Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 08, 2014

10/08 Links Pt2: On Campus, Hate is Spelled SJP; At Yale: Embrace Assad But Boycott Israel?

From Ian:

Students for Justice in Palestine patently fails, in fact refuses, to advocate anything resembling peace or a just solution to the Middle East conflict. It does not advance Palestinian human rights or the human rights of anyone. In fact, it consistently violates the human rights of pro-Israel and Jewish students. It demonizes Israel, often in racist terms, and thus perpetuates division and conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It opposes any and all cooperation or dialogue with Israelis or indeed anyone who disagrees with its radical ideology. It has shown itself disturbingly undisturbed by terrorism and those who support terrorism. It engages in and propagates anti-Semitic racism. And its members engage in acts of intimidation and physical violence, often with impunity.
Contrary to its own claims, SJP is not a voice for the Palestinians. In fact, through its “anti-normalization” ideology, its goal is to shout down the many Palestinians and Jews who do seek a peaceful future, and instead manipulate the Palestinian cause in order to promote an atmosphere of hatred, intimidation and radicalism on campus. The result is that rather than contributing to debate and dialogue, SJP seeks to destroy these bedrock values of the modern university.
The coming year, therefore, will pose a test for university leaders, both students and administrators: Will they stand for the values of free discussion and open inquiry and fulfill their role as guardians of a safe environment for students, free of bullying and intimidation? Or will they continue to allow an organization that promotes terror to terrorize our campuses under the guise of free speech? The answer they choose will have a huge impact on the nature of our campuses for many years to come.

Blackballed Jordanian Author: ‘Jews Have a Right to the Land of Israel’

Despite being arrested, fired from his job, called “crazy” and an “infidel” and being left destitute, Jordanian writer Jihad Ali Alwan, 42, has no intention backing off his full-throated support of Israel, and from every possible platform, Israel’s NRG News reported Monday.
“I don’t care what price I’ll pay. I will not apologize for my beliefs,” Alwan said, writing on his personal blog, “I suggest the Arabs normalize relations with Israel,” he wrote in October of last year.
The striking statements by the married father of four were read by some eight million readers, including the Jordanian Writers Association, who called him in for a clarification.
But after refusing to appear before the committee, the guild revoked Alwan’s membership. Which also prompted an irate blog post by the man known in the Hashemite Kingdom, as “The Normalizer.”

Pro-Israel Arab Activist Dragged Off Stage During Silent Protest Against Palestinian Solidarity Movement (VIDEO)

Orim Shimshon is a man with a mission.
A British citizen of Arab origin, Shimshon says he was born in Baghdad and raised as a Muslim after moving to the UK as a child. Over the last year, he’s become a familiar – and unwelcome – figure at pro-Palestinian events and demonstrations in London.
At a recent rally in solidarity with the Syrian people in central London’s Trafalgar Square, Shimshon turned up waving an Israeli flag and holding a sign thanking Israel for treating victims of the brutal civil war raging throughout the territory of its northern neighbor. When another demonstrator told Shimshon that Israel was an “apartheid state,” Shimshon good-naturedly challenged him, underlining the fact that he is a pro-Israel Arab in the process.
This week, Shimshon was even more daring, attending a pro-Palestinian meeting in north London where he attempted to stage a silent protest. For his pains, he was dragged off the stage and shoved by the organizers of the event. Afterwards, Shimshon explained that he went to the meeting to protest against Jenny Tonge – a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords with a long record of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements – although in the end, she didn’t turn up.
Watch Shimshon’s latest encounter with the Palestinian solidarity movement:

Watch how Anti Israel campaigners react to a peaceful silent protest

Who wants to start a religious war?

We saw yesterday that Hanan Ashrawi accused Israel of starting a religious war by considering opening up an additional gate for Temple Mount.

Today Mahmoud Abbas made a similar accusation:

President Mahmoud Abbas warned Israel on Wednesday against turning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into a religious war, stressing that recent attacks on Muslim worshipers in the Al-Aqsa mosque threatened to nature of the national struggle.

Abbas said in a televised statement from his presidential headquarters in Ramallah that Palestinians and "the world know the dangers of using religion in political conflicts; we must all see what goes around us and Israel must pay attention and understand that such steps are dangerous to both Israel and others."

He added that Israel's attempts to open a second gate for Jews to enter the compound, altering the religious status quo, was a provocation about which Palestinians "could not remain silent."

Abbas also warned that the same kinds of provocations are happening at the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, where worshipers are prevented from praying inside "as if Israel wants to completely cancel the Islamic existence of the mosque."

Allowing Jews to have access to Jewish holy places is inciting a religious war. Banning Jews from their holy spaces, however, is perfectly fine.

This is how most Muslims think.

Now, if you want to see something that no one at all will be upset at, check this out, seen in Facebook:

Yes, that is the Kotel (Western Wall) that is being overrun by Muslim hordes.

This is hardly an anomalous mindset.

So Arab officials will accuse Israelis of wanting to start a religious war at the drop of a hat.

But good luck finding an Arab who denounces paintings like this one as being against peace.

(h/t YMedad)

10/08 Links Pt1: Obama's unprecedented outburst against Israel; Indyk Bashes Israel on Yom Kippur

From Ian:

Isi Leibler: The Obama administration’s unprecedented outburst against Israel

The exceptionally vicious US condemnation of Israel with regard to housing construction in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem is not merely misguided, but also reflects irrational bias.
Incidentally, this behavior also has many ominous parallels to the inhumane incarceration of Jonathan Pollard, despite pleas for the commutation of his sentence from all sectors of American society.
The harsh outburst relates to a 2,600-unit housing project planned as an extension of an exclusively Jewish neighborhood adjacent to the suburb of Talpiot and Kibbutz Ramat Rahel, both within the Green Line. It incorporates primarily barren land on which Ethiopian and Russian immigrants had been housed temporarily in mobile homes. Highly significant – but a fact that is ignored – is that nearly half of the construction was designated to provide housing for Arabs. Construction permits were approved two years ago, but it was the far-left group Peace Now that saw fit to highlight the issue in a press release on the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Barack Obama in a calculated effort to embarrass the prime minister and provoke tension.
The successive statements by both the White House and State Department spokesmen must be considered among the most bitterly prejudiced and unbalanced condemnations of Israel ever expressed by the US. They make a mockery of repeated claims by the Obama administration that it considers Israel to be a close ally.

ISIS: Can the West Win Without a Ground Game?

The United States and its allies have launched a military campaign whose stated goal is, in the words of President Barack Obama, to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State (I.S., also known as ISIS or ISIL) established by Sunni jihadis in a contiguous land area stretching from western Iraq to the Syrian-Turkish border.
As the aerial campaign begins in earnest, many observers are wondering what exactly its tactical and strategic objectives are, and how they will be achieved. A number of issues immediately arise.
Any state—even a provisional, slapdash, and fragile one like the jihadi entity now spreading across Iraq and Syria—cannot be “destroyed” from the air. At a certain point, forces on the ground will have to enter and replace the I.S. power. It is not yet clear who is to play this role—especially in the Islamic State’s heartland of Raqqa province in Syria.
In Iraq, the national military and the Kurdish Pesh Merga are now having some successes at chipping away at the Islamic State’s outer holdings. The role of U.S. air support is crucial here. But the center of the Islamic State is not Iraq, and both the Iraqi forces and the Pesh Merga have made clear that they will not cross the border into Syria. This leaves a major question as to who is to perform this task, if the objectives outlined by President Obama are to be achieved.

Who Does Turkey Support?

The Mavi Marmara incident was a wake-up call to Jerusalem, where diplomats had earlier been unrealistically optimistic about building a working relationship with Erdogan despite several other, earlier, warnings, including Erdogan's famous tirade in Davos against (then) Israeli President Shimon Peres that, "You (Jews) know well how to kill!" The Turkish government has since frozen ambassadorial-level diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel, and Erdogan has increased his calculated explosive rhetoric against Israel.
Erdogan's principal argument was that a foreign military had killed Turkish nationals outside of Turkey; that those who were killed were martyrs; and that he would never allow a foreign military to harm one single Turkish citizen. Once again, he was wrong.
One of the lucky survivors of the Mavi Marmara was Yakup Bulent Alniak, an Islamist activist for the Turkish "humanitarian aid group" IHH which organized the Gaza-bound flotilla. IHH is listed by many Western countries as a terrorist organization; but its members, including Alniak, were simply heroes for Erdogan.
Alniak survived the IDF raid in 2010 but lost his life recently, at the end of September, when a U.S.-Arab coalition struck one of the largest ISIS camps in Syria. A coalition of foreign armies had killed a Turkish citizen whom the Turkish leader had declared a hero, but since then Erdogan has remained mute.
Will Erdogan downgrade Turkey's diplomatic ties with the U.S. and five Muslim nations because their militaries killed a Turkish citizen outside of Turkish territory? No. Probably because, in the pragmatic Islamist thinking, one does not properly qualify as a "martyr" if he gets killed by an army (or armies) other than Israel's.
As of this writing, on the Turkey-Syria border, CNN correspondent Phil Black hourly beams pictures of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, with a black ISIS flag atop a building in the eastern part of the city, as Turkish soldiers in tanks lined up along the Turkish border "observe" ISIS troops close in for the approaching massacre.
Washington is expecting Ankara wholeheartedly to fight the rougher boys of the Islamist camp to which it belongs? Good luck.

Google builds a high tech sukkah in New York

From The Jewish Week:

Getting creative with your sukkah decorations this year? You’ve got serious competition—from Google .

That’s right: The search-engine giant is participating in the Festival of Booths this year, and they’re doing it Google-style. For the first time, two sukkahs, constructed to halachic-perfection, will be built on one of the balconies of Google’s New York headquarters in Chelsea.

Complete with an advanced video conferencing system powered by Google Hangout, android-themed hangings, lava lamps, exercise balls, lego-building stations, a live-cam showing how many people are in the sukkah at any given time and, of course, walls plastered with the Google colors, the Google sukkah promises to speed the ancient hut into the high-tech 21st century.

Though the sukkahs were built with the primary intention of servicing Jewglers (the colloquial term for Google’s Jewish employees), other Googlers (Goiyglers, if you will) are encouraged to drop by. QR codes will be posted around the sukkah, allowing employees to scan for more quick information about the religious history, symbolism and significance and sukkot. A lulav and esrog, the ritual palm branch and citrus fruit shaken on the holiday, will be on hand in both sukkahs for any and all Google employees to partake.

Efforts to make the sukkot holiday come alive at Google were headed by proud Jewgler, Eleanor Carmeli. Carmeli, who worked at Google’s California headquarters for several years before transferring to the New York office this past year, described the sukkah initiative as a “grassroots effort.” She networked with other Jewglers via an email listserv for Jewish employees across Google’s global offices.

“We entered the conversation with a sense of humility, realizing that sukkot is much lesser known than other Jewish holidays,” said Carmeli, referring to the first time she approached management with the request. “There’s not a lot of space in New York City, so we went in with low expectations.”

Not only was the sukkah initiative given two-thumbs up, it sparked a trend across Google offices. This year, Google offices in Pittsburgh, Boston, Argentina, Dublin and the Mountain View global headquarters in California will all be pitching sukkahs, with the New York Jewgler team leading the way. The video-conference call system will allow Jewglers from one Google sukkah to see and talk with Jewglers in another Google sukkah.

“It seems we lit a fire under other Jewglers,” said Carmeli, who mentored Jewglers in other offices about how to navigate limited space in order to procure a sukkah.

No photos of the Google Sukkah yet, but Carmeli has done this before. Here is the construction of the much lower-tech 2011 Google sukkah, I believe in California, that she was behind as well:

She also shows a Chanukah lava-lamp menorah and a Rosh Hashanah Google beehive on her Google Plus page.

A fascinating legend is told in The Maccabæan: A Magazine of Jewish Life and Letters, Volumes 24-25 (January 1914), in an article called Jerusalem: The Ancient, by Dr. Benjamin Gordon:

A prominent Jewish pilgrim, when on his visit to Jerusalem in 1832, asked the Governor why he would not allow him to visit that place [the Temple Mount], the former remarked, “there is one place in the Haram from which prayers are always answered. Should a Jew go there, he would pray that his Messiah should come, and he will surely come and drive the Moslems out.”

If true, this legend shows that Muslims know quite well that this is a Jewish holy site they are usurping.

Gordon goes on to describe his secret visit to the Temple Mount in 1914.

Video of Muslims burning part of their "third holiest site"

Arutz-7 reports:

Masked Arab rioters threw fireworks and rocks at security forces on the Temple Mount on Wednesday, in what has become a tradition of riotous violence before the major Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Riot police pushed the attackers back by setting up roadblocks, but it was not enough to deter the unrest.

The rioters continued to throw stones, bricks and iron bars at police from inside the Al-Aqsa mosque, while shooting fireworks at police and spraying an unidentified flammable liquid on them.

They also threw a Molotov cocktail at police, which ignited, wounded four officers lightly.

The police have restrained the rioters and removed all barriers protecting the entrance to the mosque. The wounded policemen were treated on the spot.

Five Arabs have now been arrested after the eruption, Arutz Sheva has learned.

"We will continue to show zero tolerance for any attempt to violate the public order, and we will arrest them and bring them to justice," a police spokesperson stated Wednesday morning.

Here is video of part of the riots, where Muslims celebrate setting a fire at the southern wall of the Temple Mount for no apparent reason. There are no police visible anywhere nearby. Allah Hu Akbar!

And here they are shooting fireworks towards the Israeli police from within the Al Aqsa mosque:

Keep in mind that every August there are scores of articles in the Arab press about how an Australian set fire to the Al Aqsa Mosque in 1969, causing some damage.

Yet here we see Muslims setting fire to, and shooting incendiary weapons from, their own supposedly holy spot, and it is not even being reported!

(h/t YMedad)

Newest Protective Edge stats: 1:1 ratio of civilians to terrorists

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has released its sixth analysis of people killed during Protective Edge. Here is their executive summary:

The number of names of those killed, examined so far by the Information Center, on the basis of lists of the Ministry of Health, is 900, that is - about 42% of the total Palestinians killed (said to be 2157, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health report as of September 14, 2014). A number of the MoH duplicate names were removed and terrorists who do not appear in the lists (both due to technical reasons and because of the policy of concealment and deception of Hamas) were added.

After these adjustments the total number of fatalities investigated so far by the information Center reaches 1,017, or about 47% of the total fatalities.

Adding the current findings with the previous five reports and combining information about the identities of the dead identified indicate the following breakdown of the 1,017 fatalities examined by the Information Center:

435 casualties were terrorists.

439 casualties were innocent civilians.

The identity of 143 is unknown at this time. therefore it is not possible to determine whether they are militants or uninvolved civilians.

Of the 874 fatalities that we could identify, terrorist operatives are some 49.8% of the names, uninvolved citizens are about 50.2%. The ratio between them may vary upon Further examination of the names of the dead. At this stage it was not possible to identify 143 deaths, representing approximately 14% of all the names.

As with the previous reports, the Center is researching in blocks of 150 names released by Hamas, this one covering the dates of July 23-26. They found 31 photos of the new batch of terrorists, including these:

(h/t Yenta Press)

10/07 Links Pt2: The Case for Israel Pulling out of the United Nations; Israel bashers’ phony contrition

From Ian:

UNfriend: The Case for Israel Pulling out of the United Nations

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UN General Assembly last week took place in the Western world’s epicenter for the promotion, codification, and implementation of institutional anti-Semitism.
After all, it is no coincidence that behind every conflict Israel has ever fought there has been a failed United Nations resolution.
Simply scrape the gloss off the noble sentiments expressed in the Charter of the United Nations and you will discover that the world body’s Near East policy has from its inception fanned the flames of Arab nationalism, perpetuating regional conflicts that have effectively preserved a status quo sympathetic to authoritarian Arab regimes, at the expense of Israeli security and sovereignty.
The die was cast by Great Britain, which had occupied modern-day Israel from the end of the First World War until the 1947 UN partition. The European-based realpolitik that catered to Arab nationalism and authoritarian rule came at the expense of historical Jewish claims and contemporary Jewish interests.

Hillel Neuer, Director of UN Watch, Says UN Human Rights Council "Has the Power to Shame Abusers of Human Rights"

The UN Human Rights Council has been too welcoming to countries that abuse human rights, yet the inter-governmental body still “has the power to shame abusers of human rights,” Hillel C. Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said in a talk at the University of Michigan Law School.
“I've witnessed some of the most vicious tyrannies using every arrow in their quiver, every tool in their toolbox, to prevent their countries from being named in a resolution, from being targeted in an investigation, even to be so much as named on a watchlist—these countries will pull out all the stops, using all their political, economic, military influence, to ensure that they’re never named at all,” Neuer said in the talk on Oct. 1, presented by Jewish Law Students Association.
“Countries do not want to be shamed on the international stage—even powerful countries like China. … It harms their international prestige, it erodes their international standing, it can have economic and political consequences.”

EU walks out on anti-Israel UN debate * Arab states outraged * Hillel Neuer cheers "act for justice"

Caroline Glick: Israel bashers’ phony contrition

Dr. Richard Horton, the editor of the English medical journal The Lancet, was not transformed by his visit to Israel last week.
Horton came to Israel last week the guest of Rambam Medical Center in a bid to dig himself out of the hole he dug himself into. On August 19 Horton published a 1,600-word letter criminalizing Israel. In it, Israel was accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The authors called for a boycott of Israel, including Israeli academia. Since its publication on Lancet’s website, the letter has garnered 20,000 signatures.
The letter made no mention of the fact that the war this summer was initiated by Hamas through its illegal missile, mortar and rocket offensive against Israeli population centers. The esteemed medical professionals who wrote the letter failed to mention that Hamas’s operational headquarters was located in Shifa hospital in Gaza. And of course, they ignored the underlying fact that Hamas’s entire campaign against Israel was a crime against humanity.
Immediately following its publication, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the head of NGO Monitor, exposed that the letter’s principal authors are frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Semites. Dr. Paola Manduca and Dr. Swee Ang disseminated a video entitled, CNN, Goldman Sachs & the Zio Matrix. It was produced by the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke.
As Britain’s Telegraph reported, in disseminating the video, Ang exhorted her audience to understand that the Jewish threat outlined in the video is a threat to humanity. In her words, it “is not about Palestine – it is about all of us!” For her part, as the Telegraph reported, Manduca has accused Israel of responsibility for the Boston Marathon bombing. And she disseminated an article comparing Israel to a “strangler fig,” which as the Telegraph explained, “grows around other trees and takes their sunlight, often resulting in the deaths of the original trees.”

More from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Washington, October 8 - Aides to US President Barack Obama expressed displeasure today over not being informed of plans to assemble tens of thousands of makeshift residential structures over the last week in Jewish communities in areas both Israel and the Palestinians claim.

The huts mostly consist of wood panels, or of metal frames holding up canvas walls, with reeds or palm leaves as roofing. Satellite images and eyewitness reports alerted the Obama administration of the flurry of new construction activity, all of which appears to be taking place within the boundaries of existing Jewish communities in those contentious areas. The structures are apparently functioning as additional living space, as the inhabitants of those communities have been observed transferring tables, chairs, beds, and even rugs into the booth-like structures.

The administration stopped short of actively rebuking the Netanyahu government over the construction, as the effort has the hallmarks of a grass-roots initiative and not an officially sanctioned building spree of the kind that has infuriated White House officials in the past. In fact, hundreds of thousands of such structures have been hastily built over the last week even within the pre-1967 lines, indicating broad popular support for the initiative. However, Obama aides did communicate the president's concern over any kind of development on land claimed by Palestinians for a state.

Another factor contributing to the administration's muted response is the unlikelihood that the structures have been approved by Israeli government authorities. The addition of the booths - or, in many cases, simply the covering of an existing walled patio or terrace with the reed or leaf roofs - almost certainly constitutes a zoning violation wherever it occurs, and in the White House's assessment the Israeli authorities are almost certain to inform the residents of their obligation to dismantle the structures.

"We've had a few cases of a similar nature even in the US," said a White House staffer speaking on condition of anonymity. "We've had groups of Jews, sometimes entire communities, building these temporary structures that are in clear violation of building codes, zoning designation, and other municipal approvals necessary for the erection of such entities. People complain about it, the town or city gives the owners a couple of weeks' notice to take down the structure, and they comply. At this point we're going to assume the same process will play out over in the West Bank, though I imagine they'll have some difficulty notifying every single homeowner right away."

"It always seems to happen this time of year, too," mused the official. "I wonder if there's some way to predict the phenomenon?"

Roger Cohen's latest New York Times op-ed reveals that when it comes to treating Israel with a double standard, he has no equal:

Every human instinct recoils from the killing of children. It recoils even as Israel’s right to defend itself from rockets is clear; and the excruciating difficulty of waging war against an enemy deployed among civilians is acknowledged; and the readiness of Israel’s foes to kill any Jew is confronted. However framed, the death of a single child to an Israeli bullet seems to betoken some failure in the longed-for Jewish state, to say nothing of several hundred. The slaughter elsewhere in the Middle East cannot be an alibi for Jews to avoid this self-scrutiny.

Cohen throws in the perfunctory disclaimers, yeah, sure, I know that Hamas hides among civilians, sure I know they target civilians, yeah they aren't wonderful people. But the death of a single Gaza child is a failure in the Zionist project altogether!

If Cohen truly believed his blah-blah disclaimers, he would lay the blame on children's deaths in Gaza squarely where they belong: with Hamas. But he doesn't; the disclaimers are meant as a shield for Cohen against criticism that he is too one-sided, and not as an honest appraisal of the situation Israel faces.

To put it bluntly: waging war in an urban area without killing children is nearly impossible. Waging war in an area where the enemy knowingly places its military targets among children is literally impossible. And waging war in an area where the heavily armed enemy instructs its citizens not to evacuate when they are warned that the battle is coming to their homes - and where the enemy purposefully places major command centers inside civilian houses - is absolutely, 100% impossible.

To Cohen, Israel's failure to do the impossible is an indication of the failure of the Jewish state. Which means that to Cohen, after 66 years, Israel among all nations is still in a trial period to see if it is good enough to join the family of nations, and if it ever falls short of an impossible standard, it fails.

Never in a million years would Cohen say the same thing about the children being killed, today, in Syria and Iraq by his own country. He would never dream of asking whether children killed in recent wars by French or British or even Syrian warplanes indicates that they are failures as nations. Spain or Italy or Russia cannot be failures. Only Israel can be a failure, when it fails to pass a test that is rigged against it.

But Cohen's piece gets even more perverse, as he engages in the popular pastime of "Palestinians are the new Jews":

Of course, sermons are only part of the story. The High Holy Days are days to look inward, to be still. I found my eyes straying to a passage from Stefan Zweig’s “The World of Yesterday” reprinted in the prayer book. It read:

“Only now, since they were swept up like dirt in the streets and heaped together, the bankers from their Berlin palaces and sextons from the synagogues of Orthodox congregations, the philosophy professors from Paris, and Romanian cabbies, the undertaker’s helpers and Nobel prize winners, the concert singers, and hired mourners, the authors and distillers, the haves and the have-nots, the great and the small, the devout and the liberals, the usurers and the sages, the Zionists and the assimilated, the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim, the just and the unjust besides which the confused horde who thought that they had long since eluded the curse, the baptized and the semi-Jews — only now, for the first time in hundreds of years, the Jews were forced into a community of interest to which they had long ceased to be sensitive, the ever-recurring — since Egypt — community of expulsion. But why this fate for them and always for them alone? What was the reason, the sense, the aim of this senseless persecution? They were driven out of lands but without a land to go to.”

Two phrases leapt out: “community of expulsion,” and “driven out of lands but without a land to go to.” The second embodied the necessity of the Jewish state of Israel. But it was inconceivable, at least to me, without awareness of the first. Palestinians have joined the ever-recurring “community of expulsion.”

There is indeed something in common between the Jewish experience and the Palestinian Arab experience of diaspora - but it isn't what Cohen thinks.

Jews have been driven out of many lands over many centuries because of Jew-hatred. Whether it is because of jealousy or scapegoating or some other reason is not important for our purposes - antisemitism has been a fixture on the world stage forever.

The reason that several hundred thousand Palestinian Arabs found themselves without a place to live in 1948 is also because of Jew-hatred. Arab states made the conscious decision to not allow the Palestinians to become citizens because they wanted to ensure that they could be used as political pawns. The Arab nations, and indeed the current Palestinian leadership, have invested effort into maintaining the homelessness of millions of people because one day, they hope, these people kept in perpetual misery will be the vanguard in the effort to destroy the Jewish state. Every photo of child in a refugee camp is as valuable as every photo of a dead child in Gaza - they serve the exact same purpose, to use the innocent in order to turn world opinion against Israel (and, often, against Jews.)

Cohen shows here that he is quite susceptible to this nakedly cynical use of people's lives as propaganda.

Why has every single refugee community in the aftermath of World War II managed to disappear, while the Palestinian Arab "refugees" have increased more than tenfold? More importantly, why doesn't Cohen know the answer to this basic question?

To compare the suffering of Jews across millennia with the suffering of an artificial refugee population that is being cynically used for political purposes is outrageous. The Palestinian Arab "refugee" issue could be solved tomorrow if only the very people who pretend to care about them would treat them the way they treat all other Arabs. It isn't because they hate Palestinians, it is because they hate Jews.

This was a masterful propaganda initiative, the conscious use and maintenance of Palestinian suffering in order to make moral midgets like Cohen blame Israel for their plight instead of the Arab countries and Palestinian leaders who knowingly and explicitly perpetuated it for decades. (I'm not even talking about the reasons for their flight in 1948 to begin with; Even if Israel was 100% responsible - which it clearly wasn't - the responsibility for their welfare for the past six decades rests with the Arab countries they fled to. Just like every other refugee population in history.)

There we have it .To Roger Cohen, Israel doesn't deserve to exist unless it reaches impossible levels of perfection, and Israel is responsible for a community whose hosts will keep them stateless until Israel ceases to exist.

And, hey, Cohen can play the Jewish card, so these ridiculous ramblings have an aura of respectability!

10/07 Links Pt1: Bibi: ‘We Don’t Just Hand Over Territory, Close Our Eyes and Hope for the Best’

From Ian:

Netanyahu Says Stance on Security Requirements Has Become ‘Firmer’ — ‘We Don’t Just Hand Over Territory, Close Our Eyes and Hope for the Best’ (INTERVIEW)

Following the summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has declared, in a wide-ranging interview with The Algemeiner, that his long held position that the Jewish state will not transfer any territory to the Palestinian Authority in the absence of extensive security arrangements has “only become firmer.”
He also asserted that the possibility that any peace agreement with the PA might unravel is justification for his strong stance on security.
I met Netanyahu last Wednesday evening at an upscale New York City hotel shortly after he reiterated support for “two states for two peoples” in a meeting with President Obama at the White House.

2 IDF soldiers injured in explosion on Lebanese border

Two IDF soldiers were lightly injured when a Hezbollah bomb went off in their vicinity in the Har Dov region on Tuesday, the IDF Spokesman's Unit said.
The IDF said it shelled two Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to the border bombing. Some 30 minutes after the incident a second explosion occurred on the border. There were no injuries or damage in the second blast.
The soldiers received initial emergency medical treatment on the spot, before being evacuated away from the Lebanese border to hospital for further treatment.
"The IDF sees this incident as a gross and violent violation of Israeli sovereignty, and sees the Lebanese government and Hezbollah as responsible for any attempt to harm Israeli soldiers or civilians," the military said in a statement. "The IDF reserves the right to act in any way, and at any time, to defend the citizens of the state of Israel."
Hezbollah later claimed responsibility for the blast.

Ebola and "Palestine" Recognition, Today's Two Most Dangerous International Epidemics

The Jerusalem Post has reported that people who have arrived from the "affected areas" are being searched for to make sure none are carrying the dreaded Ebola virus. Considering the amount of tourism to Israel and the number of illegal workers from Africa, this is a danger. Yes, it's a medical danger.
But there's a different sort of danger encroaching on Israel, and that's the growing de facto if not de jure recognition of "Palestine" as a nation by foreign countries and international bodies/organizations/NGOs.
There are two equally dangerous reasons for this, and by looking at the above map, you can see that although most Israelis try not to pay too much attention, this is no minor phenomena. Most of the world would be perfectly happy for "Palestine" to replace Israel, because the basis for their recognition is that they, and many world leaders, academics and ordinary people even in countries that haven't yet recognized this new Arab country firmly and sincerely believe that Israel/Jews invaded an ancient country called "Palestine" and imposed a "new" Jewish one now called Israel. This very popular and accepted fallacy is the most dangerous "disease" which we in Israel must fight. It's more dangerous than Ebola for sure.
Among the foreign leaders who firmly, religiously believe in the myth of Palestine is United States President Barack Hussein Obama. And unfortunately, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who support the "two state solution," enabling the establishment of a state called "Palestine" are actually undermining the security and continued existance of the State of Israel. (h/t Bob Knot)

Another day, another NYT op-ed filled with lies

The New York Times has published another fsact-free anti-Israel op-ed. Which means this must be Tuesday.

Today's absurdity comes from Ali Jarbawi, political scientist at Birzeit University and a former minister of the Palestinian Authority.

The latest speech by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, before the United Nations General Assembly represented a significant departure in his thinking. Until last week, Mr. Abbas had been the firmest believer in and most loyal champion of direct negotiations with Israel under the exclusive sponsorship of the United States. He insisted constantly that these negotiations were the only way to reach a political settlement to the conflict.

For the past six years, Abbas has been doing everything possible to avoid direct negotiations with Israel.

Over the years, he was extremely conciliatory toward Israel, and offered up one concession after another on several key issues, presuming that that would enable him to appease Israel and convince it to end its occupation and work with him to achieve a political settlement, which would finally allow for the creation of the long-awaited Palestinian state.

Abbas has not made a single public concession to Israel - and he has bragged about his intransigence on multiple occasions.

None of Mr. Abbas’s conciliations or concessions to Israel ever bore fruit. In fact, over time, the country tilted increasingly rightward and its stubbornness and intractability toward the Palestinians grew.

Leftist hero Yitzchak Rabin was far more hawkish at the time of his murder than Bibi is today. The only rightward tilt in Israel were as responses to the Palestinian Arab decision to support terrorists in 2001 and in 2014.

Mr. Abbas’s speech before the United Nations was one of his best since he became Palestinian president nine years ago.

This is the speech where he said Israel was guilty of "genocide."

Really, the New York Times should at least pretend to publish op-eds that aren't so ridiculously easy to prove insane. Give me a little bit of a challenge, OK?

B'Tselem researcher denies and deflects his Holocaust denial

B'Tselem researcher Atef Abu Roub posted a rambling, incoherent denial of his calling the Holocaust a lie on his Facebook page in Arabic - even after B'Tselem finally admits it on its English Facebook page.

First he states unequivocally that the Holocaust is an undeniable fact, and that he is absolutely against the killing of any civilians, ever.

He then says that the undercover journalist Tuvia Tenenbom "exceeded all journalistic rules" by being an undercover reporter and gaining his trust. He whines that he acted as his translator, without charge.

Aroub then claims that he never knew what the English word Holocaust meant, which is funny because the word wasn't mentioned in the video.

Aroub also says that in the atmosphere of joking that was throughout the interview, is it even possible that he would joke about the Holocaust?

He then goes on to say that Tenenbom's use of material during the many hours they spent together is a betrayal, but at the same time he says that Tenenbom acted inappropriately with one of the Bedouin families he visited.

Aroub defends himself in Arabic only. If he would try to make these claims in English he would look even more ludicrous than he does already.

Here's my transcript of the video:

Interviewee through translator Abu Roub: ...That you support the Jewish state.

"Toby": Why? Why do you think so?

Abu Roub: Not you personally.

Interviewee through translator The Germans pay for the Jews, while they say that Hitler killed millions of those Jews.

Interviewee through translator Abu Roub: Because you pay money, you support....

"Toby": Ah, because we are Germans, we support the Jews.

Abu Aroub: Yes.

"Toby": But ask him if he remembers that we also killed them.

Abu Aroub (without asking interviewee): (Laughs) It's a lie. I don't believe it...Sometimes they kill tens of people (unintelligible) - they are resistance. Now there is strong media, and they are lying.

Now that we've determined that B'Tselem hires researchers who are quite at ease with lying through their teeth, what does this say about B'Tselem's research methodology?

We already know that it is a joke, but this proves that at least one of their researchers has no compunction about making things up.

Lilac Sigan posted a video from 1 October to her Timeline — with Sarit Michaeli.

(h/t Bob Knot)

That "moderate" Palestinian Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, says that Israel has declared a religious war on Islam.

Why?

Because, as I reported yesterday, Israel's tourism minister is floating the idea of reducing long lines for non-Muslims to enter the Temple Mount by allowing them to use a second gate (out of 11).

Yes, allowing Jews to peacefully stroll around the Temple Mount unmolested by hordes of screaming, threatening Muslims is a declaration of war on Islam.

Ashrawi said that this plan "will eliminate the prospects for peace and finally drag the entire region toward disastrous confrontations."

She further described it as a "serious escalation," and added that the plan was a naked insult to the feelings of Muslims all over the world, calling on the Muslim states "to hold Israel accountable and to stop its aggression on the Islamic and Christian sanctities in Jerusalem and all the occupied Palestinian territories."

Ashrawi is a Christian.

So, which is more peaceful: allowing people of all religions to have equal access to holy places, or inciting hundreds of millions of Arabs to war?

The sad fact is that most of the world cannot answer that simple question correctly.

Muslims now claim ear-splitting calls to prayer are protected under international law

Muslims in Hebron are complaining that Israeli authorities prevented the Muslim call to prayer from the Tomb of the Patriarchs some 60 times in September.

The loud calls to prayer were disturbing the quiet prayers of Jews in what the Muslims call "usurped sections of the Ibrahimi Mosque."

In today's jaw-dropping example of Palestinian hypocrisy, Arabic media says that the decision to limit the calls to prayer "ignores the feelings of Muslims and international laws and conventions that protect holy sites and freedom of access."

If they controlled all of Hebron, guess who wouldn't have any access to the site?

If they had their way with Rachel's Tomb and the Temple Mount and the Western Wall and every other holy site, guess who would be banned altogether?

The Jews are the only ones that have allowed all religions to practice freely in the region. And they are the ones being accused of violating the exact thing they have done more successfully than anyone in the Middle East in history.

It is almost as if they just don't like Jews. (Shhhhh - you aren't allowed to say that.)

Here is an example, from 2011, showing how a rabbi giving a talk about Chanukah in the Maarat Hamachpela must use a PA system just to be heard above the din of the muezzin which starts at 0:17 and then gets louder.

Now, who's ignoring the feelings of members of other religions? Oh, sorry, I forgot - tolerance is only a one-way street for certain people.

By the way, in other Muslim nations, ordinary citizens sometimes complain about the volume of the muezzin call to prayer. It's happened in Cairo, Tunisia, Dubai and Morocco. But only Jews are supposedly violating international laws when they seek to limit the decibel level of these calls to prayer.