Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, March 15, 2015

The Expiration Date on "Palestine" (Mike Lumish)

For many years I favored a two-state solution to the ongoing Arab-Israel conflict.

Like most people, I assumed that what the Palestinian-Arabs wanted was a state for themselves - where they could have autonomy and fulfill their national aspirations - in peace next to the Jewish State of Israel.

To this day most of the common wisdom still holds that we need to strive for a negotiated settlement with two states for two peoples.

But I have a question for those who continue to push the two-state mantra:

How can we possibly achieve a two-state solution if the Arab side absolutely refuses to come to an agreement?

It should be obvious to any fair-minded observer at this point that if the Palestinian-Arabs wanted a state for themselves in peace next to Israel then they could have had one long before now. It is fashionable, however, within Europe and western academia to despise Israel and to blame the Long Arab War against the Jews, on the Jews.

Within the universities, and among Left politicos, it is swank to blame the Jewish people - via its proxy, the Jewish state - for the violence against us. This being the case, there comes a point where we must take "no" for an answer.

In 1937, the British offered the local Arabs a state for themselves within a partition of mandated Palestine and they refused the offer. This map shows what they refused under the Peel Commission.

They could have had the entirety of mandated Palestine, including Jordan, and left the Jews only a rump state between Tel Aviv and Haifa, but even that was unacceptable for the local Arabs. This is because, for religious reasons, any bit of land, of any size, that was at any time part of Dar al Islam must forever, and always, remain incorporated into the Umma.

Conquered land must always remain conquered.

This is not optional. It is an Islamic religious imperative.

No Muslim gets to say "no" to Sharia. It is Allah, himself, who does all the noing and if there is one thing that the Arab leadership, including the Palestinian-Arab leadership, are particularly expert at, it is the liberal use of the negative proposition.

I have never before read of a people, living under the oppression of another people, who refuse release from that oppression unless, or until, all their demands are met.

It is very odd, actually.

The Arabs turned down Palestinian-Arab autonomy in 1937 and they have not changed their minds since. Other than Tel Aviv and Haifa, they could have had the whole kit-and-kaboodle, but the offer was not good enough, because it did not include everything.

So, they said, "no."

In November of 1947, of course, the entire world offered the local Arabs a state for themselves. The United Nations voted that the Palestinian Mandate would be divided and, thereby, shared between a Jewish State and an Arab State. Yet, again, the Jews said, "yes," and the Arabs said, "no."

That this land, including what is now Jordan, was promised to the Jews under both the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the San Remo Conference of 1920 was of little concern to the British and of less concern to the nay-saying Arabs.

Then, of course, came 1967 and the famous "three nos" issued by the Arab League at Khartoum As if the original "nos" were not enough, after the Arab defeat at the hands of the IDF in the 6 Day War the losers set the terms for the victors:

No Peace. No Recognition. No negotiation.

The reason that the losers were able to dictate terms to the victors was because the losers had the backing of the larger international community, due to the fact that it needed Arab oil.

Israel, probably, should have taken "no" for an answer then. In fact, on the contrary, it did something entirely unprecedented in the entire annals of human history. During those years, in a formal and diplomatic manner, Israel acknowledged and recognized a people - the so-called "Palestinians" - who emerged as a distinct group toward the end of the twentieth century for the lone, sole purpose of challenging Jewish autonomy historically Jewish land.

This represents what is perhaps the single worst blunder in the history of that country.

It has to be understood that neither the Jewish people, nor the State of Israel, is under any moral or ethical obligation to acknowledge a set of people, who organized themselves as "a people," within living memory, for the express purpose of undermining the movement for Jewish liberation and to appropriate both Jewish land and Jewish heritage.

We have no such obligation, but nonetheless, we did it, anyway.

By the early 1970s, both Israeli and diaspora Jews acknowledged the "Palestinians" and thereby suggested to the rest of the world that we do not necessarily deserve autonomy on Jewish land, because there is a brand-spanking new people in town who are also making claims and we wish to be fair.

And, of course, the "Palestinians" were not merely making claims, they were hijacking jets and blowing people up in the name of Allah, while insisting that the Jews are the "New Nazis"... which much to the astonishment of others actually enamored them to a significant segment of the western Left.

In any case, come the early years of the life of the Frankenstein's Monster known as Oslo, Ehud Barak offered Yassir Arafat the entirety of the Gaza Strip and well over 90 percent of Judea and Samaria (i.e., "West Bank"), with land swaps, and was turned down flat in the year 2000.

This was when Arafat astounded US President, Bill Clinton, by claiming that the Temple of Solomon never even existed in Jerusalem. By all accounts, Clinton was flabbergasted at Arafat's audacity.

Writing in the New York Review of Books in 2001, Jewish American diplomat Dennis Ross reminds us to:

Consider Arafat’s performance at Camp David. It is not just that he had, in the words of President Clinton, “been here fourteen days and said no to everything.” It is that all he did at Camp David was to repeat old mythologies and invent new ones, like, for example, that the Temple was not in Jerusalem but in Nablus. Denying the core of the other side’s faith is not the act of someone preparing himself to end a conflict.

Indeed. And, needless to say, everyone's favorite undertaker, Mahmoud Abbas, turned down a nearly identical offer from Ehud Olmert in 2008.

So, it is NO and NO and NO and NO.

Yet, for some reason, today, western politicians, and much of their constituency, honestly expect the Jewish people to continue to beg and plead with the Arabs to give up their alleged persecution at Jewish hands in favor of freedom and autonomy.

How odd is it, really, that a supposedly persecuted minority needs to be induced to accept its freedom?

What I say is that the Palestinian-Arabs have clearly demonstrated over many decades that they are "all or nothing" kind of people. And, you know what they say. If you're an all-or-nothing kind of a guy, and if you cannot get it all, you know what you get.

You get nothing.

That is my proposal to the Palestinian-Arabs. If they insist upon everything, then they get nothing.

If they will not accept a state, then they will not get a state.

Israel should declare its final borders, remove the IDF to behind those borders, and toss the keys over its shoulder. What those final borders would be, should be entirely up to Israel, according to its security needs. If Israel decides to annex all of Judea and Samaria, so be it.

It will, nonetheless, remain a Jewish state.

What I would propose, under such circumstances, is that Arab non-citizens of Israel in Judea and Samaria be offered a pathway to citizenship. Just as most Jewish Israelis are required to join the IDF for a few years at the age of 18, so non-Israeli resident Arabs would be offered a chance at some form of community service and upon completion of that community service with a good record would be offered the franchise.

The two-state solution, however, is dead and it is the Arabs that killed it.

We cannot force them to accept a two-state solution if this is not what they want.

And, guess what?

It is not what they want.

What they want is Israel gone, thus what they get is nothing.

What we are looking at is the expiration date on the side of the cereal box.

It is the expiration date on "Palestine."

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.

Haaretz columnist Rogel Alpher, whom we last saw attacking Elie Wiesel's hair and claiming that only Israeli citizens (and Palestinians, and people like him planning to leave Israel) may voice an opinion on Israel, is now urging Israelis not to bother voting altogether.

On Tuesday, we will be going to the polls and feeling like idiots. None of Israel’s pressing problems will be solved by this election. Even after the formation of the next government, the process of becoming an irreversible binational state will continue, thus depriving us of a normal, moral life.

As the campaign draws to a close, an aggressive push has been waged to encourage people to vote. Endless broadcasts on behalf of government agencies and the commercial television networks have called on Israelis to exercise their right to vote. Voting in these elections has been portrayed as an act that enables Israel’s citizens to influence their current existence and future fate.

An ideological steamroller of a campaign has tarnished the reputation of those who don’t vote: Comrades, these are negative types, a band of really dangerous people. They gripe, but refuse to roll up their sleeves. They are quitting the community, turning their backs on society – wild, rotten weeds that weaken our collective existence. So inform on them. The police will push them into the paddy wagons and you will no longer see them. Don’t get infected by their spiritual atrophy. Stick with us.

It turns out the only real, subversive act involves expressing a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of the election as a process – one that lets the citizens shape the country’s identity and as an instrument for change. The major fear – the only fear of the establishment – is that the public will wake up and understand that the election is just a virtual game, an Israeli version of sci-fi film “The Matrix.”

Is not voting an option? Is it an act of protest that will make a mark? At least it lets us maintain our self-respect. At least then we’ll know that we weren’t puppets on a string, fools unaware of the circumstances of our ridiculous lives. On the other hand, elections have become a ritual, like the Passover seder – something you have to participate in, even if you’re not overjoyed about it, without believing in the blessings, but rather to derive a measure of satisfaction from the tradition. Happy Election Day.

It is highly amusing that Alpher, who has been saying since last August that he plans to emigrate from Israel since he is such a moral person, is complaining about people saying people like him are quitting the community.

To Alpher, voting for Meretz is not an option. Voting for the United Arab List is not an option. Presumably, even they are too right-wing for his enlightened tastes.

Alpher sees the truth while other Israelis are blind. He is enlightened while all else are in the dark. He knows that not voting is a "protest" that can make change far better than voting can. How, exactly, he doesn't say.

Perhaps he wants an Israeli intifada to replace the democratically elected government with his own idea of a moral leadership that can then dismantle the state and become one with the Arab world which will treat the Jews fairly. Who knows what goes through the mind of someone who imagines police arresting people who don't vote? (In 2012, 32% of Israelis didn't vote; a steady deterioration from the above-80% turnouts in the 1950s and 60s The jails must be very, very full.)

It is clear that Alpher is on the fringe of the fringe, a person who lives in a tiny bubble even within the Tel Aviv bubble. He doesn't want to vote because he feels that he is better than everyone else, yet no one was brilliant enough to nominate him.

But to the world community, for whom Ha'aretz represents their idea of how liberal Israelis think, Alpher is mainstream.

Why did AP, B'Tselem and Amnesty ignore this house destroyed by Israel?

Recently, Richard Behar and Gary Weiss wrote a masterly destruction of an AP investigation showing how many mistakes and violations of journalistic ethics could be found in an article.

"The New York-based news agency examined 247 airstrikes on homes—interviewing witnesses, visiting attack sites and compiling a detailed casualty count. Its probe determined that out of 844 dead from those strikes, 508 (or just over 60 percent) were children, women and older men, 'all presumed to be civilians.'"

This is very similar to an Amnesty report on Israeli airstrikes of houses that I addressed here.

The organization that decided to do this type of analysis originally is B'Tselem, which even during the war started compiling lists of houses that had been hit by Israel and their casualties.

There is an additional problem with all of these "investigations" - they consciously exclude airstrikes on homes that the NGOs know were being used to shield fighters.

If you only count houses that used women and children as human shields, yes, it will appear that Israel showed disregard for the lives women and children (which is not by itself proof of violations of international law, as I have shown in my Amnesty piece.)

B'Tselem has the most comprehensive list of family homes hit by Israel published (AP did not expose its full list.) Yet one obvious family house is not listed: the home of the Al Skafi family of Shujaiyya.

I already mentioned that two of the al-Skafis were 17 or 18-year old twins who were proud members of Islamic Jihad.

But most of the other victims of that airstrike were also terrorists.

Abdel Skafi:

Ahmed Skafi, in front of the Hamas flag:

Mujahid al Skafi, in his martyrdom video:

Ali Skafi:

Now, it is true that their 63-year old father Akram was killed along with this jihadist family. Presumably he was not an active militant.

But AP, B'Tselem and Amnesty did not bother to list the al-Skafi family house as one of those that were targeted by Israel, because counting that house - and who knows how many others - would reduce their ratio of civilians to terrorists killed by Israel.

In other words, these organizations cooked the books to make Israel look bad.

It is inconceivable that all three are not aware of the al-Skafi home - it was prominently mentioned in "Humanize Palestine" and other sites that list the dead.

Yet since it was obvious to these organizations that the al-Skafi family home was mostly inhabited by fighters, that house is excluded from these supposedly objective analyses.

How many other such houses filled with jihadists from the same family were excluded?

All of the other criticisms of these reports still apply, of course, Without these organizations knowing what the targets were, they cannot know whether the IDF commanders who ordered the strikes violated the primciples of distinction and proportionality, and any assumptions of those violations based on the proportion of civilians killed are inherently flawed.

But the Al Skafi home proves that the entire purpose of this "research" is not to calculate how effective the IDF was, but rather to cherry-pick the examples that they believe prove their point.

It is lying with statistics, and it is reprehensible.

(h/t Thomas Wictor)

Jordan denies rumor that school maps will show Israel

Israel's Channel 10 was reported to have stated yesterday that Jordan decided to allow the word "Israel" to appear on maps in geography classes at schools. The news was accompanied by analysis by "experts" about how this means that Jordan is trying to show it is moderate to the West, or that it is trying to de-emphasize the Israel-Arab conflict in the face of the threats from ISIS.

The rumor was instantly denounced by Arabic media. Jordan's Ad Dustour called to tear out any mention of Israel from the books and "place them where they belong, in the dustbin of history."

Today, Jordan's education ministry flatly denied the story. The Education Minister said it was completely untrue and that Israel does not appear in any Jordanian school materials at all.

Whew!

It turns out that Jordan's education ministry did do something last year that was almost as controversial.

A school textbook called "Jews Do Not Honor Charters and Covenants" was pulled from school libraries, eliciting protests from Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.

03/14 Links: Col.Kemp responds to Anti-Israel riot; Senate probes Obama funded anti-Netanyahu drive

From Ian:

Letter from Colonel Richard Kemp to Vice Chancellor USYD

On the basis of my observations, as I have mentioned, Associate Professor Lynch and Dr Riemer sought to incite and encourage the student protesters. Can it be right that members of your university staff should indulge in such disgraceful action?
Peaceful and reasonable demonstration, such as handing out leaflets, chanting dissenting views or holding placards with messages of opposition to the views of a speaker, is of course acceptable. Indeed, such a peaceful demonstration was under way outside when I entered the room for my lecture. I was offered and accepted a leaflet, which I read and I briefly engaged in discussion with a protester. However the type of racially‐motivated aggression, intimidation and abuse that occurred at this event is wholly unacceptable. Also unacceptable in any respectable university is the curtailment of an invited and approved speaker’s freedom to speak and engage in legitimate academic discourse such as I experienced at your university.
I urge you to investigate this incident and to take action against the students and staff members who were responsible for the behavior that I have described. If you fail to do so then you will be failing to discourage such action in your university in the future. You will thus be failing in your duty to ensure that your students, visitors and guest speakers may take part in debate within the precincts of the University of Sydney without fear or
concern for their own safety.
I would add that you have a particular responsibility in respect of the racist, anti‐Semitic nature of this protest. As you know anti‐Semitism is a rising phenomenon in the world. Jews in many places live in increasing fear and concern that they will be singled out and discriminated against. Only by taking firm action against anti‐Semitic abuse and hatred whenever and wherever it occurs can this situation be reversed. Sydney University has the opportunity here to set an example to other academic institutions that lack the moral courage to face up to the modern scourge of anti‐Semitism.

Sydney University investigating after associate professor waves money in the face of a Jewish woman at a recent protest on campus

SYDNEY University will investigate an incident in which Associate Professor Jake Lynch was filmed waving a five dollar bill at an elderly Jewish woman enraged by anti-Israel protesters at a lecture.
Dr Lynch — Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies — claims he was threatening to sue the woman after she kicked him “in the meat and two veg”.
Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired British military officer, was delivering a lecture on the ethics of armed conflict at the university on Wednesday when several students stormed the room and began chanting anti-Israel slogans.
Within minutes of their entry, Associate Professor Lynch began filming the fracas.
He was involved in a confrontation with a woman, believed to be 75 years old, with the two taunting each other.
Mr Lynch then reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a $5 note and began waving it in the woman’s face.
Dr Lynch said his actions were intended to represent a threat to sue the woman.
In a video viewed by The Saturday Telegraph, Dr Lynch can be seen arguing with the woman before she throws out her right arm at him.
Colonel Kemp, who witnessed the incident, said in his opinion the actions of associate professor Lynch suggested an anti-Jewish prejudice.

Source: Senate panel probes whether Obama administration funded effort to oust Netanyahu

A powerful U.S. Senate investigatory committee has launched a bipartisan probe into an American nonprofit’s funding of efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Obama administration’s State Department gave the nonprofit taxpayer-funded grants, a source with knowledge of the panel's activities told FoxNews.com.
The fact that both Democratic and Republican sides of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations have signed off on the probe could be seen as a rebuke to President Obama, who has had a well-documented adversarial relationship with the Israeli leader.
The development comes as Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel Two television station this week that there were “governments” that wanted to help with the “Just Not Bibi” campaigning -- Bibi being the Israeli leader’s nickname.
It also follows a FoxNews.com report on claims the Obama administration has been meddling in the Israeli election on behalf of groups hostile to Netanyahu. A spokesperson for Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican and chairman of the committee, declined comment, and aides to ranking Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, of Missouri, did not immediately return calls.
The Senate subcommittee, which has subpoena power, is the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ chief investigative body with jurisdiction over all branches of government operations and compliance with laws.

03/13 Links Pt2: At UCLA, a culture of equating 'Israel' with 'guilty'; Jews attacked in Marseille

From Ian:

At UCLA, a culture of equating 'Israel' with 'guilty'

UCLA is a campus that has allowed Middle East history to be taught by instructors who demonize Israel, and has permitted its Center for Near Eastern Studies to be directed and co-directed by BDS supporters. It is a culture where a student can come to class wearing an "Israel Kills" T-shirt, yet any mention of Muslim symbols is sure to trigger the heaviest gun of political correctness, "Islamophobia!"
It is a culture where pro-coexistence students, especially in the social sciences, prefer to keep silent rather than risk mockery and social estrangement. Most importantly, it is a campus overrun by soft-spoken BDS propagandists who managed to hijack the student government's agenda with repeated proposals for anti-Israel resolutions, the purpose of which is one: to associate the word "Israel" with the word "guilty."
Coming from this culture, it is quite natural for a council member to assume that Rachel Beyda, as a Jew, is likely to have a built-in reluctance to joining the never-ending orgy of Israel indictments. Especially indictments authored by a movement like BDS, which openly denies one of Jews' most deeply held convictions – Israel's right to exist.
I am purposely using the generic term "as a Jew" here, in its most inclusive, people-based sense. I do so because a great many Jews do consider Israel the culmination of their millennia-long history. Likewise, I follow the observations of Hillel's leadership, who repeatedly assures concerned parents and outraged donors of its commitment to the Zionist dream, and to pro-Israel education.
So why all the outrage about the misuse of the inclusive term "Jewish?" Roth's mistake was not that she probed into Beyda's faith as a Jew, but that she implied that Jews can only gain social acceptance and student government credentials by joining the "indict-Israel" circus, as some of their professors have chosen to do.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Condemns Anti-Semitism, Champions New Film

On Wednesday in Brookline, Massachusetts, women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali headlined an event revolving around the rise of anti-Semitism. Her remarks followed the Boston premiere of the Jerusalem U film, Crossing the Line 2: The New Face of Anti-Semitism on Campus, directed by Shoshana Palatnik, who also attended.
Hirsi Ali pulled no punches, offering scathing commentary regarding the anti-Semitism around the world. She offered these statements:
It is appalling that only seventy years from the Holocaust, crowds in Europe chant "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas." It is even more appalling that 10,000 soldiers in Paris are needed to protect Jewish sites. That is the continent that promised never again. The men and women who were in the concentration camps, who are tattooed, some are still here. And it is happening again.
Watching Crossing the Line 2: the New Face of Anti-Semitism on Campus, was like having a bucket of ice water being poured over my head. I saw the film last week. And I watched it again last night. And I couldn't sleep. The more we pretend that this is happening somewhere far away, the more hopeless and helpless we feel. But this is not happening far away. This is happening on American campuses, British campuses, Canadian campuses. The filmmakers who made this film made it because it is important that we listen to this message while it is at a smaller stage.

Jewish teens attacked in southern France

Two Jewish teens in France were robbed and beaten after leaving their Marseille synagogue.
The teens were attacked on Tuesday by two assailants who they described as youth “of African origin,” according to the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA.
According to the victims, the assailants said, “Dirty Jews, we will exterminate all of you,” before they were robbed and beaten. The Jewish teens required medical attention.
One of the victims told BNVCA that he recognized the attackers.
The bureau called on police in the southern French city to “do everything possible to identify and question the attackers,” and for the assailants to be severely punished to act as a deterrent to future attacks.

Turns out some Gazans are rebuilding houses: friends of Hamas

Yesterday I quoted far-left NGO Gisha as saying that not a single destroyed house had been rebuilt in Gaza, despite over 50,000 tons of construction material (now known to be actually 88,000 tons.)

A Danish journalist visited Gaza last week and he did see that some homes were being rebuilt - but not for just anybody.

Gaza 2015 is anything but uplifting. There is sluggish renovation work. In the northern city of Beit Hanoun families started to quarrel, because Hamas has provided money to those who support the movement. Their houses destroyed by the war are soon completed. Other families who do not openly support Hamas have not received a penny, and their houses are just as flat and bombed as when Israeli missiles hit them for more than six months ago. The families feel both failure and anger, but most of them do not dare stand up and criticize Hamas publicly for fear of ending up on the movement's blacklist.

..."Anything is better than war and the time that has passed since. It has been the longest six months in Gaza's history, "said one of the residents of Beit Hanoun who is not a Hamas supporter. His house, a pile of rubble, remains the first sight that meets him every morning.

Since Hamas controls the money, they can largely control who gets the cement!

Perhaps this is something people should #AskHamas?

(h/t Dina Grossman)

ISIS victim's father says he is loyal to Israel

From JPost:

As video of their son played on their big-screen television, moments before it showed an armed child shooting him dead, Muhammad Said Musallam’s mother, Hind, averted her eyes. His father, Said, stared icily at the screen.

Sitting in the wood-paneled family room of their modest apartment in Jerusalem’s primarily Jewish Neveh Ya’acov neighborhood on Wednesday, Said watched as his son, clad in an orange jumpsuit, stated that he was an Israeli spy.

The video, released on Tuesday, shows the 19-year-old kneeling in an empty field, with a man and a boy brandishing a pistol standing behind him. The boy, wearing camouflage fatigues, shoots Muhammad in the head, then fires three more rounds into his lifeless body.

...Despite his son’s decision to join the terrorist organization, Said emphasized that he and his family stood with Israel.

“My loyalty is to Israel, because my family lives in Jewish neighborhoods and no one gives us any trouble or complications,” he said.

“We believe that we are family. We have the same father, Abraham."

This confirms that the family live in Neve Yaakov, as I mentioned earlier this week - so they really are Israeli "settlers."

(h/t Alexi)

03/13 Links Pt1: Glick: Israel’s next 22 months; IDF prepares for multi-pronged terror attack from Sinai

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Israel’s next 22 months

Yet as Obama has made clear both throughout his tenure in office, and, over the past week through Malley’s appointment and Menendez’s indictment, Obama holds sole responsibility for the deterioration of our ties with our primary ally. And as his actions have also made clear, Herzog and Livni at the helm will receive no respite in US pressure. Their willingness to make concessions to the Palestinians that Netanyahu refuses to make will merely cause Obama to move the goalposts further down the field. Given his goal of abandoning the US alliance with Israel, no concession that Israel will deliver will suffice.
And so we need to ask ourselves, which leader will do a better job of limiting the danger and waiting Obama out while maintaining sufficient overall US support for Israel to rebuild the alliance after Obama has left the White House.
The answer, it seems, is self-evident.
The Left’s campaign to blame Netanyahu for Obama’s hostility will make it all but impossible for a Herzog-Livni government to withstand US pressure that they say will disappear the moment Netanyahu leaves office.
In contrast, as the US position paper leaked to Yediot indicated, Netanyahu has demonstrated great skill in parrying US pressure. He agreed to hold negotiations based on a US position that he rejected and went along with the talks for nine months until the Palestinians ended them. In so doing, he achieved a nine-month respite in open US pressure while exposing Palestinian radicalism and opposition to peaceful coexistence.
On the Iranian front, Netanyahu’s courageous speech before Congress last week energized Obama’s opponents to take action and forced Obama onto the defensive for the first time while expanding popular support for Israel.
It is clear that things will only get more difficult in the months ahead. But given the stakes, the choice of Israeli voters next Tuesday is an easy one.

Sarah Honig: Buji and the Bomb

Now there’s the rub. How things turn out even for the most well-intentioned statesmen doesn’t always depend on their own much-touted goodwill but on their antagonists’ good faith or lack thereof.
So far, Herzog must concede, Obama’s record on dealing with Iran’s despots has been far from confidence-inspiring. Whether we deem Obama complicit with a rogue’s gallery of regional bad-guys or see him as merely a jinxed serial bungler, the outlook under his stewardship is far from promising.
No sooner did Obama take over at the West Wing than it became clear for those who didn’t avert their gaze that the end is near for the Mideast’s precariously-enduring remnants of delicate equilibrium. Obama ushered in chaos via what he hyped as a trailblazing new departure by the Muslim world’s surprise soul mate. The result was the mega-disaster Obama applauded as the “Arab Spring.”
But that was only the beginning of a tortuous path on which Obama seemed incapable of dodging any pitfalls. Obama consistently betrayed allies and quasi-tolerable hangers-on but was incredibly hands-off toward the true villains of the Mideastern piece.

Michael Lumish: In the Eye of the Whirlpool

Those of us who care about the well-being of Israel and of the Jewish people are in a very curious moment.
The Speech has come and gone and the resultant anti-Netanyahu hysteria seems to be winding down a tad, but nobody is quite sure what we are facing going forward.
There are three major questions in the air at this moment and we will not know how things are shaping up until the outlines of the answers to those questions become clear.
Those questions are concerned with the upcoming Israeli elections, ISIS, and a potential Iranian nuclear weapon.
Until we begin to see the answer to these questions, we are sort-of bobbing in the eye of a political whirlpool.

An Arab Zionist from 1913

Elias el-Ayoubi was born in Acre in 1874.

He moved to Egypt where he was appointed the Director of the Department of Translation in the Senate.

Egypt held a competition for who could write the best history of Egypt under Ismail Pasha (ruled 1863-1879) and Elias won with a two part book "The history of Egypt during the Reign of Khedive Ismail." That book ended up being used as a textbook in Egyptian schools.

Ayoubi died in Egypt in 1927.

He also wrote a history of Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali.

But one early work of his seems to be nearly lost to history.

In 1913, Ayoubi wrote a book called "Voice of Freedom: In defense of the Jewish Nation."

I can only find a single copy of this book, in the Iraqi National Library. (His other two books are at the University of Chicago Library and elsewhere.)

Most biographies of him nowadays do not mention this obviously Zionist book.

Maybe some researcher can track down and translate a copy. It may be very illuminating.

The Pallywood bulldozer (update)

This photo has been going around social media; I saw it on the Fatah Facebook page:

Yeah, sure. No soldiers, no buildings, just an unarmoured bulldozer driver shaking his fist in frustration at those brave Arab women.

All the world might not be a stage, but all of "Palestine" most certainly is.

UPDATE: This appears to be from 1995, as Israel was allegedly clearing land adjacent to Neve Daniel. I can't find any news of Neve Daniel being expanded in 1995. Another photo:

The acting is still acting, though.

(h/t Bob Knot)

The PLO believes that Israel and Hamas are working together to officially create a Hamastan in Gaza as a separate political entity than "Palestine."

The rumor is that Israel and Hamas are working on a plan where Hamas agrees to a five year truce "above and below ground" in exchange for building an airport and seaport from which Hamas can establish independent diplomatic relations with the rest of the world.

PLO member from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Rabah Muhanna claims that they received this information from UN representative Robert Serry.

Walid Awad (People's Party) expressed deep concern , saying "the scheme will cut off the road to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state."

Secretary General of the Arab Liberation Front, Mahmoud Ismail, said this is part of the (Zionist/Western) plot to break apart Arab nations, as is happening in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and Libya.

Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf spoke of the danger of Hamas negotiating with Israel unilaterally, bypassing the PA, saying, "It does not matter how it was negotiating, directly or indirectly, or through international mediators; each are just as dangerous. It's been a goal of separating Gaza from the West Bank, and it ends our goal of an independent Palestinian state and Jerusalem as its capital, and the other problem is that it (undermines) the PLO leadership as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,"

"This shows us now why Hamas wriggled from the implementation of the national reconciliation agreement, they are betting on the support of Israel and other regional powers to establish their own political entity in the Gaza Strip, and therefore they have prevented the government of national reconciliation from exercising their responsibilities and functions in the Gaza Strip."

The Secretary General of the Palestinian Liberation Front Abu Yousef said that "the national project is the establishment of a Palestinian state on the borders of June of 1967, with its capital in East Jerusalem, with the right of return for Palestinian refugees, it is clear that [Hamas] is trying to detract from this project and principles and commits a national crime can not be tolerated \."
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Of course, the idea that Israel is going to reward Hamas - which is as weak as it has ever been - with its own means to import weapons through the sea and air, in exchange for a promise of a five year truce when most of its truces last hours, is absurd.

It was only a couple of years ago that Hamas did enjoy its political independence, its leaders traveling through Egypt to the Muslim world as if they were their own nation.

Social media hashtag #AskHamas off to a hilarious start

From World Bulletin:

Hamas media coordinator Taher al-Nounou said the group would launch a weeklong interactive campaign starting Friday on social media under the hashtag #AskHamas.

"The campaign is aimed at rejecting the labeling of the Palestinian resistance as 'terrorists'," al-Nounou told.

Al-Nounou said the campaign would primarily target western audiences, especially in the EU, in hopes of encouraging the EU to remove Hamas from its list of "terrorist organizations."

Through the #AskHamas campaign, group members – including senior leaders – will answer questions by western social media users in order to "clarify Hamas' true positions."

I contributed a couple:

#AskHamas Please rank in order of importance: 1. Healthcare 2. Housing 3. Social services 4. Defeating Fatah 5. Tunnels to kill Jews
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) March 12, 2015

#AskHamas Do you import the Israeli flags you burn, or do you manufacture them yourselves? pic.twitter.com/BX7DIyAjqU
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) March 12, 2015

But there are lots of otherslike these from @UKMediaWatch::

#AskHamas how did the audition go for the next Star Wars movie? pic.twitter.com/Lq3N2BHPAz
— UK Media Watch (@UKMediaWatch) March 12, 2015

#AskHamas what deficiency do you think this Hamas terrorist is trying to make up for? pic.twitter.com/mYL2iXqzzU
— UK Media Watch (@UKMediaWatch) March 12, 2015

And more:

#AskHamas my wife wants to change my rocket launching room into a room for our stupid baby. How should I honor kill her?
— AntiDouchebagIsraeli (@NotAntiSemitic) March 12, 2015

It's just starting, and it's going all week!

03/12 Links Pt2: Rasmea Odeh gets 18 months in prison; Friedman’s Adelson Derangement Syndrome

From Ian:

Rasmea Odeh sentenced to 18 months in prison

Immigration fraudster who concealed Israeli bombing conviction also has U.S. citizenship revoked and will be deported.
Rasmea Odeh was convicted in Israel of the 1969 bombing of the Super Sol supermarket in Jerusalem, in which Hebrew University students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner were killed, in addition to the attempted bombing of the British Consulate.
Rasmea served 10 years of a life sentence before being released in a prisoner exchange in 1979 for an Israeli soldier captured in Lebanon. Rasmea later immigrated to the United States, where she has made Chicago her home since the mid-1990s.
In November 2014, Rasmea was convicted in federal court in Detroit of falsely procuring naturalization, by concealing her Israeli convictions and incarceration.
The evidence supporting both the Israeli and Detroit convictions is overwhelming and from multiple sources, as I demonstrated in Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud. Rasmea’s claim that she confessed to the bombing only after several weeks of sexual torture was contradicted by the fact that she confessed one day after arrest, and by corroborating evidence including a filmed interview years later with a co-conspirator. (h/t Bob Knot)

University of Southampton Conference: How to be openly antisemitic in England (satire)

UK Media Watch has obtained the “official”* (*Satire), never-before-seen original program for a three-day conference in mid-April at the University of Southampton examining whether Israel has the right to exist. Though it’s currently titled “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism“, the “original” version of the program (below) was evidently titled “How to be openly antisemitic in England: International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism”. (h/t Yenta Press)

Richard Millett forced to turn off camera at Parliament event with Jenny Tonge & David Ward

Last night I went to Parliament for an event staged by the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK. The event Gaza: Life in an occupied and besieged strip was obviously only concerned with the human rights of one group of Arabs.
It was chaired by the Liberal Democrat David Ward MP and the main attraction was Baroness Jenny Tonge who once said “Israel won’t be here forever”.
Tonge complained that “the Palestinians had been denied democracy because the wrong side (Hamas) won” and that Israel defies international law by denying the right of return to anyone who is not a Jew.
Her main complaint was about “the Israel lobby” which, she said, “has its claws in this country” and she claimed nothing was being done about Israel out of fear of being called anti-Semitic.
She called for a total boycott of Israel, said that Jews had led the struggle against apartheid in South Africa

Former "Donald Duck" parlays his Israel-hate into hosting X-Factor Arabia

Remember Wael Mansour?

He caused a stir as year ago with this tweet:

Here is the tweet that lead Disney to end my role as Donald Ducks official voice in Arabic dubbed cartoons in the ME pic.twitter.com/ZLdpN1NrMF
— Wael Mansour (@WaelMansour0) February 6, 2014

Upon further research, we saw that Mansour's original tweet was from six months earlier, and he was never employed by Disney - he was a third party contractor.

In other words, Mansour made up a story about being fired from Disney for hating Israel - and got lots of publicity for the lie.

His stunt just paid off in spades.

Wael Mansour was just named the host of X-Factor Arabia. The headlines about this story all note that he is an important anti-Zionist. It is his main claim to fame!

So there you have it. Saying you hate Israel, and making up a story about how it hurt your career, is a great way to get ahead in the Arab world.

(h/t Shawarma News)