Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 15, 2014

Cairo police destroy "atheist cafe" as residents accuse it of Satanism

From Morocco World News, quoting Egypt's Youm7:

Egyptian police on Sunday reportedly destroyed a café of atheists in the Hay Al Abidine district in Cairo. During the destruction, residents who live near the café expressed their joy and denounced the atheists, local media reported.

Egypti’s Youm7 quoted the head of Hay Al Abidin Jamal Mohi as saying that the café was located on Avenue Al Falaki in downtown Cario, and “it was a resort for atheists and Satanists who were spreading wrong ideas about religion.”

Jamal Mohi went on to add that local authorities decided to destroy the café after they received many requests from residents who live the café.

“Residents said that each midnight, atheists and Satanists in the café would start performing sort of satanic rituals,” he explained.

Mohi also revealed that the local authorities destroyed the café amid local women’s ululations of joy.

On the other hand, decision to destroy the café angered some Egyptian social media activists, who condemned closing the café and considered it a violation of the freedom of beliefs.

Ayman Ramzy, an Egyptian atheist and social media activist, told El Wady News that that café does not impact the beliefs of the Egyptian citizens.

Ramzy went on to add that local authorities should worry about the critical issues that Egypt is facing, such as the growing number of homeless children, rather than violating the individual freedoms of Egyptian citizens.

He explained that the number of atheists is on the rise in Egypt due to the awareness of youth and the behavior of religious institutions.

It is worth mentioning that a recent study released by the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta (Fatwa House) revealed that Egypt has the highest number of atheists in the Islamic world, estimating their number at 866 people.

That "866" number is referenced in this related article:

No one in Egypt can agree on how many people live in Cairo, let alone the precise ratio of Muslims to Christians. But senior government clerics are quite sure of one thing: there are exactly 866 atheists in Egypt – roughly 0.00001% of the population.

This suspiciously precise figure means Egypt harbours the highest number of atheists in the Arab world, according to claims by Dar al-Ifta, an official wing of government that issues religious edicts, citing research released this week by a regional polling group. Morocco came in second, with supposedly only 325 atheists. Yemen is meant to have 32.

Religiosity is very high in Egypt, and across the Arab world. But the tiny estimates nevertheless prompted high amusement among atheists and secularists in Egypt, who say atheism is slowly on the rise. Even Dar al-Ifta’s definitions of atheism seemed comic. According to the clerics, atheists include not just unbelievers, but those who believe in a secular state, and Muslims who convert to other religions.

“They are in denial,” said Rabab Kamal, a spokesperson for The Secularists, a small but vocal group that lobbies for a secular state. “I could count more than that number of atheists at al-Azhar university alone,” she added, referencing the Cairo-based institution that is widely regarded as the seat of global Sunni learning.

“In pragmatic terms, you can’t make scientific studies about how many atheists or agnostics there are – we’re in a country where talking about ideology other than Islam is a stigma.”

Dar al-Ifta clerics say the number of atheists in Egypt is a dangerous development that should “set alarm bells ringing” – a stance that may surprise outsiders who imagined last year’s overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood constituted a stepping stone towards a secular state.

Wishful thinking again trumps reality in the Middle East.

(h/t Bob Knot)

12/15 Links Pt1: Police foil ‘pregnant’ suicide bomber plot; Islamic Terrorist Siege in Sydney Ends

From Ian:

Shin Bet, police foil ‘pregnant’ suicide bomber plot in Tel Aviv

A Palestinian terror cell planning a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv and other attacks was thwarted over the last several months, the Shin Bet security service said Monday.
Five suspects hailing from Jenin and the village Attil in the Tulkarem area of the West Bank planned to infiltrate into Israel by acquiring a permit for the female member of their group to receive medical care in Israel.
She was then to dress as a pregnant Jewish woman and detonate an explosive belt in Tel Aviv, the Shin Bet said in a statement.
The cell members admitted under Shin Bet interrogation to planning to carry out shooting attacks, detonate a mine next to a bus carrying soldiers, and kidnap a soldier as well, according to the internal security agency.
The five were arrested between October and November by IDF forces working with the Shin Bet and police, but the information was only cleared for release Monday.

HOSTAGE TAKING ENDS AS SYDNEY POLICE STORM CAFE AMID GUNFIRE

Police toting automatic weapons and lobbing flash grenades stormed a Sydney cafe early Tuesday, bringing to a dramatic end a 16-hour standoff in which a jihadist and murder suspect held an unknown number of hostages in a scene much of the world watched on television.
A series of explosions, believed to be gunshots and flash grenades, came just before 2:30 a.m. local time as several more hostages fled Lindt Chocolat Cafe, where a man identified as Man Haron Monis, an Iranian also known for sending hate mail to the families of fallen soldiers, was holed up with an unknown number of captives. The drama, which began early Monday, appeared to be coming to a dramatic resolution, as frenzied activity enveloped the scene that Australians had been watching on television for hours.
"Police and paramedics have stormed the building," the Sydney Morning Herald reported. "Dozens of continuous bangs and possibly gun shots have lit up the sky."
Several people were taken from the building on stretchers as an alarm rang and police in riot gear moved in and out of the shop, in the heart of Australia's largest city's business district. A bomb disposal robot was seen being deployed in the shop, though police said the standoff was over. It was not clear if anyone was killed or what had happened to the suspect. The handful of hostages seen fleeing as the explosions echoed through the predawn air followed escapes hours earlier by five captives.
Four of the hostages were seen being taken from the cafe on stretchers, while one received CPR at the scene, Sky News reports.

Speaking at Hamas' 27th anniversary parade, leading Hamas figure Khalil al-Hayya announced that Hamas would expand their "resistance" (meaning, terror) to the West Bank and Jerusalem.

During a speech that lasted over 30 minutes, al-Hayya said "We will do everything in our power to activate the resistance in Palestine, in the West bank and Jerusalem....Hamas, along with with the rest of the resistance factions, will activate the resistance in all of Palestine, and in the heart of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and will remain supporting Gaza until all of Palestine is liberated."

In other words, it was a Sunday in Gaza.

UPDATE: Even Russia Today noticed that Hamas called to destroy Israel.

BBC says that targeting Israelis disqualifies you from being a Jihadist (UPDATE)

The BBC reports:

The data gathered by the BBC found that 5,042 people were killed in 664 jihadist attacks across 14 countries - a daily average of 168 deaths, or seven every hour.

About 80% of the deaths came in just four countries - Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and Afghanistan, according to the study of media and civil society reports.

Iraq was the most dangerous place to be, with 1,770 deaths in 233 attacks, ranging from shootings to suicide bombings.

Civilians bore the brunt of the attacks with a total of 2,079 killed, followed by 1,723 military personnel.

The BBC lists 14 countries where Jihadists killed people.

Israel is not one of them.

So when Islamists kill people in churches or mosques, it is Jihad. But killing Jews worshiping in synagogues is
not.

The BBC offers their methodology:

While jihad is an Islamic concept which means ‘struggle’ and has both military and spiritual connotations, the term jihad-ism describes a political ideology; and while many Shia groups and individuals refer to themselves as ‘jihadists’ this count focuses on a particular movement categorised by Al Qaeda, its affiliates and those who subscribe to a similar philosophy.

 These jihadists believe that Islam is under attack – from the West, Israel, apostate Muslim rulers, and the Shiites –and that every Muslim must come to its defence.

 What differentiates jihadists from other groups and individuals that have justified violence in Islamic terms is their doctrine and long-term political vision. The jihadists’ aim is to create states or societies that are governed by an extremely narrow, puritanical interpretation of Sunni Islam known as Salafism (or Wahhabism).

 Salafi doctrine accounts for the jihadists’ aggressive hostility towards other sects and religions; their rejection ofman-made laws and democracy; and their enforcement of public morality, dress codes, and social norms.

 Many groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan – most prominently the Taliban – do not classify as Salafist or Wahhabist. They typically follow the Deobandi or Ahl e Hadith traditions, which are similar to Salafism in their emphasis on literalism and have developed more or less in parallel. For the purposes of this study we have included them as jihadist groups.

Some of the beliefs listed above are held by other Muslims but it is a combination of all of these beliefs along with the readiness to kill in the name of those ideas that defines jihadism in this count.

Only a minority of Sunni Muslims worldwide are Salafists, and only a small fraction of Salafists are jihadists. Jihadists,therefore, do not represent mainstream Islam, and their doctrine, views and methods are not shared by the vast majority of Muslims.

Pseudo-social science meets political correctness.

The BBC defines jihadism as Wahhabism/Salafism, except when they want to include others, but they certainly don't want to include Palestinian jihad groups - that's for sure.Above all, they don't want the readers to confuse legitimate jihad with violent jihad, or to mix up violent jihad against Jews with violent jihad against Christians and Muslims.

So we have a situation where a group whose nae is Islamic Jihad is not considered "jihadist."

We habe a situation where Hamas terrorists, who sign all of their press releases with "It is jihad, victory or martyrdom," are not considered jihadists.

Absurdly, the BBC pretends that the philosophy of the jihadists of Hamas who execute their enemies in the street and who slash the throats of Jews in a synagogue is somehow fundamentally different from the jihadists who are beheading people in Syria and Iraq. Sure they both want an Islamic caliphate that institutes Sharia law, and sure they want to kill the infidels and subdue the dhimmis, but, you know, Israel builds houses so they have a good reason to want to slash the necks of Jews.

It is obvious that the BBC created n arbitrary definition of jihadism in order to minimize the seeming threat of Islamists to the West and to exclude any Palestinian Arabs from the definition altogether, no matter what - even as they admit that jihadists hate Israel. And the fact that the BBC cannot face up to the real threat of Islamism even when purportedly doing research in the topic shows a great deal about how the fear of offending Muslims colors its reporting.

(h/t Stanley)

UPDATE: See also Israellycool.

One of the many offshoots of Fatah under the name of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has issued a statement denouncing Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

In a statement released to Karama Press, the group said that "the era of Abbas defeats and setbacks must end" and called for him to leave the presidency.

"After a long silence and giving many opportunities after opportunities to Mahmoud Abbas, he has failed and foiled all national goals and demolished and destroyed and brought havoc and corruption and has accomplished only repeated defeats and divisions on the internal and external level," he statement said. It also decried the "obnoxious security coordination with the Zionist occupation" and the "construction of dictatorship and authoritarian rule at the expense of national institutions."

The statement accused Abbas of turning Fatah into his own "private company and ignoring its internal regulations and programs and the spirit of militancy."

The group went on to accuse Abbas of "treason and trafficking holy blood and suffering of our people to our cause."

I could not find this on any of the Al Aqsa Brigades webpages I follow, but there are quite a few groups under that name. There is always the possibility that this is a hoax, since the original statement is only electronic and anyone could have forged it easily. These things happen; there have been a number of false documents that Hamas and Fatah have each used against each other.

At least four of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades groups claimed credit for shooting rockets at Israel during the Gaza war.

The split in Fatah between Abbas and Mahmoud Dahlan, on the other hand, is quite real. Dahlan still has a serious base of support especially in Gaza - his people reportedly participated in the Hamas anniversary rally this weekend - even as he is accused of corruption and has been cut out of Fatah in the West Bank.

Swedish Democrat head says Jews are not true Swedes (update x2)

From TheLocal.se:

The party secretary of the Sweden Democrats has suggested that migrants should be given a cash incentive to leave Sweden and suggested that minority groups needed to "assimilate" more to be considered true Swedes.

"It would be good with a repatriation grant," Björn Söder said in a lengthy interview with Dagens Nyheter.

When asked specifically if migrants in the southern city of Malmö should be given money to return home he stated that he was not against the idea.

"Yes, and that is good. We must make it easier for those considering moving back to their own country. Then we'll be in a better condition to create a society of common identity."

Elsewhere in the interview Söder mentioned Jews, Kurds and Sami people as examples of groups that may have Swedish citizenship but, in his view, can't be considered true Swedes if they don't "assimilate" into Swedish society.

"We are for an inclusive society where everybody who wants to can fit in. We have an open Swedishness which also includes people with foreign roots. But you have to adapt to the Swedish and assimilate in order to become Swedish," said Söder.

He added; "I think that most people with Jewish origin who have become Swedes leave their Jewish identity behind. But if they don't it doesn't have to be an issue.

"You have to differentiate between citizenship and national affiliation. They can still be Swedish citizens and live in Sweden. Sami and Jews have lived in Sweden for a long time," he said.

His remarks have not gone down well with the chairperson of the Swedish committee against anti-Semitism, Willy Silberstein.

"I am Jewish and born in Sweden. I am just as much Swedish as Björn Söder. There is an us and them mentality which I think is a characteristic of the party.

"We should remember that the Sweden Democrats come from Nazi organizations."

Since this is a right-wing party, the story might get some traction in the media, unlike when Muslims say antisemitic things.

(h/t Marcus)

UPDATE: A number of people are writing to me that his words were twisted, and that the SD party has been the only one speaking out against antisemitism in Malmo. See the comments. I can't pretend to know the situation well and the possibility of media manipulation is always quite real, but it is still arrogant to declare who is and who isn't a true Swede and to put Jews who lived in Sweden for generations in a position to have to continuously prove themselves as "true Swedes."

UPDATE 2: Björn Söder responds in a letter to Haaretz:

In a biased article in one of Sweden’s largest newspapers, Dagens Nyheter, some of my statements were dramatically taken out of context to erroneously credit me opinions that do not correspond with reality. Politically biased journalists and political opponents have further distorted the statements resulting in a presentation virtually the complete opposite of my actual statements and opinions. This is now distributed in the international press, such as in Haaretz, which therefore necessitates a clarification on my part.

I represent the Sweden Democrats, a social conservative party on a nationalistic/patriotic foundation which views value conservatism and the maintenance of a solidarity-based welfare model as the most important tools in building a well-functioning society. We are also Sweden’s most ardent pro-Israeli party, strongly opposed to Sweden’s recognition of a Palestinian state as well as any aid to the Palestinian Authority as we do not wish to be associated with financially aiding terrorism in any way.

Along with a Jewish colleague on a trip to Israel in the spring of 2012, I visited among other places Samaria and the Golan Heights to obtain an understanding about the situation for the Jewish people in Israel. I also visited the Knesset and met several Israeli politicians. Those who know me are well familiar with my strong commitment to the State of Israel and the Jewish people. To then be accused of the direct opposite is outright insulting.

The Sweden Democrats advocate a policy of assimilation, which means that immigrants coming to Sweden should be expected to adapt to Swedish society. In my conversation with the DN journalist I discussed the fact that Sweden currently recognizes five national minorities, which are exempt from these requirements. These minorities are Sami, Roma, Sweden Finns, Tornedalers and Jews. Common to these minority groups is that they have lived in Sweden for a prolonged period of time and that they represent groups with a pronounced affinity. They have a religious, linguistic or cultural background and a desire to preserve this identity of theirs. They thus constitute their own nations within the Swedish state.

We distinguish between nationhood and citizenship. For this I have been criticized, but I am certain that you in Israel make this same distinction. Of course not all Israeli citizens are Jewish and the same certainly applies in Sweden.

Naturally there are some people from these minority nations who have, partly or fully, joined the Swedish nation by adapting a Swedish identity. I personally have relatives who have Sami and Jewish backgrounds but who would not consider themselves as anything other than Swedes.

When asked whether one can simultaneously be both Jewish and Swedish, I did not respond “no,” though this is exactly how it was portrayed in the Swedish press. I replied that I believe most people of Jewish origin that have become Swedes (as in becoming a part of the Swedish nation) may have partly abandoned their Jewish identity in some cases. I emphasized, however, that whether they do or not, it does not pose a problem since they have lived in Sweden for so long and they are in fact part of a recognized minority. This enables them to continue living here in Sweden with their Jewish nationhood and Swedish citizenship. The same applies to the other recognized minority groups. Some Jews in Sweden are Jewish strictly in a religious sense while others are also Jewish in a national and cultural sense.

I have defended our recognized minority groups, including the Jews, as having the right to maintain this unique societal position, as compared to other minority groups in the country. To this end I have now been attributed various political viewpoints that are foreign to me.

Bjorn Soder
Secretary-General for the Sweden Democrats
Second Deputy Speaker of the Swedish Parliament

Yemen Akhbar reports that the Sanaa, Yemen Office of education has decided to change the days that schools are off from Friday/Saturday to Thursday/Friday.

The reason? Because the Houthis who have been taking over Yemen demanded it, since Saturday is a day of "foul Jews and infidels."

Houthis had already managed to do the same in the province of Dhamar.

Iran openly supports the Houthis in Yemen, where they are acting the same as Hezbollah in Lebanon by taking over large parts of the territory and seizing political power.

12/14 Links: On journalists, political conflict and NGOs; ISIS, the Joker, and Tom Friedman;

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Proportionate response

When someone initiates an attack against you, a proportionate response is said to be one that suffices to prevent further attacks. When critics of Israel’s response to thousands of Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza during Operation Protective Shield accused it of a disproportionate response, they were mainly referring to the fact that fewer Israelis than Gazans died in the conflict, ignoring the fact that such deaths were the unavoidable result of Israel’s attempt to defend itself and to halt terrorist attacks.
The IDF’s counterattacks were undertaken with caution that included efforts to minimize civilian casualties, even warning possible collateral victims before responding to a Hamas barrage. In military terms, the achievement of a more or less binding cease-fire after 50 days of strife is proof that Israel’s response was indeed proportionate: it stopped the violence.
Would that things were so clear-cut in the world media’s treatment of the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. This is dominated by biased attacks on Israel that reflect another kind of disproportion: one that focuses on Israel’s alleged misdeeds while ignoring far greater crimes against humanity by numerous other nations.

Gerald Steinberg: On journalists, political conflict and NGOs

As a critic of human rights NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict, I have often seen this preferential relationship in action. Friedman’s article confirms the intense efforts to keep the research that I and NGO Monitor publish from getting into the media, and into the hands of policy makers. We now know that in 2009, the AP’s Jerusalem bureau chief, Steve Gutkin, issued a formal ban on quoting me and NGO Monitor. According to Friedman (and confirmed by another ex-AP reporter), “In my time as an AP writer moving through the local conflict, with its myriad lunatics, bigots and killers, the only person I ever saw subjected to an interview ban was this professor.”
Highlighting the deep fear of exposing the NGO-media alliance, Friedman’s article was subject to a number of counter-attacks. The Columbia Journalism Review – the bastion of journalism’s power elite – immediately ran a column attacking both Friedman and NGO Monitor, repeating the political labels and false allegations against both of us. This response, and the lack of basic fact checking at CJR, inadvertently provided a blatant example of the problems and failures in media coverage of Israel. The fact that the author, Jared Malsin, worked for the Palestinian wire service Ma’an between 2007 and 2010, was omitted. The editors of CJR also refused to even respond to my submission on the NGO-media alliance. Like the AP’s official ban, and the New York Times in practice, this “prestigious” publication on journalism censored the criticism.
In democracies, journalists enjoy a privileged position as the embodiment of a free press, enabling them to criticize powerful actors, and to help the public make informed decisions. But when the media itself promotes the unchecked power of political groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, and suppresses criticism of these NGOs, democracy is ill-served.

ISIS, the Joker, and Tom Friedman

Thomas Friedman quoted a Batman movie to prove his point, but all Tom proved was that he didn't understand the movie.
“I warn you, he may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you: He really is an idiot!” — The Joker, Arkham Asylum
A friend drew my attention today to a recent column by New York Times resident joker and professional stuffed shirt Thomas Friedman, in which Friedman cites a scene from Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight as a metaphor for the fight against Islamic terrorism.
As I read the column, I grew intrigued — because for a brief moment, it seemed as though the generally clueless Friedman had experienced a genuine epiphany. But by the time I reached the end of the column, I realized that it was a false alarm: The metaphor that he cited (which he says was referred to him by Orit Perlov) was indeed strikingly apt, but Friedman himself completely failed to grasp its meaning.

As many of you know, Jon Haber of divestthis! and I are having an ongoing discussion around the relationship between the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the western-left.

The heart of my argument is that the progressive-left, and the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic Party, has forsaken its Jewish constituency through accepting and encouraging anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of its larger constituency.

I fail to understand why this should be acceptable to any self-respecting Jewish person, most particularly any self-respecting Jewish liberal... which I proudly count myself as one.

Jon argues that just as the mid-twentieth-century Marxist-Leninist "Hard-Left" sought to impose itself on the broader American Left through ideological bullying - and the more blunt kind - so today's BDSers insist that opposition to Israel - which is, in effect, opposition to the well-being of the Jewish people - is a prerequisite for admittance into the progressive-left knitting circle. In this way we both agree that the Left represents the political ground upon which the fight against anti-Semitic anti-Zionists takes place in the west today.

Jon writes:

So if this is the nature of the battle being fought, are we doing ourselves a disservice for condemning a Left that might include the inheritors of an anti-Communist tradition (my emphasis) that is trying to find a way to apply lessons learned in the 20th century fight against Marxism to our current conflict...

My response to Jon's question is this:

Should we not acknowledge the obvious due to fear of offending allies who are already behaving less and less like allies? The implication of Jon's question if answered in the affirmative - that, yes, we do ourselves a disservice by condemning the Left - is that we must be careful not to offend.

In Jon's most recent criticisms at Divestthis!, What’s Left? – Arguing with Mike, he takes two issues with my recent argument. The first is with my usage of Barack Obama's 2011 United Nations speech to illustrate the President's overall hostility - whether conscious or not - to Jewish nationalism through his embrace of political Islam and thus, by logical necessity, of Islamic anti-Zionism. In that speech Obama compared anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynistic Islamists - raping and rampaging their way through the "Arab Spring" - to the Sons of Liberty and to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s.

I understand that this was not the President's intention, merely the case.

Jon agreed that Barack Obama's comparisons were foolish, but argues:

this was just one of many daft things said during the heyday of Arab Spring fantasies. And while I admit that the invocation of a sacred civil rights icon to describe what was happening in the Middle East seemed inappropriate even then, I’m hesitant to use such a statement as the basis of a critique of even the Obama administration, much less “The Left” that the Obama administration is supposed to be representing in Mike’s argument.

For there are all kinds of indictments one can bring to the current President’s foreign policy...

Indeed, there are any number of indictments a person can bring, but for the moment, I am only bringing this one.

My central indictment of the western Left in the United States is that it supported an American president who not only claimed a profound respect for the "Arab Spring" but went about providing US tax dollars and heavy weaponry, such F-16 fighter jets and Abrams tanks, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

To do what with, I wonder? Defend against Libya?

For those of you who may not know, the Brotherhood has been around in Cairo since the 1920s and is the parent organization of both Qaeda and Hamas. The Brotherhood sided with the Hitler during World War II and helped Nazi refugees, including the murderous Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, to escape Europe after the war. Al-Husseini promised Hitler that once the Nazis crossed into Palestine he would implement The Final Solution to the Jewish Question on Jewish soil.

Furthermore, during the 2012 election campaign of Mohamed Morsi, the Brotherhood held a rally in Tahrir Square, with Morsi in attendance, in which tens of thousands of people, if not more, screamed for the bloody conquest of Jerusalem.

And, yet, still Barack Obama stood behind the Brotherhood.

And, yet, still American Jewry stood behind Barack Obama.

So, yes, there are any number of indictments or complaints or grievances that someone can level against Obama's foreign policy, but the one that primarily interests me, at this moment, is the fact that he literally supported political Islam and we let him get away with it. Remember, I write this as someone who was a life-long Democrat - if that concept makes any sense - and who voted for Obama on the first go-round.

Jon's second point is this:

The other point Mike made that I take issue with is the notion that we must decide between criticizing the Left for the fact that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism dwells within its ranks (which it obviously does) or staying mum out of fear of offending potential allies within that end of the spectrum.

Jon argued that perhaps we do "ourselves a disservice for condemning a Left that might include the inheritors of an anti-Communist tradition..."

All I am saying is that we should not be afraid to criticize.

I do not "condemn" the Left. Hell, I come out of the Left and my positions, if you go down the list, are still largely on the Left. What I have for the Left is not condemnation, but criticism which they mainly refuse to address or consider. The progressive-left and the Democratic Party in the United States are indifferent to the interests of its Jewish constituency. The reason this is so is precisely because we fail to strongly criticize them when we should. One obvious example was voting Barack Obama a second time even after he stood with the Muslim Brotherhood.

We can no longer afford to allow the Democratic Party to take American Jewry for granted.

Every generation of American Jews has given the Democratic Party its wholehearted support since FDR and FDR was not even a friend to the Jewish people. Vice President Henry Wallace noted in his diary that FDR thought that Jews needed to be scattered around the globe so that we might be assimilated into the larger world demographic and thereby made to go away, i.e., "to spread the Jews thin all over the world."

When the Democratic delegates to the 2012 National Convention cannot even bring themselves to affirm a voice-vote recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, you know that it is at least time to stop kissing Democratic feet.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

The kids of Hamas

This weekend Hamas and the Al Qassam Brigades held parades to celebrate their 27th anniversary. Here are some scenes.

The IDF just released this video on the same theme:

(h/t Ian)

Fisking an UNRWA hack on Twitter in real time

In 2012, Jennifer Rubin reported in WaPo:

Early last year [UNRWA] set up a D.C. “liaison” office. With whom is it liaisoning? Mostly Congress, it turns out. U.S. law forbids the United Nations from lobbying Congress, but as we learned with Newt Gingrich “lobbying” or a “lobbyist” is in the eye of the beholder. UNRWA employs two full-time staffers in D.C., both of whom have loads of experience on Capitol Hill. Chris McGrath is a former aide for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.); his boss, Matthew Reynolds, worked in legislative affairs for the State Department. I was assured no “lobbying” goes on, but they do meet virtually nonstop with lawmakers — appropriators are key — to answer questions about how taxpayer dollars are spent, why UNRWA’s work is important and how it makes sure money isn’t going to terrorists.

It seems American tax dollars are going, in part, to fund this office that in effect makes sure Congress doesn’t get fed up and cut off the money flow. Kirk might want to find out just how much liasioning is going on and whether the letter and spirit of the ban on lobbying are being strictly adhered to.

This paid political hack Chris McGrath has been actively - and absurdly - defending UNRWA on Twitter.

So, for example, after Chris Gunness spent a day hysterically going after the Jerusalem Post and calling for everyone to boycott it using the words "Boycott the JPost," McGrath tweeted:

#UNSG spox noted @ChrisGunness “was not calling for a boycott against any media outlet” rather 1 misleading article in JPost 1/2
— Chris McGrath (@mcgrathc) December 8, 2014

You may recall that the reason Gunness and UNRWA were up in arms was a devastating op-ed piece by Palestinian human rights leader Bassam Eid slamming UNRWA. On Friday, Chris McGrath tweeted:

#UNRWA has examined Bassam Eid’s Dec. 1st op-ed in @Jerusalem_Post and found 21 errors; #FactsMatter
— Chris McGrath (@mcgrathc) December 12, 2014

As I waited to read details on these supposed 21 errors, I had fun with the hashtag #FactsMatter:

.@UNRWA's website misrepresents UNHRC's policy towards refugee descendants http://t.co/aj53rKqO3r #FactsMatter @mcgrathc @Jerusalem_Post
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 12, 2014

.@ChrisGunness lied about @UNRWA's definition of refugee being made by UNGA http://t.co/iI95TZwiGU @mcgrathc @Jerusalem_Post #FactsMatter
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 12, 2014

.@UNRWA official lied, told UNGA meeting that 2100 civilians killed in Gaza http://t.co/cEOMCXBI3K @mcgrathc @Jerusalem_Post #FactsMatter
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 12, 2014

Sorry, @mcgrathc, but if #FactsMatter, why does @UNRWA keep lying? @Jerusalem_Post
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 12, 2014

Finally, McGrath started listing four of the 21 "errors." Here's the first:

4 biggest errors in Bassem Eid op-ed in @Jerusalem_Post show lack of basic understanding of #UNRWA #FactsMatter (1/5)
— Chris McGrath (@mcgrathc) December 12, 2014

Eid op-ed error: UNRWA runs camps; FACT: #UNRWA only provides services, no such thing as “UNRWA refugee camp” #FactsMatter (2/5)
— Chris McGrath (@mcgrathc) December 12, 2014

Eid didn't say that UNRWA runs the camps. However, he did refer to "UNRWA refugee camps." Guess who else does?

Lobbyist @mcgrathc says "no such thing as '@UNRWA refugee camp.'" Their website disagrees @stevelinde #FactsMatter pic.twitter.com/IgjTStRPbo
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 12, 2014

Here are his other "errors" and my responses:

.@mcgrathc This is the only one I don't think can be proven. I'll give you that. But your salaries do buy weapons pic.twitter.com/O8mc0pJg5q
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 12, 2014

.@mcgrathc Then point me to the publication showing specifically how UNRWA spends its money. Like how much they pay you.
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 12, 2014

.@mcgrathc He didn't say there were no audits. He called on full audits. #FactsMatter #pathetic
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) December 12, 2014

McGrath's arguments that UNRWA is fully audited and transparent is truly a joke.

Anyway, I am still waiting for the remaining 17 supposed "errors" in Bassam Eid's piece. There is more fun to be had.

12/13 Links: Huckabee: 'US Should Fund Jewish Construction in Judea-Samaria, Not Gaza'

From Ian:

The Israeli Future

Here in Israel, thinking on such matters is generally clearer due to the proximity of the country to its mortal enemies. For all that the Palestinians and Gaza occupy the moral imagination of the international left, they are at best a secondary, and probably more accurately a tertiary concern in the hierarchy of Israel’s security issues. The prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb looms over everything here, and with it the threat of a new holocaust.
Even if Iran were to get the bomb but not use it preemptively, the outcome—a regionally hegemonic neo-Persian Empire—would still be unacceptable to Israel, not to say most Arabs. So Israel will have to act, if the United States and the international order will not. The consequences of such a campaign are unclear—perhaps, yet another broad regional war caused by the recent weakness of the international order.
Such a prediction may seem panicky and fevered to those in the United States, where it is harder to picture the severity of the threats to the Western model of governance and civilization, because those threats are relatively distant. Israel is effectively our front line. Europe is embarrassed by the legacy of the West—with its whiteness and colonialism and capitalism—and probably would be happy to see Israel disappear or change its character in such a way that the Jewishness of the Jewish state is certain to disappear.
But Europe itself is faltering. At an event I attended this week, Natan Sharansky–the former Soviet dissident and Israeli author and politician–made the following observation in response to a query about resurgent anti-Semitism: “People always ask me, is there a future for Jews in Europe? But I’m more worried about the question, Is there a future for Europeans in Europe?”
He concluded: “But of course they can come here. There will always be a future for Europe in Israel.”

Congress passes resolution denouncing use of human shields

Congress passed a resolution denouncing the use of civilians as human shields by terrorist groups, calling it a violation of international humanitarian law.
The resolution was passed by both houses of Congress without objection on Wednesday.
“The United States Congress stood resolved in condemnation of the despicable actions of the terrorist group, Hamas, and its use of children, women and men as human shields. While Israel went to extraordinary lengths this summer in Gaza to protect innocent civilian lives, Hamas placed the Palestinian people directly in harm’s way by using them as human shields and placing its rockets near densely populated areas and near schools, hospitals and mosques,” according to a joint statement from Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Ted Deutch (R-Fla.)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who cosponsored the resolution on the Senate side, said in a statement: “The Senate has sent a united signal that we denounce Hamas’ barbaric tactics and unequivocally support Israel’s right to self-defense.”
The resolution calls on the international community to condemn Hamas’ use of human shields and places responsibility for the rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel on Hamas and other terrorist organizations. It also condemns the United Nations Human Rights Council’s biased resolution establishing a commission of inquiry into Israel’s Gaza operation.

Douglas Murray: Why are we abandoning the Middle East's Christians to Isis

All the congregation I spoke to agreed on several things. One is that although the situation has been bad for years and has peaked before, there has never been a year as bad as this. A year, as the Archbishop tells me, that Iraq’s Christian’s faced a genocide.
They do not understand why the world is ignoring them, nor why a historically Christian country like Britain has been so unmoved by the near-complete eradication of Christianity in the continent that gave it birth. As one points out, the Yazidis lived with them for hundreds of years. They were their neighbours and friends. So why was the world spurred to action by the effort to commit genocide against the Yazidis and not the genocide against the Christians?
Their families cannot go to Syria and they are not allowed into Turkey. The lucky ones are living in tents in the Kurdish areas. The luckiest — like the lady who took the call from Isis — had a family member in the UK and a visa which was still valid. All of which naturally brings up the issue of asylum. Alongside the amazement at the world’s indifference comes a question: why can’t Iraq’s Christians all get sanctuary in the West? If most EU countries took in 10,000 Iraqi Christians, they could all live in safety.
Is this not self-defeating, I ask them? Would this not simply speed up the end of this ancient church and ancient community? A woman looks at me straight and says simply, ‘It is the end anyway.’

Look how crowded Gaza is!

Last summer, when some news agencies started realizing belatedly that Hamas was firing rockets from civilian areas, Hamas answered them:

But Hamas says it had little choice in Gaza's crowded urban landscape, took safeguards to keep people away from the fighting, and that a heavy-handed Israeli response is to blame for the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

"Gaza, from Beit Hanoun in the north to Rafah in the south, is one uninterrupted urban chain that Israel has turned into a war zone," said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official in Gaza.

AP didn't challenge the obvious lie.

Amnesty International also seemed to buy that Hamas line, even giving it the primatur of international law!

Each party to the conflict must, to the extent feasible, avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.67 The authoritative commentary of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on this provision explains that the use of the term “feasible” is used to illustrate “the fact that no one can be required to do the impossible. In this case it is clear that precautions should not go beyond the point where the life of the population would become difficult or even impossible.” And it notes: “Moreover, a Party to the conflict cannot be expected to arrange its armed forces and installations in such a way as to make them conspicuous to the benefit of the adversary.”

Yes, Amnesty justified terrorists' use of human shields by claiming that they it would be "impossible" to do otherwise..

Here are some photos of an Islamic Jihad military exercises taken today, from areas in Gaza that are obviously controlled by the terror group and from which they could have easily fought from. See if you can find any civilian homes in any of these photos:

So crowded!

UPDATE: I originally said this was a Hamas exercise, thanks to Judge Dan for correcting me.

12/12 Links Pt2: Fury over Israel ban at Shoah memorial; Putting Lipstick on the BDS Pig

From Ian:

Fury over Israel ban at Shoah memorial

Organisers of a national Holocaust memorial event have banned any mention of Israel.
The trustees of Holocaust Educational Trust Ireland (HETI) have instructed the host of the country's main Shoah memorial event in January "not to refer to the Jewish State or the State of Israel during any part of the ceremony".
The ban follows a similar bar imposed just days before this year's Holocaust Memorial Day in Ireland, when long-standing host Yanky Fachler was told to avoid mentioning Israel.
He reluctantly complied when his objections fell on deaf ears but, afterwards, complained in writing to the organising body, HETI - only to be told the rule will again apply at January's event at Dublin's Mansion House.

Palestinian human rights activist implores Malala: No money to Hamas, UNRWA

Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid is asking Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai to keep her promise to share her award money with the children of the Gaza Strip but to prevent the funds from falling into the hands of Hamas. In an “Open Letter to Malala” Eid shared with The Media Line, the noted activist told the young Pakistani laureate that “Hamas acts according to the principles of radical Islam, not of the UN principles.”
"I appreciate your decision to contribute your prize money to the children of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, because they really need your help. Yet, I must advise you that if you want to make such a donation, please come here to do so in person and not through UNRWA - the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
If you send funds through UNRWA, Palestinian refugee children will never benefit from it, because UNRWA funds in Gaza wind up in the hands of radical Islam." (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Clarifications required for BBC reports on Shati incident

As we noted here the other day, the Israeli Military Attorney General (MAG) has published the findings of some of the investigations conducted into incidents which occurred in the Gaza Strip during Operation Protective Edge.
One of the incidents investigated was the deaths of ten civilians on July 28th at the Shati refugee camp, along with an alleged attack on Shifa hospital on the same afternoon. The findings are as follows:Tweet Shifa
“Various media reports alleged that on 28 July 2014, an incident occurred involving a strike on medical clinics belonging to the Al-Shifa Hospital, as well as a strike on a park where children were present in the Shati Refugee Camp, and as a result of which ten persons (including nine children) were killed and tens injured. Some of these reports alleged that the strikes were carried out by the IDF. As a result, and in accordance with the MAG’s investigation policy, it was decided to refer the incident for examination by the FFAM [Fact Finding Assessment Mission – Ed.].
Following a thorough review conducted by the FFAM, such a strike by IDF forces could not be identified. However, Israel’s technical systems recorded in real-time the path of a salvo of missiles fired from within the Gaza Strip, seemingly by Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which landed in the medical clinics and in the Shati Refugee Camp at the time of the alleged incident. Under these circumstances, and in light of the fact that the strike on the hospital was the result of rocket fire from Palestinian terrorist organizations, the MAG ordered the case to be closed.”

Hamas burns a religious Jew - and the Temple - in effigy during rally (update)

Today Hamas held a rally in Gaza City celebrating its anniversary.

Here was one of the featured events:

The "coffin" that he is being burned on has a picture on the side:

It is a representation of the Second Jewish Temple!

Nah, they're not antisemitic. They are pretending to murder religious Jews and destroy Jewish holy places because of, you know, settlements.

Maybe next rally they can burn a fake Torah, too. Even if they did, enlightened Westerners will not admit that Hamas has anything to do with Jew-hatred.

UPDATE: Coffins had different "decorations" including this celebration of murdering 4 religious Jews. (h/t Bob Knot)