Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, June 04, 2015

06/04 Links Pt2: One million to mark anniversary of three teens’ killing as Unity Day

From Ian:

Turkey's Flotilla: What Was It Really About?

One day, perhaps, the Palestinians will understand that their "cause" is, for their Turkish brothers, merely an ideological feel-good motive and an instrument in the quest of many Turks to consolidate power both at home and in the Arab world.
Ironically, about a week before the Mavi Marmara commemoration, hysteria gripped Turkey: a World Bank report revealed that the Turkish government had failed to deliver a large portion of the aid it had pledged for the reconstruction of Gaza during an international donors' conference last year.
The report said that Turkey has so far delivered only 0.26% of the aid it had pledged at the donors' conference in Cairo last October. Turkey, which pledged $200 million, has provided only $520,000 the report said.
Turkey's unofficial aid for Gaza did not reflect the Palestinian-fetish visible across the country, either. All that 77 million Turks could collect to donate to Gaza stood at $32 million, or about 40 cents per person. In other words, the Turkish generosity for "our Palestinian brothers" was a mere 0.004% of the country's national income.
"This is a clear picture showing the AK Party's true colors. They turn Gaza into a political pawn and exploit it, then fail to honor the pledge ... It's tragic. How could you not honor your promise to Gaza?" asked Mehmet Gunal, an opposition member of parliament.
Turks love to play the generous benefactor of the Palestinians and the custodians of the Palestinian cause. Underneath, its "pro- Palestinian" mindset, Turkish solidarity with the Palestinians is less related to the Palestinian cause and more to the Islamists' devotion to the dream of "conquest."

Exploding for decades: UNRWA needs more, more, more

As sixty-five year olds go, UNRWA shows no real signs of slowing down. That's noteworthy when we remind ourselves that its supposed purpose in life, as expressed in UN Resolution A/RES/302 (IV) of December 8, 1949, is
relief of the Palestine refugees... to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief...
Termination is, 65 years later, nowhere in sight. UNRWA today is the UN's single largest agency. It employs a staff of more than 30,000, of whom 99% are locally recruited Palestinians [Wikipedia].
It's not the United Nations' only refugee agency, as most people know. By far the more significant one is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, a body which merely deals with all the world's refugees. By contrast, UNRWA supports one class of refugees only:
Palestine refugees... defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict
Amazing really. If you had lived there for two years, you were entitled to UNRWA support, and so are your children, and their great-great-great grandchildren. The UN defined Palestine refugee status to be something you inherited... forever. And that's just one of a long list of criticisms that
But our focus in this post is money.

One million to mark anniversary of three teens’ killing as Unity Day

The first anniversary of the deaths of Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, the Israeli teenagers kidnapped and killed by Palestinian terrorists last summer, is being marked on Wednesday with a Unity Day.
A million individuals throughout Israel and in Jewish communities in 20 different countries are expected to participate in unity-themed gatherings and educational programs. A conference on issues that emerged from the events of the summer of 2014 will take place in Jerusalem, and the first annual Jerusale`m Unity Prize will be awarded to individuals and organizations identified as leaders in promoting Jewish unity in Israel or in strengthening Israel-Diaspora ties.
A year ago, Jews in Israel and around the world came together in solidarity as they hoped and prayed that Fraenkel, Shaer and Yifrach would be found alive. In the end, the boys — murdered almost immediately by their abductors — did not come home.
The sense of unity, however, did not end. The bereaved families were comforted by people from all walks of life, from different religious outlooks, and from all over the political spectrum.
That togetherness, the putting aside of differences, did not go unnoticed by the teens’ parents. They decided that Jewish unity would be their sons’ legacy, and that they would dedicate themselves to raising awareness of the importance of unity every day, and not only during times of crisis and conflict with the nation’s enemies.

Pravda says Israel nuked Yemen

From Pravda, May 29:

Saudis have begun to wipe Yemen off the map. Tactical strikes have hit the city.

Shocking video reveals proton bombardment from a neutron bomb.

Israel is reported to be the one to deploy such neutron bombs.

Any doubts about the nuclear attack on Yemen attributed to Israel, as evidenced in two Israeli F16s shot down and forensically identified, are now gone.

Forbidden strikes have brought about a storm of worldwide protest.

Obama has recently promised to provide every assistance including US military force to any "external threat" the rich Arab states of the Gulf may face.

The source for the Israeli F-16 story is Veteran's Today, which in turn uses Pravda to prove the Israeli nuke story. VT says it is "hard fact that has been 100% confirmed."

That settles it!

Further evidence is that "there has thus far been zero denial or refutation (other than by wingnuts and conspiracy theorists) of this having been a nuclear event." Also, some spark-like dots in the video is brought as evidence of nuclear radiation, and "when the camera’s CCD pick up chip is overloaded by excess radiation it will pixelize showing white sparkles all over the picture of the fireball or blast image area." (Interestingly, CCDs can be hacked to see radiation, but the dots indicating radiation are randomly distributed throughout the CCD, not in the pattern that these clowns claim.)

Here's the full video that supposedly proves a nuclear bomb hit Yemen. It looks like a ammo depot, or perhaps a fuel storage facility.

There are many people who believe this stuff. The story has traveled through the insanity axis of Russian, American fringe and Iranian websites. The video has well over 600,000 views.

(h/t Aryeh)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

This past week Barack Obama laid bare the pincer maneuver he is executing against Israel. As he explained it in an interview with Ilana Dayan on Israeli TV, he intends to squeeze Israel between a nuclear Iran and a terrorist base next door to Tel Aviv.

The precise nature of the Iranian threat is important for understanding Obama’s strategy. Although one can’t completely discount the possibility, Iranian officials have been relatively honest when they say that they don’t intend to nuke us: they would prefer to see us wiped off the map conventionally by their non-state proxies. The bomb will primarily be used to threaten the Sunni states and as a deterrent against Israel’s option to (in the words of the previous Saudi king), cut off the head of the Iranian snake.

Thus, a) providing Iran with its nuclear backstop, while b) empowering the PLO and Hamas, and c) increasing Israel’s vulnerability to terrorism and conventional attack by reducing its strategic depth, is the perfect three-point strategy for finally achieving the goal that Yasser Arafat dedicated his life to, ending the Jewish state.

Obama told Dayan that Israel is behaving immorally in its actions toward the Palestinian Arabs, that he sees it as his personal duty to change this, that PM Netanyahu’s negotiating positions are unrealistic and disingenuous, and that he intends to change the traditional American position: the US will no longer insist on a bilateral agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but will support a UN-imposed Palestinian state.

It is interesting that the Palestinian issue is so important to him, that he feels the need to help Palestinian children so deeply, when (for example) there is ongoing rape, abuse and murder of children on a massive scale in much of Africa.

It is interesting that he can brush aside Netanyahu’s reasonable conditions — for security and the need for a commitment to end the conflict — but that maximalist Palestinian demands are treated as non-negotiable.

And his remarks about the Iran deal are interesting too. For the first time, he admits that the military option is off the table:

I can, I think, demonstrate — not based on any hope, but on facts and evidence and analysis — that the best way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon is a verifiable, tough agreement. A military solution will not fix it, even if the United States participates. It would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program, but it will not eliminate it.

So much for leverage! The deal that he is making is apparently neither tough nor verifiable, as the French Foreign Minister has recently noted, not to mention Israel’s PM. It won’t stop Iran or even slow her progress very much. What it will do is to criminalize an Israeli attack while ending sanctions and freeing up tens of billions of frozen Iranian dollars to fund its aggression.

While military action won’t rule out the possibility that some day Iran could reconstruct its program, there are persuasive arguments that it could delay it for a good long time — and who knows what might happen in the interim?

Obama isn’t prepared to take that chance. His alliance with the expanding Shiite caliphate is too important, which is also why he made a joke of American red lines to protect Iranian lackey Bashar al-Assad.

While he will do whatever it takes to help the “Palestinian youth in Ramallah who feels [his] possibilities constrained by the status quo,” he is able to abandon the Syrian child choking his chlorine-gas filled lungs out, or even the barrel-bombed Palestinians in Yarmouk.

But if it isn’t children and it isn’t Palestinians, it isn’t Shiites either. After all, he is still miffed at Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. Now what could the Ikhwan possibly have in common with the Iranian mullahs? Not much, except the desire to destroy Israel.

The enemy of Obama’s enemy is his friend, and he seems determined to make friends of all of Israel’s enemies, even if they turn out, like Iran and the Brotherhood, to be deadly enemies of the United States too.

Irrational? Perhaps, but not surprising. It’s the same irrational current that drives academics and liberal church groups to say “you have to start somewhere” when asked why, with all of the real oppression and occupation in the world, they choose Israel to boycott. It’s the same force that caused Hitler to divert Reichsbahn trains to carry Jews to death camps instead of supplies to his beleaguered troops at Stalingrad.

In another recent interview, Obama made the silly and ahistorical statement that antisemitism doesn’t cause national leaders to make irrational decisions when stakes are high.

Clearly untrue. But maybe the truth would have hit too close to home?

06/04 Links Pt1: Abbas awards terrorist with "Star of Honor"; After rocket fire, IAF strikes Gaza

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Who Is Blocking Palestinian Elections?

Today, it has become unavoidably clear that Fatah and Hamas, and not Israel, are responsible for the ongoing plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The two parties are unlikely to resolve their differences in the near future, further exacerbating the misery of their people. Each party cares only about its own interests, while at the same time lying to the world that it is all Israel's fault. Hamas is not willing to relinquish control over the Gaza Strip, certainly not to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, who were expelled from there in 2007. As for Abbas, he does not seem to be interested in regaining control over a problematic area such as the Gaza Strip, where most of the population lives under the poverty line and in refugee camps.
Yet instead of being honest with their people and admitting their failure to improve their people's living conditions, Hamas and Fatah continue to wage smear campaigns against each other and, at the same time, also against Israel.
The campaigns that Hamas and Fatah are waging against Israel, particularly in the international community, are designed to divert attention from their failure to provide their people with basic services or any kind of hope.
While ignoring the plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority leaders were prepared to invest huge efforts and resources in trying to have Israel suspended from the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). It is as if the Palestinians had solved all their major problems and all that they needed to do now was to stop Israeli soccer players from playing in international matches.
Hamas, for its part, continues to invest enormous resources in digging new tunnels, in preparation for another war with Israel. The money that is being invested in the tunnels and the purchase and smuggling of weapons could benefit many families who lost their homes during the last war. But Hamas, like the Palestinian Authority, does not care about the misery of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They want to fight Israel to the last Palestinian. And this is all being done with the help of anti-Israel governments around the world, and groups such the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose only goal is to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews rather than to help the Palestinians.

PA President Abbas to Run for Second Infinite-Year Term (satire)

In a press conference held in Ramallah Monday, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority now in the 11th year of a four-year term, announced that he will seek re-election when his current term ends in infinity years.
“The last 11 years have been a time of tremendous economic growth and prosperity for the Palestinian people. Well, at least for one Palestinian person,” he said, pointing to himself. “I am looking forward to serving out the rest of my never-ending term and hope the Palestinian people will reward me with another never-ending term.”
Abbas said he was eager to tackle a new set of challenges in his second term, including global warming, the rise and eventual fall of China and the potential fallout of the Y3K crisis. He added that he was excited to work with President Hillary Clinton, President Chelsea Clinton and, eventually, President Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky on sporadic and fruitless negotiations towards a two-state solution.
Palestinians throughout the West Bank were thrilled by Abbas’ announcement.

PMW: Abbas awards terrorist with "Star of Honor"

Last week, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas awarded terrorist Fatima Barnawi with the "Military Star of Honor." Barnawi placed a bomb in a movie theater in Jerusalem in 1967 in an attempt to murder civilians. The bomb was discovered and Barnawi spent 10 years in Israeli prison.
Official PA TV News reported on the ceremony at which Abbas himself presented terrorist Barnawi with the honor. Tayeb Abdel Rahim, Secretary General of the Presidency, read aloud the Abbas' Presidential Decree in honor of the terrorist:
"Decree for 2015. The President of the State of Palestine and acting Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee; by the authority vested in us, and for the public good; we decree the following:
Paragraph 1: Fighter Fatima Barnawi - the first female prisoner of the revolution of modern Palestine - is granted the Award of Military Star of Honor.
Paragraph 2: In appreciation for her pioneering role in the struggle,her sacrifice for her homeland and her people, and its revolution, and her willingness to give from the beginning until now..."[Official PA TV, May 28, 2015]

Terrorist about her failed bomb attack: "It is not a failure because it generated fear"

PA TV host: ‎"That is certainly not a failure. It is a success for the Palestinian ‎resistance that went into the heart of the Israeli occupation, into the cinema and ‎created a state of panic, because [since then] they’ve taken extra precautions when ‎each person enters a cinema or any public place. " ‎[Official PA TV, May 9, 2015]‎

Fatima Barnawi placed a bomb in a movie theater in Jerusalem in 1967 in an attempt to ‎blow it up. The bomb failed to explode. She was sentenced to life imprisonment but ‎was released in 1977 after serving 10 years. In 2015, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas ‎honored Barnawi with the Military Star of Honor.‎

From TOI:

The Palestinian Authority will dissolve itself if a peace agreement with Israel resulting in two states is not reached by the end of this year, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Tuesday.

Speaking on a panel in Jerusalem titled “Time for international legitimacy,” organized by the Palestine-Israel Journal, Erekat said that a committee established by the PLO Central Council in its last meeting in March decided to place an ultimatum before Israel as a last resort.

Deja vu, anyone?

April 2014:

The era of the two-state solution may soon be rocked by a decision that could signal its demise. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is mulling the merits of a proposal to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday morning.

Palestinian sources confirm that the government in Ramallah was considering the unprecedented move. Senior sources in the IDF's Central Command, who recently met with the heads of the Palestinian security services confirmed their West Bank counterparts were sincerely debating dismantling and disarming the PA's forces.

December 2012:

If diplomatic stagnation continues after the Israeli election and construction in the settlements doesn't stop, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will dismantle the PA and return responsibility for the West Bank to the Israeli government, he told Haaretz in an interview on Thursday.

"If there is no progress even after the election I will take the phone and call [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu," Abbas said. "I'll tell him, 'my dear friend, Mr. Netanyahu, I am inviting you to the Muqata [the PA presidential headquarters in Ramallah]. Sit in the chair here instead of me, take the keys, and you will be responsible for the Palestinian Authority."

"Once the new government in Israel is in place, Netanyahu will have to decide -- yes or no," Abbas said.

December 2010:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA) if Israel does not stop building settlements on occupied Palestinian land, he told Palestinian television before heading to Turkey and Athens.

"If Israel does not stop settlement building and if US support for the negotiations collapses, I will strive to end Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories," he said.

"I cannot be the president of a non-existent authority as long as Israeli occupation of the West Bank continues," he said.

November 2009:

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has threatened to walk out on the struggling peace process between Palestine and Israel. Abbas announced he would not be running for election in January only a few days before other Palestinian officials claimed they were meeting in order to consider disbanding the authority. Internationally this has caused much dismay, as it strikes a blow to the fragile infrastructure of Palestine’s limited sovereignty as well as crushing hopes of further peace talks with Israel.

September 2008:

Rafik Husseini, the top adviser to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told The Sunday Telegraph that Palestinian politicians may take the drastic step of disbanding the authority if a lasting agreement is not reached during the current peace negotiations.

Such a move would mark the end of the US-backed talks launched with much fanfare at Annapolis last November, the report said, and put day-to-day Palestinian governance back in Israeli hands, almost certainly igniting fresh violence in the process.

July 2008:

Abbas vows to dismantle PA if Israel frees Hamas prisoners for Shalit

June 2007:

President Mahmoud Abbas will dissolve the Palestinian Authority's governmentThursday after fighting between rival parties Hamas and Fatah consumed the Gaza Strip and was expected to call for a state of emergency, sources close to Abbas confirmed to FOX News.

The threats are as empty as always.

The funny part is that the only reason the threat is a threat at all is because the Palestinian Arabs know very well that Israel isn't an apartheid state. If it was, then Israel would say "Great, thanks for giving us back our land, have fun living under our apartheid regime." It is only a threat because Israel isn't at all the nation that they portray it as, and they know it.

But it is nice to know that there are Arabs who say out loud that they want to see a Greater Israel.

The PLO and Jordan agree: Jordan is Palestine

Last week, at the Islamic Jerusalem Conference at Al-Quds University, Jordanian Minister Hayel Dawod said that "Jordan and Palestine are one body with one spirit."

This week, PA president Mahmoud Abbas agreed, telling his Jordanian hosts “We will maintain our relation as one people living in two states.”

In other words, there already is a Palestinian Arab state. Abbas said so.

This is not just a "gotcha." This fact that most Jordanians are of Palestinian ancestry, that Jordan considered the West Bank to be an integral part of its territory and that most Palestinian Arabs had Jordanian citizenship between 1950 and 1988 are undeniable. It is tough to argue that that West Bank Palestinians are a distinct people from East Bank Palestinians.

But the natural reaction to that fact isn't, as Jordan fears, a mass expulsion of millions of West Bankers so Israel can take it all over. No one who is serious is advocating that.

The natural response is that Israel could negotiate with Jordan over the borders between their two countries.

When Jordan and Mahmoud Abbas both admit that there is already a Palestinian state east of the Jordan, the rest of the world should reasonably ask why a second Palestinian state is such a necessity.

Well over 95% of West Bank Arabs live under PA rule today. Their lives would clearly improve under Jordanian rule. And they would be living in a Palestinian state. (Jordan was eastern Palestine before World War 1, after all.)

Israel can trust Jordan to ensure that no rockets or terror attacks originate in its territory. Israel would absorb the Arabs who live in Area C, or whatever is agreed would stay with Israel, eliminating the bogus "apartheid" charge. Israel can be far more flexible with Jordan as a peace partner than they can with the PLO, and the Palestinians would end up with much more.

The fact that the West doesn't even contemplate such a solution, one that is far superior to any other two-state solution, proves as well as anything else that Palestinians are not serious about peace with Israel. They don't want a solution - they want an excuse to keep attacking, with terror as well as diplomatically and with public opinion. A realistic solution that benefits Israel in the slightest is anathema because the entire purpose of a Palestinian state is to hurt - and eventually eliminate - Israel.

That is why they spend so much effort on things like FIFA and NGOs and the UN. That's why they refuse to negotiate seriously. That explains every single thing they do.

It is well past time for the West to wake up to this simple, irrefutable fact.

(h/t Yoel)

The bizarre sight of the State Department defending Iran's cheating under the JPOA

On Tuesday, the New York Times wrote a mildly critical article about how Iran's nuclear stockpile is growing, contrary to its agreement with the West:

WASHINGTON — With only one month left before a deadline to complete a nuclear deal with Iran, international inspectors have reported that Tehran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months of negotiations, partially undercutting the Obama administration’s contention that the Iranian program had been “frozen” during that period.

But Western officials and experts cannot quite figure out why. One possibility is that Iran has run into technical problems that have kept it from converting some of its enriched uranium into fuel rods for reactors, which would make the material essentially unusable for weapons. Another is that it is increasing its stockpile to give it an edge if the negotiations fail.

The extent to which Iran’s stockpile has increased was documented in a report issued Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations organization that monitors compliance with nuclear treaties. The agency’s inspectors, who have had almost daily access to most of Iran’s nuclear production facilities, reported finding no evidence that Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon, and said Tehran had halted work on facilities that could have given it bomb-making capabilities.

This is seriously understating what Iran is doing. As summarized by Omri Ceren at The Israel Project:

The NYT article cites two policy papers from last week: one, the most recent IAEA report and two, a paper by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS Nuclear) commenting on the IAEA report. Those respectively live at http://www.isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/iaea-iranreport-05292015.pdf and http://www.isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/ISIS_Analysis_IAEA_Report_May_29_2015_Final.pdf
Other findings from the report. The bottom 3 haven't been reported out as far as I know.

-- There's been no progress on getting the Iranians to meet IAEA concerns - Iran is currently under sanctions and they're still jamming up the IAEA. It's not quite clear why the administration thinks the Iranians would be more forthcoming once sanctions are lifted.

-- Somehow 12kg of Iran's enriched uranium is unaccounted for - Open up the ISIS Nuclear report and do a Ctrl-F for "could not explain". I don't think the administration has even been asked about this. Maybe they know where it is, and it's actually a nonissue.

-- Iran is deepening R&D on how to recover 20% enriched uranium scrap and convert it for further enrichment - This one is wonky and it's part of a much broader debate happening on the sidelines. The short version is that the administration is - inexplicably - leaving out various parts of Iran's 20% stockpile in order to get to a 1 year breakout. They're not counting either 20% enriched fuel rods or 20% enriched scrap. The ISIS Nuclear folks are kind of in disbelief at how brazen the move is, because all of that stuff can be recovered and enriched if the Iranians wanted a quick breakout. They’ve written about the fuel rods issue elsewhere (it was in their Lausanne postmortem) but now the scrap part of the stockpile is also becoming an issue. The IAEA discovered, and this is in the recent report, that Iran is deepening its research into how to recover usable, enrichable uranium from scrap. I genuinely can’t imagine what the administration’s answer to this might be from a breakout perspective. Especially because the report also reveals that…

-- The Iranians are creating an ever-growing stockpile of 20% scrap available to reconvert – They’re supposed to be turning parts of their 20% stockpile into fuel rods. Instead most of what they're supposed to be making into fuel is ending up as scrap, which - again - they're researching new ways to ever-more-quickly convert into material that can be enriched to weapons grade levels.

The State Department reacted furiously over even the limited NYT issue. The Tuesday press briefing showed Marie Harf attacking the article:

Harf then doubled and tripled down, with a series of tweets yesterday attacking the article and then with a 15 minute tirade at yesterday's press briefing, an excerpt of which is here:

Besides the facts, which make it fairly clear that Iran is highly unlikely to end up in compliance with the JPOA by the end of this month, opposite of what the White House and State Department have been claiming.

Harf says "I'm not trying to downplay" what Iran is doing, but that is exactly what she is doing, over and over and over again.

It is far more serious than she says.

QUESTION:
Marie, I'm sorry, I just can't -- I don't understand why this isn't more of a concern. If we're only 28 days or so away from a deal, wouldn't you be expecting the Iranians to be reducing their -- their stockpiles to get in line with what they might eventually -- what -- what eventually is the...
HARF:
I mean, Matt, our nuclear experts tell me, and again don't take it from me; you can take it from them, that this is just been the normal course during the JPOA; that what we have built into these negotiations, the fact that on June 30th they have to be back to 7650. And what really matters is how to get that down to 300.
I mean, what people are losing sight of here, and I think this is actually an important point, is that Iran has already agreed to go from that huge number, to reduce that -- what? -- 96 percent, to 300 kilograms. So we can talk about what they're going to do for the next 28 days or what their stockpile looks like now versus two weeks ago. But if we can get a comprehensive joint plan of action, they're going to take that stockpile and reduce it hugely down to 300 kilograms.
So, in terms of the overall stockpile, I just think that's an overall sort of meta-point that people aren't -- aren't paying maybe enough attention to.
QUESTION:
Yeah, but we would -- I mean, if I was engaged in a negotiation with someone and they were supposed to reduce their amount within 28 days, and instead in the previous month or so, they were increasing it, I think that would be a cause for concern.
HARF:
Well, that IAEA number, though, is a snapshot of one day in time. It fluctuates before or after. So that's, I would say...
QUESTION:
So it may not be the same?
HARF:
... it might not be the same today. It probably isn't. And the point is on June 30th, they have said they are going to be where they need to be. They always have been in the past.
Again, I'm not -- if they're not on June 30th, I'm happy to have that conversation.

But if Iran is shown to be cheating under the JPOA, why on Earth would the administration be so convinced that they will not cheat under the JCPOA - when the sanctions will have been at least partially lifted?

Besides the technicalities, the idea that the administration is so strenuously defending Iran instead of using this as a means to pressure Iran for lying - during the negotiations - is the biggest issue. It shows that Iran can cheat with no concern over supposed "snapbacks" or indeed any significant US response.

In fact, President Obama has now explicitly taken the military option off the table - something he had stated in the past was always going to remain on the table. as John Podhoretz notes:

As the June 30 deadline for the Iran nuclear deal approaches, President Obama is putting all his cards on the table — by announcing he is keeping no cards in his hand.
In an astonishing interview with Israel’s Channel 2, the president declared that “the best way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon is a verifiable, tough agreement.

“A military solution will not fix it, even if the United States participates. It would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program, but it would not eliminate it.”

Why is this astonishing? Because Obama is publicly eliminating any American possibility that we will bomb Iran’s nuclear sites even if the deal in which he has invested so much collapses.

Despite his declaration at a Washington synagogue last week that “Iran must not, under any circumstances, be allowed to get a nuclear weapon,” the president is in fact making it very clear Iran will go nuclear, and with his implicit assent.

Period.

There are no sticks in the US posture towards Iran. The US is defending Iran's cheating as noted by a pro-Obama, liberal newspaper. it is ignoring other instances of Iran's actions being problematic. The "snapbacks" are a joke that everyone knows. Iran has been spitting in the face of the West in direct proportion to the White House's public weakness. Iran has also been treating the IAEA wtith utter contempt.

And in the end, Iran will get nuclear weapons because it will do everything it can to cheat on this deal, secure in the knowledge that no one will no anything to stop it except Israel - and the US will do everything it can to stop Israel from acting unilaterally.

The entire situation is unreal, yet it is unfolding before our eyes.

06/03 Links Pt2: Netanyahu: ‘We Have No Better Friend Than Canada’; Time to Fight the Jew Haters

From Ian:

Israelis ‘Believe We Have No Better Friend Than Canada,’ Netanyahu Says

Upon hosting Canadian Foreign Minister Robert Nicholson in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israelis believe the Jewish state has “no better friend than Canada.”
Netanyahu cited recent instances of “international hypocrisy,” including the passage of a motion to boycott Israel by the United Kingdom’s National Union of Students “less than a year after they refused to support a boycott of ISIS (Islamic State)” as well as seeing “Turkey and Iran vote to give Hamas affiliate status” at the United Nations.
“I stress these points, Rob, because Canada stands out so clearly and so powerfully against these distortions of truth and distortions of justice, and I want to express the feeling of the people of Israel that we believe we have no better friend than Canada,” Netanyahu told Nicholson. “We value that partnership. It was exemplified last week, two weeks ago, in the vote of Canada, alongside the United States and Great Britain, in rolling back the attempt to single out Israel in the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear weapons) votes. That is deeply appreciated here.”
Netanyahu also said that the Canadian-Israeli friendship “is a model of the partnership between two democracies, exemplary democracies.”
“Israel values the support, unstinting, unfaltering, of Canada in an international environment that is often marked by cynicism and double talk,” he said. “Canada, led by Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper, is always stalwart and tells the truth. And we think that this is a refreshing wind in an increasingly hostile environment, hostile to the truth.”

Hamas entryism at the UN

As readers may be aware, on June 1st the UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations approved the application of the London-based Palestinian Return Centre for UN accreditation.
This vote, however, is only the first stage in the process.
“The 54-nation ECOSOC, which meets in July, has the power to approve or reject the committee’s recommendations and to make the final decision.”
The Palestinian Return Centre has been an illegal organization in Israel since 2010 because of its connections to Hamas. PRC activists and staff regularly crop up in connection with assorted delegitimisation projects and are active in other organisations too – as anyone monitoring and documenting anti-Israel activity well knows. Below, for example, is a photograph from a 2011 visit by British parliamentarians to Lebanon which was jointly organised by the Palestinian Return Centre and the Council for European Palestinian Relations and which included in its itinerary a meeting with Osama Hamdan of Hamas.
Among the PRC’s current projects is a campaign to have Britain apologise for the Balfour Declaration. Previous initiatives have included a public relations campaign on behalf of Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel which was launched at a conference organized by the PRC in 2012. As was noted on our sister site UK Media Watch at the time:

Israel boycott rejected by British university umbrella group

An umbrella group representing Britain’s universities on Wednesday distanced itself from a decision by the country’s student union to boycott Israel a day earlier, saying it was “firmly opposed” to the embargo on the grounds that it contradicts the
principle of “free exchange of ideas.”
Universities UK, which represents 133 British universities, said in a statement that it wanted to make clear its rejection of the boycott passed by the UK National Union of Students, joining official London in speaking out against the vote.
“Given the reported perception in Israel that UK universities support an academic boycott, the board of Universities UK wishes to confirm its previously stated position that it is firmly opposed to any academic boycott of Israeli universities,” the statement read.

Egypt's National Center for Translation has just released an Arabic translation of the Torah.

To be precise, they converted Rav Saadia Gaon's 10th century translation of the Torah to Judeo-Arabic into Arabic itself. (Judeo-Arabic is mostly Arabic with Hebrew letters.)

The Egyptian scholars who published the book emphasize that R' Saadia was born in Egypt (in Fayoum, identified by R' Saadia himself as the Biblical Pitom) and that his philosophy and translations were heavily influenced by Islam. They even claim that he borrows Quranic texts in some of his translations to Arabic.

They don't emphasize that R' Saadia moved to Eretz Yisrael when he was in his teens, to study in Tiberias. Yes, he was a Zionist! (He ended up heading a major academy in Babylonia.)

This article is quite positive towards R' Saadia, and it part of a change in tone in Egyptian media towards Jews in recent months. (This story itself was mentioned in several newspapers.)

I've briefly mentioned a new Ramadan TV series called "Jewish Quarter" that looks back nostalgically at when Jews lived in Egypt.

There was another article today that sadly relates that Egypt's Jewish community, which numbered 80,000 in 1947, has dwindled down to only seven elderly women.

A recent Egyptian museum lecture was entitled "One God, three religions" and included the Jewish woman who leads the Egyptian community along with prominent Islamic and Coptic leaders.

It seems likely that this new attitude towards Jews is related to President Sisi's administration.

It takes a while for attitudes to change but, at least with Egyptian media, this change is noticeable.

Arab League Instructs Palestinians To Put Lotion In Basket (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Cairo, June 3 - The League of Arab States admonished the Palestinian nation to apply the lotion to its skin and return the lotion bottle to the basket, or else suffer the hose again, League officials reported Wednesday.

The Arab League has held the fate of Palestinians hostage almost since its inception in 1945, exploiting Palestinian statelessness and dependence to distract from internal problems among the other 21 members. Palestinians have since 1948 been restricted to a deep pit in the League's basement from which they cannot climb out, and remain at the mercy of the other 21 League members. With some frequency, the League lowers a basket on a long rope, containing a squeezable bottle of skin lotion, which the Palestinians are ordered to apply.

"It rubs the lotion on its skin," said the League. "It puts the lotion in the basket."

Palestinians have grown loath to raise objections to their treatment at the hands of their fellow Arabs, which involves keeping them imprisoned in squalid conditions, rather than leaving them to determine their own future. Each time the Palestinians have resisted, they have been doused in cold water.

"It rubs the lotion in its skin or it gets the hose again," the League said.

Matter-of-fact threats, however, do not always suffice to get the Palestinians to comply. On one recent occasion the threat prompted not a placing of the lotion in the basket, but pleading for mercy and wanting to be let go. That outpouring of pleading sparked a harsh vocal response from the League.

"Put the lotion in the basket!" it yelled, uncharacteristically addressing the Palestinians in the second person and emphasizing the demand with profanity. Under normal circumstances, the League refrains from addressing them in the second person, which carries associations of humanity and selfhood, so as to avoid confronting the misery its policies and attitude wreak on the very real, very human Palestinians. Since, however, for its own purposes the League needs the Palestinians to apply the lotion and put it back in the basket, it cannot absolutely abandon the second person and is occasionally forced to break with the policy of employing the pronoun "it." When that happens, the League can be seen to briefly struggle visibly with pain and self-doubt, but those are quickly dispelled by the shouted assertion of dominance.

Outside international efforts to rescue the Palestinians have so far come to naught, as the League members and their allies in the UN control the conditions under which the Palestinians are kept. The League continues to ignore requests by Palestinians to determine their own future and enjoy the benefits of freedom that citizenship in an actual state confers, instead subjugating Palestinian fate to the precious domestic and political needs of other League members.

Experts do not expect the situation to improve without a real transformation of the league. According to political analyst Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a genuine metamorphosis must take place if the Palestinians are to be removed from the dry well, which is not currently in the interests of the League as it sees them.

06/03 Links Pt1: Britain’s student union refused to boycott ISIS, yet passed motion boycotting Israel.

From Ian:

Netanyahu pans UK students for boycotting Israel but not IS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at the UK’s National Union of Students hours after it passed a motion to boycott Israel, calling the group hypocritical for singling out the Jewish state while it rejected an earlier motion to condemn the Islamic State group.
“They boycott Israel but they refuse to boycott ISIS. That tells you everything you want to know about the BDS movement. They condemn Israel and do not condemn ISIS; they condemn themselves,” Netanyahu said Wednesday, using acronyms for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and Islamic State, the radical terror group that has established a self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
“Israel has an exemplary democracy. We have academic freedom, press freedom, human rights. ISIS tramples human rights to the dust,” he said in remarks delivered alongside visiting Canadian Foreign Minister Robert Nicholson.
“It burns people alive in cages and the national student groups in Britain refuse to boycott ISIS and have boycotted Israel. It tells you everything you want to know about the BDS movement,” he said.
Netanyahu also took a swipe at Turkey and Iran for working to legitimize Hamas, the terror group that rules the Gaza Strip, at the United Nations.
“At the same time, in the UN, we’ve seen Turkey and Iran vote to give Hamas affiliate status – Hamas. Hamas fires rockets on our cities while hiding behind Palestinian civilians, hiding behind Palestinian children. It tells you about international hypocrisy a lot,” Netanyahu said, referring to a United Nation decision to support the Palestinian Return Center, which Israel alleges is linked to the Gaza Strip’s Hamas leaders.

Britain’s student union votes to boycott Israel

The NUC is the UK’s umbrella student organization for some 600 higher education institutions representing 7 million students.
The motion “condemns Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza,” and calls on students to “co-ordinate a nationwide student day of action to commemorate UN Palestine Solidarity Day on 29 November,” the Jewish Chronicle reported.
“Justice for Palestine” also included amendment 518a, a provision proposed by the student union of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London formally aligning the student organization with the BDS initiative. After a heated debate, 19 Executive Council members voted in favor of the provision, 14 against and one abstained.
The Jewish Chronicle reported that the vote took place through a secret ballot, and was originally scheduled to take place at the NUC’s annual conference in April, but was postponed until June due to lack of time to debate the issue.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the decision had “little practical implications, since this body has already voiced anti-Israel opinions in the past.”
“Instead of expressing hatred, British students would benefit from studying history and understanding that the distance between conveying hate language and prejudice to committing despicable crimes is not that great,” the spokesperson said.
In the wake of the vote, the British Government restated its firm opposition to calls to boycott Israel.
In a statement, the deputy British ambassador to Israel, Dr. Rob Dixon, said: “We are deeply committed to promoting the UK’s trade and business ties with Israel, as part the flourishing partnership between the two countries. The reality is one of rapidly strengthening links between British and Israeli universities in science and academic cooperation.
“As David Cameron has said, the UK Government will never allow those who want to boycott Israel to shut down 60 years worth of vibrant exchange and partnership that does so much to make both our countries stronger,” the statement added.

'It's not politically correct to be anti-Semitic, but it's super-in to be anti-Israel'

The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is the new anti-Semitism and wants to destroy Israel, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Wednesday, in response to a motion to the agenda from coalition and opposition MKs calling to fight those who seek to delegitimize Israel.
The discussion was marked by shouting matches over whether BDS is an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic movement or simply seeks to bring an end to Israel's presence in areas liberated in 1967.
"BDS opposes Israel as the Jewish state. It wants to blacken us and destroy us as a Jewish and democratic state," Shaked explained. "The boycotters don't talk about Judea and Samaria, they talk about the state of Israel."
According to Shaked "it's not politically correct to be anti-Semitic today, but it's super-in to be anti-Israel," and as such, "people used to delegitimize the Jews and now they do it to our state."
"BDS is anti-Semitism in new clothes," she added.
Shaked called to fight back against BDS and "boycott the boycotters" and listed the many government ministries, including hers, that are taking part in the efforts to fight delegitimization, bringing MK Bassel Ghattas (Joint List) to interject: "It won't work."
"Israel will continue to be a light unto the nations," Shaked vowed.

Britain’s student union refused to boycott ISIS, yet passed motion boycotting Israel. #BeyondParody

The NUS executive council passed a motion put forward by the School of Oriental and African Studies students union just yesterday to boycott Israel, and voted to align themselves with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign – a movement whose leaders explicitly call for the end of the Jewish state.
(NUS has previously passed resolutions condemning UKIP and former Education Minister David Lammy)
Per Foxton, it seems clear that the ‘progressive’ student leaders at NUS who were concerned that condemning ISIS (the most barbaric movement on the planet) would stigmatize Muslims, yet evidently were unburdened by fears that their decision to single out the only Jewish state (and the only progressive democracy in the Mid-East) would stoke antisemitism – racism against Jews which reached record levels in the UK in 2014.
Though NUS’s boycott motion will have little if any effect on Israel, the impact on British Jews – the overwhelming majority of whom identify strongly with the Jewish state – may be significant. Such stunningly hypocritical campaigns which single out Israel – and only Israel – for condemnation are in effect telling Jews that they identify with a morally odious movement, an association which places them on the wrong side of history.
As we’ve argued previously, the moral distinction between the statements “Zionists are our misfortune” and “Jews are our misfortune” is increasingly meaningless, insofar as the lives of actual Jews are concerned.

Fatah Facebook page seems to have been taken down

The Fatah Facebook page disappeared sometime in the past day.

It's associated Twitter account is silent but it mentioned a number of new photos posted yesterday so the page still existed then.

The official Fatah webpage still points to the Facebook page.

This page has published pure hate and antisemitism in the past,

It has consistently and explicitly supported terror since it was started in 2012.

It has featured images of Fatah dragging the body of a Jewish soldier through the streets of Lebanon in 1982,

And last year it featured this image of peace and love:

For Palestinians, even car collecting is an anti-Israel hobby

Khaled Hodali, 56, of Ramallah, collects old cars. He has three classic cars in his collection: a 1942 Vauxhall a 1953 Mercedes and a 1963 Mercedes.

He rents them out to the people in Ramallah for special occasions.

But he tells people that he collects cars to remember the Nakba.

Hodali claims that his mother owned this exact Vauxhall before 1948, and that he painstakingly tracked it down to an elderly Israeli owner who refused to sell it, but when he died he bought it for $25,000 from his son.

1938 Vauxhall 10-4

He says "this treasure holds the history of our people who have been displaced from their country by the criminal Zionist gangs at the time, as well as the historical legacy that it tells the story of the people lived before the Nakba."

Hodali hopes to "return" to his mother's village in Israel with this car.

As far as I can tell, Vauxhall did not manufacture any cars in 1942, having retooled to build armored vehicles for the war. The chances that this car was driven by his mother seem remote indeed.

But the chances that Palestinian Arabs can politicize literally anything to make an anti-Israel statement is very close to 100%.

Perhaps someone can compile a list of other places that Westerners give billions of dollars of aid that have people with the time and cash to collect vintage cars - or even the time and money to rent them.

FIFA updates, including Jibril Rajoub's latest lies

From AFP:

Palestinian football chief Jibril Rajoub on Tuesday said he took full responsibility for an 11th-hour decision to withdraw a bid to have FIFA suspend Israel from the world footballing body.

The surprise decision was announced by Rajoub on Friday at the annual FIFA congress in Zurich minutes before the vote, reportedly sparking jubilation in Israel but deep-rooted frustration among the Palestinians, some of whom have demanded his resignation as head of Palestinian Football Association (PFA).

"I take full responsibility for this matter," he told reporters in Al-Bireh near Ramallah, insisting that the resolution had not been dropped but only suspended.

"From the start, I said this was about sport, not politics."

AFP, of course, swallows that line whole.

Even though Rajoub has said the exact opposite in the past.

In fact, even later in the same interview he contradicted himself:

He said that cornering Israel over its actions both on and off the pitch putting was "a historic and important milestone in the history of Palestinian sports."

Yes, the most important milestone in Palestinian sports is - political!

He defines sports as politics!

Rajoub also said that not only would his bid to ban Israel not reach the 75% majority needed, but that he couldn't muster half the votes necessary:

Rajoub admitted the PFA had come under a lot of pressure from fellow associations as well as from UEFA chief Michel Platini to back off from the move.

"Most of the football associations told us they would vote against us if we presented the motion as it was," he said.

"We modified the motion and froze the suspension until FIFA is able to investigate."

Some readers were skeptical about whether Rajoub's amended resolution, that passed with 90% of the FIFA vote, really included language calling Israel "racist" as I had reported based on a Haaretz article.

I still cannot find the text on the FIFA site, but the Palestinian football Association published what they said was the text of the resolution, and according to them it most certainly does:

Amendment to the Proposal Presented by the Palestine Football Association for Approval During the 65th FIFA Congress

In order to end the suffering and discrimination of our Palestinian football family at the hands of the illegal and racist occupation of our land, we have presented a proposal for a final solution. After several meetings with Mr. Blatter, Mr. Valkce, and representatives from different confederations and associations, with the aim to facilitate the feasibility and implementation of our proposal, we have made the following clarification.

The proposal stipulates 3 main concerns of the PFA in regards of IFA violations of FIFA Statutes, including:

1. Restrictions of Palestinian rights for the freedom of movement. Players and football officials both within and outside the borders of the occupied State of Palestine, have been systematically restricted from their right to free movement, and continue to be hindered, limited, and obstructed by a set of unilateral regulations arbitrarily and inconsistently implemented. This constitutes a direct violation by IFA of Article 13.3 of the FIFA Statute, specifically in relation to Article 13.1 (i) and its correspond articles in UEFA rules;

2. The continued racism and discriminatory behaviour of IFA officials and clubs in direct violation of not only the principles of FIFA, (including FIFA's no-tolerance policy against racism and discrimination) but specifically in violation of Article 3 of the FIFA Statute and corresponding UEFA rules; and

3. The grave concern over at least five Israeli clubs located in illegal settlements in the occupied State of Palestine. The presence of the Israeli clubs, located in territory recognized by the international community as part of the State of Palestine, constitutes a direct violation of Articles 83 and 84 of the FIFA Statutes, including relevant UEFA rules.

As a viable and effective resolution to the above issues and violations of FIFA Statutes, it is proposed that:

· FIFA will appoint a multi-lateral monitor group to work directly under the rules of the FIFA Ethics, Legal, and Discrimination committees, and will be composed of International Observers;

· The monitor group will ensure the freedom of the PFA to develop its activities at the highest level possible, and be in accordance with FIFA requirements and standards, with special attention to Article 3 of FIFA Statutes and under FIFA's objectives as described in article 2 of the said Statutes;

· The monitor group will supervise the possible infringement of FIFA rules by IFA and their clubs, with special attention to Article 3 of FIFA Statutes;

· The Congress, if approved by a majority as established under Article 27.6 of FIFA Statutes, and based on its prerogatives under article 14.1 of the said Statutes, will act in accordance with Articles 83.2 and 84 of FIFA Statutes. If shown to be true that these Israeli teams discussed are based on, and playing out of occupied Palestinian lands, the Israeli Football Association will face the consequences of Article 14.1 in relation to Articles 13.1 and 13.2,; and

· In order to prove the territorial issue, which will be the basis for any measures implemented by FIFA statutes, FIFA will request the United Nations to officially notify FIFA of UN General Assembly Resolution 67/19.

There are two published at the site, and they aren't the same, so it is possible that the text changed before the actual vote, but at least one phrase that is here was quoted by AFP verbatim as being part of the resolution. AFP also wrote that the committee was charged to investigate "Israeli racism."

And the person heading this committee happens to be the person that Rajoub recently hosted on a biased tour of "Palestine," Tokya Sexwale of South Africa.

Hamas/Salafi intrafada heats up - and Hamas sets up checkpoints!

No, I am not referring to this story from earlier today.

Yesterday, IMEMC reported:

A group claiming allegiance with ISIS issued a statement, Sunday, claiming responsibility for assassinating a senior Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip, by detonating his store in Khan Younis.

The group, calling itself Supporters of the Islamic State in Beit al-Maqdis, said it assassinated Saber Siam for what it claimed, “participating in the heretical war against the Mujahidin," and called on Hamas to “end its war on religion in Gaza, or face the consequences.”

The group also warned the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to stay away from government-run offices and facilities, and all Hamas-run security or military centers, in the coastal region. Hamas officials and Hamas-run websites did not comment on the attack.

Earlier the month, the group fired shells into a training center for the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas in Khan Younis, Agence France Presse said.

The attack is believed to be related to an alleged attack by Hamas on a mosque, reportedly “frequented by ISIS supporters plotting against the government,” in Deir al-Balah.

And today:

A suspected Salafist gunman was killed by Hamas security officers in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City on Tuesday morning, security sources told Ma'an.

Sources said that officers arrived at the house of 27-year-old Yussef al-Hatarman with the intention of arresting him because he was keeping "illegal" weapons.

"The officers asked him to turn himself in, but he refused and threatened to blow himself up," they said.

They said that security officers then clashed with the gunman, "and managed to hit him before he could blow himself up."

Witnesses reported seeing an ambulance remove a second casualty from the building following the gun battle, though this was not confirmed.

Here's the weapons stash Hamas claims to have found in Hatarman's home:

See? Hamas is a moderate force fighting ISIS terrorists! We're practically allies!

But the best part is this, from FT:

Night-time security checkpoints have gone up around Gaza City over the past month — the most visible sign of a crackdown by the ruling Islamist movement Hamas on local followers of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (or Isis).

Checkpoint? Aren't they the worst possible thing anyone can do to anyone else? Aren't they a basic violation of the fundamentals of human rights? Aren't checkpoints a war crime?

Oh, sorry. It all depends on the context.

(h/t Yoel, Adam L)