Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, November 12, 2015

11/12 Link Pt1: Why Aren’t Tibetans Knifing Chinese?; Shin Bet: 609 Terror Attacks in October

From Ian:

Where the argument breaks down is his assertion that this frustration naturally leads them to “explode and strike at anything that walks down the Jewish street.” Or as Beinart put it, that “today’s Palestinian terrorism is a monstrous, demented response to Israel’s denial of basic Palestinian rights.” For if that is true, comparable situations elsewhere in the world should have produced comparable outbreaks of violence. And they haven’t.
Take, for instance, Tibet, which has been occupied by China since 1951 – longer than Israel has controlled the West Bank. The occupation certainly hasn’t brought prosperity to Tibet, which has the highest poverty rate in China. Moreover, Beijing has sought to eradicate Tibetan culture and religion, a process that reached its climax when the government asserted the right to choose the next Panchen Lama, the second-highest post in Tibetan Buddhism’s religious hierarchy. Israel, by contrast, scrupulously respects Palestinians’ religious freedom. Finally, there has been such an influx of Han Chinese settlers into Tibet that ethnic Tibetans are now a minority in “greater Tibet,” whereas Palestinians, despite Israel’s much-hyped settlement activity, remain an overwhelming majority in the West Bank.
So by the Heilman/Beinart standard, one would expect Tibetans to respond to their relative deprivation by launching periodic waves of vicious violence against the Chinese. And yet, that hasn’t happened. Instead, there has been a wave of self-immolations, and even those have been few and far between. According to the International Campaign for Tibet, 143 Tibetans have set themselves on fire as an act of protest since February 2009 – a shocking figure, but spread out over almost seven years. By comparison, there have been 65 Palestinian stabbing attacks in the last six weeks alone.
In short, something in Tibet’s culture or leadership caused Tibetans to respond very differently to “relative deprivation” than Palestinians have.

Obama Has a Strategy in the Middle East, and It’s Working

The Obama administration is “operating on a crisis basis” in the Middle East, says Leon Panetta, and doesn’t “have any kind of larger strategy” for the region. The president’s recent actions there, including the deployment of 50 special operations troops to Syria, are too incremental and “will not work,” says Fareed Zakaria. Indeed, the situation in that country has “spiraled out of control,” according to Vox’s Max Fisher in a post headlined “Unfixable: How Obama Lost Syria.”
And that’s what liberal critics are saying! The tone on the right is even more harsh—and why shouldn’t it be? Headlines this week from the region inform us that new footage shows about 200 children being shot to death by members of the Islamic State while lying in a row, faces in the dirt; that a Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt was quite likely downed with the use of military grade explosives; and that Russian airstrikes in Syria in support of the Assad regime have increased in intensity. It is Wednesday.
Zooming out, we see Assad in power, the Islamic State not going anywhere, Yemen still the focus of a regional proxy war, and a nuclear deal with Iran that has only empowered hardliners there.
The natural question thus seems to be: Why doesn’t Obama change course? Other presidents have shifted their approaches when confronted with failure—Carter’s late foreign policy and Bush’s Iraq surge both spring to mind. Why not Obama?
One answer to this question we ought to take seriously is that the president thinks things are, on the whole, going just fine.

Mordechai Kedar: There is no "radical Islam" and there is also no "moderate Islam"

Beginning more or less with 9/11, the expression "radical Islam" became the accepted way for the media, politicians and public to define the religious and ideological foundations of Islam-based violence when referring to what the world calls "terror." This expression was meant to be contrasted with "moderate Islam" which presents Muslims as ordinary people who wish to live in peace with all of mankind - Christians, Jews, Buddhists, unbelievers and the rest of us. The world created the image of two Islams, one radical and impossible to live with, and one moderate and "just like us."
This differentiation between "radical" and "moderate" Islam is what gave rise to the claim that Islam had been "hijacked" by the radicals, implying that the real and original Islam is the moderate, not the false, radical one.
This is what allows today's Europe to relate positively to the wave of mostly-Muslim illegal immigrants washing up on its shores – they represent "moderate Islam" and all they want is to live in peace and harmony with their European neighbors.
Permit me to raise some doubts concerning the psychological mindset that claims the existence of two types of Islam. In order to do this, let us clarify an important point: Islam is a text-based framework of ideas and behaviors, covering religion, culture, strictures, politics, law and economics. It is an all-embracing way of life. The most basic text is the Qu'ran, followed by the Hadith (oral law) and the Sura – biography – of Muhammad. The Sharia, Muslim law, is a system of binding laws and injunctions that Muslims are obliged to obey.
There are no two Islams, no moderate one and no radical one, there is just one Qu'ran that includes everything: verses on Jihad and all out war against unbelievers along with verses that speak of recognizing the "other" and living beside him.

CNN swallows the myth of Israel dominating US foreign aid

CNN reports:

American taxpayers doled out $5.9 billion in foreign military financing in 2014, according to the government's Foreign Assistance report -- that's roughly the GDP of Somalia. But where did the money go?
To the usual suspects, mostly -- Israel ($3.1B) and Egypt ($1.3B) received roughly 75% of all foreign military aid money handed out by the U.S. last year.
This map from the cost-information website howmuch.net shows the relative size of countries based on how much U.S. military aid they receive.

There are a lot of problems with this story, geared to make it look like Israel is taking the lion's share of the US budget spent overseas.

Here's what is not being said up front: The US government, for whatever political or bureaucratic reasons, uses two departments to hand out foreign aid, both military and non-military: the State Department and the Defense Department. Yes, the Defense Department sends out non-military aid as well.

The thinktank quoted by CNN decision to discuss only military aid and only from the State Department budget. not total aid. The same document they link to shows over $50 billion in foreign aid in 2014 when you include non-military aid so Israel's percentage goes down from more than half to around 6%.

The second issue is that the vast majority that the US spends overseas is not from the State Department budget, but from the defense budget. The amount directly earmarked for foreign military and economic aid is about another $56 billion,

But that is what is directly spent. Far more is spent indirectly. For example, there are 150,000 US troops stationed in South Korea, the EU and Japan. The best estimate I could find for the cost of each soldier is $112,000 a year for each soldier - in 2004.

That comes out to over $16 billion directly defending other countries and being mostly spent in other countries. (This doesn't count US active combat troops who are far more expensive per soldier.)

The numbers also don't include how much the US defense budget spends on NATO in Europe, which is a difficult number to find but it seems also to be in the tens of billions annually.

The implication that the US spends huge amounts of its overseas budget in Israel is a complete fabrication, In reality, just based on the numbers I documented here, it is probably closer to 1%.

This is an excellent example of how Israel-haters cherry pick statistics to make Israel look bad - and how lazy news agencies will parrot anything that looks and sounds good without bothering to do any real reporting.

(h/t Andrew)

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@Amnesty extols film calling Israel an apartheid state, with antisemitic nutcase Alice Walker narrating

From the list of movies being screened this semester by the Amnesty International Club/ Political Science Club, Mt. San Jacinto College, Menifee Valley Campus:

Wednesday, November 18 4:30pm - 6:30pm, Room 927 (MVC) Roadmap to Apartheid: Ana Nogueira, a white South African, and Eron Davidson, a Jewish Israeli, draw on their first-hand knowledge of the issues to investigate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Narrated by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Alice Walker, this award winning documentary is as much a historical document of the rise and fall of apartheid in South Africa, as it is a film about why many Palestinians feel they are living in an apartheid system today, and why an increasing number of people around the world agree with them. The film compares the many similar laws and tools used by both Israel and apartheid-era South Africa. The audience will see what life is like for Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and inside Israel while gaining a deeper understanding of the conflict with the help of respected analysts on the subject. Combined with archival material and anecdotes from South Africans, the film forms a complete picture as to why the analogy is being used with increasing frequency and potency.

Amnesty's idea of fairness is to screen a film that takes a South African that hates Israel, an Israeli that hates Israel and a narrator that not only hates Israel but is a deluded nutcase and borderline antisemite.

Why do I say that? Here is a section from Alice Walker's book, The Cushion in the Road:

So the Torah enshrines the idea of Jews being allowed to steal land. This is from Amnesty's role model.

The parts of the book that I could see are filled with hate and ridiculous assertions. Here's one that struck me as a perfect example of how Alice Walker would believe the most ludicrous, obvious lies as long as they were making Israel look evil.

Yes, Alice Walker believes that an old Jew who was born in British Mandate Palestine is treated like dirt when he returns to Israel because of the word "Palestine" in his passport. Um... he is still using his British Mandate Palestine passport to enter Israel?

Not only that, but every single non-Jewish tourist to Israel is dehumanized as they enter! It is a wonder that the 1.7 million Christians who visit Israel every year haven't noticed what "most of us are aware of."

Walker's grasp of reality has always been less than solid. After all, she's the one who believes that the world is run by shape-shifting reptilian aliens who practice mind control from the Moon.

But to Amnesty, she is an expert on Israel and very well qualified to weigh in on calling it an apartheid state.

Which shouldn't be surprising, since Amnesty shares with Walker the belief that any accusation against Israel must be true as well as her contempt for facts.

The Israeli protagonist in the film, Eron Davidson - no surprise - has written for Electronic Intifada.

Amnesty eagerly pushes this film as a wonderful piece of fact-finding. Which goes to show, yet again, how far Amnesty will go to demonize Israel.

I mean, how biased do you have to be to support a film as factual that is narrated by someone who literally cannot distinguish fantasy from reality?

This is not the first time an Amnesty branch has raved about this piece of Israel-hating propaganda. They have sponsored showings in San Jose and University of Florida.

And despite their half-hearted attempts to pretend that they aren't directly calling Israel an apartheid state in the description here, Amnesty has sponsored Israel Apartheid Week on college campuses as well as this poster for an event at Rutgers in 2013 shows.

(h/t Andrew)

We have seen UNRWA claim to be acting against incitement by its teachers on Facebook and other social media that I discovered and that was publicized by UN Watch.

I did notice that it is more difficult to find antisemitic and terror-supporting posts by UNRWA teachers in the past week or so.

Now I found an article that shows that UNRWA did indeed warn the teachers not to post hate.

Al Araby had an article on the issue last week.

Sources from UNRWA in Palestine for "al Araby" said that Israel monitors Agency staff accounts and documents any posts from them that are attacking the occupation forces, or attacking the Agency. They name names and their positions, thus UNRWA staff, especially teachers, have come under control by the State of the occupation on the one hand and the Agency on the other.

I'm not aware of any Israeli program to look for UNRWA incitement, only me and UN Watch, which means that UNRWA teachers think I control them!

Sami Mshasha, Arabic spokesperson for UNRWA, told Al Araby, "Everyone in the agency knows the concept of neutrality in all cases, and the employees must do their duties as fully as possible within specific parameters in order not to weaken its services to refugees."

UNRWA isn't telling teachers that antisemitism and supporting stabbing Jews is wrong. Just that it makes UNRWA look bad.

The teachers have called this a "harassment policy" which UNRWA decided to pursue, because the Palestinian teacher would feed their disciples in the spirit of the defense of the Palestinian territory and encourages them in any anti-Israeli attacks, in order to create a generation defending their land. There are now growing fears about control of teachers in their schools, that they are held accountable if they tell their students about violations of the occupation. This could threaten the future of thousands of teachers and workers in other sectors.

If I am understanding this paragraph correctly, it means that UNRWA teachers are known to routinely go outside the official curriculum and incite against Israel, and now they are upset that this might threaten their jobs.

The director of one of UNRWA schools west of Gaza City, who preferred anonymity, told Al Araby that he was "surprised that UNRWA management notified teachers not to publish any entries against the occupation, to keep their jobs and livelihood." This upsets him, pointing out that "it is natural thatthe teachers and staff at the agency express their solidarity with their country's territory and attack the occupation. Their country wa usurped and this must be taken into account." He adds that the teacher are leaders, and should enhance the values of belonging to a nation.

Showing that UNRWA employees cannot distinguish between expressing political positions and encouraging murdering Jews. I didn't bother to publicize political posts, or even posts that were upset at Israeli actions, real or not.

It should be noted that some of the most influential leaders of the Palestinian resistance were teachers in UNRWA schools who were able to perform their work without any restrictions on political freedom, and they are active politically.

There's a UNRWA accomplishment that the agency doesn't brag about on their website!.

Mohammed Mustafa (not his real name) is one of the teachers who received a warning from UNRWA management in the event that he continues his support of the current uprising, the issues of Jerusalem and attacking the occupation. His postings were documented and sent to the management of the Agency in Palestine. One of the posts said, "The Occupiers claim we are terrorists when we stab illegal settlers, and do not talk about the arson and murders committed by them." He said: "If it comes to this point that we cannot express any opinion, this would not work." From that moment, he did not express any position on any social networking site, describing himself as a "citizen living without feelings." Mustafa points out that this issue at present affects a large number of teachers, especially since they had received Agency warnings.

Despite the fact that social networking sites have served the Palestinian cause, we cannot turn a blind eye to their drawbacks . The occupation can monitor some activists and staff in various sectors, and keep track of most of their activities and their views on issues related to the occupation. According to sources from UNRWA for al-Araby, "An employee can express his position on an issue, according to his personal point of view; I do not mind it. But to associate it with his career in the Agency is not desirable and he may be held accountable for it. This is part of our labor contracts. "

It sure looks like my work has gotten results. Many of the people I exposed have taken out their association with UNRWA in their profiles, and others took their pages down altogether.

This article shows that rather than being a tiny number of teachers who violate UNRWA policies as was claimed, it is likely thousands of them, although not all on Facebook - but in the classroom itself.

The Israeli organization "Sons of Zion" monitors and tracks the number of UNRWA staff accounts, and says there is "incitement by the staff of international organizations in the Gaza Strip, and lack of respect for international conventions and processes." It has already filed a lawsuit against the agency, claiming that staff incites against Israel on behalf of the agency.

I have no idea who they are referring to here. I don't think it is me, since I never threatened a lawsuit, but I've never heard of this organization. But maybe it is me and they just badly mistranslated my posts.

Round-up of today's antisemitism in Arab media

Egyptian newspaper Masr11 wants to have Egyptian intelligence take over protection of ancient sites like the Pyramids, so as to protect them from Jews who want to steal or destroy or co-opt them as Jewish.

Egypt's 24.com says quotes a Salafi preacher who says that the Muslim Brotherhood corrupts Islam the way that Jews have corrupted their own religion.

Rassd, on the other hand, quotes ISIS in Egypt as saying that the Egyptian military has been defending Jewish and Zionist interests, accusing them of apostasy for doing the will of their Jewish masters.

Al Bayan of the UAE says that Temples are a myth created by Jews to take over Islamic sites. He also says that the Holocaust is "partly" a myth.

This is all in 24 hours, and not including the story I posted earlier accusing Jews of fomenting hatred between Algeria and Morocco.

11/11 Links Pt2: Zionism as racism: The Palestinians’ foundational lie; Terror attack saved my life!

From Ian:

‘Terror attack saved my life,’ says Israeli stabbing victim

Cohen, 31, recounted the November 2 attack — in which two other people, including an 80-year-old woman, were also wounded — during an interview with Radio Kol Chai on Wednesday.
“I was in the middle of a work day,” Cohen, a kashrut supervisor, said. “I was in the central bus station… I waited for the bus and did not see anything suspicious. Then I walked a few steps and suddenly the attacker lunged at me and strangled me.
“I felt like my neck was going to snap. He took out a knife and tried to behead me. I tried to move him with my hand and then he tried to stab me in the neck. I moved my head so he hit my jaw, near the ear. He pushed me to the floor and stabbed along my left side, in my chest, in my stomach and in my shoulder,” the father of five recounted.
“When Magen David Adom paramedics arrived I was still conscious but when I got to Assaf Harofeh Hospital they put me under. I went into a four-hour surgery. It went well, they took out my spleen and a bit of my liver. My intestines were damaged. As they were treating these organs, they found a growth on my intestine that I didn’t know I had. They cut it out and sewed what they needed to,” he added.
“Thank God, I am now in good condition a week later,” he said. “They said they found the tumor when they were operating. If they wouldn’t have removed it, it could have gotten worse.”
Cohen said that he felt pains in his intestines for several weeks prior to the incident but didn’t have time to “deal with it.”
“The terror attack saved my life,” he maintained.

JPost Editorial: Kristallnacht

This week during a Kristallnacht commemoration ceremony in Amsterdam, MK Haneen Zoabi devoted a 1,400-word speech to likening contemporary Israel to Nazi Germany of the 1930s. But before we address her outrageous comments, let’s revisit history in order to understand precisely what happened on the night of November 9, 1938.
Kristallnacht was not an isolated incident. Rather it was a culmination of years of incitement and legal restrictions instituted by the Hitler regime against Germany’s Jews, who made up less than 1 percent of the population.
Almost immediately upon assuming the chancellorship of Germany in 1933, Adolf Hitler took action against the Jews. Jewish-owned shops were boycotted; kosher butchering was outlawed; restrictions against Jewish children were introduced in public schools.
In 1935, the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived Jews of German citizenship. Jews were prohibited from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.” Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights. By 1936, Jews were prohibited from participating in parliamentary elections, and signs reading “Jews not Welcome” appeared in cities and towns across Germany.
In the first half of 1938, additional laws were passed restricting Jewish economic activity and occupational opportunities. The definition “Jewish” was racial, not religious.
Even Roman Catholic priests and nuns and Protestant ministers with a Jewish grandparent were considered “Jewish.”

Zionism as racism - The Palestinians’ foundational lie

Forty years ago, on November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 calling Zionism a form of racism.
Today, as Palestinians lie about Israel’s alleged desire to change the status quo on the Temple Mount, and about Israel’s attempts to defend Israelis, we need to learn about this foundational lie, that leads so many not only to disagree with Israel but to object to its very existence.
Resolution 3379 presents two historical mysteries: How could Zionism – Jewish nationalism – be targeted, in this forum of nationalisms, as racism, when Judaism, which is a religion and a nation, allows individuals to convert into the Jewish religion, then join the Jewish people, making Zionism – Jewish nationalism – the least biologically-based, the most permeable and thus the least racist form of nationalism? And how could the UN, founded as the great redemptive institution after World War II, after the Holocaust, promising “Never Again,” betray America and the West, not just the Jewish people, demeaning core democratic ideals? Short answer: It was the 1970s.
Remember that misfire of a decade? The long sideburns, bell bottoms and huckapoo shirts? It was a time when democracies seemed doomed and the Soviet empire seemed invincible. America was reeling: inflation, crime, unemployment, grime, Vietnam, Watergate.
The Soviets – trying to humiliate America – schemed with the Palestinians to demonize Israel, to “South Africanize” Israel. Edward Said, the theoretician of Palestinian nationalism, advised Palestinians to link their fight to the broader fight against colonialism, imperialism and racism, in Algeria, in Vietnam. So ignoring the facts, forgetting that it’s a clash of nationalisms not races, that there are light-skinned Palestinians and darkskinned Israelis, and that little Israel quarreling over its borders is neither imperialist nor colonialist, they cooked up the Big Red Lie.

Moynihan: 1975 UN Debate on "Zionism is Racism" - Excerpts

Video: Full Moynihan Speech at 1975 U.N. Zionism is Racism Debate
Video: Chaim Herzog at 1975 UN "Zionism is Racism" Debate; Roll Call Vote

First, Queers For Palestine,' Then 'Soviet POWs For Auschwitz' (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

First, Queers For Palestine,' Then 'Soviet POWs For Auschwitz'
By Sarah Schulman, LGBTQ and Palestinian Rights Activist

Progressives have to stick together, and must take care not to become hyper-focused only on their respective areas of concern. Progressivism is an attitude that does not lend itself to fragmented endeavors. All progressive causes are related and interdependent. That is why I have decided that once my dedication to Queers for Palestine has borne fruit, I will take up similar causes, such as Soviet Prisoners of War for Auschwitz Gas Chambers.

From there, perhaps I will move on to Fetuses for a Woman's Right to Choose, followed by the Colombian Cartel Center for Drug Addiction Treatment. But for now, the progressive cause of Palestine is my focus, and as an LGBTQ, I cannot think of a more fitting - or more urgent - situation that demands the attention and action of gay and lesbian activists than the one facing Palestinians. They are our natural allies on a vast array of progressive issues within the narrow confines of anti-Israel activism, once you ignore Palestinian society's worse-than-medieval attitude toward non-hetero-normative lifestyles. It is that kind of necessary compartmentalization that will come in handy in future pursuits involving former Red Army soldiers captured by the Wehrmacht who find kindred spirits in the men and women operating the gas chambers at Sobibór, Belzec, Treblinka, Chelmno, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I can even adapt the Pinkwashing rhetorical model for the purpose. True, life for LGBTQs in every Middle East country except for Israel is living hell, but that's only because Israel wants to distract everyone from its treatment of the Palestinians. All I have to do to calibrate the argument for Soviet POWs and gas chambers is keep asserting that Allied opposition to Nazi Germany was nothing but a transparent effort to deflect attention from American, British, French, and Soviet oppression of... uh, of Germans! Yeah. Of Germans. And I won't need to back up that assertion, because no one expects pro-Palestinian progressives to do so with any rigor. All I have to do is keep yelling. That's usually enough to secure some media coverage and a few generous grants.

If all goes well, I might even establish a progressive NGO that rallies cancer cells in support of chemotherapy. That would carry particular resonance, since, as everybody knows, cancer was created by the Zionists to weaken their enemies, which is why the cancer rate in Gaza is eleven times higher than anywhere else since the Israeli occupation began.

See how easy it is? It didn't even occur to you to challenge that statistic I just pulled out of nowhere. This Soviet POW thing should be a breeze.

11/11 Links Pt1: The rise of the child terrorist; PA again accuses Israel of 'assassinating' Arafat

From Ian:

The rise of the child terrorist

Wars have never been pretty. People are maimed and killed. Children are orphaned and spouses are widowed. It is precisely for this reason that wars, over time, have been relegated to the adult sphere: because children need to be children. Indeed, some are less innocent than others. But they are still children.
The Palestinian Authority still has not internalized what the role of the child should be in a conflict. In the Palestinian Authority, just as in the Gaza Strip, they don't understand that children shouldn't play any role at all.
A child has the privilege of being a child, regardless of origin, religion or skin color. A child is supposed to be innocent. So why in hell did we see two children trying to stab Jews to death again on Tuesday?
The video from the Jerusalem light rail on Tuesday shows two children, one of whom less than 12 years old, assaulting a Jewish security guard with knives. It is an appalling and terrifying sight.
In the video we can see everything, except for the innocence of a child. We don't see two children. We see two terrorists. We see two murderers.
Those who try to excuse this grave incident by blaming the "occupation" are wrong and misleading. It isn't the "occupation" sending children with knives to kill Jews. Palestinian incitement is sending them, efficiently and persistently.

Does Israel Deserve Terrorism?

Can you condemn terrorism while at the same time rationalizing it? Not in a moral or logical argument. But that’s what liberal author Peter Beinart is doing when he said in a speech to a Los Angles synagogue that the current surge of bloody Palestinian terrorism is a direct product of Israel’s “moral darkness” and that “the Israeli government is reaping what it has sowed.” Beinart, whose remarks were highlighted by the anti-Zionist Mondoweiss site, thinks the stabbing intifada is a “monstrous, demented response” of the Palestinians to their plight in much the same way that 9/11 was a “monstrous, demented response to American foreign policy, a foreign policy of support for Arab dictatorships and Israeli policies which produced tremendous suffering in the Arab world.” In other words, the self-proclaimed spokesman for what he calls “liberal Zionism” believes Americans had it coming to them on 9/11 and the same is true for Israelis now. In doing so, he not only discredits himself but also shines a harsh light on the dubious efforts of many on the left to claim they support Israel while trashing it.
As much as Beinart wants to have it both ways — to condemn terrorism while essentially justifying it — he can’t. Beinart may think his is a morally nuanced approach to these crimes, but all he’s done is to prove that he is morally obtuse. That is true because saying al-Qaeda and Palestinian terrorist are wrong in their methods but right in their sense of grievance blurs is a profound misunderstanding of the point of such terrorism. More than that, assumptions about the guilt of the United States and Israel are not merely wrongheaded judgments but a deliberate effort to avoid the truth.
Beinart’s strong words about blowing up the World Trade Center and random stabbings represent an attempt on his part to establish his moral bona fides before turning to the thing he really dislikes: American support for Israel and Israel’s refusal to make suicidal concessions to the Palestinians without even a flimsy promise of peace.

PA again accuses Israel of 'assassinating' Arafat

The head of the Palestinian Arab team looking into the death of former chairman Yasser Arafat on Tuesday again accused Israel of assassinating the former leader in a Paris hospital, AFP reported.
His comments came on the eve of the 11th anniversary of Arafat's death and two months after French judges closed an investigation into claims he was murdered, without bringing any charges.
"The inquiry committee has been able to identify the assassin of former president Yasser Arafat," claimed Tawfiq Tirawi, the head of the probe opened in 2009.
"Israel is responsible," he declared, though he would not provide further details other than to add that "we still need some time to elucidate the exact circumstances of this assassination". (h/t Bob Knot)

Hamas hands over Arafat’s Gaza home to his Fatah party

Gaza’s Hamas rulers handed over the house of the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to officials from his Fatah party on Tuesday with the intention of turning it to a museum for the iconic leader.
The house has been closed since the Islamic terror group Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 after routing the Palestinian Authority’s forces and ousting Fatah under the leadership of Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, in bloody street battles.
The ceremony, attended by officials from all Palestinian factions, took place on the eve of the anniversary of Arafat’s 2004 death. During his final years, at the height of the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, Arafat lived under Israeli siege in the presidential compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah. After falling ill in the fall of 2004, the 75-year-old leader was flown to France, where he died in a military hospital.

Tension mounts between Algeria and Morocco - and Jews are blamed

Here's an article in the North Africa Post telling the Moroccan side of the story of their long standing dispute with Algeria:

The deep causes of the antagonism between the two countries lie deep in the colonial legacy that left huge territorial imbalances penalizing Morocco and Tunisia in favour of Algeria.

After emerging from their independence struggle, Morocco and Tunisia were well aware that Algeria acquired its geographic extent at their expense and were hoping that an independent anti-colonial Algeria will repair the territorial injustices caused by colonialism. However, history took another course with the takeover of the army commanders in Algiers and the subordination of politicians. All the promises given by the political leaders of the Algerian provisional government prior to Algeria’s independence were renounced including the promise given to Morocco’s King Mohammed V to negotiate the borders in gratitude for Morocco’s support for the Algerian resistance and the Kingdom’s refusal to negotiate the status of the borders with France. Right after independence the omens of territorial consolidation began to manifest itself in the revolutionary military commanders that emerged as Algeria’s kingmakers. Thus, Tunisia was propelled to give up its territorial claims and signed an agreement recognizing the post-colonial borders with Algiers, while skirmishes took place with Morocco over the region of Tindouf. This low-intensity war in the early 1960s opposing Morocco and Algeria, known as “Sand war”, ended with a military victory for Morocco. However, the Kingdom fell short of retrieving what it deems historically Moroccan lands.

As a result, Algeria has been supporting the groups that are against Morocco's occupation of Western Dahara:

Strikingly enough, the very retrieval of Western Sahara by Morocco sounded the alarm bell for Algerian military junta who saw in the move an attempt to revive the aspirations for a “Greater Morocco,” an idea that resounds in history referring to an era where Moroccan dynasties ruled Mauritania, northern Mali and most of western Algeria.

But it is easier to blame Jews for these decades-old disputes.

Andre Azoulay

Algeria's Akbar El-Youm says that Jews are really the ones who are goading Morocco into confrontation with Algeria.

[We cannot] not rule out the existence of a dirty Zionist scheme that aims to ignite a war between Morocco and Algeria, two of the Arab countries that have so far escaped from the Arab infighting...These are not merely guesses and speculation, but a degree of certainty there is a real Zionist scheme aimed at fueling a fierce war between Algeria and Morocco similar to those that took place between Iraq and Iran during the 1980s that led to the exhaustion of the two countries both classified in the category of "Israel's enemies". There is no doubt that the Zionists will never forgive Algeria's unconditional support for the Palestinian cause, which made Algeria one of the most loved countries in the occupied Palestinian territories where their children raise the flag of our country through many of the clashes that took place recently between them and the Zionist occupation soldiers. It is known that the Jews were behind the lobby that controls the joints of the decision-making in Morocco, the Jew Azoulay is one of the most prominent of King Mohammed VI's advisers if not the most powerful of all, one of the defenders for the security of so-called Israel and supporters of two states (Israel and Palestine) on the holy land of Palestine. André Azoulay who also served as an adviser to King Hassan II is the face of a large Jewish community in Morocco, which is among the largest Jewish communities in the Arab and Islamic countries.

The article goes on to list other prominent Moroccan Jews, and uses as evidence of their nefarious nature that one of them said in a ceremony 6 years ago that "Jews will not disappear from Morocco, we have a long history here."

React to the discriminatory EU labeling rules with pride, not defensiveness

From YNet:

The European Commission "adopted this morning the Interpretative Notice on indication of origin of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967," said an EU official.

Drawn up over three years by the European Commission, the guidelines mean Israeli producers must explicitly label farm goods and cosmetics that come from settlements when they are sold in the European Union. The EU guidelines aren't expected to necessarily apply to Israeli industrial or electronic products, or to non-fresh foods.

"This is a technical measure, not a political one," one Commission source said on Tuesday. "The occupied territory is not part of the sovereign state of Israel, so goods cannot be sold as 'Made in Israel'."

The EU does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel's presence in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. It says the labeling policy aims to distinguish between goods made inside the internationally accepted borders of Israel and those outside.

Gaza seems to be included despite the fact that Israel has no presence in the Strip anymore. Officials in Israel point to the inclusion of Gaza as an indication the decision is in fact political in nature, and meant to show that in the eyes of the EU, Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip has not ended because of the blockade imposed over the Palestinian enclave.

Of course the EU doesn't insist on labeling goods from Northern Cyprus or Western Sahara or the Ukraine as being from "occupied territory.". This is a rule created for Israel and Israel only.

But the Israelis who put the labels on can respond with pride. Turn it into an opportunity to show that they are proud of their country, proud of where they live and proud to have returned to where their forefathers lived.

The new rules say that goods from Judea and Samaria (and the Golan Heights) must not say "product of Israel." They insist that the wording is something like "'product from the West Bank (Israeli settlement)".

No one can say that the producers couldn't add an additional label, one that says accurately that the goods are from the Land of Israel - which is a Biblical term. So labels for produce should include something like this along with the mandated text:

In the end, the purpose of these rules is to separate Jews from their land. The only proper response is to strengthen those ties - and to be proud of them.

.@UNRWA's Commissioner General contextualizes hate, ignores incitement, shows his own bias

Yesterday, UNRWA commissioner-general Pierre Krähenbühl gave a speech to the UN General Assembly. He briefly mentioned the issues that I have discovered of UNRWA teachers posting hateful messages on social media (no hat tip to me, though!):

UNRWA continues to operate in a highly polarized environment where emotions frequently run high. We enforce neutrality within our organization, but we are not immune from the context. There have recently been allegations of inappropriate statements by UNRWA staff, notably on social media. Let me state here unambiguously that UNRWA condemns any form of anti-Semitism or racism and its position on this issue is a matter of public record. We take every allegation seriously and when credible investigate it and will continue to take disciplinary actions as required.

Notice how Krähenbühl changes the issue from UNRWA's stated position of "neutrality" into only condemning racism and antisemitism. And how he even "contextualizes" the hate by saying that "emotions run high." But he doesn't mention incitement to murder Israelis. Is that OK or not?

Moein Elmasry works for UNRWA in Rafah.

He posted this video encouraging Arab men and women to attack Israel.

And he also posted this video cartoon showing the murder of the Henkins.

(The second video is self-congratulatory about the morality of the terrorists for not murdering the Henkin children. In fact, there were four children in the backseat, and the prevailing theory is that the terrorists fled when one accidentally shot another one and they took him to the hospital.)

Are these videos a violation of "neutrality?"

But Krähenbühl himself violates his own mandate. Look how he describes the current wave of violence aimed at killing Jewish men, women and children, and Israel's response to defend them:

In the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the upsurge in violence and protests in recent weeks has had a direct impact on Palestinians, with some 71 fatalities and over 7,500 injuries reported in the first month of unrest that began on 1 October. During the same period, eight Israelis were killed and 126 injured. As the Deputy Secretary-General said at the Security Council's quarterly Middle East debate a few weeks ago in commenting on the reasons why the situation had deteriorated, the crisis would not have erupted if the Palestinian people, among others, had a perspective of hope towards a viable Palestinian state, an economy that provides jobs and opportunities, control over their legal and administrative processes and did not live under a stifling and humiliating occupation that has lasted almost half a century. UNRWA is shocked by the upsurge in violence that has affected Palestinian and Israeli civilians and the pattern of deadly force against Palestinians, the increase in the use of live ammunition in and around refugee camps, the expansion of settlements, the increase in settler violence towards Palestine refugees, and the displacement of refugees by demolitions and destruction of structures.

Krähenbühl gives reasons to "understand" Arabs murdering random Jews, saying that it is because of "hopelessness," , but he provides no such understanding of Israel defending its citizens. He doesn't mention how many of the 71 Palestinians were killed while directly in the act of while attacking Jews. He says that violence has "affected Palestinian and Israeli civilians" but there is a "pattern of deadly force against Palestinians."

He is about as neutral as Hamas.

Beyond that, the claim that there would be no terror if the Palestinian Arabs had "hope" is ludicrous. Here is an article from August 15, 1938, one of dozens:

Was this, and the hundreds of other attacks against Jews before 1948, also from "hopelessness?"

No. It is pure Jew-hatred. And this antisemitism is not only from UNRWA teachers, but from UNRWA itself, as I have documented (sites that have been since removed.)

How can someone as clearly biased as Pierre Krähenbühl be trusted to be able to run an agency that is supposed to be politically neutral? By UNRWA's own standards, Krähenbühl is violating the neutrality rule.

Yet UNRWA claims to be able to self-regulate its employees.

It is a joke.

Bibi demolishes J-Street and Peace Now's central claims

At Binyamin Netanyahu's appearance at the Center for American Progress, he said that the settlements were not an obstacle to peace.

He answered that "There have been no new settlements built in the past 20 years.The additions have been in existing communities. The map has not materially changed."

I'm not sure if that is 100% true; I know of three formerly illegal outposts that became legal, and I cannot imagine that there haven't been more illegal outposts in 20 years that have escaped being demolished. But the larger point is true - there has been essentially no new settlements, as opposed to how they are characterized. and Netanyahu said this:

By the way, Google this. Because this is just repeated, ad nauseum, so it assumes the cachet of self-evident truth, that we're 'gobbling up land' and so on. We're not gobbling up land....I mean the total amount of built up land is just a few percent. And the addition, if you look at it over time, it's got to be a fraction - maybe one tenth of one percent? Maybe I'm off, maybe it's 3/10ths of one percent. That's the land that's being "gobbled up." That's a factual question. That is not something that should be debated. And yet it's become an axiom, that we are gobbling up land. We're not.

This statement is driving the "progressives" like J-Street crazy. Because their entire existence, and their entire funding, is dependent on the lie of the ever-expanding settlements that make a two-state solution impossible.

So J-Street tweeted

Netanyahu at @amprog: Settlements are < 1% of West Bank. Truth: 40% of West Bank is under control of settlements. https://t.co/FgLj7c9jk3
— J Street (@jstreetdotorg) November 10, 2015

The link goes to Peace Now, which writes:

The "one percent argument" is a classic example of how supporters of the status-quo use a fraction of the truth to misrepresent the truth on the ground in the West Bank. Yes, the actual built-up area of West Bank settlements takes up only a little more than 1% of the West Bank. But the settlements' built-up area is just the tip of the settlements iceberg. The impact of the settlements goes far beyond this 1%.

Almost 10% of the West Bank is included in the "municipal area," or the jurisdictional borders of the settlements. These borders are so large that they allow settlements to expand many times over onto land that is completely off-limits to Palestinians.

In addition, almost 34% of the West Bank has been placed under the jurisdiction of the settlements' "Regional Councils." That is, more than an additional 1/3 of the West Bank has been placed under the control of the settlers, off-limits to Palestinians.

In total, more than 40% of the West Bank is under the direct control of settlers or settlements and off-limits to Palestinians, regardless of the fact that only a small portion of this land has been built on by settlers.

Let's say that this is 100% true. Then this means that Peace Now agrees that there has been no fundamental change in the West Bank map since the PLO rejected Israeli peace offers of 93%-95% of the land in 2001 and 2008!

Somehow, the 40% Israel controls didn't stop Barak and Olmert from offering nearly the entire West Bank for a Palestinian state. If they could offer it, so could the current Israeli government. So the 40% figure is a red herring, meant to obscure the fact that the intransigent party is the Palestinian side.

And according to Israeli media, Netanyahu was ready to offer nearly the same amount! (Netanyahu's office denied it, saying it was a US proposal.)

Peace Now and J-Street know this. If you read their literature you can see that they try very hard to distract their readers from these facts by mentioning things that aren't relevant. Their central claim to raise cash, that Israel - and especially the reviled Likud government of Netanyahu - is gobbling up land is shown to be a lie.

Yet this Peace Now and J-Street lie of Israel "gobbling up land" is repeated without any shame by the White House, by the New York Times, and by many other sources who don't even bother to read Peace Now reports with a critical eye. Because their own documentation proves their public lies!

I challenged J-Street with this tweet:

OK @jstreetdotorg, tell me EXACTLY how the ~1.7% of settlement land today makes peace so much harder than ~1.6% 20 years ago? @amprog
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) November 10, 2015

Of course, they didn't answer.

Because they can't.

Because the truth exposes their anti-Israel campaigns against Israel are based on provable, checkable lies.

Here's the entire video. The section I am highlighting starts at about 23:00.

11/10 Links Pt2: The Left and the Jews: Time for a Rethink; Senators denounce EU's labeling; BORIS!!

From Ian:

40 Years After Infamous UN Resolution, It’s Clear That Anti-Zionism is Racism

This week marks the 40th anniversary of one of the worst instances of antisemitism since the end of the Second World War. On Nov. 10, 1975, the United Nations — a body created out of the ashes of the Holocaust — passed General Assembly Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement, with racism and racial discrimination.
That resolution was the culmination of a lengthy campaign by the Soviet Union to turn Israel into the only state within the UN system to have its legitimacy questioned. Soviet Jews had been persecuted in the name of “anti-Zionism” since the days of Josef Stalin’s dictatorship, and Resolution 3379 represented the globalization of that campaign. To that end, the Soviets enlisted the support of Arab states and developing nations, all of whom, in promoting the slander that Zionism is racism, were engaging in the oldest form of racism themselves.
Only a handful of people at the General Assembly grasped this fundamental fact back in 1975. One of them was Chaim Herzog, the Israeli ambassador to the world body. In his magnificent speech — commemorated at a special event hosted by Israel’s UN mission this week — Herzog reminded the delegates of another anniversary, also on Nov. 10: Kristallnacht, that dreadful winter’s night in 1938 when Nazi stormtroopers attacked defenseless Jewish targets across Germany. The pogrom resulted in the incarceration of 30,000 Jews, the murder of around 100, and the burning of thousands of synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses.
“It is indeed befitting,” began Herzog, as he proceeded to eviscerate the assembled delegates, “that this debate, conceived in the desire to deflect the Middle East from its moves towards peace, and born of a deep pervading feeling of antisemitism, should take place on the anniversary of this day. It is indeed befitting, Mr. President, that the United Nations, which began its life as an anti-Nazi alliance, should thirty years later find itself on its way to becoming the world center of antisemitism. Hitler would have felt at home on a number of occasions during the past year, listening to the proceedings in this forum, and above all to the proceedings during the debate on Zionism.”
A similarly eloquent appeal to conscience was expressed by the American ambassador to the UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. From the same rostrum as Herzog, Moynihan announced, “The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.” The joint outrage displayed by Herzog and Moynihan was a moving testament to the values that bind the US and Israel.

Alan Johnson: The Left and the Jews: Time for a Rethink

It’s this strand of distinctively left-wing hostility to Jews that I want to make some remarks about tonight. It has never been the dominant strand of opinion on the Left, and it is not so today; not by a long chalk. But it has always existed, it is growing today, and it must be part of any account of the breakdown in the relationship between Jews and the Left.
It was called the ‘socialism of fools’ in the 19th century.
It became an ‘anti-imperialism of idiots’ in the 20th century.
And it takes the form of a wild, demented, unhinged form of anti-Zionism – not mere ‘criticism of Israeli policy’ – that demonises Israel in the 21st century.
Part 1: The Socialism of Fools
Let’s begin with a short ‘who said this?’ quiz.
Who said, ‘The whole Jewish world constitutes one exploiting sect, one people of leeches, one single devouring parasite closely and intimately bound together not only across national boundaries but also across all divergences of political opinion.’? That was the 19th century anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin.
Who wrote, ‘Whoever fights against Jewish capital … is already a class-fighter, even if he does not know it … Strike down the Jewish capitalists, hang them from the lamp posts!’? That was the communist Ruth Fischer, a leading figure in the German Communist Party in the early 1920s.
Who said, ‘Wherever there is trouble in Europe, wherever rumours of war circulate and men’s minds are distraught with fear of change and calamity, you may be sure that a hooked-nosed Rothschild is at his games somewhere near the region of the disturbances.’ Well that was an editorial in The Labour Leader, organ of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1891.

The mood in Germany: Kristallnacht ‘nein,’ BDS ‘ja’

The drive to advance Kristallnacht as a means to turn Israel into an abnormal state is not limited to Germany but is in vogue across Western Europe. The European market’s demand for Holocaust events as a way to punish Israel exceeds supply.
A telling example: Arab-Israeli MK Haneen Zoabi (Joint List) told on Sunday the left-wing group Platform Stop Racism and Exclusion in Amsterdam: “Kristallnacht didn’t suddenly fall from the sky, come out of nowhere, it was the result of a development over time. We can see a similar development happening in Israel over the last several years.”
One of Germany’s sharpest commentators on the country’s grappling with its Nazi past was Eike Geisel, who would have turned 70 this year. Geisel did not live to write about BDS, but he delved into the motivations of alleged peace groups that later morphed into pro-BDS NGOs.
“To be against Israel in the name of peace is something new.... This new anti-Semitism does not arise from base instincts, nor is it the product of honorable political intentions. It is the morality of morons.”
Geisel continued, “Anti-Jewish...hostility arises from the purest human needs; It comes from the yearning for peace. It is therefore entirely innocent; It is as universal as it is moral. This moral anti-Semitism completes Germany’s restoration to goodness, in that it heralds the perfection of inhumanity: the banality of good.”
By commemorating Kristallnacht, many Germans may believe that they are combating German anti-Semitism. Yet by sponsoring BDS and promoting trade with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which seeks to obliterate Israel, things have turned out topsy-turvy.

After Zoabi’s Kristallnacht Speech in Amsterdam, Nasrallah Hoping For an Invite to Yom HaShoah Next Year (satire)

After controversial MK Hanin Zoabi’s (Joint List) speech at an Amsterdam Kristallnacht commemoration, Hezbullah Leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah feels that “the time is ripe” for him to address next year’s Yom HaShoah commemoration in that city. “Hanin, my sister in the struggle with the Zionist Entity, just did an amazing job. The way she took a commemoration of a Nazi pogrom against Jews and turned it into an anti-Israel screed….amazing. But I think this is just the beginning. Maybe if my Iranian handlers say that it’s cool, I can make it up to Amsterdam next year for Yom HaShoah. To commemorate the Holocaust. You know, if it really happened.” When asked what a man who promised to hunt down Jews worldwide would have to say about the Holocaust, Nasrallah noted; “Well I was thinking of saying that Israel created ISIS. But if that’s not a good fit then my Brother Mahmoud Abbas knows a few things on this subject.” As for Ms. Zoabi, while she enjoyed the event commemorating the Nazis’ systematic destruction of German Jewry, she was disappointed in that she thought it would be more of an instructional “how-to” event.

Palestine Press Agency reports that a 27 year old Gaza man got into an argument with his 22 year old wife. He stabbed her to death as she was making lunch for their kids.

The reason for the fight was that the husband didn't like that his wife worked outside the home.

The husband then ran towards Israel, east of Bureij. I'm not sure what he expected the Israelis who captured him to do - declare him a hero for killing an Arab woman?

The soldiers promptly took him to the official Erez crossing and sent him back into Gaza.

The famous British pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) was a sincere philosemite and a Zionist who proposed a scheme not dissimilar to Theodor Herzl’s, and around the same time. For years he lived and worked in the Holy Land, where he delighted in using the faces of Jewish residents in his canvasses of Biblical figures and scenes. In a letter dated 5 June 1876, published in the Manchester Examiner and reproduced in certain other newspapers – including the Manchester Times of 24 June 1876, which is where I found it, and, with some passages omitted, the York Herald, 257 June 1876 – he described the panic that had set in on the day following news of the deposition in Constantinople on 30 May of Sultan Abdülaziz of Turkey (who died in suspicious circumstances four days later).

“It was … the Moslem Sabbath,” wrote Hunt of the day after the news reached Ottoman Palestine. “I was working quietly in my courtyard, enjoying the more than casual stillness, when my wife came in with a man who mysteriously insisted upon seeing me.” It turned out that the visitor was a Christian from Bethlehem and that his sister was one of the Hunt household’s servants. Clearly agitated, the man explained that all the Christians in Jerusalem feared for their safety, and “had all taken refuge in the convents or barricaded themselves in the houses in fear of an immediate massacre; that the convents were already unapproachable; that the city gates were shut; and that the Russian buildings – my last hope [of sanctuary] – were thronged and fastened up, besides being only attainable by traversing a road which, at any moment, might be beset by the [Moslem] fanatics”. For his sister’s sake, and for the Hunts’, the man had hastened “to advise us to do all we could for our defence”.

For various unstated reasons, fleeing to Jaffa was not an option. “Our only course was to barricade the house, which I did by bringing in all the winter firewood, and piling it up against the door, and by blocking up the windows with beds, &c. In the meantime, we had sent out a native servant for intelligence from a family at a long distance. The reply was not encouraging. When I had done all to barricade the house, there were three things to do – to go down to the town to ascertain the actual state of things, to get some money to keep in my pocket for any emergency, and, if possible, to get to my house in town to obtain a large supply of powder there, and the materials for making cartridges, and with these a good supply of native costumes for disguise if necessary.”

Hunt continued:

“I left my house [his rural one] in charge of the tutor, my model for the morning, my wife and little boy and nurse, and the Bethlehem woman, taking with me the native servant, with saddle-bags over his shoulders. We went along with eyes searching for every fact. It was evident that the authorities were doing all they could to establish quiet and confidence. The [Turkish] soldiers, in large bodies, were marching about with a show of good discipline … Inside the town, I was met by people who told me that, for the time, danger had passed. Some were inclined to pooh-pooh the original panic, saying that it had arisen from a misunderstanding of the motive of the general in command in serving out a double and treble supply of cartridges. Others, however, brought proofs that threats of a very distinct kind had been uttered by Moslems against certain Christians, telling them they should soon see what would become of them and their co-religionists … The [European] consuls had been to the Pasha, [who] had apparently satisfied them that the strictest vigilance would be exercised.

The scene in the morning had been a most extraordinary one; the whole population, not the
Christians only, but the Jews and even the Mahomedans, were throwing down the things they had in hand – butchers their meat, bakers their bread, grocers their supplies, and even milkmen and women their jars, and running for their lives. The matter was a mystery at best; but there was a lull in the excitement and I had to profit by it. I got my silver from the banker, and then went to my [Jerusalem] house. I met many Moslem acquaintances, who ordinarily are quite garrulous in their salutations: but this morning they either turned their heads aside altogether, or were most shy in their manner of greeting. At the cafés and other loitering places, the Effendi [the educated elite and officials], dressed in their best green robes and turbans, eyed me apparently with mingled vexation and astonishment … At the door of my house there is a café. All the habitués turned away.’

When Hunt emerged from the empty house – “I had half expected to find a Moslem servant of mine there, for I had given him leave from my [other] residence to go to the mosque to say his prayers, and he had not returned” – having filled two sacks with belongings, he found himself “watched again as if with prejudice, but no one interfered.”

Since that day, the Hunt household, despite “so many assurances had been given of our perfect safety, “ had remained on their guard, especially at night, “for after all the declarations that there was no ground for alarm, we have it proved that on the Friday there was a large army of fellaheen, numbered variously at 1,000 and 5,000, who marched up to the gates of the city which was the occasion of the shutting of the gates – and that these fellaheen before disbanding came to some resolutions (the nature of which is unknown) for future action. For the few following days it seemed possible that we might see the people of Hebron, who are great fanatics, march here. We are told to watch the progress of affairs next Friday, but if that day passes off quietly we shall return very much to only our ordinary degree of caution. However, I shall certainly not leave my gunpowder and cartridges so far away. Those who are most brave now were during the panic most in alarm.”