available for a Palestinian state.

One more time: Jewish settlements have taken up virtually no new land since 1990. They still take up less than 1.5% of the land across the Green Line - just as they did before Oslo.

This is again a basic fact that has been turned on its head by crusaders like Peace Now and believed completely by the supposedly fact-based media like the New York Times. (Israel shares the blame for not calling out these lies more forcefully.)

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)