Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 08, 2015

UAE to pay terrorist families in Gaza - thanks to Abbas' rival

Mohammed Dahlan, former Fatah strongman in Gaza and bitter rival of Mahmoud Abbas who is living in exile in Abu Dhabi, has announced that the UAE will pay the families of "martyrs" of Gaza from last year's war.

Dahlan said that the UAE's National Committee will pay a "martyr's bonus" approved by the UAE political leadership to pay the families $5,000 per family in the coming days.

Roughly half of those killed in Gaza were terrorists.

The story is more interesting for who announced it than for what he announced. ($10 million is chicken feed for the UAE.)

Dahlan is vying to be the successor to the aging Mahmoud Abbas, and he is living in luxury in Abu Dhabi plotting his return. As Newsweek reported recently:

No place in the Arab world could be more different from the Gaza Strip than Abu Dhabi. The affluent emirate on the Gulf has shimmering skyscrapers, a Grand Prix racetrack and its own Louvre. Yet Mohammed Dahlan, the 53-year-old Gaza native and exiled political leader, seems comfortable here. His home is a glossy mingling of marble and glass, with chandeliers hanging from high ceilings and framed paintings on the walls. On a sunny winter day recently, he worked in his garden dressed in jeans and soft loafers, then greeted me on his waterfront patio.

But for all its luxuriousness, Abu Dhabi is only temporary, Dahlan says—a staging area where he now plots his comeback. He’s lived in this city for four years, ever since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expelled him from the governing Fatah party and charged him with corruption and defamation. The rift between them cut short a political career that seemed brimming with promise. Over a 20-year period, Dahlan served as the powerful security chief of Gaza, an adviser to Yasser Arafat, a negotiator with Israel and Abbas’s minister of interior. Now he’s trying to succeed his rival and become the next president of Palestine. “I have a nice life here, but believe me, my heart is there,” he tells Newsweek. “If there’s an election tomorrow, I’ll go back.”

In his interview with Newsweek, Dahlan positioned himself as a counterweight to Hamas, one of the few political figures with enough clout and muscle to defeat the Islamists. He made clear that he was using money and political connections—two resources he seems to have in abundance—to regain relevance in the territory he left behind. “The Gazan people are victims of Hamas, the Israelis and Abbas,” he says. “They all talk about the suffering of the people, but none of them are doing anything.”

For the past year, Dahlan has been raising money in Gulf countries and distributing it to needy Gazans, in part through a charity run by his wife.

Dahlan also took credit for the partial opening of the Rafah crossing last week.

Interestingly, the Newsweek article notes that Dahlan took Serbian citizenship last year, an option that Arab countries do not offer for Palestinian "refugees."

An eye-opening report from the UN's IRIN news site, May 25:

Until November, it is alleged that Jordan routinely deported Syrian refugees who had broken the law back to Syria... Most Syrians are now sent to the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan instead. However, this is not the case for Palestinians, whose deportations do not appear to have been halted.

Jordan has denied entrance to Palestinian refugees living in Syria since January 2013, although this had already been the unofficial policy for months prior to the official announcement.

“They should stay in Syria until the end of the crisis,” Jordan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour said in an interview at the time with the pan-Arab daily newspaper al-Hayat.

Many people fleeing Syria’s civil war have, however, been smuggled across the border, and Palestinians found to have entered the country illegally have been detained and are often deported back to Syria.

At least 42 Palestinians from Syria have been forcibly deported this year, in addition to 117 in 2014, according to sources familiar with the cases. Rights groups say those deported are at high risk of being arrested and tortured.

Here is the full quote from Jordan's Prime Minister:

Al-Hayat: But why are you preventing the Palestinian refugees fleeing from Syria from entering the kingdom, while knowing that they have Syrian travel documents?

Ensour: There are those who want to exempt Israel from the repercussions of displacing the Palestinians from their homes. Jordan is not a place to solve Israel’s problems. Jordan has made a clear and explicit sovereign decision to not allow the crossing to Jordan by our Palestinian brothers who hold Syrian documents. Receiving those brothers is a red line because that would be a prelude to another wave of displacement, which is what the Israeli government wants. Our Palestinian brothers in Syria have the right to go back to their country of origin. They should stay in Syria until the end of the crisis.

If we save their lives, we'd be doing what Israel wants us to do! Better to let them rot!

This is reminiscent of Mahmoud Abbas' own words saying that it is better for Palestinians to die in Syria rather than give up the mythical "right to return" to Israel.

The IRIN article shows that it is not only Jordan that turns its back on Syrian residents with Palestinian ancestry:

Palestinians from Syria are not allowed to register with the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, to receive aid, and many say they cannot contact other NGOs for fear of being discovered and stripped of their citizenship and deported. Many aid agencies will not work with them or represent them, making them particularly vulnerable to exploitation in the informal labour market.

Other Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon, have also effectively banned Palestinians from Syria from entering.

There are literally hundred of NGOs operating in Israel and the territories, mostly funded by Europe, that are "pro-Palestinian." Yet almost none of these supposedly "pro-Palestinian" agencies take the slightest interest in the plight of Palestinians whose suffering cannot be blamed on Jews.

Now, why would that be?

(h/t Irene)

I've mentioned that a new Egyptian Ramadan TV series about Egyptian Jews in the 1950s, called "Jewish Quarter," is quite sympathetic to Egypt's vanished Jewish community.

The Times of Israel had a more detailed report on the series.

Egyptian soap operas, produced annually to entertain millions of Muslims breaking their fast during the holy month of Ramadan, have often been platforms for antisemitic and anti-Israeli vitriol.

The 2012 series “Naji Atallah’s Team,” starring veteran actor Adel Imam, depicted an Egyptian group’s attempt to rob a bank in deeply racist Israel. The 2002 historic show “Knight Without a Horse,” located in 1932 Egypt and based on the antisemitic canard “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” almost caused Israel to withdraw its ambassador from Cairo and sparked condemnation also from the US State Department.

But a new drama about the Jews of Egypt scheduled to air this Ramadan, come June 18, promises to be significantly different.

The plot of “Haret al-Yahood,” or The Jewish Quarter, unfolds in Cairo between two landmark events in 20th century Egyptian history: the 1952 Revolution — which replaced the ruling monarchy with the militaristic Free Officers Movement led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser — and the 1956 Suez Crisis, known in Israel as the Kadesh Operation and in Egypt as the Tripartite Aggression.

It depicts a love story between Ali, an Egyptian army officer played by Iyad Nassar, and Laila, a young Jewish woman, played by Mona Shalabi. As one might expect, the romance is marred by the rising wave of Egyptian nationalism and the social tensions brought about by the creation of Israel.

Menna Shalabi is now telling Egyptian media to please not think that she is a filthy Zionist:

Shalabi releaeed a statement that the series "Jewish Quarter" is not intended to "beautify the face of Israel."

She said that the series is meant to show the social and and political history of Egypt at a point in time, and said that to accuse her of beautifying the face of Israel is completely unacceptable.

She said there is a difference between the state of Israel "that adopts the idea of occupation" and the Jewish religion and Jews as human beings, as citizens have lived a long time in Egypt.

Shalabi pleaded for critics and the public not to rush to judgment on the work before its full release.

One doesn't have to read between the lines to see that she has been criticized in social media for the role and she is worried that she might be a target.

J-Street pretends to care about Israel advocacy on campus

I received this email from J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami:

Sheldon Adelson, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Christians United For Israel -- hardly a group representative of the American Jewish community -- spent this Saturday convening a secretive Las Vegas conclave to fight BDS. The problem: their approach is all wrong, and the impact for Israel advocacy on campus could be dire.

This wasn't just any strategy session: they invited 50 organizations that work on college campuses, ranging from the political center to the most extreme and Islamophobic. At the end of the day, the organizations got to compete for millions in funding. The donors have made clear that with all this money, they want to “assign roles” and “command and control” our community’s work on campus.

It's clear who is most likely to be the biggest loser in all this: not BDS, but Israel, and the students who know that the best way to be pro-Israel is to be anti-occupation and pro-peace.

There is more chutzpah in these three three short paragraphs than the proverbial son who killed his parents and asked for mercy because he was an orphan.

J-street is lecturing Zionist organizations on Israel advocacy? Really? When has J-Street ever said a pro-Israel word to "Students for Justice in Palestine"? when have they ever written a letter to professors who want to boycott Israel? I'm still waiting for a single tweet from Jeremy Ben Ami that defends Israel against the worse kind of antisemitic, anti-Israel propaganda.

J-Street characterizes a conference that has been widely reported in the media as "secretive." This coming from someone who tries to sweep the anti-Zionist opinions of his own board members under the rug. This comes from someone who pretends to be pro-Israel but cannot allow his organization to explicitly say that they support a Jewish state because that is way too right-wing for J-Street.

And, really, doesn't use of the word "secretive" suggest antisemitic stereotypes? The language doesn't bother them at all.

J-Street claims on the one habd to oppose BDS, but on the other they invite BDS champions like Mustafa Barghouti and Rebecca Vilkomerson to speak at their conferences.

So what in reality has J-Street done to combat BDS? Have they been vocal against the many divestment initiatives on campus? I have never heard them say a word in any of these public student debates on the topic - but they berate StandWithUs, who does a masterful job defending Israel and defeating these initiatives that J-Street seems to be de facto ambivalent about.

Well, J-street U has a "BDS Response Toolkit."

It is password-protected.

Who is "secretive?"

Time's 1967 essay way too pro-Israel to be written today

Here is the entire essay by Time magazine written in the aftermath of the Six Day War. While I disagree with some points, what is remarkable is that practically everything they wrote then applies today, but no mainstream media outlet would dare write such an essay now. It is a testament to how successful the anti-Israel libels have been in the past decades that these facts that are self-evident are now too controversial to say without being labeled a "Zionist."

Note that Time assumed that the borders of Israel almost certainly should not become the pre-1967 lines.

Note also that there is not one mention of "Palestinians." There is no distinction between Arabs from Jordan or the west bank (it was never capitalized then) or Gaza or Egypt. Isn't it amazing how they have managed to invent themselves as a people in such a short period of time?

ON FACING THE REALITY OF ISRAEL

FOR months and perhaps years, debate will rage about the borders of Israel and about how much (if any) of its conquered territory it has a right to keep. That debate, while important, is secondary. The real issue is not Israel's specific size or shape but its basic right to exist. Most of the world has accepted and acknowledged that right, but not the Arabs. After their disastrous defeat, the Arab leaders still proclaim that their ambition is to build up enough strength to eradicate the state of Israel some day, even if it takes generations. They sound a little like Russian Czar Peter the Great, who remarked that he would force the Swedes to defeat him until "they teach us how to beat them."

Whether the Arabs really mean it—in the Western, rational sense of meaning something—or whether they are merely caught up in a phantasmagoria of words, is beside the point. The Arabs have shown time and again that they are the prisoners of their hyperbole. Their refusal to accept Israel as a fact of life is at the bottom of the whole Middle Eastern conflict, of the war just concluded and of the diplomatic battles about to begin. If the Arabs recognized Israel, a territorial settlement would be relatively easy.

Do the Arabs have a case that goes beyond mere fanaticism? That question is linked to a series of other, deeper questions: What is a nation? What is a state? How does a people achieve the standing of nation or state?

The Ways to Nationhood

History, political science and even that elusive discipline, international law, are in substantial agreement on the answers. A nation is "a body of people who feel they are a nation," says Harvard Political Scientist Rupert Emerson. What is essential is "the sense of common identity, the sense of a singularly important national 'we' which is distinguished from all others who make up an alien 'they.' " In the long jostling of history, a group would stake out a territory and fight to defend its boundaries against any "theys." In short, a nation becomes a state when it has the power to occupy and hold a given amount of space and when other nations recognize this fact. This may not seem just or fair. It may smack too much of raw force and various doctrines of "the survival of the fittest" or "the territorial imperative" that have been used to justify force. Yet these basic conditions—identity, tradition, ability to stake out a territory, govern it and win recognition—are the only real criteria for sovereignty.

The rise and fall of nations is an endless process of territories being joined and rejoined in varying mosaics, of people displaced and resettled, of power expanding and contracting. A new nation may be established through conquest, as was England when the Normans defeated the Anglo-Saxons, who had in turn shaken off the Danes, who had in turn put down the Anglo-Saxons. The original population of France was subdued by the Romans, whose remnants were driven out by the Franks, who in turn established an empire that under Charlemagne embraced large parts of Germany and Italy. In most cases of nation building through conquest, sheer force is not enough: there must be emotional and psychological power at work that sooner or later legitimizes the seizure and leads to an amalgamation of conquerors and conquered. Otherwise, the process of conquest is reversed. This has happened countless times. A classic example: Netherlanders rebelled against the rule of Spain in the 17th century, and the Belgians in the 19th century rebelled against the rule of The Netherlands. The rebels, for their part, must be able to make their rebellion stick and have it recognized by the world.

New countries may be established through a combination of immigration and revolution, as in the U.S. and Latin America, where settlers cut loose from their colonial masters. The process may also occur through a kind of rebirth—a deliberate revival of an ancient state or civilization in a new form, often but not always accompanied by revolutionary war. Modern Greece fought for its independence from the Ottoman empire partly in the name of its ancient, glorious incarnation, and modern Germany struggled for national unity remembering its identity under the Holy Roman Empire.

The breakup of empires has always given rise to new states. After World War I, the Paris Peace Conference put together Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia from disparate (and still not fully united) remnants of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and independent Serbia. The collapse of the colonial empires after World War II brought about a rash of such arbitrary creations. Many ex-colonial countries had sovereignty conferred on them by their former masters under the U.N.'s aegis, without the often salutary experience of having to fight for their freedom. Such countries are apt to be based on arbitrary old colonial boundaries. They are either so small that they have no independent viability, as in the case of Chad or Dahomey or Upper Volta, or else so large and composed of such disparate tribes that they have no common sense of nationhood, as in the case of Nigeria.

In the creation of modern Israel, traces of most of these precedents can be found—conquest, war of liberation, immigration, rebirth, international action—although no really close parallel exists. Judaism is a unique mixture of race, nationality and religion. There is no other people that has been dispersed for so long from its original home, yet has maintained the memory of that home as a living reality.

The Homeland Plea

Almost every text and ritual of the Jewish faith recalls the land that the Biblical Israelites seized from the Canaanites and to which, according to Genesis, Abraham received the title deed from God. This religious tradition has maintained a sense of community among Jews scattered over the world since the Romans destroyed the Palestine Jewish community in A.D. 135. For centuries, Passover and Yom Kippur services have ended with "Next year in Jerusalem!" And the Psalmist sang:

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget its cunning.

The Arabs, too, have deep roots in Palestine and an undeniable moral claim: therein lies the tragedy of the situation. They seized the country in the wave of conquest launched by the successors of Mohammed in the 7th century after Christ, and later wrested it back from the Christian Crusaders. Arabs have lived in Palestine for 1,300 years, and until recently made up the vast majority of the population. To Arabs, the Israelis are newcomers who in a generation or two wrested the land away from them. For the Moslems, too, Palestine has sacred connotations: tradition holds that the Prophet visited Heaven by ascending a ladder of light from the spot that is now marked by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

The Jews' religious, emotional and historic claim to Palestine as their homeland is probably stronger than the Arabs', but by itself the homeland plea can never be sufficient. In countless other cases, that plea and its underlying impulse have dissipated themselves. If it were not so, confusion would be considerable: the Celts could claim England; the Ainus, Japan; and the American Indians, the U.S.

The Jewish claim to modern Palestine is more realistically based; it derives from the territorial mandate that the British received from the League of Nations after the collapse of Turkey in World War I and later passed on to the U.N. That mandate incorporated the Balfour Declaration, promising the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Most of the Arab states now contesting Israel's claim did not exist themselves at the time, but a few Arab leaders agreed to the Balfour Declaration (whose meaning may or may not have been clear to them). The majority of Arabs probably disagreed.

The fact is that in 1947 the U.N. proposed partition of Palestine between Arabs and Jews. The Arabs objected to the plan; the Jews accepted. In 1948, Israel proclaimed itself a state, and the world so recognized it. Karl Deutsch, professor of political science at Yale, compares the establishment of Israel to an act of "eminent domain," carried out by the world community.

The Arabs immediately attacked the new state and were decisively beaten back. In another day, the war would probably have continued until one side sued for peace, thus settling the matter at least for a time. But the U.N., with the best of intentions, halted the war long before Israel could expand its territory to the boundaries that its real strength could command. The U.N.-negotiated armistice lines of 1949 reflected an unreal balance of power. Says Harvard Government Professor Nadav Safran: "The Arab-Israeli conflict was the first international conflict in which the notion of 'no-war, no-peace' got established. Had the big powers not interposed their protection—thus taking pressure off the Arabs in 1949—peace would have been concluded, and people would probably be talking today about the natural affinity of Semites, instead of their mysterious obstinacy."

For nearly 20 years Israel has existed as a nation, its status so confirmed by its membership in the U.N. as well as by its own plain ability to function. The fact that it has done so with outside help is hardly the point. Most countries today require outside help to survive, including most of those lined up against Israel diplomatically. In fact, many have demonstrated less of a right than Israel, by the usual criteria, to be considered sovereign states.

If Israel's right to exist must be conceded, what of its right to keep some of its recent territorial conquests for the sake of security? On that point, Israel is more vulnerable. Yet its claim follows logically from the fact of its existence and from Arab belligerence. As Yale Law Professor Myres McDougal puts it: "Under the U.N. Charter, a nation is not supposed to acquire territory by force. But the Charter doesn't require a country to be a sitting duck."

Israel's argument that it acted in self-defense is based not only on the fact that the Egyptian blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba was generally considered an act of war. It is also based on the Arabs' two-decade record of demanding and working for the extermination of Israel, contrary to U.N. resolutions. Whether Israel needed to go quite so far as it did in self-defense is a question that may agitate some international lawyers—but hardly any military men. The U.N. lines, the Israelis can argue, are not a permanent frontier, hence they have the right to adjust their boundaries to ensure their security in the absence of a peace treaty.

The Need for Protection

If the Arabs were to agree to negotiate a peace with Israel, thereby acknowledging its existence, the situation would be changed immediately. The case for Israel's retaining its conquered territory would be sharply diminished, if not wiped out. Compensation of all kinds to the Arabs, including a settlement of the bitter refugee problem, would become possible.

How long can the Arabs hold out against negotiating a peace, and thus against the fact of Israel? Perhaps longer than most Westerners can imagine. Too much of Islam is an arrested culture that has never undergone a true political revolution or a religious reformation that could move it into the modern world. What divides the Arabs from Israel is not merely tradition or religion—for centuries past, Jews were far more tolerantly treated by Arabs than by Christians—but a culture gap. Israel, which in size constitutes less than 0.2% of the Arab lands, is hated by the Arabs in part because it is a successful, modern, Western state. It stands for all the things the Arabs resent, and yet want. If and when the Arabs manage to enter the Western-style 20th century, they may be able to defeat Israel; more significantly, they may then no longer feel the need to do so.

The sad persistence of the Arab attitude is perhaps the strongest argument for Israel's need to protect itself. Since the U.N. has shown its inability to protect them, Israelis argue that they can give up the real estate they deem essential to their security only if the Arabs agree to peace—and to reality,

06/07 Links: Netanyahu chides world over silence after Gaza rockets; UNRWA’s birthday

From Ian:

JCPA: Anti-Semitism is the Motivation for the BDS Campaign Whose Goal is to Delegitimize Israel

Israel is rightly alarmed at the escalating scale of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. BDS constitutes a concrete threat to the future of Israel’s economic, academic, cultural, sports and political standing. BDS is not only a well-organized and structured global operation that aims to push for Israel to withdraw from territories, but a campaign of well-oiled lies, of dangerous international dimension.
Of course it is legitimate to criticize the policies of a government, but the BDS movement goes far beyond legitimate criticism, and in essence calls for the dismantling of the Jewish state. How to fight against anti-Semitism when incitement to hatred of Israel and Jews is rapidly spread by globalization and social media?
While the Arab boycott against the Jewish state is not new– it began at the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, but it was organized then by the Arab League due to the territorial dispute with the nascent state. Since 2005, however, it has taken an unprecedented turn with the creation of the BDS movement.
Despite huge investment and effort, BDS has so far not scored any significant economic and trade sanctions against Israel, because governments are fiercely opposed to it.
The question is whether the spread of BDS and increasing public pressure will encourage leaders of the international community to change their firm opposition to the detriment of Israel.
Any fair-minded person must contemplate why the BDS movement is focused on the Jewish state, while massacres continue all over the Middle East and are almost completely ignored. A real theater of the absurd!

IsraellyCool: Answering The Olive Tree Destruction Libel

Every year in Israel we get a rash of news reports about Jews (or more likely “settlers”) cutting down “Palestinian” olive trees. The reports usually hint that thousands of trees were destroyed in a few minutes, usually over night and without anyone capturing this act on a cell phone video, of course. Because when it’s soldiers and little girls there are thousands of cameras; when it’s mythical acts of Jewish vandalism there are none.
As I was walking through Park Hayarkon in Tel Aviv on Friday morning I came across two park employees cutting off a very small dead stump from a healthy young tree. Here’s the video.
It takes these two almost a minute to cut off a very small dead stump. They then clean off the shoots around the base leaving the healthy tree. That’s how you care for olive trees. Also notice how much work it is with a large chainsaw to cut even the smallest limb from an olive tree. Olive tree wood is very hard: cutting down mature olive trees is an extremely difficult task. This stump was around 20cm in diameter. Mature trees can be more than a meter across!

Bassem Eid: Calling for an awakening of conscience: Palestinians are real people

Whenever they are told that their actions hurt the Palestinians far more than they hurt Israel, “pro-Palestinian” activists plug their ears and start shouting “la la la la, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you”, then they go back to their mantra about the Israelis having stolen land and needing to be punished and being all-around evil people and so on. It would be funny if it were not real.
It is appalling but somewhat expected (given over 67 years of violence against Israel) that some Zionists would dehumanize Palestinians, but it is quite a tragedy that “pro-Palestinian” activists are even worse offenders. The compulsive and fanatical nature of anti-Zionism is the problem. It prevents its adherents from seeing the trees while they obsess about a forest that mostly exists in their imaginations. The hateful nature of anti-Zionism burns everything around it, and the Palestinians are its main victims.
We therefore call for an awakening of conscience among the ranks of those who call themselves pro-Palestinian. If they truly are pro-Palestinian, and not simply anti-Israel, then we expect them to strongly condemn Hamas terrorism and Fatah corruption which are the main causes of Palestinian suffering, rather than demonize Israel while ignoring the consequences of that demonization on the lives of real Palestinians.

Let's get something straight, shall we? Barack Obama, whatever else anyone might wish to say about the man, is not Jewish.

Obama is not Jewish, nor is he Muslim, nor is he Rosicrucian, nor Buddhist, nor a follower of the ancient faith of the Jains.

It is reported that former senior White House adviser, David Axelrod, claims that Obama said, "I think that I am the closest thing to a Jew who’s ever sat in this office." According to the Times of Israel, the White House is proving itself a little uncomfortable with this quote and is refusing to affirm its authenticity.

Times of Israel staff notes:

The White House on Tuesday partly endorsed comments attributed to US President Barack Obama by a former top adviser, who told Israel’s Channel 2 that the president shares the “common bonds and commons values” of the Jewish community.

However, Spokesman Josh Earnest did not go so far as to confirm ex-Obama senior adviser David Axelrod’s recollection that the president said he considered himself “the closest thing to a Jew” who’s served in the Oval Office.

In wondering just what is behind this oft-repeated notion that Obama, while not technically Jewish, is, in fact, Jew-ish, Jeffrey Tobin over at Commentary has this to say:

But the idea that he somehow considers himself at least as, if not more, Jewish than the leaders of the Jewish state and its supporters is a remarkable insight into his thinking. The question is not so much whether to accept this bizarre formulation as it is to what would lead the president to come to such a mistaken conclusion. The only answer is that he, like some of his Jewish supporters, actually thinks Jewish identity is a function of modern American political liberalism rather than a faith or a people.

Tobin is surely exaggerating. While Obama likes to imply that his policies derive from his values and his values derive, at least in part, from the Jewish side of what they used to call "the Judeo-Christian tradition," I find it highly unlikely that he thinks of himself as more Jewish "than the leaders of the Jewish state and its supporters..."

However, this notion that to be a good Jew one must be something akin to a good Democrat, fighting for social justice in the spirit of Tikkun Olam, is so politically self-serving as to be laughable. The obvious implication of such nonsense is that unless Jewish Americans follow the Obama administration and the Democratic Party than they are not really being very good Jews.

Meanwhile President Obama, whom David M. Weinberg is calling "Rabbi Obama" in the pages of Israel Hayom, is yet again threatening to throw Israel to the wolves at the United Nations. Barack Obama may love the Jewish people with all of his heart. The very thought of Golda Meir may get him all weepy and, as he likes to remind us, the very values that he cherishes (whatever those might be, exactly) are the very values that we cherish. (Or perhaps that is not the case, at all.) But whatever is the case, one thing is certain:

Barack Obama is no friend to Israel.

According to The Telegraph:

Barack Obama has warned that America's veto in support of Israel at the UN is increasingly "difficult" because of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wavering stance on a Palestinian state.

Mr Obama said the lack of progress in peace efforts, and Mr Netanyahu's apparent about-turn on support for a two-state solution before and after the recent Israel elections, mean Israel is in danger of losing "credibility".

This is a sick game that the current American administration is playing with the lives and well-being of the Jewish people of Israel. From 1937, with the Peel Commission, to the present, Israelis, for the most part, having been willing to share our tiny bit of Jewish homeland. Yet no matter how often Jewish Israelis say "yes" they are always blamed for intransigence and however consistently the Palestinian-Arabs say "no" to a state for themselves in peace next to Israel, they are always rewarded with moral support and cold, hard cash.

Also, of course, Netanyahu was merely being honest when he claimed that there would not likely be a two-state solution during his tenure. How could it possibly be otherwise when the Palestinian-Arab governments are split between a genocidally-authoritarian theocratic regime in Gaza and a genocidally-authoritarian semi-secular regime in what some people insist upon calling the "West Bank," as both call for violence against Jews and and as the rest of the region is engulfed by the ongoing blood, fire, rapes and beheadings of the misnamed "Arab Spring."

Obama said:

"If, in fact, there's no prospect of an actual peace process, if nobody believes there's a peace process, then it becomes more difficult to argue with those who are concerned about settlement construction..."

The opposite is actually true. If there is no peace process then construction of Jewish townships in Judea and Samaria becomes less politically relevant, not more so. If the Palestinian-Arabs absolutely refuse to accept a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one, than why should Jews not be allowed to build housing for themselves on the land of our ancestors?

Every time administration officials whine about Jews daring to build housing for themselves in Judea, they justify the Arab anti-Semitism that resides at the very heart of the conflict. Were it not for that anti-Semitism no one would mind if Jews built housing for themselves in Judea and Samaria. The only reason that anyone objects is because Jews are Jews. So when Obama complains about "settlements" he is effectively agreeing with Mahmoud Abbas that any future "Palestinian" state must be Judenrein.

This is blatant anti-Jewish bigotry on its face, yet the Obama administration goes along with it and American Jews, largely, go along with Obama.

What we will likely see in the coming months is the ratcheting up of the BDS movement in the European capitals, with Barack Obama leading from behind in Washington. Obama need not come out personally in favor of the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel for him to send messages that amount to approval.

When Obama says, "The danger here is that Israel as a whole loses credibility. Already, the international community does not believe that Israel is serious about a two-state solution," he is sending distinct and relevant messages to the enemies of the Jewish people all around the world.

He is also sending a distinct and threatening message to the Jewish people, as a whole.

One obvious message is that Obama, himself, does not think that Israel has "credibility" (whatever exactly he means by that.)

Another obvious message is that he, himself, believes that Israel is not serious about a two-state solution and is, therefore, fair game.

And, finally, that is the real message. If Israel has no "credibility," and if Jewish Israelis do not really want a two-state solution, then it's open season.

Barack Obama may as well just have rung the dinner bell.

This is called leading from behind.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

NRG reports that the UNDOF (United Nations Disengagement Observer Force) is irritating the people of Katzrin because of its blatant disregard for local laws.

UNDOF has relocated from Damascus, Syria to the Israeli town of Katzrin in the Golan Heights because of security issues. While the townspeople welcomed the move, even urging the UNDOF to change the addresses on their business cards, they are not happy about how the international organization ignores even the basics of etiquette.

Throughout Katzrin, one can see UN vehicles parked on sidewalks and handicapped spots, flouting local laws.

The head of the town council said several letters had been sent to UNDOF asking them to address the issue, but no results so far. "Legally I can not do anything to them. I can not stop them, even if they do serious offenses. I just want them to respect the laws of the host country."

A later meeting with UN officials resulted in them promising to be more respectful of the locals, but so far nothing has happened.

Residents and officials started placing signs on offending vehicles.

The Foreign Ministry explained that according to the Vienna Convention, diplomatic officials serving in Israel are given immunity, but it also noted that the Convention clearly stipulates that they respect the local law.

It isn't as if Katzrin has a shortage of parking spots, or that the UN employees are handicapped. They could find adequate parking spots easily. They choose, instead, to act like neighborhood bullies. And an organization that accuses Israel of violating international law is effectively tells Israel that will ignore its own laws whenever it pleases.

UPDATE: UNDOF says that they will obey local laws and fine the wrongdoers.

(h/t Yenta Press, Bob Knot)

From AFP:

A top Iranian official, in an unusual declaration Saturday, said there remains no trust between Tehran and world powers and either side could yet abandon a nuclear deal after signing.

In comments that laid bare a paradox of long-running negotiations between Iran and the West, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said an agreement -- due by June 30 -- was nearing despite neither side trusting the other.

A final accord could rein in aspects of Iran's nuclear programme while allowing it to continue to enrich uranium in exchange for a lifting of sanctions, but breaches could see the deal being ripped up.

"Our basis is mistrust and this is the reality," Araghchi was quoted by state television as saying at the end of the latest round of talks in Vienna with the P5+1 group of nations that has been talking to Iran for almost two years.

"We don't trust the other side at all and they don't trust us either," Araghchi said, noting so-called "snapback" provisions would be as relevant to Iran as to the United States if measures are reneged on.

"Thus all the provisions in a deal... whenever each party feels the other side is violating the commitments, they can snap back and implement whatever existed before the agreement.

"We have taken every necessary measure so this would happen for us. Naturally, the other side will do the same for sanctions," he added.

In other words, you can't trust Iran to keep a single provision of the deal if they can find the flimsiest pretense.

Once again...sounds familiar.

(h/t Mike Anon)

06/06 Links: Attorneys at War; Saban calls Orange liars, joins with Adelson to battle boycott ‘tsunami’

From Ian:

Attorneys at War

Israel’s fight with Hamas is not just an example of classic asymmetric warfare, it’s also just plain nasty. Why? Hamas may be a nonstate actor but its militants have access to a broad array of sophisticated weaponry that is more typically found in the arsenals of nation-states. Either way, bad news for Israel.
And maybe bad news for other Western nations as well. “The IDF’s warnings certainly go beyond what the law requires, but they also sometimes go beyond what would be operational good sense elsewhere,” says Michael Schmitt, director of the Stockton Center for the Study for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College. “People are going to start thinking that the United States and other Western democracies should follow the same examples in different types of conflict. That’s a real risk.” Schmitt is the author of a just-completed comprehensive analysis of the IDF’s targeting systems.
There’s another risk to the preoccupation with protecting civilians. Some commanders and outside legal experts worry that Dabla attorneys risk discrediting themselves in the eyes of the major consumers of their advice, combat commanders. The commanders at some point may say, “Why? We went overboard to protect civilians last time and we still got criticized. What’s the point?”
A valid question, and one for which Colonel Neuman has an unequivocal answer. “We tell commanders what they need to do to comply with international law. We are clear with them that they don’t need to do more but in a lot of cases they do anyway.” Neuman, a gentle soul who radiates integrity, leaves no doubt he believes that it’s the IDF commanders—and not Dabla—who do more than what is required by international law.
Despite Neuman’s unambiguous response, ambiguity remains as to who is the driving force behind the IDF’s taking such extensive measures to minimize civilian casualties. The commanders say the lawyers. The lawyers say the commanders. The Naval War College’s Schmitt believes both fighters and lawyers in the IDF share responsibility for the high standards. Ultimately, does it really matter?
There’s one final risk to Israel that stems from this preoccupation with protecting civilians. This risk comes from the north, where Israel faces a far more dangerous enemy than Hamas. That would be Hezbollah, the militant Islamic group, supported and funded by Iran, that controls southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is exponentially stronger and better equipped than Hamas. It seems readily apparent that the IDF will not be able to use methods like individualized phone calls and “roof knocking” in combat with Hezbollah. Will IDF officers then get hammered for acting one way in Gaza and another way in southern Lebanon? It’s a good bet they will.
No matter. For better or worse, combat commanders and Dabla attorneys will bend over backwards to prevent civilian casualties. The concept is simply deeply embedded into the IDF culture.

France deports Algerian father of Toulouse terrorist

The father of Mohamed Merah, who shot dead three soldiers before gunning down three students and a teacher at a Jewish school, had been in the country illegally for months after authorities refused to renew his residency permit in March.
A source close to the case said the father, Mohamed Benalel Merah, was arrested near the cemetery where his son was buried after being killed by elite police after a 32-hour siege of his apartment in the southern city of Toulouse.
He was questioned and put on a flight to Algeria.
His son embarked on a killing spree, gunning down his victims from the back of a scooter between March 11 and 19, 2012, boasting that he was working for Al-Qaeda to police during the siege of his apartment.
Mohamed Benalel Merah later filed a murder complaint when police ended the siege by shooting his son.
Intelligence sources told AFP earlier this year that Merah’s half-brother Essid was suspected of having appeared in an Islamic State group execution video.
Merah’s sister Souad also left for Syria in 2014, the sources said.

Saban calls Orange liars, joins with Adelson to battle boycott ‘tsunami’

Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban on Saturday rejected as a “blatant lie” the claim by French telecom giant Orange that it was not pulling out of Israel for political reasons, and vowed to fight back so robustly against Orange that any other company thinking of boycotting Israel would reconsider. “We do have an anti-Semitic tsunami that’s coming at us,” said Saban of the international effort to boycott and demonize Israel.
Saban was speaking in a joint Israeli television interview with Jewish American billionaire Sheldon Adelson from Las Vegas, where Adelson this weekend hosted representatives of some 50 Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to coordinate a strategy for battling anti-Israel boycott efforts.
Adelson said his prime focus initially was to reverse the inroads being made by what he called “the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and company… the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations [that] are making a lot of headway on the campuses in the United States.” He said he would encourage Jewish groups to work to have boycott decisions taken by student campus groups reversed.
But Saban made clear that he intended to fight back against any business groups inclining to boycott Israel, and create a climate in which they were deterred from doing so.
Saban — who owns Partner, the Israeli company whose rights to use the Orange name are now to be cancelled by the French telecom giant — angrily dismissed Orange CEO Stephane Richard’s claim that Orange is not pulling out of Israel for political reasons.

06/05 Links Pt2: When will the free world realize Churchill was right?; Rabbi Obama's tough love

From Ian:

Mordechai Kedar: It's not about Soccer, Stupid. It's about Israel's Survival

Let's tell the truth: the Palestine Liberation Organizaion established in June 2, 1964, three years before the "occupation", was meant to free the "Palestine" that existed then, meaning Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nahariya and Be'er Sheva and not Hevron, Shechem and Ramallah that were under Jordanian "occupation" at the time. The organization has not changed its charter as of today, nor has it changed its goal and its suggested Final Solution for the Jewish People all over the world. This was the credo of its founder, he who established the great Palestinian Nation Lie, none other than Haj Amin El-Husseini, who took an active part in the extermination of half a million Hungarian Jews in 1944.
Mahmoud Abbas, Jibril Rajoub and their fellow-murderers share Husseini's dreams and are trying to achieve his goals without being obvious about it, so as not to wake us up. We are asleep and they are leading us towards extermination, along international corridors, by way of the courtroom - and through FIFA. According to the Palestine Liberation Organization, all these interantional bodies are gas molecules that will strangle Israel, causing its certain death as soon as they reach the required concentration. All they have to do is open the anesthesia pipeline of "security coordination" to keep us from seeing the fatal gas they are gathering all around us.
This is not about soccer. This is about our existence in Israel, from Tel Aviv to Ariel, from Haifa to Kiryat Arba, from Be'er Sheva to Maaleh Adumim. The Palestine - all of Palestine - Liberation Organization does not want us here and it is time to tell the truth: those Accords we signed with them in 1993 were a strategic error and a fatal step for the Jewish State that followed Arafat as though he was the pied piper of Hamelin and they were a buinch of naive children - fated to be left in a cave with no way out.
It is time to send the Palestine Liberation Organization to hell in a handbasket before it becomes another Hamas state, which is can do by holding elections as in January 2006, or through a violent takeover which is what happened in Gaza in 2007. Is anyone able to promise that this won't happen in Judea and Samaria? Since no one in the world can assure us that this most realistic scenario will not take place, we must take that vital step, and every passing day makes it harder to do that most necessary thing. If not now, when? When should we do it? Should we wait until Hamas takes over and establishes a terror state in Judea and Samaria? As they are busy doing in Gaza?
Our thanks to Jibril Rajouib, the convicted terrorist who showed us the truth, as if we really needed to be told.

Ben-Dror Yemini: When will the free world realize Churchill was right?

The intellectual elites are returning to the exact same spot these days. Organizations of students and lecturers, as well as the Orange CEO, are milestones in this disgraceful path. Arguments can be made against Israel. Some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statements and Israel's policy are worthy of profound criticism. But Israel is a democracy. There is a fundamental debate taking place here. The anti-Israel campaign is not contributing to the reconciliation between Jews and Arabs. It is increasing the hostility and the hatred.
The Orange CEO wouldn't have expressed support for the boycott if it wasn’t for the atmosphere created by the propaganda of lies. It is an atmosphere and disease which is not only threatening Britain, but the entire free world. Another prestigious academic institution, the London School of Economics (LSE), decided to twin its union with the Islamic University of Gaza of all universities, although some of the university's leaders have made it clear that the annihilation of Jews is a command for immediate implementation.
The evil spirit of BDS is not only threatening Israel. It is wreaking havoc in the United States and Britain. It is threatening the free world. It is encouraging Palestinian terror and Palestinian rejectionism. The Orange CEO's declaration is another milestone in the disgraceful parade.
Churchill realized it at the time, and was concerned that this disgrace would only bring the war closer. Eight-two years have passed, and the free world is refusing to realize that Churchill was right.

The FIFA fiasco: What woeful wimps

Israel’s response to the Palestinian initiative to suspend it from FIFA epitomized everything that is wrong with its public diplomacy.
Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote: “Clearly, within the context of conventional wisdom… the contention that Israel’s acceptance of the legitimacy of Palestinian national claims has laid the foundations for the international assault on its own legitimacy seems, at best, counterintuitive. However, the logic behind it is unassailable and the conclusion to be drawn from it inexorable: Once the legitimacy of a Palestinian state is conceded, the delegitimization of Israel is inevitable.”
The chain of reasoning is clear and compelling – almost algorithmic. For the Zionist narrative to be re-legitimized, the Palestinian narrative must be delegitimized. For Israel to regain its legitimacy, “Palestine” must be stripped of its legitimacy. For as Nahum Barnea correctly diagnoses: “the Palestinians are not only challenging the occupation, but Israel’s actual existence.”
Unless this is grasped and acted on, even billionaires will be of no avail.

This week's Shujaiyeh rubble photos

I wrote earlier this week that Gaza's Shujaiyeh neighborhood is being kept filled with rubble - and its residents kept homeless - because of the propaganda value of having foreign dignitaries and journalists go through the neighborhood and seeing the destruction. even though tens of thousands of families have been fully supplied with construction materials to rebuild, seemingly no one in Shujaiyeh is rebuilding, and nine months after the war the rubble is still in place - despite the fact that rubble is worth money for entrepreneurs who can recycle it.

It is clear that this neighborhood is being kept as a monument to supposed Israeli crimes.

This is not the first time Arabs have made people homeless for propaganda points. The Syrian town of Quneitra is described by Wikipedia:

The city remains in a destroyed condition. Syria has left the ruins in place and built a museum to memorialize its destruction. It maintains billboards at the ruins of many buildings and effectively preserves it in the condition that the Israeli army left it in. The former residents of the town have not returned and Syria discourages the re-population of the area.

All that is missing from Shujaiyeh is the museum.

Here are this week's photos of a neighborhood that could have started clearing rubble and rebuilding last September:

Staged pictures in a large stage.

Turns out parts of Gaza's Shujaiyeh ARE being rebuilt - underground

From AFP:

A member of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas died Friday when a smuggling tunnel collapsed in the Gaza Strip near the Israeli border, Hamas and medical sources said.

The sources did not say why the tunnel, located in eastern Shejaiya in northern Gaza, collapsed.

A statement from Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of de facto Gaza rulers Hamas, said a member was killed in the collapse of "a resistance tunnel".

Hamas has created a network of underground tunnels that enable the movement of arms and fighters throughout the coastal Palestinian territory. Some extend into Israel, and were used to carry out attacks during the July-August 2014 war with the Jewish state.

Shujaiyeh? Isn't that the place that Gaza leaders parade reporters and diplomats around to prove that Gazans haven't rebuilt their homes?

Clearly there is some rebuilding going on!

Now, if you want to build underground bunkers and tunnels, wouldn't it be so much easier to do it before the reconstruction takes place above ground?

It is obvious that Hamas uses the neighborhood as a hub of operations, which is the entire reason it was a major target for the IDF. But now it serves an additional purpose of being a propaganda tool.

This is yet another one of those connections that reporters are paid to notice, but instead they go out of their way to ignore them. Hamas building terror bunkers and kidnap tunnels directly beneath the rubble-strewn neighborhood that they love to photograph as evidence of Israeli atrocities just doesn't register as relevant to their lazy "narrative."

Notice how AFP calls these "smuggling tunnels." Even Hamas doesn't claim it is used for smuggling, but for terror. (No one is smuggling any items from Israel.)

The Al Qassam Brigades website says that he was working in "tunnels of pride and dignity to be stationed at the mouths of the homeland" - which sure sounds like this tunnel was meant to go to Israel.

Anyway...time to hand out the candy.

(More in my next post.)

06/05 Links Pt1: New government’s war on BDS; EU-Funded NGOs Behind the Orange BDS Campaign

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The new government’s war on BDS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government is less than a month old, but it’s already apparent that it is different from its predecessors. And if it continues on its current diplomatic trajectory, it may do something that its six predecessors failed to accomplish. Netanyahu’s new government may improve Israel’s position internationally.
The stakes are high. Over the years, Israel has largely concentrated its efforts on developing the tools to contend with its military challenges. But as we have seen over the past decade and a half, Israel’s capacity to fight and defeat its enemies is not limited principally by the IDF’s war-fighting capabilities.
Israel’s ability to defend itself and its citizens is constrained first and foremost by its shrinking capacity to defend itself diplomatically. Its enemies in the diplomatic arena have met with great success in their use of diplomatic condemnation and intimidation to force Israel to limit its military operations to the point where it is incapable of defeating its enemies outright.
The flagship of the diplomatic war against Israel is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Participants in the movement propagate and disseminate the libelous claim that Israel’s use of force in self-defense is inherently immoral and illegal. Over the years BDS activists’ assaults on Israel’s right to exist have become ever more shrill and radical. So, too, whereas just a few years ago their operations tended to be concentrated around military confrontations, today they are everyday occurrences. And their demands become greater and more openly anti-Semitic from week to week and day to day.
Consider the events of the past seven days alone.

Sarah Honig: The great equalizer of all Jews

Last summer a café in a suburb of the Belgian city of Liege exposed the current face of anti-Semitism in one compact store-front display.
The window was festooned with the Palestinian flag, decorated with Fatah keffiahs and featured an Israeli flag crossed-out with a big red “X.” But if just-landed Martians failed to get the message, there was written bilingual elucidation as well.
The French version, for the benefit of the natives, boldly announced: “Entry is permitted to dogs but not to Zionists under any circumstances!”
Nonetheless, politically correct constraints in French clearly don’t cramp Turkish styles. Lest any perplexed Turk encounter difficulties in determining who’s a Zionist, the Turkish sign spelled things out explicitly – without synthetic attempts at European niceties. It let the proverbial cat out of the bag for dog-lovers and haters- of-Zion alike: “Entry is permitted to dogs but not to Jews under any circumstances!”
The bit about Zionists was exclusively for European consumption. Ever since the end of WWII, undisguised anti-Jewish harangues have lost their erstwhile luster in much of the continent. Anti-Israel and anti-Zionist discourse, however, provides socially acceptable alternatives. Nowadays, in fact, these substitutes have become the obligatory fad for the fashion-conscious.
Careless about prevalent conventions, though, the Turkish café-owners clearly illustrated that the terminology can be used interchangeably. If anything, anti-Zionist and anti-Jew are synonyms, despite expedient denials by disingenuous Europeans and Arab propagandists.

In very rare public meet, Israeli, Saudi officials name Iran as common foe

An extremely unusual public meeting of high-ranking Israeli and Saudi officials took place in Washington on Thursday, when the incoming director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry shared a stage — and shook hands — with a retired Saudi general who is a former top adviser to the Saudi government.
In their back-to-back addresses to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Dore Gold and Anwar Eshki both espoused Israeli-Saudi peace and identified Iran as the chief threat to regional stability.
Eshki spoke at length of Iran’s hostile and aggressive actions in the region and signaled that peace with Israel, based on the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative, was a top priority. He also spoke of the need for a joint Arab military force to increase regional stability.
Gold, the current head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank, is expected to be confirmed as the Foreign Ministry chief in the coming days. He too spoke of the challenge posed to the Middle East by Iran, and warned of a weak nuclear accord with Tehran which would leave the Islamic republic as a nuclear threshold state.
Bloomberg News reported that the two countries, longtime foes with no diplomatic relations, have held five clandestine meetings over the past 17 months on the threat posed by Iran. Long-rumored back-channel talks between Jerusalem and Riyadh have never been officially confirmed. (h/t Phil)

Palestinian Authority lying statistics (update)

I had missed this from last month:

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday it has recorded a population of 12.1 million people, of whom 4.6 million live in the occupied territories and the remainder abroad.

In a statement, the head of the statistics bureau said that in 1948, "1.4 million Palestinians lived in 1,300 towns and localities in historic Palestine".

After the war that followed Israel's creation, "Israel took control of 774 towns and villages, destroyed 531 and committed 70 killings and massacres in which 15,000 people died", she said.

I can only find one source that claims 15,000 Arab casualties of the war, from a 1995 World Political Almanac quoted in a Wikipedia article. I have no idea if it is referenced correctly. (UPDATE: Apparently this is accurate according to the World Political Almanac, but I don't know their source.)

Most histories of the War of Independence show perhaps 7,000- 10,000 total Arab losses. Benny Morris quotes the antismeitic known liar, the Mufti of Jerusalem, as claiming that about 12,000 Palestinian Arabs had died.

In short, there is no known reliable source for this statistic, which the PCBS has been pushing for years.

While the PCBS doesn't claim explicitly that Jews massacred 15,000 people, it is broadly implied here, and not mentioning that there was, you know, a war of attempted extermination of Israel. A war that incidentally killed over 6,000 Jews, some 5% of all men, women and children in Israel.

If the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics lies about statistics in 1948, then how reliable is it in reporting statistics today?