Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, November 02, 2015

NYT reveals its racism while attacking Israel for racism

The New York Times had one of their regular Sunday articles slamming Israel for some reason or another. This one was because Israel is accused of not doing enough to help the tens of thousands of African refugees who have been flooding into the country.

As the continuing refugee crisis in Europe demonstrates, Israel is not alone in trying to deter refugees. But according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, it has the distinction of having one of the lowest asylum acceptance rates in the Western world. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once warned that the arrival of African people poses a demographic risk to Israel: “If we don’t stop their entry, the problem that currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000, and that threatens our existence as a Jewish and democratic state.”

For context: Israel now hosts about one tenth of one percent of all worldwide refugees and displaced persons.. And those are the ones that the NYT feels compelled to write a photo essay on.

It is true, Israel accepts far fewer refugees as citizens than Germany or France. But Israel is a tiny country and if it would accept a significant number of immigrants it would not be able to handle the numbers that would follow.

If Denmark and Tunisia would magically switch places, Denmark would be building a fence and putting the refugees in camps as well rather than let the country be overrun with people who would outnumber the Danes if given the chance.

Yet as the Times tries to paint Israel as vaguely racist for not allowing these Africans to stay in the country, it engages in its own racism.

Look at this sentence again: "one of the lowest asylum acceptance rates in the Western world." Why should Israel be compared only to the Western world? Why is it not considered a possibility for the refugees from Darfur and Ethiopia to become refugees in non-Western countries?

I count about 18 countries that are within the radius of distance from Eritrea to Israel.

Why is it so absurd to ask that Saudi Arabia or Oman or the UAE take in some of their fellow Muslim refugees from the Sudan, or for Egypt or Jordan to accept Christians from Eritrea? Other African countries are poor, to be sure, but why is it so absurd to expect some of them to take in more of these refugees who share far more in common with them than most Israelis?

To the New York Times, non-Western nations cannot be expected to act with kindness and mercy and charity. That is something expected from Israel, not from Egypt or Libya. .

No one is happy with how Israel is forced to act to discourage more refugees. But given that Israel is the only Western nation in the area, it cannot be a magnet for millions of people.

The reason the trip to Israel is dangerous is because of the countries in between. Yet how much space has the Times spent on those who were murdered and raped and kidnapped en route and the culpability of the nations in which these occurred?

No, those nations aren't "Western" and therefore are not expected to engage in normal moral codes. No reason for the newspaper of record to bother writing about that - they are savages and expected to act that way.

Of every country within the shaded area in this map, only Israel is expected to treat these people with respect.

There is a story there. But it is not one that the New York Times seems interested in covering.

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Chris Gunness pretends to be neutral and then shows his bias (plus video)

Middle East Eye has a print and video interview with UNRWA's Chris Gunness that shows yet again what a liar and apologist for Palestinian terror he is.

When MEE asked Gunness about staying neutral in what many perceive to be an unbalanced conflict, he said he agrees that “it is a very unbalanced conflict in that you’ve got one side throwing stones and on the other side often with guns,” but “we can only do this work if we remain neutral" and "UNRWA’s neutrality is the family's silver".

I would say that it is a very unbalanced conflict when one side has raised generations of people to believe that killing the other side is moral and just and the other side has hundreds of biased NGOs dedicated to tying that side's hands behind its back as it tries to defend itself. One side cares about morality and the other doesn't. One side is expected to adhere way beyond the letter and intent of international law while the other is not expected to even act like normal adults.

So Gunness, by framing the conflict the way he did, shows that he is far from neutral.

Gunness also managed to find many reasons to justify knife attacks while insisting he was not trying to condone them:

Gunness cited “settler violence… which happens largely with impunity", “not having access… to al-Aqsa” and “disproportional use of force” by the Israeli army as “driving the Palestinians, particularly a new generation of younger Palestinians, to feel there is no political future.”He stressed that neither he, nor the UN condone Palestinian knife attacks “but on the other hand, they all have a context, and that context is the deepening occupation and the brutality the comes with that.” The reality is “a new generation of younger Palestinians” that “feel there is no political future"

Of course, the elephant in the room is incitement to murder, incitement that in no small way comes from UNRWA itself. I put together this video to address that aspect of his interview:

Sophisticated anti-Israel propaganda

I found this article in an obscure African website.

It starts off as a quite interesting story about how an Israeli worked hard to try to save the African wild ass from extinction by airlifting a dozen from Ethiopia for a Biblical animal wildlife preserve in Israel in 1972. he enlisted government officials and even the army to transfer the animals. It begins as a feel-good story about how Israelis care about their original native animals.

But halfway through, it turns into an anti-Israel screed, saying that Ethiopian Jews feel that they are less important to Israel than donkeys since they were not airlifted until ten years later,and they still feel discriminated against. It goes through a brief history of Israel that includes lies like "During the 1947-8 war, Zionist forces drove out approximately three-quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs."
The rest of the article ends up being a critique of Israel and Zionism, calling Israelis racists.

Who wrote this article?

David Sheen, of Electronic Intifada, who makes his living writing anti-Israel pieces and giving anti-Israel speeches.

But this one starts off as a seemingly well-researched human interest story and only after the reader is "hooked" does he introduce his poison.

It is a very sophisticated propaganda technique. People who are already reading something they are emotionally invested in are not as likely to start critically thinking halfway through.

.@UNRWA teacher is very interested in coexistence in stoning

Yousef Samaan is an UNRWA teacher.

He recently posted this, with one stone thrower wearing a crucifix as a necklace.

"Christians of Palestine, Almighty Men and blood brothers"

See how UNRWA teaches respect for all humans? As long as you understand that Jews are subhuman, of course.

11/01 Links: Antisemitic hate speech by Abbas’ advisor on Islam: Jews represent “evil”

From Ian:

David Horovitz: President Abbas, tell your people to stop stabbing us

President Abbas, if you truly care about your people, you need to tell them to stop stabbing us.
They’ve killed about a dozen Israelis in the last month or so, and maybe three times that number of Palestinians have died in the attempt — suicidal stabbers, kamikaze knifers.
You’ve not condemned them. In fact, you’ve encouraged them — while simultaneously peddling the double-speak that we’ve been killing them in cold blood. You’ve publicly declared that “every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem” is clean and pure and blessed. You’ve reassured each new prospective killer that “every martyr will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.”
You obviously don’t care about our people, who have had the temerity to build a thriving Jewish state in our historic homeland, and who you lie about and incite against. But since your people understandably seek their own independence, and to be freed from our rule, you need to tell them that trying to kill us one at a time with knives and screwdrivers and whatever else comes to hand is as counterproductive and doomed as the long series of previous efforts to massacre and terrorize us into leaving — the conventional wars, and the suicide bombings, and the rockets, and the car-rammings, and the relentless effort to demonize and delegitimize and isolate us internationally.
The path to the statehood and independence you seek is actually relatively straightforward. It was wide open in 1947 — all your predecessors had to do for a first-ever Palestine was accept a revived Israel. Instead, they opted for war and futile, bloody, tragic self-sabotage. Today, it’s a case of convincing Israel that it is safe for us to partner with you. Convincing us, to paraphrase president Bill Clinton at the Rabin rally on Saturday night, that the risks of peace are less severe than the risks of walking away.

Antisemitic hate speech by Abbas’ advisor on Islam: Jews represent “evil”

Abbas' advisor on Islamic Affairs and Supreme Shari'ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash demonized Jews and Israel using classic Antisemitic hate speech, presenting Jews as "evil" and Israel as "Satan's project." He presented the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as an expression of "the historic conflict" - a conflict between "good and evil, between two projects: Allah's project vs. Satan's project," during a sermon on official PA TV. Palestinian Media Watch has exposed the repeated Antisemitic content of another Palestinian teacher of Islam, teaching at the Temple Mount. He recently stated that "Jews worship the Devil."
Abbas' advisor on Islam spread his Antisemitic beliefs in a Friday sermon broadcast on official PA TV:
Mahmoud Abbas' Advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs and Supreme Shari'ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash: "The conflict here in Palestine between us and the criminal occupation and its criminal leaders, is a further manifestation of our trials, a further manifestation of the historic conflict between truth and falsehood, between good and evil. Throughout history, there has been a conflict between good and evil. The good is represented by the prophets and their supporters. The evil is represented by the devils and their supporters, by the satans and their supporters. We are not inventing anything new here (i.e., Palestinian-Israeli). This is a conflict between two entities, good and evil, between two projects: Allah's project vs. Satan's project, a project connected to Allah, which is his will - true and good - and a project connected to oppression and Satanism, to Satanism and animosity, occupation and barbarism." [Official PA TV, Oct. 23, 2015]

Palestinian News Agency Editor-in-Chief: The Jews Will Enjoy Security Only under Arab Rule

Palestinian journalist Dr. Nasser Al-Laham, editor-in-chief of the Maan News Agency, recently said: "The Jews have never had a golden age except under an Arab and Islamic state." He further said: "they have always had and always will have security only under the protection of an Arab state." His statements were posted on the Maan Network Online on October 28, 2015.

Those of us who care about Israel, and those of us who know a thing or two about the New York Times, know that just as the Times was indifferent to the Shoah while it was happening, so they are generally indifferent to Arab attacks on Jewish people today. The major indication of this indifference is the insistence on apologizing for Arab terrorism against Jews in that part of the world.

Those of us who closely follow the conflict from a pro-Jewish / pro-Israel perspective understand that the Times has an anti-Israel bias and thus sees Israel - or, really, Israeli Jews - as the primary culprits in this never-ending bloody drama.

It is as if they have learned nothing from their own institutional history. Surely the Times must have an in-house historian who can point to the parallel between the "Gray Lady's" disinterest in the Holocaust and its white-washing of Arab persecution of the Jewish people today.

Most westerners, with considerable assistance from the Times, think of Jewish Israelis as the aggressors in a conflict against the "Palestinians" that began in 1948.

This is entirely false.

The conflict is not between Israelis and "Palestinians." Nor is this a conflict with twentieth-century roots.

On the contrary. This is an ongoing war of the Arab-Muslim majority in the Middle East against the Jewish minority whom the Arabs outnumber by a factor of 60 or 70 to one in the region. Furthermore, this never-ending Koranically-based Arab-Muslim war against the Jews has been an ongoing project since the good-old-days of Muhammad's head-chopping epiphany on the Arabian Peninsula.

Just the other day, Israeli-American educator and peace activist, Richard Lakin (76), died of multiple wounds incurred when young Arab Jihadis forced their way onto a Jerusalem bus and started shooting and knifing people to death. They were out to kill Jews because they were trained from childhood to despise Jewish people and when the Palestinian leadership started calling for slaughter - for a Stabbing Intifada - they went for it with gusto and continue to do so. They were taught their entire lives by their religious leaders, by their political leaders, and presumably by their parents, that Jews are the enemy not only of Arabs but of Allah, himself.

Thus during this current frenzy of Arab violence and incitement to genocide, Richard Lakin gets shot in the head and knifed for no other reason than he happened to be Jewish on a bus in Jerusalem.

He also fought for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington D.C. on the day of the famous 1963 I Have a Dream speech.

To its credit, the New York Times did cover the story in a piece by Israel bureau chief Judi Rudoren entitled, For American-Israeli Teacher, Death Came on the No. 78 Bus. My main quibble with Rudoren's rendition of the story is how blasé the piece is. I considered doing an analysis of her writing on the matter, but the main criticism that I came up with is flatness of style and a failure to emphasize the murder within the larger context of Palestinian incitement to violence and genocide.

She's a bureau chief for the Times. She cannot, generally speaking, afford to get angry within the pages of the paper.

I, sadly, do not have that problem.

Aside from the loss of Mr. Lakin there are many very sad things about this situation.

One sad thing, of course, is that it is happening at all. Hatred for the Jew is embedded in Arab culture throughout the Middle East and justified by the Koran. The foundation of the conflict has little to do with land and almost everything to do with many centuries of Arab-Muslim race-hate toward the Jewish people. If Israel behaved exactly the same way since its birth, but it was another Muslim state, it would be lauded throughout the world as... a light unto the nations.

Another sad thing is the inability of Israel to really defend itself from internal Arab violence and aggression. Young Arab men run around the country endeavoring to kill Jews and if the Jewish community, via the government of Israel, stands up to defend itself the international community comes down on it like a ton of bricks.

Both westerners and Arabs have been trained over many centuries to conceive of Jewish self-defense as an immoral form of aggression. It is for this reason that Jihadi rocketeers in Gaza could shoot thousands of rockets into southern Israel, forcing parents to snatch children from their beds in the middle of the night to the cries of sirens and giving those same kids post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and outside of Israel nobody much minded. It was only when Israel stood up after taking it on the chin for years that the international community leaped up and demanded that Israel cease its aggression against the "innocent, indigenous Palestinian community."

Finally, it is a sad but not surprising fact that the Obama administration does not care about this case. Obama has not breathed a public word. Lakin was an American. He was an educator. And he was a peace activist who stood up for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Israeli-Arabs shot him in the head and knifed him in the chest at the age of 76.

One would think that maybe the president of the United States, who comes out of the same ideological movement as did Lakin, might have something to say, if only an expression of regret.

Thus far, however, nothing.

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

Stabbing has never been so fashionable

Mannequins outside a clothing store in Gaza City:

(h/t Bob Knot)

South Africa Sunday Times nixes anti-Hamas ad

From the South African Zionist Federation:

This is what the Sunday Times did not want South Africans to know about Hamas!!!!

This advert was fully paid to run as a full page advert in the Sunday Times tomorrow.

On Friday afternoon at 3 PM the Sunday Times pulled the advert and cancelled publication.

These are the facts that they did not want their readership to know about Hamas! — at Sunday Times ZA.

There is nothing Islamophobic about this ad.

There is nothing hateful about this ad.

But the hate for Israel is now so great in South Africa, that pointing out the truth about a terrorist organization dedicated to destroying Israel is beyond the pale even for a paid advertisement.

.@Amnesty again believes Arab "witnesses" and ignores other evidence (update)

Amnesty International has issued another anti-Israel report, only days after their last one, this one claiming that Israeli "settlers" in Hebron are wantonly attacking Palestinians.

"In the space of less than a month, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in Hebron have escalated from what was already an unacceptably high level," the report says in a call-out.

The entire report gives exactly two examples of such attacks - in a month when there are daily attacks against Israelis in Hebron.

The one that takes up the bulk of the evidence is this one:

On the morning of 17 October, 18-year-old Hebron resident Fadel al-Qawasmeh was walking to work when he was shot and killed by an Israeli civilian. The Israeli military claim that he had a knife and intended to stab the Israeli civilian but have released no evidence to support these claims, despite the fact that al-Shuhada Street, where the incident took place, is heavily monitored by video cameras operated by Israeli forces.

Shortly before he was shot, Fadel al-Qawasmeh had passed through Checkpoint 56 on al-Shuhada Street, which separates the section of Hebron ostensibly under Palestinian control from the Old City where illegal Israeli settlements are located. Amnesty International researchers present at the checkpoint the day before and after the shooting observed Israeli soldiers ordering people to remove items from their pockets and pass through the metal detector multiple times. Young men were particularly thoroughly searched, making it highly unlikely that Fadel al-Qawasmeh would have been able to smuggle a knife through.

A resident of a house on al-Shuhada Street, a few metres away from the scene of the shooting, told Amnesty International that as he was coming down the stairs of his home, he saw a young man being stopped by Israeli soldiers and turned back towards the checkpoint. He then reported seeing an Israeli civilian dressed in white, who had been standing next to the soldiers, follow the man up the road before shooting him at least three times in the head and back. He told Amnesty International that Fadel al-Qawasmeh had nothing in his hands, and all the shots were fired from behind.

Interviewed separately, a resident of another house on al-Shuhada Street who was watching from a balcony said that she saw an Israeli civilian of the same description holding a firearm in the moments before the shooting, and that she had heard him cursing the Palestinian youth. She did not see or hear any indications that the Palestinian youth was threatening anyone.

There is a video in the aftermath of the incident, but I haven't found any beforehand to corroborate the stories.

Here is what Fadel looked like:

Commenter Bob Knot found a different photo of Fadel al-Qawasmeh: It is certainly the same person.

What an amazing coincidence that here is another person that Amnesty says was an innocent victim, accusing Israeli authorities of lying when they said he had a knife, and we end up finding photos showing that they both had an affinity for stabbing knives!

Yes, this isn't proof that Qawasmeh attacked the Jew. But unless every resident of Hebron is in the habit of photographing themselves with knives, it seems like a hell of a coincidence that the person shot by the Jew just happens to be one who poses for photos with a knife in a stabbing position.

More evidence that Qawasmeh was the attacker comes from this Fatah martyr poster posted by a family member of his on the day of the incident, before the "innocent victim" meme started:

The poster quotes a pro-Jihad Koranic message, and then says "It is with great pride and glory the Palestinian National Liberation Movement - Fatah, Central Hebron Area announces the (martyrdom) of the heroic shahid Fadhl Muhammad Qawasme."

The Facebook caption said "The morning is fragrant with the perfume of the martyrs of the revolution."

It is obvious that the family's (and others') initial reaction was that of course Fadel attacked the Israeli. Only when the propaganda value of re-casting him as an innocent victim became obvious did the narrative change.

Amnesty never bothers to find any evidence that contradicts what it wants to find.

(h/t Ibn Bouros)

UPDATE: According to this page, Fadel lived on Shuhada Street itself, where he would not be subject to as many checkpoints. Amnesty assumes that he must have passed through some but it is not true. (h/t Bob K)

Palestinian Arabs flew swastikas to celebrate Mohammed's birthday in 1937

Saeb Erekat said recently that "Palestinian efforts against the Nazi regime are a deep-rooted part of our history."

From the New York Times, May 23, 1937:

From JTA, also May 23, 1937:

Nazi flags and pictures of Hitler and Mussolini were being displayed by many Arab shops in the Old City today in connection with the celebration of Mohammed’s birthday.

Arab children thronged the teeming section’s narrow, winding streets, shouting: “Death to the High Commissioner (Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope)! Death to the Jews!”

Arabs in Haifa and Jaffa prepared for the birthday celebrations, scheduled for today and tomorrow, by proclaiming a work stoppage and organizing demonstrations.

The Government Education Department issued orders prohibiting Arab pupils to participate in the demonstrations. Arabs newspapers, however, are urging the pupils to disobey.

10/31 Links: IS claims it brought down Russian plane; IAF targets Hezbollah assets in Syria

From Ian:

Islamic State in Egypt claims it brought down Russian plane; 224 dead

The Islamic State terror group in Egypt claimed responsibility for bringing down a Russian passenger plane on Saturday carrying 224 people. Russian authorities, however, rejected the claim.
IS in Egypt, Wilayat Sinaa (formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis) published the claim of responsibility hours after the plane, traveling from from the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh back to St. Petersburg, crashed in the Sinai Peninsula with 217 passengers and 7 crew members on board.
“The soldiers of the caliphate succeeded in bringing down a Russian plane in Sinai,” said the statement in Arabic circulated on social media. “More than 220 Crusaders were on board. All were killed, praise God.”
“Know, oh Russians and those allied with you, that you have no place in the land of Muslims…and the dozens of victims that you kill ever y day with your raids in the land of Sham [Syria] will be the cause of all your future misery. And know, also that we will kill you just like you kill us,” a statement in French said.
IS later issued video footage purportedly showing the plane being hit.

IDF coordinating with Russia, Egypt to help locate Russian plane crash in Sinai

An IDF spokesperson said Saturday that the army is coordinating with both Russia and Egypt to help locate the remnants of a Russian plane that crashed in the Sinai earlier in the day.
The IDF sent out surveillance aircraft to comb the area where the plane is believed to have crash landed. The IDF added that it would be ready to offer further assistance to Russia and Egypt if necessary.
In addition, Magen David Adom offered 30 of its ambulances and its air lift helicopters to assist Egyptian first responders following reports that there were still survivors at the crash site.
However, it was later reported that no survivors were found at the scene.

Reports: IAF targets Hezbollah assets in Syria

The Lebanese and Syrian media said Saturday that Israel Air Force warplanes have attacked targets in Syria linked to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. Reports varied, however, on the exact targets and location of the strikes.
According to a report on the Lebanese Debate website, six IAF jets carried out the strike over the Qalamoun Mountains region of western Syria, and targeted weapons that were headed for Hezbollah, Channel 10 said.
Syrian opposition groups, for their part, claimed Israeli planes had attacked targets in the Damascus area, in two strikes in areas where Hezbollah and pro-Assad forces were centered.
Syrian media, however, said that Israeli warplanes hit several Hezbollah targets in southern Syria.
Israel’s defense establishment declined to comment on the reports of the strikes, which would be the first since Russia boosted its involvement in the Syrian civil war.

A Victim of Palestinian Terror: Richard Lakin

On October 13th Richard Lakin got on a bus in Jerusalem. Two Palestinian terrorists boarded the bus and attacked the passengers with knives and a gun. Two Israelis were killed in this attack and Richard was severely wounded. He died of his wounds 2 weeks after the terror attack. Richard's wife and his granddaughter share their memories of him and recall the series of events from the scene of the murderous attack:

10/30 Links Pt2: Israel Is Beyond Logic; Those well educated and despicable anti-Semites

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Academic Freedom Opposed by "Who"?

It is that time of year again. News arrives of 343 "university teachers" who signed a letter pledging that henceforth they will not cooperate with Israeli academic institutions. Their joint letter took up a full page today in Britain's left-wing Guardian newspaper (where else?) and has caused almost no stir in Britain. It comes days after a letter signed by 150 leading British writers, musicians and others -- including JK Rowling, Simon Schama and Hilary Mantel -- opposed any and all such boycotts against Israel, and pointed out that in the eyes of most people, intellectual and cultural exchange is a good thing.
The anti-boycott letter was signed by some of Britain's leading intellectuals. The main response to the pro-boycott letter, however, may well be, "Who?" Who knew, for instance, that Israel -- or any state -- would be diminished if it could not gain from the wisdom of Professor Alex Callinicos, one of Britain's most obscure Marxist academics? He is the author of numerous interminable tracts; his efforts to bring his thoughts into mainstream politics reached their summit during his involvement with the Socialist Worker's Party, an entity too extreme even for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party. As almost nobody in Britain wants Prof. Callinicos's thoughts, why would anybody in Israel be begging for them?
Or consider another figure on the letter, one Professor Jane Hardy who teaches at the University of Hertfordshire. It would come as a great surprise to most people in Britain -- and possibly to many people in Hertfordshire -- that such an institution exists. But a quick internet search reveals that it does, and that until 1992 it was known as "Hatfield Polytechnic." So what are the students in Israel unilaterally going to lose the right to know, thanks to the stance taken by Professor Hardy? Well, her own profile page says, "My research and publications on regional development, and the gender and class impacts of change have been underpinned by a concern with the lives of ordinary people and how they have contested neoliberalism." One tries to be polite, of course, but it is worth pointing out that this kind of "study" has never been helpful in finding a place in the job-market for British students (apart, possibly, in furthering their studies in low-grade academia). Why the withdrawal of Prof. Hardy's research on regional development, gender and class in a Hertfordshire context should be such a loss to students in Israel, one is at a loss to guess.

Those well educated and despicable anti-Semites

The Guardian, the leading British leftist newspaper, just published an appeal to sever any ties with Israeli universities. The appeal has been signed by 350 professors working in UK academia.
These BDS supporters are the grandchildren of those Max Weinreich called “Hitler’s Professors”.
If Italy’s Fascism had writers and philosophers such as Gabriel D’Annunzio, Luigi Pirandello, Giovanni Gentile and Tommaso Marinetti, Hitler’s Nazism had an even greater list of talents: Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, Gottfried Benn, Ernst Jünger, Mircea Eliade, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Ernst von Karajan, Knut Hamsun, Emile Cioran and Louis Ferdinand Celine.
The best of European culture embraced Nazism just as today it is embracing new anti-Semitism. The cowardice of the intellectuals, academics and men of letters on the “Jewish question” is repeated today on the issue of Israel.
Henry Rousso called it “Le Syndrome de Vichy”. The reference is to France under Nazi occupation, when the cream of Paris’ writers continued their work, pleasing the Germans, getting favors, condemning the Jews to death by their indifference and hypocrisy.

Israel Is Beyond Logic

There’s only one place in the world where history, archaeology, empirical science, psychology and journalistic integrity don’t apply: Israel.
Consider that we live in a world that recognizes the claim of Palestinian Arabs to what they consider their homeland (which can be backed and documented for at best several hundred years — for the small percentage of those Arabs that didn’t arrive throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as transient Bedouins or marauding tribes), while ignoring the Jewish people’s documented connection to Israel that’s almost four millennia old. If the Torah were taken by the world merely as a historical document, and history supposedly mattered to the world, then the Jews of Israel should be considered the oldest landowners alive. But history doesn’t matter in Israel.
Consider that the world recognizes the antiquity of Haram al-Sharif — the al-Aqsa Mosque (Temple Mount) — as the third-holiest site for Muslims and its centrality to Palestinian nationalistic yearning. And yet, this same world readily overlooks the archaeological digs that unearthed pieces of pottery and scrolls that prove absolutely the ancient and continuous connection between the Land of Israel and the Jewish People. With a world so passive to practical proof, the Palestinians (since Arafat and the mufti before him) have audaciously claimed that there’s no connection between the Jews and Yerushalayim, specifically the Temple Mount. As if the al-Aqsa mosque isn’t very clearly sitting atop the Western Wall that archaeologists have “scientifically proven” (through carbon dating) to belong to the ancient Israelite temple as originally mentioned — where else? — in the Torah. So the world believes in archaeology that dates back to the 7th century C.E. but not as far as the 9th century B.C.E.? Archaeology, it seems, is meaningless when the digs prove too Jewish. (h/t Cliff)

Abbas’s actions at the UN this week, where he called for the world to protect the Palestinians from Israel while back at home he simultaneously continued his calls for Palestinians to take up knives and take to the wheel of their cars to murder Israelis, cannot come as a surprise.
They are of a piece with the PLO’s previous diplomatic machinations from 2000 to 2003 in the wake of its terrorist war against Israel.
Those machinations led the US to form the so-called Quartet with the UN, Russia and the EU and embrace the road map for peace, the most anti-Israel diplomatic document to have ever seen the light of day, in 2003.
Today Abbas uses terrorism at home to convince the UN to dictate the terms of Israeli surrender in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to the PLO.
Abbas and Arafat succeeded 12 years ago and may succeed today for a number of reasons beyond Israel’s control, but also for one reason that Israel does control.
Abbas is able to succeed at the UN in part because Israel refuses to acknowledge that there never was a peace process. Arafat lied to us, and to the world, about his intentions, and we lied to ourselves about the nature of the Palestinian war against us. So long as we continue to play along with this tired charade, we will be unable to conceive and implement a diplomatic defense that is coherent and effective against the mountains of lies and murder on which the PLO has based its war against Israel for the past 55 years.
Israel contributes to the PLO’s diplomatic success at the UN because it refuses to do what Rabin recognized was necessary 20 years ago.
Rather than learn from his record, Israel has spent the past 20 years distorting his record.
The time has come to do justice to Rabin and end the Oslo process once and for all.

Vic Rosenthal: If you live in the Middle East, act like it

Yesterday, international talks on the ‘crisis’ (funny word, since it’s been going on for several years) in Syria were scheduled to start in Vienna.
Participating will be at least Russia, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. CNN reports that “18 nations, plus the European Union, were invited to the meeting.”
I don’t need to tell you which particular nation, which just happens to border on Syria, which has been hit recently by ordinance fired from Syria, and which has a great stake in the outcome of events there, was not invited.
In the case of the Syria talks, Israel should demand, loudly, to be included. If the US or anyone would prefer not, then they should be forced to publicly explain just why they are taking this racist (because that is what it is) position.
The editors of Ha’aretz and the tiny elite that they serve don’t think Israel ought to be a Middle Eastern country. They would pick it up and fly it to Canada if they could. But it is, and it should act like one.
Shabbat shalom to everyone!

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Blasts UNRWA, Praises UN Watch for Exposing Antisemitic Incitement

Knesset Education Committee slams incitement in Palestinian schools

Palestinian Media Watch director Itamar Marcus presented his organization’s report on Palestinian Authority education, which assessed the prominent educational messages that could impact peace with Israel.
The report documents that in formal and informal educational frameworks, killers of Israelis are portrayed as heroes and role models, and that children are taught that Israel will eventually be replaced by “Palestine.”
At least 25 Palestinian Authority schools are named after terrorists; three are named after Dalal Mughrabi, who led the most lethal terrorist attack in Israeli history in 1978, killing 37 civilians, 12 of them children.
Marcus showed the MKs a film from PA television, in which a student expressed pride “to attend the Dalal Mughrabi School, which bears this pioneering name,” and another student said her “life’s ambition is to reach the level that the martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi reached.”
Another clip from televised news in the PA showed a boy saying he learned in school to “fight the Jews, kill them and defeat them,” and another told children that Jews are “Satan with a tail.”
The report also contains chapters on incitement in Palestinian textbooks, educational materials glorifying Hitler, and the PA policy of blocking joint peace-building activities between Palestinian and Israeli children.
Marcus explained that the messages Palestinian children are receiving are nationalist – that Israel is not legitimate on any borders and its existence since 1948 is an occupation – and anti-Semitic – that Jews are evil by nature, descendants of monkeys and pigs, and fated to be killed by Muslims.