Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, June 28, 2015

06/28 Links: PMW: Hamas used civilians as human shields in 2014 war; Expose UNRWA's absurdity

From Ian:

Netanyahu: The enlightened world is battling dark forces

After nearly simultaneous terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France kill dozens of people, PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls for unity in fight against radical Islamic terror • Interpol chief: Attacks show global dimension of current terrorist threats.
"The brutal murders in France, Tunisia and Kuwait again underscore that the enlightened world is struggling against dark forces," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday, after dozens of people were killed in three attacks that followed a call to violence by the Islamic State group. "The fight against the murderous terrorism of extremist Islam requires unity, the beginning of which is the unequivocal condemnation of the murderers and those who support them."
In the deadliest of Friday's attacks, a young man pulled a Kalashnikov assault rifle from a beach umbrella and sprayed gunfire at European sunbathers at a Tunisian resort, killing at least 39 people.
The shootings in the Tunisian resort of Sousse happened at about the same time as a bombing at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait and an attack on a U.S.-owned factory in France that included a beheading. It was unclear if the violence was linked but it came days after Islamic State urged its followers "to make Ramadan a month of calamities for the nonbelievers." In all, the assailants killed at least 65 people in Friday's attacks.
The SITE Intelligence Group reported later that IS claimed credit for the Tunisia attack on its Twitter account and identified the gunman as Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani.

PMW: PMW responds to UN: Hamas used civilians as human shields in 2014 war

In response to the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry report which cites that the high number of Palestinian civilians killed during the 2014 Gaza war indicates that “possible war crimes” were committed by Israel, Palestinian Media Watch is re-publicizing the PMW reports released during the war, documenting that Hamas actively used civilians as human shields.
PMW’s documentation explicitly showed that Hamas openly and intentionally demanded that civilians ignore Israel’s warnings prior to bombings of areas in which there were civilians. Instead, Hamas insisted they endanger their lives and even welcome death, so that Hamas could use them as human shields for their fighters and rocket launching positions.
When Israel warned Palestinians who lived near the Israeli border in the Northern Gaza Strip, an area from which Hamas launched long-range missiles, to evacuate their homes to areas of safety before Israel would bomb the launching sites, Hamas told civilians to remain in their homes in spite of the danger.

Expose UNRWA's absurdity

The U.N. report on Operation Protective Edge was predictable. The harsh and one-sided criticism of Israel, the turning of a blind eye to Hamas' war crimes and the piercing remarks against Israel proved that nothing has changed in regard to the U.N.'s lack of fairness and fairness.
The Israeli government's response to the report, ranging from disregard to criticism, was legitimate, but not something that would change the balance of the relationship between Israel and the U.N. The extent of the condemnation Israel has endured from the U.N. and several of its subsidiary bodies is enough to understand the biased rules of the game the U.N. is playing.
It is time to pass the ball to the court of our adversaries, in this case the U.N., and expose its hypocrisy and double standards. Most importantly, we must highlight the fact that the U.N. is the entity largely responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians, by means of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
For this reason, the Jerusalem Institute of Justice has decided to launch a campaign calling for the dissolution of UNRWA and the absorption of its powers by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The campaign will mainly address members of the U.S. Congress. In a video we produced, we present the absurdity of UNRWA's activities.
UNRWA and UNHCR both work with displaced persons. UNHCR is responsible for integrating refugees in their host countries, while UNRWA focuses solely on refugee aid. In effect, UNRWA helps Palestinians preserve their refugee status and pass it on from generation to generation, contrary to the logic and policy of UNHCR.

As I write this on Friday morning, there it is all over the headlines, again.

Islamist Terror Wave Hits Tunisia and Kuwait.

Man Beheaded in France.

What we know as of this moment is that terrorists shot up the resort town of Sousse, some 150 kilometers from Tunis, killing at least 27 people.

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel is reporting:

A suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque in the Kuwaiti capital during the main weekly prayers Friday, killing and wounding dozens, officials and witnesses said. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State.

And, needless to say:

At least one person was killed and several were injured in a terror attack on a factory in the Lyon region in southeastern France late Friday morning.

The decapitated body of a man was found on the premises, according to Sky News. It reported that the 30-year-old suspect was known to the foreign intelligence services.

The victim was reportedly an employee of the factory. His head was discovered by police perched on the fence outside the factory, covered in Arabic writing.

By the time that you read this it will be old news, but I suppose the question that many of us are asking ourselves is just what is it going to take for our media and our academia and our elected officials to start taking political Islam seriously?

There are two things that must be acknowledged.

1) The rise of political Islam in recent years is the single most significant geo-political happening since the demise of the Soviet Union.

I do not understand why so many people seem to have a difficult time understanding that political Islam is not just a religion, but a political movement, and like any political movement it is open to criticism and opposition. The fact is that political Islam, in the form of organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, and all the rest, do not represent Islam as a whole. What they represent is Islam in its Islamist form.

The form of Jihad.

Too many people seem to think that opposing political Islam is "racist" because it is seen as "Islamophobic" or an attack on regular Muslims.

It isn't.

In fact, cliché as it may sound, no one is abused more under al-Sharia than are Muslims. What is really bigoted is holding different people to different standards of humanity. In the Europe and the United States this generally takes the form of "humanitarian racism" and it is the most prevalent form of bigotry found in the West today.

The old-timey, flat-out racism of people like Dylann Roof is, sadly, not dead, but it is certainly dying.

Coming on the heels of Ferguson and Baltimore it is politically-incorrect to say so, but mid-twentieth-century KKK-style, or SkinHeadStyle, American racism is pretty much over - despite this heinous scum in Charleston.

The Klan is not taking over countries.

Neo-Nazis are not destroying ancient artifacts in Palmyra.

On the liberal-left concern with right-wing racists in Europe and the United States is genuine, and politically entrenched, but we should not allow that concern to be used as an excuse to ignore, or downplay, the far more dangerous fact of the rise of political Islam.

2) The Obama administration sold us out on the issue.

On the question of political Islam the Obama administration simply has nothing to say other than to downplay the seriousness of it and to protect Islam's reputation from itself.

I know that I am not singing to the choir here, and that is a good thing, but it must be stressed that this administration not only refuses to acknowledge the rise of political Islam during the misnamed "Arab Spring" as a serious problem, but has actually aided and abetted that very problem.

The pro-Israel / pro-Obama American-Left must acknowledge that which is directly before their very noses.

Barack Obama is not an Israel-friendly president. Period. End of story and stop making excuses.

Barack Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood and is enabling an Iranian bomb. All we can do is oppose the administration's foreign policy and hope to put enough pressure on Congress, and the powers that be, to oppose political Islam and prevent that bomb from coming into being.

If you think that the rise of political Islam is a problem now, just wait until you get a gander at what it looks like after an Islamist nuclear umbrella covers the region.

That will be, as they say, game over and a nuclearized Iran will be Barack Obama's foremost legacy.

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.

"Sabotaged" flotilla ship miraculously on its way to Gaza

On Friday, I quoted Ma'an about the lead ship in the "flotilla" to Gaza:

One of the ships taking part in a flotilla headed towards Gaza strip was sabotaged south of Crete, an activist aboard one of the ships said Thursday.

Israeli-born Swedish activist Dror Feiler told Nazareth-based al-Shams radio that the ship had been sabotaged by professionals, and would have sunk if sailed at sea.

"Somebody went underneath the ship at night and sabotaged its propellers, just like they sabotaged the same ship in 2011,” Fieler said referring to similar damage that was inflicted upon a ship participating in a previous flotilla.

Feiler, who relinquished his Israeli citizenship after moving to Sweden, boarded the trawler Marianne of Gothenburg in Sweden with 18 other activists six weeks ago. The crew had refrained from stopping at European ports prior to avoid being held by authorities, but their trip was cut short after realizing that they might have drowned had they continued.

There has been a miracle!

Here is its track as of Thursday night/Friday:

The pleasure craft is now on its way towards Gaza, without having docked in any port according to online vessel tracking.

Israeli-born Swede Dror Feiler told an Arab Israeli radio station that one of the flotilla's ships had been sabotaged by "professionals", and that a propeller had to be fixed before setting off.

"There are dark forces that are trying to stop us," he told Radio Ashams, without elaborating.

A propeller that was so heavily damaged that it might have sunk the boat as repaired within hours without even going to a dock!

These guys lie as second nature. And the media has no scruples about believing a bunch of Israel-haters.

Here's the latest 24 hour track of the Marianne av Goteborg. It looks like it will be intercepted sometime Monday morning.

Firas Press reports that Fatah distributed food parcels in Jenin to prisoners and released prisoners - meaning, terrorists - on Saturday evening.

The packages came from the Arab League.

More such gifts will be distributed to terrorists and their families throughout the territories, and, they say, within Israel as well.

The article says that the Arab League created a fund to support Palestinian terrorists and their families, and initiate 30 projects over the past several years to support the prisoners and released prisoners.

06/27 Links: What’s Israel supposed to do? Ask the UN for help?; Jews Blamed for Their Own Murders

From Ian:

What’s Israel supposed to do? Ask the UN for help?

Hamas, the gang that controls the Gaza Strip and hopes to destroy Israel, makes war in its own peculiar way.
It conducts a terror campaign by randomly sending unguided missiles across the border, traumatizing the civilian population. Rather than using its payments from Iran to feed its own people, it spends a fortune digging tunnels under the border to Israel, infiltrating the country from beneath the ground. It places artillery on top of apartment buildings and beside schools, so that Israel’s attempts to destroy the artillery will kill as many Palestinians as possible. Hamas built a military command centre underneath Shifa hospital, which Israel built for the Gaza population.
Having counted the dead, Hamas announces the fatal casualties, attempting to shame Israel for mass killing. This is an original form of propaganda warfare, suicide-by-proxy.
If someone attempts to arrange a cease-fire between the combatants, Hamas at first refuses to co-operate, then finally signs on and accepts praise for its peace policy. Eventually, it breaks the cease-fire. Between wars Israel maintains a permanent one-sided cease-fire, having no reason to attack Gaza; in 2005 it closed its Gaza settlements and removed its military forces from the Strip. Hamas can always re-start the war, arousing the ire of their soldiers by complaining about Israel’s enforcement of Gaza’s borders. The borders are shut to keep Hamas from importing arms but Hamas depicts it as hard-hearted retaliation. (h/t Josh Korn)

Students Supporting Israel: Breaking the Silence

This week the United Nations Human Rights Committee published a report on the Israeli operation in Gaza - Operation Protective Edge. Ironically enough, right after the report was published, the Palestinian organization Hamas, which is recognized by the United States and the European Union as a terror group, congratulated the UN on aspects of the commission's findings mentioning that Israel committed War Crimes. The UN has officially lost its sense of morality by announcing that the Israel Defense Force committed War Crimes in Gaza. As the British Commander to Afghanistan Colonel Richard Justin Kemp said in the past conflict in Gaza "We know that the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in the combat zones than any other army in the history of warfare".
One of the organizations that provided testimonies for the UN report was “Breaking the Silence”. The testimonies they provided are being spread around the world and used as anti-Israel propaganda by different campus groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine. Thus, it comes as no surprise that out of all of the organizations that represent Israeli soldiers, Breaking the Silence was the only one invited to speak by the Human Rights Committee, even though they don’t represent mainstream Israeli society or veterans. In this article, I would like to share my truth, to break my silence.
I was born in Israel, a first generation Israeli in my family, and most of my relatives and friends currently live in Israel. My family lives in the city of Ashdod, where Israeli citizens have no more than thirty seconds to run for shelter from Hamas rockets. One of my biggest heroes is my younger cousin Daniel, who just started first grade. Daniel was six years old during Operation Protective Edge. I tried to Skype Daniel and his brother Tal (an 8 year old) as much as I could throughout the war. At some points during our conversations the siren would go off and the rockets would start flying. I had a brief second to ask my cousins “Aren’t you afraid?” Their answer was: “We aren’t, those are just rockets. We must run now, we will talk to you later.” Tal and Daniel hung up the phone and ran for shelter, while I stayed frozen on the other side of the line. For a few minutes I kept repeating to myself their response. “Those are just rockets.” I realized that I must break the silence and tell my family’s’ story, because young kids should not grow up this way. My cousins, like thousands of other Israeli kids, should not have to run away from Hamas’ rockets.

Douglas Murray: ‘Religion of peace’ is not a harmless platitude

The West’s movement towards the truth is remarkably slow. We drag ourselves towards it painfully, inch by inch, after each bloody Islamist assault.
In France, Britain, Germany, America and nearly every other country in the world it remains government policy to say that any and all attacks carried out in the name of Mohammed have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. It was said by George W. Bush after 9/11, Tony Blair after 7/7 and Tony Abbott after the Sydney attack last month. It is what David Cameron said after two British extremists cut off the head of Drummer Lee Rigby in London, when ‘Jihadi John’ cut off the head of aid worker Alan Henning in the ‘Islamic State’ and when Islamic extremists attacked a Kenyan mall, separated the Muslims from the Christians and shot the latter in the head. It is what President François Hollande said after the massacre of journalists and Jews in Paris. And it is what David Cameron said yesterday after 38 people, mainly British, were murdered on a beach in Tunisia and a man was beheaded in France.
All these leaders are wrong. In private, they and their senior advisers often concede that they are telling a lie. The most sympathetic explanation is that they are telling a ‘noble lie’, provoked by a fear that we — the general public — are a lynch mob in waiting. ‘Noble’ or not, this lie is a mistake. First, because the general public do not rely on politicians for their information and can perfectly well read articles and books about Islam for themselves. Secondly, because the lie helps no one understand the threat we face. Thirdly, because it takes any heat off Muslims to deal with the bad traditions in their own religion. And fourthly, because unless mainstream politicians address these matters then one day perhaps the public will overtake their politicians to a truly alarming extent.
If politicians are so worried about this secondary ‘backlash’ problem then they would do well to remind us not to blame the jihadists’ actions on our peaceful compatriots and then deal with the primary problem — radical Islam — in order that no secondary, reactionary problem will ever grow.
Yet today our political class fuels both cause and nascent effect. Because the truth is there for all to see. To claim that people who punish people by killing them for blaspheming Islam while shouting ‘Allah is greatest’ has ‘nothing to do with Islam’ is madness. Because the violence of the Islamists is, truthfully, only to do with Islam: the worst version of Islam, certainly, but Islam nonetheless.

06/26 Links Pt2: Gaza Flotilla NGO Funded by French Government; Israelis see Iran as existential threat

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: Zilch, zippo, nada, gurnisht, bubkes

Fledgling Israel found itself pitted against immense odds but, despite them, Ben-Gurion didn’t bow to pressure – American or otherwise.
He mounted the Knesset rostrum yet again on December 13 to repeat what he had enunciated a few days earlier: “We cannot assist in the forcible separation of Jerusalem, which would unnecessarily and unjustifiably violate the historical and natural rights of the Jewish people.”
He assertively stressed that “the State of Israel has had, and will always have, only one capital—eternal Jerusalem. This was so three thousand years ago and so it will be, we believe, to the end of time.” Ben-Gurion then put to the plenum’s vote his proposal to transfer the Knesset and the government from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It was approved.
Washington, however, sternly disapproved and still disapproves. Although the General Assembly’s resolution was ignobly consigned to history’s rubbish bin, the US Embassy never budged from Tel Aviv.
Israel was incalculably weaker when it dared to stand up against sinister designs to install foreign overlords in Jerusalem. There literally wasn’t enough food to feed the population.
We clearly and painfully weren’t the world’s darlings even when we fought for our very lives merely three years post-Holocaust.
During their entire long UN-flouting invasion of newborn Israel, the Arabs were actively aided and abetted by the Brits. The UN, which didn’t impede the Arab assault, found nothing better to do than send observers to keep tabs on “illegal” Israeli moves. The Americans chillingly slapped an arms embargo on the terrifyingly endangered Jewish state.
Yet embattled little Israel didn’t cower.

Gaza Flotilla NGO Funded by French Government

One of the NGOs behind the latest anti-Israel flotilla to Gaza is funded by the French government, Arutz Sheva has learned.
The Platform of French NGOs for Palestine (Plateforme des ONG françaises pour la Palestine) is among the groups supporting the Freedom Flotilla III, which seeks to directly defy the Israeli government's blockade of the Hamas-ruled enclave.
On Friday the Platform announced that the latest boat to join the flotilla, The Marianne of Gothenburg, had set sail from Sicily and was set to join four other vessels carrying some 70 anti-Zionist activists en route for Gaza.
Among those on board will be former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki, Spanish MEP Ana Maria Miranda Paza and Arab-Israeli MK Basel Ghattas (Joint List), whose planned presence has triggered widespread controversy in Israel.
But another potentially controversial aspect of the flotilla that has been largely overlooked is the role played by European government-funded NGOs.

Nearly half of Israelis see Iran deal as existential threat

US President Barack Obama has failed to persuade Jewish Israelis that the deal his administration is seeking with Tehran will prevent it from becoming a nuclear power, according to a Geocartography Institute poll.
Some 48.5 percent of respondents said the proposed deal was a threat to Israel’s existence, while 22% said they did not, according to the poll taken last month. The rest of the respondents said they did not know or were divided between the two options.
When asked whether they trust Obama to maintain Israel’s security, 44.5% said they did not and 21.9% said they did. The rest of the respondents said they did not know or answered with the Hebrew phrase “kacha-kacha,” meaning “yes and no.”
Just 7.4% of respondents said they would advise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the Iranian nuclear deal as is.

Was child killer Samir Kuntar behind ambulance attack in the Golan?

From Tony Badran in Now Lebanon:

The agitation in the Druze community in Israel over the situation of their coreligionists in Syria turned bloody on Monday. A Druze mob near Majdal Shams attacked a military ambulance carrying wounded Syrians for treatment in Israel, killing one of them and critically injuring another, while also lightly injuring two Israeli soldiers. The deadly attack followed another attempted assault earlier in the day in the town of Hurfeish in the Galilee.

This was no spontaneous outburst of an angry community. It was, rather, a premeditated, orchestrated campaign designed to use the Druze to embroil Israel in Syria. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is under no illusions. “Behind the scenes, Hezbollah and the Assad regime,” veteran journalist Ron Ben-Yishai wrote last Thursday, “through the Syrian Druze, are trying to play on Israel’s commitment to the loyal Druze community in order to get the IDF to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.” Ben-Yishai's information most likely came from the IDF, as part of its effort to contain and counter what was clearly a targeted information campaign.

Israeli intelligence, Ben-Yishai added, had identified a stream of disinformation about the situation in Quneitra and Suweida that originated in Syria, and which was disseminated to Israel’s Druze through social networks and mobile phones.

Following the deadly attack on the IDF ambulance near Majdal Shams on Monday, Druze communal leaders fingered Lebanese killer Samir Kuntar as being behind the incitement among the Druze of the Golan, especially in the Majdal Shams region. The Israelis have long disclosed that Kuntar was acting on behalf of Hezbollah among the Druze of the Golan and Suweida, facilitating the group’s reach in the area.

Whether or not Kuntar was the liaison on the ground, it was another Lebanese Druze ally of Hezbollah, Wiam Wahhab, who publicly gave the command to launch the assault that would target the IDF ambulances. His participation means there is a straight line between the lynching and Assad/Hezbollah. Several days before the attacks, Wahhab went on a local talk show and urged Druze everywhere to come to the aid of their Syrian brothers. Then he made a specific call on the Druze “in the Golan and in Palestine,” to “prevent the transfer of the wounded (into Israel), to cut off roads, even if they have to clash with the Israeli police which is transferring the wounded.”

Assad and Hezbollah's operation was designed to employ Israel in Syria on their behalf. The Israelis are not fooled. They are more than content to let Assad’s chestnuts in southern Syria continue to burn on an open fire.

Iranian mindset revealed in spat with Morocco

From Middle East Monitor:

The Kingdom of Morocco has expressed its anger at the report published a few days ago by Iranian Fars news agency accusing Morocco of executing an "Israeli agenda". The report was entitled "Morocco prisoner to Zionist policies".

The official spokesman for the Moroccan government, Mustapha El Khalfi, stated yesterday that "Rabat strongly rejects any abuse directed at the Kingdom, regardless of its source," stressing that "regardless of the intentions and pretexts for the abuses directed at the country, they are rejected and unacceptable and must be condemned."

El Khalfi also added that, "Morocco is a sovereign, free, independent country that exercises its policies and sovereignty in accordance with the constitution that frames the state and is not subject to the dictations of any other party." He noted that "just as Morocco does not interfere in the internal affairs of any country, it firmly refuses to allow any other party to interfere in its affairs."

The next part is actually quite interesting:

The report was published by Fars, the media agency of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, one day after King Mohammed VI of Morocco hosted several foreign ambassadors appointed to work in the diplomatic sector in Rabat. These ministers included the new Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Taqi Moayyed, marking the thawing of relations between the two countries that's have been icy since 2009.

After five years of no diplomatic relations, Iran finally achieved its goal of rapprochement with Morocco - and the very next day they spit in Morocco's face.

What's going on?

Perhaps the answer is that Iran doesn't want friendly relations with the rest of the Muslim world - it wants to dominate the Muslim world. The hardliners in the Revolutionary Guards seem to subscribe to the view that weakness is despicable, and Morocco's making peace with Iran is a sign of weakness. Therefore, it invites Iran to assert its superiority by insulting its new friends.

It sure looks like that is how Iran treats the US with every new concession.

06/26 Links Pt1: Time to call out those aiding the Israel pogrom; The Iranian-American nuclear project

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Time to call out those aiding the Israel pogrom

We know that the NGOs are the instruments of the Soviet-inspired psychological warfare campaign to bend the collective Western mind with systematic falsehoods and blood libels about Israel.
What we haven’t done is hold to account those who have enabled these institutions and groups to do these wicked things, and who have given them traction.
Israel and its defenders should be publicly calling out those Western governments which fund these NGOs, and demanding that they stop funding such demonization and incitement to Israel’s destruction.
Most of these Israeli NGOs are part of the New Israel Fund’s network. The NIF should be ostracized. If an organism has ingested poison it must expel it or else it may die.
UN Watch points out that since its establishment the UNHRC has condemned Israel more than the rest of the world combined. Why are the UK and US still members of this travesty of a human rights arbiter? As long as they participate in it, they validate and legitimize it. As long as Israel’s allies keep silent in the face of the libels against Israel pouring out of the NGOs, UN and other international bodies and their own media and universities, those governmental allies are themselves implicitly conniving at this delegitimization campaign. As long as they continue to fund these NGOs, they too have blood on their hands.
The Davis report is just the latest manifestation of the surreal nightmare through which we are living, in which much of the world has been turned into one giant pogrom, both physical and intellectual, against the Jewish state. To fight it, we must not only delegitimize the delegitimizers but hold their enablers’ feet to the fire, too.

Caroline Glick: The Iranian-American nuclear project

If the US fails to reverse Obama’s policies toward Iran in the next two years, it is hard to see how it will be able to rebuild its strategic posture in the future.
The pace of change in the region and the world is too rapid today to rely on past achievements as a basis for future power.
As for Israel, it is now clear that there is no “crisis” in Israel-US relations. The Obama administration is betraying Israel. The centerpiece of Obama’s foreign policy is his desire to transform Iran’s illicit nuclear program, which endangers Israel’s existence, into a legal Iranian-American nuclear program that endangers Israel’s existence.
Consequently, the last thing Israel should worry about is upsetting Obama. To convince fence-sitting Democratic senators to vote against Obama’s Iran deal, Israel should expose all the ruinous details of the nuclear agreement. Israel should let the American people know how the deal endangers not just Israel, but their soldiers, and indeed, the US homeland itself.
By doing so, Israel stands a chance of separating the issue of Democratic support for Obama from Democratic opposition to the nuclear deal. Obama wants this deal to be about himself. Israel needs to explain how it is about America.
At the end of the day, what we now know about US collaboration with Iran brings home – yet again – the sad fact that the only chance Israel has ever had of preventing Iran from getting the bomb is to destroy the mullahs’ nuclear installations itself. If Israel can still conduct such an operation, it makes sense for it to be carried out before Iran’s nuclear program officially becomes the Iranian-American nuclear project.

Martin Sherman: The logical lacunae of the Left - Ari Shavit at AJC

One of the annual program’s highlights is the Forum’s Great Debate, which this year featured The Jerusalem Post’s Caroline B. Glick and Haaretz’s Ari Shavit, on whether the two-state formula offers a constructive solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, or is merely a dangerous delusion.
Unsurprisingly, Glick gave a feisty repudiation of the conceptual rationale and practical feasibility of any resolution based on the two-state principle. My strong misgivings regarding the alternative one-state paradigm she proposes are well known, but while I differ on what should be done, I always find her arguments as to what shouldn’t be done powerful and persuasive.
But it is on her opponent, Ari Shavit, that I should like to focus in the ensuing paragraphs.
At the start of the debate, Glick showered lavish praise on him, describing him as “a shining example, of what is best on the Left.” She continued that although “from a policy prescription he remains entirely true to his tribe... he represents the best of his tribe,” adding, with a wry reference to his fellow ideologues’ tendency to disregard recalcitrant realities, “because from time to time, he can make room for facts that are uncomfortable to his tribe.”
Sadly, in his address Shavit displayed scant signs of such virtues.

Those Gaza kids never let you down

Chris Gunness of UNRWA tweeted this message (misspelling his organization's name):

Put your trust in the children of #Gaza they will never let you down. Support @URNWA's #SOS4Gaza campaign. RT pic.twitter.com/BHUxmBu4xm
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) June 24, 2015

Yes, those children of Gaza will never let you down if you want them to grow up to be terrorists.

Saeb Erekat has been busy lately.

He issued a document describing a strategy on how to destroy Israel, in the words of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (not yet in English.)

His main points are:

Consider rescinding the PLO's recognition of Israel
Mobilize international support to force Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines
Ensure that "refugees" and their descendants retain that status for generations, with the aim for the eventual demographic destruction of the State of Israel
Continuation of activities designed to give legitimaxy to the independence of the State of Palestine through joining international institutions
Absolute denial of any offer of temporary or partial agreements with Israel
A legal battle against Israel in the international arena in order to limit its ability to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism
Strategic aligning with Palestinian terrorist organizations, led by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, through their participation in the PLO institutions and speeding up the process of reconciliation with Hamas
Full support for Palestinian terrorist organizations and diplomatic activity to prevent the entry of any terrorist organization into any list of terrorist organizations.
Support of terrorist murderers serving sentences for war crimes and pushing a political struggle for their immediate unconditional release.
Supporting "lone wolf" attacks against Israelis, such as stabbings, car terror, IEDs and Molotov cocktails
Help increase the political power of Israeli Arabs.

He also has been making grandiose claims, saying yesterday that as the head of the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department, he represents 11 million Palestinians. Which would be news to the ones who live in Lebanon or Syria, since the PLO has been treating them as cannon fodder rather than as human beings.

(h/t Yoel)

J-Street: Pointing in the wrong direction

Times of Israel reports:

After weeks of legislative drama, a trade bill containing provisions opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel cleared its final legislative hurdle Wednesday afternoon. The anti-BDS language, passed as part of the controversial Trade Promotion Authority legislation, is expected to be signed into law by President Barack Obama, who had pushed Congress to pass the trade bill as soon as possible.

Two amendments opposing BDS in Europe – one sponsored by Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin and Republican Sen. Rob Portman and the other by Republican Representative Peter Roskam and Democratic Representative Juan Vargas – were included in a trade authorization package that was considered must-pass legislation for the administration.

Reading J-Street's reasoning in opposing the bill reveals much about that purportedly "pro-Israel" organization:

J Street is adamantly opposed to the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. We’ve worked consistently, particularly on college campuses*, to oppose BDS efforts that are often thinly-veiled attempts to delegitimize Israel.

We view the Roskam-Vargas “U.S.-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act” (H.R.825) as not simply unhelpful to the effort to combat Global BDS, but contrary to longstanding US policy opposing settlement of the territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
...
The current stalemate in diplomatic progress toward a two-state solution has led some groups to pursue more limited boycotts or divestment initiatives in opposition to only the occupation and not Israel itself. These “targeted” efforts do not call for a boycott of Israel itself or Israeli goods, but of settlement products, unlike the all-encompassing boycott of Israel promoted by the global BDS Movement.

While J Street does not participate in such targeted boycott or divestment initiatives, we do not believe it is productive or appropriate for the United States government to spend time and resources preventing or reporting on such efforts.

J-Street claims to be opposed to BDS. But legislation that opposes BDS in all territories controlled by Israel is considered so heinous that they would rather see Israel boycotted than consider that Jews who live in their ancestral lands should not be boycotted. Which means that their opposition to BDS is not really so strong.

To put it another way, they claim to love Israel, but if that means that all Israeli citizens are treated the same whatever side of the Green Line they happen to live on, then screw Israel.

Also, while J-Street claims that this legislation doesn't distinguish between Israel and the territories, its opposition shows that J-Street doesn't distinguish between the Western Wall and Ramallah - all of them are the same occupied territory according to J-Street where Jews should be allowed to be boycotted if their friends at Jewish Voice for Peace want to. If someone wants to boycott a kosher falafel shop in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, J-Street supports that right.

Legislation often includes parts that not everyone is thrilled with, but the greater good is considered worth the price of the particular parts that one doesn't like. J-Street has decided that the possibility of supporting Jews in the territories against discrimination more than negates any good that comes from a major piece of anti-BDS legislation.

Pro-Israel? Yeah, right.

--------
* I have looked hard for evidence of a single J-Street action on a single college campus - a table, a protest, anything - publicly denouncing BDS. I have not found one yet. They only have some online documents against BDS that as far as I can tell were never physically distributed to anyone.

The impression one gets is that J-Street wants to maintain its ties to radical anti-Israel BDS groups like JVP but still wants to pretend to be pro-Israel.

(h/t fizziks)

Something fishy about the "flotilla" (update)

This morning, Palestine News Network said:

One of the organizers of Freedom Flotilla III trip, Dror Feiler Wednesday said that Marianne of Gothenburg is about to set off to Gaza within a few hours.

Today, however,m the story has changed:

One of the ships taking part in a flotilla headed towards Gaza strip was sabotaged south of Crete, an activist aboard one of the ships said Thursday.

Israeli-born Swedish activist Dror Feiler told Nazareth-based al-Shams radio that the ship had been sabotaged by professionals, and would have sunk if sailed at sea.

"Somebody went underneath the ship at night and sabotaged its propellers, just like they sabotaged the same ship in 2011,” Fieler said referring to similar damage that was inflicted upon a ship participating in a previous flotilla.

Feiler, who relinquished his Israeli citizenship after moving to Sweden, boarded the trawler Marianne of Gothenburg in Sweden with 18 other activists six weeks ago. The crew had refrained from stopping at European ports prior to avoid being held by authorities, but their trip was cut short after realizing that they might have drowned had they continued.

Despite the sabotage, the remainder of the flotilla convoy will move as planned with the ships expected arrive in Gaza in succession within three days, Feiler said.

I've been watching the Marianne av Goteburg on Internet vessel search sites since yesterday. Here's its track for the past two days (the thin blue line on the bottom:)

It was going straight until sometime during the day Wednesday, and it started circling about 24 hours ago. If it was in danger of sinking, as claimed - why didn't it go to a port?

Silently sabotaging a propeller on a moving ship sounds very suspicious to me as well.

Not that I don't believe that Israel might do that, but this story isn't adding up.

UPDATE 6-26: Miraculously, the ship has been on its way for about the past 20 hours

06/25 Links Pt2: BHL: A yellow star for the Jewish state?; Fmr. Obama advisers warn against Iran deal

From Ian:

Bernard-Henri Levy: A yellow star for the Jewish state?

Is this just a detail that can be safely ignored on the grounds that BDS targets “only” the territories, the Jewish settlements being built there, and the goods that the settlers produce? This is another sucker trap.
Here, too, it is enough to read the movement’s founding declaration of July 9, 2005, which specifies that one of its “three objectives” is to “protect” the “rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.” In fact and in law, that would amount to establishing on those lands a new Arab country that could be counted on, in short order, to undergo an ethnic cleansing that would make it judenfrei.
And, finally, how can I refrain from reminding those whose memory is as full of holes as their thinking that the idea of boycotting Israel is not as new as it appears? In fact, it is older than the Jewish state, having emerged on December 2, 1945, from a decision by the Arab League, which then wasted no time in relying on that decision to reject the United Nations’ dual resolution to establish two states. Among the promoters of this brilliant idea were Nazi war criminals who had settled in Syria and Egypt, where they gave their new masters lessons in marking Jewish shops and businesses.
A comparison is not an argument. And the meaning of a slogan does not reside entirely in its genealogy. But words do have a history. As do debates. And it is better to know that history, if we wish to avoid repeating its ugliest scenes.
The truth is that the BDS movement is nothing more than a sinister caricature of the anti-totalitarian and anti-apartheid struggles. It is a campaign whose instigators have no aim other than to discriminate against, delegitimize, and vilify an Israel that in their mind never stopped wearing its yellow star.
To activists of good faith who may have been taken in by duplicitous representations of the movement, I would say only that there are too many noble causes in need of assistance to allow oneself to be enlisted in a dubious one. Those worthy causes include fighting the jihadist decapitators, saving the women and girls enslaved by Boko Haram, defending the Middle East’s imperiled Christians and Arab democrats, and, of course, striving for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Labour’s Hamas connection

Among the Labour mainstream, complacency about Corbyn has been replaced by a rising sense of anger. “He claims he is a socialist, yet the first principle of socialism is supposed to be equality,” says James Bloodworth, editor of the influential Labour website Left Foot Forward. “Is he deluded enough to think that anti-Semitic terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah care a jot for the human rights of women, of gay people and of Jews?”
Bloodworth continues: “He needs to clarify his past statements as a matter of urgency. If he still stands by the things he has said, anyone genuinely interested in human rights cannot support him.”
But he is not alone in his affection for hardline Islamists. A seam of similar feeling runs through the British political establishment, particularly on the left.
The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) is a British campaign group that — according to the Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Center — is affiliated to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2009, it welcomed the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as its guest speaker at its annual conference; and it has long enjoyed the patronage of MPs.
At a PRC event held at Parliament in 2013, Corbyn took the stage alongside Baroness Jenny Tonge, who was forced to resign from her position in the Liberal party after saying that if she were Palestinian, she “might just consider” becoming a suicide bomber; and Lord Nazir Ahmed, who after causing a deadly road accident by texting behind the wheel, blamed his prison sentence on a Jewish conspiracy.
A surprising number of other British politicians, including Andy Slaughter, Sir Gerald Kaufman and Crispin Blunt, have visited Hamas leaders in Gaza, and some — George Galloway included — have made sizable donations to the terror group. Now that Corbyn’s star is rising, this loose collective of pro-Islamist MPs may have a new representative at the top table. (h/t Yenta Press)

Landmark anti-BDS law passes final Senate legislative hurdle

After weeks of legislative drama, a trade bill containing provisions opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel cleared its final legislative hurdle Wednesday afternoon. The anti-BDS language, passed as part of the controversial Trade Promotion Authority legislation, is expected to be signed into law by President Barack Obama, who had pushed Congress to pass the trade bill as soon as possible.
Two amendments opposing BDS in Europe – one sponsored by Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin and Republican Sen. Rob Portman and the other by Republican Representative Peter Roskam and Democratic Representative Juan Vargas – were included in a trade authorization package that was considered must-pass legislation for the administration.
The president needed Congress’s vote to authorize him to negotiate trade deals with so-called “fast-track authority,” but ten days ago House Democrats turned on the president and defeated a key portion of the trade deal package.
After quick legislative maneuvering last week, House Republicans passed the authorization part of the bill – the part that the president needed most urgently and that Republicans tend to support – and then passed the revised House version back to the Senate for approval. On Wednesday afternoon, the Senate gave the controversial legislation its final approval, sending trade authorization to the president’s desk to be signed into law.

Roskam: If you want free trade with the U.S., you can't boycott Israel

Summer appeal to support EoZ! (plus a mazel tov...)

(This post will remain on top for the next several hours, scroll down for newer posts)

This past Monday I achieved something that I highly doubt that any writer in any medium has ever accomplished.

My book review of Michael Oren's "Ally" was reproduced in The Jewish Press.

My original analysis of the UNHRC report was reproduced in The Algemeiner.

My scoop that the UNHRC report lied about the definition of occupation was reproduced in The Tower.

Three different, original articles were each independently considered by three different news editors to be valuable enough to be reproduced in three separate media outlets in a single day.

On that same day I also published a graphic that succinctly describes the differences between UNHCR and UNRWA which has been shared hundreds of times on Twitter.

This would make any writer proud if it happened in the course of a month - yet it all happened on Monday.

While that day isn't typical, it gives you an idea of the astonishing amount of original, valuable information that gets created and published on EoZ every single day, six days a week.

Besides EoZ's original articles, posters, cartoons and videos, we have increased the number of columnists, now featuring Daphne Anson. Mike Lumish, PreOccupied Territory and Vic Rosenthal.

Not to mention Ian's daily linkdumps, which are the best single source for all important Israel-related news available - not to disrespect the excellent job done by JCPA.

Some of the funds raised here go to these contributors (for those who accept being remunerated.)

It takes a lot of time and money to keep things going. If you think that this work is valuable, please consider donating - or, better yet, becoming a monthly subscriber - using the PayPal buttons on the top-right column of my main webpage. Or, if you prefer, you can help by sending me an Amazon gift card.

Thanks again for your readership and for your support through the years. I do appreciate it.

By the way, Junior Elder is iy"h getting married next month. He has contributed to a number of posts through the years.

If you want to earmark your donation to be given to him and his lovely bride as a wedding present, please add 18 cents to the amount donated so I can distinguish it from other donations.

I haven't decided what to call the future Mrs. Junior Elder on the blog, but tentatively I'll call her Junior Elder Wife, or JEW for short. :)

Thanks again!