Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 06, 2015

11/06 Links Pt2: Howard Stern on Roger Waters: 'He Comes Off Like an Anti-Semite'; Immoral labels

From Ian:

Howard Stern on Roger Waters: 'He Comes Off Like an Anti-Semite'

Roger Waters may not want to "waste a single precious breath on that asshole" after Howard Stern accused the Pink Floyd co-founder of wanting "Jews to go back to the concentration camp," but on Stern's radio show this week, the host made it clear he wasn't going to lay off the subject. "I'm not the only asshole," Stern said. "I'm just the only asshole brave enough to take him on. For some reason, it's become very important to Roger to tell artists where to perform. There's so many countries with histories of abuse and slavery, but he's very focused on Israel. To me, he comes off like an anti-Semite."
Stern's co-host Robin Quivers was confused by Waters' acerbic response to Stern. "I think it's odd that instead of backing up what he believes, he calls names," she said. "Isn't that exactly the problem in the Middle East? When does he get to the point of throwing rocks?"
Tuesday's broadcast of The Howard Stern Show devoted over five minutes to Waters' "asshole" comment in Rolling Stone, and there were some sharp barbs. "Roger, you keep touring the same 30-year-old album," he said. "God bless you. I don't have any hatred for you. I don't think I'm an asshole ... By the way, I checked in, luckily the guys in Foghat have no problem with Israel. It's just one guy from Pink Floyd."
"Defending Israel isn't fashionable, I know," Stern said. "It is a tremendous distraction for Arab leaders to say, 'Let's get the Jews, let's get Israel, it's all their fault.' As long as their poor people are focused on Israel they don't wake up and realize who is stealing their money. Their lives aren't getting any better from all this crap, so don't be fooled by Roger and his statements."

Sarah Honig: Ibrahim Who Begat Is’hak

The Western Wall is by no means off UNESCO’s ever-mutating agenda. Odds are it will reappear and eventually be globally consecrated as Muslim. It’s not too absurd to forecast that the day isn’t far off in which Jews would likewise be required to abjectly relinquish all attachments to the Mount of Olives. By the wisdom of redrafted Arab chronicles and UNESCO, it behooves us to obey. Hence Jerusalem isn’t one whit different from Hebron or Bethlehem.
Bethlehem’s case is the most enlightening. Until 1996 Bethlehem Arabs themselves spoke of Rachel’s Tomb. Only then, at the height of their Oslo-spawned terror offensive, did they switch to calling it the Bilal Ibn-Rabah Tomb.
Ibn-Rabah was an African slave and Muhammad’s muezzin, reputed to have fallen in battle in Syria. Indeed Damascus’s Bab Saghir Cemetery has dibs on what’s said to be Bilal’s grave.
On July 2000 Yasser Arafat insisted to Bill Clinton at Camp David that no Jewish temple ever existed. This is now official PA mantra, recited impudently and unabashedly by Ramallah’s purportedly moderate figurehead Mahmoud Abbas. He concomitantly rails that “filthy Jewish feet contaminate Muslim Jerusalem.”
PA headliner cleric Sheikh Taissir Tamimi proclaims repeatedly that “Jerusalem had always only been Arab and Islamic.” The Cave of the Patriarchs, he hectored, “is a pure mosque, which Jewish presence defiles. Jews have no right to pray there, much less claim any bond to Hebron – an Arab city for 5000 years… All Palestine is holy Muslim soil. Jews are foreign interlopers.”
Back in 1950 poet Natan Alterman penned a tongue-in-cheek reply to a near-identical proclamation (“Palestine is an Arab country and always was. Foreigners have no part in it.)” Entitled An Arab Land, Alterman’s verses appeared on the Labor daily Davar’s front-page. By replacing Biblical Hebrew names with Arabic adaptations, Alterman appeared to amplify the spirit of progressive Arab scholarship.

French Jews ask gov’t to probe incitement against Bernard-Henri Levy

French Jews condemned what they termed an anti-Semitic demonstration in the heart of the French capital against the Jewish public intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy.
The event took place on Oct. 31 on St. Germain Boulevard, where a dozen-odd far-right demonstrators from the Renouveau Français group (“French Renewal”) convened with posters accusing Levy — a celebrity and supporter of France’s military intervention in Libya — of fomenting war for profit.
The protesters shouted slogans accusing Levy of being a “Talmudic philosopher” who is “waging Zionist war” and who should be “stripped of the French nationality and extradited to Israel,” according to a statement published Thursday by the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities titled “Anti-Semitic demonstration in the heart of Paris.”
The statement said CRIF “extends its support to Levy” and has contacted the interior ministry requesting the initiation of a criminal investigation for incitement to hatred, which is illegal in France.

Every year there is a pilgrimage of thousands of Jews to Hebron, to mark the Torah portion that describes how Abraham purchased the Tomb of the Patriarchs from Ephron the Hittite.

Many of the pilgrims sleep in tents because there aren't enough houses for them to stay.

This year, despite the danger, thousands more were set to come:

Defying the threat of terror and the stormy weather, thousands of Jews are planning to take part in the annual Shabbat Chayei Sarah festivities in Hebron, a celebration of the purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs (Me’arat Ha’Machpela) by Abraham which is recounted in the weekly Torah portion named after Abraham’s wife who was buried there 3,691 years ago, according to Jewish tradition.

This Shabbat, November 6-7, the Jewish community of Hebron and neighboring Kiryat Arba will open their homes to guests from throughout Israel and around the world who will come to Hebron to read the Torah portion recalling the passing of the Biblical matriarch Sarah and her husband Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs as a burial plot. The cave subsequently became the final resting place of Abraham himself, as well as his son Isaac and his wife Rivkah, and their son Jacob and his wife Leah.

“The city of Hebron is proud and eager to host the myriad guests who will be joining us in celebration this Shabbat,” Yishai Fleisher, International Spokesman for the City of Hebron, said in a statement. “Israel has been hit by a plague of jihad, yet it continues to operate everyday with optimism and resilience. We look forward to a fun and festive experience for all the good people, government ministers, rabbis and educators, Jews and non-Jews who will come to pay tribute and join us in solidarity.”

Apparently, the idea of thousands of Jews on a religious pilgrimage was too much for some Arabs. From TOI:

Two Israeli teens were hurt Friday evening in a shooting attack near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron.

One of the two, a 16-year-old, was seriously hurt and the other, aged 18, sustained light injuries. The younger teen was hit by gunfire in the upper body. He was taken to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, Channel 2 reported.

Maariv said both of the victims were conscious at the scene of the attack.

The gunfire apparently came from the direction of the Abu Sneina neighborhood of the divided city, targeting worshipers as they emerged from the tomb.

Large numbers of IDF troops were deployed to the Palestinian neighborhoods surrounding the Jewish settlement in Hebron to search for the cell behind the attack, the Ynet news website reported.

Imagine the world outcry if teenage Christians were shot by snipers leaving the cathedral in Notre Dame. That's pretty much the equivalent to what happened here. But since the victims are only Jews, and it happened in the territories that the world believes should be Jew-free even though Jews have been there for thousands of years. In other words, the lack of media outrage is because too many believe that the Jews deserve it.

There is a rich irony here. Abraham purchased the burial site, publicly, for an exorbitant price, specifically so that later generations would know that this land undoubtedly belonged to him and his designated descendants. David did the same with the Temple Mount, and Jacob did the same with a section of Shechem (Nablus.) And these areas is the very areas that the world insists that Jews have no right to.

AP reports that the Tomb of the Patriarchs is in the "center" of Hebron. No, it's on the edge, and Kiryat Arba is adjacent to H2. Hebron is a huge Arab city and there are no IDF restrictions for the vast majority of Arabs who live there. Not that you would know that from reading the mainstream media.

A third teen was shot near Hebron.

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11/06 Links Pt1: Beinart: Israel deserves terrorism; Palestinian 'recognition' is a bloody lie

From Ian:

Peter Beinart: Israel deserves terrorism

Liberal American-Jewish commentator Peter Beinart gave a provocative speech on Wednesday, in which he said Israel essentially deserved the wave of Arab terrorism targeting its citizens.
Beinart - who despite his regular attacks on the Jewish state insists he is "pro-Israel" - was speaking at "Beth Chayim Chadashim Progressive synagogue in Los Angeles, which was set up as a "gay-friendly" congregation.
His comments were recorded approvingly by the anti-Israel Mondoweiss website.
"While we condemn Palestinian violence, we must recognize this painful truth: that Israeli policy has encouraged it," Beinart told his audience. "Israel has encouraged it by penalizing Palestinian nonviolence, by responding to that nonviolence by deportations, teargas, imprisonment, and the confiscation of Palestinian lands. Hard as it is to say, the Israeli government is reaping what it has sowed."
11 Israelis have been murdered and dozens more injured - many seriously - in a series of daily, primarily stabbing attacks, many of them targeting children and elderly citizens.
One of the examples of "Palestinian nonviolence" he gave was the weekly riots in the village of Bil'in, which involves rock-throwing and attempts by villagers, bolstered by foreign and Israeli anarchists, to attack nearby Jewish communities.
Amazingly, Beinart also used the same logic to essentially provide some justification for the 9/11 attacks on the US.

Palestinian 'recognition' is a bloody lie

This week, PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat, who was among the chief negotiators of the Oslo Accords and subsequent phony "peace talks," took the comedy act a step further. He told the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi on Thursday that the Palestinians may have to rescind their recognition of Israel.
One would be hard-pressed to find a bigger hoot than that.
In the first place, though the only concrete action required of the Palestinians at Oslo was to amend the PLO charter calling for Israel's annihilation -- and even this was only promised in a series of letters exchanged between Rabin and Arafat -- its newer version was never ratified.
Second, Israel is the only party that has upheld its commitments -- only using military force in self-defense.
The Palestinian terrorism war that is currently being waged against innocent civilians and soldiers erupted, according to Abbas and his henchmen, as a result of a change in the status quo on the Temple Mount. That there was no such change makes no difference. Spreading lies is how the Palestinian leadership operates. Its success at the dissemination of propaganda only serves to strengthen its resolve.
And this time around, Abbas is letting the kids do his dirty work, with knives and rocks, without having to lift a finger -- other than for emphasis when denouncing Israel at the U.N.
There are disagreements among Israeli politicians, pundits and the public about how to handle the current crisis. Debates on the viability or wisdom of the two-state solution are rehashed ad nauseam, to the point where it is not clear whether to cry or yawn. But a crucial little factoid keeps getting drowned out in the cacophony and camouflaged by blood: No official Palestinian body has ever recognized the Jewish state. This is worthy of at least a partial smile, because something that never existed cannot be canceled.

Mordechai Kedar: Wake up and start connecting the dots

The stabber is motivated by the same concerns that encouraged Haj Amin al Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, to take part in the destruction of European Jewry in the 1940's. A Muslim who sets out to stab Jews knows that a reward awaits him in Paradise whether he is killed before, during or after he does so. Our moral concerns do not interest him in the least, but if worst comes to worst, they will be the reason he will be protected from the anger of those surrounding him at the scene. He relies on Israeli law and Israel's police force to protect him from the crowd's vengeance, and is sure he will survive to stab more Jews after he is freed during a prisoner exchange.
That is how Israeli morality works against Israel and its citizens, paralyzing Israeli deterrence and encouraging terrorists to stab Israelis. The stabbers are in a win-win situation since Israeli law and morals grant them immunity from immediate punishment by bystanders who were witness to their terrorist actions. It turns out that those who constantly spout lessons in morality actually behave immorally by encouraging terror and murder. It is fascinating to see a professor of law blatantly encouraging terror.
This is how Israel ties its own hands, making it more difficult to respond effectively to terror. Israel has lost its ability to deter terrorist murderers because they feel that they have immunity. It should be a given that any terrorist who takes up a knife to stab a Jew knows that he will not return home alive, that he will be killed either by security personnel or the people who witnessed his actions. Isn't the period when Muslims considered Jewish blood cheap a thing of the past? Israel has no choice, it must renew its ability to deter terrorists.
Both the left and right must remember that this is the Middle East. Peace in this region is not the lot of those who unwaveringly follow Western mores, laws and ethics. He who succeeds in convincing his enemies that he is invincible and that they had better leave him alone for their own good, has a chance of achieving peace.
Anyone who does not understand this or who does not want to understand it, is cut off from reality. I suggest that he wake up and connect the dots for his own good, before the butcher's knife separates his head from his body - and I am not engaging in mere fear mongering.
In case that scenario does occur, will his being a moral person be of any help?

Arabs stabbing Jews - in 1910

From Hebrew newspaper HaTzvi, September 22. 1910:

Two days ago a young man named Schweitzer went from Rishon Lezion to Jaffa and on the way two Arabs attacked him and wounded him with a knife causing severe injury. Happily, soldiers passed by them and they caught one of the attackers.

Also between Nes-Tsiyona and Rishon-Lezion three Arabs confronted a Jewish man, named Yakov Binshtok, and attacked him. The victim fought them as best he could and he hit them with his fists and a penknife that he found in his pocket. But one of the Arabs succeeded in stabbing the young Jew in his cheek. Meanwhile more Jews appeared at a distance, and the Arabs fled and escaped.

These cases of onslaught in the middle of the roads and in broad daylight are very concerning to the residents, who consider it a sign that there is no security in the country and that the situation is deteriorating.

(h/t O., Yenta)

Stabbing at Rami Levy supermarket - here's my video of this model of coexistence

From TOI:

A Palestinian stabbed a middle-aged Israeli man outside of a grocery store in a West Bank industrial park on Friday afternoon and then fled the scene, police said.

The Israeli man, approximately 40 years old, was seriously injured in the attack. He sustained stab wounds to the upper body, and paramedics treated the man on site before taking him to a hospital, the Magen David Adom medical service said.

The army and police quickly began searching the surrounding area for the attacker, the IDF said.

The attack occurred outside the Rami Levy supermarket in Sha’ar Binyamin, an industrial area north of Jerusalem and southeast of Ramallah.

This is the same Rami Levy branch that I visited in 2013, where Arabs and Jews work and shop together - and where there (at the time) wasn't even a metal detector at the entrance because there were no threats. And this is in the territories.

During the interview I did find that there was one bit of discrimination between Jews and Arabs.

The store would give gift baskets to all employees before Purim, but they made sure to replace the wine in the baskets for Jews with a different food for the Muslims.

Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, gave a speech at Cairo University on Wednesday.

This section stands out:

Diversity is what makes the Middle East so rich, and unique. It's also what makes Europe so rich, and unique. It's our common strength. Da’esh wants to destroy all that. Dampen the colours of this region, and turn all the colours into black. We have a duty to preserve such diversity, and to help all minorities stay in their own land.

Da’esh is putting forward an unprecedented attempt to pervert Islam. It is a movement that, rather than preserving Islam, wants us to trash centuries of Islamic culture in the name of their own fight for power. This is not glorious, this is simply destructive. Daʼesh is not a friend but an enemy to Islam in today’s world. Its victims are first and foremost Muslim people. Islam itself is a victim of their despicable acts.

Now that we have Da'esh, there is no reason to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaeda or Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah or any number of other terror groups. Only Da'esh perverts Islam, the rest of the groups are on "our side" by implication. We have a new bogeyman who can whitewash the crimes of not-quite-as-radical Islam.

So this way she can skate over history with statements like this:

Diversity is what makes the Middle East so rich, and unique. It's also what makes Europe so rich, and unique. It's our common strength. Da’esh wants to destroy all that. Dampen the colours of this region, and turn all the colours into black. We have a duty to preserve such diversity, and to help all minorities stay in their own land. Arab Christians have lived here for millennia. The Copts are part of the beautiful history of this country. And the same goes for Kurds, Yazidis, Alawites, Druze, for Shias and for Sunnis.

Has the region been a beacon of tolerance for all these minorities?

Note the absence of "Jews."

Mogherini's discussion of Israel was equally inane:

But let me mention an older conflict first. A conflict we must always keep in mind – even when we start thinking that because it is the oldest, it is also the one we can manage more easily, or contain. Even when the eye of international media turns away – and this is often the case, and media only come back when people, often children, die again. I'm talking of the lack of peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

We must do all we can to end the violence. Ultimately, only with two States will there be peace. A strong, brave, wise politician like Yitzhak Rabin knew this very well: only a Palestinian state would bring peace, and only peace would bring security to Israel.

Rabin never accepted a Palestinian state. His position was to the right of Netanyahu's today.

Nothing is gained by spreading the same old lies. By implying that the current Israeli government doesn't want peace, Mogherini is part of the problem. Only one side has moved towards peace since Rabin's death, and the other one has moved much further away, based on actual words said both officially and unofficially by the main players. You would never know this from reading the statements of Mogherini and her colleagues.

A Palestinian youngster of your age deserves rights and prosperity. The people of Gaza deserve a normal life. All this will only be possible with a viable, strong and peaceful State of Palestine.

The European Union strongly believes in this perspective. Ultimately, it is up to the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders to turn the page and choose peace. But we can all do our part to help them take the right decision. For this reason, the European Union has pushed to invite key Arab countries to join our Quartet meetings, as it has happened in these last months. All regional powers share an interest in ending the conflict – and today even more so, as the whole Middle East is in turmoil.

Tension in the Holy Places can only play in the hands of terrorists of all kinds. It can facilitate radicalisation and recruitment. It can reinforce their narrative of a war of religion.

On the other hand, think what peace in the Holy Land could do. Think of a pacified Jerusalem, a city for all the children of Abraham, a capital for two States. How sweet would that be... I know sweet is not a word we associate with the Middle East… We should. What a powerful message would it send to the whole Middle East, to the whole world. The message that living together, in dignity and respect of diversity, is possible and indeed beneficial to all.

Look how equal-handed she is as she obliquely refers to Jews as part of the "terrorists of all kinds."

And also note how she avoids saying anything about how the Egyptian government has been far more antagonistic towards ordinary Gazans than Israel has been, and how that same government recognizes Hamas as being the enemy, not only Da'esh.

If she wants to foster real peace, she has to start with the real truth. Delivering a message to Arabs that everyone wants peace except for ISIS, without acknowledging the hate and incitement that permeates the society, makes hers a message of "fight ISIS" instead of "excise the hate from your own hearts."

(h/t Irene)

Obama agrees with Bibi, without the media calling him a warmonger

Last March, the world freaked out when they misinterpreted something Binyamin Netanyahu said on the eve of the Israeli elections.

"I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel. This is the genuine reality that has been created here in the past few years. Those who do not understand that bury their heads in the sand. The left-wing parties do it, bury their heads in the sand, time and again."

The reporter asked, "But if you are the prime minister, a Palestinian state will not arise?"

"Indeed," Netanyahu said.

Immediately the headlines blared "Netanyahu Says No to Statehood for Palestinians." The PLO Negotiations Affair Department even made up an entire quote out of thin air, turning that "Indeed" into the wholly fictional “If I'm elected, there will be no Palestinian State”

But that isn't what Bibi said. As he explained days later,

"I haven’t changed my policy. I never retracted my speech at Bar-Ilan University six years ago calling for a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state. What has changed is the reality.

"Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, refuses to recognize the Jewish state, has made a pact with Hamas that calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, and every territory that is vacated today in the Middle East is taken up by Islamist forces, so we want that to change so we can realize a vision of real, sustained peace."

Bibi was saying that it is inconceivable that a Palestinian state would come about before the end of his term, because of how Abbas is acting and because a unilateral withdrawal would mean a vacuum that would be filled by radical Islamists. He was just being realistic, not shutting the door.

Now, on Thursday, the Obama administration said essentially the same thing Bibi did:

The White House has made the "realistic assessment" that a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians will not come to pass during the remainder of Barack Obama's presidency, senior administration officials said on Thursday night.

When Bibi says it, the world media interprets it as proof of his disdain for peace. When Obama says it, it is wisdom of understanding the reality of the situation.

"International aid agencies violate human rights of refugees in Lebanon"

In the middle of an article about how Palestinian Arabs in Lebanese camps are helping Syrian refugees there come this paragraph that is just crying out for more details:

On the one hand, this is leading to tension and insecurity among and between new and established groups of refugees in Baddawi, as has often happened in refugee situations around the world. Many of my “new” and “established” interviewees told me that recent arrivals are often abused and exploited by local service providers.

Sadly, different forms of abuse are common across refugee situations around the world, where men, women and children are subjected to human rights violations by other refugees, international aid providers, and international peacekeepers alike.

Why would the writer, Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, not name and shame the organizations that are abusing refugees?

11/05 Links Pt2: Lumish: The Departure of European Jewry; Why is the EU stigmatizing Israel?

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Palestinian views

Polisar examined more than 330 surveys carried out by four major independent Palestinian research institutes to determine what Palestinians think of Israel and Jews, Zionism and the value of carrying out terrorist attacks:
• With regard to the Gaza wars, a large majority of Palestinians are convinced that Israel deliberately targeted civilians and that Hamas was blameless for positioning its leadership, fighters and weapons in residential areas.
• With regard to Israel’s goals, an average of 59% think Israel wants to “extend its borders to cover all the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and to expel its Arab citizens.”
• A 51% majority of Palestinians believes Israel will destroy al-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine and replace them with a synagogue.
• “Palestinians characterize Israelis as belligerent and untrustworthy but clever and strong, and finger Judaism as the most violent of all religions.”
• The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion asked residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip: “Do you think that Jews have some rights to the land along with Palestinians?” Only 12% agreed that “Both Jews and Palestinians have rights to the land,” while more than 80% asserted that “This is Palestinian land and Jews have no rights to it.”
• In a 2001 PSR poll 98% of Palestinians said the killing of 29 Palestinians in Hebron by Baruch Goldstein in 1994 was terrorism, but only 15% were willing to say the same for an attack by suicide bombers that killed 21 Israelis at the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv in 2001. An average finding of six Pew polls over the past decade is that 59% of Palestinians see suicide bombings as justified.
• With regard to the efficacy of violence, a 2005 poll by the PSR found that “Sharon’s plan to evacuate the Israeli settlements from Gaza was a victory for the Palestinian armed resistance against Israel.”

Michael Lumish: The Departure of European Jewry

Just as significant percentages of the Arab nation are on the march into Europe - taking the Middle East with them - so a significant percentage of European Jews are packing it in for Israel. This past year is a record among French Jews for the making of aliyah, i.e., Jews returning to the Jewish national home.
In fact, French aliyah is up 118 percent.
Does anyone doubt that there is a direct correlation between Arab-Muslim immigration into Europe and Jewish emigration out of Europe? I would posit that the two are intimately connected due to the fact that the demographic moving into Europe has rates of anti-Semitism around the 80th percentile and is often not the least bit shy about demonstrating that tendency, sometimes violently and sometimes murderously.
French Jews understand very well that the slaughter of Jewish people in the kosher market in Paris, concurrent with the Charlie Hebdo murders, and the 2012 slaughter at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, means that the Jihad has arrived in Europe.
Many Europeans - those who were cognizant during the March 2004 Madrid train bombings that took 191 lives or the July 2005 suicide bombings in the London underground that took the lives of 52 commuters or the May 2013 murder and near-beheading of British soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich - have noticed, as well.

Jonathan Pollard’s lawyer still hopes to get his client to Israel

Just two weeks before the release of his pro bono client, Jonathan Pollard, New York lawyer Eliot Lauer is hopeful that US President Barack Obama will grant the convicted spy his biggest wish: to move to Israel.
The former civilian Navy analyst was given a life sentence in 1987 for espionage for Israel. He was granted citizenship by the Jewish state 20 years ago.
Following the 15 years of lobbying US government since they took on the Pollard case, Lauer and his partner Jacques Semmelman announced in July that the Parole Commission had decided to set Pollard free on November 20 — after some 30 years in prison.
One question that remains is where Pollard will go upon his release.
“President Obama … has the authority … to allow Mr. Pollard to leave the United States and move to Israel immediately. We respectfully urge the president to exercise his clemency power in this manner,” Lauer and Semmelman said in a written statement issued July 28.
That day, a White House spokesman announced that Obama had no intention of altering Pollard’s terms of parole, which state that he must not leave the US for five years. The White House said Pollard had committed “very serious crimes” and would serve his sentence under the law.

Look how "progressive" the Jewish Voice for Peace is!

I was forwarded this email from the Jewish Voice for Peace:

Tell the Center for American Progress to

rescind their invitation to Netanyahu

Dear

Since college -- actually, since grade school -- I’ve been a political activist, and I’ve spent my entire career fighting for peace, and justice, and equality. It’s what us progressives do.

But some “progressives” didn’t get the memo.

The Center for American Progress, one of the biggest and most influential progressive think tanks in the U.S. has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak. Let me put it another way: one of the most important progressive organizations in America is giving a huge platform to one of the least progressive men alive, at a time when he’s inciting hatred, entrenching a brutal status quo of apartheid, and presiding over a terrifying descent into far-right extremist violence.

Our allies at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation are calling on CAP to rescind their invitation to Netanyahu, and we’re standing with them.

But we need you, too. Add your name to our letter: Bibi is no progressive, and CAP has no business inviting him to speak.

...

Jews like me, and supporters of justice and equality from all walks of life are moving the needle, and changing the political conversation around Israel and Palestine. Fealty to the Israeli occupation is no longer guaranteed, and Netanyahu knows it. The emerging progressive majority has had enough of Israeli apartheid, and Netanyahu is running scared.

We can’t let the Center for American Progress give Netanyahu the veneer of bipartisan respectability. Not now, when the tide is turning for peace and human rights.

I’m Progressive. Netanyahu isn’t. Add your name, and tell CAP to disinvite Netanyahu.

Onwards,

Stefanie Fox
Co-Director of Organizing

Eleven times she reminds us of how "progressive" she is - while advocating silencing any views that she disagrees with!

I never fail to be stunned at how the words "liberal" and "progressive" have been co-opted to push the most illiberal and regressive ideas. Jihad, after all, is about as regressive as possible, yet people who want to kill Jews as a religious imperative must be given a platform for their speech in liberal, progressive newspapers. The most liberal state in the Middle East is attacked as supporting terror while the terrorists and their cheerleaders are hailed as progressive and moderate. It is truly an Orwellian use of language, yet it is one that is not pushed back on nearly enough.

The Center for American Progress can invite or not invite anyone they want; it is not a violation of free speech either way. But "progressives" like Fox insist that the only speech that may be free is speech that they have labeled as "progressive kosher."

JVP shows its hypocrisy in other ways, of course. Here is what they say about The Canary Mission:

While students who stand up for Palestinian rights are under special scrutiny regardless of their identity, Palestinian students, along with Muslim and Arab students, bear the brunt of this intimidation and demonization. They are often deliberately “named and shamed” publicly for standing up for Palestinian rights, and are vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion in campus communities. This is nowhere more clear than when looking at the recent “Canary Mission” database, which claims to expose student activists as “hatefomenting individuals” by compiling dossiers of their pro-Palestinian political activities.

Yet they have built their own dossier of pro-Israel organizations on campus, complete with names and associations! Their list:

THE LOUIS D. BRANDEIS CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER LAW
THE AMCHA INITIATIVE
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE
AMERICANS FOR PEACE AND TOLERANCE
ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE
CAMPUS WATCH
CANARY MISSION
DAVID PROJECT
GLOBAL FRONTIER JUSTICE CENTER
HASBARA FELLOWSHIPS
HILLEL
INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH & COMMUNITY RESEARCH
ISRAEL ACTION NETWORK
ISRAEL ON CAMPUS COALITION
THE LAWFARE PROJECT
SCHOLARS FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
SHURAT HADIN
STANDWITHUS
ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA

I personally don't think there is anything wrong with a dossier, as long as it is accurate, but to complain that the other side is keeping tabs on you while you do the same for them is the height of hypocrisy.

Although the perpetrators of the recent terrorist incidents are mostly young people not associated with terror organizations whose actions are not explicitly ordered by the Palestinian Arab leadership, they are nevertheless part of a planned campaign that is orchestrated by that leadership. The strings are pulled effectively by way of social media, with no direct link between the ‘commanders’ and the ‘soldiers’. This is one of the reasons that it is so difficult to interdict the terrorists before they strike.

A recent bulletin of the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center tells us that

The current wave of violence and terrorism is part of the overall “popular resistance” strategy adopted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah at the Sixth Fatah Conference in August 2009. It is manifested by rising and falling levels of popular terrorism. The current wave (which is unique in some aspects) is one of the most serious. Its popular terrorism includes riots, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, and stabbing and vehicular attacks which are supported and condoned by the PA. The current wave of Palestinian terrorism, like those before it, has included several shooting attacks, which are not included in the modus operandi of the “popular resistance,” but the PA does not condemn them, and in effect supports them.

The long-term objective of the Arab leadership is to foment violence and chaos in Israel so as to interfere with her ability to defend herself against external threats and also to provide an excuse for intervention by the ‘international community’ to force Israel to make territorial and other concessions to the PLO and to Hamas. A weakened and attenuated Israel, they believe, will ultimately suffer a defeat in a regional conflict severe enough to cause enough of the population to flee so that the state will disintegrate and they can take over.

Although Hamas and the PLO will fight each other for control, they have consistently cooperated in the endeavor to disrupt the Jewish state. This is nothing more than an updated version of the PLO’s ‘phased plan’ of 1974.

This intifada is different from the last one because control over the violence is almost entirely decentralized:

In most instances [the terrorist] carries out the attack by himself following a spontaneous personal decision without instructions from any organization or leadership. He does not follow an Islamist ideology (some of the terrorists lived fairly secular lives) and does not belong to a terrorist organization, although he feeds off the incitement to terrorism and anti-Israel hatred disseminated by the various terrorist organizations. …

The Palestinian terrorist who carries out an attack in Israel is motivated by Palestinian nationalism, and for the past six years he has been deeply influenced by reports of popular terrorism. He has also been influenced by events on the Temple Mount and by the false slogan “Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger.” He is personally and socially frustrated and feeds off the anti-Israel hatred and incitement on the social networks (mainly Facebook).

Indeed, Micah Lakin Avni, whose father Richard Lakin was murdered in Jerusalem last month, has called it “The Facebook Intifada,” and called for action by social media providers to stop the use of their networks for incitement. They are used for promulgation of lies about Israeli actions (“al-Aqsa is in danger,” “executing Palestinians and planting knives on them”), encouraging terrorism, giving practical advice on ways to kill, and honoring those who have perpetrated terrorist acts – especially ‘martyrs’.

Social media are used directly by the PLO/PA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others, but also by individuals. Some of the pages quite explicitly incite murder.

In addition, the presentation of videos and descriptions of terror attacks after they occur, especially including accusations of deliberate murder of Palestinians and other humiliations, builds on previous incidents to infuriate susceptible young people and encourage them to go out and commit attacks of their own.

Of course there are other means of communication but social media have been a game-changer, making it possible for our enemies to order up a more pervasive violent upheaval than ever in the past, to recruit people ready to die for the cause, to make it almost impossible for Israeli security forces to stop them, and to provide a continuous stimulus to perpetuate the violence for an unlimited time.

It seems then that there are two points at which we can attack this: the leadership that provides the top-down impetus and justification for it, and the social media that create the positive feedback loop that keeps the intifada alive.

Israeli officials, particularly in the army, have argued that the PA/PLO and Hamas are better alive than dead: they would be replaced by something worse; Israel would then have to take over the governance of the Arabs; the army would have to deal with insurgencies like those in Iraq and Syria; and nobody wants to do reserve duty in the territories. I think current events show that it is becoming harder to justify this position.

After Oslo, the PLO systematically eliminated any Arab leaders who would admit that they favored coexistence with the Jewish state. And since Oslo, the PA/PLO has been ‘educating’ its children for martyrdom (and needless to say, Hamas is doing the same thing). We are paying the price today, as members of the empathy-free Oslo generation have come of age with the ability to plunge a knife into the back of an 80-year old Jewish grandmother or stab a 2-year old toddler, feel good about their ‘accomplishments’, and be considered heroes in their society.

At the same time, the diplomatic and legal war against the state of Israel waged by the PLO/PA, which quite successfully plays off the latent (and not-so-latent) Jew hatred in Europe and the American Left, is beginning to bear fruit. The EU is about to take the first steps toward boycotting Israeli products, and the Obama Administration is simultaneously getting ready for a new round of badgering Israel, while threatening to not veto a French resolution in the UN Security Council declaring all settlements illegal and calling for the creation of ‘Palestine’ beyond the 1949 lines.

Further, in the event of a conventional military conflict with Hezbollah or Iran, the possibility of the PA “security forces” opening an additional front is a real possibility.

These considerations suggest that the PA has outlived its usefulness, and the vicious PLO – which cynically violated its promise to be a peace partner from day one of Oslo – should be eliminated for once and for all.

It is also absurd for Israel to accept Hamas control of Gaza, whereby its leaders devote all available resources to preparing for the next war, which needs to be fought and re-fought every several years. So far we’ve been lucky that they haven’t succeeded in tunneling into a nearby kibbutz, and that none of their rockets has struck a skyscraper in Tel Aviv, but it’s stupid to let them keep trying.

It is not unthinkable that within a few years Israel could find herself fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, the PA, Iran and the Islamic State at the same time!

This is not to say that the tanks should roll tonight. A great deal of creative thinking and planning has to take place first. The experience of Iraq and Libya shows what happens when a regime, no matter how evil or dysfunctional, is destroyed without sufficient consideration for what will replace it.

The other pressure point to stop the bleeding is the social networks. Facebook is now the target of a class-action suit to force it to remove hateful and inciting pages, which they have been resistant to do. This may or may not be effective, but in any case will take time.

There are technical solutions to stop incitement, although it would not be cost-free for the networks. But if they don’t cooperate, there are also ways to block them – Iran and China have done so to some degree – and I’m sure that the corporations that are raking in cash from their operations among affluent Israelis (both Jews and Arabs) would listen to a credible threat from the Israeli government that they might be blocked.

The effects of decades of education for hate will not be erased in a short time, even if the PA/PLO and Hamas are taken down, but the spigot of social media incitement can be shut off relatively quickly.

Let’s interdict the flow of incitement immediately, as aggressively as we act against weapons shipments to Hezbollah. And we should begin the process of undoing the Oslo mistake as soon as possible.

11/05 Links Pt1: Danon: PA 'organ harvesting' UN blood libel must be denounced

From Ian:

Danon: PA 'organ harvesting' UN blood libel must be denounced

In response to a PA blood-libel letter to the UN accusing Israel of harvesting organs of Palestinians, Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon on Wednesday called on the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to condemn the Palestinian representative for his anti-Semitic remarks and hateful lies‫.
“After returning the seized bodies of the Palestinians killed by the occupying forces through October, and following medical examinations, it has been reported that the bodies were returned with missing corneas and other organs, further confirming past reports about organ harvesting by the occupying power from the Palestinian victims of its brutality,” the Palestinian representative, Riyad Mansour, charged in his letter.
In response, Danon said, "This blood libel by the Palestinian representative exposes his anti-Semitic motives and his true colors."
Ambassador Danon told the Secretary-General: "Anti-Semitism has no place in the halls of the United Nations and must be denounced. I call on you to repudiate this sinister accusation and to condemn the ongoing incitement by Palestinian leaders."
Mansour's letter was published hours after Israel returned to the PA the body of the Arab terrorist who critically wounded a Border Police officer near Halhul in the Hevron region. (h/t Bob Knot)

Palestinian attempts stabbing in Gush Etzion, is shot dead

A Palestinian man attempted to stab a group of people standing at a bus stop at Gush Etzion Junction in the West Bank on Thursday and was shot dead by an IDF soldier, according to preliminary reports.
“IDF forces thwarted an attack at a crowded bus stop in the Gush Etzion Junction,” an Israel Defense Forces statement said.
“A Palestinian, armed with a knife, attempted to stab the soldiers. Forces at the scene responded to the immediate threat and shot the assailant.”
According to Palestinian media reports, the attacker was identified as Malek Talal Sharif, 25, from Hebron.
There were no injuries on the Israeli side.

Cop hurt in Hebron car-ramming still in critical condition

A Border Police officer critically injured in a Wednesday car-ramming attack near the West Bank city of Hebron remained in critical condition, officials at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem said Thursday.
The officer, 20, is in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
He sustained multiple injuries, including a severe head wound, and was rushed to the Jerusalem hospital in serious condition after the attack.
A second Border Police officer was also hit in the attack, but was only very lightly hurt.
The Palestinian driver of the ramming vehicle was shot dead by security forces at the scene, near Halhul Junction on Route 60, and his body returned to his family for burial.

On Monday, quoting the official Palestinian Authority news service, I showed that the "status quo" that the Palestinian Arabs insist on for the Temple Mount is one where there are no Jews allowed whatsoever.

I surmised that the "status quo" they insisted on was from 1949, the beginning of the Transjordanian occupation of the Old City.

I was wrong. The PLO Negotiations Affairs Department informs us that the "status quo" that they insist on is much earlier than that:

The Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound is a holy site comprised of 144 dunums of land1, which includes the two mosques (the Dome of the Rock and Al-Qibli) as well as open areas for prayers around them. The Status Quo of Religious Sites which mandates prayer rights, right to access, and excavation and maintenance regulations, dates back to the Ottoman Period. However since 1967, Israel, the occupying power, has effectively changed Al-Aqsa’s Status Quo through several policies, including terror attacks, the destruction of the ancient Minbar (prayer platform) of Salah ad-Deen al Ayyubi (1969), several military raids and storming of the compound, including the one led by former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon (2000), illegal and unauthorized excavations, destruction of 20 Islamic graves to make room for the “Jewish Biblical Garden” (2014), as well as systematic closures over the Holy Site.

The entire document is filled with lies, but here are a couple to note from just this short section.

"The destruction of the ancient Minbar (prayer platform) of Salah ad-Deen al Ayyubi (1969)" refers to the arson at the Al Aqsa Mosque done by a mentally ill Christian. Only rabid conspiracy theorists blame Israel. And here, the PLO does also.

"illegal and unauthorized excavations" - since Israel does not excavate on the Temple Mount (but the Waqf does and has destroyed uncountable priceless artifacts), this means that the PLO is declaring the entire area around the Mount to be part of Al Aqsa. This is confirmed by their assertion of "destruction of 20 Islamic graves to make room for the 'Jewish Biblical Garden'" - the graves were both new and many were fake, placed near the walls of the Mount illegally, but they were not on the Mount itself.

Which means that the PLO is saying that they also want the Ottoman "status quo" to apply to areas adjacent to the Temple Mount, including the Western Wall.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

The "Proto-Islamic" era

Normally I don't waste my time with Twitter trolls, but this exchange last week was especially interesting:

@dunn_martin @elderofziyon @Ostrov_A The Menorah was used in the proto-Islamic Temple
— Disgusted Muslimah (@DisgustedMoslem) October 28, 2015

@elderofziyon @dunn_martin Talmudists need to stop appropriating proto-Islamic regalia and symbols. #StopTalmudism #CulturalAppropriation
— Disgusted Muslimah (@DisgustedMoslem) October 28, 2015

Hey @DisgustedMoslem, I would love to see a link to all the proto-Islamic regalia and symbols. What years cover that period? @dunn_martin
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) October 28, 2015

Muslim coin with Menorah

The term "proto-Islamic" was new to me, so I was wondering exactly what time period this period covers. So I checked it out.

Abraham is indeed the patriarch of the Jews but he is also the patriarch of the Muslims, as in Quranic Muslims. In the Quran, it is stated that Abraham was a Muslim.

Islam is not the name of a religion founded by Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad merely restored Islam to the world. Islam existed before Muhammad. Islam is an Arabic word that means Worship The One God.

Adam is the founder of Proto-Islam, the informal Islam which we are all born with. When Abraham came, Proto-Islam became two, namely Universal Monotheism (Hinduism) which is described in the Quran as the Sabaean faith, and Abrahamic Islam, the religion of Abraham.

Abraham acknowledged both Abrahamic Islam and Universal Monotheism as valid and correct.

Abraham, also called the Friend of God, was the prophet who received the formal Islam from God. This formal Islam, later revived by Muhammad, was a distinct community, with its mission of doing good to the ends of the Earth.

If everyone since Adam was proto-Islamic, then it is hard to argue that Islam came after other religions.

A somewhat more scholarly source - a book synopsis at the National Endowment for the Humanities site from Oxford Islamic Studies Online - identifies "proto-Islam" as being founded by Abraham:

Abraham, one of the many Old Testament figures that appear in the Qurʿān as a prophet of the Biblical tradition, assumes an outstanding role in Islam because of his association with (proto-)Islam, an uncorrupted form of Biblical monotheism that preceded the foundations of Judaism and Christianity.

...As the founder of proto-Islam, Abraham is connected closely with the Prophet Muḥammad. Abraham is the name of the Prophet's son, who did not survive, by his wife Mary the Copt. Abraham also appears prominently in most versions of the legend of the Prophet Muḥammad's Night Journey and Ascension to Heaven (al-isrāʿ wa al-miʿrāj), along with Moses and Jesus; the Prophet meets with him either in Jerusalem or in the sixth or seventh heaven, and in some traditional reports (ḥadīths) Muḥammad refers to Abraham as his father. A number of ḥadīth reports stress the close physical resemblance between Muḥammad and Abraham; he is reported to have stated, “I saw Abraham; I look like his son.”

Scholars of Judaism would recognize that last hadith as a theft from the Talmudic passage that says that God made Isaac resemble Abraham so that no one could doubt the boy's parentage.

Or did the Talmud steal it from proto-Islam - before Mohammed was born?

Over the past 24 hours, at least three news services have written articles about Egypt's flooding of Gaza smuggling tunnels.

IBT, Andalou and especially Reuters all came out with stories about the topic. All of them played up how ordinary Gazans are suffering from Egypt's decision. All of them downplay the fact that the tunnels are used to smuggle in - and, according to Egypt, out - weapons for jihadist terror groups.

The cluster is not coincidental. It means that Hamas is pulling the strings behind media coverage in Gaza, in this case to pressure Egypt to stop destroying their weapons imports and tax revenue from smuggling commercial goods.

Of course, the media won't report how they are being used as puppets.

Andalou talks about new sinkholes and landslides from the tunnel destruction:

Major landslide late Tuesday in the southern border area between the blockaded Gaza Strip and Egypt resulted in a major sinkhole after the Egyptian army pumped seawater into the strip’s tunnels for around two months, the Gaza Ministry of Interior said.

Palestinian security and civil defense teams rushed to the area to protect civilians at risk, the ministry added.

A number of tunnels had collapsed south of Rafah, causing a sudden landslide, a Palestinian national security source told Anadolu Agency, adding that this is the fourth time the area suffers from landslides and sinkholes.

Blockaded by Israel since 2007, Gaza used to receive much-needed supplies through the network of smuggling tunnels on its border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Reuters also manages to blame Israel in an article about how Egypt is acting:

Local residents say that at the peak of the tunnel business, after Hamas Islamists seized the Gaza Strip in 2007 and Israel tightened a closure of its crossings into the enclave, nearly 2,500 underground passages snaked under the border with Egypt.

The direction of traffic was mainly into Gaza. Commercial goods - and weapons smuggled in separate tunnels controlled by Hamas and other militant factions - flowed in defiance of what Palestinians and many of their supporters decried as neighboring Israel's siege.

Yet none of the articles mentions that Egypt is the Gaza neighbor that has hermetically sealed the sector, with practically zero imports, zero exports and almost no people traveling across Rafah, while Israel allows thousands of trucks of goods and thousands of people to cross between Israel and Egypt every week.

Reuters does finally mention a little truth:

At one point an estimated 22,000 Palestinians worked in the tunnel "industry". However, it shrank markedly in 2010 after Israel, under international pressure to ease restrictions on commercial imports into Gaza, allowed more goods in through its overland crossings.

Then this September, battling an insurgency in northern Sinai, Egypt decided to shut down the tunnels once and for all. Determined to halt what it said was an arms flow in the opposite direction, from Gaza to the militants, it cleared the area on its side of the border and began pumping water into the underground maze, collapsing the land.

Tunnel-builders said Egypt has pumped in water several times since September, and that over the course of a few weeks had done more damage to the network, which once accounted for an estimated 30 percent of Gaza's imports, than Israeli bombing had caused over the past two decades.

Now, the diggers said, fewer than 20 tunnels remain for commercial goods, with easy-to-smuggle cigarettes the main contraband. No one can, or will, say how many weapons tunnels remain - a secret that is guarded by Hamas and other armed groups, which last fought a war with Israel in 2014.

But Reuters' main focus is the environmental damage:

What is left is an environmental mess, residents and local officials said, with the sea water polluting underground drinking reserves. The overflow has reached streets and homes within 100 meters (yards) of the border fence. Vast puddles and mud are everywhere.

"One cubic meter of sea water pollutes 40 cubic meters of underground water," said Tamer al-Sleibi, water department director in the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority in Gaza, who is concerned about long-term environmental damage.

Egypt's campaign, he said, could weaken the foundations of homes already on shaky ground due to tunnel-building and make land unfit for agriculture in areas near the frontier. There is also a health risk as the water turns stagnant, allowing mosquitoes and other disease carriers to breed.

The fact that thousands of rockets whose components were smuggled in those tunnels have been shot at Israeli civilians is just not worth mentioning.

Hamas has largely succeeded in manipulating the media. You know - the reporters who pretend to be so fiercely independent but who instead jump when a terror group tells them to.