Thursday, September 10, 2015

Evil Jewish soldiers help Arab change his tire. It's a plot.

An Arab taxi driver had a flat tire right next to Ba'kaot checkpoint in the Jordan Valley.

He wasn't able to loosen the wheel bolts by himself so
an IDF soldier from "The Jordan Lions" (a new unit which has both female and male soldiers) came to help him.

A female soldier covered them while the tire was being changed.

A truck driver named Noah who passed by took photos.

"The media in Israel and around the world constantly show our soldiers in unpleasant and difficult situations and it was important for me to stop and photograph this event for all to see how troops are amazing...The truth is I was very excited. I approached the soldier and I said, 'good for you!.'"

The anti-ISrael crowd knows better, however. They know that every good thing ever done by an Israeli Jew for an Arab is a highly staged photo-op to distract the world from IDF crimes and the occupation and the genocide and the ethnic cleansing and the torture and all of the other things that everyone knows Israelis do every day.

(h/t Yenta)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Does Iran really think it can defeat the US?

How could it? The US is the greatest military power the world has ever known. Its nuclear arsenal is enough to turn any possible enemy into ionized plasma multiple times over. Its ICBMs can reach any corner of the globe. One nuclear aircraft carrier (and the US has 11 of them) can deliver enough high explosive to – you know the story.

But America is drawing back into itself. Its military has been severely weakened by budget cuts and ‘sequestration’, equipment has been used and abused in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and not replaced. Morale in the armed forces is low as the gains won at great cost in Iraq are given up as a result of the decision to withdraw regardless of consequences. Even funds for medical treatment of veterans are lacking.

Other countries like China and Pakistan have been spending large amounts of money modernizing and building up their nuclear forces. The US has basically abandoned its program, depending on weapons built decades ago. Can we even be sure they would work if needed? Apparently the theory is that with the end of the Cold War, all nuclear threats disappeared.

The opposite is true. Arguably the most serious nuclear threat of all – because it is made by America’s greatest enemy, one that has demonstrated its enmity by killing Americans almost since its inception in 1979, and which swears every day to destroy her – is from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As I write, it has just been determined that President Obama has at least the 41 Senate votes he needs to sustain a veto if the Congress passes a resolution disapproving of the nuclear deal with Iran. There is a lot of discussion of how we got here, when it is clearly a treaty which should require 67 votes for ratification, but regardless of what the Congress does at this point, the deal is already a tremendous diplomatic defeat for the US.

It asserts that as soon as the IAEA confirms that Iran has taken certain specific actions (called “Implementation Day”), all sanctions on Iran – 6 UN Security Council resolutions going back to 2006 and others imposed by the US and the EU – will be removed. Much of the 159-page documentconsists of lists of organizations and individuals from whom sanctions will be removed. Details of how IAEA will perform its job are mostly hidden in a secret addendum to the agreement, but some disturbing ones have leaked out, for example that Iran itself will provide the IAEA with soil samples from its facility in Parchin. There are many additional serious issues with inspections, etc., which are discussed here.

The actions Iran is required to take before Implementation Day are all either easily reversible or difficult to verify. Although the deal calls for Iran to limit some nuclear activities for a period of 10 or 15 years, all sanctions will be removed on Implementation Day. Any attempt to re-impose sanctions are grounds for Iran to cancel the entire deal, and existing contracts are exempted from any new sanctions. Companies and nations are already behaving as though sanctions have been removed, sending missions of businessmen and diplomats to make trade arrangements. There can be no “snap-back.”

As soon as Implementation Day arrives (in early 2016) and sanctions vanish, Iran can simply proceed as though there were no restrictions placed on her by the deal. At that point she will have nothing to lose.

At the same time, she will get a windfall of about $150 billion in frozen funds to help pay for her worldwide subversion and terror operations, and of course her nuclear program.

Despite America’s international backing and massive military and economic superiority, the process of negotiation comprised one US capitulation after another.

The main reason seems to be that Obama never gave more than lip service to the military option. Only a credible military threat could have made Iran’s regime back down from what it sees as its most important military/political initiative since 1979, the one that will make it a regional hegemon and facilitate the establishment of a Shiite caliphate throughout the Middle East. But Obama would sooner see a nuclear armed Iran that carry out such a threat.

Two years ago Obama signaled his lack of resolve when he threatened to use force in Syria after Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against anti-regime forces, and then backed down in humiliation. At this point, the Iranians realized that they could dictate terms of surrender to the US (and at the same time Israel and the Sunni Arabs realized that they could no longer depend on America).

So what Obama has accomplished is to clear the way for America’s most resolute and implacable enemy to build nuclear weapons, while at the same time destroying the credibility of the US deterrent!

In terms well understood in the Middle East by both enemies and allies, he surrendered the honor of the United States.

Why did he do this? I think that he believes deeply that the West in general and the US in particular have historically oppressed ‘people of color’, and Muslims count as such. His sense of justice requires a sort of international ‘affirmative action’ in which formerly oppressed or colonized peoples are favored over their oppressors. The use of force or coercion is one of the main crimes of colonial oppressors and must always be avoided. He has in the past apologized for it, and now he is putting his contrition into action.

In addition, he believes that American society can’t deal with the side effects of war. They won’t accept the casualties or the cost. He believes that war in itself is always bad, even when the alternative is sub-optimal. Better to live on your knees than die on your feet.

Unfortunately, some of the ex-oppressed are not interested in justice. They are interested in being oppressors themselves, building empires and establishing caliphates. And they are not stupid. They understand the principles of ‘cognitive warfare’. The best way to defeat an opponent is to convince him not to fight you in the first place. So they appeal to Western post-colonial guilt on the one hand and to anti-war sentiment on the other.

The Iranian plan is not to face those 11 aircraft carriers – at least not for a long time. Meanwhile, step by step they will accomplish their intermediate goals, like the conquest of Iraq, the destruction of Israel, the building of a massive nuclear strike force based on ICBMs.

One day the United States will find itself on the receiving end of coercive diplomacy from Iran. But by that time, the balance of power will have shifted to the point that it won’t pay to try to defend itself. And that is what defeat will look like.

09/10 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: Tyrant Khamenei is wrong, Israel is here to stay; Anti-Bibi UK rally

From Ian:

Netanyahu: ‘Tyrant’ Khamenei is wrong, Israel is here to stay

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday dismissed comments by the Iranian supreme leader that Israel will have ceased to exist in 25 years, vowing the Jewish state is here to stay. The prime minister said remarks by the “tyrant” supreme leader left no “room for illusion” for supporters of the nuclear deal.
“Khamenei is not giving supporters of the agreement any room for illusion. He has made it clear that the US is the Great Satan and that Iran intends to destroy the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said after landing in London for talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron. “This will not happen. Israel is a strong country and it will become even stronger.”
The prime minister said the international community must band together to fight Iran’s “terrorism and aggression.
“However, the conclusion that arises from the remarks of the tyrant in Tehran is that all responsible countries must cooperate in order to stop Iran’s terrorism and aggression which, to my regret, will only increase as a result of the agreement,” said Netanyahu.

House Republicans will move to stop Iran deal vote clock

House Republicans have agreed on a new strategy to stop the clock on Congress' review period for the Iran nuclear deal.
Instead of proceeding with a resolution disapproving of the deal— certain to pass the House but facing procedural hurdles in the Senate— the GOP will now try to prevent implementation of the deal on legal grounds.
On Friday, September 11, the caucus will express a 'sense of the House' resolution asserting that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action— the formal name for the agreement— was not fully submitted to Congress by the Obama administration back in July. If accurate, this would stop the clock, as Congress' review period only begins once all documents related to the deal have been submitted.
"The House is going to make it very clear that without the [International Atomic Energy Agency] disclosures, the clock hasn't started," Rep. Peter Roskam, Republican from Illinois, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday evening, referring to agreements tangential to the JCPOA between the UN nuclear watchdog agency and Tehran.
Speaker of the House John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, has agreed to the plan, Roskam said.
With this new strategy, Roksam said, "the president is denied the ability to say that he's fully complied under the law."

Anti-Semitism in London, absolutely shameful

It is 09/09/2015. In the Middle East, millions are oppressed by their own leaders, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, and untold numbers are still making their escape. Today the democratically elected leader of the only nation in the Middle East that provides freedom and protection for all its citizens came to visit the UK, and in London, at the very heart of the British democratic system, there was a protest. This protest was not about Syria, nor Iraq, it was not about ISIS, Libya, Yemen or Iran. It was a protest that waved the flags of Hizbullah and Hamas, the flags of proscribed terrorist organisations; this was a protest against the democratic State of Israel.
The people behind this protest are from groups like the PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) and the ludicrously named ‘Stop the War coalition’, the backbone of BDS in the UK; these are the activists, the hard core; these are the ones handing out leaflets, trying to persuade others to join, disseminating disinformation on campus and whipping up the hatred against Israel. And they come to London with Hizbullah and Hamas flags in their hand. When the mask slips, it is important to memorise what you saw behind it.
If anyone is in any doubt, it is worth viewing some of the footage taken from the protest.

Today is the 100th birthday of one of the most popular Arab writers in history.

I'm talking about Egyptian writer Mohammed Khalifa Tunisi, allegedly the first translator of the perennial Arab best seller, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

Tunisi said "Jews seeking to demolish the governments in all countries, and replace them with authoritarian Jewish governments ...They say that they alone are 'God's chosen people' and they act in ways that are dictated them the Torah and the Talmud and rabbis and leaders."

The article notes that some people believe that the work is not authentic and that there is "controversy" over the issue, but the rest of it assumes that it is accurate.

The Protocols have been reported to be bestsellers in many Arab countries. Saudi textbooks quote them as authentic. Smash TV series have been created in the Arab world based on that book.

The US Holocaust Museum says that there was an Arabic translation in the 1920s, so it appears that Tunisi wasn't the first translator of the antisemitic forgery, but perhaps his translation was the most popular.

UNRWA staffer trivializes the Holocaust

From the Facebook page of UNRWA Training Coordinator Mohammad R. El Madhoun:

Saying that Palestinian Arabs are suffering a "Holocaust" is antisemitism, pure and simple.

Madhoun actually lives in Gaza. Here is a photo of him in a ghetto taken within a few weeks of the end of the Gaza war. Notice his emaciated body.

And here are his kids being transported to the death camps to be gassed and cremated:

Not to mention that he posts a somber video of Gazans gathering in stunned, tearful memory of this terrible genocide on the morrow of the Gaza war.

Calling anything that ever happened to Palestinian Arabs a "Holocaust" is meant to trivialize the real Holocaust and to convey the message that Jews are Nazis. It is a pure example of antisemitism.

And UNRWA teaches their kids this perverted inversion of reality.

How do I know?

Because Mohammed learned his hate from his mother, who was a head teacher at UNRWA as well.

Yet Chris Gunness, UNRWA's spokesperson who has his own issues with Jews, keeps telling every reporter that calls him (including one from yesterday) that UNRWA takes all credible reports of violations of neutrality seriously and condemns all forms of racism. (I'm fairly certain he always adds the word "credible" as an excuse to ignore my documented proof of UNRWA staffers' hate by pretending that this blog is not credible.)

When will a reporter follow up and ask him about the scores of examples that I have been publishing daily for the past several weeks, plus additional ones I've been tweeting? When will someone rub his lies in his face so the world can see what a sickening, hateful organization UNRWA has turned into?

Israel finally cracks down on the racists on the Temple Mount

From Arutz-7:

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon signed an order Wednesday declaring the groups of Islamists who regularly harass Jews on the Temple Mount – the male “Murabitun” and female “Murabitat” – as illegal organizations.

The activists regularly riot on the Mount, curse, shout, and throw various objects at the Jews who ascend the Mount, and sometimes attack police as well.

Yaalon signed the order upon the recommendation of the Israel Security Agency and the Israel Police, after he became convinced that it was necessary for preserving the public peace and security of the nation.

“The activity of the Murabitun and Murabitat is a central element in creating the tension and violence on the Temple Mount in particular and in Jerusalem in general,” said a statement issued by Yaalon's bureau. “This is dangerous and inciting activity against tourists, visitors and worshipers at the site, that leads to violence and could cause loss of life.”

The declaration was signed after it received the approval of the Attorney General, and it means that anyone participating in Murabitun/Murabitat activities, organizing or funding it, is carrying out a crime and is likely to face prosecution.

A lawyer associated with the Waqf declared this a "war on the rituals of Islam" and they declared this "religious persecution."

Here's one of many videos of the Muslims performing their Islamic rituals.

Of course, there are other Islamic rituals performed, like soccer and karate and parkour.

AFP's version of this story is ridiculously biased.

BDS-holes freak out over Stephen Colbert's Sabra Hummus joke

These guys really have no lives.

A comedic product placement for Sabra hummus near the start of Stephen Colbert’s first episode as host of “The Late Show” on Tuesday night earned him praise from marketing experts, but catcalls from supporters of a movement to boycott Israeli-owned companies.

In a segment that simultaneously mocked paid endorsements and was one, Mr. Colbert explained to viewers that he had made a deal with a demonic amulet, which gave him the chance to host the show but required “certain regrettable compromises,” like endorsing Sabra-brand hummus.

While most of Mr. Colbert’s viewers were quite likely unaware of any political implications of the tongue-in-cheek endorsement, fans who support a Palestinian-led campaign to pressure Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions, or B.D.S., were dismayed by the gag. The hummus, which is produced in the United States, has been subject to calls for a boycott because it is made in a joint venture between PepsiCo and the Strauss Group, an Israeli food company that has provided financial support to the Israel Defense Forces’ elite Golani Brigade.

While the brand responded to the plug by playing along on Twitter...

.@colbertlateshow Well done Stephen! Your shameless plug of our hummus is pleasing unto his Reptilian Majesty. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/ngbljSztRG
— Sabra (@Sabra) September 9, 2015

...advocates of the boycott campaign expressed their disappointment on the social network during the broadcast.

Ugh do not buy blood hummus #BDS https://t.co/IKAbLYI4t6
— Peter Feld (@peterfeld) September 9, 2015

Boo.. #TheLateShow just disappointed me with that #Sabra bit.. Don't buy Sabra. #BDS #FreePalestine
— Jaime Rafael Puente (@JaimeRPuente) September 9, 2015

.@colbertlateshow you know Sabra supports Israeli occupation and destruction of Palestinian culture, right? #corporatesocialresponsibility
— Adham Sahloul (@adhamsahloul) September 9, 2015

Very disappointed in the Sabra plugs on the first night of Colbert's show. Booooo.
— Lila Yomtoob (@lilabird) September 9, 2015

So, what's up with the endorsing a company that supports a brutal and racist occupation on your first night, @StephenAtHome? #sabra #bds
— Syjil Ashraf (@thedailysyjil) September 9, 2015

So sad that these brave fighters for justice had to endure a comedy skit. This was clearly a microaggression and CBS must be sued for making these poor people have to live through the trauma of watching Stephen Colbert eat hummus that they don't approve of.

(h/t alyssa)

09/09 Links Pt2: A hero acts, and Hebron gets a lesson in humanity; Golda Meir Was No J-Streeter

From Ian:

A hero acts, and Hebron gets a lesson in humanity

For an unarmed man to save five intended victims from a frenzied mob takes remarkable courage under any circumstances. When the rescuer is a Palestinian Muslim in an all-Arab neighborhood and those he saves are strangers in conspicuously Jewish garb, the moral valor he displays is extraordinary — and a heart-lifting reminder of the goodness that people are capable of, however poisonous the atmosphere that surrounds them.
Jewish tradition famously teaches: “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” That teaching is so famous, in fact, that it is quoted in the Koran.
No society in history — not even the most decent — has ever wholly uprooted the lust to kill and terrorize. Israel comes closer than most; Muslim tourists who inadvertently take a wrong turn into a Jewish neighborhood will not find themselves under attack by a mob bent on slaughter. But the Jewish state has its savages as well, such as the arsonists who torched the home of the Dewabsha family in the village of Duma on July 31. An 18-month-old toddler, Ali, burned to death in the inferno; his father, Sa’ad, died a week later. On Monday, after weeks in a coma, Ali’s mother, Reham, died of her injuries too.
Israelis across the political spectrum expressed shame and anguish in response to the arson attack. Many are sickened by the realization that such evil could come from within — and outraged that the murderers are still at large. The Palestinian man who saved five Jewish lives, meanwhile, finds himself reviled as a collaborator. Other Palestinians have reportedly threatened to “burn his house down, or cut off his head.”
Heroism comes in different forms, but the greatest is the courage to act in defense of the despised outsider — especially when it would be more prudent to look the other way. Today we use the term “good Samaritan” to mean any charitable person. But 2,000 years ago, when Jesus related his parable about the Israelite who had been beaten and left for dead on the Jericho road, Samaritans and Jews hated each other. Bitterness between the two communities ran deep. Yet it was precisely the Samaritan who saved the wounded Jew, choosing to ignore the stranger’s detested tribal identity, and to see instead a fellow human being.
That Samaritan, like Faiz Abu Hamadiah, would no doubt have denied being a hero. The only difference between them is that the Good Samaritan was a parable. Hamadiah is blessedly, beautifully real.

Brendan O'Neill: Why does the left care more about Islamophobia than anti-Semitism?

The extent to which chattering-class concern for Muslims trumps concern for Jews reached its nadir when four Jews were murdered in a Parisian deli shortly after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo. Pretty much every liberal newspaper in Europe continued thundering on about the potential for an ‘Islamophobic backlash’ following the Charlie killings, even as Jews were being killed. On the morning the four dead Jews were being put on a flight for burial in Israel, George Clooney was telling fawning hacks how worried he was about ‘anti-Muslim fervour’ in Europe. It’s surreal. Some people seem more worried about possible attacks on Muslims than by actual attacks on Jews.
And now, a hike in anti-Muslim crimes in London is given greater media prominence than a larger hike in anti-Jewish attacks. This implicit demotion of Jewish problems, this judgement that crimes against Jews aren’t all that serious, needs some explanation. I think there are two reasons for it.
The first is that flagging up attacks on Muslims allows the left to indulge some prejudices of their own, especially about the dumb, tabloid-reading hordes, whom they view as being one iffy Richard Littlejohn column away from organising a demented anti-Muslim pogrom. The liberal elite’s myopic focus on Islamophobia is really an expression of distrust for the insufficiently multicultural, apparently Western-centric masses.
The second reason is that many on the left seem to think anti-Semitism is politically justified. From Karen Armstrong’s insistence that the deli attack in Paris ‘had nothing to do with anti-Semitism’ and rather was ‘about Palestine’ to various commentators’ claims that anti-Semitism in Europe is the inevitable byproduct of Israel’s antics in the Middle East, many very respectable people now view assaults on Jews almost as a form of protest, as political rather than hateful.
That’s the terrifying message of the media and leftists’ implicit downgrading of the seriousness of anti-Semitism. Whether they’re excusing these crimes or simply acquiescing to them, they’re giving a green light to anti-Semitism.

Golda Meir Was No J-Streeter

A deep and permanent rift between Democrats and Israel is inevitable because the Israeli government “has more in common with Dick Cheney than Golda Meir”—or so say s J Street leader Jeremy Ben-Ami, in a front-page story in The New York Times of Aug. 29. J Street’s characterization both misrepresents current Israeli leaders and does a grave disservice to the memory of Israel’s first female prime minister.
Some on the American left harbor a kind of visceral hatred towards former vice president Cheney, and they seem to presume that everyone else does, too. Hence Ben-Ami’s seemingly odd reference to someone who has been out of office in America for more than seven years. He would like to suggest that Democrats (and especially Jewish Democrats) must choose between the hated Cheney and the beloved Golda.
Golda is indeed a revered figure in Jewish history. But she was no J Street-style dove.
Addressing Labor Zionist delegates to a Jewish Agency assembly in June 1971, Golda denounced the slogan “peace for territories” as “superficial and simplistic.” The slogan — and concept — of “peace for territories” has, of course, been the heart and soul of the Israeli and American-Jewish Left since the 1967 war. It is their slogan, their mantra, their very raison d’être. And Golda rejected it.

The Sickening Deification of Rasmea Odeh

Anti-Israel activists creating a Palestinian Mumia Abu-Jamal
In early September 1972, Palestinian “Black September” terrorists seized the Israeli Olympic team at the Olympic Village in Munich, West Germany. By the time it was over, 11 Israeli athletes and one German policeman would be dead.
Before the deadly conclusion, Black September demanded the release of the notorious German “Red Army Faction” terrorists Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff as well as 234 prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
Included on that list was a name that probably meant little to people outside Israel – Rasmieh Odeh.
The name Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh meant a lot to Israelis because Rasmea and her co-conspirators were convicted in 1970 of the 1969 bombing of the SuperSol Supermarket in Jerusalem, which killed university students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner.
A second bomb placed in the SuperSol supermarket timed to go off when first responders arrived, was disarmed moments before it was to explode.
As I reported when I met the families of Edward and Leon in Israel, the SuperSol bombing was scorched into the memories of Israelis because it was the first major post-1967 attack on Israeli civilians, and the funeral was a national event.
Rasmea also was convicted of the attempted bombing of the British Consulate.

UN blames Israel for charging Palestinians for electricity

From a recent report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development:

Electricity importation: Another source of Palestinian fiscal leakage

Importing electricity from Israel is another source of loss of Palestinian fiscal resources and consumer welfare. When Palestinian electricity distributors (municipalities, village councils and distribution companies) fail to pay the Israel Electric Corporation, Israel deducts from the Palestinian National Authority’s clearance revenue and registers any remaining balances as debt owed to the Corporation, to be deducted from clearance revenue at later dates. Such deductions also cover sewage fees and water imports, and are referred to as net lending. They are deducted by Israel without the consent of or verification by the Authority, in a unilateral, non-transparent and unpredictable manner (World Bank, 2014b).

Can you believe it? Israel insists that it gets paid for electricity, water and other utilities being provided, and it will deduct the money it is owed when the PA refuses to pay - all under existing agreements!

Obviously Israel shouldn't ever charge anything for power until the PA is good and ready to pay on its own. Maybe in 2025, maybe in 2050. But the check is as good as in the mail.

(h/t Irene)

Meretz: Ban Bars From Not Hiring Muslims Who Won't Serve Alcohol (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, September 9 - New legislation brought by the left-wing Meretz Party would outlaw what it calls manifestations of discrimination on the basis of religious belief, making it a crime to refuse to hire a Muslim as a bartender simply because his religion forbids him to serve alcohol.

A bill co-sponsored by Meretz MKs Tamar Zandberg and Ilan Gilon was submitted to the Economic Development Committee today, that would make it a misdemeanor for a caterer, restaurant, liquor store, or bar to discriminate against a Muslim applicant because he may refuse to serve alcoholic beverages. The bill sets a NIS 10,000 fine for a first offense, NIS 20,000 for a repeat offense, and six months' imprisonment or two years' community service for anyone who violates the provision.

Zandberg said she was moved to introduce the bill after realizing that despite years of patronizing establishments in virtually all of North Tel Aviv, she had not once spied a bartender in traditional Muslim garb, and concluded that discrimination must be the root cause of that absence.

"We must take down all barriers to gainful employment for all citizens if we are to claim the mantle of a progressive, democratic society," said Zandberg. "Muslims are not to blame for the strictures of their faith, and it is up to our society to accommodate them in any way we can. A bar owner or manager who sees fit to exclude a person simply because that person's religious observance keeps him from performing all the functions of the position engages in religious discrimination and will be penalized."

Gilon told reporters the original draft of the legislation also included more sweeping provisions, but that they scaled back its contents to make the shifts more manageable. "We intend to reintroduce the other elements in separate pieces of legislation later on," he explained. "For example, while the current proposal does not include anything other than the alcohol issue, by January we will tackle other types f discrimination that are just as troubling in a democracy. By way of illustration, currently there is nothing that prevents law enforcement agencies from banning violent criminals from joining the police force. This is a clear violation of those potential police officers' rights, as it unjustly curtails their employment prospects."

"Additionally, we are looking into the practice among academic institutions of only accepting applicants with a certain level of academic achievement," he said. "That is a gross violation of less-accomplished applicants' rights."

Gilon and Zandberg added that the provision to bar religious discrimination explicitly did not include religious Jews, who should know better than to cling to that outdated, barbaric system.

09/09 Links Pt1: Palestinians have become obsessive “tragedy tourists”; Support for Iran Deal Collapses

From Ian:

Ryan Bellerose: Palestinians have become obsessive “tragedy tourists”

Lets get a few things straight. You do not get to claim a genocide when your population has exploded. As someone whose family has gone through one, I am telling you to cut that s*** out, it’s offensive and it’s annoying.
You did not “go through what Native Americans went through.” Nobody forced you to speak an alien language, worship God in an alien manner and steal your sacred places. As a matter of fact THAT’S WHAT YOU DID. You stole sacred places, forced indigenous people to speak Arabic and worship god as Muslims. So seriously cut that out too.
You did not in fact have a civil rights struggle like black people in America. Black people in America didn’t blow up school buses or pizzerias filled with school kids in order to achieve equal rights, and they damn sure didn’t talk endlessly about pushing white people into the sea.
You are not persecuted like gay people, for something that is beyond your control. Nobody throws you off buildings because you love someone you shouldn’t. So again, cut that out, it’s getting old, especially when some of us are well aware that your society not only hates gay people but actively persecutes them. You are the guys throwing them from buildings.
You do not get to keep stealing stories. You stole the identity of what was known as ‘Palestinian’. Before World War II the term meant Jews. But that’s OK, it’s a colonialist term, and I am sure that my Jewish friends don’t want it. They prefer to be called Jews, Hebrews, Israelites or Israelis, so you can take your colonialist garbage and get lost. (h/t Bob Knot)

Caroline Glick: The Republican fall guys

The ayatollahs will ride their nuclear pact with the Great Satan all the way to a nuclear arsenal and regional hegemony, repeating the cycles of brinksmanship, extortion, respite and brinksmanship that they learned from their North Korean teachers.
Obama won’t walk away from his signature foreign policy. He will devote his energies in his remaining time in office to covering up for Iran. That is why he is breaking the law he signed and refusing to hand over the side deals regarding the farcical nature of UN inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites to Congress.
Moreover, after insisting that the deal is the best way to prevent a holocaust or that it is the only way a Jewish mother can protect the homeland of her people, Democratic lawmakers are not going to rush to acknowledge that they are lying. Now that they’ve signed onto the deal, they own it.
Of course, the Iranians are another story. While the Democrats will not abandon the deal no matter what, the Iranians signed the deal in order to abandon it the minute it outlives its usefulness. And that works just fine for the Democrats.
The Democrats know that the Iranians will use any step the Republicans take to try to enforce the deal’s verification regime or condition sanctions relief on Iranian abidance by the deal’s restrictions on its nuclear activities as an excuse to walk away from the deal. They also know the Iranians will remain in the deal as long as it is useful to them.
Since the Iranians intend to hide their nuclear activities, the Democrats assume Tehran will stay in until it is financially and militarily ready to escalate its nuclear activities.
The Democrats believe that timetable will extend well beyond the lifespan of the Obama administration.
Whenever the Iranians leave, they can be depended on to blame US for their decision to vacate their signature. And the Democrats in turn will blame the Republicans for pushing the Iranians over the edge.
You have to give credit to the administration and its Iranian chums. At least they are consistent. They have constructed an agreement that gives them both what they care about most. Iran, as always, wants to dominate the region and develop the means to destroy Israel and its Arab adversaries at will. The administration, as always, wants to blame the Republicans.
Israel and the Arabs understand the game that is being played. It is time for the Republicans to get wise to it.

PMW: Abbas' description of Jewish history as "delusional myths" echoed on PA TV

A narrator on official PA TV stated that the "so-called Temple" is a "myth" and that stories about Jewish history in Jerusalem are "delusions and legends." This historical revision exemplifies the Palestinian Authority's policy of denying Jewish history in Jerusalem and denying the existence of the Temple.
PA TV narrator: "The story of the Temple is nothing but a collection of legends and myths for political reasons. They [Jews] have set Palestine and Jerusalem as their goal, and have used the myths in the service of their declared goals of occupation and imperialism. In the spirit of the delusions and legends, they try to get rid of the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] and establish their so-called 'Temple' - the greatest crime and forgery in history." [Official PA TV, Aug. 1, 2015]
This ideology and the use of such expressions come from the top PA echelons. Palestinian Media Watch documented that PA Chairman Abbas, in a speech to leaders of Muslim countries, defined Jewish history in Jerusalem as a "delusional myth" and claimed that Israel is trying to invent a Jewish history "by brute force":

Another UNRWA worker mocks religious Jews being murdered

UNRWA worker Hassan Alaer likes Hamas, as his Facebook page shows.

But he really hates Jews, and he likes to make fun of terror attacks on them,

Here's one that's even worse:

Will UNRWA discipline him? Not if they tolerate antisemitism from its own spokesperson.

I tweeted these cartoons to all UNRWA accounts on Sunday asking them to contact me if they want to find out the name of the employee who posted this, and I haven't heard any response. The assertion that UNRWA takes these kinds of reports seriously has been shown to be a sham.

Unless UNRWA's donors speak up and insist on full transparency for UNRWA's processes on how they deal with the scores of examples of such hate that I've uncovered, this sham will continue.

You can take action: UN Watch has published a form to send emails to major officials asking to investigate these types of posts.

I have so many examples that I cannot even post them all. I started tweeting some additional ones, like this.

It is embarrassingly easy to find @UNRWA teachers who post #Hamas propaganda on Facebook https://t.co/ORD36Q0KGJ pic.twitter.com/43fIgSLNgE
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) September 8, 2015

Netherlands textbook is blatantly anti-Israel

Likud.nl has complained to the publisher of a Dutch textbook that is filled with anti-Israel inaccuracies and invective, while pretending to be fair.

The first 20 pages of the text is online but the worst stuff is later on.

The organization identified some 41 errors, distortions and omissions. Some of the more notable ones:

Chapter 2 about the founding of Israel is called "Born of injustice, founded on injustice." The publisher claims that they are referring to the Holocaust. This is absurd.

"From the times of the patriarch Abraham (around 2000 BC) until Roman times Jews inhabited the land of Palestine." (Page 22) Besides the issue of calling the Land of Israel "Palestine," the book does not admit that Jews lived in Eretz Yisroel continuously since then. The publisher refused to correct that.

"The British government was urgently shy in the war for money. Jewish banking houses would be willing to favorable loan conditions as the government made a gesture to the Jewish people. "(Reasons for the Balfour Declaration, page 23).

This is one of four reasons given for the Balfour Declaration - Jewish money. Yet the book doesn't mention the main reason - that it was universally recognized that Jews were a nation, and that their homeland was historic Israel and Judea, and that they should be able to live there as a nation.

"The [Balfour Declaration] contained two irreconcilable promises:. On the one hand the establishment of a Jewish national home and on the other preserving the rights of the 'non-Jewish communities" (page 23)
There is no contradiction between the two unless you assume a priori that Jews cannot treat non-Jews' rights. If that is the case then neither can any other nation offer civil rights to minorities in an acceptable manner.

"In 1936 a civil war broke out in Palestine between Jews and Arabs." (Page 24)
It just "broke out!" No one at fault! The role of the Mufti is not mentioned. The murderous riots of 1929 (and earlier) are not mentioned.

I believe that the same publisher, Feniks (Phoenix,) wrote this timeline of Middle East history that shows the bias of the book (autotranslated)


70	Failed rebellion of the Jews against the Romans
! 869	Opening Suez Canal
1880	Begin Automotive
1882-1956	British occupation of Egypt. Egypt becomes British protectorate
1897	Establishment in Basel of the Zionist world organization with the aim of international legal recognition Jewish National home in Palestine
1908	Young Turks staged a coup.
1909	Founding British Petroleum (BP)
1909	Sultan Abdul Hamid II is deposed and replaced by a military triumvirate
1915	April: deportation of Armenians into the Syrian desert Genocide with 600,000 to 1 million victims.
1915	Mac Mahan Papers: The British High Commissioner in Egypt gives to the Arab prince Hussein Ibn Ali, the promise that he could establish an independent kingdom on the Arabian peninsula and into Syria and Iraq
1916	Sykes-Picot treaty. France and England shared the secret area in the Middle East.
1917	Balfour declaration: November 2nd. British Foreign Minister stated that the British Government was sympathetic to the establishment and Jewish National home in Palestine. In exchange for financial support from the banking house Rothschild
1919	Establishment League
1920	Treaty of Sevres, Arabs no independence
1920-1948	British mandate over Palestine
1920	Founding of the Haganah: Jewish defense force
1921	Establishment Jewish Agency, Jewish forerunner Government
1921	Transjordan is loosened by the British from Palestine
1923	Treaty of Lausanne which the boundaries of modern Turkey were recognized
1923	Exclamation secular state by Kemal Ataturk Turkey
1930	Establishment Mapai party, akin to the Histradoet
1935	Assumption in Nazi Germany of the Neurenburger laws, which all civil rights were taken away from the Jews.
1936	Outright civil war in Palestine between Jews and Arabs.
1942	Wannsee Conference (January), where the Nazis decided on the "final solution of the Jewish question."
1945	Establishment Arab League to promote Arab unity.
1945-1946	Nuremberg trials: Here the Nazis by the Allies sufferers were brought before a special court.
1946	Syria independence
1947	On November 29 the United Nations General Assembly is in favor of the partition of Palestine into a Jewish - and a Palestinian part.
1948	(April) Extremist Jews committed in the village of Deir Yassin massacre of 254 Arab residents
1948	(May 14) Establishment by David Ben Gurion of the independent Jewish state of Israel.
1948	(May 15) British Mandate of Palestine leave.
1948-1949	Revolutionary War between Israel and its Arab neighbors which Israel conquered West Jerusalem and the Negev Desert.
1948-1951	Doubling Israel's population of 650,000 to 1.3 million

1949	Truce between Israel and its Arab neighbors. File Lines were recognized as the borders of the new state of Israel. Gaza came under Egyptian administration. West Bank of the Jordan came under the management of Trans-Jordan. In 1950 lijfde King Abdullah in this at Jordan.
1952	Military coup in Egypt. King Farouk was deposed and Egypt became a republic under the leadership of Gamal Abdul Nasser
1956	Suez Canal war. France Britain and Israel occupied the Sinai desert and the area around the Suez Canal after Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. The two superpowers adopted strict action now and England, France and Israel had to withdraw their troops.
1958	Coup in Iraq. Royal family murdered. Iraq became a republic
1963	Coup in Syria by the Baath Party
1967	Six Day War in June. Israel managed to turn off the air forces of Egypt and Syria before it attacked Israel. Within six days, Israel won the war and occupied the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai and the West Bank including East Jerusalem.
1968	Saddam Hussein's grip, backed by the Baath Party, in power.

1970	After the death of Nasser Anwar Sadat became the new President of Egypt
1970	Hafez al-Assad of Syria leader
1973	October War / Yom Kippur War. During the Jewish holiday attacked the Egyptian - and the Syrian army invaded Israel. A big shock in Israel.Egypt won the psychological war.
1973	Oil Boycott proclaimed by OPEC.
1979	Signing of the Camp David agreement between the US, Egypt and Israel.The Sinai was returned to Egypt, they recognized each other and the Palestinians were given limited self-government.
1981	President Sadat of Egypt was assassinated. He was picked by President Mubarak follow.
1980-1988	War between Iraq and Iran.
1990	(August) Iraq within Kuwait. First Gulf War creates and will last until March 1991.
1990	Operation Desert Storm. Allied action to liberate Kuwait.
1995	Rabbin is murdered during a peace rally by a Jewish extremist
2003	(March 20) Initial Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Nothing about the Jewish kingdoms, Nothing about Jews moving to Israel during the 19th century. Nothing about Arab terror attacks against Jews or Palestinian airplane hijackings or Munich or Entebbe or the intifadas or even Oslo.

And the parts I highlighted are completely wrong.

When textbooks push lies, how can anyone expect the next generation to be able to look at Israel in a fair manner?

(h/t Het Vrije Volk)

UNRWA's Chris Gunness crosses into explicit antisemitism. He must be fired - NOW.

This is as blatant as it gets.

UNRWA's Chris Gunness just tweeted two separate articles from the antisemitic hate site Mondoweiss. In both cases his tweets have a single purpose: to denigrate Jews.

Not Zionists - Jews.

The first one was this:

His link is to Mondoweiss:

But the article, from JTA, was against the fringe of Jews who blamed Carter's cancer on his political positions. It quotes a leading Orthodox Rabbi in opposing such noxious views:

“Carter is not the only one dying from cancer. People in my own family were victims; pious and holy individuals I knew personally were targets of agonizing final ailments. But the Torah taught us not to dare make judgments based on equating someone’s suffering with sin and be guilty of the crime of the friends of Job.”

The article concludes by mocking those Jews (and Christians) who make such claims:

One can only guess how those who believe Jimmy Carter’s cancer is divine retribution are explaining the 90-plus years he has lived in relatively good health, trotting around the globe, selling books and maintaining a position of great influence.

Mondoweiss, of course, misrepresents the article by 180 degrees. JTA was exposing something ugly in a tiny outlier of the Jewish community and mocking it, and the Mondoweiss hate site pretended that JTA and JPost were supporting the ridiculous claims.

Gunness went further, and pretended that "leading newspaper" The Jerusalem Post - which he had called to boycott in the past - was reporting as news that Carter's cancer is retribution from God. The former BBC reporter didn't even bother reading the original source: he relied on hate site Mondoweiss to misrepresent the article. Anyone reading the Mondoweiss article would believe that Jews in general and Jewish publications hold these views.

This is antisemitism, pushed by Chris Gunness.

Gunness then apparently decided that Mondoweiss is the type of site that he can get all of his news from when looking for reasons to attack Jews. Again, not Zionist - Jews.

He dug up a Mondoweiss article that was over a year old:

What happened was this: The Times of Israel allowed bloggers to post pretty much whatever they wanted, without editorial oversight. One guy posted a highly offensive article saying that sometimes genocide is allowed under Jewish law. Both TOI and the 5 Towns Jewish Times, where it was also published, took down the article as soon as they realized what it said, and apologized for not overseeing the online publishing process better. They all agree that the article was noxious. even the author apologized within hours of the event.

Mondoweiss reprinted the article that practically all Jews including Orthodox Jews find reprehensible, with the explanation that it is "representative of part of the discourse in the American Jewish community" - in other words, purely to smear Jews.

Gunness decided today that this year old antisemitic slander is worth publicizing, because Gunness obviously believes that Jews are the problem and he, like his heroes at Mondoweiss, must shine a light on how ugly they are.

But Gunness goes further. Mondoweiss at least admits that the outlets removed the stories in very short order, and apologized. Gunness' tweets are meant to make his followers believe that these viewpoints - and every community has offensive fringe viewpoints - are widely held by religious Jews. And he is attackign the Times of Israel which acted quickly and responsibly to fix its flawed processes that allowed bloggers to post without editor oversight.

Why would Gunness bring this episode up now, stripped of context, if not to publicize his hate for Jews via Mondoweiss' bile?

Mondoweiss' antisemitism is clear. No less an anti-Zionist icon as MJ Rosenberg says it explicitly. it has been documented in The Atlantic. David Bernstein in a Washington Post Volokh Conspiracy blog gives many more examples.

And this hate site is now Chris Gunness' favorite place to link to, based on his last week of tweets.

In both these stories the Jewish community, including the Orthodox Jewish community, immediately responded forcefully against the odious views of a tiny minority.

In both these stories Chris Gunness of UNRWA twists the facts to make it appear that Jews are evil and that fringe viewpoints are mainstream.

This is antisemitism by any definition.

The online petition to investigate Gunness should go from 1000 signatures to 100,000 based on this explicit hate being promulgated not by Palestinian Arab employees of UNRWA but by a former BBC reporter who is UNRWA's public face. His hypocrisy is stunning and his hate is nauseating.

There is absolutely no excuse for a UN employee to act this way

Chris Gunness must be fired immediately.

UPDATE: Gunness deleted the tweets without apology.

09/08 Links Pt2: It Is Disgraceful to Compare European Migrants to Holocaust Victims

From Ian:

It Is Disgraceful to Compare European Migrants to Holocaust Victims

If we are to believe Robert Frolich, Hungary’s chief rabbi, we’re witnessing scenes not seen in Europe since the Holocaust. “It was horrifying when I saw those images [of migrants in Europe],” Frolich told The New York Times. “It reminded me of Auschwitz.”
What were those images? Thousands of migrants had entered the Czech Republic illegally, and police had written numbers on the arms of some with markers, to help keep track of them. This simple procedure reminded the rabbi of the tattooing of concentration camp inmates marked for death. Meanwhile, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece and France have been erecting flimsy razor-wire fences in a desperate and unsuccessful bid to keep out illegal immigrants who have been pouring across their borders en masse for weeks and months.
Another outrage caused Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch’s Jewish executive director, to trot out his own Holocaust comparison. “Certainly those images of the trains can’t help but conjure up nightmares of the Holocaust,” he pontificated.
Roth was referring the trains carrying thousands of migrants from their points of illegal entry in sovereign nations like Hungary towards Germany, via Austria, where they had insisted on going, and where they would be housed in relative comfort – not shuffled off to their deaths in concentration camps.
“They tell them that the train was going to Austria and then take them to a camp instead,” Frolich chimed in. “[I]t is very similar to what happened to Jews in the 1940s.”
Is it? Such gratuitous comparisons to the fate of Jewish Holocaust victims are not only fatuous; they are disgraceful – especially coming from a rabbi and a human rights activist, both of whom should know better. It was the migrants themselves who had insisted on getting on those trains in the first place. When Hungarian authorities in Budapest tried to stop them, the asylum-seekers came close to rioting.

IsraellyCool: We Can’t Compare Syrian Refugees And Jews Fleeing Nazis

Since the moment we saw those pictures of that little boy washed up on the beach, there has been a clamouring noise from too many people keen to relate the current refugee crisis to the plight of the Jews in Nazi Europe. Let’s overlook the hundreds of thousands already murdered in Syria’s civil war.
So I was just wondering if I could ask something of all those people quick to claim that Syrian refugees are the new 1930’s Jews.
For those Jews who managed to escape Nazi Germany, where were the refugee camps, like the ones in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan today hosting 4,088,099 registered refugees (6th Sept). Because I’ve never heard anyone mention them. I’m sure a lot of Jews must have been saved in those camps.
As far as I know, in 1939 there were precisely zero Jewish countries and zero safe and secure refugee camps. I suspect if there had been a Jewish country or even a refugee camp it would have taken in some refugees. Worse: the major nations of the world, especially Britain, blocked Jews from reaching safety and sent them back to be murdered by Hitler.
There are 23 Arab countries and a somewhere north of 60 Muslim countries and beyond the immediate neighbours housing huge UNHCR camps, they are doing almost nothing to help and are certainly not offering to permanently settle refugees as the nations of Europe are being called upon to do.
To punch emotional buttons and compare people who are fleeing safe and secure (if desperately unpleasant and hopeless) refugee camps with the 6 million murdered Jews is really, really dark.

Douglas Murray: Where is the ‘Ummah’ now?

I have just returned from a trip abroad to find Britain and Europe in a state of madness. I will not reflect on any connections between these events. But perhaps a reader could enlighten me as to why in recent days Britain and Europe appear to have decided that Syria’s refugees are entirely ‘our’ responsibility. Other than a generalised sense that we are all human beings, Europeans are about as far down the list of those responsible as it is possible to be.
Neither this country nor any of our European allies have made any significant intervention in Syria’s civil war. So why should Hungarians and Slovakians, Austrians and Poles be expected to bear such a significant responsibility for this?
Whenever Britain or America or Israel do have any involvement in any Islamic country we hear a very great deal about the ‘Ummah’. The OIC and the Arab League, for instance, never miss an opportunity to talk about the brotherhood and unity of the Islamic nation and how much any ‘hurt’ or offence to any part of this entity hurts and offends the whole.
Well Iran and Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and almost every other Muslim country in the Middle East have been involving themselves in the Syrian civil war for four years now. Many have sent fully-equipped armies of their own to fight intra-Islamic rivalries in the homeland of the Syrian peoples. And yet it is Europeans who are falling for the idea that because of this, it is our responsibility – not theirs – to pay for the mess they have created.
Well it seems to me that at the very least we should ask these countries ‘Where is your “Ummah” now?’ Sure, Jordan and Lebanon are grudgingly having to cope with plenty of refugees from Syria. But not one of the Gulf States – not one – has a resettlement programme for a single Syrian refugee.