Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

11/12 Links Pt1: Why Abbas Will Not Condemn Terror Attacks; Hamas 2nd Richest Terror Org

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Abbas Will Not Condemn Terror Attacks

Secretary of State Kerry's "peace process" actually put Israelis and Palestinians on a new collision course.
Not a single Palestinian Authority official has denounced the wave of terror attacks on Israel. They, too, are afraid of being condemned by their people for denouncing "heroic operations" such as ramming a car into a three-month old infant.
Kerry and other Western leaders do not want to understand that Abbas is not authorized to make any concessions for peace with Israel. For Abbas, it is more convenient to be criticized by the U.S. and Israel than to be denounced by his own people. Ignoring these facts, Kerry tried to pressure Abbas into making concessions that would have turned the Palestinian Authority president into a "traitor" in the eyes of his people. Abbas knows that the people he has radicalized would turn against him if he dared to speak out against the killing of Jews.

As Israelis Are Murdered in Palestinian Terror Attacks, Psaki Urges ‘All Sides’ to Show ‘Restraint’ (VIDEO)

Matt Lee: All right, I’m just going to assume that, correct me if I’m wrong but when you say all parties must show restraint, you’re talking about the, who are you talking about?
Jen Psaki: Well, we’re talking about the Israelis, the Palestinians, any who are uh, involved in these uh, eh, tension-raising, rhetoric-raising incidents.
Matt Lee: Okay, but I mean, if you’re standing at a bus stop or something and someone runs a car into you or comes up and stabs you, I don’t know how to, I mean, those people aren’t, don’t need to exercise restraint, do they?
Jen Psaki: Well, Matt, I think I’m referring to the fact that we know that there have been, there’s been rising tensions in the region that has led to some of these incidents, I think we are all aware of that (laughs).
Matt Lee: In terms of the restraint and the rhetoric.
Jen Psaki: Um hmm?
Matt Lee: Are you seeing any, I mean, uh, last week you were pretty down on both sides or you were up, you were pleased with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s calls, uh, and uh the stuff that he did with the Jordanians about getting the tensions around the Temple Mount down, but you weren’t particularly happy with President Abbas, is that, is that changed?
Jen Psaki: Well, I think they also said last week, I was speaking to one incident of Prime Minister Netanyahu, obviously there have been a range of issues and events that have led to the rising tensions in the region, that both sides need to do more to [unintelligible].

Daily Press Briefing: November 10, 2014 (starts 29:16)

Israel's faulty calculus

In response to Palestinian unilateralism, Israel must also assert full sovereignty over any areas in Judea and Samaria deemed necessary to maintain its security. Palestinians living in any annexed lands should likewise be given a path to citizenship and the option to relocate.
If a further entrenchment of the IDF is temporarily necessary, then forces should be deployed in requisite numbers.
Finally, Israel must consider cutting ties entirely with the PA, allowing it to collapse like the house of cards it is. The country can, and will, deal with whatever comes afterwards as long as its borders are secure and a military presence exists in close proximity to any cities under continued Palestinian control.
The alternative to asserting Jewish rights is worse – and in plain view: an endless cycle of violence waged by sworn enemies under the guise of a phony peace process. There is no white dove fluttering its wings at the end of the peace tunnel, which is nothing less than another underground conduit for more terrorism from the likes of Fatah and Hamas.
Pandering to murderers is not why Jews fought and died for the establishment of Israel. The goal was never the creation of a banana republic devoid of direction or intestinal fortitude; one which, unless it gets its act together – and soon – might no longer be worth fighting for at all.

PA official calls for jihad, then warns of religious war

You know how Mahmoud Abbas liked to warn that Israeli actions in Jerusalem would lead to a religious war?

Only one side is calling for a religious war, and it isn't Israel:

In a November 6, 2014 interview on Palestinian Authority TV, Mahmoud Habbash, former PA minister of religious endowment, said that waging Jihad for the sake of the Al-Aqsa Mosque was a duty incumbent upon every Muslim worldwide, and warned that the flames of a religious war "could reach the U.S., Washington itself, Europe, Asia, Africa, everywhere." In a sermon delivered in Ramallah on November 7, 2014, in the presence of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Habbash said that the battle being waged in Jerusalem is "the final phase, after which our banners will fly... over the minarets of Jerusalem, over its churches, its domes, its hills, its mountains, its alleys, and its homes." The sermon was broadcast by the PA's Awda TV channel.

Following are excerpts:

Awda TV, November 6, 2014

Mahmoud Habbash: Today, protecting the Al-Aqsa Mosque and waging Jihad – both with one's own body and through aid – for the sake of Al-Aqsa constitute an individual duty, incumbent upon every Muslim man and woman from all corners of the Earth.
[...]
We are witnessing an insane war, being waged against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the holiest place for Muslims in Palestine.
[...]
If this escalation continues – as President [Abbas] himself warned – it might ignite a religious war. Some people might just ignore it when they hear the term "religious war." They do not fathom what religious war means and how dangerous it might be. Simply put, a religious war would mean that every Israeli would become a target for any Muslim, from America to Japan, from the north to the south. From everywhere. Every Muslim would feel that his religious and faith are under threat, and that one of his holiest sites is being targeted by those Israelis, and would conclude that the Israelis are enemies, and therefore, constitute targets, for the sole reason that they are Israelis.

Once all the Arabs and Muslims from all over the world join the fray in the direct, physical, and operational sense, the [Israelis] will face a war against 1.5 billion Muslims.
[...]
This religious war will not be limited to Palestine. Its flames could reach the U.S., Washington itself, Europe, Asia, Africa, everywhere. Is that really what they want? It's not what we want. When we warn of a religious war, it is not an attempt to threaten anyone or arouse fear. It is a genuine warning to the world and to the U.N. Security Council.
[...]
Palestinian Authority TV, November 7, 2014

The Prophet Muhammad has given us orders and we obey them. We are grateful to Allah for choosing us, selecting us, to live in Jerusalem and its environs. We confront [the enemy], challenge it, entrench ourselves, and defend the places holy to our religion and our nation. We are protecting the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third most holy place in Islam, the place to which the Prophet Muhammad made his nocturnal journey, and the cradle of Jesus.

We are protecting the land of the prophets from the enemies of the prophets. We are protecting the land of the divine revelations from the enemies of the messengers. The battle that is being waged today in Jerusalem, my brothers – by Allah, I believe that this is the final phase, after which our banners will fly, by the will of Allah, over the minarets of Jerusalem, over its churches, its domes, its hills, its mountains, its alleys, and its homes.

Sounds a lot like the mob, doesn't it? "We don't want to burn down your store, but you give us no choice!"

The Palestinian Authority just threatened every "Israeli" (wink, wink) worldwide, by saying that if Israel enforces civil rights for Jews, then Jews worldwide will pay.

And not one Western leader will denounce this.

UNRWA media advisor pushes anti-Israel fauxtography (UPDATE)

UNRWA media advisor Adnan Abu Hasna has a high-profile job in Gaza.

Here he is with then-EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton:

And with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon:

Here is what the Facebook page of Adnan Abu Hasna looks like, today:

The photo caption says "A despicable Israeli puts his feet on a Palestinian girl. Let this picture reach the entire world in 24 hours. All you have to do is click 'Share'. "

As we've shown, this photo is fake. it was part of a Bahraini street theater.

The photo with the chain mail caption that Hasna shared was uploaded by Ghad.PS newspaper FB page back on April 17. Hasna shared it on November 8.

Most of the Arabic comments point out that the photo was fake, mostly because the IDF does not use Russian rifles.

However, Adnan Abu Hasna didn't bother to read the comments - or he ignored them deliberately. He didn't think twice about forwarding FB "chain mail." He saw an anti-Israel photo, and by Allah, he had to follow the instructions to share it.

And he is a UNRWA media advisor!

Why would UNRWA hire someone as a media advisor who propagates lies so easily?

Oh, right. That's what UNRWA does. Constantly, blatantly, incessantly.

Never mind - dumb question. The real question is how the world tolerates a United Nations agency that disregards the truth so much?

Oh, right. The lies are mostly against Israel. Never mind.

(h/t IronyDome, Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: It appears I am mistaken. The picture was placed on his timeline by one of his friends. I regret the error. One day I need to learn Facebook. (H/t Bob Knot)

Today's fake Gaza "journalist"

On August 29, UNESCO issued this press release:

The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, today denounced the killing of Palestinian journalist Abdullah Murtaja, who died on 25 August.

“I condemn the killing of Abdullah Murtaja,” the Director-General said. “Journalists must be able to carry out their work in safe conditions and their civilian status needs to be respected at all times. Society needs to be kept informed of events, never more so than when living in the shadow of conflict.”

I had previously found a photo of Murtaja with a rifle, but I didn't think he was a terrorist fighter. Until now.

A new video was released showing Murtaja giving his "martyr" statement meant to be shown posthumously.

The "journalist" who worked for Hamas' Al Aqsa TV, was also an Al Qassam Brigades terrorist. Hamas is calling him a "media martyr."

It is a war crime to have fighters pretend to be protected civilians. Will UNESCO release a statement condemning Hamas' using fighters who masquerade as journalists?

See also Israellycool. And Bob Knot found this poster:

(h/t ZioYahud)

Report: Live bullet used on Nakba Day shootings (UPDATE)

From YNet:

A Border Police officer was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of shooting dead a Palestinian teen at a Nakba Day protest outside Ramallah in May.

The suspect was detained by Israel Police and taken for an arraignment hearing, Army Radio reported.

Details of the police investigation into the shooting remained under a gag order, but a lead leaked to the press indicated that the probe found that the officer fired a live round, rather than a rubber bullet, as the IDF had claimed.

A police spokesperson couldn’t comment on the details of the case, but said that the investigation into the shooting was ongoing.

An autopsy performed by Palestinian and Israeli pathologists in June found that Nadeem Siam Nawara, 17, was shot and killed in May’s Nakba Day rally in Beitunia, near Ramallah, by live fire, most likely shot by the IDF.

Nawara, 17, was one of two Palestinian teens killed on May 15. The IDF, which maintained only nonlethal dispersal methods were used by troops against the demonstration, declined to comment on the findings at the time.

I had covered this extensively. I was convinced based on video from CNN, synchronized with the CCTV footage, that Nawara was shot by a rubber bullet. YNet indicates in its headline, but doesn't say explicitly in the article, that this arrest was for the Nawara shooting, and not the later shooting of Mohammed Salameh for which I don't have as much evidence.

Some had mentioned that it was theoretically possible to shoot a live bullet through the attachment meant for rubber bullets, but the gunshot sound would be much different than that of a rubber bullet shooting that we seemed to hear on the CNN video. That scenario seemed to me less likely than the idea that Nawara was shot by a rubber bullet and then killed later. And I really dislike conspiracy theories.

I'm looking forward to seeing the details when they are released.

UPDATE: NRG says that the bullet that was recovered (possibly from Nawara's backpack, or from his body) matched the Border Police gun. (h/t Yenta P)

Arab Dancing With the Stars (video)

Don't blame me....I found it on an Arabic Facebook page.

11/11 Links Pt2: Dershowitz: How Amnesty International suppresses free speech

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: How Amnesty International suppresses free speech

Last month the Columbia chapter of Amnesty International invited me to deliver a talk on human rights in the Middle East. I accepted the invitation, anxious to present a balanced view on human rights, focusing on the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian issue. As a supporter of the two state solution and an opponent of many of Israel’s settlement decisions, I regard myself as a moderate on these issues. That was apparently too much for the national office of Amnesty International to tolerate. They demanded that the Columbia chapter of Amnesty International disinvite me. They did not want their members to hear my perspective on human rights.
The excuse they provided were two old and out of context quotes suggesting that I favored torture and collective punishment. The truth is that I am adamantly opposed to both. I have written nuanced academic articles on the subject of torture warrants as a way of minimizing the evils of torture, and I have written vehemently against the use of collective punishment of innocent people—whether it be by means of the boycott movement against all Israelis or the use of collective punishment against Palestinians. I do favor holding those who facilitate terrorism responsible for their own actions.
The real reasons Amnesty International tried to censor my speech to its members is that I am a Zionist who supports Israel’s right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people. As such, I have been somewhat critical of Amnesty International’s one-sided approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For example, I wrote an article criticizing Amnesty International’s report on honor killings in the West Bank. An honor killing occurs when a woman has been raped and her family then kills her because of the shame her victimization has brought. Despite massive evidence to the contrary, Amnesty International mendaciously claimed that honor killings had increased in the West Bank since the Israeli occupation and that the fault for this increase in Arab men killing Arab women, lies with Israel. The reality is that there are far fewer honor killings in the West Bank than there are in adjoining Jordan, which is not under Israeli occupation, and that the number of honor killings in the West Bank has been reduced dramatically during the Israeli occupation. But facts mean little to Amnesty International when Israel is involved.

Dershowitz: Obama Must Fire Official Who Insulted Netanyahu

Renowned Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz made it clear that the case must not be closed regarding the Obama Administration officials who personally attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with various epithets. The insults were widely reported in the international press after having been first reported in the New Yorker.
Speaking with Newsmax TV this past Thursday, Prof. Dershowitz said that President Obama "must get to the bottom of this, find out who the two people are who made those statements, expose them, and fire them."
Dershowitz, who endorsed Obama in both of the last two Presidential elections, hinted that Congress should get involved in the matter. "Congress can have hearings to determine who those two senior White House officials are who used those terrible words about PM Netanyahu," he said.

Kristallnacht fundraiser for Gaza riles Danish Jews

A leader of Denmark’s Jewish community criticized local politicians who raised money for Gaza at a Holocaust memorial event.
Donations raised at Sunday’s event in Copenhagen’s Norrebro district - commemorating the victims of Austria and Germany’s 1938 Kristallnacht pogroms against Jews - would go toward buying ambulances in Gaza, organizers from the Red-Green Alliance party said.
“When the profits from the Norrebro event go to Gaza, whose government is at war with Israel, I think that there is inappropriate confusion,” Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, president of the Jewish community in Copenhagen, told the Kristelig Dagblad newspaper.

The accusations and counter-accusations between Hamas and Fatah continue, with Mahmoud Abbas directly charging that Hamas set off several bombs last Friday against Fatah leaders - and the stage meant for a Arafat anniversary rally.

Today, the Fatah Facebook page says that students in the Jabalya camp in Gaza tried to organize a march to commemorate Arafat's death anniversary, and that Hamas came in and beat them up.

True? Who knows? It is pretty clear that the "unity" government is no more unified than it was before.

Some pro-terror Facebook entries of UNRWA teachers

Here are some more examples of the peaceful, non-political nature of UNRWA teachers based on their Facebook photos.

From a teacher in Jordan named Kifah Khamis Abd Alfattah:

A self-portrait of a teacher in Lebanon, Abo Adam:

A female teacher in Jordan, Samah Hindi:

A female teacher in Lebanon named Sarah Qasim:

Same person:

"Our silence is preparation. Tomorrow Tel-Aviv will mourn"

Do you think that these teachers are teaching their kids about peace and coexistence?

The Facebook page of the Hitler admirer I posted about yesterday is now gone. I'm certain that he taught his class today just as he did yesterday.

Amazing how UNRWA puts so much effort in hiding its serious problems rather than, you know, fixing them.

More tomorrow!

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

11/11 Links Pt1: What they didn’t tell you about Dahlia; IDF: Hamas Is Planning a Very Large Attack

From Ian:

Gush Etzion terror attack victim Dalia Lamkus laid to rest in Tekoa

The victim killed in Monday's terror attack in Gush Etzion was laid to rest in Tekoa on Tuesday.
Dalia Lamkus, 26, was stabbed to death on Monday evening, a short distance away from where she survived a similar attack almost nine years earlier.
At the time, in February 2006, she described her experience in a talkback published on the NRG website.
“On February 28, 2006, I stood at the Gush Etzion junction, when suddenly a terrorist appeared and started stabbing people who stood at the hitch-hiking post. I was one of two people, who were stabbed. It was a miracle that I was not seriously wounded. The other victim is recovering, with God’s help,” she wrote.

'The Terrorist Will Not Break Us,' Vows Terror Victim's Father

The funeral of Dalia Lemkos, 26, was held Tuesday morning in Tekoa, in the Etzion Bloc (Gush Etzion), a day after she was murdered by a knife-wielding Islamist at a bus stop outside the town of Alon Shvut.
Her father, Nahum Lemkos, eulogized her and said: “The terrorist murdered her because she was Jewish, because she is carrying on the tradition of the nation of Israel. The terrorist did not understand that through the murder, he will not succeed in breaking us and our bond to the Land of Israel.
"With your radiant face, your beauty and kindness of heart, you followed the path of Sarah the Matriarch. You helped us and the entire nation of Israel. You have merited to die for the sanctity of G-d and for the sanctity of the land. Beloved Dalia, you join our holy foremothers. May you sit in the shadow of the Shechina (God's Spirit).”

At funeral of slain woman, sister urges hitchhikers not to stop

Hundreds of people gathered Tuesday to pay their last respects to terror victim Dalia Lemkus as the 26-year-old was laid to rest in her hometown of Tekoa, a settlement in the West Bank.
Speaking at the funeral, Lemkus’s sister Michal urged Israelis to continue hitchhiking undeterred in defiance of terror.
“I want to scream at everyone, at my nation, and mostly at myself: Don’t stop hitchhiking. Don’t stop driving on the roads. Don’t give them the satisfaction, the satisfaction that they managed to stop and prevent us from living our lives.”
Dalia Lemkus, the daughter of immigrants from South Africa, was stabbed to death by a Palestinian assailant Monday evening while hitchhiking from a bus stop outside the settlement of Alon Shvut, south of Jerusalem.

What they didn’t tell you about Dahlia

Funny how none of the articles about the murder of Dahlia Lemkus who was stabbed near Alon Shvut last night speak about Dahlia or her family, how no reporter had the curiosity to find out about her. She was killed in the afternoon so the reporters had all evening to question their contacts in Tekoa.
Instead, they practice a kind of obscurantism, restricting our knowledge of the victim. (Curious that the word obscurantism is derived from a dispute between intellectuals and the German monks who wanted to burn Jewish books, like the Talmud, in the 16th century to obscure Jewish culture and learning.) In the New York Times, the reporter tells you about the terrorist who is from Hebron, how he was in an Israeli jail for five years for a firebombing. The reporter quotes his Facebook page: “I’ll be a thorn in the gullet of the Zionist project to Judaize Jerusalem.” We learn nothing about 26 year old Dahlia, who was just getting started in life after finishing college, studying occupational therapy so that she could have a job where she could help people who were sick or infirm or disabled to live in a fuller way.
They don’t tell you how she loved to bake with her mother, the two of them bringing rich, luscious cakes to parties and the way she spoke English with an accent — but not a Hebrew accent — a South African accent because her parents made aliyah from there thirty years ago. They don’t tell you how she went to synagogue every Sabbath and smiled at the people in her row before she prayed. And they don’t tell you how she had to hitchhike to get to her job working with children in Kiryat Gat or that she was the main volunteer at Yad Sarah in Tekoa which lends medical equipment like wheelchairs to those who are sick or injured. They don’t tell you how she liked to help brides look beautiful by doing their makeup for them before their weddings.

Soldier Murdered in Tel Aviv 'Was a True God-Fearer'

First Sergeant Almog Shiloni hy”d, who was murdered Monday by a terrorist in Tel Aviv, had always wanted to be a combat soldier.
In an interview for the IAF website upon his induction to the military, Shiloni said: “I always wanted to be a fighter. I trained ahead of the enlistment, and ran for fitness. I prepared for it a lot.”
Shiloni is a graduate of the first Platoon Commanders' Course of the Nahal Hareidi battalion and served in the Negev Defenders' section.
Almog's twin brother, Sahar, said Monday that his brother “only wanted to return to his base and was simply stabbed and wounded. This simply cannot go on. There are soldiers and people who are injured, who are stabbed in the street, you can't walk alone in this country, you can't walk quietly. This is our country, we fought for it, my twin brother fought for it.”

"Palestine's Nelson Mandela" calls for all-out war against Israel's Jews

Earlier this year, The Guardian published a CiF article saying that Marwan Barghouti must be released from Israeli prison, calling him "Palestine's Nelson Mandela":

[I]f peace is ever to come, Israel will have to acknowledge that Barghouti was a political and not a military leader, that he never carried arms and that he always opposed actions targeting Israeli civilians, even while defending the right of Palestinians to resist.

Today, Barghouti called on Palestinian Arabs to start an armed uprising against Israel.

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi urged the Palestinian leadership to give its backing to "armed resistance" against Israel in a letter published Tuesday as a wave of violence surged.

In a letter to mark 10 years since the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat, Barghouthi said that "choosing global and armed resistance" was being "faithful to Arafat's legacy, to his ideas, and his principles for which tens of thousands died as martyrs."

"It is imperative to reconsider our choice of resistance as a way of defeating the occupier," he wrote.

With religious tensions also surging at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, Barghouthi urged the Palestinian leadership to take action and make good on threats to end security cooperation with Israel.

"The Palestinian Authority must review its priorities and its mission ... and put an immediate end to security cooperation which is only strengthening the occupier," he said.

He also remarked on the circumstances of Arafat's death, saying his "assassination" was the result of "an official Israeli-American decision."

Which pretty much means he is calling for another terror spree such as the second intifada in which he was so instrumental.

Expect to see the supposed supporters of "non-violent resistance" against Israel to start to parrot Barghouti's words in the upcoming weeks.

Abbas praises Neturei Karta at Arafat memorial

Mahmoud Abbas praised the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta organization during his speech commemorating the anniversary of Yasir Arafat's death.

Abbas said that Neturei Karta is made up of "Jews who stand with our people,"and he used them as proof that Palestinian Arabs do not differentiate between religions, "and this is evidence that we can live in brotherhood and all go to the mosque or the church."

NK members were at the memorial service with anti-Israel banners.

It is unclear if Abbas would welcome Neturei Karta members to visit the Temple Mount.

What he didn't say is that Neturei Karta was, and possibly still is, on the PLO's payroll. Arafat paid their leader tens of thousands of dollars, and even after Arafat's death he was appointed the PLO's "Minister of Jewish Affairs."

In short, the PLO helps prop up Neturei Karta so they can they claim that they are not antisemitic, even as they publicly admit that they want to cleanse their "state" of all Jews. If NK didn't exist, the PLO would create them.

Neturei Karta members are often seen attending anti-Israel rallies on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. Here's one where they are seen during a Saturday rally in Toronto while the speaker calls to murder all the Jews in Jerusalem (except, maybe, members of NK): "We say get out or you’re dead! We give them two minutes and then we start shooting! And that’s the only way they will understand.”

In this 2011 video from a Saturday demo in London, NK members admit on camera that they are not allowed to talk on the camera on the Sabbath!

Neturei Karta members who happily met with Iranian Holocaust deniers have no problem invoking the Holocaust to slam Israel:

It seems appropriate for the biggest Jewish hypocrites to be aligned with the biggest Arab hypocrites.

Notably, in 2012 Jordanians beat a group of Neturei Karta members attempting to attend an anti-Israel rally.

I guess the Arabs they are not quite as tolerant of Jews as Mahmoud Abbas pretends they are.

When Yasser Met Osama

Today is the tenth anniversary of Yasir Arafat's death.

In April 1991, Arafat attended the First Popular Arab and Islamic Congress, held in Khartoum and hosted by Hassan al-Turabi, a Sudanese Islamist leader.

PAIC I was meant to unify the Muslim terrorist world after the Soviets left Afghanistan and to strategize next steps to unify the Islamic 'umma.

As J. Millard Burr writes in his extraordinary account of this and subsequent PAIC conferences:

The first PAIC general assembly was, in fact and deed, a seminal moment in the development of both the modern Islamist revolution and the post-Soviet New World Order. Fusing his omnificent view of a modern and evolutionary Islam to that of the narrower revolutionary vision which had recently emerged in Shiite Iran, Turabi managed to square the circle and surmount a millennium of intra-Islamic factionalism. By the strength of his personality Turabi used the PAIC to forge a single, cohesive and unified Islamic movement uniting the Islamist umma from West Africa to Indonesia. It was an organization created to fill a void in the Muslim World and satisfy two primary needs: as a forum essential to the development of the Islamist revolutionary base, and as a unique meeting site where jihad could be discussed openly. The West could be openly reviled, and Turabi could expound at length on the West and its various nations where everything was permitted and nothing was sacred.

The conference was attended by a who's who of the terrorist world, including Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Imad Mughniyah, and a large Palestinian contingent including Arafat, Nayif Hawatma (DFLP), George Habash (founder of PFLP), Ibrahim Ghousha (Popular Struggle Front), Fathi al-Shiqaqi (founder of Palestine Islamic Jihad,) Jabbar Amar (Islamic Jihad,) Munir Said and Khaled Meshaal (Hamas.)

Most of the action in the conference went on behind the scenes, but some details have emerged, including Arafat's role:

PAIC I opened shortly after the Muslims world-wide commemoration of the "Day of Palestine" celebrated on 11 April 1991. The event had brought together leaders of a number of Palestinian movements -- Sunni and Shiite, secular and Islamist. Among those present were prominent Arab leftist and nationalist figures including Georges Habash, the Christian head of the radical secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Jabbar Amar who lived in Sudan and represented Palestine Islamic Jihad, a small movement increasingly dependent on Iran. Incredibly, at PAIC I observers saw Yasser Arafat in conversation with representatives of HAMAS, and members of the secular (and Marxist) Palestine movements circulated freely and "planned their next move."(16) Arafat -- who like Turabi teethed as a Muslim Brother and was thus well aware of the emerging "predominance of the Islamist trend" -- was reported to have played "a leading role" in Turabi's conclave. However, as was his custom, Arafat used the assembly to overplay his hand and confidently announced that, "Khartoum will become the springboard for the liberation of Jerusalem."

The conference, in retrospect, was in many ways the springboard for the resurgence of violent Islamism:

Ironically, many of the mujahideen who attended the PAIC, many of whom were battle hardened in such places as Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kashmir, were not as devoted to the issue of Palestine as most people would think. If Jerusalem was to be liberated they would help, but in the end the task would have to be left to Palestinians. And while all PAIC members were devoted to the elimination of Israel, there had already been a plethora of useless conferences called to address that issue over the previous decade. For the Islamists who dominated the PAIC, issues such as the condition of the Muslim community at large, and the status of Islam in the world itself were of much greater importance than Palestine. Indeed, the conference theme was chosen with care and was one that all could agree on: The battle against Western hegemony. Just how (or if) the PAIC would be used to attack the West and its institutions was not really clarified. Although not as virulently anti-American as the Iranian revolution of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the PAIC still rejected the morals and mores of a "neo-Crusader" invasion that could drown Islamic culture. Thus, under Turabi's tutelage the PAIC broadcast the seeds of an epistemology that urged Muslims to turn away from the secular, hedonistic, and selfish proclivities that dominated the West. And it was reported that Turabi was cheered when he characterized the West as an unchecked tyrannical superpower, the incarnation of a "force materielle absolue et tyrannique," and even though Islam yet remained a "prisoner" of the West, it was and would remain "la conscience du monde."

Turabi attempted to unify the PLO and Hamas in 1993, but failed, as Hamas insisted on being treated as an equal partner in any unity, something Arafat opposed strenuously.

The book also notes how Turabi managed to present a moderate, intellectual face of Islamism to the West while scheming to destroy the West at the same time. He was even the subject of fawning magazine articles:

Educated in the United Kingdom and France, and wonderfully aware of how to manipulate the Western journalist's ego, Turabi evolved as the beau ideal of Muslim fundamentalists. And despite the growing Iranian arrangement, he received a decent press from some Western sources; a Christian Science Monitor article of March 1993 noted that "Sudan's image as a harsh Islamic dictatorship, imposed by fanatical mullahs in consort with Iran, does not exactly fit." The Monitor argued that Turabi was no Ayatollah Khomeini, and unlike the more fanatic Islamists, he was urbane, charming, and immensely well-read. Ostensibly, he presented a kinder, gentler, avuncular face of "Islamic fundamentalism" -- a movement that he himself preferred to label the Islamic renaissance. Indeed, the Sudan tried to project an image of a polity moving toward the idealized Islamic state.

1993 saw both the first World Trade Center attack as well as Arafat signing the Oslo Accords. Yet barely a month after being hailed as a "peacemaker," Arafat made an appearance at the second PAIC conference, as did Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, members of the Taliban and many other prominent Islamists.

The West was mostly clueless to the rise of radical Islam that these conferences heralded, and it remains clueless as to how "secular" revolutionaries were working hand in hand with the Islamists, and Shia with Sunnis, in what was meant to be a pan-Arab and pan-Islamic challenge to the West that would culminate with the 9/11 attacks - and, for Arafat, with the second Intifada. Of course, pan-Arab and pan-Muslim unity never occurred as Turabi hoped, but there has been a lot more cross-pollination between various movements than most realize, and PAIC was a seminal event in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. And Arafat was an enthusiastic part of it.

There is a lot to read in this book.

(h/t David T)

Ron Prosor again tells the UN that they are hypocrites

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, on Monday afternoon:

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have asked you here today to address the direct effects of ignoring the daily incitement by the Palestinian Authority coupled with statements calling for the destruction of the State of Israel by Iran, a so-called reformed regime.

I will be perfectly clear - ignoring incitement and terrorism is similar to supporting terrorism.

In two and half weeks, Israel has seen 5 terror attacks, 5 people killed, and dozens of others have been seriously injured.

Just hours ago, a young soldier was stabbed in Tel Aviv and a young woman was stabbed just south of Jerusalem.

Every day Israelis are coming under attack. Every day the crowds of violent Palestinian rioters grow larger. And yet, this institution has not uttered a word to denounce attacks against Israelis.

Unsurprisingly, we have also not heard anything constructive from some of my European colleagues. To them, I say:

Yes, continue to cosponsor one-sided resolutions.

Yes, continue to encourage unilateral actions.

And yes, by all means, prematurely recognize a Palestinian State.

This has clearly been a resounding success that has brought us that much closer to peace.

And what about the Palestinian leadership? They can head the academy for arsonists because they add fuel to the fire on a daily basis.

A person doesn’t just wake up one day and decide to stab someone or ram his car into a crowd of people. These attacks are the results of years of anti-Israel indoctrination and the glorification of so-called martyrs.

The incitement is everywhere. In schools, mosques and media, the Palestinian Authority is glorifying terrorists and celebrating attacks on Jews and Israelis.

And where is the Palestinian delegate? Has he found the time to condemn these attacks?

Of course not. You see he has a very important function to attend this evening – a fashion show taking place in this institution to recognize the UN’s international year of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Now let me understand this. Solidarity with the Palestinian people? Solidarity with incitement? Solidarity with terror and extremism?

But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the Palestinian delegation is off to a fashion show. After all, they are experts in dressing up and disguising the truth.

And the truth is, ladies and gentlemen:

Israel is on the frontline fighting terrorism and radical extremism. We have no other choice but to stand up and defend our people in the only democracy in a region plagued by tyranny and terror.

I call on every responsible member of this institution to stand united with us in this fight. Stand with us as we fight terrorism. Stand with us as we fight incitement. And stand with us as we fight for the values that we all hold dear.

Those right-wing medieval Christian Latin scholars kept saying "Judea and Samaria"

Sunday night I tweeted this:

Who knew that 16th century Latin scholars were really using the language of right wing Jewish settlers? pic.twitter.com/42dUPrbYrW
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) November 10, 2014

Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, replied:

.@elderofziyon Jen Psaki @statedeptspox preparing a statement denouncing the author of De Epiphania Domini as a "chicken----."
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) November 10, 2014

At any rate, the use of the terminology Judea and Samaria are prevalent throughout the entire history of printed books.

Here:

Here:

And hundreds of others.

Perhaps that terminology should be recognized as the "status quo" that must be respected? Or does the "status quo" only go in one direction - towards any time period, no matter how short, that Arabs tried to erase all traces of Jewish history from certain areas?