Thursday, October 15, 2015

10/15 Links Pt2: Between Ankara and Jerusalem: A festival of incitement and blood

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: Between Ankara and Jerusalem: A festival of incitement and blood

It doesn’t matter if we are talking about ISIS leader Abū Bakr al-Baghdādi, Hamas leaders Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh, or Islamic Movement leader Raed Salah. Wherever they are, their preaching of incitement leads to a festival of blood. It's not that someone has really changed something in the Holy Basin. But Salah the instigator, head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, has succeeded in spreading the plot and fanning the flames. A huge achievement.
The most important conclusion is that the instigators must be silenced. The fact that Salah continues to spread his venom clarifies that sometimes, only sometimes, defensive democracy fails, and the instigators turn freedom of expression into a tool for harming democracy, reconciliation, a chance for peace.
Reckless incitement which leads to bloodshed is not part of the freedom of expression. If Salah is not silenced, what happened on Saturday in Ankara will happen in Tel Aviv. Salah must be silenced under the law. And if there is a problem, the law should be changed. It should have been done years ago. There was no need to wait, because it was clear that it would happen.
And we should remember another common denominator of every place in which the Islamist instigators succeed in igniting an outburst: The victims, at the end of the day, are mostly Muslims. So I would like to say to my good friends in the neighboring religion: Don’t get too enthusiastic. Calm down. Snap out of your illusions, Jews will be hurt, but you will be hurt much more, and that's not a cause for celebration.

Andrew Bolt: Pilger’s sick conspiracy theory

Syria is a dictatorship that has used poison gas against its people.
Iran is a fascist theocracy which sponsors terrorism and threatens to wipe Israel from the map.
Russia is a thugocracy that has invaded Ukraine, stolen the Crimea and shot down a passenger jet.
But for John Pilger, none of that is enough to explain why sensible democrats of the West might be critics of those regimes:

To the rulers of the world in Washington and Europe, Syria’s true crime is not the oppressive nature of its government but its independence from American and Israeli power — just as Iran’s true crime is its independence, and Russia’s true crime is its independence, and China’s true crime is its independence. In an American-owned world, independence is intolerable.
The idea that the US and the emasculated Europe are “rulers of the world” is risible. The suggestion that the issue here is “Israeli power” is sinister. The assertion that opposing dictatorships, theoocracies and communist oligarchies is just a ploy to keep the world “American-owned” is paranoid.
Pilger’s world view is one that would sell our freedoms to autocrats and thugs. Yet he’s a sage of the Left.

Terror Supporter Donated £5,000 to Corbyn’s Leadership Campaign

Jeremy Corbyn accepted a £5,000 donation from a man who claimed Palestinians have a “moral right” to terrorism. Prof. Ted Honderich, who donated the money to Corbyn’s leadership campaign last month, wrote in a 2011 letter to the Guardian:
“Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism within historic Palestine against neo-Zionism”
Honderich went on to describe Palestinian terrorism as “based on true humanity“:
“Terrorism, as in this case, can as exactly be self-defence, a freedom struggle, martyrdom, the conclusion of an argument based on true humanity”
In an interview with Iranian state television channel Press TV, Honderich is quoted as repeating his comments:
“What is happening in Palestine, what is being done by neo-Zionism is such that it gives Palestinians, I happen to believe this and it’s gotten me into trouble, a moral right to their terrorism against neo-Zionism within all of historic Palestine.”
In 2002 Honderich wrote a book called “After the Terror“, which was withdrawn from sale in Germany after Holocaust Centre director Micha Brumlik alleged it was anti-Semitic.

.@UNRWA workers glorify stone throwers

Two UNRWA workers with similar profile photos:

Saleh Mohsen from Gaza:

Ribhi Tomalieh of Ramallah:

"Oh pulse of the West Bank, do not calm down,

announce a revolution,

shatter your chains,

make your flesh the bridge for Return,

Oh pulse of the West Bank, do not calm down"

Yes, this is what UNRWA employees exhort their friends - and probably their students - to do.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

If you are a regular reader of Elder of Ziyon, you may know how many terror attacks have been perpetrated against Israelis in the last couple of weeks, how many have been murdered or maimed. For myself, I’ve lost count.

Here in Rehovot we’ve been lucky. So far we haven’t experienced what they are undergoing in Jerusalem, or even Ra’anana. There’s still plenty of anxiety. When my daughter was very small and we read her the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she expressed concern about wolves. We reassured her that there were no wolves anywhere near where we lived. “Do they have feet?” she asked. Terrorists have feet, cars, and the ability to ride buses and trains like anyone else.

When something bad happens, we should make it a learning experience. What do we know about this latest murder epidemic and what lessons can be learned?

Some terror attacks seem to be organized by groups like Hamas, and some are spur-of-the-moment attacks by amateur terrorists, young women, university students, municipal employees, telephone installers, and 13-year old boys. All you need to do is take a stout kitchen knife with you in the morning. If you see a Jew, come up behind him and bury it in his neck. Anyone can do it. Someone may shoot you, but martyrdom is part of the appeal.

It seems to be extra points to get a soldier (female soldiers are sometimes softer targets), but visibly religious Jews also seem to be singled out.

Many have noted the cold hatred, the lack of empathy that characterizes the terrorists and those that cheer them on. Odel Bennett, whose husband Aharon was murdered and her son injured in a vicious stabbing attack in the Old City, reported that local Arabs laughed and spat at her as she bled from her wounds.

Some Israelis and other Westerners have difficulty understanding the motivation of the murderers and the apparent ease with which they can approach a stranger and try to slaughter him or her in cold blood. It seems to me that there are three important explanatory factors.

One is ideology, closely intertwined with the second, Islam. And the third is Arab culture.
When Israel made the historic mistake of reintroducing the poisonous PLO and particularly Yasser Arafat into its own body, the very first thing Arafat did was take control of the mosques, media and educational system of the territories. Imams, teachers or journalists were required to follow the PLO line, and anyone who did not was removed. They were instructed to teach the myth of an indigenous ‘Palestinian people’ who were dispossessed from their ancestral land by the subhuman Jews from Europe, and to aspire to the ultimate ‘liberation’ of all of ‘Palestine’.

Part of what they learned is that as an oppressed people they have the right to use any means necessary to achieve liberation. The choice of terrorist violence, peaceful protest, lawsuits, diplomacy or all-out war is entirely based on the efficacy. Whatever works is good.

Every subject taught in the schools, every sermon in the mosques, radio and television programs, summer camps, everything was utilized to carry the message of Palestinian victimization and ultimate vindication, along with generous helpings of anti-Jewish themes taken from Islamic and European sources, and countless stories of how the Jews have stolen from, humiliated, raped and murdered Palestinian Arabs.

Jews are not seen as individuals, with personalities and families. Jews are Zionists or ‘settlers’, representatives of the forces of oppression.

This is what I refer to as ‘ideology’, and you can hear it echoed in the speeches of the Arab members of the Knesset. Every ‘Palestinian’ believes this to a greater or lesser extent, and much of it is taught in Israeli schools in the Arab sector.

The influence of Islam is important: the constant humiliation of Muslims living in a state where the sovereign power is not only non-Muslim but Jewish; the availability of triggers for furious action, like the always-effective lie that “Al-Aqsa is in danger,” which has been used to provoke riots and murder at least since the 1920s; and the appeal of martyrdom, especially for young or especially susceptible Muslims.

Traditional Islamic Jew-hatred is invoked in the mosques of the PA and Hamas, where Jews are dehumanized as descended from apes and pigs. So not only are Jews not individuals, they are not even people.

Today the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Islamic Movement in Israel are saying over and over that Israel plans to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and build a third Temple on its ruins. Some are explicitly calling on Muslims to become martyrs in its defense.

Finally there is the Muslim-Arab culture, with its honor-shame motivators. Every day that an Arab allows the humiliations and thefts to stand takes away from his honor and adds to his shame. The honor must be regained and the shame wiped out – and the only act powerful enough to do this is a violent one, the bloodier the better.

I must also note their familiarity with the slaughter of animals – every year on the holiday of Eid Al-Adha, mass public slaughterings of cows, sheep and goats take place (videos too disturbing to link), and Palestinian children participate in slaughtering animals at home. In general, Palestinian Arabs are exceptionally cruel to animals by Western standards.

We can put this together: the ideology provides a reason for violent acts and a justification for them, Islam ignites their anger and provokes action, and culture demands that the action draw blood. And their particular relationship to slaughter makes plunging a knife into living flesh – especially if that flesh belongs to a being that is less than human – a comfortable, or at least familiar, act.
Westerners, including most Israelis, may be able to understand the ideology, but the religious motivations are harder to grasp, particularly the veneration of martyrdom. The honor-shame concept is also alien in the West. And how many of us have slaughtered an animal with a knife, or could do so?

All this contributes to our latest learning experience.

In 2000-2002, we learned that the Arabs, led by the PLO and Hamas, didn’t want their own state; they wanted ours. In 2005, we learned that withdrawal from any part of the land of Israel brings war and not peace.

In the short term, this uprising will have to be put down by force. There is no one to negotiate with about it. The inciters will have to be stopped as well as the terrorists themselves, something that has never been tried. Maybe now we are beginning to learn how important that is. That’s the first lesson of 2015.

The second lesson, which is nothing new and is really just being reinforced, is that the conflict isn’t about borders or anything concrete. It’s about Arabs denying our right to be here, arrogating our indigenous status and ownership of the land to themselves. It’s about Muslims who won’t live under Jewish sovereignty and who will only tolerate us in a subordinate role. It’s about lost honor that can only be regained by murder.

There is another lesson from all this. That is that there is no way we can change to make it possible to coexist with them. Either they must change or one or the other side will disappear.
I promise it won’t be us.

10/15 Links Pt1: Terrorist Abbas said ‘executed’ by Israel shown alive in hospital; Kerry Flip-Flops

From Ian:

Terrorist Abbas said ‘executed’ by Israel shown alive in hospital

Clips and images were published Thursday of a 13-year-old Palestinian terrorist who was hit by a car while fleeing from police earlier this week, disproving claims by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who said Wednesday he was “executed” by Israel.
The pictures, distributed by the Government Press Office, show Ahmad Manasra awake and sitting in a bed at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.
In one picture he is seen making a hand gesture some have interpreted as an Islamist symbol.
Manasra is accused of carrying out a stabbing spree on Monday with his cousin Hassan Manasra, 15, seriously injuring a 13-year-old boy and 25-year-old man. Hassan Manasra was shot and killed after charging at police with a knife, while Ahmed Manasra was injured after being hit by a car while fleeing.
On Wednesday night, Abbas accused Israelis of “executing our boys in cold blood, as they did with the boy Ahmed Manasra and other children in Jerusalem and other places.”
Other Palestinian officials and relatives have also claimed that Manasra and his cousin were not involved in an attack.
The Prime Minister’s Office quickly issued a statement after the PA president’s speech saying he was spreading “lies and incitement.”
“The boy he is referring to is alive and hospitalized in Hadassah after stabbing an Israeli child who was riding his bicycle,” the statement said.

Don't believe Abbas' lies, see it for yourself

Contrary to Mahmoud Abbas' distorted statement on the terror attack on 12 October in Jerusalem, the 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra is alive and is being treated in an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem. Ahmed and his 15-year-old cousin went out with knives on a killing spree searching for Jewish victims. As a result, two Israelis were seriously injured, among them a 13-year-old Jewish boy.

Exposing Palestinian LIES! See what really happened

PLO issues revised English version of Abbas' 'execution' speech

The Palestine Liberation Organization on Thursday released a different version of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech, which was broadcast on Palestine TV on Wednesday night.
The new English version quotes Abbas as talking about the “shooting of our children in cold blood as they did with the child Ahmed Manasrah and other children from Jerusalem.”
The modified English version was released by the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department, which said this was a “full translation” of Abbas’s speech.
However, the Arabic version of Abbas’s speech does not talk about “shooting.” Instead, Abbas is quoted as talking about the “execution of our children in cold blood, as they did with the boy Ahmed Manasrah and other children in Jerusalem and other places.”
PLO officials did not offer any explanation as to why they chose to change Abbas’s statement about Manasrah.

The full text of the [delivered] speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

From yesterday's State Department briefing:

QUESTION: All right. And then the visit to Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif by Israelis, is that – does the Administration consider that to be visits to there – does the Administration consider that to be incitement?

MR KIRBY: I’m not going to be able to characterize every single act with terminology. What the Secretary has said and stands by is that we want to see the status quo restored, the status quo arrangement there on Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount, and for both sides to take actions to de-escalate the tensions. So incitement can take many forms. Again, I’m not going to – I’m not going to go through a laundry list of what is or what isn’t. I mean, the Secretary spoke specifically about incitement yesterday, and we recognize that incitement can go both ways here. But it’s the – whether it’s action or rhetoric, it’s things that encourage others to continue this cycle of violence, it’s just not helpful and not going to get us to what we really want to see there.

QUESTION: Is it the Administration’s position that the status quo at the Temple Mount has been broken?

MR KIRBY: Well, certainly, the status quo has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence.

...QUESTION: So I just have two extremely brief ones, so we can move on after that. You said in answer to my question on the status quo whether – at the Temple Mount whether it’s been broken or not, you said that it has not been observed and that is what has led to – I think. I’ll go back and look at the transcript, but I think you said it had not been – it was not – has not been observed and that is what has led to a great deal of the violence. That certainly sounds like you’re affixing some kind of blame to Israel if this is, in fact, what the Administration believes has led to the violence – the visits by – visit by Israelis to --

MR KIRBY: Well, it’s not about believing it, Matt. I mean, you just looked at what’s been happening in that – on Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount recently. I mean, just if we’re looking at this in acute – through an acute lens, I mean, the activity there, the status quo not being observed, has led to violence. There’s – that’s indisputable. That’s not a belief; that’s a fact.

QUESTION: Okay. But that --

MR KIRBY: Now, but it’s not about – but it’s not about affixing blame on one side or the other. There’s a status quo there. There’s a status quo --

QUESTION: It certainly sounds like it, no?

MR KIRBY: No, there’s a status quo there that we want to see restored, and the status quo has worked in the past in keeping things calm.

When the words "status quo" are used in relation to the Temple Mount, it is always an accusation on Israel. No one outside Israel has accused Arabs of violating the status quo, even though they have done it numerous times, including building an entire huge mosque underground while destroying priceless Jewish artifacts.

There is no doubt as to the meaning of these words.

And after people called him on it, spokesperson John Kirby retracted on Twitter:

Clarification from today's briefing: I did not intend to suggest that status quo at Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif has been broken.
— John Kirby (@statedeptspox) October 15, 2015

But it is worse than that, because it sure sounds from the first paragraph quoted above like the State Department is saying that Jews visiting their holiest spot is a form of incitement, as is one of those "things that encourage others to continue this cycle of violence, it’s just not helpful and not going to get us to what we really want to see there."

From CNN:

One strategy being tried is checkpoints.

Israeli forces have shut down access to some Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem by setting up checkpoints and putting more police on the streets.

"These police actions and operations are intended to fairly respond to the wave of terror and knifing, within the framework of trying to return law and order to all citizens of the state," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

Human Rights Watch condemned the new security measures.

"Locking down east Jerusalem neighborhoods will infringe upon the freedom of movement of all Palestinian residents rather than being a narrowly tailored response to a specific concern," said Sari Bashi of Human Rights Watch.

"The recent spate of attacks on Israeli civilians would present a challenge for any police force. But exacerbating the punitive policy of home demolitions is an unlawful and ill-considered response."

Bashi's inability to find a better solution is reiterated on Twitter:

#Jerusalem mayor's call to close Palestinian neighborhoods- punitive, disproportionate response to tough security problem.
— Sari Bashi (@saribashi) October 13, 2015

Attacks are real challenge for Jerusalem police. But closing off Palestinian neighborhoods blocks freedom of movement of all residents.
— Sari Bashi (@saribashi) October 14, 2015

Bashi is admitting that Human Rights Watch cannot come up with a single idea of how Israel can defend Israelis from being stabbed by random Arabs.

But HRW's official position is that dead Jews are a small price to pay to avoid inconveniencing the people from whose neighborhoods the murderers come.

Meaning that given a choice of the rights of Jews to live, or the rights of Arabs to not have to spend an extra couple of minutes to go somewhere, the Arab rights win.

Given the choice of an admittedly imperfect disincentive for young Palestinians to stab Jews, and allowing Jews to be stabbed, HRW chooses to let the Jews die.

It isn't a question of human rights for Palestinians. It is a question of competing human rights between two groups of people - one of which, by and large, wants to see the other dead.

But in the twisted calculus of HRW, Arab rights to move freely (a right that Jews do not have either in Israel) are far, far more important than the right for Jews to live.

Which is a curious position for a supposed "human rights" group to take.

I should note that to my knowledge, HRW has never said a word against constant Arab incitement to kill Jews or Arab antisemitism or Arab officials justifying the murder spree. They claim that they are against the stabbings but in practical terms, HRW supports them. Their pretense of caring about Jewish lives is never backed up by any concrete call for action on the parts of those who call the murderers heroes and martyrs.

From the NYT:

“East Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine,” Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official, said on Voice of Palestine radio. “If they think that they can reach security with these measures, they are wrong. The Palestinian people will continue to defend themselves.”

The bolded sentence is a direct threat - Israeli defensive measures are useless, Erekat is saying, because Palestinians will always be able to break through the defenses and kill Jews.

But his next sentence defines these stabbings as "defend[ing] themselves."

The reason is clear:

Erekat knows that this current unrest is making Palestinian Arabs look bad,

He cannot deny that there have been many stabbings, car rammings, shootings and stonings against innocent Israelis.

So he needs to cast the terror spree as "self defense." Because self defense is justifiable.

Saeb Erekat is saying that Arabs have the fundamental human right to murder random Jews in Israel.

Too bad no reporter ever calls him on statements like these.

Hey, it's been a solid couple of weeks since I last caught him lying. But this time he is accidentally telling the truth - he, and the Palestinian Arab leadership, really support the terror spree as moral even if they don't want to suffer the consequences.

Palestinians claim Jews photoshopped knife on terrorist

An UNRWA teacher named Maen Dajani linked to a photo from the official Facebook page of Ramallah City pretending to prove that the 15-year old who was killed after attempting to stab an Israeli was really not holding a knife in the photo that was distributed.

Because they couldn't see the shadow of the thin knife on the ground.

Actually, if you look closely you can see the shadow of the knife, but just for kicks, I downloaded the video that the frame was taken from (made by MSNBC, hardly a Zionist video outlet, and showed within minutes of the event) and slowed down the parts where the knife was most clearly visible.

That's some Photoshop!

10/14 Links Pt2: Glick: The nuclear deal’s true purpose; BDS: Anti-Semitic, Not Pro-Palestinian

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The nuclear deal’s true purpose

Last week we learned that aspects of the US ’s commitments to Iran under the deal are illegal under US law. If the Republican Congress tries to force Obama to obey the law (that he himself signed), Obama will blame the Republicans when the Iranians respond by abandoning the deal. If the Republicans try to impose new sanctions on Iran because Iran breaches its commitments, then Iran can leave the deal.
And Obama will blame the Republicans.
What this means for Republicans is clear enough.
They must recognize the deal for what it really is – a political tool to weaken them, not Iran. Once they understand what is going on, they must refuse to fall into the trap Obama set for them. Republican mustn’t worry about whether or not Iran vacates its signature. It is the deal, not any action they may take, that ensures Iran will walk away.
Moreover, Republicans – and the deal’s Democratic opponents – must refuse to shoulder the blame when Iran acts as expected and walks away.
Obama negotiated a deal that guarantees Iran will become a nuclear power and prevents the US from taking steps, in the framework of the deal, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Obama didn’t do this because he is a bad negotiator. He did this because his goal was never to prevent Iran from developing atomic bombs and delivery mechanisms. His goal was always to blame Republicans (and Israel) for what he had to power to prevent, but had no interest in preventing.

Ben Carson: ‘Never Again’ means standing with Israel

Sometimes it is hard to find the right words to talk about the kind of evil that defies reason and destroys lives. We saw that evil on full display during the Holocaust perpetuated by the fanatical and tyrannical Nazi regime under Adolph Hitler. The lessons to be drawn from those darkest of days in world history are plentiful, and as relevant today as they were nearly 80 years ago.
In recent days I suggested that things might have unfolded in a very different manner in Europe had the Jewish people been armed and better able to defend themselves. What would have been the impact on Hitler’s war machine if his victims had had more access to guns? It is something that we will never know for sure.
What I do know however, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that I never intended for my words to diminish the enormity of the tragedy or in any way to cause any pain for Holocaust survivors or their families.
Both those who perished and those who survived the Nazi camps deserve our deepest reverence, as do the partisan fighters who rose in armed opposition.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: Anti-Semitic, Not Pro-Palestinian

One of the most blatant and visible manifestations of antisemitism in the pro-Palestinian camp is found in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which calls on individuals – or companies, organizations and universities – to “starve Israel economically and isolate it socially.” But it doesn’t end there; the BDS movement also targets Jews, as was proven recently by Rototom Sunsplash’s demand that Matisyahu (an American Jewish musician) “declare his view regarding the Palestinians right to a state of their own” before being allowed to perform. The musician refused to be bullied and was told he could not preform. The Rototom Sunsplash organizers eventually re-invited the artist, saying that they had been pressured by the Valencia chapter of the BDS.BDS activists hurt the very people they claim they want to help. Likewise, just as the antisemites of the early 19th century and World War II singled out Jewish people as the cause of Europe’s problems, the BDS movement immorally places all the blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Israel and European Jews. BDS emboldens the terror regimes that rule the Palestinians. But the BDS movement hurts more than just the Palestinians. It effectively takes attention away from real injustices in the world by disproportionately focusing on Israel. As Alan Dershowitz pointed out, “The BDS movement is immoral because it violates the core principle of human rights: namely, ‘the worst first.’”
The BDS movement ignores current and historic realities and singles out Israel – and its efforts to strangle Israel makes peace much less likely. BDS does not want peace; BDS does not want to help the Palestinians; BDS wants to see an end to the only Jewish nation state in the world and the only thriving democracy in the Middle East. Those who truly desire to see an end to the conflict must oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and all of its efforts.

Humor in the face of terror

Israelis and Jews in general have long ago learned the art of black humor, mostly out of necessity. Here are a couple of recent examples.

This graphic has been going around:

While this isn't really from the pro-Israel side, it is funny:

Palestinian protesters try to put out fire on a compatriot's head after he mishandled a molotov cocktail @Reuters pic.twitter.com/Vlt50diaKa
— Noah Browning (@Noah_Browning) October 13, 2015

And here we see how Amnesty International apparently wants Israelis to defend themselves.

איך לנטרל בקלות וביעילות תוקף חמוש בסכין. שתפו!

איך לנטרל בקלות וביעילות תוקף חמוש בסכין. שתפו!
Posted by Rogatka on Sunday, October 11, 2015

(if the embed doesn't work, here is an alternate)

(h/t Daniel)

Hamas To Stab Children, Blame Israel, In Solidarity With W. Bank (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Khan Yunis, October 14 – Unable to participate directly in the current wave of stabbings, shootings, and other attacks on Israelis, the Hamas-led residents of the Gaza Strip will express their solidarity with West Bank Palestinians by instead stabbing their own children and accusing Israel of causing the deaths, a Hamas official announced today.

At least seven Israelis have been killed in shooting and stabbing attacks perpetrated by Palestinians and Israeli Arabs over the last several weeks, and dozens more injured. No formal effort to coordinate the attacks has emerged, and the spate of violence has the hallmarks of a popular uprising rather than an organized set of terrorist operations. Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, led by Fatah, and the Hamas regime in Gaza have offered full-throated praise for the attacks, and urged people to continue perpetrating them. However, with Hamas all but sidelined amid violence taking place exclusively outside Gaza, the organization’s leadership has decided to remedy their shameful non-involvement by exploiting the international media’s knee-jerk attitude that faults Israel for violence: they announced a plan this morning to implement a program under which parents in the Gaza Strip will stab their children, then point the finger at Israel for perpetrating the murders.

If implemented, the program will represent a step beyond the customary Palestinian use of noncombatants as human shields. Previously, Hamas strategy involved placing women and children in or next to military positions likely to be attacked by Israel, either to deter such attacks or to capitalize on the resulting civilian casualties by claiming that Israel indiscriminately kills them. The new policy will test whether Agence France-Presse, AP, CNN, the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, and other media outlets continue to uncritically parrot Palestinian claims of Israeli brutality and culpability even when the killings are committed by Palestinians.

Testing the boundaries of media complicity in the propaganda became an option, said Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar, when blatantly false versions of the ongoing attacks were repeated in some of those media. “It is one thing for Ma’an, which is run by Fatah, to insist that Sunday’s bomb attack on the Jerusalem-Maale Adummim highway was just a car fire, despite ample video evidence,” he explained. “We expect Palestinian media to invent eyewitnesses who say the stabbings were self-defense, or that there was no stabbing at all, and the alleged stabber was executed in cold blood – that’s par for the course. What we didn’t expect is for supposedly respectable, objective Western media to give equal weight to Palestinian propaganda even as Israelis were being attacked. That phenomenon made us realize we might be able to push the boundaries even further, and not actually have to provoke Israel into actions that harm our children in order to reap the benefits of their doing so.”

10/14 Links Pt1: Jews are being killed simply for being Jews; No, It’s Not The Occupation, Stupid

From Ian:

Jews are being killed simply for being Jews

One myth in particular has shown itself evergreen: the idea that Jews are trying to undermine Islam and its holy sites in Jerusalem. We have heard the lie that “Al Aqsa is in danger” since the 1920s, when the Palestinian leader Haj Amin Al-Husseini tried to stir up local rioters against Jews, inciting them to murder. Husseini would distribute pamphlets saying: “O Arabs! Do not forget that the Jew is your worst enemy and has been the enemy of your forefathers.”
Last month, President Abbas called on Jews not to put their “filthy feet” on the Temple Mount, again inciting anti-Jewish violence. Yet when Palestinian activists use this revered holy site as a temporary base from which to attack Israelis – piling up rocks, fireworks and explosives – it is they who desecrate the place.
Those making libellous claims about Israel and Al Aqsa today ignore the fact that 3.5 million Muslims visited the site last year, compared to 200,000 Christians and just 12,500 Jews. Indeed, Israel has maintained a delicate status quo since 1967, when it regained control of the Old City of Jerusalem, and handed back the administration of the Muslim holy sites to Islamic administrators known as the Waqf. Israel is determined not to let the status quo change, and has recently banned politicians from any visits to the site, in order to calm tensions.
But ultimately, what we are seeing is not about religious rights or land. It is about the same old issue. This is the issue that people least want to discuss but which most needs to be discussed. The excuse may change with the passing years. But the reality is that, be it 1921, 1929, 1936 or 2015, Jews are being murdered simply for being Jews.
Eitan Na’eh is Israel’s Acting Ambassador to Great Britain

1929 vs today

The current wave of terrorism was born from a lie. A lie that contributed to the incitement. Incitement that, regretfully, continues. Incitement that continues just like the lie. And that lie is that Israel is planning to rebuild the Temple and to that end is also planning to demolish Al-Aqsa mosque, which is holy to Muslims. If it weren't for the terrorist attacks, the casualties, the wounded, the worry, it would sound like a joke. A very bad joke, by the way.
As far as the people who keep things stirred up online are concerned, lies are legitimate now, just like they were in the past. Lies are allowed if they facilitate the murder of Jews. Lies are allowed if they challenge the Jewish people's sovereignty over their holy sites in the City of David.
In August 1929, the mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, preached a sermon in which he decreed that "anyone who kills a Jew is promised a place in the world to come." Can anyone say that anything has changed among the extremists?
By the way, that sermon led to the riots of 1929 in which 133 Jews were slaughtered while the British cavalry looked on, indifferent.

PMW: Fatah brought soil from Al-Aqsa to grave of killer of two in Jerusalem

Fatah brought soil from the Al-Aqsa Mosque to the grave of terrorist Muhannad Halabi, who murdered two in the Old City of Jerusalem "so that the dead body of Martyr Muhannad Halabi can hug the soil for which he died a Martyr." [Fatah Twitter account, Oct. 8, 2015] Fatah thus follows the ideology of its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, who recently justified the violence and murder as "protection of the holy sites," as Palestinian Media Watch documented.
In another demonstration of support for the current terror and murder campaign, today the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education is planting olive trees and placing "signs with the names of the Martyrs," honoring the "Martyrs" of what they call "the ongoing popular uprising." The ministry event follows two weeks of Palestinian terror attacks in which several Israelis have been murdered and dozens wounded in stabbing and shooting attacks carried out by Palestinians. The PA and Fatah leadership have referred to these terrorists as "Martyrs."
The PA Ministry of Education stated that its tree planting ceremony was a symbol of its dedication to the "Martyrs," and mentioned that some of them were school pupils. This refers to, among others, Hassan Manasrah (15) who together with an even younger boy brutally stabbed 2 people earlier this week, leaving a 13-year-old boy fighting for his life with multiple stab wounds. The ministry event was to "honor" the terrorists' "sacrifices":

PMW: The PA lies to defend terror

One of the ways the Palestinian Authority is keeping its population angry, willing to riot and continue terror attacks against Israelis, is by falsely portraying every terrorist as an innocent victim of Israel.
PA Chairman Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina, stated that Israel had “executed” Hassan ‎Manasrah (15), one of two young Palestinian terrorists, who repeatedly stabbed and critically wounded a 13-‎year-old boy (name undisclosed) who was riding his bike and also stabbed Yossef Ben Shalom (21) in the Pisgat ‎Ze'ev neighborhood of East Jerusalem yesterday:
“Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina stated that the execution of child Hassan Manasrah... is an abominable crime, and the legal, humanitarian and political responsibility for it is on the Israeli government. He demanded that the Israeli government catches those who committed this crime. Abu Rudeina stated: ‘If the government of Israel continues this escalation [of violence] by carrying out more grave acts of execution, the situation in the region will go out of control, and everyone will pay a heavy price for these Israeli crimes.’” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 13, 2015]
PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah also made the same false accusation before the president of India, Pranab Mukherjee:
“Just yesterday the Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold blood the child Hassan Manasrah and his innocence and calls for help did not help.” [WAFA, Oct 13, 2015]

The Ministry of Awqaf (religious endowments) in the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq has officially opened up a Representation of the Jewish Religion.

Two staff members have been appointed to this function.

This is the actualization of Ministerial Order No. 181 issued in April, which "provides for the establishment of the Representation of the Jews in the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs."

The purpose of the act is to act as a liaison to Jews and to serve the Kurdistan's Jews In on formal occasions

According to estimates there are currently about 430 Jewish families in Iraq's Kurdistan.

The ministry has previously done setablished a similar office for Baha'is.

See here for details on Kurdistan' Jewish history, and here for an explanation of ties between Israel and the Kurds.

UNRWA's webpage proudly says:

Mohammed Assaf is UNRWA's first ever Regional Youth Ambassador

As a "child of UNRWA," Mohammed Assaf is the ideal individual to be the first goodwill ambassador in the more than six decades of our history. A Palestine refugee himself, he grew up in the Khan Younis camp in Gaza. Not long ago, he was one of the over 220,000 students attending the Agency's 245 schools in Gaza. For him, the connection continued at home: His mother, too, was an UNRWA teacher. Throughout his childhood – at school, at the doctor's, at community centres – he saw firsthand the work that UNRWA does for Palestine refugees.

Since his appointment in June 2013, by Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi, as the Agency's Regional Youth Ambassador for Palestine Refugees, the 23-year-old Arab Idol winner has used his voice and his talent to help UNRWA give other young people the same support it gave him. With the universal language of his music, he carries the message of UNRWA and young Palestine refugees to new audiences, including in the region – to Dubai and Kuwait – and even further. In November 2013, he took that message to the United States, bringing the voice of Palestine refugee youth to the United Nations in New York City.

This wonderful, shining example for UNRWA explicitly supports attacking Israelis.

This was his Instagram message yesterday:

I am not quite sure about the symbolism, but his image is supportive both of rock throwing and, apparently, of shooting (those are bullets sprouting from the flowers, right?)

This is also on his Twitter account.

Mohammed Assaf the perfect youth ambassador for UNRWA.

Remember - at UNRWA , "peace starts here."

And based on the extensive evidence I've collected, "peace" for UNRWA means no Jews left alive in the Middle East.

(h/t Craig, Bob K)

The cyber-intifada

Most content generators want to find the magic formula that would make a tweet or post or video explode in popularity - to go viral.

There is no shortage of advice on the web on how to make something go viral, but let's face it - there is no recipe. Sometimes, the stars align and something goes viral, but behind every successful meme are thousands that went nowhere.

Just like there are many people who try to find ways to make their content go viral, so there are many people who have been trying to incite Palestinian Arabs to a third intifada.

Just as there are entire companies nowadays dedicated to finding and pushing viral content, there are organizations and prominent people who have been working hard to start a new terror spree. They try to anger the Arab street with lies and deception.

We've seen it for years.

Palestinian leaders in 2009 warned of a new intifada.
Fatah in 2010 threatened a new intifada.
People called for a new intifada if hunger striking prisoners would die.
Muslim leaders, specifically Sheikh Tamimi and Sheikh Raed Salah, have been making up lies about the Temple Mount for many years all meant to spark a new intifada.
Tamimi predicted that Jews would massacre Arabs on the Temple Mount last year.
Journalist Khalid Amayreh has been inciting and pushing for an uprising for years.
Even Chris Gunness warned that an intifada would start if UNRWA wasn't properly funded.

I have documented literally hundreds of examples of Arab incitement against Jews. There i always a different reason to be angry, but the desired result is the same: violence.

This is one reason why blaming the "settlements" or Israel's Temple Mount policy or any other alleged grievance is spectacularly wrong. If any or all of the supposed grievances are addressed, more would replace them. One only has to go back to before 1967 or before 1948 or before even the first Zionist Congress and see that there was still violence and there was still incitement.

The ultimate "cause"is that Jews aren't Arabs and non-Muslims aren't Muslims. The violence of today is just a variant of the oldest violence there is: you are different than me so therefore you must be eliminated.

But the proximate cause is the never-ending tsunami of incitement in Arab newspapers, Arab classrooms, mosques and social media.

Any event, no matter how innocuous, can and is twisted to incite Arabs against Jews. Two Arabs who were tragically hit by a truck when trying to repair their car were transformed into "martyrs" who were "crushed to death by Jewish extremist settlers" in Arab media.

The incitement is constant.

Sometimes, it is successful. The Arabs believe one rumor more than others, or become more enraged than usual over some report, and it spills over into violence. This is the equivalent of "going viral." One pseudo-reason for violence somehow gains prominence and a critical mass of mentally unbalanced people are successfully goaded into action by the people who are always, always trying to start a new war against the Jews.

Traditionally, the result would be large numbers of Arabs joining riots. Here is an example from 1920 where an annual holiday combined with the supposedly important demands of Arab leaders were used to spark anti-Jewish riots.

"Do want we want or we will kill you" has been the slogan of Arab leaders towards the Jews for 150 years.

To be sure, the bigger uprisings are not spontaneous In the case of the second intifada, Arafat engineered the entire thing, just as the Mufti of Jerusalem was behind the deadly 1921, 1929 and 1936 riots..

This time, there is a difference. The mobs and the inciters are still there - but they are in cyberspace.

A 2011 Facebook page calling for a new intifada (which has recently been resurrected) had 44,000 likes. And that it hardly unusual. There are many such Facebook groups, and social media providers are woefully bad at stamping out explicit incitement, especially in Arabic.

The antisemitic rhetoric in social media is even more unhinged and much more violent than it is in more traditional media or in mosques. For example, earlier this year, many Facebook users changed their profile names to "death to Jews." Antisemitism was no longer one of their many attributes, it is their defining attribute.This is relatively new.

There is a reason so many of the current stabbers are young.

Previous generations included a degree of pragmatism that their parents or teachers or preachers might still have. Arab newspapers usually try to pretend to have some standards of truth and morality. Arab adults, as much as they hate Israel, don't want to make their own lives miserable. They preach hate, but with a wink, saying that the real destruction of Israel will wait for Arab unity or the next excuse. Even Hamas has been actively discouraging attacks from Gaza. Even Ishaq Badran's proud father claims that he told his son to stay away from trouble. There was a calming factor built in with the hate.

But Facebook groups have no compunctions. Their writers have no filters. They don't care about consequences. They want the consequences. And very possibly, some of those groups are run by terror groups like Islamic Jihad, who are particularly adept at using new media.

On Facebook and YouTube, there is no need for forbearance or subtlety. The more extreme your position, the more popular you are. So the most egregious anti-Israel and antisemitic lies are rewarded with more "Likes" and more people making up more ridiculous slander. The feedback loop creates more and more hate.

This is a cyber-intifada, where the bulk of the incitement was hidden beneath the surface even among those who watch for it. In the dark corners of Facebook and message boards, the hate is endemic.

This month, that hate went viral. Youth have been brainwashed.

I am afraid that we are only in the beginning of this war. The electronic inciters ensure that successful attacks must be emulated and failed attacks must be avenged. Traditional disincentives to terror simply don't exist in cyberspace. Arab adults don't want this violence but they cannot openly oppose it because no one wants to be branded a "collaborator." Arabs who publicly oppose the violence are almost completely nonexistent. (One exception I found, an Arab Canadian singer, besides proud Arab Israelis.)

Israel has to think very creatively to find a way to find new disincentives for those who have been brainwashed more thoroughly than ever before. Right now, anything done against the terrorists inspired by cyberhate will be used as fuel for the next round. And already more organized terror groups are feeling empowered to use this spark to their advantage.

Unfortunately, this is not a passing phase.