Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

No, Mufti wasn't behind Final Solution. Yes, he was a major player in it. No, he wasn't only "anti-Zionist."

By now everyone has read about Binyamin Netanyahu's faux pas when he said that Hitler's Final Solution was prompted by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

The NYT writes:

Israeli historians and opposition politicians on Wednesday joined Palestinians in denouncing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for saying it was a Palestinian, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who gave Hitler the idea of annihilating European Jews during World War II.

Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech to the Zionist Congress on Tuesday night that “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” according to a transcript provided by his office. The prime minister said that the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, protested to Hitler that “they’ll all come here,” referring to Palestine.

“ ‘So what should I do with them?’ ” Mr. Netanyahu quoted Hitler as asking Mr. Husseini. “He said, ‘Burn them.’ ”

Prof. Meir Litvak, a historian at Tel Aviv University, called the speech “a lie” and “a disgrace.” Prof. Moshe Zimmermann, a specialist of German history at Hebrew University, said, “With this, Netanyahu joins a long line of people that we would call Holocaust deniers.”

Isaac Herzog, leader of the opposition in the Israeli Parliament, said the accusation was “a dangerous historical distortion,” and he demanded that Mr. Netanyahu “correct it immediately.”

Even Moshe Yaalon, the defense minister and a senior member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said in a radio interview that “history is actually very, very clear.”

“Hitler initiated it,” he said. “Haj Amin al-Husseini joined him.”

To the newspaper's credit, they published part of Bibi's clarification:

“My intention was not to absolve Hitler of his responsibility,” he said, according to a statement provided by his office as he left Israel for Germany, where he was to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel. “But rather to show that the forefathers of the Palestinian nation, without a country and without the so-called occupation, without land and without settlements, even then aspired to systematic incitement to exterminate the Jews.”

“Hitler was responsible for the Final Solution to exterminate six million Jews; he made the decision,” Mr. Netanyahu added. “It is equally absurd to ignore the role played by the Mufti, Haj Amin al -Husseini, a war criminal, for encouraging and urging Hitler.”

What was not quoted was Bibi's entire explanation (received via email), which included:

It is equally absurd to ignore the role played by the Mufti, Haj Amin al -Husseini, a war criminal, for encouraging and urging Hitler, Ribbentropp, Himmler and others, to exterminate European Jewry. There is much evidence about this, including the testimony of Eichmann's deputy at the Nuremberg trials, not now, but after World War II. He said:

'The Mufti was instrumental in the decision to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The importance of his role must not be ignored. The Mufti repeatedly proposed to the authorities, primarily Hitler, Ribbentropp and Himmler, to exterminate the Jews of Europe. He considered it a suitable solution for the Palestinian question'.
Eichmann's deputy, added:

'The Mufti was one of the instigators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and was a partner and adviser to Eichmann and Hitler for carrying out this plan'.
The attempt by certain scholars and people to be apologists for the key and important role of Haj Amin al-Husseini, is clear. Many other researchers cite this testimony and others regarding the role of Haj Amin al Husseini.

My intention was not to absolve Hitler of his responsibility, but rather to show that the forefathers of the Palestinian nation, without a country and without the so-called 'occupation', without land and without settlements, even then aspired to systematic incitement to exterminate the Jews.

Unfortunately, Haj Amin al-Husseini is still a revered figure in Palestinian society, he appears in textbooks and it is taught that he is one of the founding fathers of the nation, and this incitement that started then with him, inciting the murder of Jews - continues. Not in the same format, but in a different one and this is the root of the problem. To stop the murders, it is necessary to stop the incitement.

What is important is to recognize the historical facts and not ignore them, not then and not today".

It is a shame that Netanyahu screwed up the message so that now the truth about the Mufti's role is obscured by his unfortunate wording.

Especially since the Mufti, an unrepentant Jew-hater, is considered a hero to the Palestinians - Palestinians who are now gleefully calling Bibi a Holocaust denier. (Suddenly, Hitler is a symbol of evil to them. Last week he was a hero.)

Finally, the NYT included this problematic sentence:

There is broad agreement that the mufti, who helped instigate Arab pogroms against Jews in the holy land in the 1920s, collaborated with the Nazis and promoted genocide over deportation of Europe’s Jews as part of his virulent opposition to Zionism.

No, it was his pure antisemitism. To say that the Mufti was prompted by anti-Zionism is to whitewash his hate and his crimes. His role in the Holocaust had nothing to do with Zionism - he wanted all Jews dead.

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Israel's ambassador to the UN, David Roet, gave a speech last week to the UN Security Council castigating the world for ignoring the daily attacks against Israeli civilians. It didn't get much publicity, but here it is:

As we sit here today, Israel is facing an onslaught of terrorism; men, women and children are being stabbed to death on the streets on a daily basis. Yet for them there has been no demand for an emergency session at the Security Council; no calls for the Palestinian leadership to stop their incitement; and not even a whisper of condemnation of these acts in this hall.

Eitam and Naama Henkin were shot to death while driving in their car. Their 4 children were in the vehicle and watched their parents die in front of their eyes.
.
These are just a few of the silent victims of Palestinian terror. Apparently, this Council has not seen fit to honor their memories with even the slightest recognition.

Mr. President,
Over the course of the last month, 24 terror attacks have claimed the lives of 8 Israelis, and injured 70. 15 of them are still hospitalized. This tide of terror has washed over the entire nation and it spares no one: Young and old are being targeted every day.

Israelis do not feel safe walking down the street, they avoid taking the bus to work, and they fear for the lives of their children every time they walk out the door.

The root cause of this wave of terror is clear. It is inflammatory rhetoric and lies lit the fuse, and incitement that keeps feeding the flames.

The wave of violence that Israel now faces began with lies about the Temple Mount. Abbas has continually accused Israel of trying to change the Status- Quo. Just two days ago he claimed that, quote “Israel intends to make Al-Aksa Jewish”. This is a deliberate and malicious lie.

Let me be clear. Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated time and time again, including from the podium in the UN general assembly just two weeks ago: Israel is firmly committed to the status quo which protects the right of Muslims to pray in the mosque, as well as the freedom of all people, Muslims, Christians, Jews and others, to visit the Temple Mount.

Since 1967 Israel has placed the utmost importance on protecting the freedom of religion and worship for all faiths. From the outset, Israel has done everything in its power to preserve the sanctity of this site, which is sacred to the three monotheistic faiths.

In contrast, militant Islamist agitators have used the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a staging grounds for a calculated, violent provocation. On the Eve of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, radical Islamists stockpiled rocks, planks, wooden sheets and fireworks, as well as Molotov firebombs and explosive devices to prevent Jews and Christians from visiting the Temple Mount.

The Palestinians and the representatives of the Arab countries speak of the sacredness of their holy sites. When the Islamist militants desecrated Al-Aqsa by using it as a weapons depot, did any of them speak out?

Of course not. Instead, Mahmoud Abbas defended these rioters, and lit the spark which set our region ablaze. He declared, and I quote: “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem... With the help of Allah, every shaheed will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward … Al-Aqsa is ours, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is ours, everything is ours, all ours. They have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet." I repeat, their filthy feet.

Can you imagine the reaction if an Israeli leader, any leader, would have uttered such a hateful statement? The Security Council would have wasted no time in convening to condemn it. Yet, when the President of the Palestinian Authority makes such a blatantly prejudiced statement, the reaction of this Council is complete silence.

Mr. President,
Even now, as the violence continues and lives are lost every day, instead of calming tensions, Palestinian leaders continue to lie and use inflammatory rhetoric. They are stoking the flames by portraying terrorists as innocent victims. Just two days ago, in a television broadcast to the Palestinian people, Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of killing an innocent thirteen year old Palestinian boy.

There are two facts that Abbas did not share with his public.

First, he is not dead. He is fully conscious and is being treated in an Israeli hospital.

Second, he is not innocent. This 13-year-old Palestinian terrorist brutally attacked a 13-year-old Israeli boy who was riding his bicycle, stabbing him no less than 15 times.

When a young child decides to pick up a knife, instead of a basketball or a book, something is deeply wrong.

Such acts of terror do not occur in a vacuum. They are a product of a deliberate policy of incitement aimed at filling the minds of Palestinian children with hate.

From an early age, Palestinian children are subjected to propaganda that promotes hatred and incites to violence; Young children watch TV shows with friendly hosts that encourage them to kill all the Jews and become martyrs. Schoolchildren in the West Bank study using official Palestinian Authority textbooks that legitimize indiscriminate violence against Israelis. Palestinian teenagers follow facebook posts and twitter feeds that call on them to stab Jews and that applaud violent acts like the murder of Eitam and Na’ama Henkin.

Mr. President,
The situation is indeed dire, but there is a way forward.

Just yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his willingness to meet with the Palestinian leadership in order to bring calm to the region.

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu stood here in the UN and declared that he is ready for direct negotiations with the Palestinians without any preconditions.

If this Council is serious about promoting peace, it must join in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s call, and insist that President Abbas comes to the negotiating table.

Israel’s historic agreement with Egypt and with Jordan proves that direct negotiations can lead to a real and a lasting peace. Only such negotiations can create a new reality for all the people of the region.

He was straightforward, unambiguous, and unimpeachable in his portrayal of the facts.

The PLO's UN mission couldn't stand it.

They sent out a "fact check" to journalists that supposedly pointed out all of Roet's falsehoods. The problem is, they couldn't find any, so they simply tried to change the focus of everything he said into their own falsehoods.

For example:

“Israel is facing an onslaught of terrorism; men, women and children are being stabbed to death on the streets on a daily basis. Yet for them there has been no demand for an emergency session at the Security Council.”

Fact: The Palestinian people are a defenseless and unarmed population suffering gross violations of human rights under Israel’s illegal occupation. It is in fact the Israeli occupation that is the source and context of all of the violence, violence that has been inflicted by Israel with total impunity for over 48 years on the Palestinian people.

- They couldn't dispute the fact so they instead tried to replace it with lies.

“Over the course of the last month, 24 terror attacks have claimed the lives of 8 Israelis, and injured 70.”

Fact: Israel, the occupying Power, is not a victim in this situation. -

They couldn't dispute the fact so they instead tried to replace it with lies.

"The root cause of this wave of terror is clear.”

Fact: The root cause of the current violence is Israel’s half century illegal occupation of the Palestinian land and its subjugation of the Palestinian people.

They couldn't dispute the fact so they instead tried to replace it with lies. In this case, they didn't bother to reproduce Roet's point about incitement because this entire "fact check" is incitement, saying things to justify terror like "This incessant oppression leaves little hope for a peaceful and stable future, deepens despair, and encourages the oppressed to resist injustice."

The PLO is trying desperately to allow the journalists who are usually sympathetic with them to have some threadbare cover to allow them to continue their anti-Israel bias and discard the facts.

I hope that Israel sends out their own real "fact checks" after every PLO speech. They should also point out how this "fact check" could not find a single statement that was not factual.

(h/t Golan S)

Dr. Salah Na'ami, writing in Jordanian paper Assabeel, is angry that Mahmoud Abbas is pretending that he will open a full investigation to find out who was behind the burning of Joseph's Tomb last week.

Abbas was obviously trying to send a message to the West that he is against attacks on Jewish sites, although I will bet anyone that in one year there will be no concrete results from this "investigation."

But even the sham is too much for Na'ami, a professor in Gaza.

President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the burning of the Jewish shrine «Tomb of Joseph» in the heart of the city of Nablus.

His decision to form a committee to investigate the incident and his pledge to restore the shrine is an affront to the Palestinian people and shows disregard for our national rights. It also shows leniency with the horrible crimes committed by the Jewish terrorists who visit this shrine.

This shrine is practically a Jewish settlement in the heart of the city of Nablus, attracting tens of thousands of settlers who take advantage of their presence in the region, and the protection of the Palestinian Authority security for them to provoke the Palestinians.

... Burning this shrine was an opportunity to get rid of the source of renewed terrorism, and this confirms how miserable this step by Abbas was and demonstrates his orientation.

Here is a fairly prolific Arab columnist justifying the destruction of a supposedly Muslim shrine because Jews claim them.

It is a perfect example of the absurd zero-sum mentality of most in the Arab world: if Jews like it, it must be bad for Arabs. And therefore better it is destroyed than any Jews get benefit from it.

Of course, there are no comments on the column pointing out that his hate has nothing to do with Zionism, but Jews.

PLO drops bid to call Western Wall "Muslim" - but is going after Rachel's Tomb and Machpela

From Times of Israel:

Palestinians have withdrawn their demand that the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization declare the Western Wall an “integral part” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Israeli officials said Wednesday.

The resolution — which the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) executive board is scheduled to vote on Wednesday — still contains a request to recognize Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron as Muslim sites. Israeli diplomats said they would continue to fight the resolution, and try to get allied states to reject it.

In addition, the Palestinians seek condemnation of ongoing Israeli archaeological excavations near the Temple Mount and elsewhere in Jerusalem’s Old City, as well as of the “aggression and illegal measures taken against the freedom of worship and access of Muslims to Al-Aqsa Mosque and Israel’s attempts to break the status quo since 1967.”

In an effort to garner support for the motion, some of the most incendiary language was removed or exchanged for less provocative terms.

Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama Hacohen, confirmed to Israel Radio Wednesday that the Palestinian delegation had proposed a new version of the controversial resolution, removing the clause that would have declared the Western Wall a Muslim site.

He said the initial proposal had met with opposition from a range of countries including Russia, China and even Cuba.

On Tuesday, the head of the United Nations cultural agency said she “deplored” the proposal. The move, Irina Bokova warned on UNESCO’s website, “could be seen to alter the status of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls and incite further tensions.”

The executive board had been scheduled to vote Tuesday on a resolution submitted by Arab states that would officially recognize the Western Wall as part of the Muslim holy site, but Bokova postponed the vote until Wednesday.

In a statement, Bokova called on the UNESCO board “to take decisions that do not further inflame tensions on the ground and that encourage respect for the sanctity of the Holy Sites.”

Declaring Rachel's Tomb a Muslim site is especially egregious. I wrote in 2009 that Muslims didn't start calling it the "Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque" until the 1990s..

PA textbooks changed their name for the site from Rachel's Tomb to Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque in 2001.

Muslims have recognized Rachel's Tomb as a Jewish holy site for centuries, and that designation was codified by an Ottoman decree in 1830:

In 1830, the Turks issued the firman that gave legal force to Rachel’s Tomb being recognized as a Jewish holy site. Additionally, notes the JCPA’s Nadav Shragai, the governor of Damascus sent a written order to the mufti of Jerusalem to fulfill the sultan’s order:

“This is our order to you: [The following matter] was submitted to us by the subject of our order, the sage representative of honored Jerusalem’s Jewry and his translator that the tomb of esteemed Rachel, the mother of our Lord Joseph... They [the Jews] are accustomed to visit it from ancient days; and no one is permitted to prevent them or oppose them [from doing] this... It turned out that at this holy site, they have been visiting since ancient times, without any person preventing them or trespassing on their property and they [have it] as was their custom. In accordance with the respected judgment, I order that our commandment be issued to you so you will treat them accordingly without addition or without subtraction, without hindrance and without opposition to them by anyone in any way whatsoever – written August 10, 1830.”

An additional firman from April 1831 was issued “To inform and demonstrate to all interested parties and the appointed officials, the right of the Jews who are residents of holy Jerusalem to visit the grave of Rachel, the mother of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, without hindrance... Rendered in Istanbul at the end of the month of Shawwal in the year 1246 to the Hejira. Signed: The Sublime Porte.”

This episode proves that when the PLO demanded to join UNESCO, it was not to promote any sort of educational or cultural goals - it was entirely to erase Jewish history from the Land of Israel. It is doing the opposite of UNESCO's mandate.

If UNESCO had a shred of decency, it would suspend "Palestine" as a member for its offensive and sickening attempts to politicize the institution, just as it is trying to hijack every other international body it joins to put pressure on Israel.

10/20 Links Pt2: According to the left, Israeli citizens deserve to be murdered

From Ian:

Brendan O’Neill: According to the left, Israeli citizens deserve to be murdered

Leftists are far more alarmed by Israel’s response to the stabbings than they are by the stabbings themselves. They’ve castigated Israel for putting more soldiers on the streets and for making it easier for citizens to buy guns (nothing freaks out the left more than a Jew with a gun). They seem to expect Israel to leave its citizens open to attack.
Echoing Haaretz writer Rogel Alpher, who wrote a demented column expressing his surprise that a Palestinian has never grabbed “a saw or a hammer and murdered me”, some Western radicals are not only glorifying the stabbings but are condemning those who have the temerity to protect themselves from being stabbed. Why won’t Jews let themselves be killed?
It’s so depraved. Whatever you thought of the PLO’s guerrilla activity in the 1970s, these stabbings are clearly very different. It’s anti-Semitism. That some Westerners are trying to present it as something else — a natural outburst of despair — says more about their busted moral compasses than it does about what’s happening in the Middle East.
Strip away the euphemisms, pick apart the talk of a “knife intifada”, and there’s no escaping the fact — the horrific fact — that some Westerners are defending the stabbing to death of people for being Jewish.
This is such a sad day for the left. What happened to that left which was the heir to the warriors of Enlightenment who helped liberate Europe’s Jews from their ghettos? That left which railed against the anti-Semitic “socialism of fools”? That left which, even in the darkest moment in human history — the Holocaust — risked life and limb to help Jews? It is dead. And that is a tragedy of epic proportions.
The stabbings in Israel haven’t only exposed an ugly new Islamism in the Middle East. They have also exposed the moral disarray of those in the West who pose as progressive. The universalist, tolerant left that was sensitive to the scapegoating of Jews for the world’s problems is no more. And so it is left to Jews to defend Jews, bereft of left solidarity, the West merely shrugging its shoulders.

NGO Monitor: On Europe, terrorism and demonizing Israel: Time for a reset

If nothing else, European officials at least get credit for consistency. For decades, in war and peace, terror and calm, they have not flagged in the belief that they can engineer their vision of peace for Israel.
Having failed in so many previous attempts, the European move is another step in the effort to impose its preferred policies, via the labeling of products from the post-1967 “occupied territories” in order to create economic pressure on Israel. The next step would be to ban these products, and then to single out all Israeli items. (As perpetual victims, Palestinians are deemed to be exempt from contributing to peace, real or imagined.)
In this context, the claim by the European Union’s ambassador in Tel Aviv that labeling Israeli goods from beyond the Green Line isn’t a big deal was disingenuous. “You seem to be very proud of your own settlement enterprise,” Lars Faaborg-Anderson said in an interview with journalist Raphael Ahrens, “so why is this such a big problem?” His condescension was, to put it mildly, out of line.
The marking of products from beyond the 1949 armistice lines goes far beyond another awkward EU attempt to impose its ideas on Israeli democracy. Product labeling is the embodiment of a strategy to delegitimize Israel and the right of the Jewish people to sovereign equality. It is central to the political war embodied in BDS — boycott, divestment and sanctions — whose stated objective is not peace, but rather “the complete international isolation of Israel.”

Petitions: MSNBC Must Fire ‘Terror Denier’ Reporter

A day after MSNBC was forced to apologize for factual errors made during a controversial report about Israel, supporters of the Jewish state are demanding in a series of petitions that the cable news network’s longtime Middle East correspondent be fired as a result of several inaccurate and highly biased reports wrongly accusing Israel of murdering innocents.
Ayman Mohyeldin, an NBC News foreign correspondent and MSNBC anchor, has come under fire for claiming on the air last week that he saw Israeli authorities shoot an unarmed Palestinian individual.
This turned out to be incorrect. The terrorist was holding a knife in his hand and attempting to murder Israelis.
Mohyeldin, a former Al Jazeera reporter, has long faced criticism for what many say are his efforts to portray Israel as an aggressor and dismiss Palestinian terrorism. He also has given speeches before anti-Israel organizations.
MSNBC’s pattern of biased reporting about Israel has prompted multiple petitions demanding that Mohyeldin be removed from the Middle East beat and fired.

More examples of Muslims inciting violence over Al Aqsa since the 1920s

1931, at an Islamic conference in Jerusalem:

The outstanding question was that of the protection of the Moslem Holy Places. Dr. Abd el Hamid, an Egyptian delegate, in a fiery speech punctuated by wild gesticulations, shouted, “All present must take an oath to protect this Holy Place with the last drop of their blood”. Immediately the whole assembly rose in an uproar, and the delegates shouted, “Allah, Allah!”. The cry was echoed by the shrill screams of veiled women in the adjoining female mosque.

Later an Iraqi delegate cried: “It were better that the Islamic world should be obliterated than that this jewel should fall into the hands of enemies”.

--
A boycott in all Moslem countries against Palestine Jewish products as a means of protecting the Mosque el Aqsa (Mosque of Omar) from Jewish encroachment was proclaimed by the Conference to-day in adopting a resolution moved by Hobamed Ali, former Egyptian Minister of Wakfs. If the Jews in Palestine succeed in developing their industry, the resolution argues, they will be able to acquire more land in the country, and thus may even menace the Mosque itself, so that the boycott weapon must be used as a check to further Jewish progress.

1936:

1938:

Let's skip to 1968:

The semi-official Cairo newspaper Al Ahram reported yesterday that religious leaders representing 750 million Moslems in 34 countries have called for a “holy war” on Israel to recover the shrines of Islam in East Jerusalem. According to the paper, the call to arms was sounded after the religious leaders heard a tape recording of what was purported to be Jews desecrating the El Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem.

And this article from 1972 could have been written today:

Israeli Ambassador Yosef Tekoah yesterday accused Jordan of “falsehood and distortion” regarding freedom of worship and the protection of holy sites, and stated that “Jordan’s record in those matters, during the 19 years’ occupation of areas on the West Bank, including part of Jerusalem, is notorious.” In a letter to United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, Tekoah denounced a letter written Dec. 11 to Waldheim by Jordan’s Ambassador to the UN referring to Israel’s desecration of the Machpela cave in Hebron which is regarded as a holy site by Arabs.

The Israeli envoy, who asked that his letter be circulated as a document of the General Assembly and the Security Council and forwarded to the Commission on Human Rights, declared: “The Government of Israel rejects with repugnance the Jordanian habit of introducing religious matters into political issues in order to stir up passions for political ends.” He added that Israel will pursue its policy of ensuring freedom of access to and worship at holy sites under its administration, including the area of the Machpela cave.

There is no difference between now and then.

And just as then the driving factor was antisemitism, so is it today.

Last week, the Israeli prime minister’s spokesman Mark Regev spoke feelingly to American broadcaster Greta Van Susteren (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkMPVOx4wyw) of “These mendacious allegations that somehow Israel is threatening the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem when nothing can be further from the truth … Israel has meticulously always protected the holy sites of all faiths, but nevertheless the Islamic extremists were putting out these accusations, these conspiracy theories, about so-called Israeli intentions, and unfortunately they were echoed by the Palestinian Authority, by President Abbas and his people, and this created a crisis which fed the violence…”

These present events invoke the anti-Jewish rioting by Arabs that broke out in Eretz Israel in August 1929: Jerusalem on the 23^rd, Hebron on the 24^th, and Safed on the 29th. I once blogged about one woman’s reminiscences of the Hebron riots here, and gruesome reading they make (http://daphneanson.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/they-stuck-sword-down-his-wifes-throat.html). A video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3tMvGgCEx0) contains further testimony from survivors, and for the terrible details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre.

The [London] Times (14 September 1929) contained a report by its Jerusalem-based “special correspondent” examining “The Outbreak and its Causes” of the riots, which happened, incidentally, when many senior members of the Mandate administration were on leave. “To understand the explosion in Palestine, it is necessary to review the immediate causes of the outbreak,” he began. “For convenience, the point of departure may be taken as Thursday, August 15, when the younger Zionists asked leave to celebrate the feast of Ab [Av], which commemorates the destruction of the Temple, by marching in procession to the Wailing [sic; Western] Wall and holding a service there. Previous requests had been refused. This year, though the Wailing Wall had become a bone of contention between Moslem and Jew, the request was granted, under certain restrictive conditions.”

He went on:

‘So on August 15 the Jews marched out escorted by the police, and in the Old City all went well. But at the Wall they broke the agreement, unfurled the Zionist flag, and sang the anthem “Hatikvah”. The Moslems were indignant and arranged a counter-demonstration for the morrow, which was the eve of the Prophet’s Birthday. After prayer in the Aksa Mosque they swarmed through the Bab-el-Magharba (Moorgate) to the Wailing Wall and marched along the Wall. They did no damage worth mention, and satisfied with this reprisal for what they deemed an encroachment on their rights, withdrew in good order into the sacred area about their chief mosques (the Haram esh Sherif [Temple Mount]).

On Saturday, the 17^th, at a Jewish football match, the ball was kicked into a beetroot patch belonging to a Moslem. It could not even be returned without a brawl. A Jew was stabbed, but the police prevented serious fighting. On the Saturday and Monday there was considerable effervescence in the city, but nothing occurred beyond some attacks on Arabs passing through the Jewish quarters to and from their villages. On Tuesday, the 20^th, the victim [Avraham Mizrachi] of the “football scrimmage” died in hospital, and the question of his funeral added a new complication. To avoid a collision efforts were made to get the Jews to bury him at dawn. The younger Jews refused, and demanded a processional funeral to the Wailing Wall. The authorities objected. Their view prevailed, and the Jews agreed to adhere to the traditional route past the Damascus Gate out to the cemetery at the foot of Mount Scopus, and to hold the funeral at 6 a.m. It was not until 10 a.m. that it started. All went well until the procession reached the Post Office where the street bifurcates. Here the younger Zionists tried to break the police cordon. The police resisted and several Jews were struck with batons. Eventually the procession was forced back on to the agreed route and the funeral ended quietly.

Thursday was outwardly calm, but there was electricity in the air. Towards evening groups of armed Moslems drifted in from Nablus and Bethlehem, and their convergence towards the Old City continued throughout the night and the next morning. It was known that trouble was brewing. The authorities, scenting danger, took the customary precautions, and brought in the armoured cars of the Royal Air Force from Amman to Ramleh.

As soon as the midday prayer was over the unprecedentedly large congregation tumbled out of the Haram into the Old City. The main body went towards the Jaffa Gate. All were armed. Many carried a miniature arsenal round their bodies; most had knives, and as they passed they brandished bludgeons and shouted excitedly. A group went to Herod’s Gate, where they murdered the Jewish lawyer Mr Wiener [London-born Harold Marcus Wiener, who in addition to being a lawyer was a biblical scholar and archaeologist], who had spent all his time and money in trying to reconcile Jew and Arab. At the Damascus Gate a Jewish family of four persons was brutally murdered by another group.

On reaching the Jaffa Gate the main body split up into two. One went towards the station, crossed the bridge and entered the old Montefiore quarter, where an orgy of crime ensued. Some seem to have returned to their villages after these exploits. But the rest, with the parties from the other gates, attacked Sheikh Badr and Mea Sh[e]arim, north of the New City, where they split again into bands which roamed over the quarter, leaving death and destruction in their wake. The situation was quite out of hand …’

So as well as summoning armoured cars from Ramleh and declaring a curfew, the authorities requested all British residents to enrol as special constables, and by 4 p.m. they had 100, including students and their principal from the Anglican theological college Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, who were visiting the Holy Land.

The Times correspondent continued:

‘By now bands of armed Arabs were roaming everywhere, attacking everyone who looked like a Jew. The Old City, however, was quiet. Towards evening the bands withdrew to the outskirts and “sniped” from the hills around the city. This continued all night – in fact, for several nights. The handful of British police and special constables had an exacting time. But what they lacked in numbers they certainly made up for in energy and influence, for no sooner did any of them appear than the looters made off.’

Reinforcements were rushed in from Egypt, and on Sunday a battalion of the South Wales Borderers arrived under Brigadier (later Lieutenant-General Sir) William Dobbie, who would subsequently play a key role in restoring order to Jaffa.

‘By this time Jerusalem was not the only storm centre,’ the correspondent reported. ‘Saturday morning saw riot and violence at Hebron, Ramleh, Lydda, Nablus, and Beisan. The worst excesses were at Hebron, where Jews were murdered with almost inconceivable brutality, and Kolonia, near Jerusalem, where the Jews were butchered and their farms set on fire. Into the flames were cast the bodies of two Jewish children who had already been killed. But once the troops arrived they averted fresh calamities.’ Had it not been evident by Friday, 30 August, that there were enough troops in Palestine equal to any eventuality, ‘the Friday prayer would have again been followed by rioting. That the day passed without any serious outbreak save at Safed showed that the crest of the outburst had passed.’

The correspondent stressed that he did not mean to usurp the role of the Commission of Inquiry, but nevertheless could not avoid making certain observations, which included:

‘That there has been Zionist provocation is certain, but nothing the Jews could have said or done could justify the utter brutality with which they were attacked. In the light, moreover, of one’s knowledge of what took place in Egypt in 1919, the way in which the Jerusalem affair was speedily followed by trouble in other places, and the infiltration of armed Moslems into the city on the eve of the outbreak, arouses more than a suspicion that there was some preconcerted plan. The activities of some of the more prominent Moslems, and notably by one of the Ulema [Islamic religious scholars], tend to confirm this impression…’

The Times later reported (11 November 1929) that, testifying before the Commission of Inquiry, Captain John Alexander Mulloy Faraday, assistant commissioner of police at Safed, where Arab violence towards Jews had broken out on 29 August, noted that although Safed was not “a Zionist town” and Jews had been living there for many years alongside Arabs, cries of “The faith of Mohamed has risen with the sword!” and “We want no Jews in Arab Palestine!” were among the sentiments hurled.

10/20 Links Pt1: Responding constructively to terrorism- the more they kill, the more we build

From Ian:

David Horovitz: Not an uprising against occupation. An uprising against Israel

They say that this is the latest uprising against the occupation. It isn’t. It’s the latest uprising against Israel.
Most Israelis don’t want to rule over the Palestinians. Most Israelis want to separate from the Palestinians. If the Palestinians want a state based on the 1967 lines, they have to convince a majority of Israelis that their independence would not threaten our existence. You’d think this would be obvious. Evidently it isn’t.
This latest phase of terrorism and violence — like the conventional wars, and the suicide bomber onslaught, and the relentless campaign of misrepresentation and demonization and denial of Jewish history in the holy land — sends the opposite message to Israel. Much of the rest of the world — so short-sighted in viewing Israel as the Goliath when it’s a tiny, loathed sliver in a region seething with Islamist extremism — refuses to see it. But in bloody, unmistakable capital letters, the perpetrators of this new round of evil mayhem proclaim to Israelis: We don’t want to live alongside you. We want to kill you and force you out of here.

Farfour’s Curse: Palestinian children learn to hate with their ABC’s and hate they do

Palestinians have been stabbing random Israelis daily for weeks, and on cue myriad foreign commentators have been trotting out the usual “root causes” arguments to explain their actions: Israeli settlements, Palestinians’ collective despair, the Netanyahu government’s policies.
Then again, we could just as well blame Farfour.
A bellicose and excitable Mickey Mouse clone with a whiny voice, Farfour was a costumed character on a popular Palestinian children’s educational program, “Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” on the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV. Not for Farfour some innocent horseplay to entertain the kiddos and teach them their ABC’s. Instead, the creepy rodent taught Palestinian children about the glories of jihad. In one episode he exhorted “tomorrow’s pioneers” (i.e. future jihadists) to liberate “all of Palestine” (i.e. the land of Israel) from the Jewish usurpers. “Beloved Palestine taught us to be soldiers of Allah,” a young boy sang as Farhoud cheered. “Oh Jerusalem it’s the time of death and we will fight a war.”
During a subsequent episode, Farfour, who liked to rhapsodize about the AK-47 assault rifle to Palestinian children, came to an untimely death “at the hands of the criminals, the murderers of innocent children” — Israelis, yes. Farfour was replaced by equally spiteful characters who carried on demonizing Israelis in his stead: Nahoul the bee and Assoud the rabbit. Assoud threatened to “finish off the Jews and eat them” before he, too, wound up murdered by the Jews. On his deathbed he urged Palestinian children to avenge him by “liberating” Haifa and Tel Aviv.

WATCH: ‘I want to stab a Jew,’ young girl tells her teacher father

A video posted by a Jordanian-Palestinian teacher on Facebook shows his young daughter holding a large knife and declaring, “I want to stab a Jew,” the watchdog group MEMRI reported, amid an ongoing surge of stabbings and other terror attacks by Palestinians on Israelis.
Abdulhaleem Abuesha, a teacher in the Madaba refugee camp in Jordan, posted the clip on Friday. MEMRI translated and highlighted it on Tuesday.
After his daughter Rahf, standing in front of the refrigerator in the kitchen, declares her desire to stab a Jew, Abuesha asks, “Why do you want to stab the Jew?”
“Because he stole our land,” she replies.
Her father confirms approvingly: “They stole our land.” He then asks, “With what do you want to stab them?”
“With a knife,” she says.
Abuesha is then heard encouraging her, saying, “Oh, you’re so strong! Allah willing, my dear.”

Palestinian-Jordanian Preschool Girl Holds Knife, Says: "I Want to Stab a Jew"

A video recently posted on Facebook shows a little girl, called Rahf, holding a large knife and declaring: "I want to stab a Jew." Her father, Abdulhaleem Abuesha, a teacher in the Madaba refugee camp in Jordan, encourages her, saying: "Oh, you're so strong!" The video was posted on Abuesha's Facebook account on October 16. His account also features a picture of a little boy – presumably his son - holding a large knife and smiling at the camera.

Using Jerusalem's holy sites to incite for murders of Jews is nothing new.

In 1929, first Palestinian leader, Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, called on the Arabs to fight the infidels and declared a holy war on the Jews. Al-Husseini, who years later was a decorated, high ranking Nazi collaborator, declared that the Jews are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount.
In a series of sermons, al-Husseini declared that Jews are dishonoring Islam and its holy sites and that whoever kill Jews will have a place in paradise. These calls against Jews helped trigger the 1929 Palestine riots, in which dozens of Jewish families were slaughtered throughout the land of Israel. The atrocities included slaughtering children in front of their parents, amputation, burning people alive and rape.
This was almost two decades before the State of Israel was created.
Almost four decades before the 1967 "occupation."
Inciting a religious war, by lying that the Temple Mount is endangered by Jews, was always a way for Palestinian leaders to unite their people against the Jewish population in the land of Israel.
The use of Allah to incite murder is, unfortunately, nothing new.

.@UNRWA teacher wants her kids to die for Allah

From UNRWA teacher Hiba Yassin's Facebook page:

Caption: "Dying for the sake of Allah is our loftiest hope."

The one-finger salute is associated with Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

I believe that this is her daughter; she has other photos of her with jihadist slogans.

What do you think she teaches her students?

Also:

"The #intifada of Ramadan" (meaning July 2014. Yes, UNRWA teachers were calling for a new intifada last year too,)

And she recently changed her cover photo to this peaceful image:

"Strike (i.e. throw) and from your hand the rain will pour down"

#the intifada_has_begun

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Lessons from Gershon Baskin's message to Palestinians

Here's how you can tell the differences between real liberal peace activists and the posers at B'Tselem, J-Street, Gisha, Amnesty, HRW and other similar groups.

From Gershon Baskin:

SOME VERY HARSH WORDS TO A PALESTINIAN LEADER AND TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE FROM ME:

A well known Palestinian political leader from Fatah in a very recent interview praised the Palestinian youth who take their knives to the enemy. He called them heroes and shaheeds (shuhada). I called him out on this and challenged him in a very direct and harsh sms. He immediately called me and said that I didn't understand his message. He also supported the two states solution in the interview and said he was against violence - he supported a popular peaceful uprising. He said that Palestinian leaders had to speak this way if they wanted to be seen as leaders. And that, in a nutshell is the Palestinian problem and explains why, until now, there is no Palestinian state (in addition to the extra added Israeli stubbornness, fanaticism and unwillingness to get to a solution). He told me to listen to the interview. I did and this is what I just wrote back to him:

"I cannot understand how trying to kill a 70 year old woman, or a 13 year old boy, or a religious couple coming home from praying is heroism worthy of praise. In my mind, no violence is worthy of praise, especially against civilians. No, they are not heroes and they are not shuhada. It is time to stop dying for Palestine and instead to live for Palestine. Someone who praises this is not a good leader of his people. I thought you were better than that".

I add to everyone, those young people who have "died for Palestine" have died in vain. They did not help Palestine. They did not go to heaven and they are not martyrs. They died as fools for nothing. They achieved nothing. They only added more suffering to their families and to us all.

It is time for Palestinian leaders to understand that this culture of death is the death of their own dreams and their own society.

Baskin may be misguided but he at least has the intellectual honesty to understand that peace requires both sides to act, unlike the Peter Beinarts of the world who at best pay lip service to the idea of Palestinian responsibility.

The excuse used by the unnamed "Palestinian leader," assuming that he is telling the truth (he could easily have adopted a peaceful persona for Baskin) shows a fundamental problem with the Arab side: After decades of inciting hate, they now must be seen as leaders in continuing the incitement or else they will not be seen as leaders at all.

The mob that they created now rules and they meekly follow. Any inkling that a Palestinian is against terror makes him a "collaborator." Any public appearance with an Israeli Jew means he wants to "normalize" relationships, another horrible crime.

If there are any Palestinian Arab leaders who really want peace and are willing to accept responsibility, they are in fear for their lives by saying it out loud.

The "culture of peace" that Abbas ridiculously claimed to have created in his UN speech is not only a lie, it is the exact opposite of the truth. He and others have created a culture of hate and a cult of death that is now so powerful that they must obey it themselves.

The West ignored Israel's insistence that the incitement must end (something explicitly agreed to during the Oslo process.) This intifada is the direct result of that decision. And real peace activists are starting to wake up to the fact that peace is impossible with a society that has been brought up to hate.

But as long as "human rights" NGOs ignore the culture of hate that is behind the murders, and the Western media ignores the obvious, there will be very few Palestinian Arabs with the bravery to stand up to this vortex of hate and say, "enough!"

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah incitement to kill Jews is explicit - and ignored

The media and Western politicians are still ignoring the role of incitement in the current terror spree, and especially the role played by Mahmoud Abbas' own Fatah party.

I showed examples of posters on the official Fatah Facebook page yesterday. But it even gets worse.

Like this photo on their page, which is a call by Fatah's student arm for a demonstration at Quds University in Bethlehem today.

#Resist_boycott_RiseUp_Fatah_Youth_Call to arms

Rise for Palestine ("intafidh")

Start by yourself... support your people

Who can miss the message of this poster, see on the webpage of Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades?

Rise, oh Palestinian and resist,

And never bargain about your right!

Mahmoud Abbas could shut this incitement down in an hour if he wanted to. Instead - he funds it.

And his Al Aqsa Brigades are openly roaming the West Bank, with guns. (The armed group that Abbas pretended to dismantle years ago.)

But will John Kerry or Ban Ki Moon mention this when they meet him? Will they even bring up that Abbas' words and his party's actions are a major driver behind the cyber-intifada?

Of course not. They will nod sagely as he pretends that it is all about "hopelessness" and "occupation" and "Al Aqsa" and the myriad other excuses for stabbing Jews in their homeland.

But Abbas, and his people, are inciting people to murder random Jews. We have the proof. And it is proof that Westerners choose to ignore because they need to believe that a somewhat less genocidal Palestinian leader compared to Arafat or the Mufti is in fact moderate by Western standards.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

As my family beings to settle into a daily routine here in Judea. My husband and I are beginning to establish ourselves in building a small business for ourselves, and it's hard. Working in Israel is tough. Most people do a few things just to make ends meet, but what matters most is that no one ever starves. Jews help each other every day and miracles from G-d are seen. One of the things I do for a living is maintenance and cleaning for the school my daughter attends.

On Fridays, in Area A of the Palestinian Authority, where Jewish land is declared "Judenrein" (Jew-free) I was in the very last classroom closest to the Palestinian village doing my finishing touches before erev Shabbat. Broadcasting from every mosque in sight in a booming decible was the sermon that encourages Palestinians to murder Jews and throw us into the sea. I can understand some Arabic. Something something Allahu Akhbar, something something yehudim, rinse and repeat all over again. This lunacy takes place every Friday in order to annoy Jews as we prepare for our Shabbat. How this people can ever get away from committing violence will be more than a miracle.

Imagine you lived in a village, town or city where recordings were constantly telling you to go out and kill a nation because you were taught false myths from birth that Jews stole from you? The Palestinian clerics use past recordings to instill hatred and terror into their people over and over again. They play it so loud that at 4 am, it's my alarm clock. The Muslim call to prayer outside of the sermon sounds like people groaning who have been stuck in purgatory or hell for thousands of years. IT IS that creepy to listen to. It feels as though any moment, a Palestinian terrorist could descend upon the classroom I am in where all around me is darkness outside and murder me and my daughter. At any moment, it could be any Israeli at any time.

I am usually fear-free as security is all around us. Though not usually seen, it is always there with monitors, electric fencing and guards driving and walking around. I personally like to see the guns in front of me. However, I trust my country implicitely to handle security measures at all times.

When I see no security I feel it isn't there. When I see no guards, I fear for my life. When I am cleaning in this room, I shake. I know the yishuv security is all around me. However, last night another sermon came on their loudspeakers. When your daughter says, "Mom, I'm really scared right now." I'm an Israeli mother now. I'm supposed to be tough. Do I cower in fear and show weakness to a child so new to a language she's never spoken before August? Do I act like a whining two year old to a former home schooled girl just trying to fit in and make friends? Or, do I show her that we are a courageous, resilient people with thousands of years of history. A people who were exiled from our land but who kept our faith. We tried unceasingly to come home - and succeeded More importantly, we are not going to stoop to the level of the Palestinians, a people living in conditions of corruption, drug trafficking and terror. We not will be vigilantes. But we will defend ourselves to the teeth.

The question of why my government allows the mosques that surround Judea and Samaria to broadcast these sermons perplexes me. Why not send in our army to shut down these recordings permanently? Mosques that no one goes to pray in. Why fight terror when allowing these messages to be played deflates the purpose of peace through strength. I don't know which cleric is ranting, but why haven't more been brought to justice for incitement? Why hasn't Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement in Israel been put in a jail for life? Why do we allow an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood to exist and live off the fruits of our labor? And when will the Knesset ban these inciters for life, exile them from our land and deport them to the country or their birthplace?

We always hear in Hebrew, "slowly slowly." Unfortunately. We can't afford to slow down legislation against seventh century throwbacks who are not wanted anywhere else in the world. We have been too nice. It is time for the Prime Minister to set his sights on this issue and pass a law banning any and all Mosques from airing their creepy groaning and terror messages for good.

Palestinian schools honor their young terrorists

From AFP, caption by UK Media Watch:

Close-up:

But this isn't the only example of how Palestinian Arabs are honoring student terrorists.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education planted olive trees in honor of the student "martyrs" including Hassan Manasra, who was one of the teens to stab the 13-year old boy on his bike in Pisgat Ze'ev.

Depraved.

(h/t Bob K)

10/19 Links Pt2: MSNBC Admits Anti-Israel Graphics Were Wrong; Iranian Leaders Reject Nuclear Deal

From Ian:

MSNBC Admits Anti-Israel Graphics Were ‘Wrong’

MSNBC has admitted that highly controversial graphics aired on the network that depicted Israel as stealing land from the Palestinians were “factually wrong” and that the broadcast would be corrected on Monday, according to a network spokesperson.
The cable news network has been fighting off criticism after it aired the graphics and analysis, including a map linked to conspiracy groups branded as anti-Semitic, that portrayed Israel as existing on territory expropriated from Palestine.
The graphics garnered criticism from pro-Israel advocates and has now prompted the network to acknowledge that the graphics were highly misleading.
“In an attempt to shed light on the geographic context of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, we aired a map that was factually wrong,” the spokesperson said on Sunday.
Two MSNBC broadcasters, Kate Snow and Martin Fletcher, “will address the map in a segment Monday about agendas and disinformation on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the spokesperson said.
Fletcher, a Middle East analyst, said on Sunday that the map and analyses were “dead wrong.”

MSNBC Apologizes For Palestinian Map-Gate

Sky News fails to challenge lie that Israel plans to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque

First, beginning at roughly the 4:20 mark in the film, note that Rossi falsely claimed that Netanyahu has a secret plan to allow Jews to pray at the Temple Mount / Al-Aqsa Compound.
However, as anyone who’s been following the issue would surely know, the Israeli prime minister has stated repeatedly that there is no such plan to change the status quo, where Jews can visit but not pray. Indeed, Netanyahu recently banned Israeli MKs and ministers (and Arab MKs) from visiting the site in order to prevent the possibility that a visit by a controversial political figure will ignite more violence.
Even worse, the PSC Vice Chair then claims there is a secret plan to destroy the Mosque and build a Third Temple. This also goes unchallenged by Rossi.
He further claims that Israeli security personnel have engaged in “extra-judicial executions”.
The Sky News reporter allowed millions of viewers to hear such PSC propaganda without comment or critical scrutiny.

Israel slams UNESCO vote calling Western Wall Muslim

The proposal to recognize the adjoining Western Wall as a Muslim holy site was submitted by six Muslim countries on behalf of the Palestinians, according to a Ynet news report.
The proposal also calls for the international community to condemn Israel for urging “its citizens to bear arms in light of [the] recent terror wave,” as well as for recent actions by Israel and the Israel Defense Forces in Jerusalem. The document, a copy of which was obtained by Ynet, refers to Jerusalem as “the occupied capital of Palestine.”
In addition, the Palestinians seek condemnation of ongoing Israeli archaeological excavations near the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem’s Old City, as well as of the “aggression and illegal measures taken against the freedom of worship and access of Muslims to Al-Aqsa Mosque and Israel’s attempts to break the status quo since 1967.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely denounced the bid on Monday.
“This shameful and deceitful Palestinian attempt to rewrite history will fail the test of reality,” Hotovely said.
The Likud lawmaker said her ministry is making every effort to see that the bid is voted down by UNESCO on Tuesday.
The proposal is largely expected to pass, as most of UNESCO’s 58 members traditionally support the Palestinian cause.

Another @UNRWA teacher supports stabbing Jews

Alaa Elian is an UNRWA teacher in Gaza.

He recently posted this on Facebook:

I am not even close to running out of examples of UNRWA teachers and employees posting hate.

By the way, one UNRWA worker I exposed recently, Sohaib Fayyad, simply eliminated any mention of UNRWA in his Facebook page and keeps on posting hate.

It seems doubtful that he was fired, because if that was the case he would just list UNRWA as a former job. Instead, he cleansed any mention of UNRWA

(Literally as I was writing this, the page was taken down again.)