Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 13, 2015

"Jews played badminton in Al Aqsa Mosque"

This may be the nuttiest rumor yet about Jews on the Temple Mount.

An antisemitic former Kuwaiti MP tweeted twice about Jews yesterday.

One of his tweets called Jews the most despicable of all people that he claimed were ruining the 'Umma.

His other included this photo which he claimed showed Jews playing sports in the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The Jews not only broke into the third holiest mosque but they defiled it by playing badminton! How low can you get?

This rumor has been around for at least a year, mostly on Twitter and message boards.

The photo actually comes from Turkey. Hurriyet Daily News reported in 2013:

Children who attend Quran classes in Turkey’s Muğla province are now also receiving badminton lessons in the mosques, in accordance with a protocol signed recently between the Religious Affairs Directorate and Sports Directorate.

Offering badminton courses with Quran readings aims to get the children to form a habit of visiting the mosque, according to Anadolu news agency.

A badminton net was put up inside the Milas mosque and the first match went down between the Milas religious official Uğur Kocabaş and badminton trainer Şermin Günaydınoğlu. Lessons will now be offered to all children who attend the summer Quran courses at the mosque, the report said.

Kocabaş said the arrangement allowed “students to be introduced to sports while they learn religion.”

And it isn't only badminton, but also karate and soccer:

"Settlers Declare 'Talmudic War' on Palestinians"

That was the headline in Islam Today.

The article claims that settler rabbis are issuing religious rulings to kill Arabs.

Here is the screenshot of the auto-translated Facebook post for the article.

I don't recall seeing any articles in Arabic about how rabbis condemned the killing of the baby in Duma. Instead, only articles about how Jews support it.

08/12 Links Pt2: Jeremy Corbyn shares a stage with Carlos Latuff; Repulsive racism from Anna Baltzer

From Ian:

Corbyn and the Hamas backer who defends suicide bombs: He'll share stage with extremist... and a 'Holocaust cartoon contest' runner-up

Jeremy Corbyn is to share a stage with supporters of the Palestinian militant group Hamas – including an academic who has defended suicide attacks.
The Labour leadership frontrunner will speak later this month at a London conference hosted by the controversial publication Middle East Monitor.
One speaker will be Palestinian-born Dr Azzam Tamimi, who once told the BBC that ‘sacrificing myself for Palestine is a noble cause... I would do it if I had the opportunity’.
Another is Carlos Latuff, a cartoonist who compares Israel to the Nazis and came second in a Holocaust cartoon competition held by Iran in 2006.
Last night senior Labour MP John Mann, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group against anti-semitism, said: ‘These are not people a would-be Prime Minister should be sharing a platform with – and any contact with them should be to challenge them about their vile views.
‘He should be challenging Tamimi about his view that suicide bombings are in some way noble, and some of Latuff’s cartoons are deeply offensive. This sort of event is not where a would-be Prime Minister should be, it’s hugely inappropriate.’

Repulsive racism from Anna Baltzer

Meet Ilana Kaufman, a self described "black, gay professional Jew"
From the Forward, Ilana writes
I’m about as mainstream as we come. My family lights Sabbath candles and belongs to a synagogue. My daughter goes to religious school and Jewish summer camp. I even grow etrogs in my backyard. My community is mostly Jewish — and many, many are black like me.
Ilana is the JCRC San Francisco Bay Area’s Public Affairs and Civic Engagement Director. She reflects the diversity of the Bay area, and of the larger Jewish community
Its just one of many reasons that Anna Baltzer's (aka Anna Piller aka Anna Nardie) quip about the "white supremacy" of the Jewish Community Relations Council is so repugnant. Anna is the head of the extremist US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation - a group that denies Jewish ties to the land of Israel.
In her thoughtless, senseless and racist attack on the JCRC, Anna belittles and marginalizes the contributions of all Jews of color, including Ilana Kaufman.

Douglas MurrayWill Britain Pass the Choudary Test?

If there was a single flaw in the British Prime Minister's recent speech on countering extremism in the UK, it might be encapsulated in the name "Anjem Choudary." His speech went into terrific detail on the significance of tacking radicalism through the education system, the Charity Commission, the broadcasting license authority and numerous other means. But it failed the Choudary test.
That test is: What do you do about a British-born man who is qualified to work but appears never to have done so, and who instead spends his time taking his "dole" money and using it to fund a lifestyle devoted solely to preaching against the state?
The problem is not quite as straightforward as some commentators make out. The fact that Choudary is British-born and a British citizen makes it legally impossible for Britain to withdraw his citizenship or otherwise render him "stateless." He has a young family who cannot be allowed to starve on the streets, even if he could. These are admittedly late liberalism problems, but they are problems nonetheless.
On the other hand, what the state has allowed from Choudary in recent years looks more like a late Weimar problem. Choudary is not merely a blowhard pseudo-cleric with perhaps never more than a hundred followers at any one time -- although this is certainly the part of his persona that has garnered most attention. Indeed, his attention-seeking is perhaps the only first-rate skill he has. For instance, there was the time he claimed he was planning a "March for Sharia" through the centre of London, culminating at the gates of Buckingham Palace with a demand that the Queen submit to Islam. Having garnered the publicity he desired, Choudary cancelled his march not because there was a fairly measly counter-demo (of which this author was a part) but because his "March for Sharia" would have been unlikely to gather more than a few dozen attendees, and would most likely have descended into a "stroll inviting ridicule," at best.

Israel’s statement on The Rise of Global Genocidal Antisemitism

Israel’s Counselor on Human Rights, Nelly Shiloh, spoke today at the UN on The Rise of Global Genocidal Antisemitism

The good dhimmis of Amnesty and UNRWA

Yesterday I mentioned that the ICRC offices in Jerusalem were attacked by "Palestinian activists" yet no one said anything bad about the attackers.

Actually, Amnesty USA retweeted about the incident, supporting calling the attackers "steadfast:"

When given a choice to support the International Committee of the Red Cross or criminals, Amnesty backs the criminals.

This isn't the only protest against an NGO being praised by NGOs. Here is UNRWA's Chris Gunness sympathizing with people protesting UNRWA!

Understandable anger: Education is a right. "West Bank Refugees Block Roads in Protest of UNRWA Crisis" http://t.co/M0ar41B7IK RT
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) August 11, 2015

You see, if only we were nicer to the Arabs who keep demanding more and more even from those who are trying to help them, then everything would be OK.

Gunness followed up with another tweet that also implies that throwing more and more money at a welfare society will keep them happy:

Mass #Gaza protests. When I said @UNRWA = a regional stabilizer & our funding crisis had big implications I meant it http://t.co/e8YDe7DGrA
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) August 12, 2015

Gunness is cynically supporting the protests because the more publicity they get, the more Western governments will be scared that Arabs will do something violent - since that is the default opinion of Arabs among the "progressive" bigots who claim to support them.

So we have Arabs who know that when they act violently they will be supported by the very people they are attacking. They know that threats of escalating violence are a form of blackmail that consistently works. And the NGOs happily go along with this infantilization of Arab people because their entire funding structure depends on telling the world that Arab threats and violence are completely justified. The Palestinians, in turn, take this support as evidence that they have a "right" to more and more free Western support, and they are emboldened to keep the threats of violence as their main negotiating tactic.

It is a self-justifying cycle that works great for the NGOs seeking more cash and for the Arabs who demand it.

And the idea that Arabs should be encouraged to act like responsible adults is utterly foreign to these players.

The irony is that all of this freeloading is the exact opposite of the traditional Muslim idea of dignity. The honor/shame mentality has advantages as well as disadvantages, but one of its better features is that it is traditionally dishonorable to take handouts. But the new circumstances, of perpetual refugeehood and victimhood, turns this admirable Muslim quality into a farce, where it is now dignified to demand handouts and an insult to honor to have to work to support one's family. If there is any Muslim complaining about this, however, I haven't seen it, probably because the shame of Jews in Israel is far worse than the shame of retaining victimhood status to eventually remove that source of shame.

(h/t Vandoren)

Secret Addendum To Iran Deal Just Obama's Kenya Birth Certificate (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Vienna, August 12 - Hotel staffers cleaning up after the nuclear negotiations between Iran the p5+1 world powers last month came across what appears to be a secret element of the deal that emerged, in the form of a document that attests to the birth of Barack Hussein Obama in a Kenya hospital in 1961.

Congress and the Obama administration have clashed over the existence and content of any secret side agreements that are part of the deal, known as the JCPOA, which would remove sanctions from the Islamic Republic in exchange for various concessions in the country's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Skeptics of the deal especially have leveled vocal criticism of Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House for allegedly concealing from the American public what could be crucial information that would allow Congress to vote for or against the agreement with all the pertinent information in hand. Kerry and other administration representatives at first denied the existence of such side agreements, but at least two are known to exist. The Vienna document appears to add to the list, and its implications go far beyond the terms of the deal itself, affecting the legitimacy of the agreement as it potentially affects the legality of the Obama presidency. American Constitutional law mandates that the president be born in the United States; Obama has previously produced a birth certificate issued in Hawaii.

According to hotel employee Orly Taitz, the document in question is printed in English and Swahili, and registers the birth of Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. to Barack Obama and Ann Dunham at Mombasa State Hospital, August 4, 1961. Taitz said she discovered the certificate among papers accidentally left in the hallway outside the conference rooms where the negotiations took place, and that representatives of the various parties to the negotiations had denied ownership of the certificate. Attached to the certificate, which a reporter was allowed to see but not photograph, were several ages of terms under which the birth document would remain confidential among the parties to the talks.

Kerry and White House spokespeople were quick to deny the authenticity both of the certificate and its relevance to the JCPOA. "The American people got tired quite a long time ago with efforts to challenge the president's bona fide American birth," said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. "The so-called 'Vienna document' is a hoax, and neither it nor anything resembling it played any part in the negotiations or deal with Tehran."

Secretary Kerry sounded a similar note, accusing deal opponents of orchestrating the revelation. "The president has warned that the opponents of this deal will stop at nothing, even risking war, to undermine this eminently responsible agreement," he said. "Various moneyed interest are clearly behind this, and we all know whom I'm talking about."

08/12 Links Pt1: Glick: Anti-peace administration; Goldberg: Why Iran’s Anti-Semitism Matters

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The anti-peace administration

In his briefing with Israeli reporters, the high-level US official rejected the importance of the détente between Israel and its Arab neighbors because he claimed the Arabs have not changed their position regarding their view of a final peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
But this is also nonsense. To be sure, the official position of the Saudis and the UAE is still the so-called Arab peace initiative from 2002 which stipulates that the Arabs will only normalize relations with Israel after it has ceded Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan and allowed millions of foreign-born Arabs to freely immigrate to the shrunken Jewish state. In other words, their official position is that they will only have normal relations with Israel after Israel destroys itself.
But their official position is no longer their actual position. Their actual position is to view Israel as a strategic ally.
The senior official told the Israeli reporters that in order to show that “their primary security concern is Iran,” then as far as the Arabs are concerned, “resolving some of the other issues in the region, including the Palestinian issue should be in their interest. We would like to see them more invested in moving the process forward.”
In the real world, there is no peace process. And the Palestinian factions are fighting over who gets to have better relations with Iran. Monday we learned that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas wishes to visit Iran in the coming months in the hopes of getting the money that until recently was enjoyed by his Hamas rivals.
Hamas for its part is desperate to show Tehran that it remains a loyal client. So today, no Palestinian faction shares the joint Israeli-Saudi-Egyptian interest in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear armed regional hegemon.
The administration showed its hand in that briefing with the Israeli reporters last week. For all their talk about Middle East peace, Obama and his advisors are not at all interested in achieving it or of noticing when it has been achieved.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Why Iran’s Anti-Semitism Matters

The meeting was ending, and I did not have a chance to follow up with another question that has been nagging at me, which is this: Why does it seem to a growing number of people (I count Chuck Schumer in this group) that an administration professing—honestly, from what I can tell—to understand Jewish anxieties about the consequences of anti-Semitism in the Middle East does not appear to understand that the way some of its advocates outside government are framing the Iran-deal fight—as one between Jewish special interests, on the one hand, and the entire rest of the world, on the other—may empower actual anti-Semites not only in the Middle East, but at home as well?
Again, it seems to me that a plausible case could be made that this deal, as John Kerry has enthusiastically argued, is actually in Israel’s best interests—not only when compared to the alternative, but especially when compared to the alternative—and that the administration can make great hay out of the pro-Israel argument, and counter arguments that blame Israel’s well-meaning supporters in the United States for political difficulties surrounding the deal. I suspect that opponents of the deal in the American Jewish community are wrong in their views, but this does not make them warmongers, in the way Charles Lindbergh once understood Jews to be warmongers.
I know a number of things from my email traffic relating to this issue. The first is that, believe it or not, there are non-Jews who are worried about the Iran deal (more worried than I am, certainly). The second is that Jewish supporters of the Obama administration are beginning to feel scapegoated; the third is that supporters of the deal appear to be as sure of their position as those who supported the Iraq War (yours truly among them) were of theirs.
This last point is particularly interesting to me: The deal negotiated by John Kerry and his team may very well prevent Iran from gaining possession of a nuclear weapon for a very long time—and rejection of the deal now by Congress is unlikely to lead to a good outcome—but the risks here are huge: The administration, and supporters of the deal, are mortgaging the future to a regime labeled by Kerry’s State Department as the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and a regime that seeks the physical elimination of a fellow member-state of the United Nations and a close ally of the United States as well. Given that there is so much risk and uncertainty in what the United States is doing, it would be useful for the administration to make absolutely clear that it understands the nature of the regime with which it is dealing.

Michael Bloomberg: Supporters of Iran Nuclear Deal are “Resorting to Intimidation and Demonization”

The approach by advocates of the nuclear deal with Iran has been “disappointing” due to supporters “resorting to intimidation and demonization, while also grossly overstating their case,” former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote in an editorial Monday for Bloomberg News.
Last week, President Barack Obama said that it was not a difficult decision to endorse the agreement. I couldn’t disagree more. This is an extraordinarily difficult decision, and the president’s case would be more compelling if he stopped minimizing the agreement’s weaknesses and exaggerating its benefits. If he believes that the deal “permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” as he said in his speech at American University last Wednesday, then he should take another look at the agreement, whose restrictions end suddenly after 15 years, with some of the constraints on uranium enrichment melting away after just 10.
Overstating the case for the agreement belies the gravity of the issue and does more to breed distrust than win support. Smearing critics is even less effective. In his speech, the president suggested that critics of the deal are the same people who argued for the war in Iraq. The message wasn’t very subtle: Those who oppose the agreement are warmongers. (Of course, those who voted for the Iraq War resolution in 2002 include Obama’s vice president and secretary of state.) …
The White House’s behavior is especially disappointing given the way the negotiations unfolded. Every negotiation comes with give-and-take. This one was no exception. Significant concessions were made at the last moment, including on ballistic missiles and arms. These were surprising changes and they come with large implications that require careful scrutiny.

This morning, the Gaza NGO Safety Office sent out an SMS saying "Overnight, Pal. ops. fired 2 rockets toward the Green Line; both rockets dropped short and landed in the Pal. terr. "

Their latest bi-weekly report says:

During the period of reference Gaza witnessed a substantial increase in the number of rockets. From the 12 rockets fired between 30JUL-03AUG, six were launched from North Gaza; five others were fired from the Middle Area and a last one was fired from Rafah. Furthermore, from the total number of occurrences, ten rockets dropped short, one rocket exploded at the launching site; and a last one dropped on the Israeli side of the Green Line.

So Gaza terror groups are bombarding Gaza with rockets. 11 out of 12 attempts to shoot rockets to Israel ended up with the rockets exploding in Gaza.

No injuries were reported, probably thanks to the buffer zone Israel enforces. But in the past we have seen many rockets causing death and injury in Gaza. And, besides one incident, no reporters mentioned a single injury or death from the hundreds of Hamas rockets that fell in Gaza last year during Operation Protective Edge.

All of those other deaths are being blamed on Israel.

Today's Pallywood production (update)

A Jew and his son were walking in the Old City of Jerusalem.

An Arab says something to (or possibly spits at) them as they pass by.

The man, insulted, turns around and shoves the Arab twice.

Police separate the two.

Then the Arab starts his act.

He swoons and falls to the ground, pretending to faint.

Police try to pick him up but he keeps his knees on his stomach (while supposedly unconscious) so he can not be forced to stand.

So they carry him off.

Now the Arab headlines can say 'Settlers assault Christian man who said' Allahu Akbar. '"

(Ht / Bob Knot)

UPDATE : Bob K found another angle where it Appears the police held the Arab's throat for two seconds.

# Video | settlers assaulted a young man in front of the door of the chain and the occupation forces showered beat him Mmy led to loss of consciousness and taken to Ospy.tsoar Sabreen slaves
Posted by Holy network news on Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Amnesty-USA tells a whopper

I just found out about a specific Amnesty-USA Twitter account dedicated to nothing besides Israel and the the "occupied Palestinian territories."

Amnesty International USA team on Israel/OPT/State of Palestine: Edith Garwood, Country Specialist, and Alicia Koutsoulieris, Case Coordinator.

When Amnesty came out with the Gaza Platform, this Twitter exchange occurred between Yitzchak Goodman and AI-USA:

This is as baldfaced a lie as is possible, since I documented many "civilians" in Amnesty's Gaza Platform who weren't civilian. Such as Zakariya Alaa Subhi al-Batsh and six of his relatives in the same house, all of whom were militants and all of whom Amnesty called civilian:

Or Ibrahim Jamal Nasser, reported by Amnesty to be a 13-year old boy:

But maybe AIUSA just wasn't aware of these people. So I tweeted them last night:

OK, @IOTPA, here's one. Let me know when you correct it. Clock starts now. @yitzgood @amnesty pic.twitter.com/zDd77FrrIc
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) August 12, 2015

And here are a couple more to add to their list of corrections that must be made that I took from the Meir Amit Center that I verified the Gaza Platform calls "civilian.":

Hey, Amnesty says that they correct errors. Let's see if they are telling the truth.

Even though I proved that they count fewer terrorists killed than even Hamas does.

Antisemitism on the Temple Mount (video)

This is a 12 minute video - even with edits - showing a mob of Muslims following around a small group of haredi Jews visiting the Temple Mount.

The Jews act quietly and respectfully. But the fact that they are visibly religious seems to make the Muslims even more upset.

The entire time the Jews are being harassed and screamed at, simply because they are Jewish. The Muslims aren't there for prayer or for reflection or even to play ball - their entire lives are focused on trying to prevent Jews from walking around in peace..

But good luck finding any Western media outlet describing this accurately as what it is: pure Muslim antisemitism.

The good news is that haredi Jews are starting to visit the Temple Mount. It isn't only knitted-kipah Jews any more.

08/11 Links Pt2: US intervenes in lawsuit over Palestinian terror attacks; Wistrich's last essay

From Ian:

Wistrich takes aim at ‘anti-Zionist mythology’ of left in posthumous essay

In his final essay, Wistrich went on the attack against what he saw as one of the most pernicious dogmas of Israel’s critics, firmly rejecting any comparisons between the Jewish state and European colonialist regimes.
“Jews who arrived in British Mandated Palestine manifestly did not come in order to destroy or displace the Palestinian Arab ‘nation’—contrary to the myth propagated by the pro-Palestine radical left, until today,” he wrote, asserting that economic modernization spurred by Jewish national revival turned Palestine into a land “attracting substantial Arab immigration.”
According to Wistrich, there were around six hundred thousand Arabs in the entire British Mandated Territory in the early 1920s, rising to well over a million by 1940, “hardly an example of colonial dispossession of the ‘indigenous’ population.”
Most Palestinian Arabs during the Mandatory period were “either immigrants from neighboring Arab lands or descendants of immigrants who had arrived since the late nineteenth century,” he added.
“Not only were they not Palestinian ‘natives,’ but at the time of the Balfour Declaration there was no clear or distinct concept of a Palestinian Arab nation. The left-wing narrative, especially since 1967, has consistently sidelined such inconvenient realities, replacing them with ideological fictions,” he asserted.
Wistrich wrote that he believed Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War to be a turning point for much of the liberal and democratic left in their approach to Israel, with the state’s image turning into that of an occupier which “began to erode an unwritten taboo against open antisemitism since the Shoah.”
“A much harsher anti-Israel rhetoric” emerged both on the right and the left, including “an increasingly aggressive and vituperative anti-Zionism” on the part of radical “progressives.”

WSJ Book Review Takes on "Holocaust Syndrome"

Author and former AP reporter and editor Matti Friedman has previously, like CAMERA, drawn attention to the inaccuracies in media coverage of Israel. Now, in a sharp and funny book review in The Wall Street Journal, Friedman turns his gaze to “non-fiction” inaccuracies. In a review of Padraig O’Malley’s “The Two-State Delusion,” Friedman points out:
More work should have gone into ensuring accuracy. The author asserts, for example, that Israel’s military victory in 1967 resulted from “massive U.S. assistance,” when there wasn’t massive U.S. military assistance before 1967. (France was then the main arms supplier; the planes that won the war were Mirages and Mystères.) We learn that Ariel Sharon was an agriculture minister in 1971 and that this has something to do with the genesis of the settlements; he wasn’t, and it doesn’t. The author describes Israeli soldiers carrying their Uzis “nonchalantly,” which is a nice touch. But no Israeli soldiers carry the Uzi, which was deemed obsolete after the 1973 war and removed from frontline service after that. The word “homeland” is quoted pointedly from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, where that word doesn’t appear. Would it have been too much trouble to check the text? It’s a single sentence.
The sub-headline of the review is “The idea that a collective memory of the Holocaust renders Jewish judgment defective is somehow acceptable these days,” a point Friedman illuminates with this passage:
The “bonding, primal element” of the Jewish psyche, we learn, is the Holocaust. Israelis are in thrall to weapons because of the Holocaust; they are obtuse to the suffering of others because of the Holocaust; and in general they are sort of crazy because of the Holocaust. Actually, half of the Jewish population in Israel has roots in the Islamic world. Their families were displaced by Muslims, not Nazis. Israelis think many of their neighbors are out to destroy Israel not because of the Holocaust, but because many of their neighbors say they are out to destroy Israel. Israel’s actions in the Middle East, in other words, have to do with its experience in the Middle East. The country’s objective success against long odds would have to indicate that at least some of its decisions have been reality-based, if not quite reasonable.
The idea that a collective memory renders Jewish judgment defective seems to be something acceptable to say aloud these days in connection with Israel, which is why I’ve dwelled on it. It’s important to point out not only that this observation is wrong, but that it is a patronizing ethnic smear. I don’t like the careless generalizations in Mr. O’Malley’s book or his shaky grasp of the facts. But I don’t think they have anything to do with the potato famine.
The entire review, unlike the book apparently, is worth reading.

PROOF: EU is funding anti-Israel organizations, violating international law

Israel and the EU established diplomatic relations in 1959. TheRebel.media recently sat down with the Ambassador of the EU to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, to discuss this complicated relationship.
Because Israel is a democracy, the EU is far more critical of them than of other Middle Eastern countries.
This double standard extends to EU NGOs pushing anti-Israel "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" campaigns, even though the Ambassador insists that the EU is against BDS.
According to Israeli officials, the EU is acting illegally (and violating its own signed agreements) by funding unauthorized Palestinian buildings in areas placed under Israel control by international law, including the West Bank.
Investigative journalist Ben-Dror Yemini says "Israel should tell the EU, 'enough.'"
He says that the EU's official statements about Israel often contradict their real world actions.
Igal Hecht presents a number of examples of this.

EU violating international law in relations with Israel

Islamic Jihad has announced that it will open summer camps for 6000 children tomorrow.

The purpose of the "camps" is explicit - to create the next generation of mujahadeen. The name of this year's camps are "youthfulness victory."

If there are children under 15 in these camps, then Islamic Jihad is violating international law by recruiting them. Not that "human rights" NGOs will say anything against it.

In other Islamic Jihad news, one of its military leaders now claims that their rockets can reach all parts of "Palestine."

Last week, as noted by Elder among others, the UK’s pro-BDS National Union of Teachers (NUT), the country’s largest teachers’ union, has – temporarily – withdrawn a controversial teaching resource consisting, to quote the London Jewish News (http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/nut-pulls-one-sided-literature-on-middle-east-following-heavy-criticism/), “of videos and teachers’ prompts,” while the Charities Commission investigates whether guidelines have been contravened. Developed in collaboration with Edukid and the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, the resource is widely viewed as deliberate demonization of Israel unacceptable in schools. Former Communities minister Sir Eric Pickles noted that a reference in the resource “to ‘Jews’ as opposed to ‘Israelis’ is particularly objectionable” while another Conservative MP, Andrew Percy, commented that “The NUT’s attempt to justify its indefensible document by saying they work with the Holocaust Education Trust is utterly derisory”. Percy added: “As a former history teacher, if any of my students produced such a biased piece of work they wouldn’t have expected to pass.”

As reported by Breitbart (http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/08/03/national-union-of-teachers-accused-of-pushing-palestine-propaganda-on-school-kids/), Jewish leaders claim that the resource is “one-sided and partisan” in its portrayal of the Middle East, and the Jewish Chronicle (http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/141445/nut-pulls-one-sided-school-books-palestinians) quoted a Department of Education spokesperson thus: “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.”

Such trust may be misplaced. The resource under scrutiny is not the only item of its kind developed by Israel’s enemies in the UK for turning young minds against Zionism and the Jewish State. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, for instance, introduced in 2009 a pernicious "Teachers Pack on Palestine" called "Exploring Palestine through Citizenship". A publicity leaflet obtained by me at the time describes it as follows:

‘PSC, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and CAABU, the Council for Arab-British Understanding have put together an excellent online educational resource designed to introduce secondary school students to Palestine. They are mainly geared towards the Citizenship Curriculum, but can be used in English, Media, History and Geography lessons. 1) Forced to leave home: After brainstorming what they would take from their homes if they had to flee at short notice, students will do short role-plays based on fleeing home; 2) Role-play – refugees: A role-play to explore some of the key questions around one of the most central issues regarding Israel-Palestine. In character students will discuss the Right of Return and who has responsibility for the Palestinian refugees. 3) Handala – a boy whose face we don't see: Students will look at 10 cartoons by Naji Al-Ali, a Palestinian political cartoonist and one of the most popular in the Arab world. Students will explore the power of symbiosis and draw their own cartoons; 4) The opinions of maps [Elder’s readers will need no prompting regarding which four maps!]: Students will look at a range of maps of Israel-Palestine representing different perspectives and identify the main themes of each map – thereby increasing their understanding of some of the main issues, improving their map literacy and addressing the question of whether any map presents only "bias-free" facts; 5) Something to cheer about? The class will prepare and conduct a press conference around the British government's refusal of visas to the Palestine under-22 football team. 6) Why didn't Reem finish school? Students will be given a series of information cards about Gaza and from these each group will construct a story to explain why a girl living in Gaza might not finish school; 7) A village and a wall – news story: Students will make a news bulletin about the weekly demonstrations in Bil'in, a Palestinian village cut through by the Wall; 8) Bil'in – role plays: Students will look at photos of Bil'in, a Palestinian village cut through by the Wall, and work in groups to make role-plays based on the photos; 9) Trading: different people, different chances – The class is split into several groups, and some of [sic] designated Palestinians and some settlers. The teacher administers the occupation as the different groups produce goods to sell – giving students an insight into how the occupation and the settlement enterprise affects Palestinian livelihoods; 10) What's in your shopping bag – is it illegal? Students will learn about fair trade and the issue of products in British supermarkets as being labelled as Israeli when they are from illegal settlements. In groups, students will produce a flyer, poster and letter to a supermarket; 11) Difference and sameness in a democracy: Students will read a couple of articles and do online research in preparation for a formal debate that takes Israel-Palestine as a case study: This house believes it is easier to be democratic when people are the same"; 12) False advertising: Students will look at an advert from the Israeli tourist board [http://daphneanson.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/travellers-tall-tale-palestine-lies.html ]that was taken down following several complaints and write their own letter of complaint. They will learn about the advertising code; 13) New news, old news, whose news? Students will look at events in a given week in the West Bank and Gaza and whether these events made it into the British press. Students will reflect on why or why not, and on the nature of news; 14) Being neutral: Students will look at the controversy around the BBC's decision in 2009 not to show a humanitarian appeal for Gaza in order to explore notions of neutrality and fairness; 15) Spray-painting the Wall: Students will analyse graffiti from the Wall in the West Bank and read an article on it, developing an understanding of the role that graffiti and art can play in such a context; 16) More on Bil'in: there are two lessons based on Bil'in, a village in the west Bank that has been the site of weekly demonstrations for four years against the Wall – which cuts straight through the village. Backgrounder on the Wall and Bil'in for teachers and for [sic] something for students.’

And watch out for The Balfour Project (http://www.balfourproject.org/), which is in the process of developing resource material for schools, and which in the meantime advises “Teachers may wish to have educational material for history lessons. Please contact us”.

The Steering Committee of this initiative consisted at the outset of Dr Mary Embleton, historian; Professor Mary Grey, theologian, writer and activist; Dr Imad Karam, academic and film maker; Peter Riddell, peace activist; Dr Monica Spooner, medical doctor; Professor Roger L. Spooner OBE, scientist; Rev Dr Stephen Sizer, Anglican vicar and author (who of course is in disgrace following that notorious Israel and 9/11 Facebook post of his in January this year), and its advisers were John Bond OAM, Former Secretary, National Sorry Day Committee, Australia; Anne Clayton, Coordinator of Friends of Sabeel UK; Abe Hayeem, architect, peace activist; Simon Keyes, Director, St Ethelburga’s Centre; Professor Ilan Pappe; Massoud Shadjareh, Chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission; Professor Nur Masalha, Professor of Religion and Politics; Dr Peter Shambrook, historian and author; Mariam Tadros, Trustee, Biblelands (name since changed to Embrace the Middle East).

On its website we read:

“The Balfour Project has been created by a group of academics and activists who believe that this anniversary should not pass unremarked. Mindful of Britain’s responsibility for what has come to pass in the Middle East, the Balfour Project will encourage understanding of what led to the Balfour Declaration, and what flowed from it. Through our website, we plan to facilitate a network of educational, political, religious and humanitarian groups who share this conviction. We aim to stimulate conferences, cultural exchanges and the production of multimedia resources. Above all, we believe that the search for the truth of what took place, and the acknowledgement of wrong-doing, can contribute to justice, peace and reconciliation in the Middle East.”

Furthermore,

“In November 1917 the government of Britain issued the Balfour Declaration which promised a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine whilst also promising to protect the rights of the existing indigenous Arab population. This was despite the fact that two years earlier Britain had promised the Arabs the same territory in return for their support against the Ottomans Subsequent British governments upheld the promise to create a Jewish homeland but reneged on the promise to protect the rights of the Arab inhabitants. Thus, a homeland for the Jewish people was achieved at the cost of freedom and self-determination for Palestinian Arabs. Almost a hundred years ago the stage was set for a struggle to control the land that has intensified from that day to this.” (http://www.balfourproject.org/about-2/)

It has since denied that its purpose is to seek an apology by Britain for the Balfour Declaration, and while the bibliography of relevant reading material on its website seems well-balanced, the fact remains that most of the individuals prominently connected with this still rather coy and curious Project appear to be overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian rather than pro-Israel. Mary Grey, indeed, recently signed an online petition requesting prime minister David Cameron and home secretary Theresa May to ban Christians United for Israel (CUFI) from establishing a presence in Britain. The petition says, inter alia, that CUFI’s “founder not only promotes war and Islamophobia, but his organisation in engaged with funding terrorism in the Middle East, and the building of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land, contrary to International Law and UN resolutions,” and Professor Grey added her own reason for signing: “Because Christianity should not be associated with such fundamentalist racism”.

08/11 Links Pt1: Obama recognized Iran's right to uranium enrichment in 2011; There's no 'SnapBack'

From Ian:

'Obama recognized Iran's right to nuclear program in 2011'

The U.S. government began secret nuclear talks with the Iranian regime in 2011, when Holocaust-denying firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was still president, rather than after supposed "moderate" Hassan Rouhani was elected in 2013, as the Obama administration has claimed. This revelation was made public by Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a speech delivered on June 23.
According to a translation of the speech published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Khamenei said, "The issue of negotiating with the Americans is related to the term of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the dispatching of a mediator to Tehran to request talks. At the time, a respected regional figure came to me as a mediator [referring to Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said] and explicitly said that U.S. President [Barack Obama] had asked him to come to Tehran and present an American request for negotiations. The Americans told this mediator: 'We want to solve the nuclear issue and lift sanctions within six months, while recognizing Iran as a nuclear power.' I told that mediator that I did not trust the Americans and their words, but after he insisted, I agreed to reexamine this topic, and negotiations began."
In a July 7 interview translated by MEMRI, Hossein Sheikh Al-Islam, an adviser to Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, said that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had relayed a letter to the Iranian regime recognizing Iran's enrichment rights.

What Iran’s hostile reaction to the Parchin issue means for the nuclear deal

Chico Marx said: “Who you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said over the weekend that my organization, the Institute for Science and International Security, was spreading lies when we published satellite imagery that showed renewed, concerning activity at the Parchin military site near Tehran. This site is linked by Western intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to past work on nuclear weapons. But like Chico, instead of acknowledging the concern, the Iranians chose to deny the visible evidence in commercial satellite imagery. Iran’s comments would be mirthful if the topic were not so serious.
Zarif is also calling U.S. intelligence officials and members of Congress liars. They are the original source of the information both about renewed activity at Parchin and concerns about that activity. All we did was publish satellite imagery showing this activity and restate the obvious concern.
Moreover, this information about renewed activity at Parchin does not come from opponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated between the United States, five other world powers and Iran, as Zarif suggested. We are neutral on whether the agreement should be implemented and have made that position clear for weeks. The U.S. intelligence community is hardly opposed to the deal. Iran’s attempts to dismiss this concern as the work of the deal’s foes also is just wrong.

Treason claims leveled at Jewish senator opposed to Iran deal

The progressive website Daily Kos ran a cartoon in which an imaginary television host called a woodchuck version of Schumer a “traitor” and switched the American flag at Schumer’s side to an Israeli flag.
“The reactions are a sad example of how some individuals buy into the kind of thesis promoted by [John] Mearsheimer and [Stephen] Walt that US Jews and other supporters of Israel put Israel’s interests ahead of US interests,” said Anti-Defamation League National Director Jonathan Greenblatt.
Walt and Mearsheimer co-authored a paper and later a 2008 book in which they claimed that the “Israel lobby,” a loosely defined cross-section of American Jewish groups and others, works against US interests. They said it was characterized by “a core consisting of organizations whose declared purpose is to encourage the US government and the American public to provide material aid to Israel and to support its government’s policies, as well as influential individuals for whom these goals are also a top priority.”
Critics complained that Mearsheimer and Walt essentially reinvigorated classical anti-Semitic tropes accusing Jews of acting as a “nation within a nation” and possessing dual and conflicting loyalties.
Walt, in fact, was one of those who tweeted and retweeted responses to the current back-and-forth over whether the rhetoric concerning the Iran deal constituted anti-Semitism. The Harvard professor called Schumer a “sellout” and retweeted an opinion article in the Huffington Post that called the deal’s opponents “Netanyahu’s marionettes.”
That article cited Schumer’s 2010 comments in which he reportedly said “I am a shomer [guardian] for Israel and I will continue to be that with every bone in my body” as evidence of his unpatriotic interests.
“Hurling accusations of disloyalty are a slap in the face to his [Schumer’s] lifelong record of public service,” Greenblatt complained in a written response to the rhetoric. “There is room for a legitimate debate on the Iran deal, however charges against Senator Schumer — and any other members who articulate on fact-based but alternative views — are beyond inappropriate.”
Proponents of the Iran deal — including President Barack Obama himself — have been criticized in recent weeks for what some see as criticism of their opponents that ply on historical stereotypes of Jews.

Schumer Explains Opposition to Iran Nuclear Deal: Inspections Regime Has ‘Lots of Holes in It’

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) further explained his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal that he announced last week, saying Monday that the inspections regime being trumpeted by the Obama administration had “lots of holes in it” and thus did not merit his support.
“This was one of the most difficult decisions that I had to make,” he said. “I studied it long and hard, read the agreement a whole bunch of times … I found the inspections regime not ‘anywhere, anytime’ but with lots of holes in it. Particularly troublesome, you have to wait 24 days before you inspect. That will allow some of the radioactivity to be seen but not nonradioactivity that goes into building a bomb, all of the kinds of other things that you need.”
Schumer is one of the Senate’s top Democrats and also one if its most prominent Jewish members. Schumer’s decision not to support Obama’s push for the nuclear deal was met with anger at the White House, with the suggestion that he may lose support to become the party’s Senate leader in 2016.

Did the Irish president snub the Israeli ambassador?

Statement from the outgoing Israeli ambassador to Ireland, received via email:

It is customary for the President of Ireland to invite Ambassadors to Áras an Uachtaráin for a meeting prior to their final departure from the country. Previous Ambassadors of Israel have enjoyed fruitful meetings with former Presidents of Ireland prior to their departure from Ireland.

The current Ambassador of Israel, Boaz Modai, who will be departing later Ireland this week, was not invited to a meeting by President Higgins. This is despite the fact that the Ambassador's date of departure was officially conveyed through the usual diplomatic channels more than two months ago, with the purpose of facilitating a meeting between the President and Ambassador Modai. The Embassy of Israel regrets that this meeting did not take place.

People who complained received this email:

On behalf of the President, Michael D. Higgins, I would like to thank you for your recent e-mail in regard to the departure of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland and I would like to take this opportunity to briefly explain the President's interaction with the Diplomatic Corps.

Shortly after their appointment, Ambassadors to Ireland formally present their credentials to the President at a ceremony in Áras an Uachtaráin. The President also invites all members of the Diplomatic Corps to an annual reception in Áras an Uachtaráin and he regularly meets Ambassadors at various other events during the year. Some Ambassadors formally request to visit the President at the conclusion of their posting to Ireland. All such requests received by the President in 2015 have been facilitated.

No such request was received by the President from the Israeli Ambassador or on his behalf. Had such a request been received, it would, of course, have been treated positively, consistent with the President's courteous and professional approach to the entire Diplomatic Corps.

I hope that this clarifies the position for you.

Kind regards
Conor Ó Raghallaigh
Deputy Secretary General to the President

So the question is whether other outgoing ambassadors explicitly requested a meeting with Higgins.