Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 07, 2015

Hamas and Salafist groups continue to attack each other

Since the explosion that rocked Hamas' security HQ earlier this week, there have been a number of other explosions in Gaza, although no one has been killed.

El Badil reports on a number of explosions and other incidents in the last couple of days. A young man was injured when an object exploded. Hamas found and dismantled two bombs in cars on Monday night. Another explosion occurred near a school on Monday.

Last night, there was a large explosion near the Al Nour mosque in central Gaza.

It is widely believed that Salafist groups in Gaza are responsible for this. They threatened Hamas last Saturday. Hamas responded by cracking down on the group and even reportedly destroyed a mosque, something that the Western media didn't think was as newsworthy as someone drawing cartoons.

From TOI yesterday:

A senior Fatah official said Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority planned to appeal the decision to close the French inquiry into the death of Yasser Arafat over concerns investigators had concealed information.

In an interview on Palestinian public radio, Tawfik Tirawi said that French prosecutors contacted Palestinian officials last month requesting that, should their inquiry determine that the former president was poisoned — as the Palestinians claim — the PA would not execute anyone who may be implicated in the assassination.

Tirawi, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee who heads the official Palestinian investigation commission into Arafat’s death, claimed that the French request “indicated that the there is a secret the French want to cover up,” Israel Radio reported.

On Tuesday, a panel of French judges reexamining Arafat’s death concluded their investigation, and sent their findings to the prosecutor, who has three months to prepare submissions on whether to dismiss the case or put it forward to court.

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 last month.

If the French - who seem to have been handpicked by the PLO to investigate, along with Russia and the Swiss - don't corroborate the PLO's official line that Arafat was murdered, then they must be in on the conspiracy!

The Russian scientists came to the same conclusion as the French.

Suha Arafat also weighed in, denouncing the French report and saying that the French scientists cannot explain the circumstances of Arafat's death. She also expressed shock at how quickly the French are deciding to end the investigation, saying that it should continue - and keep her in the headlines - until it finds the results that she would be happy with.

Suha's lawyer said long ago that they will ignore the Russian and French reports because they don't say what she wants them to say.

Besides the fondness for conspiracy theories, the story shows an important fact: Palestinian Arabs will disregard facts when they don't fit their narrative. The narrative is all-important, and facts are fungible, whose only purpose is to be used selectively.

You will rarely find a Palestinian Arab official say "sorry, I was wrong." You won't find a Palestinian "new historian" writing a book about the events of 1948 that contradicts the "Naqba" narrative. You won't find newspaper articles that call into question the sacred cows of Palestinian myth, from the "refugees" to Arafat's death.

It is difficult for the West to understand a mindset where facts themselves are regarded as optional and where their story is more important than history. Surely, we think, they must admit that 2+2=4, right?

In the honor/shame culture, appearances are more important than facts. How you are viewed trumps how you really are. So many of these bizarre incidents, including conspiracy theories, can be explained by understanding the honor/shame mentality and culture.

It is fundamental to understanding the Middle East.

PLO terrorist Jibril Rajoub keeps lobbying to kick Israel out of FIFA (poster)

Jibril Rajoub, the Fatah terrorist who now heads the Palestine Football Association and Palestine Olympic Committee, continues to do everything he can to expel Israel from FIFA.

This week, he took South African minister Tokyo Sexwale on a tour of Hebron, trying to go into the Jewish-designated section of the Cave of the Patriarchs and confronting Israeli soldiers with Sexwale for photo-ops.

Mahmoud Abbas joined the fun, telling Sexwale that it was time to "show the red card" to Israel.

The peaceful and spot-loving Rajoub last year said that a friendly soccer match between Jewish and Arab children a "crime against humanity."

This moderate Fatah official also once called for a nuclear bomb to be dropped on Israel, and he called the idea of a minute of silence in memory of Israeli Olympic athletes slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists to be "racist."

Here is a poster I made of a recent photo of Jibril Rajoub: Perhaps FIFA should see exactly who is behind the campaign to suspend Israel.

(h/t Bob Knot)

05/06 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism Goes to School; BDS Is An Anti-Indigenous, Pro-Colonial Movement

From Ian:

Anti-Semitism Goes to School

War differs from other forms of human interaction in dividing us into those for and those against. The organization of politics against the Jews constitutes an unusual form of warfare in that all the aggression is on one side and all the hunger for resolution on the other. The desperation or “pessimism” that is generated by this genuinely irrational barrage has tempted some Jews to hold other Jews responsible, preposterously, for the suffering of Palestinian Arabs. Anti-Semitism thrives on the “hopeful” idea that if Jews are responsible for a crisis, it can be easily solved by the Jews’ transformation, or elimination. Some Jews, seduced by this irrationality, help to stoke its fires.
When the current enemies of the Jews first chose the universities as a primary battleground in America, they met little or no opposition from liberal administrators or faculty, including Jewish faculty. Anti-Semitism, after all, is just an idea—is it not?—and ideas, which is what universities traffic in, can be the springboard for the best of human endeavors. Indeed they can; but they are also the springboard for the worst, and not even God can help those who fail to distinguish between the two. Anti-Semitism, among the very worst of human inventions, has by now thoroughly corroded Arab societies and with great force and determination is making its way back into Europe. Can America prove exceptional by recognizing the threat and fighting it off?

BDS Is An Anti-Indigenous, Pro-Colonial Movement

First and foremost, as I have alluded to in my opening paragraph, BDS is neither about human rights or co-existence. The goal from the outset has always been to dissolve Israel and replace it with an Arab Palestinian state, thereby restoring the country to Arab colonial domination. Barghouti himself made this clear when he openly boasted of his desire to “euthanize” Israel, and that the outcome of BDS would not be a two state solution, but “a Palestine next to a Palestine.”
Other prominent BDS supporters, such as As’ad Abu Khalil, were even more candid, saying that “justice and freedom” for Palestinians is “incompatible with the existence of the State of Israel.” And what would happen to the Jews in such a state? Only time can answer that question, but given the obscenely high rates of antisemitism throughout the Arab world, it is safe to say that deportations and massacres (against Jews) are far more likely than anything resembling peaceful co-existence. This, however, is of no concern to the BDS movement or its sympathizers.
Second, although the dominant narrative in Israel/Palestine discourse is that Palestinian Arabs are the “true” indigenous occupants of the Holy Land, a cursory glance at the history of the region paints a very different picture. Palestinian Arabs, as their name directly implies, are a subgroup of the larger Arab nation whose origins lie in the Hejaz province of what is now Saudi Arabia. Their presence in the Levant largely dates back to the 7th century AD, when Arabian armies colonized a significant portion of the Middle East and nearly all of North Africa. And even though today’s Palestinians share a considerable amount of genetic material with diaspora Jews, indigenous status is lost when one fully adopts the mantle of the colonizer. Throughout their conquests, Arabs have oppressed, subsumed, and eliminated countless indigenous cultures while imposing their own via brute force. Israel was just one of the many regions that came under Arab colonial rule, and Jews (at least those who remained after the earlier Roman occupation) were just one of the many indigenous peoples they subjugated. The Dome of the Rock was deliberately built on the site of the fallen Temple, and was intended to be a symbol of humiliation to the Jews.

"Courage: The Reason I'm an Israeli-Arab Diplomat Not a Palestinian Refugee"

Israeli-Arab diplomat George Deek weaves together his family history, his childhood and his hopes for the future, bringing the audience at the StandWithUs UK Annual Event to their feet.

Seventh Fatah Congress planned for August

Arab media are reporting that Mahmoud Abbas plans to schedule the seventh Fatah Congress sometime this summer.

The sixth Fatah Congress was held in August, 2009. It was marred by public disagreements and insults, as factions that represented Mahmoud Dahlan, Mahmoud Abbas and the Al Aqsa Brigades all jostled for political gain. Abbas and the old Arafat loyalists did everything they could to marginalize the "new guard" who organized the first intifada in 1989.

When the Central Committee decided not to issue a written report but only to present it orally, chaos broke out and Mahmoud Abbas instructed his bodyguards to eject members of the Congress.

In the end, a new Fatah Platform was issued. In it, Fatah made very clear that it still supported terrorism despite the lies its members tell the media in English. Here is what I wrote about it last year:

The main strategic goals are "Liberating the homeland, ending its settler occupation and attaining the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people." Note that these are separate goals - the "homeland" is all of British Mandate Palestine while the "occupation" is the areas Israel gained in 1967 and the "inalienable rights" include the "right to return."

The platform makes it very clear that Fatah still subscribes to "armed resistance" as a "right":" "The Palestinian people’s right to practice armed resistance against the military occupation of their land remains a constant right confirmed by international law and international legality."

Unintentionally proving how tenuous Palestinian peoplehood is, the platform tries to shore it up by saying"The Palestinians are a genuine people with a clear identity and clear affiliation to their homeland. They maintained their attachment to this identity and to their homeland through their national struggle for almost a century."

Two of their tactics include:

Boycotting Israeli products at home and abroad through popular movement, particularly those goods for which there is local substitute. Performing new forms of civil disobedience against the occupation and launching an international campaign to boycott Israel, its products, and its institutions benefiting from the experience of South Africa against Apartheid....

Restoring our direct and strong relations with the Israeli peace camp, and revitalizing our joint action for a just peace, without mingling it with normalization with Israel, which is rejected while occupation continues.

It also calls to strengthen the culture of terror:

Continued commitment to the culture of struggle, and the permanent readiness to engage in resisting the occupation, and sacrifice for the homeland. Continuous education through regular organizational meetings and training courses. The issuing of Fatah circulars, to continue mobilizing the cadres of the movement and masses with the heritage of the Palestinian armed struggle. Celebrating our battles, and commemorating the history of our struggle and the permanent readiness to sacrifice.

Every single thing that is incompatible with true peace is enshrined in this platform. These are not negotiable positions, according to this document.

I am certain that neither John Kerry nor President Obama, nor Thomas Friedman nor any supposed mainstream media "expert" ever read this.

In fact, practically no one in the West has read this platform, although Mahmoud Abbas has been acting entirely consistently with it. I translated some of it when it was released, but this official English translation seems to have been released over a year later. I found it at the Palestinian Press Office of Denmark.

This is essential reading in order to understand the strategy of the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah Political Platform by Eldad Tzioni

Rabbis: Avoid Gharqad Wood In Lag BaOmer Bonfires (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Jerusalem, May 6 - In advance of the minor festival of Lag BaOmer that begins Wednesday night, Israel's Chief Rabbinate issued a warning not to use the wood of the gharqad bush in the customary bonfires, as the gharqad is needed to protect Jews from righteous Muslims.

Lag BaOmer, or the thirty-third day of the Omer period between Passover and Shavuot, marks a break in the quasi-mournful practices that characterize the Omer. The day is traditionally accepted as the anniversary of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's passing, whose parting gift to the world was the teachings appearing the foremost work of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar. "Zohar" means "glow" or "radiance," and the radiance of Rabbi Shimon's revelatory teachings is symbolized by bonfires.

Additionally, Lag BaOmer is also celebrated as the day a devastating plague on the disciples of Rabbi Akiva - the teacher of Rabbi Shimon - ended, ushering in a period of renewed growth in Jewish lore. The bonfire represents, among other ideas, the energy and life that persists even in the driest, deadest wood. Zionist youth movements adopted the Lag BaOmer bonfire as an expression of the renewal they sought to bring to Jewry through the resettlement of the land. Tens of thousands of such bonfires take place every Lag BaOmer, many of them continuing into the morning, with many tons of twigs, fallen branches, scrap lumber, and old furniture fueling the pyres.

However, Muslim tradition foretells that at the end of days, when Muslims finally rise up to eliminate the Jews, the latter will hide behind trees and bushes. All but the gharqad will call out to the Muslim pursuers that Jews are hiding behind them, because the gharqad "is the tree of the Jews." To ensure that such plants remain to hide behind when the time comes, the Rabbinate issued the customary annual instructions that include avoiding the burning of gharqad wood.

"First, the most important part of this celebration is fire safety and precautions," read the announcement. "Please follow the directions and orders of local police, fire and park officials. Second, certain species of tree are protected, and must not be used as fuel for bonfires. Among them is the gharqad, which we must preserve for the End of Days."

Gharqad is a thorny, flowering shrub, and its branches would be an unlikely choice for bonfire fuel. Nevertheless, says Judaism authority Ali Abunimah, the Rabbis saw fit to warn Israelis not to use it because of their fundamental insecurity about their faith. "The truth will always out, and the truth here is that even the religious leaders of the Zionists know their project is a sham and doesn't represent real Judaism," he explained.

05/06 Links Pt1: Amb. Prosor: Radical Islamists are the new Nazis; Abbas is old, Hamas divided

From Ian:

Dore Gold: New “Breaking the Silence” Report Maliciously Defames Israel

The Jerusalem Center recently published an extensive study of Operation Protective Edge entitled The Gaza War 2014: The War Israel Did Not Want and the Disaster It Averted. The book includes a chapter by Lt. Col. (res.) David Benjamin, who served in the IDF Military Advocate General’s Corps (MAG) as Chief Legal Advisor for the Gaza Strip. That chapter, along with other research in the book, shows how the IDF goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and to comply with international law. The IDF investigates any incident that may involve violation of those rules.
An IDF Fact Finding Assessment Mechanism (FFAM) was set up and activated during Operation Protective Edge. The FFAM, headed by a major-general and composed of operational and legal experts, mostly reservists, began its work about two weeks into the operation. To date, around 100 incidents have been referred by the MAG for examination by the FFAM.
The organization Breaking the Silence recently alleged that testimonies it collected from anonymous Israeli soldiers showed that the IDF employed indiscriminate fire in Gaza that resulted in many Palestinian civilian casualties and widespread destruction.
As in previous cases, Breaking the Silence refuses to provide the names of these witnesses or to make them available to IDF investigators who are charged with investigating all accusations of army wrong-doing. Other NGOs often provide details of their cases, usually from the Palestinian perspective, so that the IDF Military Advocate General’s Corps (MAG) can investigate such incidents.
It is clear that Breaking the Silence is less interested in uncovering the facts and instead seeks to defame the State of Israel.

Israeli Ambassador Prosor Compares Radical Islamists to Nazis on Anniversary of WWII Ending

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor on Tuesday compared Islamic extremists to Nazi forces in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
“Freedom is once again under attack. The radical Islamists marching across the Middle East and North Africa are every bit as determined and dangerous as the Nazi forces that marched across Europe,” he said. “Seventy-five years ago men, women, and children were rounded up and murdered because of what they believed, where they came from, how they looked, and whom they loved.”
“The same crimes are taking place in the Middle East,” he added.
Prosor listed modern victims of such atrocities, including activists and political opponents, people hanged for their sexual preferences and Christians beheaded for their religious beliefs. He told the UNGA “evil is alive and well – and not just in the Middle East.” He urged the attendees to take action against the malice, saying, “Freedom is worth fighting for. Equality is worth fighting for. Democracy is worth fighting for.”

Prosor at UNGA: 70th Anniversary of the End of WWII

Former UK Cmdr.: UN, Foreign Governments ‘Deliberately’ Twisting Laws of Armed Conflict on Israel

Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp, former commander of the UK’s forces in Afghanistan, was one of the prominent participants at the conference.
Other international contributors included former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Benny Gantz and former Deputy Chief of US Special Operations Command, Lt.-Gen. (ret.) David Fridovich, among other legal, military and counter-terrorism experts.
Kemp told the Tazpit News Agency that the United Nations, foreign governments and human rights organizations were “deliberately misunderstanding, and misrepresenting, international laws of armed conflict,” specifically referring to the law of proportionality.
“These organizations and governments are portraying Israel as breaking the laws of armed conflict, which according to my knowledge, they’re not,” Kemp contended.
Meanwhile, he continued, those very same bodies were not adequately holding Hamas responsible for their own clear violations, particularly regarding “human shields.”

Maariv has a very disturbing story about how Israel has abandoned the historic Mount of Olives cemetery, the largest and most important Jewish cemetery in the world.

Excerpts:

Isaac Gul died at the age of 89 on the Sabbath before Passover. Born in Afghanistan, "he loved his country" his nephew Yochanan said. "He joined the army, fought bravely during the Six Day War, lived alone, and before he died he had only one request: to be buried on the Mount of Olives."

Two weeks ago, when his nephew came to the Mount of Olives to fill the request of his uncle, he was attacked by a group of Arab rioters with stones and bottles. Windshields were smashed. Gul was miraculously saved. This week, when going to unveil the gravestone thirty days since the death, he was shocked at what he saw. "Everything was destroyed, and there is no gravestone," he said, weeping.

Following this short interview I went the next day on a tour of the Mount with the Jerusalem city council member, Aryeh King. Not to find something I didn't know. To see it with my own eyes. This tour is a must for anyone who wants to understand the incompetence of the State of Israel with the Arab enemy. Not in Iran. Here, at home.

A few hundred meters from the Western Wall, a stone's throw from the Knesset, the Supreme Court and in the middle of the pulsating capital of Israel, the State chose to give up.

Who wants to visit loved ones on the mountain cemetery while risking getting hurt by stones, Molotov cocktails or being lynched by students in local schools. Those who come in will see neglect, dirt, vandalism and countless pictures, each of which, had it occured in a Jewish cemetery in Europe, would be headline news.

Many families prefer, fearing for their safety, not to visit the graves of loved ones any more. A close friend told me about an elderly relative he had who owned a plot at the Mount, and with her death, the family decided to bury her elsewhere. "We had a great fear that whoever comes to visit the place would risk his life," he explained, "or simply nobody will visit the grave".

The cemetery on the Mount of Olives, unique in its essential purpose, is also a piece of history in Israel. According to estimates, more than one hundred thousand Jews are buried there, including rabbis, leaders and cultural figures, intellectuals and men of action. Rabbi Ovadia Bartenura and Rabbi Haim Ben Attar. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his son Itamar Ben Avi. Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook and Rabbi Isaac Herzog. Yoel Moshe Salomon and the poet Zelda. Henrietta Szold and Zalman Aran. Menachem Begin, Agnon and Uri Zvi Greenberg. Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani. The Jewish Quarter fell in battle in the War of Independence and fighters wanted to be buried in this special place.

In many cases, intensive illegal Arabic construction comes to within a couple of meters from the graves themselves. Access to burial plots requires maneuvering between crowded houses of Arab neighborhoods. "Look at all this," King points to a huge compound on the eastern slope of the cemetery. "Go and check the Jerusalem municipality approved master plan, and you will see that all this land is part of the cemetery. You'll find that much of the land occupied here by Arabs is wholly owned by Jews who bought them years ago. "

"Landowners lost their land, and have no ability to do anything," King continues. "The Arabs have taken it all. Almost all of the area's huge building boom occurred in the last 15 years. You can seeee it in the pictures. They build illegally on lands that are part of the cemetery, the land of individual Jewish people, and people do not mess with them."

Not far from us, adjacent to one of the plots, stand two large buildings, 18 apartments in each building. One is already populated. The construction of the second was recently completed. No one is stopping this illegal construction on land that does not belong to them. "You see this mosque", King points out, "it's one of the first buildings that were built here. There is a directive from the municipality's legal adviser that this mosque is a sensitive matter, so you do not destroy mosques. So the mosque remained in place, and what grew around it you see yourself ".

Until recently there were security cameras on poles. Vandals toppled the poles, broke the cameras, and destroyed in ten minutes the entire security system.

Dozens of graves, almost all of those who died in past 30-40 years, are broken and shattered. The tomb of Mordechai Siman-Tov, was opened and filled with waste. A tire was put next to it and set on fire. A nearby gravestone holds is smashed into four large fragments. The last name of Esther is impossible to identify. By the writing that is still intact you can only learn she was "modest woman".

The grave of "our father Yekusiel", what's left of it does not allow us to know which family he belonged. "Women who fear the Lord have much to be praised," according to what remains from the grave of Miriam, daughter of Nathaniel and Rachel. This tomb also had its headstone removed and thrown to the ground. A few meters away lies a pile of broken gravestones some of which are difficult to identify from which grave they were removed. So they lie like a wave of stones, shattered pieces from the stones of Murdoch and Aaron Cohen and Leah Moshaioff Bruriah and Simcha Cohen and many others. A word here, a half word there, letters floating in the air.

I searched on Google this week for reports that appear occasionally on Jewish cemeteries desecrated worldwide. Anti-Semitic rioters vandalized a Jewish cemetery in Morocco. Tombstones were broken and uprooted in a Jewish cemetery in southern New Zealand, a headline from a few weeks earlier. Swastikas painted on the walls of the cemetery in Larissa, Greece. Trees were felled at a Jewish burial place in Chisinau in Moldova. For some reason, when these events occur in the wider world, it shocks us much more. Then we hear of "anti-Semitism rearing its head again," Israeli politicians call for stopping the vandals, and an expert on the history of the Second World War duly shows up to answer the question if Europe isi returning to its past.

And what about us? We are the only country where anti-Semitic actions are not newsworthy. A country where anti-Arab graffiti is a story that draws attention a thousand times greater than desecration of Israel's capital everyday. We worry about antisemitism in Hungary, but with us? We are afraid to speak loudly against it.

The Mount of Olives cemetery is perhaps the only one in Israel that is wide open, in the full sense of the word, around the clock. On the Ras Al-amod there was once placed in a large iron gate, but anyone who wanted to use the path between graves, pulled it up long ago. Currently, the cemetery serves as a shortcut for the Arab residents who want to reach their homes.

Six months ago the Arabs here have desecrated the grave of Rabbi Meir Levin Itcha. Levin, a former leader of Agudath Israel, Minister of Welfare was Israel's first signer of the Declaration of Independence. The grave was broken and open. This week I tried to remember if I heard about this event at the time. I could not.

"38 years ago we started to arrange transportation from the school of Gore Mount of Olives, back and forth all day, free," says David Leventhal, who took over the responsibility for a section. "A lot of people wanted to go to the graves. In recent years, the passenger vehicle is almost empty. No one dares to come. They are attacked." Leventhal tries hard to preserve the place. "The Arabs smashed the graves. They now have a new method. They put a tire or a mattress, light it or throw a Molotov cocktail and run away....I've installed security cameras, and they broke them all. "

Nothing I have written here is new. These acts take place every day. Within the cemetery and beyond. I went through the list of recent attacks this week. Not a day goes by without a few incidents of stone throwing or Molotov cocktails. Sometimes the Jews escape lynching.

I debated whether to ask for a comment from someone for this article, and I decided there was no point. Police say it was the municipality, the municipality will approach the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Religious Affairs will say it belongs to the Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, the latter will explain a comprehensive policy is needed, and is responsible for overall policy now busy forming the government. The Prime Minister will continue to talk about a united Jerusalem which is our capital forever. The mayor of Jerusalem he will continue to emphasize that he is the mayor of Jerusalem in all its parts. The President continue to bless us with Good Morning Jerusalem , and no one could refute the bottom line. The State of Israel, through the Government of Israel is not interested in truly being sovereign in Jerusalem.

I asked Mayor Barkat about this a couple of years ago and he assured me that things were safe.

I have a number of relatives buried in the Mount of Olives, including two grandparents and a great-great-grandfather whose gravestone was smashed during Jordanian occupation.

This is scandalous.

(h/t Yenta)

Miss Syria Sarah Nakhle, competing for the title of Miss Arab, expressed her support for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad during a question and answer session.

During an interview with Egyptian TV the brainless beauty queen pointed out that Assad was an opthamologist, and as a doctor he "wouldn't hurt an ant."

She also said "Everyone is asking me whether I am a Sunni or Alawite or Druze and Christian, I am Syrian, and religion is for God and the homeland is for all. "

Miss Syria gave advice for all girls to have confidence in themselves and to be natural beautiful and stay away from cosmetics and skin care and pay attention to healthy eating.

Miss Syria ended up in fourth place in the competition. It is unclear how she was nominated to begin with. (Well, a little unclear.)

(h/t Phil)

From hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill's Facebook page:

Dear Friends and Fans in Israel,
When deciding to play the region, my intention was to perform in both Tel Aviv and Ramallah. Setting up a performance in the Palestinian Territory, at the same time as our show in Israel, proved to be a challenge. I've wanted very much to bring our live performance to this part of the world, but also to be a presence supporting justice and peace. It is very important to me that my presence or message not be misconstrued, or a source of alienation to either my Israeli or my Palestinian fans. For this reason, we have decided to cancel the upcoming performance in Israel, and seek a different strategy to bring my music to ALL of my fans in the region. May healing, equanimity, and the openness necessary for lasting resolution and reconciliation come to this region and its people.
Respectfully,
Ms. Lauryn Hill

The concert was announced in the beginning of March and cancelled on Sunday, three days before it was to be performed.

What Hill didn't say was that she was subject to a huge campaign to bully her into canceling the concert from the BDS crowd.

The excuse that she canceled because of the issue of not being able to perform in Ramallah is obviously a lie. If that was her intent all along, then she wouldn't have announced the Tel Aviv concert until arrangements had been made for the Ramallah concert. Canceling a concert three days beforehand is a political statement whether she likes it or not. And it is a slap in the face of her Israeli fans.

Lauryn Hill didn't have the honesty to say, like Salif Kelta did, that she was threatened by hundreds of haters. Her decision had nothing to do with "peace and justice" or logistics. After all, she performed in Israel in 2007 without worrying about any Ramallah performance.

On the other hand, she didn't publicly embrace boycotting Israel, ,and she tried with this message to say that she still loves her Israeli fans.

The BDS crowd ignores that, and is calling their bullying tactics a victory. It is - because despite her pretense of canceling because she cares about her fans, she really did it to avoid being pilloried by professional haters who don't want peace but want to see the Jewish state destroyed.

She can't have it both ways. Her cancellation is more of a "source of alienation" to her fans than her performance would have been - no one is boycotting the many artists who have braved the threats and performed in Israel. She caved to haters and antisemites and didn't have the honesty to admit it.

With this episode, Lauryn Hill showed herself to be nothing but a coward.

UPDATE: Dionne Warwick, who is performing in Israel this month, had a pointed response to Lauryn Hill:

A statement released to the press read that Ms. Warwick "would never fall victim to the hard pressures of Roger Waters, from Pink Floyd, or other political people who have their views on politics in Israel."

"Waters’ political views are of no concern to Ms. Warwick, as she holds her own unique views on world matters. Art has no boundaries. Ms. Warwick will always honor her contracts," the statement read.

"If Ms. Warwick had an objection to performing in Israel, no offer would have been entertained and no contract would have been signed," the statement concluded.

(h/t cba)

05/05 Links Pt2: “Mondoweiss” is a hate site; The Jihad on Free Speech Comes to Texas; Latma Ep11

From Ian:

“Mondoweiss” is a hate site

Mondweiss is basically one-stop shopping for anti-Israel news. Anything bad that goes on in Israel will be publicized and exaggerated at Mondoweiss. If you want to know the far-left anti-Israel party line on any recent event, Mondoweiss is the place to go.
So in a sense it’s understandable that people with an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict read Mondoweiss, especially if they share the blog’s anti-Israel politics. I keep up sporadically with Mondoweiss largely because its posts sometimes find their way into my Facebook feed from some of my more left-wing friends.
I hope my Facebook friends and others recognize, however, that whatever Mondoweiss’ value as a news aggregator, it is also a hate site.
Mondoweiss tries to preserve a fine line between hostility to Jews and hostility to Israel, but every once in a while, Weiss reminds us that the blog’s entire existence owes to the fact that he can’t maintain that separation.
The most dramatic example I’ve seen arrived in my Facebook feed last week via a Jewish journalist who passed it along with the comment, “Who thinks like this?”
In the course of a typical (for Weiss) rambling, somewhat incoherent post, titled, “Forgving the Anti-Semites,” Weiss makes the following claims, all of which are either unrelated to Israel or are only tangentially related to Israel–unless you believe that whatever Israel’s sins, they are not the “normal” sins of a nation-state, but somehow inextricably tied to the shortcomings of Jews.

Bernard-Henri Lévy: In Praise of Blasphemy

American friends, especially PEN Club writers, please read, right now, Caroline Fourest's new book, Eloge du blasphème (In Praise of Blasphemy, Grasset 2015), if you wish to understand:
1. why Charlie Hebdo was and is more respectful to Muslims than the idiots who think they are honoring Islam by killing;
2. that the real provocateurs were not the cartoonists themselves but those who waved the cartoons under the noses of Muslims who otherwise would not have seen them, thereby stirring up demonstrations that served, here, to draw attention from their own infamy; there, to appropriate the mantle of true defender of the prophet; or, on other occasions, to apply pressure in one or another international negotiation (for example, on nuclear power);
3. that the cover Charlie Hebdo ran after the killing, the cover depicting the prophet with a tear in his eye and the caption "All is forgiven," was the most peaceful, elegant, and conciliatory message conceivable and that those who asserted otherwise were inflammatory cynics; (h/t Alexi)

Latma: We'll be the Judge, episode 11

The eleventh episode of the Israeli satire program "We'll be the Judge," from the creators of Latma's Tribal Update, Israel Channel 1, April 30, 2015.

PA dumps evil Zionist flour

From Ma'an:

Flour imported from Israel will come under strict restrictions imposed by the Palestinian Ministry of National Economyto ensure the product meets standards set by the Palestine Standards Institution.

Israeli flour that isn't enriched with the vitamins and nutrients required by PSI would be banned in the Palestinian market, the ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

"Legal procedures will be taken against merchants who have flour which does not meet the required specifications," the statement said, adding that the move was taken to protect Palestinian consumers.

The statement added that inspectors in cooperation with the Ministry of Health discovered stockpiled flour which failed to meet the required specifications.

The flour has been confiscated and dumped and legal procedures were taken against the owners, according to the statement.

Ah, so Israeli flour is not up to Palestinian quality standards. And it is so dangerous, it must be dumped and not, for example, shipped to starving Palestinians in Yarmouk.

Because, they care.

In case you are interested in Palestinian flour standards, the best I could find was this document from 2005.

(h/t PTWatch)

In last Tuesday’s column I quoted part of Baron Davies of Llandinam’s speech in the House of Lords on 10 March 1942 condemning, inter alia, the Palestine Censor’s ludicrous savage cuts to an eminent Jerusalem-based Church of Scotland minister’s Christmas message intended for the Palestine Post in 1940. Also speaking in that debate was a firm friend to Jewry and the Yishuv, the recently ennobled Baron Wedgwood of Barlaston (1872-1943), better known to history as Colonel Josiah Wedgwood MP. This member of the famous pottery family was a genuine philosemite – I won’t belabour that point here, since I hope to address the issue of philosemitism in a subsequent column or columns and to discuss him as an exemplar. Suffice it to say, for our purposes here, that in his book The Seventh Dominion (1928) he advocated an independent Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan as an integral part of the British Commonwealth, and that he supported the Zionist cause through thick and thin. On 9 June 1942, during the course of a pro-Jewish speech laden – to quote the Jewish Chronicle of 12 June – with “deep emotion,” he told the House of Lords that it had been “years” since any speech of his had been reported in Palestine. He added that a recent broadcast he made to America had been censored despite British assurances to the contrary. Furthermore, an official Mandate Administration radio program for the Arabs had advised that he and Baron Davies were not genuine bluebloods but social upstarts who had been created peers for party reasons.

Also deeply troubled by the behaviour of the Palestine Censor was Lewis Bernstein Namier (1888-1960), the distinguished Polish-born Professor of Modern History at Manchester University, who was a convinced Zionist. In a letter to the staunchly pro-Zionist Manchester Guardian early in April 1942, he complained that the Censor had deleted the following concluding paragraph from a leading article in the Palestine Post (27 February 1942) about the Struma tragedy:

“It is yet too early and the shock too fresh for responsibility to be allotted and the guilt to be established. But that there must be an inquiry goes without saying. That is one of the most established traditions of the Empire under whose protection we live. Catastrophes such as these have led more than once in British history to far-reaching decisions. But whatever investigation is conducted, whatever action taken, one thing is certain: This must never happen again.”

Namier wondered whether the similar sentiments regarding the Struma expressed by British Colonial Secretary Viscount Cranborne (1893-1973; later the 5^th Marquess of Salisbury) had been cut by the Censor, and wrote of the excised passage:

“Surely this is legitimate comment and, indeed, remarkably restrained in the circumstances.”

Meanwhile, the Manchester Guardian, in a leader about the same incident, observed that the Palestine Censor appeared to be encroaching on new territory in his evident desire not to offend the Arabs:

“This particular exercise, if it is confirmed, would mean that the censorship was protecting the Administration not only from criticism but even from possible or implied criticism, for the passage does not impute responsibility from anyone.”

In another leader quoted in the Jewish Chronicle (10 April 1942), the Manchester Guardian stated that the Palestine Censor had obfuscated the political situation in the Middle East. That leader went on:

05/05 Links Pt1: Matti Friedman on the Breaking the Silence report; The Facts on the Security Fence

From Ian:

IDF Blog: Setting the Facts Straight on the Security Fence

The security fence serves one purpose and one purpose only: to prevent terrorists from carrying out deadly attacks on Israeli civilians. Since the construction of the fence began, there has been a significant decrease in the number of attacks originating in Judea and Samaria.
During the Second Intifada (2000-2005), terrorists from Judea and Samaria executed horrific attacks including shootings, suicide attacks, and bombings. The violence proved to be most fatal between 2001 and 2004, when 984 Israelis were murdered. As a direct response to the attacks, the IDF began construction of the security fence.
The security fence proved to be a highly effective measure for reducing terror attacks. The graphs below demonstrate how terror has decreased since its construction.
1. The security fence has reduced suicide attacks to zero.
2. Just 5% of the security fence is made of concrete. The concrete areas, which are built near roads to prevent shooting attacks, have proven very effective.

Matti Friedman on the Breaking the Silence report

3. Breaking the Silence is described as an organization of Israeli veterans trying to expose Israelis to the nature of service in the occupied territories, in order to have a political impact on Israeli society. That's what it was a long time ago, and it once had an important role to play. But now it's something else. Today, like B’Tselem and others, it's a group funded in large part by European money which serves mainly to provide international reporters with the lurid examples of Israeli malfeasance that they crave. They are not speaking to Israelis, but are rather exploiting Israelis' uniquely talkative and transparent nature in order to defame them.
There is actually a fairly straightforward solution to this problem. Any group genuinely fighting for the character of Israeli society should do so in Hebrew, which is the language that Israelis speak. If you're expending a great deal of energy and money translating your materials into English and speaking to foreign reporters, as we’re seeing Breaking the Silence do right now, I think it's fair to ask what, exactly, you're up to. How is speaking to the international press supposed to swing Israelis in your direction? Of course it has the opposite effect.
As long as this state of affairs continues, Israelis will be correct in identifying this group and its sister organizations as people paid by foreigners to say things that a lot of foreigners want to hear Israelis say. And Israelis will continue to live without the strong left that we need – one that comes from Israel, is part of Israel, and is concerned with bettering our society, not with posturing for an audience abroad whose hostile obsession with us has nothing to do with us at all.

NGO Monitor: Negative Testimony from ‘Breaking the Silence’ Meets Quota for Grant Makers

IDF veterans who provided negative testimony for the leftist NGO “Breaking the Silence” may not realize they are also participating in an effort by the group to fulfill a funding quota for bad stuff against Israel.
According to a report by the NGO Monitor, a number of grant-making agencies who provide funding to leftist organizations in Israel have made their patronage contingent upon the groups’ abilities to obtain a minimum number of negative “testimonies.”
“This contradicts Breaking the Silence” declarations and thus turns it into an organization that represents its foreign donors’ interest, severely damaging the NGO’s reliability and its ability to analyze complicated combat situations,” said the report.
One example is the foreign leftist Oxfam group, which signed an agreement with Breaking the Silence, according to the NGO Monitor watchdog organization.
According to that agreement, the Monitor reported, BTS was to conduct interviews with “as many” soldiers as possible who would testify regarding [Israeli] “immoral actions] that violate human rights.