Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 08, 2015

05/08 Links Pt1: Glick: Siding with the victims of aggression; Honig: Salami slices some salami

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Siding with the victims of aggression

There is a third, more general reason that we recoil from the thought of blaming rape victims for their suffering. One of the foundations of liberal societies has always been that victims of aggression are not to blame for their attackers’ behavior.
Over the past few days, we have witnessed a dangerous erosion of this principle among American elites.
Last Sunday two Islamic terrorists armed with assault rifles tried to massacre participants at a Muhammed cartoon drawing contest in Garland, Texas.
The goal of the contest was self-evident. The organizers wished to defend the freedom of speech – and the right to life – of critics of Islamic totalitarianism.
Rather than standing with the contest’s organizers and participants, the US media from MSNBC to Fox News attacked Pamela Geller, the event’s main organizer and accused her of responsibility for the attack.

Sarah Honig: Salami slices some salami

Who says history has no sense of humor? Just as US President Barack Obama seeks to hide away the salami slices shaved off his deal with Iran, an Iranian named Salami exposes an extra-thick and very telling slice.
Without much ado, the Deputy Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, gave the lie to one of Obama’s most significant contentions about the deal that America’s Commander in Chief is cooking up with the nuke-craving ayatollah regime.
Significantly, Salami didn’t whisper off the record. He didn’t speculate about hearsay in a back room. He didn’t impart hints given to conflicting interpretations. Salami said his piece openly on state TV. He announced out loud that, contrary to American claims, there would be no foreign inspections of Iranian military sites. Period. End of. No quibbling.
Inspections, railed Salami, would be “selling out.” To hear him, “a tour of military facilities by foreign inspectors is to be equated with the occupation of a country. Iran will not become a paradise for spies. We will not roll out the red carpet for the enemy… They will not even be permitted to inspect the most normal military site in their dreams.”

JPost Editorial: Palestinian elections

A “government of war which will be against peace and stability in our region” was the way chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat chose to describe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newly formed narrow coalition.
This was hardly an auspicious start to renewing relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Erekat does not surprise with his criticism, made to an AFP reporter Thursday, but he does open himself up to painful comparisons with his Palestinian government.
Disparage it as you will, our incoming government came into being through a fair, democratic process; it represents the will of the majority of Israeli voters; and it is a legitimate political leadership.
The same cannot be said about Erekat and his political cronies in the PA.
Take Mahmoud Abbas, for instance. Among the hats he wears, which include chairman of the PLO and president of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas also calls himself the second president of the “State of Palestine,” taking over from the late Yasser Arafat.
He was sworn in as president of the “State of Palestine” on May 8, 2005 – exactly 10 years ago. But what was supposed to be a four-year term has stretched to a full decade.

Muslim artist in Tunisia paints Jews - respectfully

Al Jazeera has an article about Tahir Mamith, a Tunisian Muslim artists who specializes in painting Jews.

There are several thousand Jews remaining in Tunisia.

He specializes in paintings of Jews who are doing religious rites. A collection of his paintings were on exhibit in the Djerba synagogue that was the focus of the annual Lag B'Omer pilgrimage.

The turnout at this year's festival seems to have been much lower than last year, with the crowd being described in most articles as in the hundreds, as opposed to over two thousand last year.

Part of that may have been because of Israel's warnings of a potential for a terror attack during the event.

IDF soldiers refute allegations of Breaking the Silence

From Shai Levy in Mako:

I'm flooded with messages from IDF soldiers and officers. Not long after "Breaking the Silence" published the testimonies of IDF soldiers who fought in Operation Protective Edge , I was approached by the same soldiers and officers in every way possible: phone, messaging, Whatsapp and even through email. Everyone sent a clear message, "They stuck a knife in our back with a malicious plot", as a tank officer with the rank of lieutenant wrote me. They vehemently deny the evidence disseminated by Breaking the Silence and expose cases that prove their claims, as well as the difficult feelings.

It is important to mention that all interviews in the article were made independently and not through the filter of the army, and not in cooperation with the IDF spokesman.

Lt. Oren (a pseudonym) was a platoon commander in the 7th Brigade during the Gaza war. In one of the testimonies of Breaking the Silence, one argued that, "They just chose [a house] – the tank commander said, “Just pick the farthest one, so it does the most damage.” Revenge of sorts. So we fired at one of the houses. Really you just see a block of houses in front of you, so the distance doesn’t really matter.. "Lt. Oren says he knows the event personally, and even took part in his capacity.

He said, "This is an event about late Levitas (Captain Dimitri Levitas), which is simply not true. I have personally seen his body and we were frazzled. But even then we maintained our military ethics. It is true we did heavy firing, but we fired at the source of fire or suspicious places, all in accordance with the procedure and we followed a very strict identification procedure. Understand what I'm saying: our commander was killed, a friend, and we kept shooting according to appropriate procedures. This nonsense of shooting at the house because we want revenge is just a blatant lie. I can not believe that one of us said anything like that, certainly not someone who was there. "

He said commanders in the field use very precise intelligence information referring to almost any home. They know where the majority of the tunnels are, where there are no civilians is no less important, all shells shot only after a proper procedure they have been practicing for a long time before the operation. "Before and after the operation, we emphasized to the officers and soldiers the importance of accurate shooting, to identify the target of not shoot innocent people. More than that, Lotan brigade commander (Col. Nadav Lotan) still talking about even during every minute of a respite. Even then to the soldiers and commanders, he kept saying, 'Be sure to be careful and accurate so as not to shoot innocent people. "

He also revealed, "I can tell you about the two cases we were able to target what we suspected was a dispatcher, and we desisted for fear of hitting innocent people. One of them turned out to be a dispatcher for sure that hid near civilians."

In a conversation with the then battalion commander, an officer who was then a lieutenant colonel told me that "we had a crazy amount of intelligence. We double checked, and verified the verification," the officer told me. He also said during the waiting time before they would enter the Gaza Strip, "the fighters already studied the importance of accuracy and injury prevention against the innocent." According to him, this is an issue that many officers also emphasized to the soldiers during the fighting.

"Almost all the shooting got my approval and, if not mine then the officer in charge. All of our entrances to areas were made after we announced to them (citizens) with messages from planes, phones and what not. Now give me one example in history, one of the Army in announcing to its enemy where he plans to act and what to do. It is a scene bordering on madness. "

The officer said, "So as not to hurt innocent civilians, we informed them what we're going to do. That's how, by the way, the guys of Hamas could manage their fighting much better. They knew where we worked and where not, and then they could send the their fighters to the right place, you know what I mean?" he asked angrily and assessed that this conduct cost lives and wounded.

An infantry soldier testified, "In some places they called and told us we should not shoot.They were saying we were permitted to return fire only if we identify the enemy in the eye, and clearly. Conditions were very intense and some of us took it poorly, as if our lives are worth less than the Gazan with AK. But I can say we even understood this. Besides, that's the difference between us and a coward terrorist who fires behind the back of a woman or a child. "

His fury was not really hidden, he added, "then these people come and tell me we fired freely. Bullshit, I bet that they did not speak with a single real fighter in Protective Edge". He also revealed that in one of the skirmishes they did not receive permission to shoot artillery fire, because of the proximity of the source of Hamas's shooting to civilians. He said, "We were under fire and my squad commander ordered artillery support, a conversation I heard with my own ears. Any approval of artillery had to be done twice, ...I remember that under a real source of fire in a specific location. We waited a long time until we have received assistance and it was precise fire from the Air Force. "

Another soldier talked with me as well, a sergeant, reacted to the issue of Hamas lookouts, as mentioned in testimonies of Breaking the Silence, which said the IDF fired there on unarmed women who with phones. [BTS: "They were two young women walking in the orchard. The commander asked to confirm, “What do you see,” and whether they were incriminated or not. It was during daytime, around 11:00 AM, or noon. The lookouts couldn’t see well so the commander sent a drone up to look from above, and the drone implicated them. It saw them with phones, talking, walking. They directed fire there, on those girls, and they were killed. After they were implicated, I had a feeling it was bullshit.]

A paratroop officer told me that Hamas often used women and children to alert their men of where to fired at IDF forces. He says he personally witnessed such a case:"A woman with a child came very close to our position and really you see how she points to our positions . You see how she talks on the phone and after a moment passed, we started taking sniper fire and mortars." He noted you are allowed to shoot such observers but not freely, there are procedures that must be adhered to, and in this case by the time they finished the procedures she was gone.

According to him and other respondents, there were dozens of cases in which women and children were sent with phones to locate the positions of the army, which of course caused terrorist organizations to open fire. It cost the lives of soldiers. "So there were cases where we fired in such circumstances, and it is absolutely legal becaue this is a real threat to life. But there were many cases of doubt where nobody opened fire," said the lieutentant colonel we spoke with.

"I have no problem with people on our side who want to repair the world and be angels", a paratrooper told us, "but that's not the case. We went to war against a terrorist organization and specifically those we went to defend, are betraying us. It's really a betrayal. I read the evidence where it seemed like they were describing another war, I was there and that's just not true. What they did is to make our blood worthless, really, and it is unbelievable. "

Oren, an officer in the armored units, said, "We feel this report is very difficult. They made us into war criminals while we, we left to protect them, we were the only ones operating in morality and maintained the purity of arms. This is something that is impressed upon us from the start, not to mention in the command courses, and yet they come against us. I do not believe in protecting these people. I am in favor of investigating properly. I was upset about what was published, some people looted money, it was great that the IDF investigated and stopped them. But to accuse us of systemically acting against civilians, as if we freely fired, it's just a shame and betrayal of Israeli soldiers. "

Another interviewee is Air Force fighter pilot who took part in a Protective edge and Pillar of Defense. He said many attacks were canceled because of proximity to civilians and had difficult personal feelings from the publication of Breaking the Silence. "They claimed that there was active heavy fire as part of the policy. And I ask, what exactly do you expect? That our soldiers would enter into an area that wasn't made safe? And I tell you that this happened in some cases. In the testimonies I read they said fired at houses before entering and turn on heavy fire in neighborhoods, They say it's part of the IDF's destruction policies and I can tell you that it is nonsense. I personally witnessed the military's efforts to evacuate civilians from a place where we attack, I saw a lot of activities that do not reveal how UAVs are used to confirm that no civilians are there right up to the moment you press the button. "

The pilot indicates that for him, the report of Breaking the Silence "is not intended to fix anything. Apparently it's part of our self-flagellation. They use columns of Gideon Levy, people who were not in war rooms and don't see what we are doing to preserve the purity of weapons. Or they fabricated their evidence, or somebody gave them information from frustration and to take revenge, I do not know. What I do know is that they hurt us, a very deep trauma. I can say that personally these things, these plots are disturbing to me. These things cost us and stay forever, components of a false and cruel blood libel that is part of their DNA.

"Breaking the Silence" responded by saying that nothing in the new testimonies contradicted their claims, and that the case of the shelling of the 7th Brigade in memory of a soldier killed, the claim was examined and it is not the same case referred to by what they published.

The testimony above shows that some of the women and children who are listed as "civilians" killed - even according to the Meir Amit Center - were in fact acting as spotters for terrorists and were legal targets under the laws of armed conflict.

It also shows that, shamefully, the IDF accepts casualties in its own soldiers in order to avoid even the appearance of being too reckless with the lives of its enemies.

That is a real scandal, and one that no NGO would ever get funding to document.

(h/t Yenta)

From Israel's News1:

After labeling settlement products and boycotting Israeli companies, Europe exacerbated its anti-Israeli policy-and this time the decision is particularly problematic.

The Netherlands decided to cut pensions of survivors living beyond the Green Line. Channel 2 news reporter, Lee Na'im, reported that "D.", a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor from the Netherlands, had recently decided to immigrate to Israel and be with her family. She moved to a neighborhood in the Modi'in area, just beyond the Green Line.

The son of D. says: "Mother immigrated to Israel a few months ago. After seeing what is happening in Europe, she decided she did not want to continue to live there and instead go to Israel."

D. was receiving legal assistance from the Justice Ministry to realize her rights as a Holocaust survivor in Israel. In addition, she receives from the government of Netherlands a 1,100 euro old-age pension and an additional pension she is entitled to because she was a Holocaust survivor.

She updated the Dutch government with her new address and received a surprising response.

The letter sent to her said: "Madam, due to living in the West Bank, an area that we do not have any agreement with, we are obliged to deduct a large percentage of your old age pension."

"It gave my mother such a shock that she just burst into tears," said her son. "She has not slept since. She lost her trust and want to go back out of Israel."

Within a few days D.'s allowance was cut to 740 euros, 35% less than she had received to date.

The official explanation of the Dutch authorities is that any settlement in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to be a separate political entity from Israel, with which no Dutch government has political agreements.

The family of D. is trying to fight and change the decision, and in particular find it difficult to understand the directive following a law passed The Dutch government.

This is sickening - and discriminatory..

Even if you believe that the West Bank is occupied by Israel, this woman's decision to live there was voluntary - which means she wasn't "transferred" in the language of the Geneva Conventions. The intent of the Geneva Conventions was to stop the forced transfer of citizens. It is perfectly legal for an individual to move wherever they want to under international law.

Except nowadays, when international law is twisted against Jews in Israel and only Jews in Israel.

Furthermore, if D. would have moved to towns occupied by Turkey or Morocco or Russia, there is no law on their books that would reduce the pension.

A pension agreement is between a country and its citizens, not between a country and the place that they live.

This law is only meant to punish Jews who don't have the right to live wherever they want, as opposed to everyone else.

(h/t Yenta)

UPDATE: English story here.

05/07 Links Pt2: Dodging swastikas and Israel hate, Jordan’s secret Jews; Rivlin salutes aid workers

From Ian:

Israel’s Haters and Racism in Israel

Suggesting that racism is unique to one group of people is itself racist. Racism is the portrayal of one group of people as inferior or superior to other groups. Saying one group is uniquely racist is to portray them as inferior to other groups of people, which fits the definition of racism.
The Israel hating crew is attempting to hijack an internal Israeli matter in order to boost up their racist agenda. Their agenda doesn’t line up with the Ethiopian-Israeli struggle. Ethiopian-Israelis are proud Israelis. The man who was attacked was wearing an IDF uniform at the time he was attacked. At the demonstration, HaTikvah was sung and Israeli flags were common.
The protesters are not on the side of the Israel hate crew. Israel’s haters support a cause that seeks to destroy the state that Ethiopian-Israelis are (judging by them waving Israeli flags at the protests) are proudly a part of. Israel’s haters support a people which 93% of the population is anti-semitic. Israel’s haters support a group whose own charter calls for the death of all Jews worldwide, including the Ethiopian-Israeli community and Jews of all colors around the world. My message to these people: This is not your fight. Stop trying to sugarcoat your intentions and pretend to sympathize with these people when you support a group that openly advocates a genocide of them all.

Ryan Bellerose: Pro-Israel Advocacy: Out With The Old, In With The New

Effective,modern Israel advocacy is the opposite of what many existing organisations want. It is vibrant, unapologetic, boisterous and in-your-face. It is positive and yet unafraid to attack the other side’s hypocrisy. It is not defensive but rather, proactive. Its music festivals, ethnic food, and aggressive messaging target the emotional switches. Its events aren’t at the JCC but at the centre of campus and downtown in the city, not hidden away and preaching to the 15 Jews and 3 evangelicals in the choir. It is inclusive and builds bridges with other minorities, bridges that for too long were ignored because those communities offered no obvious benefit. Now, university students themselves are building these bridges – often with little or no help from existing organisations. They are, in fact, reanimating and redefining advocacy.
Effective speakers are no longer the slick suit-wearing pyramid scheme prophets, but genuine people who have captivating stories. They might not all sound like they attended Oxford like my friend Kaseem Hafiz,a man who at one point hated Jews so much he was considering how to become a terrorist. His awakening led him to become one of the most outspoken of young pro-Israel advocates. This new breed of pro-Israel advocates have something common with him: they all have engaging stories and are compelling speakers. There are people like Dumisani Washington, a tall African American Christian pastor, an incredible Zionist, who also happens to be an awesome dreadlock-wearing musician. I cannot make up these stories! You have guys like Izzy Ezagui, a good-looking American kid from Miami, who is very well-spoken – and who not so incidentally happens to be an incredible warrior who lost an arm in a mortar attack, rehabbed, and rejoined the army. Izzy, though, didn’t simply rejoin the regular army, but the ISRAELI SPECIAL FORCES, in less than a year (yes, with one arm). The average university student can relate to these guys because of their story alone, even if they may not agree with their politics. There’s Chloe Valdary, a young Black woman whose unapologetic advocacy should be the bellwether for any advocate. Chloe, who attended university in New Orleans, just decided one day she didn’t like seeing so much Jew hate and became a force for change. She started a pro-Israel music festival, and she speaks out against the coopting of the social justice movement by people who do not give a damn about social justice but simply stole the language.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali addresses Anti-Semitism on campus at the Boston premiere of Crossing the Line 2

From Rania Khalek in Electronic Intifada:

The similarities in suppression tactics employed by Baltimore and Israeli security forces are no coincidence.

Under the cover of counterterrorism training, nearly every major police agency in the United States has traveled to Israel for lessons in occupation enforcement, including many of the agencies active in Baltimore last week.

In 2002, Baltimore city police officers went to Israel on a junket organized by the neoconservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), where they studied Israeli occupation tactics used against Palestinians, including “crowd control, and coordination with the media,” according to a JINSA press release. “Participants resolved to begin the process of sharing ‘lessons learned’ in Israel with their law enforcement colleagues in the United States,” boasted JINSA.

Baltimore city police returned to Israel for more occupation training in a 2009 trip arranged by the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange.

On a 2007 training session in Israel, Baltimore County police reportedly “received valued lessons from Israeli officials…about gathering human and electronic intelligence” that can “apply to investigations into organized crime and gangs.”

The Montgomery County Police Department, which sent dozens of police officers to assist in the Baltimore crackdown, has attended several training sessions in Israel, including one in 2010 and another in 2012, both hosted by Project Interchange.

This is phenomenally stupid on multiple levels.

First of all, the programs that Khalek highlights are not for riot control. One of them mentions a demonstration of "crowd control" during a terror attack - not a training session - but most of the training was for counterterrorism techniques such as intelligence gathering and operations to capture terrorists before they begin their operations; border security, mechanisms to delay terrorists on their way to a target such as checkpoints; and site security - the protection of the restaurants, shopping malls and buses that are the preferred terrorist targets, preventing bombings, securing airports and border crossings and performing mass rescue operations.

Secondly, even if Israel did offer training in riot control, it is up to individual police departments to decide on their techniques. They wouldn't photocopy Israel's manual for riot control. They take the lessons that they like and incorporate them into their own programs. One has to be thoroughly consumed with hate in order to blame Japan if someone kills another with a karate kick. (In fact, I am very surprised that Khalek didn't notice that the Baltimore police offers krav maga seminars. )

(For those interested, here is a blog post from someone who took Baltimore cop riot training in 2000, with a comment from someone who took it in 2008. Nothing about Israel, of course. )

According to Khalek's moronic logic, there is another organization responsible for Baltimore police actions:

The United Nations.

Yes, the UN offers police commander training, and one of the sessions was attended by a major in the Baltimore Police Department. Clearly the UN is culpable for the Baltimore riots.

Do you hear how stupid that sounds?

That is how stupid Rania Khalek's argument, the same argument used by other Israel haters, is.

But it isn't stupidity that animates Khalek's half-baked theories. It is pure hate.

The Electronic Intifada readers who buy this argument, however, are truly stupid.

(h/t Mitchell)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Earlier this week, Avigdor Lieberman decided, for some reason, that he would not join PM Netanyahu’s coalition (yes, he gave ‘reasons’, but nobody takes them seriously). Coalition negotiations with Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party, the last to get on board, continued until a few hours before the deadline for Netanyahu to present his putative coalition of 61 Knesset members to President Rivlin.

As I make the final update to my post on Thursday morning, the excitement is over. Bennett demanded and got the Justice Ministry portfolio for Ayelet Shaked. There will be a Likud government with 61 mandates, the narrowest possible margin, a government that can be knocked over by the defection of a single member.

There were other possibilities. Netanyahu and Bennett might not have come to agreement, or some other member of the coalition suddenly might have decided to make a new demand despite having signed an agreement. Netanyahu might have chosen to invite Labor’s Herzog into a unity government; given the proper inducements, he would have agreed despite his protestations.

If Netanyahu hadn’t succeeded at the last moment, the President might have given the job of forming the coalition to some other Knesset member, like Herzog, who would probably have had even more trouble than Netanyahu. He might have tried to force a unity government. There is even the possibility that no member of the Knesset could form a coalition, in which case there would have to be new elections.

This is tremendously frustrating. There are big problems — internal and external — that require attention, and the PM and various party leaders who are ministers have spent almost two months negotiating with each other, having meetings (open and secret), hatching plots (Lieberman), etc. This is after the excruciating election campaign that went on from December to March.

I admire PM Netanyahu for being able to carry on at least the most important affairs of state during this protracted period, but this system is dysfunctional. And a 61-member coalition means that it isn’t over — Netanyahu will have to try to broaden the coalition after its inauguration unless he wants even more instability.

The parliamentary system is a good one, because it makes the government highly responsive to the will of the electorate, as expressed by their representatives in the Knesset. An ineffective government can be removed at any time. If only the US had such a system, Obama would be long gone! But the coalition process is problematic.

One suggestion is to simply get rid of the process by appointing as Prime Minister the leader of the party with the greatest number of seats. But this could have unintended consequences, if there are more than two parties in the race. Suppose there were three parties, two on the Right and one on the Left. If the right-wing parties received 39 seats each, and the single left-wing party got 52, the latter would win by a large margin — but the clear preference of the electorate for a right-wing government would be thwarted.

Another possibility would be to elect the Knesset and then have the MKs choose a Prime Minister from among themselves, by majority vote. One problem with this is that it removes the direct connection between the voter and the PM that is important if the people are to have confidence in the PM. Worse, it would produce backroom wheeling-and-dealing similar to what goes on in coalition negotiations, except that there wouldn’t be explicit coalition agreements.

What about direct election of a Prime Minister? Israel tried American-style separate elections for the Knesset and the Prime Minister in 1996 and 1999. This proved unsatisfactory because the elected PM didn’t necessarily have the base needed in the Knesset to form a stable coalition. Other suggestions that detach the PM from the Knesset could bring about the kind of paralysis that has characterized the relationship between the US President and the Congress.

Yet another idea would be to raise the minimum percentage of votes needed to enter the Knesset from the present 3.5% (5 Knesset seats) to a much larger value and then require that each party designate another party that would get its votes if it did not reach the threshold. This would make it more likely that one of the larger parties would get a majority, and simplify coalition negotiations if not. But it would also reduce the representation of minority views in the Knesset, in effect disenfranchising their voters (it could also produce an outcome with two large Jewish parties, each without a majority, and one smaller Arab party holding the balance of power).

Despite the frustration, this isn’t a simple problem, especially since the political propensity is to find ways to exploit unplanned loopholes in any system. Possibly, to paraphrase Churchill’s famous comment on democracy, the coalition system is the worst way to form a government — except for all the others.

05/07 Links Pt1: The Cartoon Wars; A Reset Button for Israel?; How I learned to love the Iranian bomb;

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: The Cartoon Wars

Of course, this idea goes to one of the false presumptions of our time: that people on the political left are motivated by good intentions even when they do bad things, while people on the political right are motivated by bad intentions even when they do good things. So a cartoon promoted by Charlie Hebdo may be thought to be provocative in a constructive way, whereas one promoted by AFDI can only be thought if as being provocative in an unconstructive way. Whether people are willing to admit it or not, this is one of the main problems that underlies the reaction to the Texas attack.
Such a distinction is, needless to say, a colossal mistake. When people prefer to focus on the motives of the victims rather than on the motives of the attackers, they will ignore the single most important matter: that an art exhibition, or free speech, has been targeted. The rest is narcissism and slow-learning.
It does not matter if you are right wing or left wing. It does not matter if you are American, Danish, Dutch, Belgian or French, or whether you are from Texas or Copenhagen. These particularities may matter greatly and be endlessly interesting to people in the countries in question. But they matter not a jot to ISIS or their fellow-travellers. What these people are trying to do is to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws across the entire world.
That is all that matters. If we forget this or lose sight of it, not only will we lose free speech, we will lose, period.

Michael Lumish: Say Hello to the Devil

If Pamela Geller is a racist I have yet to see the evidence. What I see is a much maligned woman standing up to the enemies of the Jewish people and to the enemies of the infidel west. What I also see are a whole bunch of moral cowards who defame this woman even as they turn a blind eye to the rise of political Islam throughout the Muslim Middle East.
The rise of political Islam during the Obama administration may be the single most significant geo-political event in world history since the demise of the Soviet Union. The Muslim Middle East is moving from a period of secular-authoritarian nationalism, as exemplified by people such as Gamal Abdel Nasser, to a period of rising theocratic-authoritarianism in the name of Islam. This, it should be emphasized, is not an improvement. On the contrary. While Hosni Mubarack may have been a dictator he, at least, did not believe in some Allah-given right to slaughter Jews and he did not set himself up as an enemy of the United States and the west.
This is what the Muslim Brotherhood has done and it is precisely what Geller opposes.
Of course, it should be something that anyone who believes in secular democracy should oppose, but they don’t. Mainstream media throughout the United States and Europe largely pussy-foot around political Islam despite the fact that it represents everything that the secular west allegedly opposes. Devotees of political Islam (or “radical Islam” or “Islamism”) oppress women, hang Gay people from cranes, and promises the slaughter of the Jewish people and they do so in the name of Allah.
What’s not to like?
Ask Pamela Geller, she’ll have some words.

‘Draw Muhammad’ Winner on Growing Up in Islam and Defeating the Jihad

Breitbart News spoke with Bosch Fawstin, an accomplished artist, cartoonist, and anti-Jihad activist who won first prize at Sunday’s “Draw Muhammad” free speech event in Garland, Texas.
The event came under attack by AK47-weilding jihadists, who were neutralized by a police officer before they could commit mass murder against the free speech art display’s attendees.
Fawstin talked about his unique experience growing up in the Bronx as a Muslim, how his life changed after the 9/11 attacks, and he shared strategies to defeat the global jihadist movement. His artwork is featured throughout the interview.
Breitbart News: You won first prize at the Muhammad Cartoon Contest? What inspired your first-place artwork?
Bosch Fawstin: Quite simply, I wanted to do something different because I’ve been drawing Muhammad for a long time. Ever since the Danish cartoons, and after the Charlie Hebdo attack. Every time something horrific happens. If free speech was under assault, under siege, I drew Muhammad.
This drawing of Muhammad showed him threatening me. He says, angrily, ‘You Can’t Draw Me,” with a sword in his hand. I respond, ‘That’s Why I Draw You.’”

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.”