Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 05, 2014

Good news! "14,000 occupiers stormed Al Aqsa mosque this year"

The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation has released what it considers alarming statistics showing that more Jews have already visited the Temple Mount this year than in all of 2013.

According to the rabidly antisemitic group, so far this year 13,757 "occupiers" have "stormed Al Aqsa" of which 11,507 were "settlers" and the remainder were Israeli security forces who are there to protect the Jews from being lynched by the peaceful Muslims.

Last year, the numbers were 8,697 "settlers" out of 12,771. (Jews visiting from outside Israel are also considered "settlers.")

More alarming is that the number of Jews visiting is increasing as the year goes on. Over October and November, 2,708 "grave attacks" were done on Al Aqsa. They even mention two members of the Israel Antiquities Authority who visited in October. (One would think that the IAA would visit the holiest spot on the planet, routinely desecrated by the Waqf's earth moving equipment, a little more often than that.)

The biggest days were during Sukkot, October 12-14; 258 on Monday and 307 Tuesday, with the number going down to 109 on Wednesday because the Muslims started rioting.

The report also lists when prominent Israeli politicians visited, and the group congratulates itself on stopping even more Jews from visiting by instigating riots. But on the downside, awful things are happening like Israel putting up new signs that call the area the "Temple Mount," another unforgivable crime.

Just by way of contrast to the horrendous number of 14,000 Jews visiting over the year, some 40,000 Muslims visited in a single day, November 14.

One side asserts the right to worship peacefully in a sacred spot. The other demands that the entire area is cleansed of Jews.

And human rights groups refuse to condemn the would-be ethnic cleansers while Western governments only call for "both sides" to keep tensions down.

All of this just goes to show that fear of Muslim violence is the dominating factor of how most of the Western world makes its decisions vis a vis the Middle East. And the Al Aqsa Foundation's open endorsement of violence to keep the Temple Mount Judenfrei is a conscious policy to take advantage of Western fears.

After Palestinian insults, Royal Institute of British Architects reverses call to ban Israel

In March, the Royal Institute of British Architects joined the anti-Israel parade with a call for the International Union of Architects to expel their Israeli member organization, because, you know, "settlements" and "international law."

Of course, like all the other members of the anti-Israel bandwagon, Israel was the first and last of the nations to be subject to these sanctions.

RIBA has now decided, after a fact-finding mission to the region, that they really have no business making ignorant, anti-productive political statements.

The RIBA’s resolution to suspend the Israeli Association of United Architects (IAUA) has been overturned by the insitute’s council today

According to the institute, the motion calling for the IAUA’s suspension, was beyond ‘the powers of [RIBA] council’ and ‘was not in furtherance of the chairtable objects of the RIBA and should not have been placed before RIBA Council’.

The news comes just a month after an RIBA taskforce led by Sumita Sinha and Peter Oborn – RIBA’s vice-president of international – travelled to the region and held talks with both the IAUA and the Association of Architects in Palestine.

Delivering his findings from the taskforce’s trip, Oborn said: ‘The RIBA motion was beyond the powers of council. It should not have come before the members of council.’

‘This is not the forum for these issues.’

Earlier today (4 December) council voted in support of the taskforce’s report and its recommendations - one of which included revoking the original motion.

RIBA president Stephen Hodder said: ‘I’m keen that architects engage positively with this issue. RIBA Council has an important role to play in engaging with difficult and controversial issues. However it is a widely held view that the resolution passed in March concerning the IAUA did not make a constructive contribution to the current situation.

‘For the Institute to have engaged in this issue in a confrontational way - by seeking suspension of the Israeli Association of United Architects from the UIA - was wrong. These recommendations supersede the previous council resolution of 19 March 2014 and as a result that policy is now rescinded.’

He added: ‘We got it wrong.’

Hodder admitted the fallout had damaged the RIBA’s reputation and ‘had a financial impact’ on the institution, but wouldn’t expand on how much it had cost.

Perhaps one reason that RIBA changed its position is because of the criticism that the Association of Architects in Palestine hurled at RIBA for even meeting with the Israelis:

Ahmed Edaily, the chairman of the Engineers Association Jerusalem Centre and which includes the Association of Architects in Palestine on its letterhead, has now written to RIBA president Stephen Hodder to tell him that the visit was “planned as a tool to divert the RIBA motion and strip it of its spirit and agenda”.

He said the visit “is accepting and appearing to condone a group of architects involved with grave misconduct, breaches of international law and participating in war crimes… our resistance to the Israeli occupation is not a ‘civil conflict’ as you wrongly put it; it is a longstanding, brutal military occupation”.

In his letter this week, Edaily added: “The architects of the IAUA are practising within this situation without protest or comment and should be suspended from the UIA, not engaging with the RIBA.”

In a statement, the RIBA defended the visit. It said: “As chair of the working group it was appropriate for Peter Oborn to visit and hold talks with both the Israeli Association of United Architects and the Association of Architects in Palestine.

Similarly, there were starkly different reactions that another British architect delegation has received ahead from the IAUA and the AAP on their upcoming visit to the area:

Israeli and Palestinian architects are split over a forthcoming United Kingdom Trade & Investment (UKTI) trade mission for British architects to the region

The trip, revealed in last week’s AJ, will include visits to both the Association of Architects in Palestine (AAP) and the Israeli Association of United Architects (IAUA).

IAUA head of foreign relations Itzhak Lipovetzky welcomed the news, saying: ‘We are informed of the UKTI’s architects trip to Israel and we are taking part in it.’

But the AAP complained that it was not notified of the delegation, and claimed it illegitimately ‘aims at normalising’ relations with its Israeli counterparts.

Speaking on behalf of the AAP and the Engineering Association - Jerusalem Center (EA-JC), architect Nadia Habash, said: ‘This market visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories is totally rejected and not welcomed by the Palestinian architects and their representative bodies.

‘Although we appreciate having professional relationships with our British [counterparts], this trip does not recognise and support our national and legitimate rights. On the contrary it equalises between the criminal and the victim.’

She added: ‘We welcome a visit that is an eyewitness on the destruction of Gaza and the threat of the religious holy places, but we don’t welcome a visit that aims at normalising [relations] between Palestinian and Israeli architects.’

British architects have been rudely reminded that one side, and only one side, wants to live in peace. The other side wants revenge and will not be happy until their "peace partners" are destroyed.

Nothing has changed since the first partition proposal in 1937 that Jews accepted and Arabs angrily rejected. It is possible that RIBA belatedly realized that by rewarding the rejectionist side, it only increases their obstinacy.

It is a shame that European leaders cannot figure out this simple fact for themselves.

Of course, one can see which side is against peace by simply by looking at the website of the parent body of the AAP, the Palestinian Engineering Association Jerusalem Center. They have a cartoon that shows them toppling part of the security barrier on top of a fat, sweaty, kipah-wearing Jew in an attempt to crush him to death.

Wouldn't it make more sense to expel the architect group that openly calls for murder? Is such bloodlust part of RIBA's professional standards?

Expelling the AAP would be far more effective in bringing peace. Because if RIBA and the IUA would demand that Palestinians act like adults, that they accept a two-state solution and true peace that includes allowing a Jewish state to exist, then they might not so flippantly publish cartoons and openly denounce "normalization," meaning accepting the other side as normal human beings.

It would be even better if world governments acted that way, instead of embracing the opposite, idiotic position of punishing the peaceful and honoring the hateful.
.
(h/t Elihu)

12/04 Links Pt2: The Jews tolerated by Islam; The Priceless Treasures on the Temple Mount

From Ian:

The Jews tolerated by Islam

Al-Habbash also has interesting insights on what the “peace process” means to him, to his boss, and to Islam in general. On 19 July 2013, he delivered a sermon in the presence of Mahmoud Abbas, a sermon that was broadcast on PA television. In it, Al-Habbash explained that when the PLO signed the Oslo agreements with Israel, it did so in order to walk "the right path, which leads to achievement, exactly like the Prophet [Muhammad] did in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah." The Hudaybiyyah peace treaty was a 10-year truce that Muhammad signed with the Quraish Tribe of Mecca in 628 AD. Two years after signing the truce, however, Muhammad attacked and conquered Mecca. Al-Habbash stressed that Muhammad’s agreeing to the Hudaybiyyah treaty was not "disobedience" to Allah, but rather "politics" and "conflict management." He added that in spite of the peace treaty (or, rather, because of it), Muhammad did eventually conquer Mecca. The Hudaybiyyah agreement, Al-Habbash emphasized, is not just past history but a religiously permissible deceit for lack of a better option.
This is the man who was invited by BGU to talk about “religious tolerance.” Like Muhammad in 628, the PLO today is blessed with an unlimited number of useful idiots, especially in academia – both in Israel and in the United States. In the past few years, Hillel (the Foundation for Jewish campus life in the US) has opened its gates to the most anti-Israel organizations, supposedly to encourage “dialogue” under the euphemism “Open Hillel.” In December 2013, the Hillel branch of Swarthmore College became the first Open Hillel by declaring that it would no longer abide by the organization's “Standards of Partnership,” which bar Hillel from hosting speakers who support the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement against Israel, or demonize or delegitimize the State of Israel. Other Hillel chapters have followed suit, such as the one at Berkley. This trend is encouraged, and often funded, by J-Street and by the New Israel Fund.
What Al-Habbash means by “religious tolerance” is that Islam’s enemies can be tolerated only after being subjugated or eliminated. And if the enemy is willing to cooperate with his own demise, blessed be the useful idiots.

The 'New Anti-Semitism' Comes of Age - And How to Deal With It

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, internationally acclaimed author, lecturer and Arutz Sheva columnist Prof. Phyllis Chesler walked over to her computer and typed the sentence: "Now we are all Israelis."
It was then, she says, that she understood that a new kind of anti-Semitism had been declared, and it was then that she began her research for the original version of "The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About it", published in 2003.
Over the last decade, the alarming escalation of global anti-Semitism has taken on a new and much more pernicious tone, leading Prof. Chesler to devote much of her time over the last year to expanding and revising the original book, whose updated version has just been released by Gefen Publishers.
Arutz Sheva sat down with Dr. Chesler to find out what factors informed her decision to re-release her book and to hear her analyses of the crisis that touches us all.

JPost Editorial: Prisoner of Zion in the US

The US government’s justification for denying parole to Jonathan Pollard after nearly 30 years in prison is a lie, eight senior American officials, fully versed in the classified file, recently revealed.
The government’s claim that the information Pollard provided to Israel “was the greatest compromise of US security to that date” is “patently false” and “not supported by any evidence in the public record or the classified file,” they write in a letter to President Barack Obama. Yet the government used this “fiction” to deny parole.
The unjust, “deeply flawed” parole hearing that their letter describes joins a long list of failed legal processes that have denied justice to Pollard for three decades.
Over the years, there were only two occasions when Pollard came close to freedom – at the Wye Plantation talks in 1998 and last spring. In both instances, Pollard was a bargaining chip played by the US as a quid pro quo for the release of Palestinian terrorists. Both deals fell through and Pollard remained in prison.
In his book The Missing Peace (2004), senior US diplomat Dennis Ross explains that while Pollard’s sentence is excessive, he is apparently too valuable as a bargaining chip to be released simply as a matter of justice.

From Al Arabiya:

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants have released a new recipe on the internet for pancakes - with the stated intention of “extend[ing] the energy and power of the Mujahideen (fighters).”

The instructions were released by al-Zawra, an ISIS wing claims to “prepare sisters for the battlefield for jihadists” and uses social media to guide wives of ISIS militants in domestic work such as sewing and cooking, medical first aid, Islam, Sharia law and weaponry.

The recipe - which is accompanied by pictures - includes one egg, a cup of flour, four tablespoons of sugar, one tablespoon of oil, 4 teaspoons of salt and one cup of milk. According to the instructions, the pancakes should be served with honey and are suitable for breakfast and dinner.

The new recipe follows the publication of animated video cartoon last month, containing domestic tips for the wives of ISIS militants, including a recipe for ‘quick and simple’ date balls, are made by mixing dates, flour and butter together.

The recipe page seems to assume that the women reading it are illiterate or idiots, because it illustrates literally every step. Like take one egg:

And one cup of flour:

And so on.

Security company Cylance released a paper detailing "Operation Cleaver," a major, worldwide Iranian computer hacking operation. And although the scope of their discovery is massive, they believe that it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Since at least 2012, Iranian actors have directly attacked, established persistence in, and extracted highly sensitive materials from the networks of government agencies and major critical infrastructure companies in the following countries:

Canada, China, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Kuwait, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

Iran is the new China. [in cyber warfare - EoZ]

Operation Cleaver has, over the past several years, conducted a significant global surveillance and infiltration campaign. To date it has successfully evaded detection by existing security technologies. The group is believed to work from Tehran, Iran, although auxiliary team members were identified in other locations including the Netherlands, Canada, and the UK. The group successfully leveraged both publicly available, and customized tools to attack and compromise targets around the globe. The targets include military, oil and gas, energy and utilities, transportation, airlines, airports, hospitals, telecommunications, technology, education, aerospace, Defense Industrial Base (DIB), chemical companies, and governments.

During intense intelligence gathering over the last 24 months, we observed the technical capabilities of the Operation Cleaver team rapidly evolve faster than any previously observed Iranian effort. As Iran’s cyber warfare capabilities continue to morph,2 the probability of an attack that could impact the physical world at a national or global level is rapidly increasing.

Their capabilities have advanced beyond simple website defacements, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, and Hacking Exposed style techniques.

With minimal separation between private companies and the Iranian government, their modus operandi seems clear: blur the line between legitimate engineering companies and state sponsored cyber hacking teams to establish a foothold in the world’s critical infrastructure.

The targets included "Networks and systems targeted in critical industries like energy and utilities, oil and gas, and chemical companies; Assets (both cyber and physical) and logistics information were compromised at major airline operators, airports, and transportation companies; Various global telecommunications, technology, healthcare, aerospace, and defense companies; Confidential critical infrastructure documents were harvested from major educational institutions around the world."

Here are the specific industry targets for each country. Not surprisingly, the US is the major target of Iran's cyber-war.

And here's the scariest part - of what we know:

Perhaps the most bone-chilling evidence we collected in this campaign was the targeting and compromise of transportation networks and systems such as airlines and airports in South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The level of access seemed ubiquitous...Fully compromised VPN credentials meant their entire remote access infrastructure and supply chain was under the control of the Cleaver team, allowing permanent persistence under compromised credentials. They achieved complete access to airport gates and their security control systems, potentially allowing them to spoof gate credentials. They gained access to PayPal and Go Daddy credentials allowing them to make fraudulent purchases and allowed unfettered access to the victim’s domains. We were witnessed a shocking amount of access into the deepest parts of these companies and the airports in which they operate.

Could the airport information be merely to enhance espionage - or is it meant to support terror attacks?

What is crystal clear is that Iran is already at war with much of the world. The question is whether the world is prepared to react appropriately.

UPDATE: Bloomberg News suggests that one airport terror attack may have already used tis stolen data:

They also accessed details about computer systems at major Middle Eastern airports, including Pakistan’s Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, McClure said. Armed Taliban militants disguised as security staff workers stormed the airport in June, killing more than 30 people. The report doesn’t link that to the hack but McClure said some information stolen was related to a gate where the attack began.

Does anyone doubt that Iran would work together with major terror groups when it is convenient for them?

(h/t David G)

12/04 Links Pt1: Supermarket owner says he won’t let terror attackers win; Britain's Terror Addiction

From Ian:

UK: Britain's Terror Addiction

In Britain, declarations of disgust for specific acts of terrorism often seem designed merely to shroud tolerance for pro-terror views. The Guardian, for example, condemned the synagogue murders in Israel and described Hamas's celebrations of the attacks as "depressing"; but a mere four days before the terror attack, the newspaper published an opinion piece by Hamas official Ahmed Yousef, which set out to defend the Hamas charter, a document that explicitly calls for the eradication of not only Israelis but Jews.
Meanwhile, Ahmed Brahimi's PPDP has entertained members of the House of Lords; Interpal enjoys the support of parliamentary motions signed by dozens of British MPs and is painted as a victim of Islamophobia by prominent newspaper journalists; and the PFLP, addressing crowds of supporters in London, is considered a heroic bulwark against Western "imperialism."
Debates between politicians and commentators over the causes of radicalization and extremism in Britain invariably focus on how to tackle support for groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. But why is it that Hamas and PFLP are deemed moderate, regardless of how many civilians they murder?
One enormous factor in the spread of Islamic extremism surely must be the networks of charities that seem to support Palestinian terrorist organizations – networks that include groups such as Interpal and the PPDP. Will these organizations ever be shut down?

Frenchman sentenced to 5 years for Israeli hit-and-run killing

Zeitouni’s parents flew to France to attend the trial and both burst out crying during the deliberations, Ynet reported. Friends of the young woman and supporters from the local Jewish community also went to the trial but were not let into the courtroom, according to the report.
“We have an opportunity to tell the world that justice can be served, and people cannot run away from it,” said Peled.
The victim’s family would have preferred the trial to have taken place in Israel, their lawyer said.
“But this is better than nothing and they have arrived with confidence,” added the lawyer, Gilles-William Goldnadel.
He described Robic as a “habitual road criminal” who showed “rare cowardice” in deciding to flee the scene.

Enough is enough

People died that day. They were people with families, histories and legacies. Yet for every story about their lives I have seen 20 about what someone else may think about them, about us, or whatever response we choose for the slaughter of our citizens in our streets. That is simply slave mentality.
We house our own killers, provide for our attackers, save the world, protect the weak and invent the uninventable, and we stand there begging for the world to see that hey, it's kind of hard to make peace with someone who insists on chopping us up, running us over, and bombing our citizens into permanent post-traumatic stress disorder.
Well, I'm done. Seriously. I will never again give that shpiel. I will not discuss what may or may not be necessary force or hand out cookies in the hope they may lay off. Nah.
Instead I will learn what I can about Advanced Staff Sgt. Maj. Zidan Saif and Rabbis Kalman Zeev Levine, Moshe Twersky, Aryeh Kupinsky and Avraham Goldberg, may God avenge their blood, and I will know their stories and pay respect to their lives. I will not give a pound of flesh to the wolves at our door and I will not, ever again, be a public relations machine for the deaf.
Enough.
Enough.
Enough.
We have survived too much to recommit to slavery. We have too much to lose to be locked up in this prison of our own making.
Enough.

Burqa-wearer stabs American nursery teacher to death in Abu Dhabi (update)

Random killings by Arabs aren't just happening in Israel.

From Al Arabiya:

Police in Abu Dhabi are investigating the death of an American teacher stabbed in a shopping center toilet by a suspect wearing a Muslim veil, official media reported Wednesday.

The motive for Monday's attack in Boutik Mall was unclear.

Witnesses said the 37-year-old American woman, who worked at a nursery school in Abu Dhabi, was stabbed by a person wearing a black robe, black gloves and a niqab -- a Muslim veil that conceals the face except for the eyes.

"The victim was stabbed with a sharp object following an argument in the ladies toilets," the head of Abu Dhabi's police criminal investigations department, Colonel Rashid Bourscheid, was quoted by The National daily as saying.

"Police are still trying to determine the reasons for the attack and the identity of the suspect, who fled the scene," he said.
...
The stabbing took place on the same day as a recording attributed to IS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani urged Muslims to attack Westerners by any means, even if only to "spit on their faces".

Violent crime is relatively rare in Abu Dhabi although there have been attacks on foreigners elsewhere in the region.

In Saudi Arabia on Saturday, an assailant stabbed and wounded a Canadian while he shopped at a mall in Dhahran on the Gulf coast.

Last month a Danish national was shot and wounded in the Saudi capital Riyadh -- an attack that IS on Monday claimed was carried out by its supporters.

It sure sounds like the many attacks on random Israelis lately simply because they are Jewish. The burqa as a means to disguise the murderer is a nice touch, though, and it is even causing some Arab nations to question the wisdom of allowing so many people to walk around in disguise.

Once again, Palestinian Arabs re in the forefront of terror fashion and tactics. I think that we need more European countries rewarding them with symbolic recognition to make sure that they learn the lesson that they have no responsibilities whatsoever.

UPDATE: The stabber was caught, after she attempted to bomb the home of an Egyptian-American doctor.

The police say that she was targeting Americans.

(h/t Bob K)

UPDATE 2: My guess was right. ISIS is asking Muslims to do "lone burka" attacks against Westerners.

I quoted a devastating op-ed by Palestinian human rights leader Bassam Eid blasts UNRWA as working against Palestinians, not for them.

While Chris Gunness of UNRWA can try to ignore my many revelations about his organization, he cannot ignore Eid, who is the founder of the founder and director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group - and who was kicked out of B'Tselem because he wanted them to look at Palestinian human rights violations.

Gunness went into full meltdown mode on Twitter as he tries mightily to counter Eid's fully accurate piece.

@Jerusalem_Post which employs pro-Jewish terrorism journo has article accusing UNRWA of supporting Jihad.I was not asked for quote of course
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) December 4, 2014

Ultra-right @Jerusalem_Post carries anti-UNRWA garbage boycotting me ie no quote. Ask @stevelinde y Boycott the JPost! Don't read their lies
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) December 4, 2014

Since when do op-ed pieces require requesting quotes? Gunness is sounding more like a spoiled child than an official spokesperson.

Unbalanced journalism @Jerusalem_Post which carries rabid anti-UNRWA piece without quoting @ChrisGunness. Ask editor @stevelinde why. RT
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) December 4, 2014

Gunness doesn't want to call attention to the author Bassam Eid, whose reputation is quite good. So instead he tries to divert by attacking the Jerusalem Post and its editor, hoping Eid's article can be tarnished that way.

@Jerusalem_Post with Jewish terror supporting staff accuses UNRWA of Jihadism. Utter rubbish which we reject. Shame on @stevelinde RT
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) December 4, 2014

Really? Because I have proven it, using the actual words on UNRWA websites that support jihad and antisemitism - and I have asked Gunness to respond.

His response? To cover up the evidence and delete the websites.

What a hypocrite.

I passionately believe in freedom of the press but I am equally passionate about fair and balanced journalism, which I will always demand RT
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) December 4, 2014

It is an op-ed. The journalistic standards that op-eds have to abide by are not to lie. They do not have to be balanced. Gunness knows this, and he's the one lying.

Ask @Jerusalem_Post editor @stevelinde why his Diaspora Affairs Corr, depicted here http://t.co/LJbX7MQpMH supported Jewish terrorism RT
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) December 4, 2014

Now Gunness is trying to attack the paper by claiming that it is pro-terror. The hypocrisy is stunning, not only because he is quoting a fringe website to try to associate the paper with terror.

The hypocrisy is because Gunness shows no such problem when his own staff explicitly supports terror. Not just one person, but many of the teachers who UNRWA trusts to teach their children. They supported the massacre of Jewish worshippers in Jerusalem as well as other terror attacks. They admiringly quote Hitler and support his goal of exterminating all Jews.

This isn't guilt by association as Gunness is trying to smear the Bassam Eid opinion piece with. These are actual UNRWA teachers openly espousing hate, and as we've shown, teaching it to the Palestinian children that UNRWA is supposedly supporting.

Gunness cannot bring himself to even mention Bassam Eid's name in his multi-tweet meltdown. Because he knows that Eid is speaking the truth.

After all, Eid grew up in a UNRWA camp and attended UNRWA schools himself!

Gunness also ignores 99% of the op-ed, focusing only on the "jihadism" charge - which is true nonetheless, as I've documented UNRWA websites with stories extolling children who go on jihad missions (after asking their parents - because they are moral). Another website had the phrase "God grant us martyrdom for the sake of Jihad" in another essay. There was a poem at another UNRWA school website about how Zionists "raped" Palestine and how they will return to Jaffa by force of arms, calling Palestine "the land of jihad and martyrdom."

All of this is documented in the copies I made of now-deleted UNRWA school websites.

Bassam Eid is telling the truth, and Chris Gunness is once again shown to be a liar, defending an organization that is a major cause of hate and incitement in the Middle East.

12/03 Links Pt2: Fact-Checking AP’s Denial of Censorship; ‘Palestine’: The Real Apartheid State

From Ian:

Fact-Checking AP’s Denial of Censorship

We’ll start with Lori Lowenthal-Marcus of The Jewish Press. She talked to veteran journalist Mark Lavie, one of Friedman’s colleagues in AP’s Jerusalem bureau.
Lavie corroborated Steinberg’s blacklisting.

The Jewish Press asked Lavie whether he knew if there was an AP ban on quoting Prof. Gerald Steinberg around the time of Operation Cast Lead.
Lavie said he did.
He said he knew there was such a ban because, when he put a quote from Steinberg in one of his articles sometime in 2009, the AP Jerusalem bureau chief made him remove it. That editor then told him that AP reporters “can’t interview Steinberg as an expert because he is identified with the right wing.”
It doesn’t get any more unequivocal than that.
Meanwhile, Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon was in touch with Colford about the articles where AP did quote Steinberg. Kredo writes:

Steinberg has further petitioned the AP to prove its claim that NGO Monitor was not banned during the 2008-2009 war in Gaza by providing a list of stories mentioning the group and the date they were published.
When asked about Steinberg’s request, the AP’s Colford provided to the Free Beacon six stories published since June 2009 that mention Steinberg and his organization.
Only one article is from the disputed time period, and its focus is on Hamas war crimes, not crimes regarding the Israeli side. The AP routinely publishes reports authored by NGOs critical of Israel.

AP Disses ‘Whistleblower’ But a New Whistle Blows

It began with a “tell-something” tale by a former reporter. But as with so many small tempests, the shrill response of the alleged victim has fanned the winds to tornado strength.
A former AP reporter, Matti Friedman, publicly detailed allegations of biased coverage of the Israel-Arab conflict and claimed that Gerald Steinberg, a non anti-Israel expert, was banned by the AP. Friedman was immediately and with great force contradicted by Paul Colford, AP’s director of media relations.
Colford claimed Friedman’s articles were filled with “distortions, half-truths and inaccuracies.” And he wrote, point blank, there was “no ban on AP’s use of Prof. Gerald Steinberg.”
So, it’s “he said – he said,” right? But as it turns out, we have a tie-breaker. A second former AP reporter explicitly confirmed to The Jewish Press that, despite Colford’s denial, there was indeed a ban in place in AP’s Jerusalem bureau on quoting Steinberg, and that he could state this with confidence. How? Because that ban was explained to him by the AP’s then Jerusalem bureau chief. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Labor Activists Exhort UC Berkeley Audience to Bring Down Israel

Hosted by UAW 2865, a union of over 13,000 student-workers across the University of California system, the union’s BDS Caucus brought in guest speakers to “discuss the role of organized labor in the Palestine solidarity movement.”
Panelist Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), dominated the conversation.
“I think you should boycott any Zionist institution, academic, organization, whether it be from 1967 occupied Palestine or 1948 occupied Palestine, because BDS really should be about shifting the cultural framework and shifting how we see Israel and isolating it and making it feel unwelcome anywhere and everywhere,” said Kiswani.
“Bringing down Israel will really benefit everyone in the world and everyone in society, particularly workers,” she said later.

Israel calls Iranian bid for post on key UN committee 'absurd'

Iran is seeking a senior post on a United Nations committee that decides accreditation of non-governmental organizations, a move that Israel on Tuesday compared to gangster Al Capone running the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Iran was elected to the 19-member committee in April for a four-year term from 2015. The United States and Israel are also members of the committee, which acts as a kind of gatekeeper for rights groups and other NGOs seeking access to U.N. headquarters to lobby and participate in meetings and other events.
When Iran was first elected to the committee, the United States sharply criticized it as a "troubling outcome" because of what it said was Tehran's poor human rights record. The U.S. mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on Iran's bid to become vice chair of the committee.
In a letter obtained by Reuters, Iran presented its candidacy for vice chair of the committee, which will begin meeting in late January.
Israel, which views Iran and its nuclear program as an existential threat, was clearly displeased by the idea.
"Imagine if Iran ran this committee in the same way it runs its country -- human rights activists would be detained, journalists would be tortured, and anyone with a social media account would find himself arrested on fabricated charges," Israeli U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor told Reuters.

What's that pointy thing behind Batman?

Egyptians are sensitive to a lot of things, but one of the top ten is the myth that Jewish slaves built the Pyramids. (They didn't, almost all of the Pyramids predated the Hebrews by hundreds of years. Nothing in the Torah indicates that the Hebrews built pyramids, only the cities of Pithom and Ramses.)

In 1977, Menachem Begin falsely claimed that Hebrew slaves in Egypt built the Pyramids and Egyptians are still complaining about that today.

Now, according to Egyptian media reports ahead of the release of the new Hollywood biblical epic "Exodus: Gods and Kings," the film may indicate that Hebrew slaves built the Pyramids, and the Egyptians are fuming.

Ain Shams University will hold a symposium on the topic, including their professors of Hebrew and archaeology, "in response to Zionist claims about building pyramids...The seminar will include a presentation of the film "Exodus: Gods and Kings" by director Ridley Scott, which illustrates that Zionists built the Egyptian pyramids, confirming that it is not the first time that the Jews claimed to build the pyramids so the symposium will address the film and to clarify the facts. "

There is another controversy around the film:

Rupert Murdoch is responding to backlash that the cast of his new film "Exodus: Gods and Kings" is not diverse enough.

The media mogul took to Twitter to defend the decision to cast white actors in lead roles in the new Ridley Scott film from 20th Century Fox, which stars Christian Bale as Moses, Joel Edgerton as Rhamses, "Breaking Bad" actor Aaron Paul as Joshua, Sigourney Weaver as Tuya and John Turturro as Seti.

Murdoch, 83, tweeted: "Moses film attacked on Twitter for all white cast. Since when are Egyptians not white? All I know are."

There was a huge kerfuffle with that comment and Murdoch's subsequent tweets trying, badly, to clarify.

What people don't remember is that many years ago, a major Hollywood studio decided to cast a black person as Anwar Sadat in a television movie, and Egypt was up in arms, as this 1984 story shows:

Egypt has banned all films produced or distributed by Columbia Pictures because of its objections to ''Sadat,'' a Columbia film about the life of Egypt's assassinated leader that appeared on American television.

Abdel Hamid Radwan, the Minister of Culture of Egypt, announced the decision last Thursday after he reviewed the film, which starred Louis Gossett Jr. as President Anwar el- Sadat. Mr. Radwan concluded that the 1983 film contained ''historical errors that distort the accomplishments of the Egyptian people,'' according to the Egyptian press accounts of his decision.

Objections to the film are complex. They range from resentment in some circles over the selection of a black to play Mr. Sadat, to often-cited objections concerning ''distortions'' of Egyptian leaders and life, to complaints of historical inaccuracies.

Throughout his presidency, Mr. Sadat appeared particularly sensitive about his dark complexion, which prompted jokes and ridicule. The portrayal of Mr. Sadat by a black has revived the issue of race in Egypt, where it is usually deeply submerged.

If this movie had cast a black character as Pharaoh, Egyptians would have freaked out because they don't want to be portrayed as black (unless they have matured a great deal in the past 30 years.) But with a white Pharaoh, white people who pretend to be indignant on behalf of the Egyptians are upset.

Rupert Murdoch (and Ridley scott) cannot win.

Then again, even though this movie looks like it is hardly based on the literal Biblical text, you can be sure that Muslims will be upset over not only its portrayal of prophets in physical form, but also form how it does not adhere to the Koranic version of the Exodus story.

Ynet To Limit Anti-Religious Articles To 8 Per Week (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, December 3 - The popular internet news site Ynet announced today that in the coming election season it would cap the number of articles bashing religion and religious people at a little more than one per day.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu dismissed two of his top cabinet members yesterday, and early elections are scheduled for March. The run-up to national elections invariably sees the news media engage in more incitement against the religious than usual, but Ynet management fears overkill, and will implement a policy of quotas until the elections are over. No more than 8 articles inciting hate for religious Jews will be published each week in the interim.

The limits will apply only to skewed coverage of actual news, but not to opinion or analysis. Thus, while barely-concealed hatred for religious Jews and religious rituals will be disbursed with a modicum of restraint, the publication will continue to feature columnists or outside opinion pieces brimming with anti-religious prejudice.

Balance is the principle, says Ynet CEO Api Koress. "Our readers have grown more sophisticated over the years, and can tell when we're trying too hard," he explains. "We'll still have our weekly column by Ruchama Weiss distorting the sources and engaging in naked polemic against the Rabbinic establishment and tradition - that's just basic Israeli journalism. But there will be less focus in news articles per se on ways to portray Haredim and other religious Jews as negatively as possible."

As an example, Koress cited a story last week about a man from the north of the country who was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing children. "In the past, we would automatically mention the fact that the suspect was Haredi, or kippah-wearing, if that were the case, and if it were somebody with no obviously religious accessories or dress, we'd simply not say anything about that. Now we have to cut back on that, because the growing worldliness of the Ynet audience means there's less tolerance for overt hate of that sort in news."

Other Israeli publications are considering similar policies. "We've thought about it, but aren't sure yet what direction to go," said Shabtai Tzvi, President of NRG, which operates Maariv's website. "There's always a tradeoff between catering to what the public wants, which is to bash people who are different and whose adherence to tradition challenges the secular public's ethos of pursuing instant gratification and wantonness, and sending our reporters to cover other news that might be important." Tzvi declined to elaborate on what that other news might consist of.

Haaretz editors briefly experimented with a cap on anti-religious incitement earlier this year, and are still analyzing the results. "We have fewer qualms than the other major dailies about compromising journalistic integrity since we're an advocacy organization first and a news source maybe third or fourth," said publisher Aluf Benn. "We don't answer directly to market forces - our agenda is set primarily by the board of the New Israel Fund, which doesn't dictate policy week-by-week. It's much more general and gradual. We had the latitude to try limiting our anti-religious pieces to as few as 35 per week, but I can't see getting approval for anything less than that for an entire election campaign."

"That would just be too much to give up."

12/03 Links Pt1: ICRC: World holds Israel to legal double standard; Who needs Abbas' approval?

From Ian:

ICRC: World holds Israel to legal double standard

The head of the International Red Cross in Israel and the Palestinian areas said Tuesday that the world was holding Israel to a double standard when it came to war crimes allegations.
Jacques De Maio was one of a number of non-Israeli officials speaking at an Institute for National Security Studies conference on the law of armed conflict in urban areas.
“Why is there so much more focus on Israel than on Syria [and] other places where many more civilians are dying?” the ICRC official asked rhetorically, pointing out that “in other ongoing wars, more civilians die in one week than in Israeli wars in a full year.”
While De Maio made that argument without using the phrase “war crimes” to refer to the IDF’s actions in this summer’s Gaza operation, he added that both Israel and Hamas “violated international law” during the fighting.
He also defended his dialogue with the IDF and Israel regarding its actions and the law of armed conflict. He said there had even been a petition to cancel his speech at the conference so he would not appear to be endorsing the IDF’s conduct during the summer operation.
But De Maio said the dialogue was not endorsement, as “we don’t endorse Israel, and when we talk to Hamas, the Taliban and other terrorists, we don’t endorse them, either.”
The ICRC official said that “our goal is to influence those fighting to be more humanitarian.”

Israel Should Get Its Retaliation In First

To defend itself while also bolstering the long-term interest of other liberal democracies engaged in the struggle against transnational terrorism, Israel should undertake a preemptive strike, both in the legal arena and in the court of public opinion. The facts and the law are on Israel’s side.

In this hostile international environment, knowledgeable Israelis are concerned about the March 2015 publication of the Schabas report. Either from lack of familiarity with the international laws of war or out of misplaced sympathy for the conventional view, some intellectuals here, including law professors, are tempted to conclude that Israel has few legal responses. They seem to believe that Israel should contritely accept the UNHRC's factual findings, legal conclusions, and practical recommendations and concentrate on damage control.

There is no chance that Netanyahu's government will adopt that approach, nor should it. Whether it will launch an offensive against the UNHRC’s kangaroo court is another question.

Here are five defective claims likely to inform the Schabas commission, and outlines of the replies that Israel should be honing for a preemptive strike in advance of the commission's forthcoming report.

Livni: We must join world in fight against terrorism

Speaking at the same INSS conference, IDF Advocate-General Maj.- Gen. Danny Efroni said there was no precedent for the extent to which Hamas systematically endangered civilians directly and indirectly as human shields during Operation Protective Edge this summer.
Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 had a relatively extremely low civilian casualty toll, Efroni said, adding that he had warned in an article following the war that low casualties could not always be achieved because of Hamas’s tactics.
The IDF had to rework its tactics in real time due to Hamas tactics, even as Israel is at the forefront of Western nations in developing tools to comply with international law in urban environments, fighting against terrorists who intentionally endanger their own civilian populace, he said.
Efroni said that the army was internationally criticized – unfairly and for political reasons, in his opinion – for three aspects: the IDF’s striking of Hamas members’ private homes, the large cumulative number of civilian casualties, and the use of artillery in urban fighting.
Hamas members used their houses as command centers, in which they also gave orders regarding the firing of rockets at Israel, he said, adding that criticism of the IDF for hitting them would simply encourage Hamas to continue its illegal tactic.
Next, Efroni slammed the IDF’s critics for leaning hard on Israel, which at least tried to take precautions, as opposed to on Hamas, regarding the high civilian casualties.

Hamas takes credit for bringing down Israeli government!

The "Palestinian Mujahideen Movement," another name for Hamas, claims that Israel's call to hold early elections is proof of the effectiveness of the "resistance" in "confronting the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip for 51 days."

Hamas spokesman Salim Atallah issued a statement on Wednesday saying that "the overwhelming evidence that emerged after the end of the aggression on Gaza confirms that effective option in dealing with the enemy is resistance."

Yet more evidence that Palestinians have the emotional maturity of toddlers who are certain that the entire world revolves around them.

Gaza hospital cleaners have gone on strike this morning for at least the third time since September because they haven't been paid since the "unity" government was announced.

They struck for three days in September and three more days in November, and today started a new strike that is open-ended

The Gaza health ministry declared an emergency, because without these hospital workers they cannot schedule surgeries. It also affects the care of hundreds of people on dialysis, intensive care and pediatrics wards.

Even though this is a legitimate health crisis, the hundreds of reporters in and around Gaza are simply not interested in writing any articles about this for Western audiences.

During wartime, the news media are filled with human interest stories of ordinary Gazans facing trials and troubles. Injured patients are interviewed multiple times. Statistics are published and Gaza remains the top story for weeks.

But when Gaza hospital patients are in clear danger - a danger that can be solved with the help of a little publicity to urge funding for hospital workers instead of, say, the families of terrorists - the story is simply not covered by the huge press corps.

The bias is clear. A health crisis in Gaza is only important if there is a way to blame Jews. Otherwise, editors and reporters and management of news media outlets really don[t give a damn about the lives of Gazans.

In retrospect, this story proves that the tearjerker articles of the summer were not meant to get news consumers to care about Gazans. If the media cared about Gazans, this would be a story.

No, the stories of the summer were meant to get the world to hate Israel.

And no amount of justifications from news editors about their coverage can erase the simple fact that human interest stories of Palestinians are only important if somehow there is an Israeli angle. Corruption, infighting, incitement, and stories like these aren't interesting to the media if they cannot blame Israel.

(Previous "Is This Newsworthy" post)