Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Report: In midst of Russian crisis, Erdogan says Palestinians are engaged in "honorable fight" against Israel

Palestine Press Agency reports that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan gave words of support for the wave of attacks against Jews in a speech at an economic conference of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation this morning.

According to the report, Erdogan said "The Palestinians are standing up to Israeli attacks and their violations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque; [they are] engaged in a struggle that is honest and honorable."

He also said that "the Gaza Strip has turned into an open prison because of the ongoing blockade."

I corroborated part of this, as excerpts from the speech was published in Haberler and elsewhere, but the part about Al Aqsa Mosque was not mentioned in the excerpts, which changes the context of the speech from one that apparently supports knifing Jews to a more general statement of support for "resistance." The Turkish report quotes Erdogan as saying, "In Palestine, despite the inhuman oppression and violence and Israeli attacks, our brothers give an honorable fight. This is the eighth year that 1.5 million people are under the Gaza blockade which has turned it into an open-air prison."

The entire speech is here on video, perhaps someone who knows Turkish can let us know what exactly Erdogan said and if he really was implying that he supports Arabs knifing Jews in a speech where he attacks terrorism.

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Suddenly, Muslims are upset at kids playing OUTSIDE holy places

The Shehab News Agency is upset that a bunch of Jewish kids are playing outside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

#شاهد .. ساحات المسجد الابراهيمي الشريف في الخليل أصبحت ملعبا للمستوطين .. تصوير رائد أبورميلة
Posted by Shehab News Agency on Tuesday, November 24, 2015

They are complaining that it has become a playground.

Commenters are expressing their sorrow.

Of course, what is bothering them isn't the fact that they are playing. What bothers them is the fact that they are Jews - and acting like they belong there.

Just as a reminder, here is how Arabs treat the Temple Mount, whose holiness far exceeds that of anything in Hebron according to both Jews and Muslims:

(h/t UKMediaWatch)

11/24 Links Pt2: How The New York Times whitewashes Palestinian terror; New Maccabeats

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Anthropology group votes to boycott Israel despite major donors’ — including Intel and Yahoo — thick Israeli ties

The annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association has approved a resolution to boycott Israel, which must now be voted on by the group’s membership. There are some unappreciated ironies that arise from the AAA’s efforts, and its interaction with private businesses that the AAA contracts with and takes donations from.
The resolution seeks to enlist a major academic publisher in excluding Israeli institutions from access to scholarly publications. And while the AAA is doing this, the AAA’s major donors are among the most important companies in Israel — which probably have not yet caught on to what is being done with their money.
For it turns out that the AAA does not mind getting funding from companies that, by the AAA’s logic, “maintain perpetuate the occupation.” Two of the group’s most “significant” donors are Intel and Yahoo! Labs.
Intel does not just do business in Israel, it is a big part of the Jewish State’s economy, and vice versa. Its Israel division is the country’s largest private employer, while accounting in recent years for up to 40 percent of Intel’s profit.
Intel is deeply tied in to Israeli academic institutions and has facilities all over the country. If Israel’s obscure anthropology departments “have been directly and indirectly complicit in the Israeli state’s systematic maintenance of the occupation and denial of basic rights to Palestinians, by providing planning, policy, and technological expertise for furthering Palestinian dispossession,” as the AAA resolution claims, surely Intel must be the Great Dispossessor.

Richard Landes: In an Age of Terror, How Thinking Right Can Save the Left

Among the responses in Israel to the Paris Terror Attacks, there has emerged a divide that deserves attention. Depending on where you spend your political time, one or the other response will appear predictable (and lamentable).
First, there are the self-referential Zionists who think, as they did after the attacks of Sept. 11 and the London bombings of July 7, 2005, and so many other moments: “Now, maybe they’ll understand our plight, and realize we have the same enemies,” and “We Israelis have a lot to teach you.” Their battle-hardened cousins further to the right reply, “Don’t bother trying, they’re all anti-Semitic and judge us by a double standard” or even “The West deserves what they’re getting, as a punishment for their hypocrisy.”
On the other hand, we have those who see this entire range of responses as distasteful, to say the least. Instead, they urge an expression of sympathy and solidarity unclouded by words of reproach, by displaying the French flag online as a way to declare #JeSuisFrançais. It’s really not cool for Israelis to complain about a double standard at a time like this, they scold. It’s not about us—it’s about France. As for those people, like the prime minister, who compare ISIS to Palestinian terrorists, they are engaging in a low form of propaganda, trying to use the victims of other wars in other places to wash away the sins of Israeli occupation.
In a deeply disturbing and repeating 21st-century, paradox, however, the approach of Israel’s generous and selfless ones has worked to the benefit of most regressive forces on the planet—while on the contrary, the voice that awakening Europe needs most to heed in the current crisis is that of those self-centered Israelis who relate European woes to their own pain. The failure to understand this paradox explains both why Western elites are so poor at resisting global jihad, and why, for a disaffected youth—Muslim by birth or by choice—it makes sense to join that jihad. Indeed, this split in Israeli discourse about the Paris attacks illustrates the disproportionate impact of a peculiar Jewish dispute on the current cognitive disorientation of the West.

How The New York Times whitewashes Palestinian terror

And so was the newspaper’s recent suggestion that there might never have been a temple on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, despite unanimity among serious scholars to the contrary. The timing of this attack on Jewish history was no coincidence. Palestinians have explained that the wave of violence is fueled by rumors that Israel plans to change the status quo on the Mount, and by continued Jewish visits to the site.
Instead of explaining the historical connection between the Jewish people and their holiest site, the newspaper chose to rewrite history to better fit with a Palestinian narrative that Jews are foreign to the Temple Mount. (This article and the one about the Boy Scout knife were eventually corrected.)
The newspaper has long been criticized for its obsessive scrutiny of Israeli flaws, real and imagined, coupled with soft-glove treatment of Palestinians. Even its own public editor has urged reporters to strengthen coverage of Palestinians because, she incredibly had to remind colleagues, “They are more than just victims.” Clearly, the message hasn’t been heeded.
This journalism-gone-wild isn’t good for Israel, of course. But it’s also bad for the newspaper’s readers, who want an honest account of what’s happening across the world. It’s bad for students, who risk harassment and ostracism on campus if they come out in support for the Jewish state. And if our democracy, and by extension our foreign policy, depends on a well-informed electorate, it’s bad for us all. (h/t Yenta Press)

PressTV always good for a laugh

I love stuff like this:

Dirty, stinking Jews are out to tarnish the reputation of Muslims!

(If you doubt that the "activist" is an antisemite, read this.)

The very day following the terror attack in Paris in which Islamists claimed 130 lives, the following tin-rattling post by the Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) appeared on Facebook: “CAN YOU HELP? The Online Hate Prevention Institute's Spotlight on Anti-Muslim Internet Hate campaign (SAMIH) is gathering the world's largest record of anti-Muslim hate content on social media. So far we have 451 unique items collected. We will keep taking reports until the end of November, but the crowd funding campaign supporting this project ends in 54 hours time. So far we have only raised 49% of our crowdfunding goal. Time is rapidly running out to support this vital project. Please help?” A more specific link was provided: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/samih-spotlight-on-anti-muslim-internet-hate#/ On November 15 the appeal closed, having met 68 per cent of its target.

Despite the timing of the OHPI’s post the comments beneath the Facebook appeal – mainly written by non-Muslim women, it seems – were singularly free of “anti-Muslim hate”. Virtually the first person to set the comments rolling ventured: “Sorry but after Paris event unfolding it is hard not to be angry”. Immediately challenged by another commenter with “Angry at who?” she explained: “The terrorist and the people who support them. This will only exacerbate the distrust of the Muslim people”. A little later she was obliged to clarify that with “…what worries me [is] that the average person will not be able to differentiate between Muslims and terrorists its so sad that so many will suffer the wrath because of the actions of those who say they are doing this in the name of "Allah".’
Despite these reasonable enough observations she was lectured almost to the point of harassment by other commenters.

Observed another woman: “Hatred against Muslims has no place .... online or anywhere. Speaking out against acts of violence and terrorism which are supposedly carried out by fanatics in the name of ISLAM or Allah does have a place....everywhere. Unfortunately, many people don't understand the difference between the peaceful principles that underpin the Muslim faith and the idiotic acts of violence by those who can't possibly be true Muslims. I urge all true believers of the Muslim faith to proclaim loudly and constantly that you do not condone these acts of violence. You must speak and act now. This will help to turn the tide of growing misplaced hatred against ALL Muslims. Show that you are united with the world and declare your outrage against all acts of violence done in the name of Allah. We will stand with you, will you stand with us ??”

Not exactly “Islamophobic” was she? Indeed, rather too naïve. But, boy, did she cop a scolding from others. This for instance, from someone with a female western name: “Remind me again when i was supposed to apologise for Westboro Baptists? Also, have you noticed we dont need a Spotlight on Christian Hate Campaign because of Westboro Baptists filthy behaviours? Christians did not need to seek the spotlight to publicly vocally condemn Anders Brievek [sic]? I didnt notice any Pagans apologising for the extreme right wing Pagans that were arrested through the week? I dont see a lot of Jewish people being expected to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestinians? (but hey, wouldnt it be nice if so many stopped defending them..) … It is not your place to tell Muslim people what to do. Speak up on their behalf, but stop placing your expectations on other people. They already speak out and they do enough… Have you asked Muslim people what you can do to help? Have you considered that it may mean you need to speak out more publicly to condemn the terrorism of your own people - the west? Do you have a right to tell others to condemn terrorism if you don't do it sufficiently yourself? Do you speak out to condemn terrorism when it is directed at thousands of people in Africa or Beirut or Baghdad or just when it is directed at "us"?’

“Not even 24 hours and the Arabs are blaming Israel and America for the terrorist attacks in Paris” observed somebody archly.

The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) was founded by forces within the Australian Jewish community in 2012 to counter antisemitism, and with exceptions, members of that community, including the current head of the Zionist Federation, constitute its present Board, while its International Advisory Board is composed mainly of Jews. Since its foundation, though, it has considerably widened its sphere, as its website shows:

‘[It] is Australia’s National Charity dedicated to tackling the problem of online hate including online extremism, cyber-racism, cyber-bullying, online religious vilification, online misogyny, and other forms of online hate attacking individuals and groups in society. We aim to be a world leader in combating online hate and a critical partner who works with key stakeholders to improve the prevention and mitigation of online hate and the harm it causes. Ultimately, OHPI seeks to facilitate a change in online culture so that hate in all its forms becomes as socially unacceptable online as it is in “real life”… OHPI monitors all forms of online hate. This includes both “hate speech” directed against groups, or against individuals because of they belong to an identifiable group, and cyberbullying which can involve hateful content directed against an individual for any reason, or for no apparant [sic] reason at all… Our definition is wider than both that of the law and that of platform providers. We aim to promote debate about the type of society we, the internet-using public, wish to see. We also seek to raise awareness about the dangers that hate, whatever form it takes, can have on individuals and their physical and emotional health.’

Having myself endured four years of appalling and sustained cyberstalking and online abuse by an repugnant anti-Israel (male) leftist in the UK on various web forums (a major reason why I use an alias) I fully realise how extremely worthy many of OHPI’s aims are.

Nonetheless, despite its good intentions, its adoption of the term “Islamophobia,” and its consequent zeal for exposing and suppressing instances of what it considers “Islamophobia” smacks of authoritarianism and thought control – and, crucially, legitimate and necessary debate on perhaps the most pressing problem of our time.

Take, for instance, the report “Islamophobia on the Web” issued in 2013 by the OHPI in collaboration with the Islamic Council of Victoria. According to the OHPI’s website, “The authors divide the hate messages appearing in several different categories around which focuses Islamophobic activity of Internet users: Muslims as a threat to safety or a threat to public safety; Muslims as a threat to culture; Muslims as a threat to the economy; Content dehumanizing or demonizing Muslims; Threat of violence, genocide, and direct hatred directed at Muslims; The hatred directed at refugees or asylum seekers; Other forms of hatred.”

And take this pronouncement of the OHPI regarding these Facebook groups in parentheses (The United Patriots Front; Crusade against the Islamisation of the World; 1 Million Aussies Against ISLAM by Election Day 2016; Aussie Pride – No Islam – No Shariah Law; Australian Defence League; Exposing islam; Australian Patriot; Australians Against Islam – Melbourne; Australian Infidel Resistance Fighters; Stop the mosque in Kalgoorlie Boulder; All countries together against radical ISLAM; English Defence League; Britain First; BAN the Islamic Extremist Group ‘Sharia4Australia’):

“These pages promote hatred of the Muslim community, many of them focused specifically on the Australian Muslim community. Please take a moment to look at the pages and their content, and to report both to Facebook and to FightAgainstHate.com… Pages promote the idea that one group is [sic] society should dictate how others conduct themselves, which make them a fertile ground for a minority who wish to promote vilification and engaging in bullying.”

Does this foreshadow shutting down debate on the effects on Western nations and society of mass Muslim migration? And what of the very misogyny that the OHPI purports to fight when the misogyny emanates from and exists within Muslim communities? One example of anti-Muslim hatred shown on OHPI’s website is a poster showing the words “Sharia Law” with a traffic stop sign superimposed upon it. Does the OHPI deny that the supposed inferiority and the subjugation of women in all sorts of ways is endemic in that law? Does it consider as “hate speech” criticism of that law and of the sharia courts that are springing up around the Western world as “Islamophobia?” Do the writings of online experts on Islam, such as the distinguished Australian scholar of Islam Dr Mark Durie, constitute “Islamophobia” in the OHPI’s eyes?

Yes, the OHPI’s road is paved with good intentions. But we all know the old adage that warns where that road leads.

As the splendid Brendan O’Neill wrote in Saturday’s The Australian:

…The Islamophobia industry, funded by officials, uncritically fawned over by much of the media, does two really bad things. First, it gives Muslims the impression that criticism of their religion is wicked. Indeed, when the idea of Islamophobia was invented in the 1990s, primarily by aloof think tanks such as the Britain-based Runnymede Trust, the concern was entirely with policing criticism of Islam and shooting down the idea that Western values are superior.

The second bad thing this industry does is convince Muslims that the world hates them.
With their bumped-up stats and often shrill claims, it’s surely the Islamophobia-obsessed think tanks and journalists, not isolated Islamophobes, who have made some Muslims feel like aliens. The consequences of the elite project of cultivating Muslim fear are dire. The Islamophobia industry censors and divides, making whites feel they can’t express moral concerns about Islam and making Muslims feel like an utterly removed group. It may not cause but it certainly contributes to a feeling of injury among some Muslims, especially younger ones. I’ve seen this on campuses in Britain, where radical Islam is growing. When I speak for Islamic societies at universities, I’m often shocked by people’s attitudes. Their capacity for self-pity is profound; their suspicion of Western society is palpable…

Runnymede, whose 20-year-old definition of Islamophobia informs the global debate, said Islamophobic speech included claims that Islam was “inferior to the West”. It implored the political classes to present Islam as “distinctively different but not deficient”, as being as “equally worthy of respect (as Western values)”. So from the get-go, the Islamophobia industry was about reprimanding opinion, punishing moral judgment, so that even the belief that Western democratic values trumped Islamic ones came to be pathologised as a phobia.

It was about imposing relativism, not challenging racism. And we wonder why some radical Western Islamists hate and threaten those who mock their faith. They’ve grown up in nations in which criticism of Islam and a preference for Western values have been demonised. They’re kind of the armed wing of the Islamophobia industry.

The Islamophobia industry, and more importantly the late 20th-century creed of relativistic non-judgmentalism that fuels it, makes it harder to do the very thing we must do post-Paris: argue unapologetically for the values of liberty and democracy, for all the good, amazing stuff about Western society, and assert that these things are better than Islamism.

11/24 Links Pt1: Murray: 'There is no diplomatic situation that John Kerry cannot make worse'

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: In Sex and War, the Left Is in Denial about Some Obvious Facts of Life

I mention this because we should recall that this is what the modern Left in the modern West has reduced us to: a twittering, gibbering puddle of competing neuroses — some sincere, most not.
Then some real triggering went off in Paris. And instead of students falling over themselves to pretend to be more wounded than the next, people the same age as they and younger were being gunned down in Paris by the score for having a drink or going to a concert or football match. Of course, the major tragedy was that so many lives had been lost or destroyed so un-mendably. But one follow-on grief was that once again the people who should be in positions of power decided to check out.
The American president’s cursory remarks on the tragedy sounded like someone not merely phoning it in but visibly yearning for the post-presidential speaking and golf circuit. His secretary of state, meanwhile, used the aftermath of the slaughter of 130 people in a European capital to vow “resolve.” Perhaps the average French memory can still stretch back ten months.
If so, they will be suitably cool about the promise. For that was the last time Secretary John Kerry had to respond to a brutal massacre in Paris. On that occasion he turned up late with the guitarist James Taylor. To a visibly pained audience, James Taylor sang, on behalf of Kerry and the whole American people, “You’ve got a friend.” It is hard to think of a more mawkishly insulting diplomatic offering. The French foreign minister turning up in New York a week after 9/11 and hauling along a Gallic crooner to sing “Que sera sera”? Of course John Kerry made it worse, as he always does, by saying that he had turned up in the wake of the slaughter of twelve journalists and four Jews to “share a hug with Paris.”
This time Kerry made things worse still by implying that, whereas January’s attacks had some “legitimacy” or “rationale,” these were indiscriminate. The only thing that linked them, in Secretary Kerry’s eyes, was of course that they had “nothing to do with Islam.” Here in Britain and across Europe, politicians are conspicuously uttering this lie less and less because the public finds it less and less believable. But Kerry plods earnestly along. This latest attack, he said, “has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism — I mean, you name it.” Sure, so long as you don’t name it “Islam.”

Sam Harris PodCast: On the Maintenance of Civilization - A Conversation with Douglas Murray

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with author Douglas Murray about Islamism, liberalism, civil society, and the migrant crisis in Europe. (~2 hours)

Clip: Douglas Murray W/ Sam Harris - The Refugee Crisis

Caroline Glick: Obama’s new counter-terrorism guru

This debate is clearly uncomfortable for liberal US media outlets. So they have sought to change the subject.
As the Democratic Party adopted Bush as its new counterterrorism guru, the liberal media sought to end discussion of radical Islam by castigating as bigots Republicans who speak of it. The media attempt over the weekend to claim falsely that Republican frontrunner Donald Trump called for requiring American Muslims to be registered in a national Muslim database marked such an attempt to change the subject.
The common denominator between Bush’s strategic decision to lie about the nature of the enemy, Obama’s apologetics for IS and the media’s attempt to claim that Republicans are anti-Islamic racists is that in all cases, an attempt is being made to assert that there is no pluralism in Islam – it’s either entirely good or entirely evil.
This absolutist position is counterproductive for two reasons. First, it gets you nowhere good in the war against radical Islam. The fact is that Islam per se is none of the US president’s business. His business is to defeat those who attack the US and to stand with America’s allies against their common foes.
Radical Islam may be a small component of Islam or a large one. But it certainly is a component of Islam. Its adherents believe they are good Muslims and they base their actions on their Islamic beliefs.
American politicians, warfighters and policymakers need to identify that form of Islam, study it and base their strategies for fighting the radical Islamic forces on its teachings.
Bush was wrong to lie about the Islamic roots of radical Islam. And his mistake had devastating strategic consequences for the world as a whole. It is fortuitous that the Clinton and the Democratic Party have embraced Bush’s failed strategy of ignoring the enemy for justifying their even more extreme position. Now that they have, they have given a green light to Republicans as well as Democrats who are appalled by Obama’s apologetics for radical Islam to learn from Bush’s mistakes and craft an honest and effective strategic approach to the challenge of radical Islam.

Richard Kemp: Western kindness is killing democracy

The horrific attacks in Paris ignited a potent demonstration of solidarity throughout the Western world. Global landmarks have been bathed in illuminated Tricolor flags, social media has been awash with tributes and moments of silence have been observed in major capitals. This determined sense of unity in the face of terrorism is entirely admirable, yet useless if it remains the sum total of the West’s response. The time has come to truly comprehend that Western democracy faces nothing less than a bitter and bloody fight to shape the future of the world. The battle against jihadist Islamism cannot be fought with demonstrations of goodwill.
Kindness and compromise is simply no match for suicide bombers. The West can no longer afford to play the compassionate democrat when it faces an enemy which respects no ethical rulebook whatsoever.
The latest Paris atrocities have conclusively demonstrated the utter folly of any attempt to appease, accommodate or “understand” the demands of Islamism. The murder of Charlie Hebdo staff in January was foolishly portrayed by some as a response to religious defamation.
In fact, the Western requirement for logical cause and effect has long insisted that terrorist attacks are a cry for justice at perceived wrongdoing.But the murderous assault on Paris’ restaurants, bars, sports and leisure venues show that the jihadists’ only goal is death.
There is no discussion, no conversation to be had, because Islamists quite simply have no grievance. Their target is Western existence.

Israel-haters are a strange breed:

A number of Zionist investors bought an island in Finland which is worth 450 thousand euro in order to make it the Israeli colony.

A number of Zionist investors under the pretext of being in a calm, harmonic distortion have purchased an island in one of the Scandinavian countries (Finland) which costs 450 thousand euros," Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth" reported.

They intend to create a colony of Israel for those who love nature. This island officially is called Petäjäsaari.

Name of some of the investors is revealed: Amir Weil, Aviad Scheibitz, Assaf Giller and Moti Shemtovi.

Some of the anti-Zionist Jewish groups have compared this action with occupation of Palestine by the Jews in 1948

The real story is at YNet. Israelis bought one of the thousands of islands for sale in Finland to create ecologically friendly vacation homes for that are far removed from everyday life. While they are marketing the cottages to Israelis, they are selling them to anyone who wants, and have so far sold cottages to buyers from England, Germany, Switzerland and even Finland itself.

The local Finnish are excited about the purchase. Their only initial concern was not that Israelis were buying the land but that they were a front organization for Russians.

But it is nice that the Israel-haters seem to admit with their analogy that Jews legally bought land in Palestine when they moved there in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

Gaza's luxury restaurants. Just like Buchenwald.

The Mazaj:

The Castillo:

La Rosa restaurant and party center:

Carino's Caffe:

Sababa City Star:

Reem Elbwady:

The Lighthouse:

The world keeps believing that Mahmoud Abbas is against escalating the current unrest because he is officially against using firearms - although he has not condemned the many Israelis stabbed and run over using his "non-violent" methods.

But his Fatah party has just contradicted what Abbas tells the West.

Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Qalandiya checkpoint on Monday night after a resident of Qalandiya refugee camp, 16-year-old Hadeel Awwad, was shot dead in central Jerusalem earlier in the day after she allegedly attempted a stabbing attack.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's military wing, claimed responsibility for the attack, which did not result in any reported injuries.

The brigades said they would continue to target Qalandiya checkpoint, as well as Israeli settlements, settlers and soldiers, in order to "defend" the Palestinian people.

This is not the Gaza branch of the Aqsa Brigades, but the West Bank branch under Abbas' control and funding.

Here is video of the attack:

The Al Aqsa Brigades also held a protest in front of the ICRC offices in Gaza City on Monday claiming that Israel is mistreating prisoners, featuring some classic antisemitism and an Arafat look-alike brandishing a gun.

The NFL's moment of silence for Ezra Schwartz

VIDEO: Moment of Honor. American Ezra Schwartz was just 18 when he was murdered last week by a Palestinian terrorist. Ezra was honored with a moment of silence before tonight's Monday Night Football game in his native Boston. Ezra was a passionate New England Patriots fan before his life was taken.Will you watch and share this moment of silence to honor the life of Ezra? ----> Stop Palestinian Terror. Add your name to IsraelIsUnderAttack.com
Posted by The Israel Project on Monday, November 23, 2015

Too bad they couldn't mention that Ezra was murdered in Israel.

11/23 Links Pt2: Chief Rabbi of Brussels: There is no future for Jews in Europe; Terror Is Terror Is Terror

From Ian:

Chief Rabbi of Brussels: There is no future for Jews in Europe

In the shadow of the Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people and as Belgian police sweep the country for terror suspects, the Chief Rabbi of Brussels said Monday that there is no future for Jews in Europe.
Rabbi Avraham Gigi spoke to Israeli radio station 103 FM about the atmosphere of fear in the Belgian capital that has been in a state of near lockdown for the past three days.
"There is a sense of fear in the streets, the Belgians understand that they too are targets of terror. Jews now pray in their homes [as opposed to at synagogues] and some of them are planning on emigrating," Gigi said.
"Since Shabbat the city has been paralyzed. The synagogues were closed, something which has not happened since World War Two. People are praying alone or are holding small minyanim [small prayer groups] at private homes. Schools and theaters are closed as are most large stores and public events are not permitted. We live in fear and wait for instructions from the police or the government," he said.
Gigi gave a breakdown of the Belgian Jewish population which he said numbered 50,000.
"There are 25,000 Jews in Brussels, 18,000 in Antwerp and the rest live in smaller places. There has been aliya to Israel as well as emigration to Canada and the US. People understand there is no future for Jews in Europe," he said.

‘Remaining and expanding’

Islamic State has lost around 20-25 percent of its holdings in the course of the last half year. But these losses are manageable. Indeed, the group has in recent weeks continued to expand in a western direction, across the desert to Palmyra and thence into Homs province in Syria. Why, then, embark on a path that risks the destruction of Islamic State at the hands of forces incomparably stronger than it? The answer is that Islamic State does not, like some other manifestations of political Islam in the region, combine vast strategic goals with a certain tactical patience and pragmatism. Rather, existing at the most extreme point of the Sunni Islamist continuum, it is a genuine apocalyptic cult. It has little interest in being left alone to create a model of Islamic governance according to its own lights, as its Western opponents had apparently hoped.
Its slogan is “baqiya wa tatamaddad” (remaining and expanding). The latter is as important an imperative as the former. Islamic State must constantly remain in motion and in kinetic action.
If this action results in Western half-measures and prevarication, then this will exemplify the weakness of the enemy to Islamic State supporters and spur further recruitment and further attacks. And if resolve and pushback is exhibited by the enemy, this, too, can be welcomed as part of the process intended to result in the final apocalyptic battles which are part of the Islamic State eschatology.
Because of this, allowing Islamic State to quietly fester in its Syrian and Iraqi domains is apparently not going to work.
The problem and consequent dilemma for Western policy-makers are that Islamic State is only a symptom, albeit a particularly virulent one, of a much larger malady. Were it not so, the matter of destroying a brutal, ramshackle entity in the badlands of Syria and Iraq would be fairly simple. A Western expeditionary force on the ground could achieve it in a matter of weeks and would presumably be welcomed by a grateful population.
This, however, is unlikely to be attempted, precisely because the real (but rarely stated) problem underlying Islamic State is the popularity and legitimacy of virulently anti-Western Sunni Islamist politics among the Sunni Arab populations of the area.

Finkelstein vs. Salaita: Battle of the Anti-Israel Professors

Norman Finkelstein, who is currently teaching at Sakarya University in Turkey after being denied tenure at DePaul University, has some choice words for Steven Salaita. The latter reached an $875,000 settlement with the University of Illinois (UI) in a lawsuit involving UI’s withdrawal of an offered position in its American Indian Studies Program due to his inflammatory, Israel-bashing tweets. Like Finkelstein, Salaita went on to teach in the Middle East, in this case at American University in Beirut (AUB). Neither is happy about it.
Ira Glunts asked Finkelstein to comment on Salaita’s settlement for the left-wing, anti-Israel website Dissident Voice, given that they are both, as he conspiratorially described it, “victim[s] of Jewish lobby pressure.” After declaring at the outset, “I am not a party-liner,” Finkelstein let loose:
I’ve read Salaita – or, let’s say, I’ve endeavored to read him. Even Google has yet to invent a translation program that makes coherent sense of his prose. . . . [I]n a rational world it would be cause for wonder how he got hired in the first place. It’s a telling commentary on the state of the humanities that his tweets got greater scrutiny than his (so-called) scholarship.
Finkelstein maintained that Salaita was hardly a victim, given his hefty settlement and the fact that he now holds “the prestigious Edward Said chair” at AUB:
That’s not bad for someone with a PhD from the University of Oklahoma who, before being hired to teach Native American Studies at an excellent second-tier university, last taught English composition at Virginia Tech.

Which countries have the most Twitter support for ISIS per capita?

Earlier this year, the Brookings Institute came out with an interesting statistic:

If you calculate these numbers based on number of pro-ISIS tweeters per million Muslims with Internet access in each country, the chart looks like this:

The US numbers might be skewed because some percentage of the tweeters might be just trolls, but even so the US might want to take this threat more seriously.

This chart also indicates that Palestinians are far more radicalized than Muslims in Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Turkey. That is a subject that the media avoids studiously.

After last week’s latest round of terror attacks in Paris, France, Hollande issued a harsh response to ISIS by sending French fighter jets to strike their strongholds in Syria. After what looked like a strong leader-like response, Hollande declared “life must go on” and France will accept 30,000 more Syrian refugees. He has certainly made it clear that his bleeding leftist heart will continue to accept the inevitable; more terrorism to hit the country.

ISIS issued a world wide threat for Sunday and even more attacks to come in the European Union. So, has Hollande lost his mind descending deeper into liberal madness or is he just that out of touch with reality? Like Obama, Francois Hollande is so blinded by ideology that he is mentally unable to make a rational decision unless sympathy, empathy and compassion for what could be a potentially disastrous move for the safety and security of French citizens. What’s a few dead French citizens in the name of tolerance of those seeking the entire destruction of the West sneaking in under the perfect cover?

President Hollande, when terrorists say they are going to kill you, you take them at their word instead of trying to figure out what it is they’re really trying to say. Sir, ISIS terrorists posing as helpless, needy, displaced people got into France and murdered more of your citizens than Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cache.

His comrades in the EU continue to insist the terror attack in Paris is due in large part because of the Palestinian issue. Hollande’s silence in denying this speaks volumes. He’s lucky his friends are circling the wagons for him.

When you closed your borders, the world applauded you. Now you are re-opening them? How did you do such a fast U-turn descending further away from the strength you exhibited just a few days ago? And yet, his leftist ideology clouds his judgement by allowing more potential danger into his country. One has to wonder if the biggest advocate of no borders anywhere, George Soros, is pulling Hollande’s strings in the background.

Breitbart uncovered that the Soros funded group, Open Society has launched its own efforts to keep the revolving door of Syrian refugees flowing. The same George Soros who supports and funds J-Street, which fights the democratically elected Israeli government. Is the same happening in France? Is George Soros helping to dismantle the West? It is and has been the sole trait of Soros to want to change the fabric of societies and cultures he sees as oppressive and illegitimate in terms of traditional values deemed precious to the western way of freedom and democracy. The left hates the police, but they love a police state that limits freedom. They also love throwing each other under the bus to advance their sinister cause of equal outcome.

Francoise Hollande may have destroyed what could have been a promising career or not. Chances are he could enjoy a promotion in the Mideast Quartet once he helps #Marinelepen2017 hwin the next election. Either way, I doubt we'll ever see the last of him.

11/23 Links Pt1: Will the Threat From ISIS End the Double Standard on Israel?; Unspeakable Kerry

From Ian:

Will the Threat From ISIS End the Double Standard on Israel?

The first post-Paris terror incident in France was the stabbing of an Orthodox Jewish teacher by an ISIS sympathizer. The world reacted with a collective yawn.
In the Jewish state, a year and a day after two Palestinians used meat cleavers to literally butcher Rabbis at prayer in a Jerusalem Synagogue, terrorists murdered Jews at prayer in Tel Aviv and gunned down an American Yeshiva student and two Israelis on a West Bank road. Much of the reportage defaulted to the “cycle of violence” in the Holy Land and listed statistics of how many died on “both sides.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote on Facebook: “Behind these terrorist attacks stands radical Islam, which seeks to destroy us, the same radical Islam that struck in Paris and threatens all of Europe. Whoever condemned the attacks in France needs to condemn the attacks in Israel. It’s the same terror. Whoever does not do this is a hypocrite and blind.”
But while leaders quietly appreciate the real-time intelligence Israel is providing to France and the media dutifully reported that Israeli radar was the first to detect evidence that a bomb brought down the Russian jet over Sinai, sympathy for Israelis cut down by terrorist is rarely expressed and Palestinian terrorism is rarely condemned.
The war on terror is indivisible. After France’s 11/13, the world has another opportunity to launch a global action plan.
A key starting point is to reject the “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” mantra that provides moral cover for those who direct or benefit from terrorism. It has worked especially well for Palestinian leaders. Why stop terror, when millions keep flowing in from donor nations, when human rights NGOs maintain a stoic silence when Jewish blood flows and when diplomatic legitimacy continues to expand?
Hopefully, ISIS will disappear at some point. But if the scourge of our time is to defeated, civilized civilized people must set a single standard in the war to eradicate terrorism. Otherwise, new deadly acronyms of terror will emerge. And we and our children will be no safer.

David Horovitz: Beating the Islamist death cult

As we watch all those Palestinian kids’ TV shows urging Jew-killing, read the Fatah and Hamas calls to murder, see the mothers and fathers of the daily murderers hailing their “martyred” children, the last thing we’re saying is, Let’s entrust these people with full sovereignty, so that they can more easily fulfill their stated ambition of pushing us into the sea. As we guard against them, all our differences — the arguments over settlements, over how to maintain a Jewish-democratic Israel, over what more we can do to create an environment more likely to encourage moderation — are simply overwhelmed and rendered irrelevant.
For now, Israelis are having to adjust their daily lives, to minimize their vulnerability, to guard against the banal norm of relaxing when out and about. More security forces are being deployed. The intelligence hierarchies are working overtime.
None of which constitutes a means of defanging Islamist terrorism at its source. For that — precisely as with the mass terror onslaught in Paris 10 days ago, and the dire ongoing threat of further Islamist terror coming West — what’s needed is concerted action at the grassroots.
When people come at you with a gun or a knife or scissors or bombs or their car, you had better stop them first. Ideally, you’ll identify and thwart them before they set out. The fight needs to be physically taken to the enemy. But it also needs to be waged educationally — in the schools and the mosques and online. The advocates and apologists must be afforded no tolerance.
We’ll not beat the many-headed Islamist terror monster until that ostensible religious imperative is shattered — until radical Islam, that is, is exposed, marginalized and ultimately defeated as the murderous death cult it is.

Elliott Abrams: Unspeakable Kerry

It seems that to Kerry, when people kill journalists and Jews, that is not an attack on “everything that we do stand for,” whereas attacking a restaurant and stadium and a concert hall is. A bit odd: Do we stand for good food and sports and music more than we stand for freedom of the press and freedom of religion? Kerry seems confused here, but we get the point. He is saying that it’s understandable when people murder innocents because they have a particular reason to be mad at them, but now the terrorists are attacking all of us. He contrasts, perhaps without even knowing what he was saying, last “Friday night when people were going about their normal business” with that other Friday night in January, when some people were instead out preparing for Shabbat.
Few of us are cartoonists and few of us shop in kosher delis, but any of us at all might be a target now. So now to Kerry this is an attack on everything we do stand for, which apparently may not include protecting religious minorities and journalists, who perhaps are to blame in some sense for their own troubles. Somehow it is far worse in his mind to attack “all sense of nationhood and nation-state.” This is bizarre in the extreme. When Jews are attacked we all know why, but when France is attacked, well, that is simply unspeakable.
In October 1980, there was another terrorist attack on Paris. The synagogue on the Rue Copernic was bombed while it was packed with Jewish worshipers. Four people were killed and 46 wounded. Prime Minister Raymond Barre said on television the next day, “This odious bombing wanted to strike Jews who were going to the synagogue and it hit innocent French people who crossed Rue Copernic.”
Kerry is regarded as an enlightened man and without bigotry or prejudice of any kind, which makes his remarks all the more interesting. If his language was incoherent at times, his thoughts were not, and they are remarkably close to those of Barre and to his distinction between Jews and “innocent” Frenchmen. The November 13 attacks, Kerry appears to be thinking, are more terrible than the January attacks because those shootings hit Jews and cartoonists, but these hit, as Barre would have put it, “innocent French people”—people like you and me going to dinner or a concert. This is a statement not of solidarity with targeted victim groups but of distancing from them, and as such it is an immoral and disgusting position. Kerry’s Harvard statement blaming (nonexistent) Israeli settlement expansion for Palestinian stabbing attacks is equally offensive. That this is the thinking of the American secretary of state during a period of rising terrorism, especially against Jews, is almost unbelievable.

Thanks to @Amnesty and @HRW, the US is surrendering to ISIS

There was a bombshell (so to speak) article in the Washington Free Beacon last week:

U.S. military pilots who have returned from the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq are confirming that they were blocked from dropping 75 percent of their ordnance on terror targets because they could not get clearance to launch a strike, according to a leading member of Congress.

Strikes against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) targets are often blocked due to an Obama administration policy to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage, according to Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The policy is being blamed for allowing Islamic State militants to gain strength across Iraq and continue waging terrorist strikes throughout the region and beyond, according to Royce and former military leaders who spoke Wednesday about flaws in the U.S. campaign to combat the Islamic State.

[A] Pentagon official defended the Obama administration’s policy and said that the military is furiously working to prevent civilian casualties.

“The bottom line is that we will not stoop to the level of our enemy and put civilians more in harm’s way than absolutely necessary,” the official told the Washington Free Beacon, explaining that the military often conducts flights “and don’t strike anything.”

Jack Keane, a retired four-star U.S. general, agreed with Royce’s assessment of the administration’s policy and blamed President Barack Obama for issuing orders that severely constrain the U.S. military from combatting terror forces.

“This has been an absurdity from the beginning,” Keane said in response to questions from Royce. “The president personally made a statement that has driven air power from the inception.”

“When we agreed we were going to do airpower and the military said, this is how it would work, he [Obama] said, ‘No, I do not want any civilian casualties,’” Keane explained. “And the response was, ‘But there’s always some civilian casualties. We have the best capability in the world to protect from civilians casualties.’”

However, Obama’s response was, “No, you don’t understand. I want no civilian casualties. Zero,’” Keane continued. “So that has driven our so-called rules of engagement to a degree we have never had in any previous air campaign from Desert Storm to the present.”

This is likely the reason that U.S. pilots are being told to back down when Islamic State targets are in site, Keane said, citing statistics published earlier this year by U.S. Central Command showing that pilots return from sorties in Iraq with about 75 percent of their ordnance unexpended.

“Believe me,” Keane added, “the French are in there not using the restrictions we have imposed on our pilots.”

Obama is the first head of state in history to engage in a war where the rules of war have been created not by generals but by so-called "human rights groups."

We've looked at international law as it is actually written, not as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty choose ti interpret it. The laws of armed conflict allow a nation at war to minimize civilians casualties but many military targets are valuable enough that unwanted civilian casualties become a necessary evil.

To mandate that a war must be waged where there are zero civilian casualties is to surrender that war.

US armed forces manuals and statements are consistent with international law. One recent example is the US Naval Handbook (2007):

The principle of proportionality is directly linked to the principle of distinction. While distinction is concerned with focusing the scope and means of attack so as to cause the least amount of damage to protected persons and property, proportionality is concerned with weighing the military advantage one expects to gain against the unavoidable and incidental loss to civilians and civilian property that will result from the attack. The principle of proportionality requires the commander to conduct a balancing test to determine if the incidental injury, including death to civilians and damage to civilian objects, is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained.

It is not unlawful to cause incidental injury to civilians, or collateral damage to civilian objects, during an attack upon a legitimate military objective. The principle of proportionality requires that the anticipated incidental injury or collateral damage must not, however, be excessive in light of the military advantage expected to be gained. A military objective within a city, town, or village may, however, be bombarded if required for the submission of the enemy with the minimum expenditure of time, life, and physical resources. The anticipated incidental injury to civilians, or collateral damage to civilian objects, must not be excessive in light of the military advantage anticipated by the attack.

Death and injury to civilians and civilian objects are to be avoided as much as possible without sacrificing the military advantage to be gained by attacking the enemy forces. The person that makes this decision, under international law, is the military commander of the operation, with the best information he or she has at the time. It is not a head of state with no military experience.

The laws of armed conflict were written very carefully to allow states to wage war while minimizing civilian casualties. By choosing to use an interpretation of the LOAC that no military commander would ever use, Obama has given ISIS the ability to easily shield its targets from any US attack.

Chances are pretty good that the criticism that HRW and Amnesty routinely hurl at Israel for adhering to the laws of war as they were written is part of Obama's disastrous decision to abandon those laws in favor of the terrorists.

This is a recipe for national suicide. Maybe not from ISIS, but you can be sure that Russia and China and North Korea are carefully calibrating what they could do to win a possible war with the US one day, and this policy of surrender in the face of potential civilian casualties would give them a huge advantage.

(h/t JE Dyer)