Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Gaza Wins Bid To Host 2032 Olympics (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Gaza City, March 18 - The International Olympic Committee announced today (Wednesday) that the winning proposal to host the 2032 Summer Olympic Games was submitted by the Hamas government of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza beat out a number of other candidate locations considered by many to be better suited to the events, among them Berlin, New Delhi, Jakarta, Caracas, and Vancouver, and the organizers of the proposal admitted they were as surprised as anyone else that Gaza was chosen.
"We are humbled, proud, and, frankly, somewhat puzzled at the committee's decision, but we will try to do it justice," said Ministry of Sport spokesman Aiwil Behedd. "We have much work ahead of us now."

The planning challenges facing the government of Gaza are more imposing than those faced by any other host of Olympic games. Essentially, said Behedd, every bit of infrastructure for the games, including transportation and accommodations for attendees and participants, will have to be built from scratch, since the coastal territory lacks the most rudimentary facilities.

However, some of the obstacles that have plagued other Olympic hosts will likely not affect Gaza to nearly the same degree. For example, while other cities have engaged in protracted court battles to gain rights to property for purposes of constructing Olympic facilities, Hamas had a head start in demolishing large swaths of its territory by provoking a 5-day war with Israel last summer. By withholding permission for the rebuilding of homes from everyone but a number of proven Hamas loyalists, the government has been able to engineer significant portions of unused land that can now be converted into stadiums, the Olympic Village, press accommodations, and other support facilities.

Labor costs will also not challenge Hamas the way they have crippled other hosts, as the movement that governs Gaza does not shy way from forced child labor to complete its infrastructure projects. Hundreds of children died while digging and reinforcing the tunnels Hamas used in last summer's war, and the local population of 1.4 million is disproportionately young, meaning an effectively infinite supply of free workers. Initially reluctant to exploit that advantage in promoting Gaza's bid because of human rights violations, according to Behedd, "when we realized the international sporting community didn't care about Dubai's use of slave labor to prepare for the World Cup, we knew we had a chance."

Moreover, whereas other locales often struggle to justify the capital expenses that go into preparing for the Games, and for decades afterwards question whether any lasting benefit accrued from the investment, the residents of the Gaza Strip have never expected the Hamas government to invest in them; they have long been accustomed to being provided for by the international community, and the anticipated Olympics will probably afford them a welcome distraction from the the quotidian misery.

Nevertheless, some formidable logistical challenges remain. As it stands, Gaza lacks an airport or seaport, and is closed in on all four sides by Israeli and Egyptian forces. Tunnels to and from the Egyptian city of Rafah have been largely rendered unusable amid ongoing conflict and tension between Hamas and Cairo, and the Israeli navy interdicts most maritime traffic headed toward the Gaza coast. That leaved Turkish flotillas as the only method of entry for athletes, spectators, and personnel, and the supply of vessels for that purpose is expected to remain tight for the foreseeable future.

Political obstacles also loom: disunity with the Palestinian government in the West Bank may translate into the embarrassment of a boycott by a large portion of the host country's team, and discontent among Gaza's various militant Islamist factions also threatens to explode into violence. That last thing Hamas needs on its hands is for another war with Israel to break out during the Olympics because the Popular Resistance Committees wish to flex their muscles.

UN Security Council obsession with "Palestine," 2014

Here are the number of meetings by the UNSC on Middle East/North Africa topics in 2014.

To give some context, in 2014 there were some 76,000 killed in Syria, 17,000 in Iraq and 7600 in Afghanistan.

(h/t Irene)

03/18 Links Pt1: Election Roundup; Dershowitz: Pres. is not Commander in Chief of Foreign Policy

From Ian:

Netanyahu scores crushing victory in Israeli elections

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party was the clear winner in Tuesday’s election, a near-final tally showed early Wednesday morning, defeating the Zionist Union by a margin of some six seats.
That margin was far more decisive than TV exit polls had predicted when polling booths closed at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. All three TV polls had put Likud and Zionist Union neck-and-neck at 27 seats, albeit with Netanyahu better-placed to form a coalition.
On the basis of those TV polls, Netanyahu hailed a Likud victory, though Herzog initially refused to concede. As counting proceeded through the night, however, the Likud opened a growing margin of victory.
By 6 a.m., with some 99% of votes counted, the Central Elections Committee was indicating a dramatic victory for Netanyahu, with the Likud heading for 30 seats, compared to Zionist Union’s 24 seats.
Next came the Joint (Arab) List on 14 seats, Yesh Atid on 11, Kulanu on 10 and the Jewish Home on 8. They were followed by Shas, 7, United Torah Judaism on 6, Yisrael Beytenu on 6, and Meretz on 4 seats.

David Horovitz: King Bibi and his divided people

We’ll see the specifics of his coalition. We’ll note who he chooses as his defense minister, his foreign minister, his justice minister — outspoken hawks or gentler figures? Will he push legislation that highlights the Jewish character of the state and subtly relegates its democratic nature? Will he employ healing rhetoric as regards those ostensibly over-voting Israeli Arabs? Will he address widespread domestic concerns about the high cost of living, soaring housing prices and the growing inequalities between Israel’s haves and have-nots? Will he find a path through the conflict over ultra-Orthodox military service? Will he shift to a less dogmatic position on the two-state solution, stressing that he cannot envisage Palestinian statehood in the current Middle East reality but allowing for the possibility of change? Will he move to seize the opportunities he has frequently cited to build alliances with those Arab states that share Israel’s profound concerns about Iran’s nuclear drive and the imminent US-led deal with Tehran? Will he seek to ease the strains with an Obama administration that, he believes, wanted to see the back of him?
In the past few days, Netanyahu proved himself a political tactician in a different league from his rivals. But amid the euphoria of victory, and the majority’s reaffirmation of faith in his leadership, will he take heed of the fact that a substantial proportion of the electorate is as shocked and horrified by Tuesday’s results as he and his supporters are shocked and delighted?
Will Netanyahu seek to reposition himself, in short, from defiantly victorious leader of the Israeli right to prime minister of our riven, multi-challenged Israel?

Alan Dershowitz: President is not Commander in Chief of Foreign Policy

This important limitation on the president's power is highly relevant to the current debate about Congress having the authority to check the president's decision to make the deal that is currently being negotiated with Iran. The Constitution is clear about this. The President is not the Commander-in-Chief of our nation's foreign policy. When he is involved in "high-stakes international diplomacy," his involvement is not as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, but rather as negotiator-in-chief, whose negotiations are subject to the checks and balances of the other branches.
As President, he cannot even declare war, though he can decide how a war should be fought after Congress declares it. He cannot make a treaty without the approval of 2/3 of the Senate. He cannot appoint Ambassadors without the consent of the Senate. And he cannot terminate sanctions that were imposed by Congress, without Congress changing the law. Were he the "Commander-in-Chief" of our country — as Putin is of Russia or as Ali Khamenei is of Iran — he could simply command that all of these things be done. But our Constitution separates the powers of government — the power to command — into three co-equal branches. The armed forces are different: power is vested in one commander-in-chief.
To be sure, when politicians call our president the "Commander-in-Chief," they are using that term rhetorically. But it is a dangerous rhetoric, because it suggests a concentration, rather than a division, of power. Military metaphors are as inappropriate in a democracy as is martial law, which does empower the executive to act as the commander of all people, but only in cases of extreme emergency.
So let's describe the president by his actual constitutional role: the head of the executive branch of our tripod government that stands on three equal legs. As the head of the executive branch, he gets to negotiate treaties, agreements and other bilateral and multilateral deals. But Congress has a say in whether to approve what the president has negotiated.

Gangs of haters intimidating Swedish store-owners to drop Israeli products

From Sweden's "Isolate Israel" BDS site:

Join Malmö’s Apartheid Inspectors when they visit stores and companies around Malmö to investigate dangerous levels of apartheid-supporting products! Support the inspectors to inform shop-owners and consumers on how they through consumer-boycott can push for apartheid-free zones.

What comes next - death threats? Firebombs?

Luckily, Swedish commentators are coming out against this.

Luke Berggren writing in Varlden Idag says:

Scary rhetoric is being used, which is unfortunately reminiscent back to the 30s. "Support inspectors in their efforts to inform shopkeepers and consumers about how they can promote the apartheid-free zones through consumer boycott." In practice, this will disadvantage Jewish businesses in Israel. There seems to be no distinction between Israel Criticism and pure hatred of Jews. Talk about apartheid.

Many shopkeepers will be pressured to not buy Israeli goods. Let us do the opposite. Ask your retailer for Israeli goods. And buy Israeli goods. Boycotts of this kind suffered by Jews and is another worrying sign of the growing anti-Semitism. We can not accept this.

And more:

Member of Parliament Hanif Bali says that he hopes that the BDS movement's various operations in Malmö should not threaten the city's Jews.

"I can only hope that their different opinions do not go out to Malmö's Jewish population, which has happened before. Historically, the left has had difficulty distinguishing criticism of the state of Israel with pure racism against Jews...".

Hanif Bali also questioned what designates Israel as an "apartheid state".

"Apartheid is based on an ethnic specific legislation, that it would treat the Israelis by Palestinian background differently, and that does not happen. Certainly there is discrimination, but we have that in Sweden too, but we do call it apartheid."

(h/t @eu_jew)

According to Al Bawabh News, Hamas is trying to hush up a major sex scandal involving young boys in a Gaza mosque.

A prominent Hamas member is accused of engaging in sex acts with young boys after enticing them with promises of teaching them Jihad and the Quran.

According to the story, he pretended to be teaching the boys martial arts. He evaluated their "performance" and if he felt that they wouldn't resist he would make his move. He told them that the sex acts were allowed under Islamic law if it was consensual, and he characterized the children who fell under his influence as "Mujahadeen Heroes."

The man told his victims that he will stay in touch with them through social media.

There are two complicating factors that are stopping Hamas from arresting him.

One is that the sex offender is a hero, a "symbol of symbols," a 45-year old who was a prisoner in Israeli jails for 18 years and who was released under the Shalit deal.

The other is that the pedophile is not from Gaza, but from Hebron, and arresting him cause sectarian problems between different tribes.

Sources say that Hamas is now trying to smuggle him out of Gaza so as not to deal with the issue.

From looking at the list of people who were released in the Shalit deal the most likely person seems to be Maedh Waal Taleb Abu Sharakh, sentenced to 19 life terms for the attack on bus No. 37 in Haifa in 2002 that killed 17. He is about 45 years old, from Hebron, a Hamas member and clearly a "symbol of symbols' and sent to Gaza as part of the deal. He had been in prison only about 9 years but he might have had other stints in jail.

Yesterday I was the first (and still only) to report in English that the president of the Qatari National Committee for the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and their ambassador to Gaza) Mohammed Al-Emadi, had praised Israel for helping in reconstruction efforts in Gaza while slamming the international mechanisms that were meant to help ordinary Gazans. He also charged Egypt and the PA with wasting the $100 million Qatar had donated to help Gaza electricity needs.

Emadi said that the only way to help Gazans get power would be for Israel to add a new 100 megawatt line, and he said that he was not negotiating with Israel on the issue but was negotiating the idea through the PA.

Emadi also announced that Qatar will pay $1000 to every owner of a destroyed home.

After the interview was published in Safa.ps, Mahmoud Abbas immediately scheduled a visit to Qatar at the end of this month, right after an Arab Summit meeting in Sharm el Sheikh on the 28th. He is apparently incensed that a Qatari official would break ranks with the normally solid anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Arab front to make such statements. Through the game of telephone that the media often engages in, Abbas apparently thinks that Emadi said that he was meeting with senior Israeli officials himself about the power line and construction materials (he explicitly said he wasn't in the interview.)

As Karama Press states, "It seems that the movements of Ambassador angered the Palestinian presidency, which prefers to silence the media about him, and to prevent any public criticism directly about him, until a meeting of President Abbas with the Emir of Qatar in Doha. "

Al Resalah adds that Abbas was angry that Qatar was negotiating to increase the amount of cement going into Gaza, apparently successfully, without deferring to the PLO in all matters concerning Gaza.

Fatah expressed its "worry" about the Qatari moves through its Secretary of the Revolutionary Council Ameen Maqboul.

Maqboul considered the meetings of the Qataris and the Israelis as overstep to the PA's role.

Raialyoum Newspaper revealed that the PA President Mahmoud Abbas give the Fatah officials a green light to attack Qatar.

Quds Press says that Abbas is accusing Qatar of supporting an independent Hamas-run state in Gaza.

The amount of aid transported from Israel to Gaza has been steadily increasing, with 640 trucks scheduled to go to Kerem Shalom today (on any day, scores of the scheduled trucks never arrive.)

This incident shows how much Abbas works to silence any media criticism of himself, as well as to silence anything positive about Israel. In this case it failed because the Hamas/Fatah split and the Abbas/Dahlan split has ensured that there are many media outlets who are against Abbas.

Israeli elections open thread

It's all anyone is talking about anyway....

By the way, look how prescient Slate was four days ago!

UPDATE: With 90% of the votes counted, the exit polls predicting a tie between Likud and ZU seem to have all been quite wrong:

My guess is that Israelis don't like exit pollsters and will lie to them.

But it ain't over till its over. I just find it hard to believe that even if the remaining 10% are all in Tel Aviv cafes, that the seat counts will change significantly.

03/17 Links Pt2: Col. Kemp: Protesters disown their university values; Einstein's 100th birthday gift

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: University of Southampton’s Symposium on Israel’s Right to Exist: Speaker Profiles and NGO Connections

The University of Southampton will hold a three-day quasi-academic conference, “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism” (April 17-19 2015). Billed as a “ground-breaking historical event,” the forum “concerns the legitimacy in International Law of the Jewish state of Israel” and questions the legality of the “foundation and protection of a state of such nature.”
The conference aims to lend academic legitimacy to the notion that the existence of a Jewish state, within any borders, is up for legal and moral debate. Participating speakers and panelists plan to “diagnose the legal position” of Israel to enable “scholarly debate and disagreement” on the legitimacy of Israel’s existence. Such events represent the antithesis of constructive academic dialogue and peaceful coexistence.
As shown below, the vast majority of the speakers listed on the program are virulent anti-Israel ideologues who demonize Israel using labels like “apartheid,” advocate for a “one state” framework that denies the right of the Jewish nation to self-determination, promote BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns targeting Israel, and advance legal attacks (“lawfare”) against Israel in international legal bodies. The involvement of a number of NGO officials and individuals affiliated with politically biased NGOs highlight the primary non-academic, ideological nature of the event. Some of these NGOs receive direct and indirect funding from European governments, as well as from the New Israel Fund (NIF).

Colonel Richard Kemp: Protesters disown their university values

I have addressed the UN commission of inquiry on the conduct of the parties to the Israel–Hamas war. I have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation and recognised the extraordinary measures to which Israel has gone to avoid civilian casualties when faced with an enemy that militarises civilian infrastructure and shields its fighters with the bodies of the civilians it claims to defend. US General Martin Dempsey, the highest ranking officer in the US Army, sent a fact-finding team to Israel and concluded the US forces had lessons to learn from the measures taken by Israel to spare the lives of Palestinian civilians as far as possible, often at the expense of its own soldiers.
By daring to defend the actions of the Jewish state and condemning Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both designated terrorist organisations, I was considered fair game for the protesters. This is indicative of a pervasive culture among certain sections of university students and staff in Britain, and clearly in Australia, where to speak objectively about Israel is to court harassment, thuggery and violence. The behaviour of the protesters and the academics was an affront to the core ideals of the university — the freedom to speak, the freedom to assemble and the freedom to engage with ideas and opinions.
This protest had clear anti-Semitic undertones. The audience was predominantly Jewish and the protesters knew that. Often anti-Semitic abuse and hatred is dressed up as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist action. This resonated that way, with vicious shouting and intimidation against a group of Jews and brandishing money around invoking the stereotype of the “greedy Jew”.
As for Associate Professor Jake Lynch, shown to be so adept at conflict with an elderly woman, his value to the university and its students would be enhanced by listening to those who have seen real conflict and have risked their lives to secure peace.

Antisemitism on Campus: Has Sydney University's Jake Lynch Finally Gone Too Far?

A petition started by the Jewish student union calling for Associate Professor Jake Lynch to be sacked has already attracted over 5,000 signatures. It alleges he breached the University's code of conduct, which requires that staff treat students with "respect, impartiality, courtesy and sensitivity" and that "Lynch has a history of supporting harassment and discrimination against Jewish students." A Sydney University spokesperson commented: "The University is deeply concerned about events surrounding a protest on campus and has commenced an investigation into the incidents."
The protesters, accused of disrupting a lecture, intimidating Jewish students, filming them without their permission and shouting at them could face expulsion from the University. A professor accused of the same, and of thrusting money in the faces of a Jewish student and an elderly Jewish woman, needs to be taken just as seriously. If the professor and the other demonstrators acted so disgracefully, the University has a responsibility to protect the welfare of its students and its own reputation.

From NPR:

Palestinian investor Bashar Masri is building an entirely new city in the West Bank. It's a huge investment, with 5,000 new homes for tens of thousands of families. And, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's also a political statement.

As we approached this new city of Rawabi, north of Ramallah, we saw a row of high-rise apartment buildings topped by construction cranes. Scaffolding surrounds the minaret of an incomplete mosque. Nobody has moved in yet.

Masri has had to battle for years, but says he finally has permission to hook up the water system, which is controlled by Israel. The military occupation of the West Bank often complicates Palestinian efforts to build, and this distinctive project was no exception.

Israel's opposition to hooking up the water was in response to Palestinian Arab refusal to work with Israel on crucial water issues all over Judea and Samaria.

But if you bother to read way further down the article, you can see that the PA also put up roadblocks to Rawabi. Instead of paragraph 3, we can find it in paragraph 20:

The Palestinians do have their own government, the Palestinian Authority, but Masri was equally frustrated with those officials. He says the group didn't keep a promise to build schools and roads for Rawabi.

"They signed the agreement and I think they should have delivered," he says. "Whenever I talk to them they say, 'Oh, Bashar, we need schools in other areas, we need roads in other areas.' Well, I think we should have gotten at least our fair share, proportional to the expected community in the next five years."

No roads and schools? Aren't they pretty important too?

Finally, NPR focuses on Israelis who want to become settlers. Of course, they won't call them that:
When we met some of the buyers, we learned that several are not from the West Bank, but rather live inside Israel, and are Israeli citizens.

Sofian and Fahimeh Mowassi are Arab citizens of the Jewish state. About 20 percent of Israel's population are Arab Israelis — or, as many call themselves, Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Fahimeh say they are buying a second home because Jewish Israelis are not comfortable living with Arabs. "We don't feel they accept us," she says, adding, "it's nice to come here, among our people."

They want to maintain their Israeli citizenship (this is only a second home) but they want to buy a house in the West Bank. Doesn't that make them settlers?

Oh, sorry, Moving to the east of the Green Line is only "illegal" if you are Jewish.

What would happen if Jews tried to buy houses in Rawabi? Would Mr. El Masry (-"The Egyptian") allow it? Would their neighbors?

These are questions that NPR doesn't want to ask, because the answer shows that the heroes of their story are bigots and antisemites. And that's not news.

(h/t Irene)

Egypt's Vetogate has a series of articles about the disgraceful condition of Egypt's Jewish cemeteries.

The leader of the almost extinct Jewish community, Magda Haroun, said that she visited one cemetery nnd saw boys had urinated on the tombstones.

Vetogate visited the cemetery in Alexandria (pictured above) and reported that it was being used as a garbage dump and was being encroached by street vendors. Tombstones and mausoleums are cracked, broken or otherwise in serious disrepair.

The newspaper talks about one cemetery that is the second-oldest Jewish burial ground in the world after the Mount of Olives. It includes such famous rabbis as Saadia Gaon.

The newspaper also interviewed a number of Islamic clerics who all said that respect for the dead is a high priority in Islam and that there was no justification to treat these cemeteries badly.

The newspaper goes on to call for the restoration of these cemeteries - and the resumption of tourism to visit them.

03/17 Links Pt1: Post-Colonial Hangover and the Jihadi Bomb; French: Arafat died of natural causes

From Ian:

Micahel Lumish: The Post-Colonial Hangover and the Jihadi Bomb

One thing that is striking about this political moment is the fact that the western Left seems entirely complacent with the idea of a nuclear bomb controlled by the ayatollahs.
This is rather odd since the Left, in general, opposes nuclear proliferation. Yet few seem disturbed at the idea of a theocratic-authoritarian regime, grounded in al-Sharia, that hangs Gay people from cranes, and that has incessantly called for the destruction of Israel, gaining a nuclear arsenal that could devastate anything on the planet.
How unusual.
When Barack Obama told the world that it was US policy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, he lied.
Jeffrey Goldberg, writing in The Atlantic, in the fall of 2012, said this:

But the record is the record: Given the number of times he's told the American public, and the world, that he will stop Iran from going nuclear, it is hard to believe that he will suddenly change his mind and back out of his promise.
The Obama administration changed its stated, if not actual, policy from preventing an Iranian bomb to enabling an Iranian bomb.
Democrats still complain about Netanyahu's speech as a violation of protocol. This is transparent nonsense. The problem that Obama has with Netanyahu's speech has nothing to do with protocol and everything to do with the fact that Netanyahu alerted the world that Obama's "deal" enables a Jihadi bomb in the not too distant future.

French experts rule out foul play in Arafat’s death

French experts have ruled out that the 2004 death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was the result of poisoning, a prosecutor told AFP Monday.
The prosecutor of the western Paris suburb of Nanterre said the experts found there was no foul play in Arafat’s death, which sparked immediate and enduring conspiracy rumors.
The findings echo those of Russian experts, but a Swiss team has said that the poisoning theory is “more consistent” with their own test results.
A center in the Swiss city of Lausanne had tested biological samples taken from Arafat’s personal belongings given to his widow after his death, and found “abnormal levels of polonium” — an extremely radioactive toxin — but stopped short of saying that he had been poisoned by polonium.
The French experts “maintain that the polonium 210 and lead 210 found in Arafat’s grave and in the samples are of an environmental nature,” Nanterre prosecutor Catherine Denis said. (h/t Bob Knot)

Chuck Norris says vote Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got a last minute hand from Hollywood action man Chuck Norris, who published a video on Monday calling on the Israeli public to back the prime minister in the coming general elections.
“You have an incredible country, and we want to keep it that way,” said Norris, who stood in front of a banner for Netanyahu’s Likud party during the minute-long, Hebrew-subtitled clip, called, “Please vote for Prime Minister Netanyahu!”
Norris recalled his close ties with Israel — where he has made three movies, including “Delta Force” — and declared that Netanyahu is a strong leader, “which is absolutely crucial for the safety of the Israeli people.”
The actor, 75, closed by making a direct appeal to Israelis that they vote for Netanyahu in Tuesday’s election.

Chuck Norris: Please vote for Prime Minister Netanyahu!

ISM upset that they cannot break Etsy's rules

Etsy is the famous online store that sells handmade items. Its guidelines state:

Handmade by you
Handmade items must begin with the imagination and creativity of the member operating the Etsy shop.

The anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement has been breaking those guidelines by selling items that were made in the territories, and Etsy promptly shut down the shop.

Here is an email from the ISM whining about how they are being discriminated against by not being allowed to break the rules. Which explains a lot about why they feel so close to Hamas.

If you have wanted to buy a Palestinian-made keffiyeh or Palestinian olive oil or soap or zaatar from our Etsy store since March 9, 2015, and wondered where we are, now you know.

Our Etsy customers gave us the highest possible ratings on Etsy. At least 65 of you gave us five stars out of five and one four (our lowest rating), all with glowing comments about our prices, quality and service. Many expressed endorsement for the use of our fundraising to support the Palestinian economy and culture, as well as nonviolent resistance in Palestine. We are fairly sure that we were the most popular site for Palestinian products.

Etsy's complaint against us was that our items are not hand made by us. That is of course only partly true, because nearly everything that we sell requires the time and effort of our group volunteers to finish the product and make it ready for shipping.

A more telling point, however, is that there are nine other Etsy sellers offering keffiyehs for sale, and theirs are not any more handmade than ours. In fact, four of them offer the exact same product as us, from the exact same supplier in Palestine (Hirbawi factory). Why are we being singled out? We think it is precisely because we are a nonprofit supporting Palestinians and Palestinian human rights. That is the main difference between us and the other Etsy stores.

In a followup email, ISM reproduced some correspondence between them and Etsy. Etsy's emails prohibit their being reproduced without permission, but it was clear based on ISM's own admission that the items were not handmade by the owner of the shop, which is Etsy's criterion for handmade items.

Even so, ISM is crying foul in this response:

Even if we accept that you did not deliberately discriminate against us because of our advocacy for Palestinian rights, you are practicing de facto discrimination. You suggest that if If we see a listing that might not be appropriate for Etsy, the best way is to report it via your site-wide flagging system. You are therefore relying heavily upon others to uphold your standards. If no one complains, it is unlikely that you will take action.

This is ripe for exploitation by persons who want to persecute others or sabotage their competition. In our case, our Palestinian advocacy is not appreciated by persons or groups who would be pleased to see Palestinians disappear from the remnants of historic Palestine where they cling to existence under horrific conditions. I can well imagine that such persons might organize in such a manner as to create a critical mass of reports in order to motivate you to close our store. It is therefore not accurate to say that our store was not suspended due to our support of Palestinians and Palestinian human rights, only that this was perhaps not your intention.

Thanks for the advice, ISM! There are plenty of other Etsy shops selling anti-Israel propaganda items that are clearly not handmade by the sellers.

Like this:

Or this:

Or this

:

Or this T-shirt taken from a Latuff cartoon:

:
Just go to Etsy and search for "Palestine" or "Gaza." If you see items that violate their policies, you can complain. The email address is integrity@etsy.com, addressed to Alison.

The president of the Qatari National Committee for the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, Ambassador Mohammed Al-Emadi, admits that the mechanism for rebuilding Gaza by giving cement directly to Gazans has failed.

In his assessment of the UN mechanism to bring the building materials to Gaza, Al-Emadi said it was "unfortunate and non-effective... because 90% of those affected have sold the quantities of cement they have received on the black market without starting the reconstruction of their homes," and it would have been better to give them the money directly instead of cement.

Reconstruction of terror tunnels and military bases has been proceeding apace even as individual houses, according to Hamas and Islamic Jihad statements, even as houses remain in ruins.

"We need large quantities of cement for each project, and we need materials for brick factories and other factories. The mechanism must be different so [the materials] are delivered to the contracting companies and not to the citizens."

He says that a new mechanism is going to be put into place where building projects of international agencies are directly supplied with construction materials. A new initiative where Israel will allow 1000 tons a day for Qatari-funded construction projects will start next Wednesday.

Surprisingly, even as he emphasized that Qatar is not negotiating directly with Israel to bring aid to Gaza, Emadi praised Israel's efforts, saying that he sensed a serious intention by Israel for the reconstruction of Gaza and to improve living conditions.

Expressing frustration over previous failed efforts to help Gaza, Emadi also said "Qatar paid more than $100 million for Gaza electricity over 3 years through Egypt and the PA, and the whole amount went down the drain."

Qatar has been building 2,000 housing units in Sheikh Hamad and 500 houses elsewhere, as well as some other reconstruction projects.

Qatar has pledged $1 billion for Gaza, including $200 million to the PA that Emadi claims are earmarked to be spent in Gaza.

Hamas propaganda video pretends that they called off mortar attacks when kids arrived

In concert with Hamas' Twitter outreach to the West, they released this video that is 100% poppycock:

Last summer, Hamas sent texts to Israeli civilians saying that they were legal targets:

Your government claimed yesterday that it stopped the battle, but without our consent and meeting our conditions - and it thought we were rash enough to [agree to a] cease-fire. On the contrary, we hurried to strike anywhere in Israel - from Dimona to Haifa - and we made you hide in shelters like mice. . .

Again, we warn you - if your government does not agree to all of our conditions, then all of Israel will legally remain open to our weapons fire.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "all of Israel" includes significant numbers of women and children. (And Arabs.)

They don't have binoculars powerful enough to see where they are shooting their rockets, but they know quite well that they are aiming at cities and civilian targets, as the Qassam Brigades wrote at the time:

The city of Tel Aviv which is the head of the economy, and the Zionist Ben Gurion airport, has become a strategic goal for the Qassam rockets.

Aren't there some kids in Tel Aviv?

Last summer, Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum exhorted Israeli Arabs to kill any Jews they can find:

Let me say, loud and clear, to our people in the West Bank: Don't you have cars? Don't you have motorcycles? Don't you have knives? Don't you have clubs? Don't you have bulldozers? Don't you have trucks? Anyone who has a knife, a club, a weapon, or a car, yet does not use it to run over a Jew or a settler, and does not use it to kill dozens of Zionists, does not belong to Palestine.

Last November, the Qassam Brigades published a list of their achievements. The very first one they mention was the murder of a "rabbi" who lived in Gaza. Not a soldier, but a bearded farmer that they happily brag about killing because he is assumed to be not only Jewish but also a rabbi.

Yet Hamas knows one thing well. Clueless Westerners don't automatically assume that the words that come out of the mouths of even proud murderers are necessarily untrue. And as they learned from their ideological predecessors, if you repeat a lie often enough...