Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 08, 2014

Chris Gunness' lies on Voice of Israel (part 3)

(Part 1, part 2)

Continuing on the phenomenally dishonest performance of UNRWA's Chris Gunness when interviewed by Melanie Phillips on Voice of Israel, Melanie asked Gunness about the UNRWA workers' union being controlled by Hamas as proof that Hamas is exerting influence in UNRWA schools.

Gunness disputed the idea that most UNRWA workers are Islamists, and his response (which was quite condescending towards Phillips) is pretty much that the claim that Hamas dominated the last union elections in 2012 is a myth created by anti-UNRWA people. He claimed, without providing proof, that whenever there are allegations of UNRWA employees violating UNRWA's neutrality policy, "they are always investigated and disciplinary action is taken up to and including dismissal."

In regards to the union elections, Gunness asserted, "I hear this bandied around, and let me tell you, I have seen the ballot papers for staff union elections, and there is nothing whatsoever on that that has any indication of party affiliation...We police the union process and there is nothing on the ballot paper that gives any indication of political affiliation."

Let me quote from the pro-Hamas al-Resala newspaper right before the September 2012 UNRWA union elections: "It is noteworthy that Hamas has controlled the UNRWA staff union in the elections since its inception, particularly the teachers sector in [the union], but the electoral system cannot list it to prevent [official] partisan affiliations of UNRWA employees."

Al Quds, a Fatah-leaning paper, wrote after the elections "According to multiple sources within the Election Commission..., that the "Professional" slate of Hamas won 25 seats out of 27, divided by 11 seats out of 11 in the teachers' sector and 6 out of 7 in the labor sector elections, and 8 seats out of 9 in the services sector election."

Everyone knows quite well that the "Professional" slate of candidates is Hamas, period. Hamas calls itself "Professional" in order to skirt the letter of the law where UNRWA does not allow "partisan" parties. It is a sham that every Palestinian, and every UNRWA employee, and UNRWA itself - including Chris Gunness - knows quite well and accepts.

Chris Gunness is invoking this legal fiction to argue that Hamas really doesn't dominate the union!

Is there any more evidence necessary of how little Gunness cares about the truth, and how much he tries to twist the facts in his interviews, by assuming that no one will check him on it?

12/08 Links Pt1: Two Hezbollah members killed in airstrikes on Syria, anti-aircraft missiles destroyed

From Ian:

PA Minister of Religious Affairs ‎continues to fuel conflict in Jerusalem

Contrary to remarks by Palestinian Authority officials that Abbas wants to calm the atmosphere in Jerusalem and prevent violence, Abbas' own Minister of Religious Affairs Sheikh Yusuf Ida'is continues to fuel the conflict by repeating the libel that Israel plans to "take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque,destroy it and build the alleged Temple":
"All that Israel wants is to Judaize the Holy City, take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, destroy it and build the alleged Temple. Under Jerusalem there is a city of tunnels belonging to Israel. Yesterday, I was told that Israel has an underground market beneath the Jaffa Gate, which draws many [Palestinian] residents who shop there." [Official PA TV, Dec. 3, 2014]

PA Minister voices libel that Israel seeks to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and build "alleged Temple"

Hezbollah drones, anti-aircraft missiles destroyed in alleged IAF attack, says Syrian opposition

Syrian opposition sources told Arab media on Monday that the airstrikes near Damascus that were alleged to have been carried out by Israeli warplanes destroyed a storage facility housing anti-aircraft missiles as well as drones belonging to Hezbollah.
While the Lebanese Shi’ite group has yet to officially comment on the attack, Channel 2 is citing a report in the Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Akhbar which said that “the Israeli action was intended to preserve the rules of the game.”
The newspaper claimed that the IAF struck weapons caches “that belonged to Hezbollah.” These arms are considered to be “capable of tilting the strategic balance,” namely threaten Israel’s ability to act freely in the skies above Lebanon.
The IAF has struck Syria several times since the start of the three-year conflict, mostly destroying weaponry such as missiles that Israeli officials said were destined for their longtime foe Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Last week, the Lebanese Daily Star reported the army said it had fired anti-aircraft guns at an IDF drone flying low over the eastern part of the country.
“The Israeli enemy committed aggression against Syria by targeting two safe areas in Damascus province, in all of Dimas and near the Damascus International Airport,” state television said, adding that there were no casualties.

Two Hezbollah members said killed in airstrikes on Syria

One of the slain was a senior official from the Lebanese group, the report said.
Syrian state TV, which accused Israel of carrying out airstrikes on the Damascus International Airport and an airfield near the town of Dimas on the Syrian-Lebanese border, had maintained that there were no casualties in the attacks.
The power supply to the airport has been cut off since the attack, the report said, citing Syrian rebel sources.

After Syria Strikes, Israel Reiterates: No Arms for Terrorists

Israel stressed on Monday that it has a policy of preventing arms transfers to terrorist groups, a day after Syria accused the Jewish state of bombing two targets near the Syrian capital, including Damascus airport.
Israel has launched a series of strikes inside Syria since the armed uprising erupted there in 2011, including raids reportedly targeting weapons bound for Damascus ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz refused to comment directly on Sunday's incident, as was also the case with Israeli officials questioned in the aftermath of previous strikes.
"We have a firm policy of preventing all possible transfers of sophisticated weapons to terrorist organisations," Steinitz told public radio in response to a question about the strikes, and apparently referring to Hezbollah.

(Part 1)

The second major topic that Melanie Phillips brought up in her audio interview with UNRWA's Chris Gunness is about the curriculum being taught at UNRWA schools, and she brought some examples of where students are taught jihad and martyrdom.

Gunness neatly sidetracked the discussion away from the things UNRWA is teaching its students and he only addressed the textbooks. He said (correctly) that UNRWA must use the textbooks of the host country and therefore any problematic material must be dealt with from that angle. Furthermore he claims that UNRWA works with the host countries to eliminate any problematic materials from their official curricula.

However, he didn't address what I discovered: that UNRWA teachers (certainly in Gaza) are teaching hate outside the textbooks. Official UNRWA school websites included essays and poems praising jihad and martyrdom. That cannot happen unless the topics are being taught within the schools.

As I showed last week, Arab teachers in Jerusalem are bragging that they teach their students to hate Israel and to seek its destruction. This is even though the schoolbooks are approved by Israel.

Teachers impart a lot of information to students that are not in the textbooks. I once showed that even UNRWA's website showed that their schools were decorated on the outside with pictures of famous terrorists, like this one of master bombmaker Yahya Ayyash.
.

And it is not only individual schools, because I revealed that the Gaza-wide "human rights" UNRWA website included antisemitism.

In this case Gunness didn't lie, but he obfuscated the issue by concentrating on one aspect of UNRWA's curriculum without mentioning that schoolbooks aren't the whole story.

UPDATE: I found more proof that UNRWA schools have their own curricula separate from the host country's textbooks. From an independent 2010 study of UNRWA schools in Jordan:

Despite the fact that UNRWA schools, similar to other public and private schools, apply the Jordanian curricula that is imposed on them by the ministry of education, it was noticed that they heavily value their “hidden curricula”. These curricula are based on enrichment plans prepared by teachers to emphasize the Palestinian identity, whether by celebrating national occasions such as Al-Nakhba (1948) and Al-Naksa (1967) or by opening discussions about key political issues.

And it turns out that the authors of the study didn't make up this term - it was referred to as such by the UNRWA head teachers themselves!

Finally, it can be concluded that all stakeholders are involved in the process of enriching the curricula. However, since the core subjects are imposed on them by the Ministry of education, their role in that regard becomes limited to developing what was referred to by head teachers as “The Hidden Curricula”.

So when the UNRWA Human Rights website included a document that said that Jews have no concept of human rights, or when their "respect and discipline" site says to students that they should keep clean unlike the Jews, this was part of UNRWA's "hidden curricula." Even though these sites have now been taken down after I exposed them, there is no indication that the "hidden curricula" behind them has been changed one iota.

Preacher at Al Aqsa calls to slaughter all Jews, "most evil of Allah's creations"

Even among all the crazy, antisemitic stuff that MEMRI finds being promulgated in the Arab world, this is something:

Highlights:

I wonder if Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International would consider this to be "incitement."

Notice also that there is no fear of pushback from his audience against praying for a new Caliphate.

Melanie Phillips has an audio interview with Chris Gunness of UNRWA on Voice of Israel where Gunness spouts his usual disinformation.

His first point is that UNRWA's considering generations of people to be "refugees" is completely consistent with what the UNHCR does. When Melanie pushes back, and says that according to that definition, since her grandparents were refugees from Poland and Russia, she should be considered a refugee as well, to which Gunness replies that she is presumably a British citizen and therefore she cannot be considered a refugee.

But, Phillips pushes him to admit, there are nearly 2 million Palestinian "refugees" by the UNRWA definition who are full citizens of Jordan, so he is contradicting himself. Gunness' answer is to change the subject and say that that UNRWA's mandate comes from the General Assembly and that is where the UNRWA definition of "refugee" comes from.

This is a lie.

UNGA 302, which created UNRWA and from which UNRWA gets its mandate, did not define what a "refugee" is.

UNRWA needed to make up a working definition of "refugee" in 1950 in order to determine who should get its services and who should not. That definition is not from the General Assembly, but from UNRWA itself. The original definition was "For working purposes, the Agency has decided that a refugee is a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood."

UNRWA decided on who is a refugee - not the UN.

UNRWA changed that definition over time, including around 1965 to accommodate children and grandchildren through the male line, and at a later date to make it all descendants.

So when Gunness says that this was a UN General Assembly decision, he is not telling the truth. Even UNRWA's current documents admit "UNRWA’s Palestine Refugee criteria are formulated for the Agency’s operational purposes."

Two other points about how UNRWA's definition of "refugee" is much different from that of UNHCR. For one thing, UNRWA allows "refugees" to live in the area they were born in; UNHCR calls them "internally displaced persons" and the rules for those people are quite different. No one living in the West Bank or Gaza would be considered a refugee by UNHCR's definition.

Secondly, and most importantly, the UNHCR has very specific ways for refugees to exit their refugee status. UNRWA allows only two ways: for the "refugee" to die or for it to be proven that the "refugee" doesn't exist because of fraud. As it says in UNRWA's current Consolidated Eligibility and Registration Instructions (CERI):

The names of registered persons may be removed from UNRWA’s Registration System in the following circumstances:

1. Upon the death of a Registered Person...
2. Names of persons or families who have been falsely registered or whose registration has been duplicated shall be removed from the Registration System.

This has not always been the case. In the 1950s, UNRWA went to some effort to remove people from its rolls when they gained enough self-sufficiency to be able to live without UNRWA services, as one can see from their annual reports, when they used to list the (relatively small) number of people they managed to remove from their rolls because they had jobs that made too much money. Indeed, refugees in the 1950s would refuse to work or hide their jobs, because they didn't want to lose their UNRWA benefits as registered refugees.

Note the definition above from 1950: "a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood."

Compare that to today's definition: "Any person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict, and descendants of such persons, including legally adopted children, through the male line. "

Note what is missing: UNRWA no longer has a criterion of "needy." It changed its definition from "needy person" to "any person."

So it is nonsense for Gunness to claim that UNRWA has no power to define who is or who is not a refugee. UNRWA is the organization that made up these definitions to begin with, not the General Assembly.

Naftali Bennett at Saban Forum (video)

A long video but worth viewing.

If you don't have the time or patience to watch the whole thing, here is a pretty good 4-minute highlight version.

There are thousands of Israeli "settlers" that NO ONE condemns!

Reuters has an article saying that some Arabs are moving into Jewish "settlements" (meaning, neighborhoods) in Jerusalem:

Little noticed amid the furor over one of Israel's most contentious policies, a small but growing number of Arabs are moving into Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem, drawn by cheaper rent and better services.

For decades, Israel has encouraged Jews to settle in East Jerusalem, changing the population balance, provoking Palestinian anger and drawing international condemnation.

But in one such settlement, around Mount Scopus where the Hebrew University is based and many Palestinians study, about 16 percent of residents are either Arab citizens of Israel or Palestinians, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics.

While the high proportion of Arab residents in French Hill and Mount Scopus is probably exceptional, the trend is visible in other East Jerusalem settlements too.

In the working-class areas of Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Yaacov to the northeast of Jerusalem's Old City, 1 to 2 percent of residents are now Israeli Arab or Palestinian, figures show.

The Jerusalem municipality does not collect ethnic data, but Uzi Chen, the City Hall representative for northern districts, said "several hundred" Arab families live in Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Yaakov, which have a combined population of 63,000.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of Arab Israelis are moving across the "Green Line" and into "settlements."

So are they considered settlers? Are they "breaking international law"? Are they "illegal"?

Or is it only that Jews can be "illegal settlers?" Is it only Jews who are castigated as fanatics hell-bent on ruining the peace process when they move into certain Jerusalem neighborhoods, but Arab Israelis doing the same thing are fine?

We already know the answer to that. The former EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, during one of her condemnations of Israeli plans for building in Jerusalem, mentioned Givat Hamatos and Ramat Shlomo, but didn't say a word about Israeli plans to add units to Beit Safafa announced at the same time. The reason? Because Beit Safafa is an Arab neighborhood, and if Israeli Arabs move across the Green Line to the southern part of Beit Safafa, no Western leader would dare condemn them.

So what's that word when Jews and Arabs - both citizens of Israel - do the exact same thing but the Jews are demonized while the Arabs are applauded?

Gaza pharmacy in 2011

From Ma'an:

A spokesman of the Palestinian Ministry of Health on Sunday accused ministry officials in the Gaza Strip of stealing medicines and supplies sent to the coastal enclave.

At a news conference in Ramallah, Osama al-Najjar said that the Ministry of Health had shipped large quantities of medicines and medical equipment to the Strip during the last Israeli military offensive.

He said the ministry "didn't know where those medicines were distributed and who benefited from them."

"After investigations, we have been informed that influential ministry officials in Gaza steal these medicines and equipment, and that the medicines do not go to hospitals and the health sector in the Gaza Strip which badly need them."

There have been similar accusations in the past, especially of Hamas stealing medicine that was donated with international aid.

There's more:

Al-Najjar also accused the Hamas movement of inventing "a new department at the Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing called the general administration of custom tax security."

This department, he said, "forcibly collects 2.5 percent custom tax on everything that enters Gaza, including medicines and medical equipment."

Hamas and the Fatah-led PLO formed a unity government that came into power in June, but have since traded accusations about payment of salaries, attacks on the property of Fatah officials in Gaza, and a lack of commitment to Palestinians in the Strip.

12/07 Links: Israeli jets strike Syria; Judeophobia and Marxism; Hitler's Henchmen in Arabia

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: All the refugees

UNRWA’s clientele has grown from fewer than half a million to a claimed 5 million (UNRWA has not taken a census).
Its schools, when not being used as Hamas launching-pads, teach hatred of Jews as part of an ongoing program of incitement. Surely the United Nations can do better.
And by the way, the United States will not. The State Department opposes any reform of UNRWA, or transferring its responsibilities to other UN agencies.
If peace negotiations are ever to resume, Israel would be wise to condition them in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967: All negotiations for “a just and lasting peace” must include all refugees, Jewish and Palestinian. This principle has since been reinforced by the US Congress, which passed a resolution in 2008 requiring that the Jewish refugee issue be raised in any talks on a Middle East peace settlement.
The Knesset finally passed similar legislation this year, after much lobbying by former Jewish refugees from Muslim countries and particularly their organizations in the US, such as Justice for Jews from Arab Countries and Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa. These former refugees today make up about half of Israel’s population.
On November 30, Israel observed its first national commemoration of the exodus of Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran. The date marks the day following the partition resolution, when the Arab countries attacked in their first war aimed at wiping out the Jewish state. Palestinians refer to it as the Nakba, catastrophe. But it was also the nakba of the Jews who were thrown out of their homes elsewhere in the Middle East; not to mention the Jews who lost their lives defending Israel in its first of too many wars. This is a point our Foreign Ministry should be making every day.

Judeophobia and Marxism

In the “post-Zionist” narratives of Israeli historians such as Ilan Pappé (formerly an active member of the Israeli Communist Party, Hadash), the entire Jewish national project is a nightmarish tale of occupation, expulsion, discrimination, and institutional racism perpetrated by alien and demonic Zionist invaders. In such accounts, the Palestinians are the permanent victims; Israelis are forever the “brutal colonizers.” According to Pappé, the “Zionist” ethnic cleansing of Palestine was already in full swing in 1948. It was a long-premeditated crime that has been escalating ever since. We increasingly find Jewish anti-Zionists presenting their certificates of divorce from the Jewish state, issuing petitions against Israel’s “apartheid wall” (the security fence to defend against Palestinian suicide bombers), and denouncing Israel’s allegedly racist oppression of local Arabs. At the same time, “progressive” Jews seem indifferent to the suffering of Israeli civilians—the innocent victims of so many savage Palestinian atrocities—including the recent murders of three Israeli teenagers near Hebron. The “progressives” shed tears for Palestinian children, but they invariably turn their heads from the dead of their own people, the Jews. This is a perverse form of humanism in which the systematic denigration of Israel coexists with a wholly romanticized and abstract “Palestinophilism” devoid of any critical thought or normal human solidarity.
Contemporary Marxists and Islamists share a curiously similar apocalyptic agenda of earthly redemption that aspires to the installment of absolute “social justice” through violent means. For both parties, Palestinian martyrdom has become a glowing symbol of “resistance” not only to Israel but also to globalization and the “corrupt” West. At the heart of such radical utopianism, there is the quasi-religious belief that the world will only be “liberated” by the downfall of America and the defeat of the Jews. This chiliastic fantasy has today emerged as a notable point of fusion between the radical anti-Zionist left in the West and the global jihad. Meanwhile, in the real world, the transnational jihadi warriors are in the process of conquering large swathes of northern Syria and Iraq and establishing a new base for their Islamic caliphate. In dealing with these and related challenges involving the porous borders of an imploding Arab Middle East, a bankrupt Marxism has nothing to offer. Indeed, its de facto alliance with the Islamists is perhaps the final stage of its slow death.

Hitler's Henchmen in Arabia

What made the relationship between these former Nazis and the Egyptians and Syrians so successful was that it was a genuinely two-way deal. The Arabs offered the Nazis a haven, as well as a market for all their nefarious dealings in arms and black market currency. The Nazis, meanwhile, were able to provide technical and military experts, as well as the knowhow of establishing the instruments of repression.
However, below the back scratching lay a deep and dark underpinning to the relationship between the crescent and the swastika. That was, of course, a hatred of the Jews, and in particular, a desire to see the eradication of Israel.
That shared exterminationist desire had been born during the war itself, when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husayni, had made his home in the luxurious Hotel Adlon in Berlin in 1941, and had impressed Hitler with his hatred of the Jews. The Mufti lobbied the Nazis hard to kick the British out of the Middle East, and he was instrumental in raising recruits for a largely Muslim unit of the SS called the 13th Armed Mountain Division of the SS Handschar.

Hamas spokesman said to have harassed female foreign reporter

A spokesman for Hamas has been accused of sexually harassing a female foreign reporter, and is under investigation by the group ruling the Gaza Strip, according to reports on websites affiliated with the rival Fatah movement. The reporter concerned was not named.
The Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, featured prominently in international media reports about the summer’s fighting in Gaza.
The senior Gaza sources quoted on the Fatah websites said that the journalist, a Gaza-based reporter for an overseas news agency, turned to Zuhri’s colleague, Fawzi Barhoum, with the complaint, according to the NRG news site.
Hamas leadership in Gaza opened an investigation against Zuhri, and decided to suspend him from speaking with foreign press and other public activities, the reports said.

I wrote a brief note the other day at my joint discussing the power of female beauty.

This is a place, however, wherein we discuss the Arab-Israel conflict, not abstract concepts like beauty. The Elder of Ziyon is not a blog devoted to the philosophy of aesthetics, but that does not change the fact that beauty is one of the most powerful forces in this world.

As you guys know in classical mythology, in Homer, the Trojan war was due to the fact that Paris abducted Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, a daughter of Zeus, and the wife of a king.

But, really, what I want to talk about this rainy morning, if you guys will indulge me is meta and I will in short order bring the conversation back around to beauty which, in itself, is a conversation about meta.

"Meta" within discourse refers to the discussion about the discussion and is therefore ultimately about aesthetics and perception. Meta is exceedingly important. It may not be nearly as important as beauty, itself, but it is hugely important to our ongoing conversations around the conflict.

This is why people who closely follow the conflict, like say, Ian, know very well that the terminology that we use to describe the conflict makes all the difference in the world.

"West Bank" versus "Judea and Samaria" is a classic. After many years using the phrase "West Bank" I realized that it is a term that essentially erases Jewish history on historically Jewish land, so why would any pro-Jewish person do such a terrible thing? I am not going to refer to the traditional homeland of our people in terms that erase our history and that is precisely why Jordan renamed Judea and Samaria to "West Bank."

The point was to erase us from history and what boggles my mind is how easily we went along with it.

Surely decades ago there must have been people far more intelligent than myself who were already aware of this problem and ringing the alarm bell, but those people would not have included the highest levels of Israeli leadership in all the years following the 6 Day War... with the sometime exception of Golda Meyer who was probably the smartest of the bunch.

So, how we discuss what we discuss makes all the difference in this world.

Meta counts because it represents context.

As a blogger and a writer I understand that, obviously, our product is not merely ideas as expressed in text, but also includes graphic imagery. As bloggers and editors and newspaper and magazine publishers we are responsible for not just textual content, but the look and feel of our product, including the images that we publish. The images that we publish tell our readership who we are.

In other words, you do not go to Playboy Magazine for high quality political analysis. There may sometimes be high quality political analysis in it. Some of their writers may be exceedingly insightful and have the very best intentions, but most guys are mainly going to oogle the centerfold.

This morning I received an email from Shirlee from Jews Down Under thanking me for this piece, but wondering why I would have the character of Groot as the associated graphic, which I have also put on the top of this piece.

This was my (slightly edited) response:

I love popular culture, Shirlee.

Groot is a character from the MARVEL company that has been putting out a series of films based on comic book characters going all the way back to the 1930s and 1940s. I do not know about comic books, but these are actually very good films starring big names like Robert Downey, Jr. and Scarlett Johansen, who has done considerable work standing up for Sodastream in opposition to BDS.

Everything is interconnected. Groot, as a character, is basically a rip-off of JRR Tolkien, who perhaps you have read. The Lord of the Rings was my favorite novel as a kid and Groot is essentially an Ent. He is a tree person. He can be exceedingly fearsome, but also exceedingly kind, which is why I like him as a character.

Thus the image is of Groot giving a flower to young girl.

I understand, of course, that at first glance Groot would seem to have little to do with the piece that I wrote, which was mainly the beginnings of an overview of the pro-Israel / pro-Jewish blogosphere and media and a reminder to myself that I need to get back to Jon Haber. The image works to my mind, though, because it represents an image of graciousness, of caring, of reaching out, which is all we are doing, those of us who write about the conflict.

We may think of ourselves as hard-nosed analysts, but I know the Jewish blogosphere pretty well and the only conclusion that I can come to is that the main overriding project is one of reaching out to others. There are hot-heads in the Jewish community who claim not to care what other people think, but they are lying to themselves, if not to you. They care very much, but that makes them vulnerable, which is why they prefer not to admit it.

And this brings me back to beauty.

Beauty is about vulnerability.

That is, the apprehension of beauty has a wounding quality. Some of you may recall a scene from Robert A. Heinlein's science fiction book Stranger in Strange Land, wherein one of the main characters had at one time been an exotic dancer. Through her association with Michael Valentine Smith, the primary character of the story who embodies exceptional wisdom, she comes to understand the nature of her own beauty as seen through the eyes of men and thereby comes to respect her own power.

Beauty pulls at the heart and distracts the mind. It is, in fact, the greatest power in this world short of brute physical force. I know nothing in this world more powerful than beauty, thus the images that we put out as publishers, which very often include images of beauty, tell the world who we are and what we are about.

Therefore, I chose Groot despite the fact of his lack of beauty.

Groot is fearsome, yet kind, and that's the way that we should be as a community.

Besides, you know what?

The movie Guardians of the Galaxy, in which we find Groot, along with his little buddy, Rocket Raccoon, is just great fun.

The Arab-Israel conflict is perhaps the most painful and miserable topic that anyone can cover, particularly if you care about the well-being of the Jews in the Middle East. I despise everything about the conflict. I don't like Arab theocratically-based bigotry against Jews. I do not like the terrible genocidal screechings coming out of many of the mosques in that part of the world. I do not like the violence. I do not like the hatred. And I truly despise the fact that western liberals, including many Jewish liberals, tend to blame Jews for the violence against us.

Thus a small meditation this morning on beauty, literature, and film represent a terrific relief and fun is its own reward.

I can go back to grinding my teeth over the conflict later.

From AFP:

Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's most prestigious centre of learning, on Thursday urged Christians in the Arab world to stand firm in the face of jihadist violence and not flee into exile.

The call, made at a Cairo conference organised by Al-Azhar, came just days after Pope Francis pressed the world's Muslim leaders to condemn terrorism carried out in the name of Islam by groups such as the Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaeda, and called for an end to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

"We condemn the forced exile of Christians and other religious or ethnic groups," the conference said in a final statement.

"We urge Christians to stay rooted in their homelands and to weather this wave of terrorism we all are suffering."

Actually, they went a bit further than that - they asked the world not to help Christians fleeing their homes for their lives! "We appeal to the world not to facilitate the migration...migration achieves the objectives of the aggressive forces of displacement designed to hit the national State and tearing the civil societies."

Asking the world to abandon Christians to being slaughtered is a strange way of showing peace and tolerance, especially since the conference did not offer any concrete suggestions on curbing ISIS-style extremism

The conference's closing statement said:.

All armed factions, groups and sectarian militias that used violence and terrorism against the people of the nation, all the while -- falsely and slanderously-- raising religious banners, are groups that espouse evil ideologies and sinful behaviour and have no connection whatsoever to the true Islam...The terrorising of peaceful people, killing of innocents, transgression against property and money, and violation of religious sanctities are crimes against humanity, condemned by Islam in form and substance,

Sounds pretty definitive, doesn't it?

Except that Al Azhar University leaders clearly don't include Jews among their definition of "innocents."

July 2013, in a televised sermon at the same Al Azhar University, cleric Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Al-Mahdi said:

"Allah has taught [Muslims] that their worst enemies are those about whom He said: "You shall find the Jews and the polytheists to be the most hostile towards the believers" [Koran 5:82].
"Thus, Allah made Jihad for His sake and endurance of pain and hardship effective means to fight the people of Falsehood.
[...]
"The confrontation [with the Jews] is inevitable. Our Prophet does not lie. He told us that there would be a confrontation between the Muslims and the Jews before the Day of Judgment, and that the Muslims would vanquish them to the point that the Jews would hide behind the stones and the trees, but the stones and the trees would say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'
"Prepare for that day, for it will surely arrive, because the divine revelation harbors no lies."

October 2013, Ahmad Al-Tayeb, the Sheikh Of Al-Azhar University, who is in the center of the photo above, makes the distinction between Jews and Christians even more explicit:

"This is an historical perspective, which has not changed to this day. See how we suffer today from global Zionism and Judaism, whereas our peaceful coexistence with the Christians has withstood the test of history. Since the inception of Islam 1,400 years ago, we have been suffering from Jewish and Zionist interference in Muslim affairs. This is a cause of great distress for the Muslims.
"The Koran said it and history has proven it: 'You shall find the strongest among men in enmity to the believers to be the Jews and the polytheists.' This is the first part. The second part is: 'You shall find the closest in love to the believers to be those who say: "We are Christians."' The third part explains why the Christians are 'the closest in love to the believers,'" while the Jews and the polytheists are the exact opposite." [...]

So when Al Azhar says that Islam condemns terror, there is an exclusion clause for Jews (and polytheists like Hindus) that Western media would rather not admit.

Abbas 2012: "I don't want to return to Safed." Abbas 2014: "I want to return to Safed"

Mahmoud Abbas has yet again proven that he is a liar extraordinaire, second only to his predecessor.

November, 2012, on Israeli TV (in English):

“… it is my right to see Safed, but not to live there…Palestine for me is the 67 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever. This is now and forever. This is Palestine for me. I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah, I believe that West Bank and Gaza is Palestine, and the other parts is Israel.”

When there was withering criticism that Abbas was giving up the fictional "right of return," he "clarified" his remarks:

Clarifying his stance in the Al Hayat interview, Abbas said, “Talking about Safed is a personal position and does not mean giving up the right of return.” Indeed, he went on, “No-one can give up the right of return as all international texts and Arab and Islamic decisions refer to a just and agreed-upon solution to the refugee issue, according to UN Resolution 194, with the term ‘agreed upon’ meaning agreement with the Israeli side.”

“I do not change my position,” Abbas stressed. “What I say to the Palestinians is no different from what I say to the Israelis or the Americans or anyone.”

Now, in an interview last week for an Egyptian newspaper, Abbas is saying that even his "clarification" was a lie:

[Israel] will not allow the return of refugees. There are six million refugees who wish to return, and by the way, I am one of them.

So in 2012 Abbas claimed that he absolutely has no right to return to Safed to live there, and now he says he wants to leave what he called Palestine in the TV interview and return to his childhood home in Safed.

Which is the liar - the 2012 Abbas who said that he has no right to return to his family home, the 2012 Abbas who says that he says the exact same things in English and Arabic, or the 2014 Abbas who tells Arabs that he wants to leave Ramallah and live in Safed?

The hypocrisy doesn't end there. In the new interview Abbas compares Israel to ISIS:

Israel aspires to a Jewish state, and ISIS aspires to an Islamic state, and here we are, suspended between Jewish extremism and Islamic extremism. [ISIS leader]Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi will have an excuse to establish an Islamic state after the Jewish state law is approved. This is another matter from which we and everyone else suffer..."

Let's look again at the Palestinian basic law, from their own website:

Article 1
Palestine is part of the larger Arab world, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation. Arab unity is an objective that the Palestinian people shall work to achieve.

If you want to define Jews as a people, then Abbas' constitution defines "Palestine" as Arab the exact same way that Israel is considering defining itself as the state of the Jewish people. The draft "Jewish state" bill clearly talks about Jews as a people, not as a religion.

Article 4
Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect for the sanctity of all other divine religions shall be maintained.
The principles of IslamicShari’a shall be a principal source of legislation.

Israel does not have an official religion, and the draft law does not change that. But "Palestine" not only has an official religion, it states that Islamic sharia law should be the principal source for legislation, something that the Jewish State draft bill doesn't come close to saying (only saying Jewish law should be a "source of inspiration," along with " principles of freedom, justice, fairness and peace.")

Moreover, in a 2013 Pew survey, in answer to the question "Do you favor or oppose making sharia law, or Islamic law, the official law of the land in our country?" 89% of Palestinians were in favor and only 8% opposed.

Now, which side is closer to ISIS-style religious extremism?

(h/t Yenta P)

12/06 Links: IS Tells Aspiring Jihadis, Stay in Europe and Kill Jews; Israel’s George Washington

From Ian:

The Story About Obama Placing Sanctions On Israel May Well Be False

The Haaretz story claims they heard from unnamed Israeli officials that the sanctions being considered include not vetoing U.N. Security Council condemnations of Jewish housing in Jerusalem, and/or issuing clearer instructions to American officials about the ban on cooperating with the settlements or funding activity in them.
Middle East scholar Barry Rubin, my friend and teacher of blessed memory, used to drill in my head: never believe a story coming out of the Middle East until it is verified by a few sources (even then suspect its accuracy). Think about the source, the timing and where the news was leaked, he would say.
The story about sanctions was leaked in Israel. If the Israel government really leaked the story, the purpose of the leak would be to change U.S. policy. It it would have been leaked to the NY Times or another U.S. source. But this story was leaked to Ha'aretz, a newspaper whose editorial policy is to bring down the Netanyahu government. The timing makes sense; the leak just happened to be published right after new Israeli elections were announced and scheduled.

White House Dodges Questions on If They Are Considering Sanctions on Israel

Recent reports have come to light that indicate the White House is prepared to impose sanctions on long-time ally Israel.
When pressed by Fox News’ Ed Henry, White House spokesman Josh Earnest refused to provide a direct answer.
“I’m not going to talk about any sort of internal deliberations inside the administration,” Earnest said. “Israel is a close and strategic partner of the United States of America.”
Earnest further dodged saying, “and I don’t need to remind you of the strong and unshakable bonds that exist between the United States and Israel, and the United States’ exceedingly strong commitment to the security of the nation of Israel.”

Congress Demands Obama Explain Rumored Sanctions Against Israel

The administration’s evasive position has prompted outrage among pro-Israel leaders and prompted Congress to demand that Obama start answering questions about the delicate issue.
“We urge you and your administration to clarify these reports immediately,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R., N.C.) and nearly 50 other House lawmakers wrote Friday afternoon, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
“Israel is one of our strongest allies, and the mere notion that the administration would unilaterally impose sanctions against Israel is not only unwise, but is extremely worrisome,” they state. “Such reports send a clear message to our friends and enemies alike that such alliances with the United States government can no longer be unquestionably trusted.”
Congress, which traditionally has purview over such measures, has never given the White House permission to sanction Israel.
“At no point in time has Congress given the administration the authority to sanction Israel,” they wrote. “In fact, Congress has continued to show its unwavering support for Israel and has recently taken steps to increase our economic and military cooperation.”

Palestinian human rights champion Bassam Eid was interviewed by Ishai Friedman for an Israeli magazine, and the interview was published on his blog (Hebrew).

Here are some highlights:

Bassam Eid is a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem and perhaps the most uncompromising critical voice today against the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. During Protective edge his name was often seen in the Israeli media after a strong article published against Hamas in which he accused the terrorist organization of working to kill its own citizens. The article received hundreds of thousands of shares on social networks.

You are not afraid to publish criticism against Hamas, accusing them of murdering the people of Gaza?
"Yes, but it's true and it hurts. I even think that Hamas would like to have had at least 5,000 dead. T... I have a friend from Khan Yunis, he said one night, at midnight, four Hamas gunmen came and knocked on the door and told everyone to leave the house. He told them that he had ten children sleeping here. They demanded that he take them all out because they want to fire missiles from the roof. He declined sharply. The next day masked men beat him half to death, and threw them all out...

Do Gazans support Hamas today?
"Look, if the question of whether Gazans want revenge? The answer is yes. Are they supporters of Hamas? I do not think so. For one thing, people in Gaza are afraid to talk, the person who speaks is considered a collaborator and were shooting them in the biggest city square in Gaza".

And why are not you afraid? Aren't you afraid they'll hurt you? Or your children?
"No, on the contrary. Every time after I write, the reactions I get are 'good', 'You're right.' The criticism stems from the belief and perception that we Palestinians can establish a truly democratic state but For this to happen it must not be like the surrounding Arab ir Islamic regimes. If these regimes are the choice, it would be better to live under the State of Israel ".

The Palestinian Authority is corrupt?
"Yes. But say this: there is financial corruption of embezzlement Public funds. And political corruption. Political corruption is a government that Palestinian public know nothing of what is happening in it. If I want to know something about the negotiations I have to call international media or media in Hebrew. Arabic media have nothing except martyrs and house demolitions and align themselves with Abbas. I do not buy Arab media. When people call me an Arab media interviews it means I'm abroad " .

Israel also has media outlets close to the government.
"Yes, but permission is like an orchestra. Israel has much more freedom for journalists. During Protective Edge the Israeli media came out against Netanyahu and the government and the media in the Palestinian spoke of victories. Thousands of people were killed but they had celebrations. In Israeli media there is competition, [in the PA] there is no competition. "Competition" is only a beautiful picture of Abbas published on the front page. If I publish an article against Hamas it has no chance. "

A few weeks ago Eid attended a Zionist Organization conference at Bar Ilan University. There, too, Eid surprised the crowd when he ridiculed Palestinian organizations that declared a boycott on Israel. "The Palestinians are the last who can declare a boycott of Israel. Let's see what happens if all Palestinians are boycotting Israel, settlements factories, all, what happens?"

Well, what happens?
"Abbas will not feed them and won't provide them jobs. After Protective Edge, it was agreed to put another 5,000 workers from Gaza to Israel so this they boycott? I beg you you to give me more jobs then demand a boycott? And even if they prohibit selling Palestinian produce to Israel your economy will not hurt. Who would hurt are those Palestinians who earn four or five times in Israel than in the territories. "

And the Authority's statement about boycotting the settlements?
"It shows you the disconnect between the public and its leaders. That there is no boycott. There is one "hero," Mustafa Barghouti, who is a very corrupt. He stole money from Saudi Arabia meant to buy them ambulances. He states that he invented the boycott of Israel, and he tours across Europe and talks about a boycott of Israel. Every other day he is in Sweden and they listen to him but let him go and declare a boycott in Ramallah and the refugee camps. "

So the whole story is a bluff?
"This is a big hoax on the part of the Palestinians. What, Arabs from the territories do not work and buy from Rami Levi in Gush Etzion? It is not enforced and can not be enforced. Bir Zeit buys Strauss Ice Cream. Grocery store there, the seller hung a sign, this place sells purely Israeli products."

You were a researcher for B'Tselem, you've won a prize when there. How do you rate B'Tselem today?

"When I worked in B'Tselem, it was a greatly appreciated organization in Israel. I do not think the intensity of the anger that Israel today has against B'Tselem was in the past. Things have changed, also B'Tselem has changed. For the Israelis 'B'Tselem' is not considered a human rights organization. In my opinion, a human rights organization has to fight against all human rights violations no matter what happens. At the time I conducted a comprehensive investigation on the Palestinian suicide bombers and I contacted B'Tselem and asked them if they wanted to issue a joint report. B'Tselem did not like the idea and I was angry. Today all organizations Israelis and Palestinians, all of them deal with Israel. No one opens his mouth about the Palestinian Authority, the torture, administrative detentions. "

You also left the organization and started one that was critical against the PA.
"Indeed, we had a financial problem. I think our organization's policy is not consistent with the foreign policy of Europe. Sweden, for example, never gave me a penny, [because] That I am critical of the PA and they like the PA and are against Israel."

They want you to leave the PA alone and focus on Israel?
"If I want to establish an anti-Israel NGO, I promise you tomorrow I would get a half a million dollars from Sweden. Check. But the money does not interest me. I just do not understand the difference between European human rights organization that protects "Ahmed Israeli" but doesn't want to protects the human rights of "Ahmed Palestinian Authority."

Would you prefer to live under Israeli rule as an Israeli?
"I want a democratic Palestinian state. If I can't, I have no problem to live in peace under Israeli occupation. I have been to most Arab countries saw what that prisons really are, what is torture really is, there's no way I want to be part of it and I'll tell you a secret: 80% of Palestinians in East Jerusalem certainly think so."

(h/t Yenta)

12/05 Links Pt2: How the World Turned Against Israel; Prosor: Jewish Refugees Deserve Justice

From Ian:

Here's How the World Turned Against Israel

Joshua Muravchik is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies and a contributor to this magazine. He is also author of 11 books, including the recently published Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel. I spoke with Muravchik about how Israel went from underdog to pariah, and the chances of that changing back anytime soon.
Lee Smith: Is there any way for Israel to turn it around and win the world's affection again? Or, would it be different if Israel was led by a left-wing rather than a right-wing government?
Josh Muravchik: An Israeli government of the Left would be cut more slack than the current one, but the difference would not be large. The second intifada erupted in 2000 during the premiership of the Labor Party’s Ehud Barak. Yet this was the moment at which the decisive turn against Israel became manifest, with harsher criticism being directed at Israel for self-defense than at the Palestinians for their terrorist war of aggression. The 2008-09 Gaza war that occasioned the infamous Goldstone Report was conducted by the Olmert administration, not of the Left but not of the Right either. And in this summer’s Gaza war, Netanyahu took no steps that were not supported by the main Israeli parties of the Left. In other words, with a government of the Left, Israel might be more restrained in regard to settlements and thus evoke less condemnation on that score, but at any moment that Israel felt impelled to act in self-defense—and those moments recur with heartrending frequency—it could count on the world’s opprobrium whoever was in office in Jerusalem.

Prosor at the UN: Jewish Refugees Deserve Justice

To a thronging crowd in the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Chamber in the UN’s headquarters in New York City, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor declaimed Wednesday that the 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries who fled in the aftermath of Israel’s creation in 1948 “deserve justice – and we [Israel] will not rest until they get it."
In what has become an annual event, the Israeli government sponsored a special event entitled: “The Untold Story of 850,000 Refugees, The Tale of Ancient Jewish Cultures in Arab Countries.”
Prosor went on to state:
"Eight hundred and fifty thousand Jews were forced to flee from Arab lands – and while they went on to raise families and have successful careers and give to their new communities – they never forgot the pain and humiliation of being torn from their homes.
“From this podium, in the heart of the Family of Nations, I call on the Secretary-General to appoint a Special Representative to establish a center of documentation. Collect the evidence to preserve history, document their firsthand accounts, and tell the story of the 850,000 Jews who were persecuted and expelled at the hands of the Arab nations.
“The United Nations cannot erase the pain and humiliation endured by the Jewish refugees, but it can help to make amends.”

UN Watch Watchdog urges U.N. chief and Samantha Power to investigate UNRWA for breach of neutrality agreement

According to Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, “UNRWA’s call to boycott an Israeli newspaper is a markedly political act that is inconsistent with the neutrality requirements applicable to all humanitarian agencies, and specifically negates provisions of UNRWA’s just-signed agreement with the U.S. State Department.”
“UNRWA’s boycott call also stands in stark contrast to its utter silence in the face of genocidal anti-Semitism published by Hamas and PA media, not to mention its inaction in regard to the anti-Jewish online postings of its own staff.”
In the 2015 UNRWA-U.S. Framework for Cooperation, an agreement just signed on November 17th between UNRWA commissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl and the U.S. State Department, the agency committed to “ensure adherence to principles of neutrality,” and specifically “the neutrality of UNRWA’s staff.”
Under the new agreement, UNRWA is obliged to complete a checklist confirming its adherence to obligations under the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, including the staff’s “appropriate behavior consistent with UNRWA’s neutrality rules/regulations,” and the “prompt initiation of investigations upon receipt of credible information about alleged staff/personnel misconduct.”