Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 13, 2015

07/13 Links Pt2: BDS' useful idiots at Haaretz; US pathologist says Nisman death likely a homicide

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: BDS' useful idiots at Haaretz

Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of the BDS movement, said in an interview recently that he wants Jews to live in peace under Arab democracy. He ignores a long and bloody history of persecution of Jews in Arab countries – and, surprisingly, there are some Israelis who buy that nonsense.
This week Le Monde published an interview with Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of BDS. His argument, in essence, was that there is no problem with the Jews living as a minority under Arab rule in the exemplary state he aims to create.
After all, the Jews, he explained, "did not suffer in Arab countries. There were no pogroms. There was no persecution. And in general, the Jews thrive as minorities in Europe and the United States." So what's the problem? Please live as a minority under Arab democracy, which is known for its protection of minorities, especially if they are Jews.
The man suffers from double blindness - both to the past and to the present. It's doubtful whether there is a Jewish community under Muslim rule that did not suffer from persecution, with or without any relation to Zionism. The list is long. And the leader of the British Mandate-era Arab Higher Committee, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was actually a well-known fan of Jews. That's why he apparently led the pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad in 1941, the "Farhud", and from there traveled to Berlin in order to turn more Muslims into Nazis. He also wrote about his plans to destroy all of the Arab countries' Jews.
It's Barghouti's right to spout nonsense. But when he's given such an important platform, he should be asked: Excuse me, what are you talking about? And did you forget the pogroms against Jews in Libya in 1945 and 1948, and in Aden in 1948, and in Morocco, in Damascus, and in Aleppo? Hundreds were murdered, merely because they were Jewish. And if we turn to the present, where exactly are minorities living in peace and quiet in Arab nations? It's possible that Barghouti means the black Muslims of Darfur in Sudan.
How is it that the interviewer did not push him? Well, it turns out that the interviewer is an Israeli, Nirit Ben-Ari. In the past she supported the Israeli-Arab nationalist party Balad. Towards the last elections she published an article supporting the Joint Arab List. She is also an avid supporter of BDS. She asked to interview Barghouti for Haaretz, but he made it clear that he refused to be interviewed for any Israeli newspaper, because of Zionist hegemony.

Eugene Kontorovich: Abe Foxman says that banning the use of public money to support companies that boycott Israel is unconstitutional and illegal. Is he right?

Abe Foxman says that banning the use of public money to support companies that boycott Israel is unconstitutional and illegal. Is he right?
In the latest act of a decades-long fight against discriminatory boycotts of Israel, two states have passed, and several are considering, legislation that protects their taxpayers from inadvertently underwriting such boycotts. Legislation recently passed by Congress denounced “politically motivated” boycotts of Israel.
In recent months, South Carolina has passed a law restricting state contracting with those who boycott on a nationality basis (the law is not limited to Israel; I advised on the drafting), and Illinois will prevent its pension fund from holding stock in boycotting companies. Legislators in these and other states have concluded that the movement to undermine the world’s only Jewish country through boycotts—while professing noble motives—is a thinly veiled form of anti-Semitism.
These laws have bipartisan support, and they passed unanimously. They enjoy the broad support of mainstream Jewish organizations. Yet some, including Anti-Defamation League head Abraham Foxman, have expressed concerns that legislation that “bars BDS activity by private groups” would raise First Amendment concerns.
Such concerns are entirely misplaced. The current legislation by states does not bar any BDS activity and does not otherwise violate the First Amendment. Indeed, these laws are far milder versions of long-standing federal anti-boycott laws that were adopted through the vigorous efforts of the ADL itself and that have enjoyed broad and uncontroversial support ever since.

US pathologist says Nisman death likely a homicide

A US forensic pathologist believes that the late Argentine special prosecutor Alberto Nisman likely was murdered.
“The evidence argues strongly and scientifically against it being a suicide,” Cyril Wecht said in an interview aired by Argentina television’s Channel 13 on Sunday night. “It is much more likely that this was a homicide than a suicide.”
Wecht has been president of the American Academy of Forensic Science and the American College of Legal Medicine, and has performed about 17,000 autopsies. He has consulted on several high-profile cases, including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
At the request of the Argentine current events show “Periodismo para todos,” hosted by the eminent Argentine journalist Jorge Lanata, Wecht analyzed Nisman’s case photos, videos, studies and forensic reports. Interviewed from Pittsburgh, Wecht said that the position of the gun would have made it difficult for Nisman to shoot himself.
Forensic experts have differed on the cause of death. Many have said it will be difficult to establish one unified version of how Nisman died, with some experts believing it was suicide and others murder.
Prosecutor Viviana Fein has not yet released a final ruling.

The same money that goes to Ramallah helps ensure "refugee camps" remain poor

Stan, in commenting on this article this morning, said something quite important:

I did some work in Ramallah 20 years ago. Even then it was a modern city.

One has to ask the question of where the money for the Ramallah economy comes from? Their stores are filled with foreign goods, so those have to be imported and paid for with actual money. What is it that the PA exports to the world that can bring in this kind of capital? The answer is that the PA is an anti-semitic propaganda industry, and the West is willing to pay big bucks for their product. The impoverished people in the descendants of refugee camps are part of the product that they sell. A "peace agreement" with Israel would end the flow of money, and all of the West Bank would start to resemble the camps. There is no incentive for the PA government to make peace. Their only salable product is anti-semitism (politely known as anti-Zionism). They will never give it up unless forced.

This is a brilliant observation.

it is widely recognized that the Palestinian Arab economy is dependent on NGOs, and a large percentage of the workforce works for anti-Israel NGOs. People are getting rich off the billions being sent as "aid" but that aid is dependent on the NGOs churning out more and more anti-Israel reports. And since the focus of the aid and the NGOs is anti-Israel and not pro-Palestinian, the system is guaranteed to increase the gap between the middle- and upper-class who know how to work the Europeans for more cash and the lower class who either try to do honest work or who prefer to get free medical and educational aid from UNRWA.

There is a Palestinian NGO called the Dalia Foundation, that I reported on last year. That NGO is against the current NGO system, but their reasons are a twisted version of reality. They can't stand that European NGOs put in anti-terror language in their agreements. Dalia wants the aid to come more freely, and allow Palestinians themselves to decide how to spend it, and if they want to buy rockets and anti-aircraft missiles, the donors should have no say in the matter. They believe that free money is a right.

Really.

The real solution is to cut the aid to anti-Israel NGOs altogether. force Palestinian Arabs to re-orient their lives around a capitalist economy, not the current socialist elfare economy that has proven disastrous. In no time you would see more people learning more trades, and more willing to work together with Israelis to help themselves and their families.

NGO money is corrupting Palestinian Arabs and you can see the results in both Ramallah and in Deheisha. They are two sides of the same coin.

Yet another @Amnesty deception on Twitter

I had tweeted this, but in the interests of completeness... Amnesty tweeted this on Friday:

10 July: #KhanYounis: 8 people killed, including 2 children when Israeli missile hit family home: #50Days4Gaza http://t.co/fekSDdcqtw
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) July 10, 2015

I responded yesterday:

.@AmnestyOnline Umar Mahmoud al Hajj, member of Al Qassam terror group. held his family as human shields in the event you are referring to.
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) July 13, 2015

Here he is, based on this video:

I don't know whether Umar was the only intended target. There might have also been a tunnel opening or a command center in that house.

But the point is that Amnesty is using the first anniversary of the Gaza war as an excuse to take specific events, strip them of any context, and present Israel as an out-of-control bully that bombs civilians for no reason. In every single case they have specified, they were found to have engaged in deception or flat out lies.

So far, Amnesty has not brought a single example of an Israeli attack for which I was unable to find a military target, using nothing but Google and known sources like the Meir Amit Center from which I got this information. They have not brought one iota of evidence of Israeli war crimes, which is what they said they would "prove" this month. Their heralded Gaza Platform has been proven to be a tool which regurgitates unreliable data and spits it back out as if it is something brand new.

The only thing being proven during this anniversary of the Gaza war is that Amnesty is not engaged in human rights, but in anti-Israel propaganda. Nobody with a shred of intellectual honesty that has read my series since they started this fiasco can doubt that Amnesty is heavily biased.

Indeed, Amnesty's tweets and articles over the past week makes the UNHRC Davis report look positively Zionist by comparison. The Davis report was careful to get the Israeli response to events when available - but Amnesty doesn't. The Davis report was careful to couch its accusations in language that leaves wiggle room when they say that perhaps Israel engaged in violations of the laws of war based on limited informaiton-- but Amnesty doesn't. Teh Davis report would look up the names of the victims in the Meir Amit database - but Amnesty doesn't.

The very attempt by Amnesty to discredit Israel is discrediting Amensty. Now the question si whether any journalist will double check my facts against Amnesty's factoids and come up with his or her own conclusions.

It is way past time for Amnesty to lose its halo. Its own actions make it imperative.

07/13 Links Pt1: Toameh: Why Palestinians Cannot Make Peace with Israel; IDF vs. ICC phase 2

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Palestinians Cannot Make Peace with Israel

Americans and Europeans fail to acknowledge that in order to achieve peace, the leaders must prepare their people for compromise and tolerance. If you want to make peace with Israel, you do not tell your people that the Western Wall has no religious significance to Jews and is, in fact, holy Muslim property. Palestinian Authority leaders who accuse Israel of "war crimes" and "genocide" are certainly not preparing their people for peace. Such allegations serve only to further agitate Palestinians against Israel.
If Yasser Arafat was not able to accept the generous offer made by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the 2000 Camp David summit, who is Mahmoud Abbas to make any concessions to Israel? Arafat was quoted then as saying that he rejected the offer because he did not want to end up drinking tea with assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the first Arab leader to sign a peace agreement with Israel.
No Palestinian leader has a mandate to reach an everlasting peace agreement with Israel. No leader in Ramallah or the Gaza Strip is authorized to end the conflict with Israel. Any Palestinian who dares to talk about concessions to Israel is quickly denounced as a traitor. Those who believe that whoever succeeds Abbas will be able to make real concessions to Israel are living in an illusion.

Bassem Eid: Gaza one year later: From bad to worse

One year has passed since ‘Operation Protective Edge,’ the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. We have seen many articles by analysts this past week, but they fail to report the Palestinian perspective. The burning question in the minds of the Gazan people is why has there been a one year delay in the reconstruction?
The answer is simple — both Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas want to hold the purse strings of the reconstruction funds, which donor nations pledged at $5.5 billion. Donor nations may be skeptical about the shaky unity government, which almost failed in the past year since its establishment in the April 2014 ‘Shati Agreement’. Abbas nearly declared an amendment in establishing a new government, splitting the unity government and repeating Yitzhak Rabin’s’ famous declaration, ‘let’s throw Gaza to the Sea’.
Egyptians created a 2-kilometer buffer zone in removing the smuggling tunnels that made Hamas leaders into billionaires. Hamas’ top priority is to reconstruct its military capabilities and terror tunnels. Now that the funds have dried up since the smuggling tunnels have been destroyed, Hamas has issued a new tax upon the Gazan people.
A recent report by The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), states that “According to testimonies submitted to ICHR by citizens from different social categories, these taxes, which are imposed on different commodities and services in the Gaza Strip, aggravate the suffering of the people. Citizens who wish to import goods are bound to pay taxes to receive “import permission”. This implies that the competent authorities have started to implement the Solidarity Tax Act. In fact, prior to the import, the authorities identify the quantity of the goods and then decide on what tax to enforce. These taxes that are imposed under the pretext of “normal rise of prices” have a negative economic impact on the consumers. Furthermore, the taxes are imposed on governmental services.” The ICHR calls for Hamas to reverse this new tax.

One Year Later, the Gaza Blockade, Rebuilding and Reuters

Numerous news outlets have marked one year since the beginning of last summer's war between Israel and Hamas with reports on the slow civilian rebuilding efforts and on the humanitarian conditions of the Gaza Strip. Reuters was among them, and unfortunately misled with a recent graphic about the blockade as well as with photo captions and articles concerning rebuilding efforts. Following communication with CAMERA, editors agreed with criticism about a graphic on the blockade.
Whose Blockade? Whose Crossing?
The July 10 Reuters graphic titled "Gaza blockade" includes text which refers only to Israel's blockade while ignoring the more restrictive Egyptian blockade. The text reads:
Israel has blockaded Gaza, placing restrictions on people and goods leaving the enclave and goods entering it, since the Islamist group Hamas won power in Gaza in election in 2006. The blockade has isolated Gaza from the rest of the world.
Then, inexplicably, the graphic includes a chart showing activity at Rafah crossing, despite the fact that the crossing is controlled by Egypt. By including Rafah under a text that notes only the Israeli blockade, Reuters gives news consumers the false impression that Israel controls Rafah as well.
But the figures for passage through Rafah are so low because Egypt has maintained a strict blockade of its own, one that has been exceedingly more restrictive than Israel's and which has prohibited virtually all passage of people and goods for most of the last several months. Yet the Reuters graphic about "Gaza's blockade" completely ignores the Egyptian blockade.
Indeed, while the graphic focuses singularly on the "Israeli blockade," the data shows that over 400 people cross through Erez to Israel every day, while an average of approximately just 10 people cross on a daily basis through Rafah to Egypt. (Most days this year, not a single person crossed through Rafah into Egypt.) But readers cannot draw the proper conclusions given that the item since the graphic never mentions Egypt. Why the unjustified, inappropriate singular focus on the Israeli blockade?
CAMERA's Israel office posed this question to Reuters editors, who agreed with these concerns, and agreed to raise the issue with the bureau that produced the graphic. Stay tuned for news of any updates.

Time chooses Jerusalem as a top city - despite the desires of the US, UN, EU, Arab League...

Time magazine created a list of top travel destinations:

For globetrotting travelers, it’s easy to recognize a spectacular city. They are energetic, diverse destinations intent on preserving local heritage, revitalizing undervalued neighborhoods, and they possess distinct personalities that set them apart from other metropolises.

Number 10 is Jerusalem:

Christians, Jews, and Muslims converge to worship in this 4,000-year-old holy city, and their respective churches, synagogues, and mosques surround the historic Old City. Here, you can tuck a miniature prayer into the Western Wall, or see a fragment of clay engraved with cuneiform at the excavation site at Temple Mount. The iconic, gleaming gold Dome of the Rock is best photographed from the Austrian Hospice, which offers unparalleled views of the city and Mount of Olives. Jerusalem, like every other city on our list, also has a stake in the contemporary and the secular. Luxury apartment buildings now erupt like stalagmites from the Judean Desert, and high-end restaurants, such as King’s Court at the restored Waldorf Astoria, are bringing a new upmarket appeal to this arid oasis.

If the US had its way, Jerusalem would not be Israel's capital and many of its attractions would never have been unearthed. There would be no Jews in the Jewish Quarter and many other neighborhoods woud simply not exist.

if the European nations had their way, the eastern part of the city would be Judenrein and the Old City would be filled with the same slums that it had in 1967. Western sections of Jerusalem would look like any cookie-cutter town worldwide.

If the UN had its way, Jerusalem would be an "international city" where nothing would ever get done.

If UNESCO had its way, there would be no building in Jerusalem, and no archaeology except Muslim digs to destroy Jewish heritage.

If the Arab League had its way, the entire city would be the way it was in 1850 when it was ignored by the entire Muslim world.

Jerusalem's beauty and success today is despite the daily efforts of virtually the entire world to stop any growth and unification of the city.

Congratulations to the people and leaders of Jerusalem. Your beauty would not exist if Israel listened to the rest of the world.

Documenting the differences between opulent Ramallah and a squalid UNRWA camp

In 2010, Kristine Luken was brutally murdered by Arab terrorists while hiking in the hills of Jerusalem with her friend Kay Wilson. Wilson was stabbed multiple times and left for dead, but miraculously survived.

In what can only be considered superhuman, Wilson recently went to Ramallah and to the UNRWA "refugee" camp at Deheisha and recorded her impressions along with numerous photos.

Here are 39 photos of beautiful Ramallah, bustling Hebron and thriving Bethlehem - all of which are under the full auspices of the Palestinian Authority (i.e. areas where no Jews are allowed). To juxtapose the flourishing growth of these places there are also some photos from Deheisha “Refugee Camp.” Unlike the rest of these first-world cities, Deheisha is just one of the open slums/refugee camps run by UNRWA. What you will notice is the remarkable contrast between the normalcy and rising economy of the capitalist, autonomous, wealthy Palestinian cities and the abject squalor of those living in, or studying at, the facilities run by this supposed “relief" agency.

I do not begrudge any decent person to make a better life for themselves. What I do oppose is the ignoring of the flourishing main stream Palestinian society, the glorification of terrorism vis-à-vis graffiti and the alliance between the perpetual, intentional victimhood of the Palestinians and anti-semites posing as western journalists, politicians, churches and charities. These are the hypocrites who sit in Palestinian 5-star hotels while sipping cocktails (served to them by well-nourished Palestinians) and these are the ones who accuse Israel on western platforms of genocide and holocausts. I balk too at the hypocrisy of those Palestinians who loathe the West yet are perfectly content to fill their streets with shops and merchandise from the very civilisation that they despise. I also happen to think, that given the affluence in much of Palestinian society seen here, it would be noble for their Authority to contribute to their people in Gaza instead of tittle-tattling to the ICC and the UN.

Terrorist Ayat al-Akhras.

A child terrorist:

With great pride and honor, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) – Deheisheh Refugee Camp, Betlehem region, announces the death of

its son, the heroic fighter shahid of the Al-Aqsa Intifada,

Mu’tazz ‘Azmi Isma’il Taylakh

We will never forget you, oh little fighter of the revolution

What makes this so fascinating is that this is the sort of thing one would expect a human rights NGO to do. Why, indeed, are there "refugee" camps in Palestinian Authority areas? Why are people kept in such slums where the very walls radicalize their children? Are these people citizens of "the State of Palestine" or not, and if they are, why are they treated as second-class citizens? Finally, if UNRWA is under such financial strain, why not plan to transition these camps into permanent housing for Palestinian Arabs?

The reason no one asks these questions is that they are political kryptonite. The answers reveal that the desire to wipe out Israel is so enmeshed in Palestinian Arab society that they prefer to keep these camps as museums of misery, great for photo-ops, to blame Israel for a "refugee" problem that Israel has had nothing to do with except that the residents plan to "return" one day to destroy Israel - and UNRWA keeps that false hope alive.

Wilson gives a list of people and organizations to tweet about this in her Facebook post.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

.@Amnesty's deception of the day: Excusing Hamas humanitarian law violations

Amnesty keeps on deceiving its readers:

12 July #GazaCity: 17 family members killed when Israeli warplanes bombarded house as worshippers left nearby mosque http://t.co/Fj79TuSY6c
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) July 12, 2015

Amnesty is referring to the bombing of the Al Batsh family home in Shejaiya.

18 members of the family died (one a few weeks later.) But they were not exactly all innocent.

Here are the al-Batsh family members who were also Hamas terrorists from the Al Qassam Brigades:

Nahed Na’im al-Batsh. 41 , Qassam commander (Martyr video here)

Bahaa Majed al-Batsh, 28
Ahmad Nu’man al-Batsh, 27
Jalal Majed al-Batsh, 26

Zakariya Alaa Subhi al-Batsh

Yihya 'Alaa al-Batsh, 18

These six Hamas terrorists were using the rest of their family as human shields. Almost certainly such a house with such dedicated Hamas members was a major command and control center, which is why Israel would not have warned them ahead of time.

The owner of the house,Taysir, is a Hamas police commissioner as well, although he wasn't killed.

The Batsh children were also being indoctrinated into terror. Here is 10 year old Anas, who was killed:

Placing military objects in a civilian house is a violation of international law, and that is exactly that Hamas and the al-Batsh family did, using their families as human shields.

If young Anas was being groomed to be a child soldier, that's 'another violation.

But Amnesty has nothing bad to say about Hamas' crimes. And it will never even admit that militants were in the houses that they are portraying as completely civilian.

Context is critical to understanding the truth. Amnesty is purposefully withholding context in order to demonize Israel and only Israel.

It isn't a human rights organization - it is a Hamas propaganda outlet.

Soon we will look at one of the Amnesty researchers involved in these reports and see how biased Amnesty researchers are.

"Settlers bulldozed olive trees" - on Shabbat

From IMEMC:

A group of colonialist Israeli settlers, driving a number of bulldozers, invaded earlier Saturday Palestinian orchards belonging to residents of Deir Estia village, northwest of the central West Bank district of Salfit, and uprooted more than 80 olive trees.

Local villagers said the settlers uprooted the olive trees in order to expand a bypass road, leading to illegal Israeli settlements, built on Palestinian lands.

Bulldozers? On Shabbat?

Once again, I searched for photos or videos. All of the photos accompanying Arabic and English news stories were file photos from years past, such as this staged photo of a wailing woman next to a pruned tree:

Amazing how no one takes photos of these weekly events even though everyone carries cameras on their phones.

(h/t YMedad)

07/12 Links: Women’s rights activist: “Palestine is more precious than my ‎sons”; India-Israel axis

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: Suffering from blindness

Serious leaders like al-Sisi, Jimmy Carter and John Kerry foolishly think there is a connection between jihadist attack worldwide and the Palestinian problem. It used to be 'look at the Jews for blame,' now it's 'look at Israel for blame'.
Unlike the leaders of other Arab countries, Egypt's president has no delusions with regards to Islam. Several months ago, al-Sisi chose to make a dramatic speech about Islam in the most important religious institute: Al-Azhar University.
He firmly asserted that there is a problem with the direction Islam is being carried in, and called for a revolution from within. Here is a leader who doesn't suffer from blindness. But even the Egyptian president still has a problem in one area. Al-Sisi met with a delegation from the American-Jewish Committee. According to reports in the Egyptian press, he told them that "resolving the Palestinian problem will eliminate one of the main reasons for joining terror organizations."
That same day jihadists murdered, among others, 44 people in Nigeria and 14 others in Kenya. In the first 19 days of Ramadan, 1,899 people were murdered by jihadists, an average of close to a 100 per day. None of them had anything to do with the Palestinian problem.

JPost Editorial: India-Israel axis

Many parallels can be drawn between BJP and our Likudled government. Both seek to strengthen what they see as a more authentic national identity – Hindutva in India, Jewish in Israel – while maintaining a robust democracy.
Both countries face threats from Islamist terrorists who are motivated to violence not by anything India or Israel has done, but by what the countries represent.
And ultimately, caving in to extremist Muslim dictates is bad for India. Muslim countries have next to nothing of consequence to offer India. Even cheap oil and gas can be acquired on the open market. The days of a powerful OPEC cartel is over.
In contrast, Israel has much to offer. Farmers of all faiths can benefit from Israeli expertise in drip irrigation. Startups in Bangalore and Hyderabad see Israeli firms as role models.
And Indians rightly have high regard for the society that has fostered such impressive innovation.
Combine all this with Modi’s leadership style of publicly expressing what India and Indians actually believe and value. Modi is right to conclude that India is strong and proud enough to abandon its practice of doing one thing and saying another. By ceasing to treat Israel as a “mistress,” Modi is affirming the values and goals to which he hopes his own people will aspire.

Update: Arrest Made in Anti-Semitic Paris Gang Attack on 13-yr old Jewish Boy

One arrest has been made and a suspect detained by Paris police so far in the the gang beating of a 13-year-old Jewish boy last Monday (July 6) after he left the Colonel Fabien Jewish Day School.
The traumatized victim, who has not been identified due to his age and the risk such identification poses, spent his Sabbath trying to recuperate from the trauma of the beating he received at the hands of six teens possibly of “African descent.”
The boy was attacked by the gang after leaving the building in the 19th arondissement, near Gare du Nord train station, according to the Bureau National de Vigilance Contre l’Antisémitisme (BNVCA).
Sammy Ghozlan, president of the watchdog organization, issued a statement condemning the attack. “He was spotted as a Jew because he was wearing a kippa,” the group said in a statement on its website.
“Take that, dirty Jew!” one of the attackers shouted at him while they were beating him, the victim told investigators. One of the members of the group also stole his cell phone before they fled the scene.

Jewish Left-Dwelling Americans are probably among the most well-meaning people on the entire planet. I have never seen such unrequited niceness in my entire life, actually.

I suppose that I am just a tad biased, but I am willing to bet good shekels that American Jews are over-represented in the various charities, civic groups, non-profit organizations, and soup kitchens of America.

We come out of a religious-ethical tradition grounded in social justice and reinforced by the long shadow of the Holocaust. We want peace for all Israelis, including Jews, Muslims, Christians, Rosicrucians, Lutherans, Calvinists, Russian Orthodox Catholics, Mennonites, Atheists, and God-Knows-What-All.

We want peace for everybody, everywhere, and never tire of insisting to anyone who will listen - whether they like it or not or even care - that we do so.

We even, many of us, want to Repair the World which, I have to tell you, I find a tad ambitious. Tikkun Olam seems a little above my pay grade, but if peace-loving Jewish left-dwelling Americans honestly think that they have the wisdom to pull-off the job, then good for them.

{As a poker player, however, I would not place that bet.}

In terms of the Arab-Israel conflict, we want two states for two peoples. That is, we really want twenty-three Arab states for one people and a single small democratic, Jewish state for our people wherein maybe - if the Arabs will let us - Jews can live in peace.

And, yet, somehow, against all reason, we cannot seem to understand why this would not be acceptable to the Arab majority throughout the Middle East, who want nothing whatsoever to do with Jews, period.

We want Arabs and Muslims, and everyone else in Israel, to live free and democratic lives next to a "Palestinian" state without being under the gun. This is because we western liberal Jews see ourselves as rational and peaceful and, for the most part, we are rational and peaceful. Most of us who come out of the American Jewish Left were raised in middle-class homes that emphasized education and an ethos of justice.

We grew up within a late twentieth-century American political milieu, heavily influenced by the Civil Rights Movement, that stressed that people "of color" in the United States have been historically persecuted and held-back economically due to centuries of racism, genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow laws.

Thus the American Jewish Left was raised to empathize - cognizant of Jewish history - with the poor and the persecuted and to generally assume that the problems of poor Black people, Latinos, and the Native Indigenous in the United States are due, at least in some significant measure, to institutionalized economic and cultural discrimination.

It is for this reason that so many peace-loving Jewish left-dwelling Americans empathize with the poor embattled "Palestinian" people.

Getting Smacked Around In Our Own Political Homes

However, American Jews would also very much like to stop having to constantly defend Israel from BDS and malicious, anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist attacks within their own political homes.

Wherever left-leaning American Jews congregate on the political landscape they are called upon to justify the allegedly cruel and inhumane behavior of their brothers and sisters in the Middle East.

That is to say, within left-leaning American political discourse, in almost any venue, Jews have a moral spotlight placed upon them.

We have seen this recently with undergraduates Rachel Beyda, at UCLA, and Molly Horwitz, at Stanford University. Both young ladies applied for positions within their respective student governments only to be questioned about their capacity, as Jews, for fair-mindedness in decision-making. They both, I understand, made it onto their respective student governments, but not before having to go through a humiliating process wherein their integrity was challenged for no other reason than that they happen to be Jewish.

This type of objectively anti-Jewish racism, it should be noted, is a direct result of anti-Zionism and the BDS movement on American college campuses throughout the country. Were it not for anti-Zionism and BDS those two young women would not have been singled out for humiliation.

Americans in the Democratic Party, and the American Left, more generally, are subject to the constant drip, drip, drip of anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist defamation of the Jewish people in the Middle East who they are coming to believe, more and more, are racist, imperialist, colonialist monsters who have used the Holocaust as a cudgel to beat down the "indigenous" Arab population.

This represents the general mood of the so-called "Palestinian narrative."

Its influence, whatever its intent, undermines the general well-being of all Jewish people, not just those of us who happen to live in the Jewish home. The point is to make all Jews feel immoral, and to make others believe that we are immoral, for restoring or supporting our national sovereignty after two thousand years of displacement and abuse.

What they are telling the world is that despite the Holocaust - and despite thirteen centuries of second and third-class non-citizenship as dhimmis under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperialism - that Jewish sovereignty on the very land that Jewish people come from is an abomination that must be weakened, undermined, and destroyed.

The reason for this is because the "Palestinian narrative," while spreading the blood-libel that Jews enjoy killing non-Jewish children, also insists that we are a nation of land thieves who have no organic connection to Jerusalem or Judea... nor, apparently, anywhere else.

The Palestinian Narrative and the Jewish-Left Confirmation

The "Palestinian narrative," however, is either true or it is false.

That is to say, it is either true that the Jewish people are from that land or it is true that the Jews are not from that land.

If it is true - as history tells us - that the Jewish people have been living and working and building and writing on the land of Israel for millennia then Israel can hardly be unlawfully or illegitimately occupying its own land.

If the "Palestinian narrative" is, indeed, false and therefore if Jews actually come from Judea and Samaria, then perhaps the diaspora Jewish Left might cease confirming, and thereby promoting, the idea that the small bit of Jewish land on the edge of the Mediterranean actually belongs to the conquering Arabs.

Whenever peace-loving Jewish left-dwelling Americans claim that they oppose the "Occupation" (with the Big O) they are essentially claiming that the Jewish people have no indigenous rights to the Land of Israel.

They, therefore, oppose "settlers" and "settlements" in the "West Bank."

"Settlers" and "settlements," of course, are vaguely negative and loaded terms to mean Jews who live in Jewish townships where neither Barack Obama, nor Mahmoud Abbas, seem to think that Jews have any right to live. Our friend Yosef, of Love of the Land, and his wife, Melody, are thought by some to represent a problem because they live on the very land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Not wishing to offend any but Jewish sensibilities, we also refer to the Land of Israel beyond the so-called "Green Line," Judea and Samaria, the traditional heart-land of the Jewish people, as "West Bank."

Judea and Samaria have been referred to as "Judea" and "Samaria" (or "Yehuda" and "Shomron" for you hard-core boys) for thousands of years. The words "Judea" and "Yehuda" refer to the ancient Jewish presence on that very land. It was only after the British took a mighty bite out of Israel and forked it over to the Hashemites - whoever they are, exactly - that the newly founded state of Jordan (Trans-Jordan) labeled the area "West Bank" in order to erase any Jewish connection to Jewish land.

When we refer to Judea and Samaria as "West Bank" we tell the world that the Jews have no historical connection to the very land that Jews have lived on for thousands of years.

And this is how peace-loving Jewish left-dwelling Americans inadvertently set the Jewish people up to be smacked down and how we confirm the false narrative of our enemies.

I recommend against it... and I bet that Vic Rosenthal would, too.

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.

Today's @Amnesty deceptions and lies

As Amnesty continues to add to the anti-Israel rhetoric accompanying its "50 Days for Gaza" campaign, we will continue to expose their deceptions and lies.

Amnesty tweeted this:

#KhanYounis: 9 Palestinian civilians killed watching World Cup in local café: http://t.co/OPAUqae5zh #50Days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/P2NT3JFkYB
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) July 9, 2015

Here's the event that they are linking to:

At approximately 23:00 on 9 July 2014, 9 Palestinian civilians were killed while they were in a beach coffee shop watching a match of the Football World Cup as Israeli warplanes bombarded the coffee shop. The victims were identified as: Ibrahim and Mohammed Kahlil Qannan, 24 and 26; Suleiman and Ahmed Saleem Mousa al-Astal, 17 and 18; Mousa Mohammed Taher al-Astal, 15; Mohammed Ihsan Farawana, 18; and Hamdi, Ibrahim and Saleem Sawali, 20, 28 and 23.

This is a lie. There were not 9 civilians. The cafe was hosting a gathering of the Fatah Abu Rish Brigades. Two brothers, Mohammed and Ibrahim Qanan, as I documented here.

Three other brothers from the same group listed in this "martyr's" poster, Hamdi, Ibrahim and Saleem Sawali:

And Mohammed Ihsan Farawana has another Fatah martyr's poster:

Civilians?

Amnesty lied again.

Amnesty silently changed the blood libel video we first reported. They changed the video of a "roof knocking" to a different one, that can be seen here in full from YNet:

While the video does indeed show less than a minute between a small explosion and the one that destroys the house, what Amnesty doesn't tell you is that the target was Hamas rocket unit head Ayman Siam. And Amnesty's own Gaza Platform tells us that there was a much earlier warning that allowed all five families who lived in that house to escape well before either of these explosions. They number this as Incident 1475:

At approximately 10:22 pm on Friday, 11 July 2014, an Israeli warplane fired three missiles at a house belonging to Mohammed Mohammed Abdul Hadi Siyam (70 year old), located next to UNRWA clinic in Al-Shate’ refugee camp, west of Gaza. The attack has completely destroyed the 4 storey house, which was inhabited by 5 families (30 individual), including 15 children. IDF soldiers informed the owner of the house before they attacked targeted the house.[sic]

SOURCE: Al Mezan

(h/t Bob Knot)

Palestinians remain top recipients of international aid per capita

Every couple of years, I update this chart of top recipients of international humanitarian aid per capita for the previous ten years. Here it is based on the latest figures from Global Humanitarian Assistance:

If you are wondering about whether the pattern holds for the most recent years, the answer is yes. Here is the humanitarian aid per capita for 2013 alone:

It is apparent that some causes, like disaster relief for Haiti, become big for one or two years and then fade away. Lebanon and Jordan are near the top in the past two years because of the hugenumber of Syrian refugees flooding those countries. But per capita aid to the Palestinian Arabs remains always at the top.

NYC, Boston, Chicago "Quds Day" rallies look like they were duds

On Friday, an anti-Israel rally was held in Times Square.

This PressTV report makes it look like only about 30-40 people came. Given that there were about 13 scheduled speakers and 12 organizations sponsoring the rally, that looks like a big fail.

The PressTV reporter, Caleb Maupin, interviews an incoherent Neturei Karta member and an almost incoherent retiree:

But Caleb Maupin had more than one job. He also spoke at the rally, from the top of a rusty pickup truck:

The organizers of the event claimed to "have no affiliation with any foreign entity." Yet PressTV is controlled by Iran, Mauphin is on Iran's payroll to some extent, and having Mauphin speak about "Saudi terrorism" is exactly what Iran's themes for the Quds Day rallies have been throughout the world.

Even another Muslim from Yemen on the Facebook page of the NYC rally complained about Iran's influence in the rally.

Boston's rally seems to have also only attracted a few dozen people. Chicago's rally seems to have been even smaller, no more than 20 people.

07/11 Links: Israel must use UN as an offensive tool; 6 months after Paris kosher market attack

From Ian:

Guy Bechor: Israel must use UN as an offensive tool

On the fifth year of the Middle Eastern destruction, which is going to last for decades, it's time to determine that the United Nations has become irrelevant here, except in regards to one country, which is the last remnant of the old regional order – Israel.
Can the UN do anything in Syria? In Iraq? In Yemen? In Saudi Arabia? In Egypt? In Libya? That's why it focuses on Israel.
It gives this organization's institutions a feeling that they have some advantage, that they are useful. The larger the failure in the region, the more the obsession towards Israel will grow, to the point of a farce. The more the Arab regimes fall apart, their attempt to divert the attention towards us becomes more desperate.
Israel is defending itself – at the grotesque "Human Rights" Council, which is controlled by dictators, at the delusional UNESCO and at the Security Council, where some members don't even recognize Israel. So it might be time to change direction, to turn the regional void into something which could assist us. It's time to use the UN as an offensive tool, not just as a defensive tool. It's time to move the warfare into enemy territory.
From now on, the UN institutions should be flooded with complaints, reports and information about the destruction taking place around us. Every day, a complaint, a report to the media, a resolution in the different institutions. The quality will create the quantity. Even if it isn't accepted, the conscious effect will eventually become fixated. We should embarrass them, just like they seek to embarrass us.
Every day, we should file a report about the Mahmoud Abbas gang which is carrying out mass arrests, including torture, which is persecuting minorities, where UN funds have been disappearing for years, which is responsible for racist incitement against Israel on a daily basis.

Fear and defiance in Paris, 6 months after kosher market attack

On her way home from food shopping, Mirelle Bensason pauses to rearrange wilted wreaths and posters hanging on the perimeter fence that police set up around the kosher supermarket where an Islamist gunned down four Jewish shoppers six months ago.
Bensason, who does not keep strictly kosher, is not a Hyper Cacher regular, but sees the continued flow of customers into the shop as proof of the Jewish community’s resilience.
Hyper Cacher reopened in March, about two months after Amedy Coulibaly entered the chain’s Port de Vincennes location and took its patrons hostage. Since it reopened, the store is guarded during its hours of operation by police officers toting machine guns.
“I take care of the commemorations on this fence to remember the victims and my pain, our pain,” said Bensason, a blue-eyed grandmother of four who was born in Morocco and now lives on the eastern edge of Paris, not far from Hyper Cacher. “But we’re not afraid to come shopping here. We refuse to be cowed by our enemies. Life has not changed much, except for the pain that comes with loss.”

14 French Islamists sentenced for targeting kosher shops

A Paris court on Friday jailed 14 Islamists for planning jihadist attacks on French Jews and other targets.
The Correctional Tribunal of Paris sentenced 39-year-old Mohamed Amchalane, the leader of the banned terrorist group Forsane Alizza, to nine years in prison, Le Figaro reported.
He and 13 of his accomplices, all members of the group, were convicted of “participating in a group formed with a view to preparing terrorist acts.”
The accomplices received lighter punishments of varying severity, ranging from a suspended sentence of one year to six years in prison, Le Figaro reported.
Among the group’s alleged targets were five Jewish supermarkets of the Hyper Cacher chain, the news website ouest-france.fr reported, and several other Jewish businesses. A Hyper Cacher market in the Paris area was the scene of January’s deadly terrorist siege, in which four French Jews were murdered.

07/10 Links Pt2: UNESCO Crosses the Line Into Anti-Semitism; The Woman Who Will Crush BDS

From Ian:

Iran deal ‘done,’ Israeli report says, after major US concessions

According to Yaari, Israel’s most respected Middle East analyst, the deal was reached because the Americans “have made a series of capitulations over the past two to three weeks in almost every key aspect that was being debated.”
Yaari said that even those in the US who had supported the agreement with Iran “admit that it is worse than they thought.” Now, he said, the ball is in the court of Democratic lawmakers who have to decide whether to support their president as he seeks to secure Congressional approval, or to join the vocal Republican opposition to an agreement.
One major concession, Yaari said, is the issue of inspections of Iranian nuclear sites, which has long been a sticking point in the negotiations. According to Yaari, the US negotiators have given in to an Iranian demand that inspections are “managed” — in other words, there will be no surprise visits, only those that are pre-arranged and approved by the Iranian regime.
While there has been no official word that the deal is finalized, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday evening that progress had been made in the talks, and praised what he called the “constructive” atmosphere.

Eugene Kontorovich: The State Department’s response to Israel boycott law — a line-item veto for trade legislation?

The administration’s criticism of the bill it just signed is particularly striking in light of Zivotofsky. Since Foggy Bottom adamantly refuses to treat Western Jerusalem (i.e. part of “pre-67” Israel) as part of Israel, the only way Congress can make U.S. trade policy toward Israel’s capital is by using language like “areas under Israel’s jurisdiction.” It is the administration policy of not treating the nation’s pre-67 capital as part of the country that blurs the Green Line, not Congress’s law.
Finally, the State Department repeatedly referred to the “two state solution” and the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Presumably it has no objection to the law’s application to the Golan Heights, which is not part of that conflict.
If the Executive were considering not enforcing the law, it would be extraordinary constitutional usurpation by the Executive, effectively giving State Department spokesmen line-item veto power over enacted trade laws. Obama’s lawyers may have greatly over-read Zivotofsky as holding that the chief executive can nullify laws willy-nilly if they involve foreign affairs, or maybe just Israel. This would be particularly extraordinary as applied to foreign trade laws, all of which by definition have serious foreign policy implications.

Veteran Labour MP Embarks on Anti-Israel Rant in Commons

A Jewish Member of Parliament has provoked outrage by accusing Israel of using the Holocaust to justify killing “thousands upon thousands” of Palestinians in Gaza. Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman, the father of the House of Commons was accused of being disrespectful to the House by his repeated assertions that Israelis are “murderers”.
Kaufman’s comments came during a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday into the UN’s Inquiry into last year’s fighting in Gaza, in which he told colleagues:
“The Israelis are murderers in Gaza. They have murdered thousands of people in Gaza. They have achieved nothing by doing so, except to make the lives of the people of Gaza total hell.
“When I was in Gaza, I spoke to a girl who told me she was standing between her parents when an Israeli soldier came up and shot her father dead in the head, and then shot her mother dead in the head. The Israelis use the holocaust: they use the murder of 6 million Jews to justify their murder of thousands upon thousands of Palestinians.”
He also accused Israel of starving the people of Gaza, saying: “There are children whose brains will never develop because their inadequate diet prevents them from developing physically and therefore mentally.”
In fact, the Gaza strip has one of the highest levels of obesity in the world, with four in five residents being classed as overweight. Diet centres in the strip are booming.

UNESCO Crosses the Line Into Anti-Semitism

It is comical to even address the complaints lodged against Israel, but let’s briefly note that the charge of undermining the structural integrity of the Temple Mount is simply a lie. What the members who voted for this lie are doing is seeking to stigmatize Israel for work in the area of the Western Wall that has opened up the tunnels as well as an archeological park. The not-so-secret agenda here is to deny Jewish history and the ties of the Jewish people to their ancient capital. If there is any destruction going on in Jerusalem it is the work of the Wakf which has conducted excavations that have trashed ancient sites and treated artifacts that predate the 7th century arrival of Muslim conquerors as trash to be discarded.
Just as telling is the fact that this UN resolution refers to the Western Wall only as the “Buraq Plaza,” a Muslim term. It also references the Temple Mount — the holiest site in Judaism — as only a “Muslim holy site of worship.” Nor is there any reference in the text to the city’s ties to Christianity.
As for the building of the Light Rail, the creation of a system of mass transit was a vital necessity for what is a living city and serves Arab neighborhoods as well as Jewish ones. Built to blend in with its surroundings, it in no way affects the “visual integrity” of the city. But, like every other evidence of the revival of Jewish life, it is seen as inherently offensive to those who think the Jews have no right to live in their ancient homeland, even in territory controlled by Israel before 1967.
But UNESCO’s embrace of these canards isn’t harmless or merely an offense to Jewish sensibilities. By parroting Palestinian propaganda in this manner, the UN agency is feeding into efforts to foment hatred against Jews. Throughout the last century, Arab leaders have whipped up anti-Semitic sentiment by spreading lies about the Jews plotting to do damage to the mosques on the Temple Mount. These efforts led to pogroms in 1921, 1929 and 1936 and inspired terror attacks during the last year. Seen in that light, this resolution isn’t merely just another instance of UN prejudice against Israel. By endorsing incitement and denying Jewish history, it is a UN endorsement of anti-Semitism.
If not rescinded, this resolution should be justification, in and of itself, for a U.S. decision to completely pull out of UNESCO (funding has already been cut off) and to raise the ante by threatening funding for the UN itself. It is long past time for both the U.S. and other democracies to stop participating in a hate group masquerading as a force for world peace. So long as UNESCO behaves in this fashion, it no longer deserves the presence of an American delegate.