Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 06, 2015

"Jewish messiah is a terrorist"

JTA reports:

Egyptian attitudes about Jews are changing. Egyptians are reassessing 1950s-era nationalization policies that squeezed out the Jewish community and other ethnic minorities. The word “Jew” is used less frequently as a curse word, and the historical TV drama “Jewish Quarter” was a breakout hit during Ramadan. The series cast the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood as a greater threat to Egypt’s unity and security than the Jews and, sometimes, even the Zionists.

This is true, and I have reported on this phenomenon a few times.

But it doesn't mean that antisemitism in Egypt is not tolerated. There is still plenty of it and there is no stigma attached to it.

El Badil has an article by Gaza-based Mustafa Yusuf Leddawi that says that, unlike the messiahs of Christianity and other religions, the Jewish messiah is supposed to be particularly depraved.

He says that the Jewish messiah would be an "assassin terrorist, and usruper aggressor, and a liar, filled with evil, bloodthirsty, and calls for war, and fights peace, and kills the weak, and fights the oppressed, and champions the oppressor, and assaults all righteousness and honesty, supports all falsehood, an unjust tyrant..."

Leddawi, who we have shown previously shown to promote the classic blood libel, is particularly worried about the Jewish messiah destroying the Al Aqsa Mosque in order to rebuild the Temple, and he thinks that every Israeli wants to do this themselves.

There is a huge irony here in Leddawi saying that the Jewish messiah is particularly violent. Last Christmas, he described Jesus admiringly as the "first Palestinian fedayeen," the term used for Arab terrorists.

Amnesty's Twitter obsession with Israel by the numbers

Yesterday I tweeted:

46 of @AmnestyOnline's last 100 tweets were about last year's Gaza war, overwhelming majority anti-Israel. Priorities.http://t.co/vmVOASrcLG
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) August 5, 2015

That is quite an obsession with a year-old war.

And Amnesty's comparative social media silence on Yemen, Syria and other areas is not only telling, but chilling.

Although a few of the tweets mentioned Hamas rockets and execution of "collaborators," the vast majority of Amnesty's Gaza anniversary tweets were against Israel. None of the tweets about Hamas linked to any relevant stories - on the contrary, they linked to the Gaza Platform that does not have a single episode of Hamas violence mentioned among several thousand anti-Israel items in its database.

I sent a series of tweets to an Amnesty-UK's Kristyan Benedict when he said he had nothing to apologize for by retweeting Hamas:

Hillel Neuer ‏@HillelNeuer 17 hours ago

.@KreaseChan If you believe you're justified in retweeting a terrorist org, say so. Otherwise, please apologize.

kristyan benedict @KreaseChan

I'll post you a dictionary @HillelNeuer - look up 'dictionary' in a dictionary if you don't know what one is.
kristyan benedict ‏@KreaseChan 17 hours ago

There is increasing evidence of Israel's war crimes & accountability is certainly needed. Nothing for me to apologize for x @HillelNeuer
ElderOfZiyon ‏@elderofziyon 15 hours ago

Actually, @KreaseChan, there is a lot for @AmnestyOnline to apologize for http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/search/label/Gaza%20Platform … But you won't address them @HillelNeuer ElderOfZiyon ‏@elderofziyon 14 hours ago
So, @KreaseChan, why does the Gaza Platform ignore all research done by the Meir Amit Center? http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/07/even-more-bias-revealed-in-amnestys.html … @amnesty @HillelNeuer
ElderOfZiyon ‏@elderofziyon 14 hours ago

So, @KreaseChan, why does @amnestyonline use a researcher who admires airplane hijackers? http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/07/amnesty-researcher-loves-terrorists.html … @HillelNeuer
ElderOfZiyon ‏@elderofziyon 14 hours ago

So, @KreaseChan, why does @amnestyonline call terrorists "civilians" in Gaza Platform? http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/07/todays-amnesty-deceptions-and-lies.html … @HillelNeuer
ElderOfZiyon ‏@elderofziyon 14 hours ago

You, @KreaseChan, have the audacity to say you have nothing to apologize for? How about answering my points?@amnestyonline @HillelNeuer

Of course, Amnesty has been studiously ignoring all of my findings about how false and deceptive their tweets and articles have been.

Because they know that they cannot argue with the truth. They'd rather bury it.

One of the more astounding parts of the speech that President Obama gave on Wednesday defending his Iran nuclear deal was this:

Fifty-two years ago, President Kennedy, at the height of the Cold War, addressed this same university on the subject of peace. The Berlin Wall had just been built. The Soviet Union had tested the most powerful weapons ever developed. China was on the verge of acquiring the nuclear bomb. Less than 20 years after the end of World War II, the prospect of nuclear war was all too real.

With all of the threats that we face today, it is hard to appreciate how much more dangerous the world was at that time. In light of these mounting threats, a number of strategists here in the United States argued we had to take military action against the Soviets, to hasten what they saw as inevitable confrontation. But the young president offered a different vision.

OBAMA: Strength, in his view, included powerful armed forces and a willingness to stand up for our values around the world. But he rejected the prevailing attitude among some foreign-policy circles that equated security with a perpetual war footing.

Instead, he promised strong, principled American leadership on behalf of what he called a practical and attainable peace, a peace based not on a sudden revolution in human nature, but on a gradual evolution in human institutions, on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements.

Such wisdom would help guide our ship of state through some of the most perilous moments in human history. With Kennedy at the helm, the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved peacefully.

If Barack Obama had been president during the Cuban Missile Crisis, war would have been far more likely.

Kennedy saw that the Soviets had lied about what they were doing in Cuba and he made clear that the US was prepared to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the missiles would be removed. Obama found out about secret Iranian nuclear facilities - and did nothing.

Kennedy made sure that the enemy knew that war was a very real possibility, although one that he did not take lightly. Obama made it clear that attacking Iran was never on the table and he assured Iran that he would not only never go to war, but he would actively prevent any other nation from attacking Iran as well.

If Obama had negotiated with the Soviets the way he negotiated with Iran, he would have caved to every single Soviet demand. He would have concluded that it would be unrealistic to expect the Soviets to remove the missiles as long as the Us had missiles in Europe. He would have ended up defending every aspect of the Soviet aggression, and minimized the Soviets' lies about the nature of the missiles in Cuba.

Kennedy was able to preserve peace because he was willing to enforce American red lines with military strength. Obama has allowed Iran to cross many red lines, making it clear to Iran and US allies that he had no willingness to back up his statements with any kind of stick.

The only real concession that Kennedy made to the Soviets, to secretly dismantle the Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy, was no concession at all - because the US was planning to scrap them anyway.

By any yardstick, Kennedy forced the Soviets to back down. Obama backed down to Iran on numerous points.

Obama wants to compare himself to Kennedy? No, Mr. President, you're no Jack Kennedy.

Who's lying - Obama or Iran? (poster)

Source.

Since Iran can control who can physically visit the sites, it seems pretty clear who is lying.

Meanwhile,

The U.S. intelligence community has informed Congress of evidence that Iran was sanitizing its suspected nuclear military site at Parchin, in broad daylight, days after agreeing to a nuclear deal with world powers.

For senior lawmakers in both parties, the evidence calls into question Iran’s intention to fully account for the possible military dimensions of its current and past nuclear development. The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran have a side agreement meant to resolve past suspicions about the Parchin site, and lawmakers' concerns about it has already become a flashpoint because they do not have access to its text.

08/05 Links Pt2: A One-Sided Shame; Outrage as DOJ May Intervene in Terror Judgment Against PA

From Ian:

Stand With Us: A One-Sided Shame

One might look at the above as an opportunity to "re-ignite" the peace process and to try, once more, to bridge the gap between Israelis and Palestinians. To unite in pain, against more pain.
However, I myself remain doubtful. Such events do a lot to dispirit me about the possibility of peace between our neighbors and us. It is on such occasions that the moral gap between the two societies is most evident, and the level of political maturity (or lack of) is painfully visible.
On December 2014, 11-year-old Ayala Shapira was sitting by her father as they were driving the family car on their way home. A Molotov cocktail was thrown at them by Palestinian terrorists, seriously injuring Ayala (it fell right unto her lap), who is still struggling with tremendous difficulties and will unfortunately continue to struggle for the rest of her life. At least she made it alive.
On March 11, 2011, 2 young Palestinian murderers penetrated the home of the Fogel family in the Israeli town of Itamar. They massacred all 5 family members in their beds: the father Ehud Fogel, the mother Ruth Fogel, and three of their six children -- Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, the youngest, a three-month-old infant (who according to some sources was decapitated).
On those 2 occasions, and on many others, NO major protests were seen on the streets of Ramallah, Hebron or Jenin in the West Bank, crying out against violence and for justice. No Palestinian leader came to visit and condole the bereaved families of the victims. And could you even imagine -- in your remotest of dreams -- a possibility of an Israeli standing in the Mughrabi Square in Ramallah, crying for their murdered loved ones?! And just in case you were wondering, the name "Mughrabi" belongs to a Palestinian terrorist, Dalal Mughrabi, a leader of a group of Palestinian murderers who butchered 37 Israelis on a bus in 1978, 12 of whom children. This is who Palestinians chose to dedicate the square after.
Today I am reminded by the famous words of Israel's late Prime Minister, Golda Meir, who said: "We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."
May we love all children, whomever they are.

Haaretz's Gideon Levy Chooses a Classical Antisemitic Trope

"Historically it has been antisemites, not Jews, who have read 'chosen' as code for Jewish supremacism," wrote the readers' editor of the Guardian in response to a writer's 2011 charge that Israelis regard their lives as more valuable than others'.
But it's not only card-carrying antisemites like David Duke who have invoked the notion of “chosen” as code for Jewish supremacism. Gideon Levy, a Jewish veteran journalist at the Israeli daily Haaretz, invoked the centuries-old antisemitic trope in his Aug. 2 Op-Ed ("All Israelis Are Guilty of Setting a Palestinian Family on Fire"):
At the end of a terrible day, it is this that leads to the burning of families whom God did not choose. No principle in Israeli society is more destructive, or more dangerous, than this principle. Nor, unfortunately, more common. If you were to examine closely what is concealed beneath the skin of most Israelis, you would find: the chosen people. When that is a fundamental principle, the next torching is only a matter of time.

Oprah Winfrey Rejects Israel Boycott of diamond producer Lev Leviev

Executives at O, the Oprah Winfrey magazine, refused on Monday to receive a small group of activists accusing Israeli diamantaire Lev Leviev of involvement in human rights abuses in the Middle East and Africa.
Representative and activists affiliated with Adalah-NY, an advocacy group focused on boycotting Israel and Israeli products, sought to meet O executives at the magazine's headquarters at the Hearst Corporation in Manhattan.
The non-profit group said that they chose to focus on Winfrey after she wore Leviev's diamonds on the cover of the May 2015, 15-year anniversary issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. (h/t Bob Knot)

Hamas says it will force UNRWA not to delay school year

Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas said it will take legal action against UNRWA to ensure it doesn't reduce services and postpone the beginning of the school year in the Gaza Strip as it has considered.

Hamas MP Abdul Rahman Al-Jamal said that the UNRWA crisis is "fabricated" and aims to end the refugee issue altogetherm and that it has no financial crisis. He said the Legislative Council will not allow the school year to be postponed.

He also criticized the Palestinian Authority's attitude toward the UNRWA crisis, describing it as weak and lukewarm compared to the seriousness of this issue.

Meanwhile, UNRWA employees staged their own protest at the idea of having their salaries cut or being forced to go on leave.

This is an interesting story to follow as UNRWA keeps attempting to take money that otherwise would go to actual crises.

Tinder App For Muslim Countries Lets Only Men Swipe Left (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

New York, August 4 - A new version of the matchmaking app Tinder for Muslim countries has adapted the software to meet local cultural expectations, reserving the ability to reject a suggested suitor exclusively for male users.

Users and community leaders in Muslim countries and in heavily Muslim enclaves in Europe complained to IAC, the company that developed and owns Tinder, that the one-size-fits-all approach to matchmaking did not suit the mores of societies in which women are not given any say in whether marriage arrangement will go forward. Repeated petitions and inquiries led the company to develop Al-Tindr, which eliminates the swipe-left function for any user registered as female, in addition to several other changes.

Tinder is available in over 30 languages worldwide, but the current reworking for Al-Tindr represents the first adaptation for a new market that goes beyond mere translation. Users will be allowed to configure their profiles only to accept suggested matches of the opposite sex, unlike the original version of the app, which makes no such restriction. A beta release of Al-Tindr earlier this year uncovered several bugs, among them that the option for females to select other females had not been properly muted, resulting in a system malfunction when certain registered female users were unable to swipe left on any of the suggested matches, overloading the software.

A second important adaptation for Muslim countries involves the elimination of profile photos that display any more than a woman's eyes. Abstracted statistics will be made available, and male users will be allowed to select an option that renders the color of a woman's eyes in words, lest he be tempted by immoral thoughts as a result of seeing the actual image.

CEO of IAC Barry Diller told reporters he hopes the launch of Al-Tindr would be just the first in a series of cultural adaptations for non-Western users. "Our developers are currently working on a patch that would completely remove the female user from direct interface with any potential suitors, as some of our audiences in the Middle East have requested," he explained. "If a woman is not allowed to drive, or even be seen in public not in the presence of a male relative, there is no reason that standard should not be accommodated online as well, and our product will soon allow for that extra layer of modesty." Diller said the patch will give those male relatives a way to manage their female charges' Tinder profiles and interactions while clarifying for potential suitors that the person on the other end of the app is a male authority over, and not the actual, woman.

08/05 Links Pt1: Obama: without deal rockets will hit Tel Aviv; Kerry: doubts Iran’s desire to annihilate Israel

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: This isn’t about Bibi and Obama

It was obvious the fight over President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran would get very ugly, very quickly. And so it has.
It was obvious that it would be ugly because the fight over Obama’s appeasement policy toward Iran has been going on since he took office six-and-a-half years ago. And it has always been ugly.
Every time Obama has sided with the mullahs against domestic opponents he has played the Jew card in one way or another. He has blown more anti-Semitic dog whistles than many in Washington even realized existed.
Now the stakes are far higher than a mere sanctions bill. Obama has gotten his deal with Iran. And he’ll be damned if he allows it to go down.
So it is open season on Israel and its supporters.
Secretary of State John Kerry made this clear two weeks ago when he said it will be Israel’s fault if the deal goes down. Since the administration threatens that torpedoing the deal will cause war, Kerry is threatening that the administration will blame Israel if war breaks out.
As for Obama, in his conference call with leftist supporters last Thursday, he attacked AIPAC and the other Jewish organizations for daring to lobby Congress to vote against removing US sanctions from Iran and conflated their opposition to the deal with Jewish Republicans’ support for the invasion of Iraq.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Kerry Warns Congress About Risk of ‘Screwing’ the Ayatollah

Congress is the target of Kerry’s feistiness, as is his close friend and staunch adversary, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is leading the charge against congressional ratification of the deal. In the course of a lengthy and freewheeling interview—which you will find published in full, below—Kerry warned that if Congress rejects the Iran deal, it will confirm the anti-U.S. suspicions harbored by the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and eliminate any chance of a peaceful solution to the nuclear conundrum:
“The ayatollah constantly believed that we are untrustworthy, that you can’t negotiate with us, that we will screw them,” Kerry said. “This”—a congressional rejection—“will be the ultimate screwing.” He went on to argue that “the United States Congress will prove the ayatollah’s suspicion, and there’s no way he’s ever coming back. He will not come back to negotiate. Out of dignity, out of a suspicion that you can’t trust America. America is not going to negotiate in good faith. It didn’t negotiate in good faith now, would be his point.”
Kerry also said that his chief Iranian interlocutor, the foreign minister, Javad Zarif, and Zarif’s boss, the (relatively) reformist president, Hassan Rouhani, would be in “serious trouble” at home if the deal falls through. Zarif, Kerry told me, explicitly promised him that Iran will engage with the United States and its Arab allies on a range of regional issues, should Congress approve the deal. “Zarif specifically said to me in the last two weeks, ‘If we get this finished, I am now empowered to work with and talk to you about regional issues.’” Kerry went on, “This is in Congress’s hands. If Congress says no, Congress will shut that down, shut off that conversation, set this back, and set in motion a series of inevitables about what would happen with respect to Iranian behavior, and, by the way, the sanctions will be over.”

Kerry casts doubt on Iran’s desire to annihilate Israel

Regarding Iran’s open animosity to Israel, Kerry said that while “they have a fundamental ideological confrontation with Israel at this particular moment” that doesn’t necessarily mean “that translates into active steps” and pointed out that Iran has not ordered Hezbollah to use its arsenal of 80,000 missiles in Lebanon against Israel.
The discussion about Iran’s hostility toward Israel in connection with the nuclear deal is “a waste of time here,” opined Kerry.
The secretary of state also defended comments he made last Friday in which he warned that should Congress vote against the Iranian nuclear deal signed last month in Vienna, Israel could find itself more isolated in the international arena and “more blamed.”
It was, he explained, more of a head’s up to Israel than a threat.
“If you’ve ever played golf, you know that you yell ‘fore’ off the tee,” he said. “You’re not threatening somebody, you’re warning them: ‘Look, don’t get hit by the ball, it’s coming.’”

US Airstrikes on ISIS Kill 459 Civilians, Show Double Standard on Israel

Four hundred and fifty-nine innocent civilians have been killed by U.S.-led air strikes on ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq over the past year, according to a new report. It will be interesting to see how the international community reacts.
The new figures were released on August 3 by Airwars, an independent monitoring group that tracks and reports on air strikes against ISIS. Airwars says that it verifies its information by using “two or more generally credible sources, often with biographical, photographic or other evidence.”
The Obama Administration, however, has acknowledged only two civilian deaths from its air strikes. That’s a pretty significant discrepancy – 459 versus two. One wonders how the news media will treat that anomaly. When Arabs accuse Israel of killing large numbers of civilians, and the Israelis say that only a small number were killed, the Israeli position is routinely met with scoffing and derision from reporters .
Whether the number is 459 or 2, reasonable people would agree that the Obama Administration is surely doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties, so whatever the number, it must be an inevitable byproduct of war, not the result of American recklessness.

When will NGOs complain about Israel's use of administrative detention against Jews?

From AFP:

Israel used a controversial form of detention without trial against an alleged Jewish extremist for the first time, following international outcry over the death of a Palestinian toddler in an arson attack.

The use of "administrative detention," which has been applied to thousands of Palestinians, came as Israeli authorities arrested another suspected Jewish extremist and extended the detention of the leader of a radical religious group.

None of the three were accused of direct involvement in last week's firebombing of a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank in which an 18-month-old toddler was killed.

There have been hundreds of articles decrying Israel's use of administrative detention against Arabs. Amnesty International, for example, has written:

“The authorities in Israel have a duty to protect everyone in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories from threats to their lives and physical integrity. But they must do so in a manner that respects human rights,” said Ann Harrison (Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.] “Israel has used its system of administrative detention – intended as an exceptional measure against people posing an extreme and imminent danger to security – to trample on the human rights of detainees for decades. It is a relic that should be put out to pasture.”

B'Tselem:

B'Tselem's position is that the government of Israel must release all administrative detainees or prosecute them, in accordance with due process, for the offenses they allegedly committed. As long as Israel continues to use administrative detention, it must do so in a way that comports with international law - only in the most exceptional cases, when there is no other alternative, and in a proportionate manner.

The UNHRC:

The United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) today expressed concern by the continued and increasing use of administrative detention by Israeli authorities against Palestinians, who are being held without charge or trial, often on the basis of secret evidence, for periods of up to six months.

OHCHR reiterates it call on Israel to end its practice of administrative detention and to either release without delay or to promptly charge all administrative detainees and prosecute them with all the judicial guarantees required by international human rights law.

Will any of these organizations publicly call for these three Jews to be released or charged with a crime?

Amnesty's deception of the day

Amnesty International's daily anti-Israel tweet:

Israel bombed home in #AlShati without warning & killed 6, including 4-year-old: http://t.co/MhYwhZx2gG #50Days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/Eefaf3xoAW
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) August 4, 2015

The truth is that two of those killed were Islamic Jihad members, one a member of the Al Bakri family that lived there and the other a top commander.

Ramadan Ahmad al-Bakri:

Ibrahim Mohammad al-Mashharawi:

The tweet doesn't mention this. Neither does the Gaza Platform that Amnesty pretends is a "research tool."

But Amnesty's own report on the war does acknowledge that these terrorists were in the house, as well as the fact that the family initially denied this:

Although family members denied it, both Ramadan Kamal al-Bakri and Ibrahim alMashharawi were members of Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades, as was confirmed when, after some weeks, their names appeared on their list of “martyrs”.

Amnesty's Gaza Platform quotes this Amnesty report but did not choose to quote this relevant section. Because the point of the Gaza Platform is not to reveal the truth to researchers, it is meant to hide the truth in the quest to accuse Israel of war crimes.

Amnesty interviewed scores of people in Gaza. Many of them lied the same way this family did, denying any militants in their vicinity - and Amnesty believed them without question. Since then, as I've documented, many of these victims have been found to be terrorists and we now know that their relatives lied to Amnesty.

And Amnesty knows that they are often lied to, but when the lies take too much effort to find, they will always give the "witnesses" the benefit of the doubt - ignoring the fact that Hamas and other groups explicitly instructed Gazans to lie and claim everyone was a civilian. In other words, every single thing that "witnesses" tell Amnesty about IDF actions cannot be trusted when the interviewees are still living in Gaza and could suffer punishment for telling the truth.

Amnesty does not talk about that very relevant fact. They know that they are being lied to but they choose to believe it unless the evidence becomes overwhelming.

Ramadan al-Bakri used his family as human shields and used his family home to protect his commander, Ibrahim al-Mashharawi. Amnesty has nothing negative to say about that.

While Amnesty is attempting to paint Israel as guilty of war crimes, it is in fact adding every day more and more evidence that Amnesty in the Middle East is little more than an anti-Israel propaganda outlet masquerading as a human rights NGO.

UPDATE: The IDF's report described the truth:

According to the factual findings collated by the FFA Mechanism and presented to the MAG, the strike in question was aimed at Omar Al-Rahim, a senior commander, at a rank equivalent to that of a deputy brigade commander, in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization. Al-Rahim was staying in the house of Ramadan Al-Bakri, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant. During the target planning process, it was assessed that there might be a number of civilians present in the building, but that the extent of the harm expected to these civilians would not be excessive in relation to the significant military advantage anticipated to result from the strike. It was planned that the strike on the building would be carried out using a precise munition, and in a way in which would allow achieving the aim of the strike whilst minimizing harm to the surrounding buildings.

After the event, as a result of the strike, the target, Omar Al-Rahim, was severely injured, and Ibrahim Al-Masharawi, who was a senior commander at a rank equivalent to a battalion commander in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was killed, along with Ramadan Al-Bakri, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant, and four civilians.

After reviewing the factual findings and the material collated by the FFA Mechanism, the MAG found that the targeting process in question accorded with Israeli domestic law and international law requirements. The decision to strike was taken by the competent authorities and aimed at a lawful target - a senior commander in Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The strike complied with the principle of proportionality, as at the time the decision was taken, it was considered that the collateral damage expected from the strike would not be excessive in relation to the military advantage anticipated from it. Moreover, the strike was carried out while undertaking precautionary measures which aimed to mitigate the risk of civilian harm, with an emphasis on those who were present in the surrounding buildings. Such measures included, inter alia, the choice of munition to be used, as well as the deployment of real-time visual coverage. Additionally, it was found that the provision of a specific warning prior to the attack, to the people present in the structure in which the target was located, or to those in adjacent buildings, was not required by law and was expected to result in the frustration of the strike's objective.

Amnesty and the Gaza Platform didn't report about Omar al-Rahim even though they have a broken link to the IDF report.

We've previously looked at Ghassan Daghlas, the person whose job it is to lie about Jews in Judea and Samaria.

I'm not joking. Daghlas is in charge of the Israeli Settlements File for the Palestinian Authority for the northern part of the West Bank.

He has been quoted hundreds of times about what the evil Jews have been doing, and his record of telling the truth is pretty much nonexistent. Stories of Jews uprooting olive trees and burning crops on Shabbat are part of his weekly routine, and no Arab media outlet is going to check on any of his preposterous lies. And he never, ever produces photos of his discoveries.

Now, the episode in Duma is giving him a chance to show off more of his skills at creating lurid lies and incitement against Jews.

Daghlas is being quoted in Arab media as having discovered "new details" of the firebombing of the house in Duma.

He quotes unnamed "witnesses" as saying that the "settlers" had first thrown the Molotov cocktails at the home, and then waited for the family to leave so they could pour gasoline on them ans set them on fire directly. Afterwards, he says, the Jews danced around the victims ecstatically as they burned.

Also, a five year old tried to stop them but they tried to kidnap him. He escaped and told the neighbors, who presuambly watched passively as the Jews danced around the burning Arabs.

Just for fun, I Googled how many times Mondoweiss quoted this liar as a reliable.

The answer: 227.

But it isn't only Mondoweiss. Daghlas has been quoted uncritically by the New York Times, Reuters, CNN and many other news outlets.

It simply does not occur to the media that the PA pays a man to lie to their faces. And they pay him with Western donor funds.

But the media cannot cover this story because it will show them to be dupes.

More Jerusalem Arabs applying for Israeli citizenship

From Reuters:

"I declare I will be a loyal citizen of the state of Israel," reads the oath that must be sworn by all naturalized Israeli citizens. Increasingly, they are words being uttered by Palestinians.

While Israel regards the east of the city as part of Israel, the estimated 300,000 Palestinians that live there do not. They are not Israeli citizens, instead holding Israeli-issued blue IDs that grant them permanent resident status.

While they can seek citizenship if they wish, the vast majority reject it, not wanting to renounce their own history or be seen to buy into Israel's 48-year occupation.

And yet over the past decade, an increasing number of East Jerusalem Palestinians have gone through the lengthy process of becoming Israeli citizens, researchers and lawyers say.

In part it reflects a loss of hope that an independent Palestinian state will ever emerge. But it also reflects a hard-headed pragmatism - an acknowledgement that having Israeli citizenship will make it easier to get or change jobs, buy or move house, travel abroad and receive access to services.

Israeli officials are reluctant to confirm figures, but data obtained by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies indicates a jump over the past decade, rising from 114 applications in 2003 to between 800 and 1,000 a year now, around half of which are successful. On top of that, hundreds have made inquiries before the formal application process begins.

Interior Ministry figures obtained by Reuters show there were 1,434 applications in 2012-13, of which 189 were approved, 1,061 are still being processed and 169 were rejected. The remainder are in limbo.

Palestinians who have applied do not like to talk about it. The loyalty oath is not an easy thing for them to sign up to and becoming a naturalized Israeli - joining the enemy - is taboo.

"It felt bad, really bad," said a 46-year-old Palestinian teacher who took the oath a year ago. Despite her reservations, she knew it was right for stability and career prospects.

"We just want to live our lives," she said. "At the end of the day, politics gets you nowhere."

Some other Palestinians fear their community's reaction to breaking the taboo, so keep their decision even from family and friends.

For many Palestinians, East Jerusalem feel likes a twilight zone. They pay Israeli municipal taxes and receive healthcare and insurance benefits, but are often neglected when it comes to basic city services - from trash collection to new playgrounds and resources in schools and clinics.

The situation is particularly bad in places like Shuafat, a refugee camp a few minutes away from the Old City. Shuafat lies beyond the concrete barrier built by Israel in the mid-2000s, after a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings.

The Jerusalem municipality can't do anything about Shuafat - if Israel dismantles a "refugee" camp the world would freak out. There have been UN resolutions condemning Israel for thinking about dismantling camps in Gaza when there was still an Israeli presence there.

UNRWA agrees to provide services for that area.

So Palestinian Arabs keep its residents as zoo animals to show off how bad things are for them - and Reuters uses it as an example of how Israel doesn't take care of its Arab residents of Jerusalem. In fact, Israeli ambulances that venture into Shuafat often get stoned.

Then comes this interesting fact:

More Palestinians, albeit in small numbers, have also been moving into predominantly Jewish neighborhoods and even settlements on occupied land.

You know, those "Jewish only" neighborhoods we hear so much about.

See also this relevant article, "Mondoweiss reveals the evil Zionist dentist conspiracy."
(h/t K)

08/04 Links Pt2: UK Telco Blocks Pro-Israel sites; The Strange World of Max Blumenthal

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Honoring Shira

The murder of 16-year-old Shira Banki at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade on Thursday was a terrible tragedy – for her family and friends, and for those who envision an Israel that protects the freedom of all.
Shira succumbed to her wounds on Sunday at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem after a three-day battle for her life. She was stabbed by Yishai Schlissel, a fanatic homophobe who carried out a similar attack at the gay parade in Jerusalem a decade ago, and was just released from prison a few weeks ago.
Shira is survived by her parents and three siblings. Her family decided to donate her organs to save other lives.
The family issued a heart-wrenching statement saying: “Our magical Shira was murdered because she was a happy 16-year-old – full of life and love – who came to express her support for her friends’ rights to live as they choose. For no good reason, and because of evil, stupidity and negligence, the life of our beautiful flower was cut short. Bad things happen to good people, and a very bad thing happened to our amazing girl. The family expresses hope for less hatred and more tolerance.”
Shira represented the very finest of Israeli society.
According to her family and friends, she balanced a strong Zionist ethic with the liberal and democratic values of Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

NUT pulls 'one-sided' school books on Palestinians

The National Union of Teachers has “temporarily” pulled a new educational resource which aimed to “illustrate the daily struggles experienced by Palestinian children”, following public outcry that it was one-sided and unbalanced.
In a statement on Tuesday the union said: “The NUT and Edukid are temporarily withdrawing the jointly developed 'My Name is Saleh' teaching resources, which examine the situation of a Palestinian child through the framework of the UN Rights of the Child.
“The NUT remains confident in the materials, but we are always prepared to consider any concerns about publications we have any involvement with.
“Legitimate support of the United Nations’ definition of the rights of the child are something that we will of course uphold.”
The resource immediately drew criticism, with the Board of Deputies expressing concern that “the literature presents a one-sided and partisan view in contravention of legislation, which encourages political education in schools, but is required to be balanced”.
The resource was reported to both the Charities Commission, which said it was investigating the matter, and the Department for Education.
A DfE spokesperson said: “The law is crystal clear that all political discussions in school should be unbiased and balanced. Teachers should only use teaching materials which are suitable for their children and we trust them to decide which resources to use in their lessons.”

Obama admin mulling intervention in massive judgment against Palestinians in terror case

The Obama administration has signaled it may intervene next week in a civil lawsuit in which 11 American families won a potential billion-dollar judgment from the Palestinian leadership over a series of bombings and shootings that killed or wounded dozens of U.S. citizens, a move that critics say would find the government siding with terrorists over its own citizens.
The families won a $218.5 million judgment in February after a seven-week trial in Manhattan Federal Court in which a jury found the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority were responsible for a string of attacks from 2001 to 2004 that killed 33 and injured hundreds. A 1992 law that requires damages in such cases to be tripled, as well as interest on the award, would push it to as much as $1.1 billion. The judgment, which the Palestinians are appealing, would equal nearly a third of the Palestinian Authority’s annual operating budget.
Late last month, the Department of Justice, which had previously not been involved in the 11-year-old case, informed the court it was considering filing a “statement of interest” in the case by Aug. 10, but officials would not elaborate. A source said the Department of Justice was working with the State Department on the matter.
“As the filing states, the United States is considering whether to submit a Statement of Interest in the [Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization] matter,” a DOJ spokeswoman told FoxNews.com. “Any filing would be made on behalf of the United States, not on behalf of any other party.”