Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, August 16, 2015

MSN publishes "Jews own and control the media" story

Here's the beginning of an article/letter in Arab News (English):

Extremist Jewish settlers murdered an 18-month-old Palestinian baby. The atrocity was hardly reported in the western media, which is owned and controlled by the Jews.

Just imagine had some Palestinians killed an Israeli baby, the Jewish media would have made it world’s top news headlines screaming for days how the “Islamist” terrorists forced Israel to rightly up the security and how it is important for Israel to have nukes. It would have led to an outcry in the UN by the trio world powers — the US, Britain and France.

Subsequently, the country would have used the death of the baby to carry out a collective punishment on the Palestinians.

The murder of the Palestinian baby, or for that matter massacres, are nothing new. The settlers and the Zionists have been programmed this way.

Palestinian babies were also murdered in 1948, when Menachem Begin first led the Jewish Stern and Lehi gangs into Der Yassin, a Palestinian village, where they murdered over 600 innocent, unarmed Palestinian, men, women, children and babies.

The same antisemitic "story" was picked up and published by - MSN.com.

I understand that stories get syndicated, but one would think that there would be some editorial control over which stories get chosen and which ignored.

This "story" was also picked up by Middle East/North Africa Financial Network.

08/16 Links: Matisyahu didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition; Arab Bank settles with victims of Hamas

From Ian:

Spanish fest cancels Matisyahu gig over refusal to endorse Palestinian state

The Rototom Sunsplash Reggae Festival called off the formerly Hasidic rapper’s August 22 show, with organizers saying Matisyahu had refused to comply with their demand to pen a statement or a video message backing “the Palestinians’ right to a state.”
Festival organizers were driven by intense pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the reports said. Artists scheduled to perform at the event threatened to cancel their appearances if Matisyahu were to perform because he was “seen to represent Israel.”
The organizers gave Matisyahu an ultimatum, telling him if he would “sign such a declaration [publicly affirming his support for the Palestinians, he] can perform,” according to Spanish daily, El Pais.
Although not Israeli, Matisyahu has visited and performed in the Jewish state multiple times.
In a statement on Facebook, Rototom organizers said that the move was linked to “the festival’s sensitivity to Palestine, its people and the occupation of its territory by Israel.”
The front page of the Valencia-based festival’s website features a two-and-a-half hour video on pro-Palestinian activists holding Palestinian flags and decrying Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Local BDS activists welcomed the move after accusing the Jewish rapper of being a “Zionist” and “defending a state that practices apartheid and ethnic cleansing” on a link posted on his Facebook page. (h/t Yenta Press)

Arab Bank reaches settlement with US victims of Hamas attacks in Israel

Jordan’s Arab Bank settled a case with hundreds of plaintiffs that could be worth billions of dollars, ending the most dramatic terrorism finance case against a major bank in US history.
The settlement was confirmed Friday by Michael Elsner, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, and a spokesman for Arab Bank. Terms were not disclosed.
It comes nearly a year after the US New York jury found the $46 billion bank liable; four months after the bank lost a shot at a retrial; days before a damages trial was set to start; and 14 years after some of the terrorist attacks in question took place.
The highly public trial lasted five weeks and revisited some of Hamas’s worst attacks, including the August 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed or wounded 130, and a range of 24 other terrorist attacks during the second intifada.
A total of 297 plaintiffs who were injured or are family members of those murdered in the attacks that took place from 1998-2004, which were financed via Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah’s al-Shahid Foundation, sued the bank in 2004 for allowing itself to be used as a conduit for the terrorism funds.
The 10-year history of intense legal battles, included trying to get the bank’s “secret” client documents located in Jordan, Lebanon and Palestinian areas.
The US Supreme Court already had weighed in once pretrial and could have been asked to weigh in again post-trial, while the US State, Justice and Treasury departments fought over whether the US government should accede to Jordan’s requests to intervene in the case.
Jordan had claimed that Arab Bank, by far the country’s largest, was so crucial to the country’s economy that a multi-billion dollar judgment could lead to economic and political instability and devastation, possibly damaging crucial US-Jordan counter-terrorism cooperation.

David Horovitz: Obama’s Iran deal: A fight to a very bitter end

July 14, the day the P5+1 powers announced they’d finalized an agreement with Iran aimed at curbing its rogue nuclear program, may well turn out to have been the deal’s finest day. In the month since then, opponents of the accord have seen their prospect of blocking it in Congress rise from slim to, well, not quite so slim. Here are 12 insights into what began to a significant extent as a battle between President Barack Obama, chief advocate of the “best” and only deal, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leading opponent of the “stunning historic mistake,” and has now become a struggle between the president and an anguished chunk of his own Democratic Party’s legislators.
1. Flaws in the deal. What is most helping the deal’s opponents is elements of the deal itself. As American legislators have familiarized themselves with the small print, some have taken on board opponents’ protestations that the accord legitimizes Iran as a nuclear threshold state; that the inspection process of suspect sites is unworkable; that Iran is given leave to continue its R&D so that it can speedily break out to the bomb come the day; that the sanctions relief is premature and would be irreversible; and that the deal provides Iran with vast amounts of money that it will surely use to wreak more havoc in the region and sponsor terrorism worldwide.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz actually volunteered this last concern in a webcast with American Jews Thursday that had been intended to alleviate opposition. “We are concerned about some possible escalation in their support for terrorism, meddling in the region in terms of stability,” Moniz said, unprompted. “Obviously Hezbollah terrorism is an example.”

Writing in Israel National News last week, Tova Dvorin tell us:

The Obama administration has asked a judge Monday to “carefully consider” the size of the bond demanded from the Palestinian Authority (PA) for its role orchestrating years of terror attacks against Israelis and Jews - directly interfering in a US court case.

In February, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - the terror group behind the PA - was found liable to pay $218.5 million to victims of terror, a figure that was set to be tripled to $655.5 million according to the anti-terrorism laws under which the case was brought...

In a document entitled “Statement of Interest of the United States of America," the Obama administration expressed concerns over the payments hurting the PA's basic government services.

Forcing the PLO to pay “a significant portion of its revenues would likely severely compromise the P.A.’s ability to operate as a governmental authority,” deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken wrote.

It's hard to imagine that at this late date I am still capable of being disgusted by the Obama administration. Yet there it is. Just when I think that they can't sink even lower into the muck, we get stories like the one above.

So, the Obama administration is literally siding with the PA and the PLO over their American victims, despite an American court-ruling not in Palestinian-Arab favor. The word "shocking" comes to mind, although I am certain that many of you will not be shocked.

And the reason for this interference in the ruling of the court is because Obama is concerned that the PA will not be able to pay its bills? Well, he has a point. Supporting terrorism does not necessarily come cheaply. But if the PA cannot afford to pay its bills, whose fault is that?

{Oh, Israel's. Naturally. I forgot for a moment.}

We are to believe that the PA-PLO should be shielded by the President of the United States from having to suffer the predictable consequences of their own behavior? A behavior that includes the murder of American citizens? Or does Barack Obama honestly think that it is perpetually Jew hunting season in the Middle East? If the PA can't afford to post bond to the court perhaps they should rethink their rather counterproductive Jew Killing Policy.

But, in truth, would it really be an unfortunate thing if the PA collapsed? The EU and the US are bankrolling a gang of cutthroats who cry out for the genocide of the Jews, who despise the United States, and who name schools after murderers. We should not be in the business of promoting these people, we should be in the business of actively opposing them.

The PA is not quite as heinous as Hamas, but it is close enough, and neither are democratic organizations. Perhaps I am just old fashioned, and maybe my views on such matters are not nearly as sophisticated as our Genius in Chief's, but when I was growing up most people had the notion that one supports one's friends and opposes one's enemies. On a personal level we supported those who supported our well-being and values and opposed those who opposed them.

From a practical foreign policy standpoint what this means is that we should support the secular democracies and not support the non-democratic governments. Above all, we should not be giving financial aid to Islamist organizations, like the Muslim Brotherhood, because the Brotherhood oppresses women, oppresses gay people, and oppresses the Christian Copts. They would oppress Jews there, but there are no Jews there, having been ethnically-cleansed from almost the entire region by the hostile majority population in the middle of the last century.

The truth of the matter, of course, is that having chased the Jews out of land that we lived on for millennia, they now wish to chase Jews out our historical homeland entirely. There are many people out there - all evidence to the contrary - who honestly believe that the Palestinian National Movement is fundamentally grounded in social justice for the "indigenous Arab population," with two states for two peoples. This is a lie on numerous levels.

The first lie is that the Palestinian-Arabs are the indigenous people of Israel. They are not. As it reads on the right side of Israel Thrives, courtesy of the Elder, "Jews are from Judah, Arabs are from Arabia." The broad strokes of Jewish and Arab history in the Land of Israel are not in serious contention among western historians with professional credentials. They all acknowledge that Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria for at least three thousand years, but the Jewish presence predates written history and thereby floats back into the mists of time. Muhammad's armies conquered Jerusalem in 637 CE from the Byzantines, thus the Muslims are rather late to the game by thousands of years.

The Jews are the only living people who can make claims of indigeneity to Eretz Israel. Unless some Jebusites pop out of the ground, only the Jews can make that case.

The second lie is that the Palestinian-Arabs want a state for themselves in peace next to Israel. This is false. What the the Palestinian National Movement wants is the elimination of the Jewish National Movement. Palestinian-Arab national consciousness emerged as a significant social construct toward the end of the twentieth-century. It did so for the express purpose of undermining Jewish well-being on historically Jewish land. If they wanted a state for themselves they have a funny way of showing it, given that they have refused every single offer going back all the way to 1937, with the Peel Commission.

The third lie is that the Palestinian National Movement has any interest whatsoever in liberal notions of social justice. If by "social justice" one means random acts of senseless violence combined with a campaign to spread hatred toward Jews all around the world, then the PA is interested in social justice.

And, sadly, one must wonder if President Barack Obama shares that sense of "social justice"?

Given that he is willing to prop up both the PA and the PLO at the direct expense of their American victims, so it would seem.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

From Al Monitor:

On Aug. 1, Hamas’ women’s wing opened the all-female “First al-Quds Army camp” to prepare academically exceptional girls aged 12-18 for the liberation battle of Palestine.

This camp, which ended Aug. 10, is the first of its kind in the Gaza Strip, as Hamas has never organized a female training camp before. Around 1,000 girls attend the camp, which offered a special curriculum to resist the occupation taught by women affiliated with the Hamas movement. These women enjoy extensive military experience and know how to intellectually mobilize people against the occupation.

Camp director Rajaa al-Halabi told Al-Monitor, “The goal of the First al-Quds Army camp is to prepare girls for self-defense and for future battles against the occupation.”

Halabi explained that the camp focuses on the psychological education of girls, who participate voluntarily. Training includes how to raise a new generation that embraces the culture of liberation and fighting the occupation and strengthening participants’ sense of patriotism and interest in preserving Palestinian rights.

The group of girls that stood in a schoolyard in the neighborhood of Ramla, in central Gaza City, seemed passionate about learning military techniques, just like participants of the yearly “Pioneers of Liberation” camps for men and boys from age 7 to 60 organized by Hamas since 2013. The girls’ leader worked to organize them into military formation and teach them about the basic military march.

In addition to the Ramla camp, other camps are spread across Gaza, such as Tuffah and al-Daraj in central Gaza City and Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south. Ghada al-Abed, the head of the training program of the camps in Tuffah and al-Daraj, said that the camp in Ramla is just one of several camps all held in schools Aug. 1-10 to build the capacities of participants and enhance their sense of patriotism.

Abed told Al-Monitor, “These camps target girls who have a school average of over 95%, the elites of Palestinian female students,” aiming to train role models for other students.

She explained that one of the first skills these girls learn at the camps is the military march, which teaches them discipline and order. Then they carry out activities and exercises designed to strengthen the girls’ faith that Jerusalem — a matter of conflict between Jews and Muslims for many years — rightfully belongs of Muslims only, not Jews.

Wafaa al-Sharbassi, 16, told Al-Monitor, “I joined the First al-Quds Army camp, and I am proud to be part of it. These camps grow the seeds of love of the nation and teaches us about our Islamic sanctities that are being blatantly violated, such as Al-Aqsa Mosque. They also strengthen our rights to defend our presence and resist the Israeli occupation.”

She added, “This camp revived our hopes to create a female army to liberate Al-Aqsa from the occupation. We learn about weapons and how to handle them, and we are ready to go through intensive military training for this purpose.”

Hiba Abu al-Laban, 13, told Al-Monitor, “I joined the First al-Quds Army camp because I hope women can play a role in the future liberation battle. We were also exposed to the Israeli lies about Al-Aqsa Mosque, such as the existence of Jewish artifacts under the mosque, which would give [Israel] the pretext to violate the mosque’s foundation and structure and destroy it.”

Abed added that among the camp’s activities is the war-of-words game. In this game, the girls are divided into two groups, one Palestinian and the other Israeli. A war of words starts between them, as well as an argument about the right to Jerusalem. The simulation ends with victory by the Palestinian team, which may not necessarily reflect actual developments on the ground, but trains them to think that way.

It is against international law to recruit children for war.

We've previously reported on female fighters in Gaza. One can only guess how many of the "civilian women" killed in the Gaza war were really soldiers.

Here is video of the female terrorists:

Arabs upset at rebuilding of Tiferet Yisrael synagogue. Especially its dome.

There have been a flurry of Arabic articles lately denouncing the rebuilding of the Tiferet Yisrael synagogue (Nissan Beck shul) in the Jewish Quarter.

The synagogue, along with every other synagogue in the Old City, was destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948. Only one wall remained.

While its rebuilding was approved years ago, apparently construction has started.

The Mufti of Jerusalem issued a condemnation, claiming that the synagogue was being built on what used to be a Muslim chapel (in other reports, a school).

QPress has a video report about it, in context of the "Judaization" of Jerusalem, which features a Muslim man openly discussing the building plans near the site as Jewish students walk by and don't bother him.

Al Jazeera reports that Israsel only claims that there was a synagogue there beforehand, but it was really a Muslim site.

What really bothers them is that the dome on the top will dominate the Jerusalem skyline, higher than the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aqsa Mosque dome.

This was the major objection to the rebuilding of the beautiful Hurva synagogue a few years ago.

Here is a photo of the Jewish Quarter before 1948. Tiferet Yisrael is the domed building on the left, in this photo taken looking up from the Temple Mount.

Here's a video I made from high resolution aerial photos of Jerusalem in 1936 showing the Hurva and Tiferet Yisrael:

10-year old shot in head during wedding celebration in Nablus

Palestine Press Agency reports that a child and a young man were injured by celebratory gunfire in a wedding ceremony in Nablus Wednesday.

A ten-year old child was shot in the head with injuries described as serious. He was transferred to the Rafidia hospital.

The other victim, a young man, was shot in the foot.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights used to routinely track incidents like this under the category of "misuse of weapons" but I haven't seen any such reports in a number of years.

(A young man was killed in Hebron during his brother's wedding on Friday night, but not from gunshots - revelers dropped him to the ground while carrying him and he fell on his head.)

08/15 Links: ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape; Bin Laden’s son calls for attacks on American Jews

From Ian:

In second attack Saturday, Israeli policeman stabbed in West Bank

A Border Police officer was lightly wounded on Saturday when stabbed by a Palestinian man near Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank.
Troops were conducting a routine security check on a Palestinian man at the Beita Junction, near the West Bank village of Hawara, when he pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the officers in the back, a Border Police spokesman said.
Troops at the scene opened fire on the attacker, named by the Palestinian Ma’an news agency as Rafik Kamal al-Taj, a 16-year-old resident of Beita, near Hawara. He was critically wounded and later died of his wounds. A Channel 2 report earlier named the attacker as Ahmed Kamal al-Taj
The spokesman said the injured officer received medical treatment at the scene before being transferred hospital.
The attack came hours after an Israel Defense Forces soldier was lightly wounded in a knife attack by a Palestinian man at the Ofer checkpoint in the West Bank, north of Jerusalem.
The attacker was shot and wounded at the scene.

US Jewish groups on alert after bin Laden’s son calls for attacks

The national Jewish community’s security arm has asked Jewish institutions to be on the alert after Osama Bin Laden’s son called for attacks on Jewish American interests.
The Secure Community Network alert said Friday that Hamza bin Laden, who has ambitions to lead al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization founded by his father, posted an audio message calling “for the targeting of Jewish American interests globally.”
“Hamza also reportedly called for attacks on Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv,” the alert said.
The alert by SCN, an arm of Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the audio message was confirmed by “reliable sources” in law enforcement and was recorded sometime before June 15.
“While there is no information at this time to suggest a credible or imminent threat as it relates to this call for attacks, terrorist leaders and organizations have stepped up their calls for lone wolf attacks across the globe,” said the alert, noting recent attacks on Garland, Texas and Chattanooga, Tennessee, apparently carried out by unaffiliated individuals spurred by extremist Islamist calls for violence.

Denis MacEoin: Islamophobia: Fact or Fiction?

According to [Edward] Said, Westerners, by virtue of not being Muslims, have always falsified and distorted their writings about Islam and Muslims. Said claimed to see deeply-ingrained prejudice in the works of French, British, Russian and other Orientalist scholars and writers. To him, Orientalism was (and is) a tool of the colonial powers, assisting their mission supposedly to administer and subdue the peoples of the East. Since former colonies have achieved independence, he contends that the former imperialists still exert pressure on the ex-colonies in order to control them. Israel is regarded by most Marxists, socialists, and even many liberals as an entity created to colonize the Arab Middle East and is often condemned, even by people who are supposedly educated and should know better, in abrasive terms as a malign extension of the West.
Perhaps the best-known sentence in Said's book is: "[S]ince the time of Homer every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric." As Bernard Lewis has been heard to remark, "If that were true, the only reports of marine biology would have to be by fish." But for Said and his followers, the world is divided between Western guilt and Eastern victimhood.
What is missing from Said's work is any attempt to deal with the long history of Islamic empires, the conquest of, and permanent rule over, non-Muslim states and peoples, and the often distorted ways in which Muslim writers have sought to interpret and explain Christian, Jewish, Hindu and other worlds. Said leaves us with the impression that all prejudice is only on the part of the West.
Said continues to have admirers, most in academic departments of English or multicultural studies, but as time passes, more and more scholars are calling his views into question. Writers such as Bernard Lewis, Ibn Warraq, Efraim Karsh, and Robert Irwin have exposed a string of faults in Said's narrative, from factual errors to staggering bias.
Despite his bias, distortion of facts, and openly documented deceptions, many of Said's followers, who are unwilling or unable to do their own work, see him as an intellectual to students and teachers who adhere to an anti-establishment, anti-Western, and socialist world view.

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.
A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts. And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.
A growing body of internal policy memos and theological discussions has established guidelines for slavery, including a lengthy how-to manual issued by the Islamic State Research and Fatwa Department just last month. Repeatedly, the ISIS leadership has emphasized a narrow and selective reading of the Quran and other religious rulings to not only justify violence, but also to elevate and celebrate each sexual assault as spiritually beneficial, even virtuous.
“Every time that he came to rape me, he would pray,” said F, a 15-year-old girl who was captured on the shoulder of Mount Sinjar one year ago and was sold to an Iraqi fighter in his 20s. Like some others interviewed by The New York Times, she wanted to be identified only by her first initial because of the shame associated with rape.
“He kept telling me this is ibadah,” she said, using a term from Islamic scripture meaning worship.

08/14 Links Pt2: Obama Admin Moves to Block Restitution for U.S. Terror Victims

From Ian:

Obama Admin Moves to Block Restitution for U.S. Terror Victims

Ron Gould, a plaintiff in the case, told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview that there was no reason for the Obama administration to intervene.
“There was really no reason for them to even get involved,” said Gould, whose daughter Shayna was shot in the chest and nearly killed by Palestinian terrorists. “For the Obama administration to stick their fingers where they don’t belong is unconscionable.”
The PA “still seems to have the money to pay the families of the terrorists on an ongoing basis,” Gould said. “They do have the money to pay the piper for losing the court case.”
Shayna Gould welcomed the administration’s filing in the case, saying it reaffirms the rights of terror victims to have a fair day in court.
However, she called the argument that the PA could be bankrupted as a result of the suit “ironic, considering they pay terrorists on a monthly basis.”
Shayna Gould said the PA had been hinting that the U.S. government would get involved for quite some time
“It was a fear. It was a huge fear,” she said, adding that the PA should be forced to finally pay up.
“They, with pride, give money and rank of the highest honor to terrorists and people who commit murder,” Gould said. “Does that sound like clipping coupons and saving pennies?”
“I have to deal with [the impact of their violence] in my life on a constant basis,” Gould added, explaining that she deals with physical pain on a daily basis since the attack. “There is no limit to our suffering.”
Jewish human rights group B’nai B’rith was also critical of the administration’s intervention.
“There needs to be a price paid for committing acts of terror and the means available to prosecute those responsible,” the group said in a release. “While the victims’ families cannot bring their loved ones back, they can go to the courts to achieve redress.”

Obama Stands With Terrorists Against Terror Victims

You might call it a new low, but as with a lot of "lows," the Clintons were there first.
Alisa Flatow was a New Jersey college student murdered in a bus bombing in 1995. When the Flatow Amendment that would hold Iran accountable came up, President Clinton’s Secretary of State threatened to shut down the government if the amendment wasn’t dropped.
When Congress stood up to Clinton, he instead threw in a signing statement claiming that allowing terror victims to collect judgments against Iran “would encroach on my authority under the Constitution to ‘receive Ambassadors and other public ministers.’"
The Clinton administration fought the Flatows every step of the way to protect Iranian properties in the United States. It dispatched fourteen lawyers to fight the family’s lawsuit. When a US company was sending money to Iran, Clinton blocked efforts by terror victims to seize the money. He even blocked attempts to seize the New York building owned by the Alavi Foundation, Iran’s arm in the United States.
The Alavi Foundation would later become a donor to the Clinton Foundation.
Congress stood up to Clinton over Iran. It’s time for Congress to stand up to Obama and end funding for PLO terrorism once and for all with no loopholes, excuses or waivers.

Trivializing ‘terror’

Hysterical attempts to equate ideologically driven crimes by fringe Jewish extremists with Arab/Muslim terrorism are substantively wrong and strategically detrimental.
They reflect neither moral merit nor pragmatic prudence.
They fly in the face of common sense, rational self-interest – and the truth. It will not mitigate the censure of Israel’s detractors. To the contrary, it will be seized upon to justify – and intensify – it.
It diverts the focus of attention from real existential threats to Israel’s survival and blunts the effort against the Iranian deal.
But perhaps worst of all, by obfuscating what should be a razor-sharp distinction between a society that condemns murder and societies that commend it, between a country that castigates murderers and countries that celebrate them, it gravely undermines Israel’s claim to the moral high ground, crucial in its fight for its international legitimacy and its rightful place in the community of nations.
That, then, is the trouble with trivializing “terror.”

"Honor killing" in Gaza - by her twin brother

From PCHR, referring almost certainly to the incident I mentioned last Sunday:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 23:30 on Saturday, 08 August 2011, the body of Kh. K. (32), from al-Zawaida village in the central Gaza City, was brought to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah .

The Palestinian Police went to the crime scene in al-Zawaida village, and found the victim's body with signs of strangulation. After that, the police arrested the victim's brother (H.K.), 32. The body of (KH.K) was transferred to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah then referred to the Forensic Medicine Department at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which reported that the victim was strangled to death.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, the Attorney General is questioning the victim's brother for the victim's killing on the ground of the so-called “family honor.”

If both the brother and sister were 32, then they were (almost certainly) twins.

Al-Monitor recently had a convoluted story that shows how utterly corrupt the PA is:

The Palestinian scene is still reeling from the latest Palestinian Authority (PA) corruption case. In November 2014, Venezuela — under President Nicolas Maduro — decided to provide 1,000 scholarships for Palestinian medical students following the Israeli war on Gaza.

The Palestinian Foreign and Education Ministries and the Palestinian Embassy in Venezuela manipulated the dispersal of scholarships in a scandal Palestinians fear will negatively affect Palestinian-Venezuelan relations. The news broke on July 13, when the Venezuelan authorities decided to deport dozens of Palestinian students.

Palestinians found out about all of this when 25 Palestinian students who reside in Jordan arrived back to the kingdom after being deported. They protested Venezuela’s decision in front of the Venezuelan Embassy in Amman in July.

Some students behaved disgracefully at the Latin American School of Medicine in Caracas. Some brought their hookahs to school, while other attended class wearing pajamas and complained about the university housing. Some students also wrote offensive slogans against late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on the university walls, causing outrage in Venezuela.

The scandal prompted some Palestinian media outlets to accuse Palestinian officials of choosing students unfairly, as some of those awarded the scholarships had connections to PA employees.

The Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education had shared the requirements for the Venezuelan scholarships on July 19. These included a grade point average of 80% or above for high school students specializing in the science field and took into account the geographical distribution of Palestinian students in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and in Arab countries, and the candidates' financial status.

Al-Monitor found difficulties in reaching Palestinian students in Venezuela, but one student contacted who wished to remain anonymous revealed his disappointments with the scholarship.

“I was surprised that the courses were limited to Spanish-language [classes] and [included an] introduction to the socialist revolution in Venezuela,” he said, adding that the professors proposed a curriculum that focused on social health instead of medicine, raising his concern that “[Palestinian] education was not compatible with international standards for medical studies.”

On July 23, the assistant undersecretary at the Palestinian Education Ministry, Anwar Zakaria, admitted that some of the scholarship recipients were studying literature and not science, and some went to Venezuela in order to work or use Venezuela as a crossing into other countries. Zakaria added that some students even had grade averages below 80%.

The Venezuelan opposition used this scandal to its advantage when it attacked the president July 21. Although Venezuela is one of the PA’s biggest supporters, the PA fumbled in its poor management of a dossier that was supposed to be strictly educational.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki tried to resolve the crisis. In a statement to Maan News on July 17, he said the corruption scandal was a fabricated story aimed at tarnishing the relationship between Venezuela and Palestine. At the same time, Maliki recognized that some students selected were not eligible for the Venezuelan scholarships.

A senior official at the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “The main reason behind the scandal is that several parties were overseeing the selection of students to be granted scholarships, such as the Ministry of Higher Education, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian embassies abroad. Other reasons include a great level of favoritism, interference and corruption. Meanwhile, Gaza students are deprived of foreign scholarships, which the PA takes advantage of to further manipulate the selection process.”

The official added, “The Palestinian Embassy in Venezuela played its part in giving scholarships to those who do not deserve it. The selection process is not objective, but rather based on favoritism as some work their influence, such as the leaders of the PLO’s Executive Committee, members of Fatah’s Central Committee and the office of President Mahmoud Abbas.”

The Palestine Press news agency, which is affiliated with Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan, revealed July 17 that Venezuela’s conditions for the scholarships required that students have a high school average GPA of over 80%; be specialized in sciences, not literature; and hail from poor families. But, according to sources speaking to Palestine Press, the poor students fell victim to the PA’s manipulations, as the scholarships were sold to failing students for $7,000 each.

The scandal is yet another setback joining other difficulties already facing Palestinian students, thousands of whom dream of winning scholarships abroad and escaping the financial burden of attending university in Palestine.

On July 19, Gazan writer Mohammed Abu Mahadi spoke bitterly about the personal experience of his nephew Amjad Abu Mahadi, who graduated from high school with a GPA of 93%, but did not win a Venezuelan scholarship, while those with lower averages were able to get them. He accused the Palestinian ambassador to Caracas, Linda Sobeh, of being responsible for the injustice suffered by students.

On July 23, Al-Monitor attended a solidarity march in Gaza, where dozens of students turned out to hold the PA responsible for the Venezuelan scholarships scandal. The students demanded an end to what they described as chaos. They also requested that an investigative committee be formed to hold accountable those responsible for the scholarship scandal and fix the relations with Venezuela.

At a time when Palestinians expect the PA to help them, the scholarship scandal is another indication that the government will not fulfill this duty. It will rather take advantage of the aid and financial grants offered to the Palestinians to fill its officials’ bank accounts at the expense of hundreds of thousands of underprivileged people in the Palestinian territories.

08/14 Links Pt1: Glick: American Jewry’s fateful hour; Iran's false promise not to pursue nukes

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: American Jewry’s fateful hour

American Jewry is being tested today as never before. The future of the community is tied up in the results of the test.
If the Jews of America are able to mount a successful, forceful and sustained opposition to President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which allows the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to become a nuclear-armed state and provides it with $150 billion up front, then the community will survive politically to fight another day.
If the communal leadership and its members fail to fight, American Jews will find themselves communally disenfranchised.
On the face of it, there is no reason this fight should have been anything more than a hopeless – but relatively insignificant – ordeal. Given that all Obama needs to do to secure the implementation of his nuclear pact with the mullahs is secure the support of a one-third minority in one house of Congress, he might have been expected to go easy on his opponents since they have so little chance of defeating him.
Instead, Obama has decided to demolish them. He has presented them with two options – capitulate or be destroyed.
Consider Hillary Clinton’s behavior.
On Tuesday the Democratic presidential front-runner and former secretary of state ratcheted up her statements of support for Obama’s nuclear pact with the ayatollahs. Speaking to supporters in New Hampshire, Clinton said, “I’m hoping that the agreement is finally approved and I’m telling you if it’s not, all bets are off.”
On its face, Clinton’s mounting support for the deal makes little sense. True, her principal rival for the Democratic nomination, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, announced his support. But this deal will probably not be an issue by the time Democrats begin voting in their primaries.
On the other hand, the deal is not popular among either the general public or key Democratic donors. According to a poll taken this week by Monmouth University, only 27 percent of the general population and only 43 percent of Democrats want Congress to support the deal.

Tzipi Hotovely: Iran's false promise not to pursue nukes

“A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down,” Arnold Glasow said.
In opposing the Iran deal, Israel has been accused of not pointing towards a better alternative and even of being against a diplomatic solution entirely. Aside from wronging Israel, these claims obscure what needs to be done to truly prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
As the country with the most at stake, Israel favors a diplomatic solution more than anyone. But this does not mean that any diplomatic outcome is satisfactory. A diplomatic "non-solution" is worse than maintaining — and augmenting — the existing sanctions regime for the very reason that it will prevent a genuine diplomatic resolution, by releasing Iran from the only pressure that could bring it about.
The initial positions of the international community — which were largely conceded — suggest what an acceptable deal might look like. Such an agreement would insist, among other things, on the complete suspension of enrichment and dismantlement of related infrastructure, and on Iran’s acceptance of ‘anytime-anywhere’ inspections of all of its nuclear and military facilities, to reliably verify this suspension.
If Iran were not led by an aggressive regime inspired by a violent ideology, openly committed to eliminating Israel, heavily invested in fomenting insurrection throughout the Middle East and revealed to be pursuing military know-how relevant only to the use of nuclear weapons, its nuclear program could be assessed like that of other countries.
But it is all of those things, making a mockery of its assertion that “under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons”, as appears in the text of the agreement.
It goes without saying that Israel is not alone in understanding this to be an outright lie.

PodCast: Dersh Makes His Case

Jay’s guest is Alan Dershowitz, the famed lawyer and Harvard Law prof. His latest book is “The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Stop Iran From Getting Nukes?”
Naturally, Jay talks with him about Iran – and the deal, and Obama, and Chuck Schumer, and Netanyahu, and so on. They also talk about presidential elections, past and present.
Did you know that Ted Cruz was a student of Dershowitz’s? He was. The professor has some interesting things to say about that. He and Jay also talk about O.J. Simpson, anti-Semitism, the Second Amendment, pornography, Cuba, Supreme Court justices, and more – including the loneliness of Dersh’s kind of liberal.
Thousands over the years have paid tuition to hear him. You get him for free.

Danny Danon tapped as Israel's UN ambassador - my 2012 interview

From JPost:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also holds the Foreign Minister post, announced on Friday that he was appointing Minister of Science Technology and Space Danny Danon to be Israel's next ambassador to the UN.

"Danon has agreed to take on an important challenge that I proposed for him. The United Nations is an important forum right now and I am sure that Danny will represent the truth with full force in the international arena," Netanyahu said.

Danon thanked Netanyahu for giving him the trust to represent Israel during what he called a "challenging period."

"I will do everything to advance Israel's just positions," Danon said.

The Zionist Union responded to Danon's appointment by saying "Houston we have a problem," in reference to his current post as Science Technology and Space Minister.

"The appointment of Space Minister Danon as ambassador to the UN is another nail in the coffin that Bibi is putting in Israel's foreign relations. The Prime Minister is acting to find jobs for Likudniks instead of the strategic leader that Israel needs," a statement released by the party read.

I am a big fan of outgoing ambassador Ron Prosor, and Danon is much more hawkish. Prosor, at least publicly, used humor as his main weapon to get Israel's point across. Danon would probably be, as one Twitter user said, "Israel's John Bolton."

Much of a diplomat's job is to work behind the scenes and establish good relationships with other diplomats. From the outside, we can't know how effective anyone is in one-to-one relationships based on their public statements.

I extensively interviewed Danon in 2012 before the US elections as he was publicizing his book. He deflected my questions about Israeli strategy towards Iran, sticking to talking points.

In part 2, he attacks the two state solution, and defends his idea of integrating Gaza into Egypt and the West Bank into Jordan. He also discusses the Arab Spring, the legal case Israel has for the West Bank and the Likud platform being against a two-state solution.

While I agree with most of Danon's political views, I'm not certain that this is the best role for him - unless Israel starts backing up his positions across the board. Someone who clearly is against a two-state solution would have a hard time convincing other diplomats of Israel's official support for it.

Of course, all diplomats must subsume their own opinions to their role, but when someone is as outspoken as Danon, any message he gives would have a huge handicap in the international community before he opens his mouth. I don't know if he can overcome that and be effective, at least to Western nations.

Not to mention the allegations that he is a reptilian shapeshifter. (I love the Internet!)

From military site Foxtrot Alpha:

Foxtrot Alpha’s contacts in Europe have noticed some interesting movements heading west out of the Middle East. Apparently, five Israeli Air Force F-15C/Ds and five F-15Is, along with five Jordanian Air Fore F-16s, have been dragged across the Mediterranean to Lajes Field by Israeli Air Force KC-707 Tankers. The jets are on their way to participate in Red Flag 15-4 at Nellis AFB.

“Departing Israel on the morning of August 9th was a flight of Israeli Air Force KC-707 tankers accompanied by 5 Ra’am F-15 Eagles. It marked the beginning of a long flight to Nellis AFB, Nevada, where the Israeli AF will be part of Red Flag 15-4. IAF 101 flight made the 7 hr+ flight supported by other IAF tankers already prepositioned in Spain to meet the thirsty jets and get them to Lajes Field, their transit airfield. This would be the first of three legs before finally making it to Nellis. IAF 101 with Ceetah (Cheetah) flight of five Eagles safely arrived on the Atlantic staging post late in the afternoon.

This was nothing out of the ordinary except that the next day the Israeli AF supported two flights of fast jets on the same track to Lajes. The first flight consisted of Israeli F-15s and the second flight was made of IAF 707s and Royal Jordanian Air Force F-16 Vipers, also on their way to Red Flag. It was all ‘cats’ again, with the five ‘Lion’ flight of Eagles flying half an hour before the ‘Tiger’ flight of five RJAF F-16s.’’

Lajes Field, which is located in the central Atlantic Ocean, is a common stop-over for military aircraft traversing between the U.S. and Europe and beyond.

Although Israel and Jordan are security partners, having Jordanian F-16s ferried around the world by Israeli tanker aircraft, and alongside IAF F-15s, seems to indicate a new level of military cooperation operation between the two nations. This development comes shortly after the news that Israel has donated AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters to Jordan to be used for border security and against ISIS threats.

The inclusion of Jordanian Air Force F-16s in exercise Red Flag comes as the country’s air force is locked in an ongoing battle against ISIS in Syria and as many in Washington call for increased military support for their anti-ISIS campaign. Jordan relies on a force of second-hand F-16s, some of which are upgraded to Mid-Life Update standard. Still, a lack of targeting pods and precision guided munitions has hampered their efforts against ISIS. With Israel now retiring some of its older F-16 force, it will be interesting to see if some of those aircraft end up in Jordanian hands.

Israel and Jordan’s participation in Red Flag has not yet been formerly announced, but we will keep you posted as to how the exercise progresses in the coming weeks.

The same site has a very interesting article on how Israel repurposed its F-15 fighters into multi-role bombers.

As my readers know, I've spent a lot of time over the past 5 weeks tearing apart Amnesty's Gaza Platform, as especially their many tweets to commemorate the one year anniversary of various events that they claimed proved Israeli war crimes.

I answered virtually every one of their accusations with real facts about how the targets were legitimate under the laws of armed conflict, but I never saw their Twitter account respond to any of my facts.

But over the past couple of days, Amnesty started an entirely new Twitter initiative - to support Amnesty's position to decriminalize prostitution.

People are tweeting to Amnesty, and Amnesty is answering them by the score. I count about 40 replies to questions and comments.

So it is clear that Amnesty reads what is tweeted to them. It is clear that Amnesty chose to ignore my points about Gaza "civilians' who were terrorists, and about the many errors and biases in the Gaza Platform, and about the deceit behind their Gaza tweets.

Which means that the reason Amnesty didn't respond is because they know they are wrong, but their desire to demonize Israel is far more important to them than the truth.

Oh, and Amnesty USA has not responded to my challenge. They said that proof that civilians were really militants, in the form of photos of them in uniform, would result in corrections to the Gaza Platform, so I provided one.

Since then they tweeted other items but ignored me.

For the exact same reason mentioned above.

They know I'm right. They read my tweets, And they don't want the world to know that they are hypocrites.