Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

06/16 Links Pt1: Instead of investigating IDF, UN should probe itself; UNRWA is Counterproductive

From Ian:

UN-believable:Israeli Organizations Working Against Israel at the UN

Im Tirtzu’s latest report reveals how three Israeli organizations, which have consultant status at the Economic-Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC), have been acting against the State of Israel and promoting the delegitimization of Israel in the international community. The groups have also been calling for an inquiry into IDF actions in Gaza.
Because the status conferred upon the organizations is a very prestigious one, as far as non-governmental organizations go, they are able to advise UN institutions on human rights, and can influence formulation of positions and resolutions adopted by the various UN bodies.
The groups – Adalah, Itijah, and the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions – use their access to UN organizations to accuse Israel and the IDF of war crimes, violations of international law related to combat and human rights, torture of Palestinians, and other crimes.
Im Tirtzu said that all three organizations have enjoyed funding from the New Israel Fund (NIF), among other sources, and Adalah receives money from the NIF to this day.

UNRWA in the Gaza Strip is Counterproductive

It must have come as a great shock to the so-called international community that in June 2015 the so-called refugees, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip protested that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was giving resources they deserved to other Palestinians.
The Gaza Palestinians demanded of UNRWA that it not cut the funds allocated to them, nor transfer those resources to the Palestinians who remained in the Yarmouk refugee camp in south Damascus, despite the fact 150,000 had fled the camp because of the Syrian War They also demanded that the international community, implicitly the U.S. and the EU, provide extra funding for their needs.
Perhaps because of this protest, Robert Turner, Director of UNRWA in Gaza, without reason or explanation, announced his intention to leave his position in mid July 2015. He has held that position since May 2012. His resignation might have been a cause of regret if he had not continued to refer, inaccurately, to the Gaza Strip as “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” He seems unaware that since 2007 it has been ruled by the terrorist group Hamas. He has always been a true naïve believer in the self-serving fallacious Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood.
Sometimes people in power do speak truth, or part of it, to the rest of us. On June 2, 2015, commemorating more than 65 years since UNRWA was established, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon remarked that it was “never meant to exist for this long.” Ban regards it as a political failure.

UN Watch: "Why is the U.N. Rewarding the Perpetrators?" — Hillel Neuer blasts election of Iran & Saudi Arabia

Arab media over the past day have reported a bizarre story claiming that former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking in Israel, said that the Jewish state should be exclusively for Jews and the Palestinian state exclusively for Arabs.

The story is wholly fictional. In fact, Sarkozy said in 2011 that the idea of a "Jewish state" is "silly."

But while researching it I found something that Sarkozy said last week in Israel at the Herzliya conference that explains the mindframe that causes Arabs to make up stories like that.

Sarkozy said that humanity owes a debt to the Jewish people for their persecution over the centuries, which culminated in the Holocaust. “The silence of the nations while the crimes were committed is a blemish on the conscience of humanity, he said. “We all failed and have a debt toward the Jewish people, and it continues to exist.” He said that the “only way to do something about it” is to always ensure the security of the Jewish people.

“Mankind has not yet understood that the fate of the Jews is always the forerunner of what will happen to others,” he said. “Fighting for the security of Jews and Israel is fighting for all those who make a difference in the world, and this is my profound conviction.'’

Sarkozy mentioned that there exist schools in France where teachers cannot teach about the Holocaust.

“It’s true there are schools in France where you cannot teach the Holocaust,” he said. But he insisted that France ‘’is not an anti-Semitic country.’’

Without saying this explicitly, Sarkozy is saying that French schools in Muslim neighborhoods - seemingly state schools where the curriculum is set nationally - refuse to teach an important part of 20th century history because they are antisemitic.

It is the same antisemitism that causes Muslims and Arabs to make up stories that Israel is planning to ethnically cleanse Israel of Arabs.

CNN bias, definitively explained

Last month, CNN - under the headline "Israeli settlers reportedly chop down 800 Palestinian olive trees" - parroted absurd Palestinian allegations without bothering to do a modicum of fact checking. (The story also quoted another false story that 175 "right wing Jewish extremists" went to the Al Aqsa Mosque.)

Under a firestorm of criticism, the author of the article Don Melvin insisted that there was nothing wrong with the story, saying that he was clear what the source of the reports were. Even yesterday on Twitter he kept at it:

@Johnny_Simson @HonestReporting One only puts the source first, before the allegation, when the source ismost important thing to understand.
— Don Melvin (@Don_Melvin) June 15, 2015

This is incredibly disingenuous. Generations of news consumers are conditioned to believe official sources that are quoted by the media if there is no indication that the source itself is suspect, and CNN did no exert any effort to uncover the actual facts of the report, leaving the readers with no context that could indicate that the story in the official PA news agency was false. On the contrary, they continued to quote Wafa quoting B'Tselem that indeed settlers do terrible things, confirming the false story in the minds of the readers.

CNN endowed the Wafa news agency with the same gravitas it would give a think tank or a human rights organization issuing a report.

CNN did not say a word to indicate that the reports were false, and Melvin knows very well how the stories would be understood by his audience. I would bet that Melvin, who is based in London, believed the stories himself so much that he did not think they were worth checking, and now he is spinning his gullibility behind his quoting a known lying source as if the audience would know that the source is trash beforehand.

Today, there is another story in the official PA news agency Wafa. It is similar to stories they have run dozens of times before, claiming that Jewish settlers are raising and releasing thousands of wild boars annually in order to destroy Palestinian crops. In this case, the article says that Jews in Ariel are jealous of the beautiful lands that their Arab neighbors in Salfit are using to plant figs, grapes, berries, olives.

The article says that the Jews come with truckfuls of wild boars at night and release them in the Arab fields.

If CNN is to be consistent, they should report this story from the official PA news agency accusing settlers of crimes as well. They won't. Because if they report it as straight as they reported the lies about the olive trees, even people who were raised on a diet of anti-Israel propaganda would think it is absurd that Jews would be raising vicious, wild (and unkosher) animals and somehow place them into trucks (!) for no reason except to terrorize Arabs.

The olive tree/"Jewish extremist" story, on the other hand, seemed plausible to causal readers. This is exactly why CNN's defense of the story is indefensible.

From a pure question of newsworthiness, the wild boar story is far more relevant - because Mahmoud Abbas himself has publicly made the same accusations. A real news organization would hold a politician to higher standards and go after him for saying such absurd lies. But Abbas is untouchable in the mainstream media, and no one at CNN will ever ask him a single difficult question.(I have a long list of such questions that not a single reporter ever asked Abbas.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is media bias. The choice of stories that are left unreported are just as important as those that are reported. Treating one national leader with kid gloves while mercilessly attacking others is clear proof of bias.

Deep down, Don Melvin (and any real journalist) knows that everything I am writing is true. His reporting on the olive trees and "storming Jews" may have been technically true in that is attributed the source but its style was highly irresponsible because readers would not know the source is suspect. CNN's lack of reporting over the years of the other absurd accusations against Jewish settlers is a clear indication that, to CNN and the other mainstream media, the only news formula that matters is "West Bank Arabs are good. Jewish settlers are evil."

Anything that can challenge that meme is simply to be ignored, because the meme is the story at CNN, and "reporting" is only meant to support the meme, not to uncover the truth.

Yesterday I tweeted Melvin with an article I wrote last September, showing a litany of news stories in a single week that I covered but that were ignored by the media, asking "Is This Newsworthy?" and asking him to answer. Of course, he didn't respond. And neither did any other reporter I asked at the time. Because they know that the bias is there and they can[t admit it without making themselves look bad.

There are plenty of stories that fit any definition of newsworthiness that are ignored, while others that adhere to pre-existing biases are trumpeted, because the narrative the media wants to push is more important than facts.

Times of Israel reports:

Leading members of Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas convened in Qatar over the past several days to discuss a proposal for a long-term ceasefire with Israel, the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper reported Monday.

According to Palestinian officials quoted by the paper, Hamas representative Moussa Abu Marzouk went to the Qatari capital of Doha on Saturday in the hopes of finalizing a three-to-five year truce with the Jewish state.

The truce proposal, which is backed by both Qatar and Turkey, is based on an outline formulated by UN special envoy to the Middle East Nikolay Mladenov, according to the Israeli NRG news site.

The report added that Abu Marzouk held a series of meetings in Qatar with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal as well as other senior officials in the organization.

The truce proposal reportedly includes a clause regarding the establishment of a seaport in Gaza, NRG reported. The port, according to the proposal, will be subject to Israeli or international supervision.

A Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan confirmed that Hamas will respond to some unspecified truce proposal today.

Fatah is not thrilled. Fatah-leaning Palestine Press Agency characterizes the story as "Informed sources in the Hamas movement inside and outside Palestine say there is a consensus within the movement for an agreement with Israel instead of an agreement with the Palestinian Authority."

The official Wafa news agency of the PA gives a lukewarm reaction to the news - and revealed the PA's long-standing fears of a separate Hamastan in Gaza:

Official spokesman for the Presidency, Nabil Abu Rdainah, commenting on what is being talked about to reach a truce in the Gaza Strip, said that it would be important, if it is not at the expense of the unity of the land and the state and the people, and not a precursor for the acceptance of a state with provisional borders, which would leave a devastating impact on the Palestinian people and their cause and independence.

He added in a statement to 'Wafa', on Tuesday, that any truce should aim to alleviate the suffering of our people, and not to be at the expense of the Palestinian national consensus.

The idea of a seaport under international supervision is interesting. It effectively would make a seaport a replacement for the Rafah crossing, which used to be manned by a European contingent EUBAM-Rafah (with cameras to Israel) to monitor that no weapons or terrorists crossed the border. That agreement was with the PA.

It is an indication of Hamas' weakness that they would even consider such a plan, when they have been dead-set against any Israeli involvement in the Rafah crossing.

From a legal perspective I don't know if this plan would affect the legal position of Israel's' sea blockade of Gaza. I believe it wouldn't, because legal sea blockades can include inspections of ships and allow ships with aid to pass through to the blockaded ports.

06/15 Links Pt2: You can’t win a PR war, fighting on the enemy’s side; 24 Days in the Life of Ilan Halimi

From Ian:

You can’t win a PR war by fighting on the enemy’s side

I can’t think of another conflict in history where one side devoted so much time and energy to selling the world the other side’s narrative rather than its own. And then, after two decades of actively supporting the two most important Palestinians claims against it, Israel actually wonders why the world views it as the villain.
Claim number one is that the West Bank and Gaza are “occupied Palestinian territory.” This is a crucial issue, because if Israel is just a thief occupying stolen Palestinian land, then it has no right to retain any of this land or set any conditions on its return, and deserves opprobrium for even daring to pose such demands. In contrast, if Israel has a valid claim to these lands, then it’s being laudably generous in offering the Palestinians a state there and has every right to impose conditions on this generosity, like retaining certain areas or demanding specific security arrangements.
Official Israeli spokesmen don’t back this Palestinian claim in so many words. But they do talk constantly about the Palestinians’ “right” to establish a state in these lands, while talking only sporadically about Israel’s own legal and historical rights there. And needless to say, Palestinians don’t return the favor: They talk constantly about their own rights and never about Israel’s rights.
Moreover, Israel’s talk of Palestinian “rights” actually undermines the credibility of its own claims. After all, if Israel truly has the best legal claim to the land, why would Palestinians have any right to a state there? So by declaring that Palestinians do have such a right, Israeli spokesmen imply that even Israel doesn’t quite believe its own claim.
Thus for most of world, deciding who really owns the land becomes a no-brainer: The Palestinian claim looks much stronger. After all, both sides agree unequivocally that the Palestinians have rights there, so that must be true. In contrast, Israel asserts its own claims only half-heartedly, while Palestinians deny them outright; hence Israel’s claims seem dubious.
Or in other words, Palestinians are fighting the PR war full-time on their own behalf, while Israel is fighting only part-time for itself, and part-time for the enemy. And needless to say, that’s no way to win a war.

A Murder in Paris: 24 Days in the Life of Ilan Halimi

I remember hearing about Ilan’s story. I read about this beautiful young man in Paris, targeted by a gang for kidnapping, torture and murder because he was Jewish. I was horrified to hear what happened to Ilan. As I became more familiar with the barbarity he was subjected to, an unsettling feeling came over me as I read about the details and wondered, was this a forewarning of things to come? I had no idea that 9 years later I would be writing about what happened to Ilan Halimi after viewing the chilling & heartbreaking film, 24 Days, directed by the French Algerian born Alexandre Arcady.
Keeping us on the edge of our seats, the film brilliantly chronicles how a French Jewish Moroccan family in Paris lived for three weeks while their beloved son and brother was being held, gagged, beaten and abused for ransom by an Islamist gang.

Eugene Kontorovich: Sudan’s Bashir is the Palestinians’ and Pretoria’s favorite genocidal tyrant

The free pass given to Bashir is another in a series of major blows to the credibility of the ICC – and in this case, the Security Council. If member states like South Africa do not take the Court seriously in cases that do not even involve its own nationals, it is hard to expect non-members to do so.
While refusing treaty obligations to arrest the world’s leading genocidaire – known of course for his campaign against black Africans in Darfur – might seem unconscionable, Bashir has his defenders.
Among them is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who vocally opposes the ICC process against Bashir. “We must also take a decisive stance of solidarity alongside fraternal Sudan and President Omar al-Bashir,” Abbas has said. He has has also expressed his “solidarity” with the Sudanese despot, and categorically rejected enforcement of the ICC warrant.
The Palestinian Authority is not alone in this – the entire Arab League backs Bashir against the ICC. But what makes the PA’s position on Bashir even more outrageous is that they have actually purported to join the ICC, and seek to invoke its jurisdiction against Israeli officials. The only other Arab League members to join the ICC are Comoros, Djibouti, and Jordan, which has distanced itself from the Bashir policy, unlike the PA.
Thus even as the Palestinians got the ICC to bend its rules about statehood to join, they were advocating the defiance of the Court’s writ in the single most important and grave kind of case, genocide cases initiated by the Security Council. In short, the Palestinians seek to exempt genocidaires from the Court’s jurisdiction while pushing for it to prosecute Israelis for allowing Jews to live in Jerusalem. The PA is involved in the trivialization and corruption of the Court from both ends.
The international community tolerates this hypocrisy, and the Bashir debacle is among the consequences.

UNRWA has frozen and cut back some of its programs because Arab countries have not paid their pledges - but some Palestinians see a much more nefarious reason.

Political economic expert Dr. Adel Samara says that the reduction of services is "an international political conspiracy hatched in secret to liquidate the Palestinian cause."

He astutely notes that ""Arab and European countries have trillions of dollars," asking why they cannot spare more of their money for giving Palestinian Arabs and their descendants welfare for eternity.

He concludes that the real reason for the budget shortfall is a concerted effort by the entire world to eliminate the Palestinian cause issues such as the right of return and self-determination.

Ali Huweidi, writing for Middle East Monitor, insists that the UNRWA budget should come from the central UN budget, rather than from voluntary contributions from individual nations. This scheme reveals some interesting facts.

The regular UN budget for 2012-2013 was about $5 billion. UNRWA's budget alone is about $2 billion.

Which means that the UN couldn't possibly fund UNRWA for a month, let alone permanently.

It also means that UNRWA donors are paying 40% as much to keep the Palestinian Arab "refugee" issue artificially alive than they are to cover the UN's programs in the entire rest of the world.

Huweidi's idea to force nations to increase their UN payments by 40% would ensure the collapse of UNRWA - or of the UN.

Maybe it's not such a bad idea!

"My Jew-hatred is copyrighted!"

“Jews actually intend to conquer the world... by palmediawatch

From Palestinian Media Watch:

A Palestinian teacher from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is situated on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, taught in his lesson on May 29, 2015, that the reason Europeans expelled Jews and the reason the Nazis burnt Jews in the Holocaust, was because Jews use the blood of non-Jewish children to make matzah bread for Passover. According to Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi, “they were burned in Germany because of these things.”

Palestinian Media Watch’s exposure of his blood libel generated international condemnation and 8,000 views on YouTube in just three days. In order to have PMW’s video removed from YouTube, the Al-Aqsa lecturer charged that PMW had violated his copyright. YouTube, following US law, removed PMW’s subtitled video that exposed his hate speech.

PMW has since sent a “counter-notification” to Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi via YouTube, arguing that the video of his hate speech was “Fair Use” of the material - since “Fair Use” permits the use of a work “for purposes such as: private study, research, criticism, review, journalistic reporting, quotation, or instruction and examination by an educational institution.” [Israel Copyright Act 2007, emphasis added]

YouTube is supposed to reinstate the PMW video in 10 days unless Sheikh Al-Mughrabi decides to take his claim of copyright violation to court and sue PMW.

It is also noteworthy that in order to hide his hate speech, the Sheikh made the video of his lesson on YouTube “private” after PMW’s exposure so it could no longer be seen by the general public.

That's a slightly new wrinkle on lawfare. Often MEMRI videos are attacked (and indeed MEMRI's YouTube channel is now down) because of complaints about copyrights of Arab TV shows but this is the first time I've seen someone who uploaded his own video to YouTube claim afterwards that no one else could watch it.

06/15 Links Pt1: Ten Ways Israel Is Treated Differently; Report Reveals Hamas War Crimes

From Ian:

Ten Ways Israel Is Treated Differently

It’s appalling to see how Israel is treated by a totally different standard than other countries in the international system. Of course, Israel deserves scrutiny, as does every other nation. But it also merits equal treatment — nothing more, nothing less.
First, Israel is the only UN member state whose very right to exist is under constant challenge.
Notwithstanding the fact that Israel embodies an age-old connection with the Jewish people as repeatedly cited in the most widely read book in the world, the Bible, that it was created based on the 1947 recommendation of the UN, and that it has been a member of the world body since 1949, there’s a relentless chorus of nations, institutions, and individuals denying Israel’s very political legitimacy.
No one would dare question the right to exist of many other countries whose basis for legitimacy is infinitely more questionable than Israel’s, including those that were created by brute force, occupation, or distant mapmakers. Just look around at how many nations fit those categories, including, by the way, quite a few Arab countries. Why, then, is it open hunting season only on Israel? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that it’s the only Jewish-majority country in the world?
Second, Israel is the only UN member state that’s been targeted for annihilation by another UN member state.
Think about it. The leadership of Iran, together with Iran-funded proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, has repeatedly called for wiping Israel off the map. Is there any other country facing the threat of genocidal destruction?

Honest Reporting: 3 Media Angles to Beware Ahead of the Schabas Report’s Release

Fallout from the William Schabas report could reach the International Criminal Court, where Palestinians are already pushing to put Israeli leaders on trial. Repercussions may reach the UN, where a French initiative on Palestinian statehood will top the agenda after the June 30 deadline on Iranian nuclear talks.
The worst case scenario? A chain reaction of headlines demonizing Israel while the report undermines its moral standing and its ability to fight terror. Should the report make Palestinian victimhood more resonant. efforts to isolate Israel would increase.
Here are three media angles to beware ahead of the Schabas report’s release.
1. The Halo Effect
The halo effect refers to the ability of our impression of people, institutions, or brands to influence our feelings and thoughts about their character. This applies to reporters too, who report what they hear from respectable personalities, government officials, or international organizations without question or independent verification. Will reporters paint the UNHRC and its investigators as apolitical and unbiased?
2. Disproportionate Force
More Palestinians died during the war than Israelis, a point reinforced by a steady stream of context-free daily infographics. But does that mean the IDF fought disproportionately?
3. Moral Equivalence
Hamas and Israel fought a war with each other. Both sides had domestic and international audiences to account for, both sides had spokespeople making their cases in the media, and both sides had dead to bury and wounds to lick. But that’s where superficial parallels end.
The war began with the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, escalated under barrages of rockets, and continued despite repeated cease fire offers to Hamas.

Open your eyes about Gaza

Hamas violently took control of Gaza in 2007. What have they been doing since? Oppressing the Gazan population and investing billions in terrorism against Israel's civilian population. Some people choose to close their eyes to the reality on the ground. What about you?

Palestine Press Agency reports that Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics has released figures on tourism for the first five months of the year.

While tourism altogether has declined from last year, the number of people visiting Israel from Arab countries is increasing.

According to the report, 14,200 tourists from Jordan, Egypt and Morocco visited Israel from January to May. The article says that most of the Moroccan tourists are Jews.

In addition, there are tens of thousands of visitors from other Muslim countries. 13.3 thousand came from Turkey, 1,900 from Malaysia and 9,700 from Indonesia.

Haaretz reported in April that Muslim visitors were making up for a decline in visitors to Jerusalem. There is a bitter controversy in the Arab world about whether people should visit Jerusalem; the PA says it helps support Palestinians while others, including Hamas, say that it promotes "normalization" with Israel.

Jerusalem author and analyst Rasem Obeidat told Al-Monitor, “These visits fall within the scope of normalization. The first beneficiary is the Israeli occupation, since tourists must necessarily pass through it. These visits will benefit the occupation economically, since the latter controls the infrastructure, hotels, restaurants and transportation in the city.”

Obeidat added, “These visits work to embellish the image of the occupation, recognize its legitimacy and sovereignty over the city and portray it as a democratic entity, tolerant of religious freedoms. Yet in reality, Jerusalemites are prohibited from accessing Al-Aqsa and the city is subject to systematic Judaization.”

Jamal Amr, a professor of urban planning at Birzeit University and Jerusalem Foundation member, told Al-Monitor, “Arab visits to Jerusalem are merely a low political ploy exploiting Al-Aqsa to beautify the image of the occupation, which is the only beneficiary from these visits.”

Amr said, “Arabs do not support Jerusalem. This matter is not on their agenda. They keep disappointing this city by falling short on all of the promises they made. Why does [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, who declared that Jerusalem is not the capital of Palestine, allow them to visit Al-Aqsa while preventing Palestinians from doing so?”

Amr pointed out that visitors to Jerusalem do not stay at Palestinian hotels, obtain Palestinian visas or eat in Palestinian restaurants. “All this is a blatant play by the Arab regimes to beautify the occupation and portray it as a democratic entity tolerant of religious freedoms, contrary to reality,” Amr said.

Israel has eased restrictions on West Bank Arabs from visiting Israel during Ramadan.

French museums deny tour by Israeli art students

From Liberation:

[In May,] Professor Sefy Hendler, a specialist in Italian Renaissance, was preparing a trip to Paris for late June with a group of twelve students of art history at the University of Tel Aviv. He intended to visit major French cultural institutions.
On May 11, he wrote to the Louvre reservation services and the Sainte-Chapelle. The responses did not take long, and they were in the negative. "Sorry, we have no chance for that day" they replied in a terse email from an official of the Sainte-Chapelle. Even the response of the Louvre Museum, where three different times were requested: "We do not have any availability for the requested times."

"It seemed weird," says Hendler who, troubled, decided to try a test. A few days later, he created two new requests for tour times. One on behalf of an "institute of art" in Florence, the other on behalf of the "Abu Dhabi Art History College." Both are fictitious institutions, but he received fast and positive responses to both.

"I was shocked, shocked , says Hendler. "I was ready to cancel the trip. " The man finally changed his mind, but decides to alert Francois Heilbronn, president of the French Friends of the University of Tel Aviv . This professor at Sciences-Po put together the various documents for evidence: reservation forms, mail exchanges ... He wrote to President-Director of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez, and that of the Centre for National Monuments (which manages the Sainte-Chapelle) Philippe Bélaval as well as Fleur Pellerin, Minister of Culture.

Everyone reacted in his own way. On the side of the Louvre, management acknowledges being "troubled" by the results of test. An internal investigation was triggered. Three days later, they delivers their verdict. "In a way, we were victims of our success," said the management. "We receive an average of 400 reservation requests a day and offer access in quarter hour slots. But the demand is twice the supply. "

The reservation system is automated and does not create a "waiting list" for rejected requests. The two tests therefore been "lucky" to solicit free slots, as that requested by Tel Aviv was already taken. "Moreover, a second booking of the Israeli university had been accepted the system, says the Louvre, responding in 35 minutes, against fifteen minutes to two fictitious institutions.

On the side of the Sainte-Chapelle, the system is not automated, but 100% human. Philippe Bélaval, president of National Monuments, explained that an internal investigation has revealed "repeated failures" and certainly lead to a "disciplinary procedure". But, at this stage, he believes, "it is not established that there was any discrimination " . He assures that the person in charge of the booking service "never showed hostility to Israel" and blames "approximation in the processing of applications" and lack of "rigor and professionalism" .

"This response appears flippant compared to the gravity of the facts , laments François Heilbronn.

If the Louvre's reservation system is indeed computerized and automatic, it may be a coincidence. According to Haaretz, however, the two fictional bookings were set for the exact same time slots as the one that was denied, so the Louvre may be feeding everyone a line. (Hendler is a writer for Haaretz as well.)

The Sainte-Chapelle sure sounds like it has committed a crime.

(h/t Yenta Press)

From AP:

Egypt opened its borders with the Gaza Strip for the first time in months Saturday, allowing Palestinians to enter and leave the isolated coastal strip.

The Rafah border crossing will operate for six hours a day for the coming three days and 15,000 people Palestinians have applied to exit to Egypt, said Maher Abu Sabha, head of the Gaza side of the crossing. He said those were humanitarian cases and included medical patients, students, and Arab residents whose residency permits were about to expire. However, he said only 1,500 of those were actually expected to pass through.

That was optimistic:

Passage through the Rafah border crossing on the southern Gaza border was interrupted Sunday morning after the crossing's computer systems malfunctioned, Egyptian security serves told Ma'an.

The computer glitch came as telecommunication and internet networks were disconnected due to ongoing military activity in the northern Sinai, where the Egyptian army is pitched against a militant insurgency.

Sources told Ma’an that only seven Palestinians had passed through the terminal as of noon Sunday.

They said that only 100 Palestinian travelers travelling from Egypt into Gaza were waiting at the passenger hall on the Egyptian side of the terminal.

Sources added that 15 cement trucks were readying to cross into Gaza.

They said that on Saturday 573 Palestinians had crossed from Gaza into Egypt, and 246 crossed from Egypt to Gaza.

In the end, on Sunday some 516 Gazans left and 309 arrived, after all the media coverage about how Egypt was magnanimously allowing Gazans to travel for Ramadan.

How does this compare to the umber of people Israel allows to cross the Erez crossing every day?

On Thursday, 892 people crossed into Israel and 902 crossed into Gaza.

In other words every day Israel allows twice as many people to cross into and from enemy territory than Egypt does a few times a year from land controlled by its supposed Arab brothers.

The truth behind the supposed IDF attack on Gaza's power plant

The New York Times wrote on Friday:

A born chatterbox, Mohammad gaily told of how he had started a fire in their home last winter by knocking over a candle, and of how his brother had come to his rescue. Many Palestinians rely on candles for light because of hourslong power cuts, made even worse by Israel’s bombing of the local power station last summer.

Did Israel bomb the power plant?

The Guardian said it was "destroyed" and "finished" before it miraculously went back online two months later.

At the time, the IDF denied targeting the plant, saying it might have been hit by accident.

Now, as Israel's report on the Gaza war is released, we can see what happened:

Even when munitions directed at military targets unintentionally hit civilian objects, the collateral damage caused does not by itself render the attack unlawful. Such was the case with the IDF tank shells that on July 29 unfortunately missed their intended target and hit fuel tanks serving Gaza’s power plant (but not the power plant itself). In this incident, IDF tank forces had legitimately directed an attack against several individuals who were believed to be carrying anti-tank rockets intended for immediate use.

Footnote:
As discussed infra at Section E.2, during the 2014 Gaza Conflict Israel provided electricity to the Gaza Strip via power lines running from Israel and made extensive efforts to facilitate the repair of any power lines that were damaged as a result of the fighting. Nevertheless the MAG referred the July 29, 2014 incident to the Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism for examination, the findings of which have been provided to the MAG. The MAG’s decision whether to order the opening of a criminal investigation into this incident is still pending.

So it was Israeli fire (but not an airstrike) that hit the fuel tanks (but not the power plant) while targeting terrorists (but not the power plant.)

(h/t David Groskind)

Sure abortions are easy in Israel, but they aren't liberal enough in NYT op-ed

+972 writer Mairav Zonszein scores an NYT op-ed by coming up with a brand new way to bash Israel:

I KNEW Israeli law required that all abortions be approved by a committee. I also knew that the procedure was widely accessible. I’d never heard of an Israeli woman being denied an abortion (as opposed to say, a divorce, which must be granted by the husband in a religious court).

So I never really gave it much thought, until I found myself sitting in front of such a committee, six weeks pregnant with a 5-month-old baby at home.

When I went to my gynecologist, all he could do was provide me with an ultrasound as proof of my pregnancy. “I don’t do abortions,” he told me. “The committees deal with them. You can call this number.”

Each committee includes a social worker and two doctors. The law stipulates four criteria, any of which is sufficient for approval: If the woman is below 18 or over 40; if the fetus is in danger; if the mother’s mental or physical health is at risk; or if the pregnancy occurs out of wedlock or is the result of rape or incest.

I am 33 and free of medical issues. But because my partner and I are not legally married, I felt some relief knowing that I had a clear ticket out. Still, I balked at the realization that I had to request permission.

The Pregnancy Termination Committee at the hospital near me operates for only a few hours twice a week. As I waited to register, it began to sink in: I had no control, no privacy and no anonymity over this intimate, difficult matter pertaining strictly to my own body. The idea that anyone but me had the power to decide my family’s fate and mine was harrowing. Israel’s abortion policy, it hit me, was the opposite of liberal.

Not that my request wasn’t granted. The doctors (one man, one woman, as per protocol) informed me as I walked through the door that I was “approved.”

There were no medical questions or examinations, no offers of information or assistance. It was cold, efficient bureaucracy. A nurse administered the abortion medically the next day.

I didn’t feel any stigma from the staff. But some committees might be more judgmental than others.

I can certainly sympathize with the difficulty of deciding to abort a child, even for someone who passionately believes in a woman's right to do so. I can even feel for the desire not to have to face a committee, no matter how empathetic and professional they are.

But forgive me if I don't quite believe that Zonszein cares about her privacy or anonymity, when a process that she admits was quick, nonjudgmental and painless is fodder for her anti-Israel op-ed in a major international newspaper.

And she cannot complain that she has no control, either, for the same reason she cannot complain that there are back-alley abortions in Israel for married women who want to abort:

The most recent figures show that, in practice, 98 percent of abortion requests in Israel are approved. But of the approximately 40,000 abortions performed each year, only around half go through the committees.

The other estimated 20,000 are being conducted illegally, through doctors at private clinics, not at home or in alleyways. There are plenty of doctors you can find online at the click of a button. While they are theoretically subject to punitive legal measures, their patients are not — and the authorities simply look the other way.

Many illegal abortions are thought to involve married women. These women may fear rejection of their applications, or that the invasive committee process will take too long and they want to put the ordeal behind them as quickly as possible.

If she was so concerned over her privacy and anonymity, why did she do through this process to begin with? She could have found an alternative, as she admits, at the click of a button.

Likewise, Zonszein cannot complain that those wanting abortions outside the committee system have to pay for them:

A 2014 reform to the national health coverage law offers free abortions to all women between 20 and 33 regardless of circumstance.

They are free. Period.

But...but...

Although Israel is often seen as relatively progressive on abortion because a vast majority of women are able to terminate their pregnancies, the situation here is actually the inverse of most Western countries, where abortion is lawful and largely free of restrictions. Israel’s policy may be better than countries where abortions are strictly prohibited (like Brazil and Egypt), or where exceptions are made only to save a woman’s life (like Ireland), but it is far from being liberal.

OK. Let's compare the supposed restrictions on legal abortions in Israel with liberal European countries that she claims are "largely free of restrictions."

In the Netherlands, a five-day waiting period is required between the initial consultation and the abortion.

In Sweden, between 12 and 18 weeks of gestation, the women must discuss the procedure with a social worker.

In the UK, two registered medical practitioners must certify that the required medical grounds have been met.

In Italy, a "one-week reflection period" is imposed unless the situation is one of urgency. A certificate confirming the pregnancy and the request for termination must be issued by a doctor and signed by the woman and the doctor.

In Finland, an abortion must be authorized by one or two doctors up to 12 weeks, or by the State Medical Board up to 20 weeks. Abortion is free of charge under national health insurance but women must pay hospital fees.

In Germany, the woman must receive state-regulated counselling to inform the woman that the unborn have a right to life and to try to convince her to continue her pregnancy.

So when you compare Israel's abortion procedures with those of European nations, Israel is indeed more liberal than most. Zonszein is lying and the New York Times is not fact-checking her.

Women who do not want to go through the committees can easily get safe, professional and free abortions. But...the process isn't "liberal" enough for the New York Times. And that is a good enough reason to add to the list of terrible things that Israel is doing.

As long as your op-ed bashes Israel, it is fair game for the NYT to publish it, no matter how trivial or unfair it is. This op-ed is even more cynical than most, because it gratuitously uses what is supposedly a very personal experience for the writer as extra emotional ammunition to publicly hurt Israel.

06/14 Links: British Muslim campaigner ridiculed for claiming Zionists stole his shoe #Mossadstolemyshoe

From Ian:

Daily Mail: British Muslim campaigner ridiculed after claiming 'Zionists' stole his shoe

Within hours, the rant had prompted dozens of mocking tweets, with the hashtags #MossadStoleMyShoe and #ShoeishConspiracy trending on Twitter, with one user telling him to 'put a sock in it'.
In response, he issued a bizarre, 15-minute YouTube rant in which he said, 'they're stealing people's homes in Palestine. You think a shoe is a big deal for them?'
A number of readers also created memes mocking Mr Bukhari's assertions that a member of the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service, better known as Mossad, had rearranged his footwear.
The message, which was posted on Facebook alongside a black-and-white image of a boy wearing one shoe, is written under the head 'are zionists trying to intimidate me'.
It read: 'Someone came into my home yesterday, while I was asleep. I dont know how they got in, but they didn't break in - the only thing they took was one shoe.
'Now think about that, the only thing they took was a single shoe - they left one shoe behind to let me know someone had been there.

Asghar Bukhari responds to his critics

I held off on the whole #Mossadstolemyshoe story – a strong contender for the funniest Twitter meme ever – because I thought Asghar Bukhari must be ill.
But now he is spinning such responses – incredulity and speculation about his state of mind – in order to spread his deluded and conspiratorial narrative still further.
If you aren’t yet up to speed with his original claims – and the fun people had with them – I suggest you read the coverage here or here – and, for some further background on the man, John Sargeant’s account here.
(Briefly, he published a Facebook post in which he insisted that Zionists had somehow got into his house (though there were no signs of a break in) and stolen one of his shoes.)
Bukhari’s latest move has been to release a YouTube video in which he distorts the inevitably incredulous responses in order to whip up a paranoid mindset amongst young Muslims – he makes it very clear that it is this group which he is addressing.
One of his techniques is to imply that Zionists were troubled and angered by his Facebook post. This isn’t true – In fact everyone enjoyed the joke – the Zionist Federation’s response was particularly funny. (h/t Bob Knot)

Douglas Murray: If I was Asghar Bukhari, I’d hold onto both of my shoes very tightly

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) is a strange beast. Its membership largely consists of Asghar Bukhari and his brother. Occasionally another person appears on television claiming an affiliation to the group – an affiliation promptly proved by use of the organisation’s modus operandi, viz furious shouting backed up by ferocious stupidity.
I last encountered Asghar in January when we disagreed on Sky about the journalists and cartoonists who were massacred in the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Apart from smearing the dead cartoonists as ‘racists’ Asghar appeared most eager to claim that I refused to debate him. He claimed this as I was debating him. Live. On air. Anyhow, in the wake of that debate there were rumours that Asghar had been sending abusive tweets to me from a sock-puppet account.. He denied any involvement, although the rogue Twitter account closed down shortly thereafter.
Anyhow, it has long been plain that Asghar lives in the fever swamps. I suppose Sky just think he makes good noise. But today brings a particularly moving example of where this can lead. Thanks to the excellent Jamie Palmer (@jacobinism) who reads Asghar’s Facebook rants so the rest of us don’t have to, the world can now read a real gem. Here it is. But first a warning. This is not, it seems, a spoof. It is somebody writing under their own name.
I have indeed — as Asghar invites us to do — ‘thought about that’. And I have a nasty feeling that I have the answer. It seems likely to me that Asghar will at some point find his missing shoe. I usually find mine under the sofa. But if I were Asghar I would consider looking there and beneath the bed but behind the television. It is possible, is it not, that the dapper-dresser removed one of his shoes and hurled it at the box in a rage when someone not from his immediate family was on the television? It is easy to forget such moments of inarticulate rage. Asghar clearly does. If he remembered them then he would never again accept an invitation to appear on the television.

I was in an exchange recently with a left-leaning, pro-Israel, Jewish Obama supporter who postulated that Obama's vision for Israel is that of a "Jewish" state but... "It is just not the version of the State that you, or the Republican Party, or Conservative Americans, or the Israeli Right might support..."

Really?

This is the kind of vaguely unusual, semi-condescending sentiment that one often finds among pro-Israel Obama supporters but, for the life of me, I have no idea what it means.

What is at the heart of this Right-Wing, Conservative, Republican evil that wants some sort-of alternative version of Israel? Is it the desire among people such as Caroline Glick, or her colleague Martin Sherman, to annex Judea and Samaria? Is it, thus, the fear that the Jews of Israel will be demographically overrun by Arabs in the event of such an annexation?

Excuse me, aside from the fact that such demographic fears are rather questionable on the numbers, but is this not a fear of democracy, itself, and therefore a non-left-leaning view?

{Of course, this presumes that the western Left truly does embody democratic values; a proposition worthy of at least some skepticism.}

There is more going on here, though. When my interlocutor suggested that my vision for Israel - like that of conservatives or Republicans or Likudniks and other such bad people - is different from Obama's he meant more than just the question of One State versus Two States.

It goes to this "values" thing that Obama, that most Jewish of American presidents, likes to bring up vis-a-vis Israel. It actually postulates a deeply manichean view of western politics in which the Right is inhabited by loathsome and immoral cave-dwelling type creatures and the Left, while not perfect, nonetheless seeks the light of social justice and the succor of universal human rights.

We are to believe that the Right is comprised of heinous Sméagols, hunting prey in the night, while the Left is filled with well-meaning, but flawed, Galadriels (or, at least, Frodos) seeking to bring light and understanding into an otherwise ugly and greed-filled and war-like world.

Whatever the degree of hostility between the American Right or the American Left (or hostility between the Democratic Party versus the Republican Party), it is nothing in comparison to the hostility that seems to exist between the Jewish Left and the Jewish Right, both in Israel and in the diaspora.

Each largely regards the other with a strong measure of contempt and they do, at least in part, because the stakes are so high. We are speaking, ultimately, about nothing less weighty than the future survival of the Jewish people.

I am hoping, however, that there is one thing that the pro-Israel Right and the pro-Israel Left can agree upon: the demise of Oslo. The Oslo "peace process" is kaput and it is better that Israelis, and people who care about Israel, admit it. If we fail to do so then the EU and the Obama administration will drag Israel back into yet another counterproductive round of "peace processing" and it will likely have similar results from the last go-around.

I call it the Non-Peace Process and it looks something like this:

1) The US and the EU demand negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

2) The parties agree to talk and then the PA, the US, and the EU demand various concessions from Israel for the great privilege of sitting down with the PA's foremost undertaker.

3) Israel fails to meet all the concessions, thus causing the PA to flee negotiations, which they never had any intention of concluding to begin with.

4) The PA and the EU and the Obama administration place the blame for failure at Jewish feet.

5) The EU and various European countries announce additional sanctions, thereby essentially joining the anti-Semitic anti-Zionist BDS movement.

6) Jihadis seek to murder Jews.

Let us hope that I am wrong.

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.