Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 29, 2014

Egypt bans Jewish pilgrimage festival because of those famous Jewish orgies

The Alexandria Administrative Court has banned the celebration of the Abu Hasira [Abuhatzeira] festival saying it violates public orders.

“The Jews have not had any particular impact on the Egyptian civilization. They did not contribute to the human knowledge of history of the civilization,” the court said.

According to the verdict, the court canceled the culture minister's 2001 decision considering the mausoleum, the surrounding Jewish tombs and the hill in the village of Damtu, outside Damanhour, among other Islamic and Coptic monuments.

It also ordered the minister in charge of monuments affairs to remove the mausoleum from Islamic and Coptic monuments records as it does not enjoy all of the archaeological characteristics and informing the UNESCO’s international heritage committee to remove it from the records.

The verdict also rejected the Israeli request to the UNESCO requesting the transfer of the mortal remains to Jerusalem, saying that Islam refuses to dig up the graves and that Jerusalem is occupied by Israel, which means that existence of such mausoleum on the Arab land of Palestine would add legitimacy of the Israel.

The festival, scheduled for 9 to 10 January, is held on the annual anniversary of the death of a 19th-century Jewish rabbi Abu Hasira, who was born in Egypt and traveled to Morocco, according to the Jewish folklore.

So because they respect graves so much they will remove the site from any international cultural protection so the residents of the village, who are overwhelmingly antisemitic, can do what they want to the shrine.

Now, that's respect.

More from Reuters:

The court said its decision was due to "moral offences" committed in previous years at the three-day festival celebrating the birth of Rabbi Jacob Abu Hasira. It did not elaborate on what the offences were.

Jews, mostly from outside Egypt, have congregated every year at the 19th century tomb around Jan. 1 even though the festival was canceled for security reasons after the 2011 uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak.

Monday's ruling would make the ban permanent unless a higher court overturns it on appeal.

What were these "moral offenses?"

Egyptians have been making ludicrous claims about the celebrants for years. For example, in 2008:

[Jews] often start the celebration that get out of hand, where there is an auction for who will enter his tomb first , followed by alcoholic operations spilled over the cemetery, and then the slaughter of sacrifices that are often sheep or pigs, roasting meat, and dancing. Celebrants then hysterically sing Jewish melodies as they become almost naked, and then say some prayers, entreaties and tears to the tomb, burning, beating their heads in the Wailing Wall and asked for their needs, according to witnesses.

In 2011:

A female residents said that the Jews drink alcohol, which is forbidden in Islam, to be blessed as part of their veneration of the rabbi.

"The Jewish visitors usually get drunk and engage in obscene dancing during the celebrations," the woman, who asked not to be identified, said, demanding that the Abu Hasira festival should be cancelled after the revolution and the deposing of Mubarak, whom she dismissed as Israel's friend.

2013:

The Jewish men and women dance together while listening to jazz music.

Afterwards, the tourists make lots of noise and would bring sheep and goats. They slaughter them from the top of the neck, "contrary to Islamic law." (Kosher slaughter is not done that way.)

The meat is eaten together with "all kinds of imported wines next to a cocktail of cigarettes stuffed full of drugs."

The, naturally, the Jews turn off the lights and have an orgy, with sex being freely practiced in the tomb itself.

Those wild Jews!

In 2010, Jews visiting the grave were greeted with signs from local residents, in Hebrew, saying "Death to the Jews." So we know they will treat the shrine with all the respect that they can muster.

12/29 Links Pt1: What the Palestinian Authority Did Not Tell the UNSC; Jerusalem terrorist attack foiled

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: What the Palestinian Authority Did Not Tell the UN Security Council

Last week, Jordan submitted to the Security Council a Palestinian-drafted resolution calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by the end of 2017 and a peace deal within a year.
But what the Palestinians did not tell the Security Council is that the state they seek to establish is one that does not respect public freedoms, first and foremost freedom of expression.
This would be a state where people are detained and intimidated for using social media to express their views. It will also be a state where the president or any of his senior officials could order the arrest of anyone who dares to speak out against lack of democracy and reforms.
The draft resolution that was submitted to the Security Council fails to mention the fact that the Palestinian Authority is harassing and persecuting political opponents and critics, including Facebook users.
Moreover, the PA does not want the Security Council and the rest of the international community to know that, in the future Palestinian state, female journalists, writers and political activists can be detained for interrogation and threatened because of their work.

Two east Jerusalem brothers indicted for planning terrorist attack in capital

The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office on Monday filed an indictment against two east Jerusalem brothers for working with Hamas to carry out a major terrorist attack in the capital.
According to the indictment, the brothers, aged 28 and 23, were recruited by a Hamas operative in the Gaza Strip to form a terror cell in Jerusalem to carry out the unspecified attack at a public venue.
While the details of the planned attack and the investigation into it remain unclear, the brothers have been charged with joining a terrorist organization, conspiracy, theft and other offenses.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said security personnel continue to investigate potential accomplices of the suspects.

PA minister legitimizes murdering Israelis

Ali Sa’ada, a terrorist prisoner who murdered a father and his one-year-old baby, was fined 3.5 million shekels by Israel. That fine is “delegitimizing ‎the [Palestinian] national resistance,” says Prisoners’ Affairs Authority Director ‎and PA Parliament Member Issa Karake. According to Karake, who holds the rank of ‎minister, the killing of one-year-old Israelis is legitimate “resistance.”‎
In his capacity as Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Karake has a long history of glorifying terrorist murderers, as documented by Palestinian Media Watch.
Karake defines being a victim of Palestinian terror as “being exposed to resistance by Palestinians”:
“[Israeli] courts have been... passing sentences on prisoners that force them to pay large sums in financial compensation to Israelis who have been exposed to resistance by Palestinians.” [WAFA (the official Palestinian news agency), Dec. 16, 2014]

Gisha is an Israel-based NGO that calls itself the "legal center for freedom of movement" concentrating on the rights of Gazans and goods to go in and out of Gaza.

While it has a website, a blog and a Twitter account, somehow it missed this widely reported story:

A group of 37 orphans from Gaza Strip were prevented from crossing into Israel Sunday after Hamas backtracked from a deal reached to allow the kids to tour the Jewish state, saying the tour was an attempt to "brainwash" the kids. The indicent took place amid claims of clashes along the border between the IDF and Palestinians.

The group, comprised of children aged 5 to 12 whose fathers were killed in the 50-day summer war between Hamas and Israel, were all ready to go at the border crossing with Israel when Hamas rescinded its initial agreement to the visit.

Wouldn't this be right up Gisha's alley - Gazans being denied the right to freely travel? Not to mention that they are orphans! How could Gisha miss this?

A look through their archives finds that it missed some other stories as well: my story earlier today of Hamas blocking certain Israeli items from being imported, Hamas not allowing sick Gaza children from traveling to Egypt, Hamas stopping human rights workers from leaving Gaza, Hamas banning Fatah politicians from going to the West Bank, and others - all that involve daily violations of the rights of movement by Hamas against Gazans that are even more restrictive than Israeli regulations.

Gisha will talk about Egyptian closures of the Rafah crossing. But as far as I can tell, this Israeli NGO cannot find a negative thing to say about Hamas actions hurting the freedom of movement of people and goods from and to Gaza!

Gisha has a budget of about a million dollars a year, and is funded by donors such as the European Commission, United Kingdom, Oxfam GB, Trocaire, Oxfam Novib (the Netherlands), Irish Aid, Norway, UNDP, Broederlijk Delen, and NDC (joint funding from Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands).

Isn't it interesting that such a lavishly funded NGO will not say anything against a terror group that violates every aspect of freedom of movement in Gaza that Gisha supposedly monitors?

Gisha claims to be non-partisan - yet it cannot find anything wrong with Hamas actions in Gaza against its people. That is a pretty large blind spot for a "non-partisan" organization.

UPDATE: I guess I embarrassed them. Two days after I wrote this post, and four days after Hamas denied the children from exiting, Gisha reported on the story, saying "it’s unfortunate that Hamas officials also obstruct travel for political reasons."

Amazing that UNRWA can say this with a straight face

The most recent report of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA to the UN, covering 2013, includes this head-scratcher of a line:

"The situation also affected the 1.9 million registered Palestine refugees in the State of Palestine."

So on one hand the UN and UNRWA recognize the "State of Palestine." On the other hand, they consider citizens of this state to be refugees from that same state!

A week ago, I had a brief Twitter discussion with Rex Brynen, an UNRWA apologist professor at McGill University, who claimed that UNHCR and UNRWA definitions for "refugees" were virtually identical.

UPDATE: As Brynen points out in a response, since he admits that Jordanian citizens wouldn't be considered refugees, it is not accurate for me to characterize his views of the definitions as "virtually identical." He did, in this Twitter discussion before he disappeared, seem to try hard to equate the two and to defend UNRWA's indefensible definition.

He said that all of todays' UNRWA refugees would be considered "derivative refugees" under UNHCR rules, pointing out a tiny minority of third-generation refugees under UNHCR auspices in Afghanistan (I believe there are some in Somalia as well.)

When I asked why he considers those in the West Bank and Gaza to be refugees even though they live in "Palestine," he replied that they were stateless.

(He never answered that, nor my many follow-up questions about UNRWA.and his fawning article supporting the Chris Gunness article I thoroughly fisked.)

So (at least according to Brynen) the reason that 1.9 million people in the "State of Palestine" are refugees is because they are stateless - at the very same time that UNRWA claims that they are citizens of a state called Palestine!

As far as I can tell, there is no official definition of "citizen" under PA law. Their Basic Law, article 7, just says "Palestinian citizenship shall be regulated by law" without defining what it is. A 1995 draft law for defining citizenship is noteworthy: someone is considered a citizen if he/she "(1) was a holder of Palestinian citizenship (other than Jews) before 15 May 1948; (2) was born to a Palestinian father; (3) was born in Palestine to a Palestinian mother even if the citizenship of the father is not known; (4) was born in Palestine to unknown parents; and (5) was born outside of Palestine to a Palestinian mother and to a father whose nationality was not known – provided that this person opts for Palestinian citizenship within one year after reaching maturity, that he notifies the minister of interior of his intention to become a Palestinian citizen, that he becomes habitually a resident of Palestine, and that the minister does not object to this applicant within one year from the time he receives the notice from the applicant."

At any rate, it seems clear that the PA considers all residents to be citizens of a UN-recognized state. To say that 1.9 million of them are "refugees" is the height of absurdity.

And one that UNRWA is happy to say publicly.

(We're not even talking about the 1.8 million or so with Jordanian citizenship, which even Brynen admits are clearly not refugees - so about 75% of the 5 million so-called UNRWA registered "refugees" have UN-recognized citizenship.)

Hamas bans import of batteries, appliances from Israel

Palestine Press reports that Hamas has banned the import of various electric and electronic devices from Israel, including batteries, refrigerators, washing machines, computer monitors and CRTs.

The reason given is because of the environmental impact of disposing of them.

And another reason: because they are not energy-efficient.

An additional reason was given: "The import fees benefit only the Israeli treasury without any returns on the Palestinian national economy."

There is an old rule of thumb that when someone gives multiple reasons for doing something, chances are that none of them are true. If I had to guess, I'd think that Hamas is worried about Israel inserting spy equipment in electronic devices.

The impact to Gazans for this new rule?

Oh, since when does Hamas care about the people it rules?

Two Hamas cartoons

This one I posted on Twitter a few days ago:

And this one is in response to the story today about Hamas not allowing kids to leave Gaza to meet Israelis:

Jordanian sheikh repents for his fatwa allowing Jews to worship on Temple Mount (update: with translation)

I reported that a Jordanian sheikh, Yassin Al-'Ajlouni, who had called on Jordanian authorities to allow Jews to build a synagogue on the Temple Mount, in the spirit of Islamic religious tolerance.

In response, the Jordanian Iftaa Department issued their own fatwa against Sheikh Yassin Al-'Ajlouni, calling him "ignorant" and having "no legitimacy."

Now, Yassin Al-'Ajlouni has repented of his Jew-loving ways, with a new video (now translated) where he retreats from his earlier opinion:

Also, he published a poem on his Facebook page calling on Jews to abandon any plans to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque and to convert to Islam, saying that Islam will be victorious over the Jews so there is time to switch sides before it is too late.

Sort of like how he switched sides in the face of threats.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

The year in EoZ videos

Some of my videos from this year:

(December 2013 but close enough)

If you like what you see, why not give a donation to EoZ?

Last Thursday, I scooped all English-language media with the news that Egypt and Morocco were banning the Ridley Scott biblical epic "Exodus: Gods and Kings" because it implied that Jews built the Pyramids and that the splitting of the sea was done by an earthquake. Later Egypt also said that the movie was "Zionist."

A day or two later, the story had been picked up by major news services - first the Egyptian ban and then the ban in Morocco.

Now, the supposedly moderate and modern UAE has decided to ban the movie as well.

Juma Obaid Al Leem, the media content director at the National Media Council of the United Arab Emirates, announced they will prevent the screening of the film in theaters in the UAE because of the "religious mistakes" in the film, not only Islam related, but also inaccuracies for other religions.

You read it here first. As usual.

(If getting the most accurate news first is important to you, then please consider donating to EoZ. I do stuff like this all the time without usually bragging that I scooped the world. I'd rather not put up obnoxious pop-ups asking for money like other sites do at the end of the year, so if you think this is valuable, look at the right-hand sidebar to donate.)

12/28 Links: Palestinians create instructional video on stabbing; BDS fail - Gaza loves Caterpillar

From Ian:

US senator Graham threatens to defund UN over Palestine bid

Visiting US Senator Lindsey Graham threatened Saturday to withhold US funding from the UN, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the Palestinian Authority, a day after a senior Palestinian official said the PA will push for a UN vote on the Palestinian statehood bid by Monday.
“This is the same PA that joins hands with Hamas, incites constantly against Israel, the same PA is going to try to bring to the UN Security Council a resolution that seeks to impose on us conditions that will undermine our security,” the prime minister charged on Saturday at a press conference in Jerusalem with the Republican senator from South Carolina.
“We will stand firmly and reject such a diktat,” Netanyahu said.
Graham, a staunch pro-Israel senator, expressed support for the PM’s position, declaring that Congress would not “sit back and allow the United Nations to take over the peace process.”
Graham went so far as to say that “any effort by the French, the Jordanians or anyone to avoid direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians over the peace process, anyone who tries to take this to the UN Security Council” will be met with “a violent backlash by the Congress that could include suspending funding to the United Nations. We will not sit back and allow the United Nations to take over the peace process.”

The Palestinians' Real Enemy: Europe

Listening, in both English and Arabic, to the latest speeches of Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas and his fellow Fatah Central Committee members, we get the uncomfortable feeling that the Palestinian State, now being promoted in Europe, will not only be a threat to the stability of the entire region, but to us who have to keep living here, as well to those countries in Europe who promote it.
As Palestinians discuss among themselves -- far from the diplomats in their five-star hotels -- rather than accept this "gift" that Europe seems determined to push down our throats, many people increasingly see no choice but to launch a "Palestinian Spring" revolution. It would not be, as you might think, to rid them of Israel but finally to rid us of our wretched leadership and corrupt system of government -- and to stop the European counties that are imposing this brutal system on us by financing it.
We have been fortunate enough to see from Israel how a democracy works. So although a Palestinian Spring revolution might cause chaos in the region and elsewhere for a while, its chances of success are far more assured than in the other places in the Middle East, where it has been tried but has not always succeeded.
We do not want to do this, of course, but if we are forced by Europe to have this corrupt dictatorship called Palestine, terrorist groups such as Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, and ISIS will flood the West Bank in less than week, and our lives will be even worse than what we have now. We simply do not know what else to do to defend ourselves from these "Goodists" of Europe.

Palestinians create instructional video on stabbing

Palestinians have uploaded an instructional video on the internet that shows would-be attackers the most lethal ways to stab somebody.
The step-by-step video, titled “How to stab correctly,” was circulated on YouTube and its links were shared with the Facebook and Twitter groups of Palestinian organizations and activists in East Jerusalem, the Hebrew news site NRG reported Saturday.
The 72-second clip comes in the wake of a number of stabbing attacks throughout Israel and the West Bank. Most recently, two border policemen were injured when an assailant attacked them in the Old City of Jerusalem Friday morning.

"Palestinian" How to stab someone video

There is no more rational defender of Israel against the racist BDS movement than Jon Haber.

In fact, I am a tad pissed-off that none of Jon's writings were included in Nelson and Brahm's The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel. The reason for this is academic snobbery. There is no one making a better, more consistent, and academically rational case against BDS than Jon Haber at divestthis!

Haber has been fighting a lonely fight against BDS for years and he is one of those bloggers that should not need to be brought from the shadows. This is a gentleman that any university would do well to stand up before students in order to talk about political social media and discourse around the Arab-Israel conflict.

This does not mean, however, that we are entirely in agreement.

We most certainly are not.

Jon and I are having a conversation over the role of the western-left in the ongoing persecution of the Jews in the Middle East.

My argument is that the Obama administration has done a terrible disservice to both the Jewish people and the American people through accepting political Islam within the realm of rational political actors. When I voted for Obama in 2008 the last thing that occurred to me was that he would legitimize religious hatred against Jews.

But, hopefully each of us learn from experience and from the rousting of our own political naiveté.

For reasons that are somewhat unclear to me Haber remains in defense of the Obama administration.

What I have primarily argued is that because the Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood, and the rise of political Islam via the so-called "Arab Spring," that his administration never deserved the popularity of Jewish Americans, if those Jewish Americans support the well-being of the Jewish State of Israel.

It is really as simple as that.

No politician, including the President of the United States, can support the enemies of the Jewish people and still expect the support of the Jewish people.

In Jon's latest retort he stands behind three essential premises.

The first is that a single example of Obama administration stupidity in briefly supporting the Brotherhood is not sufficient to condemn the administration.

The second is to excuse the Obama administration as simply following the line as put down by the Carter administration in terms of financial support for Egypt as a bribe to not kill Jews.

The third is to suggest that my criticisms are largely partisan.

Let me briefly take these in reverse order. First off, the charge of partisanship is entirely without merit, nor can it be substantiated. Although I have been a Democrat throughout the great majority of my adulthood, I am currently without political party. I am thus not a partisan and I do not support the Republican Party... not yet, in any case.

However, the idea that the Obama administration is simply following American foreign policy as put forth by the Camp David Accords is not a fair criticism. The point was never that the Obama administration merely provided financial and military aid to the Islamist government in Cairo, but that the administration went out of its way to assist that government in a variety of manners, not the least of which was the UN speech suggesting that the rise of political Islam was something akin to the Spirit of '76 and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The main point, however, that I want to address in Jon's argument is his first.

He claims that one single example of administration stupidity is simply not enough to condemn it.

He writes:

genuine understanding can only come from focusing on more than one fact
I absolutely agree and would make two suggestions.

The first is that the single fact is very interesting because it demonstrates the central contradiction at the heart of Obama's foreign policy. I am relieved that the Egyptian people had the basic decent common sense to get rid of the Brotherhood and am entirely horrified that Barack Obama supported that gang of racist thugs to begin with.

My reasons are not limited to the mere fact that Obama supported a short-lived anti-American and anti-Jewish regime in Cairo, but that it shows the central incoherence of the administration's foreign policy viz-a-viz political Islam.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of both Qaeda and Hamas. Obama tried to square a circle by supporting the Brotherhood while opposing Qaeda and remaining indifferent toward Hamas.

It simply does not work that way, Jon. If one opposes Qaeda because one opposes political Islam as a rising movement throughout the world, than one must oppose the Brotherhood and all factions of this misogynistic, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and head-chopping authoritarian movement arising within the Middle East.

That is my first point.

My second point is that criticisms of Obama administration Middle East policy are hardly limited to his support of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another highly significant criticism would be the administration's insistence that Jews building housing for themselves in Judea is somehow a crime against peace. If there was any chance at a peaceful resolution of the conflict under Obama's watch it was not going to come from demanding that Jews be allowed to live in one place, but not another.

Finally, there is the question of history.

In Jon's conclusion he references his admiration for the writings of Harvard professor of Yiddish literature, Ruth Wisse, and Hebrew University historian, Robert Wistrich. I, too, have considerable admiration for both, because both understand that the conflict cannot be meaningfully discussed without the proper context.

Our understanding of the context of the conflict needs to be expanded both geographically and in time. From a geographic standpoint the conflict is between the Jewish people of the Middle East and the greater Arab-Muslim world. It is not a matter of a Jewish Goliath versus a "Palestinian" David. It is, rather, a conflict between around 400 million Arabs who, for the most part, oppose 6 million Jews seeking to maintain their freedom and autonomy.

Furthermore, this conflict did not begin in 1948 with the Arab attack on the Jewish people, but has been ongoing since the time of Muhammad. This is a war fundamentally grounded in Arab-Muslim theocratic bigotry against Jews. The local Arabs do not want a state for themselves in peace next to Israel. If that is what they wanted they could have had it many times over by now, but they have rejected any such accommodation. What they want is what they always tell us that they want.

They want Israel gone and the Jews dead.

And, yet, for some reason Barack Obama honestly thinks that the real problem is that Jews are living where neither he, nor Mahmoud Abbas, want them to live. And that, my friends, is not only wrong-headed and counterproductive, but entirely racist, as well.

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.

Earlier this year, a video was publicized in Arabic media of a fatwa by Sheikh Osama Qusi, saying that a man is allowed to surreptitiously watch his potential wife bathing in order to make sure that she is attractive enough for him. (no translation)

It is being highlighted in some end-of-year collections of outlandish fatwas.

“If you were really honest and wanted to marry that woman, and you were able to hide and watch her in secret, see the things that she wouldn’t usually let you see before marrying her, then it is acceptable as long as your intentions are pure.” Qusi said.

“One of the Prophet’s companions did that. Some disapproved and told him: ‘How do you do that when you’re one of the Prophet’s companions?’ The Prophet answered: ‘If you can see something that would make you want to marry her then go ahead and do it.’”

It was immediately slammed by many Arabs. The Egyptian Minister of Religious Endowments, Mohammad Mukhta, responded, “Where is the glory and masculinity in watching a woman shower? Would you allow this to happen to your daughter?"

The fatwa seems to be contradicted by a hadith that says "If any person peeps at you without your permission and you poke him with a stick and injure his eye, you will not be blamed." But maybe that allowance is only for men.

Historical revisionism about Cast Lead

Ma'an writes:

Palestinians around the world on Saturday commemorated the sixth anniversary of the beginning of Israel's 22-day offensive on the Gaza Strip in 2008-9 that left more than 1,400 dead.

The offensive, known by its Israeli moniker "Cast Lead," began on Dec. 27, 2008 around 11:30 a.m., when Israeli warplanes launched more than 100 airstrikes on Gaza simultaneously.

Israel launched the attack at the conclusion of a six-month ceasefire with Hamas that it repeatedly violated, despite Hamas' general adherence.

Let's take you back to Ma'an, December 25, 2008:

The military wing affiliated to Hamas, Al-Qassam Brigades released a statement on Thursday morning briefing the group's military activities over the first twenty four hours of an operation they called "Oil Stain" which started Wednesday morning.

According to the statement, a total of 87 shells have been fired at Israeli targets bordering the Gaza Strip including 54 mortar shells, 31 homemade projectiles which Hamas calls "Qassam", and two Soviet-made Grad missiles.

Al-Qassa Brigades threatened to enlarge the "Oil Stain" to get more thousands of Israelis "under fire". The group asserted that its fighters are "far greater than surrendering to Israeli threats and that they became much more prepared to counter Israeli aggression and to defend themselves than in the past."

Hamas started what later became known as "Cast Lead" three days before Israel retaliated. They kept the name of the operation "Oil Stain" for a week into the war. (Here's an example of its use on December 30 by a Hamas newspaper. Hamas Al Qassam website used the term many times. )

I've noted in the past how Hamas soon abandoned the narrative of heroically starting the war and changed it to being the victim of Zionist aggression - a lie that was repeated by Amnesty, HRW, Goldstone and many other supposedly "objective" observers.

(h/t Bob K)

Former NYT writer Chris Hedges slanders Israel - and then complains he is a martyr

Chris Hedges, a former New York Times correspondent in Israel, writes in TruthDig:

I had been invited to talk next April 3 at the University of Pennsylvania at a peace conference sponsored by the International Affairs Association, but last week after Truthdig published my column “ISIS—the New Israel” the lecture agency that set up the event received this email from Zachary Michael Belnavis, who is part of the student group:

We’re sorry to inform you that we don’t think that Chris Hedges would be a suitable fit for our upcoming peace conference. We’re saying this in light of a recent article he’s written in which he compares the organization ISIS to Israel (here’s the article in question). In light of this comparison we don’t believe he would be suitable to a co-existence speaker based on this stance he’s taken.

Being banned from speaking about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, especially at universities, is familiar to anyone who attempts to challenge the narrative of the Israel lobby. This is not the first time one of my speaking offers has been revoked and it will not be the last. However, the charge of Belnavis and the International Affairs Association that I do not believe in coexistence between the Palestinians and Israel is false. I oppose violence by either party. I have condemned Hamas rocket attacks as war crimes. And I support Israel’s right to exist within the pre-1967 borders. The charge that I oppose coexistence cannot be substantiated by anything I have said or written. And those of us who call on Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders are, after all, only demanding what is required by international law and numerous U.N. resolutions.

But truth, along with an open and fair debate, is the last thing the Israel lobby and its lackeys seek. The goal is to silence students, faculty members and outside speakers who do not read from the approved script.

Of course, he is not being asked not to speak because of his supposed desire to see Israel withdraw to the 1967 "borders." he is being asked not to speak because he is a liar who disgustingly compares Israel to throat-slitting jihadists of ISIS.

And the "truth" which he so sanctimoniously pretends to support is exactly the opposite of what Chris Hedges is about.

Here is what he wrote that caused his being disinvited:

ISIS, ironically, is perhaps the only example of successful nation-building in the contemporary Middle East, despite the billions of dollars we have squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its quest for an ethnically pure Sunni state mirrors the quest for a Jewish state eventually carved out of Palestine in 1948. Its tactics are much like those of the Jewish guerrillas who used violence, terrorism, foreign fighters, clandestine arms shipments and foreign money, along with horrific ethnic cleansing and the massacre of hundreds of Arab civilians, to create Israel....It holds up the ancient Caliphate—which united Muslims throughout the Middle East in the seventh century and whose time is considered the golden age of Islam—as an ideal, much as Jews held up the biblical kingdoms chronicled in the Hebrew Bible.....Terror, as was true for the Jewish fighters in Palestine in the late 1940s, is an effective tool to intimidate opponents and accelerate ethnic cleansing.

Hedges' version of Israeli history is, to put it bluntly, idiotic and slanderous. Even the most extreme Jewish groups in the 1940s were not fueled by religious ideology, and the mainstream Zionists condemned them constantly. The people who rebuilt Israel in 1948 were by and large secular and most were socialist - just like Chris Hedges says he is.

Using historical revisionism in order to demonize Jewish Zionists and make the Arab terrorists of the 1940s into saints is not exactly what one thinks of when one is pursuing real peace.

In true leftist fashion, however, Hedges is describing his being disinvited to a conference as being akin to being blackballed, and he is even saying - get this - that college campuses have become mere "echo chambers" for those evil Zionists that he claims he wants to see Arabs co-exist with:

Our universities, like our corporate-controlled airwaves, are little more than echo chambers for the elites and the powerful. The bigger and more prestigious the university the more it seems determined to get its students and faculty to chant in unison to please its Zionist donors.

Wow! Who knew that there was no criticism of Israel on campus?

Hedges amazingly claims that the University of Pennsylvania is singlemindedly pro-Israel, noting that Hillel has invited people like Daniel Pipes and Nonie Darwish to speak, and that Alan Dershowitz has spoken there. Of course, this "journalist" ignores the many counterexamples that prove his thesis wrong - like hosting a BDS conference where one of its own professors explained to other academics how to shoe-horn anti-Israel propaganda into any liberal arts course. Also, notoriously anti-Israel professor Ian Lustick teaches at Penn.

I spent seven years in the Middle East as a foreign correspondent, five of them as the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I speak Arabic. I was frequently in Gaza and lived for two years in Jerusalem. What frightens the Israel lobby is not my critique, but my expertise. ... What the Israel lobby fears most are facts.

Hedges claims that he is only speaking facts. I just proved that he is a liar. His history of 1948 is so false and so outrageous that anything he says about Israel must be regarded to be equally slanted, if not equally false. His description of the University of Pennsylvania as somehow a hotbed of Zionism where dissent is not tolerated is equally false.

And he piles on the lies:

Israeli leaders, and their supporters in the United States, speak now with naked, unvarnished hatred and racism that are alienating all but the most demented religious fanatics and protofascist Zionists, those who seek to build a nation based on a uniformity of bloodline and religious faith. The old Israel, the one that strove, however imperfectly, to be liberal and democratic, is gone. The new Israel increasingly mirrors the religious extremism of fundamentalist Muslims....

Even Israeli Jews no longer have democratic rights. There is mounting state repression against human rights advocates, journalists and dissidents. Racist language against Arabs has poisoned public discourse—crowds chant “Death to Arabs” at Israeli soccer matches. Right-wing thugs belonging to groups such as Im Tirtzu beat up dissidents, Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and impoverished African immigrants who live in the slums around Tel Aviv. Israeli Jews who denounce the racist cant and condemn the indiscriminate violence the state routinely employs against Palestinians are labeled terrorists or collaborators with terrorists. The settlers, as the newspaper Haaretz pointed out, are the real government of Israel.

I am unaware of Im Tirtzu advocating violence against Arabs, and that is truly slanderous.Any attacks against Arabs have been vilified across the Israeli political spectrum. I haven't seen any "naked, unvarnished hatred and racism" being spoken by Israeli leaders. This is a litany of anti-Israel and borderline antisemitic lies.

Which means that the IAA has acted quite appropriately to disinvite a proven liar.

I see no evidence of any pressure on the IAA from any Jewish or Zionist organizations. I don't see any Jewish names on their executive board. From what I could tell, they read his inflammatory and false piece and realized that he is not interested in peace, but in demonizing one side.

But in today's world, choosing who is allowed to speak at a conference is akin to censorship (only when it is the socialist-Left who is supposedly being "censored.")

(h/t David)

12/27 Links: Ayala Shapira still in life-threatening condition after firebomb attack; Israel from space

From Ian:

Ayala Shapira still in life-threatening condition after firebomb attack

Ayala Shapira, the 11-year-old Israeli girl who was seriously hurt in a firebomb attack in the West Bank on Thursday evening, was still in life-threatening condition in the hospital on Saturday evening.
However Shapira, who suffered third-degree burns over much of her body and face in the attack, has successfully undergone the first of a series of operations, said doctors at Sheba Medical Center, where she is being treated in the intensive care unit.
Security forces on Friday arrested two Palestinians in connection to the firebomb attack. One is suspected of having thrown the Molotov cocktail. The other is suspected of assisting him. Another 10 Palestinians from the Palestinian village Azzun, near the site of the incident, were detained in the sweep.

The New Anti-Semitism in 2014: A Year in Review!

When it comes to chronicling the “Oldest Hatred”, stories abound. 2014 was no different, and in a sense, was even more heavily loaded with statements, events, tragedies and even death, than the previous year. All seems to indicate that Anti-Semitism is on the rise globally AND exponentially, in frequency AND intensity. A review of the main anti-Semitic acts that punctuated this last year will suffice to make your Judeo/Christian hair rise on your head.

Partners in protest: The anti-Israel, cop-bash link

One of the great under-told stories of the anti-police turmoil after the Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand-jury decisions is the instigating role played by anti-Israel activists.
What, you ask, does anti-Israel activism have to do with the reaction to the Ferguson and New York City decisions?
Well, to understand that, you first need to understand the pathology behind the anti-Israel movement — particularly the Boycott Divest and Sanctions crowd.
This movement has a problem: Despite decades of anti-Israel propaganda, particularly on campuses, Israel remains more popular than ever in the US as a whole
But there are pockets of American society where anti-Israel rhetoric, which frequently borders on or crosses into anti-Semitism, has a receptive audience. One such place is among radical racial-grievance activists.
Racial divisions are fomented and exploited by the BDS movement, with phrases such as “settler colonialism” and “brown bodies” thrown around to give superficial intellectual cover.

IDF saves Palestinian baby after he suffers heart attack

A Palestinian baby’s life was saved after he collapsed at a Jordanian border crossing and was evacuated by IDF helicopter to a Jerusalem hospital.
The six-month-old infant was believed to have suffered a heart attack on Saturday morning while traveling with his family from their home in the West Bank to receive medial treatment in the Hashemite Kingdom, according to a Ynet report.
His condition prompted medics on the Allenby Bridge to request a medical air evacuation by the IDF.