Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

11/18 Links Pt1: Jerusalem terror victims identified as US and British citizens; Abu Mazen's Incitement

From Ian:

Jerusalem terror victims identified as US and British citizens

The names were released on Tuesday afternoon of the four victims - three dual US-Israeli nationals and one British-Israeli citizen - murdered in the terror attack at a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof.
Rabbi Aryeh Kopinsky, 43, Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68, and Rabbi Calman Levine, 55, all from the Har Nof neighborhood were identified along with Rabbi Moshe Twersky, 59, as victims murdered by two Palestinian terrorists.
Kopinsky, Levine and Twersky held dual US-Israeli citizenship after making aliya from American. Goldberg, a British-Israeli national, immigrated to Israel from Britain.
Funerals for the four were to be held Tuesday afternoon.
Kopinsky's death marked a further tragedy for his family as his daughter died three years ago in sudden circumstances.
Levine leaves behind five children and nine grandchildren.

The silence of prayer, shattered in a synagogue bloodbath

Yaakov Amos had just finished calling silently on God to “grant peace everywhere, goodness and blessing; grace, loving kindness and mercy to us and unto all Israel, Your people,” when two terrorists stormed into Har Nof’s largest synagogue at 7:01 a.m. on Tuesday.
Amos, a trained trauma therapist, was in the middle of the Amidah prayer when he heard a pair of gunshots issued in quick succession. “Boom-boom,” he said.
He swiveled around fast, his feet still together in prayer, and saw “a Jew in phylacteries” on the floor.
In those seconds, Amos was transported from the calm of the meditative prayer into the middle of a massacre, as terrorists armed with a gun, a knife and meat cleaver killed four people and injured several more. Witnesses and rescue workers described a gruesome scene inside the Jerusalem synagogue, with blood spattering prayer books and people in the middle of prayer caught in the carnage.

Times of Israel Live Blog American, British victims of Jerusalem terror attack laid to rest

Four people were killed early Tuesday morning when two Palestinian assailants entered a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood. The two terrorists, from East Jerusalem, were killed. Condemnation over the attack has poured in from Israeli and international leaders, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, blamed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for inciting terrorism against Israel. The Times of Israel is liveblogging developments.

The big Palestinian question: Do they mourn or celebrate the terrorists?

Mosques in the neighborhood of the terrorists who attacked a synagogue this morning announced three days of mourning - for the murderers.

This is being reported by the Shehab news agency.

This happens at the same time that Arabs are celebrating the murders with candy.

Indeed, some of the commenters to that post say that it is inappropriate to mourn the heroic martyrs who are being welcomed to Paradise at this very moment.

In fact, when Shahab reported the pretend "condemnation" by Mahmoud Abbas of the attack, readers were most upset. One wrote repeatedly "I am a Palestinian, Mahmoud Abbas does not represent me." Another wrote that he hopes that, Allah willing, they kill "Rabbi Mahmoud Abbas" next.

In addition, they are calling the rabbis who were murdered "dogs" and hoping they go to hell.

Shehab also showed a photo of what they said were sweets being handed out by British Muslims.

They have congratulatory messages from people and politicians all over the world, including Tunisia, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Libya and Mauritania.

Shehab also reproduces this poster celebrating the attack, saying "This is the way from now on."

It looks like the consensus is to celebrate the murder of Jews praying.

These are the moderate peace partners that the EU and the West never threaten with sanctions. No, that's reserved for the nation that is trying to survive these attacks.

Arabs celebrate synagogue slaughter as Fatah leaders praise it

While Mahmoud Abbas issued his fake "condemnation" of the slaughter of Jewish worshipers this morning, the political party he leads embraced the terror attack.

The official Fatah website called this a "heroic operation" and its officials praised the attack.

Central Committee of Fatah member Tawfiq Tirawi said "I consider the Jerusalem operation to be a natural response to the occupation and the crimes of the settlers."

Another Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki said that Yasser Arafat was right when he said that the biggest leaders belong to the people, meaning that terrorists are more leaders than anyone.

Official spokesman for Fatah Ahmed Assaf said that "the Jerusalem operation was a natural response to the Israeli violations."

Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades called all of the victims "soldiers" and issued a statement in support of the attack calling for more "revenge" attacks.

This is besides the praise for the attack across the board from other Palestinian Arab terror groups. But it shows that there is really total support for murdering Jews among all factions of Israel's "peace partner."

All this is evident from scenes of celebration from Palestinian Arabs in support of the terror attack. Sweets were handed out and young Arab men posed with axes in joy that Jews were murdered

Do any of these celebrants look like they interpreted Abbas' "condemnation" as anything but a joke?

Early this morning, Palestinian Arab terrorists entered a synagogue during prayers and went on a murder spree, killing four worshippers and injuring six more, using a gun, meat cleaver and an ax.

Unlike all of the recent attacks by knife or car, in this case Mahmoud Abbas issued a "condemnation."

His words shows exactly what a disgusting human being he is.

Here was his entire statement:

The president always condemns killings of civilians from any party whatsoever, and condemns the killing of worshipers today in one of the houses of worship in West Jerusalem, and also denounces all violent acts no matter what their source is, and demands an end to the ongoing incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the provocative acts by Israeli settlers as well as incitement by some Israeli ministers.

The presidency also confirms that it is time to end the occupation and end the causes of tension and violence, affirming our commitment to a just-based solution on the basis of a two-state solution, in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy, and maintain an atmosphere of calm and understandings that have been made with King Abdullah II and Foreign Minister American John Kerry in Amman.

This is not a condemnation. This is an anti-Israel polemic that uses a terror attack as a hook in order to issue a statement slamming Israel an blaming all Arab terror on the victims.

Abbas doesn't acknowledge that his own people were behind the attack. For all anyone knows from his statement, the men massacred in their prayer shawls might have been killed by people from Japan - or Mea Shearim.

Moreover, Abbas' deliberately pointing out that this attack happened in "West Jerusalem" indicates that had the men been in a synagogue in other parts of Jerusalem, everything would have been just fine.

And as with every single other "condemnation" of terror by Abbas in history, he doesn't say that the slaughter is immoral or against Palestinian Arab morals. He is bothered far more about any backlash that he might get for not condemning it than he is about the murder of four Jewish worshipers.

The synagogue slaughter didn't even merit a stand-alone sentence.

After his perfunctory "condemnation" that wasn't even that, Abbas goes on his usual anti-Israel harangue, so that the "condemnation" of the attack is dwarfed by about 10 other statements. He turns his statement into a naked insult to the Jews who dare consider praying in other parts of Jerusalem.

And indeed Abbas didn't condemn the car terrorism or the knife attacks, because the victims either happened to be in his twisted mind either "settlers" or "soldiers." For all we know, Abbas considers ramming cars into crowds of people to be "non-violent resistance." His own official news agency invariably call them "accidents."

It is obvious that the current spate of attacks is at least partially due to Abbas' incitement, calling for Palestinian Arabs to "defend Al Aqsa by any means." His official TV station has been broadcasting antisemitism.

And Abbas' own advisors assure their people in Arabic that Abbas really does support all terror attacks. His advisor advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash said on November 5, "First of all, allow me to say that we kiss every forehead, every hand and even every foot that carries out Ribat (religious conflict/ war over land claimed to be Islamic) at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and in Jerusalem... We are behind them. The leadership is with them... We are with them in every movement, in every action and every deed, and we welcome what they are doing at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque."

Abbas' "condemnation" was released in order to re-assure Western leaders that he is really a "man of peace" while he simultaneously tells his people to keep on killing Jews, and he is behind them 100%. Just try to avoid Jews whose deaths would make him look bad.

Egypt will demolish hundreds more homes

From Al Ahram:

The width of a new military buffer zone established along Sinai's border with Gaza this month has been increased another 500 metres, making it now span 1 kilometre, in an effort by the Egyptian army to take out tunnels used by militants to infiltrate the peninsula.

The Egyptian army said in a statement on Monday that the decision comes after the discovery of tunnels spanning between 800 and 1000 metres under the Sinai border, reported Al-Ahram's Arabic news website.

The army's decision to create a buffer zone on the border - 500 metres wide and 14 kilometres long - came following one of the deadliest attacks on its personnel last month, when 30 soldiers were killed in a daylight assault by militants.

Egypt's Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) said a total of 802 houses hosting a total of 1156 families will be removed in the initial 500 metre evacuation.

As we all know, home demolitions for security purposes is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Demolishing 800 homes in a couple of weeks is a war crime.

Oh, I forgot. Jews demolishing homes for security purposes is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Arabs can do it all they want without worrying.

11/17 Links Pt2: The Ivory Tower’s Nazification of Israel; Dutch Officials Demonize Israelis

From Ian:

The Ivory Tower’s Nazification of Israel

“What if the Jews themselves were Nazis?,” mused French philosopher, Vladimir Jankélévitch in 1986. “That would be great. We would no longer have to feel sorry for them; they would have deserved what they got.”
The recasting of Israelis, and, by extension, Jews as Nazis has, in fact, taken place, just as Jankélévitch envisioned. This summer’s Israeli incursion, Operation Protective Edge, provided anti-Semites and loathers of the Jewish state with resurgent justifications for assigning the epithet of Nazi on the Jews yet another time, together with oft-heard accusations of “crimes against humanity, “massacres,” genocide,” and, according to recent comments by Turkey’s prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan, in their treatment of the Palestinians, Israel has demonstrated that “. . . their barbarism has surpassed even Hitler’s.”
The Nazification of Israelis—and by extension Jews—is both breathtaking in its moral inversion and cruel in the way it makes the actual victims of the Third Reich’s horrors a modern-day reincarnation of that same barbarity. It is, in the words of Boston University’s Richard Landes, “moral sadism,” a salient example of Holocaust inversion that is at once ahistorical, disingenuous, and grotesque in its moral and factual inaccuracy.
In reflecting on the current trend he perceived in the burgeoning of anti-Israelism around the world, Canadian Member of Parliament, Irwin Cotler, once observed that conventional strains of anti-Semitism had been masked, so that those who directed enmity towards Jews were now able to transfer that opprobrium to the Jew of nations, Israel.

Dutch Officials Demonize Israelis

The truth is that there has never been an Israeli genocide against Palestinians, neither systematic nor acute, and that Israel has done everything in its power apart from not going to war at all -- that is, apart from surrendering -- to spare innocent lives, including the lives of the people trying to destroy it. This argument falls on deaf ears among many Muslims, as well as on those of the youths who support them.
Sadly, it was not long before more prominent and mainstream Dutch figures began expressing similar thoughts. Pieter Broertjes, Labour Party mayor of the Dutch city and "media capital" Hilversum, said during a radio interview, when asked what to do about Dutch Muslims travelling to foreign battlegrounds: "They are adults. Dutch citizens went to Israel to fight the British, we didn't stop them either."
After his remarks produced a backlash, Broertjes's spokesperson formally apologized, but not Broertjes himself, although he did comment on his self-described "clumsy" comparison during later interviews.
A few months earlier, his Labour Party colleague, Yasmina Haifi, championed the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, by stating (with a straight face): "ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. It is part of a plan by Zionists who are deliberately trying to blacken Islam's name" -- in other words, part of the supposed "Zionist conspiracy."
Jan Wijenberg, a former Dutch Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Yemen among other places, and known for his fierce anti-Israeli stance, wrote an op-ed that took the comparison even further: "The IS goal is to establish a utopian religious state, just as the Zionists have done."

Australian Spectator: The Girl from Sderot

As a child, she and her family frequented the beautiful beaches of Gaza, enjoyed the fruits of Gaza’s famed market gardens and bought elegant furniture from local Arab craftsmen. Her family counted Palestinians among their friends, neighbours, acquaintances. In 2005, Israel unilaterally – and optimistically – withdrew from the Strip. Soldiers departed, settlers left or were forcibly removed.
And then came hell.
Today, aged 24, she – like everyone else throughout the Negev – lives on a permanent fifteen second fuse; the time it takes between loudspeakers announcing ‘Colour Red’ and Katyusha rockets hitting the ground, obliterating everything for a hundred metres and sending deadly nails, ballbearings and shrapnel for up to a kilometre. Like all women and children in Sderot she also now lives with the dread of being massacred in her bed: notes recently discovered in an Hamas tunnel reveal plans for such an attack.
Yet, devoid of bitterness or hatred, she studies Arabic at Ben-Gurion university, in the hope of eventually working as a diplomat, politician or NGO worker who might – just might – help bring about peace with the Palestinians. She is the determined face of young Israel.
Bob Carr [former Aust. FM], a lazy narcissist too concerned about his silk pyjamas and rolled oats to bother getting to grips with the wretched complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his 18 months as Australia’s foreign minister, now seeks to grandstand with the left by cynically demonizing Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state. The girl from Sderot puts him to shame.

From Ya Libnan:

Lebanese authorities have banned the screening of a film depicting the 2009 post-election “Green Movement” protests in Iran, organizers of a local film festival said on Sunday.

“‘The Silent Majority Speaks’, the admirable visual essay of filmmaker Bani Khoshnoudi, has been censored in Beirut,” a statement from the Cultural Resistance International Film Festival organizers said.

“The film was to be screened tonight… At noon, the Censorship Committee served notice to the festival’s organizers that it was banned for ‘insulting a foreign country,'” the statement added.

The Lebanese police must be on their way right now to arrest Hassan Nasrallah for insulting Israel!

UNRWA teachers on Facebook: Violence, terror, antisemitism

My series continues....

This is the profile photo of Hossam Abu Khaled, UNRWA teacher:

(This photo was originally meant as Chinese propaganda.)

Here's another profile photo, this one from Samir Abu Shmalah - who is a principal of an UNRWA school in Gaza. It includes some famous terrorists, including Dalal Mughrabi.

Mahmoud Hamada, also a teacher for UNRWA, is a fan of Hamas:

This UNRWA teacher in Jordan named Hassan Seghan fully supports Arabs killing Jews by car, "Liking" this poster and putting it on his timeline..

He also has this photo of a Jewish boy, with the caption "Overcome the Jews."

Any questions?

11/17 Links Pt1: Netanyahu to US: ISIS and Iran Must Both Lose; PA TV demonizes Jews again

From Ian:

Netanyahu Warns US: ISIS and Iran Must Both Lose

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu expressed support Sunday for the US fight against Islamic State terrorists, but cautioned against any softening toward Iran.
"We want them both to lose. The last thing we want is to have any one of them get weapons of mass destruction," Netanyahu said in an interview with CBS Face the Nation.

PM Netanyahu Interviewed on CBS's "Face the Nation"

Antisemitic "documentary" demonizes Jews on PA TV

The film explains that Jews were expelled from European countries in the Middle Ages because the Europeans "could not bear their character traits, monopolies, corruption, and their control and climbing up positions in government." It also states that these countries "felt they had suffered a tragedy by providing refuge for the Jews." Finally, it claims European countries later saw the Balfour Declaration, in which Britain stated that it viewed "with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," as "an ideal solution to get rid of" the Jews.
"Faced with the Jews' schemes, Europe could not bear their character traits, monopolies, corruption, and their control and climbing up positions in government. In 1290, King Edward I issued a decree banishing the Jews [from England]. Following him were France, Germany, Austria, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Spain and Italy. The European nations felt that they had suffered a tragedy by providing refuge for the Jews. Later the Jews obtained the Balfour Declaration, and Europe saw it as an ideal solution to get rid of them."
[Official PA TV, Nov. 11, 2014 and Jan. 1, 2013]

Over the past few days, four Gaza terror groups including Islamic Jihad and PFLP brought leading Hamas and Fatah representatives into a room in order to jumpstart their supposed "unity" government.

They failed.

They met on Thursday with Fatah representatives and on Saturday with Hamas.

The most recent crisis between them occurred a week ago when Fatah targets were simultaneously bombed ahead of a planned rally to celebrate the aniversary of Yasser Arafat's death. Fatah blames Hamas and Hamas denies any involvement, blaming instead the Salafist groups in Gaza - who in turn denied it and blamed Hamas as well.

Unity has been a joke for years, and chances of any real rapprochement between the groups are remote as long as Hamas insists that it controls the security and borders of Gaza.

In front of the UN, Jordan's king violates peace treaty with Israel

From King Abdullah II's speech at the UN last September:

And Jordan strongly opposes threats to Jerusalem's Arab Muslim and Christian identity. And as Hashemite custodian of Jerusalem's Muslim and Chriistian holy sites, I will to oppose any violation of Al Aqsa Mosque's sanctity.

Abdullah is making things up, and he is also violating the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan, in this short video clip.

We've already looked at Abdullah's claims to be the custodian of Muslim holy places. It is false. The agreement between Israel and Jordan states "Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines." If Israel is the party assigning priorities to Jordan's role, that means that Israel can override them.

In this speech, Abdullah claims not only that he is custodian of Muslim holy sites, but of Christian holy sites as well! That is not mentioned at all in the Israel-Jordan peace agreement nor in the Washington Declaration that it refers to.

Abdullah's statement is even more outrageous, because it directly violates both the previous and the following paragraphs of the agreement:

Each party will provide freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance.

Jordan's king is saying here that the very presence of Jews on their holiest site is considered a 'desecration" - meaning that he is coming out against freedom of access to the Temple Mount in violation of the agreement.

The Parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions, with the aim of working towards religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship, and tolerance and peace.

Abdullah does not even acknowledge that Jerusalem has any Jewish significance, only claiming it has an "Arab Muslim and Christian identity." Hence he is violating this clause of the agreement to promote interfaith relations with Judaism, against freedom of religious worship and against tolerance and peace.

Jordan's king explicitly violated a number of clauses of his peace agreement with Israel to the entire world, in front of the United Nations. And no one blinked an eye.

(h't Irene)

Fake civilian of the day

Islamic Jihad just released a fawning obituary of Eyad Radi Abu Raida, a mujahid killed in Khuza'a east of Khan Younis.

Notice in the second photo Abu Raida is playing with his weapon in a mosque. This photo was taken in September 2013, not during wartime, in case anyone doubts how Gaza terrorists use mosques.

There was also a seemingly privately made video honoring him released last month.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights called Abu Raida a "civilian."

As in the past, terror groups are still releasing names of their "martyrs" months after they were killed, as one of the goals of the war was to maximize the number of seeming civilians killed. Now that the meme of "vast majority of those killed were civilians" has been accepted as fact, the organizations can be more up front about their casualties, but only one at a tie.

Despite getting huge amounts of Western aid, nearly 1 in 4 Palestinian Arabs support ISIL

Here are the results of a survey from the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, in answer to the question, "In general, do you have a positive or negative view of ISIL?"

24% of Palestinian Arabs answered that they thought positively about ISIL, significantly higher than Syrian refugees and Tunisians tied for second place with 13%,

In previous polls we've seen that Palestinian Arabs have been consistently more sympathetic to Al Qaeda, to the Taliban and to suicide bombing than any other groups in the Middle East,

This is after billions of dollars of Western aid having been poured into the coffers of the PA, and hundreds of millions more being spent in the territories by Western NGOs that espouse universal human rights. Keep in mind that Palestinian Arabs receive far more humanitarian aid per capita than any other people on Earth.

The huge amounts of money spent on Palestinian Arabs by Westerners who are interested in creating a peace plan has not moderated the recipients - on the contrary, they are more radical by far than any other Arab people. (Pakistanis are in some ways more radical.) All the NGO programs meant to teach peace and tolerance have utterly and completely failed.

At what point do Western governments and NGOs look at the survey numbers and start to realize that perhaps, just perhaps, the cause and effect relationship is the exact opposite of what they intended? Perhaps some government should free up a few hundred thousand dollars from a program to coordinate other programs to teach Palestinians how to raise livestock and instead take their own survey to see how Palestinian Arab attitudes towards terrorism are being affected by the many "peace" programs being lavishly funded?

Could be that the influx of Western cash breeds contempt rather than appreciation? The evidence certainly seems to support that conclusion. Palestinian Arabs are not the most oppressed people in the Middle East; they aren't under as crushing a regime as many other Arabs are; they aren't as poor or hungry or needy. The one objective criterion that they are heads and shoulders above all other Arab peoples is that they get way, way more aid. And the surveys show that they are way, way more supportive of radical Islamic terror.

There seems to be a connection. And there seems to be enough money sloshing around so western NGOs can test this hypothesis.

Unless they have ulterior motives that would make them not want to know the truth.

(h/t MtTB)

An Israeli MK visits the Temple Mount, yet Muslims are happy

Usually, when Israeli members of Knesset visit the Temple Mount, it causes an international incident. No matter how respectful they are, no matter of their entire tour is silent, it causes screaming headlines in the Arab world and even in the mainstream media.

But yesterday am Israeli MK ignored calls from the government for calm, visited the Mount, made provocative statements, and yet caused no controversy in the Arab world.

Because this MK is Muslim.

Despite calls to calm tensions in Jerusalem and at the Temple Mount, Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (UAL-Ta'al) arrived at al-Aqsa mosque over the weekend delcaring: "We own this place."

He was received favorably by Muslim worshippers who told him he was "better than all the Arab leaders in the world."

Tibi was treated like a hero on his visit to the holy site. Worshippers told Tibi he was a great Arab leader "because of your strong positions." He has visited the site several times during the recent period of tension.

Tibi visited the European Parliament two weeks ago in order to express what he said were Israeli violations at al-Aqsa mosque.

He claimed that some Israeli politicians were "pyromaniacs that cannot be restrained" and said that "they inflame the situation in Jerusalem without thinking about the consequences."

Two weeks ago, Tibi said "Jews are not allowed to pray at Al-Aqsa because this is a place of worship for Muslims. While this is a 70-dunam site, every single meter is holy to Islam."

Then, as now, there were no infuriated Westerners aghast at this insult to Jews and Judaism, no one calling on him to act with restraint, no one saying that he was inciting violence.

The rules are different for Arabs and Jews. Not for Israelis and non-Israelis, not Zionists and anti-Zionists - but between Arabs and Jews.

"Flag of Palestine" graphic going viral

This story from Factual Israel has been making the rounds:

This a Larousse French dictionary from 1939. In the appendix it lists all the then current flags of the world in alphabetical order. You’ll notice that for Germany at that time the flag was the Nazi one replete with Zwastika which proves that this was pre-1945 ( before 1945) ! .

Now, alphabetically, look for the Palestinian Flag. YES , there is one. What does it look like? Surprised? Oh, but you thought (Mandate Jewish) Palestine was an Islamic Arab-Turkish-, Circassian Sovereign State that the bad Jews took over , right?

I posted this graphic on Twitter and it has been retweeted over 200 times so far: