Wednesday, July 22, 2015

  • Wednesday, July 22, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:
Salafi groups in the Gaza Strip threatened on Monday to fire rockets at Israel in response to what they called “Hamas crimes and conspiracies” against Salafis living in the strip.

The threat came in reaction to the arrest of militants suspected of targeting members of the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad Sunday with a series of bombings on Sunday.

The Salafi groups argued in a statement that Hamas' security services were utilizing the recent attacks "to justify its arrest campaign” as an excuse for disproportionate targeting of Salafis.

"The Salafis have decided to respond to these crimes and these blows dealt by Hamas by pointing rockets towards the occupation (Israel) and carrying out reprisals," the statement read.
The weird thing is, from the Salafi viewpoint, this makes perfect sense.

If they shoot rockets into Israel and Israel ignores them, they become heroes for shooting at the Zionists.

If Israel retaliates against Hamas by saying they are responsible for all rocket fire from Gaza, the Salafis win because their enemies are hurt.

If Israel targets Salafis, then they become martyrs.

Attacking Jews is a career move in the Middle East that cannot fail.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

From Ian:

PMW: PA education: A recipe for hate and terror (a comprehensive report)
Palestinian Media Watch has prepared a comprehensive report on Palestinian Authority education. It includes chapters on names of schools (dozens named after terrorists), school activities (e.g., visiting homes of terrorists), statements and activities of educators (e.g., presenting murderers as role models and promising a world without Israel), schoolbooks, informal education (children reciting poems on kids' TV programs: e.g., Jews are monkeys and pigs; Tel Aviv is "occupied Palestine"), and a chapter with examples of honoring Hitler.
The report was prepared for and will be presented today at the 7th World Congress of Education International (EI), the international organization of teachers' unions, which is meeting this week in Ottawa, Canada. PMW was invited by the Association of Secondary School Teachers in Israel, after the association was notified that the congress, which brings together nearly 2,000 teachers and educators from all over the world, is planning to vote on several anti-Israel resolutions that include calls for boycott of Israel and support for BDS.
PMW has prepared this report documenting that hate, Antisemitism and honoring of murderers are fundamental elements of PA education, and showing the PA's central role in undermining peace. When then Sen. Hillary Clinton joined PMW to release PMW's report on PA schoolbooks in 2007, she said the PA education "profoundly poisons the minds of these children" and called some aspects of PA messaging "child abuse." This report documents that nothing has changed since then. The PA continues to poison the minds of its children. (Click to view the report in PDF)
French prosecutor closes case on suspected Arafat poisoning
A French prosecutor on Tuesday said there was no need to pursue an inquiry regarding the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whose widow alleges he was poisoned.
“The prosecution gave the opinion that the case should be dismissed,” the prosecutor’s office told AFP.
Arafat died in Percy military hospital near Paris at the age of 75 in November 2004 after developing stomach pains while at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
His widow Suha filed a case in 2012 at a court in Nanterre, north of Paris, saying he was murdered.
The same year, Arafat’s tomb in Ramallah was opened for a few hours allowing three teams of French, Swiss and Russian investigators to collect approximately 60 samples.
Who are the ICC judges who ruled against Israel on the ‘Mavi Marmara’?
Three International Criminal Court judges who were not household names probably anywhere but in their home countries gained fame or infamy last week.
Judges Joyce Aluoch of Kenya and Cuno Tarfusser of Italy voted 2-1 against Peter Kovacs of Hungary to order ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to seriously consider reopening her file on the May 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla, a file which she had closed saying that the case was not grave enough for the ICC.
The focus of the file was the country of the island of Comoros, functioning according to many as a front for Turkish IHH activists, asking the Bensouda to open a full criminal investigation against IDF personnel and potentially security cabinet decision-makers.
The charges: alleged war crimes related to the IDF’s killing of 10 passengers (it has maintained in self-defense) aboard the Mavi Marmara ship which was part of a flotilla which tried to break the Gaza blockade.
Who are these three judges and what might have brought them to bring the ICC closer and deeper into the Israeli-Arab conflict than at any prior point?

  • Tuesday, July 21, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
If you are in the New York City area, this is an important event to attend tomorrow.


Some impressive speakers are lined up:


It will also be livestreamed for those not in the New York area.

There will also be one in San Diego on Sunday.

  • Tuesday, July 21, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon


This past weekend has seen demonstrations by members of an organisation called “Reclaim Australia” that alleges and opposes what it perceives to be the creeping islamification of Australia.  One demo turned ugly when hundreds of “anti-racist” leftist apologists for Islam bent on mayhem descended on the event and were involved in violent scuffles with police.  Truth to tell, many of the anti-Islam demonstrators seem equally thuggish, many others at the very least boorish, with placards bearing such slogans as “no bacon, no boobs, no beer”.  Yet many others clearly are not the demons that the Left and its media outlets would portray them to be, and it goes without saying that the Left must not succeed in making mass Muslim immigration to this country, as well as elsewhere in the West, a taboo item for political discourse or public debate.  The presence and purpose of such Islamic supremacist groups as Hizb ut-Tahrir, which I’ve mentioned more than once on my own blog, is testimony to that.

Early one morning some years ago, I was at Antwerp station, waiting for a train to Brussels.  With me was my son, a sturdy young guy of six feet three.  While he went off to join a queue for coffee, I minded our luggage, sitting at a table on the edge of what was an otherwise deserted café area.  Clearly, most of the people in the coffee queue were short-distance commuters, grabbing a takeaway to carry onto a local train or to the station exit and their respective workplaces. 

Suddenly, I was no longer a solitary figure among the tables and chairs.  Four young guys, unmistakably Muslim, had surrounded me.  Two took the table to my left, and two took the table to my right.  They sat in silence, punctuated briefly by low murmuring, no food or drink or luggage in sight.  I’d noticed them roaming round the station earlier, made conspicuous by the full Islamic dress of the guy who seemed to be their leader, and their constant aimless pacing.  Why, with all the other tables in the refreshment area empty, had they clustered next to mine? And why had they split into duos, flanking me?  I felt intimidated.  My son was somewhere among the large queuing crowd at the coffee counter, too far away from the table area for my comfort.  I couldn’t easily move away, owing to all our bags.  Alert for trouble, I held my hand luggage closer, and hoped they wouldn’t make off with the rest.  Besides, concerned though I was, my pride didn’t want me to be seen to flee.
Then, luckily, my son appeared with the coffee.  And what did the foursome do? It will always strike me as significant that as he soon as he sat down opposite they all got up and strolled away.  Presumably they had had something nefarious in mind, though of course I shall never know what.  

Not long before, in – of all places – a side street in a small town in rural Wales, a slightly-built Hindu university student of my acquaintance was gratuitously attacked by two Muslim strangers.  Recognising him as Hindu from some kind of badge he was wearing, they proceeded to give him a beating, which luckily came to a shorter end than they anticipated since he’s an expert in one of the martial arts.  In his home town, Leicester, he laments, there are streets down which it is folly for non-Muslims to venture.

While, needless to say, it is unconscionable to tar all Muslims in Europe with the same brush, it’s an incontrovertible fact that mass Muslim immigration, bringing with it superstitions, prejudices, hatreds and practices at odds with enlightened Western values, has inflicted deleterious social consequences on the host nations.

A report issued five years ago (I haven’t looked at later-published figures, but I’ll wager they’re very depressing) warned that about 800 of the 8000 Muslim inmates in high-security prisons in England and Wales were being turned into radical Islamists while inside. These people weren’t necessarily doing time for terror-related offences, but were being successfully indoctrinated by extremists known for or suspected of being sympathetic to terror. Worryingly, less than 20 per cent of people convicted of terrorism offences in Britain had been given life or indeterminate sentences. During the five to ten years subsequent to 2010, the 800 potential mass murderers are being released into British society. It’s feared that they’re being groomed to concentrate not on blowing aircraft out of the skies but on detonating explosives on trains, hotels, and sporting fixtures – any target where crowds are gathered.
This grim news came on top of earlier warnings that in some British prisons Islamic gangs, using threats of violence that include a persuasive gesture that indicates a cut throat, are proselytising among non-Muslim prisoners. As well, some Afro-Caribbean prisoners have been won over with the message that there will be little hope for them on the outside once they’ve served their sentences since white society is inexorably racist and discriminatory against them, whereas Islam offers acceptance and equality.

At that time 2000 radicalised individuals were already being monitored by MI5, and the new crop of 800 was set to make the task of police and security forces all the harder, particularly in view of government plans to reduce funding for counter-terrorism. Former Home Secretary John Reid, who was one of the most realistic and shrewd members of the atrocious Blair government, warned that if those cuts exceeded 10 per cent danger would follow. It was also being predicted that sooner or later a “lone wolf” terrorist will inevitably succeed in producing carnage, since resources are so stretched.
Quite apart from the terror issue, the cohesiveness of British society is being threatened with erosion by radical hotheads. In 2007, Sir Winston Churchill’s grandson, a Conservative MP also called Winston Churchill, who died early in 2010, wrote as follows to the London Daily Telegraph:

“Britain sends some of the finest and most courageous of their generation to risk their lives and spill their blood chasing the Taliban out of Afghanistan. But who, meanwhile, is guarding our homeland? A recent police report makes clear that, back here in Britain the Deobandi – the very same Islamist sect responsible for spawning the Taliban in Afghanistan – has succeeded in taking over more than 600 of Britain's 1,350 mosques. In addition, it controls 17 of Britain's 26 Islamic seminaries and produces 80 per cent of Britain's home-trained Islamic clerics. It's a funny old world, as Margaret Thatcher once famously remarked. Except that this is no laughing matter. Not for 70 years has there been a more clear or present danger to our internal security, to our free society and to our democracy, than that posed by this vipers' nest in our midst. The Deobandi, an ultra-conservative sect, outlaws music, art, television and football, and also demands the entire concealment of women. According to the Lancashire Council of Mosques, the Deobandi has now taken control of 59 out of 75 mosques in the old Lancashire mill towns of Oldham, Preston, Bury, Blackburn and Burnley. While not all Deobandis are extremist, leading preachers of this sect aim to radicalise the Islamic youth of Britain, and to mobilise them against our society and the freedoms we hold so dear. When will the Government wake up to this mortal threat which – if not swiftly dealt with – threatens to bring strife and bloodshed to the streets of Britain on a scale far exceeding anything seen in the bombings of recent years? Why are Gordon Brown and David Cameron, indeed our entire political class, so deafeningly silent on this, the most pressing matter confronting Britain today? Who will help the moderate majority of Muslims maintain control of their mosques? Who will safeguard the homeland?”

It seems that Churchill embarrassed his party by raising such matters, lest it be accused of “Islamophobia”, and the issue was not given the attention it deserved. 

Crime figures in many European countries speak for themselves, even in Sweden, which notoriously conceals the true extent of Muslim-perpetrated offences by duplicitous reporting devices.  And as we realise all too well such immigration has fuelled – indeed, reinvigorated if not reinvented – antisemitism, as the Jews of Sweden, France, and elsewhere know only too well.  The repugnant scenes of Al Quds Day in London this year, footage of which I posted on my own blog, in which hordes of Muslims – men at the front of the vast procession, women at (where else?) the back – screaming such intimidatory slogans as “Judaism yes! Zionism no!” and proclaiming through a loudspeaker that the anti-Israel nutjobs from Neturei Karta (who, incidentally, do not flinch at  participating in such pro-Iran initiatives on Shabbat, of all days) are “true Jews” suggests an atmosphere in which the lynching of Jewish passers-by perceived as Zionists by frenzied hotheads is not inconceivable.  Appallingly, there were many babies and toddlers in the procession, their tiny eardrums assailed by the loud and raucous screeching, in which a smattering of brainwashed older boys participated with zeal.  I nearly described these boys as “the antisemites of tomorrow” but that title surely belongs to the numerous little kids being wheeled by their mothers; the bigger ones seem to have been well-indoctrinated already.

This is a shocking, serious state of affairs.  Have a look at the footage if you are inclined to disagree with me.  To my mind, the time would seem to have come for the British authorities to ban these vile annual anti-Jewish fests – one of the many odious results of the 1979 Iranian Revolution – as an affront to societal harmony and a threat to public order.

And though the late unlamented Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was too often portrayed as a buffoon, we in the West – all of us, Jew and non-Jew alike – a should bear in mind and consider the ramifications of these words of his on Al Jazeera in 2006: "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe – without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

Gaddafi noted that if Turkey joins the European Union – British prime minister David Cameron fervently hopes it does – there will be a further 50 million Muslims in the heart of Europe’s counsels. "Europe is in a predicament, and so is America," Gaddafi continued. "They should agree to become Islamic in the course of time .... All people must be Muslims."

Little wonder that many Cassandras warn that Europe is being deliberately colonised by Muslims intent on imposing Islam on everyone – and that in view of the Muslims’ relative youth and fertility patterns theirs is the triumphant demographic weapon, the weapon that Gaddafi spoke of in 2006.   We must bear in mind that in traditional Muslim societies polygamy tends to be restricted to affluent men, who can afford to have up to four wives – but in dear old deluded Britain welfare payments are available not only to the first but to surplus wives and their children, so long as the polygamous Islamic marriages have taken place overseas, in countries where polygamy is lawful.


It’s ironic that back in the 1960s and 1970s the “First World” was being told by latter-day Malthusians and the vanguard of the environmental movement to restrict their families to just two children per couple – “Zero Population Growth” – but that nowadays we’re being told by some “experts” that large-scale immigration is necessary for economic growth. It might not be politically correct to say so, but mass migration from the Third World, let alone the Islamic portion of it, does present a very real social and cultural problem for developed countries. 
From Ian:

Amb. Prosor: "When the villain is laughing, you know something is wrong"
Following the Security Council meeting on Non-proliferation (Iran), Israel`s ambassador to the UN, Prosor held a press briefing:
Ladies and Gentleman,
Today, you have awarded a great prize to the most dangerous country in the world.
I hate to be the one who spoils the party, but someone has to say that the emperor has no clothes. Today is a very sad day. Not only for the state of Israel, but for the entire world, even if at this moment, the international community refuses to see the tragedy.
It is a sad day because the international community is taking steps to lift the sanctions on Iran without first waiting to see if Iran complies with even a single obligation in the agreement.
It is a sad day because this agreement gives Iran a seat on the commission which will decide whether or not it has violated the agreement. This is like allowing a criminal to sit on the jury which will decide his own fate.
You haven’t changed Iran’s destructive ideology, which goes beyond proliferating deadly weapons and funding terror.
Amb. Prosor's Press Statement on Iran


There Is No Iran Deal: West, Iran Differ Sharply over Terms
The United Nations Security Council voted 15-0 on Monday to pass Resolution 2231, which endorses the Iran nuclear deal–“the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] signed in Vienna by the five permanent members of the Council, plus Germany, the European Union and Iran.” However, there are already sharp disagreements between Iran and the rest of the world as to what that deal actually means.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry claims, for example, that the deal does not actually cover its ballistic missile program, as advertised. Restrictions on ballistic missiles are to be ended after eight years, according to the JCPOA. However, Iran says, according to the Times of Israel, that the UN Security Council resolution and the deal do not apply to its own missiles because they “have not been conceived to carry nuclear weapons.”
Similarly, there is confusion as to whether the deal prevents Iran from accelerating its nuclear program after the deal expires, or whether that is just an option. Such (voluntary) restrictions would have to be approved under the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the Iranian parliament is supposed to ratify, but there is no deadline for it to do so; it could wait until deal expires, in theory.
Alan Dershowitz, who has worked on UN resolutions on the Middle East, suggests there may not have been a “meeting of the minds” on the Iran deal at all: “Is it a postponement for an uncertain number of years — 8, 10, 13, 14, 15 — of Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon? Or is it an assurance that ‘Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon?'”
Mudar Zahran: Will Israel save the world a third time?
As a Jordanian-Palestinian politician, I and many other Arab politicians and decision-makers have come to learn that Israel is vital for our own existence. In fact, Israel has saved us, and the world, from two global disasters.
The first time Israel saved us all was at the beginning of the 1980s, when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was one of the West's strongest Arab allies. He was against the Islamic Republic of Iran and was viewed as a necessary asset for Western governments and as a regional balance against Iran's might. The West was in love with Saddam to the point of allowing him a nuclear program, which he obtained with France's help.
Just as Iran does today, Saddam said his nuclear program was for "peaceful and civilian use." Saddam's nuclear reactor was built with the approval of the United States. Israel, however, did not buy Saddam's claims, and in 1981 sent its pilots on a mission -- which they were unlikely to return from -- to destroy Saddam's nuclear reactor. As reports confirmed, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush was enraged by Israel's actions while President Ronald Reagan's first reaction to the news was, "Boys will be boys." Arab and Western governments condemned Israel's strike and some even spoke of action at the U.N. Unsurprisingly, Western media outlets grilled Israel.
Just nine years later, Saddam occupied Kuwait, threatened the entire Gulf region, and openly spoke of controlling "the Arabs' oil wealth," which could have brought the West to its knees. The U.S. and many Western states had to risk blood and money to get Saddam out of Kuwait, but they did not fear a nuclear attack from him or that he might use dirty bombs. Therefore Operation Desert Storm went smoothly. Had Saddam still had his nuclear program, the entire situation and its outcome could have been different. In fact, Saddam might have stayed in power until today were it not for Israel taking the risk of destroying his nuclear program.
In short, Israel saved the world from a power freak who came close to getting nuclear weapons.

  • Tuesday, July 21, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
According to the Action Group of Palestinians from Syria, so far 2,910 Palestinians have been killed in that conflict.

Hundreds died under torture in Syrian prisons. Scores haven't been heard from since they were abducted. Dozens of medical personnel have been killed.

You wouldn't know any of this from reading the mainstream media or "human rights" organizations' social media feeds.

But if Israel approves a single step of a multi-step process that may one day result in a Jew being allowed to build a house in his historic homeland, the media and NGOs get very interested.

Which goes to show that the world doesn't care about Palestinians. It cares about finding reasons to single out Jews.

Palestinians are not treated as victims - but as ammunition.


  • Tuesday, July 21, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
We've seen this pattern many times before - internal Palestinian issues stop fuel from going to the Gaza power plant, and people will find a way to blame Israel.

Gaza's sole power plant will stop running Monday evening asit is unable to cover taxes imposed by the national unity government, Gaza's energy authority said.
The unity government waved the tax in a show of good will in the four months to the end of Ramadan, but the Gazan energy authority said in a statement Monday that since the tax has been reinstated it can no longer afford to keep the plant running.

The energy authority added that it had only been able to cover the cost of maintaining the plant during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan and the Eid holiday by borrowing from local companies and taking loans from banks.

The tax imposed on fuel before it is sold to Gaza amounts to a 50 percent price hike on the price of fuel per liter, or 3.5 shekels ($0.91), the statement said.
But they still have to lie:
Although the power plant inside Gaza has a potential output of 120 MW, it has been unable to produce that much due to Israeli restrictions on fuel imports as part of an eight-year blockade.
Wrong. There are no Israeli restrictions on fuel. None at all.

Amnesty told me the same lie a couple of years ago:

When I asked [Amnesty researcher Deborah Hyams] specifically about why Amnesty was calling for Israel to lift restrictions on fuel when there are in fact no restrictions, she said that there are restrictions on some types of fuel. In fact, she told me, it was because Israel refused to provide industrial fuel for Gaza's power plant that Hamas was forced to smuggle regular diesel from Egypt. She did admit that price was a factor.

I explained to her my understanding that Hamas actually retooled the power plant to handle regular diesel smuggled from Egypt because they didn't want to pay Israel and they felt that with the Muslim Brotherhood in power they would have an unlimited supply of subsidized, cheap fuel from Egypt.

Hyams insisted that Israel has restrictions, today, on industrial diesel to Gaza. That is not my understanding and I told her that I've read COGAT reports since at 2009 where they said that they can pump heavy duty diesel for the power plant and Hamas has refused.

Immediately afterwards I called up Guy Inbar from the IDF COGAT unit and asked him if there were any restrictions on any specific type of fuel to Gaza - industrial, petroleum, cooking gas, anything. His answer was an unequivocal "no." The reason Gaza has no fuel is the PA/Hamas disagreements, not because of Israel.

I'm waiting for the staged photos of Gaza kids with candles with captions that blame Israel.
Amnesty International's Gaza Platform allows one to see, quite easily, that its database is worthless.

Here is the sum total of the number of people Amnesty says it has documented as being killed in their "research" and how many of them are civilian.


Amnesty is claiming that they have documentation from PCHR and Al Mezan of 1,991 deaths, of whom 1,667 are civilian - and only 324 militants.

Yet Amnesty knows this is a lie. They themselves tweet the (still wrong) UN figures as authoritative:



That's 205 people that this "research tool" claims as civilian who are actually militants, even according to the UN! 

That is one large discrepancy, made even larger by the fact that Amnesty was only able to document 1991 deaths (although some of them are duplicates). In the end, the UN says that 65% of the casualties were civilian (out of 2251 total) while Amnesty's tool bizarrely claims 84%!

Even more incredible is that Hamas has admitted that 400 of their members were killed. Islamic Jihad admitted 135 more.  That's 200 more militants admitted killed than Amnesty's application confidently reports. (Both those numbers are way too low.)  The Gaza Platform is more biased in its casualty figures than terror groups are.

The reality, as documented by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, is that (based on their latest figures)  about 51% of those killed were civilian, a spectacularly low number for urban fighting where the terrorists hide in  and fight from civilian houses and mosques and schools.

This is yet more proof, as if more were needed, that the Gaza Platform is based on flawed, biased data.

Monday, July 20, 2015

From Ian:

UN Watch: Hamas-linked UK group celebrated kidnapping of teens, today set to win UN status
UN Watch revealed today that the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), a Hamas-linked group vying to win UN status today, celebrated the Hamas kidnapping of three Israeli teens, cheered Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, and threatened “punishment” for PLO President and Hamas rival Mahmoud Abbas.
Tweets from the official account of Tarek Hamoud, executive director of the London-based PRC, include:
1. PRC Cheers Hamas Kidnapping of Israeli Teens
Above: On July 14, 2014, two days after the Hamas kidnapping of three Israeli teens, PRC posted this symbol of three fingers to cheer the abduction of the boys who were later discovered to have been murdered.
A group that celebrates kidnappings violates the peace and human rights principles of the UN Charter and should not be granted NGO status.
[UPDATE: PRC chief Tarek Hamoud has just deleted this tweet today after this blog post was published.]
PMW: PA honors murderers of civilians
Palestinian Authority heroes:
The synagogue murderers
(Two terrorists who murdered 4 worshippers in a synagogue and a policeman, 2014)
Rabbi Yehuda Glick's shooter
(Terrorist who tried to assassinate the rabbi, 2014)
Terrorist who participated in kidnapping and killing
(1993)
The Savoy Hotel terrorists
(Eight terrorists who took hostages and killed 7, 1975)
The Palestinian Authority continues to present murderers as heroes to the Palestinian public. One of the two killers who murdered four worshippers in a synagogue with butcher's knives and guns and later a policeman last November in West Jerusalem, was honored as a "Martyr" in recent reports in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida and WAFA, the official PA news agency. The attack was referred to as "the synagogue operation":
"Large and reinforced occupation army forces invaded Jabel Mukaber today [July 1, 2015] after 3 a.m., and evacuated the home of Martyr (Shahid) Uday Abu Jamal (one of those who carried out the synagogue operation in November last year) [parenthesis in source] where the Martyr's father, mother, three brothers and sister reside." [WAFA (the official PA news agency), July 1, 2015]
Official PA TV also presented this killer in a sympathetic light, stating that his children were "served pain to drink" by Israel since their father, the killer, was "assassinated." PA TV did not mention that the "assassination" occurred as Abu Jamal was murdering innocent people praying in a synagogue:
Isis or al-Qa’eda? The Arab states have chosen the devil they know
Things are now moving fast. A relationship is evolving and formal talks between the Arab states and al-Qa’eda may soon take place without the West at the table. It’s a strategic decision: the Arabs regard an extremist victory in Syria as inevitable so they have decided to go with al-Qa’eda as the lesser of the two evils — especially if that evil is willing to resist Iran. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, since he came to the throne in January, has pursued a far more aggressive policy toward Iran and Syria. For the US and Europe it will be extremely difficult in terms of domestic politics and national security to strike a relationship with al-Qa’eda, but ultimately that may be the only choice, especially if the West’s Arab allies are going ahead.
Just a few years ago, the ‘war on terror’ was defined as extinguishing al-Qa’eda. Now, for many of our Arab allies, it means shoring up al-Qa’eda and praying that they’re not as bad as had once been believed. One thing in all this murky double-dealing is clear: the US and Britain are paying a bitter price for refusing to remove Assad when they genuinely had the chance four years ago. Acting has its risks, but failing to act has its consequences too — as we will all now find out.

  • Monday, July 20, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon


From Tablet:
In the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq, located in the Lower Galilee, a set of mosaics that allegedly depict Alexander the Great meeting with a Jewish priest have been unearthed during an excavation of the remains of a synagogue that dates back to the 5th century. If the mosaic has been identified correctly, the discovery will apparently be the first ever depiction of a non-Biblical scene to be found inside a synagogue, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.

The team of archaeologists come from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and are led by Arts and Sciences Professor Jodi Magness, and co-directed by the Israel Antiquities Authority. According to a statement on the UNC-Chapel Hill website, Magness’s team has been digging at the ancient synagogue each summer since 2012. In 2013 and 2014, the team across a mosaic in the synagogue’s that

depicts three horizontal registers (strips) containing human and animal figures, including elephants. The top register, which is the largest, shows a meeting between two men, who perhaps are intended to represent Alexander the Great and a Jewish high priest. It was the first time a non-biblical story had been found decorating any ancient synagogue.
Tablet doesn't mention the actual Talmudic story of Alexander and the High Priest (and neither does the Daily Mail that reported this last week). Here it is:

[Shimon HaTzaddik, or Simeon the Just] was the “Kohen Gadol,” the High Priest of the Jewish People, during the reign of Alexander the Great, the world-conquering Greek Emperor. Yoma 69a presents a dramatic account of a confrontation between Shimon and Alexander. Alexander stood at the Gates of Jerusalem, with evil intentions regarding it, that caused the city’s inhabitants to tremble with fear. Shimon donned the “Bigdei Lavan,” the White Garments that he wore on Yom Kippur when he entered the Holy of Holies, and went out to meet Alexander.

When the great Emperor saw Shimon HaTzaddik, he dismounted and prostrated himself on the ground before Shimon. When his generals, very puzzled, asked him why he was bowing to the Jew, he replied that every night before a victory, he would see in a dream a figure that looked exactly like the Jewish High Priest, who would advise him on tactics to use the following day. And that advice had never failed him.

Shimon HaTzaddik took Alexander the Great on a tour of the Temple. Alexander, very impressed, requested that a marble image of himself be placed in the Temple. Shimon demurred, saying that it was forbidden for the Jews to have images, and certainly not in the Temple. He suggested an alternative way of memorializing the occasion of the Emperor’s visit to the Holy City of the Jews. That would be that all male babies born that year would receive the name “Alexander.” The Emperor liked the idea, and that is how the name “Alexander” became part of the set of names conferred upon Jewish male babies.

Alexander is still used as a Jewish name today.

  • Monday, July 20, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
This is how the "moderate" Arab media reports Jews peacefully walking in their most sacred spot and Muslims intimidating and harassing them.

From the official Palestinian Authority Wafa news agency:
Gangs of Jewish settlers resumed storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Monday through the Mughrabi Gate along with special occupation police units.

The raids come the day after Al-Aqsa had been closed to settlers for a period of 13 days: the last ten days of Ramadan and the three days of Eid al-Fitr because of the intense and the large presence of worshipers of pure open minds.

According to our correspondent the raids were done with small groups carrying out provocative tours in the holy mosque, amid shouts of protest from worshipers.

From Ian:

UN Security Council unanimously approves Iran deal
The UN Security Council on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the Iran nuclear deal and paving the way to lifting longstanding sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The 15-0 approval of the Iran nuclear deal clears one of the largest hurdles for the landmark pact, which will now go before the US Congress where it may face an uphill battle for confirmation.
The UN vote came shortly after the European Union approved the nuclear deal, okaying the pact between the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Iran that lifts punishing economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for temporary curbs on nuclear activity.
Ambassadors from the so-called P5+1 touted the deal in a Security Council debate following the vote.
US Ambassador Samantha Power said the nuclear deal doesn’t change the United States’ “profound concern about human rights violations committed by the Iranian government or about the instability Iran fuels beyond its nuclear program, from its support for terrorist proxies to repeated threats against Israel to its other destabilizing activities in the region.”
She urged Iran to release three “unjustly imprisoned” Americans and to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who vanished in 2007.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards: UN resolution endorsing nuclear deal crosses Iran's red lines
A UN Security Council resolution endorsing Iran's nuclear deal that passed on Monday is unacceptable, the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammed Ali Jafari was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
"Some parts of the draft have clearly crossed the Islamic republic's red lines, especially in Iran's military capabilities. We will never accept it," he was quoted as saying shortly before the resolution was passed in New York.
Watch: Obama Eerily Echoes Clinton's Failed North Korea Deal Sound byte comparison shows
Not only has it been revealed that some of the very same American negotiators that sealed then-US President Bill Clinton's failed nuclear deal with North Korea in 1994 worked on President Barack Obama's similar deal with Iran signed last Tuesday - now it appears Obama even got the same speech writers.
The Washington Free Beacon on Monday released a compilation of public statements made by both presidents defending their respective deals, with an uncanny similarity noticeable between the two that would seem to bode ill for the Iran deal, given that Clinton's failed deal led North Korea to conduct its first nuclear test in 2006.
Clinton tried to get the Communist rogue state of North Korea to give up its nuclear program by giving it oil, nuclear technology and sanctions relief. Pyongyang took the benefits and ran all the way to a nuclear bomb, with Chinese experts warning it will have 40 nuclear weapons by next year.
As a result of the Clinton deal, North Korea was able to export nuclear technology to Syria and Iran as well.


  • Monday, July 20, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the San Francisco Examiner:
A San Francisco-based Arabic community group could be excluded from helping to create Arabic-language curriculum it championed to the school district earlier this year because of alleged discriminatory comments the organization and its leader made about Jews.

Last May, the Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution for the San Francisco Unified School District to explore implementing Arabic- and Vietnamese-language pathways programs for kindergarten through 12th-grade students, beginning in the 2017-18 school year.

The resolution also called for the district to work with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, among other community groups, to develop “culturally appropriate professional development opportunities” for teachers at certain schools. Incorporating community input is standard practice for the SFUSD when creating new curriculum.

But language used by AROC to allegedly “push a radical Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist agenda in San Francisco,” according to a June 17 letter from the Jewish Community Relations Council to school district leaders, has prompted local Jewish community leaders to urge the SFUSD to eliminate the group from the resolution.

“We fully support implementing language pathways in Vietnamese and Arabic. [The opposition] is of this group that has been named in the resolution [and] made these really ugly and divisive statements,” said Jeremy Russell, a spokesman for the Jewish council.

District officials have not confirmed whether the Arab group will remain listed as a resource in the resolution, and the Board of Education in the coming weeks intends to collectively respond to community concerns regarding the resolution.

“We are reviewing that,” Board President Emily Murase said of continuing to work with AROC. “A lot of information came to us after the resolution was passed. We’re in the process of evaluating partners. We want to do it in a very deliberate, thoughtful way.”

In the letter from the Jewish council to Superintendent Richard Carranza and Murase, examples of such discriminatory comments include a Tweet by @AROCBayArea on Dec. 15 saying: “Help us kick Zionism out of the Bay Area. Donate today.”

Other comments highlighted in the letter were purportedly made by Lara Kiswani, the group’s executive director, at a Nov. 12 forum on how organized labor can help Palestine: “Bringing down Israel really will benefit everyone in the world, and everyone in society”; “As long as you continue to be on that side, I’m going to continue to hate you.”

“Any group that espouses hatred really should not be a partner for the school district,” Russell said.

The Arabic group considers the Jewish council’s attempt to remove the group from the resolution to be little more than an intimidation tactic.

“We see this recent development consistent with the way that JCRC operates on a regular basis where they ignore the impact their actions have on children,” Kiswani wrote in an email to the San Francisco Examiner. “They are literally willing to take educational opportunities away from children in order to feed their need to defend the state of Israel.”
J-Weekly amplified AROC's hate:
The organization also helped lead a Block the Boat campaign in 2014, which twice sought to prevent the Oakland offloading of a cargo ship partially owned by an Israeli company, succeeding the second time. Referring to that campaign, the AROC website proclaimed that “business with the racist, exclusionary, Zionist state of Israel, which works alongside local and federal law enforcement to repress our communities, will not go unchallenged.”

Last December, AROC tweeted the message “Help us kick Zionism out of the Bay Area.”

The JCRC is as liberal an organization as you can find. It does not take a stand on the Iranian nuclear deal. It does not mention Israel on its homepage, and its activism for Israel seems limited to being against BDS. It participates in multifaith Iftar dinners. In no way, shape or form can you call this organization anti-Arab or anti-Muslim. It explicitly supports the idea of Arabic instruction in San Francisco schools.

The AROC, on the other hand, is highly political and anti-Israel. Its response to the JCRC letter is shrill, and it reveals that AROC fully intended to use this curriculum to poison the minds of children against Israel:

Who is JCRC? They are a well-financed group that furthers the interests of the apartheid state of Israel. Their objective is to challenge Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions work in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wherever they see an organization successfully supporting the Palestinian struggle for liberation, they attack.

Now, they are attacking both AROC and the opportunity for children in San Francisco to learn Arabic language and culture.

JCRC is attempting to convince the San Francisco Board of Education to revote on a resolution that the board passed unanimously on May 26, listing AROC and the Vietnamese Youth Development Center as community partners who championed the campaign to implement Arabic and Vietnamese language pathways in SFUSD. This initiative, born of an inspiring community effort, would expand the opportunity of Arabs and Vietnamese to have their languages and cultures better represented in the schools they attend.

What does JCRC really want? They want to discredit AROC because of our impactful work in support of Palestinian rights, and they want control of the Arabic pathway process so they can ensure there are no cultural elements to the curriculum that could “threaten” their conservative agenda.

Don’t let JCRC undermine Arab culture in our city to advance their harmful agenda.
This screed by AROC proves the JCRC is correct and that AROC is a most unsuitable partner for the San Francisco Board of Education.

If AROC only cared about Arabic language study, they would happily withdraw their name from the resolution, which would ensure Arabic language would be taught without controversy. But their claim that the JCRC is attempting to "ensure there are no cultural elements to the curriculum that could 'threaten' their conservative agenda" shows that this is indeed AROC's aim - to add their idea of "culture" to the public school system.

And to AROC, "culture" is to attack Israel and support terrorism.

Their tweets routinely refer to Israel as practicing "apartheid" and "genocide."  They were active in supporting Palestinian terrorist Rasmeah Odeh. 

Their idea of "culture" is to hijack Valentine's Day and turn it into a radical anti-Israel event called "Revolution is Love."

Just imagine what they plan to do in public schools under the guise of "culture."

AROC damns itself with its own words and actions.

(h/t JW)

(written by Bob Knot, edited by EoZ)

As we've seen over the past couple of weeks, Amnesty International is at the forefront of a coordinated political warfare against the state of Israel by numerous NGOs who want to see Israel investigated and brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged “war crimes”.

Amnesty’s current campaign started almost as soon as Israel responded to the massive rocket and missile attacks from Gaza with air strikes and ground invasion, accusing Israel of “war crimes” in Gaza during and a short while after last year’s war in Gaza and even calling for UN and international investigation against Israel for violations of international humanitarian law and promoting arms embargo on Israel .

Amnesty teamed up with Forensic Architecture to create what I called the “ bash Israel app ”, recycling provably wrong information by the biased Gaza based Al Mezan and Palestinian Center for Human Rights .

To put it simply, the “Gaza Platform” was created to make up for the lack of credibility on the part of the Arab political NGOs and for the lack of evidence to support the “war crimes” allegations.

That is also the case with the “Forensic” team; there is nothing such as fact-finding methodologies or technical tests in their scope of work, it is just a bombastic name and the end product is just an online data visualization app fed with unreliable data sources.

And that brings us to the Forensic Architecture team members:

Eyal Weizman is the project’s Principal Investigator.



Weizman is a former board member of B’Tselem. His anti-Israel agenda is well documented in a 2013 IsraCampus op-ed and in Goldsmiths College - Eyal Weizman Attacks Israel with 'Forensic Architecture' .

Weizman also signed a petition during Operation Cast Lead (2009), “ calling for the UN Security Council and the EU to impose sanctions on Israel ”. He is a signatory for “ Jews for Justice for Palestinians ” and for a Pro-Hamas Petition in the Jew-hating Counterpunch Magazine as well:
We the undersigned watch with horror yet another ruthless and criminal Israeli assault on the defenceless [Sic] people of the Gaza Strip. The assassination of the Hamas’ military commander, Ahmad al-Jabari, by Israel was intended to disrupt any chance for a permanent cease fire between the two sides and caused the current cycle of violence. For the last five years al-Jabari had been responsible for limiting rocket attacks on Israel.
.
And just in case anyone has doubt about his bias, Weizmann supports the BDS movement as well; Weizman is one of 65 academics, cultural and political figures backing the RIBA’s stance on the motion calling for the suspension of Israeli architects from the International Architects Union (UIA) .

Other examples of his anti-Israel political agenda can be found by his speaking at conferences ":
"Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine" and "The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories."



Francesco Sebregondi is the Project Coordinator.


His tweets and re-tweets from organizations such as "Free Gaza Movement", " Al-Haq", “Breaking the Silence”, "Electronic Intifada", "Palestine Solidarity Campaign", "Yesh Din", and "Palestine Legal" demonstrate his heavy bias against Israel. Some examples of the lies that he disseminates on Twitter and the animosity towards Israel that he stirs up include:










Jacob Burns is the Research and Campaign Assistant at @Amnestyonline.


His Twitter profile is at https://twitter.com/JacobTBurns, an Instagram one is at https://instagram.com/jacobtburns. He “supports the Palestinian struggle for justice” as evident from a piece he published on anti-Israel Website Mondoweiss .

Jacob, just like his colleague, tweets and re-tweets the “Palestinian” narrative. Apparently, when it comes to Israel, fact-checking and giving audience to the Israeli side is not needed,

His bias against Israel is manifested in some of the photos he uploaded to Instagram, the captions are telling. To him, Palestinians have houses, Jews have colonies:

Because they are "colonists":



Jerusalem, of course, is not in Israel but in "Palestine" according to this "researcher":


And Jews asking for equal rights are a "source of tension" for this human rights advocate:



Apparently, this “great” researcher never heard of the Cave of the Patriarchs or maybe he believes that Jews have no connection to Hebron and have no right to pray there?



Impartial he is not and he seems to be suffering from an ICC for Israel obsession too. On 4 May 2015, he tweeted tens if not over a hundred “Breaking the Silence” “testimonies”.

I found this tweet of his unintentionally ironic and typical of Burns' bias:




The entire Gaza Platform that he is working on is based on initial reports from biased sources that in many cases have been proven wrong!

These are the people who were behind Amnesty's Gaza Platform. They have an agenda, and it has nothing to do with objectivity.



I had thought that Forensic Architecture wrote the code for this tool. They didn't - it was written by a group called Tekja Data Visualization. So Amnesty didn't choose Forensics Architecture for its coding skills - they chose Forensic Architecture for their ability to come up with new, innovative ways to demonize Israel.

  • Monday, July 20, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon


\

It takes about two seconds of thought to realize that there is no way on Earth to stop Iran from transferring money to Hezbollah or the Houthis.

And if you look at the UNSC resolutions against Iran, not one of them discusses transferring money.

Kerry lied in his answer, and his lie reveals that Iran will get a windfall that will help fund Assad, Hezbollah and worldwide terror.

(h/t Mike A)

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