Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 25, 2015

So, Where is the Argument? (Mike Lumish)

Those of you who follow my writings or Jon Haber's blog, Divest this!, know that we have been conversing about Israel, the western-left, and the Obama administration for a number of months.

I don't want to call it a debate so much as a conversation between people with somewhat differing views, but with mutual concerns. A list of each of our contributions can be found toward the top of the right side bar at Israel Thrives.

My fundamental argument is that the Obama administration validated political Islam through supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the parent organization of both Qaeda and Hamas and if not a parent organization of the Islamic State, certainly an ideological partner in praying for the extinction of Jewish sovereignty and self-defense.

While Jon agrees that I am not a political partisan, and we both understand that partisanship is not automatically a reprehensible thing, he also acknowledges that the Obama administration has been far too friendly to the enemies of the Jewish people.

In his recent piece entitled Partisanship, Haber writes:

But there is no disagreement that the current President’s choices: from cutting endless slack to Islamist foes of both Israel and the US to picking needless fights with the Israeli government, make it a perfectly reasonable choice for Jews who support Israel (which describes the majority of us) to refuse to vote for him.

According to Haber, Obama gave "endless slack to Islamist foes."

At this point it becomes difficult to know where we actually disagree.

At the end of the day, that is my fundamental point. It is my thesis in a nutshell, although we would need to determine just where slack ended and support began?

Jon, however, takes issue with the fact that I have sometimes characterized progressive-left Jews as people with their heads buried in the sand.

I must admit that Jon is correct and that I have resorted to my favorite ostrich image more than once.

I did so particularly in my Failures of the Progressive-Left Zionism series.

In those writings, I criticized the Jewish Left for refusing to seriously denounce political Islam.

I criticized the Jewish Left for demonizing their fellow Jews who live where neither Mahmoud Abbas, nor Barack Obama, want them to live.

I criticized the Jewish Left for constantly playing political defense, which is always an invitation for aggressors and a general sign of insecurity within one's own beliefs.

I criticized the Jewish Left for tending to support their enemies over their friends out of a misguided and self-righteous political altruism.

These are not in-depth pieces, but merely pointers to problems. That is all.

And, in truth, there are other reasonable criticisms that I am not even bothering with for the moment on the assumption that liberal Jews, such as myself, are rethinking - just as we are all continually rethinking - as political sands shift.

My only real discomfort with Jon's analysis is that he chalks up Jewish American support for Barack Obama, despite Obama's alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, to the fact that American Jews preferred Obama over his opponent on a broad range of issues beyond the Arab-Israel conflict.

While this is clearly true, why be content to leave it at that?

Haber writes:

Jews (like all Americans) were not casting a vote on each and every issue of importance to them, but were rather making a narrow choice between two individuals. And had the Republican candidate been more appealing in ways having nothing to do with Israel and the Middle East (as was Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984), who knows how the Jewish vote might have gone?

Even if I don’t expect to ever see a total party realignment of the Jewish public, I think it’s safe to say that the majority of Jews voted for Obama for the same reasons the majority of Americans did: they liked him better than the other guy.

We know that the Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood in a variety of ways, including material and financial support. We also know that the Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of both Hamas and al-Qaeda, if not the Islamic State, itself. The Brotherhood backed the Nazis during World War II and assisted many Nazis and friends of Nazis, such as Haj Mohammed Amin el-Husseini, in escaping the consequences of their behavior upon the conclusion of that war. In recent years Brotherhood leader, and ex-President of Egypt, Muhammad Morsi, supported calls for the conquest of Jerusalem among throngs of his supporters, both before and after his "election" and still maintained Obama administration support.

I do not know about you, but as someone who voted for Obama the first time around, I was absolutely horrified.

There is no question that Jon is correct when he notes that the majority of American Jews simply liked Obama more than the other guy. I, too, like Obama - as a guy to have a beer with - more than that other guy. Furthermore, on many domestic issues I very much prefer the Democratic agenda over that of the Republican agenda.

But however much I support a woman's right to choose an abortion, or however much I like Obama's idea for federal support to community college students, none of that can possibly outweigh my concern for the fact that there are 6 million Jews in the Middle East surrounded by 400 million Arabs who generally do not want them there and are often prepared to use extreme violence to make their case.

This is what I cannot get past.

The chance of any Republican administration in the United States rolling back abortion rights are virtually nil, yet such concerns are supposed to trump our concern for our own families in Israel?

I do not think so.

It seems to me that diaspora Jewry, as a group, tends to be very good about looking out for the well-being of others. For example, no other group in American history, aside from the Black American community, stood up more for Civil Rights during the 1950s and the 1960s than did Jewish Americans... although, I am not certain that you would learn this from the recent film Selma, which I am very much looking forward to renting.

In the United States, the Jewish people were almost universally behind abolitionism and nineteenth-century American progressivism, with its workers' solidarity and early union activity. By inordinate percentages Jews favored women's rights to suffrage, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, Women's Rights, GBLT, environmentalism, and the rights of all ethnic minorities to equal treatment under the law.

We are among the most persecuted people within record human history and this is precisely why we tend to support movements for social justice.

But...

There must come a point wherein a violent and ongoing threat to the Jewish community becomes a primary concern.

My question is this:

In what ways do Obama administration support for political Islam, via support for the Muslim Brotherhood, advance the interests of either the American people or the Jewish people?

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.

Molotov cocktails were thrown at the guard stations at the Jewish community of Bet El on Saturday.

Another one was hurled at an Israeli bus south of Hebron.

Both of these incidents are so routine that the English-language Israeli media didn't even bother to report it. Both of these stories came from Arab media.

Arabic media also reported two other cases of Molotov cocktails being hurled over the weekend.

One was thrown at the home of a police captain in Egypt. Another was thrown at another policeman's car in Minya, blowing up the car.

Thankfully, there were no injuries in any of these cases.

But the Egyptian newspapers referred to both of the stories in Egypt as being done by "terrorists."

Of course, no one besides Zionists ever refer to Arabs who throw firebombs at Jews as being "terrorists."

But what else can you call someone who throws a firebomb at civilians?

On Friday, I noted that the New York Times sneaked in a new phrase in an article about Obama and Netanyahu, referring to the "1967 borders with Palestine" - a nonsensical phrase that the newspaper had never used before.

My piece was also published in The Algemeiner.

On Saturday, they changed it, as NewsDiffs shows:

Famously, many of those conversations have been deeply uncomfortable. The two leaders have often clashed on Israel’s determination to build new settlements, which Mr. Obama viewed as a way to sabotage peace talks. Mr. Netanyahu was accused of lecturing Mr. Obama in front of the cameras in the Oval Office during an angry conversation in May 2011, after Mr. Obama suggested that
~~the 1967 borders with Palestine~~Israel’s pre-1967 borders should be the starting point for peace negotiations. Later that year, after former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France complained in front of an open microphone that Mr. Netanyahu was “a liar,” Mr. Obama said, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.”

That was the only substantial difference between those two versions of the article. But there was no acknowledgement of the correction, and of course the print version has the original nonsense phrase.

It is still wrong, of course: they weren't borders but 1949 armistice lines, never agreed to as border by the international community as UNSC 242 makes clear. But the NYT has erroneously referred to them as "borders" for decades as I showed in my original piece.

Newspapers that subscribe to the New York Times News Service still have the old phrase as well.

Miracle Allah Ear, 2015 edition

We saw it in 2007 with a baby born in Ramallah.

We saw it again in 2010.

Now, a baby in Bethlehem is the latest one with a malformed ear which resembles the Arabic word "Allah."

This is considered a miracle, unlike when Allah's name manifests itself on ice-cream cone logos (2005):

Or on athletic shoes (1997):

Even some Muslims make fun of CAIR for freaking out over Nike's logo which barely resembles the word Allah.

01/24 Links: Dershowitz: The Case Against the International Criminal Court Investigating Israel

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: The Case Against the International Criminal Court Investigating Israel

It is telling that Hamas has expressed satisfaction with the decision of the ICC to open an investigation of Israel’s military action during the recent war in Gaza. The hypocrisy of a terrorist group that boasts of its multiple war crimes expressing satisfaction that the victims of these war crimes are being investigated for trying to stop rocket and tunnel attacks, should be evident to any reasonable person.
More significant is the response of the US, which issued the following statement: “We strongly disagree with the ICC prosecutor’s action. The place to resolve the differences between the parties is through direct negotiation, not unilateral actions by either side.”
Ocampo acknowledges that the principle of “complementarity” precludes an ICC investigation of Israel unless “there are no genuine national investigations of the crimes committed under its jurisdiction.” I am familiar with the Israeli legal system and its mechanisms for investigating alleged war crimes. There is no country in the world with a legal system that is more responsive to claims made by victims of war crimes. At the apex of the Israeli legal system is its Supreme Court, which is widely admired by lawyers around the world. If it were to be ruled that the Israeli legal system does not provide the required complementarity to deny the ICC institution jurisdiction as “a court of last resort,” then no nation would pass that test. The United States will never, and should never, submit itself to the jurisdiction of an international court that does not regard the Israeli legal system as a satisfactory fulfillment of the principle of complementarity.
On balance, the decision to open an investigation against Israel at this time will harm prospects for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and will harm the credibility of the ICC. It is a serious mistake and should be rescinded.

The Folly of Partition: ICC Ruling Seals Fate of Gaza Residents

The ICC’s decision effectively rejects a century of Jewish reconciliation efforts: acceptance of partition, failure to annex and populate the West Bank, and the recognition of a new independent Arab entity in areas known until very recently as Judea and Samaria.
Tragically, partition has served the interests of neither Israelis nor Gazans. Quite the contrary, it has both condemned nearly two million people to a fate worse than death on one side, and placed nearly eight million people within range of rocket fire on the other.
Israel, a vibrant, thriving – if wildly imperfect – exercise in Middle East democracy, will weather the tempest being kicked up by a pack of lawyers in The Hague.
However, this is a dark day for those forsaken men, women, and children living under Hamas’ jackboot of hate and terror.
The ICC, by delegitimizing one sovereign nation’s right to defend itself, has granted the Islamist Jihadists cover to commit acts of exceptional barbarity inside the Gaza Strip – and unleash another wave of violence against Israel and its allies in the near future.

WH: Houthis 'Legitimate Political Constituency'

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki has continued the Obama Administration’s whitewashing of radical Islamist groups, referring to the Houthis of Yemen as a “legitimate political constituency.” The Houthis’ slogan is simple: “Death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews and victory to Islam,” echoing similar slogans utilized by Shiite terrorists in Iraq and supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, considered a terrorist group by the United States since 1997.
Psaki said, “The Houthis are a legitimate political constituency in Yemen and have a right to participate in affairs of the state. We urge them to be a part of a peaceful transition process. That said, we condemn their use of violence and are concerned by their non-compliance with agreements they have been signatories to.”
The White House has also whitewashed the Muslim Brotherhood; only last month the White House rejected a July petition signed by more than 200,000 Americans in a single month demanding the Obama Administration label the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Obama Will Not Attend 70th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will represent the United States at the 70th anniversary ceremony for the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on Tuesday—rather than President Barack Obama or Vice President Joe Biden—while other countries are slated to send their heads of state.
Tuesday’s ceremony will likely be the last major anniversary where a significant number of survivors of the Nazi camp are present. About 300 are expected to attend, and most of them are in their 90s or older than 100. Nazi authorities killed 1.1 million people at the camp, mostly Jews, which was liberated by the Soviet army in January 1945.
The New York Times reported on the foreign dignitaries that would be present:
"A preliminary list of those attending includes President François Hollande of France, President Joachim Gauck of Germany and President Heinz Fischer of Austria, as well as King Philippe of Belgium, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. The United States delegation will be led by Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said he would not attend because his schedule was too crowded and because he had not received an invitation. Museum officials said no head of state had received one. Mr. Putin had attended the 60th anniversary ceremony in 2005 — it was Soviet troops, after all, who liberated the camp in 1945 — but relations between Russia and Poland have soured over the conflict in Ukraine."
Bernadette Meehan, National Security Council spokeswoman, said in an email that, “President Obama will be in India, on a long-scheduled trip.”

Obama cuts India trip short to visit Saudi Arabia

President Obama has cancelled the end of his trip to India to fly to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the death of the country's king and growing instability in the region, U.S. and Indian officials said Saturday.
The officials said Obama will fly from India Tuesday, skipping a planned trip to the Taj Mahal.

01/23 Links Pt2: Europe Offers Israel the Peace of the Dead; BHL & Prosor at UN antisemitism conf.

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: Zionism and etrogism

The name switches of what until recently marketed itself as the Israel Labor Party offer fascinating insight into how Zionism has steadily lost its allure on the Israeli Left.
What began life as Poalei Zion – the Workers of Zion – in time it morphed into MAPAI, Hebrew acronym for the Party of the Workers of Eretz Yisrael. The next stage was adopting the generic name of Labor – doubtless borrowed from the British context. So far the trend is clear and straightforward.
But now comes the spin – under its latest leading light, Isaac (not Yitzhak) “Buji” Herzog, Labor (aligned with Tzipi Livni’s disintegrating list) has chosen to call its ticket the Zionist Camp. At first hearing this certainly appears to be the sort of affirmation that would gladden Zionist hearts. Here at last is the cause of Zionism ostensibly espoused proudly and unapologetically.
A true balm for the soul – or is it?

‘What You Saw Here Today Was Naked, Blind Antisemitism:’ NYC Councilman Slams Palestine Activists Who Disrupted Auschwitz Commemoration Debate

New York City Councilman David Greenfield fiercely denounced a group of antisemitic pro-Palestinian demonstrators who disrupted a Council meeting today, at the exact time that a resolution commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was being discussed.
Moments after the demonstrators were escorted from the chamber by security guards, Greenfield, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, began a speech that rapidly evolved into an impassioned discourse on the overlap between hatred of Israel and hatred of Jews.
“While we were discussing a resolution regarding the murder of 1.1 million human beings – I will point out that 90 percent of them were Jewish, but the other 10 percent, they were political dissidents, they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, they were gays, those were the people who were being killed together at Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Greenfield declared, “while we were discussing that, they had the chutzpah, the nerve, the temerity, to unfurl a Palestinian flag and yell at us.”
Voice rising, Greenfield contrasted Israel’s open society with the repressive regimes across the Middle East, before asserting, “What you saw here today was naked, blind antisemitism.”
Greenfield said that the demonstrators had unfurled the Palestinian flag out of anger that “Hitler had not finished the job. He only wiped out half of my family.”
He concluded: “Shame on them for disrespecting the most diverse democratically elected body in the United States of America, and that’s why we go to Israel.”
Other councillors joined Greenfield in condemning the antisemitic disruption, which included the fringe group “Jewish Voice for Peace” among the participants. “City Council protesters today were so hate-filled and venomous that they strengthened our support for Israel, ONLY democracy in Middle east,” tweeted Councilman Mark D. Levine. Councilman Cory Johnson called the demonstration “incredibly disrespectful and offensive. Simply awful.”
Republican Councilman Eric Ulrich told the meeting that “to be pro Israel you don’t have to be Jewish. Israel is a vibrant democracy and I’m proud to go back to Israel again. I will not be intimidated by the hecklers. I will not sit here and allow people to attack the Jews.”

Councilman Greenfield Denounces Anti-Semitic Outburst in NYC Council Chamber

Yarmulke-Clad Swedish Gentile Reporter Attacked in Malmo (VIDEO)

Eighteen months after an intrepid gentile journalist strolled the streets of Malmo, Sweden wearing a yarmulke, in order to get a sense of how residents of the city view Jews, a new video suggests that the situation has only worsened, Israel’s NRG News reported Thursday.
In October, 2013, Patrick Reily, a journalist for The Local English-language newspaper, spent a day in the city of Malmö wearing the traditional kippah headcovering in order to see how passersby might react.
After an uncomfortable few hours walking the streets, and becoming the object of stares and insults, Reilly concluded: “As an Irish person abroad I’ve never felt remotely threatened, but wearing the kippah for a few hours was enough to instill feelings of fear. Even when I didn’t feel afraid I was made to feel different and unwelcome.”
This time it was Peter Lindgren’s turn to don a kippah and Star of David chain around his neck and head into town. The result: “He received direct threats as he walked through the city,” according to expressen.se.
Lindgren, walking with a hidden camera and microphone alongside, recorded every step. The report showed the reporter enduring verbal abuse by a man who called him a “Jewish s***” and told him to “leave.” Another person hit him and shouted “Satan Jew,” at him.

Danish police, officials praise a mosque that supports ISIS. Really.

The bar for praising Muslims has hit a new low.

From TheLocal.dk:

Aarhus's Grimhøj Mosque was once again thrust back in the spotlight earlier this month after the airing of a documentary in which mosque leaders said that they want to see an Islamic caliphate established, that they don’t believe in democracy and that a Danish convert who carried out a suicide bomb attack in Iraq is a hero.

The DR documentary led to a fresh round of political calls to shut down the mosque.

The week after that, mosque leaders said they were receiving so many threats that they felt the need to contact police for assistance.

Now the mosque is making news again, but this time it is because local authorities are praising its leadership for their role in slowing the stream of Danish Muslims who travel to Syria as foreign fighters.

East Jutland Police have previously said that around two dozen of the at least 110 individuals who have left Denmark to fight in Syria have come from Grimhøj Mosque. But a police spokesman said that only one person from the Aarhus area is thought to have gone to Syria in 2014 and that person had no association with the mosque.

“Grimhøj Mosque deserves a large part of the credit for the development that we can see in 2014. If you would have asked the mosque’s chairman a year ago, he would have said that it is a personal choice if one wants to go to Syria. Today, the mosque warns young people against it. We can see that the young people are listening,” East Jutland Police commissioner Allan Aarslev told Berlingske.

A radical mosque is being praised because it is not actively sending young people to join ISIS as fighters, even though it teaches them that ISIS is correct.

Another cringeworthy quote:

The head of Aarhus Council’s leisure and youth department also credited the mosque for discouraging foreign fighters and said that the calls to shut Grimhøj Mosque are misguided.

“Firstly, it will just confirm among the young [mosque members] that democracy is only for the majority. Secondly, our access to the radicalized environment will be different and it will be more hidden from us [if the mosque closes]. One must remember that the mindset won’t be removed just because you close a mosque,” Toke Agerschou told Berlingske.

Here's the history of this wonderful mosque:

Grimhøj Mosque has long been accused of promoting an extremist interpretation of Islam.

Representatives of the mosque travelled the Middle East in 2006 stirring up discontent over Jyllands-Posten’s publication of 12 cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. Those cartoons were laterrepublished by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the target of a recent terror attack in Paris.

In July 2014, a video emerged of Abu Bilal Ismail, an imam at the mosque who is also featured in the documentary, calling on God to “destroy the Zionist Jews”.

Two months later, the mosque made international headlines after declaring its support for the terrorist group Isis, comments El-Saadidoubled down on in the recent documentary.

Oh, thank you Muslims for not sending your sons to behead people in Syria and Iraq! Because you are so damn moderate, you can feel free to preach that those beheaders are doing the right thing and that Jews should all die.

Does it get more condescending than this?

01/23 Links Pt1: Glick: Iran, Obama, Boehner and Netanyahu; An attack against coexistence

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Iran, Obama, Boehner and Netanyahu

Obama's message then is clear. Not only will the diplomatic policy he has adopted not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (and the ability to attack the US with nuclear warheads attached to an ICBM), but in the event that Iran fails to agree to even cosmetic limitations on its nuclear progress, it will suffer no consequences for its recalcitrance.
And this brings us back to Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu.
With Obama’s diplomatic policy toward Iran enabling rather than preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, members of the House and Senate are seeking a credible, unwavering voice that offers an alternative path. For the past 20 years, Netanyahu has been the global leader most outspoken about the need to take all necessary measures to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, not only for Israel’s benefit, but to protect the entire free world. From the perspective of the congressional leadership, then, inviting Netanyahu to speak was a logical move.
In the Israeli context, however, it was an astounding development. For the past generation, the Israeli Left has insisted Israel’s role on the world stage is that of a follower.
As a small, isolated nation, Israel has no choice, they say, other than to follow the lead of the West, and particularly of the White House, on all issues, even when the US president is wrong. All resistance to White House policies is dangerous and irresponsible, leaders like Herzog and Tzipi Livni continuously warn.
Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu exposes the Left’s dogma as dangerous nonsense.
The role of an Israeli leader is to adopt the policies that protect Israel, even when they are unpopular at the White House. Far from being ostracized for those policies, such an Israeli leader will be supported, respected, and relied upon by those who share with him a concern for what truly matters.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Islamic State Deepens Grip in Future Palestine

According to Israeli security forces, dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members in the West Bank have defected to the Islamic State in recent months. Their main goal, according to sources, is to topple the Palestinian Authority and launch terror attacks on Israel.
Some 200 supporters of the Islamic State, who held up Islamic State flags, took to the streets of Gaza City to protest the latest cartoons published by the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. They also chanted slogans that called for slaughtering French nationals, and burned French flags. Attempts by Hamas to impose a news blackout on the protest failed, as photos and videos found their way to social media.
The glorification of terrorists and jihadists by the Palestinian Authority, and the ongoing anti-Israel incitement by both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, is driving many Palestinians into the open arms of the Islamic State.

Ben-Dror Yemini: An attack against coexistence

Make no mistake. This wasn't a terror attack against the occupation. This wasn't a national attack. There may have been such terror attacks in the past. No more. The terror attacks of the past few years are not attacks aimed at protesting a certain injustice.
Does anyone seriously think that the despicable terrorist used a long knife so that the Palestinians would have a sovereign state, prosperity, welfare, advanced education and human rights? Does anyone think that the vile terrorist is frustrated over the fact that the two states for two people solution has not been realized? Come on. Nearly all the attacks of the past few years are aimed at imposing Islam on central Tel Aviv, just like they are aimed at imposing Islam on central Paris.
The terrorist targeted bus No. 40 precisely because it represents Israeli normalcy. The normalcy of Israelis who go out to work every morning. The normalcy in which Arabs and Jews can live together despite everything.
This normalcy is irritating. It's not a simple normalcy. It's normalcy with numerous tensions and problems. But it's still normalcy. It can and should be improved. It's not that there is great harmony between the many different people who travel on the bus, but considering the lack of normalcy in every area in which this terrorist's friends gain their strength – and it's happening in too many places around the world – we should welcome what we have.

Dozens of Arabic media outlets are quoting FARS News saying that the deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, stressed that "all the targets of the Zionist entity are in the range of our missiles."

He then added, "All our [military] capabilities are at the disposal of the Islamic world."

Salami said "Our enemies are provoking division in the Islamic world ... They are trying to break our unity and [force us to increase] self-draining energies of the Islamic world rather than direct [this energy] to face colonialism and arrogance."

Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Gulf states should take him up on the offer of free weapons. It might come in handy for them. He just might not like the target so much.

This was just one of a series of threats that Iranian officials hurled at Israel this week. This FARS article has a roundup with a hilarious last sentence:

“This action (the Israeli attack) was the reflection of numerous defeats that both Americans and Israelis have suffered in their current strategies,” Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami said on Thursday.

He said their failure in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain made them understand that their existence is on the decline.

“They have seen IRGC’s reactions before, and (therefore) they are worried, and they will witness destructive thunderbolts in practice,” he said.

“They (Israeli officials) should be waiting for crushing responses,” Salami said.

On Tuesday, Commander of the IRGC Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari warned Tel Aviv of the devastating response of the regional resistance movements to Israel.

“The IRGC will remain steadfast on the path to the collapse of the Zionist regime of Israel through its continued support for the Lebanese and Palestinian combatants, but this time it supports will be on a scale larger than its supports during the 33-day and 51-day wars against the Israeli army,” General Jafari said in a message released on the occasion of the martyrdom of Allahdadi.

The Iranian top commander said resistance groups in the region would soon give a crushing response to Israel's Sunday raid.

“The Zionists must wait for the devastating thunderbolts of the anti-Israel resistance groups in the region," the Iranian commander warned.

Also, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces for Logistics Major General Mostafa Izadi underlined on Wednesday that the Israelis are and should be deeply worried about the crushing response that they will receive for killing several Hezbollah members and the Iranian military adviser in Syria.

"They thought that they will a get good result, but now they know that they will receive a crushing response and because fear and fright is intermingled with their nature, they make these remarks (that they weren’t aware of the veteran Iranian commander's presence among those martyred in Israeli air raid in Syria on Sunday). Muslim fighters will take a firm and powerful revenge for the blood of these martyrs," Izadi said in Tehran.

Izadi said that the assassination occurred in Syria which is not directly in war with Israel and their attack was carried out on purpose "and the Zionists' remarks are only desperate propaganda".

He also stressed that Iran merely plays an advisory role in Syria.

The NYT anti-Israel style guide adds a new phrase (update)

Buried in a New York Times article today about friction between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu is a phrase that the newspaper has never used before:

Famously, many of those conversations have been deeply uncomfortable. The two leaders have often clashed on Israel’s determination to build new settlements, which Mr. Obama viewed as a way to sabotage peace talks. Mr. Netanyahu was accused of lecturing Mr. Obama in front of the cameras in the Oval Office during an angry conversation in May 2011, after Mr. Obama suggested that the 1967 borders with Palestine should be the starting point for peace negotiations. Later that year, after former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France complained in front of an open microphone that Mr. Netanyahu was “a liar,” Mr. Obama said, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.”

"1967 borders with Palestine"?

Amazingly, there are three errors in that four-word phrase.

There were never any borders, but armistice lines.
The armistice lines were drawn in 1949, not 1967.
And the word "Palestine" is nonsensical in any context. The 1949 armistice lines were with Transjordan/Jordan. No one in 1967 or 1949 considered Judea and Samaria to be "Palestine."

The NYT has used the false phrase "1967 borders" or "pre-1967 borders" many times, referring to the 1949 armistice lines as "borders" even as early as June 1967 itself.

But this is the first time they are implying that the land that had been illegally annexed by Jordan in 1949 was considered a separate "Palestine" in 1967.

This sort of thing is not an accident. The New York Times has a style guide - the current edition is not available to the public, but you can preview the 2002 edition here - where the usage of words and phrases is meticulously defined and refined over the years. When the NYT decides to make up a nonsensical phrase like this one, it means that they are changing their style rules to subtly push the lie that every inch beyond the 1949 armistice lines belongs to an entity, that is at least 47 years old, called "Palestine."

Which means that the "newspaper of record" is willing to influence common usage of American English itself to push a specifically political agenda. Which just happens to be anti-Israel.

(h/t David)

UPDATE: The NYT silently changed the phrase after I wrote this.

From The Algemeiner:

Eighteen months after an intrepid gentile journalist strolled the streets of Malmo, Sweden wearing a yarmulke, in order to get a sense of how residents of the city view Jews, a new video suggests that the situation has only worsened.

This time it was Peter Lindgren’s turn to don a kippah and Star of David chain around his neck and head into town. The result: “He received direct threats as he walked through the city,” according to expressen.se.

Lindgren, walking with a hidden camera and microphone alongside, recorded every step. The report showed the reporter enduring verbal abuse by a man who called him a “Jewish s***” and told him to “leave.” Another person hit him and shouted “Satan Jew,” at him.

As they approached the the city’s neighborhoods with higher Muslim populations, the threats only increased. Some 20 percent of the 300,000 residents of Sweden’s third-largest city are Muslim, according to statistics.

“Then a whole gang came along to threaten the ‘Jewish’ reporter,” while occupants of neighboring homes shouted abuse at him. The broadcast caused a public storm in Sweden, with reactions by public figures, local Jewish organizations and international groups.

The clip, which was broadcast on Sweden’s national television, examined the degree of threats Malmo’s Jews face. The city is infamous for having the largest number of anti-Semitic incidents in the country, many of them perpetrated by members of the Muslim community.

According to the report, “many of [Malmo's remaining Jews] are afraid to leave their homes; many want to leave the city and do not want their children to grow up there.”

There are only about 600 Jews remaining; many have left for Stockholm and other cities because they can’t take the hatred.

During the first six months of 2013, Malmo police reported 35 attacks on Jews – triple the previous year, according to an official who spoke with The Jerusalem Post.

This article in SVT describes what happened from the reporters' viewpoint:

Our mission was to spend a week in Sweden's third largest city, dressed with Jewish symbols. On his head reporter Petter Ljunggren wore a kipah. Around his and his colleague True Klinghoffers necks were hanging Stars of David.

The reporters are usually treated kindly, but every now and then, a look, a comment or a solicitation to leave the area. The worst comes on the outskirts of the city, and in some places the reporters have been warned to stay away. In Lindängen center they are called "fucking Jew swine" from a person. Another man stops - almost shocked - when he sees the reporters with a kipah and Star of David.

- It looked funny. That little hat, he says

Reporter: It blows off.

- Yes, I hope so.

The same man shows up a moment later on a moped. Then he asked the reporters to leave the area.

Rosengård center is another place that reporters have been warned not to go to. But during the day they were treated kindly in the center. In the evening, when more young people walk around the neighborhood there were reactions. The young people make it clear that they think the disguised reporters are behaving strangely and provoking them. But the reporters must also be held accountable for Israel's warfare, and when they decided to leave the site the harassment continued. Eggs were thrown from the windows.

Some time later, the journalists returned to Rosengård openly with the camera. Several young people remember the "Jewish couple" who were in the area.

- Yes, I got the call right away that there were Jews here, we would come and throw eggs and such, says a guy on the spot.

Reporter: Why would you do that?

- For Palestine and all the murders that take place there. We want to fight back, but we cannot is because we are in Sweden.

Finally, two of the guys that reporters met when they went in Rosengård center with the kipah and Star of David are lining up to talk to them, but they want to remain anonymous.

Reporter: But we came as Jews. We had nothing to do with Israel.

- But how do we know that? When we think of Jews as we think directly on Israel, and everything that happens there. Torture and that stuff, says the one guy.

Reporter: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the basis for how one reacts to Jews?

- It is the only basis available. There is no other reason why people hate the Jews, it's just that you consider this when you see a Jew.

The other guy says that reporters should be happy that they got away alive.

- Yes, I was one of them who said so. Had I been a little younger, I would have thrown a bottle (not certain of translation) at you. Pardon me, but it's the truth. Because I was not thinking clearly, but I also wanted to do something for Palestine. But I have no ability to do something or help someone out, you understand?

Reporter: And how are you thinking today?

- Today I am a little more scared when it comes to my religion and so. And I know that I sin. But once I do some bad - Christian, Jew or whoever it is - then it is wrong.

He does not believe that they could live openly as Jews, with Jewish symbols in the area. He also says that Muslims can not move freely in Israel, and that it is the same for Jews here.

Reporter: But this is still Sweden?

- Sweden and Sweden, but we still have our background. And they also have their background.

Here's the full documentary, in Swedish. Footage of the reporter walking through town mostly starts around the 30 minute mark.

An enterprising Israeli has come up with his own "solution" to Jews who want to wear a kippah in dangerous places: make it invisible.

Shalom Koresh, a hairdresser from Rehovot in Israel came up with the idea for a yarmulke that blends in seamlessly with a man’s own hair color and texture after watching news reports about anti-Semitism in Europe.

“I also heard from people who came in to my shop about how when they were traveling in Europe, their guides told them not to wear a kippa while walking around,” Koresh told The Times of Israel.

Koresh, who has been in the hairstyling business for 30 years, said he thought of the notion of a kippa made of hair about half a year ago. He had a prototype made and wore it himself in his salon as he worked. When none of his clients noticed he was wearing a kippa, he knew he was on to something.

The inventor of the Magic Kippa wouldn’t say how many of the hairy skullcaps he has sold, but he reported that orders have come in from several countries around the world, including France, Belgium and Canada. He’s sold a few to Israelis, too.

Koresh said he has some of the kippas manufactured in Israel and some abroad. He sells ones made from human hair for €79 ($92), and others made from synthetic hair for €49 ($57).

Which is incredibly sad.

(h/t O, Yoel)

Even when Egypt "opens" Rafah, hardly anyone gets through

From Ma'an:

Egyptian authorities on Thursday closed the Rafah crossing after it had been temporarily opened for three days.

Palestinian crossing officials told Ma'an that 830 Palestinians in Gaza used the crossing, which was reopened on Tuesday.

There was no indication from Egypt when it will be reopened again.

830 people over three days?

On Monday alone (the last day I have statistics for,) Israel allowed 1,246 people to use the Erez crossing, with only slightly smaller numbers for the previous day. That's over four times the numbers of people allowed to cross rafah each of the three days it was open, even with a huge backlog of people trying to go to Egypt (and return to Gaza.)

How about humanitarian aid?

Egyptian authorities on Wednesday were preparing to ship large quantities of humanitarian aid from the United Arab Emirates to the Gaza Strip.

An Egyptian security official told Ma'an in Cairo that 175 tons of humanitarian aid from the UAE arrived Tuesday evening at El-Arish in North Sinai district.

The shipment includes food, medicines and medical equipment. The cargo was then shipped to the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing to be delivered to the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, 30 tons of humanitarian aid from Saudi Arabia were delivered to the Gaza Strip as well as 13 packages of medical aid from the Egyptian Red Crescent Association.

Ooooh, 175 tons. Impressive.

The Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel, meanwhile, has been transferring about 12,000 tons of goods every day.

Compared to Egypt, Israeli's border with Gaza is positively porous.

01/22 Links Pt2: In Failing to Confront Islamism, the Left Betrays Itself; The Invisible yarmulke

From Ian:

Tarek Fatah: In Failing to Confront Islamism, the Left Betrays Itself

As the world struggles to understand and cope with the rise of pan-Islamism and international jihadi terrorism within Western countries, one thing is becoming increasingly clear - the success of the Islamists is partly due to what I believe is a grand betrayal of civil society by the political left in Western democracies. Instead of leading the fight against the fanatics' religious obscurantism, they have embraced it.
The refusal of social democrats, liberals and leftists to stand up to Islamofascism in the democracies of Europe, North America, India and South Africa, has also had an unintended consequence. It has paved the way for an anti-immigrant backlash against all non-whites, in which the left are portrayed as apologists for religious fanaticism. An unnecessary rise of xenophobia that could have been avoided, had the left led the struggle against Islamofascism, is now entrenched.
Imagine if Labour in the UK, Democrats in the U.S., the Congress and CPM in India, socialists in France and the left in Canada had not catered to Islamists, but instead drawn a line in the sand on such issues as gender apartheid. Think how different things would be today. Instead we've had more than a decade of appeasement.
Last week I sat down with a few surviving friends on the left from the 1960s, who are fortunately in Canada now. "What is wrong with the left today?" we asked ourselves.

Israel omission from Asian Cup video embarrasses Asian Football Confederation

The Asian Football Confederation has been embarrassed by revelations its official video history of the Asian Cup omits any mention of Israel, a former host and winner of the tournament.
A three-minute video posted on the AFC’s official website stirringly recounts the history of the cup, beginning with South Korea’s 1956 victory, up to Japan’s 1-0 defeat of Australia in the 2011 final in Qatar.
Israel hosted and won the Asian Cup in 1964, the only piece of silverware in the country’s football cabinet, during a golden age in which it finished runner-up in the previous two tournaments and third in 1968 (albeit against much weaker competition than today – only six other countries entered in 1964).
Many Arab and Muslim countries refused to play the Jewish state, and in 1974 the confederation adopted a Kuwaiti motion to expel Israel from the AFC. It wandered in the footballing wilderness until it was accepted into the European confederation in 1994.
AFC officials told Guardian Australia they were baffled by the omission, and would be seeking answers. It is understood the video was produced by an external agency. Israel does appear in a table on the tournament’s website listing all past winners. (h/t Rabbi Burns)

Privileged Yet Unequal: An Essay on the Anglo-American Legal Principle of ‘Jews Lose’

Last week, the Community Security Trust—the institutional body primarily responsible for the safety of Jews in Britain—released its preliminary figures on the number of anti-Semitic incidents that had occurred over the course of 2014. The news was not good. Anti-Semitism had hit an all-time high, with a particular spike occurring in July during the course of renewed hostilities between Israel and Gaza. Another poll found that nearly half of all non-Jewish Britons held at least some anti-Semitic views, and for their part British Jews expressed unprecedented feelings of fear and vulnerability. More than half of the Jewish community stated that they feared for their future in Great Britain, and a quarter claimed to have considered leaving the country.
Because I am a lawyer and law professor (albeit not a British one), my natural instinct in these circumstances is to appeal to the law for protection. Anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation, violence, and discrimination are illegal, and a primary purpose of the courts is to provide a shield for vulnerable minorities. Unfortunately, when it comes to Jewish litigants coming to the English courts with allegations of discrimination, doctrine, precedent, and case law all fall away at the hands of one simple rule: Jews lose. They lose consistently, they lose badly, and they will often be humiliated in the process. In her magnificent 2011 book An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness, and English Law, English law professor Didi Herman concludes that—since the passage of the Race Relations Act of 1976—a Jew has never won a reported discrimination case against a non-Jewish defendant.
British courts seem to bend over backward to avoid finding wrongdoing, even in the most obvious cases. To take one particularly egregious example, one case involved a job applicant who was told by the hiring agency that the company in question simply would not hire Jews. It then asked the candidate what his religion was; instead of answering, the applicant (who was indeed Jewish) stormed out. The court concluded that no discrimination occurred because the plaintiff voluntarily terminated the interview without revealing his Jewish identity.

Hasby Award for Best Media Watchdog

The Hasby Award nominees for Best Media Watchdog this year are;

BBC Watch

CiF Watch

Presspectiva

Honest Reporting Canada

The first three nominees are associated with CAMERA and the last with Honest Reporting, our two previous winners.

And the 2015 Hasby Award goes to:

Human Rights Watch just issued a report about how horrible Israel treats its dometic Thai workers.

Here is the index showing the "rights violations" that HRW found in its research:

Pay and Working Hours
Fired for Striking
Unlawful Deductions, Overcharging for Food and Money Transfers
Living Conditions
Working Conditions and Access to Healthcare
Work-related Deaths
Right to Change Employers

HRW only issued one similar report on foreign workers over the past year, for domestic workers in the UAE. Here is a comparion of the issues they found there:

Physical Abuse
Sexual Violence and Harassment
Psychological and Verbal Abuse

Wage Abuses
Excessive Work and Working Hours without Rest Periods or Time Off

Passport Confiscation
Restricted Communication
Isolation and Forced Confinement

Denial of Adequate Food
Denial of Adequate Healthcare
Inadequate Living Accommodations

Forced Labor and Slavery
Trafficking

Even though the UAE issues are orders of magnitude worse than Israel's, the length of HRW's report on the UAE was about the same.

From looking at the list of topics about Thai workers in Israel, it appears that "Work-related deaths" must be the most damning section. And it does sound bad.

Indeed, an excerpt of the report published in the Bangkok Post as an op-ed was entitled "Thai workers in Israel are dying, and it's got to stop " It was also the highlight in The Guardian's article.

After spending 5 paragraphs about the sudden, unexplained death of a 37-year old Tahi worker, HRW says:

From 2008 to 2013, according to government figures provided by Minister of Health Ya’el German to Israeli Knesset member Dov Khenin of the Hadash party and reported by the Israeli daily Haaretz, 122 Thai workers died in Israel. Of these 122 deaths, 43 were from “sudden nocturnal death syndrome,” 22 from cardiac diseases including cardiac fibrosis and cardiomyopathy, and five from suicide. In 22 cases the cause of death was unknown reasons because Israeli police did not request a post-mortem.[118] Dov Khenin said it was “inconceivable that so many healthy young men die without alarms going off.”

122 deaths among workers between, say, 21 and 40 sounds bad. But HRW adds a crucial piece of information:

Sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome (SUNDS) is a disorder that causes sudden cardiac death (typically of young men) during sleep and is found in south east Asia, particularly Thailand, Japan, Philippines and Cambodia.] A 2002 peer-reviewed medical journal paper concluded that SUNDS is “phenotypically, genetically, and functionally” the same as Brugada syndrome, an uncommon but serious heart condition that is a leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young, otherwise healthy people around the world.

So a large number of these 122 deaths can be explained as natural causes, dozens of them would have died back in Thailand as well.

HRW then makes a leap, without any factual basis, that many of the men died from heat stroke:

Douglas Casa, a professor in the department of kinesiology and expert in heat exhaustion and heat stroke at the University of Connecticut, told Human Rights Watch that the combination of Israel’s climate and the working conditions described in this report were likely to significantly increase the risk to workers of heat stroke, which can be fatal.[121] Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are not typically the result of pre-existing medical conditions, but rather of high temperatures in tandem with physical exertion. Whereas pre-existing cardiac conditions such as Brugada syndrome can only be detected by an electrocardiogram test, an autopsy can detect heat stroke as a cause of death and steps can be taken to reduce the risk of heat stroke. The main factors in adequately reducing the risk to workers of heat exhaustion are a work-to-rest ratio that takes account of the prevailing environmental conditions, and ensuring that the body temperature is allowed to cool during that rest time through the provision of shade and water.

But not one case of heat stroke was reported! Why is HRW making this assumption that the workers are dying from something preventable when there is literally zero evidence for it?

One more fact that HRW didn't mention in this section- how many Thai workers there are in Israel altogether.

It turns out that there are about 25,000 Thai workers in Israel, most in the agricultural sector. (HRW says 20,000, BBC says 28,000.) HRW quotes Haaretz saying 122 died over 5 years, meaning about 24 a year, or a mortality rate of 96 per 100,000 people. (122/100K as per HRW's figures.)

In the US, the mortality rate for people aged 25-44 in 2006 was about 145 per 100,000 people.

So the odds of dying as a Thai worker under horrible Israeli conditions is significantly less than it is of dying while working at a typical job in the United States for people of the same age. And that includes those who died of SUNDS.

But HRW won't give you context. They will say that all these workers are dying, and it must be Israel's fault - and if they cannot find a reason to blame Israel, they will literally make one up ("heat stroke.")

See also Honest Reporting.