Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

07/07 Links Pt1: The Iran Delusion - A Primer for the Perplexed; Obama has become Iran’s Lawyer

From Ian:

Michael Totten: The Iran Delusion: A Primer for the Perplexed

The chattering class has spent months bickering about whether or not the United States should sign on to a nuclear deal with Iran, and everyone from the French and the Israelis to the Saudis has weighed in with “no” votes. Hardly anyone aside from the Saudis, however, seems to recognize that the Iranian government’s ultimate goal is regional hegemony and that its nuclear weapons program is simply a means to that end.
The Middle East has five hot spots—or “shatter zones,” as Robert D. Kaplan called them in his landmark book, The Revenge of Geography—which are more prone to conflict than others, where borders are either unstable or porous, where central governments have a hard time keeping everything wired together, and where instability is endemic or chronic.
Gaza, where Hamas wages relentless rocket wars against Israel, is one such shatter zone. The Lebanese-Israeli border, where Hezbollah does the same on a much more terrifying scale, is another. Yemen, which is finally falling apart on an epic scale, has been one for decades. Syria and Iraq have merged into a single multinational shatter zone with more armed factions than anyone but the CIA can keep track of.
What do these shatter zones have in common? The Iranian government backs militias and terrorist armies in all of them. As Kaplan writes, “The instability Iran will cause will not come from its implosion, but from a strong, internally coherent nation that explodes outward from a natural geographic platform to shatter the region around it.”
That’s why Iran is a problem for American foreign policy makers in the first place; and that’s why trading sanctions relief for an international weapons inspection regime will have no effect on any of it whatsoever.

Has the Obama Administration Become Iran’s Lawyer?

The smart money here in Vienna is on the likelihood of a nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran being finalized at any moment. Maybe it will happen today with the White House showing the good manners to wait until after Americans have returned from their July 4 vacations to announce that they’ve cleared the way for Iran to get a bomb. Or maybe the Iranians will get the bomb in a little more than a decade, as the president of the United States has explained, but it will probably happen much sooner. And when the clerical regime does finally break out, the chances are they’re the Iranians will be the ones who are going to let the American public know because our elected officials seem to be keeping information from us and our allies when it comes to all things Iran.
Indeed, it looks like the Obama administration has become Iran’s lawyer. In both making Tehran’s case to U.S. allies (from the White House’s P5+1 negotiating partners, to Middle East friends like Israel and Saudi Arabia), and shaping public perception of Iranian actions, the White House has made itself an indispensable friend to the clerical regime. Iran doesn’t have to worry about justifying its behavior—like its failure to meet obligations under the interim nuclear agreement and its outright lies—because it knows the administration will do all the heavy lifting.
Consider how the White House has managed to explain away Iran’s illicit nuclear activities. In the first place, the Joint Plan of Action is a somewhat weak document. It fails to prohibit the sorts of things you might expect to be banned if Iran’s program was really “frozen,” like the White House says. For instance, even though there are UN security council resolutions regarding Iran’s procurement of parts and equipment for illicit nuclear work, the JPOA has sidestepped the issue. The resulting framework is that when the Iranians get caught violating those resolutions, the State Department can declare that Iran is not in technical violation of the JPOA.
There’s also the issue of Iran coming clean about its past nuclear activities in order to disclose the possible military dimensions of the program. Despite the fact that the Obama administration has repeatedly assured skeptics that Iran would address the question of PMDs, the IAEA has reported that Iran fails to address outstanding questions or allow inspections of certain sites. But since PMDs are not in the JPOA, the State Department can brush away such concerns.

Dennis Ross: On Iran, Worry About the Deal, Not the Deadline

Just as June 30 turned out not to be a true deadline for the Iranian nuclear talks, it would be wise to treat July 7 — the extended deadline — much the same way. The Obama administration should make clear that it is prepared to conclude a deal at any time, provided it is fully consistent with the framework understanding from April; anything less, and there will be no deal. If the Iranians insist on trying to walk back or redefine the framework understanding, they will not only stretch out the negotiations but will lead us to harden our own position and impose new conditions.
Taking such a stance is all the more critical now, with Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, seemingly laying down conditions that are inconsistent with the framework understanding — no access to military sites or scientists, immediate sanctions relief upon signing of the agreement, no limits on research and development, and rejection of any restrictions on its program lasting 10-12 years. Was the supreme leader signaling that he does not want a deal? Was he posturing so his negotiators could seek more concessions? Was he playing domestic politics and trying to assuage hard-line opponents of a deal?
My bet is on posturing. Of course, his revolutionary ideology and hostility toward the United States, as well as the reality that there are hard-line opponents of an agreement, mean that he might not only be posturing to influence the negotiations. It may, in fact, be difficult for him to conclude a deal. Still, Khamenei has allowed these negotiations to continue and permitted his negotiators — whom he continues to defend — to conclude the framework understanding. Clearly, he decided Iran has much to gain from an agreement. And the fact is that an agreement consistent with the framework understanding offers Iran a lot.

Egypt dictates that reporters don't use word "Islamic" when describing ISIS. David Cameron agrees.

CBS News reporter Alex Ortiz reveals on Twitter that Egypt's Foreign Ministry is imposing its nomenclature on reporters:

Egypt's Foreign Ministry issues foreign press corps a style guide for how we should describe terrorist groups. pic.twitter.com/AAn9MNcLxC
— Alex Ortiz (@azortiz) July 4, 2015

Ironically, Ortiz himself uses the word "terrorist groups" instead of the usual "militants" to describe ISIS, indicating that he is acquiescing to Egypt's demands to some extent.

Last week's attacks on the Egyptian army in the Sinai was generally described as being done by "militants" in the world media, only Egyptian and some Israeli media referred to the groups as "terrorist."

These are not only recommendations. Restrictions on press freedom are becoming Egyptian law.

Egypt Independent reports:

The draft anti-terrorism law approved by Egypt's cabinet last week includes "dangerous articles" which threaten media and press freedoms, the press syndicate said on Monday.

The syndicate's board discussed the draft law during a meeting on Monday, when it stressed that it stands by the armed forces in its fight against "terrorist attacks".

The cabinet passed the draft on Wednesday and referred it to the State Council, after militants in Sinai escalated their attacks on security forces in the peninsula.

The syndicate's board said in a statement issued after the meeting it would contact with other syndicates, political parties and civil society organisations to agree on a unified stance to "face the articles which restrict press freedoms" in the draft. The syndicate listed five articles in the draft as such.

Among the most controversial articles is Article 33, which punishes by a minimum of two years in prison the publishing of "false news or data" which contradict official data on "terrorist operations".

Heneidi said the article would come into effect only if four conditions are met: if the case is related to "terrorism", if it is deliberate, if it involves publishing false news, and if such news contradicts official data.

This means, for example, that if Egyptian forces kill civilians and blame terrorists, reporters could go to jail for reporting it.

Amazingly, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and other UK pols seem to agree with Egypt's anti-media mindset:

Prime Minister David Cameron recently joined the growing chorus of British politicians who argue that the name "Islamic State" is offensive to Muslims and should be banned from the English vocabulary.

During an interview with BBC Radio 4's "Today" program on June 29 — just days after a jihadist with links to the Islamic State killed 38 people (including 30 Britons) at a beach resort in Tunisia — Cameron rebuked veteran presenter John Humphrys for referring to the Islamic State by its name.

When Humphrys asked Cameron whether he regarded the Islamic State to be an existential threat, Cameron said:

"I wish the BBC would stop calling it 'Islamic State' because it is not an Islamic state. What it is is an appalling, barbarous regime. It is a perversion of the religion of Islam, and, you know, many Muslims listening to this program will recoil every time they hear the words 'Islamic State.'"

Humphrys responded by pointing out that the group calls itself the Islamic State (al-Dawlah al-Islamiyah, Arabic for Islamic State), but he added that perhaps the BBC could use a modifier such as "so-called" in front of that name.

Cameron replied: "'So-called' or ISIL [the acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] is better." He continued:

"But it is an existential threat, because what is happening here is the perversion of a great religion, and the creation of this poisonous death cult, that is seducing too many young minds, in Europe, in America, in the Middle East and elsewhere.
"And this is, I think, going to be the struggle of our generation. We have to fight it with everything that we can."

I have no problem with the media choosing to call Islamic terrorists "militants" but when governments start to tell the media what to do, then that is a major problem. Not only because of the intimidation that accompanies such demands, but also because readers will not know that the coverage is being slanted by the government. This happened countless times in Gaza, in Lebanon and elsewhere, and the media refusing to push back and publicize these efforts to muzzle them makes it complicit to some extent.

Bashing Israel? Amnesty has an app for that (update x2)

Tomorrow, Amnesty plans to officially release a graphical tool that has no purpose except to bash Israel.

From the leaked press release:

An investigative online tool mapping Israeli attacks in Gaza during the conflict of July and August 2014 has been unveiled by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture today. Its purpose is to help push for accountability for war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law.

The Gaza Platform enables the user to explore and analyse data about Israel’s 2014 military operation in Gaza. The preliminary data currently plotted on the Platform, which will be updated over the coming months, already highlights a number of patterns in the attacks by Israeli forces that indicate that grave and systemic violations were committed.

“The Gaza Platform is the most comprehensive record of attacks during the 2014 conflict to date. It allows us to piece together more than 2,500 individual attacks, illustrating the vast scale of destruction caused by Israel’s military operations in Gaza during the 50-day war last summer,” said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“By revealing patterns rather than just presenting a series of individual attacks, the Gaza Platform has the potential to expose the systematic nature of Israeli violations committed during the conflict. Our aim is for it to become an invaluable resource for human rights investigators pushing for accountability for violations committed during the conflict.”

The platform is a map of Gaza where you can graphically zoom in on many Israeli strikes, or search for names or specific types of attacks.

The data comes from PCHR, Al Mezan Center and Amnesty.

We've already documented many cases where all of those groups defined people killed in Gaza last summer as civilians even when terror groups have claimed them as fighters.

Which means that this is putting a pretty face on biased, flawed and often lying data.

But its slick interface means that causal users will not doubt that the actual research behind it is based on lies.

For example, Amnesty says that Israel struck the house of Alaa Barda without saying that he was a Hamas terrorist.

And the only purpose for the huge investment by Amnesty into this project is to flatly accuse Israel of war crimes - something that even the biased UNHRC Davis commission was careful not to say:

While a vast amount of multimedia information, including testimony, photos, videos and satellite imagery, is still being processed, the Gaza Platform currently shows that more than 270 Israeli attacks were carried out using artillery fire during the 2014 conflict, killing more than 320 civilians. The repeated use of artillery, an imprecise explosive weapon, in densely populated civilian areas constitutes indiscriminate attacks that should be investigated as war crimes.

The press release also includes this howler:

“We see this project as a first step towards more effective conflict monitoring efforts, supported by collaborative platforms that facilitate the sharing of data between witnesses on the ground, organizations, and citizens worldwide.”

Yet Israel is always the first and usually only target of these "innovative" tools. Will Amnesty do the same research into Saudi airstrikes in Yemen? Of course not, because they don't put the same resources into Yemen, and it is more dangerous to be there than it was to be in Gaza last summer.

Unless Amnesty incorporates data that comes from the Meir Amit Terrorism Center and from the IDF that responds to these accusations of indiscriminate attacks, it is nothing bu a propaganda tool. Amnesty is not interested in the truth - all the data comes from biased, anti-Israel sources and there is no mechanism to impartially investigate them. As Amnesty itself says, they have already determined that Israel is guilty, now they are working hard to manufacture slick presentations to fool people into thinking that their Israel bashing is based on real science and statistics and not hate.

One more thing: earlier this year, Amnesty decided that they can't mount a campaign against antisemitism because, well, they don't have the resources to campaign on everything. But they have the money and time to spend on a slick anti-Israel application that is based on data that is inherently and provably biased.

(h/t Daniel)

UPDATE:
Amnesty's tool says:

At approximately 21:00, an Israeli warplane launched a missile at a number of Palestinian civilians in Khuza’a village, east of Khan Yunis, killing 2 of them: Mohammed Barham Abu Draz, 24; and ‘Essam Ibrahim Abu Ismail, 23.

This is Mohammed Barham Abu Draz, a member of the Al Qassam Brigades:

UPDATE 2: Here's Amnesty's video touting the product:

Their assertion that the Gaza Platform "proves' Israeli war crimes is another lie. It adds no new information to what has been known and it parrots flawed information.

The only thing it proves is that Amnesty is knowingly dishonest.

Yesterday, a small group of Jews ascended to the Temple Mount, most sacred spot in Judaism. A huge group of Muslims chanted and blocked their way from going beyond the Moroccan (Rambam) Gate and police forced them to exit immediately through the neighboring Chain Gate.

Today, the Temple Mount is closed to all Jews until July 20, "Eid al-Fitr.".

Some Arab media say that it is closed to all non-Muslims, others say it is closed to Jews only. The Arab media freely admits that the Muslims were "deployed" to stop all Jews from entering the Mount.

While the area of the Jewish Temples is now Judenrein, Hamas terrorists and their supporters are free to visit.

On Friday, Hamas flags were prominently displayed on the Temple Mount without a word of protest from any "moderate" Muslims.

The ban on Jews corresponds with the beginning of a three-week period that Jews mourn for the destroyed Temples that have been replaced with Muslim supremacist structures.

People who pretend to support peace in the Holy Land are consistently silent about the discrimination against Jews and open support for terrorism on Judaism's holiest spot.

To them, "peace" means that Jews may not assert any of their rights while extremist Muslims must be allowed to use intimidation and threats to impose their antisemitic agenda..

PLO ambassador claims "Protocols" are real, says no such thing as Jewish people

This is PLO Ambassador to Chile, Mr. Imad Nabil Jada'a, speaking on May 15 in Santiago to the "Conference for Peace in Palestine and Israel."

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" PLO Ambassador to Chile, Mr. Imad Nabil Jada'a, June 2015 from ISGAP on Vimeo.

Until 1896 when a group of academic intellectuals, financial advisers, majority being non-Jewish Europeans, decided to create the Zionist movement with one pretext/excuse; the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people. Although the truth is that this (the goal) is to protect their plans of dominating life in the entire planet. According to the book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” published in 1923, discovered by Lenin after the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was over. In that book they mention the destruction of the moralities of other religions. In that book they put plans of the manipulation of all the apparatus of the financial, economic and industrial of the entire world. They discuss about the manipulation of the local political forces from all different countries.

Apparently his use of the term "non-Jewish Europeans" is invoking the Khazar myth.

More:

"Denial of Jewish Existence" PLO Ambassador to Chile, Mr. Imad Nabil Jada'a, June 2015 from ISGAP on Vimeo.

About the hatred we have against the Jewish people. As Palestinians, first, we don’t have hatred. Second we don’t recognize the existence of the Jewish people-there is no Jewish people. This is not my personal analysis. Here we can refer to the Jewish Israeli professor from the University of Tel Aviv, Dr. Shlomo Sand, in his book “The Invention of the Jewish people.” A Jew with Israeli passport announces that, the so-called Jewish nation is a made up invention. Because a religion cannot be a people.

I have previously documented that denial of Jewish peoplehood is official PLO policy.

I've also proven Shlomo Sand to be a liar.

So there you have it: "Palestine"'s ambassador to Chile is an antisemite who believes that the Protocosl of the Elders of Zion was a blueprint for Khazars to take over the world and that Israel is following that blueprint.

Note that this happened in May, and no one in the audience thought the ambassador's Jew-hatred was a problem.

(h/t Josh K)

07/06 Links Pt2: Oren’s Assault on the Liberal Narrative on Israel; Gay Muslim Zionist Experiment

From Ian:

Michael Oren’s Assault on the Liberal Narrative on Israel

The last six years of Israeli-American relations have been characterized by both a deepening security partnership and—at the same time—acrimonious, occasionally personal, and often public disagreements on political issues.
A prevailing orthodoxy has emerged to explain this, one that creates very little dissonance for Americans whose views are basically liberal and not explicitly anti-Israel. The orthodoxy holds that the tensions between Washington and Jerusalem are the fault of an Israeli government that prioritizes settlements over peace and interferes in domestic American politics in an attempt to sabotage a diplomatic opening with Iran. The explanation for this is found in Israel’s “increasing rightward shift” and the personality of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is an orthodoxy championed by the likes of New Yorker editor David Remnick and assumed implicitly by The New York Times.
This orthodoxy is easy for American liberals to accept, particularly the bulk of American Jewish liberals. It also has a veneer of credibility, as Israel’s government has at times appeared to prefer policies that privilege the settlement enterprise over Israel’s more pressing security needs. At other times, its prime minister has publicly acted in ways that make him seem a bit too close to some of President Obama’s nuttier domestic opponents.
But this is not the entire story or even most of it, and the memoirs of Michael Oren, who was Israel’s ambassador to Washington during the crucial years of 2009-2013, will force a complete rethink of the orthodox narrative.

There is no room for surprise anymore as this administration moves forward with its opening to Iran and its risky gamble on the Iranian nuclear program. Pro-Obama, pro-Israel liberals have lived in a dissonance-free zone as long as they embraced the prevailing orthodoxy of Netanyahu’s malfeasance. Oren’s book does not in any way exonerate Netanyahu from responsibility for allowing the settlement issue to limit Israel’s policy options or from misunderstanding a changing American domestic political landscape. But no serious reader from the camp that Oren is trying to address can close this book and still be free of that dissonance.
If that dissonance sparks a more robust and honest conversation about U.S.-Israel relations, and in particular about the problems of the last six years, this book will have made an enormous contribution. If it is mistakenly received as an anti-Obama Right-wing screed, embraced by the President’s conservative foes and caricatured and dismissed by everyone else, we will all be poorer for it.

JPost Editorial: Targeting Petrenko

Even before it was announced that Russian-born Kirill Petrenko was appointed to take over in 2018 from Sir Simon Rattle as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Petrenko’s Jewishness became a hot issue in Germany.
The notion that Europe has not rid itself of its ancient hate generates reactions of indignant scorn. The corollary suggestion that European anti-Semitism is not only rearing its ugly head again but actually grows by leaps and bounds is met with near-hysterical righteous resentment.
This is nowhere more so than in Germany – smug and intolerant of reminders of its past. Apart from scant obligatory lip-service from its leaders, the German mainstream is “fed up” with Jewish annoyances. From its point of view, the slate is wiped clean and Germans have no cause to be apologetic in any sense.
No one in the German political hierarchy much bothers anymore to remonstrate against pro-Arab demonstrators who shout “Jews to the gas” (as in an Essen rally last summer, replete with Nazi salutes). This is either blamed on Muslims (who presumably are not bound by the same codes as the rest of society) or on ruffians who are painted as the unrepresentative dregs of society.
But those who chose to target Petrenko’s Jewishness come from the urbane cultural elite, from the refined ranks of those who presumably know better. The Petrenko case exposed the nasty dark underside that belies the spic-and span German façade.
That is particular cause for concern, unsurprising though it is to anyone who follows the changes in German attitudes both to Jews in general and to the Jewish state in particular. The two go together and are indeed inseparable.
The perception of Israel is tinged with precisely the same bigotry as evinced toward individual Jews such as Petrenko.

Orim Shimshon: The Gay Muslim Zionist Experiment

I decided to go to the gay parade with an agenda. Since the mainstream media spreads lies about Israel and hardly mentions the persecution of minorities in the Islamic world particularly gays, I seized the opportunity to take the chance and go with a sign that read “I’m a gay Muslim. Remember two things. Islamic world = no gay rights. Israel = 100% gay rights.” Needless to say, I was a little nervous about the presence of the police. However the highlight was the wonderful response I got from most by passersby and attendees – with the exception of few hypocritical anti-Israel bigots who took issues with my Israeli flag.

The Gay Muslim Zionist Experiment

AFP reports:

Hamas authorities yesterday reopened the offices of the Gaza Strip’s only mobile telephone company, five days after closing them on accusations of tax-dodging.

A statement from attorney general Ismail Jaber’s office said that he had “ordered the reopening” of telecom provider Jawwal in Gaza City, but it did not give reasons.

“All Jawwal offices and stores have reopened,” a company executive said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Police in the coastal territory, which Hamas controls, shut Jawwal’s Gaza City office on Tuesday and posted notices saying the closure for “tax evasion” was on Jaber’s orders.

Jawwal director Ammar al-Eker said in a statement yesterday that his company “always met its fiscal and financial obligations”.

Some observers have said that Jawwal is probably paying taxes to the Palestinian Authority and not the Hamas authorities in Gaza.

Fatah media, however, claim that Hamas used this as a pretext to have Jawwal allow Hamas to spy on the phones of Gazans.

Unnamed sources said that Jawwal agreed to cooperate absolutely with Hamas in "security and criminal cases in the Gaza Strip" and to grant Hamas access to phone records for those who may be affiliated with rival factions to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The sources also claim that Jawwal agreed to pay millions of dollars to Hamas under the pretext of buying medicines for the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

From Iran's PressTV:

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan says the West, including the US, is not safe from the threats of the Israeli regime.

The Iranian official described the Tel Aviv regime as a symbol of terrorism, infanticide, occupation, aggression and genocide.

Dehqan made the remarks on Monday ahead of International Quds Day, which falls on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

He said that the Israeli regime, backed by the US, seeks to create divisions, wars and bloodshed among Muslims to disunite them, stressing that the upcoming Quds Day rallies can foil Israeli plots and further foster unity among Muslims.

Today, the bloodthirsty Zionist regime, which is in possession of hundreds of nuclear warheads as well as weapons of mass destruction, is the “world’s center of evil, espionage and warmongering” and neither Islamic countries nor the Western ones and even the US will be safe from its threat, the Iranian official said.

Yes, this comes from a country whose parliament chanted "Death to America" as recently as two weeks ago.

Dehqan was also reportedly personally involved in Iran's taking hostages from the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and in the creation of Hezbollah, possibly even involved in the murders of hundreds of US soldiers in Beirut. His appointment as defense minister was seen as an indication that Iran's global strategy is to continue to use terror and proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen to achieve their goals to achieve global hegemony.

Meanwhile, Israel celebrated America's Independence Day.

Dehgan's statements cannot be dismissed as another joke, though. Clearly Tehran sees the intense desire of the White House to ally with Iran as a means to widen the rift between the US and Israel. Propagadists know that planting seeds today could pay off in ten or twenty years.

After all, many of the things accepted as fact today sounded equally absurd a few decades ago.

Propaganda is a strategic weapon, and the West is as vulnerable to it as it is clueless in how to use it for its own purposes.

07/06 Links Pt1: Will Samantha Power Be the First American UN Ambassador to Abandon Israel?

From Ian:

Shmuley Boteach: Will Samantha Power Be the First American UN Ambassador to Abandon Israel?

Last week, mega-philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, co-founder of Birthright Israel, which has brought 500,000 young Jews to Israel, joined with our organization The World Values Network, in a full-page New York Times ad about Ambassador Samantha Power. In the ad Mr. Steinhardt reminded the Ambassador of her commitment at her Senate confirmation hearings, “I will stand up for Israel and work tirelessly to defend it” at the United Nations.
At the AIPAC Annual Policy Conference in Washington, DC, in March, Samantha avowed, “It is a false choice to tell Israel that it has to choose between peace on the one hand, and security on the other. The United Nations would not ask any other country to make that choice, and it should not ask it of Israel.”
Ambassador Power, of course, was correct – security is the foundation of any sustainable peace framework in the Middle East. To its credit, the United States has long stood for justice and served as an essential check against overreach, anti-Semitism, and double standards by Arab and European nations at the UN.
Yet statements in April by Ambassador Power refusing to rule out supporting UN resolutions that target Israel, added to recent claims by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, have raised serious questions about the specter of betrayal by the United States and Ambassador Power during the UN General Assembly in September. Reports have emerged that France plans to put forth a resolution before the UN Security Council that will call for an immediate resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with a hard-cap of 18 months for a final deal. Under the French proposal, if no deal is reached in 18 months, the UN would recognize the Palestinian state, effectively granting legitimacy to an organization that has consistently proven incompetent, corrupt, hostile to democratic values, and openly supportive of terrorism. While the global Jewish community has come to expect little from France, Hamdallah said that France and the U.S. are “coordinating” together on the diplomatic catastrophe. There also exists the possibility that should Israel refuse to accept a UN Security Council Resolution authorizing a timetable for the unilateral creation of a Palestinian State, economic sanctions could be levied against the Jewish State.

Khaled Abu Toameh: When Palestinians Die in Jail

Three Palestinian men were found dead in their jail cells in the West Bank and Gaza Strip this past week.
But their stories did not attract the attention of the international media or human rights organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Nor was their case brought to the attention of the United Nations or the International Criminal Court (ICC).
By contrast, the case of 17-year-old Mohamed Kasba, who was shot dead north of Jerusalem by an Israeli army officer as he attacked the officer's car with stones, received widespread coverage in the Western media.
The UN even rushed to condemn the killing of Kasba, and called for an "immediate end" to violence and for everyone to keep calm. "This reaffirms the need for a political process aiming to establish two states living beside each other safely and peacefully," said UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Maldenov.
The UN official, needless to say, made no reference to the deaths that occurred in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas jails. He did not even see a need to express concern over the deaths or call for an investigation. Like the mainstream media in the West, the UN chooses to look the other way when Palestinians torture or kill fellow Palestinians.
The reason the case of the three detainees will not interest anyone in the international community is because the men did not die in an Israeli jail. Instead, the three men died while being held in Palestinian-controlled jails.
Had the three men died in Israeli detention, their names would have most likely appeared on the front pages of most leading Western newspapers. The families of the three men would have also been busy talking to Western journalists about Israeli "atrocities" and "human rights violations."

IsraellyCool: Proof 17-Year-Old Killed By IDF Was A Terrorist

Last week, I posted about the death of 17-year-old palestinian Muhammad al-Casba, killed while attempting to murder Col. Israel Shomer. Brian later posted about the Irish Times skewed coverage of his death, which referred to him as merely a “17-year-old Palestinian protester.”
A number of Israeli sites have since posted some photos purporting to be of the young “protester”, which if correct, show what type of “protesting” he was involved in. Not to mention what kind of future he had lined up for himself.
My initial reaction when seeing such photos is “Is this really proof? After all, this is an Israeli site. Seeing these photos on a palestinian, Arab, Muslim site – now that would constitute proof.”

Now compare to the photos of the young man with the gun and the intense look of hatred in his eyes.
I think we can all agree this 17-year-old was a terrorist whose aim was to murder, and not merely a young protester trying to ruin someone’s car.
Thank you to the big-mouth Israel haters for confirming what we already suspected.

The encyclopedia of US caving on its positions to Iran

This article in The Foreign Policy Initiative is as damning as it gets.

Excerpts:

I. REQUIREMENTS FOR A GOOD DEAL

Dismantling Iran’s Nuclear Program

What They Said Then

December 4, 2013: Chief U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman tells PBS that a final agreement should include “a lot of dismantling of their infrastructure.”

December 10, 2013: “I don’t think that any of us thought we were just imposing these sanctions for the sake of imposing them,” says Secretary of State John Kerry in congressional testimony. “We did it because we knew that it would hopefully help Iran dismantle its nuclear program. That was the whole point of the [sanctions] regime.”

What We Know Now

April 2, 2015: The P5+1 and Iran reach a framework agreement that does not require Tehran to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure. “Iran is not going to simply dismantle its program because we demand it to do so,” President Obama says in a Rose Garden statement.

**********

Iran’s “Right” to Enrich Uranium

What They Said Then

November 24, 2013: “There is no right to enrich,” Secretary of State John Kerry tells ABC News. “We do not recognize a right to enrich. It is clear, in the — in the NPT, in the nonproliferation treaty, it’s very, very [clear] that there is no right to enrich.”

What We Know Now

December 10, 2013: “There is no right to enrich in the NPT,” says Secretary of State John Kerry in House testimony. “But neither is it denied. The NPT is silent on the issue.” In a final agreement, Kerry adds, “I can’t tell you they might not have some enrichment.”

April 2, 2015: The P5+1 and Iran reach a framework agreement that permits Iran to enrich uranium in more than 5,000 centrifuges and to retain more than 1,000 additional centrifuges in storage. “As soon as we got into the real negotiations with them,” a senior U.S. official tells The Wall Street Journal, “we understood that any final deal was going to involve some domestic enrichment capability. But I can honestly tell you, we always anticipated that.”

**********

The Fordow Enrichment Facility

What They Said Then

December 7, 2013: “We know that they don’t need to have an underground, fortified facility like Fordow in order to have a peaceful nuclear program,” says President Obama at the Brookings Institution's Saban Forum.

What We Know Now

April 2, 2015: The P5+1 and Iran reach a framework agreement indicating that Fordow will remain open as a research facility, and may retain approximately 1,000 centrifuges capable of nuclear enrichment.

June 24, 2015: According to a draft appendix to the final deal obtained by the Associated Press (AP), Iran will use Fordow for isotope production rather than uranium enrichment. However, as the AP notes, “isotope production uses the same technology as enrichment and can be quickly re-engineered” for nuclear weapons development.

**********

The Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s Nuclear Program

What They Said Then

February 4, 2014: “We raised possible military dimensions” in the negotiations, says chief U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman in Senate testimony. “And in fact in the Joint Plan of Action, we have required that Iran come clean on its past actions as part of any comprehensive agreement.”

April 8, 2015: “They have to do it,” Secretary of State John Kerry tells PBS, referring to Tehran’s disclosure of PMD. “It will be done. If there’s going to be a deal, it will be done.”

What We Know Now

June 16, 2015: During a press availability, Secretary of State John Kerry says the Obama administration no longer considers Iran’s disclosure of PMD a priority. “We know what they did,” he says. “We have no doubt. We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in. What we’re concerned about is going forward.” Only eight days earlier, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano had said the agency lacks such knowledge.

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Iran’s Breakout Capacity

What They Said Then

December 7, 2013: “It is my strong belief,” says President Obama at the Brookings Institution's Saban Forum, “that we can envision an end state that gives us an assurance that even if they have some modest enrichment capability, it is so constrained and the inspections are so intrusive that they, as a practical matter, do not have breakout capacity.”

What We Know Now

April 2, 2015: According to the U.S. version of the framework agreement, Iran will have a breakout time of one year for a duration of at least ten years. The Iranian version and the joint EU-Iran statement omit the issue entirely.

April 7, 2015: “What is a more relevant fear” under a deal, President Obama tells NPR, “would be that in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.”

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The Timing of Sanctions Relief under a Deal

What They Said Then

March 3, 2014: “Iran is not open for business until Iran is closed for nuclear bombs,” says Secretary of State John Kerry in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

January 27, 2015: Under a final deal, “the international community would provide Iran with phased sanctions relief tied to verifiable actions on its part,” says Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Senate testimony.

What We Know Now

April 2, 2015: The P5+1 and Iran reach a framework agreement that leaves the timing of sanctions relief ambiguous. The U.S. version states that Iran will receive sanctions relief “after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps” (emphasis added). Tehran’s version states that sanctions “will be immediately removed after reaching a comprehensive agreement” (emphasis added). The joint EU-Iran statement says Iran will receive relief “simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation by Iran of its key nuclear commitments” (emphasis added).

April 17, 2015: Administration officials tell The Wall Street Journal that Iran may receive a signing bonus of $30 billion to $50 billion immediately upon reaching a deal. About a month later, in an interview for The Atlantic, President Obama speaks to the possibility of $150 billion in sanctions relief.

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The Military Option

What They Said Then

Selected Statements by President Obama on the Military Option against Iran

“As president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” (March 2, 2012)
“I will take no options off the table.” (March 4, 2012)
“When I say all options are at the table, I mean it.” (March 5, 2012)
“I will repeat that we take no options off the table.” (September 30, 2013)
“When the president of the United States says that he doesn’t take any options off the table, that should be taken seriously.” (December 7, 2013)
“[I] stand ready to exercise all options to make sure Iran does not build a nuclear weapon.” (January 28, 2014)
“Now, if Iran ends up ultimately not being able to say yes [to a deal] … then we’re going to have to explore other options.” (January 16, 2015)
“I keep all options on the table to prevent a nuclear Iran.” (January 20, 2015)

What We Know Now

May 29, 2015: “A military solution will not fix it, even if the United States participates,” President Obama tells Israeli television. “It would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program, but it will not eliminate it.”

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“No Deal is Better than a Bad Deal”

What They Said Then

“No deal is better than a bad deal.”

(A Selected List)

– President Barack Obama, December 7, 2013

– Secretary of State John Kerry, November 10, 2013

– National Security Advisor Susan Rice, November 13, 2013

– Secretary of State John Kerry, November 24, 2013

– Secretary of State John Kerry, December 7, 2014

– Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, January 21, 2015

– Secretary of State John Kerry, March 1, 2015

– National Security Advisor Susan Rice, March 2, 2015

What We Know Now

June 24, 2015: In a public statement on the Iran nuclear negotiations, a bipartisan group of American diplomats, legislators, policymakers, and experts — including five former Obama administration officials — writes:

The agreement will not prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapons capability. It will not require the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear enrichment infrastructure. …

…we fear that the current negotiations … may fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a “good” agreement.

The Obama administration remains on the verge of signing such an agreement.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t TIP)

Imagine if you were taking this train to work

In my last post, I mentioned that "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas praised the "spirit of the first intifada" and the "culture of popular resistance" practiced by Palestinian children.

Here's an example of what Abbas is praising.

This photo, of Arab youths throwing rocks at a Jerusalem light rail train, was taken this weekend:

As the lighted sign on the train indicates, this rail line serves Arab sections of Jerusalem as well as Jewish areas.

Look at the size of the brick in the hand of the right-most terrorist:

That could easily kill someone if thrown hard enough at a moving vehicle.

Now imagine how police in Chicago or London or Oslo would react to direct assaults on their mass transit lines.

And ask yourself why this story did not even make the Israeli newspapers.

The answer is because this stone throwing happens every single day.

Now imagine a society where young men who throw bricks at innocent civilians are lauded as heroes by their leaders. Where they are encouraged to act this way, and indoctrinated since they are very young to throw stones at Jews.

You don't have to imagine it. Mahmoud Abbas just praised them.

And the UN dedicated a year to that exact society.

Supposedly "moderate" PA president Mahmoud Abbas has called for Palestinians to embrace the spirit of the first intifada, the spree of murder and riots that embroiled Israel from 1987 to 1991.

"We need the spirit, values and wisdom of the heroes of the popular uprising that glorified our children and young people, the elderly and women over the full four years in accordance with the correct vision that was able to expose the occupation and foil its plans to find alternatives to the PLO, and dismantling of the isolation of the organization that were imposed in the wake of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait," Abbas said.

Abbas is pretending that the first intifada was meant to make the PLO relevant, when in fact its leaders acted independently and were against the PLO. After a few years the PLO managed to co-opt the movement.

Abbas added that the spirit of the popular uprising was characterized by purity, clarity and philosophy derived from the national consensus to get rid of the occupation, and that the activities of the popular resistance today (which includes shootings, stabbings, running over Jews in cars, and thousands of firebombs) is "part of the spirit of the uprising which we desperately need to reach today."

He praised the role of the Coordinating Committee and its members who led the events of the intifada first with wisdom and courage, and their role in spreading the culture of popular resistance that children still practice.

Here is a brief history of the intifada:

False charges of Israeli atrocities and instigation from the mosques played an important role in starting the intifada. On December 6, 1987, an Israeli was stabbed to death while shopping in Gaza. One day later, four residents of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza were killed in a traffic accident. Rumors that the four had been killed by Israelis as a deliberate act of revenge began to spread among the Palestinians. Mass rioting broke out in Jabalya on the morning of December 9, in which a 17-year-old youth was killed by an Israeli soldier after throwing a Molotov cocktail at an army patrol. This soon sparked a wave of unrest that engulfed the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.

Over the next week, rock-throwing, blocked roads and tire burnings were reported throughout the territories. By December 12, six Palestinians had died and 30 had been injured in the violence. The following day, rioters threw a gasoline bomb at the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem. No one was hurt in the bombing.

The intifada was violent from the start. During the first four years of the uprising, more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives were reported by the Israel Defense Forces. The violence was directed at soldiers and civilians alike. During this period, 16 Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers were killed by Palestinians in the territories; more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers were injured.

Jews were not the only victims of the violence. In fact, as the intifada waned around the time of the Gulf War in 1991, the number of Arabs killed for political and other reasons by Palestinian death squads exceeded the number killed in clashes with Israeli troops.

PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat defended the killing of Arabs deemed to be “collaborating with Israel.” He delegated the authority to carry out executions to the intifada leadership. After the murders, the local PLO death squad sent the file on the case to the PLO. “We have studied the files of those who were executed, and found that only two of the 118 who were executed were innocent,” Arafat said. The innocent victims were declared "martyrs of the Palestinian revolution" by the PLO (AlMussawar, January 19, 1990).

Palestinians were stabbed, hacked with axes, shot, clubbed and burned with acid. The justifications offered for the killings varied. In some instances, being employed by Israel's Civil Administration in the West Bank and Gaza was reason enough; in others, contact with Jews warranted a death sentence. Accusations of "collaboration" with Israel were sometimes used as a pretext for acts of personal vengeance. Women deemed to have behaved "immorally" were also among the victims.

B'Tselem considers the first intifada as lasting until 2000, and counts over 420 Israelis killed, most of them civilians.

Operation Entebbe - in animation

This is quite good, on events that happened exactly 39 years ago:

(h/t Ashley P)

It is a Lance cheese cracker sandwich, certified kosher by the OU.

(h/t Shlomo HaLevi)

.@CNN (@jacoprisco) parrots Arab propaganda about Temple Mount

CNN has a travel feature of beautiful buildings to visit before they are destroyed:

“A holy city for three different religions, it attracts millions of tourist with over 200 monuments, including the majestic Dome of the Rock. But political tension has hardened relations between Israel and UNESCO, preventing any preservation plans from moving forward.”

UNESCO placed the Old City of Jerusalem on its list of World Heritage Sites in Danger since 1982 - at Jordan's request.

Clearly no one from UNESCO compared what the Old City looked like in 1967, after 19 years of neglect by Jordan, and what it looked like in 1982 when it was rebuilt. No one compared the slums of what had been the Jewish Quarter with how it looked when it was rebuilt.

And no one from CNN bothered to look at Jerusalem today to see exactly who was endangering the Old City.

Because the people who have shown the most blatant disregard for the Old City's cultural value has been the Waqf, the Muslims who run the Temple Mount. They have dug out and destroyed thousands of cubic meters of land holding priceless archaeological treasures with not a word of protest from UNESCO.

No, the Old City is not in danger as long as Jews control it. On the contrary - it is far better in every sense. The Old City is more beautiful by far. It is more secure by far. It is more open to members of all religions. Many more fascinating archaeological treasures have been discovered and scrupulously preserved. It is a living, breathing part of the city and not the backwater relic that Jordan considered it.

But to UNESCO, and clueless CNN reporters, the Jews are the problem, and Jerusalem was better off as a squalid and ignored Jew-free Jordanian town than it is today as the reborn capital of the world's Jews.