Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Egypt may have just killed 14 Palestinians. Ho-hum.

From Ma'an:

Gazan Civil Defense rescue teams on Tuesday morning were battling to save the lives of 14 Palestinians who went missing inside a smuggling tunnel when Egyptian military forces filled it with seawater.

Muhammad al-Meidana, a Civil Defense official, told Ma'an that rescue teams had been able to save the lives of seven tunnel workers, but that contact was lost with 14 others, who were now missing.

Initial reports that the Civil Defense had established contact with these 14 workers turned out to be false.

There were apparently 21 people in the tunnel, and seven of them managed to get out.

Even the Palestinian press, while reporting it, is not treating this as that big a deal so far.

Because dead Palestinians are only newsworthy based on who can be blamed for their deaths.

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

Another amazing coincidence as randomly killed Palestinian is member of terror group

Ma'an reports:

Israeli forces shot dead a 19-year-old Palestinian during a predawn detention raid into Duheisha refugee camp to the south of Bethlehem on Tuesday.

Medics identified the Palestinian as Malik Akram Shahin and said he had been shot in the forehead, where the bullet remained lodged.

Witnesses said he was "left bleeding for long before he was evacuated to the public hospital in Beit Jala, where medics pronounced him dead."

He was killed when large numbers of Israeli forces stormed Duheisha camp in the early hours of Tuesday, detaining a number of local residents and delivering summons to others.

As the soldiers broke into Palestinians' homes, they reportedly fired live rounds, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades "indiscriminately" through the camp's narrow alleys.

An Israeli army spokesperson said that "overnight, a riot broke out" in Duheisha camp, with Palestinians throwing "pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails" at Israeli soldiers.

And it just so happened, if you believe this report, that a 19 year old man was killed. But it could have easily been a 72 year old woman. After all, the bullets were indiscriminately fired, we are told.

But if you read the description of his death issued by the terror group PFLP, a different picture emerges:

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine mourns the martyr hero of the uprising Comrade Malik Akram Shahin, 19, and who was martyred at dawn today during violent clashes with Israeli soldiers during the storming of Dheisheh camp and their implementation of a campaign of arrests against our comrades.

The Popular Front expresses great pride over the hero martyr, and praises his virtues of struggle and heroism and intense resolve to confront the occupation and respond to it, especially when it tried to storm the camp.

The Popular Front confirmed that the continued targeting by the Zionist occupation of our cadres and members in Dheisheh camp and carrying out a wide arrest campaign against them will not extinguish the flame of the burning of the intifada, especially on the eve of the 48th anniversary our glorious beginnings.

The PFLP sonfirms that the continuation of the occupation in the commission of heinous crimes against our youth who are leading the fighting in the field directly against the occupation will not prevent them from continuing to escalate the confrontation and clashes with the occupation soldiers and settlers.

Sure enough, Shahin's funeral was a PFLP affair.

The PFLP webpage's current logo is a stylized Molotov cocktail:

That is what Ma'an doesn't bother to say to its English speaking audience (and the many who read sites that syndicate Ma'an's content.) We wouldn't want to muddle a good narrative with extraneous facts, would we?

12/07 Links Pt2: Muslim scholar: No connection btw Temple Mt. and Islam; A Quiz for Christian Anti-Zionists

From Ian:

Egyptian Muslim scholar: No connection between Temple Mt., Islam

Renowned Egyptian scholar Youssef Ziedan, a specialist in Arabic and Islamic studies, has given a series of interviews to Egyptian television stations of late, the purpose of which appears to be to anger his Muslim colleagues.
His main point has been to say that there is actually no connection between Jerusalem and ancient Islam. When Islam was founded during the 7th century, he says, Jerusalem was a holy city to the Jews, while the Mosque of Omar was not even built until 74 years after Muhammed's death. The reason it was built, Ziedan says, is because the builder wished to detract from the centrality of Mecca in Islam.
Prof. Ziedan is the director of the Manuscript Center and Museum in the Library of Alexandria. He is a public lecturer, university professor, columnist and prolific author of more than 50 books. He won the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his work Azazeel, which was also translated into Hebrew.
Jerusalem was not known as Al-Quds (City of the Sanctuary) during Muhammad's times, Ziedan says.
"Al-Aksa is not ours," he emphasizes, "and though the word comes from the word 'extreme,' it does not refer to the far mosque on the Temple Mount, but rather to a mosque that is the "further" of two mosques in Mecca.
According to Ziedan, Muslims are purposely and falsely turning a political struggle between Israel and the Arabs into a religious one. "The religious aspect of the conflict is nonsense… The only reason why Muslims insist on the sanctity of Jerusalem is simply politics." (h/t Gee)

France's Thousand Year War Against the Jews

Ironically, according to Islamic doctrine, many Muslims may well see themselves as lining up in Europe to supersede the Catholic Church as they pursue their dream to conquer the world for Allah.
Some suggest that if current population trends continue, prodded by the new migration and the extended families that are sure to follow, Islam will soon be the new majority. Such a demographic shift would not only leave Christians in jeopardy, but Jews in double jeopardy -- antipathy from their own government and overt hostility from Islam.
While it was not French Christians per se who fired the gun on the Jewish shoppers outside Paris in January, it is legitimate to question the role that Christian anti-Semitism plays in creating this climate shift as Jews, yet again, become victims in their own homeland.
The "Supersessionist" DNA, hidden beneath the surface of society, is what drives secularized Christian nations such as France, Britain and Sweden to appease Islamists, who are working to increase their influence, numbers and decibel levels.
"France does not really oppose Palestinian terrorism. On the contrary, France facilitates it. Every year, the French government pays millions of euros, dollars and shekels to Palestinian NGOs whose stated goal is to destroy Israel." – Caroline Glick.

Yisrael Medad: A Quiz for Christian Anti-Zionists

Dear Christians who support Palestinianism and fight Zionism, those who think we Jews have no rights to the Land of Israel, the name of a country as we know from Matthew 2:19-20:
An angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel,
some of who are uncouth:

It appears that Judaism made a mistake when it rejected Christ’s gospel of Love. As a consequence, Judaism may have become a primitive and possibly dangerous anachronism in the 21st Century…Judaism is a xenophobic totalitarian belief system that has morphed into a fanatical Zionist ideology that now threatens the whole world.
who believe the content of the Kairos Document, those who will be attending the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference in March, which promotes “Any exclusive claim to land of the Bible in the name of God is not in line with the teaching of scripture” and those who reinterpret the Abrahamic Covenant. You are wrong. Jesus was not a Palestinian.

Fred Maroun: Aboud Dandachi: An Arab voice that the world needs to hear

There are too few voices for peace coming from the Arab world today. In fact this penury is so dire that Mahmood Abbas, a habitual liar and terrorist enabler, is widely courted by Western governments as a hope for peace! What a joke.
We need genuine Arab voices for peace. We do not need Arab voices that hide their anti-Semitism by recognizing only the few Jews who do not support Israel. We need Arab voices who, when they say that they support peace, they mean it because they support Israel as well.
Aboud Dandachi is such a voice.
Dandachi lost his house in the Syrian war, and he was forced to flee. He wrote, “Despite my best efforts and most earnest wishes, in the end I could not avoid becoming a refugee, one among millions of other Syrians scattered across the region and the world”. Dandachi now lives temporarily in Turkey.
Before the war started, Dandachi had worked in several positions in the Information Technology (IT) industry in various Gulf countries, and he was ready to settle down back home in Syria. The war disturbed his plan, and he became what he never thought he would become, a refugee dependent on the help of others.
But Dandachi is not just any refugee. Through his writings and interviews, he has become known around the world, especially among Zionists. Dandachi is one of the rare Arabs and Muslims who openly and eloquently speak in support of Israel and Jews. What’s more, he has made his voice heard while still a refugee and while still living in the Middle East.

Chanukah Videos Night 2: Six13 - Watch Me (Spin / Drey-Drey) plus Pot in the Latkes (MC Flow)

Bonus video: This is quite different- "Pot in the Latkes"

Haaretz doesn't want emergency medical services to be funded if they are for "settlers"

Every once in a while, anti-Zionist media come out with a breathless article about how there are organizations helping out Jews in Judea and Samaria that are considered tax deductible in the US. (The first, I think, was the NYT in 2010.)

Keep in mind that there are many categories of organizations that are tax exempt in the US (including charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering amateur sports competition, or preventing cruelty to children or animals) and that there is nothing in the IRS code that says that if the organization is going against current US foreign policy that it should lose funding. Such a law would be problematic, to say the least.

One of the organizations that offends Haaretz is Hatzalah Yehuda and Shomron - the first-responder ambulance services used by Jews in Judea and Samaria (and which also saves Arab lives.)

Haaretz looks at Hatzalah not as a lifesaving organization but as just another enabler of the most horrible crime that newspaper knows of - keeping certain Jews alive.

How much hate Haaretz has for its fellow Jews who want to live in their historic homeland.

As a friend mentioned to me, if Israel passed a law saying that organizations that are at odds with Israel's foreign policy are ineligible for tax exempt status, Haaretz would be the first to call this a fascist law.

One other interesting fact - self-righteous Haaretz accepted a grant from a tax-deductible organization to pay for the research to write this article.

This morning I made the short trek to Efrat from Tekoa having some business regarding my drivers license eye exam to take care of. I love exploring yishuvim and areas I’m unfamiliar with. I love when I learn where I’m going in Israel. It’s a huge achievement for any new immigrant. So, I gladly pat myself on the back.

What we all don’t love right now is the third intifada we’re facing where stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks are happening all over the country.

On my way from the health clinic walking safely to the Trempiyada (where people hitch rides) was windy and sunny. The more I walked, the more open and naked I felt to an attack. I know what my friends in Efrat would say; “you’re fine, don’t worry.” But was I? Are we? And why was there not one soldier guarding that area so our citizens can safely get picked up G-d forbid a forced kidnapping were to happen in broad daylight by terrorists.

I stood in the brutal wind watching car after car go by. Kind fellow Israelis letting me know through hand gestures they were leaving the Gush and couldn’t afford me a ride. And then it happened; Many Palestinian license plates revealed themselves. It wasn’t just one here and there. It was one after another. I was alone at this area where people hitch. Without cause or second guessing myself, I quickly pulled out my pepper spray, tightly in my hand ready for anything. Still, the feeling of complete isolation overwhelmed me. Everyone in Israel knows someone directly involved in a terrorist attack. It could be any of us at any time morning, noon or night.

Yes, a black SVU with the other area license plate drove by, slowed down and proceeded to open the car. Calmly, I allowed them to see what was in my hands ready to spray directly in their faces had the individual tried to harm me. I was and am prepared. I hope everyone who carries it makes sure it’s in their hands at all times while we’re out conducting business. I know what you’re all thinking; what if they come up behind you, Estee? Well, I would be fresh out of luck, but at least knowing what’s in front of me leaves me with some sort of defense.

Before I made aliyah to Israel, I owned a plethora of firearms. I learned to shoot correctly through the National Rifle Association. It is the biggest self esteem booster for a woman to learn how to shoot a gun. It’s an even bigger boost to know having a husband who fully trusted me with a firearm and a small child while he was at work knowing he felt I could protect us in the event of a crime is the greatest gift a husband can give a wife. But now? Downgraded to pepper spray until the three year mark of living in Israel is over, and I can apply for a permit. One per home in Israel. For now, it’s one can of pepper spray for the three of us. Something is better than nothing. My hope and dream is for our government to issue more gun permits and put their trust in us to use our common sense in defending the lives of our family and loved ones.

Do you think the men in Palestinian license plated cars don’t stare at Jews waiting for rides? Combine bloodthirsty with rage and sprinkle knives on top of it and it becomes an opportunity to never miss an opportunity to choose between terror and feeding their family. When they choose terror and our security neutralizes them, their widows and children can expect a bulldozed house that leaves them homeless and going hungry. If anything, the family that terrorists leave behind should blame the stupidity, arrogance and selfishness on the husband/father who causes this to happen to his own family. A man or teenage boy who chooses to destroy the lives of a Jewish family It’s time their demand for privilege and world sympathy come to complete halt. You only have yourselves to blame for choosing this way of life. They attempt to destroy a Jewish family’s existence. They stab their own people for looking Jewish and destroy any ounce of trust that could come with a peace deal. In my humble opinion, any deal will never see the light of day.

Only until they are sick and tired of being sick and tired will they begin the hard road to recovery. I hope that road that won’t be laden with relapse. And we pray that Hashem fixes their minds for the better. Whether it is in my lifetime or my child’s future is the question. In the meantime, I see no future of Palestinians ever choosing to accept the existence of a Jewish state that is here to stay.
I can guarantee one thing is for sure; you terrorists won’t be ruining our Hanukkah any time soon. We will light the candles, sing, eat and rejoice that the G-d almighty is with us every step of the way.

For now, I remain downgraded to pepper spray.

12/07 Links Pt1: What John Kerry should have told the Saban Forum; The Terrorist Double Standard

From Ian:

David Horovitz: What John Kerry should have told the Saban Forum

We were short-sighted, hesitant, weak. We failed to create the climate in which you in Israel could take the steps you need to take to separate from the Palestinians. I hope my successors will do better
We came into office — and this is, of course, before my time as secretary of state — in an America that was emphatically intent on avoiding fresh military entanglements in your part of the world. And I acknowledge that the desire to stay out of potential new conflicts, a desire that reflected the will of the American people, impacted policy-making from the get-go.
We missed an early opportunity to back the people of Iran in 2009 when they courageously attempted to rise up against the benighted regime that oppresses them. They sought reform. They sought an end to religious coercion. They sought equality for women. They sought the freedoms that we in the West, certainly including Israel, insist upon. And we did nothing to help them. We failed the people of Iran then; I hope and pray that we did not fail them, and did not fail you and indeed ourselves — as I know you believe we did — in the signing of the nuclear deal we reached with the regime in July. I want to believe that we have all but eliminated the Iranian nuclear threat, though I must recognize that the accord cements that regime in power, emboldens it, gives it the resources to promote its pernicious agenda across the region and orchestrate terrorism worldwide. History will be our judge.
We were short-sighted about the Arab Spring, wanting to believe that sheer people power would be enough to drive popular uprisings against tyrannies across the region toward the establishment of genuine, vibrant, abiding democracies. You Israelis warned us. You, in your ambivalence — delighted to see much of the Arab world demanding democracy, but only too aware that it was the Muslim Brotherhood in one guise or another that was best placed to capitalize on the chaos — you told us that, left alone, the heartfelt desire for change would be co-opted, abused by Islamist groups in country after country. And so it proved.
In Syria, weak, hesitant and unprepared, we failed to substantially assist the early secular, relatively moderate opposition to Bashar Assad. I must personally acknowledge that I was wrong about him. He is, of course, anything but a reformer. It is shameful that, even today, he remains in a position where he is capable of slaughtering still more of his people. Not America’s shame alone, I should stress. His continuing presence is a global stain. A mark of moral and practical failure.

The video of revelers cheering 9/11 that no one got to see

Here are the facts, all of which are matters of public record. On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of jubilant Palestinians took to the streets, chanting “God is great,” firing automatic weapons and handing out sweets to passers-by. The largest demonstration took place in Nablus in the West Bank, where some 3,000 marchers danced and cheered as guerrillas fired assault rifles and grenades into the air.
Many journalists were on the scene, but they were forcibly detained in a hotel by armed Palestinian security forces to prevent coverage of the rally. One cameraman — a freelance AP reporter — nevertheless managed to film some of the celebration.
The next day, members of Tanzim, the military arm of Fatah, physically threatened the cameraman and warned AP not to air the material. A cabinet secretary for the Palestinian government told the Associated Press that the government could not “guarantee the life” of the cameraman if the film were broadcast.
The Palestinian information minister explained to the Washington Post that the coercive tactics “were not against the freedom of the press but in order to ensure our national security and our national interest. We will not permit a few kids here or there to smear the real face of the Palestinians.”
The threat worked. After initially declining to confirm the incident, the AP bureau chief in Jerusalem acknowledged the intimidation and the news organization’s capitulation to it. On Sept. 14, 2001, the news organization made known that “in light of the danger,” it wouldn’t release the video for world broadcast because “the safety of our staff is paramount. At this point we believe there to be a serious threat to our staff if the video is released.”
Fourteen years later, the historic footage from 9/11 remains inaccessible to public view.

The collapse of the Palestinian Authority may already be here

United States Secretary of State John Kerry’s scenario outlining a potential collapse of the Palestinian Authority, laid out Saturday at the Saban Forum in Washington, DC, sounds more than realistic.
For a change, the US administration, an expert at making fatal mistakes in the Middle East, seems to read the state of Palestinian affairs correctly, though the secretary errs in using the word “collapse.”
Instead, it should be substituted with the term “disintegration,” which in some ways has already begun.
The shooting attack on Thursday, in which Preventive Security Services member Mazen Aribe opened fire on Israel Defense Forces soldiers near the Hizme checkpoint, marks a crossroads.
Aribe was killed by fire from soldiers at the scene. The Palestinian Authority, instead of condemning or at least not supporting the action, sent head Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Saeb Erekat and the mayor of Jericho to visit the home of the attacker’s family.

One of the cases of sabotage

From Daily News Egypt:

Egyptian Minister of Petroleum spokesperson Hamdy Abdel Aziz said they will appeal the Swiss court decision of fining the ministry and the holding company for natural gas (EGAS) with USD 1.7 bn to Israel electricity company and USD 288 m to the Mediterranean Gas company on Sunday.

An international Swiss court issued a verdict after more than three years against Egypt when the Israeli company filed a lawsuit calling on Egypt to pay USD 4bn due to shortages caused in their natural gas supply after suspension of the 20 year long agreement of exporting gas from Egypt to Israel, which hindered their electricity exports, in the wake of January 25 uprising in 2011 and the constant attacks on the gas pipeline which followed the uprising.

Abdel Aziz told CNBC Arabia channel in a TV interview on Sunday, “the contract with Mediterranean Gas ended on 2012 for not paying delayed expenses and there are lawsuits filed against them because of that”.

“The ministry will suspend talks of some companies importing gas from Israel until all the appeal procedures are done,” he said.

In late November, partners in the Israeli Leviathan gas field announced in the Israeli stock market their initial short term agreement with an Egyptian company to supply it with gas. The Leviathan gas field is scheduled to launch in 2019/2020.

Israel is, perhaps overly, optimistic:

Israel hopes that its “close ties” with Egypt will enable talks on gas exports to restart, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said, following an Egyptian decision to halt negotiations. Israel is also planning to advance exports to other markets including Jordan, Turkey and Western Europe, he said.

“The State of Israel assigns great importance to its security and energy ties with Egypt in their entirety, and hopes that due to its close bilateral ties, it will be possible to continue to move forward on the gas issue soon,” Steinitz said in a text message. Israel must develop its offshore gas fields quickly to achieve energy security, he said.

Egypt exported natural gas to Israel until it canceled the deal in 2012 as its wells became depleted and new exploration slowed. It has said that any gas import deal with Israel should include a resolution to international arbitration cases.

Egypt’s decision to suspend the talks may be temporary, Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, said in an Israel Radio interview. He also emphasized Israel’s ties with the country as well as Egypt’s role as a stabilizing influence in the region.

“You have to look at the entire picture,” Gilad said. “There is a whole set of interests.”

But will Israel interfere with the legal issues between private Israeli and Egyptian companies the way Egypt is?

.@UNRWA worker wants to see lots of dead Jews

Ali Esbaita (Wael?) identifies as a UNRWA worker in Gaza. He includes photos from his workplace in his Facebook timeline.

On Facebook, he posted this:

The caption says ""Oh Allah, make their dead as many as those who say 'amen'"

His comment:

"Oh Allah, bless our master Muhammad as many times as is the number of the Jews that have been killed and will be killed... Bless the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers (Muhammad)"

He has another similar post where he hopes to see more Jews crying over their dead:

Given that he works at a progressive organization as UNRWA, he naturally is very supportive of women's rights:

So - will UNRWA discipline him, as they promised to for those who violate its "neutrality" policy?

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

J Street U - Vassar refuses to counter "Zionism=racism" canard

Something very interesting happened at Vassar over the past couple of days. From the J Street U Vassar Facebook:

Earlier this week, Matt Kolbert, J Street U Vassar co-chair, and our treasurer, Ben Rothman, attended a meeting with the VSA [Vassar Student ssociation] finance committee. The committee was reviewing our application for funding to attend the HaaretzQ conference, a major conference in New York City next Sunday that seeks to address questions of peace and democracy in Israel and Palestine. Our understanding of the discussion that occurred at this meeting was that some members of finance committee raised the concern that the VSA, as an explicitly anti-racist organization should not fund our attendance of the conference. The logic of this concern was based on the belief that Zionism is an inherently racist ideology, and multiple speakers at the conference identify as Zionists, so supporting our attendance of this conference would be contradicting the VSA's anti-racist stance. Because of this concern, the committee decided they would table the application and allow the greater VSA to discuss and vote on it.

The concerns raised by the finance committee trouble us deeply for two reasons. First, because we disagree with the notion that this conference is contrary to the VSA's anti-racist values. Second, because our own anti-racist ideologies are the very reason we exist as an organization: to oppose the occupation of the West Bank and fight for a two-state solution. Attending this conference will enable us to advance those goals.

We will seek to convince the VSA to fund our application. The HaaretzQ conference is educational, and all Vassar students have the right to be informed about all sides of world issues. As J Street U, we intend to remain fully independent in our thinking, and hope that we will be able to bring back knowledge will help us in our effort to end the occupation of the West Bank and forge a two-state solution.

J Street U members had the chance to say that they disagree with the notion that Zionism is racism - and it failed. Instead, they said that the HaaretzQ conference isn't racist, but as for Zionism altogether, well....let's not go there.

A truly pro-Israel organization would have been offended and angry at the equation of Zionism and racism, and would have condemned those words in no uncertain terms. Instead, J-Street U chose to ignore that canard altogether - because these proud, idealistic young people felt that the few hundred dollars they wanted is more important that standing up for their purported principles.

How proud they must be!

It is also interesting that the organization couches its opposition to Jews having equal rights to live in Judea and Samaria, and their support for a Judenrein "Palestine," as "anti-racist."

Then came this:

Thank you to the VSA for enabling us to take further steps in ending the occupation by voting unanimously in favor of accepting our fund app to attend the upcoming Haaretz Peace conference. While we are troubled that our app was tabled at all, we are gracious that we now have the opportunity to attend the conference.

We would like to address two misconceptions that the wider community may have about what has taken place over the past few days. First, prior to tonight’s meeting, the VSA finance committee did not approve nor deny our request for funds to attend this conference, instead they tabled the application so that the wider VSA council could vote on it.

Second, we are under no impression that the decision to table our application for funding was anti-semitic in nature. We understand that it may have had anti-Zionist implications, but J Street U Vassar does not assume that correlates to anti-semitism.

Explicitly saying that Zionists are racists "may have anti-Zionist implications"? wow, what brave fighters they are for Israel!

Moreover, J Street U had the chance to proudly stand up for the right for Jews to have their own homeland - and instead their members cowered and refused to say anything negative about the people who want to deny Jews that right. Instead, they cravenly go out of their way to say that they can fully understand why people want to deny Jews any self-determination, and in no way see that as a problem, just another valid opinion that must be respected (as opposed to, of course, those who feel that Jews have the right to live in their ancestral lands, which is completely unacceptable and, according to them, racist.)

The reason that J-Street U cannot proudly say they support a Jewish state is because - they don't support as Jewish state. They support an "Israeli" state. This is JSU-Vassar's Facebook header graphic:

Jews don't have the right to self-determination according to J-Street U. "Israelis" do.

Does that mean that on May 13, 1948, there was no right for Israel to exist? Sure sounds like this is J-Street U's position.

We have seen before that parent organization J-Street also refuses to say that Jews have a right to a Jewish state in their stated principles.

There is a little bit of schadenfreude in this episode where J-Street U felt what it was like to be accused of racism at the same time that they accuse so many other Jews of the same. Yet they clearly didn't learn any lessons from this. Instead, they want to ingratiate themselves with those who want to destroy the Jewish state - for funding.

Now you know what J-Street means when they say they are "pro-Israel."

(h/t JW)

EoZ lecture: "Speaking 'Truth to Power' About the Arab-Israeli Conflict" (video)

I gave this hour-long talk on Sunday morning at the Summit (NJ) Jewish Community Center.

It was well-attended (about 50 people) and well-received.

I do not have permission to post the Q&A this time.

If anyone else wants me to speak to their organization in the NY/NJ area, let me know. I never give the same lecture twice, although I might repeat myself now and then....

Chanukah Video Night 1: Maccabeats "Latke Recipe" (plus Boys Town J'lem)

As I've done for a couple of years, I'm trying to post a Chanukah-themed music video for every night of the holiday, using only new videos.

The Maccabeats of course must be included.

Tonight's bonus video: Boys Town Jerusalem Chanukah

Arab media: Jews describing the importance of the Temple Mount are "inciting"

QudsN is a Palestinian newspaper that on Friday warned Arabs about the impending holiday of Chanukah. It mentions that Jews have lots of holidays sprinkled throughout the year and that they use them all to Judaize Jerusalem. For example, on Chanukah they project Jewish images onto walls!

Awful!

I thought this part of the article was interesting. They reproduced a poster from a Temple Mount group:

It says "Did you know? The Temple Mount is more important than its Western Wall!" ....Ascend to the Temple Mount, the Heart of Israel."

This drove the newspaper crazy. They said that the poster "shows that the importance of storming Al-Aqsa mosque, more important than to pray in front of the Wailing Wall during the holiday, so as to incite the settlers to break into the Al-Aqsa."

Yes, mentioning the importance of the holiest site in Judaism is "inciting settlers to break into Al Aqsa."

12/06 Links: Erekat visits family of PA security officer turned terrorist; Indigenous in Jerusalem

From Ian:

Why does the British Royal Family visit Saudi Arabia but not Israel?

A trip to Jerusalem by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1994 illustrates some of the difficulties.
His mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, is buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and Prince Phillip went to visit her grave.
The princess is revered in Israel because she opened the doors of her Athens palace to a Jewish family seeking refuge from the Nazis during the Second World War.
She is counted as one of the "Righteous Among Nations", an Israeli title given to those who saved Jews from Nazi death camps. Today, she is honoured at Israel’s national Holocaust memorial alongside Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who rescued hundreds of Jews and inspired the film Schindler’s List.
But despite Israel’s warm feelings towards his mother, Buckingham Palace said the Duke’s visit was private and he was not there in an official capacity.
The contorted explanation mirrors Jerusalem’s own tortured geography. The Mount of Olives is in the eastern side of the city, which Israel captured in 1967. Israel claims East Jerusalem as part of its “complete and united” capital, but Britain considers the area to be occupied territory.
Any Royal visit would also have to be balanced by meetings with the Palestinian Authority, which brings a new set of sensitivities. Boris Johnson discovered the possible pitfalls last month when he was forced to cancel meetings in the West Bank after angering Palestinians by denouncing calls for a boycott of Israeli goods.
Some Israelis have long believed that the Foreign Office blocks any Royal visits because of its supposed domination by Arabist diplomats.

Legal Insurrection: Matisyahu rocks Ithaca – Huge Win for Artistic Freedom

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has been targeting American Reggae musician Matisyahu because he is Jewish and refuses to denounce Israel.
In the summer of 2015 an international firestorm of controversy erupted after BDS succeeded in getting Matisyahu banned at the Spanish Rototom Reggae festival. The ban was reversed only after an international outcry, including denunciations by the Spanish government and a leading Spanish newspaper that the action amounted to religious discrimination.
So when Matisyahu booked an appearance in Ithaca, NY, as part of his world tour, it was not long before the local BDS crowd, including our own BDS “star,” sought a boycott of the event and planned a protest.
But it didn’t work.
There was a substantial backlash in favor of artistic freedom. Ithaca resident Linda Glaser wrote a powerful op-ed in The Ithaca Journal, Let Jewish artist perform in Ithaca:
Artistic freedom is the right of every American, as it is based on the First Amendment right of freedom of speech. The Ithaca Coalition for Unity and Cooperation in the Middle East (ICU-CME) supports the right of American musician Matisyahu to perform and to be heard free from intimidation at the State Theatre of Ithaca.
Untrue statements are being spread by the Ithaca Committee for Justice in Palestine about Matisyahu to justify their discrimination against him. Because he is a prominent Jewish artist who refuses to take an anti-Zionist position, BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) supporters around the world are attempting to block his cultural and artistic expression.
As Matisyahu has said, “I have always believed in the power of music to unite all people, regardless of religion, politics or geography.”
We urge the Ithaca community to stand for artistic freedom and reject the boycott of American musician Matisyahu.
I attended the concert last night, and it was great.

Mordechai Kedar: There is a partner

In addition, Israel has to remain in control in the villages and surrounding areas of Judea and Samaria in order to prevent the formation of a terrorist contiguity uniting the discrete city-emirates, but Israel can then offer citizenship to the residents of these villages who make up only about 10% of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria. The other 90% can stay in their independently run city-states.
These are the broad parameters of a program based on the "partner" to be found in each city-emirate, the natural, traditional leadership of the large clans in each city. Israel must negotiate with each emirate and reach an agreement with each one on the issues of electricity, water, waste, roads, industry, agriculture, traffic, security, the use of ports and airspace, and the boundary lines of each. If the emirates wish to form a federation, so be it. That doesn't pose a problem as long as their territories are not allowed to be contiguous.
The PLO, the organization that runs the Palestinian Authority, never agreed to the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state, and is therefore not a partner for peace. Israel, however, has a partner in each Judea and Samaria city. Israel must bring about the collapse of the PLO and PA, the two entities preventing a lasting peace agreement with the residents of Judea and Samaria, who will then be able to establish thriving emirates on the lines of Dubai, if not even better.
The PLO, Hamas and Islamic Jihad want only wars, death and destruction, while peace between Israel and the Emirates will lead to growth and prosperity.

This is the contemporary Ku Klux Klan.

As with the Klan they feel it necessary to wear masks.

They are worse than Night Riders because they feel free to carry out their violence in the daytime because they know they have Arab-Palestinian society, ascreated by Yassir Arafat and the PLO, behind them... as well as the Western-Left.

A recent Watan Research Center poll, conducted between November 14 and the 21st of this year, reveals that 72 percent of Arabs living in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza favor the Stabbing Intifada.

This is to say that 72 percent of Arabs who live within the Land of Israel believe that they have a religious-political imperative to send their kids into the streets with kitchen knives for the Allah-inspired purpose of murdering random Jews.

It does not matter the age of those Jews; a woman in her 80s, a child in her crib, it does not matter. Nor does it matter the personal beliefs of thoseJews. All that matters is that, if you are to kill them - and you are, young Achmud - that they be Jewish. Even Palestinian-Arab Jihadis do not necessarily have a particular desire to murder Tibetan-Buddhist care-takers , after all.

{But, who knows, really?}

Still another way of gaining perspective on this 72% figure is to understand that it also means that 72% of Arabs within Israel yearn for the genocide of theJews. It can mean nothing else. If you believe that Allah wants you to send your children into the streets for the purpose of killing Jews then, ipso facto, you favor the genocide of the Jews.

There is no way to escape from that conclusion, now, is there?

Referencing a recent poll of Arabs within Israel, Dalit Halevy, writing in Israel National News, tells us:

A full 72% said they support continuing the "Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Intifada," as it has been termed, until it achieves its "goals," which they were later asked to define.

No less than 44% of the Arab public expressed support for an armed intifada terror war using guns, 18% gave support to stabbing attacks, and 14% supported attacks throwing rocks at Israelis.

The goal of the intifada terror war according to 48% of the Arabs is the "liberation of Palestine," indicating the conquest and occupation of all of Israel.

This is not a border dispute.

The War of the Filthy-Footed

This is a theocratic war waged by a much larger, hostile Arab-Muslim majority inthe Middle East against a much smaller besieged filthy-footed Jewish minority endeavoring to survive and thrive.

The only reason that tiny bit of land on the edge of the Mediterranean is important to the Arab world is because Jewish people currently hold sovereignty over our ancestral homeland. Unfortunately, it is hard-coded into Islam that Muslims have a theological imperative to maintain sovereignty over any bit of land - including Spain - that at any time was taken from the "infidels" by Muhammad's soldiers.

Thus Jewish sovereignty on Jewish land is considered an abomination before the eyes of Allah and an indignity to the Prophet Muhammad... Peace Be Unto Him.

You can be sure, considering Israel's technological and medical contributions tothe world community, that if Israel represented a 23rd Arab-Muslim country it would be considered a "light unto the nations."

When Israel was under Ottoman rule, Jerusalem was a backwater. The al-Aqsamosque had no gold plating. The place was essentially a ruin and nobody spoke of it as the third holiest anything to anyone. The Jews, being indigenous to the region, have lived on that land for something close to four thousand years.

The Jewish people are the closest thing that the Land of Israel has to an indigenous population. It is true that other peoples have lived on that land prior to the Israelites, but unless there is a wondering band of Jebusites out there someplace then the land from the river to the sea is the land of Jewish sovereignty.

The West

Vic Rosenthal, of Abu Yehuda fame and a columnist at the Elder of Ziyon,has a bold and interesting article entitled, Calling their bluffs.

His argument is that the enemy is attacking the Jews in Israel via a dual strategy of "micro" attacks and "macro" attacks. The micro attacks represent things like the cute blonde child, who the Elder has dubbed "ShirleyTemper" - part of the vaguely annoying Tamimi clan - that they send out to shake her little fist at Jewish soldiers.

Here is a video from 2012:

As you can see, the Arabic press is there to broadcast any Israeli Jewish push-back as aggression.

The purpose is to induce an IDF response which can then be transmitted around the world via a sympathetic news media in Europe and the United States. The purpose of demonizing Israel is to soften it for its eventual dissolution.

If that were to happen the genocide of half the world's Jewish population - amazingly enough about 6 million people (there is that number again) - would diein Holocaust Version II, the Arab-Muslim variety that the Mufti hoped to accomplish with the victory of Nazi Germany over the Allies during World War II.

The macro strategy is to attack Israel in a military fashion with rocket-fire from Gaza in order to intimidate the southern Israeli population, particularly the towns of S'derot and Ashkelon, and then appeal to the world community for mercy from Israeli aggression when the Jews - after years of such attacks - finally respond.

It is pathetic, but effective, given western multiculturalism and failure of self-esteem.

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