Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Today's bizarre Temple Mount accusations

Every time a Jew visits the Temple Mount, the Arab media report on it from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.

Because that gets boring after a while, they need to goose things up a bit.

Today's news is that the valiant Al Aqsa guards managed to foil an attempt by "Jewish settlers" to fly a plane over the Temple Mount. They say this is the fourth time they have frustrated such attempts. How exactly they stopped the "attack" is not clear.(It is possible that some Israelis are trying out a hobbyist drone.)

The more interesting story is that PA minister Sheikh Yusuf Odeih went on TV and claimed that Jews had been drinking alcohol on the Temple Mount along with their Talmudic prayers.

He also said that because of the Jews digging underneath the Mount, the mosque can now collapse from merely a strong wind.

Hey, its only incitement to attack Jews. No big deal.

In the first half of this year, there were a large number of "work accidents" and errant rockets that killed dozens of Gazans.

But since the Gaza war, a new meme has emerged whenever Gazans get killed in explosions: Now it is israel's fault.

This morning Arabic media are reporting on the death of Hamas terrorist Bilal Abdel Moneim Almunirawi of an explosion in a Hamas training site near Rafah. But instead of saying that it was a "mysterious internal explosion" as they used to claim, now they are saying he was killed by some leftover Israeli ordnance.

This is not the first time this has happened since the war - the number of "work accidents" has declined sharply while the number of people supposedly killed by leftover Israeli munitions has increased just as sharply.

Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades, for its part, doesn't blame Israel for this, although they do of course beseech Allah to accept him as a martyr so he can enjoy his "wedding" to the 70 virgins.

12/18 Links Pt1: EU Backs Palestinian Dictatorship; PM warns spirit of appeasement blowing through EU

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: EU Backs Palestinian Dictatorship

These European parliaments are also turning a blind eye to the fact that, under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, there is no respect for the rule of law, free speech, transparency or accountability.
These Western parliamentarians are in fact acting against the interests of the Palestinians, who are clearly not hoping for another corrupt dictatorship in the Arab world.
"The situation in Palestine does not conform at all with democracy or the rule of law... Wake up and see the loss of rights, law and security." — Freih Abu Medein, former Palestinian Authority Justice Minister.
"Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] wants to concentrate all authorities in his hands and the hand of his loyalists. He's acting in a dictatorial way and wants to be in control of everything, especially the finances." — Yasser Abed Rabbo, Secretary General of the PLO.
By turning a blind eye to human rights violations, as well as assaults on freedom of expression, the judiciary and the parliamentary system in the Palestinian territories, Western parliaments are paving the way for a creation of a rogue state called Palestine.

Mordechai Kedar: Spinning Out of Control

The prevailing atmosphere of the last few days when it comes to the Middle East is of a situation that is spinning out of control in all manner of unconnected spheres.
The Palestinian Autonomy is rushing ahead to gain recognition of its statehood in the Security Council, the European Parliament, the International Court and many other international institutions, in a step that is a clear and blatant violation of the Oslo Accords that created the Authority itself. Israel has not as yet reacted seriously to these Palestinian steps, and it has now emerged that Minister Livni, who was given the responsibility for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is ideologically and politically in the camp of the architects of Oslo.
Someone in Israel fell asleep while on duty guarding the lands that the League of Nations granted the Jewish people as far back as the 1920 San Remo Conference.
As a result of the Palestinian Authority's efforts, there may yet arise another Arab country in the region of Judea and Samaria, one that without the slightest doubt will turn into a Hamas state. This switch to Hamas can happen through elections, as occurred in 2006 or by a violent takeover like the one in Gaza in June 2007. Public opinion polls of the Arab population of Judea and Samaria show that Hamas is much more popular than Fatah. That is why Israelis, or any others for that matter, who support a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, are actually calling for another terror state like the one that arose in Gaza. The launching of a major and bloody war between this Hamas entity and the House of Israel would be only a matter of time – and not much of it, either.

How to help the Palestinians of Gaza

IDF Blog: Words of Incitement

UNRWA spends more money on videos of student elections than most schools spend on student elections

UNRWA is proud of the recent student elections they held under their "human rights" curriculum:

And they list the donors to this successful program at the end.

Isn't this condescending?

Tens of thousands of schools worldwide hold student elections every year. Somehow they manage to do this without huge infusions of international funding and professional videos. The cost is roughly the price of poster materials and markers.

The only way that this makes sense is if the donors don't believe that Palestinian Arab students and teachers have the ability to do this on their own.

Which is, frankly, racist as well as counterproductive.

What kind of message does it give to these girls that their school elections require outside funding from Japan and Sweden? It tells them that they should expect the world to underwrite every normal activity, and it provides a disincentive for them to do it on their own!

Perhaps UNRWA is trying to distract the world from realizing that its "human rights" curriculum in fact includes Jew-hatred and lies. Better to spend money on condescending videos than to actually fix the problems.

Sidebar photo of Tamimi on JMI page

Last week I wrote about the Jordanian Media Institute, a well-funded NGO, that had featured on every page of one of its websites a tribute to terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, responsible for the murder of 15 people including 7 children in the Sbarro pizza shop massacre.

The site revered murderer Tamimi as a role model for journalists and its bio showed pride in her bloody history.

Arnold Roth, father of one of the victims Malki Roth, had originally publicized this issue, and the Missing Piece site also wrote about it in Dutch.

A number of people wrote to the sponsors and funders of the JMI asking why they are paying to an organization that explicitly condones terror.

Three Dutch MPs wrote back to Missing Piece saying that they will make inquiries into Dutch support for the institute.

Canadian diplomats also wrote back to some of the critics saying that they are looking into this.

Meanwhile, the "jmijournalists.com" website with the offensive tribute to Tamimi seemed to go offline for a few days, but it was apparently only the victim of a hack. As soon as the complaints started coming in, the institute removed the page praising Tamimi without any apology or acknowledgement, which is what I predicted they would do - the barest minimum necessary to ensure that their Western funding remains intact.

There is no indication that Western funding has influenced the thinking of these NGOs a single bit. They happily take the money and continue to support the most sickening of terror attacks. And the funders happily go along with this charade because they like the illusion that they are helping bring peace, when in fact their money is doing the opposite.

Tamimi, meanwhile, regularly tweets her continuing support for Hamas terror.

The funders of programs like this must be held to account to ensure that their money is not misused in this way.

On Wednesday, Switzerland hosted an entirely useless conference.

Here is how Switzerland's foreign ministry described it:

Representatives of 126 High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention met in Geneva today to adopt by consensus a ten-point Declaration recalling applicable international humanitarian law (IHL) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East-Jerusalem. The conference was hosted by Switzerland in its capacity as Depositary of the Geneva Conventions.

The ten-point Declaration adopted by consensus by the Conference today reaffirms fundamental principles of international humanitarian law which all High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War must respect. It emphasizes that these principles also apply to non-state actors. The Declaration reaffirms the outcome documents of two previous conferences of 1999 and 2001 and reiterates legal obligations relating to developments in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 2001.

In his opening statement, the Chairman of the Conference, Ambassador Paul Fivat, noted that through the declaration, the participating States reaffirmed that international humanitarian law and in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention continued to apply in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and needed to be respected for the benefit of affected civilians. Representatives of the ICRC, of UNRWA and of several groups also spoke.

Switzerland, in its capacity as Depositary of the Geneva Conventions and acting as a facilitator, had concluded last week that the Conference would be convened, after consulting High Contracting Parties about this question from 28 July to 3 December 2014. The Depositary undertook these consultations pursuant to a recommendation of the United Nations General Assembly contained in resolution 64/10 of 5 November 2009. While an initial round of consultations in 2009 and 2010 had remained inconclusive, the consultations during the last four months had revealed a cross-regional critical mass of High Contracting Parties requesting the reconvening of a Conference, as had been the case in 1999 and 2001. A small of number of High Contracting Parties expressed their opposition and did not attend the Conference.

For years, the Swiss worked to convene a conference whose entire purpose was to confirm the conclusions of two previous conferences. Finally, they succeeded in getting enough countries interested in reiterating their bashing of Israel.

There is something notable about this conference, though.

The last one was in 2001. Since then, Israel has withdrawn its troops and people from Gaza. As I noted recently, by the ICRC's own pre-disengagement definition, this means that Gaza is not occupied.

Yet the closing declaration of this conference did not mention the fact that Israel does not exercise effective control over Gaza, the textbook definition of occupation. It doesn't even acknowledge that there has been any change since 2001. It simply declares that all the territories are still occupied without the tiniest thread of legal argument.

The topic, apparently, didn't even come up.

Which proves that the purpose of the conference was for no other reason than to bash Israel.

This conference was effectively identical to the many such Israel bashing conferences held in Muslim countries every month. The fact that it was proudly hosted by Switzerland tells us much more about Switzerland than it does about Israel.

12/17 Links Pt2: Disturbed's David Draiman: Media Laying Ground for 'Next Holocaust'

From Ian:

Heavy Metal Rocker Not “Disturbed” about Israel

While many celebrities toe the BDS line and stand with those who hate Israel, David Draiman of the mega rock group “Disturbed” takes an opposite approach. He is outspoken in his support for Israel and does not back down when faced with criticism for his position.
According to Draiman, anti-Israel media bias has encouraged deadly terrorist attacks, but also the global resurgence in antisemitism.
Listen to his interview on the Voice of Israel.

Disturbed's David Draiman: Mainstream Media Laying Ground for 'Next Holocaust'

Yisrael Medad: J Street - Going down another wrong road

Since 1920, when Arab anti-Zionist organized political violence first appeared, killing 7 Jews during the Pesach holiday, the Zionist movement has always decided to go the route of compromise and yielding The official leadership surrendered territory, accepted partition plans, acquiesced to a 'certificate' system of immigration, recompensed Arabs who did not actually own the land they worked and so on.
The only time an 'East Jerusalem' made its appearance, in all of history, was due to the Arabs rejecting the internationalization program and launching a war of aggression in 1947. Arab refugees came into being not because Jews "expelled" them but because their leaders sought to eradicate the Jews but lost their battles. And Jews in Arab lands, hundreds of miles from the fighting ended up themselves, becoming refugees through no direct fault of their own.
Besides a worldview dominated by irrational, illogical and detached-from-reality left-wing progressive ideology rather than a serious analysis of the history and the diplomacy of the conflict, J Street once again seeks foremost to back up its political partner in the White House as well as their own preference for a Galut existence and then, secondly, to promote policies that do not respond to the problems and why they are problems and third, to ignore that failing of thinking of theirs, end up undermining Israel's security, existence and diplomatic standing.
With J Street, one needs to be aware of detours, no exits, turnabouts and now, another wrong road in a wrong direction.

Jerusalem requests special Israel mention at Irish memorial ceremony

“Israel will be referred to and the Israeli ambassador has attended and participated in the ceremony since its inception in 2003 and will do so again in January 2015. Holocaust Education Trust Ireland (HETI) has this week reassured the Jewish Community in Ireland of this.”
“Israel will of course be mentioned,” an MFA spokesman told The Jerusalem Post, confirming that Ambassador Boaz Moda’i will attend the event as an official guest.
“We would always like a higher profile and believe we warrant a more central role but the distance from that to [descriptions of a ban] is very far.”
According to the Israeli embassy in Dublin, until three years ago it was HETI policy not to invite the ambassador to the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony, a policy changed following Israeli lobbying.
“This year the ambassador will be reading a text provided by the organizers of the event. Although the Israeli dimension and the conditions of the embassy’s participation in this event are less than what we would ideally desire, we consider it preferable to participate in the event than not to do so,” embassy information officer Dermot Meleady told the Post.

Chanukah video night #2: The Maccabeats - All About That Neis (plus bonus video)

And here's another spoof of the same song, and the lyrics are funnier:

The childishness of the Israel-haters knows no bounds.

From the Harvard Crimson:

Following student group complaints and internal discussions, Harvard University Dining Services has decided to suspend purchases of appliances from a company involved in an international settlement dispute.

Until last April, HUDS had been purchasing water machines from a company recently acquired by SodaStream, an Israeli company that specializes in do-it-yourself soda and water machines. Sodastream’s main factory is located on the West Bank, a settlement at the heart of conflicts between Israel and Palestine regarding land ownership in the area. The company, which announced in October that it will move its factory to southern Israel, has drawn criticism and boycotts for its location in disputed territory.

Last fall, some members of the College Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Harvard Islamic Society noticed that the filtered water machines in certain dining halls had Sodastream labels on them. Citing discomfort with the machines and the potential of the machines to offend those affected by the Israel-Palestine conflict, the students emailed House masters and tutors to arrange a meeting with University officials to have the machines removed.

Rachel J. Sandalow-Ash ’15, a member of the Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance who attended some of the subsequent meetings, said that she believed that regardless of the University’s position, the machines and their association with the disputed territory could be offensive to Palestinian students.

“I think it is neither anti-Israel nor anti-Semite to take stand against the occupation,” she said. “These machines can be seen as a microaggression to Palestinian students and their families and like the University doesn’t care about Palestinian human rights.” She added that her views should not be construed as the official club stance on the issue.

Members of the PSC, representatives from HUDS, Lowell House Masters Diana L. Eck and Dorothy A. Austin, Mather House Co-Master Michael Rosengarten, and Dean of Student Life Stephen Lassonde convened to discuss the students’ complaints at a meeting on April 7 in Lowell House, according to a memo from the meeting shared with The Crimson.

Sandalow-Ash, who was present at the meeting, said that the discussion focused on the potential effects of the machines on the student body. While many students pushed for the removal of the machines, she said that at least one participant at the meeting argued that this move could be perceived as a University stance against Israel.

Following the discussions, HUDS agreed to remove SodaStream labels on current machines and purchase machines from other companies such as American firms EverPure and Crysalli in the future, according to HUDS spokesperson Crista Martin.

Something seems to be missing from this article...let's see...Ah, that's it.

It doesn't quote a single student who is personally offended by the word Sodastream.

Instead, it quotes students who are worried that the word "Sodastream" being visible in a cafeteria may offend their fellow Palestinian students, and since that is such a major concern in the Ivy League, the word must be banned altogether. The very mention of the offensive term "Sodastream" makes one guilty of the crime of microaggression.

While actual, Palestinians from Ramallah compete with each other for the opportunity to work at Sodastream, Jews in Cambridge call meetings to pre-emptively make sure that Arabs at Harvard aren't going to be offended by the unspeakably obscene word.

The soda machines could be named after slang terms for genitalia and not cause this much of an uproar.

Not surprisingly, Rachel J. Sandalow-Ash also once organized a walkout of an economics class at Harvard because it was perceived as being too "conservative." Free expression is not exactly one of the liberal standards she holds dear.

I commented on this article:

I am pleased to discover that Harvard students cannot handle the word "Sodastr--m" and consider its presence to be "microaggression."

Free speech has limits, of course, and microaggressive words like "Sodastr--m" are clearly over the line. I'm proud to see Harvard leading in protecting the delicate sensibilities of the segments of its student body who like to yell "Death to Israel!"

I wonder if there are any other words that are so thoroughly offensive that they should be banned from being seen at Harvard.The offensive term "Temple Mount" which causes violence to break out spontaneously among certain people no doubt should be added to the banned word list, as should "Israel," "Likud" and "Zionist" unless they are being used in a disparaging way.

Bravo for being in the forefront of protecting your students from being offended by the crime of microaggression!

You gave my peace prize to WHOM?! (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

You gave my peace prize to WHOM?!

By Alfred Nobel

Wait, wait, run that by me again: the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded my flagship prize to a lifelong terrorist? If I weren't dead already I'd die from shock. You folks evidently have no idea what you're doing.

Yeah, to you that's old news. It happened in 1994. So kill me. I've been dead more than a century - there's no rush on this side of the grave. But it almost slew me all over again to find out: a guy signs a "peace" agreement, all the while insisting to his constituency that it's but a stage in the multiple-phase plan to wipe out the enemy, and you treat him like some saint. Gandhi you ignored - but Arafat? Sure! Help yourself, Rais! Just make sure you don't hock it to by weapons from Iran, that's all we ask.

While you're at it, give it to Pol Pot - oh wait, I see you already gave it to Henry Kissinger....and... what's a Barack Obama? Our servers here on the Other Side are notoriously slow - haven't been upgraded since like 1995 - but I don't see any accomplishment of any Barack Obama that would deserve my peace prize except Not Being George W. Bush. You have to employ slightly more selective criteria than that, gentlemen. But I digress.

You might accuse me of speaking with the benefit of hindsight. Touché. I'm six feet under. At this point hindsight is all I've got. But you don't even need hindsight to see which Peace Prize laureate was speaking out of both sides of his mouth even as his candidacy was being bandied about the halls of Oslo. You don't need to look as far ahead as the Second Intifada and the Karine-A. All your evidence was right there in front of you. One gets the impression you were so hellbent on extracting concessions from Israel you didn't care to whom.

All that means you're likely to make the same mistake again. I'm not fully conversant in the ongoing crises of the second decade of your century - a bit too distracted right now just catching up on movies and TV shows - goodness, those writers for The Simpsons are good - but you're heading for a repeat. If any agreement goes down soon between Israel and the Palestinians, you'll probably wax epic about it and reward Mahmoud Abbas with the same prize. And he'll justify your acknowledgment of his noble (see what I did there?) pursuits by continuing to pay pensions to the families of murderers, continuing to libel Israel with every accusation imaginable, and continue to laud the heroic achievements of Jew-killers. Don't believe me? You're already doing it across Europe with all those votes recognizing a Palestinian State, recognition that rewards Abbas for his inflexibility. Way to promote peace, gentlemen.

Perhaps I should give you the benefit of the doubt. After all, physics is one of the realms in which I ordained an award - and you might just be in the running for one by developing a method to generate electrical power by making me spin in my grave.

12/17 Links Pt1: Turning back the clock to pre-1948 is the real endgame; Five questions for Geneva

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: UN: Turning back the clock to pre-1948 is the real endgame

Incitement against the Jewish state is directly related to the stabbings, raping and killing of Jews inside and outside of Israel. But doing something to stop it requires confronting a very troubling fact: the global epicenter for incitement is the “human rights” leviathan, the United Nations.
From November 24, 2014 until December 5, 2014, UN human rights headquarters in Geneva mounted a public exhibit that was pure incitement. UN-driven antisemitism that takes the form of seeking to demonize, disable and ultimately destroy the Jewish state.
The exhibit was entitled: “La Nakba: Exode et Expulsion des Palestiniens en 1948” – or “The Nakba: Exodus and Expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948.” The occasion was the annual UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Solidarity Day marks the adoption by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947 of the resolution that approved the partitioning of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state.
The partition resolution was rejected by Arab states and celebrated by the Jewish people. Thus the Arab war to deny Israel’s right to exist began.
But in 2014, the UN overtly jettisoned the usual diplomatic lie that the 1967 occupation is the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The exhibit focused on the alleged crime of creating a Jewish state in 1948 and openly justified the rejection of the partition resolution.

Eugene Kontorovich: Five puzzles about occupation and settlements: questions for Geneva

Today, Switzerland convened a conference of State Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to discuss the law of occupation as it pertains to Israel. There have been just a couple of previous occasions when Geneva convened the signatories of its eponymous treaty, and every single one has been about Israel. (Jerusalem, Washington, Ottawa, and Canberra have announced they will snub the confab.)
Yet there is nothing wrong with an international conference to discuss the Fourth Geneva Convention, and to attempt to better understand its requirements as they apply in particular situations. Art. 49(6)’s prohibition of “deportation and transfer” into occupied territory could certainly do with elucidation. (The “deport or transfer” ban is commonly referred to as “settlement building.”)
Indeed, an examination of movement into occupied territory in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Western Sahara, and Cyprus would be both timely and instructive. Needless to say, this is not what the state parties will be discussing. They are, sadly, not interested in the Geneva Conventions, but only their possible use against Israel. But if the State Parties were to want an interesting agenda, here are some questions they might ask.
1. The first relates to the ICRC’s own definition of occupation (a precondition to the applicability of the “deport or transfer” norm). The state parties apparently regard Israel as occupying Gaza, to say nothing of all of the West Bank, despite the removal of Israeli troops from those areas and the existence of an independent Palestinian administration there. However, occupation in all other contexts requires the occupying power to displace and actually function as the governing authority, conditions that do not apply in Gaza and large parts of the West Bank (Area A).
Indeed, an ICRC manual excludes areas like Gaza:
Occupation ceases when the occupying forces are driven out of or evacuate the territory. (emphasis in the original)
How Israel’s occupation squares with the ICRC’s own definition of the term would be a useful subject for the state parties.

Last month, I reported that Jordan's parliament said a prayer for the murderers of the four Jewish worshipers slaughtered in Har Nof.

Given that the UK often publicly airs its impatience with Israeli actions, Edgar Davidson emailed to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office asking them if they would condemn the disgusting, pro-terror display from the parliament of one of Britain's closest allies in the region.

Their response:

Dear Mr Davidson,

Thank you for your email of 20 November in regard to the Jordanian Opening of Parliament on 19 November.

Despite Jordan's official condemnation of the synagogue attack the subsequent prayers understandably caused alarm and outrage to many.

As you may be aware, the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms and called on all world leaders to step up and condemn this brutality. Taking this into account we will not be taking further [action] with the Jordanians, we do not consider it a declaration of war against Israel. [Davidson had written that he considered it so - EoZ]

The UK highly values its relationship with both Israel and Jordan, and through our partnerships we share the common purpose of ensuring the security and prosperity of both countries. We will continue working to fight terrorism and will support both Israel and Jordan and where ever possible in the fight against Terrorism.

This is a sensitive period for Israel and Jordan, both sides must do everything they can to de-escalate tensions when they occur.

On behalf of the
Near East Department Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The attitude here is the same one that is endemic in how every government treats "moderate" Arabs.

Here is Western foreign policy rule #1 for the Middle East: Don't upset the Arabs, because the wrong word can turn them into crazy murderers.

If Israel does something that you object to, complain loudly because Israel won't threaten you in return. But when "moderate" Arab nations act in ways that are completely antithetical to all human values, shut the hell up. Your condemnation could result in you being the target of assassination plots or embassy burnings.

No, stories like this must be hidden away, swept under the rug, not reported on by the Western media. and never condemned. We need to pretend that the vague condemnation issued by Jordan of "all acts of violence against civilians" was a strong message to the murderers in Har Nof and the prayers that were explicitly said for their souls as martyrs are inconsequential.

We must keep the truth from the world about mainstream Arab support for terror.

So the people who support terror are coddled, the people who are victims of terror are brushed aside, and the Western world doesn't even know the truth because the media covers it up. - the story was not reported in a single mainstream media publication.

(h/t Ian)

Here is the legal reasoning behind today's decision by the ECJ to de-list Hamas as a terror organization:

On 27th December 2001 the Council of the European Union adopted a common position and a regulation to combat terrorism. These measures require the freezing of the funds of those people and entities included on a list adopted and regularly updated by Council decisions. The same day the Council adopted its first decision establishing that list. By this decision the Council included Hamas on the list and has maintained them on that list ever since.

Hamas contests the measures maintaining them on this list.

In today’s judgment, the General Court finds that the contested measures are based not on acts examined and confirmed in decisions of competent authorities but on factual imputations derived from the press and the internet.

However, the Common Position and the case-law of the Court4 requires that an EU decision to freeze funds is based not on factual elements that the Council may have derived from the press or the internet, but on elements which have been concretely examined and confirmed in decisions of national competent authorities within the meaning of the Common Position.

Therefore the Court annuls the contested measures while temporarily maintaining the effects of those measures in order to ensure the effectiveness of any possible future freezing of funds. The effects of the measures are maintained for a period of three months, or, if an appeal is brought before the Court of Justice, until this appeal is closed.

The Court stresses that those annulments, on fundamental procedural grounds, do not imply any substantive assessment of the question of the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group within the meaning of the Common Position.

The ECJ is saying that it has never independently confirmed that Hamas is a terrorist organization, and that it relied on external sources in making that determination against its own policies.

That's fine, any organization must follow its written policies.

But this means that ever since the EU was founded in 1993, despite spending tens of thousands of man-hours and untold millions of euros on Middle East topics and on the ground in Israel and the territories, no effort has been made to document Arab terrorism.

Think about it. The EU wants to be a part of the peace process - it is part of the Quartet - and it has given lots of money to anti-Israel NGOs. It has no problem criticizing Israeli actions and parsing the statements of Israeli ministers to find evidence of anything offensive.

Yet in all that time, no EU official has felt it was important to research and report on Arab terrorism! Not one bothered to visit the site of suicide bombings and read official Hamas statements taking credit for them. Not one bothered to follow up on Hamas incitement, on Hamas antisemitism, or on Hamas' public statements declaring all of Israel "occupied" and all Israelis to be targets for attack.

Not one.

Apparently, the entire EU presence in the Middle East is meant to document Israeli building in the territories and to ferret out "price tag" attacks. Thousands of pages are written about whether Israeli products that are manufactured on one side of the Green Line but packaged on the other side are considered contraband in Europe. But not one official report has been written that says that Hamas took credit for a terror attack.

There is a huge blind spot in the most studied place on the planet, and yet in 21 years the EU has not been able to write up a single report on Palestinian terrorism.

Is there any more evidence needed of EU bias against Israel than this?

(h/t AB)

Now even elderly Jews are "storming Al Aqsa!" Plus - Jordanian antisemitic "flash mob"

Shehab News Agency shows the latest example of how those Jews stop at nothing to "storm the Al Aqsa Mosque:"

It's under attack from old Jews! (I've never seen the women chanting "Allah hu Akbar" to tourists, only Jews.)

Al Aqsa must be defended!

How?

Students at the University of Jordan show us, in an antisemitic street theater they call a "flash mob."

It shows a "Jewish" person attacking a model of the Dome of the Rock and being stopped by valiant Arabs with sticks and rocks.

Then, most tellingly, it shows a "Jew" taking selfies of himself in front of the Dome and then being attacked by incensed Muslims as well.

Women sweep up the area, presumably to cleanse it of the Jewish filth that desecrated it.

A young man with a slingshot gets shot by "Israeli police."

A stereotypical "religious Jew" holds up a sign that seems to say that the Temple Mount is Jewish, while Muslims hold up their own signs.

Just another day of antisemitic incitement at a "moderate" Arab university.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

12/16 Links Pt2: Zionism, The Moral Struggle; Fmr AP Reporter: I Didn’t Leave Journalism, It Left Me

From Ian:

Ryan Bellerose: Zionism, The Moral Struggle

I find myself writing about things that I think are common sense. I wrote extensively about the indigenous status of the Jewish people, and in a bemused fashion, watched as people tried to deny something that is verified not just in religious texts of every major faith, but through genetics, history, archaeology, and anthropology. I never really concerned myself with the hurt feelings of people who had bought a false narrative, or the feelings of a people who went from being the dominant group who colonised and oppressed the entire region, to being stateless refugees used as pawns by their brethren.
It’s amusing to me that something I saw as common sense, was such a groundbreaking argument and is only now coming into the mainstream.
Now I am gonna blow some more minds with my next statement. I am taking back a word that has long been misused by ignorant people. I am proud to call myself a Zionist, and every Zionist should be.
ZIONISM IS AN INDIGENOUS RIGHTS MOVEMENT COMPLETELY BASED ON MORAL AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLES.

Former AP Reporter: I Didn’t Leave Journalism, It Left Me

More broadly and more deeply, Lavie is profoundly pessimistic about the quality of the work put out by AP and most sources of mainstream journalism today. Driven as they are by the Internet’s insatiable appetite for the latest flash, people who call themselves reporters are interested, he says, primarily if not exclusively in speed, not substance.
Perhaps even worse, Lavie provides direct testimony that journalists no longer even pretend that their job is to report facts. Instead, he’s been told by former colleagues, the job of the media is to advocate for those actors on the world stage that the journalists feel deserve support – to “speak truth to power.”
“But that isn’t the job journalists are supposed to do!” Lavie cries. “The job of journalists is to take a significant story and make it interesting, by explaining it and putting it in context.”
Lavie had a front row seat to the seismic changes in the Middle East, including every major outbreak of fighting, terrorist attack and peace negotiation efforts over the past nearly half a century. He also was ringside in Cairo when the “Arab Spring” was revealed to him as a “Broken Spring,” instead. That is also the name of his recently updated book and his blog.

NBC’s Richard Engel Says U.S. Support for Israel is Creating More Terrorists (VIDEO)

NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said on Sunday that U.S. support for Israel is a contributing factor to creating more terrorists.
“There’s a whole history of why people are getting radicalized. It goes back to U.S. support for Israel [and] what’s considered to be a war against Islam,” Engel, who is Jewish, said on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. “But the drone war is certainly part of it. The torture program is certainly part of it. I don’t know if you can say one is more influential at creating more of a problem than the other.”
Engel’s reporting has been called out in the past for being sympathetic to the Hamas terrorist organization. During a July segment of NBC’s Today, the journalist expressed concern that the Palestinian terror group was not getting enough out of a temporary cease-fire with Israel during the summer’s Operation Protective Edge.
“What is Hamas getting in return? So far, nothing,” he said. “No deal, no immediate lifting of the closure of the Gaza Strip. Just a reprieve from Israel’s assault that has flattened entire Gaza neighborhoods and killed more than a thousand Palestinians, many of them civilians, many of them children.”
Engel then outlined Hamas’ demands, saying, “The war could easily escalate again. Hamas wants an agreement to end the fighting, not for Israel to unilaterally scale back the assault on its own terms.”
A few days later, in another report for Today, Engel brought attention to a Palestinian teenager who celebrated Hamas’ terror attacks. The teen gained a following online after live tweeting about the terror group’s activities. She was quoted saying, “When I see the rockets getting to Israel, I start loving them more and more and I pray for them.”