Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

"Plaintiffs for Israel"

(This is an advertorial.)

David Abrams is a NYC-based attorney who has an interesting idea. From his "Plaintiffs for Israel" website:

I am an attorney in New York in the United States and a proud Zionist. I regularly engage in litigation in support of Israel and I am a graduate of Shurat Hadin's training program for activist lawyers; and I serve as the Executive Director of the Zionist Advocacy Center. As an example of my work, in conjunction with Shurat Hadin, I filed an unfair labor practices charge against a union which adopted an anti-Israel boycott resolution. You can read about it here.

Like many supporters of Israel, I am concerned about the movement in Western countries to boycott Israel. Although the boycotters claim to be motivated by human rights, they do not seem to care about countries with far worse human rights records than Israel. Although the boycotters claim to be concerned about Palestinian Arabs, they do not seem to care about various Arab countries which formally discriminate against Palestinian Arabs in many different ways.

I also practice civil rights law and I believe that many efforts to boycott Israel violate various laws against discrimination. I believe that many efforts to boycott Israel would not survive a legal challenge, but there is a problem: As an attorney, I normally need a client with "standing," in other words a person who is a direct victim of the discriminatory action who can be the Plaintiff in a legal claim. This is a problem because after a boycott action is announced, it can be difficult and time-consuming to find a suitable client.

The purpose of this web site is to address this problem. I hope to have thousands of people sign up and provide information about their job, school, and so forth. Then, if a boycott is announced, I can quickly find a Plaintiff and spring into action with a demand letter, an administrative charge, or a lawsuit. I am admitted to practice law in New York and New Jersey so this web site should not be taken as an advertisement outside of New York or New Jersey. Nevertheless, if you end up involved in matter in some other jurisdiction, I would attempt to find and/or work with a suitable attorney.

I've met David and can vouch that he is for real.

If you belong to an organization or school that looks like it might someday discriminate against you because of your support of Israel, it is better to register for this ahead of time and then if something happens you can be empowered to reach out and fight back rather than be forced to quit.

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.

12/09 Links Pt2: Why Israel became Europe’s whipping boy; Could Houellebecq's World Happen?

From Ian:

Brendan O’Neill: The wretched reason why Israel became Europe’s whipping boy

It isn’t Israelis who are paranoid; it’s anti-Israeli Europeans. They’re the ones who madly look upon one nation, one people, as toxic, destabilising, destructive, out to get us all and do over world peace. Such swirling paranoia often means anti-Zionism crosses the lines into anti-Semitism.
Some Israelis I spoke to seemed more upset about the turn against Israel in Europe than they were about the more immediate threat posed Islamists in the Middle East. It wasn’t hard to work out why. As one said, “We considered Europe a friend”: “We thought Europe and Israel had a lot in common, being Western and democratic.”
This cuts to the heart of the Euro-elites’ paranoia about Israel, their turn against it: it is really European values, the ideals of modernity and democracy, they’ve given up on. The thing that riles them most about Israel is that it reminds them of what they used to be like, of the values they once espoused, before they lost the moral plot and sank into the cesspit of relativism and post-Enlightenment self-loathing.
Plucky, keen to protect its sovereignty, considering itself an outpost of liberalism… Israel is a painful reminder to today’s morally anchorless European thinkers and agitators of what their nations once were. They hate Israel because they hate themselves.
Israel has become the whipping boy of guilt-ridden Western liberals who’ve given up on the very idea of the West.

Col. Kemp: The ban on visiting Israel is an absurdity

Royals must honour the fallen of our forgotten Middle East war
No fewer than 16,000 British and Commonwealth troops died during the Palestine campaign in the First World War and are buried in the land where they fell. Yet a long-standing Foreign Office ban on royal visits to Israel looks likely to deny these men the honour that has been afforded to British soldiers killed in Europe, Gallipoli and other theatres of war during the centenary years. This policy must be overturned now to ensure their sacrifice is properly recognised.
Ninety-eight years ago today, on December 9, 1917, the Ottoman governor of Jerusalem surrendered the Holy City to General Sir Edmund Allenby’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force at the end of a bloody battle against the Turks that began on November 17.
The Palestine campaign has received little attention during the First World War commemorations, but was the second largest British theatre of operations in terms of strength of forces, with troops from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and India. It achieved the first defeat of a central power in the war.
British Empire forces sustained 554,828 casualties during the campaign, including 16,000 dead. At the Jerusalem War Cemetery on Mount Scopus this year I visited the graves of two of them, Edwin Beard and Leonard Frost, both boys from my school, Colchester Royal Grammar. It saddened me to think that the British Foreign Office is ready to deny these British soldiers the honour they deserve.

Isi Leibler: British Jews Under Pressure

Reviewing the status of Anglo-Jewry can lead to diametrically opposing conclusions. Residing in a northwest London Jewish suburb, one can easily be deluded that life for Jews in the U.K. is rosy. Jewish cultural and religious life is thriving, as exemplified by the mushrooming of synagogues and kosher facilities, not to mention the highly successful educational initiatives like Limmud. Indeed, insulated from the outside world and living and socializing primarily in a Jewish “ghetto,” it is not difficult to convince oneself that life in this Anglo-Jewish Diaspora is almost idyllic.
But this picture is delusional and a far cry from reality. The demographic projections reflect snowballing intermarriage offset by the high birthrate of the ultra-Orthodox — which will make them the dominant element in the Jewish community within the not too distant future.
More importantly, even though British Jews have not yet suffered from the bloody jihadi violence and murders of their French counterparts, as European Jews they will ultimately face the same threat, and if they believe they are in a different category, they are in denial.
Although Muslim jihadi elements are currently less dominant in the U.K. than in France, they face very similar threats from ISIS followers and homegrown terrorists. Moreover, indigenous antisemitism in the form of feral anti-Israelism is as blatant in the U.K. as in France.

Chanukah Video Night 4: SHALOM - Adele "Hello" Chanukah Parody - plus a storybook

Bonus:

Two videos about people in Israel you won't see on the mainstream media

The Druze and the Circassians of Israel:

The Settlers:

UK To Attack Islamist Militant Stronghold Of 'France' (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

London, December 9 - British Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans this afternoon to send the Royal Air Force to conduct airstrikes against a concentration of militant Islamic radicals in a place called France, news sources reported today.

The BBC and Sky News published items on their websites to the effect that Cameron had given orders to the military to conduct the strikes, which will target areas of known Isalmist activity that have not yet been hit by the western bombing campaign. France, said Cameron, has long been a source of recruitment for ISIS fighters, and the strikes against it will be part of a larger effort to reduce the threat of terrorism emerging from that area.

Military experts estimate that thousands of Islamic State fighters have joined the organization from various parts of France, both in Iraq and Syria. Certain areas of France are more known than others as hotbeds of militant Islamism, and those regions will face the initial wave of assaults to help reduce them and perhaps hamper ISIS's recruitment efforts. If successful, the bombing campaign will be expanded to other Islamist strongholds, such as Belgium and Sweden.

"Unfortunately, the West has tolerated this cauldron of hateful, violent militarism under the guise of Islam for too long," said the prime minister. "That must end. The Royal Air Force, with intelligence help from several allies, will deploy to hit France mercilessly. The campaign will not cease until we are satisfied that France no longer poses a threat to our way of life."

Cameron insisted that no ground troops would be sent to France. "We will coordinate with other forces on the ground, but the British public can rest assured we will not become mired in a ground campaign. Our priorities are to conduct this operation from the air, and avoid direct entanglements with the enemy. If necessary, we will coordinate efforts with other forces that are on the ground in France," he added.

Opposition leaders called the move foolish. "There are far more pressing matters to be dealt with at home while the prime minister tries to focus public attention on matters overseas," charged Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. "The Royal Air Force has better things to do than waste its time over France, which is probably a lost cause." Corbyn suggested that the RAF might target several of Britain's largest banks, whose assets should be confiscated by the government and redistributed among the country's Muslim immigrants.

12/09 Links Pt1: Terrorist privilege; Murray: The ‘Victim blaming’ trend; Samantha, Powerless?

From Ian:

Terrorist privilege

Two people take 14 lives in California.
Fourteen beautiful people: A woman from Iran, another woman whose family fled Vietnam, a Mexican man. They slaughter the diversity that makes America great. These victims did community service and cared for others.
And what happens? The murderers almost become the victims in the narrative.
No one protests against the extremism and hatred the perpetrators had for others. No one is particularly angry at them. People are outraged at gun laws.
Newspapers run editorials about guns.
A newspaper bashes politicians for offering prayers. US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump makes an outrageously discriminatory remark about Muslim immigrants, and suddenly he is accused of being the reason that “jihadists demonize the US.” There is more anger about climate change and the rise of Marine Le Pen’s right-wing Front Nationale in France than there is hatred for the perpetrators and ideology behind the Paris attacks.

Douglas Murray: ‘Victim blaming’ after terrorist attacks is a pernicious new trend

The term ‘victim blaming’ is most commonly used to describe people who claim that a woman walking out in a short skirt is ‘asking to be raped.’ But even this claim is not quite as gut-wrenching as the claim that some people are ‘asking to be killed’ or once killed are effectively ‘guilty of their own murder.’
This most malicious form of ‘victim blaming’ was rolled out in the American press at the weekend by the interestingly named Linda Stasi. In a column in Saturday’s New York Daily News Ms Stasi wrote about one of the 14 people massacred in an Isis-inspired attack in San Bernardino, California (a terrorist attack so terrible that it has made even President Obama admit that a certain type of terrorism might exist. Anyhow – Ms Stasi’s piece is a quite remarkable exhibit on the moral insanity of our time.
Last week after having apparently pledged allegiance to Isis, a husband and wife called Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook walked into a party at Farook’s own workplace in San Bernardino and began gunning down the guests. The couple – now designated as ‘terrorists’ by officials – were then killed in a shoot-out with police. A subsequent search of their home turned up an arsenal of weaponry. So far so bad. But these are strange and confusing times for some people, and Ms Stasi is perhaps the most confused of all.

Little girl demonstrates art of stabbing: “Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!”

Palestinian Media Watch documents the Palestinian Authority and Fatah leadership's messages to its population, showing both the PA ideology as well as how it directs the population to act. The current Palestinian terror wave is an excellent example of how the Palestinian population has responded to the leadership's message. Mahmoud Abbas and other PA leaders sparked the current terror and violence by frequently reiterating the PA libel that Israel is planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and they called on Palestinians to "defend it," "bless[ed] every drop of blood spilled" for it, "congratulated" the murderers and much more. Responding to the call, and following the praise and support from PA and Fatah leaders, among them Abbas, who referred to stabbings as "peaceful popular uprising," Palestinians are - independent of the leadership - inciting to murder on social media, including encouraging people to slit the throats of Jews, and committing murder themselves.
The following are examples of social media murder promotion by Palestinians on Facebook.
One video shows a little girl glorifying stabbing. She is asked:
Man: "What do you tell [Palestinian] youth in the West Bank?"
Girl demonstrates with a long knife: "Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!"
[Facebook page of the Jerusalem Intifada's Young People Coalition, Nov. 12, 2015]

Video on Palestinian Facebook page - Little girl encourages stabbing Jews

From JCPA:

The Fatah Central Committee gave its backing to a strategy that combines the terror intifada with diplomatic and legal moves in the international arena aimed at achieving recognition of the state of Palestine as well as an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders with no political quid pro quo from the Palestinians.

The Fatah Central Committee, convened on Sunday, December 6, 2015, at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah. Fatah is led by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) who also serves as president of the state of Palestine, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, and leader of the PLO.

The decisions taken by the Fatah Central Committee shed light on the Palestinian leadership’s policy toward Israel.

The [Central] Committee discussed…the increase in severe attacks against members of our Palestinian people in the occupied state of Palestine (the West Bank, Al-Quds, and the Gaza Strip), including the field executions… The meeting began with readings of Surat Al-Fatihah in remembrance of the souls of the heroic martyrs, and it [the Central Committee] conveyed its condolences and appreciation to the families of the martyrs with hopes for the speedy recovery of the wounded, emphasizing its determination to continue to act in every way to have the prisoners freed and the bodies of the heroic martyrs returned.
The Central Committee did not condemn the acts of violence and terror being perpetrated by Palestinians as part of the Al-Quds Intifada, which is also called the Knives Intifada. On the contrary, it characterized the foiling of terror attacks as “executions,” chose to call the perpetrators “heroes,” and promised to assist their families. The Palestinian leadership thereby gave full backing to the continuation of the terror wave against Israel.

There was more that can be seen in the JCPA article. For example:

The Central Committee condemned the decision of the occupation municipality to establish new facts in the Al-Buraq [Western Wall] area, and views this as a continuation of the change of the existing situation in the city of Al-Quds and particularly in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings.
The wording indicates that the Palestinian leadership, with Abbas at the helm, denies the Jewish right to the area of the Western Wall and regards it as a sacred Islamic site that is an inseparable part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

But one other part of the meeting caught my attention:

The Central Committee also called for the enforcement of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on the territory of the State of occupied Palestine (the West Bank and Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip), especially with regard to the protection of civilians in time of war.

What they are trying to say is for the settlements to be destroyed.

But in fact, Israel is not enforcing the Geneva Conventions in Area A and (in some ways) in Area B under the laws of occupation. If the territories would be considered occupied, then Israel would have to control the PA. Israel would have the right to dissolve the government and to get rid of Abbas.
When Fatah demands that Israel adhere to Geneva, they are being mighty selective in their interpretation of the conventions.

Today's loving @UNRWA teacher

Zia al Talouli is a teacher for UNRWA at the Beit Hanoun Elementary School in Gaza.

He has a lot of love in his heart.

His Facebook page is called "Abusamer Love."

See how much love he has for his charges:

He also loves the idea of stabbing Jews :

Finally, he loves the idea of Palestinian unity - in killing Israelis:

The gun says "The Palestinian reconciliation," and the flag "The Israeli occupation."

See how much love this UNRWA teacher has! What do you think he is teaching his students?

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Rami Hamdallah, the PA's prime minister, said on Monday that there has been a "sharp decline," in grants and external financial aid to the Palestinian Authority of 43% since 2011.

In a press release, on the sidelines of a meeting with a delegation from the Palestinian private sector, to discuss the partnership between the two sides (government and private), Hamdallah said that "aid is still in steady decline, according to the Palestinian budget numbers."

Grants and financial aid received by the Palestinian government since the beginning of the year until the end of October was 685.4 million US dollars, a decline of 27% compared with the corresponding period of last year, according to Palestinian Ministry of Finance figures.

He said, "the government implemented a policy to optimize expenditures, to coincide with the decline of financial grants, and it raised tax revenues during the current year to a monthly average of US $ 175 million, compared with $ 90 million in 2011.

My guess is that the bulk of the decline came from Arab nations who have been losing interest in Palestinian issues for years, but now have their own problems that makes the supposedly keystone Palestinian issue fall way down the priority list.

The New York Times has an interesting article by Isabel Kershner about the (2013) discovery of an ancient synagogue in Migdal and especially its carved stone block that seems to depict the Second Temple - during the Second Temple period.

The archaeologists in charge of the excavations say that this proves that Second Temple-era synagogues served more of a sacred role than a community center role, as many (but not all) had assumed.

But one sentence may reveal the NYT's way of looking at Jews and Arabs in Israel:

In contrast to the current tensions over the contested site in Jerusalem that is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, where the ancient temples once stood, and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, the Magdala project has emphasized religious harmony. The land belongs to a Roman Catholic religious order, the Legionaries of Christ, and the archaeologists who are managing the dig and who found the stone are Dina Avshalom-Gorni, an Israeli Jew, and Arfan Najar, a Muslim.

But Arfan Najar is an Israeli as well.

So why does the article emphasize that the Jewish researcher is Israeli but not the Muslim?

It could be because Palestinians hate when people refer to Israeli Arabs - they claim that they should all be called "Palestinian" (or , in Arabic, "1948 Arabs.") My guess is that the NYT has accepted that argument and does not want to refer to Israeli Muslims or Israeli Arabs for fear of offending anti-Israel Palestinians by being accurate.

A 2012 NYT article by Jodi Rudoren about the very topic of self-identification among a subset of Israeli Arabs pre-judged the NYT's mindset by starting off with

NAZARETH, Israel — Three young Palestinian women sat on the floor at a summer camp this week surrounded by Legos and 3-year-olds. As the toddlers played, the women taught them the color of each block, repeating the words in Arabic, azrak for blue or akhdar for green.

But the seemingly simple scene here in the Galilee was actually caught up in some of the most contentious issues confronting Israeli society: How do Arabs reconcile their identity as citizens of a Jewish state? What is the appropriate role for a growing Arab minority in a state determined to be democratic and Jewish?

Clearly, the NYT has answered that question for all Israeli Arabs by calling them "Palestinian" before asking the question itself.

I don't know how Arfan Najar refers to himself, but clearly the NYT is leaning towards the Palestinian insistence on their terminology and away from the Israeli views, even though thousands of Israeli Arabs live proudly as Israelis.

(h/t Joshua)

12/08 Links Pt2: Answering John Kerry; Tibor Rubin, Holocaust survivor and Korean War hero, dies at 86

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Answering John Kerry

Unfortunately, the Secretary of State's presented options are fantasies.
Finally, Kerry asked, “And wouldn’t Israel risk being in perpetual conflict with millions of Palestinian living in the middle of a state?” The answer is that Israel is at risk of perpetual conflict with the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole for as long as the Arabs hate Jews. The millions of Palestinians living within Israel’s borders constitute a far smaller strategic danger to Israel than the millions of Jew-hating Arabs, who have terrorist armies, perched on its international borders.
At the outset of his remarks, Kerry explained that as far as US Middle East policy is concerned, “Our goal, our strategy is to help ensure that the builders and the healers throughout the region have the chance that they need to accomplish their tasks.”
Sadly, this is neither a goal nor a strategy. It is the sort of platitude you’re likely to find inside a Chinese fortune cookie.
If Kerry is interested in an actual strategy, he can fork out 20 bucks and buy my book.

Danny Dannon: Artificial wound of Palestinian refugees has festered too long

Every time Palestinian leaders sit down at the negotiating table, or give a public speech, they never fail to raise the plight of the 700,000 Arab-Palestinians displaced when they refused to accept Israel’s existence in 1948.
For too long, the State of Israel and the global Jewish community have done too little to memorialize and honor the other side of that story — the 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
For many Jews, these are personal stories, family accounts told around the Shabbat table. It is now our duty to ensure that the world finally recognizes the stories of these forgotten refugees.
For over 2,000 years, places like Algiers and Aleppo, Tunis and Cairo, Aden and Tripoli and so many others across the Arab world were vibrant centers of Jewish life. The Jews in these communities did not always have much in the way of material possessions, but they were rich in culture and in the spiritual heritage of our people.

Douglas Murray: The left is to blame for the creation of Donald Trump

A few weeks ago I recorded a podcast with the American author and neuroscientist Sam Harris. He is one of the few people on the political left in Europe or America who recognises the problem of Islamic extremism and doesn’t mind talking about it. For this he gets – I think it is safe to say – more trouble than the average liberal left-wing west coast American might wish to expect. But his role on the left, along with Bill Maher, Dave Rubin and a very few others, is incredibly important not least because it should remind people that the great problem of our time does not have to be a partisan issue.
But the political left has a problem at the moment. In Britain it is – as I said here recently – unsalvageable, led by people who have spent their life tolerating and stoking anti-Semitic racism and whose track record shows them not only excusing our enemies but urging them to win. In America the left has not gone this rancid, but the wider political problem is in some ways even starker because in response to the political left failing to identify the problem, the political right has started going off.
The American left has a huge problem in the form of a President who refuses to name Islamist terrorism or identify where it comes from. His likely successor, Hillary Clinton, has the same issue. Of course the word-play this leads to may be perfectly well-meaning, and the desire to ensure that you’re not talking about ‘all Muslims’ when you use the term ‘Islamist’ for instance is a legitimate concern. But when you have 14 people being gunned down in America again apparently in the name of a specific extremist ideology, not identifying where it comes from becomes part of the problem, driving people on all sides mad with rage and making them wonder what else is being kept from them.
Which brings us onto Donald Trump. Last night Donald Trump announced a new ‘policy’ idea which would be to stop any more Muslims going to America. He would even, it seems, prevent Muslim Americans who are currently out of the country on their holidays, from returning home. This is – it need hardly be said – a back of the envelope policy. And it has already had the desired effect. The social justice warriors who mistake Twitter for real life, have been busily signalling their utter outrage at Trump’s remarks. Journalists have seized the opportunity (which the New York Times and others have been trying all along) to insinuate that Trump is in fact the new Hitler. The reaction is as ill-tempered as the original comment. But we should know how we got here.

Chanukah Video Night 3: One Direction Chanukah Medley (MJE, many guest stars) plus bonus "Sevivon"

Bonus:

The antisemitism behind calling Jesus a "Palestinian"

Some large excerpts from an excellent essay by Richard Mather:

It is not just Islam and the Left that are responsible for anti-Zionism and the rise of anti-Semitism. Christians who have embraced Palestinian replacement theology (which has disturbing echoes of the Nazis’ depiction of Jesus-as-Aryan) must also be held to account for the propagation of anti-Jewish hatred.

Jesus was not a Palestinian. There is no reference to Palestine in the New Testament for the simple reason that the land of Israel was generally known as Judea and Galilee until 135 CE. The Gospel of Matthew, which was written around 80 CE does, however, mention “the land of Israel” and the “cities of Israel.” The term Palestine is rarely used in the Tanakh, and when it is, it refers specifically to the southwestern coastal area of Israel occupied by the Philistines who had disappeared as a distinct people by the time of the Babylonian Captivity in 586 BCE.

Christians throughout the centuries have tended to imagine Jesus according to their peculiar prejudices. One of the most outlandish was the Jesus-as-Aryan theory. During the Third Reich, some German Protestant theologians redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. The Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence published books defaming Judaism (including a dejudaized version of the New Testament) and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the saviour of the Aryans.

Since the 1960s, a number of Christians (and Muslims) have revived and revised the Aryan Jesus myth as a tool for propagating anti-Semitism and anti-Zionist propaganda. Jesus the Aryan is now Jesus the Palestinian martyr living “under occupation.” The Jews are depicted as a cruel and oppressive people who have merited everlasting exile. And the Hebrew Bible is “de-Zionised” and/or radically reinterpreted by writers and teachers in order to downplay what they say is Jewish “exclusivity” in the Tanakh (the words “Zion” or “Israel” are removed from the Psalms, for example).

The founding document of Christian Palestinianism is the 1967 Arab-Christian memorandum entitled “What is Required of the Christian Faith Concerning the Palestine Problem.” The document, which had the blessing of Catholic and Orthodox clergy, declares that it is “a total misunderstanding of the story of salvation and a perversion of God’s plan for a Christian to want to re-establish a Jewish nation as a political entity.”

In one of its most audacious passages, the memorandum reads: “The Christian conscience should always discern what is the authentic vocation of the Jewish people and what is the other side of the coin, that is, the racist State of Israel.” In fact, the memorandum calls for a permanent exile of the Jews on the grounds that “the Jewish race was chosen to serve the salvation of humanity and not to establish itself in any particular religious or racial way.”

The Christian Palestinianist movement was given a fresh impetus in 2009 with the publication of the Kairos Palestine Document. Subtitled “A moment of truth: A word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering,” the paper claims to speak on behalf of Christian and Muslim Palestinians, who apparently share a “deeply rooted” history and a “natural right” to the land.

In contrast, the State of Israel is viewed as an alien entity, and only exists because of Western guilt over the Holocaust. Israel is even associated with the words “evil” and “sin.” According to the text, the so-called Israeli occupation “distorts the image of God in the Israeli who has become an occupier.”

One of the most vocal Christian Palestinianists is Naim Ateek, who was born in Beth She’an in what is now northern Israel. He was ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church in 1967 and was (until recently) a cleric in St. George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem.

In 1989, Ateek published Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation, which drew much of its strength from South American liberation theology. Five years later, Ateek founded an organisation called Sabeel – the Palestinian Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center.

The version of liberation theology espoused by Ateek is that of Jesus as “a Palestinian living under an occupation.” In his 2001 Easter message, Ateek spoke of Jesus as “the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint” and he used anti-Semitic language to evoke the image of Jews as Christ-killers:

“In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. Palestine has become one huge Golgotha. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily.”

Yasser Arafat also played on the theme of Jesus as a Palestinian martyr. When he made his first Christmas appearance in Bethlehem in 1995, he invoked the Christian nativity by crying, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill towards men.” To which the crowd responded, “In spirit and blood we will redeem thee, O Palestine!”

Other times, Jesus is referred to as a Shahid, a holy martyr of Islam. Arafat often referred to Jesus as the first Palestinian martyr, which is not only historically incorrect, it is at odds with Islamic tradition. There are no references to Jesus as a Shahid in Islamic works, and it is impossible for Jesus to be a martyr if he did not die on the cross, which is the view of the Quran.

Of all the anti-Israel discourses that exist today, Christian Palestinianism is perhaps one of the most disturbing because it resurrects the notion of Jews as accursed Christ-killers who deserve permanent exile. As with all anti-Semitic ideas, Christian Palestinianism is about resentment. It is a projection of a sense of inferiority onto an external scapegoat –the Jews.

As well as being politically motivated, Christian Palestinianism is a religious assault on Judaism and should be seen in the context of centuries of anti-Jewish persecution and ridicule by both Christians and Muslims who are embarrassed and frustrated by the continued existence of the Jewish people.

Make no mistake. The cultural-economic boycott of the Jewish state draws a great deal of strength from Christianity. Much of the anti-Zionism emanating from West can be traced back to faith-based organisations who are either ambivalent about Israel or downright hostile. Christian Aid, the Quakers, the Church of England, the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterians are among those who are guilty of demonising Israel.

And then there are individuals such as Reverend Dr. Stephen Sizer (a prominent and notorious Anglican vicar in England) who believes that Jerusalem and the land of Israel “have been made irrelevant to God’s redemptive purposes,” and that Jews were expelled from the land because “they were more interested in money and power.”

In other words, it is not just Islam and the Left that are responsible for the ostracism and demonisation of the Jewish state. Many Christians, especially those who have embraced the new anti-Semitic replacement theology known as Christian Palestinianism, should be held to account for rekindling the same anti-Jewish prejudices and hatreds that resulted in the Holocaust.

(h/t MtTB)

“Nothing to do with Islam.” “Islam is not the problem.” “Islam is a religion of peace.” “All religions have their extremists.” How the denials echo in the wake of every atrocity on infidel soil enacted by terrorists screaming in Arabic the message that their deity is superior to everyone else’s. How thin the denial sounds. How craven the politicians who mouth it. How noisome the complacency from quarters that should know better, yet dice with the futures not only of ourselves but of Western generations yet unborn. And among those quarters I include certain naïve or perverse souls in the Jewish community.

To quote the British journalist Charles Moore, former editor of the London Daily Telegraph, writing last month in the wake of the atrocities in Paris
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11997070/How-many-more-people-have-to-die-before-we-stop-appeasing-Islamists.html)

“[It is] extraordinary … that a great many modern European leaders and policymakers still do not understand … the implacable enmity of Islamism… Essentially, Islamism is a doctrine which provides a reason to hate and kill everyone who does not subscribe to it. Start with the people in the front line of your malice – Jews, Christians in the Arab world, the professional soldiers of infidel countries. Progress to those who transgress your morality. And then end up with anyone – everyone – who does not submit to the will of Allah, as interpreted by your pop-up theologians… It would be harder to imagine a clearer foe, yet we still have difficulty making policy in the light of the threat… What brings it all home, literally, is immigration… If a million Muslims … are reaching Germany this year, and even if only one per cent of them subscribe to the doctrines of Isil, that still means 10,000 people dedicated to killing their hosts and assailing the society that accommodates them.”

Half a world away from the troubles of Europe lies Australia, yet “the Lucky Country” is not impervious to the threat of Islamic terrorism: we have seen that twice so far this year. As Joshua (Josh) Frydenberg, federal Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia in the Malcolm Turnbull government, wrote on his blog (http://www.joshfrydenberg.com.au/guest/opinionDetails.aspx?id=194):

“[W]hile this barbaric attack happened in the heart of France, all Australians know but for the grace of God it could have been us. Frighteningly, hundreds of Australians are either fighting with Islamic State in Syria and Iraq or lending their support back at home. More than 40 Australians have already died in the conflict, some of whom were suicide bombers. More than 140 Australian passports have been cancelled and our security agencies have said that they have more than 400 high-priority terrorist investigations under way. The Lindt cafe siege and the shooting outside the NSW Police headquarters in Parramatta were painful reminders that Australia is not immune. Were the perpetrators of these crimes able to access even more devastating weaponry than they did, I have no doubt they would have used it. The question becomes for freedom-loving nations such as Australia and France: what do we do to prevent religious zealots from taking democracy hostage and destroying innocent lives? Australia is like France, a sport-loving, diverse society where a strong safety net exists to help those who cannot help themselves. We are not responsible for these heinous acts and we should not make excuses for those who are. Their evil barbarity now seen well inside the gate must be tackled head on with all the resources we have available. It is a battle that must be won because our way of life as we know it is being challenged. Terrorism in our cities must never be accepted as the new normal.”

Journalist Paul Sheehan, in deploring the myth of “victimology” of Muslims that’s endorsed by the
federal Human Rights Commissioner, reminds us (http://www.smh.com.au/comment/paul-sheehan-the-victimology-myth-about-muslims-in-australia-sells-the-country-short-20151115-gkzdeq.html) that

“Of the 20 organisations proscribed by the federal government as terrorist organisations with links to Australia, all 20 are Islamic. The most spectacular race crimes in Australia over the past three years, involving murder, attempted murder, threats to kill and plots to kill – the highest form of racial discrimination – involved Muslims planning or carrying out attacks against non-Muslims… More Muslims are fighting for Islamic State than are enlisted in the Australian Defence Force.”

Indeed, it would appear that it’s precisely that “victim” mentality which has this week prompted five campus affiliates of the Muslim Students’ Association of Victoria to indignantly refuse to participate in a governmental “Countering Violent Extremism” initiative amid claims that the initiative is “Islamophobic” and undermines “core Islamic values and ideas”.

In his response to the November atrocities in Paris, the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, an Egyptian who’s been in this country for 20 years yet cannot speak the language, and who earlier this year defended the extremist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir (http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/crisis_point_mufti_attacks_abbott_whitewashes_hizb_ut_tahrir/) issued a statement which reflected that victim mentality and placed the blame for the atrocities on Western governments); it read, inter alia:

“These recent incidents highlight the fact that current strategies to deal with the threat of terrorism are not working. It is therefore imperative that all causative factors, such as racism, Islamophobia, curtailing freedoms through securitisation, duplicitous foreign policies and military intervention must be comprehensively addressed.”

Among those criticising the Grand Mufti for this and a follow-up statement have been the popular conservative columnist Andew Bolt, the new Liberal MP Andrew Hastie (a former SAS commander who’s done three tours of duty in Afghanistan, and says “Modern Islam needs to cohere with the Australian way of life, our values and institutions. In so far as it doesn’t, it needs reform’’), and Josh Frydenberg, who – in contrast to Prime Minister Turnbull, on record as describing Islamic State as godless terrorists who “defame and blaspheme Islam” – has said that endemic to the current global terror threat

“is a problem with Islam. The point about Islam is that this is a minority of extremists, and you could argue it’s even a small minority of extremists, but it’s a significant minority of extremists and it does pose a challenge to our way of life in Australia. We need to acknowledge the significance of this threat, to acknowledge that religion is part of this problem, and … because this is the key point, we need to deal with it at a hard edge – with a military response – but we also need to deal with it a counter-narrative…”

As columnist Miranda Devine observes (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/your-morals-as-a-muslim-dont-give-you-a-free-pass/) regarding their views on this issue, leftist ABC radio host Jon Faine (who’s Jewish himself, incidentally) dismissively noted that Frydenberg is “a Jew” and Hastie “an evangelical Christian”.

Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison, who as Immigration Minister under Tony Abbott was crucial to the policy of “turning back the boats” (of illegal immigrants and so-called asylum seekers attempting to jump the queue of people applying for Aussie visas through lawful channels) declared (http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/scott-morrison-says-critics-of-grand-mufti-and-muslim-community-dont-get-it/) has attempted to undermine the issues raised by
Frydenberg, Hastie, and their supporters in and outside Federal parliament:

“I think all religions go through phases in this country. My own (Christianity) and many others. Over a period of time religions become more indigenised in this country. And the cultural component of our religious faiths, I think, become more indigenised. There is the pure religion side of things, the teachings and so on, and then there is how it is expressed in a particular culture. And that is true of Christianity as it is of Christianity, as it is true of the Jewish faith as it is of the Muslim faith.”

What outrageous bulldust! As if either Christianity or Judaism (“The Law of the Land is the Law”) have ever been in any sense inimical to the Australian way of life and the country’s democratic values! As if either Christianity or Judaism have inspired Jihadist attacks on fellow-Australians or on non-followers of their religion overseas. As if either Christianity or Judaism have spawned individuals who consider themselves above the Australian judicial system because their religion trounces civil jurisdiction and individuals who in consequence refuse to acknowledge or accede the respect due to civil magistrates (Miranda Devine’s column has Islamic examples!).

Peter Costello – federal Treasurer under Prime Minister John Howard, who should have groomed him as his successor but failed to so, ensuring that Costello eventually left politics, a severe loss to the Liberal Party and to the nation – wrote very reasonably:

‘…. After each atrocity complacent political leaders trot out the same platitudes. They tell us: “This has nothing to do with Islam, etc.” It is wearing thin with the public. All these attacks are coming from people who subscribe to one religion …Plainly it has something to do with Islam. And the people who are doing it think it has everything to do with Islam. That is why they shout Allahu Akbar while firing their guns and detonating their explosives… Religions are not all the same. Christ never sought to establish an earthly kingdom — “My kingdom is not of this world,” he said. But Mohammed did. He led an army in the conquest of Mecca. As an earthly ruler he had quite a lot to say about how to wage war and make peace. These are the teachings radical Islamists rely on to justify their conduct. So what we need from the Islamic scholars is to tell us, and more importantly to tell would-be jihadis, why these difficult sections of the Koran and the Hadiths are not to be taken literally and not to be followed today. They should explain why “jihad”, which once did include warfare, no longer means that…’

As Andrew Bolt (whose writings are a treat for newspaper readers every Monday and Thursday, and online in between) comments on the above: (http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/costello_it_is_about_islam_which_needs_reform/):

“Fourteen years after the September 11 attacks we are still waiting for signs that senior Muslim clerics are working on this reform of Islam. If this work does not start soon, we may have to conclude that reform is not possible.”

Labor shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who’s Jewish, told Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, that he hadn’t read Peter Costello’s article, “but if he in fact said that Islam was the problem then that is a tremendously wrong-headed approach. What we have here is Islamist extremists, or to be even more precise, Salafi jihadist extremists and it’s not Islam, it’s not the religion. This is a political ideology claiming to be based on aspects of a religion but it’s very distinct from the whole religion… What I’ve heard from Muslim leaders across Australia for years now is complete condemnation of this extremist Islamist ideology… ”

To which Josh Frydenberg, on the same program, retorted (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/2015/11/P50/):

“We’re dealing with a global terrorist threat that we face significantly here at home. [L]eaders of the Muslim community, including the Grand Mufti, did not condemn the attacks in the way that he should have and that has been a very big sore point… “

As Andrew Bolt has shown in previous items of his regarding the Mufti, the latter, when visiting Hamas officials in Gaza, declared:

”I am pleased to stand on the land of jihad to learn from its sons and I have the honour to be among the people of Gaza where the weakness always becomes strength, the few becomes many and the humiliation turns into pride … We came here in order to learn from Gaza. We will make the stones, trees and people of Gaza talk in order to learn steadfastness, sacrifice, and the defence of one’s rights from them….”

And by threatening the withdrawal of Muslim support for the ALP, the Mufti stymied the bid to enter federal politics of a moderate member of the ALP, the staunchly pro-Israel Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union.

Meanwhile, Diaa Mohamed, founder of the new Australian Muslim Party, which is hoping to get representation in the federal Senate, has condemned Frydenberg’s views as “offensive”. Condemning them also are two ALP (Australian Labor Party) heavies who just happen to represent heavily Muslim constituencies in western Sydney. One is Tony Burke, who recently made loathsome comments against Israel (http://www.jewishnews.net.au/burke-slammed-over-settlement-comments/37593).

It seems Joshua and his ilk have a lot of fighting still to do before the walls of wilful blindness come tumbling down.

12/08 Links Pt1: Col. Kemp: The World's Most Moral Army; Hamas planned massive attack on Sderot

From Ian:

JCPA: Fatah, with Mahmoud Abbas at the Helm, Confirms the Confrontation Strategy toward Israel

The Fatah Central Committee gave its backing to a strategy that combines the terror intifada with diplomatic and legal moves in the international arena aimed at achieving recognition of the state of Palestine as well as an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders with no political quid pro quo from the Palestinians.
The Fatah Central Committee, convened on Sunday, December 6, 2015, at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah. Fatah is led by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) who also serves as president of the state of Palestine, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, and leader of the PLO.
Total Support for the Knife Terror and the Al-Quds Intifada:
The Central Committee did not condemn the acts of violence and terror being perpetrated by Palestinians as part of the Al-Quds Intifada, which is also called the Knives Intifada. On the contrary, it characterized the foiling of terror attacks as “executions,” chose to call the perpetrators “heroes,” and promised to assist their families. The Palestinian leadership thereby gave full backing to the continuation of the terror wave against Israel.
Preparing to End the Security Cooperation with Israel:
Here the Central Committee fully endorsed Abbas’ threat voiced during his address to the United Nations that the Palestinians will stop honoring the agreements with Israel insofar as, in their view, Israel is not committed to implementing them. The Palestinian leadership no longer sees Israel as playing any part in the attainment of international recognition of the state of Palestine; instead the leadership is trying to gain such recognition independently via the UN Security Council. Thus, by taking an approach that circumvents negotiations, the Palestinian leadership seeks to compel a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, including a withdrawal from east Jerusalem, without the need for any political quid pro quo on the Palestinians’ part.
Continuing the Lawfare against Israel in the International Arena:
The Palestinian leadership hewed to the line of all-out confrontation with Israel. An important aspect of this approach is the legal arena. They regard the legal route as a force multiplier that can nullify Israel’s right to self-defense and afford legal and international legitimization for ending the “reality of occupation” and for the “right” of the Palestinian refugees and generations of their descendants to implement the “return” to their homes and property within the sovereign state of Israel.
Claiming Palestinian Ownership of the Western Wall:
The wording indicates that the Palestinian leadership, with Abbas at the helm, denies the Jewish right to the area of the Western Wall and regards it as a sacred Islamic site that is an inseparable part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

'Hamas planned massive attack on Sderot during Protective Edge'

The Israel Defense Forces was able to thwart a major Hamas terrorist attack in the southern town of Sderot last summer, Southern Brigade commander Col. Dado Bar-Kalifa revealed Monday.
Speaking of Operation Protective Edge with bereaved families at a Hanukkah candlelighting ceremony, Bar-Kalifa said the military had indication that a clash between IDF soldiers and Hamas terrorists emerging out of a tunnel dug near Kibbutz Nir Am had effectively prevented a terrorist attack in Sderot.
Four soldiers, including Lt. Col. Dolev Kedar, 38, commander of the Gefen Battalion of the IDF's Bahad 1 officers' training base, were killed in the July 22, 2014 clash.
"While I cannot go into details, I can tell you that the Nir Am tunnel attack was mistakenly named, before we learned of the enemy's plans to reach Sderot," Bar-Kalifa said.
The terrorists killed in the clash "planned to lead 60 terrorists to the heart of an Israeli community, where they planned to embark on a killing spree and abduct soldiers and civilians," he said.

The World's Most Moral Army

Is the Israeli military a paragon of morality and wartime ethics? Or is it an oppressive force that targets innocent Palestinian civilians and commits war crimes as a matter of policy? Colonel Richard Kemp, who was the commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, was in Israel during its war against Hamas in 2014, and analyzes whether Israel's military is ethical, evil, or somewhere in between.