Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, July 23, 2015

To hell with the international community (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

In Michael Oren’s new book, Ally, (which I like quite a lot), he expresses a sentiment that is often heard in Israeli discourse:

If the First Intifada was not sufficiently convincing, the Second thoroughly persuaded me that Israel had to change the status quo in the territories. Yes, these were our tribal lands. The Bible speaks of the West Bank cities Bethlehem, Shiloh, and Hebron, not of Tel Aviv or Haifa. And many of the settlements helped thicken our pre-1967 lines, which were as narrow as nine miles across. But Israel had to weigh its historic rights and security needs against [a] the moral and political costs of dominating another people. It had to reconcile its real fears of the West Bank becoming a terrorist haven similar to South Lebanon, with [b] its need to preserve its right to defend itself and its international legitimacy as a sovereign Jewish state. [p. 36, my emphasis]

I don’t reproduce this to criticize Oren in particular. It is a view that many Israelis share, and Oren has earned his right to think and say what he wants about his country, both as a public servant and as a combat soldier. But I think if we look at precisely what this statement means, we can see that it is wrong, even self-contradictory.

What he says is that Judea and Samaria are our historic homeland, we have a right under international law to be there, and withdrawal would seriously impact our security. But he adds that a) the continued conflict with the Arabs there damages us morally, and b) the international community will take away our sovereign rights if we don’t make them happy.

What’s wrong with this position is that places the burden for the immoral, even evil, behavior of the non-Jewish Nations on the backs of the Jewish people. It requires us to compromise our historic and legal rights, and even our existence, because the Arabs and the US/UN/EU are antisemitic. It implies that Arab and Western Jew-hatred is our problem, not theirs.

Arabs in Palestine lived for 400 years under the domination of the Ottoman Empire. Nationalist sentiments didn’t arise among them until the early 20^thcentury when they began to consider the possibility of eventual Jewish sovereignty. The ‘Palestinian’ Mufti worked closely with Hitler, and today’s Palestinian Authority doesn’t hide its Jew-hatred. The murderous actions of the PLO and other terrorist organizations are intended to drive Jews out of the land that the Arabs believe is only for them.

So why should we think our security measures and our communities across the Green Line are morally and politically damaging? Why would it damage us to resist the murderous hatred expressed by these Arabs, who for racist reasons don’t want us to be here? Where does the sense of guilt for taking the actions needed to protect ourselves come from?

The answer is that it all comes from believing and internalizing the myth that the Zionists ‘stole’ the land from ‘indigenous’ Arabs. But in truth we are indigenous and they are trying to steal our land! Oren the historian understands this, and despite knowing better, falls into the trap of feeling guilty for ‘the occupation’. But as Naftali Bennett correctly said, you can’t occupy yourself.

How about our “international legitimacy?” Here the argument is that we need to behave toward the Arabs the way those great moral exemplars in London, Brussels or Washington tell us we must, or they will decide that we do not deserve to have a sovereign state here (but the Arabs do!). They will kick us out of international organizations, boycott and sanction us, help our enemies, etc.

What do they, those upon whose exploitative empire the sun never set and those who built the greatest economic power on earth on the backs of black slaves, want from us?

They tell us now that they would be happy with expelling a few hundred thousand Jews from their homes – remember, this is in order to enable Arabs to achieve their racist goal of a Jew-free state – placing the holiest sites of Judaism in the hands of those that would desecrate and destroy them, and returning us to the indefensible borders that they themselves admitted were unreasonable in UNSCR 242, back in 1967.

This would be enough to destroy our state. But they are lying. They want more. Read their newspapers and the position papers of their NGOs, listen to the debates in their parliaments, look at social media, and you will know that the world has moved on. They believe the Zionist state by its very definition oppresses Arabs that live under its control, even if they are citizens that can vote. The ‘modern’ point of view is that nationalism is unacceptable, although nobody seems to care unless it is Jewish nationalism. They see the creation of a Jewish state on a Zionist foundation as immoral, an ‘original sin’ that has to be undone.

Jewish self-defense is claimed to be ‘disproportionate’ unless as many Jews die as Arabs. No other nation or army has ever been held to such a standard. Just as Shari’a forbids a Jew to kill a Muslim for any reason, so does the UN. Amnesty International and the UN ‘Human Rights’ Commission make up facts and international law as necessary to prove us guilty of war crimes. “Israel has a right to self defense,” as President Obama said – in principle, but not in practice.

What would happen if we did everything necessary to please the ‘international community’? We would end up with our social fabric destroyed, living within indefensible borders, surrounded by enemies armed to the teeth, with terrorist missile launchers next door to our airport and big cities, forbidden to fight back. And then they would come up with something else that we need to do in order to be acceptable world citizens.

We can never do enough, short of cutting our own throats. Rather than try to appease the unappeasable, we should prepare to combat the negative effects of the expected economic and social pressure that will be exerted against us. We should develop economic and security relationships in other directions (e.g., India) and become less dependent on the US and the EU.

The reality is that they don’t want there to be a Jewish state. If they were honest they would admit that. They don’t care about the ‘Palestinians’, any more than they care about the Ukrainians, Syrians, Kurds, Copts, Yazidis or any number of black peoples in Africa that are getting the short end of the stick these days. It’s us that they are concerned about.

We can’t win against this stacked deck. Far better to stop playing, tell the ‘community’ to drop dead – and defend ourselves as ‘disproportionately’ as possible.

07/23 Links Pt1: Israeli Leftist Nukes Iran Deal; Oren: What a Good Iran Deal Would Look Like;

From Ian:

Israeli Leftist Nukes Iran Deal

Journalist Ari Shavit is one of Israel’s most celebrated left-wing voices. He is celebrated in the United States as a voice for political change in Israel and an advocate for concessions to the Palestinians. His recent memoir, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, was fêted by the literary elite.
Yet Shavit is shocked by the Iran deal–what he calls a “horror story.” In a brilliant but grim op-ed in Israel’s left-wing Ha’aretz, Shavit does a better job than virtually anyone else in summarizing exactly what is wrong with the disastrous Iran deal.
First, it removes sanctions and does not provide adequate monitoring:
The Iranian negotiating team succeeded in destroying completely the sanctions mechanism that had been activated against Iran. It also managed to prevent real, effective supervision of secret, unknown nuclear sites….The chance of its getting caught is low and the chance of reactivating the sanctions is slim. So the decision of whether to race or not to race toward the bomb in a new secret track will be very much up to Iran.
Second, Shavit writes,
…the international community commits to upgrading Iran’s nuclear capacity, which it will activate in due course: …the international community is not only enabling, but actually ensuring the establishment of a new Iranian nuclear program, which will be immeasurably more powerful and dangerous than its predecessor. In fact the Iranians are giving up an outdated, anachronistic deployment in order to build an innovative legitimate one, with the world’s permission and authority. “The joint comprehensive plan of action” will lead to Iran becoming in 2025 a muscular nuclear tiger ready to spring forward, with an ability to produce dozens of nuclear bombs.
Essentially, Shavit says, the world gave in:
The fact is that in each chapter Iran’s dignity is preserved, but the U.S. and Europe’s isn’t. The fact is that the Iranian Islamic Consultative Assembly, or Majlis, has a much higher status in the agreement than the American Congress. The fact is that Iran is unrepentant, does not promise a change of course and takes an almost supercilious attitude toward the other parties. As though it had been a campaign between Iran and the West, and Iran won and is now dictating the surrender terms to the West.

Michael Oren: What a Good Iran Deal Would Look Like

Could a better deal have been achieved? The answer — emphatically — is yes.
The biting sanctions enacted by Congress, and approved by President Barack Obama, halted the Iranian nuclear program. They also forced the Iranians to the negotiating table where they would have remained and made far-reaching concessions were the sanctions intensified or at least sustained.
These sanctions presented Tehran’s international customers with a choice: Either do business with Iran or with the United States. Russia, China and others might have protested continuing sanctions on Iran but, in the end, it is highly unlikely that they would have forfeited access to America’s $17 trillion economy to cut oil deals with Iran.
The Iranian military, with its mostly 1970s-vintage weaponry, posed no serious threat to the world’s largest and most sophisticated armed forces. A combination of robust sanctions and a credible military threat by the United States would have compelled the Iranians to make more far-reaching and substantive concessions than the few largely symbolic gestures contained in this deal.
These were the terms that Israel sought and communicated to American decision makers. We have the greatest interest in reaching a good diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear threat, and the most to lose from either a bad deal or a resort to force. After all, in any confrontation with Iran, Hezbollah and other proxies are poised to fire thousands of rockets at our homes.
Israel would have embraced an agreement that significantly rolled back the number of centrifuges and nuclear facilities in Iran and that linked any sanctions relief to demonstrable changes in its behavior. No more state support of terror, no more threatening America’s Middle Eastern allies, no more pledges to destroy the world’s only Jewish state and no more mass chants of “Death to America.” Israel would have welcomed any arrangement that monitored Iran’s ICBMs and other offensive weaponry. Such a deal, Israeli leaders across the political spectrum agree, was and remains attainable.
The alternative to this deal is not, as its supporters insist, war, but a better deal. Indeed, the present agreement will likely escalate, rather than avert, conflict. Already Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has pledged to continue Iran’s armed struggle against the United States. Iran Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan has sworn to prevent inspections of suspect Iranian nuclear sites. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, the only Arab leader to celebrate the deal, can continue to butcher his own civilian population with impunity.

Iran’s Win-Win…Win Win Win Nuke Deal

Why would the mullahs cheat on a deal as good for them as this one?
The Obama administration sent the Iran Nuclear Deal to Congress on Sunday, and on Monday the 60-day clock starts ticking for a largely hostile Capitol Hill to review all the elements, unclassified and classified. The big question, of course, is whether and how the Iranians can be kept from cheating.
The administration has gone to great lengths to ensure there are all sorts of technical bells and whistles. But President Barack Obama can’t use the most obvious and compelling argument in his arsenal. Simply put, this is one terrific agreement for Tehran. And Iran is likely to have no interest in violating it. Here’s why.
Money for Nothing: It’s the cruelest of ironies that Iran is reaping huge rewards for giving up something it wasn’t supposed to be doing in the first place. Iran has accepted constraints on a nuclear program that over the past 10 years illegally and illicitly produced fissile material for a possible nuclear weapon and engaged at secret sites in what the IAEA has described as possible military dimensions of a nuclear program. In exchange for accepting constraints on this nuclear enterprise, Iran will receive billions in unfrozen oil revenues, begin to ramp up oil production and over time attract foreign investment likely to attract billions more.
Legitimacy for its Nuclear Program: Having stood in violation of at least six UN Security Council resolutions over the past decade, it’s a testament to the skills of Iranian negotiators that the agreement they produced wasn’t about ending the Iranian nuclear program but restricting it. And these restrictions aren’t permanent.

Nuclear Creepout: Iran's Third Path to the Bomb

Though much ink has been spilled about whether these two "paths" to the bomb have been blocked, both presuppose a decision by Iran to sacrifice its reconciliation with the world in the next ten to fifteen years for the immediate gratification of building a weapon (the purpose of a covert breakout is less to avoid detection before crossing the finish line than to make the process less vulnerable to decisive disruption).
Such an abrupt change of heart by the Iranian regime is certainly possible, but more worrisome is the prospect that Iran's nuclear policy after the agreement goes into effect will be much the same as it was before—comply with the letter and spirit of its obligations only to the degree necessary to ward off unacceptably costly consequences. This will likely take the form of what I call nuclear creepout—activities, both open and covert, legal and illicit, designed to negate JCPOA restrictions without triggering costly multilateral reprisals.
It is important to bear in mind that the JCPOA bars signatories from re-imposing any sanctions or their equivalents on Iran, except by way of a United Nations Security Council resolution restoring sanctions. "That means there will be no punishments for anything less than a capital crime," explains Robert Satloff. The language demanded by Iranian negotiators, and accepted by the Obama administration, makes small-scale cheating virtually unpunishable.
Moreover, the specific terms of the JCPOA appear to have been designed to give the Iranians wide latitude to interpret their own obligations. Two, in particular, should raise eyebrows.

Rep. Trent Franks: "The Iranians came to the table with nothing, and left with everything" (EoZ Interview)

Here is my video interview with Member of Congress Trent Franks before he spoke at the Stop Iran Rally in Times Square on Wednesday.

Frank Gaffney has three things to say about the Iran nuclear deal (EoZ Interview)

Frank Gaffney, the founder of the Center for Security Policy, has three messages he wants to give the world about the Iranian deal. This is my interview before he spoke to the crowd of over 10,000 people at Times Square.

Iran-EU trade conference kicks off today in Vienna

This conference was already planned well before the Iran deal.

The domain was registered in April.

300 business people have registered, and Salzburg.com adds:

Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said on Thursday morning to the APA and the "Wiener Zeitung" that the agreement is a "chance for the Austrian economy and intensification of relations" with Iran. "We have traditionally good relations with Iran and if the deal is implemented and the sanctions are lifted, it will help Austrian companies a variety of ways," said Kurz, who wants to travel in September together with Federal President Heinz Fischer and a large trade delegation to Tehran.

At around 400 million euros, exports from Austria amounted to Iran in 2004. Ten years later, they are only at 232 million euros. We are now ready to again significantly increase the volume of trade between Austria and Iran and to achieve the a billion euros, said the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber.

There is so much pent-up demand from the EU to sell to Iran that the idea of "snapback sanctions" is nothing but a joke.

(h/t Dian)

Colonel Richard Kemp: "Iran deal makes war more likely, not less" (EoZ Interview)

I interviewed Colonel Richard Kemp at the Stop Iran rally on Wednesday. Beside asking him about Iran, I asked him about his opinion on so-called "human rights" groups that don't seem to know international law.

Here was his speech:

Allen West: "We made an agreement with the #1 state sponsor of terrorism" (EoZ Interview)

My interview with former congressman Allen West at the Stop Iran Rally in New York, Wednesday:

Here was his speech:

Alan Dershowitz: Iran deal is a Hobson's choice (EoZ Interview)

The Stop Iran Rally in Times Square was a success, with over 10,000 people (from 36th to 42nd Streets.)

I interviewed a number of the speakers.

Alan Dershowitz says that the decision to accept or reject the deal is a terrible choice to make.

07/22 Links Pt2: 'Ancient Arab Susiya' - The Town That Never Was; ICC may not reopen flotilla case

From Ian:

'Ancient Arab Susiya' - The Town That Never Was

The Palestinian Authority, with direct financing of the European Union and blind acceptance of lies as facts by media, is swallowing up the southern Hevron Hills, a huge area between Kiryat Arba-Hevron and Arad-Be'er Sheva.
The latest chapter in the Palestinian Authority's re-invention of history is taking place in Susiya (pronounced "Soos-eeya") located two miles from the old borders of Israel, on the western edge of the Judean Desert that leads to the Dead Sea, and less than half an hour from Be'er Sheva, the capital of the Negev.
The Arab strategy: An Arab family erects a tent, illegally, near the archaeological site of the ancient town of Susiya. As time passes, the tent becomes a makeshift structure, which expands into several structures. With the support of extreme left-wing activists, the 'ancient' town of 'Palestinian Susiya' is invented, reported the Tazpit News Agency.
"This makes for a great human interest story, but for one setback — the 'ancient Palestinian Susiya' never existed. It shows up on no records," Tazpit wrote.
Yigal Dilmoni, deputy director-general of the Yesha Council, told Tazpit, "Fifteen-year-old [i.e., 1998—ed] aerial photos clearly show that there was no Arab village at this site ... The Arabs have come for the village of Yatta, and ... repeatedly disseminate lies."
[Back in June 2013], the Civil Lands Authority issued approximately 40 stop-work orders against projects funded by the European Union and intended to firm up Palestinian Authority claims to land where they never lived until Jews came to the area in 1983.
In that year, for the first time in 1,500 years, Jews began living in the southern Hevron Hills, setting up a community in nearby Beit Yatir, two miles to the south, and in Susiya, where the old Jewish town existed until approximately the 6th century.

The Truth on Susiya

NGO Monitor: European-funded NGOs and the Susya Narrative

Khirbet Susiya (Susya) is a small Arab village in the South Hebron Hills. There are widely divergent narratives regarding the village and its history; according to Israeli authorities, the village’s structures have been illegally built. A protracted court battle ensued regarding the demolition of the village.
The Israeli Supreme Court recently cleared the legal barriers to demolition, on the grounds that the structures were constructed illegally, entirely without permits or approved plans. (Under the Oslo framework, Israel is responsible for planning and construction in Area C, which is where Susya is located.)
A number of governments, including the U.S. and European governments, are lobbying the Israeli government to prevent the demolition. In June, “a delegation of all European Union heads of missions to the Palestinian Authority visited Susya, accompanied by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.”
As with many such contentious issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict, many NGOs are active in promoting the Palestinian narrative, which is then repeated by the European and U.S. officials. These NGOs are themselves heavily subsidized by European and U.S. entities. (h/t Bob Knot)

International court may not reopen flotilla case, prosecutor says

The International Criminal Court will not necessarily open an investigation into the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, despite a pretrial chamber ordering the prosecutor last week to reconsider her decision to close her initial probe into the case, the court’s chief prosecutor said Tuesday.
“The decision on whether to open an investigation depends on the facts and circumstances of each situation,” said Fatou Bensouda. “We are carefully studying the decision and will decide on the next steps in due course.”
In an email exchange with The Times of Israel, the Gambian-born Bensouda said she was aware of the United Nations Human Rights Council report on last year’s Gaza war and would consider “all credible and reliable sources of information.”
At the same time, she promised to conduct her own “independent analysis” of the controversial report.

Israel-haters are fighting each other. Awww.

It seems to have started with the "Jewish Voice for Peace" writing a letter to Alison Weir, founder of the "If Americans Knew" website dedicated to exposing the supposed "Zionist" influence on the media and politics, and who has referred to Judaism as a "ruthless and supremacist faith" while using fake Talmud quotes:

Dear Ms. Weir,

Jewish Voice for Peace has chosen not to work with you because our central tenet is opposition to racism in all its forms, and you have chosen repeatedly to associate yourself with people who advocate for racism.

You have been a repeat guest of white supremacist Clay Douglas on his hate radio show, the Free American. Clay Douglas is concerned primarily with the survival of the White race and sees malign Jewish influence everywhere. His racist, anti-Jewish, and anti-gay rhetoric can be found across the front pages of his multiple websites.

In the course of your appearance with Clay Douglas on August 25, 2010, for example, you were silent when Douglas invoked the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and engaged in a racist diatribe against Jews. Your repeated appearance on this show (April 23 and August 25, 2010; February 9 and May 18, 2011) show that you knew his extremist views and chose to continue the association....

Then the "US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation" followed suit:

1. Ms. Weir posted a blog on her personal website that references Jews as a race being “an object of hatred to all the peoples among whom it has established itself,” effectively blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. (See Section 1 of Part 3)

2. In writing about a controversy surrounding allegations of the Israeli military harvesting the organs of Palestinians in 2009, Ms. Weir responded to supporters of Israel claiming this was a new “blood libel” by citing the research of Ariel Toaff, who purported to have uncovered ritual murder of Christian children by Jews in medieval Europe (the very definition of “blood libel”). (See Section 2 of part 3)

3. Ms. Weir has appeared at least five times for hour-long episodes on notorious white supremacist and militiaman Clayton Douglas’s radio show, the “Free American Hour,” between 2010 and 2012. A cursory glance at Douglas’s homepage would raise concerns about the host and program’s political content. Douglas’s homepage features the confederate flag, a video that opens with the title “9/11 Brainwashing and the Holohoax,” and numerous references to the “Jew World Order” and its “war on Adolph Hitler,” as well as claims of “ritual murder of Christians and Children by Jews.” While interviewing Ms. Weir, Douglas:

a. made derogatory remarks about Arabs (See 3.a and 3.d of Part 3)

b. repeatedly asserted Jewish control of the world (3.b, 3.g, 3.h, and 3.j)

c. quoted and played speech by the former head of the KKK, David Duke, proclaiming a war on Christianity (3.c, 3.e)

d. demonized adherents of communism, insinuating it is a Jewish conspiracy (3.h)

e. downplayed or denied the existence of apartheid historically in South Africa, analogizing criticism of white South Africans during apartheid, which Douglas sees as unfair, to the treatment of white Americans today. Similarly, Douglas analogizes the average German between WWI and WWII and average white American today (3.f 3.j)
...
Taken as a pattern, we concluded that Ms. Weir’s views and actions, on behalf of If Americans Knew, contradict the US Campaign’s anti-racism principles.

In response, the Free Palestine Movement defended Weir and publicly withdrew from the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (received via email):

Please be advised that the Free Palestine Movement resigns from the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, effective immediately.

We resign because of the disgraceful, disrespectful and unjust treatment of Alison Weir and her organization, If Americans Knew, in the procedures to expel her from the Campaign on the spurious grounds of insufficient avoidance of anti-Semitic persons and institutions.
We resign because it is clear that the decision had been made to expel IAK before the proceedings to do so had ever begun.
We resign because, in defiance of the most basic principles of justice, Ms. Weir was not given the opportunity to confront her accuser.
We resign because no evidence was presented that she herself is anti-Semitic.

Gives the word "solidarity" a whole new meaning!

Oh, and virulent antisemite Gilad Atzmon defended Weir as well and slammed JVP for being too, well, Jewish.

Missing among all of these self-righteous arguments about whether some anti-Zionists are also anti-semitic is, of course, a single word from these "anti-racist" groups against widespread and explicit Arab antisemitism. Mentioning that is going too far!

Why did Iran insist (and the US accede) to remove a nuclear smuggler from sanctions?

From the WSJ:

The Obama administration and European Union agreed as part of the accord last week to lift sanctions over eight years on a network of Iranian scientists, military officers and companies long suspected by the U.S. and United Nations as central players in a covert nuclear weapons program.

The U.S. also agreed to remove a German engineer from its financial blacklist by late 2023 after he was targeted by sanctions for his alleged role in a global black market in nuclear weapons technology run by the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Obama administration officials said the U.S. was required under the Vienna agreement and U.N. resolutions to lift sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities for their role Tehran’s nuclear program.

Lawmakers and nuclear experts were also puzzled by the Obama administration’s decision to remove Gerhard Wisser from its sanctions list by 2023. The German engineer was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison by a South African court in 2007 for his role in supplying centrifuge components to the A.Q. Khan black market network.

The U.S. and IAEA accuse Mr. Khan and his associates of facilitating the sale of nuclear equipment to North Korea, Iran and Libya during the 1980s and 1990s.

The senior U.S. official didn’t provide specifics about why Mr. Wisser was granted sanctions relief as part of the Iran deal. Mr. Wisser could not be located. He pleaded guilty in 2007 in South Africa to manufacturing components that could be illegally used in nuclear technology.

A South African court sentenced a German man to 18 years in prison on Tuesday but suspended the jail term after he pleaded guilty in a case involving a global black market in atomic weapons technology. Gerhard Wisser, an engineer living in South Africa, was accused of having ties to a network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Wisser was also suspected of providing nuclear weapons components to Al Qaeda!

But isn't it interesting that Iran insisted as part of the deal to lift sanctions on a non-Iranian convicted nuclear smuggler, who was involved in nuclear bombmaking?

Clearly Iran felt it could ask for nearly anything it wanted in this joke of negotiations. And clearly - they were right, since the US said, "sure, no problemo! We want a deal, and if this would derail it, then we have to give in!"

Just as they did with dozens of other concessions, big and small.

Religion Ministry Sends Search Party To Help Evangelicals Find Jesus (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, July 22 - Minister of Religious Services David Azulai, hearing that Evangelical Christians have been inquiring of people whether they have found Jesus, has ordered his staff to assemble a search party to assist in efforts to locate the man.

Minister Azulai has been keen to demonstrate tolerance and support of religious communities other than Orthodox Jews after an episode several weeks ago in which he dismissed Reform and Conservative Jews as not authentically Jewish. Feeling his backpedaling on that statement has been insufficient, Azulai has sought out ways to display openness and acceptance of others, and, upon hearing that Evangelicals are habitually making inquiries after Jesus, decided to pitch in to help them.

Protestant movements, as a rule, are not officially recognized communities in Israel, with the notable exception being the Anglican Church. That recognition mainly takes the form of authority over marriage, divorce, and assorted other functions affecting each respective denomination. Nevertheless, Israel welcomes Christian tourists, and does not bar members of non-recognized denominations from living or working there. Azulai's aides identified Evangelical Christians, who enjoy political influence in large stretches of the US, as a key demographic with which to develop rapport, in part to offset the growing alienation of non-Orthodox American Jews. Helping in the search efforts for Jesus, they reasoned, would cement Azulai's, and therefore his Shas Party's, reputation for ecumenicism where they had previously been known as inward and intolerant.

Ministry officials explained that the resources a government could bring to bear in the search efforts could prove effective where private efforts have failed. "This Jesus character has been sighted all over the place, but apparently many of the places with which he is most closely associated are here in Israel, so we stand a good chance of locating him," said ministry spokesman Enli Mussag. "We will of course take into account eyewitness reports that he has appeared elsewhere in the world, such as on pieces of toast in Arkansas, but the most reliable accounts place him in these parts."

Mussag said the search party would first concentrate on surveillance of the most likely sites, and would set up cameras and other sensors in the several dozen locations where Jesus is reported to frequent. With those sites covered technologically, the team would then concentrate on other locations where reports place him. "Fortunately, those places are concentrated in two principal areas: Jerusalem and the Galilee. We should be able to make a thorough search of all the sites by the end of the summer."

Ministry officials have not said what they intend to do if they find Jesus. "We're not going to say we've found him, and certainly not by ourselves," said Minister Azulai magnanimously. "Evangelicals have been asking people whether they have found Jesus for many years already, and it is only thanks to their efforts that the search can be conducted with this level of detail. No, if this operation results in someone finding Jesus, we will step back and allow our Evangelical friends to claim the achievement as their own."

07/22 Links Pt1: Glick: How and why to kill the deal; Obama Lied: No Ballistic Missile Restrictions

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: How and why to kill the deal

Unfortunately, while eminently reasonable sounding, Ignatius’s analysis is incorrect. Kerry’s details of the deal are beside the point. The big picture is the only thing that matters. That picture has two main points.
First, the deal guarantees that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. Second, it gives $150 billion to the mullahs.
The details of the deal – the number of centrifuges that keep spinning, the verification mechanisms, the dispute resolution procedures, etc. – are all debatable, and largely irrelevant, at least when compared to the two irrefutable aspects of the big picture.
According to the administration, today Iran needs a year to use the nuclear materials it is known to possess to make a nuclear bomb. Other sources claim that Iran requires several months to accomplish the task.
Since these materials will remain in Iran’s possession under the deal, if Iran abandons the agreement, it will need at most a year to build nuclear weapons.
Then there are the unknown aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. We must assume that Iran has ongoing covert nuclear operations in unknown installations through which it has acquired unknown capabilities.
These capabilities will likely reduce the time Iran requires to make bombs.
Under the deal, the US and its negotiating partners are required to protect Iran’s nuclear assets from sabotage and other forms of attack. They are required as well to teach Iran how to develop and use more advanced centrifuges. As a consequence, when the agreement expires, Iran will be able to build nuclear bombs at will.
If Iran remains a threat, the deal bars the US from taking any steps to counter it aside from all-out war.
The agreement ends the international sanctions regime against Iran. With the sanctions goes any prospect of an international coalition joining forces to take military action against Iran, if Iran does walk away from the deal. So sanctions are gone, deterrence is gone. And that leaves only war.
In other words, far from diminishing the chance of war, the deal makes it inevitable that Iran will get the bomb or there will be a full scale war, or both.

Alan Dershowitz: US gave away better options on Iran

The most compelling argument the Obama administration is offering to boost what it acknowledges is a compromise nuclear deal with Iran is this: it’s better than the alternatives. That sort of pragmatic point is appealing to members of Congress, particularly skeptical Democrats who are searching for ways to support their president and who are accustomed to voting for the lesser of evils in a real-politick world where the options are often bad, worse, even worse, and worst of all.
But the question remains: How did we get ourselves into the situation where there are no good options?
We did so by beginning the negotiations with three important concessions. First, we took the military option off the table by publicly declaring that we were not militarily capable of permanently ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Second, we took the current tough sanction regimen off the table by acknowledging that if we did not accept a deal, many of our most important partners would begin to reduce or even eliminate sanctions. Third, and most important, we took off the table the option of rejecting the deal by publicly acknowledging that if we do so, we will be worse off than if we accept even a questionable deal. Yes, the president said he would not accept a “bad” deal, but by repeatedly watering down the definition of a bad deal, and by repeatedly stating that the alternative to a deal would be disastrous, he led the Iranians to conclude we needed the deal more than they did.
These three concessions left our negotiators with little leverage and provided their Iranian counterparts with every incentive to demand more compromises from us. The result is that we pinned ourselves into a corner. As Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute put it: “The deal itself became more important than what was in it.” President Obama seems to have confirmed that assessment when he said: “Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.”
Only time will tell whether this deal decreases or increases the likelihood of more war. But one thing is clear: By conveying those stark alternatives to Iranian negotiators, we weakened our bargaining position.
The consequences will be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and a greater likelihood of war.

Moynihan’s message on BDS and Iran appeasement: We’ve got to stop this

Forty years ago, in July 1975, America’s new UN ambassador heard how American diplomats at the first International Women’s Conference in Mexico City tolerated Third World insults. Banging his fist on the table, Daniel Patrick Moynihan exclaimed: “We’ve got to stop this!” These are sobering times. The international threats are daunting – and leadership is wanting. Whatever you think of the Iranian agreement, the image of the great, virtuous United States of America negotiating with Iranian diplomats in exclusive European hotels while Iranian thugs yell “Death to America” on Teheran’s streets diminished all democracies. And whatever you think of Israel’s particular policies, the fact that many Progressives consider democratic Israel public enemy number one, not Iran, North Korea or other truly evil regimes, demeans liberalism.
This topsy-turvy world needs some history lessons and inspiring role models. With liberal Democrats dominating the American government and media, let’s remember muscular liberals who defended America proudly. Forty years after he became US ambassador to the UN, while building toward the fortieth anniversary of his denunciation of the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution in November 1975, we should echo the great liberal statesman Daniel Patrick Moynihan, vowing: “We’ve got to stop this!” Moynihan refused to be an appeasing diplomat. Diplomats should deploy many tactics, he said, not just negotiation and compromise. Occasionally, diplomats had to defend national dignity, courageously, aggressively.
Accused of picking a fight over the Zionism-is-racism resolution, he replied, “Damned right we did!” Moynihan’s vigor stemmed directly from his liberal belief in an activist government operating intelligently, creatively and proactively, both domestically and internationally.
Moynihan mocked diplomats who believed their mission was to woo the enemy rather than defend America.

Fareed Zakaria's bizarre downplaying of Ayatollah Khamenei's threats

On CNN, Fareed Zakaria says that Ayatollah Khamanei doesn't want to destroy Israel by force, but by peaceful democratic means:

The problem is that while Zakaria notes that Khamenei is a canny politician, he is clueless that he is the person being conned.

Zakaria is brainwashed like most reporters into the fiction that the "occupation" is the single biggest obstacle to peace and that if only Israel would give away more land then everything would be OK. He applies this false meme into what Khamanei says, and therefore ignores what Khamanei actually says and means.

Yes, it is true that Iran does not want a direct war with Israel. It wants to destroy Israel by any other means. But, contrary to what Zakaria ways, that means includes indirect war. In 2012, he said:

We have intervened in the anti-Israel struggle, and the results have been the victories in the 33 days war [the 2006 war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon] and the 22 days war [Israel’s attacks on the Gaza strip in December 2008]. From now on we will also support any nation, any group that confronts the Zionist regime, we will help them, and we are not shy about doing so. Israel will go, it must not survive, and it will not.

Nothing about democracy there. Iran knows that if it attacks through Hezbollah or other terror groups, Israel would find it difficult to muster world support for an attack on Iran in response. So Khamenei cultivates those willing to die for the cause while shielding Iran from reprisals.

However, Khamenei knows that the Western world is enamoured of the idea of democracy, so he also created a lie that he cares about democracy too.

In the beginning, his message was not quite as on target. In 1994 he said:

Palestine belongs to the Palestinians. If the Palestinians in Palestine—in all of Palestine—form a government, peace will prevail. If you [Israel’s supporters] are truthful [about wanting peace], and if you have not conspired against the Palestinian nation, Islamic nations, and Islam, that is the solution.

Nothing about democracy then either. But then he refined the message:

The solution is for the millions of the Palestinians to return to Palestine, the several millions that live away from home to return to Palestine. The indigenous people of Palestine—Jews, Christians, and Muslims—should hold a referendum to decide what kind of a regime they want. The vast majority are Muslims. There are also Jews and Christians that belong there, as their parents also lived there. They can decide the political system that they favor. Then, that state would decide what to do with the people that have moved there over the last forty to fifty years. Keep them there, return them to their original country, keep them in a special part, whatever decision the new Palestinian government makes should be respected. This is the solution to the crisis. So long as it is not implemented, no other solution will be effective.

Khamenei isn't saying that the people who live in the arbitrary boundaries of British Mandate Palestine should be allowed to vote, as Azkaria implies. Jews are a majority there. Khamenei is saying that all Palestinians whose ancestors lived in Palestine at any time should be given the right to vote, but the only Jews who have that right are the ones who lived there before Israel existed. Any Jews who lived in Israel for decades have no say. And then, the resulting nation has the right to expel those Jews if they decide to do so "democratically."

This isn't democracy; it is rigging the game so that suckers like Zakaria believe that Khamenei cares about democracy while he plans on ethnically cleansing millions of Jews from their homes.

Zakaria doesn't think that is worth mentioning.

And in the tweet that he mentions, Khamenei says this explicitly - but Zakaria only quoted the part that make Khamenei sound like he is peaceful:

Zakaria expesses puzzlement over the idea of "throw migrated Jews into the sea," not noticing that Khamenei is explicitly advocating a plan to ethnically cleanse practically all Jews from Israel.

Notice that Khamenei's plan also includes attacks against Israeli Jews by arming West Bank terrorists.

And the one word that Khamenei doesn't say, but Zakaria emphasizes, is "occupation."

Now, let's look at the quote that Zakaria did take from this screed, where Khamenei is saying he doesn't want a "classical war" with Israel. would handing a nuclear bomb to Hezbollah or another group to approach Tel Aviv by sea and explode it be considered "classical"?

Khamenei also puts out videos like this threatening Israel with missiles:

Zakaria's defense of Khamenei, and his idea that Israel's control of its ancestral lands is a problem that would neutralize Khamenei's threat, is fantasy. And one must wonder why he either didn't read, didn't understand or chose to not inform his audience about the entire Khamenei plan that he quoted that shows that democracy is the least of Khamenei's interests.

(h/t Richard Landes)

Here's an incident that Amnesty won't report in its "Gaza Platform" (update)

As we have seen, Amnesty is slavishly copying every incident mentioned in daily Al Mezan and PCHR reports from the war last summer, including incorrect snap judgments as to whether victims were civilian, and adding that often wrong information into its database to damn Israel.

In fact, today's tweet, about an incident where they each accused Israel of shooting into a hospital, was counted twice in this database, so the same people were counted as victims more than once in Amnesty's database that they plan to use to prove Israeli "war crimes." (Event IDs 2422 and 2345.) UPDATE: Also, they fail to mention that the hospital wasn't targeted, but a cache of anti-tank missiles that Hamas had hidden nearby - and which may have been what caused the damage.

What's wrong with a little victim inflation in a research tool, anyway?

But there is one incident that PCHR reported that Amnesty didn't mention, and it shows both PCHR's bias and Amnesty's.

At approximately 16:45 on Monday, 28 July 2014, a projectile landed near a number of Palestinian children were playing and celebrating the Eid al-Futur in the northern part of al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City. As a result, 10 children and a passing old man were killed: Yousef 'Abdul Rahman Hassouna, 11; Mahmoud Hazem Shubair, 12; Ahmed Hazem Shubair, 10; Jamal Saleh 'Olayan, 8; Baraa' Akram Miqdad, 7; Mohammed Nahidh Miqdad, 13; Mohammed Mahmoud Abu Shaqfa, 7; Mohammed 'Emad Baroud, 10; Ahmed Jaberr Wishah, 10; Mansour Rami Hajjaj, 14; and Subhi 'Awadh al-Hilu, 63. A PCHR field worker arrived at the scene 20 minutes following this incidents, while ambulances were completing the evacuation of the wounded persons and the bodies of victims. She reported that the projectile landed on the street near a grocery shop as a number of children were playing in the area. She further reported that the high number of casualties and the extensive destruction in the area are not different from the outcomes of Israeli attacks over the past days.

Of course, this was an Islamic Jihad rocket that killed those kids.

As the Davis Report admitted:

The commission received information from NGO’s who conducted field research and a UN source who collected information indicating that the explosion had been caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket. One of them inspected the site after the attack and concluded that the impact of the explosion on the ground could not have been caused by an Israeli missile or artillery shell; the NGO also indicated that eyewitnesses had reported seeing a rescue team go to the place just after the attack, whose members did not collect the wounded but cleared and collected the remnants of the weapons. In addition, two journalists who spoke to the commission also suggested the attacks had been caused by Palestinian rockets misfiring. One of them said that Hamas members had gone to the site immediately after the events and cleared away the debris. The other said he had been prevented by local authorities from going to the site of the attack.

The commission found there was credible information pointing to the conclusion that a misfired Palestinian rocket was the source of this explosion. Given the gravity of the case, in which 11 children and 2 adults were killed in a place crowded with civilians, and the allegations that local authorities may have attempted to hide evidence of the cause of the incident, all relevant Palestinian authorities should conduct a thorough investigation of the case to determine the origin and circumstances of the attack.

So, naturally, this incident where 11 children were killed in Gaza during the war must be excluded from the Gaza Platform - because their deaths don't further Amnesty's goal of vilifying Israel.

(h/t Bob Knot)