Thursday, October 29, 2015

BDSers: "Do as I say..." (poster)

This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

10/29 Links Pt2: Pope: denying Israel’s right to exist is anti-Semitism; Harry Potter & Threats to Israel

From Ian:

Pope says denying Israel’s right to exist is anti-Semitism

Pope Francis marked the 50th anniversary of the turning point in the Catholic Church’s relations with Jews on Wednesday with a sharp condemnation of anti-Semitism, saying attacks on Israel’s right to exist were a form of hatred.
“To attack Jews is anti-Semitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also anti-Semitism,” Francis told a delegation from the World Jewish Congress (WJC). “There may be political disagreements between governments and on political issues, but the State of Israel has every right to exist in safety and prosperity.”
Francis called for greater interfaith collaboration in the face of religious extremism. He devoted his usual Wednesday general audience to explaining to the Catholic faithful in St. Peter’s Square the importance of the “Nostra Aetate,” or “In Our Time” declaration, which revolutionized the church’s relations in particular with Jews.
The statement was one of the most important documents to emerge from the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that brought the church into the modern world. It said Christ’s death could not be attributed to Jews as a whole, recognized the shared spiritual patrimony between Christians and Jews and decried all forms of anti-Semitism.

Netanyahu to Address Liberal Center for American Progress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak next week at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank that has previously come under fire for its anti-Israel slant.
Netanyahu will address the group on Nov. 10, during his trip to the United States to meet with President Obama, the Huffington Post reported on Tuesday. News of the speech was first reported by Jewish Insider.
Several bloggers affiliated with CAP were accused of promoting anti-Semitic or anti-Israel tropes on social media in 2011 by using the term “Israel firster” and by suggesting that American supporters of Israel had dual loyalty to the Jewish state.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund’s ThinkProgress was also criticized for demonizing Israel.
The think tank initially defended the staffers, but quickly cut ties with one of the bloggers, Zaid Jilani. Others have since left.
Sources said Netanyahu was encouraged by Hillary Clinton donors to speak at a liberal think tank for “political balance,” since he is also keynoting the conservative American Enterprise Institute’s annual dinner next week. The prime minister’s office initially approached CAP, which was founded by Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, to set up an event.
Netanyahu’s decision was met with mild surprise in pro-Israel circles. However, it was also seen as an example of his willingness to speak to a diverse array of audiences. (h/t Alexi)

Harry Potter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

“It’s the story of the recent events in Israel told through the story of the Harry Potter movies,” explains Rachel Lester, who made a viral video clip featuring Harry Potter confronting the existential threats faced by the Jewish State.
“My goal is to make the following issues more relatable to an audience who might not know much about the Middle East conflict: (a) Hamas as a terrorist organization, (b) the biased reactions of world leaders and the media, and (c) the danger that the recently-passed Iran deal poses to Israel and the world.”
The video comes days after Harry Potter author JK Rowling — whose “Harry Potter” books sold 400 million copies and were adapted into the second-highest grossing film series of all time — used Albus Dumbledore, a headmaster of Hogwarts wizarding school in the series, to make a moral point about the need for dialogue and cultural engagement with Israel.

"Winning a Debate With an Israel-Hater" was released earlier this month, and it is a nice addition to anyone's reading list.

Dr. Michael Harris, a member of StandWithUs, sees first hand the anti-Israel protests in the San Francisco Bay area. He brings years of experience to explain how to confront and make fools of the haters.

The book itself is relatively short, more a handbook than a reference work.

The focus of the book is not to explain everything about the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is very specifically to show the audience of any public encounter between pro- and anti-Israel forces that the haters have no consistent position, except hate itself. So therefore he concentrates more on demolishing the actual types of people who mindlessly spout anti-Israel slogans, whom he calls PIDS (People with Israel Derangement Syndrome,)

That being said, there is a short history lesson so that those who want to defend Israel know the basics.

Most of the arguments would be familiar to readers of this blog. But this is not a book on how to fisk the more clever haters who write articles and books.

Harris is somewhat irreverent and brings a light tone to the book. He includes a humorous "Palestinese Lexicon" in one chapter, for example.

Harris shows how to make the haters admit that they really want to destroy Israel, which is enough to win the debate (in the US at least.) He points out hypocrisy in their arguments, and describes how the UN is biased, He smartly tries to stay away from explicitly accusing the haters of anti-semitism. There are chapters about BDS, the "one state solution" and he briefly shows how many of the more visible anti-Israel "intellectuals" are corrupt.

The book is clearly written to use liberal arguments for Israel, which is a good strategy in San Francisco. But it brings up one of its faults,, which is that Harris doesn't go after J-Street, making them look more misguided than evil. (I mentioned that to him and he replied that he agonized over that decision, but this way fit better with the aim of the book.)

I wish the book was better formatted and that it had an index to quickly look up the proper rebuttals to various points. But altogether, while is it a short read, it is a worthwhile book to get.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

The World Zionist Congress met last week for the 37^th time since it was founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. Like many Jewish institutions today, it has become a battleground for the Right and Left. But what happened at the meeting put into clear focus that the struggle is really between Zionism and … something else.

An organization called LAVI introduced a resolution (the English version is here) calling for the recognition of the Jewish people as an indigenous nation:

The bill declared that "the Jewish people is a Semitic people, indigenous to the Land of Israel and seeking international recognition of its indigenous status" …

The proposal argued that "Israel’s contrived Western identity" was not only handing ammunition to its enemies to falsely label Zionism as a "colonialist" project, but that it was also placing an artificial barrier preventing peace between Israel and its other "Semitic" neighbors.

It included a statement that it "does not negate the indigenous status of any other people." Nevertheless, it barely passed, by a vote of 51% of the delegates.

I believe that the essence of Zionism is the assertion that the Jews are an indigenous people to the land of Israel, with indigenous rights (sometimes called aboriginal rights) in the land. In fact, the Jewish people are one of the oldest documented indigenous peoples, with a unique language, culture, religion and history tied directly to the land of Israel.

The resolution refers to the struggle of the Jews to return to the land after displacement by “Roman imperialism,” but it could also have mentioned the conflict between the Jews and the Arab imperialists of the seventh century or the Jordanian and Egyptian ones that invaded the land in 1948.

A moment’s reflection should suffice to show that the narrative by which the Jews suddenly appeared in 1880 or 1948 to dispossess a flourishing ‘Palestinian’ people is nonsense. Jews have been physically present here to some extent since biblical times, and they are the paradigm case of ‘a people’ in history. ‘Palestinians’, on the other hand, are Arabs who are mostly descended from recent arrivals from Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Transjordan. Their specifically ‘Palestinian’ culture developed very recently, in opposition to what they see as the threat of Jewish (non-Arab and non-Muslim) sovereignty. They didn’t even call themselves ‘Palestinians’ until the 1960s; and prior to 1948, ‘Palestinian’ meant ‘Palestinian Jew’.

The Arabs know that Zionism rests on Jewish peoplehood, and on the connection of the Jewish people to the land – our indigenousness. They know that their moral case to displace us is based on the argument that they are a long-term indigenous people and we are European colonialists. Thus they insist there is no Jewish people, only a religion. Thus they attempt to erase Jewish history in the land – by arrogating Jewish holy sites to themselves and by physically destroying archaeological evidence of the ancient Jewish presence. Their claims may appear ludicrous, but they have been successful in persuading large numbers of people.

But the insistence on our indigenous rights is more than just a response to the Arab attempt to invert reality. It is an answer to the most basic questions that can be asked about Zionism: Why does there need to be a Jewish state? Why not a democratic state of its citizens? And why does it need to be here?

The answers are provided, ironically, by the UN, in its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007, which asserts the right of self-determination as well as the rights to maintain the culture, institutions, religion, and language for indigenous peoples. It grants them the right to live in peace and security, and to not be subjected to genocide or expulsion from their native lands. It calls for them to have free access to their religious sites, and for them to be free from incitement to racial hatred against them.

Zionism is the principle, justified by historical experience, that these rights can be guaranteed for the Jewish people only in a state under Jewish sovereignty.

So why was there so much opposition to the passage of this resolution? After all, it was the World Zionist Congress.

The opposition came from delegates associated with the Union for Reform Judaism (the largest faction among the American delegates), the Conservative Movement, and especially a ‘progressive’ group called Hatikvah which included representatives of J Street, the New Israel Fund, Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, and numerous other left-of-center factions.

Writing on LAVI’s Facebook page, founder Ilan Roth asked,

The fact that so many self-defined Zionists … not only opposed this resolution but also fought for a revote after narrowly losing only causes us to wonder about the fundamental assumptions upon which they are operating. Do they genuinely want to see themselves as white colonialists rather than as Semites?

Why indeed? My suspicion is that the ones farther to the left (like Americans for Peace Now and Ameinu) are ideologically married to the idea that the Jews are colonists and the Arabs indigenous. To believe anything else would violate their post-colonialist conceptual scheme, which would be too cognitively dissonant for them. More moderate delegates may have felt that an assertion that that Jews have a right or connection to the land that Arabs don’t would damage the holy “two-state solution” that they are eternally seeking. Maybe some simply don’t want to make the Arabs morefrustrated and furious than they already are.

I shouldn’t be too hard on the liberal ‘Zionists’ of the WZC, though, because Israel’s own government is schizophrenic about its Zionism. While the government is not talking about indigenousness, they are considering a “Jewish state law” (temporarily on hold) which will add to the Basic Laws – Israel’s substitute for an actual constitution – some kind of statement that while all citizens have civil and political rights, the Jewish people have ‘national rights’. This is intended to balance the ‘Jewish’ and ‘democratic’ characteristics of the state that are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. There is already a Basic Law about democracy, but none about Jewishness.

The same kind of people that think that the Jewish people have indigenous rights also tend to think they have ‘national’ ones, rights to symbols like the national anthem and flag, and the primary national language. A “Basic Law: The Jewish State” might also legitimize a Law of Return for Jews without requiring one for Arabs, justify efforts to increase Jewish aliyah, to teach Tanach and Jewish History in schools, to support synagogues with public funds, and more. It would, its backers hope, prevent concern for Arab rights to erode Jewish ones.

Various formulations of such a law have been proposed, and the Left despises all of them, because in their post-Zionist hearts they don’t believe that Jews and Arabs should be unequal in any way. They might oppose transitioning from a Jewish state with an Arab minority to a ‘state of its citizens’ for practical reasons, but it is a matter of pride for them to at least pretend to be ethnically blind. They don’t see any special reason that Israel should not be like Western Europe or the US in that respect (apparently they haven’t looked at Sweden lately).

One way or another, Israel will have to face the question of whether it will continue to be an expression of the Zionist ideal or try to become a tiny Sweden. I think the answer to which of these is more likely to survive and thrive is obvious.

10/29 Links Pt1: Murdered American a Challenge to J Street; Fatah posts Nazi book: Don’t trust a fox or a Jew

From Ian:

Palestinian Murder of American-Israeli Poses Challenge to J Street

Will the murder of fellow-peace activist Richard Lakin spur J Street, Americans for Peace Now, and other left-of-center groups to follow Leonard Fein's footsteps and speak out?
And not just speak out in general, vague terms--but ask for specific actions, such as:
1. According to the media, one of Lakin's killers was a member of Fatah, the PLO faction that is headed by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. J Street should demand that Abbas order Fatah to pay restitution to the Lakin family.
2. Peace groups should urge the Obama administration to demand that the PA hand over Abd al-Majid Dudin and other Palestinian killers of Americans to the United States for prosecution. More than 130 American citizens have been killed by Palestinian terrorists since the 1960s--yet not one of the killers has yet been brought to justice in America.
3. J Street should announce that it will no longer take part in meetings in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority's capital, until the PA changes the names of streets and parks in Ramallah that are named after Dalal Mugrahbi, a terrorist who murdered Gail Rubin, the niece of the late U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut)--another prominent figure in the left-of-center camp.
It should not matter that Richard Lakin was a peace activist, that Joan Davenny was a friend of a Peace Now leader, or that Gail Rubin was the niece of a liberal Democratic senator. But those are the facts.
For J Street and its allies, Palestinian terrorism is striking close to home. Perhaps these tragedies will help them recognize that speaking out against Palestinian terrorism is not a right-wing or left wing issue--it is a matter of justice, on which everyone should be able to agree.

Another American Victim of Palestinian Terror: Why it Matters

American taxpayers should care for another reason: the US government sends $500 million of their tax dollars to the Palestinian Authority (PA) every year. So the public has a right to expect the government to intervene when PA employees or PA-incited terrorists murder our citizens, or when the PA names streets, parks, and soccer teams after murderers of Americans.
The American government, too, has a special obligation with regard to American victims of Palestinian terrorism.
First, there is a legal obligation. American citizens, whether they are visiting, studying, or living abroad, are still American citizens. They pay taxes just like the rest of us, and in return the US government has a legal responsibility to act when they are harmed by terrorists abroad just as it would have an obligation to act if they are harmed by terrorists within the US.
Second, the US government has a strategic obligation to act. Fighting Palestinian terrorism must be part of America’s global war on terror. Bringing Palestinian killers of Americans to trial in the US would contribute significantly to anti-terror efforts, by making it clear to Palestinian terrorists that they could face the death penalty, or at least life in prison with no hope of release in a prisoner exchange — something that is not the case when they kill Israelis.
So, yes, it is relevant that Richard Lakin was an American. It’s not just a question of narrow national pride, or ethnic solidarity, or curiosity. For important moral, legal, and strategic reasons, the American victims of Palestinian terrorism should matter to American Jews, to the American public, and to the American government.

PMW Fatah posts Nazi children's book: Don’t trust a fox or a Jew

Today, on its official Facebook page, Abbas' Fatah movement posted the cover of an Antisemitic children's book from Germany from 1936.
Posted text: "The cover of one of the children's books in Germany in 1936 whose title is:
'Trust no fox on his green meadow, and trust no Jew on his oath'"
[Official Facebook page of the Fatah movement, Oct. 29, 2015]

Israel: Abbas’s UNHRC speech is 'the banalization of the spilling of Jewish blood'

Israel charged that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “glorified” violence against Israelis and further “fanned the flames of the conflict” during his speech before a special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.
“What we have witnessed today is the glorification of terror and violence,” Israel’s Ambassador to the UNHRC Eviatar Manor told diplomatic corp in Geneva hours after Abbas’s speech.
“What the Council allowed today is the banalization of the spilling of Jewish blood,” Manor said.
In his speech to the UNHRC Abbas said that the violence in the last few weeks was fueled by built up frustration over Israel’s “occupation of Palestine” and changes it had made to the status quo in the Al-Aksa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Abbas made no mention of the 11 Israelis killed by Palestinian assailants in some 30 attacks against Israelis since the start of October. Instead he accused Israel instead of “extra-judicial killings” and “war crimes” against his people.

Yesterday I reported that Moroccan Jews were alarmed at an anti-Israel demonstration where there was a performance showing supposedly orthodox Jews trying to demolish the Dome of the Rock when they are stopped by heroic Arabs, "stabbed" and "executed."

One of the organizers of the rally named Osidon responded by saying that the Jews are making a big deal out of nothing, because Moroccan jews don't dress the way the characters in the play did.

He then attacked the victims for even mentioning it.

He said that "those who promote the petition critical of what happened in the rally are trying to exploit the nobility of being against racism in general, and forget that the occupation of Palestine is based on racism. They are trying to create an atmosphere of tension and intimidation of members of the Jewish community to things they were not exposed to in Morocco. "

Osidon said that "those who try to exaggerate such facts to convince the Moroccan Jews that they are in danger are inciting them, and these attempts are fully compatible with the Zionist schemes intending to twist the conflict into a religious conflict, as well as to push the fine Jewish community of Morocco to escape, by promoting a climate of intimidation, which does not have a factual basis."

There you have it. Those who call out explicit Jew-hatred are the racists.

From Ha'aretz:

Israeli Arab lawmaker Basel Ghattas visited the Temple Mount on Wednesday, touring the site in defiance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's directive to the police to prevent Knesset members from visiting the flashpoint complex amid recent tensions and violence.

In the video, Ghattas, who is from a Christian family, addresses Netanyahu in Arabic, saying "you and your occupation will not prevent us from exercise our right to pray and visit Al-Aqsa… You and your occupation are temporary but this holy place will always remain Islamic and Arabic.

Ghattas is Christian but he is claiming the right to visit and pray on the Temple Mount, a right that he denies Jews.

But according to Islamic theology, there is no difference between how Christians and Jews should be treated. If Christians can ascend the Mount to visit and pray, then so can Jews.

Which proves yet again that the Arab claim to the site isn't based on Islamic rights - it is based on denying Jewish rights.

Another little piece of hypocrisy: The Muslims claim that the deadly 1929 riots were sparked by Jews bringing temporary partitions and benches to the Western Wall for Yom Kippur, something that they claimed was a violation of the "status quo" at the time. But notice that Ghattas is standing among the framework of what looks like a large tent being built on the plaza. Isn't that by definition a violation of the "status quo?"

Yesterday, David Collier wrote a must-read bombshell article about how he witnessed MP Gerald Kaufman accusing Israel of wantonly murdering Palestinians and fabricating evidence afterwards, and how "Jewish money" was behind Conservative support for Israel.

Here is his followup article submitted to publish here:

Two days ago I sat in government buildings within the Westminster complex and witnessed classic antisemitic slurs. I have to say primarily, that whatever one thinks of the political position of the Arabs who were present, the antisemitism *did not come from the Arabs*. At these events, it is almost always the Western ‘friends’ of the Arabs, driven by their hatred, not of Israel, but of Jews, who drive up the level of antisemitism in the room.

I spend considerable time amongst Israel ‘hater’s and you cannot walk into a room of Arabs discussing Israel and expect to ‘feel the love’. I know we would all like to, but in reality it is not going to happen. I am trying to get across that I have really thick skin, so when I suggest there was antisemitism in the room, I mean I was in the presence of full blown Nazis.

There is nowhere on the planet today that a Jew should be confronted with classic global Jewish conspiracy theories. Not even if he were listening to whispers standing in a dark room in a remote village in the hall of the local fascist party. Everyone knows where such conspiracy tales lead and nobody can walk the path. And yet, there I was in the heart of the British Government buildings, sitting in Westminster London, hearing people talk about Jewish money, the elephant in the room, secret meetings of Jewish Bankers in 1913 and classic stories of global Jewish control. And then there was Gerald Kaufman, a British MP, one of several ‘Israeli hating’ politicians present and one that just happens to be Jewish. Kaufman has a long history of virulent anti-Israeli protest and is shadowed by claims of antisemitism and self-hating.

So when he spoke I was expecting to hear distortions, but amongst the usual viciousness (he read an email claiming most of the stabbings are fabricated so Israel can execute Palestinians and then proceeded to declare ‘that is life in Israel today’), he spoke of ‘Jewish money’.

“Martin wonders why this governments policy has gone farther and farther and more and more pro-Israeli, but I’ll tell you because I can tell you in a way which perhaps nobody else in this room can tell you. It’s Jewish money, Jewish donations, to the conservative party as in the general election in May, support from the Jewish Chronicle, all of those things, bias the conservatives. There is now a big group of conservative members of Parliament, who are pro-Israel whatever government does and they are not interested in what Israel, in what the Israeli government does. They’re not interested in the fact that Palestinians are living a repressed life, and are liable to be shot at any time.”

This comment appears to accuse British MP’s of being paid off, of being bribed and of conducting their business on behalf of a distant nation rather than their voters. It also stinks of classic antisemitism. Two distinct points, not one. Remove Israel, remove the Jews and it is still a major problem. Add the Jews back into the story and we are back in the room with age old accusations of secret Jewish control. The story broke at noon yesterday, when I released my blog (http://david-collier.com/?p=1336) and a written account of the event. The local Jewish press picked it up within two hours, and two hours later British Jewish groups and antisemitism watchdogs were all over it. Demanding answers, wanting an apology, asking for explanations. The Labour party was reeling as Jewish MP’s expressed their outrage and the other MP’s who were present at the event, distanced themselves and pretended they’d all gone partially deaf.

And so we have a story of an active politician in the opposition party accusing the government of being bribed, having its foreign policy ‘purchased’ and ‘deliberately ignoring random assassinations of innocent people in the street by a rogue nation’. That the entire accusation embroils a minority that has a history of being persecuted with such accusations only adds more fuel to the mix. And not one national newspaper has said a word.

Every Jewish newspaper in the UK and several in Israel has picked it up but the British press are going nowhere near it. Even those newspapers who would love to take any opportunity to bash Corbyn’s Labour party are not touching it. And here is the truth; if Kaufman was not Jewish, this would have been headline news, at the very least in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph and the politician in question may already have found himself out of a job. Something is protecting Kaufman and that something I am calling the ‘Kaufman effect’.

I am not suggesting the press call him an antisemite, although many others have, I am claiming that there is an issue for the press to address. It isn’t they don’t want to, they’d love to go for him, but they are too scared to touch and do not know how to handle it. How can a Jew be an antisemite? It is amongst the most ridiculous notions I have ever heard (actually a deeply antisemitic argument) that suggests the only people who cannot hate a particular race are members of that specific race. It suggests that there is actually a good reason to hate the Jews, but non-Jews are simply not ‘allowed to’.

The BBC, Telegraph, Times, Guardian, all of them, were made aware yesterday that some deeply disturbing comments had been made in the heart of the British democratic estate and yet not one of them have said a word. They need to explain to us all why they are failing to address it. They need to show us there is no such thing as the ‘Kaufman effect’. Let them show us there is no back door to Jewish conspiracy theories and no outlet for antisemitism. They have to ask the questions.

.@Amnesty "researchers" proven again to be anti-Israel slanderers (update)

Yesterday, I quoted a new Amnesty International report that supposedly showed how Israeli forces routinely murder Arabs at checkpoints for no reason at all. All of the evidence given comes from Palestinian "eyewitnesses" who often say contradictory things and who even Amnesty researchers have concluded often lie.

Let's go into more detail on the first case Amnesty supposedly "researched," the case they they claimed was the worst of all:

In an especially egregious case, Israeli forces shot dead 19-year-old Sa’ad Muhammad Youssef al-Atrash in the Old City of Hebron as he attempted to retrieve an ID card at an Israeli soldier’s request on 26 October. The Israeli police labelled the incident an “attempted stabbing” but an eyewitness watching the events unfold from her balcony said he had posed no threat when he was shot. One of the soldiers had asked him for ID, and as he reached into his pocket to grab his card another soldier standing behind him shot him on his right side, she told Amnesty International. The eyewitness said he was shot six or seven times and bled profusely as he lay on the ground for about 40 minutes afterwards, while soldiers failed to provide medical treatment. She also reported seeing soldiers bring a knife and place it in the dying man’s hand.

After I originally posted this I was made aware of Sa'ad al-Atrash's Facebook page, which is still up. Here is the profile picture he used:

It is a promo for a music video called, literally, "The Lovers of Stabbing."

A relative of Sa'ad Al Atrash named Mohammed, possibly his brother, posted this short essay on his own Facebook page:

First of all, “in the name of Allah”. I’ll tell you the story of a Palestinian hero. A (regular) guy from among the youth of Palestine and Hebron. He had dignity and manhood. This guy congratulated the father of the (female) shahid Bint Rashid, and said “Congratulations (for her martyrdom), her blood will not go unavenged.” He went and burnt the container [not sure what this means]. The next day he went and said hello to all his friends and asked for their forgiveness. He then went home and ate. He performed the ritual ablution before the prayer and read the Quran. He left his phone and his ID card (at home). He then went, as usual, to the Study Center and our Lord granted him martyrdom on his way. This is what he yearned for all the time. This is the heroic young man, the Lion of Hebron, Sa’ad Muhammad Yousef Al-Atrash. May Allah have mercy on his soul and put him in Paradise."

Mohammed then posted this immediately afterwards as his own Facebook cover photo:

Sons of Zion

Feel your necks... Slaughter is coming at them

Death to Israel (Hebrew)

This is not a man who is mourning his relative. It is someone who is proud of him.

The man whom Amnesty used as their most "egregious case" of Israeli crimes is now shown to have planned his attempted murder.

The "witness" was lying. And Amnesty's "researchers" Jacob Burns and Sunjeev Bery ignored the advice from their own about the dangers of believing people with an agenda and chose to believe her - not in spite of her agenda, but because they share it!

Amnesty must apologize and amend their slanderous report. In addition, if Amnesty wanted to retain a shred of credibility, it should for once address the real issue of anti-Israel incitement that drives people to want to stab the closest Jew they can find - incitement that often comes from the PA government and ruling political party, as I have shown many times.

But Amnesty won't do any of that. Because their goal in the Middle East, proven over and over again, is not truth nor is it justice. It is to find or help manufacture evidence to slander Israel.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: Mohammed's page was taken down, but it is archived here. (h/t Bob Knot, Nathan)

.@UNRWA teacher posts "Stab the Jews" video

UNRWA teacher Najlaa Nojom lives in Bethlehem.

She recently shared this video, glorifying stabbing Jews, on her Facebook timeline.

Here are some screenshots:

I think this fits right in with UNRWA's vaunted "neutrality" policy. The video is neutral about whether Arabs should stab Jews, run over Jews or stone Jews to death.

10/28 Link Pt2: Amnesty´s War on Israel; BDS wants Jobless and desperate Palestinians

From Ian:

Amnesty´s War on Israel: Accusations of "Unlawful Killings" without Evidence

On October 27, 2015, Amnesty International published a fundamentally flawed statement alleging a “clear pattern…of lethal force being used unlawfully by Israeli forces following a wave of recent stabbing attacks by Palestinians against Israeli civilians and military or police forces in Israel and the occupied West Bank.” This is at least the third statement from Amnesty since the escalation of Palestinian terror attacks beginning October 1 that makes such accusations, and demonstrates the organization’s on-going obsession with and disproportionate focus on Israel. None of Amnesty’s prior statements has focused exclusively on Israeli victims of these attacks, which have numbered in the hundreds – each one illegal and a blatant violation of human rights and domestic and international law. Moreover, Amnesty has remained silent on the vicious antisemitism and incitement campaign promoted by Palestinian officials, which has spurred on the attacks against Israeli civilians.
1. No evidence: Amnesty presents zero evidence to support its allegations. It does present entirely unverified and unverifiable testimony from anonymous Palestinian eyewitnesses. Israeli victims and security personnel are not mentioned.
2. Failure to establish a “clear pattern”: Amnesty cherry-picks four incidents out of dozens where security forces neutralized attackers. (And one of the four is from before October 1 and irrelevant to the responses to the current wave of terror attacks.) A comprehensive evaluation of Israeli responses to ongoing terror attacks would show a pattern of justifiable shootings, as well as numerous instances of Israeli police protecting wounded and detained perpetrators from vigilante justice.
3. Erroneous legal claims: Amnesty writes that “heavily armed soldiers and police wearing body armour facing a possible knife attack have a duty to use proportionate and graduated force and attempt to arrest suspects before resorting to the use of lethal force.”
4. Lack of credible researchers: The statement claims to present “findings of an ongoing research trip to the West Bank.” However, the researchers and staff members assigned to reporting on Israel have clear histories as anti-Israel activists, and generate analyses that are both inaccurate and blatantly prejudiced.
Jacob Burns (research and campaign assistant), who currently is in the region, previously worked for Forensic Architecture, a pseudo-scientific project that, in partnership with Amnesty International, made unsubstantiated charges of Israeli war crimes. In addition, Deborah Hyams (“researcher”) has an extensive background in radical anti-Israel activism, including acting as a “human shield” in Beit Jala (near Bethlehem) in 2001. Saleh Hijazi (“campaigner”) previously worked in PR for the Palestinian Authority and for the NGO “Another Voice” – under the group’s signature “Resist! Boycott! We Are Intifada!”

UK Commander Slams World’s Weak Response to ‘Human Shields’ for Causing Terrorists to Use Them More

French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian recently made an essential statement about the war against terror and the difficulties it involves for Western countries.
In an interview with Europe 1 focusing on the French air strikes against the Islamic State, he remarked:
Daesh [ISIS] is organized in such a way that children, women, civilians are being put on front lines. Its leadership is hiding in schools, mosques, hospitals, making the action of the coalition in Iraq and the action of France and other partners in Syria difficult, because we don’t want civilian casualties. We pay as much attention to the targets we select as to the need to combat Daesh.
This is a frank admission of the “human shield” tactic practiced by Islamists, and their crippling effect on Western fighting.
Undoubtedly, Le Drian is aware that the United States and other Western partners in the coalition against ISIS are facing the same challenge, and that Israel faces similar difficulties when counter-attacking organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Fatah-affiliated terror groups.
What remains to be seen is whether he and the French government, now having this experience with human shields, will reconsider their foreign policy regarding Israel.
We asked Colonel Richard Kemp, the former British commander in Afghanistan and an expert about war ethics, to comment on Le Drian’s no-nonsense statement.

Jobless and desperate Palestinians

The most significant impact of BDS on SodaStream has been in Sweden. In response to pressure from retailers lobbied by BDS advocates, SodaStream agreed to stop shipping their machines from the West Bank factory. The Swedes have been pleased to receive products instead from a factory in China — a decidedly un-free country that “disappears” Tibetans who protest the Chinese annexation of their homeland. That has meant 150 fewer jobs for Palestinians with, again, each one responsible for an average of 10 dependents.
Perhaps the Swedes, along with other “progressive” Europeans and Americans, think Palestinians are better off as wards of the “donor community.” Perhaps they think another round or two of “peace-processing” will prompt good foreign investors (as opposed to Israeli investors) to head for the West Bank, checkbooks in hand. Or perhaps they think that if the Israelis bug out of the West Bank the result will not be — as it was in Gaza — the seizure of power by Hamas, which builds factories that make missiles rather than kitchen appliances.
Meanwhile, not far to the north, the jihadis of the Islamic State, al Qaeda affiliates and Hezbollah are watching. What sort of employment do you think they might have in mind for jobless, impoverished and desperate Palestinians?
By contrast, Mr. Birnbaum has literally been bringing the peoples of the Holy Land together, providing opportunities to earn decent livings making products consumers want and will pay for.
Those who oppose that, those who are trying to stop him and prevent others from following his example — with BDS advocates leading the pack — call themselves pro-Palestinian. Their claim is, when you think about it, nothing short of ludicrous.

State Dept stopped Bill Clinton from meeting Israeli leaders

From Politico:

During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as America’s top diplomat, the State Department vetoed at least two planned events involving former President Bill Clinton due to concerns they could upset delicate Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, according to emails newly obtained by POLITICO.

Top aides to Hillary Clinton were involved in heading off a meeting between former President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July 2010, as well as a speech the former president was planning to give at an event later that month marking the tenth anniversary of unsuccessful Camp David peace talks at the end of Bill Clinton’s term, the records show.

The email messages underscore how Middle East-related issues were among the most sensitive the State Department and the former president’s team sought to navigate while his wife was secretary of state.

Bill Clinton’s attempt to meet Netanyahu in New York in July 2010 was derailed after National Security Council Mideast staffer Dan Shapiro flagged NSC Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to the plan based on information picked up from top Netanyahu adviser Ron Dermer.

“Dermer told me that President Clinton asked to see the PM when he is in NYC,” Shapiro wrote. “The PM will also do interviews, a Jewish community event and a speech at CFR [the Council on Foreign Relations].” Dermer is now Israel's ambassador to the U.S., while Shapiro serves as the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Why would Bill Clinton's meeting with Bibi or speaking at an event upset the State Department?

I cannto find a legitimate reason. It just feels like petty, anti-Israel politics where Israel cannot be seen as being "rewarded" by talking with the former president.

Notice that the State Department had no problem with another former president, Jimmy Carter, from meeting with Palestinian leaders including Hamas leaders, and Muslim groups, over the past six years.

Palestinian Researchers: Knives Can Also Be Used For Cutting Food (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Hebron, October 28 - Scientists at Ramallah's Bir Zeit University have made a surprising revelation, discovering this week that the stabbing implement known as the knife can potentially be used to cut food, and perhaps other objects that are not the body of a Jew.

Researchers applied the blade of a knife to certain readily-available, everyday, edible substances such as meat, cooked eggs, hard cheese, vegetables, fruits, and pastries, and found that depending on the shape and blade type of the knife, it performed well in cutting, slicing, or chopping the foodstuffs. In some cases, said the scientists, knives could even be used for peeling such produce as apples or raw carrots, and even for non-cutting-related food preparation activities such as spreading peanut butter or soft cheese on bread. The results of the study will appear in the upcoming issue of the journal Scientific Testing And Beyond (STAB).

"This discovery has the potential to revolutionize our view of the knife," said lead researcher Lasr Reyt. "There are of course significant cultural obstacles to overcome before such unorthodox uses of the bladed instrument become widespread, or even accepted in our society, but the promise of such a common, simple object having useful application far beyond its current role is exciting."

In the STAB article, the Bir Zeit team describes their experiment involving two each of eight types of blades, one set of which served as the control group. While the control group was placed in the hands of teenagers who were sent to attack Jews, the remaining set was given to people preparing or eating various kinds of food. Some instruction was necessary to train Palestinians how to hold a knife for cutting food, since the grip, orientation, and positioning of the implement differs markedly from the standard way a knife is wielded: the standard grip on a knife, explained the researchers, has the tip pointing down for effective, forceful stabbing, whereas for cutting or spreading foodstuffs, the implement is turned "upside down," so to speak, while the user effects a cutting motion with the long edge of the blade against the food.

The results, the article says, were unmistakable: with a little practice, food could be reduced to bite-size pieces, all but eliminating certain choking hazards. "Further study is necessary to determine the scope of innovation that this discovery heralds," write the authors, sounding a note of caution. "This is not to suggest, Allah forbid, that any knives be diverted from their essential purpose of stabbing Jews. However, this study does show that once the Jews are eliminated, any surplus blades can serve other important roles."

10/28 Link Pt1: 13-year-old stabbing victim out of hospital; Arab World: Extremists no longer welcome

From Ian:

Losing Palestine

It’s not hard to understand why the Palestinians have struggled to come to terms with the Jewish presence in this sense. The barriers to recognition are immense. If the Jews can’t be made to leave, if the foundational strategy of scaring them off wasn’t rooted in an understanding of what that might entail – that is, of how the alternatives to this homeland might appear in the Jews’ collective psyche – then what is the value of Palestinian sacrifices made on the altar of this misbegotten strategy?
Indeed, if the Jews of “colonialist” Israel cannot be dislodged, does that mean they are not like other colonial projects that could be made to collapse? If they are not colonists who can be pushed back to Germany or Russia or Iraq or Morocco from whence they came, what are they? What is to be done with the fact of the enemy’s implacable claims to nationhood, which clash so directly with Palestinian claims?
Nations have rights, and do not lose these rights when they err. That is why Palestinian leaders are so fearful of acquiescing to Israel’s demand that they recognize Jewish nationhood; among their arguments against the demand, one is paramount: it amounts to recognition of Jewish national rights, a vastly more profound concession than Palestinian moderates’ acknowledgment of Jewish power.
Failure has not yet led to any serious consideration that the premise at the heart of the Palestinian strategy may be wrong. No Palestinian who matters, who shapes opinion or controls militias, is willing to be the first to acknowledge defeat.
And so even as Palestinian public opinion grows weary of the pointlessness of the current struggle, Palestinian politics remain trapped in the lingering uncertainty, an uncertainty that is Hamas’s lifeblood and validation: What if we are giving up too soon? What if a little more pain, a little more sacrifice, will yet redeem and restore all that has been lost?
Few really believe that anymore in Palestine, but none are yet willing to seek another path.

Extremists no longer welcome

The Arab world's silence during this recent wave of terrorism, led mostly by knife-wielding Palestinian teenagers, is deafening, and it represents a certain lack of support for the Palestinians.
The Arab nations seem willing to leave these radical elements to deal with the mess they have cause by themselves. This time, the wave of terrorism not only fails to represent the Arab struggle against Israel, it fails to represent even the Palestinian themselves.
The Arab world's roaring silence is actually commendable. In the past, the slightest of incidents in Judea and Samaria, let alone on the Temple Mount, would have been enough to see masses take to the streets. Now these streets are empty, even in places prone to unrest like Cairo or Amman.
Arab media has also marginalized the story, toning down the rhetoric, with the exception of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, where incitement is a reflex. Even Ankara is reluctant to chime in. Arab media outlets have all but refrained from condemning Israel over the current unrest, and it seems that this time, it is in their best interest not to fan the flames.

13-year-old critically hurt in Jerusalem stabbing released from hospital

A 13-year-old Israeli boy who was critically wounded in a terror attack on October 12 in Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood was released from the hospital on Tuesday.
The boy was one of two Israeli victims stabbed by Ahmed and Hassan Manasra, 13 and 15, respectively.
He was taken to the hospital in life-threatening condition, placed in an induced coma and connected to a respirator. He woke up and began communicating with medical personnel and family members over a week ago.
Last week, as the boy regained consciousness, Prof. Ahmed Eid, head of the hospital’s Department of General Surgery, who operated on the boy, said he “has a long path of rehabilitation still ahead of him.”
Eid on Tuesday told Israel Radio the boy had been clinically dead upon his arrival to the hospital. (h/t Yenta Press)

Moroccan Jews alarmed by antisemitism at "pro-Palestinian" rally

From Algemeiner:

Thousands marched in Casablanca, Morocco on Sunday, in a show of solidarity for Palestinians amid the recent wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, according to a video released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Demonstrators — among them teenagers and young children — wearing smocks bespattered in red paint, or the colors of the Palestinian flag, chanted, “Death to Israel,” and “We will sacrifice our soul and our blood to you, Al-Aqsa,” in reference to the holy site in Jerusalem that has reportedly been at the center of the recent terror surge in Israel.

Another part of the demonstration, also featured in a video uploaded to Facebook, shows two men dressed in Orthodox Jewish garb — albeit with obscenely tall cylindrical black hats — being led by West Bank Palestinian activists in black-and-white kaffiyehs (as opposed to the traditionally green ones worn by their counterparts in the Gaza Strip) holding toy assault rifles behind a miniature float of the Dome of the Rock.

At one point in the MEMRI video, the two “Orthodox” men are seen chipping away at the Dome of the Rock with pickaxes. They are subsequently rounded up, fake-stabbed and “executed.”

Moroccan Jews are aghast, and they have put together 3000 signatures on a petition condemning the play as well as another part of the rally where Muslim children trampled a Star of David. The petition says that people can demonstrate for whatever causes they want but to threaten an entire community like that is unacceptable.

The organizer of the demonstration defended the actions, Abdul Samad Fathi, denied that there was any anti-Semitism or incitement to kill Jews, saying that those who participated in the march were only referring to the "Zionist entity that usurped the land of Palestine and not the Jewish community that lived in peace and security with Muslims throughout the ages."

Fathi then raised the spectre of dual loyalties to the Moroccan Jews, telling CNN in Arabic: "Those who signed this petition are trying to fabricate an issue to change the subject of the debate which is to denounce crimes against the Palestinians. If the signatories are so keen on peace, why don't Moroccan Jews condemn those who join the ranks of the Zionist army and the killing of Palestinians?

He said that the play does not carry connotations of inciting the murder of Jews, but rather is aimed at Zionists